ArcheAge – Calleil Diary, Next Four Days

Continuing my diary of ArcheAge on Calleil, the newest, emptiest North American server. To make a long story short, it looks like most of the land in safe zones was gone about a week after the new server came up. So if they start a new server and you want some good land, get ready to sprint for it. (The really prime spots.. those cool lone houses up on hills..  are probably gone within 24 hours. A really dedicated player can probably collect the 15 Gilda Stars from the main questline to buy a house design in under 2 hours.)

Calleil Day 6, Friday

Morning. Continued harvesting grapes and goose feathers. Placed some geese and grapevines on public land to increase yield. Completed a bunch of Dyed Feather trade runs for 8 gold each. Ran out of Labor Points, so I got a 1000-point Worker’s Compensation potion with 25 of my 75 Loyalty Points. (Nothing else in the Loyalty Store appeals to me anyway.) Spent some time doing plain old questing since that doesn’t cost labor and sometimes in ArcheAge all you can do is wait.

Afternoon. More Dyed Feather trade runs. I lost count of how many but I should have tons of gold rolling in throughout Day 7.

Evening. Bought 100 lumber for a mere 40 gold on the auction house! (Out of the 42 gold I had at that point.) I didn’t think I was going to get my Scarecrow Farm built until Day 7 but this surprise bargain made it possible a day early.

UPDATE 10/13: Now, it is quite common to find 100 Lumber on the auction house for 15 gold or less. Which is great if you’re building houses but awful if you’re growing trees for money. I stopped bothering.

Once the Scarecrow Farm was built, production shifted from goose feathers and grapes to lumber for the house. Planted five Hornbeam trees in the public nursery in White Arden and a few Yews on my garden. Yews yield less lumber but they mature in 4 hours, as opposed to the Aspens which mature in 10 hours. So my theory is that if you’re going to be around, you might get more lumber from two batches of Yews than one batch of Aspens. But if you’re going to be away, say, sleeping, then the Aspens are the better choice.

I realize now that one thing Labor Points do is even the playing field a little bit between people who have all day to play and people who can only play in the evenings. I don’t know if that was intentional or just a happy side effect, but it’s really easy to use up 5,000 Labor Points if you spend a lot of time playing. Back in Alpha, I never thought I would ever use up 5,000 Labor Points, but it doesn’t take long when you’re building houses. If you just play for a couple of hours a day, you’ll never have to worry about your spending, but if you play all day, you might have to ration them a bit.

Calleil Day 7, Saturday

A leisurely day. Planted a whopping 20 Aspen trees on my land and another 5 Hornwood trees in the public nursery. It is shocking how big a 16×16 farm is compared to the 8×8 garden. Crafted 100 Stone Blocks into a Stone Pack to build the second part of my house. Only a lumber pack left and the house will be complete. Making 100 Stock Blocks cost me 500 Labor Points, so I was left with less than 100. That meant spending most of the day questing and leveling. Also collecting gold in the mail from Day 6’s trade runs.

Finally figured out the optimum opening combo for my “Dawncaller” class (Battlerage-Defense-Songcraft): Charge, followed by Shield Slam, followed by Triple Slash, followed by Whirlwind Slash. That would probably apply to any Battlerage-Defense class wielding a shield. I don’t usually play a lot of sword-and-board classes but I’m digging smashing mobs in the face with this one.

In the evening I harvested all my Aspen Trees and re-planted more. This left me with more than 300 logs, which is enough to put together a Lumber Pack to finish my house, but I wanted to wait until I regenerated some more Labor Points first.

I grew my Wolfhound Battle Pet outside my house. Unfortunately I thought it required regular milk and bought a bunch on the auction house. Then, after placing the pup, I realized it was the wrong kind of milk and I had to run all the way back down to where I got it from to get “special” milk from the cows near where you receive the wolfhound as a quest reward. Anyway, I rescued my ailing pup and he grew up fine. I named him Corporeal to protest all the other white wolfhounds named Ghost.

I jumped into the Sharpwind Mines at level 27 and killed enough of the Blackbeard Thieves to finally collect the 8 pieces of stuff I needed to make that last piece of that set of gear you collect all throughout the Dewstone Plains. It was tough to solo the level 19 elite mobs at 27 but manageable with my sword-and-board class. I don’t know why I did this because I can’t wear that gear any more, but it bugged me that I didn’t have the complete set.

At the end of the day, I reached level 28, and ended up with almost 80 gold. (Of course I blew 10 of it on the wrong milk, but I’m hoping to make that back by re-selling it.)

Calleil Day 8, Sunday

Finished building my house in the morning. But I’m more interested in the land around the house than the building itself. It’s kind of ridiculous how much land you get to plant on with the garden, a farm, and the little bit of land surrounding a house. It actually costs quite a significant chunk of money to buy the seeds and saplings to fill up all that property, and then quite a chunk of Labor Points to harvest them. Since I don’t need lumber for a little while, I planted a bunch of Barley and Rye in an effort to work on making Breads and Soups.

Discovered that you don’t actually have to water plants. I’ve always assumed it was required, but I discovered that it only accelerates the growth process. Has it always been like that? I seem to remember plants would wilt and die if you didn’t water them. Maybe I’m imagining that.

Otherwise spent most of the day questing. Completed three donkey trade runs from Gweonid to Two Crowns. Tried making Apple Pies instead of Dyed Feathers but they still made the exact same 8 gold and change. So far 8 gold is the best I’ve been able to do on a trade run through safe lands. Still, it seems like the resources for Apple Pies are a little easier to collect.

Reached level 30. Now maybe I’ll get to see all that ganking I hear about but never actually see. Since I’m almost out of safe zones, I assume my questing will soon take me into unsafe territory. I also switched my gear from leather to plate because I wasn’t happy with the damage I was taking. My character’s arms look pitifully unmuscular in plate.

Calleil Day 9, Monday

Kind of a slow day. Did the Elf quest line end with the king in Two Crowns? From there it said something about re-taking Auroria, which is the PvP continent up north. Surely they don’t expect me to go up there next, do they? :) I assumed I would be heading to places like Cinderstone Moor or Halcyona.

My next crafting goal is to build a Harpoon Clipper, which requires 50 Gilda Stars, 1 Lumber Pack, 1 Iron Ore Pack, and 1 Fabric Pack. That translates into 300 Lumber, 300 Iron Ore, and 1,000 Cotton (and some 1,500 Labor or more to process it all). I had the Iron Ore and some of the Lumber already so Day 9 was a Cotton-planting day.

I figure I should be able to build my Clipper on Day 10 or 11. Once I have the Clipper I’ll be able to explore around the oceans and up around Auroria with a little less chance of dying instantly. Maybe I’ll be able to look into trading across the sea, too. But only if it’s fairly low-risk. I’ll have to do some trial runs to gauge my success rate.

My donkey dinged level 20 so I can use the carrot-stick ability and go 30% faster for one minute at a time. When combined with the Songcraft Quickstep ability, donkeys can put on an impressive burst of speed for a short time. I lost track of how many carrots it takes to spur a donkey continuously from Gweonid to Two Crowns but I would guess somewhere around 20 to 30. Fortunately carrots are super-quick to plant and grow.

The non-Elf quests did indeed lead me to Cinderstone Moor, the first “dangerous” zone I’ll be doing quests in. After a couple of hours questing in prime time, I still wasn’t ganked or inhibited in any way. Although I did see a lot of blood stains on the ground. And I think I saw a pair of gatherers kill someone to get to an iron node, though I didn’t actually see the deed. I’m not sure what happened actually. These two guys in a guild passed by me with green names and then a minute later I saw them with purple names (meaning they had attacked someone of their own faction), and I saw that someone had died in the log between the two sightings.

There’s a Specialty Workbench fairly close to the entrance to Cinderstone Moor so I’ll be interested to see if I can make any better profits donkey-running from there back up to Gweonid or Solzreed.

Toward the end of the day I had over 1,000 Cotton so I switched back to Aspens to finish out the 300 Lumber I need for the Clipper. My character was level 32 at the end of the day with somewhere around 700 Labor Points remaining. Just need to get this Clipper built and then I won’t need to use them up so fast.