Turbine has announced the second expansion for Dungeons & Dragons Online. Called the "Shadowfell Conspiracy", the expansion is slated to launch this summer and will feature a level cap increase, new wilderness areas to explore, and the introduction of new Iconic Heroes.

•  Two New Forgotten Realms Adventure Packs -- Featuring gorgeous new wilderness areas packed with new D&D monsters, dangerous encounters and a host of challenging dungeons.
• Wheloon:  Horrors from the Shadowfell pour into Wheloon, a prison city full of irredeemable criminals and traitors to the Crown. In this place, Netherese agents conspire to forge an army out of the Kingdom’s enemies. Masquerade as a traitor to infiltrate the Prison City, fight marauding criminal gangs, and destroy the army before it marches – all the while battling creatures made out of the very shadows.
• Stormhorns:  Deep in the Stormhorn Mountains, the Netherese Empire prepares to unleash its secret weapon against the Kingdom of Cormyr. Brave treacherous mountain passes through griffon territory and overcome cunning harpy ambushes. At the peaks of the mighty Stormhorns, overcome an alliance of giants and monstrous creatures – only to have to contend with a terrible Netherese secret weapon.
• Introducing Iconic Heroes -- Jump into the action of DDO with these new prestige characters that start in Forgotten Realms at level 15 and feature unique looks and skills. Each of these classic D&D heroes is a paragon of their race and class and features custom iconic gear, appearance options and new abilities to enhance their power.
• Attain Epic level to 28 -- Master your destiny and gain new epic feats and spells with three new Epic levels of advancement that let you reach new levels of power.

Find out more on the Dungeons & Dragons Online community site.

Epic level 28... From my old RPG days it was already an accomplishment if you'd reach level 10, let alone 20 or higher. I even remember the 'High level campaign handbook' from AD&D2e to show how a DM should allow the players to continue from 20+ (actually starting from 15 already), where they'd take responsibility about a region in a country and such. And if they don't want to do that, they might retire or... take up with (demi)gods. In the latter case, defeating one, you'd take it's place and you're an NPC.

So I ask you Turbine... How can you get to level 28 without even thinking about the old core-rules that TSR wrote down back then..?

also it never happend in the PnP that the DM ran a "heroic or epic campanig".... .. . Just saying.

But to be honest the prime reason is because very few remember the old TSR games... If you ask most people about DnD they will speak about 3.0 and forward. And now we have another generation who will speak about 4.0 wether the old guard wants it or not.

And DDO is a computergame.. they have had to do a lot of things in the game to make it play better. This is just another step on the ladder, most likley designed to close the gab between the top heavy end-game and the much more narrow mid-range.

What do you all expect? DDO is a business. If Turbine didn't keep pushing out content, they would go out of business.  Obviously the game can't go sideways.  The level content needs to go up for people to feel a challenge. 

Bravo Turbine for keeping up a steady flow of new content. 

Originally posted by Grakulen
Because WotC runs D&D now and changed a lot of that. Blasphemy, I know.

Change is inevitable.  DDO is also a computer game, it is no longer restrained by the old board game rules which, when you get down to it, really do not fit well with a game/MMO designed for the computer.  Just look at the rest rules for D&D, people playing a computer game don't want to sit and rest after every experience, while in the board game that was the perfect time for the DM to talk.  No DM here, so the rule just does not fit well into the computer experience.

I really believe that is one of the reasons that WAR failed.  GamesWorkshop has a proclivity for enforcing it's board game rules on any developer that is working on it's computer games.  They just don't mesh well.  Mythic would have been far better off just making a Warhammer MMO using the DAoC design with more than two factions.  

Just my two cents.

The only thing the epic new levels grant is another stat point and another feat, thats really bout it besides one point increase across all skills.  Epic levels are nothing like it is in the books.

What the steller author fails to mention is that the enhancement overhaul will be coming in which is something many many players have been dreaming of and likely will revive a lot of activity.  And paragon...  this is not Neverwinter or 4e, they use prestige classes NOT paragons.  From Turbine themselves "With a new prestige character feature we are calling Iconic Heroes"   Not to mention they completely left out the whole reincarnation for epic levels thing. 

Honestly if this is the quality of MMORPG's journalism then just link the Turbine post since this entire thing is riddles with holes or mislabeling things.

I for one am very excited.  After the utter disappointment of Neverwinter I'm glad Turbine is really pushing this game along and will not be left in the dust because there is a "flashier" MMO out there.

Originally posted by furbans

The only thing the epic new levels grant is another stat point and another feat, thats really bout it besides one point increase across all skills.  Epic levels are nothing like it is in the books.

What the steller author fails to mention is that the enhancement overhaul will be coming in which is something many many players have been dreaming of and likely will revive a lot of activity.  And paragon...  this is not Neverwinter or 4e, they use prestige classes NOT paragons.  From Turbine themselves "With a new prestige character feature we are calling Iconic Heroes"   Not to mention they completely left out the whole reincarnation for epic levels thing. 

Honestly if this is the quality of MMORPG's journalism then just link the Turbine post since this entire thing is riddles with holes or mislabeling things.

I for one am very excited.  After the utter disappointment of Neverwinter I'm glad Turbine is really pushing this game along and will not be left in the dust because there is a "flashier" MMO out there.

Turbine always has some new and enhanced "thing" they will be working on.  Legendary Items fix part 2 just hit LotRO three years.  Not mentioning something Turbine plans to do "soon TM" is good journalism.  We could write articles daily on everything Turbine is going to do or has almost done right and then let rot.

Do you really want to compare Neverwinter, a game in alpha, to DDO when it was in beta and first released?  Maybe you didn't play back then so you don't remember.  I'll refresh your memory - it was rubbish.

So criticize the author all you want, your post is.... lacking.

Originally posted by tawess

also it never happend in the PnP that the DM ran a "heroic or epic campanig".... .. . Just saying.

 

But to be honest the prime reason is because very few remember the old TSR games... If you ask most people about DnD they will speak about 3.0 and forward. And now we have another generation who will speak about 4.0 wether the old guard wants it or not.

 

And DDO is a computergame.. they have had to do a lot of things in the game to make it play better. This is just another step on the ladder, most likley designed to close the gab between the top heavy end-game and the much more narrow mid-range.

You've never played epic level? I've not only played one I also DMed one... granted that was 3.0/3.5 rules which IMHO greatly improved upon the base of D&D/AD&D. And yes I played D&D and AD&D as well - along with the old text based games, Baldur's Gate (3.0 rules), NWN, NWN2, and briefly DDO. But saying epic level campaigns never happened - all I'm gonna say is speak for yourself.

To the guy who dislikes Neverwinter so much - don't play it. That just means 1 less person to clog up the server while I'm playing... so it's a win/win.

Originally posted by athynz

Originally posted by tawess

also it never happend in the PnP that the DM ran a "heroic or epic campanig".... .. . Just saying.

 

But to be honest the prime reason is because very few remember the old TSR games... If you ask most people about DnD they will speak about 3.0 and forward. And now we have another generation who will speak about 4.0 wether the old guard wants it or not.

 

And DDO is a computergame.. they have had to do a lot of things in the game to make it play better. This is just another step on the ladder, most likley designed to close the gab between the top heavy end-game and the much more narrow mid-range.

You've never played epic level? I've not only played one I also DMed one... granted that was 3.0/3.5 rules which IMHO greatly improved upon the base of D&D/AD&D. And yes I played D&D and AD&D as well - along with the old text based games, Baldur's Gate (3.0 rules), NWN, NWN2, and briefly DDO. But saying epic level campaigns never happened - all I'm gonna say is speak for yourself.

To the guy who dislikes Neverwinter so much - don't play it. That just means 1 less person to clog up the server while I'm playing... so it's a win/win.

have to agree i have played epic level a few times one of which was actuly a gameing group that started off as 1st level charrs and we simply played those chars long enough to reach eic levels.

Originally posted by Ozmodan

Originally posted by Grakulen
Because WotC runs D&D now and changed a lot of that. Blasphemy, I know.

Change is inevitable.  DDO is also a computer game, it is no longer restrained by the old board game rules which, when you get down to it, really do not fit well with a game/MMO designed for the computer.  Just look at the rest rules for D&D, people playing a computer game don't want to sit and rest after every experience, while in the board game that was the perfect time for the DM to talk.  No DM here, so the rule just does not fit well into the computer experience.

I really believe that is one of the reasons that WAR failed.  GamesWorkshop has a proclivity for enforcing it's board game rules on any developer that is working on it's computer games.  They just don't mesh well.  Mythic would have been far better off just making a Warhammer MMO using the DAoC design with more than two factions.  

Just my two cents.

Warhammer failed because they focused on the table top war game rather than the table top pen and paper game of Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay.

The WFRP mmo was scrapped which was a pitty as the way the rule set was and carreers system it would of worked well for a mmo.

There is nothing 'classic' about any of this. The whole of the game is a ludicrous with out of sync timelines putting ancient empires like Netheril right along side the modern realms, ( itself a complete mess thanks to WoTC and their Avatar bomb), and rule systems and character generation that is changing every other year since 3rd edition.

3rd edition if not entirely new,  is not classic; it is not even the same game. The D&D game has been around much longer than that, and cookie cutter feats systems attached to base classes, does not make classic characters.

Originally posted by Yizle
I recently came back and grabbed the last xpac. A lot has changed. As for those whining this is not 1st ed. That game is long gone. This is a MMO computer game and changes/deviations have to be made for it to continue.

Strange none of the earlier editions have gone, they all still exist and are all very playable,  it just takes a good DM..... and some imagination.

DDO is what it is and a playable computer game at that with a good group you can have fun but it is not PnP (Wow shock horror)

This is going to be awesome.... I was killing lvl 24 epic kobolds and lvl 23 rats....

Now I can kill lvl 28 epic zombies and lvl 28 super epic goblins.....

Same stuff, just have to pay to get it...