Shadowfell Conspiracy Causes Dissent Among Some DDO Vets

Well just as I was getting ready to fully jump back on DDO this summer, there appears to be a minor controversy brewing regarding the new expansion The Shadowfell Conspiracy, essentially the game's second expansion (following the Menace of the Underdark) and specifically having to do with Turbine's new DDO iconic characters.

From the Turbine Developer Diaries, here come the DDO iconic heroes!

What the heck is an iconic character you say? Thanks to Youtuber Pr8Dator1 we have a video detailing the new Bladeforged and Owlbear permanent hireling. (See embedded video footage) but according to DDO's developer diaries, there will be four iconic heroes: The Bladeforged, Morninglord, Purple Dragon Knights and Shadar-Kai. These start at 1evel 15 and have their own race and game restrictions. (True Reincarnation etc.) More of their stats and detailed info can be found here, but what I find most interesting is the uproar their introduction has caused in some of the game forums, especially among veterans, with at least one polarized enough to call it quits, and dramatically calling it "the death of DDO"

Essentially this is a seven year old game and in order to compete with the barrage of game options and mmorpgs out there, including that other D&D mmorpg, Turbine is upping the ante on their Forgotten Realms adventures, while re-imagining their game with new character creations, new builds and a host of other features.

Source VG 24/7 had the scoop on all the new features to the game's third expansion due to launch on Aug. 19:

• Two New Forgotten Realms Adventure Packs — Featuring new wilderness areas with new D&D monsters, dangerous encounters and challenging dungeons.
• Wheloon: Horrors from the Shadowfell pour into the prison city where Netherese agents conspire to forge an army out of the Kingdom’s enemies. Players will masquerade as a traitor to infiltrate the Prison City to out the agents, and fight loads of monster.
• Stormhorns: Deep in the Stormhorn Mountains, the Netherese Empire is preparing a secret weapon to use against the Kingdom of Cormyr. Players will need to make it through the griffon laden territory and deal with harpy ambushes along with giants and other creatures.
• Iconic Heroes: New prestige characters that start in Forgotten Realms at level 15 and feature unique looks and skills. Each of these classic D&D characters are a paragon of their race and class and feature custom gear, appearance options and new abilities.
• Level 28: Player will gain new epic feats and spells through three new Epic levels of advancement.

Again, I am more concerned with the community reaction, and not all of it is good. Turbine asked players to discuss and give feedback on the iconic discussion thread of their forums back in October last year, but players were confused about what the discussion should entail as no concrete details about the expansion had been given at the time. "If we are not able to TR, why should we even be interested in them" chimed in one player. Blogger Gamer Geoff in his blog, posted that he thought prebuilt characters sounded like it was "dumbed down" from the existing system and had this to say: "I personally think that this is the wrong direction for the game, I truly believe it has survived and thrived precisely because it isn’t simple and streamlined. There are lots of other MMOs out there that are simple and streamlined but only one clunky, complex, Dungeons & Dragons-based DDO."

Well said, I had the same reaction when I first heard about these characters, but I am willing to give the devs the benefit of the doubt, because as I mentioned already, with so much competition and choice, Turbine has to try to keep their game fresh. Another player said it was sad that they were trying to get away from their campaign setting to focus players into the Forgotten Realms. You would not expect an mmorpg to start you off in Eberron for example, and then shuttle you off to say Azeroth.

What do the rest of you think? Are iconic heroes a mistake on Turbine's part or a good thing for DDO? 

The eternal question: Sandbox vs. themepark

Lieutenant Morkag-Khor

First, my apologies for not posting sooner, grad school has eaten a large chunk of my playing time. I hope to blog more steadily now and into summertime. Second, I have been following the debate over what elements should be incorporated into the upcoming mmorpg Camelot Unchained by famed DAoC developer Mark Jacobs. In fact, the discussions over whether it's wise that it feature only RvR (3 faction pvp like in DAoC) and gloss over PvE elements has also sparked the old debate of themepark vs. sandbox mmos.

My inbox has been flooded of late from posts and bloggers who have weighed in on the issue, but that's one of the things that I love about playing ddo, Turbine has taken care of making the gameplay radically different than most mmos, but not too different that it won't satisfy a fantasy action junkie like myself. What makes DDO unique in the sandbox vs. themepark debate is that it doesn't neatly fit into any one category.

Since DDO is mostly composed of instanced dungeons with wilderness areas and no significant pvp to speak of, one would be tempted to say that it's mostly a themepark, you do follow a linear pre-designed pattern, i.e. starting off in the Korthos island tutorial and early level content before graduating to Stormreach Harbor. However, DDO has some sandbox elements. For example, you don't have to do quests in order, per se, although I suppose you do if  you want to progress onto capping a character, but seeing as you have relatively more freedom to quest in Stormreach either solo, with a party, or engage in other activities such as collecting, etc, DDO feels less like a linear quest hub to quest hub than World of Warcraft to me.

Last night I decided to finish some of the quests I had not yet completed in both the Harbor and House P. After unsuccessfully going after Lieutenant Morkag-Khor and party wiping in elite in the tear of Dhakaan quest, (we came ever so close) I managed to do a few more quests, including going back to the Harbor to run "Kobolds assault" in elite. Had a blast earning a few more ranks on my warforged Barbarian, which I seem to prefer playing over the spellcaster, mostly because I am still not as adept at wizard game mechanics in ddo. What can I say? I like to wallop stuff in melee.

So say what you will about DDO, but I don't think that I can firmly place it anywhere in the Sandbox-themepark continiuum with absolute certaintity, but I don't think that is at all a bad thing. 

Our party gathers at the Harbor after a long quest chain

MMO Report No More

I was sad to hear that G4 is cancelling the MMO Report. Though I was often at odds with silly host Casey Schreiner, mostly because he tended to focus on his ego more than on the games he was spotlighting, it's always bad when an avenue for reporting on this often overlooked game genre is closed.

Though the MMO Report used to give more coverage to more big name mmos like wow and Rift and waaay too much coverage to SWTOR before that game came out, and though it often sourced material from massively, it was still a good source of news. I will miss it. Check out the video of the last show.

Running challenge dungeons in DDO with my Warforged

It's been a long time, yes I have been gone a long time and things didn't pan out in terms of me playing DDO, but now I am back, because I am on xmas/winter break from grad school. I plan to update daily, if not every other day, as I play more and more DDO, which is one of my favorite mmorpgs (the others being World of Warcraft and good old Dark Age of Camelot)

But I digress. Earlier tonight I was doing the Proof is in the Poison challenge dungeon with my level 6 warforged. What I didn't know is that this dungeon would be extremely hard to finish on elite, and that it was a long adventure. Fortunately, I didn't undertake it alone, I went in with a bard who brought along a hireling, and later (after I died a few times) we invited some extra muscle.

Unfortunately, the power went out in my place went out for some strange reason (could be that the mini heater I was using sucked up all the electrical juices since it's so freaking cold) and as I screamed in disguist, NOOOOOOO, the room went pitch dark and all my xp went out the window. Considering how long this dungeon takes, even on normal settings, you can imagine I was upset, my party probably all died, although they may have made it all the way through as my fellow bard was a pretty resistant and highly skilled player from what I could tell, maybe they finished it. I guess I will never know. I was kicking myself for a bit because I could have gained a while half a rank of xp had I completed the quest since we were running it on elite!

Curiously enough, I have been scouring youtube and the web for DDO content and tutorials, and though there is a lot of significant content online, the best video I found on this specific dungeon was put together by Total Biscuit. If you also play other mmorpgs, most notably wow, you are already familiar with TB's style, but I found it interesting that he attempted (successfully unlike myself) to two-man this dungeon along with a warrior tank for muscle over a year ago.

 His bard has the ability to heal itself and that's what my PUG friend was doing the whole time on our dungeon run, although I was not aware of it at the time.

Mind you, as he points out, Bards are not the only healers in DDO, but they can solo some instances, especially if they are using mystical armor like he was. TB does as a better job of explaining it in this video, but it's a bit of a long one, so make sure you have time to watch the entire thing. I had to stop it right before the end as I did not want to spoil the entire adventure. I am sure I will be attempting to complete this dungeon, preferably on elite for bonus xp in the days to come. Cheers!!

DDO is new again

DDO is new again, at least for me since I have been running instances with my warforged Barbarian in Stormreach.

Usually I hook up with groups looking to run instances in hard or elite mode, but last night I think I finally got what I have been looking for, for a long long while: a DDO static group. Me and three other players committed to running a chain, and I am halfway to level 6.

Though I had been in some of the dungeons before, and undoubtedly so did some of the other party members, the good thing about DDO is that it's a game with a great deal of replayability. We ran  Protect Baudry's interest, Irestone Inlet and a few others. I have also spent some time hunting down collectors in Stormreach. Ten Ton Hammer detailed a long time ago the importance of doing such quests, for me it was more a chance to get rid of items dragging down my inventory.

One thing I would advise any of you wanting to try out DDO, I am not sure about Underdark because I have not tried it, but at least in Stormreach, do try to join a guild as soon as you can, and if your guild is high level and has a ship, even better. I find that I am not that great at reading the map or remember where things are, so having the ability to transport anywhere via the ship is one of the greatest benefits of joining a guild. Who needs mounts when you can teleport?

Happy adventuring, and I will keep you posted on the progress of our static group.