I quit playing really around September/October of 2006. I tried out the expansion, but it was weak and I had zero time to play the game. I finally canceled my account and called it quits for good. Aimelia was fun to play. From the start to 50, then to 60, then to 70, the game was great. 50-70 was really the best, joining Mob Squad and taking down some of the hardest encounters in the game was pure joy.

While there are new games (Vanguard: SOH, World of Warcraft), I just can’t justify another grind just for the same thing again. EQ2 had some magic and I enjoyed it far more than EQ1. I just can’t see doing that again, at least not at this point in my life.

I’ll keep the signature generator going (if it even still works) as long as it isn’t broken but if it breaks again, it’s likely to be removed. Sony has their own now anyway.

So long and farewell SOE, I assure you my wife hasn’t missed you one bit.

I’m not sure how well that fares for my signature code, so far I’m still trying to fix it. But at least they got up to speed on their end.

So much for making it ‘much more difficult’ to obtain guild levels in this release. Well, they did make it harder, that’s for sure, but it wasn’t impossible.

I then showed up for the Lab raid and it was like group XP pulling in Silent City. I mean, it was seriously fast. We didn’t stop for anything and were chain pulling x4′s from the git-go. Some pretty nice loot dropped for various folks, I’m basically set for loot aside from rings and a weapon or two so I abstained from anything that dropped. Zyxlin continues to just rock as the main tank, preferring to just tank entire encounters instead of dealing with difficult setups. I remember when we used to split Prime/Vyemm between two tanks, that’s just a moot point now. We did split the prophet, I forgot about that.

So two full raids in a single night, pretty sweet action.

First things first, everyone that came got hooked on Guitar Hero. By the end of the night, nobody had any usable fingers remaining on their left hand. It turned into a competition for the highest scores as some new players moved quickly through the more difficult songs. The beer and Crown didn’t help either. It was quite a sight to see, particularly David and his tribute to the Beatles by strapping his guitar almost to his armpits. The only thing more scary was his insane body movements while trying to somehow get some masse off the guitar.

Trollmeat jumped into WoW and got into the tail end of an MC raid, which there wasn’t much to see at that point. But Ambroze got on at the start of an Onyxia raid and we got to see how that went. First, they went after a world boss, but realized they didn’t have the force to take it down. After that short diversion, they went after Onyxia and took that bitch down on the first try. While he didn’t get any gear, Ambroze managed to get head from Onyxia to start a quest for an uber ring. Very nice.

After a short wait to get in (well, ninety minutes after the start anyway), I got pulled into Deathtoll for the Tarinax fight. It was a messy a night, many guilds were doing the same raid and lag was brutal. But by the time we got to Tarinax, several guilds (Fortitude, others) had already given up on the giant skeleton dragon and called it a night. But Mob Squad stuck to it, tweaked the strategy and managed to get a good pull resulting in a solid takedown. It was a great victory, our second defeat of the big beast, and it felt good since so many other guilds failed earlier. Several guildies got their claymores and other quest updates. The folks watching had a blast and couldn’t believe how HUGE the dragon was on screen. It was serious fun.

We also played several death matches of Unreal Tournament 2004, damn that’s a fun game. Nothing like 176 frames per second at 1920×1080 to keep the gameplay smooth. 1080 you say? Yes, I brought out the 37″ screen and used it for gaming all night. Talk about serious neck strain while looking from left to right, I’d say that the screen was too big if it wasn’t so damn gorgeous to behold. I can definitely see using one as a regular gaming display if you could afford it.

The night went late, probably 2:30 AM before everyone headed out. But the Savastano’s Pizza, along with some tasty beverages made the night a complete success.

Before the raid action, I moved Guitar Hero from the bedroom to the living room and hooked it up to the sound system. Man, what a difference a little bass can bring to the table. I’m absolutely convinced that is what it took to allow me to finish the last song (Bark at the Moon) on medium. Now it’s time to start working on the hard level — boy I can’t wait! Maybe these note charts will help me figure out some of the harder parts without trying to keep up.
Tonight is the Halls of Seeing, we’ll see if we can take down Venekor!

There is a five-day lockout timer on this mob even for killing the trash on zone-in, so we won’t be back for another week. That’s probably a good thing though, less they rename it to “Chel’Drak the Bankrupter” considering the repair bills.

Note I didn’t take this picture, I snagged it from the EQ2 forums. I’ll post my own shots along with the short video.

So now I have that annoying blue symbol floating in front on my character now — JUST LIKE EVERYONE ELSE. I feel like such a cliq member now. Nice to know that Sony made a fairly easy quest item like that so good that everyone uses it. No, really, EVERYONE.

After that successful run, several of us went to the Village of Shin to work with on whistling fist clan tower quests. Several of us were stuck on level two, so Sileen (Elissa) ran us through them so we could get our updates. It took quite a bit of time, but we made quite a bit of progress. The next stage is the city inside the city (instance) and is a level 75 heroic quest. So that should be a bit harder, but doable. Creon has the quest down so hopefully it’s just another walkthrough. Not sure what the end of the quest line is yet, but I’m sure some guilds are crusing through it full speed. Time to check the boards I guess.

Oh, and I had a great Father’s Day too.