Originally posted by Loke666

Sure. Put in some of the good ideas from LOTRO (the nice outdoors for one things, and the dx 10 support), make the game a bit less instanced too. LOTRO have a quite nice gfx engine and Turbine already owns it so it would be a lot less work than using something else.

And change the world for Pete's sake. Forgotten realms might be a bit expensive but both Dragonlance and Ravenloft should be very cheap and are quite nice worlds... Ravenloft would actually really works perfectly and White wolf who owns the license will probably sell it really cheap right now, their edition didn't sell so well as they was hoping after they bought it.

The combat system and the dungeons are good as they are.

There is off course an alternative and that is to make the game F2P instead. Sell some junk that are hard to get in the game in a online store (and gold, but no XP) and then you are competing in a totaly diffrent class. Only good looking F2P game I seen so far is RoM, well maybe Ryzom too but DDO could easily get a million player or 2 then. Should still bring in more cash then now.

But a new DDO is off course better.

You're a day late and a dollar short on that idea.  CCP (guys that made EVE) bought whitewolf, and are currently working on an MMO based on white wolf liscense.
 

have a nice day :C)

edit: p.s.  The problem with DDO is that they charge MMO monthly fee's, but run it on a crappy Guild Wars like instanced small group model.  I'd play the crap out of it if all I had to do was buy the box.  It has never been worth $15 a month IMO.  (definitely worth the box price though.)

Originally posted by lightning-rd

DDO would have been a much larger hit had they taken another year to add an actual full game world to explore instead of releasing it as completely instanced in a single city.

Everything about this game is great (especially the combat and D&D based skill system) except for the obvious missing huge game world.  They've added wilderness areas, I know, but that's not nearly what they needed.

 

That was the experiment of this game though.  I recall pre-alpha the discussion when it was decided to make the game all instanced based out of one city.  It was both inovative and a response to the "anti-wow" (for lack of a better term) travel haters. 

I'll admit it sounded good in the forums back then.  But the impementation didn't quite work as expected.

Originally posted by daelnor

Originally posted by Loke666

Sure. Put in some of the good ideas from LOTRO (the nice outdoors for one things, and the dx 10 support), make the game a bit less instanced too. LOTRO have a quite nice gfx engine and Turbine already owns it so it would be a lot less work than using something else.

And change the world for Pete's sake. Forgotten realms might be a bit expensive but both Dragonlance and Ravenloft should be very cheap and are quite nice worlds... Ravenloft would actually really works perfectly and White wolf who owns the license will probably sell it really cheap right now, their edition didn't sell so well as they was hoping after they bought it.

The combat system and the dungeons are good as they are.

There is off course an alternative and that is to make the game F2P instead. Sell some junk that are hard to get in the game in a online store (and gold, but no XP) and then you are competing in a totaly diffrent class. Only good looking F2P game I seen so far is RoM, well maybe Ryzom too but DDO could easily get a million player or 2 then. Should still bring in more cash then now.

But a new DDO is off course better.

You're a day late and a dollar short on that idea.  CCP (guys that made EVE) bought whitewolf, and are currently working on an MMO based on white wolf liscense.
 

have a nice day :C)

 

edit: p.s.  The problem with DDO is that they charge MMO monthly fee's, but run it on a crappy Guild Wars like instanced small group model.  I'd play the crap out of it if all I had to do was buy the box.  It has never been worth $15 a month IMO.  (definitely worth the box price though.)

The instances are not like GW. DDO did a much better job when it comes to that mechanic. D&D has always been about the group, it makes sense that dungeons are instanced.

Originally posted by Loke666

Sure. Put in some of the good ideas from LOTRO (the nice outdoors for one things, and the dx 10 support), make the game a bit less instanced too. LOTRO have a quite nice gfx engine and Turbine already owns it so it would be a lot less work than using something else.

And change the world for Pete's sake. Forgotten realms might be a bit expensive but both Dragonlance and Ravenloft should be very cheap and are quite nice worlds... Ravenloft would actually really works perfectly and White wolf who owns the license will probably sell it really cheap right now, their edition didn't sell so well as they was hoping after they bought it.

The combat system and the dungeons are good as they are.

There is off course an alternative and that is to make the game F2P instead. Sell some junk that are hard to get in the game in a online store (and gold, but no XP) and then you are competing in a totaly diffrent class. Only good looking F2P game I seen so far is RoM, well maybe Ryzom too but DDO could easily get a million player or 2 then. Should still bring in more cash then now.

But a new DDO is off course better.

Whoa, now those are some good ideas. A new world, make the main "world" a bit bigger like LOTRO and add Dx10.

Originally posted by Shadowslady

 

Whoa, now those are some good ideas. A new world, make the main "world" a bit bigger like LOTRO and add Dx10.

DX10 has been added.. came in with Mod 8..

Originally posted by Boneyardjay

Originally posted by almerel

I'm not a fan of what little I know about 4.0 but I think a fresh start for DDO would be good. I never wanted a game to be so successful but I was through most of the content my first 2 wks. I was gone just after mod 1.

 

Well since they are up to mod 8 now with mod 9 forthcoming that might have solved a bit of your content probelm.

Content itself was never really the prime reason people left.

Most people left the game in shock, because it was so heavily instanced, without any open exploration zones.

The whole game felt more like F2P kind of game or single player game, because of it.

I loved the classes, I loved the dungeons, but I hated the world design and how it was build.

DDO was THE Prime example of how you can take the concept of instancing way way too far!

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Originally posted by moorewr

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Originally posted by Rokurgepta
 
FR I think would have been a much better setting overall. The setting is one of the reasons DDO has a small subscriber number.

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Maybe. I've hated FR in all its forms, though, so they would have lost me. :)

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I know a lot of people don't like FR, and Eberron does have some good ideas. I like them both, but I do know (almost a certainty) that they would have had many, many more subscribers if they went FR. Of course they would have needed to do more outdoor areas, unless they did a similar concept to what they started with in DDO using Neverwinter (alot of interest using that name alone, perhaps) or Waterdeep, or some other large city. Waterdeep would make for some interesting modules for sure.

Of course, that is the least of the bad design and content choices Turbine made with this game. I never wanted a game to be good so badly in my life, and I can't stand it. Community does play a big part in that though.

I always "thought" that a DDO game would be, well more fleshed out.

Something along the lines of AO in terms of world.

With a world to wander and explore, many good cities(suitable for any level adventurer) and dungeons and places spread all over the place.

Dungeons would be a mix between "open" and "instanced" ones, with a fleshed out "random generator" for them. Where you could get quests to go to a dungeon or ruin with your team and have it all to yourself, or bigger quests, where whole towns or bigger ruins could be cleared by several teams and lone adventurers comming together for the greater goal.

But instead, sadly to me, they went the instanced to heck route, where the only "world" was a instanced city with instanced everything. And heavily scripted dungeons..If you had run it once, you knew it like the back of your hand.

I truly liked DDO.  It has a true D&D feel to it. The stopper for me was the forced grouping at so low a level. I think more solo content for a few levels until you can get to know people would have helped me. If this has changed please let me know as its been quite awhile since i have played the game and I would come back in a heartbeat if i thought i would have some time to make friends before having to group to get anything done.  Ebberon is ok with me also but I have to say Krynn would be great.

Originally posted by EduardoASG

Yup DDO2 with all the core clases and 4.0 rules would be amazing.

Very important: do not give caster classes 'sp' again. Thats one of the reasons that got ddo killed.

Use the rules for casters, limited spells per day [ rl day or ingame day but enforce it ].

Use the game real time for all the other classes too in terms of recycling abilities. dont make up crappy shrines like in ddo.. that was a sad choice imo.

Dont make up 'boss' npcs with invulnerabilities almost godlike etc.. thats not d&d. The boss fights in ddo were a joke in terms on how is possible to ruin a games system to artificially make something harder to kill.

Dont come up with normal / Elite versions of a dungeon. This is D%D not some crappy rpg system.

Plan a game with random dungeons and encounters + traps in open areas.

Give us a game in Forgotten Realms or better, in Krynn. That would be an hit.

Above all stay true to the D&D core rules. Do not try to reeinvent the freaking weel..

Enforce heavy penalities upon death to the players, light death penalities only encourage reckless gaming and mindless planning.

Get a good designer for armors and weapons. Someone who actually knows what an armor should look like. Not the crappy looking flashy rainbow armors from ddo that look like coming from a circus.

I agree with some of the stuff you are saying but you are contradicting yourself on a lot of it by supporting 4E rules. I'm a 4E DM, former 3.5 DM but 4E has extremely light death penalty, made up boss npc's with whatever abilities you want for no particular reason, limited amount of daily powers, Elite mobs, and Solo mobs (i.e. bosses).

adding visable cloaks is enough for me. :P

Well I play this game since a week or so, and I have no clue what is going on. But I do like it. It is very instanced, but I don't care (could also be because it's so different from other games).

it's more about reading alot the descriptions of the skills, feats, enhansments, items, but once you get it, it's very interesting and cool.

Where to start...

First of all, in my opinion, using the 4.0 rules would be the first and the greatest mistake ever! That shit is -so- streamlined and simple that it's a disgrace to D&D (Seriously, no multiclassing even? Every class can spam certain special attacks unlimited number per encounters?)

Even DDO's heavily modified 3.5e feels better, and way more "free" than any variant of 4.0 you could add in the game. Besides, DDO's combat was more or less innovative, especially if we compare it to Everquest 2 clones.

However! I'm all in for a DDO2, but as a people have said, change the setting! Ravenloft, Greyhawk, Forgotten Realms, Dragonlance... anything would work better than Eberron.

One big problem with making a D&D MMO is the general player's attitude of wanting "cool" and "epic" endgame! I always enjoyed the lower levels in D&D far more than epics. I mean, levels 3 - 12 (or even 15) are far more interesting than 20+, and the typical MMO endgame of raiding or pvp grinding dosn't exactly fit D&D in any possible way.

In DDO I loved the fact that you could do the same dungeon again on a harder difficulty, raising the challenge and requiring your party to really work together, if we are talking of "normal" players, that is.

However - Eduardo here wrote down some wonderful ideas on the first page, such as: (My comments are in brackets)

Plan a game with random dungeons and encounters + traps in open areas.

Dont make up 'boss' npcs with invulnerabilities almost godlike etc.. thats not d&d. The boss fights in ddo were a joke in terms on how is possible to ruin a games system to artificially make something harder to kill.

Use the game real time for all the other classes too in terms of recycling abilities. dont make up crappy shrines like in ddo.. that was a sad choice imo. (How else would you do this in an MMO? Resting has to be in the game in some way, such as shrines or taverns. The more hardcore it is - the less players it will attract, no matter how badly we want it to be "by the books".)

Get a good designer for armors and weapons. Someone who actually knows what an armor should look like. Not the crappy looking flashy rainbow armors from ddo that look like coming from a circus. (Some in DDO were perfect, others looked plain horrible, but over all, the armor design was far better than in any other modern MMO.)

Originally posted by Metanol

Where to start...

First of all, in my opinion, using the 4.0 rules would be the first and the greatest mistake ever! That shit is -so- streamlined and simple that it's a disgrace to D&D (Seriously, no multiclassing even? Every class can spam certain special attacks unlimited number per encounters?)

Even DDO's heavily modified 3.5e feels better, and way more "free" than any variant of 4.0 you could add in the game. Besides, DDO's combat was more or less innovative, especially if we compare it to Everquest 2 clones.

However! I'm all in for a DDO2, but as a people have said, change the setting! Ravenloft, Greyhawk, Forgotten Realms, Dragonlance... anything would work better than Eberron.

One big problem with making a D&D MMO is the general player's attitude of wanting "cool" and "epic" endgame! I always enjoyed the lower levels in D&D far more than epics. I mean, levels 3 - 12 (or even 15) are far more interesting than 20+, and the typical MMO endgame of raiding or pvp grinding dosn't exactly fit D&D in any possible way.

In DDO I loved the fact that you could do the same dungeon again on a harder difficulty, raising the challenge and requiring your party to really work together, if we are talking of "normal" players, that is.

However - Eduardo here wrote down some wonderful ideas on the first page, such as: (My comments are in brackets)

Plan a game with random dungeons and encounters + traps in open areas.

Dont make up 'boss' npcs with invulnerabilities almost godlike etc.. thats not d&d. The boss fights in ddo were a joke in terms on how is possible to ruin a games system to artificially make something harder to kill.

Use the game real time for all the other classes too in terms of recycling abilities. dont make up crappy shrines like in ddo.. that was a sad choice imo. (How else would you do this in an MMO? Resting has to be in the game in some way, such as shrines or taverns. The more hardcore it is - the less players it will attract, no matter how badly we want it to be "by the books".)

Get a good designer for armors and weapons. Someone who actually knows what an armor should look like. Not the crappy looking flashy rainbow armors from ddo that look like coming from a circus. (Some in DDO were perfect, others looked plain horrible, but over all, the armor design was far better than in any other modern MMO.)

I agree, i'd like to see DDO2 but with 3.5 again, the greatest system of AD&D so far.

Maybe this is way off, but isn't a game called Dungeons and Dragons Neverwinter coming out soon using the D&D 4.0 rules? I'm pretty sure it is going to be F2P just like DDO as well.

If turbine has their hands on it theres no way I would play it.

Vote for you're an idiot, but couldn't bring myself to select an option with ur and u in it.

DDO showed how well a DDO mmo could do. If you're going to make another D&D mmo, the best thing you can do is pretty much the opposite of what turbine and atari did. Ditch the Eberon setting no one knew or cared about, have a scope larger than one city, for god's sake have some gameplay other than dungeons and raids. Keep the quests, but understand they cannot hold up a subscription game on their own. 

DDO didn't work, and should be laid to rest.

DDO2 is already in development.  Its called Neverwinter, and it is being developed by Cryptic and published by Perfect World Entertainment.