like the legend of the phoenix all ends with beginnings-A new era for Lamannia

[Produktion_Malphunktion]

Greetings!
As you may have heard, we are shutting down Mournlands. What is Mournlands some of you may ask-well, it's our Fight Club. It was a server that had a group of players that the development team used for focus testing, opinions and reality checking the changes to the game. They have been extremely helpful over the years and I think I speak for all of QA and Development in saying thank you. The help from them even recently in the enhancement pass and the TR pass were invaluable. Again thank you Mournlanders, you know who you are.

So from the ashes are new beginnings. Instead of hiding behind a veil of secrecy, the developers, QA and the game will be out in the open on a public test shard. We will be pushing out early builds to Lammania—just as ugly and wart filled as what would have been seen on Mournlands. Devs will communicate directly in the Lamannia part of the forums.

So in essence you, the public, the players, are the new Mournlands. Everyone now has a voice.

The thought is we want to hear more opinions, and as early as possible. There will be some growing pains—Developers –and QA can be a superstitious lot—but over the past 6 months we have become more comfortable talking about things publicly and earlier than ever before. It has been kind of awesome.

Lamma will be run a bit different. It will not be up all the time, and be on a focused schedule. Why? We want developers and employees to have more interaction on the server than we have seen in the past. I admit I have wanted this for a long time.

So here is the first shot. Lamannia will be updated later this week with an Alpha build. This is super early, and you get to see all the half dones, and warts.

1. The Haunted Halls of Eveningstar and Thunderholme landscape will be open for VIPs. Haunted Halls should take about 1.5 hours to complete if you do no optionals. It will take up to 5 hours if you complete everything. Yes, it is an old school early D&D style module. It's huge. This will be opened up in later Lamannia deployments to everyone, but with VIP's come the perks of first peek.

There are some things that you will notice:

• Loot is not finished. Not even close. Matter of fact, most of it is placeholder stuff.
• Deco is not finished. Yes some rooms are bare.
• Monsters are not balanced yet. Good luck.
• VO (Voice overs) work is about half done.

1. You may come across weird systems and placeholders--half built skills and whatnot. Most should be turned off and hidden, but you never know.
2. This is a build straight out of development, so there is no optimization yet on the new areas. Some slowdown on landscape is completely possible.
3. Text is not finished, expect random TBDs and half-finished things.
4. Gameplay should be fairly complete...enough to get a good idea of what the developers were thinking. We are very interested in bugs-of course- and how things 'feel'. Too hard, easy, long short exc.
5. Lamannia will only be open though Monday morning. We will reopen it with other stuff in the near future..
6. Squeak and Kookie will still be around to make life easier.
7. Usual forum rules apply. Don’t be mean, this does not exclude negative comments, but keep it to the game, not the individual. This will not be tolerated in my little kingdom of the forums.
8. Please still report bugs. It is super helpful, and yes we do scurry over them on days after a Lamannia push like kobolds and shiny objects.

Hope to see you on there! Help us make DDO the best experience for you and your friends!

[RedOrm]

[*]Lamannia will only be open though Monday morning. We will reopen it with other stuff in the near future..

Your or my monday morning? As in, will us Europeans get a sneak peek too?

Greetz,
Red Orm

[HatsuharuZ]

Will there be any release notes up? Any more bard changes?

[Arianka]

So in essence you, the public, the players, are the new Mournlands. Everyone now has a voice.

r some voices more equal then others?

[Grosbeak07]

Interesting. Kinda glad I"m still VIP.

[danotmano1998]

Haunted Halls should take about 1.5 hours to complete if you do no optionals. It will take up to 5 hours if you complete everything.

Is this one quest?
Or a chain?

[UurlockYgmeov]

+ infinity.

Although will mourn the death of Mournelands, this bold new step is what is needed. More communication, earlier, more open, more cooperative.

Cannot say enough.

Now its up to us, the players to step up and deliver on our side. Positively delivered timely Feedback from open-minded experiences.

A rousing round of standing applause for this bold initiative.

Keep it up!

"'Cause I want more.
More, give me more,
Give me more."



I for one will be online trying, experiencing and communicating.

One suggestion - please do push out a 'goal' sheet - something that gives us players some idea about what, if anything, the team is looking for feedback on. General feedback on everything is presumed, but like the reincarnation event some giant green arrows pointing us in the direction to focus would be beneficial to everyone.

[faydingsun]

• Loot is not finished. Not even close. Matter of fact, most of it is placeholder stuff.
• Deco is not finished. Yes some rooms are bare.
• Monsters are not balanced yet. Good luck.
• VO (Voice overs) work is about half done.

1. You may come across weird systems and placeholders--half built skills and whatnot. Most should be turned off and hidden, but you never know.
2. This is a build straight out of development, so there is no optimization yet on the new areas. Some slowdown on landscape is completely possible.
3. Text is not finished, expect random TBDs and half-finished things.
4. Gameplay should be fairly complete...enough to get a good idea of what the developers were thinking. We are very interested in bugs-of course- and how things 'feel'. Too hard, easy, long short exc.
5. Lamannia will only be open though Monday morning. We will reopen it with other stuff in the near future..
6. Squeak and Kookie will still be around to make life easier.
7. Usual forum rules apply. Don’t be mean, this does not exclude negative comments, but keep it to the game, not the individual. This will not be tolerated in my little kingdom of the forums.
8. Please still report bugs. It is super helpful, and yes we do scurry over them on days after a Lamannia push like kobolds and shiny objects.

Hope to see you on there! Help us make DDO the best experience for you and your friends!

So it's just like the other servers?

[Grecan]

[sephiroth1084]

WOW!

I think this, more than anything, more than the Player's Council, more than the state of the game addresses, and promises and PR releases, this indicates that Turbine is finally pointed in a new, better, better direction.

At least I hope that's the case. MajMal certainly seems excited by this, and I know that his is a sterling integrity, as is his devotion to his work, and at least for the time being, this game.

Congrats, MajMal! I know you've been pushing for this sort of change for a long time. I hope it works out as well as you, and I, and I suspect most of the forum-going player base yearns.

[sephiroth1084]

One suggestion - please do push out a 'goal' sheet - something that gives us players some idea about what, if anything, the team is looking for feedback on. General feedback on everything is presumed, but like the reincarnation event some giant green arrows pointing us in the direction to focus would be beneficial to everyone.

Agreed. This would be a good idea.

Given the feedback section on the Player's Council application, I suspect we'll see something along these lines by the time the new build goes live on Lamannia.

[Teh_Troll]

r some voices more equal then others?

Yes.

[NytCrawlr]

Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in...

[Lauf]

The thought is we want to hear more opinions, and as early as possible.

good call!

Lamma will be run a bit different. It will not be up all the time, and be on a focused schedule. Why? We want developers and employees to have more interaction on the server than we have seen in the past.

why not keep it up though? if you want to interact more, by all means do. but why limit the opportunity players get to test things to *your* schedule?
surely we can find bugs and form opinions without you online as well.

So here is the first shot. Lamannia will be updated later this week with an Alpha build. This is super early, and you get to see all the half dones, and warts.

Please still report bugs. It is super helpful.

this will always be a tough spot, showing something half done and asking us what is wrong with it.... just to be clear - I totally support the idea of showing early stage builds, but bug reporting such an environment is a challenge to say the least. the more information you can give about what topics you would like to receive feedback on, and which should be ignored (with this and future builds) the better.
but regardless, early builds are welcome


and last but not least, although not a VIP myself, I think allowing them a sneak peek is a good move on your part. the perks for being a VIP are starting continuing to mount, as well they should

[Grizzt14]

Glad to see such a big change! I've given Lama a fair share of playtime over the years, but I'll definitely be looking forward to running through some early builds and providing feedback. Keep it up!

[PpalP]

Thank you Maj

[maddmatt70]

I am all for it if this saves Turbine some money at no decrease in the game's quality. I would guess mournland's probably cost Turbine money just like the old forums did and that this is all about cutting costs. If there is no decrease in the quality and the bugs are caught at the rate they currently are or better even I am fine with a change.

[hit_fido]

Haunted Halls should take about 1.5 hours to complete if you do no optionals. It will take up to 5 hours if you complete everything.

Wow. That may have some serious flower sniffing potential.

[rest]

• Loot is not finished. Not even close. Matter of fact, most of it is placeholder stuff.
• Monsters are not balanced yet. Good luck.
• VO (Voice overs) work is about half done.

• [1]You may come across weird systems and placeholders--half built skills and whatnot. Most should be turned off and hidden, but you never know.
  [2]This is a build straight out of development, so there is no optimization yet on the new areas. Some slowdown on landscape is completely possible.
  [3]Text is not finished, expect random TBDs and half-finished things.
  [4]Gameplay should be fairly complete...enough to get a good idea of what the developers were thinking. We are very interested in bugs-of course- and how things 'feel'. Too hard, easy, long short exc.

I'm struggling to see how any of this is different than what gets pushed out to live.

• recent loot sucks
• lol monster balance
• Stormreaver.

And so on

• [1]do we really need to list the half finished and abandoned skills and systems?
  [2]black loch wants to talk to you
  [3]TBDs are still everywhere on the live servers RIGHT NOW. This is not new.
  [4]Again, we don't need to list the half finished systems and gameplay. How many workarounds do your players have for shoddy buggy work? Lots.

Good luck!

[Qhualor]

exit Mournlands and enter Player Council? I might actually care now to log onto Lammania if you guys are willing to listen to our opinions. I just hope character copy works for me this time.