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thistlechaserWhat a busy weekend! Rank six, the start of the Zilart missions (no spoilers outside of the cut). Gah! So so so much new story!
Saturday was the less eventful of the two weekend days. We were supposed to Escort later in the evening so I hung around online for hours waiting for that (digging, digging, digging, endless chocobo digging). Escort fell through, so I went offline, then when I came back later a different run was going out and Beanie asked me to go with them! It turned out to be just Beanie, Val, and I, but that was fine. She's 73 and he's 75 (I think) so I just drove the NPC and they killed everything in our path. It was important for me to do an Escort that week because Sunday I was going to die.
Or so we had thought! On Sunday there was a LS group setting out to do 5-2 (after we did 5-1 earlier in the day), and it was suggested that Ceh and I join up, even though we were a little low for it. Turns out that was the right decision -- the trip to the battle was really, really annoying, and I could totally see not wanting to have to do that again just for us two. (It seems like every other mission has that "getting there is half the battle!" thing going on.) Sowe Beanie, Sylf, Nif, and Aurian killed the Shadow Lord and we all got to see outstanding storyline and got rank six! Woo!
Non-players: Missions and quests are two different things. With rare exception, anyone can do any quest. Missions are things just for your city. You need to do missions to get higher rank (1-10). Just getting a job to 75 won't get you far in the game -- you need to keep your rank up to match your increased level.
So by killing the Shadow Lord we won the game! No fooling! (Or "no fooling" if this had happened a year or so ago. Before the Rise of Zilart expansion pack, killing the SL was the last thing you could do.) Ceh and I set out to do the first three Zilart missions, which were much like the first CoP ones -- just running around and watching endless yummy cutscenes. So much story!
It amazes me how much story there is in the game (and how deep it is!). Without spoiling anything: We learned stuff in the Zilart missions that was world-changing. It was sort of like if you only now learned in RL that aliens existed and lived among us. All this Truth out there that was there all along but you didn't know until now! And how had you lived all this time without ever knowing that your neighbor was an alien? And how would that change your future interactions with people? So cool, so cool. :)
(Upon rereading: Guess this isn't too spoilery. If more of my screenshots had come out better, it would have had more spoilers.)
I took lots and lots of screenshots, but sadly very few of them came out well. Here are the good ones:
Outside Castle Zvahl Keep. The whole Castle zone was so cool! The best music in a long time, and so dark and evil! I can't wait till I get higher level and can go back and safely look around.
And it's the Shadow Lord himself! Big, isn't he? It's funny, I didn't like/trust Galka from the time I started playing. Looks like I was right!
Non-spoiler screenshots: Beautiful jungle! -- I saw that while out digging. I'm really tempted to make it into my new wallpaper.
I have an excuse! I was bored! Ha ha ha! Lots of people die in the Jungle. Usually I'm nice and /cry at them when they die, but I couldn't resist trying this once... Unsurprisingly I got nothing from the dig -- she is an elf, after all!
So after all the mission stuff I did (you guessed it) more chocobo digging. I estimate that I did about 16 hours of digging this weekend. Boring? Yes. Exciting? Yes. How's it both at once? The boring part is that all there is to digging is to press your macro once every X seconds. (I press ctrl-1 every 12 seconds -- seconds based on your digging level). So 16 hours of pressing ctrl-1 every 12 seconds sounds boring as hell, right? But what happens next keeps it interesting:
When you dig, you can have one of three results. 1) You dig up nothing. (By far the most common.) 2) You dig up junk or something worth very little. (Second most common.) 3) You dig up something that will pay for all or part of your current run of digging. It wasn't until I leveled last weekend that I started getting #3 on a regular basis! For all the digging I did, I either broke even or came out a little ahead. (That may not sound like much, but with each dig I make I have a chance of leveling further -- and once I level again this should become even more profitable!) It strikes me that digging must be a lot like gambling, just with less risk...
Saturday was the less eventful of the two weekend days. We were supposed to Escort later in the evening so I hung around online for hours waiting for that (digging, digging, digging, endless chocobo digging). Escort fell through, so I went offline, then when I came back later a different run was going out and Beanie asked me to go with them! It turned out to be just Beanie, Val, and I, but that was fine. She's 73 and he's 75 (I think) so I just drove the NPC and they killed everything in our path. It was important for me to do an Escort that week because Sunday I was going to die.
Or so we had thought! On Sunday there was a LS group setting out to do 5-2 (after we did 5-1 earlier in the day), and it was suggested that Ceh and I join up, even though we were a little low for it. Turns out that was the right decision -- the trip to the battle was really, really annoying, and I could totally see not wanting to have to do that again just for us two. (It seems like every other mission has that "getting there is half the battle!" thing going on.) So
Non-players: Missions and quests are two different things. With rare exception, anyone can do any quest. Missions are things just for your city. You need to do missions to get higher rank (1-10). Just getting a job to 75 won't get you far in the game -- you need to keep your rank up to match your increased level.
So by killing the Shadow Lord we won the game! No fooling! (Or "no fooling" if this had happened a year or so ago. Before the Rise of Zilart expansion pack, killing the SL was the last thing you could do.) Ceh and I set out to do the first three Zilart missions, which were much like the first CoP ones -- just running around and watching endless yummy cutscenes. So much story!
It amazes me how much story there is in the game (and how deep it is!). Without spoiling anything: We learned stuff in the Zilart missions that was world-changing. It was sort of like if you only now learned in RL that aliens existed and lived among us. All this Truth out there that was there all along but you didn't know until now! And how had you lived all this time without ever knowing that your neighbor was an alien? And how would that change your future interactions with people? So cool, so cool. :)
(Upon rereading: Guess this isn't too spoilery. If more of my screenshots had come out better, it would have had more spoilers.)
I took lots and lots of screenshots, but sadly very few of them came out well. Here are the good ones:
Outside Castle Zvahl Keep. The whole Castle zone was so cool! The best music in a long time, and so dark and evil! I can't wait till I get higher level and can go back and safely look around.
And it's the Shadow Lord himself! Big, isn't he? It's funny, I didn't like/trust Galka from the time I started playing. Looks like I was right!
Non-spoiler screenshots: Beautiful jungle! -- I saw that while out digging. I'm really tempted to make it into my new wallpaper.
I have an excuse! I was bored! Ha ha ha! Lots of people die in the Jungle. Usually I'm nice and /cry at them when they die, but I couldn't resist trying this once... Unsurprisingly I got nothing from the dig -- she is an elf, after all!
So after all the mission stuff I did (you guessed it) more chocobo digging. I estimate that I did about 16 hours of digging this weekend. Boring? Yes. Exciting? Yes. How's it both at once? The boring part is that all there is to digging is to press your macro once every X seconds. (I press ctrl-1 every 12 seconds -- seconds based on your digging level). So 16 hours of pressing ctrl-1 every 12 seconds sounds boring as hell, right? But what happens next keeps it interesting:
When you dig, you can have one of three results. 1) You dig up nothing. (By far the most common.) 2) You dig up junk or something worth very little. (Second most common.) 3) You dig up something that will pay for all or part of your current run of digging. It wasn't until I leveled last weekend that I started getting #3 on a regular basis! For all the digging I did, I either broke even or came out a little ahead. (That may not sound like much, but with each dig I make I have a chance of leveling further -- and once I level again this should become even more profitable!) It strikes me that digging must be a lot like gambling, just with less risk...
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no subject
Date: 2005-06-20 06:18 pm (UTC)For chocobo digging, do you have any advice on making sure that when I'm not digging, I'm not in an area that's already dug up? I'm open to the time commitment, but would rather not be spinning my wheels, er, chocobo legs.
no subject
Date: 2005-06-20 07:46 pm (UTC)I'm going to assume you mean the text behind the cut? That was marked "spoilers" so it's okay there. Did you see something outside of the cut? If so, let me know and I'll edit! (I've reread a couple times but see nothing.)
For chocobo digging, do you have any advice on making sure that when I'm not digging, I'm not in an area that's already dug up?
I work under the assumption that all zones are always dug up. There are just that many other diggers out there. You just pick a zone and dig in it, and hope that a restocking happens while you're digging.
Even under the best of conditions, 98% of your digs will still get you nothing.
no subject
Date: 2005-06-20 08:15 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-06-20 08:45 pm (UTC)Right now I'm at level 3, which is 6 seconds between digs and first dig is 60 seconds after zoning.
no subject
Date: 2005-06-20 11:19 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-06-21 01:54 am (UTC)Oh, but they are back in the kitchen. The male ones, that is. XD
no subject
Date: 2005-06-21 05:38 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-06-21 06:00 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-06-22 11:56 pm (UTC)Yes, I was only speaking of stuff behind the cut. You're fine. I apologize for the ambiguity of my statement.
no subject
Date: 2005-06-23 02:21 pm (UTC)