Every so often podcasts tend to fade, much like blogs, Facebook and Twitter users. This is just human nature. We are creatures of habit and we bore easily. I am here to say that I have found my interest once again in podcasting. Even though I have not been making new shows I have been playing EQ2 quite a bit over this recent hiatus. With all the new changes that will be coming next month with the Sentinel’s Fate expansion pack much of the previous shows are going to be kind of obsolete.

Take for example the show#1. When I wrote that show I was learning podcasting at the same time I was auditioning to get into the Virgin World collective. I feel that I over produced the early shows. I also was still learning the EQ2 game itself. I chose to do those shows to help others enjoy this game and not to struggle much like I did. I now know so much more than I ever did about the games mechanics, classes, features and even podcasting itself. This makes the past podcasts seem outdated and rough at best. Take for example the Lore and Legend show that is mostly outdated since you no longer have to obtain the quest starter the way you once did. The show on Combat basics is going to be outdated as well come next expansion. Show 3 has changed much since the Sinking Sands had its mobs and encounters raised to levels 55-60 and many of the epics have been changed to just Heroics.

My show on Leveling is irrelevant now due to the many mechanics changes over the last year. Even the last show about Transmuting is going to be vastly outdated next month. This has been very discouraging to me since the goal of the show was to keep it is relevant as possible. I had always claimed that I would just go back and edit the old shows and bring them up to date. I still may but some of them will be drastically changed I might as well just re-record the whole show. Even if I do re-record I will leave the old shows intact for historical purposes.

All in all I will be releasing a show soon about the reboot of the podcast so stay tuned and be prepared to hit the ground running once the Sentinel’s Fate is released. I am in beta and will be ready to make you ready come February 16th.

The void shard system was introduced with the release of The Shadow Odyssey expansion pack in late 2008. A void shard is an item used in the form of currency or traded to certain merchants for items such as Armor, Jewelry, Weapons, Charms, Mounts and so forth. To earn these shards you need to complete Quests or kill certain mobs within TSO instances. You will typically earn between one to four shards per instance per day. There are over 20 instances from which you can earn these shards. Some are more difficult than other zones. 

The concept of using shards as a currency that is used for purchasing rewards is not completely new to Everquest; many of the recent world events like Frostfell began using a form of shards as quest rewards, which are then used as a form of currency. A similar system was used in the original Everquest expansion Lost Dungeons of Norrath. Some love it and other despise this system. This is due to the nasty fact that you will have to grid these instances over and over and over, especially if you have alts. The good thing is that shards are Heirloom so you can trade them to your alts as long as they are on the same account. It takes quite a bit of shards to get some of the better gear in this expansion. With this expansion pack more that the previous it is important to progress your gear. For example some of the higher level instances can be difficult to complete even for a fully Veeshan’s Peak geared raider. This is because Sony added Critical damage to the mobs in these instances. This means that you can be one-shooted much more regular. Once you obtain your tier two armor you begin earn gear that mitigates this Critical damage. This opens you up to get your fabled TSO armor that allows you to progress in the content which leads to better gear which in turn leads to better survivability in tougher zones.

Armor and jewelry are the main focus for most players when spending shards so let’s go over some of those concepts. The Shadow Odyssey has two main sets of armor. A Legendary set and a Fabled set. These sets are broken down into tiers between these sets. Tier 1 and 2 armor sets are Legendary while Tier 3 and 4 are Fabled. These sets are also shared between archetypes and sub-classes. If that was not confusing you also have 4 generic sets; Plate, Chain, Leather and Cloth that are used by their respectable classes. The other types of armor are the Class specific ones such as for Sorcerers or Clerics. That means the Warlocks and Wizards use the same armor and they can use the cloth vesions as well if they choose too. Now this is why you need an abundance of shards to fully gear out a character. A full set of tier one armor will cost you 44 shards. Now here is where it gets expensive. Tier 2 armor will cost you 126 Void Shards plus you Tier 1 Piece. You can get these slightly cheaper if you can find a shard armor crafter which I will go over later. Now for Tier 3 armor you will once again need to trade in your tier two shard armor along with an armor pattern and some shards. To get these patterns you need a mold which drops from boss mobs within the X2 raid zones. This will cost slightly more shards than the tier one costs. For Tier four the great news is you do not need to trade in any gear to get your armor; however you will still need a number of shards as well as plat. This works similar to past expansion packs where the boss mobs drops patterns found in the highest level raids zones of TSO. Now don’t think you are going to just skip tier 1 – 3 and hop into these zones in VP gear. Maybe avatar gear but many don’t have that. This gear should not be confused as a progression from tier three just because it is called tier 4. It’s not a direct progression from tier 3 shard armor but more of a progression from Veeshan’s Peak Raid armor from RoK. Also it’s fair to mention the new black market vendors added with Game Update 53 sell many fabled items that come from all of the TSO zones for a bargain price of 150 shards. This is a controversial topic for many hardcore and veteran players. Some feel this is another step in making EQ2 easy street. Clearly though is you have the time and many alts you can gear you characters very well with out ever raiding. However to be the best you need to raid to get the best gear in the game.

For more on the Shard System see the upcoming Show 13: The Shard System.

Taken from the EQ-IQ Guide to Guilds…

A guild is a player-founded and player-run organization within the game. Guilds, like the people who form them, have many different modes of operation and goals. Some guilds exist purely as a social network of players who enjoy gaming together, while others work long and hard to reach end-game content and to become rich and powerful.

Guilds are not for everyone. I was not in a guild for most of my EQ playing career. I have only been part of a guild for about a year now. The reasons I joined a guild were simple. I wanted to have the opportunity to experience the end game content and to avoid pick up groups. With a guild you are more likely to finish a dungeon crawl than you would if you were in a pick up group of players you do not know. As some may have experienced in there own journeys in the game is that most PuG’s end poorly. Everyone in the PuG has no obligation to you or your goal within a zone. Usually when a PuG formed it’s in the interest of the group’s leader to obtain his or her goal. Once they obtain the goal the group tends to fall apart more often than not. With a guild you still can experience these things but most of the times you are likely to see the groups last a bit longer.  This is because a good guild will weed out the selfish or bad players which tends to enhance the game experience for all in the guild. 

This comes full circle to the first paragraph where I said that a Guild is a play run organization. That’s the key word here, Organize. When forming groups or raids from a guild, they are usually organized. What I mean is there is a goal set as to why your are going to do the content, whether it is for loot, killing named mobs for AA, completing quests, etc… One of the main reasons so many PuGs fail is the lack of the group members understanding these goals. If the group leader just needs to kill one mob for a quest completion then he will have little interest in finishing the zone or helping others with their goals if no one has let him or her know what you need or want. With guilds this communication should be disclosed before the group gets started. In a well ran Guild you will find this to be the case.

Everyone will join a guild for various reasons. Some people love the social aspects of MMO’s and look for guilds that tend to have very active social community.  Some like to role-play and should find a guild that tends to or requires its members to role-play. There are guilds for hard core raiding. These Guilds are not for the faint of heart but are more for people whom are very extroverted and high achievers. There are guilds that balance the raiding, role-playing, crafting, etc… It will take some research and in game discussions to find the right guild for your play style. Most well organized guilds with have what we call a Guild Charter. This is a document that outlines who the guild is, their goals, expectations and how the Guild is structured. If you find a guild that does not have a charter then I would avoid joining them. Anyone whom has been running guilds within MMO’s regardless of the game should know they need one.

Advantages and Disadvantages

This topic kind of goes along with why would you want to join a guild. For one there are many advantages in joining a Guild in EverQuest II. You get a discount on many items in the game by using status in addition to plat. Status is earned by doing certain quest in the game such as Heritage Quests or city WRITS. You can also earn status by killing certain Raid mobs as well as selling of items that are dropped in game for status to a status vendor. You then use this status along with plat to purchase things like mounts or player housing at a discount rate. Many of the discounts also require the Guild to be of a certain level. Yes Guilds have the same level system as a player does, more on that later. Now some mounts just require you to be in a guild just to buy regardless of discounts or not. You are also allowed to purchase titles that others cannot. This is not much of an advantage unless you’re a title junkie. There are hundreds of titles available in the game and some people love to have these.

Other advantages are you get to meet other people on a regular basis. For those whom love to socialize this is a big draw for them. Many guilds become like family to some players. Along with that you will be able to form up regular groups and become familiar with each others play styles. This makes it easier to complete content in the game.

Guilds that have Guild Halls will also bring much advantage with their Guild Amenities. This will be covered later but the Guild Halls can hold certain Amenities that make life easier for players. Some of these amenities help with travel. You can use the Guild Hall as a central place for your travel or getting around in Norrath. You get a Call to Guild Hall spell that will transport you to your Guild Hall. The Cool down is 15 minutes. Much better than the Call to City Spells, this has a cool down of 1 hour. From here if your Guild has the transportation Amenities you can get to just about anywhere in the game world fairly quick. You can even go right to your own house from the Guild Hall and even access your vault right form the Guild Hall Door. There are many more of these amenities which I will cover soon.

Now for the disadvantages, yep there are defiantly some. The disadvantages are different for both the player or the leader and their officers but many are shared. The number one disadvantage is DRAMA. This is strictly my subjective opinion but you will be subjected too much drama when you are part of a guild. No matter how hard a guild tries to curve drama it always rears its ugly head. What is drama? Drama are the events in a guild usually started by a disagreement with a player towards,  a policy, misperception or other conflict that becomes public within the guild chat, webpage or voice channel. Just as in real life guilds can bring us politics, religion, clashes of personalities and much more. This is a guild leader’s nightmare. Guild Drama just simple ruins the fun for everyone and if the leaders do not deal with it swiftly it can break apart a great guild in a hurry. The best guilds run with the least drama. Drama makes people not want to play, leave the guild, and gives the guild leader massive headaches!
Here are some good reads on Guild Drama:

http://priestlyendeavors.wordpress.com/2007/09/24/guild-drama/
http://ulduar25.com/dealing-with-guild-drama/
http://g0thicicecream.wordpress.com/2009/01/14/raiding-in-eq2/
http://mmohub.org/news/how-to-prevent-elitism-stop-drama-in-your-guild/457/

Common disputes that lead to drama:
 I never get any Loot!
 I never get picked for the raid!
 No one ever helps me!
 Why was I skipped over for promotion?
 Why am I not in the main tank group?
 Why is he the Class Leader and not ME?
 So and so doesn’t do anything.
 Girls can’t tank.

Some more disadvantages are you may feel guilty if you don’t help out on the guild raid or that guild member’s plea for another player to help out on a difficult quest when you are in the middle of a quest or crafting session. You can begin to worry about your perception towards other. Some guilds require you to donate plat and status to help the Guild funding. Yes Guilds are not completely free to run in game and even out of game has costs. Many guilds have Websites and use other third-party applications. This will require you to sometimes be a little technical savvy. Many Guilds use and require, when grouping, voice chat systems like Team Speak or Ventrilo which require you to download and setup. This can be a challenge for some players with little computer experience. Heck this can be a challenge to even the PC savvy users.  I still think that there are many more advantages then disadvantages but that is just my opinion.

Catch Show #14 about Guilds

 

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Show number 11 returns after a long hiatus with a look into The Gods of EverQuest II. The host covers the mechanics and benefits of following a God and explains how to get started. Host also covers the basics of the miracles, blessings, pets and cloaks that each God has to offer. The host also recommends which Gods are most suitable to each of the 24 classes within the game.

Links:
The Gods Acording to Wiki

  EQ-IQ God List (84.7 KiB, 544 hits)

Email:
EQ-IQ@EQ2-Guides.com

GENERAL

• The “/clear_mailbox” command will now allow players to delete all mail, including ghosted mail from their character. NOTE:  After using the command the mail icon in the Spell Effects window will remain until the player logs out and then back in.
• An issue that was causing researched spells from research assistants to not be granted upon completion has been fixed.