As the Wheel Spins...

It was another tiny patch to download, to start the new Last Chaos week - just a couple of item mall packages and a promise that the Mondshine quests ought to be improved next week. The recent changes there, imposed by the Korean developers, seem to have caused a bit of a mutiny there. SirDarth was able to log in at breakfast time and do some work on his horse, but otherwise all was quiet.

However, there was a news item on the website that looked rather interesting - "Unlimited Free Spins (100% Rebate)". The LC "Loot Wheel" had been updated again, it seems, and to celebrate we could all have as many goes on it as we wanted, for twelve hours finishing at 3:30pm UK time... we had to spend the usual 99 aeria points per go, but were promised a full rebate, which on past experience happens within a couple of weeks, and is rounded up to the full 100 ap.

So, I had a lot of work to do, as my various accounts all had amounts of ap I could temporarily invest. I might not have been able to do a normal morning session after coffee anyway, but this obviously took precedence.

One thing that became obvious is that while the Loot Wheel may look like a roulette wheel, with twenty or so equal segments offering fifteen different possible prizes plus a jackpot, the wheel is "weighted", so that the chance of receiving the top prize, a "jaguar collar" that enables the winner to get a pet jaguar, is vanishingly small. "I ended up just buying a jag off someone, because I wasted like $200 trying to get one", someone in Randol on Cariae-5 said, and I don't think it was bad luck, just the result of very long odds.

Still, the other prizes vary between "very nice" and a bit minor - and if I'm going to get my ap back, I don't mind the occasional single heaven stone or strong medicine. Curiously, a single platinum blessed iris is hyped up as the next best thing you can get, but I'd put 50 chaos balls, 25 experience boosters, 25 skill point boosters, 10 experience boxes, 10 skill boxes, and probably 2 health stealers ahead of a pbi for value, plus maybe the 10 heaven stones and the 2 berserker potions. I'm not sure about the 10 tower boxes or the 2 mana stealers, they may be a worth a bit less.

Sadly, they seem to have removed chaos smelting stones and resurrection scrolls from the prizes. There is also a "free spin" result, which just means you have to try again... I also found a few times that if the wheel goes crazy, and you get a "cannot connect to server" error message, you lose the 99 ap you had wagered, but after you reload the page don't get any prize. I just hope I get the rebate for those ones safely.

Most of my accounts already have a lot of purchases in the "records" section of the in-game item mall, so I was slowed down by the need to claim my prize after every spin, choose the server, and, in the game, have my character download the item into their inventory. Still, we made good progress, and a number of my characters are now rather overweight, thanks to all the experience boosters and other similarly weighty items they are now carrying. My supply of the platinum blessed irises is much enhanced too, which is lucky as I got through quite a few over the weekend.

I was still hard at work on the wheel when the end of the time arrived - I see from MistressDomina's records that I stopped with a minute to spare, but with enough ap left for another twelve spins. And still no jaguar collar - but it may be handy to have a few aeria points left, until the rebates come through.

Anyway, particularly on Cariae and Auzura, I am a lot better off for goodies now, so it was all time well spent. I wonder if the prices of experience, skill point, and item drop boosters will fall a bit, at least temporarily? It could effect heaven stones too if there is a sudden massive influx of them into the game.

SirDarth was keeping busy on the older computer, and indeed downloaded some items when it was his account's turn to spin that wheel. His horse did level up to 33... but a little later, while I was paying too much attention to the Loot Wheel to notice, some little dear (or, I believe the technical term is "nasty little scrote") lured Darth's bandit, followed helplessly by Darth, a long way from where he'd been working, to a dangerous area with blood frenzies and elite bloody outlaws. Poor Darth was killed.

Luckily, I noticed this within the five minute (ahem) "deadline" to use one of his beginner resurrection scrolls, so he didn't lose any skill points from his stash, and when he revived back in Merac Caron, he was able to equip his horse again, which hadn't been killed. So, he moved across to the other location he uses, with just the two bandits and the disinterested butchers, and continued his work.

There was just time before the early evening food break for RedRydeR to have almost an hour's worth of orc-fighting in Prokion Temple; SirDarth logged out on Sarissa-4, and Galahad logged in on Cariae-5 to give Red the solo party boost. Gal went out to the bandits, and put in some work on his level 33 drake.

RedRydeR's hour passed easily enough, and another 2.71% experience was gained, along with 31 guild points for Discipline - and, more importantly, 127 more skill points.

Like most Wednesdays, I had an early finish tonight, but LordDarth had a reasonably long session first on Hatzring-5, starting off with a few quest rewards, including one involving a trip to Shuraine at his oasis in Dratan's desert. While I was there I farmed ten soft sands from the sand golems, and then headed on to Prokion Temple, in a solo party. My first attempt to enter saw me end up in the foundations instead - which meant I had to use a scroll of recall, as the only way out of that, short of logging out of the game. Back in the city I got the reward for the ten soft sands, and that took LordDarth into level 27, so that he was able to wear the whole of the 30/32 armour set.

That made Prokion Temple's orc attacks rather tolerable, once I'd successfully got in. Compared with other servers, Hatzring's temple does seem quiet, I think the server must be "top-heavy" with more high-level players than newer ones. The back room was free, and so Darth got busy there - his only problem is that his +8 event weapon doesn't kill all that quickly, but things will improve at level 29 when he can use the +10 level 33 dual blades.

Still, by the end of the session LordDarth had gone up by a total of 173.53%, reaching level 28. He added 253 skill points, and, as he did equip his level 1 pony for a little while towards the end, it gained 449 pet points.

Once he reaches level 29 and can use the better weapon, we can start to use his five hour-long beginner pssps, for extra skill exp. He got enough sp today for the next guild upgrade, but there's the one after that, and he needs to learn the level 30 skill Mana Break before he'll be allowed to become a temple knight. And there are a couple of skills after that which add to his defence rating, so are worth learning, particularly if he wants to be able to pet-level on gnoll lancers, as well as bandits and berserkers.

Galahad continued his work on his drake, on Cariae-5, during the evening, and later SirDarth on Sarissa-4 logged back in for a little more bandit-bashing. He missed the start of the "Creature Carnival", but was in time for most of the double pet experience. It may only last an hour or so, but is useful. Gal's drake must have reached level 34 shortly before the event started, so is currently a few hours ahead of Darth's horse.