Hey guys,

Old time DDO player. I played it for about 1 1/2 years then just sort of got burned out on it. One of my all-time favorites. While I realize, and appreciate, grouping is a huge part of DDO, it made it the biggest timesink MMO I've ever played.

"Hey guys I need to take out my dog."

"AFK, my daughter is crying."

or

"We only have 3 people, we need 1 more"

30 minutes pass...

"Well my friend is supposed to be coming on"

or

"We don't want you, we need a healer!"

And you can't just leave mid-quest, so if someone wipes you end up having to hang out for 2 hours at a minimum.

Yes, I ran tons of quest that went well, but there always seemed to be that time sucking element that was a bit on the extreme side compared to a lot of other games.

Anyway, so, how are the hirelings? I love grouping, don't get me wrong, but these hirelings sound like they could help to alleviate some of the scenarios I mentioned above. I'd like to hear some more about it from those who have tried to use it.

Only one player can have one hireling at a time... So its not like guild wars where you can get a full party of them goin on...

Personally, I don't like the system because it takes away from the group experience more.. though you cannot effectively solo a 7+ dungeon with 1 of them.

They are 'alright'. I used a hireling barbarian on my cleric and he ran around killing enemies and even smashing boxes.. You can tell them to open doors, pull levers, open chests, hopefully disable traps if they add in a rogue hireling. They play fine, they aren't pants-on-head-dumb, but they are no where near a human player... Basically, think of them as adding DPS to your character.. thats pretty much it

I've only used a level 6 hireling so far, the first Preview Night. They control with their own hotbar. 6 standard controls to tell them to follow, stay, passive, active, etc. then the last (up to) 4 slots on the hotbar will be class-specific skills. You can manually have them cast spells or on active they'll do it when they think it needs to be done. The current cleric AI won't cast a heal spell until you dip below 75% HP, and then it only gets you back above 75%. If you want to get topped off, you'll have to manually tell it to cast, or use potions/wands of your own.

If you've played GW, they're controllable like Heroes, but their "builds" are pre-configured like Henchmen.

The AI is still being tweaked this month during a few more events before they go live next month.

Ah, cool.

Well I see no fault in the concept of the system. I can't tell you how many times we would have 2 empty slots where hirelings might have helped a little. Again,that's just in concept!

I'm thinking about resubbing. Keep us posted on what's up in the game, guys. Thanks!

At the risk of shameless self-promotion, I wrote a somewhat more in-depth article of my Preview Night experience last week if that would provide any additional information for you...