Nicholas the Traveler - Location Discussion (Updated Mondays)
Olof
Neither has mine, im betting its more average than unlucky
TheRaven
Ruby Djinns???? Seriously?? ARRRrrrghhh!!!!! I spent all week killing these things. I got about 60 Ether claws, 4 Ether hearts and I think i may have 2 Ruby Essences laying around from the week.
Sigh, no rest for the weary. But I would like a change of scenery
Sigh, no rest for the weary. But I would like a change of scenery
Puddin Cheeks
next week will be rubies, then i will lol my ass off.
MisterB
No, no, spot the pattern. Nick will ask for diamond djinn essence, but he'll wait a week or several so everyone has trashed them already.
TheRaven
LOL, not me.... I'm saving all essences. The problem is that until last week I had never seen a Diamond essence drop. I have 1 of them now.
aspi
I hope it's sapphire, got lots of those now.
Skawtt
Yuck. Currently finishing up my cartography of Elona so if I get any Ruby Djin essence I'll throw some his way.
lilDeath
Well... I thought I'd share the adventure of my first run through Hidden City with the Gift of the Djinn quest active.... 1.5 hrs later (yes, it might be slow, but I ran through the whole map looking for extra pop-ups, in fact there are even 2-3 'normal' pop-ups not popping), anyway here it is...
1 Ruby Djinn Essence
1 Ether Heart (farmed only a few in the starting area)
1 Ether Claw (farmed only a few in the starting area)
9 Sapphires Djinn Essences
49 iron ingots
10 Steel ingots
1 Ancient Lodestone (farmed only a few in the starting area)
2 Lockpicks
4 Golds
10,107 gold
328 Glittering Dust
1300 LB Points
129 Foes killed
Now... ONE Ruby Djinn Essence... granted there are more Sapphire Djinns in the area, but ONE Ruby Djinn Essence??!!?! ... this does not bode well - gonna be one hell of a tough farming week!
I would say Good Luck, but we will need more than that!
1 Ruby Djinn Essence
1 Ether Heart (farmed only a few in the starting area)
1 Ether Claw (farmed only a few in the starting area)
9 Sapphires Djinn Essences
49 iron ingots
10 Steel ingots
1 Ancient Lodestone (farmed only a few in the starting area)
2 Lockpicks
4 Golds
10,107 gold
328 Glittering Dust
1300 LB Points
129 Foes killed
Now... ONE Ruby Djinn Essence... granted there are more Sapphire Djinns in the area, but ONE Ruby Djinn Essence??!!?! ... this does not bode well - gonna be one hell of a tough farming week!
I would say Good Luck, but we will need more than that!
qvtkc
Next week better be charr hides 
karlik
Quote:
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Originally Posted by byteme!
You all seem to have this illusion that every week is supposed to be easy.
Reality check please. |
I ain't even gonna try this week.
aspi
Quote:
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Originally Posted by lilDeath
Well... I thought I'd share the adventure of my first run through Hidden City with the Gift of the Djinn quest active.... 1.5 hrs later (yes, it might be slow, but I ran through the whole map looking for extra pop-ups, in fact there are even 2-3 'normal' pop-ups not popping), anyway here it is...
1 Now... ONE Ruby Djinn Essence... granted there are more Sapphire Djinns in the area, but ONE Ruby Djinn Essence??!!?! ... this does not bode well - gonna be one hell of a tough farming week! I would say Good Luck, but we will need more than that! |
Shadowphoenix
Quote:
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Originally Posted by qvtkc
Next week better be charr hides
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He already asked Charr Hides before on July 13, 2009 so I doubt it will ask again.
Memnon
Hm.. I have 38 Ruby essence's, and 90something diamond essences. 
Raven Wing
Be creative and think Since my spiritspammer who has farmed almost all nicky gifts since august dont have access to desolation I took out my good old 55 nec. Took me about 1h to get the 5 essences. In crystal overlook near the gate to prophecies there are a nice lot of mixed ruby and sapphire djinn. Zone in and out, rinse and repeat. You need heroes to get there but they can be parked near the forgotten guy and then you solo the things.
Or try a spiritspammer and cast pi while they nuke the spirits....splattt
One of my guildies took his para, bought some spirit skills and soloed them that way.
Not easy but not THAT hard either.
I think its better than these ethers since the ethers drop 3 different items.
Since my spiritspammer who has farmed almost all nicky gifts since august dont have access to desolation I took out my good old 55 nec. Took me about 1h to get the 5 essences. In crystal overlook near the gate to prophecies there are a nice lot of mixed ruby and sapphire djinn. Zone in and out, rinse and repeat. You need heroes to get there but they can be parked near the forgotten guy and then you solo the things.Or try a spiritspammer and cast pi while they nuke the spirits....splattt
Not easy but not THAT hard either.
I think its better than these ethers since the ethers drop 3 different items.
The Drunkard
This week was such a pain... took forever to get the essence with nothing notable from the gifts );
Sookie
There is nothing that anyone can say that will change my mind on this fact: Arena-Net "monkeys" with the drop rate when Nicholas moves. I said it earlier in the summer of 2009 on another fansite and Regina was quick to say that it was not true, but I don't believe her.
Today while farming for Ruby Djinn Essences, I picked up 4 claws, 3 hearts, 2 sapphire djinn essences and NO Ruby djinn essences. This was on 2 trips covering The Mirror of Lyss.
Last week, it took me 20 passes to get 5 hearts. Facts are facts.
Today while farming for Ruby Djinn Essences, I picked up 4 claws, 3 hearts, 2 sapphire djinn essences and NO Ruby djinn essences. This was on 2 trips covering The Mirror of Lyss.
Last week, it took me 20 passes to get 5 hearts. Facts are facts.
Dzjudz
And random is random...
optymind
I got 5 in under 35 minutes of farming.
dr_ishmael
Yeah, this is a LOT easier than Roaring Ethers, mostly because you can farm them without having to deal with the stupid resurrecting Ethers. On the path from Bone Palace to Nick, there are 4 pairs of Djinn that can be either Sapphire or Ruby, and they can be farmed with pretty much any reasonable farming build. I got 5 in under an hour.
mrvrod
If they're gonna keep up with some of these ridiculous drops (Yes Ether Hearts sucked!) then I want an option where I can pass on the gifts in that week by going out and killing Nicholas and his animal lover!
Fox Mulder
I've noticed the Nicholas the traveler craze ended quickly. Anet has us farm, YES I KNOW IT"S VOLUNTARY CHILDREN, for hearts that took 2 humans & 3 heroes 16 trips for 10. That was extremely good considering some of the disgusted posts in local chat! We also killed several ruby djinns along the way & also took out some in Forum Highlands yesterday during the boss bounty. We had maybe 2 essences that got salvaged! This endless grind is driving a guildie & me to scrabble, yahtzee & monopoly on Pogo. How about giving us a damn heads up on the following weeks grind? There is a dissatifaction looming w/ GW from many players & since ncsoft has suckered the cash from us there is little recourse except not buying GW2! Who loves getting a firewater or creme from the z-chest? Or a non max weapon? Lockpicks are expensive & it takes at least 5 to get a Q9 gold that sells for maybe 2k. This all goes to ncsoft just not caring anymore. Many of you have probably bought something from me in the past. When my storage is empty I will no longer be in Kamadan d1 selling. Good luck finding that Q9 fire wand people....
tmakinen
(about the probability of not getting a single rare drop from the gifts so far)
I actually decided to calculate this. If Nic was introduced on Apr 23, 2009 then there has been 39 rounds of gifts, 5 gifts per round. The wiki drop rate research page gives a combined probability of 0.0166 for a rare drop (might be biased but sounds about right). Then the probability of not getting a single rare drop (any weapon, mini, spider egg, EL crate or tonic) is P = (1 - 0.0166)^(5 * 39) = 0.038
Thus, 96.2% of accounts that haven't missed a week of Nic farming should have received at least one rare drop which puts me firmly in the unlucky category
Quote:
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Originally Posted by Olof
Neither has mine, im betting its more average than unlucky
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Thus, 96.2% of accounts that haven't missed a week of Nic farming should have received at least one rare drop which puts me firmly in the unlucky category
Fril Estelin
Not sure if I'm an exception or an example showing that we don't have the numbers right, but I probably missed only 4 or 5 weeks and got an EL cottontail, Bo Staff, Walking Stick and Moss Spider Egg. If I were to calculate the odds of getting all that, I'd think it's impossible.
tmakinen: you've been unlucky with Nick, but did you by any chance get something great from somewhere else? e.g. Zchest, rare drop, MPB, etc.
tmakinen: you've been unlucky with Nick, but did you by any chance get something great from somewhere else? e.g. Zchest, rare drop, MPB, etc.
MaaKotka
tmakinen: you aren't only one who has been very unlucky in GW. I have missed 2 weeks with nick and I have't got any rare drops from him, only consumables. Also I didn't get MPB in about 200 runs I did. Neither have I got any rare drops from zchest with 510 zkeys used.
tmakinen
Quote:
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Originally Posted by Fril Estelin
Not sure if I'm an exception or an example showing that we don't have the numbers right, but I probably missed only 4 or 5 weeks and got an EL cottontail, Bo Staff, Walking Stick and Moss Spider Egg. If I were to calculate the odds of getting all that, I'd think it's impossible.
tmakinen: you've been unlucky with Nick, but did you by any chance get something great from somewhere else? e.g. Zchest, rare drop, MPB, etc. |
P(M,N) = P(1,1)^M * (1 - P(1,1))^(N - M) * N! / (M! * (N - M)!)
where ^ is exponentiation and ! is the factorial. Thus, the probability of getting at least K items in N independent tries is
Q(K,N) = 1 - Sum_{i=0}^{K-1} P(i,N)
which suggests that about 40% of all the accounts that never missed an opportunity have received at least 4 rares by now. You seem to be squarely in the average bin, Fril, give or take an egg
Also, my account seems to be permanently unlucky, there haven't been any lucky drops to 'compensate' (and it doesn't even work that way). When I wanted a mini celestial, I had to burn about 1400 tickets before I finally got one (when the expectation value was 300). I wonder if the Unlucky title has a hidden effect after all, since it used to be by far the most difficult PvE title to max. Maybe the devs thought 'well, if somebody actually manages to max the Unlucky title then s/he has surely gotten more than his/her fair share of the good stuff already, so why don't we balance it out a bit?'
Fril Estelin
Quote:
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Originally Posted by tmakinen
N independent tries
.... there haven't been any lucky drops to 'compensate' (and it doesn't even work that way).' |
But I feel sad for you (anyone playing long enough should have had a good chance to get something really cool). You should definitely file a ticket to support
.Back OT: it's funny, I'll try to farm this week the same groups as last week where I remember getting 1 or 2 ruby essences (finally ended up buying them last week).
Tenebrae
Quote:
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Originally Posted by Fril Estelin
Back OT: it's funny, I'll try to farm this week the same groups as last week where I remember getting 1 or 2 ruby essences (finally ended up buying them last week).
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- Hey remember those groups you killed to get prev nic item ? now all that stuff you sold to merch is req to nic this week !! hahahaha , i bet you feel good now.
BS ..... next week , ether claws ? damn it.
Snograt
Quote:
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Originally Posted by Snograt
Hmm, three weeks on the trot that I haven't bothered to grind for trophies.
Let's hope today's are somewhat more easily obtainable. |
Kumu Honua
Just wait till he asks for things like bleached shells.
aspi
Quote:
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Originally Posted by Snograt
Needless to say, this now makes it four weeks.
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qvtkc
Quote:
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Originally Posted by Shadowphoenix
He already asked Charr Hides before on July 13, 2009 so I doubt it will ask again.
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Next week better be charr carvings (Ascalon version)
ShivaTwoDelta
Quote:
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Originally Posted by Fox Mulder
I've noticed the Nicholas the traveler craze ended quickly. Anet has us farm, YES I KNOW IT"S VOLUNTARY CHILDREN, for hearts that took 2 humans & 3 heroes 16 trips for 10. That was extremely good considering some of the disgusted posts in local chat! We also killed several ruby djinns along the way & also took out some in Forum Highlands yesterday during the boss bounty. We had maybe 2 essences that got salvaged! This endless grind is driving a guildie & me to scrabble, yahtzee & monopoly on Pogo. How about giving us a damn heads up on the following weeks grind? There is a dissatifaction looming w/ GW from many players & since ncsoft has suckered the cash from us there is little recourse except not buying GW2! Who loves getting a firewater or creme from the z-chest? Or a non max weapon? Lockpicks are expensive & it takes at least 5 to get a Q9 gold that sells for maybe 2k. This all goes to ncsoft just not caring anymore. Many of you have probably bought something from me in the past. When my storage is empty I will no longer be in Kamadan d1 selling. Good luck finding that Q9 fire wand people....
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Fact is GW is getting old and Arenanet has ruined many things in this game.
The introduction of heros, the lack of inspiration in GW:EN (dungeons copying eachothers floors, wtf?), the solofarm nerf and so on. It's ingame economy has colapsed, and now only a few items are worth to go "wts" for. I remember 2006, Rago's flame staff = 90k!
Today? Noone wants it. And if they do, it'll be for a very low price.
Why? Well, they can get destroyer weapons, tormented weapons and every engame gives you another green weapon on top.
Sorry I go offtopic a lil maybe, but to me Guild Wars has been the most played game for over 4 years now (+7000 hours) and I saw it slowly changing from the excellent game it was into a title-hunting infected community who forgot what the game was about. The lack of skill in general in pugs today is significant and an indicator that it's best days are far behind us.
I've farmed with a friend for Nicholas' presents every week since he popped up the first time. We are quite persistent and refuse to give up after 4 hours of poor drops. But every week the level of disappointment grows bigger when we receive yet another pile of Merchantile summons and a couple transformation consumables.
O well, I guess it's up to each of us to decide if the farm is worth your time knowing the reward is most likely not gonna make up for it. Personally I went through all campaigns with over 10 characters and they all have a large equipment bag through zaishen coins. I dont join HA (I'm r6 and can't stand the idiots going need r10 or nap, kick nap pl0x), in RA (glad5) it gets so tideous to rank up especially with the amount of unexperienced players, so yah.. Nicholas is perhaps the only thing I and many others look forward to every week. The question is: for how long?
Snograt
Quote:
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Originally Posted by aspi
Before the ether hearts it was gold doubloons or something? I got those 5 in two runs, I wasn't even running for the traveller but farming a green rit item. I think I gave about 20 doubloons away for free.
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Fril Estelin
Strange, tried south of Tihark with spirit spammer and got nada in less than 10mins, tried dasha vestibule (needed a monk) and got one in a few mins. Go figure.
Wendigo
15 runs from dasha entrance to boss and... nothing
dunno if there is a better place...
dunno if there is a better place...
Fril Estelin
After the first boss, continue on the left-hand side (north-west) there are more groups of djinns. Got my 2nd.
DBMan
Quote:
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Originally Posted by ShivaTwoDelta
Well, like you said. Those who wanna do it, can do it. Its not like its an essential part of the game.
Fact is GW is getting old and Arenanet has ruined many things in this game. The introduction of heros, the lack of inspiration in GW:EN (dungeons copying eachothers floors, wtf?), the solofarm nerf and so on. It's ingame economy has colapsed, and now only a few items are worth to go "wts" for. I remember 2006, Rago's flame staff = 90k! Today? Noone wants it. And if they do, it'll be for a very low price. Why? Well, they can get destroyer weapons, tormented weapons and every engame gives you another green weapon on top. Sorry I go offtopic a lil maybe, but to me Guild Wars has been the most played game for over 4 years now (+7000 hours) and I saw it slowly changing from the excellent game it was into a title-hunting infected community who forgot what the game was about. The lack of skill in general in pugs today is significant and an indicator that it's best days are far behind us. I've farmed with a friend for Nicholas' presents every week since he popped up the first time. We are quite persistent and refuse to give up after 4 hours of poor drops. But every week the level of disappointment grows bigger when we receive yet another pile of Merchantile summons and a couple transformation consumables. O well, I guess it's up to each of us to decide if the farm is worth your time knowing the reward is most likely not gonna make up for it. Personally I went through all campaigns with over 10 characters and they all have a large equipment bag through zaishen coins. I dont join HA (I'm r6 and can't stand the idiots going need r10 or nap, kick nap pl0x), in RA (glad5) it gets so tideous to rank up especially with the amount of unexperienced players, so yah.. Nicholas is perhaps the only thing I and many others look forward to every week. The question is: for how long? |
Kook~NBK~
I got mine (only needed 3) in about 30 minutes going out of the Bone Palace with a Spirit Spammer build + PI. I even got an extra on the way to Nick. I just didn't bother with the dual Sapphire Djinn groups. This week wasn't nearly as bad as last week's item.
isildorbiafra
Like I sayed before this is anets idea of damage contreol since the market has been flooded with consumables from the wintersday event. Besides; New year will also be up shortly another weekend of mega consumables outflux. So dont get your hopes up to high for the next few weeks. I have a huntch next weeks item will be 1 glob of ectoplasm
Wendigo
Quote:
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Originally Posted by Fril Estelin
After the first boss, continue on the left-hand side (north-west) there are more groups of djinns. Got my 2nd.
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