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Day in the life of Fist de Yuma
End of an era
This is the last column of the year. It is also the end of my five-year run as a weekly column. From this column on, I’ll only be posting when I have something fun to write about.
Putting myself into a weekly column was not hard when the game started, because I had so much to write about. In the last year I have had to stretch my mind to come up with a good column. While I have been mostly successful, it had starting to become work.
Five years of weekly columns is something to be proud of. I’m surprised I lasted this long. We can thank Turbine for giving us such a fun, action filled game. When you are excited about an adventure, it is easy to write about it.
I might have a lot of columns when the expansion comes out. I cannot say for sure, but I have great hopes. Meanwhile, I’ll still have columns, but this is the end of the weekly columns.
I’ll do my best to make sure the word gets out when I have a column. If you are on my mail list, there is no problem. If you depend on logging on each Tuesday for a column, and don’t use the AC boards much, drop me a letter. I’ll make a special list to tell people when I have a column out.
The future of AC
AC is a great game, but there is a lot of competition out there now. I have great hopes for the expansion, but that is in the future. For now, AC is kind of static. There are a lot of new quests, and new lands, but in the end, it is the same hack and grind, in a different place. Like I said, I expect that to change, and it will be fun to write about when it does.
It is my feelings that Worlds of Warcraft is AC’s main competition. EQ and the rest are very group orientated. Both AC and WoW will force people to group in order to complete a quest, but they never force you to do a quest. Both games can let you solo, but AC does it better. Graphic is better with WoW, but I expect the expansion will close that gap.
The real advantage that WoW has right now, is it is new. Time will tell if it has staying power. With a 60 level cap, and other things, I’m not so sure.
The people in my allegiance are worried about my playing WoW. I’m not sure if this is a valid worry. They were not worried when I played Morrwind. They were not worried when I played Knights of the Old Republic. To me, this is just something different, and has no effect on my AC play.
Right now I’m not playing AC much, but that is more Turbines fault. The new weapons are coming, but they are not here yet. A lot of my hunting is for gathering weapons and armor. I have about all the armor I need, and any weapon I get will be useless in a few weeks.
After the next patch, I’ll be back to 24/7 AC, as I try to get the weapons I need. With two swords, three mages, a UA and sundry mace players, getting the weapons and salvage I need will be a take a lot of time.
I’m also looking forward to the promised melee leveling spots. For now, this is on the distance horizon, but at least it is there. I’m starting to think that this will be part of the expansion.
So we have a lot to look forward to. I don’t see it as a choice between AC and WoW, as both are different enough that you can have fun with them equally. In fact, WoW makes it easy to skip playing, as they reward you for not playing. The longer you are logged out in WoW, the more double xp you get when you return. As leveling is kind of slow at times, that double xp is a big help.
So a month of hard-core AC play will be rewarded with several levels of double xp in WoW. That is the best of both worlds in my book.
Salute to a great Monarch
When Elder was leaving for flight school, he had two people to choose from, to assume the leadership of the allegiance; William the bat and myself. Of course, he picked William the Bat.
This choice created some bitterness on my part. I was thinking of leaving to form my own allegiance, when I was asked to assume the leadership of the Reality Dysfunction group.
I can say I have been successful as a monarch, because the people in the allegiance fit my leadership style. That style is a relaxed style. All I asked is you have fun, help others and not hurt others. I don’t make demands or try to direct people in any way. If you have fun by logging once a week to hunt a bit, then so be it. If you want to make 150 in four months, that is also welcome. The key is no one player is any better or worse than the next. AC is for fun, and anything else is meaningless.
Looking back, I am seeing that my style might not have fit my old allegiance. That old group benefited from Elders leadership until the last year. We sorted of drifted as Elder had a lot of real life things to worry about. When William took over, the strong active leadership was back. I’m not sure I would have had the endurance to take on that role.
The result is that the William the Bat’s allegiance is one of the very best. I have close ties with them, and take advantage of their greater power for some of the harder quests.
So, in the end, it has worked out for the best. Even with 20-20 hindsight, you could not have picked a better result.
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Fist de Yuma |
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A start, but lets get to the meat
Turbine has a good idea with the forges. They will do two things that need to be done; help the tinker players, and bring more people into the towns. This is a start, if not a great one.
I say this because of what Turbine chooses to start with. I feel than any average tinker mule can cap cooking in very little time. Anything above 400, after buffs, does not do much. A 100% shot for dyeing is reached at that, so there is very little need to get more. Lock pick is around the same. I’ve not cap’ed that yet, but I’m close. With a 96% shot at the harder keys, and a 100% with sings, there is not much rush to make it better. The same goes for Alchemy and Fletching. Both are important, but takes very little to cap them.
Where we are all stressing, is getting the main tinker skills up there. Armor and Weapons are the most important, with Magic Item a distance third. We can never have enough of these skills. Even those who have maxed the skill will fail all too often. When you have searched for a long time to get the perfect weapon, lucking out and getting it infused, searching for the perfect salvage to improve it with, only to see it go by-by on the 10 tink, with a 98% shot, can make you want to quit AC.
So I worry. Did Turbine add forges for these easy skills because they don’t want to improve the others? I hope that is just a paranoid thought, with no base in reality.
Fist’s Armorer’s VoD trip
Fist’s Armorer is the future for me. He is getting there, but has hit the slows, and that is frustrating. FA starting stats are; 10, 100, 10, 10, 100, 100. He spec’d War, Life and Magic Defense. This means that he is pure power, with a solid magic defense, but no side skills. He is a pure hunter, who would rather not find sings, as he cannot do anything with them.
Unfortunately, he is at a point where raising skills is very hard, but his skills are not quite where they needs to be. His skills have to be where he can inflict damage without the help of a yield. His Creature skills are far to low to even think about trying to land a yield, and will likely remain that way for some time to come.
He buffs out to 415 Life and 428 War. While those are very good numbers, they are barely adequate for VoD or Caul. I can fight there, but the resists are very frustrating. His Magic Defense is at a respectable 365. This allows him to resist from time to time, but not to the point where I can count in it.
War is at 80 million a point, and Life and MD are both at 60 million a point. This means that I need 5 hours of 12 mill per hour hunting to move the lowest one a single point. I might get that down to four hours, but it is hard to get solo hunting much higher.
The good news is my per-hour VoD will improve as I move the points. Still, it is going to be a hard slow road.
One thing I have found with my last VoD trip, is the monsters are very drain happy, especially the Virindi. That is not a big deal with group hunting, but it is a pain in the rear when solo. Then again, solo VoD hunting is always a pain.
Solo Hunting
The problem with Solo VoD hunting is that it is a lot like WoW. In WoW, I have little trouble fighting one on one. If it becomes two on one, and you are not fighting well below your level, you had best start looking at escape routes. When Solo’ing VoD, I work hard to get things one on one. Like WoW, it is possible to fight two, but not wise.
For that reason, my favorite monsters to hunt in VoD are the undead. They tend to only charge the one being attacked. They might toss a few spells your way, but they are easy to side step. Many times they will not even charge, and make it into a long distance missile vs. spell contest. I love that, as there is almost zero risk of dieing in a dual like that. At around 500k a pop, you can make more with Virindi, but the risk is greater and the battles longer.
I, for one, would rather keep battling than running back from the LS.
So, if solo hunting is so much worse than group hunting, why do I solo? That has a simple answer. When in a group there are stresses and conflicts that lessen the enjoyment of the hunt. I seldom loot when group hunting, as I would rather not get into conflicts over who looted what. Personality conflicts will also rear its head from time to time.
I have been in some great groups, where everyone knows what to do and how to do it. I can really say, that it is the norm. Most AC players today are long time players who know how to play.
Still, at the end of a group hunt, I feel like it was more work than fun. I play for fun, so I’ll do what is the most fun. Sadly, in a group game, that is solo hunting.
A great loss
One of the things that on-line games do is expand your social horizon. You meet people that you would never have known existed otherwise.
I first saw this when I started playing on-line chess. Playing chess with someone from Germany or Russia was mind blowing. I had a good group of friends there, who I miss to this day.
That expanded social horizon will also open you up for greater human tragedy. Things happen in this world that are not so nice. A sheltered existence in the real world will see these things, but they are hopefully few and far between. When your friends go from a handful of people to hundreds, these tragedies happen all to often.
Such happened to our group this week. A good friend was killed in an auto accident last week. This hit home to me hard. Chargin’, B’ob, Qu was a very active member of our allegiance. He started a buff bot service for us, giving our small allegiance two bots to choose from.
He contacted me a while back about joining us. After talking, he swore into CDY under one of my tradesmen. He was a smart player, and created a spear, staff and axe player. There are all weapon types I never use, so he got all I found.
Qu was always there to talk or give other players a hand. If we had a quest that needed a little help, he was always willing to provide it.
B’ob will be greatly missed. For a short time, we have his buff bot going. I’m not sure when his widow will shut him down, but we are grateful to have him to say goodbye to.
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Fist de Yuma |
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Higher Wield weapons
At first glance, the new high wield weapons might look like more of the same, rewards for the high levels. With a little thought, it is clear that this is a something we have really needed.
When the game first started, it would take six months to a year to hit 60. In fact, some of the templates of the time were nightmares. Sidarther did not get Item Magic until 55. Imagine, if you will, being a mage with no banes or portals.
The BM template was about as hard core as most got, and many felt it was a horrid template, because of the harsh leveling requirement. This was why we had such templates as Og. While hard, 26 without War was a lot more simple than getting to 60 without Creature.
Remember, we also had less skill credits back then. There was one added at 33lv, a ways into the first year, and it was not until the third year, and after and expansion, that the quest credit was added.
Then things changed. Chains and macros pushed up levels for many, which forced Turbine to make changes. The changes made it easer for the people who did not chain or macro to catch up a bit. Bigger monster xp, leveling dungeons and fellow advantages were just some of the things added.
This caused the definition of high level to move radically. When the game was new, 25lv was high level. The new island moved that to 45, as that was the minimum level to go there. It took some time, but we are now at a point where even a 126 can be low in power, when compared to many of their contemporaries.
What does all this have to do with the new weapons? Simple, the old wield requirement was generally met around 60lv. This is far to low for today’s players. That level can be reached in a few weeks, by a good leveler. An average player might take a year to make 100, but there is no gear reward worth pushing towards, after you reach 325 weapon skill.
Also, mages have never had wield gear. Getting an MCI with a major spell was the main focus. Mostly, any good Mana Conversion MCI was worthy of a Rend attempt. That changes next month.
The new wield weapons will change the game. I believe for the better. Of course, if Turbine just beefs up the armor of the monsters to equal that out, then they were better off not making any change, but I don’t expect to see that.
So this is not a change that only the high levels can look forward to. Depending on how high they go up, most players will benefit in total. If they do make some super high weld, such as 400+, then indeed only the high levels will benefit. That does not affect the rest of us, and give us something to look forward to, in time. So I really do hope they have 400, or even 420 welds. That will be a really nice weapon, and something to work for.
Value of good weapons
I’m going to start with a story that dates back five years. It will not seem to fit the title, but bear with me.
When the game first started, I tended to run around a lot. I wanted to explore new places and see everything there was to see. At the time, this was not a very smart thing to do. The chance of recovering a body was slight. There was no command to get the coordinates back then. We did not have things like last portal recall. In fact, getting a portal tie was something very hard to do.
Still, despite the danger, I would travel up and down the land, looking for fun and adventure. One day, I started out from Arwic and headed northwest. After passing a few hills, I kept going north.
I had no idea where I was going, or if there was anything to see up there. We did not have maps or any guides whatsoever. I would stop and fight whatever I saw. I found a Mite dungeon, but only stopped there for a short while.
After several hours of exploring, I found a fortress. To my surprise, there were several of my friends there. Sidhartha and some other mages were there hunting Matties.
It seemed that I had stumbled into the major Mattie hunting grounds. At the time, they had a 100% drop rate. While they are easy to kill today, and far stronger today than they were then, for the time, they were one nasty fight. In fact, no pure melee was ever able to fight one solo.
I joined up with my friends to help them hunt Matties. I really wanted a robe, but that was going to be a problem. It seemed like every mage that ever was, hunted there that month.
I was able to aid my friends a lot, because of back spawns. The mages did not have the power they have today. Their armor was poor, and they tended to run out of mana quickly. Having a melee with the discipline to guard their backs was very welcome.
After we had killed a few, I tried my hand at fighting one. I cannot say for sure how I did, because three or four other things jumped into the battle, and forced me to run. In fact, were it not for a friend of Sidhartha providing me heals, I would have died.
After the hunt was over, one of the mages rewarded my work by giving me a hide. It was a short time later that the Matties were removed from the game.
So what does this have to do with weapons? Well, that is the second story. About six months later, I was in search of a good blunt UA weapon. I was using a 1 – 4 at the time, with a plus 5% melee bonus, and no attack bonus. That is laughable today, but was standard for the time.
I had trade offers, offering a large amount of gear and weapons. I got no takers. Finally I made an offer of my Mattie robe up for one. Someone had a 2 to 6 weapon they were willing to trade. Despite a Mattie being so rare, and the trouble I had in getting mine, just a Mattie robe was not enough. I had to add notes, shards and other items to complete the trade.
As we move into our sixth year, we have weapons that were undreamed of when we started. Our power is such, that if one of us when back in time, we would be thought of as a god of AC, or at least a demigod.
So as we start another hunt for weapons, and pray as we apply salvage, be thankful. Sure, this is a pain to do over again, but we could be stuck with paying all we own for a 2 to 6 Centus.
Social aspect
Many of us play AC for the pure fun of it. We could do other things, but we prefer playing AC. Then there are some who play AC, because this is about all their currently capable of doing.
I have known many people whom were/are very sick. They are shut in, for the most part. To them, AC is the social aspect of their lives.
The main thing for us is not to give them our pity. They don’t need or want it. Such sickness is part of life, and they understand this more than we do. Instead, rejoice that technology has advanced so far that these shut-ins have a social aspect to their lives.
The one thing I have noticed with people who are very sick, is they spend a lot of time making others happy. They are the ones that will listen when you have a problem. They are many times allegiance leaders. They add to AC in ways that cannot be counted.
I pray for their return to good health. Some times we lose them. Sometimes they recover or stay with us long after the doctors have given up. For that we are grateful.
Interesting article
I got this link on the boards. It is about grifers, their effect on Live games and the efforts to combat them.
http://news.com.com/Inflicting+pain+on+griefers/2100-1043_3-5488403.html?tag=nefd.lede
Guest Writer R Scott White
Well this weekend turned into a bit of an adventure. I'm playing Abin, and had died, so I spent some of that time logging between my characters to mule stuff ect.
I was hearing about a problem on the Bobo quest, but wasn't thinking anything of it, after all I've got a corpse to recover, but at this point I'm only logged in as my mule. I log in Abin and see them talking to Fist (the mighty monarch, the spellcasting wizard) and what does he do, he says well Abin just logged in.
Abin who, I asked, because I know he doesn't mean me. I don't do quests or fellowship things. I talk to Fist and find out he's heavily medicated, my first response was what made that any different than usual. Anyway he wasn't up to doing it and asked me to go along. I said I would after I recovered my corpse from the VoD.
Now here is the killer part, I wanted to shoot Jeff for dying (again), and everyone else associated with the problem at that point. As I'm going to my corpse my alarms are going off, there were 7 separate spawns of Virindi, and no one around to relieve them of living. So, do I do the smart thing, the right thing, and kill every Virindi in sight, and make a ton of loot.....nope I do the stupid thing, I help Jeff recover a corpse. Didn't I do that enough when I was his patron so long ago I ask you?
I head to the mansion and find the group that is going, It included Dibbick, Kepi, and a couple others who's names I can't remember right now. In looking at the stats I realized I was the heavy gun and it was my job to imperil monsters. Ok no big deal, we make the run without too much fuss and I'm starting to imperil....oops no I'm not, I'm only lowering melee d.
Damn, now I'm searching through my spell lists for imperil. I swear it took me 10 minutes, all the while throwing spells to help out. I finally find it, and put it into a spell bar. At that point we are starting to kill quicker. Then I realized, oh damn I'm getting hit. So I put the most important call out over the fellowship channel "SAVE THE MAGE!!!".
They came to my rescue, and we kept going. We listened well to our fellow leader, which made it go well. We get to Jeff's corpse, and I was surprised, after all there was only one corpse there. Usually with Jeff, it is a multiple thing, but he's learning (grin).
We form a circle around him while he recovers, for protection. He gathers his goods up, and we move on to a safe buffing place for our battle with the big ape. I'm told what spells I need to use on him and in which order. Believe me that is an important thing when you're not used to doing that damn quest.
Mowen comes up the ramp, damn one big ugly ape, then Dibbick corrected me, I was throwing spells at Fist's painting on the wall. (GRIN) Ok I'm in a mood, deal with it. As Mowen comes up, I throw the spells, and I was surprised, they landed. They made short work of the monkey, and Jeff got the kill. I mouthed off that oh sure the melee's get all the rewards, but try taking that hairy beast down without me.
The group pelted me with nanners for having a bad attitude, and we got our rewards, 100K went to my life magic. 100K???????? What was Turbine thinking????? I was fuming, after all if you're going to do a quest, make it worthwhile. Don't get me wrong I'll go again if a group needs help but 100K????? I can get that much killing a low level Caul monster.
Speaking of the Caul, well I'll get to that in a minute. I'm logged in, and Big K is asking for help. He's got a chance to get multiple cottages in the same settlement, but he needs to move 4 packs worth of items to do it. So, I tell him no problem, I'll log in Gonder, he's my character that can hold the most.
I have Zintar' buff me while I'm getting handed packs. In the end I was at 257% burden. I moved slower than I did after Thanksgiving dinner let me tell you. Now poor Big K had to run around like a madman to get the characters in place, so I'm being a nice guy. In the end, it took about an hour for him to give me the packs, get the cottages, and get the packs off of me so I didn't get to hunt but that's ok.
I kept track of the football games while waiting for him to finish. Also tried to smooth over Qu's feelings about no one really using his buff bot. I had a bunch of luck hunting the Caul, I pulled a nice major endurance kite shield off a monster that is only wms 6 al 121 so it will tink up nicely.
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This and That
I have a little more about WoW on this column. Cannot be helped, as that has got me hooked right now. I see it no more than some of the stand-alone games I have played over the years. They take up a lot of time, but soon I’m back playing AC.
In fact, I did play some AC this week. That really emphasized the things I like about both games. The hard part to get use to was the graphic in AC. Even the lettering seemed out of focus. Old eyes love WoW.
I have a lot of complaints about WoW, but for some reason I cannot put it down. So, despite the problems, it is very addictive. It is a good balance for AC, as they are so different that one is a break from the other.
My main worry was having a column this week. Then a few things came up in AC, the WoW servers went down, and I suddenly had a column. It is not as long as some I have, but I think it turned out ok.
How lucky we are
After spending a week playing WoW, I have gained the impression that we have some of the best players around. This is not only in skill, but also in attitude.
It is not fair to gauge players after just a week, but the difference is so stark that I think I’m on safe ground. There is no way I can gauge people’s solo abilities, except when they are fighting close to me, so I’ll focus on team play and player interaction.
In AC, people understand their roles. This means, a mage knows he or she will supply ranged power and debuffs. Archers understand they are best in support of the melees, and the melees understand that they are often more a shield than a weapon. Of course, this is a generalization that does not fit all groups, but you get the idea when I say the players understand their roles.
In WoW, everyone wants to get the kill. For that reason, priests are few and far between. This focus is so fixed, that it is often hard to get a group formed, even when grouping is to great advantage.
Even when you get a group, you have everyone rushing into battle. Rogues are not trying to get back shots. Mages are not on the wings or in the rear. Hunters are standing next to the fighters, with their pet just an added melee.
Trying to balance this kind of play is difficult. I will generally die after joining an unknown team. This could be the reason it is so hard to get a good team together.
There are many quests where you must kill 15 to 30 monsters. A single hunter must kill them all. A group needs to kill the same amount. So a group of six can kill off five each, and be done with the quest. Instead, you seem then fighting over the same monster, hoping to get in the first blow, so it is tagged to them. Trying to convince them that grouping would make things better is like talking to a brick wall.
AC is much more of a solo game, and yet, you can get a group forming for any hard quest at the drop of a hat. If six people find themselves in VoD, they will quickly become a group. The advantage is less in AC, but the players understand that advantage.
Then there is the attitude players. I use to think that AC had more than its share of bad players. Boy was I wrong. Whereas the odd griefer plays AC, this type is prevalent in WoW. Sadly, WoW gives this type of player an advantage over the honorable players. I’ll give you two examples.
My Paladin is a miner. There are places where Ore pops up from time to time. My Rogue is a herbalist. He is always in search of plants. When either finds what he is looking for, there are generally some guards around. You have to clear those, as you need about five seconds of uninterrupted time to get the ore or plants.
I saw some copper ore on a mountainside. There was a narrow path leading to it. On that path was a nasty flying fire-breathing monster. I moved up the path, and engaged it. The second I was locked in battle, another player ran past and started mining the ore!
When I asked him why he was doing that, he gave the lame excuse that he did not know I wanted the ore. Sure, I was moving up the path for my heath.
The same thing happens my Rogue all the time. If there is anyone around that can steal, they will. There have even been complaints that players are camping quests, so they can steal the rewards when other engage the monster.
I have taken to asking players nearby if they want the ore or plant before going after it. Mostly that just gives the guy in back of me time to run and loot it, but I feel better.
My Hunter is a Skinner/Leather worker. This allows him to skin monsters that others kill. The key is not to attempt to skin a monster until the person leaves. They may have killed it to skin themselves.
A guy was fighting a Tiger, and looked to be in trouble. I helped him kill it. Because of the way the system works, I got nothing for doing this. It was just a good deed. After he looted, he stopped to thank me. I was typing, asking if he was going to skin it or not. Before he could thank me, or me ask permission to skin it, someone else ran up and started skinning. He did not say a word, and was not involved in the battle at all.
Strangely, this is accepted by most of the players. When I made a point that it was not fair play, I was cursed out. Very strange.
Of course, AC had its share of schemers and scammers. To me, the key difference is the response other players give such. The players quickly ran Shortly Portman out of the game. The Mote and Shard Mule is still vilified to this day, 4 years after he disappeared from the game. There will always be bad people, is how the players respond that tells the true story. The best I get from WoW is a shrug.
I have met my share of good players. It is always the bad ones that stand out and leave the biggest impression. Still, we AC players are blessed with some of the best.
Pace
I am finding that there is a big difference in pacing between WoW and AC. AC is fast past and action orientated. If I had to pick one word to describe the pacing of WoW, it would be, “Plodding”.
There are few modes of transportation, and even those are slow when compared to AC’s portals. They look great, more than great, but it is still slow. The only thing to compare to an AC portal is a stone that will recall you to the inn. Even that can only be used once an hour. The rest of the time, you are plodding along on foot.
The speed of running is also quite slow when compared to AC. You sort of feel like an overweight mule. When I was running Fist someplace after playing WoW, it was like he was a turbojet. There is no way to speed up this running, and everyone runs the same speed.
Combat is better paced, but far shorter than your typical AC battle. In WoW, you must win fast, or you will lose. This is especially true with solo battles. After slowly picking out a monster at a time in WoW, I was truly having a blast taking on wave after wave of Olthoi.
Something I would like to see in AC
There is something WoW has that I would like to see in AC. This is rewarding players for not playing. That may sound strange, but it works well in practice.
What they do is give you an Xp advantage for logged off time. This advantage is best if you log in the Inn, or one of the major towns. What happens is you get a point to which you get double Xp. When you gain the amount that puts you over the line, your Xp returns to normal.
This allows the player who does not have a lot of time to play, to keep up with those that play a lot. It is not equal of course, as a power leveler will gain far more, but it gives them a small boost.
I’m sure there is a limit to this. I know it will go past levels, as I leveled and was still gaining double Xp.
This is also an advantage to players like me, who want to play many players. I can play one for hours on end, and than have a nice little bonus when I go back to my main player. Others are still shooting past me, but I’m at least keeping them in sight.
Role Playing
I have picked up a new role in WoW. As you read last week, I play my Paladin as stoic and my Rogue as disdainful of all, including himself. I just created a Gnome Warlock. This is a fun class, with a lot of advantages, including a summoned monster that fights for you.
He is far smaller than the other players. That is one of the “Cool” factors in WoW. I decided that he is a little pest.
He greets the groups he finds, with, “Hi big people.” He will then add in, “Whata doing?” Of course I know exactly what they are doing most times. I’ll then make comments like, “That is a big sword”, to the two handed sword players. Given that the sword is twice his size, I figured it would be his reaction when see sees one.
To my surprise, few players get this. Some really thought I was some little kid playing WoW. You would think that players on a RP server would be a little more open to fun. I’ll keep at it, as players will get it in time. Then it will be a lot more fun.
Don’t waste your salvage
Turbine has teased about this for some time, but is looks like it will be happening. They are creating higher wield weapons! What this means is; our hard earned weapons are all going to be obsolete.
Of course, this will be a boon to those who are not pushing levels. The value of 325 wield weapons will be dropping. Soon, “to die for weapons”, will be given away, or sold cheaply on a vendor mule.
Meanwhile, don’t waste your current salvage material on current 325 weld weapons. On average, we will need three bags per weapon type. For those of use with multiple accounts, and sundry players, this is a nightmare in the making. Of course, it is one I gladly welcome.
Gaining power
One big thing I have noted as I have gained power with my players, is how hard things can become easy. I can remember when a good group of players would have a hard time with the mage armor upgrade quest.
Today, three of us did the last two parts of this quest. I did it with Deadeye Fist, and the other two were a lot weaker than him. Nevertheless, the three of us walked over the quests with ease. This is likely a combination of greater gear and experience, but it is quite amazing to compare yesterday to today. Yesterday; big group and lots of trouble. Today; little group, and no trouble at all.
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Fist de Yuma |
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Bobo
There are a lot of quests out there that are, “Just to do” quests. Some have good rewards, but Turbine has been notoriously poor at quest rewards. They are getting better, but quests are still mostly a, “something to do” thing.
There are a few that fall into the, “must do at least once”, category. Bobo is one of those. We can get away with gems, or running through the dungeon, but having the Tusker island recall spell is so much better.
So when Bunsen volunteered to lead the quest, many were overjoyed. Dread Lord used to run this quest every week, but he has some real life issues, and has not been on for a while. This is one quest where you really should have someone who knows the route well. Having a lot of power is also nice.
We set up the quest for Saturday. I was there with Owanda, my 113lv macer. He finally got self-buffing with VIIs, which is a must for this quest. Well, there are exceptions to that rule. More and more people are going with straight item buffs, and not taking any magic skills, but Item. I can see that working, because at one time we had no choice, but it has been years since I lived without level VII buffs.
The time rolled around, and no Bunsen. Hours later, no Bunsen. Everyone went and did something else. Several hours after the quest time, Bunsen logged on, with a red face apology. He had fallen asleep.
I have a good memory, and have known a lot of different people. So I understand when someone makes a goof like that. I have a gift of being able to wake up at the exact time I should, but I have never known anyone else who can. (A very valuable skill in the Marines.)
So Bobo was a bust, but there was always Sunday. We set up to go then. Unfortunately, we could not get the word out to everyone, and many could not make it for that day.
When we got ready for the quest, we only had four people. We had good melee power, with Owanda, and Hot Shot, but Bunsen XV is only 83. That is a good level, but will have a hard time landing on most of the stuff we would meet. We rounded that out with Horror Sparrow, a 108 melee. We were light on numbers and de-buff power.
For those not familiar with this quest, it is to get a recall spell to Tusker island. It starts with talking to a guy in a hut. This hut is surrounded with some heavy hitting Tuskers, and sundry other monsters. Many of them can hit through the walls, and it is a small house, so it is a nightmare for a mage or any low melee defense player.
From there you run to a waterfall, that has a dungeon portal in it. The run to both places have hundreds of Tuskers and other Tusker island demons nipping at your heels. Stopping, even for a second, is not an option. Dieing out there is the beginning of many a horror story.
From there, you go into a dungeon with heavy hitting Tuskers, de-buffing mages and dispel traps, that also add in a nice VII bludgeoning vulnerability. Fortunately, the traps only dispel VI and below, or not many people would be doing this quest. Level VII or item buffs, along with dispel gems, are a must.
This dungeon will lead to a portal to the next dungeon. This one is more of the same, with narrow hallways. So, for the most part, the second dungeon is not quite as bad as the first. The exception is at the very end.
At the very end is a wide ramp with lots of tuskers tucked away in side passages. They will spill out as you descend the ramp. At the bottom is a maze. It is also filled with lots of nastiness. That will lead to the portal to the next dungeon.
The next dungeon is totally different. This one has the green barking stuff you see on the island, along with the scorpion things. People who cheated on buffs, and only did bludgeoning banes and protects, die here. This is also a good place to get lost.
This dungeon ends with more Tuskers in a wide series of rooms. If you made it this far, it is likely you’ll make to the end with ease.
That last dungeon just has Tuskers and no traps. You can still stumble if you get stupid, but the only real trouble is the knowing the route.
At last you get to meet Bobo. This is one really big Tusker, with granite blocks for hands. Don’t worry, you don’t have to fight him, but you do get the next best thing.
You talk to Bobo, and he portals you to a small room. This has a portal, and is used to gather your group before the final assault.
The final battle is with a heavy hitting, armored Tusker. Just to make things harder, they have missile-tossing tuskers around the top of the pit, cheering their hero on. Every so often you’ll see other tuskers join the battle, but that is just lag, and they will disappear quickly.
I have heard of people soloing this bad boy, but you will need one powerful person to do that. Paraduck type power. They also need the ability to de-buff, as no amount of pure melee can get ahead of his heal rate.
When he is defeated, a portal back to Bobo is created. You talk to Bobe one last time, and he rewards you with a paw. The paw will have one or three fingers. Each finger is a reward. If you got the kill, you get three rewards instead of one.
You take one last portal to the reward room. There are a lot of different statues, each with a different reward. The main one is the scroll, of course. There is also a small chance to get a nice, one of a kind mage spell, and an Axe item. I’m not sure if there is anything for anyone else, but there might be. In any case, the odds of getting anything good are very low.
And back to our adventure.
We did not start out great. We got a little separated while running to the hut. Different running speeds, and the inability to stop, always make that run a nightmare. I got there first, and was off to the waterfall before the others showed.
Hot Shot was showing off, and tried to make the run without buffs. That worked ok, after all he is over 200 level, but when he got to the hut, things were different. He had to port out or die. We all laughed at him as he buffed and made the run.
We all rebuffed at the dungeon start. Hot Shot and Bunsen helped with Horror Sparrows buffs. It was a strange start, but we got it together after that.
We moved well though the dungeon. We would go slow when we needed to, and rushed when we had to. Bunsen did a good job with directions. He was not totally sure he could remember all the turns, and felt he was going to die before we got to the end. Smart play and good leadership made it a breeze.
The only really scary part came at the bottom of the ramp, in the second dungeon. This part is really dangerous. I have seen 126+ players leave bodies there. We did not have the power to get ahead of the spawn rate, so we decided to make a run for it.
We started by clearing the top section, so we could get a clean run to the maze. When that was done, we girded our loins, and rushed down.
I’ll admit I will tend to cheat a little with things like this. There are two ways to go here, lead or follow. Sometimes it is far better to lead, others times it is far better to follow. I find that a good rule is, if inside, lead, if outside, follow. So I took advantage of my high run, and shot ahead.
I do not know the maze really well, but I have a trick. I had Bandit Sight open and portal detection on. When it detected the portal, I could use that as a guide. It was a good idea, but not perfect.
I started in, and quickly came to a dead end. I was quick, and weaving, so I did not get trapped. I was tying to make my way though, without ever slowing down. One misstep, and you are in big trouble.
The key is not to stop, and not to panic. Just go. So when I came out the maze, close to where I came in, I just reversed my direction and re-entered the maze. I was not the only one, as I ran past Hot Shot about then. (g)
Even with all that, I was the first to the portal. I even had to wait a while before everyone else could make it in.
We rebuffed there and headed in. Bunsen really shined here. I have seen many parties get lost in this part, if only for a time. Bunsen had it down pat. We did not make a single wrong turn.
In the last dungeon, we did make a few wrong turns, but we quickly recovered. After a few fights, we were ready to fight the last battle.
I did not expect to have that much of a problem. We had Hot Shot, who might well be one of those capable of soloing this bad boy. Owanda is no slouch, even with a less than optimal fire mace. Add on a 108 melee and Bensen’s spells, and I did not expect us to have any trouble at all.
Before we went in, I got everyone to head to a single corner. Nothing is worse than having everyone scatter to a different spot. Well, maybe Hot Shot would be ok, but the rest of us would not want to face him alone.
Now, I’m not sure what happened. I’ll just give you my view of the battle. First I ran to the southwest corner, and set up for the fight. I could see others next to me, but I was slightly forward, so I could not see what they were doing.
I hunkered behind my shield and swung away. Despite Owanda’s very high melee defense, he had no trouble hitting me. Of course, without any missile defense, the Tuskers above us were also doing damage. Because a good shield, and high armor, I only had to heal once during the battle.
Where things were not going good was our return damage. I saw his heath percentage go down to 97, stay there for a bit, and then go back to 100. I’m not sure if Turbine has beefed him up any, but I was sure I should be doing better than that, even without Hot Shot and the gang.
Bunsen was having a hell of a time landing a spell. We were a minute in before he finally got the yield, and a bit more before the imperil hit. I saw him ask Hot Shot for help, and it could be that Hot Shot got the yield.
When the spells finally hit, things got a lot better. I think it was around a minute from there that he died. The portal was created, and I jumped in.
I hit Bobo, and much to my surprise, I got my first three-fingered paw, ever. How I got the kill over Hot Shot, I’ll never know. HS said he was delayed getting into the battle, and might have had to stop to help with the spells. Still, I was not exactly doing much damage before the spells landed.
With the three wishes, I got the recall spell, and a million reward, followed by a 500k reward. As you can see, anything after the first wish sucks.
Worlds of Warcraft
After playing both EverQuest and Worlds of Warcraft in beta, I choose WoW as my side game. AC is still my game, and there is nothing in either game that will change that. Still, I need something else to play from time to time.
I should not have done this, but I ordered it from EBgames, and had it mailed overnight. That cost me an added ten bucks. Given that I still had to play sales tax, as EBgames has a store in town, I should have just gone to WalMart and got it. Of course, if I did go that route, Rosa would have wanted to know where I was going at midnight (g). As it was, I failed to sneak the game in, so she knows about it.
I stayed up to around 5am playing AC. I figured WoW would arrive around noon, and I did not want to sit and fidget while waiting for it. I hate to wait, for anything, so I figure it would be better to just sleep.
An hour after I got up, no WoW. We have the front door blocked, and use the side door. The delivery people know this, but every so often we get a noob who puts deliveries at the front door. To be sure, I walked around to see. No package.
I check the web site at 4pm. It said it had been delivered! Now, to say Yuma has poor service is an understatement. Well, to be fair, that is just the mail. Others are very good, but anything sent Federal is at risk. I figured they had messed up again.
I checked outside one more time, no package. I checked the mailbox. Nada. I checked across the street, as they have delivered there from time to time, nothing.
It took me a while, but I found the phone number for Federal Express. For some reason, it was not in the phone book. I had to get it off the web site.
To be honest, they were really nice. I was steamed, but in control. It was a good thing I did not yell at her, but I was really pissed. She read off what the driver wrote. Packaged delivered and placed behind the screen at 1pm.
Aaaa, behind the screen? At this point I’m really glad I was not being as ass, as I had not checked behind the screen. I’m talking really nice, as I carried the phone outside and around to the front door. Sure enough, there it was. I thanked her for the help, and hung up, red faced.
Role Playing
I’m playing on the east coast role-playing server, for those who play WoW, and want to hook up. You’ll be very welcome, as most players there are very bad, and I need to team with some players who know which end of a sword to use. The most common thing we see, are players who take advantage of others as a matter of course.
They sit and hide, waiting for others to engage guards, and then run in and grab the reward. Some players did nothing but that. It was tempting to just stop fighting, die, and let the monsters kill off the leaches.
To our amazement, the role-playing server is one of the most popular servers. There are even times when you have to wait to get on! I’m glad they are limiting the number of players on a server, but waiting for over 200 players to log off, so I can log on, was a sight to behold.
So you would think that role-playing is what they want. You would be wrong. While a lot of us are playing roles, most players are not. I’m not sure which is worse, the kids chatting on the general chat, or the role players who argue with them about it.
I’m hoping that they will crack down on this soon. With the number of problems they are having, and the slow response for service, I don’t expect them to address this for some time
The big thing I got, was most of them had no idea what role-playing is. One person said they did not want to talk in old English. Just how they got the idea that, that was role-playing, I’ll never know.
Role-playing is playing a role. You pick a personality, and play it. When I started playing Fist, I played him as a punch-drunk boxer. Of course, I did not know that UA was not boxing, so it did not work out all that well. Then there was the fact that few ever played a role when AC started.
My next attempt to play a role, and one I may go back to, is Death Mute. He was created to PK with a group. I was even given a copy of AC from them. (Not an account, an in the box copy.) The idea was to be an undiscovered tribe. The story was that we came to Dereath, and were enslaved by mages.
We had newly broken from them in a revolt, leaving a bloody mess in our wake. We would be full time PK, this was before PKL, and would mostly target mages. They wanted us to use spears, but I had to draw the line there, and made Death Mute sword.
To get away from the trash talking that haunts PK, he was going to be a mute. So, for his first few months of play, he never talked. E-motes and other things were all he could do. Like I said, I might go back with that later. His current story is that Asheron cured him, but I might make that a temporary cure.
In WoW, I have two very different roles. I’ll have to be careful to keep aware, as it would he easy to respond with one, as the other would respond.
My main player is Fistdeyuma. Sadly, there is no spaces in the names allowed. That is just one of the problems I have with WoW. He is a stoic Paladin. Always helpful, and forceful with his fight against evil. He is a bit nave; and everything is black and white, good vs. evil.
I’ll not say the name of this next player, but anyone who has seen him will know him. He is cynical to the max. There is no good, no bad, only fools. The biggest fool of all, is himself. So instead of using general chat to say, “Where is the Den Mother”, he will say, “Can someone tell this fool elf where the Den Mother is.” (The Den Mother is a monster that you must kill as part of a quest.)
So role-playing is easy. Just play your player, and talk and act as he would. Avoid real life comments. When asking a question, form it as your player would form it. I recommend that you not play something too off from your real self, at least to begin with. Whatever you do, have fun with it.
If you think you need the freedom to drop in and out of role, talk about the Jets, or complain about your spouse, then don’t play on a role-playing server. You’ll not like it, and they will not like you.
Real Life meeting
There have been many times when AC players have had the opportunity to meet each other in real life. Unfortunately, for us West coast players, these have all been held on the East Coast. For those of us without the time or money, I fall into the later, getting there would be almost impossible. Even holding such in LA would be hard for me, with hotel bills, but possible.
So I have missed out meeting people in real life, that I know so well in AC. I’m betting I know people in the game better than their friends know them. I have always felt that the freedom of these games let a person’s true aspect show through.
There are some that I have almost met. There are a lot of players in Phoenix, and I assume a few in San Diego. The one I had the best shot of meeting was Pantine. Pantine lives in Las Vegas. Rosa had a business meeting there this year.
My plan was to surprise him with a visit. That fell through when Rosa was set to go to Germany, and could not do both. Then the Germany thing fell through, so we did nether.
So I was extremely happy when Pantine sent me a letter, saying he would be in Yuma over Thanksgiving! After a few e-mails, we agreed to meet at the Red Lobster on Friday.
I was not surprised that I knew who it was the second I saw him. He said I looked exactly like he thought I did. (g) We had a good meal, and talked a lot.
We ended up with a lot of take home, as our “Server”, as she wanted to be called, was an old friend of my wife. We ordered the all you can eat shrimp, and she brought us enough to feed six people, and then containers to take it home. (g) She knew she was feeding Rosa, and, as it turned out, Rubin, with enough left overs for me Sunday night when Rosa went to church.
Pantine and I hit it off so well, that I invited him home. We spend several more hours talking and laughing. After six hours of that, he had to say goodbye, and prepare for his trip home.
I hope to meet a lot more people in real life someday. Lets hope that Turbine will have an LA convention, now that they have moved there.
Future of the column
So far, I have not missed a column in almost five years. This week is my five-year anniversary of AC, and the column’s is in December.
This column started as just me posting on one of the boards. That got some attention, and I was shortly invited to write for the Olthoi Lair. The rest is history, as they say.
In this five years, I have not missed a week. In fact, I had an added column one week, so I’m even ahead. (g) Lately, I have noted some stress with the column. The demand to have something, anything, just to not break the streak, can really work on me.
So, sometime in January, I’m going to deliberately miss a column, just to break the streak. Then, I’ll not push to make it a weekly. I’m going to write when I feel like writing. When I have enough for a column, there will be one posted.
So it might be weekly, it might be every other week. There might even be times when I miss a month, or even have three in one week. I cannot say for sure. I’ll post when I have something interesting to post.
When there is a column out, I expect it to be a gem. I want to raise the bar for the column, and make it a showcase for AC.
Many in WoW have asked me if I would write a column for that game. It is not likely, but you never know. If I do, it will not be a weekly. WoW is a part time game for me. Well, that is the plan. So far I have spent most of this week there, but it is starting to show cracks. A few hours a week might be the norm. In any case, I have a six month subscription, so I’ll be playing that much at least.
I’ll see you in game, be it AC or Wow. Remember, the key to these games is to have fun. Park your EGO at the door and be ready for adventure!
E-Mails
===Aelryinth of Leafcull
Noted you did Noble Weapons.
I strongly advise not getting a melee weapon unless 1) You want it for your collection and 2) You want the damage type.
The Axe down there does piercing damage (a pick) and the morningstar for mace does slashing.
The rapier is nice, but, um, burun aren't vuln to pierce, they are vuln to cold. With a Cold Armor-render, you do more damage to burun once fully debuffed then this toy does.
Now, the bow is okay, because you can use cold bolts for the extra damage edge (xbow, thrown weapons too).
The Wand is also nice (scepter), equal to a virindi slaying wand, perhaps better. It's a nice extra damage stack that comes in very handy if you can vuln the burun or gurog ahead of time. We had a mage using one today against Morgluuk on a Noble weapons quest, and his normal damage doubled, and his crits about quadrupled over his crit strike wand.
Against normal burun/guruk, he just used a cold render wand. Two spells landing was all he needed. Much simpler.
Thus, if you are doing Noble Weapons, I strongly advise picking up a wand for your mage, or a missile weapon for your other characters. The melee weapons are nice and cool, but not of much use against the burun. A cold render will outperform them solo, and a CS/AR Cold will outperform them in groups with double buffs. The Noble weapons are givable, and it isn't until you run the New Soul stone quest on the new island that you can get Burun Slayer on them and do the extra damage, anyways.
Not to mention, level 153 Titans can hit 710 Melee when you are swinging at them, and a I like my +13 to hit Frostie better then a +9 to hit rapier...
I have never done the Orphanage, hearing far too many bad stories about it...and I'm not really interested in the rewards at the end. Leaving bods in bad dungeons is something I shy away from.
If you enjoyed the column, and would like to add to my emergency fund, here is a link.
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Fist de Yuma |
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