Mists of Ravenloft coming to DDO

October 26th 2017.

Okay so there are two big things I am looking forward to right now.

#1. Season Two of Stranger Things on Netflix (which I will be binge watching tomorrow).

#2. Mists of Ravenloft being released on Dungeons and Dragons Online on December 5th.

So I have no doubt that Stranger Things Season 2 will be amazing, mindblowing, and I shall watch it again and again. (There is a tiny chance I will be disappointed and downcast as a result.)

But with Mists of Ravenloft I am looking forward to playing DDO again - I took a break from playing it from May to October, so I am happy to start playing again. This is something I do with DDO, which is hugely addictive, and I find it helps keep things balanced in my life. I will take long hiatuses from the game and not play it during an extended period of time.

During the past 15 months roughly I have been spending a lot of my "gaming time" playing Pokemon Go, but with winter coming and me disliking the idea of spending another winter outside playing Pokemon, this year I have decided to not play Pokemon and instead focus on playing various games indoors... where it is warm and cozy.

Games like...

• Skyrim (and Skyrim Expanded Edition)
• Oblivion
• The Crew
• Dungeons and Dragons Online

Part of this is fueled by the fact that I no longer have much time for pen and paper games (traditional D&D with dice, paper, etc) now that I have a baby boy and not much gaming time.

Thus what little gaming time I do have, I need to be using it in different ways.

So no more Pokemon Go during the Winter.

No more pen and paper D&D for me. Or at least not as often as before.

Hello, Dungeons and Dragons Online...

Now to be clear, I have been waiting for Ravenloft to be added to DDO for years. I made numerous suggestions years ago that various classic D&D modules should be added to the game, and it appears the producers of the game are finally listening.

They came out with a series of quests in Eveningstar - and the classic quest Haunted Halls of Eveningstar (aka HHoE).
After that success they came out with Temple of Elemental Evil (ToEE).

And now, finally... Ravenloft. The first big expansion of the game since Eveningstar.

Yours for $39.99.

Sigh.

As is usual, each expansion costs more than the original game. (DDO is currently free to play, but a lot of the more fun and interesting quests you need to buy access to.)

But whatever. It is Ravenloft. I am so paying for it when it comes out.

My only disappointment is that they didn't release it before Halloween. Instead we have to wait for December 5th.

Historical Context

Decades ago there was a computer game released by SSI called Ravenloft: Strahd's Possession. Followed by the sequel, Stone Prophet. Stone Prophet was my favourite of the two, but the beauty of the two games was that they were both awesome, and you could play characters through to the end of Ravenloft - and then use the same characters in Stone Prophet.

My one beef with those two games is that monsters never respawn. Both games could have been so much better with respawning monsters in the wilderness areas.

The new Ravenloft expansion will of course have a wilderness area - which I am going to have a lot of fun exploring.