DDO Devs - Please talk to LOTRO Devs

[IronClan]

There are opinions as many as there are people. I haven't tried lotro but my friend who likes ddo tried it. He couldn't stand lotro ui, he said he can't play it because it sucks so much.

In many respects the LOTRO UI is identical to DDO's it seems based off the same engine hooks, however the LOTRO UI can be moved around, and customized to a degree that DDO players can only dream of. You can even determine where on the screen pop up info pops up, and it will pop up there until you move it. The bag/pack inventory is very similar but not as primitive as DDO. You can also tweak the transparency of UI windows. Place where they show up permanently (imagine every time you open the bank and your inventory in DDO they all show up exactly the same location so you don't need to move your inventory off of the bank window because one is always overlapping the other for no good reason) You can scale things bigger and smaller (imagine being able to make your hot bars bigger! I play in 1900x wide screen res so I would love this...)... You also don't have Eleventy Billion identical icons for different items in LOTRO... in other words LOTRO actually replaced their Beta place holder graphics with a large variety of icons for the same kinds of equipment.... DDO has a red cloak and silver greenish bracers for almost every cloak or bracer in the game... DDO has one grey pair of boots and one green (besides the odd named item). That's just so unpolished that it's embarrassing.

Anyway all of this is just a long way of saying your <air quotes> "friend" </air quotes> doesn't seem to know what he or she is talking about and probably should be disregarded as a source of useful information from now on

[weyoun]

I personally disagree, because there is a significant difference between amounts of items you need to keep in your backpack in those two games.



Adding X amount of gear you'd need to retain in backpack for cosmetic purposes, as is the case in LOTRO, could be quite burdensome for some DDO toons (including several of mine).

Not correct. I have several toons on lotro with cosmetics on and NONE of them have it in their inventory.

[IronClan]

This thread has gone a bit negative...but I do believe the main reason they can't bring the cosmetic system from LOTRO is a code issue. The two games, while based off the same engine, developed in such different ways that the code cannot just be copied from one game to another.

Now, I do think the LOTRO system is something the DDO devs should strive for. The outfit system is great. I love that I can wear medium armor, a helm, and a cloak for stats, but appearance wise, my character is dressed up in a fedora and mining backpack.

Maybe some day we'll see something closer to LOTRO's system, but for now, I am happy that something is coming to make my character look a bit different.

It's true they can't just cut and paste, but they could use the same design, and many of the conventions could be outright copied. This would provide at least a sort of "road map" for the coders to follow.

I agree with the OP. IMO the re-skins aren't really "customization" and the whole system seems clunky and overly pre canned and cookie cutter. As noted instead of 2000 people wearing the same thing we now have 1000 wearing the rusty colored one and 1000 people wearing the tan colored one... Either way it's predetermined and very not custom.

It's better than nothing I suppose, if they put a Ninja outfit "skin" in there then I guess I'll be able to make at least ONE of my toons look like it's supposed to... but if they don't then this "system" of re-skins wont do that toon a **** bit of good; Because I can't take a monk outfit base, strip off the extras, remove colors and dye it jet black, which is what REAL customization is supposed to be about. Anyway I sure hope that this is a stop gap and actual dyes and customization are in the pipeline.

[lbuckius]

i am a very casual player i have been playing off and on for a while. saw the threads about them finally doing something about cosmetics. i like messing with tools like, i like it so much i learned blender \o/ *freeware*. i love video games so much i got into programming and began learning python once again \o/ *freeware*.

my favorite thing about mmo's, custimization. DDO would need re do alot in order to add a proper custimization system since they wont i remain casual, but no worries CRYPTIC will do neverwinter with the D&D rules hopefully got my fingures crossed. and i'll have both D&D and mas custimization.

saw a couple posts about end game, D&D was simple lvl 20, but they were paper modules you could run as long as you wanted or until you died. with the digital comes the digital challenge, it could take 5 minutes to make a paper module. but now to make 1 mission, weeks of developement. Make changes to the source code for more/new custimization, or monsters, months. then you have flow code bugs and glitches to test.

leveling end game, i hate the idea of lvling grinding for levels so on and so forth 20 levels is fine for me its the way it should be. for me D&D was about running around with friends through a story wether it was dark sun, or neverwinter, or menzobranzin (spelled wrong). now online its more about "i want to see these places, thats why i hopped into DDO when it first came out, seeing places from the modules and its destintive art is more important than lvling or crafting. very few games have been able to make nice enviroments, CCP, CRYPTIC, BIOWARE, ICARUS, are some devs who have done an awsome job. DDO is not bad from as far as i made it love alot about the enviroments would like to see more places added, framework is there though.

flame off please its just a game, and flames are the reason that people really do not go on forums anymore.
please post numbers and data to supprt your ideas too helps people like who just want the facts.
example:
(mind you i dont play LOTR so i dont care what the real numbers are.)
you get stuff with LOTR 5 of um and they stick to your toon so you can 20 free bag slots
but en DDO you get 3 stuffs and have to carry them in pairs if you want to switch. and only has 15 slots.
i can has more custimization on armor with LOTR than with DDO.

poper reply: yeah but having multiple armor parts makes more challenges for coding cause now you need hit sectors just ask mortals online how thats working out for um. unless you average the armor pieces together for the THAC0 to hit armor class 0 for all the non paper pencil players. although i <3 stuff improving what we have is more imprtant to me.

third party reply: lets get down to the brass taxes here guys what do you really want? you want to be able to change almost every aspect of the models appearance not add dye or some generic costume anyone can buy. you want to know if your toon is wearing the chainmail bra or the leather one, even if noone else can see it. why? you might ask. because knowing if and what type of underware you are wearing is important.

forth party reply: your right ****** i want ****ing a dragon scale armor bra because armor class means the less you were the better.

fith part reply: were the fr@ck are the owl bears and other mosters from the monsters compendium!!!!!

sixth party reply: i dont fr@cking know but i want to use thier heads as armor

seventh part reply: \o/

thiers my rant

[Khanyth]

I love how people want things to be perfect and ideal right off the bat, instead of looking at some changes/adaptions as works in progress.

People have been pleading for so long for customization, that they've had so many wet dreams about what it could be and how they'd do it in in their ideal version of DDO, that anything less than what their ideal is, is "wrong"

... all the while, people forget that maybe this is a work in progress, rather than the full, finished deal....

... because, ya know, everything is set in stone in DDO and nothing new or different ever comes out or is updated or changed.

[/sarcasm]

[Loromir]

The robe from the Mabar event looks AWESOME,

Are you really talking about that tiny little Avatar that represents the Cloak? Your Kidding right?

[Bernaise]

I disagree, if the DDO devs start talking to the LotRO devs they could bring back a lot of other bad ideas with them. I left LotRO for a reason. They did do a nice job on the outfitting system though.

[flynnjsw]

"Opinions are like A-holes, everyone has them, and most of them stink"

It is what it is, you don't like it, it's your right to ask for something different. Just don't try to pass off your opinion as fact.

[scouse65]

I do know that Turbine has regularly scheduled meetings between the devs from DDO and LOTRO and how they could improve the game and what does not work well.