The Elusive Cult of Six

Trinarias has managed to climb fairly steadily up the ranks to Level 7, and is now within reach of Level 8. In the process, Krinjen/Krynjen (Belzur), Lumma/Bastim (Robinous), Plagiarist (Tanision), Sephrena (Bashal), Soulencer/Sillencia and Talgarth (Bingster) have been doing their parts to level up as well.

As you can see, though, there's quite a cast of characters involved.

So many characters, in fact, that it's been interesting trying to get a group together to attempt an actual run on the Cult itself. It seems that every time we've put a group together so far, at least one member has needed to first complete the Greymoon series that precedes it.

Now if it's been a while for you, you might have forgotten that there're four quests in the Greymoon chain. Granted, they aren't particularly difficult, so long as you run them on Normal, and have a reasonably diverse group of characters somewhere fairly close to the level of the quest. But, at the same time, the four of them strung together can take a fair chunk of time to complete.

I think, in all, I've run Trinarias through all four of the Greymoon quests at least five times.

Which is interesting, I think, when you consider that Trin had *just* turned 7 when he started the series for the first time. And that, following our latest completion of the series the other night, Trin is now less than eight thousand XP from earning Level 8.

And he hasn't run Stormcleave or The Pit yet.

Nearly all of his experience through Level 7 has been earned in the four Greymoon quests.

Nearly.

We did run a few House Phiarlan quests here and there, working on favor for those who need their House P buffs or are interested in earning their Pendant of Time. But, the vast majority of Trin's XP has come from Greymoon.

I *think*... I'm not entirely sure, but I *think* everyone now has at least one character ready for a run on the Cult.

Until now.

We've been having a few issues with regard to our Clerics lately.

Particularly since none of the Player Characters are actually Clerics. The closest any of us come to playing Clerics are those with Ranger levels, or those with Bard levels.

And, even then, they aren't really much of a substitute for a true Cleric, as Bards aren't nearly as powerful as their divine counterparts, and those of us with Ranger levels are largely restricted to using wands.

Which has meant that, on those occasions where we decided we'd be better off with a Cleric in the group, we've resorted to purchasing the services of hireling Clerics.

As strange as it may sound, I think the hireling Clerics are even more retarded than any of my own.

At least, that's the way it seems.

According to the way Turbine has implemented them, hirelings have three modes of "artificial intelligence": Active, Passive, and Defensive. It would seem, however, that amongst the Cleric's I've hired, they instead have three modes of artificial stupidity.

Of course, it *could* have something to do with the fact that *I* am the one who hired them, but still...

When a group approaches choke point, and the Rogue does indeed find and reveal a trap, why do the hireling Clerics insist on fighting enemy monsters *within* the trap? Particularly when the rest of the party has purposely setup a defense outside of the trap, and is attempting to use the trap to their own advantage against the enemy monsters?

I'll give you that the art of programming for artificial intelligence is imperfect, but I've written a great many programs that implement a certain degree of artificial intelligence for CAD applications. Yes, the programming becomes quite lengthy, but it is possible to write the program to recognize certain conditions and respond appropriately. Instead, I seem to have been offered hirelings that I literally have to tell when to breathe, lest they suffocate themselves.

And, with that in mind, I think I've come to a point where I'm going to have to ask everyone to re-run the Greymoon quests one more time...

I think it's time to bring my own Cleric to the party.

Which is why I took a little time to bring EmmDee up to speed. He's now Level 7; in-line with most everyone else in our little group, so I think we'll have to make several goes of the Cult series, too. At least once with Trinarias, and at least once more with EmmDee.

That is...

If we can get everyone through Greymoon...

;) :P

Keep it fun, everyone!

Belated Anniversary Photo

We had a great time with our run through Delera's Tomb, our all-Face Stabbing Misfits' crew...



That's the best way to spend your second anniversary in-game... with the friends who help you enjoy it so much. Trinarias pulled the Voice of the Master at the end, too.

As always... keep it fun!

Why?

You may be wondering why I don't blog much lately.

Well, I've been busy.

Oh, sure, the holidays bring a certain business to everyones lives. And, I doubt there are many DDO players that didn't take at least some time away from the game during the past two weeks to spend it with family and friends. I was certainly among them.

Though I did miss my friends in DDO during that time.

But, there's something else that's been keeping me busy...

I'm finally working again.

But, the rules have also changed.

This time, I'm working for a firm *as* an architect. That is, I'm designing buildings full-time, now. In my previous position at the firm that had laid me off, I was mostly working to support all of the folks who find themselves technologically challenged. Only occasionally, when someone needed some especially technical expertise for a particularly challenging project was I ever asked to log some hours actually designing buildings, or parts thereof.

Thanks to my buddy, who some might know as Rayvok, I'm now working in a firm that's more my size and, for once, fits *my* career goals - practicing architecture.

Sounds funny, doesn't it? "Practicing architecture." Well, they call it practicing, because you spend the rest of your career *trying* to get it right.

Trust me on this... few people ever do get it exactly right. Even the so-called "Starchitects."

Especially the "starchitects," in some cases.

But, why has my practice of architecture had such a huge impact on my ability to blog about DDO?

Well, now that I'm practicing again, there's very little "down time" in my daily routine at work.

Oh, sure, I still play. And, in fact, have had quite a lot of fun lately. Especially since we have a few new guildies, and some of the current ones are able to spend a little more time online right now.

In fact, I've taken a tidy sum of screenshots from various adventures that I *really* need to post. Including the all-Face Stabbing Misfits group that ran together this recently past December the 17th.

Oh, but you might not know... that was my two-year anniversary for playing DDO.

Can you believe it?!? I've been playing DDO for over two years now!!!

I guess that makes me some kind of veteran.

Or old-timer. :P

And, despite the fact that I've taken a little time away from the game during the holidays, I've managed to find time to level Trinarias, the forged protegé of Trinarius, up to Level 7.

And... I hope to have more progress on my little novel in the near future. Trinarius has been writing about some of his adventures that he hopes to share with those folks who might not realize that they can step into the immersive experience we subscribers know as DDO.

But, I'm getting ahead of myself.

Still, you can see that I have quite a lot on my plate at the moment.

Here's hoping the new year will bring more time to blog about my adventures with Trin and his clan.

In the mean time...

Keep it fun!