Woody, Trevor and Dr. Sexy have all returned to DDO. Being that I’m a little girl when it comes to peer pressure, I had no choice but to follow them. Because, hey, the COOL KIDS are doing it, and I want desperately to fit in!
Of course if I knew the trouble I was going to have, I probably should have passed. Aw, who am I kidding, the trouble’s the best part!
Everyone knows that grouping with Woody invariably means you’re going to go fast. Not just fast, but fast. As far as Woody is concerned, reading flavor text or quest instructions is for pussies. I don’t know how the hell he does it – the man works an insanely busy job that has him on his feet 10+ hours a day, he has a child and a wife, and yet somehow he manages to know EVERYTHING about a game before we even start. So we all decide to get back into DDO after a long absence and discover that EVERYTHING in the opening quests has changed – but somehow Woody has it all figured out and drags us through it all at Mach 3! He’s rolled a sorc, and he’s the perfect group leader because he can stand back, order the tanks into battle, and direct us where to go.
And if we don’t move fast enough, he lights a fire under our asses. Literally.
Trevor’s job in the group is to tank. He does it very well – Trevor’s quite experienced at MOGs, and he knows the ins and outs quite well. He’s never played DDO before, but he falls into the role quite naturally and does a great job drawing aggro and punching throats.
Dr. Sexy’s job is – of course – to be a dorf. He’s our cleric, and anyone that agrees to be a healer in a party with me deserves respect. His other job is to drive Woody insane – when we come upon one of those puzzles that involve moving the tiles so the power crystal flows to the activator thingies, Woody immediately takes charge and begins flipping tiles.
And then Dr. Sexy comes behind him and flips them all the other way, driving Woody into a berserker rage.
Now MY job – which is obviously the MOST IMPORTANT JOB – is to be the sneaky thief bastich. I LOOOVE playing rogues. At least when we’ve got a good tank and healer around.
Of course one of the things that never ceases to amaze me is that even with a tank and cleric up front laying down the smack, monsters will invariably ignore them (AND our cloth-armored mage) to charge straight at me!
Say what you will about having fixed that Wi Flag, Turbine. THE WI FLAG LIVES ON!
But I have to say, the new starting area quests are really impressive. There is a MASSIVE cavern that you’re adventuring through, and it’s full of ledges and lots of narrow trails that make it quite confusing and jumbled to navigate (that might sound like a complaint, but it’s not, I really love it – it conveys the sense of scale quite nicely).
Of course what would a cavern be without a legion of bad guys, monsters and even a dragon?
In a scripted event, the other party you’re assisting has to keep the dragon occupied while you do a bunch of errands that… Well, I don’t really know. Quest text is for pussies, I think I mentioned? So I had no idea why nor what we were doing, other than following Woody. But he knew what we were doing (or at least acted like he did!), and that’s good enough for me!
Of course, following Woody sometimes leads to difficulties. For example, I watched him cast Feather Fall on himself and glide over a ten-story chasm to land gracefully on the opposite ledge. Watching him do that reminded me that I had my OWN ring of Feather Falling, so I double-clicked the ring in my inventory and leaped off the ledge!
Only to realize my ring was actually a Ring of Water Breathing about halfway down. And – in case you’re wondering – while that spell does a GREAT job of letting you breathe in water, it accomplishes jack squat when it comes to slowing your fall.
Other than to put a really shiny bubble around your head that makes a GREAT contrast when your brains explode everywhere…
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