Wednesday, April 29, 2009

Minor Crafting, Major Potting

You advanced to level 42 of crafting!

Crafting Level 42


Still very slowly working on Crafting. Dunno why it's taking so much time to work on it compared to other skills. Maybe it's the WEs needed for polishing saps. Maybe it's the bars to make medallions.

Oh, wait, no "maybe" about that. Hehe.

And I'm distracted from it. Mostly by potioning. Level 95 now, feels soooo close to making this my second 100+ skill. Yet it's actually so far away. Will take a lot of time and effort to get those "last 5" levels.

The last couple days, I've been mostly stocking BR supplies and making them as I can. With that, I'm over half way to level 96. Still a ways to go... current estimates are that it'll take about 8k more BRs to get to 96. Or... 85k total BRs to reach pot 100.

Hmmm.

That's a lotta sunflowers and rose quartz. So I'm not only doing a lot of harving but advertising to buy those as well. Just grabbing vials as I need them from Melinis, and muling 15k or so of wine every once in a while.

Slowly but surely making my way to the Potion 100 dream, hehe. Gonna take a few weeks to get there most likely. But considering I've made over 278k BRs thus far, 85k should be a walk in the park. Okay, maybe not, but it doesn't sound like much in comparison at least.

No, actually, it still sounds like a lot.

Obviously gonna work on other stuff as well in the meantime. I'm only 367k experience away from an alch level for example.

Sticking to stuff that is profitable (or at least break-even) for the time being, as the gc hit rock bottom. Got enough to buy small amounts of stuff I need and that's it. So no tailoring, no ranging, no manufacturing, no nothing that is a gc sink for the time being.

Unless I change my plans, the number of "you advanced to level X in Skill!" messages I'll be seeing will be few and far between the next week or so. Ah well, that's the "price" of trying to advance in skills that are already highly advanced, heh.

Monday, April 27, 2009

A Year of EL

Honestly, I don't recall exactly when I started playing, and there's no way to find out in the game. My best guess is around the beginning of May 2008. So this is "generically" a year later.

What's happened in a year?

Skills

Attack/Defense (92/91) - For the longest time, these were pretty stagnant. I worked on them slowly, but had much more focus on mixing skills. I really didn't know what I was doing. I'd fight a bit of every creature around my level, but had no "training" skills per se. It wasn't until I got around polar bears and ogres that I started developing good training methods.

Even still, my attributes build was (and still is) more designed towards being a harvester/mixer than a fighter, so my training is adapted to compensate for that. I could probably level these faster if I went through all the "build" nonsense that a lot of fighters do, but in the end I still do a lot more mixing and harving than fighting so how I have it now is fast enough for me.

When I eventually got up to ogre-training levels, I was about ready to give up on a/d completely. So many people were at ogre levels at the same time that it was a serious pain in the ass just to find a spawn to train on, even during the very-off-peak hours of the day.

While there's quite a few spawns, it just wasn't enough for the number of people stuck at that level. And you were at that level for quite a while. (This has since changed a bit, as armed orcs have been made better for training. I mostly skipped armed orcs because it was before they were adjusted.)

After over 8,000 ogres killed (and several months to do that as most of the time I couldn't be bothered trying to find a spawn), I jumped to cyclops as quickly as I could. I had to stop training completely for a while to spend time raising money to buy a NMT cape, as due to my jumping to them a little early I also needed better gear for these one-eyed critters. Up to ogres I'd been fine with aug sets (self-made).

I used a tit long sword on the clops in the beginning, and slowly worked my way down to boxing them as my a/d and p/c went up.

I stayed on them until I reached their ignore level. 'Twas a sad day indeed, hehe. Most seem to not like training on them, but I was quite happy on them after the nightmare of ogre spawn hell. Egratia Point, with the exception of Sun Tzu days, always had several free clops spawns, allowing for easy training, and even doing a bit of multi-clops without disrupting others.

Now I'm on the fluffies. Usually in Melinis, with the added "thrill" of Leonard or the occasional Chim stopping by to visit me. Emergency halberd to the rescue, hehe.

So after a year, I'm training on fluffies, and with a good weapon can kill up to Sslessars, MCs, and Yetis (with much care and focus, hehe). Good enough for a 1-on-1 during invasions, at least.

Harvest (89) - In the beginning, this was a big focus. In fact, up to cinnabar level I did my best to try and get decent harv points every hour. Tried on occasion to harv dung, but never really sat at it because even now it's still too slow. That was mostly just to see how long it was taking at certain levels.

Rather than trying stupid stuff like that, I just stuck to stuff that was maybe a few recommended levels at most over my level, and had no problem getting up to level 89 and still being able to do other stuff. And yew... even though I'm past the rec level for it, I don't need it so I've harved less than 1k of it with no plans to harv more in the forseeable future. Cinnabar is the highest I harv regularly, and it's something I actually can put to use.

These days, I don't do that. Instead what I harv depends on what I'm working on. I'll try and harv the highest item I actually need at the time for harv points rather than going straight to the cinnabar. I may make exceptions to that when I get close to a harv level, that's it.

So basically I'm no longer "trying too hard" to level harvesting. I'd love to be able to harv my own dung for engineering purposes, but I'll live without it. I'll get there eventually. Technically I can harv it now and get full hour harv points, but it literally takes the full hour to do that, something I'm not willing to waste time on.

Alchemy (104) - My first 100+ skill, and one of the three skills I'm listed in the "top 50" for. This had a lot to do with heavy focus on it from the start. In addition, I ran my former guild's Alchemy Shop so alching was for a long time almost the only thing I did outside of harving.

Around Alch 70 or so, the alch goddess was added to the game and I took her the same day (having reset the week before to get rid of the godless perk). That helped a lot, both with alch leveling and getting my OA back up from the reset.

At Alch 100, I dropped the goddess so I could focus on other skills. I plan to take her again, but it'll be quite a while. I still alch quite a bit, and the last 4 levels have come without even focusing on it so much.

Most alching these days is bars for making S2Es, bars for making moon medallions, the regular stocking of HEs (and occasionally selling those as well), and I throw in some magic essie making when I have the ings for it, for the experience and extra gc.

Magic (53) - Not something I actually tried hard to level, it just kinda happened with regular restores and I teleport almost everywhere I go. I did the "shield farting" thing for a while in the beginning, and after getting the magic god around the same time as alch goddess, I went out of my way to throw out some extra higher-level shields.

I dropped the magic god at Magic level 49, as that was my main goal for it (no-fail restore). Since then, all my magic levels have been solely from restores and portal room visits. Er, and occasionally tossing a harm at Lenny when he disses from me, hehe.

Potion (95) - I had no plans to be a top-level potioner at first. In fact, it was one of my mostly-ignored skills for quite some time. But I worked on it anyway in an attempt to be an all-rounder. Once I got up to making SRs/FPs/BRs though, I saw the path to leveling this skill, and at a profit, so it quickly became my second highest skill.

I'm at this time ranked #15 potioner in the game, and I'm more proud of my leveling of this skill than I am of alchemy, despite having more levels in it.

The Potion Goddess was added to the game not too long back, and I had her quests done on the same day as she appeared. My last 15 or so levels have been with her bonus experience.

These days, I still do lots of BRs since they're good experience and profit. I'm focusing a bit more on SRs as well. I made 99% of the creature food I used to level my mule completely, and have made several batches of Mixture of Powers for the final goddess quest to sell to others doing that quest. I never make FPs, buy those only as I have a hard time keeping raw meat stocked, and I need it for summoning.

Summoning (29) - My "mood/boredom" skill, despite that managed to get up to 29. I have plans to eventually hike this up quite a bit, take the summoning god, etc., just had other priorities so far. Depending on my animal part stock, I'll hit the WVF summon arena and kick out some critters on occasion. Never really planned out leveling this, just summoned what I had parts for as long as it was within 5-10 levels of me.

Used a lot of self-made summoning potions to assist with summoning things I was a couple levels too low for, which helped a lot.

Boars are the key points at this level, though I may start trying wolves soon. I've been stocking up wolf furs for just this reason.

Manufacturing (64) - The surprise of my skills. Leather helms, partly done at Trik to lower the cost, partly done in the WVF Manu School when I had the extra gc.

I had the manu god for a while, and did most of my leveling during that time. I really had no clue how to level this skill in the beginning. I was actually going "up the list" and making a few of everything, which led to me making a lot of worthless crap. I made about 600 leather gloves, sold 200 and kept the rest for my own harving use. Still got about 100 of those left, hehe.

Made my own aug sets for training, and for a while that was the only manufacturing I did. It wasn't until I was choosing gods and decided to give the manu god a try that I got heavy into the helms. I quickly power-leveled my way up to about 60 before changing gods.

Since then, I'll hit the school on occasion when I have the spare gc (so not often). The only other manufacturing I've done of late is making alembics and a few vial molds. Those are actually the only two things I've made thus far that require a rare ingredient.

Current plan is to continue hitting the school with helms when I have the gc. Eventually I'll take the god again and then give this skill more focus.

Crafting (41) - One of my worst skills. Yeah, the number is going up, and I currently have the crafting god for assistance, but it's very slow leveling despite the attempt to focus on it.

No vials, and only about 10 levels were done making thread. The rest was me pushing to make rings/medallions. I have never bought a C1 ring, have made all of my own and have a good stock of them. Except for a few in the beginning, all my non-seridium medallions are self-made as well.

But until I took the crafting god, I did very little that was done intentionally to level the skill. Of course now I'm doing a lot of the usual, polishing sapphires and making moon medallions. sold less than 1k of the polished sapphires, instead been hiding them away for the moon medallions.

Yeah, I lose a lot of ings, but it still comes out positive with all the self-harving. And as well my income from alch and potioning helps offset any costs.

Plan is to keep the crafting god for the forseeable future, until I'm possibly up to the mid-70s or so. I dunno... that's the plan at least. Highest rec level for a crafting item is 65 (saving stone) so that's how I got the mid-70s goal, a respectable number of levels above the highest item.

Then again, I may drop the god a while to get focused on other skills. For now, keeping it though.

Engineering (37) - The overwhelming majority of points from this was from making ashes and saltpetre. The only reason I got into this skill at first was because I was gonna need the saltpetre for tailoring. Bought all needed dung and leveled as I had time.

Eventually got to where I could start making indicators. Already had a decent amount of turqoise stocked from using it for harv points. Made a ton of rope, and now just keep making indicators as I get in the mood. Mostly a/d and harv/degrade indicators, of course, though I've made a few of the others. Most end up being sold to the NPC, though I keep a few around for my own use.

I've made only a handful of other engineering items, as I don't really have a use for them and they're not "level material". Some caltrops, a few nails and black powder... I'll make mines some day I guess. Haven't touched anything of arrow-making nature yet either.

There's just very little outside of saltpetre and indicators of use to me in this skill, which is why it's still relatively low.

I do intend to focus more heavily on this skill in the not-too-distant future though. Engineering god is planned as the next one to take (I gotta lose the potion god first though, and I'm in no rush to let go of her, hehe.)

Tailoring (27) - This was the last skill I started, obviously due to the sheer cost and... um... sheer cost. And then when I started I just touched on it a bit, making a few white fabrics while making thread and such.

That the books were all on C2 slowed it down as well. Unlike some of the moron newbies I see these days trying to go too far too fast, I intentionally waited quite a while before I even considered going to C2, even with MM perk.

Eventually got up to where I could start dyes. But never had many WEs or even WE ings stocked so that has been slow as well. Made all my saltpetre myself, that slowed things down even more since I had to buy dung for that.

Did red dyes, then skipped to blue dyes.

Then just recently, I realised I hadn't studied the forums and other comment places concerning this skill as much as I had others. And realised... orange dye needs no saltpetre. I had completely ignored it since there is no use for orange cloths, and just thought all dyes needed it.

That could have exponentially speeded up leveling this skill. Cheesus. Well, I got to level 27 without it, and it helped my engineering skill to make the saltpetre so, all's well I guess.

Future plans are to... well, just keep doing what I'm doing. I may at some point give this more attention, but it's the least needed skill so far so I'm not in a rush. I got no real plans for it, just work on it when I have the time or need a change of pace.

Radu asked in channel 6 the other day... "Why do people level tailoring?" Only answer I could come up with is "Because we can". And that's pretty much the only reason I do it so far.

Ranging (34) - This skill wasn't in the game when I started. And it was at least two months after it was introduced that I started trying it.

First on IP for a level or two, and I hit a few random places before I chose to get about 10 levels in the Zirakinbar castle. Nice place to range as long as some newbie isn't in there killing off all the garg targets. (Newbies don't belong on C2, and there should be some kinda limit imposed before even going there, dangit!)

Ended up moving to the NC wall after that, where many worked on leveling it.

And now... new ranging arena! A fully-leveled mule gives me 1840 emu, which is a good 2-hours' worth of crossbow bolts. Quicker leveling for a price.

Plans: Just stay in the top 50 rangers, and do it every once in a while to stay in that goal. At the moment my extra gc goes into other money sinks, so only on occasion.

However, I'm wondering... the main reason the new archery potions weren't heavily taken has been because they'd cause targets to die too fast, making leveling harder. Now that the arena's there... level using the arena, max out on the potions, and become a ranging "tank" during invasions?

Gotta think about that before trying it, since the pots are expensive and their usage is permanent. And the way Radu keeps taking new things out of the game lately, I'd need to know the ranging arena wasn't in the soon-to-be-deleted list. I don't think so, since it's actually getting decent usage considering it's not a heavy-use skill.

Shapeshifting

Introduced as well after I'd already started playing, with just the Mule being the only option (and it still is the only one).

At first I thought I'd never do it... it's quite costly, and add to that not particularly useful until you've leveled the mule somewhat. A level costs about 64kgc in creature food, and there's 12 levels.

It wasn't until after I started heavily getting into potioning that I started doing this, and only because I was making my own food, which was both nice experience and a cost-saver.

And now I'm a fully-leveled mule. With my current p/c I get 1840 emu when I shapeshift. I use it now for hauling leather, thread, and wine. As well, it has come in very handy in (if slightly) reducing the cost of using the archery arena.

Name Change

When I first tried EL, I actually went through two other characters just "trying out" the game before GoodDay2Die ended up being my regular character. At the time I didn't realise I'd end up still being here a year later, as I wasn't really that big on gaming and had never played a multi-player online game before, ever.

Thinking it was mostly fighting and such, I figure the Klingon expression was a semi-appropriate name. As I played though, I learned about all the other skills, ended up focusing more on being a mixer, and never, ever pk-ing. (Okay, I once pk-ed an ant, but that's not a real player so doesn't count, hehe. Besides, they deserve it. :P )

And so my name wasn't very appropriate. About a month ago, I changed it to just Burn, failing to come up with any other I liked that wasn't taken or similar to someone else's.

Guilds

I only ended up in one guild. Differences of opinion on who should be allowed to walk around with the guild tag, even as a "visitor" to the guild, led to me leaving.

Turned out to be the best thing for me. No feeling of obligation to anyone but myself, I was able to expand myself more into various skills, and even level the ones I had been using much more effectively.

I created a "non-guild" GD2D just to give myself a tag, as I was getting way too many requests to join guilds while tagless. Biggest problem with that was every single one came from a PK guild, or one that allowed it. I didn't want to be associated with anything PK, as it only causes problems with the stupider people in the game who brainlessly go after anyone and everyone, constantly making asses of themselves in chat and such. The kind of people that you lose IQ points just reading their stupidity...

I digress. I eventually changed the tag to Lonr, and opened it up for others who are tired of getting "join my guild" requests. Only 1 other has taken up the tag, but that's probably because I have it pretty strict to reduce the number of problems that mind-numbingly dumb people who can't read #guild_info may cause.

Contests

Not as many as there used to be. But back when there were more, I'd do the seek-and-finds, and search for the invisible rats, and other such things.

The only real win of note was when Radu dropped some invisible rats "somewhere", and people who found them would get the first ice dragon gear introduced in the game. I lucked out as the first invisible rat had been placed in the Hurquin hobgoblin cave where I'd been training a/d at for a while. I got the first ice dragon greaves in the game.

Couldn't wear them, didn't have the nexus at the time. Ended up auctioning them off for well over 300kgc. Funny considering their actual cost now. ;)


The Reset

Around the end of August 2008, I did a character reset. I was at overall 86. Took me about 2 months to get back to OA 86. But in the end it was well worth it.

The reasons were many... all perks of course. I was realising that in the long run, some of the perks just weren't going to allow for me to continue advancing well in any form.

Fast Regeneration - Had its uses, but in the end really wasn't worth wasting the pickpoints on. 1 point or 3 points, when I needed healing the most I was needed a helluva lot more than that. I use the fast regen cloak now as needed for the smaller healings.

Monster Magnetism - Expensive, and ultimately made it hard to train a/d. Seemed like a good idea at the time, and in a way it helped at low levels as it allowed me to be in caves and dangerous maps to harvest. But in the end I was able to go in those without it and the perk was pretty useless. I have an MM cloak now, but it's a rare use as only fluffies and up will attack me and I don't normally just walk through maps with such creatures on them.

Antisocial - 10 pickpoints. Drool. Not really. While I was coping with this, I realised just how stupid it was to take it as a mixer. The ability to sell to NPC is an absolute necessity for a mixer. As is the ability to buy vials in Melinis as a potioner. And that's just the tip of the iceberg. Never again.

I Can't Dance - With monster magnetism, this wasn't a big issue. The only time I got multi-attacked was during invasions, and I just avoided multi-combat maps during those. Until I started getting "up there" and realised I wasn't going to be able to keep this up. After the reset, I did end up taking this again, but only temporarily as I needed the pickpoints to help get my OA back up. Once I was in the late-80s OA, I used a stone to get rid of it again.

Godless - In the beginning I tried a few gods, but as a newbie they're quite expensive, and a 20% bonus looks like nothing on low-level items. That turned me off to gods, and this gave good pickpoints.

I actually reset about a week before the Alchemy goddess was added, and her addition was the final straw in deciding to reset. Now I use gods to the best possible ability, switching them as needed as a good all-rounder should. ;)

There were no perk removal stones in the game at the time, nor was there any discussion on them even. Not that it matters, as there's still no stones for things like Monster Magnetism, which I desperately wanted to rid myself of at that point.


Oh, I also had "Scotty Died" as well. And well, I still have that. It's worth 3 pickpoints if it just means carrying tele essies or a tele ring around.

Most of my decisions on perks were made with bad advice from others who took them, and just my own ignorance when I first started playing. With this reset, I have avoided perks like the plague, with the noted exceptions above, and choosing wisely.

The Artificer Cape

Being a mix-heavy person, I thought this might be something for me. On my reset, I ended up getting 10 Human Nexus so I could wear this.

I wore the cape for close to two months. During that time, I saw nothing to indicate it was really helping. My EFE and EME counts were at zero during that time. So I got rid of it, and proceeded to get rid of the 3 excess Human nexus to get that down to 7 at least.

I saved up and bought two Human removal stones, when they were around 250k each. Then the oddest thing happened, and suddenly they were 350kgc or more and difficult to find.

To this day, I still have 8 Human nexus, and still need to get rid of that one unneeded extra.

And oh yeah, as soon as I got rid of the cape, I started making a ton of EMEs, and a few EFEs to boot. So I actually was doing better without it! Granted, that's probably just pure random luck, but seems to me the cape just isn't worth 3 (or more) pickpoints.

Gold Coins

These are something I rarely have, hehe. My "work-habit" in leveling is quite simple... make money off the skills that allow it, then spend it on skills that are money sinks, like manu, ranging, etc. Er, and buying books.

I try to keep at least about 50kgc around for emergencies, but not even that is held on to often.

But despite the consistent low-gc level, I get by quite fine. And that's simply because I only think of gc as a means to further my skill levels, and nothing else. I see no reason to collect it other than temporarily saving up for needed things when they are needed. When desperate, I can easily find a way to force out some gc out of something, either selling stuff I have piling up in storage, or just making essies or pots until I have the money.

This Blog

More and more as I played, I realised that I had no way to compare how I was doing at some point to how I'm doing now. Nor was there any record of the accomplishments my character had made, or just thoughts on issues happening in the game at the time...

That's when I decided to start this blog. I consider it my own little extension to the game, keeping a history of my character's shenanigans... er, I mean... growth and things accomplished.

So now I can look back and see exactly what I was doing two months ago compared to now, see how far I've come in a more broader manner than just some skill level numbers. And some purty screenshots to go with it. :P

The blog hasn't come without a price, though I've had quite a few people PM me saying they enjoy reading it. Some just to see what I'm going on about, others enjoy seeing the growth of a character that's developing completely different from theirs (they may be a 1-or-2 skill type person, whereas I'm developing every skill, or something of that nature).

The price has been some numbnuts thinking I "bitch" too much. The only reason they think that is that, unlike other players, all my thoughts and actions are spilled out publicly here in a blog, whereas they may be "bitching" to themselves, or in a chat where it'll be forgotten in 5 minutes.

The truth of the matter is, I've complained very little. There have been maybe two big issues that I went on about over the course of several weeks, but they were two isolated issues. I may complain every once in a while about other stuff, but it's just been a 1-post thing normally. The overwhelming majority of this blog is simply about my character and its development, there's very little in comparison of "complaints".

Honestly, if I had as much to complain about as some morons have attempted to claim I do, I'd have left the game long ago. I'm not the kind of person to voluntarily hang on to something that just "pisses me off". I'm vocal in my opinions, and the morons who have been claiming I bitch too much tend to read only what they want to read. Fuck 'em, their opinion means less than dung to me anyway. They're mostly pker's anyway, not particularly known for common sense.

The blog will continue, as I enjoy posting my screenies and documenting my "game life".

"My Image"

Despite the handful of numbnuts who think all I do is bitch, I've got several people I regularly chat with, even more I am acquainted with as they hang out in the same storages I do, and even more I am on friendly terms with. Not being in a guild, being a loner, doesn't mean not having contact with other players!

Very few people I've gotten on "bad terms" with, and I can count those on one hand. And with those I just avoid them, as game life's too short to have them ruin the fun. If there's more than that one hand count, I don't know about them, heh.

So as far as my in-game image, it pretty much varies depending on who you'd ask. Those who know me better know I'm a nice, joking guy at heart, who just happens to be outspoken when it comes to issues involving the game.

More importantly, noone can ever claim me to be an outlaw, or dishonest, or untrustable. I've always played fair when it comes to trading/buying/selling. I have never tried to rip people off. I have gone out of my way to save deathbags for many people, including some that I didn't particularly care for... what I thought of them didn't matter anywhere near as much to me as honorable play does.

As I don't, nor will I ever, PK, by default it's much easier to not have to deal with supposed "enemies". Being guildless helps on that front too.

I have some people blacklisted, yes, meaning I will never trade with them. But always with good reason. Don't try and screw with me, or people I consider friendly. Simple as that.




Bah, I guess that's about it. A year in the game, and where I'm at since starting. Documented for all to read, and find places where I'm "bitching" and ignore everything else, hehe.

Pin the Arrow on the Invasion Giant

Yesterday saw a few levels...

Your overall level is now 127!

Overall Level 127

Followed a bit later by

You advanced to level 95 of potion!

Potion Level 95



Yippee. Hehe.

Rest of the day was a blend of harving, and attempts to at least get a little engineering and tailoring done. Nothing special. Didn't feel like doing anything in particular so I dabbled in a little of various things.


Until the NDD invasion came. Spent most of it scouting since I decided to stay on C2 and most of the critters there were well beyond my means. Killed a few feros in the process but that's no biggie.

Once the invader-numbers dropped quite a bit, I decided to try some ranging in Idaloran. Managed to pin (I've never pinned anything before!) two Giants to the wall, and kill them on my own using just training arrows. :P

The first:
Ranging a Giant

And the second:
Ranging a Giant


And then it was bedtime, heh.


Just getting up now, harving sunflowers (harved over 480,000 suns so far according to my counters, and no sign of slowing down) until I decide what to do today.

Probably some alching as I'm finally getting close to another level. Need to get back to work on my next crafting level as well. Dunno why it's taking me so long to work on that skill, but I seem to always be finding other things to do instead and it gets put off. Maybe I took the crafting god too soon, but I got it now and want to put it to use.

Sunday, April 26, 2009

Potters Need Some Lovin' After This Mess

It's been happening slowly, but potioning changes of late have mostly been to the detriment of potters.

We got the potion goddess in the game. That was definitely a good thing. But it's getting overshadowed by the other changes.

1) Cold/Heat/Radiation Protection potions - 12k per book, then make them only to find noone has a use for them. Or if they do, they're hiding it well.

2) Attack/Defense Reduction Pots - 20k per book, expensive to make, and no market because they went way too far beyond expensive into the realm of grossly overpriced. Zero market.

3) Speed Hax - 20k book. Interest, but the horrendously huge amount of food needed if you're carrying anything made them not just hard to use, but completely useless. Now they're being removed from the game.

That's 96kgc in books alone.

Now, yes, there's only one way to find out if something is useful, and that's try it out.

The a/d pots, with some tweaking to make them just "expensive" rather than grossly overpriced might have found a use. The speed hax, with a bit of a reduction on the food use, may have become useful to some. Instead they were left to die, and in the case of speed hax, actually die.

And then there's...

4) TS Potion ingredients changed. Twice.

Henbane replaced with animal furs. TS was one of only a handful of potions that were useful for leveling the skill. The highest one, in fact.

Rule of thumb for potioning is that if it requires an animal part, it's not leveling-friendly. The only real level-friendly potions left now are BRs and SRs, both of which are in the same experience range.

This was a huge hit to the skill for no real reason. It's not like there's a huge number of people with extreme potion skills. I'm currently ranked #16 in the game without even potion level 100. I don't see why this skill had to be made harder to level.



So we got the potion goddess, but we also got 5 potions that were close-to-dead from the start, and the killing of one of the limited number of potions that allows for any even remotely decent way to level the skill.


Potioning is desperately in need of a full workover.

1) Many of the potions before even these above additions were deemed mostly or completely useless.

Very few skill potions are ever used. Magic gets used by those wanting to mana drain before they hit the required level for it. It has a worthwhile use since magic is the only skill with required levels.

Summoning pots get asked for on occasion. The rest are...? Maybe a few used in an "insurance" manner when doing something high level, but that leaves them to be rarities.

The harvesting pot... Pot lasts 5 minutes and reduces 1 per minute. Who exactly would find a use for this in a harvesting manner?



2) Some mixes need to be killed, as noone in their right mind would ever mix them. (a Binding Stone for a GHP? I think this was added as a joke, an 8.5kgc+ stone for a pot that has a hard time selling even at 175gc.)


At any rate, the changes to the potions themselves of late have been quite costly to potioners. We really need a break from that.

And I gotta say, while I've been one of the first to try new potions before (made att/def reductions and speed hax the day they were introduced), any future ones will be looked at with a bit of skepticism. I and other potters have been, well, burned by the last few additions, and I got enough gc sinks I already toss all my spare gc into. Unless some full disclosure before it gets added indicates an incredibly large interest in a new potion, I won't be a first-to-try again.

Potters are needin' some lovin' with positive changes at this point. We're players too! :P

Mostly AFK Past Couple Days

Due to real life stuff, couldn't really get into doing much the last couple days in EL, thus I haven't been writing here, heh.

Started picking back up yesterday though. Hit the fluffies for a while, long enough for

You advanced to level 92 of attack!

Attack Level 92


Leveling pot and alch aren't anywhere near as easy as they used to be, so I started advertising mixing services for both. No profit, no loss, just experience. Immediately got a 1k steel bar mix, and am currently working on mixing 6k of SRs for someone.

An idea of how long a level takes these days: It would take about 17,900 steel bars to get a full alch level, and 18,500 SRs to level potion. (Note: That's with the potion goddess bonus!)

Anyway, that's gonna be my morning, mixing the SRs. I'll be getting an OA before I get my next potion level as well, so there's a double bonus to doing these. Actually, I'll need to do a bit more mixing along with the SRs to get the levels. BRs it is, heh, I need the gc. As always.

Friday, April 24, 2009

Burn Mixes Your Ings!

The Mix Shop is Currently: CLOSED!

(Currently working on a huge time-consuming project. I'll be advertising on market again when I'm able to mix.)


(Also see my Pot Shop for things I have already made for sale, and things I'm buying. Not just potions!)

You provide the ings and food for alchemy or potion items, I provide the mixing! I am a level 104 alcher and 95 potioner, so fails are quite minimal.

The Deal:
- You provide all ingredients.
- You provide feasting potions (or 12gc per FP needed) as indicated next to the listed items below. (No other food accepted.)
- I return to you all finished product, excluding critical fails as I do not cover those due to this being a non-profit offer.
- I do not critical fail much due to my high alch/potion skill levels, but it can and does happen at any level. If you want to be assured you get as many items as you provide ings for, you can include a minor insurance fee as seen at the bottom of this entry.
- I do not give a guaranteed finish time. I will, however, try and give you an approximation before you hand over the ings. I will do my best to get them done in a timely manner, however if you are in a rush for the end product, situations may always arise that can cause delays, be them real life or special days. (If it is a large amount, I may provide them back to you in batches so you'll have some to work with while I finish the rest.)
- You come to me to drop off and deliver. I tend to hang out on C1 in Naralik/MM and on C2 in Irsis/AA, but may sometimes be in other locations.

Work/Success so far:
- 997 out of ings for 1000 steel bars
- 5,982 out of ings for 6k SRs





Items I Will Mix (and food requirements):

Essences (sorry, no FE/WE/Earth)
- Air Essences (1 FP per 16)
- Spirit Essences (1 FP per 12)
- Matter Essences (1 FP per 9)
- Energy Essences (1 FP per 8)
- Life Essences (1 FP per 7)
- Death Essences (1 FP per 6)
- Health Essences (1 FP per 6)
- Magic Essences (1 FP per 5)

Bars
- Iron bars (1 FP per 4)
- Steel bars (1 FP per 4)
- Silver bars (1 FP per 3)
- Gold bars (1 FP per 3)
- Titanium bars (1 FP per 3)

Potions (FPs aren't mixed for obvious reasons!)

- SRs (1 FP per 5)

Any other potions may be mixed as well for ings+food, PM with your needs. Subject to approval, natch.

I cannot (or will not) mix the following potions at this time: Att/Def reduction, Accuracy, cold/heat/radiation protection, engineering. TS Pots are also no longer being mixed for any reason until the ings for them are no longer being screwed with.

INSURANCE

Note: Insurance is completely optional.

As stated above, I do not cover ing loss in the event of critical fails, though they should be minimal. If you absolutely must have the exact amount of an item as ings you give, an additional insurance cost of 100gc per 1,000 items will get you that. This is a minor fee to help cover the cost/time needed to harv/buy the lost ings.

Items requiring animal parts (most potions) are not insurable. If you choose to have me mix these, it is done so at your risk.


To Order: PM me (Burn) in-game with what you need mixed.

If I am offline, Gossip won't recognize me due to a recent name change. Instead, post what you need (include your in-game name) here as a response to this message. (Your order will not appear publicly as responses have to be approved by me, and I will just delete it once I've seen it and contacted you.)

Wednesday, April 22, 2009

Spreading Yourself Too Thin (Why New Stuff Isn't Working)

Today's channel 6 mess, er, chat, was on new stuff that isn't working. So it gets removed (or will get removed).

As well, stuff not getting implemented because lack of enthusiasm.

And stuff never being used at all after being implemented.

The big question: Why?

I can only speak for myself as someone who tries most everything (short of PK) as an all-rounder, but I have a few thoughts on these issues.

They all tend to boil down to one issue though: Spreading ourselves too thin.

What I mean by that is this: It takes time to work up enough cash to do something that's a gc-loss. Ranging being a good example. Tailoring, manufacturing... anything where the gc gained is less than the gc put into it.

I use alchemy and potioning mostly as a means of earning gc, which I can then use on things that are a gc-loss. 34 ranging levels, a fully leveled mule, dropping bricks and degrading armor in invasions, working up tailoring levels, tossing away leather and thread in a manu school, working up engineering levels is pretty much a loss, summoning is a loss, anytime I use my mule I'm taking a hit...


You get the point. There's a ton of gc-loss things I already do. The more gc-loss things done, the more gc I need to stop and make. That gets to be a LOT of time as it is just with the things I do. Others may have different things they do but are most likely in the same boat, their gc is already tied up in a bunch of gc-loss things.


This is pretty much the situation:
* We've got tons of things in-game that cost a lot of gc.
* We've got only a handful of things that are actually profitable (most that aren't a loss hit around break-even) to pay for those things that cost gc.
* We get various new things added that are all in some way gc sinks.

Quite frankly, our gc is already spread too thin among other things to allow for any meaningful use of anything new that is going to be just added cost in the end.

And that added cost seems to be multiplying, like everything new has to cost more than the last thing that was added. Yet the ability to make gc remains about the same. There's just no possible way that anything brought in that's more costly "than the last thing" is going to survive. We just can't afford it.

I don't know if there's a few people stashing gc whose storages are being used as a way to determine whether something new can be afforded, but if it is, they're gc hoarders, they're not actually playing the game.

People like me who actually are interested in playing the game and trying different things rarely have such gc on hand because we've already spent it on the plethora of gc-killers already in the game.

Personally I'd like to start saving up for some Nexus as I'm getting to the point where I need them, and don't want to waste my rare OA pickpoints on them. Especially now when the nexus removal stone cost has skyrocketed. I got plans to buy 10 nexus, not to mention I need a removal stone because I got one too many on one of them. But the only way I'll afford this is to give up more than a few of my gc-sinks for quite a while. Ranging, muling, manufacturing... all gone while I work on those (not planning to get them all at once, but ~550kgc each takes a lot of time to earn... as well they should, not complaining about nexus costs).

But that's just another place I already need to put my gc on top of what I'm already doing. I'm one level away from the rec level for the lowest summoning stone, and I still need 3 animal nexus if I'm going to start those. I've got level 64 manu but only 4 artificial nexus so a lot of the stuff I could try to make, I can't. These are necessities for future game play, not just tossing away gc.


So where does that leave all the new stuff that's being brought in... normally more costly than anything else and less of a necessity to play the game? Of course it's going to not be used, as there's other gc-sinks already taking all the spare gc we/I got.

If everything to get added just increases our costs (and at a much higher rate than anything already adding to our costs), there's gotta be something added to balance it out. At this point we're just expected to want to spend a ton of gc on something that will give us what is essentially negative value in return, and with the number of gc-sinks already in the game, that's just not going to happen. Nothing, no matter how good of an idea it seems, can survive at this point if it's horridly overpriced. (And I don't mean "expensive", I mean horribly overpriced.)




What's Gone Right?

There have been a few new things implemented that have gone well though. Or at least, getting some use out of them.

* Mules - I was among those who originally thought these would just cost too much to be of any use. Now I'm a fully-leveled mule (the cost being aided by being able to make my own food), and I regularly use the mule for hauling things like leather, thread, and wine to storage. As well, it comes in handy carrying bolts to the new ranging arena.

Yes, I'm losing money each time I mule, but the time saved makes up for it in a good enough value to make it worthwhile to lose gc over.

* Ranging Arena - A cost to get in, and the average experience per arrow seems to be a bit less than regular ranging, but considering the time it takes to level this skill, the arena was warmly received by those who've attached themselves to this skill. Even with the 3.5kgc entrance fee. Adds more gc-pain to the already gc-painful skill, but still deemed a value for the money considering the time saved.


Just examples. These are two things that have been added that, though expensive, were deemed worthwhile by some. They hit that sweet spot between not being too cheap so everyone will do it, but not so expensive that there's not a single person in the game willing to waste the gc on (i.e. the att/def reduction pots).



All in all, this is not a complaint, nor a request to make everything cheaper (or worse, go the route of that god-forsaken idea to have a crap server that makes all skills useless).

It's just an observation that the balance in our Eternal lives financially is already delicate, and too much stuff is getting added that's too expensive while ways to make the gc to afford these things stays the same. There's just no way to implement new expensive things at this point, when those things add to the other expensives, not replace others. Expensive new things are in all likelyhood going to fail no matter what unless other things are added that balance out their cost. We simply can't afford more gc sinks.

Yes, there's a need to make new stuff cost more so it doesn't completely change gameplay. I can see that in the same way I saw the need to not let "gold member" status give benefits that would ruin gameplay for others.

However, I think we've reached our point where our gc is just simply already spread too thin over the many gc sinks already in the game, and the expense level has already been passed. Make things expensive, just not as expensive as things of late have been.

Sun Tzu Was Bad for the Fluffs

Okay, I had intended to do some mixing today after getting the attack and defense and overall levels this morning. Even did a couple batches of HEs.

But then Sun Tzu happened. I'd actually joked with someone that the new day would be Sun Tzu just because I'd already spent all morning fighting, just a few minutes before the day started.

So, double attack/defense experience in mind, I quickly rushed back to a fluffy spawn because I knew they'd be full up. And sure enough, saw tons of people walking by me in Melinis looking for spawns the entire time.

So 6 hours of non-stop fluffy bashing. Even had a friend bring more HEs/SRs to me so I wouldn't run out, though the ones I'd brought myself actually lasted well over 5 of the 6 hours.

And the levels came... can't believe I got 2 attack and 2 defense levels in one day, it's very "not me", hehe.

You advanced to level 91 of attack!

Attack Level 91

Followed by:

You advanced to level 91 of Defense!

Defense Level 91



Sweet... um, my hand's worn out now. Think my a/d-ing is over for a few days at least, heh. Although, this time also got me well over half of my next overall level... nah, need to get some mixing done. And the gc level is still desperately low since I was going to be working on that when this day happened.

No complaints. ;) Just a ton of experience. 3.75 million in 6 hours is sweet. (Yeah, yeah, you high level fighters giggle at that, but at my level I've never seen better.)

Tuesday, April 21, 2009

Kickin' the Level Out of the Fluffies

Not much done yesterday, wasn't feeling too well.

Still not, but able to sit up more and well, playing a game hardly makes you sicker.


Woke up this morning to Day of Fasting, so mixing was out of the question. Decided to go after the bunnies again.

My a/d astro was at peak goodness though, seemed like they were going a bit too easy, so I went to NRM to see how well I fare against Feros. Never really tried training on them, just halberd-slashing them during invasions which ain't no big deal.

Trying out feros in North Redmoon


While it actually went relatively well with a bone, still a bit too much healing needed for my tastes to train on them. So I went back to Melinis.


Your overall level is now 126!

Overall Level 126


That was for starters. Minus a few breaks, I just kept at the bunnies all morning.

You advanced to level 90 of attack!

Attack Level 90

Followed a couple hours later by:

You advanced to level 90 of Defense!

Defense Level 90


Not too shabby for a morning's... work.


Bored now. That's the beauty of not being stuck on one skill like so many fighters are, if I get bored with the bunnies there's lots more for me to do instead.

Like restock my HEs after this morning, hehe.


Still need to make some more gc too. Spent way too much ranging the past few days.

Monday, April 20, 2009

Ranging Fever? Nah. Well, a Little

After selling the batch of S2Es yesterday, I hit the ranging arena a few times. A fully-leveled mule can carry quite a few bolts there. ;) Actually, one mule load will have me in there for about 2 hours (with a few short breaks at intervals to rest the mouse hand, heh).

Experimented a bit with things like night visor, day/night, distance from the target and such and eventually came up with the best positioning to get the most out of it. Still less than experience gotten standing on NC wall, but only a bit less now, which is more than made up for with the drastic reduction of time it takes to level.

You advanced to level 33 of ranging!

Ranging Level 33


Continued more after that, getting almost half of level 34 done, but moved on to crafting, polishing saps in Portland.


Had no intention of ranging today, but then Day of Robin Tell came along half an hour after I logged in, so I went and did one mule-load of bolts in the arena...


You advanced to level 34 of ranging!

Ranging Level 34


Finished off that load of bolts after that, but now the gc is starting to get too low for my tastes again, so no more range-leveling for a while.


What to do today? Probably some potioning, though I'm more inclined to focus on crafting some more. Really not using the crafting god to its full potential while I've got it, need to rectify that.

Sunday, April 19, 2009

Robin Tell, S2Es, and the Harver in Me

Yesterday was mostly gathering coal and such for making bars for making S2Es. By the time I got the bars done, my fail astro was horribly bad, so I held off actually making the swords.

As mentioned, I tried out the ranging arena:

Ranging Arena in Grubani

With questionable results. I guess it'll come in handy. Obviously I'll have to switch to a crossbow when using it though, simply because the bolts weigh less so more can be carried in. Here I was just testing it out and don't have a crossbow so used what I had.

At any rate, we got a Day of Robin Tell (double ranging experience) last night. I spent most of it mixing bars and harving, not really expecting to find any good ranging spots. I was told there were 12 people in the ranging arena alone on that day. The arena's not that big, 12 people was probably a bit nasty.

But after my bars were done, I got out my bow, and gave Egratia Point a try. Since the clops ignore me, it's nothing but targets there now. ;)

And I stopped after I got this:


You advanced to level 32 of ranging!

Ranging Level 32


After which I went back to cinnabar harving and mixed a few potions.

You advanced to level 89 of harvesting!

Harvesting Level 89




This morning, astro much better, mixed and almost instantly sold 110 S2Es. (When I make a "batch of 100", I grab an extra ~10% of ings for a lost ings buffer. In this case, no ings were lost, woohoo.)


And now, no clue what to do today. Figger that out after finishing a few rounds of coffee. Probably work on more potioning, and maybe time to kick a few fluffies.

Saturday, April 18, 2009

Server Update looking good...

Working on two things at once atm, stocking coal for an S2E batch as well as stocking for more potioning of course...


Meanwhile, woke up to another server update. Looks to be a good one so far.

1) Summoning gives 3 fluffies, 6 phantoms for the same ingredients as one now.

Good that the stones aren't affected, just real summoning. Keeps such power out of the hands of people who didn't earn it.

Not up to summoning either yet, but some day. ;)


2) Reduced mini harvest events.


Still enough to stop "afk-harving", but the annoyance factor is reduced pretty well. Overall a nice compromise, which makes it a definite improvement.

3) Harv medallion gives 1 in 3 chance that you don't stop harving when you get a mini harvest event.

Very nice. :)

4) Day of Robin Tell

New special day, gives double ranging experience.

I dunno about this. There's only a few spots that are truly useful spots for leveling ranging. This day is gonna mean those few spots will end up nastily overcrowded. Isla Prima may be among them, messing with the newbies trying to get their basic a/d experience there.

It hasn't happened yet, so we'll see. I like having a new day for rangers, just not sure what the results will be.


5) TS potion requires beaver instead of rabbit fur

This was announced and expected. Still hoping the ings for this potion don't keep getting changed like this. No other skill has to put up with guessing "what ing do I need this week?" so it feels very wrong.

Not to mention people normally stock up on ings and make a bunch at once. Stock up on an ing only to find it's been changed with a server update on a whim is going to just end up pissing people off.

Haven't personally made many of these despite my potion level, but still I know others have. Though with any fur it'll never be made as much as it used to be with just flowers.

6) Ranging Arena target adjusted

Did two rounds here, once at night (no visor), once during the day.
Night: avg 9.4 experience per arrow
Day: avg 9.61 experience per arrow

Still not close to the 11-12 experience per arrow average when sitting on NC wall. Only slightly better than before adjustment. Dunno what the real problem is here, but the cost of getting in the arena is enough without the experience itself costing more as well.

I guess if I was in a rush to level ranging I'd use it more. May use it when I've got extra gc to burn on occasion now. But if the target was just "more like a normal puma" without any adjustments it would probably be better.



Overall though, this is a positive server update, and a much welcome one, particularly when it comes to the harv event/medallion changes.



A few other minor changes were made as well, but being my blog I focus only on the ones that (potentially) affect me, hehe.

Friday, April 17, 2009

Getting High on Pot

Kaboom!

You advanced to level 94 of potion!

Potion Level 94

Engineering, Potting, and So On

Heh, the complaints about the changes to events during harvesting continue. The sad thing is people are harping on alternatives that would make harving just as bad, but require a lot more coding. Go figure.

Me, no complaints here, other than that too many events can make it hard to keep up with 3 chats and PMs since each event causes 3 lines of text.


Anyway...


Yesterday, finished off my next engineering level while stocking saltpetre:

You advanced to level 37 of engineering!

Engineering Level 37


Otherwise, after Joule I needed to restock sunflowers, grabbing harv points on better things during that. And went back to work on finishing off the next potion level.

Too much to do in one day though, so I'm picking that up this morning where I left off.

Afterwards... um... work on my personal HE and MatE stock as both are a bit low. And considering doing another S2E batch for the gc as that's running low as well.

Thursday, April 16, 2009

Blue Dye madness and Joule

More engineering, followed by more tailoring, which led to...


You advanced to level 27 of tailoring!

Tailoring Level 27


'Twas last night. This morning I wasn't so sure what I was going to do, when Joule happened.

So 6 hours of Joule ended up being over 8k in BRs and a bit over 1k of iron bars. No levels, but that took a big chunk out of my next potion level (and barely touched the alch level, hehe).


Now that Joule's over, back to harving. I need another 15k of sunflowers for pot level, then... um... I guess I'll finish off my next engineer level. Polish some saps for another craft level. Get another ranging level. Maybe another summoning level if I can get some more raw meat.

Yeah, I got enough to do. ;)

Wednesday, April 15, 2009

Crafting and Lazy Harving

Spent most of yesterday harving, mostly for silver bars for another moon medallion batch, though for other stuff as well.

Basically a lazy clicking day, heh.

But put it all to use this morning...

You advanced to level 41 of crafting!

Crafting Level 41


Currently back at harving, for potion ings this time.

Not much worth writing about, eh? Heh.

Tuesday, April 14, 2009

Houston, the Mule has landed!

My mule is finally fully leveled. Excluding a handful of food I bought to test it when it first started, all food to level it was made myself. :)

Mule Level 12


I used him to stock some more leather and thread, to use for:


You advanced to level 64 of manufacturing!

Manufacturing Level 64


Rest of yesterday was spent mostly harving... WE/FE ings and such. Made WEs and FEs as well (and bought some FEs when people were offering them, as at 104 alch I'm getting a little tired of them, hehe).


Now it's coal. The plan is to get 2-3 more crafting levels so making silver bars is the step I'm working on now.

Sunday, April 12, 2009

Top 20 Potioner! and Other Levels

Potion 93! and with that I moved up into the top 20 potioners in the game. :)

Of course, I plan to get higher... hehe.

Despite concerns posted yesterday, continued playing today in hopes that all will be well in the end.

And of course, that means more levels. :P

Besides the potion level this morning, did a few more rounds with the fluffies to get:

Your overall level is now 125!

Overall Level 125

Followed shortly by:

You advanced to level 89 of attack!

Attack Level 89

Of course, while training on fluffies in Melinis, there's always the risk of a desert chim wandering by and trying to use me as a snack. Emergency halberd to the rescue, and enough heals while on him for:

You advanced to level 53 of magic!

Magic Level 53


And with that, I put an end to a/d training. Or so I thought.

Of course, in my usual luck, after I'd stopped fight-training for the day and was harving away at supplies, Radu puts up a Sun Tzu day.

So, I go to try and get some of that double attack/defense experience. Every fluffy is taken though. Doesn't take long for them to fill up during prime time when Sun Tzu happens unfortunately. I usually just don't bother even trying when Sun Tzu occurs during peak hours, it's too annoying to find a spawn.

But I decided to try dropping back down to cyclops anyway, since I'd still get more experience than a normal-day fluffy. Got a spot in Egratia Point, and...


You advanced to level 89 of defense!

Defense Level 89


And with that, I officially gave up for the night. Clops were boring me since they ignore me now, no chance of double or triple attacks and other such fun. Those... um... were the good old days. :P


I never thought I'd see the day when I thought cyclops ignoring me was a bad thing, hehe.

Saturday, April 11, 2009

The Questionable Day

Yesterday was mostly harving, some minor potting. And a lot of curiosity about the future of the game.

Harving was a general mass stock of BSFs, as recent tailoring leveling using blue dye took a big chunk of those, as well as normal use for SRs. And continued work on ings for another 1k of creature food so I can finish leveling my mule (and I need to do some more wine hauling).



New server update... most of the changes didn't really affect me, more geared towards high level fighters as well as general invasion stuff (like tank rabbit summoning, something I won't be able to do for quite a long while), but three were on the list.

1) New ranging arena - Gave it a try. It's a good idea, I likey, will definitely get some use from me. But the target in it had problems that made way too many misses. That's supposed to be fixed on the next server update, so no more on this until then. Looking forward to trying it again after the next update though.

2) Change to the True Sight Potion ings - specifically removing the henbane and replacing it with brown rabbit fur. The rule of thumb for potioning is if it requires an animal part, it won't be used for leveling.

Granted, I've only made about 4k of them and gotten to potion 92, but I know they are commonly made for leveling. This put an end to that, which had to be the intention as the TS pot ings themselves had never been called into question before this sudden change.

SRs/BRs will be the leveling items now, which individually give much less experience. But those are what I'd been leveling on anyway so no biggie on my part.

There's already been talk of changing the fur, possibly to beaver.

Even worse idea was to constantly change the needed fur based on how many furs were in-game. Adding a fur to the ings alone will kill the making of these things (especially since there's limited use for them these days), but no other skill has to put up with wondering "what are the ings for an item this week", it makes no sense, common or otherwise, to constantly change the ings for an item.

Since I don't really make them much, it wouldn't matter to me. But I hope a tad of sense is used, and a single fur or other ing is found and stuck with rather than the suggested Wheel of Randomness.

3) New harvesting events - This is the one that got the attention.

Basically, some new "minor" events were added, in an aim at the gold farmers (they keep saying afk-harvers, but the afk-harvers were never brought up as a problem until after gold farming was brought up as an issue that was killing EL Shop sales).

These new minor events have about a 1/25 chance of happening per harvest, so they happen quite frequently. Not astro affected. (Old "normal" events are still around, and astro affected as usual.)

Lots of debating over these, some for, some against. I stayed neutral in the debating itself, though I participated in it. I still haven't made up my mind on them, so taking a pro or con stance on them wasn't really possible.

My only gripe was a bug with the harvesting eye candy, which should be fixed in the next server update so nothing to say on it now, heh.

At any rate, I did a sample graphic that shows what occured during harving a single load of BSFs, the green times showing how long between when harving was (re)started and an event occured:

example of new harvesting events

(Like all graphics in this blog, click if it's reduced or you can't see the whole thing.)

I can't take a pro or con stance on them because for the most part I regularly checked my harving anyway even while doing other things, so the slowdown is minimal here.

It's a possible way to take a dump on the gold farmers. While a good thing, I don't think it's the best way to deal with them, so uncertain on that end as well.

Lots of chatter over this change at any rate, both positive and negative.

Very much expected to be a hot topic, having something like this sprung up out of nowhere on everyone. And of course some people will complain over it. Any thought that people wouldn't complain would be seriously misguided.

Best thing to do is let people get it out of their system, and in a few days they'd be used to it and move on. Hell, even stuff I've had a gripe about in the past I don't give a second thought to these days. (The boat from PV to KJ removal, killing a few harvables here and there, there's been quite a few, and none are even thought about now.) It's just a matter of giving it a little time for people to adjust, assuming it's not something of a game-killing nature, which this certainly isn't... and I say that with slight arthritis where the no-clicking time during harving is a welcome break from the clicking needed for every other skill.


Unfortunately, the time wasn't given to let this blow over. The drastic overkill response came way too soon, with "you're gonna click once for every harvest", throwing green day (no harv) at everyone, and then the real reason for it all became a discussion in channel 6... tired of working on the game and wants to move on, possibly sell it.

That's kinda obvious based on the reactions given to even the slightest thing. People are going to complain, it's human nature. Expecting people to act like androids is hardly realistic. Expecting praise for doing something that makes things more difficult is even less realistic, even though several did just that.

More importantly: People complain about something when they actually care about it. The complaints in themselves, while annoying at times, are a testimony to just how much people care about EL.

Yesterday was the first time I seriously questioned if EL even had a future. This kind of overkill reaction, not any actual change, is what will drive people away. A community-based game where one person can sweepingly screw everyone just because of a bad mood can't possibly last. And that would be a shame, considering how much work has been put into it as well as the community that's been built on it.

Selling the game just might be the only way EL will survive.

Despite any complaints I've had in my just-under-a-year playing, I love this game. And I appreciate everything Radu has done to make it what it is. But it's obvious he's tired of it, and it's not good to continue doing something so many people rely on when in that state. Besides that it takes its toll on everyone in the game, more importantly it's not healthy.

I've been in a similar situation. I ran an online community (full web designer, coder, and keeping things under control user-wise) for over 7 years. Quite an active one at that. Around the 6th year though, I was well tired of it. At one point, I shut down the site for several days in frustration, something I regretted ever since. That's when I learned that while I'd created it, I'd also created the community, and that community deserved better from me, as a human being. I put the site back up, got more people involved in maintaining the rules, postings and whatnot, so I focused almost solely on coding and functionality which kept me away from the majority of the frustrating issues. After the 7th year was up I turned the site over to someone else, so it could continue without me. And it still does to this day.

My thoughts that selling the game is the best option has nothing to do with Radu himself, but from understanding where he's at now. If he's truly at that point where he's wanting to stop working on EL, and sell it off or whatever, then he should, for his own sake. Before a mistake like mine was made. The mistake I made was easily rectified because there were no other communities at the time that focused on what mine did. A mistake like mine being done to EL would be the end of the game completely, as there are other options out there. At that point, selling wouldn't be an option anymore either.

This is not a rant, nor a complaint. Just an observation. Just that I understand where he's at, I've seen the same attitude in myself when I was at that point, and if he feels selling the game is his only option now, I support it. If he can find a way to make himself interested in continuing working on it, then all the better of course. Health and happiness first though. I wish him luck in whatever his decision is, and thanks for the game.

Friday, April 10, 2009

Catching up...

Last couple days have been mostly harving, getting stock back up a bit.

Yesterday I spent a lot of time potting, for...


You advanced to level 92 of potion!

Potion Level 92


Started stocking for the next potion level after that, including muling some vials. Here's my level 11 mule in action. ;)

Mule Level 11



Today I'll probably keep up stocking for and working on my next potion level. Maybe try out the new ranging arena...

Wednesday, April 8, 2009

MoPs, Harving, and Special Days

Harving was the name of the game yesterday. Finished collecting ings for MoPs and made about 30 of them.

And some mixing, mostly potting but got some more HE stock made as well.

Special days yesterday (invasion reward type)...

Recycling Day - Used my EFEs, but no bonuses. Pretty much done with the day at that point since I didn't really have anything else special to use. Mixed some extracts I needed for eventual creature food but not so much.

Instead, knowing Sun Tzu was coming and how hard it is to get a spawn when it starts, I headed to a fluffy almost an hour early and just stayed there. 170 minutes of Sun Tzu led to 1.84 million overall experience, not too bad. Got my only level just before Sun Tzu started though.

You advanced to level 88 of defense!

Defense Level 88


Sun Tzu led to getting very close to another attack level, and over half my next defense level.


My night ended when the special day ended though. Was getting quite late.



Just waking up today, no real plans. Though I'll be heading off shortly for a few hours for real-life stuff. Guess more alching and potting in my near future. And harving of course. Always and forever, heh.

Tuesday, April 7, 2009

Mmmm... pickpoints

Gimme wraith visit...

Your overall level is now 124!

Overall Level 124

...got wraith visit. :D


You advanced to level 88 of attack!

Attack Level 88


That was yesterday, along with some time in Iscalrith hitting the silver as well as making some HEs.


This morning, the astro is bad bad bad so I'm not gonna play with the fluffies. Harving more stock for potions now, and playing the rest of the day by ear. But I think the poor little bunnies need a break from me. Or the other way around.

Monday, April 6, 2009

More Potions, More Fluffies, More Levels

Yesterday morning after harving was spent mega-clicking making potions...

You advanced to level 91 of potion!

Potion Level 91

Sweet...


That got followed by a load of harving. Got lots of flowers to harv for more MoPs and Creature Food.


Then I went back to the fluffies (I really gotta get my HE stock back up):


You advanced to level 87 of attack!

Attack Level 87


Excuse the red square in the image, I had another window open there and didn't realise it would get caught in the in-game screenshots, heh.


Got late, went to bed. This morning, finished the job:

You advanced to level 87 of defense!

Defense Level 87



What to do today... head out of the game a few hours for real-life reasons (OMG!), then make some HEs cuz I'm hitting desperation level, hehe. Might go back to mixing a while after that as well, dunno which skill. I don't mind a/d-leveling, especially since it's the fastest way to OA pickpoints (about 2 million exp to next OA at the moment), but the beauty of being an all-rounder is I'm not stuck doing the exact same thing all day, every day.

Sunday, April 5, 2009

Fluffy time and Muling

Spent several hours (off and on) on fluffies yesterday. No level, but got well over half the exp needed to level both attack and defense.

Spent some time in the evening as a mule, hauling thousands of feasting potions in Irsis, followed by about 20k of wine in Morcraven Marsh.

After which I plopped my mule in a house overnight to get it leveled. Now up to a level 11 mule. Only 1 more level to go!



This morning is harving rose quartz, needing about 6.5k total, have only 4k. After which, massive clicking to finish off the next potion level. After which, restocking of SRs/HEs (always self-made except the rare emergency).

Harv-wise, I need about 10k of wheat. As well, need to start restocking flowers for another 2k of creature food.


Hmmm... 265 out of 300 storage slots used. Might be time to start looking to clean out some unneeded items. If I have any such things... being an all-rounder requires so much stuff for each different skill. :/

Saturday, April 4, 2009

Moving up to Fluffies, and a Scholar Day

Well, with the cyclops ignoring me now, figured it was time to give a real try training on fluffy rabbits in Melinis. Which led to...

Your overall level is now 123!

Overall Level 123

As well as:

You advanced to level 86 of defense!

Defense Level 86


Stopped training fluffies not long after that, but it looks like my clops bash days are over pretty much.

Working on potion level, and of course keeping some constant alching going.

This morning, woke up to find it was one hour into Scholars Day. Mmmm, extra experience.

Did a ton of potting, as well as alching, and even spent a bit of time on tailoring with what little tailor supplies I had. Alch is still over 2 million experience to level, but pot is over halfway there thanks to this morning's mega-clicking. ;)

The only thing I did manage to actually level during the day though was engineering.

You advanced to level 36 of engineering!

Engineering Level 36




So... now that Scholars Day is over, what to do now... Probably end up afk-harving a bit to handle real-life stuff. Continue working on that potion level. Might go visit the fluffies for a while depending on mood and time...

Friday, April 3, 2009

My First Day as Burn

Before and after my name change, spent the majority of the day in EP kicking clops.

Also got Lenny twice yesterday. :P


My first level as Burn...


You advanced to level 86 of attack!

Attack Level 86


So what next... restocking my HEs now after the mass-use of them yesterday. Need an SR restock as well.

Only about 608k exp away from an overall, should get that today.

Other than that... craft? Potion? Haven't decided. Plenty of time while I get my HEs/SRs back up to do that.

Thursday, April 2, 2009

It's a Good Day 2 Burn

I'm now known in-game as Burn, name change is done. GoodDay2Die no longer exists.



Burn, formerly GoodDay2Die

Wednesday, April 1, 2009

There Goes Another One!

You advanced to level 104 of alchemy!

Alchemy Level 104


Most certainly was not done making FEs, I guarantee. ;)

Gold Farmers - make real life money, kill the economy

(Disclaimer: Chat logs edited to remove lines not relevant to the topic being discussed here. If a line is quoted, it's quoted in full though, no user's message has been edited.)


Last night's chat on channel 6 included discussion of "gold farmers". (For once it wasn't the usual politics crap that makes me and a dozen others turn the channel off! Woohoo!)

Gold Farmers being people who collect gc in various ways, typically by selling harvestables, only to turn around and sell that gc for real life dollars.

Two issues were brought up concerning them:
1) They cause less sales in the EL shop, sales of which support the game.
2) They are ruining in-game economy with their actions.

More to say on the second one, so let's look at #1 first.

1) Less EL Shop sales

According to Radu, sales in the EL shop are down a lot. While the (real world) economy can factor into that, it is also due to people spending their money buying gc from the Gold Farmers instead of supporting the game by buying from the shop.

Ideas brought up to counter this included selling plain old gc in the shop, at a rate that would screw the Gold Farmers completely. I get the feeling it wasn't something he wanted to do, but just might if the situation keeps up.



2) In-game economy getting ruined by Gold Farmers

(discussion started about hoarding or scarcity of rare items)
[01:51:49] [radu @ 6]: also, people didn't buy much from the store lately
[01:51:56] [radu @ 6]: maybe it's the economy
[01:51:58] [conavar @ 6]: gold farmers
[01:51:59] [asgnny @ 6]: if there were no scarcity, there would be no reason to save up items
[01:52:05] [jaclaw @ 6]: what asgnny said
[01:52:06] [Aislar @ 6]: that's probably b/c of the gc->$$ ratio
[01:52:06] [AltariA @ 6]: broke :((
[01:52:13] [Aislar @ 6]: its better for buyers than it used to be
[01:52:30] [radu @ 6]: well, keep buying from farmers then
[01:52:34] [radu @ 6]: and the efe will be 50K
[01:52:39] [Aislar @ 6]: lulz
[01:52:49] [AltariA @ 6]: nuuuuu
[01:52:56] [Smurf @ 6]: \o/
[01:53:15] [asgnny @ 6]: I'll sell 50 :)
[01:53:17] [conavar @ 6]: now everyone will hoard efe's :p
[01:55:04] [radu @ 6]: lol
[01:55:10] [conavar @ 6]: but most of the ppl i would imagine who buy gc for $ from farmers, dont care about the cost of efe's etc
[01:55:13] [radu @ 6]: thing is, if you buy from farmers, you cause inflation
[01:55:28] [radu @ 6]: because you encourage them to produce more gold
[01:55:41] [radu @ 6]: so in the end, you still pay the same in USD for EFEs and stuff
[01:55:54] [radu @ 6]: with the added bonus that you cause ingame inflation
[01:56:02] [radu @ 6]: so you fuck up the economy too
[01:56:28] [asgnny @ 6]: if the rate keeps going like this, the only people it screws over are normal players who don't buy gc.
[01:56:35] [asgnny @ 6]: is that really the goal?
[01:56:42] [conavar @ 6]: im not sure they actually care about that aslong as they getting 8k+ for a $
[01:56:42] [radu @ 6]: well, I can't make gold farming illegal


And it went on like that. Lots of lame ideas brought up to kill off the Gold Farmers without directly banning it, but every single one ended up screwing the normal player in some way.



Basically put, Gold Farmers have no care whatsoever about your in-game play, or care about the game in the least bit. Their only goal is real-life greed, attempting to make real-life cash off the game that they don't deserve, and to hell with how it ruins the economy and in turn ruins EL.

By buying gc from these Gold Farmers, you are contributing to the ruining of the in-game economy, making the prices of items go up, so you end up having to spend more, so you have to buy more...


More of the chat, including (in not my words) how you can help stop the economic ruin of the game:

[01:58:23] [Epitaph @ 6]: technically you lose shop sales because of gc buyers :P
[01:58:35] [Epitaph @ 6]: a lot of people just buy gc instead of shop items, because it's cheaper
[01:58:40] [asgnny @ 6]: without a doubt
[01:58:43] [radu @ 6]: yes, I lose shop sales, but if it keeps going this way, I will sell gold too
[01:59:00] [radu @ 6]: because otherwise it's simply not worth developing the game
[01:59:14] [Epitaph @ 6]: i wouldn't mind that :o you could set a flat rate,, and i'd rather buy from you, no risk
[01:59:34] [radu @ 6]: the thing is, I didn't want to cause inflation
[01:59:40] [radu @ 6]: but the gold farmers are causing it anyway


[02:05:35] [radu @ 6]: ok, well, then it seems i have to do something about the harvest farming

[02:25:22] [radu @ 6]: at worst, i am going yo sell gc at 1 usd for 10K
[02:25:28] [radu @ 6]: and then see if anyone beats my rate
[02:25:39] [Sqwurl @ 6]: rate atm is $1 for 8k :p
[02:25:43] [radu @ 6]: yes
[02:25:48] [radu @ 6]: so I am going to sell 10
[02:25:51] [radu @ 6]: just to piss them off


[02:30:56] [radu @ 6]: or, free market ftw
[02:31:22] [radu @ 6]: in the end, you fuck yourself by buying from farmers
[02:31:27] [radu @ 6]: let me give you an example
[02:31:33] [radu @ 6]: you want to buy some EFEs
[02:31:46] [radu @ 6]: then you think: cheaper to buy gold from farmers then buy the EFEs from bots
[02:31:48] [Quesar @ 6]: this is not the real world though. it is too small market for the normal balancing forces
[02:31:53] [bkc56 @ 6]: is free market valid when you have supply/demand OUTside of the environment? It throws off any supply/demand balance.
[02:31:56] [Sqwurl @ 6]: i need them sometimes to keep having fun
[02:32:00] [Quesar @ 6]: a few people abusing the system can screw up everything
[02:32:25] [radu @ 6]: not afew people
[02:32:32] [radu @ 6]: lots of people buy from them
[02:32:37] [Quesar @ 6]: ok, exaggerated, but you get the idea
[02:32:46] [radu @ 6]: same like IRL
[02:32:55] [radu @ 6]: if many people don't care, a society gets fucked
[02:33:17] [conavar @ 6]: but more ppl dont buy from them than do...so its the few fucking the many if nothing is done
[02:33:33] [Quesar @ 6]: exactly con
[02:33:34] [Usl @ 6]: consider though that there is nothing those who care can do, to stop those that don't. This is not like RL
[02:33:41] [radu @ 6]: well, the ostracize those that do
[02:33:51] [Quesar @ 6]: how can the majority of players that AREN'T doing the gc buying/selling fix things/
[02:34:00] [radu @ 6]: simple
[02:34:06] [radu @ 6]: don't sell anything to thsoe who do
[02:34:15] [radu @ 6]: ban them from your bots
[02:34:15] [Randall @ 6]: gonna post a list?
[02:34:17] [Kiwi06 @ 6]: Could you set up stings? ;P
[02:34:20] [Quesar @ 6]: give us some way to even know who they are?
[02:34:30] [radu @ 6]: well, I am sure you can find out







So what do you do?

1) Don't buy/sell/trade with any known gold farmers.
2) Don't buy gc with real-life money from these gold farmers. (Spend your money in the official EL Shop instead, support the game not greedy scumbags who are trying to ruin it.)
3) Know the gold farmers' bots as well, and don't use them.

(And btw, when a gold farmer is intentionally trying to artificially hike the in-game price of harvestable items, solely for the purpose of them getting gc to sell for real-life money faster, don't friggin' support them!)



As for who the farmers are, simply put if you see someone who does nothing but harv a certain item all day every day, they are questionable. I have not put names here because I only personally know of one farmer, and would rather have a list than pointing out just one person. If you know of a farmer and have some way to prove their actions, by all means PM me in-game, and perhaps we can get a list of gold farmers put together for this.

Moon Meds, Helms, and Boars, oh my!

Yesterday turned out to be quite productive...


Got the silver bars I was working on done, turned 'em into silver medallions, and turned those into moon meds for...

You advanced to level 40 of crafting!

Crafting Level 40


Had muled a bunch of leather and thread the other day, and put that to use as well.


You advanced to level 63 of manufacturing!

Manufacturing Level 63


And since I was in Willowvine to do that, I stopped in the summoning arena next door for a bit.


You advanced to level 29 of summoning!

Summoning Level 29



After which, I started pounding away on finishing off an alch level. Didn't because it was getting late, but after 3k of magic essies, I'd made 4 EMEs. Quite a ratio, heh.


Today's agenda is to finish off the alch level, with some magic essies as well as working on some stock of energy and health essies. After which... um... probably some potting to get my SR stock up and work on some MoPs, which I need to harv a bit of gypsum and grab a few more feran horns for.





Lots of chatter last night on channel 6 with Radu explaining that gold farmers (selling gc for real life $$$) were hurting the EL economy. Best suggestion was to not buy/sell to them.

Ummmm... okay. People, who do you think was the primary pusher of trying to get silver up to 2.5gc, which I fought so vehemently? His purpose had nothing to do with changes in the game forcing some kinda phony silver price hike, just that he wanted gc even faster to sell for real money. Which in turn is an economy killer. Pure greed was the sole motive. Real life money greed which in turn was a blatant attempt to hurt the EL economy, something I'd been saying all along.

Ooops, I was right. Fortunately enough people saw just how bad the economy would be with 2.5gc silver, and battled back. Now anyone attempting to sell at that price looks like a greedy scumbag and gets instantly added to several people's no-trade list.