Fare Thee Well

This will be my last blog post. I figure it's as good a time to end it as any, since I started this blog almost exactly a year ago.
I must say it's been an interesting year. I laughed, I cried, I set things on fire! But the only constant thing in life is change, and I'm rolling with it.
I can't say right now if I will be playing Spiral anymore or not. I think it's safe to assume she will be MIA for a while. I really love the game though so you may run into me on another toon or another server or another life. You'll know it's me if you wonder, "WTF is this girl doing? Is she nuts??"   :)

Thanks to all of you who commented here or talked to me in game to let me know how much you enjoyed my random thoughts. A big hug to Ejov, my nicest fan. Your kind words made me smile on many a rough day. Thank you.

Best of luck to all of you! Fight fair, play nice, and beware of a purple-haired pyromaniac with more heart than sense. She'll get you killed every time.  ;)

Ho Ho Ho and All That Jazz

Beautiful Places of RoM #5

I was wondering around AV catching cavies when I found this beautiful sight. I would love to have one of these as a pet!

Detective Spiral Finds a Clue

I may have discovered why the Varanas Bank keeps getting robbed. Check out my evidence in the screenshot.
See anything suspicious?
Yes, those are Varanas Guards...in Boulderwind Village. Damn slackers! What? Do they think they can just take off and go on vacation in the middle of the busy holiday season? They're enjoying Boulderwind's cozy stone inn and fine crab cakes while the Varanas Bank is being robbed! Tsk tsk. Very naughty. No cookie for you.

Taborea Meets Real Life

This past weekend, I did something that I didn't think I would ever do. I met a ROM player, my long-time friend and ex-guildie, Heka, in Real Life. Gasp! Yes, a face-2-face!
Of course, I blame it all on Heka and his charming stalker-ish ways. He had asked me to visit on another occasion and I was too chicken. And then this time, I said no again, but he refused to take that as an answer. It was just too darn convenient that I was visiting my parents for Xmas who just happened to live less than an hour away from him, and he just happened to be celebrating his birthday.

So I swallowed all my nervousness and showed up at an almost-complete-stranger's house. The ice was broken by a pair of adorable wiggling puppies, which immediately made me feel more at ease. Then Heka  was there and I heard his voice and it was so...normal. It was easy. He was just Heka, my good friend, and the only difference was that I was looking at a tall man with brown hair rather than a short jumpy little priest.  :)

So I had a wonderful time and conquered my shyness and made some new friends as well (hello Tammy and Heka's Mom and Salmon and Seb!)
I have to warn you that meeting players f2f doesn't always work out so well, so I'm told. But I am a very lucky girl who happens to have found many wonderful people online. I trusted Heka, I've been playing with him for many months, and even though he googled my parent's phone number to call me (stalker!!), I still felt that he had only good intentions. And it turned out, he was just as nervous as I was!  It all worked out well, and it's opened my mind to the possibility of perhaps, maybe, meeting other players in RL.
Stay tuned...

You Light Up My Life

This is what I see when I go into HOS with all the damn-scouts in my guild.

That is the infamous Scatterstar Storm, the scout item set skill from Unicorn's pieces.

It lags me so bad, I freeze up completely, but I'm not complaining cuz the nice thing about it is that when the smoke clears, everything is dead. Can't beat that.

Now with the most recent patch, (the one that is taking the servers offline this morning and allowing me to blog some more for you lucky readers!) there is an in-game option on the System--Audio/Visual menu that allows you to turn off the spell effects of other players. Look for the checkbox on the bottom right corner. And yes, it does work. I tested it last night against my favorite damn-scout, Medi. It was kinda funny actually cuz all I could see was him waving his arms about and then mobs running at him for no apparent reason. In my mind I imagine they are all yelling, "Damn Scout" as well.  :)

For now I'm actually going to leave my spell effects on. I think I'm visually trained to look for them in order to know if I'm getting buffed, healed or fried over-easy. Of course, the next time I'm fighting Vrantal in HOS and seeing nothing but bright lights, I'm certainly going to flick that switch. Might actually be able to do something in that fight besides stare at the floor and spam 1.

Andaphelmor 7: Evil Empire 1

GM Love!!

Woot! GM Asteriea came online today to give out some GM love and happiness to the huddled masses. A huge crowd gathered around her on Varanas Bridge and paid her tribute. She handed out wonderful foods and stuffs, like Hot Stew and Egg Rice Dumplings. Yummy!

I like it when the GMs come online and give out gifts. It promotes happiness and excessive jumping! Of course, I imagine they get their share of annoying whispers about "such-and-such is broken" but that's not really what they're there for, so I keep quiet. Support tickets FTW. Don't annoy the GMs when they're on cuz I want more Little Magic Biscuits!

And wow, I have to say she is beautiful. I wouldn't spend diamonds on that costume cuz you'd only wear it for a short while, but it is truly impressive. Or perhaps it's just that she's 90 feet tall??  I gladly pay tribute to her.  :)

If I was a GM, I'd go all out with the gifts and contests and free stuff. I'd have Twitter give-aways, Facebook contests, all sorts of things. I'd give away as much as they possibly would allow me. There are so many things in the game that can get you down, but a simple gift from a GM kinda perks you up!

A Girlfriend for Spazzy?

I'm not sure if I'm happy about this or not, but my very unique Spazzy reindeer that Spiral is so well-known for is now on sale in the Cash Shop. Go to Special Offers, Mounts, and you will see the Snowflake Festival Reindeer. That's what Spazzy is, only he is colored white.

You can see that there is also a Royal Reindeer that costs more, but pretty much looks the same. Not really worth the diamonds since you can color a mount for 40 diamonds anyway.
So perhaps this is a good thing and Spazzy can find a girlfriend! Then there can be little Spazzys running around Taborea, causing havoc and breaking hearts.

Sexy Houseguests

Yum, yum, yum!
Look at the handsome surprises I found on my bed last night. Mreow! I'll take both, please and thank you.
Boys, boys! Please don't fight. There's plenty of me to go around.   ;)

Thanks to Pixie, my schmexy lover, for introducing me to the fine upstanding yet still deliciously perverted gentlemen of Carramrod. You guys are welcome to my house anytime for dancing, bed-jumping and all around naughtiness. (But no sleepovers!)

In other news, I played Spiral on rogue side to do ZS and embarrassed myself horribly by dying on the sneak section to pull the party to the boss. I guess it was my first time *blush* so I shouldn't be hard on myself, but I hate being incompetent. Especially when everyone is counting on me. Sigh.
But DG aka Andrei came in on rogue and showed me how it's done, so next time I'll get it for sure. And it's nice to know that rogues are still needed in this game, at least a little bit.

Rogue is Ready

Been ever-so-slowly gearing up Spiral's rogue side and today she is finally finished! Well, I only say "finished" because I have all the main gear I wanted to get and she looks good. Some of the pieces are only half-statted or poorly statted and will need to be redone. And haven't finished the accessory set, but you can't see that in a screenshot so *shrug*. 

Anyhoo, here is The Purple Death herself all dressed up and ready to stab.

Giant Fist helmet
Atrocity jacket, boots, shoulders
Strange Bug legs
Fearless belt and gloves
Savage Precision cape
2 Nemesis blades, main hand is T8

I will be replacing the helmet with a Strange Bug helmet if I can ever find one. They drop from Origin somehwere and are near impossible to find. But I would really like the +240 physical critical hit rate I would get from that paired with the legs.

I'm immensely pleased and significantly richer because most of the Atrocity gear is already a perfect shade of purple and I didn't have to color any of it. The only thing I did was aggregate the Stange Bug pants onto nicer ones, and aggregate both daggers onto more interesting blade skins, Assassin's Blades that drop from Bodos.

Now all I need to do is learn how to play her. Oh, and how to not cringe when fighting so up close and personal with everyone. Two for flinching!!

Raksha Temple Video

I personally have never been to RT. Thinking it's still gonna be a while till I'm geared enough to get there, especially since recently I've been focused on trying to gear my rogue side.
But this popped up on my YouTube list the other day and I couldn't resist watching. It's the last boss in RT.
Warning! Mute the damn music. :)

I've subscribed to this guy's channel cuz he seems to have neat RoM vids every now and then.

Ygather Addon from Curse



ygather menu

I am a level 60 gatherer in wood & herbs, and was feeling a bit frustrated with gathering my fave mats so I decided to rely on the kindess and intelligence of strangers and installed the ygather addon from Curse. Wow, I wish I had done that AGES ago!! It is so extremely helpful.

The addon maps out the location of resources as you pass them, so you need to gallop around the map to mark the locations, but once you've done that you're all set.
The pic on the right here is the menu, which can be found by pressing the Resources button on the top left of your World Map. You can see that I've checked off  Hide Ore because I can't gather that.
The addon automatically checks off the resources types you've found in your current zone, so that is Pine, Foloin, Dusk Orchid and Barsa (so far).
 

I've also gone into the Highlight on Minimap submenu and checked off the three items I am currently looking for. What this does is makes a blinking white circle show up surrounding that mat icon on your minimap as you tour around the zone. You  can see this in the close-up pic on the left here. That is very helpful as previously I had been mousing over the icons as I ran around to check to see if it was the one I needed. This is especially useful when looking for rare mats, like Foloin Nuts. Love this feature!

This last screenshot shows a portion of the World Map after exploring a bit of the zone. The little dots are herbs (green) and wood (brown). You can mouse over them and it shows the name and level of the mat. These little dots will also show up on your minimap if there should be a mat there but it has already been gathered and not respawned yet.

I haven't experimented with many of the features yet but so far in just a half hour of using it I am very pleased. I don't gather all that often, usually for friends or when I'm too poor to buy the items myself, but for someone who is a 'professional' gatherer, I would highly recommend this addon.

BONK!

Does this hammer make my butt look big?

This is the Bonker!!
Don't ask me what it really is, I have no recollection of its true name. I just know that it dropped in my bag and was aggregated onto my Root of Nightmares before the hour was up.
It gives me a little giggle to run around with this giant thing. It kinda looks like an enormous lollipop that's been dropped in broken glass. Freakin' deadly!
I enjoy making stylish costumes as much, if not more, than the next person, but there's just something joyfully silly about aggregating a ridiculous item like this. It makes people stop in their daily grind and do a double take.

In that vein, I'd like to give a high-five to PersonalPitBull. I ran across this fine fellow in Dalanis the other day and did my own double take. I didn't take a picture of him because he disappeared too quickly, but I was highly impressed by his sense of style. Truly a memorable outfit!

Is It Just a Game?

"A mentally and emotionally healthy adult would not become addicted to an MMORPG"

Recently I have heard the words "it's just a game" being kicked around chat a lot and it's really started me thinking. I mean that's a great phrase to calm yourself with when you're mad about a KS, but the fact is that the social and competitive nature of MMORPGs is what attracts many people to the game. Yes, in fighting a boss, you beat a computer-generated set of parameters, but to many players there's also the fact that you beat another person at a task or a skill, like amount of damage done or healing done.
The very popular add-on, StatRating, lets everyone know who is 'winning' in every fight. For those Type A's out there, this is a vital component of a MMORPG that is missing in an offline game, and it feeds their sense of success, accomplishment, and even, unfortunately, superiority.

As for the social side, if you wanted to play a game by yourself, you would. There are plenty out there. But in ROM you can meet people, talk, laugh, flirt, share stories and jokes and knowledge and adventures, learn more about life, REAL life, from the personalities and anecdotes of your fellow players. Like me, a lot of folks don't discover the social aspect of the game until they enter a guild. Then you quickly realize the benefit of having a group of friends who have your back, who care if you log off, who might even lend you a listening ear when life gets you down.
Of course, you also realize how easily it can disintegrate into petty squabbling, hurt feelings and rage-quits. A ROM guild can be like a family, a mental institution, a fraternity, or an orgy, depending on your guild of course!  :)

So my own personal take on MMORPG addiction and social interaction? The thing is, I do have other hobbies but all of them involve solo pursuits anyway. I like losing myself in a good book. I like going for walks in nature. I like wildlife photography and camping and pondering the universe while staring at the stars.
I'm not a team player. I don't enjoy sports. I don't really even enjoy sitting around in a coffee shop chatting with girlfriends a la Sex in the City. This is not something new. In my childhood I spent my recess in the library stacks devouring books. My first boyfriend was the guy who was sitting in the stack next to me, peeking at me through the bookshelves. We read Shogun together because it was the thickest book we could find. We were ten.

A good friend of mine said to me yesterday: "Hate to break it to you, but you're not going to meet anyone locked in your apartment playing ROM." At first I was slightly offended, but soon I realized that what he said was not necessarily true. I have met lots of people. I have met more people online than I ever would have met in real life. My sister and I joke that I am not socially 'ept'. In real life situations I am quite shy and very rarely have the nerve to talk to strangers or mingle at parties, although my 'butterfly' sister insists on dragging me out to them.

Yet here in ROM we are all free from the social stigmas that prevent easy interaction. There are no visual cues. You can't dismiss someone because of their color, weight, acne, age, bad teeth, or any other of the myriad of insignificant physical details that we judge people by. Personality wins. An intelligent, witty, funny, helpful player in ROM is going to have more friends than that handsome jerk with the six pack abs who wants nothing more than to use you and toss you.

Yes, we are all playing a game, but while we are playing, we are interacting. The feelings that players have are real. People fall in love and get their hearts broken. There is jealousy, rage, lying, cheating and stealing. But there is also kindness, generosity and compassion. The entire range of human emotions is here in Taborea, hiding behind an avatar and a screen name.

I urge you, all of you, don't ever, EVER allow yourself to pretend that these toons are not real people. Every comment that you toss into chat, into Vent, is heard by another human being.

In ROM, your words are all you have, so use them wisely and well, my friends.

Really Freaking Awesome Websites

I am in total awe of the Official Runes of Magic Database. It shows pretty much everything there is in the game, including Item Sets, Skills, Recipes, Quests, and tons of other stuff. It's not quite complete, and don't pay any attention to the announcements cuz they're for EU, but it's still the first site I go to for information. Other cool features on this website are a recipe mats calculator, 3D views of armour so you can see the style, and item comparisons so you can tell if something is worth it.

My second fave go-to site is The Rom Wiki. Yes, it's user generated content, but I find it quite reliable and helpful. They have a Transmutation Chart that shows which runes can be made in the game, and also a Black Codex chart that lists the momento shop items. Also a great place to remind yourself of what elite skills mats you need.
Tie me up and call me n00b but I didn't know that stats had different effects when applied to different classes. Check out this Rom Wiki chart to see Attributes Effect Per Class.

When RoM is down, I use MMO Server Status to check instead of obsessively trying to log into the game. Ok, I lied just then. I still obsessively try to log in, just in case.  :)

Now it's time to toot my own horn (wink wink nudge nudge say no mo'). I have two websites that I've made that you might find helpful if you haven't been there yet: a Guide to the Arcane Transmutor and a Guild Siege Guide. These can be helpful to pass on to confused newbies and guildies to spare yourself the hassle of explaining everything in chat. 

If any readers have other useful websites, please feel free to post them in comments so that we can share our knowledge.

Moar Frogs, MOAR!

Good heavens, they're multiplying!! This is Frostwood Valley, now renamed Froggie Forest.
At least these ones were hopping...probably to keep their flippers from freezing.  :)

Crazy Night

Tonight was a very strange night. We were all giggly and goofy and perverted and other wonderful things.

Siege was laggier than a grandma crossing the street but we triumphed anyway and even had a few laughs.

Medi and I duo'd KS on our secondary sides just for kicks, although we did sneak past Goddess.

Everything said in Vent was dirty, except once, ONCE, Streaker said a whole sentence that we couldn't find anything sexual about.

Yaser discovered paging in Vent and tormented poor Pixie until she was ready to strangle him, all the while he was acting completely innocent.

I died at least ten times in WA cuz I'm really good at being lame. And then Medi died because felt he needed to teabag me in the middle of the fight!

Seriously spent most of the night LOL-ing.  :)



I see frogs. Red frogs. Dude, I am trippin'.



To top things off, trippy things were appearing in random places. Take these frogs for example. WTF? Is it some sort of amphibian cult meeting, the Secret Order of Scarlet Webfoots? Or are they waiting for the Froggy Apocalypse? Or maybe contemplating the mysteries of the universe like slimy little Buddhists? 



I know, I know. It's an event. But it really was surreal to see them all crouched there, silently staring. I really wanted to use a Princely Look potion to transform and join them!  :)

Dual Class Musings

Recently two of my guildies rerolled their level 60 secondary sides to Knight just to take advantage of the Knight's awesome PDef and Stam bonuses. They have no intention of ever playing their Knight sides.
It's funny that this was a new idea to me, as in reality I don't play my rogue side at all now, but never considered choosing a secondary based on passive bonuses. I suppose I do enjoy the dual class elites on my mage side, but when I chose rogue it was with the intention of playing it at least occasionally.

I have been gearing up my rogue side for a few weeks now, piece by piece, in order to be able to play it. But now this new revelation makes me wonder if I've wasted my money. My thought was that by gearing both sides, I could easily switch between a melee DPS and a ranged DPS without having to level a new toon to 60. I figured it would make me more valuable as a group player when different DPS was needed, i.e. if there were too many mages in a party.
But considering the overabundance of DPS in general, I have been pondering making a priest or a tank in order to be eve MORE useful to anyone and everyone. Seems as if all parties depend on the availability of one or the other. Everyone else is optional and easily replaceable.

This idea has been kicking around in my head for a while and I have hesitated because it raises the question: Do you play what you love or what is needed?
Or on a more personal level: Would I be irritated as a priest or tank to be expected to run instances all the time? Or would it be a relief to not have to beg to get in a group?

With my abundance of alts already created, leveling a healer or tank to 60 would not take much time at all, perhaps a couple weeks, less if Froggie gives us a double XP weekend (hint hint). But I have not yet taken the plunge as the above questions are still rattling around my empty skull, waiting to be answered.
And what would happen then to my identity as Spiral? She is ME, my first toon and my favorite. Could I really become Sister Agatha or Mousekin or any one of my alternate personalities on a regular basis?

The skull-rattling continues...

Land of Nothingness II

A while back I found the Land of Nothingness thanks to Phatcat and my bravery/silliness in jumping through his portal. Now I have found a new Land of Nothingness, purely by accident. I was running out of WA and fell through the floor! At first I was on brown ground and could see the Arena above me, but as I ran out further, it turned into pure whiteness. That's when I just suddenly died.

If you look at the picture you can see the coordinates are in the negative. I tried several times to mark a transport spot, but it wouldn't do it.  :(
I know it's a silly thing to blog about, but it really made me giggle so I thought I'd share!

Limo Desert First Impressions

So I got up this morning and waited rather impatiently for the patch to be ready, as it was not surprisingly behind schedule. Loaded it up finally and entered the game with a wonderful feeling of excitement and anticipation.

Started in Dalanis and noticed a new NPC exclamation mark near the Auction House for someone named Kuban. Unfortunately, couldn't seem to find the sneaky booger, so I quickly moved on. Not going to waste my day trying to figure out bugged quests!

Raced over to Rh'anka village to turn in some dailies that I had been saving up. Oh, it's SO good to see my XP bar moving again! Gives me a little shivery feeling inside. :)
There were a few new quests in Rh'anka Village involving that dude, Toni. They each gave at least quarter mill XP each, and led to a quest called Go To Limon that tells you to go into the new zone. Mounted up on Spazzy and galloped off to new adventures.
 

Limo Desert map - click to make big


As I went north out of NJF, I passed through a rock tunnel and came out in a bleached sandstone desert. Level 60 Sharp-horned Gulos were the first mobs I saw, then up the hill I found some unfriendly Rh'anka Wanderers and Thorny Sand Vipers.
The zone gave me 'oooh' feelings right away, mostly because of the moody sound of the wind blowing through the sand. I also love the look of the parched ground and the thorny trees. I was worried it would be a desert very similar to Ravenfell or Dust Devil Canyon, but it actually seems to be quite unique in feel and appearance. However, after exploring the zone for several hours, it did get really boring to look at.

First stop, Earthsprings Village, was a small town of adobe buildings and tented merchant stalls, with a variety of residents of different species. Found an armadillo with the most excellent name of Woolybully Deerhorn that was selling level 61 plus refining jewels. Made a note to revisit later.
Also found Miss Luluya Reptilia, general merchant, and Nemos Grey-Eye, potion merchant, both selling level 61 potions: Herbs of Omnipotence for HP and Elemental Stone of Omnipotence for MP. Earthsprings Village (now referred to as EV) also has all the crafting spots except tailoring and armor crafting. Not sure why they left those out.

Very important! The Black Codex dudes are up some stairs, on top of a building in EV (37.6, 74.6). Katharina Korman is the NPC who makes fusion stones. Syior Hoff sells level 60 Black Codex foods, nothing new, plus bags of level 60 mats for 20 mentos plus 37,040 gold. Karmung Shioth sells level 62 purple boots & belts for 420 mentos plus gold. The boots have a given stat; the belts have a random stat. The stats are all named "_____ of the Tomb". There are already some stones on the AH for sale. Some players are just too darn quick!
(Speaking of quick, saw a world message that Ohell reached level 62 already. Sheesh!)

Leaving EV, I came across a sight that made me pull Spazzy to a screeching halt. (Can a reindeer screech?) Off to the side of the path, giant worms with huge teeth were leaping in and out of the sand. They were called Adult Yasheedee, level 60 elites with around 62k HP. They reminded me of some scary worms from a sci fi movie, I can't think of it now. Maybe Tremors?? Anyway, I eyeballed one with a bit of trepidation, then fired up my Flame and...one-shot it! Huh. Not so scary after all.

Traveling on I passed a few more mobs that were not too surprising: some really big cacti, some sharptooths and desert scorpions. Beelined it for the Kingdom of Limon as the map showed that it was the major city in the zone. The entrance to Limon was quite spare and unimposing, not nearly as impressive as when you first enter Dalanis for instance, but the Egyptian style is nice. And I love to see those little yellow exclamation marks on my map that mean MOAR XP for me!

My first OMG moment came in Limon when I found the cutest little Anubis puppy. So sweet! Am I strange to want to pick him up and squeeze his tubby little puppy body? I guess I just love puppies, even little purple ones. What's wrong with that?  I think I posted a blog entry before about wanting to hug the little Angren kittens too.  :)

Limon didn't really impress me all the much visually, but I thought the names of the Anubi residents were very cool: Angerfang and Steeltooth and Shortleg and Bladetail. I skimmed through the back-story text in some quests and got the idea that there are two classes of dog-people that are fighting, with the Angerfangs being on the losing side.

Kawak's Tomb entrance


The only other interesting thing in Limon was Kawak's Tomb. It's the pyramid straight ahead as you enter the city. I stepped inside and checked out the mobs: 62 elites with 240k HP and up. Didn't attempt to hit anything cuz now that the level cap is off I'm going to be much more cautious about my death debt.

Moved on to Rock Salt Village and came across some new mobs along the way, nothing too spectacular but it's nice to see different things. They all die the same though, from eating too much Spiral-Fire.

Took a wrong turn around the Zanka's Nest and ran into the wormy boss, Great Throat, with over 700k HP. Backtracked very quickly but later on found out he's actually not that hard. In fact all of the mobs and bosses in this zone seem to be extremely under-powered. For me to be one-shotting mobs was a little bit of a letdown, to tell the truth. I was hoping for more of that thrilling hands-shaking, stomach-churnin, keyboard-pounding feeling you get when a mob is gonna kick your butt if you don't give it all you got and then some. Perhaps I should go back to Kawak's Tomb...

Few other quick things: mobs drop arrows and projectiles in bunches of 100. Caught a magic cavy, level 3 Amazing Egg dropped. Sigh. Was really hoping for something a bit more impressive. Only Snoop I could find was in Limon. No housemaids or mailboxes in the zone yet.

I Have Drawn The Line...

...and it's in my butt crack!  LOL
Ok, sorry for being rude, but this post is about thongs. Wipe the drool off your chin and pay attention!

Spiral is known for her ever-changing outfits and if you look at her new Fashion Page, you can see that gradually over time she has been dressing more and more provocatively. I even did a blog post once about how nervous I was to be going out in "public" wearing a skimpy pair of pants. Well, look at me now! I flaunt my dimpled butt cheeks all over town without a single thought.  ;)

But on a recent trip through Clops with my lover, Pixierosalove, and my step-brother, TwoTonTony, I realized that I actually do have a decency line and it can be crossed. The winning piece of clothing? Ordig's Knowledge Leggings. Wanna see them? I thought so! Click the link, press View in 3D on the right hand side, then at the bottom of the pop-up window, choose Female. Now slowly, slowly spin that darling around and check her out!! 

A darn fine thong, I must say, and very pretty, but I actually don't think I could wear it outside my bedroom. Seriously! I know that some of Spiral's outfits haven't really had much more cloth than those pants, but I still feel at least there was some attempt to cover her butt. These are pure basement-geek fantasy. Nothing wrong with that, but I believe I will pass on wearing this as an everyday outfit and instead save it for the next lucky geek who is invited to Spiral's purple bed.

Amazing Pet Tricks

What's wrong with this picture??

Andaphelmor 1: Evil Empire 0

This, my friends, is Andaphelmor! He is the final boss in Hall of Survivors. Last night was the first time I reached this room and attempted to beat his butt. It did not go well.  :)

The fight is a bit complicated. My guildies tried very hard to work out what we were supposed to do to succeed, however, we just couldn't seem to DO it.
The first stage we were supposed to aggro a colored mob and drag him back to the colored doorway to kill him. Simple, right? Not so much.
First of all, the colored mobs died WAY too easily, which is not something I would normally complain about! But if you killed them outside of their respective doorway, it caused bad things to happen, like dirt naps for the whole party.

I did manage to get a few of the colored mobs killed in the right spot and you could tell when you'd succeeded cuz a colored portal type thingy would open up. But in the meantime, guildies were dying left, right and center, so in the end we all wiped.

After a couple tries at this, we bailed to lick our wounds and ponder our lessons and perhaps try again another day.
I don't even wanna think about trying to do stage two, more color matching, or stage three, which as far as I know involve balls, and therefore a lot of distracting silly comments in Vent.  (I love my perverted guild.)

A quick Google brought up these links for Andaphelmor Strat: Vid by Daphat79 and Strats for All Hos by Paladin Guild.

A Fantastic Array of Bodies

FYI, this is NOT how you do DL. A big-ass gold trophy goes to Yaser for breaking the record on how many mobs he can pull at once. And head-butts and high-fives to Streaker who was the only one left standing while the rest of us licked the floor!!  Damn OP scouts.  :)

Rid the World of Labels

I've always played the game with all the labels turned on for NPC and players, including titles and guild names. That way I always knew who was who. Seemed the easiest way to do things.
But the other day I accidentally hit F9 and all the names of the players around me disappeared. It made me think: "Would I actually recognize my guildies and friends if they didn't have their name floating above their head?"
So I turned off labels for while just to see. And it turns out I didn't do so badly, even considering that I'm in a new guild. Most people in the game are very determined to be as individual as possible and they find all sorts of ways to look unique, from wings to tails to custom-colored gear...or no gear at all!
So if you'd like a new perspective on the game, hit F9 to remove player labels and F7 to remove NPC labels and tour around for a bit. The world looks different, that's for sure.

Edit: Cuz I'm a geek I figured out that if you just chose from the 8 facial tones, 25 hair styles and 46 faces available to a female human toon, there would be 9,200 different 'looks'. Factor into that the almost endless colors for hair, and all the different physical dimensions, and you'd be hard pressed to find another toon that looks exactly like yours!

Boot Fail

I took this vid a few days ago of my new not-so-stylish Elemental Flame boots. I've already aggregating them to something nice...something with knees.  :)

Look Up!

I used to get in trouble from my ex-boyfriend for having the attention span of a fruit fly. In fact, he used to tease me because I didn't have the patience to watch a red light turn green. Halfway through the red light, I'd be starting off at whatever, and end up getting honked at by other drivers to move my ass when the light changed!

It's quite obvious that I am still easily distracted...but it certainly makes for some interesting screenshots, doesn't it? In this case, I took a few moments -- not while in combat! -- to look UP.

Do you know where these places are? (For the answers, mouse over the pic.)

10 Questions & Answers About Me

I've been kicking around RoM for almost 2 years now so I figure it's about time I answer some of the most commonly asked questions I receive in game.

1. WTF is that? It's a reindeer. I won him in a Xmas contest. His name is Spazzy. Yes, he is permanent.  No, I won't sell him to you!
2. Are you a woman in RL? Yes, I am. No, I won't send you visual proof.
3. What's your real name? You can call me Spiral. If you don't like that, I will also answer to Sugar, Sexy or HeyYouCrazyMage. Take your pick.
4. Where do you live? Canada. Oh, more specifically? Ontario. The city? Not a chance, pal! A girl's gotta be careful.
5. Are you married? Kids? No and no. I'm recently single after a long-term relationship.
6. Will you marry me? Hmmm, tempting, but no. Ask me again later.  No, not in five minutes. I mean in a few months or years. Oh, stop your blubbering. You'll be fine. Plenty of fish in the sea, so they say.  ;)
7. Why do change your outfits so often? Because I get bored looking at the same thing for too long.
8. Will you power level me? NO. Go play the game!
9. Why did you pick mage/rogue? Honestly, I just went with my gut. Didn't do a lot of research about it. I'm either really lucky or really self-aware that my first toon is the one I like the most.
10. What do you do when you're not playing RoM? Sleep.

Black Thumb

What my plants should look like

OMG, I have the blackest thumb ever! Geez, I tried to be a planter using one of my alts and my first 3 tries, everything died. Too funny! I would come back to my house and they all would be blackened and withered and have sad faces on them.  :(
But today, I finally triumphed over the mysterious world of botany. This morning I harvested 8 zinc, 8 beetroot, 8 mountain demon grass, and 8 ash. Woot!

Seriously, my guildie and mage/rogue hero, SavageBeast, is a superb planter and harvests loads of mats every day in order to make pots and foods. He explained how to do it and gave me hints on timing. I guess that's the trick of it: you have to log in three times a day to water and feed your plants. And that's where I keep going wrong. I have so many other things to do that I forget about the poor ol' plants wilting in the windowsill! Happens in real life too, I must admit.

So I'm thinking that what I need to do is plant my seeds at a different time so that they mature during the day and I remember to harvest them. Right now I've been planting at night and it takes two days to mature, so the first day I remember to water and feed, but by day two, I wake up and forget about 'em and they shrivel and die. But after reading the forums (link below), they say it actually only takes 36 hours to mature a "2-day" seed, so that's why my plants are dead after 48 hours. Whoops. So if I plant in the morning on the first day, then hopefully I'll remember to take care of the wee green bastards and harvest a more substantial crop 36 hours later, the evening of the second day. Make sense?

Anyhoo, as far as I know there are five ways to get mats for crafting: gathering, planting, farming at guild castle, buying using honor points, or buying from the AH. I have done all five. The question now is: which one is the best?

Helpful link for you: Basic Planting Guide from the RoM forums.

Beautiful Places of RoM #4

Been a long time since I've posted a BPR but that's not cuz I haven't seen a ton of them. I still find myself playing the gawking tourist in many locations in Taborea. :)
This is Hall of the Demon Lord, second boss, Yash. As you can see, my poor corpse is lying at the bottom of the screen waiting for a rez. (Thank you, Nakoya!) But in the meantime I was watching the pulsing blue "heart" and thinking it was quite beautiful and deserved a post on my blog.
So next time you're admiring the grouting on the floor, remember to look around and appreciate the beauty of the game.

Spirit of Tempest Heights

I went to the Spirit of Tempest Heights twice-daily event with some crazy folks from EE. I haven't been there in a while but figured it would be a nice way to build up my stock of megaphones and such.


Stop staring at my butt.


We blasted our way through many of the levels of mobs quite quickly and soon found ourselves lag-mired in chests. I twas taking me forever just to click one chest to open it, and that was only if some roaming mob didn't decide I smelled tasty. I was getting quite frustrated and had decided to leave when I moved my camera angle up to take a look around.

Wow! I hadn't realized that we had gone past the Turtle level! I had never seen these Relic Guard guys before...and certainly never laid wary eyes on that big metal booger in the middle.

That's when I turned my attention to the party chat. I guess while I had been snoring in lag just trying to click things, they had been trying to kill one of these nasties. With no success. The mob was dodging DoTs!! Huh. The only other time I've seen that was when I was playing a low level toon in siege and a Face of Treachery was dodging my arrows! Not sure how a plant can dodge but...
Anyway, took this screenshot real quick and then booted my drafty buttcheeks outta there.  :)

Siege is a Faithless Wh.ore...

...but I keep going back.
I think I need help. Perhaps there is a support group for folks like me -- and all of the hundreds of players who go every night to the land of Lag-Fail. We could gather together in a church basement and eat wafer cookies and drink Tang and gripe about how so-and-so Shadow Stepped through the gates. We could hold each other while we weep over crashing at one minute left in siege. We could complain bitterly about being tired at work the next day cuz siege is so damn late and then laugh painfully when some crazy person suggests we just stop going.
And we could call the group: TABB -- Taboreans Against Beta Bullsh*t
Who wants to join?

Sieging Styles

In case anyone hasn't seen it yet, I'm trying to put together a guild siege guide. The link to it is over there on the right.
I updated it a bit tonight with some information regarding the stuff you can buy from the Farm Store. It seems there are a lot of siege items that I have never used. Or at least not yet. :)

Sieging with different guilds is quite an experience.
In Medieval, we ran about having fun and figuring stuff out, as siege was very, very new back then. I was pretty low level and mostly just collected crystals.
In Anomalies, I often sieged alone or with one or two other players. I learned quite a few tricks and even managed to win some sieges solo, much to the surprise of the opposing team.
In KoG, everyone kinda did their own thing for a while, until we started losing too much and then we tried to get organized but never really could pull it off. We still had a lot of fun though!
Now in Evil Empire, it's very organized. The team meets before siege to set up different groups to do different things, and each group gets a tank and a healer. Even our Vent is separated into groups so we can direct each other.

Organization is all well and good, and it certainly helps to win the siege, but it kinda makes me feel like a drone. Follow the group, do what you're told, stick to your side, don't wander off. I'm used to being a bit more independent than that.
And I miss the friendly banter in TeamSpeak from KoG, where everyone is shouting and joking and screwing things up. We were such a bunch of misfits! It was funny. And also frustrating when we couldn't win because we couldn't get our act together but still...I felt more like I was goofing off with friends than enrolling in an army.
I suppose I need to give it some time. I just joined EE and I hardly know anyone there, only Medi, Streaker and TTT. The rest I'm just getting to know and feel comfortable with. I have to admit, I often have to mouse over their toons to find out what class they are!
So maybe once I have more of an attachment to my new guild, I'll feel more involved in siege. Right now, not so much. But every day I run more and more stuff with my guild, talk more on Vent (ack, it's so hard to speak up!), and toss silly chat messages back and forth. The whole situation kinda feels like I'm the new kid at school and I want to go hide in the library and read books.  Not a great feeling, but it will get better, I'm sure.

I'm Attached to My Pets

 Ok, does anyone else have a strange attachment to their pets? Maybe it's just cuz I'm an overly-sensitive girly-girl, or maybe it's just cuz I love animals, but I am seriously attached to my pets in RoM. :)

Take this little guy for example. His name is Peanutbutter. Look how shy he is, hiding behind Vix! Adorable. Don't you just wanna pick him up and hug his soft fur? Snuggle his tubby little body and let him lick your face? So cah-yoot!

And even more adorable is how fast he runs trying to keep up with Vixyn's horse. Check out the video over there on the right hand side (updated Nov 7) or click through to my YouTube Channel if that vid has changed.

And here is Sisteragatha and her pet, Satan. Now tell me that isn't a match made in Heaven! (har har) Sister has to have a ferocious, snarly, suspicious pet to keep her safe on the road as she travels the world seeking to do good. No one messes with Sis and Satan.

Although I do love my pets, I actually don't use them very often. They just cost too damn much. The price of feeding them is a bit ridiculous and I can't be bothered to go do the quests at Miller's Ranch to get the food. Too many other things to do with my time. I suppose the stat bonuses could be worth it if you leveled your pet enough but it just hasn't been something that I've focused on.
And besides that, most groups get pissy if you bring out your pet in an instance cuz of lag.
Pets were a great idea, but not being used to their full effect in the game, I believe. Only by those who have great computers and great loads of gold to level them up. That wouldn't be me!  :)

Why We Love RoM

I use WeGame to record vids and found this on the homepage today.

Click the pic to go to WeGame

So Many Exciting Adventures

Taking screenshot of pretty areas

Well, after a few weeks of frustration and boredom, I finally have some fun new adventures to blog about! Yesterday was quite an exciting day, I have to say. I did two new instances that I've never been in. :)

Lytfir

First was The Cave of the Water Dragon. I think I should have warned my group that I'm a blogger before we went in. They kept wondering why I was lagging behind...I was snapping screenshots! So thanks to my fearless and patient group, Madazfella, Mekuk, Malycik, Damsonrhea and FreedomJackel, for taking me in and showing me around.

The mages got a lesson in how to kill the green-tailed newts using Discharge and Thunderstorm. I think we only died, oh 4 times?, before we got it right. High five, FreedomJackel!

Other than that, we were quite successful in there, even though I'm still quite sure what we were looking for. Me personally, I was completing quests that had been collecting dust for months. The others I think were looking for mats for some strange recipes. I'll have to check that out later since my backpack is now stuffed with things like Hydration Essence and Water Dragon Saliva.

Naos, the Happy Spinner

Second was a very interesting and confusing trip through the Hall of the Demon Lord. I didn't even know how to get there and was lucky enough to find a chivalrous prince, HerPrince actually, who gave me a ride on his pegasus to the entrance. Thank you!
I don't know that I actually enjoyed HODL but it was definitely a learning experience. The strategy is we HAVE to die. Well, I suppose that's not entirely true. We could fight, but it wouldn't be worth our time really. Easier to pop an Angel's Sigh, switch gear, and take your death like a real woman!

Androlier is almost dead!

Our group had quite a good sense of humour about the whole dying thing, and Kiyokio even died many more times just to prove that it was okay! (Way to take one for the team, Kiki.)
We battled our way past many nasty mobs, mini-bosses and uber-bosses, then reached an area where we had to "hug" the wall to sneak past some evil baddies. Of course, that didn't work out so well. Medi's giant plate shoulders knocked against the wall and he caught aggro and died rather quickly. Then a bunch of us simply wandered a bit too close to the nasties and suffered the same fate. It seemed an endless time until we all managed to tiptoe to the final area only to find... four of us weren't keyed for Sirloth. Bummer. We tried a trick to get us inside, which kinda worked, but we couldn't move once past the barrier. So we were no help with the fight.
SavageBeast, LadySavage, Kitgw, Yaser, Zelvira, Damsonrhea, and Twotontony were keyed and went through to fight the big, bad, smelly, evil, flatulent, pustulent, inconsiderate and poxy SIRLOTH! (Can you tell I don't like him much?) I watched from my resting place on the ground as they successfuly defeated His Royal Loserness. Gratz!
I am grateful to the patient and understanding SavageBeast, for his instructions and humour through this instance. (Canadians FTW!) And also want to give a big thank you to Triple-T for inviting me to join Evil Empire. So far all I can say is: You guys ROCK!  I'm looking forward to many more adventures with you. I've got a packload of Angel's Sighs that I need to burn up.  :)

Sirloth

Double XP Weekend

It seems obvious to me that they always put double XP on holiday weekends to entice people to play more RoM and ignore their families and RL events, but as Halloween is my favorite holiday, I spent most of this weekend out doing fun, spooky, silly things in RL and not gaining double XP. (My pregnant sister and I went to a Halloween party dressed as Mary & Joseph. Ha ha! And no, I will NOT post pix.)

I still managed to squeeze in some late night gaming on Vixyn though and leveled her from 30/30 to 34/32. Mostly just did regular quests to level, but my friend Furlough and I tried to do BG for kicks. I was a typical headstrong female and raced at the True Count with my crazy eyes on, and therefore got out of Furlough's healing range and died rather spectacularly. Whoops. So out comes Spiral, fireballs blazing, and takes him out in a few hits, thus revenging her little sister's death. Take that, ya big smelly bat!

Of course there was the usual crap over the weekend with everyone getting kicked from their guilds and not being able to enter their houses or get mail or use the AH, blah blah blah. A lot of world chats flying back and forth about how lame Runewaker/Frogster is but I honestly don't expect much more. Sure, it ticks me off when things mess up, but this is a free game after all. It's kinda like buying a computer from the back of some guy's van in the Wal-Mart parking lot, then complaining that it doesn't come with Windows, a DVD drive, USB ports, and is missing the letters K and R on the keyboard.. Can't expect too much from cheap stuff. That's why it's cheap, friends.

World Boss: Amboriar

Goofing around on Spiral and feeling kinda cocky, I decided to go check out the new world boss, Amboriar. (What an effed up name, I have to say. I would have just called him Big Metal Gadget.)

So I trotted confidently into the instance, which is located in the far back of the Tomb in Southern Janost Forest, and glanced around, fireballs at the ready. "Well," I thought, "These aren't even elites!" They were just plain ol' level 60s. I took aim and fired and a few of them popped into nothingness.

Striding even more boldly into the fray, I very quickly realized that squishy little mages have no business walking around thinking they're hot stuff, other than the fact that their hands are on fire most of the time, cuz I got one-shotted by a level 60 elite without it even breaking a sweat...or spilling oil...or whatever it is robots do when exerting themselves. I think I was thrown off by the fact that he was a PINK robot. Perhaps pink is the new color of destruction?? (If so, little girls everywhere deserve to be feared!)

At any rate, I was smart enough to rez out and get my rogue side on, boo-yeah, and I traipsed back in again. Snuck around and took some screenshots and stared suspiciously at things like the Ancient Magnork Instruments and High Density Energy Crystals. All the mobs seemed to be named things like No. 43 Punisher and No. 16 Punisher. Robots have no imagination.

Of course, I pondered the big boss, Amboriar, for quite a long time, watching him drifting up and down in the sky. Kinda looked like something you'd buy from The Shopping Network.
"Only available through this special offer! Slices, dices, folds your laundry and calls your mother-in-law! Comes with its own handy faux leather carrying case. Act now and receive these great bonus gifts! All yours for only $2,999.99! Call NOW!"

Figured I had wasted enough time looking at something I could never kill, and turned around to head out. Except, um, which way is out?? I was lost! Too funny!
I started giggling as I crept through masses of evil robots. I had been so absorbed in taking screenshots for the blog that I got turned around. Relying on my Great Canadian Lost-in-the-Bush training, I picked an edge and kept circling until I found a portal. It wasn't the same one I came in on, but I didn't care. It took me out to the Tomb Researchers camp where I breathed a sigh of relief. Another successful exploration complete!

P.S. Couldn't find a video of anyone taking this guy down, but did find this video of someone exploring the zone just like me...only he was nuts enough to engage in combat.

Alts Everywhere!

So this post will continue with my current theme of sowing my wild oats, spreading the seeds of love, playing the field, finding more fish in the sea, taste-testing many ice creams...okay, I made that last one up!
I've been playing through all my numerous alts to find one that I might enjoy leveling up as much as I have enjoyed Spiral. Now you may remember that I have something like 15 alts, so this process has taken a few days now.

I'm actually quite an organized person when it comes to my alts. I have a grid chart with the X and Y axes showing each of the 8 classes in RoM and then each grid square showing the name of the character. So I can easily see which class combos I've never done, just in case I want to try something new. The only classes I haven't tried are P/K, R/S, M/Wr and M/Wd. Everything else I've played at least to level 10 just to try them out.
So after all that testing, I've discovered that the character I like to play the most after Spiral is....drum roll please...this saucy red-haired Mage/Scout!

Her name is Vixyn. She's level 30/30 which I think I must have accomplished way back when they had glorious double XP weekends. (Those were the days...)

Vixyn is a member of the guild Redrum. She joined up with them way back when they were small and openly recruiting for members to help in siege. I have sieged with them on occasion and enjoyed it very much. Can't say much else about the guild since I haven't interacted with them much other than that, but we'll see how it works out as I play more on Vix.

Pondering why I would choose Vix as my new "main", I guess it must be my love of ranged attacks. I guess I'm just a chicken-heart! I love to keep my distance from the smelly, evil mobs and just fire away until they are safely face down on the floor. All that in-yo-face fighting that melee and tanks do is too...I dunno...visceral. Although I did realize the other day that I was so scared of tanking cuz I still had a squishy mage mindset that if I got hit I would die rather quickly. As a tank, playing on Medi's toon, I soon realized that I was darn freaking TOUGH and I could take some hits and that's when it became more fun.

But the other thing about my love of mages is that I don't have to be the leader in a party. That's not to say that I can't lead, but I just find it less stressful if I can just follow and play and have fun and not have to worry about the party. I guess I'm not much of a team player. Well, anyone who knows me in real life would say, "DUH! You're just figuring that out now??"  :)

MMO Slut

I have a confession. I have been sowing my wild oats over the past week. Yes, I have been playing other games besides ROM.  ~gasp!~

Ok, so here's the thing: level 60 is a grind. Maybe not for everyone, but for me it was getting boring. I didn't have good enough gear to get into the harder instances, and the only way to get better gear was to grind out dailies and mentos raids and farm DOD first boss.
Now don't get me wrong. I wasn't all THAT bored. I was leveling my crafting, exploring the nooks & crannies of the zones, chatting with guildies, and enjoying siege (minus crashes). But a few us got to talking on TS and we all felt we needed a little vacation from ROM to go try something new.

Medi and I started out on EQII Extended. It's a free version of Everquest with some limitations regarding classes and races. It was fun enough, although I found the graphics to be disappointing and the combat too easy.
Next Medi, Heka, Maj and I tried out Warhammer. Now that game is fun! There is always so much going on: public events, RvR, scenarios, plus all the regular quests. But the free trial is severely limited. You can only reach level 10. And it's a subscription game, which I've never wanted to do.
I also tried out Guild Wars, cuz a few people in our guild had mentioned they used to play. It was boring and confusing. Once you leave town, you are on your own. You only interact with other players in cities or in your group outside of cities. Blah.
However, Guild Wars 2 is scheduled to come out sometime in the next 100 years, and I'd like to try that and see if it lives up to the hype.

So after exploring my MMO preferences, here are all the reasons I love ROM and still consider it the best free MMO out there!
1. Beautiful to look at.
2. Easy to learn.
3. Lots to explore.
4. Free play includes all classes, races, trades, etc.
5. Fun events.
6. Dual classes.
7. Great community.

So thanks Runes of Magic for being a great MMO that keeps me coming back for more. :)

The Pumpkin Festival

The lovely Belle Rossly says, "Are you enjoying the Pumpkin Festival? This is my favorite holiday of all -- you get to dress up like a monster, and the whole town feels all cool and creepy!" I couldn't agree with you more, Belle! I just love Hallowe'en!

Outside Dalanis, I found Belle and took the quest she offered, Pumpkin Pranksters. The Spooky Pumpkins appear every half hour in the city and you have to catch them. The first time they showed up, I only got two cuz other players were grabbing them. It actually seemed as if there were only five in total, and you need five to complete the quest, so that's a little difficult when everyone is taking them. But I will eventually complete this just to see what the prizes are.  :)

As far as I can tell, there is only one other new quest that wasn't here last year. It's one offered by a big dude with a pumpkin head name (quite appropriately if not originally) Pumpkinhead. Right now, all he'll tell me is that his event starts on the hour every two hours, so I guess I've have to wait to find out what it is.

The other events are the same one I played obsessively last year: Monster Parade at Varanas Bridge, and the very frustrating Kaz Madness at Oblivion Shrine. There is also collecting sugar canes to hand in at Varanas Central for titles, and getting candy from the Highlander family in Varanas East to give to Little Annie to get potions and stuff. (Whew complicated chain of events!)

My favorite prizes during the Pumpkin Festival are always the great costumes. I actually played so much last year that still have some wicked sweet outfits from last year...pumpkin heads and frankenstien heads and cool boots, robes and masks. I also saw someone riding a pumpkin/witch broom, which would be a very cool prize to get.

If all else fails, they are selling some very interesting costumes in the Item Shop for the week. I like how they look as is...but also am plotting how I could color them and mix-match them to make an even more awesome outfit! Unfortunately, poor Spiral is poor as dirt right now and won't be buying anything. I'll just have to plug away at these events to get the prizes I want.

I really love how all the cities are "dressed up" for Halloween with pumpkins, ghosts, witches and candy scattered everywhere. It really sets the mood and makes it exciting to be in Taborea. The events are the same thing...I won't lie, it can get kinda boring in RoM at level 60. But having events to do keeps me interested in logging in.

Spiral Dressed as Mr. Pumpkinhead

Honor Party & Spirit Points

Yesterday Medi and I tested out the new Help-A-Noob thingamajig that's given by Lehman in Varanas Class Hall. So the gist of it is you get a quest and he gives you one free ticket that allows you to start an Honor Party for 3 hours. Then you go and find some noobs and help them out with "certain quests" and you get spirit points.

So Medi was on a low level alt and I was on Medi (wink wink), and we killed a bunch of mobs. Nothing. Killed Amias. Zilch. Then we went into FA and did an entire run. Nada. I didn't notice any changes or messages or things dropping into my backpack. Did some googling and couldn't find much info about it so we were getting a bit frustrated.

Then Medi asked me to check out my screens to see if the points just showed up somewhere. Turned out to be a brilliant idea! On the C screen, under the stat listings on the left hand side it says how many Spirit Points you have. Turns out Medi had gotten one but we don't really know where from.

So I talked to Lehman again and found out how totally lame this thing is. You need to get 3 Spirit Points to trade for ONE stat point, like one point of Stam. Pffft. Not worth the time. You can only run FA so many times before you feel like lying down in one of the coffins and letting the zombies eat what's left of your brain!

I don't know if I think it's a great idea anyway. There are already lots of high levels who enjoy helping noobs without being rewarded, and that kind of selflessness is something I really like about RoM. I was helped by high levels when I was a lowbie, and I paid it forward as I "grew up".
But....instances at low levels are supposed to teach players how to group and use their skills and not just be a hand-holding exercise. Encouraging more high levels to help lowbies go through instances is not going to make better players. New players are going to be totally incompetant in groups. Kinda like what happens when people power level. The point of the game is to PLAY it!
Now go forth and be successful with it!

Rh'anka Village Day Spa

After a long day adventuring, nothing beats the feeling of a steaming hot bath.
Here at Rh'anka Village Day Spa you will receive all the pampering you could ever desire while luxuriating in the famous Softclaws Hot Spring, an amazing natural geological feature.
The hot spring is a comfortable 102 degrees Farenheit and fits 17 humans or elves, or 3 Rhinofolk.
The limestone-infused water is perfect for soothing fatigued warrior muscles. Knights can take advantage of our free armor polishing service while they soak away their aches and pains.

Other services at RVDS include:
Green Mud Body Wraps by famed elven aesthetician, Jirinki Zhee, two-time winner of the Jyr'nathon Holistic Provider of the Year award.
Manicures and Pedicures. Wardens receive a free mani for their Oak Walker when they buy a mani/pedi combo for themselves.
Massages by a skilled team of registered massage therapists. Casters and scouts receive a 10% discount on hand massages. Try our exclusive patented Dimstar Thornapple Ointment for those pesky burns and blisters.
Your privacy is important to us! We are proud of our new VIP entrance for rogues and PvP players. Come and go at RVDS without anyone knowing.

Plenty of free parking for your mount, so come visit Rh'anka Village Day Spa today!
Pamper yourself. You deserve it.

Medi's Back!

Medi just came back from vacation and I got in troubles!!
First of all, I put him in a lovely pale purple dress. He didn't like that. Pewp on him.
Secondly, I gave the wrong stat for his Pdef. He says, "66568. Get it right or you're fired."
So there!

Overkill?

Had a blast in siege tonight, playing on Medi as Scout. Our team did a fantastic job holding off our opponent, Morningstar of Reni.
Do you think we went a little teensy bit overboard on the defenses?  NO WAY!

P.S. DING! Got Medi's scout side to level 60 today.

Me TANK!

My incredibly trusting virtual-husband, Meditank, has gone on a much-needed vacation for a few days and has left me his toon to play with. Medi is a level 60/59 K/S with god knows how many HP and Pdef. I know you hardcore players out there care about those numbers so I will go look them up. One sec...44440 HP unbuffed and 40768 Pdef. There. Happy?  :)

He was kind enough to leave me some instructions on how to tank and how not to die and I have vowed not to let him down. So far, so good! I played pretty much all day today on Medi and didn't die and only killed, well, a few people in my party. Okay a lot of people. But it wasn't my fault!
You see, I tanked the Ant Queen as my first venture into being a Knight. I didn't mean to. I just noticed that Medi hadn't finished that quest yet and there was a shout-out for a raid, so I joined. Turns out there were only two tanks, and the other one insisted that I do it. Eek!
Lucky for me, Heka answered my cry for help and moral support and joined the raid to ensure I wouldn't end up face down getting teabagged. The fight itself was a blur. I came out alive, but according to Heka, the fight was FAIL. Oh well.

Next I tanked first boss of DoD with the guild a few times. Scary! I've seen Medi tank it a thousand times but in reality is was freaking nerve-wracking. He makes it look so easy... when I couldn't even get the party through the hallway to the boss room without one of them dying.
The worst part was that during the boss fight I couldn't see a thing! That is so not cool cuz that boss loves to jump on people's heads. But we survived so I guess that's considered a PASS. 

The rest of my day on my Rent-a-Tank was spent completing the bajillion quests that he hasn't done. Medi isn't fond of questing, while I love it, so I figured I'd help him out. I was actually waaaaay back in Varanas doing level 14 quests. Kinda funny.
Stayed up late to do the daily resets in NJF and tallied up an impressive total of XP for the day. Medi is now 21,089,891 out of 32,350,000 to level 60 on his scout side. That's like over 20 mill XP I made in one day. Woot!

And last but not least...I had to play a joke on Medi. I bought some Illusory Hair Chests for a few rubies and opened them up. Here are the before and after pix. An improvement? Or not? You decide!

Introducing a New Team

I got a llama!!
I didn't actually have any diamonds of my own, so I went and did some -- ok, a LOT -- of the free surveys that are offered by Peanut Labs to get enough free diamonds to buy him.

I bought the chocolate colored llama cuz I'm a girl and I love chocolate. Perhaps I will call him Vanilla, just to be silly.
He is a stealth llama, just like Waggles, Sister Agatha's donkey, so he makes no noise when running or rearing. He sniffs the ground for food and chews it. The pissed off expression on his face only adds to his ever-so-charming demeanor. Don't mess with this fuzzy beast...he's spit in your eye and call you estúpido.

Sitting on Vanilla is Blueblade, my newest alt. She is R/P 20/20. Kind of an interesting combo. Been rogue on Spiral for ages so I'm pretty used to that but learning to be a priest is difficult. Too used to popping pots...I keep forgetting about the spells. 
I'm thinking about installing an addon called Healbot that is supposed to be great for making sure no one dies. Right now I'm hesitating cuz it kinda feels like cheating to have a program do things for you, but maybe it's not that bad. And besides, I really don't enjoy getting people killed. Okay, maybe it's funny to see Medi take a dirt nap now and then, but only him.
(Kidding, my hubby. You wouldn't die so much if you stopped trying to save my crazy squishy mage ass!)

Anyway, I'm off to ride the ranges on my fearless furry friend. Ándale, Vanilla!