A Mixed Bunch

Memree kept going most of the night in the guild hall before the memory ran out - I think there were only six Christmas Gift Boxes there when she returned at breakfast time, but two of them dropped platinum drop boosters, which is better than average. Katar's level 10 version of Barbarienne joined her there for the morning - I didn't have time for any actual playing, unfortunately, as I had to make a trip to the local Royal Mail sorting office, and do a little shopping as well.

The afternoon however started with Memree and Kaerella going to Katar-4's Prokion Temple, for Kae to have another pssp hour; Kaerella gained 397 skill points, taking her store of unused sp above 13k now, while adding 7.72% experience. Memree gained 36.72%, as the active one in the combat party, and 133 skill points again, plus 1039 pet points and 415 guild points; she continued there briefly to get the skill points total up to 140, which added another 0.91%, 37 pet points, and 10 guild points as well, then back in town was able to get the final level of advanced farming, plus the first level of herb trunk processing.

After that, well, Memree needed a trip to Misty Canyon, and thirteen more deaths. There was a mage at work on the first Introducer Camio, so I kept clear, and annoyed the next one along. It's all much quicker than running around Prokion Temple to die used to be, and I don't even need to remove my armour and accessories.

The early evening food break started slightly early, so that I'd be ready in good time for one of [GM]Valsharyn's Mad Monster Spawns, which, as previously noted, aren't the regular kind of MMS, they have some thought and active participation put into them, with monsters for lower level people on one side, occasionally, while the higher level types play with a few Flutons. So, butchers, and beast hunters and treants and blood wolves were spawned, as well as Balrogs - I think these were the ones that appear at the end of the first personal dungeon, rather than the Juno "raid boss" type, but they look suitably dramatic.

The drops were suitably generous, which make up for the deaths involved - or at least they do for RedRider, who doesn't have a mass of skill points to lose. I still wouldn't be keen to take Rage along, level 72 would be a bit tricky, easily vulnerable to attacks from the high level Almas, Blood Terrains, Flutons, Patriarch Botises, and various cube guards, and getting nothing from the low-level monsters.

"Event is finally over, after 90 minutes and four additional waves of monsters and drops :D!! Good hunting everyone, use your items wisely! :)"

It wasn't long after that concluded that a "hide and seek" commenced, on Auzura-1, but despite riding around Juno until RedRider's horse was pretty hungry, I didn't come across the GM - Valsharyn again. The problem was that every time she was found, she moved - at least, I don't think she actually took up a new position for five minutes, which meant for a lot of the time she was nowhere to be found. Still, I fought some blood wolves, and did get a pan flute as a drop...

Meanwhile, ColonelScarlet was hard at work. I think huxy may have dropped by early in the evening, I did catch a glimpse of someone on a white horse riding away, but otherwise things were quiet, and productive, until at about 7:35, UK time, I did see huxy, and this time he immediately killed my bandits and rode off. I guess he gets naughty when he gets bored, sigh... at least the Christmas Gift Box that spawned by ColonelScarlet a few minutes after that dropped a platinum drop booster.

The idea of having separate monster spawns for high-level and low-level players seems to be catching on, as the US server MMS tomorrow is announced as in two different locations, well apart; the usual location is for the high level people, and a completely different spot will be for lower level players. It will be interesting to see how that works out.

Another new idea is a "scavenger hunt" - if 500 of the item in question are turned in to a GM on Friday, then there will be "several hours" of 50% extra experience and skill exp. Nobody can start saving the items yet, as they are Christmas Balls - and, at least until some sort of patch during maintenance tomorrow puts things right, they are one of the items that vanish from one's inventory when a character logs out.

Memree logged in over on Katar to find out where the coordinates for the lower-level MMS led her - which was down to the south-west corner of the map, and the great horn beasts close to the lake there. As the great horn beasts are level 24 and aggressive, it would be best not to be too low-level there!

And for the last active part of the evening, it was my level 50 cleric Kaerella, over on Cariae-1, who returned to action, with another shorter session with the akane giants out in the Dratan desert. Adding 5.77% and 39 skill points, plus 376 pet points, may not seem much, but it all moves us along. ColonelScarlet, meanwhile, had got the horse into level 33, so, once that level is completed, there are only three more to go. Ratel's healer Jacqueline logged in, and we chatted for a while; being in South Africa, Ratel hasn't actually ever experienced snow. He doesn't know what he's missing...

An Unexpected Invitation

I did actually play a little more "Grand Fantasia" yesterday, enough to get my Kaerella character there up to level ten, and to let my faithful sprite do some more mining and gathering, plus training, which I feel is likely to be a Good Thing. It still all feels rather unintuitive to me, though. Overnight I decided to give the older computer a rest; the newer one did run out of memory eventually, but not before eight more Christmas Gift Boxes had been spawned. Unlike loot drops, it doesn't matter if the boxes are left alone in the guild hall - as the one stuck in the wall proves they last forever, or at least until the next maintenance downtime.

None of the overnight boxes yielded a platinum drop booster, so generally it was soon-to-vanish scrolls and inventory-cluttering hats that were scooped up. Still, maybe the hats will be worth something eventually, though everyone's inventories will be a bit full of them by Wednesday.

After coffee, though, it was time for Memree to head for Prokion Temple on Katar-4. The back room was in use when I arrived - I couldn't see the actual player, but a group of angry orcs were definitely attacking someone over on the far side. Luckily I stayed for a few seconds, edging a bit further in to see what was going on... and what I did see was an end to the fighting. The poor player had been killed, I assume, leaving behind a couple of gold drops and a Christmas Gift Box. I refrained from opening the box for a while, in case they returned, but eventually opened in, and picked up a reindeer pet book.

So, with the coast clear, Kaerella logged in too, and, after the Combat party had been formed, hurried to join Memree. She started a pssp, in the usual way - and during the hour, while Memree added 37.31%, 133 skill points, 430 guild points, and 1054 pet points, for all her work killing orc axemen and orc sergeants, Kaerella went up by 7.85% and an excellent total of 400 skill points.

Kae moved away after that, back to the lobby and then on to Randol; Memree continued for a little while, so that by the end her session had reached 41.28%, 163 skill points, 466 guild points, and 1173 pet points. Back in Randol she spent all the skill points except 1 on assorted special skill levels; I also made a careful note of the other special skills she can learn, which will soak up a total of another 1545 skill points.

There was just time for a trip to Misty Canyon to get rid of Memree's current experience. A mage called LadyZoom was already there, fighting the first Introducer Camio properly, and seemed a bit surprised at my tactics, asking me what my level was. "31 - just six more deaths to go", I replied. "Oh, for sp." "Yeah - this is a nice quick place to lose experience."

The response to that was a "lol", and soon I was able to report "All done - good hunting!" and leave her to it. "Thank you - good sp", she replied, before I beamed out.

I was remarkably good, and, leaving Memree and BarbarellA in the guild hall for more hats, got on with some work, to try and clear the coming week a bit, during the first part of the afternoon. And then, with the hope that the 50% extra experience for ""Sunday Teatime" would get switched on, over on Cariae-1, with, again, the Elizabeth's Enhancement buff, my level 50 cleric Kaerella headed out to the akane giants. It wasn't too long before the raid boss Kamira turned up, so Kae logged out and Keerella rode down to deal with her; there was no rare accessory dropped, but all the usual minor goodies ended up on the ground for me, including the crystal of experience (greater) and the lucky scrolls. After that Kaerella returned, and continued her farming. The Teatime bonus started fairly promptly at four, UK time, but I logged off for my food break soon after that, so Kaerella had just added 9.08% and 63 skill points, plus 608 pet points.

For the evening session, up until Quiz time, Kaerella went out to the akane giants for a slightly longer session, helped along by the Sunday Teatime bonus of 50% extra experience per kill continuing. The Dratan "castle siege" was counting down to begin while Kae was out there, and for some strange reason I got a recall-type message, "Please go back to Castle War start point." This had a yes/no option, so out of curiosity I clicked the "yes" - and it did act like a party recall, I was soon spawning not far from the Tomb of Theos, along with a lot of other people, some of them a bit surprised to be there.

I assumed it was because I was out in Dratan desert, and thus on the same map and not all that far away, that I got that glitchy message, but I noticed later that Barbarienne, who had been providing the solo party while standing around in the Norcaine guild hall, had got the message too. At a bit after 7:30pm I clicked "yes" for her, and she in her turn spawned out there in the grassy uplands of south-west Dratan. There were a couple of Christmas Gift Boxes left behind, and one afk knight, but the siege had long since finished.

Anyway, Kaerella had continued to fight the akane giants, and moved a little further into the north-west corner than usual. Seeing some sort of construction visible in the distance, I continued in that direction, and found a mysterious building, with an ominously glowing portal. Not knowing the meaning of "fear", I ran through the glow, and found myself in what announced itself to be "The Tomb of Theo" - not to be confused with "The Tomb of Theos", then...

It seemed to be a work in progress, with a not very long pathway hewn into the rock, and no monsters or things of interest. Perhaps one day the developers will add another dungeon, or something, there, like the real Tomb, or Misty Canyon. I left, and noticed on my way back that there was a second elite akane giant, and this one was in a less crowded area than the one I've usually fought in the past, so I stayed around, and fought it, and the regular akane giants, until Quiz time was approaching. Kaerella went up 16.42%, and added another 84 skill points and 812 pet points.

With Barbarienne online, the rogue PerziaQueen had been chatting a bit to her; I don't think she is particularly high-level, and really knew Barb from being allowed to "ks" her a bit with the screaming zombies. She did ask me if I had aeria points, and as usual I didn't give a straight answer, as if you start to trade people item mall things for gold, it is difficult to stop, and I've come out worst in some deals before now. Later she told me that she had been scammed - someone saying they were "selling ap" had taken just about all the money she had, but had not supplied the promised class skill reset card, an item that sells for 850 ap. She did have screenshots, but the gamesage she had contacted had told her that they couldn't involve themselves in that sort of thing, people entered into trading arrangements at their own risk - which is fair enough. PerziaQueen is so sad about the whole thing that she says she'll stop playing Last Chaos... I must say I feel pretty sad about it too. I'd been suggesting that we might team up, her and Barb, on the Introducer Camios in Misty Canyon - if Barb did try to fight those, the presence of someone with Snare would be a great help - and if necessary, it isn't far to run back to the teleporter to leave in a hurry.

The quiz seemed trickier than usual; they had the question about [GM]Racoonpd and the "Jenga" event, and I think there hasn't been such an event for many months, and that GM, who never had much to do with Last Chaos, at least in-game, is long gone. We went for "no", but I at least had deep misgivings about it - would we all find ourselves spawning back in the middle of Randol? They also had the "does [GM]Krash run the 'Pharaoh's Treasure?" question. We opted to go with the usual answer, "yes", though of course Krash too is no longer with us, so if those events do continue, it will have to be with someone else in charge.

There was also a worrying gap between questions after about nine, at least on Katar-2 - one has heard of a sub-server where the quiz never finished, so we were on tenterhooks for a few seconds. The questions came rather more quickly after that, but we managed to keep up. While click-and-move is working in guild halls, movement in the quiz room is still WASD only, to add to the fun, but we got to question 21 safely, losing only a very few people along the way, so just about everyone left rather richer than when they went in. It's strange, MistressSabina accompanied Kaerella, and the "click on and follow" didn't seem to work before the quiz started when I tested it, but worked fine during the actual quiz, with her faithfully following Kae's every move.

As usual logging back in after a quiz is a bit tricky, as the servers are so busy, but it seemed like a good idea to let ColonelScarlet do a little pet-levelling, particularly as I'd be around, and able to keep an eye on things. It was just as well I did, as the royal knight huxy showed up before long - and showed up pretty well, since he was riding a nice bright white horse. He has ks'd me in the past, but he hadn't made any move to do so this time, so I was friendly, and, so that he'd know I wasn't afk, said "hi huxy", and "what brings you out here?"

He was just bored, he told me, which I can sympathise with, it's a bit of a dead time between the end of the quiz and the start of the zombie invasions, usually. He asked about pet-levelling, saying that his level 34 rogue kills the target, so I explained how the red name helps, meaning that at level 35 the Colonel just hits for 20 damage bare-handed. He went off to get his rogue a red name; I suppose with the +10 armour a rogue may well be able to pet-level, even without the useful passive skills for extra armour and health regeneration.

Still, it is slightly worrying that a spot that I thought was pretty secluded should get a visitor, like that. It's just as well that, hopefully, not much more pet-levelling will be needed on the Katar server. But as I remarked to huxy, "Each time I think this is the last mount, I start another character, lol"...

There were supposed to be the normal "Zombie Invasion" events tonight, according to the website, though it gave the starting time as an hour later than usual - nothing seemed to happen on Auzura or Katar though, there were no announcements that I saw, so that part of a Sunday night's LC entertainment was missing, this time. Ah well, at least ColonelScarlet moved that next mount, currently in reindeer form, an hour or two along the way through level 32.

Without A Clue

This morning it was deja vu all over again, as the saying goes, with 14 Christmas Gift Boxes in the Discipline guild hall, one of which released a platinum drop booster; the newer computer had again recently given up the fight against a shortage of in-game memory. The older computer was still going, though with a very slow frame rate, which made things look very strange when, after restarting the game, Barbarienne returned and began to open the boxes. Restarting the older computer's game wasn't enough, the computer itself had to be restarted before things returned to normal.

There were a number of responses to my forum posting about MacroMej's language. PongoElite confirmed that "he is clearly cursing and using offensive language in Spanish", including "a very offensive term" - "Just ban that idiot, people like him don't even deserve the right to join a community." The gamesage Faenwyn acknowledged the report, so very possibly something will be done, though I must check if there is anything else I need to do.

So, ColonelScarlet headed out to a different location this morning to do a little more pet-levelling - in case ol' Macro or any other ks-ers get to read this I suppose I ought to remain a bit vague about what location he has now added to his memory scroll, but it seems relatively peaceful and out of the way.

It is difficult to work out when events are going to start, as most of the links on the Last Chaos website still don't work. It looked as if a second "Cluedo" event on Auzura-4 might start at noon, UK time, so it seemed like a good idea to be active on Auzura during the morning, to watch out for announcements. So, RedRider, at level 26, logged in to Auzura-1, got the "Elizabuff", and went to Prokion Temple - her first attempt to get in saw her down in the foundations, but the second time saw her arrive safely in the lobby.

The room with the orc soldiers and mummies that RedRyder favoured over on Katar was free, so RedRider settled in there, and even though her armour is only the 25/27 +4 set, didn't have any great difficulties, or at least nothing that couldn't be corrected by a small HP recovery potion. From all the Mad Monster Spawns and similar events she has attended, she had 241 of them, so using a few seemed like a good idea. This Red doesn't have as good a weapon as the +10 level 29 crossbow RedRyder over on Katar has, but things went smoothly enough.

By the end, RedRider was 55.90% of the way through her level, and had got up to 273 skill points. And then the "Cluedo" event - well, just didn't happen. Checking just after twelve, UK time, the website now showed a countdown of fifty-something minutes, for a 1:00pm start - but, hurrying back after lunch, nothing was happening then either and, its countdown completed, the event vanished from the news page.

The first half of the afternoon was filled up with miscellaneous stuff, including reading a rather interesting forum thread about Last Chaos at a general mmorpg forum, which gave some background to the much-lamented departure of [GM]Krash; when I did get back in to LC actively, RedRider headed for Misty Canyon and after sneaking past the elite frenzied berserkers and elite cerberus types, got the location onto her memory scroll, before going inside and persuading a convenient Introducer Camio to help relieve her of that 55.90%. The nineteen deaths reduced the 5 skill points she had left to 3, rather than wiping them out completely.

As RedRider is mainly designed for event-going and teaming with another character up to ten levels higher, there isn't any great hurry about maximising her special skills, it is just nice to have somewhere to "bank" skill points she does earn, so the fact that she needs another 2,760 skill points to do that isn't very important...which is just as well.

I was very good, and fitted in some more work downstairs for the rest of the afternoon - some stuff does have to be cleared out of the way before the Christmas break can start for real, after all. Mages Blaze and MistressDomino did hang out in the Discipline guild hall, generally - whenever a Santa hat was dropped by a Christmas Gift Box, I'd try to bring in the right character to be able to wear it, which worked sometimes, though not every junior character is in the right guild. I'd never done any levelling of Blaze, she was just level 2 - but opening a few boxes soon got her to level 5.

ColonelScarlet did a bit more pet-levelling, and then later in the evening RedRyder went out to Prokion Temple on Katar-1, but it wasn't a very productive session - frankly, there was too much player-killing going on. I was first killed by a rogue called Arelan, who seemed to me to be wearing pretty high-level armour; as ever, I was just busy fighting mummies and ghouls, and attacked for no reason. I went back to Randol and got the Elizabeth's Enhancement buff re-applied, but after the next killing, I didn't bother with that any more. Another rogue called xrogueinhax killed me once, she wasn't in a guild but when she spoke later, it certainly seemed as if she was Brazilian, so that may have been part of the friction between the new nationals and the older residents. The main killer, though, was a night shadow called BoundsWithG, and it just strikes me as pathetic that a character who is at least level 90 should want to go to a place where people from level 17 to 27 or so are busy levelling and sp-farming, and want to kill them. What does he prove by that, other than that he is rather inadequate?

Still, getting pk'd gives no penalty, and RedRyder added 4.83%, along with a useful 108 skill points. A level 21 rogue there, lyijykyna, whispered me when I mentioned that I thought BoundsWithG killing low-levels was slightly pathetic, and we chatted a bit, she was another victim of his - we might even have teamed up if there had been more time left to the evening, but I had to log out soon and she had some time left on her pssp.

After that it was time to keep the guild hall fully manned, so the day's adventures were over. One thing I did ignore today was a special raffle for the upcoming new pet, the much-delayed polar bear that the German Last Chaos has had for ages. Today GMs were exchanging raffle tickets for 10 million gold, 5 heaven stones, 2 lucky smelting stones, 100 chaos balls, or various other things - tomorrow the tickets can be bought for 199 ap each, in a package which also gives you 25 skill or experience boosters, which seems a rather cheaper option than parting with, say, 100 chaos balls, or even 5 heaven stones. It looks as if the pets will come in with the next scheduled maintenance, it will be interesting to see how expensive they are to buy, and indeed to maintain and level. Will they be only for the very rich ap-buyers, or will the whole place be full of them?

Out of the Invisible Vortex

This time leaving the two character overnight in the guild hall worked, and there were 14 Christmas Gift Boxes there when I switched the monitors back on this morning. The older computer was still running - it was the newer one that had "run out of memory", so RedRyder had to be logged back in; she hurried back to the guild hall, as her next box was almost due. Of the 14, only one contained a platinum drop booster, but when Red's next box arrived, that increased the total to two.

ColonelScarlet being the only one with a horse of level 16 or above, I decided that he might as well use a reindeer transformation book, so he is now training a cute little reindeer. The book was replaced in his inventory with a scroll to undo the transformation, which presumably would vanish, like the reindeer books, the next time he logged out. The Colonel has however put it into storage, in the hope that it might last there.

I was busy downstairs all morning, so, while ColonelScarlet eventually went out to do some pet-levelling, I decided the time had come to get a bit drastic with the newer computer. For the last couple of days on that machine the "O" pet window has refused to appear, which means that it is a little hard to keep track of a pet's exact health and hunger, and its pet points total can only be found, similarly, by opening the inventory and checking the icon there. More importantly, it has made it impossible to supply the horse buffs for added attack and defence, ruling out my level 50 cleric's trips to fight the akane giants.

So, after downloading last night an unofficial almost up-to-date version of the Last Chaos installer from FilePlanet by a player called Ciros, as recommended by a gamesage in the forum shoutbox, I uninstalled Last Chaos (after copying the screenshots folder safely into the "pictures" folder) - and the next step was to attempt to defragment the hard disk, using a free application called "My Defrag", which I recommend most lowly - it hung at 76%, and completely froze the computer, I don't think I've ever had to use the manual restart button on the computer's case before. Still, 76% is better than nothing!

Installation of the new client went smoothly, though, and the subsequent patching was mercifully brief - and, to my great relief, the pet window was restored.

I had a bit of luck at lunchtime. ColonelScarlet was down fighting his gnoll lancer in south Merac, and at 1:30 UK time his next Christmas Gift Box was due, so I came upstairs and checked up - and the villainous MacroMejs, who I see is a member of a no doubt ironically named guild called "FriendsOfGame", was just luring my gnoll lancer, and me, and my pet, towards the aggressive, pet-eating monsters across beyond the other side of the clearing. "van", MacroMejs said, whatever that means. "hi Mac ^^" I replied, stopping my progress, to which he could only reply, thwarted, "aricn". I teleported out of there, across to the rather safer position with the bandits and berserkers.

But the naughty little chap didn't leave things there. A few minutes later, the next time I checked, MacroMejs had taken the trouble to find me there, and had already lured my berserker, and me, and my pet, a substantial distance east across the map - and had almost reached a group of blood frenzies.

I think there may be some sort of attitude problem with ol' Macro. He had whispered me with "jajajaja - lady scarlet - muack muak - :) - you are friki - kerella macromejs jajaja - me la paso por el forro de los cojones - ahora apunta - tu si q eres triste y encima toj tedestrz mierds" and then in open speech "jejeje - vrn coronel - jejeje" - at which point, when I'd seen what was going on, I'd said "persistent little beggar aren't you, lol?" An onlooker, sucin, had commented "bad style" at that point. "jajaja - te vol a matar quand te pill - tu cabeza crak - marikon - andonde vas - forest gam - corre corre" - and then, after I was out of range, further whispers of "julandorn - hoy escriviras mucho - lady - marika". I'm just using the hyphens for different lines of text. All a bit strange, yes?

The afternoon session had a bit of a late start, as I was still busy with stuff downstairs initially, but eventually Kaerella went out to the akane giants and giants on Cariae-1. I had logged MistressDomino in there too to provide the solo party while standing around in the guild hall waiting for a gift box, but before long the night shadow Oppertunity got in touch, and asked if I would help him move his mount back across to his rogue. He had decided that he didn't enjoy playing a night shadow, and after equipping the character, was very low on gold and generally a bit disgruntled. So I had to log MD out, and I brought in KarambA instead, a level 11 healer there who only has one pet, a level 1 pony, and thus can handle trades - you can't have more than two of the old horse and drake type pets in your inventory at the same time.

The trade was made, a level 33 mount from Oppertunity to KarambA, and then across to the rogue HarD. As Kae had already picked up a couple of tree baubles, I went back to Randol with her too, and got the tree buffs - one of which gives extra drops for 40 minutes, apparently, though I didn't notice any lavish amounts of loot, and the other counts down for an hour with a promise of something special, and then vanishes..."When 'God Bless You' disappears, you will receive the Christmas Blessings", it says, but there isn't any special drop or buff then.

Kaerella headed back out to the giants and akane giants, with me keeping an eye on the shoutbox as well and making the occasional contribution. The most interesting exchange came when [GM]OgreKing came in for a few minutes, and people were asking if the lock of a maximum of 50% on experience gain which a guild can apply, to help people farm skill exp before they get too high-level, could perhaps be relaxed, so that an 80% or 90% lock would be possible. "Andrew, if you kill mobs that are the same level as you, SP should not be an issue" [GM]OgreKing said, after mentioning that he personally had voted in favour of getting rid of experience locking completely, rather than leaving it at 50%. My comment that, surely, that would have messed up the guild point system was conveniently ignored. If Ogre truly believes that people could get all the skills they need, including the high-level ones, without any experience lock at all, or having to use potions and boosters, well, I think he needs to get out into the World of Iris a bit more.

Kaerella's session continued beyond the food break, but around six o'clock, UK time, the shoutbox was asked what an "invisible vortex" was - and it was in fact Ogre who was the first to realise that that meant that[GM]Valsharyn had been lining up a new Mad Monster Spawn, as Val tends to start off with messages about having seen a vision of an invisible vortex which was about to unleash monsters upon us. As usual, most of the announcements must have just been on Auzura only - but, from what did get more widely broadcast, I guessed that things were going down on Auzura-4, so Kaerella logged out from Cariae-1, and RedRider, my level 26 rogue, logged in on Auzura-4. In all Kae had just added 10.65% and 78 skill points, taking her almost to halfway through level 50 and back over the 8k mark for unused sp, plus 740 pet points.

The Mad Monster Spawn had already started when I arrived. As usual [GM]Valsharyn kept things interesting, with plenty of encouragement and comments, and some easy "warm up" monsters between main waves. The "boss" wave was a hard one, but we all worked together, including Val, who often seemed to be our main tank, and finally overcame the last Flutons and Patrarch Botises. I did die quite a few times - and other people were saying that they had lost hundreds of skill points. But the rewards were pretty good, and by the end Red was remarkably close to having an overweight inventory.

A titan called Cam1204 was getting well into the teamwork spirit, and bought a large number of health potions while he was back in Randol (having no doubt, like me, won a free trip there from a Fluton or some other big bad monster), which he passed around to people who needed them. I assumed they were the small type, which cost 440 gold each - after the event was over he was still distributing them, I accepted his offer of fifty free ones - and was very surprised that they were actually the "great" size, which cost 5,430 gold each, so that was a nice gesture on his part, handing such valuable stuff out.

After that I switched back to Kaerella, to make up for her enforced lay-off for the last couple of days, and headed back to the giants and akane giants. It was just after nine when Kamira teleported in, so my mage Keerella took over, and rode out to fight her, arriving within five minutes of her initial appearance.

Kamira didn't drop a rare accessory, but she dropped the usual assortment of a crystal of experience (greater), a medal of honour, tool aids, lucky scrolls, medium mana potions, moonstones, great healing potions, 58,380 gold, and a hero's necklace - 33 evasion and 4 intelligence. So the fight was worthwhile, and again I hadn't used a lucky scroll or item drop booster.

There was just time for Kaerella to have a few more minutes out there, so she rode back. On the way a knight called minwoo rode up. "A question - do you want to change your pet's colour?" My reply was "Not really, thank you", as, well, I'm used to SirFrancis being the natural drake colour. Minwoo gave me armour and concentration buffs, and rode off towards town. "Oh well, just giving stuff away"...

I stayed out just long enough for another Christmas Gift Box to arrive, which just dropped a Shiny Red Sorceror Santa Hat. By then, Kae's session, before and after Kammy, had added 9.90%, 694 pet points, and 72 more skill points. Then, well, it was time to go back to the Discipline guild hall.

How Aeria Stole Wednesday

My cunning plan to leave two characters overnight in the Discipline guild hall came to nothing, as there was an emergency server downtime last night - I don't think that there was a patch to cure any of the many glitches, instead what we got was a "partial rollback", to undo Aeria's blunder in allowing the Battle Books to have a ludicrously high price, 5.2 million gold each, when sold to an NPC. This was a known possible bug, as it had happened to the German version of Last Chaos some weeks ago, but Aeria were completely taken by surprise, and dithered over what to do, before deciding that they had to take all the extra gold out of the game by doing a rollback.

As the rollback was, at least, only "partial", the experience and skill points earned yesterday remain, thankfully, but loot picked up has vanished - which includes the lavish amount of goodies picked up at "Storm the Castle" last night. I thought I was doing exceptionally well with heaven stones in Prokion Temple, picking up five of them during the day, but they all vanished too, sigh...and I'd managed to get a few of those platinum drop boosters from the gift boxes too.

Aeria_ks1lent, the product manager for Last Chaos, is trying to make it seem that it's all our fault, of course, when it's an Aeria bungle, with a little help from those useless Korean "developers". Personally the only Battle Book I ever owned came as part of the package when I bought the Scra-Chi "human tribe" cat-like pet over on Cariae, but everyone suffers. I spent 3599 aeria points on a "75% rebate Super Rocker" package yesterday, and of course that package has vanished, while the ap are still gone from that particular account. It looks as if I'll get the ap back eventually, in theory, but not the bargain-priced package. The package in on offer again - but I currently don't have enough ap in the account to buy it! Apparently some people have lost their entire inventories, and a lot of pets have gone missing, so that people have to submit to the slow and unfriendly "request tracker" system.

So, another day of Aeria shooting itself in the foot, then. I was busy for the morning and first half of the afternoon, so Memree and MistressSabina just stood around in the Discipline guild hall, trying to get back some of yesterday's "gifts". And Zenderfly, back from a holiday, got in touch, suggesting a team-up in another Aeria game, Grand Fantasia.

I couldn't start playing until mid-afternoon, but once I was free and my client had updated, Zen, or Taldea, carefully and patiently shepherded me through the first seven levels of Grand Fantasia. The level cap at present is 60 apparently, and Zen's main character, a healer, is already level 33. What strikes me about the game is how friendly and colourful it all is, ideal for children too young for a more grown-up game like Last Chaos or Guild Wars - and yet how difficult and complicated it all is to master. Taldea said that she had had to do a lot of reading up on the game to advance, and I'm not surprised, it doesn't strike me as intuitive at all. Your sprite needs to go and mine some ore? There's no hint about how that might be done. There may well be some way of knowing how one is progressing through a level, but I never found it, and as for which icons should be dragged into which pop-up windows, well, you're on your own. There doesn't even seem to be a figure in your inventory showing what you have equipped.

The plan is to try some more sessions, but it is definitely not something I'd wish to specialise in. I might log in to attempt to get my sprite some more training, and maybe try to reach level 8, if killing baby dragons still gives me useful experience, but Taldea is going to have to be patient with me. On the positive side, I found that running GF didn't harm the LC window, minimised - once I closed Grand Fantasia, I could bring the Last Chaos window back up, to see what soon-to-vanish or unusable Christmas gifts the latest boxes would give.

The evening session involved RedRyder in Katar-1's Prokion Temple, using the Elizabeth's Enhancement buff. There's a handy room where mummies spawn along with just a single orc soldier, and nobody was using it when I arrived, so I avoided the soldier, and concentrated on the mummies. Before long, though, I was suddenly killed, one-hit by, I assume, a single crossbow shot. It was Suprgrl2 who did it, which rather surprised me, as previously I'd found her friendly and helpful. I had to go back to Randol to get the "Elizabuff" applied again, and when I got back I whispered to her something along the lines of, "Sorry if I've offended you, but why did you 1-hit kill me?" She apologised, and said that she had mistaken me for someone else - and while she was busy then, as someone she had been fighting was wall-hugging and she didn't want to let them get away, she'd come and give me something in a few minutes, to make amends.

So, all was well, and I didn't get pk'd again, though a few red-named people with the big "X" to show they were in player-killing mode did run past. I assumed Suprgrl2 might hand over a memory scroll or two, since I'd had to use one to return, or maybe some medium health potions - but what she traded to me a bit later was a pair of resurrection scrolls, and they sell in town for at least ten million gold each. So, a very nice gesture. I guess it is about time that Red started to have a res scroll active, though I'll start with the "beginner" ones, which have to be used before one passes level 35.

Anyway, I kept slogging away on the mummies and a few nearby ghouls - and if I failed to avoid the orc soldier, though I can kill them easily enough, I hurried back to the lobby to break aggro. It was a pretty long session, as I kept going until the three-hour "Elizabuff" expired; since ghouls and mummies don't give much experience, RedRyder just added 22.68% on that score, which meant 36 more guild points; however, it added a rather useful 512 skill points, so that, if I do another three similar sessions, or their equivalent, Red will have over 2000 unused skill points by the time she levels up to 26, which comes under the heading of "a good start".

The forum shoutbox was a busy place all evening, and there weren't all that many gamesages around. Apparently a couple of the most popular ones have been among people banned lately, so strange things are happening behind the scenes. A lot of people were complaining about the item mall packages they bought yesterday having vanished, while the aeria points used to buy such things had not been restored; it seems that the GMs are working to get the ap back to people, but people who had had a restoration were complaining that they'd got the wrong amount. Personally I wonder if people whose purchase of that 75% rebate package had been rolled back may actually get the rebate, of 75% of the original ap purchase price, in a week or two, which would be fun, if they have by then had the entire purchase price refunded.

Luckily there weren't any big events scheduled for today, as the GMs have their work cut out trying to sort out the fallout from that rollback. Strangely, as I was logging out, rather early at around nine o'clock UK time, an announcement came up that the APAC happy hour was starting, with that most unwanted of boosts for sp-farmers generally, 50% extra experience. Normally that's in the early hours of Friday morning, as far as we are concerned. As the "read more" links for such things are still just returning us to the website's front page, it is difficult to know what is up with that.

MistressSabina had been providing a solo party from the guild hall on Katar-1, and RedRyder went back to join her. The santa hats may not be much use at present as they can't be moved between characters, and most other things vanish from one's inventory when a character has to log out, but the platinum drop boosters are worth a little effort to acquire, and it makes a change from pet-levelling.

How the Glitch Stole Christmas

I suppose it isn't entirely surprising that most of the Christmas additions to Last Chaos, introduced with last night's maintenance patch, are glitched; we don't seem to have had a very good record on beta-testing additions lately, and as basically this year's Christmas stuff is the same as last time, our chums at Aeria, and our wacky Korean developers, must have assumed that everything would work again.

There are lots of extra drops, suitable for decorating a Christmas tree with - baubles, socks, and stars, for example. The only problem is that they vanish from your inventory if you log out. What you are meant to do is click on the main Christmas tree in Randol, which removes all the decorations from your inventory, and brings nearer the next time when candy cane presents arrive under the tree for everyone. A five-minute warning of gifts arriving is given. You should also get a slightly useful buff for donating your decorations - that does not always happen, at least Memree on Katar-4 didn't get anything. And getting the buff at the end of a playing session is less than ideal, anyway.

The special Christmas gift boxes are back, which arrive next to you after a countdown every hour. It's easy to miss out by being somewhere they don't spawn, such as a town or the lobby at Prokion Temple, though, which trips up new players. The best bet is to leave one's character standing in the guild hall, as the boxes do spawn there.

The prizes you get do vary - they include not the durable Santa hats from last year, but 30-day covers for existing headgear. This would be fine, except that they are usually not for your own class, and, so far, cannot be dropped, traded, or stored, making them a waste of space. Someone in town was saying that the books to transform a horse pet into a reindeer are glitched, and one shouldn't attempt to use them; certainly they, like the tree ornaments, have a habit of vanishing from one's inventory, and apparently that also applies to some other possible drops. The reindeer effect is meant to vanish at the end of the event - last year it didn't, and Barbarienne's horse is still in that form, which is fine by me as it looks pretty cute.

On the face of it, the best possible drop is a "platinum drop booster"; a normal item drop booster adds 30% to one's chance of getting a drop from a single kill, and tends to sell for not much short of a million gold, depending on the server - so how much would a platinum one be worth, if it adds 2000%? I remain to be convinced it really adds that much, but no doubt it does give an extra boost to one's chance of something good.

I did have just enough time in the morning for Memree and Kaerella to go out to Katar-4's Prokion Temple for an hour; Kae used her pssp and managed to get 396 skill points, while going up by 7.76% experience. Memree added 36.93% and 132 skill points - and stayed a little longer, adding another 2.56%, and 19 more skill points, so that she had enough to get a few more special skill levels. In all 1128 pet points and 446 guild points were added as well.

The afternoon session was a bit short, as I spent rather too long wrestling with a custom Christmas card-sending site that refused to work properly, but there was time for another Memree-Kaerella team-up, which brought Kae 363 more skill points and 7.06% experience. Again Memree stayed on for a few minutes afterwards, so that 1009 pet points and 392 guild points got added, and enough skill points, 126, to get the last mining skill level. Then Memree visited her Introducer Camio at the start of Misty Canyon, and got rid of the latest 34.71% experience.

Standing around in the guild hall seems to be replacing pet-levelling as the thing to do while not actually playing, so Kaerella did a little of that, before I logged her out and logged MistressDomino in. It seemed to make sense to have MD and Memree doing it, as, both being in Discipline, they can share the same guild hall - and if the right type of Santa hat is dropped, the appropriate character can pick it up. The item is "reserved" for whoever "kills" the box for a while, even if the box was summoned to the other character

Another glitch was the subject of discussion in the forum shoutbox; the battle skill book for an Ichi or Scra-Chi pet, which is an annoyingly common drop from the moon statue in Randol apparently, has suddenly become sellable to NPC merchants for around five million gold. People have thus been getting and selling as many as they can - but the fun came to an end this evening when Aeriaks1lent announced in-game "DO NOT sell [P2] Battle skill books in game to NPCs. Repeat offenders caught selling the item after this announcement will be considered exploiting." That brought a number of worried people in to check they weren't about to be banned, predictably.

For the evening, RedRyder went out to the orc soldiers and mummies in Prokion Temple on Katar-1. Unusually I did get player-killed once, by a red-named rogue called ObscuredByClouds - high enough level to come in using invisibility, snare me, and kill me in one or two hits. That was annoying, as it meant I had to go back to Randol to get the "Elizabuff" applied again, but that was my only interruption, and I got the full 324 skill points I needed to finish maximising Red's special skills. So that's another pretty big task ticked off the list.

Next of course came the little matter of pestering the first Introducer Camio in Misty Canyon into killing RedRyder enough times - 28 in all, as she'd added 81.54% experience. And then, with the Elizabeth's Enhancement buff re-applied, back I went to Prokion Temple, this time avoiding the orc soldiers entirely, and just hitting mummies and ghouls, since they give a better ratio, while Red is level 25, of skill exp to experience. The place was a bit crowded, and there were a lot of Brazilian players around, who generally seemed used to a slightly "pushier" style of play, not respecting the territory of someone who was already busy in a particular room or area.

I'd noticed a lot of Brazilian players recently, and, when I asked in the shoutbox, was told that their local version of Last Chaos was closing down at the end of this year, and so they seem to be migrating to us, and forming their own guilds - and indeed their own parties, it seems if you look in the "parties recruiting members" window you are as likely to find something "Brazilieros" as "solo". With them working hard in Prokion Temple, it isn't hard to foresee a time when Brazilian guilds will be serious contenders for castle sieges, and generally making life interesting for the older-established English-speaking top players.

As I wasn't using a pssp or anything, it didn't matter if I ran out of monsters occasionally; there was a fair bit of PK-ing going on, but the only attack I got was by mistake, and I only lost half my health before the rogue in question moved on. She might well have been meaning to target Brazilian players, there did seem to be a bit of "needle" between factions.

Still, by the time I had to log RedRyder out, she had added 8.15% experience, and 166 skill points, which seemed a pretty good ratio to me. It also disqualifies Red from going to dangerous events like mad monster spawns, as from now on she will have a store of unused skill points to protect.

Luckily, though, Memree, on level 31, with the +10 armour and +15 weapon, is without spare skill points, since she is still investing the sp she gets into her special skills, so she was the rogue who ran down to Merac Castle, getting it onto her memory scroll, in time for the "Storm the Castle" event on Katar-4, which was scheduled to start at ten o'clock, UK time.

It would be harder to have a bigger contrast between this STC and [GM]Valsharyn's one for Auzura; someone said that it was [GM]JediMike who was in charge, but I never saw him, and he never said anything until a single line right at the end to say that the event was over. It just began with a spawning of thorny mantises and death knights on the bridge, without any word, and away we went.

The turnout was pretty low; we seemed to be in single figures right at the start, but people did begin to turn up, so we may have got to, oh, two dozen or more - plenty of them at around my level, but luckily we did have some people who could tank the Anubis Spear Men, Hell-Otuus, and Dark Harpies. It was just as well that it was the old-fashioned spawning, and not the massively hard recent one where the throne room is packed full of quanians, introducers, punishers etc. Our GM made up for his lack of attention (presumably he was managing the Cariae-4 event as well, and probably going through computer records to see who'd been selling battle books in bulk) with some generous spawnings of loot - while there were a few monsters alive at that point, luckily it was just a few remaining spear men, who aren't aggressive.

So we grabbed as much loot as we could, and then moved off and found another heap of goodies - in all Memree's inventory weight went up by over 10%. I know she got 14 large attack potions, as she wasn't carrying any before the event started, she may have done almost as well when it came to item drop boosters, skill point boosters, and large defence potions, and doubtless got plenty more tool aids. So, quite a rewarding outing, even if two memory scrolls had to be used to get me back to the action after I got killed. 7.97% experience got added, despite the deaths.

After that, both Memree and RedRyder settled in to spend the night in the Discipline guild hall, hoping that the Christmas gift boxes accumulate as the hours pass, and have some useful items in them, such as those platinum item boosters.

The Rage of the Demon

I wasn't able to do any active playing in the morning today, but both ColonelScarlet on Katar-4 and RedRackham on Auzura-4 were able to head down to south Merac for some useful pet-levelling before breakfast. It wasn't too long before the Colonel's horse reached level 29; Red's level is almost twice as long though, so while steady progress was made, by lunch there was still almost three hours of work left before the horse would be ready for RedRider to have as a level 37 mount.

I suspected that the 50% extra skill exp might still be running, so after lunch my level 50 cleric Kaerella logged in on Cariae-1, got the Elizabeth's Enhancement buff, and headed out into Dratan desert, where the skill exp was indeed nicely boosted above its normal level. There wasn't a solo party I could join, but before too long someone farming in Prokion Temple registered as wanting a party, so I recruited them, and, now that we had a two-person party, was able to register it, and gain further members - indeed, we got up to a full eight a time or two.

Before very long, though, while I was merrily fighting the Akane Giants, Grand Devilroad Kamira turned up, which meant that I had to transfer leadership to someone else, and log out, so that my level 93 mage Keerella could log in and ride down. After all, if that level 92 rogue the other day could get the usual drops, albeit without an actual rare accessory, it seemed worth seeing what Kee could get.

Kamira was waiting patiently, and, while I gave myself horse buffs, I didn't bother with a magic defence mineral or an item drop booster, I just attacked. I did have to use a medium health potion, but Kamira died pretty quickly, and a quick Flame Storm got rid of the level 35 death goddesses. Kamira dropped 10 great healing potions, 54,600 gold, 5 scrolls of memorising, a hero's necklace (8 intelligence and 4 dexterity), 10 medium mana potions, a medal of honor of course, 5 lucky scrolls, 5 moon stones, a crystal of experience (greater), 5 tool aids - and a Rage of Demon rare accessory. Of the ten possible rare drops, I'd say it ranks about number four or five, which can't be bad - it adds 12 to intelligence, 18 to magical attack, and 100 to health. It's something I had been thinking of buying...albeit on a different server.

Kaerella logged back in, and was automatically back in the same party as before; it wasn't a hugely long session, in all ninety minutes or so, but Kae added 14.54%, 119 skill points, and, for SirFrancis, 1164 pet points. RedRackham got his horse up to 37, too. The reason I had to leave a bit early was that, as far as one could tell from the still-glitched links on the website, Auzura-4 was due to play host to a "Storm the Castle" event at 4:00pm, UK time.

So, I logged my level 72 rogue Rage in, and teleported down, arriving at about a couple of minutes before the hour - and was almost the first person there, as [GM]Valsharyn only then started making GM announcements for it. So, it was about ten past before we actually got going, with not a huge number of people. It wasn't your normal kind of castle storming; in fact, while as far as we could tell from the dots on the compass-map the usual monsters were inside, the gates were never opened, so only a very few of the flying types ever got out to face us. Instead, "mad monster spawn" style, monsters were spawned outside for us to fight. These included akane golems, skeleton soldiers, the bouncing-type cube guards, Terrain type cube guards, and Flutons, so the level of difficulty, and peril, did vary wildly. I did get caught by a Fluton's "flamethrower" once, but using a large health potion, and subsequently some medium ones, kept me alive. I was in a party of eight people, from the mid-twenties to level 115 I think, but this obviously wasn't what they were expecting, and people gradually logged out, until the party completely disbanded.

Meanwhile, "Our Val" was doing her best to make things exciting. "Stall them! Be brave! REINFORCEMENTS !! The enemy seems to be aware of me being of leading assistance!" Her comments interspersed the other dialogue. "They summon the enemies to my spot! I'll cast invisibility, hopefully the ruse will knock the enemy off guard! It seems that the enemy deems XAurorax as new Leader, defend him! The enemy sends his mighty general Commander Agaress and his bodyguards Agaress 1 and 2!!"

"(Agaress) TASTE MY SWORD SCUM!!!!! (Agaress) How could...I ...be ...def...eated???!!!! (Agaress) Cur... ye shall be Cast Manifest!" This led me to comment "I'm thinking Val loves playing with toy soldiers..." as I could imagine a young child with a toy castle and small toy figures coming up with a similar scenario. But we finally got on to "&summon 10 311", which, when it didn't appear as speech, probably had something to do with the loot spawning. "Thanks for attending the Storm the Castle and then kill the besiegers Event!!" My response was "Well we know you are experimenting and trying out new things - keep up the good work ^^". And later the last announcement from Our Val was "Thank you for attending the siege Event! I will work on this event too :)" She had mentioned early on the usual "kill everything within 20 minutes" rule, but in fact we'd kept going for closer to an hour. I had asked if the other servers would have a castle-storming later, before we started, and Val said not.

So my food break was slightly delayed, and I was only just back in time for Val's other EU-only experiment, where she was joined by [GM]Noboru. While it was billed as a "Cluedo" quiz, it was mainly another firecracker and transformation scroll parade about town, with occasional pauses while various clues were given about famous people. The first answer wasn't my guess of Michelangelo, or other people's Leonardo da Vinci or Elvis - I was just too slow to whisper [GM]Noboru with Marilyn Monroe, someone else got in there first. I was baffled by the next two, who turned out to be Alfred Nobel and Santa Claus (people send him demands?), but Val added a fourth, with the first clue "My works got translated in many, many languages", so that I immediately whispered "Shakespear?" - so quickly that the GM's next comment was "...unbelievable...already done", followed by "congratulations RedRider."

So, a few minutes later, [GM]Noboru traded my prize across - a large crit potion, which is a nice, and valuable, thing to have. Probably it will get moved across to Rage at some point, for an hour's worth of lots more critical hits against screaming zombies. Some people did consider the event a bit of a waste of time, but not me!

By the time I'd got the blog drafted thus far and dealt with an email or two, there wasn't a great deal of evening left - but there was time for Kaerella on Katar to have an hour's worth of Combat party with Memree in Prokion Temple. I did have an intruder for ten minutes or so, a knight called XxTomrobdarxXPL, who ks'd and took a few orcs that I really needed, to keep going flat out, but he went away, and by the end of the hour Memree was up 32.27% and 175 skill points, plus 1072 pet points and 364 guild points. More importantly Kae had added 349 skill points thanks to her pssp, plus 6.78% and 63 guild points.

Once Kaerella had moved out of range back to the lobby, Memree continued a bit longer, adding another 7.57% and 84 skill points (since she didn't have to share the sp), along with 86 guild points, and 314 more pet points - just enough for her drake to level up. Then Kae logged out and ColonelScarlet logged in for a little more pet-levelling, while Memree moved to town and spent most of her skill points on the first two levels of Expert Alchemy. When she logged out, the Colonel continued, and should get the horse about halfway through level 30 tonight. With the weekly maintenance downtime approaching, there is no chance of overnight pet-levelling, though. And tomorrow, Christmas begins in Last Chaos...