A Look Back, Quest Runs March 25 to 27

Erdrique's Blog

So, I have made it a personal mission now to do everything in my power to catch up in my backlog of blogs.  I’m currently about 70 blog posts behind where I should be :(.  Needless to say, this year has just been rough for me in trying to stay on top of everything.  This has been primarily because of my hectic work activity this year.  All of the time I was able to devote last year during work downtime has literally disappeared this year and I still haven’t found a good way to compensate.  But I’m slowly doing what I can to make it happen.

In any case, I’m going to continue with my series of quest runs that I have gone through, primarily because I took the time to document what I did and because I have the screenshots to show the questing.  I also find it fun…

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Goodbye NBI 2016

Many Welps

Today is the last day of the Newbie Blogger Initiative this year, where did the time go? I feels like just a few days a go I was setting up the blog and getting ready to publish my first post.

NBI gave me the motivation to finally start something I’d been thinking about doing for a while. I finally started a blog and I’ve posted at least once a week this month, often times more. It’s also taught me that if I don’t actively make an effort to stick to a posting schedule, the writing doesn’t get done. After a month of keeping up with it, I’m hooked. I enjoy the writing process and I like having my own little slice of the internet.

I’ve played a lot of games this month and I thought about games in a way I hadn’t before. Instead of just playing, I have started…

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DDO: Respeccing

Bio Break

I have a pretty solid philosophy when it comes to playing MMOs — I play what’s fun and appealing to me, not what is widely considered to be the “best” class or the “best” build or whatnot.  Sometimes the two converge, but more often not.  This is not a philosophy I’ve had for my entire gaming career, but one that I’ve gradually come around to.  Listen, I truly understand the appeal of picking the best, the most optimal, the tried-and-true builds that are designed by gamers who know a lot more about the numbers and have far more experience than I do.  But I’ve also come to realize that by idolizing the “best”, often I am compromising who I am in a way and what I want to do.

This is the reason I rerolled on a different server in DDO, despite having unlocked the Drow and accumulated a nice…

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Completing A Saga and Another Story Arc

Erdrique's Blog

One of the things I enjoy doing is trying to get back into the swing of things after a relatively long vacation and trying to remember how to make my way back through my favorite game, DDO :).  I recently just came back from spending about a week or so in Gatlinburg/Pigeon Forge/Sevierville, Tennessee with immediate and extended family.  We had a blast while we were out there but at the same time I was separated from my desktop computer and couldn’t log into DDO.

We made it back home on Saturday and I logged in with Erdrique (Level 30 Rogue/Shadowdancer) later that night and spent a good amount of time just catching up on character maintenance and then trying the quest The Thrill of the Hunt on epic hard but unfortunately came up short on completing it.  Not only was this particular quest one of the lesser known quests…

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Tabletop for one: As the dice fall, so does a hero

The Long Shot

Now where were we?

Oh, right. Initiative rolls between tough, dwarven ex-soldier Jindra and three Redbrand ruffians on the streets of Phandalin. Here she was, trying to do everything on the DL, with a mind towards infiltrating this gang’s base. But it turns out they’ve gathered some intel on her  as well, and the thought of some adventurer hanging around town is something they ought to nip in the bud.

Initiative rolls came out to a tie (4) but these ruffians have the edge in dexterity so to them the first attack goes. Unfortunately, these enemies each get two attacks, so there was a very real possibility of getting smoked before the round even went to Jindra. However, out of six attacks, only one was a hit.

Surrounded by three enemies, Jindra had little in the way of options so she took a swing at one…and missed. Feeling in dire straits…

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What I bought in the Steam summer sale

Bio Break

If Aywren says it’s OK to talk about what games you’ve bought in a summer digital sale, then it’s clearly OK for all of us to do so as well.

I honestly wasn’t planning on picking up anything from the Steam summer sale, for two reasons. One, I prefer GOG.com as my digital platform of choice and get most of my non-MMO games through there if possible. And two, I have more than enough on my gaming plate as it is.

But I did start poking around after spotting one tempting sale and ended up nabbing three games for a little under $25, ones that I knew I would play and wouldn’t mind including for a future Try It Tuesday. So what did I get?

The Long Dark: This has been on my to-buy list for a long time now. I still haven’t really bought into the whole survival sandbox…

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Curse you, Jack Jibbers and your non-existent blade

Even Now

Did you ever farm for a certain item so much that, even when you got to the point when you knew you probably wouldn’t use it much anyway, you still wanted it desperately just as a matter of principle?

I’ve done that a few times. I remember waiting… and waiting… and waiting… and waiting some more as I ran Tower of Despair until I could recite the dialogue from memory, and still not getting a Band of Siberys. Even on multiple-of-20 completions runs, I’d eagerly check my end reward list only to be disappointed – seemed I had my pick of EVERY damned ring EXCEPT the one I wanted. Finally got it in Horoth’s chest on Even’s 80-something completion.

Then there was my seemingly endless quest for a Shard of the Silver Slinger. I thought I’d never get it. I wondered if it existed at all. So I blogged…

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My type of characters

GamingSF

I was contemplating old characters from various games recently and whether I have a “type” of character that I prefer to play. I have a lot of characters in a lot of MMOs now, too many to list or think about but I think there’s some commonalities between most of them.

Non-human race/species
Most of my cherished characters are non-human. I play MMORPGs, in part, for escapism and selecting a non-human race or species is part of that.

Sarnaks are awesome

Tall or small
In games where there’s a taller than average race I’ve often chosen that. I guess it’s linked to the above. I’m average height in real life so I don’t think there’s any deep meaning to this. I have occasionally chosen small characters but only if the race is insufferably cute without being merely a “mini human”.

Pint-sized but deadly

Ranged DPS or caster DPS
For years…

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Having a fun time in The Tide Turns on Epic Normal

Erdrique's Blog

This past weekend, I logged on with Wapoyei (Level 22 Cleric/Exalted Angel) who needed to complete the Tide Turns on epic difficulty to complete the Sentinels of Stormreach chain.  I saw that another guildie was on, Okhamel, and asked him if he wanted to join me.  He switched characters to Friedrice (Level 22 Ranger/Shiradi Champion) and we started to gather our buffs on board the guild airship.  As we were buffing up, I decided I needed to get Wapoyei a new weapon.  He had been using +1 Holy Burst Heavy Mace of Pure Good with a Festival Icy Burst recipe applied for years now.  The weapon was a minimum level 12 and has sustained a fair amount of permanent damage over time.  So, I went to the Auction House and picked up a +2 Sun’s Fury Morningstar of Ghostbane.  The morningstar was an epic level, minimum level 22.  So after…

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How Long Did it Take to Build King Raiyum’s Tomb?

Erdrique's Blog

Ever since I was a child, one of the greatest mysterious to me have been the pyramids of Egypt and the step pyramids of the ancient central and South America culture.  I have always found it fascinating to wonder how these magnificent structures were built.  Now reflect that thought onto DDO and my favorite explorer area, the Sands of Menechtarun, where we now find the ancient pyarmids and tombs of Wizard King Raiyum.

These structures are similar to their real life counterparts, being roughly triangle in shape and they are impressive in terms of size and attractiveness.  Of course the most magnificent of these structures is Raiyum’s personal tomb, being the defining structure of the Valley of the False Tombs.  I guess it would be equivalent to the Great Pyramid of Giza in ancient Egypt.

While I was taking my bladeforged, Tuhnn (Level 17) out into the desert, I…

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