Normal Service

MistressDomino managed to sell everything she had on sale overnight except her item drop boosters; I have sold some previously on Tairen at 395,000 each, but I guess the price has fallen for some reason, at least temporarily.. Anyway, MD took in almost thirty million, so that was a good night's work.

At breakfast time SirGalahad took over, after I restarted the game, and took the dragon hatchling he'd got from Rage down into Maargadum Jail. From level ten it steadily moved on, though there was one time when I checked and, perhaps because they were at the edge of a corner of the fiery pit (into which, luckily, one cannot fall), Gal's attacks were failing to make the usual "46" float up above the death mask lancer's head. I moved him away from that spot, and the "46" came back, but I had to move him again before the actual pet points started to move on.

There was time for a session after coffee for Memree, now wearing the +11 armour. A trio of quests, two just carrying messages and one involving killing ten butchers in Merac, added 26.23% and 12 skill points, but after that Memree moved on to Prokion Temple. The "back room" might have been useful, but it was busy as indeed was the "corridor room", so I ended up fighting a few axemen, and rather more orc fighters, just between the two places, until level 28 was reached. The time in the Temple added a further 54.85% and 118 skill points; on the pet point side, Merac's butchers had given Memree's hatchling 23, and the Temple's orcs 438.

Level 28's new quests, from the herbologist trainer in Dratan and Healer Yabo in Randol, both involved killing the desert spiders near Prokion Temple's entrance, to obtain "strong spider thread" and concurrently "spider poison", and the quest rewards gave Memree 14 skill points and an easy 23.95% experience. Moving inside Prokion Temple, I found that the "back room" was busy, but its occupant left before long, and Memree was able to fight there until level 29 was safely reached. That meant the session in total had added 97.65% and 186 skill points, most of which swiftly got spent back in town.

By then SirGalahad was just about to get his hatchling up to level 15; he was running a bit low on quality stones to feed it, though, so Memree went out and did a little mining, using the 16 tool aids she was carrying, before the early evening food break.

SirGalahad continued through that early evening food break - not that I have a late evening food break, I just tend to take my evening food break a bit early - and then Rage logged in...though not the Tairen version, instead it was my original Auzura level 73 rogue (RAGE to be exact). The two European Mad Monster Spawns were due at 5:30, which just gave Rage time for some mining, and herb-gathering, too, to use up her supply of tool aids, before she needed to ride across to the MMS location.

Unfortunately, [GM]Valsharyn insists on running her high and low MMS events at the same time. After the deadly horrors of last week, I opted not to go to the low-level one, with probably the outspoken RedRider, a level 27 rogue - surely the high-level one, with Rage, had to be safer than that?

Well, maybe it was...it was difficult to follow exactly what happened over at the low-level event from what Val said but it sounded pretty nasty, both his apologies for what had happened and his warnings about what was to come - with people there tending to be around level 30, he was going to include some level 90 monsters? "Please recuperate and relax for the Boss wave, which will have level 90 monsters among them (only a few). So PLEASE take a look at them from afar until you decide to attack them."

I'm afraid multi-tasking doesn't seem to be [GM]Valsharyn's strong point, as things did get confusing over which announcements were for which location, us at 453.290 or the juniors at 741.1399, and we found ourselves waiting for a while after killing off the first wave before he finally remembered us, and spawned the loot. There were other pauses too. Still, the actual waves of monsters were worth waiting for, Val's events are more of a traditional MMS than the current slimmed-down all-server version. Rage is really a bit low to be a fighter there, level 73 is a bit of a limbo - does anyone want to have a mid-level MMS too?

There were at least four times when Rage did get attacked, with her health knocked right down, and had to run for her life, usually getting on her horse for extra speed, and looping round once the monster in question had given up; getting through to the end without dying seemed a major achievement. With flutons and patriarch botises, one has to be careful, as while everyone is, wisely, concentrating on one of them, the others are wandering around, and can easily come up behind you.

At the end Val did say that the prize was double, though it seemed to get picked up just as quickly as the previous waves of loot; I hadn't counted how many item drop boosters, skill point boosters, large attack potions, and large defence potions Rage was carrying, or indeed the small HP recovery potions and small mana recovery potions, but she gained 21 tool aids, so things generally must have been reasonable on that front.

If I'd taken up the "whisper me feedback, especially on the boss wave since this was a new one!" invitation (and Val did stay online for quite a while afterwards for that, apparently), I would have suggested that the low and high events ought to be at different times. That may mean some high-level characters at the low-level event, but that's something a GM ought to be able to deal with, and it would avoid the waiting around, and the GM announcements which may be aimed at the other location and tend to confuse, as well as the feeling that Val wasn't actually with us but just pushing a few buttons. Not having had the chance to see the low-level version this time (and she really ought to make sure the website gives the correct location...or that she uses the normal location as on the website), it's not easy to give a verdict on it, though last week's was nowhere near as much fun as the standard multi-server version.

The monster choices at the high event seemed reasonable to me, and it was good that Val didn't impose an arbitrary deadline we had to meet. It didn't seem to me that we had an awful lot of high-level players there, but I don't know what would be an easy fix for that, short of changing the rewards... how about a new type of Hand, the "hand of life", with a resurrection scroll (or failing that a skill point restoration scroll), two greater healing potions, and an experience booster, to be included in MMS loot spawns...?

A little later, Memree traded her level 7 hatchling, and 400 quality stones, for Gal's drake, which was by then a little past halfway through level 16. It was also an ideal opportunity to recruit Memree into the Discipline guild. Then they both moved across to Tairen-2, and SirGalahad took his newly-acquired hatchling down into Maargadum Jail, while providing Memree with a solo party.

Memree herself headed for Prokion Temple, and its back room, which was unoccupied - in fact the whole temple seemed deserted, since players go to Tairen-1 for the Elizabeth's Enhancement buff...or just go there because it seems like the place to go, as the first sub-server, I suppose.

Now that Memree had her good armour, and the full use of the +14 crossbow, it seemed like the best time to use her beginner platinum super skill pills, which give 150% extra skill exp for an hour each. Memree had got her experience gain "locked" at 50%, so each orc sergeant gave 9483 experience and 13750 skill exp, and each orc axeman gave 5777 and 11000.

There was just time for two hours; during the first hour Memree gained 34.14% and 435 skill points, and then in the second hour a further 33.39% and 424 skill points. Memree's new drake reached level 17 just before the end of the first hour, and added 1131 more pet points in hour two - the session also got Discipline 513 guild points.

So, that was the end of the fighting. I'm slightly surprised that, at 50% experience gain, it will take no more than three hours in that back room to go through level 29, but it helps to give Memree a stock of skill points to get all her skills to their maximum, including the new skills coming up at level 30 and level 32. Once all five pssps have been used, she'll be able to do some teaming up with RedRyder, and hopefully move Red's supply of skill points along a bit too.

SirGalahad kept going a bit longer with his pet-levelling, so that the hatchling should reach level 10 before lights out.