The biggest problem I had with this game was every pug I got in someone always knew the layout of the dungeon and it got old when they would lead you by the hand and there was no suspense. No matter how many times you told them to not say something most of the time they did. This took all the fun out of the game so I quit.
The biggest problem I had with this game was every pug I got in someone always knew the layout of the dungeon and it got old when they would lead you by the hand and there was no suspense. No matter how many times you told them to not say something most of the time they did. This took all the fun out of the game so I quit.
THis is one of the main reasons I wish DDO had done random layouts. With enough changes no one would know what was where and each time in would be a new adventure.
The biggest problem I had with this game was every pug I got in someone always knew the layout of the dungeon and it got old when they would lead you by the hand and there was no suspense. No matter how many times you told them to not say something most of the time they did. This took all the fun out of the game so I quit.
I agree it is the worst part of the game, twinked players rushing content ruins it for new players. Random wouldn't solve it as there are actually two problems, familiarity and inappropriate items.
I actually find no problem with acting dumb about a quest, but I have never seen the poiint of rushing in the first place.
The only way I have managed to avoid such groups is to either start your own group with the clear message only slow or new players are wanted. Join a light RP group, they tend to be more evenly paced. Join a guild that is specifically built around a considerate playstyle.
DDO is down to 2 MODs a year now. While that may be enough in a large world, plenty to do MMO it is not enough in DDO. If it was DDO would have better player retention because it has the best character building and best combat in an MMO. So that leaves us with lack of content as the main reason people have left. Dates off the top of my head: Mod 6 - Jan/Feb 08 Mod 7 - May 08 Mod 8 - Oct 08 (scheduled) Mod 9 - Feb 09 (scheduled) How does that make 2 a year?
You might get three this year then. I am giving you Turbine own quote from a year ago" Due to player response we will be giving 2-3 mods a year as opposed to 4-6" . You feel DDO has the greatest quality in a game ever. That is your opinion, mine is they were way too slow adding new things and spent too much time with stuff like the Dragon raid and making it harder a year after most players stopped running it. They should have spent more time on new stuff. It is a niche game and will never be what Dungeons and Dragons should have been. They took the biggest name in RPG and made a 30k population MMO. That is a failure.
If a single mod in the 4 to 6 mods were of the same size as a single mod in the 2 to 3 mods I would agree with you. They were not however, so having the same amount of content delivered in larger chunks is hardly a substantial difference, but I see how it could be spun as such.
As for revisiting lower content to improve it, I would see that as a sign of a provider that is trying to constantly improve the game for all level of players. The latest mod being addressed largely to new players being a classic example.
I come across the blinkered attitude that high level player end game content is all that is important a lot on the forums. But it is generally from players that have huge amounts of gaming time, and realistically it would be impossible to produce content at a rate that would ever sustain them, short of pure raid grinding. I seriously doubt these people are representative of MMO communites, they are very vocal and tend to dominate forums, but devs need to look beyond those that cry loudest.
But of course population is the only measure of quality, the most popular MMOs only have 10% of the quality of WoW clearly. McDonalds make the best burger in the world obviously, coke is the best drink in the world, who could argue with that, reality shows are honestly not the worst TV possible.
If all else fails make up a number and quote it as fact.
MMOs are a business, population is the sign of success. End of story. DDO is not a financial success and it should have been bigger. Your little bits of sarcasm are not needed. You play a small game that never got the recognition it should have and never got the development it needed but you want be snarky and pretend that you play the best thing ever made.
You play the best dungeon crawl, not the best MMO. DDO is all about raid grinding too, or have you missed the raids that require multiple completions to get what you need?
Do you honestly doubt 30k? Come on then give me the real number. They combined servers to try and get 1k people at a time in each server. So you could find groups in under an hour and it worked. They did not expand they contracted, I wonder why?
DDO has been out so long that nearly everyone has a high level character, it is not just hardcore players it is people playing a few hours a week as well. High level content has been needed in DDO since 4 months after launch and it has come out way too slowly. Turbine did a poor job with DDO after making the best combat system in any MMO.
Well if you don't understand that mass popularity is rarely a sign of quality, then I doubt I could widen your horizons. I am also able to have an opinion on something, without the need to have that opinion vindicated by others, there are enough sheep in the world. I do agree with the business model though, I doubt Turbine would consider DDO a financial success, but then they have LoTRo for mass market appeal, so I have no concerns about its longevity.
Out of interest what MMO would you consider the pinnacle of its kind?
Yes I do, and I also have learnt for personal experience you can not judge player subscriptions based on perception alone. I made the same mistake, you end up believing what you want to believe and in my case when the real numbers came out I couldn't have been more wrong, so I try to avoid making an arse of myself in the same way.
However if I was to guess, and it would purely be that because I honestly have no idea, in the same way you have no idea, I would say that DDO has a subscription base in the range 50k to 70k, and that has been pretty static for the last 2 years. Actually while playing a Monk I have been surprised how many new players I have grouped with and how many reappear for every new module.
High level content is the focus of a vocal minority as I have already stated, a minority you would never possibly be able to provide with quality content at any rate they wouldn't consume within days. As for these players going, I see them leave all the time, the guild I was in 75% of them left for AoC they are all back, 75% left for WAR and half are already back. Why, because if you love the combat and the quests, nothing comes close.
DDO obviously had some affect on you, or if it was such a failure you would have lost interest to the point of apathy. The fact you are here speaks volumes, you don't find me on other MMO forums saying why I stopped playing them, because I really don't care about them enough to put the effort in.
DDO is down to 2 MODs a year now. While that may be enough in a large world, plenty to do MMO it is not enough in DDO. If it was DDO would have better player retention because it has the best character building and best combat in an MMO. So that leaves us with lack of content as the main reason people have left. Dates off the top of my head: Mod 6 - Jan/Feb 08 Mod 7 - May 08 Mod 8 - Oct 08 (scheduled) Mod 9 - Feb 09 (scheduled) How does that make 2 a year?
You might get three this year then. I am giving you Turbine own quote from a year ago" Due to player response we will be giving 2-3 mods a year as opposed to 4-6" . You feel DDO has the greatest quality in a game ever. That is your opinion, mine is they were way too slow adding new things and spent too much time with stuff like the Dragon raid and making it harder a year after most players stopped running it. They should have spent more time on new stuff. It is a niche game and will never be what Dungeons and Dragons should have been. They took the biggest name in RPG and made a 30k population MMO. That is a failure.
If a single mod in the 4 to 6 mods were of the same size as a single mod in the 2 to 3 mods I would agree with you. They were not however, so having the same amount of content delivered in larger chunks is hardly a substantial difference, but I see how it could be spun as such.
As for revisiting lower content to improve it, I would see that as a sign of a provider that is trying to constantly improve the game for all level of players. The latest mod being addressed largely to new players being a classic example.
I come across the blinkered attitude that high level player end game content is all that is important a lot on the forums. But it is generally from players that have huge amounts of gaming time, and realistically it would be impossible to produce content at a rate that would ever sustain them, short of pure raid grinding. I seriously doubt these people are representative of MMO communites, they are very vocal and tend to dominate forums, but devs need to look beyond those that cry loudest.
But of course population is the only measure of quality, the most popular MMOs only have 10% of the quality of WoW clearly. McDonalds make the best burger in the world obviously, coke is the best drink in the world, who could argue with that, reality shows are honestly not the worst TV possible.
If all else fails make up a number and quote it as fact.
MMOs are a business, population is the sign of success. End of story. DDO is not a financial success and it should have been bigger. Your little bits of sarcasm are not needed. You play a small game that never got the recognition it should have and never got the development it needed but you want be snarky and pretend that you play the best thing ever made.
You play the best dungeon crawl, not the best MMO. DDO is all about raid grinding too, or have you missed the raids that require multiple completions to get what you need?
Do you honestly doubt 30k? Come on then give me the real number. They combined servers to try and get 1k people at a time in each server. So you could find groups in under an hour and it worked. They did not expand they contracted, I wonder why?
DDO has been out so long that nearly everyone has a high level character, it is not just hardcore players it is people playing a few hours a week as well. High level content has been needed in DDO since 4 months after launch and it has come out way too slowly. Turbine did a poor job with DDO after making the best combat system in any MMO.
Well if you don't understand that mass popularity is rarely a sign of quality, then I doubt I could widen your horizons. I am also able to have an opinion on something, without the need to have that opinion vindicated by others, there are enough sheep in the world. I do agree with the business model though, I doubt Turbine would consider DDO a financial success, but then they have LoTRo for mass market appeal, so I have no concerns about its longevity.
Out of interest what MMO would you consider the pinnacle of its kind?
Yes I do, and I also have learnt for personal experience you can not judge player subscriptions based on perception alone. I made the same mistake, you end up believing what you want to believe and in my case when the real numbers came out I couldn't have been more wrong, so I try to avoid making an arse of myself in the same way.
However if I was to guess, and it would purely be that because I honestly have no idea, in the same way you have no idea, I would say that DDO has a subscription base in the range 50k to 70k, and that has been pretty static for the last 2 years. Actually while playing a Monk I have been surprised how many new players I have grouped with and how many reappear for every new module.
High level content is the focus of a vocal minority as I have already stated, a minority you would never possibly be able to provide with quality content at any rate they wouldn't consume within days. As for these players going, I see them leave all the time, the guild I was in 75% of them left for AoC they are all back, 75% left for WAR and half are already back. Why, because if you love the combat and the quests, nothing comes close.
DDO obviously had some affect on you, or if it was such a failure you would have lost interest to the point of apathy. The fact you are here speaks volumes, you don't find me on other MMO forums saying why I stopped playing them, because I really don't care about them enough to put the effort in.
Mass popularity may not always be a sign of quality, but lack of popularity is usually a sign of something lacking. If you do not understand that I doubt I can broden your horizons. DDO would not have needed to merge servers if they had 70k subs.
High level content is not just wanted by a vocal minority, that is the weak excuse used to try and defend a dev team that is not getting enough done and never has. It is funny how you say when I have no idea I quote a number and say it is real, just like you are doing with your vocal minority line. It is the same as the McDonalds line, players of small games try and act like their game kills WOW and WOW is just MCDonalds and their game is RuthsChris STeak House. WOW has mass appeal because WOW has tons of things to do even when not in combat, DDO has? Great combat and then nothing else to fill the time. I do not play WOW, but I can understand why people enjoy it.
You might get three this year then. I am giving you Turbine own quote from a year ago" Due to player response we will be giving 2-3 mods a year as opposed to 4-6" .
It is a niche game and will never be what Dungeons and Dragons should have been. They took the biggest name in RPG and made a 30k population MMO. That is a failure.
It's the stuff you post like "you might get three this year then" that makes you look clueless when I suspect otherwise. The reason for the different number of annual modules is due to the amount of content they can produce during a development cycle. They could give 2-3 dungeons 4 times a year or give 5-7 dungeons 2-3 times. It's paid off quite well even though they have suffered the occasional delay.
Some of your better MMO's on the market have been classified as "niche". Two quick examples come to mind of EVE Online and Star Wars Galaxies (PRE-CU) both of which have/had a VERY steep learning curve and a plethora of dynamics which is very similar to DDO besides that they had a vastly larger public footprint. While I don't think you're capable of determining what a failure is I do agree that the subscription base of DDO had underperformed due to very poor decisions made during the initial design of the game. Thankfuly the current team and their direction has made non stop progress in expanding the content and play environment while unfortunately only stepping on a few whinner's toes when a change was made to prevent excessive farming of content that was not intended.
And, I *do* agree with the belief that the game's early design was seriously flawed, but I also must say that the improvements made since have made vast improvements to teh game that's allowed it to recieve the support the trolls so vehemently flame.
I generally quit DDO every few months, not 'cs of the content, but 'cs I', doing many other things rather then sitting in a dark room playing D&D. What this game does that the others have not is it keeps me coming back for the fun it provides. No other game has done that, yet.
p.s. I'm having a blast with Realm Vs Realm and Public Quests in Warhamer!!
You might get three this year then. I am giving you Turbine own quote from a year ago" Due to player response we will be giving 2-3 mods a year as opposed to 4-6" .
It is a niche game and will never be what Dungeons and Dragons should have been. They took the biggest name in RPG and made a 30k population MMO. That is a failure.
It's the stuff you post like "you might get three this year then" that makes you look clueless when I suspect otherwise. The reason for the different number of annual modules is due to the amount of content they can produce during a development cycle. They could give 2-3 dungeons 4 times a year or give 5-7 dungeons 2-3 times. It's paid off quite well even though they have suffered the occasional delay.
Some of your better MMO's on the market have been classified as "niche". Two quick examples come to mind of EVE Online and Star Wars Galaxies (PRE-CU) both of which have/had a VERY steep learning curve and a plethora of dynamics which is very similar to DDO besides that they had a vastly larger public footprint. While I don't think you're capable of determining what a failure is I do agree that the subscription base of DDO had underperformed due to very poor decisions made during the initial design of the game. Thankfuly the current team and their direction has made non stop progress in expanding the content and play environment while unfortunately only stepping on a few whinner's toes when a change was made to prevent excessive farming of content that was not intended.
And, I *do* agree with the belief that the game's early design was seriously flawed, but I also must say that the improvements made since have made vast improvements to teh game that's allowed it to recieve the support the trolls so vehemently flame.
I generally quit DDO every few months, not 'cs of the content, but 'cs I', doing many other things rather then sitting in a dark room playing D&D. What this game does that the others have not is it keeps me coming back for the fun it provides. No other game has done that, yet.
p.s. I'm having a blast with Realm Vs Realm and Public Quests in Warhamer!!
It is not just the fact they lessened the number of mods, it was the lie they told when they did. They said by player response, except even the biggest fanboys of the game were stumped by that line since no one could find people who had requested such a thing. This was right before the server merge when the forums were full of people complaining about the lack of high end content.
DDO is great at what it does, Dungeon crawls, amazingly fun combat and some of the best character building(AO still beats it in my book but DDO is right there). But that being said it is not a true MMO, it is a dungeon crawling game that to me does not get enough content to warrant $15 a month when I can play games that are much bigger and have much more to do. DDO to me is a lot like Tabula Rasa in that if you played them both you might have enough to do to keep busy, but both suffer from not getting enough content over time. Both games seem best suited as your other MMO and not primary.
Comments
The biggest problem I had with this game was every pug I got in someone always knew the layout of the dungeon and it got old when they would lead you by the hand and there was no suspense. No matter how many times you told them to not say something most of the time they did. This took all the fun out of the game so I quit.
THis is one of the main reasons I wish DDO had done random layouts. With enough changes no one would know what was where and each time in would be a new adventure.
I agree it is the worst part of the game, twinked players rushing content ruins it for new players. Random wouldn't solve it as there are actually two problems, familiarity and inappropriate items.
I actually find no problem with acting dumb about a quest, but I have never seen the poiint of rushing in the first place.
The only way I have managed to avoid such groups is to either start your own group with the clear message only slow or new players are wanted. Join a light RP group, they tend to be more evenly paced. Join a guild that is specifically built around a considerate playstyle.
You might get three this year then. I am giving you Turbine own quote from a year ago" Due to player response we will be giving 2-3 mods a year as opposed to 4-6" . You feel DDO has the greatest quality in a game ever. That is your opinion, mine is they were way too slow adding new things and spent too much time with stuff like the Dragon raid and making it harder a year after most players stopped running it. They should have spent more time on new stuff. It is a niche game and will never be what Dungeons and Dragons should have been. They took the biggest name in RPG and made a 30k population MMO. That is a failure.
If a single mod in the 4 to 6 mods were of the same size as a single mod in the 2 to 3 mods I would agree with you. They were not however, so having the same amount of content delivered in larger chunks is hardly a substantial difference, but I see how it could be spun as such.
As for revisiting lower content to improve it, I would see that as a sign of a provider that is trying to constantly improve the game for all level of players. The latest mod being addressed largely to new players being a classic example.
I come across the blinkered attitude that high level player end game content is all that is important a lot on the forums. But it is generally from players that have huge amounts of gaming time, and realistically it would be impossible to produce content at a rate that would ever sustain them, short of pure raid grinding. I seriously doubt these people are representative of MMO communites, they are very vocal and tend to dominate forums, but devs need to look beyond those that cry loudest.
But of course population is the only measure of quality, the most popular MMOs only have 10% of the quality of WoW clearly. McDonalds make the best burger in the world obviously, coke is the best drink in the world, who could argue with that, reality shows are honestly not the worst TV possible.
If all else fails make up a number and quote it as fact.
MMOs are a business, population is the sign of success. End of story. DDO is not a financial success and it should have been bigger. Your little bits of sarcasm are not needed. You play a small game that never got the recognition it should have and never got the development it needed but you want be snarky and pretend that you play the best thing ever made.
You play the best dungeon crawl, not the best MMO. DDO is all about raid grinding too, or have you missed the raids that require multiple completions to get what you need?
Do you honestly doubt 30k? Come on then give me the real number. They combined servers to try and get 1k people at a time in each server. So you could find groups in under an hour and it worked. They did not expand they contracted, I wonder why?
DDO has been out so long that nearly everyone has a high level character, it is not just hardcore players it is people playing a few hours a week as well. High level content has been needed in DDO since 4 months after launch and it has come out way too slowly. Turbine did a poor job with DDO after making the best combat system in any MMO.
Well if you don't understand that mass popularity is rarely a sign of quality, then I doubt I could widen your horizons. I am also able to have an opinion on something, without the need to have that opinion vindicated by others, there are enough sheep in the world. I do agree with the business model though, I doubt Turbine would consider DDO a financial success, but then they have LoTRo for mass market appeal, so I have no concerns about its longevity.
Out of interest what MMO would you consider the pinnacle of its kind?
Yes I do, and I also have learnt for personal experience you can not judge player subscriptions based on perception alone. I made the same mistake, you end up believing what you want to believe and in my case when the real numbers came out I couldn't have been more wrong, so I try to avoid making an arse of myself in the same way.
However if I was to guess, and it would purely be that because I honestly have no idea, in the same way you have no idea, I would say that DDO has a subscription base in the range 50k to 70k, and that has been pretty static for the last 2 years. Actually while playing a Monk I have been surprised how many new players I have grouped with and how many reappear for every new module.
High level content is the focus of a vocal minority as I have already stated, a minority you would never possibly be able to provide with quality content at any rate they wouldn't consume within days. As for these players going, I see them leave all the time, the guild I was in 75% of them left for AoC they are all back, 75% left for WAR and half are already back. Why, because if you love the combat and the quests, nothing comes close.
DDO obviously had some affect on you, or if it was such a failure you would have lost interest to the point of apathy. The fact you are here speaks volumes, you don't find me on other MMO forums saying why I stopped playing them, because I really don't care about them enough to put the effort in.
You might get three this year then. I am giving you Turbine own quote from a year ago" Due to player response we will be giving 2-3 mods a year as opposed to 4-6" . You feel DDO has the greatest quality in a game ever. That is your opinion, mine is they were way too slow adding new things and spent too much time with stuff like the Dragon raid and making it harder a year after most players stopped running it. They should have spent more time on new stuff. It is a niche game and will never be what Dungeons and Dragons should have been. They took the biggest name in RPG and made a 30k population MMO. That is a failure.
If a single mod in the 4 to 6 mods were of the same size as a single mod in the 2 to 3 mods I would agree with you. They were not however, so having the same amount of content delivered in larger chunks is hardly a substantial difference, but I see how it could be spun as such.
As for revisiting lower content to improve it, I would see that as a sign of a provider that is trying to constantly improve the game for all level of players. The latest mod being addressed largely to new players being a classic example.
I come across the blinkered attitude that high level player end game content is all that is important a lot on the forums. But it is generally from players that have huge amounts of gaming time, and realistically it would be impossible to produce content at a rate that would ever sustain them, short of pure raid grinding. I seriously doubt these people are representative of MMO communites, they are very vocal and tend to dominate forums, but devs need to look beyond those that cry loudest.
But of course population is the only measure of quality, the most popular MMOs only have 10% of the quality of WoW clearly. McDonalds make the best burger in the world obviously, coke is the best drink in the world, who could argue with that, reality shows are honestly not the worst TV possible.
If all else fails make up a number and quote it as fact.
MMOs are a business, population is the sign of success. End of story. DDO is not a financial success and it should have been bigger. Your little bits of sarcasm are not needed. You play a small game that never got the recognition it should have and never got the development it needed but you want be snarky and pretend that you play the best thing ever made.
You play the best dungeon crawl, not the best MMO. DDO is all about raid grinding too, or have you missed the raids that require multiple completions to get what you need?
Do you honestly doubt 30k? Come on then give me the real number. They combined servers to try and get 1k people at a time in each server. So you could find groups in under an hour and it worked. They did not expand they contracted, I wonder why?
DDO has been out so long that nearly everyone has a high level character, it is not just hardcore players it is people playing a few hours a week as well. High level content has been needed in DDO since 4 months after launch and it has come out way too slowly. Turbine did a poor job with DDO after making the best combat system in any MMO.
Well if you don't understand that mass popularity is rarely a sign of quality, then I doubt I could widen your horizons. I am also able to have an opinion on something, without the need to have that opinion vindicated by others, there are enough sheep in the world. I do agree with the business model though, I doubt Turbine would consider DDO a financial success, but then they have LoTRo for mass market appeal, so I have no concerns about its longevity.
Out of interest what MMO would you consider the pinnacle of its kind?
Yes I do, and I also have learnt for personal experience you can not judge player subscriptions based on perception alone. I made the same mistake, you end up believing what you want to believe and in my case when the real numbers came out I couldn't have been more wrong, so I try to avoid making an arse of myself in the same way.
However if I was to guess, and it would purely be that because I honestly have no idea, in the same way you have no idea, I would say that DDO has a subscription base in the range 50k to 70k, and that has been pretty static for the last 2 years. Actually while playing a Monk I have been surprised how many new players I have grouped with and how many reappear for every new module.
High level content is the focus of a vocal minority as I have already stated, a minority you would never possibly be able to provide with quality content at any rate they wouldn't consume within days. As for these players going, I see them leave all the time, the guild I was in 75% of them left for AoC they are all back, 75% left for WAR and half are already back. Why, because if you love the combat and the quests, nothing comes close.
DDO obviously had some affect on you, or if it was such a failure you would have lost interest to the point of apathy. The fact you are here speaks volumes, you don't find me on other MMO forums saying why I stopped playing them, because I really don't care about them enough to put the effort in.
Mass popularity may not always be a sign of quality, but lack of popularity is usually a sign of something lacking. If you do not understand that I doubt I can broden your horizons. DDO would not have needed to merge servers if they had 70k subs.
High level content is not just wanted by a vocal minority, that is the weak excuse used to try and defend a dev team that is not getting enough done and never has. It is funny how you say when I have no idea I quote a number and say it is real, just like you are doing with your vocal minority line. It is the same as the McDonalds line, players of small games try and act like their game kills WOW and WOW is just MCDonalds and their game is RuthsChris STeak House. WOW has mass appeal because WOW has tons of things to do even when not in combat, DDO has? Great combat and then nothing else to fill the time. I do not play WOW, but I can understand why people enjoy it.
It is a niche game and will never be what Dungeons and Dragons should have been. They took the biggest name in RPG and made a 30k population MMO. That is a failure.
It's the stuff you post like "you might get three this year then" that makes you look clueless when I suspect otherwise. The reason for the different number of annual modules is due to the amount of content they can produce during a development cycle. They could give 2-3 dungeons 4 times a year or give 5-7 dungeons 2-3 times. It's paid off quite well even though they have suffered the occasional delay.
Some of your better MMO's on the market have been classified as "niche". Two quick examples come to mind of EVE Online and Star Wars Galaxies (PRE-CU) both of which have/had a VERY steep learning curve and a plethora of dynamics which is very similar to DDO besides that they had a vastly larger public footprint. While I don't think you're capable of determining what a failure is I do agree that the subscription base of DDO had underperformed due to very poor decisions made during the initial design of the game. Thankfuly the current team and their direction has made non stop progress in expanding the content and play environment while unfortunately only stepping on a few whinner's toes when a change was made to prevent excessive farming of content that was not intended.
And, I *do* agree with the belief that the game's early design was seriously flawed, but I also must say that the improvements made since have made vast improvements to teh game that's allowed it to recieve the support the trolls so vehemently flame.
I generally quit DDO every few months, not 'cs of the content, but 'cs I', doing many other things rather then sitting in a dark room playing D&D. What this game does that the others have not is it keeps me coming back for the fun it provides. No other game has done that, yet.
p.s. I'm having a blast with Realm Vs Realm and Public Quests in Warhamer!!
It is a niche game and will never be what Dungeons and Dragons should have been. They took the biggest name in RPG and made a 30k population MMO. That is a failure.
It's the stuff you post like "you might get three this year then" that makes you look clueless when I suspect otherwise. The reason for the different number of annual modules is due to the amount of content they can produce during a development cycle. They could give 2-3 dungeons 4 times a year or give 5-7 dungeons 2-3 times. It's paid off quite well even though they have suffered the occasional delay.
Some of your better MMO's on the market have been classified as "niche". Two quick examples come to mind of EVE Online and Star Wars Galaxies (PRE-CU) both of which have/had a VERY steep learning curve and a plethora of dynamics which is very similar to DDO besides that they had a vastly larger public footprint. While I don't think you're capable of determining what a failure is I do agree that the subscription base of DDO had underperformed due to very poor decisions made during the initial design of the game. Thankfuly the current team and their direction has made non stop progress in expanding the content and play environment while unfortunately only stepping on a few whinner's toes when a change was made to prevent excessive farming of content that was not intended.
And, I *do* agree with the belief that the game's early design was seriously flawed, but I also must say that the improvements made since have made vast improvements to teh game that's allowed it to recieve the support the trolls so vehemently flame.
I generally quit DDO every few months, not 'cs of the content, but 'cs I', doing many other things rather then sitting in a dark room playing D&D. What this game does that the others have not is it keeps me coming back for the fun it provides. No other game has done that, yet.
p.s. I'm having a blast with Realm Vs Realm and Public Quests in Warhamer!!
It is not just the fact they lessened the number of mods, it was the lie they told when they did. They said by player response, except even the biggest fanboys of the game were stumped by that line since no one could find people who had requested such a thing. This was right before the server merge when the forums were full of people complaining about the lack of high end content.
DDO is great at what it does, Dungeon crawls, amazingly fun combat and some of the best character building(AO still beats it in my book but DDO is right there). But that being said it is not a true MMO, it is a dungeon crawling game that to me does not get enough content to warrant $15 a month when I can play games that are much bigger and have much more to do. DDO to me is a lot like Tabula Rasa in that if you played them both you might have enough to do to keep busy, but both suffer from not getting enough content over time. Both games seem best suited as your other MMO and not primary.