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OMG where is everyone/Whats happening?
rvjones10
Member UncommonPosts: 100
I will not flame this game nor will I defend it. I would like the answer to one simple question.
Of over 100 people in my guild, why was I the only one who was playing D&D online at at 8pm EST last night???? (Let me add that better than 50% have not logged in over 2 weeks).
It seems as though putting a group together has become quite a chore these days. Maybe Turbine can reduce the number of servers so I can find some people to play with.
I'm on Adar, has anyone else noticed this on other servers?
Comments
And we all know it's not the first option, seeing as how "friends don't let friends play solo"
Honestly this game lost appeal to me within my trial month. I was kind of bummed out because I am a huge D&D fanboy and have played it since the mid 80's. The lack of a world to explore and forced grouping did it for me. While D&D was centered around grouping, an MMO should be more diverse. It has okay graphics, it follows the D20 system pretty well with the exception of the leveling system, and has an actual use for rogues other than sneak and bleed. This should have been a great game but it's just losing steam. Maybe they will make some changes.
True Neutral Half-Elf Ranger Mage
Follower Of Silvanus
Kings of Chaos! Free to play! Great PvP!
Always liked D&D and their games. But this one...?
Hey, we told you all from beta that this was not worth buying, although a nice game it has no lastability whatsoever. A month, tops, then people would drop out of sheer boredom.
We were not lying. We did not try to troll. This game had a huge problem, no matter how much people liked D&D. Its not a multiplayer game, and its not worth 15 bucks a month.
Now had it been FREE per month, then they would have sold a ton more copies.. tons upon tons more. Then it would actually had a value, even with the flaws it contains.
"This is not a game to be tossed aside lightly.
It should be thrown with great force"
A month after release and people are already calling for server merges. Who could have forseen this disaster?
*Listens in on a meeting at Turbine*
Ok, here's the gameplan. We have 100% instancing and you have to run the same dungeon over and over again. While we are at it, let's charge a monthly fee for a game that takes a month of casual play to acheive max level. What a great idea! Actually, it's a horrible idea, but we have Dungeons & Dragons on the cover...it'll sell no matter how crappy the game is. Alright gang, that's enough for today, let's go play EQ2. Yay!
Joined 2004 - I can't believe I've been a MMORPG.com member for 20 years! Get off my lawn!
Seriously? Sorry but i find this very hard to beleive. I have toons on Sarlona, and i have no problems at all finding groups within minutes. I just joined a guild, it has atleast 10 toons on every evening, + some on the weekends, and its a pretty small guild, average level around 7 or 8. Besides, why ask that on these boards? I would suggest going to your server board at DDO.com and posting about it there. Posting it here will get you very little real info, other then the WoW fanbois saying how doomed DDO is. Yes yes, we know, its the end of the DDO, whe should all quit and go wait in line to play WoW.
Not calling you a liar, but i am just not experiencing the same things on my server.
It varies a lot by class too. If you're a cleric, chances are you're going to have a much easier time finding a group than any other class. And it's also dependant on a few other things. First off, your level. It's harder to find groups, particularly PUGs beyond level 5. If you're in a guild you might have an easier time because you know a small group of people that are on at the same time as you. Then it also depends on what time of day you're playing. I know the OP said he plays at peak times EST, and I'm sure his story is true for that server. The only servers that have higher population are Sarlona, Ghallanda, and Khyber. Many of the other servers are dead as hell, especially during off-peak times.
Now, I stopped playing about a week and a half ago, as I didn't want to renew my subscription. So I can't speak for this exact moment from personal experience. But a friend of mine is still playing on Ghallanda, and he says that while it's more difficult than before, it can still be done. The problem remains that the game has little depth to keep many people playing it. The hardcore players will burn through the game in a couple weeks, and even the casuals like myself will max out in about 6 weeks or less. And the big kick in the pants is that the fewer people there are, the harder it is to find a group. It's a downward spiral that is the thorn in the side of DDO.
I personally think the outlook is bleak, and I'm not a WoW fanboy or telling anyone to go play that game. To each his own, but I doubt even the most devout fans of DDO are going to be enough to keep that game going on their own. It just loses its luster so quickly. Just my opinion though...
Well, just adding my 2 cents, but last month DDO was top 6 of most sold games in North America, just behind WoW.
So maybe it was just your Guild as it seems the game has problems to keep their players much worse than WoW has. There should be, however, a good deal of recycling seeing that the sales went pretty well for them. (they have been in the top 10 almost every week since release).
"If you give a man a fish, you feed him for a day, if you teach him how to fish, you feed him for a lifetime"
Link please.
According to the charts at biz.gamedaily.com, DDO hasn't been in the Top 10 of PC game sales since the week of March 18th.
This week's numbers: http://biz.gamedaily.com/charts/?id=197
According to Amazon.com, yesterday (4/19) DDO was 218th in Computer and Video Game sales on thier site. Anecdotal at best, but by comparison yesterday WoW was 8th in sales on Amazon.
oh, and i do not play WoW either, its crap too.
March US list http://www.gamespot.com/news/6147802.html?q=chartspot
That is for the whole month and the only monthly list DDO can be in.
It dropped from week lists starting april, but the data goes on only to 8th of april, so I can't say if they have stopped buying it or it was just a 2 weeks dry up.
Note: I personally do not like the game, just wanted to add some charts to the discussion.
"If you give a man a fish, you feed him for a day, if you teach him how to fish, you feed him for a lifetime"
The DDO model SHOULD have been something like this: game costs 50 bucks. Come out with new story modules every 3 months or so, for 10-20 each. If it has a lot in it, you might get away with 30 bucks every 3 months. Server code released for free. So no hosting expense, and you can get 5-10 a month from the modules over time.
But then Turbine is behind this game, and anyone with a history in ac2 must suspect as i do that Turbine may actually not have a brain...
DDO is not much different then GW - game play is slightly differnt..but its nothing more then a chat room with graphical interactive interface :P
It is of no surprise that they are now offering a 7 day trial -- hehe the good games dont start offering trials for at least a year or more :P
Tatsit
Tantus Games
COO/Game Director
All I have to say is that those of us who were in the beta warned that this is exactly what would happen. It's really NOT all that different in concept from Guild Wars
What's the difference?
Guildwars doesn't charge a monthly fee.
They both have full instancing
They both have decent story lines
They both have decent graphics
They both encourage grouping
Guildwars has crafting (albeit it's a lil different than in other MMO's)
Guildwars has a world to explore.
Guildwars has PVP.
Guildwars does not have a monthly fee
DDO Has:
Dungeons and Dragons
Slightly better quests/adventures
A monthly fee
No world to explore
That should sum up quite nicely why DDO is losing players (and it is). They're charging people $15 a month for less of a game than what Guildwars already offers people for free. We WARNED them during beta that this would happen. And we warned the Sheeple not to waste their money.
Personally I'm farting around on a free trial of it because *for free* it's worth playing. No way in hell would I play DDO for a monthly fee.
Currently Playing: Dungeons and Dragons Online.
Sig image Pending
Still in: A couple Betas
Allthough I did find it worth buying, I spend maybe 70-100 hours getting to lvl10 rank4, I had a bit of fun on that road but the point were you max out there is absolutely zero contents left.
It did cost as any single player game and I got slightly more game time out of it so to me that was worth the box prize.
But, that is not the bussiness model of MMO's, you will need people to stay past their first month if you are going to have any form of success and recoup your money.
I will say this though, I play on the Aureon EU server and in our guild of 18 people, NONE is still playing.
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Originally posted by Jerek_
I wonder if you honestly even believe what you type, or if you live in a made up world of facts.
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Yah...DDO hasn't been released all that long, and it can't be a good sign. But one guild isn't an accurate poll of the entire population, so yah...
They're charging people $15 a month for less of a game than what
Guildwars already offers people for free. We WARNED them during beta
that this would happen. And we warned the Sheeple not to waste their
money.
Anyway it's the same: xx$/month with free updates, or free with pay/expansion. It's not about the money, it's about the fun. If you play mmorpgs chances are you have plenty of free time/money.
I really, really wanted to like DDO and make it a game I played for the next year. I faked it for as long as I could, but in the end I had to admit to myself that it wasn't the game for me. I don't know, but I'll bet it's panic time over at Turbine. The only two games they have are Asheron's Call (which can't be a big revenue producer anymore) and DDO. That puts a lot of pressure on the LOTRO team.
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Old timer.
Well here in the UK t made top 10 on play.com.But I seriously dowbt that it is retaining players.Like I said in a previous thread ,everyone(including me) i know has not gone past the free month..
The $$$ in mmorpg is in holding to clients to pay $15 a month.D&DO i doubt is doing this .