Giving items

Die Jack'O die

One of the problems all RPGs suffer from is begging. Inevitably some player walks in to town and starts begging for things. It sometimes starts small, a few batwings, and turns into a "give warlord armor!!!" demand. Sometimes it turns abusive with the player slandering another player for not giving up items.

The solution to this problem came to me when I wasn't sitting on my can in town. High level players tend to sit in town quite a bit. Having done most of the quests, just boredom, or whatever reason, they just sit.

The solution is to get out of town and play again. How does this solve people begging in town? Well, it's actually not about not being in town, it's more about what the player themselves is doing. People come to town to beg, because they think it's a spot they can find lots of people, and someone will give them items. Out of town people might beg too, but at least out of town players have to play the game. Take for example the mountain snake pits. If you're down in the mountain snake pits you're probably capable of being there. I met a player who was very slowly killing snakes (archery) and they happened to need 3 Mountain Snake eggs. I had about 17 from killing mountain snakes in just that session, it was nothing to help the player out. I also noticed they didn't have decent gloves. The mountain snakes had dropped 2 pairs of leather gloves, so I gave up one. The point here is that the player was actually playing (they didn't ask, I asked them). I felt good because I knew this player actually plays the game, and I'm sure they felt good because it was another item down in what they needed.

So get out of town and move around. (Get up and boogie!)

A bit about yetis, daily quests, and working together

How many players does it take to kill all the yetis in the Cindy quest? Well, if you've read here before I once did it with 3 other players. That number has now changed to 2 other players: me (warrior), Lycan (archer) and NitayandaRama (mage).

Killing all the yetis took a bit of time, but we managed it. Better to play with a lot of players. The more players the better! If you're a warrior/tank you're not likely going to get drops (unless some kind mage or archer gives them to you). The simple fact is other players do more damage than tank warriors, it's a sacrifice. So what you really want to go for is the daily points. Daily points come at the end of the round when all the yeti's have been killed and Cindy has been saved. Daily points allow you to do more daily quests (Mike's stingers, Riskim's acorns, etc.). Ideally you want to do as many rounds of Cindy as possible. With a big crowd of people rounds go pretty fast (5 minutes to 10 minutes).


Why get so many daily points? Well if you can get yellow and white boxes 3 of each fetches either 5300 gold pieces (and 1300 xp) or 10800 gold pieces (and 2800 xp). The Angela's presents daily quest takes a lot more daily points. Without running Cindy a number of times you might only be able to do it once. Running Cindy you might be able to do it 3 - 5 times, fairly quick 50 grand.. and lots of fun and extras (tears, animal bones, etc.).

But I'm a tank warrior, how do I get presents if no one gives them to me? You don't necessarily have to get the presents from the Cindy quest. There are spots in the wilderness of Nivalis and in caves where you can solo 1 or 2 yetis. Solo yetis (or bring a powerful friend to help - even better) and you can collect presents, tears and bones. Try to think of the whole experience: you're getting good xp, you have a chance to get animal bones (used in high level quests), you have a chance to get tears (also used in high level quests), and you have a chance to get a silly yeti mask (which you can sell or just use to look like a hairy beast in town)... maybe someone will make a matching yeti armor set sometime... The point, yetis are fun. With my current set of statistics I can take a yeti without dropping below 700 hp (so less than 190 damage) before I kill it. Two yetis and I do a bit of dancing to make it so I take on one.

Defeated at Cindy - wth?

What the heck? Yes, myself, Joe Black, and a group of 90+'s got our butts handed to us doing Cindy. Sadly this screenshot is just the tip of the iceburg. There were dozens more Yetis below this group.

I guess because I've always been on a team that finished I've never seen this many yetis. Apparently they spawn if you don't kill all the yetis in the last wave within an allotted time.

Cindy with a good crew of 4

This evening Zopar, Sango98, Selenil and I ran Cindy, a crew of 4, without any problems. All 3 players are really nice players who seem to understand all aspects of the game including play of different types of characters. My hat(s) off to these three for their skill and understanding.

One of them said "people like this remind me of why I love to play this game," a statement I second and appreciate. TMW can be frustrating at times, especially on long quests where it takes massive collections of difficult to get items.
So what else is new? About 55% left to level, but about 7 million experience to go. Very close to first time around the Love Triangle quest, 1 eye and 4 ears left I think. I have enough Diamonds and Jack'o souls for the next part.

I started the paper quest, but have a way to go for it too.

Quick tip for Warriors (& others)

Higher level warriors stated for tanking may not necessarily be the fastest or strongest hitters in the field. Sometimes it helps to have a boost. That boost can come from taking Iron Potions and Concentration Potions at the same time. Iron Potions boost damage and Concentration Potions make you hit faster. Iron Potions are easy enough to get, Spiky Mushrooms drop them often enough that 1/2 and hour of work can get you a lot. Concentration Potions however are a bit more of a rare drop. Sea Slimes drop them, but not nearly as often as Iron Potions from Mushrooms. You can buy either, but at 500gp per you need to spend 5000gp just to get 10.

A much simpler method is to take out a bunch of Pink Flowers and trade in pink pedals to Rauk. For every 2 pink petals Rauk will give you a Concentration Potion. Flowers are simple enough to kill for a well stated warrior. Save your gold for something better, use flower power (petal power rather) to get those speedy potions.

Advancing in the graveyard

Graveyard courtesy

The "Graveyard" is still the best place to advance in levels. Between Zombies, Fallens, and the rapid dispatch of Skeletons it's hard to beat the graveyard for pure experience per minute.

There's something for everyone in the Graveyard: mages can electrify skulls and Jack'O, archers can pick off zombies and skeletons pretty quickly, and high level warriors tank pretty good in combination with other players against fallens, zombies, and skeletons.

All this makes the graveyard a popular place. One of the things I try to do is when I see a single player fighting a monster I hit that monster once and move on. Why? Simple, generally single players are trying to level and hoping for a drop. You might think helping completely destroy a monster will assist a player, and in some cases this might be true, but mostly it's not - here's why:

As soon as a second player hits a monster, the experience points the monster gives out on death is doubled. Each subsequent hit subtracts from that pool of experience. For example: say a zombie is normally worth 8k experience. You hit that zombie once, now his experience goes up to 16k (minus about 300xp for hitting it). If you don't hit the zombie again, the player who keeps hitting and kills the zombie gets 15,700xp (roughly, these are just example numbers). Now if you start hitting again that number shrinks. The faster and more powerful you are the more experience is taken away from that pool. Now you could be a speed archer and take away a kill, but this is in extremely poor taste.

Techniques like this hold especially true for mages wanting to kill skulls. If you can hit a skull, hit it once and let the mages kill the skulls (they do a much better job anyway).

Now if a group is banding together to speed kill skeletons, zombies and fallens it's a different story. Experience can be racked up pretty quickly with the right group of speed archers, mages and warrior tanks. Normally I find archers and mages get the most experience, but it can be worth a warrior's while to lump in with speed archers and mages (remember to protect them though) because of the sheer speed with which zombies and fallens can go down with the right group. The experience per second just is faster this way, and it's a good way to level. It unfortunately isn't usually a good way to get items (at least not for a slow warrior), the faster, more agile players normally get the drops. So if you're looking for drops, solo, or duo with a helpful player, and remember the one hit experience trick.

Experience versus focus, evening the odds

I've spoke before about the unevenness between classes, in particular the fact that some classes can kill players many levels higher.

It does make sense that a spell like lightning can cause full damage (or even extra damage) on a warrior equipped with full plate armour.

On the other hand it doesn't make much sense that a warrior almost 10 levels higher can be killed by a lower level mage. This is especially true at higher levels. Consider how much experience divides a level 81 mage and a level 89 warrior. The gulf of experience is enormous, extremely enormous. One must really consider the huge gulf of experience when looking at a show down between high level characters. Consider the number of wizards who attempted to stop Conan... and failed.

So the question is how do you bridge the gulf between a wizard's lightning and a high level warrior?

One answer is ... magic. It could be magical armour, or it could be something like a sword scabbard with magical protection properties.

What it shouldn't be is something that reduces the existing armour of a warrior. It shouldn't be an item in which a warrior needs to reduce his armour class to be immune to lightning. Perhaps it's something limited to warriors of a certain level, or something that requires enchantment by elves or a wizard.