Running down the pack

The first thing to mention is that I had a response back to a petition about the UTR quest that I mentioned in the last post.  I had a small amount of mail that contained an apology and explanation, as well as the drops needed to complete that segment of the UTR quest.   It was from none other than Head GM Moonlite, thank you one again Moonlite for making a disspointing week into a positive ending.   With some help from Ginone and his Cleric, I was also able to finish off this quest line and recieve the UTR weapon.   Thanks Ginone! 

This past week went very well from a leveling standpoint.  When I last posted Gaellespie was level 22 and this week, he’s starting off at level 26.  Normally, I would have spent most of my time leveling up to this point in Trengal Keep, but that did not work so well for me this time around.  On Saturday, I spent the first part of the morning trying out new places like Skrawla Rock and Skrillien Point.  While there were a small amount of quests that I could do solo, most of them were made for small group content and at this point, my bard is having trouble taking down 3 dots that are anything higher than blue.  The second part of that morning, I did my best to start up my own Trengal Keep group.  By the time we got a decent group together, I only had a short amount of time remaining.  Unfortunately, there was one individual that really stopped all progress by breaking mezzes and just not being experienced with the game.  I attempted to help him make an assist key, but appearantly, he did not have it set up correctly.

 The following day I had time for shorter than normal session, but was very productive in the Donnavan’s Roost area doing a couple of repeatable quests and grinding out any two dot from blue to red.   Later that day and Monday, I spent a good deal of time on the Strand of Ancients beach.  This area in particular turned out to be great, because the turtles there are all level 25, are not social and more or less swarm the beach.   This area is so good, in fact, I will mostly likely spend all of my time there the next time I’m looking for experience in that level range and am forced to adventure solo again.

Something else of note this week, Faerun completed the official Revelry and Honor Themesong.  You can listen to it here: http://www.mediafire.com/?2ccoxzbb2yj

The rest of this week, I will continue to chase the pack, spending most of my time in River Valley and possibly some time in Falgarholm.

A New Beginning

I will start with a brief Summary of what I’ve been up to since joining Vanguard:

Originally, I began as a Ranger, Trailblaze, with the intentions of focusing on him.  That worked well for me until the guild I was in became no more.  I had been in a former Everquest guild and the majority of the people stopped playing Vanguard and went back to playing Everquest, Everquest II, LOTR or WoW.  Just when I had given up hopes for my time in Vanguard, I was contacted by a former Everquest guildmate and as told me about his guild (Revelry and Honor).  I then decided to focus on my Necromancer Fellmage.  Recently, a large portion of our guild decided to refocus thier playtime on Everquest II.  As a result, to group with the majority of my guildmates, I would have to refocus on my bard, Gaellespie.

That brings us up date, where I am currently rushing to catch up in levels with current guildmates.  At the moment, my character is working on his 22th level in the Shoreline Ruins area.  This is my 4th trip here, as I normally level in the teens and lower twenties on Thestra.   This time around the going is a bit easier, as I know the ins and outs of many of the local quests.  Many of them are time consuming because of the time you are forced to spend running around. 

Wednesday,  Gaellespie finished up his last UTR Armor mission, which ends in Shoreline Ruins.   I then proceded to work on the final UTR Hero quest.  Unfortunately for me the 2nd mission in this series seems to be broken at the moment.  In this mission you are required to gather 8-12 drops from undead in the lighthouse / graveyard area.  If memory serves me correctly, before you were only required to gather 1 drop of each type.  Now, the quest shows that you need the 8-12 drops.  That is fine, but it seems to be that the drop rate is currently bugged or not working at all as I spent over an hour without a single drop.  Consequently, Gaellespie won’t be getting his UTR weapon anytime soon.  That is too bad, considering that the weapon is very nice for his level.   Instead, it looks as though I will be trying to find a new place to level until I can get started on the Trengal Keep area.  Hopeful candidates appear to be Tuathian Delta, Skrillien Point and Scrawla Rock zones.

 At this point my guildmates range in levels from 32 -40.  While I consider myself to be making decent progress, I think that it may realistically take me 2-3 more weeks to catch up.