Looking back on the last 11 months

Last Monday, December 9th, marked eleven months since we transferred from GamersFirst (G1) to T3Fun (T3).  My thoughts and the things I've done over the course of this time.

When we transferred over it was exciting to get the new patches (we were a year without any new patches).  At times it felt very overwhelming.  There were a lot of raids and some of them felt like how do we do this without pro weapons?  We didn't have the past year to build up to it.  [Aside from the fact for many of us, our weapons came over blank!]  I rushed myself a lot to recruit the fourteen characters (what I call "The Viron Group", see below, under the cut).

Just when I finally finished recruiting them, yet another patch came out, the start of "The Kielce Group".  After recruiting the first three, the Kielce Dailies kept me busy, because I was trying to reach the goal of 10,000 favor rate for Back Alley Poor (surpassed by now).  I think it was probably at this point, the game started to slow down for me.

JD came out and I recruited him and excessively took him everywhere and he maxed out (I love Joey to pieces, he hates me for calling him Joey! *squish*).  After that, it was little patches of Olivia, Veil, and Kaisse.  These recruitment quests took less than two hours.

It's a mixed bag for me right now.  The first three to four months kept me busy with character recruiting, materials gathering, and leveling.  The busiest was when there was that 500 Bounty Hunter Event to get Cadet Elisa (I pray we don't have anything this excessive again, it was too much! I had to swear off BH for a month, the HORROR! /O_O\).

Then came focusing on Lonely Musketeer hunts for Devil's Dream for Strata Bracelet (something I put off because I didn't think it was possible in a million years to craft).  I was behind on the TP Rose for Dagger, though I managed to get that and helped co-run with another clan's leaders, which eventually led me to my Main-Gauche.  I'm a bit stuck on my second TP Nephtys.

For now I just have mini goals, which will probably be a joke to the pro-players.  I don't play this game to be the top player with weapons of mass destruction or for the PVP (I'm a pacifist!), so laugh if you want to.

*Level all characters to Master (last five)
*Level all characters to High Master (eighty, more of a goal for 2014 & 2015, if the game lasts that long)
*Keep working on Back Alley Poor favor rate (even though already passed 10,000; helps with getting non-tradable and tradable Artifact materials)
*Keep doing Durant quest for Artifact materials (still six more Artifacts to craft; second Rose and Selene sets and contemplating Sniper Ring and Clover Locket; no plans at this time to get Repairman as I don't use Summons)
*Keep hunting for Devil's Dreams (someday maybe a miracle will happen and I can get a Strata Ele recipe and Strata Musk recipe and Strata Pistol recipe)
*Get more Tigres medals

Squad things that I try to do:
*Crow (weekdays/weekends)
*Back Alley (weekdays/weekends)
*ToC (generally weekends, on WC duty, sometimes get invited to speedy five-six manned runs)
*Montoro (on Sundays, on WC duty)
*CT (seldom, as they tend to run too early or too late for me, really want a Punisher stance book)
*TPs (kind of a hit and miss, trying to finish my second TP Neph; might cheat and open Paradox Spoil Boxes before year end)
*Tigres (sometimes, I'm hoping to get participation to a regularity, so far that's been either a few hours before CW or in lieu of LW , because T3 still hasn't fixed it)

Tigres is kind of a good challenge, something to do that's not out of the usual reparative things like ToC and CT.  I'm hoping with more practice we can get through the floors faster and get good at Floor 5 so we can move on to Floor 6.

To sum up my thoughts and my observations of the game, the year started out well in terms of people being excited about new content, but it was damaged partly by the blank weapons which led people to be frustrated and couldn't quest and quit.  The ones that stayed regardless of weapons felt a bit overwhelmed and another wave of people left.

I have an impression there are also some players who already "beat everything" (e.g. raids) and got "the best gear" and became bored and quit.  Playtime Events were good in the beginning but now they are rather "meh", not worth the time.  This doesn't give players much reason to log in if they've been inactive.

The economy is rough for those who don't spend cash (such as me).  To be honest, I don't know how new players survive, even though in the forum some people gave suggestions.  T3 doesn't seem to care about players' needs and just keep rolling out Cash stuff after Cash stuff (Lucky Shop and Lyndon Box).  As long as the Cash players keep pouring money, the needs of the other players will be swept under the rug.  Much of this has been discussed in the forums over and over, so I won't repeat further.

Given all this, why do I still play?

I have put a lot of effort in this game to get me where I am today and there are still nice things in the game and there are still things I can still do or yet to do.  I'm learning to do things at my own pace and give myself small goals as I listed above.  I'm going to ignore the stupid things and not let them agitate me.  I'm not ready to throw in the towel.  Just like you can't change people, you change your reactions to people.  I will get out of this game what I choose to get out of it.

We still have Bahamar patch.  I also hope that they will expand/develop the story into other regions like Armonia and Absinia and other RNPC's areas.  I do hope things will improve, until then, Ferret will keep plugging away the best she can.

I also have someone I am grateful to.  They have put in a lot of time, effort, and patience for and with me.  It is, therefore, also out of great respect for them that I keep plowing ahead.  p( '.' )q

The holidays are coming up, so I wish everyone ~*HAPPY HOLIDAYS*~!  Two more weeks left in the year!

Some info about characters:

Of 107 characters (both male/female of stocks/Reb/Auch [14] + all Cathy robots [4]) currently available, I have 99.  (Plus, I have an extra Asoka who is a stand in for Mifuyu.)
10 stocks created under G1, 54 recruited under G1, 7 promos obtained under G1,
22 recruited under T3, 5 event promos obtained under T3, and 1 promo obtained under T3.

Post #500: Moonlight Sonata

I originally planned on writing a more thorough post, since maintenance is early and I can actually sit down and write more properly instead of questing, but some stress going on and can't spend time writing.  I will instead summarize.

Here I am at my 500th post, which is quite a feat in my opinion.  Last Wednesday (June 19th) I hit my third year.  I'm down to the last four character recruitments on the other account.  But sometimes I feel incomplete, I feel behind.

I know I am my harshest critic (not just in the game but all aspects of my life).  I'm not the best player (I don't consider myself good), I don't have the best gear (I have outdated gears), I try to learn as fast as I can, but sometimes I don't remember everything, I still miss things.

I try to do my best, but sometimes all I can give are my efforts to my friends and my clan.  I don't know and I'm not confident that my efforts are good enough for them.  When I feel like that, I start to wonder what I'm doing anymore, and it makes me sad.

This turned out to be an emo post...  It's been a long draining week (I'm talking literal seven days, I know the week has just started), going to turn in for the night.  Maybe I'll feel better about things in general in the morning.  Maybe.

Octavia, Delia, and Anastasia moon gazing

Fearless Ferra's Fascinating Fortunes

I've been sitting here for the past ten minutes, trying to think about how to start to sum up my two and half years of Sword2 Era.  ^.^;  Then I remembered that the first year was already written (here).  Here's my best effort at recapping in shorter summary with time frames.

*This post's F4 title was submitted by my Reckless Elsie, though I don't think my fortunes were fascinating, nor did I have that many fortunes!  XD  My version of F4 is "Ferret Ferrari Freaky Fast".

June 2010 - June 2011
This was my noob year.  The clan I was in had half a dozen people on at any given time and it was very quiet.  I made some friends through selling TA starters.  It was a year of doing Pioneering Quests and Character Quests and getting 84e gears.  My brother helped me do Garcia's quest, fighting Novia because I was too scared to do it.  She was very difficult to take on at the time.  I had just gotten fresh Experts and borrowed some 92e gears.  I hadn't even done Holy Water Chamber (Novia scared the crap out of me and I was not ready to take on Ortega and Jurgen until I felt I was better geared).  On June 26th, I ended up using Flavia on Crusader, Katia on Outrage, and of course Nadia for ET.  It was the first time I felt the heart pounding adrenaline of completing a difficult mission.

July 2011 - December 2011
I joined Core Clan while I was halfway across the globe visiting relatives.  During this half year, I was jobless and spent the majority of the time playing the game (though I'd much rather been making money to pay bills; it wasn't for a lack of trying to secure employment, the economy was really bad).  Being in this clan helped me to boost up my gears.  Clan raids gave me symbols I needed.  ELB recipes were firecrackered to members.  There was even money for attending Clan Wars (which I still dislike attending - I died more than I was of any use).  I made a crazy goal of getting all twenty-one Trump weapons, which I either bought or crafted.  I still sold TA and Circus starters and any money leftover from Trump purchases, I set aside for a pretty costume or two.  I also crafted my first (and only) Constellation weapon (Lightening Bracelet) on December 26.

It was also a time of getting the new batch of characters, who at the time were Torsche, Valleria, Reckless, Raven, and Lionel.  On August 25th, I took Flavia, Katia, and Orphelia (Cathy STR) to take on Torsche.  This wasn't as bad and I even managed to do this with 92e gears (no ELB or 100e at the time).  The next day I decided to attempt Valleria.  Even to this day, her quest is still the most difficult thing I've ever done.  Flavia was on Peltast and Geia was on Level 12 Sect of Moonlight.  This one I had to borrow gears, and even with ELB and ESA and Constellation weapons, the quest ended with four minutes left on the clock, wrist aching, fingers straining, heart pounding, blood rushing from brain too fast -omgdidIreallyfinishthismission?!?!- feeling.  I finally got Raven October 6th, Reckless October 20th (I didn't have a Master Martial Artist for the longest time), and Lionel December 30th (he cost me seven Ele Jewels to go to Clock Tower seven times because the other squad kept screwing me over on Floor 7 quest drop; they didn't stop DPS'ing).

January 2012 - December 2012
This year I had less time to play than ever before.  I started my job and it requires me to travel from time to time (hence those "Hiatus" posts).  On the weeknights I have just enough time and energy to do three dailies.  Sometimes my weekends were blocked up studying for exam (four part examinations for certification related to my job).  I constantly have to remind myself not to get frustrated when I feel like I'm behind everyone else in the clan.  There is only so much I can do with the limited amount of time I have.

I started the year with a month in Albatros with Alzeda and VantzmartS.  Alba was too pro for me.  I wasn't around to attend the raids they went to (they tended to raid super late at night for me) [raid time is an issue with any clan, it's hard to find a time when everyone can attend].  I ended up joining Halcyon, just barely meeting their requirements (how I managed to stay in the clan is a mystery to me, because everyone in the clan has at least five times the gears I have and better; I admit I don't like to look at Clan Chat because people linking their gears end up making me feel like crap).

I never thought I'd finish my Tower of Chaos questline (ELNrs and GCrs are still elusive to me).  Or even attend raids in Lucifer Laboratory/Basement.  I wish I had more time to participate with the clan, but timing is difficult.  I have the most fun with my clan on Sundays when I'm around to do Clan Raids with them.  There aren't a lot of things we need from the Clan Raids, but for me, it's the most likely time I'm able to spend with them and it's still a fun quick thing to do.  Good friends and reliable clannies were made from the clan.

Despite the short amount of time I have to play, I've accomplished more than I could have ever imagined.  I learned to triple WC (still needs work, but I am able to do it).  I can do Prison, solo CM, solo BH Occulta, solo BH Sedecram (things I didn't bother to do before because I wasn't capable).  I vesped (FrankenFerret™) a lot (never did this before).  I leveled all my characters to Expert and finished their Expert Stances.  I crafted all but three 100e weapons (I guess this was the weapon goal of 2012).  I started working on Accessories (belts, gloves, shoes, necklaces).  I received a lot of help from friends and especially Senpai.

I departed Sword2 standing alone on a patch of grass by the Fountain in Reboldeaux, but I left it full of memories.

January 2013 - Onward
There will be a lot of work to be done this year, as we are going to be jumping several patches.  Unfortunately for me, January 9th to 11th, I'll only be able to play a bit in the evenings.  Then from 12th to 14th I'm traveling again.  After that it will pretty much be the same as before, short hours of play on the weeknights and squeezing as much as I can on the weekends.  I expect by the 19th, when I actually have my first weekend, half the server will have half the new characters in their Quarters already.  And I'll once again be left behind eating people's dust.  :p  (Have to remind myself again, there is only so much I can do.)

There will be new missions to learn.  Missions to be added to dailies (or weekendies?).  Character quests to be done (very slowly for me).  Because of the timing of this first week, at best, I'll start Katia and Etienne on Unlimited Shot and Stella (ETS) on ET.  Then Mercurcio and Casandria on Telekinesis and Tania and Darien on Wanted Shot.

As for the server, Castilla?  I'll be on the same time zone.  Though there was only ever three game timers that I attended.  1) El Pat/Faction Fight, which I heard is going away.  2) Medusa which was horribly Wednesday midnight, so I seldom made it, will become 9PM (assuming timer stays the same).  3) Alliance War (Legion War/Battlefield) which was Saturday 7PM will be 4PM (though this one never really caused conflict for me).

Clan Lucifer raids is kind of up in the air to me right now.  Because there will be several strong clans, they'll all want a bite of Cortes.  In Orpesia we had a three way agreement where we rotated the bosses.  I haven't been up on what's to come of this.

How do I feel about the merger?  It's a mixed feeling.  I'm excited, but scared.  On the one hand, it'll be nice to meet new people and see my three friends from Illier.  On the other, with three former servers merging, the competition just got even more competitive.  There's going to be a lot of strong people.  I consider myself as someone who keeps low key, out of sight.  I think I'm going to be hiding in my ferret corner, a lot.  I don't want to get PK'd while I'm AFK'ing, so I don't plan to get in anyone's way or rub people wrong.  I'm a squishy ferret with no PVP gear.  :x

Rest assured, there will continue to be posts about this family's trials and errors.  I wager I'll be stumbling a lot for the next few months until I get the hang of things.  ^.^;

See you soon, Castillians!

~~~~~
Some end of year things I put in list format under the cut.

Post #300: Reflections of First Year in Sword2

As we are nearing the end of the year and the end of GamersFirst as our host for Sword2, I thought I would use this 300th post* to reminisce how I spent my first year in the game.  *I'm pretty amazed at myself for keeping up this blog nearly daily since January 27th with all the real life stuff I've got going on.  I know at times my posts are short and boring...  I'm a crazy blogger who makes it a point to post something when I'm around.

My brother had gotten started on Sword2, I don't know when, I'm guessing when the Sword2 first came out.  I thought it looked interesting, but being someone who had really poor hand-eye coordination with console games, I didn't feel compelled to get started on it.  After some time, he stopped playing (busy with college) and didn't pick it back up again until the summer of 2010.  He was working on a quest in Tetra Ruins, very slowly farming Cabosse.  He shared with me about how things were progressing slowly and if he had some help he could finish the quests faster.  I guess timing is everything.  I was looking for something to do and thought I would try out the game.

I picked out my first three stock characters and decided, of course, I have to have a Scout.  I made it the opposite gender of my brother's Scout.  Next, I picked two stock characters which my brother didn't have, which were Elementalist and Fighter.  It took awhile to pick out names because I wasn't very creative.  Eventually I picked Nadia (Female Scout), Benecio (Male Elementalist), and Flavia (Female Fighter).  This ended up becoming my naming convention.  All my female characters have names ending in "ia", but I couldn't find many male names with "cio", so I just attach it to the end.  (I have three male characters who do not follow this convention.)

I had a difficult time with the game because I didn't know what I was doing and my brother wasn't particularly instructive.  The first few months was a lot of stop and go playing.  He himself hadn't played for long and couldn't speed up leveling me.  Eventually I was able to help him out with the farming of those Cabosse and other quests.  Things didn't pick up for me until autumn that year.

One thing my brother did teach me, was selling Team Arena starters to make Vis (neither of us could sell Circus starters as we weren't at that level).  Back in the day, TA was still at a set time and you could go as many times as you could possibly warp back before the TA statue closed.  Both of us made it a point to be there to sell starters.  Eventually I got fast enough that I could sell up to six starters per night.  That took a lot of luck though, because you had to be on the buyer's side to get paid quickly, otherwise, you had to run to the middle and wait to get paid, which could sometimes eat up two minutes of the ten minute TA statue timer.

It was at TA that I started making friends, so to speak.  Mostly they were people who contacted me for TA starters.  The person who really took the time to talk to me and help me out was a player by the name of Oakshire.  I was standing at the TA Statue, waiting for it to get started.  He had a Male Ele clad in Robe of Superb Daemon.  I messaged him to comment on it, because that was a big deal armor to me (92e was considered pro and even 84e was not bad) and I thought it looked very nice.  We chatted a bit and added each other to Friends List.  The next day he asked me if I wanted to be Secret Guarded (which at the time I didn't know what it meant or what it entailed) on one of his alts.

And so, over the course of several months of SG'ing in the evenings and weekends (we did not do any Vesping), first at Deprimida Valley until I got to Veteran, then Bahamar Wetlands to mid-Vet, and Bahamar Underground Cave (the mobs weren't so harsh that patch) and Frozen Wastes, I got my first three Experts on December 10th, 2010.  Back then when Experts were promoted, it was broaded.  I was so excited to get Experts and see my name show up for the server to see!

After that, we stayed in Frozen Wastes and would squad half a dozen accounts together so we could mob kill and get Memorial Cards quickly in order to spam an Expert to Level 3 to go to Citadel of the Gods and get the Memo Cards there.  I spent a lot of time at SA Caeb (as we called it) and saved up a lot of cards while I leveled Expert Stances.  Enhanced Tactics, Occultism, and Augury were a pain to level!

Those three Experts were leveled naturally to Master without card spamming, taking me about half a year, to the end of May 2011.  After that, I started working on Katia (Female Musketeer, my love of muskies must have started then) and Valencia (Calypso, because I thought she was the coolest UPC).  (You can see Wizards are not my forte, though neither are Fighters!)

It took me nearly a year to get my first Masters, but I couldn't have done it without help from Oakshire (in honor, this year I gave Ramiro a variation of his name) and looking back on it, it was really amazing to have gone through it, all that time and effort.  Now I'm so lazy and spam cards to level characters, because I feel like I'm always in a hurry of some sort; I don't put in the time to make effort and "smell the roses".  I don't know if it makes sense, but even though those days were trying at times, the challenge made it fun.

Here's to wrapping up 2012 and may 2013 bring new challenges!

Cheers!
~Ferragamo

/edit: Someone asked me about my Second Year in Sword2, maybe I'll write about it.