So, Friday turned into a rather interesting evening of play...
I admit, I was a little late getting into the game on Friday. I had a few things the wife wanted me to do before I could log in. Which meant I missed any opportunity to catch Stonehands (Bashal) or PuddinTan (Tanision) when they'd logged in earlier that evening. In fact, it was nearly 7:30pm local time, meaning that it was almost 9:30pm back where they live.
(It'd been a long work-week, I'm sure they were both pretty tired, too.)
But, when I'd finally logged in, I found Belzur out kicking rocks in the Gianthold, rummaging through his inventory and trying to sort things out. I guess he'd collected a lot of junk over the past few adventures that he needed to put away or sell...
At any rate, since he was already digging around in his pack, I asked him if he'd yet accumulated all of the relics required to open the Gianthold Tor.
Ya know, his pack is almost as big as he is. He basically fell in while trying to reach the bottom of the thing. For a while, all you could see were the soles of his boots while they wiggled just outside of the opening. And, he was in there for a while, too. (Makes me wonder what he's got in there.) But, he finally came up for air, with piles of relics in his arms. After he climbed out of his pack, he spread his relics abut on the ground, sorted them, stacked them, and counted them up.
Counting with him is an interesting exercise.
Self-admitedly, he's not the most intelligent Dwarf around...
But, he's a Fighter. Intelligence isn't exactly a prerequisite to swing a Dwarven Axe.
Did you know that Belzur has a sixth toe on his left foot?!?
I didn't. Not until he took his boots off to help him count his relics.
Oh, it's not what you'd call gross-looking, or anything. Not by Dwarven standards, anyway. It's just an extra toe. I guess that explains why his left boot is a little wider than his right boot. But, it took him four tries to get an accurate count. I guess the extra toe kept throwing him for a loop.
Eventually, though, he realized that he had thirty-four Dragon relics, eighteen Elven relics and seventeen Giant relics.
That's when he asked how many of each relic he actually needed.
"Twenty."
"Hmm..." he said, scratching his head. Clearly, he was at a bit of a loss as to what to do. Fortunately, PEBKAC, a touch more intelligent than Belzur, had an idea.
"You know, you can take your excess relics over to the Quartermaster and exchange them three-for-one."
"Yeah, where is he?"
"Follow me!"
Wouldn't you know it, he came up just one, *ONE* Giant relic short of being able to open the Tor. Which is when I sent an inquiry to the allied guild chat asking if anyone had a single spare Giant relic. That's when one of our friends in the Lifetakers and Heartbreakers stepped up to offer assistance. Elainee (Kelvain), I believe it was, promptly mailed one relic right over, and Belzur finally had enough relics to open the Tor.
This was just about the time RadRader logged in. And, of course, when he heard about how Belzur had finally opened the Tor, he wanted to join in and get his character ready for the Stormreaver raid, too.
With three on board for a Gianthold Tor run, I posted an invitation to allied guild chat for other members who might be interested. Rambow (Sisren) was certainly interested. Both for XP for Rambow, but also for the chance to pluck a blue scale from the hide of the Blue Dragon that supposedly lurked within the Tor. The only problem was that he was already in a group running one of the new raids, and would be a bit before he could join us.
Since we weren't in a hurry, we told him to take his time while Belzur re-packed his backpack and finished off his maintenance. RadRader became a little impatient, though, and decided to see what kind of trouble he might get himself into.
Of course, ever watchful of everyone's healthbars, it wasn't long before PEBKAC noticed RadRader wasn't as healthy as he *had* been. Looking around the tavern, it was obvious he decided to "wait" for the rest of the group, by himself...
Knowing full well the answer that was to follow, PEBKAC asked, "Umm... Red? Where *are* you?!?"
"Oh, I just ran out into the Ruins real quick..."
"I see that. Hang on, I'll be right there."
It wasn't until shortly after PEBKAC had entered the Ruins, jumped off the bridge and started making his way toward the Arnum Supply Depot that he saw Red had become incapacitated.
"Put your boots back on, Belzur. Rad's in trouble. Again..."
"Hang on, I'll be there in a minute."
*DING!!!* "Your party member, RadRader, has died!"
"I guess there's no need to hurry now, is there?"
(laughing in the background) "Not really, no."
Still, it didn't take long for PEB and Belzur to make their way out to the Ruins and to retrieve Rad's stone, raise him, and earn a kills toward the Slayer experience objectives. When Rad finally died a second time, everyone conceded it was time to Recall back to the camp at Gianthold, anyway. Rambow had finally completed his previous raid run, and was ready to join the rest of the group.
That left two slots open in the adventure party, which were filled relatively quickly by a couple of PUG (Pick-Up Group) Sorcerers. As it turned out, some very good Sorcerers, at that.
But, it wasn't until we tried to enter the Tor that RadRader realized that he hadn't turned in all his relics and opened the quest. That sent Rad down the hill to the Auction House representative to buy himself, get this..., some Giant relics! Of course, he needed more than just the one that Belzur needed, so he went ahead and bought a stack of them from the auctioneer.
Once he'd advanced his quest, we all headed up the hill to enter the adventure, only to find that Belzur couldn't open the door. This despite the fact that he'd talked to Crag, turned in all of his relics and advanced the quest. It turned out that PEBKAC had forgotten to inform Belzur that he needed to talk to Cydonnie before he could enter the Tor.
So, Belzur ran back down the hill, chatted with Cydonnie, and then came back up to find the door was finally open to him.
With all members finally in the quest, the two Sorcerers set to work on the wave of Giants storming forth through a series of dimensional portals.
Ya know... it's funny how quickly a Giant is rendered impotent by a simple cast of the Flesh to Stone spell. It made things very simple for Belzur, Rambow and RadRader. For PEBKAC, the most difficult thing was to stay out of everyone's way.
That, and once the Giant invasion had been halted, trying to keep up with everyone as they tore off down the winding corridors of the Tor.
In fact, there were a couple of close calls, but everyone managed to keep themselves alive as they made their way through the quest, completing it in relatively short order. That's when things became interesting. Because, it was at that point that the group had to face each of the three Dragons and their respective escort/trainers. Apparently, these were juvenile Dragons, one each White, Blue and Black.
As the group soon learned, the White Dragon was the greatest challenge. Particularly since it didn't take long for the White Dragon's keeper to lock in on PEBKAC with a Cometfall. Once knocked to the ground, it didn't take long for the Dragon's keeper to lock in a second time and finish PEBKAC off. After that, the rest of the group quickly fell to either the Dragon or it's keeper, and we were left with a party-wipe.
Fortunately, it didn't take long for the party to re-group, and the second time around, PEBKAC managed to stay out of the keeper's way, and kept everyone else alive long enough to vanquish the White Dragon and it's keeper.
You should've seen the look on Belzur's face at that point, though!
Like a kid in a candy store.
You could see the mixed look of disbelief, excitement and awe when he saw the piles of treasure the Dragon had accumulated. And then he dove in! The sight of a Dwarf, *swimming* in piles of treasure is something that simply cannot be described. You can only see it to believe it.
Yet, somehow, Belzur managed to fill his pack and still found a way to carry it off. He may lack in brains, but not in brawn.
And, he even managed to pluck a scale from the White Dragon's hide!
Then they moved on to the Blue Dragon...
It was a close contest, but the Blue Dragon and it's keeper were no match for the party. Alas, Rambow wasn't lucky enough to pull one of the blue scales he'd been searching for; PEBKAC had pulled one instead. But PEBKAC decided that it was better to give the blue scale to someone who could make better use of it...
While everyone else was swimming through the piles of the Blue Dragon's treasure...
"Hey, Rambow... c'mere."
In an instant, the look of disappointment vanished from Rambow's face.
After another few armfulls of treasure were scooped into PEBKAC's pack and a quick shrine, the group was off to face the final Dragon.
Honestly, I think the Black Dragon is by far the easiest of the three to defeat. The problem is that, in the attempt to do so, *everyone* is standing pretty much in the same place, and everyone is taking damage *very* quickly. PEBKAC spammed heals as quickly as he could, but there were still a couple of moments where he wasn't able to keep everyone alive.
With some quick work, though, PEB managed to raise RadRader and get him back into the fight just in time to finish off the Dragon while everyone else worked on the keeper.
I have to be honest with you...
With all the piles of treasure to be had in that quest, two completely empty inventory slots aren't enough to carry everything saleable back out of the Tor.
Granted, not everything an adventurer finds in the Tor is worth hauling back out, *BUT* everything can be sold. I guess next time, I'll have to clear three inventory slots before I take PEBKAC into the Tor.
;-)
Actually, I think it took longer to defeat the three Dragons than it did to clear out the Tor. But, by the time we'd finished, all of us needed to sell all the junk we'd picked up over the course of the run. Which also gave us each plenty of time to step away from the keyboard for a few minutes, to refresh ourselves, as well as our characters.
When we came back, the decision had been made to launch right into a Stormreaver raid, now that everyone had completed all of the prerequisites. But, they had a little surprise in store for Belzur when he finally returned...
He was named Main Tank for the raid.
Of course, I made sure RadRader explained to Belzur everything he needed to know before we kicked things off. I mean, you don't want anyone finding their way into a really bad situation on their first Stormreaver raid.
Once everyone had their assignments, we got things started. And, for the most part, things started out really well. But, at one point, Belzur lost the giant's agro, and he started wandering around making mince-meat out of many members of the party. Including PEBKAC, who took a shot from the giant's blade just as he was trying to heal himself.
Belzur was still alive and swingin', though.
But, not for long. The Giant eventually turned on him, and the other Cleric in the raid party simply couldn't keep himself and Belzur alive at the same time.
It's okay, though, Belzur, few characters live all the way through their first attempt at the Stormreaver. And, after all, we were running the raid on Elite. (I don't think I've ever run it on anything less...) Any raid on Elite has to present *some* sort of challenge.
But, I had to type quickly to ensure Belzur didn't recall out of the raid. Only if he stayed put, so he could be resurrected when the group finally completed the puzzle.
It was a close call, though. Only six of the raid party were left standing by the time the puzzle was finished. But there was *lots* of XP for the completion, and the Favor earned for the raid also earned Belzur his first rank of Favor with the Agents of Argonnessen. (He chose the Collapsed Portable Hole.)
Although neither Belzur nor PEBKAC pulled any raid loot from the end chest, someone in the group managed to pull the Stormreaver's Napkin, a great little item for any caster. And, I think I heard someone say that the boots had dropped, too.
As it turned out, it was a long evening, but it was a *lot* of fun! I think Belzur enjoyed it, too. I know his pack was overflowing by the time we were through.
But, I can't stop thinking about that extra toe...
;-)
Keep it fun!!!
Oh, and, congratulations, Belzur!!!
Monday, July 28, 2008
Friday, July 25, 2008
Temporarily M.I.A.
Please allow me to start with an apology for the lack of posts lately. My only excuse is that work has been interfering with my ability to do any sort of creative writing.
Not that I spend my day at work screwing around doing other things, but there are some things I like to do during what is supposed to be, by law, the breaks and/or lunches afforded to me, and every other employee in the State of Colorado.
Except that my company, and most architectural firms within Colorado, tend to ignore the law whenever convenient. Which might explain why the architecture industry has turned into one of "practice by litigation."
At any rate, for whatever reason, my firm finally decided to pull themselves up out of the dark ages and finally switch from Novell GroupWise and it's supporting networks to Microsoft Outlook/Exchange and a Windows network. Whether you agree with the decision or whether you have any well-founded arguments about the security of Novell, the fact remains that in the practice of Architecture, a Windows network is better because Autodesk, the developers of AutoCAD and Revit, are allied with Microsoft, which means that Novell interferes with the operability of our "mission critical" software.
Let's just say that trying to run Revit on a Novell network yields the same results as that NASA mission that sent what was supposed to be a lander to Mars hurtling well past the planet.
So, as a result of the commotion of change in our office, I've had little time to blog this week.
You should hear all the architects crying over how things have changed too much.
My initial responses to them are "Your what hurts???" and "You have sand in your where???"
After all, they're the ones who demanded a faster and easier to navigate network, and to have email and calendar software that actually connected to their multitude of mobile devices. All I can say is that they brought it on themselves, and they have no one to complain to but themselves.
Whiney bastards!
I, for one, have embraced the change wholeheartedly. I even appreciate the imposition of strong/complex password policy. I'd been asking for a better policy since I started with this firm over three years ago. But, as I said, most everyone else around here has sand in a sensitive piece of anatomy, and it hurts, so they have to make sure *everyone* else knows about it.
At any rate...
Wednesday evening, I logged in with Sarge and joined Belzur, Eliak (Tanision/PuddinTan) and DasCool (Bashal/Stonehands), in an earnest attempt to earn Sarge his Level 11, and his ninth Cleric level, and to help Belzur finally earn his Level 13.
We'd decided to turn to a favorite quest for many players, Trial by Fire, out in the Ruins of Gianthold. Although it's a Level 13 quest, with the right mix of characters and a good strategy, it's a relatively easy quest that can be run quickly, for some decent XP and some nice loot.
In fact, PuddinTan can now solo the quest on Normal.
It's amazing what a well-built Sorcerer can do in this game.
Still, there's a point of diminishing returns. On our first run through the quest, PuddinTan earned but one, that's 1 experience point.
Because he'd run it so many times.
But DasCool and Belzur had run it quite a few times, too, and were also taking some penalties for the number of times they'd re-run it.
Which meant that we had to increase the difficulty of the quest just to ensure we were all earning a little *something* for the quest.
Of course, on the second run through, PuddinTan switched over to Eliak so that he wasn't power-leveling the rest of us. At which point we also decided to bring in a couple of PUG players to round-out the party. And we then ran the quest a couple of times on Hard, grinding out as much XP as we could. But we were all beginning to suffer from repetition penalties. So, we decided to see if we couldn't make the last run on Elite.
Mind you, the quest, on Normal, is a Level 13 quest. By the book, increasing the difficulty to Elite increases the level of the quest to 15. As anyone who's played the game for a while should understand, though, the reality is that the challenges the monsters your characters will encounter are often a Level 16, 17 or even 18 equivalent at that point. For a group of Level 10-13 characters, entering the quest probably wasn't the best idea. Opening the quest on Hard was already a sufficient challenge. But, we did it anyway.
It didn't take long to realize that an Elite difficulty was beyond our abilities. Especially once Sarge had depleted his supply of Raise Dead scrolls.
To add insult to injury, both Belzur and Sarge were just a bit short of the XP they'd need to earn their next level.
But, it was late enough that everyone needed to log for the evening anyway. So, it was decided we'd wait to complete the task another time.
Except that we didn't want to wait too long.
Belzur has been working his tail off to earn his way to Level 13 so he can participate in the upcoming Demon Queen raid. Since it's being hosted as a 13-16 raid, he wanted to level-up so that he would still earn maximum XP for his participation, rather than being power-leveled by all the Level 16 characters that we'll have in attendance. If we waited too long to help Belzur over the Level 13 hump, he might not be able to join the rest of us when raid day rolls around.
That's why we decided to try to knock out the remaining 6500 XP last night.
Back out in Gianthold, of course.
But, this time, we decided to run a quest we hadn't ransacked yet; we chose Cabal for One.
We were lucky, though. We were able to bring Elmmonk and Rambow, friends from the Lifetakers and Heartbreakers into our group for a little help. The last two slots we filled with some very helpful PUG players.
In fact, it only took us two runs through Cabal, on Normal, to earn the required XP.
But, I'm glad we chose to run only on Normal.
On our first run through, we didn't have any casters in the party. Just Sarge, the healer/trapsmith, one Fighter, two Monks and two Rangers.
Not that the composition was a bad thing. But that, as Rambow had pointed out, the end-boss, King Bendix, had learned a few new tricks in the last update, and he is now much more difficult to dispose of.
Which Sarge found out about the hard way, the first time through the quest.
King Bendix now has the ability to cast Blade Barrier.
Mind you, I did warn everyone that it was not Sarge's Blade Barrier they were playing in, but they couldn't just let him be, as he likes to heal himself, too.
The problem was that where they were all positioned on the other side of the doorway, I had to reposition Sarge to keep healing everyone attempting to melée the tyrannical king.
On *my* screen, it appeared that Sarge was well clear of the Blade Barrier, by a good six feet. But, that didn't stop the Blade Barrier from cutting Sarge down in just two strikes.
The good news was that no one else died while our PUG Ranger hauled Sarge's stone back to the shrine. And, in fact, the others managed to subdue the king before Sarge could make his way back to the group. It was actually a rather efficient run through the quest. I was quite pleased with the result.
After we completed, though, we Finished out so that everyone could use the shrine right outside the door, only to realize that the mobs right outside the quest had respawned, and they heard Sarge's less-than-stealthy exit from the quest from a mile away.
And came to investigate.
We had to fight our way *out* of the quest, too!
Fortunately, we managed to keep everyone alive and took care of the Fire Giant and his minions before shrining and recalling back to the camp at Gianthold.
While back at the camp, we were fortunate enough to have our PUG Monk decide to switch over to his Sorcerer to join us for the second run. Which was actually much more efficient than the first. It's amazing how much easier a quest is when you have Haste, some crowd-control and a Maximized/Empowered Wall of Fire...
Yep, made the second run even eaiser than the first.
Which also earned both Belzur and Sarge each their next level.
Congratulations, Belzur! You're now in the "sweet spot." You can run with anyone from Level 10 through 16 without power levelling or being power leveled by anyone. The high-end quests present some very interesting challenges.
:-)
Keep it fun!
Not that I spend my day at work screwing around doing other things, but there are some things I like to do during what is supposed to be, by law, the breaks and/or lunches afforded to me, and every other employee in the State of Colorado.
Except that my company, and most architectural firms within Colorado, tend to ignore the law whenever convenient. Which might explain why the architecture industry has turned into one of "practice by litigation."
At any rate, for whatever reason, my firm finally decided to pull themselves up out of the dark ages and finally switch from Novell GroupWise and it's supporting networks to Microsoft Outlook/Exchange and a Windows network. Whether you agree with the decision or whether you have any well-founded arguments about the security of Novell, the fact remains that in the practice of Architecture, a Windows network is better because Autodesk, the developers of AutoCAD and Revit, are allied with Microsoft, which means that Novell interferes with the operability of our "mission critical" software.
Let's just say that trying to run Revit on a Novell network yields the same results as that NASA mission that sent what was supposed to be a lander to Mars hurtling well past the planet.
So, as a result of the commotion of change in our office, I've had little time to blog this week.
You should hear all the architects crying over how things have changed too much.
My initial responses to them are "Your what hurts???" and "You have sand in your where???"
After all, they're the ones who demanded a faster and easier to navigate network, and to have email and calendar software that actually connected to their multitude of mobile devices. All I can say is that they brought it on themselves, and they have no one to complain to but themselves.
Whiney bastards!
I, for one, have embraced the change wholeheartedly. I even appreciate the imposition of strong/complex password policy. I'd been asking for a better policy since I started with this firm over three years ago. But, as I said, most everyone else around here has sand in a sensitive piece of anatomy, and it hurts, so they have to make sure *everyone* else knows about it.
At any rate...
Wednesday evening, I logged in with Sarge and joined Belzur, Eliak (Tanision/PuddinTan) and DasCool (Bashal/Stonehands), in an earnest attempt to earn Sarge his Level 11, and his ninth Cleric level, and to help Belzur finally earn his Level 13.
We'd decided to turn to a favorite quest for many players, Trial by Fire, out in the Ruins of Gianthold. Although it's a Level 13 quest, with the right mix of characters and a good strategy, it's a relatively easy quest that can be run quickly, for some decent XP and some nice loot.
In fact, PuddinTan can now solo the quest on Normal.
It's amazing what a well-built Sorcerer can do in this game.
Still, there's a point of diminishing returns. On our first run through the quest, PuddinTan earned but one, that's 1 experience point.
Because he'd run it so many times.
But DasCool and Belzur had run it quite a few times, too, and were also taking some penalties for the number of times they'd re-run it.
Which meant that we had to increase the difficulty of the quest just to ensure we were all earning a little *something* for the quest.
Of course, on the second run through, PuddinTan switched over to Eliak so that he wasn't power-leveling the rest of us. At which point we also decided to bring in a couple of PUG players to round-out the party. And we then ran the quest a couple of times on Hard, grinding out as much XP as we could. But we were all beginning to suffer from repetition penalties. So, we decided to see if we couldn't make the last run on Elite.
Mind you, the quest, on Normal, is a Level 13 quest. By the book, increasing the difficulty to Elite increases the level of the quest to 15. As anyone who's played the game for a while should understand, though, the reality is that the challenges the monsters your characters will encounter are often a Level 16, 17 or even 18 equivalent at that point. For a group of Level 10-13 characters, entering the quest probably wasn't the best idea. Opening the quest on Hard was already a sufficient challenge. But, we did it anyway.
It didn't take long to realize that an Elite difficulty was beyond our abilities. Especially once Sarge had depleted his supply of Raise Dead scrolls.
To add insult to injury, both Belzur and Sarge were just a bit short of the XP they'd need to earn their next level.
But, it was late enough that everyone needed to log for the evening anyway. So, it was decided we'd wait to complete the task another time.
Except that we didn't want to wait too long.
Belzur has been working his tail off to earn his way to Level 13 so he can participate in the upcoming Demon Queen raid. Since it's being hosted as a 13-16 raid, he wanted to level-up so that he would still earn maximum XP for his participation, rather than being power-leveled by all the Level 16 characters that we'll have in attendance. If we waited too long to help Belzur over the Level 13 hump, he might not be able to join the rest of us when raid day rolls around.
That's why we decided to try to knock out the remaining 6500 XP last night.
Back out in Gianthold, of course.
But, this time, we decided to run a quest we hadn't ransacked yet; we chose Cabal for One.
We were lucky, though. We were able to bring Elmmonk and Rambow, friends from the Lifetakers and Heartbreakers into our group for a little help. The last two slots we filled with some very helpful PUG players.
In fact, it only took us two runs through Cabal, on Normal, to earn the required XP.
But, I'm glad we chose to run only on Normal.
On our first run through, we didn't have any casters in the party. Just Sarge, the healer/trapsmith, one Fighter, two Monks and two Rangers.
Not that the composition was a bad thing. But that, as Rambow had pointed out, the end-boss, King Bendix, had learned a few new tricks in the last update, and he is now much more difficult to dispose of.
Which Sarge found out about the hard way, the first time through the quest.
King Bendix now has the ability to cast Blade Barrier.
Mind you, I did warn everyone that it was not Sarge's Blade Barrier they were playing in, but they couldn't just let him be, as he likes to heal himself, too.
The problem was that where they were all positioned on the other side of the doorway, I had to reposition Sarge to keep healing everyone attempting to melée the tyrannical king.
On *my* screen, it appeared that Sarge was well clear of the Blade Barrier, by a good six feet. But, that didn't stop the Blade Barrier from cutting Sarge down in just two strikes.
The good news was that no one else died while our PUG Ranger hauled Sarge's stone back to the shrine. And, in fact, the others managed to subdue the king before Sarge could make his way back to the group. It was actually a rather efficient run through the quest. I was quite pleased with the result.
After we completed, though, we Finished out so that everyone could use the shrine right outside the door, only to realize that the mobs right outside the quest had respawned, and they heard Sarge's less-than-stealthy exit from the quest from a mile away.
And came to investigate.
We had to fight our way *out* of the quest, too!
Fortunately, we managed to keep everyone alive and took care of the Fire Giant and his minions before shrining and recalling back to the camp at Gianthold.
While back at the camp, we were fortunate enough to have our PUG Monk decide to switch over to his Sorcerer to join us for the second run. Which was actually much more efficient than the first. It's amazing how much easier a quest is when you have Haste, some crowd-control and a Maximized/Empowered Wall of Fire...
Yep, made the second run even eaiser than the first.
Which also earned both Belzur and Sarge each their next level.
Congratulations, Belzur! You're now in the "sweet spot." You can run with anyone from Level 10 through 16 without power levelling or being power leveled by anyone. The high-end quests present some very interesting challenges.
:-)
Keep it fun!
Tuesday, July 22, 2008
Thought Provoking
Some interesting things happened this past weekend, but probably none so much fun as the allied guild Player-versus-Player Capture the Flag contest. It reminded me a lot of the Team Fortress Classic game I used to play with my co-workers over our lunch break, way back in the day.
Probably what reminded me most of TFC was the prolific number of ways in which my character died. Fortunately, death in the PvP arena doesn't cost your character anything. But, some of the ways in which my character died were rather spectacular. Especially the way Trinarius became the unwitting victim of a Phantasmal Killer.
Hmm...
It's definitely something I have to bring the right character for.
Since Trin wasn't lasting very long, I decided to bring Aequinox into the battle.
He fared better than Trin, but not significantly.
Though, it was fun using Destruction on the opposition.
And Greater Command...
Alas, my record in the PvP arena was 1-2-1. Not a great score, but that goes to figure, for the kinds of characters I play.
Perhaps Obsydiian will fare better, once he's been developed to an appropriate level...
At any rate, my weekend didn't revolve around PvP Capture the Flag in DDO. In fact, I spent the better part of my weekend trying to move guild bank items from the old banker to my characters. And trying to do so amongst all the many chores I had to do around the house.
Needless to say, it wasn't my idea of a great time.
In fact, I don't have five spare characters to use as bank characters, so I've spent a lot of time shuffling things around, auctioning items and giving items to various members of the guild, in a desperate attempt to make use of the items, rather than lose them. Not an easy task.
In discussing the problem with a fellow player who wondered why the inventories on *all* of my characters were so full, he commented that *every* MMO he's ever played has had a dedicated guild bank that wasn't attached to any given character.
Why, after all this time, doesn't DDO have such a thing?!?
Because it doesn't, none of my characters have any bank or inventory space left. I'm back in the same position I was in when I first started the game... I'm going to have to start tossing items just to have enough room to pick up loot in the various quests.
Ugh!
Yesterday, when I arrived at work, I began my work-week in typical fashion, downloading the most recent episode of DDOCast to my iTunes and listening to it while attempting to quell the masses of architects who decided to work over the weekend.
(I honestly cannot understand how so many folks can work every day of every week. Don't they ever get burned out?!? I know I'm sick of seeing them after *two* days. Working a whole five-day work week is a very trying excercise. I couldn't imagine having to put up with these people over the weekend, too! Jeez, people, take some friggin' time off, would ya!?!)
Anyway...
During the podcast, I managed to catch Alex Haddox' segment, Inside the Monestary, where he talks about all things Monk within the game. This week's segment was a rant on how many people are playing Monks who shouldn't. People who have no idea how to play a Monk properly, and are therefore giving Monks a bad reputation. I can honestly say that I've been a victim of that problem. Especially my Clerics.
It's also a big reason as to why I haven't tried to play a Monk. I'm not into abusing my fellow players. Not on purpose, anyway.
But, it made me think... How many players out there run Clerics when they shouldn't? Or Rogues, or Fighters, or any other given class?
I know there're days when I shouldn't be playing any of my Clerics.
For whatever reason there're those days when I'm just not in sync. with the game, and trying to keep my fellow player's character alive is a futile gesture.
Playing a Rogue, though, is something I'm pretty good at. Especially since a Rogue is supposed to stay relatively out of the way, to let the other members of the party do their jobs. Until it comes time to finding and disabling traps, anyway. Or opening locks. It's one of the few classes I truly understand. Even if I don't play my Rogues the same way everyone else might expect.
But, to each his own.
Still... How many people are playing characters they shouldn't?
Okay, perhaps it isn't fair to pass judgement on what kinds of characters any given player *ought* to play.
But, I've come to realize that, for myself, there are certainly those classes I'm just not any good at playing. And, as a result, I don't have much fun when I play them. So I steer clear of them.
I would think that if you find a given class frustrating to play, it's a pretty good indication that you might want to consider playing something else.
I mean, the game isn't about frustration, right!?!
Not for me, anyway.
At any rate...
Keep it fun!
Probably what reminded me most of TFC was the prolific number of ways in which my character died. Fortunately, death in the PvP arena doesn't cost your character anything. But, some of the ways in which my character died were rather spectacular. Especially the way Trinarius became the unwitting victim of a Phantasmal Killer.
Hmm...
It's definitely something I have to bring the right character for.
Since Trin wasn't lasting very long, I decided to bring Aequinox into the battle.
He fared better than Trin, but not significantly.
Though, it was fun using Destruction on the opposition.
And Greater Command...
Alas, my record in the PvP arena was 1-2-1. Not a great score, but that goes to figure, for the kinds of characters I play.
Perhaps Obsydiian will fare better, once he's been developed to an appropriate level...
At any rate, my weekend didn't revolve around PvP Capture the Flag in DDO. In fact, I spent the better part of my weekend trying to move guild bank items from the old banker to my characters. And trying to do so amongst all the many chores I had to do around the house.
Needless to say, it wasn't my idea of a great time.
In fact, I don't have five spare characters to use as bank characters, so I've spent a lot of time shuffling things around, auctioning items and giving items to various members of the guild, in a desperate attempt to make use of the items, rather than lose them. Not an easy task.
In discussing the problem with a fellow player who wondered why the inventories on *all* of my characters were so full, he commented that *every* MMO he's ever played has had a dedicated guild bank that wasn't attached to any given character.
Why, after all this time, doesn't DDO have such a thing?!?
Because it doesn't, none of my characters have any bank or inventory space left. I'm back in the same position I was in when I first started the game... I'm going to have to start tossing items just to have enough room to pick up loot in the various quests.
Ugh!
Yesterday, when I arrived at work, I began my work-week in typical fashion, downloading the most recent episode of DDOCast to my iTunes and listening to it while attempting to quell the masses of architects who decided to work over the weekend.
(I honestly cannot understand how so many folks can work every day of every week. Don't they ever get burned out?!? I know I'm sick of seeing them after *two* days. Working a whole five-day work week is a very trying excercise. I couldn't imagine having to put up with these people over the weekend, too! Jeez, people, take some friggin' time off, would ya!?!)
Anyway...
During the podcast, I managed to catch Alex Haddox' segment, Inside the Monestary, where he talks about all things Monk within the game. This week's segment was a rant on how many people are playing Monks who shouldn't. People who have no idea how to play a Monk properly, and are therefore giving Monks a bad reputation. I can honestly say that I've been a victim of that problem. Especially my Clerics.
It's also a big reason as to why I haven't tried to play a Monk. I'm not into abusing my fellow players. Not on purpose, anyway.
But, it made me think... How many players out there run Clerics when they shouldn't? Or Rogues, or Fighters, or any other given class?
I know there're days when I shouldn't be playing any of my Clerics.
For whatever reason there're those days when I'm just not in sync. with the game, and trying to keep my fellow player's character alive is a futile gesture.
Playing a Rogue, though, is something I'm pretty good at. Especially since a Rogue is supposed to stay relatively out of the way, to let the other members of the party do their jobs. Until it comes time to finding and disabling traps, anyway. Or opening locks. It's one of the few classes I truly understand. Even if I don't play my Rogues the same way everyone else might expect.
But, to each his own.
Still... How many people are playing characters they shouldn't?
Okay, perhaps it isn't fair to pass judgement on what kinds of characters any given player *ought* to play.
But, I've come to realize that, for myself, there are certainly those classes I'm just not any good at playing. And, as a result, I don't have much fun when I play them. So I steer clear of them.
I would think that if you find a given class frustrating to play, it's a pretty good indication that you might want to consider playing something else.
I mean, the game isn't about frustration, right!?!
Not for me, anyway.
At any rate...
Keep it fun!
Friday, July 18, 2008
Congregations
I generally avoid highly opinionated subjects like politics and religion, but I've been a part of something recently that I find rather amusing, and sometimes ironic.
Now, let me start by saying that I will not go out on a limb to speak out for or against any particular organized religion. They all have their place and I happen to believe in the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States.
However...
I also happen to live *right* across the street from a Catholic church.
It's interesting how often they conduct all sorts of activities, *every* day of the week.
You know, mass every morning, plus an extra mass on Saturday evening and two extra masses on Sunday morning. And all kinds of other meetings and activities, like baptismals, first communions, weddings, and one of the more popular events, the occasional "dead dude party," as my wife likes to call it.
Mind you, she's not trying to be disrespectful toward the departed. Actually, rather, the opposite. You see, her father passed away at an early age, but she noted how many friends and family turned out to mark the occasion. Some flying in from very distant locations. But that, there was a *lot* of laughing and story-telling going on, very much a party atmosphere, not because he was gone, but because of how much everyone loved him. They were celebrating his life, not marking his death.
Still, the Catholic church across the street has *something* going almost 24/7, something we hadn't considered when we made an offer to buy our house.
At any rate, it's kinda funny how the priests ring the bells to call everyone together for mass.
And, here's why...
Starting at Cleric Level 9 (Level 5 Divine Spells), Clerics can cast Mass Cure spells. When used properly, they can be exceptionally efficient, more so than the individual Cure spells, particularly when your Cleric reaches Levels 13 and 15. That's when they learn Mass Cure Serious and Mass Cure Critical, respectively. At that point, just a few spell points can go a *long* way toward bringing an entire adventure party back up to full health.
In fact, with both PEBKAC, Level 13, and Aequinox, Level 15, I often find myself calling out to voice chat for the group to "Gather for Mass!" This is much like the arcane caster's "Gather for Haste!"
I find the irony in calling my group together for mass rather amusing, considering that I live right across the street from a Catholic church.
Perhaps I should find myself some bells, and play them into voice chat whenever I want to gather my "congregation" for healing...
Possibly even for occasions where I have to raise another character from the dead, too.
Heh. Could be entertaining.
Anyway...
Keep it fun!
Now, let me start by saying that I will not go out on a limb to speak out for or against any particular organized religion. They all have their place and I happen to believe in the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States.
However...
I also happen to live *right* across the street from a Catholic church.
It's interesting how often they conduct all sorts of activities, *every* day of the week.
You know, mass every morning, plus an extra mass on Saturday evening and two extra masses on Sunday morning. And all kinds of other meetings and activities, like baptismals, first communions, weddings, and one of the more popular events, the occasional "dead dude party," as my wife likes to call it.
Mind you, she's not trying to be disrespectful toward the departed. Actually, rather, the opposite. You see, her father passed away at an early age, but she noted how many friends and family turned out to mark the occasion. Some flying in from very distant locations. But that, there was a *lot* of laughing and story-telling going on, very much a party atmosphere, not because he was gone, but because of how much everyone loved him. They were celebrating his life, not marking his death.
Still, the Catholic church across the street has *something* going almost 24/7, something we hadn't considered when we made an offer to buy our house.
At any rate, it's kinda funny how the priests ring the bells to call everyone together for mass.
And, here's why...
Starting at Cleric Level 9 (Level 5 Divine Spells), Clerics can cast Mass Cure spells. When used properly, they can be exceptionally efficient, more so than the individual Cure spells, particularly when your Cleric reaches Levels 13 and 15. That's when they learn Mass Cure Serious and Mass Cure Critical, respectively. At that point, just a few spell points can go a *long* way toward bringing an entire adventure party back up to full health.
In fact, with both PEBKAC, Level 13, and Aequinox, Level 15, I often find myself calling out to voice chat for the group to "Gather for Mass!" This is much like the arcane caster's "Gather for Haste!"
I find the irony in calling my group together for mass rather amusing, considering that I live right across the street from a Catholic church.
Perhaps I should find myself some bells, and play them into voice chat whenever I want to gather my "congregation" for healing...
Possibly even for occasions where I have to raise another character from the dead, too.
Heh. Could be entertaining.
Anyway...
Keep it fun!
Wednesday, July 16, 2008
Troll Dodging
You know, I spend a fair amount of time reading the DDO forums, trying to keep up on what's going on with the game and what people have to say about it. Occasionally, I stumble across threads that, for a change, start out with some level of civility to it, where the Original Poster (OP) has something to say that I can at least reason with, regardless of whether I agree with it.
Sadly, more often than not, any form of civil discussion goes right down the drain as soon as someone makes a flippant or sarcastic remark.
Honestly, I should simply stop reading the forums at all. They make me angry more than they provide me any sort of useful information. The unfortunate element in the equation is that, to find any useful information about various approaches to the game, you pretty much *have* to read the forums; you simply have to sift through all of the mountains of opinionated crap to find it.
I mean, it was only with the help of the forums, back well before I became a member of the Face Stabbing Misfits, that I found enough information to help me determine what I wanted to do with Trinarius and his build plan.
But, in the process, I realized just how mean and nasty people can become simply because of the anonymity the game and its associated forums provides. I mean, if you could speak with these people face-to-face, I'd be willing to bet that most wouldn't behave the way they do on the forums. Mostly because what and how they say things would start a brawl amongst the other participants that no one would be able to walk away from; most would be drug away either in handcuffs or ambulances, some both.
Honestly, I don't understand this general trend toward open hostility with anyone who might disagree with someone else's opinion.
I mean, just because you have an opinion doesn't mean that it's right. The reality is that very few things said in the forums are anything but opinion, which means that the assertions (and the aggressions) made are hardly more than the expression of someone's perception of the facts.
This, of course, is only fuel for the fire.
The spark is usually someone's inarticulate reply to the thread.
And, then, at that point, we have a full-fledged flame-war on our hands.
It seems the only thing that can put out the flames is the intercession of The Cube.
But, let's go back to my suggestion of someone's inarticulate reply...
By that, I mean that the people involved with the thread lack the ability to articulate their thoughts in such a way as to be understood by others without being perceived to be a threat or that the author is uninformed or uneducated.
That the author lacks the language skills to express him- or herself, in the tone and context they intend.
This includes, but is not limited to poor spelling, poor or nonexistent punctuation, and/or poor grammar skills. Sometimes even the lack of use of emoticons.
A lack of effective communication skills seems to be the one thing in common with most of the flame-war threads I read. Only a small percentage of the flame wars seem to be started intentionally.
To make things worse, though, there are folks out there who state flat-out that they don't care that their spelling is wrong, or that they have poor grammar, that it's the fault of the other people for not being able to understand him or her. And there are still others that purposely use poor spelling and grammar to exacerbate the problem.
I can only sit and wonder why anyone would want to purposely contribute to the devolution of a society, even one as small as the community of DDO players.
What brought me to write about this issue was a posting to the Argonnessen Marketplace forums by community member BrntVan, and his thread entitled Wounding heavy pick of puncturing.
Now, I'm sure you're asking yourself why I'd be looking at an Argonnessen Marketplace thread when my characters are residents of Ghallanda. Well, when I first saw the thread, I simply saw it in the main forums window where it lists the threads from any forum with the most recent activity. It wasn't until I'd started reading a little further that I realized it was from a player on another server.
But, it was an interesting weapon. One that I wish I had for Trinarius. He could certainly make use of it. Particularly with his selection of Feats, he could even wield it in is off-hand without penalty! Alas, such is not to be. Not in this case anyway.
Still, I read on.
BrntVan was offering his heavy pick in trade for a shortsword with the same properties.
This is when other members of the community started to jump all over BrntVan for suggesting what, to them, seemed to be just another way to scam a "n00b" out of some "uber" loot.
Except that they never considered there might be players out there like me who might be seriously interested in such a trade.
Yes, I'll admit that when you compare the statistical effects of both a Wounding Heavy Pick of Puncturing against those of a Wounding Shortsword of Puncturing, the shortsword is probably the better weapon overall. For example, a shortsword is a light weapon, so it can be used in the off-hand, possibly without penalty, for any character with either the Two Weapon Fighting feat or the Weapon Finesse feat. The heavy pick, on the other hand, is almost exclusively a main-hand weapon. Almost...
For characters like Trin, who have the *entire* Two Weapon Fighting line of Feats, *including* Oversized Two Weapon Fighting, and sufficient bonuses to their Abilites, weapons like a heavy pick can easily be wielded off-hand without any penalties at all. And, since heavy weapons have a larger hit die than light weapons...
Maybe you can understand why I might prefer the heavy pick for my characters over the shorstword.
Maybe.
Still, this doesn't excuse the behavior of some of these individuals. I'm beginning to think many of them just sit at their computer *waiting* for someone to make a statement they don't agree with, just so they can jump all over their prey.
And, it's for this reason that I normally avoid posting to the forums. I'll read them until I get sick of the childishness, then leave. But, on occasions like this, I felt compelled to chime in, in defense of BrntVan.
In explaining my position, someone decided to call me naïve.
Wow!
There's *no* reason to go about calling people names or ascribing qualities to them when you don't know them. And, even then, there're limits to what you should be posting to a public forum.
Of course I took exception to being called naïve! And, of course I responded. But I also told them that, not only did I understand what value *they* placed on such a shortsword, that such shortsword was effectively worthless to my characters.
Certainly, I could've gone into details, but my defense followed up with the statement that now that I know who I'm dealing with, some folks would be required to pay an exorbitant rate some would liken to profiteering. Others, well, understanding what value their goods are to *me*, in relationship to what my goods are valuable to them... we can bargain for what *I* consider to be a fair trade.
You know, it isn't for other players to decide what's right or wrong in the game. The few rules that exist in the game have been established by Turbine, or perhaps the guild you might belong to, or even the group you're running with. And, while it may be true that some of the contributors only had the best interests of uninformed players in mind, I can't imagine that anyone who hasn't played the game for even a little while wouldn't appreciate the apparent market value of such items.
I don't get it.
It's just a game, folks. Keep if fun.
Please!
Sadly, more often than not, any form of civil discussion goes right down the drain as soon as someone makes a flippant or sarcastic remark.
Honestly, I should simply stop reading the forums at all. They make me angry more than they provide me any sort of useful information. The unfortunate element in the equation is that, to find any useful information about various approaches to the game, you pretty much *have* to read the forums; you simply have to sift through all of the mountains of opinionated crap to find it.
I mean, it was only with the help of the forums, back well before I became a member of the Face Stabbing Misfits, that I found enough information to help me determine what I wanted to do with Trinarius and his build plan.
But, in the process, I realized just how mean and nasty people can become simply because of the anonymity the game and its associated forums provides. I mean, if you could speak with these people face-to-face, I'd be willing to bet that most wouldn't behave the way they do on the forums. Mostly because what and how they say things would start a brawl amongst the other participants that no one would be able to walk away from; most would be drug away either in handcuffs or ambulances, some both.
Honestly, I don't understand this general trend toward open hostility with anyone who might disagree with someone else's opinion.
I mean, just because you have an opinion doesn't mean that it's right. The reality is that very few things said in the forums are anything but opinion, which means that the assertions (and the aggressions) made are hardly more than the expression of someone's perception of the facts.
This, of course, is only fuel for the fire.
The spark is usually someone's inarticulate reply to the thread.
And, then, at that point, we have a full-fledged flame-war on our hands.
It seems the only thing that can put out the flames is the intercession of The Cube.
But, let's go back to my suggestion of someone's inarticulate reply...
By that, I mean that the people involved with the thread lack the ability to articulate their thoughts in such a way as to be understood by others without being perceived to be a threat or that the author is uninformed or uneducated.
That the author lacks the language skills to express him- or herself, in the tone and context they intend.
This includes, but is not limited to poor spelling, poor or nonexistent punctuation, and/or poor grammar skills. Sometimes even the lack of use of emoticons.
A lack of effective communication skills seems to be the one thing in common with most of the flame-war threads I read. Only a small percentage of the flame wars seem to be started intentionally.
To make things worse, though, there are folks out there who state flat-out that they don't care that their spelling is wrong, or that they have poor grammar, that it's the fault of the other people for not being able to understand him or her. And there are still others that purposely use poor spelling and grammar to exacerbate the problem.
I can only sit and wonder why anyone would want to purposely contribute to the devolution of a society, even one as small as the community of DDO players.
What brought me to write about this issue was a posting to the Argonnessen Marketplace forums by community member BrntVan, and his thread entitled Wounding heavy pick of puncturing.
Now, I'm sure you're asking yourself why I'd be looking at an Argonnessen Marketplace thread when my characters are residents of Ghallanda. Well, when I first saw the thread, I simply saw it in the main forums window where it lists the threads from any forum with the most recent activity. It wasn't until I'd started reading a little further that I realized it was from a player on another server.
But, it was an interesting weapon. One that I wish I had for Trinarius. He could certainly make use of it. Particularly with his selection of Feats, he could even wield it in is off-hand without penalty! Alas, such is not to be. Not in this case anyway.
Still, I read on.
BrntVan was offering his heavy pick in trade for a shortsword with the same properties.
This is when other members of the community started to jump all over BrntVan for suggesting what, to them, seemed to be just another way to scam a "n00b" out of some "uber" loot.
Except that they never considered there might be players out there like me who might be seriously interested in such a trade.
Yes, I'll admit that when you compare the statistical effects of both a Wounding Heavy Pick of Puncturing against those of a Wounding Shortsword of Puncturing, the shortsword is probably the better weapon overall. For example, a shortsword is a light weapon, so it can be used in the off-hand, possibly without penalty, for any character with either the Two Weapon Fighting feat or the Weapon Finesse feat. The heavy pick, on the other hand, is almost exclusively a main-hand weapon. Almost...
For characters like Trin, who have the *entire* Two Weapon Fighting line of Feats, *including* Oversized Two Weapon Fighting, and sufficient bonuses to their Abilites, weapons like a heavy pick can easily be wielded off-hand without any penalties at all. And, since heavy weapons have a larger hit die than light weapons...
Maybe you can understand why I might prefer the heavy pick for my characters over the shorstword.
Maybe.
Still, this doesn't excuse the behavior of some of these individuals. I'm beginning to think many of them just sit at their computer *waiting* for someone to make a statement they don't agree with, just so they can jump all over their prey.
And, it's for this reason that I normally avoid posting to the forums. I'll read them until I get sick of the childishness, then leave. But, on occasions like this, I felt compelled to chime in, in defense of BrntVan.
In explaining my position, someone decided to call me naïve.
Wow!
There's *no* reason to go about calling people names or ascribing qualities to them when you don't know them. And, even then, there're limits to what you should be posting to a public forum.
Of course I took exception to being called naïve! And, of course I responded. But I also told them that, not only did I understand what value *they* placed on such a shortsword, that such shortsword was effectively worthless to my characters.
Certainly, I could've gone into details, but my defense followed up with the statement that now that I know who I'm dealing with, some folks would be required to pay an exorbitant rate some would liken to profiteering. Others, well, understanding what value their goods are to *me*, in relationship to what my goods are valuable to them... we can bargain for what *I* consider to be a fair trade.
You know, it isn't for other players to decide what's right or wrong in the game. The few rules that exist in the game have been established by Turbine, or perhaps the guild you might belong to, or even the group you're running with. And, while it may be true that some of the contributors only had the best interests of uninformed players in mind, I can't imagine that anyone who hasn't played the game for even a little while wouldn't appreciate the apparent market value of such items.
I don't get it.
It's just a game, folks. Keep if fun.
Please!
Tuesday, July 15, 2008
Summer Vacation?
The guild house is pretty quiet these days. It seems that many folks have left the game for their summer vacations, lucky sods.
No, I really don't have a life. In my real-life job, working for a large architectural firm, I don't have any sort of back-up to cover the role of architectural technology manager for me. So, I'm generally discouraged from taking more than a couple of days off at any one time.
That means that, while most everyone else in my office gets to take time off, I get to sit at my desk answering stupid questions that *I* would like to escape from. Honestly, it's difficult not to get burned-out in a position like mine, which is why I make sure I take my breaks and lunches, and occasionally screw around on less important projects that I find more interesting, than laboring over the same drudgery all the time.
But, what about when I get home and want to take some time to escape into the world of DDO?
Well, the world is still there, but as in the real world, many of the players have taken time away from the game, leaving Stormreach far less occupied than normal.
So, what can a player do to keep himself entertained while everyone's gone?
Mostly maintenance, from what I can tell. And a bit of solo work.
And, a lot of PUGing.
Except that, right now, I'm not much in the mood to PUG.
When server populations are low, like they are right now, my experience has been that there're some rather questionable group compositions out there. And, since I run mostly Clerics, my participation in such groups, generally, isn't as profitable as it could be.
This isn't to say that there aren't good PUG parties out there. Just that there aren't as many when most players are out on vacation.
And, no, I don't play this game simply to turn a profit. If I did, I certainly wouldn't have a stable full of Clerics to choose from. Maybe one, but not three and two-thirds.
Two-thirds?
Yep. I have two multi-class characters, Trinarius and Intrinsiq who serve as back-up healers. They're both one-third Rangers, so they can, and generally do, serve their part in helping to keep party members alive.
I might throw my Bard in there, too, but he doesn't have any healing spells trained up, and he only heals when someone gives him a wand; he doesn't buy his own.
So, out of the nine characters in my clan, six serve, in some form or another, as healers.
And, of the three remaining, two can serve as Warforged repair technicians.
Hmm... maybe I should've been a paramedic instead of an architect...
But, the question is, while everyone else is out on vacation, and since I can't take one myself, what can I do to play the game without playing healer (or repairer) for everyone else?
Well, I haven't figured that out yet, but I know playing banker until folks return isn't my idea of a good time.
Perhaps I should resurrect my goal to figure out a way to solo The Pit...
That could be interesting...
Keep it fun!
No, I really don't have a life. In my real-life job, working for a large architectural firm, I don't have any sort of back-up to cover the role of architectural technology manager for me. So, I'm generally discouraged from taking more than a couple of days off at any one time.
That means that, while most everyone else in my office gets to take time off, I get to sit at my desk answering stupid questions that *I* would like to escape from. Honestly, it's difficult not to get burned-out in a position like mine, which is why I make sure I take my breaks and lunches, and occasionally screw around on less important projects that I find more interesting, than laboring over the same drudgery all the time.
But, what about when I get home and want to take some time to escape into the world of DDO?
Well, the world is still there, but as in the real world, many of the players have taken time away from the game, leaving Stormreach far less occupied than normal.
So, what can a player do to keep himself entertained while everyone's gone?
Mostly maintenance, from what I can tell. And a bit of solo work.
And, a lot of PUGing.
Except that, right now, I'm not much in the mood to PUG.
When server populations are low, like they are right now, my experience has been that there're some rather questionable group compositions out there. And, since I run mostly Clerics, my participation in such groups, generally, isn't as profitable as it could be.
This isn't to say that there aren't good PUG parties out there. Just that there aren't as many when most players are out on vacation.
And, no, I don't play this game simply to turn a profit. If I did, I certainly wouldn't have a stable full of Clerics to choose from. Maybe one, but not three and two-thirds.
Two-thirds?
Yep. I have two multi-class characters, Trinarius and Intrinsiq who serve as back-up healers. They're both one-third Rangers, so they can, and generally do, serve their part in helping to keep party members alive.
I might throw my Bard in there, too, but he doesn't have any healing spells trained up, and he only heals when someone gives him a wand; he doesn't buy his own.
So, out of the nine characters in my clan, six serve, in some form or another, as healers.
And, of the three remaining, two can serve as Warforged repair technicians.
Hmm... maybe I should've been a paramedic instead of an architect...
But, the question is, while everyone else is out on vacation, and since I can't take one myself, what can I do to play the game without playing healer (or repairer) for everyone else?
Well, I haven't figured that out yet, but I know playing banker until folks return isn't my idea of a good time.
Perhaps I should resurrect my goal to figure out a way to solo The Pit...
That could be interesting...
Keep it fun!
Monday, July 14, 2008
Near Catastrophe
For those of you who've been reading along with me lately, you'll know that I've been spending some time out in the Menechtarun Desert, trying to help friends in the allied guilds prepare their characters for the Demon Queen raid, but at the same time, also running the Explorer/Slayer/Rare Encounters out in the desert's wilderness area.
(Both Thundermouse and Stonehands have been chomping at the bit to pull themselves a Bloodstone, whatever that is...)
Well, as I posted previously, our Demon Queen raid that had previously been schedule for this past Friday had fallen through because of some technical difficulties. As a result, a group of us decided to work on some more of the E/S/RE objectives instead. Which, of course, gave both Thundermouse and Stonehands another chance to find themselves a Bloodstone.
Which, incidentally, one of the allied guildies in the group said that he'd pulled one a few weeks back, but couldn't use it, so he simply gave it to another guildie. Mind you, this was one of our friends in the Lifetakers and Heartbreakers who'd said this. Which was almost immediately followed by Stonehands comment that he'd change guilds for a Bloodstone.
He said this with me, the leader of the Face Stabbing Misfits, the guild of which he is a member, and what's worse, the guild of which he's an... *officer*, in the party!
*AND*, he said it with two other Face Stabbers in group as witnesses!
Uh-huh.
I see how it is...
Oh, I know he was just kidding around, but I *had* to act as if my pride were wounded, or it wouldn't've been as funny. But, I did take a moment to remind him that anything he says or does in a group that I'm a member of is bloggable...
Well, I just blogged about it, so it's now a fixture of the history books... err... blog.
Sorry, Stonehands, I just couldn't let that one go! ;-)
At any rate, there we were, running through the desert, looking for rare encounters, and since there were still some folks needing the prerequisite quests, running those as well. But, it was a rather long and tiring evening. Toward the end, when we were making one last run of the chests before turning in for the evening, my character, PEBKAC, died while trying to save some of our friends while they attempted to clear one of the shrines out in the adventure area.
Keep in mind that this was the only time that evening that PEBKAC, a Level 13 Cleric, had died.
The *only* time.
Well, after we'd finished our run, I headed back to the tavern in Zawabi's Refuge to repair my items before logging out.
So, after opening the window to the tavernkeep, I noticed that, as usual, everything seemed to have at least some damage on them, so I hit the Add All button and then hit the Repair button.
But, at the same time, something seemed a bit strange...
I couldn't quite put my finger on it, but I decided that sleep was more important than playing gum-shoe, so I bid my farewells and logged out.
Now, although I'd signed in for a few moments early Saturday morning, and I even took a few minutes to blog about the previous evening, I'd completely let any worries go with the few hours of rest between logins.
I spent the rest of my Saturday with my wife; we'd gone shopping, and in the process, I bought her a new bicycle. She'd been wanting one for a long time, as she'd not ridden one since our honeymoon, ten years prior, and she hadn't had her own bicycle since she was a teenager. We, therefore, spent most of the rest of our day pulling my bike out of the garage and tuning it up, and then riding about the neighborhood together, while she tried to remember how to ride.
By the time we'd gotten back home, I was pretty tired, but something in the back of my mind was telling me I should log back into the game. Honestly, I really didn't feel much like playing, but I felt some compulsion to log in and see what was going on.
Nothing much, really, so I decided to log into each of my characters and do a little maintenance, and kinda hang out in case someone needed me for anything.
Which is when I logged into PEBKAC.
And found that his *entire* inventory was EMPTY!
What the...!!!
Empty!?!
What happened?!?
Oh...
Wait...
I remembered that my repair bill the previous evening seemed kinda high. I even made a comment about it into the group's voice chat channel. Something along the lines of 106 *thousand* gold.
Something's not right...
Back to the tavernkeep... "Hey, buddy, show me what you have." "Why, sure, please take a look around, and see what we have to offer..."
D'oh!
Right there, on the Buy-Back page...
PEBKAC's *entire* inventory.
I was so tired that evening, that I hadn't switched to the Repair tab at all. Instead, I had opened to the default Sell tab, and simply clicked the Add All button because it looked like the same Add All button I'm used to on the Repair tab. I was so tired that I didn't realize the confirmation button didn't say Repair, but that it said Sell, instead.
Ugh!!!
To add insult to injury, there were four pages of buy-back items, but you can't just click any sort of Add All button on the Repair tab.
No, instead, you have to select the items, one at a time, and buy them back individually. It was a tedious process, to be sure.
And, while I was individually buying back PEBKAC's items, I noticed the countdown timer in the listings... I had almost waited too long. There was *just* over two hours left before my sale of items to the tavernkeep would be final. Hmm... now to buy-back as quickly as I could.
What a pain.
Mind you, the ability to buy-back is new. It arrived with the installation of Module 7. Had I pulled this stunt before the module had been released, I'd've had a more serious problem...
Like replacing all those Heal and Raise Dead scrolls and Cure Serious wands that PEBKAC had procured for various adventures, along with all of the loot I'd planned for him to shuffle around amongst the assorted characters in my clan.
Had I waited much longer, it would've cost me a *lot* more to replace those items than it had to purchase them in the first place.
But, with a sigh of relief, I managed to get all the items back.
But, just so you all know, you have only twenty-four hours in which to buy items back. Had I waited until after eleven p.m. local time, which is when I executed my blunder the previous evening, I'd have had a catastrophe on my hands. Instead, I was lucky in that I'd listened to the little voice of instinct in the back of my head that was telling me something was wrong.
Listen to your instincts, folks. They're there to help keep you out of trouble.
(Both Thundermouse and Stonehands have been chomping at the bit to pull themselves a Bloodstone, whatever that is...)
Well, as I posted previously, our Demon Queen raid that had previously been schedule for this past Friday had fallen through because of some technical difficulties. As a result, a group of us decided to work on some more of the E/S/RE objectives instead. Which, of course, gave both Thundermouse and Stonehands another chance to find themselves a Bloodstone.
Which, incidentally, one of the allied guildies in the group said that he'd pulled one a few weeks back, but couldn't use it, so he simply gave it to another guildie. Mind you, this was one of our friends in the Lifetakers and Heartbreakers who'd said this. Which was almost immediately followed by Stonehands comment that he'd change guilds for a Bloodstone.
He said this with me, the leader of the Face Stabbing Misfits, the guild of which he is a member, and what's worse, the guild of which he's an... *officer*, in the party!
*AND*, he said it with two other Face Stabbers in group as witnesses!
Uh-huh.
I see how it is...
Oh, I know he was just kidding around, but I *had* to act as if my pride were wounded, or it wouldn't've been as funny. But, I did take a moment to remind him that anything he says or does in a group that I'm a member of is bloggable...
Well, I just blogged about it, so it's now a fixture of the history books... err... blog.
Sorry, Stonehands, I just couldn't let that one go! ;-)
At any rate, there we were, running through the desert, looking for rare encounters, and since there were still some folks needing the prerequisite quests, running those as well. But, it was a rather long and tiring evening. Toward the end, when we were making one last run of the chests before turning in for the evening, my character, PEBKAC, died while trying to save some of our friends while they attempted to clear one of the shrines out in the adventure area.
Keep in mind that this was the only time that evening that PEBKAC, a Level 13 Cleric, had died.
The *only* time.
Well, after we'd finished our run, I headed back to the tavern in Zawabi's Refuge to repair my items before logging out.
So, after opening the window to the tavernkeep, I noticed that, as usual, everything seemed to have at least some damage on them, so I hit the Add All button and then hit the Repair button.
But, at the same time, something seemed a bit strange...
I couldn't quite put my finger on it, but I decided that sleep was more important than playing gum-shoe, so I bid my farewells and logged out.
Now, although I'd signed in for a few moments early Saturday morning, and I even took a few minutes to blog about the previous evening, I'd completely let any worries go with the few hours of rest between logins.
I spent the rest of my Saturday with my wife; we'd gone shopping, and in the process, I bought her a new bicycle. She'd been wanting one for a long time, as she'd not ridden one since our honeymoon, ten years prior, and she hadn't had her own bicycle since she was a teenager. We, therefore, spent most of the rest of our day pulling my bike out of the garage and tuning it up, and then riding about the neighborhood together, while she tried to remember how to ride.
By the time we'd gotten back home, I was pretty tired, but something in the back of my mind was telling me I should log back into the game. Honestly, I really didn't feel much like playing, but I felt some compulsion to log in and see what was going on.
Nothing much, really, so I decided to log into each of my characters and do a little maintenance, and kinda hang out in case someone needed me for anything.
Which is when I logged into PEBKAC.
And found that his *entire* inventory was EMPTY!
What the...!!!
Empty!?!
What happened?!?
Oh...
Wait...
I remembered that my repair bill the previous evening seemed kinda high. I even made a comment about it into the group's voice chat channel. Something along the lines of 106 *thousand* gold.
Something's not right...
Back to the tavernkeep... "Hey, buddy, show me what you have." "Why, sure, please take a look around, and see what we have to offer..."
D'oh!
Right there, on the Buy-Back page...
PEBKAC's *entire* inventory.
I was so tired that evening, that I hadn't switched to the Repair tab at all. Instead, I had opened to the default Sell tab, and simply clicked the Add All button because it looked like the same Add All button I'm used to on the Repair tab. I was so tired that I didn't realize the confirmation button didn't say Repair, but that it said Sell, instead.
Ugh!!!
To add insult to injury, there were four pages of buy-back items, but you can't just click any sort of Add All button on the Repair tab.
No, instead, you have to select the items, one at a time, and buy them back individually. It was a tedious process, to be sure.
And, while I was individually buying back PEBKAC's items, I noticed the countdown timer in the listings... I had almost waited too long. There was *just* over two hours left before my sale of items to the tavernkeep would be final. Hmm... now to buy-back as quickly as I could.
What a pain.
Mind you, the ability to buy-back is new. It arrived with the installation of Module 7. Had I pulled this stunt before the module had been released, I'd've had a more serious problem...
Like replacing all those Heal and Raise Dead scrolls and Cure Serious wands that PEBKAC had procured for various adventures, along with all of the loot I'd planned for him to shuffle around amongst the assorted characters in my clan.
Had I waited much longer, it would've cost me a *lot* more to replace those items than it had to purchase them in the first place.
But, with a sigh of relief, I managed to get all the items back.
But, just so you all know, you have only twenty-four hours in which to buy items back. Had I waited until after eleven p.m. local time, which is when I executed my blunder the previous evening, I'd have had a catastrophe on my hands. Instead, I was lucky in that I'd listened to the little voice of instinct in the back of my head that was telling me something was wrong.
Listen to your instincts, folks. They're there to help keep you out of trouble.
Saturday, July 12, 2008
Not Quite as Planned
I managed to get home from work and get through dinner earlier that normal last night, in hopes of being able to get PEBKAC through the pre-raid quest, ADQ, Against the Demon Queen, and to help Stonehands, Benjarrus and Belzur do the same before our Demon Queen raid was supposed to kick off at 7:00pm local time. Alas, not everyone else was able to get into the game early enough, so we spent some time waiting, and waiting... and waiting.
Then we discovered why there was so little interest in the raid...
Stonehands had had a problem with the event listing on the raid calendar; it showed up on the Face Stabber's raid calendar, but it didn't appear on the Lifetaker's event calendar, nor did it appear on Sun War Academy's event calendar.
That would explain a lot.
Of course, I wouldn't blame Stonehands for the issues. From my experience, you have to be very diligent when adding events to the calendar in GuildPortal. If not, you might not see an entry at all, your event as you'd planned it, multiple instances of your event, or an event that has completely different settings than you'd intended. Trust me, I've seen all varieties. I even had these problems with one of my recent Dragon raids, where the calendar had initially shown incorrect information, which I tried to edit, and ended up with multiple listings. When I went back to correct the multiple listings, it removed the entry from our allies calendars. It finally got to the point where I had to delete all of the entries, which booted all of the folks who'd signed up for the raid from the event, and I had to start all over again.
And, because I had to start over, only a couple of the folks who'd originally signed up for the raid had noticed the change and signed up the second time around. As a result, turn-out for my Dragon raid that week had been less than originally planned. In my case, though, I noticed the problem with a few day's lead time, and I was able to advertise for the raid during the remaining time leading up to my raid. We didn't have that luxury with Stonehands' Queen raid last night.
*sigh*
We'll have to give it another try.
That also would explain why so many folks weren't ready to run ADQ or the Queen last night. They simply didn't know.
We'll get it straightened out for next time. Until then, both PuddinTan and Stonehands are off for a week in Aruba. Lucky dogs. The rest of us are back here in the States doin' pretty much the same ol', same ol'.
Not that I'm complaining about my opportunities to play DDO. It's better than the grind at work, after all...
So, rather than running the Queen raid last night, we decided to help a few more folks get their characters ready, but because we'd had problems getting the word out, our initial run meant that we PUGed out the three remaining slots. (Belzur hadn't logged into the game yet.)
Wow! What a headache that particular run was...
We'd chosen to run An Offering of Blood. Probably my least favorite of the three quests leading up to ADQ, simply because you pretty much have to keep running the entire way through the quest. The monsters continue to respawn while you're in the quest, so it doesn't give you much time to get your bearings when things don't go according to plan.
The problem with the run was that two of the PUG (Pick-Up Group) players apparently knew each other, and decided to use the run as a gossip session. Except, they decided they wanted to use some rather harsh curse words without regard for the situation or the other players in the group.
Now, I'm not saying I never curse. In fact, thanks to the Army, I learned how to curse properly. So, when the situation and timing are right, I can certainly hold my own. BUT! In-game, where we're all just trying to have a little fun, when things aren't stressful, and everyone seems to be having a good time doesn't seem to me to be the time or place for that kind of behavior.
Needless to say, as soon as the run was over, Blackwand, Stonehands and I all dropped from the group courteously and reformed a new one without the PUG players from the previous run. Doing this had a two-fold benefit... We were able to bring Belzur into the group, who'd logged in while we were in the middle of the run, *and* it made things in party chat much more quiet and easy to listen to.
However, we were still two players short of a full party.
That's when we found Otaronin, another Lifetaker, wandering around without anything in particular to do.
Of course we had to send an invite!
Which was promptly accepted, but all of the pre-quests for the Queen raid almost certainly require a Rogue to run them to full completion, optionals and all.
With no unoccupied Rogues available in the allied guilds, it was time to PUG-out again, for the last slot. Fortunately, Blackwand had the same idea I'd had regarding this final player... it was time to be smart and selective about who we wanted to join us. Both Blackwand and I started looking over our options in the Social panel, and found an un-grouped Level 15 Rogue from the Old-Timer's Guild just kinda kicking around.
I had no sooner told Blackwand what I'd found when he told me he was already on it and had *just* sent the player a /tell asking if he'd be interested.
It was funny how quickly both Blackwand and I had zeroed in on this particular player; following the server merge, it took a while to get to know who everyone was from the various servers, but it quickly became apparent that the Old-Timer's Guild, OTG as they're commonly known, was a group who preferred to have fun, rather than have problems. In fact, I've never had anything but positive experiences with members of OTG. Apparently, Blackwand was of the same opinion, which is why we both decided that this was the player we wanted in our group.
And, we were very lucky that he accepted our invitation.
He was a player returning to the game from an eight-month hiatus, and was just trying to get back into the swing of things. So, it would seem that he was looking for something to do that wasn't as intense or trying as some PUGs can be. I think he quickly discovered that we weren't trying to take on the impossible, and that we were just trying to have some fun.
Insane fun, but fun nonetheless.
We all had a great time, too!
Actually, I've said it before, but things are never boring with Benjarrus/Thundermouse/Blackwand in the group. Nor is it boring with folks like Stonehands, Belzur and myself. You *never* know what's going to happen. We're all *very* spontaneous. And I like that about our group. I think that if everything was always so predictable, I wouldn't find this game to be quite so entertaining.
Of course, our group wouldn't stay together exactly as we'd assembled it. Stonehands hadn't finished packing for his trip to Aruba, so he ended up dropping after we'd completed The Chamber of Raiyum, also known as The Wizard-King. Not to be deterred, Blackwand convinced another Lifetaker who'd similarly returned from hiatus, Beorj, to join us.
Now, I'd run with Beorj before, but it had been a *long* time. I know I remembered his character's name, and he remembered mine, but it'd been so long that we didn't really remember how each other played the game very well. All I remembered was that it'd been a good time.
Heh. It still was.
We all laughed our way through the Chains of Flame and several runs on the Bloodstone and Spell Storing Ring chests out in the desert.
I think it's safe to say we all had a pretty good time.
And we made some new friends in the process.
Maybe the evening didn't run as planned, but that didn't stop us from having fun anyway.
I constantly look forward to the next time.
Keep it fun, everyone!
Then we discovered why there was so little interest in the raid...
Stonehands had had a problem with the event listing on the raid calendar; it showed up on the Face Stabber's raid calendar, but it didn't appear on the Lifetaker's event calendar, nor did it appear on Sun War Academy's event calendar.
That would explain a lot.
Of course, I wouldn't blame Stonehands for the issues. From my experience, you have to be very diligent when adding events to the calendar in GuildPortal. If not, you might not see an entry at all, your event as you'd planned it, multiple instances of your event, or an event that has completely different settings than you'd intended. Trust me, I've seen all varieties. I even had these problems with one of my recent Dragon raids, where the calendar had initially shown incorrect information, which I tried to edit, and ended up with multiple listings. When I went back to correct the multiple listings, it removed the entry from our allies calendars. It finally got to the point where I had to delete all of the entries, which booted all of the folks who'd signed up for the raid from the event, and I had to start all over again.
And, because I had to start over, only a couple of the folks who'd originally signed up for the raid had noticed the change and signed up the second time around. As a result, turn-out for my Dragon raid that week had been less than originally planned. In my case, though, I noticed the problem with a few day's lead time, and I was able to advertise for the raid during the remaining time leading up to my raid. We didn't have that luxury with Stonehands' Queen raid last night.
*sigh*
We'll have to give it another try.
That also would explain why so many folks weren't ready to run ADQ or the Queen last night. They simply didn't know.
We'll get it straightened out for next time. Until then, both PuddinTan and Stonehands are off for a week in Aruba. Lucky dogs. The rest of us are back here in the States doin' pretty much the same ol', same ol'.
Not that I'm complaining about my opportunities to play DDO. It's better than the grind at work, after all...
So, rather than running the Queen raid last night, we decided to help a few more folks get their characters ready, but because we'd had problems getting the word out, our initial run meant that we PUGed out the three remaining slots. (Belzur hadn't logged into the game yet.)
Wow! What a headache that particular run was...
We'd chosen to run An Offering of Blood. Probably my least favorite of the three quests leading up to ADQ, simply because you pretty much have to keep running the entire way through the quest. The monsters continue to respawn while you're in the quest, so it doesn't give you much time to get your bearings when things don't go according to plan.
The problem with the run was that two of the PUG (Pick-Up Group) players apparently knew each other, and decided to use the run as a gossip session. Except, they decided they wanted to use some rather harsh curse words without regard for the situation or the other players in the group.
Now, I'm not saying I never curse. In fact, thanks to the Army, I learned how to curse properly. So, when the situation and timing are right, I can certainly hold my own. BUT! In-game, where we're all just trying to have a little fun, when things aren't stressful, and everyone seems to be having a good time doesn't seem to me to be the time or place for that kind of behavior.
Needless to say, as soon as the run was over, Blackwand, Stonehands and I all dropped from the group courteously and reformed a new one without the PUG players from the previous run. Doing this had a two-fold benefit... We were able to bring Belzur into the group, who'd logged in while we were in the middle of the run, *and* it made things in party chat much more quiet and easy to listen to.
However, we were still two players short of a full party.
That's when we found Otaronin, another Lifetaker, wandering around without anything in particular to do.
Of course we had to send an invite!
Which was promptly accepted, but all of the pre-quests for the Queen raid almost certainly require a Rogue to run them to full completion, optionals and all.
With no unoccupied Rogues available in the allied guilds, it was time to PUG-out again, for the last slot. Fortunately, Blackwand had the same idea I'd had regarding this final player... it was time to be smart and selective about who we wanted to join us. Both Blackwand and I started looking over our options in the Social panel, and found an un-grouped Level 15 Rogue from the Old-Timer's Guild just kinda kicking around.
I had no sooner told Blackwand what I'd found when he told me he was already on it and had *just* sent the player a /tell asking if he'd be interested.
It was funny how quickly both Blackwand and I had zeroed in on this particular player; following the server merge, it took a while to get to know who everyone was from the various servers, but it quickly became apparent that the Old-Timer's Guild, OTG as they're commonly known, was a group who preferred to have fun, rather than have problems. In fact, I've never had anything but positive experiences with members of OTG. Apparently, Blackwand was of the same opinion, which is why we both decided that this was the player we wanted in our group.
And, we were very lucky that he accepted our invitation.
He was a player returning to the game from an eight-month hiatus, and was just trying to get back into the swing of things. So, it would seem that he was looking for something to do that wasn't as intense or trying as some PUGs can be. I think he quickly discovered that we weren't trying to take on the impossible, and that we were just trying to have some fun.
Insane fun, but fun nonetheless.
We all had a great time, too!
Actually, I've said it before, but things are never boring with Benjarrus/Thundermouse/Blackwand in the group. Nor is it boring with folks like Stonehands, Belzur and myself. You *never* know what's going to happen. We're all *very* spontaneous. And I like that about our group. I think that if everything was always so predictable, I wouldn't find this game to be quite so entertaining.
Of course, our group wouldn't stay together exactly as we'd assembled it. Stonehands hadn't finished packing for his trip to Aruba, so he ended up dropping after we'd completed The Chamber of Raiyum, also known as The Wizard-King. Not to be deterred, Blackwand convinced another Lifetaker who'd similarly returned from hiatus, Beorj, to join us.
Now, I'd run with Beorj before, but it had been a *long* time. I know I remembered his character's name, and he remembered mine, but it'd been so long that we didn't really remember how each other played the game very well. All I remembered was that it'd been a good time.
Heh. It still was.
We all laughed our way through the Chains of Flame and several runs on the Bloodstone and Spell Storing Ring chests out in the desert.
I think it's safe to say we all had a pretty good time.
And we made some new friends in the process.
Maybe the evening didn't run as planned, but that didn't stop us from having fun anyway.
I constantly look forward to the next time.
Keep it fun, everyone!
Friday, July 11, 2008
Taking the Plunge
For those of you who've been reading my blog for some time, I've decided to finally move to a more powerful blogging engine. Sadly, many of the quirks I've had to deal with in the GuildPortal engine are more frustrating than I care to continue dealing with. Especially since many of my original posts from over a year ago seem to be no longer accessible. And there were some rather entertaining things that I'd written that I'd like to go back and re-read, and I'd like to be available in case my readers wanted to re-read them.
So, I'll be setting up shop over here, on Blogspot, and re-directing my links in GuildPortal to this new location. If possible, I'll also migrate my posts over here, so there's a better history. If not, I'll see what I can do to reclaim old posts, and maybe convert them to PDF, or something. We'll see...
In the mean time, welcome to my new home!
So, I'll be setting up shop over here, on Blogspot, and re-directing my links in GuildPortal to this new location. If possible, I'll also migrate my posts over here, so there's a better history. If not, I'll see what I can do to reclaim old posts, and maybe convert them to PDF, or something. We'll see...
In the mean time, welcome to my new home!
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