Monday, June 11, 2007

Audience with the Guardian

It's been a while since I had a chance to play. The scheduled run to BoneSnapper got re-targeted because of the good turn-out. Maybe we should have stuck with the seafood plans...
Check the raid window for the names of the folk who kept us in the zone so we could try this a couple times!!! It was an amazing bit of group effort.

I got a chance to get this panoramic view of the inside of the instance while I was knee deep in dragon snot and dead guildies. .Sorry I died in a bad spot to catch a good screenshot of the dragon. I guess we have to go back for another

Saturday, June 9, 2007

driving deltazed

I often wonder how my friends have configured the EQ2gui. Over time I have swapped things around, rebuilt and re-learned hot-keys, and even used parts of alternate UIs. In passing moments of curiosity I've searched for screenshots that might give me hints about how to balance my display space between controls and eye-candy. Here's a post to start a discussion on that topic.

Before you click on that picture to see the detail I should warn you to expect a 4M+ download.

In case you are the same, here is a screenshot of driving deltazed during a 4x group raid. The raid layout is really only different from my regular play style in that the raid status box is up, and I have my persona window up in the corner so I can see my DPS mod status.

From the top left - The vertical hot-key bar is the one I use for buffs. One-timers on top, then group bufs, then personals. The top three horizontal expose all the melee related skills. Each of the blue gear boxes in the third row down is a social macro that triggers related attacks or a HO combo. The two icons above them represent the skills so I can see when they have reset.

Under that is a set of social macros I like to keep handy, and the double wide vertical bar on the bottom is where I keep my potions and charms for quick access.

Across the top I have my main status window. Directly below is my target. As you can see I have the main tank targetted so his target appears next to my health window. In non-raid situations, the target health is aligned with mine so I can see rrelative health easily.

The top right is my main chat window. The bottom left is where I keep my current buff display. it highlights one of the other tricks I've picked up to keep the action in high-resolution. I've shrunk the vertical resolution of my screen to provide 2 black band on the top and bottom of the screen. Not only does it reduce the amount of screen action to be refreshed, it provides a background that eliminates the clutter around the important buff status information.

I keep the 2 chat windows up most of the time, but route the damage spam to the one on the bottom left. If I'm not interested in tracking hits I will shrink or drop it altogether.

Here is an example on a smaller, guild-only raid. A real who's-who of Shades in this shot.

Friday, June 8, 2007

Keeping up with the Guildies

I started this post with the intent of ranting about how hard it is to be in a small guild when you are NOT at the same level as the most active group of mains. In the time before mentoring and all-access zones I would dread the next expansion. Most often I was too low-level to complete the required access quests, ensuring I would be solo while everyone else was exploring and exploiting the opportunities of the new zones.
While I was looking through my screenshots to find an "angy" deltazed I came across this picture from MajDul. It used to be one of my least-favorite places. It was the center of the you-cant-go-there expansion universe. It brought back memories of showing up on an empty EQ server so I could use the cross-server chat to keep in touch with my departed-to-EQ2 friends. I thought I'd found my PNG.

But that's not what is in this picture. When I look closer I see the armor from the quest that Ahren dragged me through because he knew all the places the silly pole would spawn. I see the tower we learned to storm up so we could put those daggers to use. I see the flag from the Court of Blades and remember the frantic hours while we pondered the implications of our guild decision to align with an unknown faction. I know the arena is just up the stairs, and I'm certain I could get Barrhopper to play a couple games if I asked nice. MajDul is now the center of the universe where I remember orchestrated efforts to get everyone a flying carpet. Yes, I HATED MajDul when I couldn't get there. No, I was not alone. There were others who shared my frustration. Some of them changed guilds, some spoke up and refused to leave. One of the things I enjoy about Shades of Destiny is that some of the people who were frustrated were folks who were NOT locked out. They form a core group of guild officers and members who pursue chances to help guild-mates advance.

Mahalo & /hug

Perspective



Every now and then it's nice to take a break and look around. That rule applies just as well in-game as in RL.

On the EQ2 "enjoyment" scale, the amazing environments rank a close second to the chance to build friendships. I know there are "players" whose happiness depends on them being in a non-instanced zone for as short as possible. I believe they are missing a significant part of the game. To remedy this I invite you to move that view around and take a look at something other than the butt of that level 74^^^.

Enjoy a couple minutes of just "looking around" (no blakk, looking in the mirror doesn't count)

Spend a hotbutton on a social that says "thank you" and push it a couple times to let others know who is helping you out.

It's not that hard to help others enjoy the game, even if THEY play to beat the game.

Tuesday, June 5, 2007

A Guild Meeting


Of course!

There is only one way to decorate for a June guild metting.... Bring out the snowmen! The decorators went all out to make sure we had something to look at while Blakk spoke to the group.


After the meeting we managed to get organized for a group photo. I managed to capture this before I went LD.

Saturday, April 7, 2007

A new BOW!


Yea! Another fabled drop in LoLV. I like the STR and health bonuses. The 10% bonus on dragonic targets is pretty useful in those cases where the beasties are moving around and I want to avoid the AoEs. After flinging a couple arrows, the bow shows a flame effect. Thats a nice contrast to the frost effect on my axe.

Saturday, March 24, 2007

The Titles We Share


These days I seem to be surrounded by Lords. Maybe I just notice it now that my guild has reached level 60. Getting any guild to level 60 is a LOT of work. Getting a 15 member guild to level 60 takes (and makes) good friends (plus the work).

I'll admit that I used to mutter about the 4P lords who cant find the working end of thier 20P mounts. I was convinced that many of the raid-types I'd fallen in with were WAY too concerned about beating the game instead of playin it. Mostly that came from raid comments about my inability to maintain the requisite X.y K dps rate our group would need for the boss mob.

Now I will bite my lip... just long enough to remember the day I looked at the guild roster and found an officer dubbed me "The Writinator". It was one of those things you can't ask for, but always hope you get.

Although it is just two words, that title means more to me than any in-game items that 250P could buy. It hints at the countless trips back to NQ for just-another-before-I-FAAK writ. It highlights all the late nights chasing MOBs around with the ever-rotating cast of guild and pick-up groups. Finally, it voices the satisfaction I get from seeing "Knight-Captain" written in 200,000plus guild status points.


There are two more words I'd like to add to some of my raiding associates vocabularies. I know they are un-impressed by monikers like "The Writinator"... maybe they should just practice "thank you" and display a more important personal title.

100,000 guild status points later I finally climbed the berserker line far enough to get the Executioner title. The axe and darkelf form make it work...



There is a second title I wear at ALL times. I thank all my fellow and future Shades of Destiny guild members for letting me be associated with a great group of people who share my love of the game.

Saturday, March 10, 2007

That would be negative 80 dkp for me please





Although I already have a fabled neck piece, I dont have many accessories that have magic/mental/divine stats.





As you can see, I've already augmented these with the +100 health.






I'm going to be paying for these trinkets for a while, but I'm finally getting a chance to add some fabled gear to my inventory.

It's too bad that there aren't any bonuses left in raiding Labs. I could use a couple 20 point nights now.

Thursday, March 1, 2007

deltazed does dragon duel

MoA is done!

Here is a screenshot from right before the final duel. It was hard to find a place big enough to get positioned for a picture. I had problems getting through the doorways and up the ramp because I was HUGE. I left the ScreenSpam on so you could see my new "Distinguished" title. I got screenshots from the duel as well, but they are full of screen-spam from the long and too-close final battle.



I think MoA was one of the first KoTS era guild-level efforts I really enjoyed. I was close enough to 70 to play most of it together with the guild mains on the first or second walk through. When RL interrupted my schedule for a while, I cam back to the 5th or 6th run-through and the job was done. There are obviously advantages to being in a large active guild when you want to get through some of the harder quests.

I'll admit I tend to avoid the longer quests, but if more of them resulted in necklaces like this I'd reconsider.

Monday, February 26, 2007

A bit of castle deja vu

Another x2 Sod Raid day. The first run into the 'new' castle Mistmoore. I snapped a couple shots with my new favorite axe while we were forming up. We got 3 named before we got stuck trying to get up the stairs to the fourth.


This is one of the castle residents we decided to bypass. This instance is full of places where nasty things seem to be around every corner.

Saturday, February 24, 2007

New Pants!



The third piece in 2 weeks. Labs are almost auto-magic now. Most of the guild mains are pretty well outfitted, so there is a much better chance for me to qualify for loot.

As you can see, I've augmented these to add the +14 STR.

Friday, February 16, 2007

A great belt




I saw this on Tornack the other night and made a note that I need to get myself one of THOSE! Then I started noticing them on a BUNCH of other toons. Now I know where it came from.

Woot! lived to see a place to pose for the victory pose...

Saturday, February 10, 2007

A Fabled Chestplate!


I can't think of a better way to break in the new SoD dkp system than to spend 40 on a good piece of armor. This one is looking to be the chestplate of choice for LoLV raids, given the strength, health, and heat bonuses.

Monday, January 15, 2007

How I spent my KotS dkp

In the times before Shades of Destiny was big enough to field x3 raid groups we joined forces with the Knights of the Shattering.
The benefits of this co-operation were immediate, as we could begin to outfit our raiding mains with equipment we couldn't hope to get otherwise.

KotS implemented a dkp database shortly after we joined forces. As a regular in these combined groups, I picked up a BUNCH of nice raiding gear.