 Osgard is on a goat. Och Aye!
Get yon axes ready it’s about to go down (yeah, shawty)
Everybody in the place hit the blasted deck (yeah, shawty)
Who ye calling shorty?
Pass the alekeg, let’s go.
I’m on a goat (I’m on a goat)
I’m on a goat (I’m on a goat)
Everybody look at me cause I be ridin’ on a goat (ridin on a goat)
I’m on a goat (I’m on a goat)
I’m on a goat
Take a good hard look at me level 20 goat (goat, yeah)
I’m on a goat oh ye Hordies take a look at me yo!
Straight blastin on me goat around Dun Morogh!
Boostin 60 per cent, wind whippin at me coat!
You can’t catch me ye daft trog because I’m on me goat!
Zoltoon:
Fascinating indeed! You do know that’s actually a ram, yes? A ram being a male sheep, rather than any sort of goat.
Osgard:
….
Zoltoon:
Oh, don’t let me interrupt. Pray continue with your fine song!
Osgard:
Och! Nevermind. I not be feelin’ it any more.
I was never able to afford a mount the first time I played WoW. This time, I easily gathered what used to be a rather large amount of money, five gold, by selling copper ore on the auction house. A single stack of 20 copper ore, which if you have some basic knowledge of where to find ore nodes takes just a few minutes to gather. But that’s real money. As a comparison, by level 20, when the mount and riding skill become buyable, Osgard had gathered about 1 gold through normal means.
It’s not unusual for MMO economies to change drastically over the course of their lives. As the level cap rises, even the junkiest of the loot and quest rewards found at high level become worth serious amounts of money, so low level goods becomes valued by time investment, and the potential value of time increases with every expansion. To a level 80, ten minutes is probably worth significantly more than 5 gold. Anything which is sold player to player suffers from massive inflation, while things bought only from NPCs for static prices become comparatively trivial to acquire.
Which is all good for me, as it has allowed a bit of a mount buying spree for my old characters.
 Skultroon is on a Green Mechanostrider.
Just a little update regarding what I’m up to at the moment, as I’ve been a bit wretched at posting recently. Quite a number of my MMO-blogging twitter pals have been talking about World of Warcraft’s upcoming Cataclysm expansion in recent weeks. The old world zones are going to suffer great upheaval, with a lot of old content being replaced with new content that possibly even more densely exudes a sense of loss and corruption.
It got me thinking that perhaps it might be a good time for me to pop back and see those old zones again before they change. I did not play WoW for very long, perhaps a month or two, so I don’t have anything like the same emotional attachment towards them as I do for EQ2’s older areas. Even so, I thought I would go on one last pilgrimage through them.
This decision was made a lot easier with the knowledge that (once I managed to figure out my old login details, and convert my account to the newfangled Battlenet variety) I had some free time waiting for me, including a ten day upgrade to Burning Legion. In the four years since I last played I had completely forgotten how to play any of my characters, so I deleted and recreated my old Dwarven Hunter, Osgard, last seen being a Rogue/Paladin in DDO, and before that, an Engineer in Warhammer Online. Wherever there is evil to be vanquished, and gadgets to be played with, you’ll find Osgard!
I’m always fond of pet classes. Possibly because I’m lazy, and would much rather have someone else do all that strenuous fighting for me. That someone, for Osgard, is Bjarn; a rare polar bear that can be found in the Tundrid Hills of Dun Morogh, if you can get to him before someone else tames or kills him. He’s functionally identical to every other bear, and I suspect every Dwarven Hunter these days knows about him and tames him, but he was my boon companion the first time I played, so it would have seemed ungrateful to head over to the Draenei lands and tame a giant moth.
 Osgard and Bjarn visit Westfall. I’m about halfway through my ten free days. I’ll be surprised if I resubscribe, but I may do for the lead up to Cataclysm, as it should be rather fascinating to see how well the game and its community deal with such massive change. If nothing else it has given me a few ideas for posts, and my screenshot folder is full to bursting!
Update: This post is obviously rather out of date now. I’ve written an up to date guide for European players who move to the US servers here.
European subscribers to DDO received this in our email today:
Today we announce the next steps for Dungeons & Dragons Online®: Stormreach™ (DDO) for Europe. After operating the European service for over four years, our operating licence has now expired and it is with much sadness we announce our intention to transfer the European game service back to Turbine.
We have been working closely with Turbine on transition plans for European DDO players, and will be helping players integrate into the existing global DDO service operated by Turbine, where they will receive access to the latest version of Dungeons & Dragons Online®: Eberron Unlimited™ (DDO Unlimited).
What does this mean to you as a current European player? It means that Codemasters Online will continue to operate the current European DDO service until August 20, 2010. Beginning August 20th, European players will be able to play the global DDO Unlimited service operated by Turbine. To transfer your character to the global service, you will need to opt in with Turbine. Specific instructions on how to opt in to transfer your character will be provided in a later email.
The last full day of service will be 19th August, 2010. All European DDO game servers will be permanently inactive on the morning of Friday 20th August, UK time. The ability to purchase subscriptions will be disabled and all recurring payments will be turned off as of today. Likewise, the creation of new DDO game accounts/subscriptions is now disabled. For further information, please see our DDO Service Transition FAQ in the forums.
You can start playing on the global DDO Unlimited service beginning 20th August. Just create a free account at www.ddo.com and adventure again in the land of Eberron with no monthly subscription required. With the in-game store, you the player can choose how you pay and play. There are many great changes in the game, including guild airships, new hirelings, and many new adventures. When character transfer becomes available, you will be able to move your current DDO Stormreach characters to the newly created DDO Unlimited account on the new global DDO service. The service is currently available only in English, with additional languages expected by end of year.
As a loyalty and welcome reward, Turbine is offering all current and former DDO Europe players 5,000 Turbine Points (nearly a €50 value) when they transfer their characters to the new global service. The points can be spent in the DDO Store to add adventure packs, character slots to your account, and much more.
It has been a great pleasure for all here at Codemasters Online to work on a game that has brought the wonderful world of Dungeons & Dragons Online®, to the online gaming arena. Over the last four years we’ve had the privilege of working with one of the most passionate and considerate gaming communities we’ve ever seen and we hope that everyone who has enjoyed the DDO European service continues to manifest such attributes when the service transfers over to Turbine.
We’d like to take this opportunity to thank everyone who supported DDO. In particular, a special mention goes out to those that went the extra mile, bringing the community the wonderful Stormreach Chronicle, player events and dedicated fan sites.
The Codemasters Online Team
Crikey. I expected DDO Europe to go F2P eventually, but I certainly did not see this coming. It’s not so long ago that Mythic also took control of European operations from GOA, but Codemasters have not really been guilty of any GOA-like mismanagement.
As a Premium player in the US, and an ex-subscriber in Europe, what this means for me is that I’ll be getting 5000 free points, and my old characters back, which is pretty awesome. The 5000 point deal is somewhat more generous than US players received when they went F2P, though there is more content that needs buying now, and the transfer system will be a little more fiddly.
Hopefully two new servers will be opened up with the same names as our original European servers, “Keeper” and “Devourer”, making it easy to keep existing communities together. It would be a horrible mistake to just try to roll the migrating players into the already existing servers, not least because all the good names will already have been taken, which would annoy the already inconvenienced newcomers. Nobody likes having to rename an already existing character, and migrating characters should have first dibs on their character names provided they head to the corresponding server. As I wrote in my last post, DDO could do with some new servers anyway.
I do have some questions though:
1. Will European players keep their Founder flagging, and any pre-order item unlocks for any character created? It might sound silly, but I was very fond of my founder’s hat. It made me look like Batman.
2. How soon will the non-English speaking players have access to the same level of support that they got from Codemasters? The Transition FAQ says “later this year”. That this important part of the necessary support is not ready from the get-go suggests to me that this has been quite a rushed decision to not renew Codemaster’s contract.
3. Will the European servers, if they are recreated, stay in Europe, or will they be consolidated in the US? I do seem to lag worse than my US friends when I currently play, so I would personally prefer it if the new ones were hosted in Europe.
4. What does this mean for Lord of the Rings Online in Europe, which is also currently run by Codemasters? It seems unlikely that they would keep one but not the other, especially with LotRO going Free to play. Will there be a similar announcement from the Codemasters LotRO team in the coming weeks?
Update: There has been the following statement on the Codemasters LotRO forum. Thanks to Gizbyt for the headsup.:
There aren’t any plans to merge the EU game servers with the US ones currently. When we go F2P later this year we’ll still have all the European servers and probably with some new additions to that list!
Update: The transfers have happened now. I’ve written an up to date guide for European players who move to the US servers here.
My DDO server, Cannith, today seems to have become something of a victim of its own success, with players being greeted with the following:
 Even the loading screen looks impatient. According to the forum, even VIP subscribers, who have priority over premium folks like myself, can’t get in. It’s possible that the error message is itself erroneous, and the servers are not actually full, but something else is stopping us from being able to log in. The other servers seem to be letting people in fine. As yet there hasn’t been any developer comment.
Cannith is the newest server, launched alongside F2P, and as such received the lion’s share of the new players. Perhaps it is time for another server to be opened. With the server populations booming since the move to Free-to-play, it’s a bit odd that we’re still only on seven servers. One possibility is that with DDO’s instanced style, it might just be preferable to add hardware to existing servers, rather than needing to open up entire new ones, but either way, we want to be able to get in and play!
The end rewards for the Catacombs quest-line got a revamp in Module 5, with many of the end-reward weapons getting an improvement.
Blade of Inquisition: Gained Lesser Undead Bane.
Dagger of Inquisition: Gained Lesser Undead Bane.
Eternal Rest: Gained Lesser Undead Bane.
Guidance: Gained Holy.
Morningstar of the Heretic: Gained Bodyfeeder.
Pillar of Light: Gained Radiance II.
But what Osgard, d’Kundarak engineer, is after today is Gerard Dryden’s Mace. It’s found in a chest behind a locked door in the Dryden Family Tomb. Back when the game was young it was a +1 heavy mace of Undead Bane, but was later changed to being just lesser undead bane. Module 5 changed it back, and changed it’s material to bone, so it is once again fairly desirable for folks looking for a decent skeleton-thumping weapon, as well as being safe for use against rust monsters. With it being usable from level 2 onwards, it can make the many undead dungeons a low level character will face far more pleasant!
 Map to Gerard Dryden's Mace Because it is chest-loot, and not very far in, Osgard is going to engage in something of a wheeze. The Dryden Family Tomb is part four of a fairly long quest series, and you can only get in there if you’re on the right stage of the questline. In order to get as many chances at the mace as possible, once the chest has been checked, Osgard recalls out without completing the quest, and waits for the dungeon to reset after 5 minutes of being empty.
Such antics have, of course, been anticipated by the designers, and after about 8 openings the chest will become “Ransacked”, having no good loot, and will remain that way until a week has past from the first time Osgard opened it. You might need all 8 tries too, as the mace is not terribly common. The best plan would be to take along some loyal friends who don’t want it who can pass it to you if they prove luckier! Gerard Dryden’s Mace does not bind to account until equipped. This one will likely become an heirloom passed down through my characters.
 What wonders lie within? As it turned out, Osgard ransacked the chest with no mace to be seen, though he did find a variety of useful bits and pieces. So it was that Ronekra Mirrorborn was called forth to complete the task, not least because I need to prove to myself that the mace drops in that chest before I could post this! Eventually, the random number generator took pity on me, and the mace was passed, with much grumbling from Ronekra, to it’s rightful owner.
 I sense much skeleton bashing in Osgard's near future.
I don’t tend to write a lot about World of Warcraft, only having played it for a month or so in its first year. Still, as the biggest MMO by far, what happens over there matters, as you’ll generally see it happening 6 months later everywhere else. So it is with WoW’s new RealID.
Essentially, your real name (or at any rate, the real name you gave when you signed up years ago, having no idea that it would later be made public), is going to be made public. Your real name is now visible to WoW plugins, and will also be used when you post on the forum. Not having WoW, I’m a little vague on the exact technicalities, but that’s the general gist.
What’s bothering me most though, as is so often the case, is the response from the public. As usual in these situations, you have the people who are concerned, and you have the people who are calling the first group “chicken littles” because the issue does not personally affect them.
There are a lot of reasons why someone might not want to use their real name on the internet, or in WoW. Some of those reasons are good. I’m not going to list them, because anyone with an ounce of empathy for their fellow human beings should be able to think of several. I might also suggest that the simple fact that WoW players were not told that this information would be made public if they signed up at any point before this month ought to be reason enough to make this an outrageous breach of privacy.
An awful lot of folks out there in the blogosphere consider the loss of anonymity to be a good thing. Mostly because they, personally, have no need for it. They hope that it will lead to greater civility on the forums, and perhaps it will. That would be a pleasant side-effect of a diminishing of freedoms, in a similar way to how removing the right to free speech would quieten down all those annoying opposing views, or how ending the right to strike would make the trains more punctual.
What it comes down to is that it is much easier to give up the freedoms other people find important, than the freedoms you find important for yourself. But here’s the thing. If you start giving up every freedom that only a minority of people find useful, very soon you start finding you don’t actually have very many left. Giving a corporation the right to tell everybody what your real name is, when you did not agree to that, is not something, looking at the wider picture, that I think is good for the future of the internet. We are the owners of our personal information; not Blizzard.
I don’t need to preserve my anonymity, but some people do, and for good reasons, and that is all that is required for me to oppose RealID.
 Monsters from the RealID
Because I was asked, here’s a little guide on how to make money in DDO:
Like anywhere else, becoming rich in Dungeons and Dragons Online involves two things; maximising your income, and minimising your expenses.
Some basics
When shopping for new gear it is best to check the brokers, as well as the auction house. While most of the best random gear does end up for auction, free players can only have one auction at a time, and many other people don’t really want to fiddle about with the AH, so you can find the occasional lovely bit of kit on the brokers, at a non-inflated price.
All the brokers for clothing and jewellery, as well as the lowest level armour and weapons brokers, can be found in the marketplace. The higher level armour brokers can be found in Second Gauntlet Goods, in House Kundarak, conveniently opposite the teleporter. The higher level weapon brokers can be found in Fare Trades within House Deneith.
When selling items that you don’t think are going to be popular enough to be worth auctioning, you should always try to sell it to the appropriate broker, as they will pay significantly more than a general merchant. Knowing what equipment will sell is an inexact science. Try to consider what different classes would be looking for in their equipment, and what item properties work well together on the same item.
Some people like to have a separate character for trading, with maximised charisma and haggling skills. That’s a bit too much fiddling around for my liking, but you should keep hold of the best haggle and charisma gear you find in your adventures, and wear it when doing any significant buying or selling.
Collectables
Collectables are key to getting a decent moneypile early on in DDO. Grab every single loot bag and prod every collectable node that you see. While most of the items you’ll get for turning collectables in are pretty junky, they’re still worth money. Depending on your class, you may well find the wands you can receive from some harbour and marketplace collections useful, particularly the healing wands. Wands of cure light/moderate are not cheap to buy, and are the sort of thing that can save an adventuring party from disaster.
More importantly, from a financial stand-point, are certain collectables that you’ll find from time to time. There are a few that have a second use, in crafting. Annoyingly, this second purpose is not mentioned on the item, so you should probably jot the following collectables down. On my server they are all worth at least 5000 gold, and often more.
Vial of Pure Water
Tome: Prophecies of Khyber
Silver Flame Hymnal
Luminescent Dust
Sparkling Dust
Fragrant Drowshood
Deadly Feverblanch
Lightning-Split Soarwood
Strings of Prayer Beads and Funerary Tokens are also used in the same crafting system, but are so common that most folks don’t need to buy them. You may still find the occasional high-level purchaser though.
Whether you choose to sell them on the auction house, or save them for your own needs, you need to make sure you don’t accidentally turn them in to a collector! I keep mine safe in the bank to prevent any accidents. You can see the Stone of Change recipes that require them here. Once you know what you’re looking for, you’ll notice that some adventures have nodes more suitable to collecting them than others. As an example, I have always found the nodes in the secret room of the Harbour quest “Bringing the Light” particularly good for Vials of Pure Water.
One other collectable you might find early on are Eberron Dragonshard fragments. These are rather rare, and come in three sizes, but can be found from any collectable node. They’re popular because they can be handed in for xp-bonus potions, but given that they’re worth at least 50,000 gold, you might prefer to just sell them!
For all these collectables, have a look at what other people on your server are selling them for. Whether or not you decide to undercut them depends on how much of a hurry you’re in. Usually there’s something of a standard going rate, and if you put your items up at that price they’ll sell eventually, without you driving the price down.
As you get further into the game you’ll come across other bits and pieces that sell well, such as adamantine ore, but the items available to you in the harbor and marketplace should be enough to get you off to a flying start. Good luck, Moneybags McGee!
That’s pretty much how I’ve made my cash pile over the years (though I’m as good at spending it as making it, alas). If I think of anything else, I’ll add it here.
 Ark Tales! Woo-oo!
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