Auldsbel TMW poster

Those who know me know I love open source software. Being able to edit code (even if you don't really know what you're doing or don't consider yourself a programmer) has huge advantages over closed-source software. I think one of the reasons why I like The Mana World so much is the fact that I can edit both the scripting code and if I really wanted to delve deeper I could check out the source code for the server back end.

Because I also run a Mana World server I thought I'd put some effort into promoting my Mana World server: auldsbel.dyndns.org. (It also happened to be 5am in the morning and I was fairly restless). I'm not an artist, but I do know a few things about using graphics-related software (e.g. using layers, masking, cropping, etc.). I use Ubuntu Linux (I gave up on Windows in my desktop several years ago because Linux has so much more to offer) which meant I wasn't about to use Photoshop (besides, it has a huge price tag). I've used Gimp for about 8 years on and off, mostly for photo editing and manipulation. This was the first time I tried to use it for something that would exist in Print. I like the style of ads Apple came out with several years ago to advertise the iPod, so I decided to do something similar. I could have used Inkscape, an open-source vector graphics program I'm also familiar with, but I chose Gimp because: a) I wanted to learn more about Gimp (with each project I tend to learn new things), and b) I knew I would be able to do more because of the wealth of features in Gimp (it's more mature).

I started with a black background layer. Then I made several sky layers (changing the mode of one of the layers to Overlay) to darken the sky. The great thing about layering is you can just turn on and off layers - letting you play with your image a bit more. The mode of a layer can also affect what's below the layer. I only changed layer modes on a couple of layers.

One tool that came in quite handy was the lasso select. After blowing up a screenshot of one of my characters on the server and a skeleton I created a new layer and used the lasso tool to trace around the characters, which I then filled with white and pasted as a new layer on my already created image. Using a few more layers I rotated and flipped a couple more of the same characters, brought down the opacity and skewed the characters to form shadows of the characters.

The last step was the text. For the title I used a font not included in Ubuntu. For the rest of the text I used the Impact Condensed font at different sizes. The font used for the title had some spacing issues I didn't like, but Gimp lets you adjust both the spacing between letters (kerning) and lines (line space).

I saved the poster in Gimp's .xcf format to maintain all the layer information. The printed result is much better than the screenshot I've included above.

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.

Level 60 - grass snake quest

I already mentioned in my last post that I've jumped to level 60, due largely in part to stack fighting. From the information I've gleaned it's going to be difficult to get the Setzer, even at my level because of my stats. I can reset my stats to arm wrestle for the golden scorpion stinger, but it may end up not being enough.

My current goal is to work up a couple more levels and invest those points into vitality which will hopefully better prepare me to do battle with grass snakes. I bumped into Stooball the other day who suggested that it might be possible at level 60, but that I'd really have to reset my stats and allocate them well.

Stack Fighting

One sign of a seasoned The Mana World (TMW) player is stack fighting. Stack Fighting is when players stack on top of one another in order to hit monsters. Monsters swarm in and players hit in tandem. There appears to be not only an experience bonus for stack fighting, but a defense bonus since attacks seem to be relatively distributed.

Last night I ran into a player who was overly concerned that I was around killing a few walking trees, they player kept screaming, "mine." It turns out the player was level 33, almost 30 levels less. I'm nicer than a lot of players who would have on purpose gone around and destroyed all the trees and taken the logs on this player. Teamwork is pretty necessary in this game, especially at higher levels it helps develop faster.

Dramatic improvement - steel shield and protection spell

I'm not sure what the protection spell does other than raise evade by a couple of points, but I had it cast on me and I seemed to be almost impervious to snake attacks (not mountain snakes, but regular snakes). I was taking on 3 or 4 at a time with barely a scratch. The steel shield has made it possible for me to reasonably attack regular snakes and suffer in the range of 5-10 hits. So hit and run is much easier. This plus a protection spell left me fighting snakes alone and doing well. I picked up about 8 snake eggs and 1 tongue completing the amount of tongues I need from regular snakes in the Auldsbel quest. I still need 2 mountain snake tongues and I'm not yet powerful enough to do snakes plus mountain snakes on my own without the protection spell. Funny enough the protection spell only seemed to raise my evade from 96 to 98... there must be something else at work. Does this mean if I put more in agility or luck that I'm going to dramatically improve my odds? I can't imagine so.

I still need about 11 ore for the best helmet I can get... the only thing left then would be the Setzer (in terms of things to acquire for power). Then it's all fun, buying dyes and changing clothes, completing other quests, and eventually going after the skulls again. I also noticed that the steel shield is good against black scorpions, they seem easier to battle even 2 at a time.

After steel shield stats...

Annukka sold me a snake skin for 5k, it was the last component I needed to get the Indian to make the leather patch. With the leather patch made I was able to finally get the steel shield made. Armed with the steel shield my defense went from 85 to 98, a big jump! Now I'm going to concentrate on getting the proper helmet, which means 12 more iron ores. I think I'll attempt to fight for these. I still haven't forgotten the Auldsbel snake tongue quest. I'm actually only 2 mountain snake and 5 regular snake tongues away from completing this task. The Setzer short sword seems a long way away. I can't imagine how I ever thought I would get it so many levels ago.

Have thought about creating a magic character, but so far just having fun figuring out the fighter.

Level 57 - new stat strategy

After a romp in the 'bat cave' aka the 'cave snake cave,' I leveled up to level 57. It took some hard work to get that last 5%. At this point leveling is very difficult. My dexterity is now 51. According to the Mana World wiki the 50 to 60 range should be enough to hit even the highest level monsters. My problem now is that certain monsters, like the mountain snakes, take quite a bite out of me (20 points a shot). I noticed other characters only take 1 or 2, much like what happens with me and cave snakes. Not sure if this is a combination of their dexterity and luck or if they simply have a higher defense. The steel shield is a possibility now, but only likely if I either buy a snake skin for the strap or if I keep leveling up so I can kill the mountain snakes easier. I've developed a new attack strategy for certain scenarios. I don't want to say too much at this point, but I'll reveal it in the near future - it seems to help a great deal in certain scenarios, but it's not very helpful against the mountain snakes ... at this point.

My stat strategy will be to concentrate on Luck, Agility and Vitality. Vitality seems to be promoted pretty heavily on the wiki, but if monsters are doing large damage on you it seems more sensible to put stat points into something that will take critical hits away (luck).

Redux - bone knife

My quest for the bone knife continued this morning before work. As it turns out hunting black scorpions is A LOT easier with 2 people especially when closely matched. Not sure the exact spelling, but I think it was Kamasami, and I did 3 tours around the caves killing everything in sight, including black scorpions, red slimes, yellow slimes, spiders, and snakes. The end result was 3 more black scorpion stingers. Only six more stingers for the bone knife. I'm not all sure that it's what it's cracked up to be, but like I said yesterday, any advantage is a big boost at this level. That said I think I'm also closer to gaining another level (around 89%). This will likely be it until Saturday or Sunday sometime. I need to pay attention to other things.

Bone Knife Quest

So I decided to take on the bone knife quest before the Setzer Quest. The Bone Knife is slightly better than the short sword I have already and ANY advantage at this level helps. I'm part way through the quest having killed enough Evil Mushrooms to secure 10 small mushrooms, enough evil mushrooms being A LOT, I almost leveled and I'm level 53! (about 73%) Now I have to kill enough black scorpions to secure 9 more black scorpion tails (I already have one). Unless I get some help from other high level characters it's hours of work and lots of healing potions. I used 35 tiny healing potions about 10 small healing potions just in the mushroom killing frenzy. Besides the fact that all the evil mushrooms come at you at once I had to deal with the frustration of other parties swooping in on the mushrooms I was trying to kill (having hit them a few times), and Mouboo's getting in the way. Mouboos are a real annoyance when you're trying to kill Evil Mushrooms. The goal is the bone knife... I'm guessing sometime this weekend... work has been crazy and I need to spend time away from the computer...