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Dhruin
Stranger In A Strange Land
Joined: 20 May 2002
Posts: 1825
Location: Sydney, Australia |
| D&D Online Pricing Announced |
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The D&DO site has <a href="http://www.ddo.com/index.php?page_id=66&pagebuilder[module]=article&pagebuilder[display_item]=195" target="_blank">announced</a> the pricing structure as follows:<blockquote><em>DUNGEONS & DRAGONS ONLINE™: Stormreach™ is scheduled to be released on February 28th. The game will be available at a suggested retail price of $49.99 and includes thirty days of subscription time. After the first month, players will be charged a monthly subscription fee of $14.99 per month. Players can purchase multiple months of subscription time in advance at a discounted rate.*
<br><ul><li>Purchase a three month subscription for $41.85 ($13.95 per month).
<br><li>Purchase a six month subscription for $77.70 ($12.95 per month).
<br><li>Purchase a one year subscription for $143.40 ($11.95 per month).</ul>
<br>Customers who preorder the game and register their preorder key will be able to enter the game early in the Head Start Event that begins Feb. 24 and gain additional items and benefits. For more information, visit the preorder page!
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<br>* All subscription plans will automatically renew and the subscription rate and any applicable taxes will be charged in advance. All subscription payments are non-refundable. Subscription prices are in U.S. dollars and do not include local connection and telephone charges.</em></blockquote> |
Sun Feb 12, 2006 9:48 am |
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RPGPorkster
Head Merchant
Joined: 03 Sep 2003
Posts: 51
Location: Melbourne |
It's amazing why these games are so expensive to subscribe to. The bandwidth and networking in only a small fraction of the payment. |
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Sun Feb 12, 2006 9:53 am |
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Kepler
Keeper of the Gates
Joined: 18 Oct 2005
Posts: 109
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Pricing has nothing to do with costs.
Everyone else charges $14.99 (Everquest, World of Warcraft, etc.) so we will too. |
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Sun Feb 12, 2006 10:40 am |
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Acleacius
King of the Realms
Joined: 24 Dec 2002
Posts: 453
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Actually your charging a $1 less, at least this month. 
Anyone in the current beta?
I have seen a couple of post from people over the web mentioning it is not based on Monster Grind, with exp only coming for completing quest. |
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Mon Feb 13, 2006 1:35 pm |
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Froh
Guest
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Well, I have to say that tho the development cost is high for this kind of game, the high price for the game and monthly fee is to much.
Look at the Guild Wars. A fixed cost (purchase) and no monthly cost and still get new items/quest/missions etc etc.
Ok, I know I can't really use that as a equal. But what the heck! between 11-13$/month is to MUCH. Half the cost and they will "kill" the opposition.
Yes I have fixed income but I really wouldn't like to invest that kind of money/year for a game.
Get real please... |
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Mon Feb 13, 2006 1:55 pm |
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Froh
Guest
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quote:
Originally posted by Acleacius
Actually your charging a $1 less, at least this month.
Anyone in the current beta?
I have seen a couple of post from people over the web mentioning it is not based on Monster Grind, with exp only coming for completing quest.
I'm in the beta now and it's quite smooth. And as U have read the reward is from completing the quest, not bashing. But U can get extra from killing some of the monsters.
Almost all quest can be done without killing (almost that is  ) so that is why the reward is based on completion not killing. So the "power leveling" is a little harder to get away with than other games.
It's like a "real" RPG not a EQ/WOW etc clone. But instead U really have the DD rules to follow etc.
Hope I shead some light on Ur question.
Froh lvl2 Wizard EU betatester |
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Mon Feb 13, 2006 2:03 pm |
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ToddMcF2002
Leader of the Senate
Joined: 10 Jan 2005
Posts: 317
Location: Boston MA |
This game looks pretty good in its own right - but as far as ruleset goes it varies incredibly far from them. As NWN shows, you can implement the rulset pretty closely in realtime (attacks of opportunity, friendly fire etc).
Anyway - I'll be interested to see how DDO pans out over the next few months.
_________________
"For Innos!" |
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Mon Feb 13, 2006 9:11 pm |
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Kepler
Keeper of the Gates
Joined: 18 Oct 2005
Posts: 109
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quote:
The sheer and absolute necessity to group in this game, enforced with an iron fist, alienates a portion of the MMO audience - the solo players. It may not be the largest portion of the audience, but it is a significant part, and in this market, no game can afford to alienate any part of their market. I think that this fact will truly hurt DDO in both the short- and long-term, as the game sees significant numbers abandonning the game after the initial month.
This is why you are an editor. On the money.
NWN players will play this game. MMO players will not. |
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Tue Feb 14, 2006 12:32 am |
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Roqua
High Emperor
Joined: 02 Sep 2003
Posts: 897
Location: rump |
I played the beta a little. Besides my great bias against twitch combat, I can at least tell the difference between good twitch and bad twitch. Or at least strategic twitch (gothic) and click-madly twitch (DDO).
But the combat didn't kill DDO for me, as I can click. It’s the interdependence on others for the most part, the grind, and the lack of anything else good besides character creation and progression (which is good).
There is nothing do to at all besides sit in a brothel listening to idiots or doing quests. I guess wow spoiled me, since if I didn't feel like leveling there was crafting, and the AH.
You can solo in DDO, but you have to do the same dungeons over and over and over, to get higher lvls to do other limited selections of dungeons over and over and over.
I would have grouped more but every time I did the group was majority idiots. I got through the sewer easier on my own than with a full party. I cannot abide stupid, especially in a game that has game play focused around the charge and click fast core strategy. And big, fancy, serious guilds are anathema to me.
But you really can solo in DDO. I got to lvl 4 while mostly soloing. Maybe that changes later, I just didn't have it in me to do the same dungeons over and over and over and over.
_________________
Vegitarian is the Indian word for lousey hunter. |
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Tue Feb 14, 2006 1:37 am |
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bjon045
Fearless Paladin
Joined: 02 Jun 2003
Posts: 234
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D&D has NEVER been about soloing. Did you have a lot of fun playing PnP D&D with only 1 player? WHOOPS I rolled 3 1's, Nobody saw that let me re-roll LOL. |
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Tue Feb 14, 2006 5:31 am |
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Acleacius
King of the Realms
Joined: 24 Dec 2002
Posts: 453
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No one thinks D&D is about soloing, thou basicly Neverwinter was a solo game.
The problem is there is nothing wrong with group it can be great or horrible experience depending on your gorup of players, but forcing groups died way back in EQ 1, or so I had thought.
People with limited time to play do NOT want to sit around and wait to form a group for hour or more, even worst get stuck with a crappy group for hours cause there is no other gorups going/doing what you need to do.
Since that became apparent what a bad design that was in EQ1, I have not seen that done till now and it is a mistake.
I would never play a MMOG that I could not Solo if I could not find a group, why pay if you can NOT play? |
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Tue Feb 14, 2006 6:22 am |
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bjon045
Fearless Paladin
Joined: 02 Jun 2003
Posts: 234
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quote:
I specifically created a character that was less combat-oriented, because I had read that you don't need to kill every mob to complete the quests.
What kind of character did you create exactly? It sounds like your play style would suit a fighter/rogue multiclass.
quote:
MMOs are not just a translation of pen and paper games into a digital format. They are an entirely different medium that requires a completely different set of considerations and design decisions.
Basically this statement means that you want all MMOs to be the same? My view is the current crop of MMOs are extremely stale and all have the same design concepts i.e. leveling up(the grind which no one likes to do), uber raids, Phatz l00tz and maybe a bit of PvP thrown into the mix. I'm not saying DDO is any different from this but I completely disagree with your statement that all MMOs have to have the same considerations/design decisions.
quote:
DDO doesn't even have crafting!
The crafting system is on the way I heard.
quote:
Originally posted by rheric
You just cannot afford to ignore the playstyles of as many of your players as possible. The market won't bear it. There's a reason that WoW is as successful as it is - it caters to the largest audience possible.
You are making the assumption that grouping is painful/takes a long time, perhaps the process can be made easier. As for it not being successful because it doesn't cater for the full spectrum of players I don't think that is a particulary valid statement, the market is nowhere near close to saturation and there is room for for games that target a particular segment. UO is an example of a game still going strong that favours a solo play style. Guild wars is another style all together. A tale in the desert, which appeals to a very narrow segment of the market. Even extremely poorly designed MMOG's like Anarchy online are still hanging on. WoW was not successful only because it "caters to the largest audience possible", it was also successful because it was produced by blizzard (one of the top selling software companies - i.e. diablos 8mil + copies and warcraft not far behind it) and had the existing warcraft fan base. DDO also has a huge fanbase behind it, perhaps even bigger, the BG series has sold 5 mil+ copies alone.
quote:
People with limited time to play do NOT want to sit around and wait to form a group for hour or more, even worst get stuck with a crappy group for hours cause there is no other gorups going/doing what you need to do.
I did not rule out the fact that you cannot solo at all - just don't expect to be soloing beholders anytime soon. |
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Tue Feb 14, 2006 2:15 pm |
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Dhruin
Stranger In A Strange Land
Joined: 20 May 2002
Posts: 1825
Location: Sydney, Australia |
Interesting discussion. A couple of hit-and-run points. I completely agree with rheric on all his points. Yes, D&D is built around a small social group and I can understand some fans appreciating Turbine's decision to focus on this dynamic. On the other hand, this is an expensive, major-brand MMO and this style of gameplay simply won't support large subscription numbers in the long run. Even with a 300,000 or so players in EQ2, I can read almost weekly comments about it being "in trouble" -- D&DO won't sustain close to that number as it currently stands, in my opinion. They happily decided to ignore the rules and have twitchy action combat to appeal to the market - and the small group dynamic is a similar thing.
I don't believe it will appeal to NWN players in the long run, either. As someone who played in regular NWN campaigns for nearly 2 years - but like rheric has severely limited time - I could join my group if time permitted or fire up a solo module if the timing wasn't right -- and all without worrying about justifying a monthly fee. NWN2 will be along soon and many players that check out D&DO for a month or two will go back to the (free) flexibility of NWN2.
On wanting all MMOs to be the same, this is inherent and exists with every genre. Aren't most FPS's or RTS's fundamentally the same? There are niche MMOs everywhwere - from Sociolotron to Eve - but there is a certain template that appeals to the biggest segment of the market. If an MMO doesn't follow that template, it just won't sell big numbers.
_________________
Editor @ RPGDot |
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Tue Feb 14, 2006 11:58 pm |
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bjon045
Fearless Paladin
Joined: 02 Jun 2003
Posts: 234
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rheric, you didn't answer my question, what class combination did you try? It wasn't a pure rogue was it?
I think it has plenty of time to sort out any kinks, it has only just gone gold after all. It will be interesting to see how the numbers stack up. D&D games have traditionally done very very well even back to the days of the gold box games.
$14.95 might be a little high at the moment for what you get though, but the D&D world/rule set has a lot of potential for future content. I think the biggest mistake they made was to go with ebberon. Sure, forgotten realms has been done to death but that has many good points as well. Players want to walk the streets of waterdeep, sail the waters of the sword coast, travel to icewind dale, not some newly created city with absolutely no history that has just come out of the mind of computer programmer. |
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Wed Feb 15, 2006 6:43 am |
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Lens
Guest
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I played crpg's from the early ultima's till today's title's. I loved the ddo themed ones from bioware, the goldbox edition titles such as dragonlance and played them all for years. I also started to play online games, starting with AO i played quite a lot of them till EQ2 today. When i look at that list i would consider myself a prime candidate for this game. I was pretty much convinced i would be part of their target audience.
Well apearantly i'm not. I got access to the European beta and i was shocked to be honest. Seeing that the game went gold already it won't change that much anymore before we have to start paying for it and what you get is just sad in my eyes. Here's a short overview...
The world: the world is.. well.. not there. I read in this thread somewhere about wanting to sail the sword coast and to visit the different cities. What you get are boxed in area's in the style of the first tomb raider game. A tiny example, in the harbor you can't jump in the water, there's an invisible wall in front of it. I can go on about this but i guess you'll get the picture. You reach all the destinations by zoning, even the bloody inn in town isn't seamless. I like wow better on this aspect then eq2 for example because it is more emersive to have a seamless world. What they did here makes eq2 look like a seamless world though, im sure you even have to zone to go to the friggin bathroom.
The combat: it is twitch based, the last game i saw trying this was swg, nobody heared anything about it since, people left in droves. If you want me to name one sole reason for crpg players not playing this game then this is it. I tried it with a priest, a fighter and a rogue and it is awfull. If i want to play realtime combat with enemies shooting from ledges and stuff then i start up a real fps like unreal. This system is there to cater the kids who are apearantly the target audience now?
Graphics: it is nowhere near the quality of eq2. I would say it is comparable to wow without the great artistic input you see in that game. It serves its purpose but don't expect anything fancy.
When i play a game i do this to get away from reality for a while and, hopefully, get emerged in a story(solo) or social(online) experience. This is the game that is supposed to finally bring the two together but, based on my 5 hours i put into it, fails in all aspects. I love how the narrator's voice over is done but it is of course not even close to a dungeon master. The social aspect of grouping is utterly ruined because the whole traveling part is taken out, normally a good time to talk and get to know each other. Also the combat being twitchy as it is makes it play more like a hectic shooter, not a very good place to socialize either. The town where everybody is ending up before and after the zoning is a lagging view of 100's of people with the usual l l337 names ruining any kind of story atmosphere left.
Even though it will be saying ddo on the box expect dungeon hack because that's all the made so far, not bad but no ddo either. You cant throw a big dice on the screen and put a voice over on scripted spots and call it ddo. It takes a bit more for that i'm afraid.
Conclusion: a multiplayer dungeonhack with a target audience that is unclear. While there is nothing wrong with a nice dungeonhack game, not having a clear audience for it is a killer in marketing terms i guess. I expect it to end up in the bargainbin next to that matrix game pretty quick.
Lens |
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Wed Feb 15, 2006 9:43 am |
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