Various Stuff
Nov. 19th, 2002 02:59 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
miko2Status on my car: no news. It takes 30 days to process a claim and pay me money (they wait that long to see if car turns up after it gets listed as stolen). My landlord has let me use his car for two full weeks but he needs it all this week, so tomorrow I'll call Enterprise and they will be by within 15 minutes to drop off my economy rental, which will probably be a gutless wonder. But then again it has to be better than what I've been driving. No extra for long miles (like 120+ each way to my parent's in Longview and back for Thanksgiving).
Why would I rent from anyone else? Helps that State Farm said Enterprise was their first choice too. It was really simple to arrange.
NanoWriMo: I haven't worked on my so-called novel. At all.
Ex-Roommate Tom: He came over Sunday and we watched Spiderman. We were going to see Harry Potter but that fell through, and anyway I'm not too excited to go see it really. Tom has a job, he started Sunday too. He's a jet fuel farmer... which has something to do with fueling up airplanes and watching the fuel mixture or something like that. Certainly not his first choice of job (he's a machinist) but it sounds like it probably pays okay. I'm a little worried that he's an NRA gun nut who works in a job that requires security clearance... but you know, they checked him out before they hired him so they must not mind.
Of course, if he were of Middle Eastern descent it might be a different story.
Since Tom is going stir crazy from living with his parents, he gave me next month's rent plus some for the last of this month, and I gave him a key. He's not moving in right away, but will be slowly over the next few weeks. He needs to get a bed and other furniture still, too.
So this means that my rent is now halved... which leaves me a little over $300 extra a month to spend... on new car payments, I guess. =P
I need to get my butt in gear and order cable modem broadband service. With Tom paying half of it, it won't be much more than I'm paying now anyway. ^_^ Then we can geek out and play Eq together and run an extra bot on a third account or something stupid. You know, there are people out there who bot several accounts at once. I met a guy last night who does 3 at a time, but I've heard of people who do up to five. And you thought I was addicted?
I have been playing a lot lately though -- every night. And the main reason is because I have two friends who stay up late to group with me. I've rarely been able to group with anyone at the hours I play, but I've been grouping with these two every night for a couple of weeks. Very fun! ^_^
The Preamble
When it comes to EQ, I've always felt like I was behind the times or last in line, because I was always late in getting to whereever or doing whatever. From the beginning, I kept playing new characters so that in the first half year or more I didn't manage to get past level 23 with any one character. And this is even counting that for a couple of months there I was without a job and played an awful lot.
Then a lot of message-board friends and I all moved to Test and started new characters. This was a new chance for me -- I was in a guild, we raided Cazik-Thule and Permafrost and other dungeons. But once again I started extra characters and goofed around, and then stopped playing for months after I got a new job... and anyway, I fell way behind the rest of the group again.
So it went. When the Kunark expansion came out, it was months before I visited it, and I still haven't been in most of the dungeons there. When Velious came out I bought it and installed it, but I never even hunted there once (until tonight). When Luclin came out, I at least used it a little, started a kitty bard and checked out a few of the zones. But I don't know very much about most of the zones, have only visited a few of them. I've never been on a raid, which is a multi-group attack on one of the outer planes or to take on a major monster like a dragon. I haven't even hunted in some of the most basic dungeons that have existed since the dawn of the game -- Solsek and Guk.
The Actual Story
So I'm finally getting to do some of this stuff with my new group of friends. Therefore, Sunday night I logged on after Tom had left, and Sil and Brae were getting a group together to go raid Solsek B, aka Nagafen's Lair. Nagafen is one of the two original dragons in the game -- but it's a huge dungeon, we weren't planning to go nearly so deep as to meet up with a dragon or his fire giant protectors.
We got all ready and ran across Lavastorm to the entrance to the dungeon. As I said, I've never been here before, but I've heard of disaster stories. It's crammed full of nasty monsters and lava flows that will kill you fast if you fall in.
We zoned in -- me (shaman) Brae (warrior) Sil (enchanter) Bol (monk) and a Pre (cleric). I was the highest level at 48, the cleric was only 35, but it seemed like a good group. I had to shrink everyone because the corridores are so cramped, it's hard to move around at full size. Just one of the many talents a shaman has. ^_^
(Side note: They fixed Shrink so it works everywhere! It used to only work in dungeons, but now it works in every zone in the game! Woo! Being little is fun!)
So we killed the nasty spiders and greater kobolds at the entrance, and then Sil went to scout out ahead. Her plan was to raid the Efreet Lord for his golden efreeti boots. She was the most experience of our group -- she's played the game on another server for a long time, while Brae is new to the game. I don't know if all of the others realized what our plan was at that time.
Anyway, an enchanter is a casting class, like wizards and magicians and necromancers -- they don't have a lot of armor or a lot of hit points. So she wasn't really the right person to be scouting for us, but since she knew the dungeon and we didn't, she was trying to lead us to our goal. Unfortunately, everything in Nagafen's Lair can see through invisible. She ran into a bunch of spiders and sonic bats and stuff and died VERY fast.
The rest of us were still sitting near the entrance. The monk went to see if he could find Sil's corpse -- monks can fall down and feign death if they get into trouble, and wait for monsters to wander away. And he ran into trouble, of course, and couldn't even find Sil's corpse.
So the next step was to find a necromancer who could summon Sil's corpse (which they can do from clear across the zone if necessary). A necro happened to be just outside the zone, and he came in and joined our group, but then informed us that he hadn't bought that spell yet.
And then more greater kobolds swarmed us, and we had to zone.
We found a high-level Necro who came to help us. He summoned Sil's corpse, and then the cleric was able to ressurect her. This is a spell that not only give her back some of her lost experience, but summons her back to her corpse. (When you die, you appear back at your "bind" point, wherever you were last bound, naked, with none of your equipment. You have to get back to your corpse to reclaim your stuff.)
Right after this, the high-level necro's pet tore off down the corridore. I had a moment to ponder, "where is it going?" when it came running back with more than a half dozen greater kobolds on its tail. We were swarmed again, and ran for the zone. Brae died, and Pre the cleric managed to zone out but died on the other side from a spell that a kobold shaman had cast on him.
D'oh! I should point out at this point that the cleric in question was not actually there -- meaning Bol the monk and Pre the cleric were roommates and Bol was botting his sleeping roommate's account and character, and wasn't supposed to get his roommate's character killed.
Not to mention that the cleric couldn't ressurect himself.
Luckily at that point a group with a high-level cleric were just zoning in. They provided rez's for our two unfortunately dead companions, and things were copasetic. We killed a couple more kobolds, Bol got his roommate's cleric to "ding" to the next level, and then he shut down that account so that nothing more bad would happen to his roomie's character.
And in any event, a dark elf cleric had happened along and wanted to join our group. He knew the dungeon very well, which was a bonus, because, as we were learning (the hard way), we were barely strong enough to handle the front area of this dungeon and had not a chance in hell of even getting to the Efreeti Lord, let alone killing him. As it turned out, Sil didn't know as much as she'd thought about this dungeon.
I should mention that all of this zoning in and out, I had to re-shrink everyone every single time. Also, people kept going link-dead (their connection to the game dropping). In general it was a very messy evening.
So with the new cleric leading the way, we set out for a different part of the dungeon. We cleared a hallway and set up in the next room, pulled kobolds from the area beyond until it was clear and then rushed into another room, which was only supposed to have a couple of kobolds. Instead it had three or four, and then at least five more rushed in from some other room. Ack! We were swarmed again! This time we were a ways from the dungeon entrance, and I took a wrong turn trying to run back, and then I died... as did Sil and Brae. The cleric who knew the zone managed to get out, while the monk fell down and played dead, but was trapped for a good long time because of the monsters that stayed in the area.
So. Once again we were sitting around, trying to find people to help us pull our corpses out. Our new cleric friend logged off and then logged in his "main" character -- a high-level ogre shadow knight. He pulled two corpses to the entrance -- Brae's and mine -- and then things went wrong and HE died.
At this point, he called in his even higher-level friend -- a 63rd level Shadow Knight who also botted two other accounts (a high-level shaman and a high-level ranger). Mind you, the highest possible level in the game is 65 -- it was 60 until the Planes of Power expansion came out a couple of months ago. So these three showed up, and you knew you were in the presence of what they call in the game "Uber" players. The shadow knight had a sword that glowed red like a light saber, and a mace with a skull at the end, and he used a spell to turn into a skeleton and then began bashing the living daylights out of several kobolds at once, dancing around and cackling in a high voice, weapons flailing at warp speed. It was impressive to watch. ^_^
Naturally he cleared a path to Sil's corpse rather quickly, and our cleric friend rez'd everyone. And then we left, vowing never to return!
Tonight Sil, Brae and I travelled to the crystal caverns and killed various tentacled horrors, crystal spiders, and creatures made of rocks and gems. Much tamer stuff! ^_^
Why would I rent from anyone else? Helps that State Farm said Enterprise was their first choice too. It was really simple to arrange.
NanoWriMo: I haven't worked on my so-called novel. At all.
Ex-Roommate Tom: He came over Sunday and we watched Spiderman. We were going to see Harry Potter but that fell through, and anyway I'm not too excited to go see it really. Tom has a job, he started Sunday too. He's a jet fuel farmer... which has something to do with fueling up airplanes and watching the fuel mixture or something like that. Certainly not his first choice of job (he's a machinist) but it sounds like it probably pays okay. I'm a little worried that he's an NRA gun nut who works in a job that requires security clearance... but you know, they checked him out before they hired him so they must not mind.
Of course, if he were of Middle Eastern descent it might be a different story.
Since Tom is going stir crazy from living with his parents, he gave me next month's rent plus some for the last of this month, and I gave him a key. He's not moving in right away, but will be slowly over the next few weeks. He needs to get a bed and other furniture still, too.
So this means that my rent is now halved... which leaves me a little over $300 extra a month to spend... on new car payments, I guess. =P
I need to get my butt in gear and order cable modem broadband service. With Tom paying half of it, it won't be much more than I'm paying now anyway. ^_^ Then we can geek out and play Eq together and run an extra bot on a third account or something stupid. You know, there are people out there who bot several accounts at once. I met a guy last night who does 3 at a time, but I've heard of people who do up to five. And you thought I was addicted?
I have been playing a lot lately though -- every night. And the main reason is because I have two friends who stay up late to group with me. I've rarely been able to group with anyone at the hours I play, but I've been grouping with these two every night for a couple of weeks. Very fun! ^_^
The Preamble
When it comes to EQ, I've always felt like I was behind the times or last in line, because I was always late in getting to whereever or doing whatever. From the beginning, I kept playing new characters so that in the first half year or more I didn't manage to get past level 23 with any one character. And this is even counting that for a couple of months there I was without a job and played an awful lot.
Then a lot of message-board friends and I all moved to Test and started new characters. This was a new chance for me -- I was in a guild, we raided Cazik-Thule and Permafrost and other dungeons. But once again I started extra characters and goofed around, and then stopped playing for months after I got a new job... and anyway, I fell way behind the rest of the group again.
So it went. When the Kunark expansion came out, it was months before I visited it, and I still haven't been in most of the dungeons there. When Velious came out I bought it and installed it, but I never even hunted there once (until tonight). When Luclin came out, I at least used it a little, started a kitty bard and checked out a few of the zones. But I don't know very much about most of the zones, have only visited a few of them. I've never been on a raid, which is a multi-group attack on one of the outer planes or to take on a major monster like a dragon. I haven't even hunted in some of the most basic dungeons that have existed since the dawn of the game -- Solsek and Guk.
The Actual Story
So I'm finally getting to do some of this stuff with my new group of friends. Therefore, Sunday night I logged on after Tom had left, and Sil and Brae were getting a group together to go raid Solsek B, aka Nagafen's Lair. Nagafen is one of the two original dragons in the game -- but it's a huge dungeon, we weren't planning to go nearly so deep as to meet up with a dragon or his fire giant protectors.
We got all ready and ran across Lavastorm to the entrance to the dungeon. As I said, I've never been here before, but I've heard of disaster stories. It's crammed full of nasty monsters and lava flows that will kill you fast if you fall in.
We zoned in -- me (shaman) Brae (warrior) Sil (enchanter) Bol (monk) and a Pre (cleric). I was the highest level at 48, the cleric was only 35, but it seemed like a good group. I had to shrink everyone because the corridores are so cramped, it's hard to move around at full size. Just one of the many talents a shaman has. ^_^
(Side note: They fixed Shrink so it works everywhere! It used to only work in dungeons, but now it works in every zone in the game! Woo! Being little is fun!)
So we killed the nasty spiders and greater kobolds at the entrance, and then Sil went to scout out ahead. Her plan was to raid the Efreet Lord for his golden efreeti boots. She was the most experience of our group -- she's played the game on another server for a long time, while Brae is new to the game. I don't know if all of the others realized what our plan was at that time.
Anyway, an enchanter is a casting class, like wizards and magicians and necromancers -- they don't have a lot of armor or a lot of hit points. So she wasn't really the right person to be scouting for us, but since she knew the dungeon and we didn't, she was trying to lead us to our goal. Unfortunately, everything in Nagafen's Lair can see through invisible. She ran into a bunch of spiders and sonic bats and stuff and died VERY fast.
The rest of us were still sitting near the entrance. The monk went to see if he could find Sil's corpse -- monks can fall down and feign death if they get into trouble, and wait for monsters to wander away. And he ran into trouble, of course, and couldn't even find Sil's corpse.
So the next step was to find a necromancer who could summon Sil's corpse (which they can do from clear across the zone if necessary). A necro happened to be just outside the zone, and he came in and joined our group, but then informed us that he hadn't bought that spell yet.
And then more greater kobolds swarmed us, and we had to zone.
We found a high-level Necro who came to help us. He summoned Sil's corpse, and then the cleric was able to ressurect her. This is a spell that not only give her back some of her lost experience, but summons her back to her corpse. (When you die, you appear back at your "bind" point, wherever you were last bound, naked, with none of your equipment. You have to get back to your corpse to reclaim your stuff.)
Right after this, the high-level necro's pet tore off down the corridore. I had a moment to ponder, "where is it going?" when it came running back with more than a half dozen greater kobolds on its tail. We were swarmed again, and ran for the zone. Brae died, and Pre the cleric managed to zone out but died on the other side from a spell that a kobold shaman had cast on him.
D'oh! I should point out at this point that the cleric in question was not actually there -- meaning Bol the monk and Pre the cleric were roommates and Bol was botting his sleeping roommate's account and character, and wasn't supposed to get his roommate's character killed.
Not to mention that the cleric couldn't ressurect himself.
Luckily at that point a group with a high-level cleric were just zoning in. They provided rez's for our two unfortunately dead companions, and things were copasetic. We killed a couple more kobolds, Bol got his roommate's cleric to "ding" to the next level, and then he shut down that account so that nothing more bad would happen to his roomie's character.
And in any event, a dark elf cleric had happened along and wanted to join our group. He knew the dungeon very well, which was a bonus, because, as we were learning (the hard way), we were barely strong enough to handle the front area of this dungeon and had not a chance in hell of even getting to the Efreeti Lord, let alone killing him. As it turned out, Sil didn't know as much as she'd thought about this dungeon.
I should mention that all of this zoning in and out, I had to re-shrink everyone every single time. Also, people kept going link-dead (their connection to the game dropping). In general it was a very messy evening.
So with the new cleric leading the way, we set out for a different part of the dungeon. We cleared a hallway and set up in the next room, pulled kobolds from the area beyond until it was clear and then rushed into another room, which was only supposed to have a couple of kobolds. Instead it had three or four, and then at least five more rushed in from some other room. Ack! We were swarmed again! This time we were a ways from the dungeon entrance, and I took a wrong turn trying to run back, and then I died... as did Sil and Brae. The cleric who knew the zone managed to get out, while the monk fell down and played dead, but was trapped for a good long time because of the monsters that stayed in the area.
So. Once again we were sitting around, trying to find people to help us pull our corpses out. Our new cleric friend logged off and then logged in his "main" character -- a high-level ogre shadow knight. He pulled two corpses to the entrance -- Brae's and mine -- and then things went wrong and HE died.
At this point, he called in his even higher-level friend -- a 63rd level Shadow Knight who also botted two other accounts (a high-level shaman and a high-level ranger). Mind you, the highest possible level in the game is 65 -- it was 60 until the Planes of Power expansion came out a couple of months ago. So these three showed up, and you knew you were in the presence of what they call in the game "Uber" players. The shadow knight had a sword that glowed red like a light saber, and a mace with a skull at the end, and he used a spell to turn into a skeleton and then began bashing the living daylights out of several kobolds at once, dancing around and cackling in a high voice, weapons flailing at warp speed. It was impressive to watch. ^_^
Naturally he cleared a path to Sil's corpse rather quickly, and our cleric friend rez'd everyone. And then we left, vowing never to return!
Tonight Sil, Brae and I travelled to the crystal caverns and killed various tentacled horrors, crystal spiders, and creatures made of rocks and gems. Much tamer stuff! ^_^
