Pioneering Granado Espada

Thelandira (f/mus) finally maximized her Bare Knuckle stance in Bahamar Marsh, and looted a Robe of Superb Daemon in Bahamar Murky Bayou. Meanwhile, Empedocles (m/ele) consumed his share of EXP Cards and became the 9th expert.

The low-level experts spent 4 hours inside Secret Tower 1F, and never got a single key. All they looted were some Lv.80-92 equipment and a Sapphire (Gosh, it's not even High Quality!). The family won't be going back to the Secret Tower of FAIL until they improve the drop rate for the keys by 100% in v3.2.


The experts and veterans hunted a few Swamp Anglers and Gullfaxis, but they hated me as usual, only dropping some Lv.80-96 equipment, Pure Gold Bars, and Lv.92-96 Enchantment Chips. The experts also made 8 visits to Bellem's Relics. After failing one hunt this week, the treasure hunters found their 29th Fire Isle Treasure in Zone 2: Bracelet of Great Soul, Bracelet of Neptune, and Elite Rafael's Sabre.


I'm getting bored of the New World again. Grinding and boss-hunting is just monotonous. Those bosses are usually not around when I went to look for them anyway. Meh. Getting to Master level is so slow and is making me sleepy. Plus, all the cash shop items are so expensive in the market for the past few weeks.

Ashardalon Family Profile has been updated. There were 2 disconnections experienced this week.

Sword of the New World is having a forum contest for v3.4 loading screen during Nov 03-24, 2009. Finally, I decided to post an entry, essentially an edited screenshot. See v3.4 Loading Screen Contest Entries and also Contest Discussion in G1 Forums.

I love this fighter costume~! Too bad fighter is kind of out-classed by everybody else... Equites by Romina, Hanging Guard by Grandice and Battlesmith Idge. Hopefully she will be redeemed when the expert blunt stance comes out.

Two new things are revealed from kGE. Join the IAHGames forum discussion topics - Crafting Trump Series Armor (v4.0) by Reno and Rio's Constellation Stance - Prelude by Larg.

Rio's Constellation Stance: Prelude
Pictures of the new stance has been added to kGE Screen Board. See also Silver Server v4.2.6 Patch Notes and Prelude Stance. Symbol needed for the stance is Virgo.

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Elite Trump Armor (DR 30)

Arcanero Plate (fighter leather) Clarcana (scout leather) Variltorta (musk coat) Deinclian (wiz coat) Ruidestencia (robe) Depending on base armour type (leather/coat/robe), the raw materials are Dragon Heart x1 Reinforced Leather/High Quality Cloth x100 28dr Leather/Coat/Robe Crystal x2 Trump Card Piece x50 Red/Blue/Green Ticket to Arsene Circus x1 Not sure where to get the Trump Card Piece. Probably an item drop in the new raid. [Source]

Here are some quotes from the Twitter chat with G1-Neume... Bold emphasis mine as usual.

That said, in the near term we have plans to offer newer Crafting packs when SotNW 3.4 launches. We hope the new packs will drive down the price of upgrading in SotNW especially for Veteran and above items. We suggested a +4 Lacquer as well. Not sure what imc will do with the idea though... We also have our annual SotNW Holiday patch that is happening in December with a new Holiday event. We WILL have a Christmas event for both SotNW and WarRock. SNW's event may include the dreaded Rudolf. Not sure yet... We are currently working on adding new costumes to the SotNW bazaar. They should be there before long. SotNW 3.4 will include 2 new pets! Our 4.0 will also include at least 1 new pet and we have plans for even more pets after that. SotNW 3.4 changes the way obtaining a pet works so it will make it easier for us to add more pets in the future. Pet food for Feso will stay. It's likely we'll sell pets for gold in SotNW, but not likely we'll sell pet food for vis. We're shooting for Dec for SotNW 3.4. Our release date now conflicts with the launch of KR 4.0 so we're still working on that. We (I mean the collective we here) should stop thinking about getting "exclusive" items. There is a LOT of content coming. [Source]

About Christmas... Please avoid those crappy monster-orgy events, where everyone just come to the same map and lag to death/disconnection. The Halloween 2009 Event is a good one. You can do it at your own pace/time/level, without lag spikes or being edged out by players with uber-gears. Mystery Boxes were given out during Christmas 2008, so it would be nice if they can give out OoPS Boxes this year instead.

About pets... For sGE v3.2, the pets added are the panda and the pig. The cat was added in sGE v3.4. So it seems like SNW would be missing 1 pet in v3.4. The v4.0 pet should be the chicken. Since SNW has no ABS equivalent, it seem the pets would end up in the cash shop. I was hoping they would put them in the feso shop like kGE...

The date-conflict part sounds like a warning for a patch delay. Okay, SNW can stop hoping for those items from Coimbra Shuffle!! and Imperial Wheel (e.g. Crystal Shooter, Silver Skullic Bracelet). I just hope SNW will get a good deal from IMC for the fixed options of Trump weapons. (sGE has +10% more ATK Speed, and cGE has +2 more ATK Rating, compared to the default Trump.)

After dumping Ghae (Andre) in the quarters, Empedocles (m/ele) and Visca (Grace) spent 2 more days in Skeleton Dungeon Ancient Area, before moving on to Bahamar Ancient Mineral Cave. When the pass expired, they reached Veteran Lv.10. Visca (Grace) consumed EXP Cards until she became the 8th expert. (140m EXP is required to advance from 0% to 100% at Veteran Lv.10.)

The experts decided to join an impromptu squad to make the family's first entry into Occulta Dungeon. They hunted the Kobold Elders and recovered Lorenzo Diary 1517 for Emilia.

From Emilia's confrontation with Gertrude, it was revealed that something sinister enough to manipulate the Ten Nobles was involved, which kept things secret after Ferruccio died. Dr. Lorenzo was searching for the Power of the Ancients (Constellation stances) and the Five Elements. (See Lands of Elements.)

According to Emilia, the Ancients lived on islands floating in the sky... This sounds suspiciously like the next destination of Montoro revealed in Selva's recruitment quest (i.e. the place which reaches the heavens or whatever), and possibly the Land of Wind as well.


Since quest completion is a requirement for crafting Refined Key [Barrow de la Muerte] (v3.5), the family went back to Ustiur Base Camp and gave Marcelino his stuffs for Dinosaur Killer quest. Since they were clearing this crafting quest, they might as well finish a few others as well, completing Golden Firearms, Ice Particle Item Production, and Yellow Gold Item Production quests after they spent some time in Katovic Snowfield and Glacial Forecourt.


Ashardalon Family Profile has been updated. There were 3 disconnections experienced this week.

You can enter Occulta Dungeon from Tierra Dias with 5 Ancient Runes - Ti, or from Tierra Noche with 5 Ancient Runes - Te. The two maps cycle every 4 hours, starting with daytime (Tierra Dias) at midnight (server time). The Kobold Elders are needed for Nar Recruitment Quest (10 kills) and Constellation Stance Quest (Lorenzo Diary 1517). You should get both quests before entering the dungeon, so as to do them together.

1. Guard Room (G10)
You can reach the Guard Room by moving north directly from the dungeon entrance. There are Dullahan monsters (Golem) flanking the entryway in this room. Just run and use healing potions. Since I didn't bring Emilia the Sage, I couldn't try this... but you might be able to survive the mobs and the traps in the next room better if you use Protection Field instead of relying on potions.

2. Trap Room (G9)
There is a trick which allows you to see where the spike traps are located. Type /camcol off in the chat window. This allows you to move the camera angle to see things from below the ground. You might not be used to moving around with the camera in an "up-skirt" perspective. Practice in town first, if you want to use this to avoid the traps.

Also, it is said here that the traps won't trigger on a levitating character.

Not only do the spikes deal a huge amount of damage, they also inflict Paralysis status. This can dangerous with the roaming kobolds in this room.


There are also Lightning Turrets lined along the walls of this room. They can inflict Shock status, which will slow you down. Avoid them, if you are running to get to the safe area (H8).



3. The Kobold Corridor (G8-H8)
The corridor beyond the Trap Room has kobolds roaming around in groups. Make your way to the safe area (i.e. no spawn area) at H8. Invisible Potions should make it a safe trip.

Now, by the time you get here, you might have 2 characters dead in the previous rooms, especially if you got hit by the spike traps. However, you cannot use Soul Crystal if your leader (i.e. surviving character) is too far away from them. To avoid going back to the rooms to revive them, you can just let your leader die. Once dead, you will be able to use Soul Crystal to revive all 3 characters. Then, use Invisible Potions and healing potions to summon the 2 characters to the leader with F4.

When everyone is ready at the safe area (H8), the tanker should lure Kobold Elder (Lv.124) over. The elder has Fire Breath skill, which can inflict Burn status.


All kobolds have an annoying tendency to run away after taking a bit of damage, but they will come back if you do not pursue them. So make sure you call the characters back, if they run out of the safe area.

I was the first in the squad to get Lorenzo Diary 1517, which was 1 hour 25 min after entering the dungeon. The last person got the drop in 3 hours 33 min. For those who can wait, the drop rate will be improved by 10 times in v3.2.


I completed the two quests, thanks to everyone in the squad. I still can't get Constellation stances though, since I don't have enough gold to buy Great Stones (aka Growth Stones in sGE). The stones will become tradable in v3.4.


It will be a while before I decide to do the rest of Errac quests, but you can find more information from the links below.

Related Links

• Zeia Secrets by Arconis
• Zeia Quest by xBayushi
• Nar-gh by Souken
• Nar Recruitment Quest from Book of Wind
  
• v3.2 Patch Notes by IAHGames
• v3.4 Patch Notes by IAHGames
  
• Zeia Dual Land
  

Update: Added bypassing spike traps with levitation by Reno.

Gracielo was caught trying to sneak an up-skirt view of Emilia as she tried out her new costume... and got himself punched by her. The costume is a color variant of the one in v4.0.

Source: 多玩 Forum Topic - 来看看什么叫性感

Update: It turns out the 2 pictures from the forum are part of a larger story in Virgin家の女たち2. Gracielo was staring at her bosom and back, before going for the up-skirt view... I guess he wants appetizers before going for the "main course"...

After a long service in the family, Anahita (f/sco) finally became the 7th expert. Ghae (Andre) was promoted, and joined Empedocles (m/ele) and Visca (Grace) as the active veterans. They visited Los Toldos, using 103 Mysterious Powders to farm 124 Pure Otites and craft an Elite Candlestick.

Meanwhile, the family continued with Halloween Monster Hunts, and earned another 12 bonus rewards - 5 back costumes and 70 EXP Cards. On the last day (Wed), there was only 1 hour to do all 3 missions before maintenance (Wed 1am PDT), and the family managed to finish the last one before maintenance started. The frequent visits to Ferruccio Wall for the hunts led to the family's first encounter with the elusive Grim Reaper Leader (Lv.105).


After maintenance, the veterans activated a 7-day pass and returned to Skeleton Dungeon Ancient Area for the rest of the week, using up 10 Witch's Candies. After 3 days, Ghae (Andre) reached Veteran Lv.2, while Empedocles (m/ele) and Visca (Grace) reached Veteran Lv.7.

Ashardalon Family Profile has been updated. There were 2 disconnections experienced this week.

Since v3.0, Sword of the New World has reduced its default character slots in the family quarters from 15 to 4. The accompanying bug is that existing families that have only 15 slots are also affected. So a family with 7 characters would have 7/4 instead of 7/15.

Quarter Slots will be injected to ALL accounts logged in on August, 2009. The scripts for injecting the QS have already been activated. However, due to the huge number of accounts that the script is targeting at, some of you may receive the item only in the next few days. We are expecting the script to be completed by Wednesday, 11th of November. [Source]

See more in the forum discussion. Just for comparison, the default slots for sGE is 9.

Update: See the new policy regarding default quarter slots in Quarter Slots on Newly Created Accounts forum topic.

Special 2009 Q4 Update Preview has been released by kGE. This preview has also been translated into Japanese at 散歩道. The update is expected in Q4, 2009 or Q1, 2010.


1. Enhanced Feedback for Test Server
IMC is improving the feedback process for the test server. Nothing to do with most players...

2. PvP Balance
Some coding anomalies are expected to be resolved for cannon, shotgun, and shield stances.

3. Expert Stance
Some skills will consume less expensive items when used.

4. SP Requirement & Accessories
Expert accessories (e.g. earrings, gloves, shoes) can be manufactured. They should help with the heavy SP-consumption of expert stances.

5. Improved Missions
AQM Holy Water Chamber will be updated. Dr. Torsche's Mansion Basement is almost completed, along with the recruitment of Catherine Torsche. Also adding daily content for veterans.

6. New Area Added
Not much information at the moment, but it is probably the north-eastern lands in the Land of Wind. See Lands of Elements.

7. New Armor & Improved Intermediate Raids
New top-level armor (DR33) will be added. The difficulty and rewards of intermediate-level raids will be increased.

8. Coming Soon...

• More expert stances
• Dr. Torsche's Mansion Mission
  
• Valeria
• New top-level raid
  

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Tested Burst - Cannon Expert Stance
All the Pedobears get to cream in v4.2.0 again. Claire can learn Tested Burst from Emilia with Symbol of Sagittarius. Special cannon shells will be added to NPC shops. Jose gets a variant version of the stance as well. See 散歩道.