Ask The Devs 3 Transcript!
Ask The Devs #3 Transcript
Recorded for DDOcast Episode 64
April 19th, 2008
Jerry: Hello and welcome to Ask the Devs, the third installment of Ask the Devs here on DDOcast. I really appreciate you taking some time for us. Let's start off by going around the room and saying who we have with us from Turbine. First up is Quarion, Community Relations Manager. How ya doing Quarion?
Quarion: I'm doing great, how you doing Jerry?
Jerry: Good good good. And I appreciate your help to sort of, uh, you help us work some of the technical, behind the scenes stuff here using Skype and conference calling and all that. You do a good job of it and we really appreciate it.
Quarion: Well thanks.
Jerry: Also, no stranger to the show, we have with us Tolero.
Tolero: How's everybody doing?
Jerry: Yeah, it's been a while since you've been on the show and we love to have you on DDOcast. I still get emails every now and then from people saying, "hey, what's Tolero (Merlask) up to there?"
Tolero: Mighty feedback aggregator, MUHAWWW.
Jerry: All right. Also with us is Senior Game Systems Engineer Codog. How ya doing, Codog?
Codog: Doing great.
Jerry: And keeping busy on "The Dog House" thread (on ddo.com). Lot to talk about and lot going on in that little 'ole thread there.
Codog: Oh, it keeps me busy.
Jerry: Also with us is Lead Game Systems Designer Eladrin, how you doing Eladrin?
Eladrin: Pretty good, I'm glad to be here again.
Jerry: Yup. And good to have you on the show. You've been on the show every time and I know that we really appreciate that as well. Also with us is someone who's been on the show before is Producer Glin. How you doing Glin?
Glin: I'm doing pretty good today.
Jerry: Good, good. Weather holding out for ya over on the East Coast?
Glin: Yeah, we're actually starting to get some signs that Spring is on its way. It's actually about a nine month winter up here though, so, uh...
Jerry: Yeah.
Glin: Weather-wise, we're hanging in there.
Jerry: Yup, yup. Well us in Minnesota have that same experience, so. Also with us is Eldorudo. How ya doing Eldorudo?
Eldorudo: I'm doing great Jerry, how are you?
Jerry: Doing good, uh, forgot to mention that you are a quest designer. And, uh, Theragrim - new dev to DDOcast and Ask the Devs, great to have you on the show. It's always cool to meet new folks here.
Tharagrim: Thank you very much. Looking forward to participating.
Jerry: And just to note that you are a Game Systems Designer for Turbine.
Tharagrim: Absolutely.
Jerry: And fairly new, I understand as well.
Tharagrim: Yes, I've been working on the project for about five months, six months now.
Jerry: Cool, cool. Well - glad to have ya working on the game. All right, in the interests of time, I'm going to get right to the questions here:
First question comes from Alfred, who says "Please let us know whether and what more changes will be made to the Abbot Raid?" Basically, what's the deal going on with changes to the Abbot raid and if any changes will be made to get more players to go back to the Necropolis?
Eladrin: Well, with Module 7 we're making some changes to the phase tile room and we've made a couple of minor tweaks here and there to improve the experience. Fixes to bugs, that sort of thing. Uh, there'll also be some additional treasure going in Module 7 and other than that, we'll see. So far there have been a couple of groups that have beaten it. We'd like to keep their experiences and achievements worth talking about, uh, so any changes that we've made we've brought up the original normal difficulty is now hard.
Jerry: Yeah
Eladrin: Uh, but the normal difficulty itself is a little bit easier.
Jerry: Yeah, we had someone on my home server of Sarlona. We had someone on DDO-Europe, and I know a group on the Japanese servers as well, and there may be of course some others out there who just don't publicize themselves so much, but, uh...Yeah! And you said new loot. Did you just say new loot? I think that's the favorite two words you could possibly say to the DDO player base here.
Eladrin: Oh, did I say that out loud? Theragrim knows more about that - he's the one that made it.
Jerry: Oh, really? Okay. All right, Gratch asks, "Lord of the Rings Online got Direct X 10. DX10 shadows and a few other graphics engine features a few books ago. So, for those of us with the "Visa Upgrade" question, are DX10 graphic engine features a possibility for DDO in 2008?
Basically, DX10 is, uh, well, I don't know if I can really explain it. It's sort of the "latest and the greatest" in regards to graphics engines, but you need to have Vista from what I understand in order to run it, so. What do you think, DX10?
Glin: Yeah, DX10 is definitely in DDO's future. It's not actually a limitation on the game engine itself, because it is, it is Turbine technology support. Supported by Turbine technology. It's actually more the art, the shadows, all those things that would really take advantage of DX10 have to be supported in-game and that's a development cycle that's in our near future.
Jerry: Ah, okay. I'm sure people with high-end computers and Windows Vista and that will be pretty glad to see it, so.
All right, Lithic asks, "Are there any plans on refurbishing some of the low-level areas with Explorer Zone tech?" This guy suggests Three Barrel Cove, maybe the Restless Isles would be good ones. "And what about that valley on the way to Faithful Departed, the Ruins of Threnal? More importantly for me," this guy says, "is there any possibility of letting higher-level characters complete the low-level explorer zone quests even if they have to be solo, or get no experience for it or even get empty chests?"
And actually, I suppose I should probably piggyback this with a question from Jocelyn who asked a similar question, "Are there any plans to unlock the explorer zones for higher-level characters?"
Eldorudo: Well, I'll take that one first, Jerry. Players will be happy to know that in Module 7, higher-level players will be able to advance, um, their quests for lower-level wilderness explorer areas. I'm not quite sure how it breaks down, because we'll have to ask Phax, he's the one that programmed it. But basically if you are higher level, like if you want to go into Sorrowdusk, or Searing Heights or any of the other areas you can go in there and advance even if you are a capped character, but there'll just be a penalty for XP. So, that's one thing that we've always wanted to have in there and we're glad that we're finally able to unveil with Module 7.
Jerry: Yeah, that's excellent. Cuz I know especially if maybe you have a character that's just a level or two above or below the range needed, you know, it's good to have that flexibility there, and of course there are us completionists out there that just want the numbers filled up.
Eldorudo: Yeah, exactly. So that's going to be possible. And it also it kinda piggybacks nicely because we've, uh, for Module 7 we've revamped Three Barrel Cove. It's completely updated - we basically threw away the old Three Barrel and have completely redone it and it looks phenomenal from -
Tolero: It's beautiful.
Eldorudo: Yeah, from everything we've seen so far it just looks phenomenal. Um, everyone did a wonderful job working on it. So, um, it's going be a CR5 area, so I believe, if I'm correct, it'll be CR's two to nine that will get full XP in there. So, anyone above level 9 will be able to go back and experience Three Barrel Cove now, um, and be able to advance through it. So that was one of the things that we really wanted to do, because we want the higher-level players to be able to experience Three Barrel because it looks so wonderful.
Jerry: Cool. So, what can we expect there. Is it 10% more "piratey"?
Eldorudo: I would say it's 110% more "piratey"! (everyone chuckles)
DEVS: Yaar, Yaar, yar.
Jerry: Nice. Oh, that's cool though. I like Three Barrel Cove and I know a lot of other people do. Good to see that. Is it going to be, say, a full-size outdoor area then, huh?
Eldorudo: Yes, definitely full-size.
Glin: It's huge. It's a whole island now.
Eldorudo: It's really big.
Jerry: Cool.
Glin: You know, and there's actually, uh, there's a little, uh, public zone in there as well that has been added. You're not just going to a tavern and then out onto the beach anymore. The tavern is still there, but there'll be another access point and a public space for banking and new quests and so on.
Jerry: Ah, excellent, excellent.
All right, uh, Jeff asks "What and when will we see a fix for the horns? The splintered horns that were added to the loot table but not taken out of the game." Basically, this guy writes that, "you guys have confessed that it was a mistake and should have been taken out, but they are still dropping." So this guy asks, "Will we get a chance to trade them in for other ingredients or basically get some kind of use out of them?"
Eladrin: There are uses planned for the horns in Module 7. I believe that many of them will be extremely sought after. So, don't throw them out!
Jerry: Ah, okay. Huh. Last week's show I had a commercial for "Splintered Horn Crunch Cereal." I thought that was a pretty good use for them.
Eladrin: So tasty.
Glin: You might have to take up a trade crafting for Mod 8, Jerry.
Jerry: Yeah. (chuckles) Interesting. So not in a position to get into details about what they will be used for at this point?
Eladrin: I think that's a secret at this time.
Jerry: Okay. Well, anyway, something to look forward to and, uh, yeah, I guess we should hang on to them.
All right, Klazz asks, "Is there more that you guys can do to make Stormreach seem more alive and a little bit less static?" He writes, "I think one of the things that made the anniversary event so popular was it made Stormreach come alive."
I guess I don't 100% agree with his statement that it doesn't seem alive right now, but are you guys have some plans to maybe even, uh, maybe boost it up even more here?
Glin: We're doing some changes to the AI over the next couple of modules. Probably Mod 8 is where we'd have something sort of significant behind the scenes. I don't know if that's something that Codog can speak to a little bit more.
Codog: Yeah, sure. As we saw during the event (Jerry: he's referencing the market place event) we had some pretty major lag and some of those performance issues related to AI's in public spaces. Um, so we're taking a really good look at doing some reworking of the AI to accomodate things like that so that we won't see those problems in the future.
Jerry: Oh, that's excellent. Good news, good news there!
Codog: At this moment it's a technical limitation that we're going to be overcoming in the near future. Probably not Module 7, but on beyond that.
Jerry: All right.
Eldorudo: Also to add onto that Jerry: Just additionally, we are using some more of the world event tech. It's not going to be used in the same way that we did the tent event, but we are using it in Module 7. I'm not going to give too much info, but players will be able to, uh, to influence, uh, the way things happen, um, for unlocking some content.
Jerry: Hmm, well you've definitely piqued my interest there. That's interesting. Cool, cool.
All right, uh, Greg asks, "I'd like to know if there's anything in the works for giving the raid loot from the dragon a makeover?" This guys says there's just a couple of pieces of raid loot from the dragon that are unique enough that people want to have them, specifically, say, the boots and the Delving Suit. So, I don't know, more dragon loot?
Tharagrim: At this time there's no particular plans to change existing drops, but as different features are added and things of that sort we're hoping to add a few different new items to some of the treasure tables.
Jerry: Cool, cool. Oakheart asks, "As the monks are closing on release, are the druids now in development and are you going to add animal companions with them?" So I guess, I guess this guy's asking just in general terms where do we sit on the druid? Have you guys actually started, you know, some of the graphics and coding on this thing?
Glin: I think I have to take a break and give, uh, resuscitation to Codog. He's probably having a heart attack right about now...
Jerry: (laughs)
Codog: Ugh, Ugh, Ugh.
Glin: He's been crankin' on the monk and we're still in that polish phase right now. Uh, the next class that we do would be the druids, but, uh, um, we have to pace those things out. As the Senior Game Systems Engineer, Codog's instrumental in all of our class development, at least for leading it if nothing else.
Jerry: Sure.
Glin: We're definitely making the plans for the druid. We have tech requests in for some, uh, new tech, graphics as well as engine, and, uh, we'll be rolling that out with the druid and it'll be a few modules after the monk.
Jerry: All right.
Eladrin: And you may be seeing little tidbits here and there beforehand, such as scrolls of druidic spells and that sort of thing because we've been adding some of those as time has been going on.
Jerry: Sounds good. Here's my suggestion, Codog, when you get started on working on the druid there: Go out into the woods, with a laptop and a battery, you know maybe get some birdseed and sprinkle it around yourself. Sit down by a tree. See if you can't bring some of those animals to you and kind of commune with nature as you put 'em together.
Eladrin: And then eat them.
(Mass laughter)
Tolero: Hey, you should have seen all the people he was beating up for the monk.
Jerry: Oh, no!
Codog: Oh yeah.
Eladrin: He totally gets in character.
Codog: One other comment I'd like to make on the druid is that one of the things kind of holding us back on the druid is we want the, uh, the animal companions and pets of this class to be, uh, be solid and unique, as the game right now needs some improvement around pet tech. That's one of those areas that we really want to polish and make really strong for that class.
Jerry: Hmm, yeah, sure. Absolutely. All right, thanks for adding that.
All right, Midvan asks, "I understand that Dungeons and Dragons version four (Jerry: I think this guy's obviously talking about Fourth Edition pen and paper Dungeons and Dragons) is being introduced in June. I read on Wikipedia that there's a plan to have an online version of it as well as the pen and paper version. I want to know if the online version of Four will replace the online Stormreach version 3.5, or will Stormreach (which is based on 3.5) still be there to be played?"
I, uh, I think this guy's a little confused in terms of what product's what, but I guess this is probably something that's being asked by a bunch of people so why don't we tackle this one. How is DDO 3.5 different from what's being planned by Wizards of the Coast for Fourth Edition here?
Glin: I think the differences are actually difficult to call out since they're still in their Beta.
Jerry: But they're separate, I mean they're separate programs. DDO is not the same as this, what, "Dungeons and Dragons Insider", right?
Glin: Oh, you mean as far as the online, yeah. I can definitely speak to that. WOTC, Wizards of the
Coast, uh, as I understand it they're doing their own, um, online communications type of format, not an actual game like D&D. So what they would do digitally would be very different than, than what we're putting out D&D. I can't speak about what they're actually going to do, but from what I've read online myself so far their online play isn't going to be a full action graphical interface role playing game, it's going to be an online version for the pen and paper players to play together online.
Jerry: Yeah, it's not an MMO per se as it is more of kind of like, uh, a way to do the pen and paper online and from what I understand kind of supplement even your tabletop game a little bit too, so I think the two are going to be quite different, right?
Glin: Oh, yeah. Absolutely. And it's something that we aren't developing with them. Um, our development path and what we do with the 4.0 rule set or not is something we'd be negotiating with them in the future.
Jerry: Uh, final question here is from Standpoint, my brother. He says, "Are there any plans to turn Irestone Inlet into a raid?"
Eldorudo: That would be awesome.
Glin: Wait a minute. You can complete it and it's not a raid? I think I've had a party wipe every time I've gone in there. That's at least six of them.
Jerry: I think basically what he's getting at is he'd like to see a low-level raid and certainly Irestone might lend itself to that kind of thing being as its sort of a large area and a really big battle.
Glin: Yeah, we don't have any plans for low-level raids. It's something you do generally when you've built up your character more. Irestone, definitely, is a challenge in its own
as a six person. But, uh, one of the things it's missing is a raid boss. I think it would be an expensive feat to turn that into a raid cuz we'd have to make that ship actually blow up at the end.
Jerry: Sure. Yeah.
Eldorudo: Yar-Yar's revenue.
Jerry: No, the ship itself could come alive - that could be the raid boss!
Glin: (deadpan) Yeah, that could be. (chuckles) It's like the Middle Ages Transformers.
Jerry: Yeah, a precursor to the Titan, you know.
Glin: The warforged boat.
Jerry: Yeah, exactly.
Tolero: (Jerry: sorry, couldn't figure out what she said)
Jerry: All right guys, well I really appreciate you taking some time with me this week and look forward - um, we didn't get to all of our questions here this week so the few we have left over here, um, we're going to talk about next time around as well. And of course there's still plenty of room for your questions as well.
If you want to submit a question for Ask the Devs, it's pretty easy to do: All you have to do is send an email to ddocast@gmail.com. That's ddocast@gmail.com. It's great if you tag it with "Ask the Devs" or give me a name that I can use when I'm reading this on the air, not required but it just kinda helps me keep it organized. I can ususally sort thorugh if you don't add that tag on there, but, uh, yeah - we're still looking for your questions and we'll be doing this "Ask the Devs" here on a regular basis in the future.
All right, it was great to have you guys on the show with me this week. Let me go down the list here: Quarion, nice work as always, I really appreciate your help here.
Quarion: No problem. Thanks for your help. We really appreciate being able to communicate to the players directly.
Jerry: And Tolero - what'cha got going on in the near future, anything interesting that you want to pass along about your life?
Tolero: Oh, just the usual. It's always grabbing feedback. I really appreciate all the players that have been participating in the weekly feedback thread. Usually comes out on Mondays, so if you haven't gotten the chance to check that out go ahead and stop by. I read them all and it's always fun to see what responses people have for them.
Jerry: All right, absolutely. All right, Codog, great to have you on the show here and look forward to having you on again in the future.
Codog: Ah, fantastic. It's been wonderful being here. I'm a big fan. I listen to you often, in the wee hours of the morning listen to Carl Douglas and my DDOcast.
Jerry: Ah, nice, nice. All right Eladrin, good work as always. Great to have you on the show and, uh, good luck with everything you got going with here in Mod 7, and Mod 8 and everything else going on in DDO in the future.
Eladrin: Thanks a lot and I'm looking forward to it, to seeing you next time.
Jerry: Sure. All right, Glin, great to have you on the show too.
Glin: Good, thanks. Glad to be back.
Jerry: All right, Eldorudo. Let's see: I think word's officially spread that you are the voice of the Pit Fiend. Do you care to own up to that one?
Eldorudo: Uh, I guess I will. I'll own up. I did my best death metal voice on that one with a lot of help from the sound engineer to make it sound demonic and evil. So, yeah, that's me and, uh, to everyone out there I want them to brush up on their pirate-speak and go watch a lot of pirate movies and get ready for Mod 7.
Jerry: Nice. What's your favorite pirate movie?
Eldorudo: Uh, even though it's not necessarily a pirate movie I would have to say Goonies.
Jerry: Well, it's pirate-like. It's got its piratey elements to it.
Eldorudo: Yes, and there's some Goonies references actually that you - might - come upon in Mod 7.
Jerry: Oh, cool. All right, and, uh, finally Tharagrim - it was great to have you on the show for the first time and look forward to hopefully hearing from you in the future.
Tharagrim: Thank you very much for having me, it's, uh, been a pleasure.
END
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Recorded for DDOcast Episode 64
April 19th, 2008
Jerry: Hello and welcome to Ask the Devs, the third installment of Ask the Devs here on DDOcast. I really appreciate you taking some time for us. Let's start off by going around the room and saying who we have with us from Turbine. First up is Quarion, Community Relations Manager. How ya doing Quarion?
Quarion: I'm doing great, how you doing Jerry?
Jerry: Good good good. And I appreciate your help to sort of, uh, you help us work some of the technical, behind the scenes stuff here using Skype and conference calling and all that. You do a good job of it and we really appreciate it.
Quarion: Well thanks.
Jerry: Also, no stranger to the show, we have with us Tolero.
Tolero: How's everybody doing?
Jerry: Yeah, it's been a while since you've been on the show and we love to have you on DDOcast. I still get emails every now and then from people saying, "hey, what's Tolero (Merlask) up to there?"
Tolero: Mighty feedback aggregator, MUHAWWW.
Jerry: All right. Also with us is Senior Game Systems Engineer Codog. How ya doing, Codog?
Codog: Doing great.
Jerry: And keeping busy on "The Dog House" thread (on ddo.com). Lot to talk about and lot going on in that little 'ole thread there.
Codog: Oh, it keeps me busy.
Jerry: Also with us is Lead Game Systems Designer Eladrin, how you doing Eladrin?
Eladrin: Pretty good, I'm glad to be here again.
Jerry: Yup. And good to have you on the show. You've been on the show every time and I know that we really appreciate that as well. Also with us is someone who's been on the show before is Producer Glin. How you doing Glin?
Glin: I'm doing pretty good today.
Jerry: Good, good. Weather holding out for ya over on the East Coast?
Glin: Yeah, we're actually starting to get some signs that Spring is on its way. It's actually about a nine month winter up here though, so, uh...
Jerry: Yeah.
Glin: Weather-wise, we're hanging in there.
Jerry: Yup, yup. Well us in Minnesota have that same experience, so. Also with us is Eldorudo. How ya doing Eldorudo?
Eldorudo: I'm doing great Jerry, how are you?
Jerry: Doing good, uh, forgot to mention that you are a quest designer. And, uh, Theragrim - new dev to DDOcast and Ask the Devs, great to have you on the show. It's always cool to meet new folks here.
Tharagrim: Thank you very much. Looking forward to participating.
Jerry: And just to note that you are a Game Systems Designer for Turbine.
Tharagrim: Absolutely.
Jerry: And fairly new, I understand as well.
Tharagrim: Yes, I've been working on the project for about five months, six months now.
Jerry: Cool, cool. Well - glad to have ya working on the game. All right, in the interests of time, I'm going to get right to the questions here:
First question comes from Alfred, who says "Please let us know whether and what more changes will be made to the Abbot Raid?" Basically, what's the deal going on with changes to the Abbot raid and if any changes will be made to get more players to go back to the Necropolis?
Eladrin: Well, with Module 7 we're making some changes to the phase tile room and we've made a couple of minor tweaks here and there to improve the experience. Fixes to bugs, that sort of thing. Uh, there'll also be some additional treasure going in Module 7 and other than that, we'll see. So far there have been a couple of groups that have beaten it. We'd like to keep their experiences and achievements worth talking about, uh, so any changes that we've made we've brought up the original normal difficulty is now hard.
Jerry: Yeah
Eladrin: Uh, but the normal difficulty itself is a little bit easier.
Jerry: Yeah, we had someone on my home server of Sarlona. We had someone on DDO-Europe, and I know a group on the Japanese servers as well, and there may be of course some others out there who just don't publicize themselves so much, but, uh...Yeah! And you said new loot. Did you just say new loot? I think that's the favorite two words you could possibly say to the DDO player base here.
Eladrin: Oh, did I say that out loud? Theragrim knows more about that - he's the one that made it.
Jerry: Oh, really? Okay. All right, Gratch asks, "Lord of the Rings Online got Direct X 10. DX10 shadows and a few other graphics engine features a few books ago. So, for those of us with the "Visa Upgrade" question, are DX10 graphic engine features a possibility for DDO in 2008?
Basically, DX10 is, uh, well, I don't know if I can really explain it. It's sort of the "latest and the greatest" in regards to graphics engines, but you need to have Vista from what I understand in order to run it, so. What do you think, DX10?
Glin: Yeah, DX10 is definitely in DDO's future. It's not actually a limitation on the game engine itself, because it is, it is Turbine technology support. Supported by Turbine technology. It's actually more the art, the shadows, all those things that would really take advantage of DX10 have to be supported in-game and that's a development cycle that's in our near future.
Jerry: Ah, okay. I'm sure people with high-end computers and Windows Vista and that will be pretty glad to see it, so.
All right, Lithic asks, "Are there any plans on refurbishing some of the low-level areas with Explorer Zone tech?" This guy suggests Three Barrel Cove, maybe the Restless Isles would be good ones. "And what about that valley on the way to Faithful Departed, the Ruins of Threnal? More importantly for me," this guy says, "is there any possibility of letting higher-level characters complete the low-level explorer zone quests even if they have to be solo, or get no experience for it or even get empty chests?"
And actually, I suppose I should probably piggyback this with a question from Jocelyn who asked a similar question, "Are there any plans to unlock the explorer zones for higher-level characters?"
Eldorudo: Well, I'll take that one first, Jerry. Players will be happy to know that in Module 7, higher-level players will be able to advance, um, their quests for lower-level wilderness explorer areas. I'm not quite sure how it breaks down, because we'll have to ask Phax, he's the one that programmed it. But basically if you are higher level, like if you want to go into Sorrowdusk, or Searing Heights or any of the other areas you can go in there and advance even if you are a capped character, but there'll just be a penalty for XP. So, that's one thing that we've always wanted to have in there and we're glad that we're finally able to unveil with Module 7.
Jerry: Yeah, that's excellent. Cuz I know especially if maybe you have a character that's just a level or two above or below the range needed, you know, it's good to have that flexibility there, and of course there are us completionists out there that just want the numbers filled up.
Eldorudo: Yeah, exactly. So that's going to be possible. And it also it kinda piggybacks nicely because we've, uh, for Module 7 we've revamped Three Barrel Cove. It's completely updated - we basically threw away the old Three Barrel and have completely redone it and it looks phenomenal from -
Tolero: It's beautiful.
Eldorudo: Yeah, from everything we've seen so far it just looks phenomenal. Um, everyone did a wonderful job working on it. So, um, it's going be a CR5 area, so I believe, if I'm correct, it'll be CR's two to nine that will get full XP in there. So, anyone above level 9 will be able to go back and experience Three Barrel Cove now, um, and be able to advance through it. So that was one of the things that we really wanted to do, because we want the higher-level players to be able to experience Three Barrel because it looks so wonderful.
Jerry: Cool. So, what can we expect there. Is it 10% more "piratey"?
Eldorudo: I would say it's 110% more "piratey"! (everyone chuckles)
DEVS: Yaar, Yaar, yar.
Jerry: Nice. Oh, that's cool though. I like Three Barrel Cove and I know a lot of other people do. Good to see that. Is it going to be, say, a full-size outdoor area then, huh?
Eldorudo: Yes, definitely full-size.
Glin: It's huge. It's a whole island now.
Eldorudo: It's really big.
Jerry: Cool.
Glin: You know, and there's actually, uh, there's a little, uh, public zone in there as well that has been added. You're not just going to a tavern and then out onto the beach anymore. The tavern is still there, but there'll be another access point and a public space for banking and new quests and so on.
Jerry: Ah, excellent, excellent.
All right, uh, Jeff asks "What and when will we see a fix for the horns? The splintered horns that were added to the loot table but not taken out of the game." Basically, this guy writes that, "you guys have confessed that it was a mistake and should have been taken out, but they are still dropping." So this guy asks, "Will we get a chance to trade them in for other ingredients or basically get some kind of use out of them?"
Eladrin: There are uses planned for the horns in Module 7. I believe that many of them will be extremely sought after. So, don't throw them out!
Jerry: Ah, okay. Huh. Last week's show I had a commercial for "Splintered Horn Crunch Cereal." I thought that was a pretty good use for them.
Eladrin: So tasty.
Glin: You might have to take up a trade crafting for Mod 8, Jerry.
Jerry: Yeah. (chuckles) Interesting. So not in a position to get into details about what they will be used for at this point?
Eladrin: I think that's a secret at this time.
Jerry: Okay. Well, anyway, something to look forward to and, uh, yeah, I guess we should hang on to them.
All right, Klazz asks, "Is there more that you guys can do to make Stormreach seem more alive and a little bit less static?" He writes, "I think one of the things that made the anniversary event so popular was it made Stormreach come alive."
I guess I don't 100% agree with his statement that it doesn't seem alive right now, but are you guys have some plans to maybe even, uh, maybe boost it up even more here?
Glin: We're doing some changes to the AI over the next couple of modules. Probably Mod 8 is where we'd have something sort of significant behind the scenes. I don't know if that's something that Codog can speak to a little bit more.
Codog: Yeah, sure. As we saw during the event (Jerry: he's referencing the market place event) we had some pretty major lag and some of those performance issues related to AI's in public spaces. Um, so we're taking a really good look at doing some reworking of the AI to accomodate things like that so that we won't see those problems in the future.
Jerry: Oh, that's excellent. Good news, good news there!
Codog: At this moment it's a technical limitation that we're going to be overcoming in the near future. Probably not Module 7, but on beyond that.
Jerry: All right.
Eldorudo: Also to add onto that Jerry: Just additionally, we are using some more of the world event tech. It's not going to be used in the same way that we did the tent event, but we are using it in Module 7. I'm not going to give too much info, but players will be able to, uh, to influence, uh, the way things happen, um, for unlocking some content.
Jerry: Hmm, well you've definitely piqued my interest there. That's interesting. Cool, cool.
All right, uh, Greg asks, "I'd like to know if there's anything in the works for giving the raid loot from the dragon a makeover?" This guys says there's just a couple of pieces of raid loot from the dragon that are unique enough that people want to have them, specifically, say, the boots and the Delving Suit. So, I don't know, more dragon loot?
Tharagrim: At this time there's no particular plans to change existing drops, but as different features are added and things of that sort we're hoping to add a few different new items to some of the treasure tables.
Jerry: Cool, cool. Oakheart asks, "As the monks are closing on release, are the druids now in development and are you going to add animal companions with them?" So I guess, I guess this guy's asking just in general terms where do we sit on the druid? Have you guys actually started, you know, some of the graphics and coding on this thing?
Glin: I think I have to take a break and give, uh, resuscitation to Codog. He's probably having a heart attack right about now...
Jerry: (laughs)
Codog: Ugh, Ugh, Ugh.
Glin: He's been crankin' on the monk and we're still in that polish phase right now. Uh, the next class that we do would be the druids, but, uh, um, we have to pace those things out. As the Senior Game Systems Engineer, Codog's instrumental in all of our class development, at least for leading it if nothing else.
Jerry: Sure.
Glin: We're definitely making the plans for the druid. We have tech requests in for some, uh, new tech, graphics as well as engine, and, uh, we'll be rolling that out with the druid and it'll be a few modules after the monk.
Jerry: All right.
Eladrin: And you may be seeing little tidbits here and there beforehand, such as scrolls of druidic spells and that sort of thing because we've been adding some of those as time has been going on.
Jerry: Sounds good. Here's my suggestion, Codog, when you get started on working on the druid there: Go out into the woods, with a laptop and a battery, you know maybe get some birdseed and sprinkle it around yourself. Sit down by a tree. See if you can't bring some of those animals to you and kind of commune with nature as you put 'em together.
Eladrin: And then eat them.
(Mass laughter)
Tolero: Hey, you should have seen all the people he was beating up for the monk.
Jerry: Oh, no!
Codog: Oh yeah.
Eladrin: He totally gets in character.
Codog: One other comment I'd like to make on the druid is that one of the things kind of holding us back on the druid is we want the, uh, the animal companions and pets of this class to be, uh, be solid and unique, as the game right now needs some improvement around pet tech. That's one of those areas that we really want to polish and make really strong for that class.
Jerry: Hmm, yeah, sure. Absolutely. All right, thanks for adding that.
All right, Midvan asks, "I understand that Dungeons and Dragons version four (Jerry: I think this guy's obviously talking about Fourth Edition pen and paper Dungeons and Dragons) is being introduced in June. I read on Wikipedia that there's a plan to have an online version of it as well as the pen and paper version. I want to know if the online version of Four will replace the online Stormreach version 3.5, or will Stormreach (which is based on 3.5) still be there to be played?"
I, uh, I think this guy's a little confused in terms of what product's what, but I guess this is probably something that's being asked by a bunch of people so why don't we tackle this one. How is DDO 3.5 different from what's being planned by Wizards of the Coast for Fourth Edition here?
Glin: I think the differences are actually difficult to call out since they're still in their Beta.
Jerry: But they're separate, I mean they're separate programs. DDO is not the same as this, what, "Dungeons and Dragons Insider", right?
Glin: Oh, you mean as far as the online, yeah. I can definitely speak to that. WOTC, Wizards of the
Coast, uh, as I understand it they're doing their own, um, online communications type of format, not an actual game like D&D. So what they would do digitally would be very different than, than what we're putting out D&D. I can't speak about what they're actually going to do, but from what I've read online myself so far their online play isn't going to be a full action graphical interface role playing game, it's going to be an online version for the pen and paper players to play together online.
Jerry: Yeah, it's not an MMO per se as it is more of kind of like, uh, a way to do the pen and paper online and from what I understand kind of supplement even your tabletop game a little bit too, so I think the two are going to be quite different, right?
Glin: Oh, yeah. Absolutely. And it's something that we aren't developing with them. Um, our development path and what we do with the 4.0 rule set or not is something we'd be negotiating with them in the future.
Jerry: Uh, final question here is from Standpoint, my brother. He says, "Are there any plans to turn Irestone Inlet into a raid?"
Eldorudo: That would be awesome.
Glin: Wait a minute. You can complete it and it's not a raid? I think I've had a party wipe every time I've gone in there. That's at least six of them.
Jerry: I think basically what he's getting at is he'd like to see a low-level raid and certainly Irestone might lend itself to that kind of thing being as its sort of a large area and a really big battle.
Glin: Yeah, we don't have any plans for low-level raids. It's something you do generally when you've built up your character more. Irestone, definitely, is a challenge in its own
as a six person. But, uh, one of the things it's missing is a raid boss. I think it would be an expensive feat to turn that into a raid cuz we'd have to make that ship actually blow up at the end.
Jerry: Sure. Yeah.
Eldorudo: Yar-Yar's revenue.
Jerry: No, the ship itself could come alive - that could be the raid boss!
Glin: (deadpan) Yeah, that could be. (chuckles) It's like the Middle Ages Transformers.
Jerry: Yeah, a precursor to the Titan, you know.
Glin: The warforged boat.
Jerry: Yeah, exactly.
Tolero: (Jerry: sorry, couldn't figure out what she said)
Jerry: All right guys, well I really appreciate you taking some time with me this week and look forward - um, we didn't get to all of our questions here this week so the few we have left over here, um, we're going to talk about next time around as well. And of course there's still plenty of room for your questions as well.
If you want to submit a question for Ask the Devs, it's pretty easy to do: All you have to do is send an email to ddocast@gmail.com. That's ddocast@gmail.com. It's great if you tag it with "Ask the Devs" or give me a name that I can use when I'm reading this on the air, not required but it just kinda helps me keep it organized. I can ususally sort thorugh if you don't add that tag on there, but, uh, yeah - we're still looking for your questions and we'll be doing this "Ask the Devs" here on a regular basis in the future.
All right, it was great to have you guys on the show with me this week. Let me go down the list here: Quarion, nice work as always, I really appreciate your help here.
Quarion: No problem. Thanks for your help. We really appreciate being able to communicate to the players directly.
Jerry: And Tolero - what'cha got going on in the near future, anything interesting that you want to pass along about your life?
Tolero: Oh, just the usual. It's always grabbing feedback. I really appreciate all the players that have been participating in the weekly feedback thread. Usually comes out on Mondays, so if you haven't gotten the chance to check that out go ahead and stop by. I read them all and it's always fun to see what responses people have for them.
Jerry: All right, absolutely. All right, Codog, great to have you on the show here and look forward to having you on again in the future.
Codog: Ah, fantastic. It's been wonderful being here. I'm a big fan. I listen to you often, in the wee hours of the morning listen to Carl Douglas and my DDOcast.
Jerry: Ah, nice, nice. All right Eladrin, good work as always. Great to have you on the show and, uh, good luck with everything you got going with here in Mod 7, and Mod 8 and everything else going on in DDO in the future.
Eladrin: Thanks a lot and I'm looking forward to it, to seeing you next time.
Jerry: Sure. All right, Glin, great to have you on the show too.
Glin: Good, thanks. Glad to be back.
Jerry: All right, Eldorudo. Let's see: I think word's officially spread that you are the voice of the Pit Fiend. Do you care to own up to that one?
Eldorudo: Uh, I guess I will. I'll own up. I did my best death metal voice on that one with a lot of help from the sound engineer to make it sound demonic and evil. So, yeah, that's me and, uh, to everyone out there I want them to brush up on their pirate-speak and go watch a lot of pirate movies and get ready for Mod 7.
Jerry: Nice. What's your favorite pirate movie?
Eldorudo: Uh, even though it's not necessarily a pirate movie I would have to say Goonies.
Jerry: Well, it's pirate-like. It's got its piratey elements to it.
Eldorudo: Yes, and there's some Goonies references actually that you - might - come upon in Mod 7.
Jerry: Oh, cool. All right, and, uh, finally Tharagrim - it was great to have you on the show for the first time and look forward to hopefully hearing from you in the future.
Tharagrim: Thank you very much for having me, it's, uh, been a pleasure.
END
www.ddocast.com
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