Disappointment in The Playerbase.

[Phantomizer]

First of all, let me start off by saying that i respect the play style of everyone, as long as my own is respected.

I started playing DDO a few days after the whole going free thing started, i had been wanting to try the game for some time (big D&D fan here although i've never played the PnP thing) and decided to pop in my trial CD that i had ever since i bought Neverwinter Nights a few years ago. Loved the game and decided i didn't want to wait for the game to go free so i hunted down a copy at a GameStop not too far off from where i live, bought it, entered my code and happily went online to start enjoing my game.

First of all, trial players can't send Tells....i had one or two random people message me asking me something when i was still on the trial and since i couldn't reply, in the end i got an insult (or several) in my face, i typically ignore this, but cmon...is it not common knowledge that trial players CANNOT send tells? ok, fine, maybe it's not, but helloooo....maybe i'm afk? :\

When i got my free 30 days game code and became a "regular" player, subscriber or whatever people want to call it, i made a new character because i had messed up my previous one, this time i started off playing a Wizard. Once i got out of Korthos and was i believe lvl 3 or 4 i joined a group (can't recall if i requested or if i was invited) which was doing the Redfang quest in the Marketplace (dunno if i got the name right, but it's the quest near the Catacombs entrance where you have to kill a spider in a basement), i ask where to get the quest, get shown and we all go down, it was my first time in that dungeon and everyone simply assumed i knew what we were doing or thought i would divine where every trap was, i was eventually left behind and in the end i got killed because we either didn't have a Rogue to disarm the traps or if we did, he didn't care to disarm them, everyone i guess thought "Why disarm the traps? we all know where they are and how to avoid them except the idiot newb Wizard". After lying there waiting for a bit and seeing that everyone ignored that i was dead, i rezzed out and left the group.

I eventually learned that that play style were zerg runs, but nevertheless i dropped into several groups who never hinted at doing a zerg run of the quest or dungeon in question yet they did it, leaving me ****ed off and wanting to throttle someone. Why? thats not how i'm playing, i want to take my time and explore the place, maybe once i get a character or 2 or 3 i will get so bored with the whole thing that i'll want to zerg it or maybe not, maybe i'll always avoid zerg runs. ATM i don't care for Zerg Runs, but inevitably still find myself in such groups.

Days later, i got a group together to do STK, all objectives....including Helm's Quest. Once the time came to do Helm's there was someone who didn't want to do it, said i only said ALL side objectives and that Helm's was a quest, not side objective. I conceed (sp?) the point, my bad...but there were still 4 votes for doing Helm's against 2 in favor of not doing it. What happens than? the group is split into 2, 4 of us going for Helm's and the other 2 trying to finish the quest, they were a ranger and i forgot what class the other guy was, but honestly despite it all, it was comical...would have given anything to watch the 2 idiots get pwned at the giant at the end of the dungeon. Nevertheless me and the 3 other's for Helms's went and did the quest and re-joined the other idiots, long story short, we got killed. Honestly, thats poor team play, if you didn't want to do Helm's from the very beginning, point it out and if the rest wanted to doing, go find another group, what happened here is that we went by voting, 4 voted in favor of Helm's, i think that should have cleared things up? idiots.

The next day i got ANOTHER group together to do STK and Helm's, this time on Elite...all went super smooth until we got to the giant, strategy was discussed, caster (me) goes in the left corner while the rest form a line and guard to prevent the giant from getting to the caster (me) while the caster (me) pommels the giant with Magic Missle, simple right? I guess that was too much fr our cleric to understand because instead of simply guarding, he started attacking the giant........

Now, usually Helm's is done AFTER part 2 of STK is finished, that way once we go in, do Helm's, we simply port out, sell loot, repair gear, etc and than go back down and enter part 3 from the sewers. Well, i got in a group this past weekend with my Cleric to do STK and Helm's, apperantly our caster wanted to do Helm's BEFORE finishing part 2, it can be done, but it's much easier to go with the above method. Well, we all go about breaking stuff for the extra XP and hunting the Witch-Doctors and the mage breaks group and runs for Helm's......and gets killed........and starts complaining...the rest of the idiots in the group follow the mage and go down Helm's and what do the bright heads do? leave the cleric......they didn't simply "leave" the cleric behind, but they left him DEAD. ***? i rez, wish them luck and leave the group.

My dissapointment in this game comes from the playerbase, not the game itself, the game rocks. Like i said at the top of my post, i respect everyone's play style as long as they respect mine, but when someone else's play style starts degrading MY experience, than i'm sorry, but respect goes out the window.

Is it to hard to simply state the intent and purpose of the group before starting the quest? i.e We're doing <insert quest name here> and we're skipping all side objectives, we only want to do the main quest, if everyone ok with that? or We are zerging this dungeon, is that ok with everyone? Don't get me wrong, SOME players put it up on their group ad, that their zerging the quest or whatever, but thats only about 2 out of every hundred players.

If you join a group, listen to the group leader or whoever's leading. Friendly reminder: If there's a rogue in the group, let him lead, his a rogue, rogue's disarm traps, nothing more annoying than being a rogue and seeing everyone run ahead and pass through the traps like dolts. Also, don't leave the Cleric behind and if possible, never EVER **** off the Cleric, traps can be by-passed (some times at least), but you won't heal on your own if you run out of potions and there isn't a shrine nearby. ****ed off Clerics won't heal your butt (at least i won't if you **** me off).

The experience has been so bad, that even my friend said that he didn't want to group with more than 1 or 2 players, why? because he was victim of a zerg run.

Grow up guys and gals, remembering proper etiquete (sp?) and being polite isn't THAT hard :\

Plus, it's only being nice!

[Mr_Ed7]

Yet another reason why zerging CAN suck...

Please do not base the entire game and player base on a few bad experiences. It really takes sometime, I want to say several months, before one becomes fully versed in the game, give it another shot.

Always communicate your opinion.

[dasein18]

Ever drive on the freeway.. and go to get off at a conga line of an exit ramp.. some guy or gal decides it is ok to cut you off to get in front of you? Ever see someone cut you off in line at target or starbucks? No. The reason, you cannot confront them. While you can in DDO, they can easily just log off and go away. Human nature is not pretty at times, lack of face to face and ambiquity (spelling correct?) brings out the bad in some people.

hang in there.. find a good guild or make your own with some friends. I run a lot of PUGs partly because the mix of new people and styles can be good and after playing for over a year can make up for poor play.

Believe it our not the player base has some really really great players, some with amazing patience, and other that will drive you nuts singing while you play. I cannot get POP music out of my head.. thanks a lot Roc

[szaijan]

The two games with the most helpful player bases I've encountered are Runes of Magic and DDO. Don't let a few ***hats represent the entire server population for you. If you want a better environment to get to know the lighter side of DDO, join a casual friendly guild like the Old Timers Guild and let them show you the ropes. I've been PUGing a fair amount recently and find that so long as I'm prepared to join in whatever playstyle a group is advertising, I have a good time and have run into a lot of good players.

This is one of the toughest MMOs to learn, and there are plenty of elitists who have little patience for newbs, but most of the player base goes out of its way to help others when they can.

[Sirea]

ambiquity

Did you mean Ambiguity? That actually means something more like vague or deceptive. I think the better word is Anonymity

/end grammar nazi

[Zenako]

YMMV

depending on the time of day you are playing. Personally I found the few times I was home during working hours (vacations, whatever) and logged on and group I found a lot less mature playerbase than I was used to seeing when playing in the evening. Most of the adults I quest with are 30+ with kids and lives and a fair amount of understanding.

I find that many jerks tend to burn out in the midlevels when they find that their bullying ways carry little weight with mobs in the quest who kill them over and over again.

THE first thing I do when in a group where I do not know everyone, is ASK if anyone is new. Then if they are, I ask if they want help/guide or how to play it this time, explaining that some of us are probably very familiar with the quest and obstacles along the way.

[dasein18]

yes I screwed up the word. You got it right Sirea. Multi tasking at work.. which means I do neither well at the moment.

[Zenako]

ogog someone call a waaaaaaaaahmbulance !!!! heres a nice new concept for you, take some initiative and start your own groups. then you can play however slow and poorly you desire. i realize everyone was new once but at the same time if oyu want to stop and smell the roses seek out others who do the same dont assume that everyone wants to play like you because your not likely to be in the majority vote very often.

Hey smurf...it sure reads as if the poster did just that and got those jerks anyway, and even when the MAJORITY of the group wanted to do X (4 to 2), the other 2 took off on their own. DId you even read the post?? or just the first couple of lines...

[Delt]

Sounds like the OP is a noob, with a lot of noob ideas (let the rogue lead! don't anger the cleric!! lol), that joined a bunch of poor noob groups that were made of fail. No biggie, that's part of the game at low levels.

What is concerning is that you sound like a habitual group dropper. If you want to rez out at every little speed bump and blame everyone else (you lacked the HP to survive a Redfang trap and a cleric attacking the STK giant out dps'd YOUR spells = you fail), prepare to find yourself on a lot of DNG lists.

[KoboldKiller]

I have met many more helpful people than those who are not. I didn't read your entire post but I would suggest when entering a quest for the first time to just say you have never ran this and your a new player. you will find most people will be happy to slow down and show you the ropes. I can pm you my alts if needed and run a few quests with you or answer some questions if you have them.

[Heffty_Smurf]

Hey smurf...it sure reads as if the poster did just that and got those jerks anyway, and even when the MAJORITY of the group wanted to do X (4 to 2), the other 2 took off on their own. DId you even read the post?? or just the first couple of lines...

what is sounds like is that he joined a group and didnt listen to what the LEADER of the group was doing. this is a pretty noobsauce move regardless if 3 othe noobs joined him in his vote. so i can see why you would agree with him. what that behavior leads to is 4 idiots in a shroud who cant do what they are told that mess up the raid for everyone. im not saying that he shouldnt have wanted to do the extra quest but if him and the other 3 werent the leader then they should have accepted the leaders decision and reformed after to do the side quest. this is the exat behavior that absolutely defines the better players from the terrible players especially at the higher levels.

[rnor6084]

Thanks Delt and Smurf. You just provided great examples of how to run new players out of the game. Hopefully the OP will not run into too many of your kind and will resub.



http://www.associatedcontent.com/art...it.html?cat=19

[Hadrian]

<rant>

DDO has something that sets it apart from most of the genre. While most MMOs are carefully balanced around a certain type of party make up and require X amount of healing and Y amount of DPS at a minimum to be able to keep up with the requirements of an encounter, DDO is set up in more of an FPS-hybrid style.

Not only does it matter how much DPS you can put out when simply turning on auto attack and pressing some attack keys when their cooldowns are up, but how you move and aim and position yourself have a great deal to do with how effective you are.

Also, classes are less rigidly defined, and it's possible to create two pure class characters that are absolutely nothing like eachother, or add all sorts of possible splash, attribute, skill and concept combinations to come up with a much wider variety of individual ability than you will find in your typical "Mage = DPS, Fighter = Tank" type MMO.

This is the big draw of DDO for many of us, but as with anything it has its downside as well. Because you are less dependent on the contribution of your group with good twitch skills and a character that is well designed, you can get away with charging ahead and taking on a boss. In most other MMOs a single player taking on a group-encounter boss alone would be suicide in level-appropriate content, but here it is faily common.

This lets an experienced player feel like the hero, but may leave the rest to feel like second class players.

In most games, those that are well equipped would still need you to contribute your part because no single character, no matter how well equipped can meet both of those X and Y values for a group encounter. Also, you'll never even see a raid without having worked to a level where you can contribute well, while in DDO you can be raiding almost right away.

So it depends on what you get out of it. The game is more accessible and you're more free to contribute in your own way and apply your own personal skill and design to your character than in most games. On the other hand, that might mean that someone else is able to get by without your contribution and just run ahead.

[Roman]

I started playing DDO a few days after the whole going free thing started... watch the 2 idiots get pwned at the giant at the end of the dungeon... did the quest and re-joined the other idiots... idiots... rest of the idiots in the group follow

Wow, you've been playing a few days and already found so many idiots.

Imagine how many idiots you'll find after you've been playing for three years and know everything.

[Milamber69]

Thanks Delt and Smurf. You just provided great examples of how to run new players out of the game. Hopefully the OP will not run into too many of your kind and will resub.

Maybe you should get some balls then and not break down every time someone is mean to you.

[Ganak]

I'd suggest either starting your own groups and advertising an exploring pace, or ask alot of questions for groups looking for members so that you find a good fit.

[Delt]

Thanks Delt and Smurf. You just provided great examples of how to run new players out of the game. Hopefully the OP will not run into too many of your kind and will resub.

Riiiight. I meet plenty of new players, very few of em are habitual group droppers that point fingers at everyone else for their own noobsauce mistakes.

Noob doesn't equal selfish crybaby. I'm not going to lose any sleep if my opinion drives off the latter, you feel free to coddle them though.

[Mr_Ed7]

Hey smurf...it sure reads as if the poster did just that and got those jerks anyway, and even when the MAJORITY of the group wanted to do X (4 to 2), the other 2 took off on their own. DId you even read the post?? or just the first couple of lines...

Lack of empathy or desire to at least understand another's point of view can be a negative aspect of the forums.

[Milamber69]

First of all, let me start off by saying that i respect the play style of everyone, as long as my own is respected.

I started playing DDO a few days after the whole going free thing started, i had been wanting to try the game for some time (big D&D fan here although i've never played the PnP thing) and decided to pop in my trial CD that i had ever since i bought Neverwinter Nights a few years ago. Loved the game and decided i didn't want to wait for the game to go free so i hunted down a copy at a GameStop not too far off from where i live, bought it, entered my code and happily went online to start enjoing my game.

First of all, trial players can't send Tells....i had one or two random people message me asking me something when i was still on the trial and since i couldn't reply, in the end i got an insult (or several) in my face, i typically ignore this, but cmon...is it not common knowledge that trial players CANNOT send tells? ok, fine, maybe it's not, but helloooo....maybe i'm afk? :\

When i got my free 30 days game code and became a "regular" player, subscriber or whatever people want to call it, i made a new character because i had messed up my previous one, this time i started off playing a Wizard. Once i got out of Korthos and was i believe lvl 3 or 4 i joined a group (can't recall if i requested or if i was invited) which was doing the Redfang quest in the Marketplace (dunno if i got the name right, but it's the quest near the Catacombs entrance where you have to kill a spider in a basement), i ask where to get the quest, get shown and we all go down, it was my first time in that dungeon and everyone simply assumed i knew what we were doing or thought i would divine where every trap was, i was eventually left behind and in the end i got killed because we either didn't have a Rogue to disarm the traps or if we did, he didn't care to disarm them, everyone i guess thought "Why disarm the traps? we all know where they are and how to avoid them except the idiot newb Wizard". After lying there waiting for a bit and seeing that everyone ignored that i was dead, i rezzed out and left the group.

I eventually learned that that play style were zerg runs, but nevertheless i dropped into several groups who never hinted at doing a zerg run of the quest or dungeon in question yet they did it, leaving me ****ed off and wanting to throttle someone. Why? thats not how i'm playing, i want to take my time and explore the place, maybe once i get a character or 2 or 3 i will get so bored with the whole thing that i'll want to zerg it or maybe not, maybe i'll always avoid zerg runs. ATM i don't care for Zerg Runs, but inevitably still find myself in such groups.

Days later, i got a group together to do STK, all objectives....including Helm's Quest. Once the time came to do Helm's there was someone who didn't want to do it, said i only said ALL side objectives and that Helm's was a quest, not side objective. I conceed (sp?) the point, my bad...but there were still 4 votes for doing Helm's against 2 in favor of not doing it. What happens than? the group is split into 2, 4 of us going for Helm's and the other 2 trying to finish the quest, they were a ranger and i forgot what class the other guy was, but honestly despite it all, it was comical...would have given anything to watch the 2 idiots get pwned at the giant at the end of the dungeon. Nevertheless me and the 3 other's for Helms's went and did the quest and re-joined the other idiots, long story short, we got killed. Honestly, thats poor team play, if you didn't want to do Helm's from the very beginning, point it out and if the rest wanted to doing, go find another group, what happened here is that we went by voting, 4 voted in favor of Helm's, i think that should have cleared things up? idiots.

The next day i got ANOTHER group together to do STK and Helm's, this time on Elite...all went super smooth until we got to the giant, strategy was discussed, caster (me) goes in the left corner while the rest form a line and guard to prevent the giant from getting to the caster (me) while the caster (me) pommels the giant with Magic Missle, simple right? I guess that was too much fr our cleric to understand because instead of simply guarding, he started attacking the giant........

Now, usually Helm's is done AFTER part 2 of STK is finished, that way once we go in, do Helm's, we simply port out, sell loot, repair gear, etc and than go back down and enter part 3 from the sewers. Well, i got in a group this past weekend with my Cleric to do STK and Helm's, apperantly our caster wanted to do Helm's BEFORE finishing part 2, it can be done, but it's much easier to go with the above method. Well, we all go about breaking stuff for the extra XP and hunting the Witch-Doctors and the mage breaks group and runs for Helm's......and gets killed........and starts complaining...the rest of the idiots in the group follow the mage and go down Helm's and what do the bright heads do? leave the cleric......they didn't simply "leave" the cleric behind, but they left him DEAD. ***? i rez, wish them luck and leave the group.

My dissapointment in this game comes from the playerbase, not the game itself, the game rocks. Like i said at the top of my post, i respect everyone's play style as long as they respect mine, but when someone else's play style starts degrading MY experience, than i'm sorry, but respect goes out the window.

Is it to hard to simply state the intent and purpose of the group before starting the quest? i.e We're doing <insert quest name here> and we're skipping all side objectives, we only want to do the main quest, if everyone ok with that? or We are zerging this dungeon, is that ok with everyone? Don't get me wrong, SOME players put it up on their group ad, that their zerging the quest or whatever, but thats only about 2 out of every hundred players.

If you join a group, listen to the group leader or whoever's leading. Friendly reminder: If there's a rogue in the group, let him lead, his a rogue, rogue's disarm traps, nothing more annoying than being a rogue and seeing everyone run ahead and pass through the traps like dolts. Also, don't leave the Cleric behind and if possible, never EVER **** off the Cleric, traps can be by-passed (some times at least), but you won't heal on your own if you run out of potions and there isn't a shrine nearby. ****ed off Clerics won't heal your butt (at least i won't if you **** me off).

The experience has been so bad, that even my friend said that he didn't want to group with more than 1 or 2 players, why? because he was victim of a zerg run.

Grow up guys and gals, remembering proper etiquete (sp?) and being polite isn't THAT hard :\

Plus, it's only being nice!

You sound like you 'THINK' you know what you are doing. You dont hesitate to call out the idiots as you see them. Maybe you should take some of your own precious advice there and, wait for it, PUT UP YOUR OWN F***ING LFM. That way when people join you can tell them you plan on spending 2hrs and 35mins in the Helms quest of STK. You can wipe on the end boss on STK as much you like and just hope the cleric doesnt res and drop group like you seem to do so often.

You say you respect the playstyle of everyone? Then follow the leader or dont join the group in the first place. Just because you like to smell flowers doesnt mean the rest of the party does.

[rnor6084]

Odd. Have i ever grouped with you? I think not. Am i even on the same server? I think not.