Progression Server Announced

Rashere has announced SOE's intention to create a Progression Server. Gameplay will commence in the original world zones, with only original world equipment, spells and character models, and progress through the storyline to Prophecy of Ro.

Since all of the game strat is very well-developed, I bet it that a hardcore guild such as AfterLife or Blood of the Spider will only need about 2 weeks to gear up and open Velious. After that I think it will be another month to open the Planes of Power. Quarm will fall within 4 months after the server goes live. Once the hypothetical guild is geared with Time lewtz, they'll blast through the "uber" expansions very quickly. I'm willing to bet that they'll be in PoR 9 months after the server goes live.

Epics? The real push will be to get the droppable gear. The epics that are earned on this server won't start appearing until progression slows down.

I wonder what the server economy will be like? I imagine that EC, and later Bazaar prices, will be sky-high for years, until enough players get to a high-enough level to trivialize VT and 3rd-tier Elemental gear.

Ding 75!

From IGN: http://tinyurl.com/k255z

"Rashere has confirmed at Fan Faire that the level cap will be raised to 75 with the next expansion.

"There is a rumor of a new starting city as well, but no mention of where that might be located. It makes sense that a new starting city would follow from an expansion release where you can go level from 1- 70 (75 now!) in the same expansion."

Travis "Rashere" McGeathy was the lead designer of at least the last two EverQuest Live expansion packs.

Trumpet 127!!

Early last week, SOE effed up royally by spawning at least 1 Beta-test vendor into Knowledge. Of course, about a zillion people managed to transact business with the vendor before he poofed.

SOE's response to their error was to roll back every EQ character who ever ran by the vendor, much less transacted with him. The roll back was 24 hours into the past. Thousands of folks lost flags, levels, AAs, gear, plat and more.

As you can imagine, the community politely expressed their concern...er...more truthfully, the community let SOE know that there was no way they were going to take this lying down.

SOE realized that this could represent a turn of the tide in EQs subscription numbers. Their 2nd response was VERY interesting: They announced a double-XP weekend. That's right, all earned XP would be modified by 200%! Later on they extended the weekend until 12PM CST on Tuesday!!!! /huggerz SOE

The result? Highpass Hold was filled with 250+ toons at all hours of the day and night while peeps ran the Pickclaw's Revenge monster mission over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over. All of those peeps were dinging levels and AA at furious rates.

I didn't learn of the situation until Sunday morning. Over the next 2 days I ran the MM countless times with my AA slider pegged to the East. I wrapped up all of my Planar Defense and Mitigation abilities, earned Shield Block 3, and got most of the way through the Omens Defense AA before my brain shut down and I fell asleep.

I wonder if we'll ever see a repeat of the double-XP weekend. . . .?

Identity Thieves ZOMG

The EQPlayers database has uncovered the existence of identity theft on an unprecedented scale.



Rangers? Oh. My. God. Why did it have to be Rangers?

Another try...

WOW! It's been 4 months since my last entry. I guess I'll make another try at keeping things up-to-date.

Let's see, in the last 4 months I've dinged level 70, and I now have 87AA which includes most of the PoP defensive and mitigation AAs. Most of my experience since 66 has been earned by doing endless repetitions of the DoD Fairies mission...the quick, 15-minute mission followed by 25 minutes of downtime dovetails nicely with my RL availability. But, when time permits, I forgo the Fairies for a Creator mission or an MPG pickup group.

I've done a lot of shopping in the bazaar, particularly for Radiant Crystals, which have then been used to buy Dragons of Norrath equipment and augmentations. By far my juciest purchase was a Radiant Celestine of Sight, which gives me worn Plainsight (nightvision as strong as Ultravision, and See Invis). Now I don't have to beg Ultravision off every ENC that I encounter.

The result of all this leveling and shopping is that I now have 6.4kHP and 1500AC unbuffed, and I buff to 10.3kHP and 1750AC. Not bad for a casual player's toon who was only 64 and 6.5kHP buffed in August of this year.

I finally completed my Epic 1.0 in a furious blast through The Hole and Plane of Fear with my friend Gbab, a Troll Shaman with Precision Strike. One of many memories from that experience: Cazic Thule popping literally on top of me while I was chasing a fleeing MOB. For some reason I was able to get out of aggro range before he knew I was there. But talk about your heart-attack moments!

And the biggest news is that I'm now Elemental flagged. It seems like it's been forever since my first Manaetic Behemoth event. Big ups to Grave Wisdom for helping me through the progression.

Now, Quarm beckons....

2 weeks already?

Wow, 2 weeks since my last blog! How time flies.

I dinged 64 this week. /gratz me, I'm now within spitting distance of being as ubah as the most ubah players in late 2002, when Planes of Power was released {grin}. Level 63 was 100% raid XP, which is why it took so long for me to ding 64.

Planar Progression continues...in the last 2 weeks GW and our allies have killed 3 of the 5 Sol Ro Minis - Xuzl and Rizlona remain. I'm now 4 kills from the Elemental Planes - Bertie, Xuzl, Rizlona and Mithanial Marr will face my blade in the weeks to come.

Rumpus in the Hole

GW stormed The Hole this Sunday afternoon. We took 2 full groups. It was funny how quickly we were able to drop mobs on the front end of the zone, and sickening how dangerous things became after we entered the old city.

We won ENC and SHM Epic 1.0 drops, but my PAL Epic 1.0 drop eluded us. Guess we'll have to go back for that yellow-bellied Keeper of the Tombs when he wakes up from whatever sleep he's been sent to.

For icing on the cake we took down Echo of Nortlav and Guardian of the Seal. The Guardian gave us a real run for our money, including a full wipe when we our tactics laxed during our first attempt at making him dead. For a 2-group raid, he's one mean mutha if you're not on your toes.

Thanks to Gretha Vangrath of GW for leading the charge...