Whirly: good to go

The World of Warcraft to Everquest II switch debacle has crimped my play plans. I’ll have to soldier on with limited EQII play time.

I dinged level 10 with my Troubadour. I still have reservations because of no self heal. Playing on test, I suspect much of the population plays more solo-friendly classes. I’m attracted to playing something a little rare. I have no numbers though, maybe everybody plays Troubadour.

One of my first memorable experience in EQ Live was an early boat trip. While waiting at the dock, two Bards showed up, all in blue, with rings of light circling them. It was just so cool. Unfortunately, playing an EQ Bard was a click-fest only the most twitchy players could master. My highest was around 26, but I was marked, that day on the dock, with the Bard curse.

I messed up. I kind of wanted the boys to move to Everquest II for a bit and give World of Warcraft a rest. I maneuvered it so they chose EQ II while I appeared to want to continue with WoW, that part worked great. But, I overplayed my hand, we are playing WoW. I’m not sure how it happened. I guess I didn’t figure it out completely.

Anyway, we are re-rolling new toons in WoW. We are trying a different server to reduce the queue problem. I’m not sure there is a solution for that. Queues are bound to happen on our new server. We’ve switched to Horde as well. I don’t think Mark likes the idea, he fancies himself a hero. We’ll just have to show him Horde isn’t evil; they are simply not Alliance.

We certainly need something. We went to Blackrock Depths tonight. It was awful, our worst visit in ages. We would have been grand in EQ II, I’m sure of it. /sigh

Somebody in Dire Maul didn’t get the memo about us being uber. I don’t know how something can be easy one night and hard the next, but there it is.

We went in the side door of East Dire Maul, worked our way down the hall and into the room that’s behind, just to the right. We were able to kill a named necro upstairs and looted a quest item. We tried downstairs but the going got tough and we died. It wasn’t our first.

We took a look in West Dire Maul. Those boys are big and hard, 58-60 elite trees. We did some work. It was obvious we’ll never get far in there.

Now that we are 60 we seem to be losing our way. Mike is working on his trade skills, I’m doing that as well. What do we do now as a group?

Mike reminded me, I’m a goal oriented kind of guy, which fits into my thinking about why my online play is boring me. I have no goal.

I’ve now reached 60 with two toons in WoW, nothing to work for there. So, I’ve been looking for a new goal to set myself. I’m thinking strongly of getting an EQII character to 20. With that in mind, I’ve been trying out some of the classes in EQII looking for just the right fit.

My favorite, so far, is a female Iksar Troubadour. The female Iksars have fan shaped things on the sides of their heads that flare when in battle. That is just too cool. The Troubadour felt good even at level 1.

She doesn’t seem a strong soloer though. At level 6 she still has no self heal. I intend to play on the test server. From my experience, the first rule of test server is you must take care of yourself. Or is the first rule, don’t talk about test server? I don’t think I know the rules.

In another moment of weakness, I purchased Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories for my Sony PSP. The PSP was an earlier moment of weakness. I don’t need a hand held game platform as I’m surrounded by computers most of the time, but the moment it supported wireless web browsing I needed one. My Palm TX does a much better job now, that’s another story.

This version of GTA takes place in the same Liberty City as GTA3; the only other in the series I’ve played. It looks great, but my old eyes probably aren’t the best for judging. Did I mention I don’t need a hand held? What was I thinking? I’m too old to be playing games on this little screen. Sheesh. Everybody says it looks good though.

Controlling your vehicle with the small thumb controls is rather squirrelly, over steering is difficult to avoid. I’m not sure I’ll ever acquire great skill or nuance with my driving. So far, I’m just trying to run into as few things as possible. I spend more time just cruising than actually running missions. I did a rather spectacular jump last night, I received a bonus, and was trying to extract my stolen vehicle from the fence I was entangled in when a group of fellows showed up, pulled me from my car, and kicked my ass. I wish I’d had my baseball bat with me. I’d of broken some heads.

The radio stations are a giggle. I may be turning into some kind of fuddy-duddy though as I find them too mature for children. I can’t believe I purchased a PSP. What an idiot. I wish they’d had these in my youth, when I could see.

My EQ II Healer made level 11 the other day. I did it standing in one spot killing rats. It was just so EQ.

I’ve been mining with my WoW Warrior. I needed silver for making bombs. It was so WoW.

The things I’ll do for fun.

What a boring weekend. EQII, Guild Wars, WoW, nothing interesting.

I did a mining run with my Warrior, that’s always fun. It’s not ever fun. Mike has been collecting Felcloth in Felwood; I went over to help. It is a terribly camped place with 60s wanting Felcloth as well. 59 Warrior and Mage can burn them down quickly, but the drop rate of Felcloth is very low.

Mike’s Mage dinged 60 in Blackrock Depths tonight. We didn’t do anything special just some grinding. We did kill one named we’ve had trouble with before. Although we’ve been able to kill her, it was never pretty and never a complete success. Tonight she went down nice and neat with no trouble at all.

My Warrior needs another bubble to ding and Mark’s Priest needs 3, we expect it Friday. I could easily solo one bubble, but I think I’ll save it for the group. We’ve all worked hard. What then, the same content forever? That is so not me. I’m bored.

We had a plan for East Dire Maul to get the key: In the front door, engage Pusillin (he runs off), exit and return via the second entrance and fight our way to where Pusillin ends up. We had no idea if that was a workable plan, but it was a plan.

The first thing, getting Pusillin off and running, worked great. We ran around to the second entrance and started clearing for our fight down the hall. I noticed an imp in the other direction who looked just like Pusillin, it was Pusillin. Apparently, he only runs part way. We killed a few trees in that direction and were able to get him running again.

We fought our way down the hall with little trouble. The biggest danger is the single walkers showing up in the middle of a fight. We were lucky, and vigilant, and made it to the end in one piece. There was Pusillin again, he needed another push.

We had looked into, but never fought in the three chambered “Pusillin room,” for the lack of a better name. No longer were we fighting trees but two legged guys with tails. Some of them were Rogue-like in that they could fade in and out. One more talk with Pusillin and he ran up a ramp saying only, “Die!”

We had three guys down stairs to clear first. We took out two of them before dieing, as Pusillin suggested; the return fight was easy with just one remaining. Now a slow creep up the ramp, the only thing up there was Pusillin.

We expected a fight when finally challenging Pusillin. We expected he’d call friends. I, the Warrior, activated him while the Mage, and Priest, stood back. Unfortunately, when the friends came, they came up the ramp behind. Pusillin grew in size and was now an aggressive 57 caster. We died again.

Unlike some quests fellows, Pusillin and friends remained on our return. We were able to pull the friends downstairs to take them and then dispatch Pusillin. We all looted a key. It was an impressive victory.

We tried our key on North Dire Maul, it worked. I’ve read where Rogues and Hunters solo this quest, although Rogues don’t necessarily need a key.

My problem with the map is simple; I can’t find where I’m going. I had three quests in Sunken City, it’s not on the map. I ran through every single zone in Freeport looking for the entrance. It turns out, It’s the second bell. The one that takes you to places not in town.

Ok, that’s the point, running me around till I find it, but what’s the point of having a map that doesn’t show where things are? The quest gives no clue, the map is no help. I’m supposed to wander the world, at level 9, hoping to run into it. I know some people enjoy that kind of thing. It looks like I’m not one.

I did make level 10 running quests, that’s good. It seems that each level I get a handful of new spells, some rather obscure. Spells are free, upgrades are drop or cash.

I was surprised, but not disheartened, to find EQ2 Test down last night. I played a little WoW and returned to EQ2 later after a quick patch. Years on EQ Test taught me the drill.

There aren’t many people in Freeport where I’m running quests seemingly designed to move me around the city. I’ve had some frustration with the in-game map system, but there have been some welcome map enhancements. You now see a circle on the map for quest givers and a dot for quest completers. There may be a way to trigger the shimmering line to target, I haven’t run across it yet. The circles make it easy to run the zone collecting available quests.

I had forgotten about optional alternative models for character appearance. Slower computers can use standard models to increase graphic speed. I chose my alt-mod hoping to project a pleasant demeanor. In game, it looked more like a psycho killer, very disturbing. I turned alternative models off.

I’ve progressed to level 9 and have acquired points useable to improve my stats. No where in game have I found an explanation of what my character would find useful. Does my toon use intelligence or wisdom as a primary? I remember this junk in EQ. I’m sure the info is around, I just need to track it down.