Dungeons & Dragons Online

It was a night of crime and pun-ishment in Dungeons & Dragons Online last night. The crime was courtesy of the bandit crew we ousted from their little underground hole last night. The pun-ishment, alas, we inflicted upon ourselves. It’s just not Team Spode until Spode logs in, so the Spode-less crew milled about, uncertain and with no purpose in life. Ulan, I think, had found a quick quest we could do for House Jorasco while waiting for the rest of the group. New cleric Shananana(sp?) wasn’t online, so, heck, why not? And then Spode logged in and we were good to go. Now, Spode’s also been grinding a quest he found in a tavern in the Marketplace, and we’d been talking about doing that one on elite. So we did them both! ...

Team Spode left Three Barrel Cove behind, complete except for one level 7 dungeon we may return to once more of us are level 7. But we’d fought pirate monsters long enough. It was time to strike the barnacles from the scurvy mains’l, star the board and drink the port, drive the wharf rats out from under the saxboard, swab the bo’s’n and harpoon the gunwales, weigh the anchor and turn two sheets to the wind, and in all other ways, leave the pirate life behind us for awhile. ...

I need to tell you about the picture that heads this article. It was taken right after placing the last piece in the puzzle room in Goldthorn’s Retreat, for the quest A Ghost of a Chance. When Team Spode encountered the room while finishing up Three Barrel Cove last Sunday, we turned some tiles, nearly got the guy we were trying to free killed, and decided to kill a named in the dungeon for the key and a lesser reward. We moved on. ...

Last night, Team Spode continued our adventures in Dungeons & Dragons Online’s Three Barrel Cove. It’s the next step in the Barrel Cove series, and we can’t wait to get started on Four Barrel Cove. Yay, pirates! Well, these pirates put up a fight, this time. But what got us in the end wasn’t pirates at all, but a simple game of Chutes & Ladders… Two weeks ago, we’d started two longer quests, Galt’s Tomb (helpfully found by Spodal Attraction, AKA a Magnetic Monospode – Spode falling off a bridge and into the entrance), and after a little fun impaling ourselves upon the spears of pirate hobgoblins, the fire caves. Last week was an off week; we just did slayer and exploration quests. This week we were all together once more, and it was back for return engagements in the Tomb and the Caves. ...

Around the end of October each year, every game world is taken over by the dimly remembered remainders of an old harvest festival, All Hallow’s Eve, AKA Hallowe’en. The ancients sucked at making abbreviations. Star Trek Online wants to remind us that there’s something scarier than the spectre it might join its cousin, Champions Online, in the “Freemium” payment model. The third episode of the Devidian arc, ominously titled “What Lies Beneath”, comes out Saturday afternoon, on the day before Hallowe’en (AKA Halloweeneen, I guess). Should be a fun adventure tramping around in the bowels of an ancient space station looking for blue, soul-sucking ghosts. ...

Picture, if you would, a pirate. What are the job qualifications for a pirate? Well, what qualities would best fit a life about ship? Nimbleness of foot? Ability to climb rigging in the harshest of winds? Perhaps not needing a lot of living space, since quarters below for pirates or seamen of any sort are little more than a bunk hung wherever there’s room. A ready wit, a keen mind, deadly with blade or blunderbuss? ...

While the rest of the group wasn’t looking, I nailed their boots to the floor. It’s the only way I can get people to stop moving long enough for a picture! We’re here just outside the room in which is hidden the Seal of Shan-To-Kor. We were sent to retrieve the Seal and upset the local hobgoblin tribe enough that they would stop attacking folks. A word about traps. ...

Whatever else you say about the game, one thing you have to admit – Dungeons & Dragons Online has some really cool armor looks. My old Hobbesian Cleric eventually wore armor that really let out her inner half-orc. My drow rogue, Ophiga, got a nice set of +3 chain that is really amazing. EQ2 really missed the boat on armor – they started out with some really unique designs, but ended up with variations on textures. ...

There’s a gulf between the MMOs I WANT to be playing – such as EverQuest, where I currently have a max-level rogue – and the MMOs I ACTUALLY play – which, these days, are Dungeons & Dragons Online and Star Trek Online. (Wizard101 is on the back burner as we wait for the expansion). EverQuest is famous for being a social, more ‘sandbox’ open world where reputation matters and the things you do have consequence. Well, not so much anymore; SOE has fully bought into the instanced adventure scheme and now, nothing anybody does has any effect on the world. But ONCE UPON A TIME, it did. The point being, though, was it WAS a virtual world, where you could just hang out in places and chat, role play, run events or do whatever you wanted – and even occasionally pull on the heavy boots and wade into dungeons and battle for treasure. ...

Dungeons & Dragons Online started fairly strong for a new MMO, peaked early and fell into obscurity. People complained, loudly, that for a game built on the Guild Wars model (multiplayer hubs leading to solo/instanced content), they charged a bit much. Guild Wars, its inevitable competition, was after all free to play once you bought the box. Guild Wars also offered single player party play, a fairly unique combat mechanic and a strong RPG plot to take players through the story. ...