Organica

09/13/10 Monday. Did a single TF tonight, Moonfire in Striga. I used Shinobu Eden but end it still shy of level 38. Aside from that I did tip missions to get Alting to go rogue. This takes forever -- I spend over an hour on the streets of Sharkhead before I get a single tip mission drop. But eventually I manage it and show up in Independence Port.

09/14/10 Tuesday. Single TF again tonight -- a Sister Psyche. MG wanted support so I played my level 42 ice/ice defender, made it to 43. Teamed a bit redside doing tip missions for another corruptor of mine.

09/15/10 Wednesday. No TFs. I teamed for a bit redside but that was a fiasco. I advertised for a rogue tip team, and got an immediate invite -- but we were fighting scrapyarders. I asked if this was a villain mission. "It's a morality mission," the mission holder said. Thanks Einstein, I knew that much. I said it looks like a villain mission and I just wanted to verify that it's rogue since I want to get in five rogue missions tonight and doing a villain mission would mess that up. "It's a rogue mission," I'm told, but I still have my doubts.

On top of this, the leader is foul-mouthed and demanding. "Heal me!" "Rez me! Now!" "Why aren't you debuffing the boss?" (I was.) When we're finished, I'm not really surprised to have a villain tip button instead of a rogue button, and I'm not happy. I say so, and immediately I'm kicked from the team.

After, the leader sends me a tell, "I kicked you because you were going to leave anyway," and compliments me on my debuffs. Whatever. I've already used the note system to 1-star and remind myself to never team with said person again. Couple this with the guy the day before who verbally abused im in tells because I "stole" his mob (an unengaged random family guy in Sharkhead that I guess he was thinking of attacking), and several idiots shouting in broadcast... and... well, let's just say I've written "NEVER TEAM WITH EVER" in more player's notes in the last week redside than in the last nine months blueside.

After that I did one more tip misison solo, then switched to help out a couple of friends with new characters. But here's an example of how making money on the market is easy: I log in my 50 MA/Invul scrapper Shinobu Dragonheart, and before doing anything else I hit Wents, where I have a stack of 10 resistance IOs and the salvage to craft them. I think I paid about 6 million or so per recipe -- maybe a bit more. The salvage is negligible since these don't require rare salvage, and I put in bids overnight. I craft, and go to list them... and the last several have sold for 30 million. Really? I know the set's popular, that's why I'm crafting it, but... really? Wary of listing too high that they won't sell, I place one up for 22.5 million. It instantly sells for 25 million. This means that none of the others listed are being listed for less than 25 million.

So I list them for 25.5 million, and sell three of them for 30 million within the hour. Profit!

I ran an AE mission to help my friends get several toons to level 10. I hit the ticket cap, and decided to drop 3700 tickets on a gold roll. I know they're not really worth it, but after all, I might win the lottery, right? But I got a Scirrocco's. Bleah.

MG suggests that I could create a second Alting using a capital I for an L. Then I could be Alting to Alting. The idea's even dumber than the original character idea. I do it immediately. ^_^

I bought one copy. I have 2 accounts -- not sure when or if I'll pick it up for the other account. But I just wanted to say that my purchase does not in any way indicate that I really think it's worth the price.

For one thing, it's really not even a party pack. You get three dances. Three. Of those, the Pop dance is clearly superior and I like that one quite a bit -- the other two, while you'd have to say they are likely better than any of the dance emotes currently in the game (most of which have been here since the very beginning), are still not very good. As someone who's played with a lot of dance emotes in Second Life and other games (for an example other than the the obvious, AO had a very nice ballet emote when it came out many years ago... for female toons. Male toons lumbered around when they selected the same emote ), I really expect something that grabs my attention. Pop does that, Disco and Karate not very much. (I don't even know why it's called Karate anyway -- where's the high kicks or leaps then?)

Air Guitar is fun for what it is. I'm sure I'll get use out of it. Both the basketball and soccer emotes are well done, but they don't scream "party" to me. The open gift emote -- come on, that's virtually a recycle of an emote that's been in the game for a long while. And the pool is not terrible but not that interesting without a pool table. (I can't remember -- do we have pool tables in the game anywhere?)

I would have liked to see a few flashy disco costumes (at the very least, what about tossing in those psychadelic pants that a few people got by accident years ago?) or even basketball/soccer shorts and jersey. Or I would have liked to see a couple more dance moves on par with the very nice Pop dance. As someone suggested, a /DJ emote would get a lot of use I'm sure. ^_^

So in the end I like Pop, Basketball, and Soccer. And Air Guitar too, not because it's an amazing emote but just because it's situationally fun. That's it. Even if I liked all eight I doubt I could recommend people buy it for this price, but as is you're not even getting eight good emotes.

Also I want to say, for all of those people who complained that "extra" packs for purchase were a bad idea and would lead to more attempts to get people to buy things that might otherwise have been added to the game for free -- that we were stepping out onto a slippery slope -- and I was one of the ones that laughed at these people -- well, NCsoft is pretty much confirming everything these people said with this pack. Whether these were really ever planned to be a part of GR or not, whether these would ever have been created if not for the extra money to be made from selling them in a pack -- just the high price for such a limited number of items (really I'd call it 7 emotes, I don't think the present one should even count) destroys a lot of credibility on NCsoft's part.

I'm curious how you'd deal with unexpected IOs or recipes dropped onto you. I get that kind of thing occasionally, usually someone on a team who thinks I can use an SO (usually very wrong, as I almost always slot at least generic IOS), wants to get rid of unwanted recipes, or someone in Wents who is dumping something they don't want (although if you don't stand around in Wents, that solves one possible source of random gifts).

I would do this myself except... well no. I wouldn't do this. Well I might have tried it a year or two ago, when I played solo a lot more.

50,000 is a pretty common price for alchemical silver going back to... well, at least 3 years ago when I started marketing.

When common or uncommon salvage starts selling for 1 million a piece, that's when I take notice and put a few pieces up for sale at stupid prices. ^_^ Usually because there's only 3 for sale at the moment...

Boy yeah, I got rid of my purple pet IOs early probably, but I have some others lying about to sell. ^_^

I like all three but my preference is scrappers. A scrapper can be made quite tough and is instant-damage, not I'll-pound-you-through-the-wall-in-just-a-minute, wait-for-it, wait-for-it...

There are very few situations where you really need serious tanking ability though, and in those situations a tank is best but a brute can likely do the job. When it comes to damage, brutes vs. scrappers is almost a matter of preference really. But they're all three good ATs, one does not become obsolete just because another might be slightly better a one specific thing.

One of my favorite things to do, and I had to ask how to do it too. ^_^

9/11/10: Saturday. I start off doing marketing on several characters. My friend is supposed to call to get together to do stuff today, but I figure I've got a couple of hours to play first.

Generally I'm used to having 400 to 800 million each on 8 to 10 different marketing characters, but between giving away a full purpled warshade build at the begnning of August, and being apprehensive about what IOs might drop in price with the changes coming with GR, and outfitting a couple of new characters, most of my marketing toons have less than 300 million on them. I feel poor! :O So I decide that my goal for the morning will be to run AE missions for tickets, and then roll bronze rolls, craft, and sell.

And while I'm doing that, why not log in my second account and PL another toon?

I get everything set up and I've barely started the first mission when someone in the SG (eh... ResidentBaka actually ^_^) advertises for one spot available on a Katie TF. Oh, I need that on my brute Shinobu Eden; the Geas of the Kind Ones would be invaluable for a character with occasional endurance problems. It's a short TF, so I figure I've got time. I leave my 2nd account stuck in the AE misison and go join the Katie instead.

This Katie follows a pattern that I've seen before: 1) person who forms the TF can't actually run it, and 2) person who steps in to run it doesn't check his mission settings. The Katie Hannon Task Force is especially a bad one for this, as each time Mary respawns she gets stronger. We manage to make it through the 10 defeats, but not without a couple of team wipes and yet another person who swears he'll never make that mistake again. Oh, but there's always a new person to make that mistake the next time. ^_^

After that I help take down Eochai -- one more piece of the Geas puzzle solved! In the meantime, I'd learned that MG was going to run the Faathim TF today. It was starting to look like I would miss ALL of the shard TFs. But then my friend calls to say he'd been called in to work, so we won't be getting together. A short time later when MG starts up the Faathim, I'm on it. ^_^

I'd never done Faathim before. MG says it will take "about 1 and 1/2 hours", but it's a very long slog. One of our SG mates helpfully says, "That should only take 2 hours!" when we're well past the 2 hour mark. Thanks very much, not every TF goes according to plan or matches your best time. We finally finish it 3 hours 49 minutes after starting -- one of the longer TFs I've ever been on. Mind you, I still haven't done the Dr. Q -- when I ask, I'm told that the one from the previous night had taken 5 hours.

I take a break, get in some exercise, fix dinner. All of this time, my little lowbie on my 2nd accound has been dutifully hanging out in that AE misison. I finally get back to my original PL/ticket farm plan, and run a few AE missions, then MG sends me a tell: ja?

"Ja?" I reply. "Justine Augustine TF?" MG says. Oof. I've done that one, but not on my main badger Mouse Police. I need it. So yes, I join. And surprisingly, it's not quite as bad as I remembered. It's still mostly hunts, but maybe knowing what to expect ahead of time helps. Also the team is prepared so it goes fairly quickly.

I finish the night back doing my AE mission for tickets. MG joins me for a short time with two new alts. She wants to get them to 10 so she can run Posi's on them.

9/12/10: Sunday. The big thing on the schedule today is the Cathedral of Pain at 1 PM, our SG's second attempt. I spend a good part of the morning marketing and doing a little more ticket farming/PLing, and then working out costumes and slotting my new corruptor named Alting. I'm starting to warm up to the idea of a toon with radically different looks for each costume slot -- in fact, I have more ideas for looks than the five costume slots I get.

1 PM comes around and I show up for the CoP. At first, there's me, and there's the SG leader, who is more than a little annoyed that no one else is there yet. Slowly people filter in, after much begging and browbeating over the SG channels. There's a lot of standing around. MG has fun building cages to put people in and writing messages on the walls of what is Alpha base, explaining that Gamma -- her division -- is better.

Finally after more than an hour, with people complaining that they won't have time if we delay much longer, we get started. I'm still not convinced that we're organized enough to pull this off, despite the helpful advice from one person in the SG that "It only takes eight minutes!" We do manage to get into the Cathedral this time, but after that we only get one shot at what's-his-name, and do very little damage. Mostly people weren't sure what to expect or what to do once we got there. We need better leadership, but it's a bit like learning to take on Hamidon for the first time. We'll get it eventually.

After that I join a Numina TF. It turns out the leader is only 38. I'm 37, and the enemies are 40 and 41. Oof. Why does this always seem to happen when I join a random PuG TF? Anyway it's a good team, some people are concerned about the level disparity but Numina is not one of those TFs where that's a critical issue. We pull it off just fine in only a little over an hour.

I go back to my ticket farming, but I've hit the ticket cap once now and I get bored. I've certainly accomplished what I set out to do; I have stuff for sale, stuff waiting to craft, and lots more tickets waiting to roll. I've also been e-mailing myself any tier 3 inspirations that drop so I can dump them into my base for later use. I take a break and get some exercise.

When I come back I start working on rogue tip misisons for Alting. A bit later, MG wants to run Posi 1 on one of her new toons. I need that for my brute, so I join. It goes relatively well, with the almost expected team wipes at the front doors of city hall (ambush) and the first attempt at fighting our shadow selves. As soon as we're done, MG announced she's going to switch to one of her other new alts and do it again. It's late, so I finish up my rogue tip misisons for Alting and then head to bed. My brute Shinobu Eden is a couple of bubbles from 38, and is one Synapse TF shy of Task Force Commander. Given that MG is playing up several new toons, I'll almost certainly have that within a couple of days. ^_^

I have one:

Your map

Seriously, open it, detach it, shrink it down a bit, move it to a place on the screen where it doesn't block your view. When the team is splitting, you'll know it immediately. When there's one objective left on the map, you'll see it. I know a lot of people don't use their maps at all, or only open it occasionally to look and then close it so it doesn't block their vision.

Vidiot Map Pack Technically not a part of the game, but if you're at all interested in collecting badges... go download their map pack.

ResidentBaka is on a lot of these TFs too. ^_^ (When the game allows it )

9/10/10: Friday. Since my parents are coming over, I turn down an invite to a SG ITF. I do some marketing, working on my stone tanker build. I log off. Watch some TV. Parents call --they're leaving late. I log on, do some more stuff, log off. Watch more TV. Parents call -- they're stuck in traffic. They can't believe what traffic is like in Seattle. It is rush hour on a Friday night. Anyway, at this rate I would have been done with the ITF long before they arrived.

I get home late -- almost 9 PM. After I log on I find out that MG and company are about to start a Dr. Q. They've already filled. I need the badge but I don't think I would be up to starting one at 9 PM, even if it's a Friday night, and even if they had an opening. Instead I do what I wanted to do the night before -- start up a Citadel. It's nearly all PuG, just one SG member, and it doesn't matter, it's a great team. We finish in just over an hour.

Right after that someone in the SG wants to run a Mender Lazarus TF. It's short and I've only done it a few times before, so I agree to join. He fills out the team mostly PuG style again, and again the team is awesome and we steamroll the mission. I love the people on Virtue. ^_^

When I'm done, it's past Midnight. The Dr. Q still has 6 missions to go. Yeah, I don't think I would have made it; I'm ready to fall asleep as is. Shinobu Eden is 35, 3 bubbles from 36. I might even hit 37 Saturday morning, just a week from when I created her. ^_^

09/08/10: Wednesday. When I log on SG people are in the middle of a Hess TF. I take the time to gather up the PvP zone explore and history badges that I don't have on my new brute. I finally get the Atlas Park accolade, but I can't enter Recluse's Victory yet. But I now know for certain that you can get the villain history badges in whatever order you want, even if you get the markers in the PvP zones as a hero – either before turning vigilante, or after turning hero.

I want to make certain to exercise tonight, but MG talks me into running a Posi 2 first. This goes pretty smoothly, and I get in nearly an hour on the treadmill after. When I come back MG wants to run a shard TF – either Sarah Moore or Doc Quaterfield. It's after 8 PM PST, and I've been getting to bed late every night, so I decline to join -- even I am not that crazy! Reason prevails and they decide to run the Sarah Moore rather than the Dr. Q. I finish up my Midnighter arc. I can't find anyone in the SG who needs the badge, so I log my second account and make sure a 32 stone tank of mine also gets the badge. I make a note that I still need to plan out a build for said tank, who I really haven't played in nearly four years.

I finish the night still level 33, but close to 34. I roll 40 more merits – Impervium Armor +3% psionic resist and Gift of the Ancients +run speed.

9/10/10: Thursday. The weekend is coming much faster than I expected, thanks to the holiday on Monday. My parents are planning to drop by Friday night right after work, and I haven't cleaned. I log on, do some marketing stuff, and then remember this as I'm getting ready to exercise. Instead I spend twenty minutes straightening up the apartment, then get in about 25 minutes of exercise.

During the TF the previous night, MG had announced that someone "was alting", and I quipped that someone should create a toon named Alting. "Alting is alting!" MG tells me to log my second account and check if the name is available – and it was. But it had seemed too dumb an idea to act on.

At work the next day however, it had occurred to me to create a character with radically different looks for each costume slot – thus, you can say "I'm Alting!" and transform into someone else. Still a dumb idea, but I spend a few minutes creating a character with that name. I'm still unsure if I plan to actually play the character though.

I spend time researching stone tank builds online. I'm not sure how to slot stone – do I slot granite for both defense and resistance? Do I need tough and weave? Do I want to slot for run speed? Yes to all of those, it appears. I work up a build for my 32 super strength/stone tanker that I'm pretty happy with. I'll have to implement the build at some other point, but at least I now know what to do. Maybe I'll start playing that toon again.

I log back in about 8 PM. I see that MG is on a team of 7, so I expect that they're on a TF; my plan is that if it's a long one I'll just start up a Citadel, since I need that badge. But when I ask they're only running radio missions in PI, trying to get Tina MacIntyre as a contact for one member. I join them. It's a beast of a mission – Carnival of Shadows, set at a very high level, some enemies were +4 to me. This is hardly ideal for an invulnerable brute; even with a stone tank taking the brunt of the spawns, I attract lots of attention and die several times.

After that MG wants to run a TF (naturally!) I'm still level 33, so we settle on Manticore again. We no longer have the stone tank but it doesn't matter; I can tank Crey easily enough. One person says he doesn't have time for a TF, but when we say it'll take an hour at most, he decides to stay. I hit 34 and finish slotting Footstomp with Obliteration; it's really a fun power at this point. We finish in the expected hour; the guy who only had an hour to play is happy.

My build still needs more accuracy, defense, and endurance recovery, and I don't know if I can tweak my projected level 41 build to deal with the endurance recovery problems. Both super strength and invulnerability are endurance-heavy powers, especially when I'm running 3 other toggles (tough, weave, combat jumping).

Afterwards we decide to run a Numina. Shinobu Eden is only 34, so I alt to Serpentine-Fire, a fire/fire blaster – on the theory that we already had three blasters, so why not run with four? Another asks if he should switch to his fire blaster. Everyone says: Do Eeet! So we run with five blasters – tons of damage, a couple of near team wipes. Great fun!

We finish in about an hour. It's 10:30 PM -- I stayed up too late again.

I have dinner with my parents tonight, and I'm hanging out with my ex-roommate on Saturday, but MG wanted to run shard TFs on the weekend and we're supposed to attempt CoP on Sunday again. Looks like a full weekend. ^_^

I love the market because this is the first MMO I've ever played where I can really feel like I'm one of the elite players, simply because I can outfit any toon I play with virtually whatever I want to outfit them with.

My name is Organica, and I am not a casual player, by any stretch of the imagination.

9/3/10: Friday night before a 3 day weekend. PAX is in town (I live in the Seattle area) but I didn't buy a ticket this year. Ah, well!

I take a long walk after work, then head home. I log on. Someone in the SG is starting up a Numina, so I join. Right after we finish, MG sends me a tell: Eden? "Yeah, we just finished a Numina," I said, as I Ouro'd out of Eden. "No, I mean do you want to do an Eden Trial?" MG replies.

MG is one of the leaders of the SG I'm in, someone I've known in-game for years, also decidedly not a casual player. Typically MG runs at least two TFs a night, and I'm often on them.

"Sure!" I reply. We'd done Eden last week – only 9 merits, but it's a fun trial with a unique map. My Peace Bringer is 41, so I'd started it. That's my only toon in the required 39-41 range, and I remembered why she's stuck at 41. I don't like playing her much.

"Do I need to bring my PB again?" I ask. No, MG has someone else who can run it. Only once we've assembled, it turns out the person in question is 37. MG forgot that you had to be 39 to start the TF. Instead, we decide to run other missions, and a Manticore TF.

9/4/10: Saturday morning. I have nothing big planned for the weekend. I might try to get together with a friend. I want to get some writing done, and I want to make sure to exercise, but I also know I'll spend a lot of my weekend playing the game. Since the night before, I've been thinking that I should level a new toon and park them at level 41 so that we can run the Eden Trial any time we want, and with a toon I like to play. And once I get an idea like that in my head, I'm stuck on it.

I've used my invulnerable tanker Sailor Shinobu on the trial before and I enjoy playing her, so I settle on creating a clone of her who is actually a super strength/invulnerable brute. I've never played super strength up to a high level. Also I want to hit level 20+ as soon as possible, so Praetoria is out.

I create my toon, named Shinobu Eden for simplicity's sake, and head to Mercy Island. I'm immediately blind-invited as soon as the zone loads. I join, and am quickly in a mission with a leader who goes afk to eat. "Don't quit," he says, but he's afk so long that his toon logs out. In the meantime I run my own Kalinda missions by entering them and forcing them to be set for the team. When our afk leader logs back on later, we join his team again, but once I hit 8 I quit to finish up my own Kalinda arc. I've no reason to spend time in Mercy past level 8. I think I've run Mongoose's missions once, ever.

I log in my second account, and head to RWZ. A few hours of hard work later I'm 27. Having 2 accounts and a well-built shield scrapper is a wonderful thing. ^_^

Now that I'm 27 I can slot level 30 IOs. I have my build planned out in Mids – the build is tight since I’m only going to level 41, but workable. I keep my base well-stocked on level 30-33 IOs, so I raid it for what I need. When I'm done, I still have a few things to pick up – two Kinetic Combat triples, three Kinetic Combat Damage/Endurance, a Numina's unique, a Miracle unique, a Performance Shifter proc, at least one Luck of the Gambler +7.5% recharge. Most of these are expensive or not easily available at level 30.

I log in several toons, spend hundreds of merits, and e-mail myself my new level 30 recipes. When I'm done I do my five rogue tip missions. I also e-mail myself Halloween salvage, and do my level 20 costume mission and work on two more costumes for the character. I teamed a bit and hit 28 before the evening was done. I may have joined MG and the SG for another Manti after that; I can't remember actually.

9/5/10: Sunday morning I did some marketing, then joined a random PuG Citadel TF being run by a rogue crab. This was on one of my level 50 scrappers, Tiffany Blackheart. The leader says, "Don't you already have this badge?" as if people only run TFs for the badges. I'd have to quit running TFs if that were true! ^_^ He's surprised at how long Citadel takes; he's not done it in ages. He's also surprised that my scrapper can tank so well, but they're Council and I'm a well-built Willpower scrapper, so it's quite easy.

I spend part of the morning working on Shinobu Eden, grabbing exploration badges. I can't run more tip missions until evening. At Noon our SG wants to attempt a CoP. I don't expect it to succeed – nobody has tried it before, and many people haven't even read up on how it's done. Several people quit as soon as they realized it wasn't a walk in the park. We have trouble getting all three teams on the same map, but a second attempt at it goes a bit better. At least people have an idea what to expect now. We plan to try again next Sunday.

I finally log off, get out of the house, and exercise a bit. I sweep and mop floors in the kitchen and two bathrooms and generally clean up. When evening comes I log in and do my five rogue tip missions, then the morality mission. I'm officially a Rogue. MG sends a tell: "Sister?" Sure! I hit 29 during the TF.

9/6/10: Monday I gather up all of the explore badges I can. I discover that one of the badges needed for the Atlas Park accolade is not reachable for Rogues -- Devs hate villains! By the time I'm done, I'm level 30, my favorite level for recipes, and have over 180 merits and 7000 AE tickets. I roll everything -- bronze for the tickets. The merit rolls weren't so great until the very last two -- Numina's unique and LotG +7.5% recharge. I spend a lot of time dumping recipes onto three other toons on my other account or e-mailing them to myself, then crafting and storing them for later. I deleted a lot of junk recipes too of course.

Back to the Rogue Isles for my level 30 costume, then blueside for my five hero tip missions. I hit 31 and then join MG for another Manticore TF. I hit 32. Footstomp! While still on the TF, I log in my 2nd account so that I can raid my base and e-mail myself a level 30 Oblit IO for my new power. I actually attempt to e-mail a dam/recharge and a triple, but in my haste to get it done quickly in between missions, I accidentally e-mail two dam/recharges instead. But not to worry, I can only slot one at the moment and -- two missions later, a level 32 Oblit triple recipe drops for me. ^_^ Perfect!

Afterwards we do an ITF, for which I use Tiffany again. When we run into problems with Rommy I log in my 2nd account to buy and e-mail tier 4 inspirations to myself.

9/7/10: Tuesday. Back to work, and lots of errands to run after work. I log on late to run my last 5 hero tip missions. MG's running another Manticore – 5th night in a row, but I want to turn hero first so I can't join. Things don't go well – my 2nd mission turns into a slog versus Arachnos, I'm set for 4 people still (at one point I'd upped it so I could level faster) and I'm invulnerable and I'm not softcapped versus anything yet, and all that psi damage just shreds me. Then the 4th mission is bugged – the Longbow Agent I'm set to rescue triggers something like six ambushes in a row (Arachnos again, although now I was set for 1 person). He leaves me to fight all of them while he runs down the hallway to attack a different group. He dies, but the mission doesn't fail. I can't complete unless I lead a dead man to the exit. I clear, then have to wait for a GM to complete the mission for me.

I'm in the middle of my morality mission when they start up an ITF, so I miss that too. No task force for me tonight! But finally, four days after creating my new toon, I'm a hero! I get an invite to the Super Group, and finish the evening on a Midnighter arc group. I hit level 33 and log off.

Just before I log off, MG sends a tell: "Want to run the Shadow Shard TFs this weekend? All four of them two Saturday and two Sunday?"

Me: "Uh… I'll probably be busy Saturday, but I do need three of those badges for Mouse Police…. So sure!"

I had something cool happen this weekend. I was in an Arachnos base mission, one of the early V-side ones with snakes. In the last room there is a split level with snakes on the upper level. Being lazy, I decided to hit ninja run and leap up to the next level rather than take the ramp... but I misjudged how high I'd jump. I also had a snake targeted, and I had brawl set to auto (to help me build fury in low levels), so as I leaped past this snake, I punched him, spun about to face him in mid-leap, and landed on the pipes up above the snakes, looking down on them. It was kind of an action movie move, completely unintentional but it looked quite cool. ^_^

Playing in a large SG means my lazy method of naming half my toons has been reinforced and become an asset. Easier for everyone to remember who I am if I'm on a toon with "Shinobu" in the name. ^_^ So three of my recent new toons have followed that pattern.

Hmmm, well my solo SG now has a tier 3. ^_^ But I checked my large SG, the Gamma division that I'm in only has tier 2. I'll have to get someone to fix that; it's a much larger SG/base than my solo base.

So a Tier 3 station will craft everything on the list of buffs?

I should probably add one of these. I wonder if the SG I'm in has one; I've never bothered with such buffs, ever.

I'm going to reiterate the bit about a team of 3 or more. Enemies spawn based on the size of the team in the area. If you're hunting Igneous bosses solo (or toxic tarantulas in RWZ, or Marcone bosses in Port Oakes, etc etc) then you will see very few of them, but get a team of at least three together and suddenly you'll find them much more frequently.

I actually did this last night. I was hunting marcone bosses in Port Oakes, and then a friend came along to help me with various kill-all badges villainside. On my own I spent a great deal of time getting to just 45, but with my friend I found about 100 more in the same amount of time (roughly). And that was just with two people instead of one.