12 December 2011

Invaders are Made to Order! (Faction Night)

I actually hit Veteran status last week (finally) and it was a pretty awesome moment. I love knowing that I could totally skip levels 1-3 now on a character. I guess that means I can delete my son's level 3 paladin and reroll him level 4!


None of us were really feeling like doing a Cannith mission night, so we decided to do some lower 11-12 level stuff and have a touch of fun while getting some faction. First up for us was INVADERS!

Ophiga and Joe opted for cleric NPCs and then said I should choose another class for my NPC, so I went with the bard. This meant a night full of disco balls at every turn. All night it was like the DDO Dance Movie by CestLeVie1234 on Youtube:



I love the combination of otto's and firewall in screenshots. There is nothing cooler than fire and disco at the same time. In fact, I have a new favorite screenshot from last night where one of the rolling dark matter orbs rolled in view of the camera. Check this out:


Love it!

INVADERS! is completely packed with Beholders. We tried this one on a random night back when Lessah was in the group and failed miserably. Ahh the difference of four levels. We were a total wrecking ball on this instance. Many beholders were felled! RAWR!


I actually wouldn't mind running that instance a few times again for the beholder optic nerves necklace and some more faction. ONWARD TO CHAMPION STATUS!

So the back story on the Invaders quest is as such:

Xoriat, you know that crazy plane of craziness, er madness? Well, all the crazies from Xoriat got together and thought it'd be wicked awesome to head to Xen'drik and kick some butt here, and what better place to start than good ol' Stormreach Sewers. They've got some insider human cultists working here, and, I mean, if you're going to clear a place out, totally head for where the new players are. Right? Makes sense to me. (If I was a giant dragon wanting to cause a cataclysm, I'd head for Stormwind right off the bat. Whoops, wrong game) That's like page 1 of the evil invader handbook right there.

NO WORRIES! Team Spode was there there to stop their plans! Here's how the XP report rolled out.


Next up for the evening was a House Kundarak quest called Made to Order.

You know, behind every crazy contraption in Dungeons and Dragons Online, there's a tinker out there (an artificer if you will) making their gizmos and gadgets "made to order" for all the dragonmarked houses of Eberron. Deneith needs weapons for their mercenaries, Jorasco needs 'em for their defibrillators, Phiarlan needs them for creating special movie effects (better than pixar, those tinkers), and Kundarak goes for the oversized security golems. And here is where Team Spode's intervention was required.

Buried away in the Black Forest, we find a special artificer named Haywire. What kind of crazy tinker in the tinker biz would name themselves after a defective wiring state? That's hardcore! That'd be like a doctor nicknaming himself, "Amputator."


That aside, Hazra in House Kundarak had a real problem on her hands, Haywire (His real name is Phinneas Hayward btw) hasn't sent word for quite a while, and Hazra is getting antsy for more golems.


NO WORRIES! TEAM SPODE LIKES TO HELP!

Haywire's abode is a crazy track-filled lava pit. At one point I sprung off the rails and broke into a bar of Ozzy Osborn's Crazy Train . . . 'cause I was going off! You know, the rails! On a crazy train! . . . yeah . . . that joke didn't go over well did it. I tried though.

If the Invaders quest was all about beholders, Made to Order is all about the golems. Clay golems, Iron golems, and of course, the final mega construct: a Marut gone bad!

As it turns out, Haywire thought he'd fix up a Marut named ARN-01D (or Arnold if you're into nicknames) and bring in some big bucks. Too bad that thing turned on him when it found out Haywire was trying to make himself into a cyborg with an awesome arm implant. Silly Haywire, doesn't he know that Marut are Inevitables? That kind of silly behavior ain't natural. He must be terminated!

Basically the dungeon is a hack n slasher in a semi-straight path. You just follow the rails and make sure you collect all the seals on your way. If you don't, you'll most likely have to backtrack a bit like we did. Apparently the end of the instance is one that used to be exploitable through pulling the Marut towards the group hiding outside its room. The all you have to do is range it to death. That isn't Team Spode style though. We went in with guns blazing!


Here's how the final xp report looked.


OH DANG. Look at my numbers for breakables! I'm such a halfling: can't leave anything untouched. Luckily our bonuses helped make up for that super harsh -75% exp loss from being so overpowered for the instance. hehe.

Good times.

Next week Ulan returns and we get to deal with more Xoriat craziness as Team Spode delves into the Harbinger of Madness quest line. Can't wait!

Happy Dueling!

1 comment:

  1. Good writing again!
    Love those 2 quests you've run with Team Spode.
    they both require some attention and teamwork, especially at level.

    About the nicknames, there is a thread up on the official DDO boards where players found interesting NPC names (Mentau the Fleshmaker comes to mind, or the 4 man sitting in one of the houses' pub, some say they represent 4 players that played soccer for Manchester). Lemme see if i can find that thread.....(ok, it took a little search but found it) http://forums.ddo.com/showthread.php?t=150433

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