Why is DDO Dying?

[Scott]

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.

My personal opinion would be to close one or two other worlds to increase the player count on the remaining worlds so there will be more group play. On some Friday nights, it's difficult to put a team together. Years ago, there would be several groups to choose from

 

[Br4d]

Necro is definitely in a bad need of a "revamp"... its a shame since its a lot of potential Silver Flame favor and an otherwise potential break from the usual paths we've probably made around it.

And yeah, I agree on needing something to skip GH. I have done it, but they make it a PITA to do it.

You can easily skip GH by Demon Sands, Mists of Ravenloft, Attack on Stormreach, The Devil's Gambit, Disciples of Rage. There's more than enough XP there to get to 3rd life 15 and Masterminds of Sharn. You can skip any two of those and get there with GH.

 

[Mand O'Lin]

Necro is definitely in a bad need of a "revamp"... its a shame since its a lot of potential Silver Flame favor and an otherwise potential break from the usual paths we've probably made around it.

And yeah, I agree on needing something to skip GH. I have done it, but they make it a PITA to do it.

At the very least, Necro needs a saga... with a damn good reward.

The Necro collectible quests could do with having their rewards updated too. It is a good bit of work to get the Tome and Shield pieces and the rewards to be commensurate with the difficulty.