So I’ve spent a little time playing with reroll scripts, some time playing with an item database, some time playing with levelling triggers, sorting storages, re-learning skills … one thing I haven’t been doing much of is getting out and stretching my legs on a run.

Now normally when I used to run it was somewhere that I had been with someone else, learned the run and then gained confidence by leading runs there myself.  That meant that if I didn’t know a run, I generally didn’t do it.

Shadowport is an area that is full of runs I didn’t do.  It’s a long way from home, it’s almost all no-recall, there’s DT’s and really, I’ve always been able to buy the equipment cheap enough, so why bother?

So today I set out to smack Lord Xyranthas around.  Wiz rings are still cheap, so why?  Well precisely because I never have.  I made it as far as the no-magic maze before I managed to kill off my entire crew.  A few supplications (oddly some of my characters finally used up their pre-shattering favour by supplicating without a new deity!!) and some healing and walking back and we’re ready for take 2.  This time … leave the magic users at the gate!!  Well, it started getting better, but still, not enough hitters to drop the mobs fast enough to avoid flees, deaths and repops.  After about 2 hours of trying to find the right rhythm I called it quits for today and let Lord X gloat.  It only motivates me to dress my storage rangers and warriors up in some dev gear to lend a hand at the no-magic maze and even though I didn’t come home with anything to show for it, I had fun trying something that I’d never done before.

In my past adventures it always seemed to be about the destinations … get into a guild, then an order, run the big mobs to get the seth equipment, try to stockpile it to trade for clan so that I could be good at questing and start glorying on insane DR and HP …. so I could sit idle and afk but very buff in my boredom!  I’m not saying that I intended it to be that way, it just seemed to happen that way.  Even imming was more about getting the level than it was about having something I wanted to contribute.  It was a destination not a journey.

Today was about a journey.  It doesn’t matter that the equipment is pretty easily bought, it’s not about increasing the numbers on the score sheet.  It’s the fun in going out and getting that equipment to make the score sheet improve.  When I think back to the old runs, the Guild of Druid Danbala runs really stand out even above the Seth, Merlin and Sin Olsen runs because they were a lot of fun.  Sure, we never came home with a sight, but it’s still there waiting for us to go have some fun and maybe it’ll show up.

I think that this new (to me) perspective will help keep the game fresh for me.  There are many, many challenges for me to explore and I hope to meet more fun people who want to explore them with me along the way.

Cheers!