Difference between revisions of "Nascence Training Grounds"

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| '''Objective:''' Drake wants to test Dravet's senses.  While we know that Dravet lacks any sense at all, we decide to humor the old guy head out and find a '''Shadowleet''' near the area that '''Sundance Smith''' is standing.  You can do this by using the search command in your actions menu, which should reveal the invisible Shadowleet.  Sometimes though, you will find the Shadowleet Boss: the Shadowleet of Powah, as we did, which will attack you (or Dravet) if you see it; it is stronger than a normal Shadowleet but shouldn't give any character around level 5+ any problems.  When you have found the leet, target it and return to Drake for your reward.<br><br>'''Reward:''' 350 Credits, 175 XP, <aoicon>223768</aoicon> Nano Crystal (Overview of Nascence).<br><br>''In the Shadowlands, you don't get normal maps to upload to your map system because the geography 'changes' so much, in that case you let nano bots do the work for you.  The first two maps of the areas can be used and uploaded by anybody, but the maps of the latter areas are only available to adventurers who will need to cast the nano on you.  When you cast the nano on yourself, you will be able to look at the minimap of the area.''
 
| '''Objective:''' Drake wants to test Dravet's senses.  While we know that Dravet lacks any sense at all, we decide to humor the old guy head out and find a '''Shadowleet''' near the area that '''Sundance Smith''' is standing.  You can do this by using the search command in your actions menu, which should reveal the invisible Shadowleet.  Sometimes though, you will find the Shadowleet Boss: the Shadowleet of Powah, as we did, which will attack you (or Dravet) if you see it; it is stronger than a normal Shadowleet but shouldn't give any character around level 5+ any problems.  When you have found the leet, target it and return to Drake for your reward.<br><br>'''Reward:''' 350 Credits, 175 XP, <aoicon>223768</aoicon> Nano Crystal (Overview of Nascence).<br><br>''In the Shadowlands, you don't get normal maps to upload to your map system because the geography 'changes' so much, in that case you let nano bots do the work for you.  The first two maps of the areas can be used and uploaded by anybody, but the maps of the latter areas are only available to adventurers who will need to cast the nano on you.  When you cast the nano on yourself, you will be able to look at the minimap of the area.''
 
| [[Image:Ntgsearch.jpg|150px]]<br>[[Image:Ntgshadowleet.jpg|150px]]
 
| [[Image:Ntgsearch.jpg|150px]]<br>[[Image:Ntgshadowleet.jpg|150px]]
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=== "Where's My Credits!?" ===
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| So we were bopping along in the testing area, putting a cap in some weird monsters and Dravet noticed he wasn't getting credits from killing these monsters.  Say what?  When we got a chance, we asked Drake about it and he told us that while most critters on Rubi-Ka have bounties on their heads that you can collect when you kill them (since they are all wanted fugitives, rampaging mutants, or overbred wildlife) the beasts of the Shadowlands do not.  Even the people who might pay for you to kill the other guy: the Redeemed and the Unredeemed, don't have access to vast stores of credits to pay every Joe, Stan, Larry who puts down one of their enemies.  Heck, since they have been killing eachother for the past several aeons, they probably do it now out of habit and wouldn't recognize that you should pay somebody for that anyway.  I mean, Dravet would do it for free, but we need some way to keep him in bronto burgers and frozen leet pops!.<br><br>So after trying to figure this out we came to the conclusion that the only way to make money in the Shadowlands is to kill things and pillage their bits for cash.  That's right, you need to loot stuff from monster to sell to get cash here.  Unfortunately, a lot of the junk that you can find on corpses is not worth very much, so it might be a bit harder unless you have a way to process some of it.
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Revision as of 02:49, 31 August 2009

Ntgoverview.jpg

The Nascence Training Grounds are one of two places that players can start the game in, the other being the ICC Shuttleport on Rubi-Ka. The Training Grounds are located in the Shadowlands in Jobe's Nascence Research area. Only those people who have the Shadowlands expansion can choose to start in this area, and if you choose Shade or Keeper as your profession you are required to start here. The area contains many quests and missions to help new players get used to the game as well as get some unique low level equipment that will help them on their way. Since the area is level locked to players level 50 or below, many people who started on Rubi-Ka on 'newbie island' come here to do the additional quests.

Getting to Jobe

Of course, to start having adventures in the Shadowlands you need to actually get there first, so we have constructed some maps to help you get from various starting cities to Jobe Research so you can take part in the Quests there as well. All these maps assume though that you go directly from the place where you leave the ICC Shuttleport to Jobe. In each section there are maps to help you along, you can follow these maps with your own by hitting Crtl + 5 to open the minimap, and if you teleported to a faction's city you should have been given the starting maps for that faction. If you haven't uploaded them, look for the item in your inventory and right click on it, which will give you all the maps you need to follow these maps

Borealis

Borealis is by far the easiest trip to Jobe you can make because the Whompah is actually located in the same city, so there is no zoning involved. When you zone in from the teleporter from the Island, you will want to enter the gates and hang a right, heading north. You will be following the main 'drag' through Borealis, so it might get a little laggy, but you keep following the road down a hill, past some shops, till you hit a dead end. At this point you turn right again and go down another hill, at which point the Whompah should be in sight! If you have the Shadowlands expansion you can just enter it to get to Jobe!
Click on the Map for a larger version!

Rome

The trip through Rome is probably the hardest, simply because it is so long and involves zoning three times. When you leave the island as a Omni-Tek employee you start off here, you will be on a road that leads to Rome proper, you should follow it towards the big black walls, but veer a little north/right off the road and look for an archway with a big swirling, bubbling energy field in it. That is a zone boundary and you need to go through it, so just walk right into it. Now you should have zoned into Rome Blue district, there should be large dark buildings and soldiers in black armor around. Once here you should head slightly north west and look for a path that goes under a walk way, you will head under that and one the road opens back up again you will take a right and head north. Once the road opens up more and there are no more buildings you will turn left and head towards another archway with a zone barrier, walk into it. Here you will zone into Rome Red district, but you will just head straight west across it into another zone barrier. The last zone takes you to Rome Green district, which is where our whompah is! When you zone in you will head west a little bit and take the first left you can and follow it south. you will go under a couple of walkways and the road will open up into an area with two planters with trees and the whompah! To get to Jobe, just walk into the door!
Click on the Map for a larger version!

West Athens

Clans members start off in West Athens after leaving the Island, and their trip is not as harrowing as their OT counterparts but not as breezy as the Neutrals. From your starting point you should be slightly outside a set of brick walls, you will turn and head to the east towards a river type thing. When you get to the river head north enough to find the walk way continuing east towards a set of huge black walls and a ramp up into a sparkling, bubbling zone field and step into it. You are now in Old Athens on another bridge, follow this one to its end near a white brick wall and follow the wall south till you find a set of arches going through the wall. Head through the arches and follow the wall on the other side till you come to a plaza in the south of Old Athens, near the south wall which has a strange blue obelisk in it on a platform. When you head into the plaza you should see the Jobe whompah opposite the obelisk to the north, and to get to Jobe you just step into the door!
Click on the Map for a larger version!

Once in Jobe...

Click on the Images to see a larger version.

After you step through the Whompah from your faction's city, you find yourself in Jobe the amazing flying city! You are currently on Jobe platform, where all travelers from the surface of Rubi-Ka wind up, and the junction point for all the other areas of Jobe. Right now, you want to head down the ramp to the far 'door' looking thing and step under the ring near it, this will teleport you to Jobe Harbor.

The teleporter will leave you on a small ledge in Jobe Harbor. Jobe Harbor serves the lowest level characters, has the equivalent of Basic Shops, and a portal to Nascence. Currently though, we want to find the entrance to Jobe Research, so head around the ledge to the left.

After you go around the corner you will head down the ramp and past a couple of shops on your right to a large, tall door on your right. This door will be labeled with a big orange sign saying 'Jobe Research', enter this door to head to the research outpost in Nascence.

Now you have landed in the lowest area of the Shadowlands, but we need to get checked out first so we are going to head to the big set of steps going through the middle of the outpost and head up them. This door will take you back to Jobe proper when you need to go back, and you can retrace your steps to Rubi-Ka from there.

At the top of the steps you will see another tall door that is unmarked. This door will take you to the Training Ground. First though, you may wish to stock up on some new Shadowlands medical supplies, since your normal Rubi-Ka ones will not work here. A vendor in white will sell those for reasonable prices in an area to the left of the stairs.

Once you enter the door, jump off the ledge and follow the laser bridge to find Drake.
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Walkthrough

After leaving the ICC Shuttleport we wandered about with Dravet for a while, looking for fun and profit, while some of that was vaigely successful after running around half of the world we got offered a strange job. This guy suggested that we go to this place called "Jobe" (whatever that is) and look for "Drake" (whoever that is...) and help him out. After Dravet stood there slack jawed for more than thirty seconds, the weird guy did... something and we blacked out.

After waking up on this platform we saw some pretty weird stuff! Strange swirling vortices of light in the air, tall white buildings... Clans and Omnis working together... we could only come to one conclusion for the unreal sights we were seeing: we were drugged. Dravet mentioned something about mushroom pizza but I was certain that there was some XXX-Plumbo Beer involved.

Keep in mind that we will be going through the quests as if you had started in the ICC Shuttleport since most professions have a choice to start there instead, and generally do so since you can pick up these quests a little latter. If you are a Keeper or a Shade, you must start in the Shadowlands, but the quests will be essentially the same but may require a little more leveling before you start them.
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Drake Rodriguez

Drake is a major scientific mind in Jobe and has made significant advances in understanding how the weird environment of the shadowlands effects human DNA. When we approach him to ask him about how the heck we got here, he immediately turns to us and asks us if we are ready to participate in his experiments. Experiments!? We just get pulled through space and time in some sort of hallucinogenic adventure and now he wants to mess with us more!? After a little bit of explanation, Drake says that there are significant rewards for participating in the tests, and that he has never had anybody refuse to participate. Well, with the thought of an ambiguously, undisclosed reward on the line I happily singed up Dravet, maybe the good doctor can find out what is wrong with him.



It seems that you need a special bracer to go through with the tests and when we arrived, we didn't have one, so we asked Drake for one to slap on Dravet. Drake further informs us that the bracer acts as some sort of 'teleport beacon' and with a simple click it will allow us to teleport straight back to him if we get lost. We figure this is also helpful since we started on Rubi-Ka, so if we die, we will respawn back there, but instead of having to find our way back, we can just right click to teleport ourselves back, but this ability will only work if you are level 15 or below.

After talking to a couple of the other 'test subjects' we found out that if you started here in the Shadowlands from the Morning Star Space Station (such as if you are a Shade or Keeper) drake will give you an experience boost and a standard equipment set like Brandon Thorn did for us.

Important Note: All of Drake's tests are timed, and if you take too long you will fail them. This is not so huge of a loss, but you will need to wait 10 minutes after failing a test to get another one. If this happens to you, don't fret, just spend the time killing monsters around so you have a higher level to try again.

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Mission: Test of Strength


DEPRECATED EXTENSION [AOICON]! CHANGE TO AODB!
Kill Mission
Objective: For Drake's first test you need to kill three monsters in order: a Deceitful Weaver, a Shining Coiler, and a Beit Gras. The extremely easy way to find these mobs is to simply jump off the platform that drake is standing on and you should find the mobs around the base of the tower pretty easily. Otherwise, you can find a whole group of weavers and coilers back across the laser bridge near the guards. If you are a new character, this might be pretty tough for you, so you might want to spend a little time fighting the weavers and coilers before you take on the beits, but do not take two long though since you have a half an hour to finish the mission.

Reward: 360 Credits, 195 XP, ID NOT FOUND Bracer of Strength.
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Healing in the Shadowlands

ID NOT FOUND
ID NOT FOUND
ID NOT FOUND
ID NOT FOUND
It happens in life: people get hurt. Dravet is no exception, especially like the time he held his gun the wrong way, or tried to jump on a ... well never you mind that! Getting hurt in the Shadowlands is a little different than being back on good, old, Rubi-Ka since the same old heal kits and first aid stims wont work! So instead of poking ourselves with needles and shooting ourselves up like junkies we have to use these interesting Spiritech devices to merge ourselves with the source of all life momentarily. Sounds very Zen doesn't it?

We found out from the handy vendor just outside the training area (don't worry, if you leave you can get back in till you are level 50)that there are two kinds of magical recovery spirit tech. The first are called Coils and they take the place of similar health labs on RK in that they require you to sit down to use it. Coils restore health and nano in a very different fashion than RK Health and Nano kits, they restore a small amount over time in ticks, but will continue restoring you as long as you sit, until you are full. A very weird property to be sure, which we found out when Dravet had been beaten senseless by a Beit. Higher levels of coils heal or restore more with each tick.

The second type of Spiritech recovery device is a Spindle, which function like first aid stims or nano stims. Similar to the coils, the spindles work in ticks, but each only gives 2 ticks of Health or Nano recovery, but it doesn't require you to sit down to use it.
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Mission: Test of Agility and Stamina


DEPRECATED EXTENSION [AOICON]! CHANGE TO AODB!
Find Mission
Objective: This mission can get a bit hairy, you need to extremely quickly find three monsters and tag them with the biomarker sensor that Drake hands to you. To do this you need to target the creature and than right click the sensor on them. The main problem with this mission is that some of the creatures are very far apart. The Hungry Predators are located to the East of Drake on the plains, the Chimeras can be found to the South in the canyon, and the Dryads can be found to the North of Drake in the swamp. Once that is finished, the quickest way back to Drake is using the teleporting ability of the jobe bracer he gave you, and from there you will give him the biomarker sensor back.

Quest Items: ID NOT FOUND Biomarker Sensor

Reward: 360 credits, 195 XP, ID NOT FOUND Protective Shirt of Exploration. ID NOT FOUND Trader's Utility Belt (Only given to Traders in addition to the shirt)

The shirt you are given isn't the best shirt in the entire world, and it looks horrible, but the extra Run Speed it gives you will really help you get around in the lower levels, but if you find anything with significantly better AC (such as Sundance Armor) replace it.
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Vehicles, Traveling, and the Shadowlands

Ok, so maybe we don't have the money to drop on a super slick yalmaha or other vehicle right now, but wandering around the Shadowlands is slow. I even tried slapping a saddle on Dravet, but his horse power was not impressive. So we decided to look into the idea of getting a vehicle to get around, but this idea was quickly shot down when we learned that they cannot be used in the Shadowlands! Apparently there is some strange whats-a-field or something having to do with Notum, nanobots, or novictum. Go figure, right? Looking on the bright side though, it gives us plenty of incentive to invest in more Runspeed skill though, and a chance to see some interesting scenery.

It should also be noted that anything grid based just doesn't work here, so doc and fixer digitalizing nanos, fixer grid based run buffs, Engineer beacon warps, and the all powerful grid armor are completely worthless. Fixers must find or purchase new runbuff nanos and engineers and MPs need new teleports that utilize the unique metaphysics of this weird place. This change does not influence the speed buffs of Adventurer morph nanos though, with one exception, which is the top adventurer bird morph which cannot fly in SL. Typical, huh?

Update: Through a quirk of the universe, it seems that the Phasefront hoverboards are able to be used in the Shadowlands, so if you need that extra speed (or just want to carve some great powder in Penumbra) you will have to drop some hard earned cash for paidpoints and get one of these flashy vehicles.

Mission: Test of Sense


DEPRECATED EXTENSION [AOICON]! CHANGE TO AODB!
Find Mission
Objective: Drake wants to test Dravet's senses. While we know that Dravet lacks any sense at all, we decide to humor the old guy head out and find a Shadowleet near the area that Sundance Smith is standing. You can do this by using the search command in your actions menu, which should reveal the invisible Shadowleet. Sometimes though, you will find the Shadowleet Boss: the Shadowleet of Powah, as we did, which will attack you (or Dravet) if you see it; it is stronger than a normal Shadowleet but shouldn't give any character around level 5+ any problems. When you have found the leet, target it and return to Drake for your reward.

Reward: 350 Credits, 175 XP, ID NOT FOUND Nano Crystal (Overview of Nascence).

In the Shadowlands, you don't get normal maps to upload to your map system because the geography 'changes' so much, in that case you let nano bots do the work for you. The first two maps of the areas can be used and uploaded by anybody, but the maps of the latter areas are only available to adventurers who will need to cast the nano on you. When you cast the nano on yourself, you will be able to look at the minimap of the area.
Ntgsearch.jpg
Ntgshadowleet.jpg

"Where's My Credits!?"

So we were bopping along in the testing area, putting a cap in some weird monsters and Dravet noticed he wasn't getting credits from killing these monsters. Say what? When we got a chance, we asked Drake about it and he told us that while most critters on Rubi-Ka have bounties on their heads that you can collect when you kill them (since they are all wanted fugitives, rampaging mutants, or overbred wildlife) the beasts of the Shadowlands do not. Even the people who might pay for you to kill the other guy: the Redeemed and the Unredeemed, don't have access to vast stores of credits to pay every Joe, Stan, Larry who puts down one of their enemies. Heck, since they have been killing eachother for the past several aeons, they probably do it now out of habit and wouldn't recognize that you should pay somebody for that anyway. I mean, Dravet would do it for free, but we need some way to keep him in bronto burgers and frozen leet pops!.

So after trying to figure this out we came to the conclusion that the only way to make money in the Shadowlands is to kill things and pillage their bits for cash. That's right, you need to loot stuff from monster to sell to get cash here. Unfortunately, a lot of the junk that you can find on corpses is not worth very much, so it might be a bit harder unless you have a way to process some of it.

Mission: Test of Psychic

Objective: Drake wants to see how we react to testing our mind to the unknown, so we need to go talk to one of two representatives of the major Shadowlands factions and help them out with a problem they have. Clan should go help out the Redeemed, labeled as El Domo on the map. Omni should go help the Unredeemed, labeled as Celeth-El on the map. Neutrals can help anybody at their whim.

Realistically though, you can help both of the factions if you want, and there are good reasons to at least help the Unredeemed. Doing this does not effect your standing with either faction latter in the game. Which was great news for Dravet, since he always like double dipping on the people he's supposed to be helping... err. Something tells me that this will ultimately come to no good in the end...

The Faithful


DEPRECATED EXTENSION [AOICON]! CHANGE TO AODB!
Find Mission
After Drake sends us off, we are looking for a guy named El Domo who is part of the Faithful or the Redeemed faction of the Shadowlands. To find this guy we will need to head to the north east portion of the area and look for a small entrance in a rock wall, it will be on the hill leading down to the area with the silvertails and hungry predators. Once you start seeing white birds all around,or as Dravet put it: "if you feel like you should be duck hunting...", you are in the right place! Once we saunter up to El Domo and tell him that we are here to help him out he immediately gives us a job. It appears that one of the Silvertail young has lost their way, and now we need to go find it and help it out. We do this using a rag item that El Domo provides to us. Luckily the location of the Young Silvertail is marked on our map and compass. Once we find the young silvertail, simple right click the rag on her and the quest will update: Back to Drake!

Reward: +5 Faction for Devoted, Conservers, Redeemed
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The Chosen


DEPRECATED EXTENSION [AOICON]! CHANGE TO AODB!
Find Mission
If you decided to help the Chosen you need to go locate Celeth-El who heads up the Unredeemed faction in this little corner of the Shadowlands. Locating him qill require you to head to the west side of the training area around some silvertails near some rocks. To get into the area you need to be, you will head through a big crack in the rocks into an area with a lot of red/orange birds called Tempterus and really made Dravet want to head out on a turkey shoot. Celeth-El seemed pretty disinterested in in speaking to us until we showed him our bracer, which he wanted us to give him in exchange for a job, but after a baffling reaction, he gave it back to us in an 'improved' state. After all this excitement, Dravet was so confused that he just wanted to go kill something, so Celeth-El had us take care of a little 'problem' of a mother silvertail looking for her young, which is more to say he wanted us to kill her. As bloodthirsty as Dravet was at this point, he happily obliged, finding the Silvertail Mare in question next to the entrance of the area.

Reward: +5 Faction for Followers, Operators, and Unredeemed, ID NOT FOUND Scourged Bracer of Jobe.

Important Note: getting your bracer scourged by Celeth-El complicates your mission because Drake will no longer recognize it to end the mission if you give it to him, so you will need to ask him for a new bracer before you end the quest. It should be noted that the scourged bracer also has the same teleport ability as the normal bracer, with the same limitations.
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Wrapping it up

In the end, we managed to run around to all the factions and complete their quests. This had the ironic effect of guiding the lost silvertail young home to her now dead mother... Oppsy! Drake doesn't seem to care very much about this, and after we turn in our bracer to him, he hands us some cash and a very nice ring that buffs out Nano Resistance. If you really want to, you can avoid helping both sides, but in order to complete the quest you must help one of them. We do recommend getting the scourged bracer of Jobe though, even if you do not 'pull the trigger' on the silvertail mare, because damage buffs can get hard to come by this early in the game.

Reward: 360 credits, 195 XP, ID NOT FOUND Ring of Enhanced Psychic.

The Shadowlands and Faction Points

Ntgfactionwin.jpg Something about the Shadowlands reminds us of being down on the farm: everybody just seems to know everybody elses' business. After fighting our way around for a little while, causing all sorts of hate and mischief, Dravet found out the hard way that there are factions in the the Shadowlands. Since the fight between the Redeemed and the Unredeemed has been raging on for aeons, it makes sense that everybody knows where they stand, and if you do something to hurt or help somebody, everybody will know about it pretty quickly. This roughly translates into the gain and loss of faction points with various factions. All factions have a positive and negative score of their faction points, which corresponds directly to a positive or negative sentiment about the character by the faction. Doing a quest for a specific faction will nearly always just garner you positive faction points for the factions involved, while killing members of other factions will result in a gain of faction points for the opposing faction, and a loss of points for the factions of the member you killed.

Faction points influence four things in the Shadowlands: first, they determine the behavior of a mob of a specific faction around you. Having positive faction will make them leave you alone in combat, and having extremely high faction related to that character may even make them come to your aid in combat if they see you fighting, though not against members of their own faction. Having negative faction points for a given faction will cause the members of that faction to avoid talking to you, or if your faction is low enough, attack you on sight. The second use of faction points is to gain access to gardens and portals. To use Ergo's portal in each zone of the Shadowlands, you must have enough faction points with the Guardian of Shadows, and to use the garden statues in each zone you must have enough faction with the Redeemed or Unredeemed. The third use of faction is to gain access to quests, some quests are only available to characters if they have enough faction points with a given group. The final use of faction is used in gaining Shadowknowledge (SK). Once a character starts gaining shadow levels, past level 200, their amount of faction relating to their governing faction for their side determines how much SK will be gained for each quest or each monster kill.

There are three main faction groups in the Shadowlands. The first is the Guardian of Shadows (GoS), which is represented by the robotic Ergo and his Yuttos followers, and is the supporting faction of the Neutrals in the Shadowlands. Ergo makes it possible to move between the the different areas of the Shadowlands and often gives out important information about the nature of the challenges ahead. Faction can be gained with GoS by killing Brink or void based monsters such as Hecklers, Cripplers, or Croakers. The second faction group is the Redeemed, or the Faithful, which supports the Clans, and is really three related groups:The Devoted, The Conservers, and the Redeemed. This group seeks to bring all species together in harmony and heal the rift in the world the ancient Xan created by accessing the Source. Faction points are gained for the Redeemed by doing quests for them or killing Unredeemed related monsters. The last faction group is the Unredeemed, or the Chosen, which support Omni-Tek, and are divided into The Followers, The Operators, and the Unredeemed. The Unredeemed seek further mastery over the Source and believe in power through deeds and example.

Mission: Test of Intelligence


DEPRECATED EXTENSION [AOICON]! CHANGE TO AODB!
Bring Mission
Objective: Bring supplies to Jobe's field operative. Well, at least that is what you are told, the real task here is to get you to use your grey matter on some problems. The first problem is where you need to find this operative at. The person you are searching for is Scientist Sarah Willis and she is tucked away in another cave like area in the region. The second problem is how to actually get the supplies to her in the first place, because once you find her, she seems to be guarded by a creature appropriately known as a Disrupting Imp. The first time we found Sarah's cave, Dravet rushed right in to give her the supplies only to be sent packing back to Borealis via the white-light express (aka he died painfully). After Dravet used his bracer to get back we figured we had a problem: since the Imp is so powerful, we needed a different approach to try and get the supplies to Sarah. We noticed that Assistant Brad Willis was standing nearby in his snazzy Jobe guard gear, so we thought we would chat him up about the problem. Brad immediately offered to help us out, for free no less, given that we would wait for him to engage the imp before we rushed in. Once Brad had walked to the cave and started fighting the Imp, we were able to slip in and talk to Sarah a moment before we jumped back to Drake for our final (or so we thought) assessment.

Quest Items: ID NOT FOUND Supplies

Reward: 360 credits, 195 XP, ID NOT FOUND Bonfire Kit.

Note: The Bonfire Kit is a social item that allows you to make a fire that lasts for a little while, but has no other benefits. It does not seem to be possible to get more charges of this item, so once you make all 50 fires, they are gone for good.
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Mission: The Brink


DEPRECATED EXTENSION [AOICON]! CHANGE TO AODB!
Find Mission
Objective: So the jig is up, and as it turns out, it seems like the Shadowlands are falling apart. Drake and company are extremely concerned about this, and after finding out that we were not complete morons (well, at least one of us) they want us to go out and look for some clues that will explain a little more about the situation. Lucky for us, Drake has no idea where he wants us to start looking, so Dravet figures we might as well just go out there and start shooting stuff, since it always seems to have worked out for him before.... and how can you argue with that?

We decided to travel to the east and southeast portions of the Brink area of the training grounds, and there we found hordes of Mortiigs, Cripplers, and Hecklers mobs all just waiting to pounce on us. After shooting around for a little while and gaining some experience, we moved closer to the edge of the Brink because Drake said that was the most problematic. Here we found a lot of big rocky looking things called Hecklers just sitting around and occasionally attacking and eating stray adventurers that wander past. We set about killing a lot of the Hecklers of Nature that were laying about and than decided to move around the brink region to see what we could see, and found a Heckler that was slightly different, called a Heckler of Evolution. Since we had killed all the other hecklers, we killed this one too, but upon attacking him, some Hecklers of Normality appeared out of no where and attacked us too.

After the tremendous beatdown, we found a Delicate Metal Device laying about in the ruins of the Heckler of Evolution. It seemed like the weird sort of thing that Drake might like, and we really didn't want Dravet using it as a coaster for his XXX-Plumbo Beer, so we took it back to Drake. Drake was overjoyed to have this little trinket and thought it might be a sign of an entire ancient civilization in the Shadowlands. Whoop-de-do. Drake does pay out though, and tells you to find Donna Red or XXX if you want to continue your explorations into the Shadowlands.

Quest Items:ID NOT FOUND Delicate Metal Device

Reward: 235 Experience, 440 Credits, ID NOT FOUND Smart Backpack
Ntgbrink.jpg Ntghecklerevo.jpg

Further Adventures

Sundance Smith

While Jobe is thought to be a primarily scientific community, they need to get the money to keep their city flying from some where; and that money comes from JAME. JAME stands for the Jobe Association of Metaphysical Explorers and they do a lot more than explore, they also are a prolific manufacturer of arms, armor, and other equipment. Sundance Smith is a representative of JAME and can help you get some what outfitted for your challenges in the Training Grounds by offering NCU, Belts, Ammunition, some food, and the ever popular Sundance Armor. Like her counter part at the ICC Shuttleport, Sundance Smith can also help you liquidate your ill gotten earnings that you have pillaged from the bodies of your dead foes. Brilliant!

The major thing of interest that Sundance Smith offers adventurers that come to her is her Sundance Armor, which is some of the best armor that a newbie can get at the level (beyond the sided newcomers armor) by giving excellent AC and lots of NCU to boot! It is also amazingly cheap (we think they make it out of the skin of failed newbies) and worth looking into.
Ntgsundancesmith.jpg

Bosses

The Leaders in the Training Grounds are very similar to ones we saw in the ICC Shuttleport but in the Shadowlands they represent a special type of monster called a Dynamic Boss, or as they are commonly known: Dyna Bosses. A Dyna Boss usually spawns in a camp of similar typed monsters with a unique name and often a unique look for a monster of its type. This tell us that they have better loot than their more 'plain jane' cousins... and well, maybe they are also a little tougher. Maybe.

Symbiants

See the expanded article: Symbiants


DEPRECATED EXTENSION [AOICON]! CHANGE TO AODB!

DEPRECATED EXTENSION [AOICON]! CHANGE TO AODB!

DEPRECATED EXTENSION [AOICON]! CHANGE TO AODB!

Bosses in the Training grounds will commonly drop strange items called 'Symbiants'. Symbiants are wonderful, magical items that are a lot like Implants, just much. more. powerful. These items were apparently manufactured by the ancient inhabitants of the Shadowlands to make themselves completely unstoppable, because symbiants give HUGE arrays of skills that are generally far beyond the normal three that implants give, as well as buffing aspects of the character that most implants do not buff like add XP%, damage bonuses, or Nano Range.

This said, there are a couple down sides to Symbiants. The first is that they are all level locked so that you need to attain a certain level to actually equip them. This also means that if you -really- need one skill to be very high in exclusion to most others than an implant is the way to go because it has no level locks. Second, Symbiants are locked to specific profession sets so that only the professions within the set can wear them, which might mean that while you will probably have a symbiant for a specific slot, it might not do what you need it to and you may not be able to use any others. Third, Symbiants have much higher requirements than normal implants, which include 3 required abilities instead of one, which will often make them unreachable even if you -do- have the level and profession needed to equip them. Fourth, higher and higher levels of symbiants are harder and harder to get because they come from powerful 'Pocket Bosses' which need to be spawned from tradeskill items.

Baring all these things Symbiants give huge advantages in power to those people who can use them, but the needs of your character should be weighed against the bonuses the symbiant gives when considering if you want a symbiant or a normal implant for your character. If you decide to use one, all you need to do is pop it in at a treatment clinic just like any other implant.

Symbiants.jpg

Tradeskills

Maps

Jobe trainingscenter map.jpg

--Berael 12:00, 18 July 2007 (PDT)
--Cirte 11:44, 13 April 2006 (CEST)