Poetry Slammers V3 -- Adding animation and clarification

Today I'm continuing my discussion of prototype patch notes for Poetry Slammers. Today: version three! 

Overall, the goal remained to help boost the charm of the game, and while creating fully animated characters wasn't in my grasp, I decided to make it a bit like the old web game gifs of the 90's where you imply animation through four or five character poses. The other option would have been to separate out arms, legs, and other features, then tween them between positions, but that seemed like a stretch for both me and ChatGPT.

Also, I had ChatGPT build a design tool where I could simply select the images I want, and it would build the animation and animators for me rather than having to do it manually. Having this tool would also help me ensure future characters in the pipeline would be simpler to animate as well.

Poetry Slammers Character Animation Builder Inside Unity

Beyond this, I had received a bit of feedback from a friend that thought my "10 cent words" would actually cost them 10-cents of real money, so I reworded them to be "Star Words." I also figured the phrase "10 cent words" was a dated phrase/concept that a lot of people just wouldn't get. 

Star Words, plurals, and possessives . . . a joy's private butterscotch . . .

Thirdly, not being able to make words plural or possessive was really bugging me, so I added a feature to put them in and sense when they were used. It's still a bit funny since you can pluralize plural words or make possessive words doubly possessive, which I suppose adds a kind of quirkiness that already exists in regular magnet poetry. 

When the oils soil and somehow prove the zephyr's rules . . .

Noting that I kept making longer and longer fridge poems because I was buying so many Star Words, I decided to add a button to collapse all the words and make space for more words. (I would eventually improve on that idea in the next build . . . more on that tomorrow . . .)

~~

Update notes v.003

This update focuses on making the poem board more expressive, playable, and fun to use while adding new character animations.

• Character Animations
• Poets and judges now feel more alive during performances. Characters can idle, speak during poem narration, and celebrate after a strong performance.
• Star Words
• The old “10-cent word” idea has been reworked into Star Words.
• Players can now use the Get Star Words button to spend a star and receive a fancy, flavorful word magnet for their poem. 
• When used, the button displays a small -1 Star popup, so the cost is clear.
• New Suffix Magnets
• Two new magnets have been added to the punctuation row:
• s
• 's
• These attach to the word immediately before them when the poem is performed.
• Examples:
• cat + s becomes cats
• box + s becomes boxes
• wish + s becomes wishes
• poet + 's becomes poet's
• Align Magnets Button
• A new Align Magnets button has been added to the poem board.
• This button tidies up the current poem by arranging placed magnets into cleaner rows while preserving their reading order. It also accounts for larger Star Word magnets so long words fit more naturally on the board.
• Better Parts of Speech Recognition
• The game’s part-of-speech categories were repaired and cleaned up.
• This improves random word generation and helps prepare the game for stronger poem-building and future judge systems.
• Other Improvements
• Improved poem text formatting during performance.
• Several UI buttons have been updated to better match the cute, crafted visual style.

~~

Happy Dueling!

Poetry Slammers V2 -- The Game finds its Voice

Continuing the patch note review for my upcoming game release of Poetry Slammers!

Three days after the first prototype, I was ready with more changes to share! Below are the patch notes for Version 2 (and Version 2.5). 

~~

Update notes V.002

• Character voices have been added! 
• Hear your Slammers speak.
• Updated "choose your Slammer" screen. Be sure to hit that "Mic check!" button to hear the voice that goes along with your selected skin.
• Reset button
• On the bottom left of the start screen you'll find a button to reset your play data to start a fresh new game. (will be removed for the full version of the game)
• Updated header. 
• Two new icons were added so that you can view your favorited poem and return to the identity screen.  
• There's also a running total of your stars you've earned and can now spend.
• When you first unlock a new coffee shop in the campaign map, a "now open" UI floats above it.
  New "Hint" button added to word creation screen. If you have stars to spend, you can trade a star for a hint to a word you may have missed.
• More free word tiles and punctuation tiles have been added. The intent is to give you more standard words to help flesh out your creations.
• New "Buy a 10-cent word" button. If you have stars to spend, you can trade a star for a special flowery word to really sell your poem. 
• These new words have a flashy label and appear in the new top magnet tray above the magnet board.
• Improved Poem performance!  
• After pressing the perform button, you'll find yourself on a stage, the lights dim, and a spotlight softly covers you in light. 
• You'll hear and see your slammer deliver their poem. 
• The lights come back on, and your judge gives their reaction, and you are awarded with stars for your performance.
• New interiors have been added to match the campaign you're currently in.
• New Library circuit
• 15 more puzzles to solve has been added
• Meet Styx, the wise judge of the library.
• Wall of Fame
• The Wall of Fame showing your favorite poem has a new look for your favorited poems.
• The shop your poem is displayed at, along with your poem and its star rating sit upon a label. 
• Scroll through your favorites here!

Update notes v.0025

• Android Build now available -- some minor graphic glitches but should work!

~~

I was so happy with the feedback from the first prototype that I was on fire and worked pretty hard to get a second version of the game out there to my friends and family ASAP. The base version of the game was working, but it was important to make this feel better in places where it came up short in the prototype. 

After playing the first prototype, it was pretty obvious that it was a MORAL IMPERATIVE that I add character voices and really improve the whole poetry performance phase. To those ends I started looking around at what was available in the Unity store and found a really good deal on an Animal Crossing-esque voice module and integrated it into the game. Adding a voice to the characters alone made them feel much more charming.

With that, it also became apparent that I couldn't just show the character reading the poem while the score was already showing. The performance phase needed some timing and pacing to make it feel fun. There needed to be the whole feeling of lights dimming, a spotlight shines on the character, they deliver the poem, the judge reacts, etc.

100 percent more presentation

Also, from the time I first thought of this idea, I knew I wanted to incorporate the ability to buy really fancy words. I remember being in poetry class back in college in the 90's and my professor introduced me to the term "10 cent words." As it was explained to me, poets that tried to get their poems published in newspapers and magazines used to look for the flowery words that publishers drooled over. In essence, poems that had "10 cent words" would make the publication sell better. So I added a special sticker for words that you could buy with stars and added a few dozen over-the-top words.

Buy ALL the 10 cent words!

At the time "stars" earn from making poems was the only available currency and actually worked pretty nicely here. After performing a couple poems, you had enough stars to start asking for hints when you were stuck making anagrams on the Magnet Maker and using stars to buy those fancy words for your fridge magnet poetry. This also gave extra motivation to try to earn more stars on your poems. (At the time, stars were only based on the number of words you used. In current builds, scoring has more logic to it.)

I also needed a place to keep and store your favorite poems, so the concept of the "Wall of Fame" emerged. Now you could play through five levels of a venue and end up choosing your favorite poem to "live" on the wall of that venue.

Finally, the idea of a campaign circuit and needing levels to play started to take shape. You start your adventures in the Coffee Shop circuit where you play through three coffee shop venues with five levels each.  After the coffee shop circuit came the Record Shop circuit. With the second build of the game I added the Library circuit. 

I'll just be reading poetry to Styx over here in the library

All of these circuits also have a poetry judge that represents them. In the Coffee Shop venues, you'll be judged by Feelixs the Beatnik Cat. In the Record Shop, you'll be judged by Claups, the soulful, one-eyed alien. With the library also came Styx, a crazy pink bird that also plays the drums besides chilling in the library.

Behind the scenes I also had AI helping me create a tool to make and import puzzle data. If it sounds like a lot of work for three days, it was, but like I said, I was on fire. Three days after that, version 3 was ready to rock . . . more on that tomorrow.

Happy dueling!

Introducing Poetry Slammers!

I posted back in June that I was solo dev'ing a hyper-casual mobile game that I had originally pitched to WIMO. I thought I'd take this opportunity to showcase my idea that became POETRY SLAMMERS!

Shenanigans I say!

Poetry slammers is a word game where you build words using a "magnet maker" and then use those magnets to create shareable magnet poetry. In essence, Wordscapes meets fridge-magnet poetry.

Classify the folio nostalgia accordingly, boo.

My Poetry Slammers concept was never made into a full-fledged pitch deck. I had a page of ideas that detailed things like Genre, Hook, Gameplay, Competitors, etc, but I never conducted a deep dive audience analysis, developed a taste map, detailed a tutorial, or any of the things that we normally would do to help flesh out an idea. This idea was just one of ten other ideas to see which one bubbled to the top for our execs. That said, I always thought this had potential even if it wasn't a hugely profitable idea that our company was willing to invest in.

Create at least five words and then start making poetry!

I've been uploading builds of the game to a password protected site and sending out links to a few friends and family to try out as I made playable builds of the game on Windows and Android. I'm currently on my 7th build of the game, and I think maybe I have only one or two iterations before I'm ready to share this publicly on an app store.

While creating this game, I've kept a pretty good log of my internal patch notes. Back on June 6th, I released my first build for friends and family:

Prototype Launch notes V.01

Poetry Slammers has reached its first playable prototype milestone.  This early version establishes the basic game loop: solve word puzzles, collect word magnets, build a poem, perform it, and receive a star rating from a judge.

• Core Features
• Word Wheel Puzzle
• Players can solve a word wheel puzzle by dragging through letters to form valid words.
• Completed words are tracked, and the puzzle can be finished once enough required words are found.
• Word Magnet Poetry Board
• After solving the word puzzle, players move into the poem-building phase.
• Words earned from the puzzle become draggable magnets that can be placed onto the poem board to create a custom poem.
• Perform Poem
• Players can perform their completed poem and move to a performance results screen.
• The game reads the poem from the placed magnets and formats it into a final poem text.
• Basic Star Rating
• Poems receive a simple star rating based on current scoring rules.
• This gives the prototype an early sense of completion and reward.
• Judge Reaction
• A judge provides a reaction after the poem is performed.
• Campaign Map 
• The first version includes the foundation for a campaign-style progression map, with nodes representing poetry locations.
• This establishes the structure for future circuits, unlocks, and themed content.
• Early Save/Progress Support
• Basic progress tracking is included so the game can remember completed content and earned stars.
• Prototype Goals
• Version 0.001 is focused on proving the core idea:
• Can a word puzzle feed into a poem-making board?
• Can players create something funny, strange, or charming with random magnets?
• Does performing the poem feel like a satisfying finish?
• Does the game loop feel worth expanding?

Over the next few days, I'd like to continue sharing the prototype patch notes and discuss how things have progressed since the first build. As noted in the post back in June, this is a game I'm using AI to help create: 

. . . and so, no one in the world would make this game but me ... so I might as well do it while recovering from Chemo. I threw on a blanket, sat in my computer chair, and shared my game idea with ChatGPT and I started chatting with AI about how to make this prototype, my overall vision for the game, and how it could help . . . 

I'm pretty excited to get this out there for those who love playing hyper-casual games like this. If making and sharing magnet poetry sounds fun to you, I hope you'll make room on your phone to give it a download and share a poem or two with your friends! 

A Death Howler back in Najena

There's something very addictive about fast leveling in Everquest Legends. I thought it was going fast the first time around, but the second time around goes EVEN FASTER! It makes sense that it would, especially when you're doing it like I am by maintaining your original class as your primary. I have a ton of gear backing me up this time . . . basically twinking myself. 

I didn't even play for that long today and I ended up earning 8 levels and logging off after dinging 20. The levels are coming so fast, that I can't really get a feel for my new set up that I'm trying. I'm not complaining, mind you, but I do have 20 AAs just sitting in the bank and only stopped leveling to equip new pets and pet buffs.

Un-binding the Unbound Flame.

I'm still loading up enemies with Damage over Time spells, but I just filled my spell book with a ton of missing necromancer spells and bard songs that I have no idea what it's like to use . . . and maybe that's ok. The thing about a triple class system is that you'll be able to play it any number of ways and it'll still work. 

Yeah, just buy 'em and move on folks . . . maybe I'll learn how to use them someday.

Speaking of triple classes, I wonder if anyone is going to start coming up with sub-class names for triple combos, like . . . Beast / Bard / Necromancer = Death Howler or Beast / Shadowknight / Cleric = Soul Warden. I like Death Howler . . . I think I'll keep that. 

Anyway, I had some fun in Befallen yesterday, but today I took it back to Najena like I did for my original run to 20. The upstairs proved once again to be an exp filled romp as I bounced between three bosses and just bathed myself in exp.

The only problem here is that I totally didn't do my raiding today.

Happy Dueling!

Beastlord / Bard / Necromancer / Befallen?

So, today in EverQuest Legends I did my standard raid rotation. I hit Cazic Thule, Nagafen, Innoruuk, and Lady Vox . . . powered up a few gear items . . . got a new 10 slot bag to put into my bank inventory and earned a bunch of new AA points.

I am perfectly happy with my Beastlord / Shadow Knight / Cleric build.  I like the Shadow Knight weapons and gear, I love the cleric heals, and Beastlord is just all around great. 

A couple hours ago, I decided, hmmm, what if I just did something really weird but kept my Beastlord base, what would that even be like . . . and so I changed my loadout to Beastlord / Bard / Necromancer and hit the change loadout button.

I honestly didn't know what to expect, but the game threw all my equipped gear into a special inventory in game, killed off my warder, de-leveled me to 10, and stripped me down to my iksar skivvies. So the next thing was to go into the special inventory and start pulling gear back into my bags and equipping it if it could still be equipped. Most of it could, some of it couldn't. All the Shadow Knight weapons and gear I mentioned liking went back into storage. All the fun AA's I purchased that weren't standard AAs became useless (no more unholy steed, no more pet hobble, no more turn undead, etc.)

Then I took a look at all my available spells and started a couple new spell sets: one for buffing and one for attacking. AND THEN, I ran to Befallen and zoned in. AND THEN, Tipa told her hubby to make fun of me being level 50 and just going to Befallen (because when you enter a new zone you've never been in before, it announces it in Guild chat.) AND THEN, I said, "nuh uh! I'm level 10!"

Tipa loves this little hole in the wall.

So, it took me a while to even figure out how to play this new combination. I never played a bard in EverQuest before, but I remember "twisting" was always a thing my bard buddies told me about. That was when you start a song, end the song, start a new song, end that song, start another song, end that song, etc. etc. Basically, once you start a song, it's turned on unless you turn it off, and you can't really do anything else. Your spell bar blanks out, but when you turn off a song, it sticks around for about 20 seconds. So you can play a number of songs over and over to keep buffs going. In addition, you can play those songs while moving unlike other spell casters where you have to be stationary. 

As for the Necromancer part of me, well, you get access to a lot of Damage over time spells and some life leech. At least that's what I could gather in the past hour or so. I'm not going to drop my beastlord pet for the necromancer pet, so that doesn't matter to me.

Anyway, I earned a couple levels and called it a night so I could get this blog post out and posted. Seems like this build would be all about the Damage over Time spells to be honest. It might be kind of fun to just load up as many dots as I can and see how it fares.

Six DoTs! I CAN DO BETTER!

Happy Dueling!   

Plane of Sky and the Pegasi!

Pretty happy with myself tonight as I was able to get my first piece of quested Plane of Sky gear!  (Also, going back to my post yesterday, I was able to write the first draft of my talk and prep for my Wednesday show-n-tell at the Cancer Institute. Maybe things ain't all bad!)

Griffon Hide Armbands!

This piece of gear isn't necessarily super impressive, but what I really like on it is that you can buff that up to 10th level and suddenly you've got an excellent piece of resist gear that's adding a lot of endurance to your pool. That's pretty great!

So, in case you don't understand how quested gear works in Plane of Sky, when you take down the big bosses on each island, they have a chance to drop you a little extra trinket for making special gear through a room full of efreeties. I can't say I understand why they're all standing there in a square like freaks, but I think it's because they're good buddies and also need to give you quests for your class specific gear. 

do I have to jump through all these hoops? Just cough up the gear mmkay?

To make the above piece of gear I needed two items. First was a little wind rune drop known as a Rune of Kala. Next was a leather cord from Gorgalosk. GORGALOSK?! THE SAME GORGALOSK THAT KICKED YOUR BUTT LIKE A WEEK AGO? Yup. I told you, leveling that heal made all the difference! 

A face not even a mother could love

In fact tonight I went all the way up to the Spiroc island after downing several griffons and pegasus on Island 4. It actually made me really sleepy. Once you'd down one pegasus, a second harder pegasus would spawn, which made battles incredibly lengthy. 

WHY WON'T YOU JUST DIE!

I'm too tired for this tonight! I'm going to bed.

Happy Dueling!

Me When I Do Something about Doing Something . . .

I woke up this morning with a genuine fear response that I can't really explain. It lingered here with me for about two or three minutes out of nowhere. It was a pretty odd feeling.

As I sat there gripped with fear for no reason, I had a lot of thoughts run through my head and one of them was about how much I hate EverQuest for sucking away so much of my time, but I think that was mostly just a reflection of how two or three things (outside of my new, reborn EverQuest Addiction) are stressing me out. Not EverQuest itself.

Yeah, it probably wasn't fear. I'm going to say it was probably stress that just finally manifested at the weirdest moment about 30 minutes before I was supposed to actually wake up . . . and THAT has been bothering me all day.

1. Blaugust stresses me out. I put everything on hold for it, and I don't know why I care so much about posting every day. I shouldn't! Literally people sign up and never post anything. Why should I care? I shouldn't!
2. I've been asked to give a ten-minute talk in church on Sunday. I haven't even started writing it, and that's stressing me out. I really need to just unplug and focus to get this done. I used to be in Toastmasters, so public speaking matters to me. I'm typically not one of those that just gets up and reads off a paper.
3. I signed up to showcase and talk about one of my songs and my album I've been working on called Cosmic Radiation and Bad Luck. This is for a group art night at the cancer institute this coming Wednesday. I shouldn't stress about this, but it's stressing me out. I've listened to the song 20 times, made a handout for it, thought about it waaaaaaay too much for a little art gathering of cancer patients.
4. I had to shift my whole infusion schedule around because I had COVID, so that's been delayed a week . . . and that's stressing me out. My brain latched on to that delaying treatment for a week and started going crazy. STOP BRAIN, STOPPP!
5. I came back to work yesterday with a mask on (out of an abundance of caution) and people were stressing out seeing me wear a mask . . . which stressed me out enough that I asked the big boss if I could just go work from home for the day, which I did.
6. Work in general is stressing me for some reason. Missing a couple days, fear of failing, an encroaching deadline . . . you know how it is, but I'm going to be fine . . . it's just all in my head.
7. I missed D&D because of the COVID. It's a stress reliever for me. (Much like video games are a stress reliever for me.)
8. I have a video game project I've been solo dev'ing. I've paused working on it now for about three weeks, and that's stressing me out . . . but it is what it is. I'm so close to getting this out the door and into people's hands for real on the app store. There's no deadline from anyone, but it's there hanging out in the back of my mind.

SO . . . I know I have a legitimate stress problem, and I think I inherited a lot of it from my mom. She was a Type A personality that oozed stress. I mean, look at me. I can't just play a game and enjoy it; I have to write about it. I can't just play a game of D&D with a local nerd group; I have to make a whole comic book. I can't just have cancer; I have to make an album of music about it. 

STOP! Why am I like this?

Honestly, I just need to put on some soothing music, light a couple candles, and chill tonight. I think I'll feel a whole lot better. I don't need to log on to EverQuest. I don't need to write a talk. I don't need to do anything . . . although technically I guess I did just write a blog post about not turning everything into a project.

I did it again, didn't I? GOSHDANGIT!!

Happy Dueling

Need Moar power? Level ALL THE THINGS in Everquest Legends!

Before I mentioned how I was running into a wall with soloing above the Tier 2 Nagafen solo raid boss with my current Beastlord / Cleric / Shadow Knight build, but NO MORE! Behold the delicious loot and corpse shot below from the Tier 4 Lord Nagafen.

What in the gold-plated koshigatana is going on here?

In EverQuest Legends you can not only level your loot, but you can level your spells as well, so today I took my Sacred Echo healing spell and amped it up to its fifth or sixth tier, which lowered its cost, lowered its casting time, and extended the duration of the heal over time. That was all I needed in my battles of attrition with the big bosses. Easy.

That wasn't the first spell I leveled though. That honor went to my Summon Warder spell, which I took all the way up to Tier 10, raising my summoned warder's level to 49, just one level below mine. That helps everything the warder does, from debuffing to tanking to dps'ing. Good ol' Stingite's Warder is my most valuable buddy! Just look at us posing together in the Plane of Fear.

Cazic scared the skin off my bones!

I didn't enjoy my time in the Plane of Fear proper. The adds are just as insane as I remembered them to be back in old school EQ, but the solo Raid version of the Plane of Fear is fantastic!  You kill four mini-bosses and their adds to spawn Cazic-Thule, and then you get to play Loot Pinata with Cazic! One thing I have to warn you about this, tank him so that if he sends you flying backwards, you end up inside the building, not over to one of the sides -- I did that and although it didn't cause me to lose the fight, ended up delaying the inevitable as I was swimming, floating, rooted, in a wall of fire, and about 100 feet off the ground.

This screenshot brought to you by the number 18.

Cazic Thule wasn't my only solo raid effort. I also ventured over to battle Master Yael, the angry elemental found at the bottom of The Hole. Yael is another one of those mobs that likes to send you flying backwards, which has the potential of sending you into a pair of adds. 

He's a pretty angry, animated dirt pile.

And finally, Innoruuk, the Prince of Hate, fell as well, and with that, I have now completed all the currently available solo raids in the game.  Planes Explorer Achievement complete!

Don't you hate when you're dead?

All that's left would be to see how far I can get in the Plane of Sky, which doesn't really have a solo "raid" like the other bosses. You can make a solo instance of the Plane of Sky, but there isn't really a 20 hour lock out and a voidling to get things started. There are keys for island hopping, but no voidling.

Anyway, the real breakthrough for me today was just seeing exactly how powerful raising all my spells in level can be. I've also managed to get a lot of Best in Slot (BiS) gear for both the Shadow Knight and Beastlord, so I'm feeling pretty good. Just need to keep hitting these raids OVER AND OVER AND OVER and I'll be all geared up with leveled spells just in time for them to drop Kunark on us and make all the work meaningless. ;)

Maybe by that time I'll have even overcome my barriers in the Plane of Sky . . . and THAT's going to be the end game grind, unless I want to just goof off like I did last night in the new, redone Castle Mistmoore zone. I made a respawning dungeon and cleared it all a few times, which had the side result of raising my faction with the king of the elves. Hmmm, to kill elves or embrace them . . . I'm not sure what to do.

Happy Dueling! 

Comparing EverQuest Legends and Project Gorgon

While playing EverQuest Legends, I can't help but compare it to Project Gorgon. I was kind of a poster child for Project Gorgon like six years ago, singing praises for anyone who would listen! When I lost my game design job, I actually reached out to them asking if they needed another for their team . . . they did not and could not, but Sandra was sympathetic and cool. (She was a good soul RIP.)

PG is a skills-based game where you can (almost) infinitely level a player's skills in any number of combat styles, mixing and matching to your heart's content, resetting and rethinking builds on the fly. While playing, I started out as an Animal Handler (of course . . . because I'm a beastlord through and through) and mixed it with Fire Magic, Shield, Knife, and eventually embraced the full beast inside, turning into a Fox / Animal Handling combo.

Me, my illusion, and my Fire Rat Pet in Project Gorgon overlooking the Fae Realm

EQL on the other hand, while you can level skills, is a class-based game where you can (almost) infinitely level all the classes, mixing and matching to your heart's content, resetting and rethinking builds on the fly . . . and not just two skills, but THREE classes!

I knew exactly what I wanted to be when I started this journey: a Beastlord and a Cleric. Those were the two classes I played in original EverQuest, it was a moral imperative that those be my two classes. Shadowknight was just a happy accident that I stumbled upon because I wanted something kind of tanky and awesome. 

A mummy that's also a ninja monk . . . quirky, like Project Gorgon

Now that I'm at max level, I'm not sure I want to switch to anything else just yet (also because this latest patch seemed to buff beastlord pets) . . . Although, being a bard or an enchanter or a berserker could also be amazing. Swapping out Beastlord for Magician could be fun. There are OPTIONS, which is great. 

That ability to swap around your build just wasn't a part of EverQuest Classic unless you wanted to start a new character or multibox. Later, they added spirit shroud forms so you could play as a different class and be the same but different (also so you could group with your low-level friends). It didn't really stick, and they never improved the system (/sigh). Even later, they added mercenaries so you could get the power of more than your class without multiboxing.

Life was legitimately hard in EverQuest playing as a soloing Evil Eye.

Beyond that, PG and EQL both have that old-school, early 2000's computer game charm about them. Back in 2019 I talked about converting to a paying player in Project Gorgon and listed off seven reasons:

1- Oodles of skills and combinations of skills to play with.

2- Quirky charm. 

3- Good Danger Balance. 

4- Nice people. 

5- The price is right. 

6- Demo Level cap at the right spot.

7- Nostalgia trip. 

I would say that all of that is clicking for me with this version of EverQuest. Unfortunately, there's no demo of this game, but if there were, I'd put that cap right at 15. And to the Project Gorgon people, I would have upped your game and included a subscription (Not just a VIP Membership program). To be honest, I might not have played your game as long as I did if I were paying for a membership. I'm fickle like that, but if you had, maybe you could have hired me as a designer! I would have loved to work on your game! As I was taught, you kind of have to be an ASS (Always Sell Something) when you're in games to, not just survive, but grow.

Anyway, I'm glad I jumped on the EverQuest Legends bandwagon at the launch here. I think there's something there. The Nostalgia trip is strong, the price is right, there's a good danger balance (not nearly as punishing as old EverQuest), and the people in my guild are nice (let's not talk about general chat too much in any MMO). 

( . . . I just remembered the Runes of Magic had a dual-class system. Man, I'm a sucker for this stuff.)

Happy Dueling

Hunting Dragons, Surviving COVID

Well, I stayed home from work today because I felt sick. I wasn't sure what I had, but I was pretty sure I picked up whatever-it-was from my boss last Thursday. He was hacking and sniffling, and my desk is near his. Friday I went and had a COVID shot, not because I was afraid of getting COVID, but because my oncologist suggested that I do so because there was a study saying cancer patients going through immunotherapy increased the effectiveness of the immunotherapy by getting one. Long story short, the doctor today took a quick test and, sure enough, I have COVID. Gosh dang, me and my bad luck!

Fine, I took the opportunity of being home sick to go kill dragons in EverQuest Legends. First up was Nagafen. Naggy was one of those dragons that I had always heard about, but never fought. Well, that all changed today.

I imagine old guilds in EverQuest used to surround this corpse for screenshots.

The great thing about EverQuest Legends is you talk to a "voidling," in an instance that would typically feature a raid and spawn a solo version (or group version) for you to take on. Once you defeat the end boss and exit your raid instance, that raid (on that difficulty setting) is on a cool down for 20 hours. You can then select the next higher difficulty and give it another go, which I did and won again. I even tried the next difficulty above THAT and won again . . . but it was close.  Close enough that I decided not to push my luck and try it one more time.

RIPOSTES OF A DRAGON MAW!

Instead, I decided to travel all the way across the whole gosh darn continent up to Permafrost and take on the second dragon I've been itching to fight. Lady Vox. Again, I don't think I ever fought Lady Vox when I was in EQ. No one was really interested in running those raids anymore by the time I hit raid levels, so . . . that was that.

Vox comes with a cleric add that you really need to take down first. Because of that, Lady Vox and her cleric friend just nuked the heck out of me and my warder, causing the fight to be a battle of attrition. I downed her once. I downed her on the next difficulty. On the third difficulty, she got me when she was a 6 percent life. She had won the battle of attrition, BUT . . . her cleric was dead. I buffed up and finished the job without her pesky cleric friend, and won by a mile . . . it just took a LONG time. (Thus are the natures of these battles of attrition. OUTLAST is the name of the game.)

Thanks, oversized loot pinata!

The loot from today was pretty interesting. On top of the four 100% 8-slot weight reduction bags, I got a Bladestopper shield, a Cloak of Flames, and a bunch of other random loot that didn't really apply to me. Pretty good upgrades, and it doesn't matter that I'm not using a shield in my kit because EverQuest Legends gives you two additional slots for "any" item. I threw that bad boy in there and didn't think twice.

The clicky effect doesn't require a peridot to cast and has a 10-minute cool down. I'll take a free 700 hit points every 10 minutes!

Happy Dueling

A Sunday Planer Mini-boss Buffet in EverQuest Legends

Today I went back to the Plane of Hate for a bit and proved to myself that I could solo the mini-bosses there, which felt amazing btw.  I was so worried from the experience I had trying to solo Coercer T'vala at level 47. It was good to go back and get some vengeance.

It just feels so wrong from this angle . . . doesn't it?

Also, it was pretty great to get a fancy new Bloodmoon scythe from the Lord of Ire. I swapped that into my Primary hand pretty quick and went about my business of killing Plane of Hate bosses. Lord of Ire, Coercer T'vala, Avatar of Abhorrence, Magi P'tasa, and the Ashbone Broodmaster all fell pretty easily. I mean, I had to play smart by swapping stances a few times and not just running in with a half full mana bar, but I was able to get the job done.

Get them teeth away from me! SMACK!

After that I thought, what the heck, let's go try the Plane of Sky? I had no idea what I was doing there and had to look up a guide. My experience with the Plane of Sky was pretty limited back in the day. In fact, I took one for the team and bound an alt of mine to some far island so that the guild could have access to getting people there for an epic quest . . . or something like that? My only instructions were, "Don't move."

So, after going through and soloing up through the third island boss and dying spectacularly to the fourth island boss (and his two lackies), I have a better idea of what's going on here. I mean, I got a couple cool drops from the bosses there, but no quest items that could have been turned in for uber loots. Apparently, I'm after some Azerack Skin from the Protector of the Sky on Island 2 so that I can make some cool Azerack Skin Wristwraps.

It puts the lotion on its skin.

Maybe after getting better equipment, I can head back and try to take down Gorgalosk?  I'm starting to see why Enchanters are next level when it comes to soloing in this game. If I could charm the add and sic it on Gorgalosk, I might just have a fighting chance! For now, it's dirt nap city.

Sleeping in the dirt in the Plane of Sky. Zzzzzzz.

I still need to try out Plane of Fear though! (Again, being an enchanter would be kind of cool because of those adds.)

Happy Dueling!

Don't be Hatin' -- I'm Max Level in Everquest Legends!

It was a fun day of EverQuest Legends!  About 30 minutes ago, I dinged 50, the current max level! 

WOOT!

Basically, I spent the whole day in The Plane of Hate. Unfortunately, I'm not strong enough to take down the raid bosses (um, I haven't tried again since hitting 50th level, but at level 47 and 48, it was not happening for me).

Who's the Champion now?

Instead, I started a solo instance of Hate with non-respawning enemies and just cleared out the whole gosh darn place, minus the bosses, about 3 times. It was all high level enemies that awarded great experience and once I figured out that you just don't fight in the hallways and instead pull into the rooms, everything went pretty smoothly.

Time for a little chopsticks!

What I remember of the Plane of Hate from back in the day was that I had a guildmate that took myself and two others there and it didn't end well. I never really went back. I love that they've made this version of the game where you're basically a super version of your old self. This is really a great re-done experience, and if you're an old EverQuest player that stopped playing EverQuest, but still have the great memories . . . yeah, this is the game for you.

They really loved the short bangs look when they were making these models back in 1999.

Once you hit 50th level, you are given a free class unlock token. I wasn't sure what to do with it at first, but I decided to unlock the mage class. It's one I never really played but seems very similar to Beastlord, just a magical elemental pet and instead of getting in the mob's face, you sit back and nuke from a distance. I don't know if I'll try playing up a mage, but it's the one I unlocked. /shrug.

I guess this unlock is free -- the rest require a quest in the Plane of Sky.

One thing is for sure, I'm overflowing with loot! Plane of Hate was very generous . . . the only bad thing here is that it was generous with loot that I can't really equip. Anyway, now that I've finished my goal, I suppose hitting ALL the planes (fear / sky) is the next objective! 

Happy Dueling!

EverQuest Legends -- Out of Kedge into Hate!

Sneaking in a post here at the 11th hour to say that . . . I MADE IT TO THE PLANES! Ding 46!

I spent a large part of yesterday and today fighting around in Kedge Keep (as foretold). Honestly, I really liked my time I spent there. It can be very dangerous in spots for me when I accidentally pulled 5 or more enemies at once. That didn't happen often though. 

Ol' Flotsam and Jetsam trying to take a bite out of Stingite

After a couple levels in Kedge, the entrance enemies started to con light blue or green, so they were easy to chew through, but didn't give a lot of experience. it took delving deeper into mermaid territory to really get the exp flowing again.

Gloomwater and Gloomstalker . . . why are mermaids so gloomy?

I made enemies with Estrella of Gloomwater herself while in Kedge Keep. Her lore entry in the Library of Erudin says she's, "the leader of those mermaids that went to serve the last kedge and watch over and guard him. An especially beautiful mermaid, her magic is just as strong. Her morose demeanor is punctuated with volatile anger at all land dwellers. It is said she took her title of Gloomwater to remember that she is a sole survivor of a magic plague that surface dwellers wrought, a plague of Bertoxxulous that ages ago spread like black ink through the pristine waters of her ancestral home, killing her people wherever the gloomy water reached. She bears little love for surface dwellers and harbors a special hatred of necromancers." BUT WHAT ABOUT FRIENDLY NECROMANCERS?!

Gimme that Lammie!

Loot in Kedge Keep was interesting. There's a lot of weapons that seemed suitable for lower levels. If I had "alts," I'd pass down a dozen or so random weapons that weren't really an upgrade for me. I did manage to score a Lamentation Blade, from Estrella, but I feel at my best when I'm slugging things with two hands like a proper Beastlord.

I think you may have a cavity on your back incisor . . . .

After hitting the magical level of 46 here in Kedge Keep, I decided it was time to take my first steps into the Plane of Hate, along with like 20 other people standing at the zone in. No worries! It's super easy to make your own private instance. DONE! 

Imagine all the people, living in the plane of hate!

I love the enemies here. It just feels like classic D&D with Rats, Ghouls, Specters, Zombies, and Mimics. Just your classic dungeon crawl fare. I was pretty happy with the random loot that seemed to be dropping like candy here as well. Trash mobs dropping good loot!? Who would have thunk it!? What is this, Diablo?

It's a very bite-y chest of loot!

I'll be spending a couple levels here for sure. Hopefully this weekend might be the first time I can actually group up with a few folks from the guild. I'd love to see what that's like now that I'm close to max level.

Happy Dueling!

Thotham's Journal #14 -- Continuing my Wednesday D&D Game

Every Wednesday I meet up with a group at a local game store and play a couple hours of D&D. I'll be reposting this over on my D&D character blog, but when I do I'll also be adding an AI generated story board that coincides with the text. I made a comic book out of the first three months of play, and I'm considering doing the same with this next three months' worth of play.

Anyway, since I need to put something up for Blaugust, I thought I'd just post my character journal up here as well!

When you play at this game store, it's gonna be a weird mix of pogs, minis, and lego heroes.

~~

Thotham's Journal #14 

The party pushed on into the next room, finding several cultists in the midst of a ritual. They were not pleased with our appearance and battle began immediately!

In the back of the room, the cultist leader was covered in a strong protective barrier. Toward the middle were his two attendants, also covered in a similar but less impressive barrier. In the front were five cultists wearing amulets that seemed to be feeding energy into the attendants.

Inrah was the first to attack, throwing an orb of lightning that lit up the darkened room, ending in a burst of electric death for the cultist it hit. I moved my telekinetic hand holding a torch into the center of the room, took steady aim, and threw a psi-knife into the skull of another cultist, breaking his mind and felling his body. Shadow slipped inside and downed yet another two cultists with a flurry of blows.

Zax strode forward challenging one of the attendants, but much to their surprise, a massive attack that seemed to connect had no effect whatsoever! Yuna, seeing the attendants couldn't be harmed, called down a sacred flame from the heavens and extinguished the foul soul of the final front-line cultist.

When this happened, the barrier protecting the attendants shattered as the amulets worn by the front-line fell to the floor with their now lifeless hosts. The leader in the back, continued muttering more strange, incomprehensible ritualistic language as his eyes glowed brighter. The attendants struck back, injuring Shadow.

We coordinated our attacks on the attendants and struck them down without many problems, except for Shadow managing to get his blade arms stuck in a wall. I've never seen our warforged look so confused!

When the cultists' high priest finished his ritual, his own barrier shattered as he screamed wickedly into our souls. He had been building a powerful soul crushing spell that Inrah and I took the full brunt of. The rest of the group felt it as well but had an easier time shrugging it off. Unfortunately for Inrah, the evil priest also targeted her with black tentacles that erupted from the ground and grappled her, tossing her back and forth, squeezing not only her body, but her mind as well.

To make matters worse, the Priest fragmented into four images that blinked in and out of existence randomly. While Shadow, Zax, and I focused on attacking these images, Yuna had her hands full casting a healing word on Inrah over and over. From my vantage point in the shadows, it was quite the sight! Yuna would heal Inrah. Inrah would be strangled and knocked unconscious by the tentacles. Yuna would again heal Inrah. Inrah would again be knocked unconscious. This happened several times until Zax finally was able to rush over to Inrah, grab her out of death's grip, and drag her to safety.

Eventually we shattered the images and took another agonizing death scream from the priest. (I can still hear his evil piercing my mind.) Cornered and outnumbered with his fragmenting spell broken, we ended his corrupt sermon -- my psi-blades, Shadow's blade arms, and Zax's holy smite. We had overcome the cultists in the sunken cave and found a treasure chest filled with gold for our troubles. 

There's nothing quite like 3,000 gold pieces and some patching up from Yuna to make you feel better . . . at least I hope that's the case for Inrah. She was near death more times in the span of a minute than most should ever experience in a lifetime.

~~ 

Fun fight!  

Happy Dueling!

Making your Pet use an Illusion in EverQuest Legends . . . and stuff

Tipa mentioned in her last blog post that I had turned my Beastlord warder into a Dark Elf through the magic of a Mask of the Deceiver, and so I thought I'd take a second to break down how you actually do that since it's not intuitive.

Get ready, this is crazy.

Step 1: Farm up a mask of the deceiver (or really, any clicky illusion item). It's not a hard farm and it drops pretty easily from the Ghoul Assassin in Lower Guk.

Step 2: Open up your inventory and click on the Storage tab.

Step 3: Click on the Activated Items subtab in your Storage tab.

Step 4: Drop your Mask of the Deceiver into the open area. 

**UPDATE NOTE** As of 18 August, now you need to also use the conversion button to change your Guise of the Deceiver into Guise of the Deceived.

Step 5: Go back to your inventory tab and click on your Pet Inventory Tab.

Step 6: Use the drop-down menu there to select the "Guise of the Deceiver" illusion.

Step 7: Resummon your warder/pet. I tried zoning and it didn't work. You have to resummon that dude.

Step 8: Hand your warder/pet a really cool looking weapon because AWESOMENESS!

Give 'em a chop ZuuZuu!  (If only I could name my Warder and assign them to be female)

Honestly, I'm kind of disappointed my warder is a dude. Why can't my warder be female? I call shenanigans!

Anyway, I haven't had a ton of time to play EverQuest Legends lately, but I did farm a bit in Guk.  I've bound myself to the spot right outside the Frenzied Ghoul so I can kill him once in easy difficulty, change to a medium difficulty, port to that spot again and kill the (slightly more difficult) Frenzied Ghoul another time. Create my own private instance, park my pet, cast the Invisible to Undead spell and run back to him a THIRD time. That usually gives me three moonstone rings, but gosh dang it's nice to have three shots at the Flowing Black Silk Sash haste belt item in the span of 5 to 10 minutes.

I'm starting to wear out my welcome in Guk I think. I've killed their King several times and even secured his scalp. Side note, it's kind of hilarious you can wear his scalp and improve your faction with the living Guk people, but totally unnecessary since my reputation with the living Gukkians (as the chat window says) couldn't possibly get any better.

Death to the king of cute, undead frog people!

As I run into the instance, it's pretty easy to down the ritualist, the assassin, the shopkeeper, then drop down and kill the Frenzied Ghoul, the Sentinel Ghoul, the Cavelier Ghoul, the King Ghoul, the animated hand, the Executioner, the Sage, and then just call it a successful run. I should try to incorporate a couple of the minotaur bosses into that, but . . . like I said . . . I think I've worn out my welcome and it might be time to try something a little more difficult and rewarding.

You know, I'm actually thinking I may go hang out in Kedge Keep for a while! I love a good underwater maze.  I've got a stack of fish scales and some enduring breath, let's do this!

Happy Dueling!