Day 09 & 10 - Wheels of Flame

I'm back! After a regrettably long delay, Akakiba has returned. I did play a little here and there over the weekend but there was nothing of significance to show, I do hope you all enjoyed the short slide show though! I'm going to go with things of note in sort of a circular order here, strange as that seems, as I have some things to share before we get started on what trouble I've been getting into. Firstly, as you may or may not know the closed beta is coming to a close soon on March 16th. I'll continue adventuring until that time and begin anew when the open beta begins. What's particularly worthy of mention though is the development team finally gave us some Etherbucks; the game's cash mall currency, to play around with. Naturally my character being the incarnation of fire I had to grab the Wheels of Flame to fly around on. I've included a little clip of the wheels in action as my character flys over a pond.

Aside from the fun visual the wheels are great because the minor amount of MP they drain over time is less than I regenerate, allowing me to fly indefinitely without drinking huge amounts of mana potions. The pricing has been adjusted now, though it's still not final. Assuming for a moment 1 Etherbuck = 1 USD, the pricing looks something like this: Mounts range from 15-25$ depending on land/air etc, haircuts range from 3-4$, main body fashion 12-15$, masks and boots 2-3$ etc and so on. My only problems with the pricing at the moment is that a wedding requires 30$ from both the bride and groom, which I feel is a bit excessive. Other than that the pricing seems very reasonable. After grabbing the Wheels of Flame I also hoped over to an alternate character to try out some wings, funsies.

So on to what I've actually been up to in my adventures! Last time I checked in, I had just started to move out of Pokari City for the majority of my quest destinations, well I've gone to the next degree in my seperation from Pokari now, almost none of my quests involve Pokari at all, with the exception of those related to the next instance, and of course Chaucy in the town is the girl to go to if you want teleported to an instance. Other than that I've been spending most of my time at Gau's Fazenda, a large Manor owned by an old man named Gau. Aside from the manor itself there's a few buildings located in the vacinity that form a small town. I'm in love with the autumn colors of the surrounding region and the raised feel of this town, the windmills seal the deal.

So with a new quest hub to report back to I set off all over the southern regions, I ran into a wide range of new enemies from the goofy Hihat Beatsmiths who's heads are literally a hihat cymbal and carry around a drum set with them to the ferocious Black Brunieros, a kind of agressive bear monster. I have to say, this wasn't the case early on but I'm actually starting to get killed now and again when I'm not careful now, so there's definitely a ramp up on the difficulty. Overall I did a lot of go here, go there, kill this, kill that quests over the weekend and into this early week. Nothing too mind-numbing though, I managed to put together a Tusko puzzle set and turn it in for a new possesor, as mine had finally worn out, so 3 more days of grind-free goodness.

Oh and of course I can't forget to mention my new pet. He's a huge wooden puppet thing with a boulder in a nest on his head, don't ask me! I picked him from a player selling pets in Pokari for a gold, I wanted a pet with a bright disposition and this guy seemed like an interesting choice. He's a Lumberguard Totemo, and he makes a clicking noise when he walks. So now I've got four pets, and it's a hassle to keep them all up to my level, but I'm trying! Either way my adventures have been and enjoyable and fairly busy as I continue to move on and discover new areas to explore and new enemies to capture and defeat.

Until next time, Akakiba, signing out~