The Totally NEW Team Corwin Thread

Nice that a PUG worked out so well. If people's experiences were more often like this one, I'd be more willing to sink time and dollars in DDO.
Being an anti-social bastard, I'm certainly biased against PUGs. Avoided them like the plague, in fact. But, I've gotta tell you, as I've gotten more comfortable with DDO I'm finding most PUG groups to be fairly decent. Overall, people are respectful and helpful. You still run into foul-mouthed punks with toons not nearly as elite as the endless bragging might indicate, but overall the folks playing are pretty decent. Now, perhaps that's not a true sample since the majority of my PUGs have been raid groups of "serious" players farming raids that require a level of dedication and intent that's probably beyond your average 15-year-old sugar freak, but I'd like to think it's not.
 
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You ought to give it a swing. As Alrik can attest, the game can be played with very little money invested. Give it a try and if it works for you, you can throw some money at it.
 
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Yeah, it's the time factor too. So many unplayed SP games on the shelf. Some of them bonafide classics, like Ultima Underworld, Gothic 1, Doom, etc...
 
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Very legit concern. Although I've tinkered with a few things, I haven't played a new (or old, for that matter) game in almost 2 years now. My shelf is a shameful dustpile of great titles--Gothic1, Drakensang1, X3, Witcher1, DivDiv, another Wiz8 run, Eschalon2, King's Bounty: AP, purchasing and playing Frayed Knights...

I'm a monogamous gamer by nature, which just makes it worse.

OTOH, I'm having a great time, which is supposedly the point of our hobby in the first place. ;)
 
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Our regular Friday night gaming session began several years ago as a 2 hour session. Now we often play 8-12 hour sessions and wonder where the time went. I have a bar full of unfinished games on my PC, but I never refuse an opportunity to join a DDO run.
 
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I've dropped Legends of Grimrock, Minecraft, and a few older titles that I was replaying. I have 6 characters in various states of activity, and planning another later. A couple of those characters have capped, reincarnated, and capped again.

You can get pretty far f2p without issue. Getting to cap would require excessive grinding, towards the end, but up to 12 shouldn't be a problem, maybe 13-14 with some grind.
 
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I can agree on the above made statements. You can play it with not much money invested, too. I bought only 2 x Turbine Point cards yet, the rest was erned by getting "favour points" from within the game (plus I won a few ones for testing on Lamannia, the test server). The cards were a bit expensive in my opinion, but I thought that I wouldn't bu many anyway.

The really important thing is, imho, to wait for adventure packs on sale, and I mean : Discounted. Two or three months ago thatere was a single weekend with *all* low-lvel packs being discounted by 75%. And that weekend was easy to miss, because the only announcement about it was in the forums (they have a special announcements for the in-game "DDO Store" sub-forum there http://forums.ddo.com/forumdisplay.php?f=233 and another one for general announcements : http://forums.ddo.com/forumdisplay.php?f=2 ).

So, even without owning all packs, there are so many adventures within the game I own right now that I don't know what to pick. Plus, there are sometimes even huge "wilderness" areas you can get lost in. ;)

Regarding PUGs, I have nothing to add to dte's comment. In the forums someone put it like this : "PUGs are like a box of chocolate . There are many flavours within it ..." And that's right. Thre are *all* kinds of people out there, from the bad-mouthing, constantly gear-showing, but soon dying elititist jerks to the super-friendly and helpful multi-life player who gives out platinum and gear to those Newbies who needs it. There's the (rather high-level) Noob, who appears to know everything but doesn't (often the source of not very good advices, the community believes) and there's the totally clueless Newbie who just learns the game. There are "Griefers" who like to destroy others sand castles, and there are beggars, instantly opening trade windows or "telling" via chat and asking for stuff. There are people who invite into guild ships if the PUG needs buffs (onöy recently I found out, how !), and there are the so-called "static groups".

It's like going into in ice-selling shop : You get everything. Lots of flavours are there.

So far, I had rather mediocre experiences with PGs, but not really bad ones, either. My most creepy moment was in a PUG where someone tried to tell me things he thought I didn't know about (we had had a brief discussion over crafting at the Crystal Cove event, but I had figured most o that already out) while constantly showing his gear via "linking". Ofter some minutes I just lost interest and disappeared.

It's like in real life, really.

The only real "problem" is that you don't know who is playing what kind of character. I remember a short tale of astonishment in the forums when someone had found out that a Warforged One was played by a woman - audible via voice chat. The player seemingly expected Warforged Ones to be only played by men.
 
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An alternative could be to become a VIP and pay $15 a month to have access to everything. You get some Turbine points every month you can use for different things as well.

If you play a game several times a week then maybe it's not more expensive to be a VIP than having to buy all classes, races, PTP quests etc.

The only reason I'm not a WIP is that I have already bought all PTP quests except the challenges, most of the classes and races. So I wouldn't benefit much from becoming a VIP. The only thing I miss is to be able to open quests on elite, but you can buy an elite opener if we don't have Cm with us (she is a VIP).

When I TR my paladin I will become a TR2 so I can open all quests on elite. That can help us when we play the toons we will TR in June and CM is not in the group. We stron enough as a group now to run all quests on elite (well, with a few exceptions).
 
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I have pugged quite a bit and my experience with pugs is mainly positive. The majority of people you play with are not unpleasant to play with. In low / mid level quests it happens you enter a group with several not experienced players and you can struggle. Since I mainly play on elite now I see less of them because newbies rarely play on elite.

I don't mind playing with newbies. Everybody has been new to DDO at one time. Newbies will often listen and be grateful for advise. The worst puggers are those who think they know the game well and complain about others not playing as they think is right. Quite often I find out that these socalled elitist players are the first to die. They run away because they know where everything is without telling and complain because the healer didn't heal him. He didn't even bother to see that the group had problems keeping up with his pace. Fortunately this doesn't happen often.

My experience is that the best players (having the best gear, best build etc.) are often quite helpful towards newbies and towards not so well geared players. They give helpful advise and deal with the most difficult parts of the quests themselves so the group doesn't wipe.

When I build my characters I try to be so self-sufficient so I don't die easily. Being a healer / paladin with decent hp's ensures that. All. This means that if I join an underpowered PUG quest I will be able to survive and get the group back to life so we can eventually finish. So being well geared means you have a higher survivability so you can support the others in the group.

In high level quests I rarely see pug players who are useless or unpleasant.
 
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I also think there is a big difference in joining a pug group and starting a pug group as a leader. When you join you have to follow the advise from the group leader. If you start a group then you can decide about strategy etc.

I can fully understand that Corwin is a bit reluctant joining a pug group where he doesn't know a single person in the group. If he joins a not well coordinated group then the risk of wiping is there. It's when a group gets into problems you usually see the worst side of some players.

If we instead start a pug and fill it with players then adding some pug players to complete it is a completely different story. Then WE decide the pace of the quest and the invited pug'ers will very rarely make any problems.

Now we only have 8 regular players so we can e. g. fill a raid with max 8 of the needed 12 players. I'm 99% certain that if we started a LFM for a normal Shroud run and filled it with 6-8 of RPG Watch players then the other 4-6 players would not be a problem at all. I've led Shroud runs 60+ times now and I have not wiped a single time. We rarely get into problems.

So I think that Corwin would be able to enjoy running e. g. Shroud with us if we have a full RPG Watch group as a base for the raid. Getting Ambrer some shards of power could mean she could craft greensteel items before TR'ing to a druid. The rest of us have the mats needed to craft at least up to tier 2. I have surplus tier 3 mats of everything except large devil scales. If Corwin has 2 signet stones he could e. g. craft a greensteel spellpoint item and a greensteel weapon for his druid. That can come in very handy at level 11-12 after TR'ing.

Cm and Trevor might want to run Shroud a few times too with the toon she wants to TR to get the greensteel items she would like to have. I know Azraelck, Jm, Dte and me run Shroud regularly so we should have enough mats to support building the items for Corwin, Cm and Trevor.

We (Azraelck, Dte, Jm and me) can't help directly with shards, but we can help if we run Shroud together. Then we can forwards shards we pull from chests to Corwin, Trevor and Cm so they get the number of shards they need to craft the items they want.

So I suggest we discuss this possibility so we could help getting greensteel items for everybody that will TR and run new toons in June.

When Alrik gets to level 16-17 we could help running the Vale quests with him to get him flagged for Shroud. Then we could help him getting greensteel items as well if he wants to run Shroud a few times. It requires that he gets the Vale Adventure Pack, but that's one of the best so it's a good choice to pick.
 
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Yeah, this pack is definitively on my buying list.

I even explored the outer area a bit on Lamannia. There were enough points to try things out (Sir Poincelot under the Harbour Bridge).

Right now I'm concentrating on levelling my wizard, however. Sometimes I just need a break from one character and rather pursue a different playing style.

I think sometime during next week I'll return to my ranger again.
 
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So I think that Corwin would be able to enjoy running e. g. Shroud with us if we have a full RPG Watch group as a base for the raid. Getting Ambrer some shards of power could mean she could craft greensteel items before TR'ing to a druid.
I'd say Amberer is the perfect toon for a virgin run, too. Wouldn't have to stay ahead of the mob in pt1 like his casters would, wouldn't be expected to lob on buffs individually like a caster, wouldn't be expected to beat on Harry (although that might be the best place for him). Basically, able to go with the flow with no specific demands beyond singing a few songs like he already does for us. Really, the only thing discomforting would be pt3, and I could run RhoGu so I (or someone else) could get inside and offer puzzle help if it was needed. Besides, with a little notice of what he was getting into puzzle-wise, the old man just might surprise the heck out of us. ;)
When Alrik gets to level 16-17 we could help running the Vale quests with him to get him flagged for Shroud. Then we could help him getting greensteel items as well if he wants to run Shroud a few times. It requires that he gets the Vale Adventure Pack, but that's one of the best so it's a good choice to pick.
There's a fair chance that would work out well. If Alrik works on his ranger a bit, he'll probably be ready for the Vale about the same time the TRs are. We've got a minimum of 2 weeks in GH and I'd bet on 3 (explorers plus a couple walkups, finish walkups plus a flag, finish flags), assuming that everyone is able to make it consistently (I might one in a couple weeks).
 
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I think I'll be buying another TP card next month. I'm not entirely sure, though.
But, on the other hand, there had been weeks with discount offers on low-level packs & mid-level packs in the past few months, so I expect the high-level packs might come at one point in the future, too. It just would be logical.
 
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As long as we got another arcane in, Corwin wouldn't have to run ahead anyway. Just say that he's never ran it before, and get someone else to do it. Put him on Crystal in pt2.

But he'll never run Shroud unless we get enough of a crew to run as a guild. While I've been in pug groups that manage to 8 or 9-man it on normal, we might struggle with that.
 
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The idea was to fill the raid with the RPG Watch group and use LFM (looking for member) for the remaining slots. As long as e. g. I lead the raid I think Corwin won't have a problem with being in a raid. You could consider the pug characters as hirelings. :) Short manning is probably not a good idea.

The raid leader sets the pace and we can easily type in the LFM invitation that we will make a slow paced Shroud to teach a few new to the Shroud. That should keep the elitists from joining.
 
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The best way to convince Corwin to run with us is to ally ourselves with Cm and Trev. He always listens to wise distinguished women who have lived almost as long as he has. :p Cm has run Shroud several times with us and done well. Trev probably knows what can make Corwin move out of his comfort zone.

And if this doesn't work we can always send Jm on him. Then he will have no choice, but to accept. :lol:
 
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Trev probably knows what can make Corwin move out of his comfort zone.

One could see it this way, too ;) : If he is so much slower, then he might be the only one left to survive a wipe … :D ;)
 
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