Turbine Sues Atari over DDO

[Sheepherder]

Because it looks to me that Turbine isn't asking the court to stop them from terminating the agreement...

Not a lawyer.  In plain English it asks the court to ignore Atari, because Atari is just being a bitch.

[Yegolev]

I say how assenine

Asinine.

[Lantyssa]

I have no idea what legal legitimacy the suit has, but DDO was terribly managed and executed and I'm not surprised that someone wants the license put to better use.

I wonder who made the decision to place it in Eberon instead of Forgotten Realms.  That has as much to do with it as anything.  Other than a handful of people, no one gives a flip about the setting.

[Mrbloodworth]

I have no idea what legal legitimacy the suit has, but DDO was terribly managed and executed and I'm not surprised that someone wants the license put to better use.

I wonder who made the decision to place it in Eberon instead of Forgotten Realms.  That has as much to do with it as anything.  Other than a handful of people, no one gives a flip about the setting.

Its a guess, but I would think that was stipulated in the license, at the time, I think there was a push for that setting, I bet turbine didn't have a choice, other than dont make a DnD based game.

[Ard]

I wonder who made the decision to place it in Eberon instead of Forgotten Realms.  That has as much to do with it as anything.  Other than a handful of people, no one gives a flip about the setting.

That would almost certainly have been someone over at WotC, given that Eberron was their new setting that came out right around the same time frame.  The game, as it exists, could have been made in pretty much any setting, and probably wouldn't have required major tweaks.

edit:  As it was when it launched, nowadays it has an awful lot of Eberron specific trappings.

[CmdrSlack]

Because it looks to me that Turbine isn't asking the court to stop them from terminating the agreement...

Not a lawyer.  In plain English it asks the court to ignore Atari, because Atari is just being a bitch.

To terminate a contract before it expires, you generally (depending on the contract's language) need to have a reason to terminate. Most game development contracts have ways in which the contract ends. (If one didn't, it'd be a pretty shittily drafted one.)

Turbine is asking the court to acknowledge that Atari's reason to terminate the contract is bogus.

[Ingmar]

I have no idea what legal legitimacy the suit has, but DDO was terribly managed and executed and I'm not surprised that someone wants the license put to better use.

I wonder who made the decision to place it in Eberon instead of Forgotten Realms.  That has as much to do with it as anything.  Other than a handful of people, no one gives a flip about the setting.

Eberron sells really well, actually.

[Goumindong]

Eberron sells really well, actually.

I care about Eberron, its much better than FR.

I wouldnt be surprised if they want to try and get a 4th ed. mmo on the market, the rules are much more suited to a computer game than any previous ones.

No they are not.

I mean, they're more balanced than 3rd ed, and that is suited to a computer game, but they are actually much less suited to the type of system you would use for an MMO since you cannot[reasonably] have a turn based MMO.

The key point is the focus on interrupt and reaction abilities which do not translate well into a real time setting.

Turn based single player game, yea it would be great. MMO, it would not work. You would have to bastardize the entire system to the point it was unrecognizable.

[PalmTrees]

I mean, they're more balanced than 3rd ed, and that is suited to a computer game, but they are actually much less suited to the type of system you would use for an MMO since you cannot[reasonably] have a turn based MMO.

The key point is the focus on interrupt and reaction abilities which do not translate well into a real time setting.

Turn based single player game, yea it would be great. MMO, it would not work. You would have to bastardize the entire system to the point it was unrecognizable.

Atlantica is a turn based mmo where you control a squad (party) of different classes. I'm not familiar with 4e rules, but Atlantica was a decently done turn based mmo so it can be done.

[Koyasha]

As long as you don't have anything larger than 6-8 players in a single combat (which in a D&D based game is an entirely reasonable limit) and NPC's can all take their turns simultaneously/instantly it seems like turn-based would be a good and possibly very interesting combat system in an MMO.  Give each player ~10 seconds for their turn, allow them to queue up actions even when it's not their turn (that way if you don't need to change anything when your turn comes up, you can just click confirm and proceed onward without delay) and you have each round of combat lasting less than a minute, usually.

That said, 4th Edition feels utterly wrong to me on so many levels, the couple times I've tried to play it.  I'm probably more likely to enjoy it as a video game than I would be trying to play it pen and paper.

[Goumindong]

The problem isn't thae turns themselves so much as it is navigating the 5-10 reaction powers that each player is going to have and the fact that 4th Ed is not designed with "1 monster" in mind as 3e was. Its designed with many monsters in mind. Players, in general can't decide in that amount of time whether or not to interrupt or react[not to mention the problem with interrupting a power in a computer game like an MMO] and monster turns can take excessively long when each monster[of say, an average size of 5 monsters] takes 10 seconds/turn. Without reaction and interrupt commands its not really 4th ed.

Then, on top of that you have to navigate the AI required for enemy interrupt actions and dealing with things like marks. Which, while entirely possible, should be much more complex than standard aggro mechanics.[Your monsters need to make complex logical choices, but at the same time, cannot be too good so as to break your players, and this is before dealing with issues about who knows what and when]

[Kail]

(snip...) 4th Ed is not designed with "1 monster" in mind as 3e was. Its designed with many monsters in mind.

This.  Try running a campaign with only one player in 4th ed.: this is what soloing would be like in a D&D based MMO.  It's not balanced for it at all.  You're looking at basically a mandatory grouping environment.  You'd either have to let each player control 3-4 guys/hirelings to give them a reasonably interesting game (which MMO companies seem reluctant to do for some reason) or you're looking at a game where you need at least three players to get anything done, and that kills MMOs (speaking of which, does this mean that "DDO for free" is dead in the water if Atari wins this one?).

[DayDream]

Turbine's forum reply to that question was along the lines of "This lawsuit will not change DDO:U release plans."  Whether that's reflecting reality or not, who knows?

[Faust]

DDO's Free to Play isn't very free, unfortunately.  I spent the last couple weeks on a 10 trial in stormreach and played quite a bit.  What I noticed about the lower levels was that regular account holders had 8 or so super twinked characters and were leveling up new characters by running the same old quests over and over as fast as they could.  As a cleric they would be me along to heal-bot.  So I got a new sense of the game from old players.  For some reason I can now play the "unlimited" version and I find it very limited. 

The Game now feels deserted.  I used to get group offers all the time (cleric) but now I see 80% less people running around.  Here are some ideas why (other than they are off in the new content without me)...

In unlimited you can only have 2 characters.  When I logged into unlimited I had to cancel 3 characters that I'd rolled up. 
Want more slots to get back Twinkie?  about $8 each. 
Was it a Monk? $5 more to roll a monk OR get your old monk back. 
Want to level a new character past level 4? $4 please.  Past level 8? $7 please.
Would you like to go to steam tunnels? Buy the module for $8
3 barrel cove dungeon? $8
etc. etc.

I THINK you can find some of these prizes as loot in dungeons.  Example: while playing my level 2 ranger I found a thingy that allows me to level to level 8 but I haven''t seen anything else.  Also, you earn points (that you'd otherwise buy) by doing dungeons and etc to earn them, but the rewards haven't actually been given to my account.  Pricing is a bit steep, imo.  I have 25 points so far.  It takes 1400 to open a third slot.

So, as a cleric I cant go many places without buying access to them individually and I cant level past 8th without paying for it and I cant find a group because I don't have the same modules as everyone else in the party and since I cant find a party with a cleric and sure as hell cant solo the free stuff in a cleric... I cant access a level 4 monk I made to screw around on because I haven't paid for the slot and haven't paid for "monk" and couldn't level him past 4 anyway.  And think: I'm like 3 weeks into this.  Imagine how you'd feel if you had 3 years of characters who had an "E" ticket to all the features of the game who suddenly would need to spend $100 or so to get back to situation almost-normal?

I could be wrong about the mechanics, i.e. there might be an "E Ticket" option buried in the store where I cant find it, but I think maybe they shot themselves in the foot.

This doesn't feel like Free 2 Play to me.  But what do I know?  I'm just a potential customer.

[Lantyssa]

Find a $5 box somewhere.  My lapsed (as of August 9th) account is now a Premium with four character slots per server and I got 500 points to spend in addition to what my character had earned through faction.  I am assuming they will still honor old keys, so it should make you VIP for a month, then revert to a Premium account.

In beta I had the option of the level limit token once as a hard reward, in the tutorial missions.  I rarely ran hard missions, so I do not know how common they are, however that is how you can unlock the higher levels.  You should still get xp, you just can't redeem it.  (I'll avoid comment for the most part on the need to farm to obtain the level unlock...)

A somewhat annoying but fairly quick way to get a few free points is to make a new character and run through three tutorial missions on normal on each server.  Reaching five favor will net you 50 points on your account.