Tuesday, April 3, 2007

How item prices are determined

Different things have different prices. Obviously. This is just a basic guide as to how and why different items are priced.

Lets first start off with some REALLY obvious catergories.
(Difficulty of the) Mob: Of course.. the harder it is to kill.. the more its worth
Restrictions on the Mob: If it can only be killed by a certian class.. say mages... its probably worth more than an item from a mob that can be killed by any class.
Stats: of course.. if its good its worth more. but in reality.. this doesnt play much of a role in pricing.
People required: the more people that have to share the loot.. the less you are getting out of each kill.. of course, this means its worth more since you have to do more kills to get one thing.
Pops: This is the one I hate. Randomness will screw you over or rain gold on you.. depending on your luck... the lower the pop rate the more its worth of course.
Repop times: How long it takes the mob to repop is proportional to the amount of kills you can make on the mob.
Knowledge required: what do you need to know to get to the mob and kill it... obviously for mobs like.. say seth... which require knowledge of the chaos maze.... costs more. Than say.. the cost of a mob that doesnt require specific knowledge say... shade the dark.
Time taken: the longer it takes the more its worth... duh?
Now some less obvious catergories.
Potential threats: DT's, random deaths on the way in, large aggro mobs that guard the mob you are wanting to kill, even down to things like.. etching your eq which will seriously devalue it. The more threats on the way or possibly in the way, the more it costs.
Large Randomness: the other random things. For example... low pop rates can often lead to 0 yield runs. Like danbala sights... most regular runners will never pop one. Also equipment from randomly opened areas like tummult and midway are also pricier.
Unusual size: Simply takes a large amount of people. This mainly applies to quest prizes where it takes possibly 20+ people to kill the mob but only one person gets the prize.
Equipment required: with mobs constantly being upped, mobs tend to take equipment worth MORE than what they have to kill them. In short, you need to be rich enough to afford it before you can run it. Stupid? yes. But its true. Seth runs require seth'd thieves with more than the eq is worth to keep the run consistent. (you need a buncha throwaways, or renamed banes, then you need morphs to go with the seth set.) Whats more, its required of most if not all the runners. (Given you cannot supp corpse in the fortress.. the potential threats part is pretty high too as imms like to eat seth once you pass the chaos maze.)
Volume on the market: How much is already in game HEAVILY affects prices.
So basically think of each catergory as something each item fufills. For example... lets take the signet of the darkhaven guard.

Difficulty: about level 15 warrior can kill them.
Restrictions: none.
Stats: crap.
People required: Half a brain or more really does the job.
Pops: 100% of the time
Repop times: Dh is what.. 15 minutes? and there are 2 guards per gate so thats 8 + a bunch that wander around randomly.
Knowledge required: how to attack.
Time taken: up to a minute if you really suck at level 20.
Threats: street peddlers pwning your ass while you attack the guard. BEWARE!
Unusual size/randomness: no
Equipment required: really basic stuff.
Volume: 0 on the market cause no one in thier right mind keeps this trash But thats ok. it just means the item isnt wanted. not that its so hard no one can get it.

So we can work out the price for the signet. umm.... worthless.
What are then the conclusions we can draw from this?
a) its worthless
b) it should not be kept
c) its not worth its weight to store/keep in a container/bid/auction for.

I hope this post was valuable to help those who auction random items in hopes of getting 10k bids. Just dont. Stop wasting your time and everyone else's. Auction something thats worth SOMETHING if you want a bid. All that means is you have to auction something that fufills any or all of the above catergories.

Wednesday, February 28, 2007

a different rant. what is really wrong with the realms.

Realms is dying. there are fewer people playing than before. You can basically feel it if you have been here for years. People you know have left, quit for good. Most newbies tend to be sheep. As in they whine, moan on chat for people to do this and that for them, ask where to level, where to get gold etc etc etc.

RoD should really be following the route most other companies are taking. Just raise the new stuff to a new level. Instead, new things have been rather mediocre frankly. The difficulty of the game since I started playing has ramped up probably easily 20 times harder. Back in the day you pleveled characters in a day. Newbies took a year to level. but it was all good. the economy worked, things sold at a constant price, there were alot more people actively playing. Now RoD is like an overglorified chat room with RPG elements. Most people who play dont actively DO anything.. they just sit around and chat. Why? 2 main reasons.

Reason 1. Realms has gotten harder but the rewards are still so-so. What is still the most profitable run in the game? Seth. How long has seth fort been in the game? long enough for the imms to have totally revamped gameplay, added in a dozen plus areas. But the economy still revolves around seth's fortress. Why? Class balance. or rather the lackof. its been getting better but neut thieves still can run 99% of the generic stuff you want to kill. and every so often you hit the 1% and you need something else to kill with. But if you are really smart... you stick with the standard neut thief, decked out in (gasp) seth. and run... (bigger gasp) seth. to make profit off (even bigger gasp) seth. The game has revolved around seth too long. Why? because seth is unrestricted mainly. neut/evils ALL wear it. Along with all the other goodies that are in seth's fortress. golden plate (cato plate is 15hp more.. great. and how much more expensive? right.) jade strand. (nothing beats jade strand.. STILL) and of course.. darko's stuff. Collar of abyssal servitude aka morphs.. why? cause nothing fits better on a thief than 2luck 4dr 35hp neckwear.
But seth is still standard equip for 99% of all neuts/evils. some will wear other things because some SLIGHTLY better eq has come out lately. but otherwise... seth eq is still the thing in highest demand. So why have people been leaving if nothing has been changing that much? oh. boredom. you can only run seth that many times till you get bored of it and the formerly less important things things in your life become more important than running seth.. then you leave cause everyone else is doing it. after all.. you are still playing the same old characters (with a few new ones) Theres no real new challenges (even with the new areas for avs. nevermore, daichaal, fixes of barren peaks, otherlands, the totally new areas i havent even visited yet. the slime pits, the mausoleum, and d'morian's lands) yes. there is new stuff (woot) and there is eq that is better than existing eq!...... but no one REALLY cares about it. it doesnt impact the economy at all.. it sells for measly millions (maybe even 20 i saw one item) but.. thats it. want cash? go seth. what they REALLY need to do is GLOBALLY revamp eq. along with hr (which is broken according to some imm's post on the game.org forums which are the official forums. broken not as in it doesnt work but broken as in it hasnt scaled properly thus its too easy to cap out). then they need to take out old clan (cause its even more overpowered than seth. and people who have it practically only really do quests and run gorog's dog for more "income" since anything else is a drop in the sea) along with all the eq which was glory traded (loads of chars all put glory on the same piece of eq resulting in pieces of eq which have stats that basically puts seth to shame). In the end.. realms hasnt changed much. fastest way to riches is still seth because its STILL unrestricted, neut thieves are STILL the choice for 99% of regularly done runs and seth still has that regular value.

Solution? put in ALOT of new stuff make it HARDER than the current stuff but also make the rewards BETTER than seth... yes. BETTER THAN SETH. cause no one is going to give a shit if it isnt better.

Reason 2. classes to this day are still broken. The balance in power between classes is alot better than it was. but still wayyyyyy too far to be considered even remotely balanced. both 18 dex classes are horrible to level, and even worse at av when every potion you drop matters. Augurers still get about as many spells as warriors get physical attacks. which is a decent amount, but real quick comparison.

Augurer.

----------------------------------[Spells]----------------------------------
balm of time 95% bind oracle 90% burning hands 95%
caustic touch 90% charm person 90% crystalize 90%
detect hidden 95% dispel magic 75% divination 90%
enchant weapon 23% fireshield 95% float 95%
fly 95% forecasting 95% foreshadow 95%
helical flow 85% herald death 75% inner warmth 90%
invis 95% midas touch 95% nostrum 95%
prescient sight 85% prophetic aura 95% psychic surge 95%
remove invis 85% ritual blessing 95% scorching surge 95%
second sight 85% seek passage 95% shield 90%
shocking grasp 90% sleep 85% spiral blast 95%
weaken 80% word of recall 95%
----------------------------------[Skills]----------------------------------
aggressive style 60% aid 19% berserk style 40%
climb 19% cook 19% cuff 90%
defensive style 85% dig 82% dual wield 80%
enhanced damage 75% evasive style 90% fourth attack 40%
hide 75% kick 90% meditate 95%
mount 25% parry 95% rescue 50%
scan 85% search 80% second attack 60%
sneak 75% spurn 80% standard style 70%
strike 90% swap 65% third attack 66%
two handed 19%
----------------------------------[Weapons]---------------------------------
bludgeons 19% flexible arms 95% long blades 19%
pugilism 60% short blades 85% talonous arms 19%

Mage

----------------------------------[Spells]----------------------------------
acetum primus 85% acumen 95% adamant 95%
adroitness 95% antimagic shell 95% aqua breath 95%
astral walk 95% black fist 95% black hand 95%
black lightning 95% blazebane 95% blazeward 95%
blindness 95% brawn 95% caustic fount 95%
chill touch 95% colour spray 95% confidence 95%
continual light 95% cosmos shift 95% create fire 95%
create spring 95% demonskin 95% dispel magic 95%
dragon wit 95% dragonskin 95% dream 95%
eldritch sphere 95% elemental supremacy 95% elven beauty 95%
enchant weapon 95% ethereal fist 95% ethereal funnel 95%
ethereal shield 95% ethereal web 95% extradimensional por 95%
faerie fire 95% faerie fog 95% farsight 95%
fireshield 95% float 95% fly 95%
galvanic whip 95% iceshield 95% identify 95%
infravision 95% inner warmth 95% invis 95%
knock 95% locate object 95% magic missile 95%
magnetic thrust 95% midas touch 95% mystical vision 95%
ogre might 95% pass door 95% portal 95%
prismatic shield 95% quantum spike 95% rapture 95%
razorbait 95% recharge 80% refresh 75%
remove invis 95% remove trap 80% sagacity 95%
sapience 95% scry 95% shadowform 95%
shield 95% shockshield 75% sleep 95%
slink 95% sonic resonance 95% spectral furor 95%
sulfurous spray 95% summon 95% swordbait 95%
teleport 95% transport 95% trollish vigor 95%
true sight 35% valiance 95% ventriloquate 95%
weaken 95% winter mist 95% word of recall 95%
----------------------------------[Skills]----------------------------------
aggressive style 40% berserk style 20% brew 95%
climb 25% cook 95% cuff 60%
defensive style 75% dig 70% evasive style 80%
mount 80% scribe 95% search 85%
second attack 45% standard style 50% strike 70%
swat 80% third attack 30% trance 95%
----------------------------------[Weapons]---------------------------------
bludgeons 50% flexible arms 60% long blades 50%
pugilism 30% short blades 95% talonous arms 60%


see a difference? its pretty obvious mages get about 1.5X more spells than augurers get. That is to say.. alot more. nephandi have more spells than augurers. but still less than a mage.. classes are simply not balanced. there are X times more mages in the game than any other "sorcerer" genre classes. why? brew, scribe, have all 3 shields, get paths. augurers and nephs are stuck in their little niche. given what the imms have done in the years ive played, nothing has really changed. other than adding fathomers and barbarians in, neither class are all that popular. fathomers are awesome and have alot of people playing them now. but compared to ... thieves? still outnumbered easily at a glance. why? balance. rather.. the lack of. the base classes are just too powerful (or all the other classes are just too weak) cleric, mage, thief, warrior. they have so much of an advantage over any of their counterparts that their counterparts in practice never really get played.

if there are any imms reading this. Good job for doing all this for free. but if you want to keep the mud alive you really need to do better.

Wednesday, January 17, 2007

Afking, chatting, standing around doing nothing.

It's a game. Play it. You can gold and chat at the same time. Depending which mob you choose to gold on you can gold as fast and as slow as you prefer which gives you time to chat or whatever you want in between. Efficiency is doing work, giving your brain a break by golding for 5 minutes every say.. 25 minutes, then getting back to work. You are less stressed about getting work done (dont do this with last minute work though) or it makes it less boring at least plus you get gold/items out of it. Good examples... guen/leodegrance. 45 minute repop in kotr. 1mil on the mob (both of em) and a fairly decent item that can sell for a bit (depending on who wants it). 15 minutes every hour to kill, 45 to work. Its a solution that works especially when you get bored with the work. Bring along your friends to chat (or chat with them with tells if you dont want to share). Point is.. you can be more productive even when you are mostly afkish.

Investing, golding, auction.

Auction is a good way to invest in items. Gold doesn't really gain value and for each moment that passes, gold is worth less (people are golding more) On the other hand, items tend to retain a value (especially if it is a good item) or when they go OOG (then the prices for them go up) you can get a substantial amount investing in items just by selling later when someone wants it. For example take Set's ring of power. Auction it tends to go for about 5mil. People are sometimes willing to pay 7m (thats 2/5ths of the price which is .. . 40% if you think about it.) Or even better.. when someone auctions it at 0 value and no one bids you can get it for say.. 3mil. (then you gained 4mil which is 133%) in profits. Thus auction is a good way to invest your money (buy low, sell high). It doesn't really hurt you once you have a financial base thats high enough to support it as well as storages to facilitate the trades. It's the art of investment. Not the art of ripping people off. Ripping people off is telling a newbie the ring is worth 7 when its worth 5. Investing smart is buying the ring for 3, then selling the ring to a buyer who needs it in a hurry and is willing to pay 7 for the immediacy.

Monday, January 15, 2007

Basics of the team.

Thief: All round character. Tends to be the swiss army knife for everything except mobs that dont like thieves or circle. Everything else tends to go to one of the below classes. You should get a full complement just because. Even then, 8 can turn out not to be enough if you need backups and whatnot.
Warrior/Paladin/Ranger: If it isnt a thief run, chances are you use a nasr warrior. Also prefered by alot of people to tank on these as all you do is quaff.. nasr does the damage. You just watch the screen scroll and hit quaff every so often so you dont die. You want at least 2 Dev. maybe 3 depending on what your goal is to run. But 3 is all you should ever need.
Fathomer: The new thief basically. Vindur gives them an offensive advantage (though its rather costly as a) you need to start quaffing manas too which means you spend more time quaffing b) manas cost money. c) they have less hp than a thief (probably) which means you need to quaff more often for lesser amounts d) you need to learn how to get a GOOD ratio so you use heals and manas at a proper ratio which depends entirely on the mob. but running out of either isn't fun, and you STILL only have 500 weight to pack it all in.
On the other hand, the fathomer packs 2 attack skills which compare with circle, both are decent in their own right but both have their limits so it is probably harder to run on a fathomer than a thief. 1 is a good start for running. 2 for when you need backups brings the total to 3... when you get there.
Barbarian: All star hitter really. rend got upped % wise so its now a very decent skill... other than the fact you lose parry altogether, the melee as well as the saves and hp/whatever else that counts on weapons. But it definitely makes for an interesting runner especially when you just aved and dont have gold for weapons... Sweetest thing is you dont NEED weapons for this guy most of the time. Charge is nice too. but anything that involves a tunnel and its worthless. Rend outperforms charge anyways. Now just give me a pacifist mount so stupid mobs can stop killing my mount. 1 to hit, then aim for a second once the rest of the team is done.

Support classes: These tend to be the less important classes. They really can't do the killing unless there are special circumstances.
Mage: Balance, defense, quill. Thats the order you should get em. Its common sense really. Everything else is basically worthless btw. Counter is very limited (and basically to only ONE mob. though its good if you kill that one mob alot) Paradox is outshined by vindur and rend. forget the destruction mages people. They sound good, are crap. You need to take into account the fact mages only have 350 weight and running out of potions is a less than satisfying way to die. Quill mages = awesome scribers/brewers. shadowform takes 400 or so mana to brew. these guys can churn em out. 2,2,2 is what I go by. I'm actually working on a 3rd balance so I have a second backup.
Cleric: You should know why this guy is important. Slightly less so than it used to be because bought heals are cheap enough to not warrant brewing of heals. BUT you still need to brew sancs, cast holy/minor/bene/indig. One tends to be enough till you really have more than a team's worth of characters.. then you need 2-3. Anymore is overkill.
Nephandi: Alot of unique spelldowns and makes gremlins for realigning. Keep just one around as it won't see an awful lot of use with qlip being more costly than vindur (deals less, more lag and eats pentagrams too)
Druid: Kinda an all round character but not excellent for anything. High rescue is nice and has decent elemental defenses. 1 should be all you ever need.

Sunday, January 14, 2007

Basic army building 3

Route 2. There are of course.. other ways to get an army up and running. The other way is via fathomer. Level one.. you will find it fairly easy to level. Spells give decent exp and it hits fairly ok while not taking alot of hits. Then you want the mage and cleric (yes .. you really need em or else you will be spending wayyyy too much on shield staves etc) Gold till you eq your fathomer properly. (its boring and slow.. and you dont gain half as much experience about RoD this way btw.. but it works.) Go neutral, its fairly cheap to eq.


the sigil of Keltas
(Humming) Set's ring of Power
(Humming) Set's ring of Power
Scales of Alpha and Omega (neut)
Scales of Alpha and Omega (neut)
(Humming) adamantium plate armor
the shade helm
eltor-hide leggings
a pair of tabi boots
red dragonhide gauntlets
a set of batwings
a huge shield of oak
(Humming) the cloak of Death
(Glowing) the Ice Girth
a spiked leather wristguard
a spiked leather wristguard
the black hilted sword "Shieldbreaker"
the Matrix of Desolution
earring of glasswalker bone
the shades

Most expensive would probably be set rings or matrix. (5X2 or 10X1.) Everything else should be 2 mil max. Then put the mage at the room E of the plunge room in coral depths. the cleric should be placed at the docks of edo. Fathomer should run to mage, get shield, valiance from mage, mage opens portal to cleric, fathomer enters, gets sanc, armor, bless etc from cleric. Both spellcasters log off, fathomer heads into the village broaching through doors. Head to second level of the tower then north to the gradmaster's room. he will summon a guard. feign it to death. go west, spring, disarm, then c vindur him to death while quaffing. about 3mil profit a kill. Rinse and repeat. then follow the steps to build up your army using route 1 paying for things as needed to speed up the process.

Basic army building 2

Assuming your augurer is done and aved(assuming you are part of GoA.. since thats basically everyone I told) It is time to start your REAL army. Having a core team makes running with other people easier, it makes golding easier, it also makes you SELF SUFFICIENT which means the rest of us can stop supporting you (and you can be useful to the rest of us). Kinda like common courtesy (I've taught you how to fish. So fish already!).

Developmental plans:

Route 1. (Now the less popular route due to spellbots)
Start a trio of chars. A mage, cleric and warrior. Using your auggie to eq them, they should quickly level. The mage and cleric should level up enough to get the important spells. Sanc, shields, leveling spells that give +2 instead of +1. The warrior should then be aved (with the support of the mage and cleric) which allows you a little more firepower as well as storage room. Start on a thief and av it while you work on both mage and cleric.

At this point you have a mage, cleric, warrior, thief and augurer which is a fairly decent team for gathering basics. Get the warrior and thief the basics starting at ocean keep. (navy rings, shark necks, sailor's earring, bloody eyepatch) if you dont already have em, The easy way is to portal deckhand to get onto the merida, kill deckhands till you get the first two. then sit there summoning crewmen and killing them one at a time till you get the eyepatch/earring. Then work on killing shade and Lodd. use the augurer to poison both with caustic, flee and let the poison sit 20ish 30 mins then kill with the group. unravel+ razor+ sword+ burden+lethargy should make both fairly easy to kill. Gather a few shade sets (you need 2 rings for the thief, shades for mage/cleric/thief and shield will work on both mage and cleric while the helm works for mage/cleric/thief again) Lodd will give you lodd swords which are for your warrior. 2 is good enough to up his damage. Enchant them devout of course. Adhere mage to balance revisit ToL to get the filthy loincloth for the mage, then head to icingdeath to get ice tooths for the thief and ice girths for EVERYONE. Ice arms go on everyone as well (other than the auggie).
Go to the forest of of tears and track artemis. kill her (you just need sanc and bless really). Circle with thief, smash with warrior. Spell down with mage and cleric. Spiral if you want with your auggie but you will realize how... useful it is. Moccassins for everyone cept the mage. After this point.. apply shields as needed. match shields on all characters.

At this point you should visit blasted lands by portaling to carpet dealer and paying him 100k per person to get carpets. fly is your friend. keep it on and have triggers to keep it on. Use immoblize on horus and multi him for 2 bracers. kill honor and head up to ra after killing the ramen. Ra is going to be REALLY rough on your team. attack him with the warrior before bringing in the mage then immoblize him till he dies too. You want a cloak for the cleric/warrior. Save your healing potions though and leave your balance mage north of isis (she will kick you down) while others heal. Once you are done, shield up again and tackle the 4 horsemen. you shouldnt need to stun the first two but stun/immoblize the last two. Kill thoth twice (immob doesnt work and you should keep the mage out) to get thoth rings and staves for the mage and cleric. use the cleric to fortify while the others quaff.. its a short but pretty brutal fight for your team so far. After you are done, tell thoth a man after he repops then get out to dh.
The next step is in nevermore. Slightly harder but quite rewarding. Take the first west exit then head north till you get to the diagonal rooms. NW side and open doors as you go. Head north and find the west exit to the western spire. This part after the first western spire room is no recall. Follow the path to the end (DO NOT OPEN THE DOOR.) go south, knock sw, open sw, sw, nw, n to a guard. kill him with the warrior, immoblize and your crew shoudl be able to kill him without much problem as long as you quaff on the warrior. loot the wrist and give it to the thief. go ip2 and keep the warrior and mage on. walk the warrior e, u, w,s,e into the second guard, then the mage in and spring, immob, quaff on the warrior until he dies. Regroup the rest of the team east of where the guard was (the guard is no flee btw. you either die or kill him). Loot the second wristguard for the thief. Here you can kill the mob a few times for nice gloves as well as your cleric's body wear for a while. Back track the way you came to the first western spire room (preferably before repop or you need to kill guards again). Recall!

At this point your group should be fairly eqed though missing a good few slots. Guess what the problem is? You need more characters.. simple as that. 2 more warriors, 4 more thieves and you should be ready. While you level, kill the following mobs. Kraken (crystaline teadrop ALL), cernunos (golden torque warrior), stone golem (maul of stone warrior), mistress of magic (sash of the magi).
Also watch out for the following items on auction Cloak of royalty (thief), Obsidian leggings (warrior/thief), crown of ages (warrior), aegis (all except mage), golden plate (mage) , dragonscale armguards (warrior), millenium (mage).

Once all the new characters as well as old are eqed mostly, pay a visit to the gold dragon on top of the tower in ofcol. you want about 20 orbs. Yes. 20. Finally... mandor. You want a maul wielding warrior to tank, and 5 thieves to hit. Split the job of casting shockshield on all of them between the mage and cleric. (4 mage 2 cleric) then holy and sanc up for probably your hardest challenge yet. Warrior tanks. thieves circle. mage brandishes orbs, cleric casts divinity on warrior while the warrior quaffs. After you kill him take your shieldbreaker (invis) and steel gauntlets. The sleeves are also useful if your warrior hasnt got dragonscale sleeves yet. same goes with girth. Pass the shieldbreaker to a thief (do not use it.) repeat the kill some more. you want 2 sbs per thief. (ugh.. i know). Now the less hard part... of the advanced cycle of mobs. Rez. easy to multi 3 yourself. get a warrior and 2 thieves. tank with the warrior, style down when you get gouged, style up a thief and tank on that while circling on the other. quaff loads. Once you finally kill rez, you have a fate key as well as cobras and a rez light. cobras goes to the mage while the key is the only one you need (it wont dissapear.. phew)...

Now take out 4 thieves. preferablly the best based ones. the cleric and the mage. Map the scourge of time maze and get to the sceptre, push/pull it, unlock the door with your shiny key and bring everyone in. At this point, kahl is west of you, north is a closet with probably some of the worst mobs you will encounter in your time on RoD. Kahl is an ip4 run 4 thieves with thievesblades. do NOT circle with your tank while the others circle SLOWLY watching for gas breaths. Every so often he throws you out so use that time to recoup. Run back in and kill him repeat till hes dead. 2 thievesblade PER thief. wear the spoils as you get em. awesome eq really.
Use the jade cameo for ice while using mage for fire, cleric for shock shields. (cleric has better shockshield than mage. mage needs to pull his/her share of shields). Kahl is rather easy really with 4. Once you get enough thievesblades for the team, its time to face down lord olsen and sindroad.... not. bring in the other thieves for 6 thief, mage, cleric. KEEP FLY ON. from the centre room (where you prep for kahl), open n, n into the closet. get the leader to type hatch to trans down. There is a hellknight here. hes probably a nice break from all the hard stuff you have been doing lately. (or at least alot harder than him anyways). Circle, razorbait, faerie fire, unravel. OOPS! the corpse falls :( type hatch to bring your group to safety. get one thief, rem weapons, sanced and shielded and go to the bottom, get all corpse, supplicate recall/(corpse) as sin and olsen are likely to kill you. Repeat for more godskulls. (which make an awesome income btw.. easily sold for 5m a pair, at 5 minutes a repop... )Anyhow, after a while, you will notice the hellknight doesnt spawn below the hatch and is instead nw of sin/olsen. you need to flee a thief into the room to get them moving, then get him back up and wait for the hellknights to come to you to kill some more.

Anyhow, by this time your army should be substantial enough to gold off mobs properly... go back to lodd and shade and give em a taste of your circles. include feina for cure blind pens and faragut for shock sticks (portal crewmen to get to the valkarie). you should also be able to kill the crewmen with little problem now even when they team up. stun faragut and either get the stick or an avenger (MOOLAH!) After this point.. you really dont need more help on learning how to build your army. Just add more to it as you go according to what you feel you need.

Friday, January 12, 2007

Basic character rolling and building your own army

First the classes and races to choose. You will see alot of similarities and repetition.

Augurer:Dwarf is THE best augurer race. Because of eq mainly.
Barbarian: Evil barbarians dont really have much ontop of a devout so make it devout.. and an Ogre or Orc.
Cleric: Clerics tend to be evil or devout. 99% are devout cause they can cast heal and divinity. Evils are used for scribing poison, casting cloud of darkness. (and they still have cure critical which is still a fairly decent healing spell for the hp/mana cost while still retaining useful spells like holy sanctity which is mass sanctuary as well as minor/major. They do lose benediction though.) Plenty of races for clerics are good. There really arent any "wrong" races for a cleric other than drow (loads of align based spam if you do choose devout), pixie (low str really hurts how well you can eq a character), gnome (suc fire is kinda lame. res energy isnt that useful and no really great eq). Personal preferences are dwarf, sea-elf.
Druid: Pretty similar to clerics really. cept they are somewhat of a tanking class that also doubles as hitters. Preferences are also dwarf, sea-elf.
Fathomer: They are like magical thieves. I exclusively prefer to use sea elves.
Mage: Spellcasters that tend to share the burden of the "spellbot" name with clerics. Again, sea-elf is my prefered race.
Nephandi: Weaker, evil only mage basically with a slew of spelldowns that are unique to nephs. Also prefer drow.
Paladin: Devout only warriors.. well you can go evil but you lose 90% of your spells. Elf.
Ranger: something between a warrior and a druid. They have a fair amount of skills but nothing really awesome. Gash requires a claw and costs 50 mana. Im still trying to decide if they damage is good or not. Halfling, elf are the best choices. Particularly evil halfling.
Thief: The most typical hitting class in the game. They excel at most parts of the game and are probably the most commonly used class for.. everything. 95% dodge 95% tumble (both of which are probably dex and luck based) along with 25 dex, close to warrior standard hp, and circle which is probably one of the most damaging skills in the game (and also can be magic/nonmagic depending on your weapons) Basically makes them THE run class, as well as the standard for learning to run with. Orc or ogre. Do NOT try to roll a bunch of ogres for the devout part of your army. It will take too long and you really want the DR bonuses from orc eq. I do NOT understand why people use trolls. Ogres> trolls. Thats it. OK well halflings can be used too...
Warrior: Orc or ogre. Storage, used for killing mobs that can be stunned and the typical nasr warrior. Again, go with orc unless there is a really big reason not to.
Vampire: Blood sucking... things. Orcs are nice for tanking, halflings are also pretty good, and anything else is probably a waste of time.

The stats:
Augurer: 25 wis, 22 luck. 18 dex >_<. Devouts tend to fare as well as evils as evils tend to lack stats and sacrifice better eq for stats. Aim for 15-18 str , 17-18 wis, 16 int, 11-15 dex, 15 luck.
(These values depending on what you plan to use at av but give you a rough idea of what you should be aiming for when rolling.) If you havent noticed, rolling a good augurer is pretty hard. Make sure you get 9 con and cha or it is very hard to get the stats you really want. particularly dex. Real fast note. Auggie sandals are 0 dex. if you can afford a shroud/essence you have 3 dex to work with but really thats it. So unless you use aegis/golden plate and or eltor hide leggings, you need 15 dex. 13 with aegis/plate, 11 with leggings. Increase each of those values previous by 1 if you can only afford magi robe.
Barbarian: 25 str, 22 con, 18 int. aim for 18 str, 14+ con, 10 cha 14+ dex is nice to eq for. Evils dont really get enough dex. Note barbarian neck has 1 str, shades of light 1 con, layer plate 4 con.
Cleric: 25 wis, 22 int, 18 dex. 12str, 18wis, 16int
Females get 2 str per wrist with guen bracers and typically all clerics wear aegis, templars, memories. Dev eq tends to cover the rest of the stats nicely Males/Neutral require +4 str
Druid: 25 wis, 22con, 18 cha. 17 wis (using trinket to cast +3 sagacity), wis sigil, triffid tendrils. 14 dex, 16 con, 15 int. Steel gaunts, dragonscale arms, cloak of light, are all the str you get. so 15 str... unless you use guens. Cloak of light is kinda crappy though so if you can manage a zhurrkdin cloak... you wouldnt be reading this. <_<
Fathomer: 25 dex, 22 int, 18 con. 14+ dex tends to be enough as no chains no strand tend to give them a big boost. You tend to need 17 str though. 16 int, and get at least 15+ luck.
Mage: 25 int, 22 wis, 18 str. You tend to need 14 str, less with guens (see why gender is important?), 18 int, 16 wis, 15 dex and luck if you plan on using it to fight...
Nephandi: 25 int, 22 dex, 18 luck. basically a mage just evil. stats tend to be the same. but the 17 dex is needed. You can go down to 14 wis though.
Paladin: 25 str, 22 wis, 18 int. 18 str, 18 wis, dex tends to be find with the amount of dex eq on devs. (2 per ring of ancient gods, 3 on moccassins, 3 on cloak of death, optional 1 on teardrop, 2 on aegis, 2 on obsidian leggings). Get plenty of luck with the remaining points.
Ranger: 25 str, 22 wis, 22 dex, 18 cha. Like the paladin, really nothin to it.
Thief: 25 dex, 22 cha, 18 wis. Devouts should be 15 str, 15 dex, 16 luck. Neutral/Evils should be 18/18/18 if at all possible... 17 str is workable but prevents you from using raven guards. 17 luck is workable too.. circle just doesnt hit as well. So try your best to get the stats. Dev and neutral setups tend to be 99% set in stone.
Warrior: 25 str, 22 dex, 18 int. Devs refer to paladin notes. Just you dont need the wis.. so aim for luck instead. Evils and neuts need 18 str, 18 dex.

Thursday, January 11, 2007

Efficient leveling

Let's face it. Leveling is BOOORING but it needs to get done.
  1. Have your leveling eq READY, in ONE place.
  2. Have TWO sets of leveling eq. One set for hp/hr/dr and maxes wis, one set to max basically all your stats to change into before you level.
  3. Aim for enemies about 5 levels higher than your character.
  4. Rotate. Do NOT sit in one spot wasting time waiting for repops. Go kill something else. You should never be idle. Rotating between mobs also prevents your buffer from filling up.
  5. Keep a good stock of potions on you and refill. Use purples for healing (or any other type of healing you like) and kaern potions for mana (you will need to find kaern for this) but having these handy will save you alot compared to violets and blues.
  6. Know what level mobs are. Hitting mobs too early just puts them in your buffer and nets you less exp. You get best exp from mobs roughly 5 levels ahead. It goes down on both sides of that level.
  7. MAX YOUR WISDOM. It determines max exp gain. 18 for thieves, 20 for most other classes, 22 for paladins, rangers, mages 25 for augurers, clerics and druids.
  8. Keep your buffer empty.. rotate. Then rotate some more.

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Wednesday, January 10, 2007

keeping up with the weight.

Everyone plays and eventually.. you run out of room, the more you play, the faster it seems to happen. Some ways to save space...

a) throw out the trash. should be pretty obvious. sub par eq, anything you dont need should go.
b) sort your leveling eq. that is to say.. get a set of it.. and sell/throw away the rest of it... its not like you can level on 2 screens at once. serious leveling should be attack, move, attack, move, then repeat till av. of course, if the spare eq is any good... sell it. only if it scraps easy or expires.. or something like that, keep a few spares. enchantable weapons... keep 4. one druid, one neph, one evil, one devout enchanted. update as needed if you get better av dams (or if the weapons is just totally awesome and is likely to become OOG like corkscrews... no.. there arent any right now)
c) move your excess weight. level a BUNCH of low level warriors. make em all level 6 first, then as you have higher level stuff, level one up a bit more. toys, treasures and most keepsakes are relatively low level. so keep your toys and stuff on a storage at home. if you want... a nice way to get even MORE storage space out of this...
d) mages and extradimensional portals... ok so there is a catch. mage portals reduces weight of items a little bit. so for every 5 weight you put in, it only weighs 4 while its IN the portal. so you basically get a 20% cut of weight (correct me if im wrong. it might be a little more but for every 5 weight you lose at LEAST 1. ) so what do you do? make a level 13 mage, make extradimensional portals. fill em up on the mage, give em to your warriors = free containers as well. the catch is.. you need to give back the portal to the mage to get your stuff OUT.. this means you need to be HIGHLY organized or do alot of portal searching.

Tuesday, January 9, 2007

The basics of running.

Running is a rather complicated process on RoD. Let's face it, there is this huuuuuge jump between when you finally finish leveling, and get out there and try to run something. Suddenly mobs have insane amounts of hp and damage and it isn't so easy to stay alive anymore and before you know it you are enlisting the help of your friends to bring down some big mob out there. How do you figure out who should get what, who should lead, who should get loot first etc? Here are some basic principles that groups normally use.

Everyone but the leader:
-config -autoloot/sac unless otherwise instructed. The leader does the looting, not who ever feels like it.
-follow the instructions of the leader. To make it simple, its like a game of simon says. Leader should outline what happens when, people are expected to follow instructions. If it is a new mob, or a hard mob, there are also some do nots. Like do not flee, or do not disarm. Make sure you follow instructions carefully or the run will fall apart.
-PAY ATTENTION. I dont know how else to put it. After the run starts, put life on hold for a few till you are done. Nothing is more annoying than someone who afks on a run which spoils it for everyone else. LEEERRROOOOOOOYYY JEEENNKINSSS.Nuff said really, I am aware it is a parody, but it's less funny when that happens to you. People who constantly pull stunts like leroy don't get invited on runs anymore. Simple, common sense.
-bring spare potions and tankpots. Hi. carry your own sancs and heals please. Just because a mob only takes 100 heals on average doesn't mean you should bring 100. Bring extras in case there are problems on the way in or the mob is particularly nasty that day.
- Remember the rule. no dead mob = no loot. Getting a mob to DYING doesnt get you anything. Killing it does. Reserve the celebration till AFTER the mob is dead.

Leader:
- Know the mob and area better than just tokai.ws lists it. Don't tell people you know how to lead it because you read the notes. Reading and leading are two different things. When exploring, make sure everyone knows what to expect when X or Y happens. Nothing is worse than a leader who suddenly stops leading when there is a problem in the run and he dies or gets transed elsewhere. Make sure people know what is going on.
- Make sure everyone understands where you are going and what you are doing.
- Make sure people are prepared for the mob and what lies between DH and the mob.
- Give a breakdown of the run, how things are supposed to go.
- Have enough weight and inv space to hold loot till the run is over.

Monday, January 8, 2007

The value of a good prompt.

A prompt holds everything a player is interested in. The tokens for a prompt are as follows (copied from help token)

%h - current hitpoints %m - current mana (0 for vamp)
%H - maximum hitpoints %M - maximum mana (0 for vamp)
%b - current blood (0 for non-vamp) %v - current movement
%B - maximum blood (0 for non-vamp) %V - maximum movement
%g - gold held %x - current experience
%a - your alignment %X - experience needed to next level
%A - invisible/hide/sneak/fade state %S - your current combat style
%T - time of day (RoD time) %u - total number of users
%f - flying affect %U - maximum users online
%o - object currently on auction %w - current weight
%L - command/attack waitstate %W - maximum weight
%n - name of opponent* %G - current geo location
%c - current health of an opponent* %l - new/blank line
%e - numerical timer to show duration of adrenaline**
%s - Shows status of autosac
%i - Shows if you are invisible

The important ones...

%h - current hitpoints %m - current mana (0 for vamp)
%H - maximum hitpoints %M - maximum mana (0 for vamp)
%b - current blood (0 for non-vamp) %v - current movement
%i - Shows if you are invisible %s - Shows status of autosac
%g - gold held %f - flying affect
%a - your alignment %X - experience needed to next level
%A - invisible/hide/sneak/fade state %S - your current combat style
%T - time of day (RoD time) %w - current weight
%L - command/attack waitstate %G - current geo location
%c - current health of an opponent*

Yes. that results in a long prompt. But the results it gives you far outweigh the costs. Hp, mana, blood are self explanatory. (Note how I only keep current blood and movement. max values for both dont really matter. you just need to know you arent out.) The others are slightly less so...
Remember you have TWO prompts. one for while you fight, the other for when you arent fighting.

Alignment: especially at avatar with neutral chars.. you need to be able to tell if there is going to be a possibility you zap after you kill a mob. you dont want to zap of course. knowing this lets you flee or ungroup to prevent that happening.

Flying/invis/hide/sneak indicators: flying should be obvious... mobs trip you, no fly dts will take everything. invis and hide prevent you from being attacked by some aggros. Keep them on at all times if possible

Combat style: You should know where you are. When running, most mobs attack the person in the highest style (to deal the most damage). also above aggressive you cannot flee.. obviously useful to know

Gold held, autosac: thief mobs. lets you know they are there even if you cant see them. also shows up in logs easier if you know where mobs are likely to be. Autosac should be pretty obvious... you dont want to fight to waste all your effort. rule of thumb.. turn autosac off. everyone hates it. The only little use is when you are favoring and need to sac hundreds of corpses. Naturally if you always have autosac off, you dont need the prompt token.

Waitstate: aka lag. each command has different number of bars. 2 bars represent one melee round. if a command is only 1 bar of lag, it means you can perform it twice a round. it also means you can quaff or whatever before the next round starts. obviously good to know when you get bashed or lag proged. spamming commands is the surest way to die in a run. having this in your prompt will prevent it happening as easily as you can watch the bars go down.

Weight: gives you a rough estimate of how many potions you quaffed. Make a mental note before the fight starts, then watch it during the fight. you dont want to run out of potions and not notice till you are dead.

Geo: easy way to tell you moved out of an area and geo. most useful for finding places and mobs to portal/helical/astral to.

Anyhow, these are the prompts I personally use.
prompt
Name:&w(&amp;Y%h/%HHp &C%m/%Mm &G%vMv&w) &Y|&B%a&Y| %T &Y(%G) &R%f%A &g%wkg &p\%L/ %l
fprompt
Name:&w(&Y%h/%HHp &C%m/%Mm &G%vMv&w) &Y|&G%s&Y| %T &amp;R%f &p<&Y%n %c&p> &g%wkg &W%S &p\%L/ %l

learning from your mistakes..

Let's face it... there's alot of text scrolling as you play the game. It gets a little hard to read it all even from the moment you start. There are plenty of channels that people use, and fights create large amounts of spam. Some things to reduce the spam and make it more bearable.

config +gag
Gag's misses and parries and whatnot in fights. So you can see what really matters.

config -shields
shows shields as [Fire][Ice] etc instead of putting another line on your screen. Every line counts.

config +compass
shows locked and hidden doors that may not show in the exits part of the room description. Also lets you see what exits there are at a glance. Blue letters in the compass denote "windows" which you can scry through to see another room. Red letters are locked doors and Darker green letters denote closed doors.

Now the really important part. For when you are fighting, exploring etc. and not just chatting, turn on logging. clients like zmud and mushclient have logging features. Each client is different, but make sure you have a client that supports logging as it makes alot of things easier.

Things you can do with logs:
- keep track of where things went... who you passed an item to, where you left your container, when you got money stolen from you (if you had it in your prompt... it will show up)
- read room descriptions carefully. lets face it... if you read every room description you saw, you would never get anything done. good for finding out keywords, secret exits, hidden items etc.
- learning from your mistakes on kills. what happened. why did you die. what killed you. with what. how much damage did it deal you. what kinds of special attacks did it use. did it scrap your container. did it take your weapon. etc. This is probably the biggest reason for logging. To learn from your mistakes.

Sunday, January 7, 2007

handy link

http://xenapan.googlepages.com/

links to just about everything important site about RoD

heals and healing.

Everyone needs heals. unless you just plan to stay in darkhaven forever, sooner or later you will need to quaff a heal or two but purples just dont heal enough after a while and violets are over 10X more expensive but only 2-3 times more effective.

There are alternatives... but you need to work a little for them, but they can help save alot of money on potions when you can get them without a scratch.

Vial of undead spirits: easy to get... if you drop by tull manor every so often you can also get..
a bar of soap: healing and a little bit more
potion of life healing: when you get to the point you can kill the hobgoblin king, this is useful and the mob carries variable amounts of gold.
newt egg: doesnt heal as much as a heal potion does, but plentiful with the fire newts.
fiery orange potion: while gathering newt eggs, this is another item in the area.. a heal potion.. a little weighty but worth keeping since you are going in there already.

flask of gutbuster: probably the most useful heal you will find. cures poison, curse and heals too. have plenty of these for emergencies.
murky green potion: it sure didnt help the green trolls of old marsh but these can really help you. double cure critical at roughly level 43-44 heals nearly 100 hp. basically same as a heal but you can get roughly 7 a repop.
a bottle of 'mirke': not so easy to get to, but casts heal and protect. also not alot of people visit the village in cursed lands. after all.. it isnt a very pleasant place

apple of life: in revelation city there are two places to get these from the floor, and another you can fight for. careful tho.. staking area repops for these ends in unpleasant results. on the other hand you can fight joseph for them but hes a little harder than walking in and picking them up./but each one is worth the effort cause they are double heals
ambrosia: of the gods of olympus. dont take your money along but alot of the gods have this double heal.
elixir of health: annoying to get to... carried by the forth horseman of the apocalypse... death. but triple heals like this one can bring you from the verge of death back to life! if you are evil or neutral you will need to answer thoth's riddle to get out though. devouts on the other hand can heal up, get sanc and recall at isis.

naturally this is just a short list and by no means an exhaustive one. good luck finding more ways to subsidize your healing.

Saturday, January 6, 2007

magic vs nonmagic items.

Most people are concerned about this because of weapons that can/can't hit certian mobs due to magic/nonmagic only restrictions... but there is a little more than just that.

Magic items are add 0 weight when worn. What does this mean? More space/room. Carry more potions/spare eq, etc etc. Also, when storing, you might want the storage to wear the item if possible. Magic items are also a double edge'd sword. especially weapons. If you drop them, make sure you have enough weight spare to pick them up and wear them. This is especially true of heavy magical weapons.

On the other hand, using magical items can increase the character's versatility especially if they lack in weight capacity. The two classes most affected by this are thieves and mages.

A good example is a neut thief wrist. Spiked leather wristguards are awesome. 2 dr, 1str/dex, 10hp. On the other hand, obsidian bracers are 2dr, 1str, 15hp. It looks like a pretty decision between 5hp and 1 dex. but there is also a weight difference of 10. considering you wear two bracers, thats 20 extra weight for more heals, or tankpots. Both will get their use of course, but the wristguard is not that much "better" strictly speaking when you take into account the fact that 20/500 is a pretty significant chunk. especially if you keep making similar choices for other locations.


Heavy Magical Items of note (the useful stuff):
Lights:mark of the king
Rings: Stone of Bal'anthi
Neck: Obsidian cloak, captian's cloak
Body: Adamantium plate, aegis
Head: Crown of ages, obsidian helm
Legs: obsidian leggings
Feet: demonscale boots, chains of imprisonment
Arms: steel sleeves
About: Balrog's cape
Waist: Steel girth
Wrist: Obsidian bracer
Wield: maul of stone, Dragon Claw of Legend, War Mattock of the Harbringer,

IMPORTANT: sparking golden bedsheet is NO LONGER MAGICAL renders it into trash. use silk omanehs instead since you can only absorb 2 hits with 10 weight but omanehs take 10 hits for 10 weight. choice is pretty clear. not to mention the bedsheet is also an area repop.

Friday, January 5, 2007

Charisma and repairs...

The best way to make money is to save money. Most people rem all, repair all and don't realize they are paying too much for repairs. Why? because no one rolls 18 cha for characters unless they plan on using them to only buy stuff. 18 cha is a waste of much needed stats but when repairing.. having high cha will save millions (literally) after a long day of running. All you need is a few pieces of cha eq to wear while you pay for repairs.

Best items for cha:
Colorful scarf (level 5 neck) 3 cha (way cheap and buyable too!)
Black lace brassiere (avish level body) 4 cha (people tend to throw em away after dobra kills. KEEP THEM)
Ruby encrusted necklace (level 10 neck) 4 cha (but there is a very short and slightly costly puzzle to make them)
Bright ruby (level 2 head+/ hold) 2 cha (off the carbuncle in green forest)

Note: I haven't really listed that much... cause 2 necks + body takes care of most chars... with a ruby or two.. you can max any character with 9 cha which will reduce prices for your repair. (3+3+4 = 10 easiest combo and very cheap and easy to get too. 4+4+4 =12 is overkill but helps max if you have trollish on)

Anyhow.. a quick comparison to make my point.

9 cha: (note very little eq damage)
Bugelii the blacksmith tells you, 'It will cost 15600 pieces of gold to repair Collar of Abyssal Servitude'
Bugelii the blacksmith tells you, 'It will cost 80361 pieces of gold to repair darkness'
Bugelii the blacksmith tells you, 'It will cost 78000 pieces of gold to repair a strand of polished jade'

21 cha: (thief, same eq as above just higher cha appraise)
Bugelii the blacksmith tells you, 'It will cost 10800 pieces of gold to repair Collar of Abyssal Servitude'
Bugelii the blacksmith tells you, 'It will cost 55635 pieces of gold to repair darkness'
Bugelii the blacksmith tells you, 'It will cost 54000 pieces of gold to repair a strand of polished jade'

Savings are basically.. 1/3rd of the 9 cha price. so 3 repairs later, you basically saved yourself a whole repair's worth of money! Just get an alias to repair!

Here's one for zmud:
#AL repairme {#2 finditem scarf;finditem brassiere;rem all;#2 wear scarf;wear brassiere;repair all;#2 rem scarf;rem brassiere;wear all}

Thursday, January 4, 2007

Drinkcons and leveling

Always thirsty? hungry? STARVING? drinkcon's are your friend. Why?
a) They satisfy BOTH thirst and hunger (thirst more than hunger of course) every time you drink
b) Its free.. you don't need to buy food and keep all that extra weight either.. ONE drinkcon can fix all that.
c) renewable.. fill you can keep going.