Compliments to Turbine and suggestion for future of Adventure Zones (NON INSTANCED)

[Drith]

Dear Turbine and the DDO player base.

I would like to congratulate you and the entire Turbine team for their great efforts and willingness to listen to their player base and I mean REALLY listen. Not only do you listen to us but you react and adjust to what the player base feels is missing or broken in the game.

Of course the game isn't perfect and there are lots of bugs and little things here and there that could be improved on but for the most part they are VERY VERY minor (like the loading screen). And do NOT majorly effect our enjoyment that we get from playing the game. I would like to make reference to certain things like the early years of Everquest and much more recently Vanguard. 2 games that were so full of bugs and emergency patches that it was often not worthwhile to play for weeks on end until the emergency fix was done.

I have played many many MMO's for over 10 years now and I have not seen any other MMO where the developers have had a relationship as close to their player base as Turbine and DDO players have. This above all else is what I find really encouraging for me and the rest of my friends who play DDO.

The new changes to all the adventure zones I find are absolutely awesome. Turbine, you've hit the nail right on the head when you realized and listened to the player base that DDO had amazing dungeons. Better then any other game and what we wanted was larger outside zones because the game world felt so "small".

The Design of your outside zones plus the ideas you have implemented to actually make it worthwile for players to explore and adventure in these adventure zones are BANG on awesome. I LOVE how you can see the Twelve from Searing Hights and the little caves here and there and everything is just awesome!

Things like the on-going experience quests in adventures zones, slayer, discovery and rare encounters I honestly do not think could have been implemented any better then they have been. Add into that the chance of rare loot from certain chests and you have done an absolute amazing job and getting your player base out of Dungeons and into your big outdoor zones which really makes the game world feel a lot bigger then it has in the past and has really added a lot to the value and enjoyment in the game.

My suggestion for the future which I'd like everyone to consider from a MMO perspective ESPECIALLY with the announcement of the merging servers.

Introduction:

Important background points to consider:

1) I am sure that I am not alone with my above comments and that on average the player base loves the new adventure zones as much as I do.

2) I beleive that there is still great potential to add more inscentives to bring people into the adventure zones. After the EXP is all done the adventure zone is complete and you no longer venture back in other then to get to which ever quest you are trying to get to. There is one exception though! The Thirsty One and the Bloodstone!

Turbine I beleive that you have great un-tapped potential with this as a primary example. I agree with the rest of the player base that I do not like seeing HIGH end raid quality loot drop out of low level chests however I will leave that up to you devs to find the balance of which you want. I DO beleive there is great value in creating a RARE chance to pull a VERY good item out of a significantly high Adventure zone chest though. Much like what you have done with the bloodstone. (albeit the bloodstone is a bit over-powered based on where it comes from but that is another discussion which is going on in these forums at the moment so I do not want to discuss that here).

3) It is not easy to keep your entire player base happy with limited resources. Thus Turbine has realized the need to create incentive for players to essentialy "repeat" the same content over and over again. Hence the introduction of favour, the introduction of rare named loot in certain chests, etc...

4) Combine point 2 with point 3 and I think you have a great potential here to encourage people to spend more of their online time in your adventure zones. Of course the items which you place in these adventure zones must be very carefully though of. They need to be 1) Usefull. 2) The reward VS. Effort needs to be balanced based on the level of the adventure zone. I think turbine missed the ball with the RUINS of GIANTHOLD as there is not a single named item in there. The RUINS of Gianthold is bassically a ghost town come level 14 and I truely think that you could make use of all of the money that you have put into designing the RUINS of GIANTHOLD simply by putting a few RARE but USEFULL items in there. When I say usefull I mean usefull to a level 14 player.

FINALLY (and here's the big one):

The recent "merging" of servers has been done for many reasons but mainly to make grouping easier and finding a group go faster and also make the world feel more populated. To make it feel like there are just more people out there and to see more friendly (or unfriendly) faced around town or in the streets of the marketplace, harbour, etc....

THIS IS ABSOLUTELY AWESOME and surely was planned very carefully with lots of consideration so I'm sure in the long run everyone will be very thankfull of the Server Merge.

The cities will feel populated. Server economy will be good. Items will be traded, sold, bought. Groups will be made, adventures will be had, etc. etc...

BUT

With the popularity of the newly revamped adventure zones and the addition of more and more adventure zones, given the inherent size of these adventure zones they feel like ghost towns. Furtheremore once you've done one once it feels like there is no more excitement left to them. It's the same old zone in kill the same mobs in the exact same location in the exact same way just to get your "slayer" count up for exp.

I think that there is a great deal of value in a NON-INSTANCED adventure zone with random re-spawn timers and respawn locations and of mobs and rare encounter mobs and chests etc. I think that having these adventure zones populated while various groups or solo'ing adventurers go through them would make the entire world feel much more populated, bring players together more and make much better use of game content that normally becomes ghost towns after the first few weeks it is released which benefits Turbine from a business resource perspective as well as benefits the entire player base from a fun, adventuring, meet new people, group up with new people and interact with more people kinda way.

Think of the Necropolis. Or Gianthold. If ghools, ghosts, giants, etc... were there randomly spawning all the time. A group of adventureres could decide to come together from within the zone and venture towards an instanced dungeon. A group of adventures could be passing through the zone waving to comerades as they venture to an instanced dungeon.

There are many MANY important factors to consider in order to implement such an idea such as "named MOB camping" which we all know we absolutely do not what to see in DDO. However I think that the value of NON-INSTANCED adventure zones is so great to the entire player base that it at least should be given consideration.

In Conclusion: AWESOME JOB Turbine. I am very excited for the future of DDO and I hope that the rest of the player base supports me in at least giving added support and putting friendly pressure on Turbine to at least explore the idea of NON-INSTANCED Adventure zones to be a part (even if a small part) of the future of DDO.

Thank-you,

Drith
(Founder even though I didn't sign up for my fancy founder name)

[In_Like_Flynn]

When I read non-instanced zones, I immediately thought of Camping, Kill Stealing, Claim Jumping and all the hard feelings that go with them. A great strength of DDO is that all EXP-delivering zones are Instanced. I'd like to keep it that way.

Good post.

[Klattuu]

There are some real issues in creating open hunting zones, one of them is against one of the cornerstones of DDO and the other is technical in nature.

1) One of the reasons that adventuring is done in personal instances is to enhance the adventure setting itself. The world is yours to explore and hunt with your friends. No one is around or even capable of intruding on your experience. No other hunters stealing kills. No waiting in line for a spawn to take place and having to turn someone in for harrassment when someone isn't courteous enough to wait. These were aspects of other games that people HATED and one of the reasons the open world was purposely engineered.

2) Ever notice how in public instances there are certian things that cannot be done? Most of those things you cannot do will increase rendering calculations your graphic card needs to crunch out. Particle effects and summoning avatars increases client lag. In other games where people are allowed to do things that increase lag, griefers are well-known for killing local areas for people with mediocre graphics cards.

To allow for a public hunting instances is only to invite headaches and grief.

Now as far as Adventure Zones go - keep on building and expanding them, Turbine. I personally love them and can't get enough of them.

[Drith]

Yeah I agree with both of ya and I did put those points in there. Good point though from a developers / graphics point of view though, I have no computer background so I was oblivious to that extra complication.

It just feels as though the zones are so empty and player interaction is so little. Although player interaction will increase greatly with the server merge I bet.

I just wanted them and well the player base to at least consider something that would increase player to player interactions. Like places where more people would hang around doing stuff... it just seems like we all play in our little bubbles. There's got to be something or some sort of zone that could alleviate this "bubble" effect. Maybe don't call them adventure zones.... call them "Common" areas between say the CITY and the Instanced dungeons. Where mobs spawn and birds fly and deer run.

Hehehe.

Again I think of the Necropolis and Gianthold and I think of say something like a lvl 16 version of the Necropolis/Gianthold where there's a tavern and quest givers and a bank and auction house and lots of stuff to see and do and people and what not and then there can be like "COMMON" zones that bridges the town and the Instanced Adventure Zone ?

I dunno I don't have the solution. Like you I don't want camping to be part of the game at all. That's the complete oposite of the DDO vision.

I just seeing a need for more player to player interaction that isn't in the form of a "GROUPING" window and figured there's got to be a way to do this and well common zones (albeit up to the Devs and testers and comments from everyone as to HOW they would implement it) would be a really cool good way to do this.

Nonetheless. The new adventure zones rock and it's really exciting to see that MOD 5 is getting another one and I hope MOD 6 gets 2-3 more !!!

WOOT Lovin' the game more now then I ever have I think. hehe.

[sirgog]

I'd like to see a level 16 outdoor zone designed for a raid party. With some named powerful loot hidden around in it.

[Nymie_the_Pooh]

DDO being instanced is one of it's strengths when it comes to a server merge. They could probably consolidate to some sort of super server if they had the hardware to support it. Increasing the population on each server is not a reason to start having non-instanced questing.

If you really want people to have to explore, then ask for the devs to do something like remove icons on the map until you discover the vendor/contact/quest door/whatever. Sure, it's a terrible idea, but it does what you stated you wanted to accomplish without creating the headaches of spawn camping, lag, and true kill-stealing.

[Ringlord]

I see one addition from LoTRO as being able to help solve 90% of anyones issue with players not interacting enough. Add the music system for Bards that LoTRO has ( ok and make it so we can actually sit in chairs and on benches ) and suddenly taverns become fun places to gather for something other than a quick dump off of junk loot and heal up before heading out for the next quest.

I have no interest in playing a Bard, but I would make one just to play around with the LoTRO music feature if they added it to DDO.

[Drith]

Love the bard idea !

Ya know or an amusement park !

lol.

Or ya know... I mean they are so close to it with Gianthold.... Gianthold is pretty well populated and I guess with the server merge it will be even more....

So lets see the MOD 5 and MOD 6 versions of Gianthold... but make them a bit bigger and then add bard songs and the ability to sit on chairs....

Yup I think that would do it. heh....

[Sue_Dark]

One thing I'd love to see has been done by Turbine before...

In an instanced area, like Gianthold or Tangleroot gorge, a dungeon that is merely a walk-in cave. No gateway, no clicking or loading. Walk in, walk out or even better, stumble in (a hidden hole type thing) and find some nasties and maybe a loot box.

The Asheron's Call team dropped in one or two of these over the life of that game and they were terrific. If you didnt know they were there, you could wander right by them because there was nothing to 'tab-target' to tell you an instance was there (because it was a part of the instance you were already in).

I also agree with the previous poster on the raid-type outdoor area. I'd love to see an area that was L16-18 and required raid groupings. Make it hard and mean and hide stuff in it. I mean try to make any instance entries hard to find or just go the route I mentioned above. Put a short "raid-like" loot lilst available from a select very small group of super rare creatures that would need strength and skill and good tactics to overcome. Non-warded, but perhaps bound (cause I dont like the warded idea, but i do like bound items, yeah yeah i know... screwy aint i).

I'd like to see respawns in the wilderness areas and wandering patrols. We know they can have creatures not count toward kill count (split a slime and watch the kill counter when you kill them... last i checked it counts as one even if you split it 50 times. So respawns not counting could easily deal a killing blow to campers. initial spawn counts toward slayer, respawn does not. (respawns not necessarily being the whole pack, perhaps a small group as opposed to the whole war party... more thought would need to go into it, but you get the gist).

I'd really love to see a wilderness/outdoor instance with buildings that were enterable to speak with npc's. Do not treat them as bars, but you could treat them as safe zones, free of the patrols mentioned earlier. Make the spawn of the house and the npc a quest driving thing, the one spawns randomly and the entry does as well, dont get to enter the cave/hole/portal/whatever, without talking to the npc first.