An Interview with a WoW Player

[weyoun]

1) It is silly to think that the only loot in quests drops from quests and breakables. Breakables?!? I agree with the WoW guy in that regard. In PnP each mob is lootable. It only makes sense that they would be, including junk that noone wants.

2) Open worlds are fun. This allows for impromptu groupings that would never otherwise happen. You need to kill the same monster another player does? You invite him and you both do it at the same time. Its just as conducive to pugging as the lfm panel is. If you're not sure if you're gonna die taking on that nest of baby glass spiders then you better wait until noone can see you or ask someone to help. This is immaterial though, because DDO is not an open world.

[AZgreentea]

I thought it was pretty funny that it was too much trouble for him to ALT+Enter and pop open DDOWiki. I personally love checking out the wiki, and since I havent run all quests, I frequently consult it before I run a new one. I take a little bit of joy in updating things for quests as I find they are missing.

It dosent seem to come out in my interview, but I had bugged him a week before about the different subscription systems. He really liked how you dont pay for new quests as a VIP member in DDO, while you have to buy an expansion pack for WoW. He was upset that if he went back to wow, he would have to buy most of the packs for his son, half of them for his wife, and the newest for himself. I had never thought about it before, but that is a really awesome perk of being VIP in DDO.

[Chai]

I like DDO because of, and not despite the fact, that it is NOT like other MMOs.

The fact that most WOW players will attest to the point that "the real WOW game starts at max level" is one of the things I did not enjoy when I played WOW. The universe has a HUGE amount of content, and most of the players are all bunched up in the new stuff, and 90% of the old stuff gets ignored. There are some really awesome old school zones in that game, and you could toss up an LFM and leave it up all day and no one will join. DDO does have its share of players who feel the grind from 1-20 sucks and its only fun with max geared toons, but this is a small percentage of players. Most of the content in DDO still gets used regularly 5 years after the fact. Most other MMOs cant boast this.

I was not a fan of ultimate quest progression, meaning that quests all have to be run in a row and certain quests are only triggered by doing certain other quests, etc. I like the option of being able to pick and choose what zones I game in. If someone in DDO likes catacombs, they dont need to run it or buy it for that matter. If this was a WOW zone, you might not be able to run Deleras until you ran Catacombs. Waterworks and STK are on the same plot-fu. Imagine not being able to run STK until you have done WW 1-4 through completion, but not being able to get into WW before doing kobold assault, and not being able to do that until you have done Ringleader.....you get the idea.

There was one thing I liked about WOW. The gear spoke for itself. In DDO, anyone can have a full set of gear, and threads moaning about bad PUG experiences where people didnt know what to do in a specific quest are commonplace. In WOW, if you have T6 gear, that means you raided T1 - T6 enough and worked with a team the entire time, and were able to acquire the minimum gear needed to run T7 content. People cant just join a T7 LFM and try to schlub their way through hoping no one catches onto the fact that they have no idea what they are getting themselves into. No T6 gear = no hope to hold your own in T7 content, with VERY few exceptions. while I do like the fact that I can PUG raid in DDO and have it be more skill based than gear based, there is something to be said for not having to deal with any noobs whatsoever in the high end game.

[transtemporal]

Interesting responses. The colour coded quests idea is awesome.

[Aliss7]

1. Got to agree with the learning curve. Not sure concretely what could be done about that... it kind of falls out naturally, basing the game on a pre-existing PnP rule set. As a result, you have many table-top players who will gravitate to this game, and then non-PnP players who are just lost, at least initially... then they find out how "gimped" their first character is and... well... give up? Wish I could be more constructive here.

2. I only started really playing last year. I didn't have any problems with the golden chalices... I think color coding them would just cause confusion unless it was explained in korthos and I don't think that's gonna happen. Really, I just started grabbing gold cups and decided what to do in my quest panel.

3. I know this is controversial, but I would not mind at all if wilderness areas worked like the mabar event, IMHO! It's a more "social" feel to it, a place to "hang out". Getting slayers in wilderness is just about the grindiest, loneliest thing I can think of. ... and no, putting up an LFM is a poor alternative. Plus, it's cool to run to some quest while other toons are clearing out the trash!

4. I totally understand the "alt-enter goto ddowiki" is a weakness, but an "in game browser" would solve this. This is about immersion... and "alt-enter" is just about the most jarring immersion-breaking thing you can do to your game play. You're probably dropping down to windows, and how depressing is that! A real in-game browser would help to smooth/hide the "inconsistencies". It makes it help seem like the game is in control. I have to say, reality is, I don't see a fully functional in-game browser any time soon though.

[eonfreon]

1) It is silly to think that the only loot in quests drops from quests and breakables. Breakables?!? I agree with the WoW guy in that regard. In PnP each mob is lootable. It only makes sense that they would be, including junk that noone wants.

The chest and breakables just represent searching for loot. They are not really meant to be taken so literally.

Instead of searching individual corpses the treasure is lumped up in a "chest" at the appropriate points.

And breakables is just shorthand for searching a room. It's just more active then having a "search" animation and more fun. Just think about how people complain about the Rogue Search animation. "Smashing" is just better then "Searching" for most people.

[donfilibuster]

I believe there's a fair amount of 'resistance to change' with new players.
In the end it boils down to having a tutorial, but without one the 'learn as you play' is not evil.

The learning curve, the quest givers, the varying quest difficulties, the story or lack thereof, knowing the map, collectibles, the team or not, starting and vet gear, the tiers of loot, exploring the dungeon, ddowiki on the in-game browser.

I believe finding the quests, locations, monsters, is all part of the fun.
But players seems to be used to linear adventures, gradual difficulties, getting directions from maps and npcs.
d&d has never been like that, i blame mmo mechanics for many of the ddo problems.

One should at least take a tour of stormreach, open all the windows and tabs, and 'ask first frown later'.
So many times you hear players in the harbor don't find their way to the market, many more never looked at the quest journal and adventure compendium, and a lot more never fully explore a dungeon before asking for levers.

And since messing up can happen, like missing a lever or finding a bug, it's just safer to simply ask in chat to see if anyone knows if things sound right.
If something is broken then someone ought to know something about it, can't just assume it.

[wax_on_wax_off]

Something that just about everyone I see with having the sort of problems with the game that I see described have one thing in common; they don't read the forums.

Perhaps the devs could offer to link specific forum threads in game if the OPs of the thread made sure that they were appropriately polished. For instance, I'm sure we all could have benefited from reading Paths Revisited by tihocan when we first came to the game.
Many of the suggestions, while good, may be costly to implement. However, there is a whole community of players that do their best to make ddo a better place to be and perhaps this resource could be engaged to resolve some of the issues described?

[LordRavnos]

I tried a trial account on WoW once upon a time and I found this mindset to be a little boggling. At the request of the friend who already played, I rolled up a priest. I was then set forth to level myself up mostly solo. The few times we did group, I was often reprimanded for fighting instead of just healing as I would only be required to heal at endgame. So, let me get this straight... I have to learn how to kill stuff to get to cap at which point I'm no longer allowed to kill stuff? /facepalm



How about "backspace"?

I played wow for 5 years on and off cause my wife wanted someone to play with, and it was fun for a bit, but it was one of the most repetitive games I ever played. Had the same problem with a priest and its like I am a shadow priest : oh well you rolled your character wrong, respec". Yeah not fun.

1) It is silly to think that the only loot in quests drops from quests and breakables. Breakables?!? I agree with the WoW guy in that regard. In PnP each mob is lootable. It only makes sense that they would be, including junk that noone wants.

2) Open worlds are fun. This allows for impromptu groupings that would never otherwise happen. You need to kill the same monster another player does? You invite him and you both do it at the same time. Its just as conducive to pugging as the lfm panel is. If you're not sure if you're gonna die taking on that nest of baby glass spiders then you better wait until noone can see you or ask someone to help. This is immaterial though, because DDO is not an open world.

You do realize the DMG states monsters do not always carry there loot unless they have a use for it, often times it was left in there lair or a secure place. Magic items and weapons, sure they might use em, but there were also monsters who just horded it cause it was shiny or inedible, so the chest system works out there, plus it saves the time of having to stop and loot every body and fight over loot. Open a chest, all the loot you have is yours.

As to your second point, it was MUCH more common for some ****** to go ahead kill the mob then laugh at you when you ask to group to save time. WoW has one of the WORSE communities in any game I played. Yes some people will group kill then break, but most do not bother and go on there way ignoring you or saying haha too slow, then if you get the mob first they curse and scream at ya.

Is wow a good game? sure for some, but not for me, I am so glad I quit it for DDO when I found it, I just wish I had been here a bit earlier.

[Uska]

Personaly I hate the dumbing down that has happend already and would hate to see more and wow's style is dumber yet not all games should be easy to play, and wows UPS style for many things is why I think it bores me to tears.

[Notajedi]

the game. It was painful, but I did it.

If I can solo the game to a certain point anyone can. Especially kids with maximum dexterity in their fingers and somehow you have god given twitch skills.

I figure the learning curve of this game was about four months for me. But I like D&D, so I stuck it out.

I thought SLAYER areas have monsters that have chests. Guess I am missing something there.

[Ruphus]

The guy being interviewed has some good points, but ultimately, I would not want much of those changes being made.

I played Everquest for over 8 years, and I played WoW for 3 years, off and on. I led raids, groups and did just about everything you could in both games, from top to bottom.

My biggest complaint with both EQ and WoW was the "Game starts at max level". This was very true in both games, the leveling process was just a delay to get to the "meat" of the game, which imho, detracts from what a RPG/MMO would be about. On top of that, the power difference between a level 79 character and a level 80 character (when 80 was the cap) was HUGE. IF you were a hardcore raider/grouper, you would NEVER take a level 79 character in a group/raid unless it was a friend, guild app and so on, in some cases, you could NOT take them in the raid/group because of zone restrictions.

One of the better things about DDO, a level 19 character is nearly as strong as a 20 and is not shut out of content.

Loot and Xp from Indivudual monsters - NO THANK YOU. I did that enough, looting every single corpse and sitting in the same spot killing the same 20-30 monsters over and over gets boring REALLY fast on any game. Another great part of DDO, I will take dungeons from level 1 to level 20 that while it may be the same quest you have ran 76 times, its different every character you run through, and the difficulty settings keep it semi fresh.

Also, on the Loot/Xp, chests make it very hard for ninja looting, and also allows for loot mechanics to work just perfectly, I wouldn't change a thing about how loot is handled in DDO. Aside from maybe altering drop rates for specific rare and frustrating things that we all farm.

A Tutorial area, more set up for learning the games ins and outs wouldn't be a bad idea, Korthos is really just a "Newbie" area, it's easy, it's quick to run through, but does not do much to "teach" new players DDO. A raw tutorial with good mechanics would be a good idea.

Probably one of the bigger selling points about WoW for me was how bug free it was, granted, every MMO has bugs, but Blizzard was VERY on top of their problems, and anything that was major was fixed quick.

Now, being a MMO vet and played both of those games (Which I did love at the time, and still go play for a month or so every once in awhile to see old friends) I have some suggestions that you could take and put into DDO to vastly improve the game overall and reel in new players.

1). Another "newbie" area, maybe when you release Gnomes add in a level 1-5 area that is all underground and people have the option of doing Korthos/Harbor or the new area.

2). Games within the Game. I am not talking about more events, but rather, distractions. One of the bigger selling points with WoW was the Battlegrounds, Arena and PvPness. DDO does not need to be changed into a massive PvP game nor does it need any kind of altering of the game mechanics to accommodate these "Games" But adding in Team Vs Team objective based Capture the Flag, All out Brawls (more in depth than the taverns), Heck add in Racing, Jousting, minor little competitions, maybe an instanced dungeon that 2 teams take on at the same time, and only 1 can win/complete it, but have great xp or novelty rewards, in essence, battleground-esque things like this will give people never ending time killers that are fun.

3.) Less randomness on some of the crafting stuff. You wanna keep players, add in time sinks that are FUN, not frustrating. Yes, its very rewarding when you finally get that Sovereign Rune for DT armor you have been wanting for ages, or that Epic Scroll, but man... do SOMETHING to either make it less of a grind, or at the least, an option of getting the needing component after X number of Y quest runs.

4.) Keep the old content upgraded sufficiently. Yes almost all of it still gets used, but there is nothing wrong with keeping everything up to par with the new stuff. Nothing is worse in a MMO when content becomes "Dead" Just ask Sony how many areas Everquest had that would not see a single person in the zone for days/weeks/months/years. Adjust experience, make sure new collectibles get added where they need to be, and of course, get rid of any and all bugs possible.

5.) Better Re-Spec options. There really does need to be a way in game, without going to the DDO store, to fix broken or poorly built characters. This could go hand in hand with the Tutorial options, many people will play this game, get to a decent level, and get frustrated when they find out their 28pt Fighter/Cleric/Rogue is horrible in every aspect of the game. Make it cost tons of plat, maybe have to complete a quest series, but something.

[Samadhi]

There needs to be way more non instance content. It seems only the cities are non instance there needs to be large open space with baddies. The number 1 thing I would change about DDO if I had to pick one thing would be that monsters gave experience and dropped freaking loot especially in the wilderness zones so a casual or soloer can just farm them for exp and money. Even if the loot is vendor trash.

This is one of the things I can't stand about other games, and am very glad DDO doesn't have much of. Nothing is remotely as boring to me as doing the above.


Now, on his point on soloability, I actually highly agree. It is very nice to be able to login and just do something productive for 20 mins, instead of spending 15 mins finding a group and no time to actually quest.


@ Ruphus "One of the better things about DDO, a level 19 character is nearly as strong as a 20 and is not shut out of content."

While I agree with the point you are making, since the addition of epic, I really don't think we can hold to the point that lvl 19's are not shut out of content. It used to be that once you got 3 levels from cap, the leveling process became so much more fun because you could start running with your capped friends again. Now, the last 3 levels from cap can often be the worst 3 levels, due to the continued steepness of the XP charts at higher levels (mostly on TRs) and the complete inability to group with capped toons for XP on a large amount of endgame content.

[weyoun]

I played wow for 5 years on and off cause my wife wanted someone to play with, and it was fun for a bit, but it was one of the most repetitive games I ever played. Had the same problem with a priest and its like I am a shadow priest : oh well you rolled your character wrong, respec". Yeah not fun.




You do realize the DMG states monsters do not always carry there loot unless they have a use for it, often times it was left in there lair or a secure place. Magic items and weapons, sure they might use em, but there were also monsters who just horded it cause it was shiny or inedible, so the chest system works out there, plus it saves the time of having to stop and loot every body and fight over loot. Open a chest, all the loot you have is yours.

As to your second point, it was MUCH more common for some ****** to go ahead kill the mob then laugh at you when you ask to group to save time. WoW has one of the WORSE communities in any game I played. Yes some people will group kill then break, but most do not bother and go on there way ignoring you or saying haha too slow, then if you get the mob first they curse and scream at ya.

Is wow a good game? sure for some, but not for me, I am so glad I quit it for DDO when I found it, I just wish I had been here a bit earlier.

I don't know dude, I usually carry some cash around with me. Everyone I know does as well, or at least a debit card. My valuables are in my lair though - I'll concede that. I'm not sure what the DMG states and I really don't care. My pnp experience is with AD&D, basic and expert. Back then, the mobs carried some loot.

I'm not here defending WoW. I played it for an afternoon 4 years ago. But open worlds aren't exclusive to WoW, and there are communities where the scenario I described happens all the time. You just weren't a part of them. Cheers.

[Lorien_the_First_One]

A Tutorial area, more set up for learning the games ins and outs wouldn't be a bad idea, Korthos is really just a "Newbie" area, it's easy, it's quick to run through, but does not do much to "teach" new players DDO. A raw tutorial with good mechanics would be a good idea.

We actually had a Tutorial area originally, but they removed it when they created Korthos.

[Ruphus]

@ Ruphus "One of the better things about DDO, a level 19 character is nearly as strong as a 20 and is not shut out of content."

While I agree with the point you are making, since the addition of epic, I really don't think we can hold to the point that lvl 19's are not shut out of content. It used to be that once you got 3 levels from cap, the leveling process became so much more fun because you could start running with your capped friends again. Now, the last 3 levels from cap can often be the worst 3 levels, due to the continued steepness of the XP charts at higher levels (mostly on TRs) and the complete inability to group with capped toons for XP on a large amount of endgame content.

Yes, it is true that level 19's can't join an Epic adventure, but we do have numerous high level raids that level 18s and 19's CAN take part in, Shroud, ToD, VoD, Hound, etc. We even have valuable raids at levels 6 (Chrono) and the low teens (Demon Queen and Stormreaver).

But with both EQ and WoW, once a new expansion came out, all of the old raids became obsolete, and were really only ever run for novelty. DDO actually has raids that those levels can participate in and still be on the same playing field as a level 20 in them, that was the point I was referring to. On top of that, these raids still offer things people want even after all the new Mods and Updates.

In both of those other MMO's, you simply would not take a sub level character into those raids unless you were holding their hands. You would never dare bring a Pugger that was not of appropriate level, even if the raid accepted those levels, and in most cases, the raids did not.

Yes, you could do older content, but there was always, especially in WoW, the "chasing your tail syndrome" aka, at 70 you could run the 70 raid and get 70 raid loot, but it was ALL gone as soon as you started doing level 71+ quests, then all that 71-79 gear you got from questing is gonna be tossed when you start doing level 80 content.

[Missing_Minds]

Interesting feedback... but a few counter points and agreements.

------------
your friend:

Ok so what I mean by no quest flow is, after Korthos you hit the harbor and see a billion golden goblets. As a new player you have no way of knowing the recommend level, the hardness of the dungeon, or if it is a chain unless you go to each one and open the dialogue. They need to have a way better flow and direction. Such as, say, you arrive to the Harbor from Korthos and there is a single person on map with a golden goblet you talk to them they welcome you to the harbor and tell you to go speak with "so and so" in the Leaky Dinghy, you then go there speak with him/her they advise you to talk to someone else. Then when you are done with say Harbor the last quest there need to direct you to say, take a letter to so and so in House J where you start your next branching set of quests level appropriate. Not having quests for that same level range in 4 dif houses and a new player not knowing where they are.

-----------------------

He has a point BUT doesn't realize this is NOT a "standard MMO". What is DnD about? Many things, one of which exploring and learning. Not necessary spoon fed. (this goes back to his comment about not being able to find the switch in the previous room.)

A better flow would be nicer in the beginning, but for many vets NOT having instance access (as streaming it in the manner he wants would mean you have to.. A, B, C, D, E, F, G.... and in that order. Other wise we can do A, B, then do any of the others as we want.)

--------------------
Your Friend:

They should have a color coding for the goblets such as golden for at your level, orange for one level above you, purple for 2 levels above you etc... and a set color for group/chain quests.

----------------

Again, this is a standard MMO visual que. One that doesn't quite work here in DDO as things are CR based NOT level based. It is a good idea.. but what do you base the goblet color off of? Casual? Normal? Hard? Elite? Epic? Do you set an Option for quest icon colors bases?

I think the idea is a good one, but it would have to be refined a lot let alone, different people of different levels would see the same quest different. Perhaps the client should be modified such that the normal/hard/elite/casusal selection text would be color coded for the person. Server won't care about that, and it makes no difference at all there to try to cheat.

Also.. Devil Assault is a completely different beast when it comes to level difficulty.

-------------------
Your Friend:

There needs to be way more non instance content. It seems only the cities are non instance there needs to be large open space with baddies.

-------------------

We can stop that one right there. That is not how this game is. This is a party game where the XP comes in quests. This is how this game is, it is unlike the others and should keep its uniqueness.

The part I can/do agree with your friend is kill XP. I don't know of anyone who likes to go into a quest, FAIL... and get nothing for wasting their time (and possibly resources) even though they were learning.

I think it has been suggested before to have a Kill XP. However, DnD is not a game of slaughter everything. Nor should it be. There needs to be rewards for stealth. (it is just that kill everything quests are just easier to program and no brainers to do.) How do you balance killing everything and killing nothing while still completing a quest? How do you quantify a bonus for sneaking. I mean a person could just go into a quest, go into sneak and not move, finish out later and claim "I got xp for sneaking even though I didn't finish!". If kill XP is to ever happen a balance for this would need to be considered.





Oh yeah.. I find it ironic that your friend says WoW starts at max level at which point you start to raid for better and better gear. What does he think we do here (only we don't have to wait for max level), or did he never get that far?


Another point your friend never made. He equated quest difficulty to lvl of player. This is incorrect (and never explained any where in game) A quest CR (in this game) is based off of a 6 person party of the same level.

Also, for him, he is used to the method where if something is 5 levels above you, you are going to get your arse handed to you. In DDO, lower level characters regularly take on much higher level/CR creatures and win. If everything were color coded like in other MMOs, he's be seeing purples and epics constantly and probably crapping his pants.

Being as DDO was my first MMO, the concept of color=level difficulty on mobs was new to me.
In Lotro I told my wife. "Hey, lets go kill that bear".
wife : Hun.. that thing is purple!
me: So? It is only what.. 5 levels above us? We can take it out.
errrr..... not even close. Talk about a spanking from that fight, and I've never made that mistake again. To her credit, she didn't get mad, but let me learn my lesson. And teases me about that bear to this day.

[Kilnedric]

I don't understand "The game starts at <cap-level>." What does that mean? Obviously, taken literally, it's incorrect. So, what's the interpretation I'm missing? Games *change* at cap-level. Is there any MMO that is not true for?

[barefootdoc]

I'm glad to be reading through this discussion as my wife and I were just talking about this the other night. To create some perspective we are fairly experienced mmo-gamers.

Here is my $.02

What we love about DDO -

We absolutely love questing in DDO. We have played many different games, and the questing in DDO is the most fun we've ever really had. We love traps, puzzles, circuitous routes that leave you confused as to where you are going or have come from. We love seeing chests, even if the loot within them always seems a bit crappy, but then again you can't have awesome items in every chest.

We love the graphics, and the overall feel of the cities and zones. We like the combat especially from the caster's point of view. Melee feels a bit simplistic somehow regarding special attacks and graphics associated with them.

We like the business model overall.

What we think needs tweaking -

As has been mentioned, the lvl of difficulty when starting the game can be significant. It is true many other major mmo's really hold your hand through the first 5-10lvls or so. And I can see how that has inherent pros/cons. Some folks really like the challenge, and feel crappy when all their choices are super simple. Others can't imagine looking through dozens of forum posts, and builds just so they can make a relatively put together toon.

My solution to the difficulty issue is simple, make fixing your mistakes along the way much easier. As it stands if you lvl a toon to 10 and suddenly realize you've made some major errors your only recourse is a LR, which of course means you have to spend money in the store.

An easy solution would be to allow for a LR anywhere along the way upto lvl 10 for free...similar to a feat swap with Fred. After lvl 10 you should understand how things run, and mistakes from that point on are yours to manage. But I know more than a couple people who stopped playing at lvl 6 or so because they botched their toon up royally and really didn't want to start a new one - so stopped playing even though they were having fun.

more later...have to get back to work

Cheers

Consilio

[charmor]

I would like to add to this thread.

I also play WOW and I have to say both have their strong points. WOW is clearly designed to satisfy the masses, with linear questing, easy level up, not so many choices to make at all. The goal is basically reach the level cap and start rading to acquire more gear and also PvP. On the other hand, DDO is based on D&D, which is a very complex game by itself and focused on cooperative play, not PvP.

If you take a look at the character development in WOW now with the last expansion, you will see that the devs simply removed almost all customization possible for the player, this way they have an easier time balancing the game. WOW is heavily focused on competition and needs that balance, but they had to remove character building to acquire this. In D&D class balance is not necessary at all, since players play the role of what they want to play, not what they feel is the strongest class. And I think DDO is able to inherit this feel of role playing just nicely.

I play WOW because the game has so much income that the huge pool of devs have the opportunity to develop and fix quickly just everything they feel wrong. The game simply feels more complete and finished than any other game. On the other hand, I play DDO because it is D&D. Here I can really create a character, choose my stats, skills, feats, spells.. I feel I can always try new builds and new ways to enjoy the game, and each new update is a blast.