Producer's Letter

[zimmsi]

Congrats Sev, from Dereth (Asheron's Call 1 & 2)

[Blackheartox]

Any teaser about warlock past life?

IS very important to some of us.

[UurlockYgmeov]

Love what I read and excellent improvement on communication cooperation and coordination this year. Kindly do NOT rest on your laurels - push hard against the dying of the ... kobold?

Maybe stagger the terms of the council - so not all fresh blood at once.

Like the overall vagueness of this - underpromise and overdeliver.

Update 25 (Spring) - Temple of Elemental Evil
Update 26 (Summer) - Return to Devil's Battlefield (Epic Shavarath)
Update 27 (Fall) - Corrupted Vale of Twilight (Epic Vale) (level cap to 30 and corrupted greensteel crafting)
Update 28 (Winter) ???

Where in the worlds is Mimic? Festival
Anniversary event around U26...

Ranged power roll out, rogue/ranger,fighter melee pass, warlock class...

Just no word on cannith crafting pass and most importantly - Guild Management System.

and

[JP457]

Oh joy, yet another Producer. How long will Sev be with us? Starting the pool with June 15.

And great, yet another crafting system to collect ingredients for. Why can't you people further develop the systems you already have instead of making new ones all the time?

[HatsuharuZ]

Warlocks? Epic Shavarath? I'm in love <3

[BadSandwitch]

Just thinking out loud here- Will The Subterrane and its two raids get the same treatment as the Vale of Twilight? I ask because I assume (wrongly, I hope) when you say The Vale of Twilight you mean the actual Vale, not the adventure pack as a whole. It would be delightful to hear if this were true, because I absolutely LO<3 The Subterrane. Give Xy'zzy and Suulomades some love, and maybe fix Xy'zzy's allergy to Ruin.

Either way, congratulations and very glad to hear new stuff is in store for the future.

[memloch]

Congrats on the promotion Sev. Please stick around as your ability to communicate with your customer base is outstanding. I also hope you keep both your hands in the development cycle to push some of these plans through.

In your new position do you have any influence on marketing? This game needs new blood and it has a lot to offer.

Now need to redo my completionist once warlock comes out. Doh.

[FranOhmsford]

Why Warlock?

When we're still waiting on Gnomes and Psionicists!

Oh and Kobolds too of course!


Also - Archmage has been relegated even further over the past year what with PM and EK having the major benefits - All Warlock's gonna do is make sure no-one ever plays an AM again!

[DeliaKelodin]

I wish I had more time to comment.. Love the Ol' school stuff and hope to see more.

Greetings,

My name is Robert Ciccolini, although many of you might know me as “Severlin” on the forums or from podcasts. I am the Executive Producer for Dungeons and Dragons Online. I wanted to take this opportunity to look back on our previous year and look forward to the year ahead.

The last year has been eventful, and looking back we have seen many additions to the game.

In the last year we added lots of new content including three new raids. Our characters were able to explore the Haunted Halls as we had the opportunity to present that classic adventure to our players.

Player were able to band together to form more powerful guilds and update their guild airships and amenities.
High level adventurers were able to experience more powerful versions of some of some well known heroic content. We revisited both Three Barrel Cove and the most powerful area of the Orchard of the Macabre.

This past year has seen changes that have allowed for powerful new builds. Heavy armor is no longer relegated to niche builds and has instead taken its place on the front line of the fight. The year saw large improvements for Bard, Paladin and Barbarian, as well as a few improvements for Ranger and Rogue. We added a new Bard tree with Swashbuckler, and the new Vanguard tree is now available to Fighter and Paladin. We also added the Harper Agent enhancement tree. This year also saw changes to help some heroic abilities scale into Epic levels, and a rebalance of the melee oriented Epic Enhancement trees.

The Mirror of Glamering was created to give players the freedom and flexibility to capture the look of their favorite weapons and armors from the game’s treasure. We have already seen players scouring the game for their favorite items to update their style.
Players in hard and elite content faced a new challenge in the form of Monster Champions.

As excited as we are about the additions to the game, the true joy of working on our game has been the involvement of the community. The feedback on features and additions has been extremely helpful. Our players are a passionate bunch who clearly love the game as much as we do, and we love reading feedback, hearing what you love about the game, watching your videos, answering questions during live casts, and hearing stories about your in game adventures.

In the last year we have had some great people provide terrific feedback on the player’s council. I wanted to give those players a shout out for all of their time and enthusiasm. We are working hard on creating our player council for the coming year and we are both excited to hear some new voices and sad to see the current players pass the proverbial baton to the new guard.
Looking forward to the new year we have lots of exciting plans to share.

Temple of Elemental Evil
Our next big update will include the Temple of Elemental Evil. We are all excited to present this classic dungeon to the players. The Temple grounds are quite large! Although players will be presented with a quest to accomplish when they enter the temple, there will be many dangers and treasures to find if the players take the time to properly explore the vast network of temple halls and chambers.

Monster Champions and Mysterious Fragments
Characters facing the game’s toughest challenges have encountered a wide variety of Monster Champions - creatures that have increased skill and power. What is causing this increase in power? As characters investigate the source of this newfound strength they will begin to discover that many of these creatures carry Mysterious Fragments that seem to resonate with strange magical power. Could these fragments be causing these champions and their rise in power? What use could these fragments have for those looking for power?

Monster champions will have a chance to drop Mysterious Fragments. Players can gather these fragments and various agents and interested parties might trade them for a variety of rewards. Rumors of groups offering scrolls, potions, cosmetic items, and even prestigious and rare pets have begun to surface. Organizations do not have unlimited resources. As factions vie for power some agents and rewards might change as the year progresses.

Warlock
We are looking into adding a new class during the year, and we are considering the Warlock class. The Warlock creates powerful eldritch blasts to destroy enemies in addition to a variety of spells to aid them in their adventures.

New Storylines
The game will introduce a new story arc that will take the players to Shavarath for a new adventure pack. Characters on these adventures will work to prevent a catastrophe. That story will continue as the year progresses to bring the players once again to the Vale of Twilight. New threats have entered the Vale and more powerful challenges await in this chapter of the Vale of Twilight’s history. Defeating this new threat will require you to enter the more dangerous and powerful Vale of Twilight as you increase your level to 30 and obtain new treasures. More powerful items also await from the corrupted Greensteel found in the Vale after recent events have increased the magical power of the area.

Level 30
Characters will be able to gain experience to increase their level to 30. Characters who reach this milestone will gain additional feats and power, and they will be able to wield and even construct new weapons and treasures to face the foes that challenge them.

New Festivals
The coming year will bring new festivals; a mimic event where players have to hunt down mimics that have infested all the corners of the land. The autumn will also bring a new seasonal festival that will haunt your favorite places and provide characters with more treats than tricks.


These are just some of the ideas and plans we are looking into for the next year. We don’t want to spoil too much about our new monsters, new treasures and other goodies we have planned. Our goal is to present players with a taste of the ideas we are working on, and we also want to remain vigilant to the requests and feedback from the players. Your ideas are important to us, and your feedback will help guide us over the course of the year.


Robert “Severlin” Ciccolini

[Connman]

Thank yoooouuuuuuuuuuuuuuu!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!



If it doesn't include exploring this:

then you need to scrap it and head back to the drawing board. We'll be level 30. The environment and the stakes need to reflect it.

Sev, you have no excuse if you mess this up, finally someone who makes things work in charge of choosing which things to make work. Shavrath is my favorite zone, It already has an epic feel to it. Please in the name of all that is holy, unholy, and just plain neutral, work really hard on this guys. Please don't price it at $5. I want $50 worth of awesome, and am prepared to pay for it.

[Sam1313]

Level cap 30? Meh. Temple of Elemental Evil? Ok cool. Warlock Class? Wait isn't that basically Pale Master? Whatever. Epic Vale Of Twilight.? Hellz Yes! And it should spank our azzez and send us crying home to mommy like a little girl.

[viktorserak]

Greetings,

My name is Robert Ciccolini, although many of you might know me as “Severlin” on the forums or from podcasts. I am the Executive Producer for Dungeons and Dragons Online. I wanted to take this opportunity to look back on our previous year and look forward to the year ahead.

The last year has been eventful, and looking back we have seen many additions to the game.

In the last year we added lots of new content including three new raids. Our characters were able to explore the Haunted Halls as we had the opportunity to present that classic adventure to our players.

Player were able to band together to form more powerful guilds and update their guild airships and amenities.
High level adventurers were able to experience more powerful versions of some of some well known heroic content. We revisited both Three Barrel Cove and the most powerful area of the Orchard of the Macabre.

This past year has seen changes that have allowed for powerful new builds. Heavy armor is no longer relegated to niche builds and has instead taken its place on the front line of the fight. The year saw large improvements for Bard, Paladin and Barbarian, as well as a few improvements for Ranger and Rogue. We added a new Bard tree with Swashbuckler, and the new Vanguard tree is now available to Fighter and Paladin. We also added the Harper Agent enhancement tree. This year also saw changes to help some heroic abilities scale into Epic levels, and a rebalance of the melee oriented Epic Enhancement trees.

The Mirror of Glamering was created to give players the freedom and flexibility to capture the look of their favorite weapons and armors from the game’s treasure. We have already seen players scouring the game for their favorite items to update their style.
Players in hard and elite content faced a new challenge in the form of Monster Champions.

As excited as we are about the additions to the game, the true joy of working on our game has been the involvement of the community. The feedback on features and additions has been extremely helpful. Our players are a passionate bunch who clearly love the game as much as we do, and we love reading feedback, hearing what you love about the game, watching your videos, answering questions during live casts, and hearing stories about your in game adventures.

In the last year we have had some great people provide terrific feedback on the player’s council. I wanted to give those players a shout out for all of their time and enthusiasm. We are working hard on creating our player council for the coming year and we are both excited to hear some new voices and sad to see the current players pass the proverbial baton to the new guard.
Looking forward to the new year we have lots of exciting plans to share.

Temple of Elemental Evil
Our next big update will include the Temple of Elemental Evil. We are all excited to present this classic dungeon to the players. The Temple grounds are quite large! Although players will be presented with a quest to accomplish when they enter the temple, there will be many dangers and treasures to find if the players take the time to properly explore the vast network of temple halls and chambers.

Monster Champions and Mysterious Fragments
Characters facing the game’s toughest challenges have encountered a wide variety of Monster Champions - creatures that have increased skill and power. What is causing this increase in power? As characters investigate the source of this newfound strength they will begin to discover that many of these creatures carry Mysterious Fragments that seem to resonate with strange magical power. Could these fragments be causing these champions and their rise in power? What use could these fragments have for those looking for power?

Monster champions will have a chance to drop Mysterious Fragments. Players can gather these fragments and various agents and interested parties might trade them for a variety of rewards. Rumors of groups offering scrolls, potions, cosmetic items, and even prestigious and rare pets have begun to surface. Organizations do not have unlimited resources. As factions vie for power some agents and rewards might change as the year progresses.

Warlock
We are looking into adding a new class during the year, and we are considering the Warlock class. The Warlock creates powerful eldritch blasts to destroy enemies in addition to a variety of spells to aid them in their adventures.

New Storylines
The game will introduce a new story arc that will take the players to Shavarath for a new adventure pack. Characters on these adventures will work to prevent a catastrophe. That story will continue as the year progresses to bring the players once again to the Vale of Twilight. New threats have entered the Vale and more powerful challenges await in this chapter of the Vale of Twilight’s history. Defeating this new threat will require you to enter the more dangerous and powerful Vale of Twilight as you increase your level to 30 and obtain new treasures. More powerful items also await from the corrupted Greensteel found in the Vale after recent events have increased the magical power of the area.

Level 30
Characters will be able to gain experience to increase their level to 30. Characters who reach this milestone will gain additional feats and power, and they will be able to wield and even construct new weapons and treasures to face the foes that challenge them.

New Festivals
The coming year will bring new festivals; a mimic event where players have to hunt down mimics that have infested all the corners of the land. The autumn will also bring a new seasonal festival that will haunt your favorite places and provide characters with more treats than tricks.


These are just some of the ideas and plans we are looking into for the next year. We don’t want to spoil too much about our new monsters, new treasures and other goodies we have planned. Our goal is to present players with a taste of the ideas we are working on, and we also want to remain vigilant to the requests and feedback from the players. Your ideas are important to us, and your feedback will help guide us over the course of the year.


Robert “Severlin” Ciccolini

So, based on previous experience over last few years:

Severlin will leave DDO and will move to LOTRO in 6 months top.

Severlin will pretty much stop comunicating on DDO forums in next 14 days. Then, we will hear from him when he announces himself on the LOTRO forums.

Too bad for us - I liked you as a dev Severlin.

Good for your career, I wish you luck.

[Atremus]

Greetings,
Awesome stuff Snipped

Sev,

Can you comment on the rumors of server merges at all?

Also, the stuff you posted looks great.

[DarthCaedus]

Congrats on advancing to the next stepping stone towards LOTRO.

2014 was a great year - 2015 looks to be an even better year!

Thank you to you and your team.

[The_Human_Cypher]

Warlocks? Epic Shavarath? I'm in love <3

The new Warlock class should be introduced with the Shavarath update as they tie in nicely with each other. This might also be the time to introduce the Tiefling race as well (hint, hint). It will be a devilish update indeed.

http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/SRD:Pla...ngs_%28Race%29

[Cleanincubus]

Monster Champions and Mysterious Fragments
Characters facing the game’s toughest challenges have encountered a wide variety of Monster Champions - creatures that have increased skill and power. What is causing this increase in power? As characters investigate the source of this newfound strength they will begin to discover that many of these creatures carry Mysterious Fragments that seem to resonate with strange magical power. Could these fragments be causing these champions and their rise in power? What use could these fragments have for those looking for power?

Monster champions will have a chance to drop Mysterious Fragments. Players can gather these fragments and various agents and interested parties might trade them for a variety of rewards. Rumors of groups offering scrolls, potions, cosmetic items, and even prestigious and rare pets have begun to surface. Organizations do not have unlimited resources. As factions vie for power some agents and rewards might change as the year progresses.

Interesting idea, especially if it goes along with a storyline of sorts. I am however concerned by yet another added collectable/ or ingredient. I already have 2-3 collectable bags & ingredient bags on each of my characters, that are already completely full, and I haven't done many of the higher level quests yet.

Warlock
We are looking into adding a new class during the year, and we are considering the Warlock class. The Warlock creates powerful eldritch blasts to destroy enemies in addition to a variety of spells to aid them in their adventures.

Meh. If we're getting a new class, I'd rather see one that isn't another caster. Honestly, I'd rather see a new race that we've been asking for; Gnomes and Kobolds come to mind. Even better would be new Epic Destinies, and tweaking existing Enhancements & Epic Destinies, as those things would help existing & multiple characters out, rather than just new characters.

New Storylines
The game will introduce a new story arc that will take the players to Shavarath for a new adventure pack. Characters on these adventures will work to prevent a catastrophe. That story will continue as the year progresses to bring the players once again to the Vale of Twilight. New threats have entered the Vale and more powerful challenges await in this chapter of the Vale of Twilight’s history. Defeating this new threat will require you to enter the more dangerous and powerful Vale of Twilight as you increase your level to 30 and obtain new treasures. More powerful items also await from the corrupted Greensteel found in the Vale after recent events have increased the magical power of the area.

Sentient weapons perhaps?

New Festivals
The coming year will bring new festivals; a mimic event where players have to hunt down mimics that have infested all the corners of the land. The autumn will also bring a new seasonal festival that will haunt your favorite places and provide characters with more treats than tricks.

Is the mimic event still going to contain the Mabar items, or will they be moved to the autumn event?


- Other stuff -

Cannith Crafting. If you need more evidence that we want to see it updated, I'm sure there are plenty of threads over the years, but look no further than the comments in Cordovan's weekly Wednesday live stream. Seriously, please don't leave this abandoned any longer.

Missing weapon effects from random loot. Please re-add them back.

Mithral armor and shields. Please make these relevant again. The armor because irrelevant after the introduction of stuff like Magecraft, and then again with the changed to PRR/MRR this past update.

[viktorserak]

Sev, you have no excuse if you mess this up, finally someone who makes things work in charge of choosing which things to make work. Shavrath is my favorite zone, It already has an epic feel to it. Please in the name of all that is holy, unholy, and just plain neutral, work really hard on this guys. Please don't price it at $5. I want $50 worth of awesome, and am prepared to pay for it.

This. Make it an Expansion and I pay for it, buk make it right and worth it.

[Wizza]

If you mess up Shavarath, which is my favorite pack, I'll quit. No pressure.

Besides that, enough with the Power Creep and Overpowered buffs to every class and make level 30 content challenging enough IN A SMART WAY.

Question related: Is update 25 bringing us ONLY Temple of Elemental Evil? No other pack? An update with one quest doesn't sound too exciting..

[dunklezhan]

This is all great stuff. Could only have been better if you'd mentioned cannith crafting. Brilliant.

[Whitehairguy]

Is the new Shav and Vale content going to be new new or just rehashed stuff?

Please, on all the things, make them new new. I'll happily pay for it. Very happily.