Last night was Massively’s third DDO group session, an event that I’ve come to really look forward to each week. I think that’s because I don’t have a lot of spare gaming time to pour into this game, so when I play, I want to know that I can find a group and fast. Considering that we had around 40 people log on, that wasn’t a problem — groups were forming left and right, and I took a small crowd of insanely trusting folks under my wing to do Waterworks.
Waterworks is like a coming of age ceremony in DDO, the first really big dungeon (well, four of them in a row) that takes a bit of coordination, teamwork, and babysitting to accomplish. Babysitting Arlos, I mean, that ninny who keeps running headlong into battle as if he wanted to die and negate one of the victory objectives. It’s been a long while since I ran WW, but I’ve run it often enough to muddle my way through.
Turns out, we didn’t do too badly. I took my recently re-rolled cleric (who’s getting a monk splash at level 4), and we plowed through the content without much of a hiccup — two deaths, one of which was my own. Good loot was gobbled up by all, and while I never am thrilled to be a leader of a group, they were pretty kind to me by not constantly shouting “Do you have ANY IDEA where you’re GOING?”
DDO is a refreshing change of pace from other MMOs in so many ways — you just flow through the dungeons without long, drawn-out battles or frequent corpse looting. Instead, the fights are quick and frantic, and treasure chests hold a particular rush of excitement when they’re spotted. I’m interested to see how long we can keep this going. A long time, I hope.
Bio Break 
That does sound awesome, especially as I am used to the silent-treatment WoW Heroic pugs. Actually talking and coordinating with groupmates? I haven’t actually done that in 4 years, at least.
I was lucky enough to get into Syp’s group this week and we had a great time! Poor Arlos was feeling a bit suicidal, but we managed to get him some therapy and I think he’s going to be just fine. We may need to get Syp some therapy too. With the rest of the party stuck behind a series of portcullis, (s)he tried to take on a whole room of blood-thirsty kobolds all by herself – with predicable results.
I have no room to talk, of course, since I ended up kissing the rez shrine myself a few fights later. Still, I had a blast and can’t wait for next week!
To defend ourselves on the “insanely trusting” part, it was only after we’d joined up that you revealed the name of your group to be Syp’s Suicide Squad, or whatever. At that point, it would have been rude to just drop. 😉
Before next week I think I’ll try finding some of the rares in WW. (“Be vewwy vewwy quiet. I’m hunting wust monstehs!”)
The funniest part for me was the acid trap tunnel. Syp said to time it with the blasts to safely get through and shut the valves off. Instead, one of our group (forget the name just now) just goes full speed blitz to the other end, in which I imagined him screaming at the top of his lungs like in the movies. No harm, valves shut off. It was hilarious.
I was with Rubi’s party, and that was fun, too. We went a bit slower, and had more deaths. I blame the healer. Oh, wait, that was me. 😛
Actually, our deaths came from the stupid underwater tunnel with all the gates. I didn’t understand that it was going to be long, so I dove under still in my full page (found a +1 suit! Woot!) and drowned quick.
I wish rings of water breathing were usable underwater….
But, yeah, I really like DDO. It’s a lot more thoughtful but faster paced in some regards. Not having to loot every corpse is definitely an advantage. It’s also fun to put all that D&D knowledge into a character, with just enough additions to keep things new and interesting.
I heartily recommend giving it a go. It’s free to play the intro areas, and there are a lot of cool people. Especially Ethic. 😉
For WW, just kill everything in the dungeon (including the ambushes) and then talk to Arlos, before running him to the enterance. It makes life a lot easier. He is suicidal, and can get in over his head too easily.
It sounds like you guys are having a ton of fun. I just created a character and hope to join in on the fun soon. If you see a Ranger named Binge Drinker please say hello. A big thanks to Syp and Rudi for getting the ball rolling with this great idea!
Yah the waterworks is pretty fun.If u get a good healer and fighters it goes alot smoother. By the way what world were u guys in?
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