I Love a Parade...

When I logged in, soon after six in the evening, my first priority was to get RedRyder and LordDarth to exchange pets on Hatzring - so Red now has her level 37 mount and a level 20 drake, which is pretty good for a level 24 rogue, and LordDarth has Red's level 1 hatchling, in case he wants to do any more levelling.

However, an announcement came up for a Fourth of July Parade over on Sarissa, so once the exchange had been made, Kaerella logged in over on Sarissa-4, and, seeing the parade through a gap between houses in Randol, joined in. The parade ended just outside the north gate - and some of the traditional Hand-type loot was spawned, so that, as well as the almost useless small HP and MP restoration pots, and the tool aids, there were large attack and large defence potions, skill point boosters, and item drop boosters to be had...though I averaged about one of each, as there were lots of people there.

Once that parade was over, and I was getting ready just to move some loot to one of my merchants, the announcement came up that the parade was about to start on Hatzring, so Kaerella logged on there. As before, the gamesage Faenwyn was in charge, and wearing a fine white set of high-level archer armour, nicely enhanced by the white glow that gamesages can display.

Auzura came next, and things were much as before; Faenwyn had a carnival/samba costume cover on, but someone noticed that she was only carrying a level 29 or 33 bow, and she admitted that she wasn't very high-level on Auzura. I was starting to get the hang of things, and clicked on Fae herself to auto-follow, having adjusted my pace to "walk" rather than run. I'd had lots of firecrackers in my inventory on Sarissa to set off, and I had plenty on Auzura too, as a legacy of the parades that our much-loved European server GMs Valsharyn and Noboru had led before they vanished.

Tairen came next, and Faenwyn confirmed it was the final server - Cariae and Katar had been before I logged on. Faenwyn was high enough level to be using a level 87 Rainbow Bow; this time she had the western-themed costume cover. There were a few melons dropped on the parades around town, but I didn't get any, I generally just stayed clicked on our leader and admired the show. We ended outside the north gate again, and the hands of loot magically appeared. The loot per person wasn't enough to make the event any more profitable than ten minutes or so of farming, with probably a gemstone dropped, but it's good to have such community get-togethers.

What was interesting was that it was an event, a proper Parade on the Fourth of July, that should have been announced in advance as an event of the day, and should have been hosted by a game master, though Faenwyn did a good job as a stand-in for one. What she couldn't do was spawn firecrackers or transformation scrolls, so for the fireworks side we had to rely on people who already had some - such as me on Sarissa and Auzura, but not on the other two servers. I assume that she was able to contact a GM to spawn the final loot-reward outside the north gate, as it would have been hard to time it otherwise.

That does bring a possibility of a competent gamesage hosting a "storm the castle" or "mad monster spawn", being the representative of the GMs there and getting them to enter the necessary codes to bring up the monsters at the start, and put down the loot at the end...if the GMs are too busy, or don't feel competent enough to appear in person and host the event.

There wasn't much time left before the Sunday Quiz after that, but, while my local merchant Enchantra stayed in town to provide the solo party, my level 29 archer Kaerella headed out to Prokion Temple on Tairen-5. She added 3.12% experience, 79 skill points, and 9 guild points, just fighting some orc soldiers. There were a few other people around, but generally they moved on after a few kills in the room I was using.

The only thing different about the Quiz was that the announcements started with "30 minutes until the Quiz Room doors are closed", and continued in that vein...they didn't commit themselves to promising that the doors were open! Still, there wasn't any problem with entering the room on Auzura-2 as usual, when MistressDomino asked the domain merchant. Kaerella joined her there, and. once the quiz time was reached, the usual questions were rattled through nice and quickly, and the usual prizes were received.

As usual, lag was bad after the Quiz - worse than in recent weeks, I'd say. The main thing to do when logging back in to change one's character is not to click the "okay" on the "timed out" pop-up. If you do, and then try again, the game thinks you are logged in already, and doesn't connect you. Just ignore the "timed out" message, and you'll connect eventually.

Initially I thought of teaming RedRider, my level 27 rogue on Auzura, with SirDarth, my level 37 temple knight, in a combat party - but I'd forgotten that Darth was on 99.98% of his level, and thus would only be able to make a combat party with Red once more. It would be better to save that party for a nice long evening session, rather than just half an hour or so. Instead, my level 34 specialist sorcerer JohnWellington formed the combat party with RedRider - and off they went, on Auzura-5, to Prokion Temple.

The back room was busy, but the corridor room was free; John used his demon form, and his knight form, and by the time the party ended, had added...well, it's so long ago that he last had any type of session I'm not sure, but not a great deal or experience. Like RedRider, he gained 44 skill points; she got 6.38% experience, and 13 guild points.

And that was about it...I had an appointment in a different land, mainly to get the latest new special event headgear in Guild Wars, and all went well there. It was strange to hear someone say they were on a guildie's account, as he was away and had asked for help in getting the special headgear - in Guild Wars it would seem account sharing is not considered a problem.