The game isn't really designed or meant for crafting. It's meant for doing dungeon crawls. Thats the whole point of the game.
That's why the game did and still is doing poorly because it wasn't really a deep game. It doesn't anything outside of dungeon crawling when other games have this and more.
It's true that other games out there have dungeons.
but I haven't seen many where there were traps to be dismantled, secret doors to be found, doors that required a thief to actulaly get through them (and if you don't have one tough), where one could make their way through the objective with little fighting if they could stealth their way through and still get full xp for completion.
of course the downside is that once you get through the dungeons a few times you pretty much know them.
Like Skyrim? Need more content? Try my Skyrim mod "Godfred's Tomb."
I'd also like to note that as of the most recent major update, crafting has become pretty damn snazzy.
Now the tons and tons of vendor loot you find can be broken down into core components and recrafted into new enhancements to apply to items in whatever way you see fit (assuming your crafting level is high enough).
It has quirks, like enhanced crafted items are bound to character, so you can't twink out gear for another of your characters on the same account which I find annoying, but you can craft the basic components and pass them between characters.
EDIT: In other words, now not only do you have raid item crafting, quest chain craft items, and epic tier crafting/enhancement for awesome customized items, all the generic stuff you can now tailor into personal awesome items as well.
So no matter what, you have something that works for you and benefits you.
"The knowledge of the theory of logic has no tendency whatever to make men good reasoners." - Thomas B. Macaulay
"The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge." - Daniel J. Boorstin
No, it isn't. I'm not sure what illogical math you are doing, but the game started with 15 servers and now it has 7. It's population dropped. It didn't rise above it's original population. Rather as i said early, it's a resurgance of old players.
Not sure what math your doing, since number of servers doesnt mean jack when it comes to population, a game could have 100 empty servers, doesnt mean it has more people than a game with 7 servers.
I wonder what he thinks of games that run entirely on one server. Guild Wars must have no people since it runs on one server.
Guild wars has every area instance and every areas, including non-combat areas have several version of the same areas in which a certain amount of people can exist. The more people that come into the area, the more versions are made. If this were the case with DDO, it would be one big server instead of several.
Actually they do zone instancing of all areas in DDO.
Dunno why they chose to make multiple servers on top of that, but they actually do complete server instancing of all zones as they hit a pop-cap for a zone.
So yeah...
The servers have a upper limit ot how many instance areas they can have. I experience the crashes back when the game first came out. Areas will produce as many areas as it can. But the server itself has a compacity it can hold before collapsing.
The servers have a upper limit ot how many instance areas they can have. I experience the crashes back when the game first came out. Areas will produce as many areas as it can. But the server itself has a compacity it can hold before collapsing.
I've never witnessed this, and I've been playing for the past 1.5 years. I also played in 2006, and can say with complete confidence there are tons more players now than then.
The game isn't really designed or meant for crafting. It's meant for doing dungeon crawls. Thats the whole point of the game.
That's why the game did and still is doing poorly because it wasn't really a deep game. It doesn't anything outside of dungeon crawling when other games have this and more.
It's true that other games out there have dungeons.
but I haven't seen many where there were traps to be dismantled, secret doors to be found, doors that required a thief to actulaly get through them (and if you don't have one tough), where one could make their way through the objective with little fighting if they could stealth their way through and still get full xp for completion.
of course the downside is that once you get through the dungeons a few times you pretty much know them.
........which pretty goes back to what I said about people blowing through the content.
It doesn't matter what the game had. It didn't hold the people's interest long enough to be a great game. It doesn't do anything outside of what it does. I love when people talk about what this game has as if it was the best game in the world. Yet I will ask these same people why did DDO fail and they have no answer. I ask them why has it become popular after revamping and they still don't have a answer. Either they'll change the subject or get argumentive. In some case, they'll just ignore it, writing the other person off as a dimwit who knows nothing. (Ironically, these same people condemn elitist behavior.)
Plus, the dungeons are repetitive no matter the difficulty. The only difference is you need a utility-type and healer-type on Hard and Elite for upper level dungeons because of the traps and increase damage. Also some traps stop working after being exposed and some of them can be avoid by either jumping or using a narrow path. (Which has been the case since the game started)
No, it isn't. I'm not sure what illogical math you are doing, but the game started with 15 servers and now it has 7. It's population dropped. It didn't rise above it's original population. Rather as i said early, it's a resurgance of old players.
Not sure what math your doing, since number of servers doesnt mean jack when it comes to population, a game could have 100 empty servers, doesnt mean it has more people than a game with 7 servers.
I wonder what he thinks of games that run entirely on one server. Guild Wars must have no people since it runs on one server.
Guild wars has every area instance and every areas, including non-combat areas have several version of the same areas in which a certain amount of people can exist. The more people that come into the area, the more versions are made. If this were the case with DDO, it would be one big server instead of several.
Actually they do zone instancing of all areas in DDO.
Dunno why they chose to make multiple servers on top of that, but they actually do complete server instancing of all zones as they hit a pop-cap for a zone.
So yeah...
The servers have a upper limit ot how many instance areas they can have. I experience the crashes back when the game first came out. Areas will produce as many areas as it can. But the server itself has a compacity it can hold before collapsing.
And that's a different condition than that which you were railing on before.
Not to mention another note. In the server merges they also were merging the hardware to make those max caps higher. When they introduced the two new servers, they also both were higher pop-cap servers than the merged servers.
As far as real statictics goes, Iunno. I play on Argo which is supposedly one of the highest pop servers and it's pretty regularly busy.
EDIT: As for that other post, they have added as well as revamped old large outside zones as fleshed out adventure zones. They also have implemented plenty of larger quest chains across level ranges.
That being said. The game still does suffer from some of the most blatant content repetition I've ever dealt with. I don't mind it mostly out f the gameplay just being more enjoyable, but I still advocate and desire a tool for making one's own dungeons, zones, and quests to play the game akin to NWN.
"The knowledge of the theory of logic has no tendency whatever to make men good reasoners." - Thomas B. Macaulay
"The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge." - Daniel J. Boorstin
The servers have a upper limit ot how many instance areas they can have. I experience the crashes back when the game first came out. Areas will produce as many areas as it can. But the server itself has a compacity it can hold before collapsing.
I've never witnessed this, and I've been playing for the past 1.5 years. I also played in 2006, and can say with complete confidence there are tons more players now than then.
The servers have a upper limit ot how many instance areas they can have. I experience the crashes back when the game first came out. Areas will produce as many areas as it can. But the server itself has a compacity it can hold before collapsing.
I've never witnessed this, and I've been playing for the past 1.5 years. I also played in 2006, and can say with complete confidence there are tons more players now than then.
1) The game has been around longer than that.
2) LOL!!!
Ahem. Do you recognize the date Feburary 28th, 2006?
The servers have a upper limit ot how many instance areas they can have. I experience the crashes back when the game first came out. Areas will produce as many areas as it can. But the server itself has a compacity it can hold before collapsing.
I've never witnessed this, and I've been playing for the past 1.5 years. I also played in 2006, and can say with complete confidence there are tons more players now than then.
1) The game has been around longer than that.
2) LOL!!!
Yeah, about that...
Release date(s) : February 28, 2006
Being around longer than that can only imply pre-release stages.
"The knowledge of the theory of logic has no tendency whatever to make men good reasoners." - Thomas B. Macaulay
"The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge." - Daniel J. Boorstin
........which pretty goes back to what I said about people blowing through the content.
It doesn't matter what the game had. It didn't hold the people's interest long enough to be a great game. It doesn't do anything outside of what it does. I love when people talk about what this game has as if it was the best game in the world. Yet I will ask these same people why did DDO fail and they have no answer. I ask them why has it become popular after revamping and they still don't have a answer. Either they'll change the subject or get argumentive. In some case, they'll just ignore it, writing the other person off as a dimwit who knows nothing. (Ironically, these same people condemn elitist behavior.)
Plus, the dungeons are repetitive no matter the difficulty. The only difference is you need a utility-type and healer-type on Hard and Elite for upper level dungeons because of the traps and increase damage. Also some traps stop working after being exposed and some of them can be avoid by either jumping or using a narrow path. (Which has been the case since the game started)
Well, the game failed beause it wasn't really "dungeons and dragons". And in some ways it was too much "dungeons and dragons".
Many players interested in this game were thinking of a large open world and a setting sort of like greyhawk. The setting that Turbine picked really wasn't a favorite. Quite frankly their setting borders on the extremely ridiculous for my taste.
In any case the developers looked at dungeons and dragons and immediatley honed in on the "small party tackling adventures/dungeons".
but some players couldn't wrap their mind around this as they were still in the "mmo = massive" mindset, so this wasn't for them.
then the players who could get into the way the developers created the game discovered that one can only do these so many times before you are just running through them. I hate to say it but what Turbine should have done was done away with the subscription and sold "modules". Players could then log in and tackle any part of a module they paid for. If they were done then they would acrrue no further cost and could wait for the next module. But Turbine had it in their minds that they were making "an mmo" and "mmo's" had subscription fees.
Where the developers also failed was to not delve into the idea of player made content. After all, dungeons and dragons is about a gm taking his/her group through an adventure that is constnatly growing and evolving.
getting back to my original response, I don't believe that other games do dungeon crawls very well. They are just basically hack and slash affairs (which I do find fun) that don't offer much else. At least DDO supplied more itneresting dungeon crawls where players had to be a bit more aware of what was going on.
Like Skyrim? Need more content? Try my Skyrim mod "Godfred's Tomb."
........which pretty goes back to what I said about people blowing through the content.
It doesn't matter what the game had. It didn't hold the people's interest long enough to be a great game. It doesn't do anything outside of what it does. I love when people talk about what this game has as if it was the best game in the world. Yet I will ask these same people why did DDO fail and they have no answer. I ask them why has it become popular after revamping and they still don't have a answer. Either they'll change the subject or get argumentive. In some case, they'll just ignore it, writing the other person off as a dimwit who knows nothing. (Ironically, these same people condemn elitist behavior.)
Plus, the dungeons are repetitive no matter the difficulty. The only difference is you need a utility-type and healer-type on Hard and Elite for upper level dungeons because of the traps and increase damage. Also some traps stop working after being exposed and some of them can be avoid by either jumping or using a narrow path. (Which has been the case since the game started)
Well, the game failed beause it wasn't really "dungeons and dragons". And in some ways it was too much "dungeons and dragons".
Many players interested in this game were thinking of a large open world sort of like greyhawk. It's also worth mentioning that the setting that Turibne picked wasn't a favorite either. Quite frankly their setting borders on the extremely ridiculous for my taste.
In any case the developers looked at dungeons and dragons and immediatley honed in on the "small party tackling adventures/dungeons".
but some players couldn't wrap their mind around this as they were still in the "mmo = massive" mindset, so this wasn't for them.
then the players who could get into the way the developers created the game discovered that one can only do these so many times before you are just running through them. I hate to say it but what Turbine should have done was done away with the subscription and sold "modules". Players could then log in and tackle any part of a module they paid for. If they were done then they would acrrue no further cost and could wait for the next module. But Turbine had it in their minds that they were making "an mmo" and "mmo's" had subscription fees.
Where the developers also failed was to not delve into the idea of player made content. After all, dungeons and dragons is about a gm taking his/her group through an adventure that is constnatly growing and evolving.
getting back to my original response, I don't believe that other games do dungeon crawls very well. They are just basically hack and slash affairs (which I do find fun) that don't offer much else. At least DDO supplied more itneresting dungeon crawls where players had to be a bit more aware of what was going on.
1) No, WoW. Other NWN.
2) DDO fail not because of P2P, but the lack of content when it launched, poor graphics, repetitive gameplay, and short quests. DDO was thought to break the mold of other MMOs, but it turned out to be just another DDO. But then DDO was never meant to be a MMO.
3) Turbine went from P2P to F2P because of what Koreans were doing with DFO, which made a huge profit for payable content. It blew up in their faces when players found a way to accumulate a lot of favored points to get what they want.
4) Depends. DDO isn't really good in terms of dungeon crawling, but playable and manageable. Not adventure took place in a dungeon. Rather many players have complained in the past that the game feels boxed in compared to games like guild wars and WoW when doing a dungeon. It worse when you play with experience players as you feel there is very little you can contribute except what your class has to offer.
As you progress through the game, it doesn't really offer anything outside from what you get in other games. In fact, DDO seem like a downgrade in terms of end game content. I'm talking about the stuff outside the raid. No casinos, no mounts, no specialized crafting, etc. You're just sitting on money and raiding dungeons all day. That gets boring after a while. Turbine doesn't even try to get the players to stay longer. It's like they are unimagintive as to what keeps the players interest.
I played DDO for a while but they pretty much butchered DnD in it and is an insult to DnD fans.
I love the puzzles and traps which adds a whole different dynamic that no other games has. Puzzles were awefully simple thought for most of em so kinda kills things.
Combat is atrocious, archery is completely fubared, tanking is all bout intim mostly, hate the instant death crap.
The "Epic" loot is an atrocious grindfest time sink aliong with crafting.
A lot of classes were completely butchered and there are severe pigeonholing builds out there.
Reincarnation is a ridiculous concept that all it's designed to do is keep players occupied without ever putting out much quality content.
I loved DnD games but DDO has nothing but a sour taste in my mouth. Read some intresting changes but nothing to take me back to the game. I'd rather take my chances with Cryptic's Neverwinter than pay another dime to Turbine. I hope they will follw BW and ANet with a personal dynamic storyline which utimately is the heart and soul of DnD imo and with players the ability to make the content will push it over the top. Any players of DDO that played prior to F2P will most likely transfer over to Neverwinter and DDO will be just one of those F2P games....which it already is for the most part. Don't think any other MMO has lost as much of it's original core player base like DDO has.
Well, the game failed beause it wasn't really "dungeons and dragons". And in some ways it was too much "dungeons and dragons".
Many players interested in this game were thinking of a large open world sort of like greyhawk. It's also worth mentioning that the setting that Turibne picked wasn't a favorite either. Quite frankly their setting borders on the extremely ridiculous for my taste.
In any case the developers looked at dungeons and dragons and immediatley honed in on the "small party tackling adventures/dungeons".
but some players couldn't wrap their mind around this as they were still in the "mmo = massive" mindset, so this wasn't for them.
then the players who could get into the way the developers created the game discovered that one can only do these so many times before you are just running through them. I hate to say it but what Turbine should have done was done away with the subscription and sold "modules". Players could then log in and tackle any part of a module they paid for. If they were done then they would acrrue no further cost and could wait for the next module. But Turbine had it in their minds that they were making "an mmo" and "mmo's" had subscription fees.
Where the developers also failed was to not delve into the idea of player made content. After all, dungeons and dragons is about a gm taking his/her group through an adventure that is constnatly growing and evolving.
getting back to my original response, I don't believe that other games do dungeon crawls very well. They are just basically hack and slash affairs (which I do find fun) that don't offer much else. At least DDO supplied more itneresting dungeon crawls where players had to be a bit more aware of what was going on.
1) No, WoW. Other NWN.
2) DDO fail not because of P2P, but the lack of content when it launched, poor graphics, repetitive gameplay, and short quests. DDO was thought to break the mold of other MMOs, but it turned out to be just another DDO. But then DDO was never meant to be a MMO.
3) Turbine went from P2P to F2P because of what Koreans were doing with DFO, which made a huge profit for payable content. It blew up in their faces when players found a way to accumulate a lot of favored points to get what they want.
4) Depends. DDO isn't really good in terms of dungeon crawling, but playable and manageable. Not adventure took place in a dungeon. Rather many players have complained in the past that the game feels boxed in compared to games like guild wars and WoW when doing a dungeon. It worse when you play with experience players as you feel there is very little you can contribute except what your class has to offer.
As you progress through the game, it doesn't really offer anything outside from what you get in other games. In fact, DDO seem like a downgrade in terms of end game content. I'm talking about the stuff outside the raid. No casinos, no mounts, no specialized crafting, etc. You're just sitting on money and raiding dungeons all day. That gets boring after a while. Turbine doesn't even try to get the players to stay longer. It's like they are unimagintive as to what keeps the players interest.
I'm not clear on the "wow" comment. However, sure, it could have been a Neverwinter Nights setting.
The thing is the "mmo" players were looking for "large mmo worlds". The Dungeons and Dragons fans were looking for something else entirely. I don't disagree with their decision to make it a group game where people group up and enter dungeons (or whatever encounter one can think up) because more often than not that is what many pen and paper D&D players were doing.
I'm not saying it failed because it was pay to play. I'm saying it shouldn't have been a subscription model in the first place because as you say, there wasn't enough content. Grinding the same dungeon over and over again doesn't work and because it was a subscription game they wanted you to keep playing. So, they make it so you grind dungeons. How incredibly tedious.
the module model would have worked better (in my opinion) because like any module you would buy in D&D, once you were done you were done unless you chose to do it again with a different character. This way they would concnetrate on creating new modules to sell and player would just buy the modules to expand their game. Just like orginal AD&D modules.
I think it feels boxed in because many of the dungeons were just these encounters off of this city. Take any favorite D&D module such as the Vault of the Drow or the Giant modules and there was a full adventure that led from one place to another place. It had more of an organic story feel to it as opposed to these little encounters that the start of the game had.
Since I dont' believe in "end game" content it's difficult to discuss it.
A, I don't believe that mmo's should have "end game content'. The world should be the world and the game should be based on player interactions as opposed to creating some silly raid/end game content where players grind raids for loot and more loot. In Lineage 2 there isn't end game content. There is content. You just tackle it as you can tackle it. And you take control over the world or siege castles as you can do it. I'll agree it's more difficult in a pve game but one can imagine similar types of content where pve mobs attacked cities or took over areas.
D&D could never have an end game because there isn't an end game other than to kill your character. Otherwise once you were finished with a session you waited until the DM had a new session. There wasn't this "well I'm max so now what do I do?" You either continued with super characters or you rerolled your character and started new adventures.
And I'll agree, one of the issues that DDO has is that experienced players essentially blow through these dungeons. Heck, I remember being asked to join for some supposedly difficult dungeon where you needed a full party. Except I barely did anything at all because they just took off. I never got to read the quest in its entirety and I just tried to follow and keep up.
That's why their system doesn't work and why I think it should be module based. You finish the module you are done. Just like any DM D&D adventure.
No DM would ever come back the next week and say 'well, let's do last week's again but on a harder mode".
Like Skyrim? Need more content? Try my Skyrim mod "Godfred's Tomb."
I'm not clear on the "wow" comment. However, sure, it could have been a Neverwinter Nights setting.
The thing is the "mmo" players were looking for "large mmo worlds". The Dungeons and Dragons fans were looking for something else entirely. I don't disagree with their decision to make it a group game where people group up and enter dungeons (or whatever encounter one can think up) because more often than not that is what many pen and paper D&D players were doing.
I'm not saying it failed because it was pay to play. I'm saying it shouldn't have been a subscription model in the first place because as you say, there wasn't enough content. Grinding the same dungeon over and over again doesn't work and because it was a subscription game they wanted you to keep playing. So, they make it so you grind dungeons. How incredibly tedious.
the module model would have worked better (in my opinion) because like any module you would buy in D&D, once you were done you were done unless you chose to do it again with a different character. This way they would concnetrate on creating new modules to sell and player would just buy the modules to expand their game. Just like orginal AD&D modules.
I think it feels boxed in because many of the dungeons were just these encounters off of this city. Take any favorite D&D module such as the Vault of the Drow or the Giant modules and there was a full adventure that led from one place to another place. It had more of an organic story feel to it as opposed to these little encounters that the start of the game had.
Since I dont' believe in "end game" content it's difficult to discuss it.
A, I don't believe that mmo's should have "end game content'. The world should be the world and the game should be based on player interactions as opposed to creating some silly raid/end game content where players grind raids for loot and more loot. In Lineage 2 there isn't end game content. There is content. You just tackle it as you can tackle it. And you take control over the world or siege castles as you can do it. I'll agree it's more difficult in a pve game but one can imagine similar types of content where pve mobs attacked cities or took over areas.
D&D could never have an end game because there isn't an end game other than to kill your character. Otherwise once you were finished with a session you waited until the DM had a new session. There wasn't this "well I'm max so now what do I do?" You either continued with super characters or you rerolled your character and started new adventures.
And I'll agree, one of the issues that DDO has is that experienced players essentially blow through these dungeons. Heck, I remember being asked to join for some supposedly difficult dungeon where you needed a full party. Except I barely did anything at all because they just took off. I never got to read the quest in its entirety and I just tried to follow and keep up.
That's why their system doesn't work and why I think it should be module based. You finish the module you are done. Just like any DM D&D adventure.
No DM would ever come back the next week and say 'well, let's do last week's again but on a harder mode".
1) By WoW, I meant a world where a player is immersed and involved with the world. DDO not didn't manage to accomplish this, but they didn't break the mold either.
2) It fails as a F2P because you are doing the same thing you are doing in P2P, which is grinding. Name one thing you can do outside of questing.....Don't worry, I'll wait.
3) It feels boxed in because most of your quests are side by side and the dungeons paths are forced. That and everything is instance. Then there is the bad graphics, but I'll stop at the quest.
4) If you want a mod then play NWN or NWN2. If DDO was mod based and forced players to buy content, players would have to be paid for the content they made if Turbine tried to make a profit off of it.
5) Endgame is when a player reaches their peak in terms of gaming. Endgame content are things that keeps the players playing long after reaching their capstone or having play every inch of the game except for the subtle content. This is why so many players in WoW don't excel at crafting until near their final level such as Blacksmith, which is one of the hardest things to level up at low level due to limited access to the resources needed. Endgame isn't necessarily raiding or getting better gear. It's one of the reasons why DDO has done poor and why players go in and out of the game so fast.
One of the reasons WoW did so well is because of the endgame content...some of which you can engage in early in the game. See #1.
1) By WoW, I meant a world where a player is immersed and involved with the world. DDO not didn't manage to accomplish this, but they didn't break the mold either.
2) It fails as a F2P because you are doing the same thing you are doing in P2P, which is grinding. Name one thing you can do outside of questing.....Don't worry, I'll wait.
3) It feels boxed in because most of your quests are side by side and the dungeons paths are forced. That and everything is instance. Then there is the bad graphics, but I'll stop at the quest.
4) If you want a mod then play NWN or NWN2. If DDO was mod based and forced players to buy content, players would have to be paid for the content they made if Turbine tried to make a profit off of it.
5) Endgame is when a player reaches their peak in terms of gaming. Endgame content are things that keeps the players playing long after reaching their capstone or having play every inch of the game except for the subtle content. This is why so many players in WoW don't excel at crafting until near their final level such as Blacksmith, which is one of the hardest things to level up at low level due to limited access to the resources needed. Endgame isn't necessarily raiding or getting better gear. It's one of the reasons why DDO has done poor and why players go in and out of the game so fast.
One of the reasons WoW did so well is because of the endgame content...some of which you can engage in early in the game. See #1.
1, First of all, if you think "wow" is an immersive world then more power to you. however It's a theme park to me, there is no world. But we can chalk that up to different tastes.
2. what is there to comment on other than "so what" if the f2p is the same as the p2p? It's exactly like LOTRO, you can make your way through at a certain pace and if you want some convenience you can pay. Remember, it's "freemium".
Also, "so what' if that's all you do is quest?" As a matter of fact, that is what dungeons and dragons is now, isn't it? I dont recall doing any "crafting' except for doing epic adventures where I would then get something to bring to a master npc crafter. Also I don't recall any raids. of course, your mileage may vary depending on your d&d pnp experience.
3, isn't part of your point " tomato/tahmato". It's basically what I said in that all one's quests are through this one city. If you feel it's a stronger argument to say "side by side" as opposed to all stemming from the city then that's fine with me but it feels like splitting hairs. As far as dungeon paths being forced, they are dungeons. And usually with a storied background. They aren't wandering around and exploring affairs. Then again, D&D took both routes. One could wander in an impromptu dungeon that the dm just whipped up but more often than not the Dungeon master had a crafted adventure (or module) ready for the players to experience. I don't recall wandering around for hours and not doing anything but wandering and randomly fighting. That would get old fast.
Yes I understand what some people "think" end game content is. But it's silly. First of all, I don't want to be insulting you but you can have your wow endgame content.
As a matter of fact, I have a lot of great things to say about wow but for a game it's pretty lackluster. At least to my taste.
Give me lineage 2 where your "end game' was the same as any other part of the game. It was territorial conquest, economic conquest, alliances, sieges, hunting down pk'ers, player interaction, finding resources, bonding with your guild, etc.
The reason you kept playing was because it actually was an engaging world where the actual game was about the players.
Raiding over and over again for gear? If that's what you like more power to you but that isn't my taste. Oh I can see doing it a few times until you conquered it or even a few times as long as it was fun or if you were helpign a guildy. But to me that' really sin't viable "end game" content. And that's why I think DDO would have been perfect if it was solely module based.
4, Remember, "modules"? They could easily have gone the guild wars route and each expansion (or in this case "module") would be paid for separatley. As far as players being payed for the content they made, why? Why can't it be "buy turbines modules and play player made mods for free"? So turbine would only charge for the content they made. or if they incurred some minor cost to host player content on the servers they could have charged a small amount for players to access their service.
both ryzom and city of heroes have player made content. City of Heroes is a p2p game. At the time of the player made content Ryzom was as well.
To remind you of what some D&D modules were, here are some modules that players would purhase and then would purchase more when they wanted more content.
Comments
It's true that other games out there have dungeons.
but I haven't seen many where there were traps to be dismantled, secret doors to be found, doors that required a thief to actulaly get through them (and if you don't have one tough), where one could make their way through the objective with little fighting if they could stealth their way through and still get full xp for completion.
of course the downside is that once you get through the dungeons a few times you pretty much know them.
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
I'd also like to note that as of the most recent major update, crafting has become pretty damn snazzy.
Now the tons and tons of vendor loot you find can be broken down into core components and recrafted into new enhancements to apply to items in whatever way you see fit (assuming your crafting level is high enough).
It has quirks, like enhanced crafted items are bound to character, so you can't twink out gear for another of your characters on the same account which I find annoying, but you can craft the basic components and pass them between characters.
EDIT: In other words, now not only do you have raid item crafting, quest chain craft items, and epic tier crafting/enhancement for awesome customized items, all the generic stuff you can now tailor into personal awesome items as well.
So no matter what, you have something that works for you and benefits you.
"The knowledge of the theory of logic has no tendency whatever to make men good reasoners." - Thomas B. Macaulay
"The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge." - Daniel J. Boorstin
The servers have a upper limit ot how many instance areas they can have. I experience the crashes back when the game first came out. Areas will produce as many areas as it can. But the server itself has a compacity it can hold before collapsing.
I've never witnessed this, and I've been playing for the past 1.5 years. I also played in 2006, and can say with complete confidence there are tons more players now than then.
........which pretty goes back to what I said about people blowing through the content.
It doesn't matter what the game had. It didn't hold the people's interest long enough to be a great game. It doesn't do anything outside of what it does. I love when people talk about what this game has as if it was the best game in the world. Yet I will ask these same people why did DDO fail and they have no answer. I ask them why has it become popular after revamping and they still don't have a answer. Either they'll change the subject or get argumentive. In some case, they'll just ignore it, writing the other person off as a dimwit who knows nothing. (Ironically, these same people condemn elitist behavior.)
Plus, the dungeons are repetitive no matter the difficulty. The only difference is you need a utility-type and healer-type on Hard and Elite for upper level dungeons because of the traps and increase damage. Also some traps stop working after being exposed and some of them can be avoid by either jumping or using a narrow path. (Which has been the case since the game started)
And that's a different condition than that which you were railing on before.
Not to mention another note. In the server merges they also were merging the hardware to make those max caps higher. When they introduced the two new servers, they also both were higher pop-cap servers than the merged servers.
As far as real statictics goes, Iunno. I play on Argo which is supposedly one of the highest pop servers and it's pretty regularly busy.
EDIT: As for that other post, they have added as well as revamped old large outside zones as fleshed out adventure zones. They also have implemented plenty of larger quest chains across level ranges.
That being said. The game still does suffer from some of the most blatant content repetition I've ever dealt with. I don't mind it mostly out f the gameplay just being more enjoyable, but I still advocate and desire a tool for making one's own dungeons, zones, and quests to play the game akin to NWN.
"The knowledge of the theory of logic has no tendency whatever to make men good reasoners." - Thomas B. Macaulay
"The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge." - Daniel J. Boorstin
1) The game has been around longer than that.
2) LOL!!!
Ditto.
Ahem. Do you recognize the date Feburary 28th, 2006?
Yeah, about that...
Release date(s) : February 28, 2006
Being around longer than that can only imply pre-release stages.
"The knowledge of the theory of logic has no tendency whatever to make men good reasoners." - Thomas B. Macaulay
"The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge." - Daniel J. Boorstin
Well, the game failed beause it wasn't really "dungeons and dragons". And in some ways it was too much "dungeons and dragons".
Many players interested in this game were thinking of a large open world and a setting sort of like greyhawk. The setting that Turbine picked really wasn't a favorite. Quite frankly their setting borders on the extremely ridiculous for my taste.
In any case the developers looked at dungeons and dragons and immediatley honed in on the "small party tackling adventures/dungeons".
but some players couldn't wrap their mind around this as they were still in the "mmo = massive" mindset, so this wasn't for them.
then the players who could get into the way the developers created the game discovered that one can only do these so many times before you are just running through them. I hate to say it but what Turbine should have done was done away with the subscription and sold "modules". Players could then log in and tackle any part of a module they paid for. If they were done then they would acrrue no further cost and could wait for the next module. But Turbine had it in their minds that they were making "an mmo" and "mmo's" had subscription fees.
Where the developers also failed was to not delve into the idea of player made content. After all, dungeons and dragons is about a gm taking his/her group through an adventure that is constnatly growing and evolving.
getting back to my original response, I don't believe that other games do dungeon crawls very well. They are just basically hack and slash affairs (which I do find fun) that don't offer much else. At least DDO supplied more itneresting dungeon crawls where players had to be a bit more aware of what was going on.
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
1) No, WoW. Other NWN.
2) DDO fail not because of P2P, but the lack of content when it launched, poor graphics, repetitive gameplay, and short quests. DDO was thought to break the mold of other MMOs, but it turned out to be just another DDO. But then DDO was never meant to be a MMO.
3) Turbine went from P2P to F2P because of what Koreans were doing with DFO, which made a huge profit for payable content. It blew up in their faces when players found a way to accumulate a lot of favored points to get what they want.
4) Depends. DDO isn't really good in terms of dungeon crawling, but playable and manageable. Not adventure took place in a dungeon. Rather many players have complained in the past that the game feels boxed in compared to games like guild wars and WoW when doing a dungeon. It worse when you play with experience players as you feel there is very little you can contribute except what your class has to offer.
As you progress through the game, it doesn't really offer anything outside from what you get in other games. In fact, DDO seem like a downgrade in terms of end game content. I'm talking about the stuff outside the raid. No casinos, no mounts, no specialized crafting, etc. You're just sitting on money and raiding dungeons all day. That gets boring after a while. Turbine doesn't even try to get the players to stay longer. It's like they are unimagintive as to what keeps the players interest.
They have three different kinds of crafting at this point as I all ready pointed out... o_O
"The knowledge of the theory of logic has no tendency whatever to make men good reasoners." - Thomas B. Macaulay
"The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge." - Daniel J. Boorstin
I played DDO for a while but they pretty much butchered DnD in it and is an insult to DnD fans.
I love the puzzles and traps which adds a whole different dynamic that no other games has. Puzzles were awefully simple thought for most of em so kinda kills things.
Combat is atrocious, archery is completely fubared, tanking is all bout intim mostly, hate the instant death crap.
The "Epic" loot is an atrocious grindfest time sink aliong with crafting.
A lot of classes were completely butchered and there are severe pigeonholing builds out there.
Reincarnation is a ridiculous concept that all it's designed to do is keep players occupied without ever putting out much quality content.
I loved DnD games but DDO has nothing but a sour taste in my mouth. Read some intresting changes but nothing to take me back to the game. I'd rather take my chances with Cryptic's Neverwinter than pay another dime to Turbine. I hope they will follw BW and ANet with a personal dynamic storyline which utimately is the heart and soul of DnD imo and with players the ability to make the content will push it over the top. Any players of DDO that played prior to F2P will most likely transfer over to Neverwinter and DDO will be just one of those F2P games....which it already is for the most part. Don't think any other MMO has lost as much of it's original core player base like DDO has.
I'm not clear on the "wow" comment. However, sure, it could have been a Neverwinter Nights setting.
The thing is the "mmo" players were looking for "large mmo worlds". The Dungeons and Dragons fans were looking for something else entirely. I don't disagree with their decision to make it a group game where people group up and enter dungeons (or whatever encounter one can think up) because more often than not that is what many pen and paper D&D players were doing.
I'm not saying it failed because it was pay to play. I'm saying it shouldn't have been a subscription model in the first place because as you say, there wasn't enough content. Grinding the same dungeon over and over again doesn't work and because it was a subscription game they wanted you to keep playing. So, they make it so you grind dungeons. How incredibly tedious.
the module model would have worked better (in my opinion) because like any module you would buy in D&D, once you were done you were done unless you chose to do it again with a different character. This way they would concnetrate on creating new modules to sell and player would just buy the modules to expand their game. Just like orginal AD&D modules.
I think it feels boxed in because many of the dungeons were just these encounters off of this city. Take any favorite D&D module such as the Vault of the Drow or the Giant modules and there was a full adventure that led from one place to another place. It had more of an organic story feel to it as opposed to these little encounters that the start of the game had.
Since I dont' believe in "end game" content it's difficult to discuss it.
A, I don't believe that mmo's should have "end game content'. The world should be the world and the game should be based on player interactions as opposed to creating some silly raid/end game content where players grind raids for loot and more loot. In Lineage 2 there isn't end game content. There is content. You just tackle it as you can tackle it. And you take control over the world or siege castles as you can do it. I'll agree it's more difficult in a pve game but one can imagine similar types of content where pve mobs attacked cities or took over areas.
D&D could never have an end game because there isn't an end game other than to kill your character. Otherwise once you were finished with a session you waited until the DM had a new session. There wasn't this "well I'm max so now what do I do?" You either continued with super characters or you rerolled your character and started new adventures.
And I'll agree, one of the issues that DDO has is that experienced players essentially blow through these dungeons. Heck, I remember being asked to join for some supposedly difficult dungeon where you needed a full party. Except I barely did anything at all because they just took off. I never got to read the quest in its entirety and I just tried to follow and keep up.
That's why their system doesn't work and why I think it should be module based. You finish the module you are done. Just like any DM D&D adventure.
No DM would ever come back the next week and say 'well, let's do last week's again but on a harder mode".
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
1) By WoW, I meant a world where a player is immersed and involved with the world. DDO not didn't manage to accomplish this, but they didn't break the mold either.
2) It fails as a F2P because you are doing the same thing you are doing in P2P, which is grinding. Name one thing you can do outside of questing.....Don't worry, I'll wait.
3) It feels boxed in because most of your quests are side by side and the dungeons paths are forced. That and everything is instance. Then there is the bad graphics, but I'll stop at the quest.
4) If you want a mod then play NWN or NWN2. If DDO was mod based and forced players to buy content, players would have to be paid for the content they made if Turbine tried to make a profit off of it.
5) Endgame is when a player reaches their peak in terms of gaming. Endgame content are things that keeps the players playing long after reaching their capstone or having play every inch of the game except for the subtle content. This is why so many players in WoW don't excel at crafting until near their final level such as Blacksmith, which is one of the hardest things to level up at low level due to limited access to the resources needed. Endgame isn't necessarily raiding or getting better gear. It's one of the reasons why DDO has done poor and why players go in and out of the game so fast.
One of the reasons WoW did so well is because of the endgame content...some of which you can engage in early in the game. See #1.
1, First of all, if you think "wow" is an immersive world then more power to you. however It's a theme park to me, there is no world. But we can chalk that up to different tastes.
2. what is there to comment on other than "so what" if the f2p is the same as the p2p? It's exactly like LOTRO, you can make your way through at a certain pace and if you want some convenience you can pay. Remember, it's "freemium".
Also, "so what' if that's all you do is quest?" As a matter of fact, that is what dungeons and dragons is now, isn't it? I dont recall doing any "crafting' except for doing epic adventures where I would then get something to bring to a master npc crafter. Also I don't recall any raids. of course, your mileage may vary depending on your d&d pnp experience.
3, isn't part of your point " tomato/tahmato". It's basically what I said in that all one's quests are through this one city. If you feel it's a stronger argument to say "side by side" as opposed to all stemming from the city then that's fine with me but it feels like splitting hairs. As far as dungeon paths being forced, they are dungeons. And usually with a storied background. They aren't wandering around and exploring affairs. Then again, D&D took both routes. One could wander in an impromptu dungeon that the dm just whipped up but more often than not the Dungeon master had a crafted adventure (or module) ready for the players to experience. I don't recall wandering around for hours and not doing anything but wandering and randomly fighting. That would get old fast.
Yes I understand what some people "think" end game content is. But it's silly. First of all, I don't want to be insulting you but you can have your wow endgame content.
As a matter of fact, I have a lot of great things to say about wow but for a game it's pretty lackluster. At least to my taste.
Give me lineage 2 where your "end game' was the same as any other part of the game. It was territorial conquest, economic conquest, alliances, sieges, hunting down pk'ers, player interaction, finding resources, bonding with your guild, etc.
The reason you kept playing was because it actually was an engaging world where the actual game was about the players.
Raiding over and over again for gear? If that's what you like more power to you but that isn't my taste. Oh I can see doing it a few times until you conquered it or even a few times as long as it was fun or if you were helpign a guildy. But to me that' really sin't viable "end game" content. And that's why I think DDO would have been perfect if it was solely module based.
4, Remember, "modules"? They could easily have gone the guild wars route and each expansion (or in this case "module") would be paid for separatley. As far as players being payed for the content they made, why? Why can't it be "buy turbines modules and play player made mods for free"? So turbine would only charge for the content they made. or if they incurred some minor cost to host player content on the servers they could have charged a small amount for players to access their service.
both ryzom and city of heroes have player made content. City of Heroes is a p2p game. At the time of the player made content Ryzom was as well.
To remind you of what some D&D modules were, here are some modules that players would purhase and then would purchase more when they wanted more content.
A1
Slave Pits of the Undercity
4–7
David Cook
1980
A2
Secret of the Slavers Stockade
4–7
Harold Johnson
Tom Moldvay
1981
A3
Assault on the Aerie of the Slave Lords
4–7
Allen Hammack
1981
A4
In the Dungeons of the Slave Lords
4–7
Lawrence Schick
1981
A1–4
Scourge of the Slave Lords
7–11
Various
1986
Code
Title
Levels
Author(s)
Published
Notes
DA1
Adventures in Blackmoor
10–14
Dave L. Arneson
David J. Ritchie
1986
DA2
Temple of the Frog
10–14
Dave L. Arneson
David J. Ritchie
1986
DA3
City of the Gods
10–14
Dave L. Arneson
David J. Ritchie
1987
DA4
The Duchy of Ten
10–14
David J. Ritchie
1987
Code
Title
Levels
Author(s)
Published
Notes
D1
Descent into the Depths of the Earth
Gary Gygax
1978
D2
Shrine of the Kuo-Toa
Gary Gygax
1978
D1-2
Descent into the Depths of the Earth
9–14
Gary Gygax
1981
compilation
D3
Vault of the Drow
10–14
Gary Gygax
1978
well you get the picture.
at the moment DDO has storied content in their updates. Much like LOTRO. Sort of like modules.
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo