Slow Play, Catch Up, and some minor time off

First off, I'm most likely going to be off this weekend. Got some real-life stuff to catch up on, Judas Priest/Megadeth/Testament concert tomorrow night...

At any rate, may be off up to 2-3 days. That means responses won't be validated while I'm gone as well.

_____________________________

Yesterday, lots of time harving, working on my supply stock. Kicked a few wolves in VotD while flower-grabbing, got a Book of Ice Sword, read it and the Ice Sword books that had been gathering dust in storage.

Made some essies for selling, hadn't done that in a while as I'd been focusing on other stuff.

Otherwise not a really big day. Got plans for a few more projects, both for gc and for leveling, when I get back after the weekend.

S2Es and the Tailor

Yesterday was spend mostly harving all the base ings, making FEs and bars, and eventually 100 S2Es.

Which were sold within 5-10 seconds of my first market ad. :P Gotta love guaranteed sales, hehe.



So now that I got gc again, I spent 40k of it on dung, made enough saltpetre to do enough dyes to get both tailoring levels 23 and 24. Been a couple months since I leveled tailoring, so gave it a little attention.


Otherwise, that was it. No clue what I'm going to do today. Possibly just harv a lot and get my flower/mineral/ore stock back up.

The Non-Guild, Truly Dumb PKers, and Double Crafting

Dullish day yesterday. Making FEs and bars and such.


PKers showing just how low their IQ is over Peace Day. I mean, come on, 9 other skills that could be worked on and one of these pathetic losers had the nerve to say he couldn't find a single thing to do. I've seen PKers show their stupidity time and again, but that was just the absolute dumbest thing I've ever heard in-game.



As seen in my previous post, I created the "Lonr" (Loner) non-guild tag for anyone who wants to use it. Basically it's for people who prefer to play solo, but get tired of constant requests to join guilds. Having a "guild" tag puts a stop to those requests, and that's all it is, a tag.

Played with engineering and even tailoring a bit yesterday, though no level for either. Need to get my hands on a huge load of crap, er, dung to get those up more.

But most of the time was spent on moon medallions... leading to:


You advanced to level 37 of crafting!


followed not much later by

You advanced to level 38 of crafting!

Lonr

Lonr is now known as Lone, and "under new management".

It's basically the same tag "non-guild" thing, though.

More Information on Lone at el-wiki.net.

Some Current Stats

Bored from tedious time making a ton of FEs for silver bars, afk-harving bit and posting this to get away from them. ;)

Some stats got lost along the way (switching computers frequently, sometimes forget to take my stats file with me), but here's a few of the more interesting ones...

Top 10 Kills
1- Male Ogre (8686)
2- Cyclops (2938)
3- Troll (2031)
4- Gargoyle (1786)
5- Snake* (1225)
6- Male Goblin (1201)
7- Feran** (1086)
8- Rabbit (1028)
9- Snow Leopard (980)
10- Wolf (910)

*Snakes weren't for training. I kicked a lot while wormwood harving in Naralik to get their skins for summoning.
**Ferans were about 1/3 training, rest was collecting horns for potioning.

Bottom 10 kills
(Excluding Instance-only creatures)
10- Leprechaun (18)
9- Tiger (16)
8- Gentoo Penguin (10)
7- Sslessar (8)
6- Yeti (8)
5- Leonard (alpha) (8)
4- Forest Chimeran (8)
3- Chinstrap Penguin (8)
2- Invisible Rat* (7)
1- Mountain Chimeran (2)

*I know I've killed at least 12, this is a result of the afore-mentioned missing stats. :/




Top 10 Harvests
1- Sunflower (390,153)
2- Lilacs* (263,534)
3- Impatiens (181,160)
4- Red Rose (177,472)
5- Red Snapdragons (169,572)
6- Iron Ore (159,680)
7- Coal (153,826)
8- Chrysanthemum (136,540)
9- Sulfur (126,020)
10- Blue Star Flower (116,924)

*Lilacs... yes, some during newbie days for gc, but mostly for magic essies which I power-leveled alchemy with.


Bottom 10 Harvests
10- Cactus (7326)
9- Yellow Rose (2353)
8- Ruby (2284)
7- Black Rose (2053)
6- Yew (1343)
5- Dung* (872)
4- Wood Logs (309)
3- Tin Ore (172)
2- Wolframite (51)
1- Seridium Ore (36)

*Still Harv 86 at the time of this posting, and I can't be bothered to afk harv this level-100 item. Maybe in the 90s harv levels I'll look more at it, as I do need to make saltpetre.






Won't bother with Bottom 10 for the rest as they're mostly obvious anyway.


Top 10 Alchemy
1- Fire Essence (174,561)
2- Magic Essence (160,825)
3- Health Essence (143,154)
4- Life Essence (49,266)
5- Energy Essence (48,241)
6- Earth Essence (30,328)
7- Water Essence (29,763)
8- Mercury (16,766)
9- Air Essence (16,688)
10- Matter Essence (15,848)



Top 10 Potions
1- Body Restoration* (179,912)
2- Spirit Restoration (14,581)
3- Feasting (9,106)
4- Creature Food (5,220)
5- True Sight (3,152)
6- Mana (2,327)
7- Minor Healing (1,798)
8- Wh. Chan. - Ogre Toe - Tree Shroom extract (1,118)
9- Yarrow - Wormwood - Tulip extract (639)
10- Nightshade - Mullein - Dandelion extract (553)
Rest of the extracts make up the majority of the next few in the list.

*Yes, BRs! Most potion "guides" say to use SRs to level, but I just found these so much easier since they could be sold to NPC for a tidy profit, and could be sold while buying feasting pots.




Stats for other skills aren't that interesting since I'm not as high in them... at any rate, that's my official Boredom Post of the evening. ;)

Three Levels, er, Cheers for Scholars Day

Scholars Day happened last night. 6 hours of extra experience goodness. :P

Goodness? Well, check out the points I was getting making Mixtures of Power (note I have the potion goddess as well):




And the day helped gain a level in 3 skills, including 2 I'd been mostly ignoring lately that needed some work...


You advanced to level 87 of potion!



You advanced to level 28 of summoning!



You advanced to level 32 of engineering!

Sorry, No, Never Again

Sat in reading room yesterday morning to get the Attack Reduction Potion book read (would have taken 30+ hours outside of the room).

Made a few batches of the potion. After discussion with some other potioners, deemed the ingredient cost to be about 630gc per potion, and to sell at 700gc.

And I began to advertise them.

The nightmare began.

(1) No documentation on them, so I ended up having to respond to dozens of people with "duh, what's that?" PMs.

(2) After being nice and taking the time to explain it to them, I got to listen to their bitching about how expensive they are, how little they do for the cost, and "no way I'm gonna buy that" messages.

Personal note to every single person who did this: I am not interested in your goddamned bitching. I didn't decide what they do or how much they'd end up costing. Who the hell do you think you are to waste my time with your damned whining? And what the hell makes you think I wanna hear it?

(3) In the end, that was the majority of my day, wasted on yet another potion that ends up costing way too much for the very little it does.



I regret buying the books. I regret making them. What I've got left is gonna gather dust in my storage because I sure as hell am not advertising them just to go through more of that. And at the moment, I'm seriously regretting that I started the Defense Reduction book yesterday because I don't want to make them and I can't read anything else for a while because the book takes too damn much time.


An ironic touch to this, the first PM I got when I made my first market ad (I was the first to offer them for sale) was from another potioner who thought the price was too low, and wanted to sell them for 1k-1.5kgc. They won't even sell for 700gc...


FTR, I did end up selling 14 of them. (22 still in storage to gather dust.) Those 14 were to two players, and likely like me just "trying anything once".



There's a horrible trend going on in-game where every single new thing added has to be so prohibitively costly that noone wants to use it. There's a difference between expensive and just plain not-even-close to being worth it. These pots fall under the latter.


If you ever see me again "pioneering" jumping at the chance to be the first to make something new, grab your bow and a fire arrow and shoot me with it.

The Attack, the S2E, and the Books

No Grief day yesterday. Took advantage of it to get my attack level up to 83, tied again with defense. With attack god, my attack will most likely pass my defense soon.


Decided on the S2E route for extra gc. Made 100 S2Es and sold them almost instantly. That pretty much covered most of yesterday.

This morning was spent thus far in yet another invasion. I like an occasional invasion, but lately it's just gotten to be way too much, almost on a daily basis. "Too much of a good thing" makes a bad thing. I don't even bother participating most of the time anymore, it gets tiring and leads to nothing else getting done.



And now, almost half the gc I made on the S2Es is gone. Bought books for the new Attack and Defense reduction potions. As well, 4 each of red and black dragon scales so I'd have some once they're read. Really dunno at this point if these pots will even take off. If previous new pots are any indication, I probably just wasted a bunch of gc.

But... gotta try at least. I'm an all-rounder, and a high-level potter, so this fits in with my gameplay.

Leveling like a madman

Since last posting...

Ranging 31 (up 1)
Attack 82 (up 2)
Defense 83 (up 2)
OA 119 (up 1)

Sweet experience, the nectar of EL life. :P


At this point though, my gc is hurting. I've barely done enough to make gc to buy things like vials and wine to make SRs and training arrows and such.

No more ranging for a while except maybe an occasional invasion dragon, which doesn't really do much for leveling anyway. I'm several levels above the lowest top 50 so I won't drop out of the list for quite a while.

And the arrow cost in getting a level these days is a bit overwhelming, heh.


So, to make gc, options...
- BRs are nice. Outta sunflowers at the moment, need to stock those.
- Could do another S2E project, those always sell well
- Moon medallions, naturally. Gotta put that crafting god to more use...

Tired of little-experience harving-for-gc, so those are my choices atm.

60-80 Instance Pics

Okay, here's the screenies I managed to take during the instance. Not many, mainly because I was too preoccupied fighting and having fun. :P

The team:


Scarba (unique monster, looks like an oversized armed orc)


Walking Around the maze-ish instance area


Dilimac (2 in the final wave, look like large giants... um...)

Instance and Lotsa Levels

Saturday night was a bunch of special days due to EL's "6th birthday", so I power-leveled my way through those.

Ended up getting exactly 80/80 a/d on Sun Tzu, perfect for the 60-80 instance, though I had to stop a/d training until then so I didn't disqualify myself from it.

Also hit oa 118, which resulted in 2 more Physique. Probably overdoing it p/c-wise for a/d-training, but I am still primarily a mixer/harver, and EMU is everything.


Alchemy 102 as well! :)


Sunday night was the 60-80 instance. Nice hard critters in there, however we all managed to survive with no deaths. Though during battles it was almost non-stop health restoring, even had to use a few EMPs to keep the mana up. Sometimes not even that was enough, would have to diss and take a breather to get mana refilled.

No really big drops like special helms. :( We ended up with about 7.8kgc+harvester medallion per person.


I followed that up with heading to the EP clops and permanently disqualifying myself from ever doing 60-80 instance again by raising my defense to 81.



Spent a bit of time this morning on clops, now up to 81/81 a/d. Sold some swords I found I never use (had several great swords from when I was trying them all out). Bought a halberd for special occasions. ;)


Somebody was trying to ask my a/d while I was clops training, looking for a PVP partner. Doesn't anyone gossip first before asking these things? I guess PKers are used to private stats, they're so ashamed of them...

Anyway, they couldn't grasp that I was a/d-training but never have (or will) PVP/PKed. As if the entire game revolves around bashing other players.

They don't grasp that:
- there's invasions, which a good a/d makes more fun
- there's instances, which have required a/d levels
- there's Leonard, who obviously needs a good a/d to hunt
- there's the overwhelming fact that a/d is the fastest way to level overall, which means more pickpoints
- some people prefer to be mixers, but a/d-training on monsters is a nice break from that.

And so on... PKers, the game hardly revolves around you. It's quite possible (and done by many) to play the game, get nice high levels, and never once have to delve into the stupidity that goes on in the PK realm. (Don't think it's stupid? Spend about 15 minutes reading the local chat at VotD storage and see if your IQ doesn't drop.)

No More Tears!

Finally found someone selling NMT cloak, bought it, and now I got a purty orange cloak to wear into battle. Yippee :)

Now I'm broker than broke, heh.

But I had to try it out. Went to EP and kicked another attack and defense level out of the clops.

Gotta stop now though. Planning to join some people for a 60-80 instance on Sunday. That trip to EP got me to 79/80 a/d. If I keep going I won't get in the instance.


Today's focus is primarily getting a website I've been working on finished and online this weekend, so probably be doing the afk-harving thing most of the day.

I'm in the Money...

Another overnighter got my mule up to level 6.

I got OA117 yesterday as well, while making FEs of all things, heh.


And I ended up making/selling another large batch of S2Es so I finally have the gc to afford NMT cloak.

Only problem now is find someone selling one. ;)



One person managed to get on my never-trade list by trying to insist I buy one from him at almost 35k over current normal price. Never, ever, ever try that with me.


Current project: 500 moon medallions (gotta get use out of that crafting god)

Gonna seriously hate making WEs and FEs and harving coal by the time I get my crafting up though...

The Ore Becomes the Sword

Sold 20k of iron, but needing a break from web design, and still having more than 20k more in storage, I decided to make some bars, turn 'em into S2Es... basically get some experience as I haven't done any mixing in over two days.

190 S2Es made, and sold for a tidy profit.

I'm about 30-40kgc away from being able to afford an NMT cloak. Yippee? :)


Back to the iron ore...

Silence is a Heavy Ore

I got a website to work on this week, so spending most of my in-game time just semi-afk harvesting iron ore to sell.

That's pretty much all I'm doing for the time being, until this web project is finished. As such, nothing to really write here either. ;)

So I'm Starting to Craft Again

Left the comp on again last night, and got my mule shapeshifting up to level 5.

And I did it, I killed off the manu god and took up the crafting god.

Crafting, despite having more levels in it than tailoring/ranging, is currently my weakest skill compared to the "low top 50" players of each skill. Tailoring and Ranging both have lower "top levels" than other skills anyway due to cost involved leveling them (and massive amounts of time for ranging).

At any rate, now I'll be looking to polishing saps and making moon medallions and such, rather than mixing leather helms at Trik.

For starters, yesterday I did a project to make 300 moon medallions from scratch, including making FEs and bars. That turned out to be a disaster, as after losing ings while making silver medallions and then moon medallions, I ended up with just over 250 moon medallions.

I forgot what it was like to work in a skill where my level is so low, having been alching and potting so much the past few months. Looking forward to rectifying that situation, the lost ings this time were appalling.

Granted, I also had a very bad fail astro at the time. But I'm inclined to blame it more on my low skill level.

I dread going through this again with Engineering. :P

Meanwhile... that little moon medallion project got me up a level to Crafting 34. :)

Selling Harvables for the GC

I got to wondering, what's really the best harvestable when it comes to making the most gc per hour?

There's a lot of factors involved... price the harv sells for, how long it takes to harvest, the time it takes to walk from storage/NPC and back, harvest events slowing the process...

So with my 760 EMU, I decided to run some tests on some popular items that are harvested to sell. Worst case, I'd have some extra stock of the items. ;)

Items normally sold to NPC (Lupies, lilacs, titanium) used the NPC price, others used a sell-to-user price based on what harvest shops on the EL forums normally charge, which is close to if not the normal selling price anyway.

I did a minimum of 3 full loads for each item, counted how many of the item I got and how much time it took including full walk back/forth to storage/NPC. These were "perfect" conditions, meaning the harving was monitored to restart the harv as soon as an event stopped it, started the walk back to the harv/sto/NPC as quickly as possible, etc.

Note that your experiences may differ! How much EMU you have could easily affect which item is better. Less emu = more trips, therefore if the trip is a considerable part of the time involved, you might end up making more money with a harv that has a shorter walk. These calculations are based on an EMU of 760, with excavator cape. (My harv level is 86 as well.) Other factors, such as your AFK time, amount of events, broke all your tools and had to return early, etc., should also be kept in mind. And of course, the price you actually sell the item for. (Personally, I'd be stubborn as a mule and refuse to sell for less than the given prices below.)


So when it came to best gc per hour, here were the results (NPC/Player sales separated because NPC you get gc directly, sales to players do not include the time it takes to actually make the sale, just the time to collect it in storage):

Sell to NPC (instant gc gratification)
Blue Lupine (PL fast bush @ 0.42ea) - 5745gc/hr (Mar. 29, 2009 - server update killed all fast lupine bushes)
Titanium ore (WV @ 2.5ea) - 3420gc/hr
29Lilacs (VotD @ 0.5ea) - 2916gc/hr

Sell to Players (delayed gratification, wait for large amount sale)
gypsum (Arius @ 10ea) - 8640gc/hr
iron ore (EVTR @ 3.5ea) - 6552gc/hr
sapphires (PL @ 3.2ea) - 4838gc/hr
sulfur (EVTR @ 2ea) - 4680gc/hr
emeralds (EVTR @ 3ea) - 4536gc/hr
blue quartz (NC @ 2ea) - 4464gc/hr (rose/regular quartz in NC about the same)
diamonds (Irin @ 3.2ea) - 4032gc/hr
coal (c1 hazmat @ 2ea) - 3960gc/hr (Mar. 5, 2009 - hazmat storage moved)
silver (MM @ 2ea) - 3672gc/hr
henbane (SRM @ 2ea) - 3096gc/hr
turquoise (glac-2-AAsto @ 5ea) - 3060gc/hr
wormwood (SRM @ 2ea) - 2880gc/hr
toadies (VotD @ 1.5ea) - 2646gc/hr*

(* Toadies note: Problem is slow harving combined with low sale price, not the trip to storage, so using SRM won't really improve this by much. This is an item that should have been moved up to the 2gc price range with other higher-level flowers, but due to its use as food, people will refuse to buy it at higher than 1.5.)



The results: If not in a rush, iron is the true champion. However, there's some boneheads out there who regularly try to buy it for less. Don't sell to them, ever. If you sell for 3gc each instead of 3.5, you'll be better off selling Lupies to the NPC. Seriously.

Why not gypsum? There are some out there willing to buy it. Mostly potioners making extracts. It will likely only sell in lower-thousand amounts though due to price and potioner need, and the number of people who'd need it is very limited. As well, the big problem with it is the walk from it to storage and back, being a lot of time and clicking spent on that, with very little time on actual mining. It's a pain in the ass, and is the primary cause of the high cost. Being the heaviest harvable is really a secondary reason to the trouble of harving it.

Iron on the other hand has pretty much guaranteed buyers, in huge amounts, at any given time.

If you need the money as quickly as possible, and don't want to have to deal with finding a buyer, Lupies are the way to go for NPC sales.

Notes: Give the item weight consideration. Heavier (like iron) will mean more trips. If you prefer to afk-harv, a lighter item might be better for you in the long run. Don't forget the harv experience you get for each item, weigh that in your considerations if you are looking to advance your harv level at the same time. Lupies are obviously a poor choice for that, heh.

Rethinking the Gods

(Side note: Kept the game on overnight again, using a load of the creature food I made yesterday to level my mule shapeshifting to level 4.)


Current Gods: Attack, Manu, Potion

My original plan was to eventually replace Potion with Crafting (after reaching at least potion 100), and Manu with Summoning (after reaching top 50 manu). Just got the Attack god so no plans to change it anytime soon.

However, current gameplay has been a bit tricky, gc wise. Training a/d more, which is currently done on Cyclops. That's not a moneymaker, and it is what replaced power-leveling alchemy, which was good money.

Manu is a money loss to level.

Which leaves Potioning to make money. Which, while a decent moneymaker, isn't enough.

Of course, I do other things outside of my god-skills, like the S2E project I'm slowly working on (which is mostly alchemy despite making the S2Es themselves being manu). That's being done solely for the gc.

However, I'd rather have a second god-covered skill that provides gc rather than loses it.


With that in mind, I'm considering dropping the Manu god for the time being, picking him back up later. I haven't had the gc to afford the amount of leather/thread needed to level Manu for a few weeks now, and I'm needing to stockpile gc for other things right now anyway, such as the NMT cloak.

To replace with? The options are Crafting and Summoning. Summoning, at least until I'm up to making stones (and have the Nexus to do so) is a massive gc-sink.

Which leaves Crafting. My calculations indicate that there is at least slight profit making moon medallions, which would be good for leveling as well, even when they're sold to the NPC.

So... Crafting it is. Still just contemplating it, as I want to make sure I really want to do this change of plans before wasting the money on the God quests. But I'm almost certain I'll be taking this route today if I have the items for the crafting quests.

The Productive Fighter/Potter/Harver

Turned out to be quite a productive day in EL, despite going off for long periods to get some website work done.

Besides the Attack level this morning, I managed to:

1) Get one of my self-projects (2000 creature food from scratch, self-harved ings) done.

2) Level potion to 86

3) Level harvesting to 86

This is officially the point where my potion levels will overtake my harving levels and stay that way, my second skill to pass harvesting.



You advanced to level 86 of potion!


You advanced to level 86 of harvesting!

With Sun Tzu Comes the Level

You advanced to level 78 of attack!




Thoughts: Need to get NMT cloak before my a/d gets too high to enter the newbie instance. Still haven't done that instance, and would like to before I no longer qualify. Don't want to do it without NMT though.

Wake Up (almost) Dead

So I logged in this morning as usual while waiting for the coffee to brew.

It's Sun Tzu day. Double experience for att/def.

On the Invasion channel, there's political ranting going on.

So I Suit-Up and head to Egratia Point to take advantage of the 2.5 hours of the special day that's left.

I ring directly into EP, to find myself standing right next to a giant. :/

Considering the day, and the political crap being discussed on invasion channel, I didn't think to check #il for invaders.

Managed to survive thanks to diss ring. But with the special day, I had no intention of wasting time on invaders. Made my way to Idaloran mines and hooked up with a cyclops spawn or two there instead.

Invasion on Sun Tzu? Not the brightest idea, very few invaders died before the special day was over.

Retaining a Seat in the Top 50 Rangers

You advanced to level 30 of ranging!

The Ranger and the Harver and the Mule

Ended up spending almost the entire day yesterday harving, grabbing various plants for creature foods and MoPs. Almost got everything needed for 2k food and around 25-30 MoPs.

Stopped a bit to do a little ranging. 3 fill-ups of arrows worth. Got just over 1/4 of the experience needed to level it. Guess it goes without saying that ranging is slow to level. ;)

And finally, for the first time, I actually left the game on overnight shapeshifted as a mule. I'd only been leveling it while doing massive amounts of wine/FP/leather runs before, but still only at level 2. Well, level 3 now, hehe. Out of 13, still a long way to go, and as I'm making my own food, that'll take a while.

Thoughts:
- Need to do something of a gc-earning nature today
- another harvest level possible today, tomorrow latest
- definite need for Feran Horns, only got about 1/3 of what I need for MoPs. May have to go kick a few today.

Day of Harving

No leveling. No fighting. No mixing.

Spent the entire morning harvesting, mostly red currants (for creature food) and wheat (for MoPs). Slow harvestables while watching TV and getting some work done.

And honestly, after the shit last night with the powers that be incapable of seeing their own mistakes, and an ass-kisser using my attempt to try and explain the real problem as a means to kiss more ass, not really in the mood to do anything else.

Serious Lack of any Kind of Sense

Invasion tonight was a waste. And not just because the person controlling it went all whiny and abruptly ended it.

At what point will they figure out these "bomb single maps with way too many creatures"-type invasions are a disaster in the first place? They're no fun, really. Bunch of high-levels picking off everything because they're low-level creatures, or a handful of high-levels being the only ones that can even attempt to try because it's hundreds of way-too-high monsters. In what is becoming all-too-typical fashion, the mid-levels get mostly ignored.

So the deal: The invasion got abruptly ended because some low-level creatures were getting mass-offed by higher-level fighters. "Zarin" was apparently even pulling this stunt of sending those high-levelers to IP, despite it being "her" own fault they were there in the first place.

"She", of course, blamed it on us players. (I say "us" collectively, I'd actually gotten bored and went to sto and mixed FEs. Most dull invasion I've ever had the displeasure of trying to participate in.)

The reason for them going there was quite simple: Hundreds of mid-level (considered "high level" for those kind of creatures) were left with pretty much nothing to do the entire invasion.

A tiny handful of creatures at our level in MM, gone before you hit 1-2 of them. That was it.

When this "situation" occured, there were two options available, and had been the only options for quite a while:
(1) Hundreds of seriously-high-level creatures on a tiny map, the likes of which maybe a handful of the highest-level fighters would even bother attempting.
(2) These low-level creatures that caused the whining.

Now, hundreds of people stuck between these two options. Of course they're going to go after the low-level ones, they're fucking bored!


That this couldn't be seen by the god-of-the-day is just beyond me. This was bound to happen, it was pretty much destined by the poor way the invasion was carried out, tossing all too many creatures on all too small maps is the definition of invasion disaster. For the love of all that is holy, figure that out already!

The Power That Be blamed the players. I blame the way the invasion was carried out, 100%. The way it was carried out PUSHED the players there because there was nothing else to do.

Shit happens, and shit happened as a result. I don't have a problem with it being a poorly executed invasion, that's bound to happen on occasion.

I do have a problem with the sad attempt to pin the blame solely on the players with absolutely no capability of owning up to their own responsibility for what happened.


-----

The amount of ass-kissing in channel 6 was overwhelming afterwards. Had to get a vomit bucket to put beside me it was so bad.

One person learned the hard way not to use my name in any way that's meant to further their ass kissing. Lost someone I considered at the least to be friendly in the process, but I have no tolerance whatsoever of people using me to push their agenda. I'd rather lose that person than for a second let them think they have the right to use me in that way.


I'll of course thank the powers that be for what they've done to make this game what it is. However, I won't kiss ass (or let people use me in their attempts to kiss ass) when it's quite obvious they're in the wrong though. Too much self-respect for that. It also does noone any good when the response given is always of a suck-up nature. Problems never get resolved by suck-ups.

The Alchemy What-to-Make List

There are currently 28 items you can make with the Alchemy skill. Every one of them has their use, but how used are they, and are they worth making in bulk (or at all)?

There's also the issue of value, whether the cost of the ingredients makes the item better to make on your own, or just buy outright.

I've put together below a list of the items, as well as my personal thoughts on each. Keep in mind that these are the opinions of a single player, others may have differing opinions and may have different experiences with each. Don't base your Alchemy work on the opinion of one person. ;)


ESSENCES

Fire Essence - The backbone of Alchemy. This is where you make many of your first Alchemy levels. They sell well, as so many of them are needed for bar-making and more. Value of ingredients is about 3gc, sell for 3.5gc, so you make a little more and get experience off making them rather than selling ings. Overall this is something you'll make a lot of, both for yourself and to sell. Eventually though, the experience you get making them just isn't worth it and you may end up becoming a buyer of these for your bar work.

Water Essence - One of the primary means of leveling the Crafting skill is polishing emeralds. Polishing requires 2 water essies per gem, so a lot of them are needed. As well, these are needed by a smaller number of players who are advancing their Tailoring, as they are needed to make dyes.

If you plan to do either of those skills, make yourself a lot of these. Sell-wise, they sell for at or only slightly above the value of the ingredients, so making money off them is only an option with self-harvesting. The market for them tends to fluctuate, and many choose to just make them themselves as they aren't going to make much (or any) profit off their gems/dyes if they are bought.

Earth Essence - On an incredibly rare occasion, someone may actually buy these. However, rare means rare. These have only one use, to make matter conglomerates (see comments on those below). Those who make "gloms" are most likely going to make the essences themselves as well. Do not rely on these for income, and don't bother making them unless you actually need them yourself.

Air Essence - Mana draining is used and abused to increase magic levels. That's their primary usage, with a few other uses that are minor in comparison. The sale of them goes in waves, sometimes lots being bought and other times less so. They sell for a decent profit though. You won't sell as many of these as other essences, but they are sellable eventually. Use them to level after water essies, see how well they sell, decide from there if you want to continue making them.

Spirit Essence - The first of the two essences that require mercury as an ingredient. These are regularly needed in the game for teleporting, however the ingredients make them a loss to make on your own. For leveling the Alchemy skill, most if not all skip these and go to matter essences directly after air essences. This is the only essences that I'd recommend buying from the magic shop NPC rather than making. The NPC sells for 9gc each, and it's the only essence that sells from the NPC for less than the ingredients cost. Mercury alone sells currently for 6-7gc each from players, if you can find anyone selling it at all. In all, these are the 1 essence I never make. (Or rather, rarely make, as I do sometimes make a handful of them when they are really needed and I don't have time to go to the shop to buy them.)

Matter Essence - Another regularly-needed item, but they are incredibly hard if not impossible to sell for more than what you could get for the individual ingredients. You will make these, but mostly for your own use. The price issue is because of this... the individual ingredient going rates:
- iron - 3.5gc
- each type of quartz - 2gc
With 3 types of quartz and 1 iron, total of the ingredients is 9.5gc, not including food cost. Most people try to buy them at 8gc, and will refuse to at 10gc. Why sell them when you could sell the ingredients instead?
Of the essences, this is the most confusing one when it comes to pricing, and as such makes them not worth selling. You'll need to make these for yourself at the least though, and they are regularly used. And if anyone tries to buy them from you for less than 10gc, laugh at them.

Energy Essence - Heavily, heavily used. Whether by mercury extractors, or people teleporting (5 per trip to the portal room), or any of several other uses, these babies have their market. Well worth making for both yourself and to sell, which they will at a slight profit.

Life Essence - Easy to make with only two ingredients, easy to sell to those working on their summoning levels, and will sell at a profit. Higher-level summoners can and will buy these in extreme amounts for making summoning stones.

Death Essence - Make for yourself only. Limited use, and due to the mercury needed won't sell at any profit. These are normally skipped when leveling as well as spirit essences due to the mercury needed.

Health Essence - These are the most-needed of all essences. Heavily used, heavily bought. You'll get an overwhelming amount of your alch leveling done on these alone. Make them, make them a lot. Use them. Savor them. Sell them.

Magic Essence - The market for these, despite having some uses, is close to zero. This is because they are the highest experience of the essences, and saturate the market because of people using them to level. Keep some for your personal use, make them when you need them.
They do, however, have that leveling use, and making them solely for that reason is not a bad thing. If you have the gc to burn, make them in an alchemy school for double experience. If not, make them anyway. Ingredients cost a total of about 4gc, so even if you buy all the ingredients, they can be sold for 6.67gc to the magic shop NPC, a profitable option if you don't mind hauling them there from storage.

ENRICHED ESSENCES

There are 5 available. 2 can only be made "by accident" while making their non-enriched counterparts. Those are Enriched Water Essence and Enriched Death Essence. Neither of those are very regularly used so no matter.

The other 3 can be made but require an enrichment stone, a rare item.

An Enriched Life Essence would be a waste. They sell for much less than the enrichment stone itself. Their limited use makes it better to just hope for one while making Life Essences, and they tend to be made that way relatively regularly.

Your best bet is to save the enrichment stones, using them only to make an Enriched Fire Essence or Enriched Magic Essence when you absolutely need one of those. Otherwise you won't make these often at all.


BARS

Bars in general are pain in the... to make due to heavy ingredients. Selling prices are generally at or slightly below the cost of ingredients, so they're generally only profitable if you harvest things yourself. As well, you'll need a good stock of fire essences if you plan to make these.

If you are alching solely to increase your alchemy level, you're better off sticking to the essences due to their being easier to gather ings and make.

Iron Bars - Used by manufacturers, you should have no problem selling these off, though less so than steel bars. A necessity, made in large quantities. Primarily bought by people making S2Es to harvest hydrogenium.

Steel Bars - Like iron, but sold in even larger quantities. The reason being their primary use is to make S2Es, which require 16 bars each, with only 2 iron bars. Iron and steel bars of course have other uses, but primary buyers are those making S2Es.

Silver Bars - primary use being for rings in crafting. A fluctuating market, you might end up selling some, but don't rely on them for income. Better to make these for yourself for your own crafting.

Gold Bars - primary use being for rings in crafting. (I'm repeating myself!) These have an even less chance of selling, as the most-used rings are all made with silver rings, not gold. Make for yourself as needed, don't expect to sell them.

Titanium Bars - Used almost exclusively in higher-level manufacturing that also requires rare inredients, so their usage is extremely limited. Those that would actually need them wouldn't need huge amounts, and will likely make them on their own. At best they sell to NPC for 40gc each, but the ings could be sold for more.

Tin/Copper/Bronze Bars - Putting these together as the only purpose for tin and copper bars is to make bronze bars. There is almost no market for these at all. Chance of sale is slim to none, and there is an incredible amount of work involved to make them. Only make if you actually have a use for them yourself.

Hydro Bar - The holy grail, you could say, as 50 are needed to buy a nexus. However, when you make these, chances are you'll be in a guild doing group projects to make them. Hydro ore is the hardest ore to get. But these definitely have their game usage.

Seridium Bars - Take a lot of work to make (making matter conglomerates to harv the seridium), and have little to no market. Don't make unless you need yourself, or have someone willing to buy in advance.

Wolframite Bars - Require a rare serpent stone to make. You won't be making these in any large amounts. They have uses, but better to only make if absolutely needed.

MISCELLANEA

Bone Powder - The lowest point-wise. As a starting potioner, you'll need to make these. Make them for your own personal use only though, as they don't sell well, and with 3 bones needed, you'll make more selling just the bones than the powder.

Matter Conglomerate - You'll feel a sense of accomplishment in making these, but that's where it ends. They have limited usage, don't sell well if at all... don't make unless you have a guaranteed buyer or want to use them yourself. They're a lot of work for no good reason otherwise.

Mercury - The oddball of alchemy. Requires an expensive tool (alembic) to make, a high-level harvesting item to extract it from (cinnabar), and an energy essence. Very nice experience, but expensive as the alembic will break eventually at some point where it won't be worth the value of the mercury it produces. By the time you get to where you can make this, you'll need to decide for yourself whether it's worth it.

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Okay, that's it for alchemy. Hopefully it helps you decide if you should/shouldn't make each item if you're working your way up the alchemy ladder. And remember, these are just my opinions and thoughts on each item. Your mileage may vary.

So How Well Are You Really Doing...

Being a "Jack of all Trades"-wannabe, for the longest time I thought I should be hiking all my skills up as equally as possible, else I don't "earn" that title.

Truth of the matter is, that's pretty much impossible. Skills like alchemy, potion, and att/def are so much easier to level than, say, ranging or tailoring.

So is there a better way to determine how well you are (comparatively) doing in a skill?

The best way I could find was comparing to other players. There were two schools of thought on this... compare to the top player for each skill, or compare to the lowest of the top 50 as that might be a better insight into the difficulty of leveling that skill. (The top player may just spend an excessive amount of time on that one skill.)

I ignored "who" had the top level (or low top 50 level) and focused solely on the numbers, as this was just an idea to compare skill leveling difficulty, not attempts to beat some other player.

This proved to be a bit problematic, due to the one thing I feel should never have been allowed: people hiding their stats. Cowards.

This was primarily problematic in the fighter skills... attack, defense, magic... as they seem to be the biggest of the cowards. Yes, I know, they do it because of PK, but I don't care. Of the top 50 attackers, for example, I believe I found maybe 3 of the 50 who hadn't hidden their stats.

At any rate, this led to my idea being troublesome to try. I eventually had to just use the lowest top 50er's skill level that could actually be viewed rather than the actual person in the #50 spot.

These are the ranks I figured out, keeping in mind they aren't necessarily the highest and lowest in the top 50 of that skill due to privacy crap.

Skill - (lowest top 50/highest top 50) level
Attack - 134/146
Defense - 139/145
Harvest - 100/127
Alchemy - 100/129
Magic - 74/101
Potion - 82/115
Summoning - 50/107
Manufacturing - 67/100
Crafting - 70/112
Engineering - 42/66
Tailoring - 31/66
Ranging - 28/36


As can be seen, there's a huge gap between the highest levels for some skills over others. They were taken a while ago and have possibly changed by now, but the point was to find a reference, not be precise.

If you're looking to be a Jack of All Trades, to see how well you're doing in a skill comparatively, try comparing to these numbers rather than attempts to keep them all equal.

Today in Play...

I've got several "projects" I'm working on, most of which have harvesting work to be done. As such, I've been harving all morning... dandelions and coal mostly.

Project 1 - S2Es - to eventually sell, currently harving coal and making FEs, making bars as I have the ings to do so.

Project 2 - MoPs - Mixture of Power, making a batch of them. Only need to harv the necessary wheat, and get the feran horns and I can start mixing the extracts. For eventual sale.

Project 3 - Creature food - Made for self-usage, done when I have time to continue until I'm fully leveled as a mule. Poppies, red currents, blueberries, and rue are on my "to harv" list for the next batch of 2040 foods.


Thinking out...
- I really need to save up for NMT cloak. And soon. Starting to wear a titanium set when needed, and would rather it last a while before needing to replace pieces.
- I've still got 1 too many Human nexus from when I gave the Artificer cape a try. Sold the cape, dropped to Human nexus, still need to get rid of that final unneeded nexus.
- Need to work on saving up gc in general. Always broke because of reinvesting cash to level skills. Would be nice to have some "emergency gc" to fall back on, heh.


Skills to work on...
- Ranging - Need one more level soon before I drop out of the top 50 rangers
- Manufacturing - 8-9 more levels and I'll be in the top 50 list (my goal before dropping the manu god)
- A/D - Training on cyclops these days. Thus the need for NMT, they hit hard :P
- Potion - Already in the top 50, but I'd like to make this my second skill to break level 100 (alchemy was first)

Alchemy Goddess - To follow or not

Of the "mixing" skills, Alchemy is without a doubt the most useful. Not only that, it's also the easiest to level.

So is there really a point to following the Alchemy goddess?

Chances are that of the mixing skills, unless you're heavily focused on some other mix skill, you'll end up spending a lot of time alching, and leveling the skill whether intentional or out of necessity. Alchemy product is needed for most of the other skills, so it becomes something you do regularly, like harvesting.

This necessity leads to leveling the skill just out of necessity alching, which has led to the question of whether or not the alchemy goddess is really needed to assist leveling?

The answer is that unless you are hell-bent on being a top-level alchemist, probably not.

However, that's not the only thing to consider. Think about this: how's your overall doing? Need some more pickpoints?

If you alch a lot, whether you're wanting to increase your alchemy skill level or not, those alching points are going to your overall as well, leading to more pickpoints.

Most of the other mixing skills are minimally used in comparison to alchemy, which leads to more experience. An additional 20% experience on such a heavily-used skill can go a long way towards getting those pickpoints faster.


Of the mixing gods, the Alchemy goddess is really the only one to offer that additional bonus. (Well, Potion goddess comes in a good second, though only if you're heavily into potting in the first place.)


So, should you take the Alchemy goddess or not? A quick checklist...

Pro (yes is good):
- Do you alch a lot compared to other mixing skills?
- Does your OA matter to you? (getting more pickpoints as quickly as possible)
- Did you recently reset? (alching a lot to regain that OA, with goddess makes it go much faster)
- Are you wanting a high alchemy skill level?

Con (yes is bad):
- Are you hurting for gold coin? (The Alchemy goddess quests are among the most expensive in the game, if you take her on you'll need to keep her quite a while to make it cost-worthy)
- Are you absolutely needing to follow Mortos (attack) or Zarin (crafting)? (They are her enemies, unable to be followed if you follow Elandria)


As everything in the game, the choice to follow her is up to your needs. Hopefully this will better help you decide. Personally, I followed her, and became a top 50 alchemist with her additional experience as well as got my overall up quickly after a reset, and found it very much worth the cost.

The History of GoodDay2Die

This blog is started well into my gameplay, so a brief look at how I got to where I currently am:

Started playing around May 2008 I believe, not completely sure but around that time.

Decided I was going to be a "Jack of All Trades" as it seemed to be the way to get the most out of the game. So much to do rather than stuck doing the same thing all the time.

Despite that, I do have skills that have gotten a lot more attention than others. It's mostly a "gc" thing... some skills cost while others can make money when trying to "power-level" them.

I was in a guild at one time. I ran the guild Alchemy shop, and as a result spent most of my time harving and alching. Wasn't entirely unhappy with that, though I found myself more and more trying to get time to level other skills as well, and realising that as long as I ran the alch shop I'd never have as much time as I'd like for other skills.

Eventually left the guild because it was supposed to be a "no pk for any reason" guild, and a well-known PKer was allowed to join, albeit temporarily, as a guest. Temporary or not, a known PKer was walking around with "my" guild next to his name.

I am a non-pker, and refuse to be in a guild that's associated with pk in any way. So I left.

I've remained guildless since then. This leaves me with the freedom I prefer to be able to do what I want, work on whatever skill I want, and not have others affect my own personal reputation in the game.

I did a reset when I was at overall 86, because of some poor choices with perks. That was at the end of August 2008. I've since gotten my overall back and beyond (currently 116). I've remained perkless since the reset with the exception of 2 perks that after very long consideration were deemed okay.

One of the perks I killed with that was Godless. The big decision coming when Elandria, the Alchemy goddess, was added to the game. With her, I went from Alch level 70 up to 101, putting me in the top 50 alchemists in the game.

Besides her, I chose the magic and manufacturing gods. Magic served its purpose, getting my past magic 49, allowing for no-fail restore spells. I've switched it now for the newly-added Potion goddess.

Manufacturing god remains for now, as I've only slowly been working on that skill. The plan is to eventually replace it with Summoning.

Alchemy goddess is gone now, replaced with Attack as I haven't worked so hard on my attack/defense levels, being primarily a mixer.

Engineering and Tailoring remain my least-focused skills, primarily due to dung and my inability to harvest it myself. I buy it when I can, but that isn't a cheap option.

So, here's my skill levels (rank in parentheses) as of this posting:

Attack 77 (621)
Defense 79 (723)
Ranging 29 (45)
Magic 50 (601)
Summon 27 (287)
Harvest 85 (249)
Alchemy 101 (44)
Potion 85 (36)
Crafting 33 (695)
Manufacturing 59 (114)
Engineering 31 (156)
Tailoring 22 (127)

Mule shapeshifting: Level 2

Welcome to Wherever You Are

I sometimes feel the urge to discuss things about Eternal Lands, post instructions for some regularly asked things, commentary on game changes, etc.

And of course, just post about my day in the game.

I didn't feel doing that in the same place as my "real life" stuff was... a bright idea. EL is a different life and world, so it gets its own place.

At any rate, this is a private blog, one player's take on things. Nothing here should be construed as "definitive" information, my opinions are my own, my game play is my own.

Opinions are like assholes, everyone has one. Don't like my opinions? Get yer own blog. :P