The overnight maintenance and patch got rid of the Christmas event - but if I wanted to see great big snowflakes falling, I don't need to go to Randol, I could just look out of the window, since it was snowing heavily all morning here near London, and much of the afternoon too. It was no great surprise that the Christmas Tree Ornaments one had got in one's inventory had vanished, or the reindeer transformation books either, but it was a bit surprising that the shiny Santa hats had gone too, despite having 30-day countdowns running. I assume if they were actually melded to one's armour's headgear they survived, but other ones, which could be worn in town, are all gone. The one-day merchant and warehouse tickets are also gone, even if they had a few hours remaining to their countdown. And SirGalahad's horse is now back to the regular horse form, rather than being a reindeer - as is Barbarienne's faithful pet, after being a reindeer for the whole of the last year. One item that does remain in Gal's inventory though is the "Pet Restore Spell Book", promising that "Rudolph will return to the original pet form" if it is used.
So, the Christmas event was a bit of a misfire; the buff for increased drops for an hour which the main tree in Randol gave seems, anecdotally, to have worked, but not in a huge way, while Christmas Gift Boxes were more of an annoyance than anything else, with the platinum drop boosters the only good item, and the Santa hats, which couldn't be stored, traded, or dropped, more of an inconvenience than a prize.
The new patch has apparently improved Roy's merchant mart's efficiency, to make its pages load more quickly, but we are told that there are absolutely no bug fixes this time; the Korean developers must have been too busy with their own winter festivities I suppose... So, Tairen is still alll non-PvP, and the polar bear pets are still only seen as raffle prizes.
Anyway, SirGalahad went to Maargadum Jail at breakfast time, and did some pet-levelling safely until after coffee, when he and RedRyder went to Prokion Temple on Tairen-1. Gal added 18.60% and 182 guild points, while Red got 9.42% and 36 guild points - they also got 118 skill points each, so that now RedRyder has finished maximising her mining skills, and started on the flawless (quality) stone processing skill.
Over lunch, SirGalahad managed to get his horse to level 35, so that it is now a level ahead of him. That doesn't increase a pet's hunger, though, it has to be two levels ahead before it starts getting through the quality stones twice as quickly, which stops the possibility of overnight pet-levelling.
For the afternoon, SirGalahad and RedRyder returned to Tairen-1's Prokion Temple. It was pretty busy, though, so we ended up in the "mirror" back room again. For some reason Red seemed to get attacked rather more often there as she stood in the doorway, so she did a little bit of fighting as well, but the main experience gain was SirGalahad's, at 18.52%, along with 137 skill points and 180 guild points, while RedRyder got 14.25%, 136 skill points and 54 guild points.
SirGalahad switched over to the older computer, and went back to pet-levelling, and then after I'd had my food break, and watched the final episode, at last, of season two of "Merlin", it was time for Kaerella to put in an appearance on Cariae-1.
I joined a solo party, which included another cleric, the level 50 Cariss, and a witch, MIDNIGHT, of about our level too. If we'd had an elementalist sorcerer we'd have had all the rare breeds! Kae went out to the elite akane giant as usual, and it wasn't too long before Kamira put in her appearance. My mage Keerella dealt with her easily enough, but without getting a rare item, and Kae returned and continued her stint. However, at around 7:30 UK time we were all urged to log out, as an emergency maintenance/server reboot was needed, apparently to fix some sort of logging on problem - well, such things do happen on the day after a patch, even a minor one. One party member wasn't happy as he'd got a full range of pots going, including power, health stealer, and pssp, so I suggested he should take a screen shot to show them as active, and submit a ticket to get a reimbursement.- though he may only lose 5 or 10 minutes of his hour, I suppose.
By then Kaerella had gone up 10.32% and added 66 skill points, so that was a decently substantial session; 798 pet points were gained, too. The downtime, which we had been led to think would be brief, became rather longer, with as usual the forum shoutbox pretty active. The first Mad Monster Spawn had been due to start at 8:00 on Katar-4, followed at half hour intervals by Cariae, Sarissa, Hatzring, Auzura and, with a low-level one only, Tairen, so things were starting to get a little awkward.
Luckily, service was resumed just in time, and my level 31 rogue Memree went along to the low level Mad Monster Spawn spot on Katar-4 - to find all the usual low-level monsters waiting, but no other players! So, I had the whole lot to myself, blue-named, green-named, and a few white-named, and picked them off one by one. The elite sand golems kindly dropped three of the "soft sand" quest item which Memree happens to need, which was useful, and a little bit of cash was dropped by other monsters. And then [GM]JediMike looked in. "Memree? You the only person here?" And he spawned some goodies, said "Enjoy", and left, returning to the main senior event. So I had the whole event to myself...
Moving on to Cariae at 8:30, my level 27 rogue Karella went to the junior MMS, and here I wasn't alone - why, there must have been at least four of us! We didn't take long to get rid of all the monsters, and the spawning of hands was rather larger than Memree's personal one, so Karella probably did as well if not better than she did, loot-wise. There was a few minutes for me to prepare for the next one, which was lucky, as my healer Kaerella on Sarissa was only level 7; I didn't have enough gold to buy her any better armour, but I could at least afford a level nine bow, to increase her attack power a bit. I ran out to the junior MMS location, near the lake where the Great Horn Beasts are, and was ready, along with a very few other people, when the monsters arrived. Even the berserk zombies were a bit high for Kae there, but I was in a party, and made myself useful picking up loot, and attacking monsters that had already fixed their aggro on someone else. It was useful that I had picked up some cash, as it meant that when I got killed and respawned back in town, I was able to afford a couple more memory scrolls. I ran back using a haste potion, and carefully added the location to my memory scroll, in case I died again. We had a level 32 sorcerer in the party, and when after we'd picked up our rewards JediMike offered us a second wave he said "sure" - so the slightly higher type of monsters got spawned, and when we had finally dealt with them all, a second lot of loot was presented to us. The first party I was in didn't last very long, but I was recruited to a second party, which included level 39 and level 50 rogues, who some might consider a bit high-level for the event... something you can't say about Kae, though she did go up from level 7 to 8 during it.
Hatzring was at 9:30 - we only got one wave there, as [GM]JediMike said that he saw some high-level types among us. Kaerella there was level 10, so had a slightly easier time of it than on the previous server - berserk zombies were still tricky though! Some useful loot and a bit of cash got picked up. Again, before the start I'd bought Kae a better bow, and I also took the precaution of getting the location onto her memory scroll, in case of problems. The event, with the single wave, only lasted five minutes, but it was a profitable time.
At ten it was Auzura's time for the event, so my local level 26 rogue RedRider took her turn. Again there were very few of us there, and JediMike did ask if I wouldn't rather be at the main MMS - but I said I was only level 26, so would find the monsters there a bit high. We cleared the monsters out, and got our loot - and then for a change I used a memory scroll to move over to the high-level Mad Monster Spawn, where sure enough the monsters were indeed a bit intimidating, well over level 100 most of them. I helped out using Snare on a number of them, but 10:30 came up, and there wasn't a spawning of loot, so I logged out of Auzura, and went over to Tairen, confident that there at least the low-level MMS would have a good turn-out, as that was the only one being done there.
RedRyder hurried out to the location, and it certainly made a change to be one of dozens of people fighting. We actually got three waves, with the third lot getting decidedly dangerous, at least from a level 29 rogue's standpoint. But as ever the GM was very generous with the amount of loot he dropped, and from the three spawnings of Hands after the three waves, I got roughly 14 to 19 each of the good items (skill point and item drop boosters, large defence and attack potions), plus plenty of tool aids and the recovery pots.
Apart from Tairen, it looks as if the "junior" Mad Monster Spawns are losing their appeal now, which is a shame, but it made for a varied and fun evening. SirGalahad kept pet-levelling in Maargadum Jail of course, getting the horse to a bit past halfway through level 35 at the end.
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