Hoped someone would make a response to it clarifying some parts! Great video. I do wanna point out that Josh was quite positive on DDO overall, despite the lack of polish, and continued playing it even after the video. I think you edited out the parts where he praised it, so viewers that didn't watch the original video or his streams may not have a full impression of his opinion.

Ive played a number of MMOS: - Aion maybe 3 years (good game) - Everquest about 1 year - Star Wars TOR , 5 years of and on - FF13, about 6 months - Elder Scrolls, less than 30 days - Conan , 1 week - Maybe 5 others Im forgetting but only tried for less than 30 days - DDO , 17 years and counting I've jumped around and taken breaks up to a year but I've never stuck with a game longer than this one. That doesn't mean its the bestest ever, just means I like it and will continue to play until the bartender shouts out "LAST CALL". 🍺

Algorithm brought me to you. Great video. I still think Josh's video is probably the best "new player" review video of DDO.

As a long-time and often regular Lotro player, I 100% get the "great fun" we have of complaining internally about the many quirks and foibles of these two old games and the hurdles that SSG has to navigate to keep them up and running (again, a tiny dev team that just gets the scraps from their parent company really and does both games) , while at the same time also having to turn around and then explain to people why we love these games and that the good outweighs the bad. It's a weird place to be in as a gamer, and this is a heroic effort here, well done.

BTW: Korthos was added in October 2008. It's not the olest area. There used to be a different starting area.

New DDO player here, I played once or twice back in 2010 or so when my uncle stayed at my house for a few weeks. He's not doing too good health wise nowadays and can't play anymore but I always had really fond memories of the game. So I figured I would re-download it, to carry on his legacy in some ways. I remember running around to the highest point I could find and then falling down using the boots of feather or whatever they were called. I just signed up literally about 10 minutes ago after downloading the game through steam. The sign up WAS TERRIBLE and still is terrible. I had to go into incognito mode, and then go into a whole different browser because I just kept receiving a message that said I'm "ineligible" for sign up. This didn't put me off too much because I know the game is worth it, but I'm sure this and other "friction points" or barriers have prevented some new players. P.S. Love your vibe man, subscribed. I think you're a great commentator, analyst, and are extremely well spoken. I believe you'd do great covering ANY niche or topic beyond DDO. Keep up the great work, going to finish watching this much will check out your other videos. You've got a divine aurora my man

I 🤍 DDO. I am a newish player who never played D&D but had a group of old school player friends who thankfully taught me a lot…as a newbie I may have quit due to all the knowledge required. Just navigation alone is a lot to figure out! I was really lucky to have friends and mentors willing to help me become capable. It made my pandemic years a pretty terrific time. I wouldn’t want DDO to be anything other than what it is (except for the LAG of course 😂) if it were a perfect shiny and impersonal game that has no glitches or idiosyncrasies it wouldn’t be my favorite game of all time!

I'm glad i stumbled on your channel brother. I'm an old time TTRPG interested in looking at this game.

there used to be a function to preview cosmetics actually, it was at the blacksmith next to stormreach harbor bank. That huge mirror there. You used to talk to the NPC to preview the cosmetics.

Well reasoned and Standing Stone would be wise to take note of both you and Josh's videos.

Awesome vid Axel!

I started last year, I was just going to get to level 20 or something then quit, but the dungeoncrawl code came and I am still playing because of it.

Thank you for the great video Axel! I have given lots of money to DDO since its release, way more than my regular play would dictate, but when I do play, I love those teleport items to get around the world faster. 2005 and 3rd Edition P&P was a long time ago now. I have always thought of this game as an old friend that I visit with on and off. I don’t compare it to other games. It has many flaws but 3rd edition was always my favorite and the incredible customization is why I loved it so much. I think DDO did a great job of recreating this. I also love the reincarnation system which is very unique in MMOs but a D&D staple. The community for DDO is awesome (same goes for LOTRO) and being in a guild offers significant benefits with passive buffs. This game has a learning curve and you need to invest time in it but I believe it is well worth it.

It would be great if they worked with their content creators to redo the prebuilt builds for classes to be flavorful, not min/maxed, and fairly solid in survivability and killing power or something else related to the theme of the prebuilt. We just need them to be viable on elite, maybe not solo but at least able to hold up in a group. Wonder why they haven't done this?

I have an extra account on my LOTRO launcher, the dev labelled it (Don't use me!) for me, but I've contacted them several times and asked if they could remove it, they say they are unable. So I have a feeling there's a certain depth into the backend/account stuff that SSG can't or won't touch (probably because doing so would require fixes/re-engineering they just aren't equipped to do.) So I wouldn't hold your breath on the "use one email for both DDO and LOTRO" thing.

It's easy to prevent breakage even on ran loot, just hit the stone of change unequip it, drop it in with a bunch of yellow dragonshards, "400" remember though, """Items that undergo the binding ritual retain any permanent damage they have already sustained. Those items become immune to future permanent damage sustained after the ritual is performed.""

The reason that they had to make it into separate accounts at the time was because people were going to lotro getting a bunch of Turbine points and then having that balance transfer over to DDO

DDO was a lot of fun, and it's better than people think. However, it's just not fun without a group, and last time I logged in there weren't nearly enough players to find people with the same goals at a compatible level.

I am not a big MMORPG player, but I think this is my favorite one because it allows me and my friend to play it as a coop RPG. We simply go from one adventure to the next and don't care about higher difficulties (hard, elite, reaper, etc.), reincarnations, the endgame, none of that stuff. We just want to experience the adventures and move on, and we're having a blast! We don't feel the need to grind. As long as we are powerful enough to do what we want on normal difficulty, we're good to go. And when we finally finish all the adventure packs/expansions we want, we'll stop playing the game, but even this playstyle will take hundreds of hours. :]

As a fellow mmo tuber I can never bring myself to watch a JoshStrifeHayes video but I appreciate that his videos will literally always bring new blood to the game he covers because he is just so big. Either way I wish there was more love in the genre for retro mmos. Compared to him I wonder how many things I get wrong in my video when I covered it.

Lifetime LOTRO player trying out DDO for the first time. LOL, I will admit I am lost, but it's a good kind of lost. It's the 'lost' of exploring something new. Any good videos you could recommend I watch first? Thanks in advance.

the lag is caused by the constant duping

5:02 Halft truth. I use the same account for both games, all i had to do was contact support and ask them to add a "subscription" to lotro to the account.

DDO is currently in a great era. I quit the game in 2010, because the end game was The Vale. The Vale, imo, killed this game. Well, coupled with the Cannith expansion and the initially horrible Menace of Underdark(FR introduction). Lots of mobs, with lots of HP. Lots of people quit. But, luckily someone with a brain took over and came out with Raven Loft, Feywild, Sharn, came out with good FR quest, etc, and the game is not even close to the era it was in in 2010. Their next steps needs to be getting melee close to the same power as casters. For some reason, they have refused to address melees being far inferior.

To add to it not even into crafting and to say if your item breaks to redo in crafting cause some of us don't do that not good response I'm sorry to say so it can effect some of us when items break

"yeah, he's right..yeah, he's right.. yeah, he's right.. yeah, he's right........."

Yea a lot of customs with character creation that is bitch about but if they limited it people will still complain

While play Mostly LOTRO i also play DDO occasionally ,You don't need two accounts the same account works with both, same account and login.

Unless its changed (and i havent done this for years) there is definitely a (very clonky ofc, hey its DDO) way to preview (most) in-game store items before purchase.

Are we not able to provide links to other youtube videos? Noticed my comment linking to the other Josh Strife video about DDO is gone. Guess if links are a no no, I can just provide channel and video name: "Josh Strife Hayes Plays: Dungeons & Dragons Online" on his channel "Josh Strife Replays".

Not all can understand how to properly craft items or wish not to do it

It's funny hearing you say "Korthos, one of the oldest areas of the game." I remember when it was shiny and new. And the days before, with the beginner island and training dummies.

I'm a DDO vet. He is right. And I still love it.

I started in 2009!!

I tell new players all the time. That yes there is a steep learning curve. But not get overwhelmed by it. One step at a time and listen and learn from those that have been here for a long time. That first build is going to be inevitably flawed. But not worry as there ways to fix it as one goes along. If nothing else has worked. There is a lesser reincarnation heart to repec that toon. Also this not a triple A game. It has a smaller dev team and budget.And yes the game reflects that fact. Yes, there are bug that go and have gone years without a fix. And if not for Tonquin. many annoying bugs would still not be addressed. I love Tonquin's' dedication of tracking down bugs as fast as she can. Kills them better than a can of black flag or raid. Doing that on top of her regular dev duties is awesome. Whatever they are paying her it is not enough. Yes the game has many foibles and lag is super annoying. But the def team is still working on that slowly. Sometimes it seems glacially slow. At the same time there is always new content being rolled out and the game does have regular updates. The producer letter that just came out makes me anticipate a new year of new content and events. Hopefully SSG will figure out a marketing strategy that would attract new players and/or returning to this very niche game. If SSG can get new and/or returning players here. I am confident that the community will do all we can to help them to decide to stay.

Many bugs that have been there from the beginning, and will never be fixed. I do miss the game how it was years ago.

Not playing anymore but he was really nit picking and really didnt know what he was doing. However the game can be like that as a new player. Can get confusing.

I don't understand why they don't just use something to do a pixel perfect scale up of the icons. If your image is like 64 by 64 and you scale it all the way up to 512 by 512 you can then scale it down to the appropriate ratio and it should match your 1920 by 1080 UI or whatever. I realize this is a good excuse to also redo all the assets as well, but opening the current images in a program and just scaling the size up shouldn't take that long. Even if you had to do like 10,000 images by hand. Though I'm sure you could make a script to automate the scaling process. That should be an entirely workable temporary solution if they really wanted to do scaling UI.

I play DDO free to play and never have had to buy anything from store and I have been playing since the start when a sub was required..

The "purchase to complete" quest is barely technically a quest. It's more of a task. 1. It is a delivery, and there is no way to fail it other than choosing not to finish it. 2. There's no XP or favor gained - or lost if you look at the glass as half-empty. 3. The end reward is a really good reward for a mere task. 4. You earn the DDO points needed to buy the item, so there is no need to exchange real money to complete the quest. In terms of balancing the need for revenue in a F2P game by introducing players to the store, this quest is actually well-structured and barely an imposition, and one that can be easily ignored if you choose. This complaint about DDO feels almost as bad as complaining about having to click the mouse button.

I agree that DDO is not a polished game and that can be a huge turn-off for new players. Get rid of the pre-configured character creation options, get a 15 year old and pay them 200 dollars to redo all the icons in order to allow screen re-scaling; seriously, a teen could do that in a weekend between burgers and porn channels. And just remove all the unnecessary dross from the beginning screens, speed up the connections, fix the bugs [i must admit more has been resolved in the past year or so than ever before imho), re-invent Hardcore to keep it fresh, replace the producer with somebody who UNDERSTANDS the game and its community, remove quest opener limits (how does that benefit anyone exactly apart from a pathetic and hugely annoying mechanism to encourage - with a stick - players to become VIPs, rather than using a carrot approach)... Love the game for its immersion, its lore, the community but mostly because I can build whatever character i want (except for multi-classed bards because why would bards have alignment restrictions when rogues dont?). Ah! Yes! More HC! Get real Producer!

They could automate the entire UI upscale process using AI tools. Mostly for icons IMO, the rest they should just use scalable vectors. Amateurs have done this in their spare time for other games. Also an artist could check the results manually and see if there are any issues. Anyway still way way better than the current situation.

And the bummer ... is that all these people flooded to DDO ... only to find that the CODE he was given didn't work anymore ... they really need to unlock those things permanently... 😞

I love that he mentioned Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson having done voice stuff in the game, but you can tell he never heard it, because he would have made a joke about how embarrassingly bad they are. XD

Maybe this is already the case (I don't play DDO), but if they simply wanted to show how to get to and use the store, they could easily have simply made the item necessary for that one quest to be a free one-time purchasable, rather than locking out f2p completionists.

Ive been playing DDO since the launch having taken break in between, Some of the criticism is legitimate. Ive soloed many dungeons as a Wizard Enchantment/Necro is strong. Tfw youll never ever see jack drop

Its win lose scenario

But no mention of guildship BACON

Some of the feedback really hurts. I am a new player and i really dig this game. So what?! And mentioning it gives the game some credit after all. I like the dungeoning, soloing etc. and there is the freequestcode that gave me the opportunity to enter the whole experience. The main problem for developers is, to keep a game alive that is publicly regarded as outdated and dead. I have seen that on the tabletop and now there is the renaissance of older editions. I sincerely hope they will never overhaul the game.

25:22 I'm pretty sure it's not that hard to change a model/make a new model.

It's really frustrating that the developers are doing absolutely 0 to make new the new player experience better And the overall experience like item storage, worthless chest rewards and so on overall better

Rather have a premium account than a free or do a VIP account

I actually just watched his entire worst mmo series a few weeks ago what a coincidence

10:05 Fortunately, we now have AI upscaling precisely to alleviate that workload.

DDO is in a good spot right now except for "server lag, more server lag, extreme server lag." The lag in DDO needs to be meaningfully addressed.

ive noticed that Josh somehow very often plays the games exactly when theres a one time huge problem currently happening and he considers its always the case and he oftens misjudge the reason behind a problem....id say hes about always accurate around 70% of what he says

SSG are just terrible at anything to do with details but somehow over the years they have got big directional decisions right

I'm confused by the point of this video. Every criticism levied against the game was met with "game is old/small dev team" but, both of these things are known, and if they aren't, they are by the 5th time this is mentioned. I felt kind of bad just hearing the same thing over and over again.

In my opinion DDO is the second best MMO, it has extreme replayability, via past lives. The only one that beats it is FFXIV. But my computer can't play 14, so I'm gonna hop on ddo tonight

It's one of the best games ever!

The gameplay is great. The entire game needs a complete overhaul and redesign with reincarnations ( which is an unreal task to ask the players to max all that out, seriously, do the math on it. ) Best DnD combat out there, but in a REALLY old and spaghetti coded game from all the years of hand me down code. Will Wheaton did no voice acting, he talked about his experience with DnD as an audio overlay, not as a character.

long swims... hmmmm i think i just did one and it was i think it was the evil temple for the water.... it was a high pain watching my character to have a low swim check... it was pretty scary... (I livestreamed that ep 11) I never done recarnations yet... but i can say i'm an alt tier build tester multiclass such as rogue/bard... little bit on rogue and more bard for healing since i don't play with players. ehhh I will always say go to borderlands first to craft your weapon at level 2 hold that weapon till you do level 5-7 quests... (i'm a rogue but i never got daggers the only time i can get such weapon without going through the item grind loot was get the cube and make the black smith craft any weapon daggers swords... etc staffs... Reavers Reach OMG i can kill it!!!!!! (nvm level 17 content) I keep forgetting this is all about new players... if you played at least 2 months you can seriously do it without a hireling or partner... i done it. So there is still a missing thing for both poeple.. newplayers better stick with rogue and multi class.... because extra xp is great if you disable traps and search for secrtet doors... also destroy barrels and boxes for loot and xp... can't use the runes.... don't forget to buy potions from the market!!!!!!!! Yeah crystal weapon or durablity... that's umm way further in the game.. LOL!!!!! unless you went through the game and used bank share etc... (save platnium and buy it for auction.)

DDO isn't free to play I just started it would take 400 dollars to have access to the pay gated content. I still play PnP D&D every week, DDO is so far removed from anything resembling D&D its actually pitiful other than some name sake adventures and familiar characters it is pure garbage. The only people still playing have so much sunk cost and time they can't seem to let it go.

There are long swims in the game

I'm not gonna listen to you justify everything that's broken about the game first few mins I already can see the atmosphere around ur answers and it simply boils down u begin defensive about everything even if its broken And please play some modern mmos and they'll blow ur mind compared to this junk ur still holding onto and yes iv played it for years aswell but u have to move on its a dead game and feels terrible once you play other actual good mmos