Yesterday Dungeons and Dragons Online : Eberron Unlimited came out with a state of game address from Fernando Paiz, Executive Producer of the MMOPRG that covered quite a bit of ground on what is coming up in the months to come. Here are some of the highlights on what was covered in the letter.
Update 4 is coming out in April and will feature a storyline that involves House Deneith, Searing Heights, a new kind of undead and a nefarious band of pirates led by the infamous Captain Tew with his beloved pet, Ratty. Other content packs later in the year will involve a fiendish carnival and a new Wilderness adventure that will contain the first quest with underwater combat.
Cosmetically there will be some additions to give your characters a new look as well. Items are being worked on that will alter your appearance when equipped but keep the stats benefits from the last item you had on. This will lead to the user eventually getting hats and helms in April, such as a cute fluffy bunny hat or evil dire rabbit helm.
Guilds are due to get a tune up in the weeks to come with the housing system being revamped. Players that are tired of playing the same races will get a treat with Half-Orc on its way to the game. Towards the end of the year there will be a chance to try this race with a plus 2 bonus to strength. Another class that is being asked about is Cleric Domains. Paiz has this say on the subject
“A few folks asked about Cleric Domains. I don’t have anything to announce for 2010, but I will say that when it gets to be the Cleric class’s turn to get a polish pass, that is when we will consider these types of additions to the class.”
They are also working on some new classes for hirelings to let players better fill out their parties with them. Look for Favored Souls and Bards to appear first and maybe another class or two later in the year.
In addition to adding new content to the game there are also some improvements and fixes on the way as well. In the works are Mass Heals working on parties of up to 12 players, improvements to weapon sets and fixing some bugs in key maps. Bigger requests they hope to get done this year include adding string search to auctions, improvements to avatar animations and doing a polish pass on ranged combat.
In an effort to expand the game to audiences around the globe, plans are in the works to get European players into the game as soon as they can. Paiz states “We are also evaluating how we can bring DDO to players who speak other languages and live in other parts of the world. The localization and rollout work is likely to take some time, but look for some announcements on this later in the year as well.”
So that is a summary of what players should expect in the coming months for this popular MMOPRG. Keep visiting the website for any future updates as more news comes in.