2008-03-27 - The way of the shortblade

Log Entry for 05-04-09.

It's been quite a quiet week, a couple of solo globals and three in a team with Tiger, the Letomie were only obliging the first day, on the second the leeches sucked! They were quite a challenge for the two of us, frequently having to stop to heal, the second time I had got some other plates (can't remember which ones) they give about 4 points of acid protection and 2 of stab, this did mean less healing. I have been on-line quite a lot and hunting most of the time, with some mining, both have been very poor this week.

In preparation for Fight Pub I have been practising PVP and soon remembered why I don't do that, it's because I am really rubbish as it. I had a session with Ulleh and Brat and that seemed OK but latter in the week had the first of two sessions with Anna, I spent more time on the ground than fighting, frequently being killed before I was half way through her hit points! I tried changing my 'O' options to be the same as Anna's but that did not seem to make a difference, after some time I started playing with the mouse settings and after removing pointer acceleration I found I had much more control but was still losing badly to Anna.

I don't use a mouse but have a trackball instead, it's just much more comfortable when sitting on the sofa :), I was wondering if that caused me lack of control, so late Saturday night I spent some time configuring my Logitech Wireless PS2 controller to work with EU. This involved lots of running around the ring and pretend fighting, anyone who saw me must have thought I was completely McNoon!

After that Tiger joined me in the ring and I continued the practice and tweaked the controller to make things easier, I found having no Y axis on the left and right stick made things much easier and toward the end of the night I was definitely improving. Then I tried using it to hunt some low level mobs at Phoenix, this worked quite well although dragging out a life bar is tricky.

The next day (Sunday) I had a go at the the atrox near Cape Corinth using the controller, with occasional use of the trackball and keyboard this is a really nice way to play, although it will take a little getting used to. I use the POV as an item selector, 3 x weapons and a FAP, left joystick had mouse X axis (for moving the avatar), right joystick mouse X and Y axis (with different sensitivity for moving the mouse pointer), the four buttons on the right are mapped to the three mouse buttons and a spare, the four finger buttons are mapped to Q,E,W and S. One of the joystick buttons is the SPACE, the other is spare, two additional buttons are used as Z and as un-ready item. The atrox didn't stand a chance :)!

Sunday night once again saw Anna and myself in the ring, this time I was very close to beating her during the first bout but I still lost, in subsequent bouts I did not do as well but was doing much better than the previous night, so now it's more practice and more tweaking, I think Fight Pub is this weekend so I will need to practice some every night :).

Spent three evenings waiting for Nexus7 to show at Jason Centre so I could pay him his 50 PED for winning the caption contest, as it turns out it was third time lucky and I finally managed to complete that Sunday night.

 

Log Entry for 19-04-09.

Two weeks since my last log entry or there abouts. I don't remember much about the first week and the second week was mostly taken up with stuff back on Earth. However a few trips were made to Calypso.


I met Trinity for the first time just before I was due to start Fight Pub at Jason centre, Trinity tried to join the brawl but did not have quite enough time to register. I had an hour of slaying and being slayed, mostly being slayed to be honest, I was a bit confused at the start as the rules said no knives and everyone except for me was using a knife! Seems there was an error in the rules! Looks like my mace and claw practice was mostly a waste but no matter. I promptly retrieved a couple of blades from storage and continued the fray. After an hour I was rather tired, it takes more concentration than I am used to giving :). However I had come 3rd out of 8 or 9, considering I was expecting to come last I was very pleased, the position was due mostly to me using a heavy blade and not because of any real skill when it comes to PVP. Afterwards we chatted about things, how can it be improved etc. and I introduced the organiser to the stables at Genesis, it seems almost no one knows about them.

Trinity and myself then went for a hack and slay at Twin Peaks, this was quite good fun if giving a fairly poor return, it's always nice to meet other denizens of EUC and this one was a long time in coming :) what with us both being members of a social group that has hardly been used "Melee Madness".

The Ides of April snable race took place the following day, this was a cross country race form Jason centre to East Scyla then on to Twin Peaks stables. All was going rather well until the Scylla Twin leg when three snables got stuck at a server boundary. Tiger and Ulleh re-logged and managed to free their snables, Mr. Pilkington did not. Across the line first was Tiger, with Brat less than a second behind him and PBG who was last as Scylla (by a long way, having lost her snable) crossed the line third. Due to the server boundary issue I had to come up with a method of making things a little fairer so I awarded points for each leg and then totalled them, this gave the following result:-

Tiger 7
Brat 7
Ulleh 7
Karl 5
PBG 4

This seems a little unfair toward Karl who was doing well at East Scylla and to PBG who though last at East Scylla arrived at Twin in third, sorry guys. The prize nutrio bars were distributed equally between the the three joint winners.

After two races the points are:-

Tiger 14
Ulleh 12
Karl 11
Brat 9
PBG 7

I am determined to find a way to prevent Tiger from winning, this race was the nearest I had come so far, if the boundary issue had not occurred then he would have lost.

After the race Trinity and I went to Atrax beach where we wasted some ped slicing and dicing the creatures there. We also checked out the stables and lured and Araneatrox Young into them so we could slice it up. It took a long time to do that and there was much healing and a couple of deaths but we managed it between us. Then we tried a second one and managed to slay that in a similar style. Trinity was not surviving as well as I, it seems she had no plates on her ghost while I had 5As, this would make a considerable difference. There was the offer of a loan and we waited sometime for her friend Shadow (also of the Forsaken) to join us and lend the plates. Shadow also wanted to have a go at the spiders so three of us set off. It was a struggle to find a young to start with but we did and ploughed through two with relative ease before I tried to lure a third away from a group, I almost managed it but an old followed, we did not stand a chance! this left the young and the old very close together and some clever strategy from Shadow allowed us to split them up and then destroy the young. Shortly after that I had to log.

I seem to only have recent happenings in this log entry, that's because the bald guy is losing his memory, sorry about that.

 

Log Entry for 26-04-09.

For the most part it has been another quiet week, busy in the real world, I have logged in from time to time for a chat and to mine, I dropped a few bombs and probes each time, nothing spectacular, in fact nothing.

However Sunday was good, we had a Soc. Green Beret event organised by Tiger as the current holder. I logged on a little early so I could make my contribution to the prize pool and I handed over some stuff to PBG who holds the prize items.

This was to be a variant of the Tiger Olympics (I think we ran those before I started this log so there will be no details). There were three rounds in this event, the contestants were PBG, Ulleh, Brat and myself.

The first round was to be held at Palms Corner and was entitled Urban Running. So that Tiger could take us through the course we assembled at the statue, from here we went south to a house that stood alone which we had to run around once clockwise, next we had to run to the TP pad then up some steps to a house with a pink roof were we each had to pick up a specific extractor, then it was south again to the highest point were we completed the race by handing the extractor to Tiger. After the run through we went to the start line again, where we were staggered according to agility and Brat and Ulleh were each awarded 3 points for having a lower stamina.

Initial points:-

Ulleh 3
Brat 3
PBG 0
Cee 0

The race was on and we set off, PBG took an early lead with me in second and Ulleh and Brat behind, this was the position after we left the round house. I managed to beat PBG to the TP and was a long way ahead by the time we reached the house with the pink roof and picked up our extractors. For me it all went wrong when climbing the steps during the final leg, I slipped off the side and had to do it again and then again, this had a fairly large effect on the result.

1st Ulleh 6 points
2nd Brat 3 points
3rd PBG 1 point
4th Cee 0 points


The second round was to be held at Zychon Citadel and was called Zychon High Jump. From the bridge we had to jump off and see how far we could travel before hitting the ground, nice and simple, I like nice and simple, I am nice and simple, well simple any ways! The results were:-

1st Cee 3
2nd Brat 2
3rd PBG 1
4th Ulleh 0

The third and final round was to be held at Genesis stables was PVP based and was to be fought in bare feet and naked from the waste up. It was made up of three heats, PVP points would be awarded for each heat and these would be used to calculate who got what points for the round again there were penalties based on health and powerfist skills so we started with the following PVP points:-

Ulleh 0
Brat 0
PBG -2
Cee -4

Heat 1 Challenger.

Each of us would fight each other using powerfists, we were not allowed to run, Tiger picked a person and they chose who they were to fight first, the winner chose who they would fight until we had all fought each other

Bout 1 Ulleh vs Cee, winner Cee.
Bout 2 Cee vs PBG, winner Cee.
Bout 3 Cee vs Brat, winner Cee.
Bout 4 Brat vs Ulleh, winner Brat.
Bout 5 PBG vs Brat, winner PBG.
Bout 6 PBG vs Ulleh, winner PBG.

1st Cee 3 PVP points
2nd PBG 2 PVP points
3rd Brat 1 PVP point
4th Ulleh 0 PVP points

Heat 2 tag team.

With the same rules as heat 1 but in a team, the teams being:-

Ulleh + Cee vs Brat +PBG

We were given some time to discuss tactics, Ulleh and I decided they would both be trying to kill me and that we should both try to kill PBG, we failed miserably, I was dead before we were half way through PBG, I do not know what happened there but the PVP points awarded for this heat were:-

Ulleh 0
Cee 0
PBG 2
Brat 2

Heat 3 Ring of Assassins, sounds familiar :)!

In this round running was permitted, we were all to find ourselves a location within the confines of the stable fences. I left the arena and went to a location behind it, when Tiger said go the three ladies set to on each other within the stables. I ran over in time to see Ulleh and Brat despatched and to easily kill PBG who was already wounded giving me a victory, I had to calculate the points awarded for this round based on the given outcome but it looks like:-

Cee 7
PBG 5
Brat 2
Ulleh 0

Tiger totalled the PVP points from this round to give us:-

Cee 6
Brat 5
PBG 3
Ulleh 0

Once all was calculated the final scores for the entire event were:-

1st Brat 13 points
2nd Cee 11 points
3rd Ulleh 9 points
4th PBG 5 points.

This was of course announced in reverse order with some very long pauses :). The Prize items were handed over to Brat who was rather surprised to have won and somewhat more startled to discover she is to organise the next one :). Of course Brat will receive as much assistance in organising this as she would like.

I liked this event, it had variety and had been nicely thought out, also it is good to have a system which handicaps the more experienced avatars in some way. It is a difficult thing to judge just how much but I think Tiger got this right.

We have some concern as to the whereabouts of one Mr. Pilkington, I have not seen him for a week and it is unusual for him to be off line so long without informing us he is intending to do so.

Later I went and tried some exo elite and some longtooth, I found the elite to be relatively easy. The longtooth were harder, though they do not do a lot of damage they have shed loads of hit points, it took my little knife a while to cut through these but I found I could do it with four or five healing breaks. I did have some problems with a couple of sweaters who somehow managed to draw an additional three longtooth onto me, I did not survive but returned twice to kill the one I was working on and to my surprise was rewarded with a global, tried a few more but no further luck.

Later still, Brat came on line and we talked about the next event and visited a few locations, one of which was Atrax Beach, here an atrax ran up to me and gave me PED, very satisfying :).

 

Log Entry for 17-05-09.

Forgive me Father for I have sinned, it has been three weeks since my last blog! Not sure what kind of a penance there will be but I'm sure I will find out:).

It's been a fairly slow three weeks on Calypso. This is partly because it's a bit tough there at the moment, partly because I have stuff that must be done in the real world and partly because the real world is biting quite hard at the moment. I am sure the situation will improve given time :).

Got to try to remember what has been going on now, I knew there was a reason I did this every week!

We have had a soc. event it was an Ambu hunt and was rather successful and as always a lot of fun :). I have not seen Mr. Pilkington for about a month now, I have been told he has been on-line and there has been some contact via e-mail but it's not the same. Hopefully he will be back on-line again soon.

I have not been hunting or mining as intensely as I was, as the returns seem to be down at the moment and I need to make the PED last a while longer. I have tried the Itumatrox and have had a few decent loots but overall I have lost quite heavily, certainly they have not been as kind to me as they were to Una :). I have not given up on them yet though and will be having another go very soon.

The afternoon of Sunday the 17th saw the Tigers partaking in the 3rd race of the Ides series, this one was in my own opinion the best to date, requiring both skill and risk taking to win. We had four competitors, Tiger, PBG, Brat and Ulleh. Aaliyahh, the organiser of Fight Pub, joined us as a spectator, I had invited her along as I thought she may be interested. The event consisted of three legs. We started at Twin Peaks Stables and in leg one the competitors had to get themselves and their now highly trained racing snables to the top of the peak that over looks the TP, the peak with the statue on it, once there both the snable and the competitor had to run around the statue clockwise before getting out of the way of the others. The second leg was from this peak to the other peak and the final leg was back to the stables. Any routes were permissible.

The 1st leg saw several different routes being tried, PBG tried going to close to civilisation and her snable became afraid and refused to go there. There was some difficulty getting the snables to the peak however all four of them made it and it was entertaining to watch.
First leg results were:-

1st Tiger for 8 points.
2nd Ulleh for 4 points.
3rd Brat for 2 points.
4th PBG for 1 point.

The 2nd leg was more obvious however it consisted of climbing along the crest of a narrow and steep sided ridge. This is a tricky one, you need to make sure your snable is really close to you and in the right place before putting him on follow if not you will make it but the snable will slide down the sides. Everyone struggled with this heat but it was a good challenge.
Second leg results:-

1st PBG for 8 points.
2nd Tiger for 4 points.
3rd Ulleh for 2 points.
4th Brat for 1 point.

The 3rd leg was quite odd, everyone except Brat circled the mall and the new building to approach the stables from the side, Brat tried to go in a straight line, this is by far the quickest route, unfortunately her snable got stuck in a crevice near the top of the peak and she had to climb back to retrieve it. 3rd and 4th place were almost a tie.
Third leg results:-

1st Ulleh for 8 points.
2nd Brat for 4 points.
3rd Tiger for 2 points.
4th PBG for 1 point.

The total points gave the results of:-

Joint 1st Ulleh and Tiger with 14 points.
3rd PBG with 10 points.
4th Brat with 7 points.

Tiger almost didn't win this one so my races are getting better :).

The postions and points after three races are:-

1st Tiger with 28 points.
2nd Ulleh with 26 points.
3rd PBG with 17 points.
4th Brat with 16 points.
5th Karl with 11 points.

I expect many other things have happeend in the past thre weeks but I cannot remember them :). I shall try to get back to more regular blog entries, it is so much easier!

 

Log Entry for 24-05-09.

It has been quite a slow week on the hunting front, I have been between blades, well I had my normal assortment of en-blades (which do not last long) but no Bett and I was waiting for an auction to finish so I could get one as cheap as possible :). I have spent the week checking sites for the next snable race without too much success. I also tried a mining run with even less success :).

I have spent quite a lot of time re-arranging the Lair so that each Tiger of fourth circle or higher rank now has a place to sit, it looks a bit like a really cheap version of "The old folks home" but it's a nice thing to be able to offer people, a place on the Tiger council :). It looks quite good even if I do say so myself. Whilst I was doing this I was receiving regular visits from other Tigers and Anna. Brat was kind enough to go and purchase a ceiling lamp for me even though she had next to no PED.

The biggest news of the week is the promotion of Brat to the Fourth Circle. Tiger and myself had spoken about this a couple of weeks ago and decided that as Brat was on-line often, was making use of the forum and more importantly was good fun in game and always helpful that she should be promoted, we had intended to do this after the last snable race but most of us had to dash off so on Wednesday evening, the Lair was prepared for the secret and may I add very frightening ritual of initiation and Brat was summoned to attend. PBG performed the ritual with Tiger and myself assisting, it being a secret I can't really say any more about it but afterwards Brat chose her texture to be used to mark her place on the council and this was arranged in the appointed place.

I still have not seen Mr. Pilkington nor have I received a reply to a mail, however I did notice a friend of his and someone with whom he hunted often has not been on-line either. I find myself wondering if perhaps they have moved to another reality. No doubt time will tell.

I do now have another Bett and have so far managed to lose a fair amount hunting itumatroxs. hopefully there will be an improvement in the returns soon, it is much needed.

I am looking at upping my game again, only by a small amount though, I am in the process of trying to acquire some 5B plates, I currently use 5A for most things and very well they have served me, definitely a good investment. Speaking of plates I think Mr. Pilkington has my 6A set, I could do with getting them back fairly soon.

Brat tells me that she has finished the planning of the next Green Beret Event and I have helped her with a little testing. I am looking forward to this event, it will be the first one for a long time that finds Tiger and myself in competition with each other, for some reason it is usually one or other of us that wins so we do not often get to compete against each other. Should provide some tension :).

 

Log Entry for 31-05-09.

I think the heat may have got to me, I know it's been a busy and interesting week but at the moment I cannot remember yesterday clearly! Hold on, I will need to consult my notes.

It seems my notes are scant at best and have bits missing, in the best tradition of Dr, whatshisface's logs, perhaps I am a scientist, perhaps not!

I remember getting a new Bett, yes that's right I'm almost sure of it a new Bett, I hunted Itumatrox, I hunted Atrox and with Tiger I hunted Letomie and all of those hunts were marginally successful. I mined, I mined badly, there are "some days when you can't hit for shit" a quote from a song I think, ahh song how that helps to soothe my frail nerves, although probably not that song!

There was an experiment, yes that's it an experiment, I was trying to hook my ore finder into a teleporter, the range would be fantastic, all of calypso searched for resources with just one bomb, what a genius, at least I thought so at the time! I didn't get it quite right, not quite sure how it went wrong but it involved a longu. We both died and four of us were revived! Me, I was myself, I am writing this now though my nerves are shredded. The Longu, it was it's self though somewhat confused! Then there was the two abominations, upon a copy of my body was a Longu's head, it was far to heavy and the body collapsed underneath it and under a copy of my head there was a longu's body. It picked up my fallen frame with the longu head as if it were a match and ran off toward the hills shouting "Free, free at last", there was something glinting in the hands of my duplicate body!

The Longu had decided it didn't like me very much and began to attack, I defended myself and killed it easily, no loot of course. I checked the ore finder to find thousands of claims registered, a smile appeared across my face but it was soon wiped out when the ore finder overloaded and exploded, by the time I had revived the abominations had vanished over the horizon. Looking back I think the glinting object in the hands of the longu headed abomination was a duplicate of the ore finder, I hoped it had exploded too and wiped out the pair of them but I know now this was not the case. Una has spotted the duplicate of my bald head on the longu body and posted a picture of the sighting, I scrutinised the image carefully for any sign of it's longu headed partner and more importantly the copy of the ore finder but could not see it. I suspect it is out there mining now, whoever kills that mob is going to get the ATH of all time, the ores will be valued in the hundreds of thousands.

Horror story though that is, it is not what disturbs me now, it is not what cause me to lay awake at night afraid to sleep, it is not what makes me want to vomit when it's image is recalled, no that is far, far worse. I am not even sure I should write of it I am not even sure if I can!

I have obviously spent considerable time searching for the abominations, at first I went to where there were other longu but then realised, they will not be there, not unless there is a claim near by so I have been searching by mining, following the trail of no resources found in the hope that this may lead me to that which I created in my arrogance the Ceesaur and the C-rex, so far I have not even come close but I have a plan and it's a cunning one! I sought advice from Anna as to were best to mine with my skills and finder combination, here is where I will camp, here is where I shall be waiting for the string of no resources found to alert me to the presence of my nemesis's and here is where I shall destroy my unholy creations. So far the mining there has been good, with a small profit from ore and a very small loss from en-matters but I will return and hope to do worse, much worse.

On Saturday night I needed a break, I had spent so long "searching for my selves" that I was exhausted, I needed some fun. I have been listening to Atlas Haven radio and for the most part enjoying it. There seemed to be an event taking place at TI castle, Brat was on-line and we went looking for it together and found it at a bar by the waterfront. There were not many people there but those that were seemed to be having fun, sadly there was no potted plant for me to spend the evening examining so I had to join in a little and even danced for a while. There seemed to be several competitions going on, I did not understand any of them, possibly they were complicated possibly I was still out there looking for my un-godly creations. Brat wanted to go and hunt some Boorum, these are a somewhat frightening and intensely ugly creature that have been unleashed upon Calypso this week, they have the knack of making one feel quite inadequate and are a horrific creature to hunt, especially the larger ones and more so when in first person! Brat and myself took out some of the smaller ones and a few of the feffoid elites that were hanging about looking embarrassed, I was quite pleased to find that I could take one of these myself all be it with frequent fap breaks. We died often not from the feffs or the Boorum but from the mutated chirpy that was racing around like a headless chicken on speed. I was quite pleased when it took one of these two hits to kill me.

In spite of the horror of the Boorum and their disproportional appendages it is not these that make me break into a cold sweat when I bring them to mind, it is not these that make me want to find a tall building to jump off of, it is not these that are tearing my mind apart in a desperate attempt to find just one part of it that is still sane, no that is far worse, far, far worse.

I is probably about now that you are thinking "it has not been a good week for Cee" and you would be right. the horror overwhelms me, I am unable to function properly and sit, balled up in the pentagram in the Lair hoping this can protect me from that of which I have not yet spoken, that which should remain un-said and un-written, that which I am trying to put off writing of.

Sunday was event day, this was Brat's first go at running an event and I have to say she did an exceedingly good job, there was one eventuality that she had to cope with on the fly and made a good and quick decision. I am very proud of her and I think the rest of the Tigers are too. This was a three heat event called "Strip Boxing" a bit like strip poker, when you lose you remove an item of clothing. We meet at the stables at Genesis and made sure we were each wearing only three items of clothing so as to be fair. The first heat was one on one and the first bout was between Tiger and myself. The first round of this went to me but only by the skin of my teeth, I had tried moving but I am still rubbish at PVP and found that standing sill and relying on my melee skills served me much better than all that running around. For round two Tiger had removed one item of clothing, I did not try to move but just stood there and hit him, this proved successful and I had more health left than during the previous bout. Round three, Tiger had now removed two articles of clothing whilst I wore the full set, I lost round three, it was close and I had to return to fight round four without my shirt on. Round four saw me victorious, when Tiger returned to the ring he was, he was naked and it is this, this horror that haunts me this repellent violation of the laws of nature, this amorphous, gelatinous and nauseating sight that shall hound me to the very end of my hopefully, mercifully short life, I'm not even going to try and describe the smell! I was fortunate, he put his clothes on quickly, any longer and I would have been asylum fodder. I fought two more bouts against first Ulleh and then PBG, both bouts were won in the minimum three rounds, though Ulleh was allowed fifteen free hits on me to allow for skill differences each bout. Their nakedness soothed me a little and I was able to continue in spite of the earlier horror.

Heat two was a series of team bouts, the teams being Tiger and PBG vs Ulleh and myself. I have to say I let Ulleh down rather badly, I found it difficult to continue the fight being in close proximity to Tiger was horribly disturbing. I do not even remember the score but Tiger and PBG just laid into Ulleh each bout and I could not defend her against both of them. At least we did not lose in a straight 3 bouts. Sorry Ulleh. After the final bout I returned to the arena naked, other than the rather sporty pair of underpants I had purchased so I would not look like a grandad with urine stained pants, they caused quite a stir with PBG and Ulleh.

The third and final heat was possibly even more horrific than the first heat. This was an all naked event from the start. We could position ourselves anywhere within the stable area and points were awarded for the longer you stayed alive, Brat told us what our current points were and what points we would get and I worked out the best I could do was a draw. I went to a corner to hide and I should have stayed there. From what little I can remember Brat and PBG laid into each other, Tiger stayed in the arena, though I did not know that at the time and I was in the far corner, when I began to see the life bars of Ulleh and PBG get low I started to move, my own mistake, I turned a corner and there it was, the AMETHERA HORROR, I turned and ran, my wits had gone, I was a dithering shell of a man with no sanity left to me, a husk of what I had once been, it even seemed that I was running in slow motion like an automaton with no intellect or reason, I was longing for the sweet release of death and was finally granted it.

Reviving happened too soon, I had a chance to gather my wits and returned to the stables where we were given the final scores, it seems I am unable to remember these in my demented state but the order was, 1st Tiger, 2nd PBG, 3rd Cee, 4th Ulleh. After this we went to the Lair where the Green Beret was handed over as was the prize pool.

We also pulled a surprise on Ulleh and put her through the frightening ritual of initiation, she has yet to choose her colours for the council. Congratulations to Ulleh on becoming a fully clawed Tiger.

In the evening I did spend some time on-line, I am selling stuff from my storage as it has gone into the red, I suspect this means it can't run anywhere. I also need to get some cash so I can get another blade, yes last weeks Bett has almost gone already. So far things are selling rather well which is pleasing but there is no Bett on the auction.

Time to visit the psychiatrist, I am optimistic of a recovery but will be haunted for a very long time.

 

Log Entry for 07-06-09.

I managed to reach a new level in knife fighter hit, 34 I think, this means I can now use the Firefly for SIB and as it has a reasonably low mark-up may well be worth using, I found a low TT one on auction, there being no full ones, it would give me a chance to try it!

The Soc. went on a Beacon Mission, Tiger lead the way and took most of the flak, I stabbed at droids by way of assistance and took the occasional one myself, Brat provided sniper cover by taking out the ones that were out of reach of either of us, PBG and Ulleh provided healing services. During the assault I came across four droids that could not be sweated or attacked due to them being stuck, so had to free them and wait for them to start hitting me first, this was the first time I had come across this during a beacon mission. Other than that the assault went as planned, we had maps and were assigned levels to clear on the return, on the way up I marked on my map the locations of boxes I had to open. There was nothing particularly tough on the way up and the boss was destroyed with minimal fuss. The way down was the usual slow-mo run I may have been a bit faster had I remembered to remove items from my inventory first, I carry way to many items in this case I had over 1000 green paint cans with me, I must have been making a terrible noise all the time. I opened all the boxes on the level I was assigned, to my surprise only one of them was empty. Afterwards Tiger totalled the loot and it was good for a change. I personally made about 60 PED after paying my share of the beacon, repairs and wear and tear on the Bett and the Firefly, the Bett died during the mission and I switched to the Firefly, it does a decent amount of additional damage but is much slower, at least at the moment.

Later I tried the Firefly on some Atrox at Corinth, they were not impressed! I burnt the blade quite quickly and had to resort to the en-blade 9 before I returned to Corinth to calculate my losses. I think this will be a good replacement for the Bett once I have got some more skills, I will look out for a full one in auction so I can do some proper tests though I am also keeping my eye open for a Bett, after all what's the hurry?

I spent a lot of time searching for replacement blades, the supply at auction seems to have dried up, no surprise as the last couple of Bets I have had I bid on at 107% (ish) and by waiting for the auction to end I won them they normally go for about 110% or higher so if the crafters are not making the money why would they craft them! I have come across a few in various shops but these have the 110% mark-up, I will pay it if I have to but I can wait for a while, after all I have the abominations to track down.

I spent some time revisiting my old friends the Argonauts at Twin, without any armour I managed to make the very small profit of just over one PED while burning a mentor 5. Although several times I resorted to the en-blade 9 as there where more Guardians about than there used to be. The loot was mostly iron so I have slightly more profit than that :).

I had a counselling session, it seems I am suffering from some kind of post traumatic stress, the horror of last week is still fresh and yet foetid in my mind, I am still afraid to sleep lest that image rises unbidden into my dreams. At least while I am awake I can steer my mind away from it. I do have the hunt for the abominations to focus upon, it helps to steer my mind away from that clammy abnormality, certainly the abominations are by far the lesser of two evils. I have heard of no sightings since Una's report of last week.

I tried tracking down the abominations. I decided Shinook Jungle was the place to try though I cannot remember why, I set about mining the areas to the West, initially I found a few ores and en-matters but it soon dried up. I followed a strict bombing pattern and recorded both finds and NRFs, I soon discovered a swathe of NRFs it lead away either North or South, I took a guess and headed North. By bombing in a pattern I followed the swathe of NRFs, it turned Eastward at the North end of the LA and crossed the river, it continued East before swinging South and then West, it went back to the TP, bugger! I had guessed wrong and had ran out of time for the day.

The blade issue is getting a bit tough. I am getting through them too fast at the moment. Other than not hunt or hunt low level mobs I'm not sure what I can do to slow down my usage though. Will need to think about this.

 

Log Entry for 14-06-09.

OK, OK, so I cracked, I bought a Bett from a shop, I couldn't find one on auction for a week and I cracked. So far it's been a stupid decision and I have managed to lose more money to the Itumatrox. I did place 10 bombs on a hill near Solfais for Anna to try and find with only the clue that they were within 2 tps of the TP. I had to log while she was still looking so had to wait for the result.

Logging on the following day I discovered that Anna did not find the bombs, guess someone else must have done.

I proceeded in a disorderly fashion to Corinth where I went to dispatch a few Atrox, this I did with little problem and some reward, nothing big but the hunt did turn a profit. I decided I would try myself against some baby spiders, it had been a while since I tried this solo and I wanted to know if my improved skills and armour combination would allow me to do this. Alas, when I reached the stables at Omegatron there was not a spider of any type in sight, there were a lot of Falxangius and I mean a lot! I tried one of course but was no match for it at least not yet. I decided to have a paddle at Atrax beach while I was in the neighbourhood, this also proved profitable and got me my first global in quite a while. Sadly autoscreen did not work very well even manually.

I was going to hide something for Anna to find and being a complete bastard thought the stables at Omegatron would be the perfect location just because they were surrounded by Falxangius. I tried tp'ing into them and on my second try was exceedingly close but close only counts with horse shit and hand grenades! I was killed both times before that server went down for no apparent reason! On re-log I was offered the chance to login elsewhere, I took that opportunity because it's a bit like playing Russian Roulette, some time ago I won on one of those spins and scored me a new TP but on this spin I lost and ended up at the Outpost south of PA, the one with all the large Atrox and the larger Areaneatrox. I headed to PA moving mostly along the coast and tp'd at one point onto the island at the mouth of the river. Here is where I concealed in plain sight 1000 PEC for Anna to search for, I gave her some close by coords and then T'd to PA. It took her about 15 minutes to find them, so I shall have to be more fiendish next time. The whole thing has given me an idea for another game. I spent some time investigating this possibility and already have something that I can test.

We have a new recruit, Miss Ashy Brown. I have not actually met her as yet but added her to my FL at the soc terminal. She came on quite late on Thursday night and I greeted her in the traditional Tiger style by RRRRRROOOOOAAAARRRRRRRRing into the soc chat. She immediately logged off! There was a definite deficit of Tigers on Thursday evening, Miss Brown was the only one to show, I am wondering if I have Tiger BO or something!

I spent quite a lot of time on line Thursday night looking for answers. I am not going to explain that. I did get involved in a few minor skirmishes and had a go at the argos at Twin. They were not bad, a couple of thighs came my way (if only :D!) and quite a lot of oils, nothing big but it returned a small profit. I was also experimenting with alternatives to autoscreen. I looked at the software available from EntropiaTracker but decided against it as I am not a big fan of beta software, I don't drive beta release cars or eat beta release food so why use beta release software? After some consideration I set up a command sequence on my PS2 controller to see how that would work, it's manual obviously but once pressed it does a "c" a "p" a delay of 0.1 second and then an "F12", F12 being the Fraps command for a picture to be taken. I have yet to try this in anger but the tests were good. I will need to automate a key on the keyboard as well as I do not always use the controller.

Sunday and the Tigers are racing snablesnots again! Strictly speaking we were one short to run this event but did it anyway :). This one started at the Fort Argus stable and consisted of five heats, for each heat the competitors were given a vague direction and a set of coords to get to, some of these were without incident others involved running through or around mobs, two had some tricky cliffs to climb which involved the competitors having to take round about routes, this event lasted an hour which is as was planned. The results were:-

1st Tiger,
2nd PBG,
3rd Brat.

Tiger managed to win every heat of the competition.

Still no sign of Mr. Pilkington although I did receive a mail from him, he is currently struggling to find the time and the motivation to continue playing, I hope he manages to get back at some point, the game is not the same without him.

There has been a distinct lack of posts on the forum of late, clearly things are not going so well for many of us else there would be more. It would be nice to think things will pick up soon but I am not sure they will. I know there is an annual slowdown during the summer months but this seems different somehow.

 

Log Entry for 28-06-09.

It has been an odd fortnight, they all seem to be lately. I have had some limited success in hunting which is nice, mining has been a waste of time. The biggest thing however is the lack of people on-line. There have been times when no one on my FL has been on-line, I know I'm a lonely old git but I do have quite a few people of the "people I have met" list (just trying to be more accurate). Also places are just less crowded. I guess it's a combination of the summer lull and the interplanetary recession.

I have spent quite a lot of time with Brat, chatting about stuff, the occasional hunt and messing about with colouring clothes, I also got to watch her and her friend (Rewis, I think) scale the large building at Ithaca, the one with the big flat top, it was impressive to watch and I am planning on having a go myself one day.

Mr. Pilkington has made a return and we went hunting together just like old times except this time we were hunting atrox and ambulimax, it was good to be back but the loot was quite poor, no change there, I suspect MA arranged that especially :).

No sign of Tiger this second week and Anna is taking a break as well so it really has been very quiet.

I have been trying myself against various mobs. I have, to my surprise, managed an atrox alpha. I will need to do another one to check if this was just good fortune. I have also managed an araneatrox young, this took a long time as I was continually stopping my attack to heal myself but I did manage it :). After that Brat arrived and healed me while I did several others, I figured it cost the pair of us about 11PED per spider in total and the loot was never more than 7PED so we decided to try again another day.

My latest Bett has started warning me about being knackered so I am once again looking for a replacement, there has been nothing on auction and I cannot find one in any of the shops I have looked in, guess there is no hurry as I am waiting for stuff to sell so I can get enough cash together. I think I need to find me a supplier, a dealer if you will, someone who can feed my habit and supply me with the goods I need :). If anyone knows anyone who can manufacture Betts or if you do it yourself, please PM me.

There has been no Green Beret event this month, Tiger has not had the time and the general lack of Tigers on-line has led to him proposing that we do it next month. That's OK with me, not a lot of point running an event with so few players.

I do need to plan the next snablesnot race in the Ides series, I have been struggling to come up with something but an idea has just presented it's self, it's quite an evil idea and could make this an interesting race :).

 

Log Entry for 30-06-09.

Decided I should publish my results each month. Good or bad.

 

Log Entry for 05-07-09.

Things are just getting slower and slower! It was a struggle to sell six thousand eye oil at cheaper than mark-up prices, normally it goes within minutes but not this time, after seven days it did not sell so I split it down to four thousand and two thousand and re-listed at the same mark-up and it sold within hours. I guess people are not buying such large quantities at the present time. Only a couple of months ago twelve thousand would have sold easily.

The up-shot of that is that I now have the cash to purchase another Bett, unfortunately I do not have a Bett to purchase. I have been checking the auctions several times a day and have not seen one listed in the past week. I am tired of wandering from shop to shop in the malls and elsewhere in search of a blade. A couple of times I have revisited the argonauts at Twin Peaks without armour and burnt through an en-blade 5 mentor edition, just for a little action the results have not been brilliant but at least the loss is limited by the weapon being used.

There has also been a distinct lack of company this week, only rarely has anyone on my FL been on-line at the same time as myself and I spent three or four days without seeing another Tiger on-line, partly this was due to timing as I have since learned that others had been on, just not at the same time as I was. The only Tiger I have seen this week is Brat, we should do something together soon even if it's just something stupid.

In my state of limbo I have found myself dreaming a lot, most of the dreams are of a place called Liberty City and involve the dealings of one Nico Belic, he's an iffy character if ever there was one!

The quest for a Bett continues, I do not think I can pace the malls much longer so hopefully one will show up at auction soon. As they are now a rare commodity I expect the price will be going up :(. Assuming this is the case I shall have to rethink my current strategy.

 

Log Entry for 12-07-09.

It has been another slow week although things definitely picked up toward the end, thankfully :).

Most of it was spent hanging out with Brat, which was good fun, we did have a small CB5 hunt taking down a few corns near Fort Argus and North Space Base, before I showed Brat the Hanger trick which transported us both to Lake Serene, a handy trick which may prove useful one day. The other times I was checking the auction for a blade but I did not find one.

Una PM'd me on the forum to say he had a friend who could craft Betts, one Jack Combo Nikis. I had two choices of payment, the first was in residue to the full TT value + 30 PED, the second was at 112% of full TT. At first I did not fully understand the first option however I did have some residue although nowhere near enough and decided I should try to generate some more. I checked my BPs and what materials I had and discovered I could make some Mann MPH pistols so I set about doing this. To my great surprise I did rather well, I got lucky and managed a decent global at the start of my run, I did not continue and use all my materials but quit after a few more tries, maybe I am learning something.

It took a few attempts to meet Combo as it needed Una, Combo and myself all to be on-line at the same time but when I did he soon knocked out the blade, I supplied him with what residue I had and he paid me for this at 112%, made the Bett then I paid the total TT at 112% (1132 PED in total). I have since done some calculations and it seems if I can purchase residue for less than 109.01% then I will save myself some money in future. Guess I will be hanging around the auctions a little more often, it gives me something to do when the loot is poor, so I shall probably be there a lot of the time :). A big thank you to Una for arranging this, it will help me considerably :).

Sunday morning and I had the opportunity to really test the blade on some Atrox, a small global confirmed that it works, I continued hunting a little longer than I should so I ended up making a small loss on the hunt but it felt good to have a blade in my hand again and to be slicing up those six limbed freaks.

The July Ides race was scheduled for the afternoon and I had some preparation to do. When I had planned this the stables at Omegaton West Habitat had been surrounded by Falxangius' but when I went there, there were none outside although a few were inside. This particular race relied upon there being some about so I had to go and drag them to the stable, it took me a while but after about an hour I had two relatively close so I could log off until later.

Upon my return I dragged the two mobs to the stables then went to the TP to meet the competitors. This event was called "Survival" and competing were Brat, Ulleh, PBG and Tiger. I made a team and invited all the competitors then I explained the rules, these were that no weapons, armour, FAPs or chips were to be used during the event, the objective was to retrieve their snables from the stable and get them to me however I would be moving from location to location. I had a timer and would be setting this to random intervals, when the interval was up I would walk, run teleport or T (if I was dead) to a new location. The event lasted just under an hour, at one time I was stuck in the arena dead for 12 minutes and at this point Ulleh managed to come first, even though there was a falxanigus in there with me. My next location was next to a falxanguis to the West of the stable, it had killed me and I was there for 6 minutes, during this time Tiger got to me. After I revived and began walking vaguely toward the stable PBG managed to reach me and came third, shortly after Brat managed to get to me as well and that ended the competition. Although the post for this had warned that there would be an unorthodox scoring system in place no one questioned me about it, the event was quite evil but the scoring system was more evil still. For the event first place scored four points, second scored three, third scored two and fourth scored one. These were added to the accumulated scores from the series, however I had been keeping a note of how many times people had died up until first place was determined, Tiger had died three times whilst everyone else had died seven times, these figures were used to multiply the accumulated scores which means that in the series so far we have:-

1st Ulleh 210 points
2nd Brat 200 points
3rd PBG 192 points
4th Tiger 103 points
5th Karl 11 points

This gives Tiger some serious work to do if he really does want to win this series :) I admit it I am bald and evil but there is no Mini Me.

Later that day I logged in and had another Atrox hunt, again the results were poor so I finished early and spent some time at Corinth with Brat.

I have not seen Karl this week, looks like his visits of last week were just to test the water. It was nice to see Tiger, PBG and Ulleh for the event, Tiger and PBG will be going off-line for a while. I hope Ulleh is on-line more often in future, that way there would at least be three of us :).

 

Log Entry for 19-07-09.

After so long without a blade I attacked this week at full tilt, I have slayed many types of mob but mostly atrox and after using the Bett till it was dead managed not a single global, my best loot for the week was nearly 20PED, needless to say the figures have taken a bit of a plummet but sometimes that's just how things go, I hope next week will be an improvement. On the upside I did manage to gain a health point and reach new levels in several professions, bit like buses, professions :). Summing up hunting this week "This creature didn't carry and loot".

One evening Brat and myself went to Nymphtown and then on to the cat walk to the North West. We both wandered up and down the cat walk, Brat was obviously a lot better at that than was I. I do not know how long we spent doing this, clearly it was entertaining, there is a part of the floor that it is possible to fall though, I am just the right height for only my head to be left showing, it amused me :)! After that we went to New Oxford and tried the cat walk there, that one was slippery and I fell over several times and slipped off more than once :).

In preparation of obtaining a new blade I have been bidding on residue, this is quite a cut throat business and can be rather frustrating, oft times I would log in only to find a lot of cash on the PED card and many notifications of being out-bid, I guess that's the trouble with being a cheap-skate, I have to get very lucky to get a good price and the only way to get a really good price is to place the first bid on a small amount. It saddens me to do that however as that normally means that the unlucky seller will probably be out of pocket after the payment of the auction fee is considered, obviously some learn from this mistake but others will just walk away and not do that again. I find the auction fee system somewhat unfair on those (normally noobs) who have little and are trying to make a little more from it. I would suggest the fee be only a small percentage of the difference between TT and the eventual price reached, with a set minimum of only about 5 PEC.

I have seen Mr. Pilkington on-line a couple of times this week though we have not tried any hunting together, from what he tells me he has been doing rather well during his visits :), it is good someone is!

I managed to acquire another Bett from the auction, it was about 60PED short of full TT but with a starting bid and buy-out of about 110% was worth getting. It was a good job it was there as I have not managed to get very much by way of residue, I will keep trying however.

As hunting had been so poor this week, I am guessing the last blade gave me an overall TT return of less than 60%, I decided I would try a little mining. I had little cash, it was all tied up in bids for residue but I bought thirty bombs and thirty probes. the plan was to head down toward the rig, mining as I went. So naturally I set off from North Space Base :), heading south I dropped a few on the way to the hangars, and managed to hit some small pockets of oil and lyst, that pretty much set the trend. I jumped from the hangars down to Serene and continued heading South through a few droids, I got a few small claims but not much, then I headed South West aiming for the centre of the PVP zone. I had ran out of bombs and probes by now and had made a rough calculation that indicated I was down a bit, no surprises there. It had been a long time since I had visited the rig, the last time I was still in the orange and was naive enough to believe the propaganda (you can make money by visiting the rig and collecting oil), what they didn't tell you was that as soon as you poked your head above the earth works surrounding it someone would blow you away. That did not happen this time, this time I walked right up to it and stood and watched a Shaolin called Lars who was standing right next to the rig, I do not know if you have to operate it or if you just look around for the oil but after a minute or so he got nervous and blew me up, not the way the Shaolin used to behave grasshopper! I re-materialised at the OP to the South West of the rig, in a way this was quite fortuitous as I had some more cash after being outbid and bought a further fifty each of bombs and probes before heading North and a little East back into the PVP zone, here I meet a few largish Armax which proved not to be a problem however shortly after I came across a wall made of Atrox, I moved along the wall at a distance, picking off one or two at a time, I knew I could take on anything up to and including an Alpha (I can do an Alpha, most of the time :)) as long as it is one at a time. I was looking for a weak spot to try and break through, I did not find one! I did find a decent amount of lyst though, it must have been close to a global but close does not count :). I had to log after that, upon my return the returns were considerably poorer so I decided to head back to civilisation, well Nymphtown anyway, by this point I could only walk so I used my TP chip and mined in between jaunts, just in case! The calculations on my return were not too bad, made a loss on the hunting but it was not as bad as it had been, made a small profit on the mining and still have bombs and probes left. I ended the week chatting with Brat, I am planning on supplying her with a med kit so we can go and try the araneatrox again one evening this week, although she does not know this yet :).

 

Log Entry for 26-07-09.

I supplied Brat with a Hedok something or other, this matches her skills and gives a reasonable heal per second then we went off to Omegaton to have a crack at some Araneatrox. Brat and the Hedoc performed admirably, I failed in managing to pull just one tiny spider from the web at a time and the spiders failed at providing anything worth while. We did six spiders and including Brat's decay managed a return of just over 30% (the worst I have ever seen) to be fair though six is not an adequate sample.

Karl produced a couple of Prancer textures, these have now been installed in the Lair to indicate his position on the council.

Throughout the week loot has been very poor but better than the previous week, I have managed three globals with this blade as opposed to none with the last one, hopefully things are beginning to pick up. Being honest, it's beginning to get me down a bit. The poor returns of late have pretty much scuppered my chances of making the HoF of February last until September, I was hoping that having a large amount and cycling through it regularly would make it last a little longer but It seems it has not and I will soon be back to depositing, at least it has seen me through the worst of the poor Stirling/Dollar exchange rate. It did allow me to play more often and not have to worry about running out of PED for a while, for which I am grateful :).

Spent quite a bit of time at the auction selling what I had of value and bidding on residue and I managed to get the required 1010 PEDs worth of it. I PM'd Combo and he kindly made me another blade, just in time too the old one gave up within a few minutes of starting the next hunt.

I now have only small stacks left in storage, these are not worth selling on auction and I do not have the patience to try and sell them at PA or Twin :).

 

Log Entry for 31-07-09.

Just the monthly results, for some strange reason I am not quite as happy this month as last :).

 

Log Entry for 05-08-09.

Reporting yet another slow week, I have not had much time to be on-line though so maybe it's just been slow when I am there! The only other Tiger I have seen on-line was Karl, we went for an Ambu hunt over at Nea's and were rewarded with one global. Other than that I have been hacking away and doing rather poorly:).

There was one incident, I was out slicing up an Atrox Dominant when someone came running up and requested a chat, I carried on slicing, when the chat request timed out they immediately initiated another one, this happened four times. Once I had dealt with the Atrox I responded and they asked me if I would like team up. Naturally I politely refused and they ran off with out another word.

I have been buying more residue for my next blade, it has not been going well, also selling of stuff is slow. I remember the summer lull from previous years, last years never really recovered and the lull has got deeper since.

I was sorting through my carried items when I found a pair of Thunderbird gloves with a TT of 70PED (the max), I had no idea where they came from. I checked tracker for any globals I may have slept through but there were none, I checked my recent screen shoots and the only place they could have come from recently is the Ambu global with Karl, they could have been concealed behind the wool! As I have not seen Karl since, I have put 35PED in the lair for him and sent him a mail to let him know, sorry about that Karl :).

I find myself pondering just what I should do next. I am optimistic that I will be able to get at least one more blade, possibly two before I am forced to deposit. If that happens I will have to cut back my hunting quite severely which would be a shame. Maybe I should try mining as my main occupation for a while, the way I do that is very slow and methodical so the PED will last longer! There will be a challenge in avoiding mobs I would normally just slice. Guess I am going to have to think about it :).

 

Log Entry for 11-08-09.

it has been another quiet week, I only saw one other Tiger all week and that was Karl on Sunday evening. I was not on long but was supposed to be back later when we were going to team for a while, I did not make it back that night :(, sorry Karl.

The blade has expired so I have been trying to raise the cash and buy the residue for the next one, this proved difficult and on Sunday I spotted a Bett on auction with a decent buy-out price, I did the deed, I deposited and bought the blade, clearly my run from the HoF of February has come to an end, I feel quite sad about that, however it did get me through the worst of the $-£ exchange rate.

I spent a couple of very dull hours making basic filters, lost about 8 PED :), I am trying for a Basic Filters HoF, it is going to be a long time in coming!

I spent several days camped out in the desert South of Corinth, it was a long Atrox hunt with a negative reward, I did collect so many skins that I could hardly move and staggered back to Corinth last night, only to be welcomed by a series of droids shooting at me, not very nice of them! I was surprised to find that taking down an attacker with a blade was easy, the flying creatures of calypso tend to stay a little too high for me to get and I often have to jump or sometimes run up a hill a bit but these were stupid and did no take advantage of their one clear advantage. A droid of some description did reward me with some armour but this did not even get close to negating the Atrox losses :). Maybe they will be more helpful tonight!

Today is an anniversary, I have been on this world for three years now. So far I have learnt that in spite of having some incredible technology we still have to kill creatures to make buttons! I'm not sure we even need buttons! However I think my outfit is pretty cool and only the realisation of a myth can take that away from me.

I guess the big news of the week however is the impending demise of VU 9, it seems a myth is about to become a reality or is it? Perhaps we will get to see just how wonderful the buttons we make are! :)

 

Log Entry for 16-08-09.

The end of the world is nigh!

The end of the world is nigher!

The end of the world has nigh'd!


Brat was back on-line, which was good to see, I managed to do something I had wanted to do for some time and that was promote her to the 3rd Circle, Brat is a really good player, on-line even when there is nothing she can do, always willing to help and always a lot of fun. I had discussed this with Tiger weeks ago and he had agreed that she should be promoted, the chance finally came and I did the deed, no ceremony no fanfare or trumpets just a good old fashioned field promotion. Well done Brat :). After we went for a hunt and for a change I did the healing while Brat practised BLP pistol against some Cornucarda, it was fun :).

The week it's self was a series of skirmishes with various droids. This was rather entertaining and gave me a chance to blow the dust off of the 6As.

I did manage to burn my latest Bett in only a few days and had not managed to get enough residue for the next one though I had the cash and was quite close. I spent quite a lot of time at the auction trying to get residue but I kept being out bid. Eventually I decided to just ask Combo to make me one with the residue I had and to make up the difference with cash this he did without any problems, I wanted to make sure I had a blade for the mythical world that is apparently going to materialise soon, after all if I have to explore a new world I will need to be able to defend myself.

So we come to the end of the world as we know it or possibly just the end of the world! Having decided to stay up and wait for the impact of Typhoon, it was a question of what to do while I waited, I initially joined Brat and Karl to the SSW of Fort Argus where many colonists were trying to fight a way through to the shuttles that were apparently going to take us off world and many more were there just for the show. There was a lot of fighting going on that was for sure, there were some Scylla here as well as various other tough droid hombres. Decided to take a walk amongst them and did not last long.

When I TP'd back I went further to the hangers and guess what, there were no shuttles! So what was the droid army all about, who was controlling them, possibly our own government, it has to be cheaper than saving most of the colonists! you can call me Mr. Sceptical if you like, you can also call me baldy :).

After this amazing revelation it was a case of what to do and what I did was make Basic Filters, I set the machine to max condition and stuffed in some ingredients and away I went, I was at Argus and there was an awful lot of tping going on as revived colonists headed back to the fray so I figured a lot of PED was being spent and that my chances of a Basic Filters HoF were probably higher than usual. OK, so this did not work out but I was getting a lot more successes than I would expect to on max condition, no idea if I made any profit on this as I had no time to check.

With ten minutes to go I went to Hades City to join Brat for the final countdown, Karl joined us shortly after. It was like waiting for New Year, there were a lot of people there, looking at the skies, OK so I'm gonna die but I may as well watch the show! It was a strangely emotional experience. I did crash to desktop with about two minutes to go but managed to log in with about 30 seconds to spare, at the very end I got a connection has been lost message. Quite a disappointing end really, possibly a nice cut scene could have been included in a previous update or maybe an absolutely massive spawn of droids at five seconds to go would have been nice but no matter.

The amount of people who had clearly stayed up to be there at the end and even if they were not participating in the robot battles were standing around and waiting for the end together shows just how loyal the players of EU are. I was glad I was there with the people I care about and a shed load of complete strangers who at that moment mattered to me as well. It brought it home a bit, this game is not about the graphics or the mobs or the items, the loot or devices, this game is about the players, it's why I keep coming back and will keep coming back. So thank you all of you, those I know, have known, will know and will never know, thank you.

P.S.

I still think it's a myth :).

 

Log Entry for 22-08-09.

Hope this does not offend anyone (too much)!

For me at least it is still a myth. Oh yes I have had glimpses but nothing more. I have this week set out upon a vision quest, at least that's what I think I have been doing. I could just be severely concussed from being hit on the head with a robot space craft, "careful with that! You could have someone's eye out!".

As the visions started a group of scruffily dressed people, all wearing thick lensed glasses, with their fingers bleeding and the bones just showing are shuffling along a corridor, the carpet is thick and there are tapestries and paintings upon the walls, items of great opulence are placed upon pedestals positioned at the centre of the large windows along one side of the corridor. These large windows are letting in the dim light of an overcast day, the group all have very pale skin and are blinking as the light is hurting their eyes. Some of the lenses are so think there is a danger they may set the tapestries on fire if the sun were to come out. The group are clearly stunned by the wealth upon display and are whispering quietly amongst themselves, I am unable to hear what they are saying. As things clear I can make out they are ten in number, each wears a T-shirt with just one large letter upon it each of the letters are different. They approach an arched edifice in the wall, the light here is particulalrly strong, they turn into the edifice with the light now behind them. The guardian of the portal leaps from it's seat behind a large desk........

There are many of us appearing, one after the other, each looks around, there is a sense of wonderment in the air as though a thousand people slowly whispered "Wow". Each gazes upon a new world and a new self and no one breaths lest the spell be broken! It is all happening in slow motion, I see a device that looks like it might be a teleporter, I head toward it and I leave the hush behind me.....

The guardian's shrill voice pierces the air, I recognise none of the words but somehow I know the meaning "Yes! Can I help you?", The bedraggled group cower behind one of there kind, his glasses are the thickest of all and his shirt has a large 'L' upon it, perhaps it means 'Leader'. He looks round nervously as yet he has not been able to see where the challenge came from. "Well?", he turns his head to see a finely dressed and very attractive woman approaching from the other side of the room, he seems not to know what to say or do. Nervously he reaches into a pocket and hands the woman a crumpled piece of paper. The intake of breath from the rest of his group is audible, one whispers with amazement "He interacted!". The woman, frowning and with disapproval exuding from every pore straightens the piece of paper and reads the words aloud, translated it comes to me as "Come see me at once and bring the T'eckD'oooods with you. F.C.". the woman looks them up and down and laughs, "So that's who you are, I had heard rumours but they fall so short of the truth"......

Nymphtown has moved around the lake slightly, I am sure it used to be at about five to but now it is at twelve, it takes me a while to regain my bearings but checking the updated map discover the island I seek is now due south, my tp chip seems to be faulty, so I plunge into the water and begin the swim, there used to be rippersnappers here, I shall have to be on my guard, the water is amazingly clear and the light filtering through so vivid, there is a beauty beneath the waters I have not seen before, I am finding it difficult to travel fast, I feel as though I am in a dream, it's almost as though I have forgotten how to move quickly......

The guardian returns to her desk and presses a button upon a sleek black device, "Sorry to disturb you Mr. C'at, The T'eckD'oooods are here." a voice floats from the device "Send them in." The guardian nods toward the door behind her and says "Go on in", she laughs again and shakes her head and presses some buttons upon a keypad. The T'eckD'oooods head toward the indicated door, the one with the thickest lenses reluctantly leading the way, he knocks, some indistinguishable words emanate from the other side of the door, he opens it and the motley bunch walk in the last one in, 'S', closes the door and can just hear the guardian say "you'll never guess who are in with F'at?" as the latch clicks into place.......

Reaching land, I find I cannot run, I experiment with various methods but nothing happens, It seems the command is missing, I check for updates and find there is a difference here, I apply the change and find I can run again. I head off to find the location I seek, climbing hills is hard now, I'm sure it used to be easier than this but those memories are being removed even as I examine them, it's as though reality is being re-written. My proximity alarm goes off, I check the scope to see an unknown human is heading toward me, catching me quickly as I struggle up this hill, as the distance between us decreases I can make out it is a he and he calls out "Are you heading South West?", I respond "No, I am looking for Des.", "Who's Des?", "Thin looking chap in a deck chair", he laughs and as he moves to the edge of the scope I call after him "At least I got my priorities right"........

Beyond the door there is a large and extremely well appointed room, behind a large desk sits an immaculately groomed man, kneeling on the floor next to him is an almost naked woman, she passes the man a large cigar and then ignites a $1000 bill with a silver lighter and raises the burning bill so the man can light his cigar. He takes several puffs while the T'eckD'oooods line up next to each other on the other side of the desk. It's hard to tell because of the lenses but their eyes could be popping out of their heads. The letters on their T-shirts now read 'LINUX CORKS', 'C' and 'R' seem to be having a heated but whispered argument, the almost naked woman gives the immaculately groomed man a cup of coffee, he drinks some and puts it on the table........

I continue to search the island, I cannot find Des, he must be here somewhere, we were supposed to be getting our picture taken. Again the proximity alarm goes off, it's two humans, they are off to the west and heading north, no threat to me, I continue my search but catch a few words from them as they pass, "They destroyed the rig!", "Bastards". I continue my search.......

The almost naked woman seems to have vanished! The immaculately groomed man speaks, as he does so 'C' and 'R' fall into silence. "It goes live first thing Monday morning.", the T'eckD'oooods look stunned and all start talking at once. "What!", "It's still in Alpha", "No way dooode!", "The graphics aren't right, only half of them will be able to stay on", "I have an appointment at the opticians Monday", "When do we shut down nine?".......

On and off, mostly off I spend some time on the island but I fail to find Des, a shame that, guess I should try to find some mobs and see if I can figure out how to hunt now, my memories of hunting are already fuzzy, I initiate a revive transport and wait for it to kick in.......

Raising his voice the immaculately groomed man says "It goes live first thing Monday morning, It is not in Alpha, Yes way dude, if half of them can use the graphics then it's working just fine it has to be ready for GenCon, cancel your appointment and 0000 Monday morning. What is Alpha anyway? Don't answer, I don't care". 'L' speaks, "We can't do it, we will alienate half of them, they rely on us.", "This is not a matter for discussion. Nine shuts down at 0000 Monday and Ten starts immediately". Once again it is left to 'L', "That is not possible, it will take some considerable time to make the switch.", "How long?", "I don't know, we've not done this before, a few days maybe, if we are lucky.", the rest of the T'eckD'oooods nod in agreement. The sight of all those highly magnified eyes bobbing up and down is quite disturbing and the immaculately groomed man says "OK, you have two days, no more"..........

I arrive in Nymphtown and getting my bearings head for the TP, even using these is different, some how awkward but I figure it out and head to Cape Corinth. I spend sometime checking my weapons, making sure they are in the right palace so I can switch between them rapidly. There is something seriously wrong with my en-blades, they used to glow with energy, now they look like lumps of flint, not inspiring when you have an Atrox charging you. Maybe I have moved into the stone age! Fairly sure they didn't have teleporters in the neolithic though.....

"Remember, ready for GenCon or heads will roll, We are not going to look like we are still in the last century this year, understand?", the hugely magnified eyes started bobbing again. "Now get out and make it work". The T'eckD'oooods file out as they do so a thumping noise emanates from the desk and circular ripples form in the part drunk cup of coffee. As he closes the door 'L' looks back and sees the immaculately groomed man leaning back in his chair with a large grin upon his face. As the T'eckD'oooods walk passed the guardian their shirts now read "LIN COK SUXR".........

I head out into what once was an almost barren land but now has many trees, there now seem to be Daikiba where there used to be Atrox, I can test my skills against one of these, I take out my FlintLump-A and try to select a Daikiba, I fail, I try several and eventually find one I can select, I take a swipe and miss, I am not close enough, I feel sure I used to run up to them first, I wander toward it and swipe again, a few hits later and I've caved it's head in, it is either very stunned or as dead as VU9, looting it I get nothing, no change there at least! Another Daik attacks, I cannot select this one but I can kill it with no problems, however as I cannot select it, I cannot loot it! Bit of a GenCon that surely! Wonder if there is a VU10 Alpha around here somewhere?........

The T'eckD'oooods walk back along the corridor, they all seem rather disappointed but are trying to figure a way around it. One of them says "If we are to get it all working for GenCon, we won't have the resources to look at the graphics issue!", another says "Bet this is the last time I see carpet". They enter the elevator and push the button marked "B"........


My Vision Quest continues.

 

Log Entry for 22-02-10.

It has been six months to the day since my last blog entry, coincidence I assure you. I also think this is my 100th entry, it took a along time coming because I really wanted to be able to report something positive after VU10 kicked in but have not been able to do so, until now!

I have not been playing a lot, just dipping in occasionally over the last six months to see if anything is working, initially, playing third person and with a blade was very difficult and frustrating especially with the auto lock feature not working, once that was fixed the game did become playable but I had kind of lost interest by then and had found other things to do.

Recently however I have been playing a bit and have quite enjoyed it. I have spent some time rebuilding the Lair though I cannot be bothered to remake the pentagram, it is not yet as I want it but it is getting there.

The old problem persists, the mark up on the blades I want to use is very high making them uneconomical to use and I cannot find a Bett (Combo tells me he has given up crafting) to buy nor do I know what the current mark up is on one. I did find a Bik and bought this so that I could have a crack. Have tried the Allos at Sakura, the Atrox at one of the new locations (can't remember the name) and various beasts around Zychon. I have had no luck what so ever and the losses are quite high. I have not been able to find an area where there are several people hunting, most I saw where two at Sakura, not like the old days where well know spots were often quite crowded, I just might not know where to go. Judging by the global spam going through either crafting is giving good returns or that is what most people are spending their time doing, certainly I have seen few hunters or miners. Speaking of which, mining has not given good returns either.

I have had a chance to talk with Karl (the only other Tiger I have seen) he seems to be enjoying himself still. I have also talked with Trinity recently which was good.

I had been hunting argos near Twin with Anna on some of my dips into the system, again no luck.

I tried the quest system and completed the quests currently available, not too tricky but not too well explained I thought, this does have some potential I think. I'm not going to give any details so that each can discover it for themselves.

However I will say that recently I have been quite enjoying playing (poor returns aside) and am planning on continuing to do so though probably not as often as during previous VUs, having found some fun stuff to do in the real world I do not have so much time available.

As it's been so long there is probably stuff I have forgotten, if it comes to me I will put it in any subsequent entries, I will also try to find some images of the Lair as it used to be to put here, there may already be some on the site, again I can not remember. Checked and there is no need as they are here:-

http://www.eu-chronicle.com/showthread.php?t=7620