You Got Questions, We Got Answers



During the server downtime on Dungeons & Dragons Online: Stormreach
(DDO), players have had time on their hands to ask the devs good
questions. One such question is from community member, Fahkrin, who
asked why the level cap is not being raised until September. Developer
Solas offers a quick reply:

Raising the level cap is a lot of work for a Dungeons and
Dragons game.
Many games rely on giving you more powerful versions of earlier spells
and abilities as you level up. D&D introduces a lot of unique
feats, spells, enhancements, and magical items as the levels progress.
This requires a lot of new code and visual effects.



And of course, when we raise the level cap, we want to have a bunch of
new content for players to level with. That's also a lot of work in
D&D, given the hand-crafted nature of DDO's adventures.



Why didn't we do it earlier?

Well, we wanted to spend some effort on increasing the breadth of the
existing gameplay. New game systems (such as the patron system, mail,
and solo difficulty), new spells, enhancements, monsters, and
adventures for existing levels, bug fixes, UI improvements such as
enhanced LFG tools and weapon sets, combat tweaks, and many other
things have kept us very busy. Much of this was based off player
feedback. But, we're finally in a spot where we can give a level
increase the attention it deserves. It is a major focus of our current
development.



Would I have liked to get a level increase out sooner? Yeah. We play
the game, too. But I think the changes we've made so far are pretty
good, and I'm glad we got that stuff in. At the same time, I'm really
excited about working on extending the level cap.



Hope that helps,

-Solas.