Producer's Letter

[Impaqt]

More info will be down the line, but here's what I can say:

It'll be big. (Big enough for the use of italics!) Yes, the Elemental Nodes will be included. And yes, we have the module! I have all the maps up on a bulletin board at my desk right now, they're covered in a huge number of notes and labels.

I hope its broken up into multiple quests rather than one big quest with a bunch of optionals.....

[bsquishwizzy]

Honestly, guys, if you are going to epic-ify Vale, don't give us retreads of the same content. The same map, and the same mechanic with different mobs is unbelievably tedious. If I have to re-run the same content just so I can run a different raid (that I'll have a hard time getting a group to run anyways), I might as well just not run the content in the first place.

Yeah, re-ran some of the eOrchard quests people have been raving about. It's reheated leftovers. I might as well just run heroic and not even bother.

Not everyone defines fun as farming uber-powerful loot. Some of us want actual variety of adventure.

[Hafeal]

More info will be down the line, but here's what I can say:

It'll be big. (Big enough for the use of italics!) Yes, the Elemental Nodes will be included. And yes, we have the module! I have all the maps up on a bulletin board at my desk right now, they're covered in a huge number of notes and labels.

Make sure you get Sev to push WB to open the checkbook and get you some help.

[Oxarhamar]

I hope its broken up into multiple quests rather than one big quest with a bunch of optionals.....

Seconded

While Haunted Halls was great it would have been much better if it had multiple quests.

More of a reason to explorer it fully just once.

[Heynone]

Boooo I think EVERYONE would have wanted Anauroch instead of the madness series...

Not everyone, I for one love the eberron campaign setting and am happy for pretty much anything set there. Faerun to me is stupid and boring, and stupidly boring. Much rather play anything set in the campaign setting that never seems to be able to count all the way up to 13.

[Hendrik]

I hope its broken up into multiple quests rather than one big quest with a bunch of optionals.....

If you can Imp, go DL ToEE and take a look just at the maps.

They are adding the 4 underground and one ground level area that is the Temple proper.

Then there are 4 Elemental nodes, each about as big as a single level of the temple but with more area, I mean just about the whole map is used just for each of the Nodes.

That is nine "levels" of the dungeon!

That does not include other areas one can explore within the Temple.

Just by looking at the module in size, they would almost need to break things up, kinda like Tangleroot.

HH is rather large but no where near the size of the Temple complex.


The tabletop group I am a part of has been doing ToEE in roll20 for the past few months and we are only half way through dungeon level two but we had Hommlett, Nulb, and the Moathouse to adventure through.

I hope they go big. They cannot do any harm by doing so. Zergers will still zerg to the end and skip everything. Adventurers can adventure.

With the DEVs having the actual module in their cubicle, I have hope renewed.

[dunklezhan]

Forgotten Realms content has not be "canceled" at all, and is something we will absolutely have more of in the future.

Good. FR is not my preference world, but if updates alternated between Eberron and FR, I'd be very happy indeed. Really, I just want you to finish off the various Eberron plotlines. If I could get Sharn I'd be ecstatic (God help me I might even pay for another expansion if we were going to get a Khorvaire hub based in Sharn), but if over time we got droam and Vale/Shavarath and Delkir all finished off with FR getting fleshed out more along the way, that would be amazing.

[Cetus]

More info will be down the line, but here's what I can say:

It'll be big. (Big enough for the use of italics!) Yes, the Elemental Nodes will be included. And yes, we have the module! I have all the maps up on a bulletin board at my desk right now, they're covered in a huge number of notes and labels.

This is pretty good stuff, but my outlook on this is invariably tainted by how you folks decide to handle loot. If you can keep the more powerful stuff to the harder difficulty settings, then this would be perfect - instead of letting any average joe acquire the same toys with a lot less effort as the most invested players.

[painkiller3]

...

New Festivals
The coming year will bring new festivals; a mimic event where players have to hunt down mimics that have infested all the corners of the land.
...

any estimates on when? i'm pumped for new gear

[Monkey-Boy]

. . . instead of letting any average joe acquire the same toys with a lot less effort as the most invested players.

Why does this bother you? The lesser players with the same toys still wouldn't be "you."

[NWO2013]

Greetings,

Temple of Elemental Evil
Our next big update will include the Temple of Elemental Evil. We are all excited to present this classic dungeon to the players. The Temple grounds are quite large! Although players will be presented with a quest to accomplish when they enter the temple, there will be many dangers and treasures to find if the players take the time to properly explore the vast network of temple halls and chambers.

Is this going to include any actual Greyhawk setting content or is it just a Whimsical Dungeonland type of thing where the ToEE will pop up somewhere in Eberron/Toril?

[Astarii]

I would have thought by now we would have be getting artifacts for there toons....can't we just through that into the mix of everything as well?

[Delacroix21]

Steelstar


What we have not addressed in this letter is a huge issue in DDO= lack of capped content.


I understand you guys made a decision long ago to focus on reincarnation and constantly re leveling, but at what point will the game focus on capped content?
Will ToEE be useful for capped players? (heart of madness was a total fail in this regard)
Will Epic Vale and sentient weapons be geared towards capped characters?
What are your future plans for people who want to stay capped and dont want to TR? What do you expect them to do in game?

[JOTMON]

Why does this bother you? The lesser players with the same toys still wouldn't be "you."

Everything has become low hanging fruit. all within easy reach.

The best loot should require the best challenge.
Increased difficulty should = increased reward/better reward
Otherwise what's the point of having difficulty levels..

EE runs are longer duration, use costly resources, party planning, best destiny, high risk of failure
Why bother doing that..
When you can select the easiest difficulty and speed run rinse/repeat short-man half asleep pug run that gives the same reward.

What is the motivation for your so called "lesser player" to better themselves, or to challenge themselves to harder difficulty when the reward is already available to them at the easier difficulty.

what will drive all players to push themselves.. loot is the best motivator..
Norm.. pretty good.. Hard.. better.. Elite Best..
This is motivation to grind what you can at the level that is confortable, then challenge to get better.

[Monkey-Boy]

EE runs are longer duration, use costly resources, party planning, best destiny, high risk of failure .

How's the WiFi reception in that parallel universe?

Don't get me wrong, I want an incentive for people to do more EE and harder stuff, loot's a darned good incentive. It just never bothered me if somebody else can get the same shinies as me.

[Monkey-Boy]

Steelstar


What we have not addressed in this letter is a huge issue in DDO= lack of capped content.


I understand you guys made a decision long ago to focus on reincarnation and constantly re leveling, but at what point will the game focus on capped content?
Will ToEE be useful for capped players? (heart of madness was a total fail in this regard)
Will Epic Vale and sentient weapons be geared towards capped characters?
What are your future plans for people who want to stay capped and dont want to TR? What do you expect them to do in game?

This is the biggest issues in the game, very little worth doing on a capped character. Throw us a bone please.

[Qhualor]

How's the WiFi reception in that parallel universe?

Don't get me wrong, I want an incentive for people to do more EE and harder stuff, loot's a darned good incentive. It just never bothered me if somebody else can get the same shinies as me.

You miss the point. Its about incentive to run higher difficulties besides for challenge. Challenge lasts a much shorter time than incentive. It can be tough sometimes trying to get a group together to run a higher difficulty when its easier and faster to get the same thing on lower difficulties. ENecro is a prime example.

[Monkey-Boy]

You miss the point. Its about incentive to run higher difficulties besides for challenge. Challenge lasts a much shorter time than incentive.

That ship has sailed and will never return to port. I LOVED running EE GH for loot to sell, Turbine apparently hates this and wants people to run quests themselves.

It can be tough sometimes trying to get a group together to run a higher difficulty when its easier and faster to get the same thing on lower difficulties. ENecro is a prime example.

I've never observed this, the default setting for everything on Ghallanda is EE in pugs these days.

[JOTMON]

How's the WiFi reception in that parallel universe?

Don't get me wrong, I want an incentive for people to do more EE and harder stuff, loot's a darned good incentive. It just never bothered me if somebody else can get the same shinies as me.

I don't care about others getting the loot, for me its a personal challenge, I want the best loot I can possibly get.. and I will take the easiest path to the best reward.
If I can zerg run 20 enorm runs and get the same reward as scraping together 20 EE runs.. guess whats going to fill faster...

What is your motivation to challenge yourself to repeatedly run EH/EE if you had already got all the best stuff farming normal.... the motivation is lost.
If there is not going to be scaled loot then why bother with scaled challenge.. DDO resources would be better spent making more "different" content with one difficulty than making scaled difficulty that no one runs.
EH/EE quest runs now have Champions for added grief.
Why put ourselves through that if the reward is the same... the fractional % increase drop rate doenst cut it.
Players know that reward drops for multiple speed EN runs and incremental 20's blows away the risky one-off EE run..

How many EH/EE MOD's have you run in comparison to the ENorm farm.
I have 5 EE runs, 0 EH runs, and 80ish ENorm runs.
The EE runs were because people were asking for more in the EE channels I am a part of.. Otherwise I would have 2 EE runs and be done.
I am still running Enorms on alts to get goodies on incremental 20's, but have 0 motivation to run EH or EE. there is no longer any point.

[Monkey-Boy]

What is your motivation to challenge yourself to repeatedly run EE.

To get puggers and guildies killed in the most horrific ways possible.