November 2012 -- Never Forget

I'm still quite angry at NCSoft for shutting down the game City of Heroes, which was not losing money and was quite robust and in active development, and by the way was a unique MMO with many features not found anywhere else, and with a great community that made the game a joy to play.  I'm even angrier that they refused to sell or license the product to anyone else -- they're the little kid who gets mad at his playmates and takes the ball home and refuses to let anyone else play because it's his ball and he can do it.

Fuck that little kid.  I want to kick him in the crotch.

Anyway, NCSoft is a big corporation that doesn't care what anyone else thinks, which is why you should never place any trust in big corporations.  People can be trusted, you can have relationships with people.  Corporations cannot be trusted, you can't have a relationship with a corporation.  A corporation is not a person, no matter what the U.S. Supreme Court thinks -- or if it is a person, then it's the most vile, selfish, sadistic, emotionless, self-centered kind of person possible.

Anyway, there are a lot of games in the works that are taking many cues from City of Heroes, and I hope one or more of them will succeed and will prove to be half as enjoyable to play, but for my money there was only one City of Heroes game.  I don't expect to ever find another that equals it.

Tonight I'm holding up my virtual torch to salute CoH and the players who played it.  You are not forgotten.

(And I promise that some day I'll repost my "Zero to Awesome 2" thread.  I still have it!  Honest!)

One Year

A year ago City of Heroes came to an end (a year ago last night).  I spent most of the next few days posting to this journal.  I still need to post my "Zero to Awesome 2" thread, which I have, which I really don't know if anyone cares if I post it but I saved it and I intended to post it here.  That would be  pretty much my last post on the subject of City of Heroes I suspect.

I'm feeling kind of depressed tonight, and it has nothing really to do with City of Heroes but remembering that it's been a year adds to my bad mood.  Mostly I'm feeling down because my lease is up at the end of the month, and they want to raise my rent by almost $80.00 a month.  I've been here for years -- for nearly all of the time I played City of Heroes, in fact, nearly ten years -- and my rent's gone up several times, but it's getting to the point where I finally have to just move.  I hate having to move, but I can't justify shelling out an additional $960.00 a year for this place when I'm already paying too much a month in rent.  And I especially hate having to move in December, but these people have a policy of only allowing 11-month leases (which lets them raise your rent a month sooner), so even though I originally had a lease that was up in the summer, it's now up in the middle of winter, as it moves up a month each year.

But back to City of Heroes.  I did not immediately jump into a new game -- in fact, I've been mostly free of the MMO bug for years, outside of City of Heroes, which had that special combination of things that really grabbed me.  No other MMO comes close.  Before City of Heroes I had played EQ for three years and tried other games like Dark Age of Camelot, World of Warcraft, etc., but I was actually playing Disney's Toontown Online before I was convinced to try City of Heroes.  I had friends in Toontown -- it was a silly but fun game with a surprising number of adult players (many of whom were parents, of course, and had not played MMO's before Toontown).  If you played on the test server there was a mostly-adult population, and I'd found out how to make friends so that we could talk to each other (being a kid's game, the default is that you can't speak to others unless you pass each other a code, this is meant to allow you to talk with people you already know only).

But then I joined City of Heroes, and that was it for me for a year and a half, until all of the nerfs got to me and I left just before the release of City of Villains.  I just wasn't having fun anymore.

I've done Second Life on and off for years, so I hung out there for a while again.  One of my friends in SL convinced me to go back to City of Heroes more than a year later, and I wound up getting addicted again, making a lot of new friends, and having the time of my life for several years, right up until it closed.  I was seriously addicted, I played every day.  I did not get a lot of other things done -- such as my writing.

In the last year I've written (or finished writing) five or six Tai-Pan stories, wrote over 60,000 words on my Ranma 1/2 fanfiction epic (in length if not subject) Girls School, and I've written more than 90 stories in my Grandpa Anarchy universe -- and most of those don't suck!  So I know full well that staying away from MMO's makes me more productive as a writer.  As it happens,  my least productive portion of the last year was from May through July, when I was playing a lot of EQ again.  But I haven't logged into any MMO since August.

And obviously, if I'm going to move at the end of the month, I don't have time to play any games.  :p

But if City of Heroes were still around I'd be playing it.

Zero to Awesome final comments (reposted from Aug/Sept 2011)

JakHammer
Just read the whole thread. Thanks for a solid lesson. I pretty much always get something out of your posts.

Two thoughts to add.

1) Some have called you to task for the auction house vet power. With the amount of inf moving around in this project anyone can have a partial substitute (not good for in between missions) for trivial amounts of inf. I refer to the 10,000 inf for a one time use Market Teleport powers. Just remember to buy a new one every time you use it before you leave whichever Market you are at. I find it saves me a lot of time when I market, and it is useful during certain missions too.

2) I have been exploring the world of farming Tanks and Brutes for a couple of months. With NO knockback protection in Fiery Aura deciding on how many IO's to use was big. I settled on 1 for level 4 protection. On toons with high defense (example - FA Tank with +def power pools and IO build) a lot of the KB attacks will miss, and most of the rest will be stopped by level 4. If you know you will be, or find in mission that you are, facing a more serious knockback challenge - then base empowerment stations can give you a buff for 1 hour of addition +10 for a total of Lvl 14. Empowerment buffs will persist for the full hour even if you are defeated. I use them a lot when leveling, esp. +recharge and +recovery. I was warned that mere level 4 KB would be really bad in I trials but I found it perfectly acceptable even without the empowerment buff.

On toons with out significant defense, and/or without hover to minimize the effect, you may want more.

Jak

---

plainguy
I was going to try this, got to level 13 solo and on teams. Then got an invite to a farm for prestige and got to level 31. Well there goes that idea. But I did try your invention idea and see how it works out. If it doesn't of course I will blame you.

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scott2hot006
Been following your thread for the past month. I enjoy these reads! My only question is how now that you have hit the 30 day mark, what is the total amount of time you spent on that character?

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Organica (me)

Quote:

Originally Posted by scott2hot006
Been following your thread for the past month.  I enjoy these reads!  My only question is how now that you have hit the 30 day mark, what is the total amount of time you spent on that character?

I guess I should go find a citizen to tell me.  ^_^  I'd guess somewhere between 2-4 hours a day... maybe just under 100 hours?



Aaaaaaand... survey says:  115 hours.

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Sivasiri
I just wanted to post a sincere thank you, partly because I really appreciate the thread, and partly to spite the comments about 'you're not starting with nothing, you have years of experience and no new people will care!'

I just picked up the game on Aug 21 during the 2 dollar sale on a whim and the advice of a friend who said we should try it with Freedom around the corner - and now a little over two weeks later, with the information gleaned from the thread and others like it, I'm now within ~100m of my first billion influence.

Experience is invaluable, but without people like you sharing it, some things might be a lot more irritating than they are.

(Also I'd have nothing to make my friends go 'where the hell did you get all that cash what are you doing are you a wizard', which is also pretty invaluable.)

---

Eric Nelson
Quote:

Originally Posted by Sivasiri
I just wanted to post a sincere thank you, partly because I really appreciate the thread, and partly to spite the comments about 'you're not starting with nothing, you have years of experience and no new people will care!'
I just picked up the game on Aug 21 during the 2 dollar sale on a whim and the advice of a friend who said we should try it with Freedom around the corner - and now a little over two weeks later, with the information gleaned from the thread and others like it, I'm now within ~100m of my first billion influence.
Experience is invaluable, but without people like you sharing it, some things might be a lot more irritating than they are.
(Also I'd have nothing to make my friends go 'where the hell did you get all that cash what are you doing are you a wizard', which is also pretty invaluable.)

Well said! Nice 1st post!  :)

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Nihilii
Going to second that, that's an impressive first post and game start. Two weeks after I first joined, I think I was still trying to navigate the Hollows and had maybe 100k inf to my name.  :)

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Organica (me)

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sivasiri
I just wanted to post a sincere thank you, partly because I really appreciate the thread, and partly to spite the comments about 'you're not starting with nothing, you have years of experience and no new people will care!'
I just picked up the game on Aug 21 during the 2 dollar sale on a whim and the advice of a friend who said we should try it with Freedom around the corner - and now a little over two weeks later, with the information gleaned from the thread and others like it, I'm now within ~100m of my first billion influence.
Experience is invaluable, but without people like you sharing it, some things might be a lot more irritating than they are.
(Also I'd have nothing to make my friends go 'where the hell did you get all that cash what are you doing are you a wizard', which is also pretty invaluable.)

That's very cool!  I'm glad I was able to help in some way.

---

eryq2
Yup, play 4 hours a day and you, too, can has awesome lootz.

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Sivasiri
Quote:

Originally Posted by eryq2
Yup, play 4 hours a day and you, too, can has awesome lootz.

While I won't dispute the fact that I'm on the internet more than I should be, the market just doesn't move quickly enough and the number of auction slots is just too small to realistically spend 4 hours a day on it. 20-30 minutes at the start and end of whatever playtime I had, and that's assuming my bids for materials came through while I was doing something else.

I mean, I guess I could roll a bunch of alts? But I've been doing it primarily on Sivasiri because I forget what I'm doing on which character and then I'm overriding my own bids and it's just a huge mess. I don't really need the added income.

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Netphenix5
Just a bit of necro-posting to say "thank you!" Two years I've been playing and I never really understood the secrets of getting rich of the market, but you definitely helped my latest character a LOT. Didn't get the two purples, but half a billion in two weeks is way better than anything I managed before - especially on my server.

So again, thanks for this very detailled, useful and entertaining read.  :)

---

Organica (me)

That's very cool.  ^_^

As a sort of update, I started a Street Justice / Shield brute back in... when did that set come out?  September?  I designed the very most expensive build I could... four damage purple sets, a Panacea set, five LotG +7.5% rech, Glad Armor 3% Def, Miracle and Numina uniques, multiple billions required.  I hit 50 on my character in early November, and as of this last week I managed to purchase the Panacea unqiue and finish off my build.  ^_^  And I'm actually working on more modest builds for my just-hit-50-last-night claws/willpower brute, and also for a dark/dark brute who's currently level 44.  I can always find ways to spend money, so I have to keep making more.  ^_^

I've actually put together several very expensive builds like that in the last year -- nearly identical builds for my electric melee/shield scrapper in February and for a fire/shield scrapper in about June.  The point is, I can still remember when the most popular rare IOs were out of my price range, let alone purples/pvp IOs/uniques.  100 million influence was a fortune to me then.  ^_^  So I really think anyone can do this, if they want to.

---

Erratic
As someone returned to CoH after 6 years, dabbling in the Invention system, and wondering how the world to make money, thank you for the guide.

---

Hazian
I get a toon to 50, purp it out, get all its accolade powers and get all T4 incarnates in 30 days.  :)

Zero to Awesome Day 30 (reposted from Aug 31 2011)

Day 30

Last day of my experiment!

I checked the market early in the morning before work.  My 2nd KC triple also sold for 170 million, just as I'd hoped, and one of the Decimations had sold.

I'd also purchased the last 6 of the Decimation acc/dam/rech recipes, and the last of the acc/end/rech.  Also I'd picked up the rare and uncommon salvage needed to craft the acc/dam/rech recipes.

I was able to pick up the common salvage pretty easily and craft everything.

When I got home, a lot of stuff had sold.

I converted 50 merits and bought a third KC triple, and crafted and listed it for sale, along with the rest of the Decimation acc/dam/rech IOs that I hadn't been able to list this morning.

I ran a BAF and joined a Moonfire TF (on Shinobu Eden -- hit 48 and almost to 49 now).  I played a bit with my $1.99 3rd account CEBR claws/fire brute.  That was my evening, really, wasn't able to join a Lambda or an ITF.

By the time I was done in the evening, several of my Decimations had sold and also my third KC triple, again for 170 million.  Nice.  :D  (I'd also listed this for 158 million).

I had two more Decimation sales after this screenshot.  At the moment I have the two Eradication damage IOs for sale, the Thunderstrike, and I think three of the Decimation acc/end/rech IOs still for sale.  All of the acc/dam/rech sold already!

In the end I have T3 Destiny, Lore, and Judgment, but only T2 Interface and T1 Alpha.  I ran too many trials the last week and not enough regular content, so very few shard drops.

Although I benefited from from the two purple drops to the tune of a bit over a billion infamy, I finished with over a billion infamy anyway.  So I raised enough money even without the purples to pay for my build, although I might have had to wait a few more days to purchase those Enzymes.  A large part of the money I made in the last few days came from the sale of three Kinetic Combat triples that I bought with a-merits, but I also made nearly as much in the same time span just buying recipes, crafting them, and selling the IOs.

I still have 83 merits on hand as well.

For comparison, the CEBR brute that I've been working on since Aug 17th is up to nearly 900 million infamy from AE recipe rolls that I craft and sell (mostly  low level bronze rolls).  This character doesn't have a nice build yet, but I wanted to show that making money from AE tickets is also a fast way to earn cash.

Probably a balance of the three approaches would work best.  Either way, it's not hard to make money in this game.  ^_^

Zero to Awesome Day 29 (reposted from Aug 30 2011)

Day 29

Sold more stuff.  :D  Ran some trials.  Did my five tip missions, got a villain merit for that, and another for converting 50 merits.  I already had one from the day before, so I bought a KC triple and had 1 villain merit left over.

Because I sold so much stuff, I had little left for sale.  I needed to buy more recipes.

I wanted to give a very clear picture of how I made money the last two days.  That's why I waited a day to post this.

I placed bids Tuesday early evening for 10 Decimation acc/dam/rech at over 2 million inf each, and 10 Decimation acc/end/rech for 560,000 each.  These actually sell at similar prices -- about 10 to 15 million crafted -- despite the fact that the second recipe is much cheaper to come by.  But the second is also harder to sell, since there's always more available, so it's more of a squishy market I guess I'd say.  You can get 10-12 million or so, but not necessarily as quickly.

Anyway the recipes purchase much faster, as you can see by late in the evening after I've run my trials and stuff, I already have 9 of the cheap triples, and only four of the more expensive ones.  I've also bought all the salvage needed to craft the ten cheaper recipes (bought over several hours as I was running trials and tip missions).

I craft and listed all 9 of the Decimation dam/end/rech at 1 inf over 10 mil, which is being slightly optimistic.  The KC triple I listed at 158 million.  I listed the last one at this price, and it sold for 170 million, which is the price I was actually hoping for.

Zero to Awesome Day 27/28 and comments (reposted from Aug 28/29 2011)

Jetpack
FYI - Judgement doesn't have a level shift attached.

Alpha, Destiny and Lore only.

No level shift for Judgement and Interface.

---

Organica (me)

Well, you can tell how much I pay attention to these things.  ^_^

But I can blow stuff up real good!

Anyway, a few level shifts are needed.  ^_^

---

Rodion
Quote:

Originally Posted by Canine
You can still make a very effective toon using nothing but SO's.

The inf required to do that is frankly miniscule in the scale of things. Level up a toon, sell your salvage and recipe drops on the market (especially midlevel commons/uncommons), and I'd expect you to have no trouble affording the enhancements required to make an effective SO'd toon.
Actually, if you use level 30 common IOs, which are better than even con SOs, you will save millions by not having to upgrade your SOs at 32, 37, 42 and 47. Upgrading all your SOs at 42 and 47 will cost you many millions, and that's not even considering the hassle of having to do it.

The crafting costs for 30s are not that much more than buying SOs, so you will already be ahead of the game by level 38. The higher level SOs actually cost more than the crafting costs for 30s. You can usually pick up level 30 common recipes for peanuts, especially if you place bids ahead of time.

If you save your Tier 2 salvage when you start getting it, you'll have plenty by the time you hit level 27 and can start slotting 30s.

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Fulmens
That is, in fact, cheaper. Yes.

If you consider that the cost of level 50 SO's is about 5 million inf:
that's about 3 rare salvage
OR about 15 uncommon salvage
OR half a "decent drop", crafted.

Maybe I've been hanging out here too long, but I don't see the cost SO's, which is something like 15 million over your entire character's life, as a financial problem. Someone here had a standing offer, something like "Send me a tell and I'll email you 20 million, and you can afford to slot SO's 1-50."

---

Organica (me)

Joined a BAF and a Lambda this morning.  On one I got a rare.  At this point, I've run more iTrials on AE Baby than any other toon of mine, but this was only my third non-common or uncommon -- I got a Very Rare early on, and a rare I think.  Anyway, I was able to craft my T3 Lore. :D  Working on T3 Destiny now, but I need another rare to accomplish it.

I also joined a friend's ITF last night and got 9 shards.  This was not enough to allow me to craft my T2, alpha, but it's a good start.  One of the same friends invited me to an ITF again today, just after I'd finished the iTrials.  We cleared the entire last map and I still only wound up with 4 more shards.  :p

Stuff sold overnight, enough to push me just over 500 million (especially after a couple of other things sold during the iTrials).  Knowing that Hami raids generally happen on the weekend, I wanted to get my last Enzyme bid in right away if I could, so as soon as I had the money I placed a bid for 527 million (last five included my second bid for 511 million, and 4 others that were higher 600 million on a couple I think, but one was only 525 million).

During the ITF more stuff sold:

I decided to up my Enzyme bid.  To my surprise, my bid was successful less than 2 minutes later.

After that I joined some other friends on a Citadel with Shinobu Eden.  By the time that was done, more stuff had sold:

So at this point my build is complete.  Price:  somewhere in the neighborhood of 2.5 billion, I think.  One billion of that came from my two purple drops, but given another 7-10 days I think I could raise another billion, especially now that I can use a-merits to buy IOs for sale.

I have 47.96% smashing/lethal defense, and if anyone on the team adds to that, then I'm usually in very good shape even in a swarm of Cimemorans.  One purple and I can tank a group long enough to kill them all.  :D  I have 70% global recharge, (the 140% showing includes hasten), and a lot of other nice bonuses and incarnate abilities.

I really like this character a lot.  I've played fire/kin troller and kin defender, and I've played a fire/fire blaster.  This seems like the best of both worlds.  I can buff the team, heal, and unleash massive damage.  I can turn my corruptor into a blaster, and a blaster into a god.  :D  I feel like I add a lot to any team.

---

houtex
But... you missed SO much content.

 :p  :D

All that within a month? I'm guessing that planning is the key to the whole idea. My playstyle doesn't really... lend me to that idea.  :)

I'm impressed, nonetheless!

---

Organica (me)

Ran 2 BAFs tonight.  Did not manage a Lambda, so only 1 Empyrian Merit on the day.  But I got a rare on the second run and crafted my T3 Destiny.  I'm now at T3 on Judgment, Lore, and Destiny, T2 on Interface and still stuck at T1 on Alpha.

Ran 5 tip missions + morality mission for a villain merit, and also converted 50 regular merits for a villain merit.  Bought a Kinetic Combat triple, crafted it, put it up for sale.
---

For the last couple of days I've just been running iTrials, ITFs, and trying to make money on the market.  Most notably, I used 2 villain merits to purchase a Kinetic Combat triple which sold for 170 million, exactly what I was hoping it would sell for.  Other than that I'm just selling random drops and whatever I decided to buy a 10 stack of.  Right now I'm trying to make money working the two Decimation triples.

As of this morning I'm near 500 million again.

In completely (well mostly) unrelated news, I chatted the other day with a person who reads these posts and recognized AE Baby.  She had a very funny, rambling first-person bio, very creative, about shooting her boyfriend for clipping his toenails at the table and shooting her lawyer.  Anyway it kind of reminded me of one of my own favorite bios, in general tone, not at all in detail, so I thought I'd post this:

A bio should be entertaining.  ^_^

(2012 sidenote:  The above character that I ran into with the entertaining bio was revealed to be game dev Tunnel Rat -- she let me know in my "90 Days to the Apocalypse" thread sometime in September or early October 2012.  Apparently she was excited to meet one of the Marketeers from the Market Forums, I was excited to know I'd had a conversation with one of the game devs, heh.)

---

Also, these two tidbids from trials last night:

(Speed lambda, leader decides as we're clearing courtyard that we're such a kickass group that we should try for the "no nades" badge.  Not everyone agrees, but leader says we'll still collect the grenades and acids, just not use the grenades unless it looks like we're running low on time.  Also, we don't wait to acid the doors since we want as much time as possible to take the AV down, and it'll take so long to do that we'll get the extra reward in the end anyway.)

Leader:  WE'RE GOING FOR THE BADGE SO DO NOT USE ANY GRENADES!
Leader:  PASS ALL GRENADES TO ME!
Leader:  Those with acids, close the doors right away then come back and buff up.
Leader:  PLEASE DO NOT USE ANY GRENADES!
Leader:  NO  NADES!  I REPEAT, NO NADES!
Player1:  ready.
Player2:  ready.
Leader:  Go!
*Maurauder has been pacified*
Player3:  Oh, you moron.

~~~~~

Then I joined a BAF:

Leader:  BAF LFM.
Annoying Player:  How can you be looking for more if you won't add anyone?
Leader:  BAF LFM.
Annoying Player:  How can you be looking for more if you won't add anyone?
Leader:  BAF LFM.
Annoying Player:  How can you be looking for more if you won't add anyone?
*Annoying Player has joined team*
*queue comes up*
Annoying Player:  Add my friend.
Leader:  We're full.
*Annoying Player quits*

/em sighs.

---

mauk2
Quote:

Originally Posted by Fulmens

To continue, I think of there being about three levels of IO'ing out:
1) Generics to replace SO's. Slightly to greatly more expensive, depending on how you plan ahead on your shopping; very similar results, only you'll never see a slot "go red" or lose efficiency with IO's.
2) Frankenslotting: grabbing a lot of cheap sets and using them like "mini-hami-os". Two set IOs can give you the rough equivalent of three SO's; I have a mini-guide in my sig if you want details.
3) "Real" set IO's- that is, IO's where you're slotting several of the same set in a given power, such that you get lots of set bonuses and [in some cases] dramatically improved performance. This can be expensive to unbelievably expensive [some builds cost literal billions] and there are potential traps, but you can get a LOT better performance if you do it right.
Feel free to ask questions, I love to see my own name up on the screen.

As a hardcore builder, I'd like to add a 4th level:

4) Unlimited MINMAX. Every power, IO, set bonus, and ipower is carefully chosen with an eye to the overall performance goal, with no other considerations. These toons are rare, but you'll see them designed in the scrapper forum pretty regularly. Things like perma-elude regen builds, that sort of thing. Those are the builds that run solo itf master runs...at +4.  :)
---

j_thug
Quote:

Originally Posted by Organica

Also, these two tidbids from trials last night:
*Maurauder has been pacified*
Player3: Oh, you moron.
/em sighs.

I don't know about the pacification.. but.. I laughed out loud at the other one.

I'll be rolling a toon on Vic soon, can't wait to see you around.. though I only play Heroes. =)

@JT1

Zero to Awesome Day 26 (reposted from Aug 27 2011)

Day 26 - Sat 8/27

I checked on stuff early Sat morning, and my 3rd Enzime purchase had been made.  :D

So now my goal is to raise another 100 million or two to purchase the last Enzyme.  All I need for my build at this point is 1 Enzyme and the last LotG 7.5% recharge, which I'll have by this afternoon/evening.

I ran a BAF and a Lambda this morning.  I managed to open up my Lore slot, and went with the... purple storm things from the Shadow Shard, whatever they're called.  I have no idea which pets are better than others, just having pets is a bonus and so far I've gone for whatever sounded cool that I hadn't tried on another character.  ^_^

I also crafted my Pyronic T3, so I have 1 level shift at least on trials.  I crafted T2 for Destiny Rebirth, and I broke down and used incarnate trial salvage to craft my Alpha T1, Cardiac I think.

Plus I bought some fancy boots and stuff with astral/empyrian merits.

I haven't actually posted my other outfits.  Among other things, I've purchased Halloween salvage from the market for the 5th costume slot and candy canes for the halos.  I placed the halo on my original costume, because AE Baby is sweet and innocent, yes?   :D

My second costume was similar to the first but more armored:

My fifth costume is my ITF costume:

And costumes 3 and 4 are my "most skin showing" and "least skin showing" outfits, but both have become my incarnate outfits.  I like having just the incarnate boots on the "less is more" outfit, and I'm kinda going all out on the other outfit:

Aside from getting that last Enzyme, I think my goal for the last few days of the month should be to get a T3 alpha, T3 Destiny, and T3 on either Lore or Interface as well.  I could say that would complete my journey from level 1 to awesome, reaching the level shifts.  ^_^