On Sunday, Feb. 22, 2015, I will be taking part in the second annual Dango Daikazoku Pangya Guild reunion. The Dangonians are the second and current guild that I am a member of after the Guild Leader from HeadHunters removed me without prior notice, something that I have zero tolerance for. Because I was removed from the guild, I ended up having to search for another guild to join. Dango Daikazoku is led by kurOTL (a.k.a. Chocobecca) and xMIlkChocox (a.k.a. Mandy Moo or Woo), and they are a casual guild, unlike Sotong, who truly treat this as an e-sport. (More power to Sotong's guild leader MD_Reira a.k.a. noobcat, but my scores are too low for me to even be considered to join Sotong, and I don't have an intention to join them anyway, citing lack of tact among some skilled players.)
At the event, I'll do a tourney, do some trivia and running, and then fill in a sentence. Whatever, I'm there to get my shirt and take some photos and chat at 8 a.m. in the morning on Sunday. Over in Britain, where the guild is based (yes, this is a British guild and most of the members are college kids), the event begins at tea time: 4 p.m. As long as I am able to participate and meet some of the folks on Dolfini 3, everything will take care of itself.
I'm surprised myself at how far I progressed in the game. I'm near the halfway point of my time as a World Pro A and I am nearing ranking another of my C-rank clubs to B-rank (that's after I gather up the points to move all those mastery points to the set, which is the Batter Up! Set, the baseball clubs, since MLB Spring Training is right around the corner). Once that's ranked, only one club set that I own will be a C-rank. That is the Handyman Set and will be the next to be ranked up. My Miracle Voice Club Set is used to farm the Mastery, and then I slide it over to the clubs, which I don't even use and I probably will only use if they get transformed.
Furthermore, I completed the set of Artifacts I can get by using Safe Silent 75 times, I needed to use Safe Silent nine more times but hadn't used it in months. I had nine Tiki points lying about and they were used to get the Safe Silents, and after that, I got the Frozen Flame, which everyone at Black Papel 1 is gaga over because you don't lose your active items if you use it.
My alt account now has the Poster Set for Hana, while I will be within 100 cubes of acquiring the Poster Set for Lucia on my main. My main also now has all of the Pang clothes for Cecelia R, even though I play as her on my alt. I'm trying to clear off the achievements with Cecelia R on my alt so I can go back to playing as Classic Hana.
Speaking of which, I ended up getting the Hermes Shoes for Hana, and, when combined with the now-converted Pinkline Bikini, it looks like I found...a winning combination. I get the Hermes Shoes for converting five Speediest Medals. I had the Hermes for Arin, Azer and Max before getting Hana. If I was Homura Akemi, my nose would be bleeding profusely. It's that good. Unfortunately it's a timed item but I plan to show it off at the Dango event. Also, speaking of conversions, I hit 5,000 conversions with Cadie's Cauldron, leaving just the 10,000 conversions to go. I'm not going to reach that for another two years. It took me over a year and a half to get to 5,000, and I may not get there until late 2016 at the earliest, given my pace. Also reached 100 Memorial Special Coins used and 100 games at Wind Hill.
You know, I've been a Memorial Level 24 for several weeks already and I am still knocking down achievements. Haven't been winning any Kooh rares, but I did win an Orbital Synapse Ring as well as a Project G Set for Hana off scratchies. The last time I saw a Hana Project G Set, my old friend Aries ended up getting it. But once this Scratchy Update came, I knew I had a chance to have that set respawn. It did, and well, what goes around comes around.
There's been talk that Pangya is again on the decline. I thought people were satisfied with the new season several months ago, but it seems I have been mistaken. High rare prizes, uninteresting events, too many veterans sandbagging to squeeze out the true Intermediate players (and TwinsLight has stated for the record on the GameRage forums that he is an advocate of sandbagging; although he reserves the right to do that, I have the right to call him out on it, tit for tat)...players can never be satisfied with this game.
As for me, I know that in Tournament mode (and I have actually been playing this mode a lot and even started up a few rooms myself) I have a great chance at winning Best Driver and Speediest if there are enough players in the room that finish. I don't know why I cannot convert my Best Driver medals into something meaningful. They're taking up space and they need to be converted in some form or another.
But anyway, that's the update so far from my Pangya grinding sessions. I am counting down the days until that day when I can finally call myself a Master of the game...at least in Level name only. Oh yeah, check out these vids.