Hah! I love selling something that took about forty adventures to put together for 350,000 Meat.

What did you sell?

Presuming you know what to do with those 40 moves. Which I don't. I'm stuck just whacking shit/rats/goblins/haikus interspersed with the occasional interesting fumble like where I drop my tongs on my throat. : ouch :

Do you just "pick" ingredients / componenents and toss them together? I lack the necessary entreprenurial spirit, I think.

I tried sticking a few things together with meat paste, but I haven't found any winning combinations. I really thought the seal tooth and vampire hunter stake would be a big seller too.

Well, it helps (a) to be Ascended and (b) to have chosen a Moxie sign post-Ascension, as that gives me access to a zone that mere mortal folk can't find yet. A bit of tinkering and combining and getting lucky with monster drops and spoiler-reading and VOILA, a Deactivated MicroMechaMech familiar hits the Mall. I shall likely repeat this until the novelty wears off.

New zones almost always end up with sky-high prices for their items. For instance, one of the items that you can obtain post-Ascension as a Moxie sign is a Goth Kid T-Shirt. It's VERY easy to obtain; a common item that costs < 500 meat produces it if you've met its Ascension/sign prerequisite. I got mine, and sold it for 100K+ _before_ everyone else realized that anyone who could wear a Shirt in the first place could do the same.

Likewise, the Hovering Sombrero familiar was sky-high right after South Of The Border opened up. It dropped substantially once people realized that unlike the Spectral Pickle Factory, South Of The Border wasn't going away.

There are very specific "recipes" for combinations. Lots of things can be combined with meat paste to make other things, and those with the necessary skills and/or tools can craft meat weapons, turtle helmets, cocktails, food, jewelry, and other things. Spoiler sites help dramatically in doping out what's what and what'll be helpful, as does joining a clan with people in it who have such information / experience. Alternatively, experiment; if two items can't be combined with meat paste, the attempt costs you nothing and your paste isn't used up.

Other tips:

Play around in the Mall, searching for semi-random things. You'll be amazed at what people will sell for 10 meat at times, or at least a substantial discount.

Likewise, the Flea Market contains a huge number of both over- and under-priced items. Learn to tell the difference and you can make a lot of meat via unfettered capitalism, albeit slowly.

And never underestimate what lazy oldbies will pay for newbie items (razor-sharp lids, spider webs) that have a use much later in the game.

*doesn't even try to snatch the pebble from the master's hand on 'cause of account of writing all this good sh*t down*

*shakes out writer's cramp from hand*

*bows*

Yes, Master.

Look for "warm subject gift certificates". I bought 40 of these once for 10 meat each. Using them nets you around 400 each. :D

what's the value of recipes? should I make the drinks and drink them? sell them? just drink mad train wine? for that matter, how do you combine food items? meat paste doesn't work.

And what's ascension? I think I started my guy(s) the day before it happened. Am I ascended, or is it something I have to do myself?

Cooked stuff is (almost?) always better than the sum of its ingredients, so always cook stuff if you can.

Go to the market and buy an oven to cook stuff. You can also get a cocktailcrafting kit, but I'm pretty far along and haven't found much in the way of ingredients yet. I may not be looking in the right places, though.

Ascention is what happens when you "win" the game. You start over at level one, but you can keep one of your familiars and one of your skills, and you pick a new class. You can also place bragging-rights restrictions on your new runthrough, such as no food and/or alcohol. There's a few other things as well, but I haven't ascended yet.

I dropped a little money off in the clan coffer. Didn't really need it at this point. Buy something neat for us, like a Moxie trainer.

Another fun hint: once you've got the basics covered for your Clan (50K for the Meat Tree, the Gym, etc.), DO NOT deposit meat directly into the Clan coffers. Once it's in there, it can't come out, and it's only good for (a) clan warfare, which is useless, and (b) ridiculously expensive stat boosts.

Instead, deposit meat stacks (dense or otherwise) into the Clan Stash, as those can be reconverted into normal meat as necessary.

Cooking is much easier with a Chef-in-the-Box. Finding the parts for a Chef-in-the-Box is left as an exercise for the reader. (Hint: You need a brain to use it intelligently, something to put it in, something to put on that, something to put all of that in, and something to keep all of that in the something that you put all of that in, along with something the end product can cook with.)

Some recipes (those involving Dry Noodles or Scrumptious Reagents) require special skills to cook, belonging to Pastamancers and Saucerors respectively. No skill, no food.

Do you need anything special to find the brain? I know where they are, but haven't found any after many tries. Does the quest associated with that area have to be completed?

They drop when they feel like it. The monster type that drops them should be obvious when you see them.

Item drops in general aren't as frequent as they may have been in the old days. I haven't noticed _that_ much difference, but sometimes it seems like you're waiting forever for something in particular to pop up. I spent a day or two trying to get an Acoustic Guitarrr last week, for instance.

There are a few things that can help with that. Accordian Thieves can cast the Fat Leon's Phat Loot Lyric buff on you, which boosts your chances of drops. Disco Bandits can buy a skill that increases drops passively. The Baby Gravy Fairy familiar boosts your drop percentage, more so as it grows in weight. Some special items that require donations or megabucks (Mr. Accessory Jr., some of the esoteric familiars) can also help in that respect.

Likewise, Polka of Plenty, a Leprechaun familiar, and some other things add to the meat monsters drop.

I don't think there is a quest in the area where Disembodied Brains drop, so maybe you know and maybe you don't. ;)

I double checked on a spoiler site. There are two drop areas, and the one I wasn't going to (apparently the one you are referring to) looks like it has better alternate drops anyway, so I'll head over there.

I want my damn meat maid.

There is only one place where Disembodied Brains drop -- Fernswarthy's Tower. There, I said it.

Since we have some rank amateurs, some more unsolicited advice for 'em:

* A Familiar is your best friend.

The first thing any new player should save up and invest in is a Familiar-Gro Terrarium. Familiars are simply too useful to ignore, and some of them provide some fairly major benefits once they start to grow.

As a nudge, the following four items will get you on the right track to the most useful familiars:
* seal tooth (better stats)
* ten-leaf clover (better meat drops)
* fairy gravy (better item drops)
* cocoa eggshell fragment (general combat aid)

But all of them are useful in their own way. Try a few out.

* Capitalism is good.

Once you get access to the Flea Market (L3, I think) and the Mall (L5), you have access to _tons_ of items that you can't personally find or make yourself yet, and can view full item descriptions for them as well. Take full advantage of this.

Now, there are lots of items that are priced through the roof, as the general state of the KoL economy is still goofy. However, when you're starting out, you can often find low-level food and drink that will help, as both can be hard to find in early stages. Browse through the Flea Market, check out what's for sale, and think about what you may have found that might be used to make some yourself.

Likewise, if you can afford an equipment upgrade and have the stats to use it, don't be shy. You can always get more meat later, and that'll get you to the next area (where meat drops are often bigger) that much faster.

* Don't push too hard.

Like all RPGs, there is a certain degree of level-grinding to be expected in this game. You may get quests that you are physically unable to complete when you get them. If monsters in a new area are kicking your ass, hang out in easier areas and build your stats and/or equipment before trying again, or you'll spend half your time Beaten Up.

Resting can be useful. Resting with something better than The Ground to rest on is better still. The evil opposite of cheese can be somewhat helpful in getting there.

* Watch the moons.

The moons affect you in strange and mysterious ways, particularly when one or the other is full or both are in the same phase.


Oh, and I made a _Clockwork_ Maid today, twice as powerful as your puny Meat Maid, so nyahh. ;)

Curse the hint sites! They said the cemetary had 'em too.

lol

On a lark, I logged in and hit Fernswarthy's tower. 2nd click = disembodied brain.

Gimme some meat and I'll sell it to you HM.

edit: shoot, now I have 2. Brains galore in that there tower. You don't need to buy one from me, the floor is slick with them.

Excellent! My days of cleaning my own campsite are behind me!

level five seems so far away and receding...I know it's just the effect of diggin the game and only having a finite number of turns to play. makes gorging on the game difficult... boo hoo for me. ... what, no sympathy? hmphf.

I really enjoy being stuck with 44 adventures per day on my main. I may be able to get that up to... 49, unless I'm missing something. I was getting sick of the game when I was burning through 200+ a day.

Dammit, how much do you want? I just spent over 40 adventures in the damn tower and got bupkis.

Never mind! I got one!

:phttp://www.cellar.org/images/smilies/biggrin.gifhttp://www.cellar.org/images/smilies/thumb.gif
http://www.cellar.org/images/smilies/jig.gifhttp://www.cellar.org/images/smilies/jig.gif

I feel like the scarecrow!

I've got a meat maid, I've got a meat maid...

KEEP the brains! they are very useful! (as I'm sure you know..) I've built myself a meatmaid and am getting ready to build a chef in the box (after rollover).. yeah fernwarthys' and the cememtary are the only places I have found them thusfar...) and if you are looking for beer lenses (apparently pretty rare) the typical tavern.. although it's really easy to get drunk and lose your meat. . . . .

I succumbed.

My Disco Bandit, UnknownComic, is now at level 3. Guess I need to look into these clans...

The "The Cellar" clan offers a warm welcome...

Wow that was easy.. I just applied. Hmmm. OK now that I'm level 3 perhaps I should read some documentation.

Screw that. RTFM is for quitters.

I wonder what the ethical considerations of using my current clan to get all buffed up and get a bunch of goodies, then jumping to the cellar clan are.

Was that a sentence?

You would be a looter. And looters make Baby Jesus cry.

I did it twice!

Actually, I had very positive karma in each of my former clans, so I wouldn't say I looted much. I posted a farewell message before quitting, as well.

Well, I wouldn't just go taking the most valuable stuff. And I wouldn't load up right before leaving. Even if you're just balancing out your extra karma, appearance is everything.

Yeah. In fact, I think I also gave a farewell donation on my way out. Later on, I got a "you will be missed" PM in chat, even though I was only in the clan for two weeks or so.

Right on!

RTFM in some other life. It's not about the docs, it's all about the stoke, man. [/surfer dude]

How much meat are Baby Jesus Tears worth?

I'll pay 12 meat each.

If you aren't careful when harvesting them, he'll burn your house down.

good to know I'm not the only hopelessly addicted one around here, but then again I have gotten 3 guys at work to start playing.. can atleast one of them join the cellar clan? he's more into the figuring things out and making meat aspect, up until now I have been more of his 'goffer' (as well as getting my own quests done) it's been working well.. although I don't think he'd really post here (although a very bright man.. with a wicked sense of humour.. kinda in reply to the sum sum summertime thread). like I said I'll start dropping items off at the clan headquarters.. more than likely after rollover tonite (I'm playing the damn game right now...*sigh*)

WHO NEEDS A STINKIN MAINTENANCE WINDOW ANYWAY FER CRYIN OUT LOUD WHAT DO THESE PEOPLE THINK THEY'RE DOING MESSIN WITH MY PLAYTIME THAT'S WHAT!!!!! AAAAAAAARRRRRRGGGGGGGGHHHHHHH!!!!!!

Upon reflection, the change in bartender-in-the-boxes and other in-the-boxes that causes them to explode after n uses sucks monkey balls.

That is all.

I agree, and I haven't even made one yet.

Though one of my characters has a nothing-in-the-box and the other has a chef skull... I'm trying to play them as independant as possible.

Though I do buff my pastamancer with my turtle tamer.

they blow up?!?!? aww.. man... I just built my chef in a box.. is the limit random? or is there a set number of times? and think about it BigV if they didn't have that maintenance window.. we would all end up like those everquest/world of warcraft junkies.. only without the cool graffix

I bought a lottery ticket.

If I win, the clan wins. Beer and pizza on me.

Well I guess I'm getting into it... for the first time I ran out of adventure points! I guess I need to thing about strategies for getting more food & drink, which I didn't really bother with before.

I'll be up to level 4 tomorrow, so we'll see how my test at the guild goes then. I know how very few things work, including meat tress, so I was quite surprised to see the extra 500 meat when I logged on today--I splurged a couple hundred of it at the arena and wasn't able to beat anyone. (The levitating potato they had on the fight card yesterday was a pushover in the Ultimate Cage Match.) I'm trying to dump anything I'm not likely to use in the clan stash--I'm not 100% sure what those things are but if anybody sees anything on my inventory they can use speak up.

Speaking of clan stash...

I want to give to the group too. But I understand there's a clan hoard, where meat collects for CvC warfare (not just yet, I suspect) and a clan damn. lost the term. like stash hoard etc, but let you take meat out. like a locker. what is it? would we want it?

I wouldn't go throwing *too* much into the stash, things you don't think you need now become important later. Don't donate meat to the clan, do as VSP suggested above. We don't need to waste money on clan warfare, it's just about worthless. We already have everything a clan can purchase, so there really is no need.

And the *-in-the-box items blow up after ~80 uses. I think the range is 75-85. When they blow up, you get random parts back and a couple nasty dishes/drinks, which can sell for a lot of money, because some are used to earn trophies.

Well, I figure I can easily pop back to pick up anything later. But I'm still figuring out what's worth what--I bought a Double Beelzebub Burger for 450 at the flea market.. no idea if that's an OK price.

By the way I meant to ask, how the hell did the clan get so much meat in the first place? I don't know how much the meat tree and the calendar & gym gear cost, but I assume it was a lot, and there's 185 big ones left??? I'm sure meat's much easier to come by when you're higher than a lowly 3rd level accordion thief :angel: but I was still surprised by the amount.

Oh and my drunkenness level is 12, I figured I didn't have any adventure points left anyway. I'll attempt to duplicate that level in real life later tonight since I made a little stop on the way home!

Be wary of most food items that sound demonic, as they give adventures but REDUCE stats slightly. (Hell Ramen is the exception to that rule.) Find yourself an Evil Golden Arch, combine it with another one, and you'll have yourself an easy way of learning about Evil food.

Clan warfare is particularly pointless and not worth exploring. Major waste of meat.

Early on, look for things like kabobs, skewered cat appendices, hot wings, and tacos at reasonable prices. Pizzas are excellent at low-mid levels once you start digging up the ingredients to make better ones (sausage, goat cheese, mushrooms). Pastamancers have a natural advantage once they start creating Dry Noodles daily.

Drinks... well, the newcomers won't get a Tiny Plastic Sword any time soon, so never mind that. Once you start finding Bottles of booze (Gin, Tequila, Rum, Vodka, Boxed Wine, Whiskey) regularly, look for fruit and other things to cocktail-craft with them. Disco Bandits can enhance them further. Before and after that, beer is fine, if unspectacular.

I had about 100+ Little Paper Umbrellas left over in my stash from hordes of Shore trips, and made about 170K+ with them today converting Boxed Wine + Soda Water + LPUs into Horizontal Tangos and dumping them on the market. Blew up two Bartenders in the process, though.

I finally put together a Chef-in-a-Box, but I was already full... I cooked up a few tacos for tomorrow.

I've been paying in...this that and the other thing.. stevedalllas keep the faith and the humour.. it'll make sense.. think if ot as an AD&D joke ? make sense?

as a disco bandit..I'll do the dirty work for you baby.. for a cut

very little since you just threw mw 25K meat. free? uh advanced drinkmaking? i'm your cabana boy

Naughty Sorceress == Dead. Again. Did it as a L12 Disco Bandit, and I *heart* Wussiness Potions and my trusty Cocoabo.

Debating which skill I want to carry over. Mad Looting Skillz would seem to be the logical choice, but Disco Face Stab was _so_ useful in combat all along the way, and kept me going in nastier zones that would've otherwise been too hard for me at the time. Cocktailcrafting ain't what it used to be, so that's out. Definitely want to stay with a Moxie sign, though, as the Clockwork stuff you can get from that is choice.

Note to self: when Ascending, next time remember that you lose Liver of Steel, so drinking three Dirty Martinis upon regenerating means that you get to wait 'til tomorrow to use your 180+ turns...

Ouch! So you'll lose at least 20 off the bat!

I can live with that. (Only ate three Burritos, so it could've been worse.) I also took too much out of storage and forgot to take out my Mr. A, so maybe waiting a day to pull it and 19 other items out might not be a bad idea.

My Clockwork Maid, Clockwork Chef-in-the-Box and Bartender-in-the-Box are in place, though, along with a Cottage and a Beanbag Chair. I love the stat gains from high-end food/drink items -- haven't moved a step from the beginning and I'm already level 3.

My Pastamancer is slogging through a slower grind, but that doesn't surprise me much.

Will I naturally find out how to build all these dandy contraptions, or should I start digging for info? (It's nice to have help, but more fun to figure it out yourself, so I tend to not go digging in the forums for every single thing.)

Funny you should mention AD&D.... I hung out with a group who played it in late high school & college. (Some overlap in people there.) My characters always seemed to die early, so I kind of stopped playing and hung out and drank and kibbitzed.

VERY spoilerish, but it's a nice site and I've used it on occasion when I was stuck:
http://kol.thraeryn.org/wiki/Main_Page
Recipes, familiars, quests locations. It's all there. It's a LOT more fun to experminet though, I think.

you're welcome