Rubbinns wrote on Jul 9^th, 2015 at 2:35am:



I can see your point, but I haven't played a bastard sword toon in a couple years (knightmares), and I haven't touched a bow since the mechanic pass, they are just so slow now.  Can't imagine I will be playing a non-bard assassin any time soon, how many years till the next rogue pass do you reckon?

Yobai wrote on Jul 9^th, 2015 at 2:37am:


That is wrong in so many ways....

They have a Holocost Cloak, if they were only smart enough to figure out how to wear it. The way DDO is structured, they can edit pure content independant of code, both in the files they are working on and the people doing the work. If they put a moratorium on rules changes and had content people develop adventure packs strictly using existing rules they could have the code people refactoring the code for many months without interruption.

And that's key, interrupting a programmer with "just one new feature" absolutely destroys the efficiency of a refactoring effort.

So promise 3 updates of new adventure packs and give the programmers/engineers a solid year to work on cleaning up the code, and that 4th update will be amazing. People will get regular doses of new things, nothing new will break, and everything you do after that will take half the effort it does now.

Ginger_Walri wrote on Jul 9^th, 2015 at 8:22pm:


DDO2 is not necessarily a new game, but as Meursault suggested, a re-coding of the core logic to enable future expansions.
Having to develop new content from scratch would be a bridge too far.
They have to leverage the content and customers they have.

This might also get rid of the lag issues plaguing the game and the life long bugs they can't seem to remove.

Whether or not a new video engine Is in scope or not is up for debate as that would impact content coding I suspect.

Ginger_Walri wrote on Jul 9^th, 2015 at 8:32pm:


The way they are currently running it into the ground, you're probably right.
But with the right resources and some marketing they could make more.
And recoding DDO need not cost $4m/mth - it doesn't need a team of 100 programmers like IC.
In fact, the more programmers, the more likely to get in each other's way.

What they need is a small team of top shelf programmers and a few DBA's for 6 months.  Probably cost less than $1M. This isn't my area of expertise so I defer to others more experienced, but getting the scope right on this is key.

Bigger isn't always better.  For a job like this, I'd look for 2-4 very experienced programmers rather than a dozen graduates.  This is where the Turdbine thinking is divergent from mine.  They think cheap and cost minimisation is the only way to make money.
My business proves time and time again that you need to invest to grow a business.  Whether the business can be reinvigorated and grown is another matter for tactical and strategic planning.  And sometimes we recommend closing elements of businesses - that is the reality.  Because of the IP though, I think it still can make money or I wouldn't waste my time sharing my thoughts.

Ginger_Walri wrote on Jul 9^th, 2015 at 9:10pm:



Someone quoted $4m/mth to produce - that would have added up to a big prodn cost.
Also, there was good analysis on why IC died.  Timing, moving into an established contested market etc were primary causes of its failure.
As well as some terrible tactical decisions separating the playerbase etc.

IC was a big gamble and they fracked it up.

I agree that the current Turdbine mgmt couldn't organise a root in a brothel.  That's why the orgn needs to have some business competency injected into it.
You need the technical expertise, but it needs to be balanced with business/marketing expertise as well.

I'm not a marketing expert, but I could market DDO more professionally than they do.  Even without a big budget.  Targeted marketing for a niche product.  We've (Vault) talked about this aspect in some detail in other threads.

DropBear wrote on Jul 9^th, 2015 at 9:31pm:

Knew I was close, left out the "per month" part, vaulting it up on a tablet leaves something to be desired.

Arkat wrote on Jul 9^th, 2015 at 9:44pm:



The insane part of it for me is how they wasted a WB intellectually property so completely while being a subsidiary of WB and having so much access to the DC universe.

It's like a micro-version of WB's attempts in film.

DropBear wrote on Jul 9^th, 2015 at 3:05am:



what if it were Kiwi flavored instead?

There's no point marketing DDO as it stands now, the current players (mostly) stay with it because they are already sufficiently invested in the game to overlook the glaring bugs and shortcomings. New players don't have that perspective, so recruiting new players into the game as it stands just wastes everyones' time.

You don't get a second chance to make a first impression, players who try it and don't like it won't ever try it a second time, and the supply of new players is not infinite. Don't market until you have something worth marketing.

If you want proof of that, look at how fast new players leave the game. Change the default server and you get a huge swell on that server, and it dies out within a couple of weeks of switching default servers.

As long as you're attracting enough new players to test your retention rate, you're spending enough on marketing and your money is better spent improving retention. Once your retention rate is high enough to get a big enough fraction (say, 50%? 30%? Even 10%?) of your new players past the "infant mortality" period (about 9 months in DDO?) then start investing in marketing.

Yobai wrote on Jul 10^th, 2015 at 2:28pm:

I did. Read the day and time I posted it originally.

Yobai wrote on Jul 10^th, 2015 at 3:19pm:

Ah. Ok, sorry.

Yobai wrote on Jul 10^th, 2015 at 3:19pm:



That is not a pleasant visual image for me, especially with your new icon.