The Glade 4.0

That's pretty awesome. I briefly toyed with the idea of making a more standard floating claim, but rejected it as having to build non-permanent stairs to get there every time you came would suck.

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"Aaaah! Emotions are weird!" - Amdee
"... Mirrorshades prevent the forces of normalcy from realizing that one is crazed and possibly dangerous. They are the symbol of the sun-staring visionary, the biker, the rocker, the policeman, and similar outlaws." - Bruce Sterling, preface to Mirrorshades

Ho-ho! The grappling hook will get you where stairs cannot, friend.

And where they will!

But you have to craft one, first. And that means crafting tables beyond the public stone forge. Which means either running across one somebody has set to public (if I'm not mistaken) on their own claim or... setting one up on your own. Hehe.

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"Aaaah! Emotions are weird!" - Amdee
"... Mirrorshades prevent the forces of normalcy from realizing that one is crazed and possibly dangerous. They are the symbol of the sun-staring visionary, the biker, the rocker, the policeman, and similar outlaws." - Bruce Sterling, preface to Mirrorshades

Got the selection tool last night and holy crap it makes building so much easier. Highly recommend making a bee-line for an iron pick and then select tool.

Got my Selection Tool and Silverstone Pick (Blue! Thank goodness. That crappy green Iron pick was killing me!) last night in the couple hours between multi-hour downtimes.

Also managed to Poof! my crafting stations on my claim. There's no "Your Inventory is Full" dialogue boxes, people. It's okay. I did it after I crafted the Silverstone Pick, so I can just jump straight to the next set in short order.

Of course, now it's back to the Tier 1 islands for some more Tin. /facepalm

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"Aaaah! Emotions are weird!" - Amdee
"... Mirrorshades prevent the forces of normalcy from realizing that one is crazed and possibly dangerous. They are the symbol of the sun-staring visionary, the biker, the rocker, the policeman, and similar outlaws." - Bruce Sterling, preface to Mirrorshades

I have a dull iron pick that is awful

If you've got a better Bronze Pick, use it for everything but the silver, heh. It was totally worth keeping my blue Bronze pick on my hotbar, mining through the iron, and mining completely around the silver before breaking out the crappy Iron Pick to just get the silver.

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"Aaaah! Emotions are weird!" - Amdee
"... Mirrorshades prevent the forces of normalcy from realizing that one is crazed and possibly dangerous. They are the symbol of the sun-staring visionary, the biker, the rocker, the policeman, and similar outlaws." - Bruce Sterling, preface to Mirrorshades

Almost have enough marble for a marble forge. Then it's time to /slashwrists while chopping ALL the trees.

Though I finally came up with a decent axe that speeds up the process a bit. And wearing your harvesting band and/or keen eye ring(s) really helps.

Lenas, if you haven't, track down a Tin Trimmed(?) Workbench and make yourself the Keen Eye thingies. It only uses Copper and Elemental Copper and some... stone? Something else plentiful, so make several and get a pair of good ones. The quality can result in fractional variations in the +Discovery stat that don't show on the item, but you can figure out which the best one(s) are by equipping them and checking your +Discovery stat on the character sheet, since it tracks 3 decimal places.

I did a bit of testing, and 20 Harvesting Bonus (from dual Trailblazer items -- I ended up with a set of duplicates) is a bit better than around 2.4 Discovery. As far as I can tell, Discovery makes it more likely you'll find a rare drop, while Harvesting Bonus increases the amount you get per drop for everything, common and rare.

I tested using a 10 huge tree sample size on burled wood. With the +Discovery, it would trickle in with many batches of 2-6, vs. getting fewer but more reliably 5-8 drops with the Harvesting Bonus.

And Marble Forge completed. Now for project "buttloads of Tungsten," which will enable, upon completion, a Tungsten pick, two more building tools, a new saw table, and.. something else that I forget. Heh. On the other hand, now that I've got a Marble Forge, the Smooth and Paint tools are within sight at this tungsten tier. Also, I'm only 9 Elemental Tungsten short of the pick, so I won't have to be taunted by those beautiful deposits of gold at the end of the tungsten veins much longer. And the incidental gold acquired means... a new grappling hook!

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"Aaaah! Emotions are weird!" - Amdee
"... Mirrorshades prevent the forces of normalcy from realizing that one is crazed and possibly dangerous. They are the symbol of the sun-staring visionary, the biker, the rocker, the policeman, and similar outlaws." - Bruce Sterling, preface to Mirrorshades

Unfortunately it seems like my favorite bug has been fixed with this latest patch. Used to be able to use the Add Tool and place a huge block of rare_material_01 on the ground, then mine it back with your pick, and you'd get the +% bonus from founder gear. Made farming burled wood much easier

Alas, placed items outside of claims now only last for a minute, not enough time to mine them back

Kaffis, someone has posted their claim location with all the highest tier crafting stations open for public use - it's on Serenity, and the Island is Vent Tier 3. It is directly East of the Hub. Location 2774, 1025, 191.

http://postimg.org/image/cavjikq3h/

I don't think they're all the highest tier, but there's a set within spitting distance of the hub (Northwest, I think?) on, um... Drift on Lib. Also, I think Dave Georgeson keeps some crafting tables on his plot in Ledge, I think it is.

My claim is northwest of the hub on Lib's Ravine (T3) island. There's a big mountain to the west of the hub, and if you follow that north, there's a long sloping valley with my claim near the top of it. Right now, I've just got my crafting tables since the patch ate my minimal voxel-work.

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"Aaaah! Emotions are weird!" - Amdee
"... Mirrorshades prevent the forces of normalcy from realizing that one is crazed and possibly dangerous. They are the symbol of the sun-staring visionary, the biker, the rocker, the policeman, and similar outlaws." - Bruce Sterling, preface to Mirrorshades

I have lost three sets of tier 1-2 crafting stations and all my landscaping so I am going to hold off on making anything for the next couple of days. For now, just hoarding resources and making upgrades while relying on other brave souls that make crafting stations.

Picked up my claim and got some green land on Serenity - Scarp. I started working on a sorta Kelethin themed area.

**** the Sapphire spawn rate. I've mined around 360 Elemental Cobalt to date (the last half of which was using +Harvesting over +Discovery because the first Sapphire node I ran into made me realize that they're a) tiny, b) super-rare, and c) impossible to switch over in time to matter -- and on top of that, I already had, like, all the Elemental Cobalt I'd be able to use in my life) and have found Sapphires twice for a total of 59 units.

I've come to a revelation. The devs didn't pull the Rubicite drops in EQ1. No, no. The one Cobalt Pick in all of Norrath able to mine Rubicite just broke in half one day and it could never be extracted from the ground again, despite being more abundant than freaking Iron. And there weren't enough Sapphires in all of Norrath to make a new pick.

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"Aaaah! Emotions are weird!" - Amdee
"... Mirrorshades prevent the forces of normalcy from realizing that one is crazed and possibly dangerous. They are the symbol of the sun-staring visionary, the biker, the rocker, the policeman, and similar outlaws." - Bruce Sterling, preface to Mirrorshades

I know nothing of this game, but that theory is full of win.

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I prefer to think of them as "Fighting evil in another dimension"

Try using the top tier sifter, too. The cotton bags of gems can have sapphires, maybe 1/8 in my experience.

That was my plan, but I need to find one. It seems like a lot of people are skipping higher tier sifters since they require so much burled lumber and don't block any tool or station progression directly. I'm about halfway to the wood to make the second sifter, and I was going to see what it was capable of producing. In the meantime, I've got done coming out of my ears from all this running around in the desert. Yesterday, I went and picked up my claim to test the new interface for placement. Tried to move it down to a slightly more level spot down the valley about half a buffer width, to discover that the spot was slightly to narrow to permit the claim. By the time I ran up the hill again, I watched a guy place on my old spot while I was running with the claim placement view open, lol.

Moved to a peak a little distance away. Slightly further from the nexus hub, but closer to desert biome (while still being green myself) and near more interesting neighbors

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"Aaaah! Emotions are weird!" - Amdee
"... Mirrorshades prevent the forces of normalcy from realizing that one is crazed and possibly dangerous. They are the symbol of the sun-staring visionary, the biker, the rocker, the policeman, and similar outlaws." - Bruce Sterling, preface to Mirrorshades

I am lucky enough to have a neighbor that has the high level crafting stations, so I just run over there when I need to.

I've begun building a giant hollow tree in the center of my claim, it's got two levels on the inside so far and I just started trying to make it more convincing with a big root on the outide.



I would really like the line and paint tools at this point.

Mining tools are capable of mining ore one higher tier than the metal (or alloy, for tin and precious metals) the pick is made from.

So a bronze pick made from tin and copper can mine iron, an iron pick can mine silver, a silversteel pick made from silver and iron can mine tungsten, and so on. I'm up to a veridan pick, which is the gold/tungsten alloy, and can mine cobalt.

The cobalt pick requires some sapphires (80, if memory serves) to craft, along with a now-trivial amount of cobalt and some other stuff... sapphires are the gem that the veridian pick adds to the harvestable list, and can be found very rarely attached to the buried end of cobalt veins. Rubicite, the next metal above cobalt (and this requiring a cobalt or better pick to mine) is the much more commonly found codeposit with cobalt.

So I've been running around able to mine all the cobalt I want, while the rubicite taunts me by being just pit of reach at the bottom of all this cobalt I've been mining looking for the last few sapphires I need to stop having to leave all that pretty, bright red rubicite in the ground, untouched.

The whole exercise has turned rubicite (which is probably meant to be very desirable due to being thee precious metal near the top of the tier list short of mithril itself, along with its recognizability and nostalgia for old EQ players) into something I loathe finding (since either the precious metal of a tier or the gem of the tier will cospawn with a base metal, not both) rather than something I'm excited to see. Since the higher tier crafting stations (that have more recipes for star boosting jewelry and decorative and functional items for building on your land) require higher tier materials, and these materials require better picks, those sapphires are gating my ultimate access to desirable stuff in the game.

Oh well. I was going to wait till I had a line tool to start getting into building, but smoothing and painting tools will have to suffice for now.

_________________
"Aaaah! Emotions are weird!" - Amdee
"... Mirrorshades prevent the forces of normalcy from realizing that one is crazed and possibly dangerous. They are the symbol of the sun-staring visionary, the biker, the rocker, the policeman, and similar outlaws." - Bruce Sterling, preface to Mirrorshades

Nice, Lenas. I'm still a bit stumped on inspiration. I wish water was in the game already, really. I think I could do some fun things with waterfalls as a centerpiece, and I've got a good location for it.

I kind of wonder if we'll ever get trees as props rather than having to build them out of lumber like you are. I rather like the whimsical fantasy style the giant trees have...

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"Aaaah! Emotions are weird!" - Amdee
"... Mirrorshades prevent the forces of normalcy from realizing that one is crazed and possibly dangerous. They are the symbol of the sun-staring visionary, the biker, the rocker, the policeman, and similar outlaws." - Bruce Sterling, preface to Mirrorshades

So is this alpha open?

Also what are the system reqs?

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"...but there exists also in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to attempt to lower the powerful to their own level and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality with freedom." - De Tocqueville

It's a buy-in alpha, right now, as many F2P games are doing these days. Closed beta in a month or month and a half if their timeline holds (at a much more reasonable buy-in price point; I may also have a spare key available depending on whether the person I'd kind of earmarked it for expresses interest), open beta to follow sometime after that.

System Reqs as posted in their forums:
Minimum System Requirements:

OS – Windows 7 64 bit
Processor – Intel i5 Quad Core or higher / AMD Phenom II X4 or higher
Memory – 4GB RAM
Hard Drive – 20GB Free
Video Memory – 1,024 MB RAM
Video Card – nVidia GeForce GTX 275 series or higher / AMD HD 4890 or higher
Sound Card – DirectX compatible
Internet – Broadband (3Mbit/sec or higher)

Recommended System Requirements:

OS – Windows 7 64 bit
Processor – Intel i5 Quad Core or higher / AMD Phenom II X6 or higher
Memory – 8GB RAM
Hard Drive – 20GB Free
Video Memory – 1,024 MB RAM
Video Card – nVidia GeForce GTX 560 series or higher / AMD HD 6870 or higher
Sound Card – DirectX compatible
Internet – Broadband (10Mbit/sec or higher)


The game right now isn't very well optimized at all. It is, at least, working both cards in my SLI rig, so I'm able to get good performance out of my pair of GeForce 660 Ti's to keep a (huge variance) reasonable average framerate at 1080p.

_________________
"Aaaah! Emotions are weird!" - Amdee
"... Mirrorshades prevent the forces of normalcy from realizing that one is crazed and possibly dangerous. They are the symbol of the sun-staring visionary, the biker, the rocker, the policeman, and similar outlaws." - Bruce Sterling, preface to Mirrorshades

I bought into this yesterday. Got a chance to run around, drop a claim and mine up enough to make an iron pick.

What is the grapling hook for? Should I make one or wait?

An everquest game not being well optimized!

*shock*

Anyway its well out of my gaming rig specs at the moment.

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"...but there exists also in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to attempt to lower the powerful to their own level and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality with freedom." - De Tocqueville

Make grappling hooks as soon as you can. They really help getting around quickly.

The Bronze Grappling Hook is mostly good for speeding up climbing sharp inclines. Its range is kind of short otherwise.

But I'll grapple the ground with my Viridian Grappling Hook because it's just that much faster.

_________________
"Aaaah! Emotions are weird!" - Amdee
"... Mirrorshades prevent the forces of normalcy from realizing that one is crazed and possibly dangerous. They are the symbol of the sun-staring visionary, the biker, the rocker, the policeman, and similar outlaws." - Bruce Sterling, preface to Mirrorshades