Dipping Into Dungeons & Dragons Online

This last week has been crazy at work and extended into the weekend. I did get the chance to hop into the game, set my training queue (I've completed Metallurgy V on my industrial alt and am about to finish Science V on my main), and jump into my implanted clone after the end of the war, but that was about it. But work wasn't the only reason for my lack of time in game. And no, this isn't a post complaining about getting kicked out of the game due to the database failover Saturday morning.

The guy who got me into MMOs and World of Warcraft started playing Dungeons & Dragons Online. I started with pencil and paper D&D over 30 years ago and the thought of going back to that, especially now that DDO is a free-to-play game, was intriguing. So I downloaded the game and rolled up a rogue just to check it out. And then I found out that one of the programmers at work not only had started playing DDO also, but was leaving the company at the end of the week.

Now, one of the good things about playing MMOs is a chance to keep in touch with people. And MMOs are usually better when played with others. I found that to be the case with both EQ2 and Eve. So having a group of real life friends in a game made the decision easy. Especially since no one would have to roll up a character they didn't want to play since I was playing a rogue and the others were already playing a barbarian and a cleric.

I've been catching 20 minutes of game time here and 30 minutes there. Not really enough time to get into Eve, but enough to get something done in the DDO starter village. The others were going to play Saturday afternoon for a couple of hours, but I couldn't join them. I'm really ready for work to slow down a bit. At least I'm catching up. I'm now up to level 2 and the others are at level 3.

I still have to figure out if I want to buy a Cyclone or a Hurricane in Eve (I've now got the isk to buy either one) but now I can look forward to getting some clothes and armor for an avatar again. I'm surprised how much I missed that.