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Lord of the Rings Online Interviews: Craig Alexander AGDC Interview
At the Austin Game Developers' Conference, Garrett Fuller spoke with Turbine's Craig Alexander about both Dungeons and Dragons Online and Lord of the Rings Online
By Garrett Fuller on September 25, 2009
At AGDC last week we got the chance to sit down with Turbine's Craig Alexander. Craig oversees all the projects at Turbine and talked to us about the new Free-To-Play Dungeons & Dragons Online, a bit about Lord of the Rings Online, and moving MMOs to the console space. Turbine has some big plans for DDO and LOTRO, we'll go through Craig's thoughts and outline the company's approach to the future.
Dungeons & Dragons Online Unlimited was the news of September. Despite the launch of Champions Online and Aion, DDO going Free-To-Play was a big initiative in the MMO space. The game has depth and a very strong interactive combat system. Craig explained that the new model is going very well. It is still early and only two weeks into the process, but the game has seen a rise in subscriptions and the return of old subscribers as players again. Craig said that the game store is working well and players are using the micro-transaction model.
;)
In regards to the future plans of DDO, Turbine is looking to provide players with the full offering of D&D classes and races. Some of the classic classes are still not in the game, Craig pointed out the Druid as an example. The plans are to eventually provide these classes to players so that the online experience matches the pen and paper experience with all of the options. I asked if he could put half-orcs in the game as a playable race. Craig smiled and said they are working to bring the races into the game as well. Hopefully we will see DDO expand its content in the free-to-play space and grow as a game. DDO had a fantastic combat system that is much more interactive than just a hot bar. The game has always been worth checking out. Now that it is free-to-play it may be a good time to give it a try, if you are not a fan of subscription models.
On the Lord of the Rings Online front, Craig talked about the Siege of Mirkwood. It is their latest expansion, coming this fall. Siege of Mirkwood is exciting for the LOTRO team because they are working on content that begins the "War of the Ring." The other element to the expansion that is exciting is the introduction of some of the zones seen in The Hobbit. Craig explained that with the new movie in production , there are some exciting ideas going around for the game which Turbine hopes to explore. The main area players will visit is Southern Mirkwood where they will take part in some of the skirmishes and battles fought there in the early stages of the war. Players have a lot to look forward to in LOTRO as their story driven content continues to drive players into deeper parts of the Tolkien world.
;)
The last topic we talked about with Craig was his five categories for free-to-play content. Craig agrees that more free-to-play games need to offer depth to players. Their hope with DDO is to bring depth to the system. When it comes to a system that benefits the player and the company, Craig talks about his five Cs of free-to-play. The first being Cosmetic, by allowing players to customize their characters the way they want. Second is with Consumables, this is a tough balance because Craig explained you don't want to force players to buy consumables, but if it makes the game move faster for them or gives them some boost which does not impact game play, then Consumables is a good tool to use. The next is Convenience, which every player could use in MMOs. Making the game easier to get around in or being able to give players the choice to have an easier time with something like resurrection can help both the company and players alike. The fourth tool is Concierge which means player service. Allowing them to transfer characters or change realms, etc. Many MMO companies already charge for this type of service. The last is Content. Maybe there is a special Dungeon Pack that a player would like to purchase to try out. The Content is not required for the game itself, but it gives the player a choice. Craig explained that free to play really should be about Freedom of Choice for the player. The game is free, but if you want certain things in the game space you can spend a few bucks to get them, the choice is yours.
Turbine continues to push the console model and Craig said they are expected to have a few announcements in the near future about moving MMOs onto consoles. This has been a trial for MMOs for a while now. While everyone thought they could do it, not one has really made the successful leap. Turbine hopes to show that it can be done.
We want to thank Craig for taking the time to sit with us at AGDC. He has been a veteran in the industry for a while now and has a great perspective to offer both players and younger game designers as well. I wish I had time to stay for Craig's talk Friday afternoon. Hopefully we'll hear more from Turbine in the near future.
Good news to see they intend to invest in DDO, I've been playing it quite a bit recently & find it very enjoyable, though it's almost fully instanced world meant I never saw it as a game I'd be willing to subscribe to.
As a F2P/item shop game it works well & with the western perspective the devs have they are unlikely to be creating the game in such a way as to effectively force you to make purchases, or have item shop items become far too necessary, I like the choice & it actually makes me more inclined to spend in their shop knowing it really is a choice of whether I want to or not, eastern F2P are far too greedy in this aspect & the greed damages the gameplay & design quite badly.
I'm very much looking forward to them adding the full compliment of races & classes, though I hope they eventually add some neutral & evil race/class choices & areas/cities to go along with them, I'm not sure if that is allowed by D&D rules as I'm no D&D boff, but I always gravitate to the dark side in games if I can.
Yeah, I am glad Turbine decided to use the F2P model but they went too far by restricting character leveling and unless that player wanted to advance in level every 4 levels, they had to either find special sigils in dungeons or buy them from the shop. ANYTIME, another player is given an advantage over another player in advancing levels only because that player has more money to burn, is WRONG. Not to mention, my character used to be lvl 10 before the F2P change and now they reduced him to lvl 1. I won't be playing DDO anymore unfortunately just so they can get greedy.
Which is too bad because I have played pnp D&D for 20 yrs this november and was looking forward to a modern approach to playing it again.
F2P players tell me the sigils are not too hard to find. I don't think this is much of an issue; Robi and other players have done the math to show you can buy the sigils and contents you need to get to the endgame solely on the favor you generate in the game.. IF you choose to grind. Obviously Turbine wants spending money to be relatively tempting, and as they aren't running a charity..
You also say "my character used to be lvl 10 before the F2P change and now they reduced him to lvl 1" and this statement is simply false.
F2P players tell me the sigils are not too hard to find. I don't think this is much of an issue; Robi and other players have done the math to show you can buy the sigils and contents you need to get to the endgame solely on the favor you generate in the game.. IF you choose to grind. Obviously Turbine wants spending money to be relatively tempting, and as they aren't running a charity..
You also say "my character used to be lvl 10 before the F2P change and now they reduced him to lvl 1" and this statement is simply false.
I was all for listening to your input on the game changes until you called my statement about my character being turned to lvl 1 a lie. You have no means of remotely being able to make such a flame and I suggest you rethink further posts. I know what level my character was and is now, regardless of your opinion.
One: I never called you a liar. I said you were wrong. Two: if your character really was de-levelled, it would be the ONLY ONE on all the servers. But that is irrelevant; nobody changed the level of your character. I haven't flamed you yet, and wont if you behave yourself, so mind your manners.
Now, on to why you might have made this mistake: Each server is a separate world, so perhaps you were confused about the characters you had in beta on Lamannia, or if these are old characters, perhaps you've failed to look at the correct server that your character was merged unto.
One: I never called you a liar. I said you were wrong. Two: if your character really was de-levelled, it would be the ONLY ONE on all the servers. But that is irrelevant; nobody changed the level of your character. I haven't flamed you yet, and wont if you behave yourself, so mind your manners.
Now, on to why you might have made this mistake: Each server is a separate world, so perhaps you were confused about the characters you had in beta on Lamannia, or if these are old characters, perhaps you've failed to look at the correct server that your character was merged unto.
That you're saying that its not possible for such a thing to occur in the world of buggy coding strikes me as a bit inexperienced. :D
That you're saying that its not possible for such a thing to occur in the world of buggy coding strikes me as a bit inexperienced. :D
Nope, you're the one inexperienced here, I'm afraid : ). No one on the DDO forums has such problem, and Moorewr is a frequent reader and poster there, if I reckon well. I am frequent reader too, and there's no such issue.
This is obviously a mistake of the obove poster, not Moorewr's. There's 1/100000000000 chance for a 1 instance of such bug, or rather no chance at all. Accounts aren't that different to produce such bug for only 1 account with such problem documented. Simply impossible.
That you're saying that its not possible for such a thing to occur in the world of buggy coding strikes me as a bit inexperienced. :D
Nope, you're the one inexperienced here, I'm afraid : ). No one on the DDO forums has such problem, and Moorewr is a frequent reader and poster there, if I reckon well. I am frequent reader too, and there's no such issue.
This is obviously a mistake of the obove poster, not Moorewr's. There's 1/100000000000 chance for a 1 instance of such bug, or rather no chance at all. Accounts aren't that different to produce such bug for only 1 account with such problem documented. Simply impossible.
If you say so, lol.
I say so too.
Well I can only go from my experience. I have not played the game in years, yet all my characters were there and at the same levels I remembered them. So I have to assume you are just mistaken.
I will say this the item shop is so much better designed than what you see in most of the eastern f2p games.
I don't understand Turbine idiot move toward's consoles. Yeah I know this opens up a lot of potential players, but to play a MMO on a console means major dumbing down of the UI. That hurts the PC player. If you include pvp, you better believe I will own any console player using a controller unless they are absolute wizard with the device. Of course even being a wizard with a controller won't help when going up against someone running a quad core, dual graphics card rig.
The problem with consoles they are only good for the first year or so after they are released and they are such a big investment for their makers that producing a new one is a long an arduous process.
Consoles are lucky to have even a 3 year shelf life, though with the current crop there's not such a huge push for replacements as they've been retty instrumental in each company getting an online presence.
And PS3 was so goddamn expensive to make I can't see anyone rushing to make the next huge jump in console tech.
So many cash shops have this problem. I think people need to look at the GW cash shop. Giving people things like levels and such because they have money is bad bad bad. Giving them name changes and makeovers will make money too.
So you're saying, then, that random freak things cannot occur, and that there is no possibility of human error. Again, if you say so, lol!
Are you implying that the power of your computer makes you a better player? ;D
So you're saying, then, that random freak things cannot occur, and that there is no possibility of human error. Again, if you say so, lol!
I'm not going to engage in the battle here. However, if for some reason his toon really got bugged(and was not a beta toon or a mistake in memory as some have suggested), then I would have contacted customer service, or a GM and had it restored. I remembered when I deleted my free level 50 in AOC. I ended up deciding I wanted him back and when I notified a GM I got it back in a few minutes.
On the other note, I have only played a few weeks since it went F2P. So far it has been real fun. I even quit playing Aion and canceled my sub(even though I had bought the CE). I only have two toons so far, but the first got their leveling sigil at level 2, the other is level 3, and should have no issue either. I did a lot of reruns on the starter island so I suspect that is why I don't have it yet on my #2 toon.
Furthermore, just by doing dungeons you gain favor by which you get points for as others said. It takes one to two days of play to get 50-75 points which buys you your copper sigil. So even if one doesn't find one as a quest reward, then it's still easy to get w/o spending money. Also, as others have noted in other areas, make sure everyone is scrolling to the bottom of the quest reward window as the sigils tend to be tacked on to the very bottem. If youyr reward options are many and you don't scroll down, you may well miss out on it!
No. What I'm saying is it had gone down that way the OP would have contacted a GM and had his character restored.
He wouldn't be posting a nerdrage rant on a random forum.
That's what I'm saying.
Clear?
Really nice news! And im new in DDO and really enjoying it!
I had played a free trial of DDO once not to long after it launched and didn't care for it even though I am a fan of the PnP game. Since it went F2P I decided to give it another shot, and am glad I did. It's pretty fun. The game has improved a lot since I tried it last. The new payment plan also works well for me. I do not have many hours during the week to play MMO's and often feel that the $15 month sub is wasted money. I am paying for content that I won't experience for months or even years while other players chew through content at break neck speed. With this model I can pay for new content when I'm ready and the players that prefer a subscription still have that option. This dual strategy works well for both the hardcore and casual gamer.
Actually DDO was designed so that players could play with X-Box controllers from the beginning, no dumbing down required. I've run with many people using controllers in DDO and they do just fine. I've even played with a Husband/Wife duo that play the same character, one on mouse one on keyboard :D. They managed to get a permadeath character up to level 10 that way.
Originally posted by Ozmodan
...If you include pvp, you better believe I will own any console player using a controller unless they are absolute wizard with the device. Of course even being a wizard with a controller won't help when going up against someone running a quad core, dual graphics card rig...
It doesn't matter how nice your computer is, your Internet connection is what determines weather or not you are really swinging your axe at your opponent or where he was standing a second ago. And with the low graphics settings DDO can run on systems that an X-Box or PS3 would laugh at :)
I was all for listening to your input on the game changes until you called my statement about my character being turned to lvl 1 a lie. You have no means of remotely being able to make such a flame and I suggest you rethink further posts. I know what level my character was and is now, regardless of your opinion.
I can vouch that this is happening. My ranger was lvl 7, and now he is lvl 3. My cleric was level 4, and now lvl 3, as well.
Exactly. :D
My choices of reply are 'maybe so' and 'whatever'. I'm going with whatever.
Whatever. :D
Woah, those are a lot of quotes.
I'm fairly happy with the choices they've made with DDO. It's notan MMOG I play much personally since my interests have moved on, but it was one hell of an upgrade for my kid brothers, whom had been settling for Dofus.