November 30, 2010

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.

November 29, 2010

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.

November 28, 2010

Amazing Pet Tricks

What's wrong with this picture??

November 26, 2010

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.

November 25, 2010

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.  :)

November 24, 2010

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!

November 21, 2010

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.  :)

November 19, 2010

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.)



November 17, 2010

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.

November 16, 2010

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.

November 14, 2010

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.

November 13, 2010

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.  :)

November 12, 2010

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?

November 10, 2010

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.

November 9, 2010

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!  :)

November 7, 2010

Why We Love RoM

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

November 6, 2010

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

November 1, 2010

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.