The Jade Storm

13:33 @jmkizer LIES! ;) #
13:26 @jmkizer and hell, the state health plan is "virtually" spam these days ;D #
13:26 @jmkizer i set mine to very aggressive and it doesn't seem to have changed anything =/ #

10:57 I sure am enjoying my abundance of viagra spam that I didn't get with puremessage/m+ guardian. =( come on postini, work with me here. #

I’ve had a crapton of fun with Graedus these last couple weeks. So much so that I’ve barely been in the moors. On top of that one of my friends from work is now playing and so I’ve been grouping with him on lower level stuff with my rune keeper (and champ atm because he’s working on some of the epics that the rk is beyond). Anyway, I’ve gotten to do and see things in Moria that I never tried before. Like Skumfill or whatever it’s called. Had some breeze GS runs, had some really difficult and/or odd ones. Got my first piece of moria armor. The last GS run we had seemed to be dropping second age stuff left and right — got me a second age lore master book out of it which I am highly pleased with. I cracked open my relic things I won in a lotto and made that book pretty damned awesome,. I’m closing in on level 59 — should have enough medallions for some upgrades in armor as I approach it. Hoping to do some more skumfill at some point and join up for more runs I’ve never done. DD, 16th, watcher, to name a few. (not to mention the ones in mirkwood but Graedus isn’t there yet) I had a 700,000 xp item rune to apply to my 2nd age book which was sweet. =) Now I’m working on getting my old books up to level 31 so I can deconstruct them and get the “max loot” off of them. (I don’t really understand what’s with the 1s but still) Overall I’m having a blast. I’m glad they’re not downing the servers over the holiday weekend but I -am- looking forward to the update. =)

13:18 RT @pittman Oh no.. According to metroNY, Android users have the LEAST sex in their lives, and have less attractive photos than iPhone users #

So I played the hell out of Graedus this weekend. I got him from lvl 52 to lvl 56 and now he’s in Lothlorien. I learned a couple of interesting things along the way:

1. The “hump” came at a different point. On Ikaelus it was around lvl 60 when I felt like “ug…” towards leveling more. On Graedus it came at lvl 50. After I got into Moria I felt like the quests were too tough for me to solo, and couldn’t find groups. So I went back out to eregion and wasn’t getting jack for xp so I was kind of annoyed. I took it very slow in the mines and got past some initial quests and really got going after that so — once that picked up I was golden for steady leveling and progress. I even found some fun people to team with along the way. =)

2. I “know” the mines now. When I came through with Ikaelus the first time it was all very big and confusing and new. Now that I’m coming through again I see if with a new light — I’ve gone over it once, now I’m getting to really pay attention to what I’m looking at. I really like the layout of the mines and how their twisty pathways and such really -feel- like mines. I’ve been to many parts of it and seen many sights which are quite interesting or pretty. I have not yet been to the endless stair but I saw it from across the lake. Neat. =) That place is rough. lol

3. Graedus has a harder time with higher level creatures. With Ikaelus I could generally hit just about anything. With Graedus I find I miss red enemies a -LOT- with my spells, and orange a little bit. I doubt agility effects spells so I’m assuming this is all level based.

4. Not having the ability to port really does make me concentrate on an area more. Kind of a “take down as many quests here as I can” kind of thing — since I can’t just leave and come back whenever I want. (without having to wait or beg a hunter)

5. The intensity of the mines — and the intensity I know that comes with Mirkwood — makes me realize just how lovely of a break from intense the golden woods are. I love the ability to just do kinda frivilous (sp?) things for a little bit to level.

All in all I’m having a lot of fun with my LM. Now I’ll be watching for GS runs so I can work on some good armor and working my way up the ladder. I also know that the quests in Mirkwood are pretty fun (imo) so I don’t think “time to go into mirkwood” will be a “hump” for me anymore. ‘cept for that damn blasted intro part. lol Who knows might be interesting as a LM instead of a hunter.

On creep side, my spider is almost to r5, and my warleader is on the way. Once that happens I’ll be on my defiler primarily. However since I’ve been reminded how much I like the main game, I may be out there less. =) We shall see.

12:23 Plumbing Issues: The Joys of Home Ownership #

16:31 Never thought I would see the day when my phone regularly has a lot of slowdown. Progress I guess. #
14:41 It's not every day that the name of a machine matching the username causes problems for a piece of software. Quality coding to the max! #

So I’d been finding it realllllly hard to level Graedus. I am longing to get to Lothlorien with him and work on stuff out there, felt that was great xp, and I really enjoy the area. (not that I don’t love the mines too) That said, every quest I tried I seem to lose miserably. It was really getting on my nerves… Couple that with two things — one being a little tired of the earlier quests for the time being so I paused leveling my lower level folk, and two wanting to wait for the next update anyway to see how things feel in the early areas — I am left with moors and raiding with Ikaelus, or moors with my creeps. The latter is what I’ve been focusing on. Recently my kin/rl friends have been popping on more often. We also, as a group, finished up epic 1 on Ikaelus, which means I’m switching to Graedus for future teaming endeavors. (we had 3 hunters out of the group of 5 yeesh) Part of that requires me to get him leveled a bit more to realllly run some of the fun stuff. I got him up to level 53 and am pushing for 55 so I can head to the golden woods. That said I am finding that part of my problem with Graedus in the mines is that I wanted to take things too quickly. Ikaelus has a bit more leeway when it comes to pushing through harder quests and wailing on stuff. Graedus is not as good at that and so I need to mostly focus on quests that are around my level instead of way above. So far this is working out well so I hope I can continue to find some good quest choices and continue to “slow it down”. lol

09:25 Bless you 96 rock for filling my drive in this morning with Hendrix, STP, Skid Row, and Nirvana. Great start to the day! #

13:54 @axelseaa =D I'm less than pleased with the conference room support atm. What are you going to do to fix that for me? ;D kidding! #
13:15 Dd-wrt beta support, or stick with my shitty stock firmware.... Hard to make the call #

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16:12 Well fuck you too outlook. Every time I give you a chance you piss on my shoes. #
13:59 Trying out Trillian 5! This is going to be -awesome- or it's all @axelseaa's fault. #

12:52 @michaelsigler congrats man! #

19:01 @soniabunny lol yes you are probably quite right =) #
16:06 Why does it seem like the bulk of the times I plan on avoiding campus like the plague, something breaks and I have to go to campus? =/ #

As is typical for me, I tend to set arbitrary goals for all of my characters. These goals do have rhyme or reason to them. My freeps I got all to level 20. Then 21 when I found out that one extra level meant better lottery options. 35 was my next goal but that one has gone a little stale lately as I got temporarily tired of running pve quests.

So have a similar goal for creepside atm. That goal is — I’m going to get all of my creeps up to minimal rank 5. Why? ’cause the consensus seemed to indicate that that’s a good “your creep is highly useful” level. By that time I typically have the bulk of my maps too. And I agree, when I get to r5 on a creep I feel like they are really someone I can deploy as needed, not a potential liability or “oh can i bring my greenie out?” type of thing. Ishtiluk my defiler is my “leader” so to speak. Though right now The Vorpal Cloud (my personal tribe) is led by Sranakh — wish I could trade leadership over. =/ No matter. Ish is r6 and will be my Ikaelus on this side — he will always be the first to things and be the top of the food chain of my chars. Sranakh, Logarat, and Tolorath are all r4. Tolorath I am spitting distance of r5 atm and I’m having tremendous fun with him — but I’ll put him on ice but a bit after he gets it. =) Then I’ll finish up Log and Sra. After that I have my spider and my warleader. Fangborn was my first creep period, but also not heavily played yet. (my spider) As for the warleader I’ve barely even tried him. So I’ll probably do Fangborn next. We’ll see.

Other plans I have? Well, when the new intros and such come out I’m considering creating one freep and one creep on a couple of other servers. Windfola (sp?) was the very first server I created a char on, until I found out my friends were on Arkenstone. I might recreate one there — not sure how the “feel” of that one is. I’ll definitely create one on Landy ’cause there’s obviously a lot that goes on there. MIGHT create one on Brandy, ’cause apparently I’m not cool unless I have one there. hahaha kidding. Just interested to see the level of busy-ness. Not sure that there’s any others at the moment. What do y’all think about these? Yay or nay? Anyone a big Windfola fan and wanna tell me about it? =)

12:42 @jthurtea lol nice =) #
09:00 RT @soniabunny Digging @jthurtea's suspenders!!! --- pics or it didn't happen! #

17:35 @michaelsigler meaning you could have been watching other quality players out there. ;D still that's cool! didn't know you could watch! #
17:33 @michaelsigler LOL why did you watch me suck it up? ;) #
11:29 @jmkizer that sounds about right #

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09:50 @chking42 was she unforgettable though? #

09:46 @chking42 =D what does that mean? the switch is approved to just the document is approved? #

10:21 =( groupwise i'd like access to my mail. kthx #

23:38 @axelseaa haven't tried it yet -- what don't you like about it? #
15:37 gee, when i set up a prescription pickup for a date and time, walgreens actually makes sure to get it done when they have spare time. #