A New Week Begins

The overnight patch only did anything to the item mall, basically. "

No content updates this week but look forward to some exciting new features coming soon! Super secret and super exciting!

" was how product manager Xuse2005 put it, optimistically. The most interesting thing about the item mall is that, in-game, for one week only apparently, the level-limited platinum blessed irises are just a single aeria point each...so I will have to stock up! Luckily I didn't start to hoard the level 61-90 type last week at the then-bargain price of 25 ap, but this week I will for sure...perhaps at the weekend, in case there is some sort of "tiered leveller" promotion running then.

RedRackham was able to head for the gnoll lancers before breakfast, to start a pet-levelling session. His drake had recently reached level 31, so is now quite a useful pet, but a few more levels will make it even better.

A little later, as I knew I'd be too busy downstairs to have a morning playing session, MistressDomino logged in on Auzura-5 to try and sell some stuff. She got off to a good start selling five lucky smelting stones and a couple of runes of protection 2, but if her almost-namesake MistressDomina is going to be able to get a good mage 85/87 armour set, she would need to sell a lot more. Her hundred item drop boosters went a little later, and then a few heaven stones and the small supply of moonstones from the last quiz, followed by a couple of health stealers... but not long after that, the question "Send Error Report?" suddenly reared its ugly head, and the game closed down.

Once I got things going again, I took the opportunity to move some more item drop boosters across to MistressDomino, and get some more lucky smelting stones out of storage, and then MD went back into merchant mode. I'd put a few red pet colouring crystals up this time at 450,000, and a couple of those sold quickly, followed by a couple of health stealers and a mana stealer potion. Then some more lucky smelting stones and a berserker potion sold, and twenty heaven stones, then a little later twenty-five more. The last two lucky smelting stones also went before lunch. The action seemed to concentrate on the occasional heaven stone after that; normally I'd have sold out, but since they made them weightless a week ago, MD can carry rather more at a time, and I'd moved a number over from another account recently. A final purchase of fifty-nine of them took the last of MD's current supply. Just before MD was due to log out, four more runes of protection sold, which got the total sales up to a pretty respectable total - enough to buy a piece or two of 85/87 mage armour, for sure. No more item drop boosters sold after the restock, though, which shows how a move from 745,000 to 765,000 gold can change "almost instant sale" to "no sale". Next time, they'll be back down to the old price I guess.

However, with the platinum blessed irises now being so cheap, it seemed like a good idea for RedRydeR and SirKit to go back to the sphinx types and both use them, even if, with SirKit still qualifying for the Elizabeth's Enhancement buff, a pbi would only increase his experience gain by 50% rather than 200%.

I noticed that SirKit had a couple of skill point restoration/resurrection scrolls in his item mall records, and as I'd been meaning to have him have a res scroll active, I used one - and it was lucky I did, as during the first hour I had a phone call, and left Kit a little too close to one of the sphinx speer men. When I got back, he was dead, so I was able to avoid losing about 2% of his skill points by using the scroll. Between the two pbis, he hurried back to town to get the Elizabeth buff back.

By the end of the two pbi hours, RedRydeR had earned 26.51%, 19 skill points and 1409 pet points, while SirKit had gone up by 75.91% and 34 skill points.

Someone, the sorcerer LostReborn in fact, had been asking about the possibility of ks-ing one of my higher characters as a way of gaining experience in the Tomb of Theos...during the afternoon I'd already been set up in Dratan, and he hadn't got the entrance to the Tomb on his memory scroll yet, but it put the idea into my mind of having Keerella and RedRydeR do something along those lines. So, after the food break, Kee went out to the entrance on Cariae-5, and found that the place was on maximum easy...so Red joined her there, and in they went. At levels 98 and 64 they were too far apart to form a party without Red's experience gain being severely "capped", but with Red outside the party, but attacking the screaming zombie that Kee was fighting, with a pbi active RedRydeR got between 4 and 5 million experience, which moved her percentage along nicely.

LostReborn had managed to get to the Tomb and add the entrance to his memory scroll, so when he got in touch, I invited him to join us - so out he came. Unfortunately he found he didn't have enough gold to come in, but offered to sell a "stone of shadow" so cheaply that I couldn't resist - Red went out, bought it, and came back in, along with LostReborn. Sadly, he wasn't able to stay all that long, he got a parental ultimatum about homework...but there were plenty of other people who joined Red in ks-ing Kee.

xSirMikex had been in the same solo party as Keerella (a different party from the one RedRydeR joined), and had been asking about where he should go at level 38 for experience - I'd said he should go directly to Jail, or perhaps if he was ambitious, and had horse buffs, to the sphinx types in Dratan. He left the party to team up with a friend and go out that way - but before long the pair of them, his friend being the rogue IceKid, turned up in the Tomb, asking to ks. There was another rogue later, and for a short time a knight called Eragoon, and all in all it got a bit busy. When I finally left, that other rogue had switched to his nightshadow, with a "LCGenericName" tag which means someone took exception to his original name and the GMs changed it, and was allowing people to ks him, so for some of the group, the evening continued.

Keerella had gone up by just 0.89%, but had managed to gain 16 skill points, as well as 2901 pet points for her drake Greedo. After using three of the ultra-cheap platinum blessed irises, RedRyder had gone up by 145.63%, getting her nicely into level 65, and gained 2094 pet points, so the scheme worked pretty well. It will probably be less crowded if I use Cariae-4 for such efforts, if I can't make use of the Elizabeth's Enhancement buff for one of my characters. Maybe SirKit can ks Keerella, or how about Kaerella ks-ing Barbarienne...?

Today's big event was announced as being a "Mid-Week Parade"; I'd missed the Auzura one, but Cariae's was scheduled for ten o'clock, UK time, so Kaerella was there ready. And what a let-down it was... [GM]JediMike was in charge, and he suddenly spawned transformation scrolls and firecrackers all around the ring road in Randol. When people had picked those all up (I ended up with nine assorted transformation scrolls, plus some firecrackers), Mike spawned some flutons in the arena, and then, five minutes after it had begun, declared the mini-parade over, and vanished.

Kaerella went along to the Sarissa event at half past ten, which was entirely different, with [GM]Erock, a new gm, in charge. There was more of a parade, in that she did lead us around town, but she only dropped firecrackers, either singly or as stacks of 2403...meaning Kae ended up with 26,399 firecrackers, after using a few. Too bad they can't be sold or traded. I did ask about transformation scrolls, but there was just a vague surprise that they weren't being dropped...maybe she'd expected the codes she'd been given to include them as well as the fireworks. The circuit did end at the arena, but I didn't notice any flutons. It all seemed a bit random and erratic, though I did actually pick up an effort scroll shortly before the end.

RedRackham had been doing some work on his drake while that was going on, and got it about a third of the way through level 32 before the end of the evening.