Jundak
06-10-2008, 07:52 PM
This has to be one of the funniest things I've read in a long ass time.
From the DDO forums:
Well it seems the trend of developers getting their hands on once pristine hideaways has finally caught up with the pirate community and ours is no exception. Three Barrel Cove has been made over stunningly in a style I think best described as Exteme Makeover Home Edition meets Disney's Pirates of the Caribbean... run through a blender and built by a miniature golf course contractor.
You'll notice the Disney aspect immediately as there are far more people standing or walking around doing nothing of any value or point other than to provide an obviously phony atmosphere. Real pirates are too busy actually committing piracy to stand around on land. Besides, the lack of wave motion disturbs true seafaring folk.
Fishing nets are strung haphazardly about outside your arrival point for no reason whatsoever other than to provide more phony atmosphere much the way middle class American basement rec rooms once had them to suggest that the home's owners actually knew where the shore was and thus might be capable of reading maps on family vacations. A sure sign of intelligence and refinement on par with dark walnut shade laminated particle board paneling and naked lady art pose lamps made of injection molded plastic, but you take what you can get. Besides, you were either one of the adults too busy getting plastered and hoping the party would have the word swinging come up, or a teen looking to filch some of the booze, to care or even notice until years later when it seemed depressingly embarrassing.
Times have been hard for Venetian boatmen and Russian sailors, and both groups now have excess stripey shirts and Turbine spared little money on buying them along with cheap red bandanas for a demonstration of complete lack of fashion sense. When you take into account that they only had size XXXXXL in stock, the obvious choice to wear them were the minotaurs and as expected their sense of pride was dramatically underestimated and they are all suitably cheesed off about it and more likely than usual to engage in useless charges you can sidestep easier than your wife's parents attempts to get you to sit through their home movies. But hey, why sidestep when getting knocked down lets you look at the now clear skies of Eberron?
Tired of their handiwork constantly being smashed the Coopers and Crate Makers Union finally decided to look at their position again and outsourced their manufacturing to otherwise unemployed kobolds and sales to Cheap Pottery Barn which sold the entire production run to the developers who lacking enough inside locations to place them, placed them outside instead along with the sort of vases one often puts dried reeds and cattails in as a pretentious attempt at acknowledging the existence of plant life in their otherwise unnatural homes.
Do not let this stop you from breaking them as kobold families are depending on you to keep up the manufacturing demand so they can feed their families of yarking young who would otherwise be forced to eat at The Leaky Dinghy and their menu should not be wished on anyone.
The orcs and hobgoblins have gotten over their usual enmity for the moment to help out the last phases of landscaping. Unfortunately, they have gone with their strengths and emplaced spears and archers instead of the plants they were hired to, which were instead eaten by the nutrition conscious and salad loving sahuagin when they were left on the beach.
Joining them are worgs, spiders, bugbears, and for some odd reason redheads. Yes, as in flaming orange-red haired guys who look like a cross between orcs and hobgoblins, and know their way around hair dye. Bards specializing in punk are felt to be the probable cause.
The Bards of Stormreach Retreat and Workshop went disastrously awry when the subject turned as it was feared towards the continuing lack of work in adventuring parties due to obsession with clerics. Mandolins began to fly and before long those who had not fled had begun hanging out with the orcs and hobgoblins and agreeing that violence is not only sometimes an option but generally the best one first and foremost.
The pirates are still dressed as well as the Quickfeet ever managed which is to say, unflatteringly in tight and tattered outfits looking something like Billy Idol's back-up dancers with cutlery. Feel free to dispatch them to relieve their miserable lack of pirating opportunities.
Hyenas have been imported from Menechtarun and are as one would expect truly upset with it and will attack anyone on sight and no rain of magic ham will deter them. This was an accident as the requisition form should have read "Hydras". Their mistake is your gain!
Fire elementals and mephits are to be found to the north and sand mephits are in the sand so sunbathe at your own peril. Scorpions also infest the beaches but unlike their cousins everywhere else can be hit while submerged so go for it. Just bring plenty of Poisonblock with your Sunblock.
Various former seagoing vessels are now creatively wrecked about the island and of no real consequence, but manage to give it that miniature golf feel the contractor insisted on. No windmills though so you'll have to wait until we work that one out.
The beaches are, mephits and scorpions aside, quite nice and the water clear and blue like a freshly cleaned toilet with a new tank cleanser tab dropped in. They are also about as safe to swim in as skeletons and rats infest the shallows. Between that and the sand mephits, not exactly a family friendly place. Did I forget that kobolds found the top of the old marketplace tent and seem to be worshiping it? Well, they also have better hammocks than you'd expect so this newest cult of theirs seems to be more profitable than that eye thing in the harbor.
As previously mentioned we've had sahuagin imported and they are not happy about their new digs and will attack immediately. They have no interest in making nice so feel free to make catty remarks about their parentage and tuna while making filets of them. Note though that they display the same overacting in death scenes as bearded devils and may have gone to the same acting school. This is being looked into.
Finally, Goonies evidently went to the heads of several people at Turbine and it was decided that a really neat pirate ship in a cave area was needed and we have one. If you can find it. The decoration is sparse, but early "use body parts as fashion statements" meets "Bombay". The layout is reminiscent of a Habitrail and chock full of NPCs evidently on extended smoke and coffee breaks as well as vendors and places to run around pointlessly like a gerbil but if you like me have felt that a rodent experience was missing, well your prayers have been answered.
Lastly there is the loot. Named monster chests sometimes include "outfits". As in a set of clothes with nothing special about them. Thankfully, they are plain and no attempt was made to make the winners look like court jesters or those horribly attired members of the Twelve.
(Editor's Rating for Three Barrel Cove: 4 out of 5 stars, losing one for a lack of any actual pirating, raiding, plundering, or thieving.)
From the DDO forums:
Well it seems the trend of developers getting their hands on once pristine hideaways has finally caught up with the pirate community and ours is no exception. Three Barrel Cove has been made over stunningly in a style I think best described as Exteme Makeover Home Edition meets Disney's Pirates of the Caribbean... run through a blender and built by a miniature golf course contractor.
You'll notice the Disney aspect immediately as there are far more people standing or walking around doing nothing of any value or point other than to provide an obviously phony atmosphere. Real pirates are too busy actually committing piracy to stand around on land. Besides, the lack of wave motion disturbs true seafaring folk.
Fishing nets are strung haphazardly about outside your arrival point for no reason whatsoever other than to provide more phony atmosphere much the way middle class American basement rec rooms once had them to suggest that the home's owners actually knew where the shore was and thus might be capable of reading maps on family vacations. A sure sign of intelligence and refinement on par with dark walnut shade laminated particle board paneling and naked lady art pose lamps made of injection molded plastic, but you take what you can get. Besides, you were either one of the adults too busy getting plastered and hoping the party would have the word swinging come up, or a teen looking to filch some of the booze, to care or even notice until years later when it seemed depressingly embarrassing.
Times have been hard for Venetian boatmen and Russian sailors, and both groups now have excess stripey shirts and Turbine spared little money on buying them along with cheap red bandanas for a demonstration of complete lack of fashion sense. When you take into account that they only had size XXXXXL in stock, the obvious choice to wear them were the minotaurs and as expected their sense of pride was dramatically underestimated and they are all suitably cheesed off about it and more likely than usual to engage in useless charges you can sidestep easier than your wife's parents attempts to get you to sit through their home movies. But hey, why sidestep when getting knocked down lets you look at the now clear skies of Eberron?
Tired of their handiwork constantly being smashed the Coopers and Crate Makers Union finally decided to look at their position again and outsourced their manufacturing to otherwise unemployed kobolds and sales to Cheap Pottery Barn which sold the entire production run to the developers who lacking enough inside locations to place them, placed them outside instead along with the sort of vases one often puts dried reeds and cattails in as a pretentious attempt at acknowledging the existence of plant life in their otherwise unnatural homes.
Do not let this stop you from breaking them as kobold families are depending on you to keep up the manufacturing demand so they can feed their families of yarking young who would otherwise be forced to eat at The Leaky Dinghy and their menu should not be wished on anyone.
The orcs and hobgoblins have gotten over their usual enmity for the moment to help out the last phases of landscaping. Unfortunately, they have gone with their strengths and emplaced spears and archers instead of the plants they were hired to, which were instead eaten by the nutrition conscious and salad loving sahuagin when they were left on the beach.
Joining them are worgs, spiders, bugbears, and for some odd reason redheads. Yes, as in flaming orange-red haired guys who look like a cross between orcs and hobgoblins, and know their way around hair dye. Bards specializing in punk are felt to be the probable cause.
The Bards of Stormreach Retreat and Workshop went disastrously awry when the subject turned as it was feared towards the continuing lack of work in adventuring parties due to obsession with clerics. Mandolins began to fly and before long those who had not fled had begun hanging out with the orcs and hobgoblins and agreeing that violence is not only sometimes an option but generally the best one first and foremost.
The pirates are still dressed as well as the Quickfeet ever managed which is to say, unflatteringly in tight and tattered outfits looking something like Billy Idol's back-up dancers with cutlery. Feel free to dispatch them to relieve their miserable lack of pirating opportunities.
Hyenas have been imported from Menechtarun and are as one would expect truly upset with it and will attack anyone on sight and no rain of magic ham will deter them. This was an accident as the requisition form should have read "Hydras". Their mistake is your gain!
Fire elementals and mephits are to be found to the north and sand mephits are in the sand so sunbathe at your own peril. Scorpions also infest the beaches but unlike their cousins everywhere else can be hit while submerged so go for it. Just bring plenty of Poisonblock with your Sunblock.
Various former seagoing vessels are now creatively wrecked about the island and of no real consequence, but manage to give it that miniature golf feel the contractor insisted on. No windmills though so you'll have to wait until we work that one out.
The beaches are, mephits and scorpions aside, quite nice and the water clear and blue like a freshly cleaned toilet with a new tank cleanser tab dropped in. They are also about as safe to swim in as skeletons and rats infest the shallows. Between that and the sand mephits, not exactly a family friendly place. Did I forget that kobolds found the top of the old marketplace tent and seem to be worshiping it? Well, they also have better hammocks than you'd expect so this newest cult of theirs seems to be more profitable than that eye thing in the harbor.
As previously mentioned we've had sahuagin imported and they are not happy about their new digs and will attack immediately. They have no interest in making nice so feel free to make catty remarks about their parentage and tuna while making filets of them. Note though that they display the same overacting in death scenes as bearded devils and may have gone to the same acting school. This is being looked into.
Finally, Goonies evidently went to the heads of several people at Turbine and it was decided that a really neat pirate ship in a cave area was needed and we have one. If you can find it. The decoration is sparse, but early "use body parts as fashion statements" meets "Bombay". The layout is reminiscent of a Habitrail and chock full of NPCs evidently on extended smoke and coffee breaks as well as vendors and places to run around pointlessly like a gerbil but if you like me have felt that a rodent experience was missing, well your prayers have been answered.
Lastly there is the loot. Named monster chests sometimes include "outfits". As in a set of clothes with nothing special about them. Thankfully, they are plain and no attempt was made to make the winners look like court jesters or those horribly attired members of the Twelve.
(Editor's Rating for Three Barrel Cove: 4 out of 5 stars, losing one for a lack of any actual pirating, raiding, plundering, or thieving.)