I've been gone for an year now. Is DDO still running? I thought it was already doomed when I left. How is it now? Did it get any better? Hows the servers population?

It's still running.

It's still doomed, but it's tough to kill Dungeons and Dragons...

Hasbro tried it with d&d 4th Ed and they failed miserably...

Well, some of the loot has been un-Feathered, it's bug riddled, Duping is rampant...
Oh and Power creep is also rampant...
The new batch of devs are more interested in resume padding all encompassing system chances than in bug fixes/small changes, since they come from AC, they know they have to do it that way if they want to survive until DDO is put into maintenance mode.

It's still going down... but if you know the proper channels it's not hard to get groups goings.... on the other hand, if you rely on LFM for Normal quests, expect to solo them.

ya the game is in bad shape. too bad they only kept the interns on the payroll.

I don't know how bad it is, but there's still fun stuff to do.  And fun people to run with.  When that stops then I'll worry about the game dying.

Hiding wrote on Oct 14^th, 2014 at 8:29pm:


I give it two more years before full maintenance mode....
There's plans already for next year according to the supposed producer posts...
Since they are going to shift a bit ( you know Turbine and all ) there's work for two years to complete these plans...
Then it will be time to go maintenance, as there's probably going to be some kind of new D&D online game based on 5th Ed... and it will be more than 10 years of life...

It's already pretty much maintenance. Some recycled quests quarterly with no direction, balance, or fixes. Increase of cash grab in ddo store. Continued lies from (ex)producers that never come to fruition (Majmal). DDO council, another failure. The vault oldies have dwindled. Interactions went from drama, dick joke, drama, dick joke to dupe, spam, dupe, spam.   

Move on.

Sham wrote on Oct 15^th, 2014 at 6:16am:

Ha! Shows what you know. I always spam dick jokes, cock smoker.

Sim-Sala-Bim wrote on Oct 15^th, 2014 at 1:42am:


lol and even the hires are lonely, some just don't want to stay put anymore and become your third leg.

Flav wrote on Oct 15^th, 2014 at 3:09am:


I wouldn't base any future outlook based simply on their plans.  It's going to depend simply on numbers, and they can pull the plug at any time.  They can plan out a year or two, that's great.  But at the end of the day, one day, someone higher up will just make a decision and shut it down.  Or maybe leave it up in maintenance mode, that will depend on what kind of licensing deal they can make with wotc.

None of us armchair executives can tell the OP how long the game will be running.  All we can say is that it's all about the numbers, and if they still have numbers to keep it afloat, they probably will for as long as possible.

But as the population goes down, and it's pretty low right now but seems stable at the moment, I would think the revenue stream would be impacted negatively.  Even with the store promos and ptw items, they have probably nearly bottomed out revenues as even these markets have become saturated.

The game needs new players, new players that will stay and spend.  Unfortunately, the game is not new player friendly.  And WB Games doesn't seem to be doing too much to promote this game (I am making the assumption that marketing had been consolidated up to WB Games a few years ago, and that turbine itself is not responsible for it)

As Flav mentioned, the game is getting pretty old too.  IIRC, licensing with wotc will be coming up in 2016, so I would agree that there would be critical decisions to be made at that time.  (If the game survives to 2016)

Hopefully the lights will stay on for awhile longer.  I personally think it will, but only if the number of players leaving = new players staying.  The traffic graphs seem pretty flat for now.

So, for the OP, come on in!  Go VIP on the three month payment plan.  Unless you already have access to most packs as a premium plan, for someone who doesn't have many packs the best time to be VIP is right now.  This late in the game, there is no point in buying existing packs.

Bigjunk wrote on Oct 15^th, 2014 at 10:25am:


As long as they avoid infogrammes ( Aka Atari ) is should be fine.

Aeolwind wrote on Oct 15^th, 2014 at 10:43am:


Well they didn't have much choice once they selected Infogrammes... erm Atari... and In... Atari went to Cryptic... and Cryptic changed hands twice in the time it took to develop,
the latest owner deciding that the original idea ( a central area to create parties and then adventures in party instances ) was not good enough and rebuilt the whole game as a MMO ( as a clone of their own games ) in a few months.

Residue wrote on Oct 15^th, 2014 at 11:11am:


Oh, I agree, even if I have a few bits of information due to my PC tenure...
What I say is wild assed guesses... based on my gut feeling of the game as it is and what occurs in the PC Forum.
It doesn't change the fact that I give it two years before it goes into maintenance mode?
( at least in maintenance mode we will get bug fixed, since that's the only thing that will be done in updates )

Viktor Vaughn wrote on Oct 15^th, 2014 at 3:30pm:


Amen.


I agree with Flav on maintenance mode, all these system changes and power creep sure look like preparation for it anyways including this proposed change to hamp.

respectfully, fuck maintenance mode.  not good enough.

maint. mode leaves the license in their infantile hands.

need the game to generate so little cash that they dump the license and give someone capable a shot at the next iteration. 

If we're lucky we might see a new alpha in about 6 years, but first we gotta pry the license away from Daffy fucking Duck.