Category: EverQuest

My New House in EverQuest

On By Michel McDonaldIn EverQuest1 Comment

Thanks to the 13th anniversary of EverQuest, Sony Online Entertainment has given me the three expansions I was missing so I was finally able to buy a house.  At first I bought the 1 bedroom for 5k (forgot the exact amount) but then I noticed how tiny it was compared to the rest of the houses in the neighborhood and decided to go get a refund and buy a 3 room house instead for 10K.

I have been noticing from inspecting my items that some of them say they can be used in the front yard or in a house, so I figured why not grab all of those items from my bank and place them, and now I have quite a nice display of old armor that has been clogging up my bank for years.

I had to resize some of them so they were bigger on the wall because it didn’t look good that some of them were huge while others were tiny.  Notice my wizard epic in there?  That was my first epic, when I upgraded it to epic 1.5 I got to keep my epic 1 which has been collecting dust for years, so now it can collect dust on the wall.

It isn’t just old weapons that I could decorate it with, I was also able to add my trade skill trophies to a table which I bought for that purpose.

The one on the left is my brewers trophy, the one in the middle is my tinkerers trophy and the one on the right is my baking trophy.  My brewing and tinkering are both 287 so I just need to get them to 300 and they will look different on the table.  I am only missing my trophy for fletching, jewelcraft, blacksmithing and tailoring, but maybe one day I will get there.

I had a little bit of fun with buying decorations.  I bought a cute 4 poster bed and a dining room table for the other room with a slab of meat and a loaf of bread that I placed on the table which also has 4 chairs.  Then there are 3 pictures on the walls and garden gnomes in the front yard.  Yes, I know, a gnome who has garden gnomes in his front yard.  Hilarious right?  The problem was, they were too big, I was half the size of the garden gnomes so I had to shrink them down.

I hope you can see them.  I don’t know why it looks bright and cheery in the game, but then when you leave the game all of the screen shots are really dark.  I don’t know how to fix that.  I let Picasa do an auto fix, but it still looks dark.  Perhaps someone might tell me how to fix that.

Well, enough working on the house, I better get my moneys worth and start actually playing the game instead of focusing on a stupid house I will probably rarely ever go to.  At least I was able to lighten my bank, and I have made all of my alts co-owners so I can lighten their banks too.

Oh and just in case I forget to mention, you can’t just buy a house and that’s it, you have to pay a daily or weekly upkeep fee.  I am paid up for the next 8 weeks lol.  In Lord of the Rings Online you can only pay for 5 weeks up front, at least in EverQuest I was able to do 8 weeks.  I’m sure I can do more but I’m not positive how far in advance.  And if I run out of money then I can always go back to my shaman character and make a buttload with alchemy to pay for more time.

EverQuest on my HDTV

On By Michel McDonaldIn EverQuest5 Comments

My monitor stopped working so I had to start using my HDTV instead.  I was so happy that I bought a new video card with an HDMI plug, but for some reason EverQuest won’t load at all when I have it plugged into the TV.  I have been searching my heart out on the internet trying to find out why but nobody seems to have the answer.

I remembered that my friend Ruth told me a few years ago that she got a HDTV and she had her computer plugged into it and was using that as her monitor.  I sent her a message on Facebook asking her how she did that but it took her awhile to respond.  Today she responded to me to tell me she can help.  I spoke with her a few hours ago and she revealed the answer.  Stop using the HDMI and plug the computer into the TV using the VGA cable instead.  OF COURSE!  Why didn’t I think of that?

After I got off the phone with her I decided that I couldn’t wait to try it.  My computer was off so I had to wait for it to come on and it immediately defaulted to loading on the HDMI since I had them plugged into both.  When windows was finished loading I switched it over to VGA with the video driver software.  It didn’t look good at all so I had to do some adjusting to it so it looked normal and then I loaded EverQuest and to my surprise it loaded.

So there you have it, if you are using a HDTV using your HDMI plug, you won’t be able to play EverQuest until you plug it in with your VGA cable.

No More Monitor, No More EverQuest :(

On By Michel McDonaldIn Computer, EverQuest6 Comments

I recently decided that I wanted to make my return to EverQuest after 5 long years, but then my monitor decided it doesn’t want to turn on anymore.  My video card has an HDMI so I can plug my HDTV in so I can still use my computer, but now my issue is that EverQuest crashes before it can begin to load the game.  So much for that idea.

My monitor is a 20.1-inch Sylvania SK2000w-b Widescreen LCD.  What it is doing is when you turn the computer on, the screen doesn’t turn on and the power light turns green and starts blinking over and over.  The screen never actually turns on, it used to turn on after a few minutes, but now it isn’t turning on at all.

I googled the model number and found out that it is fixable.  I found out on the Fixya website that the problem could be that the capacitors have gone bad.  My first thought was, what the heck is a capacitor and how do I fix it?  So I looked at YouTube and they have a video that shows a guy who bought a monitor from a thrift store for only $2.98.  It’s not a Sylvania, but he is showing what a capacitor is and shows you how to identify a bad one and how to remove the old and replace it with new.

(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=02uLSu1Jj5M)
It looks really complicated, but I’m sure that once you figure out how to remove the solder from the capacitor and are able to replace the first one, the rest are a cake walk.  Hey, if it works then I get my monitor back and I can play EverQuest again, but if it doesn’t then I still have a 20.1-inch paperweight, so really, what is the worst that could happen?  I mean sure I could buy a new monitor, but who has that kind of cash?  I could pay someone to fix it for me but they would end up charging me half of what a new monitor would end up costing me.  I can pick the parts up at Radio Shack and fix it myself.
I think that if I can build a computer, I can replace a capacitor, right?  Yeah… easier said that done, but we’ll see how it works out.
My concern about EverQuest is that I will have to cancel it before they charge me for another month, but I haven’t really had that much time to play with it anyway and I don’t want to keep paying for something I’m probably not going to be able to play very often.  I may as well cancel my account and go back to it when my monitor has been fixed.  I waited 5 years, I’m sure I could wait a little bit longer until I can fix it.  Who knows, I may be back in the game by the weekend.  I think I can afford to spend up to $10 on capacitors rather than $200 for a new monitor.

My Return to EverQuest

On By Michel McDonaldIn EverQuest2 Comments

 

I stopped playing EverQuest in 2007 because something tragic happened in my life and I just couldn’t justify playing a video game while shit was hitting the fan, so I quit.  I had paid for a whole year and I didn’t want to waste it so I forced myself to play out of principle, but I found that I had lost all of my enthusiasm for the game after playing for 6 years.

It has been 5 years since I’ve played and I’ve wanted to get back into it for so long, but I couldn’t really justify spending $15 a month to play a game when I could play Lord of the Rings Online for free.  I have already started getting bored with LOTRO so I haven’t really been playing that anyway.  I wanted to get back into EQ so I did.

A few days ago I started playing again and I got on my character named Xanapus and walked around for a bit to look at all of the places that I had missed all those years just to see if anything had changed, and it hadn’t.

I decided that I really didn’t know what the heck I was doing anymore.  You would think it’s like riding a bike, you never really forget, but I have.  I’m sure I will get the hang of it again, but it will take time to relearn my class and which spells are appropriate for which region and which mobs etc.

Instead of playing my main character that I missed so dearly, I thought I’d get on one of my newbie characters that I created but never really progressed.  His name was Voldamort, but someone apparently took that name over the last 5 years so it had an X on the end.  I logged into the account and it said I was eligible for a name change.  What better time to add an “Evilxanapus” character lol.  People joke that Xanapus is evil some days because I accidentally killed the mob that I wasn’t supposed to kill during someones EPIC quest.  Oopsie!  This level 12 necromancer is now my evil guy.

I managed to level him to 16 in just a few days of playing, which back in the day wouldn’t have been possible, but I guess it’s easier to do now.  I swear, it took me at least 6 months to get Xanapus to level 16, so it is a bit frustrating that I got this necromancer from 12 to 16 in just days.

My old guild is still active, but nobody is ever online.  There are maybe 2 or 3 active players, but they aren’t on everyday.  I don’t think that I will leave my guild that I have been absent from for 5 years, but at the same time it’s lonely in there all by myself.  I don’t really know if I will be playing the game full time or if this is just a 1 month thing.  I want to play full time again, but I have too many things to do in my real life to focus on a game.  I don’t know, we’ll see what happens.  Being in an active guild with people who want to play with me and talk to me would justify me paying $15 a month that I would normally spend on something more useful, like oh I don’t know, a small bag of groceries.

EverQuest is fun and all, but their graphics don’t even compare to LOTRO’s.  I forgot how much I hated “zoning” in EQ.  There are only a few times in LOTRO when you have to actually “zone” so it was quite annoying having to zone every time I went from Crescent Reach to Blightfire Moors and to the Plane of Knowledge.  Ah memories of time wasted zoning lol.

I am playing this game for two reasons, one because I missed it and wanted to play it again, and two for research for a book I want to write.  I think it would be worth my time playing if I had some people to play with to give me ideas on a story or plot. Playing by myself isn’t going to give me any ideas for content.  Although I already know what the book will be about, I just want to add more interesting stories and conversations that I actually have with people.  Playing the game gives me inspiration, but playing it with people is where my story comes from.  We will see how it goes.

EverQuest will be free to play in March

On By Michel McDonaldIn EverQuest, Games2 Comments

I don’t sit and watch the live feed on Facebook as much as I would like to because I have better things to do, but today I saw a friend comment on a post from EverQuest.  They are turning 13 years old in March and as a treat for us players, they are making it free to play.  Check out the article on the EverQuest Players website.

I had played EverQuest from 2002 until 2008 and loved that game so much.  It got old the last year that I played because I spent more time twiddling my thumbs since people were abandoning the game and I was left by myself.  I could have gone out to the zones and LFG’d, but it just wasn’t the same anymore, so I quit.

I have wanted to go back to the game but haven’t because I’ve been happy playing Lord of the Rings Online since that is free to play.  Now that EverQuest will be free to play, I will be able to go back.  Although I won’t be quitting LOTRO, I will just play both, obviously not at the same time but you know, I will split my time between the two.

I actually haven’t really had any time to play any games because I have been too busy trying to get my book ready to publish, so games really aren’t on my mind as much as I would like.  Knowing that I will be able to reactivate my account and have my Gnome Wizard at the ready whenever I am ready to play will make me happy.

Just like LOTRO, EverQuest won’t be totally 100% free to play, you will most likely have to buy points for buying in-game items just like in LOTRO, you just won’t have to pay a monthly fee.  Although, you could still pay a monthly fee if you are a silver member, but now you have a choice so you aren’t forced to pay even when you don’t play.  That is actually the reason I closed my account.  I had paid for 2 years and then a few months later I stopped playing.  I forced myself to get in the game to raid because I wanted to get my moneys worth for a year, then the second year I decided that I just wasn’t into it.  When my membership was up, I canceled.  If I had a choice to not pay but keep my account active I would have done that, and now I can.

So thank you Sony Online Entertainment for making EverQuest free to play in March 2012.  I can’t wait to start playing again.