Return to "The West"

[hoopsguy]

So a few years back we had a long thread on OT about this game:
The West (a western themed browser based RPG) - Front Office Football Central

I believe I'm the last man standing from FOFC playing this game. The world we all played on, World 8, was closed a couple of years ago. I currently have characters going on World 11 (my second world, which I joined on day it opened) and Colorado. As you may have noticed, the World naming standard changed from numbers to names such as Colorado.

There have been a ton of changes to the game since our group last played. I'll use this dynasty to detail some of the changes, as well as narrate my start as a worker on the most recent (but somewhat mature, as it has been out for months) world for The West.

This is an interactive dynasty insofar as I would love to see people following this thread jump in and create a character to play alongside me. I'll be starting this character with the idea of having an FOFC only town, similar to what we did in 2009.

So, with that, time to create my 3rd character!

[hoopsguy]

The name of the world is "Fairbank" and it was started on 3/17/2015.

I'll be starting as "hoopsguy" which is the same as my username on other worlds.

The intro to the game has been changed. But I remain a "greenhorn" at the outset, and keep the speed bonus until Level 15.

First part of intro involves a quest, provided by Barkeeper Henry Walker, to defeat Ben Higgs. This ne'er-do-well has the town - very general term since I'm not in a town - under his control and is shaking down residents like Henry for protection.

The game prompts me to launch directly into a duel, but I check inventory first. I've got some pimp starting gear: Grey Rags (+1 Toughness) and Grey Ragged Shoes (+1 Reflex). So that should be more than enough for the tutorial It concludes with a resounding 10-0 KO victory, with 5 punches laying out the town bully. 20XP is about halfway to Level 2.

Next up is a duel against an NPC. This is a new feature, as you can pick up some XP and cash against non-players whenever the mood strikes. In theory, it gives an opportunity to test your builds against a non-player foe. In practice, at 5 energy per battle, it isn't terribly interesting except for helping collect daily bonds. That is a topic I'll cover in a future post.

15-0 win over NPC (they all have names, but I forgot to record this one) and I've got another 20XP as well as a bonus skill point. For those who played the first game, you might notice that the early leveling process is MUCH more rapid than it was six years ago. In fact, with those two quests I've progressed to Level 2.

[hoopsguy]

The next quest in the tutorial, offering 10XP, is to allocate one of my skill points to health. Easy enough. I've got 1 attribute point and 4 skill points, thanks to the bonus one for the last quest. Since I'm going to be making my own town from scratch, I'll be going worker and pure construction at the outset. So attribute point to strength, three points to construction, and one to health to keep advancing the tutorial. Actually, not possible since the tutorial blocks me from spending the other points. Probably a good idea for first time players, but a little annoying in my specific case.

So, onto my first job quest ... Chase away Highwaymen. This is a new job, introduced maybe two years ago. Also, there is an option to do 15 second jobs. Since this is a 0/1 job, it means I can satisfy the requirement with a 15 second job costing 1 energy. Other options are 10 minutes (cost 5) or an hour, which runs 12 energy. In the spirit of powering through job quests, it always makes sense to take the 15 second job. Unless of course, it is a job where you are short labor points and it is going to hurt you. I'll get more into jobs in a little while, once I'm out of the tutorial.

[hoopsguy]

The quest actually restricts you to a 15 second job; they really do have this starting routine on some tight rails. 10 more XP.

Herding lambs is next. 0/2 for this one, so it will take a little longer. As in, about 15 seconds longer. There is virtually no travel between these jobs, which are right next to the character spawning spot. By the time I'm done with the job, my cash is up to $9. Drinks on hoopsguy!

Another level upon finishing the lambs, and onto Level 3. The next quest asks to move Strength up to 2. This is one of the four attributes (Strength, Dexterity, Mobility, and Charisma) in the game, and neither the attributes or the 20 skills have changed since 2009.

Time to catch a speared fish. Which is the first example of a product drop for a job, which is not coincidentally "Spear Fishing." Another one of the new jobs. Done, and next quest involves the citizens presenting me with a "Starter Bandana" for my great success removing Ben Higgs from town. And a chance to learn about inventories. That is by far the best item up to this point, as it provides +5 Stamina. I also notice that I've collected a pair of lamb wool and one knocked out tooth from earlier jobs.

One of the concepts that was discussed thoroughly in the 2009 thread was turning over inventory to help buy the next big product. I'm a total hoarder, and this is appropriate with the introduction of crafting in the game. Drink every time you hear this: I'll discuss this concept more in an upcoming post.

[DavidCorperial]

I think I at one point actually played this game, but I think it was like a decade ago.

[PilotMan]

I still get emails to come back.

[hoopsguy]

Next quest is equipping the Starter Bandana. One step ahead of our erstwhile bartender on that one. Another 10 XP.

10 more XP for Grinding Coffee, yet another new job for starter characters.

And with that, the next quest involves getting some more gear from Henry. The "travel bag" includes items for greenhorns. He also throws in $100 and 20 bonds.

So, time to chat about bonds. They are kind of a "nuggets-Lite" in The West, although that explanation would make more sense if I had defined what nuggets do. Bonds can be cashed in for items that are not available in town shops. This includes some special gear, rare crafting items, and potentially enhancements for energy, health, etc. You earn them from fort fights, by completing daily tasks, and every once in awhile doing a job or duel. You can have up to a maximum of 2,000 bonds. A good fort battle will get you double digit bonds; a good week with bond collecting will get you 50-100 bonds once you are an established West veteran.

Anyway, at this point the map is now open to hoopsguy. Towns become available at Level 10, as well as the ability to declare a profession. So I'm going to be looking to accelerate from my current Level 3 to Level 10 ASAP.

[hoopsguy]

So Henry is the only one of the four guys in the Saloon and he has a pair of quests for me to work on. I can either do quests or regular jobs at this point. My MO is going to be to level as fast as possible, and that will likely include quests at this point.

- New bandits (Save the saloon, part 1)
- Quests (One hand washes the other)

The old limit for max concurrent quests was either 10 or 15. This was moved to 50 recently, so there are really no reasons not to grab every quest you see. I'll take them both on.

New bandits - defeat Gary's henchmen (new gang in town)
Quests - first one basically gives me $10, second involves opening the mini-map.

Mini-map: the map is different than 2009. There are now 14 sectors in the world, in a 2x7 grid, as well as a fifteenth in the middle. That middle grid includes a bunch of higher level jobs that I won't be able to touch for ages.

The "One hand washes other" quests are basically a continuation of the tutorial, exposing different buttons on the screen to new players while accelerating the XP up towards Level 10. At the conclusion of this quest line, I pick up a pair of Greenhorn Shoes (+1 Dex, +3 Fine Motor Skills, +6 Reflex) that is the first of nine items in this set.

I'm on the verge of Level 4, have $193 to my name, and 25 bonds. Life is good.

[hoopsguy]

For the Save the Saloon quest line, I'm at an advantage against the bandits because they are using fists while I picked up a Broken clay jug (1-7 damage) to use for my battle. 20-0 KO. Fear me!

Up next: Tobacco, then Scaring Birds off Field. These should be familiar jobs for veteran players. Downside to these is that I actually have to walk a bit to these jobs. It was a whole 50 seconds for Birds, which was the longest travel time yet. That changes a ton later in the game when the greenhorn bonus goes away and all the quests are not set up to make leveling this easy.

Stream fishing up next. Note that my labor points for this are -3. I can do the job, but run greater risk of injury when having negative labor points. That risk is low on this particular job, but it worth noting for later on in the game as there can be some pretty severe job-related injuries.

That job moves the needle to Level 5.

There is another job that requires I pay $40, but receive the Starter Headband, yielding +3 Dodge. Finishing that job gets Level 6. Guys who played this game years ago will be astonished at how quickly leveling happens now compared to then. Totally one of those "in my day, we walked uphill through snow both ways" type moments.

Sugar cane (0/2) is another layup. While waiting for this to finish, I notice that there are a couple of players chatting in the Saloon chat. There are several potential chat channels in the game, but right now "Saloon" is the only one available. It is a seemingly random compilation of players. Other channels include town chat, alliance chat, and fort chat. None of those come into play at this point in the game.

Shining shoes is the next job. That one is near the large fort in my sector. Each sector has three forts: large/medium/small. The large one here is named Valhall and is owned by a town named Wikings Unite. They have 29 members and are affiliated with "The Claw v2" alliance. Highest level player in this town is Level 123. Lowest is Level 27.

[hoopsguy]

OK, time to take down "Nasty Gary" ... wonder if I'll actually get to a quest bad guy who puts up a fight? The answer is "yes" as I score the only hit in 8th and final shot to earn a 5-0 triumph. Still facing guys with fists. Poor sucker.

50 more bonds for confirming my email address. Up to 75 of those and $214 in cash. I'm now done with Henry quests for now and it is time to talk with a new character in the Saloon, Maya Roalstad. She is a dancer, and has a female picture. Other than that, the experience is pretty much the same as Henry.

[hoopsguy]

Two questlines from Maya:
- Cleanup efforts
- The big performance

One of the continuing tutorial items that Maya presents involves the mobile trader. This is new since 2009. The mobile trader is associated with your inventory. Every day, you will get a listing of 8 items provided by the mobile trader. Every day, as in the timer turns over 24 hours after you open the window. The most interesting thing I see here is the Pony, which would help me move faster but he costs $500 and that is 2x what I currently own. I'll grab the Green Bandana for $35, as I know I'll need it at some point later in the year for a quest.

I'm actually at a point where I'm not just equipping every item that I find, but instead having to make decisions between trivial gear. Still no horse, pants (think those are new from 2009), fort weapon, or whatever the name is for the miscellaneous item slot.

Buying that item from the mobile trader was worth another 50 bonds. Getting 125 bonds in a span of an hour never ever happens in this game outside of the starting tutorial. Whee!

[hoopsguy]

So 25 of those bonds disappear in order to purchase "Beginner's Bag" for a quest. It contained a Black Cap, which offers +4 Toughness, +4 Setting Traps, and +4 Leadership. Won't be able to use until Level 8. Will be short-term useful, but I strongly doubt I'll ever spend 20 bonds on a Beginner's Bag ever again.

Another quest gives Premium Income, which offers +50% income from jobs. This is one of the premium benefits, which can be purchase by nuggets. That is the "pay for play" element of this otherwise free game. I've never purchased a nugget in 6 years of playing, but can still accumulate 15 every five days as a by-product of logging in every day. There is a daily login bonus that goes like this:
1st day: 1% of total XP
2nd day: 2% of total XP
3rd day: 3% of total XP
4th day: 4% of total XP
5th day: 15 nuggets (or 15 bonds, if you have a character on another world who already got the 15 nuggets)

This is yet another way to help drastically accelerate the speed for levels. But it is pretty much the key to advancing in levels at the highest points. The level cap has increased from 99 back in 2009 to 150; there was an intermediate cap at 120, but 150 has been the standard for maybe 18-24 months.

[hoopsguy]

Got my pants before hitting Level 7, thanks to another one of Maya's quests. Wool pants are part of the Greenhorn Set, and offer +3 Swimming and +3 Horseback Riding. Having two items in that set offer a bonus +10 labor points for Picking Sugar Cane. I'll be outgrowing the utility of this gear pretty quickly.

Up to Level 7. Each level offers 1 attribute point, 3 skill points, and unlocks jobs. The unlocking of jobs is semi-interesting, insofar as if you don't have labor points to do a job then it appears and you are allowed to have a go at it. I'm normally not too tempted to try jobs where I'm short labor points and will hurt myself. But I'm calling it out because this model is a little different than what existed in 2009.

Time to take a quick look around the world.
Rankings show me in 4700 for XP rankings at Level 6 (this updates about once/hour). The top ranked person in the world is saydemir from a town named ANADOLU. He is Level 140, two levels ahead of #2 and #3. I'm mildly surprised to be this high in the rankings, as I expected to be closer to 10,000 or so.

[hoopsguy]

More quests = more items. Starter shirt yields +5 Horseback Riding. I learn that there is not a "Starter Set" per se, just a collection of disconnected items with a common "Starter" name.

New guy in Saloon = Sheriff John Fitzburn. Saloon is starting to get more crowded. He also has two questlines:
- Manhunt
- The six banditos

The first quest yields a weapon upgrade, with the broken wine bottle bringing the thunder for 2-10 damage via pure melee rage. Previous broken jug was only good for 1-7. That gets put to good use in a duel, a 13-1 triumph that included one hit for 9 damage.

The Manhunt quests conclude with another duel win. I was advised to tweak my stances to help earn a victory, but haven't needed to do so just yet. I'm sure that day is coming, especially with me not having used any of my points just yet. I'll do that now, at least for the attribute points. I don't know that the Construction skill is helping with any of these jobs, but the STR will apply to most jobs in some small fashion.

[hoopsguy]

I'm not as excited about dueling quests at the moment, as I'm up to $576 and think I would lose some of that money in a quest duel loss. I know an NPC loss would result in lost cash, but not positive on quest losses. There are numerous bandits in the "six banditos" series, and each of them falls 10-0 to a single hit. That added STR is showing up in the dueling box scores.

That questline yields the third item in the Greenhorn set: Wool poncho. +3 Toughness, +3 Appearance. With three set items, an additional bonus of +40 labor points for Felling Trees is in play.

Next up is Waupee, who completes the "Core Four" that you'll encounter in the Saloon throughout the game.

[hoopsguy]

Two more quest collections from Waupee:
- Fire heart
- Education

One of the item quests involves retrieving a raven feather. That was tough in 2009, but is quite a bit easier today. There are not 2% jobs like Handcuffs at this point, although there are still a few jobs where the product drop is more challenging. But in general, if you have labor points you've got a reasonable chance to get a drop in the one hour job.

Picking beans, with -6 labor points, is a tougher drop. Only 26% and it is the first quest where I've not been rewarded in 15 seconds. This one took 30 seconds. And it is good for Level 9.

Waupee gives a buff that gives 50 points towards turkey for one hour. I'm very tempted to do a series of 15 second jobs on that for as long as my health holds out. With that buff, I've got 15 labor points and the Danger rating for the job is 13%. 14xp for every 15 seconds, 330xp required to get to Level 10. I'm almost certainly going to bang away on that job for awhile and forego quests for a little while.

This is one of the few times where a buff is more useful now than later. That amount of XP will never be more valuable in terms of levels than it is right now. I'm envisioning getting to Level 11 on this job, even if the motivation falling below 75% (each time doing 15 sec job takes 1 motivation from base 100) dings my 14XP reward.

[hoopsguy]

While banging out Turkey jobs, I find my first recipe: Mix fine dubbin (500)

So that recipe requires crafting level 500. Not sure if I'll pick the Master Saddler crafting tree anyway. Even if I did, I'm months away from being able to use this. And this item has just about zero resale ability. I'll talk more about crafting later on; it is a portion of the game I normally do not deeply explore.

As expected, the turkey jobs lead to Level 10 in pretty short order. Which means that I can start on a town. I've got 1,099 cash now, which should be enough to found one. I'll need $300 and 80 energy. Given the current buff, I'll likely ride out the turkey to Level 11 and then spend 20 energy before forming a town. But if levels are coming before I can spend 20 energy, then I may just keep pushing for a little while longer tonight. I want to have the town build process (8 hours) take place overnight.

[hoopsguy]

So the rewards for turkey slip to 11XP/$11 when motivation dips to 75% and stay there through 51%. That is enough to get to Level 11.

Utilization is at 57% - do 6 more jobs of turkey? Maybe after a couple of quests, when I'm closer to leveling.

The Fire Heart quest concludes with offering "Premium Energy" for 4 days. Which means that I'm not going to be hitting 80 energy for awhile, since Premium bumps me to 150. Hmm, that town will get built tonight but I've got some more leveling to do first ...

Also, hitting Level 10 appears to have opened some new quests from Henry and Maya. So three of the four folks in the Saloon are putting me to work.

[Greyfriars Bobby]

This looks like it might be interesting. I might see what I can find out about it and give it a try.

[hoopsguy]

Probably worth mentioning that after this first bit the levels do not come this fast and furious. When they do slow down, I'll take a bit more time to write about what is going on with the character as levels are achieved.

Also, the jobs will shift from 15 sec jobs to 1 hour jobs. You can't do 1 hour jobs until Level 20, but given the startup process, that barely registers. Just know that you'll be a little more engaged for the first couple of hours while clearing through the tutorials, but the remainder of the game can be played at the same kind of leisurely pace found in 2009, if so desired.

Also, just got the following Achievement: Veteran Adventurer
Completed 50 quests, receive bonus 300xp. Considering that I need 537 xp total to hit Level 13, that is pretty meaningful. There have been a flurry of achievements along the way, although very few have any kind of meaningful payoff like the one above.

Normally, I would want to create my town right at Level 10. But with levels moving so quickly, especially with prem energy and money, the new threshold is 14.9. I would prefer to have my town created prior to hitting Level 15 and losing my Greenhorn speed bonus. But even that is a soft deadline, assuming that I want to go somewhat local with my town. Because I don't see a huge difference between the 8 hours to build vs 10 hours to have a 2 hour walk + 8 hours to build. Either way, I'm going to be sleeping while the majority of this time passes.

A good resource, for pretty much all things The West, is this URL: TW-DB.info - Fan site for browser game The West. Calculators, inventory, jobs, forts..

Waupee sends me to another indian, who is in my sector. And he provides a flurry of quests that grant additional skill points. It culminates with another item in the Greenhorn Set: Leather Belt. +3 Shooting, +2 Leadership, +3 Construction. And +25 labor points for Tanning Deer skin.

[hoopsguy]

Originally Posted by Greyfriars Bobby

This looks like it might be interesting. I might see what I can find out about it and give it a try.

Would love some company in the game. I'll have a town name to post tomorrow morning, which is probably the best way for us to collaborate early on if you want to give it a go.

[hoopsguy]

Another look around the world, just to see if I recognize some familiar faces from other worlds:

Last XP rating shows me at Level 8, good for #4018 in the world.
#2 XP guy in the world, napole, is a name I think I've encountered before. But that is only name on Top 9 (first page) that I even sort of recognize.

#5 on list of duelers is a guy named Artem124. I see him regularly on World 11. And I've shared worlds with #6, infiniti99 a couple of times. Duelers can be a weird list, as many of the players engage in "zero motivation dueling" ... basically, they want to suppress their dueling level in order to have a longer run of hitting less experienced players. When your dueling level gets too high, you have a relatively narrow range of players you can duel. This was an issue back in 2009 as well, but there have been a slew of changes. I don't envision dueling much in the near future, but I'm sure I'll riff on this at some point in the near future. Also happy to help provide guidance for anyone who comes onboard and would like to duel.

Towns - couple of town names register from other worlds. #3 Blazing Saddles was once a force on W11. #9 Dos Lagos has been on other worlds. #1 town is Legends, who have 43 members and an average player level of 97.

[hoopsguy]

There is a quest series that shifts from Henry to Maya, and along the way I get my 5th item in the Greenhorn Set. Dust rag, +2 Stamina, +1 Hiding. +25 to Hunting Turkey is the bonus for having 5 items in set. If only my turkey motivation was not already shot!

That quest also loops over to the Sheriff, and I hit Level 13. Cruising right along. The Sheriff sells us the horse in the Greenhorn Set, who offers Speed +15% and +25 labor points to Cowboy with 6 items equipped.

While going to finish off another "job quest" I notice that one of the jobs has a gold ring around it. So, that is pretty rare. You'll find only a couple of those at a time on all 15 sectors of the map. Gold gives 2x the rewards that you would normally see for money and XP, while Silver jobs (rare, but probably 5x more common, can find 1-2 per sector) give 50% the normal rewards. Normally, I would do hour jobs to max out the value but in this case I can only do 10 minutes. But even that is not interesting in this specific scenario since I'm in turbo-level mode before calling it a night. So I'll do the job in 15 sec increments. Also worth noting that gold status disappears after a couple of uses, so it is first come, first serve. 15xp, $19 for each 15sec of scaring birds. I got to do this 10x before the job reverted to normal status.

[hoopsguy]

Got my first item drop from a job: Red Indian Necklace. +3 Stamina, +5 Animal Instinct. At this point, the inventory is getting a little more busy. There are 12 sections in the inventory, and each section has 20 items per page. I'm closing in on a 2nd page in the "Product" page, with 16 individual entries. From a gear standpoint, I have 4 neckbands to choose between with the addition of the Red Indian Necklace.

Just as a comparison to the earlier Birds job, I'm now doing Tobacco. 5XP, $20 for each 15 seconds. Keep in mind, these values include premium income. I'll soon be at a stage in the game where I'm carefully selecting my jobs to enhance my XP or cash, but for now I'm doing what the quests direct me to do.

So my starting sector was in the very bottom/right. There are very few ghost towns here, so I've tried to drift one sector to the left. However, I've twice been yanked back to the original sector to do Waupee quests at the Indian grounds (not burial, as far as I can tell) in the starting sector. Definitely do not like as Level 15 is looming.

Current Level: 13 (397/618 to next level)
Current $$$: 2,051
Current Bonds: 110
Current Weapon: Broken Wine Bottle (2-10)
Current XP Rank: 3,592 (based on Level 12)
Current Dueling Rank: 6,117
Current Dueling Record: 0-0
Current Town Rank: n/a
"Best" Item: Black Cap (+4 each for Toughness, Setting Traps, Leadership)
Set Collections: Greenhorn (6/9)

[hoopsguy]

Need two wood for a quest. Not awesome, as drop percentage is low for Felling Trees. Later, there will be better jobs for getting wood but for now, this is what I can do.

This is also a job that puts me at some risk. I received this report with one of my job recaps:
"A big branch falls on you. You hurt your shoulder.You lose 75 health points."

Given that I only have 360 health, and that I would lose all of my cash if I were to be KO'd, I need to tread somewhat lightly here.

[hoopsguy]

Danger % for this job is only 9%, so hopefully can grind out enough instances. Also, all health and energy is restored to full with a new level. Since I'm closing on 14, the chances are slight that I would get KO'd here. Still, if I see health below 150 (was 250 after that branch incident) then time to find a safer job.

I take another injury from this job, but only sustain 9 points of damage. Hit the level, finally get 2nd wood after 47 total tries. Not much fun; better gear will help eventually with stuff like this. But putting all points in construction mean that there will be a lot of jobs that require some grinding like this one. Still, this is far better than the 30+ hours I heard for some of the worst job/quests back in the old days.

On a related note, the "Save the Saloon, part 2" is a pretty long quest line. Goes across all 4 folks, as well as Waupee's indian friend, and I'm not sure if I'll finish it before hitting level 15.

[hoopsguy]

And another Greenhorn item - get to pick between a blade and a ranged weapon. Since I'm all STR, I choose the Scout's Axe, which deals 6-14 damage and gives +1 Vigor. +25 labor points (assume that is all jobs) and +20% speed to complete the set. Much appreciated with the greenhorn bonus going away.

Remember when I mentioned earlier that I could not afford the Pony from the Mobile Trader? Well, with $3,000+ to my name, that is no longer an issue. Pony gives +50% speed, compared to the other horse +15% and the 20% Greenhorn bonus. Think that is still a win, but I'll likely be looking at faster horses when they become available. So the Pony should not get too comfortable being my noble stead.

So, one issue that used to be around in 2009 that isn't anymore ... if you want to bank your cash when not in a town, you can do that at any town. You pay a 20% fee, but that beats the scenario where I form my town tomorrow, then try to build a bank in time to bank cash before being dueled. If I lost a duel, I would surrender 33% of on-hand cash. However, if the money is in the bank, there is no risk. This whole banking issue led to a lot of maneuvering in the FOFC towns in 2009, as you would see if you feel like digesting that 4,700+ post thread

[hoopsguy]

Sigh - another Quest line that will keep me rooted to this sector. Not going to be all that much fun when Greenhorn goes away. There is a larger "story quest" that actually covers a series of quests that was introduced last year. The Outpost is the first group of quests that represent the larger plot for the game. And the first location for those Outpost quests is right here in the SE sector I'm trying to escape for building my town.

The first quest involves finding a flag. That item was the bane of folks who played in 2009. It isn't great for me as a pure STR build either. 2% for a 15sec job, 5% for a 10min job. And the XP/$$$ isn't very good. But again, 2% for 15sec is so much better than 2% for 2 hours. So glad to be separated from that kind of grind.

No dice in 16 tries, and on the verge of Level 15 I think it is time to call it a night and start building our city. Eight hours from now, Troutville will make its appearance within Olympian County on Fairbanks.

[hoopsguy]

And Troutville has been founded! We are right next to a large fort by the name of "The Throne of Zeus" ... will see shortly if this was a good or bad decision.

Immediately declare for the Builder class (not Worker?) and put all points into Construction. That is 58 points right now and at some point down the line I'll have a few points that I can recover to move into Construction and further elevate that skill.

Travel time is so morbid now, compared to what it was before dinging Level 15. The job next to town was six seconds away with the Greenhorn bonus, but is now about five minutes to travel back to town on my Pony.

Starting town building levels:
Bank - 1
Church - 1
Town Hall - 1
Saloon - 1
Cinema - 1

I've got about $3,000 in cash, and will immediately move $960 into the town treasury. That will give me four hours of construction. I'm looking to invest in the Bank right away, so I'm not giving away as high a percentage of my cash. Right now, the Level 1 bank costs me 13% instead of the 20% that I get from banks in other towns. Better, but a Level 5 bank will be 4%. I like having most of my money available to me.

Second investment will be in a hotel to begin recovering energy. It isn't a super immediate need with 150 energy and quick leveling, but when I do need to rest then I want to be able to recover energy efficiently.

I've also heard forever about the idea that you need to pray before building. I scoff in the direction of praying having any impact on results. I will utter no prayers before I build and let the results fall as they will.

[JAG]

JAGfofc is level 7, strength / construction at the moment. Not a ton of time to figure things out at the moment.

[hoopsguy]

JAG, if you have questions please ask here and I'll try to address them. I've also sent you a friend request in the game. If you accept it, then I'll be able to see when you are online in the game. I'll also send town invites to both you and mrkilla22. I believe we can hold 5 people in the town with our Residences at Level 1.

First hour of work on the bank gets it 45% of the way done.
First hour of work on the hotel gets it 47% of the way done.

I also am dueled for the first time. Alexrobert01 tunes me up, and I'm 0-1 after a 66-0 loss. Alex is from the town Swedish Vikings, which is not part of any alliance. There are 3 people in his town, and he has a record of 4-2. Main difference that I see in gear is that he has a Blue Shirt, which gives +10 Aim and +9 Appearance. I suspect that I'll have opportunities to humble him at some later point, if he sticks around this game for awhile.

[hoopsguy]

There is a new person in the Saloon, Kiki. She is part of the Drama Queens quest series. Now that movement is so slow, I'm going to try and find jobs that are local and meet a quest rather than plowing through each quest line consecutively.

I find one quest, requiring a hammer, that is in the 5-pack of jobs next to town. That is a five minute walk with my current gear (including Pony) which means other jobs are going to take more investment. Particularly when trying to bang out 15 sec jobs, 5 minutes seems like a long walk. I've got an 8% chance to find a hammer on a 15sec job, and 41% on 10 minutes. Going to give it a couple shots at 15sec first ... and after 16 tries it is done.

Back to town with $244 cash. And a quest to equip a donkey ... the animal I skipped while moving directly to Pony. Bah, that is kind of annoying.

[hoopsguy]

Grave digging is going to be a regular job for me over the next couple of days. It isn't related to any quests, but it offers decent XP/$$$ (14/31) and a nice luck range for drops. The value item for drops can be up to $1312. I had a nice run of luck over my 25 15s jobs:
Yellow Buckled Belt (Level 20): +1 STR, +6 Stamina, +7 Repairing
Plain Yellow Pants (Level 13): +1 DEX, +1MOB, +5 Reflex, +6 Hiding
2 Grey Studded Belts (Level 27): +10 Health, +4 Reflex

Also hit Level 16. Will be out for awhile this afternoon, so time to pick up some building. Another hour each for the Bank and Hotel, and holding out hope one of them will be done at the end of this work.

Finally, welcome to Troutville, JAG! Looking forward to working together to build out this town.

[Travis]

Not sure if I'll get back into playing or not, but definitely looking forward to following along. Good luck!

[Greyfriars Bobby]

I decided to give this a try. I've registered, and I've just begun the tutorial. The game hung up when I was trying to accept the travel bag from Henry, so I had to refresh it. I'm not sure if that will screw things up for me or not.

Anyway, I'm registered as Greyfriars Bobby. You might see me wandering around Fairbank like a clueles noob.

[JAG]

I'm going to have trouble doing 15s jobs for a little while, so if you want to give a priority build order to the town buildings that would be handy. Our bank is L2 now. I started work on the hotel since you had also.

[JAG]

Also, should we be regularly banking money or is there some point to keeping it in inventory?

[hoopsguy]

Money - bank it. If you have it on your person, you can lose it in a duel. Or by getting KO'd on a job, although that is something that you can more or less control.

Priority buildings - I would suggest that you keep an eye on your motivation while building and try to avoid doing construction when you are starting the job with less than 80% motivation. That motivation acts as a multiplier on your overall productivity, and the cost of construction remains the same whether you have 100% motivation or 1% motivation.

That said, I would suggest starting with buildings that are already in progress as a starting point. If you are in position to finish them off, that is great. If you are going to just be advancing them along, that is fine too.

I think we'll want to get newer players some faster transport, so lets get moving on the General Store. Level 1 of that should yield the donkey, which we need both for a quest and potentially for your first ride once the Greenhorn bonus goes away.

Greyfriars, I'll be sending both a friend invite and a town invite your way. Hopefully we can help address some of the clueless noob learning curve

[hoopsguy]

OK, so something else that is very different than the 2009 edition. We can now very easily trade between players, both within our own town and outside as well without having to switch towns. There is a new town building, called Market, that we can construct that allows people to post items out of their inventories.

With that in mind, wondering if anyone can use this duplicate Red Indian Necklace that I've got?
Level 9, +3 Stamina, +5 Animal Instinct

We can also use this as a way to trade some of the products that might be challenging to find. For example, I've currently got 6 spades and would be happy to post a couple if someone runs across a need for that item for a quest or crafting.

[JAG]

How does one recover motivation?

I've queue'd up 2x working on the general store

[Greyfriars Bobby]

Originally Posted by hoopsguy

Greyfriars, I'll be sending both a friend invite and a town invite your way. Hopefully we can help address some of the clueless noob learning curve

Thank you! That sounds good. As I understand it, if I'm part of a town, I can deposit my meager amount of money in the Troutville bank.

If I'm not part of a town, I don't run the risk of being waylaid by a newbie-stomper who wants to take advantage of my very limited dueling ability. Still, I think I'm better off as part of Troutville, aren't I?

[hoopsguy]

Having to travel a little further out for jobs at this point, as the Berries I need for a quest require about 16 minutes of travel. Boo! Given that amount of travel, I would prefer to do a couple of jobs before heading back to town. But that also increases the risk of being dueled and losing some of the cash. So this is a bit of a work in progress figuring out how much dueling to expect in this world, or specifically this little part of the world.

Level 17, now jumping about 20 minutes out of town to take a crack at a couple of quest/jobs.

[hoopsguy]

Originally Posted by JAG

How does one recover motivation?

I've queue'd up 2x working on the general store

Time; you'll recover a part of it per day. Clock resets somewhere around 3AM server time, which is about 8PM CST.

There are also some items you could buy on the market or bond shop that would help, but I don't think those are too feasible at this point in the game. Especially since we do not yet have a market ...

[hoopsguy]

Originally Posted by Greyfriars Bobby

Thank you! That sounds good. As I understand it, if I'm part of a town, I can deposit my meager amount of money in the Troutville bank.

If I'm not part of a town, I don't run the risk of being waylaid by a newbie-stomper who wants to take advantage of my very limited dueling ability. Still, I think I'm better off as part of Troutville, aren't I?

Yep, once you join a town you can be dueled. At lower levels, there probably are not too many people who could dial you up. But you run that risk.

However, you can use our bank and only sacrifice 10% of your cash on the deposit instead of 20%. And you can sleep in our hotel for free. So I'm guessing that is a good trade-off now, and it gets better with every passing level.

[ntndeacon]

ntndeacon is level 8

[collegesportsfanms]

This sounds like a blast. Where would I go to get into this game?

[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.

[hoopsguy]

Up to Level 18 now. Looking to find a couple new jobs, that are a little further out from town, that I think can get me up to Level 19. From there, I think it will be time to sink 3 hours into building the town overnight.

Next up for construction is:
- Residences (want to be able to support new players joining)
- Market (want to be able to trade with players in town and beyond)

[Coffee Warlord]

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

[hoopsguy]

Sixth guy in the Saloon - someone named Nathan, with a quest called "The farm." Kind of fun to see stuff that I don't expect in the game every once in awhile. Currently sitting with 17 quests in my queue.

Bumping the level up to 19 before beginning the building will definitely help with accelerating building efforts. Similarly, starting after Motivation resets around 8PM CST will also help. I'm excited to see where we sit tomorrow morning. I'm planning to put two hours into Residences and one hour into Market overnight, with my fourth action (max of four actions at a time, assuming no premium benefit to get extra activity) being set to sleep in our hotel.

Probably worth a quick update on character development:
Current Level: 18 (80/1113 to next level)
Current $$$: 4,588 in bank
Current Bonds: 113
Current Weapon: Scout's Axe (6-14 damage)
Current XP Rank: 3,154 (based on Level 18)
Current Dueling Rank: 12,461
Current Dueling Record: 0-1
Current Town Rank: 561
"Best" Item: Plain Yellow Pants (+1 DEX +1 MOB +5 Reflex +6 Hiding)
Set Collections: Greenhorn (complete)
Achievements: 32/690
Completed quests: 90
Used construction points: 455
Contributed to town treasury: $2,564