My first time : Extra planar mining - time is money

Honestly, I don't remember much about this Challenge, except that I had lots of fun until waaaay past bedtime. I didn't intend to play at all last night. I only intended to do some auction house and inventory management. But out of force of habit, I checked the social panel and was delighted to find an ideal PUG. At my level range, doing the challenge I wanted, and almost full! I joined, they told me they were waiting on me and off we went!

I thought the Time Kobold Forman sounded really interesting but in practice there's not much to it. You exchange crystals for more time. If there was anything else unusual about this permutation of Extraplanar mining, I didn't notice it.

But oh it was fun. I loved running it as a group. First run we were surprised our Kobold's lack of sense. Instead of teleportering home, they chose to go the long and dangerous way. I learned that a great solution is to put a teleporter in their path *and not in a circle of power* -- it acts as a one way ticket home.

After that snafu we were a great team. I scouted early game and spent the rest of the time managing home base and the Foreman. We got 4 stars and all the Magma ingredients I needed to make my Rock Boots (ML:16 tier 3). I wanted the third tier so I could craft a Masterful Craftsmanship onto it and lower the Minimum Level to ML:14.

By chance, that's exactly what one of the guys in the PUG was doing, but he had everything he needed to craft it on the spot. As it turns out, it's even better than I hoped, the minimum level dropped to 13.

Oh one highlight for me was when I was scouting early in the game and aggroed a Redname Cloud Giant and a dozen wolves. Man that was insane! I kited the wolves around but stayed close to the Giant so he would keep trying to shoot me through obstacles with his bow. Then when the emergency at base was over, I dragged the giant home for some assistance.

It was so fun, finaly getting to run these challenges with a full group. I'm really looking forward to more. I notice that there's consistantly PUGs for epic challenges, so that's something to look forward to also.