First, MMORPG.com put up their GenCon Overview article, which just included a few bits of vague information of what is coming down the pike in Module 8. A decent read, but really no juicy information.
Jerry from DDOcast, on the other hand, has put up a couple articles of his GenCon experience, including more useful information as well as photos of some of the new content being demonstrated.
Module 8 will have high-end content, continuing the story lines for both the Reaver’s Bane and the Gianthold Tor series, which should keep the level-capped adventurers and raiders happy.
The real treats are some brand new features, though.
First is the New Player Experience, or NPE. Before anyone brings up Star Wars: Galaxies’ ill-fated NGE, this is not an overhaul of all of the game mechanics. It is quite literally a new tutorial area for new players and new characters. Players unfamiliar with actual D&D 3.5 rules (such as myself) will now be able to select character templates so we don’t gimp ourselves during creation. The original system will also remain for those more knowledgeable of the D&D mechanics. New characters start on the snow-laden island of Korthos where they’ll learn the basics of DDO’s gameplay, culminating in a scripted encounter with a white dragon before finally hopping a ride to Stormreach to begin their adventures with the rest of us.
Jerry also posted pictures of some of the early Harbor quests, such as the Goodblade series, which have been completely redesigned and repurposed for the NPE. Looks awesome and I look forward to trying this out. I think I’ll wait until Module 8 goes live to roll either a cleric or paladin for a permadeath guild. I’m debating either the Sublime Permadeath guild on my home server of Thelanis or Mortal Voyage over on Argonnessen. My former guild leader is with Mortal Voyage so that alone is tempting, and I like the permadeath rule set they’ve adopted.
Finally, Module 8 is bringing an age-old mechanic of D&D into the game: hirelings! This sounds similar to what we’ll be expecting in Guild Wars 2: each character can bring a single hireling NPC to help with certain aspects of the quest. In GW2 your companion does not take up a party slot; Turbine has not yet stated if hirelings will or not. Once inside the quest, players can summon their hireling for a limited time. Like GW’s heroes, the hirelings will act on their own or can be commanded. If your group lacks a rogue for traps, one player can bring along a rogue hireling to handle them, and so forth. Again, hirelings are more similar to GW2’s companions in that each player can only bring one, rather than GW1 where a single player can bring up to three heroes.
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It’s unfortunate that DDO came out and attempted to match 3.5e because it really would have suited 4e much better. They removed the casting style in 4e and made it: at will, once per encounter, once per day type system which really would have mapped to DDO’s rest area type mechanic.
Oh and this post should tie me with you for the “Commenters of the Month”… at least until you reply.
Yeah I’ll be very interested to hear if Wizards tells Turbine to make the change to 4th Ed. rules. I’ve heard a lot of 4e was already what DDO was doing anyway.
*jumps back to the top of the commenters list*
This is good stuff…thanks for looking into this.
Now, I wonder if 2 people can quest together with one henchie each…
Wouldn’t that be awesome. A duo (hubby and wife say) could play all the 4 mans together…
Hooray!
Here ya go, TTH just put up a freakin’ awesome video interview with Kate. She describes hirelings very well, and we get a good look at the new template character creation and a little bit of the new tutorial island. The video is recommended viewing!