Chuck Levels Up

When I logged MrChuckNorris in in the morning, some time after SirDarth had started, I took him off to Prokion Temple on the usual subserver, Auzura-3, and found to my disappointment that, it seemed, not enough of those "Shots" packages had been sold - the skill exp was just the regular 5500 per Orc Axeman.  Still, since he was there, Chuck started a platinum super skill pill for triple skill exp, and settled in in his usual room - and got 542 skill points in the hour that the pssp was active, 550 in all before he logged out.

Over lunch, however, while SirDarth and SirPerivale were both busily pet-levelling. Ratel's titan, Argoth, was online, and sent a message that the Auzura-4 subserver did have the 50% extra experience and skill exp running, and double pet experience as well.  So, Darth swapped across, and found indeed that his horse's pet points did go up two at a time, which is rather useful when the pet starts to get hungry so quickly.

Argoth was able to switch to Ratel and unfreeze Chuck's experience.  He was busy in my favourite back room when Chuck got there, so Chuck was looking around for a suitable room or corridor when Argoth announced that he didn't feel too well, and would be logging out soon, so if Chuck wanted to take over the room, he should head back there - which I did.

The skill exp per Orc Axeman was indeed back up to 8250, or 9487 when Chuck started up one of the 15%-bonus "training spells", so the first hour-long pill saw 328 more skill points added, while the second one added 305, the lower number being due to a small computer problem needing a quick log-out and run back.  In all by the end of the afternoon, the day's skill point gain had reached 1278 skill points, along with 5201 pet points, which were easily enough to get Chuck's drake to level 32.  And, as his experience gain had been unfrozen, Chuck added 282.94% experience, getting him from level 27 to level 30.  Not only was he able to use his next +15 weapon, the level 33 Dictator Sword, increasing his physical attack from 546 to 581, he was able to learn the level 30 titan skill Body Crasher, which not only damages the target, it causes the monster to "bleed" for twenty seconds, losing ten health per second.  All types of character have to learn their level 30 skill completely before they are allowed to choose which job-path to take - archer or cleric, ranger or assassin, wizard or witch, that kind of thing.

After the early evening food break, Chuck went back for another hour, which was enough to get him into level 31, so a trip back to Randol was needed, to make him officially a Warmaster kind of titan.  There had recently been an announcement that GM Stratos was rallying resistance to an undead invasion over on Auzura-5, so MistressSabina fearlessly put in an appearance over there - and despite the number of people in PvP mode, managed to avoid getting PK'd, as she assisted in the demise of some large boss monsters,  Helping to kill a Darkmind Terrain actually gave her 40.22% experience; a Blue Dragon isn't as high level, and perhaps her contribution was smaller, but its death just added 11.46%.  Not that these figures mean a whole lot of experience at level 8!  When the rewards got dropped at the end, by keeping my finger on the "pick up items" key until the red "this item has been reserved for another player" message stopped, I did manage to grab 3 tool aids, 2 skill point boosters, and two heaven stones, plus some potions of haste.

After that excitement, it was time for Chuck to go back to Prokion Temple and use his final "training spell" 15% skill exp boost - only 284 skill points that time, as the skill exp per kill goes down as he goes up in levels above the Orcs.  Chuck kept going for a further 65 skill points, in order to get to level 32 so that, upon returning to town, he could learn his first Warmaster (or War Master, either seems correct) skills: Hard Swing, which hits up to three targets with 220% power in a 120 degree sweep, and Giant Body, increasing Chuck's health, or hit points, by 255, taking the total to 2300 at present. There's another useful skill called Smite, with a 70% chance of stunning a foe for five seconds, but I need another level's worth of dexterity before I can get that.

I just managed to get back to town by 9:30 uk time, which was handy as a "Pharaoh's Treasure" event was just starting, with a number of locations announced.  The first location I found was just a large group of sphinx soldiers - the second location I got to, courtesy of a memory scroll spot not far away, was in fact the one where the treasure had been, but it had all either been picked up or vanished by then.

In all today Chuck went up from level 27 to level 32, which even with the 50% extra experience switched on was quite an achievement.  454.73% experience gain in a day doesn't happen often, unless power levelling in the Tomb's lower reaches is involved.  Chuck added 10,015 pet points in all too - and is ahead by 594 skill points, despite spending 1327 skill points on Giant Body, Hard Swing, Body Crasher, and the Weaponsmithing and Armoursmithing skill levels that become available at level 32.  The skill point total did briefly go above twenty thousand, in fact, but from now on it's liable to be downhill all the way.

SirDarth's horse has, thanks to about ten hours of double pet experience as well as the preceding five hours or so, managed to get comfortably into level 33 now.  Late in the morning Kaerella helped out by mining some quality stones using tool aids - 40 tool aids, and 40 hammers, meaning 1080 quality stones for Darth.  Without that replenishment he'd be running a bit low by now!  SirPerivale managed to grab some time with a Butcher too, and his horse is level 28 now.

So, I need to check to see where the next armour for Chuck is being stored at the moment, and I also need to convert his old +15 sword, the level 29 one, into a mage staff for MistressDomina.  Yes, now that Chuck is just about to say goodbye to Prokion Temple, it will soon be time for MD to start her skill point farming there in earnest...

More Easter Eggs to Open

All the servers apparently passed the test of the Mad Monster Spawn with added Worms, and that meant that, from about 5:00am this morning UK time I think, not only did we have 50% extra experience - but 50% extra skill exp too.

So, MrChuckNorris, the world's manliest titan, took advantage of the extra skill exp, and headed out for Prokion Temple of course.  I just managed to fit two hours in before lunch, though the second hour was slightly interrupted by lunch preparations and a phone call.  I decided to use the 15% bonus skill exp "training spells", and the first hour gave 360 skill points, while the second one added 307.  It was strange, using one of those pills a few days ago with a double experience boost, on the basic 5500 skill exp for killing an orc of one's own level, just added 15% of the basic 5500, so 11825, but using one with this 50% boost gave 15% of the 150% (8250), or 9487 - so almost a whole skill point per kill.

The afternoon session was more of the same, with 351 sp followed by 341... so that the total for the morning and afternoon, including a few outside the 15% extra hours, reached 1369 skill points, plus 3721 pet points.  Chuck is now officially ready to have his experience gain unfrozen, though he'll still be working in that favourite back room for a few sessions yet.

It was one of my half-length evening sessions with an early log-out, so I just treated Chuck to one more hour in Prokion Temple - gaining 352 skill points and another 963 pet points.  Ratel didn't turn up, or I'd have taken Rage to the Sphinx Fighters, and we might well have met up with the others from yesterday, and maybe even headed for the Tomb of Theos... but without Ratel to rely on there, it seemed safer to keep a low profile.  Ratty (and when I use that nickname I think of it in a "Wind in the Willows" type context) could have unlocked Chuck's experience, too... I hope he turns up tomorrow.

Chuck didn't do badly for Easter Eggs, though - ten just had 50 gold, but three had 500 and one had 25,000, while there was also 10 herb trunks twice, 10 quality stones twice, 10 gamma wave energies twice, 10 potions of haste, a green stone, two magic stones, and a pair of tool aids, followed at the end by an experience scroll and a Snowman, which gives double experience gain for 30 minutes, and can be traded.

For the last hour, I changed over to MistressSabina, for a more relaxing time, and got her up to level eight - it would be possible to level her a lot faster, but I am trying to get plenty of skill points as I go, which means going for green-named monsters, or even blue-named ones.  She was pretty lucky, though, opening a Pandora's Box and getting five physical attack potions which, at level 12, are fairly valuable.  A second Box unleashed a level 30 Blood Wolf style Pandora's Beast, so I briefly changed to SirPerivale, as he is a suitable level to fight such things; he killed it, but it only dropped a small amount of gold.

Sabina tried a third Box too, but that just disgorged a level 20 Sasquatch-style Beast - and I found out, by getting too close, that unlike a regular Sasquatch, it is aggressive!  Still, I survived, and just avoided its immediate area while I continued to battle the various varieties of wolf.

I mentioned Sabina's luck, and that extended to the Easter Egg side of things: she got a second "greatest experience potion".  It's a shame they can't be traded between accounts, but it's nice to have.

The "Cinco de Mayo" task today to earn another 24 hours of 50% extra experience and skill exp, plus this time pet experience too, was for all the servers between them to buy 2500 of a special "Shots" package from the Item Mall, either individually from the in-game store or in ten-packs from the web-based version.  It doesn't seem all that useful a package to me, but let's hope that enough people are tempted, one could easily get used to all this bonus experience, et cetera.

Mad Monster Spawn Krash

The "Cinco de Mayo" Last Chaos event seems to have got off to a good start, with enough people spending enough aeria points to qualify for a "tier" offer, meaning that we get 24 hours of 50% extra experience.  Not that this affects SirDarth of course; he did stay online yesterday just long enough to get his current horse up to level 26, and the horse did reach level 27 at around lunchtime, and 28 later in the day.

MrChuckNorris didn't benefit from the extra experience either, as his experience gain is still frozen; I managed to get him along to Prokion Temple in the morning though for a one-hour session using a pssp, which yielded 612 skill points, and staying there afterwards for a while made the total 686, along with 1308 pet points.  Eight Easter Eggs got picked up, giving us 10 gamma wave energy, 10 herb trunks, 50 gold twice, 500 gold, a magic stone, a tool aid - and the star item, a Greatest Experience Potion, giving 30% more experience gain for a week.

SirPerivale did a bit of pet levelling too over lunch, and there was some exchanging of items afterwards, before Kaerella headed out for the Sphinx Fighters, and the Elite Sphinx Speer Man.  50% extra experience there still isn't actually very much, but as the sphinx types are just about her level now, at least she gets some skill points.

However, Kae's rather boring little stint ended early when Darth spotted one of those Blood Frenzy-type level 50 Pandora's Beasts, which somebody had released from a Pandora's Box, nearby - so Rage was needed to ride down into Merac and deal with it.  It dropped 113,600 gold, which is about the maximum they ever give, which was nice.

The Border Guard Captain at the edge of Merac village had a new quest for Rage, however - to go to the third level of Maargadum Jail and kill thirty Beast Flyers.  So, Rage rode on down to the Jail's entrance, carefully applied the horse buffs, and ran on down.  With her pretty good new armour, Rage was able to take the Flyers on in the central area there, without any healing, and the quest was quickly done; the reward in experience, from Great Magician Minearm, wasn't much, 831,000, but the 50,000 gold was useful - and he also handed over ten Physical Attack Potions, which MistressDomino should be able to sell.

Great Magician Minearm also gave Rage a new quest, "Worry of Minearm", to collect three rings from "Beast Leaders" - which are in fact the magic-wielding Beast Crawlers on Maargadum Jail's fourth level.  Considering that they did have a nasty habit, over on Cariae, of killing Kaerella when she attempted that quest, I think we may well not be able to help ol' Minearm with that one...

So, before SirPerivale took over for the food break, Rage added 1.55% experience, 6 skill points, and 76 pet points - before that Kaerella had gained 12.15%, 23 skill points, and 731 pet points, which had been enough to get SirFrancis up to level 33.

After the food break, things started off pretty promisingly, with Ratel volunteering to team with Rage at the Sphinx Fighters, and Kukli4kataBG also getting in touch and meeting us there.  Ninatsu was there too, and another useful rogue called Zaphira.  To begin with we were separate parties; I'm afraid Ratel died when he and I attacked the Elite Speer Man, I had a very peculiar error, not lag and not the regular "muddy ground" thing which can be cured by mounting up and moving, I could type and my messages appeared, but I couldn't move, or target, or change pets, and could only watch as Ratel slumped to the ground.  I relogged and returned, and we went on.  We decided to form up into a five-person party, and were considering moving over to the Tomb of Theos for a good long session, enhanced by the 50% extra experience boost.  Healing, three people with Snare, Ratel's stuns and buffs...

The only problem was that the server was becoming extremely laggy, with "lag spikes" when everything seemed to stop - only you just knew that the Sphinx Fighters and Speer Men weren't affected, so it was extremely dangerous.  It was like a messy disconnection that didn't quite go all the way, and it soon made playing impossible.  So, we resolved to try again tomorrow, and went our separate ways.

Ratel changed over to his low-level healer Thabitha, and I decided to switch to a new mage I'd started earlier, MistressSabina, whose adventures against foxes, deer and wolves in Juno wouldn't be disastrously messed up by a lag spike or a disconnection.  My target is eventually to get her to level 10, and donate some skill points to the "Discipline" guild.  I've not  upgraded any of her skills, though she has almost a full set of the 5/7 armour now, she just needs the circlet - Thabitha donated the skirt, since she got it as a drop.  The lag continued for a while, sometimes foxes ignored my attacks until they suddenly appeared dead at my feet, but gradually order was restored.

Thabitha got the entrance to Velpist Temple onto her memory scroll, and I decided that Sabina might as well do the same, as, apart from the occasional strolling Elder Werewolf, there aren't any real problems in getting a low-level character there.  Thabitha was inside, getting some useful ready-plussed drops, but as the pre-maintenance "mad monster spawn" was due to start shortly, and its location is fairly near to the Temple, I resolved to see if I could get a level 7 mage there.  The Great Horn Beasts were a bit tricky, but following other people racing to get to the spot, I made it.

Before the first wave of monsters were unleashed, [GM]Krash spawned some "hands" of loot, which as usual can't be picked up for a few seconds - Sabina managed to get an item drop booster and a large attack potion, plus a few minor things.  And then things got tricky, since, as well as the high-level monsters, there are Great Horn Beasts and Elder Werewolves there which could easily kill a level 7 mage.  However, I assisted in the attacks on some of the big guys, and added more than half a level easily, reaching level 8.

The only problem was that we then had one of the regular server krashes - so everyone respawned back in town, and with the "rollback" that involves, my experience and loot had vanished.  I hurried back, but this time somebody pulled a large number of the cave spirits onto us in one group, and I died.  I didn't immediately respawn in town, though, i stayed to watch.  The Darkmind Terrain from the Tomb was their, and Anubis Archers, and some Sphinx Commanders, and things I'd never heard of, such as the level 135 Patriarch Botis from Quanian's cave and the level 136 Fluton from the Golem's Cave.  And more loot was spawned - and again the server krashed.

This affected SirDarth too of course; and this time, so that at least the local monsters wouldn't kill me, I went back as him, so to speak.  The fighting was just about over, but at least I managed to pick up, and retain, a couple of item drop boosters and a couple of skill point boosters, large defence and attack potions, and a pair of tool aids.  It seemed to me that there were quite a few low-level people there; maybe not Sabina's level, but Darth's at least.  There to offer moral support I'm sure, and of course help carry the loot back to town.

With the krashes, I have no idea if the special "worms" mentioned as part of the Cinco de Mayo series of events were actually spawned, and if they were defeated within the time limit.  Still, Darth was able to head back to Merac for some more pet levelling afterwards with a slightly heavier inventory - and Sabina really didn't want the experience boost from helping kill boss monsters, skill points are what she needs.

Kaerella's Turn for the Tomb

SirDarth had another busy day, which meant his horse-in-training moved up to level 25, and was close to level 26 by the evening.  MrChuckNorris logged in in the morning rather later - the idea was for him to move some of his stock of Skill Boxes across to MistressDomina for her to open, as he has way too many of the 15% extra "training skill books", and they can't be traded - but one thing I'd forgotten was that the super skill pills can't be traded either, so all I was able to transfer back to Chuck were some of the platinum super skill pills.

So, an hour of triple skill exp can't be bad, and Chuck headed out to Prokion to use a pssp.  The room I like was empty, so Chuck settled in there for his hour, and got a massive 609 skill points before the pill ran out.  As usual he stayed a little longer, and the total skill point gain was 632, plus 1058 pet points, which meant that his drake is now four levels ahead of him, at level 31.

After lunch SirDarth had a tip-off from another pet leveller that somebody had killed the Grand Red Dragon close by, but hadn't killed the Cerebrii, which was a bit untidy of them, so to avoid any future problem for Darth, Kaerella logged on, rode down, and got rid of them.

The royal knight Corbenik got in touch, and checked what Kae's level was now - he too was level 62, and proposed that we should team up to fight the Screaming Zombies in the Tomb of Theos, just the two of us.  So, I moved across to Auzura-4, and joined him there.

He suggested, after the first Zombie kill went okay, that we should both start a Blessed Iris, which gives double experience for three hours - and, as the afternoon was yet young, that is what we did.  It wasn't long before Corbenik levelled up; I was starting from only 14% of the way into level 62, though.  Each kill gave about 0.75% experience each, with the Iris, so we'd need to kill about 115 Zombies for me to reach level 63, which, considering the time it takes to kill one, as they are fairly strong, being level 100, was quite a target.  We made it, though, with a little time to spare; we did, at Corbenik's urging, even do a few more after the three hours were up, but it was soon time to end the marathon session.

The place was fairly busy, but everyone seemed to manage pretty well; towards the end an archer called DerBoss did cause a few problems by luring Zombies and not being able to deal with them, so that their health reset and they wandered back along the corridor making a menace of themselves for other people already fighting their own monster, but I don't think anyone got killed that way.  I think Corb had died once earlier, but if so he must have used a resurrection scroll, he was back in action very quickly.  I very seldom even thought of healing during a battle, only between them, my job was to lure, to use Slow Shot, and to hug the wall if the Zombie got up close and personal.  There were a couple of occasions when my health got perilously low, but I survived.  At one stage early on an archer was helping us, just by healing us as we fought, which was nice - and towards the end a rogue, SilenGrex, assisted us with Snare, which made life easier.

In total Kae went up 93.95%, and even added a skill point, plus 1382 pet points for SirFrancis, Kae's drake.  Reaching level 63 meant that Kae was able to learn the seventh level of Arrow of Silence, for 350 skill points, which means that that skill, "silencing" the target's special attack skills for ten seconds, now has an 80% chance of success, and hits more powerfully too.  The next such skill upgrade, at level 66, will be more useful though, Slow Shot will have its "power" increased, and also the slow-down will improve from 55% to 60%...

The evening session saw Rage heading for the Sphinx types.  The area was deserted when I arrived, but a level 36 healer called Kukli4kataBG soon arrived, and suggested a team-up.  She was a little bit over-eager to begin with, and we did both die fighting the Elite Sphinx Speer Man, but, concentrating on the non-elite ones, we did okay,  After a while a guildie of hers, Ninatsu, a level 32 rogue, came to join us; it was very handy to have two ranger-type rogues along, and we were able to go for the Elite again. Nina used Snare first, and if it didn't take, then I'd use it...or even if it did take, with the Elite one, I'd need to use it, as he takes a long time to die.  

I'm sure both Nina and Kukli died a number of times, but they were back in action so quickly that I could usually only tell by checking to see if they still had my horse buffs on them.  It was another good long session - they both levelled up twice, and I finally reached level 47, putting on 48.22% experience and 1457 pet points.  I think Kukli said she had very few skill points anyway, so deaths didn't matter greatly - she plans to farm sp at about level 40 apparently.

I'd been able to put on my new "Fatal" armour set hood and boots as soon as I levelled, and also put on the shirt and pants, just to get them bloodsealed.  Back in town I was able to finally get the level 38 skill (requiring 17 stat points in Constitution - two levels, 292 skill points, 100 more defence) Defence Guard, as well as level six of Detect Weakness, which increases my hit rate rather usefully, for 200 skill points.  I'm down to just over thirteen thousand unused skill points now, which ought to keep Rage going for a while.

There was another spawning of the mobs of Pandora's Beasts; the GMs made the announcement, but I knew before then as I could see them behind SirDarth.  I moved him a little way back; it seems these spawnings are so common that nobody bothered to come down into Merac and clear them away...

Back to the Tomb

Despite it being a Sunday morning, SirDarth started fairly early, getting his current horse up to level 19 during the morning. Darth did sight a level 50 Blood Frenzy-type Pandora's Beast, but it was over on the far side of the clearing, and seemed far enough away not to be a menace.

Feeling that Prokion Temple ought not to be very busy on a Sunday morning, I sent MrChuckNorris over there for an hour or so's sp-farming. It was actually fairly busy, but the upstairs back room, thankfully, was not in use, with just one player wall-hugging - she left fairly soon. So, Chuck triggered his remaining super skill pill, for double skill exp - and also one of the red and white training pills, which adds another 15%. Not a lot, true, but they do come from the skill boxes and cannot be traded, so one may as well use them. It meant that instead of 5500 skill exp each, or 11000 with the ssp active, I got an extra 825 skill exp per Orc Axeman.

The hour yielded 388 skill points, which seemed pretty good. A rogue had come in about five minutes before the pills ended, and asked nicely if she could take over, which seemed fair enough as I wasn't going to have the time for a second hour anyway, so I gave her the Battle Roar buff, and left her to it, going off down the corridor to the area I'd been busy in yesterday. In all the session yielded 488 skill points, and 1420 pet points.

SirPerivale came online for the lunch break, to do a little work on the level 24 horse he's taking care of; with his +3 shield and armour, and 23 levels of Armour Increase, he had a defence figure of 791, which was enough to keep him healthy fighting Butchers... or fighting one Butcher at a time, anyway. The horse reached level 25, so that meant an extra 10 to defence on his next outing, over the early evening food break.

Before that, however, was the afternoon session, which went on an hour longer than usual. Rage went out to the Auzura-3 Sphinx Fighters, but it wasn't long before I got an invitation from crownedSalvation to join a Tomb of Theos party on Auzura-1. There was a level 42 royal knight called KaRmA, a level 51 assassin-type rogue called Epica, a level 56 mage called Katianna, and we also had a specialist sorcerer called Salop. Katianna and KaRmA did leave as the afternoon progressed, but we gained the level 40 titan Hyperlogic, and we didn't do badly - though I did get to use two resurrection scrolls, annoyingly against the very same Screaming Zombie... otherwise my many dashes to the north-side wall of the corridor worked. Those Zombies certainly don't like rogues, sigh...

It wasn't long before I reached level 46 - this meant I could wear the level 51 shirt and pants, but with their higher level of upgrade, the level 46 pair still give me more defence, so it doesn't loook as if I can go into battle looking like a lion tamer, unfortunately. Unless I upgrade those pieces to match, of course.

The afternoon had its quiet bits, but also its excitements. A level 38 sorcerer called Marcx did a bit of ks-ing, and kept asking to join the party even though we explained that he was more than 15 levels below our top member, and would thus be "capped" and get very little experience. He kept ks-ing, and in the end Epica decided, as we were on a PvP server, to kill him. This was enough to turn Epica's name red. And wouldn't you know it, within minutes a vengeful member of the top Auzura guild, Vendetta (I gather that, while they are on all the servers, elsewhere they are no longer top dogs), a rogue called BlueRogue, arrived, and killed her - at least twice I think. Luckily she wasn't annoyed enough to want to wipe out the whole party.

By the time the party ended, I'd gone up 59.13%, and added 1015 pet points; I didn't get any skill points against such high-level monsters of course. back in town I finally had enough stat points in Constitution to get the level 32 passive skill Mind Training, which increases my magic evasion by 25 for the cost of 276 skill points; one more level's worth of Constitution and I'll be able to get Defence Guard too, which for 292 sp will increase my physical defence by 100 - and be able to wear my new hood and boots as well, which will add another 98.

Zenderfly got in touch, asking if I was busy - but she was only interested in seeing if I had a character on Cariae with some spare horn beast eyes, as she has decided to get herself the second sort of "human tribe" pet, and perhaps a useful low level healer weapon for a new character of hers, Taldea. My stocks of "quest items" are actually on one of Elvastar's characters, so I couldn't help there, but I could at least find her a healer Event Weapon. She commented that, with three Stone of Shadows accessories equipped, her junior-level healer didn't have to bother with good armour.

After the food break, as things were running rather late there wasn't a whole lot of time before the Quiz, but Rage did get back to the Sphinx Fighters for a little while. The Quiz itself, as we had been warned, was at its new time of 8:30pm UK time, and luckily the questions seemed to be the same as last week, mainly - and they did leave the doors open for us to get back in, which was just as well. Kaerella was speedy enough to get back for the moonstones and the heaven stones, after we'd got the tool aids safely, even though on one entrance she got booted out again immediately as she didn't have time to get to the correct side of the room - Rage didn't get back for the moonstones, but just got back in time for the heaven stones, thankfully.

After the Quiz there was the usual Sunday night problem of the overloaded servers trying to keep up - trying to log SirDarth back in gave me a black screen instead of Randol, but before long things settled down. Speech was laggy, as was browsing the Merchant House; Ratel spotted a +4 level 45/47 armour set for 21 million, and grabbed it, I didn't realise at first that it was that set, thinking idly of maybe 35/37. It was quite a bargain, though after the purchase Ratel found that the gloves and boots were in fact only +3. Still, a hard armour set to find, especially those boots, so he did well. Not wanting to risk breaking anything, Ratel made sure to sell the last of his heaven stones, and then asked if I could sell him a couple of lucky smelting stones, which I did, at a suitably discounted price.

Rage did go back out to the Sphinx Fighters, but before long Auzura-3, at least, gave up the struggle and had a mass disconnection - no great surprise there. So, Rage had just added another 10.45% this evening, and 342 pet points - plus a skill point, even. That made her total gain today 69.58%, 1357 pet points, and that skill point.

We are just starting an "Almost Cinco de Mayo Event" now, apparently, which may lead to some in-game bonus times - 50% extra experience for 24 hours, for a start, if enough people buy enough Mall items today and tomorrow. Sounds good to me... Oh, and SirDarth's horse was comfortably into level 22 by the time he logged out for the night.

Various Adventures

SirDarth did attempt to do a bit of pet-levelling on his current pony overnight, but, with another disconnection on Auzura-3, and later some passer-by killing his Berserker and thus just leaving him standing there for an hour or two, it wasn't particularly successful.  Still, progress was made, so that the pony reached level 13 as lunchtime approached.

MistressDomino was also trying to sell stuff, and did reasonably well, though the experience boosters didn't sell, there must have still been people around selling them cheaply.   In the later part of the morning I did some moving around of items between characters, so Darth took some time off and MistressDomino got a restock of some items.

It was probably lucky that Darth wasn't down in Merac for that half hour or so, as when he got back there was a level 50 Pandora Beast perilously close by - so he immediately logged out again, and Rage rode down and dealt with it.  The drop was 42,400, which more than covered the expenses involved I guess.  After that, Darth returned, and settled back in.

For the afternoon, after a hint or two from Ratel, Rage logged in, and headed for the Sphinx Fighters.  Ratel join her almost at once - and ZODIAC, the level 39 titan, and xXAcheronXx, the level 39 royal knight, turned up there pretty quickly and joined our party.  Ratel reached level 39 before long, too.

A rogue called SugaRuSH was also fighting there solo - Zodiac was the first to notice that she was afk and being attacked, and we managed to save her a couple of times before she realised what was happening.

It was a pretty long session, and it was still going on when I logged out to go off in search of food.  Zodiac was away for a while as he had to go shopping, but CrownedSalvation took over the titan duties.  Ratel did have to leave, while Acheron went off to help a Polish friend, Sopel,  I assumed he was just helping him to level in Juno, as Sopel was a new knight character, only level 3, but eventually Ache asked for help, saying he was nearby, but with a few Sphinx Fighters in the way, and checking the map, there he was, so we moved across, and cleared out a Fighter or two.  So, Sopel may well be around the lowest-level character to get to that location without the use of Recall.  He stayed in the party, and quickly put on a few more levels.

WhiteMessiah2 got in touch, and her arrival seemed like my excuse to leave.  She's about seven levels ahead of me, so, rogue-wise, I left the team in good hands.  Rage had by then gone up a total of 39.60%, and added 1347 pet points; still not a single skill point though, while they give nice experience the sphinx types, when one is 18 or 19 levels below them, only give 1 skill experience per kill.

By the end of the food break, SirDarth's pony had become a horse, as they do when they reach level 16 - and by later in the evening, level 18 had been reached, so things are moving along nicely there.

The evening session was a bit broken up.  It did start with MrChuckNorris heading for Prokion, but he ended up in a not ideal corridor; guildie Legacy, a level 28 rogue, dropped by for a while, which made things slightly more crowded.  Chuck just used a double-sp super skill pill, and got 358 skill points from the hour...so it was probably just as well he didn't use the more expensive triple-sp platinum variety.  He stayed on a little while after that, and even went into our favourite room when it wasn't being fully used... the total skill point gain was 381, along with 1059 pet points, so not very dramatic, though it did get him to a total of 15k unused skill points.

After Kaerella made a brief trip to the Sphinx types, only to find the place too busy, it seemed a good idea to give MistressDomina an outing, so she headed for the orcs in Prokion Temple.  I wanted to see if her armour would be good enough still, after the recent changes, though I downloaded and used a pack of five chaos smelting stones first to upgrade it by one per piece... and it did seem to be okay, though I'd not guarantee it for use in the back room without the occasional use of a health potion, as the axemen and sergeants do tend to come in as a big mob sometimes.

Skill point gain seemed a bit slow, I must say, though hopefully that will improve when the +13 mage staff is replaced by a +15 one... which will have been made out of Chuck's current sword, courtesy of Collector Ryu.  Still, I think MistressDomina will need to use a number of Mall-type potions if she is to farm her skill points at an acceptable rate.

Anyway, MD added 801 pet points, and 101 skill points, enough to be able to get the third level of Expert Weaponsmith, and then levels two and three of Basic Alchemy.  Yes, she is still in the process of maximising her special skills, sigh...weaponsmith and armoursmith take 690 sp each, plus more when a character reaches levels 32, 42 and 52, while alchemy takes 447.

Ratel has started a couple of new characters, this server's version of Leopardknight and a healer called Thabitha, so he spent the evening working on her.  In an effort to work out how the "one-third chance of success" with an ordinary smelting stone actually works, he upgraded her level 5/7 "Breeze" armour set to +3, and kindly passed it over to a level 2 healer of mine, Barbarella, after use, on the feeling that nobody would be much interested in actually buying it.  Only three of the pieces had reached "able to use bloodseal gem" stage, even though Thabitha's levelling has been reduced in speed to 25%, to help her gain plenty of skill points as she goes.

So, a fairly varied day.  Who knows what tomorrow will bring...?

Server Crash

It was another busy morning for me out in the real world, so SirDarth kept busy pet-levelling, while MistressDomino did a little bit of selling - not that she actually has all that much to sell now, but every nine million or so helps.

Around lunchtime Bladesrus returned to Last Chaos, and happily took back her horse, now level 35, which SirPerivale had been holding, passing across the ten heaven stones she'd promised.  Stavanic has now decided that he doesn't want an actual second mount, he'll just transfer the one we did make for him between characters as needed - but he would like two more pet horses, level 21 or so each.  He seems strangely reticent about actually giving me anything for the work involved, though...

Well, the afternoon was fairly busy, starting off with a general moving-around of items, which restocked MistressDomino's inventory a little bit, including those ten heaven stones.  That still left just about two hours for MrChuckNorris to head for Prokion, though.

The back room I go for was already in use, so I headed on round a bit further.  I found I didn't actually still have any platinum super skill pills in Chuck's inventory, which seemed a little strange, but he was carrying ten Skill Boxes, and one of them gave me a pssp.  Despite the room I ended up in not being ideal, I did manage to get 603 skill points in the hour, but I decided not to use another pill (which would have been a non-platinum one, for double rather than triple experience) as the place was crowded - and that was probably the right decision, as the second hour did only bring in 166 points, which was a slightly lower kill rate.  

SsnowboardS, who was in a solo party with me and Ratel, did tip me off about halfway through the second hour that "my" room was free, so I ran back to it - but it wasn't long before a mage called Predator24 turned up.  I think she was the player who'd been in residence when I first looked in.  Still, she was concentrating on the Sergeants, while Chuck gets more skill exp from the Orc Axemen, so we got along okay.

I noticed that Predator24 was using one of the week-long + 30% experience potions from an Easter Egg, so she is obviously in the final stages of her Prokion time.  Chuck's Eggs didn't produce anything as good as that today, just a Green Stone accessory, 50 gold times six, 10 gamma wave energy, 10 herb trunks, and 10 quality stones - so a set of all three types there.  Why it's the mid-range, 3 health point herb trunks rather than the 5-point herb leaves I've no idea, as the quality stones and the gamma wave energies are both the 5-point type.

In all Chuck added 792 skill points, along with 1820 pet points, so the time when he can get unfrozen does draw nearer.  In theory he ought really to aim for around three times his current total, but I don't think he is really ever going to have to worry about the sp needed for the skills after level 100.

During the swapping-around, I finally passed the white pet colouring crystal that BasheR had given me over to MistressDomina, so now her mount is a flawless white.  She also exchanged her pony, which was only about halfway though level 1, for Darth's level 25 one, so Darth went out with a level 1 pony for a change - and with his highly-enhanced armour, had no problems at all against his usual Berserker.  As he was no longer carrying the unmounted level 35 horse for Bladesrus, SirPerivale was able to go out with his current level 24 one to the Butchers over my early evening food break; with just the +3 armour and shield, his health bar once again did tend to fluctuate a bit, but not dangerously.

However, when I got back to my computers after the break, both SirDarth and SirPerivale were just not damaging their monsters, and not being damaged either... moving away from their starting location, no new monsters appeared, so it wasn't long before I knew that it was a mass disconnection, and one of the worst kind, where if you log out and then try to enter your details again the server thinks you are "already logged in".  It was only Auzura that was affected; after a while, perhaps half an hour, they managed to get over the "already logged in" thing, but all the Auzura sub-servers remained resolutely on "Maintenance".

The shoutbox was of course filled with angry or disappointed people - people who'd been using expensive potion-buffs like the platinum blessed iris, or had been in Egeha, or in the final hard-to-get-to rooms of the Tomb of Theos.   And the "maintenance" went on...

I logged my Cariae SirDarth in for a while over on that server, as the crash only took Auzura down - he's level 33, and just a bit nerfed for skill exp gain, but he was able to kill a few Poison Mists easily enough, and then he went to Prokion Temple and killed a few orcs there.  Ratel got in touch to suggest a solo party, but he was in a different sub-server.  And I didn't feel inclined to stay there long.

After a brief outing in Guild Wars, just a trip to the Secret Garden in Pre-Searing, I found that the Auzura server was finally functional again, after probably about 90 minutes of downtime, so SirDarth was able to get back to his new pony, which was well into level 8 by late evening, and soon afterwards Rage went online too.  When Argoth heard that I was at the Sphinx Fighters without anyone to party with (as WhiteMessiah2, who was there, was about to log out), he decided to change across to Ratel and join me, which was a great idea.

So, a level 45 rogue and a level 38 temple knight were just about able to take on the Elite Sphinx Speer Man, but Ratty knew a level 31 cleric, Darkangelx, who is actually in Norcaine with their mage, GothicPresence, who had the location on her scroll, so invited her out to join us.  It is a bit risky at that level, and things were at times a bit laggy, so Dark did actually die a couple of times - the second time was bad, another archer, hopefully inadvertantly, lured a Speer Man right on to her.  Still, she stayed with us, and we continued until she reached level 32.  It's handy having a healer in the party, it saves a fortune in health potions...

By log-out time Rage had added 22.08% experience, so is halfway through her level now - and 728 pet points, which were enough to get her faithful horse up to level 33.  The new technical point was quickly invested in Armour Increase, an extra 5 to defence could make all the difference.

MistressDomino had a look around the shops in Auzura-1, and after snapping up +4 Vanishing Tiara and Vanishing Long Shoes as upgrades to her +3 ones at only 200,000 gold each, she went on a bit of a spree, starting with a level 33 titan sword, a Dictator Sword +15, for 100 million - which seemed a good price to me, and indeed I saw a +14 sword just after making my purchase being offered for 120 million.   The bloodseals were nice too, with 6 added to attack and 55 to hit rate.  I then bought a rogue level 46 Rapid Shirt and Rapid Pants - the same items that Rage is currently wearing and will soon outgrow, but these are +11, and thus I think worth 50 million each.  Rage may not get a whole lot of use out of them, but my next characters to level up should be glad of the extra defence.

The advantage of having the level 33 titan sword +15 is that once MrChuckNorris starts to level up, he will very soon be able to switch to using it, which will free up the level 29 one to be converted for MistressDomina to use as a mage staff, so she won't have to wait so long before she can farm her skill points in earnest.  It all adds to the variety, it seems a while since I played her...

MistressDomino also bought 200 experience boosters at 900,000 gold each, hoping to resell them for about 50% more - we'll have to see if she has any luck with that during her next selling session.