The best laid plans or why I had been neglecting the Nexus

 Happy Easter. I have unfortunately neglected the Nexus of late because I have been focusing on trying to record Youtube videos. That effort hasn't gone that well to be honest because vlogging or the creation of Youtube content with a specific narrow focus is more complicated and labor intensive than blogging.

Who knew?

An example: I successfully uploaded a simple video to Youtube last week created with just the webcam which came with my laptop computer and Windows 10. I had intended to give it a fancy title and add a "super" style caption in the same way I used to for a couple of class projects in college using nothing but the imovie app which comes with the Power books, but after installing and trying two different video editors, I had to scrap the entire edited version and upload the raw video footage because the video editors all come with free trials but will stick a stupid watermark on the outputted video if you don't pay for the program.

So I am cheap and refuse to pay for a fancy video editing program when all I need is something like imovie which comes free with mac, or at least it did back in the day when I was making those video projects for school. 

Yesterday I spent quite a bit of time creating a simple but streamlined presentation of some of the D&D 3.5 classes we were using during our zoom campaign which now appears to be on hiatus since we can't get the players all together in one digital room for a few hours once a week...but I digress...the power point presentation was supposed to be the visual component to a Youtube video I was making using OBS Studio to put that little square you see in gamer vids where the youtuber speaks through a livestream or game session and you record both the youtuber and the game going on concurrently. Everything was going great but then for some unexplained reason which I have yet to figure out, the sound on the recording was gone! It was so frustrating, working fine one minute and then completely gone the next for no reason. I never did figure out the fix so I scrapped the whole thing and called it a day.

If any of you stumble on this post and can suggest a simple free video editor, nothing fancy, kind of the equivalent of imovie for Windows, drop me a line or leave a comment, I would rather not have to shell out any money for projects that require very little technical prowess or equipment such as my humble and simple Youtube gaming videos.

MMO projects this week

This week has all been about trying to level up some toons in Classic Wow from both factions and trying out all the nine classes in the games, if not to max level then at least to level 20. I am having fun doing this and even though when Classic dropped in summer of 2019 I vowed I would not use any add ons, I changed my mind and am using Questie and it has made all the difference. I had this strange notion that it would somehow be cheating on the vanilla experience to use an add on, but then I realized that it does not detract from the leveling experience and just hones in to the areas where I need to get stuff done. But why do I feel compelled to do this? I guess because I have always enjoyed the game's lore and would like to try out all the classes and experience the subtleties and game mechanics of each class at least once.

D&D projects I am currently tinkering with

Even though this isn't a blog about Dungeons and Dragons or table-top gaming, I am currently involved in both mmos and D&D and there is crossover from the two hobbies considering I play DDO. Even though I won't get a VIP sub for DDO, the game does offer a Starter Bundle that opens up some great benefits at an affordable price, I think it is $10 U.S. which isn't bad at all for what you get: Special Offers | Dungeons and Dragons Online (standingstonegames.com) 

I am currently considering working on writing my own game module which I think would be a great creative outlet for me so I need to spend sometime in Eberron to gain some inspiration. I plan to do so when I need a break from leveling my Classic wow toons. 

Hordehulk the Orc Hunter standing in a busy Orgrimmar. Me thinks Wow Classic is a big success 

The max toons are dueling outside of Orgrimmar on a Saturday evening! It is a good thing to see a community of involved players on the Classic servers. 

Recovering the Lost Tome in DDO was a failure for soloing Barbarian but still immersive and fun

 

I really love Dungeons and Dragons Online so I spent some time in the Harbor of Eberron trying to level up my Barbarian. Unfortunately my first time attempting the quest I died in the dungeon after accomplishing to solo most of the objectives because the electric traps left me with only 1 hp and my intelligence (to my chagrin) was too low to activate the runes in the map. I mean look at this: you can't see the hp but it was down to 1 for the longest time with most of the tasks! So frustrating! 

But concurrently, I also loved finding out that my character's intelligence was too low to activate the runes in keeping with the 3.5 ruleset the mmo is based on.

I mean how cool is that?? 

That's my character sheet below which shows not only is my INT at 8 but there is a -1 penalty mod. This compares favorably with the pencil and paper version of the game which according to the 3.5 PHB shows a Barbarian's traits, feats and skills.

 After watching this walkthrough I realized what would make me succeed in the quest would be: Probably a hireling that's a rogue to disable the traps, but I am not sure if there are hirelings that are rogues, I have only previously employed clerics to heal me and one would have come in handy prior to attempting the dungeon, but as a n00b I neglected to purchase or to activate one before going in to do the instance. At level 3 would I have enough currency to purchase two hirelings a rogue to deal with  the various traps and a healer? Probably not, I am not even sure you are allowed to activate more than one at a time, but it sure would make soloing this quest easier. It's not a long or tough instance, especially if not done on elite, but it is if you are not sure what you are doing at first.

You can find walkthroughs to most of the Harbor and other quests in the game, but why would you ruin your fun making that a habit? I only looked it up this time for illustrative blog purposes but generally speaking I don't use add ons like "Questie" when I play wow and I don't really cheat and look at guides or maps when I play DDO because I think exploring the dungeons is way more fun and is a lot more immersive, even if you die pulling a n00bish move like the one I described earlier.

Next, I may try out a few other classes in DDO. For a 15 year old mmo, it's a rare gem which differentiates itself from other games of its ilk with it's voiced over instances and RPG mechanics. Check out Axel's DDO channel for the latest news and updates, he is one of the best Youtubers focused on this great mmo.

Happy 15th birthday DDO

Hanging out in the Harbor where all the Trainers are in Stormreach in good old DDO

 Dungeons and Dragons Online, originally from Turbine and now owned and operated by Standing Stone Games has turned 15 years old this year and that blows my mind seeing as how I have been playing it on and off for the better part of all those years.

This is the game I usually turn to when I need a break from all the others, specifically the sometimes torturous grind of Classic wow. I figured this was a good time to return to the game because of the anniversary but also because I am in the middle of a 3.5 zoom D&D session with a few friends and this mmorpg is the closest I can find to playing D&D outside of maybe Neverwinter, but DDO is a better game in my opinion than Neverwinter starting with its setting and its ties to the 3.5 rules set.

The Barbarian class from the D&D PHB 3.5 circa 2003.

I am playing a half orc barbarian in the zoom session so it seems appropriate that I am playing one in this mmo as well and it is a ton of fun. You can solo a lot of the dungeons with only a hireling (which technically is not really soloing, especially if you have a healer like a cleric along so that you can replenish hp and believe me, that makes a world of difference at higher levels.)

For those of you who have never played this great game but who are fans of high quality and stunning graphics, a word to the wise: You aren't going to like DDO if that is what you are looking for, I mean it's not realistic to do so when we are talking about a 15 year old game, but what you will find is a lot of atmosphere with the incredibly fun dungeons which are voice acted and very diverse depending what part of Stormreach you are exploring.

It was a bold (some would say even perhaps controversial) move for Turbine to have chosen the Eberron Campaign setting instead of the more well known D&D settings for the online game when the game released back in 2006, but I for one am glad they did because had they not, I would not have been as familiar with the steampunk and magic aesthetic associated with this setting. Expansions of the game over the years have brought with it the other settings, so you can always port out to The Forgotten Realms and even Ravenloft if you are high enough level to do so. Personally, I have not dabbled in DDO consistently so I have not really done the other settings, but that is also something to look forward to in the weeks and moths to come.

During the anniversary players can redeem items from the DDO store including a 15th anniversary cosmetic cloak and also partake of the anniversary event. Every year for the game's anniversary, players get the chance to fight with a member of the dev team in House Phiarlan. The anniversary event runs through March 31st. 

Players have reported on the game's official forums that this year's items are of higher quality than in previous years, which makes sense given the fact this is a landmark for DDO. Confessions of  Geek mom has a really great personal anecdote from a dedicated player detailing her experiences with a game and it made me so happy to read it because that is one of the best parts of playing mmos imo, the social and community aspect of sharing a virtual experience. 2020 was a terrible year for obvious reasons but at least people were able to share some love through their online and mmo communities. DDO is no different in this respect. 

So happy birthday DDO. I am glad this game is still around today. 

 

DDO is turning 15 and they give the players the gifts!