I’d been trying for the past week and a half to get the squashling pet on my warrior, and after getting it on a couple of alts instead, I finally lucked out and got it today. And if that wasn’t enough, I hatched my egg from the Oracles and got a green proto-drake mount. It’s not any faster than my current mount, but it’s much rarer and more impressive-looking.
Last night was mostly spent in EQ2, preparing for the group by gathering some resources and making a big pile of backpacks. They’re only 6-slot, but it’s better than the nothing you start with and much cheaper than buying them.
I also met up with the guy organizing the group, got invited to the guild, and got elevated so that I can invite the others as I see them. Unfortunately the guild bank is almost full, so I can’t dump the extra collection items I have in it yet. Maybe I’ll have to relieve the bank of some of its burden…
I’ve only moderately twinked my shaman so far, with some leftover junk from my enchanter. Behold, the Oven Mitts of Woe!
Today was mainly spent in EQ2, soloing on my Illusionist character. I made it through pretty much all of the Timorous Deep newbie quests, so they won’t be as big a surprise when my shaman does them with the group, but at least the rewards will be different. That got him up to level 15, and I also went through the tradeskill tutorial, getting him to level 11 in crafting. The best thing he can make right now is 6-slot backpacks, since containers are still pretty scarce at this point. Not even my bank’s shared slots are filled with packs yet.
I also popped into EQ1 briefly, just out of curiosity, and apparently there are some Halloween quests going on. I did a simple one where I collected mushrooms in Toxx and got an earring that summons a sporali guardian. Not terribly useful, but it was something new to do.
Although our EQ2 group doesn’t start until next week, I spent a bit of time preparing by doing collections (I have six to be turned in now), and made a few other characters and leveled them up a bit. I think I’m actually going to go with a shaman for my main character, to get the group a healer, and I never really played one before even back in EQ1. My enchanter will be my soloing character for non-group days.
Today I also finished off Machinarium, an adventure game by the same guys who did the Samorost games. It’s the story of a little robot separated from his girlfriend, the thugs that harassed him, and a plot to blow up a tower, but it’s all revealed in-game without any words at all. It’s fairly standard use-everything-on-everything adventure fare, but the solutions are a bit tricky in some places and I did have to resort to the hint system a few more times than I would have liked.
And also, back in WoW, I lucked out and found the final book of Arcane Magic I was missing just minutes before a server restart, right after I woke up this morning. I’d picked up the previous seven books fairly casually, but this last one took a few sessions of waiting around before I finally got it today. And for all that effort, I got…an elemental pet. Nothing useful, but I seem to be addicted to collecting pets…
There hasn’t been much to say about WoW lately since I’ve mostly just been doing the Hallow’s End dailies. I’m still missing a lot of masks and the squashling pet on my warrior, but it’s really a matter of pure luck. I also got my mage up to 32 just finishing off the quests around the Hillsbrad area, but I think I’m going to leave him there for now because…
…I’m getting sucked back into EverQuest 2. A bunch of us from a forum are going to try to get a regular weekly group going, so last night I spent some time creating a new character (another kitty enchanter) and getting him to the Timorous Deep newbie area. We haven’t really decided on roles yet though, so maybe I’ll try a cleric instead. Someone else in the group also wants to be an enchanter, and I don’t really want to do a melee class after so much time on my warrior in WoW. It doesn’t officially start until next week anyway.
The major recent event in WoW was the arrival of Hallow’s End, so of course I had to go and rack up a bunch of the associated achievements. Some of them just depend on blind luck based on what you get from the treat bags, though, so it might take a while to get them all.
My mage is also up to level 30 now, hunting around the Tarren Mill area. I’m kind of torn between leaving him there and picking him back up when Cataclysm arrives, or continuing on to at least Outland so that I do Cataclysm from the start with a completely new character instead…
I mostly played my mage in WoW last night, getting him to level 28 and finishing off most of Stonetalon Mountains.
But the real action was on my warrior, where a convergence of pets finally got him the 50-pet achievement. It was a bit sooner than expected thanks to the unexpected arrival of a penguin in the mail for doing the battle.net conversion, finding another alligator reward in a fishing daily, and the hatching of the Jubling egg. That still left me one pet short, so I bought a mechanical toad off the AH, netting the achievement and the reward of a skunk pet. That’s five pets in one night with hardly any effort needed…
There’s another reward at the 75 pet mark, but that one will be tougher. I’ve already got all the easy ones, and although I know of another 28 or so pets I could get, it would cost a fortune to buy them off the AH.
Though I intended to continue on in Gothic tonight, I wound up spending most of my time in WoW, of course. I did make a good amount of progress though, getting my mage to level 27 and, more importantly, raising his enchanting skill to 230. I’ve run out of essences and dusts though, so from here on it’s going to be more expensive and/or slower…
Reminded of it by a forum post, I fired up Animal Crossing: Wild World on my DS for the first time in ages. As expected, the place was overrun with weeds, but other than that, it was pretty much as I left it. I hooked up an old 802.11b router so I could connect to WFC, and maybe I’ll catch up on a few of the online gifts, if they’re still giving them out.
I also started The Dark Spire for the first time. It’s supposed to be an old-school, hardcore dungeon crawler, and it certainly feels like it so far. I only just made it past the character creation, but that retains the nostalgic old process of picking your race, class, and rolling for stats for each member of your party.
Since I’m trying to wind things down in WoW anyway, I figured it was about time to embark on something I’d meant to do for quite a while: working through whole series of games. And with Risen just recently released, I may as well do the Gothic series first (Risen isn’t technically part of it, but it’s very similar and by the same developers). This could take a while though, as they’re all fairly lengthy games…
I picked up Gothic 1 from GOG a while back, and it’s definitely hard to get into at first. The 3D graphics are really showing their age and the interface is just bizarre. The mouse only controls the camera and nothing else (there isn’t even a mouse cursor), so you have to use weird keyboard combinations, like Ctrl-Forward to activate things and talk to people, strafe left and right to move between columns in the trade screen, etc. It takes some getting used to, but I think I’m getting the hang of it.
So far I’ve been dumped into a valley sealed under a magic dome, with the job of delivering a letter to the mages. Of course it’s not that easy — I have to join a camp, work my way up through the ranks, and so on just to be able to get close to the mages. I’m in the Old Camp right now, trying to impress people so that they’ll promote me within the ranks.