Whirly: good to go

We entered Riftseekers dungeon as three level 10s and exited, two hours later, level 12. There was one death that was kind of my fault. We were fighting a boss who was a major pain to take down. I wasn’t able to taunt him off Mike’s Psionicist and at one point the boss got a critical and Mike went down. Luckily, we had the boss down far enough that Mark and I could finish him off.

At 10 I didn’t have Defensive stance or a decent taunt. It plagued us all night. When I visited my trainer, at level 12, he still didn’t have Defensive or taunt to teach me. I was pretty sure my other Warrior had those things at 12, so I rode to the Dwarf city to check out the trainer there. Sure enough, he had a quest for me that ended with me getting Defensive. He then had the taunt that I was looking for. I would have expected any Warrior trainer to mention the quest but noooo.

I got quite a few equipment upgrades in Riftseekers, Mark and Mike not so much. I needed those upgrades as I was working with some wimpy junk. Now that I have a decent taunt I feel like a true Warrior.

We planned on playing for a couple hours Saturday, but it didn’t work out. We could get to the character selection screen but no further. Playing on test server has its problems. Not being able to play would be a big one, though it keeps the population low. Plus, we had Riftseekers all to ourselves. It felt just like an instance. I guess we are spoiled.

Not much happening in my gaming world. I’ve been working at Vanguard crafting, it’s too boring to even think about. I got home late last night and wanted to do something, other than crafting, so took my 12 Necro, on test server, for a run in Riftseeker dungeon.

I didn’t make it in as far as expected when I pulled too many, trying to get through a door, and died. No biggie, fifteen minutes later I returned to my corpse to find, “That corpse is not a valid target,” when trying to loot. I camped and came back - same thing. It’s not a major loss, experience, a few quest items, loot from the evening, binding doohickey and newbie berries. Do you lose your cash? I forgot to look. I camped in the dungeon, I’ll try that corpse again tonight. My camp spot is in the path of one walking mob. There was a patch recently, the notes of which said, Necros who camp with pet will have a pet when returning. It shouldn’t matter. I can take that mob with or without.

Ok, crafting isn’t sooo bad. It’s easily done while watching a movie. I switch the mouse to my other hand to help with carpal tunnel issues. I’m just grinding work orders for experience and cash. I was disconnected from server in the middle of a multi-part work order and thought I’d lose the whole thing. Didn’t happen. On my return, it was as if I hadn’t started. I lost nothing.

I see LOTR open beta starts tonight. I’ve heard good things about it. I might give it a look. I like the music making part. I have a USB piano keyboard that I hear might be possible to use in-game.

I’ve been getting spam comments here for some time. Recently, it’s started getting out of hand. Returning from San Francisco I found over 800. Staying focused while scanning 800 spam messages isn’t one of my strong points. If I deleted your “Euro teen sex” comment, that was germane to this site, I apologize. This morning I found 203 spam comments. The content has morphed into automobile references such as “Euro teen Toyota.”

There are WordPress options for filtering this stuff. I must fill out some info and join something to get it working. I’m not a big joiner, but I guess I’ll have to explore that option. Or, I could make this a spam blog. Then it would all make sense. I don’t have much Euro teen or Viagra experience. I once owned a Toyota, I could talk about that. I drove that Toyota to Inuvik, Northwest Territories, Canada. The folks who lived in Inuvik weren’t very impressed. I should have taken some Euro teens with me.

I spent the weekend in San Francisco, a long way from Juneau, and have no gaming news other than I made sure to get my Vanguard Test server Warrior level 10 and ready to meet up with the boys. I know Mike’s new Psionicist is level 10 and I think Marks new Cleric is 10 as well. Looks like we are re-ready to go.

No, the story I have is so embarrassing I can barely bring myself to tell it. I’m a tech kind of guy. I’ve been working in some form of high tech my whole working life. Last week, my cell phone stopped working, it wouldn’t turn on. I charge it – no change. I try a different battery – no change. I reseated the little card – same. It would light up while charging, but not power on.

I gave the phone to a co-worker so she could get me a replacement. She charged it, I knew that wouldn’t work as I’d already tried. Later she handed it to me, powered on, and said it was all better. What the? I turned it off and tried to power it back on. It wouldn’t power up.

I’m going to cut this story short. This phone, I’ve used for two years, I forgot which button turns it on. It’s another sign of age I suppose. Of all the unpleasant age related problems I’ve experienced this one hurts the most.

We are contemplating switching to Vanguard Test server. We played on EQ test for many years – it was a great place. It does mean starting over one more time, which nobody is looking forward too. Mark says they have permanent double experience on Test so that would soften the pain somewhat. I would expect we could be back where we are in two weeks, or so, minus equipment and cash. Extra experience doesn’t help with loot.

I created a Halfling Warrior in anticipation of the switch. A mini-Warrior appeals to my since of asthetics. He’s just so cute. I’ve worked him to level 7 in three easy play sessions. Halflings start near Tursh, the Human starting city. We worked around there for a while so I’m familiar with the area.

I cancelled my WoW account last week. I expect we will be going back to it someday, but that’s no reason to pay for something we aren’t playing now. Vanguard is lacking something for me. In WoW we enter an instance looking to complete it and get all the great loot. We’ve not found a Vanguard dungeon with an obvious end point or special loot. There isn’t a sense of accomplishment. We are still looking though. Maybe we just don’t understand Vanguard yet.

Stonesmasher Enclave was a disappointment, not a dungeon at all, a fort and a few camps scattered around. They were orcs, or something orc like, with trained fighting bears. I don’t know for sure if the bears were trained, but they did fight. Once we got the hang of it, we could handle four or five at a time. We looted a few good drops. It was fun in a pulling large groups, grinding and shooting the bull kind of way. Certainly not the, I don’t know what’s around the next corner, excitement.

Not that we didn’t have thrills. We pulled a few very large groups, being outside, we ran away. My Warrior and Mark’s Priest died once. There is a 24 bear in the area that isn’t aggressive unless you put an arrow in him. I arrowed him twice by mistake. The first time we just ran, he chased us a long way. The second time Mark wanted to give him a try. We couldn’t do any damage to a bear ten levels higher than us. Mark’s Priest died in the escape.

After an hour I got antsy and we headed off to Khegan’s End. It’s listed as a “Premiere” dungeon. There was a much larger, higher level, group going in ahead of us. They seemed too tentative and we hop scotched with them for a little while. The spiders we encountered were harder than we’ve done before, but doable one at a time. When I pulled four, Mike used his Psionicist powers to evac us and we went back to Stonesmasher Enclave and the orc grind.

Mark and I dinged 15 which seemed a good point to consider staying with Vanguard or not. Our plan was to give it a fair try then decided. Our only alternative seems to be WoW. I believe Mark would like to give EQII another shot, but Mike doesn’t like it and I’m not that excited about it either. I’ve tried EQII again recently and, while it’s a lot better than launch, it didn’t draw me in. Mike wants to try Pirates of the Burning Crusade. I’m down for that, but we have no idea what kind of fun it will be. I’m becoming intrigued with the talk about Lord of the Rings Online, though I’m not a fan of the book or movies. I think we could have some fun with EVE as well, the boys are uninterested.

Not that Vanguard isn’t a good game. As mentioned many times before, we play twice a week for 2 to 2 ½ hours. We need a game we can jump into and have jammed-packed fun during that short time. Wandering around wondering where to go next doesn’t work; we make no progress and it’s not fun. We need concentrated excitment. In addition, I get easily bored doing the same thing over and over. I need a range of options.

It’s not clear if Vanguard is the game for us. Finding the right places to fight hasn’t been easy. Not that it ever is with a new game and uncharted content. As of now, we’ll continue. I’ve got no idea where we should fight next tough.

I’ve created a Necro on the Vanguard Test server, I played EQ test for years and loved the community. There isn’t much of a community on VG test though. The highest number of players I’ve ever found with a /who all was 25 – usually much less. I’ve not seen another player so far.

It’s taken me a while to figure out this Necro stuff, but I’m starting to get the idea. Dots and fear makes the mob fall down, loot, steal some energy, repeat forever. I dinged 10 today. I’ve only 7 silver to my name so no horse for me. I guess that’s a problem with starting a new toon on a double experience weekend. I’ve ran out of appropriate quests as well. No problem. The necro is turning out to be great for grinding.

Friday is fight night. We’ll be headed into a new dungeon, Stonesmasher Enclave. I know absolutely nothing about the place. We are going to get our butts handed to us. It’s about time. We’ve had it too easy recently and could use the challenge. Our last visit to Vault of Heroes was a bust. It was soooooo easy.

We entered the Vault of Heroes (VoH) and, like kings of the castle, walked in the front door as if we owned the place. Truthfully, we didn’t know if we would own or be owned. We had some trouble at the bottom of the stairs transitioning into the circular room when I pulled four-ish. Surprisingly, it was going our way when we got two re-pop adds from behind. We beat them too. It was the only distinct fight I remember from the evening. Everything else was easy. I tried to keep the group tight and moving to stay ahead of the re-pop. I found we could move at a good pace fighting constantly.

Mark has been doing our Warrior duties for the last year, I’m just getting back in the hang of it. Warrior/puller is more work than it looks. During the fights you are looking ahead to the next pull, watching behind for adds, scanning group members for mana and health, trying to keep aggro, plus fighting the good fight. It’s a full time job. Mark does it effortlessly. It makes my head hurt.

Mike seems to be enjoying playing Psionicist. He likes all the tricks and do-hickies a fancy caster brings to the fight. He is, once again, our crowd control. He can take one mob out of the fight with time shifting or something. That one guy removed often makes all the difference in success or failure.

Mark seems happy with the Cleric in Vanguard. Wearing plate, he is a melee fighter as well as healer. I like it also as I don’t have to worry about adds beating on the healer.

My only complaint with Warrior is my lack of offensive options in defensive stance. It seems silly, but I don’t feel I’m doing anything useful unless I’m mashing a button.

We all dinged level 14 in VoH. I’d like to move to the next dungeon, but I think one more evening here. It’s a long way to 3 Rivers, our next stop, and it would take up a goodly amount of our playtime to make the change. We can explore a few more places in VoH, the experience is good, and I can caravan everybody over after.

We left our heroes in a pinch last time when the server went down at just the wrong time. Our plan, Warrior goes in first and tanks the two guys on the front porch, Priest and Psionicist enter, Warrior invites everybody, Psionicist gates us out of there as quickly as possible.

The problem with the plan was there were 5 guys waiting when we got in. We didn’t know we would be immune to attack until we moved or that the Psionicst couldn’t cast while immune. We didn’t expect to die quite so fast. We didn’t think we’d be fighting our way back to a spot where we could loot our corpses. That’s what happened though. It was fun and it wasn’t even a fight night.

Our trip to Vault of Heroes didn’t work out as expected, it seldom does. It was our first visit, we had no idea what to expect. We worked our way around to the left fighting ones and twos. We passed through a camp, out a wooden gate and up a hill. We cleared the entrance to a small building and were standing on the porch, fighting the first mob from inside, when the server went down.

We sat at the character selection screen and talked for an hour. That was the end of that. We’ll try to get our toons to safety Tuesday.