Let's Talk: What the Heck are the Dev's Working On?

[jakeelala]

Any direction? Any clue? Dev's have been VERY quiet since U15. We've heard nothing except for Fernando's vague and uninformative letter since then. We know we'll get enhancements "when they're ready". But what about in the near-term?

Can't we get a clue about what content is coming? Game play changes? Bug's that have been prioritized? Where's the communication? Where's the engagement with fans and players? Where's the sizzle?

I have seen SO many stalwarts of this game on Khyber leaving, people I never thought would, in droves in the last 2 months. It's sad. Poor game play decisions by the devs, unnecessary or poorly thought-out patches and nerfs have caused a lot of people to go the way of the dodo (Guild Wars 2).

Can't you guys throw a bone out and lay out some of your plans for the next few updates? What you're going to do about Fury of the Wild and ranged playing? Fix how bards still kind of suck? Make paladins and rangers not just flavor classes?

How about bringing back some sort of incentive to TR now that TR bonuses were totally made negligible by ED's?

Guys, it's literally like there is no one in charge there. At least, that's how it feels to a 6 year veteran player. Who's at the wheel? What are they doing with the wheel?

Seriously devs, this is for your own good.

[Violith]

not one for accuracy, but atleast to get an idea of whats coming I always check out http://ddowiki.com/page/In_development if I cant find it in the forums

as for fixes/additions besides the basics. you'll probably be at a loss. The incentive to TR is the same as it has always been, ED doesnt negate it since it all stacks. Seen people leaving? For what reason, I havent heard of people leaving in droves, atleast not on my server, sure there are bugs occassionally but nothing gamebreaking.

[Cauthey]

I agree.

I might have considered buying points with the recent triple (just) bonus points offer. However, I'm not really inclined to give them any money right now with the state of the game and the most recent lack of communication.

FWIW, I have gone out and purchased Turbine Points on days and weeks with good communication. I don't always buy points. But when I do, you can count on it being at a moment aligned with some good community engagement from Turbine.

[DeadlyPoison]

It was stated that they were working on MABAR work.

[toaf]

100% feel the same way, been vip sence FTP beta ended. now i just cant wait for my vip to end, nothing is really getting fix. i dont see them changing anytime soon. all we can do is let our subs run out andhope they get the idea. and no fury of the wild was NOT over power with bows i didnt check it with xbows.

[jakeelala]

TUrbine has 600 employees or something like that. You think every DDO dev is working on Mabar? I think it's probably 2-3

[kingfisher]

turbine has 600 employees or something like that. You think every ddo dev is working on mabar? I think it's probably 2-3

six hundred????????????

[Violith]

TUrbine has 600 employees or something like that. You think every DDO dev is working on Mabar? I think it's probably 2-3

600 employees doesnt mean they have 600 who work on computer related work, from what I've heard, they are adding more monsters, increasing the level up to 25, adding more items and increasing the ones that are there to 25, as well as working on improving it. that would mean there are probably more then 2-3 working on it, they'd need people for programming, artwork, area design, server administration, etc.

there is probably a good many people working on it, in addition to their other work (upcoming adventure pack, more epic destinies, fixing bugs, adding more area to eveningstar (most likely another wilderness area), new monsters for the new area, etc)

[jakeelala]

six hundred????????????

I read somewhere they hired a A LOT of people since going FTP on DDO. Perhaps that was a wild overestimation but I think that's the number that was being thrown around. The is the same however: Mabar is not being worked on by that many people.

[Chai]

TUrbine has 600 employees or something like that. You think every DDO dev is working on Mabar? I think it's probably 2-3

Thats prob 50 devs, 2 executives, and 548 middle managers.

I kid, I kid.

They certainly are not nearly all DDO devs however. You still have LOTRO and dare I say it, Asheron's Call.

[jakeelala]

600 employees doesnt mean they have 600 who work on computer related work, from what I've heard, they are adding more monsters, increasing the level up to 25, adding more items and increasing the ones that are there to 25, as well as working on improving it. that would mean there are probably more then 2-3 working on it, they'd need people for programming, artwork, area design, server administration, etc.

there is probably a good many people working on it, in addition to their other work (upcoming adventure pack, more epic destinies, fixing bugs, adding more area to eveningstar (most likely another wilderness area), new monsters for the new area, etc)

You're confusing "DDO" with "Mabar". Please see DeadlyPoison's original post.

[MrWizard]

always slow in summer months..and september.
expect october to pick up.

they need to make an epic tempest spine..and more spine like raids

[toaf]

"Thats prob 50 devs, 2 executives, and 548 middle managers" thats allot of TPS reports

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fy3rjQGc6lA

[Missing_Minds]

TUrbine has 600 employees or something like that. You think every DDO dev is working on Mabar? I think it's probably 2-3

You utterly forgot the fact they also run Asheron's Call and Lord of the Rings Online.



On the serious side...

they should be working bugs.
Another one or two are reworking the UMD calculations. (this was stated by Eladrin)
The need to be working the PrEs.
I would imagine new content per normal. Over what we have no idea. Maybe something finally related back to the Truthful One. But then again, given +Sir Lawrence, they are prone to letting stories hang out there to be forgotten.
Feather is probably fixing a few loot table issues as well as adding in a few more Pony references to further annoy haters.

[kingfisher]

Thats prob 50 devs, 2 executives, and 548 middle managers.

I kid, I kid.

They certainly are not nearly all DDO devs however. You still have LOTRO and dare I say it, Asheron's Call.

a better question is how much of turbines ddo work time goes into the ddo store instead of the game itself? research, marketing, design, advertising; the store makes turbine its money so they spend more time on that than on the game, i guarantee it. do they ever miss a store sale or weekly promotion? do they? when the store is buggy they hotfix it next day as opposed to bugs in the game which never get fixed.

[Violith]

You're confusing "DDO" with "Mabar". Please see DeadlyPoison's original post.

the first part was about mabar

they are adding more monsters, increasing the level up to 25, adding more items and increasing the ones that are there to 25, as well as working on improving it. that would mean there are probably more then 2-3 working on it, they'd need people for programming, artwork, area design, server administration, etc.

[Hendrik]

They are working on watching Codemonkeys.

[MrkGrismer]

They said two bug patches by the time U16 comes out. I don't know if 15.1 was supposed to be the first or not (I would hope not, since it didn't actually seem to fix much of anything). I would certainly like the outstanding bugs to be fixed, some of the game feels ever so unfinished (lack of death animations still in the Cannith quests, if smitten, Earth Elementals still missing death animations in Undermined, etc.). It almost physically pains me when I see DNT text in the combat log.

Sooo many things...

[twigzz]

Hopefully bug fixes. Like they said they were gonna do like over a year ago....

[Chai]

a better question is how much of turbines ddo work time goes into the ddo store instead of the game itself? research, marketing, design, advertising; the store makes turbine its money so they spend more time on that than on the game, i guarantee it. do they ever miss a store sale or weekly promotion? do they? when the store is buggy they hotfix it next day as opposed to bugs in the game which never get fixed.

Like most other corporations they likely have a executives, a marketing team, QA team, multiple dev teams, and a CS team. The marketing team puts the sales together. The devs implement that stuff into the store. They also have to create working mechanics for that stuff to happen.

For instance, some marketing person probably came up with some research that showed the raid bypass item would be popular, a manager then gave the go ahead, and the devs created the item that would allow you to bypass one raid timer, and put it up for sale in the store on lamannia, before live, during which time the QA team also had to test it etc...

Thats how bugs are prioritized Im afraid - by impact. Impact on what? $$$$ - which in most cases should be directly linked to user enjoyment of something they just bought (meaning it needs to work as intended).