Well, yesterday morning I had taken three lives before I’d finished my morning coffee. It made me feel a bit like playing the Ride of the Valkyries and talking about the smell of napalm, but I resisted …

Of course, not -really- really killed! Just those hateful Culiseta monsters in Darklife, silly. I was glad, I seem to be able to just about kill one now without having to run back and get healed several times. I just need to be careful to make sure I have my telepathy helmet on and run away about two minutes -before- it looks as though I need to … on account of the lag you see.

The morning was good, but my later venture wasn’t so successful at all, and I do believe I may have even lost most of my EXP points yet again. I think I need to declare the sim a ‘no-go’ area when it’s like that, for my own safety and the safety of those around me (and definitely those within earshot. My poor neighbour! And my poor dawgie!).

Instead I spent time playing with ‘mouse moves sun’, foisting clothes upon Bartje, trying to get in touch with someone who is taking photos for my other ‘job’ (she actually did log in, but by then i was having a terrible time lagging and crashing so never got to talk to her. Must must must do that tonight cuz i need to get the store up and running) and then ummm oh yes, maybe a little more Darklife later on.

It was Phil and Doomsie’s fault though .. they enticed me! Couldn’t do much to help Doomsie get her points up so we can all team up because she was having a lagfest also. I did bump into Hugo, who used to work with me, and we chatted briefly. I am not sure if he liked DL all that much, or maybe he got fed up with me crashing and went home

Oh yes, and when I had arrived, there were nuclear missiles all over the place, making ominous ticking-bomb type noises. Quelle excitement! They vanished though, probably because of the auto return And when I sneaked back later on I met a poor, poor guy i felt so sorry for. He had just found DL and just started. He’d eagerly worked his way up to Level 5 and saved all his gold and was doing so well .. and the sim went down! He lost everything. He was reset right back to zero again … awwwww! I have no idea if it was related to the griefer attacks that had been going on today, or whether it was an unannounced grid restart or what, but the more guy was distraught! I hope it doesn’t put him off

I have a sneaking suspicion that this game-within-a-game may be bringing out violent tendencies in me … snippet from an MSN conversation with Z:

Z: … so you can worry bout killin bugs on the sl game thing again:)
R: woooot! lol
Z: LMAO
R: them mozzies is gonna DIE tonight!
R: *looks all ferocious*
Z: LMAO poor things aren’t gonna know what hit em!
R: lmao they will .. i’m gonna make them scream my name before i plunge my dagger into their filthy hearts!
Z: *backs away slowly*

Hmmm, perhaps it’s just as well I’m going on holiday (offline! *shriek*) in a couple of weeks!

Well, I can’t even begin to explain how frustrated I got yesterday!

First of all, it was the weekend. On the weekend, there are typically 45,000 people all logged in to SecondLife at once. There is grid lag. Big lag. And for normal people with normal computers, it can be slow and annoying. For me, with my clapped out thing, it is like trying to walk through treacle. I will click to TP somewhere and five minutes later I will arrive, usually with my hair and boots up my ass. I hit my arrow to walk forward and nothing happens. I hit it again. Still nothing. Two minutes later I will suddenly end up on the other side of the sim. Grrrrr.

And so you can imagine that in the Darklife sim, where timing is everything, it is not very useful to find out that you are wounded because your stats don’t show up until four minutes after they actually happen.

I started the day about 400 EXP points short of Level 8. I played off and on for most of the day. By 10pm I was about 600 EXP points short of Level 8. What a waste!

In the morning I played briefly with Doomsie but she had to go. Later on Bartje came and we teamed up, but my lag was so bad I was holding him back more than anything else. He will easily pass me in no time. Another guy Yuval teamed with us briefly. He was good fun and great at attacking. I don’t think he could believe how bad my lag was LOL. So, I left the guys to it after about my third crash and went back to killing some rats.

Finally, about 11.30pm, I had managed to get back enough points to reach Level 8. Yippee kay ay! And I had enough saved gold to buy a mantle and a Thief’s dagger. Woot!

Bring it on!

How is it ok to lurk in the background and watch somebody use all their healing potion, all their spells and get wounded in battling a bloodsucking mosquito monster and then, when they have nothing left to give and have to go back to the healing shrine, move in, finish off the monster and steal the goodies?

IT’S NOT!

It sucks. Bigtime. I have your names!!!!

mussn fussn russn

I blame Phil. Usually I blame Bartje, but unfortunately he is blameless in this case, so it has to be Phil.

It was Phil who told me to visit the DarkLife sim. And he spoke of levels and of killing monsters. As it so happens I was in the mood for killing (a rare thing for me, but RL toothache has given me violent tendencies) and so I went to visit.

At first my pack wouldn’t register, but when I returned the following day, all was well and the blood-letting could begin.

Of course I had no clue what I was doing and am too impatient to read help manuals, etc, but I persevered, listened in on other people’s conversations and generally waved my sword and shield about until things began to make a little more sense.

So, it’s turning out to be a lot of fun and keeps me from being bored when my friends are offline

However, those people who stood and watched while I exhausted myself killing mosquitoes and then waited until I had to run back to the healing shrine (I say run, but the lag of course means a bit of slow motion waddling!) before they moved in for the kill and poached my loot … well … I’ve got your name buddy and some day I’m going to be a higher level than you .. watch your back!

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