Ten Ton Hammer: And what
about races like the gnome that are being taken out of 4.0 but never
made it into DDO?
great example of a rule that we’re looking at. Are we going
to be introducing them into the game after the 4.0 rule set comes out?
Honestly, probably not. We’re probably going to have to base
that decision on what the player base wants. If they’re upset
that the gnomes aren’t going to be included as one of the
core races, we may end up choosing to include them in the game, but
we’re going to take a lot of cues from WotC and where
they’re bringing the brand so we can stay consistent with
them.
border="1">
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/node/16211"
title="DDO Character Creation">
src="/image/view/16211/preview"
width="200">
The gnome may never
see the light of a player's character creation screen.
Ten Ton Hammer: Does that
mean that new races that are being introduced in 4th Edition, like
Dragonborn, will be looked at to be included in DDO?
Again, we have to know what the details are and understand how the
Dragonborn interact with Eberron before we can begin commenting on
their place in our world.
Ten Ton Hammer: Another
Turbine product – Lord of the Rings Online – has
been really working to make their game more friendly for solo and small
group play. Are you trying to do something similar? Or are you still
looking to balance that gap between the group-oriented and solo play
styles?
There’s no question that more solo play is a request that we
get all the time from players. At the heart of it, DDO is always going
to be a party-based game. It’s what the IP is about and
really what a lot of MMOs are about.
But we know that people also don’t always have time to find a
party. Sometimes people don’t have time to go through a
full-length dungeon. One of the things that we’re doing in
Module 7, which is a bit similar to LOTRO, is putting in some of the
quest mechanics that you might see in that game. You may walk up to an
NPC, gather a dozen small quests, then over the course of several hours
or days you’ll gradually fulfill those smaller quests from
that sort of lighterweight mechanism.
Ten Ton Hammer: So you
might get a “Kill 10 Kobolds” quest and
you’d just need to find 10 kobolds to kill?
That’s exactly right.
In Module 7 we’re also going through each of the landscape
areas and attempting to make the roadways more soloable, because
you’ll occasionally run into a nest of scorpions or something
like that as you’re walking down a road.
Ten Ton Hammer:
Here’s a random question: Do you ever think the 1750 favor
needed to gain the 32 build point template will change?
What we’re doing is looking at other rewards that we can put
in between the Drow and the 32 point build. I really want to put
something in at 1000 along with something around 1250 as well. Favor
point achievements should be something that feel big and epic, and that
can be a little challenging.
But there’s no question that for Module 8 we’re
looking at introducing a whole bunch of these little rewards to our
players. What’s nice about the 1750 number is that as we
introduce more content in at the lower and mid levels, that 1750 favor
becomes more achievable. You don’t have to be as high a level
to achieve that each time.
We’ve definitely seen the feedback to lower that number, but
it’s always tough to change a system once it’s
live. You often upset just as many people as you make happy, so our
approach is to just release more for players to enjoy.
border="1">
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/node/16208"
title="The Dragon's Vault">
src="/image/view/16208/preview"
width="200">
The developers are
constantly trying to keep abreast of the suggestions and complaints
happening in the forums.
Ten Ton Hammer: Finally,
there seems to be a desire from the community to have more interaction
with the developers through the forums or various other venues. Are you
trying to facilitate that a little bit more than what we currently see?
interaction is really about people’s roles, what they have to
say, and their own personal predilection for being involved with that
part of the community. That said, it is really important to us to be
sure that the community feels like we’re hearing them and are
responsive to them. That said, I don’t have any specific
requirements for the devs to be on the forums except for the OCR gang.
I personally tend to post fairly little because I have the opportunity
to talk with you guys and other agencies that allow me to get my
message out there. But I do post when I see something extra cool.
(Editor’s Note: Like when Kate caught wind of the “ href="http://forums.ddo.com/showpost.php?p=1588505&postcount=31">Genie
Happy Birthday Post”)
Ten Ton Hammer: Thanks
again for taking the time to talk with us Kate, and I look forward to
seeing the Monk videos from Connect ’08!
You’re welcome, and it’s always a pleasure.
the additions coming in Module 7 and 8? Do you think 4th Edition should
be included immediately in DDO? href="http://forums.tentonhammer.com/showthread.php?p=214855#post214855">Let
us know on the forums!
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