The Laughing DM » DDO

DDO – Broken Retribution

DungeonMaster — Sun, 19 Apr 2009 18:32:30 +0000

One of my first character Chandeth’s favorite weapons was Retribution. He used it so much for the first couple of years that it was eventually “broken beyond repair.” Retribution was a great weapon for a paladin. It did at least some damage against nearly every monster in the game.

: Broken Retribution

The sword was broken before DDO introduced the binding ritual that would prevent “bound” equipment from taking permanent damage. That’s a shame … Chandeth would probably still be using it.

DDO – End of an Era

DungeonMaster — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 15:00:43 +0000

As painful as it is, I’ve decided that it’s time to say “Good-bye” to Dungeons & Dragons Online and to all of my friends and characters in Stormreach – Sarlona.

Now that you’ve pulled your jaws and tongues back up from the floor, I’m sure you are asking “Why?” My decision doesn’t have anything to do with the game; I love it. Nor does it have anything to do with the recent extended outage due to the DDO datacenter move. Creating a believable world, writing the software to bring it to life, and provisioning all of the equipment to support it is challenging. Turbine has done a decent job.

It’s very simple, really. I’ve been in a lot of pain for the last six months or so. My shoulder and arm all the way down through the fingers have been in a dull ache much of the time and very sharp pains frequently as well. The medical eval rated the pain at a 6 on a scale of 1 to 10 with 1 being no pain and 10 being “OMG! Can I have a shot of morphine now?” It’s distracting, difficult to concentrate, and disruptive to sleep paterns.

Wow! Sleep! Now that’s something that has been sacrificed a lot for the survival of Stormreach.

But DDO isn’t the sole contributor: Work certainly (software developer). Commuting. Other hobbies. Everything I like to do contributes in some little way to the problem.

As I’ve worked my way through physical therapy and limited the amount of time I spend in the exciting town of Stormreach, I find that the pain is less … some days even non-existent.

The best solution is to put Chandeth’s swords down, hang up Tyji’s wands, and put Confused’s fingers in his pockets where he can’t reach the bat guano.

So long. Perhaps we shall meet again someday.

DDO Datacenter Move

DungeonMaster — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 11:42:19 +0000

It’s been 24 hours since Turbine started moving their datacenter that hosts Dungeons & Dragons Online. It isn’t going well. The move was originally planned to last about 14 hours.

Outage Update

Having been through a couple of these with my company, albeit with smaller groups of servers and less complicated server configurations, I know that these never go well. Something unexpected always happens, resulting in one or more key systems being offline. In our industry we can move on the weekend with the least impact to our customers. Not so with DDO; a weekday move is/was their best option. The only truly reliable way for a relatively small company to make a move like this is to clone the datacenter to the new location and flip a switch to change the routing when everything is done and tested.

Hopefully DDO will be back up and running full force by Wednesday … which is when I can play again.

DDO Character Pictures #2

DungeonMaster — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 02:22:45 +0000

I just found another of my favorite pictures. Lorkaa with a Tyji Fireborn growth on her chest.

Lorkaa w/Tyji Growth

I was cleaning up some old files and ran across that shot. I recall making it and the effort it took to get Tyji in there just right … what with Lorkaa moving about … I think we were getting ready to go into the Reaver.

Black Company Gathering

DungeonMaster — Sun, 22 Mar 2009 05:40:14 +0000

The Black Company from Dungeons & Dragons Online (DDO) Sarlona gathered for lunch today at Sweet Tomatoes in Tigard, Oregon today. Most of the Black Company is concentrated in the Pacific Northwest ranging from Longview WA, to Albany, OR. We had a couple of visitors from New Jersey, prompting the gathering. Unfortunately, not every one could make the gathering.

Black Company - Sarlona

Front Row (left to right)

Ratorion (Officer) / Helixx / Nipeny / Jon
Lorkaa (Officer) / Teapot / Sputnik / Swissarmy / Tweezer
Larekke (Officer) / Ivorae / Ebonae / Ruebae
Akastos (Officer) / Nikon
Bhima

Back Row (left to right)

Shintara (Officer) / Gymma
Zenju (Officer) / Beval / Zenola / Misbehavin / Morgandy
Amberyll (Officer) / Jeth (Officer) / Elborn / Oboyihitit / Wogglle / Ohlman
Chandeth (Leader) / Tyji (Officer) / Confused / Prana Bindu / Silinar / Ugen / Warborg / Kerona / Losara
Elizabythe (Officer) / Jybadia

We had loads of fun reminiscing about our adventures over the years. Four hours worth! Can you believe that?

Hopefully, we can do this again sometime with more members.

DDO Character Pictures

DungeonMaster — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 03:23:51 +0000

I’ve been playing DDO for three years now. So, it seemed like a good time to post pictures of some of my favor characters. These characters run in The Black Company on Sarlona. Chandeth is the first character I created and he found the guild.

Chandeth Mug Shot

Tyji Fireborn is a cleric. She’s actually my favorite character to play.

: Tyji Mug Shot

“Dropping” in from the Vault of Night (also know as the Dragon Raid).

Chandeth Dropping In

Tyji Dropping In

My favorite, Tyji and her body guard.

Tyji and Her Bodyguard

DDO – Strange Update Progress Percentage

DungeonMaster — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 07:17:50 +0000

DDO Logo

As I go through the process of rebuilding my main computer due to a hardware failure (either the video card or the primary hard disk … didn’t bother to figure it out and just replaced both) I noticed something strange happening with the Dungeons & Dragons Online (DDO) update.

Strange Percentage

Yep, that’s right the percentage of the update that is complete is 176% while the number of files would not even indicate 25%. And as I write this post the percentage is now up to 609% of complete.