DDO - beginning of the end? (And Zirocs review) :-)

[SpiritWarrior]

Well it already looks like things are beginning to break down. It seems turbine are really losing people after the first month or so and are having problems sustaining their profit. This could be one of those MMO's that folds within the first few months like many of us predicted. I logged on there for a 10 trial after beta and it was just...bad. So bad that after 2 days I never went back. Yes, I couldn't even play it when it was free.

I for one would be happy if it folded, honestly. Hopefully it will send a message to designers that you can't make an unfinished and severely lacking product slap a well-known label (D&D) on it and then expect people to lap it up without question.

[ 04-01-2006, 06:35 AM: Message edited by: Ziroc ]

[Ziroc]

lol, how funny. I got a free-pass from my friend (he quit too). So I tried it out:

Rolled a char, got in, and instantly knew it would fail. INSTANTLY. crap. all of it. The engine is weak, and the levels are so small and gotta load every 100ft. I tried the tutorial and thief learning dungeons, and god, I was expecting SOME CHALLANGE. NO traps No nothing. utterly LAME. The only nice part was the DM voice. a good touch.

Let me state this: DDO will indeed be dead and gone in 5 Months. And Atari will die. (Atari is struggling). So NWN2 Will have to find a new publisher.


Let me also state that WHOEVER CAME UP with that "Shittiest Idea in MMO Land EVER" (That 'all dungeons' idea should be fired, and buried in hot sand. What a joke.

What is with sloppy programmers these days? Our games may be looking cooler, but we gotta load new 'areas' every 100ft. That is bullshit. I know it can be done without loads. WOW does it. WOW's code is damn nice too. (Don't think I love WOW now, I have reached lvl 50 and stopped for a while)--wowsick.


Anyway, back to the shit that "WAS" DDO.

It'll be gone soon, and ALL they had to do was make it right. god, play WOW for 10 mins, and you should know what is right! I am getting damn SICK of the gaming industry for dropping rubbish on us too, SpiritWarrior, and its time they know. Sting them where it hurts. Their corporate greedy pockets. [img]smile.gif[/img]

Here is what would have made DDO hot:

*FIRST AND FOREMOST: Make the game set in the Forgotten Realms. Stop whining it would be too hard. BS. A deeply understood realm would be a plus, NOT A MINUS DEVS! God, can't they see that?

1. WOW-like engine (people like to run into others in MMOs. not form a party early and then do it. You didn't allow solo play, so you killed it.

2. People like to show off. Yep. But when the ONLY thing that changes your look is a helm and your chest piece or armor, you fail, and your IPO dies.

3. Needed an Auction house, quests, needed SOMETHING for people to do while waiting like sheep for the next dungeon. Boredom kills a game.

4.Healing Shines? Whoever's idea this was should be fired (fired at?) lol jk, and buried in hot sand too. When it becomes a CHORE to worry about dying, and if you die, its over pretty much. BAD

5. Interface Sucks. Make a good one. Its what people stare at a lot.

6. Dungeons and Dragons cannot be converted to an MMO exactly and remain fun. Other things must be done as well.

I could go on, and on to 4000 if I had to. I really DO wish I was rich. I would start my own company up and build something people actually liked to play. (It's my dream really). Because a LOT of these people just don't get it. First, you gotta understand people before you can understand games. (Making them). KNOW what people like, know what pisses them off. Don't release a game with bugs that someone finds in 10 minutes of playing--that is EMBARRESING!


Ranting mode off. Heh, maybe I should convert this into a review for my IW Web-area.

5.

[ 04-01-2006, 06:32 AM: Message edited by: Ziroc ]

[Harkoliar]

boy .. when i read it.. i guess i saved my money not trying it out. thanks!

[SpiritWarrior]

LOL, it's true. This is just not a good game. I gave it another chance with getting a guest trial and all. I hoped that maybe in release it was somewhat different than beta. But like I said within two days I couldn't I just...couldn't take it anymore. I tried and it failed. Now since we're ranting and all some more points come to mind...

Man, the game is ugly as hell! Graphically it's high-tech but the artwork is just fugly. Look at WoW: Lower technology but absolutely beautiful artwork. DDO runs really badly too. It is riddled with memory leaks, I saw almost every second person lagging when I was there and sent them tells to confirm if they were or not. It seems turbine does not know how to optimize texture caching or at least tell the game when to empty it out. Everyone thought it was on their side until I pointed out I've been seeing people doing it all night as they zoned. And that terrible twitchy combat system.

Why? Why would someone do that to D&D combat? The combat music is also retarded. It sounds like circus music or something.

And how in the name of all that is holy can people actually defend this game so aggressively on those stupid forums too? I mean, have they not *played* any other MMO's or any other games for that matter? Anyone who has played BG, IWD or NWN's will easily see this is pure shite. There was more content in our old infinity games and this thing dares to charge $15 a month. Even if it was free I wouldn't be playing it but what really irks me is they somehow find a way justify that price for it.

When I read the "I quit" threads and I see responses like "Your loss, I'm still having a blast" I don't know whether to laugh or cry. If you are still having a "blast" after about 1 day with this game there is something very wrong or you work for Turbine. On my own personal "I quit" thread I was lucky enough to get the "Don't let the door hit you on the way out" and "Can I have your stuff?" remarks. I had expected this and actually posted the thread for this reason so I could reply. My responses were "They haven't added doors yet, that's coming in module 4" and "Yes you can most certainly have my stuff, Blizzard told me I couldn't bring it back into Azeroth with me 'cuz it was too ugly-looking". I got no more trolls after that, lol.

[Ziroc]

haha.. [img]smile.gif[/img] Yeh, its sad... to think millions were spend on making it..

[Lucern]

I really wanted this to be good. I haven't played WoW in about a year, and have barely thought about it, so I wanted a good, fun, complex strategy/mmorpg. When a forum that features 5 D&D games and speaks fondly of even the old school ones doesn't like this, that's really saying something.

[Tomin]

I actually like the feel of the game and to be honest don't see it dieing anytime soon as you say.

Personally it feels more like D&D then anything out there so far. I mean NWN is great but it really is based around only 1 person. And if it had been set up like WoW it wouldn't feel like D&D to me as D&D has always been about a group of people adventuring together.

The eberron setting is perfect for the action theme as the eberron setting is a pulp/steampunk type setting. Now I know it's not established but personally I like that.

Yes there is a bit of lack of content but that won't always been that way and other things will be added and changed just like every other MMO. Just because it doesn't have as many players as WoW doesn't mean it's going to fail. Heck MMOs like Anarchy Online and Horizons have been operating on approx 100,000 players for a few years now.

For people who wanted a game to feel like PnP DnD DDO is going to disappoint however I've always known it wasn't and for me it gets the feel of what I expected to feel if I really was my halfling rogue running through the dungeon with my party.

As far as the no traps comment. At begining levels the traps are few and far between because the dungeons are designed to be completed by a group of 2-3 people and they aren't always going to be there. Starting about level 3 you find traps all over the place and many of them can instantly kill any character if a party is too hasty.

Another feature that will be great for DDO once they finish it is the custom dungeon creator they are working on. Eventually Turbine (Not Atari) wants to have it so people can create their own dungeons that they can submit to turbine to be added to the game.

DDO isn't a WoW and Turbine has always known that. They knew they wouldn't attract a lot of the FR fans because a lot of FR fans have hated Eberron from the day it came out. Turbine actually was expecting a low population in fact they built their servers to house only roughly 1.5 thousand people per server and from my server I can tell you they are about right as the population fluxes between 2-600 people at any given time.

DDO has a long ways to go as they still are adding more to the big story arc as well as adding in more Eberron specific spells feats classes and items as well as monk and druid later on.

DDO won't ever be as successful as WoW but then again I don't want it to be because the community that actually plays it is very mature and respectful of each other and very helpful.

[SpiritWarrior]

Well we know it isn't WoW and I wouldn't want it to be. What we mean is if they applied to DDO what Blizzard applied to WoW in terms of scope, content, beauty, support and plain effort it would work. Do not confuse our comparison to WoW as a desire for DDO to become mainstream and/or dumbed-down. We just want it to be fun like D&D should be!

There is nothing in this game, man. It is the most linear thing I have ever played. There is one city and that's it. The quests are all crammed on top of each other. There is nothing to do other than grind and loot.

And yes, it is a grind because even the quests become repetetive after awhile. They implemented some HC D&D rules which just made the game more annoying than authentic. They left out spell creation and crafting (as well as about 30 more levels) and instead added rest shrines, xp penalties and soulshards. I had way more fun in NWN's multiplayer and that was free! If this game currently satisfies you I strongly urge you to wait on NWN's 2 and save $15 a month. NWN's 2 will have more content than this supposedly 'MMO'.

As far as the game folding I really do think it will happen in time. I posted this after reading the DDO forums. After 1 month of free play it seems they are laden with "I quit" and "Is DDO dying already?" threads as opposed to the usual "Fix the servers" or "Where can I find xxx" posts you expect to see after an MMO has recently been released. Most of the founders I see there already have multiple chars at max level and really spend more time on the forums blindly defending the game rather than playing it. They won't admit it but they are bored already and have nothing else to do. They will tell you they are waiting on "module 1" but I mean, if you are already just sitting around waiting on new content after 1 month release that can't be good. In WoW and CoH I couldn't even think of new content for the first few months.

[Tomin]

Well it all comes down to what one person likes over another.. While it's fun to get level 40 in NWN it's not something I feel is needed in a game.

Personally I enjoy the content I enjoy the pace of the game and the challenges. NWN to me is a totally seperate thing. NWN2 I might get but personally will still play DDO because I like it.

I mean after 1 month of WoW or there was people saying I quit heck there are still people saying I quit over anything and everything. It's a well known fact that people who have a problem with a game are going to be more vocal about their problems then people who enjoy the game. I mean I like Zirocs Undermountain Module so don't feel a need to comment on it. I mean alot of us here love the module but how often do we really go all over telling everyone about how great it was? But if a person hates a game they will tell everyone.

You can say that a game is not for you but to say it's the worst DnD game ever is an overstatement because I remember the remade Pool of Radiance to be really crappy.

[SpiritWarrior]

I felt like there were alot more "I quit" threads on the DDO forums than on any other MMO forum I have ever seen. I have played many MMO's and like to think I know when the community is happy and when it's not. I would say 40% have already left from looking at the server graphs, not to mention those who tried beta and didn't bother buying retail. There are others who are just waiting in hope but I fear they will be waiting for nothing and leave too.

Of course in WoW and every other game you have people saying I quit. But usually their reasons are stupid and without foundation. The problem is there is a recurring theme on the DDO forums and it mirrors what we have already said: severe lack of content -of anything really, other than grinding. I am always inclined to agree. CoH has more content than this game and that's saying alot.

The one thing I cannot stand is the people who do verbal acrobatics to justify this stupid trend in MMO's today of releasing unfinished products and forcing the community to pay for the rest. People that say "Oh, an MMO has to grow and gets better with time". Look, if you buy a box of cereal and take it home to discover the box is empty you do not sit there contently for "monthly updates". You go back and demand that the box be filled or your money refunded. A telltale sign that a game is unfinished is when the next update includes core things like classes or graphical updates. Stuff that didn't make it to release is a sure sign of rushing.