Sunday 8 August 2010

A Server Crash, and a Glitched Quiz


Once most of the gang had claimed their attendance bonus, MistressSabina was able to log in on Auzura-5, and head for Maargadum Jail - initially solo-partied with MrChuckNorris, but after he'd done his half hour, gathering some green herbs, RedRackham came online instead, joined the party, and headed for the gnoll lancers for a little pet-levelling.

When she entered the Jail, MistressSabina was able to get most of the canines to follow her to the back of the ground level of the Jail, since the place wasn't busy, and use her area of effect flame skill, and just hitting things, to get rid of them all. It's really only worth doing that while the horse buffs are still on, so once the area had been cleared, Sabina went on down to the second floor.

As MistressSabina had now passed 99.51% of her level (79 million experience), the NPC by foot of the stairs there, Guard Noa, gave her the "Report of Noa" quest, which would just involve carrying a message to Great Magician Minearm. But now it was time to fight some two-headed canines - and then, once Sabina reached level 44, the beast scythes.

It was fairly simple now to use the room of beast scythes and beast archers, just moving around killing the scythes and ignoring the archers, trying to keep ahead of the scythe respawns. Sabina's drake did take a little damage, but generally the tactic worked well - and by the end of the time there, Sabina was up by 18.37%.

Using a scroll to return to Merac Caron, Sabina was able to visit Minearm, and get the quest reward; there was also another messenger-type quest, which just involved a ride across to Owl Village. Once that quest reward had been received, from Magician Kihan, Sabina's total experience gain for the morning was 24.26%, along with 99 skill points and 1113 pet points.

Visiting the Master Mage, I found that MistressSabina doesn't yet have enough stat points in Intelligence to learn the Fallen Stat skill, which reduces a target's base stat points by 50 for 100 seconds (and by more when some further levels can be learned); she could however learn the first level of the bleed skill Epidemic, for just 11 sp... and Sabina grabbed the sixth level of Transformation, for 200 sp, which means she can convert 250 health points into 430 mana points, should she so wish. It doesn't seem all that useful to me, but we may as well keep with the "all skills maxxed" approach as long as possible.

So, while MistressSabina briefly went above the 10k mark for her stash of unused skill points, the session ended with her 149 below again... and with the Fallen Stat skill still outstanding. She should have enough stat points of her own in Intelligence for that when she reaches level 47, it seems.

RedRackham continued his pet-levelling over lunch, but sadly some little scrote crept up while I was away from the keyboard, and lured five gnoll soldiers onto him. He survived that little treat, but his drake didn't, and it cost 373,966 gold to "unseal" it. Red switched across from Auzura-5 to Auzura-4 after that, and didn't have any further problems. By the end of the lunch break, the drake was past the 25% mark in its level.

For the afternoon, MistressDomina and Kaerella, and the polar bear cub, went to the Tomb of Theos on Auzura-5 again. We added WhyYouDontAsk to the combat party before long, and indeed got a couple of other people involved, though generally only one of their number was within range for the combat party boost, Octofilipe28, who was doing pretty well leading a group of his own "assistants", at level 82, but did benefit from some healing from Kaerella sometimes.

By the time that I had to go away from the keyboard, MistressDomina had added 10.49% in level 91, and her drake had gained 2328 pet points; Kaerella had added 8.61%, which was enough to get her into level 89. I'm surprised that, in the combat party mode, where the fighting person gets at least six times as much experience as the non-fighter, the percentage was so big - I "corrected" the figures yesterday, assuming I'd read a 6 as a 0, so actually Kaerella got 6% less in Egeha and 6% more in the Tomb then. It just shows how much longer levels are once you reach level 90 - MD's current level needs 20,000,000,000 experience, while Kaerella's needs 6,213,849,445, I see. Both MD and Kae got 8 skill points, and the polar bear cub added 247.72%, getting halfway through level 24.

My duo stayed in the Tomb over the food break, to provide the solo party boost, but Octofelipe28 left the party before long, so they then moved back to safety near the teleporter. I didn't have the poly equipped then, in case anything wandered too close. Since MD and Kae were still in there, after the break they went back and MistressDomina did some more fighting; we even re-recruited Octofelipe28. There were one or two rather amateurish night shadows around, who'd tend to rush down the corridor chased by three of four zombies, and on one occasion a zombie did take out its annoyance on Kae's poly. It took 565,984 gold to have the animal trainer in Randol "unseal" him, at level 24, after which Kae hurried back, and battle was resumed.

Auzura-5 had a crash at 7:13pm, one of the "clean" type where it happens at once, without any standing around in-game wondering why everyone has stopped doing anything. I doubt if there was even a chance for anyone to get killed. Logging back in was instant too, with none of the "account already logged in" error messages. The spawning pad in Randol was pretty full, as people compared notes.

While MistressDomina, Kaerella, and one other player had been in the combat party, Kaerella came back with just her own name on the screen, while MistressDomina, who had been party leader, had two blank names under her own. MD chose the "leave party" option, and then clicked on Kaerella, and used the "apply party (combat)" button again - but got the "Player is already in another party" error message. Kaerella however was able to click on MD, and re-form a party. Kae got a "send error report?" crash a couple of minutes later, but when she returned, MD was able to form the party once more...not that there was really time for anything much before the Quiz was due, other than getting the blog up to date.

The "early evening" session continuation had earned MistressDomina a further 4.01% and 2 skill points, plus 957 pet points, while Kaerella had gone up by 2.64%, 1 skill point...and her polar bear cub had reached level 25, adding another 58.14%.

So, nothing else happened before the Quiz, though I did notice that a polar bear cub does get hungry if it's equipped when one is in town, unlike an old-fashioned pet. Then it was time for MistressDomino and Kaerella to log in on Auzura-2, and head for the Quiz Room there.

Any plans to give Kaerella on Katar a relatively short session, probably in Maargadum Jail, had to be put on ice, as the Quiz went a bit glitchy, so that the forum shoutbox immediately got inundated. The problem was with the first question - the usual kind of question box appeared on the screen, with a few meaningless symbols as the question and a red symbol or two as the time remaining - and after less than a second it disappeared, booting out all those people who were not waiting on the "X" side of the room, as apparently, as usually happens, "X" was the right answer to whatever the question had intended to be.

Since I always stand on the "X" side, I didn't have a problem, and questions 2 to 23 went smoothly, so that both Kaerella and MistressDomino got their tool aids, moonstones, and heaven stones; Kae transferred the moonstones and heaven stones to MD, and they were ready to log out when it was announced that, due to the problem, the Quiz would be re-run in 40 minutes. I decided that Kaerella and MistressDomino might as well go again - but this time as their incarnations over on the Katar server.

The start time was later revised by [GM]AwesomeSauce to 9:30pm UK time, so would be my last entertainment of the evening. MistressDomina and Kaerella logged in on Katar-2, and headed for the Quiz Room ready. Even with half an hour to go, it was already pretty busy - but then, most people in there were expecting it to start at 9:10pm.

9:30 arrived, and the Quiz ran smoothly this time. Kae transferred her prizes, and some other loot, across to MD, and then they both logged out - though after seeing from the shoutbox that some people's prizes had actually vanished, I logged MistressDomino back...and the items were still there. It seems that, on Katar at least, there was some sort of mass disconnection, and somehow the prizes had arrived too recently to have been memorised by the game. So for a minute or two I was a kind of imitation gamesage in the shoutbox, urging people to stay calm and send in a "contact us" request if they had lost their goodies. Somehow, the real gamesages, and GMs, had vanished from sight...

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