Kranodor's Log

Okay, the last update was small and incomplete, yet full of awesomeness. In real life, I’m currently at a crossroads of sorts, wish me luck, I’m really gonna need it, in spite of all the successes everybody claims I’ve achieved so far.

But I wanted to tell you that I just had a large battle outside of hope that I won (that area is new, and accessible as soon as you’ve done the mission within City of Hope, which is in the Tiasanians – if you don’t know where that is, you probably shouldn’t be there, yet) and hey, I looted no less than 2 of their shivs and 1 whip, and a large medkit. The weapons are short blades and grappling respectively, one-skill only, no combination, but they’re quick as hell, 70 speeds are usual. They may be worth sacrificing the fourth skill for.

Hope y’all are enjoying this update as much as I do. ;)

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Okay people, this is it. As of today, I’m on hiatus again, and I won’t be able to do much – if anything at all – until at least May/June of this year. Real life matters take priority, this is how it always was, although I have been trying to subdue these thoughts for the past three weeks because I wanted the event to be finished as far as I could. Sadly, time is at a premium at the moment, with finals in may and june, and with thesis papers expected on no less than 11 topics by mid april.

While I’ll try to check in regularly to follow discussions and answer short and simple question as good as I can, I won’t be able to do any greater elaboration, and anything I am working on currently will stay in its current state of unfinishedness.

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…it’s actually pretty much how I feel right now. The formalities have been done, everything successful. Another big step taken. Now comes: Learning. I got eleven topics to prepare, and I got until… April. Lots of stuff to read, lots of stuff to write… and… ah, well. I have reserved the first week of february to meet some colleagues and friends I haven’t met in a while, have some nice talks… and, yeah, well. Get the books and copies and articles… of the literature I need. Oh, and write for aethora.

Problems:
Since I will have to really start working on the third week of february, latest, I won’t be able to test anything that I write up now, and the dev server has been pretty much deserted for a while now… so… augh… it’ll be a rough ride.
I’ll do what I can.
Oh, and wish me luck for my preparations for the exams. I’m sure as hell scared almost to death (or the other way around). Never could cope quite well with oral exams…

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Okay, I’ve been back home for a couple of days now, preparing for interviews and stuff.
One of five topics is set, another one reasonably outlined. Tomorrow I hope to get another one clear… then monday, tuesday… next wednesday hopefully the finalization of the last topic, and then I’d be ready to go and apply for the final exams. Yay. Okay, then comes learning, but the bureaucratic stuff and most of the deadlines (at least until may/june) would be behind me, so I’m really looking forward to it. Wish me luck, good people of Aethora, I may need it.

Now, to write that Dev Diary entry…

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Long time since my last journal post, and I’m using this chance to write a new one – I’m still at my girlfriends house, so I can’t do much work for aethora, and currently, well… we do have quite the weather situation… snow chaos and all such. That’s why I chose to delay my return home by two days, I’ll be travelling home on thursday. What will happen then? I’ll have to prepare for some rather important talks – I’ll have to do appointments to visit professors to talk about final exam topics. I’ll have to get all my topics clear before end of january to be able to apply for the next round of exams in may/june, to prevent having to wait half a year for the next cycle.

Apart from that I’ll have a little time – I’ll try to at least write up little bits of content in january (although they likely won’t be implemented then) and I’ll try to do a new, longer Dev Diary entry, foreshadowing the next larger update (although I don’t know when it’ll hit, actually).

Hope you all got into the new year well, and sorry about the lack of information lately.
Yes, this is actually more a journal entry, but since I wanted to say: I still have the Dev Diary in mind and a new issue will come in the not too distant future, I tagged it with development, too.

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Hey folks… just wanted to drop a message that I’m somewhat back now (some of you may have noticed already)… I still have a lot of stuff to do, and christmas is coming closer every day, and I’m visiting my girlfriend tomorrow, for 10 days (long overdue, as I was very busy)… so I’m more half here, but I’m at least “somewhat” back again. And yes, I’m already back to work on the Dev Team.

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…and I answer. Sorry folks, but you’ll have to live and play and trade without me for the next three weeks or so. Normally, even if I get busy or busier, I’ll at least log on into aethora once or twice a day to see what’s up and answer questions and forum topics if something occured. I won’t even be able to do that, so don’t wonder if you don’t see me at all for the next three-or-so weeks. Important work has to be done, and it has to be done without any distractions. I know this isn’t important, but as I tend to be one of the more active forum and chat writers and a dev team member, I think I should say when I’m completely gone for a longer period of time. So, sorry, folks, but you’ll have to do without me for a while.
Hopefully, I’ll be back some time around mid-October.

Have fun, and keep fighting!

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This topic is just for other people to be able to contact me by replying to it.

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Just received word today, that after Ayvira now Cyrette also has sold everything she had in stock. Suppose this means my crew will be heading home today… about time. We’ve cleared the Animation Chamber twice and the Mining Cavern once since we left the main town, and have a couple nice new krati weapons to sell – one will be the one Fyrelle used during these fights, as she looted an even better one from the Kratians.

Ah, guess I’ll clear out the Animation Chamber once again before I go…
The list with the items I had for sale from April 23. on still exists, but is now more or less closed and may be used as a source for good prices. It can be found as tagged with “market”.

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I’ve set up Nydia Nondescript, Old Brother Farikar and Cyrette Frostblaze as vendors on the main market of Hopitan, each of them sporting no less than 5 different items. Among those items a MedKit, some armor, and a variety of weapons. Now I’ve gone back to Martis, into the mines, to get some Krati Mindrod for fair lady Fyrelle… and found two Krati Jagged Short Blades as well – one for Fyrelle, as it is far superior to her old short blade, and one for Tharod… he’ll be missing all those nice frost attacks (okay, it was just Icy Blade, which I never used, considering Double Blade Attack as possibility, and Ice Storm, which was kinda nice, but usually took too many AP and dealt too little damage, if it was a viable choice (area attack) at all) but other than that, he should be more efficient now – the Krati Jagged Short Blade he got isn’t that much quicker than his old weapon (only by 2 points) but has a much higher damage rating (20 instead of 12)… so this could prove useful.
I also grabbed some stuff I might be able to sell – a staff, a krati heavy cloak, and I think I’m still carrying around a Gravity cylinder with one of the characters.

Anyhow, about the market: Started out yesterday, with 15 items total, today I’ve seen that more of them than expected have already been sold. Still on market are, if you’re interested:
|ember gloves|—-|SOLD|
|fine steel longsword|—-|SOLD|
|Medical Kit (small)|Health: 40 / Rating:80|25 gold|
|chadukan fire cylinder|—-|SOLD|
|windwhip|—-|SOLD|
|chadukan mind-rod|—-|SOLD|
|chadukan mind-rod|D/S/R: 20/58/116 Mindwind|30 gold|
|fine scalemail|—-|SOLD|
|fine chainmail|—-|SOLD|
|Platen Airris Wand|—-|SOLD|
|krati stone staff|—-|SOLD|

Sadly, I didn’t take notes what items I had put on sale in total (only the number) but the sales seem to be more or less across the board. I hope they are affordable… if not, you can drop me a message, and maybe I can even set the price a little lower. And yes, you can reply to this post.

EDIT: Updated, to tell which items have been sold tonight. Well… not much left…
Old Brother Farikar is out of items already, and the other two only sport one item each. Guess I’ll take them all out of the market this evening, restock one of them and put him/her back in… and go find some more material.

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Grand! Now I was back at the mines, and tried the “other” exit: Animation chamber. Turns out that there was, apart from some golems, a Kratian Animator. A quasi-human foe. One of the kind that uses Krati weaponry. Nice stuff. Well-suited for more experiments. I’m happy.

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Old Brother Farikar and Nydia Nondescript have been set up as traders on Chaduk Haven Market and an ad has been paid… maybe more people will come to this quiet little place to do some trade. My initial offers are:
A fine scalemail, rating 296 for 200 gold
A platen airris wand, rating 151, for 120 gold
A Krati Stone Staff, rating 150, for 100 gold
A Light Air Staff, rating 224, for 220 gold
A Drak Long Blade, rating 121, for 100 gold
An ember gloves pair, rating 174, 150 gold
A windwhip, rating 136, as low as 75 gold
A small medikit, rating 80, healing 40 health, for 25 gold
All has been put on sale on March 13th, let’s see how it goes.
All offers are, moreover, comparably cheap (usually some 50-70% of other offers) or can’t be bought on players markets anywhere else (with prices scaled along the ratings)… I think I’m offering quite a bargain here and hope I’ll help to establish Chaduk Market somewhat. Considering I’ve paid 250 gold for the ad, I’ll have to sell at least two, more likely three or four of my fine priced wares to even break even… but since I’m rather busy at the moment anyhow (real life, and if I think of aethora, I’m usually over at the creative dev teams testing server and writing up stuff) I can have some of my people selling stuff here.

After all, I have traveled through every place that exists yet, and without work on the dev team there won’t be new places…

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So… now I’ve done the Martis Mines mission… has been quite some fighting. Only three of my characters are at full health still, two are in the 80s and 90s, and three are condition red, the lowest at 7% health after having been killed in one of the intermissions.

The reward was worth it, however. Selection between armor (chainmail) and a weapon (flamewhip). On my rather difficult visit to the Tiasanian Flatlands I encountered one group of human foes – apart from half a dozen non-human ones, that, the first time I came across them, killed my whole party. And the second time as well, if I recall correctly. Well, however, the human party was defeated by me and most of them had chainmail or scalemail, ratings 250 to around 300, mostly. So not much to be gained there. Specific weapons are difficult to come by, however, and whips are kinda cool. Especially as the airwhip (or is it windwhip?) I found in Tiasa was primary a grappling weapon. Those things are neat, especially for my sweet little fleshthief Nydia.
Well, turns out: The flamewhip IS grappling primary and +3 damage and +3 speed there (compared to the other, not to shabby whip), as well. But, turns out there is a bonus: While the Windwhip (yeah, pretty sure it was windwhip.) did not offer anything from its secondary (thus leaving Nydia with Fleshtheft, Fleshrend, Fleshpass and Grappling, mostly from the basic flesh caller combined with a Grappling weapon) the new Flamewhip does so: In addition to all the goodies from before, it has Burning Grasp (which I don’t know the exact effects off, but it’s rather nice to have, anyhow) and hotskin, which is a long-ranged (5 tiles), long-lasting (4 turns) protection against cold-based attacks. Rather specific, but it might turn out very useful at some point (and after all, 4 turns and 5 tiles range isn’t that bad for a buff), and hey, it’s free, as the weapon change had only benefits apart from gaining this.

The party is getting more or less in some sort of “established” form – and some of the characters are even getting into the leaderboards, most notably my icy and swift double-bladed, ice storm-casting Tharod der Stumme. Sadly, he didn’t comment on how he feels about being at the second place in the Airwind category. (A little joke on the sidelines for those of you who understand German and thus know what the name means… if anybody reads this at all.)

What I’m trying to do now is getting a use for Gravity, and, more importantly, one that includes Gravity Field without actually decreasing the abilities of the established characters. Most characters can’t be used:
Ayvira, although lacking a better frost weapon than a “fine frost coil” (rating about 100), needs air+frost for her Chill Breath, apart from Ice Shards (frost) being her main attack and Focusing Atmosphere (air) being a major, and always-used buff.
Tharod is using two blades, which would offer some possibilities. But a Short Blade / Ice and a Long Blade / Airwind offer some great stuff: Double Blade Attack and Defense, very good stuff, Swift Blade, for defense-ignoring damage, and Ice Storm, for the times when either blades aren’t good or mass damage is needed. Using anything but a martusan blade (short or long) would take away the double blade stuff, which I have come to respect A LOT. Using a martusan blade will take away either Ice Storm, or Ice Storm and Swift Blade (or maybe both in both instances), and will not give Gravity Field, which I want most. It only gives Weighed Blade, which is essentially Icy Blade (which Tharod has with his current combination, but it simply isn’t on par with the other stuff) with Gravity instead of Frost.
Boran is also not able to change: Fire and Air give Acrid Smoke, which is very, very useful, and he is also able to cast two major buffs with it: Focusing Atmosphere and Firecoat. A good standard attack is also available with Ignite.
Cyrette is weak, compared to the others: Fire/Frost her combination, giving her the Hot-Cold-Flash attack at the same price as Ice Shards or Ignite. I have come to see that it lacks punch, though, and apart from Firecoat, there are little other advantages.
Fyrelle is classic: Mindwind and Short blade. She is also my only Mindwind user, and as I like that stuff, I want to keep it. Doing Deceitful Blade with only 29 action points is neat. Sadly, exchanging the shortblade for a martusan one would rob her of a part of her speed AND damage, and it wouldn’t enable her to do anything gravity-related, so… I can as well leave her as she is.
Noradt is somewhat exotic already: Plant and Fire. Grasping Vines, Barkcoat, Firecoat on the defensive side and Brushfire and Ignite on the offensive side makes for a pretty good fighter and supporter. Don’t know if I want to sacrifice that for experiments.
Nydia is the other exotic: Flesh and Grappling, mainly. Flesh and Grappling-Fire, since today. Fleshtheft and Fleshpass, which are a great combo, as main attacks (fleshtheft at 36 AP, maybe only 35 by now, by the way). Keeping her that way is a no-brainer.
Leaves Farikar, who’s mainly doing Fire/Stone/Brawling stuff at the moment, meaning: Ignite/Stone Shards, Stone/Flaming Fists, Firecoat, Stonecoat, Stone to mud and Lava. While having Stonecoat and Firecoat available is nice, as is having lava, most other stuff is pretty much same stuff with two different names. So… I will try giving him Gravity. Question is: A Martusan Gravity Cylinder or a Busted Stabilizing Rod? Giving Gravity to him (instead of the fire cylinder, by the way) would deprive him of Ignite, Flaming Fists and Firecoat, as well as of lava, but giving him Gravity Field, Weightlessness, Heavy Boots and Earthquake. The former weapon would only give those, but with generally higher stats, the latter an additional Weighed Bludgeon attack. But since he has Stone Shards and Stonefists already, I don’t think I’ll need that one and go for the higher stats.

And well, I’ll have to have a look at Cyrette again. Maybe making her a double-blunt would be nice, with Gravity secondary… and… whatever is available as secondary to a staff and actually adding something. Might have to change her name then, however. And… well, train her for Blunt weapons. Will take time to consider. And weapons to make it work.

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Today, several things have happened: I made the Chaduk Haven Escort Mission (yay!) and thus, I am in Chaduk Haven now. It has a market where rather good items are sold for rather high prices – compared to Hopitan, at least. It’s only 2 pages weapons and 2 pages armor anyhow, but most of the stuff would actually be useful to some degree, albeit still not useful enough to make me pay the prices…

which leads to the other point. The battle to get here, although it got Ayvira and Boran killed, was a lootfest in the end – 4 ringmail and 1 woodmail armors for starters, which made the remaining studded leather armor more or less obsolete – 2 of my people, melee fighters, use bought Kraki Heavy Cloaks already, and 1 more, Farikar, is still a vendor in Hopitan… I’ll have to go back and get him, so my party is finally at full strength again. I have kept one of the best Studded Leathers, but I guess I’ll go for another Kraki Heavy Cloak for him, as well, as he is another melee fighter. And I got some equipment to experiment with him… mainly a Sun Staff that might come in handy.

Moreover, two out of three fire rods have been upgraded to chadukan fire cylinders, only Noradt doesn’t have a new, chadukan one already. The mindrods the enemies had were no better than the one Fyrelle already uses, so that wasn’t a big deal, but I found a fine Windblade to replace the Windy Blade Tharod recently started using, when I found an Ice Shard type Short Blade/Ice to effectively complement it.

And, although it’s neither big news nor a grand item, I even found a good pair of Iron Knuckles for Nydia. Compared to bare fists, it only has a significant damage advantage in brawling, and a very, very small (31 instead of 30) speed advantage in grappling (more useful, as she’s doing fleshtheft, mainly) but since it doesn’t have any disadvantages (all other values are the same as bare fists) saying: It’s better, and using it, is a no-brainer. Plus: 7 instead of 3 damage for brawling (=slug), which always comes in handy as emergency attack, due to low AP cost, is a nice plus, although not where I want it most.

Well, now some of my main characters have to regenerate and I have to finally get some work done for today… but hey… that was just too good not to talk about.

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