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.