Filler #28

Images from each of my spring season list, which one is which?

Some are completely obvious… actually, they’re all kind of obvious. Except for maybe Pandora Hearts and 07-Ghost

Something about my Priest

I’ve been walking around on my priest a lot more than usual lately, mainly because priests have an unusual feel of freedom to them. Being able to tele, warp portal, agi themselves up, etc. This makes for a very mobile char that can travel between different cities very easily. I do want to level my priest, but with so many HPs running around in the same level range as I am, it’s hard to find a party. So I content myself by running around mobbing things up!

This here is all of the zombies in payon caves 1, not a single one missing. I didn’t know there were only 20 zombies on the first floor, very disappointing. I led the mob around for a while, just to see if there were any zombies left (there weren’t) and I ran into another human being, a very rare occasion indeed. Being the chivalrous person I am, I tanked the entire mob for the swordie to kill and left payon caves afterwards.

I returned a half hour later and decided to mob up all the familiars this time.

All 15 familiars. They were easier to mob than zombies, mainly because when you mob zombies, you have to walk slowly. And when you walk slowly, familiars catch up to you and hit you, causing a chain reaction where you flinch, position lag, and get hit by more monsters. Stone curse armor helps in this scenario, as it only stones the bats and not the zombies. Not something I want to wear when mobbing familiars though.

It’s in Party Chat

Filler #27

I consider it my character, but it’s on Draco’s account. Because it’d be extremely stupid of me to put a scholar on the same account as my champ. This was started some time ago, but I never found the will to continue it.

Leveling + Guilds

I’ve stopped leveling Draco’s knight, at least for a little while. Last week’s Clocktower spawn change made CTHOs an unbelievably good leveling spot for Draco’s knight, clocking (lol) in at roughly 5.8m exp/hr. The drawback? CTHOs is also unbelievably dangerous. Which translates to an extremely expensive leveling run.

In just 30 minutes of leveling there, I use 1k+ Fresh Fish, 150+ fly wings, and a random amount of sp items, adding up to about 200k – 300k worth of supplies for half an hour. Why is it a random amount of sp items? Because using a Rideword hat, Draco’s knight gains back 4% of the damage done to a monster at a 1% rate. The chance is low, but when it procs, I basically get back full sp. It’s very nice when it works, but when it doesn’t work, you’d have to use sp items ’till it does.

Which is why I’m going to hold off on leveling Draco’s knight any further until I procure an Earth deleter card or armor! ED cards basically give knights the ability to go on 24 hour leveling sprees without ever running out of sp. How so? Earth deleter cards kill your sp regen in exchange for gaining 10 sp every time you kill something with a melee skill or attack.

With proper gears and stats, many knights can one-hit kill HOs with pierce, a 7 sp skill, resulting in the knight actually gaining 3 sp for every monster killed. Knight’s that use mobbing skills like Brandish spear (12 sp) or Bowling Bash (22 sp) only need to mob up at least 3 or 4 monsters before using the skill results in positive sp gain, assuming you also used endure (10 sp) to build up the mob. In other words, it’s one of the most useful leveling tools a knight can get.

But it costs at least 35m just for the card and nobody seems to be selling it atm, so I’m stuck playing the vending game once again. Which brings me to my next topic…

Guilds! It seems I’ve been rather inactive lately. By that I mean my character is on all the time, but I’m not physically there most of the time. So I’ve been looking into the possibility of joining a new guild for fun. The criteria for my ideal guild choice has changed since coming back though.

WoE-
I’m tired of large scale WoE battles, really. In light of that, I’ll probably look for a guild that is more oriented towards leveling and “recreational” WoEing. So something like non-WoE, pre-WoE, or optional WoE.

Leveling-
Since my main focus is on leveling Draco’s knight, it’d be nice if there were a guild that created a healthy leveling enviroment. Not by partying or anything, because Draco’s knight actually levels 5x faster without support, but with background chatter loud enough to drown out the boringness of grinding levels. So an active guild maybe.

Events-
I like taking time off from leveling to explore new places and kill new monsters. And it’s all the more fun with more people. Things like MvP parties, PvP parties, Endless Tower parties, Battlegrounds parties, leveling parties to obscure places, etc. Like they say, the more, the merrier.

This, of course, really limits my choices. On one hand, I don’t want to join a guild so established that you can never find parties, but on the other hand, I don’t want to join a guild so new, there’s no one to party. I’m currently looking through guild recruiting threads for any leads, so I’ll post an update later.

Filler #26

In a chat log 4 years ago…

DarkerTemplar : >
DarkerTemplar : >>
DarkerTemplar : (>
DarkerTemplar : (>-
DarkerTemplar : (>-_
DarkerTemplar : (>-_-
DarkerTemplar : (>-_-)
Chat Filter: Yeah, uh, I don’t think so buddy…
DarkerTemplar : (>-_-)~

Spring Reason Revisited

All of the series I’ve been keeping up with this season have already hit their third episodes, so I’d say it’s a good enough time to talk about them now that they’re starting to move ahead of introductions into the plot. The list was, as I recall, Fullmetal Alchemist, Pandora Hearts, K-ON, Valkyria Chronicles, 07-Ghost, and Hayate no Gotoku.

FMA-
Compared to the first series, FMA 2009 is faster, funnier, and lighter in dramatic scenes. But given a choice between the the first or the second, I’d have to favor the first. I didn’t very much like how they shortened the Lior segment or how even with enemies, they’ll crack jokes about Ed’s height (though I’m assuming that’ll phase out over time). I’ve also noticed that they’ve taken out a lot of the darker themes from the first series. One thing I noticed cut out from the Lior segment was the scene where Rose snuck into the church to see her supposedly ressurected boyfriend. The impact of the scene originally gave me, the viewer, the impression that you don’t f*** with alchemy or you seriously pay the price. It really makes me wonder what they’ll do with the scenes where Scar blows people’s brains to bits.

Pandora Hearts-
Pandora Hearts has quickly become one of my top picks this season. It has a sort of Alice in Wonderland kind of feel to it, only it isn’t all a dream. In three episodes the main character has been: backstabbed by his closest friend, sent to an interdimensional prison (abyss), chased around by pseudo-Nightmare Before Christmas characters, forced into a pact with a bunny with a scythe, possessed by the same bunny, and broken out of abyss by the bunny using his body. Pretty cool stuff, keeps you on the edge of your seat.

K-ON!-
Slice-of-life: School Clubs. The only thing that sets it apart from other anime in the same vein is that the club involves something not often seen in anime: music. Sometimes I wonder if I’m forcing myself to watch this every week or something. Then I realize that I’m watching it of my own free will. This anime is too cute to pass up =_= . I still can’t get over how stupid the main character is. I guess thats what the other 3 main characters are there for.

Valkyria Chronicles-
Upon watching the first three episodes, I’m happy to say Valk Chronicles certainly lived up to my expectations. Granted, I didn’t expect much from this series though. As I expected, the anime will be focusing on the story, rather than the strategy. Of the few battles shown so far, they aren’t going to spend too much time on them, or if they do, it’ll only be to progress the story. I’d skip this if I were you. But I’m me, so I’ll be keeping up with this in preparation for the game, which I’m planning to play some day.

07-Ghost-
The animation art has actually gotten quite good since the setting shifted from the dreary military academy to the church. I’m surprised how slow the story is progressing though. I’d bet if they took out all the scenes where Teito keeps thinking about Mikage, we’d still be on episode 2 instead of 3. Then again, I guess its better to get all the backstories done with earlier on. Humor is sparse, but well placed enough that it defines the episode, which is more than I can say about FMA. All around solid series.

Hayate no Gotoku 2nd Season-
Another dose of “wtf just happened” humor combined with frequent references to games, anime, and manga. It’s remains funny even after 50+ episodes (from the first season). Spring season really failed to bring any new comedies into the field, so I’ll have to settle for Hayate this season. Not that that’s a bad thing mind you.

Emblemz

I’ve been working on a new emblem recently:

For this particular design, I used my old emblem as a base. First, I took out the lettering on the side and elongated the circular part, giving it more space in the middle. I also sharpened up the corners and fixed a few aesthetical details. Then comes the easy part, and by far my favorite part, cutting out the insides of the emblem and adding images into the empty spaces. Not having enough space is a big concern when dealing with emblems this small, but luckily I had the right pics for the occasion. If anyone was wondering what the image in the middle is, it’s the wolf from Wild Arms 2.

It looks slightly empty though, dunno. I’ll probably end up spending more time refining it, or even scrap it altogether in favor of some new fresh design.

Filler #25

A test run in CTHOs after spawn changes using a Rideword hat. Needless to say, it was a success. Setup explanation to follow in a couple days or so.

Paleontologist

I spelt the title right from memory, but I did have to double check. Recently, I’ve been digging through ancient sites and looking through long forgotten files in an attempt to reconstruct the history behind the beginning of the Second HolyExe era (fooled ya didn’t I?).

During the course of my studies, I discovered a peculiar set of text files I only vaguely recognized. Upon closer inspection, they seemed to be text files documenting certain time frames within the era I was studying, but something was off. In a large portion of these text files, or chat logs as they’re widely known as, the dialogue is oddly sparse. Then it dawned on me; Temp didn’t speak a single word in any of these chat logs.

It was a mystery. Why was Temp not a part of these conversations? Was Temp simply a mute? Was Temp afk? I could find no explanation as to the origins of these chat logs. The conversations taking place in these chat logs were uninteresting and not worth saving onto my hard drive. If Temp had simply been afk, what purpose would he have in saving a chat log upon returning? I studied these chat logs intently, looking for something, some clue, that would lead me to an answer!

Then one day, I noticed an irregularity in one of the chat logs. I couldn’t believe my eyes, it was the key I’ve been looking for all these minutes! A transcript of the chat log is below with the discovery in bold lettering:

VrmpX : welcome Lord Bunnie
Guildsman ~Lord Bunnie~ has disconnected.
Guildsman ~Lord Bunnie~ has connected.
~Lord Bunnie~ : harlo
~Lord Bunnie~ : could you please change my name to Bunnie’s Advocate
VrmpX has logged out.
Guildsman VrmpX has disconnected.
Guildsman VrmpX has connected.
VrmpX has logged in.
Guildsman Nine Volt Chicken has disconnected.
Guildsman Nine Volt Chicken has connected.
ShawiLL !!!! has logged out.
ShawiLL !!!! has logged in.
VrmpX : >.> ok….
~Lord Bunnie~ : thanks
Guildsman Capella has connected.
ShawiLL !!!! has logged out.
ShawiLL !!!! has logged in.
Guildsman Nine Volt Chicken has disconnected.
Guildsman Nine Volt Chicken has connected.
Nine Volt Chicken : not much of a market for out-of-date quest items
ShawiLL !!!! has logged out.
ShawiLL !!!! has logged in.
Guildsman Capella has disconnected.
ShawiLL !!!! has logged out.
ShawiLL !!!! has logged in.
VrmpX : the pumpkin mojo you say?
Nine Volt Chicken : Worse: wrapping paper from 2005
VrmpX : lol
Nine Volt Chicken : I also have gold coins
Nine Volt Chicken : And blue F and E cards
VrmpX : >.<
ShawiLL !!!! has logged out.
Nine Volt Chicken : What’s strange is that I can’t move rough elus at 11.5k
Nine Volt Chicken : The average is around 15 right now
Nine Volt Chicken : I also can’t move tames at 6k per
Nine Volt Chicken : I heard from one guy that wouldn’t buy mine because I
Nine Volt Chicken : have one of each
VrmpX : oO?
Nine Volt Chicken : He’d rather pay the going rate for many than get a discount on one
Nine Volt Chicken : There’s not a lot of common sense there
VrmpX : ohhh
Nine Volt Chicken : like a 4k discount
Nine Volt Chicken : enables him to buy more later
Nine Volt Chicken : ~shrug~ whatever
VrmpX : >.< idk what to kill now
Guildsman Capella has connected.
Guildsman ~Lord Bunnie~ has disconnected.
Guildsman ~Lord Bunnie~ has connected.
Guildsman ~Lord Bunnie~ has disconnected.
Guildsman ~Lord Bunnie~ has connected.
[ Friend VrmpX ] : (Hi) *^_^*
VrmpX has logged out.
Guildsman VrmpX has disconnected.
Guildsman VrmpX has connected.
VrmpX has logged in.
Guildsman Capella has disconnected.
Guildsman Capella has connected.
Guildsman ~Lord Bunnie~ has disconnected.
Guildsman ~Lord Bunnie~ has connected.
Nine Volt Chicken : This is stupid, I’m making a merch
Nine Volt Chicken : For some reason, no one will buy from me, but
~Lord Bunnie~ : i have two merchies
VrmpX has logged out.
Guildsman VrmpX has disconnected.
Nine Volt Chicken : everyone will buy from merches at 125% of what I’m asking
Guildsman VrmpX has connected.
VrmpX has logged in.
Guildsman Nine Volt Chicken has disconnected.
Grogian has logged out.
Grogian has logged in.
Guildsman Capella has disconnected.
Guildsman Capella has connected.
Grogian has logged out.
Grogian has logged in.
VrmpX has logged out.
Guildsman VrmpX has disconnected.
Guildsman VrmpX has connected.
VrmpX has logged in.
Grogian has logged out.
Grogian has logged in.
VrmpX has logged out.
Guildsman VrmpX has disconnected.
Guildsman VrmpX has connected.
VrmpX has logged in.
Grogian has logged out.
Grogian has logged in.
Grogian has logged out.
Grogian has logged in.
Guildsman ~Lord Bunnie~ has disconnected.
Guildsman ~Lord Bunnie~ has connected.
Grogian has logged out.
Grogian has logged in.
~Lord Bunnie~ has withdrawn from the guild.
Secession Reason:
VrmpX : ….
VrmpX has logged out.
Guildsman VrmpX has disconnected.
Guildsman VrmpX has connected.
VrmpX has logged in.
Grogian has logged out.
Grogian has logged in.
Grogian has logged out.
Grogian has logged in.
Grogian has logged out.
Grogian has logged in.
Grogian has logged out.
Grogian has logged in.
Grogian has logged out.
Grogian has logged in.
Grogian has logged out.
Grogian has logged in.
VrmpX has logged out.
Guildsman VrmpX has disconnected.
Guildsman VrmpX has connected.
VrmpX has logged in.
Grogian has logged out.
Grogian has logged in.
VrmpX has logged out.
Guildsman VrmpX has disconnected.
Grogian has logged out.
Grogian has logged in.
Guildsman VrmpX has connected.
VrmpX has logged in.
Grogian has logged out.
Grogian has logged in.
Guildsman Capella has disconnected.
Guildsman Capella has connected.
Guildsman Capella has disconnected.
Guildsman Capella has connected.
Guildsman Capella has disconnected.
Guildsman Capella has connected.
Grogian has logged out.
Grogian has logged in.
VrmpX has logged out.
Guildsman VrmpX has disconnected.
Grogian has logged out.
Grogian has logged in.
Guildsman VrmpX has connected.
VrmpX has logged in.
VrmpX has logged out.
Guildsman VrmpX has disconnected.
Guildsman VrmpX has connected.
VrmpX has logged in.
Guildsman Capella has disconnected.
Guildsman Capella has connected.
Guildsman Capella has disconnected.
Guildsman Capella has connected.
Guildsman Capella has disconnected.
Guildsman Capella has connected.
VrmpX has logged out.
Guildsman VrmpX has disconnected.
Guildsman VrmpX has connected.
VrmpX has logged in.
Grogian has logged out.
Grogian has logged in.
Grogian has logged out.
Grogian has logged in.
[ Friend Grogian ] : (Hi) GTG bye
Grogian has logged out.
VrmpX : YAYYYYYYY
VrmpX : BC!!!!!!!!!
VrmpX has logged out.
Guildsman VrmpX has disconnected.
Guildsman VrmpX has connected.
VrmpX has logged in.
VrmpX has logged out.
Guildsman VrmpX has disconnected.
Guildsman VrmpX has connected.
VrmpX has logged in.
VrmpX has logged out.
Guildsman VrmpX has disconnected.
Guildsman VrmpX has connected.
VrmpX has logged in.
VrmpX has logged out.
Guildsman VrmpX has disconnected.
Guildsman VrmpX has connected.
VrmpX has logged in.
VrmpX has logged out.
Guildsman VrmpX has disconnected.
Guildsman VrmpX has connected.
VrmpX has logged in.
VrmpX has logged out.
Guildsman VrmpX has disconnected.
Guildsman VrmpX has connected.
VrmpX has logged in.
VrmpX : hey Cap, you there?
C:\Program Files\Gravity\RagnarokOnline\ScreenShot\screenLoki558.jpg is Saved.
Guildsman Capella has disconnected.
Guildsman Capella has connected.
Guildsman Capella has disconnected.
Guildsman Capella has connected.
Constantine~ has logged out.
BGM On
Sound Effects On
VrmpX has logged out.
Guildsman VrmpX has disconnected.
Guildsman VrmpX has connected.
VrmpX has logged in.
VrmpX has logged out.
Guildsman VrmpX has disconnected.
Guildsman VrmpX has connected.
VrmpX has logged in.
VrmpX has logged out.
Guildsman VrmpX has disconnected.
Guildsman VrmpX has connected.
VrmpX has logged in.
VrmpX has logged out.
Guildsman VrmpX has disconnected.
Guildsman VrmpX has connected.
VrmpX has logged in.

It was an amazing discovery, a crossreference to a screenshot! This breakthrough not only solved the mystery of the off-timed chat logs, it completed the history of my role in the early Second HolyExe era! The screenshot and explanation follows:

Temp: Guild's Recruiter

Before HolyExe filled up with staunch loyal members, DarkerTemplar served as the guild’s main recruiter and advertiser. Guild recruiting is a long and typically unfruitful endeavor, so DarkerTemplar, or Temp, would occasionally go afk for long periods of time, generally during the night. Upon returning to his computer, he would save a chat log of the guild recruiting chat box in order to preserve the names of the applicants for further contact. Saving chat logs of the chat box also saves the logs of the regular chat window as well, hence the multiple chat logs of conversations that occured during Temp’s afk periods.