It's been nearly a month since the Dungeons and Dragons Online launch of Mod 8 and the community has responded both positively and negatively. One of the major features that didn't quite make the live push was the highly anticipated Hirelings system which was previewed a few weeks later. We had the opportunity to sit down with Kate Paiz, the games' Executive Producer. During our lengthy conversation we discussed Hirelings, the Druid class, Mod 9 and the Shavarath storyline; which we talked about in great length, several times!

Tamat :  So Kate, congratulations on the fantastic launch of mod 8.
 
Kate :  Thank you.
 
Tamat : You’re welcome.  It seems like the team put in a lot of hard work and they definitely pulled it off. It’s been an overly successful and a fun edition that reaches out to a lot of the current and new players at the same time.
 
Kate :  Absolutely.  We’re very excited about it.  It has definitely been something we’ve been working on for a while.  And it’s always nice to see the fruition of stuff that’s been in planning and in the works – a hireling system, we’re still shaking the last bit of bugs out of, has been something we’ve been excited about for a very long time.  And certainly the new player experience and character generation are going really well and we’re very pleased about that.

Tamat :  Awesome.  So let’s talk about mod 8, since it’s new. What can you tell us?  Just give us a brief rundown on everything that’s been modified.

Kate :  Yeah, you bet!  So there are four primary features in mod 8.  There’s the hireling system. Because we have a very party based game in which you can walk through, hand-crafted dungeons and very action-oriented style.  Dodging traps and getting stuck in ambushes and having break-away floors and things like that.  And so one of the things that we’ve been hearing is that all of the part-based interaction is awesome and super fun, but sometimes you just can’t get everybody together and you still want to log in and have that really satisfying experience, but it can be a challenge to get a full group each time.

So we’ve been talking about, for just about forever, how to solve that in the right way and the way that  feels very intrinsically D&D which, of course, is always our primary goal to make sure that it echoes resoundingly with that sense of nostalgia and familiarity that breaks out from the pen and paper game.  So we decided that hiring NPC combatants to join your party and act basically like player characters but obviously under your control would be the best way to handle it.

So each player right now can hire one hireling to come into their party and they can choose between a variety of classes – I think we have clerics, paladins, barbarians, fighters, sorcerers and wizards?  Or maybe just wizards?  I can’t remember if sorcerers are there but, at any rate, arcane, melee, and divine.  And then basically they come in and they’ll stick with you throughout the duration of the experience so you go into a private instance and it’s you and your party and you fight the monsters and you get the loot and you save the girl and you complete quest right, and the hireling won’t ditch you throughout that whole thing.

Then they die and you may need to take them to a resurrection shrine to bring them back to life.  If you die, they’re more than happy to take you to a resurrection shrine to get you back to life.  Some of them, the higher level ones, have appropriate resurrection spells, the clerics do, as you would expect.  So, they’re really meant to fill that versatile niche that a player would in the absence of having all of your guild-mates or friends, or whoever you normally play with online. 
 
Tamat :  Sounds amazing!
 
Kate :   Because it’s such a big system and such a huge change to the game, we’re introducing hirelings in a preview mode for right now and we expect the last usability and performance issues to be all shaken out  probably by December and hopefully they’ll be on full time then.
 
Tamat :  All right, so we already talked about this a little bit, but mod 8 did introduce quite a few new features that help make the game a much more enjoyable experience for new players.  Can you just tell us a little bit more about the new features that have been added in?
 
Kate :  We’re trying to find, with the character generation, the common denominator that will appeal to any  of our folks in the game right now.  We tried to simplify what is a really awesomely robust rule set of 3.5 so that people who were either familiar with the first edition or had never played D&D before would start to understand the basic assumptions that the game was making about how these characters were built and what feats meant and how you spent skill points and how that affected your character.  Basically character generation has basically several different steps that lead someone who maybe isn’t so familiar with MMO mechanics through the kind of play styles you have – do you prefer melee, do you prefer casters, ok great, you prefer casters, wonderful, well here are the DDO D&D classes for casters.  You can have a sorcerer, and then as you pick the sorcerer now all of a sudden it’s like what kind of sorcerer do you want.  Do you want to be a blaster who has crazy offensive magic and just can take down everybody but is on the other hand, relatively weak in terms of taking damage? 
 
Do you want to play a balanced caster who is maybe a little denser, who can withstand a little more fight, but at the same time then loses some of that awesome power or do you want to play a buff guy, who comes in and makes sure everybody else is taken care of and hangs in the back but is an awesome support character?
And when you choose between blaster, defensive, and buff dude then, it’ll allow you to have all of your feat choices, ability scores where you spend your skill points, defined for you throughout the game.  So every time you go to a trainer and you level up, it’ll say, “Hey!  Your path recommends these things.  Do you want them? Or are you ready to go out on your own?”  You basically can choose at any time, "You know, I get it.  I understand now I know why I need Charisma, as a sorcerer and now I’m set.   I can do this on my own."  Or if you’re still learning and still want some help, it’ll continue to help push you in a direction that will make your character super fun, super strong, and really something that will be very good for the length of the time that you’re playing.
 
Tamat : That was great timing with the trial and refer a friend offer that you guys did then. *laughs*
 
Kate : Yep.  Absolutely. And we’re definitely looking towards some big news coming around our anniversary. Obviously not going to talk about that now.  We’ll save that for later but, you know, with the marketing push and additional sort of energies that we’re putting in towards the end of the year and the beginning of next year, I think this new player experience will really put the game in a great place for opening us up outside of that again, that very, very D&D knowledgeable community and pull in a lot of players who love the action combat and having that experience in an MMO.

On that, to go along with character generation we have, we’ve completely rebuilt our new player experience – you know we had one before that was relatively basic.  It was meant to be really lightweight, so that you could get into the main game as soon as possible.  We’ve really trimmed that out for something that’s much more story driven.  You come in, you’re shipwrecked on an island, and now there are a bunch of NPCs that are there for a little bit.  They hearken to the hireling system though, because it’s the tutorial you can’t control them, like they all have AI scripts that handle what they need to do when, so you get a chance to see what some level 10, basically a cleric, a sorcerer, and a rogue can do.  They help explain to you what a party mechanic is, and why it’s relevant in the game and they start to really unfold slowly over time the mechanics that we have, again at that blend of MMO, plus action, plus D&D and when do the dice roll and why and how do you know that you need to handle that secret door and it helps clue you in to a lot of those things deeply in contact so that you understand much better what the fabric of the game is and how you need to navigate through it  to have the fun that you’re looking for.  That whole new player experience has about 10 dungeons in it and a good medium sized wilderness to play in, and hunt monsters, and sort of do those things, and I think players will find that’s a really engaging and fun early experience to the game that then hands you into the harbor and into a lot more openness, and the normal exploration mechanics that you expect out of an MMO. 
 
Tamat : Ok.  Let’s talk a little bit more about the trial accounts.  What kind of restrictions are going to be enforced with these accounts?
 
Kate :  The free trial is a time based account. Basically you come in and play as much of the game within those 10 days I think it is, that you can, and get a full opportunity to see and experience the game before you need to decide to either subscribe or buy a game time card because there’s certainly that option as well, you can pay month to month with the game time card for as long as you want versus a recurring monthly subscription.
 
Tamat :  Are there going to be restrictions as in who they can talk to, who they can play with, etc?  A lot of companies have put those restrictions on their trial accounts, to kind of prevent the gold farmers  from coming in and spamming.

Kate : Yeah, you know actually we’ve recently engaged in that because we’ve been having some problems as all MMO’s do.  We’ve been having some problems with the gold farmers so one of our approaches is actually to limit the tells that you can do.  We will be investing a lot in that system over the next 6 months and so whatever limits there are today are going to mature and become more, I would say more appropriate, as we go forward.

Right now, we had a simple solution of  you can’t really send tells as a free trial member but you can say and you can use party chat and if you join a guild you can use guild chat.  There are plenty of opportunities to communicate but we were just finding that the tell system was being really utilized by the gold spammers and  as we go we’ll have it so your limit is sort of the number of tells you can send per second so that anybody who’s a normal player won’t be impacted in any way but  if you were trying to send a tell to 500 people in 5 minutes you’ll find that very challenging.
 
Tamat :  The new hireling system was originally planned to launch with mod 8 but unfortunately it didn’t make it in. Instead of launching you put the hireling preview into the game with the game preview on November 12th. How did that go over in the community and what was the main purpose of introducing it like that?

Kate :  Because of the complexity of the system and the significant amount of artificial intelligence we’re introducing into the game, that for many MMOs the artificial intelligence is really one of the most expensive things that’s going on and lag is always a concern for any game and certainly we’re no different, we wanted to make sure that we had a chance to preview the system.  Sort of in that massive way to make sure that there wasn’t anything that was potentially really game destabilizing or things like that before we called it done.

And when I say “done” I mean that more in a casual way.  Of course, like many MMOs, when we introduce a system live, that’s really the beginning. Now we’re getting feedback. We understand how players are using it, right?  Get a chance to adapt and find improvements to the system that really allow players to have the most fun possible with it.  Our goals were to see how they responded and definitely found some great problems that we had not been able to find in our private testing because of the scale difference between having it live on the servers and in our private environment.

I think that this has been a really great experience for us to get users in front of it, to get users explaining to us what their expectations are for how these guys will respond.  Because a behavior at level one may seem fine; a behavior at level 16 may be totally annoying, so you have to find a way to make sure that, as the players’ characters grow and level, the hirelings continue to keep pace and there are just a bunch of little balance issues and usability issues that we’re ironing out.  But I’m really pleased with it – we’ll do another test of it tomorrow night and then we’ll release some fixes for it and call it ready for prime time. 

Tamat :  Great. Now, you said that you’ve been looking into launching mod 9 around the 3rd anniversary of DDO, an estimate of February 2009? 

Kate : Yep.

Tamat :  All right, so will mod 9 bring any kind of a level increase or new raids or…?

Kate : Absolutely!

Tamat :  Can you talk about that at all?

Kate :  I can definitely talk about some of it.  We’re definitely planning on increasing the levels to up to   20, so up to 3.5 cap.  And certainly that’s not the end of it for us – we’ll be looking at epic levels and prestige classes and all that, further down the road.  But we’ll be doing the 4-level increase in mod 9.  We’re also going to be doing a return to taking the player to Shavarath.  In module 6 and module 7 we’ve been having this theme of this devil invasion of Venderex, a plain of Shavarath has the balance of these archons, or the angels or the devils and the demons have this war that is ongoing.

The devils have gotten an upper hand and they were using their upper hand to invade Eberon and try and take over Venderex to establish a base here to aid them in that war on the plain of battle. In mod 6 players rebuffed their attempt and then at the second anniversary the devils came in and destroyed the marketplace in this huge live event that we did that players just had a great time with. Then, in mod 7, we found that underneath the marketplace had been this huge raid wilderness full of devils and all sorts of other baddies who had been living down there since probably the dawn of time and so we’re now introducing the third or I guess third and a half or fourth phase of that storyline.

We’re going to take the fight to Shavarath, beat the demons and the devils on their own ground, and try to restore the balance of that demon-archon-devil faction war and get them out of our business.

Tamat : All right. So now how likely is it that we’re going to see the druid class for mod 9?

Kate :  Not.

Tamat :  Not likely at all?

Kate :  Not going to.  Yeah.  Guaranteeing that! 

Tamat :   How about in the future?

Kate :  I think sometime for sure.  There are a lot of challenges in bringing the druid in, in a way that feels very balanced and very set; that they can’t wear metal armor and they have this awesome shape-shifting but making sure that the shape-shifting mechanic feels relevant and in tune with the monk, with the barbarian. Wanting to make sure that all those feel integral and relatable to each other is a big challenge and it’s something that we definitely want to make sure we get just right. I mean, again, the monk was definitely years in the making for us to be sure that it felt very real, very relevant and like a great, not overpowered, but a great participant in the game and in the party.

I think that hirelings for us have consumed a lot of that focus, and we’ve been talking about on the race side players are going to – the monk was the most requested thing.  The next most requested thing that players have been asking for is actually the half-orc.  The plus strength bonus that comes with that is definitely something that players are very excited about.  And so that’s going to be our next focus and we’re hoping to get that out in mod 10.  So not for mod 9 but later, and after that, who knows!

Tamat :  Totally changing topics here a little bit.  Lord of the Rings Online is getting its own little social networking site and other MMO’s across the space are doing the same thing.  What about DDO – are you guys planning to do any kind of social network integration?

Kate :  Yeah, absolutely. We share the same basic core engine with Lord of the Rings.  So a lot of the things that get developed for one game, end up sort of migrating over and being used – DX10, for instance has come out in mod 8, even though LotRO launched with it.  It made its way into our game and we’re super excited about it and, so far, the players are loving it.  I love it as well.  I can run it on my home machine and it just looks fantastic.

I know, again, that LotRO is doing their stuff sooner than we are.  In all likelihood because we’re wrapped up in getting the level cap increase and other things like that done, but  I’m hopeful that in the first quarter of next year the players will start seeing the beginnings of that, and really start to enjoy it.

Tamat : Then it’s safe to assume it’s something you actively want to do and you think it will be a positive move for the game?

Kate :  Yeah, no doubt about it, I mean especially with us being such a party based game – helping players be able to connect with each other when they’re at work, or when they’re making dinner for their family, they don’t have to have the client up, they don’t have to be experiencing that deep immersion that MMOs are great for.

I think that’s one of the joys of that social networking on the web, that it can really let you be lightweight. It can be on hand-held and you can start putting those connections of “Hey, I was going to come on later today, turns out I don’t have to do whatever, is anybody else gonna be around?”  You know, start driving those connections in a really meaningful way.

Tamat :   Set items (green-steel crafting stuff) have improved, since they were added in mod 7, but  it still seems that there are some concerns that sets don’t fully take advantage of each class’s strengths.  Are there any plans to further tweak any of those items?

Kate :  With mod 8, the crafting system has been a thing that we’re trying to find a way to make fit really, really well into the game because, again, we’re not a pure MMO.  We have that blend of course of D&D which has its own crafting system and rules and then that action game and trying to find a way to pull all that together in a way that still feels very intrinsically D&D, that still feels very relevant to the rest of it.

We did some green steel weapons; you could build a weapon customized for you. In mod 7 we added a whole bunch more, and now we’re going to be doing armor in mod 8.  So when you come in you can apply these runes.  You don’t really know what effect the runes will apply but there are three different tiers and you can continue to reapply runes on to your armor until you feel like it works for you the best that it can in terms of that armor.

We are trying to address, again, the putting a whole bunch of the rest of them in. The weapons in mod 7 were meant to try and address some of the class concerns but the armor, whether it’s a robe or light armor or medium armor will be available here in mod 8, so that players who are casters who don’t necessarily use weapons that much, or you know, ever, well you now have an opportunity to participate in the system in a way that feels very relevant.
 
But it’s hard in D&D, because the class roles are so specialized, to make sure that everybody’s covered all the time.  It’s definitely a thing we’ve seen in our enhancement system as we see on the boards. "Oh paladins, paladins need a little more love", they feel like they’re kind of missing out, and so in every release we try to address some class that feels like they’re not front and center right now and then rotate around.  So I really encourage anybody who has concerns to post on the feedback forums.

We definitely go through those on an absolutely regular basis to make sure that we’re listening to the community and really responding to their needs and their interests because obviously, with all MMOs and especially with ours, our community is what it’s all about.  Without you guys we’d just have a bunch of  empty rooms hanging out, and we want to make sure that everybody feels like they’re getting the maximum satisfaction that they can out of their experience.
 
Tamat :  Yeah, Paladins always complain.  Don’t worry about them.
 
Kate :  *laughs*
 
Tamat :  Now you mentioned how the Shavarath storyline will continue in mod 9. Can you tell us a little bit about more where that will be going and what we can expect to see?
 
Kate :  Yeah, so again, you’re gonna get a chance to meet some more devils – there will be some new devils there.  The horned devils and the pit fiend of course are still front and center as they are the upper echelons of the infernal host.  So you’ll be able to reconnect with Aratrachos, who was the pit fiend raid boss in mod 6, and the nice thing of course about the devil invasion is when you kill a devil or any of the outsiders, they just return to their home plane.

I think that we get to continue that sort of familiarity and reusing characters and then this time Aratrachos is not the raid boss.  He is, well I wouldn’t say he’s your friend , cause he’s pretty upset about the fact that you killed him and sent him home, but he’s definitely working at cross purposes maybe to some of his leadership to find a way to revenge some unfair things that have happened to him in the storyline since then.

The players will get a chance to really participate with that.  I think we’ll be at Shavarath for at least one module but more likely two or three.  It’s such a rich place. It has so much potential for really deeply exploring the archons and that angel side of it and then the demons.  So players will be able to help out some Marilisks who have fallen into unfair hands and get a chance to turn old enemies into maybe not friends, but new allies and really explore that.
 
Tamat :  What would you tell a player or potential players who might not understand the experience that DDO aims to provide?  Is there anything specific that you would talk to a new player about?
 
Kate :  I think what DDO really seeks to bring to life is having an epic adventure with your closest friends in a way that makes you feel very heroic, and very engaged.  It’s all about taking on a quest with 4 or 5 of your favorite people and working together to achieve something momentous – whether it’s again, saving the girl, fighting the bad guy, gathering up.  We don’t have the same kinds of go out and collect 10 skins quests as other MMOs.  We’re much more focused on hand-crafted dungeon experiences where you can go in, negotiate through the environments, jump over traps, avoid ambushes, watch out for gelatinous cubes, things like that.  So you can really have that adrenaline moment to moment, very fun experience, in a massively distributed way.
 
Tamat : Well, thank you so much for meeting with us.  I know you’re really busy working on the game. 
 
Kate :  No problem.  It was absolutely my pleasure.

Andrew "Tamat" Beegle
Editor-in-Chief
Allakhazam.com

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Becky "Tovin" Simpson
Senior Editor, ZAM Network