Maybe a Retro server?

[Sonoma]

The Hardcore server was a great idea. The players had a ball, and I hope SSG did well by it too. On the surface, it appears to have required a minimum of effort to develop. Maybe an 'immediate release to a single spirit binder' for the permadeath part, and probably more difficult coding for rules and handling the overflow crowds. But what do I know, I haven't coded much of anything since we lost the first shuttle.

But I was wondering what the minimum effort would be to catch the spirit of the very early DDO.

First would be the races: human, hafling, dwarf, and elf. Blank out all other options in that page of character creation.
Second would be the classes: barb, bard, cleric, fighter, paladin, rogue, sorc, wiz. Same.
Third, disable all universal trees: harper, knife fighter, inquisitive, falconry.

Now the hard part: all of the power creep of a dozen years. I suspect that reproducing the class trees of that era would be overly difficult. Maybe just blanking out certain options of the current trees would do, especially the ubiquitous self-healing enhancements. Perfection is not required, just a taste of nostalgia.

The power creep of the quests (all the early ones were really easy) would be more than matched by that of gear. Leave crafting, ship buffs, etc as they are. Or, not, depending on demand. This could become an annual event with improvements, like Night Revels, as I expect Hardcore will be.

Discussions and flames are expected.

So, begin.

[Phoenicis]

I want them to restore the old quests.

So many old quests now have 1-2 mobs where there used to be 6-10

So many quests now have traps, but they don't fire, and the trap boxes have been removed.

Oh, sorry, you were talking about the next limited time server...

[Arkat]

I can't count how many times a "retro"-type server has been suggested, yet not a single move has ever been made by Turbine/SSG to even discuss one, let alone implement one.

That leads me to believe it will never happen.

It also leads me to wonder whether they even have a copy of the code for the game when the level cap was 20 or lower? Somehow, I doubt it.

[droid327]

Oh man I wouldnt even want to ask the devs to have to maintain two separate versions of the code at once...

[Sonoma]

That leads me to believe it will never happen.

Probably not, and the Hardcore experience may have been close enough for most. But the servers were down, the forums were not, and I had the time. But, if SSG found the return was worth the effort on Hardcore, maybe yes.

[darkniteyogi]

The parameters of this could be done by players and by forming a group/guild similar to the GIMP concept.

Feats/enhancements, allowed items etc can be proposed in an organized manner. I think what may be difficult is also if devs are involved, agreeing with exactly how to implement it would be harder since it would now be official and ppl would complain more. More drama

[Impaqt]

Outside of content, the devs should be working on how to combine all the servers down to one.

THe population is far too sparse right now. fracturing it further will do no good.

temp hardcore was bad enough on the general population.

[Kutalp]

Retro is good.



Rpg + Retro = Win.