A Stitch in Time

How DDO Patches Aim to Save Customers

By Ralsu

The common expression goes, "A stitch in time saves nine." For those who are clueless about that reference, the aphorism means that sewing an extra seam now can save having to sew nine later when the garment tears. The concept is simple: a little extra work up front saves a lot of work and hassle later. Tonight, as I sat musing about the patches Turbine has released for Dungeons & Dragons Online: Stormreach (DDO), that same aphorism popped into my head. It is my opinion that Turbine didn't get the stitching right on DDO prior to launch. Since its release, the company has been scurrying to patch holes. Before I go too far with this concept, let me get an administrative chores out of the way.

---

Let it be known that the opinions expressed here are not the opinions of the fanboy who is busy typing his hate mail right now without capitalization, punctuation, or even paragraphs based merely off of the next-to-last sentence from my first paragraph. Ten Ton Hammer does not expect me to brown-nose Turbine, so I'm going to tell the truth--even when it's unpleasant. At the same time, the opinions expressed here are not those of the DDO hater. I--LIKE--DDO. Read that again before you hit send on that hate mail. In fact, please read all I have to say...then blast me to smithereens!

---

The Initial Stitching

I want to return to the garment analogy. Ever buy a customized T-shirt from one of those booths in the mall? People can customize them to say "My other DDO character is me" or "My cat ate my tires" (whatever the hell that means). In short, the shirts are cool. But they wear out pretty fast because they have the bare minimum stitching. So it goes with DDO. To illustrate my point, I need to present the obstacles Turbine faced from launch with DDO's potential audience.

1. Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) fans who have played other massively-multiplayer online games (MMOGs): The first consideration must go to D&D fans. These are the ones who will be most drawn to the game and most comfortable with its setting and rules.
   
2. D&D fans who have never played another MMOG: DDO could be the whole reason to dive into MMOGs for the hardcore D&D fan who has been reluctant to try more mainstream games.
3. MMOG fans familiar with the genre but unfamiliar with D&D: MMOG veterans get excited about new games even when they're happy with their current game. It's just fun to see the genre explode the way it has. Add to that the fact that pre-release screens of DDO were very impressive, displaying a dark style that wasn't all fairies and pixies. Plus, DDO deviates from the status quo in so many ways (active combat, no health regeneration, fully instanced dungeons) that it has an impressive list of features.
4. People new to both MMOGs and D&D: This last group is a challenge beyond my reckoning. Maybe people like the looks of the box art. Maybe a friend got them to try it. Maybe that TV spot that accompanied the release of DDO was impressive enough to win a customer. I mean, who doesn't think the rogue dodging traps in that commercial isn't awesome? Regardless of how they found DDO, people who fit this description are logging into Stormreach right now.

The folks at Turbine are smarter at making games than I, so I'm willing to wager they foresaw the above categories of players landing on DDO, too. To build the perfect game for all four groups would drive a development team insane, so I believe that Turbine set its sights on the folks in groups 1 and 3--people with MMOG experience, some of them D&D fans. I know this much from prowling every gaming news site forum I could find prior to DDO's beta: Turbine developers said DDO was never designed to be a World of Warcraft killer. DDO was aimed at the audience who wanted something outside of the mainstream. Turbine was promising us an experience as close to D&D as electronically possible.

The First Tear

I remember the beta forum thread well: "Warning: warforged CAN drown!" Group 1 folks, those D&D aficionados, couldn't believe it. Why? Why do warforged not have the same properties in DDO as they do in the Eberron books at the local hobby shop? Where are the immunities? Turbine never minced words about the fact that some D&D rules would be bent or broken to make everything work in the MMOG setting, but this just seemed capricious.

Rather than drone on about the inconsistencies between DDO and the D&D Eberron, I'll just say that more than a handful exist. Some seem to make sense. Others don't. I'm not a video game developer, so I won't pretend to understand all of the variables that went into making DDO. I stand by my point all the same; hardcore D&D fans do not like any deviation from the standard rules. Ones that escape our understanding are the worst offenders.

The Second Tear

MMOG veterans who didn't know D&D did just fine without owning any 20-sided dice. In fact, they did too well. While I was busy role playing my way through Harbor quests and trying to get stuck in geometry, some beta testers were putting their MMOG expertise to use to test the end game. I'm not an end game player, so it is less important to me than other aspects. Fortunately for those who love to raid, some beta testers were diligently trying to get to the level cap and see what happened.

In other games I have beta tested, the developers would encourage testers to level to a certain point. Those who provided quality feedback would receive a bump in levels to the next target level range for beta testing. For example, one game I tested had a level cap of 60. Testers were encouraged to reach level 20. They could then continue testing content in that range or receive a bump to level 40. At 45, they could get a bump to 55.

None of that mattered for DDO. Beta testers didn't need a bump in levels. All they had to do was play. Levels came quickly for experienced players who could work well in a party and dedicate 2 or 3 hours each night. Believe it or now, one beta forum post told the fastest way to Level 10. DDO's XP system, based on completing quests rather than killing random monsters, broke from tradition in a way I considered great prior to release. But remember I was plodding through quests and level hit Level 3 in beta. Other testers knew what I was going to find out after launch.

The Ripped Seam

Clearly, I believe DDO needed a couple more "stitches" prior to release. After DDO's launch on February 28, 2006, things only got more troublesome for the Turbine team. Players chewed through content. Some had Level 10 characters by the second week after launch. Granted some of them were the same power gamers I was hoping all of DDO's innovative features would keep away, but some of them were simply dedicated, smart gamers who played with friends. Lag was a big problem, too. Just ask Ten Ton Hammer's Kat "Lady Sirse" Spink. Warforged oils were less effective than there humanoid counterparts, and the posts about deviations from the D&D rules continued.

The First Big Patch

Within a month, the official DDO forums were flooded with posts begging and/or demanding new content. Turbine was already hard at work on it. I've never seen a team work as hard as Turbine to keep content flowing. By April 5, 2006, Turbine gave DDO players Module1, the Dragon's Vault. Module 1 contained a multitude of upper level quests to reduce the number of times a player would have to repeat quests to hit the level cap. The free patch, which other companies would have shamelessly sold as an expansion, also introduced the famous raid of the red dragon and addressed some ongoing issues with lag.

The problems did not go away with the additional quests, however. Many quests were imbalanced in their ratios of risk to reward. People continued to carve a groove through the popular quests, repeating some in favor of doing others at all. D&D purists continued to denounce any proposal to change the D&D rules (take spell-swapping as an example).

To add to the problems, the Turbine team began to see that people new to MMOGs or to D&D were having a hard time with the game's mechanics. Players were thrust into parties from the time they docked at the Harbor, and it became apparent that they could use a little more time to acclimate to DDO. Players needed some time to practice DDO mechanics without some impatient jerk shouting "Go! Go!" into his headset. Thus, Turbine had to rethink its staunch stance that DDO is not a game to solo.

The Second Big Patch

Turbine released Module 2, the Twilight Forge, on July 12, 2006, but the contents of the update came out at the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3). The E3 announcement promised expanded solo play, and this led to heated debate on the DDO forums.

Purists saw solo content as another senseless deviation from the rules and believed it was designed to appeal to the demands of a vocal minority. Turbine set the record straight, noting that it was more a measure to keep new players than to appease current ones. An easier early game would keep people around longer.

The majority of the remaining Twilight Forge content was once again focused on the end game. Just as many people had reached Level 10 within a week or two of release, those same players had slain the red dragon just as quickly after Module 1's release. They were bored and restless again.

Module 2, another free patch that other companies would have made subscribers purchase, was marred by server crashes and insufferable lag immediately after its release. And I haven't even mentioned the addition of the drow yet. The implementation of the drow is still an ugly issue on the forums.

Future Patching?

I know that Turbine is not done yet. Theirs is a dedicated team that will continue to pour out content. They are certainly doing it often and for free--something gamers have long hoped for but seldom experienced. What might future patches address?

That E3 announcement that revealed the contents of Module 2 also mentioned a future addition of player-vs-player (PvP) combat, another game feature that most D&D purists despise but most MMOG veterans have come to expect of a game. Turbine is trying very hard to make a wide variety of gamers happy. So, they keep patching.

Beyond PvP, I have seen developer posts indicating that Turbine is investigating the means to make dungeons more randomized so that repeating a quest still requires players to remain awake. After that, I can only offer conjecture about future DDO patches. Turbine has done an admirable job of trying to adjust the game to fit the gamers. Nothing will ever please hardcore D&D enthusiasts. And though that may have been the target audience in the beginning, I believe Turbine sees that as a tough sell these days. All of their changes since launch have done more to make DDO a mainstream MMOG than to make it more like D&D.

As the fanboys are finishing up that hate mail, let me say again that I like DDO. Turbine took a big step for the MMOG genre by eschewing several traditions. The decision to use active combat instead of the cyclical, go-get-a-sandwich, standard fare is awesome. The attempt to reward the party for completing a quest has done a lot to reduce the artificial feeling that comes with the grindfest than many MMOGs employ. The hand-crafted dungeons, excellent quest writing, and cameo dungeon Master voice overs are all unique. Players can find a lot to like about DDO straight out of the box. Download the patches, and the game only gets better.

That's really my prediction: Turbine will only make DDO better. They'll have to cater to one of the 4 audience groups I mentioned more than others. Whether that means making the game more like current market successes (World of Warcraft or EverQuest 2) or keeping it unique I cannot say. I just know that I continue to enjoy the game and look forward to what else Turbine has to offer. They didn't make the perfect game, but DDO is my home because of all of the things they did right. I'll keep wearing my customized mall T-shirt that says "My other DDO character is me" until it fallas apart at the seams.

---