Yesterday I tried out another build in D2 that I haven’t done before, a fire elementalist druid. Unfortunately this looks like it’s going to be one of those builds that’s a real pain in the ass to play at low levels since you need to save nearly all your skill points for higher-level skills and synergies, leaving you extremely weak early on. This one might wind up on the Pile O’ Abandoned Characters.
Today I just needed to kill some time while waiting on some OS upgrades on another system, so I got in a bit of Hellgate: London, finishing off a couple more quests but not really getting anything interesting or moving anywhere new.
I also popped into EQ and fiddled with monster shrouds for a bit. They’re kind of neat in that they let you transform into a monster, of a level of your choice between 5 and whatever your character is at. It lets you quickly try out different classes at various levels, but it’s not a full replacement for your main character — you have barely any equipment, can’t wear regular armour and weapons, you don’t get the same spells as the real class, you don’t earn xp, and you have to unlock other types of monsters by killing a whole bunch with ones you’ve already unlocked. It’s an interesting momentary diversion, anyway.
As I suspected, I could not resist Diablo II’s clutches for long, and now I’m trying a ‘skelemancer’, focusing on amassing an army of skeletons. I’m also playing it on hardcore mode, where death is permanent, for a bit of extra spice. It does really affect the way you play, since now you have to focus on survival above all else, but the necro is a pretty easy class for that to begin with. Still, one careless moment is all it could take…
I’m up to about halfway through Act 2 Normal so far, at level 20, and I’ve managed to find three uniques so far. I’m only actually using one of them, an amulet that adds a lot of fire resist. One other was a sabre that isn’t useful to me, and the third was a voulge that my merc could use, but won’t, because it has the annoying make-enemies-flee effect on it. I’m going to have to start making mule characters soon…
I only played Diablo II for a little bit tonight, getting to the inner cloister, before realizing that I don’t really like playing a javazon that much. I could always go for one of the reliable old standbys, like a summoning necro, but I probably shouldn’t be wasting too much time on such an old game anyway…
I also killed some time with the newly released Spore Creature Creator. My designs are fairly crude so far though, compared to a lot of others:
More after the cut.
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Despite all of the new (and even not-so-new) games I still have yet to finish, tonight I slipped back into the clutches of an old friend: Diablo II.
A new ladder season started yesterday, so it was a fresh start for everyone, taking some of the sting out of having forgotten to refresh my characters and losing them. I’m trying a javelin-based Amazon this time, since it’s one of the builds I haven’t tried yet, though I’m not actually using javelins yet since I have a pretty spiffy mace and haven’t put too many points into the javelin skills yet.
I ended this first day at the outer cloister of the monastery in Act 1, at level 13. There are already people in the 80s on the leaderboards, but I’m guessing they haven’t exactly gotten a lot of sleep lately…
Today was mainly a maintenance day, as I patched Diablo II and set it up to take advantage of the CD check removal, replaced Stardock with Impulse, upgraded Firefox, and tried to clear out some space on the C: drive.
Impulse is nice, but it looks like they won’t be accepting tokens (of which I still have 7 left) for new games from here on, so I’m going to have to find something to spend them on out of the old catalog.
Having enjoyed DiRT a lot, I bought GRID on Steam a few days ago, but haven’t really had a chance to do much with it besides set up the controls and other options. I’m liking what I’m seeing so far though, as there’s a broader variety of racing than I initially expected, including some open wheel cars, the Sarthe circuit and a Le Mans event, and various LM prototype cars.
The demo had made me a bit hesitant, since the physics seemed a bit weak and the AI acted like psychos in some corners, but I can overlook that if there’s enough breadth to the game and a decent career mode. The latter sounds much improved over previous games in the ToCA series, with a more sensible progression, team dynamics, earning money through a goal-based sponsorship system…
I popped into EQ again tonight, but only to do a bit of shopping. Most of the good items in the bazaar were well out of my price range, since I haven’t exactly been earning much money lately, but there were a few lucky bargains. For just over 1000 plat out of the 8000 total I had, I managed to replace four of my weakest pieces of armour, for a net increase of 350 HP (a 13% increase), 282 mana, 21 AC, 15 INT, and 20 charisma. Unfortunately I’m capped on INT at the moment and will need to earn some more AA points before I can unlock a higher cap and actually use those extra points…
There’s a promotion going on now where returning EQ and EQ2 players can play for free for the next couple months (and trial accounts too, from the sounds of it), and I figured I may as well pop back into it for a bit.
I sold off some junk I was carrying around, and decided I may as well finally get around to processing the claimable items and veteran rewards I’d been accumulating. You get them for purchasing expansions or subscribing for a certain number of years, but I’d never gotten around to actually assigning them to a character, since I wasn’t sure if maybe I’d want them on an alt or something. I finally just stuck the major ones on my main enchanter, though of all of them, the only really important one is a self-resurrect ability. It’s only usable once a week, but it still means having to go begging for a res less often.
I also got a taste of just how out-of-date my gear is. Compare my current gloves on the left with the pair on the right that were being offered in trade chat (click for big):
I visited a few old places, and Qeynos was the same as ever and I was the only person there. I went on over to Erud’s Crossing, where I discovered that the Kerrans on the island there had somehow shrunk over the years…
Firiona Vie and Karnor’s Castle were also the same, though I was a bit surprised to find some people actually in Karnor’s. Freeport is a radically different city now, having been redone a few years back, but I don’t think it’s for the better. It’s too big and twisty now, and the graphics aren’t really *that* much better, with way too many perfectly flat surfaces and angles still (the rock texture looks really fake when you get closer).
And just for kicks, I took the boat to the Ocean of Tears, which has apparently also been redone. The boat’s a lot faster now, too.
I missed most of the later expansions, so I’m sure a lot of new zones have been added. Looking at the atlas, I can see the Buried Sea zones off of Toxx Forest, a bunch of new ones in Northern Antonica, off of Crescent Reach, a bunch off of the Lavastorm Mountains, a small handful in Faydwer, a couple in the southeast of Antonica, off the desert, and a bunch of new Planes, which will almost certainly be too high level for me.
Maybe I’ll get around to checking out some of those new zones, as soon as I figure out which ones are within my level range. And maybe I’ll go revisit a bunch of the older zones and put together a little travelogue of nostalgia…
I finished off the night with some quest grinding in Hellgate: London. I hadn’t really intended to do much in it, but I discovered that the path to Broker was fairly short and easy on this run, so I figured I may as well finish off as many of his quests as possible. Normally doing them is a pain because he’s in the middle of a zone two zones away from a station, so you can’t get to him quickly, and by the time you’re ready to return to complete the quest, there’s often respawn.