WeatherMatt

If my hero knows what's good for him, he'll pick up a travel skill at level 18 in the next day or so. Taking 10-15 minutes to go to/from town gets old (and unproductive) fast. Still not quite a master in the ELITES yet, but I did get a late start in joining the guild. Hopefully in the next day or so he'll get that too.

For the record, both times I witnessed my hero convert 3k coins to a brick, I did not encourage or send a god voice to him. He just went and did it. Impressive, I think, considering he proceeded to waste whatever he had left at a tavern immediately after both times. Update on my hero: Level 15 at last! I have my first skill, "strike of the rabbit", which is already to level 3. I haven't looked closely yet but occasionally he'll comment in his diary about using the skill on an enemy, so it's probably just increased damage. Slowly climbing onto the bottom of the pantheons. He's somewhere around 4900 for level, and one brick away from the bottom of construction. Also up to follower in the ELITES.

We've started gaining influence in towns now - San Satanos is at 2% with Beerburgh at 1%. San Satanos is mostly thanks to me - I had a busy day today but sneaked in a few minutes to check stuff on my phone. I saw that I was in San Satanos and had 100% godpower, so I used all four encourages knowing I'd have more godpower when I got home. At least one of those got the influence message, and when I checked we had 2%.

Boy. What would be amazing is if he repaired his relations with Rolf (developer of Wurm Online, which Notch used to work on before Minecraft btw) and were able to fuse both games and development under one company. With the success of Minecraft and the devs/staff that could be hired with it both games could take off. Rolf is probably not this unnamed friend, though. Sad.

Just got in my first non-arena fight. I won, since it didn't appear my opponent was online. One encouragement gave me the HP cushion I needed. I wound up with all the gold and items from the enemy, and a bolded lock of their hair. Impressive. Supposedly I also got a bit of XP, but I didn't notice but maybe 1% of my level (at level 14). EDIT: Follow up on the lock of hair: Worth almost 2.4k gold (!), which allowed my hero to buy an upgrade, melt 3k coins into a brick, AND leave him with only 200 gold to waste at the tavern. Success!

00:40 Suddenly felt an irresistible desire to take apart the box with a question mark and found 4495 gold coins inside. Now that's intuition of a true hero! Win!

One day later, and our rate of growth has somehow increased still, as we've nearly caught Fairy Tail (29 lines to our 27). We have a chance at the next update to pass them. Also, apparently clan members directly influence getting influence in towns. Encouraging/punishing when inside a town will sometimes cause a hero to do something that gives influence. What towns do we frequent that we should maybe think about targeting?

Runecrafting: 57-63 Summoning: 68-79 The only major gains. Did a lot of slayer as well, got almost 2 levels in that as well as an attack and HP level.

Score! 02:09 Borrowed a frosty shield while the merchant was talking to another client. Left 835 coins as compensation. Frosty shield is a whopping +10. Double digits baby!

Up to a full 15 lines now, and Fairy Tail has 27 lines. Each clan for a few ranks after that has about 5-6 lines more members. Assuming we can maintain our current pace, we should pass Fairy Tail in about 2-3 days, and each clan after that after another day or so each. All we need now is to get some town influence (I seem to visit San Santanos or w/e it's spelled a lot, so some influence there would be swell) to see what kind of bonuses that grants. I'm going to assume that all this clan stuff is automatic and out of our control in true ZPG fashion.

After four days I finally joined the Elites. So much for getting in at the start, I must be member #70 by now. Amazing. Level 13 as well. I'm gonna avoid the arena from now on thanks to the people that buy accumulator charges, just plain leveling for me. Can't wait till I get some skills at level 15. Anyone else close to 15?

OK. FINALLY, after the better part of 2 days, I'm joining the Elites. First it took my hero time to figure out how to cancel quests. Then, after that, it took him plenty of time to figure out how to join a new clan. As a spot of encouragement, I typed in "Join the "ELITES" guild you m'fer" once. So what did he do? He started making the "ELITES guild you m' guild. Wha? Apparently, you need to (or this is what finally worked for me) put clan names in SINGLE, not DOUBLE quotes. So he took what was in the single quotes, which ended in the middle of m'fer. Two days spent figuring that out, and god knows how much godpower. Now I can get back to using godpower for healing and stop worrying about this clan BS.

So here's my plan, not particularly difficult, but worthwhile nonetheless: 1) RC for the first 10 hours. I thought about herblore, but couldn't get in early on supplies, and after training to 85 recently felt burned out by it. Will start buying supplies (once prices settle) for the next XP weekend (even though I'm against the concept of them, Jagex seems to like it enough to repeat this mess, so there will probably be a third) and hope they don't nerf herb like they did summoning this time around. But I digress. RC for the 10 hours, which I calculate will get me to about 72 RC (from 57) at ZMI altar, depending on my exact crafting rate. At least 70 would make me happy, as it would remove a huge hurdle in my semi-short term goal of all skills 70+. 2) After that, use up my 400 blues, 1.4k crims and greens, and maybe my 1.8k golds if I care enough to use them on summoning when the bonus drops to 1.1x. No idea what level it will get me, except that it won't be 79. Maybe 75 or 76. Who knows. 3) Clean up some loose ends, like burn off some of my 2.2k yew logs, do the circus, etc. before heading off to slay for the remainder of the weekend.

So my hero finally figured out how to cancel his current quest, but asking him to join the Elites still hasn't worked, so he just tries to enroll in some other random guild. Happened twice now. I figure eventually I'll get it, but it's frustrating.

Did all that. Tried cancel quest sever times, stop quest, abandon quest, etc. Several times he seemed to get excited about continuing his current quest -.- And now I have no godpower, an alchemical transmuter, and two other bold items in my inventory. GF golden bricks.

Try as I might, I can't seem to stop my current quest of joining some random guild to join the Elites. Spent 75% godpower so far to no avail...

I've also made it to almost level 12 with only one death. Fun game. I'm enjoying the arena so far, mostly because I've only fought people not concerned with healing their heroes. Can we get a master list of TIFers somewhere, maybe the first page, so we know who all the heroes are in this thread?

Except that I was planning on picking up Meowth later on, and using that as my Normal attacker, which is better than both of the birds. Dodrio would be an option later on, but I'm not betting on that. Snorlax then, Persian isn't worth it for anything imo, unless you need some sort of revenge killer early on. uhh payday hello. get an army of persians and just use payday and you will make hundreds...yeah hundreds Payday's useless. I already have enough cash for anything I'd ever need. Dealing ridiculous CH Slashes is where it's at with the cat. And somehow I forgot about Snorlax. :x I've been out of it for too long. Currently Wartortle, Weepinbell, and Sandslash are annihilating the S. S. Anne.

Except that I was planning on picking up Meowth later on, and using that as my Normal attacker, which is better than both of the birds. Dodrio would be an option later on, but I'm not betting on that.

For the record, I originally voted for round robin, but would support Swiss as well. Actually, I'll end up competing (and losing) regardless of the format. Update on my hardmode run in Blue: Worked my way to Mt. Moon fairly easily, though I did suffer one casualty (a trainer's Jigglypuff KO'd my Rattata from half health on a crit, not that I was going to use the rat much longer anyways). Picked up a few rejects along the way as well. Currently pushing through Mt. Moon with a 3 man team. Team: Lv. 13 Butterfree Lv. 13 Pidgey Lv. 14 Squirtle Box: Lv. 4 Kakuna (Viridian Forest) Lv. 6 Spearow (Route 3) Lv. 8 Zubat (Mt. Moon) Deceased Lv. 12 Rattata (KO'd Route 3)

Well nuts. Summoning was my target to train for this, but since it no longer gives omgwtf xp rates for the duration, I need something else for the first 7-10 hours. Herblore? I did 62-73 last time, and I just blew 50m+ on getting 85. I have a long term goal of getting it to 93+ for Overloads/Effigies, but I was content on letting it sit at 85 for now. Prayer? Nope, not if it works like last time and Ecto/Guilded Altars don't boost it. Runecrafting? Maybe, since I hate the skill with a passion and the boosted Xp would make it worthwhile. But it seems such a waste on a skill that can easily be trained for money. Farming? That'll only be useful every few hours or so during the weekend. Dungeoneering? I already powerleveled it to 80 for my rapier and don't really have an incentive to go further (not even frost dragons interest me). Besides, 81-85 with the new prestige would only take me a few days as it is. So conflicted. I still plan on training Summoning after the 2x rate burns off, but I need a good option for the beginning.

Wait, so the next tournament is Gen I and II pokemon in a Gen IV environment? Count me tentatively in for this, as I'd have a lot of research on the metagame to do. I decided to go ahead and do a hard-mode game on Blue. My rules are: * The standard KO = dead (I'm releasing anything that gets KO'd just to be sure, I have no attachment to anything I catch in this game) * Catch the first unique thing in each area or city I encounter (to promote team diversity, or else I'll have 10 Pidgeys. Safari Zone counts as one area total, and I can only fish/surf once per route or city.) * Unlimited use of Pokemon Centers and items (I already think this could make it too easy. Considering restarting and going with limited visits or limited items) That's about it. Not naming my pokes, I'm uncreative anyways and think it's silly. Currently have a Squirtle, Pidgey, Rattata and Caterpie at level 8.

Tempted to try one of these hard-mode games on my Blue cart that still works. I dunno if Gen I would be easier or tougher, overall. Found a shiny Pidgey (-.-) in my SoulSilver game the other day. Tempted to train it up just because it's shiny, although I assume it's still useless in battle. I know nothing about the metagame in Gen IV (or even Gen III), but if we fire up a Gen I/Gen II tourney, I'd be first in line to sign up.

I don't have a whole lot of experience rushing, but here's where I would rate things: 1. Fishing (Depends on the floor. Anything below 25 or so you shouldn't really need food apart from what you start with and get dropped, so about 2 there. Above 25, especially for tough bosses *cough* shadow-forger *cough* better food is often needed, so 7 or 8 rating there.) 2. Cooking food (Goes in hand with fishing. Same ratings.) 3. Farming mushrooms (What a waste of time. 0 always.) 4. Crafting ranged/mage armor (Highly situational usage. Certain bosses necessitate it, but general use generally doesn't. 6 if it's a boss where non-melee armor is absolutely necessary, 1-2 otherwise.) 5. Farming herbs (A good rush team *should* be trained to pick up all herbs needed for regular/strong pots. Outside of that, only grow what's absolutely necessary. (lyco for melee pots, anything needed for a boost to open a room, etc.) Overall, about a 2 or a 3, except for critical stuff.) 6. Mixing melee/defence potions (Again, assuming you have a team that picks up herbs for this, this won't take long. I skip defense pots anyways. Melee's are useful for just about every boss, so 8-9.) 7. High alching (It can generally be done between puzzles/GD's, so someone just sitting in one spot alching all his arrows is a waste. But money is great to have for an altar and other stuff, so 8.) 8. Mining Ores (Not a bad idea for higher floors. If it can be done in between killing stuff, the better. 2 for lower floors where armor isn't critical, 7-8 for higher floors.) 9. Smelting ores / Smithing armor (Same ratings as above.) 10. Thieving chests (Takes 2 seconds, and gives lots of cash, charms, and high level herbs. 10 always) 11. Crafting combat/Non combat runes (Laws, Cosmics, Fires and Natures (for teleports and alches) are excellent. Having someone carry cure runes is also useful. Otherwise, unless it's a boss you need to mage, don't bother. 9 for the important ones, 2 otherwise.) 12. Cutting trees (Good for money and if you get desperate for food, but only tier 9/10 trees. Rated about a 7.) Again, I mostly soloed and got on crummy teams on my way to 80, so I'm sure I'm in no way a pro.

Yes, the MTK bug is real. Here's my loot, from 2 days of investment. I went to dump MTK to get rid of clues so I could go cluehunting, I didn't ask for this kind of bug and I'm not selling any of the stuff (valued at 51m + caskets). I may just dump it on the ground to be honest, I don't agree with getting handed bugged cash.