This Little Piggy

I accidentally bought three, yes THREE, 7-day Striped Boar mounts. How is that possible, you ask? Well, I'm dumber than I look.  :)

I was checking out the Honor Shop merchants that hang out near the arena in Obsidian Stronghold. I've been getting honor points by participating in siege and wanted to know what sort of things I could get.

Well, they have a lot of cool armor and accessories and stuff, plus all these interesting 7-days mounts...behrus, ostriches and, of course, boars. Some of them I hadn't seen before so I tried to click on them to preview them, just out of curiousity. Apparently, I forgot what click combination brings up the preview and before I could say, "Wee wee wee all the way home" I had three Striped Boars in my backpack.

And the worst part is that I paid 200 Phirius coins and 600 Honor Points EACH. Yes, friends, I wasted 600 Phirius and 1800 Honor on 7-day pigs.

So here is a picture of me and my little piggy. I guess Spazzy is going to get a break for a few days while I trot around on these guys.
One nice thing I can say about boar mounts is that they corner like they're on rails!  :)

Have You Seen This Man?

I was in the Administration District in Varanas, near NPC Berol, and I found this mysterious gentleman. When I talked to him, all he would say is:

"Hello, I am Feldman, Chief Craftsman of the Repair Department."

Who is he? What does he do? Where did he come from? Where does he go? (Cotton-eye Joe??)
I stared at him long and hard, I jumped up and down in front of him, I poked him with a dagger, I danced sexy, I kicked him, I rolled on the floor laughing...but still he only repeated the same statement to me over and over: "I am Feldman."

Who is Feldman????

Is he a spy? A nightclub owner? A government worker? A mentally challenged individual? Or all of the above?

Perhaps we will never know. But I will visit my mystery man every now and then just to see if the canary ever changes his tune and one days exclaims: "I am....????"

Sister Goes for a Walkabout

Took ol' Sister Agatha out for a spin today. She's my Priest/Scout alt, around level 36 I think now. She's also a level 25 cook so I took her out in Dragonfang Ridge to gather some wood and herbs to make Creamy Seafood Pie and Deluxe Seafood.

One thing I can say, the old bird can swing an axe!

While following a trail of Moxa, I stumbled acoss this interesting zone. First there was a huge arch and some mysterious looking statues lining the path. The name on my screen was Ruins of the Great Gate.

I wandered in further and found more and more moxa and oak to gather. Sweet.

Next I came across this fine fellow contemplating a...basketball? Orange? Ancient Rubik's Cube?

Finally reached the Temple of Mysteries, or at least that's what the screen said. But it really was a mystery cuz there is no open door or portal or anything. Nothing to say what it's for. No mobs. No NPCs. It's not an instance, or perhaps just not YET an instance.

The Temple of Mysteries will remain a mystery then. But Sister and I will certainly be back to collect all that delicious moxa!

Beautiful Places of RoM #2

I took this picture a while ago, as you can tell by Spiral's outfit. It's of the Ystra Labryinth.
I find the Labyrinth to be very moody and interesting. It was only when I was a higher level that I could actually go in there and enjoy the scenery, rather than just tip-toeing around avoiding mobs. The way the light shines down from the ceiling is beautiful. And there are many interesting details thorughout the zone, which is actually quite large and convoluted.
To reach the Ystra Labyrinth you talk to a chick standing next to Snoop in Harf Trading Post.

P.S. I have a feeling that my blog posts will be fewer and further between as the beautiful summer weather tempts me outside more than usual!

RoM Addicts

You know you're a RoM Addict when...

...you spend an hour upgrading your level 55 purple belt
...you name your firstborn child Taborea
...you love the rain because it means you have an excuse to ditch the yardwork and play RoM
...you try to talk to goats in the real world and are puzzled when they don't give you a quest
...your Christmas list is one item: RoM diamonds
...your toon has more friends that you do
...you call in sick to work because it's double XP time
...you know exactly how many seconds it takes to run to the nearest toilet and back
...you have a coffee maker ON your computer desk
...your RL friends' eyes glaze over when you chat incessantly about HotO and gear and sieging
...you dance around your computer room upon soloing your first world boss
...you get a bladder infection because your run through TT was waaaaaay too long
...your family is scared to approach you at siege time because they honestly think you may kill them
...you open your birthday presents and say, "Woot!"
...you chew your nails to bits during a 3-second lag spike
...you weep openly when your level 54 toon gets ganked by the Uncontrolled Demon Soldier
...you confront your boss by screaming, "RAWR!"
...you spend server maintenance downtime blogging about RoM!

This & That

Nothing much exciting going on in my RoM life these days.

Became co-leader of a newly formed guild called Anomalies.
Built a guild castle with the help of generous donations from my friend, D. Thank you thank you thank you!
Been spending the rest of my time gathering, processing, gathering, processing...booooooooring.
Did a guild siege with two players! Lost, of course, but I had fun sneaking around backstabbing the enemy.
Going to build an academy, forge, field, lumber yard and library before we start recruiting.

What else?
Gave one of my alts breast implants. Only cost 30 diamonds or about $0.60 real money. Good deal!
Sold a Magic Bloodthirst Necklace, dura 108, for 1.2 million gold. Sweet.
Been playing on a ton of alts, just messing around with new class combos. I think I could level a toon to 10 with my eyes closed now.
Spent 30 momentos on 2 pieces of an accessory set that will give me one of those new Item Set Skills when complete.
Toured the countryside looking for Lost Image 3 for the Expedition 60 contest. I knew where Images 1 and 2 were right away but #3 has got me stumped.

Hopefully something more mind-blowing will happen soon so I can write a more interesting blog post. :)

I Am So Dumb!

Big thanks to Derrin/Awenspiration who took this screenshot of me at my most absent-minded.
If you click the picture, it will open up bigger so you can see the details. Check out what I'm selling a Harm V rune for! And look at the chat at the bottom where people are laughing at me too.  :)

Okay, so I'll tell what happened. I use an add-on called Advanced Auction House and it automatically puts in the average selling price of an item when you put it up for auction. I obviously adjusted the opening bid price correctly, but it looks like instead of deleting the buy-out price I just tacked on my price at the end!
Too freaking funny. I laughed so hard at this!

Jiasha

Yesterday I got another chance to go into HotO (Heart of the Ocean). I've been in a couple times but have always died...more than once actually! Of course, this time was no exception but I was prepared for that and had taken a Big Angel's Sigh before entering the instance.
I think it's interesting that now that I have level 58 after my name, I am more easily accepted into parties. What I feel embarrassed to reveal is that I'm so inexperienced at all things "high-level". But seeing as how it was a group setting, and my competence level might cause the group to fail, I let them know that I wasn't sure about the bosses. Lucky for me, an old guildie was in the group and he was very understanding and made sure I was informed.
You see, there's a lot of tricks to HotO that you wouldn't know unless you had experience. And each person in the group has a job to do at each boss.
For instance, when fighting the Bloodthirsty Claw, you're supposed to stay behind him cuz he has a forward-facing AOE. And keep moving away from the jellyfish cuz they drain mana. And mages have to purg the adds. And who knows what else I missed!
The second boss, Teeth of the Reef, does some weird debuff that takes away your HP by a certain percentage, so everyone switches their gear to lower their HP. Strange but true. And once again, mages must purg the adds.
The third boss, Jiasha, I don't really know why and I was too timid to ask, but all the melee folks stand in a big clump of seaweed and fight there. And the healers and mages stand in a certain spot to the side and cast from there. Intense damage gets done and the healer has a huge job to do, but somehow this fight seems easier than the first two.
This time, my group decided to go past Jiasha, which I've never done, and head to Geba. Of course we wiped in a most awesome way! But it was tremendous fun.

For amazing videos of loads of RoM including boss fights and tips, visit the Realm Guardians channel on Youtube. Fantastic stuff!

Many Screenshots

I take tons of screenshots. Every time something cool happens or I see something interesting, I take a screenshot. Most times I plan on posting the screenshots here and blogging about them but then something new comes up and I move on and forget about them.
So this morning I decided to upload all my old screenshots to my page on WeGame for everyone's viewing pleasure.

I use WeGame to capture videos of RoM. It works okay, although I find that it causes quite a bit of lag for me. So most of my videos are actually fail.  Ha!
You can also use WeGame to take screenshots, but I just take them using the regular PrtScrn button and RoM saves them in my screenshots folder. I always have to modify them though, since they're usually huge files and also in bmp format, not JPEG. I don't use any fancy program, usually just Paint, although sometimes I use Serif Photoplus SE if I want to do layers.
So anyway, now that I've cleaned up my screenshots folder, it's time to go play and fill it up again with new stuff!

Standard Aggregator

Tonight I used a Standard Aggregator for the first time. I have something like 30 of the silly things. I think I got them as part of a package deal or prize or something. I didn't pay for them, that's for sure!
But seeing as how I just got some nice Jiasha's Leg Guards and I also had some Demon Lady Leggings kicking around from the Halloween events, I decided to mash them together.
I was nervous doing it cuz it was my first time and I didn't want to mess up and ruin a 2 million gold pair of pants. I was also worried that maybe once I pressed the aggregator to use it, I wouldn't be able to cancel. But they had a cancel button, a confirm button, and a really simple preview screen as well.
I forgot to take a screenshot of it, so I can't post a pic here. Whoops.
Anyway, it put all of the stats from the Jiasha's Leg Guards, including the dura and runes, onto the appearance of the Demon Lady Leggings. So now my character screen says that I'm wearing the Jiasha's, but it looks like I'm wearing a cute little purple mini-skirt. :)
I've got a ton of costumes stuffed in storage chests in my house. I keep getting them from events and such and I hang on to them cuz they're bound. But I guess with 30 aggregators, I could make myself a costume for every occasion!

I'm All Gangsta!

So check out my new hat, chapeau, cap, head gear, bandana, gang colors! I'm bad, I'm bad, I'm really really bad. Who's bad?
Okay, but the coolest part is the stats. I'm actually starting to get gear that looks like stuff a level 58 would wear. Costs me a fortune, but what the hell. I'm gonna go kick some butt this weekend...it's 2x TP! Woot!

Creepy Crawlies

Okay, after dissing the developers for making too many huge-bottomed creatures, I figured it was time to give them some props.

I don't know if there's a certain artist who is in charge of drawing the insects in the game, but whoever is doing it has made some fantastic creatures!

Even from the very beginning of the game I noticed the amazing details on the beetles and dragonflies. The beetles have shiny carapaces and multiple hidden wings and segmented joints. They turn their little heads and flutter their wings under their shell.
The dragonflies have articulating legs and veined wings. They bend their skinny abdomens under themselves just like real dragonflies do. The shading of their colors is just beautiful.
Perhaps it's just that I am nature lover and no one else would notice these things but I am truly impressed with the "bug artist" of RoM!
The picture to the side is a beetle that is found in the new area of Southern Janost Forest. He has a grinning skull on his shell. Too cool!