I talked a little bit about the Risia ice games last year. I was kind of bummed out that people seemed to be "cheating" to get the purple coins and I was just simply struggling to get the low level coins.
The Risia Ice Games made another appearance during the summer if I remember right (like Christmas in July or something). I did MUCH better with coin collecting then because I was in fact higher level with better spells and stats. I still don't use the "teleport" method. I just jump for my purple coins.
But in the end, it seems all I'm really searching for are the motes and the ingredients to make icy burst kits, but I'm not sure why . . . habit formed by the other three or so Risia ice games I've participated in. I was able to hand team spode a bunch of icy burst weapons back in July, but now it all seems we've moved past that need. So, I suppose I'm doing it for alts and . . . for money? Ok, i'll do it for money! :)
There is something hugely satisfying and fun about grabbing a big purple coin at the end of the jump though. That alone is addicting.
I also spent some time hitting the Extraplaner Mining quests last night since I'm still drooling over these cool gear upgrades. Quite honestly, I wouldn't mind having all of them. To those ends, I have a lot of farming to do. Quite honestly, I don't mind the farming since I'm enjoying soloing these challenges. Here's my component list after last night:
Needs more cowbell, I mean scorpions!
The Risia Ice Games and the Cannith Challenges are actually quite similar in some aspects. It got me to thinking last night, either I rent Ice skates for 10 minutes and shoot for the fabled recipe 5/20 from a purple coin turn in, or I spend 10 minutes earning a bit of advancement toward Cannith gear by laying torches and burdening kobolds. They both are like little mini-games within DDO. They both would end in a reward of some kind. They both are fun. Hmmm.
Right now I'm leaning toward the Cannith challenges. I think I want that gear just a little bit more than money or an icy burst weapon.
How's about you? Any plans to grab purple coins over the next week or two?
Originally posted by me on 2 January 2011 on I am Stingite.
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So, I’ve been playing a lot, and I mean A LOT, of Dungeons and Dragons Online lately.
It all started when the Risia games hit Stormreach, and I had been doing my best to earn those stinking tokens. It's funny but this was actually a learning experience for me in more ways than one. It also made me realize exactly how steep the learning curve is in this game . . . all from a simple exercise in jumping for tokens.
When you look at the history of the game, DDO really has been around for many years . . . 2006 in fact. It doesn't feel that way for me though since I really didn't start playing until it went free-to-play. What I didn't realize, or give respect to, was that people have been playing this game all along, and there are still people playing this game who jumped on board back in 2006.
I remember when it first launched my friend Tony asked me to come play with a few of his friends there, and I turned him down because I was having a hard enough time justifying the expense of an Everquest subscription. All it took was it going free to play; yeah, I'm that cheap. BUT WAIT! I'M NOT! For Christmas my wife sprung and bought be $50 worth of DDO tokens. WOOT!
I digress.
Where was I?
Oh yeah, the Risia Games!
So, the Risia games apparently are almost as ancient as DDO itself. Every holiday season, people don there ice skates and zoom around on large ramps collecting coins that can be redeemed for awesome stuff. The people in the know make bank. The people who aren’t in the know or don’t care to be in the know, lose bank.
I fancy myself as one of the fast ones of the slow group this year. I did get a +5 Ray of Frost and a cool ice damage weapon after all.
You see, all the hubbub centers around these “motes” that you get from redeeming coins from your ice escapades. You use motes to do things like add damage to a weapon or create an eternal Ray of Frost wand. It’s some reasonably cool stuff. You’ll hear people in the trade channel auctioning off “icy burst kits.” Basically these kits are everything you need to progress your way through all the combines at the ice forge you need to make an uber weapon. It’s like three recipes and 300 motes, and these things go for tens of thousands of plat.
I’ve learned a few things from my fascination with collecting these little coins and motes. I even worked out a cool system of grabbing three white coins and a blue coin, logging out my character, logging on another character and grabbing two more coins before the coins had respawned for my first character. It was kind of fun, until . . .
Until?
Until, a guild mate told me how he and some friends were gaining purple coins in a kind of cheap way. A blue coin is better than a white coin, but the purple coin rules them all with its reward. Basically they were having a high-level person teleport them to a spot where you could easily feather fall down to grab the purple coin over and over and over. I didn’t take his invitation to do this because it just irritated me. Here I was trying to work out some snazzy system of grabbing the junk coins while unbeknownst to me, you could get it some cheap cheating way. GAH! Just irritating to know that I had spent all that time being stupid and thinking I was cool when this dude was OWNING everything with a high level clicky.
That’s when it hit me. I’m a low leveler, and I suck. Sure, I felt a power surge when I found out I could cast a firewall and trick mobs into running back and forth in my fire while I was invisible . . . but I’m still just a ninth level sorcerer wannabe.
In retrospect, I should have swallowed my irritation and just joined my random guild mate in the cheat way of gaining purple coins. Seriously, I should have because it’d be great to reap the rewards. But, I have to say it would be MUCH MUCH cooler to earn a purple coin the legit way . . . even if I’m not a monk who can do these fantastic jumps. Check this insanity out:
By the very last day of the Risia Ice Games I finally figured out that strength modifies jump. /smacks head. HEY! DON'T LAUGH! I'm a sorcerer, ok? I don't know these things. I rock the firewall and invisible farming scheme I got going on, remember? Not smashin' heads and jumping walls. Well, I do have the jump spell in my arsenal now.
Perhaps next year it'll be me with the uber teleport clicky helping out guild mates get purple coins, eh?
I was just happy to finally make it to the third ramp by the last day. The fourth and final ramp eluded me.
Next year, you're mine, purple coins!
(I did make about 20k plat off of this, so . . . you know . . . awesome for this little ninth level sorcerer. ;p)
