User:Mr Bill
Mr Bill
-- Oscar Wilde
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Mr Bill (#335599) is a jive turkey and a member of Noblesse Oblige
Background
I discovered KoL in December 2004 after it was featured in an issue of Game Informer magazine. Mr Bill was the first character I ever created. Since it is the greatest of all the classes, I chose to be a Disco Bandit.
The humor of the game quickly drew me into becoming an everyday player. After getting the hang of the game, I spent much of my time trying to make myself wealthy while levelling as fast as possible. I became a frequent face in /trade, steadily amassing enough meat to begin my quest to buy every familiar (back then, hand turkeys and jill-o-lanterns weren't completely out of reach).
As ascension approached, I began stockpiling items and preparing strategies for speed ascension, even though no one knew exactly what to expect. During this time I also joined up with Monster at the End of this Clan, which gave me a good home for several months.
When ascension finally rolled out amidst record lag in June 2005, I left my old disco bandit behind.
Ascension
In the days before ascension, newer players stood no chance of ever landing on the leaderboards that existed at the time. Ascension brought new possibilities.
My initial runs were relatively good, but it took some time before I began developing a solid strategy. My first three day run, in July 2005, came a month after the first players broke the barrier. My first two day run, in August, was two weeks after the first was accomplished.
During this time, two day runs were only being done when the stat days lined up right. No one had ever finished that quickly without at least one stat day or holiday involved. Bashy then issued a challenge in the public forums for someone to accomplish the feat. I began my planning that day. The solution I came to was not what anyone had in mind, but it was novel: make it in two days by simply breaking out of ronin. By using enough cans of air and spectral pickles, I was able to rack up 620 adventures in only two days. This allowed me to skip pulling items I would need for the lair. That's how I was the first to respond to Bashy's challenge: it wasn't practical, but it was clever.
By September I had gained enough skills and know-how to begin doing successive two-day ascensions and working my way up the leaderboards. About the same time Noblesse Oblige began luring me into their clutches with promises of super glazed hams, paper badgers, and solid gold babies.
In December, 2005, I became one of the first players to finish collecting every skill in softcore and decided to begin trying my hand in the hardcore world. I had only done one such run before, back when I ventured off to get a stainless steel scarf to aid my speed runs. I remained in hardcore until February, when the window for the much fabled one day ascension opened itself up.
One Day Ascension
The first one day ascension attempts were part of a project within Noblesse Oblige titled "Team O-DAMN," which featured noted speed ascenders Bashy, WGITC, wilder, Almighty Tallest, and myself. The project began in February 2006 after the appearance of the iceberglet in Mr. Store. It was believed that the item had finally made the one day barrier achievable, so each member quickly began a hardcore oxygenarian ascension in hopes of finishing before the month ended.
Each member did finish with a week to spare. On February 22, 2006, the plan went into action as each member took a shot at the one day one after the other, passing on the necessary hockey sticks as they finished. I took the first shot, which started bad from the outset. Bad RNG luck doomed the run very early, and the run was aborted before getting into the Lair. Later that night, Almighty Tallest would make it into the Tower before falling short. Then just before rollover, much of the Kingdom tuned in as Bashy took the final run, getting all the way to the Naughty Sorceress with his last adventure, where he was tragically defeated.
The iceberglet disappeared from Mr. Store shortly thereafter, and any future plans were set aside. Then the new skills rolled out. With the addition of the new skills, including Double-Fisted Skull Smashing, Ur-Kel's Aria, Sonata of Sneakiness, Smooth Movements, and Ambidextrous Funkslinging, I began working on acquiring the new skills and making a new plan.
Bashy and I once again delved into HC Oxy and began discussing strategies for the elusive one day run. We both completed the runs on April 10, and as before, I took the first stab. The run ran well into the night, spanning over 7 hours in real time as each turn was carefully conducted. Meanwhile, the whole run was being filmed with a screen capture program for later posting. In the end, victory was had, after 300 turns and only 8 to spare. If you're interested in the details, the whole film can still be viewed at http://www.noblesse-oblige.org/mrbill. Later that day, Bashy also proved successful in his attempt, coming in at only 289 adventures.
After that I spent some time playing hardcore oxy runs so I could collect the plexiglass outfit. Thie third run ended near a myst day, so I lined up another one day run and was successful again. Several changes had been implemented between the first run and this one, though, inclduing the change to Ode to Booze. This meant players could get many more adventures than before, making such a run easier than before.
Once again, I went back to hardcore oxy to get more plexiglass. That run took too long to make another run on a myst day, but it did end just in time to take a longshot run at a Feast of Boris run. Using the foods I found along the way, along with the new Milk of Magnesium, I managed to rack up over 440 adventures for the run, and made it with 13 to spare.
New changes to the game continued to change the strategies used for one day runs. The new hi meins and pulverize skill were being used to help players make one day runs without even doing a prior hardcore run. The next big goal was to manage two one day runs in a single day. Soon enough, Lukifer had pulled it off and I followed shortly thereafter the same day (more credit is due Lukifer, who had basically achieved the goal on an earlier date, but was thwarted on the second run by accidentally auto-selling a wand piece).
Since I had already completed five one day runs, I shfted strategy and began trying to do runs for speed, rather than success. This meant cutting things close and risking failure in order to cut the total number of turns used. For the first few weeks, this led to runs that failed, or were successful, but not as fast as I hoped. Eventually the RNG smiled extremely wide and I managed to complete a run in 285 adventures, which stood as the single fastest one day run ever - until it was beaten by jonbly on the very last possible day (before NS13 rolled out, and the increased length of the game made one-dayers impossible).
At this point, I'm no longer planning to make any more one day run attempts, instead focusing on picking up skills in hardcore.
Factoids and timeline
I collect dead guy's watches. My display case currently has the largest collection in the Kingdom.
I've collected all of the tattoos and every familiar.
I run a webpage at http://www.noblesse-oblige.org/mrbill. It features a page dedicated to ranking the various skills, as well as screen capture recordings of my various speed runs.
Recent History:
8/11/05 -- Set record for fastest teetotaler ascension (at the time) (3 days, 479 turns) (boy have times changed!).
8/28/05 -- Became first player to ascend in two non-stat days.
9/14/05 -- Began first hardcore run.
10/??/05 -- Set record for fastest Boozetafarian ascension (at the time) (exact count and date lost in Great Time Catastrophe).
12/03/05 -- Completed collecting all skills. Headed back to hardcore semi-permanently.
12/11/05 -- One year KoL anniversary.
1/1/06 -- Achieved mysterious leaderboard spot on hardcore boozetafarian boards.
2/22/06 -- First member of Team O-DAMN to atempt a one-day ascension.
3/1/06 -- Set record for fastest ascension played (at the time) (2 days, 271 turns).
3/3/06 -- 100th ascension.
3/16/06 -- 100th normal ascension.
3/17/06 -- 100,000 turns played.
4/10/06 -- Completed the first ever one day ascension, finishing with exactly 300 turns played.
4/13/06 -- Set record for fastest Boozetafarian ascension (at the time) (2 days, 265 turns).
4/14/06 -- Set record for fastest Teetotaler ascension (at the time) (2 days, 248 turns).
4/18/06 -- Set record for fastest Oxygenarian ascension (at the time) (2 days, 264 turns).
6/4/06 -- Completed second one day ascension, becoming first player to do so (1 day, 324 turns).
6/23/06 -- Completed third one day ascension, this time on the Feast of Boris. (1 day, 428 turns).
7/15/06 -- Full plexiglass outfit acquired.
7/15/06 -- Completed fourth and fifth one day ascensions on the same day. (1 day, 306 turns and 1 day, 331 turns)
7/31/06 -- Completed sixth one day ascension (1 day, 320 turns).
8/24/06 -- Completed seventh one day ascension, setting speed record (1 day, 285 turns).
11/01/06 -- Completed 6 day softcore run to level 30.
11/16/06 -- Completed 8 day HC run to level 30.
11/20/06 -- Obtained first spot on a HC class-specific leaderboard
