So glad you and yours had a good day, hazmick!

Buffy started Silver a few days ago (Daggerfall Covenant for her) and fell in love with Stros M'Kai. She turned over every rock and thoroughly enjoyed herself. She's now in Beatnik with the orks doing orky things.

She doesn't do writs so I love the simplicity of her daily 'chores':
1. Train Superian.
2. Close a Shadowfen dolmen 3 times farming for purple Robes of the Hist jewelry - she's up to 1 purple and 2 blue pieces.

I just got a blue quality ring (CH 160) for that set; can you use it?

I had a great time with Grits and Haute today fighting the "Matron" - darn, I forgot to get a screenshot!

monkey, I have been researching traits with non-crafters as well, just in case. Congrats on the Strident Springs decision! I think that the three separate bedrooms make that layout perfect for a group. And of course the rest of that place is just awesome.

hazmick, glad you had a good day. Haa-Rei has made impressive progress! Wow! I hope that some day Tsarakiri will be able to pillage Bravil and Leyawiin in sun-drenched comfort. (Or possibly rain-drenched, but at least it will be warm.)

Acadian, Stros M’Kai remains Jerric’s favorite sunny spot to relax. After pretty much every heartbreaking quest situation, he goes to Stros M’Kai.

mALX, thank you and Misa for coming to the crab buffet! So much fun they had to do it twice. I don’t think I’ll ever forget the sight of those spiny blue legs coming up on the screen behind Jerric and the borders going red while he was busy chatting.

Thanks much for the kind offer, mALX. But no, Buffy's wearing one purple and two blue already. She'll gradually find another couple purples I'm sure.

Wow, sounds like Grits, Rider and mALX had fun whomping a world boss - crab for dinner?

Tasted like chicken,

And yeah, I had my head down typing and suddenly the edges of my screen were bright red and I saw feeler-like legs waving around, Freaked me right out till Jerric taunted him away from me! Between Jerric's tanking and Haute's healing, I didn't have any trouble at all in those fights - and that was Misa's first fight since her respec, so I really had no idea what she would be capable of. Something still isn't feeling right about her, I think it is in her CH point distribution.

Well, is anyone else collecting Robe of the Hist? (as in: My parents went to Shadowfen, and all I got was this lousy blue ring!) Just let me know if you want it, I'll send it to your in game mail box.

If no one wants it, I'll probably just sell it to a vendor, I don't think blue quality sells at the champion level in the Guild stores; but a lot of people use blue while waiting for the purple to drop (like Acadian is doing).

@mALX - The Squad has every single motif up to Dwemer, back when it was the only multiple-chapter motif. That's as far as they're going to get outside of their chosen crafting skill. Hates will get especially expensive, since she only has to worry about 3 pieces per motif.

Although I guess it is true I'll have to get trait stones anyways. Ugh. Toot-toot~ it's the Glass Motif/Ambrosia grind all over again! At least I already got their crafting skills up to 50 a long time ago.

@Grits - The 3-room thing was one of the reasons I went for it! It's also why I sort of had an eye on Gardner Manor, although I didn't like that it was deep inside Wayrest.

They really did a good job of beefing up world boss encounters. Before the ones that gave me trouble were Storm Atronach bosses. Now...well it's mostly Rats that has trouble with them, honestly. For Jo and especially Eolan, they're just huge damage sponges that take forever to kill.

Eolan got a Master Blacksmith Writ today. He was grumbling something about trying to get away from the terrible and petty Breton noble houses and wondering how he ended up forging a dagger for one of their duels. Then he was told to suck it up because 86 vouchers! He automatically has more than any of the others.

Jo got another Enchanter writ, leaving him with 4, and yesterday he got a Clothier writ he couldn't finish because he can't access the Earth Forge. I put it up for sale but if no one takes it I guess Dravean can have it. It's only 7 vouchers. :/

Urgh - joining you in that groan. I discovered to decorate the Hunding house the way I want with Crowns would cost upwards of 15,000 crowns - buying the Ebonheart Chateau would be cheaper and I could just rifle what I needed for Hunding house from that place.

So I realized the only way to afford this is to go piece by piece crafting it.

Well, after spending a huge amount of gold buying the "Plans" I needed (and don't have all I need yet) - I discovered that the Heartwood drop rate on this server is so low (not to mention the ridiculous number of racial style stones required per piece of furniture) that I would have to grind like a monkey to get even one piece crafted per day - and almost everything requires Heartwood, for some reason! Why does food items require it?

There can only be one answer to that question = Zenimax wants us to give up and buy through the Crown Store for our furniture, Urgh.

On the PTS server, the drop rate for all this stuff was much higher; not to mention they handed you 2000 of each stone required for crafting. It lulled us into a false sense of security about how fun housing was going to be. The truth is, it will either be an outrageous grind or the Crown Store is going to be supplying what we need. I see me getting sick of grinding after just two days spent trying to get 10 Heartwood to make two pieces - and that ten Heartwood I needed was added to the stock of them I had built up!



But I will say this = they did listen to the complaints about voucher distribution we gave them over those Master Writs! Thank goodness for that at least !!!

So I'm going to be pooping out a piece of furniture a day and spending the rest of the day grinding the living heck out of Tamriel for the next six months, I guess!




How many Writs did you turn in to get your fist Master Writ? I haven't gotten one yet, and Misa knows numerous styles!

By the way ... I wonder how they tied in "How many racial styles you know will effect drop rate of Master Writs" (?) - Oh yeah, so people will buy all those racial motif sets from the Crown Store! Follow the money trail ...

The thing is, I don't begrudge Zenimax from needing to make an income from this, especially since they only have 10% in paid memberships - they have to have an income to keep going, it isn't free to run those servers and crank out the awesome content they do. They are constantly developing more content and maintaining the game, and deserve to make something from it - and if they don't, they will end up folding. I hope that never happens!

Bought the face markings pack from the crown store today for 500 crowns. Khajiit can't wait to create his raven haired Reachwitch! Many savage looking options available!

Your characters are like Monkeys = such interesting background stories!!!

Yeah, Khajiit is having trouble with her alliance though. She was a member of one of the Clans near Markarth. Now, without buying the adventurer pack, she will be in the Daggerfall Covenant but this one could get the Adventurer Pack and align her with the Ebonheart Pact. Decisions, decisions.

@Khajiit - I'm waiting for a Crown Sale to buy both of those packs up. Those along with the hair/adornment packs it really does go a long way for RP.



The furniture crafting process is definitely slow-going. Allegedly it's so it feels like an "accomplishment" to have a fully furnished house but idk. Since I don't have much else I want to do in-game gathering junk hasn't been much of a problem for me. I will say that I expected more completed furniture to be sold by NPC's aside from miscellaneous decorations like shrubs and blocks of wood. At least the lower-leveled beds and chairs would be great. But like I said, it's a brand new grind. Over 1k plans to learn and seven new types of materials to gather.

As for the writs, I actually got 4 on my Master Crafter right on day one! All three consumables and a woodworking writ. I seem to get at least one a day, though I should mention that every character has all 9 traits researched in their respective crafts, all provisioners have all recipes learned ('cept the master crafter, he's missing one purple recipe), all crafting achievements earned, and all motifs before the recent 4 learned except Yokudan. They did have some Yokudan motifs learned but not all of them (for respective crafts, mind. Only the master crafter learns all 14 chapters per motif). The master crafter had none, but that's because i had a full set of Yokudan saved up in the bank in case I found a full motif while farming for the rest. I taught it all to him to up his chances of getting equipment writs. :V

Supposedly it's this way to make Master Crafters feel more useful, although it would be great to know the actual numbers as to how achievement, research, and motif progress affects the drop chance. Especially since I'm trying to get the crafts not used by the Squad to a point where they have a decent chance to get a Master Writ. I'm stopping at 6 traits and not touching the motifs, although Hates might be at a disadvantage since the motifs she knows are exclusive to Woodworking, which applies to the other two doing Woodworking writs. No master writs have dropped outside of their respective crafts, though.

Finally, I am sad to report I got a Master Writ on Hates today...and it also ended up being something she couldn't craft. Well, more like she refused to. It's Armor Master, and only rewards 7 vouchers. I put it up for sale but it shows up as a different set (an impossible one to craft) in the vendor menu for some reason? When I look at it from my guild window it still says Armor Master, though. Hm. It's not gonna sell is it?

Yeah when this one bought it, he wasn't sure how it worked. Lol, he went into the character creator and "Oh no they aren't in there! Maybe you have to buy it for each individual character and then buy the appearance change?".

Luckily, Khajiit then noticed that all of the face markings showed up in "Collections"! Mira got a new war paint (it looks SICK!) and one of my bankers got a new makeup job.

Okay, this helps me a lot! Thank you so much for the details you gave! See, I was just looking at the Writs she was able to do now, plus the number of different styles she had learned. Even Misa (who has been my major crafter till recently and has the most knowledge and experience) - even she doesn't have all the Nirnhoned learned. She has to learn the Belt in medium armor, and all of the light and heavy armors. On weapons she is currently learning Nirnhoned swords, but that is her first blacksmithing nirnhoned trait studied to date! (and so far she has none in Woodworking, but will be learning Bows as soon as possible).

So there is clearly a big lack in knowledge between my top crafter and even your least learned character!!! I still have a LONG way to go to learn!

But Friday I finally did get two Master Writs. One I made and turned in, the other I had no shot to do, so gave it to one of the Trade Guilds I'm a member of that is using them to set up attunable stations in their Guild Hall.

Thank you, Monkey!

Happy to help. tbh this update has a few new mechanics that could use some thorough explanation. (See: people being shocked that converting gear into Imperial style won't let you turn it in for the writ) Dunno why we didn't get an approximate number to how drop rates are influenced, like the Laurel droprate on Dungeon bosses.

To add to the confusion, not only did Eolan get another Blacksmith Master Writ today, he got a Woodworking one. Remember how I said he doesn't have any woodworking motifs learned aside from the full book/event motifs? He does have at least 3 researched in every piece, at least. It was a 3-trait legendary shield that gave 40-ish vouchers, too. I wonder if the number of traits learned influences the kind of writ you get, too?

Well, whatever the case, I gave it to Hates. With at least 150 vouchers on him, Eolan's only a big master writ or two away from an attuneable crafting station. Jo'zira has yet to get a Clothier writ he can finish. :T

I have learned not to accept the contract on these till I see if my character can do it, and if not I mail them to the Guild leader of my main trading Guild (because they are trying to get all the attunable stations in their Guild Hall so the members can just pop over there to do any of their Master Writs (or their own personal crafting of sets).

But to trade the Master Writs between characters if the one that got it can't do it and another one can = since you can't deposit them into the bank, how do you do it?

A friend of mine has been posting undepositable Runebox stuff in the Guild Stores at a ridiculous price so it won't sell; then removing it from the shelves and having the other character open the mail when it comes back. Is that how you are doing it? Any tricks you know that we don't = feel free to share,

Yeah, that's another thing I read up on beforehand. Even on my master crafter I always cancel the quest to see exactly what I'm getting into. In case I get something in the IC ...which I did, earlier today. Eolan's on a roll getting writs with high voucher rewards, and this one would give him enough to get an attuneable station, but it's Noble's Conquest. Yeesh.

But anyways, you should be able to deposit Master Writs in the bank without any problems. I have three in there right now, actually, one of them being my "corrupted' woodworker writ that went from Armor Master to Sharpened Strike or whatever when I put it up for sale. So if you're having difficulties, send a report, cause it should let you put Master Writs in the bank if you didn't accept them.

Oh okay! That is good to know, I was sure on the PTS that we couldn't deposit them! Thank you! And yeah, I've seen a bunch of those Strike ones, and when I looked it up it said they were a drop set! So it has to be a glitch.

Thank you so much for the info!

Hey does anyone here want a blue tier poultry drumstick plan for their house? Khajiit got one and doesn't foresee himself ever using it.

I'd love it if no one else wants it, are you selling it?

Khajiit had planned on just giving it to one of his guildies!

Well, if no one else claims it, and you still don't want it - send it to me in the game mail, I would love it! That will draw Jerric in!

Ok, this one will send it to you next time he logs on!


Mira finished the Rift Pact quests today and got her delightful new copper color for her armor! With the right combination of gear aesthetics and colors, Khajiit thinks this will be an excellent addition to the color palette. New pics to be posted later.

The very next time I can get into the game (maybe tonight) Jerric is going straight to Hunding's beach party palace! Can't wait to see it!

Awesome!

When Misa and Buffy were visiting at mALX Manor on Stros M'Kai, they were trying to figure out how to 'build' a fishing spot on the beach to draw the Nordic fisherman.

Mira visited with Maz, Misa, and Jerric today at the Port Hunding palace hangout. Place is amazing! Thanks for opening up your sweet digs to us mALX!

Really, I so wish they had spawns for fish along that shore! I don't understand why they don't. But you can step out the gate and cross the bridge to walk along the shore there and find plenty.

(but I still want them right there along the waters edge - can't see why they can't do it).







That was a blast! I love impromptu meetups like that! Jerric is an absolute "life of the party" type, he brings excitement and fun with him! Misa loves having someone she can mudball fight with, lol. I was hoping Mazul would show up, and she came shortly after Jerric. Mira's sudden appearance was the icing on the cake, that was so much fun! - and exactly how I hope that place to be, Chorrol friends just popping in and having fun there.

*

Last night I got three more monster busts and made pedestals for them - just not sure where to put them in that house, lol. I spent over and hour last night moving them from place to place before getting too tired to fool with it, lol.

I should probably drop in the Palace again sometime to see the changes. No, I didn't just confess to visiting y'alls houses behind your backs, at least those that I could.

I lost my mind for a moment and spent 20 writ vouchers on Hlaalu plans thingies, which means I set myself back a bit with obtaining consumable crafting stations. I could have had an Alchemy station to go with the cooking fire I installed today. At least I can make hunting horns and liquor bottles now?

So today's Master Writs make me think that maybe research influences writ drops more than motif knowledge, at least when Woodworking's involved. Both Eolan and Jo got woodworking writs today, both low-yielding, but they got them nonetheless. Unfortunately, Hates couldn't finish one of them since it's Shalidor's set. These results might be enough to convince me to continue research past 6 traits.

Other than that, the Squad have begun to do their respective guilds' quests again (except the FG because gross). Apparently Thieves Guild motifs are selling for an easy 10k gold again, so maybe I'll make a bit of money from them and the Draugr motifs I may or may not get should the stars align.

I'd be farming for Ra'Gada motifs but Craglorn's overrun as it is. I mostly find Sandstone anyways.

I need to have a snoop around everyone's houses sometime to see how they're coming along - been busy recently though.

Ciri finished up in Malabal Tor, so now she's only one zone (Reaper's March) away from finishing the Dominion questline. I'm not sure if she's gonna hit CP ranks from that though, so she might run through Shadowfen afterwards. I also need to work on her Blacksmithing.

Haa-Rei has made really fast progress through Bankorai, and we're over halfway done there. Once finished, we'll craft some more armour - we have enough space for a full 5-set so I need to do some research to find the set that suits him best (I'm thinking Hunding's, but we'll wait and see). He's also working on his Blacksmithing, Alchemy, and Enchanting, but it's slow progress.

Tsarakiri finished the Thieves Guild, and started working for the Dark Brotherhood. She wants to earn the Master Thief title, so we'll get that done while we're out and about on Brotherhood business.

Tamriel is such a busy place! So much to do, so little time. Buffy's actually glad she doesn't do writs or make furniture. Training Superian, farming dolmens for jewelry, undaunted daily delves, gathering mats, exploring, questing, visiting the shops and bank, chatting with friends, questing. . . .

Anyway, Buffy often uses Stormhold (in Shadowfen) as a ‘retrofit’ stop. It has all the services she wants, is not crowded and has a nice convenient layout. And though not Valenwood, it has a wonderful ‘jungly’ feel that makes her feel at home.

So she was doing exactly that today and encountered Jerric there! They had a lovely chat for a few minutes before each going their ways. I simply love little encounters like that!

Mugginess (and crocodiles) aside, Stormhold really does work well as a hub city. Much better than Deshaan IMO, given that the bank is closer to the crafting stations so you can stash materials quickly if you don't have Plus.

Given that my motif fund had reached a healthy 550k gold and is constantly going up, I decided to spend nearly 200k of that to buy the rest of the Yokudan motifs I needed, aided by gold from other duplicates I found questing in Craglorn in the past few days.

I'll never feel relief the same way I felt finishing Draugr (because geeze) but this comes close.

Well, it looks like the stars have....FRICKING ALIGNED TODAY HOLY CRAP

Wow, congrats to Jo'zira on those rare finds!

Usually it's Hates that's the most lucky (I suspect it's the fabled "luck" stat that was dummied out but I have no proof) so getting two rare drops within 20 minutes is fantastic.

BWAAHAA! Did you get some interesting items from the "Hlaalu" plans thingies at least? And like what? I got three of them on the PTS and can't remember what they were! But obviously they were worth getting two more after buying the first one (so that tells me something, lol).






Can you give any hints or clues (in spoiler tags) on how to do whatever needed to get that last passive? I think I've gotten most of that list of unique items to steal; might be lacking a couple. (I'd have to get in game to look and see what I'm lacking).






That to me is the coolest part of this game! The first time I saw Jerric by accident, Bubba was in the bank in Davon's Watch and I happened to spot him and thought to myself, "Gee, that looks just like Jerric!" And when I moused over him and his familiar name from his Fic came up - I was stunned and elated to just have an accidental encounter like that! Same thing happened with Julian in the Daggerfall bank (also with Bubba) - I just saw her and she looked like I had always pictured Julian looking from her story - and sure enough, it was her! I do so love that about this game!






OMG, was it a Writ reward or did you pull it up from gathering nodes? Awesome !!! Is it your Birthday or something? OH! Can I rub Jo'Zira's head for luck? Or tail hairs or something?

Haa-Rei finished up in Bangkorai today, which means he's completed the Daggerfall Covenant and Cadwell's Silver.

He crafted himself a nice new Soul Shriven style bow to celebrate, and is happy to head home and rest for a while and work on his crafting skills.

Congrats to Haa-Rei! Buffy's not even half way through her Silver adventure in DC lands.

Congrats on getting the Soul Shriven style book! That is my favorite swords!

Misa is halfway through Cadwell's Gold, but took off to do this housing stuff, lol.

It was so neat to bump into Buffy in Stormhold yesterday! I love random meetings like that. Jerric is questing in the ashlands these days, so his daily provisioning run to rainy Shadowfen is a refreshing break. A million times more so when he gets to spend some time visiting with a friend.

monkey, wow! What a fantastic haul for Jo’zira!

hazmick, congrats to Haa-Rei! Woo!

Nah. Well, I guess the formula for Liquor bottles might be useful but not the horn. So with that I'm guessing it's really not worth it, especially since at the time I'm pretty sure I was better off buying them with gold. Once the gold exchange rate for Writ Vouchers settles down I guess I'll learn if it's worth it.


According to my tumblr account, it is my birthday? (That's what I get for lying on my account information and trying to remain a cryptid)

Anyways, I found the Aetherial Dust while harvesting a survey I was putting off for a while now. Completely unexpected, especially since it seemed RNG already gifted me with an expensive motif to sell. He likes head pats.



That aside, congrats on finishing Silver, hazmick. Worth it for the motif alone.


Eolan was able to craft the Noble's Conquest Master Writ! I remembered to give him invisibility/speed potions this time and he made it into the workshop without aggro-ing creatures/running into an enemy player. I can't wait to get 9 attuneable stations just for these sets so I never have to deal with this again. I might even buy them, given the dropping price. It only took a few minutes starting from the DC base in Cyrodiil, but this was an exception. The return trip to the sewers was only a little tense. Nearing the base entrance, he aggro'd a sewers super-boss, which chased him all the way there. Close call, but he got out okay.


Also, since the Black Cat gets taken down from the Crown Store today, I went and bought some Crowns and got the Body and Head markings packs along with it. Jo and Hates got a makeover (might undo Jo's, hates has nice scales now), as did Dravean (since he's running around shirtless anyways, I got him some tattoos). I was also reminded of an imperfection in the character creator: increasing chest size on guys looks weird when the neck and back muscles don't quite match up, even if you also max out neck size. oops. Ah well, I guess it's not really something that needs a makeover token since Eolan's always wearing armor anyways. Another thing I noticed is that the body marking pack comes with tattoos that are otherwise not available (or at least I've never found those options), those being metallic gold versions of the body tattoos. Weird.

Well, those are both 400+ crowns at the Crown Store, so = good buy, especially since you can sell them for over 10,000 per each.





Oh, I got the black cat too!

BWAAHAA on the big neck, Picturing it had me rolling! Quick, put his armor back on!

I actually managed to find a good example today with Titus.

This is not how rib cages work. :0

In other news, as that screenshot suggests I'm replaying the reset Craglorn and finished the Warrior questlines. Tomorrow is the Mage questlines. Jesus, if my memory of the Lost One is correct it won't be fun. But then Hates managed to kill her by running around, getting her to like half health, and another player dropping in to finish her off. It'll be fine.

I'm also finishing Cadwell's Gold with the Crafting Monkey because I'm sick of seeing that damn quest in my log all the time. Why can't you abandon main quests again? Only Grahtwood and Greenshade (screams internally) to go.

I'm in the middle of the Grahtwood questline on Cadwell's Gold too = stopped it to do the New Life Festival and then housing; but would really like to get it done and over with too.

** And Titus is a real Titan! His arms and hand are HUGE! And you are right about the chest; it looks like he has man-boobs in that shot, lol. Yeah, maybe the devs at Zen have never seen a built male body before?

Cirinwe finished up in Reaper's March today, so she's done with the Dominion. She's still only level 42 though, so another zone or two will be required for her to hit Champion Points. I'm thinking Shadowfen, then perhaps Wrothgar.

Anyway, for now she's gone back to Humblemud to relax with Haa-Rei. He got certified in all of his crafting this afternoon, so we can get working on writs.

Congrats to Ciri! Luvs the AD lands of short elves and tall trees. Or in Ciri's case, tall elves and tall trees.

Congrats to Cirinwe! She's got me beat on that goal. I like Greenshade but why is it so huge.

@mALX - The weird thing is he has chicken legs to go with his somewhat top-heavy body. But yeah, I think in general the character models look a bit off regardless of morphs. Like I said, it's an imperfection, but I've seen worse. So long as it looks good from the front?

I actually got another of my mules started with crafting writs so he can increase the chances of getting a Master Writ. Apparently people have done writs with mules that don't have traits or motifs learned and still managed to get them, and since Jo and Eolan have gotten Woodworker writs in spite of trait/motif knowledge, I believe it.

I forgot how annoying and potentially expensive it was leveling crafting skills. The squad already leveled them months ago (I still remember those grueling weeks) so they could jump right in. The mule barely has 10 open slots in his inventory as it is.

on the Titan having chicken legs! But yeah, I don't think any of them look 100% perfect. Sometimes all those intricate adjustments they give you might be one too many, lol.

Yeah, my bank mules used to have to deposit about 17-25 items into the bank before heading out to do their Writs, then withdraw them back out after they are done and turning in the Writ rewards and income. I sold off a LOT of stuff in prep to buy the house; now I don't need to empty them out anymore, lol.

(in fact, if it weren't for the Master Writs = one of my mules would be in danger of deletion right now, lol).

Once Buffy's Silver Adventure got her into Glenumbra, I was absolutely delighted to see the game properly using the term 'Dame' to refer to women knights. That is a first for TES. It is significant because Buffy became Dame Buffy several years ago when she and Sir Mazoga were dubbed Knights of the White Stallion by Count Leyawiin. We used the honorific for her quite a bit in Book 1. Mebbe the devs read Book 1?