Server Crash

It was another busy morning for me out in the real world, so SirDarth kept busy pet-levelling, while MistressDomino did a little bit of selling - not that she actually has all that much to sell now, but every nine million or so helps.

Around lunchtime Bladesrus returned to Last Chaos, and happily took back her horse, now level 35, which SirPerivale had been holding, passing across the ten heaven stones she'd promised.  Stavanic has now decided that he doesn't want an actual second mount, he'll just transfer the one we did make for him between characters as needed - but he would like two more pet horses, level 21 or so each.  He seems strangely reticent about actually giving me anything for the work involved, though...

Well, the afternoon was fairly busy, starting off with a general moving-around of items, which restocked MistressDomino's inventory a little bit, including those ten heaven stones.  That still left just about two hours for MrChuckNorris to head for Prokion, though.

The back room I go for was already in use, so I headed on round a bit further.  I found I didn't actually still have any platinum super skill pills in Chuck's inventory, which seemed a little strange, but he was carrying ten Skill Boxes, and one of them gave me a pssp.  Despite the room I ended up in not being ideal, I did manage to get 603 skill points in the hour, but I decided not to use another pill (which would have been a non-platinum one, for double rather than triple experience) as the place was crowded - and that was probably the right decision, as the second hour did only bring in 166 points, which was a slightly lower kill rate.  

SsnowboardS, who was in a solo party with me and Ratel, did tip me off about halfway through the second hour that "my" room was free, so I ran back to it - but it wasn't long before a mage called Predator24 turned up.  I think she was the player who'd been in residence when I first looked in.  Still, she was concentrating on the Sergeants, while Chuck gets more skill exp from the Orc Axemen, so we got along okay.

I noticed that Predator24 was using one of the week-long + 30% experience potions from an Easter Egg, so she is obviously in the final stages of her Prokion time.  Chuck's Eggs didn't produce anything as good as that today, just a Green Stone accessory, 50 gold times six, 10 gamma wave energy, 10 herb trunks, and 10 quality stones - so a set of all three types there.  Why it's the mid-range, 3 health point herb trunks rather than the 5-point herb leaves I've no idea, as the quality stones and the gamma wave energies are both the 5-point type.

In all Chuck added 792 skill points, along with 1820 pet points, so the time when he can get unfrozen does draw nearer.  In theory he ought really to aim for around three times his current total, but I don't think he is really ever going to have to worry about the sp needed for the skills after level 100.

During the swapping-around, I finally passed the white pet colouring crystal that BasheR had given me over to MistressDomina, so now her mount is a flawless white.  She also exchanged her pony, which was only about halfway though level 1, for Darth's level 25 one, so Darth went out with a level 1 pony for a change - and with his highly-enhanced armour, had no problems at all against his usual Berserker.  As he was no longer carrying the unmounted level 35 horse for Bladesrus, SirPerivale was able to go out with his current level 24 one to the Butchers over my early evening food break; with just the +3 armour and shield, his health bar once again did tend to fluctuate a bit, but not dangerously.

However, when I got back to my computers after the break, both SirDarth and SirPerivale were just not damaging their monsters, and not being damaged either... moving away from their starting location, no new monsters appeared, so it wasn't long before I knew that it was a mass disconnection, and one of the worst kind, where if you log out and then try to enter your details again the server thinks you are "already logged in".  It was only Auzura that was affected; after a while, perhaps half an hour, they managed to get over the "already logged in" thing, but all the Auzura sub-servers remained resolutely on "Maintenance".

The shoutbox was of course filled with angry or disappointed people - people who'd been using expensive potion-buffs like the platinum blessed iris, or had been in Egeha, or in the final hard-to-get-to rooms of the Tomb of Theos.   And the "maintenance" went on...

I logged my Cariae SirDarth in for a while over on that server, as the crash only took Auzura down - he's level 33, and just a bit nerfed for skill exp gain, but he was able to kill a few Poison Mists easily enough, and then he went to Prokion Temple and killed a few orcs there.  Ratel got in touch to suggest a solo party, but he was in a different sub-server.  And I didn't feel inclined to stay there long.

After a brief outing in Guild Wars, just a trip to the Secret Garden in Pre-Searing, I found that the Auzura server was finally functional again, after probably about 90 minutes of downtime, so SirDarth was able to get back to his new pony, which was well into level 8 by late evening, and soon afterwards Rage went online too.  When Argoth heard that I was at the Sphinx Fighters without anyone to party with (as WhiteMessiah2, who was there, was about to log out), he decided to change across to Ratel and join me, which was a great idea.

So, a level 45 rogue and a level 38 temple knight were just about able to take on the Elite Sphinx Speer Man, but Ratty knew a level 31 cleric, Darkangelx, who is actually in Norcaine with their mage, GothicPresence, who had the location on her scroll, so invited her out to join us.  It is a bit risky at that level, and things were at times a bit laggy, so Dark did actually die a couple of times - the second time was bad, another archer, hopefully inadvertantly, lured a Speer Man right on to her.  Still, she stayed with us, and we continued until she reached level 32.  It's handy having a healer in the party, it saves a fortune in health potions...

By log-out time Rage had added 22.08% experience, so is halfway through her level now - and 728 pet points, which were enough to get her faithful horse up to level 33.  The new technical point was quickly invested in Armour Increase, an extra 5 to defence could make all the difference.

MistressDomino had a look around the shops in Auzura-1, and after snapping up +4 Vanishing Tiara and Vanishing Long Shoes as upgrades to her +3 ones at only 200,000 gold each, she went on a bit of a spree, starting with a level 33 titan sword, a Dictator Sword +15, for 100 million - which seemed a good price to me, and indeed I saw a +14 sword just after making my purchase being offered for 120 million.   The bloodseals were nice too, with 6 added to attack and 55 to hit rate.  I then bought a rogue level 46 Rapid Shirt and Rapid Pants - the same items that Rage is currently wearing and will soon outgrow, but these are +11, and thus I think worth 50 million each.  Rage may not get a whole lot of use out of them, but my next characters to level up should be glad of the extra defence.

The advantage of having the level 33 titan sword +15 is that once MrChuckNorris starts to level up, he will very soon be able to switch to using it, which will free up the level 29 one to be converted for MistressDomina to use as a mage staff, so she won't have to wait so long before she can farm her skill points in earnest.  It all adds to the variety, it seems a while since I played her...

MistressDomino also bought 200 experience boosters at 900,000 gold each, hoping to resell them for about 50% more - we'll have to see if she has any luck with that during her next selling session.