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Just quit - here's why
Koltrane
Member UncommonPosts: 1,049
OK, after almost 2 months of play, I finally dumped DDO. The truth is I basically wasted $15 this past month because I only played about 30mins in the last 30 days. The real reason I quit is that this game is designed to cater to a very specific type of MMO player, and I am not that type.
I know that this is a MULTIplayer game, but there are a lot of MMOs out there and most of them allow for at least SOME solo play. I spent a lot of my time in EverQuest soloing with my necromancer. In DAoC, my brother and I played a two person team most of the time and had little trouble. In DDO it's not just groups, it's full groups. You need six people, four at the very least. I don't know about anyone else, but I'm not always in the mood to deal with the group dynamic, particularly when I regularly have to play pick up.
Not that it's always easy to find a group, especially now. In the first few weeks, everyone was level 1-4 and groups were abundant. Now everyone has moved to the higher levels, and for those of use who haven't moved quite as quickly, a lot of time is spent in the tavern with the LFG flag on listening to a bad Jethro Tull cover band. Even when you do get a group, you join and see that you're number three and the other two are tanks, so you have to wait another ten minutes while the leader desperately searches for a wizard or another healer or a thief.
I think Turbine designed this game to be played best with a well-rounded group, but the truth is that you can't always have 2 tanks, one cleric, one thief and 2 casters. However, if you don't have such a team, you're at an extreme disadvantage. Have any of you tried to run a medium sized crawl without a thief? How about getting all the way to the end of the Seal of Shan-to-kor quest and discovering that the CR8 giant you have to kill is just about immune to all forms of attack except Magic Missile, and you didn't have a wizard in your group? That actually happened to me and we spent 30 minutes pecking away at it with arrows. Fun fun fun.
Maybe if I joined a guild I'd have a ready group of friends to play with? Well I tried that and no one listened to the guild chat. You could turn it on in the main chat window, but it's not on by default, so no one was listening even when I tried to talk. In other games, guild tags are displayed above the character, but in DDO you have no idea if the guy next to you is a guildie or not unless you know him. Bottom line - it's very difficult to foster a closeness in a guild with the tools that Turbine has put out here.
So yesterday I logged on and found myself in the Rusty Lobster (or whatever) and there were five other people there. None of them were my level and I got tired of sitting around with nothing to do. In other games I could go craft or solo some mobs, but here I was sitting in a bar with nothing to do, so I did the logical thing. I logged out. The next day I canceled my subscription.
I'm sure this game is some people's dream come true, but not mine. I hope Turbine does better with LOTR online, but I don't want to gamble $50 to find out. I think a non-instanced open hunting area would do wonders for this game, but what do I know?
I know that this is a MULTIplayer game, but there are a lot of MMOs out there and most of them allow for at least SOME solo play. I spent a lot of my time in EverQuest soloing with my necromancer. In DAoC, my brother and I played a two person team most of the time and had little trouble. In DDO it's not just groups, it's full groups. You need six people, four at the very least. I don't know about anyone else, but I'm not always in the mood to deal with the group dynamic, particularly when I regularly have to play pick up.
Not that it's always easy to find a group, especially now. In the first few weeks, everyone was level 1-4 and groups were abundant. Now everyone has moved to the higher levels, and for those of use who haven't moved quite as quickly, a lot of time is spent in the tavern with the LFG flag on listening to a bad Jethro Tull cover band. Even when you do get a group, you join and see that you're number three and the other two are tanks, so you have to wait another ten minutes while the leader desperately searches for a wizard or another healer or a thief.
I think Turbine designed this game to be played best with a well-rounded group, but the truth is that you can't always have 2 tanks, one cleric, one thief and 2 casters. However, if you don't have such a team, you're at an extreme disadvantage. Have any of you tried to run a medium sized crawl without a thief? How about getting all the way to the end of the Seal of Shan-to-kor quest and discovering that the CR8 giant you have to kill is just about immune to all forms of attack except Magic Missile, and you didn't have a wizard in your group? That actually happened to me and we spent 30 minutes pecking away at it with arrows. Fun fun fun.
Maybe if I joined a guild I'd have a ready group of friends to play with? Well I tried that and no one listened to the guild chat. You could turn it on in the main chat window, but it's not on by default, so no one was listening even when I tried to talk. In other games, guild tags are displayed above the character, but in DDO you have no idea if the guy next to you is a guildie or not unless you know him. Bottom line - it's very difficult to foster a closeness in a guild with the tools that Turbine has put out here.
So yesterday I logged on and found myself in the Rusty Lobster (or whatever) and there were five other people there. None of them were my level and I got tired of sitting around with nothing to do. In other games I could go craft or solo some mobs, but here I was sitting in a bar with nothing to do, so I did the logical thing. I logged out. The next day I canceled my subscription.
I'm sure this game is some people's dream come true, but not mine. I hope Turbine does better with LOTR online, but I don't want to gamble $50 to find out. I think a non-instanced open hunting area would do wonders for this game, but what do I know?
-----
Old timer.
Comments
I play at very low pop times like Sunday mornings and such. I have zero interest in a game that does not allow soloing. (I stayed away from it to start with due to the talk about how grouping will be required). I would say I realized this isn't the game for me in about 2 hours.
I really hope they ask for my opinion because I don't think its all that bad of a game other than that.
If there was one thing I would change that drove me nuts was needing to have an NPC in front of you to cast a spell on it.....that would bother me if they didn't fly around the room like they were on crystal meth.
There are only 10 types of people in this world, those that understand binary and those that don't
Have played: CoH, DDO EQ2, FFXI, L2, HZ, SoR, and WW2 online
But! If you are willing to forget everything you have known about MMORPGs so far, and learn a new way of playing an Online Roleplaying Game, this game is the most rewarding experience you will be having since the advent of Meridian59.
Sooo... you advice people to forget better mmorpg's that are out there so they could enjoy DDO?... got it.
What exactly does DDO offer in terms of role-play that make it the first real Online Roleplay Game? I am sorry I don't see it, as a matter of fact I see it lacking what alot of other games provide for roleplay ability. I am sorry but UO beat DDO for roleplay aspect hands down and that game is ancient. Turbine hasn't come up with ANYTHING first with this game other then how to turn quest based experience into a grind.
- Scaris
"What happened to you, Star Wars Galaxies? You used to look like Leia. Not quite gold bikini Leia (more like bad-British-accent-and-cinnamon-bun-hair Leia), but still Leia nonetheless. Now you look like Chewbacca." - Computer Gaming World
Sooo... you advice people to forget better mmorpg's that are out there so they could enjoy DDO?... got it.
How is it better, ok let me tell you.
1. You have to form a proper party, like in good old PnP, where you discussed with your friends what classes everyone is gonna play. There is no flavour of the month or "IMBA" classes in this game, each and every one of them has their uses and is needed to make the most out of your SOCIAL rpg experience.
2. Quests that encourage you to take your time, manage your resources, think ahead, think about what you do. The people who like to rush play on normal difficulty and just care about the fastest way to the end boss so they can get the phat xp real quick. While roleplayers can play on hard or elite, explore every room in the dungeon, solve all optional goals just for the fun of it and have a challenge doing so.
What I mean with forgetting the traditional gameplay is, to forget about trying to be the best and uberest, and instead getting involved of the social and exploration aspect of RPGs.
For a little something about "possibilities" of roleplaying, read my next reply to the poster below you, which will follow in a few minutes.
Oy!
Roleplaying is about imagination.
Tell me, when you sit down at your kitchen table with your friends for a pnp session, does everyone bring their characters weapons with them? All their equipment? Do people who play halflings jump into a hot washing machine so they will shrink for the pnp session? Will there be medieval chandeliers and wooden tavern tables that you can sit down at? Will the game master bring a 100 costumes so he can dress up like every NPC you will meet?
NO.
In PnP RPG, you bring your dice, and your character sheet, and your IMAGINATION, as everything else goes on in the heads of the players, and is being articulated instead of played out (except in LARP, but that is not PnP).
So everything I need to roleplay is a way to communicate with my fellow players (chat/voice chat), and a way to resolve actions in the game (dice rolls), and of course, and most important, like-minded players who want to roleplay and not just level up and collect phat loot!
Makes sense?
I do that in EVERY game, so try telling me again how exactly DDO brings more "real" roleplay to the table then any other MMO.
- Scaris
"What happened to you, Star Wars Galaxies? You used to look like Leia. Not quite gold bikini Leia (more like bad-British-accent-and-cinnamon-bun-hair Leia), but still Leia nonetheless. Now you look like Chewbacca." - Computer Gaming World
...so try telling me again how exactly DDO brings more "real" roleplay to the table then any other MMO.
First and foremost it's the community!
A game with the name D&D Online will attract more PnP roleplayers than for instance WoW, which is played by the lovers of the RTS Warcraft games (blatantly stolen IP from Games Workshop's Warhammer). An RTS game is quite stressful, at least for me, constant micro management, hurrying up so you can waltz over the AI controlled forces, which is reflected in the way the players will play the game. Be the best, have the phattest loot, rush, rush, rush, don't wait... At least that was how I experienced WoW, which is the contrary of what I have experienced in DDO so far, where there are mostly 30+ PnP players in my guild, actually the age range in our guild is 9 (the son of a 38 year old pnper) and goes up to 68 (Hi Deede if you read this!). But it averages in the slightly more mature crowd.
GW is like a collectible trading card game, where you switch your deck of cards (powers), it also attracted a lot of the Diablo (Battlenet) crowd, because of similar gameplay and the fact that it is free to play. The quests in GW are great! I loved them too! But when I was finished with them, I was finished with the game, did some PvP, but realised I have to grind for uber equipment and powers a lot, at which point I stopped that and went to play some poker with my mates.
In DDO you can spend a nice 4 hours playing a quest on hard, with a nice group of sociable PnP players, who use the voice chat to play out the quirks of their characters, where you can explore a whole level without anyone saying "I just want the BONUS", "please no BONUS I just want to get to DESERT", "I am uber shaman!!11!11 (duel accept window pops up), etc.
See where I'm coming from?
No...
I remember quite clearly getting into groups and the first thing I hear from them is "mind if we burn through the dungeons fast for the experience?".
The game lacks enough enviroments to form good structured and varied roleplay scenarios, all you can do is impromptu roleplay while in yet another sewer or crypt that looks like all the rest. Sorry but that gets boring extremely fast. DDO is a VERY poor game for roleplay.
Star Wars Galaxies is (or was) an excellent example of roleplay. It is (er was) a sandbox style game that gave you all the control on what level of roleplay you wished to do. UO I would give the same kudo's for. I beleive perhaps you aren't thinking out of the box enough about what you consider roleplay. Character quirks and a cheesy medieval accent aren't roleplay.
- Scaris
"What happened to you, Star Wars Galaxies? You used to look like Leia. Not quite gold bikini Leia (more like bad-British-accent-and-cinnamon-bun-hair Leia), but still Leia nonetheless. Now you look like Chewbacca." - Computer Gaming World
Roleplaying is what you make of it!
Oh and I am German, we don't use "Shakespearean" talk as an excuse for roleplaying in our language.
To roleplay you sit down and think up a personality for your character and play it out during heroic (or sometimes not so heroic) adventures. Nothing more, nothing less.
I've been roleplaying PnP games since 1984 now, my favourites are Paranoia and Call of Cthulhu. D&D was always a dungeon crawl game for my group, if we wanted more intense fantasy roleplaying, we played Warhammer or Pendragon. If we wanted highly intruigant and social rpg, we played WoD.
I think DDO did a good job at capturing the dungeon crawl aspect of the D&D RPG, and with the right crowd of people, you can have awesome roleplaying fun while you do that, especially since the quests are challenging when done right. Of course they can't compete with questa a la "get the 10 bones" or "get me 20 herbs".
Patching is done, see you at the next downtime!
Edit: Won't even dignify Kien's reply with serious words, as he totally missed my other posts and my general meaning. Guess we all just "hear" (read) what we want to "hear" (read), and say what we want to say. Fair enough, passed my patching time with some good laughs.
This game is great for the first day after that it becomes a constant grind. So its not grinding on mobs anymore, they changed it to whole dungeons you have to grind. As to what Gevrik has posted over and over in all the posted that state the obvious problems with this game, stop bashing others cause they dont like the game youre obsessed with. This game had some promised but Turbine just dropped the ball. Yeah the dungeons are great to explore once or twice but after that its just plain boring. Turbine put out the minimun they could to try to make a buck. This is not what people were asking for when they said they wanted a DnD mmorpg. DnD was about exploring, dungeon crawling, killing baddies (or the good guys depending on allignment), roleplaying, and using your imagination. This game got one aspect right the dungeon, the problem is they left out all the others. There are alot of people who do like this game and theres no problem with that but in my eyes this inst a mmorpg, it isnt even a rpg. If i were to class it it would be a multiplayer hack and slash, but thats just my opinion. Well for those of you who like it enjoy and those who dont move on and find another game. Well I know its coming so let the flaming begin
If you keep picking at it ,it won't heal.
Exactly my first arguement with you when you said there was something better about roleplay in DDO. I said what is acheived in it can be achieved anywhere.
I have never myself nor ever played PnP with someone that spoke Shakespearean for roleplay. I said accent, I think that would be going abit past my statement and a silly assumption on your part if you think that is what English speaking people do.
I don't think DDO captured any elements of the Pen and Paper game.
- Scaris
"What happened to you, Star Wars Galaxies? You used to look like Leia. Not quite gold bikini Leia (more like bad-British-accent-and-cinnamon-bun-hair Leia), but still Leia nonetheless. Now you look like Chewbacca." - Computer Gaming World
There was nothing to explore in DDO as every dungeons was the same and the loot was not worth it. And please don't give me this crap that the loot doesn't matter. Players will discourage other players from not exploring the dungeon fully if there is to no loot to found in chest or enemies they fight nor would quest get done if they were something to compensate for their time.
Gervik, you think DDO was created for people like you, when in actuality you're making DDO to be out to be something it's not. Every exaggaration you've noted so far in your opinions are one's only YOU and YOUR CLIK experience, which means it's subjective only to you and the people you play with. What you say does not apply to every other player outside yourself.
Or CaptainRPG?
Quite odd, because I always founded my own guilds in all the MMORPGs I played... Which is each and every one since M59 came out. Must be cause I'm a natural leader and know how to articulate myself, use diplomacy (where it's deserved) and how to organise people effectively.
I got bored before my free trial was over. Great concept, but just falls short of exciting. Running the same quests, over and over, and over again for no real purpose other than loot loses interest fast. This game would be fine if there was not a $15 dollar per month charge, but it is not worth that price in it's current form.
This game would be best played with a small group of your real life friends. You know, maybe every other friday, you all meet and play a couple of hours. Really great if you are separated from your friends by many miles, so playing paper and pencil D&D not really an option. But to foster this play style, there needs to be other payment options. $15 per month to maybe play 6 hours is just not gonna fly.
They should at least offer a play card where you can buy hours that only get used up while you are logged on. If I could just buy 60 hours to use up when it was convenienent for me and my group, then awesome. I would recommend that to all my friends, and we would definitely take advantage of that. Just a suggestion.
For any other MMO this wouldn't work. But for DDO that would actually be a pretty decent pricing plan. As you said it's not a game you're going to want to play all the time. It's a casual time, get together with a group of friends regularly, kind of game.
I would possibly consider buying blocks of time to play if it worked that way. But for a flat rate of $15 a month it just isn't worth it. I was in the beta. I was glad they at least took ONE of our suggestions: Guilds. The rest sort of got ignored.... or Turbine forgot ... or um.. nah they got ignored
DDO desperately needs an explorable world if people are going to be expected to pay a monthly fee. You can't really expect them to just do dungeon crawl after dungeon crawl after dungeon crawl in dungeons that look pretty much the same each time (wow haven't I seen THAT before?) and think they're going to pay $15 a month for it for any length of time.
DDO is fun for the first week or two... then most folks bail on it. Which means Turbine doesn't even get a monthly fee out of it, just a box sale. Well if all they're gonna get is box sales and the occasional monthly fee for a month or two maybe they should re-think their pricing scheme? I like your idea a lot.
Guild Wars has had a huge impact on my opinion of games of this type... Basically if GuildWars can provide me with quests, grouping, PVP, crafting, guilds, alliances, and a world to explore with no monthly fee then I expect MUCH more than that from a game that's charging me a fee to play it.
Currently Playing: Dungeons and Dragons Online.
Sig image Pending
Still in: A couple Betas
I bought DDO and played for about a month. It's a well done game for what it is but basically its just your standard get quest, enter instance, finish quest cookie cutter game. I didn't see anything innovative enough to make me waste any more time on it.
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