Complete Heal

I gave it my best shot. I kept telling myself that I didn’t need to go to Fan Faire this year and that there were plenty of reasons why it made more sense to stay home. For weeks, I was able to resist the urge to hit the submit registration button. I’ve been to the last four events and my level of commitment to SOE games and really online gaming in general seems to have waned a bit over the years. After all, I’ve been spending a whole lot of time in virtual worlds since the release of Ultima Online many years ago and as many gamers have experienced the passage of time brings raising a family and getting pulled in all sorts of directions – most of the time away from gaming due to work or other RL responsibilities.

In the end, I pulled the trigger. Why? Just because I can. After all, who doesn’t need a break from the day to day routine of being a “responsible” grown up? What else am I going to do with that cash – fix the sink or paint the house? Seriously, you only live once and I’m going to pack it up and go to Vegas. There is something unique about these events and I’m excited about going once again. The Blueberry Muffin Man shown above would be proud.

Speaking of the Muffin Man, what happens when a GM with a lollipop shows up on the Luclin / Stromm server? He draws a crowd of course! In the last month or so that I’ve been back in EQ, I’ve seen a fairly large number of GM run events from horse races in the arena to passing out experience potions and offering up special character titles. In my case, this Blueberry guy was announcing his retirement from the GM program and passed out 10 – 30 minute double exp potions before he called it a night. He also gave my Enchanter a sweet last name. I enjoyed talking to this guy and hope to see him in game again one day.

When I met the GM, I was in Iksar form and there were very few other players around. He called me a “Chicksar” magnet and then dropped “The Lounge Lizard” surname on me. I think it’s pretty fitting in either Iksar form or in my default gnome skin. Anyways, my EQ time last week was spent grinding AA points in COD, BOT, Plane of Fire and Tower of Sol Ro. I’m up to 161 AA points currently and am enjoying the nightly grouping. Since I have a few veteran rewards, I can use the daily “lesson of the devoted” which grants double experience for 30 minutes every 20 hours or so. You can basically play EQ for an hour or two at a time and get a lot done – whether it’s regular exp or AA exp. It’s been fun checking out these zones in Planes of Power that I haven’t seen in years. I’m still looking forward to beginning our official raid progression in a few weeks and getting the chance to beat the Plane of Time – something I never finished during my original stint with Everquest. In the meantime, I better get going as Kibartik apparently has an axe to grind.