Want a good laugh?

[Josh]

http://www.gamebanshee.com/interviews/dndonline3-1.php

Make sure your mouth isn't full of liquid before you read.

[RACRGUY]

Ooh, an inaccurate article from 2 years before release. Wow, impressive.

[Raithe]

Many people forget how different the original intentions were from what was developed for DDO. It's interesting to go over them again.

Someday I'd like to figure out the Why of what happened.

[GeneralDiomedes]

I am unamused.

There were more inaccuracies in kate paiz's state of the game addresses, and i'm guessing she had a much better idea of what was possible and what wasn't consdering they had been at it for 3-4 years by that time.

'Visceral' combat - true
Designed dungeons - true
Multiclassing - true
Nature of character progression - true
Prestige Classes - false (that's even debatable)
Alignment playing a role - false
Choices in dungeons - partially true
'Epic' quests that span multiple levels - true

[Raithe]

'Visceral' combat - true


I think the point of Troop's comments here was that active gameplay was going to be more appealing and possibly more effective than obtaining rewards to win encounters. While initially the game succeeded at this, it has become less and less compliant in recent history.



Designed dungeons - true


Partially true at best. Great work is done on the variety of artwork and topography of quests. The actual structures of the missions within a quest have become severely redundant and predictable, which is what Troop specifically stated was going to be avoided. "Kill everything on the way to the boss (or we'll remove the ledges that allow you to do it differently), kill boss, get loot and completion token, rinse and repeat" - could be used to describe 95% of everything currently in the game.



Multiclassing - true


One out of nine ain't bad... is it?



Nature of character progression - true


I 90% soloed my last 3 characters to cap or near-cap. It was easier than finding a group. 90% of the current game population is running things at cap, which has no character progression at all.



Prestige Classes - false (that's even debatable)
Alignment playing a role - false
Choices in dungeons - partially true


Choices in dungeons is partially true? You have a much lower standard of imaginative gameplay than I do. If it shows up in that little quest window as an objective - you have to do it. I still love the little encounter in Coalescence Chamber where the DM is telling you to get information out of a gnoll, but the quest window is telling you to kill it.


'Epic' quests that span multiple levels - true

May have been partially true once, but current development practices are to make 6-man quests of 30-minute appeal, or 15-45 minute raids with barely intelligible story lines, let alone strong transitioning.

[GeneralDiomedes]

I think the point of Troop's comments here was that active gameplay was going to be more appealing and possibly more effective than obtaining rewards to win encounters. While initially the game succeeded at this, it has become less and less compliant in recent history


Compared to other MMOs, the combat system has remained unique. The combat system is often cited as #1 reason people like the game.




Partially true at best. Great work is done on the variety of artwork and topography of quests. The actual structures of the missions within a quest have become severely redundant and predictable, which is what Troop specifically stated was going to be avoided. "Kill everything on the way to the boss (or we'll remove the ledges that allow you to do it differently), kill boss, get loot and completion token, rinse and repeat" - could be used to describe 95% of everything currently in the game.


I'm not sure what your point is .. ALL quests in the history of video games follow the same basic format. However, DDO continues to give you higher quality quests at the expense of creating a multitude of simplistic quests with a computer generated feel to them. That was his point, and from what I've seen of other MMOs .. I agree with him.




I 90% soloed my last 3 characters to cap or near-cap. It was easier than finding a group. 90% of the current game population is running things at cap, which has no character progression at all.


You solo'd your characters to 90% of cap before all those people in groups did? I'm impressed. For most players, grouping is still a faster, easier and more entertaining way to get there. This was even more true before they added the wilderness area tech.




Choices in dungeons is partially true? You have a much lower standard of imaginative gameplay than I do.


Still, some dungeons have choices. It may not be up to your standards, but they have them.

If you want something that is unequivocally false .. that would be 'Half-Orcs by the end of the year'. All you are doing here is basically nitpicking the finer points.

[Korvek]

Well either Alignment or Class does play a role at one point that comes to mind, and I'm pretty sure it's alignment. Not a significant role mind you, but still a role.

Opu the Elder gives you a nickname when you complete Shrieking Mines based off Alignment I think. Just something I found interesting when I was going through there earlier.

[Raithe]

All you are doing here is basically nitpicking the finer points.

The Devil is in the details, as they say.

To avoid being entirely negative about it all, I will note that Three Barrel Cove and to a lesser extent the Subterrane and its raids show improvement. Three Barrel Cove seems almost like an entirely different game than the one that sits at cap:

1) The quests are not all linear.
2) The linear quest(s) make sense.
3) Character dramatization and to a lesser extent roleplaying support seems to be in stronger supply.
4) Exploration (some call it "travel") has been made more interesting and worthy of play.

Unfortunately I felt it necessary to solo the area to actually enjoy it.