where have all the classes gone?

[EinarMal]

How has the pace of mods slowed down? What ... you calling those monthly updates mods now? HAHAHA It has pretty much always been 3 to 4 months between the mods with the exception of mod 5 due to its delays. As far as mod 6 is concerned ... the full version is not even on risia yet so exactly how are you comeing up with your conclusions? As I have said before IMO they are adding content to this game faster than any other MMO I have seen. The others seem bigger because to get from point A in the far south to point B in the far north you have to cross all that is inbetween. Here all our quests are instanced and no waiting on others to finish up getting what they need so you can take their spot. If you were to add up the map space of every quest in this game you would realize that this game is MUCH MUCH bigger than it appears. You just have access to all the content 24/7 where you don't with the other games and therfore is easier to burn out on the content.

*to no one in particular*
Also ... if it is so easy to create new content and add the classes and shouldn't be that hard to do this and that ... then GO DO IT. Create your own game and put it out there cause odviously you can do a better job.

Milolyen

Meh there are plenty of other threads detailing what each Mod + updates added, go look them up. This Mod (with no updates anymore since they don't add content between mods now) is smaller than previous mods+updates. Go take a look at the spell list and number of quests. Again, go look it up.

As far as monks being promised for the fall and not reading/looking at dev comments, which ones would those be? The initial ones say monks would be in soon after release, or when they said no soon after that, or after that, or after that.

[Milolyen]

Meh there are plenty of other threads detailing what each Mod + updates added, go look them up. This Mod (with no updates anymore since they don't add content between mods now) is smaller than previous mods+updates. Go take a look at the spell list and number of quests. Again, go look it up.

As far as monks being promised for the fall and not reading/looking at dev comments, which ones would those be? The initial ones say monks would be in soon after release, or when they said no soon after that, or after that, or after that.

Again how do you know it is smaller? Unless you are on mournlands you would not know because it has not been release on risia yet. If you are on mournlands you are not supposed to talk about it anyways. I am just saying that till mod 6 comes out you don't have a valid arguement on the development rate of the game because the time between mods (MODS NOT UPDATES) have been close to the same with the exception of mod 5. Not to mention that Monks were probably put on the back burner while trying to get those updates and mods out to satisfy the demands for more content. I mean can we atleast WAIT till the mod is released before complaining about it. Also need to read what Q had in his sig yesterday about what all is currently in development, the anniversary update and mod 7 to name a couple.

No I am not hiding my head in the sand I am just being realistic with my expectations. Are they developing new content ... yes. Are they working on developing new classes and races ... yes. Are they working on crafting ... yes. Complaining about stuff in the manner that alot of these posts are writen in is not going to solve anything. If anything it is going to make things worse. If I am working on a project for a customer that is going to be happy with what I do then I am going to put in that much more effort. If I am working on a project for a customer where no matter what I do they are still going to complain about it then I am not going to put in nearly as much effort cause why bother? Showing appreciation and giveing constructive criticism goes alot farther and does much more good than these negative posts. Then when you start getting facts wrong to back up comments like "seeing the pace for mods slow" it really tends to make people feel unappreciated.

I did read and even posted in some of those threads about the development time between mods and updates and such. People where treating mods and updates as the same to try and prove their side of the arguement. Time between MODS has not really slowed ... always been 3 - 4 months between them. Now was it worth loseing the updates to get mod 6 out quicker ... is yet to be seen. Me personally? I am really looking forward to mod 6 and say keep up the good work Devs.

Milolyen

[Mad_Bombardier]

because it has not been release on risia yet.

Mod6 quests were on Risia Preview from Friday 18 Jan to Wed 23 Jan.

[Milolyen]

Sorry I had edited that part there ... was originally supposed to say the entire mod has not even been release on risia yet. The raid wasn't put on risia and from what I have seen of it it is huge.

Milolyen

[MysticTheurge]

Sorry I had edited that part there ... was originally supposed to say the entire mod has not even been release on risia yet. The raid wasn't put on risia and from what I have seen of it it is huge.

I suspect the entire Mod isn't going to be put on Risia until it's put on all the Live Servers.

They learned something from their Mod-5-on-Risia debacle.

[Milolyen]

I suspect the entire Mod isn't going to be put on Risia until it's put on all the Live Servers.

They learned something from their Mod-5-on-Risia debacle.

Ya I agree and would be dissappointed if they did. But if they did I would just do the same thing I did with mod 5 ... get a group of friends and run it and if we decided to pug out a few spots put up an lfm with guides not wanted. Most people are respectfull enough to not ruin a first time run. I know I try to be.

Milolyen

[EinarMal]

I suspect the entire Mod isn't going to be put on Risia until it's put on all the Live Servers.

They learned something from their Mod-5-on-Risia debacle.

Well we shall see, if we end up with 5 quests + raid, no new classes, it is going to be hard to stick around for 4 months more. I doubt grinding for crafting ingredients will be all that fun for me personally. The only thing fun to do at this point is either grind for loot (not for me) or try new build combinations. At this point I am all out of combinations. We really need new classes and races to play around with.

It makes no sense why they haven't put more classes in this game given the wealth of 3.5 classes they could add, many of which would require very little work that is not already in the game.

Hell I would gladly take elf/dwarf variant races with the same artwork and maybe some different racial benefits and colors. It really isn't that hard to add some of this stuff.

[Drfirewater79]

After waiting for so long, and seeing the pace of Mods slow, and from the looks of things contain no more or maybe even less than previous updates it is far from BS to say that the game development has slowed.

You can hide your head in the sand all you want, but when monks do finally come it will be about a year later than they originally planned for. Last time I checked kung fu animations shouldn't take that long lol... I had a game called mortal kombat in like 1995 that managed to pull it off....

Either they have 3-4 developers at most working on this game or they need to find better programmers.

i dont know how it works in video games but in the movie industry where i have some experince if the date is even talked about and its late by more then a couple weeks .... big names get fired .... heres an example i was working on set of a movie which i wont name cause its gonna be great and i dont want people to get it wrong ... the film is a clay mation film they spent over 4 million on it and the stop motion was due last june come july when they had less then half of the stop motion filmed 10 set designers and crew where fired and they hired fresh people who got the job done in the new set time.

i dont think any of us wants to see turbine set a new team to work on DDO but just had to put that out as an example of what happens in this kind of industry when the customer in that case the production company looks at the product as not making deadlines.

just an example.

They had other things to do. Not everyone agrees they were needed, but Turbine thought so. Monks probably were not worked heavily upon UNTIL fall.

Everyone who has realistic expectations understands this will not be the last MMO we play. Instead they hope that others take note of the things that Turbine did well and incorporate them into games in the future. The active combat system and the LFM mechanics of DDO are well ahead of most MMOs, for example. I hope DDO sticks around for a while as I enjoy playing it, but the whole, "Last car you'll ever drive!" buzzword worthy line puts me on edge.

I agree alot of stuff has been done that the people didnt feel was nessasary that turbine did.

that is understandable but really the problem is that the game was launched without all the core classes so when in beta they where saying monks and druids will be out shortly after launch everyone thought oh i guess that means they are working on them already. instead we find out that they havent even started druid yet and now almost 2 years later have just started the finishing work on monks and that there next planned class is artificer ..... what happened to druid? where are the easy to implment classes like warmage and swashbucklers ?

the problem is with the failiure to communicate there ideas in a open forum where the players actually have a say in the games development progression.

its what this forum was started for but it ends up being people taking shots at other people and not dealing with the issues at hand. the issue at hand is two years and no new classes only one race and what little news we get is hidden away in corners instead of being blasted on the loud speakers ....

they have a builiten board on the game client why not use it to update people on what is going on in game development so we dont have to start 50 threads on what isnt here and can start focusing on what is actually going to come.

How has the pace of mods slowed down? What ... you calling those monthly updates mods now? HAHAHA It has pretty much always been 3 to 4 months between the mods with the exception of mod 5 due to its delays. As far as mod 6 is concerned ... the full version is not even on risia yet so exactly how are you comeing up with your conclusions? As I have said before IMO they are adding content to this game faster than any other MMO I have seen. The others seem bigger because to get from point A in the far south to point B in the far north you have to cross all that is inbetween. Here all our quests are instanced and no waiting on others to finish up getting what they need so you can take their spot. If you were to add up the map space of every quest in this game you would realize that this game is MUCH MUCH bigger than it appears. You just have access to all the content 24/7 where you don't with the other games and therfore is easier to burn out on the content.

*to no one in particular*
Also ... if it is so easy to create new content and add the classes and shouldn't be that hard to do this and that ... then GO DO IT. Create your own game and put it out there cause odviously you can do a better job.

Milolyen

i dont know how many mmos you have played but there are many with much more content then ddo

they dont have the same spells and real time action or many of us wouldnt be here

but that doesnt mean that game content is better or in excess here then in other games. the reason they where pushing monthly content updates was because they know that they are lacking in content progression its why people have been leaving the game so much. this next update has only 5 missions and 2 new levels (1 of which most are 1 exp from attaining) hope issues 6.1-mod 7 are mission packed cause high level content is gonna be lacking in comparison with player leveling

this is why i think they should be launching lvl 18 missions when the cap is lvl 16 there will be lots of missions that people could only beat on normal and come the lvl 18 cap there will be lots of missons with first time solving exp bonuses cause peopel couldnt beat them previously .... raids aside cause its kind of been the mo for raids too.

when dragon came out there was a lot of talk about it being difficult after the first major change to velah then lvl 12 came out and people started caking her then titan came out and no one started really caking it till lvl 14 (mainly cause of bugs) and DQ is still the least completed raid in ddo since they added deep lava and its not even hard to do with exception to abbot cause no one has out leveled it yet. now abbot same thing its near impossible to get a party for abbot but once the new fixes and lvl cap are increased people will start trying again

the only raids that didnt have that issues where Reaver cause it didnt take long for people to cheat it and now its a joke and people are still using mastermind cheaters instead of just doing it and tempest which was never planned to be a major raid just to get the concept across to people and get them excited about raids and there potential.

i think that is another problem with DDO

they started off really good showing all sorts of promise for the future of the game now every mod comes out and it almost seems to get worse. items aren't much better people still over all seeing that titan has the best rewards list and second goes to reaver only cause dragon is so out dated and its the only one that is doable and has +3 tomes.

i think a DDO focus on fast player satisfacton should start up soon maybe we see more of the old guys come back and make it the current player base have something cool to tell there friends about when trying to recruit new people .

[Mercules]

the problem is with the failiure to communicate there ideas in a open forum where the players actually have a say in the games development progression.

They might not give us a lot of information, but they do listen. They HAVE given us information such as the new death penalty. The problem is that people seem to want to know exactly where they are on things. If they don't tell us, we blast them. If they do tell us, we blast them. What is the incentive to share where they are on certain projects like Druids? There is none.

its what this forum was started for but it ends up being people taking shots at other people and not dealing with the issues at hand. the issue at hand is two years and no new classes only one race and what little news we get is hidden away in corners instead of being blasted on the loud speakers ....

See, I see their interviews and posts on GAMING sites as blasting such things on loud speakers and not hiding it. Yes, they don't give specifics but they do give information.

Want to know where my company is with it's next version of our product? We expect it to come out in April but possibly May. Why isn't it out in March when we hit a supposed "code freeze" because someone might be changing the requirements for something we are adding into our product which means until they make up their minds our code is either golden, or needs to be overhauled. Supposedly we are testing it, but we are testing software that could likely change significantly. Oh, that new feature was supposed to be in the program two versions ago, but we had the same issue back then. Did anyone get fired? No, because we can only work with what we are given.

they have a builiten board on the game client why not use it to update people on what is going on in game development so we dont have to start 50 threads on what isnt here and can start focusing on what is actually going to come.

Or, we could wait patiently and enjoy what is already in the game and consider anything else they add a bonus. Modern society seems to be moving towards a, "That's great... what else you got?" sort of attitude. There is SOOOOOO much in D&D that -could- be added to DDO that we will never see even close to it. I personally would like to have Psionics and more Eberron classes/races. I'll wait for them though and thank the devs when I see them, not ask them 50 times. It's like I tell my children. Asking once is fine, if I don't answer right away I am probably thinking about it. If you ask again I am pretty sure the answer will just be "No."

[Drfirewater79]

They might not give us a lot of information, but they do listen. They HAVE given us information such as the new death penalty. The problem is that people seem to want to know exactly where they are on things. If they don't tell us, we blast them. If they do tell us, we blast them. What is the incentive to share where they are on certain projects like Druids? There is none.

yes your right hte new death penalty because it could have caused half the population to drop if they didnt warn us much like the origional change to casters and clerics caused hundereds to flee from the game. so what you are saying is its ok for them not to give us a heads up on the near future before then have already developed it?

the death penalty was in risia when they mentioned it meaning they already wasted time they could have put into something else .. i personally dont mind the new death pen system because if we are crafting items anyway it just means we have to fix them every mission cause bound items dont take perma damage which means its durability will stay the same. and i am the type that repairs after every battle anyway.

See, I see their interviews and posts on GAMING sites as blasting such things on loud speakers and not hiding it. Yes, they don't give specifics but they do give information.

Want to know where my company is with it's next version of our product? We expect it to come out in April but possibly May. Why isn't it out in March when we hit a supposed "code freeze" because someone might be changing the requirements for something we are adding into our product which means until they make up their minds our code is either golden, or needs to be overhauled. Supposedly we are testing it, but we are testing software that could likely change significantly. Oh, that new feature was supposed to be in the program two versions ago, but we had the same issue back then. Did anyone get fired? No, because we can only work with what we are given.

what i have read and seen on gaming sites has been scarse at best i seen more on you tube about ddo then i have on IGN possibly the biggest gaming site on the internet and gamespy has what two both that say near nothing the public didnt already know. no one is asking for the launch date all we are saying is give yourself a buffer before you say something finite like a date. if its not gonna be ready till september say fall-winter that gives ya 6 months to fix the mess up ... oh wait sorry origionally monks where to come out at first aniversary something happened so they took 4 months and said fall ... now its been pushed to april which is 7 months from fall that is a total of 11 months since the first time a dev said it would be there. this is why people are still angry about monks. its not because the dates are pushed back for good reasons its that nothing was said about it when the problem arose. they didnt say "well we where hoping to get monks out this fall but we havent been able to start work on them yet because of the server merge new dates will be some time in the early new year" cause if they said that i would never have started this post to begin with. We all know problems arise but if you build the hype then you better either produce the matierial or come up with a good reason.

Or, we could wait patiently and enjoy what is already in the game and consider anything else they add a bonus. Modern society seems to be moving towards a, "That's great... what else you got?" sort of attitude. There is SOOOOOO much in D&D that -could- be added to DDO that we will never see even close to it. I personally would like to have Psionics and more Eberron classes/races. I'll wait for them though and thank the devs when I see them, not ask them 50 times. It's like I tell my children. Asking once is fine, if I don't answer right away I am probably thinking about it. If you ask again I am pretty sure the answer will just be "No."

the problem is i dont think most people see anything in an mmo as a bonus personally i wouldnt care if they came out with a player created mapping engine so we could create the missions while they work on expansion sets once a year. i wouldnt care if we never got another mini mod and only got big mods every 4 months and and expansion set once a year. i have no problem throwing more money at them if they make the game something worth paying every month for.

your average video gamer (non mmo) plays a game until he gets to fustrated with it or he achieves the piniccle of power in the game for his given character and puts it on his shelf as complete and might never play it again. the only thing different about mmos is people stick around because of the friends they made in game that they would miss other wise. so when one player leaves you risk loosing 30(not saying all 30 will leave but that the potential for all 30 of that persons guildmates could all go to another game).
So on going content is not a bonus its a must because other games either offer the same level of updates for on going content or launch larger updates only with huge content dumps and drop a double sized one once a year as an expansion. this is how mmos make there money and keep there customers. giving them the never ending game experience. if the game hits a dead end like lvl 14 cap did with three full areas comming out without a level increase people start feeling like they have already completed the game and put it down stop paying and stop playing ... its called burnout by some boredom by others.

the type of information they give us on the whole has been "carrot in front of the donkey" ish. suckering us into paying for potential updates with things we want in them while they continue to release small things or build hype for small things so they appear bigger then they are and not what the origional hype was about (like they did with monks and druids alot of people left figuring monks where an urban legend and i dont think releaseing monks will bring many back for long... fingers crossed hoping i am wrong about that cause it would be nice to see full servers and loads of mission posts again).

that is why i am saying i dont care about dates just dont tell us stuff that is not being worked on its pretty straight forward. Dont tell us monks and druids will be out shortly if you are not planning on working on them shortly. definatly dont say druids in 2008 and then in a interview with a gaming site about the next classes being thought about is artificer in 2009 .... i have never seen a forum post asking for the artificer class in two years of forum hopping. why would it even be an option ? i know some of you dont understand how little it would offer to DDO because you played one once in a mainly in town game on PnP and remember likeing the character for the two three game days before he died and the DM decided there was no way to rez him from the stomach of a trask short of a wish. but in DDO there is little use for the class and no one has asked for it since the launch of the game in any forum but i have read at least 10 that have had warmage druids warlords and swashbucklers to name a few.
I am sorry monks wont keep me on the game till 2009 to find out there is no other classes launched before then i am pretty sure some people will leave as soon as they cap there monk cause they already have all the items they could ever need on him and will craft the rest. then what if they dont come out with an expansion by that point there wont be enough content to keep people in the game till 2009 especially for artificer and not a major DnD class.