July 27th - Gary Gygax's birthday

Are you guys doing anything to commemorate?

I'm level 8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15,16!

What a relief to have applied the Stone of XP before the deadline!

Life was so hectic I was afraid the stone would vanish as quickly as the last two months with our newborn.

Now that I've put some time into leveling a Tank I see why people complain so much about it. Being a low level tank isnt useful unless the party is dying alot. Then I'm a hero for rescuing soulstones, zerging traps and activating levers without interruption under a heavy torrent of melee and bow shots. But the rest of the time? Just lagging in the kill count and trading surplus Lay on Hands for tys.

In retrospect I shoulda taken some trapping ability since traps were by far the biggest delay in my elite streak plan.

I am really looking forward to raiding again and TRing again for the big enhancement pass. Might do my first ever Abbot run for twink gear if the flagging is fast enough.

DDO made me sad.

This morning my wife asked me "Hon, why are you sad?"

I wasn't sure. Life, in general is pretty fantastic right now. I slept all night while my wife tended our 2 month old girl, and this morning when I watched her she was very mellow. My coffee was great. The cake was perhaps too rich and sweet to qualify as a "sensible breakfast" but nothing to complain about. I was genuinely flummoxed. I was sad, of that I was certain. But why?

Then it hit me -- DDO made me sad.

Earlier that morning I was Elite Streaking Tangleroot. I found a Lightning-Split Soarwood, I killed a bunch of hobgoblins, I was having fun. But then, I couldn't find the guy I needed to kill to take his map. I searched the dungeon once, and then twice there was nothing there except for this dumb spike trap that I kept forgetting was there. Lucky for me, my character is a high hitpoint Dwarf Tank. Remember the bug last week with Elite Waterworks Part 3 and the acid hallway of Dooooom? Not a problem for my Dwarf Tank. Run through, chug pots, problem solved.

But finding the guy that can't be found? Not fun. Finaly I figured it out. I was trying to find an unconnected island in a maze with the left hand rule. (Graph theory: I was doing it wrong!) But I found the entrance. I rushed in, noticed a handy shrine behind a locked door, and ran up the ramp.

*SWISH!*

A blade trap sprung out of the wall. The game froze as Windows 7 chose that exact moment to suddenly begin the backing up of data. Five seconds later, the game resumed. I was dead. My pet was dead. My Hireling was dead.

I finished out and tried to race back before the quest timed out. Too slow.

And then I realized, that just before I got hit with the trap I had opened the doors to a shrine.

So I told her. I said I was playing DDO today and I stepped on a trap. She laughed and showed me a comic about first world problems of the 90s.

"Level 20 is the highest level in DDO" My first level 20 TR photo celebration.

Enter the Kobold.

This is my main hitting level 20 a second time. It happened the weekend prior to Menace of the Underdark. I don't know what happens when you hit level 20 now that the cap has been raised. I bet ti doesn't say "You have attained the highest level in DDO!" Now there's probably something different, like as soon as you hit 20 you watch the movie: Spinner of Shadows Buy Now.

This Paladin 20 life went by too fast. I was earning XP so fast I hardly got to stop to smell the roses. The only quest I ransacked was Dreaming Dark. I wanted several Ioun stones for TR twink gear but I had to settle for a +6 STR ML:5. It's actualy great at level. I didn't make any new GS, had very little time to run shrouds.

Whereas my previous TR was totaly Free to Play, this life was on a premium account. I bought the cheapest Turbine Point card that my local GameStop had in stock. I wanted the Premium status more than the points, because Premium players can go AFK for a very long time. On my f2p account I'd always get auto-logged-out while I was waiting for raids to fill. (I'm lookin at you, Tower of Despair.) That premium upgrade as very convienient for me and using the Turbine Points I bought all the Epic! packs. Great value. I got alot of fun out of those Epics!, especialy VoN: The Prisoner, which was an absolutely punishing nightmare of a quest back then.

The biggest improvement from TRing a third time is the ability to open quests on Elite. It's not for everyone, but personaly, I love running everything on elite -- now I can without having to waste my time on the easier, more cost efficient difficulty settings.

Currently I'm on my 3rd life and I'm enjoying all the TR and Cannith Crafted twink gear. Just put on my +6 STR Ioun stone and I'm wielding my Silver Holy Warhammer of Undead Bane. I'm wearing Adamantium full plate. I know, everyone else likes invulnerability but I prefer DR 3/- plus the biggest Armor bonus I can craft since these low levels are where AC matters.

Oh, and special thanks to my blog-fiend of a wife who taught me how to internet a pic.

Celebratory Level 20 Pictures:

So, this was my first Level 20 character. I'm not sure when exactly, a few years back. But you'll notice the important thing, he's level twenty and FREE TO PLAY. Just goes to show it can be done. I don't remember where he was or what he was doing when he hit 20, but it was probably somewhere in the Vale of Twilight since, back then, it was my only high level content.

If I remember correctly, he didn't have any Greensteel weapons when he hit 20, but he did have a ConOpp helm, which I thought was the coolest item ever.

Edit: I mean no tier III Greensteel weapons. He did have a pair of Pos/Pos/- warhammers that he used most of the time, and some really wacky boss beaters. Not because I thought that a metaline flametouched light pick of something totaly uselesss was great, it was just the only thing I could find that would let me join Shroud groups. (I bought that MFLPOSU from the house D vendors. Can you imagine why someone would dump it?) :)

I also had a Tier II Mineral dwarf axe that I used for the stoneskin clickie.

Broccoli, the commerce clause and DDO

It's wierding me out. Everyone is talking about how Congress has no power to force people to buy Broccoli or Health Insurance under the commerse clause but I can't help but think of the DDO Broccoli guy.

It reminds me of Huricane Katrina, which happened one month after our Kitten, Katrina learned her name. Poor kitten was so confused at the newscasters shouting her name for an entire news cycle.