A Small Expansion

SirDarth had the night off, since anyway the servers were going down at midnight last night for the weekly maintenance downtime - and this morning, after the new patch had been downloaded, there were a few changes, though to call it an "Expansion" along the lines of "Wrath of the Lich King", "Mines of Moria", or Eye of the North" is a bit cheeky. 

Some in-game confirmation pop-up windows have been modernised, a "merchant house" system has been initiated, like an "auction house" but with only the "buy it now" option, which ought to be useful, the level cap has been pushed up by a further twenty to 140, just to entice high-levels to buy more experience boosters to slog there way on up, with some new level 100+ skills, weapons and armour, there's a "monster combo" competitor to do with cubes somehow, and the second and third personal dungeons, the "Rescue the Princess" mine and Ajaka Canyon, are being re-used, re-populated with high-end critters, as new high level instances.

Of course any big patch would be somewhat lacking if it didn't have a few bugs - choose your "cube" colour with care, as some colours may not work apparently (and the possibility of your party meeting another party in there and having to battle them to continue isn't yet working), people were complaining that they'd lost huge amounts of gold due to glitches in the merchant house - oh yes, and switching directly from horse mount to drake pet brings up a "Send Error Report?" window.

The mention of the Ajaka Canyon personal dungeon reminded me that it is many months since I went there, so, after checking the level requirement (25 to 40) I decided to take my level 27 titan MrChuckNorris in there, mainly because he isn't carrying large amounts of skill points, since I was uncertain whether deaths there carried a death penalty, like deaths on the normal maps caused by monsters.

One thing that hadn't changed was that the second door won't open if there's a single Cave Troll still alive, which, after a tedious run back on my first attempt, meant I had to stay by the first gate waiting while the last of the trolls finally spawned.  The first time, I got killed by a Beast Crawler, not entirely surprising as they have a magic attack and Chuck's magic defence is 14; the second time it was the end boss, a toned-down version of Dratan's raid boss, Blood Mistress Kamira, who got me, again with a magic attack.  As far as I could see there was no death penalty, though, his experience and skill point totals didn't go down at all.

I wasn't really intending to try a third time, I was mainly checking to see if one really needed a "personal dungeon 3 ticket" to get into the instance, but I did get in - and Chuck managed to go all the way, vanquish Kamira, and clear out the final room, winning, um, a single moonstone and 10,000 gold.  But at least I got some skill exp, and Chuck's pony, which had been a bit low on health, levelled up safely (a pet can be equipped, and gets experience, in a persoanl dungeon, but it doen't actually appear, or give its buff, or take damage), and it was fun to go somewhere different.

One other change from this morning's expansion-patch was that the experience needed for levels 90 to 100 has been reduced, with a slight increase instead on levels after that - and, after reading on the forum about that, I went over to the Cariae server, and started up my level 98 archer there, Barbarienne, finding that she was apparently on level 98 and 249.08%.  Running out of Randol and killing a fox, for 1 experience and 1 skill exp, immediately changed Barb's stats to level 100 and 31.07% - so, what a way to reach level 100, by killing a fox!

After lunch, distributing Kaerella's loot from yesterday between characters took a while, but then Kae headed for Dratan, and the Poison Mists again.  As I only had two hours, I used a pair of platinum adrenaline potions to increase my attack speed, and a pair of platinum blessed irises, which give triple experience for an hour each.  My first hour gave 74.34% (and 38 skill points), taking me comfortably into level 36; the second hour, plus a few minutes between, managed 67.22% (and 39 skill points), and moved Kae into level 37.

The lower score in the second hour was probably mainly because the new level is a bit longer, so any kill is a smaller percentage of it.  I did have one of the "Send Error Report?" game closures, I can't have clicked the button to unequip my mount hard enough before clicking the button to equip my drake.  Still, it didn't take me long to get back, the horse buff I'd given myself was less than half finished.  Initially I thought I'd lost the 20 minutes of so remaining of the platinum blessed iris, as I didn't see its icon, just the platinum adrenaline, but a few minutes later it was visible, so all was well.

There was no sign of Dobby or anyone else, though Kamira arrived fairly soon - luckily she only stayed for the one 14-minute period, and I didn't see her again.  Highlights of Kae's loot included a +2 level 37 (sorcerer) weapon, a heaven stone, +1 level 36 (knight) leggings, 8 moonstone boxes, 5 large defence potions, 13 level 41 shield production manuals, and 6 more Myst Eyes.

Apparently there have been a number of mass disconnections, and it looks as if this is being caused by the new "merchant house", so we are being asked not to use it, if we want to stay in-game.  Oh well, these big new patches always bring pain with their gain.

My evening session was a short one, as it often is on a Wednesday; Kaerella did have time to go out to the Poison Mists again, and started a platinum blessed iris and a platinum adrenaline.  But a bit after halfway, there was a mass disconnection; one bad thing about a pbi is that it keeps counting down even when one isn't in-game, unlike ordinary potions, so, after reconnecting, and setting SirPerivale back up, and getting a second mass disconnection, and reconnecting again and getting Peri working, there was about a 15 minute (6 game hours) difference between the two expiry countdowns.  I managed to get 45.60% experience by the time the pbi ran out, and, still attacking speedily, got it up to 51.09 when the adrenaline finished - so I really should have got 62.07% if the pbi had lasted until then too.

Dobby was around again, but didn't try to attack the Elite Poison Mist, contenting himself with the regular ones over on his side.  If I'd had time I ought to have asked him if he had meant to sell a level 29 +8 weapon for 700,000 gold, which seemed a zero short to me, but once the adrenaline wore off, it was time for Kaerella to log out.

SirPerivale did continue, though, and after those two disconnections in quick succession things did quieten down.  Ratel's horse reached level 33 today, and by the close of play should be a good third of the way through that level, so Peri is doing a good job.  A mage called AvengingAngel did actually kill the Berserker he was battling, it seems her fighting of other monsters just got a bit close, but I did manage to notice that as it happened and was able to target a new Berserker, without losing any time.