Baba Breaks 136 at PW Dunes

Start of Baba's Tuesday Borg hunt, click for larger image.

Baba continued his hunting trip to Perpetual Wastelands for Borg that he started the day before. For the duration of this trip, he camped out there in the dunes, rather than commute back and forth from Newland City. When he approached the main dune area, he found it about 2/3 populated. This was the best he had found it recently. As far as PW Borg dunes is concerned, there is no shortage of players, as the Borg population is frequently culled by hunters like himself.

Baba is motivated to level up to 150 at which point he will be eligible to join in Froob Title 5 group activities. Soon Baba had cleaned out the main large dune and he had to head south to the small hilly section in the pinched area between the Helipad, the acid lake and the cliff wall. Getting to the point where his standard Borg kite attack is second nature, Baba focused on adding another special, the Library of Foul Language taunts. These not only taunt the enemy, but do a small amount of radiation damage as well. With a fairly quick cool down of 6 or so seconds, it can be repeated several times during each kite. A QL 140 Library does 35 radiation damage, so hitting a Borg four times in a kite, nets an additional 140 damage. No where near a crit, but Baba is not going to pass by anything that brings Borg down faster. Also just in the last few levels, the increases to his basic skills and speed stats, he has been able to start using Fast Attack and Brawl 2 to 3 times per Borg. For the longest time the cool downs for these were so long that Baba rarely got to use them more than once per fight.

Main Dune cleared, time to start south, click for larger view.

With his loot bags full, Baba took to the skies in his Yalmaha, and headed due south to the nearest player city’s whompa. As he was passing over the mountain that sits between the Omni Mines and the main Borg base, he spotted a group of players standing around on the mountain top. He put his Yalmaha into hover and looked closer. There were about 5 players standing or sitting at the south east edge of the mountain top, looking down at the strip of road that runs between the Borg base and the Omni Mines. Down on the road he saw the 6th member of the team, an NT, that was kiting Borg.

It was one of those ‘why didn’t I think of that moments.’ If he had been up on the mountain top, safe and secure, he would have not gotten wiped like he did the last time he was on the ground here with a kiting team from his guild. He had been too close to the action, and sent back to reclaim when several Borg took an interest in him.

Baba dings 136 at PW Dunes, click for larger view

He proceeded on to Newland City, where he needed to sort through tonight’s loot take. Unlike the night before, when he had only gotten a handful of Miy’s armor pieces, tonight he had not only picked up many Miy’s pieces, but it also seemed to be “special guns” night in the loot table of his Borg. He sorted the guns out, but left them for identification at another time. He was more interested in cataloging his new Miy’s armor items, and since he had also just leveled, to look for pieces he could wear. It turned out that most of the Miy’s items dropped tonight were much higher than what he can equip now. He got several 200+ pieces, which he does not recall ever looting items that high before. He filled up a backpack with the new Miy’s pieces.

He placed that in his bank, and later after portioning out his level 136 IP points, he got out all his Miy’s armor bags and went through them looking for items he could now equip. This last level pushed up several of his stats enough that he could now equip a new Miy’s armor legs, arms and boots. The QL 111 carbonum armor arms that he removed were the last pieces of his former all carb armor set that he has worn since around level 90. Roughly 40 levels out of one set of Carb armor, goes to show what great armor the Carb is. It really is great for froob Enforcers as it buffs NCU and nano in addition to providing good AC protection. The Miy’s helps less with the NCU, but adds Health Points. At lower levels Enforcers are struggling with nano, but by the time they level up to where Baba is now, 130-140, nano is more plentiful as long as nano pool has been increased along the way consistently.

Baba's New Miy's armor that retired his QL 111 Carb, click for Auno.org equipment page.

The new Miy’s pieces have both improved his stats and his AC protection. Comparing his previous armor set up with the new one, here are some of the highlights:

* Projectile AC +5%
* Melee AC +3%
* Energy AC +7%
* Chemical AC +18%
* Radiation AC +29%
* Cold AC +4%
* Poison AC +18%
* Fire AC +4%

The Radiation should help with some of the Borg guns that do radiation damage. Baba has also noticed some Borg doing poison damage, but he has never looked at the logs in detail to try and figure out the weapon used, he has just noticed poison damage showing up in the combat log window.

His abilities stay about the same, but, max health went up 19%. The only downside is he has 39 less max nano, although NCU remained unchanged.

While writing this, we relaxed to the “Open Plains” theme, which some of you will recognize as the AO in game music that plays while out in the wilderness areas like Wartorn valley.  It reminds me of one of Baba’s first encounters with the Wartorn Valley at level 29 or so.  With no Yalmaha yet, he had pulled a mission in the far upper right hand corner of the WV map.  It was night and he was way out in that desolate stretch of road on foot, just past the player cities on the other side of the mountain ridge that surrounds the plain where Old Athens sits when he first heard this music.  It was calming and yet did little to quell his fears of the many dark red mobs that he had to take detours around   It was a long night, but he did eventually make it back to Old Athens in one piece.

You can listen to this piece and the rest of the AO in game music at AO Stratics here, or download all the tracks at Soundspace, by clicking on Skydrive.  Both sites give some interesting background on the music, including a description of how it is dynamically generated in the game from numerous short clips.  That explains why it is never exactly the same.

Baba 136 at Borg Dunes

Baba continued his hunting trip to Perpetual Wastelands for Borg that he started the day before.  For the duration of this trip, he camped out there in the dunes, rather than commute back and forth from Newland City.  When he approached the main dune area, he found it about 2/3 populated.  This was the best he had found it recently.  As far as PW Borg dunes is concerned, there is no shortage of players, as the Borg population is frequently culled by hunters like himself.

Baba is motivated to level up to 150 at which point he will be eligible to join in Froob Title 5 group activities.  Soon Baba had cleaned out the main large dune and he had to head south to the small hilly section in the pinched area between the Helipad, the acid lake and the cliff wall.   Getting to the point where his standard Borg kite attack is second nature, Baba focused on adding another special, the Library of Foul Language taunts.  These not only taunt the enemy, but do a small amount of radiation damage as well.  With a fairly quick cool down of 6 or so seconds, it can be repeated several times during each kite.  A QL 140 Library does 35 radiation damage, so hitting a Borg four times in a kite, nets an additional 140 damage. No where near a crit, but Baba is not going to pass by anything that brings Borg down faster.  Also just in the last few levels, the increases to his basic skills and speed stats, he has been able to start using Fast Attack and Brawl 2 to 3 times per Borg.  For the longest time the cool downs for these were so long that Baba rarely got to use them more than once per fight.

With his loot bags full, Baba took to the skies in his Yalmaha, and headed due south to the nearest player city’s whompa.  As he was passing over the mountain that sits between the Omni Mines and the main Borg base, he spotted a group of players standing around on the mountain top.  He put his Yalmaha into hover and looked closer.  There were about 5 players standing or sitting at the south east edge of the mountain top, looking down at the strip of road that runs between the Borg base and the Omni Mines.  Down on the road he saw the 6th member of the team, an NT, that was kiting Borg.

It was one of those ‘why didn’t I think of that moments.’  If he had been up on the mountain top, safe and secure, he would have not gotten wiped like he did the last time he was on the ground here with a kiting team from his guild.  He had been too close to the action, and sent back to reclaim when several Borg took an interest in him.

He proceeded on to Newland City, where he needed to sort through tonight’s loot take.  Unlike the night before, when he had only gotten a handful of Miy’s armor pieces, tonight he had not only picked up many Miy’s pieces, but it also seemed to be “special guns” night in the loot table of his Borg.  He sorted the guns out, but left them for identification at another time.  He was more interested in cataloging his new Miy’s armor items, and since he had also just leveled, to look for pieces he could wear.  It turned out that most of the Miy’s items dropped tonight were much higher than what he can equip now.  He got several 200+ pieces, which he does not recall ever looting items that high before.  He filled up a backpack with the new Miy’s pieces.

He placed that in his bank, and later after portioning out his level 136 IP points, he got out all his Miy’s armor bags and went through them looking for items he could now equip.  This last level pushed up several of his stats enough that he could now equip a new Miy’s armor legs, arms and boots.  The QL 111 carbonum armor arms that he removed were the last pieces of his former all carb armor set that he has worn since around level 90.  Roughly 40 levels out of one set of Carb armor, goes to show what great armor the Carb is.  It really is great for froob Enforcers as it buffs NCU and nano in addition to providing good AC protection.  The Miy’s helps less with the NCU, but adds Health Points. At lower levels Enforcers are struggling with nano, but by the time they level up to where Baba is now, 130-140, nano is more plentiful as long as nano pool has been increased along the way consistently.

The new Miy’s pieces have both improved his stats and his AC protection.  Comparing his previous armor set up with the new one,  here are some of the highlights:

• Projectile AC +5%
• Melee AC +3%
• Energy AC +7%
• Chemical AC +18%
• Radiation AC +29%
• Cold AC +4%
• Poison AC +18%
• Fire AC +4%

The Radiation should help with some of the Borg guns that do radiation damage. Baba has also noticed some Borg doing poison damage, but he has never looked at the logs in detail to try and figure out the weapon used, he has just noticed poison damage showing up in the combat log window.

His abilities stay about the same, but, max health went up 19%.  The only downside is he has 39 less max nano, although NCU remained unchanged.

old
http://auno.org/ao/equip.php?saveid=139143

new
http://auno.org/ao/equip.php?saveid=140417

http://ao.stratics.com/content/ingame_music/music.php

Introverts and MMORPGS

Introversion

RL4 had more than our share of high pressure social interaction and stimulation recently.  On RL4 our stock and trade is normally web development and site management. Lots of solo technical work at our workstation in our corner of the office landscape mixed with a dash of mostly one on one interaction with various content providers and database publishers.  Occasionally, the focus shifts to bursts of high stakes management meetings with high level managers representing different layers of our organization and others.  When this occurs and the time comes to get back to Rimor and Rubi-Ka, our introvert bursts forth and demands that we use this time alone while our inner subconscious sorts out the layers and meaning of our recent important social interactions.

Introverts need time alone to recharge and process. In the social MMORPG setting of Anarchy Online, this is often perceived as snobbishness, stand-offishness, and suspect.  We recently came across an article that describes very succinctly how introverts function, and how this is unfortunately wrongly interpreted by extroverts.  The article can be found here: ‘Top 5 Things Every Extrovert Should Know About Introverts.’

In addition to putting a damper on overall social interaction sometimes, soloing, either in missions, dungeons, or exploring, means slower leveling.  Slower leveling means that the few social contacts made when teaming bear less fruit since many of the former team mates will have progressed further and eventually beyond the level at which Baba is a potential team mate.  Add to that the fact the Baba is not the worlds greatest Fr00b tank or Enforcer and lets just say his dance card has an abundance of free time.

Baba is not complaining or asking for indulgence or pity, he just wants to be accepted for who he is.  His level of progress is his business and his enjoyment of Ruby-Ka is why he is here.  He is quite happy to see everyone level at their own pace and admires all that are above him in level and hopes to encourage those who are below.

So when a long 4th of July holiday came around and Baba came out of suspended animation, he did not seek out his guild chat channel, the Fr00b chat channel, or go to the looking for a team panel.  Instead he hopped in his Yalmaha and headed out from Newland City to do some solo exploring, one of his favorite Rubi-Ka activities.  You would think that after a year or so in this place, he would know every nook and crannie, but there is still vast stretches that remain unexplored to him.

Following the previous weeks AO 8th anniversary party, where a gaggle of Hecklers showed up to boogie, and when discussing in the AO Fr00bs forum, he learned that there actually were some Hecklers on Rubi-Ka, just waiting for any Fr00b to come and try their mettle.  Baba heard that in Deep Artery Valley, on Golem Island, there were Hecklers to be seen and challenged.

The mysterious Netrom, approach at your risk.

Baba took the grid from Newland City to 2HO, and from there he headed east in his Yalmaha.  First he had to cross the region of Southern Artery Valley and came across a spot he had always been curious about due to the name Netrom on the map.  It is a very large compound of the type of buildings seen in Bliss and the abandon cities at the far western edge of Longest Road.  It is surrounded by dense wooded areas, with lots of 100+ level mobs.  When Baba was tabbing through a large number of forest mobs just to get a feel for the types of mobs, his heartbeat increased when he saw the dreaded Desert Eremite show up.  He flew off to another corner of the exterior of the compound and hovered low to the ground to continue to visually ID some of the mobs when a huge Eremite appeared directly below him and made it clear if he got any closer there would be trouble.  The compound is laid out like a military castle, with several walled areas within each other.

Assault Commander Pax, view from a distance if you are a lowbie.

In the central compound there appeared to be a number of high level Omnis including one Assault Commander Pax whose health bar took a good portion of the screen.  Baba kept his distance at a very high altitude, and resumed heading north east.  He eventually came to Deep Artery Valley where he first passed Drill Island.

Shrouded in rain and mist, the dangerous Drill Island

This is a very curious island where the only entrance is via a narrow tunnel on one side.  Baba had heard from others that this place was quite exotic with high level mobs capable of warping and other nasty habits, so as a solo he declined to enter.

Next he came to Enigma Island.  Again, this island can only be entered via a single entry point, however this one allows you to do so at high altitude.

Enigma Treehouse, and some trees with red health bars

Once inside but still from high altitude he spotted a number of strange forms of and the even stranger tree house.  This was not his destination, so Baba again kept his distance, and passed on.

Eventually after heading further north east he came to Golem Island.  It again is a island with only one entry point.  The whole island is one big spiral, so the entry point is a canyon that spirals inward and up.

While he paused briefly at the entrance, Baba spotted several giant sand worms bobbing around in the water, something he had never observed before. All the giant sand worms he had seen to date had been in mostly desert settings.

Drill guards carbon rich rocks on Golem Island

Just past a arch of rock at the islands entrance Baba started to see large carbon rich rocks strewn about the ground. He was thinking of dropping down and picking up a few when he spotted his first Golem island mob not too far away.

It was a Drill, and it was quite a few levels higher than Baba.

Baba used altitude to get past this obstacle and soon came to an odd looking pile of boulders in the canyon.  When he targeted it, it was identified as a Golem.  It was the same distinctive pile of boulders that he recognized as the inert version of the Hecklers he had seen at the party.

Baba spots his first native Golems (Heckler look alike) at Golem Island

This one was a few levels below him, and he might have had a shot at him, but there was an another Drill close buy that was very much over Baba’s level, so Baba, stayed in his Yalm at a safe distance.

Baba was able to navigate to the center of the Island where he observed several more Golem/Hecklers that were also much higher than him.

After snapping a few screen captures, Baba headed back west to the nearest player city in Southern Artery Valley.  Just before getting there he stopped to inspect a strange looking mine site found in a unusually green canyon with large green rocks in it.  Not too far away, he also observed a level 165 Dyna keeping watch over a campfire.

The player city that was his destination in order to whompa back to Newland City, was not your typical cookie cutter layout, but some of it had been placed smack dab in the middle of a river.  The creators (actually two guilds building side by side, Genisis and First Element) had also made some interesting use of the z dimension (height) while providing numerous Whompa stations.