Fist de Yuma - November 11, 2003

This and that This week is my sleep test. I was lucky that I had Rosa check with the insurance on it. It seems that our referral to the sleep center was from my heart doctor and not the base doctor. That is against the rules so it is possible the first two visits to the sleep center will come out of our pocket. I hope not because I'm guessing it is a whole lot of money. I'm set to talk to the base doctors Thursday morning. The sleep test is Thursday night. As it took over a month to get this slot I hope the base doctor writes the referral and it gets approved. It will be a real dilemma if they don't. I cannot afford to pay for the tests and cannot afford (health wise) not to take the test. I'm guessing that there will not be a problem because the health problems caused by sleep apnea are far more costly than the tests and equipment. We did find that the equipment will be costing us 20% of the overall cost. Given the high price of the equipment that will be considerable. Why VN board is important to me There are a lot of things that go on in the VN boards that make it very important to me. It is a great service to the AC community in particular and gaming in general. The exchange of ideas and opinions are invaluable to everyone. I have had numerous essays inspired by a post. I have found out where I was in error on a subject. I have gotten posts where the other side of an issue can be presented. I gladly posted them here so we could get a balanced view of the debate. My post about the column was not only to get people to read it but to get feedback. Without feedback I have no idea if I'm reaching the reader on a subject. Many times I have had to go back and write something to make a point more clear. Every person has a different point of view. This is true diversity. (Not skin deep diversity.) I have found that I have had views that were too narrow and at times too wide. Only through the given and take of a wide audience can I reach a conclusion that is as close to the truth as I can get. This is why censorship is so frightful. It restricts people to a point of few that may well be far from the truth. There are points of view that are true at one time and completely false at others. We are fortunate that most of us live in a free society. The Internet gives us access to information that was the domain of the elite only a few years ago. Many don't understand the important of this freedom. This is especially true with those who have grown up with this freedom and don't know the danger of not having it. The countries formally under the soviet domination are especially aware of this. It is likely why they are expanding and prospering while older (in freedom) countries are stagnating. The older (in freedom) countries think shutting down those with dangerous ideas is the way to improve society. In the end all they do is kill off the very ideas that might save them. While I do have access to many avenues of information my main audience is grouped on the VN board. While many are on MT the majority are not. Restricting me to the one board restricts my access to feedback and will lower the quality of my column. Someone posted my column on one of the boards and I was lucky enough to find it. I'm sure that others made similar posts but they scrolled down before I could get to them. The one I did find gave me good information and a chance to clarify some points. I can only hope they can see that my column posts were not spam but and honest attempt to get feedback along with new ideas for a column. At one time War Cry was the main board used by AC players. A shut down of their board for a while and the fact that the VN software is superior (In my opinion) got the majority of the players to move. It has stayed the best despite attempts to replace it. Revolution was a good try but it ultimately failed. (I think so anyway. I lost the link when my computer died and not sure if it is still up or not.) I'm grateful that the VN board is there and want to see it get better and better. An attitude of suppression will work only as long as they are the best. If something equally good goes into competition with them their dominance might end very quickly. And then it hit me One of the greatest complements I have ever gotten was from players who have quit AC. Many who have quit the game still read my column. Many who have returned to the game did so because of my column. It hit me as I was thinking about it that my rants of the last two column would do more to drive players away than bring them back. While rants are at times necessary it is mostly rare. One reason is to inform. We believed that the developers might not understand the problem and used a rant to try and tell them. That has to be the height of arrogance on my part. Of course they know. Massaging my EGO will not let them know any better. I have to wonder, was it arrogance or ignorance on my part? My mind drifted to those imprisoned by Stalin. So set where they that Stalin was a great and loving man that they went to their deaths with, "If only Stalin know what they were doing!" on their lips. Ignorance is bad but arrogance ignorance is far worse. (Yes, I guess I do watch the history channel too much.) So last week's rants will be the last for a long while I think. While I would like to think I did some good I know I did harm to myself. Loss of VIP status was one but lose of respect from the VN people will be worse in the long run. Aftermath I was a touch surprised at the response to the post above. What I got was total support. They said what I was saying in my rants was what someone should say. That may be but I'll leave it for another columnist to say for a while. Nevertheless many missed two points so I'll clarify them. When I referred to the VN people I meant those that run the Vault. The posters have been in support and agreement with me for the most part. The XXXX people who object to my column are just noise. Their restrictions could mean the VN administration has lost touch with their users or it could mean they know more about the board than we do. It is likely a touch of both. In any case I have lost respect of the VN administrators if not the readers. The second point is driving people away from AC. Nothing I write here is likely to drive people out of the game. My joy is bringing people who have left for one reason or another back to the game. Rants about how bad things are will not do that. Only writing about the pure joy the game brings people will do that. Leveling Tread Someone posted about how AC has become more of a leveling mill than a game. Whereas it is possible to get into that trap it is easy to avoid. There is a lot more to the game than that leveling. There is adventure wherever you go. I'm constantly surprised by things I had overlooked sometime before, almost every day. It is possible to just admire how the clouds float by or the moon rises. One of the points in the essay was how quests were solved the first day and posted on the web. There is no surprise or adventure. You follow the cheat sheet and get the reward, borrrrring. Yes, it is possible to never do a quest without a guide or always have cheat sheet by your side. There is an answer to this. Ignore the aids and go do it yourself! I deliberately avoid reading about quests. I wait for a week or so before heading out. Yes, that means I have to slowly stumble thorough some of the pre work. I find that struggling to figure out the puzzles is not boring. It is only boring if you are following a checklist. It might also mean you are completely left out of the online events. I missed seeing the ancient queen because she was defeated before I could do the quest. I missed almost every live event they have had. Nevertheless I think I have more fun doing quests overall than most players. Yes, leveling is part of the game. I do more than my share of it. I guess I'm lucky that I'm able to have fun leveling along with adventuring. I think that is because I push the envelope and go where it is hard. Instead of camping Tuskers I have Fist's Armorer soloing the Plains. There is constant action and chance of death. One slip and your leveling becomes a body recovery. If Owanda were allowed in the 80+ Matron I would be there. I think the boring comes in with fighting below your level. When I get into a fellow filled with 85lv+ players in the 60-90 Matron I have to wonder, why are they here? I know my friends and me will be headed to Baishi ten seconds after hitting 80. The game can be as exciting or boring as you want it to be. If all you want is to show off your level then be prepared for a lot of boring hunts so you can meet your chain quota. Just don't blame AC as there is a lot to do. Day in the life Whereas this is not a totally typical type of log in it is not atypical. I log in to check the mansion. I have an hour before Rosa is home and need to shower and start dinner. Cher'okee is forming up a rescue party for Kingii. Two people need tinkering. Anu the sad needs two wits for her Villa and wants to go hunting with me, Loki says hi and Jeff had a question. In other words I'm going to be a one legged man in a but kicking contest. I load up Fist's Armorer. I start up an Olthoi buff with NB II. While FA is buffing I swap to Slow Mo. I load up Fist and give Anu the sad permission to use the chests. I tell her which chest stores the house wits. I ask the people needing tinker work to wait for a bit and give a far to short hi back to Loki. I totally forget about Jeff, which does not make him very happy. (grin) I cannot remember everything. I work out an 11pm EST hunt with Aun the sad and swap back to FA who was done buffing. The body recovery goes well and I take Kingii deeper. We almost reach the Olthoi town when his buffs start to go. He ports out and I finish off the buff. (Found Major Leadership sleeves that will be useful.) I ported to the mansion and do the tinker work. We have a few successes but mostly failures. I apologize to Jeff for not answering his question, log to grab my shower and start dinner. Living Book I logged on to hunt with Anu the sad around 11pm EST. I had set up the time to go hunt with her that afternoon. She never showed so I stared to work on the salvage I had collected earlier that day. As soon as I logged Fist de Mage on Slow Mo I got a tell from William the bat. William was doing a quest. It was something about a book. Being that I had spent the evening with Rosa I had no idea that a new quest had been sparked by Turbine. From what I read on the boards Turbine made the mistake of rewarding the first person to do the quest different than anyone else. It is their game and they can do what they want but I think such rewards hurt the game more than help it. These quests are generally group efforts. By rewarding one person you punish the group as a whole. It also encourages people to just run to the end and grab the reward. I find it best not to reward the greedy. People in different time zones or different play times are also left out. In any case the first time had been done and William the Bat was making a run to get the book. We met on Tusker Island. It was one of the places we could both get to fast. I buffed up and took the portal William gave me. William had to go to his mansion to get some people. He gave me the coordinates to run to. I got to the dungeon entrance and saw several new monsters outside. They were undead so of course I tried my fire stick on them. To say the least it was disappointing damage. I started experimenting with spell types and found that acid was their vulnerability. Shortly after I cleared it and got inside William and a few others arrived. To a man they were all using fire weapons. I told them acid was better but strangely many did not have an acid weapon. I'll not speculate as to why but it made things a lot harder then it should have been. I used acid attack when I used war and imperil when in support mode. FA is not a great support toon. He will spec magic defense in 5 levels and be fairly fixed as to skills. As I have concentrated on attack skills with him his Life skills are not up to par. When tossing Imperil I was resisted a lot. I'm also missing a lot of the support spells Mage has. While the monsters were fairly strong it did not matter much with this group. We sweep through them with ease. We caught up with the other part of the group about halfway through it. The dungeon was going in around the outside of squares stacked on top of each other. Each corner had a gated room. One room would lead down to the next square. That was my impression anyway. It is hard to get a total handle on the layout as I was following their leads and fighting. It got to be repetitive battles. The mages would toss vuln and imperil while melee battled behind the gate. When the gate opened the mages would start tossing spells. (Me with acid and everyone else with fire.) We would go around and down. It seemed like forever. The fights were constant and bitter. After tossing Imperil I found I had to run around the alter to land war spells. There was a candlestick that would block my spells. The only place I took much big damage was at the very end. I think it was the boss monster landing a level VII War spell on me. I was lucky after that. Several ganged up on me but they all used melee attacks and were not hitting for much. I was able to heal and get back in action with little trouble. It was a little sad. We found a body in the passage leading to the last room and one more right in front of the book. To get so far and fight so many battles, only to die at the very end. We all got the book and ported out. I put the book in my mansion and it looks great! I'm not sure if there is anything else to this or not. I guess I'll find out later. A big thanks to William the Bat for inviting me. I recommended that if you do this quest you make sure everyone is set for acid. You'll do double the damage that fire does. Owanda hits 80 Late Friday Owanda hit 80. It was not until Sunday morning that I had another chance to take him hunting. The first thing I had to do was get him to Baishi. I knew that the statue portal south of Arwic exited at Baishi so that was no trouble. I was unsure how effective I would be but felt my armor and shield would keep me alive. I hit the 80+ matron and landed on the hot LZ. The first thing I noted was my 418 melee defense was not very effective. I was being hit almost every attack. Fortunately most of the hits were for zero damage. Well tinked armor, tinked shield and buffed underclothes can really help. I also noted that I was back to missing more than I was hitting again. That was unexpected with 440 Mace skills. I have suffered through inability to land often when I hit each of the matron's. I have a feeling this will take a lot longer to overcome than the past ones. I got into a fellow and was holding my own. As long as I don't get sucked into a big group I should be ok. I know that lag will have me sucked into a mob sometime but I'll use a few tricks I have learned to limit it. With about 20 minutes to go on my buffs I decided to head to the Matron and try my luck. It took me a while to clear out the guards. I finally got a one on one battle with the matron. While she was hard to hit and had better armor that the others the issue was never in doubt. When I started hitting 199 crits I knew it was going to be over soon. I was hoping to get a coordination robe. With my major strength shield I don't need a strength one. I lucked out and the Olthoi hunter gave me what I wanted. I was afraid I would have to take my other players out to kill the Matron until I got the right robe. This will be my main hunting grounds for a long while. I'll still hunt the hollow caves for sings from time to time. I would do it more often but the macros are to stressful to compete with.