The anniversary festivities aren’t the only thing en route to Dungeons and Dragons Online: Standing Stone Games’ Rob Ciccolini just dropped a letter from the producer bright and early this morning with a teaser for the future too.
Let’s get the eyebrow-raising news out of the way first, and that’s the revelation that SSG is bringing the first “mini-expansion” to the game. That’s a bit of a trigger word to MMO gamers’ ears since SSG took a tremendous barrage of fire last year for releasing a paid “mini-expansion” in LOTRO that was actually just a basic patch making an end-run around lifetime subbers, to the point that less than a week ago Ciccolini that it had “learned a lot of lessons” from that debacle, a phrase he’s repeating here. Apparently one of those lessons wasn’t that the word mini-expansion has become toxic. Anyhow, that one’s coming in the summer:
“This summer will see the release of the first ‘mini-expansion’ in Dungeons & Dragons Online in the form of the Classic Adventure: The Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh! An evil Alchemist’s mansion stands alone on a cliff and mysterious lights and hauntings have kept people away despite rumors of great treasure. What is the secret? Debuting alongside this classic adventure will be our next Universal Enhancement Tree called Horizon Walker, which focuses on marking and neutralizing extra-planar and other enemies with a bow. As we get closer to the release of Saltmarsh, we will have more information about what to expect from a DDO mini-expansion, the lessons that we learned from The Lord of the Rings Online’s first mini-expansion last year, and plans to give more value to VIPs.”
In the shorter-term, of course, players have to look forward to the musical Dryad and the Demigod raid and the finale of Fables of the Feywild, then the first hardcore league season of 2021 and the Indiana Jonesy update 49 (and bow overhaul) in the spring. By fall, expect “a set of new adventures and a raid revolving around the Wild Hunt as well as a significant update to our Epic Destiny system.” DDO players should really give the whole thing a look as it’s surprisingly detailed for something from SSG.
