Sign me up for the list. I’m usually on West from 5-11 pm PST on weekdays, or anytime weekends, though I haven’t been playing too often lately. I have a zon on East, but I hardly ever play her. And if anyone needs pgems, I have a stash full of most if not all kinds.
Well, I’m in, of course. 
And I got a mule full of chippies, and another that’s mostly full of pgems and a third with just misc. gems.
And I’m on Mountain Time, which makes me (IIRC) the furthest west USEaster. My play time has been fubared and will be for another couplea weeks but normally I play between about 3-8 pm, MST (with a break for dinner).
(And right now, I’m burning in all my mules–I dunno what happened, but all my mules poof magically came back, so I’m not taking any chances.)
Fenris
As punha knows, I’ve already created a mule account ready for joint use. I’ve given both he and Fenris the account name and password. Now whether they remember them… I don’t even want to name the account in this thread since we get quite a lot of views here, and not all of them are from us.
The account has one mule on it now and has a few items that were worth saving, but none that will make it profitable trying to hack it. I am going to mule some of the stuff I have no use for over there for use by the rest of you should you need it. I’m going to suggest that anything anyone places on a joint mule should be stuff that you have no plans for. Don’t go muling an Azurewrath over there just because you can’t use it yet…
Once anyone has the account name and password on the account I created, treat it as you would your own. If you feel like creating another mule character on it, feel free. We should try to keep the names of the mules indicative of what we are muling on the character so as to have an easier time trying to find what you’re looking for. The first char on the account is generic at the moment because of the mish-mash of stuff on him.
I’d go a step further and make sure that you make games with that account that are NOT “sdmb” so lurkers won’t find the account name…
I like the communal account idea and one out West would be nice especially for someone who wants to go on a crafting binge and could have easy access to gems, jewels, etc.
I also would like to see one mule have a massive collection of unique rings and amulets so other players can mix and match the items to strengthen their character’s attributes.
Actually, there are five of us in the West…Chronos, sturmhauke, buckgully, Gand (theckd) and myself. We can email to Chronos our email addresses and maybe he can open up the first account since he’s kind of the father figure out here in the West…I would let him decide who’s trustworthy or not and maybe we can second or third his motions…
I understand the paranoia about the communal accounts, as a touch of paranoia is logical in computer security. But we ought to keep the paranoia at a consistent level. For instance, there should be no fear about anyone hacking into the communal account, because we don’t fear anyone hacking into our regular accounts. Anyone who would have learned about a Baranar’s Star on the communal account already does know that there’s one on Fenris’ account, for instance, so there’s already just as much incentive to hack into his account. Since we don’t keep secret our own account names or the fact that we’re from the SDMB, I fail to see the value in doing so for a communal account. Also, I don’t see the value in changing the password on any particular schedule. If the password gets into the wrong hands, it’s going to only take a matter of minutes, not weeks, for someone to make off with all the gear. But on the other hand, changing the password on a regular schedule makes it much harder to memorize the password (increasing the likelihood that it’ll get left lying around somewhere), and also facilitates “what’s the new password again?” type attacks. There’s a concrete example of this in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, for anyone who’s familiar with that book.
While the communal accounts aren’t any more vulnerable to hacking than are the regular ones, they might be more vulnerable to social engineering. The only real solution to that is to make strict rules concerning its use, and to make sure that everyone knows those rules and understands the reasons for them. For starters, I would tighten the restriction of “regulars and people known in RL” to just a specific list of regulars. After that, new people should only be added to the list by unanimous agreement of those already on the list (we have a small enough group that this should, I think, be practical).
On a completely different note, why a full Tal’s sorceress for magic finding? If you swapped out the orb and the mask for an Occulus and a Harlequin Crest, you’d gain 100 more magic find and one more to skills, without, it seems to me, sacrificing too much on the other bonuses. Taran has already volunteered to donate a Harlequin Crest for the cause… Are Occuli that hard to come by? Or is there something in the full-set bonuses that I’m overlooking?
I don’t know that we have to go THAT far YR, we see each other often enough to know when there’s a stranger around.
Damn, your post wasn’t there Chronos…
Since I can’t build or play a sorc worth crap I may be wrong, but I believe the +50 to resist all is an important fact. The sorc has to be able to survive teleporting down to Meph or Baal’s minions in order to be really effective. We don’t want a run to last 20 minutes because that is just lost time. I think the “or known in real life” comment is because Vol has a friend who joins us in games. I would consider him one of the group.
OK, what am I doing wrong, here?
I need an amulet, or possibly a ring, with chance to cast amplify damage. That’s really low level, so it should be easy, right? Well, what I’m doing is I’m saving all the jewelry I’m finding, muling it to a new character, and using him to cube them. I figure as following: Chance to cast amplify damage is a 3rd level suffix, on both rings and amulets. The 3 to 1 cube recipe produces items of level 3/4 the character level. The character I’m using is level 4, so only affices of level 3 or less are available. A magic item has a 50% chance of just a suffix, and a 25% of both prefix and suffix, so 3/4 of all magic items rolled should have a suffix. Including chance to cast amplify damage, there are nine amulet suffices and six ring suffices of level 3 or less. Putting this all together, I should have a 1 in 12 chance to get amplify damage whenever I make an amulet this way, and a 1 in 8 chance whenever I make a ring.
And yet, I’ve cubed four or five inventories full of jewelry, and not had that suffix come up once. Obviously, there’s something I’m missing here. Does anyone know what?
I think it’s an error on the website… Those items can’t have amp dmg on hitting. Never seen it. I think it should just say weapons not amulets and rings.
Only amp dmg amulet i know is atma’s scarab??? or some unique amulet i forgot the name of.
I posted this reply yesterday, but I see the hamsters were hungry, so…
You know I’m down for the communal deal. Further, I’d suggest multiple accounts, rather than characters, due to the sheer amount of stuff we find. Ideally, there would be an account for uniques, and account for set pieces, an account for MF (would this overlap uniuqes?) and account for gems & runes (or individual acct for each), etc.
Or, and this might be too much, an acct for each char class, with only those characters as mules in the acct, each holding some specific range of items (DOPE_paly_gem, DOPE_paly_unq, DOPE_paly_set…)
Just a thought, though I definitely think the first case, accounts for items, should be a starting point to keep the account shuffling to a minimum.
I don’t know that we need a bunch of accounts. I, for one, am not going to give up muling stuff for myself and keeping things on my personal mules. I’ll mostly be putting things on the communal account that none of my characters can or will use, or stuff I have an excess of. If I find a Templar’s Might armor I wouldn’t be putting it on the joint mule even though I have no one to use it (yet). I know Fenris’ or MDSL’s pallys can use it though, but what I would do in this case would be to offer it to the first one of them I see. I neither wanted it, then I’d put it on one of my mules until my pally is ready for it.
I have Hellrack now. I’ve offered it to MDSL and am holding it for him until he gets his zon enough levels to use it. Unless he changes his mind about wanting it, it won’t go on the joint mule.
The same with runes and gems. If we are gathering them up for a purpose (as we are now), I’ll stick a bunch on the joint mule. I won’t put all of them on it though… because I have uses for them myself. If I get notice (through email or here) that one of us has a good deal going down and needs more of either, then I’ll add them to the stash.
Yeti said he saw one, but I suppose he might be misremembering. That would put quite a damper on my plans, though… What’s the trade value for an Atma’s Scarab, anyway?
And by the way, Madawc, you need to work on your fire resistance. You went down in about three seconds to my sorc. Now, your two brothers, they put up rather a fight… 
The Talsorc is currently level 53 and halfway to 54. Fire mastery is maxed and meteor is at level 13 (orb and cold mastery will be maxed much later).
Not sure if I just got whoosed with a “flaming” reply of mine that I’ve never seen and claim to say that amp dmg jewelry at low lvls doesn’t exist.
If that isn’t the case, I’m quite sure I’ve never duelled or even actually played online with you Chronos. I haven’t actually been playing D2 for a good chunk of my time and kinda want to start again, but want to play in normal/nonladder for a bit to get a feel for the game more before I hit the ladder circuit.
No wait… NOW i get it… the gears in my brain are moving slowly just like the damned b.net forums. The Ancients lol. My two brothers… they ain’t my brothers just guardians of Arreat Summit. Korlic has a slight insecurity about his penis’ size so he needs to use long weapons to compensate. Now Korlic takes his damned time to do things too, took him three damned days to get to the Summit, doesn’t seem as if he wants to be here. Talic talks like he’s drunk, twirling around gets him dizzy and I have to hear the old coot ramble on about his not wanting to be up here guarding the summit. Me I’m the crazy nut that rants, shouts and yells at everyone around me and chucks axes to your face, I actually wanted to be a guardian of the summit unlike my two fellow “guardians”. Note the quotation marks. hehe
I’ve stopped playing for the night. Talsorc is at level 70. I wanted to get her to 71 so we could just set her up as soon as vol’s willing with his other Tal set stuff, but … when I started today she was still in Norm, and I think about level 37. Fire mastery is maxed, Meteor is maxed and fire ball is at level 13 or so. Meteor’s doing 6.5K with +6 all fire skills. With Tal’s full on, I should have +5 all and an extra 2 to fire mastery. I will probably switch out Tal’s crystal and a Rhyme shield with Wizardspike and … I’m leaning right now toward a 3-P Diamond shield. That’ll be for TPing.
If anyone’s making plans for later today, I’d still like to get some help with sidequests in NM and one or two in Norm (the figurine, mainly). Then after I get Tal’s full equipped we can see about getting me into Hell Baal runs, and after that I’ll do a few NM Meph trial runs before leveling the merc up, getting his gear settled and doing power Meph. That is, if nobody else wants to take her for a spin:)
Not that I’m an expert or anything, but for TPing, I think resists are less important than blocking (though both are extremely important). I use a PDiamond socketed…um…Whistans(?) Shield (the one from the Orphan’s Call) set and I rarely die tping on Meph runs (fighting Meph is another matter 
)
I’ll be on after work today, so I imagine even if there are only the two of us we can get all the side quests done. I can tank Hell Meph and Baal with the zon without a lot of difficulty but the minions can sometimes pose a problem. With the sorc having fire and cold we shouldn’t have a lot of problems.
As for getting levels, if you can find your buddies doing Baal runs, you can gain a level a run until 79 or 80, as long as you don’t get killed.
Until you interrupted me I was well on my way to 88. Hopefully I can hit hat tonight.
Actually, you don’t want help with the figurine. It’s a very touchy quest. The way it works is, the first unique killed (or maybe encountered) in Act 3 in the game is the figurine-bearer. But it doesn’t drop unless a person who needs the quest makes the kill. Party member makes the kill, it doesn’t count. Merc makes the kill, it doesn’t count. Boss is a flyer and is killed over water, no drop, and it doesn’t count. Boss drops some other quest item (the Gidbin or the Flail), it doesn’t count. But in any of these cases, the figurine-bearer is used up, and the figurine won’t drop at all in that game. So your safest bet is to go it solo; then you only need to worry about your merc or the river stealing it from you.
As my merc is dead (though he says he’s feeling much better), that issue won’t be one for me. I’ll either do it in a pub game (a baal run, mebbe) or make a game for it, since if I host the flail obviously won’t drop.
Re: shields being more useful in terms of blocking than resists, some thoughts:
Stormguild (U Large shield) does 62%. Gerke’s does 74% blocking, but Gerke’s also has a 133 str req, and even Heled that’s still 113. My sorc’s str is 84, so you’d be talking about 30 str points at the expense of, most likely, 20 mana, 20 health and ten dex. Not happening. Perhaps a Whitstan’s is called for on wep switch with the wizspike.
You guys should also be looking at your block rate on your character screen, not your shield. With low dex, your blocking rate is going to be pathetic.