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Rappelz - The Rappelz Reporter Issue #1
| Source:rappelz.gpotato.com | Date:05-04-2009 |  Comments
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What’s New
The past few weeks have been pretty exciting for anyone looking for something to do while they aren't leveling. New weapon glows have been added, as well as new rewards for Ursa Caverns, including the Unique rarity Mystic Koala pet. Finally, an epic battle of good vs. evil is in full swing in the Easter Event! Mystic Jewels will be the most apparent change to players who don’t spend time in Ursa Caverns. These shiny gems are available in both Elite and Basic flavors, and they add a cool glow effect to any weapon. You can enhance them further with Mystic Shards purchased from a Merchant. Elite Mystic Jewels are available in the Hidden Village from a new vendor, while Basic Mystic Jewels can be purchased with Gen Points from Ursa Caverns Vendor Cleo. Ursa Caverns got some fun new rewards at the end of February. The Basic Mystic Jewels are only the tip of the iceberg. Also added were new “Bear Bombs” that are only usable in Ursa Caverns, but can deal major damage to up to 20 bears at once! Bear King Recovery Potions were added, too, that will heal 30% of HP and MP while in Ursa Caverns. They’re very useful to people looking to improve their Ursa Caverns times. And, of course, a “unique” reason for spending time in Ursa Caverns was introduced at the same time: the Mystic Koala. This pet boasts major tanking ability, plus the ability to increase your critical strike chance. Not to mention a buff that will actually increase your drop rate. It’s certainly the luckiest pet around! Our Easter Event this year has a new twist on the classic battle of Good vs. Evil. Moon rabbits everywhere have been corrupted and turned black. Agents of the Witch and Goddess are offering rewards for players to bring them moon rabbit eggs. The Witch offers tempting prizes, but will choosing Evil pay off in the long run? This Easter, you control your own destiny! Event Insider
In February and March the GM Team decided it was time to refresh the server slogans that grace the Rappelz Server Select screen. While the previous ones were great, we wanted to add some variety. Plus, the server slogan contest was so much fun the last time we did it, we were excited to see what slogans and artwork people would come up with this time. As expected, there were some fantastic submissions! nSaNeTrInITy of Yeti server liked the new voting format, but “wished Yeti server could have come up with a more ‘fierce’ slogan.” E3holywarrior had a suggestion, “Next time make images based in gameplay to avoid the use of Artwork by Google.” This is certainly something we’ll consider for next time, as we think it’s much cooler for the images to have a strong connection to Rappelz. It was another fun and creative contest, although there were some initial problems with people stuffing the ballot box. We sorted out the trouble and made sure the vote was fair in the end. It took longer than we wanted to go through each step, so when we do this next time we will probably try to make things more streamlined. Getting the word out to more people to vote is a priority, too! You can see the winners of the contest at the Rappelz Forums. The winners each won an item of their rank. 
Rappelz Reporter Community Spotlight: ZooZoo of SalamanderPlease tell us a little about yourself. I'm a 25 year old video sound mixer in Atlanta, GA, USA. I live with my wife and our mini pet collection (2 cats, turtle, and lizard.) I love big sound (my neighbors don't,) movies, clubbing (house, not hip-hop) and all kinds of design and production. Oh, and games. I'm kind of old-school about my games. I don't really keep up with what's new, I just find a game that I like a lot and play it to death. Before Rappelz was Blizzard's Starcraft. The constant hardcore playing to keep up with the Korean pace sort of set me up nice for Rappelz-style leveling. How did you start playing Rappelz? I don't remember exactly. I think I wanted to get into a MMO, but didn't fancy a game that shuts you out if you can't pay the "rent." I didn't have any IRL friends into the game, but I kept in touch with the nicer players I met. I got in with Bleach on Bahamut, but got outpaced by my guildmates who were headed for CV, so I jumped into Salamander when it started up. I think what has kept me in the game this far is the scale of the leveling system, the quality of the people I've met and the past year's improvement in game development, new content, and GM involvement. You’re well known for your pet guides on the forums. What made you decide to write a guide? When I started writing guides, there was a LOT to learn about the Breeder and different pets and there were a lot of Breeders (and pet owners) looking for advice on the forums. I really wanted to take the forum discussions beyond people asking how to put a pet into their formation every week, and the best way I could think to do that sort of thing is to make a foundation reference guide that gets everyone past basics and talking about the more interesting and cool stuff that you can do in the game. There was a big gap between totally new players and players who were more conditioned. Since Epic 4 Breeders and Orcs exploded in popularity, I kind of wrote the right guides at the right time, though that wasn't what I set out to do. I'm very happy that the guides I've made hit such a huge percentage of the community. I write about what I want to read about. I love strategy, theory, and data, and sometimes in a small community, those things aren't really brought together in one simple place. There were places where you could find the very very beginning stuff like how to use the game, but what was available didn't really have much out there for the beginning to intermediate players. Have you received any fame in-game due to your guides? Any fun stories to share? Several times a week I get PMs from players who have read my guides or who were helped by them. It lets me know that the guides served their purposes. I did get a laugh out of a person qualifying their Orc WTS spam by calling it a "ZooZoo-skilled" Orc. I think that's funny, considering that I give situational advice, not specific skill builds. And the guy was selling this Orc in Epic 5 (my Orc guide was E4.) I was asked if I was R7 yet several months ago. A certain type of player tends to see me as some kind of omnipotent all-knowing Superplayer, but I'm learning how to play my class better every day from trial and (more often) error and from talking to other players in game who do things different than me. I don't really know a ton more than most skilled players of similar level do. Your guild, Destiny, is making a name for itself as one of the best equipped high level guilds in the game. Can you tell us what has led to your success? Destiny guild had a major surge in activity around Christmas time during the events, with the pets event, the drop-increase event, and the ancient element event. During the drop-increase event, our guild spent a LOT of time in the Temple of the Ancients dungeon and in the fields. On top of the hours logged, we also were eager to learn how to play well in the R6 dungeon which has a mean reputation for wiping entire DPs on one wrong move. It was really seen as a challenge for us. Our guild was constantly playing in 5 different dungeon zones, while most public parties only went to 1 or 2 zones of the dungeon. The third thing that really helped our guild in particular is the way that we got drops into our guild and kept them in our guild. Not many players in the guild were selling R6 gear outside of the guild and a lot of players were bringing R6 gear into the guild by buying it from other players. In our parties, we had an agreement to give particular items (should they drop) to the player who used the item. This way, almost any drop in a DP goes to a player who can use it. Normally if a player gets a drop and can't use it, if his guild mate can't afford it, he sells it out of the guild. By giving drops to the players who needed them, we kept a lot of great gear pieces in the guild. Half of it is having money right now, but every guild our size with players our level has a good share of wealthy guys in the group. What really started turning heads was need-over-greed type drop sharing, because everyone has some idea of what it means in the back of their mind but no one ever actually does it or could see how it would be good for the group as a whole. Do you have any tips for Rank 6 players who want to get their gear faster? The critical time for Destiny was during the events when a player could really do a lot to set himself apart from the rest of the competition just by playing more. Obviously going to the dungeon helps. And putting in the time is required, no matter where you decide to go. I think wolves are about the worst place you can go for drops. Go to wolves till you are high enough to TOA and then suck it up and get into the dungeon. It's slow until you figure out how not to wipe but you have to learn at some point. And the up-and-coming R6 players are a LOT better off than my group of players was. Half of the players in any TOA party are R6 equipped and have experience to boot. That helps. Wolves are a faster place to level, but you get a lot of players who end up at a high level with no drops, so it's a give and take. The thing about group drop-sharing is that you are casting a wider net. If you go to the field, you have one shot at a very random system and you can get lucky (as some have) or unlucky (as some have.) So if you get a group of players who are friends to agree on a drop-share system, you are helping everyone have a better shot at gear they can use. Some players are lucky and some aren't, and you can't really bang the game till it spits out a drop. There aren't too many factors you can control besides using a favorable drop agreement and putting in more time and staying away from wolves. Some players are still going to have bad luck, and the majority of players who have many pieces of R6 gear did not get all of those pieces purely from their drops. Money and trades are a huge factor in the game, especially if you want your R6 gear to come from someone else's drops. What is your favorite thing about Rappelz? My guild (and friends) is my favorite part of Rappelz. It's a big family and fortunately more functional than dysfunctional. I love the sense of community and that friendship is not a 10-level-range thing. Destiny makes me glad to log on and say hi when nothing's going down and we have a hell of a lot of fun when stuff does go down. I really enjoy and have a great deal of respect for all of the Salamander guilds that stick it out together. Big props to the Afterlife folks, Hippies, Reign (and ex), Celestial, RedSkies, Light, Saints, Exalted (or whatever they will be called next month), Addicted (and all those who are Addicted at heart), LibertyFighters and the rest. Customer Service Tip: “Lending Items”Here in Customer Service, we get a lot of people writing to us for help replacing pets and items that have been stolen by guild members they thought they could trust. Unfortunately, we can’t replace items that are given away, but here are some tips to prevent this from happening to you:
If you lend an item to someone, we probably will not be able to give it back. You can still try to prove someone is a scammer, though, by doing the following:
Remember: If it’s something you can’t live without, don’t lend it out! Inside The Life of a GM
GM Name: Shubei Favorite Pet: Evo 1 sally. They’re too cute. Name of your Decorative Pet: First Class You Played: Favorite Rappelz Moment: |
