What a waste!

[wundernewb]

.

You're going to ignore the possibly weeks worth of effort spent actually playing the game?

This is an MMO. You pay monthly. MMO gamers (as opposed to the regular type) know upfront that if they want a new character, they have to start from scratch. This keeps MMO gamers playing longer, because the game is more or less about advancing your character. And keeping MMO gamers playing longer puts money in people's pockets.

This is why MMO's have "time sinks". The more time you spend playing the game, the more money they make, and starting new characters from scratch is a time sink every paid subscription-only MMO has.

You're going to tell me that someone ELSES fun should be smeared because it's best for THEM? It's certainly not best of the game. People having the characters they want is best for the game, not characters they're frustrated with and resent.

It's not about the most fun for the players. It's about the most money for the gaming company, tempered by a threshold of how slow of advancement the majority of players will tolerate.

Making the players advance quicker is counterproductive to profits. Yes, as things currently stand, some players will become frustrated and quit, but not nearly as many as would quit from boredom if they advanced too fast.

So yes, you want to force people to experience the game you want them to "for their own good".

Right-O

And by the overwhelmingly negative response this thread will get, (and others have gotten) it seems that you want to force people to experience the game you want them to "for your own good".

That may sound harsh, but if there is an easier way to do things, people will do them. It's human nature. MMO companies realise this, and therefore try to keep players from having to make the choice if they want to do something the easy way, or the hard way.

[AmsterdamHeavy]

Actually, this is an idea from the old old bbs mud game MajorMUD and it was a REALLY nice feature that I've missed ever since.

It meant that even if you took a dive, you would still come back with a measure of the power you had before.

It worked very well.

An old MUD....not D&D, enough said.

[Hendrik]

Still trying to pull things from other games to improve your gameplay eh Dingo?

This is DDO. This is NOT WoW, CoH, or any other game you have played. I suggest you crack open your hardcover DnD books and look for ideas there. Start with Second Edition and move up to 3.5.

There is your source material for improving DDO.

This is ripe for abuse and clearly shows limited forethought for the game as a whole and concentrates, again, on personal game improvements.

You want to delete a character and use a part of his XP to bump up a fresh reroll to a higher level by NOT Questing? This is just XP Pot 'idea' with a different twist to it.

A big NO to this idea.

[Arlith]

In the long run, this would probably only save me a couple nights worth of playing but i like the line of thinking. It might give people some incentive to reroll capped toons which would put off the endgame a little for them.

How could it put off the endgame when they keep the xp and are right back in the endgame???

Part of toon development is playing the toon. Knowing what you can/can't do with it. Whether you RP or not, each toon develops a unique personality while coming up through the ranks. I have several characters and each finds a niche, an area all their own that is developed over the course of leveling.

Another problem is that one type of toon is not the same as another. Someone runs a fighter up to 14, decides one day the they want to run a caster. Delete fighter. Roll Sorcerer. Now they have a capped Sorc. They've never played a sorc and have no idea how to run a sorc.

I can see potential for abuse. My sorc already swapped spells in the last three days, but I need this spell. So I delete sorc1, roll sorc2 and walla! I have the spell. I don't like my feats, just delete the toona and roll another, all new feats on the way. Who needs Fred?

Last, it opens yet another door that should not be opened. Well if we can keep the XP, why should we lose the raid loot we worked so hard for. It should xfer too!

The problem I have with most of these suggestions is they take all the game out of the game. You log in, and walla you are at endgame. Its "DDO Godmode". Its wrong.

I have deleted several toons, most capped. Each time I started back at the bottom and worked my way up. Each time I do, I get a little better at the game. Which is the whole point of playing the game.

[Olaff]

If XP was difficult to come by, or if dying meant something significant, I might agree with this kind of proposal.

As it is, it's ridiculously easy to cap a character, even for a casual player like myself.

[blakbyrd]

Dingo,

You are yet again doing nothing more than asking for DDO to simply throw out it's core roots and intention and become precisely not D&D, after which the game itself is named and based upon. Some of your other suggestions might have had an extremely slim chance of ever getting considered, but this one I cannot even imagine would produce any more thought at Turbine than a good 5 second laugh.

Although MUDs are the originators to where the MMOs came from, they were very limited on what they could do, leveling was an entirely different story and there were so many to choose from (thousands then, and still thousands of em now), that they had to come up with odd situations and circumstances to keep people (your suggestion being one of them). How popular was that idea do you think? MajorMUD was not exactly a slouch in the MUD departments (certainly larger ones out there of course), and yet how many other places (MUDs, MOOs, MUSHes, full graphical MMOs such as DDO is) have you ever seen or heard of this idea coming to light again? It's not a popular mechanic at all, and has no basis or reasoning behind even doing it. Back to DDO, this suggestion clearly goes against the very basic design of D&D.

Side note: I am not beginning to agree with some others here in that you are intentionally trying to flame bait the forums.

[JelloMold]

I start and reroll characters all the time just to get a basic feel for the class, race etc. If we applied all the "wasted" XP to one of my characters, I would be the new demi-god you were all planning on fighting in Mod 5.

I see none of that as wasted. As in life, I learn much more from my mistakes than from my successes.

[Dirac]

Stop dragging Dingo's previous posts into his new ones. Stop trying to tell him what he needs out of a game, what game he should go play, or psycoanalyze him. If you don't like his new idea, explain why this idea is a bad one.

I think this idea has some merit, you get to keep some of the experience you have as a player. The most useful senerio would be re-rolling a new character of the same class, you relly don't need to "learn" that class again at the low levels. Sure, xp is easy to come by, but leveling in real time is all a function of the time you have to play. Re-rolling is more of a barrier for some than for others.

However, xp is easy to come by, thus the need for this is low. I don't like the idea of using xp for new classes that people need time to learn. I am also worried about the dev time necessary to code all the ramafications of such a change, time that is deperately needed for new content.

I would be against this, though I appreciate people brainstorming on how to make DDO better.

[The_Ick]

How could it put off the endgame when they keep the xp and are right back in the endgame???

Part of toon development is playing the toon. Knowing what you can/can't do with it. Whether you RP or not, each toon develops a unique personality while coming up through the ranks. I have several characters and each finds a niche, an area all their own that is developed over the course of leveling.

Another problem is that one type of toon is not the same as another. Someone runs a fighter up to 14, decides one day the they want to run a caster. Delete fighter. Roll Sorcerer. Now they have a capped Sorc. They've never played a sorc and have no idea how to run a sorc.

I can see potential for abuse. My sorc already swapped spells in the last three days, but I need this spell. So I delete sorc1, roll sorc2 and walla! I have the spell. I don't like my feats, just delete the toona and roll another, all new feats on the way. Who needs Fred?

Last, it opens yet another door that should not be opened. Well if we can keep the XP, why should we lose the raid loot we worked so hard for. It should xfer too!

The problem I have with most of these suggestions is they take all the game out of the game. You log in, and walla you are at endgame. Its "DDO Godmode". Its wrong.

I have deleted several toons, most capped. Each time I started back at the bottom and worked my way up. Each time I do, I get a little better at the game. Which is the whole point of playing the game.

While i see & agree with your concern about it unlocking other requests, such as keeping raid loot i have to disagree about it disrupting toon development. Atleast the way i am picturing it. I think the key point to remember here is that you are not keeping all of your XP, just a small percentage. And how much it really effects the toon development depends on what kind of precentage we are talking about.

In my mind i was thinking under 10% of your XP would be kept. That means that if you deleted a capped toon you would be looking at about a 4-5 lvl toon (and remember that is on he high end of this suggestion). I defintately agree that if we were talking about starting rerolled toons at 8th+ lvl there would be some concern, but i think you don't even really start to get a feel for your toons until 4th lvl. My point is ultimately that i don't think you would lose that much knowledge of the game or toon development by skipping the first 1-3 lvls. Again that is just my pespective from the way i play. I really dread getting a toon to 5th lvl, just because i have run those low level quests so many times.

As for putting off the end game, it could do this for some is because it would encourage them to reroll their toons when they wouldn't have before. And let's face it, rerolling toons is what you have to do to keep playing the game.

Again in the long run, this only really effects me a couple hours out of each toon i roll so i could give or take the idea. I do however think that some incentives to reroll toons would be a good thing for the game.

[barabel]

Since Turbine gets their income from people playing on a month to month basis, they should be doing everything they can to encourage people to play longer, not shorten the gaming experience.

That being said, I don't see why they would want to make it easier or faster for people to level up their characters for whatever reason. The faster or easier they make it, the less amount of time players will be spending online.

Dingo, can you explain why Turbine would/should add such functionality aside from some players want to re-level faster?

[Mercules]

The most useful senerio would be re-rolling a new character of the same class, you relly don't need to "learn" that class again at the low levels.

I beg to differ about this. I've played a "tactics" fighter, an "intimidate" fighter, a range based fighter, and a DPS fighter. While I've rerolled some of them or deleted them between 8-10 in some cases I can tell you those 4 characters all of the same class play very differently.

I also had a Bard that was good at Healing while my current Bard does buffing/CC. Very different to play.

BattleCleric, SupportCleric, OffensiveCasterCleric, and GenericCleric are all VERY different to play.

DPS Rogue with trapsmithing, trapsmith/support Rogue, and ranged based Rogue... different, different, different.

[Kingfish]

Because it's a fugging video game?

Yeah, A video game based on a RPG...where you build a character to fame and glory(and kewl loot)!

Lets see how this plays out...

Bob: Hey DM, I was thinking...I don’t like where Severis has gone...sure he's 5th lvl and all but, I want to reroll him and reassign all his skills...he'll still be a rogue but this time i want him to be ALL CHR and use UMD instead of the hide, in the shadows sneaky sneaky kinda guy, he is gonna be a OUT in you FACE flamboyant almost swashbuckler type!

DM: what?

Bob: Yeah, I know the rest of the group is use to me being the hiding type, sneak ahead and scout type but, they will just have to get use to Severis the BOLD...THE FACE MAN!

DM: What about all the history with that character...what about all the cousins and what not...and the Dragonmark? What about all the ties to your House?

Bob: Pffft...just lets say it never happened.

DM: But, it did...and the other players KNOW it did too.

Bob: So? This is what I want! Its just a fugging game man...comeon!

DM: And if you decide you don't like the FACE MAN?

Bob: So? Its just a fugging game man.

I don't know...i dont like it...seems to lessen the overall integrity.

Just my 2 cents and I do know that sometimes two cents = no sense...but not THIS time.

[M1A1]

...can you explain why Turbine would/should add such functionality aside from some players want to re-level faster?

I have been playing since June 2006 and I just noticed this feature a little while ago. The person standing right after the docks that lets you skip all the intro **** and go right to the Harbor. This was a GREAT addition, I dont need to go through that anymore, just like I dont need to go through all the Good Blades and those quests that are right around the 1st trainers (you know the ones Im talking about) while this is not exactly like what his post is about, I could see this as the middle ground. You get a character to 1750 (or whatever the "proved yourself" point is) you can get the credit for all those quests on any characters created after that point.

[Dirac]

I beg to differ about this. I've played a "tactics" fighter, an "intimidate" fighter, a range based fighter, and a DPS fighter. While I've rerolled some of them or deleted them between 8-10 in some cases I can tell you those 4 characters all of the same class play very differently.

I also had a Bard that was good at Healing while my current Bard does buffing/CC. Very different to play.

BattleCleric, SupportCleric, OffensiveCasterCleric, and GenericCleric are all VERY different to play.

DPS Rogue with trapsmithing, trapsmith/support Rogue, and ranged based Rogue... different, different, different.

Of course this is true. That's really what I meant, it would be useful for one re-rolling the same type of character.

[blakbyrd]

Aside from the fact that Dingo's ideas are blatantly against the core of D&D, I must admit that there are some points to all of this that I too have been through over the years.

That simply being, the ability to find that perfect MMO for me. For the most part no such MMO exists. With every such game you have to weigh out the points that are good and bad to you to decide which side takes over, at which point you will know if the game is worth playing or not. DDO, for me, has come the closest, but of course there are situations and game mechanics I too do not like, but they are far outweighed by the parts I do like, which is why I remain here and not in WoW, EQ2, Eve, etc.

It is understandable for players to want to suggest how to make a game better for them, but when you enter into a game that has a monthly subscription and regular maintenance costs, the suggestions become more difficult to get implemented, because some necessities of maintaining such a high cost game require doing exactly what the customer may not want, and being able to balance that with what the customer does. Giving the customer everything they want in a monthly subscription game will quickly reduce the long term subscription such players would have as their play time would generally dwindle down much faster and they will move on. DDO offers a bit more in its mechanics as an MMO than most others do, which in turn creates the need for tact and strategy, which goes beyond that of the typical cookie-cutter, Mario mentality MMOs. DDO certainly isnt for everyone, just as any other MMO certainly isnt for everyone.

Still, and yet again, this is based on D&D and with that comes a responsibility to maintain it to D&D as best they can, as it is licensed as such and expected to remain as such, or Turbine could lose the very license to use the name. Asking to blatantly deviate from the rules and design of D&D would be bad for this game in particular because that is not what D&D is or is about. Asking for too many such things (assuming they started becoming a reality) could cause the very game you like to go away as WotC would be able to pull the licensing, because it is not what they licensed and it would no longer be what it was supposed to be. Most other MMOs don't have such restrictions and could easily implement such drastic rule changes with no prior basis to say otherwise, but D&D does not have this convenience....not if it wants to remain titled for it's very namesake.

Most of Dingo's suggestions are of course possible, but he's coming into a world of players (many of which know and understand the basics of what D&D is) and asking them to throw their rules out the window. It's not going to be a popular position to be in, and many D&D fans will take offense to that and will defend the rules that has made D&D the RPG giant for so long. You can try such things in almost any other games and the opposition wont be so fierce because their is no underlying, pre-defined ruleset for people to use as a defense and it comes down simply to opinion. It wouldn't be much different if Dingo simply came to a regular D&D PnP session and started telling the DM and other players that all these basic rules should be changed...it simply wouldn't go ever well and he'd find fierce opposition there as well.

[barabel]

I have been playing since June 2006 and I just noticed this feature a little while ago. The person standing right after the docks that lets you skip all the intro **** and go right to the Harbor. This was a GREAT addition, I dont need to go through that anymore, just like I dont need to go through all the Good Blades and those quests that are right around the 1st trainers (you know the ones Im talking about) while this is not exactly like what his post is about, I could see this as the middle ground. You get a character to 1750 (or whatever the "proved yourself" point is) you can get the credit for all those quests on any characters created after that point.

M1A1 - I respectfully disagree with your assessment.

The training missions are special and are meant to instruct the players on how the game operates. Allowing experienced players the ability to bypass this I think is really the exception to the rule.

As for the change to the Goodblade quests, all they really did was open up which missions the players could begin playing. (Which I think was a great decision). However, players aren't given anything for free due to this change. They still need to run quests to get their characters leveled up (Goodblades or other missions). Turbine is just taking away the linear route everyone had to take before.

[llevenbaxx]

Wow, you guys are hard on Dingo. Regardless of whether or not you like his ideas, atleast he is presenting constructive ideas. And even if you don't agree with him, he has the right to post whatever he wants. If you don't like his ideas, a simple "I don't aggree with this because..." would do. You guys are like forum bullies. Ease off...

Anywho, as far as the idea. I wouldn't hate if they put something like this in. I have run out of characters slots twice over and between current and deleted toons. And letting me skip some of the lower level content that i have run an insane number of times would not make me feel that there is less content in the game. The only content i really feel the game is lacking at this point is more high level content. Stuff to do with my capped toons.

In the long run, this would probably only save me a couple nights worth of playing but i like the line of thinking. It might give people some incentive to reroll capped toons which would put off the endgame a little for them.

Hey I wounldnt mind either, but think of the new players who wouldnt be able to skip levels 1 & 2(or to where ever). Turbine needs as many players at all levels as they can get. I might skip all the outer harbor stuff given the option and im sure im not alone. This idea goes against everything I would think Turbine would prefer. Faster leveling for vets and less overall low level characters for new players to group with. All for a very minor convienence.

Really if they start doing this type of stuff, how long until we start seeing the let us start at w/e level we want suggestions. Alot of people just like to jump on these (bad imho) suggestions that they feel would hurt the game, even though they would provide a minor bonus/convienence for certain individuals, in a hopes they never see them get into the game.

[Mercules]

M1A1 - I respectfully disagree with your assessment.

The training missions are special and are meant to instruct the players on how the game operates. Allowing experienced players the ability to bypass this I think is really the exception to the rule.

As for the change to the Goodblade quests, all they really did was open up which missions the players could begin playing. (Which I think was a great decision). However, players aren't given anything for free due to this change. They still need to run quests to get their characters leveled up (Goodblades or other missions). Turbine is just taking away the linear route everyone had to take before.

And who WOULDN'T want to run the Goodblade quests. You can get some ok starter items out of them until you pass down your twink gear you can't use till level 2-3. You also get solid XP and a bunch of Favor for very little effort and that favor goes towards your first backpack slot which most people like to get quickly.

[M1A1]

Since Turbine gets their income from people playing on a month to month basis, they should be doing everything they can to encourage people to play longer, not shorten the gaming experience.

That being said, I don't see why they would want to make it easier or faster for people to level up their characters for whatever reason. The faster or easier they make it, the less amount of time players will be spending online.

Dingo, can you explain why Turbine would/should add such functionality aside from some players want to re-level faster?

The fact of the matter is, those quests in the begenning are desigend so you can get the basics of grouping (goodblades) and then its back to solo only stuff so you can get a 'little" better understanding of the game. After you have reached a certain point in your DDO experience these are a nuisance and should follow the route of the intro quests i.e. new characters able to auto-complete

[teddok]

I think this idea has some merit, you get to keep some of the experience you have as a player.

The experience that you have as a player is the fact that you know know what it is that you are doing and you know the quests the loot and everything else.