Holy Smokes, Tobold is not blogging about mmorpgs Batman!!

Tobold was until recently, the wizard of mmorpg commentary, but it appears our friend is branching out

While doing some research the other night on D&D, I found out the shocking news that Tobold is no longer blogging about mmorpgs exclusively.

Who is Tobold you might say? If you read my blog, or any blog about mmorpgs for that matter, then you don’t have to ask that question, but if you don’t, just go ahead and google the word combo: mmorpg+blog. What is the first entry you see? Tobold’s blog!

Except he is no longer blogging about electronic gaming as much, he’s almost exclusively devoted his blog to other topics, chief among them his experiences with D&D as a GM.

I find that a rather natural extenti0n given the RPG in the mmorpg acronym stands for role playing game, and everyone knows that D&D was the first paper and pen role playing game, well if not the first, the most revolutionary.

Even more surprising are the reasons expounded by Tobold for the change: He may not be completely bored with mmorpgs, I am sure he will still play them occasionally, but in his own words, “a AAA+ MMORPG of 2011/2012 plays pretty much exactly as one 5 years ago, and that most of the changes in the last 5 years have been cosmetic. And thus I am increasingly losing interest.”

I have to say that I know where he is coming from, though the timing seems to be coincidental, you see, I have been gravitating back toward paper and pen D&D myself of late, partly because I am trying to get back into creative writing, and I have some propensity towards the fantasy genre, but also because I love DDO and I want to learn more about the Stormreach setting specifically and D&D campaign settings in general.

Cryptic may take quite some time to reveal their new D&D mmo based on Neverwinter Nights, but there is no doubt that I would play both D&D based mmorpgs.

Just this past weekend, I was discussing with a friend the inherent advantages and joys of a face to face campaign over the more limiting grouping and PUG runs common in wow and other mmos. Though some family obligations prevented me from attending my last group session in Pasadena, I plan to be there early next month and I look forward to supplementing my DDO online time with some over the board, pen and paper gaming.

Lately I have been playing a lot of wow myself, but apart from leveling my undead mage to level 30, queuing for random Dungeon PUG runs and exploring new zones, wow feels like a solo RPG to me and I am not sure i will put the effort to max level, unless I start having more fun in the game.

So Tobold, good for you for following your passion. From what I have read, you are putting a lot of time and effort into crafting your campaign settings and adapting 4E mechanics into your own campaigns. I give you kudos for doing what you love and having fun while doing so. Isn’t that what gaming is all about anyhow???

Crawling back into the action with Dungeons and Dragons Online

Normanoz, my WAR goblin squig herder has been sadly neglected of late, due to my fickle habit of jumping from game to game

So it turns out that I had been doing it all wrong.

While running around Stormreach the other night I ran into a number of friendly players who pointed out that my warforged paladin built was all wrong. Sure, I had somehow managed to advance four levels, but stats mean a whole heck of a lot more in ddo than in your average mmo, so I asked what was the best combo for a warforged just starting out life and it was unanimously suggested for me to re-roll as a wizard.

Now I know what you’re thinking, didn’t I say last time around that I was thoroughly enjoying warhamer online and was going to make it my summer project to level up my goblin squig herder until my heart’s content?

the first time I did Misery's Peak in DDO I was delighted to see an actual dragon in the game

Yes, but I have been either too lazy or to busy, or maybe both to play around with quieting my noisy vid card. Everytime I log on to Mythic’s game it sounds like it’s going to explode, so I decided to lay off and play some DDO in the interim, Turbine’s game is rather smooth in my ancient rig and my interest in DDO was undoubtedly rekindled by last week’s real table top session in Neverwinter while at Pasadena.

At any rate, I was having fun with my new DDO toon, as I learned how to prepare spells and quested through the newbie zone before shipping out once more to the harbor.

Below is a screenshot detailing my wizard’s stats. Pretty cool!

My stats, pretty awesome I would say

This game is quite deep, at least for me, there are plenty of zones I have yet to explore, so DDO should keep me satisfied until I return to WAR. For Destruction!!!

There are reporters in Stormreach, what a great surprise!

Dungeons and Dragons Game Day

Members of the Pasadena D&D Meetup group playing on Saturday at Game Empire

I know this is a blog about retro-mmorpgs, not rpgs or even table top games per se, but I thought I would talk about D&D today because if it weren’t for the iconic table top, pencil and paper game, it is very doubtful that the RPGs and MMORPGs we enjoy today would even exist.

Over the weekend I had the pleasure of venturing out to Game Empire in Pasadena where they hold a monthly meeting of the Pasadena Dungeons and Dragons group. I had intended to take some photos and write an article for a South Pasadena website of the D&D Game day which was taking place Saturday in honor of the Neverwinter campaign setting with an exclusive adventure entitled Gates of Neverdeath, but I figured since I was there I would also get my geek on and play a few game encounters.

The tools of the trade- image courtesy of kaijuville.blogspot.com

I was not disappointed with the experience. The group is very friendly and the DMs are very good and know a lot about D&D in general and 4th edition in particular.

So I grabbed some d20s, my character mini, and a pre-gen character sheet and sat down for a morning session of frolicking and adventuring in Neverwinter.

Our party was tasked by the DM  to protect precious cargo bound for the city of Neverwinter, but on the way there our paladin was under heavy fire from an archer while on the ship and upon disembarking Fargrim, my level 1 dwarf Slayer slipped through a throng on the way to the Neverdeath graveyard where he was bloodied repeatedly by malevolent creatures.

At first I secretly contemplated the possibility of trying to “gank the DM” by acting obnoxiously and asking noobish questions, but gave up on that plan after seeing how hard he was working to make this a memorable gaming experience. He also did quite a bit of coaching by explaining moves that I and my allies failed to pick up.  Overall the experience was quite positive, and despite the fact the stereotype of the role player as a geek or a lifeless nerd still permeates society, I saw people from all walks of life having fun and enjoying themselves. True, there were fat dudes and the stereotypical socially awkward ones there too, but I was among them, reveling in our common geeky endeavors, and isn’t that what it’s all about?? I shall go back next month.