free dnd online

[NixxterCleareye]

Lo. Fighter chick is born.

She goes by the name Darkeskye.

I'll addjer characters as friends as the weekend progresses.

[NixxterCleareye]

Smuel and Darkeskye conquered quite a few dungeons. Also, it was crazy! They were free. What the hell are these people thinking?

We found out Smuel is better at puzzles than me (I think we knew that already). It's possible I might have a slightly better sense of direction inside a dungeon (trust me, this is not saying much, I can get lost with the best of them).

Smuel told me something like he was hot for my ass, if I was really a woman, so I think he appreciated having something better to look at than another smelly fighter guy.

Seriously, for a free mmo (or, the free version), I quite enjoyed it. I might be wrong but the starting difficulty seems decent, the dungeons we were in seemed scaled nicely in difficulty for just a party of two. Unless they ramp it up based on having more party members (meaning increase the difficulty), I think if we had more in our party, it would make the quests pretty easy (nothing wrong with that).

Seems to be a little difficulty with adding Smuel as a friend. I was able to add Azira's and Chud's two characters, and two others of Smuel (including Smuell). This may have something to do with Smuel's ban, or, more likely, he mentioned he had deleted another Smuel recently so maybe that's why.

[Azira]

I grouped up with some random strangers the other day with my cleric, to do some dungeons on "elite" difficulty on the starter island, and they were indeed very easy with a party of 6 characters.

Increasing difficulty means more enemies, with many more hitpoints, but also better loot from chests and better xp rewards.

As to dungeons increasing in difficulty with more members, this might be done. I haven't seen any clear evidence of it though. I seem to recall that one of the starter dungeons might have had one or two more enemies when I did it together with smuel, compared to when I soloed it on the same difficulty.

By the way, soloing as a cleric is cheesily easy, at least on the lower levels. Being able to heal yourself rocks.

[Smuel]

I think Nixxter summed it up nicely there, although he failed to convey our combined ineptness. For example, on the first dungeon we did, as we killed off the final enemy, I noticed that his HP was down to almost nothing, and pointed it out. Nixxter replied that he knew, but it was okay because the dungeon was finished. He then promptly climbed up onto some crates, jumped off the top, and died from the fall.

Similarly, as the rogue of the party, it is my job to detect traps, and then get killed while trying to work out how to disarm them. A task made doubly difficult by the fact that Azira had already shown me how not to be killed by them previously. Still, I managed.

By the way, Nixxter told me that he is actually a hot babe in real life, and has only been pretending to be a nerdy male gamer on these boards, so I think I was perfectly justified in hitting on his character.

[Zen]

I thought that business plans of the type "Lets get loads of people to sign up for free and worry about how to make money later" went extinct round about the year 2000.

Also, chud, you didn't provide a link. Zen will never be able to work out what you're talking about unless you do. I assume it's http://www.ddo.com/

You're right, I wouldn't get it. Although I have actually tried it out a long time ago. It wasn't bad, but different. And sometimes being different is just wrong. And DDO felt as comfortabe as a pair of clogs two sizes too small..

- Zen

[Smuel]

I can't say how different it is from other online RPGs, because I haven't played any, but I think they are handling the D'n'D system quite well. And they've improved some things since the initial launch, like scaling encounters to be more reasonable for low level parties, so maybe the problems you had with it are now fixed.

Plus if you played it now you would have the added attraction of being able to group with all of us kewl peeps. And chud too!

[NixxterCleareye]

Zen - actually, it DOES feel different, that's what I was thinking. Somehow, I enjoyed myself more at this time, than when I was playing before. Admittedly I've only played for about five hours at this point, and it also might have more to do with where I am at now (i.e. maybe I was just in a funk when I played the last time). Who knows.

Hey, did we mention it's FREE? Free as in, no money, zero dough, nada dinero?

Though, I could see the appeal of upgrading my account to try out some different characters, or, I have a feeling I am going to need more healing potions than the game provides. I almost bankrupted myself buying one yesterday.

[Smuel]

Well that's the advantage of playing in a group. I've got some spare healing potions that I collected while playing with Azira, who was able to heal my character whenever needed. I could give you some of those, Nixx. I've also got some spare spellcasting components that I'll give chud if we ever meet online.

[Azira]

Yes, once we start playing in a group including my cleric, the healing potions we pick up shouldn't really be necessary and can be saved for instances when I'm not online.

At least that's my hope. Going to log on soon, hope to see some of you there.

[Smuel]

Well, in the absence of anyone else logging on, I've basically been stalking Azira. So far I have discovered the following:

- He eats dinner around 8pm.
- He goes to bed at 10pm sharp.
- He is married. (Well, we knew that already, but analysis of his gaming activity patterns confirms it.)

So someone else should log on to distract me, before he decides that I'm getting too creepy.

I am also learning things about MMORPGs. For example, when considering which of a bunch of strangers to group with, the names can often be a clue. A name like 'Xolo Bloodfist' - likely to be competent. A name like 'Snowbliss Kisses' - maybe you should pass...

[Azira]

I grouped with a couple of people yesterday, including characters such as "Footy the Hairy Dwarf", "Ahd 'dib the Unseen" and "Dokke Dokke". It was a surprisingly competent group, so sometimes you get nice little surprises like that.

I told them they could add me to their friends list, so they could ask me should they need a healer and I happened to be online. In my experience, this sort of thing is essential to see the most an MMO has to offer.
Do try pick up groups (PUGS), but beware that while you might get lucky and get a functional group, you can also be quite the opposite and end up with a group of people where you'd rather have soloed..

If you do happen to run across competent people that you enjoyed playing with, let them know it. And ask them if you can add them to your friends list. Makes making a group for difficult dungeons a lot easier.

[NixxterCleareye]

I'm pretty pissed off that I can't get DDO to run after their giant "patch" on 2/3. Searching online for a solution to the patching error yielded very little. I'll try again over the weekend, up to and including an uninstall and reinstall of the entire game.

[Smuel]

Sometimes I find that DDO hangs when starting up, but when I quit and re-run it then it behaves. Did you try it more than once?

The patch took ages to apply on my system. I'm not sure it would really be any slower to uninstall, download the complete game, and reinstall the lot.

Anyway, good luck with it, not that I really care any more because I've made new and better friends on there who appreciate me more than any of you do.

[Azira]

I had a bitch of a time trying to log in as well, after their big patch. So I've played a lot of Temple of Elemental Evil instead, letting the patching run in the background, and lo and behold! Now I can log in again. I just haven't had time to play, as the wife and I just celebrated our wedding anniversary, and today we just got our cats sterilized..

Fun for the whole family! Especially the female kitty looks like a drunk..

[NixxterCleareye]

I couldn't even get as far as it doing the updates, it was stopping before it got to the game update every five seconds and saying "Unspecified Patch Error".

Bastards.

You must have some dirty cats if you need to sterilize them, I hope you tried applying rubbing alchohol to clean them up. If not, I recommend it, and you can dry them off nice and toasty with a blowtorch!

Trying to picture the female feline looking drunk, so, what, you rearranged her privates, and she walks like a drunken sailor?

[Smuel]

I've never sterilized a cat, so I don't really know much about it, but all I can say is that if someone was going to sterilize me, they'd need to apply some pretty powerful anaesthetics, the first few of which would undoubtedly consist of stiff drinks.

[NixxterCleareye]

Hi DND playas. I uninstalled, reinstalled and am no longer stalled.

Played some this weekend (still ongoing!) but haven't seen any you guys yet. Come on in, the waters fine : )

[Smuel]

I'm still playing this. Haven't seen any of you people on for, like, ever, so thanks for getting me all geared up for cool group adventures and then letting me down as hard as possible. No really - thanks. It's the only way I'll come to respect you.

Actually I'm doing okay. I've created the ultimate support character - a cleric/rogue. Most parties are in need of one or the other, and I'm both. Plus because thieving is mainly skill driven, and healing is mainly level driven, I can take nearly all my levels as a cleric for maximum healing abilities, but still end up with rogue skills that nearly match those of an equivalent pure-class character. I'm like a class and a half of cool water.

I mean, sure, the other party members usually make jokes about how I've ruined a perfectly good cleric by wasting levels on rogue, but then they come across a locked chest which only I can open, and then after they've laid their grasping hands on the phat lewt they're all like "Oh Smuel, we take it back, you're awesome", and I'm all like "Yeah, Ultimate Support Character, baby!"

Only they call me Thoren, not Smuel.

So if any of you do want to look me up so I can laugh at your puny low level character and then summon a hell-hound to eat your face off, that would be great.

[NixxterCleareye]

You still show up as a level of paladin, which makes you a loveable mutt, a mixed breed, a wolf in sheep's clothing and a mixed up metaphor.

I will be back in there at some point Smuel, but I admit Dragon Age has my affections at the moment. I mean, my female rogue Dahlia is having an affair with my female bard/rogue/crossbow artiste Leliana, surely you can understand how that takes precedent at the moment!

[Smuel]

Yeah, as Nixx has mentioned, even though Thoren is Cleric 5 / Rogue 2, he shows up in some lists as Cleric 5 / Rogue 2 / Paladin 1. Nobody knows why, and I am absolutely 100% positively sure that I did not take a level of Paladin at any time.

I like to think of it as the game recognizing that he is indeed the Ultimate Support character, - 5 levels of Cleric, 2 leves of Rogue, and 1 level of Awesome.

[NixxterCleareye]

I think you levelled yourself up wrong and refuse to admit it, but, hey, I admit you have played this game a lot more than me. It's hard to argue with the interface though, if it says you have a level of Paladin, in my mind, you have a level of Paladin. I insist!

I mean, it's not like you took a level of village idiot or anything Smuel, there's no shame in multi-classing and playing a borked character.

[Smuel]

Actually it could be to do with the fact that initially I created a paladin called Thoren, and then after a couple of levels I deleted him and replaced him with a cleric/rogue. I've only just remembered that I did that. There are probably traces of the old Thoren in the system somewhere.

[Azira]

I've been waylaid by singleplayer games for the last couple of weeks, but just yesterday I played some DDO again. My cleric is now level 6, if only just. My connection has been acting up the last two months, which detract quite a lot from the gameplay experience, so I'm looking into either fixing my current connection, or getting a different one.

Oh and I also ordered a new kick-ass 4-core computer, but that's beside the point, as my current single-core computer handles DDO smoothly and without problems of any kind. I just wanted to brag..

[NixxterCleareye]

I, I, I cover her with kisses
and when we're in a lover's clinch
she gets all excited
when she begs for my big 21 inch

[Smuel]

The latest update on Thoren is that I have taken him to level 8, with 6 of those as cleric and 2 as rogue.

However, on the character lists I now appear as Cleric 6, Rogue 2, Paladin 1, Wizard 1. I really can't explain that wizard level - I've never even created a wizard character. So it really must be that I have two free levels for being so awesome.

Also, I've played enough to be eligible to create Drow characters, which get all kinds of sweet bonuses, so I'll probably do that.

[Smuel]

I've created a Guild!

No, really, I have. It's called Wipe Club. You are all welcome to join if you ever play this game any more, though I have a feeling I'm the only one still doing that. If you join you get all kinds of sweet perks, like... uh... you can... uh... see when I was last online, and... uh... when other people were last online... and... uh...

Actually, Guilds don't really serve any purpose in DDO. But having created it I am now duty bound to try to get as many members as possible and go on and on about how it's the best Guild on the server, and so on, so plz join k thx. Also, as far as I know the only way to join is to be online at the same time as me, so I can send you an invite, and I'm not going to be on much over Easter. So basically I've completely mistimed this because you'll all have lost interest by the time I'm actually around to invite you, but then that's very much in the spirit of the Guild, so yay me.

Also, you all suck and I don't want you in my Guild.

[NixxterCleareye]

Dude, DDO is so old school at this point.

I've regressed waaaaaaaaay past that now, I took the way back machine and installed Everquest and 15 expansions which cost me $2.50 (you can get the same deal now over at Steam, I believe). Though, after a month, once you get a taste of the old Evercrack, they put you on an IV and start extracting $15 a month from you.

I do wish you good fun in DDO Smuel and am glad you took the plunge on what I think is your first MMO. You seem to be enjoying it (though there's a little snarkiness in your posts about the whole experience), which I am also glad about. Since I've tried an awful lot of MMOs (and, when I found the right one, stuck with them for a pretty good stretch, namely UO, AC, WoW and LOTRO), I would encourage you to also try others if you tire of DDO. Reason I say it is, yes, DDO is free and there's a lot to do but it is also somewhat limited by the fact that it never fully took off (hence, it was turned into a free game with micro transactions). Oddly enough, I have a feeling that you might really be pleased at a lot of other aspects that other MMOs offer.

It's hard to describe in a few words, more of a feeling I have about it. I guess you could use my current EQ experience to try to understand what I am saying. The game was, for a long time, the king daddy of MMOs. I did get excited coming up to its launch and played at launch, but only for a few hours when I fell out of the giant tree that Wood Elfs start in. I was having trouble with the interface. Just didn't click. Fast forward 11 years (they just had their 11th anniversary). Game has had 16 expansions. Servers are not highly populated, but the players that remain are there because they love the game. Inside of a day of game play I was in a guild myself that has a few hundred people in it (my guess, maybe only 50 are active at this point). I'm not really a guild rat myself, but having other people to ask questions to is a big help, plus, they have bailed my ass out a couple times when I got myself stuck (a boat bug threw me in the water between ports and I had no idea what direction to swim in is one example, I ended up suiciding but having my corpse summoned back and was then rezzed by a guild member). There are about a zillion options on where I can go in the world to explore. They made the game a lot easier to solo (you can hire a merc to accompany you and tank, or be a cleric, and they are very good support characters). I'm having a blast, and am sucked deep into it at this point in a way DDO never did (I played DDO at launch for a couple months, and for a little while in the past few months, as you know). Will I last a few months in EQ? A few years? I don't know, but even though its graphics and animations are very dated (even by comparison to DDO, which is not a new game either), I know the experience is going to be a lot deeper and more memorable, it's got that sweet unbelievable game world vibe to it in a way very, very few other games ever had.

I'm just saying cuz I want you to also enjoy your MMO experience, wherever that is, and so you know that there are other MMOs out there that have different things to offer than DDO.

[Smuel]

Hey Nixx, please keep your Everquest out of my DDO thread.

[NixxterCleareye]

Yo Smuel. Look up there ^ ^ ^. Way at the top. It ain't your DDO thread, it's Chud's.

Excuse me while I go post somewhere else, you got two posts ahead of me somehow.

[Smuel]

Chud, schmud. I don't see HIM creating a cool DDO guild and inviting everyone to join it.