Quiddity adventure, greedy and stupid people.
Got a tell from my vassal Turtle. Him and another vassal of mine's archer (IM) wanted to go on the Quiddity quest. Turtle had both coordinates and knew they way though the dudgeons.
Deadeye Fist had stopped leveling for a bit while Mage and Fist do their thing. This meant he was still low enough to do this quest.
I met them in Qbar and we headed out. Deadeye had some problems getting all his equipment on. His bow skill and lore is too low to use the composite bow without buffs. A lore hat took care of the lore but I need both a coodi and bow buff to make 240-bow skill. I have bow mastery V gloves and Coodi V gants. With my bow V gloves I was 9 points short.
Turtle let me use his coodi III item which got the bow going. I just had to be sure not to remove the bow. Second problem was lack of mana stones. I had not had to worry about any of this stuff when Mage was buffing him and now I was caught short.
First section was quick with Turtle's axeman leading and our bows providing support. Drudges fall fast when you're hitting for 40+ and you have two archers.
We got to the room with the southern half dropped. There was a crowd there and we got on the list to get the orb half.
Ever so often someone would log in and jump the line. Seems there is an hour wait before you can pick it up again. I read that this is a bug and it was to be a week or more. These campers would log in every hour and ether get the kill and loot or steal between transfers.
IM was getting the kill each time and would give the orb half over to the person in next in line. Most of the line jumpers got the half by stealing it between transfers. We lost about half an hour due to the thieves. I hope they find zero people willing to buy their ill-gotten loot.
IM made the error of picking up one orb to give to the person next in line. This created a problem until the people there let someone loot one and to give it to IM.
After getting our half we ported out. I ran to Lin to find a coodi IV item and get arrows. I also grabbed a few mana stones. I did not have time to get any money so I was hoping the few I had would do.
Turtle logged a ppl and made a portal to the far North. A long run from there got us to where the Drudge spawned to make the portal.
As we got in we saw a group coming in behind us. Knowing we needed to get there first we bypassed a few spawns. If we fought them I'm sure the other group would have run by us.
Finally getting to the main room we found even more people than in the south half. We got on the list. I saw it was going to be close on my mana stones and arrows. Turtle and IM saw it was going to be too long and logged. They are both in Europe and it was very late there.
I found that I could get the kill on the Drudge about any time I needed to. The only time I had a problem was when a camper logged on top of a hall cover where the Drudge spawned. If it did not jump down the camper would wait out the timer, loot and log for his hour wait.
Already on a time limit do to stones running out I was getting very pissed at the line jumping campers. I had five kills and had given each to the person next in line. The slime ball greedy immature thieves were getting several orbs while I waited for one.
One person I saw there was a line jumper from the South. He arrived about half an hour after I did. As I was getting the kills and making sure the right person got the loot the line jumpers were not doing that well.
The southern line jumper kept trying to steal the orb between transfers. Every time I released it, the second I did, his player would start rushing forward. The only way this would happen is if he was clicking on the body. He did not succeed as I would ask everyone to move well back before I released.
One archer got the kill and jumped the line while I was killing something else. He said he got the kill so it was his right to loot it. Pointing out the five kills I had given it up to the proper person did not move him. He did give me a mana stone when I pointed out how low on them I was.
I asked to see the list so I knew long I had to go. To my surprise I was much further down that I should have been. Even the looter from the South was ahead of me. I asked for the list to be fixed and was told to shut up, it was their list.
Now if your going to screw over someone it is best to make sure it is not someone who can do something about it. How stupid. I was getting the kills. Did they think I would shrug and let them cheat me?
My response was, "We have a new list. It is Deadeye Fist and then everyone else." I got the next kill, looted and left. I figure their stupidly gained me Fifteen minutes.
Greed kills
I'm hunting on the island and after a while lot of loot was on the ground. I had been killing Bandies, Shreths and Drudges on that spot the entire buffing cycle. It was never ending so I did not have time to pick anything up.
Finally it cleared. My timer goes off. I start looting it all. I see my buffs dropping but have hopes that nothing comes until I have looted. Four Shreths spawn right next to me. I take off as soon as I heard the sound. I did not even know it was Shreths until they were surrounding me.
Several times I had to change direction as one would run in front of me and stop. At last all but one ran back to the spawn site. That one kept at it. With all the loot I was at a slow crawl and not getting away. Guess it got a big hit in as I was sent to the LS in a hurry.
Note to self. Lot of de-buffs plus no buffs means you can be killed by the lowest thing on the island.
Good thing was most of what I dropped was loot. Of course Mage does not have that much to drop. I drop my boots if I drop anything important. I just get a cheap pair in Bashi when they drop.
Even with the loot dropping and the poor buy rates I have enough got get an M-note and a D-note.
I made a quick buff for Tuskers and ported to BSD. I use it to work off vit now. Place was packed with hunters. I met a nice guy on the left side. We shared two Tuskers. He must have a bandit fire weapon as he was killing Tuskers in two blows. I told him how I was there to clear vit.
I ran around looking for more Tuskers and found three. It only takes one Tusker to clear a point of vit and I had three points left. I killed two and that same fighter ran up. The last Tusker attacked him but he did not swing. He told me to take it, which I did. That cleared my vit. Three more Tuskers spawn. I thanked him for the help and ported out, leaving the Tuskers to him.
Quick battle to the C-note, quick battle to body, recover.
Old friend comes out of retirement
Lock Vaughcameron is a friend from way back. If you're a long time reader you will remember him. He created a new player named Cameronlock and worked him up to 80. Lock Vaughcameron has been in retirement.
I was in Balshi to make a trade for some scrolls when I saw him. I'm not sure if this was a snap decision or not but he is making him active again. He wanted to go adventuring with me.
I figured logging Mage for a trip to the island was a good way to go. Melee and Mage combo is very strong, as I have said many times. I logged Mage who was next to the drunk. I sent Lock Vaughcameron to coodi and me met me there.
As he had a bit of vit we hunted on the way to the fortress. Some Bandies and a few Umbers got some of the vit. I killed the two Diamond Golems at the gate and Lock got the one on the wall. Some other players ran up and we jumped into the Fortress.
One of the great things about the level VII spells is I can dispel my level VI de-buffs. I always had to wait for my weakness VI to ware off before jumping into the Fortress. Now I do a dispel, recover mana and I'm good to go. Only bad thing is the massive amount of mana dispel takes. If mana conversion does not kick in it can eat it all.
Once inside it was easy. The other guys were fighting the Diamond so I give the undead a C-note and it made the portal.
We ran over to my hunting spot and I rebuffed. Now I should get a little longer fighting time now as I can do all my creature spells before doing my Item and Life. I don't start the timer until I start on the level VI spells. The problem is Life spells are not lasting very long after the last patch. I used to get almost 18-19 minutes, now I get just over 17. Before when my timer went off I knew I had a minute or two to get clear. Now I have at most 15 seconds. I really hope the life VII are in the next patch. Of course I don't have the scrolls yet, I'll have to work on that.
We did well, taking on large packs of monsters that neither of us could have handled alone. Even splitting the xp I made 200k in that 13-minute hunt. I told Lock I needed to split some peas and rebuff.
One of the hardest things for a melee to learn when fighting with a mage is to wait while they buffs. Most of the melee deaths happen when they go hunt without the mage. This was no exception.
I was about half way through my buffing when I saw him run at a spot with a lot of Drudges and Sheths. He ran a little bit away from the spawn and stopped. Later I found it was to heal. A Drudge hit him for 126 points.
When I saw him stop I quickly switched to my support bar to toss him a heal. To late, "Your fellow Lock Vaughcameron died."
Now Lock was not really setup for battle, being a spontaneous thing and all. One of the first things we had to do was find him a pair of gants. A Diamond golem was nice enough to donate a pair. What this meant was he had no death items. Lock showed up at the LS naked.
I finished buffing and headed over to get his stuff. I picked off the Shreths one at a time and was ready for the Drudges. Fire Vuln on one got back Life inept V, War inept V, Weakness V, Imperil V and lighting Vuln V. I was lit up like a Christmas tree. Then four of the five charged.
I had to quickly switch to my de-buffed war bar. I have two setup up now. One is all my level VII war spells and the other is the same setup with level VI spells. This means I can use VII war and switch to my other bar when the de-buffs hit.
As the four got to me I was hit with a self and focus de-buff. Now I was getting into fizzle range on my VI's. Several fizzles and resists later I was down to 20 hit points and none of the Drudges were dead. I took off running.
I was lucky that only one was up for the long chase. I hit my heal button several times. The Drudge was hitting me with his sword but that was ok, spells are worse. Landed a fire Vuln on it and after one resist got a fireball to land. One dead Drudge.
I dispelled the de-buffs and ran back. I tried to see if I could get to Locks without attracting any attention. No luck. Two Drudges and a Bandy charged down the hill. I killed the Bandy and one Drudge while the other one ran back.
Try this again. Fire Vuln got me into a war spell contest with them. Drudges would make very poor PKs as their sliding skill sucks. My Fireballs were killing them in one shot after a de-buff, two without. I was sliding away from their Lighting bolts with little trouble.
After looting Locks body I grabbed everything off the Drudges without looking. I was getting close on buffs and had died once that day by letting buffs drop. Greed kills.
After porting out I started selling off the junk and seeing what I could keep. Had a necklace of bludgeoning Protection VI diff 255. Now Fist had been using a V for a long time. For a short hunt the loot was very good.
I met up with Lock and got him his armor back.
What makes a good patron?
The answer to this is, depends. By most standards Elder is not a good patron to me. I almost never get anything from him. We seldom hunt together. By my standard he is a great patron, the best I could possibility have.
The reason for this is I'm a loner when hunting. I have been finding or trading for my own stuff for over a year. Items from Elder are not needed. When I do need something, if he has it, it is mine. To make the trade for my Pre-GSA Elder provided two hard to get items. Any scrolls he has extra I get.
So why is Elder so good a patron to me. Anyone could ignore me or provide hard to get item ever so often. This is because Elder is a leader. He had provided me with a home of honor. Many of my vassals have come to me because I was an Elder.
The second is advice and support. Elder has taken the time to work up a support mules with high abilities. This means if I need an item dyed or some special ability it is there.
Family support has been outstanding. Elder has attracted many good people. If I have a need, they will get it for me. Many of my protection items were given to me by a family member. A lot of my scrolls were provided my family. After using my keys up trying to get scrolls many family members are giving me theirs. This is the home that Elder has provided me.
Elder is a great patron for me because he lets me be me. He provides the support I need to hunt, help or just hang. Without this support the game would not be as much fun.
The reason this has come to mind is I have observed several new patrons who try to hard. My brother Jeff is one. He just picked up his first vassal, a 5lv archer.
When Jeff started he was on a different server using my account. I set him up and turned him loose. I would help him out of binds by taking over from time to time. He got a great patron who helped him some nice items and let him go hunt. Jeff worked his way to 28lv.
When Jeff got his own computer we set him up on MT. I powered him to 28lv and got him a caring patron. I expected him to be like me, which was a mistake. Jeff is young and wants stuff a little faster then I did. This is mostly because he sees me play and wants to get there as fast as possible.
This made him a little more demanding than his patron wanted. There both still good friends but I ended up having to move Jeff under me and moved Deadeye under Jeff's former patron.
So Jeff gets a new vassal and has totally forgot what we had done on the other server. That was where he learned the ropes. Instead he remembers me power leveling him on this server. He expected he would do the same for his new vassal.
Without a powerful mage to do this it did not work out well. He tried to do too much too fast. After it failed he thought he was a bad patron. This was when I stepped into remind him why he was power leveled. Told him to let his vassal hunt the beaches. Killing Tuskers in the Direlands may be exciting but he was not going to learn how to be an archer that way.
Jeff was killing little stuff on the beach for a long time. He needed to let his new vassal do the same. Provide body recovery and the items he needs for his level. Anything more will just cheat him of the learning process.
He also needs to use his patron, now me but also his past patron, for support. We both have archers and fletching. Until his vassal gets where he can do it himself we will have to lend him a hand.
When he needs to make his composite bow a lot of help will come his way. The family gets a lot of the parts for a bow in the normal day-to-day hunting. Someone tied to AB can get the horns carved. People hunting undead will have guts. Elder will oil the guts and make the string and cook the sinews. A family mage will buff his stats so he can string it. And lastly the handle will be found and carved.
Jeff did this because he did not know better. He knows now and will not repeat his mistake. Others have a different agenda. They only want XP from a vassal. Waiting for him to learn the game and slowly level does not fit in.
A new player may think his patron is wonderful for powerleveling him to 40 in a few weeks but he is wrong. He was cheated of the joy a new player gets. The new player does not understand that his patron is using him, not helping him.
Good and bad people
It is so easy to tell the good and bad people apart. I'm guessing the bad ones don't even know how much they hurt the game and themselves. I had two examples today.
First I was helping Jeff try to level his vassal. I knew better but I have a hard time saying no. I was drawing a few Drudges over so Jeff's vassal could shoot at them. A newbe mage would run up and start shooting fireballs at it.
After several times asking him not to do this I got mad. The next time he did I logged. When I got back he was gone. No body so I'm guessing he just ran off.
Later after Jeff's vassal died and I was getting ready to port out. The people on the wall asked me to kill an Umbris that was close by. I grabbed my fire Atlan and headed over there. Oops not one Umbris but two, a Pan, Lt and Shadow.
I ran one off a bit but as I engaged they all came at me. This is where the good players come in. Rather than try and grab some quick xp off my battle they were tossing heals at me. It still was not working well as a Atlan does not have the buffs I needed to defeat this many.
I ran around the fort and grabbed my good fire weapon. After a lot of fizzles I had it buffed with BD, HS VII. I reengaged and had a hard battle. One Umbris was taken out by a mage draining from behind he wall. This was cool as he never started draining the one I was fighting. Instead he too started tossing me heals.
When the battle was over I grabbed all the loot. I'm sure they expected me to run off after that. I surprised them. I'm one of the few people who can jump back into that place. I jumped to the top of the wall and handed the guy who killed the Umbris his loot. Then turned to the low level mage who had sent me heals and give him the loot from the other one.
The bad player got ran off. The good players were rewarded.
Balance
I get a lot of letters. They are always welcome and help me with ideas for the column or set me straight when wrong. They also provide me with encouragement to keep writing. The below letter stands out as a good response to my Darktide section last week. It helps set right a few possible misconceptions I might have about Darktide.
It was so nice to get a letter from DT that did not start out; "U R Suck. DT better than Carebear. We fight smart AI, no tuskers. BTW you not spell right. Go yourself." I get a lot of those.
One thing this letter brought to mind is equipment. When I ran an AD&D group a long while back, good equipment was not easy to find. I ran a tight world where every item was treasured.
When this group visited a different world they were well trained in going without. They walked over the DM's in those worlds because they could do the adventures without great items. With items it was too easy for them.
The same might be true for DT people. The good players there are use to what we could call total crap. With good no drop armor they will be far better.
The problem is without a server where the Optional PK and Mandatory PK can meet this all conjecture. I have a good feeling that if the best of MT and the best of DT were to be put on a server, it would be a draw.
Dear Fist
Hello Fist I have been a fairly regular reader of your stories for quite some time now and must say that at times you have restored my interest in the game from some of your stories. I have been an Asherons call player for about a year and a half now, the first 6 months were on a normal server and then I moved to darktide for a change.
I enjoy darktide a lot and will stay there to the end of Asherons call, I was just writing to say that you should never really form a opinion of another server until you actually go on there and meet the players and play on there for a few months to really find out what it is about.
When I first went on there I used to get real angry at being killed and losing my items but after a while you begin to accept it and learn to overcome defeats, I have learnt never to become to attached to any item because you can lose it any time. But saying that I can cover most of my nice items and in all my time the best item I have lost was only a pair of al 100 studded leather leggings, I mean you guys on the normal servers might laugh at that but on darktide they used to be quite valuable because of the all around elemental protections.
On darktide I have played as an anti-pk, which might sound strange because it is a pk server, but on darktide there is a continuous struggle between the antis and rpks all the time, which makes for exciting battles to gain towns and leveling areas.
I belong to a close knit anti guild called the soldiers of light, you join as a actoyle and have a 2 month period to see if are up to standard, after that period you need three votes from the veteran players so that you can then become a full soldier. We are based in stonehold with about 6 other anti guild, our town is under constant raids from the evil guilds and we have to group together to fight them off.
You say there are a lot of kids on darktide, yes there are some but I would say there are just as many on other servers. I know a lot of players who are mature and play the game very well. As for darktiders being poor p v pers well I dont agree with that at all, I've seen a single mage fight up to 10 players at a time and still come out on top, there are some awesome p v per players on darktide which could easily match anyone on a normal server.
You have got to remember that you have the best conditions for leveling and reaching as high a goal as you want on a normal server, a lot of our time is spent fighting off our enemy and trying to find safe areas to level. I think in a way you are interested in maybe trying a pk player because you have started to mention pks a lot in your posts etc, if you are worried about losing items, just play a three school then you won't have to worry about losing anything. Anyway keep up the good stories.
yours
sincerely
Imperial Archer (Sol)
No comments:
Post a Comment