Less For Your Money

RedRackham headed back out to the gnoll lancers this morning, though he was delayed until after breakfast when the older computer decided to switch itself off just as he was logging in. The double pet experience was still going, so the pale blue horse was soon making good progress through level 31.

Keerella stood around in town over breakfast to get her half hour of attendance sorted out; Kaerella, my cleric, then took over and did a small amount of mining, until the "You will earn 4% additional EXP depends on the attendance days" message came up. MrChuckNorris then farmed a few herbs, and Rage did the same...and then it was time for something slightly more substantial, so MistressDomina logged on, and headed for the Tomb of Theos on Auzura-5.

MistressBlaze, my level 48 wizard, joined MD there to try ks-ing a bit; RedRackham had logged out with his horse already halfway through level 31. Once MD and MB were in the Tomb, they were quickly adopted by a whole group of lower-level players, and things became pretty much a cooperative effort, with MistressDomina the main tank - though there seemed to be enough rogues to keep a zombie snared if a second one got involved. MD did end up in a combat party with BlackenPhantom, a level 87 character, who was generally fighting just within range in the zombie room itself, rather than in the corridor.

MistressDomina's armour may be b5e, like Keerella's over on Cariae, but she is ten levels lower, and generally the armour is +13 rather than Kee's +15 set, so she did take a little damage, especially when such skills as Poison Capsule got used. Generally her 10% suction of life accessory could handle it, though. There must have been another wizard somewhere in the group, but I never spotted her, as a few times Chaos Nova got used, which doubly boosts the monster's strength...it didn't help that it was level 4 rather than level 5, so that the screamies' attack power was raised 5% more than usual.

MistressDomina didn't add a huge amount of experience of course - but 13.63% was quite useful, along with 3 skill points and 3110 pet points. MistressBlaze did rather better, adding 149.80%, getting her into level 49, plus 2316 pet points.

RedRackham went back into pet-levelling action over lunch, while a couple more characters put in their half hours - which just left MistressSabina, my level 41 witch, who then logged in, and headed for the second floor of Maargadum Jail.

For most of the time, Sabina had the first room of canines to herself, but a couple of players from the morning's adventure, Ltpaulius the knight and the sorcerer godofbeasts, turned up before Sabina left - well, I think one at least of the morning's group had said they were off to get some sp there.

MistressSabina reached level 42 at last, and headed back to Randol, where a new skill was available - the first level of Burning Flame, a powerful "bleed" skill, though perhaps more designed for PvP, player versus player, than PvE, player versus the environment and its monsters. A bleed of 200 HP over ten seconds sounds useful, and future levels of the skill, which tend to crop up every ten levels Sabina gains, each add another 200. The first level only cost 10 skill points.

In all MistressSabina had added 17.56%, 76 skill points, and 2498 pet points. One thing I did notice was that the "attendance allowance" bonus, currently 4%, did apply to the Elizabeth's Enhancement buff, so that the increase of the experience from a single kill, with the Elizabuff on, was 208% rather than 204%.

RedRackham continued to take advantage of the double pet experience over the food break and into the evening - though the extra pet experience, which was supposed to only last three hours on Wednesday, finally ended at 9:30pm today, UK time. I was watching the shoutbox, and some not very bright person called EternalPainGER asked, while [GM]Darasuum was there, how long the pet experience event would last - and the GM just replied that it had been "on Wednesday". So, we'd probably have got away with it if someone else there, called Tuffsen, hadn't made a joke about it...and the GM finally understood that the extra was still running, and immediately switched it off.

We did get 50% extra experience and skill exp from 6:00pm, UK time, for four hours, so while the double pet experience was running it was a great time...though I was on Kaerella, my level 35 archer on Katar, who was fighting blue-named orcs in Prokion Temple, so not getting any pet experience there. Kaerella had quite a marathon session; when the three-hour Elizabeth's Enhancement buff ran out she teleported back to town and got it re-applied, and hurried back for a further hour.

The back room I favour was in use, so Kaerella was in the corridor room close by...and over four hours, starting half an hour before the 50% bonuses began, added 15.10%, 143 guild points for Discipline, and 665 skill points, so that Kae didn't just reach 19k as her unused sp stash, she reached 19.5k too.

RedRackham did continue his pet-levelling until close-down, which should mean that his pale blue horse gets to two-thirds of the way through level 33 tonight. There's no great hurry to get it all the way to level 37... so if RedRackham isn't online pet-levelling tomorrow morning, it will be a bit easier to get my regular line-up of characters their 30-minute "attendance allowance", two at a time.

One bad bit of news was the announcement of an "Up to 50% bonus" aeria point sale. This is usually good news, as it means that spending $50.00 gets one $75.00's worth of ap, but checking out the details, Aeria have raised the maximum possible purchase to $100.00, and you need to spend that much to get the full 50% extra. Spending $50.00 will now only get one a 40% bonus, so 7,000ap instead of 7,500...