"Even in the future, nothing works"

Last night's weekly maintenance downtime brought us, again, nothing new except promises, and the much-trumpeted "new content" seems no nearer than ever - it "should arrive in October", we are assured. "We are working to diligently get more bug fixes up ASAP", we are assured, but so far they have nothing to show for all this behind-the-scenes work. "The development team is having trouble fixing the Raid crash issues", we are told, which is no great surprise. "We will continue our investigation and provide them [with] everything we can to obtain a fix."

We do, however, have some news about what the new content will include. There's an "Ignition System", where you get some sort of points for killing monsters, and once you've killed enough, can convert this "ignition" into a useful buff, apparently. The Guardian system is being extended and expanded, giving buffs to the apprentice all the way up to level fifty, with an extra buff if the guardian and his charge fight alongside each other. Guardians will gain more reputation for this, but the physical reward mentioned in other iterations of LC isn't mentioned here. The "Extreme Cube" gets some buffs and extra rewards, "tons of new quests" are promised for levels 100 to 140, and drop rates will improve. "Those elusive items you've been searching for will be within your grasp", we are told, which may not seem such good news for people who have paid billions for casting up helms and speedy boots...

MistressDomino tried a little selling on Auzura-5 before the maintenance downtime, but didn't sell much more than three lucky smelting stones. She returned to merchant mode for the first past of the morning, as I had work to do, but only sold three items.

When Keerella checked the Condition of the Tomb of Theos on Cariae-6 before the eleven to twelve dungeon time hour, to my surprise it was up to 80% - so, since it had been a while since that place had been anywhere near as hospitable as that, RedRydeR hurried to join her at the Tomb entrance. The combat party was formed - and they went inside.

Kee and Red headed for the anubis spear men, rather than the ancient grey mummies, and installed themselves at the first corner of the corridor after the spear man room, with five minutes to spare. When the hour began, Keerella started the usual potions and pbi - and by the end of the session, had added 18.55%, from using just 32 experience boosters. RedRydeR, not using any pots, added 4.38% to the last figure I'd jotted down, though that was before the recent mid-level mad monster spawn. Such events usually add very little experience, however. Kee's drake Greedo added 1180 pet points, and Red's added 1434; Kee and Red each gained 4 skill points.

Afterwards, I checked up with the tomb guard again, and the Condition had fallen back to 60%, which didn't surprise me as Keerella's damage to the anubis spear men from using terra spear did fall during the hour. Another similar session should get Keerella to level 100, and RedRydeR to level 94. However, after lunch the Condition had fallen further, to 50%, which rather ruled out a further hour in Cariae's Tomb today.

Over on Auzura-6, though, the Tomb was on 100%, so MistressDomina and Kaerella were able to hurry in for the two to three o'clock dungeon hour. MD and Kae had the ancient grey mummies room to themselves for the first 45 minutes; a royal knight called DRAGENKNIGHT then arrived, and asked if he was okay to fight there too, so I said that three people fighting there was fine. He did bring a friend, but they just sat in the corner.

The hour itself brought MistressDomina 23.73% in level 101 from 54 boosters, and including the few kills before the hour started brought the figure up to 23.89%; Kaerella got 31.06% from 64 boosters, or 31.30% in all. MD's drake gained 1272 pet points, and Kae's got 1315, while they each added 26 skill points.

There was time for MistressSabina to have almost an hour with the beast flyers in Maargadum Jail before the food break, particularly as I wasn't going to attempt another dungeon time hour from five until six. This time Sabina did have the place to herself - RedRackham went on down to the fifth floor, and got some more pet-levelling started. Sabina added 7.36%, 78 skill points, and 779 pet points for her drake.

RedRackham continued his pet-levelling efforts, while my rogue Rage headed for the high-level mad monster spawn spot, in good time for the six o'clock, UK time, start, on Auzura-5. Unfortunately [GM]Darasuum seemed to have lost track of time, and it wasn't until twenty past six that the message came up that the MMS was due to start in ten minutes - over on Auzura-6!

So, after memorising the spot, Rage swapped over from A-5 to A-6, and arrived in time for the start. The first round was very similar to the start of the mid-level MMS a couple of days back, with barren eises, blood terrains, dark bogles, baby apes, and little scorpionmantises all over the place; there were no Kamiras to be seen, but there were some grand red, and gold, dragons. I managed to target a red dragon, and when it died was able to grab the crystal of experience (greater), plus the moonstones and great healing potions at least.

During the second round I got an error with the game, so had to log back in and teleport out, hoping that the spot I'd picked wouldn't be where a fluton was standing...and arrived just as the loot was being spawned, so I was just in time to grab my share of the usual items. The GM did do a double-spawn, though putting new hands over old ones is mildly annoying, as you're bound to try and pick up the new layer first, which of course is still "reserved for another player". He then produced the final wave, but, although we did get rid of all the cave spirits, sphinx commanders, swamp trolls, flutons and patriarch botises within the time limit, he'd bugged out as soon as the wave was spawned, so our heroic efforts then went unrewarded. he had remembered the "event is now over" announcement, at least, but a final spawning of goodies is definitley the best way to finish things off.

Rage then made a quick trip down to Maargadum Jail, to pass some more quality stones across to RedRackham, who was down to his last hundred by then. She had a quick look to see if the Death Knight of Iris was in his "torture room", but he hadn't respawned, and inxaberdeenxuk was quietly farming the death mask soldiers and lancers in there.

I was just logging Barbarienne in for the Cariae MMS when [GM]AwesomeSauce came into the forum shoutbox, mentioning problems they'd been having... and sure enough, looking at the in-game announcements on RedRackham's screen, I saw "due to technical difficulties in the home office, we will be cancelling the rest of the MMS events for today and running an xp/sp event instead. We apologise [for the] inconvenience. 'Even in the future, nothing works'"

So, as I was having to log off soon anyway, it being a Wednesday, that was about the end of things. RedRackham on Cariae logged in, and went to his death mask lancer on Cariae-6... his Auzuran doppelganger logged out soon after, as I had other uses for that computer, but by then had got his drake almost 30% of the way through level 44. A shame the xp/sp event hadn't included pet experience as well. However, helped along by a triple-experience platinum pet experience pill, Red's Cariae drake got more than a third of the way through level 43 before the end of the evening.