Tuesday, November 29, 2016

Winter around Norrath

It's actually a graphical glitch, but it coincided with the change of weather in real life, so thought these were quite appropriate with the approach of Frostfell.

Antonica:


Nektulos Forest

Tuesday, November 15, 2016

Back in Everquest II

Interesting year for MMO's, in my humble opinion.  

World of Warcraft did an excellent job with the latest expansion, but something - I don't know what - just kinda fell flat for me.  I stopped playing at the end of September.

Fortunately The Secret World had just ended it's month long challenge and the Samhain event was right around the corner.  So, kept busy with the gang there. But I'm sooooo ready for new content in TSW and it looks like there won't be any until 2017.


For some reason, I decided to go check my EQ2 characters (I haven't played since 2011 and not seriously since 2009!), but logged in anyway.  EQ2 always keeps your houses, and I can dabble with redecorating for hours.  There are some amazing houses and talented people that come up with wonderful ideas - EQ2 Design Gallery,  EQ2 Decorators,  EQ2 Designers,  EQ2 Traders - show many of the creative genius in EQ2.


It was surprising - yes I know time flies...., buuuut, Star was approaching her 10th birthday in December.  She was still level 70 (that's how long ago I played her!), so I thought why not see if I can get her to 100 before she's 10, just for kicks.

Little did I know, I'd get sucked back in - very happily - to my first MMO and the one that has always been the benchmark against which all others have been measured.  The amount and quality of content still amazes me.  There are apparently over 8,000 quests, crafting, achievements, collections, battlegrounds, live events, 'guide' events, a customizable UI (that newer games still can't touch), 26 classes, 21 races, 9 crafting professions (3 secondary), in game games, and so much more!

So did I resub, oh yeah!  Unsubbed from WoW (I'll likely go back at some point - found of those characters too!), but I think EQ2 and TSW will be it for awhile.  Although I did promise that I would go do the past year of SWTOR and spend some time in ESO at some point in 2017.


Since mid-October I've been "organizing" the gang and adding a few new faces - sos I finally have ALL crafting professions (tradeskills) represented.  I found out, I had somehow at some point, purchased extra character slots so have 14 total, so saved some names/races/class combos, but I'm only concentrating on the nine that are crafters too.  Some person in general chat mentioned they had 23 characters! Yikes!! But as they're are achetypes, but each class does play somewhat differently, I may work towards one of each. Maybe!  I actually want to reroll a character on the time-locked (progression) server to experience the game as it unfolded.


Kunark Ascending launched today - the 13th expansion - aimed towards the level 100 characters.  It's received rave reviews in Beta, so hopefully it will be a good thing.

For my gang, back to leveling and crafting.  I have an instant 100 character slot, but as I haven't actually played the 73-100 zones, I'm going to do that first.

It feels awesome to be back in Norrath!