Is DDO dying out and what can be done?

[Astarii]

It seems that there is less and less people to game with, and perhaps its just me or the spread for quest lvls getting wider. ie instead of 1-20, its now becoming separate really 1-15; 15-28; and 20-28 (where the most groups are in the 20-28) area. I'm glad that there is no 3 lvl restriction on this for the epic levelss because it does make it easier to run with people. however, it seems that there is less people in groups these days in general. Now, i know that there are guild exclusive runs & other chat channels where people only run there and this really effects the pug arena.

My fear is that people are leaving the game & we are not getting an equivalent number of people entering. Perhaps its just the season, and number of people back into the game and with newer content/stuff & summer scheduled ect. more people will be available. I think the direction of the game is great, i've watched the DDO cast & interviews with the devs & producer rowan and i do look forward to all the new upcoming things. This i've very excited about, i hope the word is out and others are excited as well.

I know that doing a server merge could be looked at as a mark of death for a game, but with some servers being very er... not utilized i sure would hope that this would be seriously looked at. item prices and other factors i'm sure would not be pleasant for some, but i'm more into gaming with people and having an good social experience as well.

So... with that said, Cannith has a decent amount of people but (defiantly better then most, and great AH prices), i would like to see more! (without a huge in-game economy hit to the AH & Shard exchanges)

I hope people continue to play, and turbine is doing everything it can to promote this because if your not growing your dying... a sad sobering thought that i do not want to see happen at all.

~Note: I don't want to see negative things or other game names posted in this thread, but rather just a thought of the direction etc. and others thoughts on some of this, purely from a better understanding perspective.

[Lonnbeimnech]

I hardly ever post LFMs because I'm doing epic TRs, and it's much faster/easier to run on EH than EE, and it's much faster still to do them solo. A fighter in legendary dreadnaught is one thing, a fighter in fatesinger is another.

I would be half way through a chain before 5 people joined a group. Then wait for them to get ship buffs/share please/which house is this in?/oh, I'm not flagged/let me swap toons, etc.

If EE paid out vcoms at a rate high enough that it was actually worth waiting on 5 people, I would.

[Matuse]

Raising the level cap to 28 was a huge mistake. Raising it again to 30 so quickly will be an even bigger one.

I already listed what Turbine needs to do when the first details of Shadowfell came out and it became immediately apparent how terrible it would be (and that's before we saw any of the quests). Unfortunately, I haven't seen any sign that Turbine actually cares about fixing the game in the last 3 years.

This is list #1, bug fixes and quality of life improvements:

MORE STORAGE SPACE.

More recipes for the various altars and crafting stations to allow for multiple combines with a single click (sundering greater cannith essences into lessers, ability to combine 1000 epic fragments into 10 epic tokens, etc).

When performing multiple procedures at the stone of change, you need to close the window and re-open it or it stops working on the second "recipe".

The bag window scroll bar really needs to stop teleporting into the middle of the bag whenever you remove an item.

Store bought bags changed from BtC to BtA.

Eveningstar challenge ingredients changed from BtC to BtA.

Add the new MotU item effects to cannith crafting shards (Dynamo, Buttressing, Desert Sand's, etc).

Guild navigator window should go away when you arrive at your destination.

Holy Aura claims to provide immunity against enchantment spells. It does not do this, at all.

Armor appearance preview at auction house.

When you kill The Thirsty One in the Desert, the message that pops up is "he Thirsty One"...that's only been around for over 4 years. Maybe fix?

String table errors are -everywhere- in MotU still, and it's been ~8 months.

"Target nearest interactable" targets the second nearest interactable almost without fail. That's been present for 7 years now.

Lower the target point for very large gates (like exiting House C to the market) so you can use the "Target Nearest Interactable" key without having to stare at the sky so the target point is within your field of view.

Remove NPCs and interactables from the other side of zone barriers. So irritating when trying to target the gate out of the Inspired Quarter, and instead you keep getting Durk and other stuff inside the Harbor. This also pops up in almost every entrance to explorer areas, where you try to target the explorer area and end up teleporting back to the city zone you started in because you accidently clicked on the exit gate in the other zone.

Clean out all of the pointless super low end food and drink from bartender inventories. Anything below 1 platinum should just vanish forever.

Add in a new top end food/drink that recovers 1500 HP and 3500 SP respectively.

Give the ability to name bags.

Unique inventory icon for each category and size of bag.

Organize the collectable bag to remove all items from the "other" category and give them categories of their own.

Change the character select screen so that all characters can be selected without having to use a scroll bar.

Let Sleeping Dust Lie, and Ritual Sacrifice - When run on Elite, there is a 0% chance of getting a Lily Petal or Locust Husk from the end chest.

A way to cure or resist "Cripple"

House teleporter in the Marketplace (not just TO the Marketplace)

DDO store items - Descriptions for many items are totally inadequate. Every possible detail about these items (in particular, binding status) should be listed explicitly.

Phiarlan Pendant of Time - Change to 2/day.

List #2 was specifically in response to Shadowfell, and the post EGH drop-off in population:

1) Update 19 - Nothing but bug fixes and quality of life improvements. The list of bug fixes should be at least 4 pages long. Included in these fixes is that every single item, spell, and ability has its bonus type specifically quantified to eliminate any possible confusion about what stacks with what.

2) The expansion - Without changing the price, the expansion is...expanded. Instead of 2 adventure packs and 2 explorer areas, the expansion is bulked up to include: 6 adventure packs (5-6 quests each), 3 explorer areas, 4 raids.

3) The Enhancement revamp is cancelled, because it's an irretrievable mess that never should have made alpha status. Instead, all classes have all of their PrEs implemented and taken to Tier3 (or Tier5, if it's set up like Archmage).

4) Dump the entire epic TR program, and particularly eliminate even the slightest trace that the devs even considered for a microsecond stripping out people's hard-earned ED XP when TRing.

5) Go ahead with the XP smoothing on TR2+. Spread out the burden currently lumped at 17-20, and spread it down to 12, so a much larger number of quests are available to get that XP.

6) Split heroic and epic quest completions so that repeat counters are not affected for L20+ dungeons.

7) Stop showing utter contempt for your customers. Yes, customers. Not players, CUSTOMERS. You know, those people who quite literally pay your salaries?

The last one will be the hardest.

[Angelic-council]

It seems that there is less and less people to game with, and perhaps its just me or the spread for quest lvls getting wider. ie instead of 1-20, its now becoming separate really 1-15; 15-28; and 20-28 (where the most groups are in the 20-28) area. I'm glad that there is no 3 lvl restriction on this for the epic levelss because it does make it easier to run with people. however, it seems that there is less people in groups these days in general. Now, i know that there are guild exclusive runs & other chat channels where people only run there and this really effects the pug arena.

My fear is that people are leaving the game & we are not getting an equivalent number of people entering. Perhaps its just the season, and number of people back into the game and with newer content/stuff & summer scheduled ect. more people will be available. I think the direction of the game is great, i've watched the DDO cast & interviews with the devs & producer rowan and i do look forward to all the new upcoming things. This i've very excited about, i hope the word is out and others are excited as well.

I know that doing a server merge could be looked at as a mark of death for a game, but with some servers being very er... not utilized i sure would hope that this would be seriously looked at. item prices and other factors i'm sure would not be pleasant for some, but i'm more into gaming with people and having an good social experience as well.

So... with that said, Cannith has a decent amount of people but (defiantly better then most, and great AH prices), i would like to see more! (without a huge in-game economy hit to the AH & Shard exchanges)

I hope people continue to play, and turbine is doing everything it can to promote this because if your not growing your dying... a sad sobering thought that i do not want to see happen at all.

~Note: I don't want to see negative things or other game names posted in this thread, but rather just a thought of the direction etc. and others thoughts on some of this, purely from a better understanding perspective.

Yeah... it's sad, I understand you... unfortunately, there is nothing we can do about it "sigh". I wish you best of good luck in game mate. PS: I like your profile picture

[grandeibra]

Raising the level cap to 28 was a huge mistake. Raising it again to 30 so quickly will be an even bigger one.

I'm at the opposite end of the spectrum.

I LOVE that they level capped to 28 and love that they are working on 30 already.

As for your list of bugfixes - couldn't care less iabout almost any of em.


DDO is always sparsely populated after the last mod/update has been out for a while and a new one is around the corner. Nothing new here.

[Yalinaa]

I guess it's more complicated than some elitist people ruins the games of others.

In another MMORPG there was a major patch this week, targeting people who left that game. They did it so well, that in a couple of hours after releasing the update the launcher server needed to be fixed to handle the load. So why DDO can't do the same? The answer is - they DID it with MoTU. We all remember, how the launcher crashed when they released the Underdark expansion. The servers were so busy, lot of people came back, almost everyone enjoyed that time. They didn't do wrong with the release of epic Gianthold either.

The big mistake was Shadowfell. Even bigger mistake is, they are still not accepting that as a fact. They messed up a lot of things without even the illusionary of those will be fixed one day. And instead of fixing the problems, they are implementing a new crafting system - more mess to fix later (but they won't do that anyway).

People lost trust, they don't believe that DDO can be reliable again. People left DDO, to find other game(s).

It wasn't the players fault. They SHOULD fix the game, long time ago. They didn't do it.

[Memnir]

DDO is not dying out. It may be slowing down. It may be entering a phase of less active development. But, it's not dying out.

Right now, the player fall off is most likely attributable to timing between updates and game-wide design choices. At this point between updates, there is always a dearth of LFM's and players on the servers. But, when the new update hits - it'll boom up again. As for the design choices... a lot of folks aren't happy treating Reincarnation as an end-game. Right now, DDO does not have a sustainable end-game that does not include Reincarnation - and that bores a lot of folks. So, when faced with the utter lack of things to do that don't include Reincarnation, those players who aren't into it find other things to do till new content emerges. We'd have a lot better player retention between updates if we had a stronger end-game.



The layoffs were a confidence shaker. The dwindling LFMs may seem troubling. But, I think it's way too early to start writing the obit.

[arkonas]

It seems that there is less and less people to game with, and perhaps its just me or the spread for quest lvls getting wider. ie instead of 1-20, its now becoming separate really 1-15; 15-28; and 20-28 (where the most groups are in the 20-28) area. I'm glad that there is no 3 lvl restriction on this for the epic levelss because it does make it easier to run with people. however, it seems that there is less people in groups these days in general. Now, i know that there are guild exclusive runs & other chat channels where people only run there and this really effects the pug arena.

My fear is that people are leaving the game & we are not getting an equivalent number of people entering. Perhaps its just the season, and number of people back into the game and with newer content/stuff & summer scheduled ect. more people will be available. I think the direction of the game is great, i've watched the DDO cast & interviews with the devs & producer rowan and i do look forward to all the new upcoming things. This i've very excited about, i hope the word is out and others are excited as well.

I know that doing a server merge could be looked at as a mark of death for a game, but with some servers being very er... not utilized i sure would hope that this would be seriously looked at. item prices and other factors i'm sure would not be pleasant for some, but i'm more into gaming with people and having an good social experience as well.

So... with that said, Cannith has a decent amount of people but (defiantly better then most, and great AH prices), i would like to see more! (without a huge in-game economy hit to the AH & Shard exchanges)

I hope people continue to play, and turbine is doing everything it can to promote this because if your not growing your dying... a sad sobering thought that i do not want to see happen at all.

~Note: I don't want to see negative things or other game names posted in this thread, but rather just a thought of the direction etc. and others thoughts on some of this, purely from a better understanding perspective.

i dont think its dying. there wasn't much for anyone to come back after the last update. i think update 21 will bring some people back. it has some nice fun things inside it. i have had 5 returning players join my guild in the last month. so they do come back and sometimes slowly or sometimes real life just had its way with them. I think turbine has been doing awesome since the start of the year. I really would love to see this new thing continue. this is what we wanted. communication and what not. i like that end game should hopefully be reestablished.

So to me i think its doing good. they are working on bugs maybe not as quick as some people like but if its not a game breaking bug then i can deal with them. bugs are in all games. people are just too demanding.

[Caliban]

People have been announcing DDO's imminent demise for the last 5 years or so. Hasn't happened yet.

I play on Khyber, I still see plenty of LFM's, and start plenty of my own when I'm TR'ing a character. Generally don't have a problem finding a group when I want one (other than when I'm playing very early or very late, as you'd expect).

[Paleus]

People have been announcing DDO's imminent demise for the last 5 years or so. Hasn't happened yet.

But this time its for reals yo'

*post in jest in the event you all can't hear the Jesse Pinkman voiceover I've got going in my head.

[vampiregoat69]

I think it is dead and here is why, I was in a fairly active guild that was running for some time. One day I log in and the message of the day was gone and all buffs on ship gone and no one else logged in for days. Then every time I look at the LFM it is getting less and less used more are soloing I think or just leaving in droves.

This game has been driven into the ground and stomped on by no tech support at all. I love this game and hate to see it fall apart but it looks like a sinking ship and the rats are running off to safety of other games fast. 99.99% if they had better tech support this game would not be so dead.

[Chai]

Dying to slow attrition. Fast enough to be noticed on a 6 month by 6 month basis, but not something where you will log into a server one day and theres a lot of people and you log in the next and its a ghost town.

What they need to do is study the eras where they were able to increase the player base head count, and follow their own lead - as well as study the eras with attrition and learn from those mistakes. A niche game maintained by a rightsized company can turn a profit.

[GeneralDiomedes]

They should do a server merge sooner rather than later. It did help the last time it was done. At this point I don't think they could do any more damage to reputation, people understand the game is not growing.

F2P influx was mostly free players who probably realized fairly soon that free meant an abysmal grind with lots of content gates. Didn't last long and the F2P market quickly became very crowded. I think the only thing they could do there is make all content free and concentrate on selling power, cosmetics and convenience, like other, more successful F2P games do. Potential issue is DDO is PvE whereas power matters more in PvP.

[Qhualor]

this is starting to become a weekly thread again. DDO is not dying.

[Vint]

this is starting to become a weekly thread again. DDO is not dying.

It is a week closer to death than it was last week. DOOOOOM!!

[Azithoth]

this is starting to become a weekly thread again. DDO is not dying.

for the last six hours i've stared glazed eyes at the lfm panel. it's now 11am est, and i'm still staring. if you don't think it'
s dying, you're an idiot.......

[toaftoaf]

this is starting to become a weekly thread again. DDO is not dying.

prove it

[Beethoven]

In another MMORPG there was a major patch this week, targeting people who left that game. They did it so well, that in a couple of hours after releasing the update the launcher server needed to be fixed to handle the load. So why DDO can't do the same?

What you talking about? 2 out of 3 DDO updates are done equally well that people have trouble logging into DDO right after the update.

More seriously, guilds and lfm's are not good tools to measure the playerbase.

Guilds only offer anecdotal evidence of people leaving, but not about people joining as they not instantly are distributed towards guilds that recently lost people.
LFM's are not reliable either because there is simply is no requirement (or even benefit) to running with a large(r) group of strangers over just playing with a small group of friends.

The "Who" panel and DDOracle.com are both far better and more sources to collect that data.

[Azithoth]

The "Who" panel and DDOracle.com are both far better and more sources to collect that data.

isn't that the one that registers when i log in everyday, at least two times becuase the first time never works, and skews everything?

[Gempoult]

for the last six hours i've stared glazed eyes at the lfm panel. it's now 11am est, and i'm still staring. if you don't think it'
s dying, you're an idiot.......

What he meant is DDO is not dying, it's already dead, few more people here and there waiting for the plug to be pulled more out of nostalgia than anything else.