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.

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!

Will EverQuest Legends Monetization Work?

I've been thinking about the monetization model of EverQuest Legends, and I think I may be starting to see it . . . but I'm not sure I fully understand it yet. I mean, they got my $20 to buy the game (for an indie company that would be enough), which came bundled with a month of subscription time, but what's going to keep me playing? The community? The game itself? Let me just ramble on a bit here . . . feel free to join in comments if you have thoughts.

Soloing red cons for tons of exp is a thing . . .

It's definitely a faster version of the old game that feels so much better than the original experience. (When I say old game, I'm talking early 2000's, not EQ1 circa 2026.) That said, I'm not even the most gamery of the gamers and I'm already level 41 with what . . . 10 days of play time? Part of me thinks that when I hit level 50 (max) and farm the plane of sky a couple times, that I might just feel "done," and that's fine, right? Just getting my $20 price of admission is enough, but what they really should be after with an MMO is that $10 monthly subscription fee. To do that, the post-launch release timeline should be pretty quick.

If you take a look at the roadmap it promises some fun stuff:

Behold the road to Christmas Joy!

I can get behind that. Basically, we get two to four months of this game while they add needed features like player housing and an auction house (no one is selling stuff in the /ooc of east commons tunnel just yet) and a few new things. Would it make me want to resub if my sub has lapsed and either of these features dropped? Hmmm, I'm not sure if that's worth it.

I mean, you can play through the game several times as the same character while leveling different classes, which also means you'll probably be buying extra inventory slots for various gear and playing styles. Maybe, strictly from a microtransaction experience, this is making more sense than I originally thought.

Not much in the shop just yet . . .

In addition, you have the whole "motes" system where you can level your spells and your gear to max them out. Mote hunting could take an enormous amount of time, and if they're smart, they'll sell mote bundles in the shop eventually, but for now . . . mote hunting and AA grinding might just keep it sticky enough to get you hooked -- although slightly boring I suppose? I guess if the company is good, I'd do mote farming.

Why beholdest thou the mote?

For the Fall Update, how much will Nektropos Castle cost for a DLC? Will it cost anything? What would you pay? From what I understand, Nektropos was an EverQuest 2 zone off of Nektulos Forest. I didn't play much EQ2, but my hope would be that it's a pretty exciting place to grind high level stuff (Actually, reading Chasing Dings, it was a early to mid 30's zone in EQ2 -- doesn't mean they have to do that in this game, although an intricate key quest to get in could be fun). Will it use EQ2 graphics? Will it be an homage done in EQ1 old school graphics? SO MANY QUESTIONS!

For the Winter Update, how much will Kunark cost for a DLC?  Will it make me want to relevel to 50 in the Kunark zones or will they bump levels to 60? Am I going to want to spend some time against the Wall of Bone and hunting against the wall in the Dreadlands? (I do miss those days with old online friends.)

Hottest High Elf Cleric circa 2002 award goes to . . .

It's all just really interesting to me. Is it the plan to keep you buying a new DLC every 3 months while hoping you keep subbed after you've crashed through content? 

As a side note I really hope they incorporate easy open raiding like Guild Wars 2! That's a very un-EQ thing, but also that's the best way to respect my time in an MMO and still give me the raiding experience. If I ever have to live by a DKP system again, I'M OUT!

Happy Dueling

The Righteous Wrath of Pathfinder!

Before I jumped headfirst into EverQuest Legends, I had casually waded into an older game (crazy that a game made 5 years ago is "older") based on the Pathfinder game system.  Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous!  It was on sale on Steam for $4.99 a month ago, and I had overheard a group of friends were delving into it.

"Group?" You say, "But I thought that was a single player only game!" You are correct, but they were going to play it together through the power of a Multiplayer Mod available through Nexusmods. Honestly, I thought maybe Dylan (yes, the famous Dylan) and I could play it together.  As it turns out, he was busy at the moment and had no time to spare for my silly games, so I just gave it a quick solo run.

I ended up completing what I believe was Act I? I couldn't help myself comparing this game to Baldur's Gate 3 (or even Divinity Original Sin II), and honestly, how I felt like, "Why am I just not playing Baldur's Gate 3?" I guess the answer is, well, I've played Baldur's Gate 3 through four times already (387 hours played), but IT'S JUST THAT GOOD! I'm totally ready to play again (Happy third birthday BG3!)

What's different here is that it's the Pathfinder system (pretty wild and complex on its own), there's an auto-fight feature so you don't HAVE to always play turn-based combat, there are infinitely less branching pathways that affect gameplay, and . . . no epic, wildly inappropriate cut-scenes (like a bugbear playing quarterback and tight end with an ogre). Speaking of that, did you hear that Larian managed to get their stream banned on YouTube and TikTok?

There was a pretty cool cut scene at the beginning of the game. Dragon v Locust Demon!

The openness of the multiclass system has always been pretty great in Pathfinder. You want to build a hand-to-hand specialist that has a pet and buff spells? They got you fam. Of course, you can do the same thing in D&D, it's just a bit more difficult? Weird? More restricted so you don't make a dumb character?

Portrait doesn't match the race which doesn't match the actual character . . . but it's all good.

I did have fun with what I played, and I did like the auto-attack mode for trash fights. The ability to toggle back and forth between auto-attack and turn based worked really well for when the fight was hairy or the stakes were high. I imagine the goal might be to build strong enough characters to just auto-attack all the time, but really that means building pretty basic characters that focus only on attack and not all the myriads of other things you can do with a character that has a lot of spells and skills.

I'm a mythic hero now!

The final fight of Act 1 was pretty epic to be honest, you had waves of enemies coming in from four or five different points in the map, and after 12 rounds or so, the back gate crashes open with a minotaur. I finished that fight and completed the achievement for not letting the town burn, HURRAH!

I've finished a whopping 4 of 153 achievements . . .

I may come back to the game at some point to play a bit more, but for some reason finishing Act 1 felt like I got my $5 worth.  If I was more invested in leveling my weird character, I'd do it, but I'm not sure I like how he's turned out.

What I did find interesting is that . . . well, I wonder if the bargain basement sale came about because of the recent money troubles of Paizo, the parent company? If you didn't hear, Diamond Comics went bankrupt, causing $10 million worth of Pathfinder books to be held up in a warehouse. That coupled with a $2 million loss in 2025 resulted in them letting a dozen or so people go. Anyway, it's hard to see a good D&D competitor struggle.

*raises glass to Pathfinder* stay strong, friends!

Happy Dueling!

Gukking Around in EverQuest Legends

Guess I better get a post out before the day is up!  BLAUGUST! SHEESH! SO DEMANDING!

Today was a pretty chill day. I spent the majority of it playing around in . . . you guessed it . . . Everquest Legends. I ended up reaching level 39 and called it quits for the day. 

Oh, I was watching TV with the Uber Wife, but I also had the game loaded up on a laptop and just sat there camping the Ancient Crocodile in Upper Guk for the Gatorscale Leggings and Gatorscale sleeves. It's an incredibly easy camp and so I was able to get both items up to +4 just sitting there, popping back and forth between difficulties, hitting Origin, hitting Gate, wash rinse repeat . . . of course there was another guy doing the same thing, so it wasn't perfect.

Got me them GATORSKINS!

Back in lower guk I spent a good amount of time hunting the Ritualist, the assassin, and the supplier. It made a nice circuit in my solo instance that I could easily run over and over. I ran it so much I filled all my slots with weight reduction bags from the supplier and I have a new fun clicky mask that can turn me into a dark elf from the assassin.

Stingite Smurfstak!

I explored a bit more and did another circuit farming the Executioner, the Sage, and the Savant. The Executioner drops an axe that has a haste effect!  I'm hoping to get another drop or two of that so I can see if I can pull the augment off of that and put it on another weapon. *scratches chin*

After that, I decided to give Solusek Ro B a shot. It's one of those classic old dungeons. Unfortunately, I don't think it's been redone with more bosses or anything like that, although there is a pretty great spot where I spent some time hunting all the Kobold Royalty. Honestly, it was a little more annoying than I had hoped. The sonic bats there chain stun and have a bunch of health. There were a few times where Feign Death came in REAL handy.

Don't mind me . . . just taking a nap!

The amazing thing is the fact that after just a week of playing, I'm level 39. Do you know how long that took me in old regular EverQuest?! It felt like a year. Things were so much slower in original EverQuest.  At this rate, I'll be max level by next week, hanging out in the Plane of Sky or Plane of Hate! 

Happy Dueling!

Out with Najena, In with the Guks -- Everquest Legends

I logged on this morning to find that the servers were down for EverQuest Legends, so I decided to join the Discord server and see what's up. OH man, that was a weird flame fest. A comment from Brasse was taken out of context (typical for CMs). It certainly got that Discord chat jumping. It felt like all the general chat channels from every unavailable server suddenly exploded on Discord. 

*shivers* PTSD from being a CM

I muted that server quickly and got on with some real-life stuff for a bit. Later I checked back and, sure enough, the servers were back online and ready for my mass destruction of Najena. I started a nice little circuit defeating the Widowmistress (is it just me or would Webmistress have had a bit more comedic flair). 

Kick to the back!

She doesn't drop any gear I'd be interested in currently, but I collected her caster gear just on the off chance that someday I respec with some Magician or Wizard. Eventually I went back to the prison area and had my revenge for the other day, and much to my surprise, I found a throwing weapon I was interested in! 

I honestly was hoping to find a throwing axe, but I'll take a throwing knife. 

All of that led to me defeating Rathyl (and his second incarnation) and collecting the key to Najena's room . . . the final boss I'd need to defeat to say I was officially done with Najena. I mean, I could grind here a bit defeating Ekeros to buff up that throwing knife a bit or farm Najena to buff up the Clawed Knuckle Ring, but that all feels secondary to quick leveling to be honest.

Najena isn't easy at level 29, that's for sure.  Her room has a total of six enemies, well, two mages, herself, and three pets. Separating them and not getting rooted in place is actually pretty tricky.  I died a few times, which made me say ENOUGH, and restart the solo instance with the non-respawning mobs option. I figure if I'm going to die, then I could at least take out one of the mages and make it easier on myself the next time around . . . and that's exactly what happened.

At the end of it all, I had dinged 30 and decided it was time to head to the guks. This was such a confusing area for me when I was playing original EverQuest. At the time I was a cleric glued to my spell book and there was hardly any chance to get to know this place well. My friends were leveling like crazy here, but by the time I made it to that level, they were done with guk and on to better conning pastures. (I think I'm still burnt about being behind the leveling curve.) So, once again, I'm getting my feet wet in an old area that a lot of people already know like the back of their hand.

Trying to make me croak!

Of important note!  I recently picked up two game-changing AA abilities. One is Quick Buff. The other is the Unholy Steed for the Shadow Knight. If you don't know what Quick Buff is, basically you load up your spell bar with buffs, click Quick Buff, and it auto-casts every buff you have simultaneously on you and your pet (and every group member if you're in a group). Such a time saver.  Luckily I also investing AAs in increasing the size of my spell bar. Between Cleric, Beastlord, and Shadowknight, I have a TON of buffs I can cast.

As for the Unholy Steed. Well, it's a mount. Thanks, I love it!

I just need a sidecar for my warder now . . .

Happy Dueling!