Ravenloft expansion

[Dragavon]

I watched Cordovan's livestream from wednesday and he was talking about the discussions they have at SSG about how to sell the Ravenloft expansion.

My opinion is that I am willing to pay a lot more for it if we get a limited pre-purchase pack with unique items than if we only get a plain expansion with nothing special.

So make an expensive collectors edition with lots of cool things and only sell it a limited time and take my money already! :cool:

[96th_Malice]

I watched Cordovan's livestream from wednesday and he was talking about the discussions they have at SSG about how to sell the Ravenloft expansion.

My opinion is that I am willing to pay a lot more for it if we get a limited pre-purchase pack with unique items than if we only get a plain expansion with nothing special.

So make an expensive collectors edition with lots of cool things and only sell it a limited time and take my money already! :cool:

If it's Ravenloft I'd pay more for it regardless.

First time I've been legitimately excited for something in this game for quite some time.

I honestly don't see how SSG will replicate the feel of PnP Ravenloft ( isnt Deleras Graveyard pretty much Ravenloft on a smaller scale ? .. hehe )

Regardless take my money please

[psykopeta]

I watched Cordovan's livestream from wednesday and he was talking about the discussions they have at SSG about how to sell the Ravenloft expansion.

My opinion is that I am willing to pay a lot more for it if we get a limited pre-purchase pack with unique items than if we only get a plain expansion with nothing special.

So make an expensive collectors edition with lots of cool things and only sell it a limited time and take my money already! :cool:

Isn't that what we got in the only 2 expansions so far ddo has released?

Expansion: vips gotta pay too, use to have prepurchase and collectors or legendary edition

Update: vips can access to the released adventure pack w/o extra charge

[zehnvhex]

I'm just hoping it's a proper expansion and not like the SF debacle.

[Renvar]

If it is a MoTU size expansion, then they can charge what a "typical" expansion fee is. About the same amount as a regular console game. I would definitely support them doing a standard, collectors, and legendary/pre-purchase option with increasing benefits and price.

[dunklezhan]

I am willing to pay extra for a collectors edition of just about any adventure pack in the game regardless of my account status.

But the standard edition of all expansions should be free to VIPs (premium player here temporarily subbed cos I specifically wanted a white cat to go with my black one - Id have happily just paid the value in TP or £££s, but this was the only way to get it). If they did that - even though I've paid for 2 expansions already - I would resubscribe to this game in a heartbeat.

I finally unsubbed from DDO after the way they introduced artificers, which merely annoyed me as I really didn't think the game needed another favour unlock class like FVS, was then followed by MOTU.

Which is to say when I realised I was also going to have to pay for that too on top of my sub, and that they'd redefined the VIP commitment that came with DDO even after F2P was released.

I paid for the collectors MOTU and was not disappointed so I'd have paid for it anyway. It was being forced despite my sub to do so that made me cancel. Its a principle thing. So glad I took that choice after buying only the standard edition of wheloon as a premium because it looked lacklustre. I probably haven't saved any money overall since going premium, I'm sure, but it was never about the money. Its not now: I own all the content and I would still resubscribe at this point, but I wont do it when my sub doesn't let me access all content like its supposed to.

The one thing I really like about premium is the fact that they can see what VIP content i buy and what I don't. The fact I only own one iconic class, for example (and have not yet got around to playing with it), and only bought gnome and other things that don't excite me much on sale. I can directly say 'I liked this, or the idea of this'. That's good.

Oh and please note: I'm not saying the sub is not "worth it" or is somehow ripping people off. It is what it is now, and its still a **** good deal. But it could be more fair, and more conducive to not splitting off the playerbase behind several quite substantial paywall break points.

And regardless: I'd still pay extra for a collectors edition. At least provided it looks like another MOTU in scale and system changes and not another wheloon.

[KoobTheProud]

Give us at least one spot to invoke random dungeons and it'll sell for $50 normal and $90 for the CE. Adding a new class/race/iconic won't have the oomph that it did in MoTU (Druid) and SoW (Iconics) because we're about to get Dragonborn and the number of choices have become overwhelming with the Iconics and Gnomes added to the pool at this point.

Adding a new way to play the game will give very strong bang for the development buck. That's what will begin to solve the problem of TRing forcing people back over the same paths on the same character over and over again.

Random dungeons with Reaper would be replayable content that nobody could meta into a fast run for xp/min. That would become the default challenge difficulty for people who wanted challenge and rewards instead of just rewards on farm.

[nomaddog]

Give us at least one spot to invoke random dungeons...

This would be an interesting feature that could be kind of fun. We select the difficulty and the game selects the quest, probably from a list of quests within a certain level range. I kinda like that idea.

[Kylstrem]

If it keeps the game going, then as a VIP, I for one welcome our new profit-making expansion overlords.

[Selvera]

This would be an interesting feature that could be kind of fun. We select the difficulty and the game selects the quest, probably from a list of quests within a certain level range. I kinda like that idea.

I have a feeling that he was speaking more of ARPG-style random dungeons (like Diabo 2 style randomness for example). This typically involves creating "chunks" of dungeons and piecing them together in a semi-random semi-intellegant fashion. A "Chunk" is typically a square of medium size, which can include preset traps, levers or platforming challenges or special events to get from one side to the other, and they typically have exits on all 4 sides. They then piece together a number of chunks randomly selected from a large selection of possible chunks to make a dungeon, often with a custom-made chunk or two that have to be explored to progress.

As an example of how this works; think about the quest Hiding In Plain Sight; Imagine HIPS if the start room and the end room were always the same; but the branching sewer-pipe tunnels were randomly arranged so that sometimes you needed to go left instead of right to get to the next section, and that the next section wasn't guarenteed the same each time. Perhaps one run through might have it go Baudry's warehouse -> sewer pipe -> underwater swimming zone -> spiders -> more sewer pipe -> Hazadill's Warehouse; while the next run through was Baudry's warehouse -> spiders -> sewer pipe -> Ozgood's warehouse -> swimming zone -> Hazadill's Warehouse. Also imagine that there were some more chunks of dungeon to explore; perhaps there's a chance that one of the chunks would be a piece of the waterworks complete with an underwater cave to a rare encounter; or one of the sides in missing in action complete with shrines, zombies and traps that go off as soon as a switch is pulled (and the switch would be required to get to any of the possible "next" areas). And the quest need not be linear; extra chunks could be added off possible-connected-sides to other chunks to create dead ends that are larger then 1 chunk, or even loops where there are multiple paths from the start to the finish.

Certainly, something like this, if done well, could add a lot of replay-ability to the quest, especially if it not only had a pool of chunks to draw on, but also a pool of random encounters and random traps similar to how ToEE works. Even if you've completed it many times, you would still have to explore to find out what the correct path through was this time, and random traps/encounters would keep players on their toes.

For creating a true/good random dungeon generator, I'm suspecting it would take a vast amount of effort; mostly because I doubt the current dungeon-making tools support true random dungeon generation; and even if the programmers were able to create chunks of dungeon and piece them together in some semi-intelligent form (perhaps a reasonable goal depending on how the code works); I would expect the dungeon's map to be worthless at best. And if such tools were developed to make creating a dungeon like this easy; it would still require developers to create more chunks of dungeon then are required for one run through so that the dungeon feels random instead of just re-arranged; thus potentially doubling the amount of work needed to create a quest this way EVEN WITH the correct tools already developed.

However, it would be super cool.

Something which, we do have in the game is random paths from the start to the end of some quests; such as "A New Invasion" (or arguably the demon-web). However, that quest is in the oft-forgotten level range of level 19. This is a bit of a simpler way of doing random dungeon generation; as it isn't truly random; but it's a system that we already have in the game and shouldn't take too much additional developer time to release some more dungeons like that.

[Aelonwy]

To be worthy of the title Expansion, and thus the money spent thereupon, my personal definition is: 9-15 quests (at least 9 main quests needed for flagging with possible optional side quests) with multiple wilderness zones (preference 3) and at least one raid. I don't raid much myself so I can understand if others would prefer a higher raid to regular quest ratio than my personal preference. A true expansion would also include a town area with a tavern, various amenities such as sales people and a unique atmosphere/environment that seems to expand the game world.

A Collector's or Special Edition should come with several cosmetics that fit the theme or style of the Expansion. Possible consumable benefits that are debuted with the expansion before being generally available to regular populace. And should include access to any races or classes debuting with the expansion.

Examples of cosmetics that would fit Ravenloft theme:

http://i.imgur.com/nbuR3mh.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/egH7TCN.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/1DanFGw.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/bYQCs0k.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/118vMDt.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/4ZwzXcO.jpg


Fortune Teller: for obvious reasons

http://i.imgur.com/Mt1NAnM.jpg

They could also bring back the Violet Beast armor cosmetics, and create a series of black and dark red beast armor cosmetics which would be close to the first example above.
As far as easy cosmetic pets: Black wolf or Warg, Raven, a Varguoille (sp?), Shadow Beholderling.

[Kylstrem]

The Expansion will also need some enhanced physics engine work to replicate this scene from Dracula :cool:

http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m5bp2dLljC1rnmqv4o2_250.gif

[changelingamuck]

Advocate for jiggle physics on the codpiece area within the same proposal for that. Then we'll talk. :rolleyes:

[KoobTheProud]

I have a feeling that he was speaking more of ARPG-style random dungeons (like Diabo 2 style randomness for example). [snip]

You definitely have the right idea and you have a logical scheme to produce it.

What I'd like to see is a three part system:

1. Choose dungeon metatype from among about a half dozen types to start.

Choices would be something like:

a) Ancient Ruins inhabited by a thematic mix from Undead, Giants, Minotaurs and vermin. One of the first three plus vermin.

b) Caves inhabited by a tribal mix from Orcs, Bugbears, Trolls and beasts. One or two of the four in the instance.

c) Towns inhabited by a racial mix from Drow, Evil Humans, Duergar and Evil Outsiders. One of the first three worshiping the Evil Outsiders.

d) Wilderness inhabited by a cursed mix from Werewolves, Aberrations, Evil Humans and a Vampire Lord. All 3 mixed in worshipping the Vampire.

e) Castles inhabited by Vampires, Evil Humans, Orcs and a Great Lord of the racial type chosen. One of the first three worshipping the Lord.

f) Whatever fits as a good oppositional choice to the five above to differentiate.

So the meta would determine the tileset used in each level of the instance and what spawns were going to be on those tiles. This would make AI somewhat simpler to code because you'd have fixed tiles of each meta type with spawns of each occurrence in that meta available to select from. The AI could be designed to work initially off of the known elements that those spawns on that tileset produced. You could make *no patrols* a condition of the sets to make AI less hinky and to allow for greater build predictability in the random levels that were generated.

2. Then you'd build the base table for the level that checked connectivity, rotating tiles as needed to keep things coherent and connected and following some simple rules in the process - among them rules governing how many tiles with spawns could be packed together with open connectivity and how long an interval was allowed before a spawn tile had to be placed. You could have a few start points and end points preset for each meta level and build out from there.

You could have additional levels of a dungeon go +1 CR level for each level after the first until the maximum levels, randomized at the start, had been populated. You'd probably have to cap maximum levels at 3 or 4 to make them runnable to conclusion, since +4 CR is a big deal particularly at low levels.

3. When you had completely populated the level arrays you could place the endboss/objective on the final level and the process of creating the thing would be completed. At that point the players zone in and the carnage begins.

It would take some exceptional rules to avoid oddball dungeons that weren't fun to play but there are ways to put patterns in place that would obviate the need for a lot of exceptional rulemaking.

This type of feature would do a lot to expand the replayability of DDO on the same basic engine, particularly for people who do not like playing set piece dungeons over and over again. It would be expandable over time as new meta types were added and it would never become obsolete since it was not content produced for a couple of fixed level ranges but instead could be run from low to legendary levels and at all difficulty levels with RNG loot and the fixed rewards determined by boss type/end objective - likely a RNG loot item(s) with masterful craftmanship guaranteed.

That's what I'd like to see done. It would make the game an adventure again and would be equally satisfying for vets playing Reaper and new players playing on Normal.

[Annex]

Menace of the Underdark was a very good expansion with a decent story, good quest linkage, and well crafted, atmospheric settings. I hope Ravenloft can duplicate all those features. Shadowfell Conspiracy never caught my fancy.

If the developers deliver a good random dungeon generator I will be thrilled!

As for cosmetics, I find the Eberron stuff almost universally dreadful. Get the person or people who make Lord of the Rings Online cosmetic items working on some proper clothing for Ravenloft and put it within reach of players like me!