I went to Auroria once...

But all I got were these lousy screenshots.

     In all seriousness. I was one of the lucky people who was actually able to get into the game shortly after the Auroria launch. Three of my guildies had managed it as well so as soon as I logged in I got invited to a party and told to get over to Solzreed. So off I went by worldgate and gallop to Desireen (since I'd never been there to have the location.) Then I glided onto the guild clipper just offshore, Aelithar landing with a flourish square in the middle of the deck. (I'd never manage to do that again if I tried it.) And off we went. It was a long ship ride north, with plenty of time for chatting and speculation and worries about running into the Kraken or the Oran'thul. I'm not sure which would have been scarier but we avoided both.
     The lag hit just offshore and the clipper and everybody on it started lurching in slow motion. But we eventually made it to land and mounted up to ride. I don't have patron so there was no land dreams for me, but the guildies had some hopes. So we rode around to have a look. It was chaos. We died once to a large group of mobs and again to a massive pvp group. The castles got claimed... but there was no land at all to be had. It all seemed gone in seconds, even with so much of the playerbase unable to even get into the game.
     My husband and best friend ran into the glitch that locked them out and after I logged off for my raid in WoW that night I was unable to get in again either. And there are no roll-backs. The problems didn't really cause me any trouble, but for those people who were pinning their last hope of land on Auroria and couldn't even get into the game... I feel awful for you. I think the entire thing was handled pretty shoddily. There was no way it could have been handled that would have made everybody happy, but it seems like something could have been done better.

     The next day when all was said and done I logged back in. I'd logged off near a shrine in Marcala so I took advantage of being there to do a long exploration ride while it was a little less chaotic. It's a pretty continent with its own eerie music. There are floating motes of ash and lots of large scary undead monsters. The East has three Castles at the moment (Sinister, The Oran'thul, Meowcenaries) and the Arcadian Guard claimed one for the west. None of the Eastern Castles had started going up when I was there, but the Arcadian Guard had already build a nice sturdy looking structure.

     Much sturdier than these ruins I found during the exploration. I was happy to finally find one area of Auroria with some ruins. It seemed to me like it should be full of ruins, but perhaps most of them are in the large part of the continent that's still not open.

     When I'd finished looking around I recalled back to Marianople so Aelithar could go about the more prosaic business of planting and harvesting and running trade packs. No land for me, No Archeum trees, no reason for joining the current pvp insanity that is Auroria. And you know... I'm still having a really good time in this game.

Time warp

     The night (I think) after Rift's Nightmare Tides expansion had launched I logged into Daethrys for a bit for the first time in a while. I oohed and aaahhhhed over the pretty graphics on my new computer and then got down to doing a few things. I emptied his bags, put a lot of things on the auction house and then went out and did enough quests to hit level 39 and move on to the next hub. In the process of one of the quests a neat dimension item had dropped and I installed it in Falharan's workshop dimension because it fit the theme. Then satisfied with my hour or so of work I put Daethrys in his dimension and logged off.
     A few days were spent hitting 50 in Archeage and then the next day I decided to pop onto Daethrys and finally have a look at the minions system I'd missed before. My first confusion was wondering why I was sitting in Lantern Hook. I was sure I'd left him in his dimension which should have popped him out at the next hub. My next confusion was that my bags were full of the leather gear and things I remembered putting on the auction house. Then I noticed his experience bar. He'd been barely into 39 why was it so full?
     Because he was level 38 again. I looked through his things... all the quests were back in his logs, unfinished. Everything was as it had been when I first logged in that other night. It was as though my hour or so of playing had never happened at all. I couldn't understand it. I didn't see anything in the chat about it... had there been some sort of bug? Would they fix it? Should I put in a ticket?
     When in doubt I've learned, always turn to the forums. WoW's are usually a cesspit of crazy... but if something has gone wonky in the game it'll be on the forums in very short order. Rift's forums too had an answer for me. Apparently several servers had crashed probably very shortly after I logged off. And Faeblight, which is Daethrys' server was the one without a recent back up. They had to basically restore it from a point 24 hours back. So... effectively my hour or so of playtime -hadn't- happened. Only it had. I'd done it. I'd taken screenshots to prove it. But for Daethrys' purpose they were just gone.
     It didn't take me long to empty his bags onto the auction house again or quest through to the next hub where I'd been. I'm sad to have lost the dimension item drop but it's a minor thing compared to all the maxed characters who lost their levels and their crafting and apparently the things they'd used during that time as well. Still it was such a strange feeling. Oddly surreal and for a moment I doubted myself. Had I really played for a while that night?
     I can't help wondering from an RP standpoint what Daethrys would think if he remembered both times he did all those things. As it was I can only imagine him having a rather intense feeling of deja vu.