Monday, December 9, 2019

Luck be a Survey Tonight!

For some reason our friends over at Project Gorgon headquarters like to spice things up every once in a while by throwing down a bonus to a random tradeskill. I like it! It reminds me of the exclusive member benefits they run for Wizard101 subscribers.

This weekend was all about the Surveyor's Luck benefit, which doubled the harvests you get from the surveying skill.

Rather be lucky than good

I was looking for a great time to jump back in to the Surveying Tradeskill and this was it! I've been needing a bunch of metal for improving my Blacksmith Skill, so this weekend's event was the perfect excuse.

Lemme break this down a bit for those that may not know how to get started with this tradeskill. First, head on over to Serbule Hills . . .NOT Serbule . . . Serbule Hills. It's a different zone. In fact, it used to be the newbie zone in Project Gorgon before they got that fancy Anagoge Island newbie zone.  It's the zone just south of Serbule.

Next, find the inn in Serbule Hills. It's actually called the Tapestry Inn, and it's off to the left of the road from zone in. Inside you'll find a lady named Jamie Fatholm hanging out in the corner just minding her own business.

Go bug her.

You'll need to build faction with her first by completing a couple of her quests or by giving her gifts of things she likes . . . like magical bows, gold, silver, etc. If you click "Small Talk," in her NPC dialog box, she'll tell you the things she likes.

After this you can then train with her in the arts of Surveying! . . . which eventually are also the arts of Mining! . . . which are also eventually the arts of Geology!  Never forget that this is Project Gorgon, where one skill leads to a bazillion more skills.

Once you have the skill, buy parchment and ink from Jamie and use them in the tradeskill window to craft Surveying maps. Once you have a Surveying map, click on it while looking at the map, and it'll show you a big red circle and some text telling you how far away the metal is.

GET THEM METAL SLABS BOIS!

Run to the middle of that circle, click the map again, and BAM! Your map disappears and you are given whatever gems or metal was hiding in that spot. AND, you'll get a bonus if you did that quickly.

I typically like to load up my inventory with about 20 maps, click them all, and drag and drop the maps in a kind of a big circle. Since I have four inventory tabs, I'll usually divvy them up by dragging and dropping maps into an inventory bag according to which section of the map its deposit is in.  In other words, if the target is in the top left of the map, it stays in inventory bag 1; if top right, bag 2; if bottom right, bag 3; and in bottom left, bag 4.

When you 're dealing with 20 maps at a time, organization is the key.

Then you just run alllllllll around the zone clicking on maps and collecting metal and gems for like a half hour.

Now the big question . . . is it fun? Well, a few of us were complaining a bit about Surveying in chat the other day and it went something like this: "If you like wasting your time by running around in circles and clicking on things, then boy have I got the tradeskill for you!"

It's a necessary evil, but I think it still has a little bit of fun to it given the find and chase aspect, and it's definitely profitable. At the end of the day, do you mine in any MMO for fun?  I doubt it. Surveying in lower zones actually feels relaxing to me. You just zone out and do it zen style.

NOW . . . if you want to step up your Survey game even further (and have even more fun) . . . you should give Treasure Cartography a shot, but that's a different post for a different time when I'm feeling up to the task of explaining how phases of the moon in the real world affect the way you hunt for treasure in Project Gorgon. whew.

Happy Dueling!

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