A paid expansion!

[moorewr]

I think the question of a paid expansion has to be looked at in conjunction with D&D 4.0 out next month.

If it turns out to be a better system

- are we going to want it implemented in DDO?

- can Turbine afford to purchase the new licence?

- if so, how will they afford the development costs?

Personally I think the implications of the 4th edition going live are huge, but are being ignored in DDO so far. The developers claim to have restored balance between the classes and produced a much more fun game...

We've play-tested 4th edition a bit in my local gaming group.. many of changes make it more like DDO.. or MMOs in general.. personally I think it's OK< but it isn't D&D.

Mind you I fought a rear-guard action for 1st edition until well after 3.5 came out...

[chemonz]

The publisher of DDO is about to release a digitally available "adventure pack" for NWN2 and they have reported in their notes for a shareholder meeting that a full second expansion to NWN2 is also in the works.

So, an expansion to DDO may be possible at sometime. Atari does not seem to be giving up on supporting other games, why not try to increase the profits on this game as well?

[debo]

The developers claim to have restored balance between the classes and produced a much more fun game...

Us fighters no that not to be the case Stele .

I'd pay for an expansion. Sign me up.

[EinarMal]

I'm all FOr a Paid Expansion, but I have some serious Issues with this list... (SOrry to Pick yours oUt, It was the FIrst I Saw)

1: Core Classes Should NOT be part of a Paid Expansion. Ebberon Specific Classes... Like Artificer, I'm all for.
2: I think they are doing a Fine job with the Prestige Enhancments.
3: Again, Core Races, No thanks, Expanded Races, I'm all for
4: YES!
5: Absolutely not. You cannot FOrce people to buy something for Basic Standard Progession in the game. Level Increases should ALWAYS be included in the core $15/Mo

Core/Not core is personally irrelevant to me, there are also some serious limitations to the enhancement solution, the main one being Eldritch Knight/Arcane Trickster type PrC's which are in fact my favorite (so to me it is not fine since I can't play my favorite builds).

If they told me you can have level 20 as part of the regular updates and Druids in 2 years, or you can pay 20-40 dollars to have them in 4 months I would gladly pay in about 3 seconds (but that is me).

I've grown very tired of the slow pace of new development, if the current pace continues I am really going to have a hard time justifying staying around (even though it is a good game).

[Impaqt]

Core/Not core is personally irrelevant to me, there are also some serious limitations to the enhancement solution, the main one being Eldritch Knight/Arcane Trickster type PrC's which are in fact my favorite (so to me it is not fine since I can't play my favorite builds).

If they told me you can have level 20 as part of the regular updates and Druids in 2 years, or you can pay 20-40 dollars to have them in 4 months I would gladly pay in about 3 seconds (but that is me).

I've grown very tired of the slow pace of new development, if the current pace continues I am really going to have a hard time justifying staying around (even though it is a good game).

FOrtunatly, many people dont feel the same way. as Soon as people could pay for an advantage (Being 4 levels higher than anyone else would be a Significant advantage), the game would lose more subscribers than make on the Expansion. Reoccuring revanue is the money for MMO's Not the $30 theyd get for the expansion. Since the Current Level Cap is considered the "End" of the current game, forcing people to pay more to get to the end would go over like a lead baloon.

[Reisz]

Since the Current Level Cap is considered the "End" of the current game

Not level 16 but level X. Where x = current level cap.

Back to OP. I think 95% of the DDO community would buy and expansion day 1. Day 2 lost subscriptions would depend on the value of the expansion. I think Turbine will expect this and weigh the lose of subscriptions to the targeted new or returning subs due the marketing of a new boxed expansion.

Frankly any new sub would be worth 2 lost. The reason being that the 2 who leave are probably halfway out the door. Sad, but that is business.

[EinarMal]

FOrtunatly, many people dont feel the same way. as Soon as people could pay for an advantage (Being 4 levels higher than anyone else would be a Significant advantage), the game would lose more subscribers than make on the Expansion. Reoccuring revanue is the money for MMO's Not the $30 theyd get for the expansion. Since the Current Level Cap is considered the "End" of the current game, forcing people to pay more to get to the end would go over like a lead baloon.

Heh well how "many" people do you know hehe. I would bet far more people would gladly pay for an expansion (and get more and faster content) than the current super slow model.

The fact is paying 10-15 a month is minimal for the entertainment you get. I would bet any significant expansion in the $30 dollar range would be purchased by 90&#37; at least of people still playing at this point. If you don't feel like the game is worth another $30 bucks, my guess is you wouldn't stay around that much longer anyway.

I look at an expansion totally differently than you apparently. I want to pay more (since apparently 15 a month gets you not a lot of new content) for more new content/classes/whatever.... Paying some incremental amount for new quests/druids/real prestige classes sign me up.

Don't put the cap increase in there, give that to everyone whatever.

[Impaqt]

Heh well how "many" people do you know hehe. I would bet far more people would gladly pay for an expansion (and get more and faster content) than the current super slow model.

The fact is paying 10-15 a month is minimal for the entertainment you get. I would bet any significant expansion in the $30 dollar range would be purchased by 90% at least of people still playing at this point. If you don't feel like the game is worth another $30 bucks, my guess is you wouldn't stay around that much longer anyway.

I look at an expansion totally differently than you apparently. I want to pay more (since apparently 15 a month gets you not a lot of new content) for more new content/classes/whatever.... Paying some incremental amount for new quests/druids/real prestige classes sign me up.

Don't put the cap increase in there, give that to everyone whatever.

As I said, I'm all For a Paid Expansion... But it needs to be an Expansion.. Not a Requirement.... I could go play Everquest, Wow, or any number of MMO's for $15 a month.... Not spend any extra money on Expansions, and still acheive the same levels as everyone else. I may not get to play some areas, or have access to some items...

DDO also has one major disadvantage... It is indeed based on an established set of Core Rules. WHile Turbine has a lot of leeway
in many regards, there are certian truths to D&D that really need to be followed.... One of those things is COre Classes should be able to be played by all. another is L20 is the Cap before Epic Levels.

Pretty much I beleive everything that is inthe Players Handbook and DM's guide should be part of the game..... I'd like to see everything from the Main Ebberon Campaign setting book in here as well, but I'd still pay for some of that stuff.

Epic Levels? I gotta Buy another Book to play those..... I'd Pay Extra in the game....

So basically, If i would of had to buy another book in PnP to understand a certain aspect of the game, I'd be more than willing to pay extra in DDO as well.

[Jerevon]

Hell, at this point, I'd pay them to fix all the **** bugs and gross imbalance issues.

[irivan]

I would support the creation of DDO 2 than an expansion to this.

To me this games seems to be an experiment to them. A place to try building DnD into a real time game. I would not be surprised if this is something Turbine is spending our hard earned cash on and time on in the back ground building something newer, with newer tech, same type but upgraded combat system (aerial, water borne), and all new better graphics, new feel, and all movement types (fly, mounts, ships, wall climbing), new races (all DnD), etc...

While there may be only around 100K active subs, that is still a lot of cash on a monthly basis, so I think this is going some where toward their future projects to earn more money, and clearly DDO is a demographic that they can sell and make money on. Also i would not be surprised if Wizard was not looking at other Vendors to contract with for other adventure DDO type games, like forgotten realms.

All in good time my friends......

[Samy]

Not only would I like them to, I would *beg* them to.

I've got all this money, c'mon now! *waves $50* You only gotta give me something in return and you're all free to it! Geez, this money is earmarked and waiting for you! I'm willing to fund your game further, just give me something, anything more to do in return! C'mon! The current speed of progress is too slow for me and I'm willing to pay for it to go faster! Gimme something, anything, and you're free to my money, come on now!

[Spectralist]

I'm against it. Expansions for games are usually ****. Enough content to cost maybe 15$ but costing nearly as much as a full game. MMOs sit in a kind of limbo where that's less insulting then other types of games but i'd still rather not have to pay 50~$ for what would probably be little more then a mod's worth of content/upgrades. I suppose an expansion that actually had a good chunk of content & upgrades in it would be worth it. But that just never seems to be the case.

[Drith]

I'd drop $50.00 bucks without blinking for a big expansion. It would have to be big though. New city, Druids, at least 2 raids. New favor quests, tons of new outside areas. Tons of new items. New crafting, etc...

Many of the other succesful MMO's do this. I'm fine with the way Turbine does their stuff. I think what hurts Turbine the most is they make their raids too easy. People beat them too fast... put them on farm status too fast and as such get bored of the new content too fast.

We need things to be way way way harder.

# 1. Drop normal setting all together. Normal should be re-named "Newb"

# 2. Make at least the pre-raid haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaard. Kinda like they did with the Black Abbott's pre-raid. That was PURFFFECT! The named undead beholder was and still is a great challenge. DO MORE OF THAT!!!!

# 3. Make the raid hard but not impossible and also make it so that you're going to need to farm / craft specific items to be able to beat the bosses or whatever. The Shroud was good in that great construct weapons, Vorpals, and Transmuters help out a TONNE! Do that again but make it even worse.... i.e. virtually impossible without specific weapons.

[Cold_Stele]

Us fighters no that not to be the case Stele

Hey Luka, on the contrary there's gonna be a lot of Ftr, Pally and Rogue love in 4.0 bro.

- No mobs will be immune to sneak attack damage (a key philiosophy is that no class will face a blanket immunity to their special abilities, ie more fun)

- Every class will have a tactical decision to make in every round of combat (eg. Ftrs get new /day and /encounter special abilities that they have to decide when and how to use). This actually comes from Tome of Battle - a book which has absolutely revolutionised 3.5 for melee classes by adding spell-like 'special moves' to the game.

- Every class has some form of self-healing, so the game is not dependant upon Clerics and in turn Clerics have more to do than be healbots.

I've not played 4.0, but I played 1, 2, 3 and 3.5.

The difference between 3.0 and 3.5 was negligible. The difference between 2 and 3.0 was PHENOMENAL.

IF 4.0 stands head and shoulders above 3.5 the way the developers claim it will, I don't wanna be stuck playing an outdated and anarchic system.

Forget Half-Orcs, prestige classes, new cities and dungeons - the future of D&D is one month away from release.

What's the point of putting dev time into prestige classes when they're not even going to be in the new system? Why invest time and money on Half-Orcs when they've been dropped from the first Player's Handbook, along with Gnomes and Half-Elves?

I wanna hear some comments about planned upgrades to 4.0.

And yes, I'll pay for it - before some other company buys the licence...

[captain1z]

Paid expansion = yes


must have new city with quests available from 10 - 20 ( I say 10 -20 because everyone should experience stormreach 1st)

new creatures,races, classes, landscapes...... everything you would expect

[Strakeln]

From what I've read, expansions don't provide the influx of subscribers we'd like to think it does.

I'm not stating this as fact, I'm just relating what I read recently (from that guy that does MMOGChart.com). Seems to me he'd probably be one of the more qualified people to make this assessment.

From my personal experience, it makes sense. I started playing DDO because my WoW-playing friends were moving to it (I didn't play WoW). I would not have started playing WoW if an expansion came out. Why? Because joining during an expansion makes no difference from the new player's perspective... they're still "behind" the existing playerbase.

I'm not against an expansion - right about now I'd accept ANYTHING to keep me from quitting due to boredom (good god, do I really have to beat on 20 **** portals again?). I'm just saying that any resulting subscriber base changes would probably qualify as a blip, not a boom.

[Lorien_the_First_One]

Horrible idea. It would end my subscription to the game if they did this before they have gotten us to L20.

Now once we get to L20, I'd be open to adding optional content as a paid expansion.

[Pellegro]

I doubt you'll see it. I think 100,000 subs is wishful thinking. They're probably half of that.

If you consider that an expansion would split their playerbase into the haves and have-nots, they'd alienate and lose some, others wouldn't buy it, and I'm not sure how many brand new subs it would attract ....

It would also require alot of resources up front - which would either cost money they likely aren't willing to spend, or divert an already strained dev team (based on limited content we're presently getting) meaning we'd see less free content (in turn alienating more folks).

I'd rather see Turbine go out and raise capital for a DDO 2. Learn from their mistakes. Get a better engine. And start from scratch.

Of course ...if they did release an expansion, I'd have to buy it. Well, I'd buy 2. Heh.

[Uska]

I would! Expansions are great for MMO's in my opinion. Without them the game becomes "old" in the minds of players and attracting new players to an "old" MMO becomes difficult.

Things I would like to see (this is assuming we have monks and 20 levels already):
1. Druids
2. Real Prestige classes (at least 6)
3. Couple of new races
4. New city location with different flavor and quests for all levels 1-20
5. Level 20 (If we don't have it already)

My big thing is content and character build options. To me the #1 keeping a lot of players around long term are all the cool builds you can make. No game can match the flexibility in the 3.5 class system, and enhancements even add another layer of customization on top of that. I think prestige classes would really be the icing on the cake.

Nothing in your list should be in a pay for expansion it should all be free. Not sure what should be in a pay for expansion but I do know what shouldnt be pay for.

1. Races
2. Classes
3. quests
4. raising the cap.

[Jhoran]

i would have been for this 2 weeks ago....

but now...

i've found Goal Line Blitz Football...


it is incredible