MMO Gamers

I’ve been sharing my game time around this week.  Currently I have two subscriptions going, Age of Conan and Vanguard, so I’ve been sharing my time between the two.  I also logged in to Everquest 2 a couple of times since I still had some free time but I can’t seem to get into that any more, no matter how fond the memories I have are.  So AoC and VG have been getting my attention.

How my play session would transpire would go something like this.  I’d log in to AoC, flag myself as LFG, announce my availability in the /ooc chat channel, put my name down for a PvP mini game, then I’d spend the next hour soloing.  Then I’d get sick of soloing, I’d log out of AoC and into VG, flag myself as LFG, announce my availability in the chat channel, proceed to solo, get a /tell within 10 minutes asking me to join a group, and spend the next three hours doing group dungeons.  So I’d been spending most of my game time in VG and have reached level 43 with my cleric.

I haven’t been grouping all of the time though; I decided to continue with my Unicorn Quest, which will give me a unicorn, obviously, once completed.  It is a very long series of quests and many parts of it require grouping, though I’ve out-levelled most of the mobs so I can solo it.  So those occasions where I haven’t been able to get a group, or while I’m killing time before I get one, I’ve been working towards my unicorn.  There is also my racial mount, a cougar, which I can grind for, as well as faction armour.  When I talk about AoC lacking content I don’t mean more quests, but more purpose.  Questing for the sake of questing for the sake of questing just bores me.

Because I’d been neglecting AoC I decided to spend more time in it.  My Tempest of Set was level 54 and at level 60 I can purchase a better mount for the princely sum of 50 gold.  I decided to treat this as a quest goal, not dissimilar to the Unicorn quest, and that has given me motivation to reach level 60.  So I had a day free to do nothing but game and logged in to AoC, with the intention of playing it for the better part of the day.

There were a few guildies on and I really like my guild and guild-mates.  It’s been the main reason I hadn’t cancelled my subscription.  I met up with a few of them at the Serpent’s Head Inn for a bit of roleplay and then we decided to group and do an Epic zone.  We apprenticed up to 70, our main tank, and headed to Eiglophian Mountains for some epic nameds and phat loot.  We didn’t really get any great drops out of it but we all had a hell of a good time.  There’s nothing like running around in a guild group and trashing a zone.  I’ve now reached level 57 and it wasn’t the least bit difficult.

Another motivation is my new graphics card.  AoC is looking awesome and I’m getting 70+ fps at almost maxed out settings, making it a pleasure just taking in the scenery.  My former co-leader of our EQ2 guild has also presented himself in AoC and is joining our guild so all this new social activity has made the prospect of playing AoC a more enticing proposition.

The future looks a little brighter in Hyboria, for me at least.