No More WDAs

[Coldin]

http://forums.ddo.com/showthread.php?&postid=1741895#post1741895

Hi everyone! We wanted to take a few moments to talk about the Weekly Dev Activities, and let you all know that we’ve made the decision to cease publishing them. We understand that this won’t be a popular decision with many of you, but after careful evaluation, this is a change that ultimately benefits DDO and you, our players. It’s a bit ironic that it’s good changes for DDO that led to this decision!

We know you’ll have questions about why the WDA is going away, so we’ve tried to put together a Q&A to try to answer them.

Q: Why is the WDA going away?
A: There are two critical factors that went into the decision, so let’s talk about them a little:

The first is that following the completion of Module 7, the DDO development team has been working full-tilt on several things that are still under tight wraps. This means we’re unable to include them in the WDA – making it next to useless.

More importantly, though, is that DDO will be getting more and more focus from Turbine’s marketing and PR teams over the coming months. This renewed focus has already begun, in fact, and you may have noticed an increase in the publicity for DDO. This is a good thing! The pickle is that as time goes on, we will be getting even more press coverage for the game; this means that we’ll need to offer exclusives to the media about things that are coming up next for DDO – things that as a result cannot be included in the WDA.

Q: What will I do without the WDA?
A: We’ll still be bringing you other activities in the coming weeks. The developers and community team will still be here on the forums answering questions, gathering feedback, and bringing updates about the game. More contests will be run, the Tell the Community Team thread will still be ongoing, the Bug Hunter lodge is still open for business, and we’ll be bringing even more information and articles to the Compendium! Keep your eyes on the News and Announcements, as well as the Dev Tracker, for updates and information! You can also visit DDO.com to keep abreast on the latest DDO happenings.

Q. Without the WDA, how will I know what’s coming next for DDO?
A: You’ll still find out what’s going on for DDO, but it won’t be quite as real-time as it was (and to be honest, there was lots the WDA left out too). Besides the aforementioned press coverage, which will include articles and interviews, we’ll be bringing you dev diaries and overviews of what’s coming up. The development and community teams will still be on the forums, answering questions when they can. The WDA might be going away, but the teams’ dedication to you is as strong as ever.

Q: What are these top secret things you mentioned?
A: They are top secret. In time we will bring you more information, but currently we’re not at liberty to discuss them. If we told you, we’d have to… well, you know.

Q: But I liked the WDA! Why won’t there be another WDA?
A: We know that this will be an unpopular change for some of you, and bringing information to you is very important to us. This is not the end of communication between our players and the team; this is the beginning of new ways of information dissemination that promotes the game and helps to grow it even further. This is a new and exciting time in DDO’s life, with lots more to come!

:(

[Jundak]

I saw. :(

[nakano]

Teh Suck.

That is all.

[Mirta]

So my reason for going to the DDO forums now is for... um... gimme a sec.

Wait!

No...

GOT IT!

Nevermind.

[Shamguard]

Now it will be all rumors and speculation, just like every other MMO.


...

[Bigpapi]

Call me pessimistic, but I think the "top secret" is actually that they are doing nothing with DDO and just working on LOTRO...

[Coldin]

Call me pessimistic, but I think the "top secret" is actually that they are doing nothing with DDO and just working on LOTRO...

I kinda feel the same way. Past the Monks, there's been no new news about what's coming in Mod 8 and beyond. If it wasn't for Deadly Gazebo already saying that a 7.1 is the works, I'd be very suspicious, instead of just slightly suspicious as I am right now.

[Sunlily]

...need to offer exclusives to the media about things that are coming up next for DDO...

The concept of "exclusivity" is just a pure crock if you ask me.

"OK, so let me get this straight, we can have 2,000 viewers daily see our interview and get hyped about our new product by going to your website or we can have 10,000 viewers daily see our interview and get hyped about our new product by letting 4 other's share it with you? Hmmm, OK. We'll let you alone have it."

I only go to the DDO forums for the dev posts, really. I'll check my own threads every now and then to see if I actually said something interesting. Not lost much, but, well, if you don't tell your clients what you're working on (in this industry), they're going to stop being interested in your product.

What's better: "Hey, guys, we're working on adding magical, elemental bazooka's do DDO" or "Hey, guys, we're working stuff that only Website X can tell you about when we have our interview with them in four months."

The former being updated to "Those magical elemental bazooka's will let you fly, too" after a week, then "Those magical, elemental bazooka's will let you buy things for only 10% the normal price" after another week, then "Those magical, elemental bazookas will have infinite shots with a cooldown of 1/2 second."

You can't do that kind of PR with the Intarwebs and electronic entertainment because your competitor is telling everybody interested about their elemental bazookas. By the time your "exclusive" interview comes out that Module 999 will have magical, elemental bazookas, your competitor has already given them out free and is on magical, elemental bazooka 5.0.

Turbine is beginning to bore me and you know what happens when kitty gets bored...

There is no gain in playing online games, only in making them... now where'd I put that code I was working on..?

[moorewr]

It's an awful decision. I sure hope it doesn't mean they've taken more resources off of DDO module development.

What's all this "it's all secret" crap? Tired of us calling you on all your shifting deadlines, so now you'll say nothing? That will keep people playing, sure.

If it were a retorfit to use 4th Edition rules, holy cow.. that's what it would take to get me to quit playing. Not that that's going to happen.

Some of you will be excited to see that Quarion is gone. Without a word... well, that's Turbine for you.

[Jules]

I agree its not a good decision on their part.

Jules

[Shamguard]

It's just one more rotation down the spiral to MMO oblivion.

We can hold out hope that it's some new big added on that we'll have to buy. Giving DDO its much needed boost in advertising.

It could also be Turbine trying to ride on the release of D&D 4.0 in hopes of gettig some renewed interest in DDO.

It could also be...

You get the picture. There are hundreds of things it could be. Some good, some not so good, some just down right bad for the game.

Personaly I think with Q bailing on them they had no one left who was willing to do the WDAs. Let's face it colecting the information and writing the WDA was real work and I get the impression that the last thing Ms. T wants to do is real work.

Oh well like everyother change Turbine has made we'll see how it affects the game.

Personaly I think with way of the Meh-onk they just aren't getting the kind of excitment that is good for the future of DDO.

New mode and more bugs that screw up the stuff that shouldn't have been messed with.

It seems to me that since mod 4 the quality of game playability keeps going down. It's no fun to playing a real time MMO that keeps getting lag spikes and dropping connections.

I figure on sticking around till the 3rd anniversary (if the game lasts that long) then evaluate my game play experience. I like the game but it's getting harder and harder to tolerate the disconnect issues.


...

[Jundak]

This quote from one of the posters (who stated that she was a journalist) on the subject was pretty interesting, imo:

New spells, the "way ofs," new feats, hints about new quests, explorer areas, etc. could all have been (if sold properly) good stories. They spent eons in WDAs. The vast majority of the market for stories on them already knew the details. It was no longer news and not worth spending a lot of time or bandwidth on. Getting reporters of any kind to cover something depends less on how revolutionary or exciting something is than it depends on them being the first to tell the world.

Steve Jobs is a master at that. Yeah, we all knew a new iPhone was coming, but he is very adept at keeping the details secret and teasing the press into thinking that no matter how mundane the chnges are, it is a huge transformation in the iGadget industry. He convinced the press that a metal cover is oh so much cooler than a plastic one when that is really a who-really-cares detail. Other than some improved email functions and a metal cover, what's the big difference in the iPhones? Not a whole heck of a lot, but it has been all over the news the last couple of days.

Yeah, we can all know a new mod is coming, but if the content is a big secret, the news sites will scramble for the info rather than wait for Kate Paiz to call them up and talk her way into a story. It doesn't matter if it isn't ground-breaking technology or spectacular new additions. If you get it first, it's big news.

Please don't kid yoruself about the media. It isn't about what is revolutionary, important or valuable. It's about what is news--what they can tell the world that no one else knows. As long as they are first, they win.

This was made in response to Borror's asking her to give an example of what in the WDA's would be considered newsworthy. This post has me a little more optomistic about Turbine's plan...so far, it's the only real concrete thing from the community that makes a damned bit of sense about what the dynamics behind this move are.

Oh, and Patience stated in another thread that she has read all posts, in all of the thread about the missing WDA's...except for the ones regarding DDO moving to v4.0. My guess is she just thought that whole discussion was just ridiculous. That makes me rest a tad more easy, too. :)

[moorewr]

Oh, and Patience stated in another thread that she has read all posts, in all of the thread about the missing WDA's...except for the ones regarding DDO moving to v4.0. My guess is she just thought that whole discussion was just ridiculous. That makes me rest a tad more easy, too. :)

*whew*

[Shamguard]

...regarding DDO moving to v4.0. My guess is she just thought that whole discussion was just ridiculous.

From what I've heard from the gaming community in general, this seems to be the opinion of v4.0 for PnP also.:gives:

[Jules]

I remember during an interview for mod 6 Kate was asked about 4.0 rules. IIRC she said when its released they will analyse it and decide what will fit and what won't for ddo.

A very logical approach imo.

Jules

[Eldamir]

It's also some what of a copout, Jules .. businesses like Turbine have access to that stuff for analysis long before the general populace does. If they're holding off on a decision, its because they want to see how the gaming community as a whole reacts to it -- or Wizards didn't give them the rights to use 4.0 in an online setting.

[Rommalb]

quite simply put DDO CANT convert to 4th ed, it just isnt compatible. If you read my summary of 4th Ed in the other section (of which I have one more update for it, but I need time to write it up) theres so much changed that its not the same game anymore. Not that thats a bad thing, I know a number of people who are very interested in getting a 4th Ed game going as it does have quite a few nice aspects to it.

As a friend of mine put it in relation to 4th Ed, and to an extension this WDA topic as well, "Nerds will whine endless about any kind of change, but theyll still pay money and buy the books regardless."