Doddler's RO Journal
Viewing category: Noob Project
Day 6: Day of the Kafra Shop
By Doddler on December 19, 2007 in category 'Noob Project'
So having been paid for my recent work I've done, and not having much time to dedicate to RO, I decided to spend a few bucks on kafra shop to make leveling a bit more entertaining. Its probably not the most respectable thing to do, but it means that I can get a little more out of the time that I play RO.
So I picked up some skill scrolls, some foods, and the angel wings. I must say, I absolutely hate the angel wings. They're ugly, they're annoying... but they boost attack speed by 3%, so I can't really ignore how useful it is.
Warning: Blessing and Increase Agi boxes are both addictive and rediculously expensive. Stay away from them, or you'll end up blowing too much money. Read the latest rant for my opinion on them.
So after a long period of time of selling immortal hearts, I finally got to the point where I can afford some elemental weapons. Atleast, a elemental weapon.
Oooh yeah. This might be a dead giveaway to both what server I'm playing on and what my character is, especially if that merchant I got the weapon from reads the site. 
Daamn sexy damage. Elemental weapon makes all the difference in the world.
In all honesty, I could probably move beyond doing minos for now, but the money is too good to ignore. I could go to high orcs, which is probably faster exp, but way less profitable. I'm actually considering doing ninetails, as the drop rate on obbs and dead branches is pretty damn nice. They're unfortunately a bit out of the way and hurt more than minos though, so I'll have to build up more before I can do those.
The current Rogue, in all his buffed glory. 177 aspd... sexy. Not bad for level 61! It won't be quite as good once I'm out of scrolls, but for now its pretty nice.
Total Game Time: 27 hours (not including vend time)
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Noob Project: Day 5 - It Just Keeps Getting Better
By Doddler on December 10, 2007 in category 'Noob Project'
So enough ranting, and back to our regularly scheduled content.
This last little bit I've been exploring all across midgard, having a little bit of fun durring the last little burst of time before getting job 40.
All over the place. Siromas are actually really good experience, although its less cool when they kill me because they stun me.
In the end since I saved in Einbroch still, I just went back to Porcellios.
Almost!
Yatta!
It was in fact tempting to continue leveling past job 40 to max out Envenom but in the end I decided it would be better if I changed immediately.
Off to the rogue job change!
Wow, don't piss off Mr. Smith! Luckly I got it pretty lucky for gathering quest. I did not realize however, how much I hated finding crabs on that damn map until now. Snake Scales probably would have been a lot faster if I actually killed snakes instead of anacondaqs, but I got 85 Venom Canine while hunting and sold them for 750z each! 
The underground passage part was easier than I recall of it. I realize at this point that since all the monsters there give exp and drops, that one could seriously abuse the instant spawn abysmal knights if you had a high enough level thief. Just a thought~
Freedom!
Woooo!
Its sad but true!
So off to leveling/money making.
Not only are they alright experience for my level range, people pay an arm and a leg for these hearts! Apparently things deflated so much that they wern't worth nearly what I expected, but it was still a good deal. I got almost 200 which I sold for 1700z.
Stun; a rogues worst enemy. You can guess how this ended...
Not a fan of fighting minos yet. I perfect dodge them, and they're great exp, but in the odd chance that they hit me with thier earth attack (which happens roughly once every 5-10 minutes), there's a 75% chance that it'll one shot me. For the most part I just avoid them and hunt verits.
And there's the standings right now, without any buffs/aspd potion. Looking good! I maxed sword mastery right off the bat as rogue, as I think its one of my most useful skills available, and went gank 5 and stalk 3. I'll probably drop Intimidate in favor of maxing gank, backstab, and sightless mind, and I might even go back and max Envenom like I wanted to initially.
Total Game Time: 22 hours. I beat my 24 hour goal! While I guess this means my character is no longer noob enough for the noob project, I will continue to document his adventures as long as people want me to. 
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Noob Project: Day 4 - The Grind
By Doddler on December 6, 2007 in category 'Noob Project'
So life goes on for the noob project. Mainly I've been wandering around doing random things, seeing new places. This interesting structure is actually in the goblin village, I don't recall seeing it before. Even to me, there are new things to see in the game.
I do want to address a few concerns about the project though. In particular, a few people have criticized it because I have a pretty firm understanding of the game and have an unfair advantage. I do agree that I don't actually expect people to blast through first class and pull together a strong character and hit second class in 20 hours.
However, the main point of the project here is to show that it is possible to start a character from scratch and still build it to a decent level in a reasonable amount of time. I deliberately avoided hunting for rare items and tried to focus on easy to find items that any player could obtain, and hunted simple monsters without the assistance of others. Players do find rare items though, and they do engage the help of others when they play the game. They also enjoy the act of exploring and learning what the game has to offer. What we find menial and boring, new players find new and exciting. Even if it takes them longer to accomplish what I've done, they've enjoyed the time they spent.
There are neigh sayers on the forums that talk as if breaking into the game is impossible to do with the market as it is, and I want to show that it is possible. When people ask for help on the forums, people don't know what to say because they're not really sure. What I want to show people is that there is a way it can be done. Its possible that these methods could be compiled into a guide of sorts for new players attempting to get into the game. I even want to do that myself, for my (top secret) renewal of the RODE site, but time is always a problem for me...
For the time being, new players could even be directed to the noob project category on the journal for some insight on what they could be doing to be productive with their game time.
Anyways, on to more screenshots. The red fly is the bad kind of fly!
Blue Herbs, score! Part of my incredible money making scheme of course involves finding a nice, steady supply of blue herbs. This little cache is hidden behind the orc dungeon one entrance. There's another one on the map too but orc lord was loitering there so I couldn't kill them.
Of course, regular loot is good. Hodes are in fact really good money, their skin is worth a pretty good sum. It helps that some people never pick up their drops, this all dropped from a single steel chon chon.
So having said that, I am now incredibly rich. I've decided to scale back my money making schemes now that I just want to focus on pushing to Rogue. I spent most of the money already, but it went to a good cause.
Porcellios are good grind material. If I cared about the money much I'd probably stick to metalings since the giant jellopy are worth a healthy amount to the npc. However, I think I just really like the cool noises the porcellios make, they're so cool. 
And thats where I'm standing right now. A lot better geared than I was before, I'm owning things pretty good now!
Total Game Time: 15h
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The Project: Day 3 - The Road to Happiness
By Doddler on December 2, 2007 in category 'Noob Project'
So today I looked into my crystal ball, wanting to see what the future held for me, and for each future that brought me happiness, that future also had poison spores. So I hunted more poison spores.
And did I ever kill them.
While the mere thought of having to reach job 40 by killing poison spores causes me physical pain, I cannot deny that they are impressively profitable. Based on calculations from my drops, I figured that barring any sudden deaths due to angry dragon tail things, I can kill roughly 340-350 poison spores in one hour. You can break that down as follows based on average drops:
| 315 Poison Spores @ 600z | 189,000z |
| 42 Mushroom Spores @ 80z | 3,360z |
| 1.75 Karvo @ 60000z | 105,000z |
| 2 Blue Herbs @ 4000z | 8,000z |
| Total | 305,360z |
So roughly 300k zeny per hour. It might be boring, tedious work, but its certainly fast money!
Of course, I would be dumb if I submitted myself to too much of that. I suppose I could just sit there and grind on poison spores for a dozen hours and buy some good gears, but it doesn't make for a very good journal post. An hour of poison spores was more than enough for me, so I hunted around for something more entertaining but still worthwhile. Dragon Fly Provided.
Victory is mine! 
As most people who read this journal know, I enjoy boss hunting a lot. MVP hunting isn't exactly possible on a level 40 thief, but there are still things that a thief can kill that are worthwhile, as you can see here.
I decided to go back to the Thief Trainer, since I had neglected his training early on and its fairly simple. I got his first exp boost when I became thief, but I didn't come back once I got some skills leveled up. For just talking to him and gathering 10 feather of bird (he even warps you to the field), I went from 10% on level 42 to 19.5%. I probably should have done it earlier, but I can't complain about free exp. I'd do the battle investigation but I'm much too lazy for that lengthy quest.
Next up on my to do list was to go back to Sphinx and get myself that pantie I wanted. This time, I was lucky enough to find one.
My sexy thief becomes even sexier with stylish underwear!
There are still limits to what I can do as a thief still though.
Since I didn't have a whole lot to spend my money on, I decided to create a set of elemental daggers for usage. The daggers are cheap, 10k each, and they provide easy elemental bonus. While they're only really worthwhile against higher element monsters than what I'm currently fighting, I'm sure I'll find some use for them.
Like hunting hodes!
Of course, I've been making a habit of killing Dragon Fly, since he's quite profitable.
And thats where I'm standing right now. Eventually I'll get more Oridecon and make that dagger suck less. Damn that flee is starting to get pretty nice too.
See you next time on the project!
Total Game Time: 12 hours
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