MMO Mania

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…

M-m-m-megaachievement!

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.

Turbo EQ

Last night was another EQ1 night, and we started out in Crescent Reach again with bumping off a bunch of undead. There was apparently a quest for it, which I had failed to pick up, but it was good xp anyway.

After we got done/bored of that, we headed to Everfrost and did an LDoN adventure to rescue a hostage. It had been a long time since I’d done an LDoN instance, so I was fuzzy on the details of how they worked, but we ripped through it with plenty of time to spare.

The xp was also pretty good there, and I ended the night at level 22, a whole six levels higher than before. That’s definitely a lot faster than I remember from when I played my enchanter way back when…

We Are The Champions

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.

Kitty!

Not much special happened on my priest tonight, as I just did the usual dailies. I played my hunter a bit more and got him up to level 16 though, running through the usual Barrens quests, and also managed to tame the named white lion you encounter as part of one quest. It’s the only chance you get, and I’ve got him now.

Unfortunately I’m rapidly running out of stable slots, and the last two will be a bit expensive to purchase…

Vacation

I was out of town for a few days and didn’t get much gaming done, but there are a few other things to catch up on:

EQ2: We continued questing in Lavastorm, finding some new quests and completing a few for the goblins there. Oddly enough, completing quests for them lowers a faction rating rather than raising it, and we can’t buy their rewards until we get our faction low enough.

EQ1: We met up in Crescent Reach and did some more of the gathering quests there. They’re kind of annoying since they require drops that everyone in the group needs to collect separately, which can take a while. Ah well, I got my beastlord to level 16 at least.

WoW: I worked on quests in Outland for a bit, getting the achievements for three of the zones, but there’s still a lot left to go in the others. I tried to solo Sethekk Halls, but it’s a lot tougher with my priest than it is with my warrior. Otherwise, I’ve just been doing the dailies, slowly getting towards crusader status with the tournament. I did finally get the polar bear from the frostmaiden daily, so that’s one less thing to worry about.

I also created a couple new characters, a druid and a hunter. I haven’t played the druid much, but I’ve gotten the hunter to level 13 and picked up Mazzranache as a pet. I think I’ll stick with using a scorpid for now though, as they’re tougher tanks.

Five

After working through Uldaman, Dire Maul, a few other miscellaneous quests, and a whole bunch in Silithus that I’d previously missed, I’m down to five quests to go for the Loremaster of Kalimdor achievement. I’m still not sure where I’m going to find those five, though I know I could get four out of the centaur quests in Desolace. I’d prefer not to have to though, since that means a lot of faction grinding to reverse my current alliance…

And in Everquest news, another group of us from a forum have started a regular group in EQ1. On Sunday we made it through the tutorial (I took a Vah Shir beastlord), and today we did a bit of questing in Crescent Reach and then explored Blackburrow. I doubt I’ll stick with this one though, as I’ve got too damn many MMOs going already.

Blowing My Travel Budget

Today was yet more questing in WoW, of course. I finally got up to neutral with Timbermaw Hold, which let me complete a few more quests there. I found a few more in Razorfen Kraul and Razorfen Downs, even though I’d finished them before. Maraudon also had a few I’d missed, and then I wenyt to Feralas and Un’Goro to finish off a handful of zone quests, including the ‘Linken’ and ‘Larion and Muigin’ quests.

I’m down to 56 quests left for Kalimdor, though I’m scraping the bottom of the barrel looking for them now. I still have to do Dire Maul, and I’m hoping there’s a bunch in Silithus and that some of the unfinished ones in EK will lead to steps in Kalimdor.

A Hot Time In The Old World

On Thursday our regular EQ2 group picked up a couple more HQs, though we couldn’t get very far into them, learned the Druzaic language, and then headed off to Lavastorm. It’s a much more impressive-looking but confusingly-laid-out zone compared to its EQ1 incarnation, and it took us a while to figure out how to get to an NPC we needed. We’ve started the quests there and we’ll surely be back.

And in WoW I’m now down to 102 quests left to go for the Loremaster of Kalimdor, after finishing off a bunch in Tanaris, Zul’Farrak, and Thousand Needles. Still a bunch left to go, though, and they only get harder to find…