Life is a Mind Bending Puzzle

First dungeon run last night: We encountered a locked door that neither I nor my cleric hireling could open. No problem. Once we had killed all the monsters we headed back to the nearest shrine and after a quick rest I swapped out " Melfs Acid Arrow " for " Knock " a spell which allows me to open locks. In a second dungeon we were stopped by a door which had a minimum strength requirement to open. Again no problem - another visit to a shrine allowed me to swap in " Bulls Strength " a buff spell which gave me the strength I needed to open the door. Versatility is the hallmark of a Wizard. Without question Sorcerers are better at casting spells. Both Wizards and Sorcerers can choose from the same list of arcane spells but sorcerers cast faster and they have more spell points which allows them to go on casting longer. Sorcerers cannot however swap spells mid mission. In fact they can only swap spells once every few days and they pay dearly to do so. Wiza...

Dungeons and Dragons online has possibly the most confusing currency system of any game I have yet played. In the first instance there are too many types of coins: Platinum, Gold, Silver and Copper . Copper is useless. Even at level 1 everything costs silver or gold and by level 3 I routinely buy things that cost 100's or 1000's of gold. The next problem is that the multiplier between tiers of coin is only 10 as opposed to the more usual 100. I am sure I will eventually get used to this but even after two weeks playing I still need to remind myself that 50 silver is  equal in value to 5 gold. The NPCs vendors don't help the situation by routinely ignoring platinum when quoting prices. The ingredients to inscribe a level 2 spell for example are quoted at 420 gold instead of 42 platinum. Finally and perhaps the most confusing thing of all is that your purse does not automatically convert coins to the largest denomination. For example my purse might contain: 21 Platinu...

You may wonder why Autwind Horogood, that precocious scholar of the arcane arts, is running around Stormreach in his underwear. If you are astute you may even have noticed the distinct lack of an imposing wizardly staff in his hands. How has this sorry state of affairs come to pass? Oozes. That is what has led to this.  Squelchy slimy fetid oozes. Autwind is working his way through a quest arc set in the Kobold infested tunnels of Storm-reach waterworks . Things went well enough for the first couple of missions and large numbers of Kobold were slaughtered.The third mission is set in Clan Tunnelworm's lair and these particular Kobolds are rather remiss in their housekeeping. The lair is filled with rapidly respawning grey oozing creatures. Not only are these oozes immune to my fiery magics they also exude an acidic slime which dissolves weapons and clothing. One minute Autwind was a powerful wizard commanding terrible arcane forces,the next minute he was standing in his underwe...

I am pleased to announce that Autwind Horogood has put his study of the arcane arts to good use and has freed the citizens of Korthos Island from the icy grip of a Sahuagin controlled dragon. Released from the control of a Sahuagin mindflayer (Misery's Peak Mission) the dragon lifted its siege of the island bringing sunshine back to Korthoses shores and permitting ships to travel once again to Stormwind. Again I am reminded of Guild Wars. Just as in Guild wars completing the beginner quest arc opens up access to the rest of the world and also brings about a seismic change in the landscape of the starter zone. Unlike Guild Wars however it is still possible to go back and redo starter zone quests on the "sunny side" as the post dragon version of Korthos is known. Just as well, even though I have done many of the quests on hard at this stage it may prove useful to go back and do them on expert mode later in order to farm favour (the reputation grind of DDO). PS: I woul...

While Cap'n John and others talk cheerily about soloing DDO missions on Elite level my poor Wizard struggled to complete them  normal. (Duh..Did I mention by the way that I was doing all the missions on normal instead of solo mode because I wasn't ticking the correct box?).  The difficulty stems from the dilemma that a wizard must stand still to cast spells but is very vulnerable while standing still because the lightly armoured wizard can take very few hits (plus attacks have a chance of interrupting the spell you are trying to cast). Well I have got as far as level 2, having just completed the Aqueduct mission and I am finally beginning to get the hang of things. I opted for the default wizard level up route. I like that you can customise your character but I amn't familiar enough with the game yet to take that plunge. At level two I can prepare four spells. After a bit of trial and error I have opted for a fairly eclectic mix: Mage Armour: A buff which compensa...

Spurred on by Thalian and Teshes recommendations and reassured by Elric's comment that it is posible to play on the US servers from Europe I installed DDO yesterday and spent two hours playing my noob wizard "Autwind Horogood" on the Thelanis server. In that time I got through the training instance and two beginner instances on set in a crypt and one in a store room. Fully accepting that this not even Ed Zitron could do a reasonable review after so short a play time I nevertheless want to capture my first first impressions (all good by the way). 1. The download and install were surprisingly painless. The whole thing took less than two hours for the high res client. Even minor patches to Lotro have taken longer than that. 2. No obvious discrimination against Europeans. I didn't have to falsify my address. The starter town seemed quite busy at 12:00 GMT. There was no obvious lag in the busiest areas of the town. I have only played solo missions so far but since ...