New solo idea - "Solo Sessions"

[Archevil]

Dear DDO.

This game is really quite exciting, now that it's free to play. However... I had a little bit of an idea to throw up, see what people think.

First of all, I believe it's important to remove Solo and Casual play from the online game world. Too many players have spent far too long in solo mode, and in parties this creates friction as people will run ahead and ignore the other party members.

Therefore, I had a bit of an idea for how to improve the soloing concept, while at the same time removing it from the live servers. It's called "Solo Sessions".

FAQ follows:



WHAT IS SOLO SESSION MODE?
In short: Offline DDO. You still "log in" to the game through the portal, but instead of connecting you to a live server, the game simply accesses your character list for the server of your choice, and allows you to access your characters. You will not see any other players in solo session mode, nor would you have access to the chat servers (possibly a purchaseable upgrade to Solo session?). Once you are done with your solo session, the game will send the updated character profiles to the server, effectively saving your accrued favor, items and cash!

WHY BE OFFLINE?
Solo Session mode would allow players the chance to play instances in solo or casual mode, which would otherwise be restricted to party or above. They would be able to do this without server latency issues, as they will effectively be playing these instances offline. This would be a fantastic way for players to get a feel for the game without "going live". It will also remove the solo and casual options from live servers, to encourage more grouping between players.


HOW DO I MAKE MY GAME SOLO SESSION?
Ok, firstly, to activate Solo Sessions, you would have to buy it, or become a Premium player. I don't believe it should require VIP access, as this would be a hook for players, rather than a restriction for veterans and above. Basically what it does when you buy/earn it, is it adds a checkbox to the portal "Enable Solo Session Mode."

DO I HAVE ACCESS TO THE DDO STORE IN SOLO SESSION?
No.

WILL MY PURCHASED ADVENTURES WORK IN SOLO SESSION?
If you have bought adventure packs, they (should?) be available in solo session. This would be a great way to "learn" the quests/dungeons without making a horrible mistake in parties, and getting booted!



I'll update this thread as more ideas/feedback comes in.

[Steampunkie]

Problem One: You encourage players to play Solo. By creating this alternate method of playing you allow players to run their characters offline, such as while on Vacation. At this point what do people need other players for? At least while online you've got tangential interaction through the general and other channels.

Problem Two: Teh Haxxorz. By letting people store their character information locally you allow people to have access to their characters at any time they like.

Let's say I start a "Solo" session, then log off. Immediately thereafter I open the character files, decode and un-encrypt the information. A few 0s become 1s and when I upload my character BAM! I'm now a level 20 Paladin with every available Paladin enhancement (including all 3 of the Paladin Prestige Classes!) and all the Human enhancements, as well! Every feat in the game, and I'm wearing the most elite equipment you've ever seen.

Oh. I also have all the past life feats and my stats are all 9999.

So two problems. =-3
-Rachel-

[Archevil]

Problem 1: The limitations of SSM would not allow players to perform certain interactions (Auction House, character bank, chat servers, raid content). It would only allow access to adventures supporting solo or casual mode (or selected adventures which are normally party mode in-game).

Problem 2: Nothing would be stored locally. By loging in to SSM through the portal, you are still accessing your characters remotely, you are simply entering a low-bandwidth limited server for solo play. Many non-essential NPC's could be removed to increase connection speed.

The reason for this is not to encourage people to play DDO in single-player, it's to allow people who may have limited internet connectivity access to DDO content, or to allow people to experience dungeons they otherwise would not be able to, or to access favor points which are otherwise unachievable without a significant party.

A great example of this, would be the Vile Apothecary...

[Calebro]

They've already made this game incredibly ridiculously easy to solo when it shouldn't be.
Things such as this would only make it worse.

A great example of this, would be the Vile Apothecary...

Sure!
Take one of the VERY FEW low level Market quests that's actually CHALLENGING and throw the dumb-hat/easy-button on it....

*sigh*
*shakes head*

[Archevil]

They've already made this game incredibly ridiculously easy to solo when it shouldn't be.
Things such as this would only make it worse.

Sure!
Take one of the VERY FEW low level Market quests that's actually CHALLENGING and throw the dumb-hat/easy-button on it....

*sigh*
*shakes head*

Missing my point...

Enabling Solo Sessions REMOVES SOLO PLAY from the live game world.

To play solo, you actually have to:
a) Reach Veteran status in live, or be a Turbine Customer (purchasing Tokens)
b) Activate SSM on your login portal

It would actually be HARDER to be a solo player with SSM in action, as you need to earn the right to play your characters solo!

[Gol]

Problem Two: Teh Haxxorz. By letting people store their character information locally you allow people to have access to their characters at any time they like.

Problem 2: Nothing would be stored locally. By loging in to SSM through the portal, you are still accessing your characters remotely, you are simply entering a low-bandwidth limited server for solo play. Many non-essential NPC's could be removed to increase connection speed.

By doing anything in a low-bandwidth or disconnected mode, the server loses the responsibility of being the sole protector and safeguard of the character. This violates rule #1 of any MMO: never trust the client.

As a retired MMO client hacker, I think Steampunkie is right, and this should never ever under any circumstance EVER happen. If you even remotely think this is debatable, you undoubtedly know nothing about how this stuff works.

[Steampunkie]

Problem One is more or less nullified by the fact that Solo and Casual mode already exist in the game. I'll give you that.

Problem Two is mostly addressed but you've killed it's purpose...

A "Low Bandwidth Limited Server" architecture would be incredibly short-sighted. By limiting the maximum bandwidth (Easiest way to do that is use a simplistic or cheap server) you're limiting the amount of players on the game at any one point. Not altering how much data is being transferred.

Now any game developer working on or even thinking about working on an MMO will tell you that the amount of data being transmitted between the game's servers and your home computer is about as low as it can get. The models, the textures, the items, and the maps are all on your computer as part of the install. Every image and polygon of it. All of it. The only things being transferred from your computer to the server are your input (keypresses or voice-chat) and queries. While the only thing coming from the game's servers are updates on locations of NPCs, Other Players, and the results of your input and queries (latency/connectivity).

Assuming they stripped out non-essential NPCs (Background NPCs which provide no use but scenery) you're only lowering the tiniest fragment of bandwidth being taken up (the game telling your computer where they're standing) Meanwhile DOING that would require the Developers to create an independent server and re-write large swaths of the code currently in the game to remove those NPCs. They'd quite literally have to import vast amounts of data, remove chunks of it, and repackage it as a separate and distinct game with it's own individual updates.

Why? Because of the Data files on your computer which register specific NPCs as set dressing at specific locations. Those are just copies of the ones currently in the game being run on the servers at the Turbine offices. So to remove them they'd need to remove them from both -your- copy of the game -and- the server's copy. Hence: New game.

Now. That's just to create a server. Assuming it is a "Normal" server for the purposes of bandwidth you could have, let's assume, 20,000 people on it at one time. Let's also assume that those 20,000 people aren't in the same instances to allow for individual play-time. You could, quite easily, have 8,000 or more "Marketplace" maps running on the same server with nearly no actual change to the bandwidth used, a buttload of effort to repurpose and repackage the game -and- a server, and a huge number of people basically playing a one-player version of DDO.

Not really that attractive, is it?
-Rachel-

[Steampunkie]

By doing anything in a low-bandwidth or disconnected mode, the server loses the responsibility of being the sole protector and safeguard of the character. This violates rule #1 of any MMO: never trust the client.

As a retired MMO client hacker, Steampunkie is right (albeit for the wrong reason), and this should never ever under any circumstance EVER happen. If you even remotely think this is debatable, you undoubtedly know nothing about how this stuff works.

I take a proud and distinct offense at being called an MMO Client Hacker!

I am, instead, a Developer on a different MMO and thus understand (more than most people) how the game functions and is structured and why things are done a certain way.

As for the "Wrong Reason" No. That's the right reason. I was creating an example of a player abusing that feature to alter their own character. Though it's also entirely conceivable that such a player could attempt to upload a virus into the server itself such an event would be incredibly unlikely, as the game would simply spit out the viral programming as "Irreconcilable" compared to the packet-reading requirements of character construction/reproduction.

-Rachel-

[rest]

Why?

[Archevil]

Ok, I'll grant that I know nothing about the architecture of servers, and you're probably correct in everything you say.

However, there should still be limitations on solo play... Because of the reasons stated by Calebro... This game is far too easy for half the race/class combo's to solo, and it makes the more challenging classes almost pointless playing.

Why bother building a pure-class Sorc, when you are guaranteed of never having a party between levels 1 through 8 (until you have Fire Wall and are considered "useful")?
Far easier to make a Wiz/Rogue multi and solo, right?

Switch off solo mode, make it an earned privelage through Tokens or through favor. *shrug*

Should I amend my OP to make it that simple?

[Gol]

I take a proud and distinct offense at being called an MMO Client Hacker!

Sorry, didn't mean you, I meant myself. I'm a retired MMO Client hacker. I edited my earlier post to hopefully clarify this point.

And your followup post explained in more detail what you meant, so yes, that's 90% of the problem right there. I misunderstood your first post apparently.

Thing is, I doubt the server puts checks on a lot of the things the client is currently sending and this would be quite the tipping point for it. They'd have to push a lot of server code down to the clients (AI, pathing, etc) where it could be easily exploited by call stack injection, memloc hooking, and direct memory manipulation. Been there, done all those.

[rest]

Ok, I'll grant that I know nothing about the architecture of servers, and you're probably correct in everything you say.

However, there should still be limitations on solo play... Because of the reasons stated by Calebro... This game is far too easy for half the race/class combo's to solo, and it makes the more challenging classes almost pointless playing.

Why bother building a pure-class Sorc, when you are guaranteed of never having a party between levels 1 through 8 (until you have Fire Wall and are considered "useful")?
Far easier to make a Wiz/Rogue multi and solo, right?

Switch off solo mode, make it an earned privelage through Tokens or through favor. *shrug*

Should I amend my OP to make it that simple?

Why should you get to decide how someone plays?

"Switch off" solo mode? Do you mean don't allow a single player to enter a dungeon? Because when I solo, I play n/h/e and not solo at all. How are you gonna "switch off" solo mode?

[Cylinwolf]

Why bother building a pure-class Sorc, when you are guaranteed of never having a party between levels 1 through 8 (until you have Fire Wall and are considered "useful")?
Far easier to make a Wiz/Rogue multi and solo, right?

Erm, I'm not sure what game you're playing, because I'd never turn down a sorc if I felt the need to form a leveling party. It doesn't matter at levels 1-8.

On topic, I fail to see the significant jump between being able to solo online and being able to solo offline changing anything. You state that because people solo too much it doesn't prepare them for parties and "creates tension." You're providing an enviroment for people to solo in (which is no different than just 'casual' mode, it's just offline), and they can still come into the game world and join groups when they want to do elite. What does this change?

[GeneralDiomedes]

Why bother building a pure-class Sorc, when you are guaranteed of never having a party between levels 1 through 8 (until you have Fire Wall and are considered "useful")?
Far easier to make a Wiz/Rogue multi and solo, right?

Wrong on two counts .. pure Sorc will get groups and can solo from 1-8.

[Montrose]

WHAT IS SOLO SESSION MODE?
In short: Offline DDO. You still "log in" to the game through the portal, but instead of connecting you to a live server, the game simply accesses your character list for the server of your choice, and allows you to access your characters. You will not see any other players in solo session mode, nor would you have access to the chat servers (possibly a purchaseable upgrade to Solo session?). Once you are done with your solo session, the game will send the updated character profiles to the server, effectively saving your accrued favor, items and cash!

OMG.... Do you realize how incredibly quickly I would have all my chacraters at level 20 with every piece of epic loot in the game if you did this?

Excuse me while I load up softice and filemon, won't be but a second. Oh, lookie here! It appears to be encrypted data loaded from a file into the turbine process. I wonder what happens when we suspend the process right after the data is decrypted.

Hmm, my strength is only an 18? That will never do. Let's just modify a few values here. Ahh yes, much better. Let's go ahead and resume that process now...