Beetles and Bozos
Feb. 15th, 2003 10:06 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
terryclothAnd hypocrisy. In AC2. I played a lot of AC2 today. Probably too much, but is it really possible to do too much of something if you're still enjoying it?
Well, yes, obviously, but I've yet to lose my job or anything, so I think I'm safe.
Anyway, in the morning while MST3K was on -- one of the Pearl episodes, and none of those are really good enough to just watch without doing something else at the same time -- I logged on with Arona, the as-of-yet low level tonk female on Frostfell. Started out with the drudge outcase cadre, then did the excavation quest with two successive groups. Bozo #1: High level character waltzes through the dungeon killing everything really fast, trying to convince people to swear alliegance to him as payment for that service. Eventually he leaves. Everything respawns really fast, killing us.
The second group survived, though. After that it was off to the isle of tears... Frostfell is much more populous, and I found a group almost instantly. Well, 'formed' would be more appropriate. The four of us went in, and got our butts kicked. And stabbed. And set on fire. And probably eaten. Then we went back with portal recall -- I had to train portal recall just for that purpose -- and it happened again. Then we recruited a bunch of new people, until the group was up to the full nine, and THIS time we overwhelmed the drudge opposition, although there were still some casualties along the way. Not having anyone to cast 'Encase' hurt a lot. In fact, the only buff among us was my Espirit, which isn't really that dramatic.
So, we had to wait at the end of the quest for the stragglers/deaders to catch up with us to finish things off. It took a very very long time, since one of them apparently decided to run on foot from Soushi, which they insisted was the closest town (it isn't -- the closest is Rithwic, the second closest is Molwirth, three times as far, the third is Soushi, twice as far as that). Twice, since he died the first time.
Again, I got 600xp for the quest, while everyone else got tons more and leveled up. I think I might be doing the quest at too low a level, and getting 10% xp?
Anyway, after that six of the nine decided to do the drudge notebook and drudge potion quests. While doing drudge notebook we picked up this weird lugian with a name something like 'W R E C K E R'. All caps with spaces. Doing potion, we made sure everone got a potion, because it works better if you disband before turning the potion in, or at least that's what I've heard.
W R E C K E R kept trying to boss us around during drudge potion with incorrect advice, and we found out afterwards he'd collected SIX POTIONS -- no wonder we had to wait for so many respawns! He also insisted that we let him get the kill on one of the potion guards. This was really hard, since -- as we suddenly found out just then -- he was only 7th level! The rest of us were 14th-18th! Several people nearly died trying to let his pathetic 7th level attacks take out the potion guards, before giving up and killing them themselves (which made W R E C K E R scream and whine). Finally, we managed to get one to agro on Wrecker himself, and healed him while he beat on it. We couldn't heal him fast enough, and he died. There wasn't any *rejoicing* as such, but there was a lot of laughter, and we all went off without him and finished the quest.
After drudge potion, the rest of the group went off to do Dantry the Warder's quests. I hope they had good luck with those -- they're pretty hard, in a hard area, and the whole group was low level. I logged off, because it was long past time to go pick up comics.
Some good comics were in. And I ordered a pizza. Apparently, Dominoes is now charging for delivery... in addition to charging ridiculous amounts for the pizza, and expecting a tip. Gaah.
After lunch I logged in with my higher level character, the embeetled Terrarry on Soulclaim. With beetle, I did an incursion quest that turned out to be kind of sucky as far as reward was concerned -- but while doing it I discovered that I could pretty easily take out Ulu Sclavus Lords worth 2000 xp, thanks to the beetle. Half the time the beetle died, but like 'crunch all you want, I'll make more'. After that I finished the trip to Ariaki vault, waved and shouted and danced before the eternally sleeping lugian mage and his pets, then went inside...
...and found a level 33 FI twinking a guildmate. He graciously allowed me to join them, so I didn't express my disgust at the whole practice. It made the vault really really easy. I'm not sure if I'd have made it on my own, even with potions. 60k xp for Ariaki! That took me almost to 26th! The other two complained about the crappy xp from the vault. Well, geez, maybe if you *didn't* wait until 33rd to do the level 24 vault... sheesh.
Then I went and did sanguine fang again to use up more shadow totems in inner darkness. Apparently, sanguine fang's 'sclavus don't attack you' reward doesn't apply to your pet. Fortunately, letting them kill the pet was enough for them, and they didn't come after me. Got a few decent things this time, but nothing useful until 27th-28th. Tried to kill the high priest for a quest, but ALL the sclavus jumped in to help him, and I didn't have a beetle even (not that a beetle would have been enough) so I had to run for it.
Then I tried to do broken totem again. With a beetle, there was nothing on the way that could stand before me, so there was no chance of a repeat of last time! Look! The very hardest monster that's even possible to spawn on the route, an Ulu Sclavus Lord! I can take those! Oh, hello lifestone. What happened? Other than failing Broken Totem again. Vakentu must be rolling over in his grave.
Sigh. So I decided to play Arona again for a while, and did the cobalt sweeps vault with a large enough group (7) that it was easy. But I noticed that my weapon... was sort of sucky. Which makes sense, considering that it was the same one I'd been using since 7th level. If I could find a 40 wood mote, I could craft the next tier... aha! I'll mine wood!
Oops. Yes, it's still the same day as this morning, so no more charges. So, no more Arona until the timer resets -- it's too long a run to the wood mine.
Well, yes, obviously, but I've yet to lose my job or anything, so I think I'm safe.
Anyway, in the morning while MST3K was on -- one of the Pearl episodes, and none of those are really good enough to just watch without doing something else at the same time -- I logged on with Arona, the as-of-yet low level tonk female on Frostfell. Started out with the drudge outcase cadre, then did the excavation quest with two successive groups. Bozo #1: High level character waltzes through the dungeon killing everything really fast, trying to convince people to swear alliegance to him as payment for that service. Eventually he leaves. Everything respawns really fast, killing us.
The second group survived, though. After that it was off to the isle of tears... Frostfell is much more populous, and I found a group almost instantly. Well, 'formed' would be more appropriate. The four of us went in, and got our butts kicked. And stabbed. And set on fire. And probably eaten. Then we went back with portal recall -- I had to train portal recall just for that purpose -- and it happened again. Then we recruited a bunch of new people, until the group was up to the full nine, and THIS time we overwhelmed the drudge opposition, although there were still some casualties along the way. Not having anyone to cast 'Encase' hurt a lot. In fact, the only buff among us was my Espirit, which isn't really that dramatic.
So, we had to wait at the end of the quest for the stragglers/deaders to catch up with us to finish things off. It took a very very long time, since one of them apparently decided to run on foot from Soushi, which they insisted was the closest town (it isn't -- the closest is Rithwic, the second closest is Molwirth, three times as far, the third is Soushi, twice as far as that). Twice, since he died the first time.
Again, I got 600xp for the quest, while everyone else got tons more and leveled up. I think I might be doing the quest at too low a level, and getting 10% xp?
Anyway, after that six of the nine decided to do the drudge notebook and drudge potion quests. While doing drudge notebook we picked up this weird lugian with a name something like 'W R E C K E R'. All caps with spaces. Doing potion, we made sure everone got a potion, because it works better if you disband before turning the potion in, or at least that's what I've heard.
W R E C K E R kept trying to boss us around during drudge potion with incorrect advice, and we found out afterwards he'd collected SIX POTIONS -- no wonder we had to wait for so many respawns! He also insisted that we let him get the kill on one of the potion guards. This was really hard, since -- as we suddenly found out just then -- he was only 7th level! The rest of us were 14th-18th! Several people nearly died trying to let his pathetic 7th level attacks take out the potion guards, before giving up and killing them themselves (which made W R E C K E R scream and whine). Finally, we managed to get one to agro on Wrecker himself, and healed him while he beat on it. We couldn't heal him fast enough, and he died. There wasn't any *rejoicing* as such, but there was a lot of laughter, and we all went off without him and finished the quest.
After drudge potion, the rest of the group went off to do Dantry the Warder's quests. I hope they had good luck with those -- they're pretty hard, in a hard area, and the whole group was low level. I logged off, because it was long past time to go pick up comics.
Some good comics were in. And I ordered a pizza. Apparently, Dominoes is now charging for delivery... in addition to charging ridiculous amounts for the pizza, and expecting a tip. Gaah.
After lunch I logged in with my higher level character, the embeetled Terrarry on Soulclaim. With beetle, I did an incursion quest that turned out to be kind of sucky as far as reward was concerned -- but while doing it I discovered that I could pretty easily take out Ulu Sclavus Lords worth 2000 xp, thanks to the beetle. Half the time the beetle died, but like 'crunch all you want, I'll make more'. After that I finished the trip to Ariaki vault, waved and shouted and danced before the eternally sleeping lugian mage and his pets, then went inside...
...and found a level 33 FI twinking a guildmate. He graciously allowed me to join them, so I didn't express my disgust at the whole practice. It made the vault really really easy. I'm not sure if I'd have made it on my own, even with potions. 60k xp for Ariaki! That took me almost to 26th! The other two complained about the crappy xp from the vault. Well, geez, maybe if you *didn't* wait until 33rd to do the level 24 vault... sheesh.
Then I went and did sanguine fang again to use up more shadow totems in inner darkness. Apparently, sanguine fang's 'sclavus don't attack you' reward doesn't apply to your pet. Fortunately, letting them kill the pet was enough for them, and they didn't come after me. Got a few decent things this time, but nothing useful until 27th-28th. Tried to kill the high priest for a quest, but ALL the sclavus jumped in to help him, and I didn't have a beetle even (not that a beetle would have been enough) so I had to run for it.
Then I tried to do broken totem again. With a beetle, there was nothing on the way that could stand before me, so there was no chance of a repeat of last time! Look! The very hardest monster that's even possible to spawn on the route, an Ulu Sclavus Lord! I can take those! Oh, hello lifestone. What happened? Other than failing Broken Totem again. Vakentu must be rolling over in his grave.
Sigh. So I decided to play Arona again for a while, and did the cobalt sweeps vault with a large enough group (7) that it was easy. But I noticed that my weapon... was sort of sucky. Which makes sense, considering that it was the same one I'd been using since 7th level. If I could find a 40 wood mote, I could craft the next tier... aha! I'll mine wood!
Oops. Yes, it's still the same day as this morning, so no more charges. So, no more Arona until the timer resets -- it's too long a run to the wood mine.
