Ravenloft exceeded my expectations.

Mind you my expectations (like many people) were exceptionally low.

For me, that was: A few cool looking items I can glamour, a wilderness area to bumble around in,  and maybe some tolerable quests to sand the edges off the drudgery of the TR Hamster Wheel.

All of those expectations were met and incredibly, exceeded.

Amber Temple and Castle Ravenloft are outstanding. Visually and for content, I will literally run around both quests just for the shits and giggles of it.

The atmosphere of the entire pack is on point, right down to the Gypsy Fiddle music in the taverns.

This is a point of interest that gets lost a lot in DDO, but whoever is doing their music is a gifted talent. The quality of the compositions are exceptional. And I know from experience that creating, producing and recording that quality of sound isn't simple, fast or cheap.

Some of the items are arguably the best looking items in the game (Mist-Laden Vestemnt, Coat of the Traveler and the rune arms stand out here).

I bit the bullet and paid for the $130 package... Haven't regretted it.

I will likely never run the raids (I care nothing at all about Epic content) but I am curious to see what they offer up for interesting loot (see "Stuff I can Glamour," above).

I for one, am glad they took the unusual move of holding the 2nd raid back.

That's a gutsy move in this day an age where on-date delivery is the Be-All-End-All of business models.

Even this modest show of QA is a welcome shift in policy.

tl;dr- Ravenloft is worth forking over the money for.

Metal-Beast wrote on Dec 18^th, 2017 at 11:23am:


That's the best way to put it.

Now a week later . . . 'end game' is dead again.

Bigjunk wrote on Dec 18^th, 2017 at 2:12pm:


Not my experience.

I enjoyed the raid. Did a couple smooth pug completions on normal to learn it. Wilderness is huge. Temple and Castle are impressive and fun. A few quests are short and farm friendly. Overall visuals, music, etc very good too.

Ravenloft is the best content the dev team has ever released. Quest length is pretty good throughout, and it's an interesting variety of scenery.  Mad Tea Party is the biggest offender IMO for monotony.  Bugs aside, the Strahd raid is designed well.

I think they missed the mark with the sentient jewel voices.  I'm not a fan of the voice direction, and the repetitive nature of the phrases just meant it got turned off by me within the first week.  SSG could have done so much more to showcase this feature as part of the expansion, but it feels half assed.

Zehnpai wrote on Dec 18^th, 2017 at 4:06pm:

Don't believe you. But the idea does make me curious about 3rd-party promotions.

Say somebody formed a Super-Pac, for example, dedicated to electing Sev as God-Emperor of "Hey, DDO exists & look at this cool new shit they released for it!" (donated to and managed by SSG. By coincidence, of course. Not collusion. Um ... this also supposes competence. Just a reminder that we're firmly in the hypothetical realm, here.)

Hello, hypothetical Supreme Court! And free hyopthetical publicity.

I mean we already know they don't own the merchandising rights to DDO so they can't even sell DDO swag.  They can't even ~make~ it anymore for that matter to give away.

The fact that there was no trailer for Ravenloft should be a dead giveaway.  The Mordor trailer was epic levels of bad for LOTRO but at least they had one.

Every other game that gets released spends a few bucks to get promoted on Twitch, shits youtube advertisements all over the place, starts posting dank memes all over Reddit.  Where was the spot on Polygon, Kotaku, Neogaf or Gamespot?

SSG did...none of that.  No big launch day twitch stream.  No dank memes.  No interviews for anybody but the sycophants they've always fed hand to mouth.

So yeah, I'm 99% confident that WoTC has a huge no-compete clause in place because they don't want DDO pulling anything away from NWN.

I have found the content to be better designed.  I don't know if it is "easer" per se.  Just not a slog.  I appreciate that most of these areas feel appropriately populated.  Take Castle Ravenloft in Raven at the Door or Invitation to Dinner.  Neither is teeming with groups of 10-12 mobs just standing the middle of every hallway or room.  No ToEE issue here.

Revaulting wrote on Dec 19^th, 2017 at 3:45pm:

This.

Enthusiasm for an IP is not a zero sum game, it's a case where a rising tide lifts all boats. Excitement about D&D benefits DDO, NWO, and book sales, it's hard to imagine Hasbro isn't sufficiently market savvy to realize that.

I could believe they retain the right to review advertising material for appropriateness and the SSG marketing department (AKA Cordo) can't be bothered to go through the process, but I sincerely doubt it's a blanket ban on advertising.

I could also believe there was a ban when the Atari dispute was still raging, but again, that's not applicable today. Or that they intentionally don't want to advertise because they don't have the server capacity to handle a large influx. Or that they are locked in a contract with a marketing company that isn't doing anything (a la FernanDOH). But none of those are the same as an advertising ban today.

Believe what you want, but I'd need to see some solid evidence before I believed the "advertising ban" was anything more than innuendo, originally promulgated by shills and dupes and tacitly endorsed by SSG, to cover the DDO "marketing team"'s inaction 

EDIT: I added "originally" because by now the longevity of the rumor has given it an undeserved credibility even a reasonably skeptical observer might fall for.

Spend cash and get more bugs for your money RIGHT NOW. DO JOT WALK, RUN TO GRAB THIS ONE TOME OFFER!

Otherwise when you buy with points you'll get slightly fewer bugs. And that would be kind of a ripoff.

Meursault wrote on Dec 20^th, 2017 at 7:56am:


Hasbro Interactive has at least 3 Harvard case studies that I am aware of as it relates to marketing and viral/non-traditional marketing. 

They are plenty marketing savvy. 

Of course, that doesn't mean the savvy folks work on anything associated with D&D.

Old Baba's Hut raid: Going through the puzzles once is ok.  Going through twice is lazy design reuse and a punch in the balls.

Love the design with the house turning into a spider and having it try to curb stomp you.

in other good news; lynn is back, bitches! prepare to see some shit get done. she make shit happen.

love that woman.

sad that the former intern is the actual legit best employee.