This entire update was worth it for working shuriken crit fixes.

But they have to do something about bags.

so far U22 is fucked.
Interface is worse.
Most of the new stuff is broken or not working correctly.

MajMal's the producer, the buck stops with him. 
It was released way too soon in an unready state. 

The release date was not fixed in advance, look at the postings on the forums - it's obvious they had the "release this week" meeting on like Monday and the decision from that meeting was yes. 

harharharhar wrote on Jun 14^th, 2014 at 1:05pm:


See that's the funny thing about perspective. I could not care any less about shuriken fixes. Literally. There is no possible way I could care even a tiny bit less. If they never fixed them, I wouldn't even notice. In fact, I didn't know they did fix them until this post of yours. So for you, this update was a huge win because it helped your particular favourite type of character. For me, this update was a huge lose because of the QoL impact that the "exclusive window" thing has. Hell, party invites close all other windows also. How fucking stupid is that? Every type of crafting (except TF, I believe) has some aspect or another that is fucked up. And yet because your build got more powerful, you're willing to dismiss all the fucked up things as ok.

Perspective is silly.

I'd be embarrassed if I had any kind of coding/producer/QA position with Turbine right now.  U22 is a pretty humiliating example of what happens when you launch too early.  Should probably give them the benefit of the doubt, since that's generally a sign of poor management, but still. 

It's kind of funny though - not too often I feel sorry for Jerry, but this is one of those times.  He had nothing to do with this, but he's the one who has to deal with all the hate in the forums.  Everybody else is afraid to show their faces, as they should be.  What a fuckup.  Bags alone just show what shit coders they are, and to launch with broken crafting is just idiotic.

These guys need a serious overhaul in how they develop.  As much as "outside consultant" is generally a laughable idea, they could do worse than taking on somebody who knows what the fuck they're doing.  First thing you do when you find a new bug is write a test for it, so it doesn't happen again.  Everybody on here knows what a joke that is, with the infinite times the SAME FUCKING BUG show up.

I'm pretty ambivalent about exploiting - you don't want people duping shit, have a goddamn transactional system.  Hacks bother me way more - aimbots, uberpowers, whatever, but there aren't a lot of those in DDO.  It's just ridiculous that they keep piling on bandaid after bandaid, with no sense of "you know, people need bags, and we're gonna keep them, so let's actually make a concerted effort to fix them properly."

It would make me laugh if it weren't so pathetic.

Grade: F.

E3BC - Don't care, much more excited for Epic Orchard
Guildships - I like them, but I hate that we can't put stuff on the deck.
Guild levels - Who cares?
Swashbuckler - Awesome, now fix up the other Bard PrEs.
bag deposit box - The most horrible, lazy thing ever.  I hate it.

All in all, I don't think we can really say how he's doing yet.  I assume that most of this stuff (barring the ingredients bank) has been in the pipeline since before his title changed.  I can only imagine what hell it must be like to work at Turbine as well as having to deal with us assholes, so I'm waiting before making a judgment.  Not like my opinion matters, lol.

rest wrote on Jun 14^th, 2014 at 12:56pm:


Stop whining you little bitch. This is the vault.

rest wrote on Jun 14^th, 2014 at 2:38pm:



oooooooh! Reeeeeeeeeeeeally? I sense a excellent new griefing tool to use on the masses gathered at the AH!   

E3BC--I've always wondered where the obsession with undead and pirates really originates from. I admit I have enjoyed the content when I ran it thus far but it's buggy, with fairly mediocre loot with the sole exception for me of the boots. I have wondered if that Cursed Jack Jibbers Blade is a band aid for lag wiped raids for people to recover from them if it works in such an environment. A few people having those after the lag spiked that kills the party can save an EE/EH Deathwyrm that went south.

Swashbuckler--I haven't run this yet but it has potential for a few builds so I will reserve judgement. I will say the SWF line that was introduced was rather amazing on a wolf melee build I am running at the moment. So for me that one's a win.

Guild buffs--I like how they have listened and made it one button and go, last through death and even pause in public spaces. The Chrono bonus that duplicates the Time Pendant without you having to click on the slowest freakin' clickie in the game which annoyed me enough I never used it save during Mabar or Code and often didn't bother even then.

Guild levels--Meh

Guild Ships--Damn the original list was hideous stupid money grabbing. The reduced rate is still outrageous but might be doable. Personally I keep a VIP sub just for the convenience and the fact I understand and appreciate they have to make money on the game I enjoy. I accept this but sometimes they get a little blatant.

Bag shit---Well it's annoying and I agree if they want to police transactions they should recode them to be transactional. It is significant but very doable.

The Bugs--10k Stars thing pops to mind... well that's annoying as hell and the fact they so every rarely acknowledge how fast they rushed this and then hide without talking to the community definitely sucks.  I recall seeing Glin lament on twitter on "Like big ships and I cannot lie" making me want to barf in disgust that is just sad for a whiter than white guy...

Overall I give it a D raised from F on the strength of SWF and the Buffbar/buffs.

Illetirated wrote on Jun 14^th, 2014 at 5:23pm:


I think you must be mistaken. I don't care, and my feelings were not hurt. I was stating facts.

Why do I feel like I am being push polled? 

Just got back yesterday after being out of town for the last 10 days. Logged on today, chatted with guildies, and checked the Turbine forums.

- e3BC: No idea, will likely play it at some point.

- Guild ships: Nice work on the new buffs. This is really the main deliverable for this update. e3BC is window dressing for the "content focused" Chai-ites. Katana Boy working on his year end bonus with astral shard buffs and ships.

- UI totally fucked over, but we knew some of that when he announced it here.

- Broken crafting (game wide!) shows the same quality focus that Katana Boy pushed as head of QA. No surprise.

- Sounds like the new shared bank tab is "featured". What a shock!

- Swashbuckler: bard. Next!

This stuff was pushed out too early, but it is easy to see why. Turbine (and DDO) need to make the accounting numbers for second fiscal quarter, which ends on June 30.

Ideally, this stuff should have been released in May to optimize second quarter revenue. The date they picked was likely the latest possible while still giving a hope to meet revenue expectations.

Real world stuff is like that.

Grade so far: A year ago I would have given this a solid F. Given the current situation and diminished expectations, I'll give it a D+. This is simply the new reality.

The only hope here is that Katana Boy can actually fix the balance issues with the game:

- Nerfing Pally splash is a good start

- Defensive pass with medium/heavy armor also is absolutely needed

Those two, however, are not nearly enough. Need to nerf the hell out of

1) Sorc class. Shiradi Champion has been nerfed a number of times and is actually getting a bit gimpy. It only looks out of whack when stacked on top of sorc.

2) Monkchers. Too many things stack which shouldn't.

3) Monk splash in general.

4) Master's Blitz. Ridiculously overpowered, especially in the context of better defenses for heavy armor.

Cetus, this is your future:

Well Vaulties - I have enjoyed reading the very interesting feedback so far!  Thank you.   
And this is the reason I put it out there.
It's just too hard to know all that is going on to give a holistic opinion.

There are a few positives amongst the great feedback, but by and large the overall consensus is looking quite negative so far.  But in this day of political correctness, we cannot award fails because it hurts feelings, so....
Cairnoir wrote on Jun 14^th, 2014 at 2:39am:

wascally wabbit wrote on Jun 14^th, 2014 at 7:32am:

So I think the Certificate of Attendance is what he is in line for.  Gratz Mal - so well done for being there and keeping a chair warm.

So onto the specifics for those interested.
One of the issues I have is that we look at the known issues list and go "wow, that's bad!".  MajMal is likely to counter, "but look at all the things we fixed!"
Thing is, I don't know of many, so to be fair, I asked others to fill in the gaps. 
What baffles me is that Turdbine doesn't have a great track record, yet they don't take the obvious opportunity to publish a "things fixed" list?  I suspect it is for one of two reasons:
(a) this would mean admitting they had bugs/faults/exploits to begin with;
(b) they're too afraid to claim something is fixed knowing it is (1) possibly not or (2) will just come back next patch anyway....

Some responses:
Some Guy Here On The Boards wrote on Jun 14^th, 2014 at 12:02am:

I take your point, but someone somewhere is directly or indirectly paying for the content or it wouldn't exist at all.

pape wrote on Jun 14^th, 2014 at 12:24pm:

Barkabout wrote on Jun 14^th, 2014 at 10:50pm:


I think this best sums it up:
higgildypiggildy wrote on Jun 14^th, 2014 at 2:03pm:

As the "Live Producer" (I would hate to have the Dead Producer role - would be a career dead end)  , he has a lot of the control on what went into U22.

I suspect Turdbine were forced to push this release out before end of June - for whatever reason we will never know.
So E3BC was always on the cards.  But what about the epic fails like interface changes, bag deposit box, guild ships and buffs (so many more complaints coming out about these - they really are a mess).  Some obviously weren't ready and that was clear from Lamm and others were missed by the awesome QA dept.
MajMal would have had some say in what went into U22 - so I'm afraid my view is that he wears the responsibility on this.
To finish it off, this sums it up nicely.
Ah Pook wrote on Jun 14^th, 2014 at 2:55pm:

You know I can see it now we probably won't hear from a producer type until October, maybe November when they push out u24 and then there is that wonderful Producers Blow me letter that is going to stroke themselves all over us over the job they achieved with u22, claiming the utter success of E3BC, the Swashbuckler, New Guild Ships/Levels and Buffs to a degree to make it look like any complaints we have are way off base.

The sheer amount of silence from management at this point is rather unsurprising and I almost feel sorry for Jerry, despite the fact that he remains... well Jerry for being the front line for the nerd rage.

When ever shall we truly hear for Mal?