An Unexpected Event

The overnight patch was a pretty substantial one, though its main achievements seem to have been to end the Wendy Bear event...and the enigmatic comment "New map features have been added - check them out!" hints that something else has happened, though initially nobody seemed sure what. As a "map" can just mean the "M" window feature that shows the geography of your current region, or can mean the actual region itself, speculation was, as they say, rife.

RedRackham didn't find any changes to the gnoll lancer area, anyway, and was able to resume his pet-levelling before breakfast, soon joined there by the mage KiaOra. Over on Katar, though, her small financial gain from selling the bear pieces urged Kaerella to lash out on a better weapon, and after searching 64 pages of Roy's merchant mart, decided that the 110 million RangerTheDanger wanted for a level 33 pair of +15 daggers wasn't unreasonable, and bought them. Collector Ryl changed them into the "Pheonix" bow equivalent for another 100,000 gold - and Kae's physical attack was boosted from 404 (with a +10 bow) to 564. That ought to speed up her skill point farming nicely. Hopefully it will increase slightly once the bloodseals have been added.

Over on Cariae, MistressDomina spent the same sum on a new healer wand for my cleric Kaerella, put into Roy's merchant mart by LOCUST, though not one she can use for a while. This one is only +14, a Judgement' Rainbow Wand, but it is green-named and has the proper five seals - blue-named ones have a slightly higher attack, but not such a good hit rate, so things work out roughly the same.

MistressDomina traded the wand across to RedRydeR, who'd replaced my pet-leveller on the older computer; Red then spent 2,362,800 gold converting Kaerella's old 60/62 +13 armour set into its rogue equivalent, from Peaceful to Ardent, and the level 61 +15 weapon too. When she can wear the new armour set her physical defence will rise from 1612 to 1815; so far she can at least wear the gloves without a 50% penalty, making the figure 1688.

Red traded the new wand across to Kaerella; Kae's current wand, the level 69 Violeta Wand +15, has magic attack stats of 200 + 351 + 50 (making 601), while the level 73 Eres Bonita Wand +15 she already had waiting will give 289 + 385 + 50 (making 724)... this Judgement Raindow Wand +14 gives 321 + 435 (making 756), but one can easily add a 24-hour platinum refining stone to temporarily get it up to +15, or indeed +16, adding a bit to the second figure and bringing back the bonus + 50. The theory is that one can buy an awful lots of platinum refining stones for the difference in price between a +14 and +15 weapon...

Kaerella and RedRydeR headed out to the sphinx types for a shorter than average morning session. Kamira didn't drop by, unfortunately, but Kaerella added 2.07% and 9 skill points, while, helped by the Elizabeth's Enhancement buff, RedRydeR gained 14.62% and 17 skill points. They are really ready to try a teaming in the Tomb of Theos, but going there and starting all the potions Kaerella would need just wouldn't be sensible so soon after a weekly maintenance with a substantial patch, as sudden "emergency maintenance" downtimes are more aptly described as probable than possible. And my playing time over the next 24 hours is a bit limited, too.

There was just time before lunch for a bit more trading across of items between Kaerella and MistressDomina, which, with the opening of some upgrade boxes, means that now Kae is carrying enough platinum refining stones to give herself a useful defence boost for 24 hours. Clerics don't function too well as tanks, so the more defence against screaming zombies she can get, the better. And then RedRackham went back to Merac for some pet-levelling.

RedRackham was able to continue through the afternoon, so that by the early evening food break the horse had reached level 20. The afternoon session, however, belonged to Kaerella - Kaerella on Katar, that is. First of all she checked through the merchant mart for a better accessory to use, and found a Necklace of Wind with 10% suction of life, plus 16 dexterity (or "swiftness of reflexes") and 5 magical defence being sold by xShinobix for 30 million, so bought it. On the way to the teleporter in Randol Kae passed someone selling a level 33 +15 weapon for 35 million more than I had paid earlier, which was a relief. Kind of "buy the weapon, get the accessory free"...

I'd not managed to find a solo party to join, when I entered Prokion Temple, so I accepted when a titan there recruited me to his party - which did actually have another member somewhere. Maestro13 was level 26, and asked for my help to level up a little. That seemed a reasonable request, particularly as him being six levels below me meant that even shared, I'd get almost as much skill exp per kill.

Katar-5's Prokion Temple was surprisingly busy. The back room was being used, and the corridor room was being used - we stopped just after there with a couple of linked rooms filled with orc axemen and fighters, but the Maestro wanted orc sergeants, so we ran across to the mirror half, going just beyond that half's corridor room, where a mixture of axemen and sergeants were to be had.

We got Maestro13 into level 27, and indeed a quarter of the way through that level by the time he had to leave. Luckily a solo party was then available, so Kaerella was able to continue in that spot for the rest of the afternoon, reaching level 33 just after the titan logged out. In all, Kae went up by 32.14%, and earned 357 skill points, as well as getting 242 guild points for the Discipline guild. Now that she is in the new level, orc fighters are no longer much use, it looks as if it has to be mainly orc axemen now for Kae, with a few orc sergeants if necessary; that session did add a bit more experience than would have been ideal, but, with over 15k of unused sp now, Kaerella can perhaps afford it.

I expected the evening session to be the usual short one, but arrangements for other activities fell through at the last moment. That meant that SirKit's trip to Maargadum Jail lasted longer than I'd expected. Towards the end a knight called Burninater barged in and seemed to be getting most of the beast flyers, which was a bit annoying - still, if I see him there again when I arrive, I'll know that I too can just rush in and start fighting.

SirKit had joined a solo party hosted by bluray, and eventually took over as leader. There was a fair amount of chatting going on, with the level 91 knight Athalantar trying to persuade Kit to become a Guild Adviser of his newly-formed guild, but Kit's first loyalties are to Discipline... and anyway, Kit isn't that major a character so wouldn't be playing enough to make a good job of the "GA" role. Too bad it wasn't on Auzura rather than Cariae, my rogue Rage there is in the market for a new guild.

We decided after a while that there was an unannounced event giving 50% extra skill exp and experience - which only works out as 25% extra if one has the Elizabeth's Enhancement, but is still useful. SirKit stayed on level three of Maargadum Jail for the whole three hour length of the buff, and added 52.16%, along with 2556 pet points and 344 skill points. He picked up three heaven stones...and no less than seven drake eggs.

Checking Roy's merchant mart, SirKit noticed a pair of level 107 healer boots, b5e +15, on offer from DaizY for 950 million, but the merchant mart was so laggy that it took ages for pages to come up - I'd noticed that earlier when trying to buy the accessory, but it was worse now. MistressDomina, the one with the money to buy such things, logged in on Cariae-2, hoping it would be less laggy, but every stage took quite a while. Finally MD was able to get her new purchase into her inventory...and then, looking unsuccessfully for level 107 headgear, the pages came up almost instantaneously. So, Barbarienne's new armour set is almost complete, all she needs is to do some grinding for a few days to get to level 106, and then some more days to get to level 107. It would be nice to actually get to 109, since there are usually some +15 bows of that level available, but that would take months I think.

I looked in on the forum shoutbox, while waiting for Roy's pages to load, and [GM]Darasuum was there, goofing around. Somebody was asking if there was an extra experience event going on, and that obviously came as a surprise to the GM, so it may possibly have got turned off soon after that.

RedRackham had kept busy through the evening, which meant that his horse had reached level 21 by then... and it may indeed reach level 22 before I log out for the night. Oh, and the feeling on the forum was that the "new map features" were just some coding change that ought to reduce lag and decrease the chance of people getting stuck in the ground. If that is all, why didn't they just tell us, rather than making a mystery of it?