DDO Japan Closing Down, TTH Interview/Press and Artwork!
DDO Japan Shutting Down:
It has been very difficult to follow news over at DDO-Japan because of the language barrier. Translation programs online just don't work all that well when translating Japanese to English, and most of the people who play on Sakura Internet's DDO servers speak Japanese, of course.
Anyway, Ustice from DDOReports.com and I have been Twitter friends with a nice person by the name of YK5. He passed word along to us yesterday that DDO-Japan's servers would be shutting down later this year. Thanks to his excellent effort, Ustice and I have been able to read up on what's happening.
The deal is: DDO-Japan will be shutting down its servers by September 30th. People on those servers will not apparently be able to transfer their characters to another DDO service. Sucks!
There's a series of forum posts that can be found on the DDO-Japan web site support section that explains what will happen. It's in Japanese, but I've used Yahoo's Babel Fish to translate it:
Here's a LINK to the translation and here's probably the most critical bit:
* Schedule of service end
▼2009 year June 30th (fire)
6 months (), 12 months 180 days (360 days) sale end of play ticket
As for ⇒ details 6 months () /12 months 180 days (360 days) concerning the play ticket please verify.▼2009 year July 31st (gold)
Sale end of [pureichiketsuto]
As for ⇒ details concerning the sale of the play ticket please verify.
[purodakutoki] end of register
As for ⇒ details concerning the register of the product key please verify.
Free start of period
Concerning free period please verify ⇒ details.
Repayment acceptance start of application
Concerning application please repay ⇒ details and verify.▼2009 year September 30th (water)
End of [gemusabisu]
Official end of forum
The service end of DDOBLOG▼2009 year October 30th (gold)
End of [yuzasapoto]* There are times when there is modification in notification contents and schedule.
When there is modification and addition, at the official sight we inform on occasion.<The inquiry regarding service end>
Concerning the inquiry regarding service end, inquiry form of the official sight,
Or, communication to the below-mentioned mail address, the fish you say to ask.Don Jones & [doragonzu] [onrainsapotochimu]
support@ddo-japan.comThe Lievo account concerning the customer of utilization
Please inquire from URL below.“Lievo user support”
https://lievo.jp/07support/index.aspAs for the other details regarding service end please verify FAQ below.
<Relation FAQ>
About the account which is done the automatic payment procedure by the credit card
About moving of the data inside the game, and transferring the management
About the play of overseas edition
Also, here's a LINK to the page in Japanese in case you'd like to try your own translator.
Sad news, indeed. I recently received an email from someone in Japan who plays on the U.S. servers and says there is some lag, but it's not too bad. Hopefully some of you DDO-Japan players will come join us soon!
Ten Ton Hammer Gets The Info!
The fine folks at Ten Ton Hammer have published a very interesting interview with DDO's executive producers in which they begin to talk dollars, cents and the DDO Store, among other things. Here's a LINK to the interview and here are a few choice bits:
Recently, the Ten Ton Hammer team had the outstanding opportunity to go check out Dungeons and Dragons Online Unlimited in a special press tour hosted by Fernando and Kate Paiz. Although the client is still in beta, we received a special "freedom of speech" tour where I can describe to you everything that I saw in the game during my hour long play session. So sit back, grab a cold one, and learn a bit about DDOU with me and the Turbine team.
On Favored Souls, Fernando Paiz tells TTH:
The one thing that we didn't end up putting in because it made the Favored Soul feel pretty overpowered was the casting speed that a Sorcerer has over a Wizard. In the case of the Favored Soul, this just made all the healing feel way powerful. Otherwise you pretty much get all the benefits.
Of course, there are some trade-offs in that you're locked in to a particular set of spells, which you can trade off at the trainers. The other important one to note is that Favored Souls don't have access to the full spell list that the Clerics do. You don't get things like Remove Disease or Remove Curse, and you're still going to be hankering for a Cleric in those moments.
(Jerry's Note: My understanding is that Favored Souls in PnP do not automatically get their divine spells like healing spells and the like, maybe I'm wrong, but that seems to jive with what Fernando is saying here.)
On the DDO Store:
The Item Store
To be honest, I was fairly impressed with the ease-of-use and flexibility involved with my "purchases" from the DDOU item store. Please note that all of the numbers and examples I use in my article are still subject to change, but this is what I saw during my play period.
During my tour, Fernando and Kate gave me approximately 3,000 Turbine points to play with, which will be somewhere between $30.00 and $45.00 depending upon the amount of points you buy at one time. To explain that system further, like any good retail business, the larger the quantity of points you buy at one time, the cheaper the price will be. While the price originally starts at about a cent and a half, you'll eventually be able to buy points at a cent a point.
But how much does each piece of content cost, you might ask?
Although these prices are by no means final, here are a few things that I happened to see while browsing through the items.
Favored Soul - 595 Turbine Points
Warforged Race – 300 Points
XP Potions - 30-90 Points (depending on the length of time they last)
Exotic Hair Dyes - 180 Points
Weapons and Armor - 20-80 Points
Siberys Spirit Cake (Rez Cake) – 90 Points
Bell of Opening (Opens Chests) – 20 Points
Moderate Health Potion – 45 Points
Adventure Packs - Varies
Later in the article:
By far, the most expensive items in the entire store (that I saw) were the larger adventure packs. While the smaller areas can be purchased with just a few dollars, the biggest adventure areas can cost upwards of ten dollars, especially those areas that have hours and hours of experience for the characters embedded within them. These adventure packs can be anywhere from $3.00 to upwards of ten dollars a piece.
Massively Tours Eberron Unlimited:
The fine folks at Massively.com have received a special tour of Eberron Unlimited! Here's a LINK to the article. He looks at the DDO Store as well, visits Amrath, checks out the Hezrou and discusses Favored Souls with the Turbine crew.
Week Five Motivational Poster Contest Winner on DDO.com:
Congrats to Fyndarin! Here's the word from DDO's Tarrant:
Congratulations to Fyndarin on winning this week's Motivational Poster Contest! The category was Guilds, and Fyndarin used a tried and trusted recruiting technique to bring in some new Guildmates! Check out DDO.com to view the winning entry!
Thanks for your entries, all - there were a lot of great options to choose from. The Motivational Poster contest is finished for now, but it will certainly make a return in the future! We were thrilled with the amount of participation from the community, and can't wait to see what you come up with next time!
Congratulations to the winners once again, and a thank you to all participants for making this contest an exciting one!
Here's a LINK to the pic on DDO.com and here's the pic:
Jerry
Categories: Mod 9,Eberron Unlimited,DDO: Unlimited,Screenshots,Japan,Fan Art,Screenshot,DDO,Ten Ton Hammer,Servers
Tags: Eberron Unlimited Dungeons and Dragons Online DDO DDOcast
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