Open up Stormreach

[aldan]

After being here since head start, you do tend to feel somewhat confined in this game.

I would love to see open exspanse areas with the ability to use mounts or teleport to your location for a fee. The open areas could have raid zones, other quests etc or you could just use the teleport to go to the ajoining zone.

Unlocking the teleport function would require some level of effort.

Any chances DDO will open up and become more expansive? The explorer zones are nice but you still feel somewhat confined.

I really wish DDO would do some advertising and kick this game into high gear, this is a gem.

Most of us have multiple capped toons, have tried the sorc/barb, whatever......tried any combo for that matter just to make it fresh. I have made and deleted more characters than I can count and still want more of this game.

Have instanced coop zones. You and your guildies/friends, etc could wander out for some action and find yourself teaming up with others to fight some type of encounter. I do like what warhammer has done with that concept.

Feeling somewhat confined........

[BurningDownTheHouse]

After being here since head start, you do tend to feel somewhat confined in this game.

I would love to see open exspanse areas with the ability to use mounts or teleport to your location for a fee. The open areas could have raid zones, other quests etc or you could just use the teleport to go to the ajoining zone.

Unlocking the teleport function would require some level of effort.

Any chances DDO will open up and become more expansive? The explorer zones are nice but you still feel somewhat confined.

I really wish DDO would do some advertising and kick this game into high gear, this is a gem.

Most of us have multiple capped toons, have tried the sorc/barb, whatever......tried any combo for that matter just to make it fresh. I have made and deleted more characters than I can count and still want more of this game.

Have instanced coop zones. You and your guildies/friends, etc could wander out for some action and find yourself teaming up with others to fight some type of encounter. I do like what warhammer has done with that concept.

Feeling somewhat confined........

NP, comming in mod 20

[VonBek]

I felt they'd done quite well with the outdoor zones. Still, if possible, I'd like to see a "vast and expansive" adventure travel area, someday.

I'm just not sure how it would work with the rest of the game design - we really do not see random encounters/traps/setting elements, or infinitely scrolling areas. It just might not work with the current architecture.

[moonprophet]

and leave us alone. The problem is that what you are proposing is something like "I like your elephant, but couldn't you make it about 1 foot high, change it from grey to brown, add fur all over and give it a strong affinity to chasing cats and catching balls and sticks?"

Some changes would simply turn the game into another game entirely and change the flavor so much as to make it otherwise unrecognizable. The game is allready becoming more Wow-like as it is.

[esoitl]

That was one of the worst features of games like WoW IMO. The long roads through forests to get to a quest? I'll gladly pay the teleport fee(heaven forbid they make one) every time as that's just not entertaining to me.

I would hate to see mounts in game as that means long boring travel times. I do like the longer Raids as long as trhey don't go overboard. It's nice to spend a long time doing something constructive but anymore than 30-40 minutes in an explorer zone for little to no gain is not what I want more of.

[In_Like_Flynn]

Expansive zones would ruin the feel of the game. This isn't WoW or EQ, and the distinction should remain.

[Impaqt]

After spending some time in three barrel cove this weekend I gotta say I've had it with Vast and Expansive.....


Gimme a break... Just getting to some of those quests is a chore for level 5ish characters... Its simply not worth it.

THis game was NOT built around Vast and Expansive... The more Expansive explorer areas we need to go through to get to quests,the lower my enjoyment of the game drops.

[Laith]

That was one of the worst features of games like WoW IMO. The long roads through forests to get to a quest? I'll gladly pay the teleport fee(heaven forbid they make one) every time as that's just not entertaining to me.

you're missing the point though: for 90% of those games, the exploration areas ARE the quests.
Most recent MMOs offer (free) ways to teleport groups to instance zones (the other 10% of the game) because of the travel issue. Since LOTRO has this, i'd assume DDO would as well.

If you stick with DDO though, i'd go as far as to say you probably LIKE the fact that travel is short at the expense of "huge". In DDO, our exploration areas are little more than atmospheric setting (and a re-entry penalty) for our destination.

There are a few major issues in the way of creating a worthwhile explorer zone though:

1) everything we currently have is "party instance" based, and adventure areas use very little scripting. IE: when we walk in, it's always the same. No other players will ever change the landscape, or hinder your progress. You only need to explore a world that never changes once, then you're finished.

2) chest-based looting means that only key points are worth returning to. "Loot Runs" aren't exploration... bloodstone runs taught us that. Tapestry runs were closer to the desired result, as they more closely mimic "resource gathering" in other MMOs.

Personally, i opt for more outdoor quests instead.

[Samadhi]

After spending some time in three barrel cove this weekend I gotta say I've had it with Vast and Expansive.....


Gimme a break... Just getting to some of those quests is a chore for level 5ish characters... Its simply not worth it.

THis game was NOT built around Vast and Expansive... The more Expansive explorer areas we need to go through to get to quests,the lower my enjoyment of the game drops.

/agreed

[rawfocat]

/not signed

The fun for me is in questing with my friends, not watching trees scroll by as I try and decide how to figure out how to go faster.

IMO, even in the old PnP days we would go from basic place to place using the old "DM teleport".

DM - "You arrive at the next town after a boring and uneventful journey, roll to hunt and see how many rations you used."

[Turial]

I like the explorer areas for goofing off in and looting (vale solo) but not for getting to quests. So I don't mind more open areas so long as I don't have to bind in the town on the other side to easily get there once I made the run once and I don't have to run for more then 2 minutes to get to a quest. Any further and I find that I have to lead people the whole way and fighting to the quest can somedays take longer then the quest itself.

[Enir]

Getting to the quests/ getting to the action quickly is a strong suit of DDO. That said - Gianthold, 3BC and the Desert seem huge to me.
I do love running the landscapes when I'm short on time or soloing. But I'm VERY happy I don't have to waste 20 minutes running to the quest entrance (teleporting in Gianthold is very nice. Wish we had this in the Desert).
Simply running around, killing random encounters makes for a boring game IMHO. I've actually fallen asleep on Lineage running from town to town.
If you want WoW stuff, go to WoW. I think the distances traveled are currently about right.

[Dimicron]

When it takes most of your resources to get to the quest at a level appropriate for the quest(Desert, I'm looking at you!) and when it makes it harder for the 'directionally challenged' among us(ooh! ooh! me! me!) to find these quests some of the fun of this game goes away.

Explorer areas are ok for soloing, they get better if there's named loot that drops, but there should be a way to bypass them(at least partially like the teleporter in Gianthold) to get to the quests that are hidden in them.

Edit: EQ2 had mounts... because without them it could take over an hour to get where you wanted to go. Think about that. An hour of your game time, wasted on travel. Mostly through zones where you won't get xp for killing the trash mobs out there. What's the point? Sure, you could recall to your town quickly, but in my mind the only advantage that EQ2 has over DDO is that EQ2 actually has Druids.

[GeneralDiomedes]

There is no way the DDO team has the resources to do traditional MMO style world building. Please stop asking for this ****, because all we end up getting are half-assed encounter areas, half-assed crafting and less quests as a result. Get your expansive world fix from LOTRO or WOW, get your quest fix from DDO.

[Bradik_Losdar]

Here's something I suggested long ago:

With the ability of rendering programs these days to generate vast amounts of terrain quickly (thus requiring very little dev time compared to hand drawing the whole thing), why not generate the entire continent of Xen'drik into one huge open area to explore? The 'instant transport' system to an adventure area would remain wholely intact, but for those wanting to explore the vast continent (or fight their way, to say, Tempest Spine) the entire landscape is open to them with potentially thousands of random encounters based on the tried and true 'every X minutes roll 1d6. On a 1 you encounter something'.

Every terrain area of the continent would have an encounter table covering creatures logically found in those surroundings. With straight (not scaling) XP awards for encounters defeated - hard to camp a 'spawn point' when there isn't one - as encounters are based off time and totally random (it might be an encounter with some orcs (not so much xp) or perhaps a group of hill giants (more xp than the orcs) all depending on the encounter 'die roll'.

To reduce lag, the beautiful 'multiple instance' system the city of Stormreach currently uses would be implemented for each 'section' the continent was split into. Thus allowing multiple parties to use the same area, possiblly stumbling across each other in the wilderness (perhaps one party coming across an individual who thought he could go the wilds alone and saving him from becoming lunch for a bunch of trolls). The possiblities are endless.

Seems like a great way to add a huge amount of 'content' quickly with only minimal effort required from the development department.

[Impaqt]

To reduce lag, the beautiful 'multiple instance' system the city of Stormreach currently uses would be implemented for each 'section' the continent was split into. Thus allowing multiple parties to use the same area, possiblly stumbling across each other in the wilderness (perhaps one party coming across an individual who thought he could go the wilds alone and saving him from becoming lunch for a bunch of trolls). The possiblities are endless.

Seems like a great way to add a huge amount of 'content' quickly with only minimal effort required from the development department.

I'd be interested to hear about your programing background..... I never realized Recoding the Entire Game engine was such a Menial task. You should put your aplication in at Turbine. I'm sure they could sue someone who could code an entire game engine in notime at all.

[Bradik_Losdar]

I'd be interested to hear about your programing background..... I never realized Recoding the Entire Game engine was such a Menial task. You should put your aplication in at Turbine. I'm sure they could sue someone who could code an entire game engine in notime at all.

Lol! I never said it would improve the state of lag in the game.

What I meant by reducing lag is not having the ENTIRE continent one big instance (which would make it (the continent instance) 100 times laggier than say the worst day in the Shroud ).

Much like the city of Stormreach itself is divided into different wards, the continent would be divided into sections (like Northern Pennisula, Southern Ice Cap, etc.) and then have multiple instances of those (Northern Pennisula 1, 2, 3, etc). Inside of these would be gates, archways, tunnels, etc. that would open into the quest instances within those areas (like Tempest Spine or Cerulean Hills or Irestone Inlet) using the already coded quest entrance pop up windows.

And yes, if Turbine would hire me, I'm sure I could help a great deal

[Jay203]

I'm sure they could sue someone who could code an entire game engine in notime at all.

lol, i'm sure they want to sue the guy instead of hiring him

[Lorien_the_First_One]

and leave us alone. The problem is that what you are proposing is something like "I like your elephant, but couldn't you make it about 1 foot high, change it from grey to brown, add fur all over and give it a strong affinity to chasing cats and catching balls and sticks?"

Some changes would simply turn the game into another game entirely and change the flavor so much as to make it otherwise unrecognizable. The game is allready becoming more Wow-like as it is.

Exactly. The more open runs to the subterain and Meridia are already hated by most. We don't need more runs, that was one of the key selling points of this game "no travel, just quest".

[LA_MIKE]

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