Filkin’ around: Old Cannith Ruins

Even Now

Lars

Some things should just not be. This is one of them.

I’d apologize to Barry Manilow, but why? This song just BEGS to be filked. I apologize to you instead, if you’re reading this, for getting the melody stuck in your head, but twisted though it is, this is my favorite of the filks I’ve done so far. So, set to the rockin’ music of “Copacabana,” here’s “Old Cannith Ruins.”

Her name was Kaja
She was a young girl
She always hung out by a crypt – if you ask me, that’s kinda sick
Her lover left to fight the Devourer
He hadn’t been back for a while ’cause those fish could drive him wild
While she searched near and far
It’s so peculiar
The fish people were gettin’ it on
With her lover Lars

In the Old Can, Old Cannith Ruins
I can’t believe what he was…

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It’s All About Control

Full Moon Fury

…and I can haz it.  No, seriously.  I play DDO almost entirely with an Xbox 360 controller.

Sure, there are times I need to reach over and hit something with the mouse.  More often than not, though, that’s a “fire and forget” long-duration buff or a short swimming segment.  The best part is it doesn’t interfere with my keyboard mapping, so I can interchange with they keyboard as the need arises – although my keyboard usage has declined to almost exclusively being one-handed running in town while taking a drink or grabbing a bite to eat.

The advantage is unparalleled control of your toon on the battlefield and off.  All movement controls become graduated instead of either/or toggles.  That means if you’re tailing a monster, you can adjust your speed to match theirs rather than “hiccupping” the movement keys.  You’re also not limited to the fixed movement combinations inherent in…

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Thoughts on the changes to the Baudry Cartemon’s Storyline

Erdrique's Blog

The release notes for the Shadowfell Conspiracy mentioned that one of our well known Stormreach Harbor entities, Baudry Cartamon, was relocated and that the his particular quest chain was re-opened from previously being closed due to some bugs surrounding one of the quests.  However, the release notes didn’t mention (at least from what I can tell) that the story line from this commonly run quest chain has changed. 

One of my never ending pet projects is to document the storyline of DDO’s myriad of various quests.  So when I picked up the quest from Baudry for the fist time since the release of the Shadowfell Conspiracy I noticed the changes right away.

Prior to the Shadowfell Conspiracy, Baudry recruits you to help protect his cargo that has been given to his care from the Coin Lords.  We also learn that Baudry’s largest competitor is a bugbear named Hazadill.  Evidently Hazadill…

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Even’s Guide to PuGging, Part IV: Lone rangers

Even Now

Victaurya

To say that ranged toons don’t get a lot of love either ingame or on the forums would be like saying that Honey Boo Boo is an annoying no-talent brat – in other words, a gross understatement.

I didn’t know about the ranger hatred when I bought Vic her first repeating crossbow, or when I rolled up Char, my ranger AA. In Vic’s case, going ranged was a matter of, “Well, she’s squishy, but hey! I get repeater proficiency free so she doesn’t have to melee!”

(Side note: When I say “ranger,” I’m referring not just to the ranger class, but to any toon that relies heavily on ranged weapons.)

Char, on the other hand, exists solely because I know some AWESOME rangers, and after running with Slvr, Baz, Day, El (where the heck did you disappear to, anyway?) and a few others, I wanted to try some of that…

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Questing During a Holiday Week, November 24th to November 27th

Erdrique's Blog

My questing this week was once again quite diverse, which I always find as a good thing.  Diversity helps to keep the game interesting and fun :).  As usual, questing activities started with a Monday morning slayer run prior to work.  This time I too Sludgge (Level 21 Rogue/Shadowdancer) out into the Ruins of Gianthold (Heroic).  Later that afternoon, I took Hamllin (Level 13 Fighter) out into the Sands of Menechtarun, one of my more favorite areas, and ran the quest The Chamber of Rahmat.  I had some fun moving through the Tomb of Physician and fighting the gnolls and undead.  I didn’t have any real issues, just some annoyances with poison spells and mummy rot.  Later on Monday night, I logged in with Berann (Level 7 Barbarian) and took him through Where’s there smoke and the annoying Swiped Signet.  I didn’t have any issues, working…

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Valak and his Mausoleum

Erdrique's Blog

There used to be a time where I couldn’t stand to run the quest Dead Girl’s Spellbook (Valak’s Mausoleum).  Valak’s Mausoleum, probably better known as Dead Girl’s Spellbook, is one of the side quests out in Delera’s Graveyard.  Dead Girl’s Spellbook was one of the earliest quest to use a time limited mechanic in DDO.  It is a level 6 quest that is bestowed by a NPC who is known as “Dead Girl” and who is standing just outside the quest entrance within Delera’s Graveyard.  The point of the quest is to retrieve Valak’s spellbook which contains some poweful necromantic secrets.  Of course Dead Girl doesn’t tell you what is in the spellbook, she only mentions that Valak was her mentor and died recently and now her studies are incomplete, unless of course she can get a hold of his spellbook.  She does tell you that Valak was…

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Enemy Profile-Uneeou (Gnoll Aeromancer)

Erdrique's Blog

Continuing with a blog post related to my run with Hamllin (Level 13 Fighter) in the Sands of Menechtarun and in The Chamber of Rahmat I wanted to take a closer look at the gnoll, Uneeou.  Uneeou is an optional orange named Windlasher gnoll that is only found in the The Chamber of Rahmat.  He can be a pretty vicious and dangerous enemy.

Battling Uneeou photo FightingUneeou_zpsa4e109d5.jpg
Hamllin battling Uneeou in the Chamber of Rahmat.

Uneeou is a hard enemy to figure out for me.  For one, he appears to be one of the many Windlasher Aeromancers who appear to be more like an arcane casters with an affinity of casting lightning based spells.  However, Uneeou seems to have the extra ability to cast blade barriers, which you can see in the above screenshot above.  So it seems like he is a mixture of cleric and arcane spellcasting which makes battling him pretty…

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Even’s Guide to PUGging, Part III: There’s no “I” in “team”

Even Now

Photobucket

Bear with me for a few minutes while I digress from all things DDO to talk about an unrelated but relevant topic: wrestling.

No, not those pay-per-view guys who break chairs over their opponents’ heads. REAL wrestling. I spent quite a few years as a newspaper writer and editor working primarily in sports. For about five of those years, I covered the high school wrestling beat, and I knew my stuff – there’s a first-place Keystone Press Award hanging on my wall for my coverage of the 2006 Pennsylvania high school wrestling championships. Many people would probably consider wrestling to be much more of an individual sport rather than a team endeavor, but it’s really not. A wrestler who wins his match nets between 3 and 6 points for his TEAM as well as his personal victory. The team with the most points after all matches have been wrestled is…

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O Hire, Where Art Thou?

Full Moon Fury

I would love to say that I thoroughly enjoy the new hireling AI, but I don’t.

Now don’t get me wrong – the ability to customize your hires’ action slots is sheer brilliance.  That part, I dig very much.

No, it’s their new-found desire to desert their post at every opportunity, burn off all shrines prematurely, and run head-first into traps when you told them to stay put that sets me off.  But venting isn’t the purpose of this post, honest.

The purpose of this post is to share a little tidbit of information I found.  For those who are pulling their hair out at the roots while screaming at the monitor things like “______, you idiot!  I told you to stay put!” I offer the following nugget of advice:

When you summon a hire to your location by clicking the “feet,” there is a five second reset on…

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Don’t you just love those classic “ooppss” moments

Erdrique's Blog

Catastrophy in Repossession photo CatastrophyinRepossession_zpscd82032b.jpg
Erdrique laughing in his grave as he fails to survive the blasted traps in Repossession.

The other day a guildie and I were running two of our true reincarnated characters through the Sharn Syndicate quest chain.  We were running the quest Repossession and we were having a nice smooth run.  I had brought with me a rogue hireling and as well as a cleric hireling.  For this particular life, Erdrique is a barbarian and my guildie was playing a wizard.  I knew we wouldn’t be able to survive the traps in Repossession on elite so that was why I brought the rogue with us. 

Everything was going good as I was having the rogue disable all of the traps on the pillars for each piece of art.  My guildie had been fighting on the other side of the house dealing with the named dog and his trainer.  By the time…

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