SirDarth's new pony had levelled up six times by the end of yesterday evening - and overnight they managed another six levels without problems. Checking the forum thread in the morning to see what events were planned as compensation, instead the other product manager, Xuse2005, had added that the poor, suffering server had been taken down again at eleven last night, "to perform further checks and maintenance".
Sure enough, even nine hours later Cariae was still down, so Galahad couldn't log in there to try and re-level his horse a bit; instead, I had to settle for ColonelScarlet over on Katar working on that pink drake of his. Unusually these days, before long he did get ks'd, with someone killing his bandit, as I discovered when I returned after breakfast, but it was innocently done - a player called bellajade had asked "Do you need help?" and "Can I kill this thing?" and then, receiving no reply, gone ahead and "helped" me.
I was lucky to get a trouble-free overnight run for SirDarth, but I noticed, when switching the older computer off, that it was going to install new Microsoft updates... and, sure enough, checking the newer (or less old) computer, it too was poised to do the same, which would normally mean it waited until I'd fallen asleep, and then restarted. ending anything I had been running, like Last Chaos. So, I closed down, waited for the computer to actually switch itself off, and then started up again, so that, once the updates were safely digested, I was able to start Last Chaos again for the overnight run.
I didn't have the opportunity for any daytime adventuring, beyond the afk-style pet levelling; I was able after coffee to investigate the April Fool's event over in Guild Wars, after a tip-off from my friend Elys... this year all the players, in towns, were tiny, and their miniature pets were full-size, so that Kamadan had villains and monsters strolling around, while tiny people skittered about the place. My dragon Kuunavang was fairly big, but not his full size, unfortunately, and the same applied to siege turtles...
Galahad may have been ks'd rather innocently, but I'm afraid SirDarth was the victim of sinister forces. I returned to the computer to find him in the middle of Merac village, and my first thought was that I'd been distracted and, while I'd teleported him to Merac from Randol, forgotten to teleport him down to the bandits and start his pet-levelling. But no, he had been ks'd, as the "Gained 290 experience and 135 skill experience" message showed - and he'd been killed, too, presumably by someone luring the bandit he was fighting towards something nasty, such as doom slayers, which have a magical attack SirDarth has little protection against.
He has a resurrection scroll, but not long ago the function of those was modified, so that you have to use them within five minutes, or you respawn back in town anyway. As I didn't return in time, he lost 3% of his skill point stash, which had been earmarked for upgrading the Discipline guild; curiously, he lost all 4.22% experience he had in level 35, but that doesn't matter. 52 skill points isn't much to lose, but it is annoying. At least the pony was "unequipped" rather than killed. Maybe he needs to find a different location for his work.
SirDarth did continue with the pet-levelling, and before the afternoon was over the pony reached level 16, which meant that it became a nice big horse. There are still many days to go before it reaches level 37, though.
The "Parade" event with [GM]Noboru in Randol was at five o'clock, now that we are all on "summer" time, and as usual involved transforming into dire wolves, drakes, jaguars, and sasquatches, and walking around town, letting off firecrackers and generally trying to impress the NPCs, especially Lorraine. At one point we had rather a lot of hulking great sasquatches marching together, me included - "A squash of sasquatches", I commented.
The chat afterwards did veer towards talking about events, and their timing. I did mention that there was "no MMS this week, but at least we get a StC", unlike the other servers. "Kaerella, I'm looking forward to including some MMS again, but this is not yet assured", [GM]Noboru replied.
I did try to log in on Cariae after that for an hour or so, but at 5:40pm UK time the dread word "Maintenance" was still set against every Cariae subserver. Our product managers are promising us some special rewards, with double or even sextuple experience and skill exp, but first they have to get things running properly.
So, it was RedRyder on Sarissa-5 who had about an hour's work, fighting mummies and orc soldiers in Prokion Temple. She managed to add 68.84%, going up to level 24, and 163 skill points.
The "Pharaoh's Treasure" event on Auzura-4 was a bit mixed; for a start I wasn't properly prepared for it, as Elvastar had managed to get in touch, and after trading back some lucky smelting stones and chaos smelting stones he'd borrowed we were chatting when the list of coordinates came up. Kaerella rode past quite a few groups of sphinx fighters and sphinx speer men before the correct location for the treasure came up, and took a while to get there, but luckily [GM]Noboru was continuing to replenish the hands of loot. [GM]Valsharyn was there too, after being away from the office for a couple of weeks, she mentioned.
We were reassured that no patriarch botises or flutons would be spawned on us - a couple of groups of the sphinx types were easily disposed of, but then a group of anubis archers were spawned, and one of them killed me with just a couple of hits. I used a resurrection scroll - but the cost of one of those rather wipes out the gold gain from the item drop boosters, skill points boosters, and so on that I picked up.
After that, RedRyder on Sarissa swung back into action. There were a number of quests that could be done, which gave 22.20% experience and 4 skill points - it helped that she already had some dark orbs, and SirDarth had given her five cracked axes. Then she set out into Dratan's desert to do the quests that required killing death goddesses, also known as ramians, and clever foxes of the desert - and settled in to kill the sand golems, to get all the soft sand she needed. Luckily Darth had been able to pass nine soft sands across, but getting another eleven took a while. Kamira "Arrived", and then after the thirteen minutes were up "Arrived" again. I had mentioned her in the forum shoutbox, but nobody seemed interested.
Once the soft sand situation was seen to, RedRyder hurried on to Prokion Temple, and stayed there for a little while, so that, with the further quest rewards that were earned, she ended up adding another 130.74%, taking her into level 26, and 143 skill points, almost all of which were swiftly spent back in town on a couple of top levels of skills. Red also transformed the +15 level 29 sword SirDarth had used into the equivalent crossbow, so she should hit a lot harder on her next outing.
As none of my other Sarissa characters is likely to reach level 31 for a while and get a free +10 armour set, it seemed a good idea to buy yet another set, since RedRyder could now wear three parts of it. Looking through Roy's merchant mart, I found four of the five +10 pieces being sold by JuukiSakai at a million gold each, which, since they were already rogue pieces and wouldn't have to be changed by Collector Ryl, seemed good to me, so I bought them. Their previous owner hadn't bloodsealed them, but at least they were ready for the application of their first bloodseal gems.
The shirt for the armour set proved more elusive, and I ended up paying a million and a half for a titan one, and getting it changed by Collector Ryl. But now RedRyder is set up to do some serious levelling - when she reaches level 27, she will be ready to team up with either Kae or Kee in that back room.
The Cariae server had been supposed to come back online at nine, UK time, but [GM]Darasuum reported in the shoutbox that the estimated time of its arrival had been put back by a further ninety minutes. That is cutting things a bit close, as the special "Pet Paradise" event is supposed to start then, at 10:30 UK time, so we will have to see how things go on that. SirDarth can pet-level without such excitements, and after his solo party with Red ended, moved back to Sarissa-4, though not to the spot where he was killed. The horse had reached level 18 by then.
If I do get to the pet event, well, expect a few words about it tomorrow...
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