Player Council member IronClan revealed his plans for game saving changes.

https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/443084-A-summation-of-many-arguments-f...

Marking expansion content as the culprit to DDO's troubling implosions. IronClan has chosen to introduce an expanded f2p model that would drastically broaden access to more players.

Quote:


Pre MotU DDO was they best this game had to offer. By destroying their own end game, relentlessly, at least twice. Turbine ensured many players would never trust them again. By taking, like, what, ten raids and consolidating them into all of two? It was cataclysmic. Every epic quest with items using S/S/S/Base method became undesirable. Entire houses of chains swallowed by Eveningstar. MotU and CITW dug the grave and murdered any want, use, utility of over 90% of items that your customers lovingly sought long and hard for. All the quests and raids you had going on. And then multi tring to do it again on a different build. Lolth really won.

Turning around now and giving players EDs and MotU will NOT get those players back.  IronClan is a gimp, permadeath loving, paragraph spammer. Dont be fooled. He is right on that a lot of the players that remained became walled off again. This after the rendering of the end game. Further punishing any long time players. But the guy doesn't know much beyond trying to explain things he himself doesn't understand. The players who stayed and purchased MotU and left did so for the same reasons players still will and are leaving.

Unfortunately the end game doesnt exist in a healthy balance with the rest of the game, like it once did. Even If every player was given MotU at the time of launch for free it wouldn't have stopped the exodus of grinders. Giving the layers left all access will not keep them from abandoning the lack of content, incentives and rewards. Reestablishing the end game as the pinnacle of the TR cycle cannot occur with out turning the empty space of the epic levels into something more robust and appealing.

There was a guy in Epic Von 6 (twice) who didn't have any ED.

that graph shows me that this game has 90 weeks left, which is far more than i expected.

eighnuss wrote on Jun 7^th, 2014 at 5:49pm:

I doubt it will be a steady decline.  It's more likely that a steady decline will continue until the server populations get low enough that even the die-hard players will ask themselves "what's the point?".  Not sure when it will be, but the graph is probably going to go into a steep plummet in the not too distant future.

Next update will be e3BC, which will have even less of an impact than eGH did.  At least GH was popular BEFORE it went epic.  Jacking up the price on 3BC when the people who own it don't even bother playing that content will do little to motivate interest.  So before it's even launched the next update will be nothing but a sorry looking money grab fail.

I don't honestly know if we will see the lvl cap increase to 30 before this game implodes.

Rubbinns wrote on Jun 7^th, 2014 at 5:24am:


Wow, well said and thoughtful, Rubbins, a great post overall.

I can't believe I just said that, my world has turned upside down.

But you're right, it isn't one problem with one solution. Turbine has opened a disaster with more fronts than Germany had in the second world war, there is no one change that will save them from themselves.

I wish Turbine would embrace this discussion and participate in it. I fear that doing so would unleash a firestorm of pent up rage and frustration, but ignoring it lets it fester and feed on itself. I guess what I really wish is that Turbine would have embraced and participated in this discussion a year or two ago

Meursault wrote on Jun 7^th, 2014 at 9:23pm:


But they won't M, because the prevailing attitude is their customers are a bunch of ignorant, dysfunctional whiners.
Look at Maj's comments, look at the merry-go-round of producers who promised much and delivered little.
Look at the way in-game service is handled, look at the apathy of the GM's auto-closing tickets with no corrective action.

They have no respect for their customers.  All they primarily do now, is cheap money grabs with little view to the future or how it is perceived.  We'll extend guild ships - sure - 8,000 AS pls schmucks...

I don't begrudge them making a buck, but some of the stuff they pull is seriously WTF territory.

They appointed the PC in an effort to close the gap with the customer base, but jury still out on whether they listen.  Some of the stuff the PC report as not getting thru is disturbing.  The fact that they thought charges on ship buffs was even feasible......yeesh.

They might do a mea culpa once the mass exodus begins, but by then it will be too late to effect any meaningful change....

DropBear wrote on Jun 7^th, 2014 at 10:29pm:


To be fair, if the forums are any indication, Turbine isn't far off the mark.

raybob wrote on Jun 7^th, 2014 at 11:09pm:


There will always be dissenting opinions on internet forums.  And there will always be "noise" on forums too.

The skill of a good comms team is being able to filter out the important information.  Dissenting opinions are healthy - you get balanced arguments like a debate, so you can actually make a much more informed decision than you could arrive at individually.

When someone just posts "the game sux" - it doesn't give you the reader much perspective or insight.  It's an unsupported opinion.
When a post explains the persons rationale, I will likely read it, even if I might not agree with them.

I think healthy, respectful debate is a good thing.

Reserved

The game has been dying for 8 years.

The carrot being used to make players play is not very juicy at the moment though so there is that.

People ran in to play FR, saw the same problems that made them leave (or could only play in Eberron for new players) and left immediately. I expected that.
Loot (AKA Carrot) and something to do besides grind and zerg quests (as well as lowering the power curve created by ED's etc.) would help the game. Changing payment plans for a pile of poo doesn't make the pile of poo any more appealing. I'm hoping they are making the game fun for someone and making more money off of them as opposed to those of us who were Subbing when tumbling was faster than running.

Bigdickrichguy wrote on Jun 10^th, 2014 at 11:59am:

You act as if there was something else to do here or in ddo? Idk, maybe i can go around posting as a big dik rich guy? Or a part of the one percent? that'd be really neat and keen