U42 Preview 3: 4/30-5/02

[Satyriasys]

Nope. The Cogs explorer area is a Masterminds of Sharn feature and, as such, adding new dungeons to it in the future would require anyone who wanted to access those to have purchased the adventure pack. Similar reason to why we've never added more dungeons to the Underdark explorer area.

That being said, this does not mean we can't add more dungeons that take place in the cogs, more public areas in the cogs, more cogs wilderness areas, etc. It's just that any future cogs related content will either be part of the Masterminds of Sharn pack (not likely) or not physically located in the Cogs wilderness area that is being released with U42.

You guys really need to rethink this position. There is so much wasted potential in this game because of access to these areas. So many wonderful explorer areas that go unused. What's the point in restricting access to them if nobody is using them in the first place? Couldn't you just grant access to these areas if someone owns a pack within them?

[thomascoolone64]

With the recent delay of the live server release of Update 42 (which you can read about here) we have gained time for one final Lamannia preview. This third, and final, preview is expected to be open on Lamannia from sometime in the afternoon of Tuesday April 30th until sometime in the evening of Thursday May 2nd. There is planned to be a Dev event on Wednesday May 1st from 8-10PM eastern where members of the DDO team will be available on lamannia to answer questions, collect feedback, and run content with players. Preview 3 is expected to showcase all of Update 42 features in various states of polish including:

• Sharn Public Areas
• Cogs Explorer Area
• 9 Sharn Story Dungeons
• 8 Cogs Explorer Dungeons (Yup! We managed our stretch goal and now fully expect an additional explorer dungeon than we were willing to commit to at the time of pre-purchase announcement.)
• 1 Masterminds of Sharn Raid (The only one releasing at the same time as Update 42)
• Named Loot
• Minor Artifacts
• Filigree
• Miscellaneous smaller changes and fixes

We are very excited to have the chance for a final look through of all of Update 42 by our players. We would love feedback from every player that has the time to come check it out! We expect to have a much more polished and finished feeling experience in the third preview than the second and hope you all can help us put those final touches on this new expansion. <3

Meaning the Reverberation Filigree is doing Sonic instead of Acid? Sweetness! thanks!

[jwelch]

Since we're sort of talking about "like to see's", I'd love to see the deathward/instakill stuff in reaper levels made more consistent. For example, some runs, R1, there's a deathward against some effects but not others. So you can't assassinate/QP/EIN, but hurl, finger, mass frog work fine. It's not a showstopper, but it's annoying as heck because there's no consistency. Sometimes, it's higher level reapers where this happens. Sometimes, it's R1.

Pick something and stick with it. Also, if you're going to nerf instakills in reaper, (a thing I am not opposed to in and of itself), then nerf all of them, not just for some kinds.

[Xgya]

Since we're sort of talking about "like to see's", I'd love to see the deathward/instakill stuff in reaper levels made more consistent. For example, some runs, R1, there's a deathward against some effects but not others. So you can't assassinate/QP/EIN, but hurl, finger, mass frog work fine. It's not a showstopper, but it's annoying as heck because there's no consistency. Sometimes, it's higher level reapers where this happens. Sometimes, it's R1.

Pick something and stick with it. Also, if you're going to nerf instakills in reaper, (a thing I am not opposed to in and of itself), then nerf all of them, not just for some kinds.

Some critters are naturally immune to necromancy. Constructs, for example.
Those can't be Fingered, Wailed, Destroyed out of existence.
However, EiN, QP, Hurl and Mass Frog aren't flagged as necromancy, so they work on these. So will Assassinate, since a recent change.

Normal Death Ward (and deathblock) protecting from those was done as a balance pass. This means deathblocked champs cannot be Hurled, though that wasn't always the case.

[Mychael]

Will the Sharn expansion include the new look half elf and PDK?

[Dragavon]

Nope. The Cogs explorer area is a Masterminds of Sharn feature and, as such, adding new dungeons to it in the future would require anyone who wanted to access those to have purchased the adventure pack. Similar reason to why we've never added more dungeons to the Underdark explorer area.

You guys should change this policy.

Explore areas should be open to all, only quests should be specific to adventure packs.

Then you could add quests in any explore area you want. That would be better for everyone.

I would really love more quests in the Underdark, it is such an awesome area.

[Cocomajobo]

Hey, all!

Popping in to keep everyone updated. The preview candidate build that we hoped to open on Lamannia later today has failed approvals and, as such, the preview has been delayed. At this time I do not have an eta as I need to wait till the rest of the dev team gets back in the office in the morning to fix the issues present in the current build (a highly variable amount of time), then kick off a new build (which takes roughly 6 hours), and then for QA to go through the approval process again (takes between 2 and 4 hours).

It is possible, though not super likely, that we could still open in the evening of 4/30. It wouldn't be the first time we'd pumped out that sort of turnaround time on a build for preview/release, however, I think it's a safer bet that we'd have a preview ready to open on 5/01. Nothing set in stone at this moment. I'll attempt to keep you posted as things develop.

[sudzz]

You guys should change this policy.

Explore areas should be open to all, only quests should be specific to adventure packs.

Then you could add quests in any explore area you want. That would be better for everyone.

I would really love more quests in the Underdark, it is such an awesome area.

The problem would be is that explorer areas are an area that gives XP, monster manual entries, some named items (sands) as well as hours of game play, I think you would find it incredibly difficult to suggest to a business to give away this much for free to all.

[Hara]

With regard to adding new quests into existing areas I fail to see a problem, simply add new npc/ quest entrances into the existing areas. In order to access the new content you would need to own the original content. The new content would only be available to buy for people who had the original content or as part of an expanded pack that included both parts.

There are many areas crying out for more quests, Stormhorns is huge, so too Kings Forest, plus other areas are almost devoid of quests, one off the marketplace full of drow and pirates, I forget the name. Expanding the content within these areas would likely encourage those who don't currently own them to do so.

[janave]

Hey, all!

Popping in to keep everyone updated. The preview candidate build that we hoped to open on Lamannia later today has failed approvals and, as such, the preview has been delayed. At this time I do not have an eta as I need to wait till the rest of the dev team gets back in the office in the morning to fix the issues present in the current build (a highly variable amount of time), then kick off a new build (which takes roughly 6 hours), and then for QA to go through the approval process again (takes between 2 and 4 hours).

It is possible, though not super likely, that we could still open in the evening of 4/30. It wouldn't be the first time we'd pumped out that sort of turnaround time on a build for preview/release, however, I think it's a safer bet that we'd have a preview ready to open on 5/01. Nothing set in stone at this moment. I'll attempt to keep you posted as things develop.

5/01 is International Workers' Day

[Dragavon]

The problem would be is that explorer areas are an area that gives XP, monster manual entries, some named items (sands) as well as hours of game play, I think you would find it incredibly difficult to suggest to a business to give away this much for free to all.

I belive it would be good for the game if they did this. And I think people would be inclined to purchase packs if they are running around in an explore area and then find a dungeon entrance.

We are seeing that SSG have done several improvements to the game, just to make things better, even if it does not translate directly into sales. When it was Turbine it was very much the beancounters that decided what was done.

[sudzz]

I belive it would be good for the game if they did this. And I think people would be inclined to purchase packs if they are running around in an explore area and then find a dungeon entrance.

We are seeing that SSG have done several improvements to the game, just to make things better, even if it does not translate directly into sales. When it was Turbine it was very much the beancounters that decided what was done.

the people know the dungeons are there already, the adventure compendium list all available quests, this would make packs less value for money as you would not get as much bang for bucks if a large part of the pack is free and for some packs the areas are a very big part of the pack and can take hours to explore the first time at least, and despite SSG not being as bean oriented as Turbine the effort needed to make explorers public areas detached from the packs they are part of would be a huge use of dev time to implement and some packs are part of the upgrade packs that even VIP pay to get into would have plenty folks screaming out for a payback to what was paid for with real world money that is now free.

[Aelonwy]

the people know the dungeons are there already, the adventure compendium list all available quests, this would make packs less value for money as you would not get as much bang for bucks if a large part of the pack is free and for some packs the areas are a very big part of the pack and can take hours to explore the first time at least, and despite SSG not being as bean oriented as Turbine the effort needed to make explorers public areas detached from the packs they are part of would be a huge use of dev time to implement and some packs are part of the upgrade packs that even VIP pay to get into would have plenty folks screaming out for a payback to what was paid for with real world money that is now free.

Its been brought up before. I happen to own ALL quest, challenge, and Wilderness zone content and I wouldn't mind the Wilderness zones being made free content but you are correct that there are certainly others that would have the opposite opinion. My only reluctance would hinge on whether or not making Wilderness zones free content would affect their creation and quality and I fear that it might.

However, I think some compromises could be made. Some older/oldest zones could be made F2P with everyone that currently owns them getting a 50 or 100 DDO pt grant or something similar so that areas such as Tangleroot, Sorrowdusk, and possibly Reaver's Reach, Restless Isles could get more quests (in the form of new adventure packs). This could be done to see how the community responds. Alternatively, new adventure packs in existing wilderness zones could duplicate ownership/access to the zone possibly with a discount for people that have already paid for the zone by owning the original pack. Otherwise the method I spoke of in post#12 sounds reasonable.

[jwelch]

Some critters are naturally immune to necromancy. Constructs, for example.
Those can't be Fingered, Wailed, Destroyed out of existence.
However, EiN, QP, Hurl and Mass Frog aren't flagged as necromancy, so they work on these. So will Assassinate, since a recent change.

Normal Death Ward (and deathblock) protecting from those was done as a balance pass. This means deathblocked champs cannot be Hurled, though that wasn't always the case.

Except in reaper dungeons those rules don't apply. Really. I watch it happen a lot, like with Baba for example, how the wisps are remarkably immune to things like EIN.

As I said, I don't actually have a problem with <some level of reaper> = no instakills. I am saying that a) maybe not in low levels of reaper, i.e. apply it at say, reaper 4 and above, so folks can use low reaper levels as the "reaper training wheels" runs and b) be more consistent about it.

I think at reaper 10, there's a lot of stuff that shouldn't work. Completing even a short r10 run should be an accomplishment whose success is not a given.


also, Tomb of Horrors plzkthxbye. <solely because it's been a while since I whined for that one.>

[kain741]

Hey, all!

Popping in to keep everyone updated. The preview candidate build that we hoped to open on Lamannia later today has failed approvals and, as such, the preview has been delayed. At this time I do not have an eta as I need to wait till the rest of the dev team gets back in the office in the morning to fix the issues present in the current build (a highly variable amount of time), then kick off a new build (which takes roughly 6 hours), and then for QA to go through the approval process again (takes between 2 and 4 hours).

It is possible, though not super likely, that we could still open in the evening of 4/30. It wouldn't be the first time we'd pumped out that sort of turnaround time on a build for preview/release, however, I think it's a safer bet that we'd have a preview ready to open on 5/01. Nothing set in stone at this moment. I'll attempt to keep you posted as things develop.

So even though it is delayed could we get the notes and updated gear to consider?

[Arkat]

5/01 is International Workers' Day

So? What does that have to do with anything? We don't observe that day in the US.

[Cordovan]

Will the Sharn expansion include the new look half elf and PDK?

No. That has not been scheduled yet as far as I am aware.

[GramercyRiff]

So even though it is delayed could we get the notes and updated gear to consider?

Yes please do this.

[Evean]

(EDIT: Hey, all!

Popping in to keep everyone updated. The preview candidate build that we hoped to open on Lamannia later today has failed approvals and, as such, the preview has been delayed. At this time I do not have an eta as I need to wait till the rest of the dev team gets back in the office in the morning to fix the issues present in the current build (a highly variable amount of time), then kick off a new build (which takes roughly 6 hours), and then for QA to go through the approval process again (takes between 2 and 4 hours).

It is possible, though not super likely, that we could still open in the evening of 4/30. It wouldn't be the first time we'd pumped out that sort of turnaround time on a build for preview/release, however, I think it's a safer bet that we'd have a preview ready to open on 5/01. Nothing set in stone at this moment. I'll attempt to keep you posted as things develop.)

I’m pretty sure that took longer to write than “Very Soon™.” Thank you.

[Ryiah]

I think you would find it incredibly difficult to suggest to a business to give away this much for free to all.

There are tons of free to play MMOs that give away far more content than this company and are far more successful too.