Questions by Cody "Micajah" Bye and Garrett Fuller

Answers by Kate Paiz, Senior Producer of Dungeons and Dragons Online



Few gamers are as dedicated to their products as table top role playing
gamers. When Dungeons
and Dragons Online: Stormreach hit store shelves
approximately two years ago, table top gamers rejoiced and flew to the
game in droves. Now that two years have passed, the developers at
Turbine are getting ready to release Module Six and are another step
closer to reaching that goal of having everything in the D&D
Player’s Handbook incorporated into the game.



Being incredibly interested in the new Module and die-hard D&D
players in their own right, Cody “Micajah” Bye and
Garrett Fuller joined the Turbine crew for a guided tour of the latest
virtual space in the game. While their overall feelings from the play
session will be published tomorrow, the two Ten Ton Hammer staffers
also asked several questions about the upcoming content in the game and
what DDO gamers should expect in the near future. Enjoy!

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style="font-style: italic;">There will be
plenty of new environments for players to explore in Module Six.

Kate Paiz:
We’re really happy with the system and we feel that its given
us a chance to explore the solid D&D connections with that sort
of system. We wanted to make sure that it was introduced in a way that
was really true to the table top game and that players could engage
with without breaking them out of the model that we’d already
established for the game. We’re definitely planning on
expanding it.



We’re dabbling in the system in Module Six and
we’re also going to be working on
it in Module Eight as well. We’re definitely hoping to fill
out a PvP competition structure that’s a bit more robust and
one that players can get a bit of prestige and notoriety from.



We’d do some of this in Module Seven, but our work with the
Monk class has us a bit preoccupied. However, it is something that
we’re really excited to continue building around, and
it’s definitely something we’re looking to expand
in the future.



Module Five actually included a major update to PvP, because it
actually allowed players to “self-match” so players
could define who’s on the red team and who’s on the
blue team. We think it really led to some better matches, and
it’s something that we continue to support.



Ten Ton Hammer: The Monk
will – for sure – be in Module Seven?



Paiz: Yes.
It’s definitely going to be in Mod Seven.



Ten Ton Hammer: According
to your last interview, the development team at Turbine has been really
working on getting more “open world” type areas put
into the game. How has this process been thus far?



Paiz:
It’s definitely an area of development that we’re
really enjoying. During the play session we’ll take you
through a few of these “open” areas (and they did
– make sure you check back with us tomorrow for our play
session experience). In Module Six, we’re introducing the
largest “open world” area yet in the game.



While we definitely want to make the DDO experience a sort of
“hand-crafted” encounter, we’ve tried to
allow the players to feel like they’re really
“owning” the zone when they enter these large open
areas. There won’t be other players ganking their kills or
taking their loot, and if the players can go through the entire area
and kill everything in it, we hope that they feel like
they’ve accomplished something.



Looking forward, in Module Seven we’re actually hoping to put
together another “new player” zone since there will
be a whole slew of players creating brand new Monks and entering the
game [from a low level]. Many of these players will be looking for something new
– something fresh to keep them interested. We’re
looking at a lot of the lower level content and hoping to bring in some
[new] NPCs to really keep players interested.



Ten Ton Hammer: When you
were first creating the game, how’d you determine the way you
were going to do loot? I mean, other games tend to have a single drop
available to fifty people. Why did you decide to do things differently?



Paiz: Many
of our original decisions were motivated by the fact that we wanted DDO
to be a party-based game; we wanted players to feel that grouping with
our players was the best way to fulfill all of their goals. We
didn’t want people fighting for loot; we wanted to keep
people happy with one another and encourage a sense of comradery
between groupmates.

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style="font-style: italic;">The Monk is
definitely going to be in Module Seven.

This went into everything: making sure the XP was even across the
board, that the loot was evenly distributed, giving the option to allow
other players to pick up your loot, making sure that the right people
get the right loot, all of that was important in creating our game.



We’re continuing to explore the idea that players
shouldn’t be forced to raid for six hours to get that single
piece of loot that they’re looking for. And in the new raid
in Module Six, we’ve really taken that idea to the next level.



The raid mechanics are very familiar to most raiders, and we introduce
all of the monsters you fight in the Mod Six raid very early on in the
Module. You should have a lot of competency in defeat these monsters by
the time you enter the raid, and we really try to focus on the idea
that players will need to really cooperate and work together to beat
the boss.



We also wanted to avoid the idea that the players with the best armor
and/or weapons were going to have the easiest time defeating the whole
raid scenario. We wanted to make sure this was a raid that everyone
could play as long as they’re in the appropriate level range.
It shouldn’t matter if you’re the best fighter out
there or just decent at what you do, every player should be able to
come in and have a quality experience.



Ten Ton Hammer: Are there
any plans to put the “old school” demons and devils
into the game at some point? Characters like Asmodeous and that sort?



Paiz:
We’ve made references to them, but thus far we’ve
stayed away from major bad guys from the other source material.



Some of the characters Wizards of the Coast have simply thrown out
completely from this setting, but we’re using some of the
NPCs to create our own villains and bringing in the elements from the
other games to really flesh out the entire player experience. Players
should have those experiences where they go, “Hey, I remember
that guy!”, and it should be from some of their older
experiences with D&D products.



The old school references really do resonate well with the players, so
we do spend a lot of time with the Monster Manual and really combing
through and finding the most evocative and iconic monsters to bring to
life. We try this, because we really want to have the mind flayer and
others from these classic experiences.



Ten Ton Hammer: How are
the Half-Orcs and the Half-Elves progressing?



Paiz:
They’re coming along. *laughs* They’re not ready
for release and we have a lot on our plate right now anyway. One of our
big focuses is to complete the Player’s Handbook, so
we’re doing the Monk first, then hitting level twenty, and
then finishing up the Druids and the Half-Orcs.

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style="font-style: italic;">The crafting
prototype being introduced in Module Six will eventully add a whole new
level of gameplay to DDO

It’s one of those things that we really just have to be
disciplined with, or we’re never going to finish any of them.
That said, we’re really hoping to get the Monk polished up
for release in the spring, and from there we’ll keep you guys
up to date with what’s going on next.



The races are obviously a ton of work, because they require balancing,
animation, and general look tweaks. We always want to put these sort of
features into the game fully loaded, and we never want to do a half-ass
job of it.



Ten Ton Hammer: What
other sort of new nuances are you putting into Module Six?



Paiz: We
also have the crafting prototype that we’re putting into the
game. We’re calling it a prototype because it’s
very preliminary, and it’s really just a raid system right
now more than a full-fledged crafting system that’s an
integral part of the game.



It’s really important to our raiding system because now
instead of rolling through the dungeon 10-20 times looking for that
piece of loot that’s perfect for your super-specialized DDO
class, you can now drop in the item that best fits your class and make
an item that really works for your particular character. Customization
is such a key element of DDO that this system should really work well
and allow players to build something that really fits their character.

• Level Cap Increase – Levels 15 & 16

• 14 New Spells

• Polar Ray, Sunburst , Charm Monster (Mass), Cure Critical
  Wounds (Mass), Firestorm, Horrid Wilting, Inflict Critical Wounds
  (Mass), Otto's Irresistible Dance, Shout (Greater), Summon Monster
  VIII, Trap the Soul, Seek Eternal Rest, Power Word: Blind, Power Word:
  Stun
• Bards also gain access to the following existing spells:
  Cat's Grace, Mass; Cure Moderate Wounds, Mass; Eagle's Splendor, Mass;
  Fox's Cunning, Mass; Heroes' Feast; and Summon Monster VI

• 2 New Feats

• Force of Personality and Insightful Reflexes

• 2 New Rogue Special Abilities

• Skill Mastery and Defensive Roll

• Rogues now can choose which special ability (Improved
  Evasion, Crippling Strike, Defensive Roll, or Skill Mastery) they
  desire when they reach levels 10, 13, or 16 rather than having one
  automatically assigned to them. In addition, Rogues can now swap these
  special abilities for others as if they were feats.

• The Twelve – Unlocked City Ward

• The Vale of Twilight Wilderness Area (CR 15 - 16)

• The Vale of Twilight is a peaceful place, home to a
  manifest zone of the plane of Lamannia, the Twilight Forest. Every
  three thousand years, a perfect eclipse of Eberron's thirteen moons
  realigns Lamannia and the Vale of Twilight. When the Black Abbot lich
  was defeated, his power flowed into Dolurrh, the Realm of the Dead, and
  altered the very order of the planes. Now, on the eve of the thirteenth
  eclipse, the powerful devil Arraetrikos has brought his army to the
  Vale of Twilight, intent on bringing Shavarath, the Battleground, into
  alignment for the next three millennia. The grandmasters of The Twelve,
  Stormreach's most powerful house of magic, send a desperate plea for
  help to the adventurers of Xen'drik. The infernal forces of Shavarath
  must be stopped, for the Vale of Twilight will only be a stepping stone
  on their path to conquering all of Eberron.

• Meridia – City Area - Set in the center of the
  new landscape area, the Vale of Twilight, this small city hub has the
  collectors that support the new devil collectibles and flavor / quest
  NPCs for player guidance.

• 6 New Dungeons (Includes 1 Raid)

• The Coalescence Chamber
• Let Sleeping Dust Lie
• Rainbow in the Dark
• Ritual Sacrifice
• Running with the Devils
• The Shroud

• New Monsters
  – Bearded Devil (Barbazu), Orthon, Pit Fiend, Tiefling,
  Bralani Eladrin, Ghaele Eladrin, Stone Golem, Stone Scorpion, Fiendish
  Bat, Rats, Paragon Kobold, and Gelatinous Cube

• Eldritch
  Device / Crafting Prototype - The Eldritch Device is a
  wondrous machine that players find in the world that can turn unused
  items into something exciting. Players choose items from their
  inventory, load them into the device, pull a level, and see what comes
  out.

• Rest Shrines
  on the landscape and in all adventures on Solo and Normal difficulty
  mode are re-usable with a cooldown timer.

• Solo XP and
  Loot has been increased to be 80% of the XP and Loot
  received on Normal.

• The Death
  Penalty has been changed to not be XP based. The penalty
  will be item wear and resurrection sickness based, and the penalties
  incurred will be very small at low levels, and will increase as the
  player increases in level. Likewise, players will experience less
  penalty when playing on Normal than on Hard or Elite.

• The Mail UI now
  differentiates between Confirmed mail (from trusted sources) and
  Unconfirmed mail (from random players) and allows the player to delete
  all unconfirmed mail with one click.

• Player
  characters that have been rendered unconscious but have
  stabilized will very slowly regenerate health until they wake up at 1
  hit point. Warforged auto-stabilize and repair at a rate of 1 hit point
  every 2 minutes while inert, the other races regenerate at a rate of 1
  hit point every minute while unconscious but stable.

Thanks again to Kate Paiz
and company for taking us through Module Six!

Are you excited to see all the new
feats, skills, spells, and monsters coming in Module Six? Do you think
the raid will be an awesome experience? href="http://forums.tentonhammer.com/showthread.php?t=23514">Let
us know on the
forums! 

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