There should be a point that someone will start to think this blog is made so I can brag about the hunts that I completed. Well, in general, I do not deny that's true, but maybe this is where it changes. With so many hunts going on at the same time, I am sure its quite impossible to complete all of them and in fact, not even most of them.
Right now, or at least in the near future in mid march, 3 of the major (according to me) hunts are going on and I really wanted to complete them all. But this is why there is this post, I probably cannot.
Twisted Hunt had been around and this is the 9th run of it. What it is famous for is not the prizes or the story, but instead its well known to be insanely difficult. And this run is no exception. In fact, I had only embark on it and I can already tell its going to take me a while to complete this if I decided to continue on.
Well, the funny thing that makes Twist so hard is actually the designer intended for the hunter to cheat. Why do I say that? They will have tens (up to 50 I see so far) of item all named as the REAL item so that Area Search does not work. In additional, the cube (prize) is splashed with MESH so that wireframe will find it hard to locate and I do not know what other measures they put in. Honestly to me, I do not encourage or discourage the use of any of these technology. I believe you the hunter intend to ruin his / her own fun, I won't stop him / her. But technically I do not consider any of these cheating. The technology exists as part of SL and its not even like loading a Trainer or modifying some configuration files to access unauthorized features.
To give you an example of the measure they went to in order to make the hunter's life miserable. In a location I seen, there was no hint. Yes, I can't believe what's the fun of hunting when there is no hint. They might as well say the prize item is on some sim, inside some building somewhere on SL. Now that would be the ultimate hunt right? Well, NO to me. I may had been around for thousands of years as a Bakeneko, but still I prefer to spend my time doing something more meaningful. Ok, let's get back to the location. The cube was buried deep inside another larger decoy cube (yes, the store also puts up tens of decoys) and seriously, I did not find any other way to click on the cube with derendering the larger cube. So, they expect you to "cheat" by derendering the larger cube. I feel pity for people who really played nice.
Am I bad mouthing Twisted Hunt? Well, maybe I am a little, but what I am stating is facts. In fact, they even posted a rather arrogant speech about "Fck off if you are not good enough" on their site here:
http://twistedhunt.com/for-twisted-hunters/for-twisted-virgins
Well, they might not had used the F word, but it pretty much sound like that to me. Actually I do not mind the insane challenge or the "dirty" tricks they played to hide the cubes. It's challenging and I do love challenges. The only down side to this hunt was unfortunately people are not as friend as you think. Without hints and without assistance from fellow hunters, it makes progress really slow and painful.
Maybe its by chance, but maybe its planned. The Steam hunt is always organized at the same time with Twisted, making it really hard to concentrate on both of them. In fact, I did not even attempted the last Twist because I had so much fun doing Steam with my sisters and friends. Steam, like Twisted, usually features a huge list of about 150 stores. so expect it not to be a short hunt. But the major difference on Steam however, is that every store is suppose to come with a hint for the item. Now, isn't that a big difference then. Unlike Twisted, which gives me an impression that they DO NOT want the hunter to get the prizes, Steam comes pretty friendly and in fact, I am quite impressed by the prizes. In the previous hunt, I even some cool steampunk vehicles and buildings and even a rocket!
Do I sound like I am taking sides, well maybe I am. All I know is that if I had to choose between these 2 big hunts, I would go for Steam any day. Maybe the theme for Steam is just more attractive for me too and at least I do know a few close friends who are interested to do this one with me. Yes, they still have hairs in case you are wondering. Nobody pulled their hair out so far over Steam hunts.
I am sure if you had followed my blog, then Kiyomizu is not a unfamiliar name. I loved this unique Japanese hunt and so far, I am just so impressed with their tracking system and you can even rank and compete with your friends and monitor each other's progress. The prizes may not be expensive (yes, in fact some of them are cheap even if you do not hunt them down), but they are definitely worth getting. Its this hunt that exposed me to many of the little Japanese invention which I am so impressed with. Clever little items made and sold by the stores in the Kiyomizu sim. I had completed at least 2 hunts from Kiyomizu and I will add more to it.
Kiyomizu hunt is usually shorter than both Twisted and Steam and its so friendly, you start to wonder if the designer wanted you to find the items easily. One of the reasons I enjoyed Kiyomizu so much is that I actually found the items quickly and had time to spend browsing on the stores. I did ended up buying lots of items which are not hunt related on Kiyomizu hunts actually. I usually do not spend that much on Steam hunt and I actually do not think I even spend at all in Twisted. The prize took up so much time that I immediately jump to the next hint as soon as I finally located it.
From the above, which is mostly if not all of my personal opinion, I think I would go about these 3 hunts in this order : Steam, Kiyomizu, Twisted. Well, the reason I place Steam first was because it only starts on 16th March, which gives me a full 15 days (4 had passed) to complete Steam first. I will try to complete Twisted last, and to be honest, I might actually walk from this one if there are better hunts around then.
But do not let me discourage you. If you enjoy a really hard challenge, go for it! You do get a tag saying you are a Twisted survivor I believed.
I also couldn't believe it had been so long. I still remember that night, sitting around my little hut in SASS with my friends, together, after I just completed STEAM... Alas, so a lot had changed...
