D&D online beta begins

[Samwise]

Which I think is why NDAs exist.  If there are any flaws in the game, they will be magnified 100x by anyone who's in the beta and is describing it to someone who's not in the beta.  If your beta is a relatively small pool of people, it's that much easier for the negative hype to quickly outpace the positive hype.

Blizzard, of course, has legions of fanbois that will defend anything they do to the death, so they don't have as much to worry about.  But a project like DDO is guaranteed to have something for everyone to criticize (PnP fans will complain that there isn't Turing-approved AI substituting for a DM, MMO fans will complain that there isn't enough grind).

[Nija]

Yeah those EXCLUSIVE betas.

(insert a rolleyes the size of the SUN here)

http://www.fileplanet.com/promotions/ddo_stormreach/

Anyways, I don't care about the deletion. JOLLY GOOD SHOW, I anxiously await to hear what you all think when the NDA is lifted.

[Lt.Dan]

Because fileplanet is guaranteed to give you the best testers?

[El Gallo]

 Hey I know I've said a lot of mean things about Turbine but let me in beta and I'll be nice until I get in to Vanguard's beta kkthx.
/betawhore

[HaemishM]

You should say that with more tongue.

[Shockeye]

PRESS RELEASE: TURBINE AND CODEMASTERS TEAM TO DELIVER DUNGEONS & DRAGONS® ONLINE: STORMREACH™ IN EUROPE

...

Dungeons & Dragons Online: Stormreach was voted the "Most Anticipated Upcoming MMO" in a recent survey by IGN.* In addition, the game won numerous awards and accolades from its showing at E3 in May, including "Best in Show" from Stratics.com, "Best Persistent World Game" from IGN and "Best of Show" from MMOGChart.com.

"Best of Show" from MMOGChart? Are you hurting that much for accolades that you have to pimp the furry? You should be ashamed.

[stray]

I hear he's quite popular actually.

[schild]

I hear he's quite popular actually.

Infamous != Popular.

[Alkiera]

There's a new beta journal thing up at DDO.com...  THis one has a story regarding a classic PnP situation that is often non-existing in MMOs...  It seems that the restrictions in the mission system(only resting at certain locations, little to no hp/mana regen, etc) may actually result in interesting gameplay.

http://www.ddo.com/index.php?page_id=66&pagebuilder[module]=article&pagebuilder[display_item]=141

Alkiera

[Calandryll]

There's a new beta journal thing up at DDO.com...  THis one has a story regarding a classic PnP situation that is often non-existing in MMOs...  It seems that the restrictions in the mission system(only resting at certain locations, little to no hp/mana regen, etc) may actually result in interesting gameplay.

http://www.ddo.com/index.php?page_id=66&pagebuilder[module]=article&pagebuilder[display_item]=141

Alkiera

Good to see that the journal made that clear. That journal actually started out as a post on the beta forums and we asked the player to turn it into a Beta Journal. We noticed that some people outside of Beta weren't quite understanding how the lack of auto-hitpoint regen, XP for completing a quest rather than ganking monsters, and some of the other aspects of DDO were there to create a unique kind of gameplay. If we added in auto-regen or required you to kill every monster in a dungeon in order to get all of the XP, a lot of the tactics and challenges of the quests would go away.

[Nebu]

Don't you have concerns that spoiler sites will ruin some of this dynamic?  What I'm asking: is it possible to implement enough variety that over time the quest experience will still be as fresh to the player as the one described in the journal?  If this is a subscription-based mmog then you're talking about ways to keep the player for the long haul.  I just don't see how quests such as these will exist after the first 2 weeks of the game.  After the first group of people finds a way to complete a task, the news will spread and ruin the experience for those wishing to discover it for themself. 

No matter how I've tried to avoid getting insider information in a game, I'm inevitably bombarded with it to the point that it's difficult to have a fresh experience if I'm not the first one to actually do it... and I don't have the time to be the first!

[Calandryll]

Don't you have concerns that spoiler sites will ruin some of this dynamic?  What I'm asking: is it possible to implement enough variety that over time the quest experience will still be as fresh to the player as the one described in the journal?  If this is a subscription-based mmog then you're talking about ways to keep the player for the long haul.  I just don't see how quests such as these will exist after the first 2 weeks of the game.  After the first group of people finds a way to complete a task, the news will spread and ruin the experience for those wishing to discover it for themself. 

No matter how I've tried to avoid getting insider information in a game, I'm inevitably bombarded with it to the point that it's difficult to have a fresh experience if I'm not the first one to actually do it... and I don't have the time to be the first!

No more than any other quest in any other game I suppose.

I think the difference is, even if you know the solution to a quest, something could happen during that quest to throw you off. Just like in the journal. Even if the players knew how to beat the quest, there is no way they could anticipate being in the situation they were in. And that journal was just one example of how they could have completed the quest. Had they been in a different situation they might have needed to think of a different way to solve the quest.

The thing that makes DDO unique is that the quests are goal oriented AND for the most part the game doesn't penalize you for how you accomplish the goal. It also means you can bring a variety of party-mates along with you. So if you are fighter heavy, you can wade through the monsters or if you have rogues, you sneak past them all...and no matter which way you do it, you still get the XP from the quest. So you don't NEED a cleric or NEED a wizard in your party in order to be effective. I've adventured with some parties that didn't even have a fighter (or any other tank) and we did just fine. We simply had to adjust our tactics.

The game lets you use your head when trying to figure out a solution. In other games, sneaking past those monsters would be leaving behind XP. In DDO, it's up to you.

[tazelbain]

Interesting.
Calandryll, maybe you should consider the "Runner" phenomenon in GW and what impact it could have on your game.  In GW, many things important thing (character advancement wise) are tied to locations in the worlds.  This has lead to the creation of a service called Running where more advanced players "run" players to these or in some case through whole mission for an in-game fee.

On one hand it creates interesting economy. On the other hand it trivializes content. I could see that being a common thing since your game is objective-oriented. High players completing the objectives while low-level players go afk.

[Sobelius]

Interesting.
Calandryll, maybe you should consider the "Runner" phenomenon in GW and what impact it could have on your game.  In GW, many things important thing (character advancement wise) are tied to locations in the worlds.  This has lead to the creation of a service called Running where more advanced players "run" players to these or in some case through whole mission for an in-game fee.

On one hand it creates interesting economy. On the other hand it trivializes content. I could see that being a common thing since your game is objective-oriented. High players completing the objectives while low-level players go afk.

Well, the benefit in GW is that it's real purpose is PvP -- "running" works because there are players don't care about content but want to unlock all the powers for their class. (Too bad, IMHO, since GW has some gorgeous, if linear, content.)

[Samwise]

Interesting.
Calandryll, maybe you should consider the "Runner" phenomenon in GW and what impact it could have on your game.  In GW, many things important thing (character advancement wise) are tied to locations in the worlds.  This has lead to the creation of a service called Running where more advanced players "run" players to these or in some case through whole mission for an in-game fee.

On one hand it creates interesting economy. On the other hand it trivializes content. I could see that being a common thing since your game is objective-oriented. High players completing the objectives while low-level players go afk.

I'm pretty sure I'm not breaking    when I say I'm nearly 100% positive they thought of this.   

[Sunbury]

That write up turns me off to the game.

It screams:  must get in a good guild, and only adventure with balanced groups of known players.   Anything else and you are wasting your time.

You also must have large blocks of time to complete quests, else you are again wasting your time.

So you start a quest, work though it for 2 hrs, then:
 1) find its bugged and can't be finished
 2) Your system crashes or you lose power
 3) find you can't finish it because you aren't high enough, wrong equipment, wrong classes

You just wasted the time.  Sure, it may be fun to do that once to see the place, but if I have to do it again and again to try to get through it, yuck.

Reading about the game, I feels to me its like one took WoW, and removed everything but the instances, and even in the instances you only progress if you kill the boss.   If there were only instances in WoW I wouldn't have played the game for more than 2 weeks.

No logging in for 30 min to kill 5 of 10 for a quest, then logging out again.

[Sobelius]

Sunbury, perhaps Turbine designers are trying to capture the feel of PnP D&D instead of incremental whack-a-mole quests. It may not work in the MMO market -- I'm not disagreeing with your comment -- I'm just noting that the things you observed may be by design.

At this point, I don't think Turbine hopes to have a WoW-killer. I think they want to have a game that stands up well on its own and is a viable alternative. I'm also wondering if they hope to have DDO playable on consoles...

[shiznitz]

I continue to have concerns that DDO can keep people subscribed for more than a few months. The gameplay sounds great, don't get me wrong, but content is going to be a real challenge.

I think DDO should charge a higher monthly fee ($25?) and build a business model around people playing for a few months then quitting until the next big content patch - differentiating itself from the GW model by making all the content patches free. You would invariably get a core group that subscribed for long periods at the higher price plus an appearance of good value with "free" content. People typically don't play PnP every day like MMO customers play MMOs. DDO strikes me as the perfect game model to encourage people to play hard for short bursts and then come back for new content. What about weekly pricing?

Granted, all this is coming from someone who really has no idea how deep the actual content is/will be. I am just skeptical that objective based adventuring can be designed fast enough to stay ahead of normal content consumption rates. For example, one would think the "kill 500" part of the EQ2 betrayal quests would keep people busy for more than 3 nights. If people come to DDO with that kind of "grind" mindset, Turbine is going to have a lot of short subscriptions. The pricing model should match this potential "boom and bust" approach.

[Numtini]

Everything I've seen sounds like GW or Diablo II. And I don't understand how that equates to a subscription model. Is there a MMP aspect to this?

If so I guess there's no monthly fee?

[stray]

Grrrr.....

[Nebu]

I continue to have concerns that DDO can keep people subscribed for more than a few months. The gameplay sounds great, don't get me wrong, but content is going to be a real challenge.

That is my concern as well.  Keeping people interested for a month seems pretty doable.  It's keeping them hooked for 6 months that seems tough.  The only ways that I can think to accomplish the latter are a) give them some stake in the game world (allow them to play in the sandbox) b) make the endgame enjoyable c) Make the climb to the endgame fun and with enough replay value that people will try several different paths.  Noone seems to have found a way to make a) work.  The solution to b) seems to most commonly be item acquisition through raids... no thanks.  WoW and CoH have made the climb fun but the replay value and end game limit retention. 

I also know that I would happily pay more for a game if the content was added on a regular basis. I'd really like to get my hands on the market analyses for subscription pricing.  It really has me wondering what the motivation is for clinging on to the $15/month price point. If someone were to do something as novel as releasing a completed game and offering regular, non-broken updates, they may see some reasonable return on investment.

[HaemishM]

It really has me wondering what the motivation is for clinging on to the $15/month price point.

"They did it first?"

[Threash]

There's a new beta journal thing up at DDO.com...  THis one has a story regarding a classic PnP situation that is often non-existing in MMOs...  It seems that the restrictions in the mission system(only resting at certain locations, little to no hp/mana regen, etc) may actually result in interesting gameplay.

http://www.ddo.com/index.php?page_id=66&pagebuilder[module]=article&pagebuilder[display_item]=141

Alkiera

Same journal from one of the other players PoV:  "sat on my ass while the naked elf pranced around".  Hmm, doesn't sound like much fun :P

[Sobelius]

Same journal from one of the other players PoV:  "sat on my ass while the naked elf pranced around".  Hmm, doesn't sound like much fun :P

Well, this can happen a lot of times in PnP D&D too. Sometimes the party decides the best way to approach is to let one person try something. No, it's not fun when one person does everything while everyone else sits around, especially not in PnP D&D. But this journal entry made it sound like it was a deliberate choice to have only one person take action -- they could have done it with everyone involved but somehow came to the conclusion it was better not to. What's tough about a journal like this is that most groups will never have this kind of experience because the lowest common denominator behavior in most MMO pickup groups is "faster pussycat kill kill". In Beta maybe. In retail, hmmmm...

[Sky]

I once got shitfaced at the Whiskey with the singer from Faster Pussycat.

[Flood]

The last time I was in the Whiskey I was about 3 Tanquray's from non-functional and happened to run into Ron Jeremy with a couple plasticized blonded on either arm.  I made a fool out of myself talking to him and wanting to buy the Hedgehog a drink.  But he seemed okay with it all and a fairly down to earth guy.  For an ex-porn star.


Uh, anyway about content difficulty and game dynamics.  Given that the MMO market, particularly on PC's, is a niche market anyway I would think that more "difficult" content would actually make the game more appealling to a certain segment of the playerbase.  (Like well, me.)  And I applaud any design team that doesn't re-cut and polish the tired DIKU/EQ game dynamic AGAIN.  *cough* WoW *cough*.  Although from a business standpoint that sort of statement is ludicrous given WoW's success.  Is it even possible to make games that have the feel of an AC1, System Shock or Dues Ex anymore?  Maybe we have reached the point of terminal over stimulation.   

[Swede]

"... Is it even possible to make games that have the feel of an AC1, System Shock or Dues Ex anymore?  Maybe we have reached the point of terminal over stimulation.."

More likely - someone figured out that customer satisfaction is dependent (among other things) on the experience of the customer towards the product (IE new mmog customers arent looking for the same thing that experienced gamers are) - and started to tailor the games towards them since there are an awful lot of more of those. Just wait and see - once we get an ample supply of experienced gamers - it will be equally profitable to build games aimed at a more mature crowd, and not just dumbed down versions of muds from '79...

[jpark]

Thanks for that journal entry link.  I now have a much better idea of how this game seeks to differentiate itself - and I am interested.

[MrHat]

Thanks for that journal entry link.  I now have a much better idea of how this game seeks to differentiate itself - and I am interested.

Time to fish up that beta invite.

[Sky]

Ron Jeremy loves free drinks (who doesn't?). I bought him a round at the Rainbow. Some things in life are just worth doing. Later I saw the movie about him and wish I had taken more time to talk with him, he's a pretty fascinating character.

[stray]

He's a moderately intelligent, fat, ugly fuck who just so happens to have a big _____ . That's fascinating? 

[Samwise]

I imagine he has some great stories to tell if nothing else.

[stray]

I imagine he has some great stories to tell if nothing else.

Hmm....A porn star?

If that's the case, then he needs to be writing some good scripts. His industry could use them.


Err....Nevermind. Who wants "story" in their smut anyhow?

[WayAbvPar]

I always wonder if the cable ever gets fixed.

[HaemishM]

He's a moderately intelligent, fat, ugly fuck who just so happens to have a big _____ . That's fascinating? 

I saw Ron Jeremy on the season of the Surreal Life he was on (along with Erik Estrada, Vanilla Ice, Tammy Faye Baker and some other now nobodies). He and Estrada were the most down to earth and interesting guys in the whole damn house. He's a funny guy.