Thought I'd post this here as well, let me know if you don't want this kind of stuff on the boards here.

I've listened to the PAX 2010 interview and put together some notes on what was said and who said it.  Here is a
link to the audio file http://www.cyberears.com/cybrss/10277.mp3, previously released on DDOcast.  Enjoy!  The speaker is Fernando Paiz when not noted (for the most part.)

Sigfried Trent interviews DDO Executive Producer Fernando Paiz, Producer Glin, Producer MadFloyd and Community Specialist Tolero.  Interview recorded on Sunday, September 5th, 2010 at PAX 2010.


1:00 Intro and Welcome

-          Fernando – Friday, Sept 3rd was the highest selling day in the DDO Store ever, Saturday was not far behind.
-          Already released six major updates since F2P launch and doubled the size of the DDO Store catalog since launch.
-          Update 7 will be the biggest update ever done for DDO: Unlimited.  Been working for nine months on races and features, about five months focused on other Update 7 stuff.
-          Two races coming online: Half-Elf and Half-Orc.

4:00 Race talk, Quest Talk

-          Glin: Not reskinned races, wanted Half-Elves to be the “youthful race”, others are in the 30-40 year old race, but wanted Half-Elves to be 17-20 (actually, much older but this is how they look.)
-          Fernando: Have unique animations for the races. Half-orc have two handed weapon animations that are unique.
-          Free adventure pack in Update 7 involving the monster Kingdom of Droaam. Run by the hags, with we will hopefully get to meet later, but this time we’ll be meeting a Medusa who claims to be a diplomat but has ulterior motives.
-          The Coin Lords will be kidnapped and we will have to save them.
-          There are new appearances for Ogres, Gnolls, Orcs and Half-Ocs (which will make their monster debut in U7.)
-          New raid: 12 man raid intended for level 6 players (first raid many will encounter in the game.) Wanted to introduce newer players to how cool raiding is in DDO earlier in the game.  Raid will support Epic mode and have touched up the Devil Assault dungeon. The raid will be made available in the Devil Assault adventure pack. Players who already have the adventure pack will get their pack upgraded for free when Update 7 launches. Adventure Pack is off-sale until U7 launches. Epic drops for raid-specific loot as well.

8:20 New In-Game Event

-          Fall Halloween-themed event called the Mabar Festival.  Will include a cool public combat event in Delera’s Graveyard. Most ambitious in-game event yet. Players of all levels can get in and do not need adventure pack to get into area (but still needed to run quests in there.)

9:00 Misc, PrE’s

-          Auction House search among numerous UI changes. New inventory list view to view inventory by category and with string search.
-          DX11 graphics
-          Hireling AI updates: Shouldn’t see them casting fire spells on fire creatures, hireling clerics will cure curse when see you cursed.
-          Performance improvements to help deal with hireling lag and other issues.
-          Five different Prestige Enhancements either extended or introduced, Bards “getting a lot of love” (Tier 2 for Virtuoso and Warchanter), Wizards will get Archmage prestige line and Shintao Monks getting revised.
-          Archmage: Two tiers of Archmage so far in the Alpha stage (at time of interview), they will have five tiers overall.

12:20 Half-Orcs

-          Half-Orc looks: Turbine was able to take leeway to skew either toward human side or orcish side in terms of skin tones and head shapes. Will be most customizable race in the game due to head shapes and customizable tusks.
-          Will have premium hairdos in the store and some standard hairdos have been redone to better fit the race.

13:40 Half-Elves

-          Youthful looking. Females get unique facial details (eye details, Jerry editorials that it’s the eyeshadow mentioned elsewhere.)
-          Benefits from Elves and Human side, will be getting the Dilletante feat. Can take at level 1 to get a splash of abilities from another class. Currently not in the Alpha build (as of Sept. 5th keep in mind…) but hoping to bring into the update.  Cleric dilettante will be able to use wands and scrolls “as a level 1 Cleric.” Will also get racial bonus skills to Diplomacy and Intimidate.

15:20 Race Talk

-          Half-Elves: Don’t have the -2 to Con like Elves do. Can take the Elven Dexterity line or Human Adaptability line, but it’s an either-or (can’t take both.)

16:10 UI Changes

-          Glin: Added numbers to look options in Character Creation screen to help people remember their look.
-          Auction House: Default skin changed. Added Search bar and an “All Items” category to look at everything in the Auction House.
-          Can sort or search by price and that search will continue onto the next page (will list by price as you sort through pages, for example.)
-          Fernando: Can match exact phrase or multiple search terms. Can search for “Axe” and “Flaming” and will get anything that matches those two things.
-          Glin: New look to Inventory page overall, but added a second tab which puts it into a List View that includes tabs for various types of items. Can see what’s equipped, can mark for unlocking/locking, mark “for sale” to dump right into vendor slot when go to sell. Fernando: Will have a button when selling to add “for sale” items. Added dynamic string search (can type parts of words and it will update results as type.)
-          Things inside your Ingredients Bag for example “will not show.” It’ll just show bag in results. Fernando: Hope to add this in the future, there are other UI things as well not quite ready for Update 7.

21:20 The Mabar Festival

-          Glin: When it’s running you will enter the Manifest Zone for Mabar in Delera’s Graveyard (House J), will know it’s up because the sky will change.
-          There are two parts to it: One is a server unlock to unlock the second “phase” of the event. People will be able to “frequently unlock the second phase of the event.” BOTH speak parts of this: It’s sort of like a “public raid” when people can unlock a gate to main boss, people will be able to jump in during a certain period of time and have their “one shot at it.”  Fernando: It’ll be bigger than a raid, there will be more than 12 players in there at a time.
-          All new crafting UI debuting in the Mabar Festival.  Will debut in festival and possibly expand out if the player base likes it.
-          Glin: The event will run “for a couple of weeks at least.”

23:50 Quest Stuff

-          Takes place in the Lordsmarch Plaza, which includes an entrance into the Coin Lord Palace.
-          Glin: Half-orcs getting “disrespect” because Half-orc spies might be invading? Some distrust of Half-orcs in Stormreach at first.
-          Fernando: “We’ll be looking to add more quests here over time.”
-          Connects to the Twelve and the Harbor as well.
-          People can go into the public area for free (even without adventure pack.)

25:50 Races

-          Half-orc and Half-Elves will be Free to VIPs.
-          VIP’s will be able to enter Elite difficulty right off the bat with U7.

26:25 Raid Stuff

-          Raid: Nat Gann’s father sends us to find Nat Gann’s daughter, who has been searching for her brother
-          Fernando: No proof that Nat Gann was in Nat Gann’s urn.
-          The Chronoscope: A very powerful device that serves as “kind of a time machine.” People claim they can take Nat Gann’s daughter back to “wherever Nat Gann is”, take her back to just before the destruction of the Marketplace Tent.
-          Players will be able to re-experience the destruction of the tent. Fernando: New fans didn’t get to see event, wanted to take them back and show them that stuff.
-          Are in a slightly altered version of the past.
-          Going into the taverns and bank during the quest, go into the Rusty Nail, Steam Tunnels, Bank, Phoenix Tavern.  Orthon named Bloodplate as one named boss, much higher level than normal level 6 players would face.
-          FINAL BOSS ENCOUNTER: Someone summons set of Abishai Minions to try to put an end to party. Only ever fought red Abishai before or maybe blue Abishai, this will feature new green, white and the black flavors of this kind of devil. As they get lesser HP, they retreat into air above them and regroup and change tactics. (Sigfried hints at “old-school homage.”)
-          Raid aims to help teach newer players to deal with raids (tactics, etc.)
-          Glin: When you are knocked down and blocking, there’s a new animation move to show it that didn’t exist before.
-          Glin: Still won’t talk about Diplomacy and chests, “that’s our secret! (Jerry adds: he might be joking here.)”
-          Raid will have normal level settings (Hard makes level 7, Elite level 8, Epic is 20.)
-          Raid timer: Yes, there is a three-day timer on the raid.

37:50 Public Event and Levels

-          MadFloyd: When in-game event is on will trigger spawns appropriate for your level. They are not aggressive right away, so you need to hit them in order to fight them. You can get caught in the mix of things, but eventually you will pick out which monsters are appropriate for you. Can get to quests without having to fight for the most part (unless someone has triggered something near you, for example.)
-          MadFloyd: Two phases to it – Phase 1 is spawns, Phase 2 is a “very unique boss” and have special mechanics to go along with that.

40:10 Fan Questions

-          Many players want higher level stuff. Is it “in the pipe?” Fernando: Certainly won’t close any doors, Turbine is players also with high level characters so they want higher level stuff too. At the same time there are business decisions and “other forces” at work to support the new players, it’s a tough balancing act. Know Epic is “not for everybody” but this is something they care very much on the dev team. Only other planned adventure packs being planned right now are packs about the U7 pack.
-          Epic, what works and what needs to be tuned up? Fernando: Working well is giving high level players the chance to experience content at their level, and brings back danger to some folks who have found quests becoming easier, for players into that experience it’s working well.  For people who aren’t into that, solo players, people at 20 that don’t feel prepared for Epic, experience is “fairly hardcore” right now that is not catering to “that kind of player.” Looking to “appeal to more types of players” with Epic content. Sigfried: People want to bring in their level 18’s, for example.  Fernando: That is something they are talking about as well, but curveball is how much XP it should give. Nothing to announce in detail at this time.
-          New spells, how long until we see them? Glin: Eladrin and the systems team have plans to work on them in the next dev cycle, but not sure if will be in next release. By U9 we’ll see more of that. MadFloyd: Also looking to do some polish on existing spells, but nothing formal to announce on that. Not “totally restricted” by Wizards of the Coast on the ability to modify spells from PnP, think “it’s a shame” when they work hard on spells and they aren’t used much for various reasons.
-          Fernando: Wotc guys “are totally cool” about supporting us and adapting the rules to the game we have. Not a case of “gotta be faithful”, they want the spirit of the rules to come through (and the history of it) but are amenable to changes.
-          47:20 Half-Orcs and strength: MadFloyd: Orc Fury enhancement line. As they get weaker from a HP standpoint get stronger from Strength standpoint. Get below half and get +2 Str, 25% of HP get extra +2 that stacks, 10% gets additional +4 for total of +8 to Strength.
-          Fernando: (Half-Orc) also get some benefit to two-handed weapons. Have an aggro line as well.
-          UI Scaling: Want bigger buttons or smaller buttons based on resolution of screen? Fernando: Not in the pipeline yet but it’s a good request.

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Mockduck wrote on Sep 15^th, 2010 at 6:22pm:

Post what you want, where you want.  It's a Vault motto.

Besides, this is good stuff!  Thanks Mockduck.

Is it bad that I think the best feature there is VIPs can open on Elite right away?

Hi Welcome wrote on Sep 16^th, 2010 at 8:56am:


No, because that really is the best feature.  The only way they can top it is letting TR's into epic quests at lvl 17-20 for xp and scaling the XP accordingly.

Yeah, but the best feature of the entire fucking patch is a toggle switch. Seriously, they could save 99.99% of the effort, and still deliver around 75% of the benefit by just having one fucker do a 5 minute hack job... Wait a sec...

Ok, it'd only save them about half the effort. It's still a good trade.

I'm happy to see VIPs getting some additional benefit.  Opening on Elite will be a biggie, one of the best bits of the new mod for me as well.  The races being free for VIPs is nice too, I was hoping I wouldn't have to buy or earn it through Favor (I'm looking at you, FvS!)