A very good post, Velexia.

Indeed, DDO never said it was going to be a sandbox MMO, so crafting has taken a back seat, to bring what most of the PnP RPG is all about to the front. How often do you spend a more serious ammount while crafting in the PnP version, other than syaing that you craft something then make a roll to see if you succeed? In most cases, you don't even have to do that and in my experience, it rarely occurs... at all. If people aren't Role-Playing their characters, they are focused on the quest at hand, discussing strategies, RP'ing the underlying cause of a situation conversations, getting gear and fighting monsters, disarming traps and facing the master mind of some evil plot and his minions, one by one. I think that Turbine captured that very well in DDO. No other game has dungeon traps in it that I have seen yet, and I have played a fair share of MMO's.

Monthly fee, well, it could be less and I agree with Velexia: Most MMO's out there are well overpriced. The success of a game can influence a monthly fee, but look at what Blizzard has done. They are making a LOT of cash, so they lower the prices of the game itself AND it's expansions. I thought it funny that I could have purchased Wrath of the Lich-King for less than the monthly subscription of the game itself runs for.

Now, companies need the income to run the servers, to keep people employed to do fixes to the game, make the dungeons, create the quests, upgrades, etc etc. But making a game slightly cheaper to play each month would make it more accessible to play for a lot of people. A 5$ or 5€ price-cut to the monthly fee would make a HUGE difference and quite possibly an increase of players. I do think Turbine has the right to charge the same as other mmo's, I just think all mmo's should cater to a subscription cost cut idea. I think the Matrix Online is a game that deserves to be heavily cut in monthly fee, considering there is like 1 developer running the show, and I think it's rediculous that a game that barely gets any attention and takes forever to get things fixed, etc. should be permitted to charge the same ammount as other mmo's. Heck, at the rate it's going it should be F2P, since SOE isn't putting a dollar towards it.

Instancing is not the devil a lot of people make it out to be. In more than one game, the fact that something isn't instanced has caused very long waits for a certain quest target to spawn, etc. Anyone remember doing missions on Mustafar in SWG before the NGE (and possibly in the game now) when you had to kill 1 particular bad-guy, and 30+ people were camping the spawnsite to kill him? Sometimes more than once for a particular drop? Or Perhaps Hogger in WOW, when about the same ammount of people are doing the same thing, wanting to kill him and ignore group invites cause they want to see if they can solo him at Lvl 5? Short thinking on quests like those and the insane wait time can be avoided with instances. I really appreciate the idea more each time I think of it. It's hard to get into the feeling that YOU are the one doing the quest and become the hero of a village, if someone snatches the target right before you land a blow on it (and at times let's you get the aggro, and just watches you kill it and he/she gets the kill, not you.) In DDO, I think Instancing makes it easier to feel like you are actually the one doing what you have to do and earn the praise for it.

As for advertising DDO as an MMO, I don't see the problem there... It's a game where a myriad of players can come together from across the world and play together. Isn't that the exact wording of Massive Multiplayer Online Game/RPG?

Still feel there are too many people that want to turn DDO into WoW or other games, just removing the title, like "World of Warcraft" and Re-labeling it "Dungeons & Dragons Online", so they feel that they are playing a game based on the RPG that has been labeled as the Original RPG.

Off the topic: Velexia: Let me know if you need a concept artist for your project ;)

Originally posted by fenalaar

Well, good luck with the drummer mate. Have you ever noticed, btw. How it's easy to find a guitar player but hard as heck to find a bass player or drummer? Maybe it's just in Norway hehe.

 

Anyway, I re-activated my Account thismorning, so I hope to see you online sometime soon, hehe. Heading off to make a new Character now. Looking forward to the new player zone :)

Exactly :D. No problem with guitarist, but bass players, vocalists and especiallly drummers are hard to find. Let alone those that you would like to have, rather than just "need" to have full lineup ;). So it's probably much the same in Poland.

But I bring news about some topics that were discussed here. Turbine announced yet another portion of new features comming in Module 9:

I think that's great : ). Especially, that they already said shrines and chests will become visible on maps.

Originally posted by tazarconan

For some reason the developers are missing the point...

The reason the DDO failed was that the whole game was a bunch of instances..

None wants that..the majority of ppl and especially the D&D fans were expecting a full exploring world with random encounters were you wouldn't excpecting, and not only intanced places...

Yes dungeon crawling is great we want that its just there was nothing more than it...

It's just so dissapointing that in order to save money the devs deside to make all places instanced in order to avoid making betetr servers and give more money for that ...save alot of work also and they prefer the easy way ... That sucks :/

What can we do? Turn the back now on to those products until the devs realise that they have to bust their ashes down , give more money in order to their product dont lack quality and then they can be sure that they ll take their mone back from the sales...A good product  will comprahate them..

Another thing ... You need the pvp aspect of this game in order to succed nowdays...SO NEXT TIME ,IN DDO 2 or in future products devs keep that in mind...

Concerning ddo they could do the same thing that aoc did...Guild vs guild castle creations from each guild e.t.c. and dont say some that d&d traditionally was coop team based game without pvp...this is pc games mmo games,w/o pvp aspect  mmo games will die,and perhaps some of the d&d fans did bad to the game spamming in forums we dont want pvp in this game...

Pve aspect is needed...but  pvp is needed also

I disagree with almost everything you said.

I love(d) DDO and it is a great game for what it is. A niche game. It isn't meant for 400,000 people, it is meant for those that enjoy and DnD-like experience. PvP aspects in DDO would completely RUIN the entire PvE.

Instead of widely pleasuring one crowd, they would be barely pleasuring many. Thats not how I want to play my game.

DDO didn't fail anyway, so I don't know what you're talking about.

Originally posted by fenalaar

Instancing is not the devil a lot of people make it out to be. In more than one game, the fact that something isn't instanced has caused very long waits for a certain quest target to spawn, etc. Anyone remember doing missions on Mustafar in SWG before the NGE (and possibly in the game now) when you had to kill 1 particular bad-guy, and 30+ people were camping the spawnsite to kill him? Sometimes more than once for a particular drop? Or Perhaps Hogger in WOW, when about the same ammount of people are doing the same thing, wanting to kill him and ignore group invites cause they want to see if they can solo him at Lvl 5? Short thinking on quests like those and the insane wait time can be avoided with instances. I really appreciate the idea more each time I think of it. It's hard to get into the feeling that YOU are the one doing the quest and become the hero of a village, if someone snatches the target right before you land a blow on it (and at times let's you get the aggro, and just watches you kill it and he/she gets the kill, not you.) In DDO, I think Instancing makes it easier to feel like you are actually the one doing what you have to do and earn the praise for it.

 

Totally true. I  am an old school UO player, EVE  player, and now a Darkfall player. I do nothing but open world PvP, but I absoutely LOVED  this game. I simply dont play anymore because of time and no end-game material other than raids.  But among the instanced games, DDO  is key. The best PART  of the game is due to instancing, that you almost CANNOT  do a quest without all the needed classes, and so you have to recruit the tank and you have to recruit the thief, that their unique skill sets are so unique, you cannot have characters that are jack of all trades like WoW or EQ.

I think the only problem people had with Eberron as a setting, was that it wasn't Forgotten realms, beyond that I don't think really anyone had a problem with it.

Personally, I was thrilled to hear that it was Eberron.  I am more than tired of the Forgotten Realms setting.  Everything is Forgotten Realms.  I also happen to know Keith Baker.  He's pretty awesome, and he showed me a lot of the internal Eberron that didn't get published.  It's a very awesome campaign setting.

I'm not going to give you a detailed analysis of why this game failed, because it didn't fail, it just wasn't as successful as a lot of other games out there. DDO is a great game and unique, there really aren't any other games like it. What a lot of people failed to realize is that this game was an attempt to bring the DD pen and paper experience to the online community and in many ways it was a success. The problems is that pen and paper D&D doesn't appeal to everyone, in fact it rarely appeals to MMO players, because it's not just about mashing keys and killing monsters.

Those people who view this game as a failure need to take another look. It's still around because a lot of people like this game. The community is a bit presumptuous, but overall there are some cool people. If I don't renew my subscription, it's simply because I hate TSR with a passion... they've turned D&D PnP into a joke... it should be called Warcraft and Dragons now. I refuse to offer even a penny to fuel their destruction of a national icon. Let them make it a Magic the Gathering/World of Warcraft funfest for the kiddies, but please keep it away from me and I beg to God some company gathers enough fortitude to continue the legacy of the decent RPG, because TSR threw that out the window with the newest version of the game.

Originally posted by tazarconan

Concerning ddo they could do the same thing that aoc did...Guild vs guild castle creations from each guild e.t.c. and dont say some that d&d traditionally was coop team based game without pvp...this is pc games mmo games,w/o pvp aspect  mmo games will die,and perhaps some of the d&d fans did bad to the game spamming in forums we dont want pvp in this game...

Pve aspect is needed...but  pvp is needed also

Because there have been so many successful PvP based games thus far?  I still think the PvP crowd is just a very vocal minority.  I'm not trying to insult anyone, it just seems to be that way.  Look at WoW (sorry to mention THAT game, lol).  Everyone says the PvP sucks and that they hate it, yet it has how many subscriptions?  Then you have LOTRO, not a big PvP game either, but holds it's own it seems.  Just my O.

Z

Originally posted by tazarconan

For some reason the developers are missing the point...

I know I just posted, but I have to reply to what you originally posted... because you are seriously missing the point. What did you want? A game just like every other game?

The reason the DDO failed was that the whole game was a bunch of instances..

As in my previous post, you're confusing the fact you don't like the game, with the fact that it failed. It hasn't failed, it's just not as popular as other games.

None wants that..the majority of ppl and especially the D&D fans were expecting a full exploring world with random encounters were you wouldn't excpecting, and not only intanced places...

I really didn't know what to expect when I beta tested this game, all I can say is I did purchase the game the day it was released, meaning I knew what I was buying and the concept... I don't think a lot of people were expecting this either, maybe they were expecting something similar to the pen and paper game, which is what they got.

Yes dungeon crawling is great we want that its just there was nothing more than it...

I would say "dungeon crawling" is the cornerstone of any good mmo out there... Give me one example of a decent game that doesn't have dungeon crawling?

It's just so dissapointing that in order to save money the devs deside to make all places instanced in order to avoid making betetr servers and give more money for that ...save alot of work also and they prefer the easy way ... That sucks :/

Umm... I seriously doubt that was their intent. I think they "decided" to pursue a path that closely followed the Pen and Paper game. I would guess from the excellent graphics, movement, sound, and overall performance of the game, that Turbine really didn't scimp in order to save money.

What can we do? Turn the back now on to those products until the devs realise that they have to bust their ashes down , give more money in order to their product dont lack quality and then they can be sure that they ll take their mone back from the sales...A good product  will comprahate them..

Dang... I was having trouble figuring out what you were saying here, but I think what you were trying to say, is quit subscribing until they change the game into something you like. Hmm... what about all those people that like this game the way it is, should they be put out with the trash?

Another thing ... You need the pvp aspect of this game in order to succed nowdays...SO NEXT TIME ,IN DDO 2 or in future products devs keep that in mind...

No, no, and no. One thing most people don't realize is that most people that play MMOs do not PvP, nor do they care to PvP, they would rather fight a monster, than a 12 year old with a grudge because they had to take out the trash. I know alot of people left the incredibly chaotic world of Ultima Online, for the tranquility of Everquest, because they were tired of being forced to PvP. In fact Ultima Online made it optional because they were losing so many people. What you tend to find is that alot, not all, but alot of the people that do PvP are closet sociotards and psychopaths, that don't do it for competition, but rather to cause grief to others. Sort of what you're causing me with this post.

Concerning ddo they could do the same thing that aoc did...Guild vs guild castle creations from each guild e.t.c. and dont say some that d&d traditionally was coop team based game without pvp...this is pc games mmo games,w/o pvp aspect  mmo games will die,and perhaps some of the d&d fans did bad to the game spamming in forums we dont want pvp in this game...

Yes... do what a game that's failed on so many different levels (and I will say fail for that game since the developers, even if they never came out and said it, led people to believe it would be the WoW killer, but it ended up being a graphics hungry monster of lag and lack of content. If you're going to steal PvP ideas, why would you steal them from a game that's known for imbalanced PvP? Why not take them from WoW or Warhammer Online, both did what AoC strived to do.

Pve aspect is needed...but  pvp is needed also

I think I've said enough about this. If you want PvP so badly, go play Darkfall or Warhammer Online... both seem to be more of what you're looking for, but don't ask developers to change things that they don't need to.

Long live Gygax's dream, may the evil dragon that is Wizards of the Coast drown in a pit of bile for the travesty that is 4th Edition D&D... what a sack of crap... again it should've been named Warcraft and Dungeons... I could rant all day about this rolled up dung ball, but I wont. By the way it's the reason I'm not playing DDO... I wont give a penny to those Warcraft whores.

Originally posted by Batavier

 

Oh, and the game is hard to come by in Europe. Turbine (Codemasters) has to make the game available for download in Europe as well.... :)

Plenty of Europeans playing on Turbine's servers.

I am playing on Cannith and I have seen guild names in about every European language I can recognize.

For me, the worst part was not being able to rest after killing some thing. HP pots are too expensive, and I have no time to learn the way around playing this style of game. Much easier to just move on to another grinder that is not so restrictive. I have been a fan of paper and pen AD&D since version 1, so not real happy with this attempt at what is one of the best games ever made.

Originally posted by tazarconan

For some reason the developers are missing the point...

The reason the DDO failed was that the whole game was a bunch of instances..

None wants that..the majority of ppl and especially the D&D fans were expecting a full exploring world with random encounters were you wouldn't excpecting, and not only intanced places...

Yes dungeon crawling is great we want that its just there was nothing more than it...

It's just so dissapointing that in order to save money the devs deside to make all places instanced in order to avoid making betetr servers and give more money for that ...save alot of work also and they prefer the easy way ... That sucks :/

What can we do? Turn the back now on to those products until the devs realise that they have to bust their ashes down , give more money in order to their product dont lack quality and then they can be sure that they ll take their mone back from the sales...A good product  will comprahate them..

Another thing ... You need the pvp aspect of this game in order to succed nowdays...SO NEXT TIME ,IN DDO 2 or in future products devs keep that in mind...

Concerning ddo they could do the same thing that aoc did...Guild vs guild castle creations from each guild e.t.c. and dont say some that d&d traditionally was coop team based game without pvp...this is pc games mmo games,w/o pvp aspect  mmo games will die,and perhaps some of the d&d fans did bad to the game spamming in forums we dont want pvp in this game...

Pve aspect is needed...but  pvp is needed also

DDO failed because Guildwars offered the same gameplay but better for a lower price. You can't take 2 bucks for a Dr. Pepper when the guy next to you are selling Coke for half the price.

CORPGs are not true MMOs (or at least are they a sub genre of MMOs) but they are fun in their own way. They are more a game you play with a few close friends than something you solo or PUG.

But frankly is Wow getting more and more instanced as well.

The thing is that P2P doesn't work for a CORPG. In fact games like Diablo are close to CORPGs so people just don't feel to pay that much for it.

If DDO would have been released as B2P it would have sold a lot more, and it went a lot better once it went F2P.

Guildwars was the better and cheaper game, therefor it won even if it had as many instances as DDO. DDO is actually not a bad game itself either.

Please do not necro post in old threads.