Over the past few weeks, I've come to realize how much I miss playing Trinarius on a regular basis. Although I enjoy playing Clerics, I miss having the odd-ball character build that allows me to do so many different things in any given quest. This led me into an investigation of the character aspects I really enjoyed about Trinarius, but to take a closer look at how to enhance those traits, and make him more into the kind of character I'd originally wanted him to be.
What has to be taken into consideration here, though, is that the game has undergone some remarkable changes since I first introduced Trinarius. At the same time, my understanding of the game's mechanics has increased considerably. As a result, my intentions for how to play Trin have changed.
Clearly, I've always enjoyed serving as the party's Rogue. Trapsmithing, although not nearly as exciting as some other tasks in the game, presents a kind of challenge that requires an awful lot of attention to detail, planning, and a fair amount of luck. But, it's something I enjoy. The problem is that he often plays the luck card a little too frequently. Blowing a trap on Elite isn't really looked upon very favorably by the rest of the group.
One of Trin's original as-designed specifications was that he avoid melée combat whenever possible, opting instead to kill enemies from a distance and never let them come close enough to present any real threat to his person. That's something I strayed from with Trinarius. I learned that Rangers earn the ability to dual-wield weapons automatically, and as a dwarf, the ability to dual-wield Dwarven Axes proved too great a temptation for me to stick to my original plan.
The problem is that Trinarius hadn't started with the ability scores necessary to become an effective two-weapon fighter. As a result, he's suffered through difficulties with to-hit and damage rolls, often doing much less damage than a properly designed two-weapon fighter could do.
And then, it came to Trin's Wizarding abilities...
My original intent was for him to employ spells like Magic Missile, Melf's Acid Arrow, Scorching Ray, and maybe even Fireball, all ranged attack spells. Again, the idea is to kill from a distance, and avoid the increasingly difficult task of remaining alive in close proximity to an ogre's club.
Instead, Trinarius became a self-buffer, and really has only Wall of Fire as any sort of decent damage spell. Granted, it's nothing to balk at, but it isn't exactly a ranged attack, either. Trin has to sneak right up under the enemy's noses to plant one of the biggest aggro-grabbing spells in the game.
All of these factors led be back to the drawing board to re-think how Trin should *really* have developed...
Clearly, I want Trin to be able to attempt to disable a trap without risk of blowing up the control box, and leaving the party in the unfortunate position of trying to negotiate a very deadly obstacle, especially on elite. So, Trin will have to have a high enough Disable Device skill that he can roll even a 1, an automatic failure, without blowing the control box, making it possible to make another attempt to disable the trap.
Of course, you can't disable a trap if you can't find it's control box, so his Search skill needs to be equally high.
And, everyone who plays regularly knows that there are some chests you simply cannot open without a Rogue with a high Open Lock skill.
The funny thing is... I'm not terribly concerned about his Spot skill.
By the time I get to run Trin through a quest, either I've already encountered the traps before, and remember where they are, or someone else in the group is telling me where to look for them. So, out of the four cardinal Rogue skills, Trin will only focus on three.
And, unless Turbine changes the way they've implemented traps in the quests, I won't worry about his Spot skill. Besides, that leaves more skill points to spend on other skills, like Use Magic Device and Haggle.
So, the remainder of Trin's abilities should focus on ranged damage. Clearly, this should continue Trin's history of mixing Ranger and Wizard abilities with Rogue, but the approach will be a bit different. It's time to focus on using some of those really interesting longbows I've seen here and there. And, to change the emphasis of the Wizard spells in his spellbook.
Based on my new assumptions, I ran my idea through Ron's DDO Character Planner, just to see what options I had to play with.
Trin's original approach was to build upon the dwarven chassis, so I started there.
I found, though, that I was having problems with being able to afford all of the enhancements I wanted him to have. That's when I gave the Character Planner another go. But, this time, I chose the Warforged chassis.
...
Yes, a "wobot", as Thundermouse likes to call them.
...
Surprisingly, I had Action Points to spare, with the same basic configuration.
And, I liked the idea enough that I re-rolled Intrinsiq last night, creating Trinarias.
...
Oh, don't worry... Trinarius is still around. Just consider this his latest clan experiment.
...
He's already up to Level two, having taken his first level of Rogue and Ranger to this point.
And, he's running with a +22 on his Disable Device skill, already.
This is gonna be fun!
Alas, I'll have to leave him in the clan house tonight; it's time for a Titan raid! Here's hoping Obsydiian pulls his Seven-Fingered Gloves!
Keep it fun, and enjoy the long weekend!
Friday, August 29, 2008
Wednesday, August 27, 2008
About to Lose My Mind
So, this week has been rather trying for me. It seems that everyone in Denver has forgotten how to behave like normal human beings. I blame it all on the Democratic National Convention.
Mind you, I'm not opposed to political groups getting together to get themselves all pumped up for the elections.
But, did they have to come to *my* city!?!
*I* did NOT ask them to come here.
But, someone did.
And, because I work downtown near the convention site, my entire week has been forced away from any sense of normalcy. Each of the past two days, while trying to get away from the office for some lunch, I've been inundated by convention-goers. What's worse is that both days so far, a police officer has tried to run me down. Monday, it was a 300-pound gorilla of an officer riding a bicycle. He came barreling around a blind corner with five of his blue-uniformed friends. And, there I was, left with no place to go.
I'm sure he could tell I wasn't terribly pleased by the encounter.
I mean, I was on a sidewalk.
A sidewalk, not a bike path.
Here in Denver, the two are easily distinguished from one another by the big bicycle painted on the surface of the bike path.
Of course, I'd've *somehow* been in the wrong for knocking him off his bike for trying to run me down...
Yesterday, again, while I was walking on a sidewalk...
You know, those places where pedestrians are *supposed* to have the right-of-way...
Another officer tried to run me down, this time with a Ford F-350 pulling a six-horse trailer.
This time, I clearly expressed my displeasure. When he waved me off, I was tempted to drag him out of his truck and trade places with him.
If there are any police officers in my reading audience, please remember that just because you have a badge and a gun does *NOT* mean you can ignore a citizen's rights.
I can hardly wait to see what happens today...
In an attempt to keep my sanity, I logged in to the game on Monday night, but was so exhausted from the throngs on the first day of the convention, that I had to log out early and crawl into bed before I collapsed.
Which was too bad.
Segna (Bashal/Stonehands), PuddinTan (Tanision/Murders) and Jaecen (Branwynn/Fharn/etc., guild leader for the Lifetakers and Heartbreakers) were all out running through the Menechtarun Desert, in search for the elusive Bloodstone.
I couldn't hang.
I needed rest.
Last night was different, though. Despite the trials of the real-life day, I decided I needed to have some fun. Belzur, Murders, Segna, and me, running as Obsydiian, headed out to Gianthold for a little diversion. We decided upon the Maze of Madness. And, we picked up a couple of really cool PUG (Pick-Up Group) players for the excursion.
I really enjoy the Maze.
It's a trap-smithing Rogue's dream come true.
It's also the quest where I pulled my stack of thirteen Kargon's Tasty Hams from one of the chests.
(You all remember that Kargon is my hero, right?!?)
Of course, we were only running the quest on Normal, but the point of the adventure was to enjoy ourselves. If I'd wanted to torture myself, I'd simply have gone right back to work. :-P
Still, it really was a lot of fun. Especially for me, since it was the first time in a very long time that I've run that quest, playing as something other than a Cleric. Don't get me wrong... I love playing my Clerics. But, after having played them so much, there's a marked difference in how a Sorcerer/Barbarian like Obsydiian plays.
I actually have a difficult time trying to remember which buttons to push for which spells to cast or weapons to swing.
It can be quite confusing.
But, it was loads of fun.
Enough fun, it seems, that neither of our PUG players dropped group when we finished. Instead, both asked what we were doing next.
Heh... well, how 'bout a quick PoP run!?! (That's Prison of the Planes, in case you forgot.)
Ya know, I really enjoy all of the quests out in Gianthold, but the Maze of Madness and the Prison of the Planes have to be two of my favorites. They both offer their own challenges, but neither is overwhelming. At least, not when run at the appropriate level of difficulty, and with a well-balanced group, anyway.
Though nothing especially cool dropped in any of the chests, our PUG Wizard managed to pull himself a +1 Vorpal Dwarven Axe from the Marilith's chest, in the Prison of the Planes.
Honestly, I've never used a Vorpal weapon.
Especially since I don't really have one.
So, I don't really understand why people like them so much, but I suppose they have their place in the game.
In fact, someone in our group Vorpaled the Marilith in order to claim her chest.
Her treasure chest, that is.
...
Oh, you know what I mean. Not *that* treasure chest, but the wooden crate in which gold coins and a variety of weapons, scrolls and other items are stored.
Get your minds out of the gutter!
(Actually, don't... it's more entertaining that way.)
:-)
Anyway...
Perhaps it wasn't especially exciting, but last night's tour of the Maze of Madness and the Prison of the Planes was far more entertaining than an hour out on Denver's 16th Street Mall during a Democratic party convention...
Keep it fun!
Mind you, I'm not opposed to political groups getting together to get themselves all pumped up for the elections.
But, did they have to come to *my* city!?!
*I* did NOT ask them to come here.
But, someone did.
And, because I work downtown near the convention site, my entire week has been forced away from any sense of normalcy. Each of the past two days, while trying to get away from the office for some lunch, I've been inundated by convention-goers. What's worse is that both days so far, a police officer has tried to run me down. Monday, it was a 300-pound gorilla of an officer riding a bicycle. He came barreling around a blind corner with five of his blue-uniformed friends. And, there I was, left with no place to go.
I'm sure he could tell I wasn't terribly pleased by the encounter.
I mean, I was on a sidewalk.
A sidewalk, not a bike path.
Here in Denver, the two are easily distinguished from one another by the big bicycle painted on the surface of the bike path.
Of course, I'd've *somehow* been in the wrong for knocking him off his bike for trying to run me down...
Yesterday, again, while I was walking on a sidewalk...
You know, those places where pedestrians are *supposed* to have the right-of-way...
Another officer tried to run me down, this time with a Ford F-350 pulling a six-horse trailer.
This time, I clearly expressed my displeasure. When he waved me off, I was tempted to drag him out of his truck and trade places with him.
If there are any police officers in my reading audience, please remember that just because you have a badge and a gun does *NOT* mean you can ignore a citizen's rights.
I can hardly wait to see what happens today...
In an attempt to keep my sanity, I logged in to the game on Monday night, but was so exhausted from the throngs on the first day of the convention, that I had to log out early and crawl into bed before I collapsed.
Which was too bad.
Segna (Bashal/Stonehands), PuddinTan (Tanision/Murders) and Jaecen (Branwynn/Fharn/etc., guild leader for the Lifetakers and Heartbreakers) were all out running through the Menechtarun Desert, in search for the elusive Bloodstone.
I couldn't hang.
I needed rest.
Last night was different, though. Despite the trials of the real-life day, I decided I needed to have some fun. Belzur, Murders, Segna, and me, running as Obsydiian, headed out to Gianthold for a little diversion. We decided upon the Maze of Madness. And, we picked up a couple of really cool PUG (Pick-Up Group) players for the excursion.
I really enjoy the Maze.
It's a trap-smithing Rogue's dream come true.
It's also the quest where I pulled my stack of thirteen Kargon's Tasty Hams from one of the chests.
(You all remember that Kargon is my hero, right?!?)
Of course, we were only running the quest on Normal, but the point of the adventure was to enjoy ourselves. If I'd wanted to torture myself, I'd simply have gone right back to work. :-P
Still, it really was a lot of fun. Especially for me, since it was the first time in a very long time that I've run that quest, playing as something other than a Cleric. Don't get me wrong... I love playing my Clerics. But, after having played them so much, there's a marked difference in how a Sorcerer/Barbarian like Obsydiian plays.
I actually have a difficult time trying to remember which buttons to push for which spells to cast or weapons to swing.
It can be quite confusing.
But, it was loads of fun.
Enough fun, it seems, that neither of our PUG players dropped group when we finished. Instead, both asked what we were doing next.
Heh... well, how 'bout a quick PoP run!?! (That's Prison of the Planes, in case you forgot.)
Ya know, I really enjoy all of the quests out in Gianthold, but the Maze of Madness and the Prison of the Planes have to be two of my favorites. They both offer their own challenges, but neither is overwhelming. At least, not when run at the appropriate level of difficulty, and with a well-balanced group, anyway.
Though nothing especially cool dropped in any of the chests, our PUG Wizard managed to pull himself a +1 Vorpal Dwarven Axe from the Marilith's chest, in the Prison of the Planes.
Honestly, I've never used a Vorpal weapon.
Especially since I don't really have one.
So, I don't really understand why people like them so much, but I suppose they have their place in the game.
In fact, someone in our group Vorpaled the Marilith in order to claim her chest.
Her treasure chest, that is.
...
Oh, you know what I mean. Not *that* treasure chest, but the wooden crate in which gold coins and a variety of weapons, scrolls and other items are stored.
Get your minds out of the gutter!
(Actually, don't... it's more entertaining that way.)
:-)
Anyway...
Perhaps it wasn't especially exciting, but last night's tour of the Maze of Madness and the Prison of the Planes was far more entertaining than an hour out on Denver's 16th Street Mall during a Democratic party convention...
Keep it fun!
Friday, August 22, 2008
Bonus Entry for the Day
So, I was chatting with one of my real-life friends about setting up a tee-time for tomorrow morning. Mind you, I've only tried to play golf like twice in my life. And, well, let's just say that, to date, I'm better at excavating the course than playing it.
Still, I'm willing to give it another shot.
In the process, though, my friend and I are having a conversation about which course and such. The topic turned to whether we could get a time with only the pair of us, since two of his other friends wouldn't be able to join us.
In an unnervingly similarity to discussions about PUGs in DDO, though, the following happened in the chat window:
(me) "They do allow pairs to play the course, don't they?"
(my friend) "Yeah, but sometimes they match you with other pairs."
(my friend) "I don't really like playing with strangers. Sometimes they are fine, but other times they are just plain weird."
This is precisely why some people like to run solo in DDO. They don't always know what they're getting themselves into. Granted, this behavior is not as social as perhaps an MMO ought to be, but it seems to be human nature.
Still, his statements were unexpected, but funny because of how similar they are to some arguments I've witnessed about whether to PUG in DDO.
My, how life mimics virtuality...
Keep it fun!!!
Still, I'm willing to give it another shot.
In the process, though, my friend and I are having a conversation about which course and such. The topic turned to whether we could get a time with only the pair of us, since two of his other friends wouldn't be able to join us.
In an unnervingly similarity to discussions about PUGs in DDO, though, the following happened in the chat window:
(me) "They do allow pairs to play the course, don't they?"
(my friend) "Yeah, but sometimes they match you with other pairs."
(my friend) "I don't really like playing with strangers. Sometimes they are fine, but other times they are just plain weird."
This is precisely why some people like to run solo in DDO. They don't always know what they're getting themselves into. Granted, this behavior is not as social as perhaps an MMO ought to be, but it seems to be human nature.
Still, his statements were unexpected, but funny because of how similar they are to some arguments I've witnessed about whether to PUG in DDO.
My, how life mimics virtuality...
Keep it fun!!!
Keeping it Fun
The longer I play this game, the more I learn about it and the people who play it. Sometimes things happen that I'm not thrilled about and I feel the need to say something about it and, yes, my blog does present a venue (or a soap box!) for me to vent my frustrations. However, by and large, my blog serves as another way for me to enjoy the game.
It seems that the jury is still out as to whether it's good or bad whenever someone's character name appears in my blog. Especially since it's generally known that any group I participate in could become the subject of a blog entry. I think that it can sometimes hinder the spontaneity of a group. But, rest assured that the intent is generally to share all of the entertaining things I experience within the game. It's simply that the entertainment usually requires the assistance of other players.
But, at the same time, I'm not above self-deprecation. I, too, make mistakes, and am often the reason something blogable happens in the first place. After all, I'm not a perfect player. In fact, far from it. After nearly two years of play, I still make mistakes, some really stupid. But, even those can be funny.
Take last night for example... Benjarrus, Factotum, Stonehands and I (playing as Obsydiian) were grouped up for a little desert mayhem; we're still trying to determine whether the Bloodstone is still in the loot table...
Of course, it didn't take long for Obsydiian to become cursed by those stupid mummies roaming around out there, not that it really affects a Warforged that much, but still... So, after we cleared the first round of chests, we recalled to let the adventure area to reset, recover health and spell points, and to restock on depleted supplies. This is when Syd teleported over to the magic shop in House Jorasco to pick up some wands, including a wand of Remove Curse. (Stupid mummies!)
When Syd had completed his shopping trip, he opened his pack, pulled out a scroll and attempted to use it. Only to have the game reply with "You can't do that in a public area (you idiot)!!!"
Well, okay, it didn't say "you idiot", but it might as well have.
Particularly since I'd let out an "Ugh!" in voice chat when it happened.
The others quickly asked what was wrong. I replied that I tried to use a Greater Teleport scroll in a public area, and was thoughtfully reminded by the game that I was being stupid.
And, I say stupid, because, after all this time, I *know* you can't use Greater Teleport in public areas. But, I was so excited to pop back over to Zawabi's Refuge by way of Arcane supremacy, that I forgot, and did something stupid.
Actually, I replied to the group that "I was being stupid."
Not that Syd was necessarily stupid, but that it was something I told him to do that, if I'd thought about it for half-a-second, I'd have realized *I* was being stupid.
But, it was worth a laugh for all of us.
And, it's the silly things like that that keep me enjoying the otherwise mundane things in the game.
Sure, I still have to question why, after all this time, Turbine hasn't made an adjustment to the game to allow Greater Teleport to work *anywhere* when the standard Teleport spell/scroll does. But, had they fixed it already, I'd have missed out on a moment of levity to share with you today.
What probably made it funnier, though, was at the end of the evening, when we decided we were done pillaging the desert, folks started to Recall out.
"Ooh! Wait!!!" I said into voice chat.
Stonehands replied with "What's wrong?"
"Here..."
Syd was *finally* able to use his Greater Teleport scroll.
Sure, I only set it to take us all back to Zawabi's Refuge, but I was so excited to finally be able to use the scroll, that I probably sounded like a little kid in a candy store.
Not to mention the fact that I was able to provide a useful service to my friends.
By the way... In yesterday's entry, where I mentioned Stonehands' plot to take over the world, I missed the otherwise obvious reference to Pinky and The Brain. Which, of course, I was properly chastised for during last night's adventures.
Heh. Typical...
But, I just wanted to write a few lines to remind folks that I don't mention someone in my blog to embarass them, or to make them feel bad. Not usually, anyway. Instead, someone is usually mentioned because of something they said or did that amused me in some way.
And, if it makes me laugh, I like to share the laugh with others.
That seems to be the best way to keep it fun!
It seems that the jury is still out as to whether it's good or bad whenever someone's character name appears in my blog. Especially since it's generally known that any group I participate in could become the subject of a blog entry. I think that it can sometimes hinder the spontaneity of a group. But, rest assured that the intent is generally to share all of the entertaining things I experience within the game. It's simply that the entertainment usually requires the assistance of other players.
But, at the same time, I'm not above self-deprecation. I, too, make mistakes, and am often the reason something blogable happens in the first place. After all, I'm not a perfect player. In fact, far from it. After nearly two years of play, I still make mistakes, some really stupid. But, even those can be funny.
Take last night for example... Benjarrus, Factotum, Stonehands and I (playing as Obsydiian) were grouped up for a little desert mayhem; we're still trying to determine whether the Bloodstone is still in the loot table...
Of course, it didn't take long for Obsydiian to become cursed by those stupid mummies roaming around out there, not that it really affects a Warforged that much, but still... So, after we cleared the first round of chests, we recalled to let the adventure area to reset, recover health and spell points, and to restock on depleted supplies. This is when Syd teleported over to the magic shop in House Jorasco to pick up some wands, including a wand of Remove Curse. (Stupid mummies!)
When Syd had completed his shopping trip, he opened his pack, pulled out a scroll and attempted to use it. Only to have the game reply with "You can't do that in a public area (you idiot)!!!"
Well, okay, it didn't say "you idiot", but it might as well have.
Particularly since I'd let out an "Ugh!" in voice chat when it happened.
The others quickly asked what was wrong. I replied that I tried to use a Greater Teleport scroll in a public area, and was thoughtfully reminded by the game that I was being stupid.
And, I say stupid, because, after all this time, I *know* you can't use Greater Teleport in public areas. But, I was so excited to pop back over to Zawabi's Refuge by way of Arcane supremacy, that I forgot, and did something stupid.
Actually, I replied to the group that "I was being stupid."
Not that Syd was necessarily stupid, but that it was something I told him to do that, if I'd thought about it for half-a-second, I'd have realized *I* was being stupid.
But, it was worth a laugh for all of us.
And, it's the silly things like that that keep me enjoying the otherwise mundane things in the game.
Sure, I still have to question why, after all this time, Turbine hasn't made an adjustment to the game to allow Greater Teleport to work *anywhere* when the standard Teleport spell/scroll does. But, had they fixed it already, I'd have missed out on a moment of levity to share with you today.
What probably made it funnier, though, was at the end of the evening, when we decided we were done pillaging the desert, folks started to Recall out.
"Ooh! Wait!!!" I said into voice chat.
Stonehands replied with "What's wrong?"
"Here..."
Syd was *finally* able to use his Greater Teleport scroll.
Sure, I only set it to take us all back to Zawabi's Refuge, but I was so excited to finally be able to use the scroll, that I probably sounded like a little kid in a candy store.
Not to mention the fact that I was able to provide a useful service to my friends.
By the way... In yesterday's entry, where I mentioned Stonehands' plot to take over the world, I missed the otherwise obvious reference to Pinky and The Brain. Which, of course, I was properly chastised for during last night's adventures.
Heh. Typical...
But, I just wanted to write a few lines to remind folks that I don't mention someone in my blog to embarass them, or to make them feel bad. Not usually, anyway. Instead, someone is usually mentioned because of something they said or did that amused me in some way.
And, if it makes me laugh, I like to share the laugh with others.
That seems to be the best way to keep it fun!
Thursday, August 21, 2008
Favor Zerg
Anyone who's been reading for a while probably knows I'm not a huge fan of zerging. Which is what made last night's adventures rather unusual, but rather interesting.
For the uninitiated, perhaps a brief etymology is in order: he term zerg is derived originally from Blizzard Entertainment's game called Starcraft. It was one of three playable races. Much like the Borg of Star Trek, they find themselves in constant search of improvement, though their methods aren't quite the same. Yet they rely on swarm tactics to overcome their opposition. Even though the individual members of the swarm may be tactically out-matched. It's the mass influx of the swarm that makes it a daunting opponent.
The tactics employed by the Zerg race were eventually adapted to the play styles for players of MMO games, where otherwise underpowered players would amass themselves into a much larger group and storm an enemy. In the process, the tactics devolved into a mad rush, with little consideration for consequences for members of the swarm or how they intended to achieve their goal. Instead, objectives remained tightly focused on the goal of conquest, but do so without regard for any form or plan for success.
The implementation of these rush tactics into other games were, therefore, associated with the progenitors, and became known colloquially as zerging. In MMO circles, the term zerg now serves primarily as a verb, describing the way a person or group operates, rather than the proper noun as it originated. But, it's also sometimes used as an adjective, to describe someone or their tactics.
So...
zerg (zerg)
verb, transitive: zerged, zerging, zergs
1. To rush or swarm an opponent, especially in an unplanned manner.
2. To forego all objectives beyond the ultimate goal.
adjective: zerger
1. One who rushes or swarms an opponent, especially in an unplanned manner.
2. One who ignores minor objectives.
Now, this isn't to say there's anything fundamentally wrong with zerging. Especially since the technique is the foundation for many of the raids within many MMO games, including DDO. But it does carry the associated higher risk of failure when members of the group that zergs fails to take into consideration the composition of their group, their capabilities, the size of the force they intend to engage, etc.
However, when you know your objectives well, especially when your group has superior capabilities, and when you're constrained by time to meet your objectives, zerging has its place.
Like last night.
As soon as I'd logged in, I was invited to join Factotum, Murders and Rhy for some adventures. When I'd first joined them, they were out in the desert accosting the mummies for their treasures, waiting for others, like me, to log in and join them. Once assembled, the usual queries about our evening's objectives ensued. For once, I had an idea...
Obsydiian needed, at the time, 39 points of House Phiarlan favor to earn his Pendant of Time, and 7 points of House Kundarak favor to earn his second page of bank slots.
At the same time, Factotum needed about seven thousand experience points to earn his Cleric Level 11.
And, Murders and Rhy needed something to keep themselves entertained for the evening, lest we listen to the many ways in which Rhy plots to take over the world.
So, it was decided... it was a favor grind.
Well, not so much a grind, really. I mean, we only had a couple of hours in which to accomplish something, so we decided to jump into the lower-level quests and just bust them out. In other words, we agreed to zerg through the lower-level quests, just to get them done. We were doing this primarly because the quests were so far below our character levels, even on Elite, that none of us were earning any experience points. Of course, once we graduated to some of the higher level quests, that would all change for us.
We started with Purge the Heretics, a quest Obsydiian had never done, but that Murders could open for us on Elite. This is when the zerg-fest began, and set in like a fever. I don't recall much from the adventure because we all seemed to be running on auto-pilot. We zoned into the quest, passed buffs around like they were going out of style, Syd threw down a ghetto-Haste, and we bolted.
Honestly, it couldn't have taken us more than five or ten minutes to complete the quest. Of course, it didn't hurt that we were all Level 10 and 11 characters in the quest, either. Syd's Wall of Fire and Fireball spells were distinctly effective against the low-level mobs, and when he ran out of mana, he grabbed his +3 Transmuting Great Axe and lent Murders a hand in playing lawn mower. Rhy just kept playing inspriational tunes, while Factotum spammed the heals. It was all a very fluid, almost orchestrated progression through the quest.
But, when we completed the quest, I started searching Syd's favor compendium for something that we could knock out quickly for House Phiarlan and came up only with the Splinterskull Fortress quest chain (also known as Tangleroot Gorge, in which it starts). It was the only series of lower-level quests I'd run Syd through on anything less than Elite. To make matters worse, Rhy (Stonehands) was starting to feel the pinch of the previous couple of nights we'd all stayed up a little later than normal, running through various quests, followed by his need to get up early for work the next morning. Not that I can say much to the contrary, as I'm in pretty much the same boat. So we agreed that whatever we were going to run, it had to be quick.
Well, it was decided that Tangleroot was our destination, but again, we were running quests that weren't earning us any experience, so we decided to forego any optionals, and just get it done.
Again, we started a zerg-fest.
You know, given the right circumstances, zerging can be fun.
Of course, for the four of us, the circumstances were a need for 27 points of House Phiarlan favor in about an hour.
We've all run Tangleroot so many times, I think we all know it like the backs of our respective hands. And, being so far above the level of the quest, it was easy just to nuke everything in sight and keep moving.
That is, until we hit the fourth chapter of the quest chain. At that point, we started earning a little experience for the Elite run. But, that didn't slow us down any. We simply started to pay a little more attention to where we could easily pick up optional objectives along the way, but we never strayed from the main objective.
And, it worked well.
After about only an hour-and-a-half, Obsydiian had racked up all of the House Phiarlan favor he needed for his Pendant of Time. And, it was then that we saw Rhy log out for the evening; he was starting to fall asleep at the keyboard, and it was time for him to head off to bed.
I still had about forty-five minutes left in which I could play, though, and so did Factotum and Murders. Which is what prompted Murders to ask if we wanted to go knock out the 7 points of House Kundarak favor Syd needed, too.
It was a bit of a challenge, for sure, without a Rogue to disarm the traps for us, but we blew through both The Chamber of Insanity and The Ruined Halls in very short order.
The Ruined Halls were interesting, though, as, without a Rogue, and while running on Elite, those traps can be particularly deadly.
Fortunately, the three of us managed not to kill ourselves, and successfully navigated the halls without breaking too many boxes or barrels that might have made completion more difficult.
Not only did Syd earn his second page of bank slots, but Factotum finally earned his long-awaited Level 11, too! Congratulations Factotum! Cleric Level 11 is always fun, as that's when your character finally learns Heal, Mass Cure Moderate, Blade Barrier and Cometfall! The tough part is deciding which spells to load up into the limited number of spell slots you have. Fortunately, making Level 12 isn't as difficult as making Level 11, and Level 12 gives your character the fourth spell slot, so your character can have all four loaded at the same time!
Heh! Our little zerg-fest was actually quite a bit of fun.
But, in thinking about it, there were several key elements in our favor...
First was the fact that our characters were all significantly higher in level than the quest we were opening on Elite. Second, we all *knew* the quests in every detail, which allowed us to anticipate encounters and adjust our tactics accordingly. Third, we addressed every encounter in turn; we didn't try to run through too many mobs at once, and create an unrecoverable situation. Fourth, we had a variety of character classes to complement one another. And, finally, we stuck together to maintain our advantage; we didn't get spread the way some groups do, which is normally a recipe for a party-wipe.
So, in retrospect, it seems that, despite the zerg-approach we took, we managed to follow all the rules for a successful campaign.
Now, if we could only create the same circumstances consistently for our raid groups...
:-D
Yeah.
Heh.
Keep it fun!!!
For the uninitiated, perhaps a brief etymology is in order: he term zerg is derived originally from Blizzard Entertainment's game called Starcraft. It was one of three playable races. Much like the Borg of Star Trek, they find themselves in constant search of improvement, though their methods aren't quite the same. Yet they rely on swarm tactics to overcome their opposition. Even though the individual members of the swarm may be tactically out-matched. It's the mass influx of the swarm that makes it a daunting opponent.
The tactics employed by the Zerg race were eventually adapted to the play styles for players of MMO games, where otherwise underpowered players would amass themselves into a much larger group and storm an enemy. In the process, the tactics devolved into a mad rush, with little consideration for consequences for members of the swarm or how they intended to achieve their goal. Instead, objectives remained tightly focused on the goal of conquest, but do so without regard for any form or plan for success.
The implementation of these rush tactics into other games were, therefore, associated with the progenitors, and became known colloquially as zerging. In MMO circles, the term zerg now serves primarily as a verb, describing the way a person or group operates, rather than the proper noun as it originated. But, it's also sometimes used as an adjective, to describe someone or their tactics.
So...
zerg (zerg)
verb, transitive: zerged, zerging, zergs
1. To rush or swarm an opponent, especially in an unplanned manner.
2. To forego all objectives beyond the ultimate goal.
adjective: zerger
1. One who rushes or swarms an opponent, especially in an unplanned manner.
2. One who ignores minor objectives.
Now, this isn't to say there's anything fundamentally wrong with zerging. Especially since the technique is the foundation for many of the raids within many MMO games, including DDO. But it does carry the associated higher risk of failure when members of the group that zergs fails to take into consideration the composition of their group, their capabilities, the size of the force they intend to engage, etc.
However, when you know your objectives well, especially when your group has superior capabilities, and when you're constrained by time to meet your objectives, zerging has its place.
Like last night.
As soon as I'd logged in, I was invited to join Factotum, Murders and Rhy for some adventures. When I'd first joined them, they were out in the desert accosting the mummies for their treasures, waiting for others, like me, to log in and join them. Once assembled, the usual queries about our evening's objectives ensued. For once, I had an idea...
Obsydiian needed, at the time, 39 points of House Phiarlan favor to earn his Pendant of Time, and 7 points of House Kundarak favor to earn his second page of bank slots.
At the same time, Factotum needed about seven thousand experience points to earn his Cleric Level 11.
And, Murders and Rhy needed something to keep themselves entertained for the evening, lest we listen to the many ways in which Rhy plots to take over the world.
So, it was decided... it was a favor grind.
Well, not so much a grind, really. I mean, we only had a couple of hours in which to accomplish something, so we decided to jump into the lower-level quests and just bust them out. In other words, we agreed to zerg through the lower-level quests, just to get them done. We were doing this primarly because the quests were so far below our character levels, even on Elite, that none of us were earning any experience points. Of course, once we graduated to some of the higher level quests, that would all change for us.
We started with Purge the Heretics, a quest Obsydiian had never done, but that Murders could open for us on Elite. This is when the zerg-fest began, and set in like a fever. I don't recall much from the adventure because we all seemed to be running on auto-pilot. We zoned into the quest, passed buffs around like they were going out of style, Syd threw down a ghetto-Haste, and we bolted.
Honestly, it couldn't have taken us more than five or ten minutes to complete the quest. Of course, it didn't hurt that we were all Level 10 and 11 characters in the quest, either. Syd's Wall of Fire and Fireball spells were distinctly effective against the low-level mobs, and when he ran out of mana, he grabbed his +3 Transmuting Great Axe and lent Murders a hand in playing lawn mower. Rhy just kept playing inspriational tunes, while Factotum spammed the heals. It was all a very fluid, almost orchestrated progression through the quest.
But, when we completed the quest, I started searching Syd's favor compendium for something that we could knock out quickly for House Phiarlan and came up only with the Splinterskull Fortress quest chain (also known as Tangleroot Gorge, in which it starts). It was the only series of lower-level quests I'd run Syd through on anything less than Elite. To make matters worse, Rhy (Stonehands) was starting to feel the pinch of the previous couple of nights we'd all stayed up a little later than normal, running through various quests, followed by his need to get up early for work the next morning. Not that I can say much to the contrary, as I'm in pretty much the same boat. So we agreed that whatever we were going to run, it had to be quick.
Well, it was decided that Tangleroot was our destination, but again, we were running quests that weren't earning us any experience, so we decided to forego any optionals, and just get it done.
Again, we started a zerg-fest.
You know, given the right circumstances, zerging can be fun.
Of course, for the four of us, the circumstances were a need for 27 points of House Phiarlan favor in about an hour.
We've all run Tangleroot so many times, I think we all know it like the backs of our respective hands. And, being so far above the level of the quest, it was easy just to nuke everything in sight and keep moving.
That is, until we hit the fourth chapter of the quest chain. At that point, we started earning a little experience for the Elite run. But, that didn't slow us down any. We simply started to pay a little more attention to where we could easily pick up optional objectives along the way, but we never strayed from the main objective.
And, it worked well.
After about only an hour-and-a-half, Obsydiian had racked up all of the House Phiarlan favor he needed for his Pendant of Time. And, it was then that we saw Rhy log out for the evening; he was starting to fall asleep at the keyboard, and it was time for him to head off to bed.
I still had about forty-five minutes left in which I could play, though, and so did Factotum and Murders. Which is what prompted Murders to ask if we wanted to go knock out the 7 points of House Kundarak favor Syd needed, too.
It was a bit of a challenge, for sure, without a Rogue to disarm the traps for us, but we blew through both The Chamber of Insanity and The Ruined Halls in very short order.
The Ruined Halls were interesting, though, as, without a Rogue, and while running on Elite, those traps can be particularly deadly.
Fortunately, the three of us managed not to kill ourselves, and successfully navigated the halls without breaking too many boxes or barrels that might have made completion more difficult.
Not only did Syd earn his second page of bank slots, but Factotum finally earned his long-awaited Level 11, too! Congratulations Factotum! Cleric Level 11 is always fun, as that's when your character finally learns Heal, Mass Cure Moderate, Blade Barrier and Cometfall! The tough part is deciding which spells to load up into the limited number of spell slots you have. Fortunately, making Level 12 isn't as difficult as making Level 11, and Level 12 gives your character the fourth spell slot, so your character can have all four loaded at the same time!
Heh! Our little zerg-fest was actually quite a bit of fun.
But, in thinking about it, there were several key elements in our favor...
First was the fact that our characters were all significantly higher in level than the quest we were opening on Elite. Second, we all *knew* the quests in every detail, which allowed us to anticipate encounters and adjust our tactics accordingly. Third, we addressed every encounter in turn; we didn't try to run through too many mobs at once, and create an unrecoverable situation. Fourth, we had a variety of character classes to complement one another. And, finally, we stuck together to maintain our advantage; we didn't get spread the way some groups do, which is normally a recipe for a party-wipe.
So, in retrospect, it seems that, despite the zerg-approach we took, we managed to follow all the rules for a successful campaign.
Now, if we could only create the same circumstances consistently for our raid groups...
:-D
Yeah.
Heh.
Keep it fun!!!
Wednesday, August 20, 2008
Looking Forward to Mod 8
There was some good news to come out of this year's GenCon in Indianapolis: some information about the pending Module 8. Like the fact that it's planned for release October-ish, but that it *may* be pushed back until November. That this is when Turbine plans to release the "New Player Experience", commonly referred to as the NPE. That DDO will see the introduction of hirelings, a.k.a. henchmen/henchwomen/henchies. That there will be four new adventure areas and associated quests. And that the forums are alive and well with nay-sayers.
I really need to stop reading the forums. The multitude of "negative Nancies" in the crowd tends to skew my perceptions and optimism for a great expansion.
Producer Kate Paiz has even indicated that some of the content is a continuation of the Reaver's Bane storyline. Personally, I love the Gianthold content, so I'm really looking forward to this one.
And, from where I stand, I think henchmen will be a positive addition to the game. It will allow those folks who can't find groups to hire themselves a helper, and it will allow soloists a little more breathing room.
Of course, there're those who say "doom" to hirelings, as they belive henchmen will be a detriment to finding groups. To those, I say you're entitled to your opinion. But, only time will tell. We'll just have to wait and see.
But, I'm excited!
I really need to stop reading the forums. The multitude of "negative Nancies" in the crowd tends to skew my perceptions and optimism for a great expansion.
Producer Kate Paiz has even indicated that some of the content is a continuation of the Reaver's Bane storyline. Personally, I love the Gianthold content, so I'm really looking forward to this one.
And, from where I stand, I think henchmen will be a positive addition to the game. It will allow those folks who can't find groups to hire themselves a helper, and it will allow soloists a little more breathing room.
Of course, there're those who say "doom" to hirelings, as they belive henchmen will be a detriment to finding groups. To those, I say you're entitled to your opinion. But, only time will tell. We'll just have to wait and see.
But, I'm excited!
Monday, August 18, 2008
State of the Guild
Friday night didn't turn out quite the way I'd hoped. Quite a few of the folks who'd signed up for the Titan raid hadn't been able to complete the pre-requisites during the period leading up to the raid.
Which I find odd, considering how many times I ran Titan pre-req's with a variety of my characters, and with many different players from both the Face Stabbing Misfits and the Lifetakers and Heartbreakers. I'd made it a point to be available to help folks prepare their characters for the raid, but few took me up on the offer. Of the few that did take advantage of the opportunity, some ran two or three of their charcters through the pre-req's.
However, when Friday night rolled around, only six of us were ready to go. Which was a bit of a problem. You see, the Titan raid requires a well organized group who can work together to solve common problems. This tends to be a trait of guild raids more than one of PUG (Pick-Up Group) raid parties.
This is not to say PUG raids can't work together and be successful. But, the problem is that with PUG raids, you often have many different people with widely varied expectations and ways of doing things. The kind of teamwork a Titan raid requires is more commonly found amongst guild groups.
Which is why, when we decided that, since we couldn't come up with enough allied guildies to run the raid, that we wouldn't PUG-out the remaining slots, but that we'd reschedule the raid and do something else instead. And, that turned out to be an Elite Tempest's Spine raid. (Always fun, the Tempest's Spine.)
But, I began to wonder...
You know, I try to give folks at least two weeks notice before hosting a raid. So, why is it that we have difficulty finding enough people to fill a single twelve-player raid party?
I mean, I've conducted polls on our guild website, trying to learn which raids folks like to play most, which level ranges they like to play, when's the best time for people to get together for group adventures, that sort of thing. As a result, I've re-arranged the days on which I host raids to increase the likelihood of having enough folks available, I've adjusted which raids I try to host to bring more folks together, and I try to offer a wide variety of character levels and difficulty choices, to appeal to as wide an audience as possible.
Still, we have problems filling raid groups on occasion.
And, that got me to thinking about why we guild...
I know I've covered some of this ground before, but bear with me, please.
Back in the old days, particularly before the change to the raid loot system, it was almost a requirement that players were guilded to run a raid. And, that was back when we had only the Dragon raid, the Queen raid, and the Titan raid. You'd think that with only three raids in the game (at that time) that you wouldn't *need* a guild to find a raid group and to have a successful completion. But, back in the day, it was almost a requirement.
A side-effect of guilding together, players developed a social connection with one another, one that often carried well beyond raids, and sometimes even carried out to the realm of real-life.
For me, it was the social interaction that really pulled me into the Face Stabbers.
I mean, DDO is a social game, so having a group with which to socialize, as well as having a group with which to raid, is a good thing.
The difficult part about the change in the raid loot system is that it changed many of the reasons people guild together.
In fact, with the change to the raid loot system, Turbine fundamentally altered the reason that players guild together in the game. Sure, they still guild to create raid groups but, because of the changes, it became much easier to find PUG raid groups, in which the groups could be successful, and in which the miscreants in the community could no longer ninja the loot from other players.
As a result, many folks decided that they no longer needed to belong to the same old guilds they used to.
And, the server merge had a significant impact on the way players guilded together. I think you saw quite a bit of guild-hopping once Turbine merged three servers into one.
No, I'm not arguing the logic of doing so. There are now many more players online at any given point than there were before the merge, at least, on any single server. So, Stormreach has a much more populated feel than it did before the merge, for sure.
So, the reasons for guilding have changed and, following several modifications to the game on Turbine's part, the face of guilds has changed rather significantly.
But, I can't help but ponder what I can do to help grow my own guild.
Certainly, we've witnessed many changes to the Face Stabbing Misfits. Back on Fernia, we were one of the larger guilds, and we were very well known. Moving to Ghallanda meant that we were now a relatively small fish in a much larger pond. And with changes the game, or in some cases, a lack thereof, many of our veterans have left the game. Granted, we also had some veterans leave the game for personal and/or real-life reasons. And, we had quite a few who left the guild to align themselves with new friends on the newly merged servers. But, at the same time, there wasn't much influx of new players to the guild. It had become a war of attrition.
By now, the active player base in the Face Stabbing Misfits is but a shadow of what it once was. And I find that to be extremely disappointing. We have so many good players still on the rolls in the guild, but we don't seem to have the common vision we once had, so finding active players is becomming quite difficult.
It seems that it's time for a shake-up in the guild.
The funny thing is how I came to this realization... I used to be a fairly active model railroader. I know, I know... but it's a fascinating hobby, and I've always loved model building. However, after having lived in apartments for many years, and not having made an opportunity to build a new empire in my basement, I'm more of what's called an arm-chair model railroader; I spend more time reading about the hobby than I do actually participating in it. But, that has a lot to do with my current focus on DDO, too.
But I was struck by the coincidence of an article in my latest edition of Model Railroader magazine. It was an overview of a club and the layout they've assembled. In a side-bar to the article, a representative of the club summarized the keys to a successful club...
"One of the challenges of a club is to keep everyone moving in the same direction. A club requires compromise, and sometimes ideas from members can't be incorporated [but] we do the best we can to keep a high level of interest among the members."
Hmm...
Funny how close to home a statement like that lands.
I find myself as the unexpected leader of the Face Stabbing Misfits, and I face the challenges of keeping the guild together, and maintaining interest. The difference I see here is that I don't have a lot of help in running the guild, where the folks dealing with the model railroad club don't have quite the level of difficulty, since there's a group of individuals working together to help maintain the effort.
I'm at a point where I have to rethink my position, and take action to implement some changes. I cannot run this guild by myself. Particularly since I cannot be in-game 24/7. (I, too, have real-life commitments.) But, the guild is struggling right now. I'd like to restore it to it's previous level of prestige. I'd like to bring new faces into the guild, and I'd like to have a group of regular players that can get together once or twice a week for informal group runs.
What I really need are some folks who share the same ideals who're willing to help me attain those goals. I need officers who can help cover the bases and help me recruit the players we need to sustain our organization.
Sure, there's some work involved. Sometimes more work than what it seems to be worth. It is, after all, just a game. And, no, it doesn't pay very well. In fact, it doesn't pay at all. It's a volunteer thing. But, for those of us who want to bring folks together to have the kind of fun you can't have by soloing every quest in the game, it's a worthy line of work.
So, I stand at a cross-roads, and I'm looking around. I see guildies going off in all different directions. If we want to be as successful as we once were, we'll have to come together, and choose a path. But it's something we'll have to do together, because it isn't something any one of us can do alone.
Here's hoping we can reassemble the troops.
In the mean time, keep it fun!
Which I find odd, considering how many times I ran Titan pre-req's with a variety of my characters, and with many different players from both the Face Stabbing Misfits and the Lifetakers and Heartbreakers. I'd made it a point to be available to help folks prepare their characters for the raid, but few took me up on the offer. Of the few that did take advantage of the opportunity, some ran two or three of their charcters through the pre-req's.
However, when Friday night rolled around, only six of us were ready to go. Which was a bit of a problem. You see, the Titan raid requires a well organized group who can work together to solve common problems. This tends to be a trait of guild raids more than one of PUG (Pick-Up Group) raid parties.
This is not to say PUG raids can't work together and be successful. But, the problem is that with PUG raids, you often have many different people with widely varied expectations and ways of doing things. The kind of teamwork a Titan raid requires is more commonly found amongst guild groups.
Which is why, when we decided that, since we couldn't come up with enough allied guildies to run the raid, that we wouldn't PUG-out the remaining slots, but that we'd reschedule the raid and do something else instead. And, that turned out to be an Elite Tempest's Spine raid. (Always fun, the Tempest's Spine.)
But, I began to wonder...
You know, I try to give folks at least two weeks notice before hosting a raid. So, why is it that we have difficulty finding enough people to fill a single twelve-player raid party?
I mean, I've conducted polls on our guild website, trying to learn which raids folks like to play most, which level ranges they like to play, when's the best time for people to get together for group adventures, that sort of thing. As a result, I've re-arranged the days on which I host raids to increase the likelihood of having enough folks available, I've adjusted which raids I try to host to bring more folks together, and I try to offer a wide variety of character levels and difficulty choices, to appeal to as wide an audience as possible.
Still, we have problems filling raid groups on occasion.
And, that got me to thinking about why we guild...
I know I've covered some of this ground before, but bear with me, please.
Back in the old days, particularly before the change to the raid loot system, it was almost a requirement that players were guilded to run a raid. And, that was back when we had only the Dragon raid, the Queen raid, and the Titan raid. You'd think that with only three raids in the game (at that time) that you wouldn't *need* a guild to find a raid group and to have a successful completion. But, back in the day, it was almost a requirement.
A side-effect of guilding together, players developed a social connection with one another, one that often carried well beyond raids, and sometimes even carried out to the realm of real-life.
For me, it was the social interaction that really pulled me into the Face Stabbers.
I mean, DDO is a social game, so having a group with which to socialize, as well as having a group with which to raid, is a good thing.
The difficult part about the change in the raid loot system is that it changed many of the reasons people guild together.
In fact, with the change to the raid loot system, Turbine fundamentally altered the reason that players guild together in the game. Sure, they still guild to create raid groups but, because of the changes, it became much easier to find PUG raid groups, in which the groups could be successful, and in which the miscreants in the community could no longer ninja the loot from other players.
As a result, many folks decided that they no longer needed to belong to the same old guilds they used to.
And, the server merge had a significant impact on the way players guilded together. I think you saw quite a bit of guild-hopping once Turbine merged three servers into one.
No, I'm not arguing the logic of doing so. There are now many more players online at any given point than there were before the merge, at least, on any single server. So, Stormreach has a much more populated feel than it did before the merge, for sure.
So, the reasons for guilding have changed and, following several modifications to the game on Turbine's part, the face of guilds has changed rather significantly.
But, I can't help but ponder what I can do to help grow my own guild.
Certainly, we've witnessed many changes to the Face Stabbing Misfits. Back on Fernia, we were one of the larger guilds, and we were very well known. Moving to Ghallanda meant that we were now a relatively small fish in a much larger pond. And with changes the game, or in some cases, a lack thereof, many of our veterans have left the game. Granted, we also had some veterans leave the game for personal and/or real-life reasons. And, we had quite a few who left the guild to align themselves with new friends on the newly merged servers. But, at the same time, there wasn't much influx of new players to the guild. It had become a war of attrition.
By now, the active player base in the Face Stabbing Misfits is but a shadow of what it once was. And I find that to be extremely disappointing. We have so many good players still on the rolls in the guild, but we don't seem to have the common vision we once had, so finding active players is becomming quite difficult.
It seems that it's time for a shake-up in the guild.
The funny thing is how I came to this realization... I used to be a fairly active model railroader. I know, I know... but it's a fascinating hobby, and I've always loved model building. However, after having lived in apartments for many years, and not having made an opportunity to build a new empire in my basement, I'm more of what's called an arm-chair model railroader; I spend more time reading about the hobby than I do actually participating in it. But, that has a lot to do with my current focus on DDO, too.
But I was struck by the coincidence of an article in my latest edition of Model Railroader magazine. It was an overview of a club and the layout they've assembled. In a side-bar to the article, a representative of the club summarized the keys to a successful club...
"One of the challenges of a club is to keep everyone moving in the same direction. A club requires compromise, and sometimes ideas from members can't be incorporated [but] we do the best we can to keep a high level of interest among the members."
Hmm...
Funny how close to home a statement like that lands.
I find myself as the unexpected leader of the Face Stabbing Misfits, and I face the challenges of keeping the guild together, and maintaining interest. The difference I see here is that I don't have a lot of help in running the guild, where the folks dealing with the model railroad club don't have quite the level of difficulty, since there's a group of individuals working together to help maintain the effort.
I'm at a point where I have to rethink my position, and take action to implement some changes. I cannot run this guild by myself. Particularly since I cannot be in-game 24/7. (I, too, have real-life commitments.) But, the guild is struggling right now. I'd like to restore it to it's previous level of prestige. I'd like to bring new faces into the guild, and I'd like to have a group of regular players that can get together once or twice a week for informal group runs.
What I really need are some folks who share the same ideals who're willing to help me attain those goals. I need officers who can help cover the bases and help me recruit the players we need to sustain our organization.
Sure, there's some work involved. Sometimes more work than what it seems to be worth. It is, after all, just a game. And, no, it doesn't pay very well. In fact, it doesn't pay at all. It's a volunteer thing. But, for those of us who want to bring folks together to have the kind of fun you can't have by soloing every quest in the game, it's a worthy line of work.
So, I stand at a cross-roads, and I'm looking around. I see guildies going off in all different directions. If we want to be as successful as we once were, we'll have to come together, and choose a path. But it's something we'll have to do together, because it isn't something any one of us can do alone.
Here's hoping we can reassemble the troops.
In the mean time, keep it fun!
Friday, August 15, 2008
Cutting It Close
Going into last night, Obsydiian was still sitting fifteen thousand experience points away from Level 11, and he still needed to complete the quest Bring Me the Head of Ghola-Fan! With only a few hours available to play before having to turn in or risk calling off work the next morning, Stonehands and Obsydiian set out early to knock out the experience deficit.
To make the most efficient use of our time, we decided to visit the Madstone Crater out in the Ruins of Gianthold. Mind you, this is a Level 14 quest on Normal, so a group of Level 10-13 characters would have their work cut out for them, even with a good plan in mind. Fortunately, we were able to play smartly and by-pass many of the unnecessary elements that might have protracted the quest into a nightmare.
Now, you might wonder why we elected to by-pass anything when Syd needed fifteen thousand experience points, since the bonuses for conquest and ransack could be helpful in achieving the group's objectives. Well, when you consider that we stepped into the quest with seventeen thousand to be rewarded on completion, Syd wasn't going to ask any of the other below-level characters to risk anymore than necessary, particularly the three PUG players we added to our group, along with Kaami from our allied guild, the Lifetakers and Heartbreakers.
It was still a bit of a challenge, though. Syd ran out of mana very quickly, even after each use of the available shrines. Which, of course, saw Syd switch to using his Barbarian skills once the well had run dry. That cost him very dearly twice within the quest where, although he had the ability to hit the enemy mobs, he didn't have the Armor Class or Constitution to survive the simultaneous aggro of three giant skeletons.
In fact, at the time, it seemed odd that Syd was pulling such aggro away from our group's tanks. Especially considering that in the second instance, Syd hadn't cast any spells that might cause such a diversion of aggro. But, in retrospect, the obvious reason for the happenstance was that Syd was only Level 10. The AI seems to prefer targeting the characters with the lowest level of experience first, as they *should* be the easiest to kill. Well, I'm here to tell you that the AI certainly figured that one out correctly. It really is much easier to kill a Level 10 Sorcerer/Barbarian than it is a Level 13 Fighter/Ranger.
(rolling eyes)
However, all that really did was prompt me to adjust Syd's tactics, and ensure that he was well out of range of the mobs until the tanks had the aggro well established. Even then, though, there were a couple of close calls.
Perhaps the most interesting encounter in the entire quest came during the battle with the end boss, the arcane giant skeleton camped out atop a pinnacle in the heart of of the crater. The skeleton quickly cast a Hold spell on both of our tanks and our Rogue. Curiously, though, he ignored Obsydiian, Kaami and Segna. Well, at least until Syd started landing a few hits here and there with his greataxe. (Spells weren't doing any good against him, so it only made sense to switch to a two-handed melée weapon...)
Of course, that prompted the skeleton to respond with a sweep of his quarterstaff that sent Obsydiian flying off the top of the spire. Fortunately, he was able to keep himself from flying too far away, and landed on the sprial ramp that lead back up to the skeleton.
I was surprised to see that the Skeleton had never released any of the Chaos Orbs, though. Perhaps the quest is bugged. But, with a Level 10-13 adventure party, I'm not complaining about their lack of participation.
Just when it looked like we'd fail by way of a party-wipe, one of our PUG tanks broke free of the skeleton's Hold and landed the killing blow. Our Rogue ran back down the spire's ramp to find Blaze and deliver the news; Syd was rewarded with nineteen thousand experience points. That was four thousand more than was required to earn his Level 11. The Madstone Crater was certainly worth the effort, and we managed to complete it relatively quickly, considering our party composition.
From there, it didn't take long for me to finish out and begin the process of levelling Syd up to 11, though I was caught a bit off-guard by the option to select three new spells (Syd's 9th Sorcerer Level), one each of Level 2, Level 3 and Level 4 spells. Decisions, decisions...
For the moment, Web, Heroism and Phantasmal Killer are on Syd's list, but those may change, depending on Syd's luck with landing PK. He may swap that out for Stoneskin if he proves to have too many problems with enemy spell resistance.
While Syd was levelling up, Belzur joined the group, but Kaami and the three PUG players had left to log out for the evening. Belzur had observed that both Stonehands and I were pushing the length of our play-time just a bit, particularly for a couple of early risers. Still, we insisted on pressing forward with Bring Me the Head of Ghola-Fan!, as it was the only thing left to bring Belzur, Segna and Obsydiian up to raid-readiness.
Running the quest with only three characters would be a bit more challenging than necessary, though, so we brought Jaecen (Branwynn/Daerius/Fahrn, L&H Guild Leader) and IamBob (CaptinBob/Nemo) in to give us a hand. After a bit of work to make our way out to the quest, we decided that time was ticking away too quickly to run the quest to absolute completion, including all optional objectives. So, we took the express route instead.
You know, it's amazing how effective the combination of Greater Command, Wall of Fire and a Paralyzing weapon can be. We *ran* through the quest. Of course Syd did pay the price for poor aggro management yet again, but I find it difficult for Syd to use high-powered spells without stealing aggro from the tanks. Perhaps it's something I'd find a solution to as his progression plays out...
At any rate, we made it through. I was getting late, but it wasn't as bad as I'd feared it would become; Ghola-Fan fell much like the claims of RedRaider's prom date(s), for what it's worth. And, the quest gave us all plenty of opportunity to heckle IamBob.
All in good fun, I assure you; we just can't help ourselves. CaptinBob reacts to our jests *so* well. Not that he can't return the favor, mind you. We've all learned that many times over. But, it's part of what makes having him in the group so entertaining.
Still, in one evening, Syd finally earned his level, and he and Belzur and Segna finally completed the prerequisites for the Titan raid.
I'm really looking forward to possibly pulling the Seven-Findered Gloves from the Titan's chest...
Keep it fun!!!
To make the most efficient use of our time, we decided to visit the Madstone Crater out in the Ruins of Gianthold. Mind you, this is a Level 14 quest on Normal, so a group of Level 10-13 characters would have their work cut out for them, even with a good plan in mind. Fortunately, we were able to play smartly and by-pass many of the unnecessary elements that might have protracted the quest into a nightmare.
Now, you might wonder why we elected to by-pass anything when Syd needed fifteen thousand experience points, since the bonuses for conquest and ransack could be helpful in achieving the group's objectives. Well, when you consider that we stepped into the quest with seventeen thousand to be rewarded on completion, Syd wasn't going to ask any of the other below-level characters to risk anymore than necessary, particularly the three PUG players we added to our group, along with Kaami from our allied guild, the Lifetakers and Heartbreakers.
It was still a bit of a challenge, though. Syd ran out of mana very quickly, even after each use of the available shrines. Which, of course, saw Syd switch to using his Barbarian skills once the well had run dry. That cost him very dearly twice within the quest where, although he had the ability to hit the enemy mobs, he didn't have the Armor Class or Constitution to survive the simultaneous aggro of three giant skeletons.
In fact, at the time, it seemed odd that Syd was pulling such aggro away from our group's tanks. Especially considering that in the second instance, Syd hadn't cast any spells that might cause such a diversion of aggro. But, in retrospect, the obvious reason for the happenstance was that Syd was only Level 10. The AI seems to prefer targeting the characters with the lowest level of experience first, as they *should* be the easiest to kill. Well, I'm here to tell you that the AI certainly figured that one out correctly. It really is much easier to kill a Level 10 Sorcerer/Barbarian than it is a Level 13 Fighter/Ranger.
(rolling eyes)
However, all that really did was prompt me to adjust Syd's tactics, and ensure that he was well out of range of the mobs until the tanks had the aggro well established. Even then, though, there were a couple of close calls.
Perhaps the most interesting encounter in the entire quest came during the battle with the end boss, the arcane giant skeleton camped out atop a pinnacle in the heart of of the crater. The skeleton quickly cast a Hold spell on both of our tanks and our Rogue. Curiously, though, he ignored Obsydiian, Kaami and Segna. Well, at least until Syd started landing a few hits here and there with his greataxe. (Spells weren't doing any good against him, so it only made sense to switch to a two-handed melée weapon...)
Of course, that prompted the skeleton to respond with a sweep of his quarterstaff that sent Obsydiian flying off the top of the spire. Fortunately, he was able to keep himself from flying too far away, and landed on the sprial ramp that lead back up to the skeleton.
I was surprised to see that the Skeleton had never released any of the Chaos Orbs, though. Perhaps the quest is bugged. But, with a Level 10-13 adventure party, I'm not complaining about their lack of participation.
Just when it looked like we'd fail by way of a party-wipe, one of our PUG tanks broke free of the skeleton's Hold and landed the killing blow. Our Rogue ran back down the spire's ramp to find Blaze and deliver the news; Syd was rewarded with nineteen thousand experience points. That was four thousand more than was required to earn his Level 11. The Madstone Crater was certainly worth the effort, and we managed to complete it relatively quickly, considering our party composition.
From there, it didn't take long for me to finish out and begin the process of levelling Syd up to 11, though I was caught a bit off-guard by the option to select three new spells (Syd's 9th Sorcerer Level), one each of Level 2, Level 3 and Level 4 spells. Decisions, decisions...
For the moment, Web, Heroism and Phantasmal Killer are on Syd's list, but those may change, depending on Syd's luck with landing PK. He may swap that out for Stoneskin if he proves to have too many problems with enemy spell resistance.
While Syd was levelling up, Belzur joined the group, but Kaami and the three PUG players had left to log out for the evening. Belzur had observed that both Stonehands and I were pushing the length of our play-time just a bit, particularly for a couple of early risers. Still, we insisted on pressing forward with Bring Me the Head of Ghola-Fan!, as it was the only thing left to bring Belzur, Segna and Obsydiian up to raid-readiness.
Running the quest with only three characters would be a bit more challenging than necessary, though, so we brought Jaecen (Branwynn/Daerius/Fahrn, L&H Guild Leader) and IamBob (CaptinBob/Nemo) in to give us a hand. After a bit of work to make our way out to the quest, we decided that time was ticking away too quickly to run the quest to absolute completion, including all optional objectives. So, we took the express route instead.
You know, it's amazing how effective the combination of Greater Command, Wall of Fire and a Paralyzing weapon can be. We *ran* through the quest. Of course Syd did pay the price for poor aggro management yet again, but I find it difficult for Syd to use high-powered spells without stealing aggro from the tanks. Perhaps it's something I'd find a solution to as his progression plays out...
At any rate, we made it through. I was getting late, but it wasn't as bad as I'd feared it would become; Ghola-Fan fell much like the claims of RedRaider's prom date(s), for what it's worth. And, the quest gave us all plenty of opportunity to heckle IamBob.
All in good fun, I assure you; we just can't help ourselves. CaptinBob reacts to our jests *so* well. Not that he can't return the favor, mind you. We've all learned that many times over. But, it's part of what makes having him in the group so entertaining.
Still, in one evening, Syd finally earned his level, and he and Belzur and Segna finally completed the prerequisites for the Titan raid.
I'm really looking forward to possibly pulling the Seven-Findered Gloves from the Titan's chest...
Keep it fun!!!
Thursday, August 14, 2008
An Odd Request
In the mad rush to get folks ready for Friday night's Titan raid, I wound up with an odd request on Tuesday night. I was asked to bring Trinarius into a group.
Honestly, I love to play Trin, but I rarely have the opportunity while I and many of my in-game friends work on bringing lower-level characters up to speed. This is particularly true with Obsydiian now standing on the threshold of possible "completeness" with the possibility of pulling the Seven-Fingered Gloves from the Warforged Titan's end chest. With the gloves, Syd would finally negate the remaining 15% of Arcane Spell Failure he suffers as a result of the Adamantine Body he was forged with.
In fact, that he's now in-range for running the Titan raid is the whole reason I decided to host the raid in the first place. The potential problem here is that most guildies and allied guildies are used to me running one of my Clerics in the majority of our groups. In order for Syd to pull the gloves, though, *he* has to be the one to run the raid, as the gloves are a bound item and cannot be traded. But I do feel bad asking someone else to bring a Cleric to the party just because I want to try to pull a set of gloves for Syd. It's a bit of conundrum for me.
As a result of my not running any of my Clerics in the various groups where I've been attempting to prepare Obsydiian for the Titan raid, other guildies have been hopping between characters trying to get theirs ready, but also taking turns with who's privileged enough to bring their Cleric instead of the character they'd prefer to bring. Which meant that, on Monday night, Stonehands volunteered to bring Segna to the party when we were running Hiding In Plain Sight.
HIPS, as it's more commonly known, is the quest that opens the area of The Restless Isles to players through the airship cruise director at the base of the Falconer's Spire. Without a HIPS completion, players instead have to rely on a Sorcerer or Wizard with Greater Teleport to carry them out to the Foothold, from which players can then access the two raid prerequisite quests, Bring Me the Head of Ghola-Fan! and Slavers of the Shrieking Mines.
Because Bashal had brought Segna to the HIPS run instead of Stonehands, as he'd originally intended, we were left in a difficult position... Obsydiian doesn't yet have the ability to use the Greater Teleport spell, neither by memorized spell nor by scroll. Without another Sorcerer or Wizard in the group, it's rather difficult to transport one of our tanks out to the Foothold for the subsequent quests. So, on Tuesday night, Stonehands asked for a quick zerg through HIPS to help mitigate the problem.
Now, you ought to know that, when I logged into the game on Tuesday, I was also on the phone at the same time with one of my old Army buddies who's packing his house for a big out-of-state move. I was trying to make arrangements to get together with him before said departure. But, he and I can be rather long-winded. Which meant that I was communicating with the guys in-game through party-chat only.
Obviously, that can make things a bit of a challenge, since I wasn't immediately aware that we were going to zerg through HIPS for Stonehands. In fact, when PuddinTan logged over to Tanision, I thought he was simply logging over to grab some supplies of some sort before we jumped into whatever it was we were about to take on.
It wasn't until Tanision had typed into the party-chat panel that we were going to run HIPS real quick that I realized what was going on.
And, then it scrolled across the screen...
"Hey, Syd, can you bring Trin? We're gonna need a trap monkey."
Huh?!?
Trin?
Trinarius???
Trin, the unwitting guild leader?
We're talking about the same character here, right???
Oh! Trap monkey...
Now I get it!!!
Heh!
Trin!
You know, if there's one thing Trin *can* do well, that's disable traps. He may be neither the best Ranger, nor the best Wizard, but one thing I've been sure to keep up with is making him the best possible Rogue I can. Every single level with him sees new ranks spent in Search, Disable Device and Open Lock skills. Coupled with a high Intelligence, and buttressed by skill-enhancement items, Trin can find and disable just about any trap in the game.
It was a curious situation, though...
I could've been asked to bring Aequinox or PEBKAC instead of Trin, and Tanision could've brought Rendel instead, or simply remained with PuddinTan. I mean, with proper buffs, both Puddin and PEBKAC could've easily navigated the traps on Normal with little risk of casualty.
[We don't worry too much about Stonehands; he has so many Hit Points, it takes at least two, sometimes three, full Heal spells to completely refill his red bar. Besides, he's more of a crack-whore than a buff-beggar.] :-o :-P ;-)
Still... Trin...
Actually, I had a great time running Trin. It was actually only the three of us. Belzur wasn't able to join us, and we just wanted zerg on through, so we didn't bother to PUG-out the remaining slots in the group; we simply jumped-in and made a bee-line for Hazdill.
It was pretty funny from my end, though. I could see that Stonehands and Tanision were chatting with one another over the voice channel, thanks to the way their character names light up in green when they're talking. But, I couldn't hear a thing, save for my telephone conversation with my Army buddy. But I was also paying sufficient attention to the quest that I managed not to stray too far off the intended path, and was never prompted to disable a trap. (We'd run HIPS the previous night with another group, so I remembered where they all were.)
Mind you, I wouldn't call it a record-breaking run, but with two Level 16 characters and one Level 13, the Level 9 quest didn't offer too much challenge. If I had to guess, I'd say that it took us only about twenty minutes to get through all of it, if that. Which left plenty of time for us to take on an interesing run of Slavers of the Shrieking Mines...
Alas, I have to get my work day started, so I don't have time to delve into that run, but...
I had the opportunity to run Trin for the first time in ages.
And, I was *asked* to run him!
Wow!!!
It was fun. I hope I have that opportunity again in the future. I'd nearly forgotten how entertaining it can be to play trap monkey. But, I have to perpare Obsydiian for the Titan, first...
At any rate, keep it fun!
Honestly, I love to play Trin, but I rarely have the opportunity while I and many of my in-game friends work on bringing lower-level characters up to speed. This is particularly true with Obsydiian now standing on the threshold of possible "completeness" with the possibility of pulling the Seven-Fingered Gloves from the Warforged Titan's end chest. With the gloves, Syd would finally negate the remaining 15% of Arcane Spell Failure he suffers as a result of the Adamantine Body he was forged with.
In fact, that he's now in-range for running the Titan raid is the whole reason I decided to host the raid in the first place. The potential problem here is that most guildies and allied guildies are used to me running one of my Clerics in the majority of our groups. In order for Syd to pull the gloves, though, *he* has to be the one to run the raid, as the gloves are a bound item and cannot be traded. But I do feel bad asking someone else to bring a Cleric to the party just because I want to try to pull a set of gloves for Syd. It's a bit of conundrum for me.
As a result of my not running any of my Clerics in the various groups where I've been attempting to prepare Obsydiian for the Titan raid, other guildies have been hopping between characters trying to get theirs ready, but also taking turns with who's privileged enough to bring their Cleric instead of the character they'd prefer to bring. Which meant that, on Monday night, Stonehands volunteered to bring Segna to the party when we were running Hiding In Plain Sight.
HIPS, as it's more commonly known, is the quest that opens the area of The Restless Isles to players through the airship cruise director at the base of the Falconer's Spire. Without a HIPS completion, players instead have to rely on a Sorcerer or Wizard with Greater Teleport to carry them out to the Foothold, from which players can then access the two raid prerequisite quests, Bring Me the Head of Ghola-Fan! and Slavers of the Shrieking Mines.
Because Bashal had brought Segna to the HIPS run instead of Stonehands, as he'd originally intended, we were left in a difficult position... Obsydiian doesn't yet have the ability to use the Greater Teleport spell, neither by memorized spell nor by scroll. Without another Sorcerer or Wizard in the group, it's rather difficult to transport one of our tanks out to the Foothold for the subsequent quests. So, on Tuesday night, Stonehands asked for a quick zerg through HIPS to help mitigate the problem.
Now, you ought to know that, when I logged into the game on Tuesday, I was also on the phone at the same time with one of my old Army buddies who's packing his house for a big out-of-state move. I was trying to make arrangements to get together with him before said departure. But, he and I can be rather long-winded. Which meant that I was communicating with the guys in-game through party-chat only.
Obviously, that can make things a bit of a challenge, since I wasn't immediately aware that we were going to zerg through HIPS for Stonehands. In fact, when PuddinTan logged over to Tanision, I thought he was simply logging over to grab some supplies of some sort before we jumped into whatever it was we were about to take on.
It wasn't until Tanision had typed into the party-chat panel that we were going to run HIPS real quick that I realized what was going on.
And, then it scrolled across the screen...
"Hey, Syd, can you bring Trin? We're gonna need a trap monkey."
Huh?!?
Trin?
Trinarius???
Trin, the unwitting guild leader?
We're talking about the same character here, right???
Oh! Trap monkey...
Now I get it!!!
Heh!
Trin!
You know, if there's one thing Trin *can* do well, that's disable traps. He may be neither the best Ranger, nor the best Wizard, but one thing I've been sure to keep up with is making him the best possible Rogue I can. Every single level with him sees new ranks spent in Search, Disable Device and Open Lock skills. Coupled with a high Intelligence, and buttressed by skill-enhancement items, Trin can find and disable just about any trap in the game.
It was a curious situation, though...
I could've been asked to bring Aequinox or PEBKAC instead of Trin, and Tanision could've brought Rendel instead, or simply remained with PuddinTan. I mean, with proper buffs, both Puddin and PEBKAC could've easily navigated the traps on Normal with little risk of casualty.
[We don't worry too much about Stonehands; he has so many Hit Points, it takes at least two, sometimes three, full Heal spells to completely refill his red bar. Besides, he's more of a crack-whore than a buff-beggar.] :-o :-P ;-)
Still... Trin...
Actually, I had a great time running Trin. It was actually only the three of us. Belzur wasn't able to join us, and we just wanted zerg on through, so we didn't bother to PUG-out the remaining slots in the group; we simply jumped-in and made a bee-line for Hazdill.
It was pretty funny from my end, though. I could see that Stonehands and Tanision were chatting with one another over the voice channel, thanks to the way their character names light up in green when they're talking. But, I couldn't hear a thing, save for my telephone conversation with my Army buddy. But I was also paying sufficient attention to the quest that I managed not to stray too far off the intended path, and was never prompted to disable a trap. (We'd run HIPS the previous night with another group, so I remembered where they all were.)
Mind you, I wouldn't call it a record-breaking run, but with two Level 16 characters and one Level 13, the Level 9 quest didn't offer too much challenge. If I had to guess, I'd say that it took us only about twenty minutes to get through all of it, if that. Which left plenty of time for us to take on an interesing run of Slavers of the Shrieking Mines...
Alas, I have to get my work day started, so I don't have time to delve into that run, but...
I had the opportunity to run Trin for the first time in ages.
And, I was *asked* to run him!
Wow!!!
It was fun. I hope I have that opportunity again in the future. I'd nearly forgotten how entertaining it can be to play trap monkey. But, I have to perpare Obsydiian for the Titan, first...
At any rate, keep it fun!
Monday, August 11, 2008
Speaking of Patterns...
There is one pattern I've not been too fond of this past week. That's been my inability to post any blog entries. No, I haven't died, nor have I given up DDO. Unfortunately, my favorite time to blog, early in the morning before I start work, has been consumed by the nefarious waste of my time... work.
I generally arrive at the office at least thirty minutes before I'm scheduled to begin working. During that time is when I try to bang out a blog entry and check up on game-related happenings. If I can't complete the entry during that time, I try to take advantage of my so-called break time. Between the two, I generally have enough time to put *something* together.
However, the pattern lately has been that as soon as I arrive, there's something waiting for me on my desk with at big "HELP!!!" scrawled across the top. Of course, the line that follows the imperative is "I have a deadline!"
Yeah, well, poor planning on your part does *NOT* constitute an emergency on mine.
But, then there's an email in my inbox *and* a voice message on my phone, all from the same person, as well. Of course, the voice of the user in the voice message is replete with panic and imploring me to drop everything to come to their rescue.
I have to wonder... why do architectural firms insist on hiring incompetent staff?
Oh, no, this isn't something unique to the firm I currently work for. Sadly, it's a trend I've noticed in all of the firms I've ever worked for.
Let's just say that these folks are the real-life equivalent of in-game n00bz!
No, I'm not talking about newbies. There's an immense difference between a newbie and a n00b. After all, the n00b is the one who just doesn't get it, regardless of how hard they try, or anyone else tries to help them. Sadly, the real problem with a n00b is that they either don't have the ability to recognize their n00bness, or they refuse to recognize their n00bness. As a result, they never learn anything new. Instead, they bully around insisting they know everything, and that no one else knows anything.
You know, before the vernacular of the MMO became popular, these people were commonly referred to as tools.
I have a serious problem with this reference, though.
Particularly because a tool is an implement used to accomplish some task. Especially a task that the user of the tool might not otherwise be able to complete without the tool. So, tools are useful. N00bz, though, are not.
It's somewhat similar to the way in which U.S. Marines used to be referred to as jarheads. The reference was due to the shape of the headgear (hat) they wear with their duty uniforms. Sadly, it's inappropriate to call a Marine a jarhead, because you can store things in a jar.
(Nothing like a little inter-service rivalry, eh!?!)
Actually, as much as I make fun of Marines, I wouldn't trade them for anything. I've had quite a few friends who were Marines, and both my step-dad and step-brother were once Marines. Except that I thought I'd have a better chance to fly helicopters with the Army, I might have become a Marine myself.
At any rate, Marines are useful, n00bz are not.
And the pattern with my place of employment is that the majority of my co-workers are real-life n00bz.
And, in a strange form of parallelism, you might say that my job as BIM/CAD manager is very much like my role as a Cleric in DDO; I spend an awful lot of time trying to keep people on their feet, to keep the group moving through the quest, and I even spend quite a bit of time and resources trying to raise drawing files from the dead.
And they wonder why I insist on taking my breaks and lunches.
Or that I insist on leaving on time, and not working over my weekends.
Mind you, I'm not saying that I'm any sort of über player in DDO, or that I even qualify as a "competent" Cleric.
But, I do recognize when things aren't working very well for me and I stop to evaluate what's going on and attempt to learn something about how to rectify the situation. I make the attempt to become better than I am, and to confer the benefits of what I've learned upon the people I'm responsible for helping.
Sadly, real-life right now, at least at work, is like running in the worst PUG (Pick-Up Group) you could conceive of.
Actually, consider it like this... I'm the sole Cleric (Level 9) in an elite PUG Dragon raid where the other eleven characters are zerging Level 8 Monks, where none are centered, none have any kamas or quarterstaves or handwraps to help them out, and none are carrying their own healing.
That's the kind of environment I work in.
If only I could re-roll myself into a career path that's less stressful...
Hmm...
In any event, I missed a couple of days of play, thanks to the Summer Olympics in Beijing. I really enjoy watching all of the athletes going out and putting forth their best effort in a competition amongst the very best competetors in their individual sports. It's inspiring, really.
But, I have a Titan raid to organize for this coming Friday. And Obsydiian still needs to complete Bring Me the Head of Ghola-Fan! and Slavers of the Shrieking Mines. Here's hoping I can find some groups to help get Syd ready for the raid.
Keep it fun!
I generally arrive at the office at least thirty minutes before I'm scheduled to begin working. During that time is when I try to bang out a blog entry and check up on game-related happenings. If I can't complete the entry during that time, I try to take advantage of my so-called break time. Between the two, I generally have enough time to put *something* together.
However, the pattern lately has been that as soon as I arrive, there's something waiting for me on my desk with at big "HELP!!!" scrawled across the top. Of course, the line that follows the imperative is "I have a deadline!"
Yeah, well, poor planning on your part does *NOT* constitute an emergency on mine.
But, then there's an email in my inbox *and* a voice message on my phone, all from the same person, as well. Of course, the voice of the user in the voice message is replete with panic and imploring me to drop everything to come to their rescue.
I have to wonder... why do architectural firms insist on hiring incompetent staff?
Oh, no, this isn't something unique to the firm I currently work for. Sadly, it's a trend I've noticed in all of the firms I've ever worked for.
Let's just say that these folks are the real-life equivalent of in-game n00bz!
No, I'm not talking about newbies. There's an immense difference between a newbie and a n00b. After all, the n00b is the one who just doesn't get it, regardless of how hard they try, or anyone else tries to help them. Sadly, the real problem with a n00b is that they either don't have the ability to recognize their n00bness, or they refuse to recognize their n00bness. As a result, they never learn anything new. Instead, they bully around insisting they know everything, and that no one else knows anything.
You know, before the vernacular of the MMO became popular, these people were commonly referred to as tools.
I have a serious problem with this reference, though.
Particularly because a tool is an implement used to accomplish some task. Especially a task that the user of the tool might not otherwise be able to complete without the tool. So, tools are useful. N00bz, though, are not.
It's somewhat similar to the way in which U.S. Marines used to be referred to as jarheads. The reference was due to the shape of the headgear (hat) they wear with their duty uniforms. Sadly, it's inappropriate to call a Marine a jarhead, because you can store things in a jar.
(Nothing like a little inter-service rivalry, eh!?!)
Actually, as much as I make fun of Marines, I wouldn't trade them for anything. I've had quite a few friends who were Marines, and both my step-dad and step-brother were once Marines. Except that I thought I'd have a better chance to fly helicopters with the Army, I might have become a Marine myself.
At any rate, Marines are useful, n00bz are not.
And the pattern with my place of employment is that the majority of my co-workers are real-life n00bz.
And, in a strange form of parallelism, you might say that my job as BIM/CAD manager is very much like my role as a Cleric in DDO; I spend an awful lot of time trying to keep people on their feet, to keep the group moving through the quest, and I even spend quite a bit of time and resources trying to raise drawing files from the dead.
And they wonder why I insist on taking my breaks and lunches.
Or that I insist on leaving on time, and not working over my weekends.
Mind you, I'm not saying that I'm any sort of über player in DDO, or that I even qualify as a "competent" Cleric.
But, I do recognize when things aren't working very well for me and I stop to evaluate what's going on and attempt to learn something about how to rectify the situation. I make the attempt to become better than I am, and to confer the benefits of what I've learned upon the people I'm responsible for helping.
Sadly, real-life right now, at least at work, is like running in the worst PUG (Pick-Up Group) you could conceive of.
Actually, consider it like this... I'm the sole Cleric (Level 9) in an elite PUG Dragon raid where the other eleven characters are zerging Level 8 Monks, where none are centered, none have any kamas or quarterstaves or handwraps to help them out, and none are carrying their own healing.
That's the kind of environment I work in.
If only I could re-roll myself into a career path that's less stressful...
Hmm...
In any event, I missed a couple of days of play, thanks to the Summer Olympics in Beijing. I really enjoy watching all of the athletes going out and putting forth their best effort in a competition amongst the very best competetors in their individual sports. It's inspiring, really.
But, I have a Titan raid to organize for this coming Friday. And Obsydiian still needs to complete Bring Me the Head of Ghola-Fan! and Slavers of the Shrieking Mines. Here's hoping I can find some groups to help get Syd ready for the raid.
Keep it fun!
Wednesday, August 6, 2008
Patterns
According to Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary, a pattern is: Anything proposed for imitation; an archetype; an exemplar; that which is to be, or is worthy to be, copied or imitated; as, a pattern of a machine.
I started this blog entry with the definition of the word pattern because, it seems, many folks don't seem to understand the meaning of the word.
Lately, I've been having difficulty with some of the folks I work with who don't seem to be capable of comprehending the meaning of certain basic words. Like pattern. Of course, if they don't learn the meaning of simple words like pattern, they're going to learn the definition of the word *NO* very quickly...
Still, I have architects, landscape architects and interior designers in my office who routinely try to establish some graphical pattern for the way in which they want the contractor to build something. The problem is that the designers don't seem to understand what the word pattern really means. After all, a pattern is something that's designed to be repeated, especially when you're talking about the pattern for a floor tile. I mean, you may have three or four types of floor tiles that may be laid out in a certain manner, so that building occupants will perceive an aesthetically pleasing composition of floor materials, but there's a noticeable difference between a pattern (order) and a random arrangement (chaos).
What makes it more entertaining is when they say something to the effect of "we need this to repeat, except..."
Well, you know what? If there's an exception, it's not repetitive. In fact, if there are exceptions, it is *NOT* a pattern, because exceptions *PREVENT* repetition. Exceptions obviate patterns. You can't have a pattern if you keep breaking it.
Furthermore, there's no such thing as a "random pattern." That's a contraction of terms.
I just want to throttle the *supposedly* educated people I work with sometimes.
But, the concept of patterns got me to thinking...
Idiot User A wants me to create the definition of a pattern for the computer to follow for her design.
Computers like patterns.
Computers *thrive* on patterns.
Computers *require* patterns to behave correctly.
Patterns are nothing more than sets of rules for the computer to follow.
Some patterns are extremely complex or elaborate sets of rules the computer must follow.
Some patterns are *so* complex that, up-close-and-personal, they appear to be random, but from a distance, the repetition becomes quite clear.
Programs are patterns for computers to follow.
DDO is a program and is, therefore, a pattern. An extremely complex pattern, but a pattern nonetheless. One that the players of the game use to achieve a desired goal.
(Ultimately, I hope that goal is to have fun but, with some people, you never know...)
Because we, as players, immerse ourselves into the pattern of the program, we become one of the pattern's elements. Something that can easily be repeated. Especially since elements of the pattern are controlled by the rules that define the pattern.
But, in most cases, the collection of rules is so broad and complex, as players, we don't always see the pattern very clearly.
Or, do we?
I *know* that I have a pattern for the completion of the Goodblade quests.
And that, for some quests, such as The Pit, there's an *explicit* pattern for completion. That, if you stray too far from the pattern, if you break the rules in some manner, you won't be able to complete the quest.
The challenge for the developers is to create a set of rules that define the pattern, that the resulting program allows for more than one "solution" to the selected "problem," or to introduce a sufficient level of complexity, that the player is unable to perceive the pattern.
After playing this game for what is now approaching two years, some patterns are quite consistent and obvious. But, not always. Such as the difficulties we were having with the Queen raid the other night.
Sure, we said the raid was bugged. But what was really happening was that we were somehow causing a certain result by our actions, even if unintentionally, or we weren't performing the actions required to complete the pattern. Either way, it was a bust, and we weren't able to complete the raid. We all suspect that there's an error in the pattern's definition, but it requires a developer to review the rules to make that determination.
Part of what's interesting about each new module that's added to this game is that it alters the pattern. In some cases, it changes the existing rules to alter the pattern in some quests, and introduces new rules, to create new patterns in others that the player base has never seen before.
So, the real challenge, as a developer, is to continually revise existing rules and create new ones that develop more and more complexity and reduce the evidence of a pattern. The goal is to make the pattern more entertaining, to increase the amount of fun to be had. But, at the same time, there's a side effect of making things so complex that, as with the Queen raid, sometimes things behave unexpectedly or unpredictably.
From such an abstract point of view, it's a fascinating subject for contemplation.
Because of the current state of the game, there are some shortages of subjectively desirable content to play through. And, to some extent, I even have my own "pattern" for character development, so I end up playing my characters through a sometimes overly obvious pattern of quests and patterns within those quests. I have to wonder what I can do to make some of those patterns less evident...
Keep it fun!
I started this blog entry with the definition of the word pattern because, it seems, many folks don't seem to understand the meaning of the word.
Lately, I've been having difficulty with some of the folks I work with who don't seem to be capable of comprehending the meaning of certain basic words. Like pattern. Of course, if they don't learn the meaning of simple words like pattern, they're going to learn the definition of the word *NO* very quickly...
Still, I have architects, landscape architects and interior designers in my office who routinely try to establish some graphical pattern for the way in which they want the contractor to build something. The problem is that the designers don't seem to understand what the word pattern really means. After all, a pattern is something that's designed to be repeated, especially when you're talking about the pattern for a floor tile. I mean, you may have three or four types of floor tiles that may be laid out in a certain manner, so that building occupants will perceive an aesthetically pleasing composition of floor materials, but there's a noticeable difference between a pattern (order) and a random arrangement (chaos).
What makes it more entertaining is when they say something to the effect of "we need this to repeat, except..."
Well, you know what? If there's an exception, it's not repetitive. In fact, if there are exceptions, it is *NOT* a pattern, because exceptions *PREVENT* repetition. Exceptions obviate patterns. You can't have a pattern if you keep breaking it.
Furthermore, there's no such thing as a "random pattern." That's a contraction of terms.
I just want to throttle the *supposedly* educated people I work with sometimes.
But, the concept of patterns got me to thinking...
Idiot User A wants me to create the definition of a pattern for the computer to follow for her design.
Computers like patterns.
Computers *thrive* on patterns.
Computers *require* patterns to behave correctly.
Patterns are nothing more than sets of rules for the computer to follow.
Some patterns are extremely complex or elaborate sets of rules the computer must follow.
Some patterns are *so* complex that, up-close-and-personal, they appear to be random, but from a distance, the repetition becomes quite clear.
Programs are patterns for computers to follow.
DDO is a program and is, therefore, a pattern. An extremely complex pattern, but a pattern nonetheless. One that the players of the game use to achieve a desired goal.
(Ultimately, I hope that goal is to have fun but, with some people, you never know...)
Because we, as players, immerse ourselves into the pattern of the program, we become one of the pattern's elements. Something that can easily be repeated. Especially since elements of the pattern are controlled by the rules that define the pattern.
But, in most cases, the collection of rules is so broad and complex, as players, we don't always see the pattern very clearly.
Or, do we?
I *know* that I have a pattern for the completion of the Goodblade quests.
And that, for some quests, such as The Pit, there's an *explicit* pattern for completion. That, if you stray too far from the pattern, if you break the rules in some manner, you won't be able to complete the quest.
The challenge for the developers is to create a set of rules that define the pattern, that the resulting program allows for more than one "solution" to the selected "problem," or to introduce a sufficient level of complexity, that the player is unable to perceive the pattern.
After playing this game for what is now approaching two years, some patterns are quite consistent and obvious. But, not always. Such as the difficulties we were having with the Queen raid the other night.
Sure, we said the raid was bugged. But what was really happening was that we were somehow causing a certain result by our actions, even if unintentionally, or we weren't performing the actions required to complete the pattern. Either way, it was a bust, and we weren't able to complete the raid. We all suspect that there's an error in the pattern's definition, but it requires a developer to review the rules to make that determination.
Part of what's interesting about each new module that's added to this game is that it alters the pattern. In some cases, it changes the existing rules to alter the pattern in some quests, and introduces new rules, to create new patterns in others that the player base has never seen before.
So, the real challenge, as a developer, is to continually revise existing rules and create new ones that develop more and more complexity and reduce the evidence of a pattern. The goal is to make the pattern more entertaining, to increase the amount of fun to be had. But, at the same time, there's a side effect of making things so complex that, as with the Queen raid, sometimes things behave unexpectedly or unpredictably.
From such an abstract point of view, it's a fascinating subject for contemplation.
Because of the current state of the game, there are some shortages of subjectively desirable content to play through. And, to some extent, I even have my own "pattern" for character development, so I end up playing my characters through a sometimes overly obvious pattern of quests and patterns within those quests. I have to wonder what I can do to make some of those patterns less evident...
Keep it fun!
Monday, August 4, 2008
So, That's How It's Gonna Be, Huh!?!
As you probably know, a fair number of players from both the Face Stabbing Misfits and the Lifetakers and Heartbreakers have spent the past few weeks preparing our characters for an eagerly anticipated raid on the Demon Queen. We even managed to help one of the new members of the Lifetakers and Heartbreakers get his character ready for the raid and over the Level 13 hump *just* before we gathered everyone together for the raid.
Needless to say, we were all excited to show the Queen that we were a group she really didn't want to mess with.
We were off to a shakey start, though; the first time we entered the quest, someone noticed that it was showing we had entered on Normal. As a group of Level 13-16 players, Normal was inappropriately low. So, we popped back out, dropped group and re-formed, and tried it again on Elite.
Once back in on the proper level of difficulty, things seemed to be going pretty well. We fought our way through the initial mobs and entered the arena for the show-down. Of course, some of our players have been away from DDO for a while, and most everyone else was either new to the raid or haven't participated in an age, so there were quite a few of us standing around hoping someone else would know what to next. The honor fell to RedRaider.
So, we get everyone into the designated positions, Red sets up a Wall of Fire on the Queen and then proceeds to chat her up. Incensed by a man in a skirt, she begins to buff herself and cast her own area-of-effect spells, like Blade Barrier.
While she preparing her battlefield, she started to take a smidge of damage from the Wall of Fire, and then she bugged out.
Okay... maybe we made a mistake with the Wall of Fire.
There is, after all, a known bug in the game right now that, if you cast an area-of-effect spell upon the spawn point of a mob prior to the commencement of an encounter, the spell will actually cause the game to flip-out and prevent the encounter from initating.
At all.
Your only recourse at that point is to recall, regroup and start over.
Which is precisely what we did.
This next time, Red waited to cast a Wall of Fire until after he chatted up the Queen.
And, subsequently, the raid proceeded a little further. She now summoned the spinning blades, which promptly cut-down half the party, including my Cleric, Aequinox. The problem was that she was still standing in the Wall of Fire Red had cast, but she'd stopped taking any damage.
Actually, she'd stopped doing anything but flailing her arms.
Yet we all continued to suffer wounds from all of her defenses. It didn't take long for us to all release out for another go.
On the third try, Red got a little ahead of the rest of us... he jumped into the quest before Stonehands had converted it to a raid group. Which meant that we had to drop and reform (again).
(Red just gets so excited...)
On the third, official try, we didn't lay down any spells at all, and Red simply went over to chat with the surly queen... After being sure that she was actually doing her thing, Red deferred to PuddinTan to cast the Wall of Fire.
No dice.
She did summon her spinning blades and she did (finally) teleport, but none of the spells the casters or healers used were doing her any damage at all. And, she bugged out, again, just standing there, flailing her arms and not actually doing anything.
We took a short breather before the fourth try, for the casters and healers to get their mana back, and we tried it again.
Need I tell you that everyone was a touch cranky by now?
Well, some more than others...
With a small adjustment to starting strategy, we let Red do the honors once again, and waited to see what happened.l
As with the third attempt, the spinning blades made their appearance, the archers appeared, and the Queen teleported. But, as before, she was taking no damage at all. And, once she'd teleported, she bugged out again, still flailing her arms.
At this point, everyone was pretty pissed off, but we were at least willing to give it one more shot.
Too bad it turned out the same way.
Several members of our group were very displeased. Most of us were unhappy, but also very confused. It wasn't like we were knowingly doing anything to cause her to bug-out. She just did it all on her own.
You know, I can understand that these raid bosses occasionally like to be selfish with the raid loot, or they like to make us work a little harder for whatever reward we seek. But, I've never seen a raid boss invite a group into the arena, only to be completely ignored. If you don't want to play, why even invite guests to visit? What's the point???
Well, several folks submitted tickets but, as usual, the Game Master was far from prompt in any sort of response; we broke group and set out to do other things.
Seriously, though... that Demon Queen... RUDE! Very, *very* RUDE!!!
Next time, we'll teach her some manners...
Keep it fun!
Needless to say, we were all excited to show the Queen that we were a group she really didn't want to mess with.
We were off to a shakey start, though; the first time we entered the quest, someone noticed that it was showing we had entered on Normal. As a group of Level 13-16 players, Normal was inappropriately low. So, we popped back out, dropped group and re-formed, and tried it again on Elite.
Once back in on the proper level of difficulty, things seemed to be going pretty well. We fought our way through the initial mobs and entered the arena for the show-down. Of course, some of our players have been away from DDO for a while, and most everyone else was either new to the raid or haven't participated in an age, so there were quite a few of us standing around hoping someone else would know what to next. The honor fell to RedRaider.
So, we get everyone into the designated positions, Red sets up a Wall of Fire on the Queen and then proceeds to chat her up. Incensed by a man in a skirt, she begins to buff herself and cast her own area-of-effect spells, like Blade Barrier.
While she preparing her battlefield, she started to take a smidge of damage from the Wall of Fire, and then she bugged out.
Okay... maybe we made a mistake with the Wall of Fire.
There is, after all, a known bug in the game right now that, if you cast an area-of-effect spell upon the spawn point of a mob prior to the commencement of an encounter, the spell will actually cause the game to flip-out and prevent the encounter from initating.
At all.
Your only recourse at that point is to recall, regroup and start over.
Which is precisely what we did.
This next time, Red waited to cast a Wall of Fire until after he chatted up the Queen.
And, subsequently, the raid proceeded a little further. She now summoned the spinning blades, which promptly cut-down half the party, including my Cleric, Aequinox. The problem was that she was still standing in the Wall of Fire Red had cast, but she'd stopped taking any damage.
Actually, she'd stopped doing anything but flailing her arms.
Yet we all continued to suffer wounds from all of her defenses. It didn't take long for us to all release out for another go.
On the third try, Red got a little ahead of the rest of us... he jumped into the quest before Stonehands had converted it to a raid group. Which meant that we had to drop and reform (again).
(Red just gets so excited...)
On the third, official try, we didn't lay down any spells at all, and Red simply went over to chat with the surly queen... After being sure that she was actually doing her thing, Red deferred to PuddinTan to cast the Wall of Fire.
No dice.
She did summon her spinning blades and she did (finally) teleport, but none of the spells the casters or healers used were doing her any damage at all. And, she bugged out, again, just standing there, flailing her arms and not actually doing anything.
We took a short breather before the fourth try, for the casters and healers to get their mana back, and we tried it again.
Need I tell you that everyone was a touch cranky by now?
Well, some more than others...
With a small adjustment to starting strategy, we let Red do the honors once again, and waited to see what happened.l
As with the third attempt, the spinning blades made their appearance, the archers appeared, and the Queen teleported. But, as before, she was taking no damage at all. And, once she'd teleported, she bugged out again, still flailing her arms.
At this point, everyone was pretty pissed off, but we were at least willing to give it one more shot.
Too bad it turned out the same way.
Several members of our group were very displeased. Most of us were unhappy, but also very confused. It wasn't like we were knowingly doing anything to cause her to bug-out. She just did it all on her own.
You know, I can understand that these raid bosses occasionally like to be selfish with the raid loot, or they like to make us work a little harder for whatever reward we seek. But, I've never seen a raid boss invite a group into the arena, only to be completely ignored. If you don't want to play, why even invite guests to visit? What's the point???
Well, several folks submitted tickets but, as usual, the Game Master was far from prompt in any sort of response; we broke group and set out to do other things.
Seriously, though... that Demon Queen... RUDE! Very, *very* RUDE!!!
Next time, we'll teach her some manners...
Keep it fun!
Friday, August 1, 2008
Queen Ready, Almost...
So, tonight is the eagerly awaited Demon Queen raid some of us have been working rather intently to get our characters ready for. According to my records, this will be the first raid formally hosted by Stonehands (Bashal). But, with so many officers and veteran players in the group, it can hardly be the level of challenge a group leader might face with a PUG (Pick-Up Group) adventure party.
(It's nice to have a guild raid or, in this case, an allied-guild raid, for the first raid party you have the honor to lead. Your guildies and allies are far more understanding when you run into problems than PUG players are.)
In preparation for the big event, some of us have been running and re-running the prerequisite quests to make sure everyone who wants to attend will be ready. In my case, I've been taking turns running Aequinox, PEBKAC and Sarge in an attempt to provide healing services to whatever character levels folks want to run, while at the same time, trying to have more than one character who's Queen-ready. It's been an interesting challenge, though. Some folks have made several attempts to get their characters ready, but have had difficulty actually completing all of the prerequisites.
Benjarrus is an example.
Several of us got together with him quite a few times over the past few weeks to help him get his characters Benjarrus, Blackwand and Thundermouse ready. In fact, it took hardly any effort to get Benjarrus ready, which is why he was more focused on working Thundermouse through each of the quests in the series. Except that, for some reason, we kept running into situations where it was more beneficial that he switch back to Ben or Blackwand.
So, last night was what you might consider a last-ditch effort to get Thundermouse ready for the big event this evening.
It even saw a special appearance by Maeric and RedRaider (now known as RedReindeer - thanks Thundermouse!), back from the realm of a competing MMO, just for the occasion.
The goal for the evening was to run as many allied guildies through all four prerequiste quests as we could. Ultimately, there were two full groups for the challenge.
Of course, the first group filled quickly, and were off to the races. The second group didn't fill quite so quickly. In fact, I wasn't sure I was going to be able to log in last night, but managed to anyway. Which is when I found the group looking for a caster to support the cause. I happened to have logged in with Trinarius at the time. Which is when Thundermouse noticed Trin's class icon... Wizard.
Except, there's one small problem... Trin's only a Level 7 Wizard.
Now, that's not to say Trin doesn't have certain abilities that can contribute to the success of the party. But, with only Fourth-Level spells in his spellbook, he's not quite as powerful as most groups would hope he was. Which was something I was careful to warn Thundermouse and the rest of the group about. I didn't think that Trin's Wall of Fire and Haste would be quite strong enough for the things the group might want to accomplish. So, I asked if it might not be more advantageous to switch over to Aequinox, since the group also needed a healer.
Fortunately, my switching to Aequinox wasn't a detriment, because Shinzon logged in while we were attempting to round-out the party, and he agreed to join us.
We were finally out of the gates, but clearly well behind the first group.
Still, we rolled through An Offering of Blood *very* quickly and efficiently.
And, on our way to the Tomb of the Wizard King/Raiyum's Chamber, we even had a chance to check for the possible appearance of the Bloodstone chest. (Thundermouse is still searching.)
As with the previous quest, the Wizard King was laid to rest very quickly.
But, after entombing the Wizard King, some of our group needed to recall back to Zawabi's Refuge for repairs. That kinda broke our rhythm.
Once we'd all regrouped to head out for The Chains of Flame, we realized that no one really knew their way out to the quest. Sure, we all knew generally where to go, but none of us *knew* the way, by heart. And, of course, that went over like that annoying series of speedbumps in a shopping center parking lot.
Still, we finally managed to find our way to the quest and hopped in on Normal, hoping to fly though and move on to ADQ (Against the Demon Queen). Of course, the first group with Maeric and RedReindeer were long-since done. (Apparently, they even ran ADQ a second time...)
The problem was that no one in our group knew the quest really well. We followed the twists and turns through to their logical conclusions, but once we reached the top, we didn't seem to have the final key.
To exacerbate the problem, it'd taken us so long to get through the quest, working and re-working our way through, looking for something we'd missed, in an effort to find the final key, we were all getting really tired.
So tired, in fact, that Thundermouse nodded off for a good solid fifteen minutes at his keyboard. Maybe a little longer, even.
While Thundermouse was asleep, one of our group decided to search his pack for a Scroll of Knowledge that might give us some clues as to where we might have made a wrong turn. The hope was that it would tell us where we could find the last key.
I guess it was some well-spend gold, because the Scroll revealed that the key to the final encounter was given to the party member who freed the sixteenth of the thirty slaves. Of course, that may have something to do with the quest objective to free at least fifteen slaves. Hmm... there *might* be a connection there, somewhere...
So, we all headed up to the top of the cavern, and each of us attempted to open the doors, yet we all failed. All of us except sleeping beauty, that is... THUNDERMOUSE!!! WAKE UP!!!
He was out cold.
I tried (gently) shouting into voice chat, hoping to audibly jostle him awake.
No luck.
I sent several messages, in-series, to party chat, hoping the ding with each message might run together enough to sound like an alarm clock bell.
No luck.
Several others of the group tried sending /tells directly to him.
The response was "Thundermouse is away from the keyboard."
Well, no, not really. He's *at* the keyboard, as it's making an impression on his forehead, and he's drooling on it at the same time. So, *no*, he's not away from the keyboard. He's just asleep.
It made me think that maybe we should equip his system with a deadman-switch, kinda like the ones installed on railroad locomotives. There, you have to provide positive input to any of several critical control systems every thirty seconds, or the switch brings the train to an emergency stop. In Thundermouse's case, we'd connect the deadman-switch to a set of electrcial contacts in his gaming chair. That way, if he doesn't provide postive input at least once every thirty seconds, the chair shocks him back to consciousness.
:-P
We were certainly in a pickle. We were *all* tired. Apparently none more so than Thundermouse, though. Who, we determined, literally held the key to completing the quest.
...asleep at the keyboard.
LOL!!!
So, I decided to go out on a limb... I submitted a ticket to the Game Master, asking if he could help us out of the jamb.
I mean, we'd done *everything* in the quest, except open the final door, because we couldn't obtain another key to the final room.
*Fortunately*, Thundermouse woke up before I had to explain the situation to the Game Master, and I canceled the ticket.
We all yelled, hooted and hollered, hoping to keep Thundermouse awake long enough to get him up to the top of the cavern, to open the final door for us. Shinzon even headed back to escort him to the rest of us, by way of perpetual Hastes.
Of course, Thundermouse was apologizing most profusely the whole way. Honestly, I don't think anyone was really upset. More than anything, it was simply *really* funny. It was just that we were all very tired.
But the statement "I don't think I'm gonna make it for ADQ tonight, guys" was probably the funniest to that point. Heh! No kidding!!! I don't think any of us had any intention of running the final prerequisite at that point. :-) We were all thinking about going to bed, instead.
Equally amusing, I thought, was that, as soon as Thundermouse made it to the door, he unlocked and opened it, which initiated the final encounter. I had a moment to throw maybe *two* group buffs before I had to start healing. Shinzon simply started spamming fire walls and PKs as fast as he could.
It was probably the best un-prepped encounter I've ever seen.
We were all so tired, we just *did* it. All in about 15 seconds, too.
Shinzon's fire walls were still burning well after the encounter was over.
Everyone rushed the throne and cueued the completion objective, looted the chest, "double-recalled" and logged, unceremoniously, out for the evening.
It was two hours past my bed-time.
And, some folks still need to complete ADQ before tonight's raid, if they want to participate.
Here's hoping we can fit that in for them; PEBKAC is Queen-ready, but Thundermouse, Raf... som'n-r-other (again, sorry, poor memory), Kwiskwis, Joxsum and Shinzon still need to complete ADQ. If I can log in early enough this evening, maybe I can lend them a hand, by way of Aequinox.
We'll see...
In the mean time, keep it fun!!!
(Get some sleep Thundermouse!)
(It's nice to have a guild raid or, in this case, an allied-guild raid, for the first raid party you have the honor to lead. Your guildies and allies are far more understanding when you run into problems than PUG players are.)
In preparation for the big event, some of us have been running and re-running the prerequisite quests to make sure everyone who wants to attend will be ready. In my case, I've been taking turns running Aequinox, PEBKAC and Sarge in an attempt to provide healing services to whatever character levels folks want to run, while at the same time, trying to have more than one character who's Queen-ready. It's been an interesting challenge, though. Some folks have made several attempts to get their characters ready, but have had difficulty actually completing all of the prerequisites.
Benjarrus is an example.
Several of us got together with him quite a few times over the past few weeks to help him get his characters Benjarrus, Blackwand and Thundermouse ready. In fact, it took hardly any effort to get Benjarrus ready, which is why he was more focused on working Thundermouse through each of the quests in the series. Except that, for some reason, we kept running into situations where it was more beneficial that he switch back to Ben or Blackwand.
So, last night was what you might consider a last-ditch effort to get Thundermouse ready for the big event this evening.
It even saw a special appearance by Maeric and RedRaider (now known as RedReindeer - thanks Thundermouse!), back from the realm of a competing MMO, just for the occasion.
The goal for the evening was to run as many allied guildies through all four prerequiste quests as we could. Ultimately, there were two full groups for the challenge.
Of course, the first group filled quickly, and were off to the races. The second group didn't fill quite so quickly. In fact, I wasn't sure I was going to be able to log in last night, but managed to anyway. Which is when I found the group looking for a caster to support the cause. I happened to have logged in with Trinarius at the time. Which is when Thundermouse noticed Trin's class icon... Wizard.
Except, there's one small problem... Trin's only a Level 7 Wizard.
Now, that's not to say Trin doesn't have certain abilities that can contribute to the success of the party. But, with only Fourth-Level spells in his spellbook, he's not quite as powerful as most groups would hope he was. Which was something I was careful to warn Thundermouse and the rest of the group about. I didn't think that Trin's Wall of Fire and Haste would be quite strong enough for the things the group might want to accomplish. So, I asked if it might not be more advantageous to switch over to Aequinox, since the group also needed a healer.
Fortunately, my switching to Aequinox wasn't a detriment, because Shinzon logged in while we were attempting to round-out the party, and he agreed to join us.
We were finally out of the gates, but clearly well behind the first group.
Still, we rolled through An Offering of Blood *very* quickly and efficiently.
And, on our way to the Tomb of the Wizard King/Raiyum's Chamber, we even had a chance to check for the possible appearance of the Bloodstone chest. (Thundermouse is still searching.)
As with the previous quest, the Wizard King was laid to rest very quickly.
But, after entombing the Wizard King, some of our group needed to recall back to Zawabi's Refuge for repairs. That kinda broke our rhythm.
Once we'd all regrouped to head out for The Chains of Flame, we realized that no one really knew their way out to the quest. Sure, we all knew generally where to go, but none of us *knew* the way, by heart. And, of course, that went over like that annoying series of speedbumps in a shopping center parking lot.
Still, we finally managed to find our way to the quest and hopped in on Normal, hoping to fly though and move on to ADQ (Against the Demon Queen). Of course, the first group with Maeric and RedReindeer were long-since done. (Apparently, they even ran ADQ a second time...)
The problem was that no one in our group knew the quest really well. We followed the twists and turns through to their logical conclusions, but once we reached the top, we didn't seem to have the final key.
To exacerbate the problem, it'd taken us so long to get through the quest, working and re-working our way through, looking for something we'd missed, in an effort to find the final key, we were all getting really tired.
So tired, in fact, that Thundermouse nodded off for a good solid fifteen minutes at his keyboard. Maybe a little longer, even.
While Thundermouse was asleep, one of our group decided to search his pack for a Scroll of Knowledge that might give us some clues as to where we might have made a wrong turn. The hope was that it would tell us where we could find the last key.
I guess it was some well-spend gold, because the Scroll revealed that the key to the final encounter was given to the party member who freed the sixteenth of the thirty slaves. Of course, that may have something to do with the quest objective to free at least fifteen slaves. Hmm... there *might* be a connection there, somewhere...
So, we all headed up to the top of the cavern, and each of us attempted to open the doors, yet we all failed. All of us except sleeping beauty, that is... THUNDERMOUSE!!! WAKE UP!!!
He was out cold.
I tried (gently) shouting into voice chat, hoping to audibly jostle him awake.
No luck.
I sent several messages, in-series, to party chat, hoping the ding with each message might run together enough to sound like an alarm clock bell.
No luck.
Several others of the group tried sending /tells directly to him.
The response was "Thundermouse is away from the keyboard."
Well, no, not really. He's *at* the keyboard, as it's making an impression on his forehead, and he's drooling on it at the same time. So, *no*, he's not away from the keyboard. He's just asleep.
It made me think that maybe we should equip his system with a deadman-switch, kinda like the ones installed on railroad locomotives. There, you have to provide positive input to any of several critical control systems every thirty seconds, or the switch brings the train to an emergency stop. In Thundermouse's case, we'd connect the deadman-switch to a set of electrcial contacts in his gaming chair. That way, if he doesn't provide postive input at least once every thirty seconds, the chair shocks him back to consciousness.
:-P
We were certainly in a pickle. We were *all* tired. Apparently none more so than Thundermouse, though. Who, we determined, literally held the key to completing the quest.
...asleep at the keyboard.
LOL!!!
So, I decided to go out on a limb... I submitted a ticket to the Game Master, asking if he could help us out of the jamb.
I mean, we'd done *everything* in the quest, except open the final door, because we couldn't obtain another key to the final room.
*Fortunately*, Thundermouse woke up before I had to explain the situation to the Game Master, and I canceled the ticket.
We all yelled, hooted and hollered, hoping to keep Thundermouse awake long enough to get him up to the top of the cavern, to open the final door for us. Shinzon even headed back to escort him to the rest of us, by way of perpetual Hastes.
Of course, Thundermouse was apologizing most profusely the whole way. Honestly, I don't think anyone was really upset. More than anything, it was simply *really* funny. It was just that we were all very tired.
But the statement "I don't think I'm gonna make it for ADQ tonight, guys" was probably the funniest to that point. Heh! No kidding!!! I don't think any of us had any intention of running the final prerequisite at that point. :-) We were all thinking about going to bed, instead.
Equally amusing, I thought, was that, as soon as Thundermouse made it to the door, he unlocked and opened it, which initiated the final encounter. I had a moment to throw maybe *two* group buffs before I had to start healing. Shinzon simply started spamming fire walls and PKs as fast as he could.
It was probably the best un-prepped encounter I've ever seen.
We were all so tired, we just *did* it. All in about 15 seconds, too.
Shinzon's fire walls were still burning well after the encounter was over.
Everyone rushed the throne and cueued the completion objective, looted the chest, "double-recalled" and logged, unceremoniously, out for the evening.
It was two hours past my bed-time.
And, some folks still need to complete ADQ before tonight's raid, if they want to participate.
Here's hoping we can fit that in for them; PEBKAC is Queen-ready, but Thundermouse, Raf... som'n-r-other (again, sorry, poor memory), Kwiskwis, Joxsum and Shinzon still need to complete ADQ. If I can log in early enough this evening, maybe I can lend them a hand, by way of Aequinox.
We'll see...
In the mean time, keep it fun!!!
(Get some sleep Thundermouse!)
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