The Guild Contracts

There seemed to be no patch at all to download this morning, after the overnight maintenance downtime, though apparently some problem at level 162 has been fixed. "Unfortunately the large patch fixing a number of issues, including some new events, was extremely bugged. We would have loved to release the events today as well as the fixes, but unfortunately we could not accept the patch in its current form", our product manager reports. Things ought to happen "

within the next maintenance or two, depending on the quality of the patches we get", apparently, which leaves everything a bit vague, especially as this month was supposed to celebrate the game's official third anniversary.

Still, SirGalahad was able to head for Maargadum Jail in the usual way, and then after coffee Rage and RedRyder went off to Prokion Temple again. If ever Rage strayed out of range of Red, the skill exp fell to a mere 2 - but as long as the pair were within compass-map distance, it stayed around the 1800 mark, so that they continued to get 80 or so skill points per hour, and, over the session, added 118 skill points each. Rage went up by 5.03% and 59 guild points, while RedRyder added 2.41% and 9 guild points. I remember a knight running through the room using a potion of haste, but that was just about the only interruption.

Before lunch SirGalahad was back down on level five of the Jail, though his usual position was being used by another knight, meaning that he had to go to the next death mask lancer along; he was able to move back to his usual sparring partner after lunch, however.

SirGalahad kept busy during the afternoon, while Memree finished her apprenticeship to him, so that she got the rogue event weapon and he got another ten Reputation points. It's a shame the rogues get daggers as their event weapon, and my rogues prefer to use a crossbow, that means I have three unused rogue event weapons...

Memree's afternoon was generally spent in Prokion Temple, either close to the starting hallway or just upstairs in the room that has just one orc soldier and plenty of mummies. After gaining 191.47% and 135 skill points, and getting comfortably into level 20, she went back to Randol to get the new quests sorted out, including the special rogue "neckless" accessory. Doing the quests that were available brought in another 65.85% and just 4 more skill points, but going back to Prokion for the rest of the afternoon added a further 170.45% and 240 skill points, taking Memree neatly into level 23.

Prokion Temple on Tairen-1 was fairly busy, I wasn't able to get into that orc soldier plus mummies room as early as I would have liked, but there were just about enough ghouls and mummies to go around. It's handy that Elizabeth's Enhancement does halve the time you need to spend there, though it also means you are restricted to using Tairen-1. At least Tairen's first sub-server doesn't have the drawback you get on the other servers, in that as it isn't PvP-enabled yet, nobody can go on killing sprees of all the sp-farmers.

The break for food had to be taken a little early, as Wednesday evening is the new time for the succession of Mad Monster Spawns, starting with the junior versions, with all six servers having their MMS one after another, at half-hourly intervals - and then, after a break, five of them (not Tairen) having their senior versions.

First up at five o'clock UK time was Katar, so I took my level 31 rogue Memree along to the spot where the Kiene Tower is put up, by the Great Horn Beast lake. I was there pretty early - and so was [GM]OgreKing, so we exchanged greetings, and then I settled down to passing the time killing the GHBs. A couple of minutes before the hour, the GM spawned the mad monsters, and I started to fight them - and it was a couple of minutes after that when the announcement came up that the event was starting. So, starting with just me, over the next ten minutes plenty of other people joined in, killing the elite sand golems, corpse sergeants, salamanders, berserk zombies, balrogs, and many many more. The loot got spawned afterwards, and with so many people by then I didn't manage to grab a huge amount, mainly ones and twos of the best things like item drop boosters and skill point boosters, along with eight tool aids.

On Cariae-4 it was my level 27 rogue Karella who arrived in good time; [GM]OgreKing was also suitably early, though it was only on the first two servers that he put in an actual in-game appearance. I started off with the elite sand golems as usual, and then fought my way through the blue-named stuff towards the salamanders - soft sand from the golems and skins and tails from the salamanders are useful on any server. I don't think the turnout on Cariae can have been as large, as my share of the loot was more along the lines of fives and sixes of the best items, along with 19 tool aids.

For Sarissa, it was my level 20 healer Kaerella who hurried along to the spot, where despite the absence of [GM]OgreKing "in the flesh", things started promptly, with me keeping generally to the lower-level monsters, a level 25 corpse sergeant was a bit of an effort with a Self Heal or two needed along the way. Still, I survived it all; with again the announcement only going up after things had started, so that we moved from just a couple of folks up to a large war party by the end. The loot was I think almost as good as Cariae's, anyway.

Hatzring came next, so Kaerella moved up from level 20 to 22. I actually got a heaven stone on the way there, from an elder werewolf. The Kiene Tower went up about a minute after 6:30, with the monsters spawning seconds later. The corpse sergeants were a little easier to deal with now, but I still had to keep away from the higher-level monsters, which tend to appear closer to the edge of the lake. After the last of the monsters had been killed, and I'd run around tidying the place up by grabbing any gold left on the ground, our wave of rewarding loot was spawned around the tower...and this time it was mainly threes and fours of the items I got, although somehow I managed to get nine large attack potions.

Tairen, which only has the low-level MMS as we don't have enough high-level players to do the senior event, was due next - but seven o'clock came and went, and nothing happened. There were only four of us there, including my least favourite gamesage ADISA, who didn't say anything...but at least her presence inicated that we ought to be in the right spot. The website actually listed Auzura above Tairen, though with a later start time, so I did wonder out loud if [GM]OgreKing had by mistake gone to Auzura first, but at 7:08 the Kiene Tower did at last appear, followed swiftly by the spawning of the monsters and the announcement that the event was now in progress.

Soon quite a good turn-out of people were there, and we cleared the place out in around ten minutes. I'd gone with my level 35 rogue Rage, and been recruited into a party with some people more than 15 levels below me, so I had to try to fight far enough away not to spoil their experience gain, and then gallop back across when the time came to renew the horse buffs. Rage just went up by 0.92% and 2 skill points, I noticed. Item drops were mainly four to six each, with thirteen tool aids.

The last of the low-level Mad Monster Spawns followed fairly swiftly on Auzura, where my representative was the level 27 rogue RedRider, not to be confused with a RedRyder on any other server. It was only here that I noticed the semi "raid boss" level 42 Baal, a large spider best avoided by people under level 40 or so; in fact, perhaps because I was closer to the lake earlier than usual, there did seem to be some more menacing types around, and I noticed somebody being pursued by quite a crowd of elite goblin scouts and other red-named monsters. This time I'd been recruited into a party by people higher-level than me, but, luckily, within 15 levels; I'd immediately done the full-strength horse buffs, and I noticed when another member did buffs later, after the action was over, their buffs weren't 10-10, but 8-9, indicating a level 31 mount. The loot was rather slow in spawning, I think our GM must have gone off in search of some coffee, but finally we were able to do the big grab, which for me was 5 item drop boosters, 4 skill point boosters, 2 large attack and 3 large defence potions, and 10 tool aids, plus no doubt plenty of the health and mana recovery pots.

At nine, the first of the high-level Mad Monster Spawns began, on Katar-4, and once again my level 31 rogue Memree bravely entered the fray. I did get killed once, I still don't know by what, but after respawning in Randol I quickly returned and continued where I'd left off, assisting with Snare on various high-level types such as anubis spear men, black puddings (similar jelly-monsters to the poison mists or masters of secret technique, but tinted dark grey), and many more. The GM announced after ten minutes that we had ten minutes more to finish clearing the place out, which as there seemed plenty of cave spirits and other types roaming loose looked as if it might be a problem - but I think we did got rid of them all with two or three minutes to spare. The loot was generous, which meant for me fours or fives, along with 17 tool aids - so Memree had had, in the end, a profitable evening.

Barbarienne, my level 101 archer on the Cariae server, hasn't had many outings since the GMs gave up on the Sunday "zombie invasions", so, as I'd generally managed to keep out of trouble as a lower-level rogue, I decided to go for it, and take her rather than Karella. She hasn't room for the MMS location on her memory scroll, so I quickly rode out there, and was ready for the start.

The spawning seemed different from the Katar one, and we didn't get any deadline warnings, we just cleared the valley in about twelve minutes. At the start I did take on a couple of wraiths, since they were green-named to me, but generally I kept to the "artillery support" role, seeking out monsters that were already being fought, and adding my attack - which is the way archers should be used, I guess. It was nice to move up from Memree's 69 damage per hit to often around 6,900, and generally be one of the "heavy hitters" for a change - and Barb didn't get killed, which is the main thing, despite all the nivas, arch liches, ancient screaming zombies, infected grey mummies, anubis attackers, and so on that were around. I guess it helps that we didn't have any flutons or patriarch botises wandering around.

The loot-grabbing went well, too, though the quantities varied rather, with 3 skill point boosters, 5 item drop boosters, 9 large attack and 11 large defence potions, and 14 tool aids. As usual, it helps to look at the ground, zoom in, and keep one's finger on the "pick" button, to avoid the worst effects of the lag all those extra items spawning brings.

SirGalahad was busy in Maargadum Jail throughout the evening; during the Katar senior MMS I did manage to see that a death mask soldier had joined the fight, so I was able to unequip the drake and equip his sword, and deal with the intruder before going back to the regular routine. Monsters do like to wander around a bit, so that does happen sometimes. Later DoubleTrouble got in touch, asking that both he and his friend Hazard should be removed from the guild, so that was a rather brief visit; they did at least have one session earlier today, so that they contributed 479 guild points between them.

The higher-level Sarissa and Hatzring Mad Monster Spawns were at 10:00 and 10:30, and it didn't seem really practical to take either version of Kaerella along; besides, one needs to spend some time blogging, yes? The final MMS, on Auzura, was scheduled for eleven o'clock, UK time. Which is about the moment when SirGalahad's drake should reach level 30...