Farming For Futility

On Saturday, Pirate101 hosted a little "House Warming" contest. On a whim, I decided to try it. Here is the subsequent timeline of my pointless attempts at crowns and glory.

 (All times in Central for convenience)

12:10 AM: I remember that I got up at noon and really want 60,000 crowns. Why not stay up overnight and go after Medusa for the first challenge?

12:37 AM: Complete first run of Medusa. Get nothing.

12:45 AM: Realize how cool and underrated Iago is.

1:16 AM: Get tired after 3 or 4 runs of nothing. Decide to go inside with a random guy named Omar.

1:38 AM: Omar leaves, so I join up with a group including my only other friend online, Clumsy Calamity.

2:30 AM: First time hitting the gold cap.

3:13 AM: Openly wonder if Kingsisle will give the prize to whoever gets the most Nemean hats...

3:22 AM: Get a Frog pet. Ribbit.

4:02 AM: Group estimates that we've done 25 runs so far.

4:25 AM: No one anywhere appears to have gotten a Domed Pyre, and the first phase is nearly over. Give up and take a selfie with my frog.

4:37 AM: Join up with Duncan and Kat (cutest couple ever, by the way) against 3 Tysons for his Lantern Post.

4:41 AM: Get Armadillo pet on first run!

5:16 AM: Left to my own devices again, I start farming a couple other Cool Ranch bosses (to no avail, of course).

6:18 AM: After returning to Tyson for a little while longer, fatigue wins out. It was pretty foolish to expect to stay up for 36 straight hours, after all.

12:45 PM: Wake up and get back online just when Phase 3 (Solar Obelisk) is almost over. Start setting up for Phase 4.

1:30 PM: To everyone's chagrin, the next item is back in Aquila, with Zeena as the target. At least she drops some other cool stuff.

2:23 PM: Give up (again), accept that I won't win the grand prize, and wait for Phase 5 to at least have the chance at 20,000 crowns.

6:04 PM: Hurry back over to Cool Ranch and check the list of bosses who drop the Pilgrim's Campfire. Go on to do a few useless Jailhouse runs.


7:07 PM: Get momentarily excited when I find a Pilgrim's Campfire in my backpack... and then realize that I got it from Phase 2. Decide to revert to Tyson for farming.

8:12 PM: Get a Lantern Post... 12 hours too late.

9:18 PM: Mentally decide I'm done when I get a Lantern Post for the second time.

Quite frankly, the whole event was a big waste of time. The only thing of interest was that I got a neat new pet and met a couple other friendly pirates while occasionally annoying them :P. I was not destined to win, as spending 10 hours farming and then getting a Campfire and Lantern Post in the wrong phases seemed to suggest. Nevertheless, it was good to get involved in the community a little bit more; opportunities like that don't come by quite as often. Would I do it again?

Yes! Easier items! I wouldn't necessarily have a better chance of winning, but hey, it would feel pretty good to get at least one item (and not in the wrong time slot...)

Results, incidentally, are posted here: Kingsisle's recap post.

Congrats to Crazy Cassidy and all the 20k crowns winners! 

Happy Farming!

Haunted Skyway Halloween

Wicked Valkoor Vane has been plodding through Cool Ranch for the entire school year - which also happens to be the reason for my October absence. Nevertheless, I've been reliably questing almost every day. After spending the earlier part of the month in Port Regal, the last three weeks have been all Tumbleweed and Haunted Skyway for Valkoor. 

As it happened (and I didn't plan this, honestly), I had to do these three quests between October 31st - November 2nd: Old Scratch's promotion quest, Miranda, and Motherlode Mine. It's hard to get death-ier than that in Pirate101.

Check that. You're, uh... looking good lately, Death.

I had no doubts about purchasing the "Mascarilla de Muerto". Now me and El Toro are masked buds; perfect for the spooky season.

What? How could you tell I wasn't "dead enough"?

I like the little "spirit world" glimpses in both Wizard101 and Pirate101. In W101, the end of Mooshu and Avalon have plenty of surreal experiences. Similarly, the celestial backdrop of Cool Ranch's spiritual realm is one of a kind.

Don't mistake Miranda for a "spiritual realm", it's just a really gloomy ghost town :P

Bat has proved a useful companion on many occasions, especially paired with Carcarius Grimtooth's Will-boosting power. Critical hit chains, anyone?

Quite at home, indeed!

 (Speaking of home - don't try placing dynamite on random objects at home)

After dealing with mobs of death, Cool Ranch was finished after dealing with mobs of machines.

 A new map piece, a new ship, and new adventures await in Mooshu as Valkoor continues on the long and winding road to Level 65. Will the pace of one quest a day be fast enough to beat out Pirate101's next update, or will his journey go on beyond Aquila? In any case, I'm glad that the year will end in Mooshu and Marleybone. Two months was enough for Cool Ranch, and will hopefully be the same for my two favorite Pirate101 worlds.

Most of all, it's nice to have only one quest again. :D

Happy Questing!

Pleasant Valley Sundays

As chronicled during a post last month, doing one quest a day on my Witchdoctor during the summer was no problem at all. With a busy year ahead, however, I've been skipping more and more quest days, to the point where I've had to make up for 3-4 days of quests. Plus, Cool Ranch tends to have longer quests with bigger EXP rewards, so I've made a habit of doing this backlog on Sundays.

Two weeks ago it was the saving of Nurse Quinn...

...which gets pretty fun when the Ghost Jackalopes get involved :D

 With such a slow questing schedule, I set all companions to Brawlin' duty, with training points used only occasionally. Last week, the time for Mormo's first quest finally came.

Mormo is even cuter when he's bossy ;)

His third-person way of talking almost becomes contagious. Valkoor likes Mormo very much - Valkoor is only too happy to have Mormo as a first mate.

For today's questing, it was dispatching ugly baddies El Guapo and Santa Rana. 

The Bison Spirit functions very well when it comes to tanking with an occasional big hit on the enemies. I'm pretty sure he's died a few more times holding Salamander stabbers at bay.

Gotta love English Bill's hat!

Meeting El Toro again was a welcome distraction from the cranky Frogerales.

Ah, faces only a mother could love.

Finishing off Castillo Sapo with a flourish. 

Over the next week, it appears as if Valkoor will be nursing the Free Ranger back to health while on the search for Tonka. Eh, could be worse.

Level 21 and taking inspiration from punk hipsters. This is what makes questing exciting -- what will Valkoor look like after Level 30?! Only time will tell (probably about a month :P)

As if I wasn't getting enough of Cool Ranch, I went through Laestrygon with some throwback companions last Sunday. Jacques the Swash likes to bring out some experienced hard hitters every now and then for Trolls and Manticores alike.

Even if he kidnapped the reincarnation of Selena Gomez, it's hard not to be impressed with Froggo Villa. Only in Pirate101 can you have a Salamander bandit facing off against Odyssey-inspired Trolls. 

After another busy Sunday, good night, Cool Ranch -- for now.

Happy Questing!

P101: Cruising Round Cool Ranch

 Off and on, Two-faced Arlen has been grinding away in Cool Ranch, home of the brave, Bandits, and Buffaloons. It's an amusing configuration after the brief glimpses of Monquista and Valencia, to say the least. But five extra skyways? Dang.

Boot Hill was pretty congested..

I found the El Toro saga to be interesting, albeit long.

Multiple times I found myself doing favors to help out an NPC so as to get to another NPC, do some more favors for him so as to get to yet another NPC, then find out something redemptive in my quest for the Marco Pollo map piece. And then the cycle repeats. With that pace, I was relieved to make a brief stop in my quests at Port Regal.

Indeed, wars have been started in all sorts of peculiar ways.

For instance, a wrong turn effectively started World War I. On June 28th, 1914, a car carrying Austria's Archduke Franz Ferdinand took a wrong turn, providing an assassin the opportunity to lean in the car and shoot the Archduke. This event triggered a mass of confusing alliances and treaties to go into effect, sparking the greatest war in history up to that point. 

In America's own Revolutionary War, hired hands played a part for the opposition - German soldiers, known as Hessians, were loaned to the British Army for King George's use against the colonies.

Brief history lecture aside, Catbeard would make a terribly cute lap cat.

Ft. Elena is chock full of Armada troops obstructing every path. Otherwise, Port Regal is like Marleybone in daytime, something I can't complain about.

Can't beat hoodwinking an old dog, either :P

Buck Bronco's Cave was the only place I really had trouble soloing - particularly the ugly spiders. 1v3 with enemies that are about my health, yeesh.

Ghosts?! I didn't sign up for this O_o

Last but most, the Haunted Skyway.

Pretty much everything I expected.

Okay, not sure if I suspected that..

Going through the Haunted Skyway - which Jim Masterson calls home - got me to thinking about the mysterious world of Darkmoor. It sounds like a great place for Morganthe to roost, bringing me to think that it could be the next Wizard101 world. It's never been mentioned in the game yet, but the last three main worlds (ZF, AV, AZ) weren't either. Monster movie references, anyone?

El Toro is right - one should blow up rocks in style.

Getting there!

Lastly, I joined the first P101 Petnome farming event - against Tyson for his array of Cool Ranch pets. Unlike my various failed attempts at the W101 farming event for the Hollow Knight pet..

 .. I got the Armadillo. Love the 2 epic abilities :D

I realize that simply posting a variety of screenshots and my personal commentary can get pretty dull. I've got some more original content prepared for later posts, some of it already partially written. With a very busy year up ahead, I don't think I can write many new posts, so I'll have to spread them out a bit.

Next up, I've got a post I mainly worked on in July. It's still good though :P

I've also got a small planned giveaway coming up - a small prize at the end of each new post, maybe, I haven't decided on details. I've got plenty of crowns to spare on my main account, so why not? 

Until then,

Happy Questing!