Kaerella's Blog - stardate September 2010 (1)

Unbloggishly, here we read from the top down - so the new month begins here at the top!

A Minor Patch - September 1st

Four weeks ago, the Patch Notes announcement told us "New content is in development. Expect to see some changes in the near future!"  Three weeks ago the new, but badly constructed and glitchy, map of Juno arrived.  Two weeks ago Xuse2005 told us "New content expected within the next two weeks".  Last week, well, they were conserving their energy, but this week -  nothing, really, after whipping our hopes up of something big.  "Improvements to Dratan Castle Siege are being discussed", he tells us.  For Mondshine people, "Raid disconnects are less frequent and a 100% fix is still in development." 

For the rest of us, "One of the newly added beginner quests received minor updates", Xuse2005 reports, and apparently they have managed to include a fix for the "Update completed.  Update is completed.  Please, restart game" pop-up problem in this week's patch. The biggest thing to report though is that the problem that led to the bars showing the Condition of the Tomb of Theos not appearing has been fixed, so that we can find out before paying our admission fee and starting fighting just what mood the monsters are in.

The patch downloaded swiftly enough for me on my one functioning computer.  I did get the "Update completed.  Update is completed.  Please, restart game" window popping up when I tried to launch the game, which was a bit disconcerting, but it only came up once - the next time, the game loaded in the normal way, so that RedRackham was able to log in, and take his level 39 drake down to the fifth floor of Maargadum Jail on Auzura-4 for some pet-levelling, while I had breakfast, did some shopping, and generally got the day, and the month, started.

The run-up to one of my busy weekends is starting now, slightly complicated by Monday having been a public holiday, which means that five days have to be fitted into four, so my playing hours are set to decline from now on, until hopefully we emerge on the far side on Monday.  I did however manage to log on in good time for the eleven to noon "dungeon time" hour.

The Condition bars on the Auzura Tomb of Theos were at 60%, when I teleported MistressDomina to the entrance, which seemed to me a little less than perfect, so I switched across to Keerella on Cariae-4...only to find that the situation was slightly worse there, with the bars on 50%!  Still, as Kee has good armour, and only wanted to farm the screaming zombies at the start of the Tomb for a few skill points, that didn't put me off, so in I went.  Things ran smoothly, without any need to use health potions, and without many other people, so by the end of the hour, Keerella had added 0.96%, 7 skill points, and 1039 pet points.  It would take another ten such sessions to get her into level 99, though it won't, after that, take many combat party team-ups with Barbarienne to get Barb eleven levels ahead again.

Since 50% had seemed so reasonable, Auzura's 60% was now a bit less off-putting, so MistressDomina headed out on Auzura-4 in good time for the two to three o'clock hour.  Nobody in Twisted seemed available to provide a solo party...but the good news was that the Tomb of Theos there was fully reset to 100% easy.  MD ran down to the anubis spear man room, and found just an archer called Puepchen there, so settled in with the two spear men on the far side.

I don't think Puepchen spoke English; I don't think she was very high-level either, as I'm sure she died a time or two, and when I did click on her to offer a combat party I just got the message that she was out of range.  She wasn't around when the "dungeon time" hour began, so the level 95 rogue bolster took over that side, and we formed a combat party.  A level 98 rogue called xXbingbangXx joined the combat party too, but soon moved a little further along the corridor.

When the hour began, MistressDomina started her berserker, platinum adrenaline, and crit pots, plus the platinum blessed iris, and got down seriously to business.  Unfortunately Puepchen returned, and did compete for the anubis spear men at some points, which slowed me down very slightly for a while, but things got better when bolster had to leave - especially as xXbingbangXx had moved back into the room, and thus continued my combat party boost by standing in the corner.

MistressDomina used 44 experience boosters during the hour, and got 43.26% from them, which got her nicely into level 95.  Adding a few kills before and after, the total for the session was 44.37%, plus 4 skill points and 1569 pet points.  The rogue nowomannocry, level 60 now, did drop by to "borrow" a HP stealer and a MP stealer, apparently for whoever is going to do her next power-level.  I do wish them good luck, but it would help if she got a better weapon, and better skills.

There seemed plenty of time to do an hour's sp-farming with MistressSabina before the food break, so Sabina went to floor three of Maargadum Jail on Auzura-4 again, only to find the same person as yesterday busy there.  So, I tried Auzura-5 instead, and found it free.  There wasn't a solo party I could join there though, until about halfway through; a knight, the level 47 Almagavar, arrived and fought at one end for a while, which slowed me down and meant I had to kill the beast archers as well as the beast flyers.  He had a disconnection, but a bit later a rogue called MistetryGirl, level 46, arrived, and competed for the kills too.  I think I'll have to go for Auzura-4 or nothing, Auzura-5 has too much passing traffic.

The slower kill rate meant that MistressSabina only got 121 skill points from her session, along with 4.15% and 984 pet points - but that's not a huge amount less than normal, I guess, so the session was worth it.

The evening, from six o'clock UK time, was promising a "Happy Hour" of double experience and skill exp, so it seemed like a good time to let MistressBlaze go out to the elite sphinx speer man and its buddies, at least for a while - as usual on Wednesday I would have to make an early exit.  I didn't really kill the sphinx types all that quickly, but thanks to the bonus, MistressBlaze added 26.92%, 32 skill points, and 661 pet points before I had to log out.

So that's it; a new month and a new, if minor, patch.  As usual the patch did seem to give some people problems with starting the game, though of course it's the people with a problem who visit the shoutbox, hopefully almost everyone got to play as much as they wanted to, and didn't have to do any reinstalling.  MistressDomina's "widowmaker" western "C2" costume is way past its 30 days now, due to a glitch, but it's still working - and unlike some overstays, such as platinum refining stones or regular melded covers, it isn't a problem, as one can easily change the armour underneath it, as the armour and the "C2" cover remain separate.  I had wondered if the week's patch would sort out that costume glitch, but for once the slowness of the developers to react to problems has worked in our favour.

Onwards With Kaerella  - September 2nd

MistressDomino on Auzura-5 spent much of the day in merchant mode, and did take in about 130 million, making her, and me, slightly richer than she was before.  The price of heaven stones seems to be falling there, perhaps because of the LacaRette wheel prizes - I don't think that I sold any at 2.79 million, while 2.95 million used to be a reasonable price.

As well as preparing for the coming weekend, what took a fair amount of my time was the arrival of a new Windows 7-running computer.  It started up with a high-speed clicking noise, but eventually the phone support guy had me wrench one fan sideways a bit - don't you just love high-tech solutions?  So now it's all silent and handsome, proudly displaying the Windows flag on its desktop... but basically useless, as I can't connect it to the internet.  Trying to use my broadband supplier's disc just gave me the exhortation to upgrade to a more modern operating system, such as XP or Vista - and looking on their website, the client is not available, though I could leave my details so that they would email me when it is ready for release.

It looks as if a new modem will be needed, my current one isn't 7-capable it seems, just plugging the USB connection in was useless.  Why don't they make these new operating systems at least a little bit backwards-compatible...?

Kaerella on Katar got out to Maargadum Jail twenty minutes or so before the end of the two to three o'clock dungeon time, anyway, and fought the dire spike canines, two-headed canines, and beast spears for a while.  A level 41 specialist sorcerer, DangerDemon, recruited Kae and a level 44 rogue, AngelsofSouls, into a combat party, and we moved to the third room on floor two to fight the beast spears there, with some success, though I had to take a few minutes off to try and make a telephone call to my computer supplier's support centre.

Inevitably, DangerDemon suggested a move to the sphinx fighters, so we went across to Dratan and began to fight them - but before long I got a telephone call back, and when I was free again the rogue had left the party and DangerDemon was just sitting behind the fence close to where I was, so things had come to a fairly natural conclusion.  It hadn't been a massive session by any means, but Kaerella had added 14.76%, 56 skill points, and 375 pet points.

The early evening break was a bit long as I visited the local computer store, taking in my poor broken old XP-running machine - the fact that they promised to ring me back later with their diagnosis rather influenced what I could do in the evening, too.  I was back a bit too late for the start of the Auzura "mid level mad monster spawn", but took MistressBlaze out about 25 minutes after the announced starting time, to see if it was still going on - the location was the low-level one, but by then it was deserted.  I switched to Katar, as that was next on the list - but when I mentioned on the shoutbox that the location for the MMS seemed unnaturally quiet, was informed that the event had been cancelled, with just double experience and skill exp switched on instead.

What seemed best was to take my Cariae cleric Kaerella to the Tomb of Theos, to fight the screaming zombies.  Most of the time I was in a combat party, with at different, or slightly overlapping times, a level 90 night shadow, CURSEDDRAGON, a level 90 rogue, and a level 81 rogue, Deathtrap5.  It was the level 90 rogue, jq178, who tended to need the most healing, and she agreed when I said that I suspected that the 85/87 armour set she was wearing wasn't b5e +13.

We also helped a titan to level up, and I think he reached level 51 - he had said he was aiming for level 57, as he had a level 61 +15 weapon waiting, but he left rather suddenly to go and kill Baal.  He gave Kae a one-hour platinum pet pill, which was very kind, for her help, and also some magical attack minerals... but I think jq178 helped him more, albeit relying on some clerical healing.

Towards the end another cleric arrived, though as she was using a bow, I didn't realise she was a cleric at first - she didn't stay long, as a monster combo party needed her.  I had been considering having Kae try using Barbarienne's old level 85 bow, and she said that using a bow does help her kill more quickly, so it is definitely something to do, when the bow can be traded across.  There are certain passive skills for bow use that only an archer would have, but, well, we'll see how hard Kae can hit using it.

Towards the end of the evening, Kaerella levelled up, rather to my surprise - and jq178 levelled up a couple of minutes later.  By the time Kae logged out, she had added, thanks to the "happy hour" and a "Dungeon time" hour, 27.65%, plus 16 skill points and, for SirFrancis, 2020 pet points.

The computer shop seems to think that a new graphics card, and probably a new power supply unit, may return the XP-running machine to fighting fitness next week.  Getting the new 7-runner to actually be useful may be more complicated...

Two Mistresses - September 3rd

It was the turn of my Cariae merchant, MistressDomina, who confusingly shares her name with my top character over on Auzura, to stay up overnight in merchant mode, selling chaos balls, item drop boosters, and runes of protection 2, plus a few lucky spell books, health stealers, strong medicine and berserker potions...and generally not selling experience boosters, runes of protection 1, and large defence pots.  She continued through the morning and well into the afternoon, as I was too busy to do anything more active, and didn't sell much more for a while, except for the occasional chaos ball - but then the remaining item drop boosters sold.  That took MD's gains up over the 600 million mark, so, I guess, it won't be too long before SirKit is fully "kitted out" in his 85/87 armour set, if there are actually some suitable pieces for sale.

The evening session was set to give double pet experience from six o'clock, so that it seemed a good idea to hop across to Auzura's more active MistressDomina, and take her out to the Auzura-5 Tomb of Theos again.  It was a pretty long session, making good use of the double pet experience - and MistressDomina's drake did just manage to level up, reaching level 44 and adding in all 4159 pet points.  MD herself is level 95 now, so just fighting unboosted didn't give her a whole lot of experience; it did add 4.14% though, along with 17 skill points.

It was quite an eventful evening.  Quite early on a level 31 healer, who I think I know better as their sorcerer character, asked to be in a party...well actually they just applied to form a party, and as I was trying to type at the time, the request got accepted.  They said they just wanted to get up to 90% of the way through level 31, which was okay with me - you are supposed to choose to become either a cleric or an archer before you reach level 32.  I really don't know if there is a penalty if you leave it until you are actually level 32, but it is possible that you may lose three or four stat points.

She hung around too long, anyway, and ended up getting into level 32, though I had told her to leave - especially as someone was bringing in a group of infected grey mummies and screamies!  Hopefully she will at least get some skill points in Prokion Temple before she tries to power-level again, she intended to become a cleric and a cleric without the proper skills could be a bit of a disaster.

For a while after that I was in a combat party with the royal knight Gluecksbaer, who still has the vivid green "LastChaos Newbie" title, for having been started within the last seven days, although he is now level 91.  He did have a slight tendency to bring a few zombies in on the people in the corridor, too.  He is in the Castle-owning guild "Elite", so he has come a long way in a short time.

There was a speed-hacking ranger-rogue around, who left after a night shadow, DARKGARDIANANGEL, challenged them.  Her attack certainly was suspiciously fast, though with a crossbow it isn't as obvious as with most weapons, as the crossbow doesn't move much when it is fired.  Dark assured me later that he had sent in a ticket about it, with a screenshot.  As I'd been active in the forum shoutbox, I'd known who it was when someone came in to report it.  Ideally a GM or GS would have come to see, but none was around at the time.

Giving people the link to the forum thread about the main current bug, which has some people failing to load the game when they click "start" on the launcher, as well as the other usual queries, was slowing down my fighting a little, but MistressDomina was never in trouble, even if her drake did lose some health a time or two.

So, there wasn't a huge amount to report today... normal service will be resumed, but not until after the weekend...

A Visit to the Temple - September 4th

Before MistressDomino, my merchant mage on Auzura, went into merchant mode on Auzura-5, I had a brief look around the shops, mainly as I'd decided to sell a few tower boxes and recovery boxes, and wasn't sure what price they sold for.  I didn't find anyone selling them, however, or even any for sale in Roy's merchant mart...but when looking through what xBLAIRWITCHx was selling, I found the level 62 mage circlet and boots at what seemed good prices:  a Hytin Circlet +14 for 100 million, and Seian Boots +12 for 80 million.  I quickly switched across to MistressBlaze to check what she was wearing, and she was, as I thought, just wearing +8 ones.  I had been tempted to upgrade those, so, given that a chaos smelting stone can cost as much as 90 million to add one plus, I swiftly switched back to MistressDomino, and bought them both.

Both items have a single socket, which is in use; the circlet has a Jade level 2, to increase mana regeneration by 20%, and the boots have an Opal level 2, to increase the magical hit rate by 2%.  And I only just noticed when checking the details now that the Seian Boots +12 have not had an extreme stone used on them, so they have now easily been moved on to +13. When MistressBlaze goes on somewhere dangerous, the extra defence will be very useful I'm sure...and then, in time, MistressSabina, my witch, will inherit the items.

After that excitement, MistressDomino settled down into merchant mode, selling a few heaven stones, mainly two at a time, and two or three each of the tower and recovery boxes, so the price I'd ended up setting must have been about right for them.  If they'd all vanished within minutes I'd have known I was being a bit over-cheap.  After an hour, all the berserker potions had gone, and quite a few health and mana stealers...so that the gold spent on the two armour pieces had been recouped.

At around a quarter to eleven, MistressDomina logged on, as I was hoping to squeeze in a "power hour" during the eleven to twelve dungeon time.  However, some Twisted guildies told me that, which the Tomb of Theos on Auzura would probably get reset in about an hour, it was currently down to 50%, which would have slowed down MD's kill rate, and meant that she took quite a lot of damage too.  Other people who'd been intending to do a bit of levelling then were unhappy about that, as well.

So I moved across to the Cariae server, where I logged my level 98 mage Keerella in - but when I reached the Tomb entrance there, it too was at 50%.  Still, Keerella's armour is better than MD's even if her weapon isn't as good, so I went in.  It didn't seem worth doing a "power hour" with the Condition like that, slowing things down, so I just fought the screaming zombies at the start, without any potions or boosters.  I got into a solo party - one other member must have been on boosters, either with the ancient grey mummies or the anubis spear men, as he had gone up from 81, I think, to level 86 by the end of the hour.

The titan Supraklr, wearing a soccer costume, ran past me, heading deeper into the Tomb, and soon joined the party, so there was a bit of general chat, not all of it concerning bloodseals.  But, once the hour was over, I logged out, as lunch was approaching.  By then Keerella had added just 0.72% and 5 skill points, plus 1047 pet points - so, still another 8.57% before she reaches level 99.

MistressDomina on Cariae tried some selling through the afternoon, but only sold a single health stealer.  For the evening. I was slightly interested in the free "Give Your Life For Iris" raffle, which means some people will win goodies just for dying.  For me that generally means a skill point farmer in Prokion Temple earning sp, then spending them on a special skill or two, after which they die a few times to get back to the start of the level.  So my level 31 rogue Memree went out on Katar-5 to the temple, and got enough skill points for the second level of advanced energy gathering, and the third level of zeta wave processing.

I was surprised how busy Prokion Temple was, but eventually I found a space in the "mirror" half.  It wasn't a long session, and Memree gained just under 14% while getting the 88 skill points she needed to get her total to 105.  Back in Randol she got the two skill levels - the next step would be to die a few times to get back to the start of level 31, but the qualifying time for the raffle doesn't start until tomorrow, I think.  Still, it was good to visit Prokion Temple, it had been a while...

The main evening session was just my level 95 mage MistressDomina fighting the screaming zombies in the Tomb of Theos on Auzura-5, where the Condition bars were now at 80%.  There were some familiar "helpers", and some new ones.  It doesn't get MD all that much experience or skill exp, but the "Turbo" event turned out to be 50% extra on both of those, and there was the 50% boost to experience gain from a "dungeon time" hour too.  Ideally MistressDomina would have done a "power hour" then, but the place gets busy in the evenings, so I doubt if a good spot would have been free.  And without a combat party with, say, Kaerella, the experience gain would tend not to be as much as, hopefully, it can revert to by the middle of next week.

By logging-out time, MistressDomina had added 3.59%, 16 skill points, and 2050 pet points.

Tomorrow I'll only be able to play in the evening, as I have my "busy day" to get through first.  That will probably mean just an hour or so somewhere before the Quiz; there may be some sort of Twisted Guild get-together, but the timing is a little vague, as someone insists on using "GMT" for it...who can tell if they really mean British Summer Time?

A Juno Wedding - September 5th

There is a slightly low-level "tiered spender" event going on this weekend, and to unlock the first tier, all you have to do is spend a single aeria point, so one thing I had to do this evening, once I was able to log on and log in, was go on to each account and purchase a 1 ap limited-level platinum blessed iris.  Then later I had to log onto each account on the website, and grab the level one tier prize - which wasn't huge, but two platinum adrenaline and one large crit potion for just one more aeria point was well worth getting.

When I was on the appropriate account, I was able to take my rogue Memree along to the ebony mine on Katar-5, so that she could quickly die a few times, and lose her 21.76% experience in her current level.  Hopefully that got her some entries in the current "Give Your Life For Iris" raffle.  The monsters in there are high enough to hit pretty hard, so it didn't take long.

When seven o'clock was approaching, MistressDomina logged on, to find out if the wedding was due for seven or eight, since the guild message wasn't clear, using "gmt" when, in fact, it did mean "bst".  So I moved across to Auzura-4, and was recalled to a charming spot close to Randol's moat, and a wooden bridge, and a waterfall... and the entrance to ebony mine was pretty near, too.

There were three gamesages present - Elfnastysfriend, though on a different character, Greengem593, and Hunniebeenikki, who performed the ceremony, even though the character on Auzura is only a level one knight.  The bride was Sterre, and the groom was Eflyy...who I think is Elfnastysfriend's knight.  The speech from Hunnie, while based loosely on a marriage ceremony, is a bit tongue-in-cheek, thankfully.  Greengem593 did mention quitting, but I don't know if that involved just one character, or being a gamesage, or playing the game.  It would be a shame to lose her, certainly.  And yes, Elfnasty himself was there.

The quiz went smoothly on Auzura-2 for Kaerella, though there was a report of a mass disconnection elsewhere.  After that, there was time for a short session with the Katar version of Kaerella, in Maargadum Jail on Katar-5.  She managed to make use of the last few minutes of dungeon time, and continued for half an hour afterwards, gaining 10.02%, 42 skill points, and 324 pet points.

There should be plenty of time for playing tomorrow, anyway...and hopefully the return of a second LC-playing computer before too long.

Back at the Double - September 6th

I didn't manage to do any playing in the morning; I had hoped to get MistressDomina to do the eleven to twelve dungeon time hour, but other things I was doing took more time than I'd expected.  My only appearance in-game was fairly brief, when Kaerella, my level 29 archer, logged in on Tairen-5 to try to help somebody who'd come into the forum shoutbox with the "still in a party" bug after a fairly recent disconnection there.  He did manage to recruit me into a party, once I'd found him, and did find himself able to join parties after kicking me again, so it seemed to work.

The two to three o'clock dungeon time hour was a different matter, though.  MistressDomina went to the Tomb of Theos on Auzura-4 in good time, joined a solo party, and took up the spot just after the spear man room, on the first bend on the corridor.  She started killing the anubis spear men right away, and when the hour began, popped the platinum adrenaline, berserker, and crit potions, followed by the experience booster and, when the current spear man was almost dead, the platinum blessed iris.

The hour went smoothly enough, with the usual solo party experience gain of 510.8 million experience per kill.  I think I only forgot to use a booster on one kill, because I was involved in the forum shoutbox, and the pbi's time ran out mere seconds before the last boosted kill was made.  46 experience boosters were used, and 38.81% experience was gained. 

As Saturday's "Turbo" event had been left running, there was still 50% extra experience and skill experience to be had, even if it didn't stack with a pbi, so MistressDomina continued with the spear men for the rest of the afternoon, unboosted.  The alternative would have been to try an hour's sp-farming with MistressSabina, but the 50% extra experience gain was enough to put me off that idea.  By the time MD logged out, her total experience gain for the session had reached 41.15%, and she'd also added 6 skill points and 2722 pet points.

For the evening, starting at six, we were promised double skill experience and double pet experience, so Keerella went to the Tomb on Cariae-4 to fight the screaming zombies, and farm a few skill points - 32 skill points in all.  She went up by 2.33%, and Greedo, her drake, added 6034 pet points.

The Tomb's starting area was generally all Kee's; it was convenient, as I could easily retreat down the corridor if I got a phone call...and I was expecting the computer repair shop to call.  They did phone to let me know that they were almost finished working on my older XP-running machine, and then called again about an hour later, as arranged, to say it was all done.  And then they drove round and delivered it, saving me having to drive down along a very bumpy and narrow service road behind their store. 

Hitching the new monitor up to the XP-runner again, plus its old mouse and an old keyboard, and plugging the USB lead from the modem in, I switched on, and...things worked.  I was able to set the screen resolution to the correct size,, Last Chaos patched perfectly and started to run...all was well.  MistressDomina, my Cariae merchant mage, even joined the solo party that Keerella was leading, for the last few minutes, before Kee returned to town, and passed some loot across, at last.  Barbarienne was able to pass the level 85 bow she used to use across to Kaerella, so that she'll be able to test out whether she kills more quickly with that, instead of a cleric's wand - and Kae also took charge of that cheap Eyes of Spirit accessory from MD, to use with the bow.

There was also some trading-about to be done on Auzura; I logged MistressDomino, my merchant there, in ready, but decided to get this entry finished before moving armour pieces to MistressBlaze, and various loot to MistressDomino.  It's a relief to have the two LC-running computers back in action side by side, and, hopefully, better than ever, thanks to the new graphics card.

Many Levels - September 7th

I did manage to get the rest of SirKit's armour set late last night, so that he is now wearing the full blue-named, five evasion sealed level 85/87 "Abyss" armour set.  The three pieces he didn't already have cost 1.63 million, so my gold reserves are once again pretty low on the Cariae server...but two pieces are the full +15, two are +14, and one is +13, so he shouldn't have much trouble in the Tomb of Theos.

Over on Katar, Kaerella moved her recent loot across to MistressSabina, who at the moment is acting as my merchant character there.  She then did her five spins of the LacaRette wheel - and got the top prize, only the second time I've managed that - fifteen gold tokens.  So, that was enough tokens for five goes on the "gold course"...which got me 25 item drop boosters, 75 (three times 25) skill point boosters, and a platinum blessed iris.  Those goodies were also moved across to MistressSabina; I'm not sure about Katar prices, but that's got to be at least 100 million's worth of items.

MistressDomino, who on Katar is a level 22 mage set up to farm skill points in Prokion Temple, with plenty of skill point boosters, platinum super skill pills, and even seven of the now almost impossible to find "platinum skill pills" or "platinum training spells", generally known as "the blue and white one", with a 50% skill exp bonus for an hour which does stack on top of the 200% extra from a pssp, also passed across most of her sales stock to MistressSabina - she had been doing the selling before, which was difficult, inventory-wise, to combine with actually playing.

MistressDomino then had a quick look at the armour available in Roy's merchant mart; she was wearing the "Dark" set already, but only at +3, or no plus at all on the Dark Tiara, so finding that QUEENofWARS was selling all five pieces at +4 for 300,000 gold each was too tempting, and she spent 1.5 million gold to buy this better set.  It increases her physical defence from 464 to 492, which may not seem like much, but ought to make fighting in Prokion Temple a bit easier for her.  There wasn't a better "event weapon" Rhine Order mage wand available than the +6 one she already has, however.

Over on Auzura-4, MistressDomina set out for the Tomb of Theos in good time for the eleven to twelve "dungeon time" hour - and, with the older computer back in action, my level 92 archer Kaerella was able to go along too, in a combat party.  The Condition of the place was a bit marginal, I saw when I checked the bars before going in - but 70% seemed do-able, particularly with Kae along to provide some healing.

One of the two places in the first anubis spear man room was open, but I went a few yards further to the bend in the corridor, since that spot works well and is less likely to tempt anyone else to compete for its pair of spear men.  MistressDomina began fighting the spear men - and Kaerella, equipping her drake rather than the polar bear cub, targeted the sphinx fighters that were just within range.  A couple of times someone came from the main room to gather up all the nearby fighters, but Kae managed to keep busy; she did have to do a little healing sometimes.

Without using any pots or boosters, Kaerella added 7.20% and 993 pet points during the session.  MistressDomina used 41 experience boosters during the hour, which shows that the Condition had slowed down her kill rate a little, and added 35.79%, taking her comfortably into level 96.  Including the few kills before, and one after, she added 36.01% experience, and 1143 pet points; they each gained 2 skill points.  And then it was time to log out for lunch.

I was back in good time to make use of the next boosted hour, from two to three - and to celebrate the return to dual-computer playing, I decided to try having both my cleric Kaerella and my royal knight SirKit on Cariae playing, as a combat party, in Cariae-4's Tomb of Theos, which, to my relief, was set to 100% easy.

They headed for the room with the ancient grey mummies, which may not give as much experience per kill as the anubis spear men, but are easier to handle.  In fact I noticed that sometimes the experience per kill was as much as the spear men gave in a solo party, so the difference wasn't too much.  When the hour of 50% extra experience gain began, SirKit started a platinum adrenaline and a large crit potion, plus a platinum blessed iris when the first ancient grey mummy was almost dead, and the first of 45 experience boosters... and Kaerella also began a "power hour", with all those and a berserker potion too, using the level 85 bow that Barbarienne had passed across.

Both Kit and Kae gained a lot more experience than I'd been expecting; Kaerella added 97.93% in all, including a kill or two before the hour, using 39 experience boosters, which was just enough to get her into level 92.  As he was, at least at the beginning, three levels lower, SirKit did even better, and those 45 experience boosters gained him 281.06%, which meant he reached level 91.  Kae's drake, SirFrancis, added 1234 pet points, and Kit's drake gained 1239; they each added 7 skill points.

Back in Randol, Kaerella was able to learn level nine of Fast Heal, for 550 skill points, bringing that skill's healing power up from 580 to 660 hp.  Level ninety's passive skill for SirKit was level seven of Two Hand Control, increasing his attack by 28 for, again, 550 skill points.  Kit has to pick and choose his skills carefully, but that one did seem worth getting.

After that there was time for MistressSabina to spend an hour in Maargadum Jail with the beast flyers, using a platinum super skill pill.  RedRackham had gone first, heading for level five to do some pet-levelling - and when he saw that level three was free, Sabina quickly followed, forming a solo party.  The hour there was pretty hectic, rather harder work that Kaerella and SirKit's outing, but it gained MistressSabina 140 skill points, 4.83% experience, and 1011 pet points.

RedRackham was able to have quite a substantial session, continuing through the food break and beyond, so that his drake got comfortably into level 40 without any problems.  As often happens on a Tuesday, my break was a lengthy one, but finally there was time to play again - so this time MistressDomina headed for the Tomb on Auzura-5, and, once she'd found that the Condition had improved to over 90%, MistressBlaze joined her there.  If the Tomb had still been a bit dodgy, Kaerella would have been in the party, to supply some healing when needed - but this seemed like a good opportunity to move MistressBlaze along a bit.

There were some familiar names at the start, and gradually MistressDomina acquired her own group of assistants, not just MistressBlaze.  MD of course didn't add much over the course of the evening, but by the time she left she was up 1.79%, 11 skill points, and 1662 pet points.  MistressBlaze, helped along by the eight to nine o'clock dungeon time hour and the Elizabeth's Enhancement buff, went up by 124.43%, and gained 1121 pet points.  As she was near the top of level 57 at the start, MB reached level 59 before the end of the session.

There were at least a couple of people who sometimes lured groups of infected grey mummies and screaming zombies onto the lower-levels in the starting corridor, so I had to be careful to have MistressBlaze run right back when any such mob approached, and keep an eye on the health of MistressDomina's drake.  But we survived.  MistressBlaze can now learn the sixth level of Freeze Arrow, which came available when she reached 58...but her skill point stash is a bit limited, so I'll need to do some advance planning before I commit 302 skill points there.  As the skill includes a "debuff", it isn't really suitable for the Tomb, anyway.

So, MistressDomina, MistressBlaze, Kaerella on Cariae, and SirKit all levelled up today, which can't be bad.

Slow Progress - September 8th

It was three weeks ago that our product manager Xuse2005 proudly announced that "New content expected within the next two weeks" - but it looks as if those wacky Korean developers were being a bit over-optimistic about their ability to produce relatively bug-free new material, as this week, under the title "a bright future", after assuring us that a variety of bug fixes are "being discussed", and a 100% fix for the Mondshine "raid disconnects" is "still in development", there is some heavy back-pedalling going on, with the announcement that "Plans for September content are being finalized and testing should begin soon!"

In the item mall, we should "expect to see some new items and a new Loot Forge this week".  Concerning the difficulties brought in by recent patches, "Problems with last week's update took a severe toll on new user ability to play Last Chaos. A new installer was created to remove all problem files. If you are having trouble playing LC, uninstalling and reinstalling may solve your problem," we are told.

The forum shoutbox was generally quiet in the morning, though there were a few people looking for a gamesage.  Georgerav did drop in briefly, but only to celebrate the third anniversary of his LC account's creation - and someone reported that skill experience in Prokion Temple seemed to have changed, after maintenance.  I took a level 28 rogue of mine out there to check, and killed an orc sergeant - 5147 skill exp seemed about right, as I wasn't in a party.  Eventually we found that the player had been using one of the five "beginner" platinum super skill pills new characters are given now, and had believed its text description of giving 200% extra skill exp, like a proper pssp, while they actually only give 150% extra.  DaGrayDragon may have a high-level main character, but presumably this was the first time he'd made a new "toon" since the beginner items were added.

As the current "season" of the Loot Forge is about to end, I finally used the 25 "ores" I'd bought to see if I could get some master stones.  I guess my results were about average, as I got three master stones - a +17 one I'll probably use, and two +23 ones that I suppose I will just sell, or try to exchange for lower ones, as they aren't really any use to me.  Six times the item broke on the first round, but usually I got a purified rune ore, a devil rune ore, or a lucky smelting stone, those seemed the most frequently-appearing items - if I didn't get a master stone (the +17 one appeared on round two, the +23 ones on rounds four and five), I kept going, rejecting runes of protection 1 and 2, heaven stones, or even chaos smelting stones, which generally seemed to be followed by a breakage on the next round.

I can see that the Loot Forge could become addictive, though I dislike that sort of "all or nothing" gambling.  I bought my ore when there was a tiered spender event on, so already had some goodies for my aeria points... I could have done with another +17 master stone or two, but generally I suppose I didn't do badly.

RedRackham had a busy morning pet-levelling, sparring with his friend the death mask lancer down on the fifth floor of Maargadum Jail.  At level 40 his current drake does get through the quality stones rather quickly, but steady progress towards the halfway point in his drake's level was made.  MistressDomino did log on to check Roy's merchant mart on Auzura; there are almost no armour pieces from the level 95/97 "Crimson Quill" mage set available, I saw, and nothing that would improve on MistressDomina's current 85/87 set either.  I didn't see a +15 weapon to replace the +14 ones that Kaerella and MrChuckNorris are using, either.

My first idea for the afternoon session was to take Keerella and SirKit, as the combat party back-up, to the Tomb of Theos on Cariae-4, but when they got to the entrance, they found that the Tomb was set on 30%, which is rather hard - too hard to try for a "power hour", as even if one didn't get killed, killing the anubis spear men would be rather slow. So, I moved across to Auzura-4, and logged MistressDomina and Kaerella in.

A couple of MD's Twisted guildies were already in the Tomb, and so both she and Kae were able to join the party, and take Recall, to get in free.  Unfortunately that meant that we hadn't had a chance to check the Condition - and it soon became obvious that things were pretty close to maximum hard, with nobody from the Castle-owning guild resetting the Tomb since maintenance. llMoonlightll, a level 98 mage, and ReCrEaTiOn, a level 92 night shadow, were in the wider, columned stretch of corridor, a little further in than I usually go. 

I intended to check out that first corridor corner after the square spear man room, and moved back that way, but it was in use - and moving around in there, Kae and MD managed to attract at least half a dozen sphinx fighters, and their health began to fall very dramatically.  Kaerella's health in fact was down to 14 before she managed to get clear, and MD's health got dangerously low too.

So, I just decided to supply the combat party boost in a relatively safe way, from a usually "dead" spot the sphinx fighters don't spawn close to.  Kaerella went there, and equipped the polar bear cub; MistressDomina decided that, if the others were going to try fighting the anubis spear men, she might at least try to keep the sphinx fighters under control.

Luckily for MD's two guildies, as 2:15 approached, UK time, somebody did actually set the Tomb to a fair amount of easiness, so things settled down.  It was too late, really, for MD to find her own spot and do a power hour, so she continued to help out - when Moonlight remembered to put up a Recall, MD would fight the current spear man until its health was below 10%, and then take the Recall to wipe out the experience she would have earned, to speed up Moonlight's experience gain...though as she was pretty hard-hitting, at level 98, that meant she ended up having to wait for the next one to respawn.  Taking sphinx fighters off the two of them when I could was probably more useful.

ReCrEaTiOn had to leave fairly promptly when the dungeon time hour ended at three o'clock; llMoonlightll stayed longer, not using experience boosters, to finish off her pots, and then joined Kae in the safe area, while MD just continued for a little longer, since, well, she was there.  In fact I should have quit when Moonlight had a disconnection, as soon after that, while MistressDomina was fighting an anubis spear man, a sphinx fighter came in from the far side of the room, made straight for Kaerella, and immediately killed her polar bear cub.

That drew the session to an end.  MistressDomina had added just 2.65%, plus 1140 pet points.  Kaerella added 3.21%, and both MD and Kae got 3 skill points; the poly had reached level 37 just before the end, and its death brought it back to 0.00% of the new level, so that it went up 25.28%.  Back in town, "unsealing" a level 37 poly costs 1,114,272 gold, I discovered.  When her hour ended, Moonlight had made a gift of a blessed iris to MD for her help; she seemed rather to expect MD to start using it, but honestly, three more hours there while the BI lasted didn't really appeal.

The Condition of the Cariae Tomb of Theos was also much improved in time for the evening session; while RedRackham got on with his pet-levelling, aided by double pet experience from six o'clock, UK time, Keerella went to the Cariae-4 Tomb, and did a little solo farming of the screaming zombies.  As usual for a Wednesday evening this had to end at 8:15 - both computers got disconnected at that point in fact, but I hurriedly got RedRackham back to his death mask lancer before transferring my attentions elsewhere - and his drake later levelled up, reaching 41 just after ten.

Keerella had the screaming zombies to herself, except for a very occasional passer-by heading deeper in.  I did wonder if she'd lose any experience or pet experience from the disconnection at the end, but when I checked later, her experience was actually 0.01 higher than when the disconnection happened, and her drake Greedo had 4 more pet points.  In all she went up by 1.61%, 15 skill points, and 4261 pet points.

So, at least RedRackham's drake levelled up today, even if none of my characters actually gained all that much experience.  MistressDomina's best bet for a "power hour" is from eleven to twelve in the morning, when there isn't too much competition for the spear man spots, and that's not a time that I can manage every day - not today, and not tomorrow either, probably.

Old Haunts Revisited - September 9th

RedRackham went out to do some pet-levelling before breakfast, and moved his drake on usefully through the first part of level 41, using quite a few quality stones.  However, last night's double pet experience hadn't been left running, as has been known to happen.

After coffee, MistressDomino went on a two-item spending spree.  "Season Two" of the Loot Forge had definitely ended, replaced by a thoroughly uninteresting chance to win, or lose, ordinary booster items etc, which means that there aren't any further master stones being won... so, having checked that there still weren't any suitable +15 weapons for Kaerella or MrChuckNorris available to replace their +14 bow and sword, I saw an archer called ZapphirA selling a master stone +17 at the relatively reasonable price of 600 million, and bought it.  Someone else had a few they were selling for 650 million, which also wasn't bad, I think, but I resisted temptation there.

Checking through Roy's merchant mart, under the "Other" category, I found a master stone +19 on page 25 being offered by xDarkHellxNS for 850 million, which also seemed good to me...luckily, I just had enough gold left to buy that one as well.  So, with the three master stones Kaerella has, I now have two +17, a +19, and two +23, with those last two definitely available to trade for other lower-level stones.

As it happened, I was able to do a "power hour" during the eleven to twelve noon dungeon time hour this morning, so MistressDomina and Kaerella logged in on Auzura-4, and managed to get into a Twisted guild combat party - and were Recalled straight into the anubis spear man room.  We moved along to the first corner of the corridor and, after getting rid of the fighters that had followed us, had a pretty productive hour.  There was one time when another guildie took one of the two spear men that MD relies on there, but he quickly apologised and moved on.

MistressDomina used 47 experience boosters during the hour, as well as the usual hour-long potions, and, adding in a kill or two before the hour and one after it, gained 39.44% experience, with her drake adding 1071 pet points.  Kaerella, without potions or boosters, concentrated on the local population of sphinx fighters, and gained 8.18% plus 947 pet points; they each added 3 skill points as well.

It was handy to have an almost full combat party of Twisted guild members, even if there was seldom more than one further member within compass-map range.  Kaerella was the lowest level member, with the highest one reaching level 99 during the hour.  I guess Kae will have to do a little power-levelling too, though it would be useful if I could get her bow up beyond +14 first.

For the two to three o'clock dungeon time hour, it seemed a good idea to try to get Keerella up to level 99, preferably in a combat party.  It's a shame she can't party with my cleric over on Cariae, Kaerella, but they are on the same account, so SirKit got volunteered instead.

I went for the "double power" set-up again, in the ancient grey mummies' main room, and things ran smoothly enough - SirKit added 102.20% from using 47 experience boosters,  or 107.82% including kills before and after the hour, getting into level 92; his drake added 1318 pet points, and reached level 37.  Keerella did reach level 99 in the first ten minutes or so, and went up by 21.81% in the hour, using 44 experience boosters, or 21.96% in all, while Greedo, her drake, added 1223 pet points.  They each gained 13 skill points. 

Back in Dratan City, SirKit had the eleventh level of Concentration to learn, for 300 skill points.  He picks and chooses which skills he learns, but this one is important, at least if he teams up with my Cariae ranger, RedRydeR, and uses it to increase her chance of Snare working.  According to the Wet Paint Wiki's calculations, Snare, with level 11 of Concentration, ought to have a 210% chance of success, which may be a slight exaggeration...

RedRackham then headed down into Maargadum Jail, to spar with the death mask lancer again.  The plan was for MistressSabina to follow, once he'd checked that floor three was clear - but it wasn't, so, while RedRackham did stay on Auzura-4 and pet-level, it was MistressBlaze who had a short session for the rest of the afternoon.  She went out to the elite sphinx speer man and his cohorts, but didn't stay all that long, just adding 7.47% experience, 12 skill points, and 237 pet points.

I took my early evening food break even earlier than usual, so that I could be back online in time to take advantage of the five to six o'clock dungeon time hour.  As Cariae's Tomb seems less busy than Auzura's, it seemed a good idea to let my level 92 cleric Kaerella team up with my level 90 rogue RedRydeR, and head for the ancient grey mummies for a double power hour.

There was a royal knight there already, JedriBosS; I did mention our combat party, but as I suspected he was farming skill points on level 103.  He had to go after a while, to do some homework he said, but stayed, afk, to one side.  While he was fighting, there were enough of the mummies for three, but if anyone else had been there it might have been a slightly tight squeeze.

We only really fought for the hour, this time; Kaerella used the bow again, just switching to her wand when the Encourage buff had to be applied, and used 47 experience boosters, gaining 78.90%.  RedRydeR was able to use the mid-level attack-increasing buff and a cheap level 61-90 platinum blessed iris for the last time, as she levelled up - twice, in fact, gaining 164.95% from 72 experience boosters, which shows how much faster she kills than Kaerella, even though, with a platinum adrenaline and the fast bow fixing buff, Kae's bow-pulling elbow was moving extremely quickly.  Red was killing more than 50% more quickly, it seems.  Kaerella's drake, SirFrancis, gained 1117 pet points, and RedRydeR's drake added 1102; Kae and Red each gained 12 skill points.

I quickly changed over to MistressDomino at six, and headed for the Randol arena on Auzura-5, to be teleported to the Dratan PvP grounds, where the "Whack-a-Fluton" event was just starting in the arena there.  The reason I went as MistressDomino, my merchant mage, is that she is level 10, which is too low for her to be killed by other players in an arena.  So, I could just fight the flutons, hitting them for 29 damage, without having to worry about some fluton sympathiser pk-ing me.  The flutons killed me a few times though!  I noticed there was no loot spawning at the end, though at least a few people got heaven stones dropped by a purple dragon.  The guild master in charge wasn't actually visible, but it was quite a fun half hour.  I didn't notice any Twisted guildies there, though DrJirri was one of the most prominent fluton fighters.

After that, RedRydeR was able to learn the fourth level of Reinforce 2, for, like SirKit's level 92 skill, 300 sp, increasing her physical attack stat by 12.  And then MistressDomina and MistressBlaze logged in, and headed for the screaming zombies at the start of the Tomb of Theos, for the usual sort of fun.  However, that was not to be a long, evening-filling session, instead word came over the guild chat that a monster combo party was being formed - and MD was invited.

So, I bade farewell to the Tomb gang.  MistressBlaze had added 33.63%, taking her halfway through level 59, along with 390 pet points.  MistressDomina's increase was a bit smaller, at 0.59%, plus 4 skill points and 643 pet points.

There was no experience to be gained at the monster combo in Dratan City - MD's guildie starmunch is the one who tends to organize the teams, and she is level 131, while for our first run we had a level 149 ranger along, KaraSwift.  xDyaboluSx was level 139, while guildies WolfDC (108), Dropkick (104), and IIGEMATRIAII (98) are all higher-level than MD.  The cleric, though, Carlien, was level 85.

As tends to happen, the leader did the first four rounds solo, fighting just a single monster per round - the niva to begin with I assume, before the wight slashers took over.  After that we all piled in, though there was a strange bug towards the end.  MD's terra spear just didn't work a couple of times, and I had the message "you are too far away"... and then I was in the same circular room, or a similar one, but alone, and everyone else wondered where I was.  We all had to use town recall scrolls to get back to the anteroom, and tried again... but someone else had the same problem, vanishing from the room everyone else was in, before at last we completed the twentieth round.  To do that round with less than eight people would have cut back the number of boxes containing master coins we'd get.

We did well, anyway, with WolfDC collecting a total of 271 master coins; my share was 33.  Half of us were in favour of doing another run after that, so starmunch, Carlien, WolfDc and I were now joined by our Twisted guild master SacSalop, a level 133 specialist sorcerer, and guildie PurpleDawn (85), plus Lyn26 (108) and another wizard, Olena (101).  Things went without any glitches this time, though the total number of coins fell to 225.  Still, 28 master coins made the effort involved more than worthwhile.  The general feeling after that was that we'd done enough, so I said goodnight and logged out.

Between the two monster combo runs, I'd had enough time to log RedRackham in and take him to Maargadum Jail for a bit more drake-levelling.  This wasn't on Auzura, though, as he is on the same account there as MistressDomina; instead, his Cariae namesake had an outing, to work on the level 41 drake he is carrying.  Another knight, Looon, was already pet-levelling on the usual death mask lancer, rather to my surprise, so RedRackham had to move further along the room, to the second lancer, and stayed in action there until the end of the evening.

It must be many, many months since I did a "proper" monster combo, not counting an extra-fast one on a minor server (as far as my characters are concerned) where a couple of my Prokion-level characters helped make up the numbers.  Back when Zenderfly would bring Keerella into a lot of mc parties, there weren't any level 149, or indeed 133, characters around, very few players who went there were over level 100, so killing the monsters took rather longer.  This time, MistressDomina was seldom able to use terra spear more than once on a wight slasher which, now, are green-named for her.

Still, it was fun to revisit old haunts, and made a good way to end a busy day.

Kaerella Gets Around - September 10th

MistressDomino went into merchant mode after breakfast on Auzura-5, since her gold reserves have taken a bit of a beating recently, but only sold four boxes and a rogue's July 4th type top hat.  She really needs to do an overnight selling stint, I decided.

MistressDomina and Kaerella went along to the Tomb of Theos in good time for the dungeon time hour.  I would have chosen the spot on the first bend after the spear man room, but someone was using that, so I backtracked to the room itself, where the level 101 titan warmaster SaMs3Ng was already busy on the far side.  When I said that MD and Kae had a 96 and 91 combat party, he registered and joined us - so the set-up was perfect.

Things got a bit complicated soon after the eleven to twelve dungeon time hour began, though.  The assassin rogue xXNikoSXx, also level 91, started off just fighting the sphinx fighters, and joined the combat party, while the level 96 titan KRISTO arrived and targeted spear men from the start, ignoring MD's requests that he should move further into the Tomb.  I wasn't going to let him into the combat party, but xXNikoSXx asked to be made leader briefly, and recruited him before returning the leadership to MD.

So, there weren't always enough anubis spear men to go around.  Kaerella, unboosted, was just killing the sphinx fighters, but MD did sometimes have to wait for a respawn, or kill a sphinx fighter while waiting.  Luckily SaMs3Ng reached level 102 before long; my opinion would be that if someone levelling up "stretches" a combat party beyond ten levels that's fine, as it started off correctly, but he decided to leave us - he probably wanted to get his level 102 skill anyway.  KRISTOS was concentrating on the spear men, while xXNikoSXx went mainly for the fighters, adding a spear man when she could.

I suppose it only subtracted one or two spear men from MD's hour, but it did make things a bit fraught.  Still, 39 experience boosters were used - and MistressDomina did manage to reach level 97, if only just.  Her total experience gain for the session was 34.30%, plus 1255 pet points, while Kaerella gained 8.90%, and 1134 pet points.  They each added 4 skill points as well.

Kaerella and MistressDomina stood in the corner for a few minutes after the hour was up, to give and receive the combat party boost, but the rogue left fairly soon, and the titan went before 12:15, UK time...so MD's total includes 0.01% from that, and Kae's includes 0.3%, while Kaerella's polar bear cub got 1.13% of the way into its new level.  Once KRISTOS had left, we logged out for the lunch break.

For the after lunch dungeon time hour, my intention was to take Kaerella and MrChuckNorris to the ancient grey mummies on Auzura-4 for a joint power hour, and I took time to browse through the accessories that Roy's merchant mart had on offer first, to try and boost Kae's talents.  In the end I spent 105 million on an accessory that gave more hit points, 10% suction of life, and 93 hit rate - it was that last seal that made it that expensive.  Kae and Chuck teamed up, and teleported to the entrance to the Tomb - but the Condition had deteriorated to 60%, which I felt would make killing rather too slow.

Luckily, there was just enough time left for me to switch across to the Cariae server, where Kaerella, who is a cleric there, teamed up with SirKit instead.  The Tomb setting was around 80%, which was a useful improvement, so Kae and Kit went in, on Cariae-4, and headed for the ancient grey mummies room.

As on the last occasion, the knight PrinceOfHell was in a corner near to a corridor entrance, being attacked by a screaming zombie.  I suppose he had started off by pet-levelling, as he didn't have a weapon equipped - though he had no shield on either.  His original zombie had died, and a new one had spawned, which probably wasn't doing him much harm, though it could have easily switched its attentions to his drake.  I killed the zombie - and I had to kill two others during the hour, as well.

I told the night shadow there, MysteryDevil, that we were both level 92 in a combat party, but I guessed he was probably sp-farming on level 103.  He confirmed that was the case.  Once I saw that he wasn't actually using boosters, Kaerella made sure to include him when she renewed the Encourage buff for herself and Kit, and indeed another knight just along one corridor, giving him its magic-type equivalent, Charm.  Kae has to switch from the bow to the wand to do that, so luckily both buffs last a full twenty minutes.

During the power hour SirKit used a crit potion and platinum adrenaline, plus a pbi and boosters, while Kaerella added a power potion and a berserker one as well.  SirKit added 70.31%, and Kaerella added 58.94%, reaching level 93 about a third of the way in.  Level 93 is a third longer than level 92, I noticed.  They each used 44 experience boosters.

Kae and SirKit continued for about 35 minutes after the pots ran out, so that by the end Kaerella had gone up by 60.16%, with her drake SirFrancis adding 1692 pet points.  SirKit had earned 71.53%, with his drake up by 1741 pet points.  They each gained 12 skill points.

Back on the Auzura server, after the food break, Kaerella checked the Condition of the Tomb of Theos again when the next dungeon time hour was approaching...and found it was back up to 80%.  So, MrChuckNorris quickly logged in and joined her there.  They formed the usual combat-type party, and headed for the ancient grey mummies room again, and luckily it wasn't crowded, there was just one night shadow there who didn't respond to the announcement that we were a level 91 plus 93 combat party, and left before long.  I guess if you are farming skill points in that area, the 50% boost to experience gain that the dungeon time hour brings, one hour in three, is not very attractive.

Chuck and Kae both used the berserker, crit, and platinum adrenaline potions, plus the pbi and experience boosters, and just stayed there for the hour.  Before it was halfway over Chuck was able to amend Kae's announcement, which had been repeated for a knight called Majorpaine who'd arrived, and say that we were a level 92 plus 94 party, as Kae had levelled up before the halfway point, and Chuck followed ten minutes later.

Kaerella ended up having earned 88.52% from 46 experience boosters, with her drake ahead by 1163 pet points, while MrChuckNorris, two level ahead, earned 45.49% from 40 boosters, with his drake getting 1167 pet points.  They each added 10 skill points.  They won't level up quite as quickly as my other main characters, as their weapons are both only +14, without the extra attack, and a bonus, for having a +15 weapon.

The evening session was advertised as having, from six o'clock UK time, 100% extra experience and skill exp for four hours, which ruled out any attempt to get MistressSabina further through her sp-farming level.  In the end I decided that Kaerella on Katar would  make the best use of any extra experience and skill exp, so she went off to Maargadum Jail on Katar-5, accompanied by ColonelScarlet, who went on down to the fifth floor to do a little levelling on his drake, a level 39 pink one which Kae may well soon inherit, swapping her current one for it.  The Colonel provided the solo party; he did get his death mask lancer killed a couple of times by CZKNIgHT, but he soon gave up when he discovered that the Colonel wasn't afk.

Kaerella concentrated on the two-headed canines, plus dire spike canines, beast scythes, and spike canines, and kept busy through the rest of evening.  The actual "happy hour" boost turned out to be just 50% extra experience and skill exp, but added on to the Elizabeth's Enhancement buff that meant that the two-headed canines gave 2750 skill exp each.  By the end of the evening, Kaerella had added 38.94%, plus 168 skill points and 1175 pet points; her drake had managed to reach level 28.  So, while Kaerella on Auzura had reached level 92 today, and Kaerella on Cariae had reached 93, Kaerella on the Katar server hadn't done too badly either, even if she's not yet quite two-thirds of the way through level 43.  She's not quite ready to use a pbi and experience boosters yet...

Mainly Cariae - September 11th

MistressDomino spent the night in merchant mode, though her sales were less than spectacular; prices do seem to have fallen quite a bit on Auzura in the last few weeks.  Her supply of skill point boosters sold, plus her recovery boxes and some tower boxes, health stealers, and mana stealers.  Luckily her item drop boosters were finally snapped up while I was having breakfast, which made the total a bit more respectable.  Ten chaos balls also sold before coffee.

The "Exchequer's Budget Box" offers for the weekend were largely unremarkable, featuring a "spin to win" raffle for people using the Loot Wheel...the poor Loot Forge has never had any promotion like that at all, and is definitely the poor relation at the moment.  A 50% rebate deal on all premium packages is also promised for Sunday, but I don't think there is anything particularly tempting for me there.

Before the eleven to twelve dungeon time hour there was time for MistressDomino to look round the merchants, and the prices of the remaining master stones on Auzura was certainly going up; yesterday I had a look round on the Cariae server and they were already too high for me there.  Perhaps because there doesn't seem to be a way to refine one's search of Roy's merchant mart's "Other" category to bring up the master stones there, I found one more +17 one being sold by StoMe for 750 million, 100 million cheaper than his only competition - and thanks to the overnight and morning sales, I could just afford it.  That meant that, later in the day, I was able to send in my request for master stones to be applied to Kaerella's +14 bow.  Hopefully the requests are settling down now, and the wait for a GM to apply the stones won't be too long.

MistressDomina asked her Twisted guildies what the Tomb setting was like, and the reply was "bad" - the Dratan castle-owning guild hadn't reset it.  I went out to check, and indeed it was down to 50%, which would have made progress there a bit slow and perhaps even a bit dangerous, so I switched across to Cariae, and found a relatively friendly 65% there.

So, my cleric Kaerella and my phoenix ranger RedRydeR headed for the ancient grey mummies again, and found their main room free - except for PrinceOfHell in his corner, actually pet-levelling on the screaming zombie this time.  We only got there a couple of minutes early, and didn't stay after the hour ended, since lunch was fast approaching by then.  Kaerella got pretty close to the top of level 93, adding 58.37% while using 47 experience boosters, while RedRydeR did level up to 93, adding 83.72% from 57 boosters.  They each earned 11 skill points; Kae's drake gained 1109 pet points, while Red's gained 30 more than that.

The Auzura Tomb hadn't been reset when I checked after lunch; it was down to 30%, and, when I checked a few minutes later before my character there logged out, it had slipped further to 20%.  Luckily the Cariae Tomb of Theos was still in reasonable Condition - so it seemed high time that Barbarienne and Keerella teamed up again, since Kee is once again only ten levels behind.

The corner beyond the square, or perhaps rectangular, anubis spear man room was occupied again, so I had to settle for the room itself.  XmUffinMulEX was busy over on the far side, power-levelling someone - which left the two spear men on the near side for Barbarienne, while Keerella kept busy, as usual, on the sphinx fighters.  The only slight fly in the ointment was a titan called BRA1N (with a drake called P1NKY of course), who'd been afk over on the far side, and returned to action for part of the hour, grabbing some of the spear men, instead of leaving then to Muffin and me.  At one stage he went afk in the fighting area, and Keerella had to twice take sphinx fighters off him - I rather hoped he was having a disconnection, but that was not the case.

So, Barbarienne did have a few times when she had to wait a few seconds, or just fight a sphinx fighter while she waited.  With her level 109 bow, she kills rather quickly now, so, apart from the platinum blessed iris, I only triggered a platinum adrenaline, since adding a crit or a berserker potion seemed like overkill.  Despite the minor setbacks, Barb went up by 22.30% in the hour, plus a kill or two before and after, using 50 experience boosters.  Keerella just added 1.41%.  Barbarienne's drake added 1212 pet points, and Keerella's added 1123; they each gained 7 skill points.

There was time before the early evening food break for MistressSabina to make the trip out to Maargadum Jail on Auzura-4, accompanied by RedRackham, and for a change she found the third floor's central section available.  A knight with a number rather than a name did turn up very soon after, but mainly killed the beast archers, and didn't stay long - he probably got a disconnection.  I probably should have got a screenshot of him in action, as it seems that he may well have been using a "speed hack", but with Sabina's platinum super skill pill running, I was rather concentrating on getting full value from it.  He asked me if I used "super attack", which I now assume is the name of a hack.

By the end of the hour, MistressSabina had gone up by 4.55%, and earned 135 skill points, as well as 1017 pet point for her drake.  RedRackham had had to fight a death mask soldier before taking up his usual spot, but the horse buffs Sabina had applied in Merac Village lasted just long enough to speed up the fight a bit.  The soldier actually dropped a heaven stone for him - though this stroke of luck was slightly eclipsed when, after the hour was up, MistressSabina did five spins of the LacaRette wheel, and got five heaven stones, not once but twice!

With the Auzura Tomb just about on maximum hard, Cariae was again my destination, for the evening session, as soon as Katar's Kaerella and ColonelScarlet had exchanged drakes.  This meant that Kae there now has a level 39 drake...and ColonelScarlet is working to level up the level 28 one.

ColonelScarlet was able to spend the evening down sparring with the death mask lancer on floor five of Maargadum Jail, as Keerella on Cariae does her best skill point farming solo.  Once she was in the Tomb on Cariae-4, she joined a solo party, and set to work killing screaming zombies.

Before long I was asked by an archer, Xx1995xX, if she could ks, and agreed - I also had a ranger for a little while "helping" me too.  Cariae-4's Tomb was fairly quiet, at least compared to subserver 5; there were a few other people about, later on, but generally there was no difficulty getting enough targets.

The solo party I was in grew and then shrank, with most of its members in the Tomb.  Finally, as my usual logging-out time approached, only Kee and the leader, the level 90 witch DOFsBest, remained.  She was down with the anubis spear men, with her health bar dipping alarmingly sometimes, and she invited me down to join her, in a combat party, reckoning the two of us would kill four times as fast.  So, I left Xx1995xXr, if only a few minutes earlier than I would otherwise, and ran back down to the spear man room.  We teamed up fighting the anubis spear men - as the dungeon time hour had finished by then, we had the room to ourselves, but had absolutely no problem with a lack of respawns.  I suppose Kee not using expensive pots may have had something to do with it, but even using terra spear a lot more than usual, the killing seemed a bit slow.

Still, we killed quite a few spear men over about an hour, before our session ended.  DOFsBest is a member of the DisciplesOfFoamy guild, and was saying that it had lost a lot of members.  People do move on, and Cariae is not the busiest of servers now. 

The evening's "Turbo" event had just been 50% extra experience, which rose to 100% extra during the eight to nine o'clock dungeon time hour, and 50% extra skill exp. Keerella's total experience gain for the evening was 3.09%, but 24 skill points were also gained - and 3813 pet points.  ColonelScarlet had kept pet-levelling throughout the session, though fairly soon after Kee logged out, he got a disconnection, and it didn't seem worth him returning to action just for half an hour or so.

Mainly Auzura - September 12th

After moving some loot around to make a bit of room in various inventories, Barbarienne and Keerella headed for the Tomb of Theos on Cariae-4, in good time for the eleven to twelve o'clock dungeon time - only to find that the Condition there had deteriorated to the 40% mark, which, while unlikely to pose too great a problem for Barb and Kee with their armour ratings, would have slowed down their experience gain.  And there was always the chance that the figure would have slumped further before the hour was up.

So, MistressDomina logged on over on Auzura-4 instead and, once her Twisted guildies had assured her that the Tomb was looking good today, was joined by my archer Kaerella.  They made the usual combat party, and sure enough, found the Tomb's condition on their server to be at 90%...so, in they went.

MistressDomina and Kaerella got to the anubis spear men with about five minutes to spare.  The main room was in use, but the first corner of the corridor after that, my preferred spot, was free - so that's where we settled.  As usual MD took the two spear men, and Kaerella just kept busy on the local sphinx fighters, so that the hour passed in a suitably smooth way.  One player, mrsme, did take one of the two spear men once, but did move further on when requested.

By the end of the hour, MistressDomina had added 32.43%, with her drake gaining 1098 pet points, from the use of 46 experience boosters.  Kaerella had earned 5.44%, with 1013 pet points for SirFrancis, and they'd each added 3 skill points.

After lunch, I did check the Cariae Tomb again, and it was right down to around 10% - abandon hope, all ye who enter!  So, I did a repeat engagement for MistressDomina and Kaerella, in the same spot in the Tomb on Auzura-4, which was now on around 80%.  I had no interruptions at all at my favourite corner during the two to three o'clock dungeon time hour, which meant that MistressDomina was able to add another 30.82% experience, using 43 experience boosters on the anubis spear men, while Kaerella earned 4.96% from killing the sphinx fighters.  They each got another 3 skill points; MD's drake got 1108 pet points, and Kae's got 1052.

That left time for MistressSabina and RedRackham to go to Maargadum Jail before the early evening food break, where the beast flyers on floor three were available - Red went on down to floor five, and his death mask lancer sparring partner, and got back to doing some pet-levelling with his level 41 drake.  He provided the solo party for Sabina, who quickly began a platinum super skill pill, and fought flat out for the next hour.  This gained her 4.85%, 140 skill points, and 1016 pet points; those hours are much harder work than the Tomb ones, but we are making progress, with her sp stash now at the 12.5k mark.

RedRackham kept on with his pet-levelling through the food break, moving the drake on to 60% of the way through its level.  He then logged out, so that a little trading could be done - and MistressSabina could be handed a +10% suction of life accessory, which ought to make her future battles a little easier.  Curiously, one of MistressDomina's Twisted guildies had been looking for a good accessory, and found one almost identical to the one I bought recently, with 10% suction of life and 93 hit rate, at the same price; I think the two had been listed next to each other in Roy's merchant mart, but as the first buyer, I got the one with 58 hit points too.

MistressDomina and MistressBlaze went to the Tomb on Auzura-5 for a while, next, which was as hectic as usual.  I couldn't stay very long - but MistressDomina added 0.54% and 5 skill points, plus 675 pet points, while MistressBlaze, despite having a "send error report?" crash early on, added 35.57% and 430 pet points.

The reason I had to leave early was that the Twisted guild were having a Guild War, against the eROrr guild, so MistressDomina hopped across to Auzura-4, and headed for Randol's north gate.  I think there were more eROrr people there than Twisted people, but generally we were higher in level - in the party I was in, I was the baby of the team, with our guild master the level 134 specialist sorcerer SacSalop in the lead, plus Dropkick on 104, spazz on 107, Ridlick on 105, and TaterTot on 114.  Our gamesage guildie Elfnastysfriend was there too; I would have done better to be in our other party, as they had a healer.  Without one, I got through more than thirty large health potions.

I died twice, I think a night shadow was involved each time, but I was certainly involved in quite a few of the kills we made.  Most of the time we were outside the town gate, and they were inside, making occasional forays.  The score was far from even, over the thirty minutes a Guild War lasts - when I took a screenshot after 20 minutes, the score was already 187 to 32 in our favour.  I  got attacked a few times, but my terra spear, and chaos nova, were generally put to good use.

Anyway, it was fun, despite attacks from invisible rogues and others, and I managed not to accidentally use any expensive resurrection scrolls.  There is no death penalty or experience in such conditions; our guild did win a sum of gold that had been staked on the outcome, which is the way a Guild War works.

There wasn't time to do anything after that except prepare for the Sunday Quiz.  Kaerella and MistressDomino went to the quiz room on Auzura-2 as usual, and I noticed some Twisted people there too.  Ratel was there, along with Liezl and Argoth, and despite some lag got through to the end safely.  He was relieved to be back online rather earlier than he had been told.  The questions were our familiar ones, with some repeated, even.  As usual there were some people using an exploit to be able to stand on the wrong side and not get kicked - somebody was a bit blatant, with "LastChaos Newbie" healers dotted across the "O" side - jjxjxj, ehiyhih, ahishghd, rdhfd, eafjsenn, and more.  The "X" side, as well as a fairly high-level archer in the DsTrucTorS guild called mistica, had a healer who didn't have a name over her head, though clicking on her revealed she was called sdsfdf...

Anyway, Kaerella and MistressDomino got their prizes safely.  It was lucky we weren't on the Tairen server, as they had a disconnection, though I'm not quite sure if it was server-wide, or just on Tairen-5.  A "forest of death" mini-event was announced for straight afterwards, with dark treants, and probably flutons, spawned in the arena on each subserver 5, but I spent the last part of the evening back in Maargadum Jail...as well as keeping an eye on the forum shoutbox.

This Maargadum jail was on Katar-5, but still involved a team-up with my pet-leveller.  ColonelScarlet went down to the fifth floor to work on the level 28 drake he has now, while my level 43 archer Kaerella fought the canines on the second floor.  A level 28 rogue, BuNnYgAl, somehow managed to get down to the second floor, and was rather envious of Kae's +15 bow, which is only level 33, but I had to say that it is not for sale or hire.  I did let her into the party to give her a bit of experience, but after a few minutes she took off her armour, and ran into the main pack of canines - which is one way to leave, I suppose.

ColonelScarlet continued pet-levelling until the end of the evening, and got his drake into level 29 just before he logged out.

Mid-Level Mad Monsters - September 13th

The Tomb of Theos on the Cariae server was at 30%, when Barbarienne checked it out after coffee, so I switched over to Auzura, where MistressDomina was told that it was currently on 50%, by one of her Twisted guildies, which was a bit low for trying a "power hour" during the eleven to twelve dungeon time.  However, it seemed worth checking it myself, so MD went out to the entrance, and found it had moved to 70%, which seemed do-able.  So, Kaerella logged in to join her and, once they had formed their combat party, they went in to the Auzura-4 Tomb.

One thing I forgot to do was give them the attack and defence "horse buffs" before entering, which was almost a costly mistake.  Kaerella followed MistressDomina on her run to the anubis spear men, and when they reached that first corner in the corridor after the spear man room, they both fought a couple of sphinx fighters which had followed - and I suddenly noticed that Kae's health was down to about 200.  So, she did a lot of Self Heal while MD fought the fighters, and got her health back to a safe level before joining in.

As usual there, MistressDomina fought the two anubis spear men that spawn close to that corner, and Kaerella mopped up the local sphinx fighters.  I checked afterwards, and the Condition had fallen to 60% - I think it must have done that almost as soon as I went in, as Kae did seem to do rather more healing, both of herself and MD, than usual.  MistressDomina's Terra Spear skill soon hit for a bit less damage, too, and using only 38 experience boosters, for 38 spear man kills, shows that it was slow going.  MD added just 27.16% from those kills, and her share from Kae's sphinx fighter kills - adding a kill or two before, and one after, brought the session's total to 27.35%, while Kaerella earned 4.47%. They each got 3 skill points; MD's drake gained 1179 pet points, while Kae's managed 1085, cut back a bit by the time she spent healing.

There were some Twisted guildies quite near by, and I think a bit of power-levelling going on; they may well have been attracted by my announcement that the first spear man room was not in use, when I arrived.

The two to three o'clock dungeon time hour was a bit similar - but this time, when I checked, the Tomb of Theos on Cariae-4 was up to a positively luxurious 80%, so instead of a mage backed up by an archer, at the first corner of the corridor after the anubis spear men room I had an archer backed up by a mage - Barbarienne and Keerella.  As the place had only been reset relatively recently, there weren't many other people around, which helps to keep things simple.  Barbarienne used 54 experience boosters, which shows the benefits of a level 109 weapon, allowing her to kill comparatively quickly, and, aside from the platinum blessed iris, just a platinum adrenaline potion to speed up her attack.  By the end of the hour she'd added 23.79%; Keerella, keeping busy on the sphinx fighters, had earned 1.53%.  Barb's drake was up by 1272 pet points, with Kee's drake on 1214, and they'd each added 7 skill points, since they are closer to the spear men's level than MD and Kae are.

Then it was time to see if MistressSabina, my level 46 witch, could have another hectic pssp hour on the third floor of Maargadum Jail on Auzura-4, in a solo party with RedRackham, in his usual spot on floor five there.  The 10% suction of life necklace certainly did make things easier for Sabina; she didn't use any health pots, though she did occasionally use her witchy skill to steal a little health from a foe.  4.87% experience was gained, and, with her experience gain semi-frozen, some further guild points were earned for Discipline; her drake added 1024 pet points, and she earned 141 skill points.

RedRackham continued through a rather lengthy early evening break, getting the drake to three-quarters of the way through level 41.  His supply of quality stones is certainly starting to dwindle.

The "New Mad Monster Spawn for levels 46-90" was scheduled to start with Auzura at six o'clock - My nearest to that range was my rogue Rage, on 92, really, and she arrived out near the new deserted, waterlogged village in south-west Juno a couple of minutes after the start time, to find just a few people waiting around.  I commented on the lack of activity there in the forum shoutbox, and luckily irene_tas was there, and able to pass on a reminder to the GMs, so that, at a quarter past, an announcement was made that the event would start in five minutes.  [GM]Darasuum turned up soon afterwards, apologising for being late.

Rage may have been two levels over-qualified, but that didn't stop her getting killed when a whole lot of skin walkers and endemic demons, and probably some boucu demons, took after her - I'd forgotten that they were protective of each other, and the skin walkers' skill, reducing the speed at which Rage could run, meant that she couldn't get to safety.  One of Juno's new "invisible walls" on a slight slope didn't help, either. So, that was a bit expensive...while I do have a supply of resurrection scrolls, their market price is around ten million each. 

The battle was still going on when Rage rode back from town.  On my screen at least, Rage was now coloured red, a side-effect of the demons' attacks.  I at least managed not to get killed again, and helped mop up the skin walkers, which were now scattered...I even got the credit for one solo kill, counting towards an Egeha quest that Rage has to kill ten of them.

[GM]Darasuum then announced that it was loot time - but, instead of the usual spawnings of hands of bravery, hands of protection, and hands of the guard, which cannot be picked up for perhaps half a minute, allowing everyone to gather round and pick stuff up, he just dropped some oddments - I was lucky to get a couple of small defence pots, and two experience boosters, but most people got nothing.  The GM then vanished without a word, leaving people standing around lost, hoping for some "proper" loot.  One or two relatively high-level people took pity and dropped a few things, I think I got four or five tool aids...

But by then seven o'clock was approaching - which was Katar's turn for this mid-level MMS.  This event did at least start on time; as I could only take my level 43 archer Kaerella on Katar, I had to be careful - I forgot that death mask lancers were protective of each other, so had a mob of those chasing me briefly, but other people soon helped me out.  There were quite a few higher-level monsters spawned again, including perhaps a dozen Kamiras, who dropped there usual bits and pieces; I was able to pick up some medals of honour,  5 moonstones, 5 lucky scrolls, some medium mana potions, and a crystal of experience (greater).  [GM]Darasuum was in charge again, but didn't actually appear, so I'm not sure if he did spawn some loot in a similar way to the previous server...I didn't get any, for sure.  Luckily a high-level mage, EpicHellMage, was generous enough to drop quite a few things, so Kae was among those chasing her around...and got an experience booster, a master coin, three large defence pots, level three magical attack & defence minerals, a pair of level 87 boots, and a necklace of thunder - it didn't have any hit rate or suction of life, but 30 crit and 8 physical fortitude, plus some attack, ought to make it useful for one of my lower characters.

Keerella went along to the Cariae event at eight - and boy was I glad she had her +15 armour set, when I got a whole bunch of Kamiras on me, plus barren eises and blood terrains.  Sadly I had to retreat a bit, and probably left the loot from a number of Kamiras for other people to pick up, but I did a single Kamira's worth of moonstones, lucky scrolls, tool aids, and so on, as well as four of the crystals of experience (greater).  The level 102 titan ArchSentinel mentioned that he'd got a rare Tears of Knight accessory from one, so he certainly got lucky.

There seemed more monsters this time, even before [GM]Darasuum added a final wave.  An endemic demon dropped a level 72 helm for me - and this time, when the GM mentioned that the loot was about to appear, I knew enough to be right beside him with my finger on the "pick" button, so I managed to get two item drop boosters, two HP stealers, and two item drop boosters - plus three small mana recovery potions.

It seems my rogues are unlucky.  I took my level 39 rogue RedRyder along to the Sarissa event, and she too got killed - so she's without any resurrection scrolls now, until a cheap pack of them comes along, as she's too high for one of the remaining "beginner" ones to be started.  I don't have any idea what killed me, I seemed to be a safe distance from the high-level Egeha stuff, but these things happen.  [GM]JediMike was in charge this time, and gave us more waves, I think - there were still a whole bundle of Kamiras, and the skin walkers, boucu demons, endemic demons, scorpionmantises, zamoras, wights, and so on.

Finally, we were instructed to go to the statue - and, again, just a few items appeared, of which I was able to grab two of the small defence pots, two item drop boosters, and two experience boosters.  For some reason these things seem to be spawned in pairs, rather than singly.  And if Darasuum had been in charge, that would have been it - but we got the "Thanks to those who participated in MMS ... until next time!" GM message, and, more importantly, Mike's patented nice, generous spawnings of our favourite hands.  RedRyder was able to grab a good number of item drop boosters, skill point boosters, and large attack and defence pots, as was everyone else - so everyone left happy.

RedRackham had kept going with his pet-levelling all evening - by the time he logs out, his drake should be pretty close to level 42.

More Levels, and a Better Bow - September 14th

RedRackham did in fact get his drake into level 42 before he logged off last night.  It looks like time to see which of my characters needs to have a higher-level pet to follow them around.

There was time for some moving of loot around this morning - and I was also able to trade some skill point restoration scrolls across to RedRyder on Sarissa, as my merchant character there had got some, so that she is now protected against losing skill points if she gets killed.  These scrolls are cheaper than the full resurrection scrolls, and mean she would lose a couple of percent of experience - but at least her stash of skill points will be relatively safe.

The Cariae Tomb of Theos was down to 40% on its Condition chart after coffee, but over on Auzura things were relatively comfortable, at 80%, so MistressDomina and Kaerella headed for that corner of the corridor with its two anubis spear men for MD, and a supply of sphinx fighters for Kae.  I got the impression that the Condition did actually improve during the dungeon time hour, as the damage MD's terra spear skill did go up to about its maximum - though reaching level 98 must have helped, since that meant I could put three more stat points into intelligence.

MistressDomina used 41 experience boosters while the platinum blessed iris lasted, alongside the berserker, crit and platinum adrenaline potions, and they moved her up by 22.92% - the majority of that in her new level, 98.  Her total experience gain, including a few preliminary kills before the hour started, was 27.07%, plus 3 skill points and 1212 pet points, while Kaerella earned 4.92%, 4 skill points, and 1166 pet points.

After lunch, the Tomb on Cariae had sunk to a deadly 10%, while Auzura was on a luxurious 90% - so there are no prizes for guessing that Barbarienne didn't get a chance to fight the anubis spear men on her server.  Instead, it was my Auzuran +14 weapon-equipped pair, Kaerella and MrChuckNorris, who headed for the Tomb of Theos, for one of my "double header" power hours.  Power-levelling two characters at once would be almost impossible with the anubis spear men, particularly with a melee fighter like Chuck involved, one would spend too much time having to fight the sphinx fighters even if the spear man room was entirely clear of other players - instead it really does have to be the ancient grey mummies. They may give slightly less experience, but at least they die a bit faster.

There was already a mage there when I arrived, on level 103 presumably farming skill points, and assisted by a rogue; the mage did sometimes gather up four or more mummies to deal with, but was careful to leave Chuck his next target.  To avoid any shortage of mummies, Kaerella tended to aim for ones at the start of the corridor, so everything went smoothly.  The room is nice and safe, since there are only mummies there, passive and non-protective of each other, except just by the corridor, where a screaming zombie, and just beyond it an ancient screaming zombie or two, can be seen.

Kae and Chuck started a few minutes before the hour, and then began their platinum blessed irises and various potions when the dungeon time bonus was announced.  Chuck gave Kae the two buffs, for attack and hit rate, and gave himself the attack buff, and re-applied them every twenty minutes.  In total Kaerella used 53 experience boosters, and went up by 72.31%, taking her well into level 93; MrChuckNorris used 5 less, and went up by 47.48% in level 94.  Kaerella's drake, SirFrancis, added 1312 pet points, and Chuck's drake added 1361, which were enough to get it into level 39.  Both Chuck and Kae added 13 skill points.

That took care of the first half of the afternoon; once again the third level of Maargadum Jail was free when MistressSabina got there, partied with RedRackham, at about 3:15, UK time.  Red gave Sabina the divine shield buff, and hurried down to the fifth floor, for a pet-levelling session, and then Sabina began her hour of skill point farming, with a pssp.  By the end, she'd gained 4.93%, 143 skill points, and for her drake 1005 pet points.

Chuck hadn't yet learned his level 94 skill, so, back in Randol after the break, he spent 408 skill points on the sixth and final level of Focus Mastery 2, "increase attack hit permanently" - what it actually did was increase his hit rate by 70, almost 10%, which has to be useful.  Next up, at level 96, comes a boost of 180 to his health, currently 6000.  Curiously, Kaerella doesn't get a new skill at 94, she'll have to wait for level 96, when the fourth levels of both Deadly Shot 2 (450 sp) and Vital Spot Blow 2 (500 sp) come up, to increase her chance of making deadly and critical hits.

Kaerella on Katar, my level 43 archer, headed out to Maargadum Jail just before six o'clock, for the last few minutes of the dungeon time hour, with its 50% experience bonus... and then, a couple of minutes after it ended, the 100% extra experience "Happy Hour" began.  Curiously, the total experience per kill seemed the same - the dungeon time extra multiplies the basic figure, so that double, from the Elizabeth's Enhancement buff, becomes treble, while the happy hour boost just adds on...I think...

So, Kaerella busily killed the canines and the beast scythes on Katar-5, while RedRackham continued his pet-levelling on Auzura-4.  And then, at seven minutes past seven, I had a whispered message from [GM]Awesome, to say that it was Kaerella's turn to have her master stones applied, and for that, I needed to log out so that she could log in, on the same account but over on Auzura.  Checking my email, the confirmation was timed at just one minute later.  "Congratulations and thanks for using our Loot Forge! With our infusion power we have upgraded your weapon to your desire. A combination of potions and crystals has allowed us to upgrade your item, although we had difficulty adding the spiders into the mix for upgrading. Go forth and smite those who ever thought to question your glorious might! None can stand against you!!  Well expect (sic) for a bunch of Flutons but what are the chances of that happening... WOOT!  Feel free to contact us if any issues arise once again."

I left it for a few minutes before logging in again, and found that Kaerella on Auzura was now indeed the owner of a Soulful Rainbow Bow +18, with an attack power of 409 + 866, +75, taking her physical offence stat up to 2152.  The attack power when it was +14 was 409 + 574, while a +15 one would give 409 + 640 +75, so Kae's bow is now pretty powerful.

Kaerella on Katar's session, therefore, ended with her on an 18.64% experience gain (after 0.23% from yesterday's MMS), plus 70 more skill points (after 1 yesterday) and 594 pet points.  RedRackham was almost a quarter of the way into his drake's 42nd level by then - but he too had to log out, to allow MistressDomina to get back online.

MistressDomina was able to spend 1000 skill points, and 2.5 million gold, on level six of Chaos Nova, taking its "power" from 560 to 600.  This final level also decreases the amount by which the target's attack is temporarily enhanced from 70% to 65%.

Once that was sorted out, MistressDomina and MistressBlaze headed for the Tomb of Theos on Auzura-5, and its screaming zombies, and joined in the general fighting at the start.  As usual MD did much luring, and did her best to distract any zombies that were chasing lower level people.  MistressDomina only added 1.71%, plus 8 skill points and 1112 pet points, but MistressBlaze added 59.25%, and 786 pet points.  She reached level 60, and so got the freebie +5 set of armour and weapons; I had made sure that there was plenty of space for its arrival.

[GM]Darasuum was in the forum shoutbox at one stage, and someone asked him about the absence of loot at yesterday's Mad Monster Spawns that he hosted.  I entered the conversation, regretting the lack of a general loot distribution, compared with what [GM]JediMike managed, to which his response was "I'll hunt you down Kaerella."  "Well, hunt down JediMike, if he shouldn't have given us Hands... but he does love seeing us scramble to pick up the loot", I responded.  More seriously, the GM did say that "We had an issue with the prize handing out, so he just used the old style.  He learned from my horrible experience."

I added that "Hands are a lot fairer than just a few item-drops, the time it takes for the hands-loot to become pick-up-able means everyone gets a chance to grab stuff.  He also remembered the official 'Thanks for coming out, the event is now over', announcement, which always tells people that the thing is over."  I hope the message got through, that otherwise people stand around expecting more stuff to happen, and end up drifting away feeling that things are unfinished.

So, a varied and productive day, with levellings-up, upgradings, chats with GMs, and more.  And tomorrow we'll see what the overnight maintenance and new weekly patch brings us. There is a 100% rebate offer on ten spins of the loot wheel per character to get sorted out too - I've done a little preparation, in trying to make sure that I have ten Records slots free per account, but the spinning itself must wait until the morning.

Chuck, Kae, and SirFrancis - September 15th

While the new week's patch this morning seemed reasonably substantial, the patch notes were generally disappointing, being something of a "copy and paste" job from last week's post.  So, the 100% fix for Raid disconnects is still "in development", and "Plans for September content are being finalized and testing should begin soon" - exactly what we were told a week ago.

Some exploits with the high-level Raid system are being investigated, we are assured.  The Tairen-specific bug where the 24-hour platinum refining stones tended to last indefinitely, particularly if they were started soon before a maintenance, is now fixed.  That was a bug that people rather enjoyed, of course, until the time came to trade or sell the items, at which point a GM had to be called in to restore the items to their original condition.  We are told to expect the return of "unbreak hammers" soon, rather expensive items which can restore an item that you break with a failed upgrade attempt; we can also "expect to see an all-new Loot Wheel this week".

Probably the most interesting announcement was "server 6 on ALL server groups is now a Newbie server! Players are encouraged to visit this new server and help reduce the congestion problems on Server 5!"  That means that Elizabeth will now give players her Elizabeth's Enhancement on 6 as well as 5, but it didn't mention if subserver 6 still had PvP enabled.  The word is that it is in fact moved over to the non-PvP type, making three subservers of each per server.

Talking of the Loot Wheel, the 100% rebate on a ten-spin go, per account, was active today, so I took full advantage...and for the first time ever, as well as plenty of strong medicine, berserker potions, and platinum pet experience pills, I actually got a polar bear collar, which I sent to the Cariae server, since I already have one of the cute little polar bear cubs on Auzura.

As usual after a maintenance recently, there were people in the forum shoutbox who couldn't get Last Chaos to start after the latest patch, but to my relief the game started up safely for me.  People who had a problem needed to use the "run as administrator" option apparently, but for that you do need to know a computer's password.  Or a couple of hidden batch files had to be activated.

I managed to get online to move some loot wheel prizes around - and got the polar bear collar to my cleric Kaerella on Cariae, who went to Lorraine and to the animal trainer in Randol, and got herself the pet poly, which looked exactly as cute as the one over on Auzura.

There wasn't the opportunity to play before lunch, but I was able to get online just in time for the two to three o'clock dungeon time hour.  The Tomb of Theos on Cariae was still only on 50%, for Condition, but Auzura was on 90%, so MistressDomina and Kaerella were able to head for the anubis spear men, and, with their first room in use, take up their favourite spot on the corridor's first corner.

MistressDomina fought the spear men there, and used the usual potions once the dungeon time hour began - in fact she only gained 0.02% experience before that.  Kaerella as usual concentrated on the sphinx fighters, though with her newly-enhanced bow was killing them rather more quickly than before, and sometimes had to move a little out of position to find a new target.  By the time the hour ended, MistressDomina had added 29.43% in level 98, using 46 experience boosters, and gained 1039 pet points; Kaerella had earned 4.76%, with 975 pet points, and they'd each gained 4 skill points.

Then it was time to swiftly change over to MistressSabina and RedRackham, for a trip to Maargadum Jail on the same server.  Luckily once again the third floor spot was free, so Red left Sabina there, with the divine shield buff, and went on down to the fifth floor for his pet-levelling.  MistressSabina then popped her platinum super skill pill - it was actually the last one she had in her inventory, though thanks to the Loot Wheel MistressDomino have some more in stock now.  Over the hour she added 4.88% and 142 skill points, plus 981 pet points.

My food break was a rather rushed one, which meant that I was able to get back into the Tomb of Theos on Auzura-4, now completely reset to 100% easy, just before the start of the five to six o'clock dungeon time hour.  This time the plan was to do another double header in the ancient grey mummies' room, so Kaerella took the lead, with MrChuckNorris on the older computer.  They both began assorted potions when the start of the hour was announced - Chuck, his weapon unchanged since his last visit, used 48 experience boosters and added 45.87%, reaching level 95, and gaining 1162 pet points, while Kaerella, killing more swiftly now, used up 64 experience boosters, and earned 72.62%, getting her into level 94, plus 1152 pet points - which got her drake, SirFrancis, into level 40.

I generally had the room to myself; there was someone close by in the corridor, but the rogue who was there when I arrived seemed to have connection problems, and soon vanished.  It does get a bit hectic with two characters fighting flat-out like that, especially when they happen to finish their kills at the same moment, but generally things went well.  I don't think Chuck ever lost any great amount of health; as Kae hits harder now, her suction of life did better, but she still did need to do some occasional self-healing, or sometimes used a small health potion.

At six Auzura's "whack-a-fluton" event was starting at the proving grounds in Dratan, so I was a little late getting there.  I took a level six mage, Hazel, along, since getting killed by other players when you're fighting monsters is annoying, and below level 16 you don't get involved in PvP mode.  She didn't hit the flutons, anubis archers, or blue dragons very hard, missing most of the time, but she did gain enough experience to level up twice.  She only died twice, presumably from fluton ranged attacks - it was nice not to die when some passing mage sneakily used chaos nova and a few other players toppled to the ground, though.

[GM]Darasuum actually appeared in the arena at the end, to declare the event over, and produced some good old-fashioned "hand" loot as a reward for our efforts, which I hadn't been expecting.  That was when just being, by then, level eight was a real advantage, some other people who were ready to grab the loot as soon as it became available for us to pick it up got killed, but Hazel could just stand there, and grab, well, one each of the skill point and item drop boosters, two or three large attack and defence potions, the usual small MP and HP recovery pots, and five tool aids.

As usual on a Wednesday, I had other activities planned for the evening, so, apart from a little moving around of loot, that was the end of my Last Chaos activities for the day.  Still, getting Chuck, Kaerella, and Kae's drake SirFrancis all up a level can't be bad.  Now, if only the Tomb on the Cariae server could be made a bit more hospitable...

I was at least able to put MistressDomino up in merchant mode for a couple of hours - long enough to take in 100 million gold, which may not go very far these days, but ought to be useful.