Kistilan wrote on Jul 4^th, 2020 at 10:49pm:


Without any form of exploit, just regular play vender-trashing the trash rangen loot, you can pick up 50,000 plat an hour. Thats without trying, just looting every chest and selling at the most convenient vendor.

There is nothing to spend it on.

The days of selling a Tor dragonscale for 50K or a large devil scale for 350k are over. Items are either worth astral sharts(a new form of P2W currency) or functionally worthless. Some people still dump shit on the plat auction house but mostly it barely goes for more than it's worth as vendor trash. Every character except the absolute newest is walking around with millions of plat and nothing to buy. If you are new, 5 minutes of panhandling in the marketplace will give you all the plat you'll ever need.

If you ask on the motherboards, idiots will tell you "reaper enhancements will bring back the plat shard economy! Every life I spend 2 million on reaper shit!" - it has done fuck-all, the plat economy is as dead as ever. There is too much going in and not enough going out.

And the devs could NOT give fewer shits. I think once they started making money off astral sharts they just said "fuck plat" and haven't looked back.

We can all thank Shard Seller Games for completely fucking the in-game economy to the point it’s little more than a prolapsed asshole.  Another classic example of SSG decision makers having their heads shoved WAY up each others’ worm-ridden assholes like a human-centipede making an infinity sign.

Kistilan wrote on Jul 5^th, 2020 at 12:47pm:


You just managed to use a metric shit ton more words to basically say what I just said.

https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/516350-Gianthold-Tor-1st-Lever-Is-ther...

https://archive.is/3Cabr

Have fun with this thread before Jerry gets off his ass and cubes it tomorrow.

Technomage wrote on Jul 6^th, 2020 at 10:49am:



You use it to flex on your average pugs, no other reason 

Technomage wrote on Jul 6^th, 2020 at 10:49am:


Apparently a lot of people on the mobo do.

I gave up posting there half a decade ago, but I should really stop reading the ramblings of retards.

Lelouch wrote on Jul 6^th, 2020 at 12:27pm:


vault tards are at least kinda fun, mobo tards are not.

Strake wrote on Jul 6^th, 2020 at 11:53am:




poor game. rip.

The Real Grand wrote on Jul 6^th, 2020 at 5:40pm:


Reminds me of the guy who went on P2W minecraft servers and duped the shit out of stuff to destroy the value of all the useless shit children bought with their mom's credit cards.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_gF67eaiLIk&t=1s

noamineo wrote on Jul 6^th, 2020 at 6:02pm:


Do you have the Bill Gates Polaroids for this?

You know that Asheron's Call was originally developed by Microsoft, right?   Turbine is the one that took it over.  It's just like the gas station game, but with development companies and the properties they develop/run.

Right now we're in slum-lord sustainment from the way many of you describe current issues and game health/innovation/novelty.

noamineo wrote on Jul 6^th, 2020 at 7:54pm:


Holy crap.

Wait, so Jerry from DDO Cast, worked at MS/Turbine for AC, started DDO Cast, did that, then became the Community Manager? 

For a guy who did voices for Jerry, ran events in AC and DDO AND had Jerry on Skype, etc I had 1 small part of information missing regarding him being Cordovan in AC.  I'm 99% sure Cordovan and Kistilan have had chats in AC and special events.

I was wondering why he did the whole Cordovan name, but obviously couldn't use the MD player name.

noamineo wrote on Jul 6^th, 2020 at 7:54pm:


Yeah, I was there til 2004/5 and occasionally logged on to look around.  I think I stopped playing around level 134-144 on Kist.  The other big bag is they didn't take the AC2 game and use it for AC1 if I recall, just pulled the plug and took all that new development with it.  Sure, they added the Alpha Lassel expansion or whatever later (Tusker/Bobo), but I don't think they ever repurposed the AC2 development effectively.

noamineo wrote on Jul 6^th, 2020 at 7:54pm:



That too.  I saw they were going the wrong way with Reincarnation and rallied against as much of the bad ideas as possible to stay closer to Gygax's Dungeons and Dragons (purist) form.  Reincarnation was the best solution, and Epic Levels, but I just read Guild levels up to 180+ and I don't know what the "max level" is with all of the reincarnation and mapping and second-life scenarios to unlock past life abilities.  It's a little too grindy and not what a Reincarnation was meant to do in Dungeons and Dragons (the board game) and in the thread that Borror0, SableShadow, Quanefel, Memnir, Arkat, myself, etc etc were like 2,000 pages deep in among others really was supposed to stop the "easy button" of resetting your choices and make it so you did have to work and reconsider the cost of doing something.  In Dungeons and Dragons, your choice and the dice rarely get a second chance.  The Reincarnation system was to give people their "WoW Button" because Blizzard allowed players to reset their skill trees for a monetary purchase, very little effort in-game.  So the compromise was Reincarnation System that you got in DDO circa 2010-12 (thread was 2008-2009).

But adding Epic levels upon epic levels and grinding?  That killed Star Wars Galaxies, took WoW player base down, and even made Asheron's Call very boring.

Why emulate failure?  Ugh.

noamineo wrote on Jul 6^th, 2020 at 8:33pm:


Yeah, yeah. I know.  And that's what I thought too -- back-end tech, etc.  I wonder if Jerry would confirm whether he worked in a MS facility in the early days of Turbine and then they moved to Mass?

It kinda makes sense either way with the tech bubble burst -- MA/CT area of tech was a nexus there, so maybe they were remotely working but I think in early phases they more likely were in Silicon Valley with a corporate paper office for Turbine in Boston area.

noamineo wrote on Jul 6^th, 2020 at 8:33pm:



I'm wishing this discussion was starting on the real forums I logged into for the first time in nearly a decade.  100% Agree, what I would do if I was Lead Turbine Dev or at least Project Manager, we'd figure out how to make a semi-permanent option to port.  I know, instant-cheat in a way, but not a full port.  Something in-between where you start over, a little over-powered, with a lot of accomplishments that may be only feasible by coming over from a port in the original.

This would do two things.  Give Game 1 more Value.  Give Game 2 (new updated version of Game 1, a Roboot, etc) another reason for players to consider going to Game 1 at some point even though their original play is on Game 2.  $$ $$ $$ $$

Imagine if AC 1 did allow porting with benefits, but you can't port back and maybe you leave behind a "ghost" that can start over with some of your things (let's say your house, your armor, your physical effects don't vanish, and you can restart over with those items in Game 1, or just leave it be).  Meanwhile in AC2 you arrive, nearly-naked from a bad portal to a new land, but maybe based on your level and your skills you have a few special things that give you a huge edge through low to mid-level and you maybe even start with a similar scale in levels as you had initially if the game translates its levels similarly OR you just have some additional skills, attributes, etc.  Something where it's worth exploring and continuing in the new game with better graphics, new mechanics, new social systems, etc etc. 

DDO could have done the same thing.  Infact, MAYBE they figure it out.  MAYBE they figure out Advanced Dungeons and Dragons Online is the next thing they need to finally do.  Let's go back to Gygax, but with Online, and taking the best things from all of the series D&D 1 - 5 and create an online world unlike anything the world has seen. Next, enable porting characters for free (first or second, fees after that) from DDO to gain some kind of benefit to restarting on the new game with an old established character.

Again, envisioning this, you'd likely have to scrap a lot of the systems and skill trees but acknowledge past life feats, a few other things, and determine how it translates into the new system when a character ports over from a world to the next.

And is it Ebberon or is it Oerth or Aberi-Toril?  Certainly not Krynn -- too specific, too much hope for that to be something else. 

Do we finally blend Planescape and Spelljammer in a Unified System?  I think all these things could be explored in an Advanced Dungeons and Dragons Online.

Calling it DDO 2 would be shit.  Calling it Advanced D&D Online would get old crusty players and new players excited.  Unifying all of the properties using the best ideas from D&D 1st through 5th would also be something everyone could get behind.   Maybe THACO even gets referenced (not used). If I was a Dev on the project I'd nab that moniker for my forum dev name.

I digress, I haven't played in almost a decade. I can't even begin to give an accurate way forward to translate this, BUT with this translation, a huge leap in graphics would be possible, probably even incorporating VR if a player chose to use that option.

I would get rid of zerging, speed runs.  It's not how most things work unless your Legolas on an elephant trunk.   I wouldn't make it slow either.  Something in the middle.  I would get rid of the grind, that's not adventure.  That's a waste of time (hence another reason why logging on, probably not, certainly not making a go to do past lives or any meaningful content if I did).

noamineo wrote on Jul 6^th, 2020 at 8:33pm:


So one, customization and character background and all those flavor things really are the player's choice almost at the onset, and then that gives them motivation.  The motivation in an online game is almost always provided by the game developer, even if it's multi-pathed or possibly influenced by a few character traits or class type chosen by the player, but then you're on the path and it's the way.

If someone DID find they didn't like their character, the GM could be nice and give them an even-swap of levels and introduce a new NPC, but that's generally a thing in the first 1-6 levels.  At level 13 it's kinda hard to say "I didn't like this character but I played it for two years."   The house rule may say something like "If you die, you can reroll a character at level-X" where the party is, but often you'll start a new character and retire one, thus not getting to keep your personal effects.  MOreso, many GM/DMs will give you a level boost, maybe an xp-multiplier until within range of the rest of the party, but you may actually start at level 2 or 5 or something that makes sense where you don't die but you also are weaker by restarting. 

It just depends.  But the growth and the journey of a new character should be what makes the Adventure, the Journey, amazing and worth your time.  So I would argue that making the game sustainable through a interesting, diverse path would alleviate these "I'm bored, I made a mistake" complaints considerably.  But when the game is zerg-centric and grindy, you really can't get beyond these complaints because it's not interesting to do it 50 times, hence zerg speed runs and fast paths.  And people like to blame developers when new things are offered and they say, "If that had been around X-years earlier, I would have never done Action Y and Z that are permanent on my current character that could benefit with the new features you just rolled out."

Yeah, that's true with like, everything.   More powerful computer, more powerful automobile, better water heater, etc etc.  But GE doesn't let exchange my gas water heater for a tankless just because they develop a new feature -- I do have to pay for it.  So paying for some options may be acceptable, but the primary goal of a game developmental team's design should be to make the journey from one to max to be so interesting and unique that it never is absolutely worthless to experience.  At least, in my purist view of Gygax and good GMs/DMs, this holds water and is true.  If we're playing a different game, let's not call it Dungeons and Dragons.  Which brings me to a good question:  For the love of god, is there another Dragon yet?  VoN was great, and then?  Did they bring Tiamat or Bahamut into the scope?  If I recall now, there might be a few wyrmlings.... Man, it's been forever.  I recall younger dragons to kill, but unsure if I'm remembering something else like a Black Isle game.

noamineo wrote on Jul 6^th, 2020 at 8:33pm:


Since DDO is in its Twilight Phase, I think a good revamp of an Advanced Dungeons and Dragons Online game would fix a majority of this.  I also think I played online games to enjoy real risk-reward stakes.  Safety nets were not what I wanted -- I wanted strategy, teamwork, real risk, real reward, awe and exploration.  In the end the safety nets are bandaids for the imagination and the boring online world.  So I guess I'll disagree with this because it's a symptom indicative of the product and its vision.  I know they want to make money, and these safety nets enable them to sell burgers to fat kids, but I'd rather have the world perfected and not need the safety nets regarding a character's destiny or development.   Surely they can be smart enough at this point to become their own plat-sellers and allow a certain amount of plat to be sold to a character (max) per week or so based on their level.  Maybe a few other things can wind up being this way too -- definitely unique races as released, classes, and maybe extra chacracter slots, renaming, etc.  Things that are not going to alter the Journey but could enhance it.

noamineo wrote on Jul 6^th, 2020 at 8:33pm:



Yeah, that makes me confident I won't be playing DDO again.  I "may" log in some time just to see what's become of Relics of the Last War since it's not on the guild listings, say hello to a couple folks.  Hell, even my friend Chuck Norris apparently was back in 2017 per forums, so there's a chance I can find him asking me if I want a beard rubbing.  What a weirdo. Hah.  But I think and hope SSG is considering maybe the next DDO -- hopefully Advanced, with new graphics, a new realm, everything linked if they have good mythos.  I would get Matt Mercer heavily involved if WotC blessed it and they began developing a new game engine for ADDO.  Oh, and Joe Manganiello -- he would be critical to developing something you'd never be bored or lose wonder in exploring (or rerolling).

noamineo wrote on Jul 7^th, 2020 at 12:14am:


I'm very optimistic.  Deep pockets can always walk in with new tech and the right vision.  Writing Dungeons and Dragons Creators would be a good way to garner support.

noamineo wrote on Jul 7^th, 2020 at 12:14am:



This might be giving away your date of DDO entry.  Zerging with Firewall and webs on haste was way before they ever introduced xp potions.  Infact, I never heard that statement because I left about the time they began hawking their wares in the DDO store.  I've never purchased an xp potion.  Zerging was culturally built into the game based on its design long before P2P and the DDO Store.   Xp Potions are directly related to the culture, not the culture directly related to the initial product (xp potion). 

There was a trinket.... Gygax Blessing maybe, some kind of necklace?  It was the only thing that was important to don before completing a quest as it gave a bonus of 5% or 10%.  Before XP potions, that was about it and zerging was alive and well.

noamineo wrote on Jul 7^th, 2020 at 12:14am:


I've seen this argument before.  Borror0 would be proud of you.     It's not toxic (this to me is a deflection to many contentious opinions these days), and it might disenfranchise some players, yes.  Just like after the DDO Store and Reincarnation System, it disenfranchised others (like myself).   But I guess until you're served what's cooked, you can't complain or walk away, right?  It's just that a good development team should listen to their community but in the same token not give away what's under the chasity belt just because there's an easy button desired. 

To quote the Dead Alewive's Watchtower, "For God's sake, this is Advanced, Mark!"



noamineo wrote on Jul 7^th, 2020 at 12:14am:


Eh, there's a fine line.  You can, if your GM could actually not be tired (ie PLATFORM for a game) get to level 20 in a month or two of nonstop play where you're not waiting on other people to show up, etc.  At least certainly level 10-15.  So this is a little too exaggerated.  I agree permadeath and huge xp requirements are not exactly going to work, maybe a "Hardcore" server would work or Player vs Player-capable server where if a player kills you, there could be significant issues.  Ultima Online PVP was serious if you played that -- all of the stuff on you was left on a lootable body and you were running as a ghost to get resurrected.  It was very big stakes (which I played happily) but I also was very careful after awhile and limited the resources on my character, as well as house keys (could lose your house, yep!) and vast amounts of gold (put it in the bank as soon as you had a lot). 

I would say lets not do permadeath unless it's a special server.  I think XP Requirements need to be built around the content and long-range goals.  If designed thoughtfully, this can be achieved.  It takes a lot of planning and passion, but with the right engine and world development, this could be contagious in the right dev studio with right leaderhsip.

noamineo wrote on Jul 7^th, 2020 at 12:14am:


Every group IS different!  I hope you've had other experiences.  :-p  But DDO was another reason to exist -- to replace the "bad gaming group" experience.  I think most people that play table top do eventually experience this.  I remember the bad group I stumped into by a very obese GM named Ed Remally.  He was the son of a pastor of a local church and he was an absolute ass.   

I was playing a Shadowrun Street Ninja in a Shadowrun game as one does and wanted to step away from the group in game and investigate the world (city).  I was crossing the street during my exploration and Ed asked me, "Does your character like greyhounds?" 
"Uh, I don't know, why?" 
"Because you just got run over by a 12-ton bus."  #instantDeath  #everyoneElseLaughed #didNotGoBack
There's always that one experience.

noamineo wrote on Jul 7^th, 2020 at 12:14am:


I think this is an absolute and there are games that prove life expectancy and a wide net to capture audience are not necessarily causation.   A good game and solid world-building capability (sandbox) are typically the things that stay. 

A few that come to mind are GTA5, Minecraft, Fortnite,  Eve Online, Counter Strike and to an extent WoW because the engine is pretty good.  These games are anywhere from a few years old to as old or older than DDO but appeal to a wide variety, moreso by design and world-building architecture features than by adding grinding mechanics to keep players logged in,  And I'm very well aware of Eve Online's "grindiness" in a way, but at least the two trainable skills are off-line timers.  I've a Master Shipbuilder capable of building the largest Warships in Eve.  Ironically, I'm not the only player that did it.  I designed the character, my guild and I kept Kepper roll'n along fir about 18 months until he finally was maxed and could build anything to order.  That world is amazing still though -- flying around in space, limitless.  It's something I'd like to experience on Gryphon or Dragonback with the same high resolution and auditory experience on the Elemental Plane of Air, Smoke, or Ash in a new D&D game.

noamineo wrote on Jul 7^th, 2020 at 12:14am:


Hah hah.  I've seen this in lots of games in the last few years.  I meant, do it from day 1 of a launch of a new game with the standard earnable in-game currency and get ahead of the Chinese and Russians because this has been a priority for those markets with every new release.  Ultima Online it was the Russians doing gold farming and selling to my Guild (I forbid all of them except for a well-to-do veteran and ISP owner in McHenry IL from buying because it was such a waste of money and time).  I think my players respected this and in turn I worked harder for them with earning gold to help keep things humming along, making crafters, etc to keep our Castle self-sufficient.

Anyway, I mean from Day 1.  Russians got UO, Chinese got DDO, I'm sure EverQuest and SWG had gold and credit sellers as well.  Get ahead of that with the first meaningful currency.  Don't enable this to be farmed when the game producer sells for slightly cheaper.  Sure, they won't get all those plat farmer subs, but they'll get lots of legit accounts buying currency to make it easier to start out while they figure out how to play effectively or explore.

noamineo wrote on Jul 7^th, 2020 at 12:14am:


Eh, I game on roll20.net with my friends in MI, play Hearthstone and apparently sound like a popular youTuber on Fortnite -- am pretty good mobile player there.  That's enough until I get tapped to work with Joe or Matt Mercer on an Advanced Dungeons and Dragons Project.  I'll do that nonstop and put my heart into it if that came to be an opportunity and reality.  I've had the vision since high school -- Elder Scrolls came real close, but it's not D&D.     No need to play a self-imposed death match tactical in-character immersive RPG at this time.

noamineo wrote on Jul 7^th, 2020 at 12:14am:


Well, that's bleak.  But if they're not visionary, it's best to fizzle out.  I really hope there's never a LOTRO-2.  To what point?  They got it right and it covers Middle Earth.

But a Unified Dungeons and Dragons with the entire Multiverse linked and the best Classes available, Races, and potentially Classes and Races continually pushed out?  That would be great.

Also, in an open-box, and non-pvp, balancing isn't as necessary, so unbalanced classes would be fair as long as there were reasons to play any particular class.  Artificer for example won't be great in combat, but that's not the point of playing an Artificer -- it's to build and invent, wield some magic, possibly use firearms.  It can serve support, but it won't tank.  Nothing new.

I guess DDO really slipped up by inflating MOBs attributes and ability scores.  Don't do that.  A few HD more, sure.  Toughness feats, etc.  But don't make it a slug fest -- missing more often due to requiring a natural 20 strike on a very high AC is how D&D works.  I think that's where they got it wrong to begin with and it snowballed from there by changing that core mechanic in a normal D&D pen and paper game.

I appreciate the discussion however and well, maybe someone will acquire the license.  I'm not sure how that will work -- does SSG have to go out of business?  Does it go back to WotC then and is up for resale?  Can SSG sell the property in order to advanced an ADDO/UDDO game?  I guess I could bug Jerry about this and hope to get some information -- do they even have those other folks running the DDO Cast and have they ever asked Jerry or another Dev those questions?