Hey Turbine WOW me before WoW does.

[Viridovix]

I love this game, I mean I really love this game. I think it is a great value both free and VIP status. The premium option is fantastic and that is what I was before I went VIP. The world is amazing and the content is super. I even bought the uber-version of the expansion pack. All of this said, I have to add that Turbine you have really dropped the ball lately.

Bugs, Bugs, Bugs and more bugs are driving me crazy.

How many times have I or one of my guild mates crashed, let me count the ways. Transition between zones, unexpectedly during a fight, and my favorite swimming underwater to pick up an explorer.

One of my favorites, the spider in the hobgoblin lair in tangelroot. That bug was fixed but everytime I enter the lair, there is the stuck black widow. I report it in game and what was the solution, "I unstuck the spider go back and kill it" I really appreciate that but how about we just fix the spider as promised in the hot fix that was supposed to address it.

How about getting off the airship, you know when I enter a new zone, I just love the fact that the airship captain dialog persist, and I have to say "No I think I will stay on the ship a little longer" for it to go away.

Ladder glitches, it seems they are always getting missed. They get fixed almost every update and hot-fix but never really seemed to get addressed.

Load times, I am talking 2-4 minutes from when the loading screen appears before I am actually in the game and then another 30 seconds before I can move around. Really!!! When I first started playing about a two years ago, never had this problem.

How about the tone in the harbor chat as of late, I have a child I would love to play the game with, but to be honest as of late the tone in the harbor, on Argonnessen, has been childish, rude and crude. I have the filter on and yes and many may feel that I am to conservative on this subject, but there is no reason for some of the behavior in the chat, and I have report it on a several occasions. Everyone is entitled to have fun but should we not be mindful about others playing the game, anyway I digress.

I know WoW is not perfect and has it's problems, I have friends who play both. What I am asking of you Turbine is to take a step back and address these issues before this player and others decide that the the devil they don't know may be a better choice they the devil they do know. All we are asking for is a game that is fun to play without the frustration of screaming at the game because a bug ruined you time in world.

Stepping off the soap box and returning to reality.

[Loromir]

SO you really think you'll enjoy playing a KungFu Panda?

[HAL]

In before more naysayers - I completely agree with OP.


SO you really think you'll enjoy playing a KungFu Panda?

Nice troll - there's a lot more than Pandas (which aren't even out yet).

[Synsuous]

I can play a KungFu Panda!?! <runs to check out Wow!> (ok, not really)

[Jay203]

i might stop playing DDO, but i'll never stop playing DDO to go play WoW

that game is just... boring

but anyway, there's really nothing turbine can do when it comes to player behavior
sure, you can say that they should have the GMs warning or even banning those tard-heads
but this is now a game that has super easy access, they can still start another account easily. those losers that talk **** in harbor probably don't even have anything worth missing if their account gets banned anyway

get rid of the chat tabs for your child and leave only the party, guild, and combat chat in i suppose

[Viridovix]

i might stop playing DDO, but i'll never stop playing DDO to go play WoW

that game is just... boring

but anyway, there's really nothing turbine can do when it comes to player behavior
sure, you can say that they should have the GMs warning or even banning those tard-heads
but this is now a game that has super easy access, they can still start another account easily. those losers that talk **** in harbor probably don't even have anything worth missing if their account gets banned anyway

get rid of the chat tabs for your child and leave only the party, guild, and combat chat in i suppose

Jay203, I would forget my head if it was not attached. I forgot about this option thanks so much for the suggestion. You rock.

[Ranncore]

The sad thing is that I'm pretty sure Turbine fully expected/ is expecting to lose a large portion of their playerbase between Star Wars, Diablo 3, Guild Wars 2 and Neverwinter Online. I think their idea was to get 80 last dollars out of their players for this expansion pack before everyone moved on. If they had pushed the release date any farther out, it would have resulted in more players leaving before buying. Whether or not the game is functioning optimally is really of no consequence. Whether or not they lose 50% of their player base is of no consequence - so much had been predicted and accounted for, and those players already bought MOTU. They were going to lose players to the newest generation of MMOs anyways - at least they got 80 last dollars from some of us before we leave.
It's incredible that Turbine could take something so highly anticipated as the first ever expansion for DDO and turn it into this. An exodus of players and a swarm of bugs.
I said it elsewhere - before this update, I had all but lost interest in Guild Wars 2. I just pre-ordered it today.

[LordPiglet]

I love this game, I mean I really love this game. I think it is a great value both free and VIP status. The premium option is fantastic and that is what I was before I went VIP. The world is amazing and the content is super. I even bought the uber-version of the expansion pack. All of this said, I have to add that Turbine you have really dropped the ball lately.

Bugs, Bugs, Bugs and more bugs are driving me crazy.

How many times have I or one of my guild mates crashed, let me count the ways. Transition between zones, unexpectedly during a fight, and my favorite swimming underwater to pick up an explorer.

One of my favorites, the spider in the hobgoblin lair in tangelroot. That bug was fixed but everytime I enter the lair, there is the stuck black widow. I report it in game and what was the solution, "I unstuck the spider go back and kill it" I really appreciate that but how about we just fix the spider as promised in the hot fix that was supposed to address it.

How about getting off the airship, you know when I enter a new zone, I just love the fact that the airship captain dialog persist, and I have to say "No I think I will stay on the ship a little longer" for it to go away.

Ladder glitches, it seems they are always getting missed. They get fixed almost every update and hot-fix but never really seemed to get addressed.

Load times, I am talking 2-4 minutes from when the loading screen appears before I am actually in the game and then another 30 seconds before I can move around. Really!!! When I first started playing about a two years ago, never had this problem.

How about the tone in the harbor chat as of late, I have a child I would love to play the game with, but to be honest as of late the tone in the harbor, on Argonnessen, has been childish, rude and crude. I have the filter on and yes and many may feel that I am to conservative on this subject, but there is no reason for some of the behavior in the chat, and I have report it on a several occasions. Everyone is entitled to have fun but should we not be mindful about others playing the game, anyway I digress.

I know WoW is not perfect and has it's problems, I have friends who play both. What I am asking of you Turbine is to take a step back and address these issues before this player and others decide that the the devil they don't know may be a better choice they the devil they do know. All we are asking for is a game that is fun to play without the frustration of screaming at the game because a bug ruined you time in world.

Stepping off the soap box and returning to reality.

I'm personally not aware of anyone in my guild who crashes between zones. We do have a couple players with long load times, 1 got a new system and doesn't have the issue any more the other one is on an extremly old XP system.

Recently I had an issue where my laptop wouldn't see anything above direct x 9, I thought it was the game, ended up being corrupted dx files, now I'm running 11. Sure, there are code based bugs, this happens and they're fixing them. Some problems are computer or system specific though and not necessarily fixable by them.

The load times are actually affected by your channels (and where you parked) also from what I can tell. When I lr and lose my channels, first load into a character i is definitely faster. If there's no one on the guild ship and it has to generate that instance, there also seems to be some delay in load.

[flaggson]

SO you really think you'll enjoy playing a KungFu Panda?


sold

[Ranncore]

And I won't ever be pre-ordering from Turbine again - hah. Funny thing, I wasn't even leery of pre-ordering GW2. That's a company I trust. I can't say the same thing about Turbine, given my last pre-order experience from them.

[JollySwagMan]

if the current tone of the harbor chat bothers you, expect trouble in WoW. the chat channels in that game have a much higher proportion of rude/illiterate players.

I'm trying out a Diablo III demo at the moment, the monk is pretty fun...not as fun as jumping around in DDO though. the kung-fu pandas coming up in wow do have some appeal to me, but i've had no luck trying to have fun in that game...mostly due to the control system (compared to DDO's).

[dterror]

How about the tone in the harbor chat as of late, I have a child I would love to play the game with, but to be honest as of late the tone in the harbor, on Argonnessen, has been childish, rude and crude. I have the filter on and yes and many may feel that I am to conservative on this subject, but there is no reason for some of the behavior in the chat, and I have report it on a several occasions. Everyone is entitled to have fun but should we not be mindful about others playing the game, anyway I digress.


I report people on Argo public chat all the time...all those morons who deliberately bypass the chat filter. Cuss or whatever all you want, but if I have the filter turned on (I don't usually, but that's only because getting random gibberish bugs me) then I expect 100% of the stuff that SHOULD be filtered to actually BE filtered. I have no problems with hopefully causing the concrete banhammer to land squarely on the heads of those idiots who bypass the filter any way they can.

[ORIGINALBAG0]

Jay203, I would forget my head if it was not attached. I forgot about this option thanks so much for the suggestion. You rock.

The other option is to not play on Argo. It's my home server, and I love most of the people, but we really do have the worst public chat channels. If I had a nickel for every time someone screamed something ban-worthy in harbor general chat, I would be swimming in a pool of them like Scrooge McDuck.

Just remember that any comment in any chat channel can be reported. The fact that the internet is relatively anonymous doesn't mean that angry children should be allowed to say completely reprehensible things whenever they want. There are kids who play this game, and most of them are running around in the harbor, which is definitely the worst offender.

[Hokiewa]

The sad thing is that I'm pretty sure Turbine fully expected/ is expecting to lose a large portion of their playerbase between Star Wars, Diablo 3, Guild Wars 2 and Neverwinter Online.

Yeah the first two have worked out so well. SWTOR is going F2P.

[Chai]

The sad thing is that I'm pretty sure Turbine fully expected/ is expecting to lose a large portion of their playerbase between Star Wars, Diablo 3, Guild Wars 2 and Neverwinter Online. I think their idea was to get 80 last dollars out of their players for this expansion pack before everyone moved on. If they had pushed the release date any farther out, it would have resulted in more players leaving before buying. Whether or not the game is functioning optimally is really of no consequence. Whether or not they lose 50% of their player base is of no consequence - so much had been predicted and accounted for, and those players already bought MOTU. They were going to lose players to the newest generation of MMOs anyways - at least they got 80 last dollars from some of us before we leave.
It's incredible that Turbine could take something so highly anticipated as the first ever expansion for DDO and turn it into this. An exodus of players and a swarm of bugs.
I said it elsewhere - before this update, I had all but lost interest in Guild Wars 2. I just pre-ordered it today.

Over the six years this game has been online, that mass exodus due to some new game being released has been predicted many times, but has never once happened. It wont happen this time either.

SWTOR - WOW with lightsabres and blasters. Progression raiding in the star wars universe. Its major draw - The graphics. Once everyone who "left" this game to play over there realized that the graphics cant KEEP customers entertained forever, they came back here, en masse.

D3. Real life AH - disaster waiting to happen.

GW2 - Prob has the most promise out of all of them. I dont see DDOs entire population all of a sudden quitting to play that game.

NWN MMO - 4 classes, based on 4e, very limited - might get better over time like this game did bringing more character customizing options to the table.

As for the OP - WOW? Really? Have fun killing 10 spiders and bringing back 5 legs and 3 fangs to the same NPC to level up with each NPC giving you the same type of quest save for different mobs.

[Cyr]

Yeah the first two have worked out so well. SWTOR is going F2P.

If the sign of a failed MMO is it converting from a monthly model to a F2P model the DDO would be the model for that.

Lots of MMOs are exploring the F2P model atm because Turbine proved that it was not only viable, but in many ways superior.

[Ranncore]

Over the six years this game has been online, that mass exodus due to some new game being released has been predicted many times, but has never once happened. It wont happen this time either.

It's crazy that this game has been out for six years and you can't pick a character or quest to play for more than an hour without encountering a glitch.

[Rian]

It's crazy that this game has been out for six years and you can't pick a character or quest to play for more than an hour without encountering a glitch.

Really? You have bad luck then, hardly ever do I encounter a bug/glitch that irritates my game play. If I do I work around it, because I can.

[Ranncore]

It doesn't take a mass exodus to ruin the playerbase of a game. A steady decline of accounts, more new players than old ones, in the case of a free to play, more premium than VIP accounts. Players who payed for the game for 6+ years that leave are a bad sign. Each new player who subscribes is less likely to be here for that long. Look at Everquest. It never had a mass exodus. It just dwindled into nothing.
And unless the devs step up their game - and fast - that's where this game is headed.
Right next to Everquest.

[Chai]

It's crazy that this game has been out for six years and you can't pick a character or quest to play for more than an hour without encountering a glitch.

You expect to find different in WOW? I bet I could still list some bugs over there that havent been fixed. Theres a myth on these forums perpetuated ALOT that somehow this is the only aging game with this many issues. This myth is of course false.

These other new games are not as developed so they wont have as many glitches, but what they also wont have is alot of content. People will head over there, play through the available content a few times, get bored, and come back here.

[Ape_Man]

Mass exodus? Yeah right, this game is as popular as ever and for every grizzled vet who leaves 10 WOW refuggees land on Korthos eager to spend money in the DDO store.

No other game is going to kill DDO . . . the only game company that could kill DDO is Turbine but most of the d00m is premature. The Expansion was a hit.

[Ranncore]

You expect to find different in WOW? I bet I could still list some bugs over there that havent been fixed. Theres a myth on these forums perpetuated ALOT that somehow this is the only aging game with this many issues. This myth is of course false.

These other new games are not as developed so they wont have as many glitches, but what they also wont have is alot of content. People will head over there, play through the available content a few times, get bored, and come back here.

I wish I had your optimism.

And uh, this IS the only game with THIS MANY issues. It's out of hand.

[Chai]

It doesn't take a mass exodus to ruin the playerbase of a game. A steady decline of accounts, more new players than old ones, in the case of a free to play, more premium than VIP accounts. Players who payed for the game for 6+ years that leave are a bad sign. Each new player who subscribes is less likely to be here for that long. Look at Everquest. It never had a mass exodus. It just dwindled into nothing.
And unless the devs step up their game - and fast - that's where this game is headed.
Right next to Everquest.

Predicted alot around these parts as well, and also has never occurred. These kind of posts have been plentiful over the past 4-5 years. If Turbine doesnt do what the armchair developers union says they should do, we are all going to slip away and play (insert game where grass is greener on the other side here).

Everquest is still a profitable enterprise. Its also a 14 year old game. And there was an exodus from EQ. Right around the same time the WOW beta ended most of the endgame guilds on each server moved to WOW in a 2-3 month period of time. That game is also littered with far more insane time wasting issues than this game ever could be. Imagine a 104 step quest to get one weapon, and you are on step 78 and took 4 months to get this far, and you hand in the item for that step to the NPC who asked for it, and it did not advance the quest or give you another item in return like you should have gotten.

For every player who played the game for 6 years that leaves, more new players join. Games do not worry as much about attrition of 6+ year players as much as they worry about attrition loss of 6 months and less players. Since 2009 there have been vets who have left but there have been ALOT more new players who join up. The forumites are less than 5% of the game player base. Only a small percentage of those complain very loudly about bugs. Many of them are the same people who predict mass exodus which never occurs after each major game change. Everyone else - like 98-99% of the population is playing the game and either doesnt frequent the forums, or does read the forums but doesnt get all bent out of shape each time a major game change occurs and some stuff doesnt work as intended for a few patches.

[skullzz]

Rancore how do you know that is game has the most bugs? Do you go to other games' forums and read the posts daily?

OP- also the second, third and fourth bugs really bother you? If so then Good luck in your next adventure (game).

Rian I agree with you since I've been around for just under 5 years now. The only time that a company needs to worry is if the long time customers have a mass exodus, which usually is a bad sign to new customers about the game.

[DethTrip]

Because of f2p and the design of the game pretty much forcing players to buy something along the line I think DDO will never die but GW2 may take a lot of players away for a long time. I preordered it and expect it to be a hit. I played the first GW for years before moving on and I still sneak back and play every now and then. The only reason I quit was because they quit adding content because they were building GW2. Guess we'll just have to see what happens.

[Chai]

I wish I had your optimism.

And uh, this IS the only game with THIS MANY issues. It's out of hand.

This is NOT the only game that has this many issues, by and far. Go look at the WOW known issue list for instance.

People often times talk about how the grass is greener on the other side, until they get to the other side and realize that game that seemed more attractive at the time is riddled with just as high of a number of bugs.

I actually logged into EQ and messed around for a week recently, only to have alot of old memories of disappearing gear, 14 hour long camp spawns, and quest hand in bugs, come back to haunt me, heh.

[Ape_Man]

Because of f2p and the design of the game pretty much forcing players to buy something along the line I think DDO will never die but GW2 may take a lot of players away for a long time. I preordered it and expect it to be a hit. I played the first GW for years before moving on and I still sneak back and play every now and then. The only reason I quit was because they quit adding content because they were building GW2. Guess we'll just have to see what happens.

Aren't VIP a minority at this point? I don't know the stats, making an assumption which could admittedly be wrong . . . but why would Turbine care if premium players leave?

They already have our money. They lose nothing if we stop playing.

[Vormaerin]

Aren't VIP a minority at this point? I don't know the stats, making an assumption which could admittedly be wrong . . . but why would Turbine care if premium players leave?

They already have our money. They lose nothing if we stop playing.

Well, VIPs are the minority, but the last information we had was that there were more VIPs now than there were before F2P.

As far as losing premium players, they would lose your future expenditures even if you are one of the folks who never buys any fluff. There's another adventure pack coming out in a few weeks, for instance.

[Elation]

It doesn't take a mass exodus to ruin the playerbase of a game. A steady decline of accounts, more new players than old ones, in the case of a free to play, more premium than VIP accounts. Players who payed for the game for 6+ years that leave are a bad sign. Each new player who subscribes is less likely to be here for that long. Look at Everquest. It never had a mass exodus. It just dwindled into nothing.
And unless the devs step up their game - and fast - that's where this game is headed.
Right next to Everquest.

Uhm you have no actaul proof of declining player base enough said.

[Viridovix]

I may have misrepresented the intent of my comments when I said before I and others leave. I am not predicting a mass exodus, actually I hope it does not happen. I am only stating that frustrating bugs can lead to people leaving and yes there is the possibility that they would come back. I am not working in a vacuum of knowledge, I am work for a software company that produces the leading personal finance software on the market and they also make the most popular small business accounting software as well. I know about bugs, trust me I worked their community forums for several years and heard all about them. As a matter of fact I think they still have my mug shot up on their community page that introduces their host.

I am familiar with the Pareto Principle and the "90-9-1" participation rule online engagement. This does not mean that the 90+% does not have a complaint it only means that they choose not to engage on a social platform. I signed up March of 2010 and have exactly 1 post prior to the two post I made, now three, today. I am speaking from a point of frustration from a game that I thought was much better at addressing the concerns of all their members. My complaints are not unreasonable nor are they un-actionable. I stand behind my suggestion of what is wrong with taking a step back and truly resolving many of the issues then moving forward with more exciting content. Another example, am I the only one who was told they killed there first spider about 30 times? Feel free to call me a arm chair developer, although the reality is I am a fan of the game and would love to see DDO eclipse all other MMO's.

[Funny_looking_mole]

I would actually suggest playing WoW, I actually just did myself. I had a couple of friends who knew I liked gaming, and wanted me to come play WoW, I had really everything that you would want a new player to have, I read the forums, and a perma group for at least 1 toon, another person I duo'd with, a toon to solo that I could borrow money from, and it was right before a new expansion which is usually when things are the least buggy and most stable. And I gave it the best chance I could, I got a toon to cap, 2 close, capped 4 tradeskills (2 crafting, 2 harvesting), played with PvP, played the auctionhouse and got tons of money, read all quest dialog, read the forums etc. I took about 2 months to get all those things to that point.

I came back early July before even 14.1 when everything was in full swing buggy, and it was so much better than WoW, if I had been this way when I left I never would have given it a shot, I just needed a quick break from DDO. I am thinking you might be in a similar situation.

[Hambo]

The other option is to not play on Argo. It's my home server, and I love most of the people, but we really do have the worst public chat channels. If I had a nickel for every time someone screamed something ban-worthy in harbor general chat, I would be swimming in a pool of them like Scrooge McDuck.

Just remember that any comment in any chat channel can be reported. The fact that the internet is relatively anonymous doesn't mean that angry children should be allowed to say completely reprehensible things whenever they want. There are kids who play this game, and most of them are running around in the harbor, which is definitely the worst offender.

This. IIRC, Turbine maintains logs of all chat channels... They probably don't monitor them but can go back and review if reported just adter the offensive bit occurs (reports are time/date stamped).

[Hambo]

Aren't VIP a minority at this point? I don't know the stats, making an assumption which could admittedly be wrong . . . but why would Turbine care if premium players leave?

They already have our money. They lose nothing if we stop playing.

There is no logical consistancy between your two paragraphs.

The VIP sector is the only constant income Turbine can count on. Sure, there may be Premiums who pay more than $10 in some months but we subscribers have committed to $10 every month. This leads to Turbine being able to project budgets months in advance, rather than having to wait until the first to be sure they cleared operating costs last month. :D

[grayham]

http://i1192.photobucket.com/albums/aa324/grayhamp/Perspective.png

[Viridovix]

I would actually suggest playing WoW, I actually just did myself. I had a couple of friends who knew I liked gaming, and wanted me to come play WoW, I had really everything that you would want a new player to have, I read the forums, and a perma group for at least 1 toon, another person I duo'd with, a toon to solo that I could borrow money from, and it was right before a new expansion which is usually when things are the least buggy and most stable. And I gave it the best chance I could, I got a toon to cap, 2 close, capped 4 tradeskills (2 crafting, 2 harvesting), played with PvP, played the auctionhouse and got tons of money, read all quest dialog, read the forums etc. I took about 2 months to get all those things to that point.

I came back early July before even 14.1 when everything was in full swing buggy, and it was so much better than WoW, if I had been this way when I left I never would have given it a shot, I just needed a quick break from DDO. I am thinking you might be in a similar situation.

I hope I don't get to that point. I just read the release notes on the lammi server and it appears they are working on things. I am sure if I do go give WoW a run I will be back and appreciate what I left. Sometimes you just got to vent.

[Viridovix]

http://i1192.photobucket.com/albums/aa324/grayhamp/Perspective.png

Hmmm, I am wondering if the green grass will turn yellow when I go over. Maybe it is just me that is making my grass look so bad.

[Vormaerin]

There is no logical consistancy between your two paragraphs.

The VIP sector is the only constant income Turbine can count on. Sure, there may be Premiums who pay more than $10 in some months but we subscribers have committed to $10 every month. This leads to Turbine being able to project budgets months in advance, rather than having to wait until the first to be sure they cleared operating costs last month. :D

While I'm generally a very pro VIP voice, I have to say that you are flat out wrong there. They can't count on my money at all. If I paid for a year's sub in advance, that's not any different than prepayment by a premium player. While if I am paying month to month, I could stop next month and they'd have nothing.

Turbine needs to be nice to VIPs because our money is not guaranteed. Someone who is premium and "bought everything" (which is usually not true, but whatever) is the one with no leverage, because their money is already spent until Turbine has something else to sell. Unless they've been around for years or extremely patient in double dipping on the sales (both for points and content), they've paid more than a VIP has.

Though, obviously, its in Turbine's interest to appeal to both parts of the player base.

[Chai]

There is no logical consistancy between your two paragraphs.

The VIP sector is the only constant income Turbine can count on. Sure, there may be Premiums who pay more than $10 in some months but we subscribers have committed to $10 every month. This leads to Turbine being able to project budgets months in advance, rather than having to wait until the first to be sure they cleared operating costs last month. :D

All Turbine has to do is create more power creep like epic destinies and make it pay only, like epic destinies. The "I wont give Turbine another red cent" crowd flip flopped rather quickly when that was released and it became a clear cut case of "shut up and take my money" real quick.

[Ranncore]

there actually is a way to measure how many people are playing the game right now and im working on compiling it.

by looking at guild growth.

of course, it doesnt measure every player, because some (very few), aren't in guilds, but it's a good place to start.

also, this wouldn't measure how many people are f2p, premium, or VIP, and it wouldn't measure how many people have recently dropped their subs.

but it would still be a fair measurement of active players.

[Dandonk]

DDO has many bugs: Check.

Bugs are annoying: (censored) check!

But DDO is by no means the only game to have bugs. I played WOW, SWTOR, DAoC, EQ1+2, Vanguard, LOTRO, Conan... ALL of them had bugs. Don't even get me started on Vanguard...
Yes, Turbine needs to clean up DDO, because bugs are bad. But if you're expecting things to be hugely different in other games, then in my experience you're going to be disappointed. There is some variance in bug frequency, sure, but not -that- much.

DDO has survive many game-killing competitors, and will surely survive more. Because the devs are always putting new and exciting stuff together for us.* So I'm not too worried about that part.


*: That I do not always agree with the direction they're taking is a whoooooole other can of worms.

[nibel]

While I'm generally a very pro VIP voice, I have to say that you are flat out wrong there. They can't count on my money at all.

Yes, they can. And they do.

Statistically speaking, the ammount of VIP cancelations/new VIP subs ratio is well known by Turbine, and is kinda of predicatable if you have a big amount of data. There are a few flops here and there (like the growth with the expansion release), but mostly, they know how much money they get in the vault every month because of VIP subs.

=================

On topic, I totally regret getting into the passport thing last year to get D3 for free. I'm not playing either WoW or D3 anymore, and still have to pay 4 more months. Sigh.

[Vormaerin]

Yes, they can. And they do.

Statistically speaking, the ammount of VIP cancelations/new VIP subs ratio is well known by Turbine, and is kinda of predicatable if you have a big amount of data. There are a few flops here and there (like the growth with the expansion release), but mostly, they know how much money they get in the vault every month because of VIP subs.
.

Which is true in a certain sense, but his statement was that VIPs have *committed* to spending money every month. I have not agreed to spend any money I haven't already spent. I am happy with my subscription so its reasonable for turbine to anticipate that I will continue to pay. But I am NOT committed to do. And if I pay for a year in advance, I'm not part of their forward budgeting. I'm part of their "cash in hand," same as a premium.

[Chai]

Which is true in a certain sense, but his statement was that VIPs have *committed* to spending money every month. I have not agreed to spend any money I haven't already spent. I am happy with my subscription so its reasonable for turbine to anticipate that I will continue to pay. But I am NOT committed to do. And if I pay for a year in advance, I'm not part of their forward budgeting. I'm part of their "cash in hand," same as a premium.

Alot of people are paying yearly or at least every three months. Perhaps the choice of words was wrong when using committed, because vested is what comes to mind.

[Hokiewa]

This myth has been perpetuated on the forums for years now, and has never happened. People continue to banter that if Turbine doesnt do what they want the company will lose money, but when those people are a very small (but loud) percentage of all forumites (less than 5% of players to begin with)

This is the real myth. Why you keep posting this (and in your sig) nobody but you knows when it was disproven by Tolero. Hilarious

[BitkaCK2]

http://www.magerempowerment.com/v2/blog/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/glass-half-full.jpg

Pessimist: The glass is half full of bugs and half empty of promised enhancement changes and PrEs.
Optimist: The glass is half full of amazing content and half empty of bug fixes that are coming Soon™
Both: The meniscus is a known issue. Awaiting dev comment to confirm/deny WAI.

Personally, I've been playing other games until the xpack gets sorted. Fired up a trial account for Eve Online. Fascinating game so far, I'll probably sub for 6 months and keep it for backup.
bitkaCK2

[Ranncore]

http://www.magerempowerment.com/v2/blog/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/glass-half-full.jpg

Pessimist: The glass is half full of bugs and half empty of promised enhancement changes and PrEs.
Optimist: The glass is half full of amazing content and half empty of bug fixes that are coming Soon™
Both: The meniscus is a known issue. Awaiting dev comment to confirm/deny WAI.

Personally, I've been playing other games until the xpack gets sorted. Fired up a trial account for Eve Online. Fascinating game so far, I'll probably sub for 6 months and keep it for backup.
bitkaCK2

I love Eve online - keep trying to convince my IRL friends to give it a whirl.
However, we're all going to GW2. Very solid looking game, been playing the beta. (Also been playing the DDO beta, its called u14, lol).
Most of my guild left for diablo 3, came back to peak around after u14, saw the wreckage and left again.

I'll still poke my head in every once in a while to see if things shape up.

Also:

The optimist - The glass is half full!
The pessimist - The glass is half empty!
The mathemitician - It's whiskey!

[Maitland]

I reciently talked 4 of my rl friends to try this game out..they love it..
Just finished getting their vip status last week.
And are talking their freinds into trying it out as well..
Soooo...When you all leave,can they have yous stuff?.I cant outfit them all. :(

[Vormaerin]

This is the real myth. Why you keep posting this (and in your sig) nobody but you knows when it was disproven by Tolero. Hilarious

Well, Tolero said it wasn't true. Neither of them actually offered any evidence. So "Disproven" is probably a stretch.

More likely, they are both correct and are talking about different things. The active forum readers are likely less than 5% (the posters obviously are). The total visitors is quite likely well over 5%.

[Vormaerin]

Alot of people are paying yearly or at least every three months. Perhaps the choice of words was wrong when using committed, because vested is what comes to mind.

Yes, but that's not forward revenue for Turbine. Its cash in hand. If I spend $30 for three months' sub, it doesn't matter to Turbine whether I actually log in during those three months beyond the basic value of player volume.

If I am premium and spend $30 on the expansion, its the same situation. If I don't stick around very long, I've flushed money. It retains some value in that if I return in some distant future, I still have access to that content. But there is still a minimum amount of time I have to spend playing the game to make that purchase worthwhile.

I don't see how one is more vested than the other.

[Ungood]

Sorry, my information is correct on this matter. Most of the endgamers in EQ were invited to beta the end game of WOW, and they were the ones who left within months of WOWs release. If you think Im wrong, dont tell me, show me. I want to see the homework youve done on that. I still have the list of guilds who left EQ for WOW right after WOWs release. I wasnt just another gamer looking subjectively from the outside in that situation.

Sorry dude, but it's gotta be just some gamers subjective outlook on things, because If you had done your Home Work you would have known that EQ was boasting it's best numbers just as WoW was coming out, in fact their sub numbers were going up as WoW was coming out not down.

So, these uber guilds that jumped ship had a non-existent impact on EQ's numbers when WoW was enticing them away. It was not until a year later, that EQ really took a heavy loss in it's player base dropping from 400K subs to less then 200K subs.

Which most likley was the result of their more casual player base realizing there were better games out there and moving on.

In that vein, looking at the numbers, losing the elite players does not in fact hurt a game. And I never made any bones about DDO's numbers climbing and in the past 3 years since going F2P have more then doubled from their Subscription days.

In fact I had mentioned on more then one occasion that their Micro-Transaction plan and F2P model were a stellar success and one of things they are most hyped about currently.

Honestly I have no idea where you get your info, but it seems with all things., you have a penchant for not being correctly informed.

[Raithe]

It was not until a year later, that EQ really took a heavy loss in it's player base dropping from 400K subs to less then 200K subs.


And I would call that a mass exodus. DDO went from ~90k subs to about 25k~ subs over the first four months of its existence, we had multiple static internet sources giving those numbers. I would definitely call that a mass exodus. By the time DDO went F2P it probably had less than 20k subs, so doubling that isn't exactly stellar.

My point being that there is a lot of wrong in what everyone is saying. DDO seems to experience mini-exodii every late spring.



In fact I had mentioned on more then one occasion that their Micro-Transaction plan and F2P model were a stellar success and one of things they are most hyped about currently.


Stellar success? There are probably more people playing Diablo II on Battle.Net right now than have ever played DDO at the same time. Probably more people playing Ultima Online currently, too. The business model DDO came up with was an ugly patch for gameplay ills they simply couldn't fix. Calling it a stellar success doesn't strike anywhere close to reasonable for me.

Having said all that, I like the game better now than I did 3 months ago. Quite a bit better, actually. Despite all the bugs, the game seems to be in better shape overall and with school coming back in session soon it seems we are getting amped up in playerbase, as well. Either that or the expansion was more of a hit than I give it credit.

[Ranncore]

And I would call that a mass exodus. DDO went from ~90k subs to about 25k~ subs over the first four months of its existence, we had multiple static internet sources giving those numbers. I would definitely call that a mass exodus. By the time DDO went F2P it probably had less than 20k subs, so doubling that isn't exactly stellar.

My point being that there is a lot of wrong in what everyone is saying. DDO seems to experience mini-exodii every late spring.



Stellar success? There are probably more people playing Diablo II on Battle.Net right now than have ever played DDO at the same time. Probably more people playing Ultima Online currently, too. The business model DDO came up with was an ugly patch for gameplay ills they simply couldn't fix. Calling it a stellar success doesn't strike anywhere close to reasonable for me.

Having said all that, I like the game better now than I did 3 months ago. Quite a bit better, actually. Despite all the bugs, the game seems to be in better shape overall and with school coming back in session soon it seems we are getting amped up in playerbase, as well. Either that or the expansion was more of a hit than I give it credit.

This is probably the most reasonable, coherent and accurate post I've ever seen you make and can't help but agree with you on every point except one. I personally don't enjoy the game more than I did three months ago - in fact I enjoy it quite a bit less.

But to each his own. Every bit of objective analysis you made there was spot-on.

However, just because I know you like to argue - the plural of exodus is exoduses, not exodii. That's not a word.

[GeneralDiomedes]

The optimist - The glass is half full!
The pessimist - The glass is half empty!
The mathemitician - It's whiskey!

And ..

The engineer - The glass is too big!

[Ranncore]

And ..

The engineer - The glass is too big!

Lol, I like that one.

[Sarnind]

DDO has many bugs: Check.

Bugs are annoying: (censored) check!

But DDO is by no means the only game to have bugs. I played WOW, SWTOR, DAoC, EQ1+2, Vanguard, LOTRO, Conan... ALL of them had bugs. Don't even get me started on Vanguard...
Yes, Turbine needs to clean up DDO, because bugs are bad. But if you're expecting things to be hugely different in other games, then in my experience you're going to be disappointed. There is some variance in bug frequency, sure, but -that- much.

DDO has survive many game-killing competitors, and will surely survive more. Because the devs are always putting new and exciting stuff together for us.* So I'm not too worried about that part.


*: That I do not always agree with the direction they're taking is a whoooooole other can of worms.
Yes u have right , but this before the last update(menace of the undercrap, the rise of casual players cake walk style)
Guys i play ddo since 2006, I come from european server, I never left ddo, i love d&d, but this latest update has destroyed everything! I m sorry guys but i can t continue to give my money a these *********** guys!
I feel betrayed. My 2 cent, sry for my bad english

[Uska]

I think the only way wow could ever wow me would be wowII they would need to totaly revamp their combat system and cartoony graphics before I would ever go back to that crapfest that is wow

[Uska]

It's crazy that this game has been out for six years and you can't pick a character or quest to play for more than an hour without encountering a glitch.

Thats funny I play multiple hours every day and dont get anything that I would call a glitch that would even minorly annoy me.

[Uska]

Mass exodus? Yeah right, this game is as popular as ever and for every grizzled vet who leaves 10 WOW refuggees land on Korthos eager to spend money in the DDO store.

No other game is going to kill DDO . . . the only game company that could kill DDO is Turbine but most of the d00m is premature. The Expansion was a hit.

At first I only bought the expansion for the Destinies and learning tomes and pets but I have grown to love the new area a lot I just pretend it isnt the realms.

[Ausdoerrt]

And ..

The engineer - The glass is too big!

And...

The dwarf - Brin' meh another!

[Pantronic]

I report people on Argo public chat all the time...all those morons who deliberately bypass the chat filter. Cuss or whatever all you want, but if I have the filter turned on (I don't usually, but that's only because getting random gibberish bugs me) then I expect 100% of the stuff that SHOULD be filtered to actually BE filtered. I have no problems with hopefully causing the concrete banhammer to land squarely on the heads of those idiots who bypass the filter any way they can.

I don't mind swearing. It often adds colour and dimension to a conversation--provided the speaker is mindful of the audience, and uses appropriate punctuation. ;) So my filters are off. But I detest boorish, childish behaviour; abusive, derogatory name-calling and generally disrespectful attitudes towards fellow players, all of which can be done without running afoul of a filter. For that reason, I never have the general chat window open.

[Uska]

I reciently talked 4 of my rl friends to try this game out..they love it..
Just finished getting their vip status last week.
And are talking their freinds into trying it out as well..
Soooo...When you all leave,can they have yous stuff?.I cant outfit them all. :(

If you are all on the right server would be glad to help always glad to see someone expanding our population:)

[Peipei]

well... I ones in my life made the misstake to look / log into WoW and... after 2 hours try I never ever go back.. not even fully vaccinated and stick!! DDO has plenty of it's shadow corners but still you loonies and game are alot better.

[goodspeed]

You had the the floor until the wow wow came up. It might have a few million lil ba er lets say young people on it, doesn't make the suck any less.

I mean you could have even said lotr and it would of had plausibility, but wowio's just threw the comparison right out the door. If wow was even an 8th as badass as the southpark episode I'd say it had something going for it.

Oh almost forgot. Get ur hands up and gimme yo stuff wower! That's it, nice and easy, no mess for the cleaner.

[Hutoth]

http://biobreak.files.wordpress.com/2011/04/ddo.jpg?w=584

VS

http://dotawarcraft.info/poze_big/panda_wow_wallpaper.jpg

no contest

[Ausdoerrt]

^ Yeah, I prefer Asian food :P

[Elation]

there actually is a way to measure how many people are playing the game right now and im working on compiling it.

by looking at guild growth.

of course, it doesnt measure every player, because some (very few), aren't in guilds, but it's a good place to start.

also, this wouldn't measure how many people are f2p, premium, or VIP, and it wouldn't measure how many people have recently dropped their subs.

but it would still be a fair measurement of active players.

Guild growth will not give you even a general idea of game growth or size.

[twigzz]

Wow it takes you almost 5 mins to load and move?! Sounds like your system man, from character selection menu to being able to move in game takes me maybe 20 seconds....but I use solid state hard drives in RAID0. :p

I do get zone crashes tho :( Good thing it only takes me 20secs to get back going tho lol. :D


Go WoW yourself! :)

[Elation]

He has got a point. Load times are directlyt effected by you system since the process is all PC side till population. Maybe time for a reinstall after a delete and disk defrag. If your hard drive is old and slow its gonna suck some.

[twigzz]

He has got a point. Load times are directlyt effected by you system since the process is all PC side till population. Maybe time for a reinstall after a delete and disk defrag. If your hard drive is old and slow its gonna suck some.

Indeed but most people like to put the blame elsewhere....