After yesterday's problems in the morning, it was a relief to get SirDarth set up to level his drake nice and early. SirPerivale had to wait a while, as the newer computer had decided last night that it had some updates to install that it didn't want to just do automatically - in fact I suspect that it was Vista Service Pack 2, which took a while to download and install. Instead of restarting, since it had already taken me past my bedtime, I just switched off, so this morning it had some more processing of the updates to do, then a "reverting" when it got something wrong, and another installation... I went back to bed, but luckily when I next checked it had sorted itself out and was ready to play.
The first Pandora's Box of the day just dropped 10 Great Healing Potions, so that wasn't very exciting; Peri's drake reached level 33 fairly early on, and then around about coffee time Darth's pony reached level 16, and officially became a horse. An hour or so later there was another Pandora's Box, but this one released a level 50 Beast, so Peri logged out, and MrChuckNorris rode down into Merac to Smite the interloper, which dropped 102,400 gold, which I think must be the maximum cash amount you get from them. When Chuck logged in, there was a message that the uniform cover he'd had had expired, which suits me, it was an old armour set he no longer uses, so now it can be traded across to another character if needed.
Chuck went out to mine some stones, since Peri's drake is starting to get through them rather quickly, using 24 tool aids (and 24 pickaxes) to obtain 648 quality stones. Peri then replaced Darth on the older computer, and Chuck traded most of the stones across, before Peri left Randol to head back to Merac - keeping a few for expenses, of course. As there wasn't really time to do anything adventurous before lunch, Kaerella then took a turn at mining, with 20 hammers and enough tool aids for the job. After using 19, she then started to mine an Ore Vein for assorted stones, to top up the supply of imperfect and flawed stones too. In one of the waits for the Ore Vein to respawn (they only last ten minutes), she spotted a nearby Pandora's Box, and was rewarded with 10 medium mana potions - meaning she is now carrying 272 of them.
After lunch MistressDomina headed out to Prokion Temple, with a pssp at the ready, to start her half-speed progress up through the levels. One thing I do tend to remember to do, though, before I actually start such boost-potions, is to kill one Orc Axeman, or Orc Sergeant, and see what the skill exp figure I get is - and this time it was double the regular amount, so presumably, though there was no mention of it in the "events" section of the Last Chaos website, the APAC "early happy hour" had been double skill exp, and they'd kindly forgotten to switch it off.
So, I settled in to enjoy the double skill points - which may not be as much as getting triple, but it saved me almost three pssps, so that can't be bad. The session must have been almost three hours, and I stopped on 1001 skill points gained, along with 124.07% experience and 2438 pet points, which were enough to get MD's drake into level 29, so that the pet buff is now 14 levels of Armour Increase and 14 levels of increasing her magical attack power.
There was, while I was away for my food break and SirDarth was joined by SirPerivale on the pet-levelling again, an announcement saying that the European happy hour had ended, and when I got MistressDomina back to Prokion Temple again to check, the skill exp was indeed back to normal. I didn't start a pssp right away, I wanted to wait until I'd got the last 7% of level 28 and reached level 29, but my hand was forced when I was around halfway there, when an announcement came up that a new two-hour maintenance was due to start at 11:00 am Pacific Time (7:00 pm in the UK), which was about 56 minutes away. So, on the feeling that with any luck the shutdown wouldn't be incredibly prompt, I popped the pssp - and my last 50% psp too.
Once level 29 had been reached, so that MistressDomina was the same level as the Orc Sergeants, meaning that they gave the maximum 5500 skill exp each, it was time to get reckless, and use some of my hoard of skill point boosters - even if they do seem to sell for over a million each at the moment! So, while I didn't use them on the level 27 Orc Axemen, each time I was fighting a Sergeant I activated one, for 77000 skill exp each - 7.7 skill points per kill. By the time the session ended, MD had gone up 37.95%, added another 1079 pet points... and grabbed 1380 more skill points.
The disconnection came at about two minutes past the hour; although we had had warnings a few times earlier, I don't think there had been any announcements for the final twenty minutes, and there was no "servers are coming down in ten..." type announcement... so the first I knew was when the Orc Sergeant I was fighting stopped taking damage, which was a pity as I had got the skill point booster activated for him. In all I'd used 137 skill point boosters in the 58 minutes, so that accounted for 1055 of the new skill points.
SirDarth also got disconnected of course, with his pet horse on level 18. The new patch should, product manager Aeria_ks1lent informs us, fix some bugs with the guild system, such as people suddenly finding themselves no longer in their guild, or the notorious level 0 titan as a second guild master, and clean up the party system too, including people switching to a Combat party when there is more than a 10 level difference...which may mean that yesterday's 40-50-60 arrangement is no longer possible, we'll have to see. "We are not 100% sure of all of the changes that will result in this patch so we need your help to figure it out", he concludes...
I headed for Guild Wars for a while, including getting a level 9 necromancer to the third mission starting base on the Factions starting island - Belle Raizor still hasn't died at all, I see. I did the "Bog Beast of Bokku" quest along the way, the only ordinary quest on the island that a non-Factions character can complete.
Last Chaos was back up when I tried to log on at nine, so SirDarth was quickly back at his horse-levelling, and then MistressDomina, with a few minutes left on her pssp and psp, made a mad dash back to Prokion Temple, and was able to kill another eight Orc Sergeants, in a convenient room by the entrance, before the boosts expired. I didn't stay long after that, as getting experience while the skill exp isn't boosted is a little bit counter-productive, but that brief foray added 1.51% and 58 skill points - seven sergeants giving 7.7 skill points each, the eighth giving just 2.2 as the pssp and psp ended at just the wrong moment, and probably four more just giving the standard .55, to clear my way out.
So, Darth did enough pet-levelling to get his horse safely into level 19, while MistressDomino went into merchant mode in Auzura-1 for a while - and after quickly selling a few moonstone boxes and pet colours, actually had someone buy the unmounted level 37 horse she has been carrying, for 395 million, making her rather a rich lady... at least, until I have to start buying level 75/77 healer armour, and I suppose either a level 73 or 77 bow. It's a shame that it won't be possible to get Collector Ryu to change such things into their rogue equivalents afterwards, but I fear we have now outgrown his services.
SirPerivale logged on to fight a second Berserker alongside SirDarth, and got the drake he has charge of past the two-thirds mark in level 33. I suppose, as he really does need just about all thirty levels of Armour Increase, the best idea would be for him to continue with the drake until Darth gets the new horse up to level 31, and then take over that one's care, while the drake is put somewhere safe until Rage is ready to take him over. With the changes to experience freezing, it really doesn't look as if Darth is going to get lo level up through Prokion Temple for quite a while, so it will probably be worth upgrading Peri's armour a bit when the cover wears off.
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