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[Zuzana]

Life is too short to waste time reading trashy books I know beforehand I'd probably hate. It's bad enough when books I was looking forward to reading turn out to be meh. :)

[Cait S]

I try not to count anything out even though in general I know I hate certain genres, because there's always that one book that looks like it won't be that good and is amazing. I just finished and I usually haaate non fiction but really loved that. So even if I'm unsure I'll try it but...blah.

Just going went through 25 pages of goodreads searching "west" lol We'll try a new one.

[Reva]

Cait have you ever read The Thorn Birds by Colleen McCullough. Her Roman Series is also great.

Also The Winds of War by Herman Wouk

The Color Purple by Alice Walker

[Tia]

I would never read a book I knew beforehand that I'd hate, but I find it really hard to quit on a book once I've started even if it's awful (this is doubly so when it's for a challenge and I'd have to start all over). It has to be pretty horrific for me to quit it completely, though it does happen on occasion.

[Zuzana]

I understand, Tia. When I start a book I hardly ever quit on it, too. My DNF folder is really quite small. Doesn't mean there aren't several books I regret wasting my time on. I remember reading Special Delivery for a quest (I really needed that one book set in Iowa.) One of the worst books ever. :p

[Cait S]

I discovered a new way. So in order to use Kindle search and what not, you have to have bought the book. Which defeats the purpose really because I don't want to pay for a book I might not need or use right now.

So I searched the quotes on goodreads instead! Full list of books with west in the title OR in the text somewhere. Bam. Not wasting any time, also not reading a crappy book.

I feel like a genius although I'm pretty sure I'm the last idiot in the world to figure this out lol

[❀Tea❀]

Cait wrote: "So in order to use Kindle search and what not, you have to have bought the book."

Is that something new? I know you had to do search in paper version.

[Cait S]

I haven't found any way to do it other than to search the books on my kindle, which you have to buy first before they show up there obviously. I don't think there's a way to search a whole book just from amazon's site? I know there's the look inside but I didn't think that showed the whole book.

I might be wrong. I've never used the search for a scavenger hunt type thing before. Usually I like leaving it up to chance but the caravan is coming too soon for that this time lol

[Amanda]

Cait wrote: "I haven't found any way to do it other than to search the books on my kindle, which you have to buy first before they show up there obviously. I don't think there's a way to search a whole book jus..."

The look inside does actually search the entire book. That's how my TTIII team was able to find words for the scavenger hunt.

[❀Tea❀]

Oh, sorry. I though you were talking about search on Amazon.

On Amazon paper versions usually have search options. It doesn't show you page, but you do get part of the sentence under search option and page numbers.


If I want to search books on my Sony, I have to open each of them to do searching inside. With 200+ books on it, it's too time consuming.

[Cait S]

Hrm. I'm still not seeing the search option inside the look inside part.

[❀Tea❀]

What book are you looking?

[Amanda]

Cait wrote: "Hrm. I'm still not seeing the search option inside the look inside part."

It should be on the left side once you open the look inside part, about in the middle. It says "search inside this book".

[Cait S]

Oh I closed it lol I just picked a random one to look through. It did show the whole book but I didn't see any search bar for specific words or anything. On the upside, I did find what I was looking for on the quotes so my apparently long method worked out haha

[Amanda]

I think that not every book has the search box. I just looked at another book and it didn't have the search box. A lot of them do, though.

[Kelly]

Google books can work well for searching on words.

[❀Tea❀]

Kelly wrote: "Google books can work well for searching on words."

Hm, it didn't always worked for me.
Maybe it was region thing (since gbooks just started working for me few days ago according to one article (didn't check it yet)). I know I did use it at the beginning, but at some point I could never find anything so I went back to Amazon.

[Margaret]

Zuzana wrote: "Actually it doesn't work for the first publication dates which are required for the task. You have to check the book page to verify the date. e.g. for April 2014 you get Gone Girl w..."

Well that's no good then. I didn't realise we had to stick to the first published date? I thought it could be either that or the date published of the edition of the book we are reading? I better go back and check my quests!!

So it looks like for the challenge Time for the Dead I've got reference to it being the first date published, but for Timewalker I don't have any notes around first date published.

Sorry Reva - if you are wanting a book published in Nov 2014 for Time for the Dead quest then my link isn't going to work :(

[Reva]

Margaret wrote: "Zuzana wrote: "Actually it doesn't work for the first publication dates which are required for the task. You have to check the book page to verify the date. e.g. for April 2014 you get [book:Gone G..."

No problem. I always double check the book anyways and for the most part your method is pretty good.

[Zuzana]

No, Margaret, your link is pretty useful. Thanks for sharing it. You just have to double check the date like Reva said.

Re Timewalker I'm pretty sure we discussed it somewhere here or on the previous thread and it was decided that the first publication date is needed. But ask Kelly she's the boss. :)

[Kelly]

Zuzana wrote: "No, Margaret, your link is pretty useful. Thanks for sharing it. You just have to double check the date like Reva said.

Re Timewalker I'm pretty sure we discussed it somewhere here or on the previ..."

Intent was for first publication date :)

[Margaret]

Kelly wrote:

"Re Timewalker I'm pretty sure we discussed it somewhere here or on the previ..."

Intent was for first publication date :)

Thanks Kelly. I don't know how you guys keep track of all these challenges!?! I am only taking part in a few and I can even keep those straight LOL :)

[Kelly]

Margaret wrote: "Kelly wrote:

"Re Timewalker I'm pretty sure we discussed it somewhere here or on the previ..."

Intent was for first publication date :)

Thanks Kelly. I don't know how you guys keep track of al..."

Heh. I've been known not to keep them straight. But I usually at least remember what I was aiming for when they were written.

[Zuzana]

So is the caravan going to arrive today? (It's 23 minutes after midnight in the central Europe.) ;)

Can't wait.

[Kelly]

Caravan's coming the 24th :P

I think Tea was spreading rumors of it coming on the 22nd. 22nd is start of team challenge.

Hopefully, next month's quests will be out soon. I'm running a bit behind but they're all up in my head somewhere.

[Zuzana]

NOOOOOOOO!

Just kidding. So Tuesday it is then. :)

[Reva]

Caravan. Caravan. Caravan.

[Reva]

Yes it is kinda late for April's Quests. These things take time to organize I guess. Maybe we're putting too much pressure on Kelly and Tea. I do have gold jingling in my pockets though.

Caravan. Caravan. Caravann.

[Kelly]

Lol. Is it worse if I post it now and let you guys sit and stare at it two days before you can buy anything?

[Kelly]

Sorry. Wheel-a-thon takes up a bunch of time to get organized so I'm behind on quests and challenges. Maybe I can finish them up tonight and get Tea to proofread then post tomorrow. We'll see how inspired I am :)

[Reva]

No we can plan how best to spend the gold. And surely you've got more Midas quests set for us to earn more gold.

[Moderators of NBRC, Challenger-in-Chief]

The early scout riders for the March Caravan have arrived bringing news of what is coming in the Caravan when it arrives on the 24th.

Enjoy :)

[Reva]

I absolutely love the Advertisements. Really cute and well done!

Not really clear on the difference between the minor poison potion and the familiar. It's a lot of gold for so little gain for a familiar PLUS 4 books AND it takes 4 weeks to work!

[Emma (M)]

I thought the difference was the familiar can be continued to be used whereas the potion is a one time use type of thing

[Reva]

Re: the classifieds

My understanding is that if we have read a book now residing in our infinite tote, we can turn it in for gold if it meets the ads criteria?

Same thing for the books offered for sale?

[Zuzana]

Emma wrote: "I thought the difference was the familiar can be continued to be used whereas the potion is a one time use type of thing"

This and the minor posion potion takes effect at the beginning of your every turn while the cat only at the beginning of the battle, i.e. once per battle.

I'm interested in your thoughts on Familiar's usefulness. Its cost is rather steep IMO: 16 books (average of roughly 4 books per 10 gold) plus additional 4 fish books and a month of training.

Right now before thinking it through I'm more partial to buying the Blending in hat.

Kelly, Tea any hints what the other hats (that are implied by the advertisement) are to be?

BTW Kelly, great job as always. :D

[Zuzana]

Suggestion: Maybe later on you can allow us to sell the items on the Open Market, as well. If I buy the hat or the cat now and later on I decide to buy another hat ar another familiar it would be useful to be able to sell it to another buyer and earn some money. It's not like I can wear two hats at a time.

[Reva]

Zuzanna,

I can't see any possible benefit in attacking one day earlier. It's not like we are in a race against fellow participants. 30 gold seems a monumental waste for dubious benefit. BTW Which horse did you choose?

Now paying good gold for stronger plasma weapons or other ways to SIGNIFICANTLY raise the attack of sword or staff. -- that would be worth it.

[Zuzana]

Reva wrote: "Zuzanna,

I can't see any possible benefit in attacking one day earlier. It's not like we are in a race against fellow participants. 30 gold seems a monumental waste for dubious benefit. BTW Which ..."

Well, it's about 15 XP + 5 goblin bones + 5 bat wings till the end of the year for the cost of 12 books. Which is still better ratio than some other quests.

Totally agree on raising the power of your weapons but it's not the option here, is it? So what do you plan to do, Reva? Will you hold onto your gold till the next caravan waiting for more special items?

EDIT: Baroque horse is much more useful than the other one (which has basically the same effect as the hat).

[Reva]

Sorry it's 3:15 AM here in Toronto -- not sure what you mean.

[Reva]

Kelly,

What's a book with multiple parts?

[Zuzana]

Reva wrote: "Sorry it's 3:15 AM here in Toronto -- not sure what you mean."

If you attack regular monsters at the earliest opportunity then you can save 1 day per week. It's roughly 36 weeks till the end of the year = 36 days which in the end when all is said and done equal 5 additional (weeks) attacks. For killing a regular monster you get 1 XP (plus either 1 goblin bone per goblin or 1 bat wing per brown bat).

If you use the hat to the full for the additional attacks you get 5 (number of weeks) x 3 (number of regular monster types) = 15 XP + the additional goodies = 5 goblin bones and 5 bat wings.

The effectiveness slightly depends on the power of your weapons but that's not an issue for you. ;-)

I've just woken up and math is not my forte at the best of times so this is just a rough estimate.

[Reva]

Zuzana wrote: "Reva wrote: "Zuzanna,

I can't see any possible benefit in attacking one day earlier. It's not like we are in a race against fellow participants. 30 gold seems a monumental waste for dubious benefi..."

No one says we have to spend the gold right away. I may simply sell books and wait to see what else is offered in the future. It might be worth waiting for Orbs to show up. -- or cheaper cats. LOL

[Zuzana]

Yeah, I'm contemplating not spending any gold right now and maybe throwing the books towards getting that damned horse. :)

Re Orbs: I kinda hope that the only way to get them will be killing the dragons. They're such a nice motivation for leveling up weapons and getting potions and other staff. There might be other goodies with similar benefits to acquire for gold.

[Zuzana]

Reva wrote: "Kelly,

What's a book with multiple parts?"

I have a suspision that this one and the "flower on the cover" are foreshadowing some of the April quests. ;)

[Reva]

Possibly but it looks like we're selling them -- not buying them.

[Zuzana]

Yeah, I noticed but the other ones are useful for the ongoing tasks. Well it's entirely possible that they're totally random we'll have to ask Kelly.

[Reva]

The horse is worth it. I'm now attacking bats with one stroke. I want to be at 20 minimum before attempting higher attacks-- until there's a faster way to regain health. I've been at 1 HP for a while moving from level 7 to 8. I can't see wasting cure points this early on when they might be needed attacking dragons.

Instant level ups or health revivals would be worth paying for.

[Reva]

BTW I forgot to wish everyone Happy Spring and Happy Happy Day to celebrate the International Day of Happiness on March 20!

[Zuzana]

Reva wrote: "Instant level ups or health revivals would be worth paying for."

That would be great. :)