An Early End

It doesn't look as if any of the bugs from last week, or indeed the many other bugs that Last Chaos USA players live with, were cured last night in what was apparently another extra-long maintenance, because "changes were made to the servers". "Socket System and Mondshine Quest bugs are currently being worked on by the developers", the product manager said, with an air of quiet desperation. "These bugs are proving more difficult to fix than previously expected", he added, gently thumping his head on his desk. The Independence Day event has, however, been extended into a second week, which is probably not unexpected, as having an event that only lasted a single week would be pretty unusual.

The bug with people in merchant mode, particularly people offering packages, which gives a more ornate notice over their heads, is certainly still with us, though the fix, to bring up the "J" window (Actions) and press the merchant mode button, gets one out of trouble. It probably makes people less willing to browse through what is being offered, though.

MistressDomino had a look around Randol on Auzura-5 after breakfast, and found a healer called XwarswinchX selling mage armour and other things - these included the Antistone Red Respiration Jacket +13 that MistressDomina needed. It has actually been given two sockets, but they are empty... the main thing is that it is blue-named, and has the five evasion seals, and 350 million seemed a pretty good price to me. XwarswinchX also had the blue-named pants from the armour set, +14, for 450 million, but sadly these pants didn't have evasion seals, instead they were defence-based, though they did have a sixth seal offering a 30% increase in HP recuperative power. So, we are still looking for b5e pants for MD...

MistressDomino went into merchant mode herself after that, to try and sell some heaven stones, item drop boosters, moonstones, moonstone boxes, runes of protection, mana stealers, berserker potions, and other stuff - the heaven stones and item drop boosters sold within the first minute, so I added some more heaven stones at a slightly higher price. All the moonstones and moonstone boxes then quickly vanished...so that by then we were 220 million up.

After MistressDomino had sold a rune of protection and three mana stealers, SirDarth logged in and downloaded a package of a further 150 item drop boosters, then traded them, and a few other minor bits of loot, across. Then MistressDomina logged in, and used the tokens she'd picked up yesterday to spin the Lacarette wheel a a few times - she got a rejuvenation potion, ten greatest healing potions, a potion of haste (which seems to be the booby prize) - and then the same three prizes again, although not in the same order.

After trading with MistressDomino, MistressDomina was able to put on her new level 86 +13 jacket - while it decreased her physical defence, compared to the level 71 +15 jacket, from 2428 to 2379, it increased her physical evasion stat from 791 to 981, which seems a pretty good trade-off.

The old +15 jacket was passed across to MrChuckNorris, who got Collector Ryl to convert it into the titan equivalent. for 516,000 gold. So, moving from a +13 to a +15 Robust Shirt moves his physical defence along from 2418 to 2567 - his physical evasion is only 277. The old +13 shirt was moved across to LordRevan to be out of the way.

Kaerella had enough tokens for one spin of the Lacarette wheel, and got an item drop booster, which swiftly got traded across to MistressDomino. And then my merchant went back into merchant mode, swiftly selling the rest of her heaven stones at the higher price of 3.25 million each, as well as five moonstones that RedRackham had traded across - a quest reward, I think.

Since RedRackham was logged on, he took his level 39 drake down to the gnoll lancers for a session over lunch, the first time I've done any pet-levelling for a few days. His session continued well into the afternoon because, once MistressDomino finished her selling session, she then went on a bit of a spending spree, browsing through all fifty pages of accessories that Roy's merchant mart had on sale.

The three items MistressDomino ended up buying were an Eyes of Spirit for Kaerella (sold by hardtosay for 200 million), giving improved hit rate and evasion, and for MistressDomina a Stone of Shadow (sold unidentified by SHADOWWARRIOR for 15.5 million) for increased evasion and a Necklace of Wind (sold by xxcomanderxx for 30 million) giving 10% suction of life, 16 swiftness of reflexes (dexterity), 5 defence, and 5 physical defence.

MistressDomina's physical evasion increased from 981 to 1093 once her new accessories were equipped; Kaerella's hit rate went from 1273 to 1441 once her new Eyes of Spirit had replaced the old Pierce of Wind. Her physical evasion was unchanged at 1149, since an "EoS" only increases, by 78, close range evasion, but that's the most useful type.

There was still time for a bit of actual fighting in the afternoon, so it seemed a good opportunity to try out the teaming of Barbarienne, my level 105 archer, and Keerella, my level 98 wizard, in the Cariae-4 Tomb of Theos fighting the level 103 ancient grey mummies. They give 4400 skill exp, if one is their exact level and has a solo party, so are used for some skill point farming, but are a bit slow to kill.

The idea was to have a combat party, with Keerella just standing around with my Scra-Chi pet, SkrappY, equipped, while Barbarienne did the fighting - so Barb would get the experience, and they'd share the skill exp. Barb used a pbi and a crit pot, and the amount of experience per kill was approaching 50 million, almost as much as a character would get from killing a screaming zombie with a pbi and an individual experience booster - but it was slow work, as each kill took a while, and at Barb's level, 50 million experience doesn't add much. The hour before the food break brought Barbarienne 1.77% experience, plus 1001 pet points, while as the non-fighter Kee just got 0.13% - but they each got 8 skill points.

After the break, there was time for another hour, which just got Barbarienne 1.66%. There wasn't time for a full second hour, so Barb just kept going without the pbi and the crit potion, so in all Barb ended up going up by 1.86% over approximately 90 minutes, and Keerella got another 0.18%...while more importantly they each added another 11 skill points. Barb's drake got another 1509 pet points, so it's a pretty good spot for pet-levelling.

The ancient grey mummies give just over 16 million experience each, which is significantly less than the level 106 anubis spear men, which give almost 19 million; but the spear men don't give extra skill exp. So, it does give Barbarienne and Keerella a couple of options, they can either grind for Barb's next level, with Barb using a pbi and experience boosters, on the anubis speer men, or they can farm a few skill points for Kee with the ancient grey mummies.

The reason that the Tomb session had to end was that a series of "Mad Monster Spawns" had been announced, starting with Auzura at 6:30 UK time. So, my Cariae pair logged out, and my level 92 rogue Rage logged in on Auzura-5, and hurried to the traditional MMS location, where [GM]Darasuum and a few other hardy souls were waiting.

The event started on time, and lasted just over half an hour; apart from a few foxes, the first wave was an assortment of baby apes, dark bogles, darkmind terrains, barren eises, and plenty more - the harder bit came when the cave spirits appeared, in massive numbers. As usual they seemed an overwhelming mass of enemies to begin with, but soon we began picking them off. For some reason Rage giving some supportive fire on one silent spirit of the knight led to me being attacked by a group of four or five, so I had to make a run for it - the knight himself didn't give up, but luckily a late arrival was able to assist me in dealing with him.

The boss wave was hard, but again we wore them down, and ended up getting our second wave of the usual loot drops as a reward. There were so many people that the amount of stuff Rage and her drake were able to grab wasn't very big, but it still made for an exciting time - I just hope they can get back to doing these events every week.

Although the web page for the event had said "levels ninety and above please", there were as usual plenty of lower level people in attendance, so I decided that I might as well take my level 31 rogue Memree along to the next MMS, on Katar-5. The event ran much as before, though at the end [GM]Darasuum did comment that Katar had been three minutes faster than Auzura had been in clearing away all the monsters.

Memree did get killed once, I have no idea how - I think something high-level with an "area of effect" attack had come too close behind her. Still, she had the MMS location on her memory scroll, and so was soon back out there. There were a couple of time when running away was the only option, but, while her attack on something like a sphinx commander, fluton, or patriarch botis was pretty negligible, hopefully her Snare made it easier for her allies. The loot seemed slightly more generous on Katar...but Cariae was next in the rota, for 8:30, so Barbarienne logged back in over on Cariae-5, ready.

Unfortunately, while I was still in Randol, at about 8:15 UK time, my modem decided to go on strike again, and I had a disconnection, losing contact with the internet entirely. Shutting down the modem for a few minutes and then switching it on didn't do any good...so Cariae's warriors had to manage without my assistance.