Okay, so I’m a big fan of Calvin and Hobbes. After spending time with Sevilla (a kitty friend), I came across this one and found it to be rather relevant.
CUTE picture
8-2-09 – Part 2
So it is the afternoon here. And I am now more awake than before.
Whee!!! First comment! By my dear friend, Alynia! After all, she IS the one who inspired me to get this thing going again, so I was excited when I saw an un-approved comment waiting there. And I approved it, so I’m so excited.
Anyway, on other notes: I was looking through the previous posts and realised that most of them were written back when I was in my twenties. I’m now 54 or something like that…is it a bad thing to feel so old? I mean, I found a TON of mis-information, such as Valnurana’s Temple still being at Mesmerium or calling Xhaiden Dale the Dakhota Hills. Of course, now that I am more informed on names of places, I’ve gone back and edited those to display correct information, so none of you younger ones get confused by my incessant babbling.
Other things: Not really. I don’t have much new information, except that my time in Achaea was cut about a month ago, so I haven’t been around as much as I usually was before. Instead of, say, nine hours a day, it’s now down to two. And people I know are a bit down about it..missing me and all. I mean, I WANT to be in more, but it’s just not wise at this moment in time because I’m fighting over my Internet connection with other family members and what-not (dialup..bleh).
So, in conclusion, don’t miss me TOO much. I’m still around and stuff. Just not as much, so I’m hard to find. Maybe I’ll re-evaluate it after a while and see if I can’t work something out.
Take care! -Sama M.
8-2-09
Okay..for a special request from Alynia who is the second person to discover this thing and actually TELL me, I’m posting.
Now to get back in the mood…I was writing these in first person, was I not? I think so. So I will.
Things have been quiet. I got HR5 in the Druids, which is the BEST! Also, Alynia, a long-time friend of mine has come to stay permanently at my house as a sort of house-keeper you might call it (thanks for the inspiration, Alynia. I almost forgot this blog existed!).
So I made HR5, Level 81 and reached 2 million sovereigns in my bank account. What else? Not much. A huge credit and crown sale just started and I can’t do anything because my soul is penniless.
It’s late, and I’m tired..almost a zombie..and I must get going. Hopefully I’ll remember this thing a little more so I can get it updated more often than not.
Take care and sweet dreams (which reminds me.. I also joined Valnurana’s pre-Order – The Emnia Ecstasia).
-Samakhulis Moonflair
P.S. Where’d the Moonflair come from? I was bloodlined to Aohara, if you didn’t already know.
3-23-09
Okay, so I’m kind of mad and at the same time upset. Who wouldn’t be? I mean, our house head, Kaiya, just retired, dormanted and disappeared seemingly forever. If I thought swearing were ethical, I’d swear right now! Kaiya, I must say, was the best head I’ve ever seen in the house. Of course, up until now, she was the ONLY head I have seen in the house, so you can see where I’m coming from. But golly! If it weren’t so sudden and if she hadn’t went so darned DORMANT, I might be in a bit of a better mood.
Okay, I must confess..the previous paragraph is written in anger, because for the first month after the announcement and actual leaving, I was depressed. But depression was no good, as it was making me loose sleep IRL and all other kinds of problems. I figure being angry is better than being depressed. At least brooding in anger seems to feel a little better than brooding in depression. Either way, it still makes me really sad to see her leave, especially in this manner. That’s all for that. Except I wish…oh never mind.
On a happier note: between now and the last post, I have gotten married (Loreen), gotten a bloodlined mother (Aohara) and almost finished my schooling in the Druids. So HA!!
I’m not done with the Kaiya issue though. Between the first of the year and now, it seems that she’s been spending less time in the realm, and I suppose that’s to prepare all of us. Still, her departure was rather sudden and heart-wrenching. I SO want to swear. Darn it! I’m so mad. Of course, when something like this happens, you kind of lose your motivation for anything, as I have. I mean..its not like she hawked over my shoulder on everything, nor did she have much of a personal relationship with me as she did with others, so I felt pretty much on my own anyway, but the leaving has still killed my motivation. There. I’m done now.
So what else? Um..I won a few arena spars against Soopay. And boy do I get ribbing about that!
Oh! Another thing! On an OOC note, I downloaded PennMUSH from Nick Gammon’s website and that is pretty darn cool if you can figure it out. It’s not as customized as Achaea, but hey..twelve years makes for a pretty customized game, compared to a month of figuring out a whole new MUD engine. Plus, this one doesn’t seem to MUDdy, as you can’t really kill stuff all that nicely. Just one “kill” command and that gives the target a bit of gold and sends them to their set “home.” That’s all..pretty boring if you ask me. Of course, all the forums say that the only real way to customize is to know C++ and to edit the source code and recompile. But there’s only a few problems with that. 1) I don’t know C++, 2) I don’t have time to learn, and 3) I don’t have a compiler, nor do I have the time to find one and learn IT! So I’ll live with the base engine. Good note is that I’ve created a world of about 2500 rooms so far. No..not 2500 rooms. But 2500 THINGS including players, rooms, exits and objects. And exits are a lot more plentiful than rooms..for obvious reasons. Each apparent exit is two exits as you have to have a return path for normal travel. Of course, you could do the Lady Eris thing and go north to one room and south to a completely different room, rather than returning to the one you just left..if that makes sense. One more rambling..I created something called the Font of Life and if you @pemit #110 = help (That’s YELL TO FONT, “HELP” in semi-Achaean) you are transported INSIDE it which exists in the Room 2, which is the starting point. Pretty cool if you ask me. That’s the most in-depth I’ve been with object customization. I can’t figure out how to do the delayed-reset on objects. Nick’s example was wander into a bunch of shops and if you have objects in your INVENTORY, then you can enter, otherwise the shop owner snarls at you and throws you out. It didn’t really work too well for me, but I suppose if you want to get really IN-Character, that’s the best way to do it. I DO prefer the IRE method of GIVE OBJECT TO THING and get gold back…but again, I don’t have time to do figure that out yet.
For now, I’ll stick with Achaea and I’m done rambling and Kaiya, you’d better either get back in the groove or give a good explanation for leaving, including some encouragement. I so need an explanation or encouraging word. The ‘rememberances’ are NOT encouraging one bit. Like “she WAS..” or “remember the time when she…” I mean, just leaving WITHOUT explanation is, in my opinion, uncalled for. I’m sure SOMEBODY got an explanation, but the only thing I heard was “I’m gone, not coming back, and here’s the keys. See ya!”
Okay, Sama…shut up now.
10-24-08
I freaked myself out! While searching on lore about the Ka’ahlen Swamp in Xhaiden Dale, I saw my name pop up on a Google search! Well, I’m one to try and follow directions and not give away quest solutions, so I went in to the link to see what I had given away. Turns out it was just a hint that the quest described existed. Whew!
Anyway, big news!! I’ve killed my first grizzly! I’m so excited! Actually, they aren’t that bad, except when they take a bite of your head. Now THAT hurts. I’ll have to go back in the logs to see how much one of those types of attacks hit for. I don’t quite remember. But it was something around 600-800hp. A lot when they’ve already worn you down to 1200hp total. And they’re a little quicker than you might expect. Probably 110-120% faster than I am at regaining balance as an Atavian. So they can hit two times to my one every once in a while.
Eww…it’s almost Mayaween (obviously to correspond with Oct. 31) and there is festivity decor to be sold in New Thera. Well, I bought a jack-o-lantern and a scarecrow for my grove. Well, the scarecrow is going to last through the holiday, but the pumpkin is only good for 5 days, meaning that it will decay before the actual holiday rolls around. So I’ll have to buy another. Anyway, I was just resting to regain endurance here while typing this out and I saw the jack-o-lantern grin dark and wickedly. Even though it didn’t move. Freaky. I suppose waiting around in one room for a long time will cause things like that to happen.
Okay, update – I turned 31 about 6 months ago, and I’m on level 75 (Almighty) and 55% through it. Wow! I may hit 80 pretty soon here, in which case I will gain stability while flying! I can’t wait. And I’m 1606 lessons in to Groves, which means I have 130 left! I’ve never gotten this far in a skill before. I haven’t gotten my hypercure yet, but it’s coming soon. I mean, 8.5 lessons per regular credit = 16 credits to trans in groves, with a few lessons left over! Woo! And I can probably get 2 credits per day if it is a good day, and one if it is slow. And on top of THAT, there’s October’s lesson bonus of one lesson per credit-lesson conversion, meaning that each unbound credit is worth 9.5 lessons! Which doing the math again, comes out to 14 credits instead of 16! A HUGE savings of 2 credits worth. Haha.
I’m thinking…I have a spreadsheet I use to budget my Achaean bank account. Maybe I should attach that somehow. Put it on a public drive somewhere or something. It’s really useful, actually. I have categories for lesson credits, artefact credits, housing, credit sales, mounts and general spending. Plus there are a few columns to allocate where free or unallocated credits will go (if I win or buy one not from either the housing, lessons or artefact funds). It’s not perfect, but it’s really quite useful, as I know that I can’t just pull all the gold from my bank account and spend it frivilously on lessons. I used to, and I still don’t have any artefacts. Of course, the way to do artefacts is to buy them online, but I don’t want to do that just yet. I don’t have enough stupidity to waste real money on that sort of thing.
Okay. I think this is getting long enough. Ta-ta for now!
10-19-08
Here, I’ve done it again! It seems I can never keep on top of this thing. But oh well. Okay, so I was wondering how I was doing blog-wise. I read a help file on questing a few weeks ago and found that publishing answers and guides to quests is a huge violation and can result in permanent kicking from the entire game. Yikes! So I went through all of my posts and it seems that I’m alright. I mean, I could be getting pretty close to the line by saying which denizen gives gold and such, but I haven’t actually given any information on how to get the gold, so we’re good there.
On another note, all’s going well. For starters, I found a hidden village south of the Muurn river valley about 2 months ago. Can’t quite remember what it’s called, but it sure was interesting. Then I was taken to the bottom of Manara Burrow, into a hidden tunnel and down into a lava-filled place. Not sure what THAT was called either, but I at least died there.
Progress note: I’ve almost transed in Groves. I’m so excited. I gained my golem probably a week ago and just received harmonic dampening about 2 days ago. Now all I have left is hypercure and portability and I’ll be transed! Less than 50% left in the current skill level. As for meta, I’ve gotten my jaguar, which has been REALLY nice, since now everything dies in about 2/3 as many hits.
Apart from the war and my progress, not a lot is happening, so I’ll hang it up here.
Oh, that’s level 74 I think. Things are starting to slow down experience-wise.
7-28-08
Sheesh, seems like it’s been forever! Well, I’ll bring it up to date. I’ve started my patrol path, which means I’m patrolling one of each of the different kinds of terrains in Achaea. Just today, I did my yearly patrol of the Black Forest. In fact, let me quick do something while I’m thinking of it.
Okay, I’m back! I just scanned my hand-drawn map of the Black Forest, with my reference designators on it (personal room numbers). At least I’ll be able to point to this image if anyone asks what I mean when I say “Room 38 change to blah.” That’s the idea!
That’s it for now. Not much else, except I did start a Facebook in order to get that extra 25% XP Gain when I level up (and I am now at 70 (woot)). I probably won’t use the Facebook thing, since I think that sort of thing is dumb, but I DO like the gain, so I’ll just let it sit, like the Pentad suggests if you don’t like Facebook and now I’m rambling so I’d better shut up!
Anyhow, enjoy the map…oh yeah, I’d better at least upload and give reference here! 🙂
Stupid computer…I just scanned the map, and it turned out to be 11×17 600dpi, which essentially came to 10200×6000 px. Well, I’m resizing to somewhere around 1000px high, like a photo, and the resize hit the memory like crazy. In fact everything else has been pushed to the bottom, and my pagefile is having a real time of it. Hopefully it’ll finish soon. It’s been already 5 minutes at least…….okay!! Now it’s done! Here we go:
6-24-08
Wow…it seems I’ve forgotten about this for a while. Well, not all that long, compared to other things I forget. But anyway, I’ll do my best to bring you up to date.
So I’ve been hanging out, getting gold and getting stronger too. I found a new place for gold, only it’s a bit higher level than most. You will note that I have mentioned Actar as being good for fresh-out-of-newbie-schoolers. Well, there’s another that I would say is good for those who are fairly strong, and can take out a low-hitting Extrodinary Power denizen.
It turns out that the strongest I can take is probably the wolves and boars in the Black Forest. These are classified as the “Appears to be Extraordinarily Strong” types and I have died frequently to them in the last few months. Most people equate your strength with your level, but I have found that this is not always the case. Defences and experience in certain skills affect your percentage strength also. I mean, I figure a good solid experience-gain denizen should be easy to kill, but not too easy. It should not hit too hard and yet, if it doesn’t hit hard enough, you will not gain much. I have found that most Extraordinarily Strong denizens will hit, and I can hold out just long enough to kill them, but they slowly wear on my health and more often than not I have to retreat in order to regain health. The wolves in Black Forest are this way.
Anyway…back to the place. It’s the island of Ulangi. If you’ve been around a while, you know about it, not only because it’s there, but because IronRealms has included a map with it. So here it is: Ulangi. Very nice for making gold. It includes some rather strong buck deer, and extraordinarily strong moose. Both of these have extremely high gold return, which I really like. They amount to about 8 Actar goats each (a little more than 600 gold). And there are quite a few, so you will get a credit’s worth of gold in no time. Plus there are a few quests that you can discover that have very high return (I just completed the Pirate Treasure one).
So I’ve been hanging out there. In fact, I have my soul “bookmarked” there for when I return because too many people were hanging out and making all the gold in the world, while I struggled to find any serious game to hunt (they hogged it all first).
Another trick I just came up with…that is Grove Vigour. It boosts your health about a third per hit. Very nice. I didn’t remember it and because of it I’ve died I don’t know how many times in my grove when I could have sacrificed a hit on the denizen for a Vigour boost. Unfortunately, last time I tried it, I almost died, so it still didn’t do much good. I think the problem is that I’m not used to using it. I’ll have to practice on them wolves.
I’ve been at level 62 for the past 3 months and can’t seem to get further. I’m hovering at 63 and for some reason keep dying to stuff and dropping below. This happened at least three times just this month. Fortunately I used those 5 lessons before I died the last time, so I had my abilities heightened before I died.
More later…because I can’t think of anything else.
One more thing I forgot…next month is my birthday. I’ll be turning 22 I think!
6-11-08
This month was a bit more boring than others I’ve seen. Probably because I’ve been busy with other things. But I did manage to get a few days in the realms later on. And I learned all about prickly pear from the dear fellow Apprentice, Druuna. Actually, we’re no longer titled apprentices, but whatever. Druuna’s the same house ranking, and yet she’s been around a LOT LONGER than me, so she knows her way around.
I finally found the cyclops village in the Vashnars. It’s on the way to Actar, only instead of going southeast from the turnoff, you go east and up the trail aways. I also learned that heading down-river, you can jump off of a waterfall and land near the island in Actar. That was pretty fun. And I didn’t even break anything! It was like and indian canoeing of the waterfall and landing without sinking. Of course, I couldn’t get back up without going all the way around again, but it was exciting!
Other things. Not much else. A quick bit of advice…if going to the Shala’jen Monestary, DO NOT go into the cave down in the canyon below. That is the hangout of the Prince of Thieves, and since I got my vials stolen by an Adventurer a couple months ago, I was not prepared with immunity when the prince hit me with Voyria. Thankfully the others in the house were aware and got me resurrected rather quickly. With all this dying (and I am good at it), I’m finally beginning to learn some strategy in order to get resurrected as quickly as possible. Of course, having the Resurrection ability would be awfully nice, but I’m not there yet.
One big annoyance…people keep killing the cyclops in Actar. He gives good gold! Please don’t!
Anyway, that’s all for now. I bought a new game called Myst Uru…Complete Chronicles, so I have a new deterrent to keep me away, but I’ll try to get as much time in as possible.
And a note to Profit…if he reads this. You may have gotten my journal, but you can’t get my logs. *tongue Profit* I HAVE BACKUP. And you won’t find much in there to help you, so HA!!!
6-10-08
Wow, I’ve been out of the loop for a few months. Probably just trying to get something actually interesting to talk about. Which I did! Our dear Rinji got engaged this month! Actually it was even on the New Year. And who’s the lucky lady? Why, it’s Miss Linelle! Congratulations to them both! (Oh, and Happy New Year!)
On a different note, before the festivities and a few months ago, I got to kill my first wolf in the Black Forest! I’m so excited. Of course, I had to retreat to heal about five times, because he hit hard and my health elixer could not keep up. But I did it, and gained a bit of experience (more than the usual quarter percent).
A few of you, and others from different houses, have been asking about quests after the newbie area. Well, there are many, many places you can go. From fresh out of newbie training, a good money-maker is the valley of Actar. Experience can be gained there as well as in the Great Rock and the Enverin Marsh. If I’m not busy, you can send me an in-game tell, and I’ll see if I can help you out.
Of course there’s always the little animals like the jarbo and gecko lizard in the Mohjave Desert, as well as rabbits, groundhogs and what not everywhere else. The big advice you will get from anyone is PROBE THE CREATURE before attacking. Recall my previous post showing levels of Denizen strength and their respective descriptions. Figure out what you can handle and stick to that strength until you advance in the circles. Be aware that not all denizens who look “weak and feeble” will have the same attack scheme. A rattlesnake is rather weak, but venomous. Some denizens web in order to trap you so you can’t move. Others hit rather hard but will die within a couple of hits, while others don’t hit that hard but, for some reason, keep on living.
All in all, experiment and if you are getting low in health, get away. Don’t live by the old hunting saying of “put it out of its misery.” Don’t feel sorry for it. Remember that if you leave for a long while, it will go to sleep to regenerate its health, just like you do, and will be chipper and ready for the second round in a few minutes. And if you die, just remember that the Great Mother Maya is waiting for you.
Another idea from leaving the Newbies: if you have not already done so, you can work on your tasks. No doubt you have already seen some, as catching butterflies from Vellis and buying vials from Seasone will accomplish those respective tasks. There are some tougher ones though. You can get hints by looking at TASK DETAILS. Some fun ones for druids are the fire drill and the scavenger hunt tasks.
So here’s the rest of the story…late into the month, I attended an anti-theft class. Hopefully I’ll be able to deter any more attempts at this sort of thing, as I have been targetted by a few others lately. I won’t tell my secrets, as that will give them strategy on how to circumvent them. Heh. But I will say this. It’s going to be harder from here out.