Slow Progress

It was three weeks ago that our product manager Xuse2005 proudly announced that "New content expected within the next two weeks" - but it looks as if those wacky Korean developers were being a bit over-optimistic about their ability to produce relatively bug-free new material, as this week, under the title "a bright future", after assuring us that a variety of bug fixes are "being discussed", and a 100% fix for the Mondshine "raid disconnects" is "still in development", there is some heavy back-pedalling going on, with the announcement that "Plans for September content are being finalized and testing should begin soon!"

In the item mall, we should "expect to see some new items and a new Loot Forge this week". Concerning the difficulties brought in by recent patches, "Problems with last week's update took a severe toll on new user ability to play Last Chaos. A new installer was created to remove all problem files. If you are having trouble playing LC, uninstalling and reinstalling may solve your problem," we are told.

The forum shoutbox was generally quiet in the morning, though there were a few people looking for a gamesage. Georgerav did drop in briefly, but only to celebrate the third anniversary of his LC account's creation - and someone reported that skill experience in Prokion Temple seemed to have changed, after maintenance. I took a level 28 rogue of mine out there to check, and killed an orc sergeant - 5147 skill exp seemed about right, as I wasn't in a party. Eventually we found that the player had been using one of the five "beginner" platinum super skill pills new characters are given now, and had believed its text description of giving 200% extra skill exp, like a proper pssp, while they actually only give 150% extra. DaGrayDragon may have a high-level main character, but presumably this was the first time he'd made a new "toon" since the beginner items were added.

As the current "season" of the Loot Forge is about to end, I finally used the 25 "ores" I'd bought to see if I could get some master stones. I guess my results were about average, as I got three master stones - a +17 one I'll probably use, and two +23 ones that I suppose I will just sell, or try to exchange for lower ones, as they aren't really any use to me. Six times the item broke on the first round, but usually I got a purified rune ore, a devil rune ore, or a lucky smelting stone, those seemed the most frequently-appearing items - if I didn't get a master stone (the +17 one appeared on round two, the +23 ones on rounds four and five), I kept going, rejecting runes of protection 1 and 2, heaven stones, or even chaos smelting stones, which generally seemed to be followed by a breakage on the next round.

I can see that the Loot Forge could become addictive, though I dislike that sort of "all or nothing" gambling. I bought my ore when there was a tiered spender event on, so already had some goodies for my aeria points... I could have done with another +17 master stone or two, but generally I suppose I didn't do badly.

RedRackham had a busy morning pet-levelling, sparring with his friend the death mask lancer down on the fifth floor of Maargadum Jail. At level 40 his current drake does get through the quality stones rather quickly, but steady progress towards the halfway point in his drake's level was made. MistressDomino did log on to check Roy's merchant mart on Auzura; there are almost no armour pieces from the level 95/97 "Crimson Quill" mage set available, I saw, and nothing that would improve on MistressDomina's current 85/87 set either. I didn't see a +15 weapon to replace the +14 ones that Kaerella and MrChuckNorris are using, either.

My first idea for the afternoon session was to take Keerella and SirKit, as the combat party back-up, to the Tomb of Theos on Cariae-4, but when they got to the entrance, they found that the Tomb was set on 30%, which is rather hard - too hard to try for a "power hour", as even if one didn't get killed, killing the anubis spear men would be rather slow. So, I moved across to Auzura-4, and logged MistressDomina and Kaerella in.

A couple of MD's Twisted guildies were already in the Tomb, and so both she and Kae were able to join the party, and take Recall, to get in free. Unfortunately that meant that we hadn't had a chance to check the Condition - and it soon became obvious that things were pretty close to maximum hard, with nobody from the Castle-owning guild resetting the Tomb since maintenance. llMoonlightll, a level 98 mage, and ReCrEaTiOn, a level 92 night shadow, were in the wider, columned stretch of corridor, a little further in than I usually go.

I intended to check out that first corridor corner after the square spear man room, and moved back that way, but it was in use - and moving around in there, Kae and MD managed to attract at least half a dozen sphinx fighters, and their health began to fall very dramatically. Kaerella's health in fact was down to 14 before she managed to get clear, and MD's health got dangerously low too.

So, I just decided to supply the combat party boost in a relatively safe way, from a usually "dead" spot the sphinx fighters don't spawn close to. Kaerella went there, and equipped the polar bear cub; MistressDomina decided that, if the others were going to try fighting the anubis spear men, she might at least try to keep the sphinx fighters under control.

Luckily for MD's two guildies, as 2:15 approached, UK time, somebody did actually set the Tomb to a fair amount of easiness, so things settled down. It was too late, really, for MD to find her own spot and do a power hour, so she continued to help out - when Moonlight remembered to put up a Recall, MD would fight the current spear man until its health was below 10%, and then take the Recall to wipe out the experience she would have earned, to speed up Moonlight's experience gain...though as she was pretty hard-hitting, at level 98, that meant she ended up having to wait for the next one to respawn. Taking sphinx fighters off the two of them when I could was probably more useful.

ReCrEaTiOn had to leave fairly promptly when the dungeon time hour ended at three o'clock; llMoonlightll stayed longer, not using experience boosters, to finish off her pots, and then joined Kae in the safe area, while MD just continued for a little longer, since, well, she was there. In fact I should have quit when Moonlight had a disconnection, as soon after that, while MistressDomina was fighting an anubis spear man, a sphinx fighter came in from the far side of the room, made straight for Kaerella, and immediately killed her polar bear cub.

That drew the session to an end. MistressDomina had added just 2.65%, plus 1140 pet points. Kaerella added 3.21%, and both MD and Kae got 3 skill points; the poly had reached level 37 just before the end, and its death brought it back to 0.00% of the new level, so that it went up 25.28%. Back in town, "unsealing" a level 37 poly costs 1,114,272 gold, I discovered. When her hour ended, Moonlight had made a gift of a blessed iris to MD for her help; she seemed rather to expect MD to start using it, but honestly, three more hours there while the BI lasted didn't really appeal.

The Condition of the Cariae Tomb of Theos was also much improved in time for the evening session; while RedRackham got on with his pet-levelling, aided by double pet experience from six o'clock, UK time, Keerella went to the Cariae-4 Tomb, and did a little solo farming of the screaming zombies. As usual for a Wednesday evening this had to end at 8:15 - both computers got disconnected at that point in fact, but I hurriedly got RedRackham back to his death mask lancer before transferring my attentions elsewhere - and his drake later levelled up, reaching 41 just after ten.

Keerella had the screaming zombies to herself, except for a very occasional passer-by heading deeper in. I did wonder if she'd lose any experience or pet experience from the disconnection at the end, but when I checked later, her experience was actually 0.01 higher than when the disconnection happened, and her drake Greedo had 4 more pet points. In all she went up by 1.61%, 15 skill points, and 4261 pet points.

So, at least RedRackham's drake levelled up today, even if none of my characters actually gained all that much experience. MistressDomina's best bet for a "power hour" is from eleven to twelve in the morning, when there isn't too much competition for the spear man spots, and that's not a time that I can manage every day - not today, and not tomorrow either, probably.