So, another Impalong has come and gone. This one lasted four days (instead of five, of what I assumed). And once again, I feel ..saddened, wishing it lasted longer (and/or wishing I could had done things differently). But this is how I’ve always felt when an Impalong ends, and takes me a week or two until I get back to what I was originally doing (before prepping for it).
This will be no exception. But I’ll get over it eventually (it’ll take time). Now while the event was going on, I was writing down highlights of what was happening on Days 2, 3, and 4 (being the final day) in a .txt file. Now, you might not like what I have to say for Day 3, but it was a mixture of feelings (which the page about it was thrown in the garbage).
Alright, so.. here we go! Starting from Day 2 (Saturday, July 28th);
Not really much happened that day (as far as activities go). I reached 66 Blacksmithing, and even was able to (barely) hit 70QL on two people’s items (so that’s awesome! I can finally hit 70QL in BS! THIS is what I’ve wanted for a VERY.. very long time).
But due to multiple things going on (my grinding queue being ruined by other people imping the same item), this started (of course) making me frustrated. I wanted to reach 70BS so BADLY, and this isn’t helping!!
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I was on the verge of saying “fuck this, I’m going home and working on my own things” (but not before taking 50kg worth of the high quality iron lumps from the BS Mats cart while they weren’t looking).
But seeing someone’s creature cages where the boats are, gave me another idea; “hmm, I wonder if I could ask them to do what I cannot with my crap woodcutting skill.. because I could certainly use it” I asked, and someone offered to do it! All I needed to do was go home, load up the cages, and bring them back. And that is exactly what I did (leaving B2 there to check up on our stuff).
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As DH was heading home to pick up the cages, I as B2 saw someone talking about dropping a bunch of iron chains down, and talking about saccing them to “a god of your choice” to get more sleep bonus. Interesting, very interesting. I definitely want a part of this!
Came back to the site as DH (after naming the cages after me) and unloading them of where I parked, asking again and got someone out here to do it (while I went back to work on BS, just ‘needing a break’ for a bit). Then I asked about the chains to verify this claim, and was told “the mission is over”… fuck, it was a Valrei mission? Then someone said there’s another that’s active, also wanting chains.
They were made, and I tried to throw five in and attempted to sacrifice to a random god.. no Sacrifice option. Read up on the wiki, and saw I need at least 10 Favor. FUCK!! I’m trying to GET RID of being a follower! DANGIT!!
And to add onto it, Virus told me that I can pray to my god five times a day (every 20 minutes) to get 1 point in Favor. He also told me that once I reach 20, that I’ll be able to get something like ‘10% in skill gains’.
Okay, that’s tempting. Maybe it was a good idea of what angry did to DH. I’ll try to do this, when I can. Because 10% in skill gain sounds very awesome. It (and what I’m doing) also poses a major issue (but I’ll get to that later). Let’s say (as always)… I’m unsure; having conflicting thoughts.
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Day 3 (Sunday, July 29th);
A bit more activity this day, things going for (and against) me, but it actually turned out good at the end of the day of learning a trick to help me. I’ll try to cut the ‘against me’ part down quite a bit (as a lot happened).
It was ‘HorseCon’ when I logged in as DH (everyone but three people including myself) was a white horse (or foal). I cracked a few jokes, saying “which one of you is a 5-speed?” One of them was a white drake, and Virus was the Easter Bunny. As I spoke, I got turned into a baby seal.
Someone else wanted Virus to get in a photo with the drake, and I decided to also get in it. But just before the picture was about to be taken, I lost my ‘seal form’ and tried to get out of said picture.. still photobombed it a bit though, heh.
And then, THIS happened a few minutes later! Someone got turned into the Avatar of Vynora while in the imping building, and came out to say hi. I was able to get my own picture of the bitch that pissed me off of not being able to remove pavement (thanks angry :P).
After that (going back to work), I finally pulled off a successful rare roll (and got someone’s shovel to rare! Go me!) …And then, things started getting bitter for me (after eating my last two sleep powders, and getting very little skill with SB on). In the Xanadu Impalong, the host actually felt sorry for me and tried to keep giving me sleep powder to keep me going. This time, that was not the case (nor did I really expect it to happen).
The fact I can get tools to 70, I felt “what am I doing here, when I can do this back home? That was the whole point, to not NEED the impalong!” It’s like I had completely forgot (or lost) the desire to help, and went back to my old ways of wanting to be self-sufficient.
Actually did go home for awhile, but I wasn’t ready to work. Instead I asked for the same iron rune of Fo (that Virus used for the forges to keep them burning 10% longer than normal). Got someone who lives in Cele, and after dealing with several perm issues, I was able to get the rune (and paid 30c for it). I was actually planning to give him 50c for coming out here.
With the rune (and the forge) in place, it was time to ‘imp my own stuff without others touching it'(to get the maximum skill ticks). However, I wasn’t completely done with the Impalong. I remembered someone needing my hammer to imp theirs, and thought of making my own (to imp my own hammer when needed) and getting B2 to take it to the Impalong, to get CoC on it while I stayed home.
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And that is exactly what I did. Got the hammer to almost 71QL (which ended the day).
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Day 4 (FINALE | Monday, July 30th)
Attempting to login B2 to deliver the new hammer to the Impalong to get CoC on it, a hotfix was released for this ‘Modern render’. One of the things it covers; ‘Tweaks to improve FPS performance’, I thought of giving this thing a chance. But I was busy imping my other tools to do so.
Gave B2 the hammer, and my slightly dented carving knife (that I can’t imp as I desperately need to work on WS) to get CoC and WoA on it. I originally wanted him to get it re-imped, but that had changed a bit later.
With him sailing to the site, I started seeing people in Global Kchat talking about the Impalong (as if it’s ending).. this definitely grabbed my attention and PM’d one of the people I remember were there, and asked. Was told “it technically ends today”.
TODAY?! I thought it ended on Tuesday!! With B2 now at the site, he was able to verify (with Virus saying “it’s been known months ago”). Checked my RL calendar, assuming Virus had typo’d (that it ends just before August 1st.. because it just doesn’t make sense it would end so quickly).
I put my hammer down, and my hands on the burning red hot forge (staring at the roaring flames), knowing I had to make a decision; do I help, or do I grind for my own personal reasons? It was there, that I had remembered the promise I made to help during an Impalong. And when they needed more people doing BS there, I grabbed my tools and headed back. The road to 70BS can wait. I made. a promise. to help, and I must keep it. I could use what I learned here, for there.
I learned that imping one item over and over, would give me decent skill in BS (while also not stepping on anyone’s queuing toes). It’s a win-win, for me, and for the person I’m imping their tool. This thing has been verified to work by others, but only if you have high QL, high CoC tools. And this goes for any skill that involves production.
Back to the site, and the place was pretty.. dead. But I picked a forge that had gold things, and did my best to help with it. Even getting this gold lantern to 70, with it nearly 6 in the morning.
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12pm rolled around and I logged in (using the new Modern render). I didn’t notice a difference with the FPS (which is good). It was also pea soup.. extremely foggy (and night). Made my way to the forges, and saw how…. quiet everything was. A majority of the forges were out (except for Blacksmithing 2). Checked Blacksmithing 4 (the forge I was working on last night). Someone else had imped one of the gold items to 70 (and got the ones I did imp to a higher QL). I thought 70 was the limit. *shrug* Oh well. Asked for the forge to be re-lit so I could get to work (as all there was left to imp was a gold cauldron). One of the staff did this (as Virus was offline, spending 17 hours yesterday doing nothing but casting on his alt.. ouch. I feel sorry for him(especially how B2 dropped my stuff in)).
I eventually got the cauldron done (wasted so. much. gold lumps though, but thankfully they aren’t my gold lumps.. heh). I also hit 69 Blacksmithing!! WOOT! But I was pretty sure I wasn’t going to hit 70 (not here, not when there’s very little to imp now). The closest I got it was 69.50. So, yeah. With .50 until 70, I’ll hit it when I’m home.
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As I was imping whatever was left (with a few others), the one that was quiet during her first impalong (the Xan Impalong.. and I really miss that), is once again being overly enthusiastic (Goldfinch). So to explain what’s been going on with the daily activities, Virus has been picking people at random (now Gold), where they must unequip their armor and use Autofight, equip fish, and slap eachother silly. The person watching picks a random body part, and the one that hits it, wins a prize.
I was able to actually participate, not once, not twice.. but four times. I won the first and 3rd time. First prize was a brand new rare huge axe! ..Ohh holy fuck, is it Christmas already?! I NEED this!! 😀 When the Christmas Impalong rolls around, I’m going to try to get them to throw Human’s Demise on it, with all of the other enchants of my current axe (to be my trollkiller)!! YES! Then go up to that mountain in Xan, and make them PAY for killing me (or, at least I hope I can)! To get revenge when I was lost on that mountain with my wagon and bison (and nearly losing them), would be sweet.
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The second, was a kingdom banner of a kingdom I’ve never heard of.
The forth fish-slapping spar, was the battle of the Dragon Warriors (Dragonhead VS Dragonshearts)– the ultimate battle of honor. And, he won. He was also kicking my ass, having high body control but low fight (while I had the reverse… explains why trolls are still a pain in the ass for me(but hopefully with this new axe, that might change)). However, he decided to give his prize to me (another JK banner).
But as the battle was going, an Avatar of Libia (named ‘Venerable Death incarnate’) spawned in the arena. The impalong finale is HERE! We geared up and tried our best to fight this spawned strong mob. Retrograde (the one who spawned it), laughed as he kept healing it, planning to kill us all. And he nearly succeeded, if it wasn’t for the Fo priests able to cast LoF(Light of Fo) on us, healing our unhealable internal wounds. I think I’ll take back them being tree-huggers.
While the battle was happening, a few champ mobs (a champ Rift mob, and a champ troll) were spawned outside of the arena. So the pain continued.
As for me, I NEARLY died several times (when it did a boss attack-like thing on us, attacking everyone evenly). Wow, what a battle that was! And watching it die, was very satisfying. But it wasn’t done, as fog spiders spawned in! FUN! Never have I seen fog spiders being spawned during an impalong. I did my best to stay alive (and using the farmer’s salve I got from someone who’s name I’ve forgotten, to heal the poison wounds).
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Finally the battle was over. And as people started to pack up to leave, a champ Uni spawned in (named ‘Old champion Bedtime’, to show he was done and logged for the night). Pretty cool. We thought of taming it, but since it’s a champ, it’s a bitch to. Ended up killing it.
And that was pretty much it for the impalong. I got DH in a bed (to get as much SB back as possible) while leaving B2 on (to wait for the (hopeful) enchants to my hammer and carving knife). I also wanted to wait ’till the timer ticked down to 4am (when it’ll officially be over).
Virus rambled about trying to advertise the impalong in Trade chat, and was told he couldn’t. He gets how people post in there for the intention of buying and selling, but he says how 90% of Kchat is trash (and would be ignored there). I agreed wholeheartedly.
While I patiently waited, mother nature (IRL) was attempting to push storms toward my house. Started booming outside, and I thought for sure I was going to lose my power. Luckily that wasn’t the case.
With ten minutes until the event was officially over, he managed to enchant both without shattering! Thanked him and said how I wish I could help the priests out. He said no problem, and how he wishes the other priests were on.
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4am rolled in, and I got both DH and B2 in their boats. Thanked Virus and all the staff (including the ones that weren’t on) for the event and the help. And he says (with a chuckle) “yeh GTFO” Hosts in the past have done the same thing, about adding us to the KOS list and stuff. All harmless good fun. 🙂
Overall, despite the rocky start, this is now #2 on the list of Impalongs I’ve been to (since 2010’s). What won this place over the 2017 Christmas Impalong (in Xan), was the number of activities we did. The layout of the impalong was great, and I absolutely loved the easily viewable arena!
Still, 2015’s Christmas Impalong (in Inde) is king (due to its activities of the finale, being unlike anything I’ve done in Wurm).
Time to head home, and figure out just how in the fuck I’m going to be able to grind my mining skill (with the limited resources near my deed at my disposal)… may go to FM’s public mine, or Glasshollow’s. Because I need to find crap quality iron and copper to go from 50 to 70.
I might require help to locate said veins.