DDO

I've decided to start out by introducing you to some of the parts of my life that you might not be all that familiar with. These things will probably end up in my blogging, as they are part of my life. I thought I'd start with the most controversial....DDO.

Not only is DDO controversial in that it's an MMORPG (Massivly Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game), but because DDO is short for Dungeons & Dragons Online. Some of you may remember all the shouts of "it's evil" over the PnP/Pen & Paper version of this game in the 1970's. We'll just say that my mom knows I play an online game, but not that it's D&D based and that's the way it will stay. Let's just say, it's no more evil than Harry Potter. Ok...that didn't help....hmmmmm....

When I was first introduced to the game by my ex-boyfriend Felix, I really thought about the evil thing. My brothers both played PnP back in the late 70's or early 80's. They stopped when Mom convinced them it was evil (it was as big a deal as the controversy over Harry Potter). So...I had the mentality the D&D is evil. As I played the game, I carefully observed the evil elements (yes, there are some). The conclusion I came to is that a) it's a fictional/fantasy world and b) we are fighting to bring an end to evil. I still analyze it as new things come into the game.

I've recently been having a blast playing my monk. Monks are a fairly new class in the game and they are quite buddhist-like. They can meditate to gain ki and they need to stay centered and stuff like that. I prefer to call the meditation "sitting on my butt and glowing." Am I starting to believe that meditation can give me powers? Not a chance. Do I roleplay her as a Buddhist monk? Nope. I proably play her as more of an anti-monk. I just find it hard to take seriously the idea that sitting on your butt while your hands glow is gonna give you special powers.

These days I mainly play a style called Permadeath (PD). Most players continue on when their character dies. We (permies or PDers) re-roll/restart our characters/toons when they die. I've come to call my re-rolls incarnations of the previous toon (as in "the 18th incarnation of Carliee"). I like to say that I only believe in reincarnation in DDO, not real life (rl).

Probably the greatest danger for me when it comes to playing DDO, is that I'm a female in a male dominated game. It's also a rather fun aspect of the game for me, but that's a post all it's own. Apparently the kind of guy who plays DDO finds my online voice and personality rather sexy. The flirtation is fun, clean and light, but I need to be careful to not take it so far as to hurt any of the guys. I refuse to flirt with guys who are in committed relationships and won't flirt at all if I'm in a committed relationship.

The stuff from the 70's/80's about D&D being evil? I've probably seen it all and at least a good chunk of it is hokey. If you've played either version of the game and want to comment, please do. I'd love to hear what you have to say.

Glossary of DDO Terms:
Guild: An organized group of players. They often play together and typically have a set of rules for appropriate behavior within the guild.
Party: A group of players who are questing together.
Guildie: A person in your guild.
Permadeath (PD): People who choose to play by extra rules, one of which is that if/when your character dies, you start over with a new character. This is known as re-rolling. Permadeath players only play with guilded characters (though some allow play with other PD guilds). In my opinion, this is the best way to play DDO.
Permie: A Permadeath character.
PUG: An acronym for Pick Up Group, this is what you do if you have no guild or no one else to play with. You join a group of random players and quest together. Permies do not PUG.
Mortal Voyage/MV: The best PD guild in DDO! We play on Argonnesson. mortalvoyage.com
Khyber: the server my non-PD toons are on
Heck Hound: what one of my guildies calls Hell Hounds, 'cause he doesn't want to swear (yeah, I roll my eyes when he does that).
Loot: What you find in treasure chests throughout quests.
Quest:
XP:
Levels:
Class:
Toon:
Race: