Checking things out again

[glibdud]

Hi folks. It's been a number of years since I've played, but since it appears that *maybe* I can get this working on Linux now (having trouble, but had one success yesterday), I'm gonna try to poke my head in and see what's going on.

So... what *is* going on? The most interesting things I remember from when I last played were the server-wide construction projects that popped up occasionally. Anything like that happening these days? Am I still going to be about the only Spearman around? Am I still going to be constantly mistaken for a female elf because of an unfortunate name choice?

In short... what's up?

-Cerryn, Order

[C`gan]

Well, let's see. We still have some WorldProjects going on. The last of them from the original days was where I chose to retire as Team Lead, though that hasn't stopped me from helping out on several others. To my knowledge, the Defender's Gate Wall still needs tier 3 and 4 construction. As for other things, Obsidian Order is dealing with plot and lair building at the moment. The community as a whole is going after Shaloth when they can get groups together. I don't know if you're the ONLY spearman, but it should be interesting to find out. And as for being a female elf, well, that's probably always going to happen until they meet you in person.

[awdz]

*serves cerryn some delicious klava presented with a towel and a curtsy*
welcome home!

[velveeta]

most welcome home, glib!

[glibdud]

Thanks folks. Managed to pop in for a bit yesterday and wander around a little. Killed a couple of spiders... soooo many things I need to relearn.

My former home of Tishlar, which was always something of a ghost town, doesn't even seem to house the ghosts anymore. What communities are active these days?

Also, refresh my memory on a couple of things:

1. Crafting experience... is the amount based on the base amount of the skill in use? So the most efficient way to do it is to get it so that with item bonuses and such, you're just barely at max efficiency on the item?

2. Vault upgrades... are they listed somewhere? I noticed while poking around my vault that my stack limit was pretty much maxed out. I ran one more vault upgrade (VII, I think? I was impressed that I remembered where to find the NPC!), but I didn't see a change. Does it only affect bulk, not stacks?

3. Is info like NPCs and School skill and Recipes and such compiled anywhere?

Thanks. Hope you run into you all in there somewhere.

[velveeta]

hi glib!

well, i can't really comment on population - i am on blight exclusively, and we have traditionally been the lowest populated shard, but you prolly are not too aware of the very rocky past we have had lately......no matter, it is all a bad dream now and hopefully we will have more friends turn up soon. we are already seeing new faces and returning friends, so soon all communities will be fuller. what community is busy now depends on your shard. i believe chaos has the largest population, so it will be busier, of course.

i am not really qualified, as the eternal noob, to comment on gameplay, so take what i say with many grains of salt -
1) i believe that optimal is the fastest way to get xp.......my personal strategy is to use pots and such to be able to use the next resource (for instance, if i can optimally mine granite, i use my pots to move to obs and work it - lots nicey nice levels from that, as i just proved with my mason skewl......). thanx to col's need for granite and obs construction material, i got vel to 91 (so far, will be higher when i am totally done) from 72. i also find that leveling blacksmith to max helped greatly with all the other 'hard' material skewls (the stone, metal, and wood skewls). when i go back to doing skewl things with vel, i am gonna max gatherer and miner - should be no sweat to grind resources for the other skewls and thereby be able to level faster......

2) i think you get one last boost to vault stack cap but mostly it will be bulk, when you get into the upper tier upgrades......yeah i know more stack would be nice too, but can there ever be enough storage anyway? full vault, full plot, when i get another plot that one will be full when finished too......

3) there are several places to go for info, altho it seems we have lost gamer's info, which is the place i used most......
stale popcorn has an awesome wiki for us, very much info can be found there, but it is by no means complete - stale would like any help he can get, i believe: http://community.istaria.com/forum/s...=istarian+wiki

there are other excellent resources for our home, which peeps will no doubt post, as i can't remember them at the moment.....


be sure to let someone know if you run across something that is not listed on any info site - we all need to help flesh out istaria for other newcomers!!!

[glibdud]

One last question (maybe): I remember a custom map that had all sorts of resource locations and the like on it. Does such a thing still exist?

EDIT: Scratch that. Think I just found it.