Are things dead for a reason right now?

[Chai]

FR was enough to sell the first expansion, but there are no other properties that Turbine can draw on that have that level of IP value for DDO. That means future expansion will be based upon existing settings (FR/Eberron) or open up less valuable IP such as darksun, krynn, ravenloft, greyhawk, or planescape. Worse the timeline that DDO was placed in creates the possibility that the truly popular IP attached to FR will be unavailable for future DDO content.

That means even more of the sales will depend upon the quality of the work. That makes selling future expansion harder for DDO management to WB.

Turbine needs another big shot at capturing an influx of players and that means an expansion because updates do not draw the attention needed to pull that off.

Youre telling us that epic gianthold isnt going to pull people in like FR did? I know more people who wanted epic gianthold than FR, even though most admit the expansion was mostly good.

[moops]

4:40 PM PAcific time 31 LFMs, including Epics, only one Raid LFM shroud. Most LFMs had 3 to 4 people in them.

It prob does matter to an extent who/what class puts up an LFM, or what people put in the description.

[Alaunra2010]

10/16/2012: 840
10/17/2012: 910

[djl]

Youre telling us that epic gianthold isnt going to pull people in like FR did? I know more people who wanted epic gianthold than FR, even though most admit the expansion was mostly good.

I think what most people are disappointed with about the expansion is the wasted potential. The raid itself is a great example. Lolth has a huge following amongst pnp nerds, and what did they give us? A couple of fights that mimic Velah: fighting a stationary boss with several hundred thousand hitpoints, who is so large only her front fits in your screen, and whose attacks all look the same. They could have done SOOOOOOOO much more with the Lolth fights, been REALLY creative... but they took the easy way out. They should have modeled it after the Spinner of Shadows encounter, only given her a much wider arsenal of attacks with unique effects. It also didn't help the raid's popularity that they incorporated a "protect this stupid NPC" into the raid AND tied your loot to her HP. If you didn't have to babysit Anna, and the Lolth fights were more interesting, Web would have received a much different reputation.

The EDs are a very cool concept as well, which was again squandered by poor implementation. The horrid design of the the system which forces you to be in a worthless, boring ED for 12M/15M of your ED exp (from what I've seen, each class has two destinies which stand out in usefulness and the others range from "meh" to "completely ****ing worthless") turned many people off of it. The gear in U14 is incredibly easy to get, and most of it is superior to anything you could get in Eberron. So, once you are geared out, ED grind is all that's left... and when people max their best Destinies and begin the long grind through the stuff with marginal/no benefits to them, they quickly become bored and go play something else. If it were possible to play your favorite destinies while still gaining partial exp towards a different destiny (something that has been suggested many times on the forums), I think the criticism of both the EDs and MOTU itself would have been less harsh.

[Chai]

I think what most people are disappointed with about the expansion is the wasted potential. The raid itself is a great example. Lolth has a huge following amongst pnp nerds, and what did they give us? A couple of fights that mimic Velah: fighting a stationary boss with several hundred thousand hitpoints, who is so large only her front fits in your screen, and whose attacks all look the same. They could have done SOOOOOOOO much more with the Lolth fights, been REALLY creative... but they took the easy way out. They should have modeled it after the Spinner of Shadows encounter, only given her a much wider arsenal of attacks with unique effects.

The EDs are a very cool concept as well, which was again squandered by rushing the development. The horrid design of the the system which forces you to be in a worthless, boring ED for 12M/15M of your ED exp (from what I've seen, each class has two destinies which stand out in usefulness and the others range from "meh" to "completely ****ing worthless) turned many people off of it.

Yeap, the raid is tempest spine part 2, tempest spiner.

The gear in U14 is incredibly easy to get, and most of it is superior to anything you could get in Eberron. So, once you are geared out, ED grind is all that's left... and when people see what it entails, they shrug and go play something else. If it were possible to play your favorite destinies while still gaining partial exp towards a different destiny, I think MOTU would have been received far more warmly.

Kind of ironic isnt it, that many of the same people who complained in the past often and loudly that DDO is too much of a grind game are the ones complaining about how theres nothing to do at endgame because the loot is so easy to get. We should have been careful what we asked for.

I agree they need to let us play the destiny we went to be in and still get xp in another.

[Dexxaan]

10/16/2012: 840
10/17/2012: 910

Thanks for the continued data Alaunra.

I don't know about you guys, but one of my signs that s"&it hit the fan will be when we dont have Alaunras reports.


.

[GrampaBill]

It also didn't help the raid's popularity that they incorporated a "protect this stupid NPC" into the raid AND tied your loot to her HP. If you didn't have to babysit Anna, and the Lolth fights were more interesting, Web would have received a much different reputation.

You don't have to babysit her. Just tell her not to fight and unless you need to drop around 4 shrines, you're guaranteed the 6th chest.

[Cashiry]

/QFT

IMO:

* GW? - please... DDO has had a Pendulum_population that sways out (*and back in VERY shortly after) a new cool game comes out. I'd say the only game that has managed to hold back a few extra players is Star Wars and even it is pushing old players I know back to DDO.

* Lag? Some, but not like in the age of abandonment when Shroud was all there was and THAT WAS LAG.

* Raiding being pointless? Lets see, I have 13 active toons, (3 are L25, 3 more 23-24, and the rest are L22) and no less than 10 of them definitely need to run and loot the latest raid. So either a) You cannot figure out the benefits of some of the items. b) You do not know how to run the raid in 20-25 minutes and therefore you probably run with people complaining about Mana Pots and so it is easier to complain and ask the Devs to make it easier for you (instead of learning to run it) c) You care not for performance of your toon and therefore the loot and Raid in general does not appeal to you and its easier to jump on the complaint wagon and see what is obtained from it.

Very few classes / builds have "no use for the Raid Loot".



* Summer is over with, people are settling back into their lives and every year it has been the same thing.....

Now should Turbine take all this for granted? No way. But lets be a bit more objective and recall how things have gone over the last few years.

Many people will leave the game regardless of how good or awful the content, service or lag is..... that is unavoidable, but if you cannot find an LFM of your liking, start your own and use the menu that allows you to state you do not wish to lead it, and ask people as they join if they know the new quest, etc..... i.e. communicate.


.

+1 agree with ya on all points...., now if we can get ya to just find the quest. j/k

[DarkForte]

Yeap, the raid is tempest spine part 2, tempest spiner.

Sor'jek is a hundred times the raid boss Lolth is. At least he has the decency to, you know, MOVE around and try to kill us by doing something other than giving a mean look to us.