My thoughts

[Mojo]

Having been away for a while I thought I'd post a few thoughts upon my return.

First, I logged in to find my Thief, Hasan, had been renamed to Hasan-Argonessen. I was perplexed because he was the first and only Hasan on the server prior to the merge, and yet his name was the one changed. I posted a ticket inquiring about it and recieved the usual canned response TWICE before I got personal aid.
Long story short, inactivity had opened my name up so someone else could have it. I accept this. I support this. On the other hand, an email to advise me that my name is about to be unreserved would have been appropriate. I strongly suggest this policy be amended to include email notification. Further, I suggest you teach the CSRs to READ tickets fully before replying. The first two responses didn't address the questions I posed in the tickets, and instead offered a cut/paste response.

While discussing the situation with the CSR, I commented that I had only the usual 5 character slots. I was under the impression that I would have two additional slots as a benefit of server merging. I quote Ramen:

As a token of our appreciation, we're giving two special gifts for our players! These gifts include:
Two additional character slots! Each account will have 2 additional empty character slots on each world. By default, you will have 7 character slots. If you have unlocked the drow, you will now have 8 character slots. If you have unlocked the drow and 1750 favor slot, you will have 9 slots. This gift will become available when Module 5: Accursed Ascension goes live.
A free dragonshard! Appropriate to your level, per character on any non-trial account. Your dragonshard was placed into your inventory during the Module 4.2 patch on Aug 23rd.
Again, thank you all, and enjoy the game!

I was informed by the CSR that this only applies to people who had characters on other servers that were removed. This is perplexing. Which is it? If the CSR is right, that means some players are getting shafted for two slots while others aren't. I'm inclined to believe Ramen, but then I need to have my two extra slots added. There seems to be some confusion and misinformation here.


Now, to the game.

Characters STILL can't walk. They still shuffle around as if they have a rod stuck somewhere uncomfortable. I don't understand why this can't be corrected. LOTRO characters can walk. Why not DDO?

The game bears less and less resemblance to D&D. When it first came out DDO was "based" on D&D. There were many changes from the existing D&D rules. Some were needed for MMO compatibility. Some were not needed (or welcome, in my mind) at all. I come back now to find the game even farther removed from D&D. Call me odd if you wish, but I wanted to play D&D Online, not Something-vaguely-like-D&D Online.

There are still no places to grind. Players don't always want or have time to quest. Sometimes we just want to grind a little. Street Hunt, as it were.

Clothing is still rather bland. Everyone looks the same.

There's still nothing in the game to promote role playing. It's all zerg-questing. Worse, there's no down-time now. Once, the Taverns were busy places where people came to recover from their quests. Then they announced city-regeneration. I predicted then that the Taverns would empty and I've been proven correct. This is bad for the community.


Turbine pulled of a brilliant coup by getting the license to both D&D, the grand-daddy of all RPGs, and Lord of the Rings, the source of virtually ALL fantasy games out there. When I heard it, I thought DDO wouldbe the superior game. It had the benefit of a game system that was tried and true for over 30 years. LOTRO would have to start from scratch.

Now that LOTRO is out, I guarantee I'll be spending my time there, and I suspect I'm not alone. It's not that I don't like D&D, because I do. The trouble is that DDO isn't very much like D&D anymore, and it's just not as well crafted as LOTRO.

I do hope things will improve, but until then, you'll find me hanging around Bree.

[Allasar]

Sorry you're not happy on return.

A couple of points of clarification:

1. Name change: the change only happened with the server merge based on the rules that they defined and published in advance. Could they have sent emails out to everyone with an account? Sure wouldn't have been a big deal. It's not happening on a regular basis though, just a one-time event.

2. Extra character slots. The quote you included has the answer in it - will be available when mod 5 goes live, which isn't until tomorrow. If you don't have it then, you've got a right to complain.

3. Places to grind: Tried out the landscape areas like WW, Tangleroot, Searing Heights, Sorrowdusk, Artaxia's Haven, Desert, Gianthold? Grind to your hearts content.

I can't comment on how near or far it is from PnP or whether it's diverged further over time, although I'm sure you'll find varying opinions about it from others.

Roleplaying - not everyone (in fact it seems not many ) are that interested in RP - there are RP guilds on most servers - try one of them. Turbine does seem to be trying more and different live events - maybe those will continue.

Walking and clothing - IMHO - meh. Maybe they'll do some rework in Mod 6 or when Monks eventually come out - figure they'll need to do some new character animations or something then, so maybe it'll happen.

If you're having more fun in LOTRO, then play it, but I'll stay here.

[Mojo]

Fairly stated and clear, thanks for not flaming!

[arminius]

Minor point, but you can walk.

Check the key mapping, there is a key combo that allows you to walk. I don't remember what it is.

Once you try it for about 15 seconds, you'll never want to walk again.

_

[TossMe_the_Flying_D]

Gak! Someone beat me to it. I type too slow, but here's my reply anyways:


Some quick responses:

I commented that I had only the usual 5 character slots. I was under the impression that I would have two additional slots...

The two available character slots are iinmodule 5 which is due out tomorrow. Everyone gets them it has nothing to do with the server merge. Just wait a day.

I was informed by the CSR that this only applies to people who had characters on other servers that were removed.

This was bad information. Nobody lost characters when the servers merged - all the characters were merged onto the new servers, so if you had ten characters on three servers that merged together, you would now have ten characters on the final server.

There are still no places to grind. Players don't always want or have time to quest. Sometimes we just want to grind a little. Street Hunt, as it were.

Actually the adventure areas are great places to grind. There's a number of them for different character levels and they are great time fillers. It's actually possible to get to level 5 just by grinding and not going on quests at all.

From the rest o your post, it jut sounds like DD0 just isn't the type of game you're looking for. It seems like you focus more on the role-playing/environmental aspects over the character building/detailed actiony combat that DDO focuses on. I can see where you're coming from because D&D's main focus is on role playing and that aspect is almost non-existant in DDO. What DDO has is a great sandbox to test out character builds and to quest in an environment that encourages teamwork, which most MMO's don't have. DDO just may not be a match for your tastes. I can also sympathise with your dissapointment because while DDO follows the mechanics of D&D, the "heart" is missing because role playing is pertty meaningless in this game.

Personally I prefer building characters and proving out the designs on the fly and currently DDO is the only MMO that lets me do that. Your build and how you play your build are equally important. I played LOTRO and it's a totally different game. Beautiful game with a very rich environment. But the combat bored me to tears and my ranger was basically like every other ranger in the game. It just wasn't t game for me.

Actually it's pretty impressive that Turbine was able to take two franchises and produce two totally different experiences. Most other companies would have just produced clones with different window dressing. They dodn't take the easy way out an have focused each game on a different market segment.

[The_Family_Mordiff]

Mojo,

First let me say that the game mechanics in no way require you to role-play as you have stated and many players themselves do not role-play either.

HUGE NOTE: THIS IS ALSO TRUE OF PnP! I played with a bunch of dorks in my time that just went out and killed one creature after another with cool weapons, never showing the slightest understanding of "role-playing".

There are many role-playing guilds and people in the game.

I respect that you like LOTRO more and I think it's great that you found something you like, but oddly enough, I hated it during testing because I felt like it had nothing to do with role-playing. It's just hours and hours of walking around killing monsters on hillsides with weapons, which I don't enjoy much. Beautiful, stunning graphics, and a nice storyline, but not my thing.

My only point is:The flexibility of a role-playing game is that it has game mechanics that don't restrict someone from role-playing if they wish. I find this very true of both games.

I absolutely love DDO and while I hope you will see it's virtues too, I'm glad you have something else you enjoy as well.

[BGP]

Welcome back BTW.

[Zorth]

In PnP the DM would not let you cast wall of fire on a gate and then make the monsters dumber than rocks and cook to death.

With that being said I salute your thread.

[barecm]

I have to agree with the other posts in regards to the name changing, extra character slots and the places to grind.

I can comment on the difference between DDO and LoTRO (and most other MMOs). If you enjoy being a package delivery service, then LoTRO is the game for you. For me, I would rather be doing actual quests rather than picking magical berries in order to heal some old woman's dog. I really tried to get into LoTRO, but it is sooooo boring. Too much walking from place to place in order to deliver items.