Mod nine delay. Deflated.

[parvo]

I dunno about everyone else, but my guild attendance is down to 25%-50% of pre-delay announcement levels. I looked back in my notes and can't believe it's been almost a year since the last mod. Almost a full year... It seems DDO is simply a throw away product for Turb to test it's next failed idea of free to play...Another year like this and we'll be down to one server.

[Jakuren]

yeah, they really can't expect to maintain the player base if this is going to be the trend. i stuck in here because i love this game, and my main char is still the first one i made back when it first opened during head start. this game is too much fun. just hope more content comes out on a quicker rotation with unlimited. if not there time will sure be limited. hahah.........sorry

[Arkat]

Parvo,

Normally in threads like this, I would have just posted some jackass remark like "Hola Bienvenido" or "Hi Welcome" but I must concur with you 100%.

I hardly ever log in now and when I do, it's easy to tell many others have also decided to stop logging in. The guild of which I am an Officer on the Khyber server was a pretty active guild and the Guild Leader used to be on constantly. Now I only see maybe 4 or 5 of us at most and our Guild Leader isn't on nearly as much as he used to be.

If Mod 9 turns out to suck or it's not enough to get a decent number of people back playing regularly, I'm afraid I'll have to let both my accounts expire.

The DDO morale really seems to be at an all-time low. :(

[Memnir]

They don't give a **** about veteran-retention, and I think that position is pretty hard to refute by now. No, they've hitched their wagon to the hoped-for flood of new players that Unlimited will bring in.


Turbine, I don't know if your keeping score - but more and more of your supporters on this forum are losing the faith. I think you need more carrot and less stick for a while.

[akla_thornfist]

havnt logged in the game for over a month and wont until EU launches, still paying my sub expires on the 19th of aug will let it lapse until update. turbine can keep the free gifts that will cost me 15 bucks if i resub by the 31st.

[Lorien_the_First_One]

Turbine, I don't know if your keeping score - but more and more of your supporters on this forum are losing the faith. I think you need more carrot and less stick for a while.

I do find it very interesting how many people who generally support Turbine on delays like this and technical problems seem to have lost faith in Turbine and are now taking bets with some seriousness on how many more delays will happen before mod 9 drops.

[szalkerous]

I've been a pre-order player, and in the last 6 months have logged in a total of MAYBE 12 hours.

Your welcome, Turbine, for my money free of use.

[Velexia]

Meh, I do not doubt that we would have Mod 9 already if they hadn't wasted time on the Grazing Hits and Dungeon Alert silliness.

I checked out the Beta again for the event just yesterday, and it's looking very very nice. A lot of new quests at all levels, the user interface has a lot of great changes on all fronts... Some very interesting things going on in the Marketplace that I hope are not limited to the beta (like the Dueling Illusionists). Basically, it looks like they've done a hell of a lot (although our voice chat is still dinosaurian).

I also agree though... I've reached the point where I am pretty tired of logging onto any of my characters. Playing around in the Beta is like dreaming... when I wake up it will all be gone (everything I did), so that doesn't really hold my fancy either.

Maybe this bodes well for me though, since the Fall Semester is starting. Looks like I'll come have a look-see next summer. Maybe by then Mod 9 will be out, heh. -crosses fingers-

If not, I think I will have a look at Mortal Online.

[vainangel]

I still have toons that are not capped yet... if they still have not given me something new by then... I might quit. But I really have fun and no other MMO matches the feel of DDO.

[Aerendil]

I dunno about everyone else, but my guild attendance is down to 25%-50% of pre-delay announcement levels. I looked back in my notes and can't believe it's been almost a year since the last mod. Almost a full year... It seems DDO is simply a throw away product for Turb to test it's next failed idea of free to play...Another year like this and we'll be down to one server.

Yep. One year is not a long wait for most MMOs in between expansions, for the most part. Everquest, for example, tends to average one expansion per year, and that's considered a bit of a rush job. WoW, on the other hand, is notoriously slow for expansions/updates - it's first expansion was almost 3 years after release, and the second one was approximately a year and a half after that.

The difference is, with games of that calibre, you get a LOT with an expansion. I'm talking an entirely new continent in most instances, with dozens of new zones, hundreds of new items/equipment, and generally a new race and class to explore. It takes their subscribers a long time to tackle that content before it becomes monotonous, even if they're powergamers.

DDO, on the other hand, releases FAR less content per update, but with the same delays of the big MMOs.
Regular gamers have generally seen and done everything in a new mod update a month or two after release. With powergamers, it's more like two weeks after release. That leaves a long, LONG time before anything new pops up.

It's something I've argued for years now with DDO. Their updates are too few and far between, and they don't provide nearly enough content per mod update to keep their clients satisfied.
In a business such as online gaming, there's always new games being developed that are bigger, flashier, and generally better. So if you want to keep your subscribers, you need to keep them interested or they'll simply move on.

Turbine/DDO hasn't done so well in that department.

[parvo]

They don't give a **** about veteran-retention, and I think that position is pretty hard to refute by now. No, they've hitched their wagon to the hoped-for flood of new players that Unlimited will bring in.


Turbine, I don't know if your keeping score - but more and more of your supporters on this forum are losing the faith. I think you need more carrot and less stick for a while.

I can't imagine how it feels with all capped characters...

Don't get me wrong, it's better to delay than launch a load of horse manure, but ****...a full year to "polish the game"?

[Larkins]

I thought Mod 9 was finished already and Turbine was just going to release it with the F2P switch? So if it takes Mod 9 about 10 months of Dev time I would hope it will be massive.

[RavenStormclaw]

Meh.....its a bit dull now and sometimes logging on and playing seems more of a chore.

My only hope is that DDO:EU will launch on time (that's a relative term folks) with the "new" launch date we've got. That that launch will bring in a flood of new players and that content will be spilling out of Turbine faster then we can tackle it.

I hold onto this hope for one reason only:

Dungeon/content designers generally aren't involved in the technical tweakings and polishing that has taken place over the last year (simply because they are two different horses). That means the content department has had nearly 12 months to polish off a whole slew of new content (come on shavarath stuff was probably nearly done a year ago).

Please Turbine if you have any hope of saving your current player base some hint that you have so much content backed up you''re gonna need an enema to get it out!

[captain1z]

Normally in threads like this, I would have just posted some jackass remark like "Hola Bienvenido" or "Hi Welcome" :(

qft :)

[rest]

You know that the wait is getting to people when the #1 proponent of a non-zerg style of play is sick of current content. :eek: :eek: :eek:

I never thought a thread like this would come from you, Parvo. Makes me a little sad :(

[Roman]

Yep. One year is not a long wait for most MMOs in between expansions, for the most part. Everquest, for example, tends to average one expansion per year, and that's considered a bit of a rush job. WoW, on the other hand, is notoriously slow for expansions/updates - it's first expansion was almost 3 years after release, and the second one was approximately a year and a half after that.

The difference is, with games of that calibre, you get a LOT with an expansion. I'm talking an entirely new continent in most instances, with dozens of new zones, hundreds of new items/equipment, and generally a new race and class to explore. It takes their subscribers a long time to tackle that content before it becomes monotonous, even if they're powergamers.

DDO, on the other hand, releases FAR less content per update, but with the same delays of the big MMOs.
Regular gamers have generally seen and done everything in a new mod update a month or two after release. With powergamers, it's more like two weeks after release. That leaves a long, LONG time before anything new pops up.

It's something I've argued for years now with DDO. Their updates are too few and far between, and they don't provide nearly enough content per mod update to keep their clients satisfied.
In a business such as online gaming, there's always new games being developed that are bigger, flashier, and generally better. So if you want to keep your subscribers, you need to keep them interested or they'll simply move on.

Turbine/DDO hasn't done so well in that department.

It's been a while since I played, but can you really compare EQ or WoW to DDO which has a far more sophisticated game mechanics? On the surface those games seem to offer a lot, but its just a lot of cut and paste repetition. DDO content is is very unique

[captain1z]

Aug 4th - 1 day boycott
aug 5th - logged in my ranger and checked my mail (took about 10 mins) logged off
aug 6th - logged in my ranger, checked mail, wasnt any, went into the vale to look for the earth ele... he wasnt there. Went to look for the devil, he wasnt there. Recalled to city and logged off. (took about 15-20 mins)

[Rendigar]

It doesn't matter how much current subscribers express their dissatisfaction with how turbine does business, module updates, etc...They will not change it.

[Vua]

It's been a while since I played, but can you really compare EQ or WoW to DDO which has a far more sophisticated game mechanics? On the surface those games seem to offer a lot, but its just a lot of cut and paste repetition. DDO content is is very unique

I would say that you can't compare those games to DDO. While I choose to play DDO for the combat and uniqueness of the dungeons, those games are actually successful. DDO has been a borderline failure since the day it was released. Say anything you want about those games but they actually made/make money.

[parvo]

You know that the wait is getting to people when the #1 proponent of a non-zerg style of play is sick of current content. :eek: :eek: :eek:

I never thought a thread like this would come from you, Parvo. Makes me a little sad :(

Considering it takes me about 4-6 weeks to cap a character (6 weeks for 1750 favor, less for just capping), if I played "normally", I'd have somewhere around 20 capped characters. Probably closer to 10 if I played some after capping. I really can't imagine how "normal" players feel. DDO's combination of very easy leveling and lack of new content is a bad formula.

[Kalanth]

I have to say I am seeing the opossite. My guild attendence has trippled since August 1st. People are coming back in droves to the game and diving head first into the raids to prep for Mod 9. I know it is the exception to what appears to be the norm (LFM's are down) but I am enjoying the increase in local population.

[Varis]

first the ban wave, then moving the release date back again... yeah, I'm so glad Turbine has its priorities straight... not like its getting very hard to make or join groups now.

I'm thrilled that they are commited to releasing a quality product they managed to push back nearly a year.


ookay, I think I'll sit on a turbine game box and rotate... perhaps add a razorblade to the fun and call it a night...

[Theboz]

I have to say I am seeing the opossite. My guild attendence has trippled since August 1st. People are coming back in droves to the game and diving head first into the raids to prep for Mod 9. I know it is the exception to what appears to be the norm (LFM's are down) but I am enjoying the increase in local population.



I too have seen this on Sarlona, but overall, 20% cameback after a year vacation, and 30% left for good or until mod 9 is released.

I have seen some new people as of late, but they have not been able to replace the people that have left recently

[dasein18]

shoot. I went to Maui for vacation on July 30th and will back to the main land on August 10th..thought for sure all my friends would be at lvl20 cap by the time I came back....guess not...yet another delay is a sad sad thing. Really enjoy this game but hard to keep players grinding shroud for a year.

[dasein18]

/sticks head back in sand

[Kraak]

They don't give a **** about veteran-retention, and I think that position is pretty hard to refute by now. No, they've hitched their wagon to the hoped-for flood of new players that Unlimited will bring in.


Turbine, I don't know if your keeping score - but more and more of your supporters on this forum are losing the faith. I think you need more carrot and less stick for a while.

Sorry Mem - have to disagree with you here. Probably because I can't tell whether its the carrot or the stick in my @$$ right now.

[Slugitt]

Bah I got an e-mail in Feb, Mod 9 lvl cap 20! So what do I go do stupidly? Turned back on my 3 accounts(wife,me,son) for a Year.....ggrrr. To find out it's been delayed. After so many years you'd think I'd learn. Now I play other games while waiting for eu to arrive, while they enjoy my money. I thought population droped when I took a break a year ago but man this is sad now. Only grouping to be had is **** boring raids, or login in on peak hours to find a group without waiting 20 mins. DDO is turning into an MO. Multiplayer Online, they lost the mass. lol
Here's to hoping some other company picks up a D&D license to make a new MMO we can enjoy and leave this **** to rot with the zombiez.

[Dolgrim]

I have to say I was upset when I saw the delay. I enjoy DDO first because of the people I play with, but doing the same quests over and over drags out quickly. DDO is unique in the form of game play and mechanics (at least of the dozen or so games I’ve tried) and I enjoy the game. Do I believe that over the past year the company has scaled back the development resources? Yes. They are a business and I understand that given the economic environment they likely took a very conservative approach to an industry that has never seen this type of down turn. However, like many of you have pointed out, the very near future will determine if the game is viable going forward. If people play and the population picks up, I hope the product managers can realign resources to make the coming year better than the last.

Dolgrim

[parvo]

I have to say I am seeing the opossite. My guild attendence has trippled since August 1st. People are coming back in droves to the game and diving head first into the raids to prep for Mod 9. I know it is the exception to what appears to be the norm (LFM's are down) but I am enjoying the increase in local population.

It's wierd. Mod 9 anouncement brought a lot of folks back to my guild and some new folks too. Delay anouncement was instant deflator but now it's picking back up again... /shrug Maybe it was just summer vacations or something. The delay still sucks though. My bet is Turb didn't think about server loads and lag until close to launch. When they thought about it, they realized it was a problem.

[Onesikpup]

I thought Mod 9 was finished already and Turbine was just going to release it with the F2P switch? So if it takes Mod 9 about 10 months of Dev time I would hope it will be massive.


Ive seen MOD 9, and it is almost as small as Reavers Refuge (content wise). It wont take long for me to become disinterested in it, im sure.

[CaseStringer]

DDO:EU is SO much more than the 6 Amarath quests and Raid... They have added the Sharn Syndicate quest chain in Market & 2 Ceruelean Hills quests i haven't even tried on Beta...
More important are all the huge fixes such as Vale recalls working correctly and the Shared Bank tab.. . Lots of other stuff.
I really agree w/ the fact that we could've already been playing 'Mod.9' if they didn't keeping adding all this other **** that we really don't endorse or need.
I love DDO but if they delay it again, I'll NEVER play another Turbine game as long as I live. Enuff is Enough. Release the ****... or get off the Toilet!

---->CASE:rolleyes:

[darkrune]

I still have toons that are not capped yet... if they still have not given me something new by then... I might quit. But I really have fun and no other MMO matches the feel of DDO.

so what are you going to do after that 2 weeks is up? if you are just solely running for xp and to cap a toon. Tops for me is about 2 weeks (20-40hrs game time total.) usually less if i am really in a hurry. Yes some might consider that powergaming or whatever but i mean come on how many times can you run the same quests that have been the same quest for the last 3 years and not go "hey noob watch the trap around the corner and the ambush over there, dont spawn that fight it isnt worth the xp bonus etc etc"

the same old same old gets really old really quick. even with 14 toons there is only so much that i can do that i dont want to vomit from the repetition.

The original thing that i loved about DDO was not the unique fighting system, wasnt the guilding, wasnt the ability of the store (ah wasnt around back then) it was the constant upgrading that the game was being rolled out 1 or 2 times a month, and the communication of what was to come (WDA anyone).

Mods came with mini-mods that actually provided quests in between the times that we received new areas. there was a never ending supply of quests when the cap was lvl 10.

then suddenly the level cap went up bam new area more quests. then came the announcement that mini-mods were gone so with the WDA so that major mods could have more development time and priority advertisement could drum up interest in the online gaming community. The wait was to be never more than a 1/4 year.

now comes the era of 1 (what used to be considered a mini-) mod per year with less and less regard for the player base with little to no concern being shown for the veteran player base who have paid the electric bill at turbine for the past 3 yrs. nope now we are concerned with the hypothetical influx of new players that will assuredly show up when the game is provided for "free-to-play." i mean after all we are clearly offering the less content than you could cover in a free trial week... and they clearly will love the idea of having to pay for every quest chain and level that they want to progress in. Clearly the veterans (vips) will not be needed as EVERYONE will be buying **** left and right and they will be able to write big checks to all who work and have stock in Turbine.

I just got one question for those in charge at the top... What have you been smoking/snorting/huffing and where can i get some cause the kool-aid that you are feeding to your veterans has the wrong type of drugs in it!!

my 2cp FWIW

Dark

[seldarin]

DDO first tried to attract the WoW playerbase. Ironically what is transpiring in my guild alone is that majority of our players are currently playing WoW due to lack of release, tyranical forum moderating and just all in all lack of care in general. Sorry to say, Turbine you have dropped the bundle. Changes that are up and coming make this no longer DnD but just another MMO, and a half assed one at that. I can name probably 3 to 4 MMOs out there and a couple up and coming ones that exceed this in Content, support, playerbase, etc, etc. If you release a game and market it as something, IE DDO - Dungeons and Dragons, stick with that. When you deviate from what you are marketing something as, it is no longer that game. Grazing Hits, not DnD, introduce that it is no longer DnD, its just another MMO, players like myself will go elsewhere.

[Kalari]

I dont think I would have gotten the 8 girls that I consider my fun builds to 20 quickly definitely wanted to see Kalari at 20 since she was my first build and ive kept her threw thick and thin.

My problem with mod 9 not coming is I just havent been having as much fun as I used to in game. I dont blame Turbine especially for that I know its on me. Im just tired of the dodgy tactics they employ and have about this mod and its release period. I stopped my subscription have not signed in in a week in a half and though im wasting the last few days of my sub I just dont know if I have it in me to play any more. Part of me says "oh you know your just gonna re up for mod 9" but at this point I dont think so. Im hoping something changes my mind I know id miss my friends but the game just hasnt gripped me the way it did when I first started playing and ive tried going slow, different builds, crafting im just wondering if its the mod thats got me frustrated or if things have just gotten to stale? dunno just know ive had more fun in the forums then the game and thats sad.

[Drwaz99]

DDO first tried to attract the WoW player-base. Ironically what is transpiring in my guild alone is that majority of our players are currently playing WoW due to lack of release, tyrannical forum moderating and just all in all lack of care in general. Sorry to say, Turbine you have dropped the bundle.

I couldn't agree more. You can't post anything "really" negative about Turbine and it's employee's ineptitude to get things done (in all fairness not all are that way, there are some very good people too) as it gets deleted fast. Sure you can post a general dislike about the happenings and not have it deleted but instead of a heartfelt response from Turbine, you get a perma-copied and pasted "Thank you, Come again"! message. You would think that if they were going to respond it would be a bit more sympathetic and try a bit of damage control. The 999 free point compensation is like getting a tray of food dumped on you at a restaurant and the server giving you a paper napkin and a "Thank you, Come again!"

It's really sad to see the path they have chosen to follow. In the beginning DDO was a diamond in the ruff within the MMO genre. All it is now is Fool's Gold as we all have been taken for fools. :(

If/Once EU actually goes live, Turbine you really need to shine or all your going to get is coal by the time X-mas comes. Not a guess, a statement of fact.:rolleyes:

[Rabbi_Hordo]

Parvo,

Normally in threads like this, I would have just posted some jackass remark like "Hola Bienvenido" or "Hi Welcome" but I must concur with you 100%.

I hardly ever log in now and when I do, it's easy to tell many others have also decided to stop logging in. The guild of which I am an Officer on the Khyber server was a pretty active guild and the Guild Leader used to be on constantly. Now I only see maybe 4 or 5 of us at most and our Guild Leader isn't on nearly as much as he used to be.

If Mod 9 turns out to suck or it's not enough to get a decent number of people back playing regularly, I'm afraid I'll have to let both my accounts expire.

The DDO morale really seems to be at an all-time low. :(

It is odd that my guild is a little different in these respects. Yes, many of our officers are logging on less with the delay, but our numbers are actually up with the regular members getting their stuff together for the September release and our numbers have therefore remained nearly constant. I agree however that the people outside of my guild I ran with frequently are not online as much, but in-guild things are booming.

[smatt]

I must agree, with all the slight of hand soon stuff over the last 7-8 months.... Delays...... Stealth PAID beta testing of new networks on the live servers, downtimes, crashes, horrendous lag...... That they're working on but never fix..... Well they do fix it for a few days, or even a week or 2, then back to the same old same old....

Things are far worse than I have ever seen, while there were a lot of people on last night the attitude is horrbile....

But hey we get TP...... Yahoo.... I'm jumping up and down I'm so happy.... I get an extra $4 of nothing....

NOT EVEN some first look notes, Like I said in another thread, IF they were so close to actually releasing the Mod last week, and the hold up was last minute.. Then surely the release notes are sitting there completed........ Why don't we get those?????

None of this bodes well for September 1st I'm afraid.:cool:

[Kerrn_Siff]

I have seen some new people as of late, but they have not been able to replace the people that have left recently

tell me about it, 2 of the last 4 Reaver raids I was a pug in failed on Sarlona.. 2! Who fails the Reaver??

Or did you mean quantity not quality?

[Dark_Helmet]

I dunno about everyone else, but my guild attendance is down to 25%-50% of pre-delay announcement levels. I looked back in my notes and can't believe it's been almost a year since the last mod. Almost a full year... It seems DDO is simply a throw away product for Turb to test it's next failed idea of free to play...Another year like this and we'll be down to one server.

After their lack of support of the old player base (e.g. all of their attention is to get this game to be like other MMOs to steal their players / make a gimmick to get "freeloader type" people to pay), there is a lack of content to keep the "faithful DDO players".

In the one year period they did have some good dungeons for mod 9, but delayed them for the new audience (screw the old players!) that had nothing to do with the content itself.

That is their new business model: Get new players since the old aren't providing enough profit. Yes, they are making a profit! Just not enough for the bean counters. I don't agree with that type of attitude (you should support a current base as well as bring in new blood). I have seen several products remake themselves just to fully fail. AC2 almost did that, but luckily they kept AC going.

Now, DDO:EU is replacing the old and they gambling even more. They are remaking the game into something that is further away from D&D, thus losing those few D&D purists (like me), making changes to drive away the zergers (one of their current bread and butters as some have multiple accounts they maintain), and just making bone-headed decisions to group un-related changes to each other as packages and sacrificing their audience as the whole package becomes delayed and making their already dicey reputation become worse.

Even favorite devs have gotten brainwashed into "D&D doesn't work, we must make something different."

Now, it is just a product that needs to be renamed in support of an audience that will be even more hostile. Before, there were a lot of people who were complaining because they love D&D and wanted it to emulate it better: Players wanted it to succeed. Now, you just have the "freeloaders" who want something for nothing and will complain just to get everything for free.


Yes, some quality products fail, but the reason the lesser quality work is because they had no competition or have huge marketing (witness some of Microsoft's products in the past: they had numerous products that weren't the best based on reviews, but they bought the most advertising and bought/sued other products to keep them off the market).

Turbine has no large marketing juggernaut, so they need to depend on quality to sell their product.


When F2P came up, I was going to quit for awhile. Now it is delayed and I came back to play for another month... until it gets ruined by this lack of D&D mentality and bean counters running the business (how can I suck everyone dry of money as fast as I can?)

Too bad they let a quality product down.


/SOAPBOX