Two Events At Once

There was a substantial patch to download this morning, after last night's weekly server maintenance downtime. In fact, they apparently had to have a second downtime after the main patch removed polar bear pet equipment, nerfed Elizabeth's Enhancement, renamed the sub-servers wrongly, and got rid of the glow and fairy effects from upgraded weapons and armour.

So, the main problems seemed to have been sorted out before I logged on, leaving the intended changes, which included moving the Randol NPC Elizabeth and her Enhancement buff from the first sub-server to the fifth, which is a non-PvP one, plus bringing in the Valentine's Day event, chocolate-oriented, and the Origami event, which involves collecting different colours of paper. We also have a new set of costumes, or costume covers, with a Mexican theme, but there is no fix yet for skill boxes, classes, the level 140 Mondshine quest, or polar bear pets vanishing if put into storage. Since no other pets can be stored like that, the fix ought to just make it impossible to put a polar bear into the storage chest.

SirGalahad went to Maargadum Jail, this time on Tairen-5, to find a knight called Eragon surrounded by a dozen or more canines, with a titan called TearlessWarrior bringing a new group to him, and then using the teleporter to leave, thus transferring the aggro to Eragon. Mentioning him by name, I asked the titan when he came back in if he was trying to kill Eragon, and he said "nope", so hopefully the knight will know what went on. I shouldn't think even a big mob of canines would kill a knight if he has the +10 armour - but I assume his pet got killed pretty quickly.

There was nothing SirGalahad could do, so he went on down to level five and started pet-levelling - and an hour or so later a message came up that a period of double pet experience was ending, so presumably we got the benefit of that for a while.

The drake had reached level 19 by coffee time, anyway, and after that Gal stood down, so that for the first time Memree, on level 30, and RedRyder, on level 29, could team up in a combat party in Prokion Temple, on Tairen-5. Memree did the fighting, and Red did most of the picking up of the loot; generally each orc soldier killed gave around 2100 skill exp to each of them, with Memree getting 1100 or so experience and RedRyder perhaps 200. Orc fighters tended to give around 3400 skill exp, but over 7000 experience to Memree and around 1200 to Red, so they are as yet worth avoiding when possible.

It wasn't a long session, but both rogues gained 94 skill points, with Memree going up by 5.97% (and 27 guild points) and RedRyder going up by 1.27% (and 5 guild points) - so there's plenty of potential for further team-ups, as long as the Temple doesn't get too busy.

For the afternoon, I decided that it was time that my Tairen mage, MistressDomino, moved on from level 10, so I logged her in on Tairen-5, the new "newbie" subserver, and put her heavier sales goods into storage to lighten her inventory load and make a bit of space. Then it was a matter of persuading SirGalahad to take her on as an apprentice in the Guardian system...and then, well, the business as usual, starting with a couple more visits to the jaguars to get those fangs for the necklaces that Merchant Geres allegedly makes. Every 500 gold quest reward helps - though admittedly MD is carrying rather a lot of gold from her merchanting sessions! Then it was time to move to Teleporter Rian, which takes no time at all using the Juno NPC Scroll, and enter Velpist temple for a bit of serious levelling.

As usual this started with the wandering zombies down the right-hand corridor, followed by the ancient and berserk types straight ahead (well a few corners, and steps down and up, are involved). When MistressDomino had reached level 14, having put on 481.63% and just 97 skill points, it was time to go back to Randol, learn a few skills, open the level 14 "treasure chest" that Lorraine administers, sell some oddments...and then hop out to Hunter Dranore, again using the NPC Scroll, before returning to Velpist Temple, and taking the left-hand path, up to the room outside the "torn book of life" room, for more berserk zombies, plus the level 16 corpse rangers and even a few level 21 skeleton soldiers, Both of those types are protective, not just of their own chums but the other lot too, which makes things interesting.

By the end of the afternoon MistressDomino was safely almost halfway through level 16, having added another 232.84% along with 74 more skill points, so I guess she'll be ready to head for Prokion Temple next time.

The food break had to be taken, if not early, at least promptly, as the succession of low-level Mad Monster Spawns was due to being at five o'clock, UK time, on Katar-4. My level 31 rogue there Memree went along, and as she was a few minutes early, found the Kiene Tower and [GM]OgreKing, and nothing and nobody else, so started to keep busy killing the local great horn beasts. It wasn't long before the GM spawned the usual mixture of beasts, from berserk zombies upwards, so I set to work.

The different servers had, generally, similar spawnings, though there were differences. My loot-grabbing on Katar got me four each of the four best items from the loot that got laid out before us, plus 14 tool aids, but that was perhaps better than average. On Cariae too, with Karella, my level 27 rogue, I was early, though there were a couple of other people there - a titan gave me the useful pair of bow-user buffs, and indeed briefly joined a party that a sorcerer called "exploder" put together, though for some reason the party didn't last for very long - perhaps because the titan "capped" us.

Sarissa and Hatzring followed, with my archer Kaerella taking part, at level 20 and 22 respectively, so I had to be a bit more careful - no +10 armour for me there! The highest monsters I could manage tended to be the level 25 corpse sergeants, from Velpist Temple, and I had to use Self Heal a time or two when I was fighting one of them.

The general strategy [GM]OgreKing was using seemed to be to spawn the monsters at about ten or eight minutes before the hour, and not actually announce that the event had started until the official time had been reached, so I tended to have almost ten minutes of just about solo action before any other people turned up. This was certainly the case on Tairen-4, where Memree, my level 30 rogue, kept busy killing whatever she could for at least ten minutes before anyone else joined in. Don't other people read the website - or don't they trust what it says, until there is an official in-game announcement?

Tairen was a little different, in that there is not yet a high-level MMS there, so the GMs must have decided that there would be more people, and more higher-level people, of at least level fifty, along (the stated maximum level is sixty, but people at that level wouldn't have much to do) - I think we normally may get a single boss spider Baal in the middle of the rather higher-level monster group nearest the lake, but this time there were at least three or for of them. I must have got a bit too near one, Memree had to run for her life - I thought I was perhaps over-reacting and only down by about a third, health-wise, but by the time I was clear my health was extremely low. For a minute or two it looked as if the Baals reigned supreme, and that nobody could challenge them - but then we saw [GM]Darasuum, a burly, muscular titan, stepping between them and us, and generally saving the day.

The final low-level MMS was also a bit different, in that the website said it was to be held on the PvP subserver, Auzura-1, rather than the fourth subserver, which the others had been on - and, while my level 27 rogue RedRider went to the location on both those options, the Kiene Tower wasn't set up on either of them. After switching some more, finally I found the monster spawn just starting on Auzura-4, and joined in in the usual way.

As usually happens on a Wednesday evening, I was away from Last Chaos from eight to ten or so, and thus missed out on the chance to visit the high-level version of the MMS on Katar and Cariae. I could have gone along to Sarissa at ten or soon after, and Hatzring at half past, but a junior-level healer such as Kaerella's local versions wouldn't really be much assistance...and the blog needed sorting out anyway. Maybe I can at least send Rage along to the Auzura version at eleven, if I get the blog done and published by then. By that time SirGalahad, on Tairen-5, will have got his drake most of the way through level 22, so it will soon be time to either switch to boosting another drake a bit, or starting a new horse, to go all the way to level 37.