Why is DDO Dying?

[Bjond]

Just saw another Lucky Ghost Video: Why is Every MMO Dying EXCEPT This One?

No need to watch it unless you want to fact-check me. The premise is that F2P + MicroTransactions = MMO Death or that Subscription-Only = Life. One comment seemed to fit DDO in particular: F2P with MicroTransactions incentivizes the producer of an MMO to deliberately make a game worse in order to sell the solutions in a microtransaction; eg.

• No bank space? You can buy more.
• Ugly armor? You can buy a great skin.
• Slow advancement? You can buy XP pots.
• Loot not dropping? You can buy reroll chances.

Instead of focusing on making the game better, they actively strive to make it worse in order to sell a fix. That's a bit Machiavellian and dramatic IMHO, but I think it captures the mind-set necessary for success of a F2P title and it contrasts strongly with the mindset for a sub-only title, which he contends is simply "make it better".

I think he left off the "do nothing and let it stagnate" that happened to many sub-only titles in the past; eg. about when I swapped to DDO I was actually wanting to go back to Wildstar and play that, thinking "all the bugs must be fixed by now" only to learn the plug got pulled on it just a few months ago. That wasn't the only untended game that died. So, maybe he's right that sub + improvements is the key.

He holds up FFXIV and OS.Runescape as the only examples of currently growing MMOs and cites sub-only as the primary and perhaps only commonality between them that fosters that. The video is far FAR longer than it needs to be -- he circles around the same point over and over with different examples -- but it does make an interesting case for pure subscription monetization.

 

[Sylvado]

I have often stated that F2P has ruined gaming. However, it is not the developers, it is the community of players it attracts. The level of complaining in F2P is far greater than it ever was in the subscription days.

 

[Owlbear]

You know DDO wouldn't be around anymore if it didn't go F2P right? Game and servers would have been closed.
Also I don't agree with the points you highlight. Most store armors/skins are hideous. The best looking armors are available for free (like Night Revels). DDO advancement isn't slow at all! It's actually very fast.

 

[TedSandyman]

I have to agree with Owlbear. DDO didn't switch to FTP and then things started downhill. They were on their way down well before the switch.

And I can guarantee the OP that not a single developer is making the game worse intentionally. All MMOs have been losing players for years. Fewer players mean less money earned. Less money means fewer active developers and designers. Throw in working on a code base that has been modified heavily over the past decade and there are simply going to be problems. There are a few issues here and there, but overall the game is remarkably fun to play for me and for a few others I think.

I don't agree with all of the decisions. I think they would get more out of the DDO store if they would cut prices in half. But overall, the game is still better than most out there. There is a lot of complaining. And there always will be. There is a lot of lag, but yeah, its an online game, there will be lag. Could it be better? Yes. Are they going to make some bad decisions? Yes. They have made bad "game killer" decisions for years and they are still here.

The last thing I want to addres is the question of "Is the game dying?" Of course it is. But it is a slow death. The question is if there is a bottoming out point where we get enough new players added per year to keep it financially viable. Are we there now? Or will the player base dwindle to the point of no return?

Only time will tell.

I have seen many posts over the years predicting the imminent demise of DDO and it keeps hanging on. "The Game Is Dead" threads are one of the types of threads the pops up every few months. I was hoping these types of posts had stayed on the old system.

 

[Nebless]

Just saw another Lucky Ghost Video: Why is Every MMO Dying EXCEPT This One?

The premise is that F2P + MicroTransactions = MMO Death or that Subscription-Only = Life.

Well that statement right there tells me your source doesn't have a clue.

DDO sub only - close to being closed when they introduced the F2p option.

Turbine found when they took their gamble on the F2p system that players buying 'a la carte' spent way more money than those running a sub. Which is why they kept it, changed LotRO over to it and then other companies seeing the success Turbine was having with the F2p monetization system started changing their games over to it.

Or looking at the other side you have LotRO where 2 of their Sub only servers closed down because of lack of players to keep them afloat.

Frankly running a sub only game limits the number of players you'll see. Granted it's a steady income (as long as they sub), but history has shown opening the game up brings in more money.

 

[jotmon]

Lag.

Players play enjoyable games.. DDO hits the benchmarks.

When you mention 'Lag' to another potential player it is enough to shut down interest .

Periodically I will try new games to see if they are fun, first red flag is Lag.
When I see lag.. delete.. move on.

If I didn't already play DDO before lag was bad I would never have given it a chance.
Years of increasing and unresolved Lag issues is enough to shake off player interest in continuing the game.

Once players leave it is that much more difficult to entice them or anyone they play with in future to come back.

 

[The Narc]

I agree, although there are lots of other lesser concerns, LAG is the number one killer for new player recruitment. People can get past the outdated graphics and the repetitive artwork. The most simple and enticing glamorous thing is the build variations, DDO has the top end of this market.

 

[Lag4Ever]

it can't be all my fault.

 

[TrinityTurtle]

Here's the thing. By your definition, DDO 'died' in 2009. That's when the microtransactions and F2P model came online. That's the time I joined it, since it was free why not right? Got hooked. That was FOURTEEN YEARS ago. And we're still getting new content. We have the hardcore events. New forums. This game is far from maintenance mode, which is the true death of a mmo.

DDO has NEVER had the huge popularity of games like WOW or Everquest. It has an interesting and compicated history that sorta made it suprrising it got off the ground at all after Atari basiually just said "nah, we're not gonna honor our contractual advertising agreements", lawsuits ensued, and Turbine went from production to actually running it. And I only know the vague outlines, I'm sure there was a much bigger scene in the background. I think it's a testemant to the game being fun that we're still getting new content in 2023 for a game that has never been a giant commercial success juggernaut.

 

[FixBows]

Yeah, if anything, lag will kill this game before pay to win vs FTP. I played the D4 server slam this weekend with 0 lag.

 

[Konsumer]

This new shiny forum isn't an indication of death. It's one of growth.

 

[Blerkington]

DDO has many problems and as much as I like the good parts, I can only play for so long these days before needing to take an extended break. I wish it were otherwise.

I think our game really suffers from lack of investment in its infrastructure. The amount of lag in the game is appallingly bad for such a small population, even though they are making a very belated effort to fix it.

The UI can't be resized for higher resolutions, we have to do a work-around to get the LFM panel to populate, our favour totals don't update promptly upon quest completions; for a game of this age there are so many rough edges and outright broken things it's a little bit pathetic. It wasn't that long ago we had the Executive Producer floating the idea of reducing group sizes as a way of making the game run better. If that wasn't an admission of abject failure I don't know what is.

The company's approach to communicating with and supporting its customers isn't great either and there seems to be very little respect of players' time and effort. It's like SSG firmly believes its players will put up with just about anything for any length of time no matter what. That sort of complacent approach never ends well.

I want DDO to succeed but I'd like it to get to a place where I can tolerate playing most of the time and then I would consider spending more than the bare minimum again. But it often seems like the company running the game is its own worst enemy.

 

[Br4d]

This is just my take so take it at that value.

I think SSG believes they have a certain number of addicted players that will continue to support DDO at a fairly high level as long as they are given new targets to grind on.

I think SSG finds a few new players in that category, at a very low rate among new players overall, each quarter.

I think everything is geared towards the players in the category and calibrated to keep them performing from a standpoint of revenues generated.

I think the thought of changes to the game or revenue structures other than at the top end new grind level are repellent to the decision-makers because they represent the risk of losing the otherwise addicted players upon which the current revenue model relies.

None of the above is meant to be disrespectful to DDO or the players. It's just what feels like the most likely scenario based on what we've seen over the years. The unwillingness to reset the power structures with each expansion is the most telling detail. This is what causes the same people to buy in over and over again. Buy once and you get that power forever. Fail to rebuy and the power structure will bypass you.

 

[The Narc]

The new stuff beings nothing that leaves you behind unless you are an endgame R10 grinder. First life toons can run the rest of the content if they want.

 

[Col Kurtz]

There's to many tiers of power creep in Epic. Power creep in Heroic feels very D&D like. Power creep in epic is a total pain and created to much separation for party grouping. DDO messed up forming epic content to be tiered like heroic. Playing gear tetris every 2-4 lvl's in epic is more of a pain than its worth. At this point I am trying to use my lvl 20 stuff all the way to 28 with a few 24 pieces slapped in along the way.

Digging into our gear trenches for 1-2 hours each TR is definitely one reason we lose players.

Plus, I like to save items for those few new players I run into. Thats pretty tough to do when we don't have enough room for our own equipment supply.

> They added sentient to lvl 20 stuff> are we supposed to farm 4-5 sentient gems and farm item xp's for each tier of equipment? How much time do dev's think people have?

 

[The Narc]

I use mostly level 8/12 gear all the way thru epics without hesitating to run reaper on my non permadeath toons, occasionally picking up something as i level that might go into one of my gear slots easy peasy to run thru epics and legendary is a frigging joke, hence why you see the core of players getting reaper xp do it at legendary with store bought xp pots.

 

[Thor]

DDO has many problems and as much as I like the good parts, I can only play for so long these days before needing to take an extended break. I wish it were otherwise.

I think our game really suffers from lack of investment in its infrastructure. The amount of lag in the game is appallingly bad for such a small population, even though they are making a very belated effort to fix it.

The UI can't be resized for higher resolutions, we have to do a work-around to get the LFM panel to populate, our favour totals don't update promptly upon quest completions; for a game of this age there are so many rough edges and outright broken things it's a little bit pathetic. It wasn't that long ago we had the Executive Producer floating the idea of reducing group sizes as a way of making the game run better. If that wasn't an admission of abject failure I don't know what is.

The company's approach to communicating with and supporting its customers isn't great either and there seems to be very little respect of players' time and effort. It's like SSG firmly believes its players will put up with just about anything for any length of time no matter what. That sort of complacent approach never ends well.

I want DDO to succeed but I'd like it to get to a place where I can tolerate playing most of the time and then I would consider spending more than the bare minimum again. But it often seems like the company running the game is its own worst enemy.

I agree with this in totallity. Love the game, wish it were run better. Moved to Orien to experience a more full server, don't think ddo is capable of full servers. Also, terribly bored at endgame now.

 

[Epiriam]

I just sub and the monthly DDO points and points obtained in game are enough to literally solve every single "problem" you listed.

 

[droid327]

I'll throw your question back at you, OP, but just take out the first word...

This seems like a solution in search of a problem

 

[Nam(of thelanis)]

I thought he was going to compare final fantasy to osrs but he didnt at the end

Ive been playing osrs on and off for a while but recently have been playing it 8ish hours a day (I play at work and have no life outside work)

The stage transformations that happen in ff is similar to invocations in the newest raids system for osrs and id like to explain their mechanics to show their similiarities
and why I have been negleting like the good old lady that ddo is for me.

Tombs of Amascut (aka raids 3) invocation system is basically changing mechanics of bosses and you can start learning the mechanics on a really low difficulty to begin learning it at your own pace and I also play
with my cousin who has significantly less time on his hands (I probably play 20x of his time) but we still manage to do the content. But your personal skill, even if you are using piss poor equipment (because the economy works as it should so im not sure if many players who have never played a game with one would understand) matters more than anything and will be rewarded better for it. (dodging things, item swaps, and prayer swaps are more important than using a better piece of gear because you will just simply die for failing the mechanic, deal less damage,
or incur a near death experience/deal less damage) It goes further into a point rewarded system but I wont go any further into it but this video really doesnt do OSRS justice into explaining
why its becoming more popular and why ive been drawn to it.

He holds up FFXIV and OS.Runescape as the only examples of currently growing MMOs and cites sub-only as the primary and perhaps only commonality between them that fosters that. The video is far FAR longer than it needs to be -- he circles around the same point over and over with different examples -- but it does make an interesting case for pure subscription monetization.

The subscription for OSRS can be paid for by ingame GP by the pay to win players (referenced as a "bond") for 8mish gp (requires an average person 8 hours of semi lazy non-punishing) will buy 2
weeks of a sub (so 16 hours of 1m/gp per hour methods would save 12 dollars a month).

If there was a stable economy in ddo I do wonder how different it would fair (like using astral shards to pay for monthly vip-esq sub)

I think SSG believes they have a certain number of addicted players that will continue to support DDO at a fairly high level as long as they are given new targets to grind on.

Eventually everybody will achieve their personal goals: be it a legendary status or Quad completionists with 156 reaper points with 1 of each class (Im looking at the money whales
that would never let ddo die) So what would be the true point that a player would complete ddo? (I really think there should be an infinite scaling factor of +1 to a stat for each 2 RP past
156 but that is another discussion)I just sub and the monthly DDO points and points obtained in game are enough to


Actually there is a p2 to the said video if interested

He says there is absolutely no monetization (which is wrong since legal GP can be bought)
One of the mods brings up a good point, OSRS is insanely community driven and everything is voted for

https://oldschool.runescape.wiki/w/Polls

at 20:00 he is wrong about his statement that Ironman cant buy bonds using GP (but cannot utelize IRL money to buy bonds to sell for GP)
This brings me to a question, if ddo adopted something similar to purchasing of an ingame sub using in game achieved currency (Astral shards to purchase X amount of days of 10% XP boost and other vip benefits) do you think it would help increase the population of its players?