The purpose of this text is to give you a good idea of what ought to be the best order and manner in which to attain the given powers within the Vampires! A Dark Alleyway game. I hope new and old players alike may find it of some value and worth. If not, oh well. Enjoy the game regardless.
Yours,
~ Brent "Andronicus" Elskän (jmoc714).
Firstly, let me state this: The following suggestions are just that. Suggestions. Take into consideration that my own point of view has been the main source of logic surrounding these tips, and this document should not be considered definitive for all players or styles of play. I recommend you familiarize yourself with the game as a whole and come up with a system you feel works best for your style of play.
Also, I have just learned of the new power Telepathy. I have yet to work this into the scheme, but I think it ought to fit well into the 'optional' category. I will revise this page to include the power when I find the time.
Of particular note I recommend you read all the Powers Texts, as this document assumes you understand at least the basics of what the powers are and how they function. Of course, I suggest you begin by reading my own, linked here, and any additional materials you may find in the FTA files section. Also invaluable to the new player are, of course, the in game FAQ, How To Play and News sections. Virtually everything I know about the game came from first reading all the How To, the News and FAQ, then playing.
There is really no reason one cannot become equally knowledgable to most of the 'ancient' players out there like myself, Sasquatch, creperum, Wander, Devil Miyu, Lady Ravven, Retro Johnny, Xeneri and many others, with the same information and the added help of the various texts I and others have put together.
Alright, now I'm sure many people will have objections to my ordering, but like I said: This is my personal view. I'm open to hear arguments for the reordering of this listing, just contact me using email me.
I'm sure some of you have taken note of the lack of a given power as well. Neutrality. This is because I find the attainment of the other powers more interesting and entertaining, and because Neutrality, in my view, does one thing more often than all the other things it does: Reduces my thieving by half! I love thieving, so fuck Neutrality. And yes, I've been 'zeroed', so I can see why others might want it. I just can't stand to see what could have been a 6,000+ coin score get halved for the off chance that I might one day get splashed with holy water. Now for the why and such.
Second-sight comes first because you only get the power by donating and I wholly advocate people support a game they play so much that they read any text of this nature. Besides, you kill the pop-up advertisements and shit, are not going to be setting off some script issues by accident and can get what is arguably the most difficult power to attain, and next on the list, as your one other power for donating.
Thievery. The power which pays for all other things. Thievery one is, by the design and nature of the game, the most difficult power to get. As a fledgling pire you have but two ways to receive the funds needed to buy this power: biting humans and in-game coin gifts. If you are not in a clan or in contact with a decent sire or a friend who also plays and has a bit in the bank, the second option is out. And it takes forever to get the coin needed to pay for Thievery 1 just by human corpse-molesting.
Therefore, the first real suggestion regarding powers attainment is that you donate at least $5 US and request your freebie power be Thievery 1. More on donations in a moment.
I know it takes a great deal of time to go from Thievery 1 to 2 and then 2 to 3, but it's well worth the preparation. Besides, once you have the first level, the second isn't too hard, really, from there 3 is pretty easy, and the whole time you're biting humans to stock up on BP for the future. So have patience and keep at it. Thievery 3 kicks ass.
Suction, while a seemingly hefty cost to the new pire, is a rather important power to get early in the game, as it can also be considered a power which pays you back in the long run. Adding an extra pint each time you bite only lessens the time it takes for you to gain the needed cost of other powers in the only other currency of the game: Blood Points (BP). Besides, after running about to TG2 and then 3 only to click and get a power with no fanfare, the Suction quest is really rather entertaining.
Celerity 1 continues the questing fun and is obviously useful. I know many new pires grow impatient waiting for AP to rebuild when they have some goal in mind, so the attainment of this power ought to at least temporarily relieve some of that 'must- -play- -MORE-!' thirst we are all guilty of at times. This also gives you something to work on while you build BP to learn the first level of Stamina.
Shadows 1 gives the player a little break from severe costs and sometimes tiresome questing. It's cheap, requires no BP or questing, and, like Celerity 1, helps build BP as you nibble humans to go get it.
Locate 1 is in here because... Er... I don't know. Why not? It's pretty cheap, entertaining as quests go, not too high on the BP cost scale and you gotta get it some time if you plan to help a group where people sometimes either look for each other or attack people. I don't much care about Locate, but the levels of various powers effect what powers you can get when you donate.
Surprise is pretty useful, as you don't need to scroll banks or guilds and therefore don't need to carry more than a couple SoTurns with you for a favour. This reduces your overhead costs. Yay! Of course, it costs a boat-load of coins, but I think this is good for two reasons. 1- It sets a goal which is challenging but not unattainable for a pire which has done the all the previous powers as suggested, and 2- it once again creates a BP building lapse of time between the BP costing powers.
Stamina 1 is probably the power I cringed at the hardest when I got it and is probably the power type with the largest overall sting. That massive drop in your hard-won BP count is a blow to the ego and really takes time to rebuild. This is where I mention donating again.
Because of the cost in BP for this power, and its progressive levels, I suggest you just make another donation and ask RB to make your next power this one. And if possible, go ahead and get Stamina 2 now as well. It only makes things easier. This lets you save those BP for some other power and gives you all those proud, warm fuzzies for being a decent vampire. Eh, decent human, that is.
Celerity 2 is another questing power, so you shouldn't be getting too bored with the non-quest powers being mixed in with the quest ones, and will once again satiate the '-play- -MORE-!' monster when it kicks in. And while you're at it, you can hopefully have pubs within reasonable distances of one another so you can be part-time-thieving your way from one quest point to the next and making a little bank. Not a terribly costly power, either, to be honest.
Shadows 2 and 3 are thrown in here only because you might as well take a little breather from high-ticket shopping and the somewhat long quest prior to this. I suppose the drop into shadows in 24 hours thing is kind of neat in coupling with level 2 Celerity, as by the time you get the last two levels of Shadows, you can log out, take a day or three to actually not use your computer for a change, maybe even read, and then come back to a fully charged max-AP level and a hardly nibbled pire. Besides, after the next power, you'll want all your other leveled powers already at level 2.
Locate 2 is really a lot like Shadows 2/3 above in that it's pretty cheap, only a little useful for now and also because it will play a roll in how you can get some powers when donating. Since you need to have all level-based powers at level 1 before you can donate to get a power up to level 2, or at level 2 before you can get a donation power up to level 3, you should have Locate 2 before you, hopefully, donate to get Stamina 3.
Stamina 2 represents a huge chunk of BP to lose, so I hope you can see the importance of both Suction and donations. At this point I actually would say donate to get Stamina 2 and 3 at the same time (just to simplify). Since you've already gotten all the other level-based powers to level 2 (or better), you can now get not only level 2 Stamina, but also level 3 via donation. This is a nice avoidance of the loss of not just BP, but also all those little +1 Max-AP bonuses you've enjoyed by doubling your BP count thus far.
Celerity 3 becomes the last important power to get, if you went ahead and donated for Stamina 3 as mentioned above, and is definitely a long and usually difficult quest. With any luck, by the time you can get to this power, you can afford a few SoTel to help you if you really need them. And once complete, even if you didn't donate for Stamina 3, the speed increase to AP gain is really useful.
Locate 3 is actually supposed to be the end of the list, due to it's near uselessness, but if you didn't/couldn't donate for Stamina 2/3 it will be easier to go ahead and just get this over with before the whopping BP cost of Stamina 3. Locate 3 is more a matter of convenience and entertainment than a real power, IMO, but is still one step closer to having a 'fully-charged' vampire. And while you build up the 15,000 coins this dumb power costs, you can rebuild those BP... yet again.
Stamina 3 will be, if you didn't/couldn't donate like mentioned above, your final goal in powers. It represents the most tear-jerking in-game cost and is certainly something to be proud of getting if you have to, or choose to, do it through the Guild. I think this power was the most discouraging one to see happen, yet I find it extremely useful, so I suppose it must be done. Who doesn't want +10 to their base Max-AP?
Now, unless my sleep deprivation is deceiving me, you ought to have the full powers set except Neutrality, which is a shitty power. Ok, so it's actually a really good idea, the way Raven has tweaked it since it was first created, except for that whole cutting my thievery proceeds in half bullshit.
Pat yourself on the back and have a smoke if you read this segment from start to finish. You deserve it.
Like I said in the introduction, this is by no means an ideal way for every player. Some may decide only to get a few powers they think useful. Some may decide that, for whatever reason, they don't need certain powers, but still want the majority. The idea is that you see the logic to the ordering, the sequence being a relative one to the value you place upon a given power.
If you think getting Stamina 3 isn't as important as Celerity 3, fine. If you happen to pick up all three levels of Shadow while you get the three levels of Thievery out of convenience, great idea. Think through the path you want to take and don't be wary of changing your mind. I've had many pires in my time and not all of them progressed as I show above. Some were bred to gather specific Guild info, then passed along. Some were just made to be 'sold' and
followed a system far less inclusive to make them cheaper to create and build. Some were only meant to be theft drones.
What style of play you decide upon will surely differentiate how your main pire and your secondaries (if you have any) are constructed. Role Players may decide to have a segment of their clan which only thieve, never build BP and never buy items, in order to generate a money source. A secondary army of funds creation for the soldiers. Some may be into information gathering and therefore create pires with seemingly incomplete power sets so that they can get very specialized Guild info. Any of these and a hundred other ideas may
change the way you build your pire.
The point is to enjoy a game. I hope the recommendations I've made here help in doing that for you.
Adieu,
~ Brent "Andronicus" Elskän