The Weekly Development Activities

[Juni]

I think this is a very bad PR move. As a very active player and guild leader I would check the WDA every time it was updated. I even promoted them to my guildies that never check the ddo forums. This was a great way to watch for small changes and bug fixes. You have alot of members out there that would only hop on to the forums to check the WDA just to make a quick run down on some of the stuff that was being fixed or changed.

Most of us long time online gamers know that the closer to MOD the less updates to the WDA there will be. We also know that you are not going to post every single detail of the MOD. But, the small fixes, enhancement changes, dungeons changes, and general fixes changes was a great way to keep people interested in the game and the up coming MODs.

The sad truth is this is going to just become another game where we get no information from the DEVs except what they release to Tentonhammer and the like. Which then gets completed reworded by the writer mixing everything up and only publishing what they feel is important not what the community feels is important. Then release of the newest MOD goes live yeah we know all about the new raid because of the very detailed Tentonhammer write-up but we know nothing about changes that will effect our characters.

We may see alot of DEV activity between now and MOD 8 but my bet is by MOD 9 the DEVs will be hushed and no new info will be released putting the players in a complete state of panic and confusion.

[moorewr]

I was attempting to make a point of how a seemingly simple game can in fact become incredibly complex as you learn more about it. Heck, for an even simpler game, check out Go. I'm sure that's dumb enough for even a 5 year old ^_^

HEY! Don't be hating on Go! What's the quote? "Easy to learn, difficult to master!"

The RULES are very simple, but the rules are just the beginning.


EDIT: oh, the death of the WDA. I'm unhappy, but if you prove you have another avenue of discussion, then OK. So I am withholding judgment. If this turns into one more wall of silence I will be .. more unhappy.

When the development team goes to reconsider AP costs, stances, all that clean-up stuff, will there be some new way they can inform us, discuss with us? Or we just have to wait for release notes to find out things like - say - you were finally fixing the DC for fascinate, or finally fixing overlapping walls of fire? Any reason those should be "under wraps?"

[EspyLacopa]

HEY! Don't be hating on Go! What's the quote? "Easy to learn, difficult to master!"

The RULES are very simple, but the rules are just the beginning.

Which, by the way, was the entire point of my arguement.

The rules of 4e are simple. Now add Humans.

[MysticTheurge]

The last game I came from had impeccable communication with devs and players. They wouldn't answer every newb posters' question of course, but almost all the time when someone listed stats, numbers, etc... and asked, is this right? Is this working as intended, someone would be along to double check it or simply say.. yeah, that's what we were going for.

I understand the game's aren't the same thing... But Turbine should be doing a lot better.

And who knows. Now that they're spending less time collecting and compiling weekly updates on the things they're doing, maybe they'll have more time to answer people's direct questions.

[dragnmoon]

Which, by the way, was the entire point of my arguement.

The rules of 4e are simple. Now add Humans.

Espy...Do you even play DDO anymore?

I can't remember the last time I saw you online...

[Helmet]

i know my company's marketing department and be fully trusted to handle everything they need too

[Montrose]

Extremely well-written and balanced feedback Ustice. Nicely done.

My initial reaction to the cancelling of WDA posts is one of disappointment, though I am trying to keep an open mind. I can imagine a world where the WDA is unnecessary because there are many press releases and teasers floating around to hint at the new and exciting features in development. However, I am uncertain that the volume and/or cadence of these releases will deliver the same value as the WDA.

Rarely have I seen a strategy of silence work in the favor of a company. Without clear information the FUD and DOOM posts come in to fill the void. If there are no credible sources to prove these stories wrong, people start to buy into the negative hype.

I'll continue to be very cautiously optimistic about this decision, and hope that faith will be justified soon.

I doubt that this will be read by anyone that matters, and I also doubt that I will be saying anything new here, but what the heck.

I think that this is a terrible decision. I understand that you need to hold back content updates for publicity reasons, and that by doing so you will increase the number of new players that aren't reading the forums. I understand that right now, the next stuff is in a state of flux as well, and so you don't have a lot to announce that is nailed down yet. I understand how all of this sounds like a good idea, but it isn't, and here's why.

Mod 7 is out. Congrats, and thank you very much. In Mod 7 we saw the Monk, some mid level quests, a new explorer area, 2 raids, a town, and some crafting tweaks (and a cool little event that didn't last long, and was likely not as balanced as it should be. Really? Argo... last??). Here's the issue. Mod 7 was pushed back from it's planned date. It may have not been officially announced, but when you say quarterly updates that usually means 4 a year, or every 3 months, and that was our expectation. Mod 6 basically brought us a new raid and crafting (within that raid). Before that we had the raid that couldn't be beat (it has been since, but it is still buggy and requires too much luck).

What this all adds up to is very little in the way of new things to do at the high-level end in quite some time. For the last month of the game prior to Mod 7, I basically had stopped playing. Part of that is I had things going on in my life that made it less easy to play, but part was I was getting bored. When Mod 7 came out, I eagerly jumped on at the first opportunity, and you know what I wound up doing? More of the same stuff. Everyone was running the old raids to open the new. Great. I'm all for helping out, but this felt like a stretch for time by grinding (which I think that the latest mods have added too much of). Sure, I can make a monk, but I am more of a casual player, and find it tough to keep up with more than one character at a time. I have a bard that is fun to play, but he is stuck at level 10 (I think) and has been for months now.

One of the main reasons that kept me interested was the info that we get with the WDA. So while I wasn't able to get new features on a monthly basis like we used to, at least I could see what was coming, and imagine how great the game is going to be. It kept my interest in the game at a reasonably constant level (which really was helped by willphase's devtracker rss hack).

Now I am faced with a different future. Not only do I likely have a 4-5 month wait for new content (above the 5 month wait I already had, since very little of it I will be interacting with), but I don't get the dribbles of info on new features. Instead we have to scour the internet and press for info (yes you will have links, but we will have to read all of the articles for new info instead of having a central source). What you are doing with this is getting new members at the expense of the old.

You have been doing great with making the game better, and you are doing a much better job in the PR and marketing, but you are failing at keeping interest, and are likely to see a lot more churn in the future as a result as regular players start looking elsewhere for that rush of new. I don't see what is wrong with keeping the WDA, even if you don't put as much as you used to, or didn't update some of it until it's official announcement elsewhere. It still would allow you to offer exclusives while keeping community interest.

In short, I hope that you know what you are doing with this. For now, I will accept it, and hope that there is more to come. Just remember that there are a lot of new games that are on the horizon and some offer many of experiences that make DDO so great. Every day that you leave us with little new to do, and little information on what it coming, that stuff starts looking better and better.

[winsom]

The operators of publicity web-sites are not all Turbine paying customers. We on these forums are. I want a lot of useful information forthcoming from Turbine well ahead of the the beginning of each project's quality assurance phase. This gives me and others time to chime in with our opinions of what is important to us. We have to know what is coming early enough that we can give positive and negative feedback that still can have an affect on the development of the game.

I would not have re-subscribed to DDO at all in the last year if it had not been for the WDA that I was able to read as a non-paying forum user. It enticed me to come back two or three times. Turbine needs to use the optimism generated by this kind of early-press to keep customers like me interested in re-subscribing. If I have to wait a very long time for Press Releases and I only get very infrequent development diaries then DDO may loose my interest all together. Listen to this customer! I suspect that many other customers are here thanks to the information in your past WDAs.

Turbine, like many development houses, is detached from their own product. You simply can not play the game enough, due to your profession, to truly know the game as well as your customers know it.

You need useful feedback while things are still in development before too much resource is spent on a game set-back. Many of your paying customers do not trust Turbine's track record of game balance and foresight -- part of this is natural customer concern and part of it is warranted based on past DDO Dev decision-making,. Most of those once-customers are not longer customers, but some of them (like me) come back and pay you more every now and then because we like what we see coming, and we know we have a chance to discuss developments BEFORE they become features on the Preview Server.

It seems that by the time something hits Risia there is almost a zero-possibility that customer feedback can change game features before they go live. That is not a good system. It may be a more typical system, where the developer actually has a better handle on the game system that they entirely-created in-house, but this is a D&D license game and is still based on 3.5 rules as far as I know... As long as DDO is based on extremely complex 3.5 D&D edition game mechanics and check & balances, I believe you need feedback from D&D community of players and game masters. They collectively know the D&D game better than any handful of Devs at Turbine and even better than some representative you are given to talk to at Wizards of the Coast.

What it comes down to is that DDO Turbine NEEDS input and discussion with its customers from an earlier stage than typical Press Release time. I believe the development decisions of the past year at DDO Turbine have been much better than the previous year and better still than the initial devs. I bet that these positive changes in direction were motivated by early feedback from your customers. Perhaps some of those customers became employees? If so then it is they that knew the actual DDO game better than the devs that initially created it, because they spent a lot of time playing it and saw it's flaws.

A select handful of mere 100s (?) on a special test server is not enough of a population to guarantee that Turbine will get the feedback that they need prior to something making it to Risia where it is then almost-impossible to change.

[Azarath]

OK...so I see my post generated some 4.0 hate, which is valid since we're all different and have different views. However, if you read the ENTIRE post, then you saw that what I was TRYING to say in a COMICAL way is this:

IF this game is EVER gonna convert to 4.0, it would be a LONG time in the future due to the current production rate for this game.

That said, 4.0 is a good starter set to introduce someone to D&D before giving them the more complex ruleset of 3.5. WOC did exactly what they set out to do with 4.0, which is make an easier set of rules with similar classes and races that had just enough in common and just enough separate to make it interesting. Yes, I noted that in the point buy you start with one 8, but that is easily offset by racial adjustment. Yes, I noticed that Magic Missile is a save attack after I wrote the first post, but it still does more damage than currently until you hit 5th level. Yes, the new system of saves makes Force Of Personality a useless feat, but now a good portion of your feats give skill bonuses as well. Arcane spellcasters no longer have Arcane Spell Failure. You want to wear armor, train the feat for the type you want to wear. You can take feats to simulate multiclassing without watering down your main class. As for things left out to sell us more books, Gnomes are in the MM and in the back it lists how to create 1st level Bugbears, Dopplegangers, Drow, Githyanki, Githzerai, Gnolls, GNOMES, Goblins, Kobolds, Minotaurs, Orcs, Shadar-Kai, Shifters and Warforged. And since there is no ECL, you get FULL use of the races as characters, instead of watered down versions the 3.0 and 3.5 editions gave us to appease DM's.

I'm not saying everyone should jump on the 4.0 bandwagon, JUST the players in my weekly group!

What I am saying is that IF DDO were to do a convert, it wouldn't be the worst thing in the world. It would make more sense to do DDO2 instead, but it wouldn't totally suck! For one, they'd have to give us the creation points gained from the conversion do to our racial choices.

I hate that the WDA's are gone as well, but just like nerfs to class abilities, nerfs to spells, amps to mob damage, changes to the enhancement system and the fact that this game STILL requires WAY more xp to go from level to level that ANY version of P&P, we can't control it so we must adapt. Maybe down the road the WDA's will come back, maybe not, but for now we just have to play the game the Turbine gods have given us or leave when our subscriptions are up. It really IS that simple.

[bobbryan2]

And who knows. Now that they're spending less time collecting and compiling weekly updates on the things they're doing, maybe they'll have more time to answer people's direct questions.

I'll be sure to hold my breath.

I can't see this as a prelude to anything but less communication and even less transparency. I'd be happy to be proved wrong, though.

P.S. Add more character slots and fix potions

[creithne]

So...8 pages of posts...and I don't think there was more than maybe 2 posts that didn't mention how apprehensive the poster felt about this change...sounds like a step in the right direction to me...

[winsom]

If Turbine is considering a 4th Edition D&D MMO game, then it should be created as D&D Online 2.

Please do not attempt to update DDO Stormreach with many more 4E concepts. They just do not mix well with 3.5 D&D mechanics.

There are much better MMO game models that DDO could learn from to become better in DDO2.

i.e. DDO1 concepts mixed with LOTRO world-design, questing and writing would be an excellect starting point when considering a DDO 2.

There is much to be gained from making a DDO 2 rather than using the dated DDO1 engine.

[Patience]

Thanks for the feedback, guys. As I said in the OP, we knew this would be unpopular with some of you. We appreciate the feedback both from those who have expressed their disappointment as well as those who remain (albeit cautiously) optimistic. We'll do our best to ensure that you'll know what you can look forward to in each module; and in many ways, you'll get a more complete picture of it than trying to piece it together from the WDAs! For the record, I've read each and every post in the thread (although I admit skipping over the 4.0 branch of it) and will continue to follow it, as will the rest of the team.

-Meghan

[Dimicron]

...For the record, I've read each and every post in the thread (although I admit skipping over the 4.0 branch of it) and will continue to follow it, as will the rest of the team.

-Meghan

That does make me feel a bit better, just make sure that we all have access to the media's reviews and what not. It doesn't help any of us if a small percentage of us who are willing and able to scour the web only to know bits and pieces of what's in development. Make sure the word gets around, and make sure the articles aren't 15 pages on the next raid and a small footnote about new feats/classes/etc.

And with this extra time you all now have: Release druids already, please.

[MacFionn]

In the absence of WDA posts, can we at least have the devs start a stickied thread about each upcoming Mod? Give us the name of the mod and the target release month & year and then put the links to all the articles and any tidbits that you choose to release in that one thread. I've been talking to a few people that are on hiatus, and they all say that the WDA posts are their primary information source for upcoming additions to the game.

[geoffhanna]

Wow.

I don't know how to react to this.

Doesn't seem like a good thing, does it?

[Riddikulus]

Wha?

You really think "I have no intrest in doing that Tedious chore" would be a valid excuse if her boss told her it was now her responsiblity?

Wow.. I wanna work for you. Are you hiring?

Turbine: "Tolero, With Quarion leaving us I want you to take over the posting of the WDA's each week"

Tolero: " No Thanks, thats too much Tedious Work"

Turbine: " Oh, OK, thats fine then, I guess we'll just cancel the WDA Program then. We'll mail our your final check for ya."

Sure it is... happens all the time. When you don't have the resources to do everything you keep your resources where they can deliver the best bang for the buck.

I'm sure Tolero has a hand in all of this stuff that's going on in the marketplace and event planning and such... so do you delay that stuff (which is visible by upwards of 100% of the playing population) by giving her the chore of doing WDA (which is visible by downwards of 10% of the playing population)?

[Xaxx]

LOL why am I not surprised, they hardly give us info outside of the wda, now the wda gonna be gone to.... and more marketing is the excuse... LOL. The interviews that were given for this mod mentioned some big things that never materialized, the wda was the only thing that was material for the players, now you want us to continue to rely on interviews that were bupkis (hmm, deconstruction as the first half of the crafting system in mod 7 mentioned in multiple "interviews", oh and the *horns will be used in the creation of green steel items and other things* well they delivered on the first half... but not on the 2nd* this is where interviews will get us.

Even talking about wanting to bring us more info through dev diaries and such is an utter joke, wont happen, might as well just say yeah guys you'll see mod 8 maybe this year... and surprise when it gets here. Oh you guys thought we were gonna do a level upgrade based on the interviews.... surprise we didnt.

[captain1z]

I did like the WDA but if this change is in line with whats needed to give DDO more press, longivity and hopefully more money towards development and promotion................... then so be it.


I do have 2 questions though:

- Does Turbine have plans to raise the level cap beyond 20 in the future?

- How many years out have you planned for the development of the game, in any form?


I was always of the belief that 20 was end of the line

[gpk]

This is an absoultely terrible decision, in a series of terrible decisions as of late.

There have been a couple of really bad decision that have been tweaked in response to a community outrage stemming from info provided in the WDA and the game is BETTER for it; off the top of my head: 5th swing at +15 AB and death penalty tweaks.
There have been numerous others where some devs chose to bury their heads in the sand after getting repeated feeback fixes and solutions: Abbot Raid, Bab15 swing rate, Mod7 pally "stuff".

Now you are taking away the one peek at things to come therefore eliminitating ANY player feedback, therefore eliminating any last glimmer of hope that some bad design decision could be altered before they go live.

Honestly I don't know what to think anymore, decisions as of late seem to be driven more by ego and less from a desire to improve the game and deal with serious issues many of which stem from very poor decisions to begin with.

Honestly Turbine, what is going on with you guys!?