Fist de Yuma - June 29, 2004

This and That Just when I think I'm drying up, as far as the column goes, I end up with another 6k column. In the four and a half years of doing this column, I have not missed a week. In fact, there is a two-column week in there somewhere. The smallest column was a little over 2k and some have exceeded 10k. I also had a few vault columns in there. Not only do I still have stories to tell, but I'm having a blast writing them. Another thing I thought was in the past was stressful play. There was a time when my hands would shake, after an especially stressful battle. I thought I was just weird (Ok, I know I'm weird.) until I saw Jeff do it one day. It has been so long since I had such an event, so I felt I would never be affected like that again. The main story in this column did not have my hand shaking, but I was physically ill during much of it. I stomach was literally cramping over the stress. Asheron's Call is an amazing game. Turbine is doing an outstanding job with keeping it fresh. Now that they are out from under Microsoft's thumb, the game is even better. There is only one thing Turbine needs to do. That is to market Asheron's Call. Whereas I would like them to succeed with that, I understand their success will create problems. I like working with people, but not too many people. A big influx of people will create overcrowding and some stress. There will also be a lot of advantages to having lots of new people. An aggressive, active, allegiance, like CDY, will get many of these new players. It will be a lot more work for me, but that is why I wanted to be a monarch. Helping others is at least 50% of the joy in this game. As the song I am hearing on my Internet radio says; our futures so bright, we have to wear shades. What were they thinking The bane of on line games is, "long and boring" quests. There are things that must be done, for one reason or another, that take a long time, and are not fun at all. Good developers will try and eliminate as many of these as possible. I can think of several things that Turbine as done to eliminate, "long and boring." Adding many item drops to boss monsters, so people don't have to stand in line for an item, was a big help. There was a time when elemental stones were on a 20-minute spawn. Parties would spend all day trying to get a group one. Others quests are only for the pure power players and may well rate their rarity. The Magic defense scroll and the drunks scroll come to mind. Whereas both are nice to have, neither is necessary to the development of your player. So as more and more "long and boring" quests are eliminated, you have to wonder when they make a, "long and boring" quest even longer. The skill credit quest is one that most players will have to do in their lifetime. It use to be just a pain. Most players could find the proper spawn in a few hours. While a pain, and one people dreaded doing, it was not as bad as it seemed at times. For some reason Turbine decided to make the spawn very rare. There is neither rhyme nor reason for this that I can see. ML is no longer a major hunting spot. Most don't go there except to get pincers or do the Queen quest. Even Broods are not hunted very much. So why make a "long and boring" quest into "very, very long and boring?" The quest was about right as it was. I have read where people have not found him after 12+ hours of hunting. Today, it is a quest that most will say the hell with. Those that do it will feel less about the game in general, and the developers in particular. Special Thanks A special thanks to Zennon of Leafcull for helping out my nephew this Friday. Alex lost two bodies, just as Rosa kicked him off the computer. I got one (it was at the LS) and Zennon got the other. It had to be boring as hell for a 126 to be searching the 40+ matron for a body. It had much of Alex Bowman's armor and his Bludgeoning bow on it. Zennon had no idea that Alex is my nephew. They are not in the same allegiance. He helped because help was needed. This is a player I would grab in a second, if he ever feels like moving to MT. Adventures in baby-sitting This amusing bit hit the boards the other day. It started with a PK on VT making a pile of portals in the Marketplace. This is a well-known lag causer and against the CoC. A +envoy showed up to try and get things fixed. While there are different stories and views, this is what I was able to piece together. First the +envoy put the griefing player in freeze. That was mistake. (I would have just banned him on the spot myself.) A PK immediately took advantage of this and attacked the frozen griefer. This forced the +envoy to freeze the attacker. Another PK ported in and attacks the second PK, killing him before the +envoy could react. Now the +envoy had a body on his hands, and it was his fault. The second PK was asked to walk away from his kill, as the +envoy unfroze the players. The griefer PK, who started all this, took advantage of the chaos and looted the body before the +envoy could stop him. (I'm guessing the second PK opened the body before he was frozen.) Then more PK's ported in. Finally, in desperation, the +envoy ported the PK's to some safe spot to get it all straight. The items needed to be returned, as it was the +envoys fault that he died. Instead of trying to be reasonable, they started fighting! Now I can only imagine this poor +envoy trying to treat PK's like adults. Every time the +envoy froze a player, one of the other two would attack him. After booting them, and having them come back, and they start fighting again, the +envoy ported them to different rooms. There was also one more body to deal with. He convinced the griefer PK, to return the looted items and set them free. IBN explains As has been stated already in this thread, the initial issue that caused Envoy Elk to respond was portal spamming. However the fact that the character casting portal spells was PK, and was frozen instead of being put in limbo, caused the ensuing problems. Elk did apologize to the players involved -- although this was made difficult by the fact that they kept attacking each other while he was trying to communicate with them. Katahdin is also aware of this incident and I believe the Envoys will be instructed to ensure that, in situations like these, PK players should be put in limbo in addition to being frozen. This will make sure that the players are not attacked and killed while the Envoy is investigating any prior report. Great Reward It started out as a normal VoD night. Unbeknownst to me, Rene had changed plans. Instead of it being a VoD night, it was a Caul night. It also started an hour earlier than I had planned. This put me into a little bind. I had just played Salvage Mule two for three hours. I was about to log to shower, fix dinner and then play. If VoD, I would just skip the first hour and catch up with them. Catching up with them was going to be a problem in Caul, because I had no idea where they were going. I have not been to Caul in some time. I read that Turbine increased the lava field spawns. I also read that people were pulling down 40 million an hour there, so I did not want to skip the event. I decided the best thing would be to follow them with Jr, and log when I was sure where they went. I also needed to get a solid fix on the route, as I did expect to die. Getting into Caul was an experience, once again. I find it best to let one person run through the Bore at a time. After things settle down a bit, the next person can make the run. If you try more than one, the second person is sure to get trapped. With very large, hard hitting, monkeys filling the hallway, getting trapped is easy to do. I got through ok, but Nene had a problem. I was watching her health drop for a bit. Finally she fought her way clear and got in, only to portal away. (g) Me and Badamon had a good laugh. I fixed my hot keys years ago and Badamon had fixed his this month. A rapid escape hot spell is a good idea, if you never make a mistake. The run was north, then east and back west. I was not sure what was going on. Between lag, trying to follow Nene and keep track of the directions, I was totally lost. To make up for it, I noted the coodi. That was easy, as it was 95 by 95. While waiting for the rest to show, I decided to test out my Life skills. There was a lone Margul just in range of us. To my great surprise, I landed a Vuln and Imperil without a resist. Of course, that was the last time I landed a spell that night, just lucky. As a 60/10 Focus/Self melee, I might never have the skills to land consistently, but I'm getting there. I logged off on the lava field ramp. I took care of the RL stuff. An hour later I was ready to go. I quickly found the group. We had recruited some others and were making a good dent in the Margul population. I was quickly added to the fellow and the fun began. As with VoD, I found that sword take a lot less damage than the Mages. That was a surprise to me, as I was using the aegis shield, so I really had no better armor than the mages. Nevertheless, I would only have to heal ever so often, and generally for around 50 points. I was off and on damage wise. If there were no de-buffs, I was hitting for around 40. With a Cold Vuln, I would jump to around 120. If an imperil was added, would jump to 200+ with 500 to 600 crits. Nene said the Margul were de-buffing weapons. I had overlooked that at the time. I'll look for it on the next trip. I quickly found that my Sword skill needs a lot more work. I had been saving up for four points of magic stats, but figured I needed Sword more. I added two to Sword. It did not greatly effect my hitting, but it had to help. My buffs were a touch off from the group. I had no choice but to rebuff in combat. Unlike VoD, there was no safe place to buff. We had to grab what we could, when we could. Fortunately, the Margul would only hit me ever so often. Thank God for Turbine improving the buffing time. I decided to go with just my Cold AR sword, so I buffed in around 2.5 minutes. The group was in a scary place. As we killed, we drifted closer and closer to the center. There was a large fellow on both sides of us. Most Margul only lasted a few seconds before being attacked by one group or another. The title of this essay is great reward. Let me tell you, it was. The best I had ever seen was 30 million. This was when teaming with Moby Dick or Mars Hill, possibility the greatest VoD leaders in the game. I started off in Caul with 40 million! I did not expect to hold that but I was pleased. Instead of slowly dropping, I saw it slowly rise! To my shock, we held 52 million for several hours! I was able to add another point of Sword. At 70 million, that is saying something. From what I'm reading on the boards, this can even be on the low side. Some are pulling over 100 million! I'm guessing that is a very specialized group of very powerful players, but it is shocking to even think it is possible. Some might think I would be against that kind of power leveling. After all, I took a hard stand against Macroing and Chains. If I was against massive XP for those, then it natural to think I might call for this to go away. If you felt that, you're dead wrong, on two counts. I was never against Macroing and Chains because they added XP. I was against it because it added unearned XP! Power leveling by skillful players, taking great risk to go along with their reward, I'm all for. While I can see a problem with too much to fast, it is only among some select people, who work hard to earn it. If someone can play Caul all day, and end up with a 200+ player, it is outstanding. I can guarantee you they will not be asking for a subway portal while standing in Awric. Great Risk To go along with the great reward, there is great risk. While the three large parties were there, we were relatively safe. At most we would fight four Margul at once. Although we had deaths, every so often, we kept it clear enough that recovery was easy. I'll admit, I was getting nervous about our position. At one time we were under a spinning monstrosity. I knew that it was normally a place I could not even run through, let alone fight in. Soul and Rene were getting ready to go. I was having fun and not paying much attention to things outside of the fight. The lag I can only describe as "Flicker Lag". As a melee, that was not hard to fight with. Hit the key and watch your health. Hit S and then the hot heal keys if you dropped any at all. I was so afraid of taking two hits in a row, that I would heal with as little as 30 damage. Rosa came in to say goodnight. After a little hug I returned to the screen. I was in the middle of three Margul, next to a mage. I took damage and healed. I took more damage and healed again. More and another heal. The mage died and I noted that I was quite alone! I'm just guessing here as to what happened. As I said, was not paying enough attention. I think the two groups on either side of us left. With Nene and Soul Riper gone, we had no chance. The entire party was wiped out, barring me and one mage, while I was hugging Rosa good night. Needless to say, I did not last long with 50 or so Margul attacking me. I went from full heath to dead, in just seconds. Rosa did not even get out the door. I laughed and told her I died. I stopped laughing after I looked at Jr. He was missing his Major Sword coat! Fortunately Nene was still on. I told her I had died. She promised to help after doing some RL stuff. I recalled to the mansion and grabbed Mages coat. I looked butt ugly, but I had armor. I recalled to the Bore and tried to make the run. Someone had just gone before me and the hall was clogged. I got trapped in one of the side passages and had to pull my wand and recall. I waited a few seconds to let things get clear and made a successful run. Once in Caul, I ran north. I quickly found the fellow. Unfortunately they were not fighting in the lava field, but were packed into one of the side ramps. I ran up to take a look at where my body was. OMG, it was in the center of the field, surrounded by about a million Marguls. There was no one fighting in the field. The only people on the ramp were the ones who died when things went bad. There was also a string of bodies leading up to our pile. People made desperate runs at their bodies, only to leave another one, without even getting close. I got chased back to the ramp at that point. I tried to get the party organized, but it was no longer a CDY party. In fact, I was the only CDY there at this point. They had another leader. Rather than divide things, I played along, with hope that one leader was better than two, and he knew how to run a group. Somewhere in there, I died again, but recovered it without any trouble. I'm writing this two days after the event so I'm not going to get all the details. It took me this long to face the memory. (g) Who the leader was did not matter. Everyone as doing his or her own thing. They ran to and fro, without any direction at all. At one time we got things together and did what I wanted them to do. This was to slowly work our way to the center, drawing and killing as they went. That did not last. Someone ran across the field from another direction, trailing 20 or 30 Marguls, and we were chased back to the ramp, leaving a few bodies on the way. At this point I figured there was only one way I was going to recover my coat. That was a rabbit draw. One or two people had to run through them, drawing them away just long enough for people to recover. I was not sure if there was anyone that would or could do that in the party. Then I lucked out. One guy made a run at his body. He panicked and rushed off, drawing a large amount of the Marguls with him. I rushed to my body and got it opened. That was about all I could do. I was able to get a good location of where my coat was slotted. The mob returned and I had to run back. They chased me back down a different ramp. I had no idea how to get back to the party. Running across the field to try and find the right ramp would not be safe for me, or the other players. I was not going to repeat the mistakes the others were making. I recalled and made the run through the Bore and Caul to get back. I hot keyed a monkey island gem and got set for my next chance. Sure enough, someone made another attempt at recovery. They were chased away, and I had an opening. I ran in, grabbed the coat, and hit the gem. Ok, I had my coat, now to see of there was a way to get the rest of the stuff on the body. They were all DI's, and not very good of ones at that. I would not be devastated if I did not recovery them. In any case, my stomach was not hurting as much. I made the double run and got back. There was a small group trying to work their way to the body pile. I joined in. I took a bit of damage. I hit S and the heal keys. Rather than heal, I kept swinging. I took a little more damage. I hit S again and tried to heal. Jr mindlessly kept swinging away. God, I hate lag deaths. I dropped the few DI's I have left, a few swords and, of course, my coat. That body was not in a bad spot, but there was some risk. Now things got a little better. Nene was back, and she convinced Soul Riper to join us. It was after midnight their time, so this was hurting them in RL. Rene asked me to permit her, so she could get the easy body. I did. Then Rene said she died. (g) Nasty place. Soul Riper recovered the rest of my stuff and Nene's DIs held on to my coat. I got that back a second time. Rene could see the writing on the wall. This mob was not going to get organized for a recovery, at least not there. The three of us got together for a Rabbit run. I had to have my wand out this time, as I had burnt my only Tusker gem. Rene and Soul ran through the middle of them. I followed a few steps behind. I got to the body and did a non-combat loot, as fast as humanly possible. I then recalled, just in time. There were still a lot of bodies to recover. I decided that Fist might be a better player to help with this. Fist has the kind of speed, health, and melee defense to make a Rabbit run. He also has Magic defense spec'd and maxed. So he had a much better survival chance than most. I made Nene the fellow leader, and logged on Fist. As I was buffing, Nene gave me the bad news. Before I could get there to help, the others had given up. I did not count the bodies, but there were a whole lot of them. The ones close to the ramp we recovered, but I did not see anyone make a recovery like I did. I'm sure that I was the only one to recover from the main pile of bodies. While sad, there was nothing we could do. The next day someone reported a bonanza of loot from the rotting bodies. Being good players, they were looking for the owners. Someone mentioned my name, but I told them I recovered. The handful of coins they could have. (g) After Action The reward/risk for the lava fields is immense. There are times when you will make overwhelming XP. The lag is bad, but a melee can overcome that better than a mage. Just how the mages could fight in that mess I'll never know. Either they have much better computers than I do, or are very skillful at lag fighting. The main thing I have be aware of, is outside forces. The two large fellows on either side of us had to be there for us to survive. Not only do I have to keep watch on the size of my party, but I have to watch the other parties as well. Radar screen aware is key! I need to work on Jr's DI's. His DI's were old style and have not been upgraded for years. There was no way they could cover a 22k coat. I have already stripped the crowns from my other players and plan to add more robes. I'll also need two bags of DI's rather than my normal single bag. Two bodies in Caul are not uncommon. I also checked my other players. I discovered that Deadeye Fist has high value armor that is not covered by DI's. I'll start working on a lower value set for him. Fortunately, gold is a very common drop. I only collect wms 8+, and can still gather a bag an hour. I need to put the Sunstone Sword gaunts on Jr as back up. Even with improved DI, that coat will drop from time to time. Dropping 15 points off of sword really put a hurt on me. With the gaunts as backups, I'll only drop 5. I need to either dig up some granite and tink up my AR cold sword, or find a cold sword worth applying black or red opal to. I have lots of iron but only one bag of granite right now. I have no idea my if AR is the better weapon, or if it would behoove me to get a CB/CS. If you have an opinion, I'm all ears. Lastly, I need to use Nene and Soul Riper leaving as a wake up call. Yes, we tend to see a lot of death after they leave, but that is mostly because we lose a lot of players about the same time. That was not a problem in VoD, but it is a big problem in Caul. Without two good players to back me, I'm at far greater risk. A small team of players is more powerful than big mob of individuals. Guest Writer: Molcavian Empyrean Weapon Set Since returning to AC, it has been a goal of mine to get a complete set of Empyrean weapons. I used to own a set back on Solclaim before I quit, and I always liked them even if they didn't get used all that much. Of course this has been made slightly more complex these days, as I see that I can convert Perfect Isparian weapons into Weeping weapons, and can then convert those into elemental versions. I had to make some kind of decision as to what I would consider a completed set for myself. In the end, I decided I would try to craft 6 different weapons. 4 Weeping weapons to turn into the 4 elemental varieties (these are one-time, one-way conversions so had to make all four separately), 1 perfect Isparian Weapon, which would act as any type of Isparian wep, so would need a Major fire, acid, cold, lightning and prismatic stone plus of course an Isparian modifying tool, and finally one Peerless Atlan weapon, just for old times sake you understand. Of course I would also need the Stone of Black Fire for that one, to make it a complete set. Ok, ok some of you might say, but surely you need a 5th weeping weapon, one that does normal damage, not elemental. I guess if your being really picky you might say, what about getting the 4 minor elemental stones as well. What I would say to you is, I gotta set my limits somewhere, and those were mine. If we are being picky, then I could say, even if I did all of the above, I would still not have a complete set, as there is no longer any way for me to obtain the Shadow Stone, but hay, you can't have it all! Getting side tracked a little here, you might ask "Why?". Why am I bothering to get all these, aren't these weapons rubbish? In fact my patron Pethor made a comment very much like "So your going to get the whole set then leave them to take up space in your backpack?", and my grandpatron Uil made another very similar comment along the lines of "But, your never going to use them, so why are you bothering?". Both very valid questions, but this is why I have done it. I like to set myself my own personal quests. I call them mini-epic quests. I don't tend to tell people about them, or post about them, they are just rather elaborate goals for myself, and they normally combine a whole set of mini quests or goals. The end result might not be fantastic, but I have a lot of fun getting there. So for me, I decided a complete set, which would be the result of 7 odd quests and would be a good epic quest for me. Incidentally, because my self-set epic quests often take weeks if not months to finish complete, I often have several running at once. One of my other current mini-epic quests is getting a complete set of so-called "special" recall spells, that is Sanctuary Recall, Aerlinthe Recall, Aphus Lassle Recall, Mt Lethe Recall, Caul Recall and Ulgrims Recall. I have the first 4 of these so far, Caul is next on the list now that I am flagged, and well as for Ulgrims....we shall see! So anyway, back to the main point of this article. I had set myself this mini-epic quest, defined the limits of the goals I had to achieve. All I had to do now was get on with it. I needed to make up 6 weapons, ok quick bit of maths, that is 6 ingots so 12 bars so 24 nuggets so 48 slivers, oh great so that's only 96 motes! I headed off to metos. After 3 hours and 1 mote, I concluded since I last played the devs had dramatically reduced the drop rate on motes. A couple of clan members confirmed this. I started to cry, almost. Change of tactics, I headed off to Ulgrims Island, heard it was swamped with baby golems these days, that have a higher than normal drop rate for motes. Another 2 hours there and 2 motes. Erm, so I've done 5 hours now, I'm already fed up with golems and I had 93 motes to go! The next thing I did was cheat a little. I have always said I would not cheat to myself on my epic-quests, but yay this was looking out to be boring, and I don't set myself quests to be boring! I put a little plea out on our allegiance forums for any spare motes people might have lying about and also took a trip to market place. To cut a long story short here, around 2 days later, a lot of sings spent at the marketplace, and some very kind donations from Dadaboy, Pethor, Uil, Miltine and Fist, I have 4 High Quality Ingots, 1 Superb Diamond Infused Ingots and 3 Perfect Diamond Infused Ingots. I need to get some diamond dust and Essence Decanters now, not a problem I think. I remember the quest for the Essence Decanters, didn't seem that hard did it. I buffed up, ran to get some empty decanters then ran to the dungeon. After my lesson in humility at the portal space dungeon last month, you think I would have learned my lesson, but oh no. I dived in, lots of smashing up from duel elementals. I did get to the end room, but with even more duels and a lvl 700 Crystal Lord Sovereign, I was not doing anything but hitting one of my emergency recall gems. Then it clicked. When I last did this dungeon, it was on patch day, when it first came out. Of course when a place is swamped with 40+ players at a time, it never seems so hard as when your trying to do it solo! Anyway, some more kind donations, and trips to marketplace, I have the Essence needed. Diamond dust was not a problem incidentally; I had some spare of that lying around. Now to try make up the rest of these ingots. Sto's Gif, nice trade mule of Uil's managed to turn 2 of the 4 HQ ingots into Perfect Diamond ones, he failed one making a second Superb Diamond Ingot and I left the last HQ Ingot alone as of course I needed that to make my token Atlan weapon. So off to Crater I go, armed with 1 HQ ingot, 5 perfect diamond ingots and 2 superb. Once I get there, I purchase all the required glyphs and buff up to the hilt, combine away and hand in. Cross my fingers..... I get back 1 Peerles Atlan sword, 5 perfect Isparian swords and 2 superb Isparian swords. Excellent. I muled the 2 superb ones. I don't need those for my complete set, but they might make nice gifts for friends or vassals. So I'm kind of half way there now. I have the 6 base weapons I wanted, all I need now is the Major Frost, Acid, Fire and Lightning stones, Prismatic Stone, Atlan Stone of Black Fire, Isparian Modifying Tool, Weeping Stone and then Elemental Weeping conversion quest! Sounds like a lot, but wasn't all that bad. I already had the Black Fire stone from a run of Aeth I did with Pethor and Uil when I hit 50, so pop, in that goes, DING! One wep all finished. The Isparian Modifying Tool was another quick one, friendly patron made that for me, we both had half the bits required. A little more cheating here, and after another trip to marketplace and I have acquired a Major Fire and Frost stone, handy, used to be no drop in my day. So I'm left with Acid, Lighting, Prismatic and Weeping to go and then the weeping conversion quests of course. Well a couple of days later I was just lounging around during the day, was off work because I was ill and my patron Pethor popped on, I asked him if he wanted to assist on the lightning and acid quests and he happily said yes. Blimey, are those easy these days. I remember them the first time around in the olden days, used to be a challenge. Still, was fun to re-visit them, and the new quick route portals to them made the journey to them much less painful. So within an hour I had both the acid and lightning stones. Quick pop to Rithwic to get the Prismatic Stone, and the kind loan of one sing key from my Patron (I had spent every last one I had in marketplace by this point) and I'm even closer. Now all I need is the weeping stone and the conversion quest. For the Weeping Weapon quest, it seems we need a lock picker. Ok cool, that's my uber patron Pethor, erm plus a mage would be nice, that's my uber grandpatron Uil. Incidentally, we are a pretty decent trio of players. Friends from other online games, we do a lot of stuff together. To date, since my return, we have trio'ed up in VoD, Caul, Aeth, Bobo and more. Guys like that really make the game fun to play, they are both people you can rely on to work as a team and have fun while your doing it! So once they where all on, I suggest it, and off we went. I had heard the Weeping Dungeon had some very nasty traps in it. Corridors that cast level 7 vuns on you followed by level 7 war spells. The only way to move was slowly, single file, if you got hit, stop, heal up, move on. Ok sounds simple enough. We get into the dungeon. Pethor unlocks the first door. We all get vuned. I get hit for 173, as im healing up, I get hit again, dead! Erm, not a good start. Run back, rebuff, try that one again. We get all they way to the special room with the 5 named mobs in this time. These guys look cool btw, all kitted out in decent outfits. I notice from my map that this room is free from traps. So I run in, silly me, free from traps it may be, but didn't I just say it had 5 special named mobs in it, with level 7 vuns on me, I get 2 hitted. Oh dear, as I'm running back to the dungeon for a 3rd attempt, I see Uil die. We all laughing at this time, and Pethor, the luckiest or maybe simple most skillful player of the lot makes it back to the start alive. Rebuff for 3rd attempt. This time we all make it to the end. I get my Weeping Stone, which I promptly place into all 4 Perfect Isparian Weapons. Woot! Almost there, just to convert these 4 bad boys into elemental weapons now! Luckily, we are all still in good spirits with time to play. We move right on to the Elemental Weeping conversion dungeon. Reading the guide, it sounds dead easy. Four sections, one for each type of element, with nothing but gromies in each one. Indeed it was easy enough. However, for the first section, think that was fire, we did seem to be hitting them for very little damage. We where all using slashing / piercing damage, and it really didn't seem to be working all that well. Of course we just persisted through to the end, slashing and hacking away. Later, of course I had a bright spark, duh! Elemental dungeon, elemental sections, erm why not try the opposite damage type? Of course once we worked that out it proceeded a lot quicker! So in less than an hour, I had converted my 4 weeping weapons into the 4 elemental varieties. BINGO! My mini-epic quest is complete. I certainly had lots of fun doing it and I'm very grateful to everyone had helped me along the way. As stated earlier, the end products might just sit in my backpack gathering dust from now on, but yay I had fun getting them, and that's why I came back to AC, to have fun! Very astute readers might point out that I can't swap in and out the Major Stones from my Atlan weapon at present, as I don't have the Atlan Modifying tool. Well your right, I'll pick that up some time I guess, but I had forgotten about that when I set my initial goals for this epic quest. So I'm happy I still completed it as I laid it out!