Goultarminator: Counting Chickens

It’s said don’t count your chickens before they are hatched. Well, the chickens has been hatched. Rosal lost and lost badly, both in fighting and realm challenges.

Results of the challenges:

• Challenge 2 (Resources Protectors abolishment): 11th place
• Challenge 3 (Fighting Dopples): 42d place
• Challenge 4 (Treechnids hunt): 15th place

Results of the fights:

• Rosal B and C didn’t pass the selection stage
• Rosal A was out in the second round of the tournament.

As it is now Rosal teams are on the 41st (Rosal A), 65th (Rosal B), 73d (Rosal C) places (out of 137). Rosal as a realm is on the 20th place (out of 50).

What Was Done?

The teams were put together without considering the team members opinion. Some of the main fighters got to know the composition of their team only one day prior to the start of the selection stage. I read that it had been done this way because the person in charge of teams composition was kind of strategical genius. But is it a really brilliant idea to place in one team people who has never talked to each other prior to the tournament? Teamwork is essential for the win in team competitions and disregarding this factor is the major mistake.

Another problem with the teams composition, addressed by some of the Rosal fighters I talked to, was the asymmetry of the teams. While one of them had very high tactical potential (Rosal B), the others were significantly weaker.

All of the Rosal representatives I met (except one, who was not willing to answer my questions) mentioned that there was no team training. Ralfeh said he was trying to find a team to train, but he wasn’t dedicated enough. Others were more elusive and excused themselves: they said it was too hard to gather together outside the tournament arena.

The Rosal population inactivity and low support for the teams also dragged the realm down. But was it only the people’s fault? There was no promo campaign, the information support was bad, too. For example, the results of the realm performance in the challenges were not announced officially, moreover the announcements about the current tasks were made too late.

However, probably, the biggest problem this year was the decision to win by any means. As a result potentially the strongest of Rosal teams, Rosal B, didn’t make it through the selection stage. Of course, now they try to come up with the conspiracy theories and blame others for their own ill-conceived behaviour, but it won’t help us this year and next year, probably, too.

What Can Be Done?

Last year Rykke-Errel was very close to the bottom of the tournament ranking. This year they are at the top, both in population support and fights. They may not be able to get the first place, but the changes in their performance are tremendous. Can we do the same?

I believe that the most important thing that should be done in order to win next year is the change of the attitude. Goultarminator is not an event for the most skilled warriors, it is an event for the entire realm, and it is crucial to make everyone understand it. The results of the challenges suggest that Rosal got more or less decent results in the second and forth challenges thanks to a small group of highly dedicated persons — the number of fights with dopples is limited to 1 per day per dopple, so it was not possible for this group to accomplish something. What we need is a realm-wide promotional campaign, and we need to start it now. People should feel they can really help, they are involved in the tournament even if they are not among the fighters.

Another change of attitude should be related to the understanding of the teams. The Rosal team this year consisted of 24 people — 12 main fighters and 12 substitutes — not 4 or 8. The interests, limitations, and strengths of all 24 should be considered, probably, with the stronger accent to the main fighters.

Training is the problem that can be solved. We have one year till the next year — that’s a lot of time. But training is not easy to organise, perhaps, it would be better if big guilds organise a series of tournaments with the prizes, ranking, informational support, and so on, i.e. mini goultarminators. This way people will know better about the fighters, and the fighters will have a chance to polish their battle skills.

A lot more can be done. But can we do it? Can we work together instead of “each man for himself”? Can we put the interests of the realm above personal interests? We will see it next year.

Afterthoughts

In his book “Dragoturkey: How to Breed your Mount” Oshar Marif writes:

They [dragoturkeys] usually aren’t very bright. But beware! They’re not as stupid as Iop! [emphasis is mine] They can live in groups, help and protect each other. And they can even think before acting which makes them more intelligent than most modern-day adventurers.

In the N’s Memoirs we can find these words:

The Gods exist, I am in their kingdom: the World of the Twelve gods! They have many disciples – not always all that clever though. Brutes with swords that call themselves Iops. [emphasis is mine] The long-haired ones, the Sadidas. The dwarves whose eyes light up when they see gold, the Enutrofs.

I used to doubt the objectiveness of these and alike words. After all Ki is far from stupid, in fact, he is a kind of genius (hidden, though). And cra’s second husband, even being an iop, was quite promising. Of course, he wasn’t smart enough to keep her from divorce, but he was no idiot. Nonetheless, the overwhelming majority of all other iops I’ve ever known fit all the descriptions just perfect. Moreover some of them not only lack intelligence but also think that others have the same deficiency.

The other day one iop unhappy with my personal diary and opinions expressed in it approached me. He is one of those brutes who have no idea about basic politeness and start directly with expressions of their unhappiness. It’s not like I totally can’t stand this style of communication. In fact, it has its own charm: you never feel being caught in the morass of words. Well, back to our iops.

He is not a complete idiot, really. He dodged all inconvenient questions I managed to ask, and he prevented me from asking some more questions switching the topic to the paddocks issue he had had with cra. Every cloud has a silver lining, people say. And true, the iop brought his apologies for being rude and not precise in the story with paddocks. But he had learned nothing.

I tried really hard to persuade myself to believe the tale I was told by iop. But I failed. Not all said was untrue, I believe many things were absolute truth. However, he was extremely elusive. And yes, he lied into my face. And did it poorly. No imagination at all. Why people can’t be more creative?

Searching for the Lurgi Vaccine

Lurgi is, probably, kind of flu transmitted by mastogobobs. Frigost doctor has been looking for the vaccine for years but still has no luck. The best solution he can offer is vaccine which effects wear in a week. It’s not really convenient, but better than nothing.

Herr Peece, the Frigost doctor, is one of a few island dwellers who talks to sick people. He also provides a vaccine, however, as neither he nor other Frigost citizens have time to collect mastogob blood needed to produce vaccine he asks everyone who needs a treatment to bring 6 mastogob blood samples. Mastogobs aren’t normally happy with people trying to get some of their blood, so a fight with them is inevitable. Moreover even victory doesn’t guarantee the sample will be obtained.

Mastogob blood samples aren’t the only ingredients needed for the vaccine — Herr Peece also wants some isotonic seawater. Only Cap’n Tankerous knows how to get this water. However he refuses to help for free and offers an exchange: a bucket of seawater for Mugworth. Cap’n is kind enough to say that Mugworth can be obtained from Jon Burrowman… And here the running back and forth starts.

Burrowman refuses to give Mugworth up until Tankerous comes to him in person and ask forgiveness. And this is the only condition on which the quest item can be obtained. Neither bribe (1’000’000 kamas or items) nor women’s charms work, he wants only apologies for some incident in the past. There is no other choice but to convince Cap’n to do his part. Sure thing Cap’n doesn’t want to apologise, and again he turns down all the offers. The only thing he agrees for is a meeting in a tavern. But Cap’n Tankerous is a busy man, so he is not available at any time. He offers a (generous) choice of time.

Meeting in the tavern is sprinkled with the beer. In fact, a lot of beer, as no one can remember how they get from the tavern to the lighthouse where Cap’n lives. But it’s in some way a good thing — Cap’n agrees to Burrowman. Moreover he goes to him so fast that when one arrives to Jon’s place they find out that Cap’n already has been there, they’ve talked and shared some old good memories. And this could be a moment of happiness if Burrowman doesn’t advise that Cap’n forgot his Mugworth. It is time to run back to the lighthouse. The delivery of the Mugwoth makes Cap’n so happy that he agrees to help. Finally! Isotonic seawater is acquired. Now — back to town, to doctor in hope to get vaccine.

Herr Peece is unhappy with the delay in water delivery. But he is not mad enough to refuse to make a vaccine. However the result of his experiments needs some testing before it can be used on humans. So the doctor asks to check his guinea pig and asks a blood sample from it. “Guinea pig” lives in the basement of the doctor’s house and it’s not exactly a small fluffy harmless animal. In fact it’s so tough it can’t be handled by a single person — five people are needed instead just to get access to the cage. It would be really unwise to try to get a sample single-handedly.

When the Beast (the name of the “guinea pig”) is taken and given to the doctor, he makes an anti-Lurgi shot. The vaccine prevents from infection for a week, but it doesn’t heal the Lurgi itself, so all sick stay sick. In a week another mastogob blood samples will be needed, but I hope no more isotonic water is required.

Chameleon Mounts: Prices Go Down

I updated my table of prices on chameleons. Prices went down a bit, but I expect further decrease. The reason is simple: chameleons are sold in Bonta, and many birds are breedable. Hence more people will breed them, however, all who are looking for profit will be breeding emerald and plum stripes and will ignore other colours. Probably, it’s not that bad for our business as we are working on wider spectrum of breeds.

Actually, I do not understand what makes people ruin their own business. The person who cra talked to the other day claimed he wasn’t afraid of competition, but later on he mentioned that he foresaw 80% drop in prices on chameleon mounts. At the same time he confessed that breeding was his main source of income. But if prices drop by 80% breeding will be less profitable and he will lose his source of high income. Then what drives him and others like him? An immediate high profit? Shortsightedness? I really do not understand. Why saw the branch one is sitting on?

In any case our breeding goal will stay intact. We are still aiming to breed and purify all possible chameleons. And we are closer to this goal with each day. Recently cra got another emerald stripe chameleon, and other girls are pretty successful in reproduction of chameleons they have. The only problem at the moment is out lack of time, and with Kanni being absent I can’t ask anyone to help me with the dragoturkeys’ training. However, in 3 weeks we should have more free time and breeding will be back to normal pace.

Why Did We Get No New Paddocks?

The other day cra was contacted by someone who called himself GOD (not in Common language, but in cra’s mother tongue). He offered her to buy his paddocks and some chameleon chickens. Despite her need in paddocks and her desire to extend breeding she refused. However, I’m inclined to believe her story and I do not blame her for not making a deal.

First of all the offered price for paddocks was too high – 8.5 mk per slot – and paddocks themselves were small. And while that self-proclaimed god tried to persuade her that he was “just trying to get rid of the small and inconvenient paddocks” it was obvious he was trying to make profit. The further discussion left no doubt – that person was obsessed with money. But this part of the discussions was pretty much civilised and polite.

Later on cra was offered to buy chameleon chickens. Although before this offer was made she had been reminded about her refusal to sell chameleon chickens, and it had been done in quite insulting form. Anyway, she was offered mounts with the “splendid” pedigree. It sounded intriguing, so she asked what splendid was supposed to mean. She was told that it meant that chickens had 70% ancestors from X the generation. Well, no matter how it sounds offers like this are uninteresting for us as birds like this do not get us closer to the goal, moreover they set us back as we are working on purifying. Hence cra told that the offer wasn’t  all that interesting, she even went through the trouble of polite explanation of the reasons. Mr. God became irritated, he even declared cra was stupid and obviously lacking any understanding of the breeding idea. No surprise cra decided not to deal with that person…

There was one more funny moment. The deity asked how much we can earn in a week period, cra answered honestly. He didn’t believe and claimed she was exaggerating (at least 4 times) because he had the team of 8, as we had, but these 8 were more experienced warriors. Cra had no words to parry it. Neither have I. What battle experience has to do with money making? If we are talking about real money it’s not possible to work on increasing one’s wealth and battle experience at the same time…

How to Keep Sanity

Recently I was thinking how  to keep sanity and not to burn out with all the repetitive monotonous activity needed to achieve my goals. And I came up with this list of rules:

• Set multiple goals and switch between them
  This prevents “burning out”, and also makes life more interesting due to the change of activities. Also switching from my task to another may provide some relaxation and rest for both mind and body.
  The shortcoming of this point is slower progress in each of the activities.
• Take breaks whenever it’s needed, but make them reasonable.
  Breaks are needed, and pushing oneself to the limit makes no good. In my experience full focus on one task and attempts not to stop till it’s completed lead to the depression and apathy when the goal is achieved.
  Too long breaks are no good as well as they ruin the established routine, not to mention that the changes in the world can be so drastic that it’ll be hard to catch up.
• Don’t split up tasks into too small steps
  If one has too many steps to complete he/she can be overwhelmed with them. So, while splitting difficult tasks into smaller is needed, it should be taken under the control.
• Focus on one thing at the time
  While several goals can be achieved when doing something, it’s still better to focus on one thing and put aside everything else.
  Although, it doesn’t mean that you should get rid of all the by-products if you need them later.
• Make friends and spend some time with them
  Even grinding can be much more fun if you do it with friends.
• Don’t try to catch up with everything and everyone. Live in your own rhythm.
  Probably, this is the worst mistake people do, they try to be on par with other people disregarding the differences in situations and personal capabilities.

Of course, it’s not the full list, and It’s not like I always follow all these rules myself, but even using one or two of them on constant basis makes life easier and less insane.

 

Bears in Sellrooms

Sadida is responsible for selling dragoturkeys and she often complains about the bears flooded the market. I checked the pet sellrooms, merchants, and even books in the library, but I didn’t find anything about these bears. I was so confused. I also asked everyone I know but with no luck. I didn’t want to ask sadi as she can be very mean when someone demonstrates ignorance. But in this case I had no choice…
Sadida was unusually nice and explained what she meant. Sellers who drive market down are called bears. No one knows where the name came from, but some people suppose that initially it was “boar” as boar pushes you back.
Now I understand why she complains. Indeed, there are many sellers who undercut each other, and some of them even place their goods 10-15% (sometimes up to 40%) under market. And of course it results in prices going lower and lower. I wonder if these “bears” think of anything except immediate profit? Don’t they see they ruin the business for everyone?

Boring Life?

People often tell me that my life is “boring”. And sometimes I think whether it’s true.
Our daily routine may seem boring, indeed. Morning starts with feeding pets, then cra, sram, and eni check birds, enu goes fishing, and I chop trees or attend guild meetings. After the birds are served we take a break for a breakfast that often turns into lunch. In the second half of the day we usually do some hunts or crafting and maging. And in the late evening—early night we pay visits to various dungeon bosses, unless something urgent comes. Repetitive and monotonous, this daily routine helps us to stay organised and go through any changes Gods send on our heads without suffering any significant losses.
One may say that day after day nothing happens and you may lose a taste of life. Well, maybe if nothing really happens, then this scenario may happen. But our life is far from this. Something new and interesting happens almost every day: new birds hatch, new tactics are invented, new plans are created, old plans are completed, new people are met… No, it’s far from still, boring life.

Top-10 Places Not to Visit

While camping at the third most unpleasant place in the World of Twelve I decided to make a list of 10 places I’d love to never visit.

10. Soft Oak and Treechnid dungeons
Many people complain about the maze there, but maze is fine with me, even it takes a lot of time for the whole team to go through it. Once the right path is memorised maze is no longer a problem.
What annoys the most are the rooms where we are transformed into treechnids. I really feel very uncomfortable in a wood body, not to mention I start to look obese.
But I heard a rumour that Gods deigned to answer our prays and decided to transform these dungeons into a nicer place.

9. Minototor Maze
This place wouldn’t be so unpleasant if someone shouldn’t have to die in order to open the way to the inner chambers for others. Even if the death in our world isn’t final it’s still something I always try to avoid, and it’s very painful to see someone sacrificing oneself just to let me inside the maze.

8. Crackler Dungeon
Always crowded with diamond hunters this mountain wouldn’t be in this list if the climbing path didn’t grow narrow closer to the top. One of the top ledges is so narrow that only two at a time people can fight their way up. Well, I know better places to hunt diamonds.

7. Evil Forest
Dark and repulsive, inhabited with bworks, spiders, onis and various night creatures, this forest isn’t nice to travellers, government even hired a guard to prevent adventurers from entering the area. And, of course, trees form a maze to distract anyone heading to Dark Vlad.

6. Sewers
They stink like hell, and no one lives there except rats and weird creatures in squirrel outfits. It’s not a place for a lady!

5. Pet Cemetery
Once it was a very interesting place. You were transformed in a ghost of your dead pet and had to go in this form to the dungeon in order to obtain the Resurrection Powder for your small friend…
Then one day it all changed. Yes, you are still transformed in a ghost, but not the one of your beloved pet, and you still fight angry spirits of pet who died alone, having no one nearby, but strategy is no longer of great importance, brute force will do the work just fine.

4. Gobbal Dungeon
I have been there so many times, I just can’t do it any more.

3. Wabbits Castle and Cawwot dungeon
Do you like carrots and rabbits? I do, but to a certain extent. I definitely don’t like aggressive rabbits, and especially aggressive undead rabbits. Thanks Gods nowadays Rabbit Kings are puny in comparison with their ancestors.

2. Skeunk’s Hideout
Aggressive monsters on the way, aggressive monsters inside, arrogant sadidettes and on top of that hard to get keys.

1. Primitive Cemetry
Absolute winner in my list of the most unpleasant places in the World of Twelve.
It has everything to be hated: you have to die to get there, the monsters inhabiting the area are aggressive, and the scenery is dull and repetitive.
Not enough? Have you ever tried to obtain 20-30 koalak rider skins in a reasonable time? I tried, and I failed.

Do We Really Need Eni?

Minotot was scary the last time we were their. It killed all members of our team with furious cruelty. But it was long, long ago… This time it looked somehow smaller, weaker and even a little bit bashful. It spend all the fight behind the backs of its minions and never had a chance to show its anger and true power.
Once again immobilisation and paralysation of the ability to fight worked great. If the keys and the maze weren’t such a pain we could consider making our visits to Minotot regular. But for now we’ll limit them to weekly visits, the same as for Bworker.
Anyway, during almost all dungeon runs we made recently we had from little to no use for eni’s healing power. And it’s the main argument in her rhetoric. Every time we discuss the team needs she tries to prioritise her plans and equipment alleging that her healing abilities are the key to victory. And now it’s clear that it’s not so true. Of course, they are important and help a lot. But, probably, we could do fine without them if we could increase our damage output. It’s something to think about.
I don’t think we should stop to invite eni with us, but, perhaps, it’d be better to focus on upgrading equipment in order to achieve more brute force. I’m still not so sure about it, need to talk to others.