Diib
02-12-2012, 09:03 PM
I'm addicted to this game. I love it. But I've also played and replayed it so many times that I lose sight of what this game has been over the years, and how I started.... (que fade out to black and white memory)
I avoided DDO when it was first released. I like MMOs to play with my friends when they are on, but generally speaking I'm a solo sort. I might log 20-40 hours solo for every one or two hours I would play with friends. When DDO was being released the word on the street from early reviews and from my friends was that parties were REQUIRED. I knew that wouldn't be the game for me, so I skipped it.
Several years later I heard through the grapevine that the game was going free to play. I was very curious to see if a development house could make that work, and so I joined the game before they went free to play... to support them and check out the transition. I joined the game during the summer (I want to say June of 2009). A large group of my friends checked out the game when it went free to play a few months later. They didn't think it was fair I had a head-start, so I cancelled my old account and started a new one, this one, so that we could all experience the game together. None of them stayed with the game past Christmas.
My first half a dozen characters were all bad. I had played a lot of pnp, and one of my favorite characters to play as was a swashbuckler. Light on strength, various versions of the swashbuckler style them as either dex or int based fighters, and that is what I made. I also wanted to be dashing, so I needed charisma. I made and remade various fighters with a splash of rogue or bard, that were all based around dex, int and charsima. I bought drow as a race. None of them made it past level 8. I would painstakingly mail ALL of my gear from a character I gave up on to a new one I had created. Often the mailbox cost would wipe out the money I had.
I liked that the game was hard, but didn't like that there seemed to be no way to make my swashbuckler work. It didn't help I only soloed, and I survived by trading in collectable turn-ins for cure light wounds potions in the harbor. I would run the Collaborator to ransack about once a week for the chest that would drop 3-5 starter heal potions as a way to stock up. I finally became frustrated with trying to heal through potions, and out of frustration created a favored soul.
Everything changed when I was able to self heal. First, the game became much easier. Second, I started grouping for the first time. See, I would be adventuring on my own, minding my own business in my latest 40 minute run of Durk's Got a Secret, when I would get messages from people asking me to join them. Apparently they needed a healer and they saw me. I would explain that I might have to drop suddenly for real life reasons, I didn't know the quest, and I was sure they could do better. Generally, they would respond with "did you take heal spells?". Answer yes, and they were willing and eager to take me along.
I still strongly preferred to solo, and I would always feel bad if I had been in a group that I was forced to drop when I had to leave my computer unexpectedly. But, I learned from grouping. Often other players were willing to show me the ropes on quests (what do you mean you can just swim underwater to hit the other lever in Garrison's missing pack? I can skip all those extra kobold shamans? Wow!) I was mostly a piker. I would do my best to follow the blob of blue dots, and throw heals until my magic wore out... which it would do often. Other players were often aggravating and rude or dismissive if I didn't know something, and waiting for lfms to fill was not then, and is not now a good use of my gaming time. But, I must admit that grouping with others made my solo experience better from what I learned.
My characters were not well geared, or really that well built. My "best" character, the first one to make it into mid levels, was a drow favored soul/2 paladin that was all charisma all the time (and yes, a 6 con. And an 8 strength)... but that combo had the most sp, which let me heal the most. I vividly remember the first time I went on an elite quest... we all died horribly and I thought elites were impossible. I remember going back to korthos at level 7 and struggling to solo the island quests on elite. I remember getting my first +6 con ring from a random drop. It was like hitting a gold mine. I was so happy... +6 con always sold for so much on the AH I could never afford it for any slot. I remember the first time I got a character up to 300 hit points... at level 20 and I thought I was tough.
Still, my healers, while easily making it to levels 12-15, never really progressed past there. Part of the problem was I let my VIP go on and off, so the packs I had access to would change month to month. Part of the problem is that I hated grouping, and my "healbot-piking lets learn a quest today" chars couldn't kill a paper bag, forget about a pack of angry hobgoblins.
I really stumbled on my first character I really, REALLY enjoyed playing, and it was my first character to ever reach level 20. It was a 17 wizard, 2 rogue, 1 bard. I wore light armor and dual wielded rapiers. I took weapon finesse, and was a drow with maxed int, cha, and dex... and a 6 con. It was similar to the swashbuckler I had tried to do with the fighter class, but with a few important differences. First, having good charisma (and my first char with UMD) meant that I could buy much better gear, because weird race required items were sold much cheaper. Second, the tactic of throwing a firewall and then standing in it and swinging away madly worked stupidly well, even if I didn't fully realize that it was the firewall and not my rapiers doing most of the damage. And third, at this time in the game wizards could just use heal scrolls at level 11... which was literally a lifesaver.
I still remember pooling all of the money from all of my characters to barely scrape together 1 million gold (plat was not an AH standard) for a Breastplate of Vol for my combat wizard. +5 mithril AND +4 to a stat?? It was so powerful, so worth it. I was so poor that I would have to consider whether I could run a quest because the treasure from the combined chests might not equal my adventuring costs in item repairs + heal scrolls used. But I had fun, and I did it. A character from level 1 to 20.... and I soloed the whole way.
When I my ddo the old life for this character I can't believe I did it. 240 hp at cap. 42 AC (I was PROUD of). No DR. No Healing Amp. And I was a melee based wizard with dcs in the high 20s. I never ran a shroud. I couldn't get in one. Even though I had managed to flag, shroud groups would take 1, maybe 2 arcanes top, and they would always take pure casters over my 17/2/1 split. Not that I would have been much help had I gotten in. But boy was it a fun ride.
I avoided DDO when it was first released. I like MMOs to play with my friends when they are on, but generally speaking I'm a solo sort. I might log 20-40 hours solo for every one or two hours I would play with friends. When DDO was being released the word on the street from early reviews and from my friends was that parties were REQUIRED. I knew that wouldn't be the game for me, so I skipped it.
Several years later I heard through the grapevine that the game was going free to play. I was very curious to see if a development house could make that work, and so I joined the game before they went free to play... to support them and check out the transition. I joined the game during the summer (I want to say June of 2009). A large group of my friends checked out the game when it went free to play a few months later. They didn't think it was fair I had a head-start, so I cancelled my old account and started a new one, this one, so that we could all experience the game together. None of them stayed with the game past Christmas.
My first half a dozen characters were all bad. I had played a lot of pnp, and one of my favorite characters to play as was a swashbuckler. Light on strength, various versions of the swashbuckler style them as either dex or int based fighters, and that is what I made. I also wanted to be dashing, so I needed charisma. I made and remade various fighters with a splash of rogue or bard, that were all based around dex, int and charsima. I bought drow as a race. None of them made it past level 8. I would painstakingly mail ALL of my gear from a character I gave up on to a new one I had created. Often the mailbox cost would wipe out the money I had.
I liked that the game was hard, but didn't like that there seemed to be no way to make my swashbuckler work. It didn't help I only soloed, and I survived by trading in collectable turn-ins for cure light wounds potions in the harbor. I would run the Collaborator to ransack about once a week for the chest that would drop 3-5 starter heal potions as a way to stock up. I finally became frustrated with trying to heal through potions, and out of frustration created a favored soul.
Everything changed when I was able to self heal. First, the game became much easier. Second, I started grouping for the first time. See, I would be adventuring on my own, minding my own business in my latest 40 minute run of Durk's Got a Secret, when I would get messages from people asking me to join them. Apparently they needed a healer and they saw me. I would explain that I might have to drop suddenly for real life reasons, I didn't know the quest, and I was sure they could do better. Generally, they would respond with "did you take heal spells?". Answer yes, and they were willing and eager to take me along.
I still strongly preferred to solo, and I would always feel bad if I had been in a group that I was forced to drop when I had to leave my computer unexpectedly. But, I learned from grouping. Often other players were willing to show me the ropes on quests (what do you mean you can just swim underwater to hit the other lever in Garrison's missing pack? I can skip all those extra kobold shamans? Wow!) I was mostly a piker. I would do my best to follow the blob of blue dots, and throw heals until my magic wore out... which it would do often. Other players were often aggravating and rude or dismissive if I didn't know something, and waiting for lfms to fill was not then, and is not now a good use of my gaming time. But, I must admit that grouping with others made my solo experience better from what I learned.
My characters were not well geared, or really that well built. My "best" character, the first one to make it into mid levels, was a drow favored soul/2 paladin that was all charisma all the time (and yes, a 6 con. And an 8 strength)... but that combo had the most sp, which let me heal the most. I vividly remember the first time I went on an elite quest... we all died horribly and I thought elites were impossible. I remember going back to korthos at level 7 and struggling to solo the island quests on elite. I remember getting my first +6 con ring from a random drop. It was like hitting a gold mine. I was so happy... +6 con always sold for so much on the AH I could never afford it for any slot. I remember the first time I got a character up to 300 hit points... at level 20 and I thought I was tough.
Still, my healers, while easily making it to levels 12-15, never really progressed past there. Part of the problem was I let my VIP go on and off, so the packs I had access to would change month to month. Part of the problem is that I hated grouping, and my "healbot-piking lets learn a quest today" chars couldn't kill a paper bag, forget about a pack of angry hobgoblins.
I really stumbled on my first character I really, REALLY enjoyed playing, and it was my first character to ever reach level 20. It was a 17 wizard, 2 rogue, 1 bard. I wore light armor and dual wielded rapiers. I took weapon finesse, and was a drow with maxed int, cha, and dex... and a 6 con. It was similar to the swashbuckler I had tried to do with the fighter class, but with a few important differences. First, having good charisma (and my first char with UMD) meant that I could buy much better gear, because weird race required items were sold much cheaper. Second, the tactic of throwing a firewall and then standing in it and swinging away madly worked stupidly well, even if I didn't fully realize that it was the firewall and not my rapiers doing most of the damage. And third, at this time in the game wizards could just use heal scrolls at level 11... which was literally a lifesaver.
I still remember pooling all of the money from all of my characters to barely scrape together 1 million gold (plat was not an AH standard) for a Breastplate of Vol for my combat wizard. +5 mithril AND +4 to a stat?? It was so powerful, so worth it. I was so poor that I would have to consider whether I could run a quest because the treasure from the combined chests might not equal my adventuring costs in item repairs + heal scrolls used. But I had fun, and I did it. A character from level 1 to 20.... and I soloed the whole way.
When I my ddo the old life for this character I can't believe I did it. 240 hp at cap. 42 AC (I was PROUD of). No DR. No Healing Amp. And I was a melee based wizard with dcs in the high 20s. I never ran a shroud. I couldn't get in one. Even though I had managed to flag, shroud groups would take 1, maybe 2 arcanes top, and they would always take pure casters over my 17/2/1 split. Not that I would have been much help had I gotten in. But boy was it a fun ride.