The-Mires
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TTH guide to the Torden Mires
Tabula Rasa's The Mires is a zone that's messy, more than a bit laggy, and infested with Bane. It's also the staging point for most of the activity on the Torden continent. This virtual version of Hades is for characters in their upper 20's (levels 27-30). Covered with enormous mountains, raging rivers of lava, and precarious cliffs, this zone is also filled with dozens of missions, three different instances and two control points to battle over. With all that, wouldn't it be handy to have a guide? TTH's guide to the Torden Mires breaks down several of the bases and control points, gives some very helpful tips and tricks, points out what to avoid, and even provides a handy location chart for the 11 Logos abilities scattered across the continent. If you've become as obsessed with Richard Garriott's Tabula Rasa as I have over the holidays, be sure to check out all of TTH's invaluable guides.
Public Service Announcement: clean up your drones!
Any player who has leveled a character in Tabula Rasa past level 25 is likely intimately familiar with the dregs of the Arieki planet -- the Mires. For those not in the know, the Mires is a hotly contested area of the volcanic planet, with much of its geographical area patrolled by roving gangs of Bane. As a rather curious, though likely completely unforeseen side effect of these enemy packs is that the Mires is far and away the laggiest area of any MMO in recent memory. Lag is hardly anything new, especially for a genre as tethered to the online experience as the massively multiplayer, but for a zone to be so singularly laggy is particularly rare. And this after it was claimed a month ago by the devs that the Mires was free from performance issues. Hmm...Evidently, the lag in the Mires is a well-known issue and is actually attributed to an over-abundance of shield drones in the area. Shield drones are small flying robots that hover around groups of Bane and cast a protective yellow bubble around all those who stay within its radius, shielding those inside from most damage. A typical strategy when faced with large groups of Bane and their accompanying drones is to first target the shield drones with EMP weapons to lower the groups defenses, before moving on to assault the larger force. What has happened is that the AFS NPCs who engage these groups of Bane as part of Tabula Rasa's unique persistent warfare, lack the skills or know-how to take out these shield drones. The consequence? The Mires is absolutely covered in small groups of shield drones with nobody to protect but themselves. These wandering shield drones are responsible for the two second lag between when you hit the trigger and when that sonic missile leaves your launcher. Bah humbug.As if we didn't have it bad enough already, I've seen many players blast through dozens of groups of Thrax and Kael, only to leave half a dozen shield drones in their wake. And we wonder why there's lag! So I'm putting out a call to everybody who finds themselves questing in the Mires: clean up your after yourselves, you lazy gits soldiers! Shoot down those drones.
