I want to get a combined vote on which expansion pack people like, whether it is storyline, gameplay, or something else.
I am predicting that Ravenloft will win, but we will see.
I want to get a combined vote on which expansion pack people like, whether it is storyline, gameplay, or something else.
I am predicting that Ravenloft will win, but we will see.
Chaotic Good but in real life
Not the saltmarsh expansion mind you, but the balance changes. Best update 9/10.
I loved Saltmarsh and the balance changes and new items that came with it myself, it's probably my number 3 expansion (behind ravenloft and, my favorite, the feywild).
Feywild is my favorite, between the environment and quests, the loot, and the enhancement tree tied to it that I use on almost every build I play now.
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Death house still haunts me. Ravenloft is not the best pack but it's definatelly the best expansion via a wide margin.
Shadowfail does too sometimes for all the wrong reasons. It's the worst expansion by far
Bought my first dungeon master's guide in 1992. My favourite part of ddo is coffee and slayers
I think Ravenloft is the best from a quality/design standpoint but on a personal level I enjoy MoTU the most. So I voted MoTU since the poll is asking for favorites.
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Ravenloft is an absolute masterpiece.
im voting for MotU, because it felt the most like an actual expansion pack.
it introduced a new setting, a new hub, had a big chunk of content, a new class, another batch of challenges, and it brought us into epics with destinies.
there was even that introductionary questchain in the harbour to hype the expansion! it felt the most natural evolution of the game.
and honestly, theres just something about the later expansions that feels off to me. the quality is top notch, no questions asked (and im a person that does not care about the loot, i want an actual good experience (not exp!) with the quests and the adventure itself), but everything after motu felt more like just expanded adventure packs then an actual expansion of the game.
Best to worst:-
Ravenloft
Menance of the Underdark
Feywild
Sharn
Saltmarsh
Shadowfell Conspiracy
RL- that was an experience first time through, the others still good but they were adventures
MotU was also the buggiest on launch. Some of that ED and druid stuff was broken for years and it introduced a ton of exploits that have haunted the game. The vision was huge, but the delivery left something to be desired.
I definitely a agree that the buildup around MotU was the best. We had the intro quest line and trailer, and they even *gasp* advertised and it brought in a lot of people. It was a fun time to play, but I think all the SSG xpacks are better products (and I'm guessing were made on much smaller budgets).
Edit:
Ravenloft
Sharn/Feywild
Saltmarsh (I really do like it, but the scale is just much smaller)/MotU (Huge, but introduced a lot of problems)
Shadowfell (Something clearly when wrong with the development here; should have included thunderholme and full enhancement rework)
Last edited by SerPounce; 09-10-2021 at 10:31 AM.
Sabbathiel/Sabathal/Sabath-1
Sarlona
Ravenloft hands down. Don't even have to think about it. When a TRed character of mine is approaching the levels to run it my imagination begins to salivate.
Now if the question was second favorite or to rank them... well then dang it, that's going to take some critical thinking.
When I evaluate a set of adventures my criteria are Story & Characters, Setting & Atmosphere (Aesthetics), Gameplay & Enjoyment, Rewards.
- Story & Characters Was the story interesting? Was I concerned for and invested in the characters? Was the voice-work top-notch? To be fair the voice-work in DDO is almost always top-notch.
- Setting & Atmosphere (Aesthetics) Was the setting visually interesting? Were the interiors and exteriors of the quests immersing me in the story? Did the aesthetics make me feel a part of a grand adventure?
- Gameplay & Enjoyment Were the quests fun? Were there mechanics that made me look forward eagerly to the quests or dread some boring, compulsory portion that impeded progress without being necessary to the story? Were the villains/mobs/etc thoughtfully placed in the quest or were they clone-stamped down in little matching groups every x-meters just because? Were the puzzles/mini-games appropriate to the theme of the quest and storyline in which they've been placed?
- Rewards This doesn't mean what you think it means. I'm not talking XP or even named items, necessarily. More the mechanics of the rewards. Did this adventure pack/expansion have rewards that required massive grinding or could you get most of what you needed (for one character) in one or two play throughs? Was there excessive randomness to the rewards such as was in the old s/s/s mechanics, or did you have to do the highest difficulty to get the only desirable version of an item (old named items with difficulty versioning). You could grind ToEE for a year and still not have the particular weapon or armor you wanted drop. I still don't feel adequately rewarded for retrieving the Stormreach Beacon from Sharn because no one in Stormreach so much as thanked me.
So if I ranked the Expansions from best to worst based on my criteria it would be:
- Ravenloft
- Menace of the Underdark
- Sharn
- Feywild
- Saltmarsh
- Shadowfell
Although if I'm being honest with myself Feywild and Saltmarsh could be interchangeable on the list. I really love the aesthetics and atmosphere of Feywild and Feytwisted chests were just straight up genius but I will forever feel like Feywild was rushed and there just wasn't enough to it. It needed more quests, a larger wilderness zone, more optionals, some of the quests are too much repetition with nothing really of interest such as Combatting Corruption, others are overly convoluted without a logical progression of story as you explore such as A Frosty Reception, which I like by the way but I can hear my husband's teeth grind the moment we enter. Saltmarsh has a wonderful salty boondock atmosphere and most of the quests are a pleasure to run with more story and optionals if you want them.
Shadowfell is last, will always be last because of so many things... I hate fighting Shadarkai, I hate having to change my graphic settings for the purple glow of blinding, named items with random effects *smh, rolls eyes*, I only really enjoy Mirror and most the Stormhorn quests. The quest giver named items have almost always been lame. I usually like Urban wilderness zones, I love the Chronoscope raid for this reason but Wheloon *blech*. However the Stormhorns are gorgeous and I love them dearly. Oh and voice-work, the weaselly, venomous sounding Netherese... Idk, just too much of it maybe? They set my teeth on edge. I often turn off narration when running Wheloon so that's two things - Narration and Graphics that I change to run that content. Not a pleasure.
Blood Scented Axe Body Spray (Thelanis)Aelonwy - Wydavir - Metaluscious - Aertimys - Phantastique - Kaelaria - Lunaura - Aelurawynn - Saurscha - Crystalorn - Aurvaeyn - Vaelyns - Wyllowynd
Nice post and I pretty much agree with all of it but the part I quoted I think is actually key to the difference between those packs that get known as great and those that are just good. Ravenloft dripped atmosphere from the moment you stepped in and the feel of the place made quests that could have been boring dungeon crawls into some of the most popular quests in the game. As an example Death house is a pretty run of the mill quest if you just look at the quest design and story board but everything in there from the look of the house to the simple yet incredibly effective sound makes it feel so much more. The same could be said for the Schynd quests in MOTU. They all have a great aesthetic and despite being quite small maps for the most part manage to give an impression of being a small part of a much larger whole.
I think this is a part of the problem with Sharn for me. For a place that's known for the verticality of its structure all the quests feel quite flat (I will make an exception for reach but tbh that's the only quest where I felt like I was in Sharn). I don't think it ever really got the feel of being a place where height was a major factor. A lot of the quests I thought were great (some comparable or better than RL) as far as mechanics and story went but the atmosphere just felt too closed in and horizontal.
Many of DDO expansions are outstanding material, but Menace of the Underdark takes the crown for so many reasons it would take several pages to explain. An extremely concise explanation:
As DDOWiki states, WB supported Turbine (later SSG, now daybreakgames?) with some million dollars, and IMHO Turbine put them to good use. Bear in mind Neverwinter MMO was not a thing in those days. Quality and quantity of storylines, assets, mechanics (not just player-wise, even DM-wise), maps (quality differs, but still): three player hubs -the rift, the cavern, eveningstar-, four wilderness zones (Underdark is still my favorite wilderness to this day, with some of the best random encounters too), the story arcs with a proper conclusion to each arc, all building towards a raid against one of DnD iconic gods while helping Elminster himself, etc.
Ravenloft, a masterpiece by itself, has to be a close second -amazing art and art direction, maps, mechanics, quests...- but still.
Hmmm interesting. I got a different impression from Sharn. House of Pain for instance took advantage of the verticality. You get glimpses and suggestions of it here and there such as Vaunt's escape in Sharn Welcome and our subsequent drop through the smoke stack? The window (very nice touch) in No Refunds. Just Business could have used more of it certainly, optionals accessible only by climbing below the cloud floor or climbing above the reach of the sky sleds would have worked. It was different but I think the tech for the sky sleds was too limiting for what they ultimately wanted.
I think what Sharn really, really needed to feel solid was a portion of the "wilderness zone" to be the middle city with a few recognizable locations from the quests. For instance if the bar from House of Pain and its surroundings were part of an entry map that connected in some real physically-going-down way to the Cogs and was connected in some way to the map from Red Rain or even just a portion of it then you would get a feel for a "real" interconnected city. The issue with the sky-taxi just teleporting you inside all the quests is it feels disconnected and surreal and looses integrity.
To be fair, I purchased the following Sharn pack immediately on its release and I do feel it adds to the cityscape and imaginary conception of Sharn, but I realize its not part of the Sharn expansion.
Because they did not do that... they could sometime in the future make another Sharn pack with a Middle-city urban wilderness zone, and so long as they re-use some of the locations from the quests even if its just exteriors like the exterior of the bar in Same Old Song it will spark recognition and pleasure and give players a sense of where locations are in relation to each other... something sadly missing due to the over-use of the Skytaxi.
Blood Scented Axe Body Spray (Thelanis)Aelonwy - Wydavir - Metaluscious - Aertimys - Phantastique - Kaelaria - Lunaura - Aelurawynn - Saurscha - Crystalorn - Aurvaeyn - Vaelyns - Wyllowynd