1. Where does Sanza sit?
2. What exactly is it that you do?

In answer to the first question, Sanza sits at the desk in front of me, slightly to the left. The answer to the second question however, requires a little bit more explanation.

The life of a Content Writer is a varied one. I am essentially responsible for any written content you see on the community website. I am also responsible for the content of Newsletters, the blog, the TLBB Connect stories and any number of other smaller items you may or may not have seen in your time playing TLBB.

Naturally, this puts me in a very interesting position. Alongside my partner-in-crime in the Creative Services team, we are at the very centre of everything that goes out online, or in any of ChangYou EU’s other releases.

Unless you’ve actually worked in the games industry and seen how busy offices such as ours can be, I can see why players might sometimes think updates come along too slowly. What a lot of players don’t realise is just how much work goes on ‘behind the scenes’ to not only keep things ticking over as they are, but to add items to the Token Shop, bring in discounts and ultimately add new areas and functions to the game.

Fortunately, I can at least reassure you that while things may seem slow at times from a player’s perspective, we here at ChangYou are constantly working to bring you all new and exciting content. Be it new TLBB Connect events, item promotions, or even cool expansions such as Spring Festival and the Great Winter Update, all of us here in the ChangYou EU office (or TLBB Towers as I like to call it) are passionate about TLBB. We are all gamers, and, though you may only know Sanza in-game, we all play TLBB, and we all want the same things you do.

And on that note, I think it’s nearly time for another round of chess…

Until next time,

Ozimandus

Of course two players who won’t have any problem being able to meet the level requirement of Trinity are Mango and Naruto, the first two players on the TLBB Dragon Server to reach level 100. This is a fantastic achievement, and all of us here at ChangYou would like to wish Mango and Naruto the heartiest congratulations. Here’s hoping many more players reach the same terrific milestone soon!

In other news this week I’ve been interested to follow the progress of TLBB’s first ever Iron Man Challenge, created and run by TLBB veteran NinjaXX. In this challenge Bushido member Tenofblades was challenged to increase his Guild Contribution by 10,000 points in the space of a single month. Players then bet on whether Tenofblades achieved this remarkable feat or not. Though he has made remarkable progress in the challenge so far there’s still a long way to go and anything could happen in the climax to this exciting new event.

If you have an idea for an event or competition then why not get in touch! Share your idea on the TLBB Community Forum and who knows, your event might just be turned into a reality!

Until next time…

Ozimandus

And it doesn’t just happen once. In fact it happens all the time.

One of the most memorable incidents of “early-Ozi-death” was during the Keh Clan Saga event: The Final Gambit. In this event assassins infiltrated Da Li in an attempt at taking the Emperor’s life. It was the task of the TLBB warriors to defend the Emperor’s palace from assault.

Imagine the scene if you will…

There I was, standing proudly in the North-East quarter, fighting valiantly against the traitors that had put the Emperor’s life at risk when low and behold, Sanza tells me there might be too many bosses.

I look startled: “What? Where?”

“In the East! They’re following me! Run-run-run-run-run-run!”

Before I get a moment to even consider the implications of Sanza’s words, he shoots past me in super-fast time, a group of at least 20 infiltrators in hot pursuit.

While running with GM-powered speed may be alright for some in the CY offices, the less fortunate of us must run the good old fashioned way. Unfortunately, my poor Taoist’s legs just weren’t fast enough. No sooner had Sanza run past me than I was cut down mercilessly by the horde he had effectively brought down on my head.

Needless to say I cursed rather loudly.

“Sorry Mike!”

Fortunately one of the “Ice Brothers” brought me back to life. Without these two brilliant Lotus Order players I don’t know how I’d survive TLBB Connect events some times. While the bosses may be extremely tough and more than a match for even an 8x or 9x player, having bosses brought unceremoniously crashing down on your head certainly doesn’t help anyone’s situation!

Needless to say each and every Friday at 5pm I remind Sanzaburo of his past offences; and then each and every Friday at approximately 5:05pm, I end up dying at the hands of an evil TLBB villain.

You’ve got to laugh!

Until next time,

Ozimandus

I made mention in one of my earlier blogs to the fact that if I was to get anywhere in TLBB, I was going to need to find a Guild. Not just because of the great social aspect they would offer me, but also because of the added benefits of being able to help level my Life Skills and perform important functions such as Guild Trade.

Of course finding a Guild — or at least a good Guild — isn’t that easy. Some of the top Guilds have level requirements for their members, while other Guilds are designed specifically for a certain nationality, or perhaps a certain style of player.

Before trawling through the extensive Guild list in-game it certainly pays to do your research. By searching through the Forum Guilds section I was able to get a good sense of the “feel” of some of the more popular Guilds in the game. I also spent some time speaking to players in-game about their Guild experiences, and even sent a few messages to players on the Forum.

After much deliberation, I eventually made my choice.

Because I’m not what you’d call a “hardcore” TLBB player, in the end I settled for a fairly peaceful, friendly Guild that I noticed has lots of members in it that help players in the game and on the forum. To me at least, being able to have a friendly conversation with my Guild-mates and even share a joke is one of the most important parts of my time spent online. MMO gaming is after all, supposed to be a social experience, and so for me, my decision was easy.

Now all I have to do is start working on building up my Guild contribution so I can level my Life Skills.

No one ever said it was going to be easy…

Until next time,

Ozimandus

Now fishing isn’t perhaps the most exciting thing you can do on TLBB, nor is it the most glamorous skill to learn (why learn fishing when you can learn pharmacy eh?), but there’s one you can do while fishing that you can’t with most other life skills: you can fish while you work!

Fishing is almost the perfect life skill for me. I come into the office at 8am, I log into TLBB, and I leave my character fishing.

The only problem I’ve found with my plan so far is that by leaving my character fishing, I leave myself vulnerable to PKers who hang around fishing areas preying on characters whose owners are AFK. Fortunately, the one time someone did try and PK me while fishing, I opened TLBB just in time as the first attack came in. Needless to say I immediately ran straight back to the safety of Da Li!

Cowardly yes, but at least I lived to tell the tale.

As far as I can make out, there really isn’t any major drawback to my ‘fish at work’ strategy. The only drawback, if indeed it can be called a drawback, is that I have to spend valuable XP points on levelling-up my fishing skill instead of levelling-up my character. Being as I don’t have too much time to play properly while at work at the moment, this in itself can prove troublesome.

The benefits however, seem to me, to outweigh the risks.

I’m certainly not going to reach the dizzy heights of level 100 any time soon, but there’s a good chance if I play my cards right, I might well become the best fisherman in the office. From where I’m standing, that’s pretty good going for a ‘noob’ Content Writer. When you consider I’m having to compete not only against Sanzaburo, but also against our resident QA guys — all of whom play TLBB a little too much — you will see where I’m coming from. The only problem now is to get the XP to level up the skill.

And once I reach level 5, I’m going to have to join a Guild if I want to level-up my life skills further. That my friends, is going to prove interesting…

Until next time,

Ozimandus

Maximising your incoming XP when you have very little time to play events such as Chess Challenge, or spend time in Wild Fields killing monsters really does require a lot of careful thought and planning.

The first thing you need to ask yourself when planning your TLBB Routine is: ‘How much time do I have?’

For some players this may be as little as only a couple of hours a week. For others, it may be perhaps an hour or two a day. However much time you have, you then need to consider what exactly it is you wish to gain from your routine.

For some players, levelling-up Life Skills is important. For others, it’s Class Skills and player level.

Once you’ve decided how much time you have, and what your main aim is in setting up your routine, you’re almost half-way there. You now need to work out the best way to achieve your aims.

For me, I really want a well-balanced character with strong Life Skills. For my routine, I like to achieve a balance of XP, Gold and Proficiency. For this routine, doing Guild Trade regularly is an absolute necessity. I also then factor in Planting (from which I gain crops to use for Cooking), Lucky Bingo and of course, a 30 minute stint spent in Ice Space.

My TLBB Routine goes something like this:

• Log on.
• Plant late-maturing crops.
• Enter Guild City. Do x2 rounds of Travel Trading.
• Collect crops and then plant again.
• Practise Cooking and sell cooked food.
• Travel to Su Zhou.
• Do Lucky Bingo.
• Buy ‘Relic of Tumulus’ and enter Ice Space.

This routine is good for approximately an hour to an hour-and-a-half of game time. Ice Space is also great for letting me get on with work while my character is still slowly gaining XP in the mean time. I’ve found this routine to be great for levelling not just my XP, but also my Life Skills and Proficiency.

Of course at this point I should make clear that planning a ‘TLBB Routine’ isn’t for everyone. While routines can be great for people who are pressured for time, we must never forget that at the end of the day TLBB is a game to be enjoyed. While some days I will literally just work through my routine start to finish, on days when I have a little more time I will spend a few hours questing, or maybe even working on other Life Skills. TLBB is, after all, a game designed to be played in any way a player should wish.

Anyway, back to work…

Until next time!

Ozimandus

For more details on Life Skills, please see our Beginners’ Guide.

For discussion on this, and many other aspects of TLBB besides, please visit our Community Forum.

Since the last time I wrote, I’ve not only found myself getting ever more involved in Instances and in-game events such as Chess Challenge, but I’ve also become fully immersed in the delightful world of pets.

Now I can’t for one moment claim to be the world’s greatest knowledge on pets and the rather complex, and at times mystifying world of pet breeding. What I do know, is that I have very recently acquired a squirrel called Jeremy, and he is without doubt, one of my favourite things about TLBB.

I’m not sure what it is that makes Jeremy so appealing to me. Maybe it’s the ‘human’ name I gave him; or maybe it’s his bushy tale. Either way, wherever I go in the TLBB world, I’m sure to take my trusty squirrel friend with me.

Of course there is another side to the whole Pet System, besides having cute (or sometimes not-so-cute) travelling companions. For one, pets provide you with an extremely useful strategic resource.

You will notice that all the best players on TLBB have very powerful, carefully-levelled pets that compliment their playing style.

For me, I quite like Spirit Attack pets, as I like the whole “aggressive ranged attacker” thing, but equally, I know that I’m going to need other types of pets to give me the flexibility to change my style when I level-up higher. My plan now is to travel over to Pet Island and see if I can find myself a useful defensive pet. If I can I’d also like to find a pet with good physical attack characteristics.

Either way, I hear Pet Island can sometimes be a dangerous place for low-level players so I better go prepared.

I’m leaving nothing to chance this week. I’ll let you know how it goes…

Until next time,

Ozimandus

For answers to all your pet-related questions, please visit the Game Help section of the TLBB Community Forum. 

For me personally, I have always been a fan of ranged attacks. Having looked through the website material and visited each of the classes in turn, I was able to form a picture in my mind of the sort of class I wanted to play. Naturally, as a ranged attack specialist, I certainly wouldn’t want to be playing as a melee fighter class such as Shaolin or the Beggars’ Alliance.

The next step in narrowing down my choice of class was simple: I’d look at the history.

TLBB on the whole is a game wherein players are free to ‘make their own history’. In a sense TLBB is the setting, and within that setting we are free to play the game as we choose. The material there is however, helps establish the framework around which the game world revolves.

In most games that I play, I normally tend towards the intelligent, leadership types. As such I felt naturally drawn towards the Taoists.

Because my job as Content Writer requires a good understanding of the game, much of my time in my early days working for ChangYou was spent learning the game material, the background and so on. As such I always had a feeling in the back of my mind that I wanted to be a Taoist, and after doing a fair amount of research, I finally headed over to Mt. Wu Tang, and made my final decision.

I really can’t stress enough the importance of doing your research. If you want to be a simple melee fighter, don’t pick Minstrel as your class. Equally, if you don’t like the idea of being a rebellious forest-dweller, then you should perhaps avoid Voodoo.

Of course the community forums are always a good place to look for help and advice. If there isn’t a topic already there — post one! I think you’ll be surprised just how friendly most TLBB players can be. If there’s one thing I’ve learnt in my time working for ChangYou so far, it’s that TLBB has a brilliant community base, and its fans are some of the best I’ve come across. If you need help, remember, all you have to do is ask. It really is that simple!

Until next time,

Ozimandus

Fortunately some clever use of my weekly Double XP allowance has meant I’ve been able to use the little playing time I’ve had to the best effect, and I am now well and truly on my way to becoming a TLBB addict. In fact, I’d go so far as to say that I am getting a little too excited by my exotic new class powers — but more on that in my next blog!

For now though, I thought it might be appropriate for me to take stock of my first 10 levels and share with you some of the lessons I’ve learnt as a new player in TLBB.

As a ‘noob’ with experience playing mainly Western MMOs in the past, my first instinct when starting the game was to find a big group of enemies roughly my level and grind away.

As soon as I received the ‘First Fight’ quest from Master Zhao [160, 157], I was in grinding heaven. If I’m honest, I probably spent too long killing Flatlands White Apes, and not enough time exploring. Even now, after a few weeks of playing, I don’t feel as if I’ve explored the game world anywhere near enough!

And this is one of the great beauties of the game: you really can play it any way you choose.

For me, I must admit to being something of an old-school grinder. Too much grinding during my early levels meant my level was increasing, but my knowledge of the game was still pretty low. Since reaching level 10 ‘the boring way’ (as I have now found) I have since gone back and done all the beginners’ quests from Master Zhao, and have in the process gained so much insight into the game that I wonder why I ever bothered grinding in the first place!

Questing is definitely the new grinding. Or at least for now…

By working my way through Master Zhao’s quests I have to admit I really did learn a great deal. By the time I reached level 10 the grinding way, I still didn’t know how to capture a pet, what a Class Skill was, or even how to use the full functionality of the Auto Path system. My experience questing has certainly given me a lot of useful tips in this respect, even if I have had to learn some of these things through my own trial and error.

TLBB really is about playing the game the way you want to play it. Though I have learnt my lesson as far as questing goes, I don’t doubt that at some point in the future I will find myself slipping back into the murky world of grinding.

But if that’s the way I want to play the game, then that’s the way I want to play the game. There’s certainly nothing wrong with playing the game that way.

For now, while I’ve still got the questing ‘bug’ I shall content myself with questing and exploring the game world as much as I can. Given that I spent much of last week in and out of the different class headquarters for my website-content research, you’d think I’d have had enough of exploring by now. The funny thing is… I haven’t!

Until next time,

Ozimandus

It’s been a strange few days here in TLBB Towers. Having recently been warmly welcomed into the ChangYou fold, issued with my very own notebook, and best of all — my very own pen — I am slowly coming to terms with my new life as Content Writer in our humble office set high above the city streets of West London.

So then, a little about me…

First and foremost, let me introduce myself. My name is Mike and I’ve recently started working as Content Writer for ChangYou (EU), the parent company of everyone’s favourite MMO: TLBB. Over the coming weeks and months I hope to be bringing you the very latest in news, views and office gossip in this, my new blog.

As ‘new boy’ in the office, my introduction has been a fairly quiet affair really. While many of my colleagues slave away tirelessly on our project to expand the TLBB brand, I find myself sitting quietly at my desk considering the task of enhancing the EU site material ready for our new content system, while also trying to come to terms with the finer points of an Emperor’s tone. As the Emperor’s chief aid and representative here, I find myself responsible for turning the Emperor’s orders into language fit for his people. The Emperor is a hard task master I can tell you!

As today is Friday and Friday afternoons are supposed to be spent playing TLBB I look forward to my initiation into the world of staff gaming on the world’s greatest MMO. Unfortunately it seems I have a lot of work to do to catch up on the levels of some of our players here, but have no fear my friends, I will not falter — I will not rest — until I make it to the top!

To go with my new blog, I’ve created a new character. Over the coming weeks I hope to share with you some of my experiences as a ‘new’ player in TLBB. Being a Content Writer in the same office as Sanzaburo certainly has some advantages, and with any luck — and possibly a bit of bribery — I hope to share with you some of Sanzaburo’s top tips on how to maximise your levelling efficiency, how to make the most of in-game events, and how to be the greatest warrior in TLBB!

So there you have it, my new blog. If you have any thoughts on topics you would like me to discuss in future blogs, please do feel free to leave a comment on the TLBB Community Forums.

Until next time,

Ozimandus