Solo Technology

A long holiday weekend followed by two vacation days find me still experimenting with EverQuest II. In fact, I’m starting to feel a bit hooked. Some random thoughts and impressions follow.

I’m pleasantly surprised at how much fun I’m having dinking around with harvesting and Trade Skills. I’m only a level 12 trade-skiller, but I can already make some useful stuff. For instance, making my spell upgrades has also helped me pay more attention to the spells that I currently have. I think I’m finally getting the hang of which ones to use.

The quests are still enjoyable. I like that I can pop on for 20 or 40 minutes and actually accomplish something before logging off.

Playing on a server where I don’t know anyone is interesting. No handouts. No help. I think I’m doing ok though and I’ve met a handful of nice folks. For the kind of monsters and quests that I’m facing, the gear that I’ve found or made seems to work just fine. (that’s probably not helping me in PVP though… more on that below)

Most of what I’ve done has been solo (by choice). I did have to ask for help on one quest though, I just didn’t have the gear and skills to pull it off alone. A nice druid type came along to keep me healed and helped make it a breeze to finish. He must’ve peeked at my gear as he offered me a couple of armor upgrades before we left… I’m not too proud — I took ‘em! Pity schmitty.

My server, Venekor, is a role-playing and PVP (player vs. player) server. I’ve seen just a bit of role-play and have now had about a dozen PVP encounters– most went poorly… I tend to feel like I am starring in a 70’s prison movie by the time they’re done. I think the back of my Sarnak has a “Gank Me” bumper sticker… After some encounters I might want to get upset but hey, I signed up for PVP. Can’t cry about it!

Grouping up to go hunting for “Q’s” (the goodies from Qeynos) is an interesting way to pass time though.

By watching some of the chat channels, I can see that PVP will get much more interesting as I level up and learn how to play my character better. Frankly, I don’t have a clue how best to be a PVP’ing Shadowknight. But I will… It all seems to start with the element of surprise. In most cases, I am taking damage before I have even seen the guy(s) I’m allegedly fighting. Getting better gear will probably help too.

EverQuest 2 punishes the PC. My desktop’s GeForce 6800 GT almost instantly overheats (an ongoing issue for this particular card). In fact, I’ve had to pull it and retire it. All I have for a spare is a GeForce FX 5200. It ain’t pretty… pretty ugly, really. When not overheating, the 6800 GT was doing a great job. Bummer.

Because of that, I’ve been spoiled by playing on my laptop at 1600 x 1200 (GeForce 7900 GS) and darn near max on most of the pretties. The 5200 can’t even begin to approach that. I have to disable darned near everything (aka “Extreme Performance” mode) and it still chugs. I’m not ready to build a new PC, but I’d like to use my desktop for gaming (better ergonomics) so I guess I have one last AGP video card to buy… I might try and go cheap with a 7600 GS.

If curious, you can check out Pliska; my main character. The info on the profile seems to lag behind a day or so, but you’ll get an idea of what I’m up to.

This little badge is amusing as well. Hopefully my one win in PVP will show up eventually…

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