Fanfiction chapter 5: best one yet!

I just finished chapter 5 of my fanfiction. And I have to say: it's the best one yet! I thrilled myself with writing it. It has funny parts, interesting twists on the main story line, and epic battles. You should read it. It's on the page titled "The Greatest Treasure". Enjoy! Completely unrelated side note: Azteca just has to come out while I'm missing a sub. Grrr.

- Sophia E

Ugh!

Okay, be prepared for a rant post. If you aren't interested in hearing me rant, please leave the room right now. *watches as large crowd files out* (Do I even have a large crowd of readers?) Anyway...
KI just released its next...PACK! ARGGGHH!
When I joined there were two real hoard packs: Wyvern's Hoard and Dragon's Hoard. That November, their third hoard was released: the Raven's Hoard. After that came the Kirin's Hoard, then the Ninja Lore. As if putting in the word "Lore" instead of "Hoard" makes it better! Soon, we have:
Dragon's Hoard Pack
Wyvern's Hoard Pack
Raven's Hoard Pack
Kirin's Hoard Pack
Ninja's Lore Pack
Emperor's Attic Pack
Hoard of the Hydra
Knight's Lore Pack
Phoenix Hoard Pack
and the all new KEEPER'S LORE PACK!

...honestly? Oh yeah, and you have to pay for Grub Guardian too. If this keeps up, I will start calling KI CI (crownsisle). A few players are already doing it. But I digress. Back to hoard packs.

Why do I have such a problem with hoard packs?
Arguably, this is gambling. While one player could buy, say, a Raven's Hoard and get a Blood Raven on the first go, another could buy hundreds and get nothing significant. Here are some good hoard pack analogies I've heard around:
You buy seven gumballs from a machine. You could get rare and delicious flavors, but mostly you get something very plain and boring.
You buy seven rocks from a pile. You could get valuable gemstones like rubies and emeralds, but mostly you get pebbles.
You buy seven flowers from a shop. You could get some of the rarest flowers in existence, but mostly you get dandelions.
You buy seven fabrics from a stand. You could get something very expensive like cashmere or velvet, but mostly you get cotton.
You buy seven in-game pets. You could get a pet with a great pre-done talent pool like the sea dragon, but mostly you get piggles.
You get the idea.

Here's my point:
At first, the hoard packs weren't so bad. In the Dragon's and Wyvern's packs, either you got the rare stuff or you didn't. If you didn't, you got new housing items or something unique not found anywhere else in-game. If you were unlucky, you'd get one unique thing and trash items like reagents, small bushes, or TCs. Teleporters were a very frequent reward from the Wyvern's packs, and I still have a few from there. With the release of the Raven's hoard pack, everything slowly began to change for the worse. KI only designed a few new housing items, and there was not much of interest or value besides the really, really rare stuff. It went downhill from there. Before you know it, you have packs that consist of nothing besides gear, mounts, and trash items like the packs today. KI, if you need to make packs, please make them unique and interesting. Thank you.
Random picture of the day:

LOL, remember my old storm, Luke SkyWalker? I'm SO glad I made Grace.

- Sophia E

Introducing...

...Grace! She's so polite and unlike Emma I decided to let her join me on my blog. She can have this post all to herself since she's responsible and won't hijack the whole thing. I'm off to the Fairegrounds. Bye!
So...hi. I wanted to show you a few things. First, a picture of me in my newly decorated dorm room!

Hi.

Did you notice the rug I'm standing on? It serves multiple purposes! First, to fill up that awfully barren space in the middle of the room, and second, to be a moon phase chart! It's very useful. 

Second, it's time for a tour of my dorm! It's very nice, and Sophia was generous enough to give me some items to help me decorate. She does have an overcrowded attic. 

Complete view of my dorm room. Clockwise around the room, starting with the pet pen, we have: pet pen, sleeping area, leisure corner/reading nook/dining area, studying area, wardrobe.

I know this is kind of a faraway view, so here's more pictures of me in the dorm room.

Dancing in the pet pen! Note the appropriate painting on the wall.

Resting after a long day helping to save Wizard City. Note the appropriate painting. I love artwork!

About to dig into my favorite ice cream flavor: Tri-flavor delight! Mmmmm! Also on the table: Traps and Transformation, (the latest mystery novel) and Imp the Parakeet.

Me working on a science project for Professor Balestrom. Gotta work hard; he's a tough grader!

Do you think this hat matches my outfit?

Did you enjoy the tour? I absolutely loved making this room just right! Now for the third thing...

I've started a scrapbook! Entries will be coming soon on the new page: Grace's Scrapbook!

Also coming soon is a new About Me page, including sections by each of us: Sophia, Emma and me!

Hmph. Sophia likes you better!

Oh, I gotta go! Emma's here!

- Grace S

Funny pirate glitch and 10 reasons NOT to buy companion points

I said I wouldn't blog about Pirate101, but this is too good to pass up. I had just bought a new anchor for my shiny new frigate (the Silver Pegasus) and I left Puerto Mico to go try those pesky and tough House Guzman ships again. However, this is what I saw when I set sail:

My ship's invisible! See the tiny figures of me and Ratbeard down there?

And in player view:

At least it's a nice view of the skyway...

It was really funny. Now I need to figure out how to stop the glitch. When I do broadside combat, I want to be able to actually SEE my ship. Oh yeah, and I decided to finally do this: Note: this post was designed to counter Destiny's. For this to make the most sense, I suggest you read her post first.

10 REASONS NOT TO BUY COMPANION POINTS

1. Save gold! They're SO expensive. It's true that they're fairly cheap in the first few levels, but gold is so much harder to come by in Pirate101 that the ratio of price to the extremely low amount of gold you'd have makes them not worth it.

2. Make sinking easier! I've always preferred sinking to slashing mostly because it's much more time efficient. Also, in Valencia+, you NEED higher level ships. After that skiff from the Presidio, you don't get any more free ships until after Cool Ranch. When you buy a ship, it doesn't come with any gear, so you also need to buy ALL the gear, which is quite expensive. Face it; you need the money for ships.

3. If you train right, have good gear, and arrange your companions correctly, you should be fine. It's not necessary to level all your companions right up to your level, and it wastes points anyway. If you're choosing the right epics and talents for your crew and always sink rather than slash, you'll be okay.

4. If you spend your points sparingly, you'll have loads of excess anyway. When the difference between your level and the level of your companions becomes greater, it takes less points to level them. If you only train your companions when one point will level them or if it's absolutely needed, you should have about 10 at all times just sitting there. This makes the first few levels of the game very brutal, but perseverance, strategy, and a little luck will push you past that and it's smooth sailing from there.

5. It's even MORE convenient to not buy them! Not having to make side trips every few levels means you can spend more time questing and farming and less time running errands.

6. Speed-addition is now impossible (at least for me). There is no longer any "average damage this will deal" anymore. Once you reach the Tradewinds Skyway or so, enemies will dodge and block a lot, anyway. Just have everyone hit one enemy until it's dead. Repeat as necessary.

7. Training tomes become SO EXPENSIVE in the higher levels it's unbelievable and totally not worth it. Like I mentioned in #4, once you're that high a level you won't need them anyway and as a low level there's no way you can afford them without extra farming.

8. Why buy when you can find? Every once in a while, training tomes can be found and collected free just by pressing X, no charge.

9. Who doesn't like questing? It's the point of the game, after all. Like I mentioned in #5, time spent hanging around in a tavern is time NOT spent on doing fun piratey stuff like looting, dueling, and sailing.

10. In a nutshell, being frugal with spending on companion points is so this doesn't happen:

Tip for getting gold: Farm Fin. If you're level 10+, he is VERY easy, and his chest at the end drops 50+ gold each time. Best of luck to you in both sides of the spiral!

- Sophia E