Argh, I wrote up a big, long post about EQ tonight, but it got eaten when I hit the Publish button. I’m not retyping it all, so in brief:

– finished anniversary quests, got shiny collapsible roboboar
– found elaborate defiant silk pantaloons for much cheaper than usual in bazaar, important for spell haste to ensure charms land before stun wears off
– 20 AAs banked now, back to leveling, sick of HoH but it’s the only safe, reliable spot I know of for now

I only have one more EQ anniversary event to go now, after a couple more delivery quests and following the party machine, and I couldn’t do it today only because it was on some shared timer with other ones, so I can’t even start it until tomorrow. I figured I’d work on the Silverwing quests a bit more instead, but after spending a while in Droga trying to get a piece to drop, I’m starting to wonder if it’s even worth it and if I might be better off waiting for a higher-level item instead if it’s going to take so much time. There are certainly charms with better total stat bonuses, but that 5 points of mana regen is so tempting…

By this point I had 30 banked AAs, so I spent a few, primarily on Natural Durability (giving me over 600 more hp), the shield block ability, and finally getting critical hits for my spells. It’s only a 2% chance of a crit for now, but I managed to fire one off before too long. Direct damage isn’t really an enchanter’s forte, but it only cost 2 points. I’m down to 12 banked AAs now, but there isn’t really anything urgent to spend them on, so I should get back to leveling soon.

Today was spent on more of the anniversary quests in EQ, of course, this time involving various tradeskills, a bunch of fishing, spreading disease, and making it rain in various zones. I even had to go to a few of the new areas I haven’t been in before, but I’ll have to go back later for a closer look. The fishing quest in particular gave me a pretty good chunk of plat and a couple AAs as a reward, so I might have to repeat that one…

A lot of the quests wind up taking me to or through a lot of the same zones, which makes it tempting to combine them and work on some simultaneously, but that’ll probably make things a bit too complicated to keep track of. And I’m almost done anyway.

And I also got my monk to 48, mainly just so he could start wearing some of the Intricate Defiant Leather armour, so it doesn’t eat up bank space. I had a bit of trouble finding a good zone at first, but settled on the Goru’kar Mesa, where he and his merc could plow through light blues pretty much nonstop.

I knocked off another three of the anniversary quests in EQ tonight, including another series of kill-equal-level-monsters, one where I had to plant seeds in various zones, and another where I had to set fires in more zones. They’re certainly taking me around to places I haven’t been in quite a while.

At this rate it looks like I should be able to complete all of the quests, so that roboboar will soon be mine…

I figured I’d better get around to doing those anniversary quests in EQ, and fortunately there’s a handy guide available, so I started doing them roughly in order (aside from the party machine one, which will take a while since it moves from zone to zone and I have to catch it in all of them).

I managed to get four of them done tonight, two of which were fairly simple and only involved talking to people and using items on them, but the other two involved fights against a series of equal-level enemies in areas where I couldn’t effectively charm, so I wound up having to tediously root-n-nuke my way through them. And it looks like the next one is going to be more of the same… At least having the cleric henchman makes them even possible.

I had 18 AAs banked by the end of the night, but then I blew 15 of them at once in order to get the AA for the pet /hold command. Unfortunately it’s not really what I thought it would be, so that might have been a waste. Oh well…

I headed back to Noble’s Causeway in EQ tonight, but with a particular goal in mind this time: working on the Silverwing quests. I’d picked up a glowing shard in HoH, and the other part of the quest comes from here.

I found an area where there were monsters known to drop the band I needed, but charming them was a bit tougher this time around, since in this expansion they reduced the DPS on charmed monsters (normally they’d hit for over 400, but only hit for 241 when charmed), and they were fairly magic resistant, so charm broke a lot more often. I died once soon after arriving when I got an unlucky charm break just as some spawns were repopping and mezzes were fading.

It was a good spot though, since I could kill the packmaster when it spawned as well, and it can drop the runes needed for the 66-68 spells. I only got one rune, which I turned in to get a, uh, Rune spell, but it’s better than nothing. I might have to come back here and see if I can at least get the 68 charm spell. And I finally got the Silverwing Band I needed, and completed the quest to get a really nice ring that was a substantial upgrade. There are a bunch of other lower-level quests I can do in the same line and can combine them all to get a nice charm, as well, so I’ll have to try that sometime (though that means I’d have to redo this quest to get this ring back).

I spent the rest of the evening back in HoH to burn off my xp bonus period, and I now have over 200 total AAs, with 12 banked right now.

(And speaking of spells, I’m starting to buy some higher-level ones when I see them in the bazaar for cheaper than they’d cost at vendors. It’s just the 66-70 ones that remain elusive since very few people would have spares of them with the way the rune turn-ins work.)

I spent most of today in EverQuest, but this time I felt like finally leveling a bit. I headed off to Halls of Honor to see what the actual level xp is like there, and I was a bit disappointed with the movement at first, as I only got a bit less than a fifth of a blue bubble per kill, versus the 2-3 full blue bubbles I was getting for AA xp. But, it actually started to add up fairly quickly, and by the end of my stretch there I’d gained two levels, putting me at 67. I still need my 66+ spells though, and I’m not finding them in the bazaar and I’d probably need a group to get them from the OoW areas…

I was also pleased to see that the monsters in HoH remained dark blue even at 67, so I think I’ll hold the leveling there for a while and milk some more AAs out of the place. There’s still a handful of them that look important that I haven’t picked up yet, like improving chances of channeling through stuns and reducing the reuse time on Gather Mana.

I also discovered that I’d goofed up a bit — some of the monsters that I’ve been describing as stun-immune actually aren’t; I was just using the wrong stun… I had a lower-level one ready to be fired first since it casts faster, and that’s the one that I kept getting the ‘immune’ messages for. But then I noticed that the description of the second stun says “…works on creatures up to level 65.” The first stun doesn’t say anything like that, and I’d forgotten about the level restrictions, and after switching to the second stun it works on a lot more monsters now. Recovery from charm breaks should be a bit safer now.

Grinding xp in HoH was getting boring, so I struck out exploring again, this time in the Dragons of Norrath areas. They’re connected via Lavastorm, which has also undergone a map revamp (old vs new), which changed things like the positions of dungeon entrances considerably. There’s probably other new stuff there too, but I was just passing through.

It was a good thing I stopped to look at an NPC merchant though, as one of them had an Elegant Defiant Silk Robe for sale that some other player must have dumped on the merchant. I’d been looking for that robe, and it normally goes for 10K+ plat in the bazaar, but the merchant only wanted just over 2K plat for it. Sold! I can’t wear the Elegant Defiant stuff yet, but I now have almost a full set ready for when I hit level 70.

Off of Lavastorm was the Broodlands, which kind of felt like a less craggy extension of Lavastorm. I didn’t see a lot of it though, as I stumbled across a teleporter in the middle of a bunch of pillars and it took me to Thundercrest Isles. It’s an odd little place with a handful of large buildings with an Asian-ish theme, all connected together via walkways and bridges. The monsters here were a nice mix of blues and light blues, so I tried a bit of charming in the inner area. That turned out to be a really bad idea though, as a lot of wanderers started coming by and I was forced to gate out before I got too overwhelmed.

The EverQuest updates have been pretty sparse since lately I’d only been watching the bazaar, looking for good deals on new equipment. I think I’ve milked it long enough though, so tonight I got back to some actual adventuring.

It was the Omens of War expansion’s turn, so I headed to Dranik’s Scar first, but it’s way too low-level and rather plain-looking. Connected to it is Noble’s Causeway, which was a bunch of long, winding paths with an upper and lower part. There were plenty of blue-con murkgliders there, and I charm-soloed them for a little while, but again they have the annoying stun immunity.

I moved on to Wall of Slaughter, a big circular area split in half by a wall in the middle, and a much better job at attempting to portray ominous architecture. My attempt to charm-solo some of the wanderers there ended horribly though, when I got overrun. There were just too many wanderers in that area, and of course they’re all stun-immune as well.

I couldn’t enter one connected zone, and the other led to the Muramite Proving Grounds, which was another maze of corridors that was filled with yellow and red cons, so that’s as deep as I dared go. I went back to WoS and got killed on another charm attempt thanks to them summoning, and I think that’s all I’ll try for now. I’m still missing my level 66-70 spells that drop here, though, so I may have to buy those on the bazaar.

I wound up going back to Halls of Honor and did some charm-soloing there for a while. It’s nice and easy compared to most other areas, and it didn’t take long to get 5 AAs there, though it gets dull after a while. I bought the last two points of Innate Enlightenment, and I’m still capped on INT, but it’s probably time to focus on other AAs for now, though. I also found an earring there that was a good upgrade for me and that must be a new item, since its stats are way too good for that era.

I briefly popped into EQ tonight and did a bit of charm soloing in Barundi, but it turned out to be another area where they’re immune to stuns and mitigate slows, and it wasn’t long before an unlucky charm break led to my demise again (I managed to earn 1 AA point, at least). I didn’t realize there was a zone line nearby that would have made things a lot safer, but I’m not sure I’d want to stick around there anyway.

I stuck my nose into the nearby Ferubi zone, but according to the map it was nothing but a huge series of corridors, and they could see through invis, so that place was right out. The other connected zone was Riwwi, which was another small hub of light blue monsters, and looped back around to Qinimi.

That’s really about it for how far into Gates of Discord I can get without a group or raid, and it’s just not a popular area anymore — it was the newest expansion area when I last played, but now it’s an “old” region that nobody goes to anymore. Barundi is about the only decent charm soloing spot in it, but it’s too much hassle for too little reward.

Next up will be the Omens of War areas, most likely. I’m not expecting any miracles though, since it’s really the other half of Gates of Discord.