The Green Lodge took our first trip to Redwillow last night, and we were most impressed by it. Not least because of the sheer number of chests we found! It’s nice to come out in profit. We met our first giants. Meeting a new monster is always a cause for excitement for us, and we were right glad that half of us were dwarves.
While searching for a lever to open a chest I couldn’t pick, poor Jorreck, bane of all poisons, got solidly stuck behing a rock and had to recall. Later, when turning in the items we were questing for, we had a horrible time. We couldn’t find the research scrolls that we had most definitely picked up (but we weren’t sure by who), and so couldn’t continue with the quest. We must have spent 20 minutes searching for them, and poking the NPC. Finally our ingenious bard, Flere, realised that they must have been left behind the rock when Jorreck recalled out, and of course no-one had looked behind there for fear of getting stuck.
So hurrah, we managed to continue. It made me think about how quick we are to label things bugs, when sometimes it’s just misfortune, or not knowing (forgetting in our case) how the game-world works. Of course, getting stuck behind things (though thats the only time we can remember it happening), and chests that are unopenable, really are bugs.
We shall be returning, I am sure of that. While looking for details on the chest we couldn’t open I came upon a list of the rare loot that can be found in Redwillow, and I think we can find homes for all of it.
Been a busy week. After the DnL debacle, I was still thirsting for a world based MMORPG to supplement DDO.
I was persuaded by some good friends on the DDO irc channel to give the new Everquest progression server a try. It’s a new sort of server, where each everquest expansion has to be unlocked by the players, usually by someone raiding the nastiest enemies of the previous expansion.
What I found out: That I have no idea why I ever found it fun. It’s ugly, laggy, and as for corpse runs, well, I don’t know why we ever put up with that nonsense. I just find myself getting horribly bored. I will persevere for now though.
Seeing as I was going to break my vow of never touching another SOE game (They keep buying everyone else anyway. At this rate I’d never play a MMORPG again.), I figured I might as well go for the Access account option, and have a little poke around EQ2. The game has changed a great deal since April 2005 when I quit, and I found I had no idea how to play my existing characters, at least not without doing grave harm to their kills to deaths ratio.
So I decided to start a new character on the newest servers. These happened to be PvP ones, but I figured, hey, it’ll make being a questaholic more challenging.
What I found out: That non-consensual PvP sucks horribly. If I step out into Antonica, within a minute I’ll be dead from some stealther sneak-attacking me. Given the feebleness of my reaction times, and my utter lack of killer instinct, this is not going to be a long lived experience. Nevertheless, until I stepped out into Antonica, I was having fun, so I shall keep my eyes open for a fresh regular server being opened. That seems pretty rare though, unfortunately. A shame, as there is nothing like the delicious taste of a clean start. Til then, my much mistreated Access acount will be put back into it’s state of suspended animation. Probably. Unless I get really bored.
I am anticipating DDO’s Module 2 with something akin to the feeling I get when someone waves a bag of pork scratchings before me (Sadly an all-too uncommon event). If QA clear it in time, it’ll be this week.
Redwood City, CA, June 20, 2006 – Electronic Arts Inc. (NASDAQ: ERTS) today announced that it has entered into an agreement to acquire Virginia-based Mythic Entertainment®. Upon completion of the acquisition, Mythic Entertainment will become EA Mythic, a wholly-owned studio dedicated to developing Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games (MMORPGs).
Mythic is recognized worldwide for revolutionizing the online gaming space with the awardwinning Dark Age of Camelot® and is currently developing Warhammer® Online: Age of Reckoning™ under license agreement with Games Workshop.
From here
Not at all a good thing. It leaves Turbine as the only independent MMORPG company with a proven track record (and Turbine is too cosy with Microsoft for my liking). Anyone who remembers what happened when EA bought OSI will be pretty worried for the chances of Warhammer ever seeing the light of day.
I love DDO, but it’s not the sort of MMORPG you play all the time. So I’ve been looking for a more traditional, explorable world, crafting sort of game to play alongside it.
I thought I’d found it a couple of weeks ago with Dark and Light. The featurelist on the website is extraordinarily tempting.
No zones, no loading time, all Dark and Light players within the same world.
A medieval world of 15 000-square-mile of land (not including seas)
A complete, original and easy-to-use automated transportation and warp system.
Hot spot management system: wherever you are in the huge world of DnL, you can call for or be asked for help to conquest, fight, defend…
Master Dark and Light while experiencing three evolving axes for every character : combat, craft and social
The general progress of a player’s CXP (craft XP) and FXP (fight XP) axes is totally intertwined with the progress of their commitment to the social axis.
Discover a real social game, where guild and community life involvement is rewarded with SXP (Social XP), and gives access to forts and holdings.
A guild system worked out for far more strategic groups’ actions
A ranking system within guilds and the attributes given to the leader make the management and involvement in a guild a real strategy for every player.
Rich career paths: choose between specialization and versatility.
A greater system of title management, governed by the player’s CXP, FXP and SXP levels, which allows you to become a lord, baron, count, duke and even the king, by bargaining, negotiating…and being smart!
Diverse game aspects promising numerous challlenges: crafting, conquest of territories, fortress management, resource gathering, exploration…On a side note, never forget to swear allegiance to your faction!
A deep and refined crafting system to specialize your character the way you want
A crafting system based on five families and offering a great variety of combinations for recipes: tanner, tailor, armorer, blacksmith and jeweller.
A deep crafting system where players specialize in the craft family they choose in order to reach the highest performance in one or various sectors of this association
Become a smart and brave strategist to perform your fort or holding management!
The combat system allows you to assault a fortress
Maintain your fort and protect holdings to keep strong and powerful
Discover the economical system based on three elements: holdings, the extraction of resources and merchants all over the world.
Choose among 300 individual elements in order to rebuild your armor and try new weapons such as bows, rods, staves, swords or even, thrown weapons and dual wielding weapons.
Try new robes, chainmails and clothing
Choose to explore the world of Dark and Light the way you want
Use the teleporting points which have been placed in key locations (near villages and places of interests) to move faster
Fly in the air without restrictions with your own dragon, glider and parachute
Do not forget to swear allegiance to your god, this may be very helpful !
Having a high faction can have an in game impact: increase of the mobs’ aggressiveness, benefits from divine protection…
Make donations in temples and be sure that your faction will increase !
Introducing a deep and addictive storyline which contains advanced management options
A deep storyline that allows rich and varied game options and opportunities
Discover the 13 realms: three non-PvP kingdoms, ten kingdoms to conquer (PvP allowed)… The Dark, Light, Al Drifa, Ysatis’ and Agnar’s kingdoms will be open at release. Kingdoms beyond those will open as the players evolve in Dark and Light.
500 quests at release
Choose the race of your choice amongst 12 races, elect your orientation thanks to 14 classes, benefit from 27 equipment slots per character and many specific slots per skill
Entirely dedicated to evolve according to gamers in-game decisions and strategies: DnL game rules will allow gamers to manage their own DnL storyline, create their own events to set their plans of conquest or fortresses attacks.
A Game-mastering team in five languages entirely dedicated to enhancing the role of players in a truly interactive scenario: English, French, German, Italian and Spanish.
Unfortunately, what sounds on paper like a brilliant game, feels more like the MMORPG equivalent of “The Producers”. Almost every decision you could make to destroy your game has been taken. The list could go on and on, but the thing I take the greatest exception to is their bizarre pre-order system.
In most games, pre-orderers get a little something extra. Maybe something physical, like some heroclix, or a coin. Often you get a few days head-start, or some minor item or cool sounding title. DnL pre-orders, called Pioneers, potentially get level 35, 250k goth (goth being the currency), and a 2 man summonable flying riding dragon. This, in a game based around PvP, is a massive advantage. It’ll be a long time before any regular folks catch up with the Pioneers. We are utterly 2nd class citizens, wandering the massive world with it’s randomly placed monsters, on foot. Needless to say, the Pioneers tend to think it’s a rather better game. After all, they don’t have to worry about the broken transport system, the difficulty of making enough money to feed youself and keep your gear repaired, and that the monsters have been randomly scattered across the starter kingdoms, with neither rhyme nor reason.
On the first day they let non-preorders in, they’ed forgotten to make the starting areas non-pvp. Slaughter predictably commenced. Not helped also by the fact that the human starting location spawns you in within agro range of some pretty darn scary spiders. Only the kindness of our Pioneer faction-mates allowed anyone to survive that fateful day.
I could go on, but frankly it’s not worth it. Do not touch this miserable excuse for a game with a bargepole. At least not for several months. I’ll be playing out my month, and I have the gravest doubt that I shall be seen beyond that. I think I might have gained a fear of small developers, which would be a shame.
Brannoc: We'll begin with a brief introduction from our guests and then proceed with the chat. Now would be a good time to send those questions to [QT]Sprite!
Sporkfire: Hi, all. I'm Victor Wachter, Community Relations Manager for DDO. Glad to see you all here!
Samera_DDO: Hi there. Samera here. Community Relations Specialist.
Nereid_DDO: Hello, I am Nereid, Producer on DDO
Solas_DDO: Greetings. I'm Solas, DDO Gamesystems.
Gubtug_DDO: Hi, I'm Gubtug, Art Director on DDO.
Graal_DDO: Howdy, I am a game mechanics designer
GelatinousCube_DDO: *jiggle*
Codog_DDO: Howdy. I'm Codog, a Senior Game Systems Engineer. Happy to be here.
Tuttle_DDO: Hola, Captain Tuttle here. Design Manager on DDO.
Denour_DDO: Evening, I'm Andy "Denour" Gillis, I am one of the Game Systems Engineer on DDO. *Wave*
Brannoc: *Guest23* What's the time frame for when module 2 will come out?
Nereid_DDO: Hello - Module 2 "The Twilight Forge" will be coming out in July. We are accepting applications for our preview of Module 2 content in the DDO.com Forums.
Brannoc: *Zaran* could you explain the solo option on the difficulty selection on the Quest Window.
Solas_DDO: The solo option has two main goals: To improve the new player experience, and for something to do while waiting for a party.
Solas_DDO: Only a single player can enter an adventure on solo. The monsters are scaled down, HP, AC, spells, etc. Most classes should be able to tackle a solo adventure appropriate for their level, although some classes are more powerful solo than others.
Solas_DDO: Currently, solo mode is only available in the Harbor
Brannoc: *Targonis* The level cap is expected to be raised in September/October. Can we expect that the level cap will be raised every 6 months or so?
Nereid_DDO: We are committed to raising the level cap on an on-going basis and will be releasing them when we are able to support with new monsters, adventures, spells, feats, etc.
Brannoc: *Ustiveh* What one thing would the moderators like to see in DDO that is not currently implemented (including things that never will be)?
GelatinousCube_DDO: Gelatinous Cubes
Brannoc: *Anon220* I read on the DDO forums that the ranged system isn't working quite as well as folks would like, so it's getting an overhaul. What's the latest on the ranged system overhaul?
Mysterious 5 minutes silence.
Codog_DDO: After module 2, players will see a number of improvements to both ranged and melee combat. Some of these improvements include increase of ranged attack speed as players level up, improvements to activatable melee feats, and a number of new action point benefits.
Brannoc: *Zaran* Why are you requiring players to do quests on Hard and Elite to get maximum favor from the Houses?
Solas_DDO: Hard and elite difficulty modes offer drastically increased challenges for a party. Defeating an adventure on elite is a truly heroic accomplishment. The House Patrons give us a unique opportunity to offer an interesting reward scheme to players who challenge not only the breadth of adventures in the game, but also the breadth of difficulty levels. As the game grows, expect to see the patron system expand with new ranks, new patrons, and new rewards as adventures are added to the game.
Brannoc:*Anon220* Are there any new animated emotes being worked on?
Gubtug_DDO: Emotes have been something that a lot of the dev team has wanted to see more of. There'll be new emotes coming to Stormreach soon. Done.
Brannoc: *Anon220* Do you think that DDO will eventually cross the level 20 threshold and go into epic levels?
Nereid_DDO: Yes, we are planning on adding more levels over time, and are looking into what the gameplay will be after level 20.
Brannoc: *Gill* Question: Are their any plans or ideas for GM-run events?
Sporkfire: We are currently developing some live events to hold in Stormreach, similar to the events that were very popular in Beta. We've got a lot of creative people here who are really excited to start holding them, and we're going to start holding them again in the future.
Brannoc: *Gill* Question: Has the issue of inability to find parties come up, and if so, how do you plan on addressing this?
Solas_DDO: We’ve done a revamp of the social panel which should make the “looking for group†tools a lot easier to use. DDO at its heart is a party-based game, and we’ll continue to improve our tools to help players adventure with one another. The solo mode should also help give players something to do while they’re waiting to find a party.
Brannoc: *locke* any change comming for holdong items such as scroll holders or bags of holding
Graal_DDO: We have no plans for specialized holding items, but there will be an increase in overall inventory and bank space coming with Module 2
Brannoc: *Namelessone* how and what is being looked at to work on Ranged Combat, and what is being looked at to improve the Ranger Class
Codog_DDO: Post Module 2, as a character's base attack bonus goes up, player's speed of bow, crossbow, and thrown weapons will increase. This inherently will improve ranger's combat or any class that is investing in ranged combat feats. A number of rangers abilities scale with level such as Ranger Bow Strength and Many Shot.
Brannoc: *ssprink* Will existing loot tables be reworked to match dungeon difficulty?
Tuttle_DDO: The content team is consistently evaluating the exp and loot balance for our existing dungeons. This is an ongoing process and we’ll continue to respond as the need arises.
Brannoc: *Maghantah* Question: any focus on creating more randomization in content?
Solas_DDO: We’ve had tremendously positive feedback on our random monster optional objectives. We are experimenting with randomizing traps in some of our upcoming content. We recognize that this is a very popular issue among our fans.
Brannoc: *ZeroTakenaka* How much will Module 2 cost?
Nereid_DDO: Module 2 "The Twilight Forge" is a free module for subscribers.
Brannoc: *ZeroTakenaka* When will patron system come out?
Solas_DDO: Module 2 "The Twilight Forge" will contain the patron system.
Brannoc: *Locke* hello, is there a plan to add new feats? or a mechanism for players to swap feats to update their character?
Nereid_DDO: We are looking into allowing players to swap out feats they have chosen, and will be adding new feats with the level cap increase.
Solas_DDO: Going back to an earlier question on LFG - I wanted to mention that a lot of specific improvements were taken directly from suggestions off the forums. For example, you will be able to see which area a player is in, and whether or not that player is already in a group.
Brannoc: *Targonis* Following up on the question about ranged weapons, will a distance limit be placed on items such as bows, thrown weapons, etc.?
Codog_DDO: Thanks for the question Targnonis. Limiting the range of bows, thrown weapons, and crossbows is certainly a topic that we are currently investigating.
Brannoc: *Khalathas* Will there be high-end non-static quest rewards in the future, as opposed to just the static reward system that's been implemented as of late?
Solas_DDO: Yes, we have specific plans to create new magical effects for high level loot. These will be available both in treasure chests and randomized quest rewards.
Brannoc: That's it for this one folks! Thanks for joining us here on Stratics IRC, the logs will be up on http://ddo.stratics.com shortly. Be sure to come by again next time!
Sporkfire: Thanks for coming out, everyone and for all the questions!
Samera_DDO: Goodbye everyone. Thanks for coming to chat with us!
Codog_DDO: Bye folks!
Tuttle_DDO: Goodnight everybody, thanks for chatting!
Solas_DDO: Goodnight all.
Denour_DDO: G'nite folks!
GelatinousCube_DDO: \engulf
Nereid_DDO: It was great talking to you - thanks for having us! Goodnight.
Hmm. I hope you found that more illuminating than I did. The prospect of live events coming out way is pretty neat though.
A little while since I posted. My guild and I are still playing DDO keenly. Tonight we ventured into Three Barrel Cove for the first time, and chaos ensued! The fire caves are toasty death for anyone who has difficulty not falling into things, and that sadly meant me. Usually, my tumbling protects me from taking serious falling damage, but unfortunately does not make me lava-proof. Nevertheless, we emerged victorious. As if there was ever any doubt!
Lots of interesting things coming our way in DDO. While Drow are rather low down my list of races I want to see, it’ll still be a welcome option. And the promised increase in inventory space has me drooling. No word on whether that will be more bank storage space, or more personal inventory, but either will at least give me somewhere to put my vast stocks of collectables.
Don’t pay any attention to the doomsayers of the DDO forums. DDO is certainly not dying.
And Oblivion? Well it didn’t take me long to get rather bored with it. Oops. Maybe single-player RPGs can’t keep my interest any more. That one didn’t anyway.
Anyway, I’ll try to write a little more regularly. I tend to go through phases of activity.
Oblivion has been released in the UK.
I am proud to say that Master Maboroshi Daikon has planted the first Oblivion mod in our collection.
Many moons ago, back in the days of Morrowind, I was part of a thriving modding community over at Dragonsight.com. Sadly, that site is no longer covering modding, so I am trying to recreate the feel of it down in our galley. It’ll never be the same, but it might just do the job.
Ideally, it will be a haven for modders, where we can trade advice and ideas, help eachother out with debugging, and generally gain from eachothers wisdom.
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