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Exploring Eberron: Update 5 and Delera's Tomb
This week's Dungeons and Dragons Online Nights of Eberron outing was an ambitious one: We took on Delera's Tomb, wading through hordes of skeletons, wraiths, and ghasts to help Delera rest peacefully. Delera's has some great loot at the end, but is also one of the lengthier adventure packs for its level, so most of us played a bit later than usual. It was well worth it, however -- everyone had a great time and many of us have a shiny new Voice of the Master for our troubles. Next week OneDAwesome will be venturing back into free-to-play land thanks to House Kundarak. The Ever-Full Flagon in House K has a series of F2P quests in the level 5-6 range that are just too good to miss. We'll be running through four medium-length quests: The Chamber of Insanity, The Forgotten Caverns, Ruined Halls, and The Lair of Summoning. We'll wrap up the evening with Taming the Flames, a longer, much hotter quest. If you've got resist fire potions weighing your bags down, make sure you don't leave them in your bank vault for this quest! We'll meet in the Ever-Full Flagon on the east side of House Kundarak -- look for the little green mug icon -- at 9:00 PM Eastern time. As always, if you're interested in joining OneDAwesome on the Cannith server, just send a /tell to Rubialina in game and I'll send you the invite. With that taken care of, let's take a look at what else is new with DDO. Follow along after the jump for all the latest!
Exploring Eberron: Turbine's downtime and what's next for OnedAwesome
This week's Nights of Eberron was a hit, with one glaring exception. Poor Orvidos ran afoul of one of the lesser-known quirks in Dungeons and Dragons Online, and wound up spending some quality time with Jeets in the tutorial -- something he did NOT want to do. He has a point, by the way. Does anyone really want to listen to "Oi! Can you move? Speak to me!" more than once or twice? Aside from that little glitch, things went swimmingly as we took on Searing Heights. In the rest of the Dungeons and Dragons Online world, the community was buzzing over Wednesday's server downtime and the subsequent account downgrades. So what happened with that, and just as importantly, what's next for OnedAwesome? I've got news on both fronts, so follow along after the jump for all the details.
Exploring Eberron: What's next for Dungeons and Dragons Online?
OnedAwesome began actively currying favor with the Coin Lords of Stormreach this week in Dungeons and Dragons Online, by heading into the Steam Tunnels and tackling the Shan-to-Kor Adventure Pack. So what's next for OnedAwesome? We're taking on another explorable next week, this time in the level 4-10 range. Searing Heights is a bit more challenging than some of the other explorables that we've done in the past, and offers a fair amount of XP -- simply running around the area and finding all 15 landmarks will earn over 4,000 XP, and if you luck out and come across all nine rare encounters, it's another 6,075. You'll find several quests in the area as well, along with the slayer bonus for killing as you go. We'll meet at the gate to Searing Heights next Wednesday, at 9 PM US Eastern time -- the gate is in the Marketplace, just west of the Harbor gate and marked by a yellow "X." I want to take a minute and mention something that I read yesterday that really made me appreciate how exceptional the Massively guild is. Fernando Paiz gave an interview that I'll cover more later in this article, but he made an interesting statement: "Right now, if you're in a guild, you might see guild chat going by, but you don't really run into the people that much in the actual game." OnedAwesome is a glaring exception to that rule, thanks to each one of you in the guild. We play together Wednesday nights in constantly changing groups, something that allows us to get to know the guild members as a whole as time passes. I regularly see members logged in and helping one another outside of our scheduled playtime as well. It's this group dynamic that really brings the game to life, and each of you has my sincere thanks for showing other players how great the game can be with a good guild. Okay, Hallmark moment over (although you guys seriously are wonderful)! There are lots of happenings to discuss in the rest of the Dungeons and Dragons Online world, so follow along after the jump as we get all caught up!
Exploring Eberron: We need a favor
Well, okay, we need some favor. The latest Nights of Eberron in Dungeons and Dragons Online was a bit of a free-for-all -- OnedAwesome got the opportunity to group up and choose any paid content they wanted to do for the evening. Guest passes were handed out for anyone who needed one and the guild was off and running. The evening was a bit of a last crazy hurrah before we settle into pursuing some larger goals. The Massively guild is finding its rhythm quickly, but there are still challenges in such a large and diverse group: new players join every week, older players aren't always interested in moving at the group's relatively slow pace, and instancing presents a much different scenario than a persistent world. The great thing about DDO, however, is that it allows for this sort of thing. With repeatable quests and four difficulty levels for almost all of them, the instancing system is almost an advantage for this type of group. We can have 40 guild members all doing the same quest at the same time while still maintaining a pace for every type of player: specialized groups for those who want to do epic difficulty, those who want to play on normal, those who want to zerg through it, new players who want to take their time and learn -- you name it and we can form a group for it. Our next goal will be to pursue favor and start gaining some rewards. Follow along after the jump to see how the favor system works and what we'll be doing next week!
Exploring Eberron: Grouping is king
Wednesday night's Nights of Eberron in Dungeons and Dragons Online was fun for all, as usual. We welcomed quite a few new members into OnedAwesome, even managing to get one through some Korthos Island quests at light speed to catch up with the rest of the crew. Once we got settled, OnedAwesome descended on House Phiarlan to make our first foray into premium content: Tangleroot Gorge. As a level 3-7 Adventure Pack with a huge explorable as well as a popular series of dungeons, it fit our group nicely. Since it offered more than one method of play, each group was free to do whatever they liked: hunt down rare encounters, pursue the slayer title, or head straight for the dungeons. It's becoming the norm in OnedAwesome for guild chat to scroll madly at the beginning of the evening as we chat among ourselves, share information about the evening's planned activities, and sort ourselves into groups. As the level of actual gameplay rises, guild chatter settles down and goes quiet as everyone gets involved in their activities. Last night's guild channel went silent very quickly, broken only by the occasional greeting as someone logged on or an announcement of an achievement -- much fun was had by all. In the month that Nights of Eberron has been up and running, I've noticed a recurring comment among those participating. Follow along after the cut as I take a closer look at what it is and why they say it.
Exploring Eberron: What is all this stuff in my inventory?
Wednesday night's Nights of Eberron was its usual crazy success, and the diversity of player types makes for an interesting mix. "Interesting" is a very good thing in this case, as the guild is made up of players on every part of the spectrum from those with several years of experience in Dungeons and Dragons Online to people who are rolling their very first character. For those new players, or even those who gave the game a brief try back when it went free-to-play, it can be a bit confusing. I'm going to spend some time in this column going over things for the newer players, because Dungeons and Dragons Online offers some pretty handy items that you don't want to miss out on. OnedAwesome, Massively's official Dungeons and Dragons Online guild, ran through the Waterworks Wednesday night, killing an absolutely ridiculous amount of kobolds and picking up some handy loot. It was our first foray outside of Korthos, and at the end, there were lots of things in our inventory that were a mystery to many players. Follow along after the jump as we take a look at what they were.
Exploring Eberron: The Offer Wall is gone and Lars Heyton is a big chicken
Wow! It's been an interesting few days for Dungeons and Dragons Online, both on the player side and the development side. The community response to the now-defunct Offer Wall was huge, but not quite in the way that Turbine anticipated. Since the uproar consisted of an approximately 60/40 split between legitimate concern and outraged name-calling, the decision for today's Exploring Eberron was an easy one: we're going to look at the facts. On a much more fun note, last night was the second installment of Nights of Eberron, and a great time was had by all. Things were definitely more organized than during week one, thanks in large part to our very own Justin "Zergmaster" Olivetti and several fantastic OnedAwesome members who stepped up as group leaders. OnedAweseme now sports over 50 members, 33 of whom showed up to party last night. The guild formed their groups and headed out to tackle the Korthos Wilderness areas. How did it go? Follow along after the jump for the full story as well as discussion of the Dungeons and Dragons Online Offer Wall.
Exploring Eberron: the debut of Nights of Eberron
Last night was the first night of Massively's Nights of Eberron group in Dungeons and Dragons Online, and what a night! Let's start with the biggest semi-related piece of news. Justin "Syp" Olivetti, master of bad puns and Nights of Eberron partner in crime, did not join us last night. The newest member of the Sypster clan was born last night sometime near the time we were all hanging out on the dock taking screenshots. Congratulations Justin and family on your beautiful little girl! While Justin was at the hospital, the rest of us in OnedAwesome were busy taking over Korthos Island. The first night of any static group is usually the craziest, and I had my hands full fielding guild invitation requests and directing snowy-side people to sunny-side, as well as helping one or two who opted to work through the tutorial. This is a good thing -- it was so exciting to see so many people jumping in and I am delighted that so many showed up. With such a huge mix of veteran and new players and only one Massively staffer to wrangle everyone, I owe a huge "thank you" to those veteran players who pitched in to help everyone get settled! Now, on to the fun stuff: how did it go last night? Follow along after the break for a recap of the ups and downs.
Dungeons and Dragons Online announces bonus XP event
If you're one of the Massively readers planning on joining for Massively's Nights of Eberron in Dungeons and Dragons Online on Wednesday nights, you'll be happy to hear that there's an extra treat in store for that new character you rolled. To celebrate the release of Update 4 and the new Adventure Pack (we're telling ourselves that they are also celebrating the beginning of Nights of Eberron), Turbine is offering a 10% XP bonus for quests, which will give a nice boost to all players who are still leveling characters. If you've got some Experience Elixirs lying around, be sure you grab those, because they stack with this bonus. If you don't, they're of course available in the DDO store in single packs and "Super Stacks", discounted packages of five. The event is going on now and will last until April 18th, so you've got plenty of time to take advantage!
