Back on Track...?

I kept working on the "Update completed. Update is completed. Please, restart game." problem this morning, in my usual low-tech way. First I did a System Restore to a point I'd set late last night, but that didn't do anything, and then I moved over the installation files from one of the download sites I'd downloaded onto the newer computer - and I also moved over the newer computer's complete "LastChaosUSA" file folder, using a USB flash drive.

I uninstalled the game, and then got rid of the "LastChaosUSA" folder, as that was still actually there, with, it seemed, most of its contents. Then I installed the game again from the different client - but that still gave the usual "Update completed. Update is completed. Please, restart game." message, once the game had updated itself. I had difficulty renaming its newly-created "LastChaosUSA", as it was apparently "still in use", but once I closed Firefox, the renaming was done, to "LastChaosUSA fri install" - and I moved in the "LastChaosUSA" folder I'd copied across from the newer machine. Then I launched the launcher - and "Update completed. Update is completed. Please, restart game." didn't immediately appear. After a rather long three or four seconds, the game actually started to load.

After all that, all I did was send RedRackham down into Maargadum jail on Auzura-4 again. The window for the game is now 1151 by 864 for some reason, and, on the new LG monitor, looks nice and bright, if rather too wide, stretched by the different screen shape. Still, slightly sturdier monsters, and more spacious rooms, seem to work okay. The next trick would be to head for the Tomb of Theos later, and not get the "send error report?" crash message.

Kaerella logged on, on the newer machine, on Katar-5, and headed for the second floor of Maargadum Jail, to fight the two-headed, dire spike, and spike canines - but just before the end of her session, a level 50 rogue called Marckiller30 asked where to find the Death Knight of Iris.

I gave him the directions, but he said he had been there, and there was no Death Knight. It sounded as if somebody else had killed it recently and it hadn't had time to respawn, but on the chance that it'd be back, Marckiller30 persuaded me to party with him and go down there...which I reluctantly agreed to, after insisting we went out and got horse buffs first.

A level 45 specialist sorcerer called mttx joined the party too, and came down with us. I carefully applied mana shield, and we entered the torture room - but the Death Knight still wasn't back. We stayed and killed the death mask soldiers and lancers for a while, in case it respawned, but then I had to log out for lunch. Marckiller was considering trying over on Katar-4 instead, I hope he got on okay.

Kaerella had added 21.10% in all, plus 63 skill points and 471 pet points. I'd not equipped her drake in the torture room, but we probably got reasonable experience there. It would have been a bit of a surprise if the Death Knight had respawned on us there, we were probably rather lucky not to encounter him.

After lunch, I made another attempt to do what I'd tried to do on Wednesday, which was to take MistressDomina, Kaerella, and the polar bear cub down to the anubis spear men in the Tomb of Theos on Auzura-5, for a "power hour" there coinciding with the two o'clock to three o'clock (UK) "dungeon time" hour with its 50% experience boost. Last time, I had to give up after Kaerella crashed out five times in a row, leading to the reinstallation of the game sending me back into

"Update completed. Update is completed. Please, restart game." land. This time, much to my relief, Kaerella didn't have any problems.

My duo reached the first bend in the corridor after the spear man room and, after dealing with a sphinx fighter or two that had followed, Kaerella, in the combat party, just stood in the corner, with the poly equipped. After a while the anubis spear men did seem to start to hit MistressDomina a bit harder than I'd expected; I was a bit wary of Kaerella healing her during a fight, in case that stopped the experience booster from triggering, but there wasn't a problem, though once it did bring a sphinx fighter in on Kae, who had to quickly un-equip the poly, fight it, and then re-equip him.

There was some chat on the Twisted guild channel, in which I did somehow feel a bit more welcome; our guild master emeritus, Spazz, was online. A joke was told about a man staggering out of an antiques shop, carrying a grandfather clock he'd just bought, only for a drunk to collide with him, so that the grandfather clock was dropped, shattered into a thousand pieces. The man was not very happy, but the drunk blearily asked why he didn't just use a watch like everyone else. "Some people have too much time on their hands" was my comment...

MistressDomino was hitting perhaps 10% less hard than usual, but by the end of the hour 35 anubis spear men had been killed, for the use of 35 experience boosters, and MD was safely into level 93, adding 55.40%. After that MD and Kae ran back to the start of the Tomb, and just fought the screaming zombies, in an equal party, with Kaerella mainly standing well back with the polar bear cub equipped. The cleric Lilyanne joined the party for a little while, at her request, but as I thought, soon found that she could get more experience "ks-ing" from outside the party.

In all that session, MistressDomina added 56.29%, and Kaerella added 3.43%, while they each gained 3 skill points. MD's drake got 2096 pet points, and the polar bear cub went up by 18.85%.

There was some selling to be done over the food break and beyond, so MistressDomino went into merchant mode on Auzura-5, and did pretty well, after a slow start, selling most of her skill point boosters, some heaven stones, a couple of MP stealers, an old Halloween pumpkin helm for a rogue, and even some potions of pet healing. Around 300 million brought in made her total cash stash quite useful once more. And she continued for the rest of the evening, selling her runes of protection 2, the rest of her skill point boosters, and other oddments.

MistressBlaze had a rather brief session, initially out with the elite sphinx speer man and his friends, and then riding back to the arcane golems, in case, closer to her level, they'd be more generous with the loot. She only gained 4.14% though, plus 12 skill points, because soon it was time to log her out, and switch over to my level 92 rogue Rage. I'd earlier checked that there was to be no "official" Twisted guild presence at the high-level Mad Monster Spawn, and indeed I didn't see anybody from that guild there.

The Auzura "MMS" started punctually, at seven o'clock, UK time, with announcements leading up to it in the traditional way; [GM]Darasuum arrived early, and chatted a little, looking suitably impressive in his night shadow costume, plus a GM's identifying green glow. There were three waves of monsters, and Rage did have to be a bit careful, particularly when there were flutons involved - a couple of times she snared one, and that seemed to make Rage its main target when it got free, so some running like heck was needed. Those invisible walls, when one tries to run along a slope, could have been fatal, but luckily Rage survived. After just under half an hour, Darasuum spawned the usual hands of loot for us to grab, and then spawned some flutons and patriarch botises to keep us busy, declaring the event officially over - and, as we were not a particularly high-powered bunch, those kept us busy for the next 25 minutes.

That meant Barbarienne, my level 109 archer, only just teleported to the "MMS" location on Cariae-5 for the scheduled eight o'clock start with a couple of minutes to spare, to find...well, to find nobody, actually. I was just heading back towards town when the next person arrived... I remarked in the shoutbox that it was strange, I'd thought the Cariae MMS was due to start. A couple of other people did arrive, and then there was a "MMS in 5 minutes" GM announcement. I commented that the GM had woken up, and [GM]Yatou apologetically said that they had been rather busy. He or she never actually appeared, staying "invisible".

There were less people at this MMS, compared with Auzura, but we luckily had some people who were level 140 or so, which meant that we could kill flutons and so on rather more quickly. Yatou "improvised" a fairly big group of flutons, and patriarch botises, and large level 140 floating skull-like heads, eager to munch any of us, called "croythes", which when killed spawned a couple of maggot-like creatures of a similar level. And with that he vanished, ignoring any reminders that it was customary to spawn some loot, as we had disposed of the regular waves within the 30 minutes allowed. Well, we had never seen him, but there was no more in the way of conversation.

I did feel safer as Barbarienne than as Rage - well, 17 levels do make a difference, and I could take on wight slashers, and some other monsters, without any great risk - though, as with Rage, I did get stunned a time or two by the archer spirits, and was on the receiving end of a fluton's flamethrower skill, which leaves one dazed and bleeding. I'd been recruited into a party by a level 5 character I never actually saw on my compass map - they also brought in a level 85 knight called Hommer2, so I was able to provide horse buffs while he was melee fighting.

The monsters were all killed within 30 minutes, leaving us at a loose end, though some people fooled around with the low-level monsters that now populate the area, bringing in whole "trains" of treants. xSmexySorcereR decided to drop some loot himself - I generally didn't chase around after it, but he did drop an item drop booster next to me, which I managed to grab. I'm glad I did say "ty", as later looking at my inventory I saw it was actually ten of them...

There wasn't really time to do anything much after that...though I might bring MistressDomino out of merchant mode just before logging-out time, for a quick look to see if there are any items she could spend her now rather more substantial chunk of money on. Or that might happen tomorrow morning.