Lessah declared this week that she and I had officially bonded. It all happened in a one-two punch of an event. The right-fist of bonding happened after kiting three clay golems around some firewalls in a room that closes off once you enter, and the left-fist of bonding happened after a resulting death from pulling a trapped lever while Ophiga was hanging out downstairs with Spode in the "I can't make this jump" club. BOOM BOOM! (Without a rogue, we were just kind of blind to the traps.) Needless to say, it was kind of a rough night again in the Tomb of the Wizard King (Just like three weeks ago), but it can never be too rough of a night when you have your buddies nearby and someone is singing a goofy song or telling a bad pun. Right, crew? Let's not forget that! (Yeah, no one told that joke . . . but they should have!)

Here's a review of my lessons learned from the week:

1- Lessah doesn't like when people refer to their character as their "toon." It's a pretty standard slang word in the game world that was hip enough 10 years ago in Everquest, but apparently to Lessah it is demeaning to the time and effort you put into building a character to simply call that mass of pixels your "toon." Of course, I took every opportunity from that point forward to say things like, "mmm, girl! Who drew your toon? *whistle*" You know . . . smarmy stuff like that. It's all in good fun. ;)

2- I am a typical Halfling when it comes to breakables. I have to just TOUCH EVERYTHING. So curious! I don't know how many times I heard, "Would you stop touching those?!?!?!" when I'd bust open a sarcophagus. I can't help it. I even got blamed for a number of them that just opened by themselves! That's alright . . . if they hadn't busted open with angry mummies, I would have touched them all the same.

3- Ophiga needs featherfall . . . badly. I wouldn't be surprised if Spode and I each dumped a pair of featherfall boots in the mail to her by the end of the week. We needed that familiar yelp of "TRAP! TRAP! TRAP!" when there was something evil afoot (or underfoot as the case may be). So if we could have just made her little drow feetsies float across the busted-out trapped floor, why, then we would have been just fine! Check your mail, Ophiga!

4- Spode . . . I don't know . . . I don't think I learned anything new about Spode. I had a lot of re-affirmations about my dear friend--like he doesn't "do" super Mario jumps--but, no, I didn't learn anything new about Spode by any means. Oh wait, he did mention something about not being as spry as he was before the four-year-old started wearing him out. We traded information on grey hairs on our head caused by our children. Yeah, getting old sucks.

5- Ulan. Again, I don't think I learned anything new about Ulan. Yes, I had to hunt him down on Facebook. Yes, the monsters still like to devour him for healing us. Yes, he saved my hide with many heals. Yes, he couldn't find his spirit cake in his overflowing bags. That's my Ulan! I was just happy to drag around his stone for a while. We should have all taken Ulan's advice though when we noticed the NPC cleric had fallen through a floor and died. "Shouldn't we go save the NPC?" Ulan asks with all the wisdom a Favored Soul can muster. "NAH! We'll get to him eventually!" we cheered happily! Ahhh, the lessons learned. I'm still boggling over why we couldn't even dismiss that dead cleric from the party . . . oh well!

We had a lot of fun and next week promises even more fun! I do believe Chains of Flame was mentioned? (Quite a complex walkthrough there, wiki!) Sounds like fun! See you there!

Posted by Stingite at 5:42 AM 0 comments 21 July 2011

Demon Sands: Adventures in Lore

Yes, we are still in the Menechtarun desert! What’s the deal? Why the hate? We’ll be here a while, people! Don’t blame me for thinking it would be a good time! SHEESH! I think Ophiga is trying to tell us she’d rather skip this expansion. After all that sloppiness in the Tomb of the Witch King, we haven’t seen any traces of her . . . like at all . . . well, except for on Google+ where she has like eleventy million friends, and THAT'S why I tried hunting her down there first (to no avail).

You see, I have a little ritual I go through when people stop showing up to the static group. First, I call their mom and ask where they are. If that doesn’t work, I go to the social media of their choice to hunt for them. I know if Ulan isn’t there, I can check either Facebook or LOTRO to find him. If Spode isn’t there . . . well . . . Spode is always there. If Lessah isn’t there, I know I can Twitter her or maybe call the DDO Cocktail Hour hotline and at least rant for a while about her not being available. Ophiga = Google+ and a phone number.

What good does that do me if Ophiga’s phone is dead? Huh? HUH?! None apparently. I tried, ma’am. :)

Ophiga sent us an e-mail explaining a horrific traffic jam and a dead cell phone, and I’m ok with that. I'm just happy we didn't encounter any traps at all this Sunday . . . unless you call DDO one giant trap, and then yes, we were completely caught up in that trap.

Actually we spent a lot of time learning the sad tale of Ashok Khalidan. And by learning, I mean killing his mummy form and accompanying legions of fire mephits. it's a hard job, but somebody has to earn the exp.

I like how Ashok there says that he's really a good guy who was just trying to help out his family . . . but I killed a bunch of people for Raiyum in the process. He's all: Dude, I'm just misunderstood! We're all: Don't care, just came for the loot thanks!

After we did that instance a couple of times, we upped our kill counts in the adventure area and called it a night.

Lessah took some time to show me over to a merchant that she was pretty geeked out about. I like when Lessah geeks out over stuff. It's awesome. So apparently Ortolan Thoom here is holding a claw of a rakshasa in a jar and there was at one time in a galaxy far far away, a community contest of some sort where there was a treasure hunt and this guy's claw of a rakshasa in a jar was one of the items. dot dot dot. Don't care, just came for the loot thanks! JUST KIDDING! THAT'S WAY COOL, LESSAH! *fives*

Everything you want to know about Rakshasa's and their freaky backwards hands here!

Next week will definitely hold more adventures in Demon Sands. We need to catch both Lessah and Ophiga up, so we'll be repeating some content. Either way, it's going to mean some phat exp for the group. D

Posted by Stingite at 5:29 AM 0 comments 15 July 2011

Team Spode vs. Cliff Jumping!

Without Ophiga with us last week we decided to just run around the desert collecting explorer points and killing named if they were up. Although we had really bad luck with finding any named up, Spode was having even worse luck with the required cliff jumping that takes place between ledges.

Go team Spode!

Other than that, the night was pretty uneventful. There was some difficulty killing a lich named out in the sandy parts of the desert for some reason. Lessah's mouse decided to freeze up on her at one point too. (You know when you mention someone's mouse freezing up that it's a slow news week.)

Next week we should be back into the groove and hitting a couple more instances in Sands. Good times!

Posted by Stingite at 5:44 AM 0 comments 09 July 2011

Awesome is our dump stat!

So happy to be mentioned by the DDO community spotlight! I had to screenshot it (or it didn't happen). Thanks DDO for having a great community! Team Spode sends it's regards!

Happy dueling!
Posted by Stingite at 6:49 AM 0 comments 06 July 2011

Menechtarun Sand in our Shoes :)

Before you even start reading this post, you need to make sure you've read Ophiga's epic piece of writing about the week before last's adventures. :) Since she was laying down the blog posts, I took the opportunity to remix a voice recording from that week as well. DJ Gleek Wondertwin presents the epic remix: Mantle of the Worldshaper is MINE! Enjoy that free mp3 kids. ;) (Thanks Spode, Lessah, and Ophiga for being willing victims of my voice sampling)

I like taking trips to the beach. Pina Coladas and getting caught in the rain and what not--sand in your toes. It's really a good life. On the other hand, trips to the desert aren't that great. Sure, you can recreate that whole desert scene from The Doors movie with your buddies and the Djinni, but what we learned last Sunday night with the static group is that deserts are hot, dry, and FULL OF FLASHY MUMMIES! Armed with our brand newly purchased expansion packs for the Demon Sands of Menechtarun, we decided to take the long way in through the Desert Caravan instance entrance in House P.

We didn't have too many problems here as the Scorrow, Scorpions, Drow, and the cast of Lion King seemed to just throw themselves into our Blade barriers and firewalls. The group did a good job of fending off the waves of attackers and bosses on our way to the city oasis in the desert. The three chests at the end of the instance were a nice and unexpected bonus. Unexpected? Yes, we were going in blind to this whole Menechtarun experience because our new guide, Lessah The Gamechanger, was sadly absent. This absentee-ism was both a blessing and a curse because it is nice sometimes to throw caution to the wind, but what if the wind was backdraft from Spode's codpiece? Not so fun then, is it?

(Seriously, for more codpiece and beholder jokes, you really should go read Ophiga's DDO post from last week . . . it's brilliant)

I mean . . . look at this mess of an instance we wandered into . . . What you don't see in that map are the stacked levels and pathways through ramps leading up (and collapsable floors leading down) the ziggurat. It took us a bit to figure out where we were going and what we were doing.

The Tomb of the Wizard King or "The Chamber of Raiyum" is a level 12, VERY LONG (they ain't kiddin') instance nestled in a sandy pocket of the demon sands. You can read more about it here on the wiki. Yeah, it would have been helpful to have read that beforehand. I didn't even know you could skip these Djinni fights if you had the right item. Ahh well, we got loot. ;-) We even got the three chests at the end. It was painful getting that loot, well, more so for Ulan with his *cough* nine deaths was it? If you don't die with Team Spode, then you're just not trying hard enough. ;) I think by the end of the night it was around 2am for the east coasters. Luckily 4th of July was Monday, so we all had the day off . . . OH WAIT, Ulan is Canadian. *pats Ulan on the back* That's rough buddy. Thanks for keeping us all healthy.

By the end of the night we all took a level and called it good. Spode and I are sitting at level 13, and Ulan, Ophiga, and Lessah should now all be at level 12 (Level 12, right Lessah? Right?)

Anyway, next week will most likely bring more Menechtarun Desert adventures for Team Spode . . . except for Ophiga, who informed us she won't be able to make it this time around. I don't know, maybe we'll just all stand around and posture in the Marketplace instead.

Posturing? Oh yeah, we can totally do that now that we've been featured in Beckett's Massive Online Gamer magazine. ;) Check it out! TEAM SPODE VS. THE KOBOLDS! Yup, that's Team Spode in Issue 32 (Sep/Oct 2011) on Pages 72-74 in an article written by yours truly! I wrote that many months ago truth be known . . . it was before Lessah Game Changer was in the group. That's OK, I managed to talk to the editor and sneak in a link to DDOCocktailHour on Page 74 for Lessah's sake.
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