Making Tower Shields
I just levelled up as a Woodworker to level 25. In the new recipes is one for a Tower Shield. It was listed as a level 29 item and is
"Challenging" to make.
However, I made a pristine version on the first run, and it's almost no different that the rest of the stuff I make normally. Just watch the durability and then when things get too bad, abort and retry from scratch. However, with the Tower Shield, I didn't even have to abort. It went fine from the start.
It seems that there is a new player to the shield-making market. He or she has been under-pricing everyone by alot, like almost half the price. So now a pristine-conditioned shield might sell for a gold and some change. Now, that is pretty darn cheap. hence I am not putting the shields I make up for sale yet. I want to see whether this new person continues to sell at such a low price. If he does I'd probably stop selling shields, but instead concentrate on bows. They seem to be popular, because my Ash Long Bows have literally been sold before I realise it.
Well I need to get one more level before I can make an Ash Bo for Leireth, and 3 more levels before I can make a Spellbinder Staff for him. By then I'd be able to start imbuing items, so
maybe I might hang on abit longer before I decide to spend 24 gold and buy a severed Fir to make a shield for Grrrik.
Well as it is now, Grrrik has a shield that is easily useable up to about level 26 or 27-ish.
A Non-Raid
First off, Chen has finally hit 47, with 0.6% vitality to spare :) As I was saying to Grawfr, I had 5% to go to 47, and 6% vitality. He said "Just Enough". I said, "Assuming I don't die and get debts". Which I didn't :)
For those who have no idea what vitality is, it's a "bonus" sort of, for you to get double the amount of experience points if you had "vitality". This vitality, or "vit" as we commonly refer to, is "given" every hour when you're online, and at every x-minutes interval when you're offline. How much is given, I am not too clear. Suffice to say, the general rule is if you are at 0% vit and you want to hit 100% you normally do not play that character for 3 to 5 days.
Well in any case, I hit lvl 47, and decided it's time to do some crafting. Scales of Pain then decided to do a raid, so I went along.
Unfortunately, the intended place to raid was not really a "raid" location, so we ended up hunting down Tundra Jack and Iceberg, and wanted to hunt Seraph, but apparently Seraph didn't want to show up.
All in all, a pretty satisfying day.
Missing Member
Apparently, Zehn "disappeared". Not only did he disappear from the guild, he disappeared from the entire server. Attempts to "/friend" him gave error messages.
It's very strange because I highly doubt he will delete his level 50. It could be he cancelled, but even then, characters normally stay on the server. The only way to really make Zehn disappear would be to delete or to move him to another server...
Aside from this mystery, it's strangely coincidental that right after Grrrik grouped with Rising Dawn for the Armour Quest, that she joined the guild. I was surprised to see her among the listed members on the website heh :)
In any case, as soon as the servers are up, Chen is going back to Harclave to get some xps again... so far, 3 bubs into 36... by the time I am done with Harclave, probably 5 bubs or so into 46. Give it a couple more days and I can be 47 ....
Woody Woodworker!
After a binge of crafting madness, Chen Yu is now a level 22 Woodworker. I can make shields, staves, quarterstaves, musical instruments and also some furniture. One of the more useful things I can make are strongboxes, and the highest amount of slots I can make right now is 12.
I am sure pretty soon, like in about a level or so, I can make a better strongbox. In the meantime, among the "rare" recipes, I managed to find that I can do bone items. The very first time I got a bone item, I made a bone kite shield for Grrrik, and imbued it too for good measure. All in all it cost me something like 55 silvers, but imagine, I can sell something like that on the broker for 5 gold!
Tradeskilling To Save Soles
You know, now that I "get it" with the deal about tradeskilling and crafting, it's easy to level Chen up in Craftsmanship.
Much thanks to Grawfr, who gave me the initial tip, and Muld, who gave me more details later. I tried twice, and succeeded on the 2nd try, and made a pristine maple kite shield, which I gave to Grrrik, my new alt. Along the way, Chen dinged 16 in Craftsman. If I continue this way I might hit 20 soon and be able to make some cool stuff.
In other news, I put up a calendar event for Saving Soles heritage quest for this Saturday (technically Sunday my time). If we get enough people interested in it I may be able to get something going for this.
City Writs in Everfrost
After about a month of layoff on Chen, I went and got some City Writs for him. Now that he's level 45 (actually he just made 46), the city writs are now solo-able, according to Sony. As such, I can just take my sweet time and do them.
So, my first city writ was in Everfrost, for Galebreaker Pilgrims. I had a faint impression that they might be out on the tundra, but I went over to the Jagged Plains instead. Well, got chased by wolves, and Arctic Monitors and decided to head to the tundra instead, and viola! I found a whole bunch of them.
I also found Sonnets, a Scales Of Pain member, also doing writs there. So we joined up and finished the writs.
In the end, I completed 4 writs, which prolly just bumped the guild up by 4% status points (4 blue ones). Not alot but every little bit helps.
Anyway, after the writs were done, I realised Chen only had like 1 bub to go to level 46, so I zapped myself over to Splitpaw Den, and did the Harclave trial again. Sure enough, the trial provided 2 bubs worth of xps at lvl 45, and pushed Chen into 46. So now he's 1 bub and some change into 46.
Hard to imagine huh... just 4 more levels to 50... and he's out of adventure vitality.. Siiighhh!
Wow It's Actually Fun Again!
Heh yeah, part of the reason why I stopped playing Chen was cos it got boring and un-fun. It's no fun running around Everfrost and Lavastorm with your LFG flag up for 5 hours and nobody even want you in their group. Pickup groups apparently don't exist in those places.
However in Splitpaw, lvl 40+ pickup groups are alive! I see, rather often, people asking for more to join a party so that they can go into an instance or other. This adventure pack purchase is one of the better decisions I think.
Chen actually got through almost the entire level 44 on Splitpaw alone, and the 3 times I did the Harclave Trial kinda helped. He's now actually something like 8 blue bubs away from 45, which means about an hour or so in Splitpaw.
Terenius on the other hand, had no troulble finishing the "Delving Into The Darkness" portion and getting the shard to go into gnoll city. He even made it through the upper tunnels fine, solo. I am wondering if Leireth will have similar or better experiences when time comes for him to enter Splitpaw...
Chen On Haitus and the Splitpaw Saga
Well yeah Chenyu has been on a haitus.
The past couple of weeks I have been playing my Fury, Terenius. Last time I left off he was lvl 18 or so.
As of this writing, Terenius is now level 28, and 3 bubs to 29. Pretty soon he will be in the 30s and be doing almost the same stuff Chen is doing.
On another note, I have purchased the Splitpaw Saga "expansion". I have seen how they (the guild guys) appear to be soloing in there but when Chen went in, he died like 3 times in 5 mins. That really sucks. In fact, it took me a couple of tries before I barely,
BARELY made it alive out of a group of 4 mobs, all down arrows. I was out of heals, and the Toughness wore out. I almost kicked in Face Of The Mountain but eventually I escaped with barely 3 pixels of life to spare.
Man it looks like this place can't be soloed too much.
