Trinarius

Something from Nothing

2011-08-19T16:50:00.000-07:00

There's been a fair bit of speculation about Artificers, since Turbine made the announcement. I've been lurking in the shadows of the DDO forums, trying to glean as much as I can about what qualities this new class might have. Will Turbine implement them in close alignment with the pencil-and-paper Eberron Campaign Setting rule books? It seems unlikely they would stick too closely to those rules. Gameplay in the online environment is much faster and a lot more furious than what the standard evening of tabletop play would see. But, I do hope they keep the essentials.

One of the things that made the pencil-and-paper version so interesting is the Artificer's inherent ability with mechanical objects that gave them the ability to pick locks and disable traps. Making it the only class, other than Rogues, with such an ability. In the realm of DDO, it seemed odd that multiple classes can melée, multiple classes can heal, multiple classes can repair, multiple classes can crowd-control, multiple classes can buff and de-buff, but only one class could protect the party from the peril of a trap when the quest is set to Elite.

Which has now led to many a "they nerfed my Rogue" messages on the forums. Rogues are so much more than trap-smiths, that I can't begin to understand why such a message even exists.

Granted, I don't play Trinarius the way a Rogue probably *should be played. But, again, Trin's not supposed to be a true Rogue. He's multi-classed in a way that I thought best represented the Artificer, in the absence of a true class within the game. As a result, Trin can't assassinate. Nor can he generate the damage many a true Rogue can. But, as I said, he isn't meant to, either.

As should be evident by his arcane abilities. He offers a wide variety of spells meant to make the adventure party more well-rounded. Which is what an Artificer does. Except that a true Artificer imbues items with arcane power, rather than casting spells directly. It was something I struggled with as I slowly brought Trin up to the level cap.

And, similar to an Artificer, Trin's Ranger abilities are intended to allow him to stand in the back, where he can support the party, rather than getting in the way of the enemy's weapons swinging to-and-fro.

The question I continue to find myself asking is whether the Artificer, as Turbine chooses to implement it, will give me the ability to do Trin justice without having to multi-class. So far, Turbine hasn't said much of any substance about how they plan to implement the class.

All I can do is sit, lurk and hope.

In the mean time, may you have interesting adventures!

Resurrection

2011-08-12T09:29:00.000-07:00

So, it's been an awfully long time since I last posted anything. Perhaps all those who used to read have moved on. And, that's understandable. I, too, have been busy with other, real life distractions. With luck, I'll return to blogging about DDO more regularly.

One of the things that brings me back to my old blog is a new development on the part of Turbine. It seems they've decided to add a new class to the game. And, surprisingly, it's one of the core Eberron classes that I had originally hoped to play, when I started playing DDO... the Artificer.

In truth, Trinarius, from the beginning, was supposed to have been an Artificer. But, because the game didn't offer that class, he, instead, used the game's allowance for multi-class characters to approximate those abilities. Well, now that Turbine has committed to formally creating the Artificer class, we shall see whether Trinarius becomes the character he always should have been.

Thanks for reading!

Cranky Ol' Velah!

2010-01-15T14:08:00.000-08:00

So, it's been a while since I've posted anything.

But, it's also been a while since there's been anything particularly interesting to blog about.

Until last night, that is.

We've finally had enough Face Stabbers return to the game, that we were able to put together a level 10-13 Dragon Raid.

Surprisingly, everyone showed up with raid-ready characters. In the past, it's seemed that there's always been one person who wanted to join us who hadn't yet completed all of the Vault of Night prerequisite quests. I guess everyone *really* wanted to run a raid.

In fact, for most of us, it'd been close to a year since we'd last paid Velah a visit. (Perhaps that's why she was so cranky last night.)

Unfortunately, we didn't have a full raid group. But, at least we came up with nine players: two Clerics, Factotum (Belzur) and Zorgon (Sorgon); two Fighters, Zothra (Craygar) and Bingster; two Rogues, Fatti (Kruella(h)) and Trinarias (warforged Trin); a Paladin, Robinous; a Ranger, Cranish (Bashal); and a Bard, Plagiarist (Tanision).

You'll note that, of the group, none of the characters were Wizards or Sorcerers.

That fact would eventually play its part in the adventure.

Although we only had nine players, most of us were in the level 12-13 range, and we ran the raid on Normal difficulty. (So much for priapism...) This meant that we were a bit over-powered, relative to the recommended level/difficulty setting.

However...

We only had nine players...

And, we're all Face Stabbing Misfits.

Always a strong influence to be carefully considered.

Still, we gave it a go.

And, it was slow going at first. After all, it's been nearly a year since most of us had been in the Vault, and nearly three years for some. *cough* Kru... *cough* Craygar... *cough*

'scuse me... where was I???

Oh, yes...

So, it was a little slow at first. Mostly because none of us could quite remember exactly what to do, what order to do it in, what we should have done first, those sorts of things.

But, we had only two deaths in the Vault of Night (chapter 5), leading up to the actual encounter with Velah.

Yes... Trin was one of them...

And, yes... Trin still has an affection for going skinny-dipping in the lava...

But, at least, this time, Trin wasn't carrying the Voice or the Ring when he did.

No, instead, I had the privilege of incessantly (and annoyingly) reminding Robinous *NOT* to fall off anything into the lava.

I'm surprised no one asked me to stop repeating myself.

But I was pleasantly surprised that we'd all managed to find our way through the vault, all the way to the portal, guarded by Arach d'Kundarak, that would transport us to our encounter with Velah, in the Plane of Night.

However...

The encounter with Arach didn't go quite as expected.

You see... the folks at Turbine tweak things, just a bit, each time they release an update to the game.

And, there had been at least three updates to the game since any of us had last had a chat with Arach.

Y'know... he has more mechanical hounds now.

Four, in fact.

And each represents an element.

Fire, Acid, Ice and Lightning.

'course, we didn't know this until we all gathered 'round the Golem and asked Arach to let us through.

And we nearly wiped.

In fact, the only one left on his feet who could do anything to help us was Plagiarist.

But, his most immediate priority was to keep running.

Before the first seven of us had died, and Robinous had become incapacitated, we had only made a minor dent in the Golem's health.

And, we hadn't done *anything* about the hounds.

Y'know... thinking that, like the good ol' days... just beat down the Golem and the hounds will go away...

Umm... no.

We're not entirely sure, but it seems as though the hounds provide a kind of health/defense mechanism for the Golem.

It wasn't until Plagiarist had managed to revive Factotum, Zorgon and Robinous, that we had a chance to even *try* to deal with the hounds.

But, once back on our feet, with Plagiarist still the focus of the Golem and hound's attention, we finally managed to isolate the hounds, one at a time, and give Cranish, Zothra and Bingster a chance to work on the Golem.

Granted, this is not a new trick on the part of the developers at Turbine, but it was unexpected.

I'm not sure about anyone else, but I was glad that Plagiarist had survived to prevent us from having to re-run the entire Vault.

*That* would've been especially disheartening.

But, we made it.

In fact, it was especially nice that Turbine now fills up a character's health an mana when they successfully complete an adventure. It proved quite useful when we entered the Plane of Night to face Velah.

But, that's when things started falling... Bingster... Factotum... apart.

Yeah...

Turbine had also done us the favor of tweaking the encounter with Velah.

None of our old tactics worked anymore.

And...

We eventually wiped.

I think we had a good plan. It simply needs some adjustment.

And, some practice.

Which is why we re-scheduled the raid for another attempt next week.

'course... it'd be nice if, say... Althena and Maeric would grace us with their presence...

I ~know~ they both check in on us every once in a while...

They would be *MOST* welcome.

And we wouldn't necessarily promote them back into their old positions...

Unless they ~wanted~ us to...

HINT! HINT!!!

C'mon, Boss Lady! I know you're watching. We need our figure head back.

And, you, too Maeric. We haven't anything close to a master-mind anymore...

But, if you just want to leave us to deal with Velah, ourselves.

And, to die a lot...

Well...

So be it...

Just remember... we miss you guys!

In the mean time... there're preparations to be made! (Ya gotta love Q!)

I know I have my old notes on this raid... somewhere... dusty... ... ... somewhere...

Oh, well. We'll keep trying.

Keep it fun!

WTF!?!

2009-10-28T18:18:00.000-07:00

So, Update 1 was a bit of a surprise to me. I heard a few rumors about an impending update on Monday, but dismissed it. Turbine has a history of not keeping their word, so I've taken a rather cynical stance on so-called improvements to the game.

However, I was astounded when I tried to log in this evening and the game began downloading Update 1.

I decided to go shovel the snow that's fallen from the first half of the storm while my computer did its thing.

My internet connection isn't the fastest, so I decided to have some dinner after shoveling snow, without even bothering to check the game's progress. In fact, I thought it highly doubtful that I'd even be able to log in this evening.

To my surprise, the game had finished it's update by the time dinner was finished.

Wow!

Then I tried to log in...

Seriously!

What the... !!!

I have *never* had any free play time in this game.

And I have to *wait* to get in?!?

This better be good...

The End of DDO???

2009-10-20T06:54:00.000-07:00

You be the judge...

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/95570-Dungeons-Dragons-Brought-to-Life-Using-a-Microsoft-Surface-Table

I know, I know... it's probably another form of vaporware.

But...

Some of us miss the days of gathering 'round the table for an evening of adventure.

It's just that it was sometimes a huge mess, what with all of the die sets, books, papers, figures, etc., strewn all about the room. Why not let the computer do all of that rule-keeping for you, and let you and your friends get together to hang out while you spend more time adventuring, and less time arguing about the rules or rolls, or whatever?

Oh... wait... That's what we have DDO for, right!?!

Well, in DDO, we aren't all sitting together in the same room.

Same *virtual* room, if we're all using voice chat.

Does anyone else wish they could play an adventure from the comfort of their living room recliner?

I do.

And, what about those headsets we all use???

Mine becomes extremely uncomfortable after more than about an hour.

Seems like this might make for a nice coffee table.

Could maybe even load it with other things, too.

Looks interesting, though. Would be nice to have friends over for a gaming session, and still have the benefit of computer assistance, but actually be able to share a social experience in person.

This one's interesting; I'll have to keep an eye on it.

In the mean time, several of us got together for some adventuring last night, and we found our way to the plane of Shavarath.

It's a fascinating landscape, for sure. And the monsters in the "outdoor adventure area" are certainly a challenge; we managed to find two of the rare encounters. And fought a relatively long, drawn-out battle to defeat them.

So long, in fact, that, while running PEBKAC, I was seriously depleting my mana pool. I *had* to launch the DDO Store and buy some mana potions, just to keep going.

What happens when I run out of Turbine Points?

I'm a subscription... err... VIP member already. I'm not about to use a credit card to pay for more Turbine Points. The wife would have my hide, for sure. Seems to me that players ought to be able to buy mana potions from in-game vendors, much the same way they buy healing potions.

Or, better yet...

How 'bout we finally give the crafting system a proper implementation, and allow player-characters to craft potions, scrolls, weapons, etc.???

I mean, shouldn't our characters be doing *something* when they aren't adventuring???

Just a thought.

In the mean time, I'm interested to see more of Shavarath, and the other Planes the folks at Turbine have opened up for us.

Keep it fun!

Where's Trin?

2009-10-05T06:33:00.000-07:00

Quite a few people have been asking that question lately.

Rest assured, I haven't gone anywhere.

Well, I haven't left the game, anyway.

The truth is that I *have* been going somewhere.

Regularly.

I've been going flying.

That's right, I'm taking flying lessons.

I'm working on my Private Pilot Certificate.

Aviation has always been a significant force in my life, and my wife finally agreed not to let her fear of flying keep me from doing one of the things I've wanted to do all my life.

So, there have been quite a few evenings where, instead of running amok in the streets of Stormreach, I've been carefully studying maneuvers and proceedures, and preparing for my limited time in the cockpit.

I say limited, because I can only go flying once every couple of weeks. So, I have to make the most of that time.

However, studying for this does consume a considerable amount of time.

Approximately 45 minutes, every day.

So, if you don't see me in Stormreach, please forgive me.

I'm still here.

Just working on one of those things that's *very* important to me.

And, for those interested, the landings are getting good. I should be able to solo soon. Then it's on to cross-country and night flying. If I maintain a good track, I should complete my certificate sometime next Spring. We'll have to see how that goes.

In the mean time, many of the Face Stabbers who've taken a leave of absence from the game are beginning to return.

Even Meany is back.

So, now we're planning the FSM Reunion Raiding Tour.

Not all of the stops have yet been planned. We're working on that one.

I look forward to seeing everyone in game, even if it isn't as often as it once was.

Keep it fun, everyone!

Catching Up

2009-09-16T17:47:00.000-07:00

Despite my preferences, my new job simply doesn't have any spare time in which I can take a few minutes to post a new blog entry.

Which is really too bad, considering the rather tedious aspects of the administrative functions I'm currently performing for projects in construction and nearing completion. But, I suppose it's what I signed up for. Particularly since I'm *finally* nearing the end of my internship, and preparing to sit for the architect's registration exam.

Still, I *have* to take some time for myself, to relax and unwind.

And, maybe...

in the process...

catch up on some of the going's-on within the Face Stabbing Misfits, and in DDO in general.

First up... DDO: Eberron Unlimited.

Yep, it's finally live.

Granted, some will say "but it's been live for nearly two weeks now!"

Well, that may be true, but it was *OVER* *A* *YEAR* in waiting.

Seriously. I refuse to cut Turbine a break over that one.

In the mean time, "Free2Play" has gone live as well. And we're even starting to see an influx of players, both new and old, as a result.

Of course, you've probably seen that Kruella and Craygar are back. Apparently, so is Meany. Who's next???

Now, in the process of Kruella and Craygar getting back into the swing of things, some interesting topics have been posted in the guild's Message of the Day.

Including a reference to Tramp Stamps.

Yeah, tramp stamps... tattoos.

Kru had first suggested that we all get tattoos. Then she changed her mind and decided that really, only Trin needed one. On what she referred to as "his buttflanks."

Yeah.

Sorry, Kru, but, despite the fact that Turbine has opened up all sorts of new possibilities for character appearance through add-ons in the new Turbine Store, I just don't see any "tramp stamps" or tattoos.

Besides, I like Trin's image... unblemished.

It's not my fault you can't accept Dwarven perfection, as it has already been presented to you.

Besides, Kru, if Trin were to have a tattoo applied to his already excellent physique, there's only one place you'd be able to find it...

My guess is that Craygar might have issues with you inspecting it. :-P

Of course, there's been other madness in the guild.

It's no secret that some of the guild's best members are the result of earnest and sincere recruiting efforts on the part of Kruella. She is, in fact, the one who recruited me into the Face Stabbers.

(Bet she's regretting that now...)

So, upon her return, she was officially conferred the title and responsibility of Guild Recruiting Officer.

But, I think that may have backfired on her, somewhat.

You see, Soulencer has already met the first prerequisite for becoming a Face Stabber...

He has a twisted sense of humor.

Which has manifested itself in a most interesting way.

Apparently, while I was away on a business trip for work, Soulencer had created himself a new character.

However, without myself or Belzur available to invite his new lowbie into the guild, he turned to the only logical alternative...

Kru!

But, apparently, Kru didn't realize who it was.

And, Soulencer, having such a twisted sense of humor, decided to have a little fun with it.

So much fun that Kru took to avoiding him, and refusing to admit him into the guild.

I think she became particularly frustrated with him once he began offering gold to join the guild.

But, it gets better.

Since Kru wouldn't admit him, Soulencer began asking Craygar for a guild invite, too.

Now, since Kru and Craygar are married in real life, it should be obvious that they *must* have discussed this "turd" that had been bothering Kru amongst themselves. So, as if there were any doubt, Craygar refused, too.

But, Soulencer didn't give up.

Nor did he reveal his true identity.

Instead, he kept pestering both Kru and Craygar until they both /ignored him.

I'm not sure whether you're aware, but the /ignore command makes it so the recipient doesn't hear *anything* from the /ignored character. And, as empirical evidence has shown, you can't even hear a fellow guildie within your current party if he's been /ignored.

So, Kru and Craygar thought they had heard the last of Soulencer's new lowbie, whom they didn't know belonged to Soulencer in the first place.

To them, he was just some random "turd."

Well, while driving across the plains of Kansas and eastern Colorado, on my way home from my business trip, I decided to give Belzur a call to see what had been happening while I'd been gone.

I had no previous knowledge of what had been transpired in my absence, but Belzur explained to me what had happened with Soulencer's new lowbie.

He also informed me that Soulencer had let Belzur in on the joke, so that Belzur wouldn't spoil the fun.

Belzur had first suggested that he should invite Soulencer's new lowbie into the guild, just to see how Kru would react.

However, the conversation took on a life of its own, and before long, it was decided that, since I'm notorious for inviting "stray cats" and "lost dogs" into the guild, perhaps it should be me that sends the invite to Soulencers new lowbie, *while* Kru and Craygar are grouped with me and Belzur, and anyone else who's heard the stories of this "turd" who's been stalking Kruella and her hubby.

To be fair, Kru, it might have something to do with the fact that you like to strip off and dance naked in public.

Maybe...

So, on Monday night, everything had fallen into place. Kruella, Craygar, Tanision, Belzur, Soulencer and I were all grouped together for some Gianthold adventuring.

After we'd been playing for a while, I sent a /tell to Soulencer, suggesting he make an excuse to drop party and switch characters, so that he could log in as Enob, his new lowbie, and nemesis of Kruella and Craygar.

At the same time, I sent a /tell to Belzur, letting him know what was about to go down.

Although Tanision had been aware of the harassment Kru and Craygar had been suffering at the hands of Enob, he didn't know that Enob was really Soulencer, though he suspected that whoever this Enob was, it was surely someone Kru was at least acquainted with.

Still, I kept the secret, and didn't let Tan know what was about to happen.

So, when the time was right, and Enob was finally logged in and ready, I spoke out in voice chat "Hey, Kru! I found us a new guildie, too!"

"Oh, yeah? Who???"

"Hang on just a sec..."

...

*ding!*

...

(in guild chat) Welcome, Enob!

"Oh, *NO*!!! Trin, no! You gotta boot him, like right now!"

Craygar joined in the stern protest, too.

I couldn't hold back any longer. I burst out laughing, and so did Belzur. And Tan joined in, too.

Particularly when I revealed that Kru (and Craygar) had been had.

Not thirty seconds after inviting Enob into the guild, Kru exercised her Officer's abilities, and booted him out, anyway.

Truth be told, I think she'd have booted me from the guild, too, if she'd had the ability.

Of course, I brought Enob back in, but he also logged back over to Soulencer to re-join the group.

Kru has had more than a few choice words about the whole thing.

I think she belives it's all been some sort of conspiracy. However, it was all a simple misunderstanding that took a rather humorous turn, and took on a life all unto itself.

Granted, torturing someone as nice as Kru is somewhat mean, but considering some of the many practical jokes that have been played on the various members of the guild, I couldn't help but play my part in the shenanigans.

Still, Kru promises that "revenge is a dish best served cold."

An apt line from Shakespear.

I look forward to it!

Keep it fun!!!

Evil Rumors

2009-09-11T15:37:00.000-07:00

I heard an evil rumor today...

I was told that Meany is back.

I know that can't be right, because Meany fled Stormreach as soon as he learned what Barbeque Fats intended to do with (to) him.

Ms. Fats later took her life in despair over the loss of her beloved.

I can't believe Meany is back because I, myself, heard Ms. Fats swear that she would haunt Meany forever after.

Knowing Ms. Fats, I would believe that.

And I can't imagine Meany would be so desperate, as to risk returning to Stormreach, knowing that the spirit of Ms. Fats may linger.

...

I hear another evil rumor a couple weeks back, as well...

It was said that Trin had gotten himself a "tramp stamp."

This is certainly the most evil of rumors. And, one that I must refute.

But not right now.

I'll have to let that rumor simmer a little longer.

It's fun watching Kru stew over a topic she wants to see appear in my blog... very badly.

:-P

Keep it fun!

PRIAPISM!

2009-08-06T06:02:00.000-07:00

That's the way Kruella likes it.

Always hard or not at all.

To be fair, Kruella is *not* the only pervert in the guild. Far from it. In fact, the vast majority of us are. It's just that... *most* of the time... we try... *TRY*... to keep it under control.

It... is... difficult... however... *not* "hard"... to restrain ourselves... when we have Kru in our group.

All it takes from her is just one, perfectly timed giggle.

She would assert that it's an innocent giggle.

Perhaps "innocent" isn't quite the correct word for it.

Simple, instinctual, maybe... But you get the idea.

Honestly, I do the same kind of thing.

Someone in the group will say something that (unwittingly) falls into the category of double entendre, and I will let out with a chuckle into voice chat. Sometimes even a deep-belly laugh.

Which is why Kru was the one to point out, quite clearly, that if it weren't for the gutter, my mind would be homeless. Too right, Kru!

On occasion, others in the group will even respond with a "that's what she said."

But it's never quite as amusing as when Kru does it.

Particularly since she is a lifetime member of the fairer gender.

But I think it all has something to do with the unstated prerequisite that anyone who wishes to join the Face Stabbing Misfits must, in some way, at least to some small extent, have a perverted side to them.

I mean, the Face Stabbers are a mature guild.

Not that everything that goes on within guild and/or voice chat should be rated NC-17, but that we all appreciate adult humor. Nor do we necessarily restrain ourselves from using coarse language. But that our behavior is still respectful, despite having adult themes and/or undertones.

It's just that Kru and I happen to be the more vocal of the group.

But that Kru has a particular talent for opening the flood gates.

Such as it was last night...

We had logged into our lowbies, so that we could run with Kru, as she has not yet brought any of her characters up to Dragon Raid level. Yet.

The question was put before the group... what to run. Bashal had suggested either STK, Shan-To-Kor, or Tangleroot, meaning the Splinterskull Fortress quest chain within the Tangleroot Gorge. (I'm getting carried away with commas this morning.)

Because we were all more concerned with hanging out with our friends and enjoying each other's company within the game, rather than imposing the false burden of "having" to complete something, we all expressed some degree of ambivalence toward the decision.

We left it up to Bashal!

I mean, as Guild Leader, it's my prerogative to delegate responsibility to the officers as I see fit.

Perhaps I might have been mildly abusing my authority as Guild Leader, but... Bashal *IS* an officer...

So, he decided for us... Tangleroot... and no one objected. And, we made our way out confer with Chief Ungrz and offer him our assistance.

As we approached the quest entrance, the question was put forth to the group, what level of difficulty. After all, we could open the first quest in the chain on Elite, and the Favor from completing the quest on such a difficulty contributes to the goal of earning the Pendant of Time from the Elves of House Phiarlan.

After a full round of "I dunno's" and "I don't care's," Bashal finally declared that it was the Cleric's decision.

Bashal had found a way to reverse the delegation and sent the decision back to me.

Yeah... I was running Taciturn... the Cleric.

I announced to the group that I didn't care. That they all fully realized that their so-called Cleric was in fact a Trin-built Cleric, and that they assumed responsiblity for whatever risk may be associated with their choice, but that I'd simply follow along with whatever they chose.

So, once again, I delegated.

It was Harshbringer (Tanision) who made the decision to open the quest on Elite...

;)

It didn't take long to determine that such a decision might not have been the most wise, but we continued on despite the obvious challenge.

But, *while* we were slogging our way through, Kru asked how many character slots we were now allowed within the game...

Kruella has a penchent for giving her characters names that *could* (and generally *do*) have suggestive meanings, depending upon how someone might read it.

And they're always names that we Face Stabbers enjoy, particularly due to the nature of our membership.

If you know what I mean.

Upon completing the first quest in the chain, though, Bashal decided he had to call it an evening, lest he wake up in the morning with an impression of his keyboard upon his forehead. Which actually simplified things, as Belzur had logged in and wanted to join us, but the group had already been filled.

So, after sending Bashal off to bed and bringing Racenda (Belzur) in to replace him, we continued on.

Both with the Splinterskull Fortress quest chain, and with our discussion of what Kru should name her characters.

When DDO was first released, each player was limited to six characters per server, per account. Over the course of the past three-plus years, that limit has increased to the current legal limit of ten characters per server, per account. However, when (if) Module 9 is finally released, players will be able to purchase six additional character slots, up to a total legal limit of sixteen characters per server, per account, using the new Turbine Points system.

Which led Kruella so solicit suggestions for names for her characters.

And a rather entertaining, if not adult-oriented conversation.

Which Bashal was now missing out on.

Silly Bashal.

In the midst of this discussion, Harshbringer (Tanision) asked which difficulty for the next quest in the chain... Normal or Hard.

Actually, as I recall, Tan asked "How d'you guys want it? Normal or Hard?"

*THAT* is when Kru giggled into voice chat.

And then, so did Lilmortician, running on her lowbie, of course.

Which caused me to laugh out loud... in voice chat.

And, although we couldn't hear them, I'm sure both Soulencer and Belzur were now laughing out loud, too.

Tanision hadn't realized what he'd said.

Until we ~explained~ it to him.

That only served to make the conversation all the more entertaining.

Which is where the conversation turned to the subject of Priapism. Particularly since Kru likes her "quests" Hard, or not at all. From the male perspective, I tend to agree. It seems that certain "quests" would be... pleasureable... only when run "Hard."

It *is* funny, though, how quickly our conversation went into the gutter from that point.

Tan only verified "Hard" on one other occasion.

After that, he gave up.

Chicken! :-P

Rest assured, though, Priapism was a subject of extended discussion throughout the evening.

Especially so when Racenda charmed one of the Hobgoblins. Which remained charmed. For a... very... long... time...

Having been previously released from my inhibitions for the evening, and with regard to the now excessively "charmed" Hobgoblin, I declared into voice chat "this is what's wrong with Priapism... you get it "hard" and then you can't do anything with it..."

I'm pretty sure I heard each and every member of the group fall out of their chairs, laughing so... hard... that they each needed both a bottle of oxygen and a break for the restroom.

Nevertheless, I maintain that if you can't have fun in-game, you shouldn't be playing.

However that may be taken...

Keep it fun!

Things We've Forgotten

2009-07-27T08:36:00.000-07:00

Thanks to our recent reunion with long-lost guildies, it seems there have been some things we've forgotten over the course of their absence.

It came to light last night when we were running with Kruellah, dragging her through the Waterworks at break-neck speed, so that she could join the rest of the world in the areas of Stormreach beyond the Harbor. Most notably, the Marketplace.

We started our run being a bit chatty, but nothing (yet) that belongs in the pages behind the NC-17 sign.

Kru had questioned whether I remembered such conversations, and I replied simply that not only did I remember them, but that I missed them.

She thought that maybe I'd forgotten how... interesting... such conversations could become.

Certainly, I have not forgotten that.

I mean... The Main Vein...

And...

~other~ topics.

Always enjoyable!

But, apparently, there were other things we *had* forgotten.

We weren't long into second part of the four-part quest, when Kru noted how quiet the voice-chat had become.

Had we forgotten what it's like to conduct a completely random and unrelated discussion *while* we were slogging our way through quests we'd completed so many times that no one could count?

It seems we had.

Tanision even offered that we were simply concentrating on the encounter at hand.

True...

We were running the quest on Elite.

And Unarius, my new "pure class" Barbarian, had long since run out of healing potions. Meaning that Phrudin, Belzur's new lowbie Cleric, spent quite a few resources providing life support.

Which I have to reimburse him for.

Tan was also running his new lowbie Paladin, and Kru was running the latest version of Kruellah, also a Drow Paladin, like the original. They, too, were providing Unarius with life support, and they too, also deserve reimbursement for their efforts.

As soon as I log over to a character that has some cash on them.

So, there was a certain amount of concentration going on.

I was trying to do the proper amount of Barbarian zerging, without causing undo stress on the healers, but I wasn't the only one "tanking" either. Robinous and Soulencer were running their lowbie Fighter's, too.

Not to mention the fact that Soulencer's lowbie, Forbiddious, is a 'forged.

Phrudin's healing spells certainly don't work as well on the 'forged as they do on the fleshies.

But, the point is...

We came to a point where there was almost no chatting going on.

And, Kru noticed.

And said something about it.

Our excuses were pretty lame. But, the truth is, it's been a *long* time since we've had the pleasure of Kruella or Craygar in our groups. According to the guild member list within the game, 1 year and 10 months.

1 year and 10 months without the irrelevant chatter we used to be famous for!

Time to resurrect old traditions!

Who knows *what* will come up the next time we group.

Perhaps Themainvein?

Well, maybe not.

But, Kru's sister, Trowser Snakecharmer is back...

;)

Keep it fun!

The Most Unbelievable Thing Happened...

2009-07-24T15:48:00.000-07:00

So, last night, Tanision and I were hanging out with Soulencer, trying to figure out what we were gonna do next with the new generation of lowbies we'd all rolled-up, when Soulencer chimed into voice chat with...

"Hey, I was supposed to tell you guys something."

"What's that?"

"I was over in the tavern with the brawling area when I received a /tell from someone. The were asking if Trin was still in the guild."

"Really?"

I thought to myself, well, I've played this game with a lot of people over the years, and there're quite a few who've left the game, so that could be anyone. But it was the next comment that got my attention...

"Yeah. Said he and his wife used to play and are coming back to the game."

Both Tan and I immediately replied with "NO WAY!!!"

"Yeah. Said he was hoping you were still around, and was hoping to run with you sometime soon."

"NAME!!! What was the name of the character!?!" (rather emphatically, if you couldn't tell)

"Umm... Azindra, I think..."

Poor Soulencer. I'm pretty sure I cut him off when I told Tan I had to run back to the tavern to switch over to Trin.

This, of course, quickly side-tracked our search for the next quest and instead turned into a search for this illusive character by the name of Azindra.

After switching over to Trin, I ran over to the Wayward Lobster, where Soulencer said he was standing when he received the /tell.

It was stupid, really. Especially after Soulencer told me he'd looked around for whomever had sent him the /tell, but didn't see them. Tanision and I quickly realized that Azindra had (smartly) used the Who panel, as any experienced DDO player would have, to check to see whether there were any Face Stabbers online. From there, it would be a simple matter of sending a /tell without regard for location.

Oh, well... I had to go look for myself.

Without any luck, though, I ran Trin back over to the Marketplace, to drop him off at the Phoenix Tavern before bringing Taciturn back out for more lowbie entertainment.

On the way over, though, I decided to stop by the Lightning Post to send a message to Azindra. When I arrived, I was surprised to see a message from Kruellah waiting for me.

Either I was being haunted by ghosts of Christmas Past, or my suspicions had just been confirmed. Either way, I quickly shot a message off to Azindra, and replied to Kruellah.

In the mean time, Tan and I had jumped back onto our lowbies, and were yammering speculations about whether it was really true.

What was truly perplexing was that Bashal had just logged off for the evening, and Belzur had not yet logged in. This was such surprising news, that it was unfortunate that the other two weren't around to share in it.

Tan and I were *really* surprised when not but twenty minutes later, Soulencer informed us that Azindra had logged in.

I stopped everything I was doing and immediately sent a /tell to Azindra... "Craygar?!?"

"That's me. Who are you?"

ZOMG!!!

"Trin!"

"Trin! How are you?"

/invite

"Craygar!!!"

"..." (silence)

"Guess he hasn't turned on his voice-chat yet."

"..." (more silence)

"Hey guys! Can you hear me now?"

"CRAYGAR!!!" (in stereo)

It quickly devolved into a social gathering, rather than an adventure party. I felt bad for Soulencer; he had *NO* idea who Tan and I were so excited to talk to. And then things got even worse, when Craygar asked us if it was okay if he logged off, because Kruella (aka Trowser Snake Charmer) wanted to log in for a bit.

I guess they no longer have two computers, or they're sharing only one account at the moment. So, it was a bit sad when Craygar logged of, but it was exciting when Kruellah logged in.

This time I had my Friends list updated, so I saw the message the moment she logged in.

"Is this the real Kruella, or simply an imposter?" I asked.

"There's only one way to find out."

Not exactly an authentication, but she'd replied first in general chat, which meant she was nearby, or I wouldn't have seen the message, and then she replied to my /tell.

We were standing near the entrance to Garrison's Missing Pack, so I lit off like a rocket, searching the Harbor for this character named Kruellah.

I quickly found her... over near the Lightning Post.

She was facing the other direction, and didn't see me coming.

I wanted to sneak up on her and give her a surprise, but I was running Taciturn. He isn't sneaky at all!

So, instead, I dashed up to her, grabbed her, and started to dance.

She turned around, removed her clothes, and began to dance herself.

It really *IS* Kruella!!!

LOL!

In fact, Craygar had been walking past the computer when he saw she was doing her naked dancing thing again. He, of course, made a comment Kru was obligated to relay to the rest of us...

"Craygar says... you're naked already!?!"

I'm still having a difficult time believing they're back.

We ran the rest of the evening with Kru, chatting about all sorts of things, but very little about our actual quests.

Some things never change!

It's so good to have Kruella and Craygar back. And it's good to have them both back as Face Stabbing Misfits.

There really is a future for this game!

Keep it fun!!!

Will This Really Be An Upgrade?

2009-06-15T13:00:00.001-07:00

Okay, I may not have blogged about it, but anyone at least interested in DDO has heard the news by now... DDO: Stormreach is becoming DDO: Eberron Unlimited.

This can be nothing less than the "vast and mysterious" thing that Turbine's Tolero has been alluding to since she was recruited out of the player pool and into the developer's cube.

And, I suppose there *is* something "vast and mysterious" about it...

To a point.

But, as I found out this weekend, there are some things that continue to be typical of Turbine...

Let me start with the delivery method for the Beta of Eberron Unlimited... The "Turbine Download Manager." This lovely little piece of software, based on my limited experience, doesn't quite work the way Turbine has advertised it...

"TDM: The Turbine Download Manager downloads sections of the DDO Unlimited client that will get you into the game within minutes, starting with character generation, then the new player experience, and finally the full game. For questions or assistance with the Turbine Download manager, please visit the DDO Beta TDM Forum."

The TDM did *not* get me "into the game within minutes."

It seems that, because I have sixteen characters spread across several servers, which Turbine surrepetitiously copied onto the beta server back in December during a "server maintenance" cycle, I was not able to start with character generation or the new player experience.

Instead, I had to endure a twenty-eight (28) hour... 28 HOUR... download.

So much for minutes.

And, despite the way the advertised peer-to-peer mode is *suposed* to make the download process go faster, I found that it made the process *much* ~slower~. In fact, I had to pause the download, turn off peer-to-peer mode, and restart the computer. Once the TDM was back online, it was running a bit faster. Maybe 3-5% faster, but faster nonetheless.

Now, I'll give you that part of the problem is likely the fact that my connection to the internet *barely* qualifies as DSL, but it *is* still a broadband connection. Barely.

Once the download finished, I was finally able to log into the Beta.

I was surprised to find that the character selection screen had the only two available character slots set to two characters I haven't played in almost a year, both lowbies, and no way to select a different character without either deleting a bunch of other characters I might like to play instead, or entering the DDO Store to purchase additional character slots, up to a maximum of ten slots. Since I was sitting at sixteen characters, I decided to simply choose one of the two lowbies and log in to see what all the hubub was about.

Interestingly, the lowbie I had selected had never been run. It turned out to be a character I'd created on another server to reserve my character name for some of the permadeath stuff some of us guildies had given a go of.

*Because* I'd never run this character, even though it was created long before the New Player Experience was released, I was promply dropped off at the shipwreck that begins the NPE.

Despite the fact that I had 15 other characters, most of whom who are *well* above Level 5, this new character was *forced* to endure the tutorial; I was not allowed to bypass the NPE.

I decided I'd switch to the other character I had available later on, saving the chance to experience some of the changes Belzur had told me Turbine had made to the Marketplace and the Houses for later. (I like to save the anticipation, and let it build.)

I did, however, find a few minor changes to Korthos Island, once my character finally made it through the tunnel.

I'm not sure why anyone felt those changes were necessary, but, whatever...

After verifying that I couldn't take the boat into Stormreach just yet, I ran a couple of quests to whittle away at the bare minimum requirements to get me off Korthos Island.

Until I became tired of the tedium, that is. Then I logged off and had some dinner.

After dinner, I found that I preferred to log into the live game and work on my latest laboratory experiment instead, but found that I couldn't log into the live game.

Suffice it to say that I was *extremely* disappointed, angry and upset.

I wanted to ~PLAY~!!!

Alright, then, I'll go back to the Beta and see if I can't venture into Stormreach on the other character.

ERROR [201]

WTF!!!

I couldn't play *EITHER* version of the game.

After tinkering with my system for about 10 minutes, I finally gave up, shut down my computer for the night, and joined my wife in the living room, watching a rerun of a movie Hollywood should never have released in the first place, but it was better than fighting with my computer and losing.

The next morning, I decided to go back in and troubleshoot the problems I was having with "my game."

Because I wasn't exactly thrilled with the Beta, I decided to work out the problems with the live game first.

To my surprise, the live game actually started this time. Granted, it was *incredibly* slow through the loading of the Turbine logo animation, at which point the previous evening, it would crash. But, at least it was now loading, and I could get into the game.

Satisfied that the live game was now working, I went back to give the Beta another go.

No dice... ERROR [201]... again.

Okay... fine... back to the live game then...

But now, it was crashing again.

WTF!?!

Alright... reboot the computer and start over...

Huh!

The live game actually launches, and doesn't crash at the Turbine logo animation, as long as you haven't run the Beta version first.

Funny that!

However, the license agreement screen that precedes the login to the Beta version is now showing up in the live game.

Fan-friggin'-tastic!

Well, at least I can play... for now.

As for the Beta...

I'm going to uninstall it when I get home this evening.

Hopefully, the live game will still run when I'm done with it.

No, I'm not going to attempt to reinstall the Beta.

I did, by the way, visit the Beta forums for assistance, and found none, and I also submitted a ticket to Turbine's Technical Support site (which still has not replied). So, I'm done with the Beta.

It's not worth the level of frustration involved.

Instead, I'll simply try to be content with my live game, and wait until the end of the summer, when Turbine finally gets around to releasing this so-called module.

By then, it will have been a year... a whole year... since Turbine initially promissed us this particular module.

Perhaps I should consider downgrading to the Free 2 Play option.

I dunno. I'll have think it over.

In the mean time, something positive worth mentioning... I participated in my first Hound of Xoriat raid. And, so did Belzur. I think, maybe, it was also the first time for Bashal (Confrag/Stonehands), but I'm not sure. I do know that it was *supposed* to be the second time for Tanision, but he was, sadly, unable to join us, since, when he arrived at the raid entrance, he didn't have the quest. This was a result of a very bad mix-up and the fact that we were pugging the group as a "new to raid, need guide" raid.

Troop was helping us, and ended up being the leader, even though it wasn't his preference. Personally, I think he did a good job. There is, after all, a reason I spent most of my time following him through the Tempest's Spine, and the other raids we conducted with all the old faces.

Anyway, Belzur pulled Levik's Bracers:

A *very* nice pull for my Dwarven Fighter friend. One I hope he uses well, as it will help PEBKAC keep Belzur's fleshy hide alive. :0)

Another of our raid party members pulled Lorikk's Champion:

As it turns out, this is a rather exceptional item for a Cleric, and the player who pulled it wasn't a Cleric. Because the PUG Cleric in our group already had one, he suggested that I, playing as PEBKAC, the Warforged Cleric of ill repute, should take it, as it would do him the most good.

Thanks to the generosity of our PUG players, PEBKAC now has a shiny new shield. Here's hoping it helps!

I suppose, now, we'll have to make another attempt at the Hound of Xoriat, to see if we can pull the paired items to go with them.

It was fun, though.

As Troop put it, "it started out messy, but it ended well."

If only all quests were to turn out that way...

Keep it fun, everyone!

What's Wrong with This Picture?!

2009-05-22T17:30:00.000-07:00

I've been meaning to post this for a while now, but kept forgetting to do so.

As it happened, Belzur and I were hangin' out, waiting for other Face Stabbers to log in, and decided to waste a little time out in the Vale of Twilight. I mean, how much better could a fighter have it than having his own personal Cleric.

Still, even though Belzur and PEBKAC are Level 15, the sheer number of mobs was quickly taking a toll on PEBKAC's spell points. After a party-wipe and resurrection, we decided that we should bring a few hirelings along to even things out a bit.

You'll notice that I brought Norax along. Another Fighter. Not that Belzur couldn't handle things, but we really didn't have much need anything other than a caster. And, since Belzur brought Barrage, a Wizard to the party, it seemed only fair that I spend a little change on a hireling, too, and brought another meat-shield.

Funny how, once we'd wandered out far enough, we discovered Lykomedes had decided to pay us a visit.

Things were moving along quite well, and Lykomedes was nearly dead, when this happened...

You'll note that neither Belzur nor myself had the ability to charm this devil.

Nor would we want to.

After all, if we want his loot, we want him to die.

Which is why it was so ironic that Barrage, the *hireling* Wizard, managed to succeed in charming the one monster we *absolutely* did *NOT* want to charm.

Ugh!

So much for "artificial intelligence!"

We ended up waiting about five minutes before Lykomedes succeeded his saving throw.

Go figure!

Just goes to show, you can never say you've seen it all. Especially because as soon as you *think* you have, something like this happens.

Still, it was pretty funny.

Only after we booted Barrage from the group!

Keep it fun!!!

Don't Tease!

2009-05-21T17:19:00.001-07:00

I keep seeing this message every time I log into the game...

"You find a secret door..."

Can it *please* be the door that opens up Module 9?!?

Don't tease!

Logs In, Looks Around, Sees No One, Logs Out

2009-05-19T06:13:00.000-07:00

This seems to be a common theme around the game these days.

Eight months after Turbine promised us Module 9, and it's still not out.

Funny thing is...

If you read the forums very carefully, Mod 9 is done and the developers are already working on post-Mod 9 content.

But players are weary of the wait.

It's especially discouraging when, on any given night, you can log in, look around, see no one, and then log out because there isn't anyone on that you want to run with.

Nor is there anything in particular you want to run.

At least, not without your friends.

And your friends don't want to run the same old content anymore.

Apparently, there's some contractual or legal stipulation that's holding up the release of Mod 9, but no one from Turbine will come right out and tell the players what's going on. I'm beginning to think Turbine is working in collusion with the Cheney administration.

No, I'm not going all political on everyone. Just an observation that both Turbine and Cheney prefer to keep everyone in the dark.

Perhaps its a matter of national security?

Who knows.

All I know is that when you do manage to find a few friends in-game, it's pretty sad when you *have* to resort to hirelings just to fill out your party and run a quest.

A big part of the reason I joined DDO was because there were other people out there to enjoy the game with. Those other people introduce a certain degree of randomness to otherwise predictable encounters. That's what makes the game interesting.

But, when you have to substitute those other people with artificially intelligent characters that, in many ways, behave the same way as the artificially intelligent opposition, the game loses its appeal.

I'm not putting down the hireling system for what it was intended to be, I'm putting it down for what it's become.

It was supposed to be there to help folks who were having difficulty finding someone to help them complete a quest, or to accompany them when they were feeling somewhat anti-social, or when they wanted to otherwise solo some content.

The problem is that hirelings have become a necessity to run the better part of the game's content. At least, on the Ghallanda server, it seems that most players are running the high-end content to cap all of their characters before the level increase...

*IF* we ever get one...

or they aren't running anything at all.

We have a small, select group in the Face Stabbing Misfits who like to run some of the lower-level raids, like the Vault of Night. Sure, it isn't near as "exciting" as The Shroud, in terms of the loot you *might* be able to pull, but it's still a lot of fun to those of us who enjoy the occasional raid with lower-level characters.

Some of us aren't in the game to bolt to the level cap. Rather, we're in the game to enjoy the game's content and the time with our friends.

The problem is that most of our friends are finding other things to do because Turbine has seriously dropped the ball this time.

To quote South Park... "I'm a saaaaaaad Panda."

Is There Any Hope?

2009-04-17T15:57:00.000-07:00

According to an interview with Kate Paiz in an episode of the DDOcast podcast last summer, Module 9, which was advertised to include the increase in the Level Cap to 20, etc., etc., those who were listening distinctly remember Kate telling us that Module 9 was targeted for release in the December/January time frame.

The last time I checked my calendar...

The Gregorian Calendar...

... the calendar accepted internationally to help coordinate... everything...

*NOT* the Turbine Calendar...

It's now just past the middle of April.

APRIL!

I'm usually pretty patient with the folks at Turbine. After all, I've done my fair share of programming and application development. But,

...

YOU GOTTA BE KIDDIN' ME!!!

As any long time readers (if any are left) may know... I've been working with Autodesk applications, like AutoCAD, 3ds Max and Revit, for over twenty (20) years now. During that time, I've seem something quite remarkable in the way they develop "improvements" to their software.

Namely that, when they promise to release something, they release *something*, ON SCHEDULE. It doesn't have to be ~everything~ they promised, but it has to be *something*.

Especially once they'd committed to requiring an annual subscription (maintenance) agreement for those who like to upgrade to new releases without paying full retail price for the new version of the software.

In fact, on an Autodesk Subscription, end-users are GUARANTEED at least one major update each year, along with at least one (but usually three) minor updates in between.

For this service, it costs about $700 each year to keep your software up to date.

Granted, that sounds like a lot, compared to the subscription for DDO, but investing in *any* software title written by Autodesk is quite significant. (As in, you can buy a brand new car for the price of some of their software.)

It seems to me that there needs to be a fundamental attitude adjustment on the part of the folks at Turbine. *IF* you're going to tell your user base that a new "Module" (an update) is coming, then you'd better stick to it. Even if it means you didn't get everything into it by the time you told people you were hoping to release it.

Actually, I wish Turbine would treat DDO in more the same manner that the company that produces my wife's game does. They publish small patches and updates to her game on an almost monthly release schedule. And, this is during the interval between any major updates they have planned.

Granted, the player base for my wife's game is significantly larger than that for DDO, which means they have far more money to throw at development. BUT (however)...

*THEY* seem to take development of her game more seriously than Turbine does of my game.

And the result is quite clear... it brings more players into her game. And the game continues to grow.

Meanwhile, I keep seeing folks growing tired of waiting for Turbine. And they end up taking a sabbatical, or even permanently leave the game.

How is that good for the longevity of DDO?

I mean, DDO is three years old now. But it *feels* more like it's sixty-eight.

I'm not saying that I have any intention of leaving DDO. But, if Turbine can't take my game seriously, then neither can I. I was once a seven-day-a-week player. These days I'm lucky if I put in three two-hour evenings.

I suppose there's *some* hope, however...

Turbine did announce that a Module 9 preview has been loaded onto the test server for players to beat on the new features before the prime-time release.

But, then, they haven't committed to a release date yet, either.

Oh, well... I guess I can go play with my Character Planner and see what new multi-class experiment I can come up with next.

Keep it fun!

What to Blog About???

2009-04-06T18:21:00.001-07:00

Perhaps one of the biggest reasons for the lack of posts lately is the lack of something to blog about. Back when we had thirty-some-odd active guild members, there was no shortage of tales to tell. These days, with only eight active members, the juicy details are more difficult to come by.

Particularly now that we're all fairly seasoned veterans of the game, too.

That's not to say there aren't the occasional n00b stunts, but that they aren't quite as entertaining as they once were.

I think this means it's time for some fresh meat... I mean... new guild members.

At least, that is... if we want someone with some fresh material.

But, at the same time, the guild is small enough that there isn't any drama at all. Something of a rarity in MMO games. This past weekend, for example, was the first time in over three months that my wife had logged into *her* MMO game.

(No, she doesn't consider DDO to be *her* MMO... despite my best efforts.)

No sooner had she logged in than she saw two of our real-life friends who ~encouraged~ her newly discovered addiction, were removing *all* of their characters from the guild. And, these two were officers and well-seasoned veterans.

Apparently, there had been quite a disagreement going on while she'd been away.

And, as it turns out, the *only* reason my wife's characters are in that particular guild is *because* of our real-life friends. Once things finally calmed down a bit, we managed to contact our friends to figure out whether my wife should keep her characters in that guild.

I mean, she has no real loyalty to the guild beyond the people she knows. After all, she hasn't ever played with anyone besides them. All the other so-called Player Characters are nothing more than scenery to her.

But all turned out well in the end. Our friends had a nice hour-long discussion of matters in her guild and were re-admitted and promoted back up to officers before the weekend was out. It was all very stressful for my wife.

Having seen that kind of thing happen in DDO, I certainly had a full-helping of sympathy for her; it's not something anyone should ever hope to experience.

It makes me appreciate the fact that, although the Face Stabbing Misfits may not be as big a guild as it once was, we are a collection of strong friends out to have a little fun. It just so happens that I was the one nominated to head-up the guild when Althenna decided to take a break from the game. So far as I'm concerned, any one of us could be the guild leader, and it wouldn't bother me in the least.

After all, it's not about the drama... it's about the FUN!

Keep it fun, everyone!!!

Long Time No Blog

2009-04-01T17:15:00.001-07:00

Okay, I confess... I've been remiss in updating my blog. I don't suppose an excuse signed by my doctor would be sufficient?

Probably not. Not since I haven't actually been sick. Rather, I've been particularly engrossed in work.

Not that that is much of an excuse, I know, as I constantly profess that everyone in general should respect the need for rest and relaxation. Despite that, however, I haven't been as active in DDO as I once was.

But I do still play. Usually two or three nights a week, in fact. Just not the five or six I once spent.

Of course, work isn't the only factor influencing that change, as my propensity for playing DDO did not go unpunished by the wife and real-life friends.

I've always maintained that so long as the wife is happy, I'm happy.

Turns out the wife is happier if I don't spend five nights a week in DDO.

But I still play.

Odd that a great many people seem to think I've left the game.

I haven't. I've just been playing some of my "younger" characters. Especially Trinarias, the construct forged by Trinarius (the Dwarf), thanks to a little assistance from Haywire and his foundry.

In fact, the construct Trinarias is now Level 11, and pushing steadily toward Level 12. He promises to one-day succeed Trinarius as head of the clan, if he lives that long.

That still doesn't explain why I haven't been blogging very much. Actually, the last time I posted a blog entry was January 10th. Almost three months.

Well... sorry. I've just been busy doing many other things. Creative writing simply wasn't one of my higher priorities.

And, if you must know, it's because of some of the guildies and allies that I finally decided to get back into Blogger and post something new.

In fact, Redraider posted a comment about my lack of Blog entries in a discussion thread on the guild boards the other day. And, one of the officers harangued me in the Message Of The Day on the in-game guild board for the same thing. If I ever figure out which officer actually did it... Belzur, maybe??? I may have punish him. In the mean time, I might be able to do what my Drill Sergeants used to do back in Basic Training... when someone screwed up, but they couldn't figure out who it was, they *smoked* the entire platoon...

:-D

Call me a sadist, but I actually enjoyed those smoke sessions.

'course, I was far more fit back then.

Still...

"Just drop and beat your face, until *I* get tired..."

:-D

I wish.

At any rate, Trinarius still plays, and with luck, the mid-level characters will be ready for their first Dragon raid sometime in the very near future.

Until then, I expect Holley the Cleric, from our allied guild, the Lifetakers and Heartbreakers, to be keeping an eye out for us Face Stabbing Misfits, to help round-out their adventure parties. It's more convenient to post on the LFM panel "come group with some *real* Misfits."

Keep it fun! (I'll try to blog more frequently.)

The Elusive Cult of Six

2009-01-10T07:36:00.000-08:00

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

2009-01-02T23:36:00.000-08:00

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?

2009-01-02T17:38:00.000-08:00

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!

Enjoying Festivult

2008-12-15T07:26:00.001-08:00

That's right, the Festival of the Twelve Moons, also known as Festivult (or Festivus for those who've been playing since launch), has finally returned to Stormreach. And, with it, the Festival Jester has given us a bit of a change this year.

I guess the jumping puzzles we had to contend with during the Thirteenth Eclipse were so popular that the Jester decided to borrow the idea for himself. Personally, I like the idea, as I always enjoy the puzzles. But, then, I was a big Mario Bros. fan, back in the day. I've tried the puzzles out in the Harbor and in the Marketplace, but I haven't yet had an opportunity to check out the puzzles in each of the four house enclaves yet.

In the mean time, though, I've received some very interesting prizes from the Jester...

The most interesting thing I've received so far is a stack of Sun Flasks.

They actually come in a stack of 20. Which, as you can see, I've already reduced to a stack of 12. Particularly since they're such fun to use. Notice that they're classified as Dart weapons, so you can throw them at mobs. And they even do some damage. Of those I used while touring the Waterworks with a lowbie, they do from 2 to 6 points of damamge. They *seem* to also do a little fire damage when they hit, but the flash of light they produce is what makes them so much fun. I'll have to try them against some undead, to see how effective they might be in that case. After all, they are Ghost Touch weapons. And, the flash seems like it might be particularly effective against zombies. I guess I'll just have to try them out.

Of course, I've also been lucky enough to pull a couple of Irian, the Eternal Day Jelly Cakes. They're resurrection cakes. A great item to have in those groups where the Cleric isn't yet able to raise fallen characters from the dead. Fortunately, I haven't had reason to use them yet, as our groups have been lucky enough to be near a shrine whenever someone buys the farm.

The funny thing is, two days from now is my two-year anniversary in DDO. I remember that when I first started playing, I thought the festival coins were a regular part of the game. I was rather disappointed when the Jester retired at the beginning of January. Particularly with unspent coins in my various character's inventories.

I even saved up some coins from last year. Been waiting ever so patiently to take them over to the Jester to see what he gives me.

I think, this year, I'll have to save up all of the lumps of coal he gives me so I can join in the Festivult in July celebration next year. This past year, one of the players hosted the event in which you bring your lumps of coal to one of the taverns and have some fun in the PvP pit throwing coal at one another. But I missed out due to lack of supplies. :P

At any rate... good luck with festival coin drops! The Jester surely has something fun for you!!!

Trinarius Returns!

2008-12-08T08:38:00.000-08:00

I think most would have to assume that, based on the number of Warforged you can find in the Trinarius clan house, that Trin has been spending a fair amount of time in his creation forge. Well, actually, Haywire's foundry.

With permission of Haywire, of course.

But, Trin seems to have been using his abilities as a Cannith-trained artificer to give everyone some new options when it comes to rounding-out adventure parties. Which is why most folks have seen very little of him in recent months. But, Friday, Trin returned to the guild-house for a bit of adventure.

That's right, Trinarius... the master of the multi-classed clan... has returned to the guild-house.

Which is as it should be, considering that Trin was promoted to Guild Leader of the Face Stabbing Misfits when Althenna decided she needed to take a vacation.

Sure, the Trinarius clan has been fairly well represented while Trin has been toiling away in the foundry, but I think it's only reasonable that all of the guild members should be able to see and talk to their leader on a fairly regular basis. Besides, I've greatly missed the kind of fun Trin allows me to have with any given adventure in the game.

Actually, it started earlier in the week when PuddinTan and I decided to join RedRaider for some Favor runs over in House Jorasco. Red was hosting a Levels 15 and 16 group to help some folks earn more favor toward their 1750 mark. Now, realizing how long it had been, I decided I wanted to bring Trin along.

And, I had a really good time running him. That's when I decided I wanted to spend more time with him.

Particularly since our groups sometimes find themselves in need of a Rogue.

I mean, despite the appearances of the icons on the player's screens, Trin's primary role is that of Rogue. Something that many folks often forget. Except Maeric. Maeric always seemed to remember that Trin's "purpose" in life is to gain access to the treasures most other would prefer he not have.

So, on Friday evening, when the guildies got together for some fun, Tan said he wanted to run some high-level quests. Perhaps some of those out in the new Syber Atol.

Well... that's where I told everyone I wanted to run Trin. Tan decided to bring the original Tanision, Bashal decided to bring Demab, and Belzur brought... of course... Belzur!

For the first time in a long time, all high-level characters.

And, we had a blast!

Well, mostly, anyway.

Demab was more than a little peeved at the number of times he died.

Granted, Trin *did* die a few times, but c'mon... this is Trin we're talking about. He has a propensity toward untimely demise. Not to worry, though, as Tanision, master Cleric was with us.

It did get a little frustrating at one point, when we tried to take on the red-named ice giant out in Aussircaex' canyon. So frustrating because we'd all run out of healing, including Tan. Hmm... It was at that point that I made an executive decision... It was time the guild bank footed the bill to help out the guildies.

And, once everyone had some healing again, the ice giant wasn't quite so tough after all.

No, nothing spectacular dropped, but we all had a lot of fun.

Isn't that the point of playing the game?

I think so.

Keep it fun, everyone. And don't be surprised to see Trinarius a little more often.

When Things Finally Come Together...

2008-11-20T08:30:00.000-08:00

Despite the setbacks for our young adventurers the previous evening, Blarrney, Dascool, Factotum, Murders, Robinous and Obsydiian managed to collect themselves together for a small excursion through one of the Gianthold's greatest challenges... the Madstone Crater.

Of course, with any significant challenge, there must be some significant reward. Otherwise, why would anyone rise to face the challenge?

Well, I can certainly tell you that the reward wasn't in the offerings of Blaze ar'Rhind or his minions. Especially on completion of the quest. It seemed that no one was offered anything more than vendor trash. Although, I wouldn't really consider Madstone to be a "loot run" type of quest.

But, there was a greater reward to be had...

Experience.

You see, Robinous has been working, ever so slowly, to rise to the ranks of the elder heros. Unfortunately, he's still at Level 10 at the moment. Though, after a few more adventures such as the Madstone Crater, he'll be Level 13 in no time.

Particularly since he earned nearly twenty *thousand* experience points for his effort last night.

'course, he would've earned nearly twenty-two thousand, had he not released to resurrect himself. But, those are the breaks of the game. There are some times where you have to make a tough call. It's simply unfortunate when you do. I don't know many folks who enjoy the prospect of losing experience when they're working so hard to earn it in the first place.

The group was lucky, though.

The quest had been opened only on Normal, making it a Level 14 quest.

And, none of the group were above Level 13.

Additionally, most of the group were seeing the crater for the first time with the characters they'd brought along. And some even had the trinket, the Voice of the Master, earning them some bonus experience.

I must say, with the release of Module 8, the developers did make a few adjustments to the quest.

All in all, I'd say some very good adjustments.

Despite some of the challenges the group had faced, it seems to me that they had much more fun than in previous excursions through the crater. Mostly, I think, because the quest now requires players to be engaged the entire way through now.

And, that silly giant skeleton at the end is now susceptible to certain arcane spells once again.

I look forward to the group's next adventure out in Gianthold. I hear tell that both the Prison of the Planes and the Crucible are calling Robinous' name...

Keep it fun!

Not Again...

2008-11-18T17:41:00.001-08:00

There have been quite a few occasions lately, where players haven't been able to log into DDO. Some of it's been acknowledged by Turbine as being related to the release of Module 8. Many of the other problems have simply been ignored by the customer service department.

Actually, I'm beginning to think it's called the Customer Neglect department.

Here's why:

This is the message I and many other players received when trying to log into the game this evening.

A short visit to the forums showed that *every* single thread in the most recent threads list was related to this issue.

But there wasn't a single response from anyone at Turbine.

I'm guessing that this means Turbine has cancelled my run with the guildies out in Gianthold this evening.

And I was really looking forward to helping Robinous earn a new level or two...

I guess I'll keep trying to log in...

Just a Numbers Game?

2008-11-18T09:51:00.000-08:00

Sometimes I sit back and think about some of the things I observe within DDO and wonder if it's all just a numbers game.

After all, computers deal exceptionally well with numbers.

And the core mechanics of D&D is numbers-based.

The mechanics of it, anyway.

But, I don't believe that the numbers are the basis for the game. Only that they're the way in which probabilities of success and failure are determined in any given "random" encounter.

Last night, before Belzur, Puddintan and Robinous had logged in, I'd joined a high-level group with Bashal (running as Confrag), exploring some of the new Syber Atoll content introduced in Module 8. To play things safe... for me, anyway... I decided to bring PEBKAC along. I mean, healing never hurts, right?

But, as I joined the group, I heard the banter of party members comparing weapon statistics, abilities, skills, and anything else they thought might improve their chances to defeat anything we might encounter.

The exchange wasn't based so much on what the weapons were called, where they were acquired, how they helped "save the day" in a given encounter with some notorious opponent, but how the numbers stacked up.

I have to wonder...

For the 1337 (that's "elite" using "leet speak") or über power-gamers, is it really nothing more than a numbers game? Is it nothing more than statistics and probabilities?

What about the...

prepare yourselves; this is huge...

sense of adventure?

I was just playing through Grinwhite's quest, The Swiped Signet. I hadn't run it before, at any level, and was looking to improve Trinarias' favor with the various patrons throughout the city. I opened the quest on Solo. More to take advantage of some experience, and to warm myself up for a more difficult challenge later.

For the most part, as I work my way through a quest, I tend to ignore the roll of the dice, as I prefer to focus on the adventure. I like to immerse myself in the environment that's been created to help visualize things often before seen only in my imagination. And, in the imagination of those like me who like a good mystery or a tall tale.

I was a tad surprised to find that Trin couldn't operate an Intelligence rune that he encountered.

After all, the quest had been opened on Solo. The easiest setting. A setting low enough that, unbuffed, Trin can normally gain entry to places usually reserved for Wizards with the highest of intelligence.

But, not this time.

Trin's current Intelligence is 21. So, I opened his inventory to see if I might be able to find a potion of Fox's Cunning. After all, it gives a +4 boost to Intelligence.

But, then I stopped.

This is an adventure.

Sometimes there're some things you encounter on an adventure that you simply cannot surmount without the assistance of others. As that's the way it was intended.

As part of the adventure, what might be concealed behind that rune-locked door?

It's a mystery.

One that Trin will have to return to at a later time. Next time, maybe Trin will be more prepared. Or, maybe he'll have some friends along who might be able to lend him a hand.

Maybe it's time to muddy the waters of the pure numbers game that provides the foundation for DDO, and allow the adventure to come to the surface.

Just a thought.

Keep it fun!

Hireling Preview

2008-11-13T07:46:00.000-08:00

Last night was Turbine's preview event for the Hirelings on the live servers. Of course, I couldn't let the evening pass without taking a test drive myself, as henchmen have been an integral part of Pencil-and-Paper D&D for as long as I can remember. In fact, henchmen were especially important in other D&D-based computer games, such as Neverwinter Nights, even if they weren't MMOs. So, I think it's a step in the right direction for Turbine to add Hirelings to DDO.

I have to tell you, though, that my experience wasn't a resounding success...

In fact, if I were to base my assessment on first impressions, Turbine would've received an F- for a grade. Fortunately for them, I was willing to give my hireling a second chance.

You see, shortly after hiring himself a Cleric, I took Trinarias into the Sunken Sewer to finally complete the quest on Elite. Mind you, this is a Level 2 quest on Normal, and both Trin and his hireling Cleric were Level 6.

Now, before I get ahead of myself, I did take the time to visit the DDO Compendium to review the personality descriptions for the available hired help. And, I thought I'd made myself a suitable choice in the selection of miss Kendra Estleton. After all, she isn't what I would consider to be a battle-Cleric, but rather one who's more interested in keeping her benefactor alive. So, after speaking with the hireling vendor (aka "pimp"), Trin made his selection and headed off to see how his new employee would work out.

Not thirty seconds after she'd been summoned, Trin found himself picking up her soul stone and heading for the nearest resurrection shrine.

As it turned out, as soon as she'd been summoned, she locked onto a group of three Kobolds and headed after them. In fact, it was all I could do to have Trin join the fracas in hopes of salvaging the situation. Not only had Kendra gotten herself killed, but Trin barely survived the encounter himself.

It seems to me that, when a hireling is first summoned, their stance *ought* to be set to "Be Passive", rather than defaulting to a "Be Active" state that instigates an unexpected encounter.

By the way, Trin never did make it to the resurrection shrine. He was himself killed by a pair of angry glass spiders.

So, the first impression was that it had been a complete waste of the 2,060 gold pieces Trin had paid for Kendra's services.

But, there was still time left on Kendra's contract, and Trin was determined to get his money's worth out of her. So, Trin headed off to House Deneith, and entered the Depths series of quests. As is customary, Trin started with the Depths of Despair, entering through the sewer grate just north of the Hammersmith's Inn.

To avoid any unnecessary death and/or destruction, Trin entered the quest on Normal (a Level 4 quest). And, shortly after entering, Kendra was once again summoned. Of course, it didn't take long for the duo to encounter an Earth Elemental, which caused Kendra to immediately jump into action.

Mind you, she's supposed to be primarily a healer, based on the information in her dossier that the Compendium had presented. But, she was certainly swinging for the fences with her mace when that elemental came bounding down the tunnel at them. Fortunately, her initial encounter in this quest didn't end the same way it had in the Sunken Sewer.

But, I did notice that she didn't spend the time healing herself or Trin that I thought she should. She did, in fact, nearly meet with another horrible end, save for the fact that Trin was also beating on the same elemental with his Thundering Maul of Righteousness. I also noticed that miss Kendra also allowed Trin's health to fall dangerously low before she began to heal him.

What was the point of hiring a Cleric if it wasn't going to heal its employer?

Well, she did a little better as the pair worked their way through the tunnels, searching for the Troglodyte supposedly responsible for the condition of the sewers.

Actually, miss Kendra did surprisingly well when she and Trin encountered the caged Minotaur. Instead of barreling directly toward a bad ending, she held back a bit and let Trin do most of the work, and she kept him on his feet.

That isn't to say that she healed Trin back to full health, but that she didn't let him die. He still had to repair the remaining damage himself.

And, perhaps that was part of the problem... Trinarias is a Warforged; Clerics generally prefer to heal fleshies, as their healing isn't as effective on the forgies. Maybe Trin should've hired a Wizard instead.

But Kendra did finally do her part to keep Trin going, and they finished the quest with time to spare. So, Trin escorted her back to the rest shrine and directed her to use it, to replenish her mana, before they entered the second quest in the chain, the Depths of Darkness.

Now, because the Depths series allows adventurers to enter the next quest in the chain without returning to a public space in between, Kendra followed Trin right on in to the next quest without having to be re-summoned. A nice touch, I think, as it allows the hireling to maintain the same "posture" in the transition from one quest to the next. And, by "posture", I mean whether the player has chosen to set the hireling to being active or passive.

Both Trin and Kendra did very well in the Depths of Darkness, too. Though, I'm glad Trin didn't have to pay Kendra's repair bills. It seems that miss Kendra didn't care that she was bludgeoning the slimes and oozes with her primary mace. In fact, she didn't seem to have a Muckbane club, as she never switched to another weapon the entire time.

The final encounter was interesting, though, as Kendra demonstrated an amazing amount of initiative, as witnessed by this screenshot...

While Trin was fighting several Hobgoblins on the floor, he was being ranged by a Hobgoblin Cleric from the mezzanine above. Kendra decided it would be in the best interests of Trin's health if she took care of the problem herself. And, took care of the problem she did. As you can see, she even decided to climb the ladder to reach the problem Cleric on her own. There was no direction to do so on my part; it was clearly a matter of her own initiative.

I was curious, though... the time on Kendra's contract had long since expired, but she remained with Trin throughout the quest. I decided that I had to see whether she would remain with Trin into the next quest in the chain despite the fact that her obligation had ended. So, I had Trin step through the next manhole, into the Depths of Discord. And, sure enough, Kendra came right along with him.

I thought that was very interesting. Technically, this was a new quest, and her contract had expired some twenty minutes prior. So, I had no expectation that she would continue through, but instead that I'd have to take Trin back to the pimp for another hour's time. But, she surprised me, and continued beyond her obligation.

Unfortunately, I had to log to make dinner for the wife, so I had to let Kendra return to her pimp, but it had been an interesting experience to that point.

After dinner, I joined Sephrena (Bashal), Plagiarist (Tanision) and Bastim (Robinous) for a little turn through Splinterskull Fortress. Of course, I had to bring a hireling, as the preview event was still going on. I decided, this time, to bring a tank along instead. After a brief chat with the hireling pimp, I decided to add Kastinalia Windblossom to our group.

All-in-all, I think Kastinalia was a better value than Kendra was. But, I think that was the result of a completely different set of expectations. After all, you expect a Fighter to jump into the fight and swing away. You don't expect them to stand back and heal everyone. And, in accordance with such expectations, it wasn't entirely surprising that Kastinalia bought the farm when she took off and engaged three Hobgoblins at the same time, while the rest of us were all engaged on a single Hobgoblin Cleric. Especially with the quest set on Elite.

I did find, through trial-and-error, and with quite a bit of help from the others, that the first shrine in the Splinterskull Fortress is unusable by the hirelings. It must be some kind of pathing issue, as the room in which the shrine is situated is rather cramped. Although you could issue the instruction to the hireling to use the rest shrine, and they would acknowledge your orders, they simply could not comply. We did discover that they could use the more spacious second shrine without problems, so it seems there's something that requires a bug report for the developers to work on.

Eventually, the fatigue of a long work day was too much for Sephrena to continue with us, so she (he) logged out for the evening, leaving just Plagiarist, Bastim and myself. This was the perfect opportunity for us to fill the three remaining slots in the party with hirelings.

Since Kastinalia's contract had expired, I decided to try one of the battle-Clerics, Plagiarist hired himself a Fighter, and Bastim hired himself a Sorcerer. Here's the group we ended up with...

As you may or may not be able to see, Trin had hired Arias Oreth, Plagiarist had hired Ormol Soggybottom, and Bastim had hired Azala Fireshaper.

I think that, considering that half our party wasn't able to use any form of human intelligence to guide their actions, we did pretty well. We made it through the first five chapters of the Splinterskull chain, and had quested well beyond the duration of all three hireling's contracts, and could have continued had the human players not needed some rest.

In fact, at one point, Plagiarist had used his Bardic abilities to charm a number of the Hobgoblins, too. It seemed to be a contest as to how many NPCs our party could control. But it was all very amusing, too.

I think the folks at Turbine have found a way to really improve the way players interact with the game. Surely it's still a social platform. But, for those who can't find a full group for what they want to run, or for those who simply want a little insurance while they attempt to solo their favorite quests, hirelings seem to be a nice complement to the game's other features.

And, if this works out as well as it promises to, Turbine may be well on their way to adding persistent familiars to the game, too.

For those who missed last night's preview event, rest assured that Turbine has already offered a second event for tomorrow (Friday) night.

This should be fun!

Is the Blog Dead?

2008-11-11T08:14:00.000-08:00

I think a lot of folks have been wondering whether I've finally given up on my blog.

Well... no. Not really.

The problem has been that I've had to focus more of my energy on finding a new job. Which also means that I've spend much less time playing.

In fact, I haven't even had any entries related to the release of Module 8, even though I've actually managed to find the time to log in with my new character slot and kick the tires on Turbine's "New Player Experience," also known as the NPE.

Although I like what Turbine has done with the NPE, and the way in which it works, I feel a certain sense of loss when it comes to what they've done to "remodel" the Harbor.

Sure, the Harbor looks more lively now than it once did. Especially with all the new boats docked at the various piers. But, they closed the old Aspirants Corner, and all of the streets down to the original Wavecrest Tavern. In addition, several of the quests have been removed from the game. Notably one of my favorites, Sewer Rescue. And I can't imagine why.

Granted, Kobolds really aren't as much a factor in the Eberron realm as maybe they appeared to be within DDO. But, given the production schedule Turbine must have had to launch the game, I can understand why Kobolds were used so prolifically while the developers tried to figure out how to implement Sahuagin. Especially since they play such an important role in the story of Eberron, for those adventurers crossing the Thunder Sea from Sharn to Stormreach. Anyone who's vessel has to traverse the region known as Shargon's Teeth had better have a Sahuagin escort. Otherwise, they probably wouldn't reach their destination.

Still, Kobolds became a part of the fabric of Stormreach because of the work Turbine did. And, it seems rather callous to simply remove the majority of quests that once included them. I think I'd've preferred the addition of quests that include the Sahuagin, rather than replacing existing ones. After all, Kobolds in other realms are often likened to sewer rats in the larger cities, precisely because of the way they can proliferate in the buried infrastructures.

Of course, Hirelings haven't been implemented yet. Turbine is hosting its Hireling preview event tomorrow. They had decided not to release Hirelings at the same time, as they didn't want to try to figure out whether the game was crashing due to the Hirelings, or because of some other technology they had implemented with Module 8. It think it was a sound development decision, as the game was actually pretty stable following the release.

Sure, there were a few teething problems, but Turbine has managed to work most of those out by now. Which is why I think the game will be going down today for an update which will make Hirelings possible for the event tomorrow.

Now, if you haven't been in-game for a while, don't think that Module 8 was only about the New Player Experience. The folks at Turbine also added four new adventure areas, each supposedly with a new quest in it, tied to the previous content for the Gianthold and the story of the Reaver's Fate. I've visited the area only briefly with Trinarius on the first evening following the release of the new module. I took Trin out to one of the new frozen adventure-scapes with Demab (Bashal). It didn't take long for the two of us to find ourselves in the middle of a party wipe.

I think it had something to do with the fact that we'd encountered a party of Ice Giants and, in the process of trying to explore the areas beyond their camp, Trin had placed a few Maximized Walls of Fire. Understandably, the Giants weren't happy about the excessive heat and banded together to remove the Dwarf and his companion from their frozen tundra. It was a spectacular battle, though. Demab even managed to survive the initial encounter, being only incapacitated by the Giants, but the second encounter with them was far more decisive in it's outcome.

So, we returned to the cavern in which the quest had begun, and decided to save any further adventures for another time.

Since that time, I had tried to host another Titan raid for the allied guilds, but turnout was mediocre at best, and we decided to go run the Vale of Twilight instead; PEBKAC is currently working on preparing himself for The Shroud, along with Belzur, PuddinTan and Bashal. We're trying to include as many others as we can, but filling a group for Vale quests is rather difficult at the moment, when most folks are out playing on Korthos island, or out exploring the new high-level adventure areas.

I'm not sure whether four explorers are sufficient to tackle the challenges of quest such as Rainbow in the Dark and the Coalescence Chamber. I suppose we'll just have to find out.

Oh, and as far as the blog being dead... why have I finally posted a new entry?

Well, I finally had my first interview in seven weeks of searching, and things are looking up. Cross your fingers and hope for the best.

In the mean time...

Keep it fun!

Customer Service

2008-10-22T09:33:00.000-07:00

A funny thing happened yesterday...

My friend Roulph/Belzur was able to log in during the day to run a few quests with me, in between all of the other things he has going on in the middle of the day. And, we decided to take our lowbies, his Krinjen and my Trinarias, through Redfang the Unruled, with the difficulty set to Hard.

I'd tried to solo this quest earlier in the day with Trinarias, also on Hard, but found the CR:7 Troll to be a bit more of a challenge than Trin was up to at the time. Especially since he didn't have an appropriate weapon for such an encounter, and was relying solely on the fire traps to bypass the Troll's natural damage reduction.

Mind you, that didn't stop Trin from making three good attempts at the Troll, before finally dying by the swing of the Troll's club.

Still, it was far more interesting when Krinjen joined me later in the day.

As we made our way through the quest, I'd noted to Krinjen that in my earlier attempt to complete the quest, I finally discovered why it was not possible to earn the Conquest bonus for the quest. As I learned by paying close attention to the Experience Report, the Baby Glass Spiders that spawn from the many spider eggs within the quest are *not* counted in the report's Monsters Killed section.

In previous attempts to complete the quest, both Krinjen and I had made a point to try to force each and every spider egg to spawn into a Baby Glass Spider, in an attempt to finally earn the Conquest bonus. As careful attention to detail revealed, it was a wasted effort.

Which is why I submitted a Bug Report on the issue.

I mean... why put them in there if they aren't going to be counted!?!

But, Trinarias still needed the Favor granted by the quest, so we set out for another go.

As we made our way down through the chambers, we found we'd earned the rare encounter for Goliath the Gargoyle.

This is always an interesting encounter, since Goliath likes to curl up into a regeneration cycle after he's suffered a certain amount of damage. Meaning that if you can't beat him down quickly enough, you might not survive the encounter.

So, Trinarias took swigs from several potions to buff-up his Strength and Dexterity, and threw a Shield spell on himself. Krinjen similarly buffed himself and summoned a Gray Wolf. Then, we initiated the encounter...

After what seemed to be only a couple of hits landed on Goliath, he curled up into his regeneration cycle.

And he continued to regenerate.

Over and over again.

In fact, he became stuck in his regeneration cycle.

How disappointing.

For some odd reason, I decided to attempt to contact a Game Manager to see if someone couldn't help us out with this bothersome little glitch. Mind you, I wasn't necessarily expecting anything, as in-game Customer Support has been notoriously slow and ineffectual in the past. Still, I decided to give it a shot.

To my surprise, in less than two minutes, I received a message from Sparker, on of the Senior Game Managers. Clearly, he took the time to read the ticket I had submitted, as he asked to verify whether Goliath was still stuck in his regeneration cycle. Which I promptly confirmed.

Then he asked me what seemed to be the strangest question...

Had there been any other members of the party who were no longer in the quest?

Huh... no, just the two of us, which I conveyed to Sparker by reply. But I thought it an odd question, so I let Krinjen know what question I'd been asked via voice-chat. He thought it a bit odd, too. But, then he said something that clued me in to why Sparker had asked such a question.

"Nope, just you, me and my wolf..."

The wolf...

It had been active when we initiated the encounter.

And, then, shortly after Goliath entered his regeneration cycle, the wolf disappeared, as his timer had run out.

Quickly, I typed a reply to Sparker that, while there hadn't been any other Player Characters in the quest with us, there *had* been a Gray Wolf with us that had since "left" our group.

While Sparker didn't formally confirm this was the problem, I suspect that the wolf had somehow pulled Goliath's aggro shortly after we initiated the encounter, and that, once the wolf had disappeared, the focus of its aggro was gone, so it got stuck in its regeneration cycle.

How funny.

It's often difficult to tell what a computer program will become hung upon until you put it into play.

But, it was more interesting that Sparker went the extra step to help us complete the optional encounter by attempting to re-spawn Goliath for us. Notice what happened...

Notice the inactive form of Goliath still perched upon the crates in the top-left corner of the image, while the newly spawned version on the floor has suddenly entered a regeneration cycle, even though his health is nowhere near the threshold used to start such a cycle.

Sparker noticed that Goliath had bugged out on us again, when the second Gray Wolf finally disappeared. So, Sparker killed Goliath for us. And, his action gave us credit for the encounter and unlocked the chest.

I thanked Sparker for his assistance while he finished out the support incident.

But, as we moved over to see what Goliath had kept in his chest, he spawned for a third time.

This time, without any Gray Wolf, or any other buffs, both Krinjen and Trinarias managed to defeat Goliath without any unexpected surprises.

It was funny how Sparker had noted that Goliath just wasn't interested in playing nicely that day, as Goliath had become stuck a second time.

I have to tell you, I was rather surprised by the timeliness of Sparker's response, his helpfulness, and his sense of humor through the encounter.

*THAT* is the kind of customer service I can really appreciate.

Thanks, Sparker!

Keep it fun, folks!

Wow...

2008-10-15T10:47:00.001-07:00

Time flies when you're unemployed... I can't believe it's been ten days since I last posted something to my blog. This despite the fact that I've had ample time to play DDO during the day. Which has given me the chance to bring both EmmDee and Trinarias up to Level 5.

But, much of it has been through solo play; I've had several bad PUG experiences lately, so I'm not inclined to run my characters with groups who don't also value playing to earn all of the XP bonuses within any given quest. Which may seem silly, but I was looking to level my characters up, not zerg through every quest just to see how quickly I could get it done. Odd as it may sound, I prefer to enjoy the quests Turbine has given me. That means I would probably find more entertainment value in completely exploring the quests, rather than taking the shortest path to the end boss. I mean, it's not like the end rewards are all that stellar at low level anyway...

I've also had plenty of time to work on my little side project. I've decided to write a novel for the Eberron setting that actually spends a significant amount of time in Stormreach, and which takes place almost exclusively on the continent of Xen'drik. It's been rather entertaining to imagine some of the interactions my characters might have with many of the NPCs any player can find in the game. I look forward to substantial completion of the project, as I may have to obtain permission from Turbine to use the names of the NPCs in the game. But, I think that's what's so interesting about this project, too. It might be something someone who's never played DDO picks up off the shelf in their local bookstore, and then, after reading the book, decides to join the game, and meet and see some of the things I've written about.

It's an interesting diversion, anyway, when I'm not looking for a new job.

And, Module 8 must be getting close. There seems to be an awful lot of uproar about when it's due out and what the various new features will be like. Time will tell, but I think it's going to be a few more weeks, myself. Turbine tends to run a little long on their estimates. That whole bug thing, I think.

At any rate, I'm still around, and I'm doing what I can to keep things fun.

See you in Stormreach!

What it's All About

2008-10-05T09:00:00.000-07:00

Friday evening was the first time in quite a while where I think we simply gathered a bunch of folks together, and laughed our way through the entire evening.

Sure, there was XP to be had, some favor earned, and plenty of "über" lowbie loot to be had.

But I think it's pretty safe to say that we quickly forgot about the fundamentals of game-play...

Depending upon how you look at the group composition, we had three Face Stabbers and three Lifetakers. I could be counted as two and four, if you consider the fact that I was running EmmDee, who's technically a Lifetaker, but my only alternate character in that guild. Still... It was an unusual combination of players, and things digressed rather quickly.

Which is what made it so much fun.

In many ways, it hearkened back to the days of running with Kruella and Meany, in which *anything* could be said in voice- and party-chat.

And usually was!

Yeah, Friday was more like a guy's night out than an evening's questing in DDO.

But, I suppose that's what made it so much fun. Especially since we were running some of the less thrilling quests in the low levels.

There were several times where I was laughing so hard that I couldn't keep the other members of the party healed up.

Not that that was a huge concern, as everyone was carrying *some* sort of self-healing with them, but it was obvious when I couldn't concentrate on the Clerical tasks.

My cheeks hurt well before we were done with the first few quests, and felt as though they'd fall off my face by the time the evening was through. It was a rather insane but thoroughly enjoyable way to spend an evening with friends.

I look forward to more of the same.

Many thanks go out to Danthrag (Elainee/Killiayn), Krinjen (Roulph/Belzur), Sephrena (Bashal/Confrag), Sundiata (I don't know any alts yet), and Truesong (True... many things), for an entertaining evening. We'll have to do that again some time...

Keep it fun!

The Hazards of Playing Against Level-Cap...

2008-10-03T08:40:00.001-07:00

As you may have read in my previous post, I've been using EmmDee as a pet project to see if I can run and re-run quests "at level" to maximize the XP (eXperience Points) he earns so that he spends the smallest amount of time in the mid-level "wasteland" as possible.

He ran into his first level cap as a Level 2 character, at 49,999 XP; one point shy of the Level 4 XP threshold of 50,000. At that point, the game stopped him from earning any more XP until he talked to his trainer and became a Level 3 character.

Since that time, I've been working on bringing him up to the next level-cap at the Level 5 XP threshold of 90,000. I'd done a pretty good job of running all of the content solo up through yesterday, when I found that attempts to complete the quest Missing in Action on Hard to be much more difficult than "hard." In fact, it required the assistance of a couple of the lifetakers, without whom EmmDee would not have survived the quest.

But that quest didn't bring EmmDee up to the cap. In fact, most of the week, I've been running EmmDee solo through various quests, but I've run into a couple of problems...

First, there's the whole thing with blind invites.

It seems that EmmDee has been the only Level 3 Cleric online most mornings, resulting in a rather preturbing pattern of behavior from some of the folks on the server at those times. Such as incessant blind invites. I've talked about this before... I *don't* do blind invites. I believe in good manners, respect and consideration for one's fellow players. Blind invites exhibit none of these behaviors. In fact, blind invites are rather telling as to how selfish some players are. And, I simply don't care for that.

I realize it's cliché, but there is no I in team.

Well, it's gotten to the point where I've had to squelch a couple of players. Skyrathiel, for one.

*Every* morning this week, the player behind this character has insisted on sending me a blind invite *while* I'm in the middle of a quest.

Usually when I'm in the middle of a battle of some sort. As if keeping EmmDee alive isn't difficult enough, try fighting through a blind party invite!

The first couple of times I tried to ignore him.

The third time, I sent a /tell in return: "Welcome to DDO. It's generally considered impolite to send blind invites to other players. Please send a /tell to ask whether I'm interested in joining your group first."

That shut him up for a while. But, then they started again. Yesterday, they got to the point where he sent *THREE* blind invites in a row, *while* I was attempting to negotiate The Butcher's Path on Hard.

I was fed up!

I sent a /tell in return: "Didn't your momma teach you any manners!?!"

No reply by /tell.

Instead...

Another blind invite!

/squelch add Skyrathiel

But, I was so aggravated by the whole thing, I was telling allied guildies about the whole ordeal in the chat panel. Out of morbid curiosity, I decided to check on the Who panel to see if this character belonged to any particular guild. Perhaps chatting with one of their officers might help clarify the fact that not everyone appreciates a bull in a china shop.

That's when I found this...

Now... *THAT* is pathetic!

*NO* one at Level 4 *needs* a Cleric *IF* they play smartly.

*NO ONE!*

In my view, it's the true mark of a selfish player who can't even bring his own self-healing to the party.

Unsatisfied with the fact that I wouldn't respond to him, Skyrathiel passed the star to another player in his group, who then sent a blind invite to me. I could tell he was in the same group because their group was listed on the Grouping panel, and there was Skyrathiel in the character list for that group.

Some people just don't take a hint.

I was surprisingly close to filing a harassment report.

But, I decided to let it go and continued with my morning's quests.

When I was finally able to return to playing EmmDee late last evening, well after most everyone else had logged out for the evening, I was presented with another annoying situation.

A group had asked me if I'd like to join them to run the Kobold's New Ringleader on Elite. I had only run it to Normal so far. And, as a Level 3, running it on Elite, above level, would earn me a sizable portion of XP toward the ever-so-close level-cap that I'd been working toward. So, I agreed to join them.

And, they zerged their way through the quest.

The only times I saw the other characters all together was when I stepped in, they were all waiting for me so I could throw them some buffs, and again, just before the end battle with the Ogre, for another round of buffs.

In fact, one of the group died because he'd zerged off away from the Cleric. I had absolutely no idea where he'd gone. It took me a while to finally find his soul stone and haul it off to the shrine... while the Ogre was still running around trying to kill everyone.

But, he managed to get himself back on his feet at the shrine, I threw a couple of heals on him and he decided to take on the Ogre again, with only half health, after electing to not use the Rest shrine to recoup his own health.

I see how it is...

Knowing the behavior of the group, though, I elected to remain with them, as they decided they wanted to run the Waterworks on Hard. Something I could really use to close the gap of the final 2,700 XP that EmmDee needed to reach the level-cap.

And, I told them that once I'd earned the requisite XP that I would *have* to level, as the game would not allow me to earn any more after that, and that I wouldn't run a quest for no XP. And, the group leader acknowledged this.

HOWEVER! Once I'd finally hit the cap, and told them I was off to take my level, they jumped right into the next part of the quest chain. Not that I'd expected them to wait for me at the entrance, but I did expect them to wait to open any chests.

Wow, was I mistaken!

I saw chest loot messages begin scrolling across the chat panel and thought WTF?!?

So, I sent a message in party chat asking them what they were doing.

No response.

"Did you not see my statement that I *had* to go level?"

No response.

Okay then... I guess they don't need a Cleric after all...

So, I dropped group and logged out.

And, with no apologies.

They deserved none.

I can see that there won't be very many groups with which EmmDee gets to run. Certainly not PUGs, if that's the way they choose to behave.

You know, I try not to impose too many of my personal principles on the other players in this game, but one principle I WILL NOT compromise upon is respect for one's fellow players.

And I *expect* other players to show me some respect if they want to benefit from my Cleric's services.

And, that's just the way it is.

So, I guess that EmmDee will be left to playing in groups with only allied guildies from now on. But that seems to be my only choice if I have any hope of maintaining the discipline I need to play my characters the way I want to. Because that's what makes playing this character fun for me. Otherwise, I might as well just go ahead and delete him right now.

But, I'd prefer to keep it fun!

What Happens When...

2008-09-30T08:59:00.000-07:00

Have you ever wondered what would happen if you played a character to the point where they'd earned a level, but didn't take it and kept playing? Have you wondered how far you can go without leveling up? I did...

Meet EmmDee...

He's my liason to the Lifetakers and Heartbreakers. Obviously a Drow, and in keeping with my previous history, another Cleric.

Mind you, he isn't one of my most played characters, as I've been spending quite a bit of time trying to earn Obsydiian those Seven-Fingered Gloves. But, with some spare time on my hands during the days now, I've been dabbling with what he might become.

While first getting started with him, I found myself running much of the early content solo. Granted, I didn't make any effort to solicit EmmDee's services to the local PUG (Pick-Up Group) market, as I've had my fair share of experiences with PUGs, but I also haven't bothered any of the Lifetakers, either. After all, most of the early quests are just as easy solo as they are with a full group, so long as you've run them... oh... fifty thousand times already.

As I started running the quests, though, I discovered that he had a decent enough build that I could continue to run many of the quests solo, right up to his level. So, in an effort to maximize the eXperience Points he could earn, I ran most Level 1 quests on both the Solo and Normal difficulties.

It didn't take long before EmmDee had earned enough XP to progress to Level 2. But, instead, I decided to finish the list of quests so that all of the quests had been completed "at level." As I recall, EmmDee had earned enough XP that he'd earned the equivalent of two action points into Level 2 by the time I completed the list.

Satisfied with the result to that point, I went ahead and took him through the level progression and then repeated the process of running all of the quests at level. This meant going back and completing all of the Level 1 quest on Hard, as well as completing all of the Level 2 quests on Solo and Normal. By the time EmmDee had completed the majority of the Level 2 quests, he was well past having earned Level 3 XP and was rapidly approaching the 50,000 XP threshold for Level 4.

And, as I've indicated, EmmDee still hadn't completed *all* of the Level 2 quests at level.

Of course, with such a juicy goal at hand, I couldn't resist throwing in some of the Level 1 quests on Elite. It was just too good an opportunity to pass up.

Then it happened...

As EmmDee ran Dalsamira's quest, Recovering the Lost Tome on Hard, he earned the last 400 XP, and then some, to take him over the the 50,000 XP mark, but the game capped him!

Capped!

And he hadn't even completed *all* of the Level 2 quests "at level!"

The game forced me to bring EmmDee up to Level 3 before continuing with his progress.

Wow!

Oh, sure, EmmDee did die a couple of times, but only a couple. Shrewd tactics have kept him alive the vast majority of the time so far. But, he ran *every* quest to this point all by himself.

I'm quite interested to see how far I can take him solo.

Mind you, there have been quite a few blind party invites that have made adventuring with him rather tenuous. Especially when facing a CR: 3 named Ogre in the Waterworks.

To which my standard reply has been "Welcome to DDO. It is generally considered impolite to send an invitation to join your party without first asking. If you will check the Who panel carefully, you will see that I'm already in a quest."

So far, no one has replied with so much as an apology for the interruption. Durned WoW players!

At any rate, running EmmDee has been entertaining, and I look forward to seeing where he goes next. And, in case you're wondering, here's what he'd completed before he was forced to level up...

(click the image to view a larger, readable version)

So, I'm off to see if I can earn EmmDee Level 5 XP while he's still only a Level 3 Cleric!

Keep it fun!!!

AAR, Titan Raid

2008-09-29T07:49:00.000-07:00

For those of you who've never served in the armed forces, you may not be aware of the abbreviation AAR. It stands for After Action Report. It was one of those things that can sometimes be a rather tedious and boring part of the job for NCOs (Non-Commissioned Officers) and Officers, following the execution of whatever mission happened to be on-tap. It was a chance for everyone to recap what the mission's goals had been, and to examine how well those plans had been executed, what went right, and what went wrong, and most importantly, how to correct deficiencies before the next mission.

Well, I must say that our series of Titan raids hasn't been as successful as any of us would've liked. Each time, we had *something* go wrong somewhere along the line that prevented us from seeing the maniacal machine meet its demise.

Of course, this time was no exception. The Warforged Titan, once again, prevailed upon our party of adventurers.

But, we were very close this time.

Very close.

Still, it seems that there were a few things we did that I thought deserved some attention.

First would be to determine precisely what everyone's roles are.

One of the biggest problems adventurers face when they take on the Titan is his rolling aggro. That is, he will target one of the adventurers in the party and attempt to kill them, then change targets and attempt to kill that adventurer, and then change targets yet again. Managing the Titan's aggression isn't as easy as most of the other quests in the game, simply because no one player can hold the Titan's attention for very long. It's kinda like playing with a two-year old... the attention span is simply too short to be very effective.

As a result, it's necessary to designate which players will serve in which roles. And, there are four basic roles to be served. The first is that comes to mind is that of the aggro manager. This player's sole purpose it to try to keep the attention of the Titan while the others perform their roles. The interesting thing is that the majority of the players in the quest should fill this role. That is, as many as nine of the twelve should be filling this role.

To be successful aggro managers, though, the players filling this role *must* stick together, in one position, so that when the Titans aggro rolls from one player to the next, they're all together, and the Titan doesn't wander around the room, making life difficult for the folks filling the other three rolls. To make things more interesting, the aggro managers *must* move together each time they have to reposition the Titan for an attack. If the aggro managers don't stick together and only move as a single unit, keeping the Titan in the right spot can be almost impossible.

The next role is that of the shooter. One of the players has the responsibility of aiming and shooting a large laser-like device. It's the only weapon that can penetrate the Titan's shields. The problem is that this player has to maintain a position that's relatively exposed. So, when the Titan's aggro rolls to this person, they really need to have the ability to deflect the titan's weapons and/or keep themselves healed up once they've taken damage.

Another role is that of the crystal runner. The laser-like device can't operate without power, and its up to the crystal runner to bring power crystals from the storage room over to the power slot on the device. Again, this is a role where the player is relatively exposed, but this player gets to move, and has a chance to evade the assault of the Titan. However, this is still a role in which the player serving stands a significant chance of dying, and really needs to have the ability to keep themselves healed.

The final role is that of the Titan killer. This role is challenging because this is the player who has the dubious honor of taking down the pillars that temporarily disable the Titan while the shooter takes his shots, but is also the player who has to be on-hand to deal the final blow once his shields are finally down. The killer has to be able to endure a significant amount of damage and/or be able to keep themselves healed, or be able to make their way to within range of one of the healers in the party.

In the past, I've seen the role of shooter be successfully filled by, of all things, a Cleric. This isn't to say that it couldn't be successfully filled by some other character class, but that a Cleric, by their very nature, is usually well defended because of their heavy armor *and* they have the ability to heal themselves.

The role of the runner is also often successfully filled by a Rogue. And, again, this isn't to say another character class couldn't do it, but that the Rogue's typically high Dexterity and Evasion gives them the ability to maneuver across the game board relatively quickly and easily.

Of course, the role of the Titan killer is usually best filled by one of the tank-type characters that has a *lot* of Hit Points and a high Armor Class. Usually.

Everyone else, by default, becomes an aggro manager.

Mind you, we've tried to keep the players in these roles as much as possible, but the battlefield rarely sticks to the plans you've made for it. Particularly because the developers at Turbine have tweaked the behavior of the Titan with each successive Module they've installed. And, this last Module has made things more annoying than ever. The Titan can launch your character across the game board pretty easily. It really makes it difficult to keep the group of aggro managers together when they're sent flying against their will.

Now, knowing what we normally like to do helps us evaluate what actually happened this last time.

I wanted to start with the suggestion that folks take off their armor and don a balance item. I *completely* understand this suggestion, as it allows each character a better chance to regain their footing when the Titan knocks them down. Which happens a *lot*. But, I do have to question the suggestion for *everyone* to take off their armor. It seems to me that there were an awful lot of players in our raid this past Friday night who took a lot more damage than was necessary. Particularly since many were aggro managers who were simply supposed to be remaining in a single location until instructed to move to the next. In such a role, it should not matter that they're knocked off their feet, except when they need to heal themselves. So, it might not be as good an idea for everyone to take off their armor.

Of course, there are alternatives. There are Shield spells and Sphere's of Invulnerability, and things like that for those folks who would like to increase their dexterity without sacrificing their character's survivability.

But, I believe this is something everyone in the raid should be aware of. That the removal of armor may *not* be the best idea for every character in the raid. And that the ability to self-buff and self-heal are extremely important for those who do choose to increase their Dexterity the old fashioned way.

The group had also made the decision, once characters began to die with rapid succession, to let characters remain dead so the Clerics could concentrate on keeping the key role players on their feet.

At the time, this seemed like a good idea. Until there were only four left on their feet, that is... The two Clerics, the shooter and the Titan Killer. At that point, the Titan's aggro could only roll amongst the four of them, because everyone else was dead. At that point, there was no way the four remaining characters could successfully manage the Titan's aggro, and this eventually led to our failure of the raid.

It seems to me that it's imperative that as many characters be kept alive as possible, so there remains a large number of aggro managers in the group to keep the Titan's attention. Without this group of aggro managers, the shooter, runner and killer are all subject to the Titan's wrath, and the chances of success drop significantly. The problem is how to go about doing this.

In the case of what we had this past Friday night, both of the Clerics were running about trying to keep everyone alive. It quickly became an overwhelming task for them. And, this despite the fact that many folks were doing all they could to heal themselves. In fact, neither of the Clerics were serving as shooter or runner, so that meant they often had to break away from the group of aggro managers to go throw a heal on the others. This wasn't so much a problem in terms of keeping folks healed, but it did reduce the effectiveness of the aggro managers because folks were more spread-out than what we'd have preferred.

We did also have a couple of mis-fires. And I'm not trying to fault anyone. One of the mis-fires happened purely because the Titan decided he didn't like where he was standing. Although the pillar did knock him down, the laser wasn't in the correct position to hit the Titan once he'd fallen to the floor. The other was a miscommunication, and a pillar was knocked down when the laser had no power. The funny thing was that these two mis-fires weren't quest-ending events. In fact, we still had two pillars left to succeed with.

No, our problem was that we had a party wipe before we could use the last two pillars.

Of course, this is DDO. So, using what we learned from each of the previous attempts, we have a much better idea of how we can be successful the next time. And, because it's DDO, ther *will* be a next time.

After all, Obsydiian is still looking for that elusive pair of Seven-Fingered Gloves.

But, next time, I'm hoping we also have a full party of twelve adventurers. Perhaps having three Clerics would be helpful, too.

Who knows, though...

We'll just have to see what we can put together.

Keep it fun!

Many Apologies

2008-09-29T07:44:00.000-07:00

I just wanted to take a moment to apologize for the lack of entries this past week. As it happens, thanks to economic conditions, I was laid off from my job and I've been pretty busy over the past week trying to find a new place to call home. Hopefully, I'll find a position with a new firm that will be more in-line with my career goals. In the mean time, I'll try to get back on track with the blog entries, and keep things entertaining.

Keep it fun!

Changing Direction

2008-09-22T05:48:00.000-07:00

I've recently finished reading Storm Dragon, by James Wyatt. I have to say that this first book in the Draconic Prophecies series is *far* superior to the trilogy of books in Keith Baker's Dreaming Dark series. Especially from a technical standpoint.

For those of you who may have missed by "book reports" on The City of Tower, The Shattered Land and The Gates of Night, I was less than thrilled them. It seems that whoever was Keith's editor on the books knew less about the English language than a first grader. All three books were rife with spelling, grammatical and editorial errors. To the point where these errors interrupted the story. I vividly recall a point in one of the books where an entire paragraph was repeated. If I were Mr. Baker, I'd be embarassed to have my name on those three books. The story was largely lost due to the technical problems within them.

Of course, I'm not him, but I can't imagine how Wizards of the Coast could publish such a series. I can only hope that if the series ever merits a second printing, that they spend some time cleaning it up. Perhaps, then, the story might shine through, and make for a better read.

James Wyatt's Storm Dragon, though, was nearly flawless. And, I have to say that I'm really looking forward to the second book in the series, Dragon Forge. The only issue I have at the moment is that it's only available in hardback.

You see, I ride the light rail network on my daily commute to work. The trains can be rather crowded, and holding a relatively heavy hardback book in such an environment can make it difficult to enjoy the story. And, since paperback editions usually follow their hardback editions by at least six months, it may be some time before I see a commuter-friendly edition. I *may* have to break down and buy the hardback, and simply read it at home, in my spare time.

One thing I've noticed about the Eberron-based novels I've read so far, though, is that they don't spend much time in Xen'drik. And, in the time they do spend there, accounts of any time the characters spend in Stormreach don't quite mesh with what I would consider to be canon for the realm, in what Turbine has created for DDO. After all, Turbine has to obtain permission from Wizards of the Coast to implement the various aspects of DDO. So, it stands to reason that much of what we see in DDO should be considered canon with respect to the way the novels interact with Xen'drik and Stormreach.

That got me to thinking...

Perhaps I should write a novel for the Eberron setting. One that's based in Stormreach, and spends the majority of the story on the continent of Xen'drik, rather than simply using it as a pit-stop on the way to Khorvaire or Sarlona, or some other destination. I mean, Xen'drik is a fantastic destination in and of itself.

Sure, it'd be nice to be able to visit Sharn, and maybe some of the other locations in Khorvaire, but those locations are already well covered by the majority of the published Campaign Setting and its associated works. But, there's more than enough to Xen'drik to tell an entire story, and then some.

So, I decided that I'd try my hand at penning a novel.

And, I've decided that, not only should it start in Stormreach, and cover a decent portion of Xen'drik, but it should reveal a fair bit about the city that Turbine has created under the guidelines established by Wizards of the Coast. Enough that it shows people who've visited Stormreach inside of DDO some things they recognize, and that might even bring some folks into Stormreach who've never visited before. Something they can read about, and then, if they decide to log in, that they might find familiar once they arrive.

Of course, the story isn't simply an advertising scheme for DDO, but the elements Turbine has created are far easier for the casual player to wrap their brains around than some of the information published in the series of books that describe the campaign setting.

So, I think it would be fun to see references to some of the areas of the city, and some portions of the continent that Turbine has created, and for the characters in the story to interact, even if on a limited basis, with some of the NPCs players can find within the game. It might make the game a little more interesting for some of the players.

And for some of the folks who have yet to give DDO a try.

So, be forewarned that, as I wander into the waters of fictional writing, I may not be posting as many entries to my blog as you may be accustomed to. In fact, since I've already begun the process, you've probably already noticed a decline.

Don't worry, I won't give it up. Afterall, there're still plenty of tales to tell...

Such as a recounting of the impromptu Dragon raid several of us attended on Friday evening.

Which, incidentally, netted Factotum the Ring of the Silver Concord...

It's a great item for a Cleric, I think. Sure, it'd be nice for a Sorcerer, too, but considering the many Charisma based skills Factotum is able to use, I think he'll find it to be rather handy.

But, I've droned on long enough for this entry. I'll have to tell you about the runs a little later. In the mean time, I have some writing to do...

Keep it fun!

Speaking of Adventures in Plumbing...

2008-09-17T08:12:00.000-07:00

Despite my loathing for sewer tunnels following my recent challenges with liquid engineering, I found myself in the Waterworks on Monday, running Medyq, my lowbie human Cleric on my second account. He wasn't able to make his way into the Marketplace without having to cough up twenty gold get Captain Killmarten to look the other way.

I'm thinking my choice for the forthcoming Mayor of Stormreach election has narrowed to a race between Lord Gerald Goodblade or Scraps, as Harbormaster Zin seems to have only his personal wealth in mind. I'm sure that at least ten of that twenty gold goes into Zin's pockets... I mean, look at Killmarten's armor. Yeah, it's a little nicer than you might see any of the NCOs or enlisted wearing, but you expect that of an officer. At twenty gold a head, you'd expect his armor to be that much nicer than everyone else's...

Anyway, my poor 28-point Cleric build doesn't have twenty gold to frivilously throw Killmarten's way, so I decided to suck it up and take him down to the Waterworks.

As usual, Guard Tember's cousin, Arlos, was "missing" again.

Y'know, Zin has a hell of a racket going here! It wouldn't surprise me if Zin is the one really responsible for the Kobold infestation in the sewer system. I mean, they're worse than rabbits, so all he had to do was get them started, and then he had himself a pre-made threat to quash and found himself would-be heros to take care of the dirty work *for* him.

I don't think he realized what how poorly this would reflect upon his reputation amongst the populace.

Still, Medyq decided that it was time to address the problem that had been fabricated for him.

And, I should note that when he started, he was still a meager Level 2 Cleric. Yet, he still managed to *solo* the first two chapters of the Waterworks.

Perhaps that isn't such a surprise to some of you, but it was for me. Medyq is my first character to ever solo the first two chapters of the Waterworks *at* level. The fact that I did it with a Cleric mystifies me.

Sure, it was a bit precarious a few times, but he did it. Of course, it helped that I had a solid understanding of the quest, but still...

Y'know... I had a *lot* of fun picking my way through the two quests. It required a great deal of discipline and aggro management to keep from killing my poor little Level 2 Cleric. And, even without any Rogue skills, I still managed to make good use of Rogue-like tactics to pick mobs apart. Managed to earn the Conquest bonus in both quests, too!

The funny part was that Medyq was *just* shy of earning Level 3 when he exited the quest. One spider and two Kobolds later, as he made his way out of the Waterworks, and back to Harbormaster Zin's house, the advancement animation played! Needless to say, I was pretty excited.

Now that he's Level 3, I need to start working more seriously on his Favor. That account *still* doesn't have the ability to roll-up Drow characters yet, and it seems a Drow Cleric holds the key to opening 1750 Favor for that account. Maybe I'm wrong, I dunno. After all, I earned 1750 on my primary account with Trinarius, and have yet to earn it with any of my other characters, but the second account would seem to need a more in-demand character to make it happen quickly.

I guess we'll just have to see what happens...

Keep it fun!

Adventures in Plumbing

2008-09-16T06:51:00.000-07:00

Let's start things off by saying that I'll be happy to avoid any quests that involve sewer tunnels, or any other plumbing-related quests for a while.

Back in the February-ish time-frame, the washing machine in my home decided it wanted to retire, so we replaced it. But when I connected the new washer to the 1954-vinitage pipes, the shut-off valves began to leak.

Badly.

Thinking I should be able to handle the job myself, I headed over to the local home improvement warehouse and picked up some parts.

But, it didn't take long to realize that I had a much larger job on my hands, and that it would probably be a better idea to have someone more knowledgable with plumbing than only myself. However, the wife didn't like the idea of hiring a plumber; she's begun to develop her father's miserly ways as she ages. (She loves her plat more than anything...)

So, at the time, her decision was to let the leaky valves be until and unless they proved to be a larger issue than they appeared to be.

Fast-forward six months...

"Have you seen this quarter's water bill?"

"No. Is it bad?"

"It's 40 plat more than it normally is."

"Wow! That's a lot"

"Yeah, especially since we haven't been doing any extra watering; anyone looking at our lawn can tell that."

"Y'know... I'll bet it's that leaky valve in the laundry room."

"You don't really think it leaks *that* much, do you!?!"

"Let's go take a look..."

...

[drip, drip, drip, drip, drip, drip, ...]

"Yeah, I'd say it leaks *that* much."

[drip, drip, drip, drip, drip, drip, ...]

"You have one week to get it fixed."

[drip, drip, drip, drip, drip, drip, ...]

...

Thankfully, Belzur knows a thing or two about plumbing in the real world. Which is why I asked for his assistance. I realized the threaded parts I'd purchased probably weren't up to the task, but that I didn't know how to sweat pipe to fix it the way it needed to be.

...And that calling a licensed plumber out of the yellow pages would likely cost me several hundred plat more than my wife was willing to part with.

But, again, that's why I called Belzur.

Now, I have to tell you that I was a little intimidated by the task of sweating pipe, but I quickly realized it was the best solution to the problem at hand. It also gave me the opportunity to install some shut-off valves in the supply lines so I could isolate the branch of pipes in the laundry room from the rest of the house, without having to shut off the supply to the rest of the house.

Did I mention the fact that any time I'd hinted to my wife that I'd need to shut off the water to the house made her feel as though she needed to pee?

Ah, yes... the psychology of needing to do something you can't...

Truth be known, I was a bit concerned about shutting off the main supply to the house, as the original shut-off valve is still in-place. Fortunately, when we bought the house, the city required the selling owner to add a new meter to the system. More fortunately for me, when they added the meter, the plumber doing the job added a new main shut-off valve, meaning I didn't have to mess with something that might mean having to have someone from the city come out on the weekend to shut off the water at the street.

Thanks to Belzur, though, this little problem of a leaky valve provided me with an opportunity to fix something else, too... the faucet to the landry tub. Although it didn't leak like the valve for the washer, it dripped unless you used a crow-bar to shut it off. And, also being of 1954, it was extremely difficult to operate without said crow-bar.

Particularly since the faucet is on the same branch as the valves for the washer connection, but that you couldn't work on either without shutting off the water to the entire house. Which explains why I decided I needed to add branch shut-off valves.

Funny how a relatively simple project turned into something more elaborate. But, it was one of those things where you really only want to fix it once, rather than continuing to patch things together.

And the wife already made me promise "no jury-rigging."

She clearly wanted a water-tight solution, if you catch my meaning.

Well, Belzur arrived nice and early on Saturday, even though we'd been out kinda late, digging up trouble in Stormreach the night before. Once he'd arrived, we made a trip back over to the home improvement warehouse to return the parts I'd previously purchased and exchanged them for the small truck-load of parts we figured we'd need to do the job right.

Except that we hadn't been able to find a replacement faucet.

Which meant a trip to another home improvement warehouse.

Which also did not have the replacement faucet.

Which meant a trip to a *real* hardware store. One of those old-fashioned, neighborhood hardware stores you used to be able to find before the advent of the big-box warehouses.

And, we finally found what we were looking for.

Once we were back at the house, we started laying out all the parts and began the process of measuring things up.

*I* wanted to cut and pre-assemble all of the parts, but I quickly discovered why Belzur chose to custom cut and fit each part as we went along. Especially in light of the 1954 vintage of the house and it's associated plumbing. And, in the end, it proved to the best decision, even though achieving the right fit was a touch more challenging, it was perfect.

More importantly, once we'd finished and tested the new system under pressure, we found only one minor leak, which we corrected with a brief touch of the torch.

All said and done, and no leaks that we could find, Belzur headed home, and I did a quick clean-up of the laundry room.

Of course, it couldn't have been as simple as calling the whole thing done at that point.

Both Belzur and I had decided it would be a good idea to run the washer through an empty load, to be sure all of the left-over flux and solder had been cleared through the line, and wouldn't end up ruining a load of laundry.

If you hadn't guessed, I let this wait until after dinner, after Belzur had already headed home.

Now, while the empty load was running, I would periodically go down to the laundry room to check that everything was still in good order. After all, the constant changes in pressure on the pipes while the washer runs could reveal something we'd missed. But, after the first two checks, I decided I wanted to log into the game for a little recreation.

I hadn't been in-game long, with both Stonehands and Belzur, when I heard a funny noise. So, I excused myself for a moment and went downstairs to find out what was going on.

I had no sooner opened the door and turned on the light when I discovered a river of water running to the floor drain at my feet.

Thank the Sovereigns for floor drains!

I looked around, but didn't see any leaks from the newly installed pipes. Instead, it sounded like water was overflowing from the tub in the washer, as the washer was still running. I quickly reached over and cut the supply using the newly installed shut-off valves, but the water kept coming. It took me a few more minutes to determine that the washer's discharge hose had come loose and fallen free of its gravity connection with the drain, fallen behind the washer and, during the rinse cycle, began to discharge rinse water across the floor of the laundry room, creating the river I encountered.

So, I shut off the washer, called the wife down to assist me, fixed the hose and helped the remaining water find its way to the floor drain.

Again, thank the Sovereigns for floor drains!

Only then did I manage to find my way back up to my computer to re-join Stonehands and Belzur for a little time in Stormreach.

Funny, though, that once I'd returned to my keyboard, they asked me what I wanted to run. They had a good laugh when I said "nothing involving any pipes or plumbing!"

I think it's time for my lower-level characters to spend some time in some of the outdoor adventure areas. Time away from sewer tunnels and slimes and such...

Keep it fun!

Interesting Blog Titles

2008-09-10T06:29:00.000-07:00

There are days when I'm tempted to post blog entries with adult themes...

and adult themed titles.

For example, today's title *should* read FoundNemo In The Toilet Gives Obsydiian Blow Job.

Oh, look at all the gears turning in your dirty little minds!

But, then, that would be part of the fun in using such titles. Many, many people pretend not to be the perverts they are. So, I like to have a little fun with them. Me? Without a doubt, I'm a perv. And so are most of the Misfits. That's what attracted me to the Trowser Snake Charmer and Kruella Goodbush sisters, and the rest of the Face Stabbing Misfits in the first place!

So, it's only fair (and fun) to play on such perversions.

Besides, I still have a great laugh whenever I think about that time Kru was running her alt by the name of The Main Vein, and her hubby, Craygar, who was in the party with us said "Okay, guys, so long as we keep The Main Vein up when we go in there, we'll be alright."

It could've been said that that particular evening's adventures were a deep penetration of the splinterskull fortress!

Ha!

You know you're laughing right now. Even if it isn't with your outside voice, you're still laughing!

So, now...

About that blow job...

Last night saw Robinous check in for some adventuring. He's been stuck at Level 9 for quite some time now, and has been scratching the dirt looking for any little bit of XP he can find in that midbie wasteland, slowly draging himself across the rocky desert floor, through snake-infested sagebrush, and around sprawling beds of cacti, toward that elusive Level 10.

Yes, the mid-ranges really are that bad.

He's been stuck at Level 9 for at least three months now.

'course, if he'd log in a little more often...

:o)

Just kidding, Robin!

Anyway... Robinous was looking for about ten thousand XP to finally break the Level 10 barrier. At the same time, Rhy (Bashal/Confrag/Stonehands/etc.) was looking to complete the Vault of the Night (VoN) series, in preparation for a Dragon raid being hosted by the Lifetakers and Heartbreakers this coming weekend. How convenient for Robinous that Rhy is within level-range, that he could benefit from the run. And, even participate in a Dragon raid!!!

Particularly since The Jungle of Khyber, chapter 3 in the VoN series will earn you at least nine thousand XP on completion of the Normal difficulty, at least the first few times you run it at level. And there's plenty of XP to go with that in the first two chapters as well... So the plan for the evening was to earn Robinous his Level 10, and to get Rhy Dragon-ready, or as much so that we can complete the process in the following evenings leading up to the weekend.

Of course, Murders (Tanision/Puddintan), Factotum (Roulph/Belzur) and Obsydiian (yours truly) were along for the ride, leaving us with one open slot in the party.

That's where FoundNemo (CaptinBob/CaptinNemo) comes into play.

He *must* have been bored out of his skull to join any party that I'm in, because he *knows* I like to give him a hard time. (He's such a good sport!)

And, as soon as he joined the party, I announced over voice chat "Awesome! Now I get my own personal Cleric, and the rest of you get Nemo!" Of course, grotesque chuckles at the bad joke ensued, but, what else did you expect?!?

Nemo got his revenge, though...

Shortly thereafter, while we were waiting around in the Ever Full Flagon for Robinous to make his appearance, FoundNemo ran over to Obsydiian and kicked him in the shin.

He must've broken his toe, though, as he ran away quickly after that, then threw a heal on himself. I guess he forgot that Obsydiian has an Adamantine body. Unusual for a Sorcerer, I know, but highly effective in protecting against bruised shins.

When Robinous finally showed up, we jumped into the Tharashk Arena. And, as always, we vanquished the droves of so-called champions lurking in tunnels, training- and ready-rooms below the venue in very short order.

After a brief chat with Marek Malcanus, we set out to see if we couldn't assist Mistress Orphne in the Prison of the Mind.

For those not especially familiar with the quest, let's just say that if you fall off any of the platforms, the quest is over. And that there are plenty of wind bridges designed precisely to blow your character off of the bridges to force a quest failure.

Now, over the years that I've played DDO, I've visited Mistress Orphne's prison many times. And, have had to repeat the quest many times because my own characters have been blown off of various bridges and platforms...

But I've never been blown off the particular bridge I was blown off last night.

In fact, I'd *just* made the comment that I was going to follow Nemo across the bridge where you pick up the wooden dagger, in case he was blown off. Wouldn't you know it!!! Obsydiian jumped down off the ledge and ran over to the safe spot, marked on the bridge by an X, and arrived just behind Nemo, who gave Syd a shove back into the fresh gust of wind, which then sent Syd sailing off the bridge!

Can you believe it?!? Syd *shoved* off the bridge by a Halfling Cleric!!!

I thought for a moment that Syd might make it to a ledge, but decided it best to recall out of the quest before it forced a failure for everyone.

And, I remembered that, after disconnecting from the game, if you immediately log back in to the same character, you'll still end up with a failed quest, so I logged into Trin, forcing a clean break from the group, and *then* logged back into Syd to rejoin the party.

Still...

Syd was pushed!

And it wasn't the kind of blow job he'd have preferred!

Mangey Halfing Clerics!

No hard feelings, though, Nemo! I realize that, along with greasing everyone down, you just like giving folks blow jobs...

Perv!

:-P

The remainder of the Prison was relatively uneventful. Though, surprisingly, Obsydiian had the highest Diplomacy skill in the group, and had the dubious privilege of convincing the Fire Giant to allow us to claim Orphne's mirror without a fight from him.

It worked, anyway.

And our trip through the Jungle of Khyber, though interesting where we had to deal with the Beholders, was relatively easy.

And it was upon completion of the Jungle of Khyber that Robinous finally earned his Level 10!

Congratulations, Robinous!!!

(That's his highest level character so far. It's quite an accomplishment!)

I'm sure this evening will see us take on Haywire's Foundry. As convoluted as it is, I really enjoy it. And our group of Face Stabbing Misfits seems diversified enough to handle most any eventuality. We'll just have to see how well we can pervert that quest!

Keep it fun!!!

Roll For It

2008-09-09T05:33:00.000-07:00

I'm sure that anyone who's played for very long has run across some point where a decision needed to be made, but none of the folks in the group could come to any consensus. It's often those points where nothing is done, or an argument erupts within the group because someone isn't getting their way when someone else is.

It's at points like this were moderation and level-headedness is usually best, but is often in short supply.

Still, a decision has to be made.

Unfortunately, there're occasions where an unpopular decision has to be made. At points like that, everyone tends to look at the others around them, hoping someone will make the decision for them. Saturday afternoon, while adventuring with my wife, Phrudin (Belzur) and Kukoo was one of such occasions...

We'd all stepped out of the Cerulean Hills to allow the zone to reset and for our group to take a smoke break. When we came back to our respective keyboards, we noticed there was another character standing near the gate to the hills, amidst all our characters. He'd asked in General chat what we were doing. I replied that we were running the hills, to which he asked to join our group. Following a brief check with the other members of our group, I let him know we had room.

I should've known what we were in for when he replied rather impatiently in General chat "then invite me."

Hmm...

A bit annoying, considering I was already in the middle of sending an invite.

Doesn't anyone have any patience anymore?

Still, as soon as he joined our group, I said "Welcome!" over voice chat.

A very juvenile voice shouted back "What?"

"I said 'welcome.'"

"What did you say?"

Typing into Party chat, "I said 'welcome'."

Replying through voice chat "Oh. What're ya doin'?"

Phrudin responded "Cerulean Hills."

...

I could feel the 'you gotta be kidding me' glares from the other members of our group. Since she was sitting beside me in our home office, it was easy for my wife to comment off-line that our new player sounded rather young. Perhaps too young for much of the content in DDO.

I guessed that he was somewhere around the 7-9 age range. Phrudin guessed around 12-14.

Regardless, it prompted me to remark to my wife about DDO not being rated E for Everyone, but that many so-called adults refuse to actually parent their off-spring. Especially when it comes to telling them 'no' regarding subjects and activities that are inappropriate for them.

Particularly with the mature language humor amongst the all of the 30+ aged adults in our group before he joined.

Of course, it was our group that he was joining, so no one felt compelled to reign-in their behaviors. Not that we were out of control, but that this is a game for an older audience, not a younger one.

As we began our second excursion out to the hills, our new group member started to chatter about topics irrelevant to the rest of us, and he charted his own path through the wilderness.

It didn't take long before he'd begun to deplete Phrudin's healing resources.

After Kukoo had ask him twice to stick together with the rest of the group, I sent a /tell directly to Phrudin advising him that if he didn't feel like playing catch-up with the young Fighter, that he should withold healing, that the youngster would either heal himself or someone would pick up his stone and put it in their pocket until we reached the next shrine.

Once we'd passed through each of the points where we were looking for particular rare encounters, we decided it was time to recall to drop-group and reset the zone.

Now, perhaps this was a little under-handed of me, but I invited the adult members of our group back together before inviting the juvenile Fighter back in. It was clear by our discussion that no one really wanted to bring him back in, but that no one wanted to be the 'bad guy' who had to tell him to go find another group to run with.

My wife, being the kind-hearted woman that she is suggested that we just let him continue to play with us. Even though she obviously wasn't thrilled with the idea.

So, the four of us hemmed and hawed (that's a southern expression) about letting him back in.

That's when Phrudin expressed a suddenly brilliant idea...

"You know, in pen-and-paper, when you need to make a decision, you roll for it. I say we roll a d100 and let that decide. 1-49, he's out, 50-100, he's in."

"Great idea..."

So, in party chat, I typed /roll d100 and pressed enter.

...

"34"

There was a cheering burst of laughter over voice chat.

And in a classic D&D twist of fate, the dice gods cast the annoying juvenile Fighter out of our group.

Perhaps the cheers and laughs were a little inappropriate, but the youngling couldn't hear us, as he wasn't a member of our group when it happened.

But, all of us adults were relieved that the dice gods had chosen that moment to favor us.

Shortly thereafter, I sent the youngster a message letting him know that we'd be proceeding without him, but rather than being callous, I decided to bend the truth a little, and told him that we had a couple of guildies log in to complete our pre-planned run of another quest.

But, it was remarkable...

Phrudin was exactly right. Even though this's an online, real-time environment, DDO is *still* Dungeons & Dragons. When a decision has to be made, especially an unpopular one, it's time to break out the dice and roll for it. It's the only truly fair way to make such a decision. And everyone who's ever played pen-and-paper knows they have to concede to the dice. That's just the way of the game, even if they don't particularly care for the result.

And, for those who've been playing long enough to remember, we used to roll for it quite a bit, when it came to figuring out who would claim the raid loot from the Dragon and Demon Queen raids.

I miss those days.

There was something thrilling about being dependent upon the roll of the dice.

So, keep it interesting... Roll for it!

A Day That Will Live in Infamy...

2008-09-07T08:49:00.000-07:00

My wife finally joined me in DDO.

I finally managed to convince her to give it a try. Nothing crazy, mind you. Just a simple 28-point Ranger. (She likes bows.)

And, of course, she had to start with a 28-point build because I haven't had time to build my bank Cleric up quickly enough. In fact, she couldn't even roll a Drow yet. So, to be safe, I helped her roll-up a Human Ranger.

Her name's SoylentGreen. (Some of you will get the joke.)

And, she's *HAWT*!!!

A sassy and saucy-looking little human.

That's probably what led to the virtual orgy in the Waterworks last night...

But she was pretty intimidated by the game at first.

A couple of my so-called friends introduced her to WoW before I could get her to give DDO a try.

Bastards. ;-)

It's taken me forever to get her to even *think* about creating a character in DDO.

And, now that she's finally joined me in *my* game, she can't help but compare it to WoW. Where she has a combat pet. I've tried to tell her that she can have a summoned... pet (monster) in DDO, but that it isn't persistent like her other game. Not yet, anyway. I reminded her that the folks at Turbine hinted at the probability of the addition of Familiars to DDO *IF* they could get the henchmen AI to function correctly.

At least she knows what a familiar is... she played Neverwinter Nights for a bit, and became accustomed to having her black panther familiar help her through the various sub-quests in that game.

But, she, like many others, thinks that if D&D has familiars and WoW has battle pets, DDO ought to have something along the same lines. Of course, I have mentioned that there are *many* players who would agree with her, some even having left the game because of the lack of such a staple D&D element.

Still, she decided to give it a try.

She was having a tough time at first, though.

It was one thing to try to learn a completely new game, but it was another to have a ready-made adventure party waiting for her as she stepped off the boat and into the Wavecrest Tavern for the first time. I think she was a bit frustrated with my attempt to hurry her through the barkeep's two solo quests so she could join the rest of us. And, she admitted that she wasn't thrilled with the idea of simply jumping right into a group of other players right away.

She said she was afraid she was going to get everyone killed!

That's when I reminded her that this wasn't WoW.

And that we had more than enough characters to ensure that no one would die unnecessarily.

Well, except for Trinarias, later in the evening. But that was my fault. And, I'm used to it. ;-)

Still, we managed to get her through the Goodblade quests with barely a scrape on her pretty little chin. Phrudin (Belzur/Roulph/Factotum) was there to keep her skin healthy and unblemished. :-o

She thought Zith (Bashal/Stonehands/etc.) pretty cool, though. As though, perhaps I'd chosen the wrong class for her. She very much liked "the ninja." So, from now on, Zith, you're a ninja, not a monk. :-P

Lumma (Robinous) joined us for a bit, too, using his burning hands on all manner of things. She though she was on fire at one point. It took a moment for her to realize that it was Lumma's spell. But only after I told her to take a moment and relax. That friendly spells couldn't hurt her character. She was relieved. Though the sound effect still caught her off-guard several times after that.

She really enjoyed Phrudin's Turn Undead ability. And the way the skeletons and zombies would just float away and disappear. Perhaps there's a Cleric in her future!

Of course, after the Goodblades, we took a stroll up the hill and talked to the two halfling guards. That's when we told them with no small amount of certainty that we would Survive the Low Road. Fortunately, I'd had a chance to give her an underwater action item early on. Although she's used to having a character who can die from drowning, I don't think she was ready for the speed at which it can occur in DDO.

It was funny, though. Given the choice of an underwater action helm, necklace or ring, she enthusiastically sang out with "a ring, of course!"

Heh... what was *I* thinking!?!

It was certainly taking her a bit to find her footing with her Ranger, but she seemed to be getting there.

Thanks to WoW, she doesn't like using the mouse; keyboard only for her. So, I had to take a little extra time to explain some of the keyboard shortcuts that would make her play experience a little easier. And, then I had to re-map a key on her keyboard so she could attack her targets. Not something I remember how to do easily, as I basically play with the out-of-the-box keyboard, myself. But, I did manage to figure it out.

It was funny hearing her throttle the keypad Enter key repeatedly, as she tried to mow down her targets.

Poor keyboard...

I'm sure I'll be buying her an new one soon...

:-P

I think she finally began to relax a bit, and started to enjoy the game when we entered into the Waterworks. The first half, actually. We were simply trying to help her earn her writ of commendation from Guard Tember, so that Harbormaster Zin would give her his seal, which, in turn, would compel Captain Killmarten to grant her unrestricted passage to the Marketplace, and the rest of the city.

I think the first half of the Waterworks was a bit over-whelming for her, as she decided she'd had enough of sewer tunnels for a bit. That's when Phrudin suggested we take her on a tour of the Cerulean Hills. Being a WoW player, and being used to the outdoor areas, Phrudin correctly concluded she might enjoy the adventure area a little more.

Sadly, Zith had to log out for dinner, before running in his Hound raid later in the evening, with Bashal.

And Lumma had to log for dinner, too!

That left Phrudin, the wife and myself to the hills by ourselves.

The wife *really* liked the hills, though. It gave her plenty of room to wander about and explore things, and to try out some of the different things her character could do.

At one p0int, we decided to venture into a cave full of orcs. The wife started shooting, and Phrudin moved in to hack away at the one who'd notice he was being shot at. Of course, I saw the heard of them the target had called to his assistance. It didn't take long for me to find myself surrounded and, shortly thereafter, dead.

Fortunately, I'd done enough damage to the others that it didn't take long for Phrudin and the missus to finish off the stragglers. At which point, the cave was then empty, and it gave Phrudin a chance to carry my stone to the shrine.

A shrine that hadn't yet been cleared.

Which is why Phrudin and I told my wife to stay put in the cleared cave, where it was safe.

Fortunately, it didn't take much to clear the shrine and resurrect Trin, then rejoin my wife in the cave. Something we were looking forward to, as we'd stumbled into one of the rare encounters, and there was a chest to loot.

I found it amusing when my wife commented on how many chests there are in DDO. Her game isn't quite like that, and you spend most of your time looting corpses, rather than chests.

Not long after we'd cleared our way past then next couple of explorer points and the shrine, we circled around to the huge tree that is itself an explorer point, and held station while Phrudin's frien Kukoo joined us. I think she began to appreciate the benefits of having a few extra players in-group. Kinda reduces the workload for everyone when you have a few extra swords swinging about.

From there, it didn't take us long to complete the remainder of our explorer objectives, but the rare encounter of the gargoyle continued to elude us.

Finally, Lumma logged back in after dinner, and we decided to head back over to the Waterworks to complete the last two chapters.

While we were waiting, my wife asked me how you make your character shadow-hump. She'd heard me talk about how it's a rather popular pass-time, particularly while waiting for folks to come back to their keyboards during breaks.

So, I showed her.

And, since she had a good laugh when I was making my character do it to her character, I sent tells to the others in the group and told them to prepare for an orgy on my word.

She started laughing really hard and tried to move her character away, but three shadow-humpers were too much, and she finally decided just to stand still and let the boys have their way with her. Followed by the comment in party chat "I need a shower!"

That kinda set the tone for the rest of the evening; there were plenty of laughs about many things adult, though through inuendo only.

(This is why the game is *not* rated E for Everyone!)

Still, it was a lot of fun. And, amidst all the questing, we managed to rack up the complete set of rare encounters, and most folks had overflowing packs by the time we had finished.

Not to mention the fact that SoylentGreen earned her Level 3 *and* opened the gates to the Marketplace, all in one evening! (It took me weeks to get into the Marketplace!)

But, she had enough fun that she logged back into the game with me this afternoon to run a few more quests. I just made sure we stuck to the shorter, simpler quests, to give her a better chance to learn how to do various things in the game.

With any luck, she'll be running the guild for me in no time!

Keep it fun!!!

Henchmen Preview

2008-09-02T05:39:00.000-07:00

Before I delve into this morning's topic, I wanted to jot down a few words regarding our attempt to take down the Titan this past Friday evening...

Unfortunately, the Titan wasn't even aware we'd entered the complex; we stalled on the green-side puzzle early on. I can't blame anyone for this, and I wouldn't even if I could; none of us working the green side were familiar with the puzzle, and we were working from various and sundry solutions. Clearly, when you don't really know what you're trying to accomplish, the chances of failure are much greater. As evidenced by our brief attempt on Friday.

In fact, it took us a while to even decide which part of the group would break to the green side, leaving the remainder to the purple side. Ultimately, someone who knew enough about the raid took charge and sent Stonhands, Leaff, Sleepinbeauty, Spankmo, PuddinTan and Obsydiian down the green side.

We ran into problems early, though, because the nomenclature used for the various doors within the green puzzle varied from one guide to the next. It was often difficult to determine which door anyone was referring to. I think this is what led to the failure of the raid... we were generally following a guide that had casters step into a puzzle room, set the tiles in a specified manner, and then Dimension Door out to re-join the group. However, in the process of trying to determine which rooms were set, we left one of the rooms set improperly, with no way to regain access.

It's certainly something we'll have to work on for the next time around.

In the mean time, I finally managed to convince my wife to allow me to open a second subscription to DDO. With my characters hosting the guild bank, they have very little room in their inventories to run quests. And, so far as I'm concerned, all of my characters are playable characters. So, I really need an available inventory for quests.

Now, the wife wouldn't buy-off on having a second account solely for guild bank purposes. The idea is that, some day, maybe soon, she might actually join me in-game. Of course, a second account would be required for such an occurrance. So, I managed to make my case and now have a second DDO account.

And, it didn't take long for me to create a character that would eventually become one of the bank characters.

General consensus is that, if you want a character that will level-up and/or earn favor quickly, you should create a Cleric. After all, there always seems to be a disproportionate lack of Clerics whenever anyone tries to create a group. With such high demand for healing, it should be easy for my new bank character to open up both of his extra inventory slots and both additional bank slots. After all, bank characters can never have enough space to store things...

Conveniently, my wife's computer sits right next to mine in our home office. So, once I'd created my new bank character, I was able to log into both the bank character and one of my playable characters, to transfer items without having to pay exhorbitant postage fees.

Then I got to thinking...

What if I just ran my new bank character *with* one of my regular characters, to build up the required favor? I mean, Trinarias is still Level 2... And, can fight better than the typical healing Cleric. Not to mention the fact that he can disable traps and open locks most Clerics would be hard-pressed to deal with.

So, I booted up the game on both systems and grouped the two together. The idea was to bring the Cleric into the same quest with Trinarias, let Trin do all the work, and let the Cleric reap the benefit.

But, then I decided that the arrangement could be mutually advantageous.

After all, Trin could benefit from having a healer around.

The difficulty lay in one player trying to control two characters at the same time. It would end up being an exercise somewhat like the ability to move-under-cover we used to practice in the Army, where one soldier would lay down cover-fire while his buddy advanced on the enemy position. Once in place, the two would trade duties, where he'd move and his buddy would lay down the cover-fire.

Except that, in this case, there was no cover fire. It was simply moving one character into position at a time.

And, quite frequently, I found it to be more desireable to leave Trin's "buddy" back in a safe spot while Trinarias moved forward to engage whatever opposition he could find. And, when Trin was done, the Cleric could move forward to join him. And heal him. ;-)

It actually worked surprisingly well.

In a couple of instances, I was able to leave the Cleric *just* within healing range, and I could fight with Trin, and reach over to the other keyboard to cast heals on Trin at the same time.

Talk about multi-tasking!

But, it occurred to me that this might be the basis upon which the forthcoming henchmen in Module 8 might be based. Another character you "control" (only to a certain extent) but which isn't intended to do much "intelligent" work, only a prescribed set of actions, based on certain presuppositions about that henchman's role in the group.

I found myself in a bit of a pickle, though, when I attempted to run the pair through Survive the Low Road...

The duo acutally did very well, methodically making their way through the quest. Right up until they encountered the shaman at the end. Actually, the Cleric was left standing at the top of the pipe the pair had just climbed up out of. It was Trin who snuck up the ramp to use his bow on the shaman. Where things broke down was the point at which Trin brought the shaman back down the ramp toward the pipe.

Even though Trin had established aggro on the shaman, the shaman saw that the Cleric wasn't running, and was squishier than Trin. So, the shaman set to work on the Cleric, quickly incapacitating him. Well, was doing all I could to get Trin to kill the shaman, which meant I was too busy to reach over and cast a heal on the Cleric. By the time the dust settled, the Cleric was incapacitated.

This is the point at which I should mention that Trinarias has absolutely no Heal skill, and he doesn't carry Healer's Kits. He is, after all, a Warforged. But, he is also part Ranger, so it seems now is the time he should start carrying wands. Because it didn't take long after the encounter was over that the Cleric finally failed his saving throw and died.

Without a Shrine in the quest, it was impossible to raise the Cleric without recalling.

Since it was so close to lunch time, I had to recall out and skip the end chest, rather than running all the way back from the tavern to claim it.

Bummer!

But, after lunch, I brought the duo back together for a few more lowbie quests. This time, though, after I'd explained what mischief I was up to, Robinous had logged in with his new lowbie Sorcerer, by the name of Lumma. And, we decided to give Garrison's Missing Pack a whirl.

Honestly, the progress through the quest was more pedantic than when all of the characters are under constant and direct control of their own players, but it turned out that, for the all-level-two characters, having a henchman Cleric in the group turned out to be the saving grace...

Based on what I'd learned about aggro in Survive the Low Road earlier in the day, I was careful to keep the Cleric back, well outside the aggro circle of the various mobs, and then, once the path had been cleared, I brought him forward to dole-out healing and Divine Vitality, a god-send for Lumma!

At the branch in the tunnels, where the group has to clear both the left and right sides, and activate the respective levers, things became a little more interesting. We cleared the left side with very little difficulty, and circled back to clear the right side. In trying to clear the right side, though, we pulled the named witch doctor *while* we were trying to clear everyone else out. In the process, the witch doctor incapacitated both Trin and Lumma. Fortunately, all the other mobs had been dispatched, but it took a fair bit of scrambling to bring the Cleric up from the safety of the rear area in time to prevent any unfortunate deaths.

Ha!

The henchman saved the day!!!

He was able to cast enough heals to prevent Trin and Lumma from joining their forebears.

Now, I do hope that the henchmen Turbine will be introducing in Module 8 will have at least a little better Artificial Intelligence than my improvised henchman, as in, that they will be able to keep up an heal (or whatever else) on their own, rather than requiring specific direction at all points along the way.

However, having played using a very close facsimile to a legitimate henchman, I've come to appreciate the benefits of having such an option, especially for smaller, less well equipped adventure parties.

Of course, in my case, I'd prefer to replace my version of Artificial Intelligence with another player. Now, if only I could convince my wife to take the controls...

Keep it fun!!!

A New Trin

2008-08-29T06:06:00.001-07:00

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!

About to Lose My Mind

2008-08-27T05:51:00.001-07:00

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!

Bonus Entry for the Day

2008-08-22T10:11:00.001-07:00

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!!!

Keeping it Fun

2008-08-22T05:43:00.000-07:00

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!

Favor Zerg

2008-08-21T05:37:00.000-07:00

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!!!

Looking Forward to Mod 8

2008-08-20T05:37:00.000-07:00

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!

State of the Guild

2008-08-18T05:50:00.000-07:00

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!

Cutting It Close

2008-08-15T06:10:00.000-07:00

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!!!

An Odd Request

2008-08-14T06:03:00.000-07:00

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!

Speaking of Patterns...

2008-08-11T05:52:00.001-07:00

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!

Patterns

2008-08-06T06:25:00.000-07:00

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!

So, That's How It's Gonna Be, Huh!?!

2008-08-04T06:03:00.000-07:00

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!

Queen Ready, Almost...

2008-08-01T05:40:00.000-07:00

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!)