Umm....devs, where'd you go?

[DonTheGreatOne]

They are the exceptions that prove the rule. With the right leads, sure, someone can do what they do for a time. Those types of leads are not people that are easily findable or hirable. Thus, one plays the dev game with the staff one has, not the one one dreams of. Most devs will never make the transition to having enough social skills to presenting to C-suite or frontline customers in a language they understand.

The challenges of DE/GGG will be scaling communications. One can't hang ever increasing thousands of fans off of human interaction, it's not something that scales well. Eventually you hire people to do the job of that, which is exactly why most talent has teams of people managing their socials. If done well, fans accept the chimera of human interaction, and the machine keeps humming and printing bills.

You are somewhat off the point, at least where GGG is concerned. They do have a community team led by a community manager named BEX. This team constantly interacts with the game community in meaningful ways. They monitor the forums and respond to customers concerns and suggestions. They relay information from the developers to individual customers and the community at large. They do this through the normal mediums like the forum and posts on their discord.

The GGG devs often post on the forums but not all the time. Mostly to provide patch notes on what they are rolling out.

This is what I expect. I don't need the developers to be constantly posting to the forum. I do expect the community manager to be interacting with the community in a meaningful way. That means not just a weekly livestream where they pass a little information and a few hints while being distracted by gameplay. Yes there is also the weekly marketing post with a shoutout to some fan sites but no real meat. They should be providing meaningful answers to the concerns of the player base and doing it often. I really don't think this is too much to ask.

The what I consider relative silence from the community manager makes me feel that reason is they have no answers. This may or may not be true but that is the feeling it gives me.

GGG's communication method and the fact that they roll small patches on a regular basis to address small things quickly makes me feel they are truly engaged with their product and community. SSG just does not give me that feeling, I am not saying they are not just that this is how they make me feel. Many other players I know feel the same way. We love the game but have become resigned to the fact that things are not going to be fixed and that you just get used to playing with quests that glitch and lag and all the rest.

[Carpone]

For what it's worth, we're all still here.

The art department is one of DDO's greatest strengths. Cordo needs to shine a spotlight on y'all working in the shadows in some sort of "meet the artists" live stream. While you can't talk about upcoming stuff, I bet there's plenty about past content you'd love to gush about.

[Alrik_Fassbauer]

LOL as a geologist I always love to interpret the geology of completely made-up landscapes/maps. Middle Earth is a tectonic nightmare, btw

I'd say ALL of Middleearth is !
But then ... the Arda was rounded, after all ...

By the way, nice to meet you, I don't know many Geologists ... I had been studying that decades ago, but had to give it up due to myDyscalculia ...

Regarding "tectonic nightmares" : Don't get me started on the map of Divinity II Ego Draconis ... And its in-game origins ...

[Saekee]

Also, I bought a house, adopted a puppy, and got engaged all in the past 3 months.

Gratz on #2, and, well, good luck on the others, you will need it, although #2 should get you through #3

[droid327]

As someone who has 2 doggos (one four, one a year and a half) who recently bought a house (October), and finally got a fence around the back yard installed.

He said, doggo, house, and fiancee

[Jerevth]

He said, doggo, house, and fiancee

Fence, Fiancee; about the same thing- they both give you boundaries...
You picket, you keep it

[Xorm]

Unfortunately, we sometimes have to deal with maps that are less than accurate in terms of height differential, and sometimes we exaggerate features for our own game design purposes. Almost all DnD dungeon modules are based on a 5' grid, however our dungeon grid is 10 METERS, and our landscape grid is 160 meters.

That image is a rough heightmap generated with fractal noise and erosion, the actual in game landscape will be much more gamified, since I can't edit small details on a large scale map like this (I think it's about 2.5kmx2.5km)

Its expedition to the barrier Peaks!!!

[voxson5]

Its expedition to the barrier Peaks!!!

I really hope not...

(https://1d4chan.org/wiki/S3:_Expedit..._Barrier_Peaks)
Dragon Magazine #410 included a Bazaar of the Bizarre article entitled "Thingamajigs of the Barrier Peaks", which adapted power armor, blaster rifles, chainswords, laser pistols, needler pistols, confusion rays, blue communicators, jetpacks, security cards, motorized sleds, singularity grenades and sleep grenades to magical items for Dungeons & Dragons 4th edition. Meanwhile, in 5th edition, the 4e rules for PCs handling futuristic gear were slightly adapted and included alongside the rules for firearms in the DMG, with the table of sample Firearms including lasers and antimatter rifles.

[droid327]

I really hope not...

(https://1d4chan.org/wiki/S3:_Expedit..._Barrier_Peaks)
Dragon Magazine #410 included a Bazaar of the Bizarre article entitled "Thingamajigs of the Barrier Peaks", which adapted power armor, blaster rifles, chainswords, laser pistols, needler pistols, confusion rays, blue communicators, jetpacks, security cards, motorized sleds, singularity grenades and sleep grenades to magical items for Dungeons & Dragons 4th edition. Meanwhile, in 5th edition, the 4e rules for PCs handling futuristic gear were slightly adapted and included alongside the rules for firearms in the DMG, with the table of sample Firearms including lasers and antimatter rifles.

Inquis wielding dual laspistols?

FOR THE EMPEROR!!!!

[Scuddy]

I really hope not...

(https://1d4chan.org/wiki/S3:_Expedit..._Barrier_Peaks)
Dragon Magazine #410 included a Bazaar of the Bizarre article entitled "Thingamajigs of the Barrier Peaks", which adapted power armor, blaster rifles, chainswords, laser pistols, needler pistols, confusion rays, blue communicators, jetpacks, security cards, motorized sleds, singularity grenades and sleep grenades to magical items for Dungeons & Dragons 4th edition. Meanwhile, in 5th edition, the 4e rules for PCs handling futuristic gear were slightly adapted and included alongside the rules for firearms in the DMG, with the table of sample Firearms including lasers and antimatter rifles.

To Warhammer 40k for me. Which is another great game just not in my D&D. I'm with you on wanting to never see Barrier Peaks in DDO.

[Sam1313]

I'm around! A lot of us needed some time to breathe after the Feywild expansion release (plus we just had the December holidays). Now I'm (personally) working on things that aren't quite ready for public eyes yet, like the upcoming Bow Combat Style changes. I'll be a lot more talkative once those are ready for prime time and I don't need to focus on giant grids of timing math so much.

There doesn't need to be a new enhancement tree for Archers
Put manyshot back to firing 4 arrows per draw like it was before because now we all know that manyshot wasn't the cause of the lag.
Put arrow of slaying back to doing 500dmg
done finished. No need for a new tree.
It was killed here: https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthrea...light=manyshot

[Noir]

Its expedition to the barrier Peaks!!!

I wouldn't mind "Barrier Peaks" as long as all the advanced technology items dropped upon exiting the quests or they became inert non-functional
items upon exiting the ship.

The items would also need the same percentages for figuring out their use as they do in the S3 Module. ( with the same consequences for failure )

[Razor_Wit]

Letting someone go or changing their responsibilities is one thing, but going back and deleting all evidence of them is another. That's some heavy stuff.