Weekly Update #1

Today marks the start of what I hope will be a regular friday occurance. A round up of my adventures and frolics of the last 7 days.

Two games to talk about this week and there are absolutely no prizes for guessing what the first one is.

WoW - The Day of Wrath has come and gone and, on the European servers at least, everything appeared to go smoothly and without any major incidents. Up to Wednesday evening I hadn't really been playing much through the week, content to enjoy some uninterrupted EQ2 time. On Wednesday night though, I was logged in and ready, secretly hoping that Blizz might have some nice final event planned before opening the boats to Northrend. Sadly, I was disappointed when absolutely nothing happened. In fact the only clue that anything had changed was that people started remarking in chat that there were Death Knights on the server and people in Northrend. So I hopped on the boat and off to Northrend I went.

First place I visited, albeit briefly that night, was Borean Tundra. I stomped through a few quests quickly and picked up a few bits of equipment as rewards (unlike a lot I was wearing a real miss-mish of purples, blues and greens). When I logged in last night (after queuing, anybody would think it was a big deal or something) Borean Tundra was rather crowded so I quickly headed off back to SW and then over to Menethil Habour and grabbed the boat to Howling Fjord. At which point the full force of what Blizz have done crafting the new area hit me, that boat ride in is just fantastic. Slightly later on you fly back out and that , for me, was jaw dropping. A couple of quests really stood out for me, one being the encounter with a horde of zombies in the Utgarde Catacombes and the other a meeting with The Lich King in the spirit realm - both utterly unexpected and different to anything before in terms of implementation.

Its safe to say that my first few hours with Wrath have been an absolue pleasure. In terms of progress, I'm nearly halfway to 71 and I've cleared the quests for both of the first hubs in the two zones. Plans wise, its really a case of continuing to do the quests and have a good explore. If I can I'd like to have a go at doing the first two dungeons and start working on my tailoring as well.

EQ2 - Obviously, I've been pulled away from EQ2 the last few days but prior to that I was trying to get some good time in with the game. I think I've been making some good progress - my monk is now level 38 and I've also got him kitted out in the full set of level 32 mastercrafted armour. I do, however, have two small problems. The first one is simple - I'm close to broke. However, I think the solution is also relatively simple - farm for some rare mats. That seems to me to be the easiest way to make some easy cash. Quest rewards also seem to be increasing in amount so all in all I'm not too concerned but that level 42 mastercrafted set may not be as easy to afford as I'd like. My second problem is a little more difficult to explain. EQ2 leaves me feeling a little bewildered. I'm quite happy with how my character is developing, the quests are good and the world is excellent but I can't help but feel that I'm missing out on stuff. There's so much crammed into EQ2, its really hard to see it all. In fact, its probably impossible. I can accept that for the most part but I've not done any group stuff at all and I can't help but feel that's a shame. Admittedly, I've not gone out on a limb looking for a party but equally I've not really seen anything pop up in chat for level appropriate groups, which I would have jumped on straight away. I guess its just a case that the player population is all at the higher levels and that when I get there then there will be plenty of group content. From what I've read about the new expansion there is plenty of group content in there - I just hope I won't be so late to the party that I miss it all.

Plans for EQ2 is just to keep munching through the solo timelines - I'm in Steamfont at the moment with plenty to do but once that starts to tail off I think a trip to Everfrost will be in order.

One last thing before I sign off, I'm going to start adding people to the Twitter - mainly people who have Twitter who's blog I've got subscribed in my RSS reader or podcasters. If I add you and you do end up reading this - please feel free to add me back and stick around and read the blog. As this is a new blog and is light on content right now, the knowledge that a few people are reading would be more than a bit motivational. ;)

Happy gaming,
mu.