All Done with the Day Posts

It was getting unwieldy, and on top of that, I had to take several shorter and longer breaks for various reasons over the past several months, so the narrative (such as it was) was disjointed and problematic.

I had notes for the next 12 or so posts, and I will follow up on them eventually. I stopped with the numbered posts at 50, so this is technically 51, but should be considered almost GG 3, since I took a few months off. Much of these bullet points will be posts in their own right, I will try to go back and hotlink to the relevant posts, in case anyone actually a) reads and b) cares.

• I did take over from Hoggle as BM Senator, and it was good timing to do so, as we were coming up to GU 10, which was the 
• last live BM update, and there were 
• some significant issues I could input on. 
•  I moved in May, then my summer hit and as a 
• RL BM, I am super busy during the summer months
• the actual machine I used for gaming is my son's, so playtime is seriously limited
• a friend committed suicide in August and 
• I spent four months dealing with her belongings
• including her elderly, arthritic Collie cross, Sam.
• I ran aspects of four different events in my medieval hobby group
• stepped down from Senate due to lack of time, 
• a revamp of how the Senate was going to work, and because
• an awesome BM was running, and I knew he'd represent us very fairly
• and we kinda got or had in development everything I felt we needed
• Got given a laptop for Christmas because I have an awesome roommates and boyfriend!

So as things stand now, in the waning days of the year: I have two dogs, more responsibilities at work and a few health issues I am coping with. As far as the game goes, I have less time, but a dedicated system I can use anytime, and that means I am greatly enjoying playing the game again, and finding the wherewithal to write again. Whee!

Day 50: Swoops and Silliness

Logged on and just had time to check incubators and processors, had at least 2.5 hour waits on all the incubators, then ran Aerys up to Nashal to run the Swoop races. Figured I should just get those badges on her.

I logged on again in the evening, flipped incubators then ran the Swoop races at Agrilat Swamp on Corellia and, The Old Mos Espa Track. Then I helped Hoggle clean up the city hall for the place he was starting prep on. Since the blow up in Darasuum Tome, the city has lost rank, so it lost it's shuttle, making it much harder to get to the grind spot. As a service to the BM community, and aware he was probably setting himself up for personal attacks, but it needed to be done.

So now I need to make up my alt and get her into the new city to help it hit Rank 4. He and Atlan are also changing the guidld's name and focus to Beast Mastery, which of course makes me happy.

Not Day 49: The Bad Old Days, Pt 1: DevCon 1!

It's amazing to consider how much of my mental territory the game has. I got a ping from His Senatorialness this morning, asking if I recall update xyz.17 and what it was they adjusted in things 9-13. The whacked thing was, I kinda, almost did. After I advised what I could recall, I pondered a bit, and remembered how much we BMs communicated with each other and with the game's developers about what we were up to.

So later today, in GuildVox on Discord with one other, I waxed poetic about what all we accomplished, and realised the reason we were able to accomplish so much was due, almost entirely, to the communications skills and the scientific-esque mindset in which we played our whole game.

When I became Senator, I spoke to the producer and many of the devs via PM on the forums, and occasionally, as needs drove, on Facebook and via emails. I was always unfailingly honest in my assessments of what we needed from them and in the adjustments we thought they should make. I had observed communities shoot for the stars when they'd have been satisfied with the moon, and wanted to let the devs know they could trust us: we were an analytical community, and we could take no for an answer, if there were good, rational reasons for the no. So I never padded our estimates for requests, I always furnished every link to every xl spreadsheet that pertained to the issues, I was always clear, especially when I wasn't as concise as someone else might have been (der, I like words. A. Lot.)

One of the first issues I managed to resolve was that on Double XP days, pet XP had no bonus. It sucked. So the first communication I had with TeeSquared was about whether we could get that addressed in time to participate in the Double XP. I discovered a key point in that conversation: Devs answer the first question in a message and apparently stop reading at that point. So, if you have a bunch of questions, only send them one at a time. When you get answer 1, say thank you and then ask question 2. It works on a lot of people in bureaucratic positions, as it happens!

The second thing I learned was that devs didn't read the Top Ten Issues lists which were stickied to the top of almost every forum. They didn't expect to have to, and did very little investigative research that way. It was my job to prioritise the items and make sure the most important ones were allocated enough time to address fairly. I was not always successful, as they definitely added more mutations in a rather slapdash way, long before we needed them, and before they'd fixed the extraction issues that led to the Tanray being unachievable for so long.

I also learned that if a Senator was to do a credible job, they had to have a dev who trusted them with an overview of a publish or game update, before it went to Test Center, so that those fixes that might be affected by the specific updates could be given enough attention. Trust does not come easily or quickly, and I am very glad I eventually earned it for my community, as I think that's why we stayed as long as we did, and why we are all so keen to be playing again.

Day 48: Ash, Atlan and Acklay Armour

Filed a ticket yesterday while chatting with Ash and Atlan about stuff and things, (Atlan had to talk me through how to even file a ticket, as Legends uses a forum and not a special page on the website. I actually like this system better) and they solved it.  Ash roxxors. But then I put the suit on a toon and went to work and forgot that Hoggle's toons need access to suit too. This counts as a N00bDoc Moment for the week.

So yay, suit found, it had been dropped and turned invisible, which is a thing that happens (and happened back In The Day (tm), although I suspect it may happen more in this iteration.) And I vaguely recalled what it was even named. My memory is not as bad as it could be.

Got the awesomest news just as I was leaving for work: my friend Kewarra has joined Legends, and I am SO looking forward to running with him again, OMG!!!!

Logged in as soon as I got home, and whaddaya know, 5 minutes left till restart. My fing luck.

Did get a Mamien started on Lifa (will have to check and see if that actually took, considering how close it was to server reset).

Logged back in for a half hour after all that, got my sessions switched on all my toons, and ran to do some bazaar shopping to stock up on 80% + isos, of which we had 0. Now we have like 7. Then switched over to Soulei to take a last advantage of the double XP: got her another piece of  the cool looking Acklay Armour. She is level 35 now, the Kitty is 30. That's not bad considering I should have done a lot more grinding of her this week, and just didn't get off my arse to do so.

Day 47: Bored and Bothered

Lost the suit. Can't make pets. Mrrg.

Day 46: Naboo Noobness

Did a bit of sorting and organisation this morning, then spent about an hour running Soulei around on Naboo. Failing to find Borvos to kill in the Borvo Bunker behind Moenia, but then looting the level 28 Acklay down there and getting the Borvo Armour quest, which has good xp, opens a peko peko Slayer quest, and other than a lot of bouncing from one wp to another (with about 3k of overland driving required between them) it's not too bad. And it gives solid XP!

So Soulei is level 33 now and the cat is 26 (double xp is definitely helping with that). Good week to have lots of play time, which I only have becuase the weather IRL has been so phenomenally poor. I opted to leave Soulei in the Borvo bunker to kill the Acklay a few more times to get the armour pieces.

No booms on the late night sessions done yesterday, which is disappointing, but today it's fresh starts across two toons. Not complaining, not really.

The capped Mawgax I threw on the vendor at 2 am had sold by 8, so that's good. Capped pets are definitely a booming market, and with over 50 20s sitting there, we could burn through a few in just loading a vendor with some nice beast eggs.

Back online for all of 2 minutes when the server resets. Rarg. One of these days I will check Discord before I log in, maybe save myself some aggravation. Switched over to Soulei and killed and looted the Acklay, just in time. By the time the server is back up, it will likely have been reset too. :) Clever me is clever.

So I sent my old friend and Beast master guru Ztez a PM on the SWGpets site yesterday, and was very pleased and surprised to hear back pretty quickly. I hope (fingers seriously crossed) that he'll come and join us in this version of the game. Regardless, it was pretty terrific to chat with him. I have missed him.

Day 45: Short Attention Span Questing

Looks like I will have lots of time to play today, as the weather is precluding work and the kid is off to see his girlfriend, so I should be able to play till around 10:30 tonight!

All those Cs processed now, and we are pretty much out of raws to process, so I may get some more later today, but as I said to Hoggle: no rush: we have a LOT of 20s (somewhere in the area of 45, plus). making a few lower point hydros to do fillins, and I think I may spend some of the Graul take on mutagen consumables or resources, so I can make my own 12, 13 and 14 pt hydros when I do have a successful second stage app. After I've got Aerys her Master Tamer's of course.

No boom on second stage of Kliknik. Boom on last stage of Mawgax. Started a deco grade Mamien on Osho: nothing there, yet. Definitely need to do some foraging on Aerys' though, and get more stock of mount grade lyases.

Started the Heroic prequests on Aerys, finally, and got started on the Tusken one, just before server needed to rest.

Ran over to Yavin for a community trivia event: that was fun! Got three questions right, and came in second to Okoral, and walked away with a new title and a Guise of Ice and a Mah Jongg machine. That makes me ridiculously happy. :)

Now running the Exar Kun prequest, have to look up what I am sposed to do now that I am on Yavin. Ah ha, that part is done. Oko gave me incorrect advice. Good thing there's a wiki!

Back to Corellia now, then going to start the ISD thingie. I have to go back to Aurellia to close out the Exar Quest and start the NS one, but I am officially distracted and running to buy some rare fish, for the fish tank collection, for one of the Helper Monkeys. Except the shop and vendor are no longer there. So I found a different vendor on Corellia who had collection things for sale and bought some of those instead. Whee!

Then to Yavin, played Mastermind with the escape pod array and then made my way to Endor to try and do the next bit. I will either need a full suit of 35s or one capable combat buddy, so kind of a good thing the server went down when it did: these silver elite level 90 mobs are kicking my ass. Parked Aerys outside the Black Sun bunker and switched over to Lifa and to Soulei to do some inventory maintenance before the reset. I have maybe a half hour left to play: not sure what to do in that time.

Ended up running about to Lok and buying a bunch of resources (spent about 40 mill on some very nice stuff, but will have to build a crafting suit for Lifa in order to take full advantage of it. She only has the base 10 points of experimentation. Going to need to reset her for Experimentation anyways. That's a long boring day ahead. Tempted to just buy the crafting suits for Structures, Munitions and Chef will have to find out what/where/how much I cna expect to pay.

Finished processing the last of the Cs into 20s or attempts thereat. So, at present we have 64 finished 20s, three more in process, and about 18 non 20 processed hydros. I think we're fine till Hoggle or I find time to hunt more dragons.

Brought Aerys home: she has 2 and a half hours left before I can flip third session on that Kliknik. I am tired though. If I am still awake then, I'll flip that session, but otherwise, it can wait till the morning.

It's weird not having a pet to level: there's no pressure to afk grind... I am going to work on Aerys' Feathered Slice and Psycho Jax next, I think. (Although I do really want an Acklay...)