Fist de Yuma - December 20, 2004

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 bye-bye 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.