Despondent plea for something interesting

[Eregion2]

In a nutshell, I started my trial in December, and purchased the game in early January. I trained my human cleric to L10 purely through PUGs, playing steadily through the first week of February. I also have several other lower-level accounts including one that I'm basing off a custom build I put together. Since then, in the last three weeks, I've logged in maybe four times to update my AH offers and ran two quests.

Entirely unintentionally, I've lost all interest in the game because I haven't found one thing anywhere that's remotely different from the Harbor except that the quests require stronger characters. There's no development, no storyline, and absolutely no WORLD outside Stormreach to look forward to. You go to a few different places to do a few different quests, and then you're right back to the place where you were two days into your character.

I'm getting desperate to find something interesting, anything, not only to keep my own interest but to actually have something that I can point to and say "See that?! WoW hasn't got it!" I love the huge character customization aspect, but that's just one part of a very big game that doesn't really seem to be going anywhere except slow monotonous circles. If you've got any solutions, please share them.

[Clay]

Been here since headstart and not tired yet. Sure glad that:

1. I don't have to sit camped for several hours at a spawn point in hopes of getting some rare drop... only to have some better equipped guy steal my spawn...
2. don't have to spend 30 minutes just getting my character from home base to the quest...
3. combat actually uses skill and not just push the attack button and sit back and wait and watch ...... zzzzz
4. don't have to worry about someone really stealing your kill, and therefore your loot

list goes on but it ain't for everyone so just head on back to WoW with your friends.

[ArkoHighStar]

have you begun to explore the desert and gianthold yet?

[Riddikulus]

If you are looking for a large world, DDO doesn't have it. You have a few exploration zones, but nothing like what WoW and LOTRO have. So if that is important to you DDO isn't going to work.

As far as storyline, there are stories behind a lot of the quests. The Vault of Night series is a long storyline which dovetails into Gianthold. Some quests have very little storyline, just depends.

DDO has:
- D&D Ruleset. What does 5000 armor mean in WoW anyway?
- Grouping is encouraged. Voice chat is actually used.
- All the quests are different. There are not all of the form "Kill <count> <mobtype> and bring me their <bodypart>" or "Go to <location> and talk to <npc>", which you get a lot of in WoW and LOTRO.

DDO doesn't have:
- Exploration
- Resource Gathering (although they are starting some of this)
- Ganking (except for the demons & devils )
- Enough quests... getting better all the time, but there's never enough.

[Hafeal]

I There's no development, no storyline, and absolutely no WORLD outside Stormreach to look forward to. You go to a few different places to do a few different quests, and then you're right back to the place where you were two days into your character.

I am no expert on Eberron but I am not sure what you are talking about ... every new Mod's storyline has essentially built on what has come before.

In a persistent instance, new players have to progress, thus the "old" storyline you have gone through will persist for all new players to come.
I don't think any game offers exactly what I hear you requesting. You want the whole world to change as you complete it with your characters? Not truly possible for an MMO inviting new people to join. Some world events, though, like the one occurring now, are fun.

[Rekker]

have you begun to explore the desert and gianthold yet?

What he said. And don't forget the Orchard too.

[Riddikulus]

Been here since headstart and not tired yet. Sure glad that:

1. I don't have to sit camped for several hours at a spawn point in hopes of getting some rare drop... only to have some better equipped guy steal my spawn...
2. don't have to spend 30 minutes just getting my character from home base to the quest...
3. combat actually uses skill and not just push the attack button and sit back and wait and watch ...... zzzzz
4. don't have to worry about someone really stealing your kill, and therefore your loot

list goes on but it ain't for everyone so just head on back to WoW with your friends.

Been playing WoW the last 4 months and:

1. This has only happened to me once. I imagine YMMV.
2. I've never had to spend more than 5 minutes going to any quest. Once you establish your griffin network you can go from Stormwind to Durotar in 5 minutes. I've even _walked_ from Ironforge to Durotar in less than 30 minutes (with the boat ride in the middle). So #2 is a red herring, at least it is in the case of WoW.
3. This is false. You have so many special attacks that it is not just an auto-attack thing. Granted there is no active blocking and swinging like there is in DDO.
4. You can't steal kills in WoW or LOTRO. Once you've pegged a mob, you get the kill and loot no matter who kills it.

DDO has it's own positives. It's not necessary to make up stories about WoW and LOTRO to make DDO look good.

[Clay]

Been playing WoW the last 4 months and:

1. This has only happened to me once. I imagine YMMV.
2. I've never had to spend more than 5 minutes going to any quest. Once you establish your griffin network you can go from Stormwind to Durotar in 5 minutes. I've even _walked_ from Ironforge to Durotar in less than 30 minutes (with the boat ride in the middle). So #2 is a red herring, at least it is in the case of WoW.
3. This is false. You have so many special attacks that it is not just an auto-attack thing. Granted there is no active blocking and swinging like there is in DDO.
4. You can't steal kills in WoW or LOTRO. Once you've pegged a mob, you get the kill and loot no matter who kills it.

DDO has it's own positives. It's not necessary to make up stories about WoW and LOTRO to make DDO look good.

Was referencing my experiences with UO and SWG. Never claimed that those points were part of WoW... Never played WoW... checked it out... wasn't interested. Was just listing some of the things I like about DDO (aside from the simple fact that it IS a form of DnD)

[Impaqt]

First, your in the Wrong forum.... You'd get a LOT more responses in one of the Public forums.

Second, there are LOTS of storylines Throughout DDO. You just gotta take the time to experience em.... A Few off the Top of my head..

Waterworks --> Shan-to-kor: 7 Quests interconnected to culminate into a nice battle.

Catacombs: One of the best storylines inthe game....

Baudry Cartomon. Story starts in the Wayward Lobster at l2ish and runs through the Restless Iles and Culminates with the Best Raid in the game.. The warforged Titan.

The Vault of Night: Von1-6 is a great quest. Lots of twists and turns and quit ethe challenge for level appropriet characters.

Litany of the dead. If your after a LONG epic storyline, this is the quest chain for you... Starting around l4ish you runthe first 5 quests, l8ish you get the second 5, l11ish the 3rd 5. Each End quest in these 3 groups of quests allow you to upgrade a trinket or necklace to greater powers. It then continues into the Orchard of the macabre for 4 more quests, a very indepth Preraid quest that you miust complete all 4 paths, and concludes with what is the single most dificult quest inthe game.

Dont forget Tangleroot, or The Therenal Ruins either....

The epic stoylines are there if you care to look for them and experience them.

[Riddikulus]

Was referencing my experiences with UO and SWG. Never claimed that those points were part of WoW... Never played WoW... checked it out... wasn't interested. Was just listing some of the things I like about DDO (aside from the simple fact that it IS a form of DnD)

Haven't tried UO. I did the free trial of SWG a couple years ago and it wasn't worth the price I paid for it. Kept getting lost in space.

I've enjoyed WoW, mostly because there is always something to do, and even after 4 months I am no where close to "finishing" it... I might be halfway.

Here I had done everything, much of it more than once after only 2 months.

Now if I had started WoW 2 years ago, and started DDO today I might have a somewhat different opinion as DDO has tons more content than it did 2 years ago. I think DDO would have done much better than it has if it had launched today.

[Eregion2]

list goes on but it ain't for everyone so just head on back to WoW with your friends.

I'd never played WoW until this February.

have you begun to explore the desert and gianthold yet?

I spent some time in GH; fought through 20 minutes of lag to get to the gate but after that it was decent. Except...

- Grouping is encouraged. Voice chat is actually used.

This is the hardest part for me to get used to in DDO, even after PUG'ing to L10. You join a group, you run a quest (run, not walk, not do normal, not pay any attention to the quest or run any optionals unless you know by experience that they're worth doing, just pound it and go on to process through the next one), you get your end reward, you disband. The whole focus of grouping in DDO is wrong; it would be enjoyable with friends but my attempts to convert them actually got me into the wowzer heresy to begin with. In WoW it's at least built to solo, so you can get on and play or mess around or do SOMETHING even when you can't devote the time to DDO quest-bashing.

I'm using Warcraft as a comparison, but to the opposite extreme I played RuneScape for other FOUR YEARS while I got bored with DDO after six weeks? I'd really like to get to the explorable regions, except that that involves groups. And groups do these things: 1) go directly to boss monster. 2) kill the boss monster. 3) loot the boss monster's chest. 4) go directly to the next boss monster. 5) repeat 1-4 until the area is exhausted, then recall out and regroup to run it again for the bosses that decided not to show up for the party this time around.

In all honesty, who cares about the boss monsters? I'd like to go out there on my own time and get my own experience at my own pace without having to keep up with a group or slow down for a group or get frustrated with a group or get blamed by a group when I fail to keep all five other players alive all at once while the rogue is playing a warrior and the barbarian is seeing how quickly he can drain my spell points while the ranger is constantly drawing aggro before anyone else and the casters never bring repair spells even when they KNOW FULL WELL there's a warforged in the party (sorcerers who can't afford wands are forgiven). That said, I made this thread because I really seriously want to enjoy this game again.

[Heladron]

First, your in the Wrong forum.... You'd get a LOT more responses in one of the Public forums.

Second, there are LOTS of storylines Throughout DDO. You just gotta take the time to experience em.... A Few off the Top of my head..

Waterworks --> Shan-to-kor: 7 Quests interconnected to culminate into a nice battle.

Catacombs: One of the best storylines inthe game....

Baudry Cartomon. Story starts in the Wayward Lobster at l2ish and runs through the Restless Iles and Culminates with the Best Raid in the game.. The warforged Titan.

The Vault of Night: Von1-6 is a great quest. Lots of twists and turns and quit ethe challenge for level appropriet characters.

Litany of the dead. If your after a LONG epic storyline, this is the quest chain for you... Starting around l4ish you runthe first 5 quests, l8ish you get the second 5, l11ish the 3rd 5. Each End quest in these 3 groups of quests allow you to upgrade a trinket or necklace to greater powers. It then continues into the Orchard of the macabre for 4 more quests, a very indepth Preraid quest that you miust complete all 4 paths, and concludes with what is the single most dificult quest inthe game.

Dont forget Tangleroot, or The Therenal Ruins either....

The epic stoylines are there if you care to look for them and experience them.

Everything he said. Plus the Hardest Quest, Abbot Raid, starts the whole new Mod6 chain off. The end result of that Raid had a direct impact, as far as story is concerned, with the Mod6. Mod6 end results have led us to the events that have been taking place this whole week.

Don't forget Graymoon Waning and Cult of the Six. That's a about 10+ quests in one big story that spans several character levels if you want it to.

There's more story to this game than meets the eye. Read the text in those boxes when you pick up the quest and you'll learn all kinds of stuff.

The Stormreaver is mentioned in Tempest Spine. I ran that raid 3 or 4 times before actually reading the text, man did I feel dumb.

This game is nothing but story arcs with miscellaneous side quests to do in between arcs.

True you don't really get the feeling of vast lands because some quests teleport you around the continent of Xendrik. If you had to walk it then you'd be walking forever to get to some of the quests because Xendrik is pretty big. So yeah, a lot of the scale is hidden due to "teleports." I personally like not having to run so far to get to a quest because in the beginning this game had a ton of down time because of the lack of 30 to 100 slot bags like other games have, but they are making improvements all the time for stuff like this.

[Riddikulus]

I'd like to go out there on my own time and get my own experience at my own pace without having to keep up with a group or slow down for a group or get frustrated with a group or get blamed by a group when I fail to keep all five other players alive all at once while the rogue is playing a warrior and the barbarian is seeing how quickly he can drain my spell points while the ranger is constantly drawing aggro before anyone else and the casters never bring repair spells even when they KNOW FULL WELL there's a warforged in the party (sorcerers who can't afford wands are forgiven). That said, I made this thread because I really seriously want to enjoy this game again.

Again, DDO is built for grouping... if you build a really good sorc you might be able to solo a lot, but it's not easy.

About the best advice I can give is to join a good guild with people who share your interests. It makes a world of difference.

[Valzoric]

Why is this thread in the marketplace? Shouldn't this be elsewhere?

[Ringos]

I'd never played WoW until this February.
I spent some time in GH; fought through 20 minutes of lag to get to the gate but after that it was decent. Except...This is the hardest part for me to get used to in DDO, even after PUG'ing to L10. You join a group, you run a quest (run, not walk, not do normal, not pay any attention to the quest or run any optionals unless you know by experience that they're worth doing, just pound it and go on to process through the next one), you get your end reward, you disband. The whole focus of grouping in DDO is wrong; it would be enjoyable with friends but my attempts to convert them actually got me into the wowzer heresy to begin with. In WoW it's at least built to solo, so you can get on and play or mess around or do SOMETHING even when you can't devote the time to DDO quest-bashing.

I'm using Warcraft as a comparison, but to the opposite extreme I played RuneScape for other FOUR YEARS while I got bored with DDO after six weeks? I'd really like to get to the explorable regions, except that that involves groups. And groups do these things: 1) go directly to boss monster. 2) kill the boss monster. 3) loot the boss monster's chest. 4) go directly to the next boss monster. 5) repeat 1-4 until the area is exhausted, then recall out and regroup to run it again for the bosses that decided not to show up for the party this time around.

In all honesty, who cares about the boss monsters? I'd like to go out there on my own time and get my own experience at my own pace without having to keep up with a group or slow down for a group or get frustrated with a group or get blamed by a group when I fail to keep all five other players alive all at once while the rogue is playing a warrior and the barbarian is seeing how quickly he can drain my spell points while the ranger is constantly drawing aggro before anyone else and the casters never bring repair spells even when they KNOW FULL WELL there's a warforged in the party (sorcerers who can't afford wands are forgiven). That said, I made this thread because I really seriously want to enjoy this game again.

Wow. I guess I would ask if you tried to find like-minded people on the server. There are many different types of players, and some would probably fit with your play style. Running with people you like can really change your outlook on the game. Puggin' a Cleric can get you down at times, I know.

As far as running content Solo, a Cleric can work great for that.

Take care.

[Allasar]

I'll preempt Parvo by saying 'Permadeath'

But seriously, you're facing the not-inconsiderable challenge of grouping with long-time veterans who are looking to level as fast as possible and know the quests inside-out at this point.

My best suggestion would be to put up LFMs and state that you're looking to take it slow or that you're new or responding to those. Alternatively, find a RP or otherwise self-defined guild that has that approach to the game.

[MeNorel]

In all honesty, who cares about the boss monsters? I'd like to go out there on my own time and get my own experience at my own pace without having to keep up with a group or slow down for a group or get frustrated with a group or get blamed by a group when I fail to keep all five other players alive all at once while the rogue is playing a warrior and the barbarian is seeing how quickly he can drain my spell points while the ranger is constantly drawing aggro before anyone else and the casters never bring repair spells even when they KNOW FULL WELL there's a warforged in the party (sorcerers who can't afford wands are forgiven). That said, I made this thread because I really seriously want to enjoy this game again.

Again, DDO is built for grouping... if you build a really good sorc you might be able to solo a lot, but it's not easy.

About the best advice I can give is to join a good guild with people who share your interests. It makes a world of difference.

Arcanes are not needed in the Orchard or in the Vale to solo, I solo my Cleric and Ranger in both all the time, Ranger is a bit harder in the Orchard but still fun and do able.

[Heladron]

I'll preempt Parvo by saying 'Permadeath'

But seriously, you're facing the not-inconsiderable challenge of grouping with long-time veterans who are looking to level as fast as possible and know the quests inside-out at this point.

My best suggestion would be to put up LFMs and state that you're looking to take it slow or that you're new or responding to those. Alternatively, find a RP or otherwise self-defined guild that has that approach to the game.

Blast, you preempted me too. I was just thinking it as I read the post and scrolled down to find your post.

Permadeath slows the game down to a nice crawl and you really do get to experience a lot more of the quest and enjoy the scenery. A lot of permadeath guilds have strict no-spoiler rules and also tend to go to every part of a quest to maximize XP and treasure since twinking is not allowed in many of them.

I'd say give it another shot in a different style of play and then if you still don't like it throw in the towel and go do something you enjoy.

[Aarwin]

Wrong forums for this..... Thanks and have fun

[Eregion2]

I am very very sorry about the wrong forum thing, I meant to post it in the Thelanis forum, not Thelanis Marketplace. I'll go ahead and take a look around for permadeath groups. Also, when it comes to solo'ing the Orchard, could I do it at L10 or should I put it off yet for a few levels? I haven't been there yet but from what I've heard it was a step above GH and the Desert. I could easily be wrong though.

In reference to the storyline, I know it exists. I've run Tangleroot and STK solo even after I didn't get very much experience for them since they both have interesting nooks and odd ends I wanted to take a closer look at, which requires the kind of time groups don't allow for. I've also run many other quests on that list, but groups don't pay attention to something as trivial as a storyline.

The thing is though that for every quest, it's like you're a spectator to the storyline, and can easily ignore it completely without any consequence. In effect, it's an inconsequential storyline - it doesn't matter. There's a dragon in the Vault of Night? Who cares? It's not going anywhere. "Just hit the level cap, and wait for the next mod" (frustration).

Catacombs: One of the best storylines inthe game....

I completely agree. I solo'd every part because no group ever wanted to run it.