An Early End

It doesn't look as if any of the bugs from last week, or indeed the many other bugs that Last Chaos USA players live with, were cured last night in what was apparently another extra-long maintenance, because "changes were made to the servers". "Socket System and Mondshine Quest bugs are currently being worked on by the developers", the product manager said, with an air of quiet desperation. "These bugs are proving more difficult to fix than previously expected", he added, gently thumping his head on his desk. The Independence Day event has, however, been extended into a second week, which is probably not unexpected, as having an event that only lasted a single week would be pretty unusual.

The bug with people in merchant mode, particularly people offering packages, which gives a more ornate notice over their heads, is certainly still with us, though the fix, to bring up the "J" window (Actions) and press the merchant mode button, gets one out of trouble. It probably makes people less willing to browse through what is being offered, though.

MistressDomino had a look around Randol on Auzura-5 after breakfast, and found a healer called XwarswinchX selling mage armour and other things - these included the Antistone Red Respiration Jacket +13 that MistressDomina needed. It has actually been given two sockets, but they are empty... the main thing is that it is blue-named, and has the five evasion seals, and 350 million seemed a pretty good price to me. XwarswinchX also had the blue-named pants from the armour set, +14, for 450 million, but sadly these pants didn't have evasion seals, instead they were defence-based, though they did have a sixth seal offering a 30% increase in HP recuperative power. So, we are still looking for b5e pants for MD...

MistressDomino went into merchant mode herself after that, to try and sell some heaven stones, item drop boosters, moonstones, moonstone boxes, runes of protection, mana stealers, berserker potions, and other stuff - the heaven stones and item drop boosters sold within the first minute, so I added some more heaven stones at a slightly higher price. All the moonstones and moonstone boxes then quickly vanished...so that by then we were 220 million up.

After MistressDomino had sold a rune of protection and three mana stealers, SirDarth logged in and downloaded a package of a further 150 item drop boosters, then traded them, and a few other minor bits of loot, across. Then MistressDomina logged in, and used the tokens she'd picked up yesterday to spin the Lacarette wheel a a few times - she got a rejuvenation potion, ten greatest healing potions, a potion of haste (which seems to be the booby prize) - and then the same three prizes again, although not in the same order.

After trading with MistressDomino, MistressDomina was able to put on her new level 86 +13 jacket - while it decreased her physical defence, compared to the level 71 +15 jacket, from 2428 to 2379, it increased her physical evasion stat from 791 to 981, which seems a pretty good trade-off.

The old +15 jacket was passed across to MrChuckNorris, who got Collector Ryl to convert it into the titan equivalent. for 516,000 gold. So, moving from a +13 to a +15 Robust Shirt moves his physical defence along from 2418 to 2567 - his physical evasion is only 277. The old +13 shirt was moved across to LordRevan to be out of the way.

Kaerella had enough tokens for one spin of the Lacarette wheel, and got an item drop booster, which swiftly got traded across to MistressDomino. And then my merchant went back into merchant mode, swiftly selling the rest of her heaven stones at the higher price of 3.25 million each, as well as five moonstones that RedRackham had traded across - a quest reward, I think.

Since RedRackham was logged on, he took his level 39 drake down to the gnoll lancers for a session over lunch, the first time I've done any pet-levelling for a few days. His session continued well into the afternoon because, once MistressDomino finished her selling session, she then went on a bit of a spending spree, browsing through all fifty pages of accessories that Roy's merchant mart had on sale.

The three items MistressDomino ended up buying were an Eyes of Spirit for Kaerella (sold by hardtosay for 200 million), giving improved hit rate and evasion, and for MistressDomina a Stone of Shadow (sold unidentified by SHADOWWARRIOR for 15.5 million) for increased evasion and a Necklace of Wind (sold by xxcomanderxx for 30 million) giving 10% suction of life, 16 swiftness of reflexes (dexterity), 5 defence, and 5 physical defence.

MistressDomina's physical evasion increased from 981 to 1093 once her new accessories were equipped; Kaerella's hit rate went from 1273 to 1441 once her new Eyes of Spirit had replaced the old Pierce of Wind. Her physical evasion was unchanged at 1149, since an "EoS" only increases, by 78, close range evasion, but that's the most useful type.

There was still time for a bit of actual fighting in the afternoon, so it seemed a good opportunity to try out the teaming of Barbarienne, my level 105 archer, and Keerella, my level 98 wizard, in the Cariae-4 Tomb of Theos fighting the level 103 ancient grey mummies. They give 4400 skill exp, if one is their exact level and has a solo party, so are used for some skill point farming, but are a bit slow to kill.

The idea was to have a combat party, with Keerella just standing around with my Scra-Chi pet, SkrappY, equipped, while Barbarienne did the fighting - so Barb would get the experience, and they'd share the skill exp. Barb used a pbi and a crit pot, and the amount of experience per kill was approaching 50 million, almost as much as a character would get from killing a screaming zombie with a pbi and an individual experience booster - but it was slow work, as each kill took a while, and at Barb's level, 50 million experience doesn't add much. The hour before the food break brought Barbarienne 1.77% experience, plus 1001 pet points, while as the non-fighter Kee just got 0.13% - but they each got 8 skill points.

After the break, there was time for another hour, which just got Barbarienne 1.66%. There wasn't time for a full second hour, so Barb just kept going without the pbi and the crit potion, so in all Barb ended up going up by 1.86% over approximately 90 minutes, and Keerella got another 0.18%...while more importantly they each added another 11 skill points. Barb's drake got another 1509 pet points, so it's a pretty good spot for pet-levelling.

The ancient grey mummies give just over 16 million experience each, which is significantly less than the level 106 anubis spear men, which give almost 19 million; but the spear men don't give extra skill exp. So, it does give Barbarienne and Keerella a couple of options, they can either grind for Barb's next level, with Barb using a pbi and experience boosters, on the anubis speer men, or they can farm a few skill points for Kee with the ancient grey mummies.

The reason that the Tomb session had to end was that a series of "Mad Monster Spawns" had been announced, starting with Auzura at 6:30 UK time. So, my Cariae pair logged out, and my level 92 rogue Rage logged in on Auzura-5, and hurried to the traditional MMS location, where [GM]Darasuum and a few other hardy souls were waiting.

The event started on time, and lasted just over half an hour; apart from a few foxes, the first wave was an assortment of baby apes, dark bogles, darkmind terrains, barren eises, and plenty more - the harder bit came when the cave spirits appeared, in massive numbers. As usual they seemed an overwhelming mass of enemies to begin with, but soon we began picking them off. For some reason Rage giving some supportive fire on one silent spirit of the knight led to me being attacked by a group of four or five, so I had to make a run for it - the knight himself didn't give up, but luckily a late arrival was able to assist me in dealing with him.

The boss wave was hard, but again we wore them down, and ended up getting our second wave of the usual loot drops as a reward. There were so many people that the amount of stuff Rage and her drake were able to grab wasn't very big, but it still made for an exciting time - I just hope they can get back to doing these events every week.

Although the web page for the event had said "levels ninety and above please", there were as usual plenty of lower level people in attendance, so I decided that I might as well take my level 31 rogue Memree along to the next MMS, on Katar-5. The event ran much as before, though at the end [GM]Darasuum did comment that Katar had been three minutes faster than Auzura had been in clearing away all the monsters.

Memree did get killed once, I have no idea how - I think something high-level with an "area of effect" attack had come too close behind her. Still, she had the MMS location on her memory scroll, and so was soon back out there. There were a couple of time when running away was the only option, but, while her attack on something like a sphinx commander, fluton, or patriarch botis was pretty negligible, hopefully her Snare made it easier for her allies. The loot seemed slightly more generous on Katar...but Cariae was next in the rota, for 8:30, so Barbarienne logged back in over on Cariae-5, ready.

Unfortunately, while I was still in Randol, at about 8:15 UK time, my modem decided to go on strike again, and I had a disconnection, losing contact with the internet entirely. Shutting down the modem for a few minutes and then switching it on didn't do any good...so Cariae's warriors had to manage without my assistance.

Level 88, Level 38

The theory is that, after an afternoon and evening session on one day, I complete my full use of a character's 24-hour boost from platinum refining stones with a morning session. In practice, since MistressDomina had already replaced her boosted weapon, gloves, boots and circlet, and her Darkpeal Jacket hadn't needed boosting because it was +15 yesterday, it was only a +1 addition to her Darkpeal Pants that was still relevant. Still, I managed to fit in a couple of hours in the morning with MD and Kaerella back in the Tomb of Theos on Auzura-4, fighting the screaming zombies.

I was surprised to find that the place was, off and on, fairly busy. Someone brought in a couple of lower-level friends via party recall, and when they left, I inherited the level 23 rogue xxxkillerrickiex, who I couldn't convince she ought to be sp-farming in Prokion temple... she already had 19 skill points, after all. One slight problem was her "neckless" accessory, which randomly applied level 3 of Venom to her target, my zombie. That may have helped her, but of course it made the zombie stronger, so I tended to take extra damage, though generally the suction of life covered it. I gave her a couple of memory scrolls so that she could get the entrance memorised, though I didn't give her large amounts of money or my level 37 horse, sometimes I can be a bit ungenerous...

MistressDomina and Kaerella both used platinum blessed irises, but no boosters or potions. During the first hour, plus a little overtime, MD gained 16.95% and Kaerella 0.01% less, and they each gained 3 skill points. I took a coffee break after that - and then in the second hour MD added 13.89% and Kae gained 0.1% more, and they each got another 3 skill points.

The only high drama occurred in the second hour, when an assassin-type rogue played the little trick of luring back a big group of screaming zombies, and a mummy or two, and then using their Death Motion skill to lose aggro. Luckily she dropped them on a specialist sorcerer called dEvil, who was helping a knight friend to level up a bit, and was well up to the task; he just happened to be fighting a little further forward in the corridor than MD. I had been meaning to go briefly away-from-keyboard to check downstairs, it was just as well I'd not chosen that particular moment.

There were various other comings and goings; a mage called CinderellA, shortly before the end of that second hour, was using Chaos Nova on a group of screaming zombies, and the one I was luring managed to get the edge of it, and so quickly got MD's health down by about a third. CinderellA herself didn't fare as well, she must have been killed by the ones attacking her, as she was next seen running back from the start. If using any debuff on Tomb inhabitants makes them stronger, then Chaos Nova, which hurts foes but increases their attack anyway, is a bit of a "double whammy"... The archer Lylja was also around for a while.

MistressDomina and Kaerella stayed in the Tomb over the lunch break; one more hour ought to get them both up to level 88, I reckoned. During the morning. MD's drake had added 1762 pet points, and SirFrancis had added 1268, while MD and Kae had each earned 6 skill points.

The afternoon session started with another pair of pbis, and still an equal party, but then the level 94 knight DARKNIGHT85 arrived, and suggested a combat party - so we switched over. I was slightly concerned that Kaerella might drop a little further behind, but that wouldn't matter in the long run, as she'd be more likely to team up with my rogue Rage than MD, and catch up that way. The knight only stayed around for about half an hour, but I stuck with the combat party configuration after that. MistressDomina had reached level 88 fairly early in the hour - and Kaerella got there too before it ended. MD added 16.80% during that hour, and Kae added 18.91%, since progress was swifter through 87 than through 88.

We kept on with that set-up for a second hour; a level 45 rogue, Skaska, asked to ks a bit, mainly on MD's target - sometimes MD and Kae shared the same screaming zombie, and sometimes Kaerella fought her own. By the end, MD had added another 17.11%...and Kae was up by 19.19, despite having a less powerful weapon. Probably MD could have kept pace if she'd used Terra Spear more, but it was a surprising result.

During the afternoon MistressDomina and Kaerella each gained 9 more skill points; MD's drake got 1934 pet points, and Kae's, SirFrancis, got 1708, which shows that Kaerella was busier in the afternoon than during the morning, with not so much waiting around while MD lured a new target into range.

Reaching level 88 meant that MistressDomina was able to spend 500 skill points on the ninth and final level of Fear, not a skill I generally use. Apparently it has a 99% chance of success, and now makes the monsters run off for 15 seconds, rather than the previous level's ten. Kaerella still had her level 86 passive skill to learn, level 3 of Vital Spot Blow 2, increasing her rate of critical hits by 10 for 350 skill points; her level 88 skill was a passive one too, Survival Training level 7, for 300 skill points, increasing her physical defence by 20.

MistressDomina transferred her old level 69 weapon over to MrChuckNorris, as it is four levels higher than the one he had been using; she transferred the gloves, circlet and boots from the 70/72 armour set as well. The circlet is +13, the same as the one Chuck is already wearing, so won't need to be transformed by Collector Ryl, but the gloves and boots are one plus higher than the ones he had been wearing. Once the two pieces of armour and the weapon had been changes from mage to titan types, Chuck's physical defence was raised from 2368 to 2418, and his physical attack went up from 1374 to 1445. Both the new figures may get raised slightly more once the bloodseals come in, of course.

The transformations cost around 1.8 million gold, which almost cleaned Chuck out, but MD was still online, and able to pass a little more gold across to him. The older armour sets that MD and Chuck no longer use were then passed across to LordRevan, a level 2 titan I've never done anything with. Wearing the titan armour and wielding the level 65 titan sword he looks pretty impresive, and even with the 90% penalty for wearing items well above his level, both his attack and defence are much improved over the basic new gear set-up.

After the usual food break, Auzura's RedRider logged in and spent her 55 skill points on the second level of flawless stone processing, then ran out of Randol to teleporter Elveen, and entered the Ebony Mine. Both level 129 cursed harpy wings and level 123 degraded golien commanders were aggressive, I found, and, helped along by the usual "double deaths", Red soon got back to the start of her level.

Then it was time for SirDarth and RedRider to team up on Auzura-5 for their promised long session in Prokion Temple. Thankfully, the back room was free, but it wasn't that long before a disagreeable specialist sorcerer called Edgesamson turned up, which made for a slight shortage of targets. He had another sorcerer with him, D4rkSpec, but luckily he mainly sat in a corner. Things got even more hectic when a titan, a healer and another specialist sorcerer barged in, but luckily they didn't stay long. Edgesamson used one of the 31-60 platinum blessed irises for triple experience, which seemed a little strange, since usually in Prokion Temple the idea is to get as many skill points as you can.

By the time the three-hour Elizabeth's Enhancement buff wore off, RedRider had added 13.59& and 35 guild points; SirDarth had reached level 38 almost immediately, and in all earned 24.24%. And they each got 223 skill points.

SirDarth returned to Randol and, as he was now level 38, was able to learn all five levels of the Telekenisis skill, as LC spells it, for 293 skill points. This means that he can teleport a monster to him from up to 20 metres away, with an 80% chance of success, which ought to be fun. The passive skill Knighthood increases Darth's physical attack by 50, as long as he has a single sword equipped, for 310 sp, so he learned that too.

That might have been Darth's last time in Prokion Temple, since RedRider needs to stay on level 27, so that they can't make a combat party again - or perhaps we can try an equal party, though I would have to watch Red's experience gain closely to make sure it didn't get too close to 100% of her level. Still, it was a productive three hours.

MistressDomina Levels Up

There wasn't time for a morning session, but straight after lunch, it was my Auzura mage MistressDomina whose turn it was for a bit of levelling-up. At level 80 she was able to form a combat party with my archer Kaerella, who is level 87, so Kae met her at the entrance to the Tomb of Theos. One of this week's new bugs means that the "Condition" bars to show how hard or easy the Tomb is are not displaying, so it was a slight gamble, going in. MistressDomina applied the necessary platinum refining stones to her 70/72 armour set to get it all up to +15, and also added a +1 PRS to her staff to make it +16, which is the maximum one can get to using those.

I also bought MD the "widowmaker" western-style costume from the in-game item mall, for 75 aeria points. This is the first of the "C2" costumes, which doesn't need to be melded to armour, it just gets equipped in a new tab. It doesn't add any +1, as the old costume covers do if melded on with a bonus book of melding, but it gives an extra 100 health and mana per piece...and besides, the mage armours of that level are rather ugly, the 70/72 set, at least from behind, always reminds me of a beetle. And you can change the actual armour you are wearing, while still keeping the C2 cover.

So, MistressDomina was ready for action - she attacked her first screaming zombie, triggering the first crit and berserker potions, followed by one of the level-specific (61 to 90) platinum blessed irises...and all went well. I think the Tomb must have been just about on maximum easy, MD does have 10% suction of life, and very rarely during the day needed any healing from Kaerella.

There was time for three hours of work in the afternoon; 127.47% experience in the first hour got her almost to the top of level 81, using 75 experience boosters. A titan called thehungman was around for some of the time, and chatted a little - he made a couple of other visits during the day too. The second hour got MD another 110.33%, getting her into the start of level 83, using a further 69 experience boosters. For some of the time during this hour Kaerella was active too, though without boosters, killing screaming zombies, but I decided in the end that this was counter-productive, as it slowed down MD's killing speed. A level 65 assassin called Avatari was around, but joined a friend in going down deeper into the Tomb after a while. The archer Lylja made a first appearance too - we didn't talk until Kaerella took a second zombie she'd inadvertently attracted off her, which broke the ice.

The third and final hour of the afternoon session added another 103.36%, getting MistressDomino into level 84, using 73 more experience boosters...and then it was time for the break, so both Kae and MD retreated to stand near the teleporter, well out of harm's way.

After a shorter than average break, my duo returned to action - and MistressDomina reached level 85 before it ended, which meant that she could equip her level 85 staff - the +17 one, with the two master stones added. This greatly improved how hard she hit her zombies, with the critical hit figure rising from around 5460 to in the region of 8090. That was only for the last few minutes of this hour, though, so she added 94.22%, using 72 experience boosters. The new weapon really made its mark in the fifth hour, though - 105 boosters were used, and 127.81% experience added, moving MD well into level 86.

A specialist sorcerer from the Twisted guild, loboman, was around for a while, and I asked if he had seen Ratel, who is in that guild, recently, but he himself hadn't been able to be on much lately. So, just a "MD says hi" message was passed on...

The sixth and final "power hour", with boosters, crit pot and berserker potion, added another 114.60%, with 102 more boosters used. Lylja had asked if anyone had ten boosters spare that they would sell her for twenty million, so I sold her ten of mine, but we can't really count those as "used", at least not by MD. That got MistressDomina into level 87, and thus able to not only use the new staff, but the level 85 gloves and level 87 boosts and circlet. which was the object of the exercise... though actually I'd not brought the three armour pieces with me, so MD continued to use the PRS-augmented items.

There was time for another hour after that, so I changed MD and Kae's party into an equal one, and they both just used a platinum blessed iris - we continued a little over the hour, in fact, and MD added another 19.01%. She is about 10% ahead of Kaerella now, with them both in level 87.

In all, MistressDomina went up by 696.50% today; as she levelled up the screaming zombies started to give a little skill exp, as well as experience, so she gained 13 skill points - 3 in the afternoon, and 10 in the evening. Kaerella got 14.22% from the afternoon session, 7.33% from the first three hours of the evening, and 18.78% experience from that last hour or so, for a total of 40.33% today; she too added 13 skill points.

MistressDomina's drake added 2672 pet points in the afternoon, and 3560 in the evening, while SirFrancis, Kaerella's drake, just gained 656 from Kae's afternoon activities, and 736 more during that final hour or so.

For most of the final hour I had a lowish-level rogue called BRASIL ks-ing me, after she'd ask if she could; Lylja had a knight and a sorcerer "helping" her at one stage, I think, and was having to tell them not to use skills on the zombies, as that increased their strength. My only problem with BRASIL was that she always stood nearer to the zombies than was safe, and at least three times either MD or Kae had to act quickly to take a newly-spawned zombie's mind off attacking her...but she never moved very far, and I don't think her English was good enough for me to explain the danger. The rogue's platinum blessed iris must still have had about 20 minutes left when I had to leave, hopefully Lylja will have taken her under her wing.

Back in Randol, MistressDomina was able to learn an eighth level of Freeze Arrow for 500 skill points, and a ninth level of Flame Field for 550 sp, on the general skills side. On the passive skills side there was just a sixth level of Staff Mastery, for 300 skill points, increasing her magical attack power, when wielding a staff, from 2192 to 2202. MistressDomina was also able to trade some loot across to MistressDomino, my merchant character on Auzura, and finally take delivery of the three armour pieces. Equipping the new bits did raise MistressDomina's physical defence from 2679 to 2756, though it would be a bit more if the +13 item was temporarily raised to +15. And of course those pieces raise MD's evasion rather usefully, so if the Tomb is still relatively easy tomorrow morning, the screaming zombies should find MD even harder to land a hit on.

I Love a Parade...

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Katar's Kaerella Levels Up

When RedRackham returned to the gnoll lancers on Cariae-4 before breakfast, I found that the Carnival was over - the pet experience was only going up one point at a time. Still, Red continued his work on his drake, from halfway through level 40. A little later LordDarth went back to Maargadum Jail in Merac on Hatzring-4; his drake had just reached level 20 before logging out last night, so had three hours or so to go before its next level would be reached.

My preparations for my day out tomorrow were well enough advanced for me to fit in an afternoon playing session today, although the break after it, before the evening session, looked likely to be a fairly long one. Both LordDarth and RedRackham got disconnected over lunch, but afterwards I logged RedRackham back in, this time on Cariae-5, so that he could supply a solo party for SirKit, who logged in on the main computer.

It wasn't a long session; SirKit went out to the sphinx fighters and sphinx speer men, and only fought the elite sphinx speer man once, at the end. He got his new level 60 gloves bloodsealed - and added 19.25% experience, 21 skill points, and 658 pet points. The sphinx types seemed to prefer to attack Kit's drake, and a lot of green herb leaves were used up.

My level 24 rogue on Hatzring, RedRyder, then went out to Dratan, and did the "Not To Be Confused" quest, which meant killing fifteen dark goddesses, or "Ramians". She then went on to Shuraine's oasis to try to get some soft sand - though at her level, and without horse buffs, the sand golems hit pretty hard. There wasn't time to get all ten soft sands needed, but her hatchling got 233 pet points from the session, and she got 20 skill points - plus a little experience that will probably need to be got rid of by a few "suicide runs" eventually.

The evening session lasted the whole length of the Elizabeth's Enhancement buff, for Kaerella, my level 34 archer on Katar. As the back room in Prokion Temple was in use, I went to the nearby corridor room, which has a slightly higher ratio of sergeants to axemen. There was a "mystery event" due during the evening, but when it was finally revealed on the website, it turned out to be just a Happy Hour, starting at 8:00pm UK time...a happy hour that lasts for two whole days. Now, that might have been good news, but all it offered was 50% extra experience, which isn't exactly ideal if one is trying to farm skill points. The web page gave its location as Juno, which might have been a reasonable idea, to help low-level people along, but I noticed after a while that Kaerella's experience gain was increased...and Prokion Temple is part of the Dratan map.

There were only minor interruptions to Kaerella's efforts, people who came in, ks'd a bit or fought the other orcs, and then moved along. One rogue did ask for a party, but as they were a good few levels lower than Kae, they'd have boosted Kae's experience gain too much. A number of people were wearing the Uncle Sam top hats, even though they don't contribute any defence. It seems that they can be socketed, though...

Kaerella did equip her drake, since the majority of her targets, the orc sergeants, were green-named, and so managed to add 2031 pet points during the evening, just enough to get the drake into level 26. The Elizabuff was about to run out then... but it lasted long enough for Kae to reach level 35. In all, helped along for much of the time by the Happy Hour, Kaerella added 41.29%, along with 372 guild points - and 533 skill points, taking her past the 17k mark.

The shoutbox had been moderately busy, though I'd only lurked, not got involved. Some people were complaining about their guild master's inability to change the time of a castle siege, and getting annoyed that there were no gamesages or game masters around... eventually Liof and BelovedDude turned up, and later [GM]Yatou dropped in for a while, confirming that they were working hard on the master stones, and that they ought to finish those some time this coming week. They seem to be hoping to cure the bug that is stopping people melding old-style costume covers to their armour during the next maintenance.

RedRackham had kept busy, levelling his drake, and by late in the evening it was almost a quarter of the way through level 41, and starting to get rather hungry. I think that is as far as we go with that drake - I wonder which of my Cariae characters can make the best use of it?

Tomorrow I'll only be able to play, or indeed have the computers switched on, in the evening, so there won't be much more to report on than the Sunday Quiz. Let us hope that that runs smoothly.

An Endless Carnival

RedRackham got back to his gnoll lancers on Cariae-4 before breakfast. I had been thinking that, after breakfast, while I was busy downstairs again, perhaps MistressDomino could do some selling on Auzura-5, but then I noticed that the "Creature Carnival" double pet experience which had been switched on fairly late yesterday evening (an event that had been added at the last minute) was still running, the GMs having kindly forgotten to switch it off - so LordDarth hurried back to level five of Maargadum Jail on Hatzring-4, and started to spar with a death mask lancer again, so that before long his hatchling reached level 10.

Both computers had a disconnection soon after ten, but Red and Darth were soon back in action, and the double pet experience continued. RedRackham's drake soon reached level 39, which meant it got hungry more quickly, while LordDarth's hatchling flew through level 12 - and reached level 16, becoming a drake, before the middle of the afternoon.

The double pet experience meant, in fact, that LordDarth's drake had reached level 18 by the time he logged out, at a quarter past five, having added seven levels since the morning disconnection. The death mask lancer's health hadn't rallied this time, and was down to around 20% by then.

MistressBlaze logged in on Auzura-5, got her Elizabeth's Enhancement buff, and headed for Maargadum Jail, where she had the quest to get three beast leader rings - which meant that she needed to go to the far end of level five, and fight some beast crawlers there. On the way down I'd noticed that level three wasn't being used, so once the rings had been got, I went back there for a while. It had taken me some time to find a solo party, as the leaders of the two parties originally listed must have been permanently afk, but I was in one now - and it was the same party as the level 46 knight XxAJxX, who arrived there. He suggested I might try the final room of the Jail, as the Death Knight of Iris wasn't there, having been recently killed, so I tried that for a while, but it was just death mask soldiers and death mask lancers, so didn't really do much for me.

There was some excitement when XxAJxX reported that he had been joined by two speed hackers; he didn't have to just see them moving suspiciously quickly, he could tell by the way that they made him lag. One of them, identified by XxAJxX as "dida", didn't stay around, after all there aren't really enough monsters there for two people at normal speed, but Capirossi stayed there, and I must say that when I came up to have a look, he did seem to be fighting unusually swiftly. We had a level 82 knight, zxzx, in the party, and he came to the Jail too - I was heading upstairs at the time, so guided him back down to the third level. I don't know if he took a video of the hacker, or just soundly admonished him.

MistressBlaze got 4.36% experience and 4 skill points as her quest reward, plus a couple of crystals of efforts, and then moved across to Dratan to try a few level 52 giants, then a couple of level 55 dragons...and then she teleported across to the sphinx fighters and sphinx speer men. A level 37 titan called burtchachvili asked to party with me, so we fought the sphinx types for a while. At one stage the level 82 knight zxzx turned up, which was a bit strange as he was way too high a level to get anything useful there; he stayed around for a while and did a little fighting; he also asked if his level 31 character could join the party, but at level 47 I'd have capped him... or maybe he was just suggesting a team-up with burt?

The titan's Smite skill was useful when it worked, to stop the sphinx type we were fighting in its tracks - it didn't, however, seem to last very long, or work very often, and towards the end of the session I actually checked up on it, and found that it was only level one. I see that at the first level it only has a 30% chance of success, and only lasts 2.5 seconds - he needs to get it to level five, for a 70% success rate and twice the duration. If he has 253 skill points, that is!

I left when MistressBlaze's Elizabuff wore off. By then she had added 28.22%, 67 skill points, and 2088 pet points. It was tempting to have a short session with another character, but the double pet experience was still running, so LordDarth returned to the death head lancer on level five of Maargadum Jail, over on Hatzring-4, for the rest of the evening. By then RedRackham had got his drake into level 40, but the length of the session had slowed the older computer down, and I had to restart the game there, which gave Red the chance to have the drake learn a couple more levels of magical defence. So, RedRackham rejoined KiaOra and Bobthewarrior, and the pet-levelling continued.

Reading the reports in the Last Chaos forums, the combining of gems for socketing seems alarmingly random - and rather expensive "stabilizers" have to be used if you want any appreciable chance of making a level 2 gem, since generally combining two level 1 gems will just give you a different type of level 1 gem. The upgrades to hit rate, attack, etc seem to be based on your basic stat, and don't take accessories, bloodseals, and plusses on items into account... all in all, it seems way better to sell gems than to try to do anything clever. There's a solution for one new bug we have, though - when you get stuck trying to look at a merchant's stock, which does happen quite often since the latest patch, you just need to briefly go into merchant mode yourself.

Anyway, by the end of the evening, RedRackham had got his drake more than a third of the way through level 40, and LordDarth had got his drake comfortably into level 19. Let's hope the double pet experience continues for a while.

A Varied Evening

Two things happened right at the end of yesterday evening - one good, and one bad. The bad one could have been a lot worse, though! I suddenly noticed that the screen of SirDarth fighting a gnoll lancer on Sarissa-4 seemed to be rather fuller of gnoll fur than usual, and, zooming the view out a bit, saw that he was actually surrounded and being attacked by three gnoll soldiers, who are pet-eaters - and the drake was down to 76% health. So, the first thing to do was un-equip the drake before it could get killed.

I saw, from the note of some experience and skill exp gained, that the gnoll lancer had been killed, or "ks'd" - and I also saw the mage serina coming back with half a dozen more gnoll soldiers for me, which she brought right up to where SirDarth was standing. She then teleported to a few yards away, so that they forgot about her and started attacking Darth.

So, serina is still up to her evil little tricks against pet-levellers. Oh well, Darth had succeeded in getting that drake up to a useful level, so I may not need to do any more pet-levelling work on that server for a while. It was late in the evening, so, after standing there for a while, with even the big group of gnoll soldiers unable to do any damage to him, SirDarth logged out.

The other thing to mention was the arrival of two emails from Aeria, one from "The RT System itself" and one from "support". The one from "The RT System itself" referred to the second sending of my request to have a weapon upgraded, after the first attempt had had a "Failed to Send Message, please try again", and was just a standard "Incorrect Submission" job, but "support" was better. "

Dear MistressDomina,

Congratulations on your Master Stone Upgrade qualification. Your Master

Stone Upgrade is now complete. Your Red devil Staff has been upgraded

from 15 to 17. Enjoy!"

So, I logged in with MistressDomina on Auzura, and yes indeed, her level 85 staff had been upgraded from +15 to +17. Now, she just needs to gain another five levels so that she can use it...and she also needs to get the 85/87 armour set, which will be expensive.

The successful upgradeled me to wonder how the new socketing system will affect Master Stone upgrades. Since, in effect, the Game Master would have destroyed MD's old +15 staff and created a +17 one, would he or she also have taken the time to replace any sockets that had been added? It would slow down the process of going through a whole long list of people who had qualified for upgrades. Or do they have a way to change an item's in-game coding now?

Today there would be no actual adventuring until the evening session, but RedRackham went out to the gnoll lancers on Cariae-4 to do some more work on his drake, moving it on through level 37. As I'd noticed at the low-level MMS last night that RedRyder on Hatzring had only a level one hatchling, it seemed a good idea to let my pet-leveller on that server, LordDarth, do some work on a hatchling. He is actually still holding the level 37 horse that RedRyder ought to have, so a trade of two pets can be made to RedRyder before too long.

LordDarth isn't a red-named, minimum-hit type pet-leveller, so I was interested to see how he'd get on, now that the bare-handed attack speed has been raised. His pet-levelling has always been done on level five of Maargadum Jail, sparring with a death mask lancer, which was strong enough to take his hits of 44 damage without losing health.

Well, the new situation is that the death mask lancer does lose health, even without LordDarth having any hit rate enhancing accessories equipped...but not all the time. The health decline was slow - but if Darth wanted to reliably go for long sessions down in the Jail, he would need to get at least a slight decrease to his power, by getting a red name. For the first hour or so, the lancer's health bar went down about four times as quickly as the hatchling's hunger bar, but then it started to recover. So, things remain a bit unpredictable. Darth did actually get a disconnection at around 11:30, but RedRackham rode through safely - which is strange, as the Cariae server is usually the most likely to play up at that sort of time in the morning. Darth's run back down the Jail's levels was enlivened by a mass of gold to pick up, along with a pan flute, which all helps.

On his second visit to the death mask lancer, the same thing happened - the lancer's health dropped steadily, and then rallied. Both Darth and Red had a disconnection just before two o'clock, which was probably my modem misbehaving; by then Darth's new hatchling was near the top of level five, and up to 98% Sympathy. RedRackham's drake had recently reached level 38. Again after Darth's return the death mask lancer's health fell steadily, and then rallied.

By the time I was ready to actually do some playing, LordDarth's hatchling had reached level nine - while RedRackham had, out in the open, got his drake more than a quarter of the way through level 38.

MrChuckNorris had a brief session; he got the quest to kill curd hadians and twin hadians in the Forgotten Temple from the Archbishop in Dratan, and teleported to the temple's entrance. Running past the legendary slayers, it didn't take long to get the necessary kills, and once he'd moved back to town, the Archbishop gave him his reward - and then asked him to go back and kill some jumping devils. So, this time he ran past the slayers and the hadians, and killed the jumping devils, reaching the final room. He still had a couple more to kill when his horse buffs ran out, but didn't encounter any problems. The quest rewards added up to 2.77% experience and 16 skill points, the actual fighting gave only a little extra, making the totals for the whole brief session 3.39% and 19 skill points. It's just as well Chuck doesn't need to farm in the Temple, as it would be rather slow going.

The main part of the evening saw Kaerella in action - my level 34 archer on the Katar server, that is. It seemed a good idea to get some of her quests done, though I'll wait until she is level 35, or maybe even 36, before claiming the rewards. In Merac she already had the quest to kill some bandits and pilferers, and she was able to get the one to kill berserkers as well, so she took a trip south out of the village to get those ticked off her list. In Dratan, she had the two salamander quests to do, one to collect their tails, and one to collect their skins. These aren't the easy kind of quest where every kill, or about every other kill, effortlessly deposits a new quest item into the quests part of the inventory - these two quests require the items to actually be dropped by the salamanders, or the elite basilisk, and picked up into the normal inventory.

To begin with, a number of the salamander skins dropped, but no tails - but then things switched over, and Kaerella ended up with about double the number of tails needed before the tenth skin dropped. A few of the socket-filling gemstones dropped...and the elite basilisk dropped a crossbow that already had a socket. I commented in the forum shoutbox, and [GM]Ozymandias agreed that some drops were like that - but if you wanted a chance of more sockets, you could still run the process that adds sockets to an item. I then asked him if items with sockets would be a problem for master stone events, but he told me that having a GM add master stone type extra +1s to an item wouldn't harm its range of sockets, so that's good to know.

Personally, I don't think I am likely to make the effort to add sockets and gemstones to items below level 73, or, in practice, level 85, it seems too much expense and hassle, particularly if Collector Ryl not only removes sockets if he changes the class of an item, he makes it impossible to socket it again.

Once the salamander quests were completed, Kaerella moved into Prokion Temple nearby, to spend some time with the orc axemen and sergeants. The back room was in use, so I ended up on the central gallery, above the central stairs, and in one of the rooms leading off it. I checked the "parties recruiting members" window quite a few times, but whenever I applied to the one party listed, I got a "party is full" message...so if it was full, why was it still showing up on the list?

By the end of her session, Kaerella had added 10.95% experience, 149 skill points, and 107 guild points, plus, from the outdoors part, 344 pet points for her drake. She had picked up enough tokens to be able to have a spin or two on the Lacarette wheel, but by then her inventory had got almost full. That's one problem with all the gemstones, they do fill up one's inventory.

RedRackham had kept busy with his pet-levelling, so that his drake passed the halfway mark in level 38. And, late in the evening, MistressDomino tried to do some shopping for her near-namesake MistressDomina's 85/87 armour set. She managed to get "light" green-named five evasion seal gloves and circlet, both +15, for 400 and 295 million from gman69 and Totyi, and a blue-named five evasion seal +13 pair of boots for 400 million from sirLOBB4, but the only possible jacket was only b4e and unplussed for 60 million, and the only evasion-sealed pants were b6e +13, with the sixth seal being 30% protection from Stun effects...and at 1.15 billion it was slightly out of my price range. But three reasonably good armour pieces are a start.