Skill, Skill, Skill!

I started out last weekend by going on a mining trip with Bullet. Well, he was mining, I was watching! As we travelled across the southern area of Amethera we came across some Longu, so teamed up to take them down. It was also a good chace for me to try out my new Ghost armor.


I kept getting this feeling that good loots were nearby, and quite a few times the feeling proved right. In one instance Bullet found a good deposit and we nearly globalled on some Longu. Overall no profit, but it was a fun day.

The trip did establish one thing though - I still have a lot of work to do in improving my hunting skills. Everything from my actual rifle abilities through to my adeptness with a first aid pack need to be improved.

Bullet suggested I purchase some skill chips, which I've avoided up until now. I feel better about getting skills the traditional way through actually hunting, but looking at the prices of the chips it's becoming an increasingly tempting option.

This week I decided to defer that decision and just go back to hunting. I killed a mixture of creatures making some losses and some profits, overall just under breaking even for the week. Nothing exciting to report though.

To round the week off I took a mountain climbing trip. Some people had reported something interesting on the hills overlooking Twin Peaks, so I went to investigate. It took me some time to find a route to the top, but eventually I made it. I'm not sure who or what I found, so here's a picture:


Strangely, someone had left an offering of a bottle of sweat on his foot. Maybe this is a statue in honour of Lootius? There's no inscription, so it's hard to say.

After a while I decided to leave but was left with a dilemma. How exactly am I meant to get back down again?


(I jumped)

Buying and Selling

So I've decided to buy a Ghost armor set. This looks to me to be a good all round set which will help me out in team hunts against bigger creatures. I'll still hang on to my Shogun set for when I'm out on my own against the lesser creatures.

But, being pricey I had to liquidate some assets to buy it. I had a hunt through my storage and apartment and came up with some looted armor parts that seemed worth selling, and 500 PED of oils.

I tried to auction the lot, but without much success on the oils. I ended up TTing one lot and doing a private trade on another lot. Seems there's very little call for Animal Thyroid Gland Oil. Some of the armor parts have sold and some are still listed, so hopefully they'll go too.

In case you're wondering why I don't just TT oils, it's because I prefer them to be used by a crafter rather than being placed on the TT scrap heap (or wherever it is that stuff goes). It's not really about the money - it only goes for 101% at best.

So, anyway, with this new stack of cash I went off in search of Ghost armor. First there's the resellers that are ripping people off at TT+220 to TT+240. A quick look in auction reveals a full set of parts I can "buy now" for TT+200 - so why bother with a reseller at all? In the end I settled on Buzz Lightyear's store (after prodding him to restock). I got the full set for TT+190, so I'm pleased and hopefully he's pleased with the 190 PED :-)

And here I am showing off the new set in my apartment block.

The only thing left to do was pay the hefty 232 PED repair bill. But it's held in value in the armor, so that's not a big loss.

Roll on the weekend when I can go and use this new armor in anger!

A trip to the rig

I started out today looking around the shops for things to put in my apartment. It looks like Buz has a good selection of stuff in the Twin Peaks Mall, including complete sets of Ghost armor which I might need to investigate!

Whilst looking around I bumped in to two of the most well known characters on Calypso: Akoz and Neomaven. For those that don't know Akoz owns many land areas and Neomaven owns the Twin Peaks Mall that I saw them in. They were setting up a shop for an event of some sort - Akoz' Barber Shop.


It's nice to be around such skilled and wealthy people. Maybe one day I'll be admired like that (... day dreaming ...).

Later on I heard about an event going on at Camp Phoenix. It seemed some of the uber mind essence people were setting up wormholes to travel to the oil rig. This had been done before, but I'd always missed it. I headed straight over to Camp Phoenix to investigate.

On arrival it was chaos. There were so many people there that I could barely move, and I had no idea what was going on. Someone spotted the wormholes being created in the distance so I fired up my teleport chip and jumped over. After a few failed attempts I finally managed to get in the wormhole and arrived at the oil rig.

When I got there it wasn't much of a sight. The wormhole had dropped us right next to the rig itself, but other than us lot it seemed a bit empty. A few of us took a look at the rig itself:


There were some bodies littering the ground, so I suspected uber players were around somewhere. Then a lady in black came charging in and shot a guy in OJs right next to me (you can see her in the picture). I didn't think this was particularly nice, so I showed her the barrel of my Justifier and turned her in to another statistic.

At this point it occured to me to have a better look around. There were banks and hills surrounding the rig and on top of those hills where the uber guys lined up. They'd seen what I'd just done and swiftly dealt me the same justice.

I revived south west of the PVP zone and decided to head back in. A couple of TP jumps later and I was there - why did I never try that before? I had a better look around this time, carefully avoiding the Atrox Alpha that was stalking around near the ubers. I saw a couple of society members in the distance, but before I could reach them I was once again dead.

After reviving again I decided to head home. I started teleport jumping west in the direction of Twin Peaks. On the way I discovered a creature I've only heard about before - the infamous Araneatrox spider. Fortunately it was chasing someone else and ran right past me:


Taking this as a lucky sign I jumped out of there and soon arrived back at Twin Peaks. That was enough fun for one day - so it was back to Sakura to sleep in my new apartment.

Back to hunting

After all the spending I've done recently I thought it was high time to get back to trying to earn money (emphasis on the trying!). So yesterday I grabbed my Breer M2a and headed back to an old hunting ground south of Chimera Canyons. Looted started off not being great but as the hunt progressed it got better and better. Then I got a 35ish PED loot:


I kept pushing on and the loots were rolling in. By the end of the hunt I'd made a 90 PED profit, which was a personal record. That paid for more than a third of my apartment. In retrospect I should have kept on going, but I had other things to do.

Today was society hunt day. As is becoming all too common it turned in to a disappointment. Only three of us showed up, and I was the only one tooled up to go hunting. I'm proposing a day change to try and get more hunters along, but if this sort of thing continues I'll have to seriously evaluate how long I stay with EuTropians for.

Later in the day I met up with Bullet and we went to do a proper hunt. I was slightly under-equiped for the job - I need to think about getting better armor - but it was still good fun. This showed me how things should be, and gave me some encouragment that our society can do better. Here's a picture of Bullet getting in to the hunting spirit:


This time I made a small loss, but it was worth it. Hopefully we'll do it again sometime soon.

Spend, Spend, Spend...

I had a few PED spare after Christmas so I thought I'd do a bit of shopping. I started out by doing something about my bald head. I could get a hair style, but I actually quite like having no hair! Instead I opted for getting a hat.

The journey began to find a good store to purchase from. I'd checked out the auctions, but nothing on there really appealed to me. The shop locating process was made easier by the three new shopping malls that opened on Calypso just before Christmas. After a lot of running around I decided that the Twin Peaks mall was by far the best in terms of layout and store quality - well done Neomaven!

In the end I chose to buy from Freyr's shop. He has a good selection of stuff and had the perfect hat for me. So here's a picture of me donning my new Rancher Hat. The colour is great, don't you think? :-)


But I still had one more thing to look at: apartments. I did a fair amount of research in to this and came up with the following requirements list:

• Must be cheap (so not Bilton Towers!)
• Must be very near a teleporter
• Must be near facilities such as auctions, terminals, and storage

There were plenty of places on Amethera that fitted this bill, but I finally settled on Sakura City. The only downside to Sakura is its distance from New Oxford (the teleporter people initially have on Amethera), but maybe that's not a bad thing ;-)

The other choice was Genesis Amethera, but the service center there is just too much of a trek from the teleporter.

With all that in mind I started looking at apartment sizes. There were no large apartments left - I guess resellers got those, since they're mostly empty. The difference between a medium and small in size wasn't much, but the price difference was. So I ended up with small apartment in the Sachi Condos. The location is perfect, so I'm very pleased with this purchase.


As you can see, though, I still need to sort out some furniture and lighting. But I'll need to go and earn some more PEDs first ;-)

It's Christmas Time

It's Christmas time back on Earth now, and I miss my family and friends more than usual. But, it's nice to see that the festive season is being celebrated here too. Here at Fort Argus a huge decorated tree has been put up, with similar things at many other cities around the planet. I've spent much time relaxing under the glow of the lights and enjoying taking in the atmosphere.


Anyway, one can't relax all the time, so I've been out hunting some more. I'm making more use of my latest gun these days - the A-3 Justifier Mk.II - which means I can take on bigger creatures. And boy is it fun! Those Atrax and Atrox that once filled me with dread can now be taken down (with a bit of work). Except the big ones, they still scare me ;-)

Whilst hunting a new area between Fort Ares and Jason Center I came across a whole variety of creatures. But once again it was the Cornundacauda that gave me the good loot. After 8 months here I finally got my first solo global - 65 PEDs all for me! What a lovely Christmas present.


Whilst on the subject of presents I was delighted to receive two gifts from the government-like organisation here. I got a garland to put up in my home (which I don't have yet) and a festive horse thing. It was a very nice gesture.

This will be my last post of the year. Roll on the new year! I'm looking forward to the many exciting things which I hope it holds for me here on Calypso.

Wormholes!

Whilst sweating at Fort Troy I heard some people talking about creating a wormhole. This excited me; I've been teleporting for a bit, but the idea of creating a tunnel to any part of the continent for others to travel through seemed amazing.

I waited patiently whilst the guy set about creating the wormhole. After some concentration a bubble appeared in front of him and then proceeded to expand in to a large white tunnel. Without hesitation I ran in to the opening of the tunnel and everything went white.


Moments later I landed on the ground outside Fort Zeus. Checking my map I realised I'd travelled from one of the most southerly to one of the most northerly points on Eudoria. I can only say one thing: WOW.

Before I finish this entry I want to comment on an event a day or so ago. I'd progressed enough at hunting to start gaining Marksmanship points. I'm progressing well in the hunting profession now!

Partying on Calypso

Recently I've been getting in to dancing. There's jukeboxes in most of the main cities, but my favourite one is in Fort Argus - it's right next to the teleporter which gets other people in the dancing mood too. Unfortunately the only picture I took is of my dancing on my own to Gamer Chick:


With all this partying in my blood I was delighted when I heard about the Full Moon party being held over at Deathifier's castle on Treasure Island. I popped over to Amethera and found a good crowd of people including lots of people I'd heard of but never met.


After a while my legs began to ache, so I took a look round Deathifier's home. It's huge and very well furnished, and has a balcony over-looking the main courtyard. It was from up here that I noticed Deathifier had arrived and was joining in with the festivities.


Eventually I decided it was time to rest, so I left in style by teleporting from the top balcony over the heads of the dancing crowds :-)