weekend

[chrisvenus]

Well, as you could probably tell on Friday night I got drunk. Really quite drunk.

It was the RPGSoc termly pub crawl, one of my few drinking moments in the calendar. I'm still occasionally getting things fly vaguely near my mind, demanding attention and saying "you did this on Friday night" as I despeartely try to work out what my mind is telling me I did and whether I actually did it. I'm hoping the only really significant thing that happened was related to the_whybird and that wasn't totally unusual for pub crawls. I think in some cases promises were made based on actions but never fulfilled. Damn them all! :)

If you want to remind me of anything I did on friday night or if I owe you an apology then do let me know. I am most interested in knowing what went on. :)

Still, it was a good night and I got home very drunk. Fairly hazy memories going on but I remember going to my good friend Hussain and getting free chocolate for the first time in ages. And I think they might have put the prices up but my confused drunkeness coupled with my being a regular customer meant I didn't have to worry about it. :)

Saturday I felt worse for wear, perhaps unsurprisingly. I drank water several times but couln't down enough to keep me properly hydrated. Still, I needed to be up at some point.

I wasn't howerver, feeling that up for sorting myself out breakfast so much to my embarrassment I stopped off at McDonalds on my way down to London. Saturday was the first time I've been to see bateleur and lathany in ages. It used to be a regular thing with the Lathany/Athory campaign but I don't think I've been visiting since then. It was really good to see them and the babieskids who are now talking and a lot better behaved (or at least quieter) than they used to be.

The visit wasn't just social and there was of course the usual Roleplay. bateleur was running an installment of his Wheel campaign and I'd been wanting to guest star for ages but unable to make it previously (I think I have had one or two offers before this but hadn't manage to be free). The party consisted of lathany as the one experienced party member and me, quisalan and chrestomancy as guest stars (although hopefully recurring). It was all good fun.

I started off with Trent (my character) in a job interview with Eve (lathany's character) and made up lots of stuff as I went along. Bomb scares, drunk kids and all of this kind of thing apparently entered into my characters previous security work. It was actually quite strange to be adlibbing so much character background in one go and it was nice to not bother hand-waving and to actually run through it.

My character was employed for security work which I think he did admirably. Focusing on his job was after all the best way to avoid having to think about the fact that there was all this magic going on, people changing worlds, non-human religious nutters and so much more. All he needed to know was what the threat was and he just faced a lot of the magic as just another danger to take into account. I suspect he is going to go for quite some time just not thinking about any of it too hard and just trying to do his job and understand the new directions threats may come from. :) I look forward to the next session. :)

Dinner was provided (burger and chips which were yummy) and the session finished quite late. I think it was 11 by the time I left (though that was partly because quisalan and I kept chatting rather than leaving) and I made my way home and just about got home by midnight. I pretty much went straight to bed at that point due to knackeredness.

Sunday was largely taken up by two things. The first of them was ou3fs. This is a group I stumbled across towards the beginning of term (I forget how) and is the Oxford Fanfiction and Folkore society. Not an official university one, more just a group of people with common interests that meet regularly. Now I'm not much into fan fiction but I am a geek and quite possibly would be into it more if I had more time to read and write it (and if I hadn't come across too many examples of awful fic to ever be completely comfortable with it again).

So for all of this term I've either not found out about the meetings in time (they were announce after I left work on friday when I had no internet) or I was not in oxford. This one was at 11AM so I considered claiming that as a time I couldn't make but instead got up and went out. I'm glad I did. There were some very nice people there. I was worried about how to recognise them but luckily I had bumped into (and here is where I start trying to make sure I have the right LJ names) sebastienne in the pub the other day courtesy of secutatrix (its a small world) and so I recognised her and thus disaster was averted.

The tick tock cafe were nice enough to do bacon sausage and egg baguettes as well as coke so I felt fairly alive despite the time of day before too long and got on with the job in hand, forgetting everybody's names. :) I'm pretty sure everybody there had a livejournal and I can remember about half of them but not *all* of them. :) Some of them are probably even reading this now. Well, now from their point of view. Chances are not now from most people's point of view and certainly not mine.

I fully intend to try to make it to see people again because it was jolly good fun and some good hardcore geeking going on (in the non-computer sense). And I've been asked to write star wars fic and I am disturbingly considering it. It is, after all, pretty much canon. I suspect it probably won't happen due to time but you never know. :)

Anyway, the rest of the day was spent at home. I got back about mid afternoon and pootled around a bit, played with new computer bits and so on. Read my book for a bit and then after dinner when my original plans fell down I decided to play computer games. I ended up having a look at not the original MMO game that I was thinking of but another one called The Sage of Ryzom. I came across this through aardnebby and enthusing on his journal by kostika. It seems interesting so far. I've only played it for a couple of hours so far so I'm not sure about lasting appeal. I'm already annoyed with a training mission I got that I can't work out how to do (they told me to go harvest a resource and I can't find the resource and am not 100% sure how to though I may work it out tonight). Basically the tutorial could be better but I am getting used to things slowly. Soon I shall leave tutorial island and enter the real world. :)

And that was the weekend. I got to bed about 1 and felt quite tired this morning. Am vaguely tempted to take a 3 day week this week by taking thursday off (november is no work on friday month for me) but I'll have to see how much work I have at the time. And on the subject of which back I go...

Comments

[aardnebby.livejournal.com]

I had problems with the resource harvest mission too, and the lack of manual is _really_ not helpful. Frankly without patient people to talk me thru it I probably wouldn't have given this game the chance it deserves.

A couple of things to remember, at this stage in the game the only rewards for quests are Fame and money (dappers).

The fame simply chooses which faction you are, and enables you to take more difficult missions later (vaguely reminiscient of Frontier, Elite 2 if you remember that, but with fame in one faction subtracting from opposing factions).

The cash rewards are not huge, and can be easily made up much faster by mining and flogging stuff. Or mining, crafting and flogging ;)

The only penalty to abandoning/failing quests is that some of them have a delay before you can try again.

What race are you playing? It's possible I can meet up once you are off newbie island and do an in-person tutorial, given I am new too I probably won't forget to mention stuff that seems obvious to old hands (like which mobs are aggro, social etc, very important when you are just wandering in a confused daze!)

[chrisvenus]

Yeah. I was wondering about manual. It tells you to read it in the first steps but doesn't actually make it available as far as I can see.

I'm playing one of those tryker things. My character name is Azeel (IIRC). the mining mission I've found a few places on the forums that have given hints on how to find what I'm after though. I'll try again tonight and see what happens.

The main reason that I was annoyed though is that it was the welcomer and I was wanting to go through all of the basic tutorial quests. She didn't seem to want to talk to me though until I've done this bit. I've read that you can right click on people to get different options though so must try right clicking on more stuff tonight. :)

[aardnebby.livejournal.com]

I couldnt find it anywhere, I'll put in a support ticket asking for a pdf or something.

Curses, I can't get to Trykerland yet. Traveling between the lands for the first time takes something of an epic trip, generally involving 2-3 high level characters as escorts, you buy a fairly expensive 1-use teleport "pact" (ticket) so you can then get back in future. Grim and Donna's guild (the Samsara) are mercenaries, and apparently its one of the more common jobs. If you intend to stick around, join a guild, the benefits (mainly them handing down lower level but very good items, advice and free services from guildmates) are very helpful for newbies. But unless you show commitment don't expect them to just let you in (I believe it costs to admit new members, free trialers tend not to get invites until after the end of their trial period).

My char is called Zahan, I'll friend you next time I am on, and try to send you a tell.

Yeah, the initial area is a bit lacking, but it definately gets better on the mainland. All I can say is team up if you can, it's _vastly_ easier and a lot of fun. As for right clicking, good point, I didn't know just how useful it is! Still learning a lot myself.

[chrisvenus]

Yeah, I'm not 100% sure if I'll be playing it after the trial. That is after all what trials are for. It has got a certain appeal so far though. How levelled are you so far? Just wondering whether it is worth me just starting again with a new character wherever you are to make posseing slightly easier? If you're going to be miles better than me anyway at the moment though probably not worth the bother (I've got about 3 hours gametime in I'd guess - about level 8 fighter, 9 in foraging and stuff and 2 in magic).

What's the crafting like? Is it worth sdtarting off as a crafter rather than a magic user or something (the first two seem pretty cool but the magic seemed not that useful to start).

[aardnebby.livejournal.com]

I've done a fair bit of grinding. Been playing 1 week this morning, and I am at 35 melee, 35 offensive magic, 33 defensive magic, 17 craft, 55 desert foraging. (the skill trees split at 20, and again at 50, I've just mentioned the main ones, the other splits you can safely consider to be at 21 or 51 respectively). I dont think we are really close enough to party effectively sadly, though you can easily get off newbie island in an evening or 2 of play at a reasonable level, then the Samsara can probably help you.

I have access to the Zorai and Fyros mainlands, but other Samsara (Kostika and Jyudas being Donna and Grim respectively) may be able to help you where you area. As to it being worth restarting, my initial guess would be probably not if you are happy with the character. Almost any mistake with char gen can be corrected with a reasonable amount of xp, and the only diff between races is their initial fame/ease of citizenship for different races and what racial resists they get (which are both balanced). But it can be difficult initially if you say need to buy a whole new skilltree to do something you want.

Umm, judgement call mate, but would be good to have you playing long term ;) the main reason I picked this MMO was Grim and Donna being on, a few more friends would make it better ;)

[mejoff.livejournal.com]

(its a small world)
Well it is when you know secutatrix. This is because she knows everyone in the whole world!

[chrisvenus]

I suggested that yesterday but people immediately said "I don't know her" so that was that plan out the window.

That does remind me though, the other day I was told that I was one of those people that everybody knows. I sometimes wonder if I am. I do forget names a lot and that might explain why if I've met everybody in the world.

[chrisvenus]

Can't remember who I asked any more. But at least one person hadn't and that is all that is needed. I will concede that it is possible that most know you. Though I didn't call you Malfoy which may be what caused the confusion (subfusc photo? pretty please? ). They are fangirls mostly (one is a fanboy) so I reckon they'd probably go with that one more... :)

[chrisvenus]

Fraid I'm saving myself for a special lady.

Actually, that's a lie, but female is generally a requirement of getting me into bed.

[the-whybird.livejournal.com]

I deny everything!

[chrisvenus]

If we both stick to that story it might work! :)

[childofatlantis.livejournal.com]

Except for the part where there was a camera. ^_^