The Sword's Edge

Issue 9: 9th June, 2016- In Ferro Veritas

Welcome to June 2016s issue of The Sword's Edge. This issue is packed with all things PvE and Social - in my opinion, a perfect showcase of what Nine Swords encapsulates. We have got an interview with Aberlour about the dungeon runs that have been going on, we have got a brilliant competition from Mellified, interesting TSW in the Real World from Floryn - as well as reminders about Pets on Parade, a new 9S engagement survey called Nine Swords Call to Arms and our Nine Swords 4th Anniversary that is coming very very soon!

If I were you, I would enjoy the peace and quiet.. the lull before the storm, and read this months issue! Feet up on the sofa in the library by Wonkers - time to get stuck in!

See you at our next HUGE cabal event! For more information about what is going on during the event, see this thread

What's your name?

We have so many members with lots of unique names - so it is always interesting to be a bit nosy and actually ask each other where our names come from.. or sometimes, what on Earth compelled us to choose what we did. To continue being nosy, Kate cornered Ishco this month to explain where her name comes from. Is it special or just random?

Why Ishtar "Ishco" Babenco?

Well, Ishtar comes from a Babylonian goddess. She made kings and was the local version of Venus. Isn't that super classy? Babenco comes from an obscure Brazilian director who denounced in many movies the South American carceral system. And finally, "Ishco". A mix of the first two, really, that sounded fun. I've always called her "Ish" myself.

Thank you for taking the time to explain your name to us Ish!! If any members are interested in featuring in this segment of The Sword's Edge, please get in touch with Katelin and remember to send a fantastic screenshot of yourself too - just like Ish did!

Nine Swords Fantasy Five A-Side Dungeon Group Competition.

(Kindly licenced from Bett Splatter, ex-President of Fantasy Investment Fivers Association)

It's a competition with a first prize of 1,500,000 PAX*! Entrants ('managers') will post their entry to Mellified before the closing date, supply a name for their team and choose 5 members of Nine Swords to perform in these positions (9S members can be chosen more than once by different managers):

• Tank
• Healer
• Leech
• Buffer
• DPS

'Victory Conditions' will be allocated to each position (such as 'Most Zombies Killed' or 'Least Filthy Humans Killed' or 'Closest to 10,000 Ghouls killed') - but these conditions are kept a secret.

On a certain date the chronicles of the named players in each team will be inspected and points allocated based on their performance. There are 10 points for first place, 5 points for second place and 3 points for third place in each position. The manager with the most points wins the competition and also 1,500,000* PAX.

Here's a example: TS-13 and Ishco have entered the competition as managers and picked these teams:

TS-13's team (The Dallas Cowpokes):

1. Tank: Floryn
2. Healer: X-Kraft
3. Leech: Katelin
4. Buffer: Yuriksha
5. DPS: Kisshoten

Ishco's team (Les Petites Chou-fleurs):

1. Tank: Mellified
2. Healer: LeMortieth
3. Leech: Sonno
4. Buffer: ShockG
5. DPS: Aberlour

The Victory Condition for the Tank role is 'Most Zombies Killed'. Floryn has killed 30,000, Mellified has killed 113, so Floryn wins. The manager who picked Floryn was TS-13 and so he gets 10 points. The manager who picked Mellified was Ishco so she gets 5 points. We then move on to the next category and do the same. The manager with the most cumulative points wins the game. There might be bonus points for groovy team names in the case of a tie.

*Actual prize will be 1,000,000 PAX after fees, licencing, special payments and more have been paid to FIFA.

Entries must be received by the last day of June - please send a message to Mellified either in-game or using the Nine-Swords PM facility in your User Control Panel. Winner will be announced in the next issue of The Sword's Edge.

Interview with ...

The Sword's Edge interview this month is with Aberlour!

Kate: Aberlour, thank you for agreeing to chat with me this month for The Sword's Edge! You are pretty active as a leader in Nine Swords, but just incase any of our members haven't had the pleasure of meeting you, would you like to introduce yourself?

Aberlour: Howdy! I’m Aberlour, though everyone just calls me Abe.

I’m the North American leader of the Hook Swords, our recruiting division, and have been a proud member of Nine Swords since December 2013. I’m also one of our raid leaders, and am the one in-charge of the Wednesday evening raids in North American-friendly times. Mostly, though, you can find me dancing. Pretty much everywhere and anywhere. Oh, and pink is the best color.

Kate: I have to be honest, it seems one of your dirty secrets (is it a secret if it's widely known in the cabal??) is helping our cabal members get their classic dungeon achievements - and that's what I want to chat with you about today!

Aberlour: Well, people often come back from these excursions covered in blood and filth, so, yeah, I think it classifies as a dirty secret. Haha.

Kate: Organising teams and helping people gain their Kurios and Warchitecht Outfits by completing the Classic Nightmare dungeons as well as doing Master Planner in these dungeons is no easy task. What drives you to do it?

Aberlour: Well, I’ve always liked helping people in game, and I love doing dungeons so it was a perfect fit. I really started getting into it last summer, when I was commuting 100 miles each way for a new job. The commute really limited my playtime, so I decided to make the most of the little time I had. Also, I’ve been playing the game since launch, and running these dungeons for over three years, so it’s a way to stay interested in the same content. But, mostly, I like helping people.

Kate: Incase anyone from Nine Swords has now read this and wants to get themselves these incredibly cool achievements - how would you suggest that they prepare themselves for this?

Aberlour: The best way to prepare is to run some dungeons, and start gearing up. I have no problems bringing people new to dungeons through Master Planner runs, even Hell Fallen, but if you don’t want to be carried by the team I assemble, then just having a basic idea of the dungeons helps.

Kate: There is also a sign-up sheet, how does this work?

Aberlour: Yup! It’s a fancy Google Docs one too. I used to just track the signups on the forum post, but that quickly got too hard to do. The form is nice and simple, just click on the link, put in your character’s name, check the dungeons you still need and submit! The runs are pretty sporadic, and I usually seem to do them in bunches (Got four different people their Warchitects in one 24 hour period recently), but I highly encourage anyone to sign up if you still have dungeons you need to complete.

You can find the signup thread in our Zweihänder forums here.

That post also has a link that shows who needs what MP, in case anyone else wants to start organizing some runs. Like TS-13 has been doing recently.

Also, shameless plug, but I’m always looking for people interested in being recruiters. Either as full-fledged members of the Hook Swords, or just as recruiters. If you are interested feel free to send me a PM on our forums, or just poke me in game.

Thank you Abe!

Nine Swords Call to Arms!

As mentioned in the last issue of The Sword's Edge, we want to invite you to take part in a survey - we are calling this Nine Swords Call to Arms. The survey will focus on PvE events in the cabal and will enable us to gain feedback from you as to how we as a cabal can provide opportunities for improving your PvE experience via cabal events. The survey is being championed by TS-13! He has done all the hard work in getting the survey set up and will be the one collating your results and working with his division and quite likely our PvE division too to help make changes in the cabal and increase the opportunities for you to get more of what you want out of Nine Swords.
The ultimate goal of the survey is to help fellow Swords experience TSW how they feel is most enjoyable to them - so don't be shy, fill it out and help us to help you!! The link to the survey can be found in this post within our Mission Control Office Tract.

Nine Swords will be celebrating its 4th Anniversary in TSW at the end of June. If you have an event you would like to run, please get in touch with Katelin!

The Secret World in the Real World: by Floryn

A lot of things in the Secret World are based on actual stories, events, art, etcetera. The Real Secret World will highlight one of the things you can see in the Secret World and tell you something about it’s origin in the real world.

Today’s highlight is the Kawasaki series 05 subway cars.

The Tokyo Metro 05 series is an electric multiple unit (EMU) train type operated on the Tokyo Metro Tozai Line and Tokyo Metro Chiyoda Line Ayase Branch in Japan by the subway operator Tokyo Metro.



The inside of the subway cars has been faithfully recreated.



And even the subway map is an exact copy of the real one.



One bit of trivia: have a look at the subway map in the Kaidan subway cars. They are both on the left side and the right side of the cars. What do you notice?

Big Trouble in the South China Sea - Episode 7

Written by Mellified

Awake.
In an instant - with no awareness of the transition between then and now. She remembers swimming towards the boat, but now she is here. Dim half light. Smell of concrete and brine. The rest of the team are awkwardly sprawled with her in a rubber inflatable by the side of a covered dock. She slowly and cautiously turns her head but cannot see any guards or surveillance devices, so she tries to wake her team mates. No luck - they are out for the count. She speculates that her blocked ears somehow lessened the effectiveness of the ‘song’.

There is one exit (other than out to sea) so she takes it and creeps down the corridor - the sound of 80’s pop music incongruously getting louder as she progresses. Her ears have cleared. She peeks around a corner and sees a barred cell. Inside is a wild haired man furiously typing on a waterproof laptop covered in Kylie Minogue stickers. He’s mouthing the words to ‘I should be so lucky’. Nicholas de Vlamingh she presumes. No point in trying to rescue or disturb him until she has understood her situation, so she stealthily continues, resisting the urge to sing along with Kylie.

A room off the next corridor captures her attention. A concrete tank filled with fresh seawater, connecting to the open sea by a reinforced and padlocked grill. The key to the grill is hanging on a hook just inside the entrance. Inside the tank are rocks, seaweed and hundreds of what look like dog-fish egg cases - ‘Mermaid purses’ they used to call them in Devon - but larger and filled with disturbingly human baby-shaped occupants. Out of sheer willfulness she unlocks and opens the grill and presses on through the complex.

There are numerous spaces filled with all kinds of containers and storage vessels. She wonders if it is the plunder from the thefts at sea that have been happening in this area. All of the structure so far has felt very new but unfinished - electric cables and plumbing hanging from ceilings or protruding from walls. She comes upon a room that is obviously some kind of communication centre - but strangely there is no-one there. Glancing at the CCTV monitors she now sees the reason - there is some kind of situation developing on the top surface of this marine construction. People are running, ducking and trying to hide among construction materials, cranes and weapon emplacements.

Seizing the moment she wakes up a nearby desktop - and gets the password hint of ‘Abandon boat all who wish to enter here’. Feeling smug, she types ‘MarieCeleste’ and is deflated by the subsequent error message. She pauses and grins, recalling the Templar course of ‘Useful Knowledge for Puzzling Situations’, and is actually glad that she and Floryn had not mucked about during the whole course. She types “MaryCeleste” and is instantly into the network. She is not surprised to find that it is Phoenician, and she drills down until she finds something called ‘Latest Progress Report.’ She begins to read.

SWORD to the Wise

Marlolini has been in Nine Swords since December 2014 and he really loves to help our fellow Swords! This section is where Marlo imparts some words to the wise. Sword style.

For this issue of The Sword's Edge: Augments!

This time i will talk about how you can make your role a bit more effective using only the cheap blue augments. As always if there is anything you want me to write about here just send me a message on the forums or in game!

Solo:

• Brutal and Piercing augments are good on your builders or consumers here, both for direct damage and to help with passive procs like one in the chamber or sudden return
• Rampant: are you pulling a lot of mobs at once? A rampant increasing the targets you will hit can be a good combo with a impair then.

DPS:

• Brutal: Use on your builder for a better chance to proc the laceration signet
• Ferocious: Use on your Elemental Force consumer for even more critical damage
• Piercing: slot this on your non EF consumer or a elite like bombardment
• Inspiring: give you and the rest of your group a short 5% damage boost. Put it on something like "Lock, Stock & Barrel"

Warning: do not use the accelerating augment if you are buffing, since this will only reduce your own cool downs and not those for the group


Tank:
Depending on your stats you can use piercing or solid on your builder to either debilitate faster and do more damage, or to increase your block rating. If you are struggling with aggro slot Vexing on your hate builder.

• Accelerating: can be used for a small decrease on your impair cool-downs.
• Precise: want to make sure your impair wont miss? Slot precise for more hit rating for one of them!

Healing:

• Restoring: use it to increase the heal over time for something like surgical steel
• Vivifying: Increases the critical power for one skill, use it on something like creature comfort.
• Rampant: For raid healing slot rampant on win win for a raid wide heal and cleanse, works nice in both Eidolon and flappy raid!
• Restorative: slot this on one of your emergency cool downs for a even bigger heal burst
• Impenetrable: For blood healers, increase the power on one of your barriers.

• Brutal: use this one on your builder.
• Ferocious: use on your elemental force consumer.
• Restorative: slot this on something like energise for an extra boost to your healing.