Sorry, I’ve been out for awhile, but I been playin!

Yah, I quit blogging and went hardcore to levelling. Now I’m 80, and in a lvl 80 raiding guild.

Some of the blogosphere was a little right about the game missing some 50-80 content, which is only about half right. While they certainly are missing some content, after I hit 80 I noticed that a lot of the quests I was completing just by camping gear in Onyx (think, Lower Guk) was giving out massive xp. I saw a lot of people doing the last 70-80 grind in Onyx, and don’t forget that lvl 80 people CAN mentor you up to 79 and you can do the first 2 levels of the dungeon without a full group of 80s. (I don’t recommend the 3rd level though, I still get raped there)

My housemate quit playing though, probably because he thinks F-com nerfed the crap out of his Barbarian. I personally think he thought his Barbarian was one thing, when it really was another.

I’m not sure really, but it seems like the barbarian should be an aoe dps class. In reality, it seems like Barbarians fare better as a CC melee class, disabling or stunning monsters while doing about the same dmg as a Warrior that is Pole-Arm specced (which isn’t too shabby dps)

 

So, I’ve been also working on using a 2 Wiimotes to play Age of Conan. If you want, check out my other blog that I update more often at http://wiimoteaoc.wordpress.com

 

After guild hopping to a few different guilds, I finally found one that actually had 40-50 members online that are lvl 80. They raid a few nights a week, and I’ve already gotten my Vistrix cloak from killing the Dragon/Demon, and I’m also flagged for Tier 2 raids in the Citadel of the Black Ring (I think). The visuals of the raid monsters was fairly impressive, Vistrix flies in from a hole in the ceiling in a snow covered cave.

 

Just thinking about it, in all EQ, did I ever see a dragon actually fly? Or just stand in one place breathing fire/ice/electricity/poison/puppies and occasionally swiping his claws. It was cool that they added that little bit there with him flying in.

 

With that being said, let the pics commence!!

(once I upload them to Flickr)

To Stygia, and back, and then to Stygia again…

Yeah, so I had some fun in Stygia, killed some statues that came to life, set a topless girl free, killed a demon (but got no credit for it), got a horsie, and a shield that doubles as a surfboard.

 

Oh yeah, and I’m lvl 52.

 

Yes, I’ve been a busy boy, but that is what happens when you aren’t having people visit you every friggin weekend because they miss you… that’s not in reference to anyone specific or anything…

 

Also, I bought and watched BOTH Conan movies, and they’re not too shabby!

 

Commence the pics!

The evil statue guy, and me smacking him.

Just a pic I thought was cool.

Oh noes! Someone lost a head!

Boobies!

And with that done…I’m out~!

And the adventure continues!

So as I slowly crawl closer and closer to 50, I decided to switch things up and check out Stygia for a while. Stygia is a desert land, fairly reminiscent of ancient Egypt or Persia.

AoCWiki describes Stygia as:

 

The desert kingdom of Stygia, possibly the most infamous nation in the Hyborian mainland, is the birthplace, home, and wellspring of the Priesthood of Set the serpent god of darkness. The entire kingdom is ruled by the clergy, with the closest devotee or disciple of Set having the single most influential hand throughout the Stygian territory. From the coast of the Western Sea to the shores of the River Styx, the power of Set’s snake-worshipping acolytes is supreme.

 

 

And that is pretty accurate I’d say. So, until I put up my new Screenshots of Stygia, I will relay some pretty pictures I took while in Aquilonia and Cimmeria (my homeland). There should be some new pictures of my horse, since I’m now 40 and I’m saving my 3 gold I need for it.

 

Without further ado, here is my gallery:

Thules by Cimmeria

Just a frontal pic taken in Cimmeria, outside the starting city.

The path to Old Tarantia

Talking to a guy who takes me to Old Tarantia in Aquilonia.

Running around Old Tarantia

Running around Old Tarantia.

Ready for combat!

Ready for a fight….

mmmmmm....tasty frogs

Frog is a common dish in Old Tarantia, it turns out.

Off goes his head!

Beheading the kidnapper of Princess, the dog you see on the pedestal.

Shunnnn the non-believer! Shuuuuuuu-nnnnn

Looks like someone got in trouble!

Damn Alchies

Those alcoholic nobles, and the women that adore them….

Brains!

Local necromancer, and his posse.

Ok, so that is it for now. Maybe I’ll post my Stygia pics later.

Cheers

It’s been a while…

Uh ohs

Yeah, and does anyone wonder why? Well I’ll tell you…

 

I bought Age of Conan….

 

The game freakin rocks, and I’m not going to repeat a post I posted somewhere else so it’s time for a little copy-paste action.

 

Reasons I love it so far:

1.) Combat System
2.) Shiny Graphics
3.) Immersion (not sure if this is something you can pinpoint)

Let’s just say, being in my room, with 7.1 Surround, a 47″ HDTV, graphics on full, and the lights off, it’s one of the first times I FEEL like I’m in ‘the world’ the second I sit down.

Then again, I’m coming from Everquest 1 lol, and I was able to immerse myself in that world with it’s buggy content and shitty graphics for 6 years.

The reason I switched to WoW was because there are just MORE people in it, it’s more social, but the cartoony shit and the rounded lumps that they try to pass as mountains I could do without.

This is one of the first games that when I play, my dog sits on the couch and watches it. He freaks out when he hears wolves behind us, and woofs protectively to warn me sometimes, which is hilarious.

I mean, I’m not sure if it gets really bad/buggy at later levels, but I can’t imagine it being as FUBAR as Everquest is, and I can’t imagine it getting any less immersive. Some of the quests are annoying, but I can see them tweaking that no prob.

Also, I noticed that I’m getting new fatalities at higher levels. It’s really surprising, like most games you attack a mob and watch it’s health go down….with AoC I barely ever pay attention to it’s health, I’m too busy countering moves, dodging, guarding, using combos, and then all-of-a-sudden I do this little turn-around move and lop of this guy’s head!

It’s a nice surprise, and much better than just Mob_A execute Death_Animation_002

Also, the demon’s are scary as shit, necro players run around with these armies of corpses padding alongside them, which are pretty disgusting looking.

Gross...and shiny

 

When you attack monsters, or people, or whatever, blood draws from every hit. And when you rest after a long fight, your character leans over to catch his breath, stretches, does a little mini-warmup…. all while you’re getting your health/stamina back (although it is funny watch a group of people go through these animations after a fight, it looks like a workout video)

 

Sklutch!

Oh, and when you are walking, the ground… you walk on snow, you hear it, boards … you hear it, grass goes crunch under your feet, and gravel makes this little grinding noise. There are sooooo many sounds of what you are walking on.

Hmmm, the mountains…look strikingly real, with snow on the top.

 And another big thing, as the sun moves, the shadows move. I have seen the sun fall behind a mountain, and watched the shadow envelope my character. It’s simply amazing.

Of course, I’m sure you’ve also heard people go on about the water. It Looks Real. Like REALLY real. I don’t know how to explain it, but rivers move, and collide, and you can SEE the current. Swimming underwater is kind of annoying though. But also there are like TONS of different water styles, and when you go swimming the water moves around your body.

Ok, gonna stop there, but seriously you should try it if you have a system that can handle it. It definitely is more interactive, and you can’t sit there and play with a beer in your hand unless you are running straight for a while in a ’safe’ area, and forget doing anything else while you are in combat. I’m interested to see what raids are like later.

Give me a hollar, I’m Thules on Thog (yes I play PVE because PVP servers are freakin annoying, and there are a lot of PVP zones even on PVE servers)

oh snap, poppa’s got a brand new bag

That’s right ladies and gents:

 

Not only did I reach 66, and get half-way to 67 last night with some new Add-ons (I’ll go into my Add-on review on a later date) but earlier this week I ordered some upgrades to my compy!

 

BEHOLD!

 

CPU!!!!

 

MOBO!!!!

 

MEMORY!!!

 

 

The upgrade in memory speed itself should be amazing, let alone the processor/motherboard upgrade, and the possibility of going SLI as well. This should be what I need to run AoC at a decent level (might need to get a new video card in a little bit).

 

Also, last night I was running an instance with some guys, and some shoulders dropped that were blue. Everybody went ‘pass’ and I thought it was an upgrade for me, so I asked first if it was ok, and then went ‘need’

 

After the instance was done, two of the toons started bitching at me and sending me random /whispers about how I was a shitty tank and a loot whore…..

 

Seriously? I told them that next time maybe they should be a bit more constructive with their criticism and help me out DURING the instance instead of bitching about it like children afterwards. If people have an issue with what someone does, then you should get some balls and speak up. It’s funny thinking that some evil blood elf lvl 70 hunter can’t grow a pair and speak his mind in front of people. Either way, I put them on a big fat IGNORE stamp, but THEN he proceeded to log on HIS ALTS and continue to spam me. Seriously?  Coming from EQ, that is ridiculous, and childish. Ok I’m done bitching. Oh, and I got new shoulders and a new 2h hah!

 

Tonight I’m putting together the new computer, and checking out how smooth it runs, wish me luck!

 

OMGWTFBBQ

It’s taking me FOR-EVER to get to 66, and my housemate said it would only get worse.

 

Good news is, I got my replacement video card (yay!)

 

Bad news is, I’ve been goofing around with Addons and new UI, and I can’t find a good mix of CURRENT/UPDATED addons for a warrior. Why is this so difficult.

 

I tried X-Perl, but that 3d character icon thing lags me out to no end. The quest helper is awesome, and the new cartographer that works like google maps is REALLY cool and intuitive. Now if I could find a nice one for my hotkeys, life would be heaven. I’ll SS my setup when I get a chance and post it here.

 

My brother is thinking of playing again, he has a 70 Tauren Warrior (lol yes I know) on my server, but he is thinking of going PVE. I might consider xferring to a PVE server, if it’s one that some of my new DC friends’ play on. That might be kind of fun, a group of RL people who guild/group together in WoW. Plus he knows much more about the game than I do.

Thursday night

Actually made an alt on Skywall because one of my friends is there, and I wanted to goof around and say hi. I have the option if I want of playing my housemates totally geared, epic, 70 Night Elf Rogue…. and I’m considering it. Plus I can transfer him to any non PVE server I want.

 

Since I’ve basically lvl’d one toon up to 70 (ok, 65, but close!) I’m not sure if I want to play a toon that I didn’t lvl up. I feel like it would ruin the experience, but I’ve never done it before so who knows. Granted he hasn’t gotten Sunwell raid gear, but he could easily join a guild doing current content.

 

Does anyone have any thoughts on this? I think I might miss my Tauren if I changed toons.

 

 

Blam! /yawn/

Yeah, I barely was online at all last night. Went to a work social event, had a few G&Ts, came home and played guitar. Logged on and found out, “Guess what? You didn’t log out in a resting place!” Suck! So I dind’t muster the guster to xp that much. In fact I can’t remember what the hell I did instead… definitely not PVP, and not dailies.

 

Oh well. Maybe I’ll log on tonight.

65, Five more to go! WTB RL MMO playing friends!

Yeaaahhhhhh….

Dinged 65 and then some last night. Looks like I’m finally getting out of Zangarmarsh, and hitting up Terrokar Forest and the surrounding area of Shattrath city. I’m also making gold a TON faster now, probably because the quests now award 6-10 gold per. The funds I borrowed from Veit was easily mailed back last night (with interest) and by the end of the night I already had 150gold stacked up, so I’m pretty confident I’ll be able to buy my epic mount at 70. Now if I only could get some pimp looking weapons/armor

I met a local WoW player by clicking the on the “World of Warcraft” link in my interests on facebook. It’s kind of cool being able to find local gamers, and I think I’d like some of my friends to be gamers, which has never been a facet in my life aside from my little brother, and we’re rarely playing the same game anyways (He’s playing Age of Conan right now, which I might dabble in once I upgrade my compy with my $2600 tax refund /grin). So yeah, I’ve met a few local WoW players, and I’m slowly coercing them to hang out/grab drinks/etc. Is this something that MMO people do? I’ve heard of people that get their friends into gaming and then they all go on one server and roll up / lvl up together, but none of my friends play ANY games WHATSOEVER.

Most of my friends like sports, or music, or acting. WHICH I DO, but I also gotta get some keyboard time now and then. I feel like there is no ‘happy medium’ gamers out there that socialize on a regular basis and still have a healthy ‘game life’

Does anyone out there sympathize with that thought? Maybe it’s just the DC area is full of snotty politicos, eclectic internationals, wealthy foodies, and pimping clubgoers. Quite sad if so, because while all of those things are entertaining, the one thing I enjoy very often as a hobby is completely not understood by anyone else in the surrounding area. It’s like being in a club where you’re the only member, no fun!

I mean, there IS socializing in the game, but to what degree does that satisfy the real world urge/need? It’s EXTREMELY rare if you meet someone in game that is in your state, let alone in your hemisphere of the planet. Yes, I know, I too have met people from Sweden, California, Florida, Chicago, and many more places just by playing EQ. Hell, I even went to Amsterdam with an old guildy of mine for his 5 day long bachelor party, and he paid for everything! (We made about $80,000 from creating a program that duped money in EQ, shshshhsh) But those aren’t necessarily daily social activities that occur on a regular basis.

Some people play KICKBALL in DC to meet other people, and socialize and have fun. I’m sorry, but I’m simply not that arbitrary in my decision of activities. I’m going to do what I like to do, when I like to do it, and with whom I would like to do it with! Plus kickball is fucking retarded and it’s mostly about flip cup afterwards.

+ + =

 

Fucking retarded. I don’t see a National Tag Association, then again, this is America and some idiot has probably already come up with one of those. I just don’t see how playing kickball and drinking beer is socially acceptable, while getting together and playing a MMO is not. They’re both ‘childish’ activities that some think people ‘grow out of’ at a certain age if they’re ‘mature’

Fucking kickball…..lol

Making sacrifices in my activities of choice in order to ‘be around’ other people and ‘be social’ is something that I grew out of in highschool, hell maybe even middle school. What’s the point in doing something unless you like to? I doubt these teeming masses of pretentious morons really truly deep in their hearts enjoy kickball. Granted 9 million people plus world-wide like to stare at a computer screen to watch their little make-believe person kill make-believe monsters….sooooo.

 

In the end, life is too short to bow in to peer pressure in your older years, that group need to grow some gonads and just speak up! Well, at least I do. Do what you friggin want in your spare time.

Maybe I feel that way because I got out of a really controlling relationship about a year ago. It wasn’t that SHE was controlling as much as I was letting her make all the decisions and stopped controlling my own life. She would decide we were going to watch Sex & the City tonight and would be fine with it. Although I did enjoy watching the show JUST A BIT, because it was fun to see how pretentious the characters were, all the while they think they’re being upscale, classy, and ‘refined’

No, don’t think so!

And I digress. So yes, I want a girl who will laugh for no-one else….

jk, Weezer song lyrics.

To finish the thought about my ex: Our relationship imploded on itself when I started doing what I wanted to do, and that just happened to not have her involved in it, and she just kept doing the same lame things she was doing before, which just happened to not have me involved in it. It sucked, but sometimes you have to face the music. Hang out with people who do the same things you do, not necessarily be the same PERSON as you, but at least you have similar interests & you can chat about how awesome your kickball team is at playing flip cup kicking ..umm balls, or how kickass the PUG you were with last night was doing in an instance.

But seriously, I’d love to meet people who play MMOs in the DC area, and possibly grab a brew with them? Hell, I’ll buy!

Oops! Yeah, Chugging along…

Whoops, this was yesterday’s blog, and I posted it as a PAGE not a NEW POST. So I have discerned the difference between the two now….ok, here is from yesterday:

Almost to 65, very very close! Last night I tanked a Hellfire Bloodforge mobs with a priest healer, but I didn’t really win anything. I did get to finish up some quests that I had sitting on my queue though!

Oh, I just thought of something. You probably are wondering why my toon’s name is Thules, but the Blog says “Skhull’s Battlefield” well… this is because Thules will be my FIRST character. My second character is going to be Skhull the Death Knight. I already have the name saved etc, and I’m excited for the expansion coming out in November. While I like the tank class, I would prefer playing a ‘evil knight’ class like my character in Everquest. And yes, he will be a Cow Death Knight (lol). Eventually you will read me posting about my Death Knight, as soon as the expac comes out. I’m just levelling up a toon so I have the gold etc to get the things I need come November. This all stems from my brother’s first character on EQ, named Auskhull, which he borrowed off of Gazghull Thraka from Warhammer 40k. When my bro was playing the shaman Auskhull, I proceeded to make a tank called Thuleskhull. It was funny because he was the only Ogre in a completely Iksar (lizard man) guild called Harbringers of Thule. I even had perfect faction in the Iksar city and could shop there etc.

So I had Thuleskhull for a few years on Rallos Zek, but when they did the merger of all the Zek servers I figured I would change it to ‘Thules’ for sake of simplicity. So now, most characters I make are called Thules, or Skhull. And I figured Skhull would be an appropriate name for a Death Knight, while Thules sort of has a friendlier tone to it.

Ok, so that explains the name of the blog….I’m sure that was very interesting.
What is it with people choosing the same name for their characters in different MMOs? I feel like it’s a common thing. In a game where you can create/recreate ad nauseum a make-believe ‘person’ (monster, orc, gnome, etc) people choose to perpetuate a simple and constant 2nd identity. I’m not sure if I can play a MMO without using my favorite name, I would feel like someone else, and have no attachment to my avatar in this fictional world. Do most people feel like this? I always like to immerse myself in a game, and I feel like it’s part of the experience.

…hmm…and yes I’m done blogging today