before we continue (and by we, i mean the whole one of you that read this blog!), i should briefly show and try to explain tools.
each resource has its own set of tools that need to be used to harvest and process. usually there are only 3 tools that will be needed to do a complete job: the basic tool for harvesting (mining pickaxe for metal, stone, and gems, a tree axe for wood, essence siphon for essence, etc.); a tool for next stage processing (smithing tongs to make metal bars, stone chisel for bricks, etc.); and a final tool for making finished products (smithing hammer for basic metal, masonry trowel for stone construction, etc.).
to harvest the iron ore needed to make the bars, i use the following:

tools are tiered, like everything, and you have to make a certain level in the particular skill to use it. mithril is the highest expert level metal to work (masters can make adamantium tools, but that is beyond me), so my mining and/or quarrying must be at least 800 to use it.

after i have harvested the ore (as i detailed in an earlier post), i then use my smithing tongs at a smelter in a workstation to make the bars:

these i had equiped at the time i took the screenie. but you can still see that my smelting skill must be at least 800 to use this mith tool.

in order to make and apply metal construction resources, you will need one of these:

since i am only about level 68 in fitter, i am limited to using a cobalt mallet. once i get to 800 skill in fitting, i can make myself a mith mallet. lower tier tools, weapons, armour, etc. do have a limiting effect, as you can see. cobalt is limited to only giving experience for skill proficiency under 850 - once your skill level reaches that limit, you will not get experience for using the tool or whatever.

once you have made the bars from your load of ore, you transfer the made bars to your disk and detach by cliking the chain button to the right of the equipment slot:

once you detach, an arrow will appear next to the equipment spot for it, and will always point in the direction you left it. hovering the pointer over the arrow will also give you approximate distance. you can also find it on your map, where it will appear as a white dot.

then you need to run back and forth between the iron field and the mws, making bars until you decide you have enough bars:

depending on how far the iron field is from the mws, your patience for running back and forth, and how quickly you want to get the job done, you may decide how many bars you need to be worthwhile processing.

once the bars are made, its time to make some joints! this is basically the same as making bars.
first you select the jointing form and select iron joints:

'advanced' finished products require a lot of basic resources to make. for instance, as you can see, it takes 20 iron bars to make one iron jointing:

once you make as many joints as you can, you move the finished resources to the disk:

its hard to see, but the load of bars only made 98 joints. therefore, once you have moved them to the disk, you need to rinse and repeat the process - from gathering ore to making the joints - until you have a full disk of joints.

in the next - and last - installment, i will show you how to apply the joints to a building under construction. see you in a couple days!

i haven't been in game lately, because i have been making xmas gifts this year (snake assures me that handmade gifts are the best, but i still feel guilty not being a good american and spending tons of money i don't have...). finally i am done, and i proudly present to you

the xmas bunch!

since i am a firm believer in totem animals, i tried to create buttonfaces that had an animal theme for the particular person....

my mom loves frogs, so she got the frogdragon:

like me, my sister is a cat person. her buttonface was also my first 'directional' pattern - i had to think carefully while laying out the pattern to make sure i had all the cats going in the same direction. as you can see, i failed on the tail and the scruff of the neck, but overall, i am pleased with how it turned out:

snake is a bovine young man, so he gets the cowdragon:

my godfamily is in love with arthurian mythos, and so we call my godson king arthur. i choose the most regal fabric i had and call his buttonface the pendragon (of course):

finally, my goddaughter has been called 'fish' since before she was born (pm me for the story - its not dirty or anything, just prolly not suitable for younger players!), so naturally she gets the fishdragon:

all in all, i am happy with them. i stuffed them with the fiberfill instead of the beans, to save money and to use stock up. i actually kinda like it....its good for young kids (can't swallow the beans) and light enough to throw at the cats without hurting them, if you are into that sort of thing....
 

At Xan's lair, it the guests who will be for dinner....

Home For Dinner

Notes: Shhussh, don't tell the turkey..... but Xanthia just trying to fatten him up for later.
__________________

I lurk within the depths of your mind, for I am INSANITY!

once you are at the resource field and have your disk equipped, you are ready to start the tedious process of filling up your disk with the raw ore.
the first step in the process is selecting the resource node you want to harvest from:

most fields of resources will have more than one choice of resources, especially once you get past tier 2 level resources. for instance, the resources you can find in the summit field are, in addition to iron nodes - nickel (combined with iron to make steel), gold, amber azulyte, citrine, jasper, rose quartz, and amethyst.
of course you need the right tools to do work in horizons. if you try to harvest, say, elm with a mining pick, you will get a message stating you can't harvest with the currently equipped tool. this is the usual way you discover you haven't stopped at the vault to change tools for the job at hand....
once you are ready, you start swinging away at the node in question, until it runs out or until you have filled up your inventory:

your game chat window will show you how much you get with each swing (in the above pic, its the lower right chat window). you will also get bonus material - sometimes it will be what you are harvesting, but it can also be resources of the same tier or of the next tier (for instance, while hitting the iron, i can get nickel, silver, or even gold. if i was hitting the nic nodes, i would be getting cobalt ore as a bonus). since i am making the iron ore go to my disk, you can see the ore filling up the disk by following the blue bar to the left of the disk screen (you can't see the numbers at the bottom of the visual within the cargo disk window - its very small - but the count will also be visible).
so this is the boring part. you hack and slash your way across the field until you fill your inventory with ore. since you prolly have a full disk and are overburdened, it will be a long slow run to a processing area:

for metal, you process ore into bars and then into finished resources like iron construction joints at a metal workstation (abbreviated to mws by me). game workstations can be partial or complete. a partial ws will have only the most basic capability (for metal, this is smelting - there will be a smelter machine only to make raw ore into bars), a complete ws will have the capabiliity to make all available products (a smelter for making bars and an anvil for making the finished product). this is a biped mws:

on the left, you can see the anvil and on the right is the smelter. draggys have a different set of workstations and usually can't use ped machines and vice versa. draggys have forges instead of anvils and their own smelters, etc. i will do a series on draggy crafting at a later date - crafting quests are a good way to show that. draggys also have their own construction skewl, known as lairshaping, as they can't really use ped plots and have their own lairs to buy and build.
once you get to the ws, its time to make some iron bars.  i try to make a point of keeping the formulas of whatever i am currently making on my hotkeys, but you can always access forms, spells, and techniques from your knowledge page. however you access the form for making iron bars, you call up your 'make bars' formula and select iron:

you have to be within range of the machine you want to use and have the right tool selected.  the game will let you know when you are within range of the appropriate machine, but will not automatically equip the right tool. you can hotkey the tool or you can choose to have the game equip the best tool in your inventory for the job. most peeps do not carry around every tool they have, so its easy enough to arrange to only have the optimal tools in your inventory:

your form will tell you how much raw ore you need to make a bar. this will vary according to skill level, of course. for example, i need 2 pieces of iron ore to make one iron bar. this is the best you can get (on single need resources, that is. to make steel, for instance, i would need 2 pieces of nic ore and one piece of iron ore to make one steel bar). starting out on a new tier, you will usually only be able to harvest 1 piece of ore at a time and will need 5 pieces of ore to make one bar. hence, 'the grind'.........
you can also make as many units as you want. you would use the 'batches' slider bar to make a number of finished bars or you can use the upward arrow button to make the max amount you can:

once you have everything selected, you are are ready to make your iron bars. clik the create button and voila!!:

since you now have an empty disk and an inventory full of iron bars, at this point you transfer the bars to the disk and detach. much more tedium ensues as you run back and forth between the resource field and the mws making bars. once you have a full load of bars, you can begin to make the finished product - in this case, iron joints, but that is for next time......

currently, while waiting for my desired plot to open up so i can start building on it, i am trying to help some friends out with their plots. this requires being in a construction skewl. these are known as 'prestige' skewls - by that i mean, you must be at least level 20 in the base 'parent' skewl. for most of the construct skewls, this is blacksmith.
there are 5 biped construct skewls: carpenter (wood, of course), fitter (metal work), mason (stone work), weaver (fabric/hide work), and enchanter (essence work):

your character page will always show your current skewls at the top of the section and in different colored text. as you can see, i am 100 in blacksmith, 93 in mason, 79 in carpenter, etc.
as you can see, i am already in fitter, but i will pretend i am not so i can show you the process. first step, port to mahagra, where the fitter trainer is:

as with all skewls, you must visit a trainer to switch to that skewl:

the trainer will give you some very basic info about the skewl and then ask if you want to join:

once you clik the link, the trainer will tell you that you have now joined the skewl, and if you are trying it for the first time, offer you some training tools (which really suck and must be replaced asap if you have to take them. that's why i leveled blacksmith, so i can make all my own tools....):

now it just remains to run out to the iron field and get to work! everyone has their fave place to mine resources. for iron, nickel, and gold, i like summit. its not everyone's cup of tea, but it suits me! so i cast swift feet and make the run from maha to summit. DO NOT EQUIP YOUR DISK FOR THE RUN TO THE FIELD! no need to be unnecessarily handicapped by the speed penalty of the disk!
i love my cargo disk - affectionally known as the floating silo. its massive and its awesome!! again, cargo disks are a matter of choice - some peeps like to have the ability to store more than one resource on a disk. personally i like to have the ability to store a crapload of one resource:

you have to equip the disk before you can use it, altho if you have it in your inventory and start to gather resources, it will fill up the disk before showing anything in your inventory. this can lead to confusion, if you are the eternal noob like me:

here is what my precious looks like. your disk floats behind you and usually stays out of your sight. this too can be fun, especially when you detach it and then forget to reattach the loaded disk until you have ported 3 times to the place you were supposed to be hauling it...altho, it costs money to port with a disk, so your first clue should be the port pad not showing the right fee to port (for instance, it costs me 600cp to port a full disk to bristugo, which is normally free to port to without a disk). also, you can't recall with any type of disk, and some don't allow you to port at all. this would be okay, if you could equip more than one disk at a time, which you can't, of course:

that's enough for now! next time i will post the slow and tedious task of gathering iron ore to make bars. still not done after that, so expect more fun soon!!

The Sniffles

Notes: Tissues are useless against the flaming snots of doom!
__________________

I lurk within the depths of your mind, for I am INSANITY!

one of our more dedicated players (read: fanatic!) is a great comix artist. her gamename is xanthia, and here is what wonders she has given us so far (in order of appearance):

august 17th: small pakages equals trouble
Small Pakages Equals Trouble

Notes: Seriously, why is it that we can bring dung to life and those giant crystals anchored to chains.... yet mimics have somehow fallen through the cracks? I demand to be eaten by a chest!
Also, drawing a box the same size in different panels is hard. :B

august 25th:
Armor of Imperviousness

Notes: Drawing people is a personal challenge I hope to vanquish one day.
That and portraying simple actions like shoving someone. @_@

september 1st:
Fun with the Hound

Notes: Prolonged exposure to Blight Hounds may result in hair loss, extra limbs, loss of limbs, tumors, sterilization and a painful death.

september 8th:
Stripping Your Dignity

Notes:
If the censor bar bothers you, just be happy I didn't go with the "leaf" they use to use in old cartoons. ^^
Also, DARN THOSE FIENDS!

september 15th:
In Istaria, chickens eat you.

Turnabout

september 22th:
Advertisment 101

Notes: You can also consider this as a jab or nod to recent advertising threads, a past post about dragon wear (http://community.istaria.com/forum/s...dragon+clothes) and an even older one pretaining to dragon gender ^^ (http://community.istaria.com/forum/s...+female&page=2)

september 29th:

Quote:
".. we need your help. We'd like to hear from you about your ideas for what 2009 should be. Remember that your suggestion for "theme of the year" will have to be one that can be interpreted in artistic form (So a theme like "The Year of we conquered Vista" may be accurate, but probably won't translate well into the game world). "

PAIN in the-

In response to the growing outcrys of people getting "booted" right out of the game.

october 6th:
Ever wonder why dragons can't have pets in Istaria?
It cause they make lousy pet owners. ^^

Off the Edge

Notes: No saris were harmed in the making of this comic.

october 13th:

For those wondering what became of our furry friend.

Off the Edge Part 2

Notes: Don't worry. He is Gifted. Atleast I hope so......

october 20th:

Pull my Finger

Notes: *Holds up a sign that reads, "Will do art for zombie toes".*

november 10th:
To the Death

Notes: Because who needs tooth and claw when you have a large backside.

we all have sorta made this a regular feature, in that we won't let xanthia stop making them!!
i will be post them as they come!!! if you like, i will pass on any comments!