SyFy-City of Heroes

Just typing the new name of the station makes me cringe. I guess it’s not really all surprising that since they changed their name from SciFi, meaning Science Fiction, to SyFy, meaning something they can copywrite, that they would also begin to change the type of programming they offer.

Where once they brought us shows such as Battlestar Gallactica and other nerd goodness, now SyFy will be airing a cooking show and wrestling. Not Science Fiction wrestling either, though the storylines are just as out there.

It makes me sad to see one of the only television stations focused on Dorkdom to change and conform to the masses. Oh well, I guess we’ll always have…hmm…

On another note Issue 17 for City of Heroes/Villains is out, and with it the long awaited graphical upgrades! I created a new trial account and logged in to experience the wonder, and I was drastically underwhelmed. First of all it doesn’t look like they’ve upgraded the character models at all. The water is a lot better and the reflection is great. The shadows are better but not amazing. The problem is that I can’t run the dang thing with Ultra Mode on, even with the Ultra Mode setting set to medium-low, the game chugs badly.

From the info on the forums Issue 17 has caused a lot of problems for people, even if they have Ultra Mode off and all the settings are on low. Looks like I’ll have to give it another few weeks at least before I give it another shot.

EverQuest II: The Sun is Shining!

I got into a really great guild on the Antonea Bael server yesterday and it’s really changed the game for me. First of all I got a lot of questions answered. Then one of my guildies, a level 40-ish Inquisitor, asked if anyone wanted to go to a dungeon with him. I laughed and said I would, but it’s going to take a couple of days to get from 20 to 40-ish. He laughed and said he’d do a level 20 dungeon with me.

This isn’t the usual high level running you through something dungeon run either. He ‘mentored’ me, which means you lower your level to the level of a person in your party. This basically means he was level 2o again. He got together a group, and I showed by nubness by having no idea what he was talking about when he told me to go to Call the guild hall. He personally came and directed me through a confusing number of teleporter’s and bell/boat things in order to reach the guild hall. The important thing here is that I got to see a bunch of different zones, including:

THE SUN!

That carpet is more an automated ride, not a mount I possess. In fact I possess no mount at the moment and I’m not likely to for a while. I do however possess three FORTY SLOT bags! I went from all 8 slots to having three separate FORTY SLOT bags! That’s more bag space than I think I have in WOW at level 80 at the moment.

Anyway, after he showed me around the guild hall for a little bit, me being suitably impressed, he decided it was time to go to the dungeon. I basically followed him there, having only a vague recollection of where I was going, or why I was standing in Stonehenge harvesting shrubbery (apparently I can teleport there from the guild house now!). Speaking of guild houses one last time I feel the need to say that they are NOT like LOTRO’s guild houses. EQII’s guild house thing is like a GIANT castle with all kinds of randomness everywhere! It’s insanity. I’ll post some pictures later.

The dungeon itself was fun, though I’m really not sure if there was a story involved, or even what the hell it was supposed to be. Some kind of mage prison maybe? Or just a hole in the ground? No idea. There were some quests inside but we didn’t bother with them, and I learned that if you stop to look at anything along the way it is almost impossible to find your group again. You have no minimap in the dungeon, so you’re forced to wonder through the halls of elite mobs looking for some sign that your group went that way.

What is going on here? No one knows!

I did get three levels and 2 AA levels in about 2 hours, so that was pretty awesome. The only downside is that other than keeping the tank targeted and spamming all of my abilities (if you target someone friendly and attack you automatically cast on the mob they are targeting) I really had no idea what was happening. Still, it’s awesome that higher levels can lower their level and help. What’s also awesome is that he still got XP, because he got another level while we were there! That’s a great incentive to lower your level and help lowbies.

I’ll talk more about EQII as the story develops. Meanwhile I have other games I have to get to as well.

EverQuest II: What? Where am I?

After playing 6 different classes to level 14ish I finally decided to stick with one until twenty. Above is a picture of my level 20 Coercer, in amazing looking (and free!) appearance gear that I got for buying the game. I’m still not sure whether Coercer is going to be my main though, since it seems kind of like a Necromancer that takes much more attention to solo with. My “pets” don’t keep aggro literally at all, so I’m pretty much rooting and DPSing things down. Usually what happens is that I accidently pull three mobs so I Mez two and start DPSing the third, and that’s when my screen flashes yellow (meaning my tamed mob has just broken free).

Surprisingly, with how bad I play him, I’ve only died a handful of times. One of them was to a guard. My tamed pet broke free near one, and I managed to retame it before the guard killed it, which I guess flagged me against that guard because she came after as soon as she one shot my tamed mob. The second death happened in the capital city. Apparently there are huge cliffs littered throughout the cavern city, so I would recommend paying attention to where you are walking.

Speaking of walking in the capital city of Neriak, it’s a pain in the behind. Thankfully after a very confusing quest I gained access to the teleporters that are littered throughout the city for travel convenience.

So far there are several things I’m loving about the game, such as gathering nodes for leather and meat being little animal burrows where you “catch” them. It’s just like mining nodes, but I enjoy it MUCH more than skinning. Since we are talking about crafts I need to just say that CRAFTING IN EQII IS AWESOME! It’s not a boring “click here and AFK” system like in most games. I’m not through with the tutorial yet as I need more materials, but you start your recipe and then use abilities in order to succeed, including reacting to unforeseen events. It’s literally like fighting mobs, but in crafting form.

There are a few things I don’t like either. For instance I still haven’t seen anything that might be called a sun. Sure this is probably because I am evil and Neriak is the only starting city that isn’t the original lame Freeport starting quest island thing, or filled with terrible looking dragon people, and the surrounding area is called Darklight Woods. Still, it’s getting a bit dreary and I hope that there actually IS a sun in the game.

There are also a ton of things I just don’t understand yet. I’ll leave all of those for another post, a long post.

So far I’m having a blast in EverQuest II and I am looking forward to getting a bit higher and experiencing more of the content. Which my Coercer though? I’m not sure about that. I kind of want to play a clothie class since I have a free set of clothie appearance gear.

Also, what level am I going to have enough for a mount at? I see you can use them at level 1, but what kind of timeframe can I realistically expect to have the plat required to purchase the basic mount? I guess I’ll find out.