So apparently the Impalong hasn’t ‘officially’ started yet (even though today is the day). If I had known this, I would had arrived today instead of yesterday. It starts in an hour as I type this, which gives me time to do so.
(Rewriting this from all the screaming I was doing)
Logged in today, expecting to see local filled with a ton of people. Instead, there were only two… the hell? Isn’t this the day? Where IS everyone?? Was told it hasn’t started yet. Ok, so we’re waiting for VirusMD to get on. Fine.
One of the staff here threw in some lumps in a large chest (where the Blacksmithing forges are), and then lit the forge. I’m thinking “uhh.. okay! I guess I’ll get to work!” and logged in B2, having him bring over the lamps. He threw one in while I grabbed 10 iron lumps from the cart, and waited for both to get glowing.
Sorted out my toolbar and was about to hammer the lump into the lamp, when perms got in the way. So we can’t even work; have to wait for Virus to get on. The staff member was very sorry for the delay, and I said it’s fine. Got B2 back in the second bed and logged him out.
With my food bar getting quite low, I wondered if they actually had any larders here. There was one right outside the imp building to the west. Perfect. Went over to it, tried to eat.. no perms. Okay, this is starting to get annoying. It’s like the host can’t even trust us to eat, let alone work without him being on. Or, maybe he just forgot to set perms.
About a half an hour passes, and I notice he’s on. He says the larder should now be accessible. I walk over, try to eat.. “that would be very bad for your karma”. Someone else claims they can eat (and I even see it in the event log).
I tried doing a full logout (waiting for myself to log ‘out of the world’ while being out of the game). Come back in a few minutes later, try again.. again with the “that would be very bad for your karma”. What the fuck is going on?!
Then he tells me to try the one upstairs in the Inn (top floor of the Friendship Inn), and I was able to eat from that with no problem. So it’s some sort of perm bug. Lovely. And the only way to fix it is to push the larder into a building.
So with Virus on, we’re still waiting to get to work. Someone says “there’s not enough mats to imp with”, he says “I know, because it’s not time yet”.. what do you mean? You’re on, so let’s get to work. What are we waiting for now?
He says that he’s got a few things he needs to get done, yet we’re having to wait ’till 4pm before we can get to work.
…Is this Wogic, or the result of bad planning? The only words going through my head are “why”, “what”, and “this is stupid”. Feel like we’re being punished, because the host isn’t ready. We’re ready, let’s get to work… nope, nope. Gotta wait as if it’s nearly Christmas and we’re all children. “this wouldn’t be fair to others” also comes to mind, and goes back to the whole ‘being treated like children’ thing.
Already, this is looking to be the worst Impalong I’ve ever been to (and it hasn’t even started yet).
—
And we’re going. Got back by 3:55, expecting to see “is it time to imp yet?!” Instead, I actually saw people imping away. Finally!! Now to get to work.
So far (from the rocky start), it’s actually been quite good.. in ways, more than good. It went from bad, to OK, good, somewhat funny, very good (then slowly back down the ramp to bad).
-The ‘somewhat funny’ part was during the 2nd time a GM (that wasn’t Enki) dropped off a ‘basket of goodies’ at the arena. I’m imping away (trying not to get distracted as my SB ticks away), then suddenly my view gets changed to where it looks like I have a long blueish nose. Then I realize “hmm, I’ve been turned into a whale. Ok” B2 was on at the time, doing his usual errands for me (checking to see if things I cannot imp, are being imped), and I had him run over and take a few pictures of myself flopping around as a whale infront of a forge. Quite humorous. And when the illusion wore off, 1/4 of them were all “awww, I didn’t get to see it! Did someone take screenshots?” The third one B2 took I showed it to them, and they laughed.
-The ‘very good’ is seeing my horseshoes fully imped (not by me), and I’m all “B2! Get these things up to the top floor and get them WoA’d STAT!!”… and they pull it off, BETTER than expected! 81 WoA on every shoe!! WOOT! FUCKUP, UNDONE! 😀 I wanted B2 to hug the priest(s) that did it, for you have saved my exploration ‘career’!! And this, can never be repaid.
And that’s not all. I managed to pull off my first. EVER. 70QL imp (on my large anvil)! Literally, right. on. the. NOSE (70.00QL), with 61 BS at the time! That is awesome. And finally (comparing this to the Exo Impalong), I got my small and large anvils CoC enchanted (which will boost my BS when making things like door locks, nails and stuff for the deed)!
Then the slope started slowly going back down to ‘bad’, when a third GM (that also wasn’t Enki) filled up the arena with ‘treats’. With all of my “mission critical” things imped and placed back in the boat… I had to open my mouth with the fighters needing help (instead of keeping quiet), saying “I’d help, but I just recently got my gear re-imped, and I want to keep it like that (outside of an arena).” I expected them to say “that’s OK, we got this”, instead it got pretty ugly, with a few of them saying I got ripped off when I got my reimps done.
Hell, I know I did (especially for the axe), but I was desperate. 5s to re-imp it, when it only costed me 2.5s to re-imp my copper chain set? I already realized that. But (and I was about to say this too.. but I actually was smart and stopped myself) “but that’s what happens when I’m too lazy to stand infront of a forge, to grind chainsmithing and weaponsmithing”.
10 seconds after I was about ready to say it, the unnamed GM spawns in a sea serpent, with a nearly ironic name; ‘Beanie‘ (just get rid of the ‘a’ and it would be perfect).
*sigh*.. Facepalmed infront of the forge and put my hammer down. Fine, so you’re taunting the Dragon Warrior inside me. That’s actually a good way to entice me to fight.
Time to gear up and say “fuck it, I’m going in” and helped to kill the serpent– achieving max combat focus and making the killing blow.
More mobs spawning in.. nogumps. Can’t solo nogumps, they hit 3x harder than a troll (and have a large attack radius). Even attempting to DPS, nearly ended in failure. But hey, we were able to see the new Death tab. Not sure if this means server-wide deaths (like if a noob died to a wolf on a road, on the other side of the server from me).
This fight went on and on, to where I was starting to get bored with seeing mobs I couldn’t solo with mobs that I could. Needed healing, people telling me where they are (which is IN the arena, with the mobs.. okay, that’s just fucking hilarious). Actually, they’re to the sides in safe areas, and they have enchanted grass (which according to one, guarantees the heal instead of being based on RNG, and increases the speed of wrapping the wound). And it works.
Huh, this makes grinding meditation more, almost seem worth it.
Then it ended up with just me prancing around the arena while riding on Uma, trying to look for an opening. Got bored and went back to imping without a word. If you all don’t wanna help anymore, why am I bothering then? Maybe they were too embarrassed to be around me.
Ehh, whatever. I got lamps that aren’t going to imp themselves.