DDO: Stormreach: Module 3 - Demon Sands Preview
Sleepy clumped around the marketplace, glaring at the Warforged lounging around the place. I put on my headphones and called in. After some initial technical difficulties (with the telephone) I entered the call and was greeted by James Jones, Executive Producer; Kate Paiz, Producer; Derek Flippo, Design Manager; Joseph Barry, Associate Designer and David Eckelberry, Lead Systems Designer as well as a couple of others who wandered in and out. Well, that answered my unasked question, "Why a conference call and not in-game chat?" Without further ado, we grouped up and were off.
In the eight months since DDO was released, there have been two major content additions with Demon Sands being the third and due end October.
Current players were given the chance to tour the new module in September and once again over the past weekend. MMORPG.com was invited to a preview tour conducted by members of the development team.
The Tour
The first area we explored were the sprawling dunes of Menechtarun, a desert landscape with towering pillars of rock, vast sand dunes and deep canyons. It is a completely new look and feel for DDO: Stormreach, which until now have been limited to the city of Stormreach and apart from the newbie practice zone of Kobold Island, were all in-door zones - sewers, warehouses, dungeons and basements. The area is peppered with different groups of Gnolls at war with each other, pockets of mummies lurking in the shifting sands and other dessert nasties. The Demon Sands lives up to its name.
"The Menechtarun is a vast desert that sprawls across the western reaches of Xen'drik. In ancient times, the Menechtarun was ruled by a tyrannical Wizard-King and his demonic servants. Today, these lands are home to rugged settlers, barbaric gnoll tribes and a sect of fanatical drow and scorrow called the Vulkoorim, or the 'Chosen of Vulkoor'. The Wizard-King himself is long dead, but his ageless servants have flourished, giving rise to another name for this region -- the Demon Sands."
Although the region is instanced for your group, and I was warned that you do require a group, it feels like the vast landscape in any other MMORPG. The Menechturan Sands is an encounter based region with a variety of named mini-bosses. It is meant to be explored rather than conquered like all other dungeons to date. We wandered over the sands, down canyons and picked up encounter quests as we neared areas where various NPCs spawned.
Our next stop was the Spiral of Vulkoor - the largest and longest of the dungeons - home to Eberron Drow and Vulkoorims, a humanoid / scorpid cross. As we ran around the dungeon killing things while trying to talk, asking and answering questions, taking screenshots and notes, we bumbled around having fun at the same time.
"Someone fireball that thing."
"Isn't it lucky we can't die?"
"Man... I can't hit this thing!"
"Immunity is nice."
We then entered the Chamber of the Wizard-King Raiyun himself, encountering Golems and Efreetis, then finally, Queen Lailat; a snooty Marilith. A creature with the torso and head of a woman, the tail of a snake and six arms, all wielding nasty weapons.
"Hey Sleepy. Why don't you talk to her. She won't talk to me. Maybe she likes dwarves better," the told me.
I stepped up. Ohhh... kay... so they want me to trigger her. Does she death touch, I wondered? Then I remembered that I was immune. After a short conversation, it was time to play. What a nasty. She teleports and calls minions to her aid, then all of them hurl spells and fire bolts at you from afar. She finally teleports back down and whacks you with that tail of hers.
"Watch that tail action!"
"Man... if you stand too close you can be laying down half the fight."
"Move her will you guys?"
Jumping and tumbling helped, but we were all knocked down, much, much too many times. Nasty... and oh... what a challenge for a good party of level 12s. After all that fun, we headed to town and questions.
Auction House
In Zawabi's Refuge, I was shown the Auction House interface, a new feature to be introduced in Module 3 where players buy and sell in-game items. Sellers will be able to set an opening bid and an optional buyout price for their items. Buyers will be able to browse through items using the Auction House user interface and place bids on items that they wish to purchase. DDO loot tables are random and the Auction House was introduced to provide a system to help players obtain the gear they need. Auctioneers will be located across the city, and players may access any of them.
PvP
DDO's active combat control system requires tactical thinking and quick reflexes as much as character abilities and skill. There will be two modes of PvP: Tournament Battles and Tavern Brawls. Tournament Battles will consist of Capture the Flag and Death match scenarios, while Tavern Brawls can be joined in any of four different taverns.
With my PAX report, I made mention that spells could be dodged by clever player action, so I specifically asked about spells that tracked. In particular, Magic Missile since by definition, it "never misses unless prevented by magical means" the answer was that they were still looking to "make sure that combat will be fair."
In PvP play, players will not gain nor loose XP. The reward for participating in PvP is fun and out-of-game fame in the shape of leader boards (and a redesigned website) which will be launched at the same time as the module release.
Other Features
Module 3 is the biggest expansion to DDO, increasing content by 40 percent since DDO's launch in February. Apart from new party and solo dungeons, it brings 10 more ranks to players for a level cap increase from 10 to 12. With the increase, new spells and feats of those levels will naturally be increased. It also brings a Feat respec system and new Favor rewards.
Finale
Module 3, the Demon Sands has been much anticipated. The criticisms that DDO suffered soon after launch was three-fold: The first was lack of content (players got tired of doing the same dungeons), the second was that it was strictly group based (no solo missions), and the third that it was claustrophobic with only one city (Stormreach) and missions only in sewers and dungeons.
The first was addressed by continuous content releases by Turbine and this is the third major Module release to date. The second was addressed by introducing solo missions and solo options for some dungeons, the third with Demon Sands and the vast outdoor, encounter based Menachturan landscape.
The sneak peek at release notes are already released on the official website and those wanting to take a second look at DDO... do. You may find yourself pleasantly surprised.
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We then entered the Chamber of the Wizard-King Raiyun himself, encountering Golems and Efreetis, then finally, Queen Lailat; a snooty Marilith. A creature with the torso and head of a woman, the tail of a snake and six arms, all wielding nasty weapons.;)
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I've played D&D for 25 years, in every edition of the game published since 1980. I own 26 hardbacks for D&D 3.5 (plus more for Modern/SW, etc).
I started played DDO beginning in alpha 1.2 and stuck with it as long as I could. I begged them not to release it before adding more content (not to mention lots of gameplay adjustments). In my semi-professional, semi-unbiased opinion, with this update/module, it looks like DDO is finally ready for commercial launch. I think at this point I could legitimately endorse it for purchase and play.
Like many fans of Eberron, I've been bemused with the lack of Eberron-ness in DDO. I personally wouldn't mind if they set it in a generic (entirely made up) world. But they really shouldn't have bothered to take the Eberron setting and then ignore it completely.
So, my main caveat would be to anyone picking up DDO wanting to see Eberron "come to life." You'll be severely disappointed. This expansion is no exception. Xen'drik is basically a lost jungle continent full of forgotten artifacts and fallen civilizations (Giants and Drow among them). To expand into the lone non-jungle area of Xen'drik (i.e., the desert) is like taking your kids to Walt Disney World, staying in one of the resort hotels for a week, but never setting foot in one of the parks. The resorts are kind of fun, I suppose, but they're not the reason anyone goes there.
But if you don't know a thing about Eberron, or don't care, then don't worry.
As with previous "versions" of DDO, the game is heavily skewed to players of D&D 3.0 and 3.5--if you are only familiar with AD&D or 2nd Ed., you may not enjoy DDO much.
If you've never played enough D&D to learn the rules, then the DDO mechanics shouldn't bother you.
On the plus side, just about any game will have more content than DDO did at launch. I'd love to have the perfect game (of course) but I think when you get close to $50 box +$30 subscription for 3 months of solid entertainment, you have just about got your money's worth. Obviously, if you are a very casual player, you can stretch that value out quite a bit. For comparison purposes, power-gamers should look at 2-3 weeks enjoyment out of (the original) DDO and about twice that from LOTRO. Obviously the longer you can wait to get into a game, the more there will be to do, but the farther behind the power curve you will be.
Yeah, some do. And I still think that pen and pencil RPG beats any cRPG, including MMO :) especially in terms of interaction with world which is pretty limited in cRPGs ;)
I loved this game for 2 months before retiring to my favourate online game.
I miss the combat system which is the best I have ever come across in any online game (primarily because it is way more fun without boring old auto target which is uber naff).
I was toying with the idea of returning but in my humble opinion all the added features come across to me as making the game worse not better. I had 7 characters (2 accounts with one max level cleric) so would call my self hard core and yet none of the expansions make this game any better except the feature to move items between characters.
What this game really needs is random (instanced) dungeons.
Not only would this be true to the spirit of Gygax's D&D but it would have solved the problem of very low content
(...yeah I did nearly all missions 10 plus times yawn...always the same and very repetitive. Only the different team members made this at all exciting.)
Random dungeons...if Diablo 2 can do it and Dungeon Runners will too then why could Turbine not figure out this obvious solution. I would still be playing now if every time I entered a dungeon there was still the chance of the unexpected where as the reality is that doing it once or twice ok but doing it 3 times on different settings (easy, medium and hard) was frickin pointless, just like City of Villains!
The servers will remain empty (certainly compared with DDO's release back in Feb) and for any one still still playing...enjoy.
This game was a major disappointment to me. Dodging Magic Missiles? Please. I will never buy another Turbine game.
I played D&D for years and read most of the Dragonlance/Forgotten Realms/Ravenloft and even non TSR Fantasy Novels.. DDO was the biggest pile of trash of an mmog I've ever played..And I played almost every MMO to date..Its a shame to because some of the features in DDO were actually pretty cool..I loved the fact that the mobs could actually think and had abilities based on their race and clas origins of D&D..The encounters overall were kinda fun the first time around.I liked how it wasn't just a spamfest rinse and repeat combat system like every other MMO.. But the biggest problem with DDO is quite obvious and still 8 months later hasn't really been recitified.. Here is what makes the game horrible..
The only way to progress in the game is to find npc's that will give you quests..U then accept the quest and run like a puppy dog to the sewer,ruins,cemetary,etc which is 30 seconds away from u to complete the quest..Once the quest is completed,you move on to another quest basically rinsing and repeating..THERE IS NO FREEDOM IN DDO.. And after reading about the newest expansion,there still isn't absolute freedom to do what u want and make your own mark in the world of Eberron.. I have to admit tho,this new expansion should excite and make current players alot happier..Because the game up to this point was just horrible.. I like the PVP idea,this should entertain those who desire pvp.. But the only thing keeping DDO from platinum status is all the restrictions the game currently has right now.. Open up the world of Eberron and allow players to explore new lands,cities,towns,etc.. Don't make EVERYTHING instanced..Its the dumbest thing about DDO..And no,I'm not the only person who believes this..Its what the other 100,000 ppl who were so interested in DDO a year ago believe as well..Its why they are either playing Vanguard Beta,went back to EQ2,and WoW...
TO THE DEV'S OF TURBINE:
For your next expansion how about putting in some "NON INSTANCED CONTENT." Add a continent filled with towns,cities,fortresses,castles,etc to explore..Give the players some freedom of finding their own way in Eberron and allow them to truly adventure new and uncharted lands..Allow players to interract with one another and not just restrict this to taverns and the small city.. Allow players to fight monsters and gain in exp without making them be on a quest to do this.. If you want to make this an experiment,then just do this with one continent to see which players prefer..I guarantee 99% of the players would rather play on a opened up area allowing us to be free,interract with other ppl,fight and do as we please,as opposed to being restricted to have fun..
Module 3 is really good for D&D Online. I re-subed after playing other games for two months to play it. I recommend that those who enjoyed DDO before try the game again. Don't think of DDO as a game that you will be playing 5 days a week for many months. Instead, log on and pay to play as long as it is fun then cancel and wait for new content and fixes before you resub again. It works for me !
Module 3 content is not for players who are used to rushing through dungeons without using any strategy at all. You need good teamwork for these level 11 to 14 dungeons and the death penalties for these new levels are harsh enough that non-social, non-guilded, instant gratification-style players are unhappy with it. Make some friends that are good players. Join a guild with good players. Learn to play your class as part of a team and think before you attack. There is almost always a wizard spell that needs to be cast at the enemy before you attack that will help you survive. Give that wizard a chance to save your character's life. You have been warned. Welcome to the advanced stage of D&D Online.
Turbine has really disappointed me, and I have as of today cancelled my sub for the game. Not only did they seem to bug out whenever they patch for new content, their decisions on respecting is horrible. First off, MOD3 should've never been released on the day it was. Too many bugs too little care. Second off, the respect cost not only an arm and a leg but could be even somebody's job. They changed the spec of things yet make the casual gamers suffer, did they forget its those casual gamers bring in the big bucks for the company?! Wish them best of luck and hope they start making some good decisions instead of bad. I'm sure they'll see sub count drop dramatically sooner or later and realize that they have screw up.
You can't loose XP, but you can lose it.
I liked the addition of the auction house. Now I don't have to get up at 3 in the morning just so I can buy some sword that no one else has. I haven't heard anything, but I think Turbine is letting the players set their own amounts. So you don't run into the problem of people just not putting items on the auction because they don't want to sell it that low.
Even though it maybe a small issue compared with the three listed, I still don't see cloaks visualy displayed on the character, or at least that's what I'm told. I just don't understand how cloaks could be so hard. They are not hard to model, is there some kind of memory issues with the character's having a cloak on?
Most of the community asked for cloaks and they haven't been devlopred nor was there any word on them, like if they are even on the list. I would say that it's pretty important issue when most of the community, like in the high 90 percent asks for something. You listen and at least say we have it on the list but we don't have a date, something to let the community known that they have been heard. It's like talking on the phone and you expect a responce and nothing comes, so you say hello a few times, and maybe wait a couple of seconds, but after that you hang up. Or in this case you hang up the game.
That's called listening to the community, however I still give them points for addressing some of the more important issues on the table.