Ahh the rumor mill

[Luthen]

Not sure if I expect a direct answer but gonna pose the question anyway.

Is Turbine actively seeking to purchase DDO from Atari and take it over all on their own?

[swmarion]

no idea man,just play on!

[blakbyrd]

I do not imagine this is the case, and havent heard anything resembling this. Most of what DDO is is a licensing thing. The code is Turbine's anyhow. However the actual licensing is owned by Hasbro, and was just recently resigned to someone until 2011, in which case I doubt anyone is going to sell those rights in order for Turbine to maintain DDO in the form it is in. (keep in mind Atari and WotC are both owned by Hasbro, as is Infogames, which is the parent company to Atari).

All in all it would require the purchase of the license to use, which would never make it Turbine's to start with as I doubt they have the capital necessary to buy the D&D name outright. They do however have a licensing agreement, but the name will never actually be their's.

[Twerpp]

All I know is that they have license to produce MMO's for the two greatest fantasy settings of all time; D&D and LOTR/Middle-Earth...and somehow they are way behind (imho) contrived garbage like World of Warcraft. This is just plain wrong, the world shouldn't work that way.

[Dane_McArdy]

All I know is that they have license to produce MMO's for the two greatest fantasy settings of all time; D&D and LOTR/Middle-Earth...and somehow they are way behind (imho) contrived garbage like World of Warcraft. This is just plain wrong, the world shouldn't work that way.

What exactly do you mean way behind?

That makes me think that you are saying that DDO (Can't speak for LOTRO) just does what has already been done.

Combat in DDO is far more interesting, honestly. WoW is stand toe to toe and hit the right button combinations. I like the twitch aspect of DDO, and that there is more to it then people think there is.

DDO has more room for building a character the way you want, then WoW. yes, at some point, you can customize to some extent what your character is in WoW. It's still a set path. From 1 to X, all mages are _____. Then you can choose to be a _____ mage or a _____ mage or a _____ mage.

DDO is far more interactive with it's environment then WOW. And DDO just keeps expanding that. Sometimes it's just for fun, like cutting down spider webs in a tunnel. But man, stuff like that adds to the immersion.

DDO is not as gear dependant as WOW. And by that I mean, in games like WOW and EQ, your ability to function comes more from your gear then your class. yes, gear is very important in DDO. But some of your power comes from how you make your character. For example, bards benefit from the Extend Feat. However, a bard functions without it. They just spend more mana. But I often find I don't run out as fast in mana as other casters. So maybe I don't need extend, I can take something else.

Either way, I'm not dependant on having certain gear to make these choices. So some of my ability to function in the game comes from myself, and not always the gear I have.

And when we are depenant on gear, we have a wide range, maybe to wide of gear to choose from.

So I don't see DDO as behind WOW in terms of what a game can do.

I see WOW as the one that is taking tricks from DDO coming down the road. When DDO first came out and people where talking about traps in the dungeons, WOW said they had always intended to do that, they just never got around to it.

[Blagrak]

What exactly do you mean way behind?

etc...

Not sure how you read it, but it seemed to me like he was wondering how a game like DDO could lag behind 'contrived garbage' like WoW in subscriber numbers and developement dollars invested given the iconic stature of Dungeons and Dragons.

Then again I'm not a registered 'Defender of DDO', so my outlook might not be as biased as some.

[blakbyrd]

I would agree with Dane on this one, as what was quoted I too am a little lost on it's meaning.

WoW is #1 for many reasons, and a majority of those reasons is not because of what the WoW world is, but rather how WoW was created and the method and following that Blizzard has.

There is no escaping the idea of comparing any MMO to WoW...it will always happen because it is #1 right now and way ahead of everyone else in subscribers. The fact that it is nothing like DDO doesn't matter. Everything eventually gets compared to the #1 competitor in any field, whether they are alike or not.

To me, DDO is way ahead of the crowd in many areas, but because of that it turns away many potential subscribers. Harder learning curves in these kinds of games bring in fewer players.

DDO will never be #1. It could however help become the catalyst for the new #1 MMO in the future (who knows), but it's very nature of breaking the typical mold in many aspects dooms itself for #1 status. Mold breaking always has some fierce critics, but that doesn't mean it won't help set the new standards of the future, but it does almost guarantee a lower ranking to competitors initially.

I would guess in the first 4-6 months of DDO that it too had 4 million characters, but that is no representation of the actual amount of subscribers, which is what the industry is based on.

I put up a link awhile back that greatly explained why WoW is #1 and why it is becoming the standard people base MMOs off of now, and it is not because of the world they chose or how big it is (they help but they are not the prime reasons). To me DDO fails in many of the necessary areas, however in oder to try to create something new and try to break out of the standardized mold, some of those rules can not be followed, and eventually someone has to break those standards...maybe DDO is it, but in doing so it will suffer some ramifications for it, and one of those things will be subscriber numbers. This does not mean doom and gloom, but it does fence itself in to never be a top ranking game in the form of subscribers, but it could one day be seen as the founder to the new standards we may see in the future, as more people eventually become more familiar with the changes of the industry.

[Twerpp]

Not sure how you read it, but it seemed to me like he was wondering how a game like DDO could lag behind 'contrived garbage' like WoW in subscriber numbers and developement dollars invested given the iconic stature of Dungeons and Dragons.

Then again I'm not a registered 'Defender of DDO', so my outlook might not be as biased as some.

Thanks for defending me against the defenders LOL or should I say "The Paladine of Turbine". Yeah thats exactly what I meant.

Obviously Dane I like the gameplay, character creation, items, quests of DDO more than WoW I am playing DDO every day and posting on their forums, and not at all on WoW. I'm a hardcore D&D fan.

What I am saying is D&D and LOTR are the greatest fantasy settings of all time hands down. WoW is a D&D clone. Its an MMO RPG and guess which RPG they ripped off to make it (at the very least you would have to admit it was inspired by D&D)? So can you tell me why it's #1? I'm pretty sure it has to do with money, marketing, a big brand name, and Blizzards ability to make excellent games..I'm just jealous that my favorite game D&D doesn't merit that same star treatment for it's MMO.

[Luthen]

What exactly do you mean way behind?

That makes me think that you are saying that DDO (Can't speak for LOTRO) just does what has already been done.

Combat in DDO is far more interesting, honestly. WoW is stand toe to toe and hit the right button combinations. I like the twitch aspect of DDO, and that there is more to it then people think there is.

DDO has more room for building a character the way you want, then WoW. yes, at some point, you can customize to some extent what your character is in WoW. It's still a set path. From 1 to X, all mages are _____. Then you can choose to be a _____ mage or a _____ mage or a _____ mage.

DDO is far more interactive with it's environment then WOW. And DDO just keeps expanding that. Sometimes it's just for fun, like cutting down spider webs in a tunnel. But man, stuff like that adds to the immersion.

DDO is not as gear dependant as WOW. And by that I mean, in games like WOW and EQ, your ability to function comes more from your gear then your class. yes, gear is very important in DDO. But some of your power comes from how you make your character. For example, bards benefit from the Extend Feat. However, a bard functions without it. They just spend more mana. But I often find I don't run out as fast in mana as other casters. So maybe I don't need extend, I can take something else.

Either way, I'm not dependant on having certain gear to make these choices. So some of my ability to function in the game comes from myself, and not always the gear I have.

And when we are depenant on gear, we have a wide range, maybe to wide of gear to choose from.

So I don't see DDO as behind WOW in terms of what a game can do.

I see WOW as the one that is taking tricks from DDO coming down the road. When DDO first came out and people where talking about traps in the dungeons, WOW said they had always intended to do that, they just never got around to it.

I left games like EQ (there for 6+ years), tried EQII (hated the style of it) and couldn't stand WoW (to cartoonish for my taste and just more of the old EQ grind). However what DDO lacks, regardless of the things that are ahead of the curve compaired to the other MMOs, is stamina. In DDO you reach the end game far to quickly. While I am not asking for 70+ levels in DDO (that is just stupid) I am asking that they slow down the players ability to jump through levels so fast.

Unfortunately they also have limited content. Yes even now the content is limited. Why you might ask? Because to retain long term players you need time sinks. DDO doesn't have any, in the traditional sense. So without time sinks like crafting (Scroll, Wand, Weapon, Armor) items or being able to add on to items what else do people do? Make more characters. Well what happens when you have people with full character slots? They get bored and "take breaks". Unfortunately during those breaks they either find another game that keeps them constantly interested or they stop playing MMOs in general.

DDO had an opportunity with PvP to give players a chance to do something that would keep them interested but dropped the ball. They took to long to implement it and it was half @rse when they did. Then they never had anyone keep up the leader boards (I am not a fan of PvP but understand it's nature in the scheme of an MMO so know it's a needed evil).

With the upcomming Mod 5 people are very excited. but lets look at it closely. the items that have been posted are insanely powerful compaired to those available now. That means that the current content level (16 max on elite) is going to be trivial. So even though new raid and quests are here people are going to be bored with the same old thing again before they get more content out. It's a vicious cycle but they created the problem when they designed the dungeon system.

Now if Turbine had no restrictions being passed down on them I could imagine they might do a better job but maby that's just naive thinking. Frankly I don't care who owns or is in charge of the game itself. Just that they make smarter choices then they have been.