Winter storm. No electricity. No DDO. Time for a campfire story about DDO.

Weather up here is crazy. For the first time ever as an adult, I missed a day of work because of snow. Technicaly my feet or my car coulda navagated through the snow, but all the fallen trees, downed powerlines, stalled and wrecked cars, closed streets and canceled busses made it a moot point. For that I'd need a jetpack or a monster truck!

Anyhoo, instead of playing DDO I got to daydream about my adventures before I started blogging. So, in no particular order here are some of my DDO memories (fondness may or may not be included! :) ).

I remember the first time I did the Colaborator quest in Korthos. I had a heck of a time reading the text because a screwy tiny gold font on black is too hard to read. That was the moment I decided, for the first time ever in my entire life, to NOT read the story to a videogame. Why spend time reading something that has been intentionaly made illegible?

And my first shroud run. I intentionaly didn't read any spoilers so I believed every word the PUG said about me -- every word!

I remember the dissapointment of realizing that my con/opp trinket with deathward was not to be.

I remember running the Gianthold and getting lost, and running the Subteraine and getting even more lost. In case you've never been, in the Sub has places where you can fall into darkness. Spooky!

I remember my squishy Tempest Ranger suddenly becoming feeling invincible when he gained Toughness, and again when he got Icy Raiments, and again when he gained Con/Opp, and again when he got Maximize, and again when he got the EPIC! Cloak of midnight.

I remember reading that the item damage from death is different from real damage -- death item damage has no risk of permenant damage. And feeling confident in clearing Captives by using the res shrine twenty times. And then later, using the res shrine in Troglodite's clutch sixty times.

I remember enjoying Epic Von2 (The Prisoner) so much that I almost used my Heart of Wood to optimize him for that quest. And then I remember the sadness of no one running Epic Von2 once the Phiarlane Carnival came out, and then the much easier and less exciting Epic Von2 after the nerf.

I remember thinking that DDO was destined to fail this Christmas and choosing not to buy DDO points, and I remember last week reading the dev's plans for the upcoming year and wishing that I had taken advantage of the sales.

I remember my first character that I was pleased with. A Dwarf Cleric named "Alldone" by one of my toddlers. That character dumped all stats except Wisdom and Constitution.

Edit: Oh, and now I remember my very first  character. Another character named by a toddler: a cleric named Fighter. An unforseen consequence of that name was that people often asked me if I was a battlecleric.

And I remember my bard, who was so much fun to play until a DDO updater error robbed him of his spells. And I remember really getting good at placing firewalls.

Now I just play my main, Dwarf Paladin 13 on his first TR. But I know that there are innumerable permutations if ever get tired of what I'm playing now.

DDO is, like D&D, hundreds of really good games all rolled into one. Now, if only there was a way for me to DM DDO! :D