Hello, my name is lurkblader. I think this is first time ever for me, using "General Discussion" section here. I honestly don't remember the exact date when I joined ECC but I do remember it took approximately about a week for me to adapt myself in this server as builder and earning 15k, before I join forum and post [Resident] application. But since I don't remember exact date, I will just count from the day I joined forum "May 7, 2013".

Oh and just to make sure, this whole post will going to be like my personal journal of my ecc life and history until now. So my thoughts are involved alot, and this doesn't mean to offend any other players who thinks differently, or plays in different style than me. And like I said, this thread is only about how I walked my own path in ECC, so whoever is not interested in how this hardcore player named "lurkblader" came all the way up-to now, you may press "back" and leave. :)

I am typical "Solo" player who always tries to upgrade myself, especially for buying more and more donation features through ECD(not spending my own real money), and keep rank up myself. That is why I was always busy earning money all the time, but not spending much time on developing my own town, or interacting with other players.

First, when I first joined server and try to learn all the system, I felt like I wanted to "achieve" things that I can possibly get by hardcore working.

And I also figured it out, I am the one who never wants to allow financial loss that's paying to other players when I need to get "service" from donation feature's abilities, but wants to be on the side of getting paid by others, providing those "services" to earn ECD.

By mean "service", I mean...
erepair, anvil combo service, tp service, water placement job, fire&lava placement job, investigation service, extcreation sign(lift, gate, bridge, door, color txt) placement job, cooking pot placement job.

But at the same time, I felt like I should avoid spending my real money donating, so I set my goals to overcome those by hard work earning ingame money and buy donation features from others. Reason why I avoided spending my own real money, was not because I don't have much money in real life. Actually I am adult and have a lot of money that can spend quit a large amount by my own will compare to minor students. It's because, if I start spending my own money, I can do it huge amount unlimitedly that's breaking barrior inside of my mind, and I will be impulsive, trying go through easy path on playing game, and eventually become one of those donation feature seller. And by experience from playing other games in past, I did know that whenever I go easy path spending my real money, those easiness would make me quickly lose interest, and feel not "precious" for what I have achieved inside of online game. And eventually quit fast.

(This is only for me, and I am not looking down or think it's wrong, for donation feature sellers, because I know everybody has different point of view, and play style of how they are enjoying game and how they find 'joy'. And also everybody has different routine in real life, and I am aware of that. So please don't get offended, whoever thinks or plays or prefers in different way than me.)

After I cleared my mind and finished setting up my own plan for what I wanted, I decided to apply [Resident], Nether accessing rank [Survivor], and Aether access rank [Pilot]. And money earning source was pumpkin farming in local town. And after that, I decided to get [VIP] first, instead of [Mayor].. Why [VIP]?

Because if you list up all the critical donation features, it becomes total $510 usd.
1. MultiHome+ [15+15= $30]
2. Water+ [15+15= $30]
3. Teleport+ [20+20= $40]
4. ExtCommand+ [30+70= $100] (At that time it was $30, $70)
5. Fly/Speed+ [60+60= $120]
6. Investigator [$100] (At that time there was no +. And even now, + is useless)
7. Extcreation+ [30+30= $60]
8. Pyro+ [15+15= $30]
*Total = $510 (At that time, $500 wasn't enough to get [VIP]. You needed $501+)

Reason why I sorted those out above, is because those are things about helping my gameplay in convinient way critically in my standard, and also helping me to do business getting paid by others. Which means those can be my income source ingame.

I bought features in this order below.

Multihome -> Teleport -> Water -> ExtCommand+ -> Fly/Speed+ -> Investigator -> ExtCreation -> Pyro+ -> ExtCreation+ -> MultiHome+ -> Water+

This is honestly I think almost perfect order for players like me who always think about "efficient way to play game" for hardcore farmer. If you are hardcore miner, I think getting Pyro+ first, right after ExtCommand+ is more recommendable since, lava threat is huge for them.

I bought most of them for 4k, or 4.5k, or 5k per 1usd. I have only paid 5.5k per 1usd
for once, total 30 USD amount. I always bought giftcards always, so I can keep stack the USD credits so can freely use them how much I want, to make flexible plan. I think I was lucky to be able to meet such a low price sellers many times whenever I was ready to buy it. I don't think you can meet sellers who sell in those price easily. It was early time, 1 year ago, and I was lucky.

I successfully got melon sword, after I got ExtCommand+ for erepair, which took about 1.5 months.. I chose to get ExtCommand+ first, because I knew that I am careless person who would accidentally break my melon sword eventually, if I don't have erepair ability. I did break quit a lot of pumpkin axes, while farming pumpkins..

But it wasn't like all my plan worked perfectly without problems. I did have some hard time, suffering an ordeal, which it was very depressing moment for me making me lose will on continue playing. My three features that I bought it and used it for a month without problem, got rolled back. One day, when I went online, my [$$$] tag changed back to [$$], and I figured out all the features that certain player sold, got rolled back. Turned out that he used some stolen creditcard or something and he got perma-banned. Boom!! There goes my 250k gone forever. Well I did makeup those features by buying those again from another sellers later, but it was huge damage that slowed my plan down, and discouraged me at that moment. I almost quit ECC, but eventually I didn't. And there were several more scam cases after that, which was keep demoralizing me. One of scammer was even [President][VIP]. But well, I did overcome all those demoralization, and continued on earning money.

It took total 5 months to get [VIP]. I stayed as [Resident] for 5 months, because I didn't even want to spend 85k early, just for rank tag and town, I thought ability from donation feature was much more prior thing. Spending those 85k on rank would slow down my plan on getting features. Yes, I was little bit different from how other normal average players think. When everybody was so busy getting [Mayor] and donating with there real money, and building their town, I chose to get [VIP] first, with extremely mad hardcore efforts, and I still have no regret but still think it was right choice for myself. At that point, It cost me total 2 mil 292.5k ECD to get [VIP].

I was so happy at that moment, so I even used shout three times each, twice. Someone like me who hates unnecessary money spending, using shout is quit something. I just had to express my feeling.



After that I did work on earning earning some money and became directly [President], right after I become [Mayor]. I don't think anybody would've seen me as [Mayor], because I have only stayed as [Mayor] rank for 1 day, and only spoke once in global chat, as I remember.

After President, there was monthly promotion event going on called "Gold-wing". If you buy two Fly/Speed[60+60 = $120] you will get extra $20 usd giftcards credit, and forum gold account, and promotion medal. I paid someone who is trustful in donation selling, 600k to buy me two fly, so I can get total $140 giftcard credits. Because I already have Fly/Speed+, I got converted giftcard credits. That's how I got gold sparkling name in forum.

Next month's promotion event was even better. If you buy ten giftcards[10x10 = $100], you would get extra $30 giftcard credits, and promo medal. Well there was no gold forum account prize this time, but I already got that through last month promo, so I didn't need it, but only bonus credits. I used this chance twice. I paid 500k to someone, for first deal and got $130 USD giftcards credits, and made this deal again to another different seller later on, before this promo ends at end of month. Total cost me 1 million ECD(500k+500k), and I got total $260 USD credits.

So adding total for all promotion bonus deals, I spent 1.6 mil ECD and got $400 USD credits. This really helped alot for me to get the rest of the donation features. It was very very stressfull time, because I knew that this is the chance that I should never miss, but it was so hard to find donation seller who sells that much large spending of their real money at once. And also it took lot of time and efforts to make that much ECD money right after each deals to make next deal in time, before promotion event ends.. After I successfully finished all three deals, I was so happy that I took enough advantage of these promo events. I used those USD credits to get rest of the features.

And after that, I worked on my rank to look more cooler and higher than other players. I think I played this game as somekinda MMORPG.. Keep leveling up and get stronger with many skills, and get richer, by hard working. It's not like I am regretting my past play-style, but I did feel lonely at some point few times, and felt boring a lot. So I did try to sell some plots few times, as town owner, but easily got bored and lost interest, after experiencing that those players quit within few days or move out.

I am still fighting with boredom of earning money. I did everything I can possibly do through multi-tasking to overcome the boredom of farming. Watching downloaded movie & TV drama series, reading novel, web-surfing, playing online poker, and also doing some work for my private life income(freelancer type of works, mostly translating works, but also like managing website, writing books, helping business of my friend). If I couldn't do it in one laptop, I used two laptops, to make it possible, with still pressing buttons for farming with my left hand for ECC farming.. I did feel at some point, like "What the hell am I doing? I am not even feeling joy anymore by playing this.." But until I reach to the very top of ECC world, by achieving everything I can possibly get, I will try my best to not stop my hardcore journey of ECC. Like my customtag, I will someday be [Zenith], the highest point of everything.


And by the way, to all those various players who sold me giftcards(donation features), and not scammed me, Thank you very much again, for making me possible to accomplish my goals. And also those whoever bought service from me and paid me too. And thanks for all of those players who were kind and nice to me.


<Some Screenshots>

My house from outside.


Inside of my house


My Kitchen! :)

My Alchemy Room.

My King Size Bed!

What I usually wear.

Just trying to look cool badass assassin for profile pic.



Lastly, thank you all for reading my lousy, long, and boring story of me. It must be so hard to read it, because of no fun, but I hope my summary of game-play would at-least inspire some few players..

Have a nice day! :)

---------------------------------------[Edition]---------------------------------------

Just one more thing, lol.. Well by mean "Solo", I am just worried that it might sounds weird, and bit look like anti-social, but well I meant like I didn't have much chances to hang along with fixed few members of very close friend in ecc, chatting in local chat in close distance, building together or play around together. That's why I chat I global and VIP channel a lot. It's not like I am never talking lol, but I am not well known to people who lives in U.S.A region timezone, because I live in Asian timezone. which means peak-time of ECC for you guys, is morning for me. So that's why I am more well-known among Aussie players, who has similar timezone with me. :p