Fist de Yuma - August 13, 2002

Writing about AC There are a few things I'll write about. Adventure is the number one. The problem is trying to write about adventures that are new and fresh. Reading about the same old thing, done the same old way, is not fun. It is even less fun writing about. So I might have sundry adventures but only one or two are worth writing about. New adventures are great and I love writing about how I did it. Finding a better way later might be fun to put to paper. After there has to be something strange or different happening. The other thing I might write about is something that might piss me off. This is seldom the bulk of what I write but controversial stuff stands out. I might have five thousand word on adventure and five hundred on problems but people will remember the five hundred. So the danger is getting labeled as a rant column or making it look like I'm not having fun. Believe me if I was not having fun I would be gone. AC is a blast. It is a blast every day. I play for fun and play hard. I love helping people and will drop what I'm doing to help almost anyone. Even those who have made me angry find that when they need help, I'm there. It is all part of the fun. So if I have a bad quest and it ends up here, remember, I likely had five or six quests that were successful but not worth writing about. Bad week My IP goes belly up on Monday, AC follows the death march for two more days. Olthoi Lair goes down on Wednesday. The IP repeats itself on Friday. Can you say bad week boys and girls? There was a break in the fiber optic cable between Yuma and Phoenix. This caused a busy signal when I tried to dial. Mindspring had no idea there was a problem. When they called the modem answered. I contacted the phone company and had them contact Mindspring. This way others with the problem would not get the runaround. I hate support people who cannot listen. I explained to the Mindspring guy that I got a busy signal when dialing from the computer or the phone. He wanted me to delete my modem setup and reinstall it. (sigh) Lets try this again. I got a busy signal even when not using the computer. He then wanted me to read off some stuff from the modem setup. It was like talking to a Bod. He had answers but not to my question. I was glad that Olthoi Lair's problem was temporary. They were back up within 24 hours. We hope to keep with this provider. If not she might have to change. I like the way Cassie runs things here. I can post my column myself. It is simple and easy on the eyes. There have been a few opportunities to move but I was only a little tempted. About the only way I would move is if I get an offer with a salary. (grin) Like that is going to happen. Week events I was hoping to try a solo of the decanter quest by now. I'm going to try it with Mage and Fist. I figure both are strong enough and it will give me a view of this quest for both melee and mage. Lets hope the servers stabilize enough that I can do it. So far all I have managed to do this week is a body recovery in the last spot of the Elisa ring quest. Monte Cristo and me ran to it along with they guy with the body. Monte moved through the portal and I ran to the fort from Cragstone. I used Jr so I could go melee or mage. My 397 melee defense makes me un-hittable by the Hollows so using the drum is no biggy. I found out that two swordsman can kill so fast they do not need imperil. The hollows would mostly died before I got the spell off. I switched to my weapon for the rest of it. The yellow links came fast and often so we were happy to recover the body and get out. My other adventure was the WE BM. I made 31lv before the server kicked me in the battle with a Lich Lord. I figured if the server crashed I would not have died. I still waited out the reboot so be sure, talk about boring. It was around 1am when the server crashed and was past 3am when it came up. It was a good thing I waited because I logged with the bright yellow star in the corner. Recovery was easy but buffing was a pain. I'm right at the edge with V protects so it was fizzle city. I think I had more fizzles than spells. Jokes Last week's column had a few jokes in it. They were clearly marked with (grin) but with brackets. Of course brackets are mark up code and never show after being posted. This changed the tone completely. My fault. The two jokes were the DT armor thing and a comment about making a BM. Without the (grin) the BM comment sounded a lot like STFU and re-roll a mage, clearly not my intent. It was more a joke about how hard a BM is to make. Without the (grin) it did not come across well. I apologize for that. Either the DT people did not read my tweek on them or they did not care. The feedback I got were people who did not have access to a high level cook to do dyeing. They were insulted that I would compare them to DT players. I found that funnier than my joke. My intend was to put a little tweek to the DT people but ended up with the wrong target. To make up for that, at least on MT, I'm offering my service as a Cook, Alchemist and Tinker. For Tinker I can do Weapon or Armor. I do this at no charge. All I ask is you have the raw material. I have a limited supply of plants and will have to hold them for Elders. There are several places I can go to do this. The mansion of course is where I will meet any Elder's who needs work. Nanto is the best place for non-Elders. The only thing bad about Nanto is the lack of portals there. There are some but few players know where. A lot of people have never learned the portal system. Nanto is mostly deserted these days. Lastly I can get to the subway. The subway is a mad house and laggy. It would be easy to have stuff intercepted there as well. We could always go outside but if it is a cook or alchemy job he has to stay away from monsters. The mule has no defense whatsoever. So I'll use sub as a last resort but Nanto is best. You can contact me on the board here or the VN board as Fist_de_Yuma. My skills are Weapon Fist de Yuma, 457 Armor Fist de Mage, 447 Alchemy; 335 Cooking; 335 The Alchemy and Cooking will be a lot higher when I finish with my other mule. For now the second mule has no equipment and is being leveled. For Tinkering chances I suggest you go to http://www.code-poets.org/tinkering.html and figure out the risk before having me do it. Decanter quest, part 1 I need to get the new Atlan for Jr and Fist. I misunderstood one part of this and found that the bars are still used. It was lucky that I kept a few back. I gave most of what I had away thinking they were not used any more. The first part of the quest is mostly running. Run to Xabar, run to Eastham, back to Xabar, run to Al-Jalima, kill a few monster, get empty decanters and run to Eastham. Mostly boring runs with little fighting. The second part had a lot of running as well but mostly because I did not know where the Fathomless Chasm was. The instructions given by Asheron's golem said it was close to a city. I had two city choices to start at. It turned out that the Fathomless Chasm was close the city I did not pick. I spent a lot of time searching for it. I did not want to check ACE or use a cheat sheet. I'm trying to do these quests as someone without these tools would do them. It turned out to be in a big ridge road I had been over before. I'll know how to get there next time. By this time I had spent hours running and was bored out of my mind. I buffed for everything and entered Fathomless. I found the portal to Fathomless Chasm Abyss quickly. It could have been worse, I could have wandered around Fathomless for a while. Finally I was ready to fight. I figured this would be hard. What I did not expect was it to be impossible. First battle I got one of the green monsters after a long fight. The two white ones were pounding on me but at least it was manageable damage. After several tries I got yield to land on a white one. With 393 Creature I did not expect that much trouble. It took me 10 more tries to get the Vuln to land. With 395 life plus the minus 40 in its magic defense this surprised me. I could not land a War at all. I de-buffed its self and focus 40 points so I could land a War. With 51 less magic defense my 387 War was useless. It was like it was immune War. I spend 15 minutes trying to kill one monster and was not coming close. Way to make a lame quest Turbine. I ported out in disgust. I'm guessing I'll have to follow a group without fighting to the end. I'll try to say alive while I run and get the decanters filled. Not fun, no action. It is a lame stupid quest that has to be done to get the new weapons. Add that to the 450 requirement to get the oil and this is becoming a not worth it quest. I'll try it with Jr sometime. The problem is the end. There are a lot of monsters in the pit. This requires a range weapon and Jr does not have one. This means massive lag when he jumps down because of my inability to clear it. I'm a touch pissed now. I spent my day setting up for a quest that Turbine made impossible to fight. Avoid fighting is the name of the game I guess. If the AC2 quests are going to be like this I'll pass there as well. Lastly there is a three-day limit to finish it. Why that is I'll never know. After three days I'll have to do the running again. I guess I could cut down on the running if I was willing to lose a few ties. I would rather not. Better would be Turbine making the quest fair and fun, rather than un-killable monsters (at least by a normal mage) and boring runs. The next day I gave the decanters to the crier. Goals At 20 million a point for UA and 30 million a point for melee defense I'm going to let them slide for a while. Not much hits me and what does is absorbed with shield and armor. So the only real danger to Fist is War magic. Fist de Mage is also having a point problem. War cost 53 million a point. Life is at 395 (25 million) and Creature at 393 (20 million). This is with my normal buffs and a minor War helm. I have some Minor War Gants and a Minor Creature Helm. If I can find a Minor Creature or War boots I'll be a lot better off. I'm not using the Life gants until I can tinker them a bit. I'm debating whether to put them on Mage or Jr. Both Mage and Fist have stats costing over 36 million each so I'll not be raising them for a while. Both Fist and Mage have raised Endurance a lot. They both started with 50 endurance so they don't have the bind there many have today. With a lot of banning Mage does well absorbing punishment. I even carry a shield with me for those rare times I need to go melee. So the only real danger to Mage is War spells. With this in mind I have stated putting a lot of points into Magic Defense. I'll never get Fist's as high as Mages but I have a lot of points planned for it. It cost me 31 million a point for Fist so maybe five more is it. Mage has a buffed 310, still one below the pre-economy point, and cost 12 million a point. It is starting to pay off, especially for Mage. I'm starting to resist Diamond Golems with some regularity now. Drudges are hopeless against me and anything lesser might as well not be there. Where I have trouble is Shadows and Shards. I don't know what there Creature magic is but they have no trouble landing on me. Neither monster is much trouble but the legacy of Yield VI stays with me. I had a fight with a Crystal Golem the other day. I was having a touch of trouble because I forgot to buff my staff skill. You would think that with buffing coodi and my Crop and Shield I would remember to buff Staff. I had de-buffed the Crystal Golem with a lot of spells. I was hitting in the 30's with some hits in the 80's. I got it about one-third when three of the snake like things spawn. They all start chain casting frost war spells at me. I resisted every one. With my buffed shield the Crystal was hitting for 1 and 0. The Crystal tried a few War spells but I resisted them as well. Without the magic defense it would have been a run away situation. With all their spells being resisted I could finish killing the Crystal before pulling my drum to kill the Snakes. I just hit 114lv and the entire points to 115 (around 111 million) will be put into magic defense. How much Fist can do I'm not sure but the other stuff is just as expensive so I might as well put the points there. Not so easy When I first started collecting Shards I was told that the dark Shards were easy to find. At first this seemed true. I was getting a touch of dark stuff on a lot of the Shadows and had no trouble making my first gem, after I got the Shards. With five or six of the gems ready for the dark stuff I decided to kill every Shadow I met. When I was hunting North ML I never saw a Shadow. Now that I'm hunting the plains they are in about every other spawn. I have a program that tracks my kills. I need to check the decal board to see if I can get one that sorts by player. This one will track my total kill, no matter who makes the kill. With this I can get exact numbers on Shadow kills since I started hunting them. The numbers are; 47 Shadows, 47 LT's 73 Umbris and 63 Panumbris. The total dark shard drop for this group has been zero! There is something wrong. Prophetic remarks "omg its saturday night i gotta get trashed" - Zack Morris's post to a meeting message. This was the meeting where he was verbally trashed and booted from his alliance. "I better watch my mana when fighting this Inquisitor" -- Fist de Mages thoughts just as the Virindi drained all his mana and killed him. "I really hate coffee, Crip thinks moments before tragically drinking a cup of stale coffee (on accident) that his brother forgot to take with him to the kitchen" -The Crippler I had a crappy job years ago. It was just getting bad. I was sitting there thinking "I should quit this job", when I get the email indicating that I have a meeting later today with my boss, and there is no subject of the meeting. - Tut Only a woman would think Tysons gonna lose. ~~Shamrock, taken from iddy. Fist...One eve Liquid Assassin accompanied me to the Lightning Prop. He had not been there in a bit and I told him ,"It is WILD in there!" Something had happened during the patch back then causing double and triple spawns. LA called me a "Noob" and jumped in the pit and within moments was "Acidified". There were so many nobles and Evis that an Admin had to come and he actually carried LAs and several other bodies to the top. Truly! "Just one more hit! but I really oughta grab a heal first..." just before any number of monsters sent me to the lifestone...I bet every melee has said this many times - Monte Cristo I was in the 30s, casting 5s. I ran a LONG distance to meet up with friends (I was late in fact, and they were waiting for me) in a desert town. Low an behold, near my lower level friends, a group of drudges stood, about 15 or so in all. I had just learned the new ring spells and I wondered how many drudges I could take down at once. Besides it would look SOO cool. (You see what is next.) I run up and drag all the drudges with me over to them and say "watch this". I did not notice that I ran out of mana from buffing, and my stamina got whipped out by 20 drudges swinging away on me, so instead of a nice fire ring killin em all, I died. They laughed at me for SOO long. Mow I can look back and laugh. I love this world that I have really never been in... - Tut "You only really need need bludge, slash, and acid banes here" Lightning coruscates over Dark Onslaughts mortal remains. Jakob kell tells you, " make sure ur baned .. " You tell Jakob kell, " I am don't worry .. " Soulo blasts your head for 149 lightning damage -- Aldreth Fist idioms Contrary to popular belief Yuma is not hell, however it is within walking distance. They say if you eat better you will live longer - I think it just seems longer. It is no use fighting the stupid in an intellectual battle. They don't know when you hit them and believe their empty swings are knockout blows. The best you can hope for it to please the crowd. Reaching the limit Well it finally happened, after 32 months of fun I have reached the vaulted level of 126. It would not have happened without the great people who have flocked to my flag. At this time there are 1350 members under me and each contributed to this goal. In the end a group of grand vassals fellowed in one of the prism while a direct vassal was hunting north ML to push me over the top. I am humbled by the great joy others took in the accomplishment. The next goal is to push Balash to 126. Most of the tree is under him and no one deserves it more. Thank you Fair Ellen Fair Ellen sent me a letter about a place to fight Obsidian Golems. It was even better that I could have possibility thought. It took part of a buff to get there. There are three sets of three, two singles and a set of three with a Diamond Golem and Dark Magis, all on a fast spawn. I had been there once before with Fist. It was a body recovery that turned into a recovery of my own. It was the one where I had to get everything to chase me so the other guy could loot my body. In the second buff I stopped to talk to an Archer that came by. We took down a Diamond Golem together and talked a bit. He is a fan of the column. Sadly I did not copy his name down. After finishing up the buff I had 24 hearts! With three keys per heart I'm fixed for a long while. It may not have been great xp but it will level my mule for a while. Thanks again Ellen. Life Bolts This is Arrnold Van continuing update on making a new non-War toon. Good information for those thinking of making an Og or other non-War template. Hi :*) This is an update on the new Life Bolts. Here follows a brief note on how the 20s levels are progressing. Please refer to the note at the bottom what spell abbreviations stand for. I started in the Hollow Lair near Lytelthorpe taking single Drudge Lurkers until Health, Stamina and Mana were upgraded to handle them in pairs. By about level 24 I could kill them fast enough to handle 4 (2 pairs) to keep up with the re-spawn. Unfortunately, a lag spike also gave me my first death at level 24. At level 25 I moved to the Singular Pyreal Repository and could immediately take on 2 Drudge Raveners at a time, even handle the early spawn of 4 Raveners as soon as they spawned. The tactics do change a little from Lurkers, but Raveners have a better tank of Health and Stamina to draw from as Draining is still a big part of Life Magic. This also brings out the versatility of Life Magic - do you go for the quick kill (MH MH S2H MH MH) and leave yourself low on Health and Mana or do you keep up your own tanks (MH DHP DHP DHP DS S2M DS DS S2M DHP DHP MH Harm). Despite this drawn out affair, I still havent died to Raveners yet and I can recover by lying at their feet when they run out of Mana themselves, my buffs & prots only being lvl 4 they still seem high enough to take minimal damage. Having been at the Raveners for only 2 levels (Im level 27 now), I have already found 3 SIKs, but no Rav Guts yet. Also plenty of Ruined Amulets, I guess Ill have to check the Gelidite Library to see if that quest still exist! As for the future, I see it as a bright one for the Life Bolts. Its easy to take out slow moving monsters from a distance. The Life Bolts reach as far as War spells do and the quick option is only 5 spells (6 with Magic Yield) and you can get them all fired off before the monster gets to you. Even with fast monsters youd get them down to half HP before they start to hammer on your own (hopefully buffed) garments. One must remember though that the tactics do become much more diverse than a BM-style or the old Drain-style of play, but once people get over that mindset, the new Life Bolts are actually a very fun weapon to use. Its all about sustaining yourself - keep all 3 of your tanks just high enough to stop you from dieing and you can conquer all before you. Yours, :*) Moriah. Spell Key:- DHP = Drain Health DM = Drain Mana DS = Drain Stamina MH = Martyrs Hecatomb S2H = Stamina to Health S2M = Stamina to Mana August 20, 2002 Do your hand shake? There is an extraordinary thing that can happen to a player. When this happenings you know you are hooked on AC. You might as well give up any other hobby. This event is your hands shaking after a fight. When I was a new player this happened all the time. I first saw it on someone else when Jeff was playing. We get so involved with playing that a battle can physically affect us. There are few things with that kind of power today. I was sure I would never see that happen to me again. I have been in battles with hordes of terrifying monsters and did not blink. I have seen entire parties wiped out with LP standing and me shoulder to shoulder with bodies all around us. It was our job to win the battle and recovery the bodies. I have been in deadly situations where I know I was going to die and it was only a matter of how fast. I have been in massive battles with and army of Elders taking on wave after wave of monsters. None of these had caused my hands to shake. So I felt my days of being physically affected were over. Not that I'm jaded or anything but more in control, or so I thought. We were on the Queen quest the other day. LA was getting the kill. He was rushing it because he is having a life style change and feels he might not be back to the game. We hope it is temporary but he wanted to kill the Queen before he lost his chance. He has a select group of Elders to back him up. Powerful mages such as Moby Dick and MS were at his side. I was able to get Bleu Sky included, as he had not done the quest yet. I was the group leader but with experienced players it was more a figurehead position. We were doing the one pass kill. I had not done this with a melee before but there was no reason it would not work well. We had one problem while running from the Dam to Mount E. LP lagged out and died. Then died again trying to push it. Then died twice more. We ended up having to go without him. The plateau is very nasty when the Queen quest is going. MS and I were one of the first to be sprayed. Both our buffs were getting short so I showed her the way out of the Dam. This saved us time and it's a cool passage to follow. We ran past the Bow guy who challenged me to a fight. Another day guy. Other than LP's problem we had nothing odd going on. I figured this had no chance of getting into the column. As we got ready to face the Queen I repeated over and over again for the melee's not to fight. When we have a mage kill the melee's can fight the guards as they will stay with us. When a melee is killing the Queen the guards will rush back and forth between the Queen battle and us. Any melee in battle when it heads back to the Queen will get dragged and bust the quest. I was sure this advice was not needed but I gave it anyway as the leader. If the Queen breaks and attacks us, portal out. Do not hesitate! The Queen is deadly and without a shield or 430+ melee defense you have a short lifespan when she attacks. I was worried about LA for this. He only has 388 melee defense. Against the Queen it is almost, not quite but almost no melee defense at all. The healers would be very busy and any lag would have him dead and us in a quandary. With luck it would freeze and let a mage kill her. As the battle started I noted something was not right. I could see the Queen on my radar. Somehow the battle had drifted our way. Still she was staying with LA. I'm sure LA was very discouraged at the start because it takes me a bit to get the de-buffs on. He quickly shouted with joy as my spells took effect and his damage picked up. I also de-buff her melee defense, something many mages neglect. She was at around 60% when disaster struck. One of our melee had got carried away and attacked something. He was dragged toward the Queen and she broke from LA and attacked us. LA said his heart sank when it happened. His one chance to get the kill was gone. With the lag problem and his skills we could not get him the kill using a two pass. Then a few things happened in the heat of battle to save him. The first thing that happened was a fortuitous mistake on my part. When de-buffing the Queen I have to switch bars for life de-buffs. Moby Dick did the Life de-buffs in the first set but was healing during the second set. I, out of habit, hit bludgeoning vuln. This spell was not needed and a waste of mana. I quickly did piercing and switched back to my other bar. When the Queen attacked it was fast. One second she was well away the next she was so close all I could see were the two red hairy legs reaching to the sky. People were screaming from hits and I was sure we would have deaths before we could portal out. I was not being hit so I decided to take a chance. She was very close to 50% so I quickly switch to my War bar and started blasting with Shockwave. LA had kept swinging and we lucked out. The Queen turned on LA. MS was on the verge of porting out when she saw me start blasting. She joined in. The healers has somehow survived and kept feeding LA heals. Without that he would have died for sure. Most heals hit him for 70+ points and there where three or four people healing him as fast as they could. Bleu Sky joined into the attack. Others might have attacked but that was all I saw. Even with me hitting for 150 to 300 it seemed to take forever to take her down. I guess the knowledge that she could turn on me in a second seemed to drag it out. At last she fell and LA got the kill. This was when I noted my shaking hands. LOL been a while since that happened. I was in such a shock that I forget to loot. We were able to pick up LP before turning in the head so his vit was clear. I wanted to go help him recover but Rosa was standing at my door with her foot tapping. This was successful because of the experiences players. They know that porting out was the safe, smart thing to do. Inexperienced players either would not port out or port out to soon. Ours knew how long they could wait and reacted to the changing environment. This is something money cannot buy. Ok, I'll admit it, we were also darn lucky. Beta Testers Almost everyone can get into beta now. For the most part this is ok but people need to understand what a beta tester is. This is not a game to go play. You are testing the system, looking for bugs and seeing if the system works as implemented. I see a whole lot of people who think this is a game. They act like the beta should be totally fixed and ready for them to be Gods. They have no interest in helping the developers at all. Their main goal for some seems to be getting enough information to have a leg up on other players when the game goes retail. I can understand that thought. Many of the AC1 monarchs of today were in beta. They were able to start an alliance and knew how to level. For their work they were rewarded early with vassal xp and some are very high levels. What many today don't understand is they did not do it because they had some magic information no one else had. They did it with hard work and leadership and yes, a head start in time. Nothing was given to them, they earned it. For every 100 monarch back then maybe one succeeded. The beta testers of today will have a short-term advantage when the game starts but not overwhelming. The second problem with the beta test is the name, AC2. While the land is the same and the monsters are named similar that is about it. This is a totally different game. It is one that may not suit many of the AC players. I know several great players who will hate it. They have a style that will never fit there. The best beta testers might be people who have never played an online adventure game before. Many of the current testers are having problems getting around pre-conceived ideas. Go into AC2 beta with two things in mind; This is a totally different game than AC1. You are there to TEST the game, not play it. Many of us have the messages sent to our e-mail. Getting information on the game's problems is great. Getting 150 messages of kids flaming each other is not. Getting messages such as "Solo play is returning one tenth the xp of team play" is useful information. "You suck", "No you suck" is a lot of noise. Lastly this is an observation from the message traffic. I have not downloaded the beta files yet. With dialup speeds 450 to 600 meg is a bit much. I'm watching the messages to learn what is going on and waiting for a free CD that is rumored to be out soon. Dark Rain Hunting plains is fun but takes a lot of power and quick feet. There are times when overwhelming numbers will be headed your way. You have to realize when it is better to take off when to take a stand. Running is also a good way to string out a few monsters. The faster ones you can kill as the others catch up. A few runs like that and the numbers fall to a point you can battle. Many monsters have a short attention span. If you run a little bit only the one you are damaging will stay and fight. I was in a center valley clearing out around an Inquisitor. They are nasty buggers when combined with other stuff. You will generally get two to four Exec charging with it. I find it best to clear around it before taking it on. There is one problem with running. The spot you had planned to run might have a sudden spawn. This means you start running and have to keep going. I have had times where I ended up running forever before I found a safe place. Meanwhile you eat every de-buff in the book. After vuln and blasting one Exec three charged along with the Inquisitor. This is a sure run situation. As I started to run there was a spawn of Shadows right in the path I was headed. There was a Umbris and a Shadow. I kept going until I was sure the Virindi had stopped chasing and turned on the Shadows. The Umbris died quick and I turned on the Shadow. Normally I only need one fireball to take a Shadow down, sometimes two. Humm this is the strangest looking Shadow I have ever seen. Had a name of Dark Rain. Of course it did not fall with a single fireball but did die to the Vuln and blast that followed. On the body was the scroll of Dark Rain. I can use this to add three points to my magic defense. I said last week that I was dedicating the entire xp from 14 to 15 to magic defense. With this scroll I'll now add the xp from 15 to 16 as well. By the time I'm done I'll be very strong against magic users. Of course the heavy hitters are doing a job on me in melee mode now. With the lowering of bane effectiveness I have to watch the melee battles a lot more. Slowly I'm getting so the War's are not hitting as much. When I can get so the de-buffs stop from landing I'll be very happy. WE Players I decided to try and find a better spot to hunt with my BM than north of Arwic. It was ok but I felt I could do better. I moved to Bandit castle but that was not panning out as well as I thought it would. I was going to finish up that buff and then try a place near Qbar. I found a group of Drudges and was blasting them. LOL North Black Claw Raider! Portal opened and I was in. I know you cannot tie to this but as long as I don't go into a portal I can use portal recall to go back. I hunted there for a few hours and got to 32lv. Later that night I grabbed Sword of Fist and headed to the Citadel. At 19lv it is great. I cannot kill as fast as the BM but with good melee defense they don't hit me much. With a well buffed shield they don't hurt much when they do hit. I teamed up with a few people and had a good time. Our xp was far less than what it should have been. Seem the Lin Crit is filled with greedy lame inconsiderate macros. I first felt something was wrong when we hit the small jump room. There was nothing there and no trash to show someone had cleared it. I move to a lesser spot thinking the spawn was broken. Later we passed though and found a 36lv dagger macro in the far corner killing everything in the room. Down the hall were two more macros killing it all there. If this does not stop the real players will only have the scraps left by the computer players. Vassals frustration LP was searching the Plateau for Ralirea. He is over 70 and still does not have the credit quest done. After hours of searching he finds him. The battle starts with him hitting Ralirea for fire Vuln with the intent of killing him with the next spell. His first spell misses and he fired again. Before the second spell hit Ralirea drops. An Archer had come over the hill and killed it. With LP's vuln he only needed one arrow. The Archer was over 70lv. LP was burning over this but it gets worse. The guy offered LP the Clay Figurine saying he had done the quest and did not need it. (Why kill him if you don't need it? Answer in next question.) LP said he had to have the kill to use the Figurine. Next question is, "What do these go for in the Subway?" Here was an over 70 player that could not understand you had to personally kill Ralirea to use the Figurine. He was also greedy enough to think he could steal the kills from others to enrich himself. When I posted this on the Elder board one player had a response. He said the loot on Ralirea made him worth hunting. I explained to him that this may be true but it is also hurting up and coming players. They need the quest, we don't. Don't be greedy, be helpful. Oops I had been having no trouble getting my mule to the gambling spot. I had another 800k in cash so I had Jr buff the mule with protects. As there had been nothing nasty at all around there I only buffed for Bludgeoning, Piercing and Slashing. I also only have level III other protects spells. I need to go buy some scrolls. It is a simple trip from the LS to the gambling site. At worst there was a few White Matties and some Bandies. Nothing I could not have him outrun with little trouble. CCC did his /lifestone and landed into a mess. Fire, Cold, Lighting and Acid Elementals charged him. Without even the level III protects it was over in a hurry. Of course when I died I went right back to the same LS. I was in a bit of a panic. I had never died into a hot LZ before so I forget that you have a short time of protection. I was running and did get a little ways before I realized they could not hit me. I should have done mansion recall but logged off instead. No biggy. I headed Mage over to clear it. I figured I would kill three or four spawns and I could log the mule, recover the cash and move to go gamble. After 30 minutes of killing I was not making any headway. They are darn hard for a mage to kill, little damage even when you pick the right spell. The problem was they spawn far to fast to clear. I noted some crystals around the LS that they were spawning from. I knew a loser when I saw one. I was thinking I might have to log Jr on the other computer and let him recover the body. CCC and Mage are on the same account so I could not even get permission to loot the body. The hard part would be logging CCC back without him dieing again. Wuyung gave me a tell. Aaaa just what I need, a powerful swordsman to help me out. I gave him the coodi of the LS and saw what I could do about clearing the spot where CCC logged at. I knew it was going to be tight. I cleared it and logged CCC. He lucked out and nothing re-spawned before he could do mansion recall. A few spells headed his way but he was able to side step them. I gave Wuyung permission to loot the body and logged Mage back in. Even with Wu and me killing we could not keep it clear. In the end we got the ones close to the body clear enough for Wu to loot. There was so much cash that I had to loot part of it. We recalled to the mansion and got the cash collected. I guess I'll have to put off leveling the mule until this mess is cleared up. The word I'm getting is the entire east is covered this these things. The low levels cannot hunt without getting killed by them. It might be different if they were worth killing but they are not. I like what one person said; "I challenge turbine to actually play their patches... what a novel idea huh? In all reality I think they meant for us to feel overwhelmed but I think once again they overdid it. This is ridiculous for any low level to get anywhere." This is not a fun quest for me. The monsters are lame. They are harder to take down than a high level monster. They return xp of a low level monster. The loot is not worth it. Just want the point of this quest is I don't know. Story is great but the quests are lame. Right now I just wish it would all go away. When the majority of your player base is looking forward to the next patch, not for new stuff but to get rid of this months event, you messed up. Us vs. Them? I'm getting a feeling that a few at Turbine are trying to win the game again. Some of the stuff they are doing seems rather strange. Surely it is not fun for the players. Is getting the game fun for the developers the idea now? Flooding the land with low xp hard to kill monsters is just one example. Other than slowing down the leveling of my mule (A leveling that Turbines policies are forcing.) it does not affect me much. Who it affects are those of lower to mid-levels who would rather explore the land than crawl a dungeon. The monsters in the new Atlan quest are another example. It could be they are trying to force people to fellow but when you give the monsters an overly high magic defense the mages are just there for the ride. Mages are useless parasites to the melees that have to do the fighting. Far to many mages these days don't even know how to support a melee on a quest but that is another story. The new Tinkering skill having a one in three maximum chance, far lower with a lesser skill, is another example. This is also showing a schizophrenic side of Turbine. On one hand they say they don't want to give chains an advantage with tinkering. On the other hand they give us armor that is ideal for a chain member. Even a chain member will be hard press to make the 375 mana conversion needed for Atlan wands. Fist is an old time player with a lot of vassals. I have xp to pore into missile defense and have it to 255. That cost over 100 million points. To use a BP I found I would need another 750 million points! What is Turbine thinking? Who in their right mind would have a base missile to 281? Especially when the only use would be the armor. If the armor was buffable I might think about it. As it the BP is vender trash. I'm hoping that the Tinkering will be fixed. They need to make it need a very high skill but dump the one in three bit. Lower the missile requirements 40 points so a normal player has a shot at it. Never again flood the lower level places so they are forced to complete with macros and tweekers. Decanter Quest, the melee option Well it was time to try and get the oil in a different way. I still want to fight my way to the end. I transferred weapons and armor from Jr to Fist and was ready to go. Well best laid plans and all that. First someone needed Alchemy done. Then we had a problem child who was killing and looting other Elders. I found they guy only came into Elder to cause trouble. We have to wait for Elder to get on to boot him. Then a few tinker jobs were needed. Lot of tells to answer. Lastly was a member with five bodies to recover. Jester got the bodies so I did not have to do that one. As you can see I can have a very busy day without any planned adventure at all. Direct vassals of Elder have a lot of responsibilities that can take up time. At last everything was done and I was ready to start the quest. The run to Xabar had a lot of Elementals on the way. It will be nice to have the weapons set on my players so I can do more than ten damage a hit. From there I ran to Eastham. I did a second tie at a dungeon close to Eastham so I can get back. I might keep that tie as I find players going to Eastham a lot. So I still needed to run to Xabar a lot but the trips to Eastham were fast. I had no trouble finding Fathomless this time. I was worried as the lag was very bad. I entered and started a long buff cycle. Having to buff all my weapons is a pain. My Item is not bad but has fizzles. When having to toss a lot of spells it is a takes forever and the fizzle count is high. There was a guy there but he said he was hunting with friends. As I got in I started to battle the same things that defeated Mage. I was hitting but the damage was like 7 to 9. That was when I found the right weapon. The wrong ones did 0 damage. It was a good thing I buffed all my weapons as each monster seemed to need a different one. A short time later a swordsman showed up. We teamed up and headed down. Other than taking the surface portal when I thought we were at a dead end we did ok. When we got to the end there was a horde of players attacking the Elementals. It seemed this was an alliance event where they took care of the trash while their members got the decanter filled. What a great idea. This was the Og II alliance. Og II is a great player and it is showing throughout his alliance. This was a total help event, little reward for those who did it. At first I thought there was a problem with a plug in but I realized that I was getting zero xp for the monsters. LOL that is one way to keep the macros out. I tried to attack the golem but no weapon I had did more than one damage. I hear it has been defeated. My slashing, Piercing and Bludgeoning were not buffed but even so I should have done more than 0 and 1 damage. If one of them had hit for 5 or 6 I would have buffed and had at it. I talked to my partner for a while and found he was an old timer like me. He had been playing since retail. Try as I might I cannot find his name in my notes. He was in the Og II alliance. Now I need to find a good Alchemist to do the work. The mule I have is only up to 340, good but not good enough. I have seven powders and six bars. With luck I'll get four of them to be perfect. I really only need two so I can use the stone I found at Martine's. I want one for Fist for sure but having it for Jr would be nice. Mage might luck out but the ridicules requirement of 370+ mana conversion makes it unlikely. I hear there is someone with the Alchemy skill I need but he is greedy. He demands a sing for doing the work. I guess when I finish leveling my mule he'll be out of business. Decanter Quest, The Conclusion While at the mansion I heard that Jim-Bob had a mule that was around 40 point better than mine. He said he had been successful doing the oil. I quickly logged Fist and gave him the decanters and seven diamond powders I had acquired. After hitting him with brilliance he got five thick and two thins. I gave him the six Ingots I had and got four perfect Ingots, a superb and a good. As my total goal was all four elements and the Prismatic, I was close. I got a ride to the subway and went to Mayoi. Then I took a house complex portal that got me close to crater. A little running later I got to the tower. I decided to take a chance and see if one of the two bad ingots would give me something useful. If not I could always vender it. Starting with the good I was shocked to see a Perfect show up. With 427 UA skill I was able to upgrade. I had the same results with the superb. So I not only had the five weapons I need I have a spare Ingot. After going back to the mansion I give it to Jr. I'll have to do a lot of Diamond golem hunting, and for that matter golems in general, before I'll have a set for Jr. By that time I might have my mule leveled enough to make the Ingots. I figure I'll use Fist for all events involving Elementals. If that does not work I still have one Ingot and a Prismatic stone on Jr. I'm still not happy with this quest but with good organization it can be done. The skills required are still to high but they have lowered them enough to be attainable. Now I'll see how effective I'll be when we go into the big battle. When and where I have no idea but I'll do my best to be there. One thing I'm very happy about with these weapons is the lack of buffing. Fist de Yuma Fist is very strong. Jr is stronger for many things but for pure defense and survivability Fist is unsurpassed. The only real drawback to Fist is lack of drawing power and attack power in general. Slowly but surely Turbine is fixing the attack problem. I broke down and took Magic Item Tinkering with Fist. I may break a lot of weapons but when I have a full set of good ones my attack power problem will be lessened. That only leaves two worries. Both can be fixed with the right items. My setup is now all elements at level VI protection. This leaves me without the Armor Spell and Reju. As I'm not hit much the lack of Armor VI is not a big problem but when I am hit, I get hit hard, especially if I have imperil on. Humm, have I ever been in a battle with magic tosses where I did not have imperil on? Getting a duel level VI item somewhere will fix that. With a buffed 288 lore and 2mil cost I can use one if I ever find it. Reju can be acquired with a good shield. I saw a nice one on a Elder today so I know they are out there. Both items I'll find, the only question is how long it will take. Without Life getting mana back with Fist is rather painful. I have a lot more hit points than most (buffed 293) so it is not as bad as some. Still with a lot of spells health2mana/heal is slow. When going into an unknown place getting all the weapons buffed with four spells each was more than painful. That is why I'm glad the new weapons are self-buffing. They may not be the best damage range by today's standards but they are a lot better than what I have used for years. Turbine has done a lot to help us old gimps. I hope they keep it up.