Gathering Time, or the End of Regular Quests

With the completion of the ring quest I've now done all the non-magic quests except for the Graveyard and Terranite quests, both of which are still too difficult for level 67 Tarq.
The Graveyard quests are listed from level 60, but I've found that I can only take on one skeleton at a time and only if they don't get a critical strike on me (which means more Luck and Dex are in order).
So what to do in this downtime??? Well this is usually the point where I invent my own quests. At some point I will turn mage and start doing the magic quests, but for the moment I'm content being a fighter. As I see it there are a couple of things I can do: 1) help new players and 2) gather components for spells.
The ring quest required 50 coal and 100,000 gp. The coal didn't take very long to collect, but the 100k took awhile considering I just spent 100k to get past the last present problem I had in the Christmas quest. I ended up trading in 36 roots I was storing for when I became a mage. So with roots in mind as a spell component one of my new quests will be to gather 50 roots. Along the way gathering raw logs, which are also a useful low level spell component.
When I played 11 months ago I had a robe in almost every colour, and I collected all the cocoons to make each robe, so obtaining 1600 or so cocoons is a secondary quest.
Of course there are a lot more spell components, and one of the important ones involves the various leaves, so I'll be hacking on plants for awhile.

More Mogguns, quests, and red scorpions.

The freshness of the halloween party has already worn off and the event hasn't even finished yet. I got tired of hunting strictly for sweets and decided to keep aiming towards some of the quests, and in the process completed a couple. The Letter Quest, which I'd inadvertently overlooked, but managed to do quite easily. I think even a level 20 might be able to do it. I also collected 25 red scorpion stingers and maggot slimes for Auldsbel (the snake tongues is next and I have all but the mountain snake tongues). In fact I got a bit obsessed with the fact that red scorpions also drop jackolanturns that I decided to keep killing scorpions until I had a few more (7 I think). I also picked up a Perl in the process.

The Setzer Quest seems like it could be in range. 14 more coal for the ingots + 6 coal portion, but I've yet been able to activate the monster oil portion. I'm thinking a requirement of having bought a steel shield may be first. I already have the short sword, so Nicholas should be allowing me to ask how to make my short sword better.

I figured out a strategy for killing Mogguns. I mentioned hit and miss in the past, but I missed something in that strategy. At this point I'm going to hold off mentioning more until I've tested the strategy more fully. The little bit I have tested so far has been successful, though the Mogguns don't seem to be dropping a lot of coal for me this evening: 2.

Advice for New Players of The Mana World

The following hints are gathered from my own experience playing The Mana World off and on for a number of years. These are kind of first steps players might want to take playing the game:

• Learn the keys to move, target, attack, and talk. I personally like to remap my target key from a to alt (or ctrl) so that my target and attack are closer together. This if course means having to remap what alt/ctrl did before to something else (a is good).
• Talk to Aidan the monster guide and register as a quest participant right away. If you don't register right away you lose any monster points you might have gained from killing monsters. Monster points can later be traded for items (monster points are not experience, but are very useful nonetheless).
• Equip your cotton shirt before you start killing monsters, it gives you a little added extra protection and is not equipped by default, but is in your stash.
• Talk to different people in Tulimshar and go on the quests they send you on. There is an order that needs to be followed. Some Non-Player Characters (NPCs) will not give their quest until you've completed another quest.
• After you've killed a bunch of maggots and scorpions visit Ishi the rewards master. She will ask if you want to trade your monster points for items. You can get some significant items that will help you both now and later in the game: (for example: the Fancy Hat gives a good boost to basic defence at the start of the game and Snake Skins come in handy later in the game for chaps, currently the most durable lower body item in the game).
• If you get duplicates of items like the Fancy Hat don't give them away initially (you can do that when you're level 50), sell them for gold and buy a Leather Shield. This will further add to your defence.
• When you've done most of the quests (I didn't finish the mine quest until after I'd finished some of the Hurnscald Quests) head north and to the right. Look for the Ferry Man and pay 1000 GP to get to Hurnscald. In Hurnscald you'll be able to complete a number of other quests. I recommend you go north and do the Pinkie quest which will result in a prize of a powerful +75 to attack Scythe.

Stones on the head

The other day I was going through an old Linux Journal magazine and I came across an Iliad spoof of Samuel L. Jackson's wacky flick Snakes on a Plane. In the spoof it's all the installations of Linux on the back of seats on a Singapore flight that a Microsoft exec is taking and complaining about "Motherf^#&%g penguins on a plane." I couldn't help but be reminded of this while playing TMW last night and this morning.

Tulimshar Desert Mine, 2nd Level

I spent a lot of time in Hurnscald collecting furs knowing full well that it might take a full compliment of 60 furs to satisfy Agostine's requirements for boots and gloves. While I didn't have the monetary requirements for both, I could do the gloves. I'd previously handed over 14 furs the last time I tried, hoping luck would be on my side, which it wasn't. Well damn if it didn't take another 33 furs (47 total!) to get the gloves. Agostine is suppose to be a 1 in 30 chance, looks like the game has either changed or my luck this time around is pretty bad.

I decided that while I was in Tulimshar I should finish the mine quest. Little did I know that the mines had changed. No more red slimes and spiders, now there are ice goblins and angry scorpions along with three buttons which need a key. So everyone knows, the key is not dropped (before you needed keys to open a chest on the second level - which is still true). The key for the first level is obtained by talking to the miners and moving some ore. This was a simple task, but getting the key combination wasn't so easy. Not only do you have to turn the key to the correct side, but you have to do it in a certain order. Clicking followed by a thud is good, clicking alone is not.

The second level sports Archant (Arachnid Ants) which do drop keys on very rare occasions. Also present are Yellow Slimes, which is great because they drop Ore. This means no heading back to Hurnscald for Ore. You need to collect 3 keys to open the chest. I was really looking forward to the Short Sword until I discovered it was a dumpy short bow... doh! Archers will love the quest, but I already had obtained my forest bow in Hurnscald, a much better bow that was obtained easier and was much more rewarding both in terms of experience and financial reward. The Forest Bow quest in Hurnscald is more rewarding for a few reasons:

• The Forest Bow is better (+70 damage vs +50 of the short bow)
• You get more experience for killing log heads (something like 190xp/each)
• Log heads also drop roots which fetch 200gp each in the market - a much better way to make money than bat wings and teeth.

The only thing that really makes this mine quest worth doing is the fact that you can collect ore killing Yellow Slimes while you're trying to collect 3 keys. In fact I collected about 15 ore while trying to get the 3 keys necessary to open the chest.

... Then I died...

No, it was not from the monster that was suppose to be lurking in the mine. I went from full health to dead in one shot... what from...

Falling stone on the head! Seriously. So killing all those monsters wasn't enough... I had to die from a stone falling on my head.

All I can say is that I hope this area gets reshaped a bit. Hurnscald should be a more difficult area and I remember the mines there are, but the quest for the bow in this mine shouldn't be more difficult or less rewarding than the forest bow quest in Hurnscald. And the shirt that comes next isn't much of a reward since it too can be bought (and I already have it).

I did level twice during this quest, but it felt really slow. Archants are only about 88 experience compared to the average log head of 190 experience. Log heads don't tend to hit for high damage as much either, though they do take longer to kill. In the long run you level faster, get greater rewards, and have equal quest opportunities (2 quests) pummeling the log heads for logs and roots (wooden bow and shield). If you're over level 20 you should probably head to Hurnscald before doing the mines. Finish the pinky quest first and then chop some wood in the log head quests.

Self-inflicted adventure, my robe quest...

I've imposed a self-inflicted quest, to get a robe of every colour! As you all may know it takes 150 cocoons for 1 robe. So far I've collected enough for 4 robes. Collecting cocoons has a side benefit of collecting herbs. I collect in the forest north-east of Hurnscald where the silkworms are really plentiful, so are the herbs and the squirrels which drop herbs. Some nights I can collect a lot of cocoons, other nights are slower, so I concentrate on hunting herbs too.



I recently gave a player 13 mushrooms, so I set a secondary quest to replace them. The going for mushrooms is slow, only 2 collected, but I'm up to another 75 cocoons, half way to the next robe.

One of my problems is that I haven't been generating money. In fact I've been spending it on the dyes (dark blue/black are not dirt cheap). So now I'm concentrating on the cheap dyes for the next batch... then I'll head to the snow town and hunt some bats for cash.