Yes, I was a developer once...

Under My Projects: TheManaWorld

What happens when you use a search engine other than Google, sometimes you find surprising results: apparently I had developer status in The Mana World back in April 11, 2004. All I remember contributing back then were ideas for monsters, still it's cool to see that I wasn't imagining things and that I have been a part of TMW since 2004. So where did the 2004 come from - an XML file I found here: http://sourceforge.net/api/project/name/themanaworld/doap

Spectacular defeat in candor

The Candor jig

About a week ago there was an update that included a Candor update to prevent people from squatting in Candor while others did all the work. That update seems to have made it a bit more difficult to win.

Today we tried with a crowd of over 20 that included several people with Banshee bows, Bull Helmets and other 90+ level items, and we failed miserably.

In the end it was Nitayandarama, Baeda and myself (with Nitayandarama falling [but healing us] first, myself second, then Baeda). The stacks of monsters were pretty intense (the screenshot above really doesn't do it justice).

But it was fun. We usually don't fail at Candor which makes me wonder what was different this time, especially with so many high level players.

10 Pairs of Leather Gloves

Fighting Mountain Snakes

So begins the next crazy quest, to obtain 10 pairs of leather gloves. If you haven't guessed yet it's not a real quest. In the past I've set created several of my own quests to keep the game interesting, there's only so much you can do before the release of new quests. I find making your own quests up makes the game more interesting, especially when masses of people are grinding on a particular quest.

So what about the statistics? Well there's about a 0.02% chance of a snake dropping a pair of gloves. My first pair dropped at roughly 130 mountain snake kills. The second pair dropped before I hit 200 mountain snake kills. Now I'm up to 326 kills, but no pairs of gloves have dropped since. Other drops include 22 Mountain Snake eggs, 19 Mountain Snake tongues, and 5 snake skins.

At 326 mountain snake kills I've accumulated 166602 experience points. At this rate it will take over 26,000 mountain snakes for me to level on mountain snakes alone (no, not my goal here and even I'm not that crazy).

The rules: no killing other monsters (except red slimes who live in the same cavern), pick up everything, stick to the same spots (it seems to help).

Take this job and shove it

Skill points are determined by job level

In most RPGs people pay attention to character level and experience points. The more experience points the higher the level.

Job and skill points work a little differently. Once you've acquired a skill you need skill points to increase the level of that skill. It works out pretty simple. For each skill you need that amount of skill points to increase to that level of skill. However, you have to have done the previous level of skills. For example: to get level 5 in a job you first need to put 2 points for level 2, 3 points for level 3, 4 points for level 4, and at last 5 points for level 5. To get skill points you need to kill monsters and get job experience.

This is where it gets interesting because the monsters that give the most experience are not necessarily the best monsters to kill for job experience. I posted before a chart for lower level players that outlined the best monsters to kill at lower levels: Monster kill statistics. At higher levels you're looking at significantly more job experience points. Ice Elementals for example are in the 630 point range. Here is a list of a few I've recorded so far:

Skeleton: 1467 job experience
Poltergeist: 1265 job experience
Wisp: 1210 job experience
Lady Skeleton: 957 job experience
Drunken Skeleton: 530 job experience
Tipsy Skeleton: 493 job experience
Drunken Lady Skeleton: 389 job experience

Job experience can vary if someone else has hit the monster before. The poltergeists I was killing had hit points in the 10k region so they were not quite as nice to kill as the 7k skeletons. Spectres gave less experience than Poltergeists and are quite a bit harder to hit, so I didn't bother even including them. I'll update this list with a more complete listing soon. For now just realize that there's more to killing monsters than just plain old experience.

No Alexander the fighter I will not give you my password

Alexander the fighter's whisper for password

This evening I was sitting in Hurnscald when a player named Alexander the fighter asked for my username and password (see screenshot to the left in the dialog).

Not sure if he things I'm stupid, but the answer is no. Takes begging to a whole new level.

Raging skill - high level tanks, you can do it!

The Raging Skill

I must have spent about 1500 apples trying to get the Raging Skill. Part of the problem of getting the raging skill was that when the quest came out I was already over level 90 (92 I think), which meant killing a lot of fluffies. The other obstacle was the fact that as a tank Tarq was pretty slow... at least this is what I lead myself to believe.

The real obstacle, however, was the fact that I was dropping like a sissy, I just didn't know how to drop correctly. Once I figured out how to drop correctly, combined that with concentration and iron potions, it only took a couple of rounds to kill 87 fluffies, enough to get the skill at level 94. While it's not nearly the 400+ of the best players, it's enough to move on.

87 Fluffy Kills

To drop correctly use the w key to open the drop window. Then open your storage and and drop apples in the first slot. Now when you're in the wilderness or somewhere like the quest press y to drop the apples in that first slot. You can set the amount that drops by opening the yellow bar at the top (hover) and press the i key to change the drop amount. I set the drop amount to 10. Yes, this spawned Yetis occasionally and was the cause of me dying a couple of times (3 yetis on me I just couldn't survive). Much of the time it doesn't spawn yetis and with one (even two) I was still able to kill between 84-86 yetis (thanks to tank defence and water). Remember part of the goal is survival.

I should mention that I did this alone, with no healer sitting outside. At one point another player came to watch (I did it a second and third time to confirm it wasn't a fluke). So high level tanks, it is possible, you just have to drop fast, drop 10 and hit like the wind with concentration and iron potions.

Luvia with verdo, Taco and veryape

Fighting Luvia

A big thanks to Verdo, Taco and Veryape for their help with the Illya sisters quest tonight. Veryape and I made it to Luvia, but bit the bucket under the pressure of all the guards, demons and of course Luvia herself. Verdo got slammed by a stack during a minor lag and I threw Veryape off when I split the guards. Having never even been to the guards before it was a great 4th experience.

I'm still not used to dropping Laurizite... not a fan of that part of the quest, but we did it in a time that wasn't terrible. Thanks to Veryape for the chicken legs loan, will try to remember I owe you 40.
I've seen verdo playing in various spots for as long as I remember playing since I started playing again (I've left TMW a few times, once near the end of 2004 and 2007). Since I started playing again in 2011 he's been around and is a really stand up player.

Because I don't see guild members anymore I never know who they are, but I believe veryape is one of the members of CRC (of which I'm also a member). Veryape and I cooperatively killed Terranites before and was quite happy to share... now he's past me by having finished Luvia a few times.

Only Taco I don't know that well, but he was incredibly helpful with instructions and is powerful. Thanks Taco for joining us, we needed a strong mage.

Earlier, inside Luvia's area fighting her guards.

Again, thanks to all 3 for their help, it's certainly the furthest I've gotten... and we did it on the HARDEST level of the Illya sisters. I didn't know this until veryape mentioned it just before we took on Luvia.

Hoping to get a heart of isis when I finally do finish because I'm not much of a rager (still not fast enough to get the skill)...