A couple of suggestions

[Captain Untouchable]

Well, more than a couple. Its pretty much everything I've thought of concerning additions to DDO. I'm not merely suggesting the "idea" either: I have tried, where I can, to suggest a way of incorporating those ideas into the game. Its more a "how about trying..." list, rather than an "I want..." one.

Read or ignore at your disrgression...just figured I'd share my thinkings.

Because there's so many, here's a "contents". Lol.

1. Roleplayer Tag
2. Refuse Party Invites
3. More variety in shops
4. Clothing (and A. Accessories)
5. Bank
6. Housing and Guild Halls
7. Non-combat content
8. Player Crafting

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1.
A "Roleplayer" tag. Like LFG, but it marks you as being in-character. Star Wars Galaxies had something similar - it helped a lot. People will come up to you, and start chatting to you in character if they can see you're a Roleplayer.

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2.
An "automatically refuse invites" buttons. People inviting you to groups via the Social panel can be a pain when you're in the middle of a fight: the invite message pops up, blocks your view, interrupts things, and you have to stop fighting to close it down. Can be a pain sometimes. I know people aren't supposed to invite you unless you're LFG, but particularly at the lower levels, they don't pay so much attention to that.

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3.
More selection in shops. Have each vendor offer one or two different types of armour, shield, weapon, etc, so there is a little more choice. With shields and armour particularly, it does make a difference what they look like; weapons aren't quite as noticable. If a shop is producing swords and weapons, there might be some degree of similarity. But everything is forged one by one. Each shield is decorated individually. Each suit of armour should be tailored to fit, IRL. If your character was able to look at the armour beforehand, and check what it would look like or, even better, custom order (for an increased fee) exactly the armour, shield, weapon, etc he wants, that'd make a big difference.

Think about it this way. If you go into a shop to buy a mobile phone, or a car, you have a feel of the phone, see if its too small, if the buttons are going to be easy to use. You sit in the car, look around, see if you like the look, the special features, if you feel right sat behind the wheel. When you're buying clothes, you try them on first. If you were buying a sword, you'd probably hold it, swoosh it about a bit, etc. Being able to do that, to check if its going to suit you, would make me certainly feel a lot happier, rather than blindly hoping its going to look okay.

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4.
More clothes. Robes for mages is fair enough. However, there are advantages to robes that benefit other classes, too. I looted a Lesser Electricity Resistance robe the other day, with one of my Lv. 1 characters. I plan on saving that one, because I know I'll need it by the time I get to the lighthouse. However, I've taken to buying a robe for all my characters. If I need to go swimming, clicking an icon on a tool bar, or a shortcut key, in order to equip a robe is much quicker and easier than going into my inventory, selecting the armour, dragging it off the equipped spot, etc. Usually (thankfully) haste isn't necessary when you're doing that, but being able to make the quick change is convenient. I can just hit another button on my toolbar to equip the armour again. (I also leave, incidentally, an empty weapon set for "unarmed"; any ranged weapons or two-handed weapons are on my toolbar in their own right, since they equip to both hands, rather than wasting a weapon set)

Not all characters are wizards and sorcerers though. I only have one (multiclass) wizard character, and he's a Warforged, so can't wear robes. My Fighter, Barbarian, Ranger and Rogue on the other hand, are the ones who would benefit from the extra outfits. Rogues are in light armour, so that isn't a problem. But, with my Fighter in Banded Mail, his ability to sneak around is somewhat lessened. Him in a robe looks a little silly, especially if I equip it for him to swim - it'd get in his way. The PHB (for 3rd ed, anyway) lists all sorts of outfits: stuff for Adventurers, Nobles, Monks, Clerics, Mages, and so on. Being able to get something that consists of a shirt and trousers, rather than a "dress" for my Fighter to sneak around in would be nice; the same bonuses on those as robes would certainly add more of a variety. I'm also a Roleplayer, and like doing stuff like taking my armour off to wander around and visit vendors and taverns: you'd get pretty tired out jogging around Stormreach with several dozen pounds of metal strapped to your body.

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4A.
Would it be possible for us to actually "see" our Cloaks of Elvenkind, Bracers of Sustainance and so forth? I understand why it might be awkward - clothes seem to be mapped in full-body sets. But bracers, boots and cloaks are all overlays, as are goggles. Is it possible to add those sorts of things into what we already have, or is that too much of a headache to even consider?

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5.
A bank, for storing money and items. It'd be nice if there was a bank equivalent to the mail system - somewhere that you can physically store money and items to get them out of your inventory. My level 2 character has a lot of stuff in his pack that he won't be able to give to collectors until I get through to the Marketplace, and I'm not done in the Harbour yet. I looted a Masterwork Repeating Heavy Crossbow, which my character doesn't have the proficiency for...yet. Until I get that proficiency, the Masterwork and +1 Bolts that Goldscuttle keeps giving me are just eating up space. If I could go to a specific location, and offload all my spare items - ones I can't use yet, but want to save for later, that'd be a big help.

On the money front, maybe the bank could give interest every, say, week. The more money you leave in the bank, the more money you have a week later...but in the mean time, you can't buy items, weapons, potions, etc with that money. It'd be a trade-off between storing enough money to get good returns, and keeping enough with you to stay alive for that week.

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6.
Housing / guild halls / etc. All of us in this game have come from somewhere, and have ended up in Stormreach. While we're here, we have no homes, nowhere to stay, and yet we're adventuring day in, day out. Star Wars Galaxies (its the only other MMO I played for more than the free trial) had vast planets of empty space that you could built houses on. That isn't an option here. However, the principle that went into the houses was pretty simple. The interior of each building looked a certain way, and the items that were in that room were generated separately. You'd walk into a building, with a generic appearence, sourced from the data on your hard drive; the only data that would need to be accessed from the server was what was inside the room. Something like that could work for rooms/houses in Stormreach. However, where do you put them?

The obvious answer would be to put a door in each tavern, with an NPC standing next to it. Through that NPC, you can start renting a room, which you pay for on a weekly basis, or something. You could pay money in advance - have an "account" or a "tab" or something with the tavern that you pay money into, and from which the rent is taken each week. Once you've got a room rented, you click on the door, and it loads straight into your room.

As you proceed through the game, the rooms might get bigger (and more expensive). The Houses might offer you a suite, for a price. The Wayward Lobster would probably offer larger rooms than the Wavecrest Tavern, but they'd also be more expensive. The larger the room, the more item storage you get.

Item storage could come in the form of chests of drawers, wardrobes, cupboards, bookcases, chests, and all sorts, dotted around the place. They could have a set limit on them - the larger your room is, the more furniture it has, and thus the more you can store.

Larger rooms would also have more facilities. The bed could act as a rest shrine - though tavern healing increases HP, shrines do it faster. Maybe a full restoration of HP, removal of status stuff, like Fatigue for Barbarians, strength damage, etc. I would assume, when you get to the higher levels, and the higher HP values, waiting around for the Tavern and/or food to regenerate your health can take a while, and potions are a bit pricey to waste.

Rooms could also solve the "guild hall" problem. If it were possible to have a list of which people were able to access your room (like giving keys to particular individuals), it would allow them to access your room. They would also be able to pay money to, and charge purchases at the bar to your tab. Big suites of rooms, as you might get further through the game, in one of the Houses, would be enough to provide a meeting place for guild members, storage for weapons that players have "grown out of" (so that newer characters can upgrade). If there was an "Allow" list and an "Admin" list, that could give people the opportunity to enter the room, but not to take anything from it - you might need an officer to make sure people don't start hoarding all the goodies, or charging things to the bar tab too much.

If someone not on the list was going to come in with you, you could just have them in your party, and they'd be transported into the room with you, if they are in range. SWG did something similar with multiperson ships.

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Final suggestions in next post.

[Kudaku]

I so miss the sorosuub yacht parties

[Captain Untouchable]

Ideas continued.

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7.
Is there any chance of more non-combat content? Granted, I'm still at the lower levels. Initially, I was impressed by the puzzle in the Rare Scrolls quest (I used to love 'pipe dream' when I was little...same sort of idea), and sneaking through a warehouse finding and smashing boxes is different. However, some RPGs offer even less combat orientated missions, which my Rogue would benefit from; its slow going through the lower quests, because she's configured for stealth, not combat.

I understand that Dungeons & Dragons is about dungeons and dragons; I wouldn't have it any other way. But one of the things I've started adding as a DM is "quest experience", as suggested in the 3rd Ed DMG. I hand out experience for tasks that don't necessarily involve fighting: tasks that rely more on the players using their head, rather than me and lady luck rolling the dice.

One such quest might be one where you act as an informant for the city guards, or one of the houses or something, talking to specific NPCs to glean the right amount of information, relies on a few Bluff, Diplomacy, Intimidate and Haggle checks from time to time, and doesn't involve you drawing your sword. Elite Force II, a Star Trek game, has a couple of scenes where you pick what your character is going to say, and that leads to a different response. In the final scene of the game, you're visited by one of two female characters: which one it is depends on how you handled earlier encounters with both.

Running deliveries might be another: House Orien does the post; perhaps they need you to take a parcel to a specific person, special delivery and so forth, and you have to hunt around finding them, especially if they're in a different area of the city. You could make a real chase out of it: have the person not where you were told they would be (not in the Wayward Lobster, for example), and force you to speak to specific NPCs who'll say stuff like "I haven't seen him. Have you tried the Leaky Dingy?", "He hasn't been in for days. Have you tried down by the Port?", etc.

With the amount of work you'd end up doing, you should get a reasonable amount of experience. Because its not something that requires you to have fighting skills, it shouldn't really have a level, either: the XP awarded should be equal for everyone that does it. Obviously, that means that for a Level 10 character, it'd be a mere drop in the ocean, but for Level 1, its a big points boost.

Admittedly, I don't know what stuff is like at higher levels: I haven't got there yet. I'm just calling it as I see it, and I personally would like to be able to do more non-combat stuff.

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8.
Last one. Promise. Are there any plans to add player-crafted weapons and magical items into the game at all? By visiting a forge, you might be able to, for example, roll a craft check, the outcome of which would determine whether the weapon was Masterwork or not, what the durability number was, etc. By using certain materials - Ademantium, Mithril, Darkwood, etc - you'd be able to alter its abilities. You could then take the weapon to a magical forge and, if you had magical abilties, or a looted "enhancement" item (like Blood of the Salamander to make it Fire Resistant, or something like that), turn that Masterwork weapon (providing it came out as Masterwork) into an enchanted one, by reforging it in magical flames.

Wizards and Mages, as well as Clerics, could also be given the abilities to craft magical items, brew potions, and so forth, in exactly the same way you can in PnP D&D. You need to be able to cast the spell ability you're going to put into the wand/ring/potion/cloak/weapon/shield/armour/etc, and it'd be a case of adding the right ingredients, the right looted or bought magical enhancement items, and it'd cost you XP to do. The more powerful a weapon you create, or the more powerful an armour, or whatever, the more you loose out. A top-level weapon shouldn't be enough, at this stage, to reduce a Level 10 character by more than a Rank, but that amount of XP loss for a lower level is quite considerable. That makes sure that the high level characters are the only ones who can afford to have the most potent weapons.

Also, the more enhancements you add, the higher the craft DC would be. That means that only the people who specialise at least partically in crafting would be able to create the really powerful weapons. A fighter would be able to forge a sword that looked how he wanted it to (someone crafting their own weapon would be able to pick how it looked), but it might not be as good because of how his stats are spread out. Someone with high Dex or Int however, might be able to forge a better weapon, that would be more durable.

Obviously, you'd need to add the materials, but an NPC or two selling the basics (wood, iron, silver, leather, hide, cloth, etc), plus a few extra bits, (adimantium, mithril, darkwood, etc) as loot items and rewards for certain quests. Oh, and tools, a la Thieves Tools - Smithing Tools, Tailoring Tools, stuff for brewing potions, etc.

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Think that's it. Sorry the last few were so wordy.

[Captain Untouchable]

Originally Posted by Kudaku

I so miss the sorosuub yacht parties

Yeah, me too. I miss my beautiful Y-Wing, too. Had a really sexy set of engines on her, and a funky paint job... *sigh*

Shame the Combat Upgrade put me off the ground game. I was looking forward to getting one of the Ep.3 ships from the ROTW expansion.