I'll let you all figure out a time. I'm wide open for anything. Just let me know when and I'll be there.
I am fairly flexible today too, but nobody is throwing out a time so I'll suggest 2 pm PS time. I don't know how many of you are on EST, but if early afternoon PST is not good for you just make a counter proposal.Originally Posted by Paladin
I don't think we can do the Lightstone as the final step appears to need two groups. The others you mentioned I am not familiar with but I will give them a shot if you have a particular interest in them.
Kal
Apparently they changed that part of the Lightstone quest, according to a previous post in the thread. I figure it couldn't hurt to try. And I can make that, sure.
2pm pacific time works for me.
Sounds good. I just spoke with Clay and he can also make 2 PST. I will be on an alt name Kaliente who is not in the guild, so somebody please send me an invite me to the group when you see me on.
Kal
That really reminded me of why I love EQII. WoW has some easter eggs and stuff, but it doesn't have that sheer range of ways to reward exploration. And the waves and waves of orcs at the end of that HQ were pretty crazy.
I just put an imbued blackened iron longsword in the guild bank if anyone wants it. DPS 12.5 with a damage proc.
During the fight when the orcs just kept coming and kept coming I oscillated between terror and joy. When we killed the General at the end I felt like a kid coming off a roller coaster and all I could think was "Lets ride again!".
It was also gratifying to hear the cacophony of the guild/AA/adventure level up sounds at the final turn in. :)
Thanks for delurking and the input MrGrumpy.
If i was to get back into this game, would it be feasible to join up with you guys? And if so, what server are you on?
Chris
We're on Permafrost, and our weekly grouping characters are only around level 20 right now, which shouldn't take very long to reach (we've basically only really spent three days on these characters).
I cannot seem to get the game to install....the patcher keeps freezing up (Not Responding)....
Any ideas?
Make sure you run it as admin, if you're on Vista or Win7. Weird things happen otherwise.
somehow, I got the game installed, and it is up and working. I get logged in today, create a character (a Ratonga --is that how you spell those?-- Assassin). Not sure I will stick with him, though, as I really want to set up a Dwarf. Will that be easy enough to do and still get along with the guild?
At any rate....I get all set up, log in to finally play, and I get..."server will be coming down, log out safely now."
At least it is working...
Chris
Glad to hear you were finally able to get the installation done, Chris. My perspective is everyone should play whatever race/class they find the most fun. At least for the casual outings there is no need to worry about specific group mixtures.
Kal
If anyone has some steel clusters and needs weapons made, send them to Cariene (my weaponsmith) and I'll hook you up. You need to be level 20 or higher to use them and the 1h weapons have a dps of ~21. Not sure about the 2h weapons but I would think around 25ish.
OK....made a Sarnak (lizard like dragon guys) named Slayn. He is just turned lvl 10...
I'm following this thread to get some ideas since my guild will be hitting EQ2 soon. I had a couple of questions:
Where do you guys plan to go after Timorous Deep? Is having a mixed good/evil guild going to cause any problems with the content choice you have post TD?
Is it possible to build a Guild Hall in a neutral area?
Is TD the only option for starting area with a mixed guild or would it be possible to do the betrayal quests and have everyone group up in Darklight Wood or Greater Fay?
I think our plan is to explore some of the instances in Commonlands and maybe Antonica for now, after doing TD. The TD quests eventually direct you towards Butcherblock, where there's a sarnak camp that seems to continue them, but we haven't started those yet.
You can apparently have a guild hall in Gorowyn, that everyone can get to, but it limits you to Tier 1. By Tier 2 and Tier 3 your guild is probably big enough and high level enough that you can use the player housing and amenities to transport directly to the hall and bypass the guards, wherever it is. (Edit: Actually, the T3 halls are off of mariner bells, so it's really only the T2 halls that are in hostile territory.)
TD is certainly the easiest for mixed guilds. You can't betray until you reach level 10, it takes a while to go through it, and that cuts off some class choices entirely.
Last edited by Fugitive; 11-18-2009 at 12:02 PM.
Keep in mind that when you betray you are automatically switched to the corresponding class of your new alignment (unless your class is neutral). This means that you might as well all start as that alignment and skip betrayal altogether if you don't want a mixed alignment group.
Myself, I'd just not worry about it. There's tons and tons of nonaligned quests out there and very few situations where mixed alignment is an issue.
I am not going to be switching to instances on Thursdays, so I'm not sure who you refer to when you say "our plan." I am going to log on Thursday and see if there are any people still interested in casual questing, which was the purspose of the recruitment thread. If I am the only one left who is interested in that, then I will bow out of the Thursday outings.
When I get a chance later today, I'll make a post about some lessons learned from the Laidback Monday outings in Lotro regarding "mistakes" we made that caused some people who really wanted to continue participating in those outings to drop out. After making an effort to recapture the rather unique and fun approach of those groupings in a different mmo, I have no interest in being part of derailing that here just three weeks in.
Of course, I realize that EQ2 is a game and people have to do what they find fun, so I am not using the term 'derailing" in a pejorative fashion. Again, if after three weeks I am the only one remaining with an interest in casual questing then I will defer to the others.
Kal
Well nothing I say is official, of course, that was just the general impression of what people were thinking we could do I was left with at the end of the night last week and plans are always open to change.
I don't really see anything mutually exclusive between casual questing and instances yet, but it's still really early on and there's lots to discover and learn yet. The one quirk I've seen so far is that quests and writs for these early dungeons tend to favour one alignment, but there should be some self-contained quests for them too.
I have no intention of doing some sort of hardline all-dungeon all the time approach, but dungeons are the most group-oriented part of the game and if we weren't going to check them out as we got in range, what's the point? Most quests are completely soloable.
What I would like to do is - level primarily through questing, group quests preferred to solo-friendly but either according to availability and fun factor. As we get into the level range to run dungeons, do them once, probably with experience shunted into AA.
Hey Folks!
As I said, wanted to make a post in an attempt to salavage (IMHO) the laidback Thursday outings since I see them already becomeing derailed. I am fairly sure that Ned and Clay knew what was meant by the casual outings when I sent them pm's prior to submitting the recruitment thread. (Though at the risk of speaking for them, I must admit it seems they are both in favor of changing tack?) At the risk of being pedantic, I think I might have been a bit clearer in the orignal thread to avoid surprises and I will try to correct that here with a succinct Lotro post by Damien.
Damien Neil: "Anyway, on quests: Yeah, we pretty much slice through non-fellowship quests like a chainsaw through hot butter. This means that Monday night LOTRO is generally more about playing together and seeing the world than being challenged."
In other words, the entire concept (again IMHO) of a regular Casual/Laidback outing is in camaraderie and experiencing content (story lines, lore, quests) together, not in finding difficult challenges or culling activities "better-suited" to a full group. To me, the latter is just plain-old-vanillar mmo activity that one can find in any number of mmos; simply find a large guild or kinship and join it. To be sure, this laidback approach is not a method that is going to be enjoyed by everyone, particularly by those who have already experienced the content, more than once for some. That was a main reason for WoW being excluded as a choice for recruitment.
Since I was the last person standing in the Laidback Lotro PST outings, I am somewhat familiar with some things that harmed the longevity of the Monday outings, and, in case I am not the only one remaining with an interest in continuing the Laidback Thursday outings, I would sure like to try and avoid some of those this time around. I will mention a few that I think have already popped up in our sessions.
First up is the current problem of trying to mix casual outings and more
traditional approaches. Again, I'll give just one example from Laidback Monday after we switched to instances/dungeons for a couple of weeks (Garth Agarwen in Lotro):
Rock8Man: "My friend Tezlin left because it started to feel just like any other MMO to him. It stopped being unique and stopped being about the bigger Lord of the Ring Story when we started going to GA. Hopefully at this point we are in a place that ties into the bigger world and is not just dungeon crawling?"
I was in groups with Tez when I joined the Lotro outings, and our first group together we went to...an instance! (Great Barrows), but it was the end of a Book quest chain. I was really sorry to meet him only to have him drop out because of a couple of weeks of instances/dungeons that got us away from the activity he sought. Tez was not the only one for whom that was a problem.
A second issue is when people don't level together. Again, I'll give a Laidback Monday quote:
Tom Chick: "Again, since part of the reason for doing this is getting to hang out with fellow Qt3ers, please don't play your character when we're not gathered. Our goal is to mostly level together. If you're out gallivanting about on other nights, you're just going to have to do the same quests over again when you play with us. No one's going to be a Nazi about it, but if you want to play LOTRO in earnest (and who could blame you?), don't think of this as your main character."
Unfortunately, people getting left behind in level did turn out to be a problem in the laidback Monday outings. There are work, family, illness, etc., so some people who missed sessions got left behind in level because the others continued on. Some didn't have the option to catch up on other days because they only had time committed for one session a week. Some didn't want to catch up with solo play sessions because that would have turned it into a plain old vanilla mmo endeavour. (I think
Ned actually posted on the latter when commenting on his departure from Laidback Monday?). We have already gotten a bit away from the "pact" those of us coming from the Laidback Lotro outings had made to not leave others behind on Thursdays. Last week when some in one group had to leave, we simply regrouped and continued on rather than accommodating those who had to leave.
If we do end up going forth with the Thursday outings as originally envisioned, I think we should find a session duration (e.g., 2 or 3 hours) that accommodates all of us. When a scheduling problem arises for someone, they should let the others know in advance so we can make other plans for that particular session. i have no problem at all in accommodating someone who has to miss one week. There are alts to be played, and EQ2 has a mechanism for AA that would allow us to crank the
slider to 100% and work on strengthening our Thursday characters without much leveling of them.
Lastly, I want to apologize for the length of this post. I have really enjoyed the people I've met in our little EQ2 group, and this is nothing more than an issue of different approaches to playing EQ2. If I'm the only one with an interest in continuing Laidback Thursday outings a la the Lotro groupings, then I'll be happy to bow out of the picture and wish you all well in your adventures!
Kal
I have been playing my Thursday character a lot, but I've been trying to make sure I hold back on the quest lines so that he doesn't get ahead of anyone else. He only gets 'adventure' xp on the Thursday nights, and the rest of the time it goes 100% into AAs instead. I've just been working my way through the starter quest lines in the Qeynos/Antonica and Kelethin areas since they're still good for AA xp at this point and aren't really good for our group since they're alignment-restricted anyway.
Otherwise, I'm happy doing pretty much anything on the Thursday nights. I'm easy to please. :)
You guys are making me miss EQ2. I'd probably play too but for the late hour you start. I look forward to hearing more about your adventures. I played the game from release and got my main up to about level 53 before calling it quits. I don't know Timorous Deep but I do know many of the other zones practically by heart. I'm sure you'll have a great time. There's a lot of variety in this game.
On the whole casual approach thing, that's a tough call. Sure, if everyone starts spending all their time deep in a dungeon seeking the best loot then you've certainly lost the casual intent. But I see no harm in spending some nights or parts of nights in these instances just to see what's there. You have to guard against being too casual as well or people will get bored and gravitate to something else. On this board, we are constantly being bombarded with the latest shiny new game. This makes it really tough for some to stay committed.
By the way, the LotRO casual Monday isn't dead. Three of us (arctangent, Sidd Budd, me) from the EST group are still going strong despite missing some weeks at times. I even missed 3 weeks in a row with PC problems yet feel like I missed very little content. We are all now in our high 40s and it sure seems like we all want to keep going. Here's hoping your EQ2 group can do at least that well.
Slayn (Shadowknight) is now lvl 12.
and, ugghh....maybe I am just burnt out on mmo's. But I am having a tough time really getting into this game. (But to be fair, LotRO, WoW, and WAR, Aion, AoC...none of these were keeping me interested either). I am going to try to stick with it, though, and try to get hooked up with you all.
EQ2 was the first MMO I really got into way back when, and over the years I resubbed every so often. One thing I have noticed is, so many things have changed, and many things have been added. Right now, I have 3 AA points that I have no idea really what to do with. I know where to go to spend them, but I am trying to figure out how to read those 3 charts...
Well, one issue with a straight adaptation of the casual approach to LOTRO is that LOTRO is a much more streamlined, storyline-centric game overall. Yes, Timorous Deep has some of that feel (although even there there are some oddball tangents and quests and such you can run across with a bit of additional exploration), but I don't think that's true to nearly the same degree of most of the older zones (which constitute the bulk of the game that we're likely to see, as a lot of the new zones are high end stuff we won't get to for months yet).
Secondly, realize that EQII is not as popular as WoW or indeed LOTRO, and while I think there's still a certain amount of new blood, my experience playing before was that guilds that are established in the game are full of high level characters running high level content. Getting a steady, consistent band of fellow travellers to run lower level content is not at all easy, and that's a big part of why I wanted to do this. Like I say, I do want to approach things casually, which yes, means mostly running quest content and exploring the world. I love that stuff. I don't want to grind, nor do I want to hunt specific treasure (outside of maybe heritage quests as an optional side activity). But at the same time, there's a lot of dungeons, and they're part of the world too, and they're cool. And I want to experience those as well, which is something I emphatically cannot do (I've tried) on my own, unlike the solo questing.
For high end stuff, raiding, epic equipment, all that, then, yes, it's not hard to find another guild to do that sort of thing.
I am definitely in it for the "hanging out with fun people to play with" part. I think the casual questing and casually hitting dungeons are going to greatly coincide since we are all/mostly in the level 20+ range. One of the things I really, really, really like about EQ2 is that there is the AA/mentoring mechanism to compensate for the phenomina of "omg I need to play this toon I am really into" and be able to play with newer/less-addicted friends and folks who have missed a week or three...or four. :)
I guess I should add that my definition of casual essentially means "no pressure to achieve specific levelling targets or maximize the efficiency of our approach to the content." I wasn't really looking to -just- do basic questing.
I'll also add that I'm not planning to bail whichever way we decide. I'd -rather- mix in the dungeons, but it's not like I don't enjoy what we've been doing so far. And we could maybe have off days where the so-inclined could switch on the AA conversion and go run dungeons and heritage quests and such.
Personally I got bored of LOTRO night because of the lack of challenging stuff to do with a group. My guild (The Wanderers) chose EQ2 (we were debating between LOTRO, WAR, Vanguard, Aion etc) because it seems to be the best game for challenging group content from an early level. We are not really roleplayers so the whole following a story as a group doesn't interest us as much. Following a storyline involves reading text and listening to voice acting which imo is better suited as a solo activity. The group camaraderie that comes with taking on tough dungeons, wiping, strategizing, struggling through it, etc is what excites most of us.
It looks like we will be hitting Antonia Bayle sometime in December. This is going to be sort of a new experiment for our guild. We are going to try to keep everyone around the same level and grouping all the time while still playing casually at the pace of the slowest player.
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