Paul "LockeColeMA" Cleveland recalls his experience with 24 hours of Rift and sleep deprivation!

5 p.m.: The last few hours have gone alright, not much to report. Leveling is much slower than, say, World of Warcraft. One funny thing to note: a few hours ago there was a server announcement that fire squirrels in Freemarch do not count toward the “most critters killed” category. Hahaha, take that Defiants! I've been plodding along through quests, received a couple of achievements (like from the puzzle), and participated in the new warfront, Library of the Runemasters. We lost, yet I still managed to get more favor than the Defiants. Go figure! I'll try it a few more times. I've also noticed the most recent world event is letting me pick up magma opals: note to self, find a vendor and see if there's anything useful!

Still feeling OK, no need for an energy drink yet... but it's time for dinner soon! What to get?

The GMs are starting to lose it, though.

6:30 p.m.: After chatting with my best friend on Skype for a while, I've decided to make myself some rice! Of course, when I went to do so, I came back dead. I'm really bad at picking hiding spots to AFK in. Or else Trion really hates it when I go away from the keyboard. Huh. We do have some Trion members in our guild: Abigale, Elrar, Zann, Alyn. Alyn and Elrar are the chattiest, and lots of fun.

7:30 p.m.: That rice was entirely unsatisfying. Ordering Chinese food instead.

9 p.m. FINALLY! Om nom nom... Also got the Favorful (1,000 favor) achievement. I've moved on to Gloamwood, which is nice and creepy.

Hmmm, Gloamwood, or save lowbies from elites? Yes, Gloamwood it is!

10:30 p.m.: People are already dinging the 5,000 favor achievements. HOLY MOLEY. Getting a bit tired, time to break into the first Monster!

10:42 p.m.: The guild hit level 5; not bad for under 2 hours!

11 p.m.: 12 hours; we're over the hump, as the server message just announced.

Oct. 16, 12 a.m. EDT: Ok, past midnight. Gloamwood is going fine. I keep thinking of all the time I spent here on my Defiant rogue hunting artifacts and achievements, and how much better it is understanding everything through the quests. At the same time, I kinda wonder what I'm aiming for. I'm nowhere near the lead in leveling (although I left most of the crowd behind after leaving Silverwood, everyone who runs by me still had an Extra Life Guardian guild tag). Some people are already in their high-30s; others are higher, but they might have joined at a higher level. I guess I'll just see how far I can get with levels? More energy drinking, woo-hoo!

Soon after thinking this, my roommates came back from partying, completely distracting me from leveling efficiently until around 2 a.m. Fail.

2:45 a.m.: Extra Life just passed $950,000 in donations! Thank you, helpful server messages for keeping us updated! And thank you gratuitous amounts of caffeine and sugar for making my nerves feel like they're shaking!

3:04 a.m.: Server message: “Pssst... are you still awake? We're $35K away from the goal of $1 million. Oh yeah, and meeeeeeeeaaaaaad!” Ok, someone clue me in on this. What's with the mead joke? I don't get it. Is someone actually drinking booze to keep awake? That seems counterproductive...

4 a.m.: I'm feeling sort of weird by now; my concentration is bizarre. I just completed the Hag quests and now I'm in the fortress area. I had a nice conversation with a fellow reporter from Ten Ton Hammer. Oh, and we hit $1 million overall for the event. Yay!

Soon after came $1.1 million. Sadly, that amount broke the counter!

5:15 a.m.: What's up with these server messages? I think the Game Masters are as loopy as I am; something about Peter Pan and Rufio? Finished up the fortress, moving to Scarlet Gorge soon! Just going to focus on the quests for a while...

Continued on Page 3.