Category Archives: Rift

Monthly Wrapup

It was a good month for games.  I played Battle for Azeroth, and really love this expansion.   It may be the best yet.   All my higher level characters are playing really well.   It’s taking each one long enough to work their way through Freehold in Tiragarde so that I can queue for dungeons.

 I’ve gotten Freehold, Waycrest Manor and Shrine of the Storm with various characters.  Freehold is smoothest, with everyone getting lost in Waycrest Manor, and dying at the Ritualists and  Lord Stormsong in Shrine of the Storm.   Tanks and Healers are a bit cranky.

Everquest 2 was played a bit almost everyday.  In a stressful month, I was thinking of it as “my happy place”.  Now that’s a good thing for a game to be.

I’ve played my newly minted Mystic the most, and she’s at level 17.  She also has 7 gold, which is way more than my level 17 Fury has.   I’m almost thinking you get more looted money and things to sell in the Frostfang Sea area.

My Fury is not getting any money as loot, it’s gross stuff like Canine Saliva.  She’s in the Qeynos/Antonica area.  I just like the little ching ching sound of gold.   Also, it feels as if there is better bank and vendor access in the Frostfang area.  For sure, there are more rugs to be had in Frostfang.   I wonder if they kind of loaded it up when they went Free To Play.

There’s still a little Bruiser Froglock on the Isle of Refuge.  I wonder if I send her to Kelethin if she’s likely to get some new and unusual furniture 🙂

I enjoyed my Steam games and plan to go back in and work on those.  My son recommended the Witcher to me and I have all three of the games.  He’s generally right about what games and classes I’d enjoy playing.

Loved Broken Age.

Curious to see the plot play out in Dear Esther.  

The Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell is pretty funny, in I’m sure an unintended way, as it is so serious in tone.

I logged in to Rift a couple of times, and am set to send my Cleric out adventuring.

It took forever to get ESO to update, but I’m now able to log in and see which character I want to play.

Looking at my GW2 Hunter for a post or two, I think I may back up and try her Personal Story.

 

PlayNotes: Sunday Mixed

Rift

I’ve been out of town this weekend so no playtime till now.  Rift is Sunday’s game.
You’ll recall I had two staircases to try and I went for the down one, had two problematic npcs attack, though I found out tonight it is just the second guy on the lower steps who is a problem.

Figure A Guys on the Steps

Hard for you to see, but they’re there.  I decided to take them head on (note going up the other stairs was a dead end platform), just fight the fight.

First guy goes down easy.

Second guy seems to have disappeared.

Down the stairs, there he is at the bottom.  Target him, NO Target.

Go all the way down to make sure the line of sight is fine, he’s inside the steps.

He can hit me, I can’t touch him.

I run around the corner to check out the room and what other exit there may be.

He follows, but he’s in the wall.  Needer, needer, he says.

I do spot the next doorway but there’s another guy standing there and I’m almost dead.  Then Dead.

Soul Walk, come back right in front of Mr Frisky, run back up the stairs to the starting area.  He doesn’t follow.

Not in the mood right now, but next time in, I’ll have to lure him way upstairs as I somehow did last time and kill him off so I can advance.  Tricky.  This is all odd, I’ve never had trouble of any sort in Rift before.

Everquest 2 Fallen Gate

Made level 10 Friday night so I can get my Punt-Yo-Self Mount.  

I can’t stand the Frostfang Sea area, so I ran to New Halas, through the Spidey Cave, to the travel bell, and voila, Qeynos and my own snuggly apartment.  I’m going to enjoy playing much more now that there isn’t ice and snow and whipping chill winds everywhere.  How I do love sunshine.

Everquest 2 Antonia Bayle

I would like to join the Massively casual guild there, but the person’s mailbox is full, so waiting on that tender moment when my mail goes through.

Into The Rift: Stillmoor

I’ve decided to continue playing Rift with my level 50 Mage as the main character.  Her skills and survivability make her fun to play, plus she has a variety of pets at her disposal.

She’s in the Stillmoor area of Mathosia, which is for levels 45-50.  I had her working in various other areas, so she has not completed the quest lines here, and I’m going to do this area completely then move on.

Whenever I send one character ahead of the others, I like to know the area well.  If I know the dangers and treasures offered, things are simpler for the rest of the characters when they pass through.

One of the things I enjoy about Rift is that each area has a distinct look, character and story line.  Stillmoor has a dark, gothic look, with a storyline involving werewolves.  Not your typical movie monster werewolves, but real people who have tragically been turned into beasts.

At level 50, the upper end of the suggested level for the area, my mage is handling everything that comes her way nicely.  It seems to me I read that after 50 armor becomes much more important to your character.  I’m going to have to up my crafting, questing and maybe raid game (non-existent except in the one (s) which have been converted to Intrepid Adventures). 

Here Comes The Sun: Gaming Goals For 2017

It’s February. Temperatures have been in the 50s and 60s!!!!!!!!!!!  The eternally sunshine drenched virtual lands can’t compare to the real sun, and warmth, and a fresh breeze.  Ahhhh.  The ice is almost completely gone.  We could always get slammed with more snow and ice.  It’s way to early for spring, but garden goals have overtaken game goals in my imagination in response to this late winter’s gift.  I do play year around, but once I can be outside, the time spent is far less.  Maybe I should have some broader, more easily realized goals in the games I play.

I admire the bloggers who post monthly gaming goals, and find them fun to read.  MJ of MassivelyOP just posted a set of gaming goals for her EQ2 playtime for 2017.  Impressive!  It really shows the depth of the game that she can have so many interesting and deep goals for just that single game.

2017 Game Goals

World Of Warcraft 

Get my Dungeon Game back up to snuff

Seriously look at equipping my characters with the best of everything I can make for them to give them a better chance of survival if they’re in a currently “off class” (one which feels nerfed to smithereens).

Continue my entertaining rotation of all characters on two different servers.

Work on as many general Achievements as I can manage, because I haven’t many for as long as I’ve been playing.  It just hasn’t been a goal.

SWGEmu

Get all characters to max, crafters first.  I have been playing this game the most, and the more I play the more I love it, as I always did.

Join the Rebellion with at least one character.  Time to stand and fight.

Elder Scrolls Online

I really need to figure out how to fight effectively with at least one character.  I think I’m doing well then blammo.

Get at least the starter house so my characters have a safe place to snooze and call home.  The freebie one will do.

Secret World

I think what has really held me back here is that I haven’t taken the time to learn the crafting system, oddly enough.  I think that learning it would give me just that bit of an edge.  I don’t mind the combat at all, but of course I could do better at it.

Rift

My beloved Rift!  I just stopped playing once I boosted my Cleric.  So silly, I chose a character whose combat was the most challenging for me, then raised her above the level of any area I am familiar with in the game, and I feel like I should play her, but I don’t wanna.  Tsk.  Best to switch back to the Mage who is almost level 50.

Everquest II

Time to learn this game.  Had some trouble with log ins and then supreme lag the last time I logged in, trying to get my boosted character the level down thingie.  (I should have another cup of coffee, can’t remember what the “down boost” is called).

Lord of the Rings Online

I really need to move my Loremaster along into Moria.  It is my favorite area of the game.  I think this is the game where I would benefit most from joining a guild and getting help with questions and getting grouping opportunities.  So, that’s what I’ll do.  I am pretty picky about guilds though, and won’t wear a guild name over my head that I don’t like, and I need people to be super nice and helpful to players of all levels.  Not so easy to find as you might think. 

With a whole year to work on these, I should be good to go, right?  

Where I Left Them

My plans to rotate each day between games fell by the wayside somewhere along the line, as these things do.  Checking in with them made me want to play each a bit, so perhaps I’ll get my game rotation back.

Reasons You May (Temporarily) abandon a character:

You get stuck with a character and aren’t sure what you want to do next.

Your character is beginning an area you know all too well and sort of dread, and you say, hmm tomorrow.

One of the games just becomes so very interesting all of a sudden, you just want to play it a bit more, and a bit more, and other games and characters don’t get the play time.

It never does happen to me that I don’t want to play anything at all.  There’s always something!

Elder Scrolls Online

I hadn’t been playing as regularly, but I wanted to peek in to try the winter festival.  How odd, not a single decoration in sight anywhere.  Hmmpf.  I decided to just go ahead and play a little and do my next quest.  Running through the world, admiring the scenery and the music, my character froze in her steps and my Anti-virus program popped up.  It’s like 1 am so I sleepily said ok to the anti-virus.
BOOM.  It uninstalled a bunch of files, apparently, and I had to go in an tinker and then reinstall the program.  The servers were down when I last tried to log in.

The Secret World

I left my character just at the start of Innsmouth Academy.  I patched it today and sent her out into the hallowed halls.  I needed to get the combat down pat again before truly venturing out.  Lots of zombie students hanging around.  They all work in packs of 5, annoying to me, since I often prefer to pull one at a time.  Not here you don’t.  I went through a building called The Old Block and picked up quite a few Illuminati artifacts which I haven’t been able to use yet.  I’m using an odd combination of Magic and Pistols.  My inventory is about to run over, and I don’t know if there’s a place nearby to sell things.

World Of Warcraft

Currently up in the character rotation here is my level 82 Shadow Priest.  Hate what they’ve done with the class, no heals and no real dps moves either.  More lil’ worgen.  I’ll find a way.  She’s just gotten to Aviana’s Roost in Hyjal.  Went into Blackrock Dungeon with her just trying to scoot along level wise.  I thought she was doing pretty well compared to a couple from the same server who kept getting lost and dying.  But noo, they booted my poor Priest right before the last boss for not doing enough dps.  Argh.

Lord of The Rings Online

My level 49 Loremaster is working through the quests in Eregion, just outside the gates of Moria.  I love Moria so much and will be interested to see how they changed it since I last went through.  The only criticism I ever had of Moria was that there were too many Goblin camps.  One or two would have done it.  Moria is or was astonishing.  I feel as I did the first time through, I like Eregion, but really, I just want to get into Moria.  Did I mention I love Moria?

EQ II

My Wizard is still in the Commonlands.  I boosted her to 90 on a day when they were generously offering free boosts.  There is a separate post on character Boosts in the works, but should I just keep questing with her overpowered for this area self, because it is still all new to me, or should I move her forward to a level appropriate area and send a different character through these lower level lands?

Rift

My main character here was my Mage, but when I bought Star fall Prophecy I boosted my Druid/Cleric.  Maybe it was a mistake as she was a character who took a long time to kill things, I’ll have to see if she’s a better fighter now.  When you boost a Rift character they choose skills and weapons and Soul Tree choices for you.  We’ll see.

Guild Wars 2

My main here is a Hunter, and you guessed it, when I bought Heart of Thorns I got a boost opportunity, and thought I’d like to do the Elementalist, but maybe not.  These guys brilliantly let you try out the boost on any or all of your characters in a higher level “practice area” before committing to the boost.  Unless a timer was on the process, I can try all four characters.   I had a tough time with this Salamander so, maybe yikes.

Rift: An Intrepid Adventure

I sent my level 48 Mage into an Intrepid Adventure called Hammerknell Fortress.  It is a somehow re-worked raid that can be joined by anyone levels 10-65 via the Instant Adventure interface.

I’ve never raided, and at first I thought it was pretty easy.  Then this big guy popped up:

He didn’t do much damage to me at my distance and though water kept splashing through, it didn’t do any damage or move you around like a wave would.  He was mostly impressive for his size.

Then as we went along some smaller mobs were radiating damage even after they were dead.  Eek.  A Boss called Matron Zamira did me in (and everyone else) a fair few times.  I had to bow out for repairs.  She just cast wave after wave of damage you couldn’t seem to avoid from anywhere in the room.

 

Most interesting.

I was unable to loot most mobs, I didn’t see any reason for it, but I love my loot.   I’ll have to figure out what was going on there.

I may not be ready for raids elsewhere, but I’m sure going to try this one again.

Rift: I Bought All The Rugs…And a Boat

I am now totally invested in Rift, and this isn’t just because I’m logging in daily and rotating characters.

I found myself working on decorating my Faen’s Retreat dimension after some Instant Adventuring last night.  I have the dimension for several characters and am having them all do their decorations a bit differently.

My Breach Chamber has the most furniture, so I thought to borrow some from that and spread it around.  Then I thought, I should make some.  However, lots of the dimension goods recipes require payment gotten from Daily Crafting Quests which I haven’t done in awhile, but now I’m ready to start so I can get all the recipes.

You know how it is, I was in the mood to decorate now, so I went over to the Auction House to see what was available.  You can see a preview of items in a pane on the right.  In the Large Items category there were two ships.  One was affordable so in the box it went.

Then the Household Goods category listed several rugs I didn’t own. 

Ever since SWG I have a fiendishness regarding rugs for my homes.  They really make things cozy.  I purchased a Long Tan Rug,  Worn Brown Rug, a Long Red Rug.  Put them in my homes, then went back to the Auction House and bought every rug that was for sale.

I found I could not only visit my Alts homes, I could drop things there without some extra permissions being given, so I put the various rugs down and hopped between the dimensions with ease, making everything snuggly.

The ship really is big, but it rested in the pond/small lake of Faen’s Retreat and I wonder if I should turn it sideways, and if I can decorate the boat too.

There I was, thinking my homes were shaping up nicely, when wondered if I couldn’t get the Breach Chamber for another character.  I couldn’t recall how I got it, and didn’t see it on the list from the Dimension Engineer who sells these things  (it turns out if you already own a dimension it won’t show up on the list of dimensions that can be purchased).

Searching, I found the site Rift Dimension Gallery, and wow, I have a long long way to go in my decorating.   The site is up to date and the homes and dimensions are spectacular.   There are some wildly creative people out in the cyberverse, making things beautiful.

Rift Monday

Monday is Rift Day on my loosely imagined gaming schedule.   I spent some time with my Warrior and Ranger, mostly questing around the Argent Glade area.

I’m gathering resources like a fiend with both.  How I love gathering professions.  There are little treasures everywhere when you work on them. 

I’m always keeping a sharp eye out for Artifacts as well, those shiny little points of light that when put together will someday reward me with something, I know not what.  I just enjoy looking for them.

My higher level characters are currently just feeding these two potions and Silken Bags and other things I’ve gathered over time.   I’ll get twitchy at some point and send those two into Instant Adventures.

Speaking of, I took both my level 10s into Instant Adventures last Week.  It used to be you’d get shuttled around the Silverwood area and the Defiant low level area (I can’t think of its name) but nooo.  My poor things were sent to adventure in level 50 areas that my high 40s level characters have never seen.

Criminy, there they are, absolute newbies to their classes, with just a few spells/skills to cast trying to keep up with the big guys.  I needed to rest up from the IA’s for a bit after that.

Rift new armor piece (or is it a codpiece?) of the week:

Ode To My Rift Warrior’s Armor

Don’t you wonder sometimes what they’re thinking when they design armor sets?  I suspect they’re just being cheeky some days.  I found myself singing this song:

My Cheeks Are Out,

My Cheeks Are Ouuuut,

I Just Gotta Shout,

Cause My Cheeks Are Out

I’m Feelin’ A Breeze,

Oh Couldn’t I Please,

Have Armor That Goes

At Least To My Knees,

My Cheeks Are Ouuuuut.