Tobold's Blog
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
 
Free Realms - Finished mining / blacksmithing

After having received friendly advice from a reader who told me that you don't actually have to enter the haunted mines to find the hilt of the Summersaber for the level 20 blacksmithing quest series, I finished those quests last night. That involved getting mining up to level 20 as well, as you needed gems from gold mines which are only accessible at level 20. While the whole quest series was fun enough, the final reward was a huge disappointment: The legendary Summersaber turns out to be a "white name" level 5 ninja weapon with worse stats than the "green name" level 5 ninja sword I already had the recipe for.

It appears as if the quest series is planned to be a requirement for further blacksmithing content. But right now the NPC you are getting send to at the end basically tells you that this content isn't implemented yet, and you should wait for some content patch.

So after having reached the level cap in mining and blacksmithing, and finished all the quests, I have a pretty good idea about how useful mining / blacksmithing is. As you need different weapons for every job, being able to smith your own weapons is useful enough, but only if you don't want to spend $5 per job for a level 1 weapon which is better than the best level 20 weapon you can smith. Beyond making weapons, mining / blacksmithing is a great combination to get gold and treasure tickets. The supplies you need to buy and add to smelt the ore into bars, and smith the bars into weapons, cost less than the sell price of the weapons you make. The ore and gems you get for free from the mining game. Thus if you mine, smelt, and smith all day, and sell the weapons you made to a vendor, you'll end up with a lot of gold.

And even me, who isn't the world's fastest button masher or greatest puzzle game player, I can manage a lot of goals and secondary goals in the various mini games of this process, getting rewarded with treasure tickets every time. The treasure tickets are used in a cave under the bridge leading to the main city, Sanctuary, to exchange for random treasures. There is a royal vault for non-members, and a royal deluxe vault for members, and each contains three chests. The first gives a random level 1 to 4 item for 10 treasure tickets, the second a random level 5 to 14 item for 20 treasure tickets, and the last a random level 15 to 20 item for 30 treasure tickets. The chests respawn quickly, so you can take the same chest repeatedly. I usually go for the middle chest, because in the mid-levels gears is most useful to help you to advance. Of course the rewards being random means you can end up with gear you don't need, but then you can sell it and get gold instead.

Of course you don't need mining / blacksmithing to make gold and treasure tickets, there are other ways in Free Realms to get those. The average quest gives you 31 gold and 5 tickets. But I'd say that with smithing you get gold and tickets faster, and it's repeatable, you don't have to run around looking for quests you didn't do yet. Ultimately it depends on how much you like or dislike the mini-games of the various mining and smithing activities.
Comments:
Thanks for actually explaining what Treasure Tickets are for and where to redeem them. I saw the arrow pointing to the Vault but it took me a few minutes to figure out it was under the city. Being addicted to the TCG I prefered to challenge the NPC to a fight rather than spend more time to find the vault.

I find that although the first tutorials guide a new player well enough and every minigame has a lot of help, some questions remain. Without websites, like wowhead, one has to waste some time to figure out where to go in order to say, train to be a ninja or find the NPC who can train you to be a card duelist.
 
Bunches of berries vendor for 6g each, and you get an average of 12-15 bunches of berries (and probably more) per harvesting game, depending on how good you are at it. At 72g+ per game, it's the best gold-grind I've found in FR, perfect to afford all that pet shampoo LOL.

On a side-note, somebody at SOE really, REALLY, like Bejewelled.
 
I'll also point out a really fast combo of getting treasure tickets, if you don't mind losing out on some gold. In Blackspire swamp, there's a repeatable quest, that asks you to mine and hand over 5 silver ore (trivial for any decent miner to get in a mining session). It gives as a reward a small amount of coins--and 5 treasure tickets. Combine this with the normal treasure ticket flow from doing mining well, and you have an even better source of tickets.
 
I just signed up for membership to free realms yesterday via the TCG's starter pack free month and started leveling blacksmithing. I have enjoyed it so far as a profession. I had leveled mining up to lvl 16 before I signed up and I have to say it is a relief to be using all those bars and gems instead of them just sitting in my inventory.
 
"...but only if you don't want to spend $5 per job for a level 1 weapon which is better than the best level 20 weapon you can smith."

That right there is the killer for me in any game that offers RMT. Its the exact opposite of what RMT should bring to a game.
 
I can understand the point of buying a $5 weapon for combat professions (do more damage vs. mobs), but what is the advantage for non-combat professions like cooking and mining. Does a super-mining-pickaxe generate more ore or jewels on the board for you, or cause the dynamite to explode more blocks?

If there's no point to RMT weapons in non-combat professions, then the RMT advantage is limited to: brawler, warrior, archer, ninja, wizard (as far as I know). $25 for 5 weapons.
 
Thanks again Tobold for turning me on to Free Realms. I've been burned out on WoW for a while and found myself playing this game for 3 hours last night!

I'll admit that I did buy the RMT weapon since it does help with leveling my combat job, but the rest of the items seemed mostly cosmetic or altered an attribute I don't understand yet. That one little change opened up the game for me and I found myself taking it more serious than I had at first blush.

I'll admit that I don't mind spending the occasional $5 or $10 on content considering what I spend on cigarettes in the States. If I were to complain about spending money on a game despite spending money on an unhealthy vice, then I really don't have my priorities together.

Anyway, thanks again for bringing this to my attention. Also thanks to the commenter who pointed me to the FR Wiki which was most helpful.
 
Medic is a combat profession as well, btw. I too have to admit to being mystified as to what the non-combat stats accomplish. From what I recall there is a power stat, a stat with stop watch and one with a hammer, but what do they do? How do they help in the mini games? If anyone has an answer, I'd love to hear it. I don't want to collect all that gear just to look pretty, though that is a nice side effect.
 
>>If I were to complain about spending money on a game despite spending money on an unhealthy vice, then I really don't have my priorities together.


Wow...just...wow.

I'm glad that Free Realms's is going to be the device that enables you to finally stop smoking.... o.O
 
Kadav: I don't know what the hammer does, but atleast the star allows star drops from the top of the screen when you destroy stuff in the minigame, and the watchclock gives you more time in the beginning of the game afaik.
 
Tobold, have you checked out the leaderboards yet? It may interest you to know that they haven't been working properly since launch.

Check your highest score in your favorite game and see if you can beat it. Odds are it will not update and your "high score" on the website was probably earned when you weren't as good as you may be now.
 
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