Alt Status

The faire is here!

I managed to hit 66 with my baby DK, in WoW. I'm sticking to it and having a nice time. I haven't quested through this content for a few months and it is a bit refreshing. The pace is decent and the xp is great. Leveling gives me a tangible goal. Heirloom items and guild bonuses help speed this up quite a bit. I should hit 70 by the weekend and hopefully 80 by next weekend. Or pretty close. Then it starts to slow down, but I can probably hit 85 in a week or two after that, hopefully getting to my goal much sooner than the [MoP] release date. If that happens it should leave me some time to work on trades and stuff.

Why do I want another alt? I have three characters sitting at 85 now, Druid, Hunter and Priest and 2 at 80. I just wanted a more melee oriented class in that pool to chose from. I don't enjoy the Priest much, Hunter is great, Druid is fun but I'm not digging the dps rotation and I don't want to tank. DK or Pally I know I enjoy, so I decided to go with one of these. I thought it might be refreshing to level again, draw me back into the game a bit before I delve back in full force with the xpac.

I'll probably stay in Outland until 70, there are so many quests I find myself unable to complete them all before moving onto the next area. I'm also enjoying the fact that we can now fly as we quest and this really helps speed up the process as well, not drag on the process with yet another alt thus Outland isn't so bad these days. So many games make you wait to, or close to, level cap to fly and I'm glad WoW isn't a stickler on this. I think 60 is a fair level to gain access to the ability.

This will be my second Dk to 80, my other sits neglected on another server. I find myself really into the class, I've always enjoyed it. I am blood and unholy spec(s), dual spec is so nice. It is fun to switch them up as I feel I need, or want, to. I've considered transferring my 80 DK or 80 Pally back to Silvermoon but I'm pretty adamant about leveling this one up instead. Plus, it gives me something to do, quest and gather up money and quest rewards for transmog, heh. I'll have plenty to do with a fresh character because I know it will be some time before we see another expansion.

I tab out for a moment to change the station on Pandora and this is what I find.... Before I acquired flying, which helps with these little problems, heh. 

Hopefully I can stick with it and hit 85 before MoP hits. I think I'm doing good thus far and I'll be proud if I make it to my goal. Thus I've put my other games on hold, sort of. I poke around in others but mostly I'm working on my DK when I can. I'll probably cancel EQ2 and just get station access before long.

I'm interested in spending more time in Vanguard, not as a free player though. I cannot use any of my gear so that is a minus for me to even play free. The cash shop has a lot of cool looking appearance armor, fast mounts, pet and player illusions, and gear with stats too, if that's your thing. I was a bit put off that flying mounts are only for level 50 characters (Adv/Diplo/Crafting). If you're going to sell mounts and armor might as well make it available to all levels. Why hold back now? SOE always seems to boggle me with what choices make it and which don't. I'd much rather see any level flying mounts than I would gear with stats, in the market. Hopefully the level 20 flying mount quest will actually make it into the game, soon.

However, I am glad to see the game flourishing. I'm glad to see it has a real team of dedicated developers and we even have a new website up! Very similar to the EQ and EQ2 pages. This is just what this game has needed. It still has bugs and needs some more TLC but it's getting there. Only, roughly, a 5gig download and free to pop into now, so if you've been wanting to check it out now is a great time to. It's a very solid game and deserves more credit than it has been given in the past.


That's it for me today. Safe adventures!

Listen...

All aboard, F2P is here... Kind of. 

Did you hear? I sure didn't. Vanguard went F2P yesterday, or rather they launched a F2P build where players can log in free (without a sub) and the cash shop is accessible. I was a bit confused and had to dig around on the forums. I was wondering tonight when I was reading the forums, as I thought we still had a week to go. No real word on the forums or the official site either, unless you dig. But if you want to log in and check out Vanguard SoH F2P it's available. Currently I cannot get back in, not wanting to bother with it so late.

It appears, if you do not have the default UI set up, you cannot access the cash shop, well, unless you do some tweaking, there is a forum post on this. I could not even see it and I only had infomap as an addon. There are some kinks to iron out still and the 'social servers' seemed down or bogged; mail. Most of my armor I could not use, might have to play around on an alt until I do station access this weekend.

However, you can log in and play any class/race (now any CLASS can be ANY race) combo to 20, then you need to sub (there is a bug they are looking into where some are locked under a sub still) or unlock through the market. Characters created before this build are grandfathered in, yay.

The cash shop looks rather robust, from what I hear, I couldn't actually see it. I'll probably need a fresh install of the game, sigh. I plan on poking around later this week and over the weekend if time allows, Dire hits the bit three-oh in a few days and is taking some much needed vacation time, so we'll see.

Is she picking her nose? What?

Speaking of SOE, SOEmote went live as well. Last time I checked voice chat was down, oops. Honestly it looks neat but I couldn't really care about a function like this. Where am I going to put a webcam on my flat screen monitor? Okay, I could somehow rig one up there if I cared but...  I don't. I can see it now- "Your character looks crazy, man!" Crap, could they tell I was picking my nose?  Seriously nobody needs to see my perpetual scowl anyhow, heh. I'm old school, I prefer typing over voice, this is like an overload for me to take in. Way too much. I don't need to hear and see what everyone is thinking. I like it that way.

I'd much rather see development go into actual game-play. Oh stuff like cash shop mini dungeon tickets? No. Have you heard about them yet? If it was a one time purchase for fluff dungeons I'd be all over it, don't try to sell me tickets like you do keys in FREE REALMS!  Step right up!

Me and my cute clockwork beetle, freebie TCG loot. Gloam Invasion area.

Free Realms. Been awhile since I logged in there. FR got some content love, finally. There is now an event, sort of. The glade is under an invasion-  Gloam Invasion. There really isn't any info on the official page but the forums have some tidbits, nothing really directing. If you want to check it out head to the Shrouded Glade. Fun enough event, decent xp. Used a lower level job there, for the xp, 14 and it's been fine so far, 20 is overkill.

There are many mobs out in this open zone that do attack, a first for FR. It felt a bit odd being out in the world with mobs chasing everyone. A nifty change in my opinion, loot goes straight to the character too. Worth a look if you enjoy the game, something new to do, some new loot, a couple of house items and pets I have read.

Trying to 'fly' to the cap... 85 here I come!

Mostly I've been working on my baby DK, in WoW. He's almost 65 now. Trying to hang in there, it's not too bad. Dire has a 77 Shaman I'm trying to catch up to, then we can head to Cata together. Been reading about the expansion and it is looking mighty fine thus far. I'm getting excited. Druids are getting a snazzy new travel form too! So much exciting stuff, looks to be a great expansion with lots of choices of what to do.

I have read that players can ride on the druid, while in this form. Not sure if it is true but very cool if so!

That's it for me, safe adventures!