Return to "The West"

[hoopsguy]

Originally Posted by Coffee Warlord

Oh god, are you gonna suck me into this again?

You tell me

[hoopsguy]

So I'm sure I'll spend a bunch of time on here talking about fort battles soon enough, but here is a quick glimpse into some of the world politics.

Looking at the top 9 XP players, 5 of them are in the alliance "League of Legends," two are not affiliated with any alliance, and #8 and #9 on the list are with "The Claw v2." This suggests to me that the alliances may not be super equal.

Fort battles came into being within The West somewhere in the back half of 2009. I don't believe that our FOFC town was terribly active in the World 8 fort fighting scene. I'm not sure how involved we would be here ... probably depends on the size of our town and how active our players are. Forts represent a chance for a communal experience over 60-90 minutes, contesting a scarce resource. The forts offer an opportunity to gain XP and bonds to win a optimal sleeping spot for your alliance. You can recover health faster in a medium or large fort faster than you can at a max hotel in a hometown. You can win bonds and XP in fort battles, but if you are KO'd in a fort battle then you will lose all of your energy.

I don't have the ability to see the fort battle screen until hitting Level 25. However, in theory if I wanted to join a battle I could find one on the map and walk to it, hope that the active alliances accepted me to fight on their side, and participate. I would be poorly served to do so at this point, since I don't have much health, nor a fort weapon, or any other fort fighting skills since all points are in construction. But fort fighting is a big part of the communal experience in this game and likely something to explore for people who want to stick around longer than a couple of weeks. At some point, the quests and crafting tend to get a little old and forts offer one way to create relationships while advancing your character levels and bonds.

OK, very wordy explanation here. At some point I'm hoping we have players who are participating and can take a first-hand look at the fort battle process.

[hoopsguy]

Level 20 brings a choice for crafting. I choose Master Saddler, since I have not done this on other worlds before. The net result of this is that I'll be collecting leather to help me move this along for another 50 levels.

So there are a series of daily quests. Five different categories, and if you get three of them per day, you are setting yourself up to get some bonus bonds (5) at the end of the week. For each of the categories you meet in a given day, you get a bonus bond.
- Daily quests (four required)
- Duals vs players (two required)
- NPC duels (three required)
- Crafted products (three required)
- Total job time (hour required)

I got two yesterday, and now that I'm crafting I'll move to three per day. If you get 3+ per day for 5 out of 7 days, you'll get 5 bonus bonds at the end of the week.

[JAG]

Made it to level 15. I'm trying to bang out quests but I have a few that require low probability items (hammer, Union Jack). I am not sure if it's better to bypass them and do better higher paying / higher exp jobs, but after trying for a while, I gave up and went for more $ + exp. I learned motivation is job-specific which I didn't realize.

Stupid question: how do you see what benefits an item gives you? If it's incredibly obvious, I will assume there's no way to see on mobile.

[hoopsguy]

I can probably help with some of the quests now that we have a market. Please let me know if there are items you are chasing and if I have one I can post it on the market rather than you spending time chasing after it.

Benefits - if you hover over the item within your inventory then you'll see the stats associated with it.

We now have Residence Level 2 (can support 10 people in town) and Market Level 1. I don't have super strong feelings on what to finish next, but figure that we generally work on getting one of everything at this point and slowly building them all up. With the exception of church; leave leveling the church until everything else is built.

Traveling merchant had a fun item last night:
Brown Slouch Hat (Level 20): +6 Vigor, +6 Dodging, +11 Setting Traps
It is also part of the Farmers Set, which is probably useful in the Level 20-30 range.

[Coffee Warlord]

Coffee Warlord has returned. God help us.

[hoopsguy]

For my inventory, here is a list of item drops that I can potentially post for others in town:
Ham - 3
Grain - 2
Tobacco - 3
Cotton - 2 (I can use this currently for crafting)
Trout - 9 (FOFC favorite)
Berries - 1 (have had to use at least 6 of these so far in quests)
Turkey - 6
Spade - 7
Barbed Wire - 6
Poster - 2
Newspaper - 3
Beans - 4
Raven Feather - 8
Glass of Water - 6
Oranges - 2
Tomato - 6
Corn - 1

I'm also looking for the following products for crafting:
Horn of a Cow
Beaver Skin
Sickle
Wood (save some for yourself, lots of quests need this)
Wool
Leather .... lots of leather

[hoopsguy]

Originally Posted by Coffee Warlord

Coffee Warlord has returned. God help us.

And you are a step ahead of me already, with a fort weapon in hand.
Friend and town invites sent.

[JAG]

Is there merit in cranking through the town hall as quickly as possible to make all future builds require less time and effort? At least assuming we don't need a specific building such as residence if we need more room for people or upgraded general store for specific purchases that are needed?

[hoopsguy]

JAG, there are definite long-term benefits on the Town Hall for the exact reasons you outline. But I'm not sure it is a straight shot to build it, while ignoring General Store (I want faster horses!) or Hotel (recover energy/health) or Bank (save more money) etc ... all a bit of a balancing act.

[ntndeacon]

I decided that adventurer was the way to go

[hoopsguy]

Sounds good.

So, current town makeup:
Builder - hoopsguy, JAGfofc
Adventurer - Coffee Warlord, ntndeacon
Undeclared - Greyfriars Bobby

And waiting to see if mrkilla22 is going to join the town.

We've currently got room for 10 in the town, so can extend 4 more invites if people are interested in jumping in.

[hoopsguy]

So, as people make the move towards level 20 they will have an option to choose one of four tracks for crafting.

Sifting through crafting, you'll see three different color codes next to recipes. A yellow recipe means that for each item you craft, you can expect to gain a crafting point. If the recipe is green, it means that you will sometimes (maybe 1 in 3?) get a crafting point for each item. A white item will not yield a crafting point.

As your crafting points ascend, you can learn additional recipes. You can get recipes through job drops, although the market is often an easier place to find the ones you will need at a specific level.

The items you craft can provide different buffs, apply towards collections, or act as parts for higher level crafting recipes. For example, a Blacksmith can create Bayonets that offer enhanced damage in fort fights. A Tonic Peddler can create Amulets, which add health and dodge bonuses for fort fights.

Some recipes are common, while others are more rare. As a general rule, recipes in the 550 or 600 categories are pretty rare. With that in mind, the first person who wants to go Tonic Peddler should look me up to get one of those 550 recipes that I found earlier this afternoon: Tinker a Health Puppet.

[Greyfriars Bobby]

Originally Posted by hoopsguy

I'm also looking for the following products for crafting:
Horn of a Cow
Beaver Skin
Sickle
Wood (save some for yourself, lots of quests need this)
Wool
Leather .... lots of leather

I've got some leather I could give you. I'd be happy to post them in the Market for you, if I can figure out how it's done.

I'm currently hunting for MORE turkeys, and if I don't get them on this hunt, I could use four turkeys--if you can spare them.

[hoopsguy]

A busy day of grinding 15sec jobs has me at Level 26. From here on out, I'll almost certainly be doing hour jobs while offline during the day and then trying to sneak in a few 15sec in the evening. But that will be hard to do without being able to travel faster. So that is the new conundrum heading into the remaining four day work week.

Three more hours of town build set for now, and will likely have another 3 overnight. In short term, working on General Store and Tailor. Hope to see a couple levels of buildings as a result.

Current Level: 26 (633/2217 to next level)
Current $$$: 13,437 in bank
Current Bonds: 119
Current Weapon: Scout's Axe (6-14 damage)
Current XP Rank: 2,659 (based on Level 26)
Current Dueling Rank: 12,432
Current Dueling Record: 0-1
Current Town Rank: 462 (up 99 spots from yesterday!)
"Best" Item: Brown Slouch Hat (+6 Vigor, +6 Dodging, +11 Setting Traps)
Set Collections: Greenhorn (complete), Farmers Set (1/7)
Achievements: 43/690
Completed quests: 102
Used construction points: 781
Contributed to town treasury: $6,655

[hoopsguy]

Slowly but surely the town is going up. Got a Sheriff and Gunsmith posted, and our General Store is now Level 1.

With the start of the work week, along with the impending end of the premium bonus for income + energy, the rate of growth will likely slow. I'll queue up three hours of work before leaving in the morning, then getting some work in after dinner, and finally setting up 3 hours of building at night.

The town treasury current sits around $6,000, which is enough to fun 24+ separate construction efforts. That is likely enough to see JAG and I through the next three days of building. Definitely a good start on the town.

Current town roster:
Hoopsguy (Level 28)
Coffee Warlord (Level 22)
ntndeacon (Level 21)
JAGfofc (Level 18)
Greyfriars Bobby (Level 14)

mrkilla22 is Level 15, and like Caine from "Kung Fu" is walking from town to town, meeting people, getting in adventurers. As in, he has not yet accepted the Troutville town invite

[JAG]

Originally Posted by hoopsguy

So, as people make the move towards level 20 they will have an option to choose one of four tracks for crafting.

Sifting through crafting, you'll see three different color codes next to recipes. A yellow recipe means that for each item you craft, you can expect to gain a crafting point. If the recipe is green, it means that you will sometimes (maybe 1 in 3?) get a crafting point for each item. A white item will not yield a crafting point.

As your crafting points ascend, you can learn additional recipes. You can get recipes through job drops, although the market is often an easier place to find the ones you will need at a specific level.

The items you craft can provide different buffs, apply towards collections, or act as parts for higher level crafting recipes. For example, a Blacksmith can create Bayonets that offer enhanced damage in fort fights. A Tonic Peddler can create Amulets, which add health and dodge bonuses for fort fights.

Some recipes are common, while others are more rare. As a general rule, recipes in the 550 or 600 categories are pretty rare. With that in mind, the first person who wants to go Tonic Peddler should look me up to get one of those 550 recipes that I found earlier this afternoon: Tinker a Health Puppet.

I saw Coffee went Chef, so I went Peddler to cover one of the other two crafter types.

[collegesportsfanms]

Originally Posted by hoopsguy

The URL is the-west.net.

And if we've got more folks signing up, then time for me to start working on Residences in town. We can currently support 5, but I'll get cracking on this now so we can scale to 10 by end of day tomorrow.

NTN, invite on the way now.

I am getting ready to sign up for this today, to get it out of the way, but I honestly don't know how much time I'll have to devote to it every day, especially with so much other stuff going on. My plan is to at least give it a look every day, even if I don't spend an amazing amount of time on it. Without really having a clue what exactly it is and if there's time limits or time frames or what not, I'm going into it blind and clueless for sure. I'm signing up now

[collegesportsfanms]

the-west.net appears to be down right now, either that or it's on my end. I'll try again later.

[mrkilla22]

Originally Posted by hoopsguy

Slowly but surely the town is going up. Got a Sheriff and Gunsmith posted, and our General Store is now Level 1.

With the start of the work week, along with the impending end of the premium bonus for income + energy, the rate of growth will likely slow. I'll queue up three hours of work before leaving in the morning, then getting some work in after dinner, and finally setting up 3 hours of building at night.

The town treasury current sits around $6,000, which is enough to fun 24+ separate construction efforts. That is likely enough to see JAG and I through the next three days of building. Definitely a good start on the town.

Current town roster:
Hoopsguy (Level 28)
Coffee Warlord (Level 22)
ntndeacon (Level 21)
JAGfofc (Level 18)
Greyfriars Bobby (Level 14)

mrkilla22 is Level 15, and like Caine from "Kung Fu" is walking from town to town, meeting people, getting in adventurers. As in, he has not yet accepted the Troutville town invite

Sorry, I haven't been able to check the game this weekend other than on my phone once or twice. Where do I find the town invite?

[collegesportsfanms]

ok, I'm signed up as collegesportsfanms, I think. Whenever I tried to go into any of the worlds, all I got was a blank screen. So, I'm not sure what's going on

[collegesportsfanms]

wait, scratch that, I've just gotten into World1, I'm looking at the tutorial now.

[collegesportsfanms]

ok, so I did the tutorial in World1, then I decided to try my luck at getting into Fairbanks again. It took a while to load, but I'm in, so now I guess I have to do the tutorial in Fairbanks. I'm totally confused.

[Brian Swartz]

Sounds very interesting. Unfortunately I have less than no time, so I'll just have to read along here.

[mrkilla22]

Originally Posted by mrkilla22

Sorry, I haven't been able to check the game this weekend other than on my phone once or twice. Where do I find the town invite?

Nevermind, I found it! It was buried in my messages.

[ntndeacon]

I went Blacksmith , so there is at least one craft type amongst us now.

[hoopsguy]

OK, back to work on Troutville.
collegesportsfanms, welcome to the-west. Friend and town invite on the way.
mrkilla, glad to have you with us in town.
Brian, hope that we give you a fun read.

We're closing in on a Level 2 hotel. Probably one more hour of work for me to move that along. Hoping to advance my character another level or two this evening to be more confident that the next hour on the hotel will get the job done.

So, now that I have access to the fort fighting views after hitting Level 25 I've come to a realization: the fort fighting participation on this world is not particularly good. Medium fort battles (100 attackers vs 84 defenders) do not regularly fill, and large fort battles (140 attackers vs 120 defenders) do not must 200 total participants. Which means that if/when our players want to start fort fighting, the option is pretty wide open to do so.

[PackerFanatic]

Back in the saddle (pun fully intended). Definitely looks like it has changed quite a bit since last go-round. Let me know what we are needing for jobs and such. I need to do some reading up on things.

[hoopsguy]

Welcome, Packer. At this point, I would encourage you to do something different than what you did in 2009 just to create a different experience.

Town and friend invites on the way.
Hmm, what name did you use for sign-up? Not seeing PackerFanatic, but if you registered in last hour or so it might not be updated just yet.

[PackerFanatic]

Yeah, I used PackerFanatic (same account was still open actually)

And truthfully, I cannot remember at all what I did then, so it will all be new to me, more or less! Cruising through the opening tutorials and such - up to level 7!

[hoopsguy]

And things are looking up, as I've now picked up a much faster horse from the mobile trader: Quarter Horse, speed +150%

With that in mind, does anyone want my White Horse? Speed 100%? Happy to list to help someone else move around at a better clip.
Also have a push dagger, doing 13-23 damage, that is a dupe. Found one literally 2 minutes after buying that item from trader.

Pushing for Level 31 tonight before calling it a wrap. Then will get to work on building for a few hours tonight. Finished a quest line that provided Automation, which means that I can queue 8 jobs instead of 4. So will likely do 5 hours of construction this evening instead of 3.

Finally, if someone has a chance to complete "Clothes Make the Man" quest from Maya, the reward at end is pretty nice for lower levels. Yellow Checkered Shirt, +12 Vigor, +13 Tactics.

[hoopsguy]

And that is a wrap for Monday night. Pushed to Level 31, and about 60% of way to next level. That may be my last time getting multiple levels in a day, as I believe my prem energy will disappear.

Did find my first item in the Sleepyhead set, which is great for recovering energy. I'm the proud owner of a pillow.

Going to queue up 5 hours of work tonight:
- Hotel
- Town Hall
- Tailor x2
- Gunsmith

Current Level: 31 (1891/3102 to next level)
Current $$$: 23,752 in bank
Current Bonds: 126
Current Weapon: Push Dagger (13-23 damage)
Current XP Rank: 2,343 (based on Level 30)
Current Dueling Rank: 12,436
Current Dueling Record: 0-1
Current Town Rank: 380 (up 82 spots from yesterday!)
"Best" Item: Quarter Horse (speed +150%)
Set Collections: Greenhorn (complete), Farmers Set (1/7), Mexican Set (2/9), Sleepyhead (1/8)
Achievements: 53/690
Completed quests: 118
Used construction points: 1,589
Contributed to town treasury: $10,339

[PackerFanatic]

Hit level 15 today and decided to go the route of a solider. Hopefully I can be useful when it comes to fort battles if we get to that point

[Coffee Warlord]

By the way, if anyone is looking to join, send an email address. Everyone gets a quest to invite someone, so we get free shit.

[PackerFanatic]

hoops - I'd be happy to take that horse off your hands if nobody else needs it.

[JAG]

I found a 125% horse at the trader today so that helps. Some of these locations are pretty far even with that.

Stupid question: does sleeping in the hotel puts you totally out of commission for 8 hours?

[Coffee Warlord]

No, you can cancel it like any other job.

[Coffee Warlord]

Tell you what, no fort has ever been safer than this one I've been guarding for the last century.

[PackerFanatic]

Man - I really miss that 5000% movement increase perk. Taking 15 minutes just to walk to a job that is not at all that far from town is absurd. And I have to go over 2 hours to turn in a quest now too? Boo-urns...

[mrkilla22]

What are the best things to buy using Union Pacific Bonds?

[hoopsguy]

Originally Posted by PackerFanatic

Hit level 15 today and decided to go the route of a solider. Hopefully I can be useful when it comes to fort battles if we get to that point

Yep, soldiers get fat better than other builds. And they defend better in dueling. So some nice options for the soldier; mildly surprised more people don't do that class.

[hoopsguy]

Originally Posted by PackerFanatic

hoops - I'd be happy to take that horse off your hands if nobody else needs it.

Originally Posted by PackerFanatic

Man - I really miss that 5000% movement increase perk. Taking 15 minutes just to walk to a job that is not at all that far from town is absurd. And I have to go over 2 hours to turn in a quest now too? Boo-urns...

I'll post this when I'm back in town tonight. 100% movement, compared to 25% for donkey, is pretty meaningful difference.

[hoopsguy]

Originally Posted by mrkilla22

What are the best things to buy using Union Pacific Bonds?

Totally individual decision. For my Level 150 guy, I normally save up to 2,000 bonds and buy that chest for chance to get something super rare. But at earlier levels, stuff like buffs or set items like Confederate or Prairie set might be more appealing.

[hoopsguy]

Town is now up to 7 participants, with a couple of potential spots remaining with our current Residences. If there were more people who wanted to take a look, we would just prioritize building residences. A town can hold a max of 50, so I'm not exactly quaking over running out of spots.

Speaking of town building, the work from last night resulted in bumps for our Tailor and Gunsmith. I'm looking to sink another 3 hours in this evening, with hopes that we can keep moving the needle on our buildings. Thrilled to see JAG picking up a few levels, as that should dramatically help with his building results. And I see he has 5 hours of building queued up as well ...

Expected building:
- Mortician
- Tailor
- Gunsmith

Would hope to move the Tailor level up to 3, as well as get the Mortician (only one level) up and operational. Plus whatever JAGs building contributes ... we should see some decent movement by tomorrow morning.

That said, it is going to start costing more and more to finish levels on buildings. I'm hoping to start finding some items with construction bonuses. So far, have not had much luck with getting that kind of gear. Premium cash expired earlier this evening, and my premium energy will be gone tomorrow morning. So the grind is on ...

Current Level: 33 (2634/3498 to next level)
Current $$$: 28,870 in bank
Current Bonds: 144
Current Weapon: Push Dagger (13-23 damage)
Current XP Rank: 2,195 (based on Level 33)
Current Dueling Rank: 12,385
Current Dueling Record: 0-1
Current Town Rank: 338 (up 42 spots from yesterday!)
"Best" Item: Quarter Horse (speed +150%)
Set Collections: Greenhorn (complete), Farmers Set (1/7), Mexican Set (2/9), Sleepyhead (1/8)
Achievements: 57/690
Completed quests: 122
Used construction points: 2,289
Contributed to town treasury: $11,833

[collegesportsfanms]

pleased to be a part of this game, and the new town of Troutville. Unfortunately this is just another fun thing to take away some of my time. Don't know how much I'll be able to be devote to this, first priority as far as FOFC goes is still my FBCB interactive dynasties and my WIS NCAA Tournament. BTW hoopsguy, did you sign up for a coach in my FBCB Interactive Coaches Dynasty? If not, I need to get you involved in it.

[hoopsguy]

Nice to see all the buildings that were completed in morning reports:
- Tailor (L3)
- Mortician (done)
- Market (L2)
- Gunsmith (L3)

Thanks to JAG for some serious building efforts last night.

[Coffee Warlord]

2 hours away from Troutville, and carrying over 4k. But, I'm not donating 20% to some non Trout town!

[JAG]

Not sure I'll be able to build as much tonight do to energy woes. I'm planning on staying at the hotel for a little while soon to see if I can't squeeze in 1-2 more tasks.

For the vets, how worth it is it to travel over the different map quadrants / counties to meet up with quest givers? I'm a little put off by the distance required in some cases, but if the rewards are worthwhile I will put up with the otherwise wasted travel time or wait until energy has been depleted first.

[PackerFanatic]

I have been wondering the same, JAG. Just got a couple quests that are quite a ways away - what is worse is the ones that make you come back to them to turn them in.

[ntndeacon]

I am dealing with some of my backlog of quests, the Adventurer's starting quest to the other side of the map sucked
I am walking back now. About to hit up the indian village where I started from