Stormreach Chronicle (8-12-08)

[Tolero]

Welcome to the Chronicle - a weekly look at what's happening around the forums! Read on for tips, community spotlights, Turbine info, and more!

Letter from the Editors

"Gencon approaches this week! Next week, we'll be taking a look at the happenings around Gencon and the Turbine Gencon party, so stay tuned for a Gencon Round-up!

- The DDO Community Team

This week SniptheShadow has an assignment for you! Snip wanted to see the creative responses players could come up with regarding their favorite in-game items. Check out the thread by clicking here!

Honorable mention this week goes to parvo for giving us a hypothetical look at how monsters view the world. Read more by clicking here!

Be on the look out for the announcement of the next Thread of the Week!

The following guilds are looking for more adventurers. Learn more about them here!

Lightbringers, of the Argonessen server
Compendium Page: http://compendium.ddo.com/wiki/Guild:Lightbringers

"We are a laid-back guild. We want to make sure our members always can find a good group. We openly share items, information, and good times. As a founding guild with over 25 members at the game's launch, our guild and founding members can be found on the founders statue, by the harbor's trainers. We are currently selectively recruiting. (See our Compendium page for more information about our recruitment)"

Face Stabbing Misfits, of the Ghallanda server
Compendium Page: http://compendium.ddo.com/wiki/Face_Stabbing_Misfits

"Of course we're recruiting! Who isn't??? But, we're looking for the right kind of player. You know, the one that likes to have fun, and who respects his or her fellow players. And, we aren't just looking for individual players, either. We're a couples-friendly guild, too! Without a doubt, players new to the game should look us up. We're already working with several new players who're just learning the ropes, and are steadily working their way up to their first high-level characters. What do you have to do to become a Face Stabbing Misfit? Simply contact one of our officers in-game. Any of them will be happy to help you out."

Lotus Clan, of the Khyber server
Compendium Page: http://compendium.ddo.com/wiki/Lotus_Clan.

"A brand new Monk guild on Khyber, recruitment is now open! Speak to "Nosferato"."

Black Mantis, of the Sarlona server
Compendium Page: http://compendium.ddo.com/wiki/Black_Mantis
Recruitment Thread: http://forums.ddo.com/showthread.php?t=151927

"With the growth of our guild we have been getting people prepped and through raids almost every night. New comers have been through Titan, Dragon, and DQ raids, quest they have never even began prepping for. We work on training to get the puzzles done on the Abbot weekly with some experienced friends who help out, and work lowbies often as well. If anyone is interested in joining a strong, cheerful, and an ever growing guild please use the contact links above."

Ham Seekers, of the Thelanis server
Compendium Page: http://compendium.ddo.com/wiki/Ham_Seekers

"On an eternal search for the tastiest of hams (read: Favor / Loot / Fun)! This guild is a stepping stone for achieving status in 'Ye Olde Guild X', which is the sister guild, and only attainable at lvl 10."

In other Guild related news, community member Buzzsaw is conducting a survey about guilds for the Guild Life segment of DDOCast! If you'd like to participate in Buzzsaw's study, click here to visit the thread.

Over 500 guilds have pages available in the Compendium! Read more about guilds in the Compendium by clicking here!
Looking for a guild? Looking for recruits? Be sure to visit the Guild Matchup forum!

Looking for a character design? Unsure of which feat to take next? Check out this week's character builds for tips, designs, and other help with your character's advancement!

• Featured build: Ginseng 2: Centered Sorcerer
• Featured build: The Ultimate Rogue
• Featured build: Untouchable Cleric

For more character builds, Be sure to stop by the Class Discussion forum

Game Tip of the Week

You can adjust the volume of the DM voice overs, or even turn them off entirely, using the options panel audio settings. Use the slider to increase or decrease the voice over volumes.

The following threads are scheduled to be unstuck on August 18th, 2008 unless they are adopted:

Thread Name: Ren's Mentoring Program -
Divisions: Argonnessen, Ghallanda, Khyber, Sarlona, Thelanis

About the Thread:

Originally created by Renegade66, and later inherited by Jules921, this series of threads was intended to help new players to the game. An almost "big brother/big sister" program, volunteer players sign up in the thread to "foster" a new player in need of help, ranging from answering questions, to providing new players with free gear. Mentors make themselves known by posting in the thread, and new players in need of help can post in the thread as well. Renegade66 and Jules921 helped mentors and players finding one another, and that need is still there. Join one of the above divisions of this thread to help brighten the day of a new player in DDO today!

Interested in adopting a sticky? Learn more by clicking here!

• Turbine will be hosting a party for players at Gameworks, Seattle on Friday, August 29th from 7-9. RSVP if you plan to attend by clicking here
• The Turbine party at Jillians, Indianapolis is still scheduled for 8-10 on Friday, August 15th
• If you're attending PAX and Gencon, be sure to visit the Turbine booths!
• King Raiyum, his mummy friends, and several other monsters across Xen’drik will soon no longer be afraid of area effect spells and will spawn correctly

Looking for updates and information from Turbine?
You can follow along with the latest Turbine talk right here on the forums! Be sure to visit:

• The Dev Tracker
• News & Announcements Forum
• The QA Lodge

Tune in next week for a special Stormreach Chronicle: Gencon Round-up! Also visit the Compendium for an archive of previous issues of the Stormreach Chronicle!

[ArkoHighStar]

King Raiyum, his mummy friends, and several other monsters across Xen’drik will soon no longer be afraid of area effect spells and will spawn correctly

joy to the world

[Lifespawn]

so nothing new whats this the new wda that tells you nothing?

[ArkoHighStar]

so nothing new whats this the new wda that tells you nothing?

its not a WDA, nobody ever said it would be. The WDA is gone and looks to never return. This is simply a round up of info, with tidbits of dev changes.

[Karrai]

Sigh. Another summer and with another DDO news drought.

Still miss the WDA

Even if the WDA just countain bug fixes and new features that apply for existing players charcters would be better then putting a Top Secert for everything.

Even other MMOs give info about changes to thier games if they are just bug fixs and minior charcter features.

[Turial]

...

....
King Raiyum, his mummy friends, and several other monsters across Xen’drik will soon no longer be afraid of area effect spells and will spawn correctly....

And here I thought my hostile takeover had finally worked and he was letting me have my pyramid. Sad....

[maddmatt70]

Any chance we will get some information on the next mod or if Turbine still plans to do a mid mod by the beginning of next week? Was kind of hoping with gencon, et all that some information would be released.

[Cordelia]

Um, ok. Am I the only one that finds these Chronicles to be pointless? I'm sure that big golden font is lots of fun to play with and all, but these "Chronicles" are all info from sticky threads that anyone that might actually have interest in has already read from the source threads themselves anyway.

If you're making work for yourselves, fine, enjoy, however a 2-liner from Codog on ranged ROF (or whatever) is worth about 3 dozen of these "chronicles" In the eyes of the majority of forum visitors, I can assure you of that, and that's being very unkind to Codog.

[Karrai]

Pointless to a frequent forum reader, like you and me, yes.
To some one who rarely comes here, no.

The Chronicle seems to focus more on those who don’t know much about the DDO community then those who want news about what’s happening with the game.
The WDA which was for everyone is what I prefer to read and gives something to talk about in game about the game.

[Cordelia]

Ahh, that makes sense. In other words, these things aren't directed at us at all. They're directed at casual site browsers that might be considering a subscription to DDO. Turbine posts them to make it seem as though we're given lots of info on a regular basis, when in fact we're not given any development info whatsoever.

Cool, thanks.

[Zarbryn]

Wow... another lame attempt at trying to convince the player-base there's actually something happening in this game.

And i don't need to hear anything regarding who its for, whether or not its for someone who rarely comes to the boards or someone who frequents them, we're all the player-base. This is a complete waste of EVERYONE'S time.

[Karrai]

What I don’t under stand is how "Top Secret" on all information helps the current game and keep the current player base when there are Orcs, D Knights, Heroes and a Abandoned mines at the front gates.

I know Gen-Con is in a few days but is keeping silent for so long help or hurt DDO.

Iam just tired of little bits of info then the iron curtain being lowered for months.

[Rog]

i want somthing new to think about when i am stuck in front
of a computer for 8 hours with nothing to do. yes i call this work.
come on man give us a clue where are game is going.
lunarsong

[Gol]

Heh, my cleric made the featured build section

[Strumpoo]

I agree with the no information is a bad idea people.

I went along with the removal of the WDA orginally, since I figured "hey what the heck, the games sites will get all the info, no big deal.."

Then nothing..../crickets...

I still figured the devs would release something for the game sites to post so I remained patient, figuring that the info was forthcoming.


Now, it is just getting ridiculous. We have received basically no information on ANYTHING that is upcoming in the game! No future plans, barely any fixes, no quest developments... Nothing.. It is getting pretty frustrating.

I don't want to have to search through 1500 threads to find a new signature of a dev, I don't want to have to pray someone will link a story here about game development. Isn't there someway that the players could get upcoming info?? We just need to know something about what is being worked on? Can you release some info to the game websites please?

Without knowing what is upcoming in the game, it is really getting harder and harder to log on and run the same quests.

The Warhammer release is looming and I am afraid for this game, I haven't seen so little info in the game since I started playing in 2006....

[thatguy]

so nothing new whats this the new wda that tells you nothing?

QFE.

[thatguy]

I agree with the no information is a bad idea people.

I went along with the removal of the WDA orginally, since I figured "hey what the heck, the games sites will get all the info, no big deal.."

Then nothing..../crickets...

I still figured the devs would release something for the game sites to post so I remained patient, figuring that the info was forthcoming.


Now, it is just getting ridiculous. We have received basically no information on ANYTHING that is upcoming in the game! No future plans, barely any fixes, no quest developments... Nothing.. It is getting pretty frustrating.

I don't want to have to search through 1500 threads to find a new signature of a dev, I don't want to have to pray someone will link a story here about game development. Isn't there someway that the players could get upcoming info?? We just need to know something about what is being worked on? Can you release some info to the game websites please?

Without knowing what is upcoming in the game, it is really getting harder and harder to log on and run the same quests.

The Warhammer release is looming and I am afraid for this game, I haven't seen so little info in the game since I started playing in 2006....

Nice to hear someone else say it, I am not allowed to anymore.

[Pyromaniac]

Agreed with the above posters, there are ways to make this a more useful feature on the forums. Maybe include links to the gamesites with all the cool DDO info?

[medielots]

i agree with many other players...sadly I was not an avid readers of the forums back in the days of the WDA and went looking through the forums for some information then *gasp* I see that they remove it. I hold a busy schedule and also havve many other games for other systems...as time goes by and I hear nothing I slowly...slowly...faster.....faaaster (ect) anyway i drift away from DDO. I mean a while back i would hear stories of half elves half orcs druids and all these things now...nothing. All we want is a bit of info...even if you just say what bugs your fixing or what might be planned for the future...I know that I atleast (and maybe some others) would feel more enthusiastic logging in if we knew what we might see soon.

The Chronicle is nice and all but doesnt satisfy that need that keeps me with DDO

[insania2016]

http://www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm/g...3/feature/2128

Dungeons and Dragons Online - Gen Con Overview: Module 8MMORPG.com Community Manager Richard Cox writes this preview article, giving you and overview of the interview and letting you know what to expect when the GenCon video hits the site! In our first preview article, Cox talks about the team's interview with Turbine about Module 8 in DDO.
The first interview of the day is with Kate Paiz, the Senior Producer for Dungeon & Dragons Online: Stormreach at Turbine. We filmed the interview as well, so this will pretty much just be an overview of what you can expect when you watch the video.

advertisement Primarily the interview was about what players can expect in Module 8. Mod 8 is centered around improving the new player experience. Turbine has revamped the early/starter parts of the game to include character creation, to make the game more accessible to new players. This includes people who are starting to play the game because friends of theirs are already playing as well as those completely new to the title. The changes are also geared toward helping to break those new players who aren't familiar with the D&D rules into the game more slowly than previously. Turbine had discovered that the game could be a little daunting for those who aren't familiar with the existing D&D rules.

With character creation, there are now templates to choose from. The templates are designed to help a new player better find the type of character that best suits their play style. When creating a new character the first thing you'll do is pick how you prefer to play, be it melee, ranged, support, etc. From there you pick one of the classes that fall within that play style and then you pick a subclass to further define your character. And last you pick your race. As always any race can be matched up with any class, but even though there are no restrictions in place to prevent it, some classes won't work as well with some races. For example, if you want to play a strength based melee class, Halfling wouldn't be your best race choice, but you're definitely more than welcome to create that character if you choose. Customization beyond that point is unchanged.

When you enter the game now (after mod 8) you start off as a survivor of a shipwreck on a tropical island. However, it will be instantly apparent that this isn't your typical tropical island, as the snow is a pretty definite give-away. Apparently, a white dragon has taken up residence on the island and has decided that she doesn't like ships coming or going from the island, hence your being a survivor from a shipwreck.

The new player tutorial and storyline will lead you through this island culminating in an epic battle with said dragon. Obviously a newly created level one character is no match for a dragon in the Dungeons & Dragons world. So to help with this, Turbine has added the 'new player party' system. As you're playing through the tutorial, NPC partymates will be added to help you out. This is done to slowly break new players into the game while still allowing them to experience a big battle with an epic foe early on in the game. Many more popup tips and helpful comments have been added throughout this area to help familiarize the player with how the game and their character works.

Another new addition coming in mod 8 is the Hirelings (name subject to change) system. This is basically a henchman system, which allows you to hire an NPC to join your party. These will be the same level as you and are commandable. They will fight with you automatically, but if you want them to do something like open a door or such, you have to tell them to do it. They provide help and allow you to play the game when all of your friends aren't online.