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Turbine Trouble...
Khrymson
Member UncommonPosts: 3,090
I havn't played DDO since beta however many years ago that was, but I DL'd the trial yesterday and gave it a whirl for a few hours. The Character Customization is very impressive and I love all the different hairstyles {29 actually for female Elves} and the whole D&D aspect of creating a character has drawn me in.
I started a Priest that can wield a Sword and Shield but I prefer sticking to Light{robe} Armor to add a bit more challenge to it with much less AC. I enjoyed the solo and normal modes of the few dungeons I encountered during the starter area, but have yet to try Hard and Expert was is for any of them. The combat was fluid and enticing being able to step around enemies and avoid or manually block attacks, and they didn't have tons of HP that turned into a toe to toe auto-attack-just-watch-fest.
I ended up getting many rewards and money from all the breakables and chests, and ended up selling the rest to the merchant of which I ended up with like 43 Platinum. That sure seems like a whole lot of money right away....gear later on must cost a fortune then if I got that much 4th tier money after just a few starter instances.
About to log back in and continue my trial to get further and see how it goes, but I'd like some feedback from current and past players to help me decide on Turbine, or if I should move onto something else. I'm looking forward to Aion and possibly SW:TOR but those are almost a year away and I'm not gonna camp their websites/forums like I did for WAR for 10+ months only to be severely dissappointed. I wanna play something till then and later, and be entertained not worrying about their progress reports!
Anyway, here is the rundown on my situations:
- Currently playing LOTRO but I have many annoying {and to me} game-breaking issues:
- Have to log into LOTRO 4-5 times everytime to get it to finally connect, keep getting a {switch to basic vista color scheme msg pops up after I hit connect which ends up crashing the loader} I've been speaking with Turbine through email for the past 2 months and in-game GM support and done everything they said that would fix this issue and none have yet.
- Accessing my in-game mail box freezes camera controls at whatever zoom level I was at; at the time. {Did some trial and error with this and it appears that when I open or remove items quickly it will always lock up, but if I wait 2-3 sec between clicks it won't always which is very annoying and takes alot of time when dealing with mass AH Mail} Again I've spoken with Turbine for past few weeks about this and still no solution...finally got a, "our technicions are looking into" response but no word on when this will be resolved.
- The past 2 weeks I've been experincing LOTRO freezing up my PC entirely and BSOD both of which obviously require a hard reboot to fix. Ive yet to contact Turbine about this cause its rare and well they seem not to be able to help me with other issues.
- Before anyone asks, yes I've run defrag and every conceivable virus/malware/adware etc program there is on my PC and its all clean. I also custom-built this PC{its not some pre-built store BS}, its top of the line and runs LOTRO lag-free in Ultra High DX10 settings. Every issue I have has spawned by attempting to run LOTRO or while its running so it has to all be LOTRO!
So far DDO has run very well, and I don't have any of the above LOTRO issues, and I've enjoyed it thus far and it has brought back some fond PnP memories from days of old, but I do have a few questions of which many have been slightly answered in other recent posting I read through today but I'll ask anyway:
- When I completed the trial area and was allowed to leave the first village it opened up into a huge adventure zone and from what I've read there are no overworld style map like the traditional MMO...everything is instanced yes? Does this larger area only service me or will I see other players in there while solo? Or do we have to be grouped?
- I liked the running killing, exploration and rare encounters like a quest that appeared. Is that something that will increasingly become larger after each completion...I did kills up to 50 kills, then it unlocked 100 kills total...does it just keep goign on endless or is there an end to it? Maybe a cap for this particular zone and more if there are others similar zones?
- Are there more huge zones like this and as I asked above are they all solo or will I ever see other players in them? Will I only see other players while in a village/city hub unless grouped?
- I read that about 1/2 the game or upwards of lvl 8-9 was about the cap on easier soloing and then it gets tougher and requires grouping, but is it possible to solo until lvl 16? I noticed the class rating during char creations which is nice info to know. Also noticed many complaints regarding many players just zerging instances instead of playing them D&D style...is that gonna be a huge issue with finding actual D&D players when I decide to group?
- Heard that the lvl cap was finally gonna be raised to 20 in the next update...any truth to that and when about will that happen?
- If this MMO falls prey to the notorius end-game style; how is it then? I've watched many videos showcasing grouping/raids and it looks really varied and fun, and the instances look incredible.
- Is there crafting and how is it? Hard to acquire recipes and materials? ...or easy and simple to raise or is everything just loot rewards?
- Is there an Auction House or do we just advertise our wares in chat or at the local pub?
...and ultimately my final question is since I'm having such annoying issues with Turbine regarding LOTRO, should I stay loyal to them and give DDO at least a month try while I'm awaiting Bk 7, or as stated above should I try to move onto something else!? I've run out of things to do and I'm just camping the AH trying to collect all the tailor recipes and awaiting the rare possiblity that someone will help me complete one of the few deeds I have remaining.
Looking forward to the resonses on this long-winded topic!
Comments
Hello-
I play both LOTRO and DDO. First, I am sorry to hear about your LOTRO issues. I've found that my SLI NVIDIA 8700M GT cards don't seem to enjoy the game either, but my older RADEON 256 mb single PCIE cards do infact run the game without error on my other computers. I can't offer anything 'cept if you were to maybe pipeline your graphics card to the onboard mobo (if you have one) and attempt that, you may find a different situation. I've never seen connectivity issues with LOTRO unless the server was down and I've been playing since BETA.
As for DDO, here's a few answers:
1. The larger areas service you and everyone else, unless you enter an instanced "adventure" area (The Desert, Gianthold, etc) where enemies appear to fight. This is just a really big adventure (dungeon) zone and only your party members can come & go. All dungeons are the same way. The Town, Houses, and general meeting areas are not like this -- anyone can be there and interact with you.
2. There are multiple zones for kill counts. These zones have varying requirements to score xp and they do cap at specific amounts. Some of these kill counts span into the upper-hundreds and thousand mark, but the xp received is quite comparable for the level requirement to be able to even kill one of these monsters.
3. As with many many games, everyone has varying playstyles. You're going to find zergers, role-players, true D&D fans (slow dungeon crawling) and everything in between. You can solo your way if you want, but it will be a long and tedious road. It's also self-defeating (this is an online game mmo for a reason). You don't have to role-play, but you should want to make friends so you can be socially-connected. Eventually your contacts help you out and sometimes you help them out at the same time. There's no reason to solo 'cept for challenge or lack of friends online. And I do mean EXTREME challenge (on elite) during solo - it's not a lot of fun to spend a lot of money on resources to solo everything when you can make money with the help of a full party.
4. Yes the next level cap increase is to level 20, and they were hoping to launch it for DDO's Third Anniversary. There's a high-probability this update will not happen in time for the Third Anniversary, but sometime in later March or early April. Check the Official DDO Forums for updates as they roll.
5. DDO's end-game is unique and not typical. Additional flavor elements will continue to roll out of the development cycle. Unless you grind yourself into an oblivion and make this game a "Job," you should not be disappointed with the End-Game.
6. Crafting is actually the current end-game past-time when not raidign (and is intrinsically part of The Shroud Raid). It's really an epic crafting system and does not reflect the true nature of a D&D Crafting System. Players are hopeful that Turbine introduces a REAL crafting system that reflects the nature of D&D later in 2009 along with the intended release of Half-Orc/Half Elf (Mod 10 or Mod 11) and the player character class Druid (Mod 11 or Mod 12). The level 20 cap increase is Mod 9 FYI.
7. There is an Auction House as well as an Traders Board on the Official DDO Forums for players to host their static trades and wants. Some Servers do have chat channels devoted to trading as well (user-created and hosted).
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You're not getting more experience if you solo a dungeon. Imagine, you spend 100k gold on wands/pots to solo a dungeon and it takes you an hour. Doing the same dungeon with the same difficulty in 4-5 people will result in almost no spent gold on wands/pots and you'll be finished in 15 minutes.
About the technical issues you encounter. Do you have vistax 64 bit with 4gb ram and 8800 series card? If you're playing the games in windowed modes its best to turn off vista aero style to windows classic or standard. In addition make sure you have the same refresh rate and preferably the same resolution. But freeze and BSOD in Lotro/DDo can be also a memory ram issue or overheating. The engine in these games might be causing occasional high pressures on system (surprisingly usually when you're idle and just stand on one place).
REALITY CHECK
As for your LOTRO problem you have probably been already told to try this but in your UserPreferences.ini (may be called something else for LOTRO) make sure that AllowFakeFullScreen=False this can mess things up a bit with some systems.
Have you tried running the loader in XP compatibility mode?
Exactly that, and I've turned off Aero and play in 1680*1050 full screen! Refresh has also been set to match.
As for your LOTRO problem you have probably been already told to try this but in your UserPreferences.ini (may be called something else for LOTRO) make sure that AllowFakeFullScreen=False this can mess things up a bit with some systems.
Have you tried running the loader in XP compatibility mode?
Turbine already had me delete my UserPreferences.ini which for now has helped a few issues but made others worse. I still have the file in another folder in case I still needed it! Nope havn't tried XP Comp yet.
Odd thing is I played LOTRO 8 months ago prior when I got up to lvl 50 before MoM and I had none of these issues, now since I've been back I've been plagued with all this, and I'm using the same PC with no hardware changes or upgrades since.
Thx for all the info everyone on my DDO questions. I really love playing healer classes and grouping with others whenever possible, but I do like to solo alot during slow times or when I'm on at 4-5AM. I've just been reading through alot of the posts here and some on the forums now and it seems to be a huge issue with veteran players zerging stuff and not wanting to take the time to read it since they've done it all before many times, which is understandable.
However, I don't wanna keep getting into groups and get started and find players decided to zerg and have to keep quitting them. What several of you have mentioned that Turbine should randomize the traps and enemies to force players to slow down would be very nice, even I caught myself running through an instance quicker during the 3rd run since I knew where it all was at already. Even still I stopped and still read the story lines popping up and read everything the NPCs said.
I know that putting no zerging in your LFG is helpful but won't always stop everyone from it you join, but also reducing getting groups since it appears to be prevalant.
For someone like me who takes their time to read everything several times over, but I'm still a power-gamer and easily have time to put in 6-8 hrs min a day....many times 10-12+ how long do ya think it'll last me before it gets boring as LOTRO has done for me. I've got this incredible memory and usually first time in anywhere or seeing something I remember it very well. I'm exceptional at foresight of what I need to do and keeping track of priorities as well as maps so it appears I'm rushing to many who I've known; its just that I know what needs to be done and I do it quicker than most. I like to expore and most times find areas that later on I'll be reading quest details and will recognize the location from the NPCs description and can get back to that location quickly and finish the quest faster than most!
When I returned to LOTRO for MoM, I finished every quest besides a handful or instance ones, 1/3 of all new deeds, and got 5/6 radiance gear in under 2 weeks. Still been playing to finish up all quests, and some fellowship ones from SoA I skipped, and all the new deeds in CD, Uru, Annu, Barad and several left from Moria....and trying to see how many new quest slots you can unlock from completing deeds. I need 2 more to get 50 quest slots and I wanna see if it caps there and at which point I'll prolly finally quit for awhile if it does.
Final question, do the original CD-keys from the boxed versions of DDO still work and honor the 30-day free time? Instead of buying the game digitally and having to DL the client from Turbine I prefer owning the box and DVDs. I've found the boxed versions on eBay for $3-$6 most of them. Will prolly do that instead if they're still valid, cheaper and didn't waste much money if I end up disliking DDO after awhile...
Its sounds like a software issue if you never changed any hardware.
The next step would be to remeber any SOFTWARE changes you made since your last time playing, or any DRIVER changes. Software that uses the same resourses could have made changes to files that LOTRO/DDO uses, creating conflicts.
I didnt read all the pages, so I dont if you done this yet, but a reinstall should clear the conflicts up.
On number 1, I have that issue. But I left click my mouse repeatedly till I get the blue loading screen after login. Seems to work for me, weird. Only login 1 time to get to that blue screen.
I dont have mail camera issues, or the BSOD. I got Vista 64 and I should have more issues than you. So I think a reinstall would help, if not done already.
Roses are red
Violets are blue
The reviewer has a mishapen head
Which means his opinion is skewed
...Aldous.MF'n.Huxley
I did do a reinstall when I returned 2 months ago, but havn't recently! Before I go through all the trouble and time to do that and updates, I'll see what Turbine says about that even though their advice hasn't been much help yet.
The only drivers I've changes recently have been the Video and Sound.
There is a memory problem with 32 bit Vista where you have 512MB or more of graphics memory. Suggested fix is to select a lower setting than Very High for Texture Detail. This fixed my post Moria system crashes.
More detail is on the official LoTRO site at http://www.lotro.com/support/vista32
DDO has tremendous potential to filling that niche if you like strategy based gaming environments. The struggle with DDO is going to be avoiding the rush to max level. If you’re able to chose the dungeons based on what’s not been completed you’ll have a better time overall. Getting into a guild with others that share a like mindset is very important, as with any online game, so chose wisely.
DDO and LotRO both seem to have the same problem with crashing upon starting the game clients. I’ve only seen the DDO game client run once or twice with the Aero glass feature active, otherwise it will not start or forces Windows to deactivate it. No other work around that I know of.
If a game client is causing BSOD I would suspect other things are going wrong. Have you updated your video drivers recently or is the video card overheating? (what temps are you getting during heavy instances of extreme graphics being drawn?)
To answer some of your questions:
*adventure zone – this is a private instance for you and your party. There are roughly 15 of these zones with varying degrees of difficulty. You have not left Korthos, there are three quests in that adventure area with the final being Misery’s Peak.
*Slayer kills cap upwards of around 5k to 7.5k and give substantial exp rewards. There are a few low level adventure areas which cap around 200-500, but this tends to be an exception to the overall function of these zones.
*there are at least 15.
*Are you asking if there is an active Perma Death community? If so, then yes.
*yes, level 20 is bringing a hell of a lot more then just 4 additional levels to the game. The additional play styles and mechanics that are to be included from those 4 levels could be staggering. I suspect/hope we’ll hear something about a date within 2 weeks.
*It’s varied, fun and occasionally frustrating. Adding 4 levels to the game is going to have an interesting impact upon the current Raids.
*crafting does not require recipes. Basically, and this is a crash course introduction to it, you gather and hoard componets and materials until you have the appropriate combinations then turn then in or place them into a machine. Think of it as a glorified collection/rewards type of meta-game.
*no Auction House per sey, but there are Auctioneers in just about every public area of the game.
*no, you should not stay loyal to any institute or organization that fails to deliver or convince you of your value to them. I’ve banned SOE products from any PC I own due to their fraudulent and deceptive business practices (SWG “nge”) they’ve committed against me in the past. SOE committed Wire Fraud, hopefully Turbine won’t stoop to something this low.
That's a lot of questions to answer.
Here's two of them.
In LotRO Mines of Moria the client suffers memory leakage over time, maps go blank etc. Exit and restart the client to fix this. I assume Turbine will fix this eventually. AoC suffered exactly this fate for along time btw.
Original (old) CD keys still work ok. I have created a new D&D account using a limited edition box key which I picked up over a year ago in PC World's Bargain Bin.
...and a third. Both LotRO and D&D clients lose focus at launch. When you see the screen go black keep clicking with your mouse to maintain focus and it should load first time.
One of the solutions I used when I played these two games regularly was to going into the settings, troubleshoot tab and lower the "engine speed". for some reason the default setting for this always caused crashes, lock-ups, etc on my systems.
Hope you get the problem sorted out.
"Death is a dignitary who when he comes announced is to be received
with formal manifestations of respect, even by those most familiar with him."
- Ambrose Gwinnett Bierce