Why do you play DDO?

There may be as many reasons for playing DDO as there are DDO players, but I bet most can be traced back to something simpler like entertainment.  So, why I am doing this forum post this evening?  Well, lets delve into a few things.

I began playing DDO over 6 years ago and while the surrounding reasons have varied over the years, the ultimate reason is entertainment.  Originally, my wife seen a copy of DDO in Best Buy and knowing my love of Fantasy books she pointed out to me.  She may never forgive herself for that one (kidding, she played a while herself and knows with my propensity for obsession, it is as cheap a hobby as I can have).

I used to play 6-8 hours every night after I got home from work and 16-18 hours Saturday and Sunday.  This was at it's height when my wife first got seriously sick as DDO became my escape from life and the horror of it all.  For any that may have played with me back then, I was not the nicest player on the server as I let life get to me and it often came out in outburst for those less than good DDO players.

Now-a-days, I may play 3-4 hours a night at most and 8-10 on the weekend days.  Seems like a lot still, but for me, it is like being a casual player.  Today I still play for entertainment and escape.  So what do I escape now, well life and it's aggravations.  Work is not what it used to be.  Many changes over the last 6 months and it is not as good a place to work as it used to be.  So that is a serious annoyance to escape from.  Lately, some things have aggravated me in game, so I choose to avoid those best way I know how, SOLO.

Let me clarify before anybody gets any wrong impressions.  Many know I have been on the TR train with Samius over the last many many months.  Samius is far from my aggravation, so please don't think that is it.  I call him a friend, and believe it or not, that is part of the reason I am soloing.  I know that when I get aggravated that I can become a bear to group with, so I have pulled back to my soloing ways.  Will I join back up with Samius on future TR trains, I hope so, but it may be awhile until I get things adjusted and I am in a better mood.

I read the DDO forums and they make me chuckle.  The fights over this change or that bug is humorous now.  I used to be one of those that would rail over every little change I felt was a NERF.  Complain about every bug that caused me grief in playing.  Maybe I have grown, maybe other things are more important to me now, but as I said above, they make me chuckle now.  DDO is a great game and has helped me through many things over the years and is why I still enjoy playing this great game.

So, next time you are frustrated in DDO, sit back and think, Why do I play DDO.  You may find humor in things after that.

Sneaking back into epics and raids

So, I have been on the TR train with Sinfully for awhile now and really have not done much raiding or epics, so last night after bowling, I was only one on so I jumped on Canttouchths and joined an Epic Chrono.  I just joined to run the quest, but I ended up being the tank which is no big deal as that is what Cant was built to do.  My healer last track of me in the first mini boss fight and that cost my ship buffs, but hey, we did things before ship buffs.

We get to the end fight and I have solid aggro on the boss but an intimidate pulls trash on me as well and I go down as the damage incoming is more than my healer can keep up with.  At this point, all could go screwy, but a barb takes over until I can get raised and rebuffed.  I was then able to hit intim and take aggro back.  Then it is just a beat fest until he runs out of HP.

So how did I do on my pulls, well, probably one of my best Chrono runs.  A scroll of Docent of Diabolist, seal of Helm of Frost and finish with a shard of the Charged Gauntlets.  Maybe I need to run more Epic Chrono's.

OK, so I don't blog often

Yes, I am lazy so I don't blog that often.  Unlike Samius, I don't get a chance to blog from work, so when I get home, it is DDO time, but hey, I am on vacation this week and something kind new happened to me last night I had to mention.

So, I am on life 6 or so of Sinfully's march to completionist.  As Samius has mentioned before in his blog, I have been doing more of the classes I don't like to solo with while running the train with him and the group when they are with us.  This life is something I can solo, but I hate.  Yes, I hate Paladin's.  I have never gotten a Paladin past level 8 before because they are such a pretend to do everything class.  They do none of it well, so I am not a fan.  To help, since this is TRs runs to get to 20, notch a class and move on to next life, I am not doing a pure Paladin, not even close.  At 20, Sin will be 6 Rogue (for evasion, UMD and open lock, no thief skills as Samius has that with his Arty), 6 Fighter (Kensai for Falchon to play with my Lit II Falchon) and 8 Pally (Knight of Challice, just to get Pally out of the way).

Here is a couple things that happened this weekend, first was a run thru Object of Blood. Single run, two pairs of Spectral gloves.  I have pulled the gloves numerous times of the years, but don't remember pulled 2 on the same run before.  Next was a Maid to Order run.  Samius is pure on his Arty, also known as no evasion.  So I played trap detector.  Using my best Barbarian impression, I ran down the middle tripping the traps so Sam could jump around and disarm them.  I think I got hit once the whole run, so my evasion/reflex was working pretty well.

Also this weekend, began the respecting of Canttouchths.  Cant is my tank and I tweak him here and there and eventually plan to TR him (third life) to a Helf Stalwart Defender.  He has a lot of epic gear, including the Chimera's Fang, so I switched out a feat to get a Dragon Mark.  Cant is 2 monk/18 fighter wis/dex based AC Stalwart Defender.  He was set up as 2 weapon fighting when that was way to get AC and so forth, but I am switching out those feats to make him better sword and board.  I also reset his feats today, so what does he get right now.  I can self/my boat buff his AC to 83, can hit 70 on intim.  When I get that TR in, it will go higher, but I want to wait until after the expansion to see what all changes.

OK, time to go back to work.  Need to do some raiding during the days while Sam is at work.  Need Epic Tokens for more TR woods.  Need more Epic tokens for Cant's gear.  NEED MOAR!