Return to the Castle

After last night's maintenance downtime, the first thing I needed to do today was check on the Patch Notes - only to find that nothing had changed. "The Aeria team will be meeting with their developers all next week to determine our strategy for the remainder of the year and into 2011", we were told. A second item just assured us that "New content and bug fix requests are being worked on right now!" There seemed to be no new patch at all to download.

After coffee, SirGalahad, who was at the start of level 22, borrowed the (generally) +12 25/27 knight armour set from SirPerivale - he traded across the single "light of odin" +15 sword in return, since Gal just uses the dual swords. Then, assured that he was probably the best-armoured character of his level around, he got his Elizabeth's Enhancement buff, and headed for Prokion Temple on Auzura-6.

It didn't take very long to get 225 skill points; I'd wanted to give him a morning session, while the special 24-hour buff for reaching level 20 remained. SirGalahad was able to fight the mummies and orc soldiers, and even the orc fighters, without losing health, and picked up plenty of loot. Then, when he'd reached 99% of his level, he returned to town and spend 223 of his 225 skill points on assorted skills, mainly the passive ones. Back in Prokion Temple, it was time for Gal to remove his armour and do 34 "suicide runs", for 3% death penalty a go, to get him back to the start of the level.

As usual when doing suicides like that, many of the deaths had SirGalahad respawning where he died rather than in safety, but a couple of time he respawned in the foundations of the place, ie below the temple proper, and had to use a scroll to return to town. Once though he didn't quite respawn there - just as the "respawn where he fell" glitch has him apparently back safely in the hallway until he moves, he was down below, until he re-died, and respawned safely in the hallway.

SirGalahad returned to Randol to get the Elizabeth's Enhancement buff again; luckily the ignition percentage seems unaffected by dying, so he was, once safely back in action in Prokion Temple, able to use that before long again. As the dungeon time hour had started, with 50% extra experience, this time he only earned 140 skill points, but back in town that was enough to get Divine Shield to its maximum, and start a few other skills too. Then it was time for 34 more deaths...

By then Tuffsen had been in touch, so Kaerella on Auzura, who got a couple of Guardian-type skill points by just hanging around in Dratan City giving SirGalahad his solo party, logged out, and RedRydeR logged in on Cariae-4 and, after selling her loot, registered for the combat party, and was recruited by BadFairy and teleported to the ancient grey mummies. As she doesn't lose health with the mummies, Red was able to start playing there while SirGalahad was still in action in Prokion Temple. He finished his suicide runs back to the start of level 22 again, and was able to log out.

Kaerella on Cariae was then able to log in and join the combat party, though before long I asked if Keerella could replace her briefly, to pass her 10% suction of life accessory over to Red, who could then pass it on to Kae when she returned - so, courtesy of BadFairy's Party Recall card, that was done, and doubling Kaerella's suction of life capability certainly helped to keep her healthy for the afternoon.

Kaerella did actually do a "power hour" during the two to three o'clock dungeon time; she used a platinum adrenaline and a large crit potion as well as the platinum blessed iris, and 32 experience boosters; 27.88% experience was gained during that, along with 9 skill points and 1070 pet points, getting her nicely into level 95, though she was still 5.25% behind RedRydeR.

RedRydeR did move further ahead during the afternoon, as there were times when I could keep her fighting but not Kae, either because I was using the main computer for other things, or because there weren't really enough mummies free for her to be able to fight. And then Kaerella logged out entirely at about ten to six - by then her total experience gain for the day was 30.89%, plus 33 skill points and 3030 pet points - which were enough to get her drake, SirFrancis, into level 51.

The reason that Kaerella had to log out was that at six the "Storm the Castle" event on Auzura-6 was due to start, out by Merac Castle, so Rage was required for that. The Twisted guild chat seemed pretty quiet, but I gave my apologies for my recent absence, and headed for the Castle - which I did have on Rage's memory scroll. I got there at about five to, and there were already dozens of people waiting. It was lucky that I was early, and had the location memorised, as I almost immediately got a "send error report?" crash, and so had to restart the game, log Rage back in, and hurry back down.

The event, hosted by [GM]Darasuum, was a slightly bare-bones affair, with just the regular monsters - no flutons in the throne room, or invisible dragons in the inner courtyard. With the number of people we had there, it was all over by seven minutes past, and we were instructed to gather round the GM, for the traditional loot drop. There were so many people that I didn't manage to grab much, but three item drop boosters certainly made my trip worthwhile. Besides, a well-done "StC" is one of my favourite events...

There was still plenty of time before the Cariae "StC" at eight, so SirGalahad was able to log in and head for Prokion Temple on Auzura-6 and fight the mummies, orc soldiers, and indeed some orc fighters - and get up to 99% of his level again - gaining 165 skill points this time, which were soon spent, back in Randol, on various skills. Again lots of loot was picked up...

The Cariae "Storm the Castle" was slightly different, though basically the same. This time, there hadn't been any advance in-game GM announcements about it when Keerella arrived, having rode down on her white stallion from town, and the place was deserted. I mentioned in the shoutbox that there hadn't been any announcements for the event, and with suspicious speed an in-game announcement appeared, so I think some GM was monitoring the shoutbox. The GM didn't actually appear, I'd guess it was probably AwesomeSauce, or maybe Yatou, and this time we got more announcements as we went along.

The monsters spawned while Keerella was still the only one there, so I attacked a male assassinbug, bringing the whole swarm in on me, and used area of effect spells and so on to get rid of them, before going for the thorny mantises. Luckily by then a night shadow had arrived, and other people soon turned up as well. We got hints that the other bridge into the castle area also had monsters, so Kee was among the people who hurried down to deal with them too, before moving on into the outer courtyard and its anubis spear men, hell-otuu, dark harpies, and so on.

By ten past seven the castle had been stormed, and all the monsters vanquished. The GM was ready to spawn the loot, and perhaps a fluton for us to play with, but, after some frantic riding-around between the possible spawning points, "What a time for my macros to fail" was what we were told... and then that Darasuum was coming in to save the day by spawning the loot for us the old-fashioned way.

There seemed to be slightly more loot this time, perhaps because there were less people there... I think I got three item drop boosters again, but a few of the other goodies as well. such as the large attack and defence potions and skill point boosters. We got our fluton - and we also got a patriarch botis to bash. So, it was a slightly more substantial castle-storming, even if we did have an anxious wait for our reward.

SirGalahad ran down to Maargadum Jail to get that onto his memory scroll, since doing suicide runs there doesn't get you stuck in its foundations, like Prokion. I did get re-acquainted with another bug, though, once when Gal died he didn't get the pop-up window to click to resurrect, he just stayed cold on the ground and I had to relog and return to finish the runs and get Gal back to the start of his level. Gal picked up some unwanted loot dropped by the spike canines and dire spike canines, which included, I saw, a pair of rogue level 52 boots, +2, so the Jail does still drop ready-plussed items after the recent drop changes.

As usual I finished a bit early on a Wednesday evening, though RedRackham did some pet-levelling. SirGalahad has a level 1 pony, so I tried a little pet-levelling with a spike canine, since he was in Maargadum Jail already, before Red took over, and as long as Gal had his shield equipped, it worked okay, but he didn't stay long. SirGalahad also used the six tool aids he'd acquired to farm some green herb leaves and quality stones, back in Juno.

RedRydeR had continued to fight the ancient grey mummies until almost 8:30pm, UK time, and her drake too had managed to level up, reaching 43. Without a "power hour" or any pots or boosters, today she added 16.45%, plus 56 skill points and 8120 pet points - which means that in all, I guess, she played for almost eight hours...and is back to more than 12% ahead of Kaerella.