Ten Ton Hammer - Taking MMO Gamers to the Next Level!

Ten Ton Hammer: Has Turbine expanded the team for DDO Unlimited, bringing more people in to give this project a shove out the door?

Fernando Paiz: We pulled in a large number of people from the team and at one point we had our whole new west coast studio working on the Eberron Unlimited release. So yea, we definitely brought in some extra help for this release. There's a pretty significant investment above what would be one or even two modules for us.

Drow Elves and Warforged are two races seemingly available for purchase.

Ten Ton Hammer: What kind of support are you getting from Wizards of the Coast at this stage in the game's development? They've moved past D&D 3.5 to 4.0 and obviously things are changing in your studio, so are you still working hand in hand with WotC?

Adam Mersky: A week doesn't go by that we're not in contact from them. Every single thing that goes into the game, including the succubus, has been reviewed and approved by WotC. While they are certainly working on other editions and things like that , they're very engaged with this product. We had a meeting this week talking about how we could do more things with them at GenCon this summer, for example. They believe very strongly in what we're doing here, and together we're going to make this game something special.

I'll address this even though it wasn't asked, but it's clearly something that's being talked about: I think a lot of players got frustrated with the delays we had in making this announcement; that we certainly didn't deliver content in a timely way that they're used to. A lot of that was due to our desire to deliver this new product in the best way we can, working tightly with our licensors. That's not just Wizards of the Coast, that's Hasbro and Atari as well. While the only thing we can say to our players is that we're sorry they had to wait for it, this is all due to the efforts of the team towards making DDO Unlimited the best free-to-play MMO probably on the planet.

Ten Ton Hammer : Some players did seem to feel a bit betrayed that it did take so long. Some were talking about 9 months since the last content update, and you've obviously used that time to switch the business model around. Is there anything else you can say to clear the air for those players?

Fernando Paiz: We understand how they feel, we're sorry that they're upset, and we would have loved to release DDO Unlimited sooner. But ultimately we designed all of this content and the release to go together. It's a stronger release all together, and we're going to make the transition to Eberron Unlimited faster by releasing it all together. So, at any point in time, could we have made a different decision? Maybe, knowing what we know today. But given where we are today, this is the best we can do to give them the best product in the fastest timeline and ultimately the best future for the service that they love.

Adam Mersky: Nine months, even by our standards, is unacceptible, and I don't think you'll see that at any point in the future, especially with this title.

Hirelings are one way DDO has always been solo / casual player-friendly.

Ten Ton Hammer: A lot of new players will be coming in and DDO Unlimited will have a different feel than a free trial, in that players will know they have this character for as long as they want. What are you doing to make DDO Unlimited tough to put down for those new players?

Fernando: We're doing a lot of things. One thing we're doing is inviting a whole bunch of them - thousands of them - into our beta test as free players from the beginning and give us feedback on how is leveling, how is the rate of rewards, how is the rate of drops on the leveling sigils, do they feel like they're getting a good value for their time? There is some lower level content coming - some of the specifics of that we hope to announce next week. But you will absolutely see some paid and free new content for low levels at release and an early adventure pack.

Ten Ton Hammer: Other free-to-play games tend to have "fluff" events, bonus XP weekends, bonus drop events, GM-run contests in game. I can't say whether those are good or bad, but it's prevalent for F2Ps. Are we going to see that sort of thing with DDO?

Fernando Paiz: Yea, absolutely. No real firm plans there, in terms of in-world events there isn't necessarily a change that happens due to the change in business model. With the addition of the store we have the opportunity to do promotions and discounts and sales and exclusive items for a period of time. You definitely will see store promotions and otherwise the XP or loot weekends we probably keep doing just as we've done before as well as in-game events. It'll be a variety of things, and in part it'll be what the community reacts to and likes.

Ten Ton Hammer: One harsh post we found talked about how Turbine had a job posting for an RMT manager and at the time, the official Turbine comment was that this was for a "future unannounced project." However incorrectly, the community interpreted that as a separate product from Turbine's current projects. Care to comment on that?

Adam Mersky: Technically that was the correct answer, DDO Unlimited was the future unannounced project. It also pertains to more things than what we're doing with DDO Unlimited. We try to be as open with our players as possible, and in that case we were commenting on a job listing on our website, not on our game. In some cases, we're damned if we do give out information and we're damned if we don't. We do our best, and at the end of the day, technically we weren't lying: DDO Unlimited wasn't an announced project. But the reason we respond to those things is people start making assumptions about stuff and we try to keep that from going off the rails.

Ten Ton Hammer: Do you think allowing players to buy 32-point builds is in some way negating the effort players put into accomplishing that feat?

Fernando Paiz: I have a few things to that. One is, we're not allowing players to buy 32-point builds at the moment. I found it fascinating to see the reactions to this on the beta forums. Someone said 'What do you guys think about selling 32-point builds? If they're going to sell the drow class which is also something that you unlock with favor, why not sell the 32-point builds?' I fully expected the community wouldn't like it based solely on how the question was phrased, but the big surprise was 80-90% of the posts were 'Sell them, please! I love this game, I've gotten two character to 16, but I don't want to get 1750 favor. Just let me buy it, who cares? So I don't rule it out as we never will, but we're trying to go cautiously.

Ten Ton Hammer: I know some of those questions were pretty hairy, but I think the players are really going to appreciate your candor. Thanks so much.