And some days you're a god...

There is one advantage at least to being a defense tank. When a shadow cyst explodes in your face and kills everyone in the team except you. Because it missed you.



Fire off Energy absorption, hand clap, and slowly clear the room. The Tuatha were pretty tough but I had a big purple and some greens.



Woot!

* * *

I think the most important thing, is to know your own limits as well as your teammates capabilities. I was perfectly happy jumping into +5s with my two SGmates, who covered me with bubbles, fortitude, RAs, and dump an ice slick beneath me. Replace them with a fire/empathy controller who behaviour expresses nothing but rampant xp-greed, and an empathy defender who also keeps commenting on the good xp (and does not even have fortitude), and I'm not interested in jumping into +5s.

After some invincible missions of +3s, I commented that the controller should lower his difficulty. Especially now that we had lost one controller (grav/kin) and a tank (inv/ss). He refused, and feeling generous, I bought ten lucks and five respites for the next mission. The first spawn in the mission was 33, +5 to me and blaster, +7 to the warshade, +6 to the defender (sidekicked to me) and just +3 to the controller.

I told the controller I couldn't tank +5s. He dismissed me, and the next thing you know our blaster (I've met this guy before) threw a fireball into the group. I will never understand why they do this, but he faceplants immediately as I jump in. My entire tray of lucks and respites kept me alive long enough that the team took down most of the mobs, until they ran out and the boss and 2 lts immediately smeared me. At this time, the level 26 fire tank they recruited came into the mission, got sidekicked up by the controller and tanked until the defender rezzed me, and we finally killed the spawn. Meanwhile, the blaster had quit the team.

I suggested lowering the difficulty. The controller refused. It's easy, he declared. It's just an invincible mission, the defender supported him. If we lower it the xp will be less. Now when your tank is telling you the mission is too hard, you really should listen to him. Not because I ran away the moment one of the mobs hit me, or I have no idea what kind of support the controller/defender were bringing. But I've just used up my entire tray of inspirations tanking the first spawn, and still died. And I know just how much control a fire/emp brings. And I know how much healing a defender with just healing aura and heal other heals. And I know how much damage is coming through, without fortitude.

The level 26 fire tank, who said "give me fortitude and I will tank". Those mobs were +4 to him, and no, the defender did not have fortitude. If he believed he could tank +4 mobs without any buffs or decent crowd control (Even my mind and earth can't control +3s very well), let him do it. I just did and I had no interest in fighting another +5 spawn. My inspiration tray was empty.

So I told them good luck, and left the team.

At that moment, I felt a sudden sense of enlightenment.

I am not interested in being the cog to someone's xp-grinding delusion. These people are looking for the wrong tank. I'm making a tank for my own pleasure and to play with my friends, not to die over and over again for them.

Just a while earlier, some people I don't even know that well, but became friendly with were running amok in an AV-whacking team. Then the team leader grabbed a carnie mission and we went in to see the place packed with 53 carnies. Since half the team was sidekicked or lacking sidekick, we immediately commented that it was probably too hard, didn't want to get our lower levels (tank was one of them) into debt. As expected, we wiped at the second spawn. Immediately, the team leader stopped the mission, we went off to beat up the Kronos Titan instead, and got people badges. Making sure everyone had fun was important to the team leader, not two level's worth of xp to fire monkeys.

My sense of enlightenment was the realisation that I'm not interested in getting to know the worthless people anyway, much less tank for them. Sure, if they recruit me in a pickup and it's a reasonably decent mission I will tank. If I die now and then, that's ok. But I'm not going to be a meatsponge for someone's +ridiculous level I3 delusion.

In a way, it's not even a big deal that my unpopular builds aren't recruited by pickups. In fact, it is a good thing. When I run with people who never cared what their team composition actually was or whether or not I was /empathy or /FF, the team always, strangely enough, rocked hard.

Funny it took playing a really "in demand" toon to actually see it. So what if now I'm in demand? I don't want most of the teams that try to grab me anyway.

STD!

No, it's not Sexually Transmitted Disease.

*Empathy Defender* (Tell): I feel bad you're dying so much

It's Sudden Tanker Death.
This is the reason I don't want to to go on invincible missions where everything will inevitably be +2-+3 to me. Or if I am sked up, +3-+4. You jump in, sometimes you fire off energy absorption, and you survive long enough for everything to get taken down. Then you hit the next spawn. BANG! Game over, man, game over. Russian roulette, except that the gun has four bullets in the six chambers, instead of one bullet.

It's not a big deal when the spawns are lower con, since the chances of STD are quite low. And the mobs don't hit that hard. But once the cons go up, the chance of STD rises exponentially. Sometimes Hoarfrost is up and I'm reasonably confident I won't die. But sometimes Hoarfrost isn't, and who's going to wait for the gimpy tank to get hoarfrost recharged?

Sometimes I'm not even sure I'm actually running any armour. I think I'm glad I got handclap. When I'm about to die, I handclap. This sometimes buys me time for the empath to pump another heal into me.

I feel ultra-grouchy. I think it's a funny psychology thing at work, but I keep thinking all these squishies just happily set their difficulty to invincible and recruit full teams to bump spawnsize and spawncon up...for xp... and then they grab a tank, toss him in, and say "tank! take damage!". Not the blasters, the controllers and defenders. The blasters know that if anything goes wrong they're the first to die. They're smart and know with their level of faceplantyness it's better to mow down large hordes of whites and yellows with their AoEs than risk 2-shot by a purple.

Hey, it's no longer I3, can you people please not insist on fighting +3s and +4s on pickups? If they think they can boost my survivability to the extent that I can stand up against the mad hordes I don't mind. But one sole empath isn't going to be enough for a full team.

Well, at least I'm more tankerish than the regen scrapper, who got one-shot multiple times by the Tuatha bosses when he insisted on charging in first. But that's just because I have more hitpoints than anyone else. *snorts in digust*

It really feels like the classical "Meatbag + hp-refiller" strategy. Maybe that's why the tankers are so whiny about having a "healer" nowadays. But I still don't need a healer. I need a buffer or a debuffer... the healer isn't going to save me when I get STD.

I don't even want to go into the Devouring Earth and their stupid eminators.

DDO: Adequate Cleric

Things have improved for the better once I gained a level, and got some 'enhancements'
- ie. something like minor skills/feats - that upped my spell points by 30 and improved
my heal casting by 30%. I think I went from 120 spell points (ie 12 casts of 'cure light
wounds' at about 4-9 hp) to 183 spell points (18 casts of 'cure light wounds' at 4-11 hp a
pop).

I suspect some people also took 'improved recovery' which is like a minor skill for
making you gain more from a healing spell, so my heal has been hitting them for a very
presentable 10-13 hp.

Everyone appears to have gotten a little buffer at level 2. Either that or I'm starting to get
into groups who know wtf they are doing. Or I'm getting used to who urgently needs a
heal.

Sorcerors and mages can do awful damage with their spells. If they know how to use 'em.
They're like blasters. They also aggro like blasters. So the kobolds will always make a
beeline for them and try to hem them in. That's when you quickly select them and start
spam healing because their hp bar plummets after that. :P And then you play ping pong
with the other guy's hp (so glad it's not mine) until the warriors finish up their kobolds
and come over to rescue you.

Rogues and rangers also have this animal magnetism thing about them. Their hp bar can
plummet just as precipitiously as the above two, they just don't aggro as often. So you
watch for the first hit to take off 1/3 of their hp, and then repeat from there.

Warrior-types need very little babysitting. Hp bar just creeps down steadily, and when
you feel like it's gone down a little too far, you pop off a heal once in a blue moon to
make sure he feels coddled all the same. Unless they get into a massive ambush, in which
case, it's back to spam heal city. :P

I've gotten used to just backing off and not aggroing the moment I need to drop into
spam heal mode. Maybe about 50% of the time. Otherwise, if the fight is going well, I
just run up like a secondary bodyguard and bash stuff with the fighters. No one seems to
be unhappy about this. I'm thinking maybe I should figure out how to do ranged combat
more effectively, but my crossbow skills kinda suck atm anyhow. I'm almost always
needing to move, (so sue me, I'm twitchy) and I can't move and load a crossbow, which
tends to get me locked in constantly trying to reload, and the game telling me "You can't
fire a missile weapon without reloading."

I feel like an adequate cleric. I'm surely not great. I haven't mastered the art of buffing
yet, nor have spells enough. I'm fairly poor at multitasking fighting and healing. But I
now do know enough to back off and focus on healing some squishies and can ping-pong
combat a constant assault on someone's health bar.

A 'trial by fire' test of this was when last night's group tried to do a quest called "Walk
the Butcher's Path" on hard difficulty. Hahaha. Our first kobold ambush sent hitpoint
bars across the board PLUNGING. I was fighting to keep 5 different people running
madly around the fray from dying. I think I did a fairly good job because at the end of it,
everyone was down to slivers of hp, I had been cure light wounding the sorceror out of
death's door collapse - stands up, gets shot by a kobold, drops again, CLW, stands up,
repeat x 5 - but he ended up standing. There was only one guy down, and that was the
barbarian guy called F, apparently from China, who looked and sounded like a newbie,
couldn't communicate for beans.not that I wanted to be discriminatory, but I was in
rapid-panic battlefield triage mode after 15 seconds or so - and I figured he would be the
least capable of helping to rescue the fight rapidly going sour, and so focused on keeping
the other four standing once I saw everyone's hp bar going south in a hurry.

Everyone agreed the difficulty level was set way too hard. (What'd you expect, your
cleric's spellpoints dropped from 183 to 23, and that was just the /first/ encounter.) But
I was rather pleased at my performance, even though practically everyone was nearly
dead by the end of it. At least they weren't. And it could so easily have been, if the cleric
was a little slower or left behind or just being a rabid mace-wielder.

I feel a little more useful now. I may not be a great player, I still zone fairly slowly,
sometimes I find it hard to orientate myself while the rest of the team has zipped up
ahead and ran off without me (I suspect they've all got points into some kind of running
or jumping skill and are wearing light armor) while here I am with points invested into
big dallops of healing and staggering around with 14 str, 12 dex, half-plate armor and a
heavy steel shield +1 (literally, sic).

But I am literally your last best hope on the team. :P I extend team lifespan, essentially.
I'm not needed if everything is chugging along at an easy pace. But when stuff is dry, the
next rest shrine is far away, that's when I can stretch you out a little more by providing
hp and spellpoints. Not a whole lot, I can't restore you to full, but enough.

No News...

...is good news.

From my latest blog entries you'd think all that I have been doing is playing
DDO. Far from it. DDO is just something new, and yet all-too-familiarly D&D.
With all its inherent ups and downs.

I don't really have much to comment on CoX-side. Black Jeremiah's doing great
with SOs, and now cheerfully soloing stuff on vicious. Enhancements are dropping
considerably more than at lvl 17-18 when I really needed them. Cashflow-wise, I
think I'm still going to be hard up, but I'll survive the lvl 30s. Maybe by
switching back to mostly DOs until lvl 35 - when affording SOs should be no
problem.

Either that, or I might do a respec eventually. Reselling enhancements might
help to make the 30's affordable. I'm seriously considering dropping smoke. I
almost never use the damn power. I'm not a sneaky type. And the -acc debuff
apparently sucks. I can put it back in if they ever think to improve the debuff.
(Since controllers nor dominators are a debuff class, I doubt it will -ever-
improve.) I'd like to try out aid self for pvp. Unfortunately, that means two
powers. Not sure what the other one I want to drop. Possibly combustion or
bonfire.

I really want to try out bonfire, maybe I'll be able to think of a creative use
and control for a placeable knockback. I'm just a bit worried that it'll become
a white eleplant. Combustion is a poor aoe anyhow, I don't mind dropping it,
problem is it's slotted to go in at level 35. Which makes aid self useless for
Siren's pvp if I put it in then. The other power I get to play around with
rearranging is hotfeet.

I just took it at level 24. It's.interesting. It doesn't really have a big fear
factor on yellow mobs that I can see. I'm just getting shot to pieces. Possibly
it's not hitting, I only have a DO accuracy in it at the moment. I am hoping
with greater accuracy (x2), and slotted slow (x3), the -speed and runaway fear
becomes significant. I doubt it'll actually do that much damage except in
domination/fiery embrace, so slotting damage seems like a tertiary concern.

If it still sucks, I'm dropping it like a hot potato and going the aid self
route without qualms. If it doesn't, then I have a powers order arrangement
problem.

Team-wise, teaming on pinnacle at non-peak hours is still as pathetic ever. Like
attempting to team on all servers at non-peak hours, actually. Teaming on
relatively peak hours is still a 50/50 silence through a LFT flag/get a team
issue on the drunk server. And then the chances of getting a godawful rotten
team are still awfully high.

I did meet some people with a clue though, and they were usually members of two
SGs, Last Exit and Eternity. A couple of them are now friended, and while I'm
happy to exchange mutually resigned tells with them about the dumb-as-fuck PUG
team we ended up on, they're all a couple levels higher than me - and I don't
subscribe to the school of thought that I need to be a constantly chatty pest to
people I've friended. I dislike it when random people come and pester me, I
always keep wondering if they just want to get on my +3 to them teams for xp.

Doesn't matter. Have unlocked Sharkhead contacts and am churning my way through
the story arcs for the bonus xp. Not much worth reporting on. Just fun to put
some MP3s on, and do those missions. All very peaceful.

---

The hype for I7 is revving up. I'm really thrilled by the concept of Recluse's
Victory. It does sorta stand to reason that they ought to learn from their
mistakes and make sure victory is more easily reached than in Siren's Call - and
the lure of having signature heroes and villains come out, and having the
dynamic world changes - it should make capturing the pillboxes more valued. I
hope.

And I think it's ironically meaningful that the game starts and ends in Atlas
Park. :P It's kinda on the par of the Outbreak/Breakout tutorial word twist.

Mayhem missions just simply have to be cool. I dunno what someone can bitch
about in those. You're going to be breaking stuff. As long as you like the
combat of CoX and can deal with the repetitive missions, how can you object to
breaking and destroying stuff with your own combat animations?

I hope it comes out in April. Chances are more likely it'll hit in May though.
Probably during the anniversary celebrations or something.

---

KoL is as thrilling as ever. Stuff is rolling along. Stat-gaining has gotten a
little slow for me right now, so besides making a new resolution to cook up
enough batches of stat-gaining food to survive the ronin turns the next
Ascension, I'm camping out in the Treasury lowbie meat-gaining and working it
all off on a stat-gaining volleyball familiar in the arena. That should speed up
my current stat gains to work through the rest of the quests.

Seal-clubbing is actually quite refreshing after Sauceror-ing. Your muscle stat
is nice and high, so your hp is high, and you can always hit. Your main concern
is that you have enough moxie to survive - and my advanced saucecrafting can
make me moxie increasing potions, which gets me into places I shouldn't dream of
being for a valuable 5 adventures. Of course, what this means is that I have
totalled quite a few big bad quest bosses in too short a period, and I'm left
waiting around for my moxie to increase high enough to get to those I can't
survive, and my muscle to increase so that I can gain a level and the next
unlocked areas. :P

I'm finding it difficult to make a decision on which skill to preserve this go-
around. At first, I wanted to take thrust-smack, and do another seal clubber to
take the skill that guaranteeds thrust-smack hitting. Seemed like a guaranteed
hit combo would be worth the price of dual-admission. Especially when I do the
Moxie classes and get high Moxie - I'll need something to hit with.

But then, I'm taking a Teetotaller path for kicks. (And also Stomach of Steel
past the Friars). So shouldn't I just stick to it and preserve the skill for
future use? 20 fullness is -nothing- to sneeze at for future adventure gains.

And I found something -damn- nice about the seal clubber skill Tongue of the
Otter. It REMOVES negative effects apparently. And it demolishes "Beaten Up".
Totally. (Oh, and let's not forget it also heals you). Now, even though I tend
to use the beaten up turns to go fishing for drinks in the Barrel of Barrels, or
sewer fishing, I think it's just dang cool to be able to remove it without
needing to waste turns. I don't think it's the first skill I'm going to
preserve, but it's certainly something on the list.

And I gotta do Pastamancery some time and get whatever the noodle-making skill
is called. Making chow meins should be dang nice, especially in conjunction with
Stomach of Steel. I can save saucecrafting for upping moxie to no end.

I'm kinda pleased that my packratting habit has paid off this headlong
Ascension. Even blissfully unprepared, I still had enough leftover food and
degrassi junk to get me through the early levels. (I had such difficulty
locating tires the first time around that I have like 20 spare cogs, springs and
sprockets, even after umpteen quests and chef-in-the-boxes.) The saleable
dictionary is perfect for Ascensions. 21,337 meat is a lot and can gain you your
first few skills. I remember wondering how the heck people got enough money for
those skills, it seemed like so much the first go around. Now, it's like,
muhaha, no sweat, I can spend it now, there's the treasury to look toward, ten
leaf clovers if necessary, and later icy peak to get all that money going.

You know, I wonder.Is it possible to summon the leet haxx0r earlier on, if I got
the proper scrolls to combine for it? Something to do for the next softcore
ascension run, perhaps. That'll save me many hermit permits.

Rage, rage against the dying of the light

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Soloing a tank is a boring affair. Nothing in my own mission can kill me. Punchpunchpunch, next, punchpunchpunch. In a team though, the dynamics is a lot different.

Terra Volta respec. Ouch.

Somehow a mixture of human folly, greed, and my own newbishness at tanking. The lack of any fire defense or resists just make it worse, with all the +2, +3 bosses spraying me with flamethrowers.

The situation was just completely run away. I just felt like everything was barelling down a steep tunnel into a trainwreck of doom. Three energy blasters, only one of the three knew how to control the knockback. The continuing doom of energy torrent spawn after spawn. Except each spawn had a line of multiple bosses ready to toast me with flamethrowers.

Energy blast looks cool, is easier to survive solo. Very attractive to newbies. When the mobs are around me, and get energy torrented into a new spawn, there can only be two endings. The first, I hold my ground so as not to aggro everything, at which point the torrented mobs shoot the blaster, and the blaster dies. The second, I run forward, at which point I die, or I continue to hang on, as the combined two spawns get torrented into the third.

Also, I think I have pretty bad grasp of my own aggro radius. Sometimes I'm the one doing the extraneous aggroing. Coming from a guy who's been running on a steamy-misted controller all the time. Dang if I go within a mile of anything, they get pissed.

Whatever it is, on my part I couldn't get the skyraiders to stay put and hit me. Everything just goes all over the place. Tried to grab as much aggro as I could, just couldn't keep my thumb on it all. And the moment I died, everyone else died. I died. A lot.

I couldn't really feel angry at the two blasters. It's like they are completely clueless anyway. "Try not to blast the mobs into the next spawn" -- and a few seconds after I said this...energy torrent again, straight down the corridor, into a pack of jumpbots, who were not amused.

I really don't think I could have even survive more than ten seconds without the empath constantly pumping me with heals. And not even the empath could save me from a double spawn of bosses.

Then you have the other tank, who was the same level as I was (25), but won't sidekick until we strongarmed him into it. Even sidekicked to 28, I could barely stand against the ridiculous hordes of level 30 jumpbots. What makes him think he could? The days of the invincible tank are over, buddy.

I fracking don't know what he was doing, because if he was standing in the middle of the mobs he certainly wasn't tanking, just standing there. Same old story. I die, everyone else wipes within 30 seconds, except for that guy who is still there with the empath trying to keep him alive.

But seriously, I just have no idea what to do when the mobs are all over the place, porting madly about, and probably hitting/AoEing everything. The days of idiot-button taunt are over too.

Actually, I'm glad the days of idiot-button taunt are over.

But I really don't know what to do to drag the mobs back towards me when they start that slow, horrible creep down the corridor/room to the next spawn. I can't go forward, it'd aggro everything else. I can't gale them back. I can't back up because everyone will advance and continue shooting anyway.

Finally, the blaster who did have a clue declared that she's done enough respecs to know that we couldn't do it, and she was quitting. That was the end.

I knew we would fail too. But I'd agreed to do the trial so I would just stay to the bitter end till the reactor gets overrun.

This is without doubt the most awful respec I have done. I was always the guy at the back, seeing everything, and as they say, "influencing the flow of the battle", baby-sitting the half-witted. Now I'm in the front getting splattered on the ground, unable to do anything as the situation goes bazookers. Can't even babysit.

I just hate this, when I die, I know everyone is going to wipe. Lying on the floor watching the situation degenerate is as awful as it gets. And then you see that guy running away at almost full health and you wonder what the frack he was doing.

DDO: Level 2

Today, I was lucky enough to get on a family group in DDO. Husband and wife and son plus wife's brother. So the cooperation was great, there wasn't a lot of crazy kamikazing and dying, and I actually felt useful and functional saving up my heals for the worrying fights, or for the ranger and thief who always kept attracting aggro, even though they're sitting way in the back.

We ran through a bunch of quests, and got enough xp to get me to level 2. Yay.

The one slight depressing thing about D&D though, is that the class difference is really painfully obvious. We let this one paladin called Thell just race ahead like a barbarian, and he was our main tank and kobold killer. The mage hovered around behind and cast a bunch of flame spells - probably burning hands. The ranger and thief stayed behind and shot arrows. The bard and cleric, well, we basically sat on our hands, waving a random weapon around, waiting for a suitable time to cast 'cure light wounds'. :P

I don't know. I'm making this sound dreadfully depressing. But it's not horrible, otherwise I wouldn't keep playing it. I found it quite enjoyable to be in the back row, playing secondary tank bodyguard to the wizard, thief and ranger who kept getting swamped by kobolds rushing past the primary tank. There's nothing quite like the adrenaline in seeing someone get a bad hit, racing to press the hotkeys to select the toon and cure him, and then have him go phew and thank you gratefully afterward.

Because this ain't CoX. The emp defender does not have an unlimited end bar. You don't have 300 hp to play with. The squishies can and will die in three hits or less. So every 'heal' you get is damn significant.

I think I'm just overreacting to the overspecialization - coming from a CoX background where no one AT is needed, ever. (Which still makes CoX the best MMO yet, imo).

You're really at the mercy of having a rogue who can disarm traps. Someone with high int to read runes. You need a fighter type to go kill stuff. And woe betide the party without a clerical healer either. In a way, it makes you special, you're the only one person in the party that can do this job, and you gotta do it well. But it also drags down the pace because everyone has to be civil and courteous to each other, and wait for everyone before moving on and so on.

The pace of DDO is much slower than CoX. And yet it also sometimes moves too fast, so you don't have time to actually read the quest stories. :P

The dungeon design itself is really very clever. A lot of secret doors, secret loot, and all that. It really replicates the dungeon crawl experience. Of course, again you need a good group for this, or eep, you're sliced and diced and SOL.

Sidetrek: Oblivion

Just heard a SGmate was playing this. So I had to go look it up. Ah, "The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion." That Oblivion.

Looks like it's just out. The graphics on this one are spectacular. And that's an understatement just looking at the screenshots. Bethesda always like to break such barriers. The outdoor trees especially floors me. It reminds me of a dream I had. :P

Must pick it up some time. Of course, with DDO and CoX, my attention is currently taken up. But then with S'pore's glacial import times, it should arrive and have time to drop in 'new game' price 6-9 months from now...

DDO: Leveling in D&D

I think I've figured out D&D's "fatal flaw", so to speak. And it has pen and paper roots.

Being finally a little fed up with trying to solo the cleric and/or running around at the mercy of others, watching them do stupid things, get killed, and feeling obligated to revive them somehow, and yet totally helpless, because one has just ran out of spells to do so...(Gee, it feels just like D&D, doesn't it, I could have sworn I read this scenario - or a similar variation thereof - in any number of Forgotten Realms / Dlance books...)

I decided to make the toughest freaking warrior I could think of. Since this was Eberron, there's a race called the Warforged. Which are basically sentient golems. +2 to con, -2 to wis and cha. And they can choose a beginning level feat which gives them adamantine armor - some amount of damage absorption. (I forget the number, if there's one thing I dislike about D&D 3.5, it's the insane amount of numbers, it's better off calculated by the computer and shown to me.) No problem about the negative stats, because I wanted to be a warrior-type. Fighter was a possibility. Paladin = no, because it's reliant on charisma and later wisdom. Ranger in this game is a ranged attacker - not exactly tanky - so no. Oh look. A BARBARIAN! Base stat is CON.

Muhahaha. Give him 18 con, +2 = 20 con. I start with 37 hp at 1st level, and high damage absorption. As well as excellent saves vs poison, sleep, nausea, fatigue, and some other stuff.

Man, the difference in the low-level dungeons. I smoked the mobs with a giant greatclub. When I got into a group, I just charged like a dumbass barbarian into the kobolds, swinging wildly. That's my job anyhow, beat stuff down, be tanky, distract stuff from the squishies - and I think a greatsword in one's gut is mighty distracting. I like his look. But then I've always been a sucker for playing giant brutes. And I have to say, seeing the greatsword and its animation swing was worth the price of admission.

It's almost the splitting image of what I envisioned Flame to be swinging around.

Which reminds me, DDO is good for the imagination. That, and reading Elminster's Daughter, something I picked up recently in a secondhand bookshop. I'm almost feeling like I can imagine myself back into a fantasy world with my characters and start writing again. Almost. Not quite there yet, but a sight better than before.

---

The problem, that oh-so-annoying 'game design' flaw, that I think I've found...It's in the level gaining of D&D. You know why? Spellcasters at level 1...suck. They have limited amount of spells, they are like these little nooblet apprentices firing off one or two castings, and then cowering behind a table again. Meanwhile, fighters at level 1 are kicking butt and taking names.

Tell me, who is going to bother to pick up spellcasters at this stage to group with? They will just speed past to the higher levels. Meanwhile, the spellcasters are getting pwned by kobolds and are not getting any xp at all.

In the higher levels when a spellcaster would be really handy, and all the fighters are running around spellbound, cursed, feared, blinded, etc. Oops, there seems to be a lack of high level spellcasters for some reason...

I wonder why.

---

So sue me, I'm feeling just a little bitter. I know nothing can ever be totally balanced. But it's slightly galling when you realize the class difference and ease of soloing in DDO is larger than that of say, a brute vs a dominator.

I still don't mind working on the cleric, patiently trying to get her up a few levels. But it's just the sense of helplessness as you watch people run to their deaths, the frustration of feeling like a novice out of her depth, and the mad rush to stabilize them as they lie dying on the ground. Meanwhile, you still harbor some vague sense of guilt whenever you run up to whack something, because you're always thinking, should I be hitting, or should I be healing or saving someone...

Tricky, very tricky, multitasking a cleric.

On ironic news, I bumped into a random level 5 in a tavern who gifted Liara with a +1 mace and a +1 shield. Is it "female toon" syndrome at work again? But I think I'm suddenly a little buffer than the game expected, so doing some quests with her is worth another try. But possibly AFTER I do them with Silverstone, my warforged barb, so that I know wtf is coming.

Teaming's been weird. I've been having periods of not getting any teams at all. I've had periods of getting three tells and invites in a row, usually just as I accept the first one. Once we get into the dungeon, people are generally quite well-behaved since the first time, stick together relatively well - or maybe I'm getting better at chasing. No one has shouted or gone berserk at any behavior (from me, or even from some other moronic players - eg. a mage running around clubbing stuff and not spellcasting counts even in my nooblet book as being more than a little odd) yet, so maybe the elitist 'tude on the forums is just that, a forums thing.

The annoying part is the time in between 'quests'. Because everyone scatters out to go heal at a tavern, repair/sell/buy stuff - it's very hard to get refocused on a new quest if the leader doesn't pick one and decide in a hurry. So you end up standing around with a lot of downtime, wondering if the leader is ever going to tell you what they're going to do next.

Of course, all this could be the low level scene. Just as Hollows teams at 6-12 are not indicative of the entire CoX teaming game, I can't conclude anything much of DDO from this perspective yet. It's going to take the poor cleric some time to grow out of this viewpoint though. Perhaps a little sooner for the barbarian.

DDO: FLW #1

DDO sure brings to mind all the 'interesting' times of D&D. I think I'm going to be able to compile a new book of "Famous Last Words."

Ironically, just as I plugged in my mike, I got onto a team without any. Ok, nm, I don't like hearing my own voice anyhow. Stuff went by relatively well, until our rogue quit, and then there was this room with a fire trap. Immediately, two of our members tried to charge through the blazing flame and gee, surprise, they died.

We stood there for a while, trying to figure out a way to get past. Couldn't. So the wizard suggested going on another quest. Ok. So she ran in and died to the trap and rezzed outside.

Me not being content, examined the map one more time, then realized that the room was a dead end...and that there was another passage leading to mission completion.

I mentioned this as I zoned out...the reply I got from the kamikaze-rs?

"Yeah, but there is hot loot in there"

DDO: First Team

Lol. I knew it was bound to happen. Got onto a team, and they started running around doing quests. Of course, I didn't even know which quest was where, so I just ended up watching where all the blue dots (aka CoX green team member arrows) vanished on the map, and then running over there and trying to click stuff to get into the mission.

Then the speed at which they ran around. Hahaha.

Try to imagine this. You're a lowbie 'healer' with only a pathetic single-target heal. Like, rad defender type of pathetic, but not even AoE.

Your team is full of what 'seems' to be Leeroy Jenkineses, but probably two over-experienced fighter + ranger and one newbie-esque ranger. Who TEAR and RACE around the entire map like they've been speed boosted, slaughtering umpteen kobolds. In the process, they get a little dinged.

And here you are, with a very limited 'end bar' or mana points that won't recharge except if there's a 'rest shrine' and you can only rest once per mission. *gulp* You start to wonder, should I let them get a bit banged up? Because it's strategy not to waste so much mana. So ok, I let them get banged up a bit.

At least this group never demanded the cleric to do anything. Either my newbieness was painfully obvious, or they were just too leeeeroy to care. :P

But I try to make sure none of them drop below half hitpoints, and keep the 'cure light wounds' for those situations. No sweat. When they were together, that is.

As the dungeon got explored, they started looking for objects, loot, treasure, mission objectives, and wow...the party fragmented into five separate directions. :P And me, the lil lost cleric still standing behind at the ladder, wondering how to climb up.

Eventually, I ran out of mana trying to keep them above half hp. They still continued to race around. At this point, I was thinking of that nice little rest shrine I passed by earlier. Why don't they want to take a knee and rest? Nevermind, even if they won't, I will go and rest there and get enough mana, and then I can heal them again...

Of course, while I was resting, our Leeroys got themselves ambushed by kobolds. And two of them got killed. D'oh. So here I am, now at full hp and mana, and miles away from where the two buggers died. And I had no idea how to use my 'stabilizing' skills anyhow, and no clue where they were. Bring up the map and slowly stumble my way over, wondering if I'd get to them before they bled to death's door.

Newp. :P They dropped dead, someone else picked up their soul stones and brought it to the rez shrine and got 'em rezzed.

They're probably telling pickup group stories of the clueless cleric who was nowhere to be found when they needed her. :P

On the bright side, none of them went berserk on me or even said anything about 'healz'. All very polite and such.

Maybe I should try making a solo paladin or ranger to walk myself through some of these lowbie quests so I don't look a total idiot trying to find some of these locations. Hard to orientate oneself when everyone seems to have memorized everything already.

DDO: Flying Solo

I always like to putz around by myself for a bit in any game. No matter how supposedly team-reliant. Just to get a feel for things, see if it's really that hard to go solo, and also to do all the stupidly Darwin Award-worthy things where no one can see. :P

In the utter early levels, meaning tutorial, and not even out of the first rank of Level 1 yet, I'm finding it very enjoyable learning things by myself.

Ironic story: Just as I got out of the tutorial, I got a blind invite. Me being the morbidly curious sort, I accept. I get into this team of five other people, all voice-chat enabled, and they immediately ask me to turn on voice-chat. Uh oh. Yo, I'm a noob out of tutorial, I haven't even figured out half the buttons on the interface yet!

Luckily, I managed to figure out how teamchat works, and I shared the fact I was new with the bunch of them. Call me cunning, but since I know voice-chat features heavily in this game (and I do have a microphone-capable headphone collecting dust, cos I was too embarassed to hear the sound of my own voice - if I get more comfortable with DDO, I'll plug it in), I decided to go the female cleric route first. With a pretty and pronouncable name. (Yeesh, it took a while to get a name that wasn't already taken.)

"Liara." Whoo. Female in distress! Confessing she's new, asking for help. I got the most detailed instructions ever on how to enable hearing voice comm. One of them volunteered to "go get her". Another one shared that, "Oh, I'm also new at this cleric thing, so don't worry." Yet another said, "No worries, just stay back and heal."

I don't mean to imply they were condescending. No, actually I found them a cut above the normal mentally-impaired gamers, and I would have loved to do my first group adventure with them. Since I am a complete noob at this, staying back and healing (fulfill basic team role) -would- be the sensible thing to do until I got better at the game.

I was just totally amused and bemused at how 'helpful' and 'eager' they were. I don't know if it was the gender, the need for a cleric, or just people plain being nice.

Unfortunately, it was the wrong time for it. I literally just stepped off the boat in the tutorial, and I was still getting my feet wet, talking to NPCs and hadn't even gotten the initial 'hold-your-hand' type of quests. Eventually, they put two-and-two together and figured this out, since I hadn't even unlocked the part of the city they were in yet.

Then I think they were too embarassed to kick a newbie they just blind-invited just like that. Because one of them started giving me another detailed walkthrough on what I needed to do next, where the next quest was, "it's solo, so we can't help you through it, so sorry about that", the tavern with the quest was located where, the NPC with the quest is here, you have to do so-and-so to...unsoweiter.

Well, some desperate fooling around with the team interface revealed to me how to "Leave Party" and I thanked them and bowed out gracefully.

Which leads to a slight peeve I have about joining a quest-based game months late. (Goddamn Atari Singapore, why now then got the game. :()

I'm an Explorer in the Bartle sense. I get my kicks out of seeing something new. Something unexpected. I like to be surprised. I like to learn by doing. It's only after I've mucked around for a bit, got my hands dirty, then I go and read up some tips written by those who came before me, and if I'm really stuck, then I go get a walkthrough to be completist about things.

I don't really like being told in excrutiating detail what I have to do next when I could have the joy of the discovery. Now, if I was on a quest with the team, and there's critical information that would be good to have - like there's a trap over here, we have to turn such and such levers, please DO NOT charge into the next room because there's a godwaful beholder really to massacre the first moron walking in - that's cool if you want to share. I wouldn't have minded the OMGWTFBBQ surprise, but if you've already had it once and want to save us from the pain, I understand.

I also feel a bit inadequate when I look at the LFG team comments, and there are some cryptic jargon in there. Only 'ww' quests. Waterworks. (I think that's what ww means.) House quests. Market quests. Err...ok. Just don't expect me to know what they all mean yet until I get to that area. (Unfortunately, since probably 80% of them have played through beta, most of them are old hands at this.)

Anyhow, I'll worry about teaming later. Solo-wise, I'm really getting a kick out of DDO.

Graphically, the game looks very good. The customization details on the facial region are almost CoX quality. Don't think you can change the shape per se, but there's a wide variety of hairstyles, noses, eyebrows, lips, eyes, and colors.

The whole dungeon thing is very reminiscent of the pen and paper dungeon crawls. Almost every room you enter, there's an omniscient narrator that gives you a one or two sentence overview that sets the mood. There's traps. There's levers and puzzles to poke and push around. A lot of chests to open, and barrels and crates to wreck.

I keep thinking if you have a good group who doesn't mind going through things slowly and RPing, you could have a -very- pleasantly immersive experience.

I know I feel like a proper cleric when I'm by myself. I wear armour, I've gotten a heavy mace and steel shield. I can bonk things on the head. I can cast cure light wounds and bless. I'm thrilled to have monster summoning I (which gets me a celestial dog for a while, call me a secret ranger-wannabe, I love pet companions).

And it really feels properly level 1. :P I'm fighting kobolds. I got swamped by three of them and it was a furious fight. Panting when I won. A kobold shaman I wasn't expecting turned out damn tough because of the surprise factor.

And I just got surprised by a monster ambush by a chest. Soooo D&Dish. Here I am, gloating over my spoils, then I hear a funny noise. I turn around and SCREAM. 3-4 brown spiders (well, the game calls them brown spiders. I call them fucking GIANT brown spiders) are all over my viewscreen, each one taking up nearly a quarter of the screen space. I swing my mace wildly, cowering behind my shield, but I'm stuck in a dead-end sewer tunnel. You can guess, there wasn't a happy ending to that one. :P

There's nothing like the experience to really look back on and laugh.

Oh, other stupid things I've done. "I think I can swim this in scalemail, carrying a heavy mace and a heavy steel shield. I'll have breath enough. Doesn't look far." Famous last words. :P Well, it wasn't really my fault. The dang game auto-stuck me to a ladder when I wasn't expecting it and I ended up going up the ladder at a snail's pace, when I could have shot up like a fish in a hurry...(whee, rationalizations. Just glad this Darwin Award thing was done alone.)

I think all this stuff would be really funny in a team who knows each other. But doesn't know the dungeon's secret. In a PUG, I think people might feel a bit more threatened by someone doing something stupid - ie, clueless noob.

The whole xp after mission thing is something I'm enjoying too. It's a change of mechanics. You're less fixated on xp and more interested in completing the mission objectives. Not to mention wrecking stuff and getting your grimey fingers on copper and silver pieces that always conveniently inside barrels and chests. (Note to self: Never store your worldly wealth in underground barrels and chests. S' a lousy hiding place.) The xp will clink in later.

I just need a couple friends, not strangers, to be stupid in a group with. :P

Sidetrek: Grouchy

I'm having one of those days when nothing seems to be going as well as you'd like. It's not a BAD day, per se, it's just: You expect something to happen, and then something comes along with a little 'story twist' that says, nope, ain't gonna happen how you expect, your stress level goes up just a mite higher as you deal.

Starts off in the morning with work...
Expected: Not supposed to be working this Saturday. Supposed to have a three day weekend + a leave day I took, hoping to make it a nice peaceful four day stretch.
Twist: Yesterday, I get informed I need to come in to do a 'special' presentation.
Well, ok, fine, I'll get a half-day off some other time, so much for my nice peaceful four days...

Expected: Presentation to start at 10am. Over by 11am, stone until time to go home.
Twist: Oh, the previous speaker is speaking so longwindedly he took up half an hour more, it'll be later on in the day.

Fine. Just have to deal with rising stress levels from idiots who can't anticipate how many notes to print, and so keep asking us, as the venue hosts, to do errand boy work and photocopy MORE. I did this twice (20 copies of 8 pages, double-sided, 5 copies of 16+ pages, double-sided) for someone, another person had to make more of the first, and then my bosses' boss was also being too nice to said idiots and made even MORE photocopies for said idiots, and didn't even manage to catch our presentation. Cos she was photocopying and stapling stuff. Wow. :(

Expected: Audience to leave for refreshment break. We move into vacated auditorium to set up our presentation.
Twist: Said disorganized meeting host idiot (the one who kept begging for photocopies) rushes out in a tizzy. Oh noes, the caterers are late! How do we keep them entertained? Can you guys start your presentation first?!

My boss, naturally, blows a fuse at this. We need set up time, after all. What kind of fucking schedule do you guys have around here? We're caught in the middle, trying to be polite to the meeting host, while our bosses have had enough of this rubbish and want to be a little difficult. Personal stress levels rising...

Expected: Finally, the caterers manage to arrive just in time. Audience is shooed out for food. We move in to set up our stuff.
Twist: Just as I am setting up our laptop, screwing in the projection cable, the idiot meeting host hurries over with a group going "Oh, could you give us that projection cable...We want to have an AGM now." We go, "Huh? Now? Here?" She goes, "Yes. Now. Here."

"..."

What? Can't you see on your own damn schedule that our presentation is supposed to be HERE. NOW. And that we were lurking outside the auditorium for the past 1.5 hours waiting for our set-up time. Suddenly, you've made an unconsulted decision to use OUR time for your AGM. *rolls eyes*

We're supposed to be having concurrent presentation sessions at five different venues right now. 4/5s of your previous audience are having their proper workshops as planned. Our audience is now a captive audience for your precious AGM (which will only take 5-6 minutes, no worries!)

Anyhow, long story short, we FINALLY get our presentation over and done with, and we FINALLY retreat back upstairs leaving the meeting hosts to be disorganized without involving us any further, bitching bitterly about said idiots. Time flies by, we go home.

Expected: Me, I'm very happy because yesterday, I telephone stalked Tec-Drome and found out that yes, DDO is finally out on Friday, and that you can come collect it any time. So I ran over to Sim Lim and picked up DDO, cackling with glee.
Twist: I install DDO. No problems. I try to sign up for a billing account. The "submit" button doesn't seem to work. Oh, maybe it's my 'accept no cookies' settings for IE. I flick billing.turbine.com temporarily to the trusted zone. Still doesn't work. Odd. I try using Firefox with everything enabled. Newp. I run to the forums and find out the billing server seems to be down.


"..."

I'm trying to PAY you, and you don't even want my MONEY. *sniffs* So much for DDO anticipation until their stupid billing server comes back up.

Well, I spent the time looking at the DDO forums. I'm mildly worried because there seems to be a huge controversy over how to play a cleric. The healbot vs battle cleric, healer vs emp defender debate, appears to be going strong whichever MMO you go to. Goddamn Everquest. Your gaming tropes are permanently ingrained into a substantial subset of the population.

After reading all those stories, I think I'm just going to have to grow a thick skin, and resign myself to being kicked out of groups, no matter what I do or don't do. Don't heal? Get kicked. Heal too much, run out of mana points, can't heal anymore, then party dies? Get kicked. Swing a weapon in the wrong group who wants healz0rs to be good lil healz0rs? Get kicked.

I think it's just a human emotion to be a little fearful of rejection, to want to make people happy with you and like you, that you want to be perfect and respected and be called a god (of healing or of whatever). I'd like to be a good player who won't get kicked. Especially in such a team reliant game as DDO.

But I also don't want to be a healbot. There's a word for that. It's called, go play Guild Wars and get a computer-controlled healer henchman. They are happy to spam heals ad nauseam. If you die with one of those, and still want a 'real' human being, then you're evidently being so stupidly leeroy jenkins that only a real human can pull your fat out of the fire.

So I guess I'll have to stop wanting to be so perfect, but still recognize my emotions for being what they are. It's ok to want to seek approval. It's only not OK if you think getting approval from online gamers will validate your existence, and vice versa, if rejection from others online will crush your self-esteem flat or something.

It's a game. With social interaction. We're going to have fun learning something new. We'll make mistakes, laugh about it, disregard the uptight idiots and meet people who are a little less starched in the shorts about things. In the end, it'll even out. Birds of a feather flock together. I want to befriend those who aren't obsessed number-crunching min-maxers that are out to dictate how other people play their characters.

Whatever. Worse come to the worse, I'll rack up such a lousy reputation on the cleric that I'll just have to delete it and start anew, with more wisdom about how to cleric properly, that can only come through firsthand gameplaying experience. :)

Now if only the STUPID BILLING SERVER would stop being broken.

Lonely lonely world

Wow. I think it's sheer stubborness making me level Black Jeremiah now. Why? It's freaking lonely in Pinnacle. I think I'm spoiled by the sheer number of people on Freedom, making the chances of finding a good team that much higher. So far, my Pinnacle count is something like 2 horrible teams, 3 pathetic, 1 semi-ok, 1 presentably good. And about 50+ missions soloing, probably.

Something's really wrong when I make more xp soloing on heroic than in a team. Why? Because the dumbfuck of a teamleader keeps selecting missions -2 to my level, when I have plenty, at villainous so it's not going to be like insanely difficult (trying to make my crappy enhancements last as long as possible without having to deal with missing yellow and orange on vicious).

I've really grown to detest Pinnacle PUG teams. On CoV side anyhow. I suspect they are all newbies, and so have no clue how to play and are just feeling their way through it. And when I'm not a brute or tank, I cannot set the pace and keep the team going - this really bugs me. I get to wait for them to zerg rush by shooting a mob and letting the spread out chaos happen...And my already crappy AoEs cannot be used because there's no point trying to hit only 3 mobs, when I could have hit 11 before. And it's also galling because the spread out chaos 'works' in a really messy, throw more heals at it to solve the problem, kind of way.

It's not the beautiful team interaction that it is strongly encouraged to be in CoH, and does leak over through player habit on CoV teams that have a clue how to play the game.

Oh, and no one bothers to heal the fucking dominator.

It's a sore point. You're all so focused on having as much heals as possible, your dominator is doing his best to control shit that's too much for him, he sucks up aggro and gets half his hp pounded out of him, and it's not even as if he runs around the corner and is never see again. He's bitterly hopping like a maniac around mobs if there's a kineticist, around the /darks themselves and especially the precious pets, and sometimes if he's lucky, he manages to catch a heal - but no one makes the effort to go over and try a little help. WTF is this? My MM bothers to toss an alkaloid down anybody's way.

And then you have the nerve after that to call a dominator gimp. Cos he dies so often, or doesn't do enough damage or doesn't heal you or whatever.

Grrr. I think I'm really going to end up just plain soloing until I get my fire imps. Then the next time I get one of these invites to a crap team, I'll come over, raze the mobs to the ground, and then quit. :P

If I ever get to my next level of 20 - about 6 bars to go, very slow progress atm - I think I'm going to Test and try out hotfeet. I ought to be taking health, then stamina at 22, before I ruin myself for good, but I'm hearing so much good about it from Anglican that I've got to try it out. I suppose two chain holds and then running hotfeet would stop much of the mobs dashing out problem, solo anyhow. It might also kill any semblance of an end bar.

Decisions, decisions. Maybe I should drop either combustion or consume until later and go for hotfeet first. Combustion is supposedly quite wussy. It's also an AoE toggle dropper though, which would wreak some havoc in pvp. Right now though, looking at Bloody Bay, if I find any pvp in Siren's, I'm going to be freaking lucky.

---

Speaking of PvP, I'm looking forward to Recluse's Victory. The Gamespot article suggests that it's going to be a control point capture minigame. And if they've managed to learn from Siren's Call, and made it more worthwhile to capture strong points, then having DoD or TFC in CoX can't go wrong, imo. All the powersets with more static defences should be happier. That should be a nice place to spend some time in come level 50.

---

On other news, I Ascended in KoL. Fun. I've also learned a few things leaping headlong into the first Ascension. Such as, it's wise to brew up a stock of level gaining food BEFORE leaping headfirst into one. I'm stuck as a lvl 3 Seal Clubber with lots of moxie (thanks to leftover goat cheese pizzas) and no way to get more muscle except the hard way. :P Oh well. I'm not trying to do speed Ascension here. I can spend another month bashing shit up.

I'm a little worried that I can't seem to use Advanced Saucecrafting yet. I hope it's just my pathetic low level that is the issue. If it's something to do with not having Mana Points, but Muscularity Points, then I'm screwed. :P I'm a potions addict. And it did wonders for jacking up my moxie to a high enough level to go through the tough zones without dropping dead.

The "Zone"

Finally got Twilight Sunder to 22, SOs and KO Blow. I love KO Blow -- I love it so much when solo, I like to stand around waiting letting mobs whiff at me, just for KO Blow to recharge, just so I can KO Blow them. It's awfully funny to see some guy fly up, smash into the ceiling, and rebound to the ground. By the way, the AS on MA stalkers has the same sound effect as KO blow. Now you know why the animation looks like you are suffering from constipation, because you are squatting as the sound drags out, and finally you stand up/push your palms forward as the sound ends. And there is satisfying "Pop". :P

Life is so much better after stamina and SOs. Now I can stand up to +2s for a pretty reasonable time, indefinitely so with some form of support. There were a few ugly incidents with a team calling me a newbie because I told them I didn't need a "healer" and I didn't understand what the term meant. That when the only time I or anyone else faceplanted was because they aggroed three spawns on us, including the spawn with the mission boss.

Seriously, the last thing I need is a healer. I take sporadic chunks of damage. The so-called "healer" just spam healing aura like mindless monkeys and don't pay attention to what is actually happening. This kind of works with a resist-tank who is taking a little bit of damage all the time so healing aura keeps them alive. I basically take no damage until sometimes when I suddenly take a lot of damage, and at those times I find I have to heal myself because the "healer", for all the healing aura he's spamming, is actually snoring away. I prefer to get some kind of debuffs/bubbles that just cuts down those damage streaks so I can slowly regen my way through.

Besides, I was a non-empath defender/controller first before I ever rolled this tank. That "healer" shtick doesn't sell to me. I find it funny that people keep trying to sell it to me though.

I wasn't going to take taunt, but I think I'm going to skip handclap for taunt instead. Sometimes I feel like when the mobs are semi-spread out, and there is extra aggro, I can't keep everything under control. Especially when I'm stuck in the middle of eight mobs and two run off to hit the blaster. Right now (if they don't throw AoEs), I'll just run over and punch those two, but then I'm worried that those mobs following me around might start hitting other people if I drag them too close to the squishies.

Also, for someone who has developed all sorts of tactics to bunch mobs up, I don't understand why the modus operandi of energy or storm users seem to be "Knock mobs in a linear fashion down a long corridor, aggroing successive spawns". For heavens sake... -- and this isn't a "I hate kb because I melee" complaint -- There's such thing as "angles of attack". When you use kb, you need to be mobile and constantly adjust your angle of attack. E.g. in a long corridor I will throw thundercloud, then jump to the other end and shove the mobs the other way.

=======================Hurricane
B             S       /  
D  Cloud->>  ST  <<--( Me
B             S       Hammer....Killzone....Anvil
=======================

Or, an alternative configuration is

===================================
             Cloud    (
Reef      B     |       \  Me
       B        v        \ Hurricane   Ocean
        Blap  SSTS     Blap
=================================Cliff

If you do something like this, you're going to end up with endless grief:

======================================
        B        \     STSS
B    Idiot)------> mobs----> mobs---->
B        / spam gale
======================================

When out in the open, you don't do this:

                          /
      Cloud--->          /
          Idiot)))-> mobs----> Complete scatter
              gale                                 

You need to do this:

        ______>________
       /                            Mobs       \ Corral
      ^   MobsSTSSMobs   v
       \      Mobs      /
        \________<_____/

I just see so many storm users make the mistake of standing where the mobs should be, and letting the mobs stand where the corral should be, even in door missions where there are lots of walls and corners. They really need to read Sun Tzu's Art of War.
- You need to surround the enemy, not let the enemy surround you.
- You need to hold the high ground.
- You need to flank the enemy and block escape routes, not aid the enemy in escaping.

Not that I don't get into such situations too, but that's when things get really out of control and at that time it's just "to the hell with it and eat a tornado" time.

Also, in open areas, you can't throw cloud at ground level because...

   [cloud]->-> mobs ------> Complete scatter
____________________________

You got to do it from high up (jump/fly)

             [cloud]
               /
     'cane   knockdown
BBB _))->___mobs__

It just suprises me how people just throw powers "Any Old How". You really can't just take a positional powerset and think it's a radiation emission clone where you just dump the power and it works.

Of course, the fun part is that you can only always just "estimate" how it works. Sometimes it just goes haywire, but that's the fun part.


* * *

Other than geographical "zones", there's also the mental "zone". Somehow I got recruited for Lusca in IP late at night. Just one team trying to take down the squid. Normally, people tend to just lump up around the tentacle and die a lot. That's because they don't know the tentacles do a cone attack. This time I had the opportunity to try out my theory -- people didn't have to die that much fighting Lusca. So I would go to the other side of the tentacle and punch it there, and it would get pissed and whack me. This didn't work very well when there were multiple tentacle aggros (they just hit in a line), but when we managed to get a sole tentacle or triangle tentacle formation, I could direct the "tentacle attack lines" away from the other people, and told them not the stand in the cones.

But that hurt. I think I got to debt cap on Lusca, and my progression on my next damage badge went from 1/2 to 19/20. Haha.

There's this "mental zone" thing. The tentacles were hitting me, but I had a shitload of hitpoints with hoarfrost up (which also gave some toxic resist), and some lucks when I could buy them. I knew that I could probably die any time, but I also knew I couldn't just run away. The empaths were healing me as fast as they could and my hitbar looked like a yo-yo on steroids. But I still couldn't just run away, because I had those tentacle cones centered on me and if I moved the cones would whack the blasters, defenders, and scrappers (yes, those scrappers were still squishy compared to me, even though I'm a "gank". And if they died or get hit/run away then the damage output drops).

At some point the hitbar didn't matter anymore. Somehow this strange sense of being invincible came over me. I was sure the empaths would keep me alive. I couldn't die...I "knew I couldn't die"! "Take that you tentacle! Kapow!" (And that's where KO blow is so fun to use). And somehow it's like having two tentacles whacking me didn't "hurt" (because the hitbar didn't matter). Damn, and I felt important because those tentacles were pissed at me and not at anyone else ;P

When you stare "electronic death" in the face and laugh, you're not afraid of "electronic death".

An hour later, an SGmate wanted to do her cape mission, so she and the other SG controller sked me up and we went to Brickstown. At first, she'd find some +2 spawns and go "Let's pull". But nah...compared to just now against Lusca, I had bubbles and fortitude on me. Why should I be scared of some silly Crey? I teleported in, and indeed, nobody even took a scratch.

They were just scared because in the past, they could buff *cough* certain "unnamed persons", and those "unnamed persons" would be in godmode...but those "unnamed persons" would never help anyone else, specifically the people who couldn't buff themselves. Ice controller's typical battle would go like "drop ice slick, run around trying to survive while spamming o2 boost on others". Empath once said to me "I'm such a useless person, I keep dying" (when she was sked up by the "unnamed person" for his missions).

Not that I'm a great tank or anything, but at least I try to keep aggro, which was all they needed in the first place. They're not idiots after all. When someone buffs you to an unkillable stage, the least you can do for them is to make use of that unkillability. (Comment on the strange "support class mentality" where they would still keep buffs on selfish morons because of the shape of their AT icon, when they might as well buff each other.)

After a while, the "let's pull" thing stopped. They just let me jump into stuff. Nobody took a scratch. (How can you have a scratch when you have bubbles, ice slick, fortitude and an empath ready to pump you full of heals the moment to get a splinter in your pinky? As long as the bubbler and the empath aren't being pumped full of bullets, that is.)

At some point during the aura hunt, an ambush came by and aggroed a bunch of Freaks... +6 Freaks :P. But like I said, bubbles + fortitude == godmode. So I just tanked the Freaks together with the Rikti. And our empath went "HOLY SHIT THIS IS GREAT".

No, it's not great. It's how it should be. That's the way it's always been, always have been possible. I think you've just been always wasting your buffs on someone who doesn't give a damn about your well-being.

I think that's why the old tank who left our SG some time ago and came back to team a bit on his empath (another empth) was spewing hate on "unnamed person", making all sorts of jabs about him being a squish, needing heals, and he (the old tank/empath) wasn't going to follow that squish around. :P

Doing Your Job

I think I’m really addicted to dominator playstyle. Either that or some character concepts and costume choices are just more fun than others. I really like my new dom. And it helps that I’m in a just-starting SG and feel competitive enough to keep ahead of the pack in levels and prestige, so to speak. I feel like I’ve got the same bug as when I started leveling Invictus and Malentis.

I’m starting to eat, drink, sleep, dream CoV and itching for the next time I can get on and play Black Jeremiah a little more. Get a new power and see something cool happen. Get enough money for one more DO, etc.

And in having my thoughts turned to the game practically all the time, I really wonder as to the teaming difference between CoH and CoV.

---

It’s like as heroes, there’s a trust out there that everyone will do their jobs, perform their expected function, as well as they can. The jobs are also pretty clear cut. Of course, noobs who have alarming power set choices or just don’t get it will always be around, especially at the low levels. But I seem to enjoy the teaming synergy more in CoH, it’s something relied upon for years so the formula is known, and it’s something that seems more done in CoH.

In CoV, it seems like there’s a ‘coward’ sort of villainous mindset abounding. Not me first. You go. I don’t want to die. I’m squishy. My pets are squishy. Or at least a confusion as to the team roles. So we all stand around waiting for someone to take alpha (yo, brute. Or mm…) Or for someone to brave a pull (ouch, there’s a chance that all of them could come and shoot at me. No way, -you- pull…)

Makes it very hard to team.

Although…while typing this, it has occurred to me why I feel a difference between CoH and CoV. I usually play alpha-strike capable classes CoH-wise. I always lead in when I play a tank. If not, I start the fight with a corner pull. I’m pace-setting.

The warshade is now alpha-strike absorb-capable thanks to black dwarf. So yes, if I see people getting wishy washy, I just zot into the lobster and soak alpha. People follow blindly once they see someone start, and there’s always someone on the team who will never understand aggy and steal it – not hard from a dwarf. Then I get to double mire and zot to nova and end the fight.

CoV, I’m usually a dom. Ice is well…the slick is pretty, but I really hate the return strike, so I don’t soak alpha with it much. I do start combats with Frosty once I got him though. I’m not high level enough yet to use flashfire without flinching, but once I get it to SOs, I think I would open with it. Especially if I can get cinders slotted as a backup once the disorient wears off.

That said, I dunno. Even if I was playing a brute, I think I would be very nervous about alpha soaking. I feel squishier than a tank. Granted, I’m not high level enough to slot defences to round it out yet.

But I think I would resent aggro holding as a brute. I don’t think it’s in my job description to hold aggy or rescue anyone, it’s too…heroic. Whaddya think I am? A tank? I’m supposed to be a berserker. Concept-wise, it doesn’t jibe. Game-wise, from the squishy side of things, I LOVE a brute who would deign to hold aggro and make the effort to save a fellow villain, I worship the ground he walketh upon. Even if I personally don’t want the responsibility as one, that duty seems like the realm of tankhood…Brutes are supposed to just SMASH. Meh, maybe this internal conflict is why I can’t get a brute beyond level 8 and don’t dare to team him with anyone yet.

Perhaps it just takes one person to start and act responsibly and the rest will follow. Rare in CoV, yes. For example, last night, I stayed up well past my bedtime (3am, if you must know, and was caffeinated and awake and hyper lurking on boards and lying in bed until like 4-5am) to play on a great Pinnacle PUG team.

Why? 2 brutes who were tanking. No really, they were. Not as much as real tanks would, but they made an effort. I don’t know how they were doing it, I didn’t see them running any auras, I forgot to check if they had taunt, but they somehow always split the group up between them, went for the lts and bosses, and tried to whack into next week minions chasing after squishy hiney (either that or my constant running around and hopping over their heads escaping from minions chasing my hiney annoyed them.) And they knew when to let the ranged classes pull apart too big a spawn.

And because this effort was made, it was appreciated and reciprocated. I know I upped my intensity and gave it a larger effort than normal for a PUG. I incinerated stuff, took risks shooting fire breath and drawing aggro because I trusted the mobs would either die soon or get distracted by a brute. Lt and boss holding is always standard. Flashfire was thrown a lot more often – granted, +1s and +2s, so I dared to – to give some breathing room and temporary seconds of drunk punching bag to the brutes.

There was a classic incident that happened that really belongs to the hero side of the equation. Longbow base, two spawns clumped together, overaggro to the max. We fought really hard, got overwhelmed, I sucked up longbow aggy so bad, I had a milimeter’s sliver of red left on the health bar. I made an immediate retreat, of course.

On a bad PUG, I would be headlong into the elevators and out the front door by this point, cos I know everyone else would be breaking and running and on no account do I want to be the last person the angry mobs catch sight of. On this group, I backed off about two spawn length’s down the long wide corridor, still in player sight range of all that’s going on, and decided to risk resting. In full view of the furious combat. One brute had retreated at mid-hp, the other brute and dom were still holding back the tide.

The dom got hit bad, he turned and started running full tilt back toward me. In a split second, my thoughts went something like this: oh crap, he broke and ran, and here I am resting. Next second, the brute’s going to either turn and run or go down and I’m right in the tidal wave’s path. Crudddd x 10. Please don’t run, please don’t run, hold out juuuus a lil longer, I’m coming, almost there…

He didn’t. He held out, he ‘tanked’ for the crucial seconds I needed to get rest going. I don’t know if he even saw me in harm’s way and acted on that impulse, or if it was just tank instinct. I let rest zip up ever so slowly, watching tensely as the brute’s health bar dipped lower and lower as mine went up at the same pace.

3/4 of my health bar was back. Good enough. Undo rest, trigger domination (which was up, I just didn’t dare use it with like 5 hp remaining, death sentence for sure) and race madly toward the brute. Who had juuust broken and started to run with 1/5 of his hp left, in the red.

Char one lt, fire breath madly on minions to steal aggro from the dying brute, incinerate and hop around like a madman on stilts, char another lieutenant, flashfire the whole lot, got mebbe four of ‘em stunned, spam flares into what I can – singlehandedly, in domination, holding off 6 or more yellow and orange mobs to a standstill. Thanks to the CRUCIAL time to regain hp the brute bought me.

Beat up three mobs, had maybe 1/4 hp left at this point, two chain held, still dancing wildly around the last, when the brute, then the rest of the team came back to help clean up. I, in turn, had bought them enough time to recover.

Very nice feeling of cooperation going on there. Icing on the cake, I leveled on the second last mob as we were cleaning up.

The Holy Trinity

While working on my sad little "gank" (gimp-tank), I realised something... Before I go into what I realised, I might as well say this is something I've suspected for a long time, but only now have actual proof of -- which just makes me even more jaded, cynical, and slightly burnt out.

CoH has a very nice design which lets you break from the "Tank, Healer, Damage-dealer" mode. But most people playing in the game are still in that mode.

Even around the early teens, some people kept trying to kidnap me and toss me into +3s. Er no, I'm a defense tank slotted on TOs and DOs, my armour might as well not exist when they toss me into their stupid invincible missions. However, I do feel obliged to finish at least the mission we have started. And when we were not doing too well, their solution is inevitably "we need a healer!", so they desperately run around trying to recruit healers.

Another strange set of experiences come from me just doing my own happy thing, and someone will send me a tell "do you need a healer?". What makes the "healers"" think I need a healer? Do they do a search for all tanks in their range and offer their services? I have to say even as a blaster, I have never received tells asking me if I need a healer.

At a certain point I got fed up and just put "Scranker" in my search comment. I needed stamina badly before I run around capering in huge groups, that inevitably want to throw me into +3s. Magically, the invites evaporated.

So I continued soloing, and got stamina finally. There, I removed Scranker from my search comment. Suddenly, I got invites again (see, I'm cunning). And the next group was doing...+3 banished pantheon.

After that, I took a break and worked a little on my earth/TA controller. I managed to pick up Sands of Mu, and wanted to milk it for what it was worth. As I happily went about soloing, I suddenly realised one thing. I have been soloing for a few hours, and not gotten a single invite. I always put my powerset in my search comments, so I did a search of all the controllers in my range. It was funny. All sorts of "healer" silliness, and everyone was teamed except for me and another guy two levels up who was ill/kin. I looked at the defender side. Sure enough, all the "healers" were a-healing, and there was a storm defender soloing.

I think I puked a little in my mouth. I think I could have counted the number of invites I got from 1-40 on my mind/storm with my ten fingers. No matter, it was a rare combo. The elec/dev of blastdom, the claws/DA of scrapperdom, the ice/mace of tankdom. It's fine now because of all the recent press mind-control got and you see lots and lots of people starting to play that combo. Once you get a set that people can revile more than storm (Trick Arrow), popular wisdom can continue to brainwash people on how gimp it is.

The problem that thinking is, I can control just fine with the earth primary. Just as I could always control fine with mind primary, until I reached the late 30s when my secondary matured. Let us face it though -- most people do not recruit controllers for control. Crowd control as a specialty does not exist in people's play paradigm.

No, even if there is a miniature army of Tsoo sorcerors and BP-shamans causing havoc amongst their ranks, the concept of "crowd control" will never enter their paradigm.

(And to digress a little, nevermind that tanking is also a form of melee crowd control. People just think mobs will magically hit the tank because that just how the world works. So you just have a sponge and a healer to refill its green bar.)

The paradigm is just "damage sponge", "healer" (refill sponge), and "damage dealer" (to destroy mobs).

It's not to say roles don't exist in a group. But those are roles that everyone pick up due to their own abilities and the fact that they are in a group and should try to act in the interest of the group. Since I don't squash the moment something glares at me the wrong way, of course I will try to hold aggro. If people are getting dying and if I have a heal, of course I will spam it. And if I'm a blaster, of course I try to kill things. But I want to play a game, not be a function of some extremely hokey equation picked up from other MMOs, so someone can get elite xp.

You say "well that's because you are playing with pickups". But most people on pickups are in supergroups too. Might as well say 90% of the players are playing a completely different game. It's not the same game I'm playing for sure. It's some weird GenericMMO8533 they are playing.

I was mentioning I had Sands of Mu. The sad thing is, while I haven't really taken any damage power on my earth controller. I could actually just pick up pool attacks, slot them, and solo. (Which was what my mind controller did with levitate). Except that I've done that already, and it's just not very interesting soloing.

* * *

And so you see the flaws of two extreme.

One, when you don't have a very clear idea of what the generic MMO equation is at all, and all you want is your own concept toon. E.g. my SGmate's ice/EM tank who at level 25 has every single secondary power she can have and only runs the S/L armour even in teams because she has such a full attack chain she has no endurance to run her armour. (Suddenly I have a sneaky suspicion why her /regen scrapper was so ridiculously squishy. I got to peek at her build the next time I see that scrapper.)

On the other hand, you have the people who are so obssessed with the GenericMMO2348 team equation that they only want three things fufilling three functions in their team.

But as much as both types make me sigh, the first type at least keeps me employed. :P

/cov 1

I wonder how fast before the news spreads. People have longed to have villain costumes for their heroes and vice versa. It seems like it would spread like an epidemic.

I haven't tried the bug out yet. I'm afraid it's going to screw up something with the missions or whatever. But I think there will be plenty who will be happy to be the guinea pigs and test it out for me and then bitch to the devs if anything goes wrong. :P

I wonder, though. Seems like someone should have forseen this happening, or known about the command. Why not tell it to people after threads and threads of villain costumes for heroes plz, and so on...

Is it just because of some design decision to keep villain and herowear apart? Doesn't make sense cos there are some identical design choices. Who knows...

But the secret's out. Or the exploit's out. Or the bug or "feature" or whatever you want to call it.

Pathetic Posts

I'm not sure who is more pathetic. A post I read on the dominator forums today, or me for seeing red and getting all my buttons pushed by it.

Brugdor's Ice/Energy dom build. Riiight. He gutted the melee attacks, took two immobs, ignored soft controls, hugs his precious healz0ry medicine pool, AND has the audacity to say that he can solo capably, and that his SG leader has praised his build. Oh, and don't give him any opinions, he doesn't want to hear them, he just wants to post to share his glorious build to the rest of us misguided, deluded folks...

Oh...where should I even start?

I don't know but someone trying to make a dom a ranged controller with buffs (which usually means aid other!) makes me see red the way 'real defenders' go berserk when someone proudly posts his PURE empath build as the greatest thing since sliced cheese.

They're missing the point and trying to make a fucking cleric or priest or something. It's not likely to operate as well, and while playing a gimped build is your own pregorative, disseminating it around for others to copy without understanding is...urgh, not right, imo.

If you post, you jolly well open yourself up to criticism. That's why it's called a forum board. I think it's hopelessly childish to say, please don't tell me anything, I don't want to hear it, lalalala. Rrrr, one of my hot buttons, I suppose.

And then he topped it off by saying, oh, this build was well-praised by my SG leader. Duh! I can't -stand- people who live for approval, especially by their perceived 'betters'. They remind me of little puppies who need to be petted every so often, or they will become depressed. Grow up, get some balls, some self-esteem and confidence, stand up for what you believe in, don't fall back on your big bad brother, parents, leader to vindicate your choices.

It doesn't help that I know these two people in question. Even if they've forgotten me long ago. This is Brugdor "the dwarf" and All Star (aka Star Control) of the Instant Heroes.

I've got high respect for All-Star. I think he knows what he's doing. It doesn't help my own esteem that I've got such lousy judgement in a person. He -praised- this hunk of garbage of a build? He better have been being nice to Brugdor. Or being respectful of Brugdor's mad leet player skillz for excelling with a...well, non-stellar build.

I think it's something I've got. Some kind of unnamed syndrome. See if you can think up a name for this. It's like anti-healz0r allergic syndrome or something.

I look and play with a person, I think he's okay, I think he's a good player, and then the next words out of his mouth will be "I'll bring my healer." or "need a healer for this."

!!!

WHY WHY WHY? Why do you have healer syndrome? Why must you always force your support builds into some hideous semblance of an Everquest-like meatshield, healspam priest, or pre-I5 solidstate controller? Why do you mourn when you can't do -that- kind of tanking, or -that- kind of pet summon spam, or -that- level of control? Why do you keep living in a past that's not there anymore?!

And why am I driven so nuts by these kinds of people?! I don't know...I just want to keep telling them:

Move on and ADAPT, goddamit.

The world has CHANGED around you. Someone has moved your CHEESE. Get up and find new cheese or get out of ze rat race. Do something. Sitting here whining forever until you die is not gonna fix anything.

The old glory days are no longer here. I did that in RoD for ages. I would never get that much clan, that level of DR. I did my best with what I had. I adapted to the Shattering.

When I could no longer stand the change (or rather lack of change, stagnant pace), I Q-U-I-T.

I didn't delude myself into thinking that I could still be something that is no longer attainable. I didn't try and stick to the same old thing, the same old SMAUG mud, afraid to try anything new.

It doesn't mean you can't have a fondness or nostalgia for the old days. It doesn't mean you can't wish or hope for glimpses of it to return. Or even to work for its return. But you've got to acknowledge it's no longer here, now.

Sighs. Why can't people SEE this? Why can't they understand?

*pants* Ok, I've gotten most of it off my chest already. I have no clue how this poor sap managed to trigger so many of my pet peeves and "hot" buttons. I guess I was under the impression that they knew better. And they didn't.

Ah well. I guess that's what makes life interesting. To walk around with blind spots forever bumping into things. Or to have different varieties of people.

The Crystal Cave

It's been a while since I put up any screenshots. After musing over why CoX rules, I went and dug through my screenies folder (530 meg and growing) and sorted out a few. A lot, actually. I had to group them into "Dramatic Shots", "Giants", "Swarms", "Funny", and "Eden Trial", all to come later.

Here's the first batch, from the Ice Mistral Strike Force, CoV-side. Somewhat spoiler-ific, so don't look if you don't wannna.

Strike force had a whole bunch of regular missions. The last mission, though, had a pit that you jumped into, similar to the Eden Trial. When you landed, you saw...this:



Flying down the immense cavern:


Oh, the crystals explode if you shot them. Place was crawling with enemy mobs too.

Final boss Archus, hidden I'm-not-telling-you-where inside the colossal and dangerous cave:


Just as we were about to kill him, the little squirt summoned in a HORDE of demons. You can see 'em just zapping in in the above pic. You can guess what happened to us unsuspecting fools. In case you can't:



This final boss was HARD. We suffered multiple team wipes, loss of morale, and five party members upped and ran off on us because they didn't think we could defeat him.

It was three of us remaining, who were just too stubborn (or dumb) to give up. Somehow, we managed to painfully and slowly clear the multiple ambushes, and kill Archus. Felt like a miracle when it was over. Mastermind, brute and me (dominator). But we made it. Have a shiney accomplishment badge to prove it.

"Verbal Sparring"

So I have been thinking... (Dangerous pasttime, I know.)

CoH went into maintenance as I was fiendishly plotting my new dominator for the board SG they're trying to start up. So I went into RoD to while away some time, hoping to find some old faces. Gonnil sent a tell and we got to talking. I was my usual ray of sunshine self (translation: jaded cynic) when it comes to RoD, while he sounded like he'd been taking optimism lessons from Ceir. :)

And some of the stuff we discussed got me to thinking...

I mentioned that RoD gameplay was lacking in strategies. Hit mob with as damaging an attack as possible + quaff heals until your face turns blue. That classes aren't in 'equal demand' per se.

Now he mentioned that RoD is a multi-character game. Granted. That's a defence I always used to use too. And he admitted the classes weren't balanced combat-wise, but were, out of combat. Now, I don't think every class needs perfect balance, it'll be an impossible goal, but after CoH, it'll be nice if the classes could have their own special niche. A role that they are intended to play.

I used the example of who would bring a cleric into battle? Granted, they can brew heals, so maybe that's their special niche. A little humbling to think of oneself as a brewbot, but hey, emp defs are heal/buffbots, so perhaps that's the life all healer types have to face. Exactly what special, crucial things do druids, auggies, fathomers do again? That other classes don't do better?

The refreshing thing about CoX is that it's not totally built on the "holy trinity" of warrior-tank, priest-healer, mage-damage dealer. But let's not limit it to just CoX. GW tries to complicate matters by allowing you to pick two professions, each with their own shticks and subshticks - trapper, regenner, pet or minion master, buffs, enchantments, what have you, I dunno, I lost track long ago. Some other games (AA, DDO) throw in a 'special ops'/stealth agent function in the rogue/stalker/assassin archetype.

I don't see RoD sitting down and deciding exactly how their combat system is going to work and revamping stuff from there. Perhaps I'm being too negative, but there you go. :/

Now Gonnil's convinced that a lot of the gameplay strategies can be replicated in RoD, and he says the new areas can show this. I haven't seen the new areas, so I have to give people the benefit of the doubt, but...Really? My first reaction is, you must be kidding.

A game reflects the environment you play it in. You can do things in a textual MUD you can't do in 3D. You can do other things in a web browser that's difficult to do elsewhere (forms, clickable buttons, low lag, etc.) And you can do things in 3D that you can't do in MUDs.

How do I explain the importance of 3 dimensions to someone who hasn't played something like CoX or even an FPS game? You /move/ in 3D. To get away from mobs that are closing in on you. You kite. How do you kite in a MUD? Have the mob chase you from room to room maybe? It's doable, you could use that on special mobs to trap them someplace, but it doesn't have the commonplace to it. You can kite any mob in 3D and it's something special when they don't kite, be it because they can't cross a zone (EQ was like this apparently) or they are programmed not to, or they have realistic AI (like in an FPS).

CoX flying. An old old game, Descent with the 360 degree turning which is even looser than CoX flying. Auto-Assault with their spinning vehicles. They've all got a different physics engine to them. Exactly how do you replicate this in a MUD?

And of course, the twenty four thousand dollar question. Would you want to?

RoD suffers from add-it-on syndrome. Anything that sounds cool is something to be tacked on, IF there is a coder around willing to do it. If not, well, you're SOL.

Perhaps CoE really needs to sit down and make some important design decisions about RoD and its future. Like what? Like what you want RoD to be for the players.

I'll tell you what's special about RoD. Limitless multiple characters. And then you nerfed it by limiting it to 8 online only. Fine, you needed to put a reasonable balance on it for whatever reason.

Endgame consisting of running mobs for equipment to dress those said multiple characters. You know how you fucked it up? You made it more difficult to run the SAME mobs for the SAME or gimpier equipment. Nerf! You made it time-consuming, involving many people online, who don't even get a reward, but a chance at the reward - either a lottery or an long, extended involved points system.

Idiots. Do you need Everquest and World of Warcraft to run through the same model and see why it BLEEDS players after the first year or so of addictiveness? Sooner or later, people are going to wake up from their greed-infested dream and realize, waitaminute, I am spending 20 hours of my life 7 days a week in some stupid's dragon cave hoping to be the lucky one to get the dragon helmet so I can progress to the next zone to slay the super mama dragon.

Translation: Ultimately pointless.

Here's a hint. If you're determined to stay with the "slay a mob, collect an item" gameplay. Make the lottery EASY. Just make more of them. When it is easy to attain, your players will continue to climb the ladder of progression and not question how much time they are wasting. Your progress points, the rungs of the ladder, are well within reach of even newbie players. For hardcore players, make tougher challenges and send them around to experience the same content again, but slightly harder this time. Eventually, players will reach a point when they may have had enough of climbing the ladder personally, but you'll be surprise how much you can sneak up on 'em when you don't make it insanely hard.

Does this sound familiar? Does it sound like Kingdom of Loathing? I don't ever want to reach the point where I will donate $$$ to get a Mr Accessory. So I know I will stop at that point should I ever bump up against it. But I still played it because I can complete mini-goals, unlock new areas, and cheesy of all cheesy things, craft stuff - ie. cook pizza and burritos, that in turn help me gain stats and unlock new areas. All within the span of one day's adventures. If I had to take one month to reach a goal, I would have said, fuck it, and quit long ago.

For the hardcore, there is ascension (aka remort) and all kinds of strange "paths" that make it harder. Cannot accept gifts from people, cannot eat, drink, blah blah blah.

And this week, for the first time, I am sitting on my adventures so I can wait for a Mysticality Day and see what all the special fuss is about. This is something that apparently all 'real' KoL players do, wait for stat days. Yea, whatever. You can thank your game designers for being smart enough to make even noobs feel like they are progressing, even without the benefit of knowing about all these special secret stuff about moons and funky pieces of equipment and this and that. Eventually, a serious player will learn about all this game jargon and then become one of the "in-crowd" of your particular game.

And I'm still embarassed for RoD because after the Shattering, it has become uber newbie-unfriendly. There's a lot of repair works to be done before new players are guided as well as the old days - a small in-story in-game tutorial area where they could find the secret float token - a nice academy - Tagetarle's stone which ported you to self-contained lowbie areas you could explore and then get back to DH base camp safely. Alas, the benefit of hindsight. :(

Anyhow, if you want players to keep killing stuff for better equipment, then you better start thinking about your combat system and your precious DR cap. Trying to cap DR was what started the decline in the first place, imo. You cannot say that 200 dr is out of the question, and then make sure no future equipment reaches that kind of reward. Or that seth is the penultimate reward. Then what the heck are the new mobs for?!

I don't have an ultimate solution to this dilemma. It involves giving a close hard look at your combat system, what rewards you think are significant to players in this combat system, and making them choose between equally enticing choices. Maybe something like more hp, less dr. Or the opposite. Then you'd at least produce two combat roles, tank + damage dealer. You can't have holy trinity with your current combat system because, dammit, you bottled the priest. :P

I know, it's a really refreshing idea. Haven't seen anywhere do it like RoD. But...maybe there's a reason they didn't. Perhaps you should explore more of it. People would probably cry foul if you added some limitation to how much they could quaff or eat at any one time, they are so used to endless 'healing' from the stuff they carry. Maybe different brewed heals could have different effects for different classes? Maybe you could add a crafting element so that clerics can start hem, 'cooking' like pastamancers and saucerors? I dunno, brainstorming here.

You gotta put some think into what decisions you're making. Like I don't see the point of upping 'divinity' to 300 hp heal. Sure it makes clerics feel warm and fuzzy and they have something new and fun to play with for a while. But have you seen how LONG it takes to heal with divinity with the symbols of faith? I forget, was this the one you had to have two clerics chanting in unison too, which makes it even longer? Have you timed how fast it is to just fucking quaff three heals?

Can a cleric with their 1500 mana store heal more with divinity than a thief just carrying 220 heal potions? Let's look at numbers here, eh? Fun little numbers. I don't remember how much divinity costs in mana. Let's presume impossibly that it costs the same amount as 'pzar' which I believe was 50. Means you can do 30 divinities x 300 = 9000 hp. 200 heal potions x 100 = 20000 hp.

Big esteenking DEAL. And quaffing is FASTER. You can quaff at least 3-4 heals in the same tick as a single spell cast. Was it really worth the effort to just change one number in the code?

Think, people. Sheesh.

Adding millions of flagged eq, anti-priest, anti-druid, anti-bear, anti-shark, anti-hamster, anti-dust fluff evil alignment only yadda yadda, is NOT exactly enticing reward, ok?

To add more significant choice, you'd really have to revamp the combat system. What makes you dodge better? (Like KoL Moxie). Perhaps you'd want typed damage (like CoH, AA, even KoL's hot/cold/stench/spooky, etc.) Then you could add armor that protects against certain types but not all. Different outfits become important at different times, then. = More demand for a whole set of clothing.

And when I start thinking like that, it's when I start to feel all depressed for RoD again because the base combat system is clunky. I know a CoE imm admitted as much. I forget who it was though. Could be Edmond, or Kali or Blodkai, in order of most likely to least. They wanted to revamp and rewrite it again.

That's practically ripping RoD out from its guts and doing Shattering (of the Soul) x 2 on it though. Do you think RoD can survive that kind of trauma? I'm not sure it can, personally. It would be an entirely different game. A healthier game, perhaps, but it doesn't have too strong a clientele to begin with - all it has sticking on to it are the diehards who react least well to change. The change and novelty hounds left long ago for fresher cleaner waters. :(

And if you DON'T revamp RoD like this, you're building on shaky foundations and you still run into the endgame/rewards + damage cap problem, and you turn into an insular community of diehards who make it super-difficult for newbies to get into the game, and that results in eventual attrition and atrophy. :/

I'm still looking for side number three, or option three. Is there another possibility I'm not seeing? Besides RoD: the Game officially becomes RoD: The Chatroom?

I suppose you can try creating a "Legends" system like CoX is. If you can flip the diehard level 50s' view of what the endgame is supposed to be, and magically create some kind of FUN self-sustaining endgame, you can slowly but steadily tweak the focus away from MUST HAVE UBER-LEET LEWT. Then you work on the newbie system and make sure newbies are encouraging with progress points and make it easier and fun and less tedious to level. Then the marketing comes in and you can get people to play the game.

And all this is done free of charge out of the goodness of imms' hearts. Heh.

Right.

I will stop this and cease to cynicism myself into absolute jadedness.

I'll just play CoX until it gets tiring and then try the next new game on the market.

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Oh, let me just ooze about why CoX suits me a little. Made my dominator, finally came up with a nice character concept and name for him. Better than the orange-red costumed punk with a big omega symbol that I deleted. I realized I hadn't made a pirate. I was thinking ghost pirate at first, but white, pale green and blue wasn't ghostly glowy enough for me, made him look like he was in a dressing gown or something. Luckily, black worked and made him look sinister.

As usual, I got stuck on names, but found a random pirate name generator table and came up with Black Jeremiah, which I think is cool. I wanted to use Isaiah, which is a name I've liked since La Chute, but Black Isaiah doesn't have quite the same ring to it.

Armed with a sweet concept, I enter Mercy Isle and start kicking ass. Reason number one why I like CoX: Action begins almost immediately. You can go street hunt or mission as and when you want, and you don't even have to run for 30 minutes to get to it. Unless you forgot a travel power or something. :/

Reason number two why I like CoX: Multiple mob fighting. I can handle three mobs at once. This is NORMAL for CoX. Hold one, severely fry one with incinerate flares brawl, hold third, work on number one, etc.

And tanking. *insane giggle* Lookit all those mobs in the spawns. And the day RoD implements the reactor trial, the Eden trial, the crystal caverns in the ice mistral TF, etc. is the day I'll -maybe- think about going back to RoD. I think the number of mobs required would probably lag RoD to death first though.

I could go on about the fun of teaming in CoX and the uniqueness in gameplay of each AT, but I'd be either preaching to the choir or wasting my breath, so I won't.