Still at 49 days...

Well, my progress the last two nights have been so slight, that despite playing for 2 days, I still am forecasting 49 days to reach level 70. Its frustrating for sure, but the last two nights have been almost counter-productive with heading over to Victoria and finding mixed golems to be lukewarm and Taurospears to still be mostly deadly. I finished the night by heading back to El Nath and fought a few jetis before signing off for good. The plan was to fight them for a bit with Vicism (the sin I'm frequently partied with), but given that it is already the weekend, I have a feeling we'll end up heading back over to hectors or somewhere similar to avoid the crowds.

I managed to sell off my disgrace of an attack glove for 2.5 million. With the 13.5 million invested in the scrolls, plus the 500k for the glove itself, that puts me at a loss of 11.5 million from the action... rough to be sure. On a more positive note, I'm already well on my way to recovery - having someone win a bid on the jeweled katar for 900k, someone bidding on my Umber Shouldermail (current bid of 200k) and someone bidding on my one of my Serpent's Coils (current bid of 550k).

I'll probably put a few more things up on Basil for the weekend and see what comes of it. I'd rather sell them than go to the NPC, but I need to build up my cash a fair amount as well as free up some space in my inventory.

In other news, the CoCo (Core Coliseum at boards.wizards.com) is participating in the UnCon Convention, and I've submitted a strong melee build for it. It'd be nice to win, but since I'll likely end up being one of the judges, I will probably abstain from voting in the melee section.

Not sure what I expect to accomplish this weekend. I'm sitting at around 32% and in the past few weekends I've been gaining in the realm of 60-80% - so I can hope to finish off the level. To be more realistic, it might not happen until next week some time though.

Mixed Golems

I only managed to play for about an hour last night, having been involved for most of the night with cleaning of one sort or another and being overly frustrated with how my kids were behaving. Setting down to play some Maple Story did help to relax me, though, so that improved my mood once the kids did go to sleep and laundry was completely folded.

I decided to head back to Victoria to work on a few quests, figuring I would also give mixed golems a try. The first quest I decided to do was the 99 curse eye quest, but I apparently had already done it, so I've started the 999 one. I won't likely finish it any time soon, but it'll help for those times I'm passing through - just like the other similar quests.

Mixed golems weren't bad, but I think the place could really benefit from another warrior on the screen, because otherwise it is a fair amount of walking back and forth. Although I only gained about 4% while there, I think it is a reasonable exp rate. I'm still not sure if it is profitable, but I'll take a better measure of that the next time I play some.

I did finish one sale last night - the 2nd set of blue jangoon shoes I had sold for 115k, which is a spot better than the NPC value of 35k - so I'll take it. This morning I noticed bids on both my katar and my clench - so assuming they finish and I can find the buyers - that should help as well. I've got probably another dozen or so trades to finish up - but it might have to wait until tomorrow or Saturday, since most of my trades seem to finish up on the weekends.

Since I didn't play much last night, I'm on pace to reach level 70 in 49 days...

Solid progress

Got another solid night of hectors last night, partied with 2 others for most of the night. Earning 20% or so, I managed to recover much of the funds that I lost from the other night (well, okay only 1-2 mil of the 15 mil that I lost...) and a lucky trade-in netted me another Overall Dex scroll - so that should help immensely. I traded in a total of 2000 tails yesterday after accumulating them in 2 days.

Other than that, I still seem to be accumulating oodles of green napoleons - having found ~10 in the last 2 days. Other drops include a well above average magic defense Flame-Golden Circlet and a 77atk Gold Crow (76atk is average). In addition I sold a few of my extra drops to make room on my mule - so that's helping a little.

20% into the current level helped out, and I'm on pace to hit level 70 in 48 days or so. It would be great to maintain that rate, but we'll have to see how it goes.

Level 63!

Progress last night was great, but my money took a substantial hit at the same time.

I managed to get my 4th 60% glove attack scroll, so I decided I would bite the bullet and try to scroll my dark clench. The first one succeeded, but the 2nd and 3rd both failed. Now I have a +2 atk 2 slot Dark Clench that I'm trying to sell. Using my last scroll on it would be futile and even worse - if it failed would leave me in an almost desperate state. I'm currently sitting on about 5 million, so I need to be pretty conservative with money if I am going to plan to get a better glove any time soon.

I did manage to hit level 63 last night though, so I am officially done maxing out Power Guard and now get to focus on Booster for the next few levels. At level 1 now though, it is not usable. Next level I might give it a try and see how much it helps and then at 65, it will last 70 seconds, which is long enough I think to use on a regular basis.

I also started using power guard during training last night. I'm not entirely convinced that it helped because of the magic attacks of the hectors, but it made me feel a little better when I did bump into them - and it definitely helps against pangs. I really don't know why I didn't consider using it before. 40% damage reduction is really nice - no matter what way you look at it.

In other news, I got my mage to level 29 finally and actually spent a few minutes training with him last night at Boars, looking for weighted earrings. After a dozen or so - I managed to score a pair - so I just need a few more firewood and leaves to finish the quest for the leaf earrings (yes - useless for a mage pretty much - but whatever...). I still need to finish the pig headband quest, but I only need 4 more pig heads for that. My hope is to get him to the level to get the glove attack scrolls and hope to get a few 60% scrolls from it. Even the 10% would help at this point. He's pretty boring to play in my opinion though, so I don't know how much I'll be doing that.

Hectors, more Hectors and more Hectors

Well it has been an eventful weekend, and not just because I spent a good amount of time training. I managed to get a few trades done and now have 3 60% glove attack scrolls and the dark clench that I need to scroll. Unfortunately, I'm now "broke" with only ~8 mil to work with. I've got bids in for other scrolls to get, but until those trades come in, I don't necessarily expect them.

I've been tracking my exp rate for the past month or so. Not so much in terms of hours, but in terms of actual days - including days that I don't even play. This will help me estimate when I will be reaching the next milestone - in this case, 3rd job at level 70.

For the past 27 days, I have earned exp at a rate of 13.2% per day. Although I tend to have a greater rate on the weekend per day, this is tempered with short playing times during the week and that's about where it has stayed consistent. Right now, I'm 68% of the way through level 62, so I "should" be hitting level 70 in around 55 days - so about 2 months. Seems quite a distance, and with the steady increase in exp requirement to level, it might be considerably longer than that - but we'll just have to wait and see.

I got a random trade while I was in El Nath with someone wanting to sell an 84atk Red Katana. His original price was 2.5mil - which I pretty much laughed at. I countered with 500k, he responded with 1.5mil and quickly put up 1.2mil. I countered again with 750k and he came down to 900k - which I accepted. I was half-planning to not bother with it, since my 90atk, +6 str neocora will be fine for those levels, but if this one scrolls a little better - so much the better for me.

I've got 3 or 4 10% helmet scrolls already won - so I just need to find them. Once I do - I should be able to work on the crusader helms to improve what I've got. I probably should get another 10 or so, but if the first is lucky and scrolls well, I won't necessarily need them.