Originally posted by Murdus

Originally posted by signetring

I would be willing (and eager as hell to do so if someone decides to take me up on it) to wager $1,000 in american cash that Turbine will NOT have their module up before the anniversary date. As with everything Turbine, they are:

A) Horrible at any kind of deadline. I am not the type of gamer who feels "privileged" and "blessed" just because they put out new content. Nor do I feel overly compelled to reward them with Dev-worship just for coming up with 8 new dungeons. Turbine owes their playerbase to try to keep some sort of time frame that is reasonable, and several months between any new releases just is not feasible in a game that depends so heavily on such content. The worst part about it is that Turbine does not even feel the slightest sense of urgency to target the anniversary for a release. Just ask what happened to the supposed semi-annual State of Game Address.

B) Predictable. There will be a "so sorry its late, but it's on the way guys!" announcement several days before the anniversary, announcing that the module 9 will not be ready.

It would be a sucker bet and doubt if anyone would put their money where their mouth is. This I know for sure, Turbine cannot be counted on for anything. It always comes a day late and a dollar short.

On another note, just a list of a few games that have ranked better than DDO on MMORPG.com

Hellgate London (defunct)
Tabula Rasa (defunct)
Lineage 2 (EOL)
Asheron's Call (EOL)
Planetside (EOL)
ROSE Online (never even heard of it)
Puzzle Pirates
Dungeon Runners (NCSoft's Freebie)
 

So even after the word went out to come hustling to MMORPG and "rate DDO"... the community still couldn't hold a candle to some dead games and a few little-known freebies.

Sorry, as I stated before, DDO has already done all it's ever going to do. Put your money elsewhere, you won't miss a thing.

 

 What other game can have a Fighter/Sorcerer/Bard all in one? None. What other game can I make a dual-wielding Paladin that can restore a Cleric's mana and disable traps? (pal/clr/rog) None.

Edit: Also, if you haven't played Permadeath in DDO, you don't know what difficulty in an MMO is.

I want to just touch on these two points.

Yes DDO allows you to make characters no other game can touch, but Turbine has a habit of making game changes to nerf some of the fun multi class builds and that has always irked me.

Permadeath does make the game more difficult, but it is false difficulty because you could do it in any game and the Devs did not build it into the game to make it tough or add challenge the players hold themselves to those rules. It is a cool way to extend the content but it is not like Turbine thought up some great way to make the game challenging, if anything they made the game so easy at time people started Permadeath to combat the boredom of the game in those days.

Originally posted by spyyder976

DDO is the BEST game out there bar none.  You are obviously one of those folks who just sit at home and play games all day and zerg your ass to the end of the game and then whine and cry and say "there's no new content, I've done everything, I'm l33t11!!!111, wah wah wah, this game sux."  WOW and all its clones are for 3 year olds and takes no skill whatsoever.  The other "awesome unknown and defunct games" games you listed are beyond crap.  It's funny that DDO & SWG both have tons of folks playing them every day  even though everyone always says they're dead, and more new folks join all the time, and I do mean hordes of them.  It's funnier still that most of them are coming from WOW lol and can't believe how they've been blindly led to believe that it's the best game out there simply because more people play it.  More play it because toddlers in diapers can play it effectively, and all those half-witted people out there who don't really understand what it's like to play a challenging game, just something where they stand still and push buttons and say WOOT I Killed Another One!!!  I'm so BAD AZZ!!!  which broadens the player base considerably haha.

Hordes of new people join every day? Really? Did you expect this post to be taken seriously or anyone think an adult wrote it?

Originally posted by Rokurgepta

Originally posted by spyyder976

DDO is the BEST game out there bar none.  You are obviously one of those folks who just sit at home and play games all day and zerg your ass to the end of the game and then whine and cry and say "there's no new content, I've done everything, I'm l33t11!!!111, wah wah wah, this game sux."  WOW and all its clones are for 3 year olds and takes no skill whatsoever.  The other "awesome unknown and defunct games" games you listed are beyond crap.  It's funny that DDO & SWG both have tons of folks playing them every day  even though everyone always says they're dead, and more new folks join all the time, and I do mean hordes of them.  It's funnier still that most of them are coming from WOW lol and can't believe how they've been blindly led to believe that it's the best game out there simply because more people play it.  More play it because toddlers in diapers can play it effectively, and all those half-witted people out there who don't really understand what it's like to play a challenging game, just something where they stand still and push buttons and say WOOT I Killed Another One!!!  I'm so BAD AZZ!!!  which broadens the player base considerably haha.

 

Hordes of new people join every day? Really? Did you expect this post to be taken seriously or anyone think an adult wrote it?

I haven't seen any hordes, but I can quote one statistic that can be determined by digging around in their forum system - 200,000 accounts have been added to the game, counting trial accounts, since Jan 2007.

Trial accounts were disabled for a couple months this year..

That comes out to man many a day.. and obviously most must not have stayed on as paying subscriptions, since the best guess we've heard about subscriptions numbers is ~25,000.

OMG i just logged on D&D 2 days ago.... BEST GAME EVER.... Of course it has its little issues and all but WHAT GAME DOESNT....... i love the STORY and the QUESTS and the PLAYERS and the CHARACTERS you get too choose from.... almost reminds me of the good old days with D&D with friends at there houses lol.

Originally posted by moorewr

Originally posted by Rokurgepta

Originally posted by spyyder976

DDO is the BEST game out there bar none.  You are obviously one of those folks who just sit at home and play games all day and zerg your ass to the end of the game and then whine and cry and say "there's no new content, I've done everything, I'm l33t11!!!111, wah wah wah, this game sux."  WOW and all its clones are for 3 year olds and takes no skill whatsoever.  The other "awesome unknown and defunct games" games you listed are beyond crap.  It's funny that DDO & SWG both have tons of folks playing them every day  even though everyone always says they're dead, and more new folks join all the time, and I do mean hordes of them.  It's funnier still that most of them are coming from WOW lol and can't believe how they've been blindly led to believe that it's the best game out there simply because more people play it.  More play it because toddlers in diapers can play it effectively, and all those half-witted people out there who don't really understand what it's like to play a challenging game, just something where they stand still and push buttons and say WOOT I Killed Another One!!!  I'm so BAD AZZ!!!  which broadens the player base considerably haha.

 

Hordes of new people join every day? Really? Did you expect this post to be taken seriously or anyone think an adult wrote it?

 

I haven't seen any hordes, but I can quote one statistic that can be determined by digging around in their forum system - 200,000 accounts have been added to the game, counting trial accounts, since Jan 2007.

Trial accounts were disabled for a couple months this year..

That comes out to man many a day.. and obviously most must not have stayed on as paying subscriptions, since the best guess we've heard about subscriptions numbers is ~25,000.

 

 

Where does the 200,000 accounts number come from? Did Turbine put that out? You would think with that many in 2 years they would have kept 10% even and have a population around 45k then.
 

I think that the 200,000 accounts since Jan. 07 is correct if taken in context.  The average plat spammer creates 7 accounts per week to stay ahead of the banning process.  If those numbers are taken into account, then the 200,000 new accounts is a very viable number, if not a bit low...

www.mmogchart.com/analysis-and-conclusions/

The above is the link to a data base with a compilation of games and their relative populations.  DDO's last accurate statement was from Feb. 07 at 45,000.  Given the general ebb and flow, I'd say that it would be accurate to say that there are between 25,000 and 40,000 current subscribers worldwide, not including trial accounts.

And here is a series of articles by the professionals talking about the current crop of top tier games and a couple on the horizon...

www.mmocrunch.com/

Originally posted by spyyder976

Just because you don't believe me doesn't mean it isn't true, and obviously since you're not there, how could you possibly know either way? You presume a lot to know so little.

I still have friends who play the game daily and unlike you I research things before making silly comments and flame people for having a differing opinion.

Originally posted by Rokurgepta

I want to just touch on these two points.

Yes DDO allows you to make characters no other game can touch, but Turbine has a habit of making game changes to nerf some of the fun multi class builds and that has always irked me.

Permadeath does make the game more difficult, but it is false difficulty because you could do it in any game and the Devs did not build it into the game to make it tough or add challenge the players hold themselves to those rules. It is a cool way to extend the content but it is not like Turbine thought up some great way to make the game challenging, if anything they made the game so easy at time people started Permadeath to combat the boredom of the game in those days.

Don't get me wrong, the game is still difficult. It has the normal/hard/elite options on dungeons for a reason. Elite dungeons, if you are the same level as the dungeon level, are pretty difficult and it will require team effort to succeed. Not to say other games are not group oriented, but the gameplay is no where near as interesting as DDO's (traps/secret doors/exp card bonuses/jumping obstacles/timing/etc etc). These all add up to the possibility to make dungeons really difficult on elite, most of which past lv13+ are really hard on elite.

Of course Turbine did not install a permadeath option onto the game, but permadeath in any other MMO wouldn't be the same. You'd be playing the same playstyle in say WoW (only because I know it best) as permadeath as you would normally. DDO you are putting points into Move Silently and Hide for strategic purposes, you are going very slowly and carefully through dungeons, you are making sure you are being shield blocked by shieldsmen while you recover a incapacitated comrade, you are saving that wand with 5 charges for the worst of happenings. Those are the things you need to take into account in DDO while permadeathing, and MANY MANY more depending on the dungeon (instant kill traps/bunches of things)

In WoW (sake of argument), you get into trouble... big deal, you just run away for 20 seconds and heal up. Nothing new.

Originally posted by Murdus

Originally posted by Rokurgepta

I want to just touch on these two points.

Yes DDO allows you to make characters no other game can touch, but Turbine has a habit of making game changes to nerf some of the fun multi class builds and that has always irked me.

Permadeath does make the game more difficult, but it is false difficulty because you could do it in any game and the Devs did not build it into the game to make it tough or add challenge the players hold themselves to those rules. It is a cool way to extend the content but it is not like Turbine thought up some great way to make the game challenging, if anything they made the game so easy at time people started Permadeath to combat the boredom of the game in those days.

 

Don't get me wrong, the game is still difficult. It has the normal/hard/elite options on dungeons for a reason. Elite dungeons, if you are the same level as the dungeon level, are pretty difficult and it will require team effort to succeed. Not to say other games are not group oriented, but the gameplay is no where near as interesting as DDO's (traps/secret doors/exp card bonuses/jumping obstacles/timing/etc etc). These all add up to the possibility to make dungeons really difficult on elite, most of which past lv13+ are really hard on elite.

Of course Turbine did not install a permadeath option onto the game, but permadeath in any other MMO wouldn't be the same. You'd be playing the same playstyle in say WoW (only because I know it best) as permadeath as you would normally. DDO you are putting points into Move Silently and Hide for strategic purposes, you are going very slowly and carefully through dungeons, you are making sure you are being shield blocked by shieldsmen while you recover a incapacitated comrade, you are saving that wand with 5 charges for the worst of happenings. Those are the things you need to take into account in DDO while permadeathing, and MANY MANY more depending on the dungeon (instant kill traps/bunches of things)

In WoW (sake of argument), you get into trouble... big deal, you just run away for 20 seconds and heal up. Nothing new.

I agree that DDO lends itself to a permadeath style more than any other MMO, but if you wanted to make any MMO more difficult die and reroll would do it.
 

Originally posted by Rokurgepta

Where does the 200,000 accounts number come from? Did Turbine put that out? You would think with that many in 2 years they would have kept 10% even and have a population around 45k then.

You can fiddle with the user profile url in the forums to see how many user profiles have been created. 

No clue how many of those are plat farmer trial accounts. :)

Originally posted by Storman1977

I think that the 200,000 accounts since Jan. 07 is correct if taken in context.  The average plat spammer creates 7 accounts per week to stay ahead of the banning process.  If those numbers are taken into account, then the 200,000 new accounts is a very viable number, if not a bit low...

www.mmogchart.com/analysis-and-conclusions/

The above is the link to a data base with a compilation of games and their relative populations.  DDO's last accurate statement was from Feb. 07 at 45,000.  Given the general ebb and flow, I'd say that it would be accurate to say that there are between 25,000 and 40,000 current subscribers worldwide, not including trial accounts.

 

And here is a series of articles by the professionals talking about the current crop of top tier games and a couple on the horizon...

www.mmocrunch.com/

A bit of crticism, the following statement is laugable: "Based on previously known data, I put the total number of subscribers for SWG at 190,000 for March 2006."  

There was a MASSIVE exodus from SWG in November 2005 due to the fraudulent "new game enhancements" (ie, NGE).  The user base is well aware that virtually 75% of the player base completely vanished in less then 45 days after the nge was rushed out.  When I tried the game around March/April of 2006 I did not see more then 15 people combined on the entire Bria server during any day throughout a 1 week period that included two weekends of game time. 

Some of the unofficial "leaks" are that SWG actually had less then 200k up till the introduction of the devestating "nge" and that the game completely tanked by January 2006.  There's a few ex-developers who've come out to talk about SWG during these times and it strongly contrasts with what SOE, LA or mmogchart reports.   

Sorry for being a little off topic. 

I believe it's reasonable to assume that the active subscriptions to DDO is around 40k-50k based on the activity experianced during evenings and weekends, primarily sundays; relating to US time zones.  I also believe it's easy to compile a relatively accurate guestimation of active subscribers based on the concurrent users during hte heaviest day. For example, EVE Online historically shows 13%-15% of their total subscription numbers are concurrently logged in at peak on Sundays; 43k logged in while I was on yesterday.

Originally posted by Storman1977

www.mmogchart.com/analysis-and-conclusions/

The above is the link to a data base with a compilation of games and their relative populations.  DDO's last accurate statement was from Feb. 07 at 45,000.  Given the general ebb and flow, I'd say that it would be accurate to say that there are between 25,000 and 40,000 current subscribers worldwide, not including trial accounts.

Probably worth pointing out those figures are not an accurate statement, in fact if you read the associated forums he conceeds his source was unreliable and the LOTRO numbers at 200,000 could possible have been as high as 500,000 which sort of throws any Turbine figures in to serious doubt.

It is also not accurate to guess the current subscribers, from personal experience they are hard to actually estimate, so you tend to end up convincing yourself of whatever you wanted to believe.

Originally posted by Dr.Rock

It is also not accurate to guess the current subscribers, from personal experience they are hard to actually estimate, so you tend to end up convincing yourself of whatever you wanted to believe.

QFT!

The whole guessing game about how many players on a server is intuitive at best.  Here's my intuition.

I played EQ from day one... back when they put the server population on the log on screen.  3000 players in all of EQ, with maybe 10 starter cities always felt busier then the one DDO city last Saturday night when I logged on (I play on Khyber so a busier server). 

The numbers?   My guess would be several hundred hard core fans who play regularly with either one or two acounts.  Then several hundred weekenders/casual players and maybe several hundred like me, who are hanging onto the DDO account for whatever reason.  I think maybe 1500 to 2000 per server times five servers.  Do the math... that's a lot less then 40 to 50K total subs as some would estimate.

I never tried this game... I was hoping for more but when I seen it had nothing to do with the more common D&D "realms" I decided it was not a game for me.  

I had never heard of the realm it takes place in.   It wasnt something I was interested in when I did look at it, and for me it just looked to be another fantasy knockoff MMO.....  like WoW, WAR (Which I play sometimes), and hundreds of other fantasy hack n' slash MMOs.

But to say the game is bad, I wouldnt go that far... I just wouldnt call it D&D online.      Its just another fantasy MMO.

Realy sad, so much potential so much let down. Not that there wasnt any good points to the game. However the low points far out way the good points. I cant help but wonder how it would have turned out had bioware made it.

Originally posted by Hodo

I never tried this game... I was hoping for more but when I seen it had nothing to do with the more common D&D "realms" I decided it was not a game for me.  

 

I had never heard of the realm it takes place in.   It wasnt something I was interested in when I did look at it, and for me it just looked to be another fantasy knockoff MMO.....  like WoW, WAR (Which I play sometimes), and hundreds of other fantasy hack n' slash MMOs.

 

But to say the game is bad, I wouldnt go that far... I just wouldnt call it D&D online.      Its just another fantasy MMO.

Let me get this stright... You were hoping DDO was based on one of the common DnD realms, BUT you found the current (eberron) realm to be a fantasy knock-off MMO? Are you being serious?

Are you saying that DnD is NOT a knock-off standrad fantasy world/setting? Other than maybe Middle Earth, DnD (forgotten realms, greyhawk, dragonlance etc) is, atleast by me, view as a standard fantasy setting. As for Eberron, it is sure as hell more "original" than the other DnD realms...it is not like WoW or WAR, if you cant see past the similiar races, I guess your search for an original fantasy setting is gonna be a long one - may I suggest Asherons Call?

You havent played the game, but you wouldnt call it DnD? hehe  Okey, I guess everyone has their opinions, but...eeeh, they just amaze me sometimes.

Originally posted by wolffin

Realy sad, so much potential so much let down. Not that there wasnt any good points to the game. However the low points far out way the good points. I cant help but wonder how it would have turned out had bioware made it.

I must be one of the very few who really hated both Baldur's gate and Neverwinter Nights. Never in my long roleplying experience have I played worse RPG games than those two titles. Should be said,  I thought Baldurs was heeps better than NwN.

Originally posted by BesCirga

Originally posted by Hodo

I never tried this game... I was hoping for more but when I seen it had nothing to do with the more common D&D "realms" I decided it was not a game for me.  

 

I had never heard of the realm it takes place in.   It wasnt something I was interested in when I did look at it, and for me it just looked to be another fantasy knockoff MMO.....  like WoW, WAR (Which I play sometimes), and hundreds of other fantasy hack n' slash MMOs.

 

But to say the game is bad, I wouldnt go that far... I just wouldnt call it D&D online.      Its just another fantasy MMO.

Let me get this stright... You were hoping DDO was based on one of the common DnD realms, BUT you found the current (eberron) realm to be a fantasy knock-off MMO? Are you being serious?

Are you saying that DnD is NOT a knock-off standrad fantasy world/setting? Other than maybe Middle Earth, DnD (forgotten realms, greyhawk, dragonlance etc) is, atleast by me, view as a standard fantasy setting. As for Eberron, it is sure as hell more "original" than the other DnD realms...it is not like WoW or WAR, if you cant see past the similiar races, I guess your search for an original fantasy setting is gonna be a long one - may I suggest Asherons Call?

You havent played the game, but you wouldnt call it DnD? hehe  Okey, I guess everyone has their opinions, but...eeeh, they just amaze me sometimes.

I am also a elitest, or purest when it comes to my games.   I played DnD before it was ever a computer dream.    I am not a HUGE fan of the game system but I liked the storylines and alot of the writeing was good.    I was hoping to see someone actually put out a DnD game based on one of the ORIGINAL DnD worlds, Forgotten Realms, or Grey Hawk, you know, or maybe you dont, more canon, or common game worlds.

Originally posted by BesCirga

Originally posted by wolffin

Realy sad, so much potential so much let down. Not that there wasnt any good points to the game. However the low points far out way the good points. I cant help but wonder how it would have turned out had bioware made it.

 

I must be one of the very few who really hated both Baldur's gate and Neverwinter Nights. Never in my long roleplying experience have I played worse RPG games than those two titles. Should be said,  I thought Baldurs was heeps better than NwN.

I'm 50% with you on that one, I did enjoy BG, but I thought NWN was just plain awful and shows that if you translate rules directly you end up with something clunky and unattractive. Of course the storyline being piss poor didn't help. I think the building tools blinkered people to what was a very mediocre game.

p.s. The reason I think BG worked better as a game is that you could control a party, which meant that the storyline and challenges could be more complex as you could use the combined skills of the party to overcome them. NWN being solo with a bit of AI help lowered the bar so that in theory any class could progress.

I see the same in most MMOs, the need to allow soloing by all produces very bland content.