Would like to see DDO a *little* more casual friendly

[Enigmaticatious]

First up, I am really enjoying the game and think you guys have done a great job with it.

The only issue I am finding is that as a casual gamer, I dont often have a great deal of time to play, but when I get the chance I like to know in advance what I am in for. So when I select a quest to go on I pay close attention to the "length" that is listed. This gives me a great idea as to how long I am expecting to be involved with a quest and unavailable to the world (it is so engrossing the house could burn to the ground around me and I wouldn't notice).

So the problem is, when play through some quests, you reach the end and suddenly discover there is an extention to which you basically have no choice to continue. Recalling at this point means you would have to do it all over again to get to the second part.

Would it be possible to actually state at the beginning of the quest that it is an extended quest and that you are in for more than just a single "long" period? At least that way I know in advance to only do them when I know I have time... There is nothing worse than telling those around you that you will only be 30 minutes only to get into a double "long" quest and taking over an hour.

[DoctorWhofan]

With exception of a few quests, the majority are about < 1 hour.

As for the double long quests, there are very few of them. VoN 3 is one, for starts. Probably a couple more. THey are very rare. Recommend not doing those unless you have the time. I am sure others will list such quests for you if you ask. THe ones in explorer areas are not the same, and ones like STK can be restarted at the same enterance where you left off.

[Enigmaticatious]

With exception of a few quests, the majority are about < 1 hour.

Being in a party can make it go faster. Shortmanning it will make it go faster.

No more causal. There is too much casual now. And I am a Casual Player.

I dont see how stating a length of "long (extended)" is going to change your playing experience at all. It will definately improve mine and would be the smallest of improvements.

[DoctorWhofan]

I dont see how stating a length of "long (extended)" is going to change your playing experience at all. It will definately improve mine and would be the smallest of improvements.

BTW reread what I wrote. I misread your OP and changed my point. As I said in my amended post, there are very few of these. While not a big deal to ask for that, agreed, but it is easily rectified by asking for the list. Granted I do not know all of them, but I am sure someone here does.

[The_Brave2]

Not very many quests are going to blindside you like that unless you are running with a very slow group of players, like the post above me, most quests are < 1hr. only quests i can think of (that you would encounter leveling) would be Coal Chamber, Chains of Flame (with a bad group), The Crucible (bad group). Most of the quests currently in-game are about 20-30mins.

The timing sugestions on the quest are.. mostly incorrect. alot of chain quests will suprise you with another part, like STK/Tangleroot. Best way to avoid that is to join a group and ask how long they think it will take if you are really strapped for time. I wouldnt log and do much on a 30min timer.

[sigtrent]

I can't think of many quests that actually work that way. Most of those that have an internal entrance can also be entered from an outside one. Most of the exceptions feature a very short pre-quest... but I don't know if they are marked as long or not...

Shantocor and Waterworks all have internal chain entrances, but you can also enter the second and third parts from the entrance you used for the first quest. You might not be aware of that. Same for the Descent series.

[Emizand]

The only issue I am finding is that as a casual gamer, I dont often have a great deal of time to play, but when I get the chance I like to know in advance what I am in for.

The problem is how much information is enough? What may be enough for you may not be enough for someone else. I think there is enough information as there is. However taking on board what you have said I would suggest a couple of minutes on ddowiki prior to starting would give you all the information you need.

Hope this helps.

Emi

[Zirun]

Yeah, I would go around the forums saying the game should be more "casual friendly". The game's a far cry from what it used to be, in terms of how nice it is to the casual player, and a lot of old men are grumpy about it!

Most quests can be done by themselves and have no quest that you need to go directly into after finishing or miss the opportunity to. This may not be all of them, but here's a quick list of quests that have entrances that exist only at the end of another quest:

Tangleroot Gorge - Assault on Splinterskull - the final 6 quests of the chain are in groups of 2, with the second of each doublet having its entrance at the end of the first.

Catacombs - Setting The Wards: The Patriarchs' Crypt - I don't know for sure whether you need to do the previous quest again if you exit, but both quests are very short, so it shouldn't make a real difference.

Waterworks - Part 2 (Rescuing Arlos) and Part 4 (Venn's Fate) - somewhat long quests, these are probably what you encountered.

The Restless Isles - The Titan Awakes (Raid) - not sure if the start of this is in the end of the quest before it or not, but regardless, you have to do the quest before it (The Twilight Forge) each time you want to do it. Zawabi's Revenge (ADQ2, in The Demon Sands) requires you do Against the Demon Queen (ADQ1) each time, too, but that's also two entirely seperate quests.

The Vault of Night - Plane of Night (Raid) - must do Vault of Night quest each time you want to do the Plane of Night.

I believe there's a quest like this in the Seal of Shan-To-Kor, though I don't own the pack and am not certain. There may also be something like this in the Ruins of Threnal, but, again, I'm not certain as I don't own that pack.

I think that's all, but I could very easily be mistaken. For the most part, though, you can leave a quest chain halfway through and be fine. Newer content, especially. Older stuff seems to have the bad habit of forcing you to do more than one quest at a time. I agree that it's a small change that could be made for quality of life for new players, but it honestly would probably take more work than it's worth. There's so few quests with internal entrances, and none of the newer ones do, and it would be a change that would probably take a fair amount of work to make happen.

It's not a list of internal entrances, exactly, but it is a list of all of the "chains" of quests in the game, so it may be of some help to you: http://ddowiki.com/page/Story_arc

[joneb1999]

I dont see how stating a length of "long (extended)" is going to change your playing experience at all. It will definately improve mine and would be the smallest of improvements.

I asked for a timer on an lfm. Like your suggestion it is a cosmetic request for a user friendly addition to the LFM interface so impedes no one. You should see the response I got. lol

BTW /signed for your suggestion

[Enigmaticatious]

BTW reread what I wrote. I misread your OP and changed my point. As I said in my amended post, there are very few of these. While not a big deal to ask for that, agreed, but it is easily rectified by asking for the list. Granted I do not know all of them, but I am sure someone here does.

Yes I have read it now, I replied to your original post... problem with editing I guess

Sorry to say, but I dont want to have to drag around a list with me and check it every time I do a quest. I would much rather just look at the details of the quest and know everything I need to know there. Games shouldn't need you to keep additional files outside of it just to be able to play it properly.

I am only level 6 and I have already had this happen to me on 5-6 occasions.

The only other thing, is that I don't often have a full hour to play, so simply saying "they are < 1 hr" again doesn't suit casual gamers (in general, obviously you are a different type of casual gamer whom it suits). If I have only 10 minutes I will pick a short, if I have under 30 minutes I will pick a medium, if I have 30 to 1 hour I will pick a long.... but I dont want to end up being in it for nearly 2 hours because it turned out to be a long-long and completely blind sided me with it.

Its really not a big request... and certainly not something I would have thought would get such a negative response, and *definately* not something I thought people would say "keep track of it yourself outside the game".... That would be a very frustrating trend to start sliding down.

[herzkos]

deleted because i was preempted while typing my book.

[Enigmaticatious]

I asked for a timer on an lfm. Like your suggestion it is a cosmetic request for a user friendly addition to the LFM interface to impedes no one. You should see the response I got. lol

BTW /signed for your suggestion

I guess I just have a different definition of "casual"... and it doesn't involve keeping my own lists and checking a wiki every time I want to play for 30 minutes... but I'm a wierd one like that ;-P

[Cirian]

The problem I see here is some people will finish a quest in 5 mintes and others might take half an hour. A warning about attached quests(parts of tangleroot for example) would be handy.

[Zirun]

Its really not a big request... and certainly not something I would have thought would get such a negative response, and *definately* not something I thought people would say "keep track of it yourself outside the game".... That would be a very frustrating trend to start sliding down.

It's not so much that people hate the idea as it is something that is relatively small and most people have gotten used to. We all have played for so long that most of us could probably tell you by heart how long a quest (chain) will take, what quests you need to do for X quest/raid, etc. It's just part of the game for us.

And since it's a small part of the game that has an impact on a group of people that isn't, well, us, it seems less important to us. Helping new players is important, of course, but I think I can safely say that most of us forum-goers would rather have huge bugs (Handwraaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaps, why art thou so bugged?!) fixed than quality-of-life changes for people that aren't us.

On the bright side, I think the last quest chain to do this (where both the first and second quest that must be done are both long, not two-minute ones like the Xorian Cipher pre-quest) was The Vault of Night, which came out... eons ago, when the level cap was 10. So Turbine at least understands that internal entrances aren't good, and aren't making them any more.

Now if only we could tell them how annoying pre-raids are...

[joneb1999]

i'm having difficulties thinking of many quests that you have a "long" prequest for.

As DWF stated, von 3 is one.
Von 5 is another, but if you're new to a raid you should expect to spend some serious
time in there.
Xorian cypher could be another one but most people blast through to the end of the prequest.
Same with Dreams of insanity.

the vast majority of the chain quests are not immediate followthrough or redo.

the last 3 parts of tangleroot are 2 parters though.
hmmm, shroud i suppose. if you wanna stretch the point into phases.

even the catacombs quest "setting the wards" is a two parter but you can exit after
finishing part 1 and enter part 2 at your leisure.

not sure there are any other multi part quests that require immediate continuation.

If there aren't many quests like the one the OP mentioned it wont take much time, effort or resources to make the change he asks for. You would be surprised how the smallest detail can make the biggest difference.

[Enigmaticatious]

even the catacombs quest "setting the wards" is a two parter but you can exit after
finishing part 1 and enter part 2 at your leisure.
.

So how does one find out that you can recall from the quest and re-enter the second part? I don't remember reading it anywhere or knowing this in advance, and the fact some people have said "new ones are good, old ones can do it to you" only makes it harder to differenciate. Not everybody has been here since day 1 so new vs old is impossible to foreknow.

What would add to new player's frustrations is either automatically assuming its ok to leave, only to find they have to replay through the entire first part again, but not knowing this until AFTER you have made the choice. When all I am asking is for a change of a word from "long" to "long (extended)" in a few known places, eliminating all need for keeping separate lists and pre-checking wikis, and which will benefit ALL players in the future... kind of dont understand why people are responding so negatively.

[Zirun]

If there aren't many quests like the one the OP mentioned it wont take much time, effort or resources to make the change he asks for. You would be surprised how the smallest detail can make the biggest difference.

And you'd be surprised how much work the seemingly smallest detail can take. :P It's so easy to fix something, and break a million other things in the process... Darn computers, so fickle with their lack of reasoning skills!

[herzkos]

If there aren't many quests like the one the OP mentioned it wont take much time, effort or resources to make the change he asks for. You would be surprised how the smallest detail can make the biggest difference.

whoa there , i wasn't arguing against what the op wanted. I actually think it's a pretty good idea.
the only problem I see is how to decide what the length of a quest is. You could go by the average group
but then again the average group will tend to speed runs which will be misinformation to a new player.
the group makeup also dictates how long a quest will take.

I like the op's idea and propose that the devs change the short, medium, long categories to
an expected amount of time for a group of newish players. It shouldn't be a problem because
new and time limited players are really going to be the only ones looking at it.
I've been playing long enough that i can generally estimate how long a quest is going to take even
in a pug.

[Enigmaticatious]

It's not so much that people hate the idea as it is something that is relatively small and most people have gotten used to. We all have played for so long that most of us could probably tell you by heart how long a quest (chain) will take, what quests you need to do for X quest/raid, etc. It's just part of the game for us.

Oh well, if you guys have all played for so long and know off by heart... by all means don't give this to new players. What on earth was I thinking? ;-P Its more important that those who have played for a long time get to recite it and accept it than try to make it better for everybody.

And since it's a small part of the game that has an impact on a group of people that isn't, well, us, it seems less important to us. Helping new players is important, of course, but I think I can safely say that most of us forum-goers would rather have huge bugs (Handwraaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaps, why art thou so bugged?!) fixed than quality-of-life changes for people that aren't us.

Seriously... is this actually an argument for NOT doing something simple? That its simply useless to you because of your stage in the game? I would have though that was grounds to just ignore it not shoot it down.

Now if only we could tell them how annoying pre-raids are...

Oh ok... well I am not currently doing raids so I guess I should be negative to this just because its not for me? Lets keep pre-raids because it doesn't effect me and its not important to me. mmmmm... there is some bad logic there

At least your honest, kudos to that

[Enigmaticatious]

And you'd be surprised how much work the seemingly smallest detail can take. :P It's so easy to fix something, and break a million other things in the process... Darn computers, so fickle with their lack of reasoning skills!

I dont think this applies in this case...

I'm a programmer so I understand what can go into these things and know first hand how you can break things. I also know that an internationalized application keeps all of its string references in a separate repository and then references them. Then when you display strings you simply use the required reference marker and the string is replace with your language specific string.

So what I am asking would require absolutely no CODE changes, it would simply be a change of reference from "LONGQUESTSTRING" to "LONGEXTQUESTSTRING" and an addition to 1 new string reference (something they would be doing all day and night).

Definately does not fall into the bucket of having potential to break things... Its not techno-magic, it doesn't work in mysterious ways. Its in fact incredibly logical and discrete.