Life gets real

Been kind of a while since I blogged, huh?

Real life has an annoying habit of interfering with DDO. Various surgeries for both parents, trying to get established as a serious freelance writer, dealing with some medical issues my kitty has… it all takes a toll. I *need* my playing time to decompress; unfortunately that means my time for blogging and working on OurDDO gets cut.

Months n’ months n’ months ago, the lovely and talented grimorde coded a rather brilliant carousel for OurDDO, much like the “Featured Blogs” section on the old MyDDO. I uploaded her test file to the site, admired it… and kinda left it there, because there was still the drudgery of updating a ton of links and finding/making icons for 40+ blogs.

Anyway, I finally buckled down, spent several nights updating links and such, and then blew off NWO with Shin and Comic tonight (sorry, guys :/) to do all the icons and port everything over to a new site, because I’m having some issues with the hosting on the current site and want to make sure I have a backup plan. The new site’s got a small display issue I haven’t figured out yet, but it’s functional. I’m going to keep both sites going for the time being.

Sadly, I’m *not* going to continue updating the feed at present. I’ve had too many issues trying to find a site to handle it – small limits on the number of feeds you can add; serious unreliability; not being able to add/edit feeds; etc. I had high hopes for Yahoo! Pipes, but 1) it’s no longer actively supported by Yahoo!, from what I’m told, and 2) it kept “dropping” feeds because apparently the way it pings sites looking for new posts tends to get it flagged as malware. The current feed is operational, but doesn’t contain recent additions to the blogroll. I’m hoping to eventually have the time and ambition to come up with another solution, since I know a number of people like to use feed readers.

And now for some really awesome news – I’ve been participating in National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) for the past several years, and I’m a member of a NaNo group that meets a few times a month. My friend and fellow NaNo-er Carrie submitted her novel, “Seashell, Stork and Apple Tree,” for Amazon.com’s Breakthrough Novel Award this year.

“Officially,” there were 10,000 entries for the award. So we were excited when she was named a quarterfinalist (top 100 in each of five categories). And we were REALLY excited when she made it to the semifinals (top five per category).

And now… SHE’S A FINALIST! She won first place overall in the Young Adult category, which guarantees her a $15,000 advance and a publishing contract with Amazon.com. Now she’s facing the winners in the other four categories for first place overall!

While Amazon.com made the selections from the start of the contest through the five finalists, now it’s up to a public vote. You can download and/or read free excerpts from all five finalists and cast your vote here.

I’m lucky enough to have read Carrie’s whole novel, because she E-mailed it around to our group for critique before she sent it off. But I’m not giving any spoiler alerts! If you have time, please do check out the finalists and vote… and if you happen to vote for Carrie’s entry, consider yourself gifted with virtual cookies from me! 😀

Chasing immortality

 

A few nights ago, Vey paid Even one of the nicest compliments she’s ever gotten – “Even’s pretty much impervious.”

 

“Impervious” is exactly what Even is built to be, as much as possible. I like to think of her as a Timex watch – “takes a licking and keeps on ticking.” She doesn’t kill a lot of stuff; after all, she thinks DPS stands for, “Duh, pally slow.” But she doesn’t GET killed by a lot of stuff, either.

 

Sometimes she can’t even seem to get killed when she WANTS to. Last night she teamed up with Vey, Suz and one of their friends (and later Baz as well) for some EE Gianthold questing. Once the end boss in Feast or Famine was down, everybody ran into the tent to loot. Even had a LOT of aggro (well, that’s her job), so she let the others get clear before heading in, and then found herself crowd-surfing on top of a horde of angry orcs. She couldn’t get back out of the tent to get to the DDoor Vey had put up, so he told her to just let them kill her and then release.

 

Well, I was fine with that. But Even apparently had other ideas. Her HP would drop into the teens or even single digits… and suddenly jump back up by a few hundred. I checked her combat log and found that Reactive Heal was responsible – except Reactive Heal is an enhancement in the cleric Radiant Servant tree. We didn’t have any clerics, nor any Favored Souls, or anyone with splashes in either class. Even was the closest thing to a divine in the party. So after a bit of discussion, we surmised that maybe it was a glitch where the buff stayed with you even after it should have expired. (I remember hearing about a buff that did that, just can’t remember which one.)

 

I mostly forgot about it until a few hours later when I decided, for reasons I don’t even know, that I wanted to try a solo ToD run on Even. She’s attempted it before, but can’t get past Nytherios – not because he kills her, but because the shadows heal him faster than she can damage him. But the last time she tried, she didn’t have Celestia or a Shamanic Fetish or con-op goggles.

 

Bold, who was in the middle of his own solo attempt in EE Tracker’s Trap (and he succeeded!), offered me a ship invite but no one was on his boat at the time. Luckily for me, Sady’s party had just finished a dungeon, although Meli beat her to the shipvite button.

 

A nicely buffed Even marched out to Amrath. The Judge/Jailer fight was a bit tedious – stand and swing, stand and swing, stand and swing, get thrown across the room, stand and swing, drink a curse pot, repeat ad  nauseum. But their red bars went down a lot faster than on Even’s previous two attempts, and she was taking a LOT less damage. Last time I had to carefully meter her Lay On Hands to make them last and went through a fair number of pots (well, by Even’s standards) keeping her mana up for Cocoon, Avenging Light, and replenishing her buffs. This time she used NO pots and was never down more than two Lay On Hands.

 

So I was feeling cautiously optimistic as Even uttered the disconcerting passphrase, “Eberron burns,” and stepped into Nytherios’ chamber. I had Celestia in her main hand and her green steel cold stick in the off one, Energy Sheath twisted in from Draconic Incarnation, and a stack of fire shield scrolls in case she ran low on mana.

 

Well… it didn’t start off on a very promising note. Just like before, for every little dent she’d put in Nyth’s red bar, the shadows would quickly heal him back to full. I was talking to Sady via tells, lamenting Even’s lack of sufficient DPS, and said that I figured I might as well just let them kill her instead of spending hours on a lost cause.

 

That should’ve been easy, right? Heaven knows my toons often find it discouragingly simple to get killed when they’re trying to stay alive. You’d think getting killed when you want to would be a piece of cake.

 

But Even’s HP would drop… I’d see her actually fall to the ground… and suddenly she’d be back up with a few hundred HP. I was pretty darn puzzled. Not complaining, mind you. Just puzzled. So I stopped Cocooning and started looking through her gear, feats, EDs and whatnot, trying to figure out what was going on.

 

Turns out that one of the core abilities in the Sacred Defender enhancement tree is a nifty little thing called Eternal Defender. Not sure who came up with that name, but they sure got it right…

 

While Eternal Defender is active, if you drop below 0 hit points but are not killed, two uses of Turn Undead are immediately expended and you receive a reactive heal for 250 points of Positive Energy healing.

 

I’m not sure it’s working quite as intended; I didn’t notice Even’s turns going down, but her smites, which should regen once per 90 seconds, hit zero and never came back. It was amazing to watch – I really wish I’d gotten video. (Maybe next time!) Over and over again, Even’s HP would drop below 0 and suddenly, without me doing anything at all, she’d have 500 HP and be back up swinging.

 

And miraculously, maybe from continuing to spam Cleave and Great Cleave and Sunder and Avenging Light (woulda been nice to have had those smites for DPS too, but can’t complain with the unexpected healing she got instead)… Nyth’s health started to drop. V-e-r-y s-l-o-w-l-y, but just a little bit faster than the shadows were healing him. All I really had to do was make sure she either had Energy Sheath or Fire Shield active so the cold spells hit her for small amounts; that way she’d drop below 0 HP but wouldn’t be killed, giving Eternal Defender a chance to kick in and save her.

 

Except it was REALLY boring sitting there just watching her swing away. This went on for probably a good half hour or so; meanwhile I was talking to Sady and working on the last little bit I needed for my NaNoWriMo project this year (which paid off, as I’m now at 50,012 words for my third straight win)… and I forgot to pay attention to the timer on her Energy Sheath.

 

Oops. She was down to about 25 or 30 HP and I was thinking her Eternal Defender was going to kick in at any second – but then she was dead, hit by a shadow that did 73 cold damage instead of the 10-15 they’d been doing.

 

But don’t get too cocky, Nyth. I have a feeling Even will be back for you tomorrow night.

Fun for ALL III: Reality check

 

I’m not sure anyone will really want to read this post. I’m not sure I even want to write it. Not that anyone wants to read any of my posts; I’m not nearly conceited enough to think anyone will be overcome with despair if I don’t post at regular intervals and fill them in on every last piddling detail of everything that every one of my toons has been doing. But I digress.

 

And I might digress a lot during this post, because there’s a LOT going on in this empty shell I call my head. I’m relieved. I’m hurt. I’m frustrated. I’m nervous. I’m confused. I’m anxious. I’m overwhelmed. I’m happy. I’m sad. I’m dealing with so much stuff right now, in and out of DDO.

 

See, stuff happens. It happens in DDO; it happens in real life. Most of what I’m going through right now is real life, and I’m freaking sick and tired of people who just cannot get it through their thick arrogant heads that NO. Some of us DO NOT freaking spend EVERY damn minute of EVERY damn day focused on DDO and how to rub in everyone’s faces how very über we are. I know there are people who put DDO ahead of “real life” things. I don’t have a problem with that; it’s a matter of personal preference. But don’t be all arrogant and condescending to me because I don’t make DDO my top priority.

 

I tend to be a pretty private person online except with people I know well and like. Even has a Gmail for DDO-related stuff. I try to check that every day in case someone has questions or concerns about OurDDO. The people I talk to on a regular basis outside of DDO have my “real” E-mail, Facebook and/or AIM. I don’t have time to spend checking messages in multiple places, so if someone sends me a message anywhere that’s not Even’s Gmail, my “real” E-mail, Facebook, or AIM, chances are I’m not going to see it. I have been called “rude and ignorant” on my OWN DAMN BLOG for this. Personally, I think “rude and ignorant” is expecting me to take time away from the non-DDO things I prioritize to cater to someone else’s whims as far as which messages I should be checking and when I should be checking them. When I didn’t cave to the bullying and become a minion, I got more crap… but I’m not going to apologize for that.

 

Anyway. I digress again. Being a mostly pretty private person, I don’t tend to share all the little details of my personal life online. Sharing the little stuff makes no sense to me – does anyone really need to know if my nose is stuffy or I stubbed my toe or that I had chicken for dinner? And most of the time, I prefer to keep the big stuff to myself. But. Today my emotions are getting the better of me. I should be pouring all this into my NaNoWriMo novel, but that’s going in a totally different direction. So, to all you egolitists out there…

 

I have a REAL LIFE. Like it or not – and I know you don’t, and I don’t give a flying fig that you don’t – I value my real life more than I value you. If you want to insult me and spread crap about me because I won’t bow down to your überness – screw you. Go bully someone else.

 

My father is in the hospital right now recovering from surgery. Yesterday he lost a half a rib, a goodly chunk of lung and a  number of lymph nodes in what will hopefully turn out to be a successful attempt to remove his lung cancer. Doctors found the tumor back at the beginning of May while treating him for a mild heart attack. He’s spent the past NEARLY SIX MONTHS being shuffled from doctor to doctor, being tested for all kinds of things and given all kinds of conflicting diagnoses, but until yesterday nothing had been done to actually TREAT him. In those months, the tumor grew from the size of a walnut to the size of a golf ball.

 

So far he seems to be doing well. I’m realistic; he’s 73 years old, is severely diabetic and requires an insulin pump, has had several heart attacks, and has already survived colon cancer. But I’m also trying to be optimistic.

 

So how does this rant relate to DDO?

 

DDO is my escape. It’s where I go to NOT think about the stressful things in my real life. Most of the time I think I’m a competent player.

 

But even though I’m often in DDO to “forget” real life, reality still creeps in. Sometimes this means I’m playing DDO, but I’m not completely focused on DDO. Late nights when things quiet down and I’m getting tired is usually when it’s worst. Vey has probably seen that the most; sometimes it seems like I’m always apologizing to him for being brain-dead. But thank heaven for friends like Vey, Baz, Ninja, Abs – I’m going to stop there because I’m not running on all cylinders right now, and I don’t want to leave anyone out – for them and the others who still invite me to run with them, or even INSIST that I run with them, and never give me a hard time when I’m not “all there.” In fact, they make a point of telling me the things I’m doing RIGHT. And that means that when I need to escape real life for a little while, I know I can head for DDO and lose myself there.

 

It’s certainly been eye-opening for me, seeing who really has my back, who’s just a good questing buddy, who doesn’t give a crap about me as long as I bring in some renown and lead a raid when they want me to. I have a lot to think over right now and figure out what I want to do and where I want to go.

 

I’m not going to apologize, EVER, for valuing real life above DDO. Nor will I apologize for speaking my mind and saying things that are true. I DO apologize for the rambling, disjointed nature of this post. Staying focused isn’t my strong point right now.

 

And speaking of points… I do have one. The next time some egolitist is about to start yelling at someone for making a mistake, or not obeying orders, or for just being a fallible human, I’d like to hope they’d stop and think, “Hey. Nobody’s perfect. That person could just be having an off day. Maybe I’ll just deal with it and move on instead of going on a rant about ‘stupid ppl’ wiping my parties.”

 

Yeah, well, it’s a nice thought.