Blogging to Live

So I started playing my preorder account, for real and not on the beta servers, yesterday. Created a rogue called Jennemede Swift on Thelanis (there are 14 servers up now). Here are some things I observed:

- they added a few things. For one, you can now see die rolls at the bottom right of your screen, above the focus orb. Quite nice.
- machine still freezes up despite turning everything off. What the hell is wrong? Anyone else is experiencing this? I use an ATI X800XT card and have updated all my drivers. Sent all the error reports to ATI already. Let’s hope they do something.
- discovered how you can lock on to a mob and auto-attack quickly. Auto-attack is toggled on/off each time you d-click, so when it’s on, all you have to do is press tab and you would’ve selected the target and attack (no need to frantically try and d-click on a mob in the heat of the moment).
- clipping problems: my gold fell into a wall and I couldn’t get it. Kena conned!
- DDO is NOT a game you solo so might as well get used to it. Very, VERY few of the quests/instances you can survive alone and Potions are expensive. And since regen can only be done in a tavern, it’s probably best to make friends. It’s D&D after all.
- playing a rogue is very fun, if you have high Spot and Search abilities, you get secret door/device messages. Hide and Move Silently lets you avoid mobs altogether if you’re good.
- Effective combat (versus efficient combat) requires practice and skill. And active participation. You can’t just auto-attack and go get a beer. Block and tumbles help you live longer.
- chat is still frustrating. /tell and /reply are all I’m using now. I still don’t know how to announce my WTS trade messages because there are only General, Party and Guild tabs, so I’m just vending all of it to NPCs for now. Blur man.
- you can complete, abandon and do the same quests again, although the XP will depreciate over each time you do it.

Anyone else playing, look me up. Thelanis, Jennemede Swift. See you online.

ps. See this story on DDO in the New York Times. Needs registration.