Hi everyone!  Got some interesting stuff from Codemasters Connect 2008!  I wasn't there (of course, it being held in the United Kingdom), but some DDO-Europe folks were and gave me the scoop on the low-down. 

First up and probably most important, here's an embed of a video posted by Vinny35 of the monk, as shown at Codemasters Connect 2008:



Here's a LINK to the video on Photobucket.

Yeah, cool! 

Next up is a report from Slider, who was gracious enough to send in a lengthy look at what happened:

I turned up in Birmingham just before 12:30 and stood outside the Omega building looking at the queue. Although this was not the biggest queue I had seen in the world, I decided to go for a beer in the bar opposite and wait in comfort until they started to let players in. During this time CM staff were going up and down the queue welcoming all the players, with big smiles and being very chatty. The LOTRO characters then appeared, again walking up and down the line in full costume having their photo's taken (I avoided this as it was LOTRO... pfff). When I joined the queue I was stood next to a fellow gamer and I was asked what MMO I play! 'DDO of course'... 'ah' came the reply 'I'm Gunboat'... what a great guy (thanks for the beer) and a nice way to meet people you had chatted with in-game or on the forums (although there are some forums trolls I DID not want to meet!)
 
On entry to the event we were wrist tagged and asked what bonus game play stuff we would like. 'DDO of course', I answered. 'Sorry' came the reply, LOTRO, Archlord or RFonline.... Great, I now have a +5% striding cloak for LOTRO! where was the DDO stuff, why give bonus items to all 3 other games and not DDO, we paid the same price for our tickets? This kind of set the tone for the event with LOTRO playing the biggest part in this shared event. I'll try not to speak of them anymore.
 
So in we go... Upstairs to a massive gaming area, with hundreds of screens and different area's laid out to play your favourite MMO. We all then got asked to find a seat and waited for our welcoming speech and announcements.
 
The new space game 'Jumpgate' was previewed. It looked very good! If you are into space games take a look. They had the game playing downstairs to try out with over 50+ stations, but I was there for DDO. LOTRO then got a massive announcement, they also went through how much they had given the game over the last year: Guild housing, Guild banking, barbers, possibility to change the look of your clothes, etc... OKAY, so LOTRO, but I was sat there thinking 'wait a sec, this is TURBINE - why has LOTRO been given all this stuff that DDO has been asking for years!!! Again, it just set the tone and reminded me, no, slapped me in the face, that DDO is just the poor cousin to LOTRO, even in TURBINES eyes.
 
So the start of the event moved on, free T-shirts, £1,000 give-away, free Red bull drinks. CM dedicated the event to the memory of Gary Gygax and thanked him for what he has given gaming and players all over the world, saying how all the MMO would not be where they were today without the creation of D&D. A very fitting statement -R.I.P Gary.
 
There's a Gary Gygax monument in Delera's graveyard due and a 'Voice of the master' trinket that looks a lot like the Head of Good Fortune at the end of the Delera's quest (iirc) that gives a 5% increase to all quest xp if worn when the quest's completed and a +1 bonus to all saves.
 
After taking a look around and seeing how big the venue was it was clear to see that CM had put a lot of work into this event. TURBINE was over from the states, along with NetDevil, over 50+ press members with foreign camera crews and the regional TV news station trying to grab me for an interview on LOTRO, I laughed and said they should cover the true game, D&D, and walked off. There was LARP'ing that you could join, D&D pnp session (with loot you could win in game), WotC staff, DJ (who played utter crap music far too loud - think I'm getting old), bar, VIP area and more. It was a well organised packed event, if not lacking the players on Friday. With all this going on I met up with a guildie and settled into a quest on one of the uber PC's and waited for the clock to tick down to the DDO roundtable with Kate & Billy.
 
We finished our quest just in time for the DDO roundtable to start - we all filled a small room and Kate started to show us the new monk class. These are the following points that came out of the discussion:
 
Ok lets start with the monk. I was lucky enough to jump on Kate’s lap-top while she answered questions and run around on 'Coal' her level 1 Ranger/15 Monk. He had a level of Ranger as the programming would not 'create' the Monk class.

Confirmed for mod 7 and should be out in MAY (that means JUNE for the EU) baring any game breaking bugs surfacing.
A monk is to have a new bar like sp bar for his Chi. The Chi bar will fill during combat and fade outside combat and at shrines, so the more you are in Combat the more Chi you have to use on special attacks.

Monks don’t have cool down on there skills/feats but they consume Chi so when bar down they cant use feats.

Monks have different stances so far the following are confirmed
Fire stance = increased DPS
Air stance = increase speed
Earth stance = increase defence
these stances can be toggled on and off as hotbar actions.

Monks combat animations consist of punch, punch, kick, roundhouse, back flip. Along with this you have Cleave, whirlwind that all have their own animations (cool stuff). They also have a specific falling animation and fully integrated feats like unarmed combat. On the whole he looked pretty cool, he was running around in a White Dragon Robe but new clothing has been planned for the release with the Monk. This looks like Bruce Lee pants, with a long sleeved top and a belt. He is also
bare footed.
 
The Un-armed combat looked cool although was not putting out massive damage! I ran around the desert and was hitting mobs for 20-30. With the Chi attack I was getting a roll of 1d6 extra damage. 'Coal' was not Twinked and I don't know what enchantment he had. I was glad to find out Kate had 'God' mode turned on when I tested 'Coal' and took on the Fire elemental near the Demon Queen entrance (-6 and still going lol). I didn't look at the stats too much but noticed he had 48AC. Also, I would not say the Monk will be over powerful IMO. If anything, the Monk will fit into the middle of the current classes when it come to DPS within the party. Yes there will be a Monk invasion hitting Stormreach, but I don't see every player always playing the Monk class.
A couple of other things to note about the monk:
 
You will not need to 'unlock' them. There lawful but can be any race. Their weapon feats include kama and shuriken. There more shaolin than friar tuck - a multiclass monk may be able to use non monk weapons or equipment but doing so will incur a penalty to monk abilities so no Monk sorcerers running around with a sword of shadows.

Other information.

Next level cap increase should be straight 17-20 and hopefully will be before the end of the year. No set information is available on epic levels as they are concentrating on hitting level cap 20 1st. You will probably see the full spell set being introduced with level 17, there is also a plan to introduce more lower level spell. Many people consider the level 8 spells a little poor but this is down to there being few level 8 spells that wouldn’t be considered game breaking or are very hard to implement earthquake is an example however they are working on both high and low level spells to expand the range of caster abilities

After monk they are concentrating on druid, half elf, half orc beyond that they are contemplating but not set in stone other ebberron core classes and gnomes.

Mod 7 will continue the shavarath story with players actually travelling to shavarath to fight the pit fiend on his own ground.

From mod 7 there will be an increase in low and mid level content they are particularly looking at 3 barrel cove as this is an area they feel needs an overhaul and some love.

There is a new click and hold attack system in addition to the other combat styles now you can just hold the mouse button down to attack until you release the button.

Mod 7 will introduce deconstruction of items as part of the crafting process with mod 8 implementing the full crafting setup.
More bags and storage items will come, looking into bank upgrades based on favour for the future.

The team in charge of coding the auction house, inventory and guild banking are the same team and while they are working in these areas the code for each area is extremely complex and minor changes are throwing up problems in other unexpected areas so while they are being worked on it is a tough and slow process. But they are trying.

As an attempt to rebalance the melee classes that feel underpowered in comparison to casters there are new enhancement lines as already seen for rogue and pally this means that the casters don’t need to be nerfed which could cause annoyance.

There is plans for a new set of favor rewards later in the year. No definite details yet.

Finally on game points the DX10 upgrade that LOTRO got should be coming to DDO but no confirmed date yet as there still trying to decide where to slot it into the development cycle.
 
*And finally the most important news*
New underwear is NOT a priority for development, the brown pants that have lasted us the last 2 years will have to last us a lot longer!
 
Deep breath.................
 
So after the Roundtable and running around playing the Monk we all thanked Kate and Billy for their time and headed back off to the bar.
That evening Connect held a party in one of the local clubs. Sadly I missed this but a guildie said It was a great time to spend time drinking and chatting to TURBINE team and NetDevil about different issues etc and a lot of fun as the night went on!!!!!
Saturday was the same as Friday, But 4 times as packed!!! The pic's show Friday when there was just as many players as Press. However, Saturday, being the weekend was PACKED!
 
I'd just like to say thanks for the TURBINE team for making the trip and sharing with us in the UK. It was great that you made the trip and shows us that we are part of the DDO community *even if we get release 2 weeks late . Thanks to Kate for answering some direct questions and Billy for clearing up some points and posting on our boards (we hope to see you there more). Finally, although this is for DDOcast. I would like to thank CM for a great event! For their first you could see how much time and effort had gone into this. So big shout to Deum and the team from DDO.
 
Would I go next year? HELL YES!
 
Until then
 
Slider-Aureon - EU - Keeper Server.

Thanks also needs to go to Gunboat Diplomat, Lightfoot and the other folks whose information was used in Slider's report.  Hope I didn't miss anyone!  If so, consider yourself thanked....

Slider also provided some pics:















Later!

Jerry