Another Sort of Wish Fulfillment

Because I have a sick sense of humor, the comment spam that I get can be very entertaining. For example, I just deleted a comment from my post "Wish Fulfillment", where I talk about participating in a fleet battle.

The comment was about another sort of wish fulfillment:

My Girl friend just broke up with me and I have uploaded every nude PIC I have of her to the net. Just go to[...]

New Acheivement Structure

After running around doing "to and fro" quests and just getting a look at the new expansion, I tried fighting things.

Very quickly, I got into a bit of trouble and I reached for Peace of Mind, an AA ability from the Void expansion. Peace of Mind adds a damage proc to every hostile action that anyone in my group does, so it's kind of like overdrive. I Clicked on the button (which was a macro, or I'd have noticed that it was grayed out.) and nothing happened. Click again, still nothing. Zuh? After I revived, I remembered that it was an AA ability and they've all been reset, because they've been reorganized.

When you do this with your characters, be careful. Many things in all three trees are similar, but not the same. For example, the very first point that Enchanters put into the Enchanter tree grants them Mana Flow, an ability that transfers power to a raid friend. It's still there. However, you can put up to 9 more points into Mana Flow, and each point does nothing to improve the ability, but instead grants you 4 points of Intelligence and Stamina. The stat-granting abilities that used to sit just under the first point on that tree are gone. All gone.

Phritz, Karaya, Ratta, Lunna, and Heroh also were on last night looking at the expansion. And there was some discussion that the effect that your characteristic, Strength, Dexterity, Stamina, Intelligence, and Wisdom, have on gameplay has been altered. Rollover text on these in the Persona window seems to indicate that, for example, Dexterity is the primary stat for everything a Brigand (Mauser) or a Troubador (Phritz) does. And the stat buff portion of the AA lines have been greatly reduced or eliminated.

Before, Int increased spell damage, even if you were, say, a troubador, and Strength increased combat art and melee damage, even on characters such as Inquisitors. Has this changed? Players have used this as an additional build option, making strong melee characters out of Inquisitors, building Strength on Assassins and Brigands, and boosting Int on Troubadors and Furies for added spell damage.

I have yet to see any real item drops from the new expansion, but this seems an important question. Long ago, the theory was to boost STR for defenders, DEX for scouts, INT for mages and WIS for priests. But then we realized what the stats controlled and how we could use that to make characters that were more effective.

This definitely deserves further study and experimentation. It's quite possible that we are in for a round of relearning how to build and equip characters. But that's fun, right?

Sentinel's Fate, Redheaded Edition

Having preordered Sentinel's Fate, Mauser and I eagerly logged in last night to get a first look at EQ2's latest expansion Sentinel's Fate. And it looks great!

According to the blurb in the box (which I preordered from Amazon), I needed to go to a wizard spires to get to the Sundered Lands, first zone of the new expansion and "Odus". So I ported to the guild hall, used the bell to the Nek Forest docks, took the griffin to N'Marr's Ascent, got distracted by chatter on guild voice chat, took the griffin back to the docks, and jumped off by the spires. There was a portal there within the spires. I took it and found myself on Spire Island, beneath the biggest honking spires I've seen in all my days of Everquesting. Bigger than the ones in North Karana I used to spend so much time waiting under.

This is not a small expansion.

The first city I came to is Paineel. It seems that it's the only city left from Odus. There are those there who still follow the Tranquil, but they are at peace with the other residents of Paineel. (Who don't think of necromancy as particularly evil, mind you.) Anyway, Paineel is affixed to a gigantic chunk of earth and rock that is floating in the sky, much like Kingdom of Sky.

Only bigger. A lot bigger.


The whole expansion feels this way. I didn't spend much time in EQ's Paineel, but my memories were of cramped spaces and narrow corridors. A cliff path led up to it from Toxxulia Forest, and a small doorway led out to a desolated plain with crawly things and ghosts in it. The crawly things and ghosts are still there, and so is Toxxulia forest. But there's lots of just empty space. Anyone who has studied art for long will be able to tell you about the power of empty space, and it's here in spades. Don't take this as a complaint, there's plenty to do, and it isn't all that hard to get to. It's just that it doesn't feel cramped the way MMO's so often do.


In fact, there are teleportals and flying saucers, and even the largest elevator known to Elvenkind (Redheaded subgenus). And you do have your mount/run speed buff, don't you? (Yes, Felicia, that is an elevator over there to the right that my fabulousness is gracing I'm standing on.)

Which reminds me, there's a character that you meet in Spire Island. She's a high elf, and obviously cute, but a bit high strung, insecure and redheaded. She wanted me to go meet people for her because she's too shy to do it herself. Her name is Felice Adae.

It's just a coincidence, right?

She's so cute. I wonder if she'd date me?