Level Those Pets...

There was a patch to the game last night, to go with the usual maintenance downtime, but the official patch notes still say that new content is "in development", and that we should "expect to see some changes in the near future". They have finally sorted out two of the glitches with socketed gear, which apparently now can have costume covers melded on, and can also be exchanged via Collector Ryl for the equivalent item of a different class. In Mondshine the raid bugs are "currently being researched", but they promise that the GMs will be manually "setting raids each day to be open", while a permanent fix is being worked on, in the usual desultory hit-and-miss way, over in South Korea. It was two weeks ago that we were told to "expect something exciting very soon" - not this week, it seems.

So, my various characters went out to keep their attendance records going, with some of them doing a little mining or herb-gathering, and then MistressSabina went for her session in Maargadum Jail in Merac, though the place does seem to be described just as "Jail" or "Evil Dungeon" in-game now. The level 43 two-headed canines continue to give substantially better experience than the other canines, and slightly more than the level 45 beast scythes...so Sabina was able to add 10.87%, 53 skill points, and 645 pet points.

For the afternoon session, it was a matter of MistressDomina, Kaerella and the polar bear cub heading for the Tomb of Theos on Auzura-5 again, where as usual MD did the fighting, and Kae just provided the combat party boost, except for a few occasions when she had to unequip the cub and do some fighting. Once again there was an occasion when some wandering screaming zombies got to the polar bear cub before I could unequip it, so I now know that it costs 356,992 gold to "unseal" a level 17 poly.

I don't think that particular group of screaming zombies had been brought back maliciously; a sorcerer called Darkar12345 did try a couple of times to do us all some harm, particularly my lower-level "assistants", even going so far as to lure a zombie right alongside Kae and the cub before teleporting out, but his efforts were unsuccessful as far as I was concerned, though my warning to "be careful" as he drew in a group didn't work for one of the junior mages.

By the time I logged out for the early evening food break, Kaerella had added 5.40%, and the polar bear cub had reached level 18, adding 131.20%; MistressDomina had earned 15.17%, and her drake had added 2038 pet points. Kae and MD had both gained 4 skill points.

There had been some strange server happenings during the afternoon, I saw from watching the forum shoutbox, but luckily Auzura hadn't been affected. It seemed to be mainly Cariae, as ever, that took the brunt of it, with people reporting multiple disconnections, heavy lag, and even difficulties connecting to the website, let alone the game. But in the Tomb, we played on without any problems.

For the slightly abbreviated evening session, I went over to Sarissa-5, though, for some reason, I logged in with my level 27 mage there, Keerella, rather than my archer. Kee has the +10 armour set now, which is good - but she only has a +2 wand, the event weapon, which isn't so good. Her regular skills are not maximised yet, let alone the special skills - but at least by the time I logged out she had got 273 sp to spend. She had reached 65.45% of the way through level 27, but of course the plan will be to spend the skill points on various sorts of skills, and then die a few times to get back to the start of the level.

However, I can't say that I have any long-term plans for levelling up a mage on Sarissa. It may well be useful at some point to have a fully-skilled lowish-level one there, perhaps... and Kee did make a new friend there, a level 22 sorcerer called Busby666, though I must admit it didn't take long for him to get onto the subject of me giving him a million gold, not something that I can afford to do on that server. We had a combat-type party for a while, but after a trip back to town, he decided, probably wisely, that he would do better to go solo. So, Kee just concentrated on orc fighters and a few soldiers or axemen, until it was time to log out.

The event of the day was scheduled to be a "Pandora's Event", with groups of the Pandora's Beasts spawned across the land. It's not an event I'm keen on, as I never think that the beasts give better drops or experience than other monsters of the same level, and the level 50 types can be aggressive, protective, and dangerous...so who needs a mass of them in the same place?

However, [GM]AwesomeSauce reported in the forum shoutbox that she was having problems with the code she'd been given, and when I asked, agreed that it was the same sort of thing that had prevented the "Creature Carnival" event from running recently. She got [GM]Darasuum to take a look at the problem, but to no avail - and they had to announce that the event had been cancelled. And, as compensation, they doubled the pet experience, which was rather more useful, from my point of view.

So, RedRackham was an immediate beneficiary of this bonus, and the speed at which his drake moved up through level 34 doubled. Keerella equipped her level 1 hatchling - and it ended its session as a level 3 hatchling, so will be able to help Kee's attack power in future. Keerella also got most of her costume bloodsealed... her wand even got its first couple of bloodseals, including a hit rate one.

While I was away, RedRackham continued to benefit from the double pet experience, so that the drake reached level35...and was starting to make good progress through that level, though these days I've decided that leaving the computers running overnight for pet-levelling is probably not, in the long run, a good idea.