Yesterday I talked about Xp/min and maintaining a bravery bonus and I got a few comments about how that kind talk/play was horrible. But thankfully DDo is a game that supports many styles of game play. Zerg, BYOH, classic crawl, Role Play, Perma-death, Static Groups, End Game, Raiders and I am sure many more that I don’t come to the forefront of my mind. And DDo supports them all.

There is room for us all, aka today’s Kumbaya moment!

My mood/goals affects my style of play a lot. Sometimes I want xp. And when I do, I want it NOW! And during those times to quote tobril “I get a massive hard on from a huge pile of xp in the smallest possible amount of time…” It can be extremely rewarding to get that huge pile of xp from an elite BB streaked Coal chamber in 23 mins or knowing that in an hour of Litany runs you are now forced to level again for the second time in an night on that 3x TR….

At the same time I have moments when I just want to put on a show/podcast and clear explorer zones all night aka easy, mindless fun.

These past few weekends with the Brits I have been enjoying a much more classic DnD feel. The party/role mix is very Pnp we are exploring (at least for me) new content on the Hardest possible setting on for me an alt that was built to fill a role for the guild that I have grown to really enjoy on its own merits.

It is hard when pugging and you get miss leading information and you go in with X in mind and Q happens…

Like the other day, I wanted to nab some XP on my DPS guy. And see a LFM up for Monastery of the Scorp, Elite the comments were Elite farm, zerg.

I join, buff and I am in the little explorer zone in to the quest in about 2 mins. Get there and no one is even in the zone yet. SO hit the explorers spawn the rare and kill it before anyone else gets in. Once the leader gets to the door he asks can any one open? I say sure and he says let’s go. I jump in, buff and head out. I clear the first 5-6 guys before I notice I am alone and get held and die… Pissed I look around and the leader is at the door but the “clr” gets in and is coming to me. No big. I get a rez and heal up. He gets held as I get tripped by a large hot rock from the sky and we both die to a chain lighting. Two late arrivals show up and ask if we want to restart. I say sounds best and release.

I rebuff and heal up and get back in 90secs at most. The instance is still active but empty. Amazingly the “leader” is out of the quest and waiting at the door. We reset and start off again. The leader says “afk 10 mins, poop” Which I find funny as all hell, as it is something I might say. But not before starting a lfm. The 4-5 of us are off and going. The Rogue (from a guild I haven’t heard any good or bad things about but I know) is being kind of an ass but as he keeps dying in traps and acts like it is first time I give him some slack. Thinking maybe he is just not that familiar with the quest.

Then we get to the gravity trap area and he doesn’t seem to know what is going on. We I explain things he goes on about how he just ran the quest last night and he knows what he is doing…

Cool Cool I say and let it go. He does the traps and we move on. About then the leader starts to move and asks me to do the puzzle and lead to the final lever, as I know the quest. I do so also leading people to the water chest. I do the puzzle and start to fall down when the rogue runs back with a shit load of mobs and wipes the party. I jump back up but am blocked by a wall of force…

And he proceeds to bitch out zergers and talking about how people can’t do X and they skulled blah blah blah. I recall and wish everyone luck and say how I thought I was asked to lead so the person crying about people zerging was the zerger… he started a nasty comeback as I dropped.

See how different intentions interacted? I thought we were an experienced group with the intent to zerg, as I learned about the group that had to change to match the group and their needs. While some people had different goals and failed to share those goals it caused the group to struggle in places and then fail.

I think when a lot of people blame zergers on a fail or feel that xp/min is not a fun or valid play style I bet stories like this one come to mind. When a not everyone is not on the same page conflicting styles conflict. However, when people are on the same page, look at one of the old/first few DDoCocktailhours at DDoCocktailHour.com for one time Lessah and I on the Build Guild rocked some XP and you will see how my zerg and her Perma-death style paired up really well. And I know that she loved every min of those quests.

Okay running long, See you all tomorrow.

<3s