Post 150

I just happened to notice that I had 149 posts.

Hmm...what to ramble about.

Guess I could start with the current expansion of Obsidian.

Sky

We started sky up about 3 weeks ago. Was mildly unexpected on my end to start it before Gawayne had a chance to finish the site, but we had sacks that were ready to go. Glacian led the charge into sky and the first official event we had up there was just some simple farming.

On Friday, we had 14 people up there at any given point in time with a max of 18 at one point. I don't remember exactly, but I'm pretty sure we ended up 2 Diorite, 1 Zip and 1 water away from finishing up 2 sets as we ran the gauntlet.

Saturday after Einherjar, we did an impromptu run where about 8 of us ran up to try to farm up some diorite. Shit just did not want to drop. We happened to pick up a few of the other NMs and eventually got one diorite to finish our first pop set.

Sunday saw us farming for more diorite. After about 3 hours, we got one to drop. With both diorites in tow, we headed up to Ullikummi. As we're clearing a pulling path...we got a third diorite. Calix donanted one to us as well, so we ended up killing Ullikummi 4 times.

All said and done, our first weekend in sky saw us complete 2.5 pop sets.

Last Friday, we did a God run. I remember the first time I fought a lot of these things and I have to say...these guys are a complete joke now. Yeah, they can get lucky every now and then (Byakko's Claw Cyclone + triple attack back to back = dead tank usually), but for the most part, we ran roughshod over them.

We did 2x Genbu, 2x Seiryu, 3x Suzaku, and 3x Byakko. Drops were fantastic too. Byakko dropped his pants every time and we got at least one abjuration that was wanted from all of the other gods.

This means we have something along the lines of 6-7 Kirin pop sets now between what some sacks already had sitting around plus what we got this night. Roodee also organized a mini-farming run this past Sunday to finish off her pop set. We have another Genbu and another Seiryu to do.

Since a lot of people are going to be out of town this weekend, they've scheduled another farming run for Friday. What we're hoping for atm is to get a Kirin run or two scheduled for the weekend of the 26th. I haven't decided if it'll be done melee burn or via the normal "kill-minis-kite-kirin" method that takes 30-45 mins each time. Really depends on who all shows up.

Needless to say, there's been a lot of interest in this thusfar. With generally 8-10 people even just showing up for the impromptu farming runs, I have to imagine there are other members on the fringe kind of watching to see what happens and what type of success we have. With Sea and ZNMs on the horizon, the expansion is happening rather nicely.

Einherjar

Been in kind of a "slump" lately. Makes me think people are getting a little bored with the event. The run on Tuesday saw us get raped by some Ormr with 150k HP...

Guess I shouldn't call 20-5 over the last 25 runs a "slump", but it is when you consider we're usually around 22-3 over a 25 run period. A couple of those losses have been because of boneheaded moves while the rest just simply fall into the category of "Einherjar will rape you without lube at times".

The funny thing about Tuesday's run though...

About 3-4 hours before the run, Inbred and I were talking. He mentioned that he hoped we didn't get what BBQ got earlier in the day (Flayers and Bombs). That got me to thinking that we were about due for a no-lube room too and I mentioned that to him.

Naturally, the conversation jinxed us.

Go figure.

I haven't had to postpone any Odins in a while due to losses though, so there's always that.

There's also the fact that we've just about completed our backup mule plans in the event I can't make an Odin or do something along the lines of what I did a few Odins ago where I broke the lamp on Dantess accidentally.

One more T1 and T2 and we'll have 3 mules on standby along with our normal collection of mules.

On a more positive note, Izman got his blurple-body finally. That would be E.Body #4 for us. Next up on the list is Clubber unless someone with more points decides to start bidding on it. After Clubber, the list gets cleared off a bit and the cost per body probably drops significantly.

Hoping more A.Bodies drop too as Mr. and Mrs. Pun both have the points to nab the next two should they choose to. Mr. Pun will bid on it no question. Mrs. Pun however...

...I wonder if she knows we have a bidding system...she's never bid on anything....

Dynamis

Had better numbers for turn out here the past couple months. I get the feeling once Abyssea comes out, numbers will spike yet again. Maybe we'll see the return of city runs with 40+ people. Probably unlikely as most people don't want to lump a 3-3.5 hour block of time into one event like that anymore.

Personally, with the level cap being raised, I can't wait to see what type of effects it has on Dynamis. I get the feeling once the 99 cap is raised and we start seeing a large number of people hit that mark, we're going to end up seeing a lot of 6 man groups running in and trying to rape zones.

The same thing kind of happened when they lowered the price of Dynamis to 500k, but it wasn't really enough to make life miserable.

Here's to hoping SE realizes this and finally instances Dynamis when they finish releasing the Abyssea stuff.

Speaking of...

Abyssea

This is one thing I'm going to keep my eyes and ears on and try to have Obsidian positioned to participate in this as a shell right from the getgo. Details are limited to that of what came out of Vanafest though. The notion of AF3 is definitely enticing, although Ludaca will probably murder some babies (he's 97 or 98/100 for all the AF2 sets...).

Obviously, this is only speculation, but if this turns out to be a dynamis/einherjar-style event where up to 36+ people can participate in it, Obsidian will be there easily. The question will be how do you handle the points for it. Do you start everyone from scratch? Do you use points from dynamis?

Right now, I'm inclined towards the latter. As much as I hate to say it, most people operate on the mentality of "What have you done for us lately?" When we started up Einherjar, we gave everyone that wanted to participate 10 or 15% of their dynamis run total as their starting points (i.e. 200 runs got you 20 points or 25 points). For a 30 minute event, that was the fairest thing I could come up with to avoid the eventual clusterfuck of even bids that would have happened for probably 15 Odins.

Abyssea looks to be a little different though. While no specific details have been given to the time limits, the initial impression leaves me believing that it'll probably be along the lines of CoP Dynamis. This makes me think a little differently.

That's one of the things that always irked me about players. I don't expect players to do the same events for years on end, but I do think it's nice if they actually tell us when they're not going to participate anymore instead of just disappearing. The other thing that irks me are the people that are just doing the minimums to keep their accounts active. Showing up to 1 run every 90 days or something to that effect.

This would be why I'm more inclined to start using existing dynamis points (if they choose) for a starting point in Abyssea. Players who can't be bothered to actually take responsibility for themselves shouldn't find something that interests them in the game again and then expect to come back to the same standing as everyone else they had when they disappeared. I get the feeling this would be the case if things pan out the way I think they will.

Anyway, I'm off to Kay's for the weekend to be a manslave.

(I lost a bet....)

Someone please have a spare set of balls and a new man-card waiting for me when I get back.