The Fast, the Decision, and the Final Answer

Well, after a lot of deep thought and contemplating, I'm gonna finish this short fast of W101 tonight and return for a while on it tomorrow.

Why haven't I played it in a couple days? First off, I'm a Grandmaster Death and have every possible quest completed. Long story short, my plate's been clean for a week today. This game has eaten up most of my free time; I play it almost every day and knock off it around midnight whenever I'm off. Since the New Year, I had Xfire installed so it could log my time onto it and it came to be 120-130 hours. I'm talking about since the first when I'd installed it. A little too much time in the fictional Spiral for a 25-year-old BK Porter, yeah?

Unless I mentioned this in my first post, I didn't really expect to play it for this long back in late August when I started. I just saw the ad on TV and tried it to see how my cousin would like it and got hooked like my description states: "sucked into the action of the Spiral that never ends". Granted that I've met many colorful friends and gotten hooked onto the main theme of Malistaire, but the time has come to take a little break from it.

I don't mean permanently, but at least a month. I'll go on ahead and pay for this month coming since it's nearing the payment date. Then, when the subscription runs out in late February or before the next payment's due, I'll skip a month to try readjusting a little back to reality, my PS2 and X360. Especially those two to finish the last two legs of my GTA marathon.

I thought to myself one day, "Next marathon of GTA I do, why not play 'em in chrono order?" And so, I did back around mid-November. So, in said order, Vice City Stories (1984), Vice City (1986), San Andreas ('91), Liberty City Stories ('98), III (2001, year of release), and soon, IV (2008, like III, year of release). In release order, they'd be III, VC, SA, LCS, VCS, and IV. But, since I wanted to play them in the order they were set instead, I'm beginning to find an epiphany of the complete story, mainly the first five. I can ramble and nag on about it, but that's another show.

Cleaning My Plate

You read the title and seen the video right, after nearly six months into this game, I have finally cleaned my plate! Unless I can find another contact, my Quest Journal is clear, a clean slate, complete.

On another note, I don't remember ever taking this long to complete a game virtually 100% like this or at all on a semi-sandbox game apart from The Godfather on PS2. One other game that took me so long to complete was Tomb Raider II with maybe a few weeks of gameplay spread over possibly 2-3 months real time. It had more levels than Ninja Gaiden II which I took like an 11 day campaign in two weeks spread through a month of real time. This would be why you'd see me with the "Tomb Raider" badge and make "The Speech of the Soulrider".

The Speech would go like this: "I have Extinguished the Flame, Silenced the Storm, Diffused the Lightning and Staunched the Blood by beating Zedonious, Volf, Alexei and Elizébet. 'Cause, I'm 'The Lone' Wolf Soulrider. Tangle wit me and you'll die like the rest!" These were the X360 Achievements I earned in order by offing their respective bosses.

Long story short, I've no more quests in my journal and free to roam the Spiral just "scanning the scene in the city tonight. Looking for you to start up a fight."

Reagent Insanity

Just can't stress it enough.  We all know the difficulty of finding the right quantity of reagents for a specific task.  Especially the Dragonspyre ones where we'll need either blood moss, black lotus or black pearl.  Trying to find them all is just a genuine PIA to collect.  Just like I'd say about farming:  "That's what it's about:  patience, perseverance, and determination."  Without these, I would never gotten my Spiderkeeper hat, Malistaire robe or Kraysys' shoes along with especially Hoarder's Shockblade.

Luckily, I'm over onto the Crimson Bookcases.  Thankfully, only 2 of each item is to be made for each Crafting task over the 5 before the update.  Already gotten one of them done and can't wait to collect the rest of the reagents, get the Master Artisan badge and have a clean plate.  But, as before, it's a pain to manage.  Thinking on this earlier tonight, I was wondering if KI would have a garden-like option set up for those owning at least one house.  Maybe have a few at any given time per wizard.  That is, let each player choose the size, product to grow, etc.  The yield, say 10-20 each reagent per three to six hours.  This way, keep the old harvesting method active during "cooldown".  Who knows, it could be nice to do that instead of strictly harvesting them separate.

Another option is to buy things off the Bazaar in bulk instead of one at a time.  Just today, I cleaned out their stock of mist wood, ore and mandrake just to have enough for the transmutes.  Long story short, something like a reagent garden in a character's home, buying items in bulk at the Bazaar and lighter quantity for each transmute would help us all a great deal.

Possible New Look or Dressing to Impress?

Well, this is beginning to grow on me.  All I did was stitched my second Malistaire robe onto a Terminus Wrap while dying it silver/white to match my name.  There may be imitators, but will only be one "Lone" Wolf Soulrider

Why "Lone", you may have asked from the first post?  This is since once I started with Death, I couldn't stay on with Life or Fire.  I took Spiritshade and Firewalker to at least level 14 before deleting them both.  I just couldn't bear the trouble of going back up with them two, hence the video last post, "Wolf Firewalker's Memory Remains".

Why silver/white?  Let's start with my name, Soulrider.  I should look as if I'm riding on souls, learning their ways and whathavyu.  That and I'm Christian which the colors should indicate the purity I should have.  Then again, I'm still for the black/red combo since it's also my work colors.  But for Wolf here, it's gonna be silver/white.  I may get another Spiderkeeper hat just to stitch it onto a Captain's Hat I bought in the Basilica.  why wait and not stitch the current hat on now?  It's just in case I don't like the new look and wanna keep the current image.