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By heide, May 22, 2010 10:48 am

It’s been a while since the last update, so there’s a bit to cover…

In WoW, I finally saved up enough Champion’s Seals to buy the Argent Hippogryph. I was initially thinking of going for the Sunreaver Dragonhawk, but then someone pointed out that it doesn’t actually land on the ground and that suddenly seemed disconcerting. I then started saving them up for the other minipets and mounts, but in the meantime I managed to find all of the Horde tournament minipets on the AH for fairly cheap (it’s easier to grind for 300 gold than it is for 40 seals), so I’m not sure what I’m going to save for next. The warhorse, perhaps…

I got my mage to level 40, enabling him to work on tradeskills again, and soon had JC maxed out at 300 and enchanting near-maxed at 296. It did cost about 700 gold in materials that I didn’t already have on hand, though.

And I found a few more soloable quests in Icecrown that must have been opened up by raised faction levels. I now only need 14 more to hit Loremaster.

Steam finally came out for the Mac, and I already have access to a handful of Mac versions of games I previously bought. For now I’ve only downloaded Toki Tori, Civ 4, and a few Popcap games like Peggle, though.

In EQ2, we did the Temple of Cazic-Thule last week. It’s kind of an annoying place since there’s plenty of roamers that lead to long strings of fights, and a lot of grindy quests, but we did manage to complete the heritage quest for the Screaming Mace in there and I picked up a couple of item upgrades. There’s also an inner instance, and we worked our way to the top of it only to get squashed by the boss in no time flat. It’s frustrating that you immediately get locked out of it for 18 hours after only a single attempt.

Last weekend we then tried the Tower of the Drafling in Rivervale and cleared it out pretty easily, and also completed the Hierophant’s Crook and Bone Bladed Claymore HQs. And then this last Thursday we went and explored Permafrost for a while, discovering a bunch of quests and uncovering a fair chunk of the map, but there’s still a lot of stuff left partially-done and we haven’t seen any of the dungeons there yet.

And finally, I’m essentially “finished” Forza 3 for now after completing the R2 and R1 championships and getting the Season 6 achievement. There’s still plenty of races to do as I’m only around 28% completion according to the stats screen, but I’ll work on them occasionally on a more casual basis.

I also picked up the most recent exotic car pack, and the Mosler MT900S is extremely nice, and easily my favourite R2 car now. And I also discovered that the AI isn’t very good at oval races, with the R2 speedway series involving some rather impressive pileups…

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By heide, May 10, 2010 12:23 pm

On Friday we had an impromptu last-minute gathering to do the Amphitheatre of Pain ring event in Zul’Drak, and that got me the last few quests I needed for the Zul’Drak quest achievement. That just leaves Icecrown to go now, though it’s going to be the hardest since it’s mainly group quests left, and as the highest-level outdoor zone in the game, they won’t be duoable like all the other zones.

I also played my mage a fair bit and got him up to level 39. I’m currently doing quests in Dustwallow Marsh, but it’s an annoying place for a mage since you get attacked by roaming crocs and spiders constantly, when as a mage I prefer to launch fights from afar.

I finally got FUEL installed and working now that they’ve added more serial keys on Steam, and spent a little while doing a few races, roaming around the open world, and playing online a bit with a friend. It was fun for a little while, but I can see how it could get a bit boring and repetitive. Fortunately it was only $4.

And speaking of racing games, I completed a handful of series in Forza 3 as well, putting me partway into the R2 championship and at driver level 40. I’ve also rediscovered the Impreza WRX STi as one of my favourite class C cars, as it made the Fujumi Kaido point-to-point races much easier.

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By heide, May 7, 2010 12:48 pm

A bit more progress in WoW lately as I managed to finish off the zone achievements for Nagrand and Blade’s Edge with a friend’s help. That got me the Loremaster of Outland achievement, and now I just have Zul’Drak and Icecrown to go for the big one. For Zul’Drak I just need to do a run through Gundrak, which will eventually happen in a random, but for Icecrown I’ll need some group help.

This morning I also managed to nab three of the Argent Tournament minipets from the AH for only 300 gold each. That’s about the price at which I’d prefer to just pay gold for them rather than having to grind Champion Seals for them; that’s 120 seals total, or about two weeks of doing dailies, but less than a week’s worth of gold farming.

And in EQ2 last night we went and checked out a new dungeon, The Obelisk of Lost Souls. It’s extremely maze-like but fortunately one of the group members had the map. Some rooms were pretty tough fights since even the monsters down below would aggro and swarm us, but there was only one death for the whole evening. We eventually gained access to the inner area and an inner instance called the Vestibule, but that’s as far as we can go until we complete an access quest (and only one member has it so far since you need a drop to start it).

We also wandered over to the Temple of Cazic-Thule in Feerrott to farm a wraith for the start of the Screaming Mace quest. With the long respawn time, we could only get three of the four drops needed though, so I’ll have to get mine later.

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By heide, May 4, 2010 7:51 pm

Our Tuesday night EQ1 group has kind of petered out, but it did actually last a decent amount of time for such an old game. The problem is that without mentoring and/or AA xp control at the lower levels, it’s hard for someone who misses out on a day to catch up. Once people start falling behind, it kind of snowballs and more and more people drop out.

Ah well, it was a surprisingly good day in WoW at least. My warrior finally got the fourth crocodile from the Shattrath fishing daily, and my priest managed to finish off a few more Zul’Drak quests that I had thought I’d need a group for. I only need three more to complete that zone, and I’ll be able to do it the next time I do the Gundrak instance. I’m also now only 30 quests total away from the Loremaster title.

And in Dragon Age I finished off the Lothering quests aside from the ones I have to travel for. Next up I’ll probably try out some of the DLC content, now that I can freely move on the world map.

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By heide, May 2, 2010 10:58 pm

Children’s Week started in WoW today, so I went and did the quests for it on my primary characters. It’s too bad that it takes three years to get all of the rewards for it — it’s the first time for my current main character and the warrior still only has two of the pet rewards now.

Back in Forza 3, I finished off the R3 championship series. After a bit more experimenting, I discovered that I can leave the difficulty on medium and just turn traction control on for the higher-end cars. And, as usual, I did a handful of other miscellaneous series, mostly in the R3 and S classes. The Lambo Miura Concept ’06 is possibly my favourite S-class car now, as it launches easily and is crazy fast. It’s a bit sluggish in turns, but it doesn’t go out of control, at least.

And I finally put some more time into the current major RPG on my back — Dragon Age. I’ve done the initial swamp area and the battle at Ostagar, and am now wandering around trying to raise support for the fight against the darkspawn after being betrayed. I’ve already picked up a bunch of companions, including Morrigan, Alistair, the dog, Sten, and Leliana. So far I’m sticking with Alistair as my ‘tank’, and Morrigan and the dog as damage-dealers, as I don’t have a decent healer yet.

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By heide, April 24, 2010 11:33 pm

Back in WoW, a bunch of us from the guild went on a rampage through Auchindon. I’d been meaning to go there for a while now since I had a bunch of quests in the various wings there, and after we were finished, I managed to clear six spots in the quest log and am now much closer to finishing the Nagrand achievement.

And this is a bonus xp weekend in EQ2, so I played my illusionist alt for most of the day. I managed to gain five levels in both jewelcrafting (up to 48) and my class (up to 43) before the vitality ran out, mainly through questing and fighting in Feerrott. I also managed to find two ebon clusters, one of the rarer tradeskill components that had been eluding me for quite a while — I needed one for a quest for my shaman, and could only find one through a different quest up till now.

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By heide, April 23, 2010 12:28 pm

Not much has been happening in WoW lately, as I’m mostly just doing the dailies. I did finally collect enough Champion’s Seals for the pony bridle, which now lets me access the bank, mailbox, and a vendor from anywhere (once every four hours, anyway) — never again will I be screwed when I go to turn in a quest only to realize that I forgot one of the pieces in the bank. And I also saved up enough cash for the next upgrade to the Kirin Tor ring, though the stat boost was fairly minor. One more upgrade to go now.

Yesterday, in EQ2, we delved in to Solusek’s Eye and completed all of the quests in there. It was kind of annoying in how you get mobbed in certain areas, and have to go really deep through some repetitive areas to get to the target for the final quest, but we were never really in any danger. Some familiar old enemies made a reappearance, like lava duct crawlers, but overall it’s a very different place than it was in EQ1.

And beforehand I managed to finish off a bunch of old quests in Steamfont and the Enchanted Lands, freeing up a fair bit of quest log space.

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By heide, April 16, 2010 12:15 pm

Before I fall behind yet again…

EQ: The Tuesday group just whomped some rats and snakes in Blightfire Moors and then headed off to do another LDoN instance, this time from the Commonlands camp. We managed to complete a hard one fairly easily, no doubt thanks to the mercenaries. I hit level 27, and I’m making some decent cash, so maintaining the mercenary shouldn’t be a problem.

EQ2: This week was called off since two members were unavailable, so I mostly just worked on finishing off old quests. That included the Polished Granite Tomahawk, which I’d left unfinished for quite a while. I finally actually have some breathing room in my quest log.

WoW: I finally hit exalted with the Kirin Tor and could buy the robe from them, and I’d accumulated enough money to buy one of the Kirin Tor rings and one upgrade to it (I still need more gold for the remaining two upgrades). I also got new boots from hitting exalted with the Wyrmrest Accord, a Brimstone Igniter from emblems of triumph, and a few drops from running instances, for a fairly significant gear upgrade over the last little while.

I finally got my Venomhide Ravasaur mount after running the 20 dailies for it, though I’m not sure I’ll use it as a primary mount. Like the hawkstriders, it’s too tall and gets blocked in some arches and doorways.

And finally, I worked on quests a fair bit over the weekend and got the achievements for Netherstorm and Shadowmoon Valley. I think I only have four other zones to finish off now, and only something like 40 quests total. I’ll just need some help with the dungeon and group bits…

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By heide, April 7, 2010 9:19 pm

Tonight in WoW, I managed to gain 14 achievements in a single evening. Most of them came from the Argent Tournament: I’d saved up all the remaining Valiant Seals I needed (100 of them), and gained champion status with the four remaining cities one right after another, for eight achievements. Turning in the last one also got me three achievements for reaching Crusader rank with high enough faction. And then the last three came from finishing off the Noblegarden achievements, once I tracked down a female dwarf and gnome.

Now that I’m a crusader, I can do two more dailies for champion seals, which now lets me get seven seals per day fairly easily (ten if I do Chillmaw and the citadel, too). After a bit of experimenting, I also determined that I can get off two shield-breakers during jousting while the opponent is repositioning, which makes the fights go much faster, so now I can start doing the champion jousting without it being too tedious.

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By heide, April 4, 2010 4:58 pm

The Thursday night EQ2 group spent more time in Lavastorm, this time focusing on the NE portion of the zone. We did a bunch of further quests for the goblins, and I think we’ve now accumulated a few that require us to go into the Temple of Solusek Ro. Maybe we’ll get to that next time.

It was also Bristlebane Day, and chests had a rather odd appearance to them. There were also some quests going on in Enchanted Lands, and I got a familiar-looking Stone of Gygax for my house.

Back in WoW, I’ve been keeping up on my dailies, but I recently realized I can now do the Sunreaver dailies now that I’m exalted with them. So far they’ve been fairly easy quests that grant Champion Seals as rewards, so now I can get 4-5 of them per day instead of just 1-2. It doesn’t look like there’s much to spend them on besides mounts, minipets, and heirloom leveling equipment, though.

We did a few heroic runs as a guild, and I got four new item upgrades in one run of Utgarde Pinnacle, including two drops and two quest items. I lost some mana regen since they didn’t have much (or any) Spirit on them, but the boosts to health, mana, spell power, and haste were well worth it. I completely lost internet access during a Nexus run and didn’t get back on for a good 10 minutes, but made it back just in time for the final boss.

I’ve also started working on Outland quests for the achievements again, and did almost all of Blade’s Edge in one afternoon. There are still a few quests I’ll need help with though, as I can’t quite solo them.

And I played my hunter a bit more, though he’s still only level 18 via the usual Barrens path. I’ve got his engineering skill up to 136 so far, though.