The West (a western themed browser based RPG)

[dbd1963]

I'm just one point away from bean picking at 8th level, so a piece of clothing can get me over the hump. My guy is just exhausted and sleeping at the moment. Still needs some posters for the quest for the madame.. I did that for four hours and got one poster. Grrr..!

[FrogMan]

Originally Posted by BrianD

OK, I went construction. Can I assume other quests will come and this bean-picking one isn't a pre-requisite for everything else?

Assuming you are in the "Fire Heart" arc of quests, that one is a pre-requesite to another from Waupee where he'll ask you for sugar. Maybe you can pick some sugar in advance.

You can look over the quests on the The West Stats too to give you an idea.

FM

[BYU 14]

This is a great game to play while you're working. I am still slogging along at level 2 and sleeping right now, but it's really nice to set a quest, check back in an hour, sell, get your next quest and move on.

Are we close to a town yet?

[Scoobz0202]

I tried that new calc with the java script. But whenever I enter the code a window pops up telling me I need to open my inventory once before being able to use the script.... it says this while my inventory is opened.

[Danny]

To see how our group is progressing and who is active.

Big Census of FOFCers in World 8:
FrogMan - Ole Dirty Froggie - 23 Adventurer
JonInMiddleGA - Luke Warmwater - 9
Schmidty - JasonSchmidt - 1
Calis - Gertbeef - 5
ntndeacon - ntndeacon - 8
Yellow5 - Weemus McToots - 2
hawk4669 - Hawk4669 - 5
BrianD - Nunzio - 8
DeToxRox - DeToxRox - 7
Danny - DanKD - 10 Adventurer
mrkilla22 - mrkilla22 - 6
Crim - CrimBronco - 7
chinaski - Van Zandt - 8
lordscarlet - Seamus Mahoney - 2
Axxon - Axxon - 7
dbd1963 - Feadhel - 8
law90026 - DaLaw - 6
BYU_14 - Kidbrit - 2
CU_Tiger - Warm Hand Luke - 3
Scoobs0202 - Scoobs0202 - 1
Danny - Huckleberry McGrain - 4

Looks like most of us who signed up are being pretty active, so that's good

[hawk4669]

Hit level 6 a bit ago and have my next couple jobs lined up already. Concentrating on building a strong worker character. Anxious to help build the town.

Cheers!

[Danny]

Originally Posted by hawk4669

Hit level 6 a bit ago and have my next couple jobs lined up already. Concentrating on building a strong worker character. Anxious to help build the town.

Cheers!

Yeah, it's not perfect as the ranking list is not in real time.

[FrogMan]

Originally Posted by Danny

I say we build our town between 5,1 and 6,1

There is wide open spaces and that would put us at enough distance from that big town.

Missed this post earlier. I think having a town located in the middle of a quadrant is easier to live with, if only for when you want to pick jobs, it's easier to find one without having to roll over to the next quadrant in order to find a spot closer to home.

FM

[FrogMan]

Originally Posted by BYU 14

Are we close to a town yet?

Here's how it stands right now. I have $217 in my pockets right now and $72 in sellable items for a total of $289. It's only a matter of doing a couple hours of coal mining before I get the missing $11 to get to the $300 needed to found a new town. Now, I also need to be well rested, i.e. have 80 rest points to my name. I am at 20 right now, so a night of sleep would bring me to 80.

The other thing is that I'm still a bit out East so to make it to where we'd like to found a town, I still got maybe 4 hours of riding my pony. I'll either ride the pony overnight and set to sleep tomorrow, then maybe think about founding the town tomorrow evening, but it would be ready until the next morning, as it takes 8 hours to set up. I would probably like it more to found it on Wednesday morning, as I won't have much time to tweak with it on Tuesday (giving karate classes) but Wednesday is usually an off night for me.

It's a matter of a couple of days now guys, then will come the need to upgrade a few things since at first only five person will be able to live in the town, and it won't even have a hotel, nor any shops.

Brings me to this idea I had: should we found only one town and try to get it up as fast as possible, or should we try to found two FOFC towns and have them grow concurrently and have more FOFCers involved with them?

What are your thoughts on this?

FM

[Danny]

Hmm, how long would it take a to build up a town to have 20 members?

[dbd1963]

I think it might make sense to get two towns going at once, because we do have a lot of guys who can contribute.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by FrogMan

Brings me to this idea I had: should we found only one town and try to get it up as fast as possible, or should we try to found two FOFC towns and have them grow concurrently and have more FOFCers involved with them?

I've kind of quietly been pondering that ever since you mentioned it in passing earlier in the thread.

I'm sitting at Level 9+ (16/110) with $218 in my pocket (after a hotel stay shortly) and thought I might be the first one of the newbies to reach Level 10 but Danny already passed me & with another slow day of XP possible tomorrow (only one XP bonus in the mix at the moment & that's dependent upon finding those damned beans) there may be others pass me as well.

Seems to me though that a second town with a goal of at least a hotel & general store seems like a decent idea. Problem is, of course, that you can only be in one place at a time and the rest of us are going to be expensive & slow builders for a number of levels yet.

I guess what I'm thinking is that with 5 residencies per town and almost 20 FOFC'ers currently active, a second town sounds like a very very good idea, I'm just not sure how effectively we could pull off two at a time right now. Maybe have you get started on the primary and then let the other one be sort of a work-in-progress, that you jump to briefly to add a couple of level 1 buildings to (just to make it functionally helpful) to but then it doesn't get much further development until some of us are more capable builders? The advantage would be that we would be able to sort of stake out a logical spot that complimented our first/primary location ... assuming that we could find two locations that made sense.

[Danny]

My Adventurer will only need to be a temp member to shop/give money and give the spot to someone else as I can sleep for free.

[FrogMan]

Originally Posted by Danny

Hmm, how long would it take a to build up a town to have 20 members?

okay, did some work on that thought. Purely based on numbers and as if my motivation was always at 100%, here's what it would look like for me to get the residences of one town to level 4 in order to host all 20 FOFCers in the game right now:

level	skill pts	dificulty	labor pts	points	per hr	hours
1	147	15	132	100	33	3
2	147	30	117	200	29.25	7
3	147	45	102	300	25.5	12
4	147	60	87	400	21.75	18

each level of residences increases in difficulty (i.e. costs more, leaving less points to apply to improvements) and this is based off the calculation I showed a few page ago that (net labor points)/4 = how many points you improve a building in one hour. The same way the difficulty increases, a new level also requires more points to level up. Total, that would be 40 hours of work, or 40*120= $4800.

Now, if we founded a second town, it would look like this:

level	skill pts	dificulty	labor pts	points	per hr	hours
1	147	15	132	100	33	3
2	147	30	117	200	29.25	7
1	147	15	132	100	33	3
2	147	30	117	200	29.25	7

or exactly half the time at 20 hours total, or about $2400 in treasury spending.

Not only saving money, but I'm thinking that it will keep more players involved that way. Start with getting a hotel in the first town, so that everybody can do jobs around the town and still come sleeping for $10, then work on getting the second town and residences up...

Also, sideways to that, having two town would increase our potential for having more different items from our shops. Say the tailor of our one and only town is up to level 3 and gets 12 items. If we had a second town, we could have two tailors, both with 12 items, with maybe 6 being the same in each, so now 18 different to pick from with shopping visits made possible between the two towns...

FM

[BYU 14]

I think we could build one up fairly quickly with the resources we have.

Then again, I you can have alliances with towns and if this allows you to use each others facilities, (I haven't read much on it) it might make sense to found two towns on different sides of the map, so we have a wider base of operations.

[FrogMan]

Originally Posted by JonInMiddleGA

Problem is, of course, that you can only be in one place at a time and the rest of us are going to be expensive & slow builders for a number of levels yet.

That's the smallest of problems to be honest. I mean, at one point not too far in time, some people will beat me to building and even before then, they're not building fast enough, then so be it. It'll always be important that it's clear to people that non-builders shouldn't be using the treasury money to improve buildings, or else they are simply burning the town's money. But, we've had people who have said they were planning on being builders/workers. I say get them involved, heck get everyone involved, and have fun.

FM

[BYU 14]

Doh, Frogman beat my post....great analysis. I say 2 towns for sure now.

[DeToxRox]

Two towns is fine with me.

[FrogMan]

Originally Posted by BYU 14

I think we could build one up fairly quickly with the resources we have.

Then again, I you can have alliances with towns and if this allows you to use each others facilities, (I haven't read much on it) it might make sense to found two towns on different sides of the map, so we have a wider base of operations.

only resource to really use in a town are the shops and to shop, you need to be a member of that town. This means leaving your town and getting an invite for the town where you want to go shopping.

I don't see a real need to get the town really separated from one another to be honest. Traveling is not fast. Remember, it's the wild west we are talking about here.

FM

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by FrogMan

Traveling is not fast.

I've not really seen much problem yet (remembering that I'm at 150% speed because of being a greenhorn though) with traveling. It doesn't appear to be using up any energy, only time, and I currently have more hours in the day that I could work than I have energy for. Now granted I tend to travel in short hops and chain jobs together in sequence that leads me back toward my planned hotel destination for the night (my last walk was under 90 secs) but within that style of play I haven't had any real problems with travel so far.

[FrogMan]

Originally Posted by JonInMiddleGA

I've not really seen much problem yet (remembering that I'm at 150% speed because of being a greenhorn though) with traveling. It doesn't appear to be using up any energy, only time, and I currently have more hours in the day that I could work than I have energy for. Now granted I tend to travel in short hops and chain jobs together in sequence that leads me back toward my planned hotel destination for the night (my last walk was under 90 secs) but within that style of play I haven't had any real problems with travel so far.

I just found that it's a drag when the one job you want/need to do it 40 minutes away from you. Makes it tougher to line up a couple two hour periods in an evening, that's all.

And way I read the the post I replied to at first, i thought he meant both end of the big map, now I see he might have meant both ends of a quadrant, which would probably be all right.

I'd be more for having the towns close to one another but without any real reason, simply for people to see that we are together, and if you mess with one of our towns, you mess with them all...

FM

[DeToxRox]

FM - Do you do 2 hour work periods often? I have yet to do one, just hour blocks. Is the benefit that noticable?

[Danny]

I almost always do two hours, but I do it for less micromanaging.

[FrogMan]

Originally Posted by DeToxRox

FM - Do you do 2 hour work periods often? I have yet to do one, just hour blocks. Is the benefit that noticable?

no real benefit, but most of my quests now require stuff that will need me to do more than a simple hour of work anyway so I set if off and don't worry about it for a while. That way I minimize the chances of my guy being idle cause I was doing something else in the house...

FM

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by FrogMan

now I see he might have meant both ends of a quadrant, which would probably be all right.

That's definitely what I was thinking about when I mentioned separation but coordinating the site selection of two towns at the same time. Just sort of half a quadrant away from each other kind of thing, but within the same quadrant (like 1/4 from the left of the quad & 1/4 of from the right of a quad sort of thing).

[Danny]

Originally Posted by JonInMiddleGA

That's definitely what I was thinking about when I mentioned separation but coordinating the site selection of two towns at the same time. Just sort of half a quadrant away from each other kind of thing, but within the same quadrant (like 1/4 from the left of the quad & 1/4 of from the right of a quad sort of thing).

Yeah, sounds like a good plan.

[FrogMan]

Sounds like a plan yeah. Going back to the (6, 4) quadrant, that's 6th column, bottom row, take a look at the attached map. I manually added a second white square for a possible town.

The big town right above our rightmost town is La Vie Boheme and they look fairly pacific. After looking at many of their highest level people, none of them have the sort of crazy "Level 25, Duel 35" kind of look. Some of them have one level more in duel, but not much more. Then the square dot of a town at the bottom is a town called Rage. While at first it made me nervous, with 12 people, but all but 2 of them are marked as banned right now, so they wouldn't be a threat. Would possibly want to keep an eye on it in case if becomes a ghost town. At 2100 points, it would be a steal.

Anyway, what do you think of those locations? They extend a bit diagonally, allowing us a bit more reach...

FM

[BrianD]

I've got myself to about 25 in construction and have about $100. I'll look for more money-making jobs, so that I can help out with the second town. Pretty much all of my skill is now going into construction.

[Scoobz0202]

I just got done picking cotton... Why cant I do anything now? I just did it for an hour and now I want to do it again but I can't click ok...

[FrogMan]

Originally Posted by BrianD

I've got myself to about 25 in construction and have about $100. I'll look for more money-making jobs, so that I can help out with the second town. Pretty much all of my skill is now going into construction.

nice, how about repairing and leadership, and/or any boost in clothing for those? In other words, have you checked your labor points for construction with The West Stats?

Don't forget that the worker class also gets a 5% bonus to their skill when working on improving a town building, so your 25 is already a 26.25. Not much for one, but times three, it becomes 78.75 instead of 75...

FM

[FrogMan]

Originally Posted by Scoobz0202

I just got done picking cotton... Why cant I do anything now? I just did it for an hour and now I want to do it again but I can't click ok...

reload the page, it does that sometimes...

FM

[Scoobz0202]

Thanks Frog

[BYU 14]

I like this plan FM and we could possibly even allie with the town above us. That would give us a pretty solid presence in the area....Even without the alliance we would be good as I am thinking more FOFCers will get involved down the road.

[BrianD]

Originally Posted by FrogMan

nice, how about repairing and leadership, and/or any boost in clothing for those? In other words, have you checked your labor points for construction with The West Stats?

Don't forget that the worker class also gets a 5% bonus to their skill when working on improving a town building, so your 25 is already a 26.25. Not much for one, but times three, it becomes 78.75 instead of 75...

FM

Sorry, that was a 24 in construction which is really a 19+5. Repairing is 3 (2+1) and leadership is 1. Labor points for construction is 75.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by FrogMan

reload the page, it does that sometimes...

Yeah it does. I have to reload after the end of every work sequence in order to get the work button to function again.

[FrogMan]

Originally Posted by BrianD

Sorry, that was a 24 in construction which is really a 19+5. Repairing is 3 (2+1) and leadership is 1. Labor points for construction is 75.

not sure I follow you here...

FM

[FrogMan]

just updated the big census of FOFCers in World 8 in the first post of the thread. Now up to 24 FOFCers slinging their way in the West.

If you're playing and you're not listed in there, post your character's name here and I'll add it to the list...

FM

[BrianD]

Originally Posted by FrogMan

not sure I follow you here...

FM

I typed in that I had 25 points in construction, but it was only 24...and that was after the bonuses for clothing. It is 19 raw plus 4 with my brown ragged shoes and plus 1 for my red bandana.

[FrogMan]

Originally Posted by BrianD

I typed in that I had 25 points in construction, but it was only 24...and that was after the bonuses for clothing. It is 19 raw plus 4 with my brown ragged shoes and plus 1 for my red bandana.

ah okay, still adds up to 76 though (24*3+3+1) on top of which you'll get a 5% bonus whenever you're working on improving a town building, not only on your construction skill. So 76*1.05=79.8, getting there. Remember that every level where you add all three to construction plus 1 to strength in attribute, you add 3*4=12 to your building improvement labor points...

FM

[CU Tiger]

Just made it to level 5. Should be level 6 in ~4 hours as I have two open quests I should complete in this work session.

[CU Tiger]

BTW I am working my way albeit slowly towards the proposed town site. I'm packing an 8 in construction already and focusing that way to help out.

[aleykat]

Long time lurker, like since the original FOF, even had an account for a while...

Anyways, I'm playing because of this thread, and would be interested in a town. I'm currently level 8, aiming for adventurer.

Username in the game is raiderconvert

[Ajaxab]

Just made it to level 4. Like CU Tiger, I have two quests open that I hope to finish today.

[dbd1963]

My guy gets tired too quick from my point of view. He can't do 8 hours of work in a day! Does increasing a stat, perhaps stamina, increase his ability to do work? Because he's a wimp. He must be 8 years old.

[Neon_Chaos]

Lvl 5, just working on that ham quest to get to 6.

[Mustang]

Originally Posted by FrogMan

just updated the big census of FOFCers in World 8 in the first post of the thread. Now up to 24 FOFCers slinging their way in the West.

If you're playing and you're not listed in there, post your character's name here and I'll add it to the list...

FM

I'm kerg01 in World 8. Only lvl 4 right now.

[FrogMan]

Originally Posted by CU Tiger

BTW I am working my way albeit slowly towards the proposed town site. I'm packing an 8 in construction already and focusing that way to help out.

BrianD has sorta set a standard for builders with 24 in construction, 76 overall in labor points for improving buildings. I think he's up to level 9 now. Keep adding skills to construction, and attribute to strength and you should be at his level when you hit level 9 (4 for level 6, 4 for lev 7, 4 for lev 8, 4 for lev 9, total of 16 added to construction).

Keep it up!

FM

[FrogMan]

Originally Posted by dbd1963

My guy gets tired too quick from my point of view. He can't do 8 hours of work in a day! Does increasing a stat, perhaps stamina, increase his ability to do work? Because he's a wimp. He must be 8 years old.

well maybe you are too demanding.

Without even sleeping in a hotel, you should be able to work 11 hours before completely running out of juice. Look at this:

hour	energy spent	energy rested	energy left
0			100
1	12	3	91
2	12	3	82
3	12	3	73
4	12	3	64
5	12	3	55
6	12	3	46
7	12	3	37
8	12	3	28
9	12	3	19
10	12	3	10
11	12	3	1

Your character gets 3 energy points back per hour, no matter that he's working or doing nothing. Unless you go to sleep in a hotel (and thus pay $10), there's no other way to regain energy faster. Stamina is only used in the jobs that need it and does nothing to your energy for working longer or more hours in a day.

FM

[FrogMan]

Finally, I can't access the game during the day but I set my guy this morning for a first 50 minute trek to go do some more coal mining for two hours, then another 55 minutes ride to the town of La Vie Boheme, in the quadrant spotted to found our town. Should be there around 11am eastern to sleep in the hotel and recharge my batteries, with enough money in my pockets to found our town.

I plan on founding the first town tomorrow morning around 6 am eastern for it to be ready at around 2pm on that day. First invites will not go out until Wendesday evening and we'll see where we go from there. Pretty excited about the whole thing to be honest guys.

FM

[Neon_Chaos]

Visions of Deadwood rush to my head.