New Balls Please

The new week's patch brought in the soccer ball event, as promised. It also made upgrade items like heaven stones, and boosters, weightless, which certainly saves money on putting them into storage, and also bought down the weight of stuff that my two main merchants were carrying. It makes downloading big packages from the item mall rather easier.

While the pricing of the usual item mall packages doesn't seem to have changed, some of the individual items have been reduced in price - and there are some versions of the experience-increasing platinum blessed iris at bargain prices now. One that can only be used up to level 30 is entirely useless, but there would be some times when an up-to-level-60 one would be worth having, and definitely times for an up-to-level-90 one. Assuming that they do give 200% extra, as opposed to the "beginner" version's 150% extra, that is. An unlimited pbi is now 75 aeria points, a 61-90 one is 25, a 31-60 one is just 10 ap, and the 1-30 type is half that.

RedRackham went out pet-levelling before breakfast, but got disconnected while I was downstairs. I sent him back to work, though, and he began to make steady progress through his horse's 36th level, so that by the end of the lunch break the horse was halfway through it. Luckily, that disconnection wasn't repeated.

AmityBlaise, my level 31 rogue, was my character of choice after coffee for a session on Cariae-5 - and by lunchtime she had, while not gaining any skill points, added 0.58% experience and 3 guild points... since the "triangle balls", the soccer event equivalent of pumpkin ghosts, gave her, with the Elizabeth's Enhancement buff, 440 experience each. First of all I headed for the treants not far from Velpist Temple, as that was the spawning point for the pumpkin ghosts I'd preferred, but there seemed some high-level competition there, with people in 85/87 armour in major guilds riding around. Before long I decided to try the point close to Hunter Dranore, which, since AmityBlaise has a Juno NPC scroll allowing free teleports to any npc on that map, is very easy to reach...and sure enough, the balls spawned there regularly. The old point east of there didn't seem active, but west of the hunter, close to some tents, sasquatches and horn beasts, the triangle balls were spawning.

So, AmityBlaise got into a routine of dealing with the ball near Hunter Dranore, running west to kill the other triangle ball, and teleporting back to Dranore just in time for his ball to respawn, and so on - and by the time lunch was due, had reached 100 soccer balls. The triangle balls are only level 1, but are hard for low-level people to kill as they seem to have pretty good evasion, and also around 2000 hit points - more than a level 35 knight, for example.

After the lunch break, the hunt for soccer balls continued, still with AmityBlaise. One thing I hadn't realised was that, while sometimes the triangle didn't drop anything, occasionally it would drop a golden ball, worth ten regular ones, so, as a few of the golden ones had stacked with one that I'd got from Armour Trader Rowel by exchanging my first ten soccer balls, I was better off than I'd thought. Generally I was doing pretty well on Cariae-5, but as the afternoon wore on, it started to get busier, and when a junior sorcerer started to use the triangle balls that spawned up by the horn beast camp, it seemed like a good idea to switch subserver.

It had been strange to see people in the 85/87 armour set or higher riding around a non-PvP subserver's low-level map in search of the triangle balls; Cariae-3 was a lot quieter, and I was able to settle in there, still with the same two convenient spawning points. There were a couple of members of the "Schattenwind" guild, which I was once assured by Zenderfly means "Shadowwind" rather than anything smelly, one on horseback and the other using a super speed potion, but they generally kept moving. Then there was a titan called Sc0t, who seemed keener on sticking around. There was one triangle ball close to Hunter Dranore that we both attacked; I attempted to pick up the soccer ball it dropped, but it was awarded to him, so he must have hit harder. He took exception to poor Amity trying to "steal" "his" soccer ball, and started to follow her around, taking his opportunities to stun and kill her, usually just after she had opened a triangle ball.

"A shame about the red name", I commented while lying on the ground. "Have you thought about taking up pet-levelling?" I'm not sure if killing the same rogue a number of times would have moved him very far towards the "evil" end of the spectrum, or just 5 points, but I let that stigma be its own reward for his actions, and pointedly avoided fighting back, until, with a good stock of soccer balls and golden balls, I was able to tell him that, fun though it had been, it was time I logged off for food. Being killed PvP-style doesn't carry any penalty, so by then Amy had added another 1.81%, a skill point, and 11 more guild points.

After the break, Amity converted her soccer balls into golden balls and, in case any prize items were useful but couldn't be traded, passed the 50 golden balls over to RedRydeR... all she got in her prize box though were ten large defence potions and ten silver boosters, the latter of which can indeed not be traded - but all they do, as far as I know, is act as slightly more productive tool aids. Still, a Uruguayan flag was the other reward, which apparently can be used in a further gamble. Amity also used up her supply of tool aids to get some quality stones and green herb leaves, and, obtaining a drake egg from MistressDomina, in exchange for her remaining 5 golden balls, went to Lorraine and Jajan and got herself a brand-new dragon hatchling.

After a little more shuffling around of loot, which included passing SirKit's old armour sets, and spare accessories, over to sirDarth, that new hatchling was traded across from AmityBlaise to RedRackham, in exchange for a level 37 horse he was carrying, which Amity quickly converted into a mount. RedRackham then went out to the gnoll lancers on Cariae-5, to finish levelling his current horse to level 37 - a task he completed soon after eight this evening. He was thus able to unequip the horse, and equip the hatchling, then, and start work on levelling it up, taking advantage of the "Creature Carnival" event's double pet experience hour.

As for the main computer, well, it being a Wednesday, I had to log out early, but SirKit, in a solo party with RedRackham, did have time for a session with the beast flyers on level three of Maargadum jail. He even got a couple of soccer balls from triangle balls on the way to the Jail. The rogue Isgor was there, but I knew she wouldn't mind company, since she had never thought twice about joining in when she found me already there. She assured me she wasn't staying long, and I mentioned that it was probably SirKit's last session there, as with any luck he would reach level 48. She is just level 43, so would be glad not to have all the beast flyers converging on her I guess.

SirKit did indeed manage to get the 15% he needed to reach level 48; his total experience gain in fact was 15.99%, along with 140 skill points, which were just enough to take his unused sp stash over the 9k mark. His drake added 1338 pet points, and just before the end the beast flyers clubbed together and presented him with a last heaven stone. Reaching level 48 means that, while the beast flyers are still white-named, at level 46, the level 42 beast archers are now blue-named, so don't give any pet points...so it is time to move on. The new level means, most importantly, that Kit is back within party range of RedRydeR, who is now on level 63, so some joint trips back to the elite sphinx speer man and his chums are possible once more.

RedRackham was able to work on his new hatchling for the rest of the evening, getting it into level six, and past the 80% Sympathy mark, by the time I closed down for the night.