Dungeons and Dragons Online : Eberron now in two flavors . Free and VIP

[Gold Rush]

Well, it seems like Turbine has decided to do something new to promote its flagging MMO, Dungeons and Dragons Online.

It will soon be F2P but will also have a VIP/Subscriber model. The VIP's have nothing to worry about, but the F2P players do have restrictions, however, a "Cash Shop" of sorts will be opened up to all and certain limitations set on F2P accounts can be removed for a small fee. (One example of this : F2P accounts cannot create Drow or umm "those Artificial Life Form Player classes that are unique to Eberon's setting whose race name eldudes me atm). I don't know if this charge is "forever" or just month to month (I am thinking the former actually).

More basic info can be found in this article here. (http://www.massively.com/2009/06/10/ddo-goes-f2p-an-interview-with-turbine/)

A presentation of the changes and some opinions of the writer the Pros and Cons can be found in this article here. (http://www.massively.com/2009/06/10/the-pros-and-cons-of-free-to-play-dungeons-and-dragons-online/)

Actually, DDO, receiving it's initial cash infusion on development is of "better quality" (American-view wise) than many Asian F2P's, so the quality is there. Also, it is not a "bad game" but having played it when it was initially released (and in the Beta) I was wondering if it could hold long-term interest. I think such a move by Turbine has made moot some reasons for not playing (the monthly fee to play it). I think many could consider it a game to return to on and off again without feeling tied to a monthly fee.

Ultimately, we shall see what fruit this develops.

[Seadevil]

"those Artificial Life Form Player classes that are unique to Eberon's setting whose race name eldudes me atm).

Warforged. :P

Anyway, sounds cool. I might have to check it out now.

[Masked Revenger]

Anyway, sounds cool. I might have to check it out now.

Yeah, I was thinking the same thing. For free, I'll give it a go.

:mr: Chris

[Nerfed]

Does one have to buy the game to try it, or will the client also be free to download?

[ThunderMace]

I signed up

[Galactoman]

I played a free trial of D&D Online... for like five minutes. It was so hilarious. I remember there was a DM describing everything that happened... while you could clearly see it happening there on the screen. Amazing.

[Gold Rush]

Does one have to buy the game to try it, or will the client also be free to download?

I misplaced my disks and was trying to google a download. Fileplanet has one but I was "meh" to digging out my name and password but I did find it on the DDO site, but you have to do some searching. In "Online Support" type in the Search box "How do I download and install DDO client"" or something similar and it should give you instructions along with two links to download the "Standard-Res" and the "High-Res" versions that are within the instruction paragraphs.

I am not sure if it is free at this moment because they seem to be Beta-testing the version now, although you probably CAN sign up for the Beta; it seems to be open.

I tried to re-activate my account and couldn't get it to work; there was no "free" option atm, only pay plans. Depending how things go, the new plan should be offered within a month or less. Just stay tuned into the DDO channel for more info.

[Gold Rush]

I played a free trial of D&D Online... for like five minutes. It was so hilarious. I remember there was a DM describing everything that happened... while you could clearly see it happening there on the screen. Amazing.

One of those voices in a dungeon that is "fairly later on"; it is in a graveyard and your character should be level 5...or 8-ish (I forget which), is narrated by Gary Gygax. I think it is the only dungeon he narrated as the "DM voice" and he did so a few years before his death (fairly close to when the game released).

So...don't be scared by voices beyond the grave....

[Kurai Inago]

I misplaced my disks and was trying to google a download. Fileplanet has one but I was "meh" to digging out my name and password but I did find it on the DDO site, but you have to do some searching. In "Online Support" type in the Search box "How do I download and install DDO client"" or something similar and it should give you instructions along with two links to download the "Standard-Res" and the "High-Res" versions that are within the instruction paragraphs.

I am not sure if it is free at this moment because they seem to be Beta-testing the version now, although you probably CAN sign up for the Beta; it seems to be open.

I tried to re-activate my account and couldn't get it to work; there was no "free" option atm, only pay plans. Depending how things go, the new plan should be offered within a month or less. Just stay tuned into the DDO channel for more info.

It's not free yet. Right now the free version is in Beta. The client will be alot easier to find once it's actually released. :p

It's not bad. Most of the stuff is just convenience, and there's a new starting area (Well, it's different than the one I went through when I first played the game.) Other than that I haven't gotten too far what with the whole character wipe thing.

[The Mystic]

Is anyone else here in the beta? Is there a guild or anything?

[Gold Rush]

To be Honest, I haven't yet tried out the Beta. Actually, I got some very cheap time cards (on close-out) and used some of them. But the interface/character creation is...so different than what it was before. I just need time to get used to it, but I've been using that time in RL and playing other games. So, we will see. :)

[Gold Rush]

New info released today that the "Free-for-Play" option will be made available August 4th.

[Pinny]

Of course, the "F2P" is more of a permanent free trial than anything

[Gold Rush]

Actually, there is a persistent rumor that Cryptic may be making a Never Winter Nights MMO. IMO, when compared to CO, it does seem Atari fell asleep at the marketing wheel and, from this article, it seems they wanted their sub-license back so they could give it to Cryptic. But these are all just assumptions for the moment.


Breaking: Turbine sues Atari over Dungeons and Dragons Online

by Colin Brennan Aug 26th 2009 at 2:30PM

Filed under: Fantasy, Dungeons and Dragons Online, Business models, MMO industry, News items, Free-to-play, Legal

Turbine has filed a lawsuit against publishing partner Atari in New York courts for a breach of licensing agreement all centered around Dungeons and Dragons Online. The two companies are locked in a legal battle regarding accusations including failing contractual obligations and wrongful termination of agreements.

The court documents filed on Monday paint the picture of a long chain of grievances against Atari made by Turbine, starting with lackluster support all the way back when Dungeons and Dragons Online: Stormreach launched in 2006. Turbine asserts that Atari has failed to maintain their obligations as the publisher of the game while still holding onto the licensing for Dungeons and Dragons. These obligations mostly include the marketing aspects of the game, such as commercials, advertising, retail box creation, retail promotion, and cross-promotion with other Atari products. (Fans of the game will remember the very lackluster marketing campaign at the game's launch, especially when compared with Champions Online's marketing, another Atari-backed game.) Because of these failures, Turbine has had to step in and become the publisher of the game in North America, costing the company millions of dollars.

The lawsuit goes on further to describe a plot made by Atari to wrongfully terminate the licensing agreement and shake down Turbine for more money, even while the agreement was being updated to support the game's transition to the free to play model and Turbine was offering Atari a good faith payment of thousands of dollars future royalties. The documents suggest that Atari's motivation for letting this agreement update go through was to take Turbine's good faith payment before severing the agreement completely, shutting out Turbine while simultaneously paving the road for Atari's competing product (which we can only assume is Cryptic Studio's Champions Online.)

Atari hasn't been content to stay silent on this whole matter, stating to Courthouse News that Turbine over invested in Dungeons and Dragons Online to demand more consideration from Atari than called for by the agreement in question. The company also goes on to say that Turbine's lawsuit is threatening the goodwill that Turbine has developed with current and future players who expect to play DDO: Unlimited.

From all of this lawsuit, Turbine is seeking 30 million dollars worth of damages from Atari -- constituting recovered losses from Atari's breaches of contract.

What still seems to be up in the air regarding this whole case is what would happen to Dungeons and Dragons Online should this licensing agreement be terminated. The full rights to the game are between Turbine, Hasbro, Wizards of the Coast, and Atari, however it is Atari who has granted the sublicense for the game to Turbine. Should this agreement completely fall through, will Turbine still have control of the game?

When asked to comment on the case, Turbine released the following statement to Massively: "As a legal matter we can't comment on the particulars of the case. We have recently extended our rights to develop and operate DDO Unlimited until 2016 and are looking forward to our launch next week."

[razoras]

DDO Unlimited is now out.

Got a new character on some server named something but I can't remember right now.

I'd recommend downloading the full game right now instead of relying on the Downloader to download as needed. It didn't work out so great for me. They're also getting really slammed so it might be worth waiting for day for the bumrush to wear off.

[bpphantom]

I snagged a retail copy yesterday for 7 bucks just so I could associate it with my Turbine account. Got my Drow Favoured Soul to level 3 (15) and headd out to Stormreach.

[razoras]

I wonder if the Solo difficulty ever poses a challenge. Normal sort of hurt on my Fighter so for my Rogue I've been soloing on Solo, and almost everything has been a breeze unless it casts magic and was a boss of some kind.

[Akamaz]

well, according tothe banner ads this is live now. lookslike i have something to do this weekend

[Masked Revenger]

I signed up for this as well, and am playing a Warforged Fighter on Kyhber, and have been having a blast. Personally, I love the GM voice. It feels a lot like playing D&D, or even like playing NWN.

So, what sever is everyone on? Let's get a Guru guild going! :)

:mr: Chris

[razoras]

I've got friends on the C server and Sarlona? Salona? Something like that.

[Pinny]

I've been playing a bit, and it might just be me being stupid, but I've found the new starting area overly complex. They tried to throw everything DDO has at you right out of the box, and I got lost after having to go out of the town into the combat area.

That, and Turbine loves to stealth run processes that hog resources, meaning you'd literally have to check your task manager's processes tab regularly to zap anything, or restart every time you want to do something besides DDO.

It's alright for a free game, though. And for both my cleric and ranger, solo mode was waaay too easy.

[Akamaz]

i'm playing an elven bard (ishva Sunsinger) on the "c" server, and a dwarven Barbarian Ranelda Wulfdottir there as well, but i'm only lbevel 1 with ranelda, and lvl 2 with Ishva so if you all are on other servers i'm illing to move.

[Akamaz]

so is anyone else still playing this? i'd liove to be able to get a party together of Guru's tonight

[bpphantom]

I've been spending most of my free time before this hell week playing Aion. With DDO being F2P though I'm keeping it installed and running a quest with my Drow Favored Soul from time to time though.

[Pinny]

I'd play, but it hogs up my CPU resources too much. That, and I can't make it off the tutorial island. And I hear content for non payers is soo limited that you'll be stuck running the same missions all the time just to get enough points to buy your way into higher content.

[bpphantom]

I'd play, but it hogs up my CPU resources too much. That, and I can't make it off the tutorial island. And I hear content for non payers is soo limited that you'll be stuck running the same missions all the time just to get enough points to buy your way into higher content.

Well, I'm level 3 rank 2 and I'm still doing new content every time. I repeat dungeons of course, but that's for gear and because they're kind of fun.

[razoras]

I still play and I went VIP last week. I just hit level 6 on my Rogue, Knotty McKnottson (http://my.ddo.com/character/cannith/knotty).

Running the same missions over and over again won't get you any DDO store points, either. Unless you do them on each server. You only get a specific amount of faction/favor per quest, and once you do it on Elite difficulty you've gotten the full amount of favor available from the quest. Favor is what gets you free points.

So, you'd need to run new quests all the time.

That being said, VIP and Premium people can give you guest passes. They're relatively cheap and lots of people are perfectly willing to give them out, even to complete strangers. For a while I was out of DDO points because I bought too many.

[Masked Revenger]

I say we just pick a server and go from there. I'm pretty okay on whatever server, I will happily re-start Cozar over.

I have a question... is the only way to get past the level 4 level cap to pay a monthly fee? Or can you pay a one time cost per toon to get past? Because I really don't want to add another monthly fee (in fact, I cannot, my wife is about to be laid off... one MMO is about all I can afford, and I may even need to re-think that).

Also, here's my toon, Cozar Silverblade.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v629/BlanchPrez/CozarDDO2.jpg

:mr: Chris

[Akamaz]

actually, you can get a token as a mission reward in stormreach that increases your level cap. i decided i didn't like my bard tso i went with a cleric on the Cannith server. Shamdra Oronwood. what say we start on that server?

[Masked Revenger]

actually, you can get a token as a mission reward in stormreach that increases your level cap. i decided i didn't like my bard tso i went with a cleric on the Cannith server. Shamdra Oronwood. what say we start on that server?

I'm good with that.

:mr: Chris

[Pinny]

Eww...Theres a level 4 cap? >_>

[Akamaz]

like i said, you can get a cap increase token just for doing a quest that you'll do anyways for XP (not that hard of a mission either, my barbarian solo'd it)

[Nerfed]

How much does it increase the level cap by, and can you do that quest more than once for multiple increases to your cap?

[Masked Revenger]

Eww...Theres a level 4 cap? >_>

Only on the free version of the game, and like it has been pointed out, there are ways around it.

:mr: Chris

[Pinny]

like i said, you can get a cap increase token just for doing a quest that you'll do anyways for XP (not that hard of a mission either, my barbarian solo'd it)

yeah...

But how high does it increase the cap? To 5? And then you have to do ANOTHER quest? Or is there only that ONE quest, then they force you to pay?

[Sir Serpa]

Paying for full access to an MMO?! Who do they think they are?

...Wait...What's that noise...?


http://i44.photobucket.com/albums/f31/boredlittleboy/wahmbulance-736464.jpg

[Masked Revenger]

Well, I re-created Cozar Silverblade, Warforged Fighter, over on Cannith. He just finished the tutorial and is sitting at the entrance to Korthos village, waiting to adventure with his new companions.

:mr: Chris

[Akamaz]

yeah...

But how high does it increase the cap? To 5? And then you have to do ANOTHER quest? Or is there only that ONE quest, then they force you to pay?

actually that token adds i think 5 levels to the cap (like to 9 i think) i dunno if there are further quest tokens above that one since i havn't played a character to that level.... this isn't like Coh where you get to level 10 in a two hour playtime. i've played a character for most of the weekend and got to level 3

[Pinny]

Don't know why I'm bothering to post here anymore if I just get ridiculed and crap.

[Akamaz]

Pymina Swan, Halfling Rogue lfg in the village :) same server, same spot.

what's the best times for us all to play together? best time for me is after 8pm central time

[Nerfed]

Don't know why I'm bothering to post here anymore if I just get ridiculed and crap.

Everyone gets ridiculed here to some extent. Its just a matter of how much and how you handle it. Don't take it so seriously... I've always believe that only invites more ridicule.

[bpphantom]

Initial cap is 4, then the tokens can either be bought with cash or ground out.

Total cap is 20, for 100 total "levels" (20 levels plus 4 ranks within each level).

[razoras]

First sigil increases you to 8. I don't know what the other sigils increase you to. I'm assuming it goes 4, 8, 12, 16, 20.

The sigils are just one of many pressures Turbine has implemented to encourage you to spend money. As with all games like this, which are free2play with microtransactions, if you don't like subtle or even obvious, blunt encouragement to pay, then stay away. I don't really relate to that, myself, but I do know some individuals that the minute their free game even puts up a loading-screen advertisement for some purchasable side item they go nuts.

The game is also full of people, like myself, that spend the points they get on Guest Passes to paid content that unlock paid content for individuals for 90 minutes. I've purchased these for friends and complete strangers about a dozen times now.

[Akamaz]

anyhow, what times are best for ya'll to play? i've got a hafling trapmaster (who also knows how to repair warforged) bt a cleric or something like that would be most welcome

best idea yet, if you wanna play with us, either gimme your steam id so i can add you as a friend there, or gimme an IM program handle, since i have AIM, YIM and MSN

[razoras]

I've got all day on Saturday to play, but I've got my time divided between two servers. Sunday will be a schoolwork day, and Friday is a "maybe" day. I've got classes and a 4 hours of commuting taking up Monday-Thursday.

It's kind of late in the thread to do this (adding to the OP would be coo), but a great way to keep track of each other would be creating a chat channel. Just /joinchannel cohGuru and that way you can give a quick "Hello?" when you log in and see who is on.

[Akamaz]

well raz i think we were talking about making a party of newbs fresh from the shipwreck and going from there, that way people won't end up out leveling others an stuff.

I think we're sticking with "Cannith" as a server too.

[Masked Revenger]

Yup, I like the idea of Cannath newbs. However, my play times are pretty limited. I know that I've managed to play with both Maz an Raz before, so hopefully this will still work out.

So, my best days are Wednesday's, around 9pm Pacific (that's midnight Eastern).

:mr: Chris

[Akamaz]

hmmm, i may be able to do that for an hour on wednesdays, but i'm with Raz in that weekends are truly the best time for me, or earlier evenings... if you could even pull off 8pm PST on wednesdays it would be easier for me.

[Akamaz]

we on for this weekend? what time is best for you Raz? Chris?

[Masked Revenger]

we on for this weekend? what time is best for you Raz? Chris?

I'll get online as soon as I can, but it being a Friday, my wife usually stays up late to get some adult time in. I hope I can catch some of you.

:mr: Chris

[Akamaz]

allright, i was thinking we;'d go more on saturdays, but i'm gme for tonight as well, but m y mouse has dead batteries :(

[Masked Revenger]

Well, I'm getting online right now for a little bit, maybe about a half-hour or so. Hoping to see one or both of you in game. :)

:mr: Chris

[razoras]

Hopping on, maybe too late.

[Akamaz]

raz and i got a little playtime in last night, went through the village and kothos island missions but havn't left for stormhaven??? yet so if you care to join us on another night to run through we can team up with ya. rogue/rangers seem to be able to do a lot, i just need to get a feat freed up so i can get weapon finesse rapier, cuz i'm tired of missing

[Masked Revenger]

What are the names of you're toons again? I tried to add you to my friends list, but it wouldn't work.

:mr: Chris

[razoras]

Knotty, Susie, and Jub.

Susie only gets playtime when the wife plays. Jub exists to play with you guys.

[Kozzma]

Just picked it up to try out for fun, I do not see a Eborron as a server name where are you guys at if at all?

[Akamaz]

the "Cannith" server is where we're playing... when we play.. i've gone back to L4D... and her younger, slightly hotter sister, L4d2

[Kozzma]

Good Already there As Kozzma T'DoP