Sunday, October 17, 2010

Run 13, Day 6

The return of Murphy: 180-odd adventures banked for the stat day today and I woke up sick. I should have known something like that would happen. Luckily I was able to get my pain level down to the point I could stand to play, albeit late in the day.

I didn't have many goals because I didn't know what realistic goals to have with so many turns banked. I just wanted to get as high-leveled as I could and get as much questing done as I could. Easy, right?

Saturday, October 16, 2010

Run 13, Day 5

Guess what tomorrow is? That's right - Moxie Day! Guess what I didn't start yesterday? That's right - banking turns!

So today will be really simple. (Which is good, because today Boise State plays San Jose State, the Sharks have their home opener, and the NLCS starts in San Francisco. I'm going to be glued to the television all day.) I'm going to do the barrels for some boozings. I'm going to eat and drink. I'm *not* going to spleen because that would require getting the feathers. All my other turns are getting banked for tomorrow.

What could go wrong?

Afterthoughts: I didn't count on how many adventures I actually would be spending so I got a lot more done than I expected. I'm all set up so tomorrow I can ballroom to 9 and also do the Bonerdagon, which I saved for tomorrow because of the stat day. I also saved the roc feather and a couple of gongs for the stat days ahead.

Now that I think about it level 9 is a good day for a stat day because of the stats from the leaflet and the stat script.

Friday, October 15, 2010

Run 13, Day 4

Lots of things to do in the Kingdom today! This is the point where I know what needs to be done but I don't know how far I should be getting level-wise. They're getting further apart and harder to judge. So I'll wing it.


Goals: Level 8, finish Cyrpt sub-zones, open Manor second floor, collect pirate insults. That doesn't seem like much to me, but I guess it's a fair few turns. After that I'll need to move on to opening the ballroom and the F'cl'e.


Afterthoughts: Except for the excitement at the end of the third gong it went pretty smoothly. I'm ready to do the Barr and possibly open the Ballroom. I think I timed the Goatlet poorly - it would have been a great place to do gongs. Live and learn, I guess.


One more thing - I really need to get the hippy outfit. I need the mixers like whoa.

Thursday, October 14, 2010

Run 13, Day 3

Today we come to the last big bottleneck of a run. (After this the turns come pretty easily and the quests are plentiful.) With it comes more questions. How fast can I get Liver? How much Hell Ramen can I get? Should I do the Shore before or after the Liver? Can I get enough combats in the Friar's zones to get Roc feathers? Is eating Skittles for breakfast really a good idea?

Goals: Liver of Steel (which includes the Level 6 quest, of course). Open the Island for mixers. 2 gongs for roc feathers. Level 7-1/2 at least. Which means a significant portion of the Cyrpt quest as well.

There has been discussion in /hardcore about placement of stat days in a speed run. The general consensus seems to be that they should be placed around level 9, which means around Day 5. This is going to cause a problem for me in the contest as I will have a much-beloved houseguest through 1 November. I could probably get away with spending one or two days concentrating fiercely on KoL...but not the whole week. (To say nothing of Samhain being a religious holiday.) I'm still going to make a contest run, but I may have to admit that it won't even be the very best I can do. I'm okay with that. There's always next time.

After adventure thoughts: I think I did really well today. Every adventure, even the ones leveling, were spent advancing a quest or in a necessary zone. The only exception is the clover adventures to get disembodied brains, which will generate/save more than the turns they took. I did not quite make it to 7-1/2; more like 7-1/4. It's still an improvement for me and hopefully I can continue at this pace.

The moxie stat days this run are Sunday and Monday, which will be days 6 and 7 of this run. We'll see how that works out.

PS - Blogger's HTML parser is a right pain in the arse.

Wednesday, October 13, 2010

Run 13, Day 2

As soon as my laundry is done I'll be diving into my much anticipated day 2! I have a whole stack of questions for myself such as: do I have the mana (and talent) to get myself a roc feather? Where should I adventure for half a level? Should I do the Bat Cave now? Can I survive the barrels? Where am I going to get the meat to fund all this?

Long story short, I have more questions than answers.

I do have a whole to-do list of goals and chores today. Level 6, defeat Boss Bat, digital key, open the Island, open the library. I would really like to get my liver today but I think that it's just out of my reach.

After action thoughts: Remembering how to do birdform made me a bit scattered in the early going. I managed to do the bat hole, the 8-bit and most of the harem, though, so I guess it wasn't too bad. It was definitely worth the stats and turns from the roc feathers.

I did make level 6, but not without eating unfortunately. I may have been able to do so if I'd drunk first...I just now realized that I spaced that. D'oh.

I am one pixel short of the key and 5 shore trips and a guild challenge away from the Island; other than that I made my goals. Tomorrow I'll get my liver. Onward and upward!

Tuesday, October 12, 2010

Run 13, Day 1

I apologize for the long disappearance; I've been ill and barely could find the energy to finish run 12 much less post it. I'll try to get the logs up soon but they will be rather sparse in the notes department.

On to the good news: I finally started run 13 today!

Goals for this run: 10 days or less, perm Ode to Booze, get an idea of how the contest will be and when to place the stat days.

Goals for Day 1: Tavern quest, level 4 for booze, Rock 'N' Roll Legend, open Manor, get Knob Encryption Key.

I think my day 1 was a grand success. There was no flailing about wondering what to do next. I managed all the goals, got halfway to level 5, plus additionally opened the Hidden Temple, retrieved Fernswarthy's key, and made my squeezebox of the ages. It's the best day one I've ever achieved - now I'm stressing about what to do to follow it up!

Logs after the break.

Saturday, October 9, 2010

Run 12, Day 13

This numbering is a little misleading - there were a couple of days I was ill and didn't log in at all so it was a 15-day run, not a 13. It was still an expedient run, though not fast by any stretch. i did collect 5 lucre along the way and then lucred in aftercore as well.


Sunday, October 3, 2010

Saturday, October 2, 2010

Friday, October 1, 2010

Thursday, September 30, 2010

Run 12, Day 6

More missing logs. At this point I was still making some kind of effort on the run. I do like to get the insults from the cove instead of Barrneys - it seems more expedient. I am probably wrong about that.

I do remember being really annoyed to get two of the F'cl'e items on the first two turns in the zone and the third not dropping 'til the next day. I really hate that.


Tuesday, September 28, 2010

Monday, September 27, 2010

Run 12, Day 3

Today sucked for a variety of reasons. I had to get up early to go grocery shopping despite my back being in a whole world of pain. I attempted to start spending turns and immediately got beaten up by a mimic. I decided that I wasn't going to have a productive day no matter what I did so I set mafia to run a bounty hunt and then passed out on muscle relaxers.

I did manage to finish my LEW and collect a second lucre, but not much else. Oh, on reading the log I discover that I also beat the Boss Bat. Go me.

Logs after the jump. (Thanks to Aankhen for pointing out what I could omit and what to add.)

Sunday, September 26, 2010

Run 12, Day 2

In which fixer tries to improve on her sorry start to this run.

Goals: Level 6 (reagent pasta), open Fernswarthy's Tower, LEW. (Note: yes, I am doing the LEW. I will be needing to do the same in my AT runs anyway, plus the nemesis hat is well worth it in a non-speed run. Which this is.) Additional goal: get used to using mafia.

Results: The bounty was shredded can labels so I accepted it as I needed to level to 4 anyway so I could drink. In retrospect I should have gotten a detuned radio and cranked the ML a bit. As it was I barely leveled before the bounty was done.

Much more useful logs than yesterday after the jump.

Saturday, September 25, 2010

We Interrupt This Blog...

...to congratulate the Boise State University football team on their victory over Oregon State, 37-24. It was a great game and Oregon State really brought the heat. I'll take a competitive football game over a 50-not much blowout any day of the week, and twice on Saturday.

~~GO BRONCOS!~~

Run 12, Day 1

I apologize for the handlogging. After today my logs will be from Mafia; hopefully those will be less painful to read.

Goals: Level 4 (for advanced cocktails), Level 2 quest + open temple.

Okay, this was a terrible first day. I ate fortune cookies, one boring spaghetti and one mugcake. I drank a couple of beers and a Typical Tavern swill. I didn't get as far as level 4, either. I did get through the level 2 and 3 quests and opened my guild and the Hidden Temple.

The problem is I don't even know how to fix this. I think reading some logs would be very beneficial.

Log (such as it is) after the jump.

Greetings and welcome; purpose; goals

Hello, masochists all and welcome to my humble abode. This blog will be used to record my attempts to be something approaching competitive in the stick-figure world known as the Kingdom of Loathing.

Mainly these posts will be for my own edification. I will be stating daily goals, posting daily adventure logs, and critiquing my own progress. Anyone who has suggestions, advice, encouragement (or mocking and derision) please post it in the comments. I am going to moderate comments, however that's mostly to avoid spam posts and creepy internet people. I won't censor for language or anything like that.

Right now I'm getting set up to try a semi-fast run for a contest sponsored by  Alliance from Heck. Most of my runs to date have been anything from lazy to downright slow. However, I've realized that I have enough of a grip on the mid- and late-game to start thinking about optimizing a bit. So I'm challenging myself to 1) complete the contest and 2) not come in last.

The rules of the contest require that the run cover the Moxie days on 2 & 3 November. This gives me a little over a month to prepare for the run. Today I beat the Naughty Sorceress in a 15 day, 2194 turn, 12 lucre, 100% Pottery Barn Owl HCNP run. Not very fast, I know - but I figure the 100% familiar added almost a day (no access to fairy, lep, volley) and the lucre might have added as many as 3 days. I permed Springy Fusilli in order to increase my pickpocketing chances.

Here are my plans for the next month:

Run 12: 25 September-9 October. HCNP Disco Bandit. Perm: Mad Looting Skills. Goals: Become familiar with logging turns and with using Mafia. Improve early game decisions. Collect 6-10 lucre. Complete run within 14 days.

Run 13: 9 October-Contest start. HCNP Accordion Thief. Perm: Ode to Booze. Goals: Dry run for contest. Continue to improve early game. Complete run in 10 days. Time between breaking prism and ascending into contest run to be spent in aftercore collecting lucre.

Run 14: Contest run to include 2-3 November. HCNP Accordion Thief. Perm: ? Goals: I'd like to be under 10 days. Watch this space as my goal may change according to how the other runs go.

I realize that I could probably squeeze another run into October, but I don't choose to for a couple of reasons. One is that I do NOT want to feel rushed. "More haste less speed" or some such nonsense. The other reason is that I'll have a houseguest at the end of October and I don't want to have to choose between being social and playing KoL. Sorry folks, RL comes first!

So from here on I'll try to post logs for each day with commentary and goalsetting. Here's to effective adventuring!