Updating last post, I'd like to say today's card-slinging went the complete opposite of my trials triumpth. Not only did I not make the Day 2 cut, but I came nowhere near even thinking about making it.
To sum it up in a nutshell: the best part of my tournment today was the egg and bacon sandwich I bought for breakfast.
Screw this, I'm gonna go play Mabinogi.
Saturday, May 30, 2009
Friday, May 29, 2009
GP Seattle
Magic the Gathering is not an MMO, but since I am playing in Grand Prix Seattle this weekend, I may as well post a brief update on what I'm up to (rather than not posting for 2 weeks!). MtG Grand Prix tournments are Pro-Am, so it's a special opportunity to rub shoulders with the best of the best from all over the world.
On Friday the open "grinder" 32-player single elimination tournaments were run. 5 rounds of head-to-head competition would yield the last man standing. He gets 3 byes for the the first 3 rounds of the first day of the tournment, which is almost a free ticket to make the Day 2 cut.
Naturally, I suprised everyone (even myself!) and outlasted 31 other people to win!
Tomorrow is the start of Day 1, which is 8 rounds. I need a record of 6-2-0 (approximately) to make the cut, but with my byes I only need to really finish 3-2 in the matches I actually play, which is a incredible advantage over the rest of the field.
Random funny thing of the day: I recognized the reigning Japanese player of the year walking by surveying the competition. I leaned back in my chair to high five him as he passed, but he gave me a look that said "I do not understand your American high five" and we settled on an awkward handshake. Oops. >.>
On Friday the open "grinder" 32-player single elimination tournaments were run. 5 rounds of head-to-head competition would yield the last man standing. He gets 3 byes for the the first 3 rounds of the first day of the tournment, which is almost a free ticket to make the Day 2 cut.
Naturally, I suprised everyone (even myself!) and outlasted 31 other people to win!
Tomorrow is the start of Day 1, which is 8 rounds. I need a record of 6-2-0 (approximately) to make the cut, but with my byes I only need to really finish 3-2 in the matches I actually play, which is a incredible advantage over the rest of the field.
Random funny thing of the day: I recognized the reigning Japanese player of the year walking by surveying the competition. I leaned back in my chair to high five him as he passed, but he gave me a look that said "I do not understand your American high five" and we settled on an awkward handshake. Oops. >.>
Monday, May 11, 2009
New Picture Day
The last couple of posts have all seemed to be about weddings. If I didn't know any better, I'd say Warren's MMO Adventures was some sort of celebrity gossip blog! It isn't, but for the time being I have a couple more pictures left from the wedding season. The rest of the post will hopefully utilize the "says a thousand words" quality of pictures to do most of the talking.
First, a screen cap of Tempestrage in her wedding gown provided by Mistresraven:
Temp in a dress
Last week I mentioned that Venezzia and Gyokutei were getting hitched. Here's their turn out (way better than mine!):
The wedding pre-funk
And here are the newlyweds:
Warren's MMO Adventures got this exclusive photo of the celebrity couple "Gyoven"
After all the celebrations settled down, I rebirthed back to age 14:
Mailbox inserted for scale
Maybe because I rebirthed into an immature kid I found this very funny:
Too bad neither of them is a cock
Sticking with the theme, I took to Ciar normal with a Wooden Stick like a boy playing in the woods behind his house:
.JPG)
A young Warrensworth circa 2009 dreaming of becoming a Paladin
Not long after, I ran across a field boss by chance. I was playing late at night when the server was deserted, so it was up to me to put these jive suckas in their place:
"I got this."
Artifex has seen an unprecedented amount of new recruits recently. Here is new guildie Eragonose who needed some help learning the tricks of Mabinogi:
Eragonose the Elf
Even the old is new again, in a way. My friend Wynterrose went MIA for over a month-and-a-half, but to my delight, she recently popped back into Mabinogi:
Wynterrose (re)appears
The Spring "candy events" are going on right now. You can get prizes for finding candy trees and harvesting their fortune cookie coupons, and/or you can shear the 8 colors of cotton candy from Cotton Candy Sheep:
Field Journal Entry #12: Every Spring a herd of giant sheep with cotton candy wool migrate across the Sen Mag Plateau. No sign of the Corn Dogs.
I collected 8 cotton candies for my Toy Hammer, and I got an effeminiate Dandelion Coronet from my fortune cookies. This was as masculine as I could look wearing these items:
Flower Boy thanks you for reading his blog
I managed to round up another Tir Na Nog party to pick up where I left off in the Generation 1 storyline. Luckily I didn't piss anyone off this time:
Venezzia and Ashrayne help a fellow guildie tackle the 6-floor dungeon en route to Glas Ghlab-a-long-a-ding-dong
Ashrayne, having to depart the party to wrangle a live chicken into her oven for dinner, left it up to Venezzia, myself, and relief-warrior Bitoto to tackle Glas:
The Three Amigos enter the arena
Then this happened:
"Everyone, I want you to meet Glas."
Then this:
End of Volume 1
Of course, I'm glossing over my embarassingly futile performance versus Glas. I wasn't counting, but I probably died 16 or 17 thousand times in there. I would like to thank Ashrayne, Venezzia, and Bitoto for their help on this last leg of G1!
First, a screen cap of Tempestrage in her wedding gown provided by Mistresraven:
Last week I mentioned that Venezzia and Gyokutei were getting hitched. Here's their turn out (way better than mine!):
And here are the newlyweds:
After all the celebrations settled down, I rebirthed back to age 14:
Maybe because I rebirthed into an immature kid I found this very funny:
Sticking with the theme, I took to Ciar normal with a Wooden Stick like a boy playing in the woods behind his house:
.JPG)
Not long after, I ran across a field boss by chance. I was playing late at night when the server was deserted, so it was up to me to put these jive suckas in their place:
Artifex has seen an unprecedented amount of new recruits recently. Here is new guildie Eragonose who needed some help learning the tricks of Mabinogi:
Even the old is new again, in a way. My friend Wynterrose went MIA for over a month-and-a-half, but to my delight, she recently popped back into Mabinogi:
The Spring "candy events" are going on right now. You can get prizes for finding candy trees and harvesting their fortune cookie coupons, and/or you can shear the 8 colors of cotton candy from Cotton Candy Sheep:
I collected 8 cotton candies for my Toy Hammer, and I got an effeminiate Dandelion Coronet from my fortune cookies. This was as masculine as I could look wearing these items:
I managed to round up another Tir Na Nog party to pick up where I left off in the Generation 1 storyline. Luckily I didn't piss anyone off this time:
Ashrayne, having to depart the party to wrangle a live chicken into her oven for dinner, left it up to Venezzia, myself, and relief-warrior Bitoto to tackle Glas:
Then this happened:
Then this:
Of course, I'm glossing over my embarassingly futile performance versus Glas. I wasn't counting, but I probably died 16 or 17 thousand times in there. I would like to thank Ashrayne, Venezzia, and Bitoto for their help on this last leg of G1!
Friday, May 1, 2009
Mating Season
Since my rebirth about 2 weeks ago, I've accumulated roughly 20+ AP very quickly by not cashing in my "Reach Level 40," "Hunt 1 Troll," and "Hunt 1 Succubus" quests until after I reset to level 1. Combined, the EXP from those 3 quests propelled me from level 1 up to level 17 (so much more worth it than going from level 43 to level 43 and change had I not waited!).
As it has been established in earlier posts, it should not be surprising that I hoard consumables (gold, holy water, and now AP) for the mere satisfaction of knowing I have them to spend even if I never intend on spending them. (Un)fortunately for me, I will suck royal at Mabinogi forever without spending AP, so I had no choice but to finally rank up my Critical Hit, Ice Bolt, and Counter skills since they are essential to high-level combat strategies. It irked me to find I needed to "learn from the enemy's critical hit" in order to level up my new rank A Critical. Catching a critical hit from a worthy mob is a synonym for death in Mabinogi, so I had to look for a creative way to rank this skill without getting dragged out of dungeons in a body bag.
Watching Kazukikun practice his Defense by blocking Mimicks gave me the idea to do the same to rank my skill, since I've felt worse critical hits from mosquitoes. Ah, Mimicks, you give so much to me (gold, HP 30's, 6k fomor scrolls) and you ask for so little in return:
Mimicks load their Critical Nudge attacks
It seems that the Spring is a natural aphrodesiac (apologies to Will Smith's Summertime), with a flurry of romances and weddings having occured within the past 2 weeks or occurring soon. I've already posted my own wedding pictures, so here are the pictures I grabbed at Freaky555 and Tempestrage's wedding:
The Famous Guild shows up in droves for their family weddings
With a majority of attendees making funny faces, setting off bombs, and dancing their giant bears around the church in mid-ceremony, the chaotic circus atmosphere of the place was unreal. Through the perfect absurdity of it all, I couldn't help but burst into an uncontainable laughter at the blatant disregard for the occasion (and I'm very thankful everyone at my wedding managed to restrain themselves!). Despite people bouncing off walls, and through the magic of photo editing, I managed to catch this beautiful picture:
Love conquers all in the conflict between Paladin and Dark Knight
Not long after, I learned that Ashrayne (whom I had previously been engaged to), had eloped with Kazukikun at his request. While I'm happy they got together, I am kind of miffed I didn't get to go to their wedding. Plus, I now feel a little out of place as a 3rd wheel:
Q: Can you spot the 1 thing(s) wrong with this picture?
(Answer at the end of the post)
And finally, my super-helpful guildmate Venezzia is slated to tie the knot with a player named Gyokutei, whom I've had the pleasure of meeting and running 1 or 2 dungeons with. Their ceremony is Sunday at 2PM PST. I'll try to remember to take pictures with the bride and groom!
With the fun stuff out of the way, I just had to mention my latest idea for obtaining Mabinogi millions. After raising and re-raising roughly 1.4 million gold to get my Spaika Silver Plate Armor, I've been amassing another nest egg in the Erskin Bank. Long story short, I'm sitting on another million gold, and I wanted some way to grow it rather than spend it. I first conjured up the idea of becoming a bank, that way I can lend my riches out and make money off the interest. However, Mabinogi has no built in security features that can help me run a safe operation (read: how the hell would I get people to pay me back?). Then I thought about taking collateral and holding it until the customer paid up, or sell their item if they never did. This is a classic pawn shop.
For my amusement, here's the general plan I have to run this thing:
1. Get the extra storage service so I can own a house shop or player shop to sell items from delinquent customers.
2. Advertise my service on Channel 5, the current market channel, via the party ad method.
3. Limit my services initially to pawned items with very well-established values so I know exactly what I can recoup by resale.
4. Limit my loans to a total of 10% of my worth so if something goes wrong I am not financially ruined.
5. Mail customers' pawned items immediately back to them with a C.O.D. price at the agreed upon repurchasing rate, and give them X amount of time to reclaim their item.
Some things to note: I have contemplated whether or not customers would accept low-ball loans on certain items that are far too expensive for me to accept. For example, if someone pawned Arrow Revolver Page 8 (and lets say it never expired), it being an item with a value of approximately 1 million gold, I could not loan more than 100k for it lest I violate guideline 4. If he agrees and I agree, I could loan him that 100k and stand to make massive profit if he defaults on his end of the deal. Extending this practice to any and all items, I could feasibly accept every item as long as I loan way too little for it.
Of course, this leads to the biggest question mark of my business plan: having minimized my risk as much as possible, how will I get customers to trust that I won't scam them for their items and resell them ASAP without honoring a repayment agreement? Ashrayne has suggested I use the Artifex "brand" name on my service to lend credibility, which couldn't hurt. I also believe that by mailing customers' their items to them immediately at the agreed upon interest rate will help ease their minds by knowing exactly where their item is, how much they have to pay for it, and that they can reclaim it at any hour of the day. This still isn't a perfectly secure solution on their half of the deal, so establishing trust will have to be a major priority.
Answer to above puzzle: If you answered "Warrensworth," you are incorrect. I am never wrong, as evidenced by my title XD
As it has been established in earlier posts, it should not be surprising that I hoard consumables (gold, holy water, and now AP) for the mere satisfaction of knowing I have them to spend even if I never intend on spending them. (Un)fortunately for me, I will suck royal at Mabinogi forever without spending AP, so I had no choice but to finally rank up my Critical Hit, Ice Bolt, and Counter skills since they are essential to high-level combat strategies. It irked me to find I needed to "learn from the enemy's critical hit" in order to level up my new rank A Critical. Catching a critical hit from a worthy mob is a synonym for death in Mabinogi, so I had to look for a creative way to rank this skill without getting dragged out of dungeons in a body bag.
Watching Kazukikun practice his Defense by blocking Mimicks gave me the idea to do the same to rank my skill, since I've felt worse critical hits from mosquitoes. Ah, Mimicks, you give so much to me (gold, HP 30's, 6k fomor scrolls) and you ask for so little in return:
It seems that the Spring is a natural aphrodesiac (apologies to Will Smith's Summertime), with a flurry of romances and weddings having occured within the past 2 weeks or occurring soon. I've already posted my own wedding pictures, so here are the pictures I grabbed at Freaky555 and Tempestrage's wedding:
With a majority of attendees making funny faces, setting off bombs, and dancing their giant bears around the church in mid-ceremony, the chaotic circus atmosphere of the place was unreal. Through the perfect absurdity of it all, I couldn't help but burst into an uncontainable laughter at the blatant disregard for the occasion (and I'm very thankful everyone at my wedding managed to restrain themselves!). Despite people bouncing off walls, and through the magic of photo editing, I managed to catch this beautiful picture:
Not long after, I learned that Ashrayne (whom I had previously been engaged to), had eloped with Kazukikun at his request. While I'm happy they got together, I am kind of miffed I didn't get to go to their wedding. Plus, I now feel a little out of place as a 3rd wheel:
(Answer at the end of the post)
And finally, my super-helpful guildmate Venezzia is slated to tie the knot with a player named Gyokutei, whom I've had the pleasure of meeting and running 1 or 2 dungeons with. Their ceremony is Sunday at 2PM PST. I'll try to remember to take pictures with the bride and groom!
With the fun stuff out of the way, I just had to mention my latest idea for obtaining Mabinogi millions. After raising and re-raising roughly 1.4 million gold to get my Spaika Silver Plate Armor, I've been amassing another nest egg in the Erskin Bank. Long story short, I'm sitting on another million gold, and I wanted some way to grow it rather than spend it. I first conjured up the idea of becoming a bank, that way I can lend my riches out and make money off the interest. However, Mabinogi has no built in security features that can help me run a safe operation (read: how the hell would I get people to pay me back?). Then I thought about taking collateral and holding it until the customer paid up, or sell their item if they never did. This is a classic pawn shop.
For my amusement, here's the general plan I have to run this thing:
1. Get the extra storage service so I can own a house shop or player shop to sell items from delinquent customers.
2. Advertise my service on Channel 5, the current market channel, via the party ad method.
3. Limit my services initially to pawned items with very well-established values so I know exactly what I can recoup by resale.
4. Limit my loans to a total of 10% of my worth so if something goes wrong I am not financially ruined.
5. Mail customers' pawned items immediately back to them with a C.O.D. price at the agreed upon repurchasing rate, and give them X amount of time to reclaim their item.
Some things to note: I have contemplated whether or not customers would accept low-ball loans on certain items that are far too expensive for me to accept. For example, if someone pawned Arrow Revolver Page 8 (and lets say it never expired), it being an item with a value of approximately 1 million gold, I could not loan more than 100k for it lest I violate guideline 4. If he agrees and I agree, I could loan him that 100k and stand to make massive profit if he defaults on his end of the deal. Extending this practice to any and all items, I could feasibly accept every item as long as I loan way too little for it.
Of course, this leads to the biggest question mark of my business plan: having minimized my risk as much as possible, how will I get customers to trust that I won't scam them for their items and resell them ASAP without honoring a repayment agreement? Ashrayne has suggested I use the Artifex "brand" name on my service to lend credibility, which couldn't hurt. I also believe that by mailing customers' their items to them immediately at the agreed upon interest rate will help ease their minds by knowing exactly where their item is, how much they have to pay for it, and that they can reclaim it at any hour of the day. This still isn't a perfectly secure solution on their half of the deal, so establishing trust will have to be a major priority.
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