A Letter to Players from Executive Producer Fernando Paiz
October 23, 2009
Hi everyone! I’m Executive Producer Fernando Paiz, and I wanted to give you an update on what’s coming up for Dungeons & Dragons Online®: Eberron Unlimited™.

Let me start by saying a huge “Thank You!” to all of our players from the DDO team and everyone here at Turbine. You have made the launch of DDO Unlimited an unqualified success. We are proud and excited to see DDO making a big splash as we dive in to the Free-to-Play MMO space!

Since the release of DDO Unlimited, we have seen many players return to the game and hundreds of thousands of new players joining as well. All of the DDO game worlds have been enjoying record populations, and finding a party has never been easier across all levels of the game. And the great thing is, we continue to grow! We are grateful to all of you who are out there spreading the word about DDO on blogs, forums, and to your friends on Twitter and Facebook .

Now let’s talk about something that we’re all eager to hear more about – brand new things coming to DDO!

Announcing Update 1!

I have the privilege today of officially announcing our plans to release our first major update to the DDO Unlimited service, on October 28th! Even through all of the craziness of our launch, the team has remained hard at work on some great new content and features. With this update, we are focusing on our veteran players, high level content, and things to do in the end game.

One thing I know our high level players will be excited about is the release of “The Path of Inspiration,” a new high level adventure pack which pits players against a nefarious cult that is infiltrating Stormreach and trapping its citizens in the plane of nightmares! It has some very cool new monsters, new environments, and new gameplay elements. We hope you will have as much fun playing it as we had building it for you!

We are also introducing some cool new features like Veteran Status, which allows new characters to enter the game as veteran (level 4) characters to begin adventuring right away in the city of Stormreach. For those of you who have earned the 1000 total favor required to unlock this feature, you can start enjoying Veteran Status right away! I have really been enjoying this feature as a way to let me experiment with a variety of different builds, especially to get a taste of multi-classing two classes together (Paladin with a Sorcerer splash is pretty sweet!).

The other big feature in this release is Epic Difficulty. This new quest difficulty will be available in select adventure packs, and will give level 20 characters some new challenges, as well as the opportunity to craft some truly Epic loot items! The Demon Sands adventure pack will be the first to get the Epic treatment, and you can expect to see more old favorites follow suit in the future.

We're also adding new features to the DDO Store - like 32-point builds and hair reversal tonics to revert your hair color! Look for full release notes, articles, and more information on Update 1 next week!

A Module by Any Other Name

A question we have heard you ask in a few different ways is “Why are ‘Modules’ now called ‘Updates’? What’s the difference?” This is a good question. Let me try to explain a little more about the terminology, and the reasons behind the change.

One distinction we’d like to make is the difference between publishing of a new version of our software and the release of new content or game features. Changes to our software can include bug fixes or even underlying changes to code to improve the way the game runs. New content and features can include things like quests, items, or other fun activities we’ve added to the game. In the past, software changes and content additions always had to happen at the same time, but that will not necessarily be the case going forward thanks to some new technology we’ve been utilizing.

Previously, the term ‘Module’ was also used interchangeably to talk about the new content or the software patch, and we wanted to be able to talk about an update separately from the introduction of a new adventure pack when applicable. After all, not every software change involves new content, and not all new content involves a software change for us these days.

With DDO Unlimited, things will work a little differently than before. You will see us introducing new features, content and store items at times between our “Updates.” Some of these will be small and others more meaningful, but this is all part of our plan to keep new things appearing in the game on a regular basis.

Coming Soon: Reincarnation

One big feature we have been working on is Reincarnation. With Reincarnation, players will be able to make changes to their existing characters in several ways. It could be to correct a mistaken choice they made when creating the character, or even just for fun and experimentation. They can also work towards making an even more powerful version of their character! This large new system has many moving parts, and will allow us to provide you with everything from much requested re-spec features to new end-game reroll mechanics for our most dedicated players. It is an important system to the game, and one we are excited to release as soon as possible, but also one that needs a little extra bake time at this point. As we have heard you request before, we will not hold up the rest of the update for this feature, and we will not release it until it is fully ready.

Thank you to everyone who has already tried Reincarnation on the Lamannia preview server and provided feedback! We will be holding more events on Lamannia in the next few weeks to help us get even more player input on the reincarnation features. Thanks in advance to everyone who will come out to help us further refine this system!

And That’s Not All

Update 1 marks the beginning of great new things coming to DDO Unlimited! The team is already hard at work on planning and development for the next updates. We have exciting plans to keep improving and growing DDO for the next several years. We look forward to sharing more details with you as these features come to life!

In the meantime, enjoy the new additions in Update 1, and some fun holiday-themed events and items which will be appearing in the game - starting with Halloween!

See you in Eberron!
-Fernando.