It has been awhile since I've said anything about Everquest so I figured it must be time for an update. I am still playing and having fun doing so. The bugs in the game haven't bit me too badly lately, and I'm so far removed from the high end game that most of Verant's decisions nowadays barely affect me.

Narsse, my rogue, is now up to level forty. That's right, level forty. I think there's a good chance I may the oldest low level main character in the game. The way I play I didn't even expect to get to level forty. I figured I would get tired of it again around level thirty-five or so. Thanks to a combination of the Bazaar and finding good spots to hunt I have kept going without undue irritation. In fact I don't see any real obstacle to getting past level fifty now. Soloing is still slow but my gear is good enough that it is still doable. When I group up, the experience goes really quick. My main obstacle will be boredom I think. I need to start grouping more just for the other player interaction. Did this for a short time last night and was quite entertained even though we didn't actually accomplish anything.

Aeryll, the ranger, has reached level twenty-two now. In over a year she's only gained four levels. This isn't due to an inability to level but has more to do with Narsse's regained ability to continue leveling. Leveling the ranger is easy both solo and in group. It is just a bit tedious is all (as is all leveling.) I recently put in a bit of time getting from level twenty-one to level twenty-two so I could finally get some new spells after over two years. I can't believe some of the spells I get. They are as good as some of my twentieth level druid's spells. I'll bet it wouldn't be that difficult to solo a white con monster as long as I started with a bit of arrow kiting. In fact I know it wouldn't be that tough because I did it a couple of times with yellows at level twenty when I had worse gear and the previous set of spells. I really should exp more though so I can get to level thirty and have Spirit of Wolf. I've always wanted that spell for her. Then I would have a bit more range for grouping with random friends too. Right now there is kind of a bottleneck around level twenty since I have Aeryll at twenty-two, my druid at twenty, and my other rogue at twenty also.

Myris, the druid, hasn't done much other than port around and sell Narsse's stuff in the bazaar for the last few months. I don't really care for druid style leveling via kiting or fear kiting. It is totally boring. I much prefer doing that with the ranger because then I at least get a bow to use and can wade in with sword and dagger when I feel like it. What I should do is group Myris and Aeryll together and kill stuff. The only problem with that is where to go. N Karana was ok until level twenty but everything starts to be too low of level after that. I should probably have Myris join Aeryll in the Lake of Ill Manners but the laptop isn't that hot in Kunark. It is ok for running around most places or fighting in the old world but fighting in Kunark, Velious, or on Luclin kind of sucks. The graphics chip in the laptop just isn't powerful enough.

I have even been thinking about putting another drive in my linux workstation, installing WinXP on it, and buying a second LCD monitor just so I can play both accounts at once more easily. I don't know that I'll do it but I have thought about it. There's just something wrong about shoving a Windows drive in my linux box. I probably will buy a second LCD though. I can pick up the Viewsonic 17" for like $500. It would be pretty cool to have the 19", the 17", and the 14" laptop all up at the same time. Then the linux box could be hooked up via the DVI connector which would sharpen the image a bit. The VGA connector looks really good but DVI is amazingly sharp.

Back to Everquest after that hardware tangent... Narsse is currently in Crystal Caverns hunting orcs. This seems like a pretty decent zone in terms of stuff to kill and loot. Things hit kind of hard but dark blues are definitely killable by a rogue. In my mind that makes it a nice place. I hate zones where even green melee monsters hit so hard that a rogue can't solo them. The only negative about this zone is the confusing layout. I've spent two nights wandering through here and am just now getting a feel for it. I did die one stupid death here when I got jumped by a Ry'gorr Herbalist while fighting some other orc. I made it back to the dwarf city and would have been fine but I got greedy. When I was mostly dead I attacked the Herbalist hoping to get the kill blow in and promptly got smacked into oblivion. Interestingly enough I think I only lost like a blue bubble of experience. It might have been two bubbles of blue but I think it was only one. That's odd because usually I lose like three to four blues of exp. Maybe it was a bug that was beneficial rather than screwing the players over or something? I definitely won't be complaining about that though. I figure I'll probably stay here awhile until I build up a pretty good pile of velium pieces and blocks. Then I'll have a ingredients for making Thurgadin gate potions stockpiled just in case.