Happy April Fool’s Day Everyone! :)
I guess I’ll go first with my entry. I have done several runs in the past few weeks, but for various reasons, I only have a single entry: DSPForgotTheName. It is at this point that I would really like to say a BIIIIIG “THANK YOU!!!” to Eze for the click refill on this character! In my previous post I couldn’t express my gratitude properly. It is a HUGE honour to have received your first-ever manual click-addition ingame! Not only was it of incredible help, too, but it felt out of this world to get such a boost! Thank you once again Eze!
My choices for the riddles are as follows:
“On the day of fools...”
-Easy, that’s any and every day for me!
“Don a digger's cloak of invisibility”
-Mole Hide. I’m just a simple digger. A mole. I may have some skill in wizardry and my ice shards bring all the boys to the yard… but I’m a simple stone. Not the sharpest tool in the shed. So I don’t know about any cloaks or magic items. But as a Mole, I can Hide! Now you see me, now you…ouch! What was that for?
“Hold some fancy dinnerware in the hand that's never wrong”
-Silver Plate. I know, I know. Crystal plate is so much fancier! But by the time I got to the store, the other contestants bought them all up. Some things, money can’t buy. Even if you’re a digger. So I had no choice, but to go for something cheaper, and when I finally found it…the centaurs weren’t all too keen on lending me any. It wasn’t an easy persuasion, but we worked thing out. Now if only I had any teeth remaining to eat from it.
“Grasp a rock with a low pH in the hand that remains”
-This acid cryst…oh, wait, noooooooo! It decomposed in the rain! Now all I have left is a bunch of water around me, and this residue. Decomposium. Or Composium. Or Billy. I don’t know. I’ll call it Billy. After the baby gorilla I caught in mission 10. I used his tears to create that beautiful acid crystal. My wife loved it. She always tells me to take an umbrella, too. She is going to kill me.
“Wrap your souls with the largest organ from a dinosaur's cousin”
-Lizard Skin. A few years back, Lorden withdrew my crocodile-hunting permit by permanently locking up my hunter, Crocodile Dundee. Seriously, joke aside, I can’t access that character or even the account anymore, after not checking up on him for too long. Must have starved. Or gone feral. Or both. Or just got a wife who’s a member of PETA, so no more crocs…or even chicken nuggets for him anymore. Anyways. I respect our one and only King so much, his word is Law in my eyes. So I chose lizard skin. Not the kind that some filthy casual would accidentally stumble upon in a king-mission-related graveyard or something… I skinned a real live, fully grown Adult Basilisk for it! I even laid down my shields while salvaging the beast. Huh? What? Whaddya mean those bodyshields contain traces of crocodile?! Those are m-m-m….m-m-moonshields! Really! I swear!
“And crown yourself with your most precious gem.”
-In all honesty, I feel perfectly comfortable with having not one, but both of my most precious gems located in an entirely different environment as to the one my forehead could have to offer. Due to various reasons of conflicting interests, I would refrain from dislocating said entities, and look to some other form of more “material wealth” to demonstrate to our Great Ruler! During my many travels, I’ve unearthed diamonds. Very precious gems, selling for a very pretty penny! I’ve also unearthed hyperium. Whatever this substance is, be it gem or material, I also possessed a number of them. There is no ore or gem that others may acquire and I have not yet already done so. Even this weird putty I got from one of the neighbouring isles. But there was this one little wonder I stumbled upon that is so rare, that I have never seen it again during my 80.000 steps in the world. No matter how hard or where I dug, it is not to be found. So it is my Treasure! What? Yeah-yeah-yeah, I heard you. You say you rid yourself of these by the thousands in the general store for 500 a piece?! But how do you know your treasure is like mine? I’m a digger, and I know a REAL treasure when I see it. I’m keeping mine. Very safe. I’ve locked it away very securely in my backpack. And I’m not about to risk pulling it out into the rain, right on top of my head, without an umbrella…after what happened to Billy. Sorry. However, I do have something, a gem, that would catch the eye of any emperor! It is a quite recent find – it just so happened into my hand while gallivanting around the centaur’s place. This thing is so precious it doesn’t even have a price tag on it! Behold the Ruby Gemma!
It was a crazy ride! Enjoyed every bit!
I understand that at a first glance, some of my choices may seem particularly unorthodox, both in items, and the relatively lengthy attempt compared to other participants. Indeed, there were two, closely related reasons I chose this path to “compete”.
The First reason is, I essentially “disqualified” myself from the main prize reward the very moment the event went live, due to the fact of one single shovel being issued under Royal Patent. The simple truth is that this time is not my turn to take it away. So, I made sure that I would not go for the most obvious selection pool of items.
Although I have not one, but two serious long-term digger projects that hope to achieve a diamond shovel at some point in the future, and these two are running only besides nearly two dozen other minor diggers, well…I do plan on putting on my war-paint in the future! ;) However, currently, it is not through mining that I maintain my economy. What’s more: I already own a diamond shovel on one of my diggers – who has been, and will be busy doing nailthieving on TA, and spending about 4 months on the main island once he hits lvl 42 in the very near future. I’m not even using the one I have currently. Yet, a Diamond Shovel is an incredible treasure to behold, and really helps those who actively dig. So, if there’s only one out there for all of us, then I humbly step down from the real fight. The decision itself came shortly before the event. Upon anticipation of the start and nature of the event, I boasted to others to make the most out of the event, and potentially arming up my digger fleet to the teeth with DS’s…but I also volunteered to completely withdraw, or at least to botch my attempt(s) in favour of others who would also be thrilled to be the happy owners of such a relic, should there be a limited supply of shovel rewards.
At first, I must confess, I was a bit upset, and expressed little personal interest in the event. But I did have a few suggestions for those who were interested, and more importantly, a somewhat deeper understanding of where, when, what, and how to do to optimize things in the lower levels for certain builds and certain aims. I was more than happy to lend this experience out – it was my way of participating in the more heated part of the live competition. And in the process, I was getting ever-more fired-up, too. I was really getting addicted to it. Also, it was somewhere in the middle of march that I added one and one together, and realized where my share of the fun really lays: the 40k clicks. With the option of more to be added. Per character. And while there’s a limit to entries per digger, there’s no limit on entries per player.
This brings me to the second reason for my choices: Upon realizing just how good we’re having it, and what TRUE potential lies in the event other than just a DS, I really wanted to unleash the kid inside of me, and to challenge myself to a “hardcore version” of this already awesome event.
My primary focus was now on filling a certain gap in my fleet now that we have so many clicks offered to us as a gift. I wanted to do this in the most fun, and challenging way possible. To combine my recently - developed love for “non-traditional”, “concept-character” builds and the incredibly nostalgic feeling of being able to relive my nearly - forgotten past, when I had but a single character, with no outside support from other chars. DSPForgotTheName is an embodiment of it all. All that was left was the challenge element. Which showed itself soon enough.
After a few shorter and longer discussions with fellow players, two of us ended up confused on “where exactly the 40k clicks are supposed to go”. Everything seemed just too obvious, and hardly any combination that we could possibly come up with required anywhere near a quarter of the click allowance. We were suspicious. Even after calculating for errors, like nearly endless hunting for a forgotten or lost item, non-stop digging, etc… we just couldn’t make it out. We were actively screening larkinorguide, our inventories, shops, the market, everything, just to find what on earth may be needed. Then it hit me like a brick. “The Silver Plate! A part of Parcilo’s Grail, the weapon used to fight Atworth!” We started calculating, and I immediately launched another test-character to do some build-testing and an approximation of required clicks and errors along the way. It became obvious after a while that aiming for this was actually well beyond the 40k click limit (it’s all fun and games until lvl 30, that part is actually doable in 40k clicks. But what comes from there on gets rough, as two pretty big walls actually hit you from nowhere if you didn’t do your research right – which I didn’t). But by that point I was lost to reason – I found that bit of challenge I was missing, and I was hell-bent on achieving it. In all honesty, I was a bit cheeky, already calculating for a refill, and thus a higher-level end-result character when the event ends. I only dared hope for a full refill in my wildest dreams and was mostly expecting some negotiations and coming out somewhere between in terms of extra clicks. Once again, thank you, Eze! In all honesty though, there was one thing I didn’t calculate with, at least, not in terms of numbers. My character’s strength up to lvl 30 would suddenly be buffeted by the general buff monsters have from lvl 30 upwards (you really need a solid hitpoint pool to be effective, otherwise you will rapidly start losing fights against +4’s and even +3’s, at least at ballooning health). Due to this, I barely pulled off getting my hands on the silver plate before I would run out of clicks, even with the super-refill. I have about 2.000 clicks left. It was a close fit.
The silver plate was just part of the challenge. The main goal was to come up with an answer to all the riddles, including interpretations to the later hints, too. The items should and would be both very likely incorrect in terms of the competition in at least a few cases (and thus, increasing the chances of other players), yet still perfect solutions in their own, weird way:
Silver Plate: In all honesty, I found the coincidence of “finding dinnerware so high up” so brilliant and yet so utterly stupid at the same time, that I hoped Eze didn’t even remember this item being in existence, let alone choosing it as an answer. I was hoping for similar results as when someone asks you to let a fresh breeze in the room, and you blast the wall open with a cannon, all smiling and thumbs-up. The true reason was, the ultimate goal being, to find a single high-level item that is suitable to be either a valid backup to the theory of needing approximately 40k clicks… or a blunt excuse to ask for even more, if the opportunity presents itself. Of course, here it has to be pointed out that the 40k click estimate is well-understood to contain a buffer for mistakes, and sub-optimal levelling, but we still took the liberty of viewing this sum as a challenge to veteran contenders. And that it truly was – I nearly failed with twice the amount, lol!
Ruby Gemma: going with treasure was my initial solution as no one came up with it during the planning phases. But as the event drew on, I was more and more worried about this being a possibly good candidate, so I moved on to composium on the head. The concept was based on everything being a gem if it was related to digging, and precious being a reference to price. No one said anything about needing to dig it or forge it. As long as only diggers can get their hands on it, it's a gem, lol. This, and the other concept being that hopefully I would overthink this one, too, hehe. However, when I wanted to somehow put a twist on the all-too-obvious acid crystal in the next part, I actually ended up intending the composium in the left-hand slot, so the head became free. I swiftly changed it to this also-mission-item, which…I confess… this time it was me who completely forgot about its existence, in turn. Serves me right! Still more rare than hyperium, though. :D
Also, an interesting fun-fact: The hint of needing a certain allocation of stats was all-too-dominant in my quest for items. The surpriseing fact is that both the Silver Plate and the Ruby Gemma (and anything from missions beyond M38) are hidden behind a wall of at least 57 luck. If you're running a no-market, every-character-for-himself event, you need to dig out a hyperium to construct Ogoshi's glass sword. Therefore, technically, both the Ruby Gemma and Silver Plate match the hint in a strict fashion.
Composium: This was the item which I initially linked to the hint “you need a certain stat distribution for it”. Not only does it need high luck to get the elements…you also need mana from IQ. At the character levels obtainable during the event, you actually need at least a moderate investment into IQ too, not just luck.
Lizard Skin: Crocodile Skin was the first thing that came in mind, but that again seemed a bit too obvious, and easily reachable. Lizard skin was the next-best-thing, and similarly to the Silver Plate, it was supposed to be found way further out than the simplest and perhaps most correct answer. The only general catch to it is that it can be collected prematurely in M17. So in this case, although it means no technical difference, I made sure to kill a basilisk for it (hardcore challenge mode). It was a young basilisk first, but when I killed my first adult version of that poor critter, my pride tempted me to switch the trophies. A VERY wrong way to get the wrong answer still right. *cries in basilisk*
Mole Hide: I’ll be honest. This was not my initial choice, up until the very last moment. Most literally. I was planning on the dimensionblade. As an alternative to the fan-favourite antiballast, or the one we “equip without equipping”. The dimensionblade was the perfect candidate for an ultimate fail in this slot, both providing grounds for a good laugh and for a flex of achievement at best. It has nothing to do with a cloak, nothing to do with invisibility, but it has all to do with a digger, and again needs mana. It was intended as a double - testament to the stat distribution concept, needing luck and IQ, besides the composium. I was going to have some silly flavour – text about originally having the perfect, brilliant cloak, but it cloaked my dagger and I stabbed myself with it – now the cloak has been sent to another dimension, and all I have now is this dagger sticking out of my tummy. I was just in the middle of scrolling down in my house for the required items, when this single mole hide came into my view. After weeks of the event, I was struck by lightning. I just sat there, and gazed blankly at my screen, with shivers running down my spine. After coming to my senses, I immediately shared my revelation with the only other player I could contact at the moment, then still hysterically laughing, equipped this last item. This happened just hours ago, so the whole sensation is still so fresh. While writing these words, I have sincere worries about this item actually being a spot-on bulls-eye, but this is just too funny to pass at this stage. Just writing these last few sentences choked me up with giggles again.
I believe that this event was a superbly entertaining and engaging one, with an already obviously great reward. The further, more subtle possibilities this event offered were also incredible, perhaps on par with the main reward, the diamond shovel itself: If anyone wants to or wanted to create a digger, or any kind of character from scratch, and have a clickpool worth many months of waiting at your immediate disposal… and all this for the first… and hopefully not last time in the existence of the English version of Larkinor… then by all means, NOW is the time to register them, and play them out to one’s heart’s content. I was seriously considering rerolling a few backup-accounts with “only” 10k/character banked clicks, but in all honesty, my cheeks are already blushing from how much I abused this generous offer already. I really loved this event and am now feeling both sorry and guilty for not seeing how good it the concept was on first sight. I hope there will be more to come!
