Whirly: good to go

We had a great time in Riftseeker’s. We picked up three adds plus a named boss and went down fairly early, but everybody was having a good time so it didn’t matter. When we returned there were quite a few players camping the boss. We headed back up the stairs and grinded our way around the upper floor.

We returned to the boss after everybody cleared out. What a punk. He went down easy without all his friends. He dropped a 2 hand blunt that only Mark uses, he already has a couple just like it. Mike picked up an upgrade belt. Other than that, our loot was lame. Mark dinged 11 and we are ready to move to our next dungeon. It was a class A evening. Pay no mind to that poop head earlier.

I’ve been having trouble writing about Riftseeker’s Torrent. We go in, do our job and call it a night. It’s not been story material - fun, but not that different from usual. It’s what we do. I should keep notes of the places visited, mobs killed and funny quips while playing, but I’m busy having fun. It all becomes a jumble later. I open a door, we get three mobs, Mark says something funny, Mike responds, I giggle, we get two adds, we fight like hell, win, “I didn’t think we were going to pull that one off,” repeat. Other times we lose and die. It’s only slightly different from the win.

I’m sounding like a poop head for no reason. This is my fifth time trying to write about what we are doing in Vanguard. We do basically the same thing we did in EQ, DAoC, CoH, SWG, EQ2, AO, What was the name of that Microsoft thing II?, WoW and now Vanguard. Don’t let me leave the impression that I don’t like Vanguard. It’s been fine so far. It’s just, the bosses in Riftseeker’s haven’t felt epic. Especially when some friendly players, not in your group, “helps.” Did we win or was it because of that other guy?

Ok, I’m going to leave it at that. An occasional poop head story will just have to do. Otherwise I’ll be stuck here never writing again. Oh, that would be a tragedy.

Riftseeker’s Torrent is turning out to be a hoot. It’s unclear how large the place is as we’ve been wandering for two days. Well, some wandering, some corpse recovery. It’s getting complicated in there. I should make a map. You must find your way back to your corpse to get your stuff and experience back. WoW has spoiled us rotten with its trivial death consequence. The Vanguard way certainly adds a little spice to a dungeon run.

We killed a couple named mobs Monday. One killed us back. The experience sucks. It’s taking forever to get to level 11. I guess that’s what they mean by hard core MMO. The drops have been good though. We are loading up on better equipment. Unfortunately, we have no quests in the dungeon.

Last night we popped in for about an hour. The first ½ hour was just exploration. The second was corpse recovery. We camped inside so we could continue from there. We could easily lose our corpse too far inside to recover the same night. I don’t know how long the headstones remain. Days, I assume, but we only play twice a week. Recovery could be a pain. Do we press on hard, as we did in WoW, or wimp out and fight what we can kill.

I tried to solo in there with my Warrior. The first room wasn’t too difficult. I killed everything in the place. The second, a curved hallway, stopped me cold. There are two guys at the door, no problem, but I couldn’t take them down before the walker came back and he killed me. I tried to back through the closed door so I’d die in the other room. I couldn’t get the door open with the “U” key. I left a tombstone in the middle of the door. That’s embarrassing.

I’m making some headway in understanding crafting. I’m looking forward to working on it more though the click fest that is Vanguard crafting seems to be exactly what my carpel tunnel hates.

Oh! Mark made bags for everybody. We needed them baddly. I guess we’ll be loot whores now. I find myself wanting to loot stuff in Vanguard. Something that hasn’t happend in a long time. I’m so poor. I did sell some copper ore. It took almost five days. I had two stacks of 10 up at the lowest price. I didn’t think they were going to sell at all.

Things are progressing well in Vanguard. We’ve ran a couple newbie dungeons, died a few times, and had a good time. The loot drops are treating us well in the equipment department. There seems to be plenty to keep everybody busy. Mike and I have our level 10 horses. Mark will be there soon.

There is a dungeon near, by the Human starting city, called Riftseeker’s Torrent. I went to take a look-see. The entrance is in a cave with a portal at the end. When you get close to the portal you get a message that says something like, “A voice in your head says: enter password.” While I was pondering that, the cave started re-popping. I fought my way out and parked in safe area to research.

I’m kind of assuming you get the password at the end of a quest - probably from the Human town. I found a German website with, what clamed to be, the password. I wrote it down carefully, it’s gobeldy goop, and headed back in. I typed it in carefully and then, while wondering why nothing was happening, was transported into a long room full of mobs. The mobs next to the entrance were level 9. I’m not sure how much challenge they will be to a group of three uber level 10s. We’ll see Monday I guess.

I decided to gate/hearth stone/bind stone out and was in the middle of that process when I was attacked by a wandering mob. Surprisingly, being attacked didn’t stop me from leaving.

I’m trying to make a little money in the auction house. The problem is I have no idea what the demand is. I placed two stacks of 10 Copper Ore up at the lowest price. This morning it still hasn’t sold. There was one stack of 10 substantially below my price, and everybody else’s, so I bought it. I also spent some time collecting more Copper and I put another stack of 10 up. I’m not sure anybody has the cash to buy their raw material at the auction house yet.

I went out to reach level 8 and made it. I found I wasn’t as indestructible as I’d thought when I attacked, or was attacked by, three mobs deep in a dungeon. Finding a safe place to die isn’t easy in that situation. I killed two of them and took the edge off the third. At level 7 I had to make a corpse run. Luckily, most of my gear is bound to me, so I wasn’t reduced in power going back in.

Later, I purchased one of the binding spheres intending to bind a level 8 sword and bow, I’ve avoided binding because of the 30 copper cost. It turns out the sphere has ten charges. Binding an item costs 3 copper. That’s not bad.

I created a skinning knife and axe for Marks gathering skills. I understand blacksmithing a little, but even though these tools are trivial to me, it’s no guarantee I’ll succeed in achieving “A” quality and success. I’m going to try to build some armor or a weapon next. I wish I had a little more cash. Now that I’m 8 I must start saving for a horse.

An odd thing happened in Vanguard last night. It was our first with all three of us grouped. We found a newbie dungeon and started working. You’ve got to realize we’ve been playing WoW for two years, instances exclusively. Last night, in the dungeon, I ran into a surprise. There was somebody else in our dungeon. It took me a second to figure out. It was funny, but truly a ‘who the hell is that’ kind of moment.

Spawn rate is fast in Vanguard, we continued on. Eventually we came to a named mob, the highest we found in the place. He dropped nice caster gloves. We hung out in the area, kind of camping him, but he never dropped anything again. I’m not sure there is a significance to that. Maybe the gloves were just random loot, maybe there is some anti camping code. When we actually camped him, waiting in his spot, he didn’t spawn. We moved away and he popped again. Coincidence?

The evening was low key, we were just learning the ropes not pushing the envelope. We all dinged level 7 and finished a few quests. Everybody picked up some loot, much of it we can’t use till 8. Hopefully, we’ll find another good place Friday. This time with a little more challenge. Oh, we could use some bag drops if you please.

We are set for Vanguard fun Monday night. We have three level 6 Dwarfs warmed up and ready to go. I get to be the Warrior again, a roll I enjoy. Mark is playing the Priest, his specialty. Mike will be blowing stuff up, this time as a Sorcerer.

I’ve have no idea how to craft, but I’m working at it. I tried five or six time to make a pick axe. All I was making was slag metal. I noticed today it mentioned that this item requires A quality. Sheesh, I didn’t know I was going to have to read. It took me four more tries to make a pick and a hammer. They have slightly higher gathering power than the freebies the trainer gives out.

My attempts at Diplomacy are failing terribly. I pissed off the first npc I tried. I screwed up and threatened him, by mistake, when we were just having a hello how you doin conversation. I didn’t have an apology card so lost that round. Our next conversation was about as bad and now he won’t even talk to me.

We’ve been trying to figure out the fellowship thing every since Mark found out about it. When you form a fellowship, you agree to share all experience even when playing solo. It’s a great way for friends to stay together level wise. It looks like it’s not in game yet though there is a menu selection for it.

I wasn’t playing my A game in Scarlet Monastery tonight. We tried again to break the Library without success. Well, we had a good time, there’s that. Mike and Mark dinged 34, that’s a good thing. But, we didn’t get even close to picking up The Scarlet Key. We didn’t see the guy who guards it either. No, we got hung up on a group of three with two healers. What a pain those healers are.

On our second try we screwed ourselves practicing Mind Control on a group of 3. We use Mind Control on groups we can’t otherwise easily take. Unfortunately, when it fails, we’ve got some pissed off mobs beating on our Priest. If you then pick up a few extra mobs you’re screwed. At least that’s what happened to us. We didn’t really need to Mind Control these guys. We were just practicing. Death number two.

My assignment for the weekend is to solo to 34. I’m not much of a Mage soloer. I get little practice and I’m not very good at it. Ahh, you do what you got to do. Where does one solo at 34?

Things aren’t going as expected. I spent two nights trying to find a way across the continent to where Mark’s Dwarf was located. I died four times and had to take the loss of having my stuff moved to the rez stone twice. It looks like level 10 is a little too low for cross-country travel.

I’ve created a Dwarf Warrior and have asked Mike to create a Dwarf as well. I’m not happy about the whole thing, but it’s time to move forward. This way I figure we can group starting Monday. Mike will have to change from a Psionicst to a Sorcerer. Hopefully he’ll be ok with that. I hear Sorcerer is the king of PvP. Not that we PvP much.

I’ve been playing Vanguard for a couple of days and have leveled my Warrior to 10. He has a horse, ok armor and weapons. He’s just waiting for the boys to show up. We each have different race preferences so I figured we’d play what we want and try to connect up. I don’t know how hard that will be, never having traveled in Vanguard.

So far I’ve enjoyed playing. There is always something more to do and I’ve turned off the computer each time with regret. I’m starting to find soloing a buzz kill, but that’s always true. It looks like we could have grouped, and had an interesting time, right from the start. It’s probably best to let everybody learn how to play on his own though.

They say the game changes at level 10, it’s not so hand-holdy. As long as we can find some content that is challenging we’ll be find.  I’ve only grouped once so far. It was with a Shaman working the same area as I. We were able to fight through some guys, one of which had killed me earlier. We each got our quests done. I looted a spear that the Shaman wanted. I gave it to him of course. What warrior wants to fight with a pointy stick? Swords be my choice.

I switched to a 2-hand sword as soon as I could, I like the big damage. I was a bit afraid it would gimp me when I joined up with the boys. Big mobs require the tank to use a shield. I remember from EQ days it took forever to raise weapon skills. My last few bubbles in 9 I switched to a 1 hand sword and shield. I had no problem, and the skill levels rose quickly.

I’ve dabbled with crafting and I’m almost level 4. It’s not very intuitive, but cheap to learn. I’m starting to figure it out, though I haven’t made anything I can use yet. My gathering skills are falling behind. I’ve been mining whenever I could. It’s not been enough. Now that I’m level 10, and not interested in progressing, I can work on my mining skills more.

I read half the instruction on diplomacy. It was late and I wasn’t getting it. I’ve never played any of those card games so it’s a bit alien to me. It’s something else I can work on now that I’m 10.

I’m going to wait on declaring Vanguard a success or failure. It’s been fun so far, but I like everything, at first. Mike and I went into Burning Crusade, in World of Warcraft, for an hour and a half on Saturday. We had a ball and got some great loot. Can Vanguard compete with that? After two years?