Thoughts on a Ravenloft Expansion

[GoldyGopher]

As Severlin has already announced in general terms that DDO is getting a Expansion in Late 2017 centered on Ravenloft Campaign setting, I'd like to express my thoughts.

Unless you can do something to knock my socks off Ravenloft is not really the expansion I want to see. It's not that Ravenloft isn't an entertaining campaign setting, well actually they first two modules were great, the campaign setting was just pretty average. It's the fact the first two modules were so revolutionary at the time they were released it was kind of mind blowing. It will be really difficulty to compete not only with original source material, but the memories of the collective player base are virtually impossible to live up to.
I would much rather you expanded an existing campaign setting, either Eberron or Forgotten Realms, that are in DDO. For the forumites who may not know Greyhawk has not been licensed as of yet, even though we have some content that originally was located in that setting in PnP.

You have different avenues to choose from when it comes to price and expectation.
Daybreak Games and SOE have released 23 expansions for Everquest costing between $30 and $40 each. Each Expansion typically includes 3 to 4 new zones and revamps 3 to 4 older zones. In comparison to DDO a Zone would be an adventure pack.
Blizzard has released six expansions for World of Warcraft costing between $50 and $75 each. Each Expansion has six to twelve zones, a level cap increase, new class/race, new “items” and game play adjustments. Again a zone would be comparable to Adventure pack in DDO.
Turbine released five expansions for Lord of the Rings Online costing between $40 and $60 each. Each Expansion has a large landscape comparable to five or six adventure packs in DDO, along with new game play options (mounted combat, skirmishes), level cap increase and the continuation of the LOTR storyline.

So what would I like out of a DDO expansion? It is going to depend on the cost.
If you are going to offer me Two Adventure Packs, make a change to Game System, add a class, and some other minor changes or updates that is very comparable to Shadowfell Conspiracy, well that worth $30 to $40 to me. Not the $90 I paid for the Collector’s Edition and the Legendary Upgrade Offer.
If you are going to offer Three Adventure Packs, a Challenge Pack, a raid, add a class, add a Game System, and other changes, that is very comparable to Menace of the Underdark that worth the $30 to $80 I paid for it.
Guess which expansion knocked my socks off?

The rumor mill, from people who could be in the know, is suggesting; three Adventure Packs, a couple of races, a raid, and some other minor changes. That to me could be worth $50 to $75. I would like to see options for players, from a basic edition of $30, an Epic Edition of $50, and a Legendary Edition of $75.
To me this rumor indicates a public instance for the Village of Bavoria, with Wilderness Adventure Zones in the the Svalich Woods, the Ivlis Marsh and the Tser River (AKA the Ivlish River), with Castle Ravenloft as the setting for a Raid. I say that knowing the rumors have not directly suggested those zones but they fit the rumor.

I would like to see the Ravenloft Campaign setting use more of open landscape approach to the game. Not that I want an open landscape game, but rather I want the zones to use Dynamic Layers allowing us to have private instances but no loading screens (unless we change instances). This is what we supposed to get with MOTU but it got dropped along the way.

One of the the things that has really helped the revival of Everquest to me is the emphasis upon reworking/revising older Zones to bring them up to "modern" standards. I really think that is something the SSG has to do with DDO. Too many "adventure packs" whether free or available for purchase have fallen to the level of almost unplayable as the game has grown. I feel including a renewal of a couple of these in expansion pack will bring a lot more excitement to the fan base in really increase sales.

Just my two CP worth, so SSG go create something to knock my socks off.

[Sam-u-r-eye]

great post mate

[Chimmy]

In my opinion honestly there is no better dnd MMO on the market currently in terms of scope and depth, that alone has the potential to draw "new" and old players alike forever so long as dnd retains its sub-cultural popularity and it continues to provide us with new and interesting things.

The distinction I want to make there is "new and interesting" doesn't at all mean new dungeons to me specifically, renewing older dungeons, updating mechanics and adding new paths and options to existing dungeons gives old things a "new and interesting" feel to them, enough to keep players wanting to retry dungeons and try new things, rebalances can also do this for me as I can spend weeks investigating just meta mechanic changes personally.

So I think I really agree with the sentiment of the OP, I think almost every player, old and new, first and foremost want quality of life updates and real maintenance to existing systems to take priority over more new gear and adventures, at least for right now, as there is LOADS of GREAT content already, and more and more of it is being diminished by a lack of focus on QOL and a continued focus on new adventures (and reaper).

[Nestroy]

I think that a Ravenloft(tm) Expansion of DDO would be great. Mostly because of the synergies already existing between the tone of Eberron and the tone of Ravenloft. Ravenloft is Gothic Horror. The Eberron setting provides quite a lot of Steampunk elements, but as much as has been done on DDO there are quite a lot of Gothic Horror style elements already in place. Just think of the whole epic Orchard setting. Think about Necro I - IV. Or think about the ToD raid. Furthermore, most Ravenloft monsters already can be found in DDO.

So from a developers perspective, introducing Ravenloft style quests into DDO is not that big a problem. In truth, it would need just a bunch of individual end bosses, perhaps a few new wall skins and a cool story. This could be even done on a small budget as of DDO.

I would really look forward for such an expansion.

[Chimmy]

I think that a Ravenloft(tm) Expansion of DDO would be great.

Don't get me wrong I also think this (maybe replace the word would with could, but yeah agreed).

And I don't think they should stop working on new dungeons entirely as that would be crazy, but priorities-wise, for the right now, QOL should be on the top of the list (and underlined with red marker, and some exclamation points wouldn't hurt).

[Sam-u-r-eye]

QOL should be on the top of the list (and underlined with red marker, and some exclamation points wouldn't hurt).

agreed

[Gremmlynn]

And I don't think they should stop working on new dungeons entirely as that would be crazy, but priorities-wise, for the right now, QOL should be on the top of the list (and underlined with red marker, and some exclamation points wouldn't hurt).

I feel what should be top priority for them is really a matter of what their cash flow situation is, which we really don't know.

What I mean is, if they can get by and keep the player base interested while polishing the existing game that would be great. But if financial realities dictate they concentrate on new saleable product to keep the lights on, that's what we'll see.

Frankly, I feel their likely best plan would to concentrate on expanding the player base if that's feasible for a game at this stage in it's "life". A bigger customer base would give them much more flexibility in whatever they decide to do with the game.

[Hazelnut]

I didn't bother to read any of your suggestions. I just like the title. So, instead I'm going to offer my totally crazy suggestion...

During one of the upcoming updates, a new npc shows up. If a player talk to him, he offers to let them into a part of the city that has been closed off for a while (say Summerfield after the Attack on Stormreach). If you say yes, you can go through a swirly door (like opening a quest, complete with choosing a difficulty).

Once inside you find yourself inside a large abandoned suburb like place with a park in the middle and a spooky mansion on the top of a hill in the park. There are no mobs, no chests, and no quest goals. You can walk into the houses and explore. They all look long abandoned. You can walk into the mansion. Likewise it looks long abandoned.

There is a door in the basement of the mansion that is locked and not pickable by rogues (may the rogues guild forgive me).

An update or two later, another NPC shows up inside the area. Clicking on him you find that he is offering to sell you the deed to one of the houses (for Astral Shards). If you buy it, you get a scroll with an address on it. When you walk into the house at that address, you find that there is now a butler in the house and you can rent amenities and staff (the old ship buffs). Without the deed, you walk into the abandoned type buildings unless you are in a party with someone who has a deed, then you go into their house). Welcome to player housing!

Deeds are not bound in any way (so people can give them as gifts or trade them).
The player housing works pretty much like a small airship but for individuals. (basically re-skinned hold of an airship).

An update or two later, an undead mob occasionally shows up when someone is at home (say a 1% chance on entering). The mobs start at CR 1 and gain a single challenge rating value each time a new one spawns (up to say character-level +10 of the PC with the deed).

On the following halloween undead start coming out of the mansion (and a bunch of spawn points throughout the suburb area) on the hill and attacking anyone in the suburb area (like the event from oh so long ago in the marketplace). A party going into the mansion on the hill will find secreted somewhere a red-named necromancer. If they kill him, they get a key that unlocks that door in the basement. Then the hard part begins.

Welcome to Ravenloft and Player housing all in one place.

[zehnvhex]

- I want a bunch of new raid/dungeon specific crafting that will fill up my bag with junk that I throw out years later when it gets obsoleted by even newer raid/dungeon specific crafting.

- I want a bunch of dungeons that are just single corridors with large packs of 20+ mobs and the occasional boss fight and maybe one phoned in puzzle.

- Please have a really annoying graphic effect that makes it impossible to see what you're doing. Maybe have the entire world occasionally turn yellow?

- I want some ML 29 loot that I'll never actually use because there's no substantial end game content. So it'll just sit in my bags except for the 2 hours it takes me to hit 30 and TR again.

- Make sure there's an explorer area that's needlessly tedious to get through with extremely sparse mob population with 2 missing rares that 3 years later still don't get added to the game

- Be sure to not QA the experience values for the quests at all. It should take 40+ minutes to complete some of them but only grant 23k xp on completion.

- Throw in some basic grammar/spelling mistakes just for kicks and grins. Those are always a treat.

- Don't forget one quest to have a ton of kobolds because we aren't sick of those yet.

- Some new challenge missions for rewards that were bad 2 years before they were released that don't reset their XP values like normal quest ransack making them only worth doing once per TR would be nice

- Give me a ton of new BoA items that I can force into my TR cache. That thing isn't big enough yet.

- Put spell wards everywhere! No, we don't want new or interesting traps, you know, that thing that is unique to DDO and adds greatly to its charm. Naaaw. I want more glowing red and green runes because those are fun!

There we go.

[Aelonwy]

*snip* Welcome to Ravenloft and Player housing all in one place.

Creative, interesting, and sounds like fun. Devs, please take note.

[Krell]

Content wise, I'm hoping for something more than Shadowfell Conspiracy and closer to Menace of the Underdark. I feel like we have lots of classes and races. I'd mainly like to see more content, items, raids, and in particular, new art. The typical series of 3 quests and a series cap quest seems a bit long per sitting. Maybe have more series of 3 quests.

I do like the idea some others have mentioned where we would get some new series, and some older series would be updated. I think many of the original low level quests make the game look bad to new players. If it was up to me I would either update them or replace them over time.

One item I would really like to see is avatar updates. Better art and animation would put a fresher face on the game. It would also be nice to have some limited control on height and width. I can imagine there are many challenges with making existing items fit, but maybe some smart people there can figure out a method to auto-scale. Maybe that could tie into a better overall armor look, instead of having pieces attached to a skin. Also give us more color. Almost all armor has drab, faded, and dingy colors.

Adding some new weapon types could be nice too. That is one thing we really haven't seen changed since the game started.

Wilderness areas - I don't feel like we get the right bang for the development buck with them currently. Except for some areas that scale mobs with party size, slayer XP isn't great. I don't see many slayer LFMs except for the scaling areas and we know that is a laggy mechanic. Explorers are interesting once but XP isn't great and the map benefit is lost with a TR/IR, so the incentive for the time seems low. Same with rares. Most the time they are pretty backgrounds used to run to a quest, that you hope you can eventually teleport to. Think of some ways to make wilderness areas more desirable. Maybe a method to collect crafting materials in rare chests? The named items in 3BC made that area popular for a while. Explorers give access to teleport points or shortcuts? Favor for slayers?