Scheduling Problems

The patch last night was apparently a fairly large one, needing longer than the usual three hours to get up and running - though the announced fixes seem pretty minor to me. I think Mondshine-level people were annoyed that cancelled quests couldn't be restarted, but that applies to very few people. Apparently new level 90 night shadow characters still had the level 10 to 30 "event" treasure chests for Lorraine to open, and that has been stopped... oh, and we are assured that it will now be impossible to sit down in the Quiz Room. A late addition was a fix for a problem with the skills of the new jaguar pets, so that using those skills is no longer a ticket to a disconnection, it seems.

So, the game continues much as before. SirGalahad was able to log in at breakfast time, and, continuing in action all through the morning on Tairen-4, got his pale blue horse up a couple more levels, to 21. XxGALAHADxX, over on Cariae-4, got into action soon afterwards, and got his pony up four levels, to level ten, before it was time for the afternoon session to begin.

The session wasn't very long, by afternoon standards, as I needed to eat early, to be ready for the first of the low-level mad Monster Spawns. Still, it was longer than a morning session would have been, and featured Memree and Kaerella in the back room of Prokion Temple on Tairen-5.

I only had a single very brief visit from a sorcerer, just demonstrating that he would have used the room if I hadn't got things under control I guess. By the end of the session, Memree had added 12.84% and 244 guild points, and Kaerella had gained 11.48% and 36 guild points. And, more importantly, they'd both earned 237 skill points.

SirGalahad was able to log back on after that, and hurry back to level five of Maargadum Jail for some more pet-levelling. And then, at 4:30 UK time, the first of the low-level Mad Monster Spawns was due to begin.

Katar came first, so my level 31 rogue Memree was in attendance. The Kiene Tower appeared a few minutes before the start, and then bang on time the various spawns of monsters started popping up, and the official announcement for the MMS was given. So, we started with just three or four people, but pretty soon we had a pretty good attendance - so good in fact that it only took five or six minutes to kill all the monsters, so that by 4:37 we were all busily picking up the loot which [GM]Darasuum spawned.

My level 27 rogue on Cariae, Karella, had her turn at five o'clock, and things went pretty similarly. I got recruited into a party of four or five people, who were glad to find that Karella could supply horse buffs. We were just about all that were there to begin with, but once the announcement was made, plenty more people turned up.

Sarissa was the third server to get its junior MMS, and Kaerella went along to it, going up from level 22 to 23 on the great horn beasts while I waited. It was lucky I did level up, as at one point my health went down to just 2 hit points - someone, either accidentally or on purpose, had lured scores of elite goblin scouts, elite poison mists, and other higher-level type monsters, and ran a bit close to me, so that some of the blood leeches etc turned their attention to me. We had a lower turn-out, so that the event ran on for more like ten minutes before the last of the monsters were subdued. In fact the GM announced "The MMS is now over", and spawned the loot, when there were still quite a few monsters around, and one player complained afterwards that they had been killed while trying to pick up the loot, which isn't quite the idea.

On Hatzring, where Kaerella is level 24, I did manage to get killed once - I didn't think I was in danger at the time, a level 12 healer had just made a party with me and I was trying to add Party Heal to my bar. Still, Kae wasn't carrying many skill points, so it didn't matter, and I quickly teleported back. The turn-out must have been even lower than on Sarissa, as the event took more like twelve minutes. Again there were still monsters around when the loot was spawned, though luckily they seemed to have other targets on their mind when they passed me.

After that, things got a bit frustrating. The website events page for the day clearly said that Auzura came next, at 11:30 PDT, or 6:30pm UK time, so I took RedRider, my level 27 rogue, along there. The only other person to be waiting was a higher-level rogue called TazRogue.... and wait we did. After we'd waited at least 10 minutes past the proper starting time, I went on the forum shoutbox to ask what was happening about the Auzura low-level MMS. There didn't seem to be a gamesage around, but [GM]Ozymandias was there. Unfortunately, he completely ignored me, and soon vanished.

What had happened, I found out, was that Auzura had been skipped, and while I'd been waiting there, Tairen-5 had been having its MMS half an hour early...so I missed that one, which is usually the biggest and most enjoyable of the sequence, entirely. Whether there was an Auzura low-level MMS at some other time, I have no idea.

I was able to get along to the high-level Katar MMS at 8:00pm UK time, hosted by [GM]Cara - which is an improvement over the low-level ones, which were entirely anonymous and with no GM chat, except for one apology from [GM]Darasuum for being a bit slow with spawning the prizes. Cara was there in person, urging us on, and there were lots of high-level monsters over a wide area, which all had to be killed within twenty minutes. At level 31 Memree can't have hurt the monsters she attacked much, but I'm sure her Snare was very welcome. Once we had succeeded, Cara spawned some of the big purple dragons, and some darkmind terrains, and finished with a couple of flutons, before providing plenty of piles of loot, also over a pretty wide area. She also spawned some pet supplies, like thick milk, though it was another party member who picked those up.

The Auzura high-level MMS was at ten, and Rage was able to go along; she is decidedly mid-level, but again Snare was useful, as ever, and she can do substantial damage to a lot of the monsters, though less to flutons The new-style high MMS was again over a wide area, so people were dashing from one monster to the next, judges and introducers, golems and cave spirits. We only just managed to clear the whole valley inside the twenty minute deadline, but after that we got the same dragons, darkmind terrains, and flutons, and plenty of loot. So at least one Auzuran MMS was successfully completed.

SirGalahad had been busy all evening, so that his horse had got safely into level 23 before the end.