Threnal West and Late to the Party

I logged on last Sunday all psyched for an awesome day of hack and slash with my good buddies in the static group WHEN . . . real life.

My real life friends dropped by to talk and say hello.

Not that that's bad. That's actually really good! I love my friends . . . they just don't play DDO nor would they understand me playing DDO nor would I ever just play DDO while they were here. No, that would be rude, inconsiderate, lame, and dumb. I tend to hope that I'm not defined by any of those words.

The golden rule of gaming is: "THOU SHALT NOT LET THE ONLINE WORLD BE MORE IMPORTANT THAN YOUR REAL LIFE WORLD." Remember it, kids. Never let it get that crazy.

although, I must say that I was kind of happy it was only a short 40 minute visit, and I was able to jump back online and catch the static group. They all got double the loot as well since, well, they did everything they had just done the past 40 minutes over again with me and my firewall in tow.

Funny thing, I saw that my spell components were low for fourth level spells as soon as I joined the group, so I just zipped my mouth and decided to spam other skills instead of firewall. I don't know if they noticed that or not. ;)

I actually didn't get many pictures this time either. I did manage to take this shot of Spode slashing at a flesh render's head . . . although it's kind of hard to tell that's what's happening here. I do like the angles though!


MODERN ART!

I also snapped a picture of me in front of the Dave Arneson shrine in the Ruins of Threnal. I remember when he died, which actually wasn't very long ago.


It's kind of wild hearing his voice over on the campaigns in the Ruins of Threnal and think about what it would be like (in a very very very small way) to have Arneson DM'ing a dungeon for you.

I did manage to grab a small bit of footage as well, so here we are tearing it up a little bit in Threnal West. I should have grabbed something a little sexier like a boss fight, but LOL, you know . . . it's hard enough for me to even remember to press the record button once and take two screenshots.


This Sunday we shall be cracking skulls in the final portion of the Ruins of Threnal. I'm tempted to lead everyone through another run of the Crypt of the Shadowkeeper though because all this weekend we will be getting an additional +25% experience and +1 loot thanks to some customer appreciation from Turbine.

YES!

Happy Dueling!

Threnal . . . another great a-sheath-ment for Team Spode

Yes! The stars over Stormreach finally aligned, did their little starry backflips, and shined down on Team Spode because after a couple weeks of threatening to do the Ruins of Threnal, we finally were all on the same page (and logged in at the same time--CRAZY) so that we could begin our new quest! The main purpose of said quest? To secure a Mantle of the Worldshaper for every good little girl and boy . . . also Spode.

Here we are hanging out in the camp, just chillin'.


Hai. *wave*

After some shuffling around and changing of minds, we decided that the night would be spent in the Eastern Excavation, taking our aggressions out by punching Coyle to the ground and making interesting Olympic-esque formations with blade barrier.


So the deal with the Eastern Excavation is that you basically enter the same instance map three times with three different objectives: kill a fire reaver who's hanging out in a library (we were all quite bummed when we couldn't check any books out of said library), escort Coyle Lovell to the library and once again kill a fire reaver, and finally defend the library (and especially Coyle) from swarms of monsters for 15 minutes. Apparently improvements to the game from Turbine now allow you to keep Coyle knocked out on the ground so he doesn't suicide himself on the mobs. Really, it's for his own good . . . not because he's irritating or fragile like a dry leaf in a forest fire or anything like that.


After all that Coyle nonsense, we decided we had enough time to complete the first quest of the Western excavation route, which we completed without much loss of life and/or limb (um, except for Ulan and Ophiga dying in an elite trap). Truly though, the only thing really dying here were the puns, and there were some bad ones. Spode's sword was made a metaphor and something was said about it being long and double edged . . . a great a-sheath-ment to mankind or some such nonsense . . . I really need to start recording these conversations for hilarity sake. Team Spode, when bad puns happen to good people.

Anyway, we stopped the main quest line there for the night, reserving the remainder for the next couple of weeks. Instead we decided to venture forth into the adventure area portion of the Ruins of Threnal and went on a giant hunt. Lessah continued to gasp at how old this content was and use her punchline "follow me this way like you know who I am" as she guided us from fire giant cave to fire giant cave.

It was here in the Fire Giant Caves of the Ruins of Threnal that our brave paladin, Spode, finally proved his true devotions by collecting tithes before rezzing the rogue (he totally looted a chest before rezzing Ophiga . . . she let him have it). Again, we wouldn't want to have him any other way. ;)

On a final note for this blog post, I have to point out a new quest reward that was up for grabs for all of us: The Mystical Goblet.


I looked it up . . . it's a yet to be implemented crafting item. Hope it makes something cool eventually. :)

Thanks Team Spode for all the fun!

Happy Dueling!