Hello Mousehunt Heroes…
Welcome to this late late Mibbler in times of great happenings. Life surprisingly doesn’t shape itself neat & easy around Mousehunt-releases each and every time. And apparantly especially not this time :p (dear Dev’s couldn’t you have waited another week?). So, due to Real Life Interference, this Mibbler is “late”, but as She will leave on the dev’s wednesday: there is still time to make choices and perhaps make that last purchase!
Ralph M. sure was inspired by a master when he wrote clear & elegantly about what Ronza means to many of us hunters, and about our -most of the times complicated- relation to her:
“Ronza, You have a way of bringing out the passion from everyone. When I first heard your name with the far distant sound of a dying kitten in the background, I hated you and your party hat ways. I took an oath never to recommend a limited edition trap to my fellow hunters in the forums. What good is it to know that the trap I am suppose to use I can never get?
Yet I must confess you won me over like a high maintenance girl friend. Yes you are often distant and it is expensive to be with you, and yet I think of you every day as I am not content unless I am using one of your LE traps and LE base as well.
I like to think that our relationship is improving, you have learned to give me warning of your coming, so I have time to prepare for your wares.
How do I love thee, let me count the ways: …”
To be continued in: Ronza my Rosalind, I leave you this note on the trees of Whisker Woods
There are a lot of hunters impatient to move on, and the release of a new Charm pack after She leaves, has already been announced. But first more about THE Return in Mousehunt history. Or to simply see whether you had missed out on some details, here is the last weeks News Harvest:
The Awaiting…
Maybe, just maybe you have all forgotten how it felt before her coming, after that long long wait, only a few days ago… let me remind you by telling a bit about the days past… before she came:
“From the Great Winter Hunt and the Festive Comet it was apparent some one special was expected to return. The tickets to Ronza and her charms was a sight to behold. (…) There are signs every where of the joyous occasion. To celebrate sb+ vendors are giving big discounts, and the skin market has 50% off sales all around. It won’t be much longer till the lovely maiden fair and her new lover come. The charms of Mustachio are known far and wide and surely his love will cause Ronza to be even more generous with her goods.” – Aleksandr Gifford (post 26 in: Ronza Navigational Update)
We did not know then, what we know now of Moustachio and why he is called the Charmer… So when we spied Jacob’s new profile picture we thought we had found THE clue: we guessed wildly after the secret identity of the Charmer and frolicly claimed our Jacob must be truly Ronza’s Lover! We so did spy Jacob having the best of Moustaches!
Our most favorite artist himself said: “Pffft, I have no idea what you’re talking about… *runs off to change his picture* ” … Jacob surely seems to go by the famous words: “one man in his time plays many parts.”
Thread: MUSTACHIO Pic released!
Ronza has finally returned!
She returned from her year-long search for Moustachio! She’s brought rare and unique items that only she has available. Read almost all about what she brought in the News post.
Surprise: Moustachio turns out to be a wise researcher and retired trapsmith! And not a Lover :p
Ronza leaves this wednesday (source: News post about her leaving) Warning: Once Ronza leaves, you will no longer be able to exchange your voucher from the 2010 Great Winter Hunt for her crate of Ultimate Luck Charms. Moustachio’s newly build shop in the Mountains looks like a permanent one and it certainly feels like he will stay. The dev’s wouldn’t call it his “return” for nothing now would they? Ah! *big sigh* The dev’s have confirmed in the latest FBF that his shop is to stay!
All good new things come in 3: First there is Ronza & her new traps and brand new region-specific bases, second there is Moustachio & his charms – a new addition to the game, and third there is a new trap for sale in the Prize shop & by means of donation: the Shrink Ray Trap.
The Rockstar officially is not new in the game but very nice to have him visit along with our grand celebrity. You can hunt them at the Airship using Rockforth cheese (loot dropped by other mice in there).
Glitchpaws released
These Glitchpaw mice may have had something to do with the short-ish server maintenance downtime on friday. We were all worriedly-excited that something would happen or change to the Ronza-related items and releases, but the downtime was due to some server problems that needed fixing.
After fixing we were shortly left with a marketplace that was and smelled “ slightly singed!” The Market Place & Supply Transfers were “unavailable for a short time while Dave does some stuff” – Michele in : Market Place & Supply Transfers)
FBF 14th january
This weeks mailbag was announced to be a “lite” version – with short questions… so in that spirit one of the questions was: “will FBF ever be hosted from a kiddie pool full of jelly beans?” (in: **Official FeedBack Friday Mailbag – 14th January**) 
Surprisedly this lite one was never answered, but many more serious ones were!
Many of us sure were curious about whether the dev’s would consider making a statement about the Riposte Trap’s name: naming it after the one player that has been no.1 on the scoreboard for a long long time (about 2,5 years) was a tat controversial and aroused a lot of noise and protest especially by long-time players.
The riot (i think we should call it this) had taken the dev’s by surprise (not us, oh no! – more about this later…) and has “definitely influenced the way they will include Player Lore in the future.”
One of the surprise announcements in FBF was the announcement that a new Charm pack will be released shortly after Ronza leaves. Plus they actually showed some Charm Spoilers: several charms still yet to come. The pictures are included in the FBF reviews:
Jeremiah’s: Feedback Friday Review by MHCC 14th Jan
and David’s: 14 January FBF REVIEW
Now what? o.o The Dev’s are spying on us!
For once and for all the world of spying is turned upside down: The devs have found a way to actually sneak
peek on us instead of the other way around! Mike has made a very interesting tool: Real-time display of in-game activity. Then Joel hi-jacked the boardroom television to display the results in a slide show. “Who knew MouseHunting was a spectator sport?!”
Go see the video: FB page for HitGrab Inc.
New Baron area coming: our nerves tickled by JJ
Jacob Johnson couldnt withhold this: “Would it be mean to say that I’m really excited about how the Baron area in MouseHunt is starting to look?” (on his wall).
==== Forum Features: What’s keeping hunters busy? ====
Guides on Ronza’s shopping goodies
Of course, all reflections on the good and bad of the new traps for sale, are just a hunter’s quick ‘n dirty analysis. Nobody has had a solid chance to try out the equipment in a variety of combinations to validate the hunches. Still most of us, especially the ones that can for sure not buy or afford it all, 
need some guidance for the choices we have to make. You may have sought out the guidance for yourself already, as we all are in a hurry with Ronza usually, but still … here they are:
1) The Guide to Mousehunt: “The Ronza page is UP!”
And: “… in light of all of the questions, clearly the physical comparison and tactical comparison need to be written pronto. [The Hydro comparison is already done -editor] For now, the short answers: PTT is *not* better than any of the other Ronza traps. Partybot, CCT, Chillbot, etc. The Riposte *is* better than Zugzwang’s First Move”
2) The Budget advice on the new forums: Ronza’s Shop Budget Guide
3) No this third one is not a Guide, but it is a good addition to any guide because of the reflections in the discussion. It starts with a simple question, but turns into an almost philosophical exchange on Ronza traps and nobody knowing yet how they will perform! Plus it mentions the general experience they actually always turn out to do well: ArcBlast vs Acronym
Whatever happens, in my humble opinion you should make your own choices, and not just rely on the guides. But they are very usefull as reference, indeed.
We continue with traps for now, and talk about bases and charms and other new stuff later.
Short Advice summary on Traps
New this Ronza-visit is the fact that “…the King now allows hunters to purchase traps before they meet the point requirement, however, you WILL NOT be able to arm the trap until you have reached the required points.”
All advisers seem to agree on one thing: The tactical Riposte Trap is the best buy Ronza brought this time. (one example source: Rewer’s Riposte OWNS Tactical)
The most expensive buy is the Acroblast or Arby, and it is generally believed that it will be slightly better then the Acronym (although not against Liches). But man is it expensive! (one example source out of many: Acroblast vs. Acronym)
The Pneumatic Tube Trap is believed to be almost as good as the Rhinobot and a good option for when you come to Derr.
The Shrink Ray Trap makes a great trap for a beginning MouseHunter, and caused some questions re being LE or not, but just to be sure: it is not! Plus it caused hunters to ask for it to be “giveable” (source: The New Shrink Ray Trap…. make it givable) 
Chris H. just likes: “ (…) that they named the new Shrink Trap after my Uncle Ray…” (post 31 in: Ronza Returns with Moustachio the Charmer )
The Trap that must not be Named
So what to write about this? Nothing? (As it better not be named…) Yes, I can do that. If you still wonder what i am talking about at all: this is about the Rewers Riposte trap ‘controversy’.
The trap is named after a prominent player who held the top position on the points scoreboard of the Facebook version of the game for over two years. The huntress has gracefully thanked everybody who congratulated her. This huntress can now be considered to be the first member of the Mousehunt Hall of Fame.
And man did any thread ever trying to establish a hall of fame go down in a nasty way.
So to summarize: with this naming the dev’s sorta opened up a barrel of trouble. The dev’s picked it while about half the mousehunt Forum-regulars could have told you it would get them a riot on their hands.
Pretty soon we spied that many of the page 1 Scoreboard hunters actually had debaited their traps, some even had travelled back to Gnawnia putting on their Marionette: this sure looked like a strike of sorts! (source: #1 and #2 Baitless and in the Town of Gnawia – What’s going on ?)
But be not alarmed any longer: we will not suddenly make it into the top 100! On Friday, even before FBF had been on, all hunters on page1 were hunting again! Despite the fierce protests. the outcome of the poll in one of them is with 310+ votes rather in favor of “stop the whine!”, against 120 for renaming (and 80 saying i don’t care). source: Poll & protest: Should the Rewer’s Riposte be renamed?
The fact is that the majority of the hunters won’t know anything about what happened or what may be the reason for the upheavel. Or like Jane B. said: “The Jennifer thing is beyond explanation…”
Dave answered to the uproar quickly, way before FBF: “Hey everyone. We meant no ill will with this trap. (…) She [Rewers] no doubt helped shape MouseHunt when there were only a handful of players and the game would be quite different, or possibly no longer around if she stopped playing in those first few months. Her moral support and enthusiasm during those first few months meant a lot to us and kept the whole team working hard. (…) This limited-time trap was meant as a small tribute to a hunter who kept us motivated to keep building the game, and ultimately allowed thousands of people to enjoy MouseHunt.” (post 43 in: Let’s all give a big hand to the Devs for the Rewers Riptide)
Personally i absolutely buy this! Probably the dev’s simply underestimated that “ All the world’s a Stage”. (Go read up on your Shakespeare dev’s!) I agree with Kathryn Ch.: “I’d rather prefer to believe that they are staggeringly naive than that they deliberately did something they knew would be a slap in the face to many of their loyalest players. :/ ” (post 110 in: Poll & protest)
Fan-Art & tiny remarks on in-game art-aspects
As a result of this all, we now have a wonderfull new trap-idea the devs can resort to in future: The Sparring Chamber. If you like the idea, vote for it here: The Sparring Chamber – Trap idea & art
And ehm, you know i am a fan of Mousehunt’s artwork yes? But personally I think the looks of this Riposte trap are worse than it being named after someone. It’s not the drawing that lacks, it is more or less the trap-concept that does nothing for me. And i am not alone:
“I wouldnt say the art is bad… but by far my least favorite so far. Looks like it was a rushed last minute project without any direction at to what it should represent.” (Erik W in: Rewers Riposte trap needs new artwork!)
And now that i am complaining about the Art & Looks of this Ronza-item: Why is there no Ronza header? This is really weird: to be hunting on the airship and have it look like you are walking around in the streets of Gnawnia city :p
(source: Really?!!??! No Ronza Background?? Really??!!??)
New bases, some are region specific!
First thing was the confusion the dev’s created by naming a new base the Tiki: how to distinguish between the two Tiki bases. 
Most of us have found a new nickname for either one of em, but some confusion is bound to stay around for some time… (source: what do we call the tiki now we have the tiki?)
New aspect, besides specific region-effects for some of the bases, is also that the Tiki base will not be LE, as Ronza plans to frequently sell them when she visits, 
and the King has agreed to allow the blueprints to be exchanged in the marketplace both during and after Ronza’s visit.
Opinions differ somewhat on what bases to buy, and on what to buy first: “If you have the gold, just buy it. If I were asked to rank the importance: Runic Base – Tiki Base – 
Seasonal Base – Bacon Base. In that order.” – Evan L. (post 9 in: Are Any of the new Bases Worth It)
Others do state that you can easily skip some of these bases: “MSB is better than Seasonal in the Garden, in all 4 seasons. 
MSB is better than Tiki, at the tribes. Bacon is well… ~_~ bacon.” – Trevor H. (post 26 in: A little dissapointed with Ronza’s visit.)
I think it can safely be decided depending on your situation rank- and area-wise.
ps: The Tiki estimates have even given rise to a petition for tweaking: The Petition for the Tweak of Tiki’s Stats in Tribal Isles…
Moustachio’s Charms
Moustachio’s shop is a permanent addition: the dev’s answered the question in the FBF: the charm shop is to stay. Now these charms may make a revolution: “Different level charm conduits. Crafting your own charms. The options are endless. This could be in my mind, the most exciting addition since unstable curds.” (David S in: Personally, I think charms are a very exciting addition to the game…)
Last Saturday The Guide to Mousehunt announced its new Charms Page!
The Guide says: “It will likely be a couple of months before we really know which charms are worth it and which ones are not. (…) All in all, you can expect these charms to be craftable and purchased from charm shoppes. Currently there’s very little information…” Still THE Guide has done a good job collecting all we know right now!
“Charm data is now available in the data viewer: http://www.hitotext.com/mh/viewdata.php I did a lot of testing, but please let me know if you find any bugs. Enjoy! =)” – MouseHunt Horn Tracker
ps: Did you know you can see your charms in your Inventory as a tab under Traps?!
To Ronza Voucher Or to Not Ronza Voucher?
So Im guessing everyone’s trading their Ronza voucher for the crate of charms, no? It looks like the charms are not LE which means you’ll be able to get them later, but who knows how or when? The question here is: do you suffer from OCD or not. (source: Ronza Voucher)
Now if you have traded your Voucher for the crate of Ultimate Luck Charms, what are you gonna use yours on? Any ideas? Go look up some ideas in: Ultimate Luck Charms
New in King’s Crowns: Favorites
Do you have certain King’s crowns you would like people to see at the top of the page? Well, now you can choose 8 of your crowns as your favorites! Check out your MH profile and click on the crowns you want to add to the top as your favorites. (Click the favorite again to ‘disarm’ it if you are having second thoughts ^^)
Rockstar mouse
And how to get him? The Rockforth attraction rate, and the Rockforth droprate seem to have gotten a little better compared to the first day, but many do not choose to hunt him:
“I’m really disappointed with the attraction rate of Rockstars this time round. At the moment I have only managed to collect 33 Rockforth cheese and looking on the forums its highly likely that would net me no more than 1 Rockstar if that. I think I’ll just collect the cheese for now but I might not even arm it. Maybe next year it’ll be better.” – Carol R.
It looks like arming a little attraction charm performs miracles for my Rockstar chase ^^ Maybe, just maybe, with the new charms added in the mix, figuring out the best set-up has become way more complicated then we are used to!
ps: The Rockforth maxes out at 99 pieces in your Inventory.
Sadly but inevitably the FGR is Closing
Sadly but as all things come to an end one day, the Friday Gold Rush (FGR), one of the great Paying-it-Forward Funds of old, is saying Goodbye:
“We have thought long and hard about how to continue with the FGR, but have come to the decision, that we are going to close the fund. There are a number of reasons for this, the main one being the disappearance of [the FB-] discussion boards. Thank you for all of your support, we have all enjoyed running the fund, and meeting all the people we have, and now call friends.
Happy hunting. – The FGR Team”
Thank you Nicky B. & Claire D. for keeping this up & going as long as you did and for the tremendous help you organized for lower ranks, thank you for keeping up the spirit of Paying-it-Forward!.
Major Ronza Giveaways and other forms of help!
Different Giveaways and other forms of help has arisen out of the community solidly by last weekend & for those that may still have Ronza-needs: please do make good use of them! Also i saw many a group-pm come by offering help, and through FB-MH-related chatgroups (new style) hunters were helping out many others one on one.
One example of a Giveaway is the 100 Million Gold Ronza Giveaway! Although at time or printing the Giveaway “is currently closed to catch up with existing entries”, and it says to check back later. This is a huge organizational job! I want to applaud the organizers of this particular Giveaway!
The above mentioned FGR is giving away all last gold reserves to members in need. The AN/AM has a Ronza-help program running for under-Legendary-ranks. And there is the Ronza Appreciation Fund working out all requests in spreadsheets and working hard to be able to pay-out soon!
The Paying -it-Forward-spirit of the Community is alive! Long live the Community!
Quick Thread-Tips for the New Forum:
– Geoff O. has been working really hard & quick to get this for you: Mousehunt Reference Spreadsheet with CRE (latest version always on top)
– Nathan Yang: “I’ve updated some results in the “Mainland” tab of the MHv3 spreadsheet: http://bit.ly/mhdata3b
– Strongest traps of each type – Quick Reference
– No clue on what “Exponential” really means? Or polynomial? Maybe this thread helps: If luck is exponential…
– Top Hunter of Each Breed
– Mousehunt Profile Badges & Do spy the related items as there is a golden one as well ^^ – MouseHunt Profile Badge
– Would you like to have a lounge specifically for Veterans? Just like the Newcomers Lounge? Vote here: Veteran’s Lounge
– The Common Sense Of Mouse Hunting : An Obituary
– Just in case you had missed these clues about socks and the Chess Master being, or having been Zugzwang ^^, just like i missed these clues: Zugzwang who?
– The Lady’s Coming (A Moushunt Fanfiction)
– Very usefull information in this thread on what to do when spam happens: Why is this forum suddenly overrun with spam threads?
==== Rumors… Opinions & Stories ====
Serious Flooding in Australia, Brazil, Sri Lanka, the Philippines
And related to the floodings, call for the return of the Hope mouse can be heard. The dev’s thought it would not be a good timing for the Hope mouse to come together with Ronza, so they held off for now. All the flooding in the world going on right now, made for devastating news these last 2 weeks. Personally it was more easy for me to feel close to the Australian floodings and keep well informed about those, as i know people there. But please let’s not do any comparing between these places and just admit this is disastrous for all these regions/countries!
I hope the dev’s will find a gracious way to introduce the mouse for rising some awareness and feelings of connectedness. But if they do not, i have seen enough controversy in the game fro now: to me it will be ok to avoid any more.
source on new Forum: Return of Hope mouse – support for flood disaster in QLD, Australia
source on FB forum: Hey Devs, can you release more Hope Mouse for QLD, Australia?
source: Queensland floods.
Sensei or Walter hunting?
Is there Ever a good time for that? I have been forever staring at my OMG, 170 pcs now, and wondered if there a) ever is a good reason to go Sensei hunting, and b) ever a good time to do so?
Some have tried to answer these questions in this thread: Dojo Sensei?
Dreaming of a LE-rental Shop run by Larry
Imagine going to Larry’s Rental Shop and being able to (depending on your rank and/or points) rent one of the many LE traps that have come and gone since the beginning. A too good an idea to not be mentioned, even though it stems from before Ronza sailed in…
source: Larry’s Rental Shop.
If you could no longer be a Mousehunter…
Which of these jobs would you take? Being a Digby Scientist is popular… but as more hunters fill in their choice the outcome gets more and more evenly distributed. Now what would you pick?
Go here to see the possibilities, or to enlighten us on your choice of ‘other’: If you could no longer be a mousehunter, which of these jobs would you take?
Last but not Least:
There is a Ronza restaurant in San Juan. Let’s all go out and have dinner with Ronza!
= = = = = Cookies & Credentials = = = = =
Thanks to Rachel G., Jane B., Julio R., Michael S. and Jessica C.
Huge thanks again and Heart-felt-goodbeys to Nicky B & Claire D.!
Todays cookies … it was hard to find some water-related cookies … “The very winds were lovesick,” Shakespeare wrote… but we did find some that combine these two elements! These are for you all to get good Hope in case of water, and to feel the Love of the community in times of Ronza-related-loud-riots!
* hands over the Rose-Water-Cookies *
# Anybody who has news or wants to write a (fluffy) piece, or maybe even a whole edition of the Mibbler, can send the copy, the idea, or even just the interesting thread-adress… to my pm-box :)
# No News, no Mibbler, as there is a a very strong-headed non-fluff person on the board of advisors.
# No Fluff, well – we have to warn you here – in case of no fluff we might accidentally still post a Mibbler with strong warnings of putting on your sunglasses first before reading.
# No crew, no Mibbler. Which is really really sad. Luckily there’s always the possibility of posting your news or news-related question in the comments.
*Lightbulb moment*
Happy Birthday to you AN/AM! It is great you are still out there and Rocking! Yay for Paying-it-Forward & the Mousehunt-Community helping hunters out! To celebrate AN/AM is organising many different competitions to celebrate, check out the Party Schedule & Join in if you can!
Now this evaluation, and/or the reasoning inside it, may be the reason for the Sphinx Crsytal prices going up! So do be carefull an dont spread the word, or them Crystal prices will even rise above those of the Sandstrom Monstrobot!
After all those three traps “make all your other traps look like they were made by Larry”…! – SDHoost.
Here is the form to submit Monger Charm Loot Data
Somewhere else on the Forums there’s a serious discussion going on about the attraction rate of a new special Fiery Warpath cheese and the costs to make it a valiant alternative to gouda & sb+ (and not disturb the on-going donations)… throw in your 2-cents if you like:
The Catch Rate Estimates tool at furoma.com has been updated. It now includes population data taken from our surveys and a couple of other new features: http://furoma.com/catch_rate_estimates.php
A little reminder that Cheese & Whine is also about Cheese: wOot!!! 3 Balacks on 1 page!!! 
Just in case you wanna say it: 
In another thread the discussion is picked up and Andrew Ward continues there: “So… you think the tweak was generic rather than specific to furoma? ” (
“There are 2 options:
Just to remind everybody that 
Fiery Warpath Guides
Hunting in Derr alone presumably more profitable then doing the whole cycle up to Dragons and all!
Preliminary results can be found here: 
This is probably what we all wanted to know since the Warpath came out! I love this remark out of the discussionthread: ” Out of the options I would say Silth wins.”
Q: Should I use Ultimate Luck Charm for the Warmonger Mouse? Will it increase the loot?
Q: What about Onyx Mallet? It’s pretty expensive yes?… And what should I do with my Onyyx Stones if I don’t craft the Onyx Mallet?
We are again seriously wondering (yes we did this before) whether anything else then runes is in these boxes.
While we all know that Runes are (by far) the most common, we don’t know the exact answers to these questions. Chad M’s initiative wants to investigate: “What percentage of the boxes contain Runes? What percentage of the boxes contain Rumble cheese? What percentage of the boxes contain Fire Salt?”
Silver Crown for Dragons!!
– And pssst: This Just In! (Thanks to Taraka P.)
– SdH
Where are the potions? I noticed many hunters crying out for the T4 potions in pain. Personally i have been avoiding the Gauntlet much after getting to the top once. But for those braving that experience there is some advice available these days. One of which is: be aware the potion drops drop significantly after level 2!
the Mibbler 