Choose my Adventure: Depths of House d'Deneith

Join me as I brave my way through lands unknown in an adventure dictated entirely by you, the Massively readers! Vote for everything from game played to character creation to ultimate goal and watch it unfold in a series of journals and galleries here on the site. Then, as the ultimate goal is reached, we'll do it all over again in a new game!

Last week, you voted for two things: the Critical Mass guild to hit House of Deneith first, and for me to start using my accrued Turbine Points in the DDO store. We annihilated House of Deneith, but I still haven't found something good to spend my points on.

So this week, as we continue our journey through level 5 and beyond, the poll will seek answers to that pressing concern: How should I spend my money?! Keep reading below for the in-character journal of the adventures, my continued impressions of the game so far, and the polls for this week.

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With the Houses of Stormreach at our disposal, we decided to start with the House of Deneith and see what they had to offer. I sent some men in to scout the area, and they came back to report some drunken members of the Blademarks Guild spewing rumors all over the Hammersmith's Inn about how they're going to venture deep into the sewers and defeat a man named Hammerfist the Mighty. But it turns out, Keane d'Deneith and his over-indulgent friends needed some adventurers to do the job for them, since they were a bit too... busy at the moment. Despite the fact that I am pretty sure I don't want to roam another inch of sewers, the pay would be worth it.

After the drunken men joked with us about retrieving ten rat tails for them, we were given our true instructions to kill a few main bosses down there who have been causing the most trouble. The sewer is reported to have several levels that grow increasingly more difficult, the lower one ventures. This is all rumor though, as no one has made it back alive while exploring below the third level.

We were certainly up for the challenge, so we accepted. It was either their deep pocketbooks, their drunken state, or a combination of both that led them to offer us such valuable rewards, and we weren't about to pass that by.

The second I stepped foot in those dank, trog-infested caverns of filth, I was reminded of why I prefer sunlight and dry clothing. We pressed on through waves of troglodytes, spiders and these wonderful stone elementals that fascinated me to no end. How a pile of rubble could rise up and fight was beyond me, but we managed to still make quick work of them.

Reaching the lowest level of the sewers, I have to admit I was a bit excited about defeating this Hammerfist once and for all. When so many others had tried, and failed, I was eager to be in the party who could return to the Hammersmith's Inn and boast of our victory.

Even with the rumors abounding that this Hammerfist fellow was not even truly a "man", I wasn't prepared for how large and beastly he was. We were forced to use our best tactics against the ogre, but finally defeated him and his companions. On the trek back up through the sewers, our party was in good spirits as we each joked about what we'd spend our reward money on. Being the armor connoisseur of the bunch, I was quite excited to spend my new riches on another set of armor.

Now that we're thoroughly hooked on doing menial deeds for elegant guildsmen who don't want to get their hands dirty, we're going to spend the rest of the next few days hitting up the other Houses in the area, and see what they have to offer.

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I would say this was probably one of my most productive weeks in DDO thus far. We played on both Sunday and Monday nights (as is becoming tradition), and sunk in a good 6 or 7 hours of gameplay those two days. Sunday night we ventured into House of Deneith and finished all of the "Depths of" quests on normal mode. Then we strayed off and finished several more difficult ones in the Marketplace like The Bounty Hunter, The Sunken Sewer, Come Out and Slay and The Swiped Signet. We've been alternating between Normal Mode and Hard Mode on most of these, and then going back and making sure we finish up the easier ones on Hard.

On Monday night, we repeated most of what we did on Sunday -- including the "Depths of" quests on Hard Mode (with 4 people), and continued on into our first paid quests, thanks to a guest pass from our guild's leader: Stormsnow. We mostly repeated these to gain XP, which helped me reach level 5 this week.

We also had many new faces joining us this week, including Kishoshima, Lylion, Lilestadt and Abdielle, who helped us through this content quite easily. Although we have a fair bit of people trying this game out for the first time, or returning to see what it now has to offer, the veterans are teaching us all so much.

Past the House of Deneith quests, we also explored some in the other Houses as well. House Kundarak holds a fun quest called Lordsmarch Bank, which looked oddly familiar to me from a previous developer tour last year. Another one I remember from that tour was The Bookbinder Rescue, which was the only one that really presented us with considerable challenge that night.

As for my own playstyle, I've found myself drifting from ranged attacking to dual-wielding much more. I've never been much of a front-line fighter, but the action-based style of DDO's combat makes it really fun. I'll probably stick with the dual-wielding as my primary combat style, but hold on to a good bow for pulling and knocking off those pesky archers hidden just beyond our reach.

So for this week's voting, we'll concentrate on how I should spend my Turbine Points. We'll most-likely go above and beyond whatever the vote is (as we've done frequently, for XP), but I want to know what you think we should focus upon.

How should I spend my 650 Turbine Points?

- An Adventure pack. The low-level adventure packs are all within my 650 point price range, and we'll decide which one to do based on what others in the group care to spend.
- A Stat Tome. These tomes cost 355 points each and will raise one stat by one point permanently.
- XP Elixir. A little something to boost my XP and help me level more quickly. These range quite a bit in price, depending on the amount of XP bonus I want.
- Hirelings. This would allow me to purchase a Hireling for each of our many adventures. Hirelings are very cheap (35 points for a level 5), but they can only be used once per party.
- Cosmetic item. Who doesn't want pink hair, seriously?%Poll-36820%