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01-07-02
Wow, its a new year... but nothing seems to be different. What's the big deal with new years? I used to think that it was all just a big excuse for adults to get together and get sooper shit-faced under some kind of respectable facade.
You want an update? YOU CAN'T HANDLE THE UPDATES! At least that's my excuse, and I'm sticking to it.
Nothings been happening, so no damn update. Right now everyone is very involved in getting Alt xp, or getting enough regular xp that they can feel ok about dumping some xp into alt xp for a while. But finally yesterday, thanks to some quick organization by our good friend Kanax from AO, we decided to take a shot at finishing Sikar's Celestial Fists.
How about that pic! Let me point a few things out for you:
1) The "Venerable" Xarina. I guess that's the cleric class name for when you get a bazillion skill points or something. What a hokey title. Makes me think that we need to send out one of the bazillion rogue or monk twinks on the server to get some Depends for our faithful cleric. Hail Verant: Please give the option to turn off these repulsive titles. Maybe VI tries too hard sometimes, like how hard your 5 year old tries when he makes you breakfast in bed on your birthday. The result is painful to contemplate, but you can't but help wanting to give them a hug and thank them for their efforts. After all, a lot of people asked for titles, but why oh why does their implementation seem more punishment for DARING to ask for the titles, then something that should have been a really neat status symbol? I think I would rather pick that they chose an incompetent implementation rather than a spiteful one.
2) An example of someone doing their job (that's me, btw). Find out who the critter is beating on and give them a quick rune. Note that I advertise what I am doing at ever moment of the raid so that people realize that occasionally enchanters are useful for more than pre-fight buffs.
2a) Being one of the few people actually doing their job on the raid, here you see the mob being angry with my efficiency. Notice that ONE rune on ONE NPC when the NPC is below half health is enough to get summoned. WTF? Summon the damn cleric that's chealing for 10k now and then, would ya?
2b) My attempt to disguise myself in order to prevent being notice backfires. How did he know that Air Elementals could cast rune?
3) Not one to take things sitting down, I extract some retribution for his audacity in summoning me. He'll not soon forget me, I can tell you that!
4) Hello, Kizz? NOTE: The mob is usually the one that's hitting your friends, DON'T TRY TO HELP IT. Sometimes I think Kizz tries to sabotage things for us. I don't have much proof yet, but this photo is going to specialists for further investigation!
5) Big nasty skeleton thing that we were worried about, but turned out had less fight in him than a liddle pussy cat.
5a) What is everyone trying to hit here? PS, THE GUY IS BEHIND YOU! And where is everyone, anyway?
6) Oh, here they are! One of the freakin NPCs RAN INTO THE WATER! And 60% of the raid decided to jump in after him. Of course once in the water here, you can't get back on the damn platform! DUH! I was pretty concerned at this point, but then I remembered that I was there and it would BE OK! And, of course, we were.
So, thanks to my sooper powerful abilities yet another HoD person got their epic (probably the last in a long, long while if we even ever get any more at all).
Here is the undeserving fuck in all his splendor! (Is it just me, or are those little swirly things sooper ghay?)
Grats Sikar!
/em NOT BITTER!
12-18-01
Update: Since there were some who disagreed with my update.
Of course all that stuff about mob difficulty and lack of reward is *my* opinion, mostly based off only 12 or 15 hours in SoL at 60th, and close to a 10 hours as an untwinked Kitty Kat newbie. This is not a *guild* opinion. Some disagree with me, because they feel that their solo opportunities are better in SoL with some places granting xp comparable to Velks (though, frankly I've found the xp in the 5 or 6 zones I've been in to be completely second class to all but a few non-SoL locations). However most of the zones I've been in, except for the pre-nurf Grey, are more difficult. Maybe that's just cause I can't solo stuff and have to rely on spells that seem to be more easily resisted by most things than they did when SoV was first released.
Lets face it, after I've spent three bubs of mana trying to slow and root something, it's not likely that I'll be able to kill it from there. Funny, SoL was supposed to be the expansion that finally brought casters back up to some sort of parity with the melee classes however casters are just as bad off (worse in some cases) and melees are universally better off. Same old song and dance that VI's been doing for the last two years.
At the high end its a little harder to see, especially when you don't get to see resists and so on. However it's VERY clear as a newbie. VI seemed to think that NO ONE would make an untwinked kitty. And if you do, you'll be sorry because the newbie grounds are not kind. Besides the mobs being harder for their con, with swarming, you also have mixed factions to deal with. If there is ever a time when mobs need to have *some* realistic parity with the players it's as a newbie.
But life as an untwinked/un-PL'd cat is very harsh. When you've got 200 hp, quest weapons, and the very little armor that you can actually get from the Kitty newbie area, and a blue newbie critter is hitting you for 30 a pop and then DOESN'T DROP ANYTHING of any value when it dies... there is something wrong.
BUT I'M NOT BITTER!
12-18-01
First, note the Archive link at the top there. Soon I'll make a sooper cool image or something instead of a sissy link, but I wasn't feeling very artistic today.
Moving on... I have a complaint. I know what you are saying "Rayn complain about EQ?!!! This must be serious, he NEVER does that," but it's true.
Here is my complaint: SoL appears to be designed for twinking/powerleveling to be the norm. Every mob undercons, from level 1 - level 60. I don't care if its a hopper in Shadeweavers or a Dark Vision in Griegs End. They all seem to hit for 2x as much as they should, 2x faster, and have 2x as many HPs as they should and 3x the resistances or immunities. The exception to this was the Grey, however that lasted for less than a week or so before it was nurfed. The mobs have special abilities at far lower levels than their Velious/Kunark counterparts. I mean, take a look at the Spire lord (image available in the new Archive section as part of the 12/12 update!) this is a 45th or so mob that FLURRIES for crying out loud!
The thing that *really* brought this to light though was when I was playing my little Beast lord yesterday. He's barely twinked with one of them 10/22 daggers from Velks. The armor he has is the stuff that he's looted from critters in the newbie zone. Remember that so far there's been very, VERY little cash found amongst the newbie critters for the kitties, which makes it hard to buy patterns for patchwork, much less any *decent* armor.
Anyway. Virtually untwinked, I get my ass handed to me by nearly anything that will give me xp. Not only are the mobs *far* more difficult than their non-lunar counterparts, but they also swarm. To survive these newbie zones you need access to far greater resources than are available to the non-twinked, non-PL'd kitty cat.
VI needs to add some cash mobs, at the very least to the newbie zones. Maybe we could at least look forward to leather, instead of patchwork (not to mention having to invest in tailoring to begin with, though the claws quest defrays some of this). This seems to be a motif all through Velious. Hard, HARD mobs that provide little or no reward. Another example is Griegs End.
Griegs, while a very... different zone than your normal zone didn't even leave enough decent loot (of any type) to have covered cleric costs (if we had a cleric in the group). These mobs are *hard*, interesting but hard. Here is a run down for ya on the Dark Visions, which is most of what we fought... DV's have random characteristics, it starts with their appearance (which can be based on any model stored on your hard drive). Then they can have any combination of three critical resistances.
1) Resistance to mez, 2) Resistance to slow, 3) Resistance to root/snare, 4) Any or all or none of the above.
This makes them MUCH harder than your typical mob, because you never know which type you are gunna get... yet they drop very small amounts of coin and, from what we could tell after 3 or 4 hours there, no random cool loot. Oh, one of the most interesting and fun parts about fighting these guys is that they proc on you and they can turn you into anything as long as the model for that critter exists on your HDD! It's all done client side too, so everyone sees something different. This makes controlling multiple INC mobs difficult, you can't just say "I am mezzing the rock monster!!" cause who knows what it looks like to them.
Anyway, here are some pics of them that we got a week or so ago!.
I can't tell from here, but is that Kizz as a bald MALE half-elf??!! Something we should know? I always thought she had more testosterone than normal!
1. Here's Valorin, our busty high-elf ranger? Needless to say, we'll have to keep this photo in our emergency "Make fun of people, especially Valorin" file.
2. Thats me, looking as normal and heroic as usual. Look at me, while everyone else is posing I am buffing! Ah well, I do what I can, but with such slakers it's tough.
3. Step. He's a she. And shes bald. Scary.
4. At least Ael made it out unscathed. As our sole healer, it was good that she wasn't under any additional pressure.
5. Sikar tells the group, "Sorry, I should have taken a right turn at Star Wars Galaxies".
I really don't have anything to say about this, except its better than his new turtle in a half shell look.
Val gets a little horny while checking out Aelantari. I can't blame him, after all, Kizz WAS a Half-elf male at the time.
Just cause this was a damn good shot!
It really was fun however, the reward for these, and ALL SoL challenges needs to be re-examined.
12-17-01
My, my, my. This was such a productive weekend that I thought it deserved a fresh clean page to document the triumphs of your favorite not-quite-uber guild.
Saturday was one of those leisurely xp gathering days. Saw a new zone called the Umbral Planes. If I only had one phrase to describe this zone it would be HOLY DAMN AGGRO-RANGE BATMAN! You can pull stuff from a mile away just by poking your head out the zone. There were some really, REALLY cool looking weapons dropped, called "Dark Metal" too bad they were worse than Fine Steel. I may have to go back there to pick some up just so I can have the kiddies in EC ooh and awing over me for once.
Sunday is when the magic happened. We decided to ditch Tedda for the day, and wouldn't ya know it but everything fell into place. We started in Kith, where General Viagra was trying to do his thing (that thing being to kill us). But as you can see, he finished up a bit early and ended up flaccid and with no heart beat.
Thanks to Val, Kizz, Ital and all the people from the guilds that were there to help. Alas the first rogue lost his box, but as soon as he gets his hate book we'll dust Renux for him and trounce the general one more time.
In the afterglow of victory, we thought "lets try Chardok." Maybe the "common" Iksar betrayer will spawn or something. Let me get you in on a little secret, Chardok is sooper dooper xp. I mean, this place is the best xp *ever*. Think about the kinda of xp you can get in Velks in a duo or trio but apply it to a group, but then take away the annoying assholes, double the spawns available, make them drop cool random shit, give it an average population of 12, and make it *fun* and you'd have Chardok. Don't tell Sikar or Raksa though, it helps to keep them indebted to us when they "force" us to go to Chardok just to get them their damn pipe.
Of course, we left Tedda behind. Since all of us were too deep in shock to actually snag a screenie of the surprising event that occurred in Chardok last night, here is an Artists rendering:
That's right, your friend and mine, the "common" Iksar betrayer finally stuck his snout out long enough for us to beat it to a bloody mash. Too bad we can't take him off the most wanted yet, we still need a pipe for Raksa. Fuq I hate the thought of going back to Chardok *wink wink* *nudge nudge*.
We were winding down for the night. Since Step still needed the robes to get his Cazic quill, we went to drop him off in Kith so he could check on the Coercer for ganking tonight... for some reason everyone followed him. When we get to kith, we discover that the advisor AND the Coercer are up, the coercer in her Ishiva and the Advisor in... nothing.
We figured "what the hell" and without any tactics or strategy decided to try and pull the fully spawned cabin and try to kill the Coercer. Some how we managed to get the Advisor alone, and we keeled him. Now the common thought is that if he has the robe, his model shows him wearing it so we didn't expect a lot when he dropped and Step knelt down to loot him. Then we see "OMFG" and "Steppyn has looted a Robe of the Kedge". Something like a 1 in 40 chance of that guy droppin it and it dropped.
After some clamboring of resources, Ital donates a SMR and Sikar donates an Ishiva robe and we are on our way to WK to get a Cazic quill.
Alas I had to log off at that point, but an hour or two later we got this:
Congrats you two, from all those people who don't have a chance in hell of getting their epics...
BUT I'M NOT BITTER!!!
12-12-01
Got a few house keeping things today. Firstly, I've been keeping the front page short so that our poor brothers and sisters with their 28.8 and 56k modems can load the page pretty quickly (up to about 1 minute load time right now for 56k). However, it was pointed out to me that an archive would be pretty nice, so I am going to start archiving the front page every update. Anything older than 3 updates back will be archived.
Also, an updated "HoD Most Wanted" is posted! Hopefully we'll be able to update it *again* soon, only this time with a removal, instead of yet another addition.
Well we've had a chance to play around in SoL a bit more. One interesting thing that was pointed out in a post was that of all the items found on Luclin so far, there are an average of 35 items that each melee can use, 25 items that each priest class can use and something like 12 items for int casters. The funniest part about that is that most of the items the int casters can use are all/all!
BUT I'M NOT BITTER!
Anyway, moving on. We hit a few more zones including the Grey and some stupid place who's name I can't remember. Mons Letails? Whatever, I hated it. Hi, lets make a zone where you can't travel 10 feet without taking falling damage. Then lets make these HUGE under cons aggro on everyone. I mean those freaking Stonesmashers or whatever are pretty much universally light blue or low blue at 53, however they do more damage and have more hit points than the Dragoons in Chardok who are 53rd. And these guys are all over the place.
There is some pleasantness in the zone though, via the spire spirits. These guys aren't much better than the Stonesmashers, the difference being that they are casters. The other difference is the GREAT faction hits they give, without any apparent negative faction hits that matter.
You kill one of these guys and you pretty much get +EverySeruFactionYouCanThinkOf and a -Recluso faction hit. Basically every couple years a person who wishes to continue belonging to the Seru city or whatever has to submit themselves to "The Question" (I assume it's like an IRS audit though a little less painful) the Reclusos are the folks that failed this Question thingie. I say to hell with them! What have they done for me lately!
So, lets review: There aren't any drawbacks to killing Spire Spirits. Does this scream "poor game design decision" to anyone else? If you are going to attach enough importance to give a faction to something then make the consequences HURT. Make it be a painful choice, and something all but irrevocable. Don't trivialize (VI's favorite nurf word) the factions. It's like a deliberate exploit. Not that I'm complaining too much, cause hell I can benefit, but it does make one think about how if they can mess up something this easy, what important stuff have they messed up in the high level game *this* time?
However, we did meet this cool guy there and it made it nearly worth while, specially since we weren't with a cleric.
Scary, huh? What's even scarier is the abilities this 45 - 50th level mob displayed. Flurries, for example. Pre-SoL probably 15 critters anywhere flurried (I remember how tough Lord Bob was in Velks the first few fights cause of the flurry thing) when you don't count the flurry stuff in ToV. It was a surprise, I hope to see more of these sorts of surprises!
The other scary part of this place was the INSANE respawn time. 8 - 10 minutes tops, and this seems to be common in SoL. I don't get how they can "tune" to a level range with such amazingly short repop times. I mean, this area is meant to be a high 40s - low 50s area, based on the con of the mobs and the damage output, but most teams of that level would quickly be shown the door. Man, sometimes VI does ok... nowadays though I have a tough time thinking that their design is sound. I'll have to try and withhold judgment till SoL settles down to it's final form.
Of course this guy dropped SHIT, some 12ac all/all cap that wasn't even worth replacing a froggy crown with but, hey, it gets our name on Allakhzams!
From this Letails place, if you can find the damn zone, you end up in the Grey, which was nurfed in the 12/12 patch. A zone in a vacuum and requires enduring breath (but still manages to have clouds and stuff... must be MAGIC!). I was surprised with the pure viciousness of the nurf there. I mean we were there pre-nurf and I couldn't believe how tissue paper-like the mobs were.
We had a ball there! We had a melee team mostly, I was making my enchanter ass useful by pulling, and the paladin was even able to play cleric. There were a few close calls (damn that 1 bub health aggro doodad) but it was as smooth and easy and relaxed as velks can be when it's not packed to the gills.
Hell, a 54 monk could pretty much solo one of them golems with a fair amount of ease... and we can't have that! If there were a zone that was BEGGING for a nurf, this one was it.
But boy oh boy, from all reports VI acted with all the anger and spite of a 14 year old DM where the players have done something unexpected. Officially the nurf was to prevent 30 - 40 critter AE kills, however VI has now made the zone useless for all but your typical cleric/warrior combo. THERE WERE BETTER WAYS TO DO THIS VI!
No 50+ spells yet for yours truly, or cool Luclin gear for... well pretty much anyone in the guild yet, maybe one of these days we will see them but if the enchanter ones are the same caliber as the 50- sol enchanter spells, thanks but no thanks.
BUT I'M NOT BITTER!
12-05-01
My my, where does the time go? So the event is upon us: SoL is here. And in true Verant Interactive tradition (after all, if there is a season for us to explore our traditions, great and small, this is it. Right?) the EQ servers are on their knees begging for mercy.
As if it weren't bad enough that 90% of the EQ players had to update their hardware and possibly OS to meet requirements STEEPER than those required by the most complex 3d engines found in the highest end 1st person games of the Christmas season, VI totally dropped the ball on opening day.
You'd think that by now VI would be able to release a product pretty smoothly, no? I mean, in Kunark there was the whole pre-order fiasco, then Velious had problems with the patch server mixed in with problems upgrading to DX7. Now with SoL they aren't just having problems with the patch servers, but also with the DX8 upgrade. I am sensing a pattern.
But ya know what? I don't care because I got patched and was able to log on last night to see how they mangled my poor characters. So neener to you!
Of course now comes the real question, especially since VI seems doomed to repeat history: Stay in the old world and exploit the zones that are bound to be empty OR head off to SoL and rake in the phat lewts that will be dropping off zone trash but are really intended to be on boss mobs but were never noticed since Verant's test team is even less competent than their programmers (which is to say: not at all).
Decisions, decisions, decisions.
What do you think, dear reader? Post your thoughts on our message board, I promise that at least one of us can muster the energy to flame you... or something.
Fortunately I've got a couple days off coming down the line which will allow me to do both!
11-29-01
I'd like to take this opportunity to thank Ital, Carak, and Sikar who were there in D1 with me last night getting the xp. Then I've got a whole laundry list... but I won't drag this out. You all know who you are, the core of my EQ experience since Aug. 99 when I first met most of you.
Azlin, Lorin, Xarina, Andral, Holystorm and Steppyn, Valorin, and Kizz who were responsible for getting Rayn into the position where he got really close to accidentally dinging to 60th... or at least close enough I made the drive for it.
My friends over as SW (the few that are left) who supported my Tuesday night groups to HS and other sundry places, which saw me through the mid 50's, when I was closest to just deleting the character all together.
I'd also like to thank the Academy, Jesus, God, all my fans, the wonderful people at VI with their talented bunch of crack baby monkeys VI mistakenly calls "programmers" and "artists" who have made many of these 119 days hell. Pure hell. It wasn't always, I remember times when it wasn't; but lately it seemed so.
I'd like to say that I dinged on some really cool critter; like I made 60th off The Froglock Commander, or Broog, or the Frenzied scarab. Alas, I can't. But I would like to thank the lowly Sebilite Golem that provided that final bit of xp.
I am going to babble now. Never mind, the feeling passed.
Of course now that I am 60th I will be leaving Hand of Destiny and making a bid to join Club Fu (it's in the "What do do when you get 60th" manual somewhere). Or sell him. Or retire him for a melee, like 90% of the other enchanters I know... oh, wait...
11-28-01
Well, Thanksgiving weekend has come and gone. Unfortunately our complete disorganization meant that we didn't get a damn thing accomplished which is really a shame.
Fu went and finally "formally" released the Sleeper on the server, which means no more SoD's or Gnome masks or Spiffy monk robes for BB any more. Look on the bright side, for only two or three million plat, you might be able to convince someone to sell an SoD to you. HAHAHAHAHAHAHA, look, I made a funny!
BUT I'M NOT BITTER!
Moving on: Our very own Italadin was there. Of course we have no pictures or anything, cause no one seems to be able to find their "-" key. Occasionally I am sure a couple people accidentally hit the button, but even then they never email me the pics IN A TIMELY MANNER. So, I had to improvise. This is my vision:
As you can see, it probably didn't go real well for him.
We will probably do some stuff tonight, and maybe the night after but we probably won't see any damn pictures! Then again, after looking at my handy-work in the above image, I don't see why we need any in game pictures; I feel I've captured all the majesty and feeling very well in a neo-modernistic way. Hell I should apply for a grant.
(ps, thanks to Myroo who was launched the movement to creating PC portraits (read: don't blame me, it's someone else's fault and not mine))