Dungeons & Dragons Online State of the Game Producer Letter

Dungeons & Dragons Online executive producer Fernando Paiz has penned a new “State of the Game” letter that talks about the game’s new French and German localizations, the forthcoming Update 9: Harbinger of Madness update, their plans to add Challenge quests, and more.

If there was one word to describe the state of mind of our content team for the last several months it would have to be (Madness). Yes, fellow people of Eberron, the forces of Xoriat are on the rise and the (Harbinger of Madness) is upon us! Our next two adventure packs are both Xoriat themed and will introduce cool new monsters and major villains from the Plane of Madness. The (Harbinger of Madness) is a level 15 content pack with our take on a horror-story with a dash of insanity thrown into the mix. Those that prefer the insanity dialed up to 11 can look forward to the next update which will kick off with an appropriately zany sequel to our popular (Delirium) quest.

There is a lot more coming out with Update 9 including: prestige enhancements for Sorcerers and Favored Souls; and new store items, like Wilderness Slayer boosts and new Armor Appearance Kits! The last really big change is the introduction of DDO’s all new crafting system. In fact, crafting is so big, that we are taking a different approach with it. Of course we want crafting to be rewarding and fun, but we also recognize that by introducing it we are going to be fundamentally altering the balance of DDO’s in-game economy. So we are going to be rolling crafting out over time as a Live Beta that kicks off with Update 9. We will be incrementally releasing more crafting levels and recipes through Update 9 and Update 10 and asking for your feedback to make the system better. If you want to give it a try look for the new Crafting Hall in House Kundarak after patch day. You will get to keep your crafting experience and items during this beta but keep in mind that the system will be changing as we go. Look for more information and guides coming to our websites (including French and German versions too)! You can also visit the forums to chat with other players and developers about all the crafting excitement by clicking here!

Looking a little further out we also have some exciting developments in the city of Stormreach. For the first time we will be able to access the enclave of one of Eberron’s most magically advanced Dragonmarked Houses: House Cannith! For those that don’t know, the Artificers of house Cannith are responsible for harnessing mysterious and ancient technology and using it to build and power much of Eberron’s modern society. You can bet the House Cannith enclave will be like no other and showcase their technological prowess. House Cannith is also responsible for the creation of the Warforged and we are working on a great new adventure pack which will show you some of this history. By popular request it will also include a new wilderness and raid for characters at the level cap!

Many of you have heard me talking about a new kind of content coming to DDO. DDO’s new Challenge quests will make their formal debut later this year providing players with some unique new ways to play DDO. The Crystal Cove challenge from our 5th Birthday event is one example of a (challenge quest,) but we are working on some other types of challenges with very different types of game play as well. Challenge quests will all have some things in common: they can be completed in a fixed time window, they offer support to a broad range of player levels, they are meant to be repeatable, and they will let you track your high score and reward your progress. One way to think about the Challenges would be as the perfect thing to do to kill a few minutes while waiting for your buddies to log on for the night. But also sometimes you may want to make a whole night out of maximizing your Challenge scores for either rewards or bragging rights. We will endeavor to make challenges rewarding to play and they will offer unique treasure rewards, XP, favor and guild renown to players of all levels. I look forward to sharing more details as we get closer to release!