I honestly can't agree with you. The Devs have said time and time again that while DDO has many aspects of PnP and adhere's to most of Dungeons and Dragons lore, they have to make sacrifices and make it an enjoyable PC game. For a person, such as myself, that works all day and have to sacrifice sleeping hours in the evening to play with friends on DDO, traversing that huge adventure area to get to one quest repeatedly is NOT fun. Not for me anyways. For someone who has tons of time to play DDO--they may not care as much, and honestly if i also had more time to play, even i wouldnt care as much. My point being is that you guys have to see things from the Devs POV and understand that they have to consider many variables when taking on such a huge task. They arent only developing for players that have time on their hands to grind grind grind and run through an adventure area the size of Texas 50x a day. Neither are they only developing for players that are f2p or VIP. There are people such as myself that doesnt have that time and pays for VIP so DDO can be more enjoyable for me since i don't have the time to play very much. Even if they offered some sort of bonus for having to run to a quest 50miles away, that still would cut out time that i could actually run a quest and progress my character. As well, it's not like you don't have the option to run to each quest if you prefer, which leaves me to honestly wonder if your arguement is based solely on the existance of the teleporter? Which is fantastic for ppl that doesnt have much time to play DDO and still wish to enjoy their purchase.
I only play DDO 5-10 hours a week at most and I also work a real job 40-50 hours a week and I still enjoy them. I'm not asking for long runs, just a minute or 2 for each quest or less to give us immersion and a reason to use the wilderness area. Most runs to quests in DDO are only a minute or 2. I don't want a big timesink or grind either. The thing is, I see it as part of the quest. So that's why it's not a waste of time to me. For me the quest begins when you talk to the quest giver. And it should be factored into the drop rates and XP so it isn't perceived as a waste of time. So for example if a quest is 10 minutes long but has a 2 minute run to it, give it 20% more XP and drop rates than you would a normal 10 minute quest. I understand your point of view and you aren't wrong just because you see it differently, I'm just explaining my viewpoint on it.
@Rose Faraday "For a person, such as myself, that works all day and have to sacrifice sleeping hours in the evening to play with friends on DDO, traversing that huge adventure area to get to one quest repeatedly is NOT fun." I hear you. But luckily there is no need at all to slog through the wilderness if you don't want to. To gain access to Ravenloft you have to run the quest Into the Mists. And at the end of that quest you enter the adventure area. Simply traveling along the road you will quickly come across the NPC who will give you a free Barovian weapon and a free Sentient Jewel (if you are in epic levels). Not far past him you will enter the village of Barovia, which contains the first adventure hub, in the inn of course. And from this point on you can simply port right to this inn, or to the second adventure hub. From either of those two hubs you can port to the third. I've run the Ravenloft quests quite a lot, and I have barely touched the adventure area. And that was only because they pulled the teleport NPCs inside the inns after one patch and I thought they were just bugged and ran to two different quests before someone joined my group and told me about the NPC move.
Hey bud.. yeah I dig adventure areas, always have. My thoughts are: I'd like to see these areas become part of most quests. So let's say Running with the devils. You're given the quest as per usual however when you step "from" Meridia the adventure begins.. So devils would spawn in random areas on the way to the quest, a boss or sub boss would make an appearance and maybe give some dialog. This way they tie the adventure area with the actual quest. An NPC could guide you to certain quests with small objectives on the way, solve a puzzle, get an airship to work, or "learn" how to make a portal.. Idk. Anyway the ideas could go on forever. As it stands I utilize slayer areas for tons of Exp and I'd say that even though it's pretty much hack n slash I think Orchard in my Fav. The sheer number of mobs makes it at least entertaining. XDeathstarX- Ghallanda
Im glad i found your channel, i played DDO for years when it first game out till about 2011ish. I got out of it trying to find other stuff, but looking for years i have been disappointed in the MMO market horribly. Im coming back to DDO and im super excited to see the game still being developed and new content added. I love how DDO does not feel like its holding my hand and provides a little bit of challenge. I was wondering if you had any recommendations on what servers are still alive and have a population in it. I understand that the game is to the point where 90 percent of the population is all endgame, and im working on getting there.
visually I loved all of barovia. I have to admit the wilderness is a bit too big. your right though, I would have liked it better if they had added little mini quests to get you going along the way. make people want to dive in and explore. over all I was very happy with ravenloft... and whats up with all the newer raids they have made being epic only? I mean we buy the pack but can only access the raids at lv20+ ? I think that's a bit unfair.
Raiding has always been an endgame activity. They need to do that so people have a reason to stay at cap. Plus raiding at lower level doesn't make a lot of sense since raids are loot focused and any loot you get as you level soon gets outdated. And the raids we do have that aren't at cap have all basically been at cap endgame raids at one point when the game was older and the level cap was lower.
I love the new adventure area and I choose to travel the entire area and have no issue that they offer teleport, even in Three Barrel Cove when they added the teleport ability, I haven't used it when playing solo. So I see the teleport options as useful for team play and do nothing to take away from solo play. I hope they add some optional side quests in later updates.
Yeah, I know I'm in the minority on this one. That's OK. It would be cool to see them add more to Barovia wilderness but I really doubt it will happen.
I wish I had access to your vids back when I played. To me, the game was utterly ruined by the epic levels. I was so pumped for MotU and it was a huge let down. It's nice seeing Ravenloft get some play though.
I really liked MoTU when it dropped. But in hindsight, I think going the epic destiny route hurt the game in the long run and more heroic levels would have been better. But I don't really see how you could think MoTU was a letdown content-wise, that was the highest quality content we ever got IMO. Ravenloft is definitely worth coming back for, if you're interested in returning. It's very good.
Axel's DDO Channel The epic destiny route really killed it for me. More heroic levels would have been a much better choice but I would have rather seen the cap stay at classic D&D 20 with a broader introduction of prestige enhancements based off of the multiclass prestige classes from the core material. Before epics were added, grouping with my guild on DDO (much love for Pay it Forward of Sarlona) felt like we were all sitting down at the table. Ravenloft was always my favorite setting that wasn't custom. If I get a few extra bucks, I might have to check it out.
