Axel: Response to Josh Strife Hayes Worst MMO Ever Video

[saekee]

Great vid Axel, well-thought out. Hayes, vid was spot on.

I disagree with Lagin above. Devs should round up a couple of dozen non-DDO folks next time they are at a convention. Offer them 1K DDO points to play the game for 100 hours and WRITE DOWN EVERYWHERE THEY ENCOUNTERED CONFUSION AND HICCUPS. They can also add a suggestion section to their survey from them. Cost: NOTHING. The cost will be to implement observations, and that is hard to assess until it is done.

Since the devs are not doing this, and seldom listen to us here pushing for new player retention, they will learn the hard way which was Hayes: massive mixed press coverage. Had they been proactive, Hayes’ would have given a huge thumbs up and we would have a flood of new players. Independent media in all aspects of life has forced entities to step up their game. SSG seems to operate with blinders.

New folks, some remain, new revenue, right?

 

[Lagin]

Great vid Axel, well-thought out. Hayes, vid was spot on.

I disagree with Lagin above. Devs should round up a couple of dozen non-DDO folks next time they are at a convention.

I'm ok with part of that, but it also validates my opinion, have someone else with him. Prefferably someone with ddo experience to help them through the issues encountered

 

[Jack Jarvis Esquire]

Seems to me like an honest assesment of the game.

Yes it may not be 100% accurate in all respects, but it's a fair and honest perception of someone trying out DDO for the first time.

For customers, and particularly potential customers, perception is reality.

I think SSG would do well to review this video and assess the hygiene factors it highlights and address them.

Equally he points our some of the strengths of the game, nicely juxtaposed with some comments from more seasoned players.

An entertaining and thought provoking assessment. I hope SSG have listened.

 

[Edrein]

I'm ok with part of that, but it also validates my opinion, have someone else with him. Prefferably someone with ddo experience to help them through the issues encountered

That's counter intuitive for a review though.

Everyone one of us here on the forums could have pointed out the pitfalls, noob traps, and unclear information. Its the onus of the devs to make these sort of things clear, or remove bad design (looking at you a lot of outdated/unnecessary feats that only new players tend to take and then get frustrated about given they are detrimental rather than benefitial).

Josh's review clearly made enough waves that SSG is considering taking some looks into his feedback. I would hope that they are willing to create a round up thread for the rest of us to contribute on pain points for both new players, returning players, and even veterans. I know there's plenty of things I've been told by friends I've tried to introduce into DDO or by people they are coming back and griping in group chat about changes.

That isn't to disparage SSG. They've done some good new player/retention based changes as of late such as the new flow of quests in the Harbor. But like the aforementioned complaint of Josh's about the unconcious/death screen. We could actually benefit from the current popup being hidden until at least after we're dead. It instead feels like I went back to around 2002 to using a browser without an add blocker for the first time. Constant popups trying to drive me towards the store/making a purchase.

F2P need not be predatory, especially on the uninformed, to be successful and generate revenue.

 

[lumpi]

Thanks for introducing Josh's video, I always thought SSG was in it for the money, but after watching Josh's video on Diablo Immortal..wow.

That being said I loved his perspective on playing DDO as a first timer and thank god he didn't play in any Hardcore event or run with any veteran players....or else his review might have been worse.

What I'm dismayed about is that it took an outsider to garner a reponse from SSG about some problems in the game. Still it's a standard corporate response 'We'll look in to your feedback' and it doesn't mean SSG will do anything about them, but still there's this official forum where regular players talk or rant about gamebreaking, QoL issues and may be there will be an official response or not.

I'm going go out on a limb here..and DISAGREE with many people about fixing some of the minor things Josh highlights. In my opinion you shouldn't fix the superficial stuff cuz that just raises expectations and when new players see how janky and dated the game is by playing it, they may be really disappointed and never come back. It's like getting a really big nicely wrapped present for Xmas and you're thinking it's gotta be huge transformer toy and you gonna have fun playing with it and when you finally open your present you're totally crushed when it's an encyclopedia set. Don't hype up people's expectations by making the game look nice.

at the 3:05 mark Josh talks about the early bad signs when loading up DDO and his expectations are low for the game at this point, but by the end of the video he says he had fun playing it and gave a decent score for this old game.

 

[DDO Gaming]

... that just raises expectations and when new players see how janky and dated the game is by playing it, they may be really disappointed and never come back.

Dated? How so? space invaders is dated. Doom is dated. By contrast DDO's complexity remains a huge barrier and the multiple reviews I have seen all mention this. Any gamer starting a new account in korthos village will find the game difficult and demotivating because it takes time to develop your DDO Account. And I really emphasize this because I also play raid/legends and by contrast that game has been engineered to be easy for new gamers

 

[lumpi]

Dated? How so? space invaders is dated. Doom is dated. By contrast DDO's complexity remains a huge barrier and the multiple reviews I have seen all mention this. Any gamer starting a new account in korthos village will find the game difficult and demotivating because it takes time to develop your DDO Account. And I really emphasize this because I also play raid/legends and by contrast that game has been engineered to be easy for new gamers

sorry didn't clarify, I meant by graphics.

In Josh's video he says he had fun playing DDO and I hope DDO tries to make the game fun again.

I somewhat disagree that the game has been engineered to be easy for new gamers cuz of the gap between new players/casual players vs veteran players

 

[DDO Gaming]

sorry didn't clarify, I meant by graphics

graphics depend on adventure pack. feywild wilderness is simply breathtaking

 

[lumpi]

graphics depend on adventure pack. feywild wilderness is simply breathtaking

sorry, don't have that expansion pack.

 

[DDO Gaming]

sorry, don't have that expansion pack.

it was discounted over xmas. yo missed out on a bargain

 

[saekee]

graphics depend on adventure pack. feywild wilderness is simply breathtaking

Devs could make Korthos visually stunning. You don’t open up a restaurant and put your blandest elements on the storefront and lament people don’t come in to try the cuisine on the second floor.


The true cost of DDO is not money. You can play for free. It is learning it. Some of it is par for the course. Some can be mitigated. Korthos is a series of tutorials and maybe can use even basic additional text here and there. Add a training dummy in the public space near the weapon trainer for example. Devs are not paying me to come up with obvious solutions and clearly are not paying anyone else.

 

[DDO Gaming]

Devs could make Korthos visually stunning. You don’t open up a restaurant and put your blandest elements on the storefront and lament people don’t come in to try the cuisine on the second floor.

Or they could leave THE LEGACY CODE ALONE and create new content (eg feywilds) making that visually breathtaking

 

[saekee]

Or they could leave THE LEGACY CODE ALONE and create new content (eg feywilds) making that visually breathtaking

no because we are talking about first impressions, right? A business wants a strong first impression. Korthos is not a strong first impression.

 

[DDO Gaming]

The true cost of DDO is not money. You can play for free. It is learning it. Some of it is par for the course. Some can be mitigated. Korthos is a series of tutorials and maybe can use even basic additional text here and there. Add a training dummy in the public space near the weapon trainer for example. Devs are not paying me to come up with obvious solutions and clearly are not paying anyone else.

There are always opportunitties for improvements however SSG need to constantly balance cost V benefit to ensure they do not start committing to non-viable projects

 

[DDO Gaming]

no because we are talking about first impressions, right? A business wants a strong first impression. Korthos is not a strong first impression.

DDO was first deployed in 2008, its a mature product derived from an even more mature (dungeons and dragons) product. So gamers already exposed to DND (apprentrly 1M+ play roll20) will always take an interest in the online product

 

[DDO Gaming]

What I find strange is the number of solo gamers in DDO (myself included) when you consider DND has ALWAYS been a teamgame

 

[saekee]

DDO was first deployed in 2008, its a mature product derived from an even more mature (dungeons and dragons) product. So gamers already exposed to DND (apprentrly 1M+ play roll20) will always take an interest in the online product

This is how the devs think and the result was Hayes’ vid and review. This is why Axel and others are hammering here for changes.

 

[vryxnr]

What I find entertaining in a facepalm enducing way, is that Josh pointed out the floating grass in Korthos, a counter is "well, that's old content, the newer content - like feywild - is breathtaking"... and in feywild there is also flaoting grass (less obvious due to the shear density of the foliage, but it's there too).

Isle of Dread also has floating foliage as well, and it's even newer than feywild!

(not saying they're not good to look at, they are. I just found it smirk worthy that the initial cause of this (pointing out floating graphics) actually happens all over the game)