A day in AO

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.games.everquest (More info?)

So after a bit more than 24 hours I managed to get AO up and running.

My first time logging in, I didn't see the login choice part, so I went
to the default server.

Start out with a movie, then you pick a breed, appearance, and
profession. I went with a solitus adventurer to start out, which is to
say a human in what might be the most generic class.

First thing you do is... nothing. A zone you run around in where some
people try and talk you into joining one side or the other, or staying
nuetral. Then you go out one of a set of doors, depending on which side
you pick, or you can go to the Shadowlands... only with the free set you
can't go shadowlands, and they've eliminated the ability to pick clan or
omni at this point, so you really only have one choice.

Then you go into a new zone where you can do even less; its a one room
shuttle which you are taking down to the surface, but it gets shot up
and wrecks. So, exit this zone and you enter the newbie island.

There, you finally get access to your inventory, so I got out a pair of
pistols and talked to the starting NPC, then went off to shore and got a
beginner quest and started playing. Combat, at this stage, consisted of
picking a target, starting the fight, and hoping for the best. I did
ok, but not great, managed to level up, then finally looked at my
skills; turns out I had missed a very important part of character
generation, SPENDING those points. At level 1 you have the ability to
buy literally hundreds of points in skills and abilities, and thats most
of how the game system works. I'm lucky I got anywhere at all without
spending any points.

Items, in AO, can only be equipped if you meet certain minimum skills
and stats; its as though you had weapons in EQ which required at least a
70 str and 90 dex and 30 1hb and 20 dual weild. Some also work only for
someone in a certain class, or of a certain faction. The few basic
items you start with don't have much by way of restrictions, but even
the lowliest drops off the things you kill do.

When you die in AO, you respawn somewhat injured back at your starting
position. This happened to me several times, especially at first, when
I didn't know how to find my own hp bar and so I'd run out to fight
badly injured, making it pretty likely I'd die again.

Eventually I got stuck trying to fulfil a quest, and logged out... then
I found I couldn't log back in. No way, no how. Eventually I realized
there was another server. This one was far easier to log into...
probably because it wasn't flooded with hundreds of people trying out
their free accounts, since like me they mostly ended up in the default
server.

This time I made a nano engineer; a weak but intelligent breed, and a
pet specialist profession. This was even more bewildering to try and
run than the adventurer, but at least I had many of the basics figured
out. I leveled up relatively quickly compared to the first time thru,
and finished most of the quests on the island. Finally at level 5, I
joined up with the clan and left the newbie place, which is a one way
ticket out; didn't do much in the "real world" but a little shopping,
though.

This morning, I went back to my adventurer, and was impressed at how
much easier he was to run, and how much more effective. My Engineer had
a hard time taking down some yellows, the adventurer on the other hand
can mow thru orange.

I've yet to team up, and have spent more than half my play time just
trying to figure out the interface itself, which is full of little
oddities that tend to seem self explanitory -after- you figure them out,
but a complete mystery beforehand. I still have a stack of things I
don't know how to do, many of them probably the same sort of "oh that
should have been obvious". And who knows how many things I'm currently
doing in a needlessly complicated way, or even doing wrong.

Is the game fun? Well sort of. I hate it less than I hated EQ1 the
first time I tried it, does that count? I won't even try to render a
real opinion till I have a week or two under my belt.

Oh, there are either two or three servers, and you can have a total of 8
characters (not 8 per server ala EQ1, but better than total 4 ala EQ2).
Due to the skill system, it looks like there are quite a few possible
variations on the basic professions, but they aren't discrete the way
EQ2's are, with classes that split into subclasses at 10 and 20.

I'm thinking, for example, that my choice of adventurer specialized in
ranged combat was silly, as I'll likely solo a lot (I spent about half
of any class I played in EQ1 soloing); this means that I get the mobs
mad at me, they come running over, and there I am toe to toe with them.
I might as well be using melee weapons, which don't suffer from ammo
problems!

Lance

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.games.everquest (More info?)

On Sat, 18 Dec 2004 13:40:41 -0500, Lance Berg <emporer@dejazzd.com>
wrote:

>So after a bit more than 24 hours I managed to get AO up and running.
>
>My first time logging in, I didn't see the login choice part, so I went
>to the default server.
>
>Start out with a movie, then you pick a breed, appearance, and
>profession. I went with a solitus adventurer to start out, which is to
>say a human in what might be the most generic class.
>
>First thing you do is... nothing. A zone you run around in where some
>people try and talk you into joining one side or the other, or staying
>nuetral. Then you go out one of a set of doors, depending on which side
>you pick, or you can go to the Shadowlands... only with the free set you
>can't go shadowlands, and they've eliminated the ability to pick clan or
>omni at this point, so you really only have one choice.
>
>Then you go into a new zone where you can do even less; its a one room
>shuttle which you are taking down to the surface, but it gets shot up
>and wrecks. So, exit this zone and you enter the newbie island.

Well, ok, it just sets up a bit of a plot - a glorified character
creation setup if you like. Nothing wrong with it, and it only lasts
a few minutes all told. The newbie zone and the NPCs therein are
something similar to Gloomingdeep, the tutorial feature in EQ, which
again seems reasonable.

>I'm lucky I got anywhere at all without spending any points.

Lol, same here! I missed them too, then when I noticed them, I didn't
realise I had a few thousand to spend - at first I was dithering along
putting 3 or 4 here, 5 or 6 there.... Sheesh 😀

>Items, in AO, can only be equipped if you meet certain minimum skills
>and stats; its as though you had weapons in EQ which required at least a
>70 str and 90 dex and 30 1hb and 20 dual weild. Some also work only for
>someone in a certain class, or of a certain faction.

I quite like that feature, but maybe some don't. It is a bit like
level-restricted items in EQ, but, possibly, slightly better. What I
mean is, it seems reasonable that my Strength 6 Nanomage (stat upper
limit may be above a few hundred, if developed high enough?) couldn't
use a full suit of kevlar and carry a 15lb Assault Rifle before
getting a bit stronger...

>When you die in AO, you respawn somewhat injured back at your starting
>position. This happened to me several times, especially at first, when
>I didn't know how to find my own hp bar and so I'd run out to fight
>badly injured, making it pretty likely I'd die again.

Well, I was lucky and took the red bar to be HP, like in EQ, heh.
Mind you, reading the manual is a big help, but I do have to say that,
like you, I prefer to dive in...

>This time I made a nano engineer; a weak but intelligent breed, and a
>pet specialist profession...

I dumped that newbie melee weapon they give Nanomages (uses Brawl
skill apparently) and I am using two pistols now, instead. I mean,
they TELL you the Nano is puny in combat, then they give you a MELEE
weapon 😀 Not very sensible. With the two pistols, my Pain Bolt
(mental attack) and my pet, I do pretty well

>I've yet to team up, and have spent more than half my play time just
>trying to figure out the interface itself, which is full of little
>oddities that tend to seem self explanitory -after- you figure them out,
>but a complete mystery beforehand.

Damn right there mate!!!

I have used the Mission terminals to get solo missions for cash and
xp, and they are like solo LDoN's - I like them There are Group
mission terminals too...

I have also grouped, with a bunch in the mob-infested Subway of Rome
City. Very like EQ in feel, with rogue droids, Clanners (I joined
Omni Tech) and the like. The loot system is quite clever, in that it
can be set to "whoever wants to loot can have it" or "alphabetical
order only." This last option will actually SAY which person can loot
the mob just killed, and no-one else can loot it - cool! The rest of
the party get an EQ-like message saying "So-and-so has looted a Omni
Tech Mauser Energy Rifle" and a lot of inter-party trading can take
place as a result. I really like this aspect...

> I still have a stack of things I
>don't know how to do, many of them probably the same sort of "oh that
>should have been obvious". And who knows how many things I'm currently
>doing in a needlessly complicated way, or even doing wrong.

It is a complex game, that's for sure. Combining gadgets to make
Cybernetic Implants seems like it needs a manual all of it's own to
me, lol. Other skills like custom-building your own guns and so on
seem equally complex, but as you say, we are new to it at the moment.

>Is the game fun? Well sort of. I hate it less than I hated EQ1 the
>first time I tried it, does that count? I won't even try to render a
>real opinion till I have a week or two under my belt.

Aye, it will take me that long to scratch the surface, I reckon...

>I'm thinking, for example, that my choice of adventurer specialized in
>ranged combat was silly, as I'll likely solo a lot (I spent about half
>of any class I played in EQ1 soloing); this means that I get the mobs
>mad at me, they come running over, and there I am toe to toe with them.
> I might as well be using melee weapons, which don't suffer from ammo
>problems!

Well, the basic weapons don't take ammo, but I am not being picky and
I do see your point and agree with it. I'm looking forward to getting
better guns - some of the more powerful guns do incredible damage, but
do require ammo 🙁

I see there are gadgets and Nano-abilities that resemble Root and
Charm, so we may find we will do ok when pulling mobs later on

Sure is an intriguing game though!


Palindrome

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.games.everquest (More info?)

Palindrome wrote:

> On Sat, 18 Dec 2004 13:40:41 -0500, Lance Berg <emporer@dejazzd.com>
> wrote:
>
>
>>So after a bit more than 24 hours I managed to get AO up and running.
>>
>>My first time logging in, I didn't see the login choice part, so I went
>>to the default server.
>>
>>Start out with a movie, then you pick a breed, appearance, and
>>profession. I went with a solitus adventurer to start out, which is to
>>say a human in what might be the most generic class.
>>
>>First thing you do is... nothing. A zone you run around in where some
>>people try and talk you into joining one side or the other, or staying
>>nuetral. Then you go out one of a set of doors, depending on which side
>>you pick, or you can go to the Shadowlands... only with the free set you
>>can't go shadowlands, and they've eliminated the ability to pick clan or
>>omni at this point, so you really only have one choice.
>>
>>Then you go into a new zone where you can do even less; its a one room
>>shuttle which you are taking down to the surface, but it gets shot up
>>and wrecks. So, exit this zone and you enter the newbie island.
>
>
> Well, ok, it just sets up a bit of a plot - a glorified character
> creation setup if you like. Nothing wrong with it, and it only lasts
> a few minutes all told. The newbie zone and the NPCs therein are
> something similar to Gloomingdeep, the tutorial feature in EQ, which
> again seems reasonable.
>
I'm not complaining about it here, just trying to describe it. I think
its overly kind to compare it to Gloomingdeep, though, in fact from the
description on the web thats more or less what I expected. Instead,
there seemed to be little or no practical instruction there, its nothing
but flavor. The practical stuff is all in tip form, as far as I can
tell, and the tips are only sometimes applicable and very often inscrutable.

Conceptually, the tutorial plan is a good one, and I like the way they
walk you thru creation instead of having it be totally divorced from the
game the way it is in EQ. I just found it wasn't a lot of practical
help once you arrived in the station.

>
>>I'm lucky I got anywhere at all without spending any points.
>
>
> Lol, same here! I missed them too, then when I noticed them, I didn't
> realise I had a few thousand to spend - at first I was dithering along
> putting 3 or 4 here, 5 or 6 there.... Sheesh 😀
>
Well, the thousands of points don't go quite as far as you think; it
costs more IP to go from 6 to 7 then it did from 5 to 6... and a Whole
lot more to go from 19 to 20. Since the skills apparantly go up over
220 eventually, I'm guessing we'll pay more IP for the last 20 points in
a skill than we spend on every skill we've got at first level!

Another interesting idea is that while all skills (or almost all?) are
available to all classes, there are differences in ease of learning. It
cost fewer points to raise a green skill from 19 to 20 than it does to
raise a dark blue one from 12 to 13. And there's a slope of some kind
from green thru several shades of light blue up to fully blue.

>
>>Items, in AO, can only be equipped if you meet certain minimum skills
>>and stats; its as though you had weapons in EQ which required at least a
>>70 str and 90 dex and 30 1hb and 20 dual weild. Some also work only for
>>someone in a certain class, or of a certain faction.
>
>
> I quite like that feature, but maybe some don't. It is a bit like
> level-restricted items in EQ, but, possibly, slightly better. What I
> mean is, it seems reasonable that my Strength 6 Nanomage (stat upper
> limit may be above a few hundred, if developed high enough?) couldn't
> use a full suit of kevlar and carry a 15lb Assault Rifle before
> getting a bit stronger...
>
Aye, its a good deal more fine tuned than the EQ approach, which uses
encumberance and class and not much else. I'm wearing a piece of armor
now that required that I raise my psychic ability, which is something I
was leaving low. Right now while points are easy to come by, thats no
big deal, but eventually I imagine it will make for some hard choices.

>
>>When you die in AO, you respawn somewhat injured back at your starting
>>position. This happened to me several times, especially at first, when
>>I didn't know how to find my own hp bar and so I'd run out to fight
>>badly injured, making it pretty likely I'd die again.
>
>
> Well, I was lucky and took the red bar to be HP, like in EQ, heh.
> Mind you, reading the manual is a big help, but I do have to say that,
> like you, I prefer to dive in...
>
Red bar? Oh, oh, on the stats. Yeah, only I didn't pull that window
up, or in addition to that I pulled up several others and it scrolled
out of sight. Even now I don't usually end up with that bar up, instead
I've discovered that once you start a fight, you can switch target to
yourself in order to see your bar and to use nano's on yourself, while
you keep fighting the original target. Soft living that, compared to
EQ's insistance that you can only have one target at a time.
>
>>This time I made a nano engineer; a weak but intelligent breed, and a
>>pet specialist profession...
>
>
> I dumped that newbie melee weapon they give Nanomages (uses Brawl
> skill apparently) and I am using two pistols now, instead. I mean,
> they TELL you the Nano is puny in combat, then they give you a MELEE
> weapon 😀 Not very sensible. With the two pistols, my Pain Bolt
> (mental attack) and my pet, I do pretty well
>
Engineers don't have anything like that pain bolt, but they do give us a
gun from the start. Only thing is, after a couple levels I ended up
tanking for my pet, he'd get eaten waaaaay too quickly if I tried to
have him do the job while I stood off and shot.


> I have used the Mission terminals to get solo missions for cash and
> xp, and they are like solo LDoN's - I like them There are Group
> mission terminals too...
>
I did wander around and find some mission terminals, but never fought
outside the newbie island.



>>Is the game fun? Well sort of. I hate it less than I hated EQ1 the
>>first time I tried it, does that count? I won't even try to render a
>>real opinion till I have a week or two under my belt.
>
>
> Aye, it will take me that long to scratch the surface, I reckon...
>
>
>>I'm thinking, for example, that my choice of adventurer specialized in
>>ranged combat was silly, as I'll likely solo a lot (I spent about half
>>of any class I played in EQ1 soloing); this means that I get the mobs
>>mad at me, they come running over, and there I am toe to toe with them.
>> I might as well be using melee weapons, which don't suffer from ammo
>>problems!
>
>
> Well, the basic weapons don't take ammo, but I am not being picky and
> I do see your point and agree with it. I'm looking forward to getting
> better guns - some of the more powerful guns do incredible damage, but
> do require ammo 🙁
>
On the newbie island, which is the only fighting I've done so far, there
are no ammo salesmen, nor does ammo drop. Thus, while I've seen quite a
few interesting ranged weapons, I can't really use any other than the
starter pistols (or that gun my engineer got). In the meantime, a large
number of melee weapons have also dropped, again, many seem like
improvements, and if I were a melee specialist, I'd be happily gearing up!

Of course the situation there is temporary, newbie island is good for an
evening or two at most, and then there's ammo for sale from then on. It
looks to me, though, as though ammo is still somewhat a concern (once
past the solar powered starting weapons) as it means a continuous
expense, an inventory space problem, and then there's the matter of
reloading, which apparantly can be problematic in long combats.

> I see there are gadgets and Nano-abilities that resemble Root and
> Charm, so we may find we will do ok when pulling mobs later on
>
> Sure is an intriguing game though!
>
By the way, I'm Dixon on Atlantean, and Quaffle on Rimor.

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.games.everquest (More info?)

Lance Berg wrote:


> On the newbie island, which is the only fighting I've done so far, there
> are no ammo salesmen, nor does ammo drop. Thus, while I've seen quite a
> few interesting ranged weapons, I can't really use any other than the
> starter pistols (or that gun my engineer got). In the meantime, a large
> number of melee weapons have also dropped, again, many seem like
> improvements, and if I were a melee specialist, I'd be happily gearing up!
>
Hah, a case of "the grass is always greener"; I made an enforcer so as
to try out my melee specialist theory. There's a little something to
it, to be sure, but the melee weapons I've managed to come up with so
far are all either inferior to my starting one, or are the wrong kind,
or I can't even equip them due to being a little "slow".

Atrox enforcer, big and dumb as a box of rocks. Special nano ability
gives a dramatic increase to one hand blunt skill. So much for the big
two handed hammer, but we also start with a baseball bat. Never did
come up with a better weapon than that bat. Only did a couple levels,
so I didn't get close to the point where I could dual weild bats, or
carry a shield for that matter.

Melee means having to actually get to melee range in order to pick a
fight; the mobs in the newbie zone almost all won't do a thing till
attacked. This means the labor involved in killing doubles. In the one
area which does have mobs which attack, the rollerrats, its difficult to
attack any other mob without a rat add, while with a ranged weapon its
relatively simple.


> By the way, I'm Dixon on Atlantean, and Quaffle on Rimor.
And now Borax, also on Atlantean

Lance

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.games.everquest (More info?)

On Sat, 18 Dec 2004 13:40:41 -0500, Lance Berg <emporer@dejazzd.com>
wrote:

>So after a bit more than 24 hours...

Oh, in the interests of group harmony (and OT stuff) I'll post to
alt.games.anarchy-online if this thread gets popular



Palindrome

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.games.everquest (More info?)

Palindrome wrote:

> On Sat, 18 Dec 2004 13:40:41 -0500, Lance Berg <emporer@dejazzd.com>
> wrote:
>
>
>>So after a bit more than 24 hours...
>
>
> Oh, in the interests of group harmony (and OT stuff) I'll post to
> alt.games.anarchy-online if this thread gets popular
>
Well, I looked at that newsgroup, and it gets practically no traffic,
what it -does- get is almost all spam or people looking for cheats and
exploits. Its definately no AGE.

At the moment, I'm looking at AO from the perspective of an EQ player,
so I figure its moderately on topic, although I -could- have put OT in
the header.

Lance

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.games.everquest (More info?)

Did you say something, Lance Berg <emporer@dejazzd.com>?

>So after a bit more than 24 hours I managed to get AO up and running.

You've done more than me I've basically looked at it, tried to kill
some things, and felt baffled by the UI and commands
(How do you inspect items, for instance?)


Cel
Retired druids & sundry

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.games.everquest (More info?)

Celaeno wrote:

> Did you say something, Lance Berg <emporer@dejazzd.com>?
>
>
>>So after a bit more than 24 hours I managed to get AO up and running.
>
>
> You've done more than me I've basically looked at it, tried to kill
> some things, and felt baffled by the UI and commands
> (How do you inspect items, for instance?)
>
To inspect items, you shift left click on them, or you can
right click and hold, which will get you a window which
lets you inspect or (something I forget) or delete.

You can aparantly only have one inspect window up at a time, which makes
comparing a little annoying.

Its also important to note that you can see two items with identical
names and icon, but they may be of different quality levels. The higher
QL items may have higher requirements but generally also have higher
bonuses.

So its a good idea, apparantly, to inspect everything interesting that
you loot, even if you are already wearing one like it; the one you
looted might be an upgrade.

I'm now a level 6 adventurer (Dixon) and level 5 Engineer (Quaffle) and
about to go start someone new on server 1, in order to try out melee
instead of the ranged and pet based characters I made so far.

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.games.everquest (More info?)

Played my Adventurer some more lsat night, got him up to level 6 on the
newbie island, at which point many of the mobs went grey (one exp per
kill), and most of the others were green, including the bosses. Still
bunches of drops off the bosses, which were fun to kill, but I wish
there was more trading (or any) going on on the island, because most
items weren't really useful for my character, many were restricted as to
profession or clan/omni, and even those that weren't were not
necessesarily suited to the choices I'd made. People working together
could do a much better job gearing everyone up.

I think part of what prevented people working together like that is that
the OOC channel is apparantly game wide, rather than just hitting one
zone. That is handy because it gives you access to everyone easily, but
it discourages the local "us guys in this zone" sort of camraderie that
helps get working together off the ground.

At any rate, there's a blank spot there, where you've got green and grey
mobs on the one hand, and on the other hand, the mobs near the exit are
all still red. I guess with a group you could stay here killing the
reds and level up pretty far, I never managed to find a "team", I think
the people who did team up did so because they had entered the game
together, RL friends or buddies from other games.

I tried out the newcommer armor, joined Omni and got a badge, the trick
here is to open the tradeskill window, put the armor piece in target and
the badge in source. Nice thing is, this shows you what the result will
be before you commit to doing it... and if you don't have the skills or
whatever for the combine, it will tell you where you are lacking.

Oh, there are two quests on the island, one for the clan medic Elsa, and
one for the Omni commander; although it looks like you should do both,
in fact they have very tiny exp rewards and don't lead to any more
missions; each gives you an identical shoulder item, but one is usuable
only if you join clan, one only if you join omni... if you are going to
be nuetral you needn't do either, and if you know which way you are
going, you only need do that quest to get the reward. Not that there's
any harm in doing both.

I thought about hanging out longer and going after still more named, or
doing something with the quest the vendor gives you, but I couldn't
figure that one out, and exping up solely on names is tricky. Oh, I did
find that the Rollerrats stopped aggroing on me with level.

Went out the Omni exit, where I found myself next to the Subway. Rumor
has it that place is for teams, I was surprised not to find any of the
trade stations that were right next to my Clans character in his start
zone. More on this in a bit.

I wandered down the road, found a little area with a bank and mission
terminals. Dropped some items in the bank (space is at a premium, and I
have some items that I won't be able to use till I level more), and took
my first solo mission. After tweaking the sliders around to my
preferences, I had 5 choices, each spelling out story details and
detailing which reward I'd be due on success, on top of whatever loot
dropped inside. Much more direct than the LDoN points system, and a lot
more useful at low level; in LDoN I found you had to do dozens of
missions before getting even a little beyond the "junk" level. Here,
you're getting useful stuff immediately, every mission.


The map doesn't scale, and its huge, so finding my target on it was
nearly impossible. When I did find it, I discovered that moving
recentered the map on myself; ouch! But you can get the direction of
the mission on your compass, like LDoN missions, whereby its just a case
of navigating around obstacles and following your nose.

Entering my mission zone, I found myself with a few halls and a bunch of
rooms to explore, mobs seemed to be relatively easy to kill (at medium
difficulty) and alone. In addition to the mobs themselves, which had
some drops, there were also lots of chests and such to open up for more
loot, One was locked and I had no way to get in. Each kill upped the
chance I'd get an Omni token for my efforts, another reward system. The
goal of the mission was lying on the ground in one of the rooms,
apparantly this is the norm, its possible for a stealth oriented
character, or one with plenty of speed, to run in and snatch the goal
without any fighting. I cleared the place out, instead.

Near the place I'd recieved the mission was a place to register my body,
I guess I changed my bind point to there (haven't died yet, so its hard
to tell). Also there was a hamburger stand, where I was able to sell
off most of the stuff that dropped in my mission.

Went back and got a more difficult mission. This time I noticed (and
maybe it had just escaped me before) that on my way to the mission I
apparantly ran into a PvP area, there's a grace period where you can't
be attacked, but I wasn't able to get to my mission point within that
period. I guess the Atlantean server, and possibly all three servers,
are PvP over large stretches. Not that I was ever attacked, but it seems
it can happen.

This mission was sort of the same, different mobs, and harder, yellows
and oranges, in a couple places in pairs; the mobs do aggro although not
over long ranges, single pulling is possible with a ranged weapon and a
little care. The reward I was trying for this time was a nanocrystal
that would give me a new ability, sort of a spell. Came close to death
a couple times, but squeeked by, got my reward... which I hadn't read
well, I leveled up to 7, spent my points, and then when I got the
nanocrystal found I didn't have high enough skill in a couple places to
use it! Oh well, I have it for when I hit 8.

Sold stuff off again, shoved a couple more items in the bank, and went
off exploring. The big buildings I see everywhere -look- interesting,
but I couldnt' actually get into them. There was a bar, sort of like
the hamburger stand. Finally I found myself back at the place I entered
the area from, next to the subway, wandering around there I found an
area with odd pink bubbles in it, went thru them and zoned into the Omni
city... which is where the item vending machines are. Nearly everything
here costs 5 digits, 6 digits, far more than the 6k or so I had
accumulated.

I also found the tradeskill items vendor, and the implant surgery thing;
I can't actually build implants, and the ones I have on me don't do
anything, but I know how to install them if I get them now.

Thats where I logged out, still just fiddling around.

Dixon, 7 Adventurer, Atlantean
Quaffle, 6 Engineer, Rimor
Borax, 3 Enforcer, Atlantean

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.games.everquest (More info?)

On Sat, 18 Dec 2004 17:35:23 -0500, Lance Berg <emporer@dejazzd.com>
wrote:

>
>
>Palindrome wrote:
>
>> On Sat, 18 Dec 2004 13:40:41 -0500, Lance Berg <emporer@dejazzd.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>>
>>>So after a bit more than 24 hours...
>>
>>
>> Oh, in the interests of group harmony (and OT stuff) I'll post to
>> alt.games.anarchy-online if this thread gets popular
>>
>Well, I looked at that newsgroup, and it gets practically no traffic,
>what it -does- get is almost all spam or people looking for cheats and
>exploits. Its definately no AGE.
>
>At the moment, I'm looking at AO from the perspective of an EQ player,
>so I figure its moderately on topic, although I -could- have put OT in
>the header.

Oh well, since no-one seems fussed at the moment, I will stay here and
post, but if I make any new posts I will use "OT" to placate everyone
)




Palindrome

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.games.everquest (More info?)

On Sun, 19 Dec 2004 09:14:18 -0500, Lance Berg <emporer@dejazzd.com>
wrote:

>Played my Adventurer some more lsat night, got him up to level 6 on the
>newbie island, at which point many of the mobs went grey (one exp per
>kill), and most of the others were green, including the bosses.

Greens still give you xp, as (confusingly for us EQ players) the mob
levels are not quite as we are used to

When it is grey, your target is weaker than you - only nominal XP for
killing it. When the bar is green, the target is less powerful than
you, but powerful enough to present a challenge - good
experience-point bonus, according to the game manual. The other grades
are yellow, orange and red, all tougher than the previous one. We are
still used to thinking "green" means no xp, possibly.

>I wandered down the road, found a little area with a bank and mission
>terminals. Dropped some items in the bank (space is at a premium, and I
>have some items that I won't be able to use till I level more), and took
>my first solo mission. After tweaking the sliders around to my
>preferences, I had 5 choices, each spelling out story details and
>detailing which reward I'd be due on success, on top of whatever loot
>dropped inside. Much more direct than the LDoN points system, and a lot
>more useful at low level; in LDoN I found you had to do dozens of
>missions before getting even a little beyond the "junk" level. Here,
>you're getting useful stuff immediately, every mission.

Very clever system, I reckon. As you say, missions always give you
what you want this way. With choices like Hard/Easy, Cash/XP,
Stealth/Direct, etc., you can't complain about the adventures, really,
since you are tailoring them the way YOU want them ) Sony take
note.

>Entering my mission zone, I found myself with a few halls and a bunch of
>rooms to explore, mobs seemed to be relatively easy to kill (at medium
>difficulty) and alone. In addition to the mobs themselves, which had
>some drops, there were also lots of chests and such to open up for more
>loot, One was locked and I had no way to get in.

I saw those locked chests too, but later I discovered a lockpick on
sale, which should help. Haven't tried it yet though, but it works
like lockpicks in EQ, apparently.

>Sold stuff off again, shoved a couple more items in the bank, and went
>off exploring. The big buildings I see everywhere -look- interesting,
>but I couldnt' actually get into them.

Watch out, because you can actually enter some buildings!! Some of
them have signs up over the door, and I thought I'd check one out
which read "Entertainment"... Bad move. It was (I was later told) a
"whoompa" or teleporter and it took me to an Entertainment Zone 4 maps
away from the Galway/Rome zone :O It was a long run back...

>There was a bar, sort of like
>the hamburger stand. Finally I found myself back at the place I entered
>the area from, next to the subway, wandering around there I found an
>area with odd pink bubbles in it, went thru them and zoned into the Omni
>city... which is where the item vending machines are. Nearly everything
>here costs 5 digits, 6 digits, far more than the 6k or so I had
>accumulated.

I am told money accumulates pretty thick and fast, using the missions,
especially team missions. One minor snag is that so many AO players
are (like me) newbies that most people around are so boggled by the
game that teaming up is not quite on the agenda yet, heh. It is great
fun if you do though - all the old favourites like "/assist" work when
grouping...

Did you go to the Apartment block, and choose an apartment? Handy for
storage. The block is the first building, a big one, facing the gates
into/out of Rome. Just head up the short ramp to the small open-air
plaza in front of the apartment doors, and you will see some floating
boxes with question marks on them. They provide game info, and there
is an NPC guide who will supposedly answer any questions you may have.
Mission terminals and a bank are there too, if I remember, but the
information curve on this game is so steep I may be wrong 😀 This
game seems so complex it makes Everquest look like Snakes and Ladders,
in comparison!

Oh, on the subject of skills, you can find vending machines that sell
books on the various game skills - I got one for 40 credits on "The
Implant Skill". Likely there are others around.




Palindrome

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.games.everquest (More info?)

Palindrome wrote:

> When it is grey, your target is weaker than you - only nominal XP for
> killing it. When the bar is green, the target is less powerful than
> you, but powerful enough to present a challenge - good
> experience-point bonus, according to the game manual. The other grades
> are yellow, orange and red, all tougher than the previous one. We are
> still used to thinking "green" means no xp, possibly.
>
Heh, you can't get to 6 on the island without killing quite a few
greens, I did know that. But the exp isn't much compared to yellow or
orange, which is what I was used to going thru... and at 6, there aren't
a whole lot of greens, principly the bosses.


> Very clever system, I reckon. As you say, missions always give you
> what you want this way. With choices like Hard/Easy, Cash/XP,
> Stealth/Direct, etc., you can't complain about the adventures, really,
> since you are tailoring them the way YOU want them ) Sony take
> note.
>
Well, on first glimpse it looks nice, but its possible that being able
to tailor missions to this extent will make them get old; I remember in
LDoN's seeing group after group refuse to do anything but slaughters,
for example. Will AO groups refuse to do anything but 0% stealth, 100%
good, etc. missions?


> I saw those locked chests too, but later I discovered a lockpick on
> sale, which should help. Haven't tried it yet though, but it works
> like lockpicks in EQ, apparently.
>
Well, I imagine you need to put some IP into the right spying skill,
too, and perhaps Agility or something.



> I am told money accumulates pretty thick and fast, using the missions,
> especially team missions. One minor snag is that so many AO players
> are (like me) newbies that most people around are so boggled by the
> game that teaming up is not quite on the agenda yet, heh. It is great
> fun if you do though - all the old favourites like "/assist" work when
> grouping...
>
So far I'm not making much, a few hundred credits per mission (maybe a
thousand at best); I've heard there are items worth tens, even hundreds
of thousands sold to high level players who can no longer do the
missions to get them, but haven't seen any real hint of that sort of
commerce going on. Is there any way to buy/sell besides auctioning in
the OOC channel?

Aye, I keep meaning to get around to trying grouping, "as soon as I get
this other thing figured out", only there are so many other things!

> Did you go to the Apartment block, and choose an apartment? Handy for
> storage. The block is the first building, a big one, facing the gates
> into/out of Rome. Just head up the short ramp to the small open-air
> plaza in front of the apartment doors, and you will see some floating
> boxes with question marks on them. They provide game info, and there
> is an NPC guide who will supposedly answer any questions you may have.
> Mission terminals and a bank are there too, if I remember, but the
> information curve on this game is so steep I may be wrong 😀 This
> game seems so complex it makes Everquest look like Snakes and Ladders,
> in comparison!
>
I didn't get an apartment. Whats the point of that, more storage, like
the banks?

Also haven't seen the info boxes or guides, odd that they'd hide them up
there instead of putting them in the orbital station (where I expected
to find them) or on the newbie island (where I spent quite a while
banging my head against walls trying to figure out how to do some things)

> Oh, on the subject of skills, you can find vending machines that sell
> books on the various game skills - I got one for 40 credits on "The
> Implant Skill". Likely there are others around.
>
And it explained how the skill works, or added to the skill itself?
40 credits? I don't think I've seen anything in the game that cheap,
unless maybe it was a vanilla shake and small fries.

Lance
AKA Dixon, 7 Adventurer, Atlantean

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.games.everquest (More info?)

Lance Berg wrote:

> Yep, being able to fine tune a bit can certainly be handy, particularly
> with solo missions, I'm just concerned that this may also lead to
> boredom. I've started experimenting with tuning my character to face a
> wider variety, and leaving as many bars in the middle as I can get away
> with, to prevent that happening.
>
Knowing more about what I am doing isn't necessarily a good thing; I
found that the principle thing I was interested in with missions is the
reward item... and that 95% of the reward items aren't interesting to
me. This means I'm going thru page after page of missions looking for
one with a reward I'd want.

Reward I'd want: I found one with a nano crystal for Group Heal; this is
a nano ability that heals everyone in my group, and heals for more than
my starting nano. This sort of thing is much more important than a
marginally better gun, and much much more important than a gun or piece
of armor or something thats useful to some other class.


If there was a robust trading economy out there, then this wouldn't be
such a problem, but as it is, the reason I'm willing to go thru lots of
pages of missions looking for a good one is because its the one way I
have to actually get items I want, other than the very low random chance
of something useful actually dropping.

Unlike EQ LDoN missions, there's no timer on getting a new set of
missions if you don't like the ones you are first offered; you get 5 at
a time to pick from, and can get a new set instantly.

The downside is that each set of five costs some credits; at level 9
they were costing me 7 credits each, which is truely a drop in the
bucket considering I've got over 10k credits and I'm not at all good at
earning money. I hear this goes as high as 300 credits at the upper
levels of the game... and thats still probably a drop in the bucket,
although you might throw away 10 sets of five looking for a good one.

> Haven't managed to find a lockpick yet. Have done about 6 missions,
> though,and only that one locked chest ever.
>
I found a locked door in another mission. Thats one chest and one door
in over 10 missions. Later I found a lockpick, in the general store in
Rome, haven't used it yet.

> OH, tokens. So, if you succede on a mission, you get a token. If you
> are on a faction (not nuetral), you can apply that token to the neck
> item they gave you, and eventually it will get better; my Omni neck will
> apparantly give me +45 hp when I get ten tokens.
>
> Well, what I didn't realize is that you are supposed to click on the
> token to put it on your neck item. Which wouldn't matter much, except
> that it also seems that you can only ever have one token unclicked at
> any time; so I went thru 6 missions and still had only one token. Now I
> know better, but thats a learning experience.
>
This information may be incorrect, I have yet to see another token. It
seems the chance to get a token is based on how many of the mobs in the
mission area you have killed when you complete the mission, killing the
rest afterwards doesn't help.

> Looked around an apartment, got a special key for it... three empty
> rooms, seems pointless so far.
>
I saw an item, for 20kcr or so, which will let you change apartments (I
guess because you changed from omni to clan or vice versa?)
>
>>
>>>> Oh, on the subject of skills, you can find vending machines that sell
>>>> books on the various game skills - I got one for 40 credits on "The
>>>> Implant Skill". Likely there are others around.
>>
It looks to me like you can read those books while they are on the
vendor, but maybe I'm wrong


> I bought a backpack, which opens to give an extra 16 spaces or so, very
> handy investment as I've been forced to guess which items will sell for
> the least and start throwing things away; I'm buying more of those.
> While there's more starting spaces than the 8 in EQ, there's so much
> more seemingly good junk dropping in AO that storage space is just as
> much at a premium.
>
Backpack can be put on your back, but I bought a second one and it works
fine in inventory as well. There are also much larger packs, it seems
you need some adventuring skill to wear them.

I joined a team and went into the subway, it was an experience much like
grouping with total newbies in EQ; two soldiers and my adventurer,
running around not talking (I didn't talk much either because I was too
busy trying to keep up with them) attacking targets more or less
together, hardly working as a real team at all. Still, my proud
posession of that group heal ability made it possible to keep everyone
afloat fairly well. They were both much better than me at taking
damage; when I got aggro I lost a lot more of my hp bar.

Funny thing, though, I started running low on nano in a way that I never
do when soloing; because I tend to alternate nano healing with
treatments, so the treatments refresh my nanos. With the soldiers
taking the damage, I was reluctant to use treatments to regain nanos,
since this wastes the heal that goes along with it.

Later, I went on a solo mission where I looted something similar to
first aid, which restores just nanos, but lots of them, and something
similar to treatment, which restores nanos only while sitting and not in
combat, but lots and lots of them. So this will help next time.

I also looted a treatment kit which restores only hp; also pretty handy
at times when I'm full on nanos but injured.

I found all of the above in stores... the cost is in the four or five
figures for them!

And I had to get some skills up that I'd neglected, in order to use
them, but by now I'm used to that and never spend all my IP when I
level, I just hit the basics and then wait for equipment to make demands.

The team didn't last all that long, but while it was operating, even as
poorly as it did, it was definately far more powerful than me alone, the
soldiers did better damage than me I think, and at any rate, there were
four guns blazing away at each bad guy, instead of just my two. When
things got hairy, I spent my time keeping them healed with my single and
group heal nanos.

I wonder what nanos soldiers have, and if they could have buffed me up
with them; I know my Enforcer and Engineer had buffs they could put on
others to make them more powerful (admittedly, the enforcer one would
only help if you happen to use one handed blunt weapons...)

Dixon, 10 Adventurer, Atlantean (omni)

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.games.everquest (More info?)

Lance Berg wrote:


> Reward I'd want: I found one with a nano crystal for Group Heal; this is
> a nano ability that heals everyone in my group, and heals for more than
> my starting nano. This sort of thing is much more important than a
> marginally better gun, and much much more important than a gun or piece
> of armor or something thats useful to some other class.

I started yet another character last night, having done a little
research, and wanting to explore the newbie island a bit more, plus try
out another class.

This time I went with a Solitus Doctor, female, in honor of my first EQ
cleric, a female high elf. Couldn't name her Praise like the original,
that was taken, and I'm afraid I let my son talk me into something I
picked as a joke, a joke I think not many will get: Andymedics. Its
against the EULA anyway, maybe it will get banned!

Doctors start out with a single target heal, like Adventurers, but also
with a single target DOT. They start out with one solar powered pistol,
instead of the two that adventurers start with, and of course their
weapons skills are blue, so its much harder for them to be good with the
things.

Even so, it wasn't all that hard to solo stuff, it helped that this time
around I knew it was quite possible to use nano healing on myself mid
combat, I've never seen a nano interrupted, so its just a question of
time off from shooting back. And my adventurer's trick, where you
target the mob and start the fight, then switch to yourself as current
target, worked great; whenever I needed a heal, the nanos worked on me,
but after I immediately went back to fighting my "fighting target". In
order to actually switch targets you have to stop combat and restart,
which will be interesting for Main Tank types.

What was I back on Newbie Island to check out? Well, several things,
first off, the first quest guy, Brandon, actually gives you items for
doing his quests, I'd missed that on my original guy, since they aren't
announced, I thought I'd just looted them or something. He gives you a
light, which will go in a Utility slot on your back, and a nano belt,
which you can wear on your waist to get a couple extra NCU slots or
something. My other characters skipped over his rather tedious dialog
and went straight to quest 3 which gives you some first aid kits, which
can be handy.

Then I went up and did the medic's Scanner quest, not once like my other
characters, but twice, and I went over and joined the clan. Her quest
doesnt' involve combat (unless you get jumped by a rollerrat), and
yeilds a very nice shoulder item, you have to be Clan to wear it. I'd
noticed that the Unicom Commander and her each give a shoulder, but you
can't wear both because they require opposite affiliations; turns out,
though, that they aren't Unique, so you can get two from either. Since
I went clan, I was able to get both these while still level one.

Found another interesting thing; the OOC channels are segregated. My
other clan character was on a different server, and I thought that the
place was relatively deserted. Funny thing, so was this server, in the
evening on a weekend. Not. I was in the Clan OOC server instead of the
Omni OOC server, and it seems Omni is a much more popular choice.

So, the next thing I wanted to check out was simple enough; I went out
and worked some to build a cash reserve, then bought a solar powered
adventurer's pistol off the vendor. The pistol I was issued is right
hand only... the adventurer's version, which my adventurer got a pair
of, is right hand/left hand. Yep, I could put this new one in my left
hand and dual weild just fine, only needed a 6 skill in multi.

Went out and earned a bunch more credits, worked my way up to 3rd level,
then I checked out interesting thing number 3; there's a vendor box I
completely missed every other time I was here. It sells package deals
with several nano crystals inside, one set for each profession. Bought
one, used it, and got 5 or 6 crystals... only one of which I could get
my skills high enough to use; a bigger direct heal. The rest were a
pain, taking up lots of very valuable (no backpack or bank on newbie
island) inventory space. Leveled up to 4, at which point I was able to
use another, a second DOT. Sadly, by now I was focussed on droids to
get some drops, and they don't seem to work on mechanicals.

Why the droids? Well, somethign I'd seen but not pursued was that the
vendor offers a kit to upgrade weapons with. The kit costs 540 cr or
so, and then you can turn all those "trash drops" into upgrades, each
consumes a kit, though, so its somewhat expensive. Killed Cargo Droids
till a Power Supply dropped, combined with a kit to make an Adapted
Power Supply, then combined that with my Adventurer's Pistol to make an
Electrical Surge pistol, which has a higher damage output but still
doesn't need ammo. It also has a higher multi requirement to dual
weild, but only 15, easy to reach.

Kept killing cargo droids till I got a second drop, turned that into
another supply... which I applied to my original starting pistol, upping
its damage output similarly.

Different weapons require different drops, and apparantly almost every
one of the drops that vendors for 10 credits can be used for one thing
or another, some for more than one. Since, like my Adventurer's Pistol,
the basic weapons can be bought on the island, its possible for anyone
to make any of the stuff... again, if there was a functioning market,
this could be a decent way to earn a few credits from people who didn't
bother with the quests, as there is no way back onto the island once you
leave.

The most important thing I learned, though, is that nano vendor. Nano
crystals are expensive, hard to come by, difficult to get missions for;
I missed a LOT for my adventurer by not buying one of those packs.

Lets see, what else; oh, I also helped form an organization; the AO
equivalent of a guild. You need 6 people, in a team, all same faction,
then the leader can do something or other, and instantly the guild is
formed with whatever name he picks. This gives you the organization
name under your own on your tag, and a special chat channel for your org
only. Thats all I know about that at this time, other than that it
would be fun to form an A.G.E org of our own.

Hmm, other side note, gear and looks. You can see just about every
piece you wear in this game, Barring implants and a few odds and ends
like that. Many of them, however, have a distinctly feminine look to
them; dressed solely on the best stats, my adventurer was running around
in hot red short shorts with sparkly red fishnet stockings. Well, that
particular item doesn't look much better on a female, but none of the
items look particularly bad on a female, while many do give a huge Eddie
Izzard impression on a male (you know, running around with guns,
climbing trees, putting on makeup while you're up there). It got bad
enought that I actually ended up using less effective pants because I
just couldnt' take running around tarted up like that!

On the other hand, my solitus female puts EQ wood elves to shame in the
Yabo department, and thats in combat gear. My adventurer found a shop
in Rome which sells clothing with no stats, just appearances, and there
are bikinis in there that wouldn't be out of place in the Sports
Illustrated swimwear issue. While there's some vanity wear in EQ, its
nothing like AO. I haven't tried any, most is expensive and I'm not
really in the game for looks (even though I admittedly junked perfectly
good stats in order to ditch the streetwalker look) but its certainly there.

Doctor Andymedics, R.E.B.E.L, Atlantean Clans

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.games.everquest (More info?)

On Sat, 18 Dec 2004 18:27:58 -0500, Lance Berg wrote:

> Red bar? Oh, oh, on the stats. Yeah, only I didn't pull that window
> up, or in addition to that I pulled up several others and it scrolled
> out of sight. Even now I don't usually end up with that bar up, instead
> I've discovered that once you start a fight, you can switch target to
> yourself in order to see your bar and to use nano's on yourself, while
> you keep fighting the original target. Soft living that, compared to
> EQ's insistance that you can only have one target at a time.

On the left hand side of the interface are three vertical bars. The red one
is health the blue is nano and the yellow is experience.
--
RJB
12/20/2004 9:09:51 AM

"Don't discourage the boy, Marge, he needs to learn how to weasel out of
things. It's what separates us from the animals......except the weasel..."
-Homer Simpson

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.games.everquest (More info?)

"Lance Berg" wrote:
> Knowing more about what I am doing isn't necessarily a good thing; I
> found that the principle thing I was interested in with missions is the
> reward item... and that 95% of the reward items aren't interesting to
> me. This means I'm going thru page after page of missions looking for
> one with a reward I'd want.

Is Clicksaver still around? It's a third party app, neither endorsed nor
frowned upon by Funcom, that allows you to input search parameters at a
mission terminal. For all intents and purposes, it's a HLLAPI app that does
the paging for you based on the parameters you enter.

Found this on a Google search. I have no idea if it's current, though.

http://www.gnarf.net/clicksaver/

Crash

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.games.everquest (More info?)

On Mon, 20 Dec 2004 08:01:36 -0500, Lance Berg <emporer@dejazzd.com>
wrote:

>On the other hand, my solitus female puts EQ wood elves to shame in the
>Yabo department, and thats in combat gear. My adventurer found a shop
>in Rome which sells clothing with no stats, just appearances, and there
>are bikinis in there that wouldn't be out of place in the Sports
>Illustrated swimwear issue. While there's some vanity wear in EQ, its
>nothing like AO. I haven't tried any, most is expensive and I'm not
>really in the game for looks (even though I admittedly junked perfectly
>good stats in order to ditch the streetwalker look) but its certainly there.

AO has a breathtaking range of social clothing, and there are even a
large uber of high-end quests for clothes.

MY persinal favourite, back in my AO days, was the wedding dress on my
Opifex Fixer. She looked fantastic, with her lovely white dress and
twin SMGs...

Also look out for the Doctor (or Nurse) items of clothing, which give
boost to First Aid and Treatment (boosting treatment helps you equip
higher Quality implants).

--

Bunnies aren't just cute like everybody supposes !
They got them hoppy legs and twitchy little noses !
And what's with all the carrots ?
What do they need such good eyesight for anyway ?
Bunnies ! Bunnies ! It must be BUNNIES !

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.games.everquest (More info?)

On Mon, 20 Dec 2004 13:54:49 +0000, Mark Morrison wrote:

<snip>
> AO has a breathtaking range of social clothing, and there are even a
> large uber of high-end quests for clothes.
>
Man I can't count how many people I've seen in the last few days running
around in Santa suits!

--
RJB
12/20/2004 10:08:03 AM

A low voter turnout is an indication of fewer people going to the polls.
--Dan Quayle

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.games.everquest (More info?)

"Lance Berg" <emporer@dejazzd.com> wrote in message

> that was taken, and I'm afraid I let my son talk me into something I
> picked as a joke, a joke I think not many will get: Andymedics. Its
> against the EULA anyway, maybe it will get banned!

3 possibilities:

(R)andymedics

Andy (android) medics

Andymead medics

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.games.everquest (More info?)

RJB wrote:

> On Sat, 18 Dec 2004 18:27:58 -0500, Lance Berg wrote:
>
>
>>Red bar? Oh, oh, on the stats. Yeah, only I didn't pull that window
>>up, or in addition to that I pulled up several others and it scrolled
>>out of sight. Even now I don't usually end up with that bar up, instead
>>I've discovered that once you start a fight, you can switch target to
>>yourself in order to see your bar and to use nano's on yourself, while
>>you keep fighting the original target. Soft living that, compared to
>>EQ's insistance that you can only have one target at a time.
>
>
> On the left hand side of the interface are three vertical bars. The red one
> is health the blue is nano and the yellow is experience.

I still don't see that, although I can pull up a window called Stats
which has those three bars, the window itself is pretty huge and annoying.

Maybe you have a different GUI or something?

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.games.everquest (More info?)

Ken Andrews wrote:

> "Lance Berg" <emporer@dejazzd.com> wrote in message
>
>
>>that was taken, and I'm afraid I let my son talk me into something I
>>picked as a joke, a joke I think not many will get: Andymedics. Its
>>against the EULA anyway, maybe it will get banned!
>
>
> 3 possibilities:
>
> (R)andymedics
>
> Andy (android) medics
>
> Andymead medics
>
Nope, none of those. Nice to have alternate explainations though.

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.games.everquest (More info?)

Iv'e kinda been following your conversation here and have also subscribed to
AO. I found that using the AO IRC channel is where to find the most help.
The AO newsgroup is dead as far as I can tell.

Peter

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.games.everquest (More info?)

On Sun, 19 Dec 2004 20:51:08 -0500, Lance Berg <emporer@dejazzd.com>
wrote:

>Knowing more about what I am doing isn't necessarily a good thing; I
>found that the principle thing I was interested in with missions is the
>reward item... and that 95% of the reward items aren't interesting to
>me. This means I'm going thru page after page of missions looking for
>one with a reward I'd want.
>
>Reward I'd want: I found one with a nano crystal for Group Heal; this is
>a nano ability that heals everyone in my group, and heals for more than
>my starting nano.

That might be one of the ones I got in the Adventurer Nano-Kit I
bought on Newbie Island (see previous post, costs about 1500 credits,
available as a specific Kit for each class). Is that the one with the
green icon, doing around 15 to 25? (It works on you, on your own
too.)

Anyway, that Kit has 4 nanos in it - an AC buff and 3 point damage
shield, that Team Heal, Crude Stitching (an even better heal) and
Adventurer's Shield, which adds quite a lot to AC and so forth

>This sort of thing is much more important than a
>marginally better gun, and much much more important than a gun or piece
>of armor or something thats useful to some other class.

Very true.

>It looks to me like you can read those books while they are on the
>vendor, but maybe I'm wrong

I have it in the Bank at the moment, so no probs - you can take it
with you. (Must remember to read it!)

>I joined a team and went into the subway, it was an experience much like
>grouping with total newbies in EQ; two soldiers and my adventurer,
>running around not talking (I didn't talk much either because I was too
>busy trying to keep up with them) attacking targets more or less
>together, hardly working as a real team at all. Still, my proud
>posession of that group heal ability made it possible to keep everyone
>afloat fairly well. They were both much better than me at taking
>damage; when I got aggro I lost a lot more of my hp bar.

LMAO - sounds like my experience too. We are all so new to this we
haven't got ourselves working very smoothly yet. Things will improve,
I reckon

>Funny thing, though, I started running low on nano in a way that I never
>do when soloing; because I tend to alternate nano healing with
>treatments, so the treatments refresh my nanos.

Same as me. Like you, I also have a sort of med-kit variant which
replenishes Nano Energy - almost like Clarity/KEI in a bottle 😀 One
of my characters has a nano to siphon his own Nano-Energy and give it
to someone, just like an EQ Necro.

>I also looted a treatment kit which restores only hp; also pretty handy
>at times when I'm full on nanos but injured.

I bought some, and they are pretty reasonable for the price.

>I found all of the above in stores... the cost is in the four or five
>figures for them!

Some stores are for high-level players, and some are for us low-level
grunts, someone was telling me. I was in a different city for a
while, about 4 maps East (that bloody teleporter) and the stuff in
there was on sale at (as you noticed too) STAGGERING prices. heck,
players there, though, were driving their own hover vehicles, which
made me feel like a hick from the sticks 😀

>I wonder what nanos soldiers have, and if they could have buffed me up
>with them; I know my Enforcer and Engineer had buffs they could put on
>others to make them more powerful (admittedly, the enforcer one would
>only help if you happen to use one handed blunt weapons...)

I found there are two problems with Nano Abilities.

Firstly, some people can't figure out what the Nanos they start off
with, free, are actually for. As an example lvl 7 Meta asked my lvl 2
Meta how I had summoned my pet - they didn't know how!! I spent ages
trying to explain that the Nano to create it was in my basic free
equipment, but just couldn't get him/her to understand, sadly.

Secondly, a lot of people miss that vending machine I mentioned, which
is next to the NPC Trader. It's not surprising, mind you, as it looks
like a rusty brown petrol pump and has no shiny lights or screen to
make it stand out. I noticed it when checking the place out, but only
because my cursor changed to that "action" symbol that looks like a
blue circle. It only sells Nano Kits, but they make a hell of a
difference, heh.



Palindrome

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.games.everquest (More info?)

On Mon, 20 Dec 2004 08:01:36 -0500, Lance Berg <emporer@dejazzd.com>
wrote:

>What was I back on Newbie Island to check out? Well, several things,
>first off, the first quest guy, Brandon, actually gives you items for
>doing his quests,

Must do that, as I haven't bothered up to now.

>Found another interesting thing; the OOC channels are segregated. My
>other clan character was on a different server, and I thought that the
>place was relatively deserted. Funny thing, so was this server, in the
>evening on a weekend. Not. I was in the Clan OOC server instead of the
>Omni OOC server, and it seems Omni is a much more popular choice.

Yes, OOC's are deceptive. Took me a while to figure that out, too.

>So, the next thing I wanted to check out was simple enough; I went out
>and worked some to build a cash reserve, then bought a solar powered
>adventurer's pistol off the vendor.

I did this too, which I mentioned in a post about my Meta character.
BIG help to have two guns. She has upgraded to two SMG pistols with
Burst as the special attack, and I am going to use them tonight and
shred stuff, big-time, while my pet rips them a new one and as I use
my Mind attacks... (cue manic laughter)

>Went out and earned a bunch more credits, worked my way up to 3rd level,
>then I checked out interesting thing number 3; there's a vendor box I
>completely missed every other time I was here.

Heh, just finished telling you all about that, but I see you
discovered it even as I posted... They make a big difference, eh?

>Why the droids? Well, somethign I'd seen but not pursued was that the
>vendor offers a kit to upgrade weapons with. The kit costs 540 cr or
>so, and then you can turn all those "trash drops" into upgrades, each
>consumes a kit, though, so its somewhat expensive. Killed Cargo Droids
>till a Power Supply dropped, combined with a kit to make an Adapted
>Power Supply, then combined that with my Adventurer's Pistol to make an
>Electrical Surge pistol, which has a higher damage output but still
>doesn't need ammo. It also has a higher multi requirement to dual
>weild, but only 15, easy to reach.

Cool! I must do that!!!

>Hmm, other side note, gear and looks.

LMAO - I might have a go at that, after Christmas )) My main is
running around in one of those Santa Suits at the moment, for a bit of
fun!


Palindrome

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.games.everquest (More info?)

On Mon, 20 Dec 2004 10:08:42 -0500, RJB <robartle@NOSPAM.hotmail.com>
wrote:

>On Mon, 20 Dec 2004 13:54:49 +0000, Mark Morrison wrote:
>
><snip>
>> AO has a breathtaking range of social clothing, and there are even a
>> large uber of high-end quests for clothes.
>>
>Man I can't count how many people I've seen in the last few days running
>around in Santa suits!

I have to admit that, caught up in the fun, I got my main character a
suit 😀 Just my main though!

I was going to get a Tree as well, but didn't bother... I do have
SOME standards!

Palindrome