The Long Watch
The Long Watch is what your character does while you are away. Step out of the realm, and they keep a quiet vigil; come back, and you claim the experience and gold that vigil earned.
How it works
- The watch begins the moment you stop playing. Nothing to switch on, nothing to remember.
- You bank experience at a quarter of your fighting pace — it is meant to keep you moving, never to replace playing — and a modest purse of gold alongside it, at a fifth of that rate.
- The watch pays only if you have actually played since your last claim. Earn some experience on any of your characters first, or it reports nothing.
- Absences shorter than five minutes bank nothing at all.
- The watch fills for up to 12 hours per absence. Beyond that it simply waits for you.
- Return and claim it from your stat panel. Twelve hours at that pace comes to about three levels, so a long absence never vaults you past content you have not seen.
Why the cap
A watch that never stopped filling would make logging out the best way to play. Twelve hours means a night's sleep or a working day is fully rewarded, while a fortnight away does not hand you the endgame. Come back, claim, and get on with the realm.
Postings
When you return, the hours your watch counted can be spent on a posting instead of the ordinary watch. You choose when you claim, not before you leave, so a forgotten choice never costs you anything. A posting keeps 50% of the watch’s EXP and none of its gold — the hours went elsewhere.
| Posting | What the hours become | A full 12-hour watch |
|---|---|---|
| Keep the Watch | The ordinary watch: full EXP and gold. | about three levels |
| Drill | Weapon-skill XP for the weapon in your main hand, 600 an hour. Your class’s ceiling still applies, and a weapon lent by your Support Class does not train. | 7,200 skill XP |
| Labour | 12 strikes an hour at any gathering profession the ground you stand on allows — or fishing, by the water. Stand where you would work, then claim. You bring back the materials and the skill XP. | 144 strikes |
| Patrol | 10 kills an hour of one quarry already in your bestiary, towards its next rank and your Hunter Rank. | 120 kills |
- A posting is always slower than playing: a full watch of drilling is about a quarter of an hour at the keyboard.
- A patrol only hunts the ordinary beasts of the overworld that you have already fought. It never finds a new entry for your bestiary, never counts towards a kill-title, and a quarry at the top of its ladder has nothing left to teach.
- Labour brings back materials at their base yield; it does not count towards gathering achievements or quests.
- If a posting cannot pay — a mastered weapon, no work underfoot — it is refused and your watch is untouched.
Being told when the watch is full
The Long Watch panel has a link, Tell me when my watch is full. It is off unless you switch it on. You choose how — an email to the address you registered with, a notification in this browser, or both — and about what:
- My Long Watch is full
- Something of mine sold at auction
- A realm boss has risen
You are only told when you have been away a while (about 20 hours for a full watch, so a daily player never hears it), never more than once in 20 hours, and after 3 messages with no return it goes quiet until you come back by yourself. Every email carries a one-click unsubscribe.