Today I am trying to do a post from the cell phone. Have to say it is not as easy as I would like. But lets hope I can find the gold for you.

In pnp I am a dice nut. I carry two bags of dice. Mine and group dice. And the two piles shall not cross. Ever!

Sure a dice might get promoted into my personal use bag or down graded into the other bag.

I know dice have power. Having my dice makes my play bolder and often allows the boldness to carry my play to higher levels.

What does that have to do with DDO?

All my dice are set to pink. The manlinest of all the colors. Why? Superstition. I feel that I roll better while my pink dice.

Sure I know on my head that there is not really a difference in the numbers given by the roller based on dice color. But in my heart there totally is. And for me pink is the best.

What color is your dice? And if you could would you have different colors for different rolls? I would find a good umd dice if I could.

Well not too bad doing it on the phone. Editing is a pain so no edits for you.

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or

So yersterday i ran down just a few of the many hurdles to over come when trying to play from the road. Today i want to share a story that will hopefully make you want to try and play some even if your on the road.

So i got on around 6-630 here. My wife was letting a show tape so she was able to also get on and play some, and as it was Tuesday night so Tobril was able to group with us. Adding alittle normalicy to ones life, while away from home is a good thing. But the real meat comes from what our group was able to go and do.
Samyus, my Ac tank in progress (who mostly soloed to level 10, sans healerbot btw) was elected to be “fixed up” aka made playable from the road. That means moving bars around. Takeing some off the screen. Even loosing quick access to some hot keys.

Once your muscle memory is tuned to go to a given place and do an action. Say Intim (number 7 for me), which on my normal key board is right above the “w” key just on the second row of number keys; reaching across the board to hit the 7 above the “y” key is not normal. Loseing my two side mouse buttons for target next hostal/object took a while to adapt to. In truth, I still can’t use the “tab” key to target anything.

Anyway, we all teamed up and did Shadow cypt like 9 times on elite. I ended up with about 160K xp for the night. Would have the same thing happened if i was at home? Sure but all that xp would be on Samius. Not Samyus. And Samius with the aid of my son’s account can solo said content a few times with out bothering any guildies (not that i will have to, but he could). Samyus could also but it would be a much more intense strugle, as he is not as good at killing ghosts while staying healed up.

Samyus was able to gain a whole level plus a rank or two in just a few hours. Keeping pace with the wife’s first life sorc and not far behind Tobril’s second life wizard. Leaving him able to be used to play catch up for others when Samius power levels up a few levels. I hope to do crush some XP this weekend.

All i have to say is playing from the road is extreamly challenging, but can be super rewarding if you can over come hurdles to play.

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I don’t have my normal text editor so i am guessing this will be a short one, but i wanted to try and post even while away from home. As some of you know i am in Denver, CO for Drupal Con. Wish i could say i have learned a lot and that i had the come to Jesus moment with Drupal but i haven’t. Not yet at least.

But this is a DDo blog so let me say traveling and playing can suck if you are not used to playing on a laptop. And i am not. At home i have two screens the smallest is 22″. So going to a 17″ laptop screen is fairly hard. To make everything fit i have to move things alot. I normally play with 10-13 bars on the screen. With my dice and health in places that i can see them as well as what is going on. That is just where my eyes look for them. Well they are gone. So watching my health is an issue.

I also have a gaming key board one with a special section of the board with the wasd keys where they make sense as arrow keys and surrounded by the number keys and other common quick keys. Trying to play with a “normal” laptop key board is a challenge now that i am used to my other key board.

But at least i am able to log on and do some playing, i am a huge DDo addict. I play at least 30 mins a day. Most days an hour or two is normal. So not having to go cold turkey is hard.

Any way i was able to help the wife do Von 1 elite with my fighter. I am afraid that Samius has too many buttons to hit to be helpful while i am gone. So the much easier fighter is the current call.

As for epic night?? I don’t think i would be super helpful. But i am willing to try some 🙂

Wish me luck, both in game and here at the con. Oh and traveling home wouldn’t be a bad time for some good vibrations.

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I will be traveling on Monday and I can’t promise a post so I am posting one for Monday today.

Nyxianne had a good my.ddo post today Link. And I am going to address the some of these issues from my point of view. It gives me a post and room for a longer comment.

Note: Any use of the word you s below are not meant at you personalty but people in my group.

This is how I play. If you want something you take care of it your own self or you will ask. Not type h in the chat for a haste, manors cost nothing and only take a sec. I will not use my Sp on people that don’t ask. If you don’t have a mic you can type Gh, rage, etc… plz in the party chat but I am not a mind reader.

If you take off then you have everything you need. I haste on me when I need it. You can watch your buff bar well enough to type “h” two seconds after is wears out, you can damn well find me a few secs before hand. Your welcome to say something like on my way back for a haste or whatnot before it expires and I will wait for you. Communication is a good thing, try it.

Now why is that when all through the lower levels you got buffs with no issues or questions?

I expect them to know what buffs they need once they start to get a few levels on them. Starting as low as level 4 now people can have permanent blur from an item. Do you? I don’t know. If you don’t ask for one I assume yes. If not then we are both asses, me for assuming you do and you for not asking me for that buff. Same for any possible Ship buffs (although I can see those if I examined you).

Also I can’t speak for others but a large amount of my time is played with a small group of people. We all know how each other play and what areas we cover each other. Being a smaller group also makes us not want to be a drag on each other. So often we cover our own buffs and heals so no one else needs to. It can be tough on the odd man out that is not used to how we play. I am thinking about Phlor and how he is handling adapting as to how we play with his long ddo break taking him out of practice.

Speaking of being out of practice; right now Tobril has to be feeling the pain of the TR train doing our own thing. He wants to be that haste-buff-CC caster this life, but we are off as soon as we zone in to a quest. Last night he and I joked about how he was going to haste me even if he had to start drinking pots to cast it on me.

On the flip side there are a few buffs that get thrown with no issues, Okay Mass DW/Pro/SR and …. Oh as I said above hastes on me. That is about it. Other wise chime up.

Now if you ask, not demand. I have no issues buffing you. But you should always work on becoming more self reliant.

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I have never really enjoyed melee before. Sure I have liked how some builds do /handle in melee or the rare moment when it all clicks and I find the love. But as the main focus of my build not so much. Which is a strange to write/read as Java has been my (hate) tank many times….. Back during my barb life I did find myself liking how things where playing out but that ended at level 13 or so. That might have been a different story if I had a different base on my Lig2 say a falchon vs maul. But you know I built that maul for when I was a wizard and while I might not see the huge numbers that a X3 crit weapon can bring my maul is super consistent and that is important to me.

Anyway, as it was Thursday aka Fopo’s night in the bowling alley/ teaching raid night, I worked on my pure fighter Samyus. Now he is meant to be a pure AC tank. Epic plate, big LoB tower shield a few stacking dodge bonuses a few epic items here and there and whatnot and I see a nice high Ac tank.

But last night he was level 7. Was because I leveled to 8 as I logged for the night. You can check him out http://my.ddo.com/character/sarlona/samyus/ if I have it set up right. You can see he is not decked out in any thing super uber special. Other then my +6 con ring, which is good but not really super uber special at this level. I once had a pair of RR dex boots level 6. So even before the eyes chain bo bo at level 6 +6 stat items were out there. Then they where super uber special! Most of Samyus’ main gear is crafted. A set of full plate crafted to have invulnerability, a +6 stunning tower shield normally he uses a crafted holy lesser vamp battle axe with a med guild slot sloting a few more points of damage.

But last night I felt tanky. And I was getting into it.

I first started noticing it in the very first quest. Phlor joined me in a zerg Lair of Summing. I knew he was behind me some place but I didn’t really know where. But before I knew it I was at the end fight and yellow or orange skulled. No big. Get in stance and knock the alert down with a few cleaves and great cleaves along with some pot drinking.

*Note Phlor bud if you are reading this please load up on pots. If you need the plat for a stack let me know and I will hit my bard and get you a stack on the cheap.

Anyway once the room was cleared I noticed Phlor standing in a corner with his throwing weapon in his hand… Lol, your a nut bud. And I say this for everyone if your not “helping” you need to let the party know your piking or at least hanging back as to try and not make things worse.

A few more runs and we are Bloody Crypt flagged. Rebuff and start Bloody, Tobril on his TRed caster goes east, I take west. Phlor is to help Tobril. After a few moments we are red skulled and I am totally surrounded. It was great!.

Don’t get me wrong, being skulled is shitty, but being able to just stand there and take what every the uber pissed mobs were dishing out was a good feeling. On Samius, I try to kill fast enough to keep the alert down. Or at least have thing under control at all times so going red is not a worry.

Any way that run was fairly smooth. I finished up my side not much after Tobril aka webs and acid ball/wall of fire guy. Not bad for a melee with a holy weapon…

I caught the window and soloed the quest as everyone else did their teaching raid. And while I never got skulled again I adjusted my play style some to try and keep that feeling. It was a little slower. Having to do every myself and it was not 1k a min alone. But it was super fun and better then 500 a min.

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Harassment is according to my dictionary.com is the act or an instance of harassing, or disturbing, pestering, or troubling repeatedly; persecution.

That is a kinda of random way for me to open a bonus post, right?

A few days ago (okay yesterday, This week is moving too damn slowly) in the post “What is the Deal?” I said I was about to report this guy for harassment. And my bud, Cauthey, just replied with a “Were his tells really that harassing?” And I would say yep, according to the definition as I read it.

Now I didn’t give a number of tells this guy sent me or a time span after I declined to trade for his reds. Because I stopped counting after 10 or so tells over 7-8 mins aka “ troubling repeatedly”. Where his tells mean? Not really. A little judgmental but that is fine. Whatever.

Is there a breaking point when polite tells becomes the definition of harassment? Yes and it is different from person to person. I like to think I have a bit of a thicker skin or I have to give some slack because I am that “Samius guy from those pod casts.”

Yes I do get tells about the show, and I love them. Just not every 5 mins from the same guy for a week. But if you want to send a “hey” tell every day as I log on it is cool. Just not every 5 mins, okay?

I am also lucky to have a sounding board normally right here, the wife. And when she says I would have had her report that guy and squelch him if those tells were to her, I know that I am in the wrong and a report is valid.

Now on the other hand I didn’t send my hey back the %&*@ off tell until I was already bothered and annoyed. But once I let him know he was bothering me he stopped. Which is the right thing. If he would have kept it up he would have gotten reported. I am glad I didn’t report him. But he was harassing me and if I did report him I would be okay with it. From the shear number of unwanted tells in that amount of time.

All I want from the seller when I offer a trade is a yes, no or a counter offer. I don’t need a lecture on what the seller thinks is the current market price and how I am a bad man trying to take food from his 14 kids and fat wife.

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I really want to talk about Ddo and try to make a clear point maybe as a teaching moment. But as the only thing I can think of that has happened lately that would work would be Reaver puzzle training and I really don’t want to get in to that.

So instead my top five pieces (that is not super sexiest or anything) of celebrity eye candy.

5- Gwyneth Paltrow as Pepper Potts (Iron Man) Can’t say I have really liked her in much else and Lisa Edelstein – Cuddy from House could take this slot. But I have always had a thing for Pepper.

4- Sophia Bush as Brooke Davis (One Tree Hill) Don’t get me wrong. This show is full of eye candy. There is someone for everyone to enjoy. But the Brooke Davis character is something special. And I like Brunettes and Red heads the best, sue me.

3 – Eliza Dushku as Missy (Bring It On) I have seen Eliza in many things. And I have always thought she was amassing. But I really ❤ Bring It On ( “Just what I need” is one of my ring tones.) and it has to be because of Missy.

2 – Jolene Blalock as T’Pol (Star Trek: Enterprise ) This pointy eared girl is a one hit wonder to me. I have seen her in other things. But she has never done quite as well as she did in Enterprise. Maybe it is because she was a brunette?? IDK. And to top it off, the wife and I are re-watching the series and she made a comment about how hot she was. Hot enough to turn straight married women???? Maybe.

1 – Alyson Hannigan (Everything she has ever done) I don’t know if I have said this before, but Alyson may have been my first crush. I had to be 9 or 10 when I first watched “My Stepmother is an Alien” I have crushed on her ever since.

Bonus Creepy Old guy pick – Michelle Trachtenberg – Jenny (EuroTrip) EuroTrip has to be my second or third favorte movie of all time. It or America Pie, what can I say I ❤ me some raunchy teen comedies. Michelle was great in this movie. And I have to say when I watch it I say to myself “WOW!” then I remember that she was Buffy’s kid sister Dawn and I feel old and creepy.

I enjoy doing these lists. If you have one you want me to do use the comments. And if it happens to be a DDo list the better.
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I have a few topics today I want to talk about, But I am not sure if they are deep enough to expand into a full on post. So I will do my scatter shot topic post again today….

If you saw some thing like this in the trade channel what would you do?
Trading 3 red scales (linked) need 5 L scales, 3 L Stones and 2 L Arrowheads. Send tell.

Me? I sent a tell with an offer. I have 1 scale, lots of everything else. I said I could do 1 scale and everything else he needed.

He comes back with that is not good enough. No big deal, I am good with him having a price in mind but I just didn’t have any more scales. So I wished him luck and I was over it.

He however begins to send me tells as reds are worth 800K and scales are worth 200K and stone are 150k. So I was trying to low ball him. And so on and so on.

Until I finally had to stop doing what I was doing, leaving the wife to clean up the quest we were in btw to send him a follow up tell that more or less was: Hey, I think your a lot high on your prices. There is nothing wrong with that, but I said you were to high for me and I wished you luck. Drop it before you get reported. Thankfully that seamed to work.

I watched him spam the trade channel for the next 3 days. Maybe my offer wasn’t as low as he thought.

Is Baby Galactus eating our sun? http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=Ev8JGqDO8nk I watched it and a few other videos that popped up while checking it out. My gut says this is it how the end will come. Black balls all over our sun.

With the epic scrolls not dropping in anything but the new content we (Defense Guild that wanted to Epic) spent Epic Tuesday in the Challenges. In about an hour to hour and a half, we had gathered enough ingredients I could get 5-6 tokens. Not bad for a non spaming EDA night.

Comic Book Men and Full Metal Jousting, I am really enjoying these shows a lot. FmJ is cram-packed with lots of action. And it feels more real and less scripted then most realty shows, mostly due to brilliant editing. I am drawn to CBM because I am a fan of Tell’m Steve Dave, one of the many great podcasts on Smodcast.com. But I really like the look and feel of the stash. And seeing some of the things coming in I can see my living room getting a bit of a make over in that nerd comic book sheik.

Okay that is enough for one post.
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Last night when I got home Torrance was logged in and playing. I think to myself “Alright a good night for xp.” And start changing into my after hours, “I don’t need no stinking pants”, lets get comfortable shorts and Iron Man tee! In the 90 seconds it took for me to change and walk back in to the computer/main living room. She had logged. Turned off the lights. Crawled under a blanket and said she wanted to watch a show….

So I fire up Nexflix on my right screen, while starting DDO on my left. I solo a few quests with my fighter as we watch the first ep of enterprise where Brent Spiner guest stared. Side note: Enterprise is my favorite Star Trek. It had everything in my opinion. And it is cold in space! A lot. 🙂

Anyway, I will admit I assumed that she would watch a show and get fired up for xp.

So once Fopo logged on, I swapped to Samius and we started looking for xp. But not too much xp. I don’t want to pull to far ahead of her after all. So looking at the 5-6s as we are level 7, want to keep that elite streak running, and end up in three barrel cove.

Mean while that first episode ended, and I started the next one. 10 mins into it I hear Torr begin to snore. Nice. 🙂 I knew she was still not 100% back from being sick last week but I didn’t think she was “fall asleep at six sick” as I had to go to bed with out her the last few nights as her internal clock doesn’t adjust to the time change well and she was not ‘ready’ for bed at bed time.

Anyway Fo and I end up doing all of 3BC minus the fire caves and I have to say while the quests are fun to do the xp is just not there even with the streak and the tome.

Now when I am in that “Just enjoy the game” mood I can take 500 a min xp and be happy. As most of the joy comes from playing the game not seeing the xp bar jump up. When I want to see the bar move, watch out. But we zerged last night, sure I was half watching a show but we hauled ass doing the quests. Ghost of a Chance is the only one close to 1k a min. The rest even at full zerg are in the 300-400 a min range. And that is just sad.

I hope xp in some of these often skipped places will be looked at soon. I know 3BC has a lot of issues. No named loot, poor xp, no fast travel options like in tangle root. But the area also has so much going for it. Good story lines as well as different and fun quests. Lets hope that some dev will feel like doing a touch up soon.

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We all have our own leveling style. This weekend I saw some totally valid styles clash. A lot. 🙂

Torrance and Fopo are a clean the dungeon out people. They enjoy playing even if it takes a little longer and the bonus xp for the time is worth it to them.

Tobril on the other hand is xp per min guy. He would rather invis to the end an nab the largest amount of xp he can for the least amount of effort. Even if it means that he has to run the quest again to get the same xp as the first team.

I am a lot more flexible. I can do the Xp per min thing (and I do it often) but I also like clearing out a quest and swimming in the huge payoffs that having all the bonuses brings. To me it is a quest by quest and mod factor thing. I also can be in the mood to just grind explorers/slayers.

So this weekend (maybe Friday? ) we had everyone on line and ready to go. We had a few clashes of play styles while we did Splinter Skull stuff in Tangelroot. The first was Tobril invised and took off and the rest of us started chopping our way through. In a later run I had gotten 2 of the 4 traps before the quest completed. 😦 And after that, I called out that I was hitting the traps, Fopo called out that he was shrining, Torrance also said she was shrining also but she didn’t have her head set on. And Tobril took off and opened up that slightly harder fight then he could handle alone. But he didn’t realized that he was alone until about the middle of the fight.

But I have to say that it was good times. Adjusting your play style to group with your friends is just part of the deal.

Some XP highlights for the weekend: 25 mins for Proof in the Poison for 20kish, 15 mins for 14K in A Small problem, 15 mins for 25k in Bloody Crypt. 30 mins for 35k in STK.

Streak + the big first time bonus + a tome of learning + xp pot (optional) + optional inquest bonuses = big numbers and good times.

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