Out of the fire, into the frying pan

Jeff had us come in early yesterday (it was memorial day, so we didn't have work) so that we could get even more gaming in... but unfortunately, both Ed and Dave showed up, staggered so that we wasted all the extra time and more making characters for them. Meaning that after rearranging stuff to come in early, the rest of us were sitting around bored for three hours.

He went easier on the dark-side points this time, but while we weren't *exactly* railroaded, there was really only one possible outcome where we didn't end up dead or enslaved. Since he did the whole 'since I want you to be fooled, I won't remind you to sense motive on these people' thing.

( game summary )

I think the moral of the story here is 'don't bother leaving someone to keep watch, because the GM won't let you take any actions until you're surrounded and the enemies are announcing themselves anyway'.

The illusion thing was really annoying -- it's a mental illusion, so it doesn't affect droids, and you have to pay for the distance to the farthest target that you want affected... but apparently it's physical enough that since I didn't specify I was changing the display of their night-vision goggles, they weren't fully affected. He also said that he was being 'nice' by letting my allies see through it -- so apparently it's physical enough that I HAVE to include my allies as affected by it, even though it won't necessarily get all the enemies unless I pay the appropriate distance.

In other words, much like his interpretation of light and dark side points, it makes no sense.

Also, he forgot that it was PITCH BLACK and we were all having to pay vitality and use the force to 'see' anyway.

Still, overall the session was fun.

More Everquest 2...

Updating drivers fixed the invisible health bar issue, but not the framerate or double-click nonfunctionality. I've still been playing it off and on, though.

Currently, after a few hours here and there, I'm level 13, and trapped in the middle of the Commonlands at Crossroads, too weighed down by copper coins to reasonably make the run back to Freeport... except that I just remembered that we actually do get 'Gate'-equivalent spells, which I should just use and go bank so that I can walk at normal speeds again.

I started a quest to let me switch cities to Qeynos, because... well, because I don't want to be a stinking necromancer, and apparently that's the only option for summoners in Freeport. I looked up spoilers for the quest on the web to see if I really want to try to do it, and it looks like the meat of the quest is 'kill 500 gnolls'. x.x First, of course, I have to get down to the depths of the sewers to and talk to the NPC that'd let me actually turn traitor. And before I do that I'd need a few more levels, but I have plenty of quests I haven't finished yet.

I still haven't been in a group except for the one on the isle of refuge, though -- grouping seems like so much trouble when you're trying to track down all these million billion quests in parallel, that probably wouldn't interest your groupmates.

More EQ2 bugs

Well, one bug, but it was annoying enough to make me quit playing for the night.

I progressed a few quests, and finally got into a group (with one other person, hunting pathetically easy monsters), and discovered that, when grouped, I apparently wouldn't exit combat mode after all the enemies were dead.

Being stuck in combat mode, in addition to playing annoying combat music, meant that I couldn't regenerate health or power. The only way to get out of combat mode was to kill the magic random creature that the game thought I was still in combat with, which was usually nearby but not usually within sight range. So, twenty or thirty monsters later, I'd drop back out of it and be able to regain health and power.

I can't go twenty or thirty battles on one tank of power, even against greens. Unless I stand around and do nothing and watch my pet and groupmate fight. So, frustrated, I decided to gate back to Temple Street to log off. Only to discover that since I was 'in combat' I couldn't gate, so instead I had to walk. *sigh*

Jesus, every time I give this game a chance it turns around and kicks me in the face.