The post on the DDO forums has a lot of points between the casual players and this single hardcore level 10. The level 10 claims he was figuring out if there was a ton of level 10 content to be consumed and he was terribly wrong because there is ZERO level 10 content. The more casual crowd is chanting "Thats what you get for rushing." I don't know which side is more sad in this argument because they are both horribly mistaken about DDO being a viable MMORPG.
Community member Karos says it best on page 4 of the thread...
"Ok, from reading this thread I get the impression that a lot of people feel it is fine for a game like this to end, 'the journey is everything', so to speak. Comparing this game to a non-subscription based rpg is comparing apples to oranges, as this game lives and dies by how many people is can keep playing.That is a very well stated point of view that I have to agree with. The casual gamers out there are going to be hitting 10 within a month or two months time and they are quickly going to come to the same conclusion as the hardcore. The argument that Turbine is going to continuously add content as a viable way to maintain the game is utter bull crap. They've had years to build this games content (remember they already had the engine built) and they can't make more than a few days worth of leveling content?
Many people when they play a console rpg play it through slowly and completely, never to look at it again except in nostolgia. Now ask yourself if you would be willing to pay a monthly fee while that game is sitting on the shelf doing nothing. If enough people can honoestly say yes to that question, then this game has a future, but if not it will lose subscribers and with no bottom line it will go the way of AC2, but much quicker.
Endgame content is something every online game must eventually have to keep that subscriber. The form that content takes though can be extremely differentiated but it will all boil down to the same principal. How do you keep people busy and continuing to play after they reach the max level allowed? This question may seem moot, but eventually every player can reach that level if they continue to progress. You may think that someone reaching the end now is a problem, but it is a symptom of a much bigger problem.
Right now things are looking good and we can hope for fast new content patches. Let me finish with a different question. If every time you got together with friends for a PnP D&D game and and your DM asked you to roll up new chars and placed you in exactly the same campaign to be played out exactly the same way every single game, how long before you found yourself a new DM?"
It is true that the number of levels doesn't matter. Level 10 as max does not have to be a short journey. Turbine proclaimed how their was going to be so many mini step ups as you level that you will have content for months on end before running out of content. Turbine vastly underestimated what amount of content they did have because its not even remotely close to being viable to support this game.
I truly feel sorry for the idiots in that thread posting that Turbine will have a patch out within a few weeks with tons of content. It just doesn't work like that. They will be able to add a couple top end quests at most and that's if they go for quality. They could squeeze out a few more, but they are going to be very unfinished experiences. The majority of early patching will be in fixing technical bugs and game bugs... not content delivery.
Here are the points I dug out of the thread:
1. The content doesn't change. It's the same the first time you play and then is just a repeat. Turbine didn't even bother to have the traps or secret doors change locations.
2. The speed of leveling is not proportionate to the amount of content available. It is being compared to leveling to 20 in WoW, which took casual people about a month to do and the hardcore hitting 20 after a day. Difference being, WoW has different 1-20 content for almost every race.
3. There is ZERO level 10 end game content available. Once you hit level 10 it is a reroll and restart, farm the dungeons you've already completed, or wait for the next content patch which is X number of weeks away.
Final Thoughts
DDO is in trouble and matter of fact so is Turbine.
Update: 1 Sept, 2009 - Edited post, applied label.
Pardon my crass candor but thats fucking sad. D&D should never have been pulled for this or at least it should have been done more like a Massively Multiplayer version of Baldurs Gate. I mean WTF level 10???? The second edition rules ( I know Im a dinosaur) went to twenty.
ReplyDeleteThey phuked up bad and should all be drug out into the street and shot. As Garfield would quip.
Personally, I like Turbine. I like Mythic. They're smaller firms, dedicated to their products, and approachable. But they both have this amazing ability to mess up a good thing.
ReplyDeleteWhat worries me now, of course, is that Turbine won't have the funding to finish MEO (which many, many people have already said has to be a bad game because of the design of AC2). This will be, what, the second time that MEO has been scrapped because of studio problems (the first by Sierra)?
Jason Booth left a year ago for very good reasons, as you might recall.
Some of the D&DO supporters argue that it has depth... and stuff. Someone I know even said that it offers a better online gaming experience than EQ or CoH.
ReplyDeleteThose are his words, however, as I have no experience with D&DO, EQ, or with CoH.
Uh, WoW doesn't count though. Sure, its content kept you busy - but the content itself absolutely sucked. There's nothing in WoW to actually entertain you, it's only a rat wheel.
ReplyDeleteCompare that to DDO, where the quests are oftentimes brilliant, really fun, the closest anyone's come to a MMO of Zelda 64.
DDO may not have a huge amount of content to do, but as far as I'm concerned, WoW had *no* content to do. It was just a worthless clone of EverQuest, every bit as unenjoyable. To call it a MMOG is kind of hard, because that implies there's a "game" there, as opposed to a glorified spreadsheet and a pretty graphical layer to the same gameplay you find in Progress Quest.
I don't know what WoW you played, but level 1-60 was the best content based experience I've ever had in any MMO.
ReplyDeleteI had fun playing WoW. The content in WoW that sucked was once you hit level 60 and did the first turn on the rat wheel.
I don't get how you can even begin to say DDO has more content. DDO content is a clone of WoW instancing... except WoW doesn't turn the entire world into an instance. There is an actual world to explore. Not to mention WoW has cities that are the same size if not bigger than the ONLY city (Stormreach) in DDO.
WoW does a great job of giving fun content as you level... it blows at providing an engauging end game both in PvP and PvE.
DDO just blows from the start. There is levels in DDO. You have to deal with that fact. People become too strong for content as they level therefore making that content way to easy. As I said... the pace of leveling is not proportionate to the content.
Once again, Turbine is on crack and out to lunch. There is no way in heck I'd trust them to add that much content, after having enough time to do it in the first place. Honestly, I dont know why anyone would put 2 cents into trusting Turbine. I think AC2 and the broken promises there were enough of a lesson learned. LOTR anyone?? Let's see about 2+ years behind schedule supposedly to allow them to acquire the license? If they'd had a solid game in with it at Middle Earth Online, they'd have launched it. Time is money folks, no company would delay the release of viable content for so long.
ReplyDeleteWill I be surprised if D&D goes bullyup under Turbine's care - uhm, no.