Going a little Haywire

Last stream before Gen Con! Boo-yah!

We’d been kind of intending to run some more Crystal Cove for this week’s stream, but over the past few nights we’ve managed to get five of us through the first three quests in the Vault of Night chain. That left us with only Haywire Foundry to be flagged for the raids. And since we’ve run, like, A LOT of Cove over the past week or so, we decided to finish up VoN flagging instead.

Meren the gimpy Favored Soul was glad for a chance to use the Mace of Smiting she’s been toting around. It’s just been sitting there taking up inventory space but not getting much use – that changed what with all the various mechanical beings scattered throughout the Foundry. This helped her stay ahead of Arkyn the hire, the two arti dogs, and the inimitable Misadventure in the kill count, although the actual live people outkilled her by a wide margin.

The main problem she had in VoN 4 was at the end, with all the jumping when the countdown first starts. Meren’s jump skill is all of 5 (and that’s WITH a +2 jump tome). Slvr passed her a jump pot, which got her up to 22, but she still needed a couple of tries to get up the pipes and over the broken staircase.

On the ship, we had to put our Stone of Change next to some crates down in the cargo hold, because she can’t make the jump up to the Stone without hopping on the crates first. Why would you want to jump up on the Stone, you ask? Because it’s our dnace floor! Yes, we have an Otto’s Irresistible Dance Hall on the fourth lower deck, but back in the old days of airships, we started using the Stone for our dance parties. Besides, we have to share the Otto’s Hall with all the critters who wander over from the Wild Grove across the way.

Anyway, Meren did eventually make it up, by which time the other Sniffers had cleared out most of the iron defenders along the way. Thanks, guys! 😀

We finished not quite in time to get into Crystal Cove before the doors closed, so Gom suggested either Black & Blue or… the other quest from that update (too lazy to look it up). Black & Blue has a dragon, so that seemed like a pretty clear choice.

I think Meren only died once all night. Arkyn the hireling was another story. Once she rezzed him only to have him die again instantly when he ran right back into the lightning trap. Hirelings. Gotta love ’em. Not.

So yeah, I’m crazy excited for Gen Con. 😀

We’re leaving here Tuesday night, will drive until we’re tired and then get a room for the night. That’ll be at least a couple of hours, because finding a hotel anywhere near Williamsport now that the Little League World Series is starting will be nigh impossible. We should get to Indianapolis sometime Wednesday, and Gen Con starts in earnest Thursday. *bounce*

It’ll be quite the break from DDO – I doubt I’ll have time to get on tomorrow (Monday) night. We’re leaving Indy on Sunday, Aug. 20, but only driving until we’re tired and getting a room; I probably will get home sometime Monday the 21st. The Flower Sniffers are well into level 148 and have strict orders to NOT level to 150 until I get back, because I want to get our guild fame announcement on video and then go into Chrono and have a wonder pot party. And yes, that will TOTALLY be streamed on my personal Twitch channel. 😀

Streamin’ with Even is live on Thelanis every Sunday night at 11 pm Eastern time on the official DDOstream! The show is also hosted on my own Twitch channel, but if you’re watching live and want to chat, DDOStream is the place to be. Videos are archived on my YouTube channel and/or on DDOStream’s YouTube. Feel free to send me a tell if you’d like to join! Thanks for reading and/or watching! 🙂

YARK!

Crystal Cove is back!

Normally I don’t particularly care much one way or the other about Cove, partly because I think I have all the Cove gear I need, and mostly because I totally suck at running it.

Really, I do. I’m a poor choice for scouting/clearing because of my penchant for getting lost, and an even poorer one for running torches because of the getting lost thing and also because I can never seem to get the hang of placing them. I either have them too close together and run out, or too far apart so the poor kobolds end up as lost as I am.

But it was Gom’s first night back on the stream after having the summer off for real life, and Slvr can solo Cove in his sleep, AND we not only got PuffGranny to join our Cove runs, we suckered her into – I mean, convinced her to become a Flower Sniffer too!

So Cove actually ended up being a lot of fun – plus, KOBOLDS! And most people who know me know that I NEVAR (shoutout to Citi) pass up an excuse to talk like a kobold.

Meren is still trying to figure out whether she wants to be a melee, casting, hjealing, or buffing Favored Soul. Also, she’s still wearing Korthos gear at level 9. Oops. So I just hung out in the center on guard duty for our first run, but then it occurred to me that that made for an exceptionally boring stream.

I got brave and took on scouting/clearing duties after that. I even parted with a few of my precioussss Bigby’s Hands to mark promising patches of oooh shiiiiiny crystals. Sooo pretty!

Chances are pretty good that we’ll run Cove for next week’s stream as well. But the week after that, I won’t be streaming because we’ll be on our way home from Gen Con! If I can get the Twitch app to work on either my cheap phone or crappy tablet, I may do some streaming from Indy on my own channel. We’ll see!

Streamin’ with Even is live on Thelanis every Sunday night at 11 pm Eastern time on the official DDOstream! The show is also hosted on my own Twitch channel, but if you’re watching live and want to chat, DDOStream is the place to be. Videos are archived on my YouTube channel and/or on DDOStream’s YouTube. Feel free to send me a tell if you’d like to join! Thanks for reading and/or watching! 🙂

Taking the easy way out

Ever have one of those weekends where things keep going wrong but still turn out great?

That pretty much summed up this past weekend for me – all kinds of silly little things not going as they should, but still probably the best weekend I’ve had in the past few months.

So I was pretty darn tired when 11 pm Sunday rolled around and it was time to stream. Most of my brain cells* were screaming, “SLEEP!” But there were a few screaming, “RENOWN BOOST WEEKEND!”

I didn’t have anyone with sagas complete or even nearly complete, so I was tempted to go for sleep. But the Flower Sniffers are fast closing in on level 150, and that 30% renown boost was too good to pass up.

Ergo, I compromised, zerging through the heroic Pirates saga on level 30 Acanthia, who still had a renown pot going from the last guild renown weekend. Slvr brought his level 23 barb, we skipped Irestone, and in just about an hour we picked up a decent chunk of renown.

* – I may be giving myself far too much credit by calling them “brain cells,” but that flows better than “miscellaneous cells that live inside my head.”

So here’s what went wrong this weekend (some for me, some for the person I was with, some for both of us):

• Dead car battery
• Lots and lots and LOTS of driving
• Somewhat unexpected extra driving
• Burnt-out taillight
• Slow service and crappy food
• Smelly hotel room with filthy tub/shower
• Seriously major work emergency
• Dead car battery, again
• Weirdly heavy traffic
• Road construction
• Lost wallet
• Were served food that contained something one of us can’t eat, after asking the waitress to make sure nothing like that would be in it

And yet… ’twas a really great weekend. I’m happy to report that the taillight was replaced easily, the wallet was found with all its contents intact, and we were able to swap out the unwanted food item for something acceptable.The driving is mostly over – at least for a few weeks. 😀 The work emergency is handled as much as is possible at this point. The dead battery turned out to be defective and has been replaced. And neither of us will ever stay at Red Roof Inn in South Williamsport again. LOL

Streamin’ with Even is live on Thelanis every Sunday night at 11 pm Eastern time on the official DDOstream! The show is also hosted on my own Twitch channel, but if you’re watching live and want to chat, DDOStream is the place to be. Videos are archived on my YouTube channel and/or on DDOStream’s YouTube. Feel free to send me a tell if you’d like to join! Thanks for reading and/or watching! 🙂