The one about Occulta Dungeon

One of the highlights of this week, was getting GP's in less than 24hr (thats a record for me), boosting my equips, and spamming ABS to get Te/Ti runes. (notice: 5 of Te are needed to enter the dungeon in night time, and 5 Ti are needed to enter the dungeon in daytime).

I got really lucky, that for a change I turned the /broad messages on, and saw someone broading that he's looking for party for Occulta. (Silly me I actually wanted to solo the dungeon, and then I was glad I didn't because the mobs there are lvl 121-125 I think. )

Our raiding teams consisted of 2 squads with 4 members. (Those other members (I'm talking about Kazel's LUXORY's and Tsumasa's (I believe it was spelled that way) )were really tough, I felt like a newbie there eventhough I used my expert team: fighter/ele/Brunie). Almost everyone in team got like +6/+7 Serpentine stuff O.O

The point of doing this dungeon was killing 10 Werewolf Elders for the last part of Nar's quest, and getting the rare drop of the Diary which unlocks the Expert stancebook purchase option.
As far as I was conserned getting Nar's option was enough, because people on the forum were complaining that they farmed there for 9hrs before getting the Diary.

The first room of the dungeon was packed with headless tanks/shooters/fighters (big ugly mofo's that can hit hard). After a few minor slip-ups we killed them and proceeded to the second room filled with Spike traps (mobs don't trigger them), and an upgraded version of Jack's turerts that were shooting lightning orbs.
That part was painfull, but if you stick to the wall, no bigger harm will be done.

At that point we already killed 10 of the Elders, so I was already thinking of going back.
With the next kill Diaries started to drop.... most of the people got it in like 20 minutes after in the dungeon, and after being there the 2nd, 3rd time.

Again, I got lucky and with next kill I ding-ed the diary, weee:D. Then we stayed a bit longer and helped everyone to get the diary... and that was the painful part... a very unlucky familiy named LUXORY (i think), was there for the 3rd time, and it still took us 3hrs to get his diary....

from that poin on, we decided (I mean they decided I just tagged along lol) to get to the Necroshaman. But before that, we had to cross the Great Rotatin Blades room. a room, full with lvl 161 (!!!) Great rotating blades, and mobs cruising among them, was just too much. I used 24x Soul Crystals to get to the other side, just to get ganked by same mobs as in first room of the dungeon. (that just sucked, because everyones healers were dead, and most of us ran out of SC).

At that point I relogged back in, finished the quests, got rewards from both quests: 6x Veteran Exp cards (every card gives 10% of a vet lvl, or 1% of former vet lvl), Nar card, and epic glaziums.

And ofcourse the ability to buy Expert stancebooks, weehee:D.

Now all I need are symbols of Leo, and Saggitarius....

The one about STR vs. AGI

No ofcourse, everybody is confused wether to add AGI or STR to his/her char.

Well it's simple actually:if your char uses block or evasion add AGI. if you're vet-ing any character that uses: rapiers, daggers, sabres, one handed swords, pistols, gaiters, knuckles, and you plan to use only those weapon till expert, go for AGI.

in terms of DPS-ing, go for AGI.
in terms of pvping alot, go for STR.

Now lets rewiew the DPSing part, shall we?

We have a character with a small weapon (previously described ones), that has an attack speed of 20, and deals 1000 dmg per hit.

meaning: 1: 0.20 x 1000= 5000 DPS (damage per second)


now, at vet level, if you add STR:

1:0.20x1200=6000 DPS (As we know, adding STR, adds 20% of damage, therefore increase from 1000 to 1200)

and if you add AGI at vet level: (Adding AGI at vet will add 10% attack speed, and 10% attack if youre a light weapon user, not to mention it increases Evasion and block)

1: 0.18 x 1100= 6111 DPS

clearly the DPS IS higher. Now in terms for raiding, and generally afking, having stun/poison on weapon, for christ's sake, add AGI to your char!!!!

If you're PVP-ing alot, go for STR, because the 20% STR bonus affects your skills also, and in PVP you use skills, you don't DPS the enemy. (If you're dpsing the player, you've got bigger issuses to think about, than what stats to add at vet heh)

Hope this clears some stuff out :)

The one about the ingame economy

This one has kept me up, one too many times. I think a lot of people together with the same goal, can make a change. I've noticed the effects of this one, about a year ago. It affects all of the players, and it affects the server economy. Exactly one year ago, (January-ish 2008), the prices of items were the following: lv. 100 enchantment chip piece x1 [~70m vis], lv.96 enchantment chip piece x1 [~40m vis] and lv.92 enchantment chip piece x1 [30m]. At that time, you could still go to IOF, hunt a hour or two and still make a fortune. The people got greedy (I still remember @ that time i was selling 92chips, I needed the vis, so I decided to give them for a lower price, normal was about 25-30m, I was selling them for 19.999.999 vis, the next morning i woke up, checked the Market Manager, and saw that the price has fallen to 16m.... all of that just over the night!!!!) (And I'm sorry for that one, it could'ev been my fault he he)

so I developed a theory about that one. (I think my theory may be similair to a crowd or a chaos theory, but it still works in the same principal, that people are like sheep in large numbers, and players are no exception)

Now what you need:
A few players (5-10, the more the merrier^^)
lots and lots of megaphones

now lets take an item for example, that's currently very expensive, but in quite it's common. Let's say we take rhodolite. First prices for a piece were 50m, and now they're down to 10-12m.

We take this group of people, and start making "ghost" transactions (why ghost you say? well because, a) the buyer will be selling via /broad the Rhodolite for an extremely low price lets say 4m, and the minute hell get some pm's about someone buying it, he'll just say it's already been sold to this-and-this player.In fact you don't even need the "imaginary buyer", but it's a safety precaution if someone decides to check on it.)

now do this transactions, using different users, for some days, and sooner or later, the real rhodolite sellers will start selling them for these low prices. It works on the previously described principle that people are sheep, and don't want to deviate from the larger group of players, that has it own standards. If you do deviate and don't show conformistic behaviour, the group will think of you as an outsider, and will probably try to have as little contact with you as possible. (an example about this one is: "legit" players (as the larger group), and "un-legit" players, a.k.a. botters. (the smaller group). e.g.: everyone hates botters, because they used illegal paths to achieve power. (anyone who studied sociology will get what i mean.))


so anyway... the power of a smaller group, infiltrating a larger group, to change it's ways, can be used for both good and bad purposes (you can try and boost your prices if you want, or try and break down the ingame market and economy.)



as for me: I'm currently powerlvling my Angie, and Karja, since my cath needs some backup when she's plvling (I'm not thinking of getting Nar, until someone tries my method, or the prices drop because the lack of sales he he he), and I need a crafter to craft all of those AA's hearts and stuff.

Cyu around till next time;)