Saturday, September 24, 2005

Ding fest

Hehe what a day.

To start things off, when I came online today I ran into a very annoyed Maimgara. Was like.. 45k SK or so from dinging 220, and the entire team was AFK. A bunch of us decided to sort that situation out, and quickly made a guild team of mostly 220s to storm in the remaining SK. Took little under an hour hehe, seems so many 220s in team stole most of the SK from poor Maimgara.

But congrats on 220 Maimgara. Like me - about friggin' time hehe.

When done with that focus shifted to Scumtron, who had something like 500k AXP to go for a server first AT30 ding. So hourly raiding started, and after 3-4 raids, the following was broadcast across the server:
ICC planet-wide announcement: Scumtron has been awarded the highest honorary rank for outstanding dedication to the defence of Rubi-Ka.
Now, when the 220 ding is announced, it's usually accompanied by a long series of "congratulations" tells. However, according to Scumtron, this one produced quite many "what did you do?" tells hehe. Guess as time goes by, more people will know what it means ;)

Big congrats!! to you as well Scumtron.

Having done that, I rushed on to the regularly scheduled Alien Playfield raid. And whattayaknow, walked out of there with the final component I needed for my nifty Hadrulf's Viral Belt Component Platform. Most excellent day on Rimor indeed :-)

Wednesday, September 21, 2005

Patch 16.0 Released

Right, patching time again. While waiting for the overloaded patch servers to send me the patch, I figured I might as well type up a quick comment ;-)

For starters, Patch 16.0 Release Notes can be found here.

Seems to be an overall fixup of many annoying issues we've all been experiencing. Nice, but then... all patches are, before you actually log on and try them on ;-)

4 things of particulary note strikes my eye.
  1. Seems there's been some NT luv dispensed. Is well needed too, from what I hear from the few still actively playing NTs on the realm. Whether today's additions is enough, I leave for them to decide - haven't a real clue about the profession. I doubt it though, but looks to be a step in the right direction.
  2. Vicinity Loot messages. With the limit of AO's team structure (6 members), it's very common to find larger groups involved in raiding - as most any player will know. Now it will finally be possible to get loot messages from people outside your team - sadly this is most useful to prevent ninja incidents, but well.. now it's there - and about time, too.
  3. BioMare overhaul. Guess the dungeon will be completely filled with people for a while, but it's nice to see a dungeon being dedicated to a character segment that's fairly overlooked. Or has been, up to now. Not checked yet if there's any new phat booty to be found there, but there probably is ;-)
  4. PvP "free for all" level cap has been raised to 200. Again, in my opinion, dispersing some luv to a character segment that had little place in the grand scheme of things prior. Looking very much forward to see how this affects Notum Wars development. Could possibly get Omni even more squeezed than we already are, considering we seem to do ok in the high level ranges - but time will tell :-)

Overall, looks to be a nice patch. Looking forward to seeing it in action.

Saturday, September 17, 2005

Maar's Belt of Double Prudence

Furthermore, managed to get hold of a nifty belt while doing Zods earlier today. Is sure gonna come in handy and help me getting some of those pesky symbiants installed :-)

Won the belt for 96 points which, all in all, isn't too bad I guess. Worth it to me, for sure.

Resetting skills

Right, so...

Having dinged 220, it's time to have Upana settle down a bit. As has now become customary, it's time for a lotta twinking, something I've not really been doing on him for... well for ages, basically :P

Have pretty much all the symbiants gathered for him, qualities 250 and up. All of them requiring twinking to some extent to get in, so is quite a puzzle. Anyone been through this, I'm sure knows what I'm talking about. Else go take a look at any symbiant of quality level 250 or better, to get an idea ;-)

First of all though, I needed to clean out some skills. IP is severely cut short at 220, so really needed to scrape up every bit I could find. This included some skills that never should have gotten IP in the first place (hey, been a long life... :P), and some skills which have just gotten too high over time (due to increase in abilities, symbiant qualitities etc) and needed to be set back to a normal level.

All in all, I stripped Upana down to the bone, and here's the result.


Outdoor Adventuring
Cost: 925.0 ip
Base: 1130 points
Total: 1155 points
427340 IP have been returned to you for the reset of Adventuring!

Parry
Cost: 960.0 ip
Base: 841 points
Total: 871 points
306705 IP have been returned to you for the reset of Parry!

Nano-Bot Programming
Cost: 1052.0 ip
Base: 472 points
Total: 472 points
137772 IP have been returned to you for the reset of Nano Progra!

Psychological Modifications
Cost: 1044.0 ip
Base: 786 points
Total: 850 points
302220 IP have been returned to you for the reset of Psycho Modi!

Matter Creations
Cost: 1044.0 ip
Base: 788 points
Total: 885 points
302220 IP have been returned to you for the reset of Matter Crea!

Time and Space Alteration
Cost: 682.2 ip
Base: 587 points
Total: 684 points
128918 IP have been returned to you for the reset of Time&Space!

First Aid
Cost: 870.0 ip
Base: 928 points
Total: 928 points
314928 IP have been returned to you for the reset of First Aid!

Perception and Spotting
Cost: 896.0 ip
Base: 760 points
Total: 1360 points
250416 IP have been returned to you for the reset of Perception!

Breaking and Entering
Cost: 588.0 ip
Base: 497 points
Total: 497 points
86122 IP have been returned to you for the reset of Break&Entry!

All in all, Upana is now left with roughly 2.4 million IP to redistribute among his skills. And from the looks of it, he's gonna need them badly :-)

Just looking at some of the basics that there hasn't been IP to support, he's needing roughly:
  • 400K IP to max Brawl
  • 525K IP to max Fast Attack (which I might not do)
  • 685K IP to max Nano Resistance
  • 440K IP to max Computer Literacy (which isn't needed, but maybe 300k atleast)
  • 56K IP to get Adventuring back to 750
  • and then some loose change to get PM and MC back

So plenty to spend the points on, for sure. Anyhow, the reset is done. Upana has 5 IPR points left, so that's not too bad. Still room to make a few more changes along the way, if need be.


Monday, September 12, 2005

Welcome to Shadow Level 220

Phew, at last :-)

You feel the core of your being shift, as the source makes room for a divine presence. 'Upana' has reached enlightenment.
Quite beat up atm... dunno what happened, but upon reaching 219 I just smelled blood and didn't stop until I reached 220 hehe.

Thanks to the dozens and dozens of people who sent congratulation tells. Am hoping I managed to get back to every one of ya, but might have missed a few in the tell storm that ensued. Doubt very many will be reading this either, but o well. Thanks anyway - you know who you are :-)

Tuesday, September 06, 2005

Welcome to Shadow Level 219

:-)

Not much to say really. Been all out grinding for a couple of days, and finally made it to 219. Just one Shadow Level to go, and then the REAL work begins :P More about that later though ;-)