Well, this happened the other night…
I suppose the only reason the list wasn’t longer was because I dc’d too.  For all I know, everyone got the boot.  I took it as a sign to call it a night.

I went on a couple of Cit Runs, one very successful, one not too bad, and two went glug glug glug all the way down.  We experienced this wonderful phenomena…
On this run, we went away and the trike finally left.  This was from the successful run – this same situation happened in one of the sinks, the difference being the navver decided to try to wait out the trike.  Bad idea.

I bought 2 more ships – a Gold class war brig, and another Yuletide sloop – this one renamed Christmas Cookies.  It was a cheap price, and I decided to go for it.  Then I discovered that I somehow managed to break my first yuletide sloop.

This is how the base camp should look…

This is what the broken sloop base camp looks like….
So it’s missing some flags – no problem right?  Except it’s missing ALL the flags, including the ones that help you find the cabin…

Cute, right? Here’s what the broken one looks like now…
The urn I added is still there, but all the snow stuff is gone.  Still, not a big deal right?  Well, what about this…

The igloo home of the elusive yeti.  Well, not any more…
Almost all gone!  The arrow is still there, and you still get to the room with the yeti – but he’s no longer got an igloo.

I’m not the only one who got this glitch – Bonna did as well.  She did the same thing I did – put seasonal snow decorations in the scene.  Apparently when the game went through and ‘melted’ the decorations, it took out the ones that were supposed to stay as well.  So, if you added snowy scenery items to the north pole scene, you’d best check and make sure you weren’t glitched as well.  FWIW, I submitted a bug report already, but have yet to hear anything about it…

I also got more new clothes – the combination of loads of poe and lots of chromas was too much for me to handle.  Of course, yesterday I spent 10 minutes trying to figure out where I put the outfits — seriously!  With the glitchy ship I had fears of losing the outfits as well.  I finally found them on the gold class sloop – instead of the newly renamed Sharp Keeled Bullseye – the gold class ship I customized into my kraken hunter ship.

I really have too many wardrobes…

OK, here’s what Rikko did to me in a picture…

And then this happened…

Now, the voodoo priestess said she can’t cure me until I get a good scan of the picture used to curse me – so cough it up Rikko!!!

P.S.  I have a copy of this. just for you…

Not that there’s a lot of the year gone yet, but it has been more than a few days since the last post.

Peg came to my rescue – twice.  After seeing the last post, she offered to sell me one of her spare gold class sloops for a price that was less than I would have had to pay to get it otherwise.  We swabbied it back, and when it arrived at Admiral I grabbed a paint brush…

The main deck

The captains cabin

below decks

Yeah, still a lot of gold on it, and coins everywhere – but I think it’s coming along.  I may add a wardrobe to it (or at least to something) because I’m still adding clothes to my collection.  As you can see from the pics, I finally got my inky chroma to finish my kraken wig outfit – again, thanks to Peg.  She had a hearty who had a spare inky chroma so she arranged for me to buy it.  So, after buying an inky chroma, I’m sure you can guess what I got later that night after a kraken hunt.  I was out with someone I’d never been out with (I forget who, unfortunately) – he had a lot of rookies, and sent me a tell asking if I minded.  I told him it wasn’t a problem – I was used to it.  So we go in, and I have a pretty good night.  Afterward, the guy running the hunt gave me an inky chroma he got as a thanks for what I did on the trip.  Go figure. Anyway, I’m working to keep the Wardrobe Page complete and up to date, so you can check out the progress there.

Rikko, also seeing my last post, sent me a copy of the Lillythanne head shot from the calendaaaaar, so I added it to the wall of fame…
All I need now is a better copy of the Cursed Lilly sketch he did earlier – the one he posted looked like it was photographed instead of scanned (he did say he was having problems with his scanner at the time), and it’s a bit blurry in places.  If I get another one, I’ll probably get another poster sized frame and put the 4 of them in it instead.  Of course, if he wants to do another picture of Lillythanne, I wouldn’t complain either…

Meijinn has been spending all her time with a younger man, so I haven’t seen her online very much lately.  So, I’ve been selling the lifeboats that we make in the shipbuilding stall instead of saving them for her kraken hunts (we have 400 sitting on a war brig, so it’s not a huge deal right now).  But without her running kraken hunts, I’ve been going out with other people.  I’ve gone several times with Littlemike, but he’s always using a junk, and — you’d think that 12 people would get at least 20 eggs per run.  But when half the people you’re out with are completely clueless, you’re lucky to get 12.  They’re busy blocking you, running you into walls and tentacles, and then bragging about how well they do.  I’m at the point now, that if the only hunt I see on the board is Littlemike’s, I go to the inn instead.  I usually go out with Platia – she’s from Germany, so she sometimes doesn’t catch English slang, but only us regulars with her notice it.  Of course, only us regulars know that she shares a big similarity to Lillythanne — she is a he.  I don’t know what it is about this game, but there seems to be a fair amount of cross-dressing in this game.  Maybe they need some better male clothing.  But I digress. I’m not the only one who spends a lot of time with Platia, there’s also a pirate named Bonna.  I’ve learned a few things about her in the weeks we’ve been hunting together – she’s 6 years younger than me (which makes her older than most of the other players), and her son is Wolfaceking (a name I actually recognized).  Other than that – well, you know how it goes.  The three of us were standing around and talking after a particularly successful outing (Platia got a violet krakling, and your’s truly got her 4th krakling – in aqua), and the subject of clothes came up.  Bonna had forgotten my appreciation of the the gown/corset outfits, so I reminded her – and mentioned that I still needed an inky/inky corset to go with a gown I had at the tailor stall.  Platia excused herself briefly, and when she returned, she gave me just what I needed.  So you see why I enjoy going out with this group – even when she sometimes jobs some really lame people.

We spend a night with some clown (who’s name I do remember, because he’s on my mute list now) who kept a running commentary on how well he was doing with his alt.  Pinkpearls sends me a tell that this same guy got planked from someone else’s run for multi-clienting earlier.  I wish Platia had done the same thing – he wasn’t paying attention to the other players, and blundering his way through regardless of the damage he did.  Then there was the night with the alt of a “famous person” — yeah, like I care.  I’m not famous, I know that, but I am friends with quite a few that are.  And I mean genuinely liked and respected people (as well as jealously hated by some).  They know me, and wouldn’t behave like a jr. jackhole like this guy was.  I just gave him my standard response – I’m too old for this crap – and ignored him.  Because I really am too old for that crap…

Anyway, check out the wardrobe page, the 2 new outfits are on the Yuletide Sloop, and you can see what I did with the inky/inky gown/corset set (it’s kind of interesting).

p.s.  The younger man Meijinn is spending all her time with is her grandson.  Shame on you if you thought otherwise….

At least for 2015 anyway.  Yes, it’s been nearly 3 weeks since my last post, but I have been busy.  I did this…

Yes, it’s the same picture I posted on facebook, so most people reading this have already seen it – but you haven’t seen this…

If Rikko can get me a better scan of the “Cursed Lilly” picture (on the notebook) I’ll frame it too.  It would also be cool to have a larger version of her headshot from the calendar too, but I can wait for that.

Tonight I went on the first successful Cit run I’ve been on in weeks – we went in for 2 hours, got over 300 AC’s – almost 450 total.  I ended up with 30+k and some atlantean furniture items (and some old boots).  I also spent a lot of time going out on Kraken hunts with lousy bombers – there is no better way to ruin a night than spending it with a bad bomber.  Of course, I’ve whined about that before, so I’ll stop whining about it now.

One thing I haven’t seen much of lately are Inky chromas.  I have a inky/maroon bodice top, inky/inky boots, a maroon kraken wig — just need an inky/maroon wrap skirt.  Looked, but haven’t found any anywhere, so that means making a tan/maroon wrap skirt and using a chroma – but I’ve seen no chromas.  Not even in the Inn.  Got a couple more wine chromas, 3 more chocolate chromas — no inky.  I keep hoping they’ll show up at the trading post, heaven knows I’ve got lots of trinkets for one. Or 12.

Bought a few more gold box trinkets I didn’t have (at a decent price), so all I need to get another turtle is a ‘heart o gold’, ‘signet ring’, ‘hourglass’, and a turtle shell.  I also need a few more of any I can get cheap so I can get a set of gold sloop plans (since I can’t seem to find anyone selling them at the inn).  I’m buying it because I want to make a kraken sloop, even though I’ve already got a Hunter sloop – which is already a good choice for a kraken sloop.  It has the harpoon cannons, the barrels of harpoons, different chum buckets – even a mounted squid on the wall.  But I’m still interested in doing one up myself (much like Pegasiswolf did – only she used a gunpowder sloop) – I could use a plain sloop, like I did for my version of a skelly sloop, but I want to use one of the sloops with the raised rear deck.  Anyway, I got 4 harpoon cannons, some furniture, mounted tentacles and squids, powder kegs and harpoon barrels – even have the squidlike atlantean helm as well.  All I need is the sloop…

and the pirate’s getting fat…

Been an interesting month so far, after talking about the 4 familiars I’ve won in the 6 years I’ve been playing I go and win another one – a lime krakling!  I like the color, but don’t have any clothes in lime.  Good thing this new Yuletide sloop has a wardrobe in it.   In my early November post I mentioned wearing different clothes in order to rearrange them — well, the plan is now 32 outfits closer to fruition.  55 outfits are now in their final homes (for now), and 25 more to go (until I start making Lime outfits).  I have been keeping the Wardrobe Page as up to date as I can manage, if you want to see what a clothes addiction looks like…

Keep an eye out on that Girlz of Emerald link as well,  as Rikko is working on his 2015 pirate pinup poster.  Why should you care?  Because Lillythanne will be Miss January (although he currently lists her name as Lyllithanne — last time it was Lillythame, so he’s getting closer (just teasing Rikko)).  Actually, when answering one of my comments he called me Willythanne — an rather interesting mashup of the names if I do say so myself.  If you’re interested in downloading a copy of one to print out your very own self, just find Pegasiswolf online and slip her 20 dubs.  She’ll get you the link as soon as Rikko has everything finished.

As the title says, Christmas is coming, and my playing will be getting rather sketchy during that time.  Part of that reason is that I’m just plain busy – but the other part is that we’ll be at a timeshare for part of that, and I’ll have to use my MiFi unit to get online.  It works, as long as I don’t try to actually puzzle too much.  So if you seem me online next week, say Hi, because I won’t be on for long.  Fear not though, once January begins in earnest, I’ll be back on regularly again.

So for now, I wish you all the Merriest of Christmases and the Happiest of New Years!

This has been an interesting end to November so far.  I’ve been mostly doing Kraken hunts (aren’t we all though?)  I managed to win my 4th familiar during this time – a navy Krakling*.  I got my deviled eggs trophy, and managed my first 3 egg run (as well as batting for the cycle**  twice – not that there’s a trophy for that, but there should be).  Got a new picture in a new outfit…

The only thing you can do with the kraken trinkets so far is the Kraken Tattoo top (still waiting for the inky chromas to show up at the trading posts).  It’s a nice change from the midriff blouse, and finally gives something else to do with the kraken ink everyone ends up collecting.

I was looking for fish names with “dragon” in it, and discovered a fish listed as the dr neon.  Dr Neon.  That struck me as kind of cool, so I renamed my crimson sloop The Fantastic Dr Neon.  I thought it was cool anyway.

Peg was nice and traded me a purple krakling for the navy one I mentioned earlier (I have more purple clothing than navy – and it’s more interesting to boot).

Oh yeah!  Lillyth is on the list for Rikko’s 2015 Girls of Emerald Calendaaaaar!  I think that’s the coolest thing of all.

* I have actually won 2 blue Ippolitos (sea horses) in Atlantean Runs (one I traded for an Atlantean colored one, the other I still have), 1 tan monkey (from a mystery box, I traded it for the yellow and tan spider), and the navy krakling from a kraken hunt (which as I mentioned, I traded to Peg for a purple one).  I have a total of 9 familiars so far.

** Batting for the Cycle is my term for getting one of each item in one entry on a kraken hunt: an egg, a cephalo pod, a tentacle locker, a cuttle box, and some ink.  I guess you could call it a hat trick too, but I’m not sure what a good egg oriented trophy would be.

…why dub prices are still ridiculously high.

Until someone sells that idiot SIX THOUSAND DUBS, no one will be able to get them for under 2500.  SomeONE?  I saw this same bid sometime back, and I know the system has canceled the bids from them, because I had a bid at 2501 that got canceled since then, so someone keeps posting it.  Now, apart from buying 9 estates, or an entire fleet of ships, I can’t really see why someone needs that many dubs.

Unless they’re deliberately manipulating the dub market to keep prices high…

It’s no secret that I’ve got a lot of clothes.

A lot a lot of clothes.  Almost 80 outfits in 17 wardrobes.  All but 9 outfits are female (I do have a male alt or 2 you know).  The strange thing is, with all these outfits, I usually have Lillythanne wearing some Atlantean colored clothes she has stashed away at Meijinn’s stall – until they turn to rags, then I go find some other cheap Atlantean outfit for her to wear.

Still, she sometimes will wear another outfit – for Halloween she spent the season wearing her black and persimmon outfit with a matching witch mask…

Right now since she won a banana masked bandana (try saying that 5 times fast) she’s wearing the only banana outfit she has.  It was only good to begin with, now it’s old, so I’m thinking of wearing it until it turns to rags (the slipper were new, so they’re OK, and she didn’t wear the Crown of Chaos – so they’ll work with rags just fine).   Since she won’t wear anything specifically seasonal until they offer the Christmas Top Hats, I may start cycling through the other clothes so I can rearrange the wardrobes.  That way I can group the 17 gown outfits, 5 harem girl outfits, 5 tabards, 6 epaulet jackets, and 12 Tudor Bodices all together where I can find them easier.  Since only 13 of the outfits are where I want them to be, it’ll be a chance to show off a lot of different outfits these next few weeks…

I know, it’s been a while since the last post – I’ve been meaning to write this one up, but other things happened (including the machine with Photoshop going up in literal smoke, rendering me unable to edit my little wardrobe icons).  Still this topic has been on my mind for a bit, so now is as good a time as any…

We know that Lillythanne is a clothes horse – I’ve written post after post about her obsession with different outfits.  Most of this obsession requires me to visit tailor shop after tailor shop, looking for items I can use to create her many outfits.  All these visits have lead me to certain conclusions…

1. There are too damn many tailor shops on Admiral. I know, that sounds like it would be contradictory to my stated goal of finding the clothes I need. But in reality, it has pretty much killed off the tailor business on most of the other islands. I used to be able to find the occasional gem on Bowditch and Aimuari – but not anymore. Many of those shops have stopped updating their racks, and are just coasting on what they have left.
2. Why on God’s Green Earth do you spend the money to buy a tailor shop, then turn it into your own personal wardrobe?  That’s what tailor stalls are for.  Instead, I have to remember which shops will be a waste of my time to visit.
3. Prices? Some of them are just ridiculous. The clothing items you get from a gold box cost you about 27k (or did before the latest Dub price insanity) so asking 50K for a dread mask or golden conquistador armor is a little steep. Asking 75k is a lot steep. Asking 100k is telling people that you really don’t want to sell it. Stuff you win in Sea Monster Hunts are free – anything you get is profit. For me, I charge whatever it would cost for you to have the item made, then a little extra depending on what that color chroma costs – meaning indigo clothes are cheap, night blue costs a fortune. Some people are still making everything cost a fortune.
4. If I can have it made cheaper than you’re charging for it – what good are you?

Usually, with sufficient looking, I can find what I’m looking for – or something I can make work anyway.  I always try to keep a fair collection of chromas on hand, just in case I run across something I find interesting.  At Meijinn’s stall, we have items that are outrageously priced – simply because I kept losing track of what items I was just storing there.  If we both use the “Display Only” option, I have to keep track constantly.  If I just put something on the rack for 555,555 – I know it’s mine.  I used to use a lower amount, but someone actually bought the item!

(editor note:  The title is a take off on the book, ‘Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy’, by John le Carré.)

Have you noticed what’s been going on in the Dubloon Exchange in Emerald lately?  It’s been insane.  Now, I freely admit that I play the market sometimes – when there’s a color box promo going on, the price of dubs usually goes down.  I’ll buy a bunch of extra dubs to sell them later when the gold box promos begin (and dubs prices go up).

This time though, someone put in a bid for over 3000 dubs at 2085 (I think).  Now, 6mil in POE to buy dubs is an awful lot.  If I had that much money I’d have bought some new familiars.  Unless they were trying to fix the dub market – because it sure screwed things up.  Obviously, 2085 became a hard floor for the price of dubs, and they could only go up.  So even thought there was a color box promo, the dub prices never went down (in fact, they actually went higher than normal), and when the promo ended, they went over 2200.

I have a series of bids in now – 50 each at 4 decreasing price points – in hopes of at least getting some extra dubs in the next 9 days before the gold box promo starts.  It’s not that I usually by a lot of gold boxes. usually 2 or 3 just to see if I get lucky, but I would like to make a little profit on the market.

[ed. note: When I’m quoting dub prices, it’s the buy price, not the higher sell price – I only do that when I’m really really desperate.]