Will DDO survive the April attrition as free months expire?

[Telemediocrity]

If the Founders are any indication, the answer is an overwhelming "yes".

Founders are people who played the Head Start period, 10-day beta, etcetera.  Not only have they had more time to play DDO, they're almost certainly more likely than the average gamer to put in longer hours.  If anyone would be experiencing DDO's fabled 'lack of content' jones at this point, it'd be them.

And yet, as seen in that thread, they're overwhelmingly sticking with the game, and enjoying it.

The future looks bright for DDO.

[Rasix]

Are you lobbying to get unbanned at Corpnews or something?

[Telemediocrity]

Are you lobbying to get unbanned at Corpnews or something?

Haven't we established that I'm a Turbine fanboi?

Honestly, though, I just think DDO is really getting an unfair rap around here, and that's giving people an inaccurate perception of the game's chances.

[Nebu]

Unfair rap?  It's a mediocre game with barely enough content to keep players interested for a week or two.  Charging a monthly fee for that is an atrocity. 

I'd say that, if anything, people here have been a bit overly kind to this title.

[Telemediocrity]

It's a mediocre game with barely enough content to keep players interested for a week or two.

Questing is central to MMOs, and it has the best questing system on the market.  Barely enough content to keep players interested for a week or two?  Read the fucking thread - it's got people who play 20 hours a week or something insanely catass like that since the Head Start period and have still only seen half the content.

Mediocre is one where you've got your opinion and I've got mine - but the myth that DDO has barely enough content for a week or two is just that - a myth.  Even the players on that thread who play more than any person humanly should seem to recognize that.  All you're doing is parroting the 'conventional wisdom' about DDO - conventional wisdom that, in this case, happens to be flat-out wrong.

[Nebu]

Touchy touchy.

[Trippy]

For somebody who tries so hard to make his posts sound logical and rational you picked a poor example to support your argument. Try again.

[Margalis]

Talk about a self-selecting sample.

The people who already quit aren't reading the boards any more. This question is the equivalent of "say 'hey' if you can't hear me at all!"

You need to take some sort of class on polling and statistics. People who got bored during beta have left. People who got bored during head start have left. People who got bored while live have left.

The only people who are going to respond to that question are people who are sticking around. The best you can do is catch people who are just on the cusp of leaving. By definition nearly all of the people reading the board for a game are people who like that game at least somewhat.

Will DDO survive? Yes. Does anybody care? Other than you, not really.

[Samwise]

By definition nearly all of the people reading the board for a game are people who like that game at least somewhat.

You've clearly never seen the SWG boards.

[Miasma]

I read those forums often because I love watching trainwrecks and DDO is a spectacular disaster.  You picked one fucking fanboi thread out of literally hundreds of "I quit, this game is a worthless shitstain" threads.  The vast, vast majority of posts are critical of the game.  Founders think they are something special and as a percentage are going to post far more often than anyone else so trying to extend how they feel to everyone else is moronic.  Even then the sum total of that thread would be about three hundred people and the thread is almost a week old, that shows really pathetic support from even their most die hard fanbois.  In a few days when 90% of people have let their subscriptions expire the only ones left will be founders, you could fit all of them on one server and just shut the rest down.

Half of the f13 posts I just read are from you trying to pimp this piece of shit, everyone knows how bad it is but you.  The mere fact that you actually like it makes me assume that the only people left playing come mid April will be sociopathic rejects like yourself.

Name one major, substantive thing DDO does that WoW does better.

Shit like this is just blatant trolling, the flaws of DDO are so huge and numerous compared to something like WoW that even you can't be dumb enough to believe what you wrote.

[WindupAtheist]

Name one major, substantive thing DDO does that WoW does better.

I like this bit of sophistry.  It makes a limited featureset sound like a good thing.  WoW doesn't have better PVP/crafting/endgame/whatever than DDO, because DDO doesn't have those things at all.  Now if they just remove the quests and combat, it will be the WoW-slayer.

[Telemediocrity]

Name one major, substantive thing DDO does that WoW does better.

I like this bit of sophistry.  It makes a limited featureset sound like a good thing.

Unless you're going to have a sandbox (Which is cool in and of itself, but neither DDO nor WoW is one), I firmly believe that a limited featureset is a good thing.  Better to do one fun thing and do it well, than to try a bunch of things at once and end up with none of them being fun (a-la WoW).  I have no problem with playing one game for good exploration, one game for good questing, one game for good PvP.

A game doesn't get any points from me for having more features if those features don't add anything fun.

WoW doesn't have better PVP/crafting/endgame/whatever than DDO, because DDO doesn't have those things at all.  Now if they just remove the quests and combat, it will be the WoW-slayer.

WoW's PvP is mediocre at best - about the level of DAoC.  There's no twitch skill, and you're automatically shoehorned into sides (Horde or Alliance) with no options of selecting who your teammates are or aren't.  There's no potential for serious politics, diplomacy, or intrigue.  It's like Counterstrike minus any adrenaline rush.

WoW's crafting is, err, crafting.  I've never seen how crafting, in and of itself, can have appeal since it's just a means to an end.  The only game I can think of where crafting could truly be considered 'fun' or 'un-fun' would be Puzzle Pirates.

The closest DDO has in terms of crafting is collecting, and I have a hard time seeing how crafting is significantly different from collecting - they both serve about the same purpose, except at a superficial level.

The very idea of differentiating between a 'game' and 'endgame' is a false assumption.  I firmly reject the idea that games should have an 'endgame' that is in some way different than the 'game' that came along thus far.  That's bullshit in the same way that 'You should do some PvE in order to PvP' is bullshit.


Edit:  Oh, and you still haven't listed something that DDO does that WoW does better.  It's not sophistry, it's the right question to be asking.

[schild]

You really need to stop talking. You make about half as much sense as I do and make me sound relatively normal even though most of my viewpoints are OFF THE FUCKING MAP. You don't pick your side in arguments because it's the good side and you don't pick your opinions because they're the reasonable opinion - you pick both because you want to make yourself look smarter than you are. Unfortunately you come off as positively nutjobbish. You desperately need to slow down and think before you start typing. I mean, isn't it a clue that even before you admitted to being Mediocre people had already started to dislike you immensely. Your conversational skills are fucking toxic. Get a grip, man.

Edit: And btw, people differentiate the game and endgame because developers do it either conciously or subconciously in their design of a game. It's readily apparently to anyone that's played an MMOG that everything up until the last levels is something entirely different from what you'll be doing when you hit those last levels. Hence, endgame. But you already knew that. You just wanted to be argumentative.

[Telemediocrity]

You really need to stop talking. You make about half as much sense as I do and make me sound relatively normal even though most of my viewpoints are OFF THE FUCKING MAP. You don't pick your side in arguments because it's the good side and you don't pick your opinions because they're the reasonable opinion - you pick both because you want to make yourself look smarter than you are. Unfortunately you come off as positively nutjobbish. You desperately need to slow down and think before you start typing. I mean, isn't it a clue that even before you admitted to being Mediocre people had already started to dislike you immensely. Your conversational skills are fucking toxic. Get a grip, man.

If I were trying to make myself look smart, wouldn't I pick positions that are generally agreed with?  Correct me if I'm wrong, but don't people on average tend to hold more favorably people with whom they agree?

I don't see how my positions are nutjobbish.  Most MMOs are completely unfun.  Therefore, my approach to MMOs is that I start with the most fundamental, logical question:  "What's fun?"

From there, I sort games into three groups. (This is all assuming I play as the game devs intended, not taking into account griefing or things like that)

Largely fun:  AC1, Puzzle Pirates, Toontown, DDO.  Also probably EVE, if I were into space combat.

Some elements of fun to be had, mayhaps:  ATITD, Guild Wars, CoH, Neocron, UO and Shadowbane (If I could deal with click-movement), RuneScape, SWG post-NGE

Absolutely no fun to be had:  EQ, DAoC, WoW, AO, Horizons, MapleStory, Rubies of Eventide, SilkRoad Online, SWG pre-NGE


From there, I ask myself "What was it about game X that was fun?  What differentiates fun game X from semi-fun game Y and unfun game Z?".

How is that nut-jobbish?

Edit: And btw, people differentiate the game and endgame because developers do it either conciously or subconciously in their design of a game. It's readily apparently to anyone that's played an MMOG that everything up until the last levels is something entirely different from what you'll be doing when you hit those last levels. Hence, endgame. But you already knew that. You just wanted to be argumentative.

Some devs do that - lazy devs, I would argue.  I would say it's a flawed way of thinking that needs to be stamped out.  But the most enjoyable MMOs don't take this path.  AC1, DDO, Guild Wars (at least when I played), Puzzle Pirates, and ToonTown (at least when I played) all do not make any significant distinction between what you do at the 'end' and what you do on the way there.

Can you point me to a single case where making this distinction has made the game more fun?  AC1 has raid-like bosses, some of which take 10 people or so to take down. But instead, they took said bosses and made 'lesser' or otherwise gimpy versions of them, one version for each level range, so that a group of 5 level 20's and 5 level 100's can each try what is functionally the very same uber-quest - and the game is much better for it.

I've never understood why WoW wouldn't offer a 'lesser Molten Core' suitable for 5 level 10-20's (they could shoehorn it into the lore somehow, just like AC always did), except to keep their players hitting the skinner boxes in the hopes of getting the Big Shiny at the end of the tunnel.

I've never heard a serious argument for an end-game system that benefited from keeping the players who haven't hit the cap from participating.

[Samwise]

I've never heard a serious argument for an end-game system that benefited from keeping the players who haven't hit the cap from participating.

There is one way that an "endgame" makes sense - if playing the endgame requires the use of skills that are best acquired by playing the "early game".

I do not believe that this is applicable to any current MMOG, however, since MMOG progression usually requires about a week of grinding for every hour spent seeing something new.  (And yes, DDO is one of the better games in this regard, though it still has a ways to go.)  The best example of an endgame in this vein I can currently think of is Spore (which is unfortunate since it's not actually out yet), since in Spore the "early game" is goal-oriented and teaches you to use the various tools, and the "endgame" is a sandbox game that requires you to be familiar with those tools.

I've ranted before about my ideas for a MMOG whose "endgame" is a city/dungeon/whatever-building game that overlays the "early game" that everyone else is playing.  Playing the early game familiarizes you with the game systems and world, and as you acquire money and power through the early game you eventually get to the first stages of the world-building game.  (A bit like Spore's progression is expressed by steadily broadening the player's context into bigger and bigger spaces.)  It'd be the Holy Grail of player content if it could be done right.

[Telemediocrity]

I've never heard a serious argument for an end-game system that benefited from keeping the players who haven't hit the cap from participating.

There is one way that an "endgame" makes sense - if playing the endgame requires the use of skills that are best acquired by playing the "early game".

I do not believe that this is applicable to any current MMOG, however, since MMOG progression usually requires about a week of grinding for every hour spent seeing something new.  (And yes, DDO is one of the better games in this regard, though it still has a ways to go.)  The best example of an endgame in this vein I can currently think of is Spore (which is unfortunate since it's not actually out yet), since in Spore the "early game" is goal-oriented and teaches you to use the various tools, and the "endgame" is a sandbox game that requires you to be familiar with those tools.

I've ranted before about my ideas for a MMOG whose "endgame" is a city/dungeon/whatever-building game that overlays the "early game" that everyone else is playing.  Playing the early game familiarizes you with the game systems and world, and as you acquire money and power through the early game you eventually get to the first stages of the world-building game.  (A bit like Spore's progression is expressed by steadily broadening the player's context into bigger and bigger spaces.)  It'd be the Holy Grail of player content if it could be done right.

You and I are largely in agreement.  Of course, I think in situations of ambiguity, the game should lean toward allowing players to try and fail for themselves, rather than leaning toward the side of restriction.

What you're talking about sounds like something I'd play.

AC1 Darktide had something relatively similar in the early days, in that the big boys were playing Town Control (the towns being already built and non-destructible, but you could force the other guys out) and the little guys, who lived in said towns, became slowly socialized into the system - meeting higher level players, making higher-level friends who would later take them on as guildmates and potentially powerlevel them, tossing low level heals in fights between high levels, being distractions/decoys, or otherwise finding ways to turn the balance.  There were enough towns compared to players that as a lower-level group matured, they could fight over one of the 'lesser' towns against other low-levels, or maybe move into unoccupied territory.

Of course, that all came about largely by accident, and later PvE-oriented developer decisions completely destroyed the mechanic.  But it left me convinced that any game desiring to be a sandbox/world must come with fully fleshed-out mechanisms that encourage high-levels to socialize low-levels into the game's systems.

I apologize if I reference AC1DT a lot - it's just that largely by accident, for a time there occurred in that game/server a confluence of random/unintentional factors that produced some really incredible gameplay mechanics - mechanics that dev teams today should be doing their best to try and bring about intentionally.

I think that a lot of the transient nature of our 'golden age' playing experiences in various games - AC1, UO, EQ - can be chalked up not to rose colored glasses, but to a temporary confluence of factors, such as level distributions among the playerbase or the ratio of content/in-game landmass to the number of players.  The next step for MMO theory, I think, is to come up with a framework in which we can understand (and predict and design with such things in mind, for those on the dev side) how these worlds change with time.  These trends really seems to be systemic and flow according to logical rules, as opposed to being random and circumstantial to each game/server.

[Margalis]

The closest DDO has in terms of crafting is collecting, and I have a hard time seeing how crafting is significantly different from collecting - they both serve about the same purpose, except at a superficial level.

Umm...wow. Collection in DDO is a worthless boring piece of shit that serves ZERO purpose other than "uh...this game has no crafting content but here collect something I guess! Depth!"

Christ they could have at least made it interesting like collecting sets of armor/weapons or something pokemon like. Instead collecting consists of you see some glowy group of mushrooms and click on them once. The end. How exciting. I think "press the space bar once every ten minutes" might be more fun than DDO collecting. How anyone can enjoy or even *tolerate* it is beyond me.

Edit:  Oh, and you still haven't listed something that DDO does that WoW does better.  It's not sophistry, it's the right question to be asking.

More interesting classes.
Better graphics.
Better sound effects.
A sense of world.
Mob variety.
Solo play.
Areas in the game that aren't a guy's basement.
Be fun.
Better combat. (Sad but true)
Better written quests. (Again sad but true)

And again, that isn't the right question. Name something an orange does that a space shuttle does better. Gee that's hard...orange for the win! That orange is worth 100 million dollars!

WoW does a lot more, is a lot better, and costs about the same. Great deal that DDO.

[schild]

Areas in the game that aren't a guy's basement.

I think I saw something about this on an ad sheet for DDO. Something about "features."

[Telemediocrity]

Umm...wow. Collection in DDO is a worthless boring piece of shit that serves ZERO purpose other than "uh...this game has no crafting content but here collect something I guess! Depth!"

Christ they could have at least made it interesting like collecting sets of armor/weapons or something pokemon like. Instead collecting consists of you see some glowy group of mushrooms and click on them once. The end. How exciting. I think "press the space bar once every ten minutes" might be more fun than DDO collecting. How anyone can enjoy or even *tolerate* it is beyond me.

It involves dungeon exploration - alternate paths that have glowies at the end, that sort of thing.  Dungeon exploration is fun, and the glowies serve to encourage dungeon exploration.

What was fun about WoW crafting, again?  Oh, that's right - nothing.

More interesting classes.

Classes are a means to an end, with the end being good gameplay.  When comparing actual comparable gameplay, such as a rogue in WoW to a rogue in DDO, DDO wins hands down.

Edit:  The more I think about this one, the more daffy it seems.  Compare class fluidity in WoW to DDO, where you can multiclass or play without healers and do just fine if you're smart.  It's not up to the standard of AC1, where mages, archers, and melees could all tank, heal, and play damage dealer, but it's certainly better than anything WoW's got on offer.

Better graphics.
Better sound effects.

A fair point - I like WoW's graphical style as well.  However, pretty pictures are still a much lesser order concern for me.

A sense of world.

I never felt this in either game, though DDO has much better written stories.  Blizzard's never been able to write storylines for shit.

Mob variety.

Semi-fair point, at least in the graphical department.  In terms of the mobs affecting gameplay, I'd say DDO wins in this arena.

Solo play.

Again, I don't see grouping vs solo as being a major salient point of MMOs in general - if the gameplay is fun, it's fun, regardless of how many people you've got around you.  It's never taken me more than 5 minutes in DDO to find a group and get ready to go.

Areas in the game that aren't a guy's basement.

DDO actually has a lot of varied environments (for instance, fighting on pirate ships or underground mushroom lakes), though I'll agree that they overuse the brown.  However, DDO shines in usable world geometry, whereas WoW does not.

Better combat. (Sad but true)

DDO's more twitch-oriented combat system is far superior to WoW's, which might as well be done as a text MUD.

Better written quests. (Again sad but true)

See my comment above that Blizzard couldn't write a decent storyline to save their life, and that goes for pretty much all their games. (Yes, even Blackthorne)  I've not encountered a story they've written yet that was anything but forgettable.  I guess it's a testament to their brand loyalty that they've managed to publish actual books based on the Warcraft franchise.

[Samwise]

I believe I speak for sane people everywhere when I say that we don't need a "yes it is/no it isn't" argument over whether WoW or DDO has better writing, prettier graphics, more "fun" combat, or anything similarly subjective.

I would like some elaboration on how WoW's "crafting" gameplay differs from DDO's "collecting" gameplay, though.  I was under the impression that in either system you collect a few sprockets, hit a button to combine them, and you get a widget.  Right?

[Sparky]

Nah, they won't shut it down until they've had a chance to put an expansion on the shelves.

 

[Sairon]

It's a mole!  :-D

[Arthur_Parker]

If the Founders are any indication, the answer is an overwhelming "yes".

Founders are people who played the Head Start period, 10-day beta, etcetera.  Not only have they had more time to play DDO, they're almost certainly more likely than the average gamer to put in longer hours.  If anyone would be experiencing DDO's fabled 'lack of content' jones at this point, it'd be them.

And yet, as seen in that thread, they're overwhelmingly sticking with the game, and enjoying it.

The future looks bright for DDO.

The future's so bright I gotta wear shades.

Hmm, using official forums as evidence supporting a point of view.  Ok let's give it a go, European player's calling for server merges.

No, no, no, that's just one thread, it doesn't really prove anything. 

How about this?

First DDO user to register, thur 23rf Feb
last user to register, wed 1st march. End of 1st week.

First user, thur 2nd March
Last user, wed 8th March.  End of 2nd week

First user, thur 9th March
Last user, wed 15th March.  End of 3rd week

First user, thur 16th March
Last user, wed 22nd March.  End of 4th week.

First user, thur 23rd March
Last user, wed 29th March.  End of 5th week.

So that means the number of DDO official forum accounts created in the first five weeks are:-

1st Week = 11,133
2nd Week =  3,384
3rd Week =  2,496
4th Week =  1,835
5th Week =  1,263

Can anyone playing at home spot a pattern?  Does all that mean DDO will fail?  Nope, it all depends what the people calling the shots decide to do.

[Murgos]

Name one major, substantive thing DDO does that WoW does better.

Retain players?

[Margalis]

I would like some elaboration on how WoW's "crafting" gameplay differs from DDO's "collecting" gameplay, though.  I was under the impression that in either system you collect a few sprockets, hit a button to combine them, and you get a widget.  Right?

Nope. In DDO you collect a items that waste a ton of space in your inventory, then sell them to an NPC. That's it. There is no proficiency in collecting things and you don't create anything out of them.

Whether or not you like crafting, some people do, and WoW has it. DDO does not, and furthermore I have yet to meet anyone that likes collecting. The most common sentiment about it is that it's a waste of inventory.

[Mr_PeaCH]

Somewhere, SirBruce is laughing.

[Mesozoic]

Just as before, where people tried to draw statistical conclusions about Turbine's ability to develop popular titles based on a set of three games, this is stupid.  The boards are not a source of accurate information either way.  To look at the WoW boards, you'd think that game was about to collapse from player frustration.  Meanwhile their subsciption count soars past 6 million.

As an example, I could look to the DDO boards and draw the opposite conclusion:  The game is doomed (DOOMED!) because it has no pvp/crafting/endgame and the pve content that it does have is limited.  Complaints of these problems are all over the boards and the only responses so far have been:

play an(other) alt!
You're playing the wrong way!
etc.

So there.   

[HaemishM]

If the Founders are any indication, the answer is an overwhelming "yes".

Founders are people who played the Head Start period, 10-day beta, etcetera.  Not only have they had more time to play DDO, they're almost certainly more likely than the average gamer to put in longer hours.  If anyone would be experiencing DDO's fabled 'lack of content' jones at this point, it'd be them.

And yet, as seen in that thread, they're overwhelmingly sticking with the game, and enjoying it.

The future looks bright for DDO.

One of those founders is jonesing for Star Trek Online. I'd say his ability to live on pure, vain hope is a lot higher than most, especially around here.

[HaemishM]

Name one major, substantive thing DDO does that WoW does better.

I like this bit of sophistry.  It makes a limited featureset sound like a good thing.

Unless you're going to have a sandbox (Which is cool in and of itself, but neither DDO nor WoW is one), I firmly believe that a limited featureset is a good thing.  Better to do one fun thing and do it well, than to try a bunch of things at once and end up with none of them being fun (a-la WoW).  I have no problem with playing one game for good exploration, one game for good questing, one game for good PvP.

Except DDO DIDN'T do that one thing well. Their combat really isn't that good; it's not terrible, it's just not great either. It's very Mediocre. WoW's was more fun, IMO, YMMV, YRAFT*.

*You aRe A Fucking Tool.

[jpark]

I have never been a craftsman type going from my EQ days.  But WoW's Engineering and alchemy got me hooked.

Alchemy affects gameplay dramatically - not only with stat adjustments - but with strategic potions (e.g. the one that allows you to go ghost form and travel - used it to explore for random mobs).

The engineering is just hilarious.  Cool items - some thematic - some serious can be created.  The whole idea that these goblin inventions can backfire is a great touch.  A warrior once used some sort of ray gun to shrink the mob to reduce it's attack power - it backfired - and shrunk the whole party.

Like City of Heroes - WoW - drew me immediately into the game the first quest I did.  I realize CoH has not done as well as Wow - but both games had an instant fun factor.

I literally have not been able to play DDO for more than 2 hours in total.

I depart this thread with the ultimate insult:  EQ2 is more fun than DDO.

[Jamiko]

Thanks for reminding me, I need to cancel my DDO account.

[Rhonstet]

All the numbers have shown thus far is that sales are falling off sharply.  That should surprise no one.

DDO's most obvious problem is that it has a terrible training intro.  DDO is so heavily about forming adventuring parties, but nothing on Tutor Island or even in the earliest parts of the lower harbor teach you anything about how to form a party.  That entire experience is left up to those few intelligent souls who still read game manuals.  That causes a lot of frustration among some players.

The other problems with this game are entirely balance-based.  The nature of treasure-generation and the game-balance issues of elemental-damage weapons is giving rise to goldfarming.  And the rewards for some quests, along with the repeatability of those quests, is causing an issue with certain quests being repeated over and over.

And yet, I have yet to meet a person in-game above level 3 who doesn't love the game.  Some things about this game rock in a way that no-else has yet to match.  In-game voice, interface control, and the level of character customization is pretty impressive.  And it has the best combat system I've ever seen in an MMORPG. 

Its weird.  In most games, the gripes come from the old players who refuse to quit.  In DDO, most of the griping I have heard comes from the people who play the game the least. 

[Yegolev]

SirBrucing

SirBrucing

...

/steelwool

[CmdrSlack]

FWIW, DDO is actually rather fun, assuming you have a good group of people or guild to play with to minimize/negate the chance of grouping with a moron in a PUG.

I have very limited time to play these days, so if there is a serious lack of content, I haven't felt it yet.  In fact, I don't think I've repeated a quest yet.

Then again, I didn't come to the game expecting to solo.  Or craft.  I read what was in and what wasn't in, beta tested the game, thought about it, and decided to give it a go.  When I get tired of it, I'll quit  playing.  So far, I'm not tired of it.

My only hope is that the new content patch has stuff for lower levels (from lv 1 to 10).  I have several alts that I'd rather NOT take back through the same few quests in the harbor again.  So far, it has been worth paying for for a month.  We'll see how it goes.

[Mesozoic]

I think there will be.  There are supposed to be 15 quests; 6 of them are related to the Dragon and the other 9 should be for "the rest."