A Day of Rage

The overnight maintenance didn't add any fixes or changes, other than the start of Cariae's week of 600% experience and skill exp... and one day of the same bonus for the other servers too, it was announced. So, my plans to do some heavy work over on Cariae got postponed for a day, and I brought forward my project to level up my ranger rogue Rage (or RAGE to be accurate) on Auzura a bit.

Opening some upgrade boxes in search of extreme stones, when I was getting all her 70/72 armour pieces up to +13, had given me five platinum refining stones, which upgrade an item, risk-free, by +1, +2 or +3 - the only catch is that the effect only lasts for a day, when applied. So, I opened the five stones, and found I had two each of the +1 and +2 type, and a +3. I used a +2 "prs" on Rage's +13 crossbow, to make it temporarily into a +15 one - and then headed for the Forgotten Temple.

I knew that during the morning I would have a lot of interruptions, so that seemed the best place to go - the end room has just enough Jumping Devils, and some safe areas off to the side where I could easily leave Rage when I got called away. I got her a solo party with my royal knight Galahad... he did actually go to Prokion Temple, but only did a very little fighting, and at level 35 didn't really get much experience and skill exp, as he didn't have a lower-level party member within compass range.

Keeping clear of the end boss Blood Terrain, I fought the jumping devils when I could, and, thanks to the boosted experience, added 33.78% by lunch time. The skill exp was quite good, at six times what it normally is, so I actually used the 18 skill point boosters Rage was carrying, picked up at events over recent weeks - and that helped me to add 190 skill points in all.

After lunch it was "all systems go", and Rage and Galahad both went to the Tomb of Theos. The idea was that Galahad would stay well back, out of compass range, and provide the solo party - but Rage would visit him when his Concentration buff, which improves the chance of her Snare working, needed renewing. Rage used platinum adrenaline, berserker, power, and crit potions, which all lasted for an hour.

That was how the first hour went, and Rage went up by 505.92%, fighting the screaming zombies and using the experience point boosters each time - from level 73, where she had been stuck for many months, to level 78. Her drake got 919 pet points, too. But it didn't seem to me that Gal's buff really helped all that much, and Rage was having to use a few health potions, so I decided after that first hour to switch from him to my level 67 archer Kaerella.

Rage and Kaerella started in a general party, as they were now eleven levels apart, but, by Rage not using an "xpb" per kill for a while, I managed to get Kae into level 68 before Rage reached the top of 78, and so they were able to change to a combat party, which meant that, while skill exp was equally shared (and it was just 6 skill exp per kill at that stage), Rage would get a slight boost on average to her experience gain, and Kae would get some free experience.

By the end of the second hour, 347.69% more had been gained by Rage, and 900 pet points; there was time for a third hour before the food break, and that, using an xpb every time, added another 329.86%, and 995 pet points. I did invite the titan D1ablo into the combat party for a while, which was useful for both of us.

The Tomb of Theos hadn't been very busy on Auzura-4 during the afternoon. Rage and Kaerella stayed down there during my food break, in the safe area back by the teleporter, and when they returned to the screaming zombies, things were a bit busier - and as the evening progressed, they got busier still. The level 97 rogue GIZMO might normally be expected to go rather further into the Tomb than the starting area, but she was getting some skill experience, and levelling her polar bear pet, which, she told us, tended to die if she took it further in. So, she was busy in the middle of the first room, which made things a little awkward for the rest of us.

Kaerella did give the odd healing, and was able to resurrect a cleric called eLdeRyna666, who registered for a combat party so that we could temporarily add her to our team. Sadly, the party she was down there with didn't have very good luck, and when she died again, she left. She was a similar level to my Cariae-based cleric, so that rather suggests that my cleric ought to level up a bit more before she dares to go to the Tomb.

The first hour of the evening session saw Rage go up from level 85 to 88, adding 254.88% and 910 pet points. The number of xpbs used was about average, at 110. Each new level is a little longer, so hour two added 209.82%, moving Rage into level 90, and bringing another 903 pet points, with 109 xpbs used - Rage had even added 9 skill points by then, as the screaming zombies started to give a small amount of skill exp each. The final hour brought in another 109.50%, so Rage finished in level 91, plus 869 pet points and another 11 skill points, so that, briefly, Rage's skill point stash reached the 8k mark.

I think perhaps there may be a limit to the difference in levels in a combat party. Normally when it starts, you have to be a maximum of ten levels apart, and it doesn't matter if one character levels up, but perhaps Rage and Kae ending up 23 levels apart was pushing things - I noticed that, while Rage still seemed to be getting as much experience per kill as one would expect, around 120 million per kill, Kaerella ended up getting very little, and she wasn't getting the same skill exp... when Rage got 942 from a kill, Kae just got 42. Still, we did get her up from level 67 to 68, adding 94.06% experience and a couple of skill points, which, considering that she just stood around watching and doing the occasional Party Heal, doesn't seem unreasonable.

Back in Randol, Rage was able to learn levels 7 and 8 of Mental Defence, to increase her magical defence by 8 per level; levels 7 and 8 of Detect Weakness, to increase her hit rate by 75 and 80; level 6 of Critical Increase, increasing her rate of critical hits by 15; Reinforce 2 level 3, to increase her physical attack by 12; Fatal Attack level 6, to increase her physical attack while wielding a crossbow by 50; and, as an attack skill, levels 8 and 9 of Piercing, increasing its power from 350% of a normal hit to 470%. Between them, they used up 3450 skill points. There's a further level of Reinforce 2 to get at level 92, for 300 skill points, but after that, skills tend to get a bit sp-expensive, at 1000 or so sp each, so Rage's future skill=learning may be a bit limited.

So, instead of my Auzura character being led by a level 73 rogue, now Rage is level 91. Of course she is still wearing the level 70/72 armour set, and using a level 73 weapon, so it looks as if it will be rather expensive to get her set up properly again. A level 90/92 set would be nice, if Rage at some point, after the next week, can get the further 80% that needs, but I suspect that, if plussed a bit and with good seals, that will be awfully rare and costly. Her reaching level 90 means that there is the possibility of starting a level 90 night shadow on Auzura. The other three character slots are just used for storage characters, so finding space would not be a problem.

Still, the focus, after this one day featuring Rage, must now move from Auzura to Cariae. Barbarienne, Keerella and SkrappY (archer, wizard and cute cat-like pet) may well do some skill point farming and pet-levelling in the Tomb of Theos themselves... and as for my Cariae cleric Kaerella, well, she needs to work off that rollback deficit with the elite sphinx speer man, and maybe move on to visit the Forgotten Temple herself before the week is up.

Anyway, like many people, I suspect, I have totally ignored the "rock paper scissors" event today, where twenty applicants per server whisper a GM which their choice is, which seems a slightly clumsy way of playing. With all the bonus experience and skill exp on offer, perhaps it is just as well that we don't have our usual events to divert us.

And, when last seen, SirDarth had just got his pale blue horse a third of the way through level 33, with a little help from the local bandits.

A Power Cut

There was another successful overnight pet-levelling session for SirDarth on Sarissa-4, getting his pale blue horse safely into level 32. Darth continued his good work until after coffee, when RedRyder and Kaerella took over, for another trip to Prokion Temple on Sarissa-5.

The back room was already in use when I arrived, so I settled for the "corridor room", which, while slightly more sparsely populated with orcs, has a better ratio of the sergeants to the axemen. I didn't have a hugely long session, but it was enough to see RedRyder well into level 36, with 21.93% experience and 300 guild points gained; Kaerella went up by 17.74% and 44 guild points, and they both added 162 skill points.

Back in town, Kaerella was able to learn the final level of advanced herbalism, so that if she goes out farming herbs without using a tool aid, she'll gather them at the maximum possible speed. She also learned the first level of advanced absorption, so soon it would only be the skills for processing the nine kinds of energies, herbs and stones that were left. Then Kae headed for Maargadum Jail, and by dying there eighteen times got back to the start of level 27 once more.

After lunch, it was time for RedRyder and Kaerella to return to Prokion Temple for a more substantial session. TemplarRules did turn up during the afternoon, and managed to cadge a couple of accessories and some green herbs for his blue hatchling; he did say at one point that he had "120k" skill points, but he had already mentioned that he was suffering from a bit of a fever, which probably explains it.

By the time my duo logged out, and SirDarth logged in again, RedRyder had gained another 58.30%, along with 801 guild points, while Kaerella was up by 47.36%, and 118 guild points. They had each got 496 skill points; that took Red over the 4k mark, and meant that Kae could learn the last two levels of advanced absorption, both levels of flawed stone processing, all three levels of imperfect stone processing, the first two levels of flawless stone processing, and both levels of yellow herb processing. Only another 922 skill points to go, and Kaerella will have all her special skills learnt - except for the ones that only become available when she reaches level 32 and level 42, that is.

After another sixteen deaths in Maargadum Jail, Kaerella logged off for the early evening food break, while SirDarth continued his pet-levelling campaign, just managing to get the horse into level 33 before he had to log out again.

For a change, the evening session was over on the Auzura server. I started by moving the "sphinx fighter" location on their memory scrolls from the old camp fire position to the new position, near the shyer of the two elite sphinx "speer" men, for MrChuckNorris, MistressDomina, and Rage, which just meant fighting my way along the route between the two spots. Then, with Rage there on the newer computer, MistressDomina, my level 61 mage, logged back in on the older machine, and joined her there in an equal party.

Rage certainly got a lot more experience and skill exp when MD was within compass-range than when MD was still back in town just supplying the solo party boost, since the sphinx types are blue to her - roughly three times as much, in fact. But within minutes of MistressDomina arriving, an old friend turned up too - the raid boss Kamira! Rage didn't even bother with a magic defence mineral, she just added horse buffs and attacked, so she did use two or three medium health potions, but it didn't take long to defeat the monster, and, while she didn't drop any rare accessories, the usual goodies like lucky scrolls, moonstones, and a crystal of experience (greater) were swiftly gathered up.

Rage didn't make all that much experience, though it was better than a couple of "Storm the Castle" events for that. By the time she logged out she had added 2.46%, and 15 skill points. I decided to try replacing her in the team with my level 67 archer, Kaerella, for the last part of the session, to whom the sphinx types are still green-named, and, while she needed horse buffs to avoid taking much damage, she worked well there, and in rather less time went up 2.19%, and added 8 skill points.

MistressDomina had generally stayed back at a safe distance, though she quite often helped fight the elite speer man. By the end of her session there, she had gone up by 10.06%, and gained 23 skill points. Still, there is plenty of potential for her and Chuck to do some levelling there in the future. Chuck and Kae would make a good team too, as Chuck can give an archer a pair of useful buffs.

By about a quarter to nine, UK time, the sphinx-fighting was over. The evening's special event was due to start on Katar-5 at nine; it was another "Cat Fight" style event at the PvP arena in Dratan, but this time the two female game masters would be working as a team, fighting a pair of male GMs. The Cariae event was to follow at 9:30, so it seemed as if it would be fun to go along to at least those two battles, particularly if any loot got spawned at the end.

So, I logged SirDarth in on Sarissa-4, with a view to sending him back to Merac for a little more pet-levelling (though the weekly maintenance meant he'd not be able to continue overnight), and chose my level 10 archer Barbarienne on Katar-5. She was just heading for the teleporter to get to Dratan, when all the lights, the radio, and the computers went off...

Yes, it was a power cut, so that brought an abrupt end to my adventuring for the day. It lasted from 8:50pm to about 1:10am, and covered quite a large part of the town apparently. So, I had a slightly early night, going to bed by the light of a candle. I wonder which GMs fought, and who won?

SirDarth at the Movies

SirDarth got through the night again safely, and continued all morning, as I wasn't able to do any actual Last Chaos fighting until after lunch. By then the pale blue horse had reached level 31, and so was technically able to be turned into a mount - though as usual I want the maximum possible attack and defence "horse buffs", which means continuing all the way to level 37.

The afternoon session saw RedRyder and Kaerella heading for the back room in Prokion Temple on Sarissa-5 again; we passed the knight TemplarRules fighting orc soldiers on the way to our room, and before long he reported that he'd reached level 24. He doesn't use spaces in his messages, he uses full stops ("periods") instead, which.can.be.hard.to.get.used.to.

We just managed to reach our target of 541 skill points each with the three-hour Elizabeth's Enhancement counting down its final seconds; by then RedRyder was almost halfway into level 35, having gone up 80.26% and donated 873 more guild points. Kaerella had added 52.89% and 132 guild points. And then it was time to log SirDarth back in for a little more pet-levelling.

After the food break, Kaerella spent all her skill points on the final available level of expert armoursmith, the last level of advanced alchemy, and all three levels of expert alchemy - so she just had the gathering and processing skills to work on now. Then it was time to "die off" her 52.89% experience, and get back to the start of level 27 again, so she went to Maargadum Jail, and let the dire spike canines do the job. It was mainly "double deaths", including, as sometimes happens, a death from which she couldn't be revived - but by then the experience was down to 0%, so I just needed to log her out.

RedRyder was able to learn the level 32 passive skill Mind Training now, since she had the necessary 12 stat points in Constitution. Spending 276 skill points increased her magical resistance (evasion from magical attacks) by 25; she also spent 150 skill points on Reinforce 2, increasing her physical attack by 62, which is useful. SirDarth had a pandora's box by him at around that time - this time no beast was unleashed, the box just yielded 50,000 gold.

The main evening session involved RedRyder and Kaerella again. The back room was in use when I arrived, so I moved around a bit, including visiting its mirror equivalent, but it seemed hard to find enough orc axemen and orc sergeants close enough together to keep busy, and after about sixty skill points I arrived back where I'd started, and was relieved to find the back room vacant. A titan who had been fighting in the corridor did follow me in, but pretty soon decided that either the place was a bit high for him, or that there was only room for me, so things proceeded smoothly after that. I managed to get Red and Kae 376 skill points each; RedRyder went up by another 51.67%, and 600 guild points, while Kaerella added 36.15% and got 90 guild points.

Kaerella spent her skill points on the three levels of advanced mining, plus all the levels of herbalism except the third advanced one, and both levels of basic absorption. That experience gain gets RedRyder pretty close to level 36, so this particular team-up won't be able to continue for all that much longer, as they need to be within ten levels of each other for a combat party and Kae can't go beyond level 27 until all the special skills are done... though work on Sarissa will be "on hiatus" when the Cariae server has its special extra experience and skill exp event. I'll be rather busy over there with Kaerella, Barbarienne, and Keerella I guess, especially if experience boosters work properly with the event's extra experience gain.

There was another trivia quiz tonight, in the same vein as the "Sci-Fi" one last week, so SirDarth went along to the Cariae quiz at 9:30 UK time. This was to be a general movie quiz, and I wanted to get at least one question right, so that I'd have a chance to mention that the three PBIs Darth won last time had been lost in the roll-back. As things went, I did better than that; some questions were so hard that nobody managed an answer, others were a matter of being the fastest typist, and I managed to be the first to fill in the ".... and the Temple of Doom" blank with "Indiana Jones", got the remake of "Journey to the Centre of the Earth" just from the basic plot description, from a half-remembered trailer got that Paul Blart was the main character in "Mall Cop", guessed "Summer Rental"... I was actually the first person to type in "The Mask", but Kali allowed the person who'd quickly just typed "Mask" to win that one.

So, when the winners were teleported to a far corner of the Juno map, with the elder drakes close by, I did get a chance to say that I'd won three PBIs last week, but had lost them to the roll-back - and another winner, Vimto, mentioned that he'd won some then, and of course lost them, too. We didn't get any "refund", though, but winning four platinum blessed irises is a pretty good reward anyway. Comparing notes afterwards, Vimto only got his winnings for tonight, too. Kali didn't spawn any hands of loot for everyone this time, I assume she could only have done that before moving to the drakes...all the spamming of "comedy" answers and other remarks had probably given her a bit of a headache. And she still had another four servers to go, poor girl...

Meanwhile, of course, SirDarth's namesake over on Sarissa had been busy with a bit of pet-levelling, and by the end of the evening had got Kaerella's mount-to-be past the halfway mark in level 31.

We seem, sadly, rather short of "proper" events this week, like Mad Monster Spawns and Storm the Castle; the best tomorrow can offer is spectating at another GM versus GM battle at the Dratan arena, when two male GMs will face off against two of our fighting females. Oh well, if the lag doesn't get too bad it could be fun for a few minutes. Wednesday just has a small number of people playing "rock paper scissors", by whispering their choice to a GM, so that can, I think, be safely ignored. There was a slight chance of either a MMS or StC on Friday, but only if people voted for that option on the forum... when I looked, a pet experience event was well in the lead.

A Race to the Finish

SirDarth managed a more successful overnight session, and got his pale blue horse into level 28 by morning. After coffee, however, he had to bow out, to allow RedRyder and Kaerella to head for Prokion Temple on Sarissa-4.

First however, after spending her skill points Kaerella had to suffer another 24 deaths in Maargadum Jail, to return to the start of level 27. Once that was done, the combat party team-up was made, Elizabeth's Enhancement obtained, and the necessary teleportations triggered.

The back room was free, so a straightforward hour and three-quarters of orc-bashing was achieved. RedRyder went up by 68.76%, and 563 guild points, while Kaerella added 35.20%, along with 98 guild points. They each got 353 shiny new skill points.

SirDarth had a further chance at pet-levelling over lunch, but afterwards it was time to get back to Kae and Red. Kae spent all her skill points, and then we had a bit of luck - someone in Randol was dropping items they no longer needed. I never like to leave stuff lying on the ground, so picked it all up - it was all healer stuff, and while the armour pieces were not plussed, the booty included both the freebie level 33 +10 healer weapons, the bow and the scepter, and a level 29 jungle bow +9, which Kaerella can use - it's a great improvement over the level 21 +4 bow she had been equipped with.

The back room at Prokion Temple was available, so that is where RedRyder and Kaerella spent the afternoon. Now that the orc axemen are blue-named, it wasn't worth Red equipping her dragon hatchling, so Kaerella was in charge of picking up the gold and other minor items dropped by the orcs. RedRyder went up by 84.54%, and 799 guild points, reaching level 34 fairly early on, while Kaerella added 49.20%, and 122 guild points. They each got 504 skill points.

Back in town, Kaerella was able to use that sp to get all but the final level of expert armoursmith, the first two levels of advanced alchemy, and both levels of basic mining - and there was just time before the food break to go down to Maargadum Jail again, and die 29 times, to get back to the start of level 27 again.

Kaerella did have a small outing last night after the blog "went to press", when I noticed from the web page that the "Monster Spawn Race" on Sarissa had just started. So, she logged in, and assisted in a small way at the north gate, managing not to get killed. She did manage to pick up just a few items when the rewards were spawned, but I think that the people at the west gate had won the race again.

After the Sunday early evening food break, with SirDarth taking the opportunity for a little more pet-levelling, I was thinking of having yet another Sarissa-5 session with RedRyder and Kaerella. If my Cariae cleric of that name seems to have been neglected since that server returned, it is because we are promised some rather large experience and skill exp boosts there - but not until Wednesday, after the next maintenance, so it isn't really worth playing over there until then. And it won't be worth starting my Auzura rogue Rage's campaign to add a few levels until after Cariae's "apology week", particularly as that will involve adding a cover to her armour, which will only last for a set period of time.

In the end I decided to leave SirDarth to his pet-levelling, and bring my Katar level 32 archer, Kaerella of course, out for a session. It seemed a good idea to add to her skill point stash a little, so, when I reached Prokion Temple, I headed for the "mirror" corridor room, with its level 25 orc fighters and single level 27 orc axeman. With the 50% experience freeze and the Elizabuff, and a solo party, each orc fighter yielded just 1198 experience, and 3300 skill exp, which seemed pretty useful to me.

Unusually for the "Mirror universe" I did have a few visitors, including a friendly Portuguese sorcerer called Phabio2, and the occasional knight or titan who seemed to feel it was a point of honour to "ks" a fighter or two on their way through. There hadn't been any "Sunday teatime" bonus, but by the time I had to relog for the Quiz, Kae had added just 10.34%, along with 70 guild points, and earned 292 skill points.

The Quiz was much as ever, on Tairen-2, though a lot of people got kicked for getting the number of eyes a Barren Eise has wrong. The doors had been left open, though, and many of them hurried back in. Kaerella and MistressDomino got through without any such excitements, and got their usual rewards - Kae traded her moonstones and heaven stones across to MD before logging out.

SirDarth went back to Merac and his bandits, and after a few tries, Kaerella on Katar was able to log back in and return to the same room in Prokion Temple, for a further 3.06% experience, 21 more guild points for Discipline, and another 85 skill points - taking her stash up to a nice round 14,000.

Kaerella was on the right subserver for the first "Race to the Finish" event, hosted by [GM]Kali, so moved across to Randol's north gate, and got ready. Unlike the JediMike races, this was a serious race, kind of. No mounts were allowed - which just meant that anyone with an expensive super haste potion was liable to win, especially if they had special extra-speedy boots. Or a night shadow would have been a strong contender, as they have a speed skill to make up for not being able to ride a horse.

Once Kali had persuaded everyone to dismount, and to get behind her, just about, the race began - and of course it was the "super haste" people who sped off first, I just used an ordinary 200 gold haste potion, so there was a crowd at the finish by the time I got there. Minutes later, we were racing back the way we had come - and then there was a third race, back to the west gate again. I was only just in time for the spawning of the hands of loot - apparently the winning three people did get special prizes, or have been promised some shortly.

I went along on Cariae too, which was the next server on the rotation, this time with my rogue Karella, and things were much the same. The supply of loot, given the number of people there, was not exactly generous, but hey, we didn't have to do much to earn it.

By the end of the evening, SirDarth had got his pale blue horse halfway through level 29...so it will still be a while before Sarissa's Kaerella is able to ride about on it.

RedRyder's Busy Day

I left SirDarth pet-levelling overnight on Sarissa-4, but sadly he did lose a few hours to a ks-er, who killed his target bandit. Still, by late morning the horse had reached level 26, so we continue to make progress there. Galahad over on Cariae-4 started up at breakfast time for some similar work - but as 9:30, UK time, I got disconnections on both computers, probably from staying connected rather a long time. I switched off the modem for a few minutes, before getting SirDarth back online.

The morning session wasn't long enough for RedRyder to use both her remaining "beginner" pssps, but there was ample time for a single hour in Sarissa-4's Prokion Temple. Before that, though, I spent 474 skill points to get Red's remaining available general skills up to their top levels - and I also used her tool aids, and some knives and hammers purchased from Merchant Geres, to get her a large supply of green herb leaves and quality stones, as her hatchling was starting to get rather hungry.

RedRyder was in a solo party with SirDarth again, and had an event-free hour in the back room, with the orc sergeants and orc axemen. In all Red added 39.33% experience, which meant that Discipline got another 299 guild points, while her dragon hatchling got most of the way through its fifth level - and 505 skill points were earned.

Over lunch, Galahad logged back in to work on his horse a bit more, while SirDarth continued his pet-levelling. Galahad then gave way to RedRyder again for a final beginner pssp's hour in Prokion Temple on Sarissa-4; Red got to level thirty, which slowed things down a bit, but another 32.14% experience and 271 guild points were earned, the hatchling reached level six...and 453 skill points were added. Back in town, RedRyder was able to learn the general skill Invisibility, and the passive skill Detect Weakness, which massively increases her physical hit rate, Those cost 445 skill points - easy come, easy go.

After that RedRyder had a quest reward to claim for another 9.90% and 10 skill points, and then she teamed up with Kaerella in a combat party, back on Sarissa-5's Prokion Temple. This time Red got 110.13%, getting into level 31, along with 548 guild points, while Kaerella, as the non-fighting party member, went up by 36.10%, along with 90 guild points. They each gained 360 skill points.

A knight called Moridon did come into the room for a few minutes, bringing a mob of orc soldiers and fighters he'd been battling out in the corridor with him. "Are you okay there?" I asked, and he assured me he was, that he'd pulled them all on purpose... but a couple of minutes later he said, "Okay, maybe a little help", so I got rid of the orc sergeants and axemen that had joined his mob. AFter that he returned to the orcs in the corridor.

After Kaerella had spent all her skill points, it was time for her first "death run", so she went to Maargadum Jail and died 24 times, to get her experience back to the start of level 27. It seemed to me that the "double death" bug, where the character respawns at the spot where she died, with low health and unable to move for a couple of seconds, happened more often than I've previously found - almost every time, in fact, with at least one "treble death".

Following the early evening food break, RedRyder and Kaerella teamed up again; this time my favourite back room was in use, so I moved along to its mirror over in the other half of the temple. I had to break off when RedRyder was up to 99% of the way through level 31, as she needed to choose to become a ranger, so both characters relogged, which had the advantage of letting us restart the three hours of the Elizabeth's Enhancement buff. Red had gained 63.39% by then, and 358 guild points, while Kae had reached 23.28%, with 58 guild points. They each got 241 skill points.

RedRyder visited the Master Rogue and became a ranged-attack ranger, and then hopped across to Merac to do a couple of messenger-type quests - the 7.71% the quest rewards gave got her into level 32, and so, back in Randol, she was able to learn a couple of new skills, before she and Kaerella returned to the Temple.

This time, luckily, the back room I prefer was clear - so a nice long session got Red a further 106.80%, taking her into level 33, plus 746 guild points, while Kaerella went up 47.51%, and 119 guild points. Red's hatchling reached level ten, and 476 skill points each were gained too, which meant that Kaerella had enough sp to finish her final general skill - and start on the special armour and weapon crafting skills as well.

At ten o'clock UK time the first of the "Monster Spawn Race" events was due to start, on Katar-4, so my local level 31 rogue Memree went along, after carefully spending 28 of her 29 skill points on the second level of epsilon wave processing. This was to be a contest between groups at the west and north gates of Randol, for the speed with which we killed the monsters that were to be spawned in four waves; I opted for the north gate.

The monsters spawned were surely impressive, a lot more darkmind terrains, flutons, sphinx commanders, anubis occultists, anubis spear men, nivas, performer bereids, raging spirits of the sorcerer, female assassinbugs, and more than a Mad Monster Spawn would get - and we were at half strength, of course. Initially the lag was bad from all the monsters spawned, and to begin with our task looked impossible - but we started to pick them off, and we must have had some high-level people there. I did get killed once when a fluton turned its attention to me, and had some narrow escapes too, but was able to help out with Snare on quite a few targets.

After the field had been cleared, I commented on the "four waves" thing, and [GM]Cara quickly assured us that we had, in fact, had all four waves at once - it certainly felt like it! The usual rewards of loot were spawned, though apparently the west gate bunch had actually won the race by clearing out all their monsters first.

It's a shame that these events seem to be getting later in the evening - The Auzura one starts at midnight, UK time, or 1:00am for mainland Europe... and it is supposed to be the European-time server? I had been slightly tempted to go along to the Cariae event, at 10:30, but with the mass spawning and the lag, it would have been a bit risky to take Barbarienne along. Resurrection scrolls are expensive. Not that Memree had to use one, losing 3% of 1 skill point is not a problem...

SirDarth had been peacefully pet-levelling on a pair of bandits while the race had been going on, so that by the end of the evening the pale blue horse was steadily approaching level 27. But today's levelling-up crown must go to RedRyder, for going from level 29 to level 33, with the 50% experience freeze on. I doubt that she'll ever manage four levels in a day again.

Cat Fight!

"Pet Paradise" late last night was a bit under-organised, sadly, and perhaps over-publicised; it didn't really live up to its advance publicity. I expect it was the delay in getting the Cariae server back online that delayed its start by about fifteen minutes. [GM]Cara had been the driving force behind the idea, and had promised "The event will be full of Wafes which are excellent pet experience, there will also be pet merchants in the area and a Stone Statue in the middle that non P2 pets can beat on.

"

Initially I sent Rage on Auzura out to investigate, on the feeling that if any slightly higher-level monsters were roaming the south-western uplands of Dratan, she might be in line for an experience boost, and she could use that Stone Statue to level her drake a bit. There didn't seem to be any additions near the Tomb of Theos or in the general sphinx fighter/sphinx speer man area; I did come across some fellow adventurers in the wafe area, including some people below level thirty, who'd really only benefit from the Stone Statue - but where was it?

Curiously, there was no GM announcement to give the location of the Stone Statue - though the event was saved from being a total let-down by the announcement that pet experience had been doubled for the duration, which was useful for me since SirDarth was busy over on Sarissa-4 with his pale blue horse.

Since she is currently carrying my Scra-Chi pet, SkrappY, Barbarienne, my level 101 archer, logged in over on Cariae-5, and teleported to the Tomb of Theos entrance, then rode back to wafe territory. Big extra spawnings of wafes had been added, and Barb fought some of those - sure enough, Skrappy did get 0.02% or 0.03% experience per kill, though he did get hit once, losing a few hundred health. I met a mage who was levelling her polar bear - for her the masses of wafes were useful, as she had "area of effect" skills to kill a number at a time, but I really don't think Barb was killing that much faster than if she had just been fighting the usual gangs of wafes there.

Cariae of course had, as promised, double experience and skill exp - until it was abruptly switched off after a quarter of an hour or so, and still wasn't running this morning... and I never did find any pet merchants or that darn Stone Statue, though apparently the statue was there somewhere. Somewhere dangerous, in fact, as some people got killed there. I think Skrappy did go up about 8% on the experience side, but really, was it worth all the late-night fuss?

SirDarth pet-levelled through the night and into the morning, and so did benefit from the period of double pet experience, getting his horse into level 22 by coffee time. I was just preparing to take RedRyder back to Prokion Temple when Friend got in touch, inviting Darth to a monster combo party.

The party was of the "speedy" type, where the leader does the first four stages solo, thus only having to fight a single wight slasher per stage. Everyone else joined in for the fifth stage, which thus had a full eight wight slashers, and a full eight reward boxes, which drop a random number of master coins. Then the seven of us would take the "quit" option, the leader would do the next four stages, and then we'd all come back in - and so on, so that we all had to pay to enter four times, costing almost six million per player.

Friend gave us all either gold or a share of the master coins at the end; she'd advanced me ten million towards the entry costs early on, which I'd spent, and passed over another fourteen million, so I did end up ahead, but not by a particularly huge amount. I had been expecting a lot of unwanted experience gain, but thanks to missing all those stages, SirDarth added less than 5%, and RedRyder, who wasn't in the first couple of rounds as the party was full to begin with, added 34.38%.

For the afternoon session, RedRyder did manage to go to Prokion Temple on Sarissa-5, after concluding some quests that brought in 23.02% and 20 skill points. The fighting time, generally with orc soldiers and some orc fighters, brought in 135.04% experience, and 611 skill points. As soon as Red reached level 27, SirDarth "froze" her experience gain to 50%, so she earned her first 269 guild points for Discipline as well. A knight called TemplarRules was close by for some of the time, and managed to beg a few small health potions off me. He didn't start off very well, charging into the room I was using and hitting the orc soldier I'd targeted, saying "Don't KS" meanwhile, but he soon settled for a less dangerous room.

Five o'clock, UK time, brought the Auzura "Storm the Castle" event, hosted by [GM]Noboru, which was pretty well attended. I took Rage along to Merac Castle, as usual, though I didn't join the main charge forward after we'd dealt with the initial thorny mantises and male assassinbugs - mindful of past warnings about leaving monsters outside unkilled, I set my sights on the wight slasher that spawns a little way along, protected by death mask soldiers. Luckily there were two or three other people who got involved, as the slasher is a bit high-level for Rage - and very luckily, my Snare worked just about every time.

After that I hurried on to the zamoras, anubis spear men, dark harpies, and so on, and as usual gave my invaluable assistance, Snare-wise. One spear man did focus its attention on me, and I had to use quite a few health potions, but I didn't seem in grave danger. The courtyard was cleared quickly enough - then we charged through the inner courtyard, though by using "tab" I noticed a blood shadow invisible dragon was there, and battled the two flutons in the throne room.

We finished comfortably inside the time limit, and dashed back outside the Castle, where our favourite GM spawned plenty of the traditional tightly-packed circles of StC loot. Some people were asking for flutons to fight, but I reminded people that there was probably still a blood shadow in the inner courtyard, so quite a few of us hurried back, and dealt with it. Before that, Rage's experience gain had been 0.89%, but the blood shadow brought it up to a nice round 1.00%.

RedRyder had reached level 28 by the end of the afternoon session, so for the main evening slog, it seemed a good idea to start using her five "beginner" platinum super skill pills. So, SirDarth switched back to Sarissa-4, to provide a solo party again while he pet-levelled, and Red moved there too - since the pssp doesn't stack with Elizabeth's Enhancement, it made sense to be in the less busy fourth subserver without the enhancement, and add experience half as fast, while getting 150% extra skill exp from the pssp.

So, the first hour in my favourite Prokion Temple back room added 50.99% and 524 skill points, plus 305 guild points; Red equipped her dragon hatchling, which she hadn't used before, to help pick up loot, and it got comfortably into its second level. The second pssp's hour added 47.88%, and got Red into level 29; 519 skill points and another 305 guild points were earned. There was just time for a third hour, which added another 42.38%, 495 skill points, and 293 guild points - the hatchling was well advance through level four by then. I had no visitors, so it was a pretty productive three hours. And RedRyder has another two of the pssps to use...

At nine the first of the [GM]Cara versus [GM]Kali "Cat Fights" was scheduled to begin over on Katar-5, at the PvP arena in Dratan - it was so long since I'd been there that it took me a moment to remember which Dratan NPC offers free trips there! It's a much more elaborate set-up than the Randol arena, with viewing areas at ground level, and balconies, with the arena itself enclosed by the building. I went upstairs to watch; as a precaution I'd gone along as a level 2 knight, SirKitBreaker, since characters below level 15 aren't able to join in with PvP, and I only wanted to watch. The actual fight between the mage Kali and the archer Cara was brief - the fun came when they spawned masses of monsters in the arena, and, perhaps because of a glitch, some of them were spawned on a balcony too.

Loot was spawned in the arena itself, though even if I'd managed to find a way to get down there, the flutons would probably have killed me before I managed to grab anything. I did however manage to grab some unclaimed gold that the monsters on the balcony dropped when they were killed...

There were threats that people would be banned for entering the arena while the "Cat Fight" itself was in progress, but some people did fool about - others may have accidentally fallen off a balcony, while apparently there was a glitch that meant that one or two people who were innocently watching from upstairs appeared to be standing in the arena itself.

Cariae was the second server to host the "Cat Fight", so I took my level four healer FoxChaser along. I was starting to get an idea of the layout of the place, so managed to watch from downstairs, by a gateway onto the arena. It was a non-PvP area I was in, the same as standing just outside the Randol arena, so even when, after Kali had won the fight, the place filled up with flutons, we were safe there. There was a spawning of hands of loot, and I did manage to avoid the roaming and rampaging flutons long enough to pick up some of the usual items, item drop boosters and so on, before getting killed and having to run back.

Time was moving on, but as Sarissa came next, I decided to go along, this time using a level one mage, Emraine, with absolutely no experience or skill exp. This time [GM]Cara won, though Kali seemed to think that Cara had cheated by boosting her stats. There were flutons and barren eises, which are a bit of a Kali trademark, but when the loot was spawned in one big heap, I think they must have been dealt with. The lag was absolutely terrible; it always gets a bit laggy when the server has all those hundreds of individual bits of loot to deal with, but this was "seconds per frame" stuff.

Despite the lag I managed to get to the loot pile, which was still at the "reserved for another player" stage initially... before long I started to pick things up, but it was very slow, and if a fluton had still been prowling around I'd have been killed instantly. I think a titan or two may well have tried to kill me, but that's the beauty of taking a low-level character into the arena when loot is spawned, while monsters can kill you, other players can't. Eventually things speeded up again, as the loot was finally cleared away. Emraine did pretty well there - at her level, even the small mana and HP recovery potions could well be useful.

By then it was time to log out, though SirDarth continued his work levelling the pale blue horse for Kaerella, getting it more than halfway through level 24 by the end of the evening. I had visited Cariae a few times during the day, to carry out a "fox test", killing a fox to see if it gave 1 or 2 for experience and skill exp gain, but there was no bonus double experience of skill exp running. I thought it was supposed to be up for around 48 hours, rather than 48 minutes or less?

Cariae's Reappearance Delayed

SirDarth's new pony had levelled up six times by the end of yesterday evening - and overnight they managed another six levels without problems. Checking the forum thread in the morning to see what events were planned as compensation, instead the other product manager, Xuse2005, had added that the poor, suffering server had been taken down again at eleven last night, "to perform further checks and maintenance".

Sure enough, even nine hours later Cariae was still down, so Galahad couldn't log in there to try and re-level his horse a bit; instead, I had to settle for ColonelScarlet over on Katar working on that pink drake of his. Unusually these days, before long he did get ks'd, with someone killing his bandit, as I discovered when I returned after breakfast, but it was innocently done - a player called bellajade had asked "Do you need help?" and "Can I kill this thing?" and then, receiving no reply, gone ahead and "helped" me.

I was lucky to get a trouble-free overnight run for SirDarth, but I noticed, when switching the older computer off, that it was going to install new Microsoft updates... and, sure enough, checking the newer (or less old) computer, it too was poised to do the same, which would normally mean it waited until I'd fallen asleep, and then restarted. ending anything I had been running, like Last Chaos. So, I closed down, waited for the computer to actually switch itself off, and then started up again, so that, once the updates were safely digested, I was able to start Last Chaos again for the overnight run.

I didn't have the opportunity for any daytime adventuring, beyond the afk-style pet levelling; I was able after coffee to investigate the April Fool's event over in Guild Wars, after a tip-off from my friend Elys... this year all the players, in towns, were tiny, and their miniature pets were full-size, so that Kamadan had villains and monsters strolling around, while tiny people skittered about the place. My dragon Kuunavang was fairly big, but not his full size, unfortunately, and the same applied to siege turtles...

Galahad may have been ks'd rather innocently, but I'm afraid SirDarth was the victim of sinister forces. I returned to the computer to find him in the middle of Merac village, and my first thought was that I'd been distracted and, while I'd teleported him to Merac from Randol, forgotten to teleport him down to the bandits and start his pet-levelling. But no, he had been ks'd, as the "Gained 290 experience and 135 skill experience" message showed - and he'd been killed, too, presumably by someone luring the bandit he was fighting towards something nasty, such as doom slayers, which have a magical attack SirDarth has little protection against.

He has a resurrection scroll, but not long ago the function of those was modified, so that you have to use them within five minutes, or you respawn back in town anyway. As I didn't return in time, he lost 3% of his skill point stash, which had been earmarked for upgrading the Discipline guild; curiously, he lost all 4.22% experience he had in level 35, but that doesn't matter. 52 skill points isn't much to lose, but it is annoying. At least the pony was "unequipped" rather than killed. Maybe he needs to find a different location for his work.

SirDarth did continue with the pet-levelling, and before the afternoon was over the pony reached level 16, which meant that it became a nice big horse. There are still many days to go before it reaches level 37, though.

The "Parade" event with [GM]Noboru in Randol was at five o'clock, now that we are all on "summer" time, and as usual involved transforming into dire wolves, drakes, jaguars, and sasquatches, and walking around town, letting off firecrackers and generally trying to impress the NPCs, especially Lorraine. At one point we had rather a lot of hulking great sasquatches marching together, me included - "A squash of sasquatches", I commented.

The chat afterwards did veer towards talking about events, and their timing. I did mention that there was "no MMS this week, but at least we get a StC", unlike the other servers. "Kaerella, I'm looking forward to including some MMS again, but this is not yet assured", [GM]Noboru replied.

I did try to log in on Cariae after that for an hour or so, but at 5:40pm UK time the dread word "Maintenance" was still set against every Cariae subserver. Our product managers are promising us some special rewards, with double or even sextuple experience and skill exp, but first they have to get things running properly.

So, it was RedRyder on Sarissa-5 who had about an hour's work, fighting mummies and orc soldiers in Prokion Temple. She managed to add 68.84%, going up to level 24, and 163 skill points.

The "Pharaoh's Treasure" event on Auzura-4 was a bit mixed; for a start I wasn't properly prepared for it, as Elvastar had managed to get in touch, and after trading back some lucky smelting stones and chaos smelting stones he'd borrowed we were chatting when the list of coordinates came up. Kaerella rode past quite a few groups of sphinx fighters and sphinx speer men before the correct location for the treasure came up, and took a while to get there, but luckily [GM]Noboru was continuing to replenish the hands of loot. [GM]Valsharyn was there too, after being away from the office for a couple of weeks, she mentioned.

We were reassured that no patriarch botises or flutons would be spawned on us - a couple of groups of the sphinx types were easily disposed of, but then a group of anubis archers were spawned, and one of them killed me with just a couple of hits. I used a resurrection scroll - but the cost of one of those rather wipes out the gold gain from the item drop boosters, skill points boosters, and so on that I picked up.

After that, RedRyder on Sarissa swung back into action. There were a number of quests that could be done, which gave 22.20% experience and 4 skill points - it helped that she already had some dark orbs, and SirDarth had given her five cracked axes. Then she set out into Dratan's desert to do the quests that required killing death goddesses, also known as ramians, and clever foxes of the desert - and settled in to kill the sand golems, to get all the soft sand she needed. Luckily Darth had been able to pass nine soft sands across, but getting another eleven took a while. Kamira "Arrived", and then after the thirteen minutes were up "Arrived" again. I had mentioned her in the forum shoutbox, but nobody seemed interested.

Once the soft sand situation was seen to, RedRyder hurried on to Prokion Temple, and stayed there for a little while, so that, with the further quest rewards that were earned, she ended up adding another 130.74%, taking her into level 26, and 143 skill points, almost all of which were swiftly spent back in town on a couple of top levels of skills. Red also transformed the +15 level 29 sword SirDarth had used into the equivalent crossbow, so she should hit a lot harder on her next outing.

As none of my other Sarissa characters is likely to reach level 31 for a while and get a free +10 armour set, it seemed a good idea to buy yet another set, since RedRyder could now wear three parts of it. Looking through Roy's merchant mart, I found four of the five +10 pieces being sold by JuukiSakai at a million gold each, which, since they were already rogue pieces and wouldn't have to be changed by Collector Ryl, seemed good to me, so I bought them. Their previous owner hadn't bloodsealed them, but at least they were ready for the application of their first bloodseal gems.

The shirt for the armour set proved more elusive, and I ended up paying a million and a half for a titan one, and getting it changed by Collector Ryl. But now RedRyder is set up to do some serious levelling - when she reaches level 27, she will be ready to team up with either Kae or Kee in that back room.

The Cariae server had been supposed to come back online at nine, UK time, but [GM]Darasuum reported in the shoutbox that the estimated time of its arrival had been put back by a further ninety minutes. That is cutting things a bit close, as the special "Pet Paradise" event is supposed to start then, at 10:30 UK time, so we will have to see how things go on that. SirDarth can pet-level without such excitements, and after his solo party with Red ended, moved back to Sarissa-4, though not to the spot where he was killed. The horse had reached level 18 by then.

If I do get to the pet event, well, expect a few words about it tomorrow...