Is Eberron a dead world yet?

[Odhanan]

Hey, I liked Spelljammer!

+1

 

[mhacdebhandia]

DDO isn't the best MMORPG I've ever seen, but it's not bad by any stretch. And it had improved vastly in the past 6 months. One of the biggest problems I heard about it was that it was a little thin in content, and hardcore players had multiple level 10 guys within the first month. They have added huge ammounts of content every other month for a year for free, and increased the level range to 12, and soon to 14. It's a nice, fun little game, and for some of my friends that I've played tabletop D&D with for years, it's a nice intro to MMORPGs that might be a lead-in for some of the other big name games.

Regardless of whether or not D&D Online is a decent MMO - I found it bland when I played a trial - the number-one reason why I didn't have any interest in continuing it is that it's a terrible adaptation of Eberron.

Stormreach looks wrong in so many details - it's meant to be a ramshackle frontier town in the ruins of a city built by giants, far from the civilisation and comforts of Khorvaire, yet it's got stairs and docks supported by glowing pillars of magic? Sharn wouldn't have as many explicitly fantastic structures as D&D Online's version of Stormreach does - to say nothing of the complete absence, as far as I could see, of any giant structures, as opposed to a few wacky monuments.

The first paladin trainer you meet is a warforged - now, a warforged paladin NPC is an interesting idea, but only because religious warforged are so unusual. The first paladin you meet being a warforged gives entirely the wrong impression.

Likewise, the fact that the Church of the Silver Flame's priests are acting as healers and resurrectors is lazy design catering to non-Eberron expectations - "priests heal", right? There should have been no non-Jorasco healers offering their services, and certainly priests of the Silver Flame would not be resurrecting characters willy-nilly. I know it came out before Faiths of Eberron made their reluctance to employ resurrection magic explicit canon, but the guys at Turbine had Keith Baker to talk to about their design choices, and it's clear that they either never asked or simply didn't listen.

 

[Twowolves]

Regardless of whether or not D&D Online is a decent MMO - I found it bland when I played a trial - the number-one reason why I didn't have any interest in continuing it is that it's a terrible adaptation of Eberron.

Stormreach looks wrong in so many details - it's meant to be a ramshackle frontier town in the ruins of a city built by giants, far from the civilisation and comforts of Khorvaire, yet it's got stairs and docks supported by glowing pillars of magic? Sharn wouldn't have as many explicitly fantastic structures as D&D Online's version of Stormreach does - to say nothing of the complete absence, as far as I could see, of any giant structures, as opposed to a few wacky monuments.

The first paladin trainer you meet is a warforged - now, a warforged paladin NPC is an interesting idea, but only because religious warforged are so unusual. The first paladin you meet being a warforged gives entirely the wrong impression.

Likewise, the fact that the Church of the Silver Flame's priests are acting as healers and resurrectors is lazy design catering to non-Eberron expectations - "priests heal", right? There should have been no non-Jorasco healers offering their services, and certainly priests of the Silver Flame would not be resurrecting characters willy-nilly. I know it came out before Faiths of Eberron made their reluctance to employ resurrection magic explicit canon, but the guys at Turbine had Keith Baker to talk to about their design choices, and it's clear that they either never asked or simply didn't listen.

See, having played D&D for over 20 years and never having read any Eberron material, I didn't know any of that. However, I will attest that there are giant ruins and massive structures, just not in the docks. Once you finish the level 1-3 main quest, you are allowed passage to the Marketplace, where you can see more of what you are talking about. Also, from there, you can go to several of the Houses, and it's in these with their questlines that this flavor comes out. Definately, Jorasco has the healers, and the Silver Flame are undead hunters (at least, that's how the game's quests make them out to be).

I agree that there are probably areas where they had to make concessions for game playability's sake. Like the hand-waved free resurrections, for example. But having no exposure to Eberron before this game, I can't pick them out as easily. But as I said, the game has added a ton of new content and features in the year since launch.

 

[mhacdebhandia]

See, having played D&D for over 20 years and never having read any Eberron material, I didn't know any of that.

And that's basically my problem.

It doesn't do any good to promote, with D&D Online, a version of the setting that does not exist in the actual game books. So why bother having it be set in Eberron?

I agree that there are probably areas where they had to make concessions for game playability's sake. Like the hand-waved free resurrections, for example.

It's not even that.

MMOs need a resurrection mechanic. Granted. It's the unbelievable laziness of having clerics perform healing and resurrection, presumably because players unfamiliar with Eberron expect that "priests heal", that grates so screechingly.

House Jorasco already provides all the excuse you need for mercantile healing and resurrection. I'd complain much less if they simply said that Jorasco's enclave in Stormreach has one of the altars of resurrection mentioned in the D&D supplements, even though they're supposed to be ultra-rare, because at least that makes sense.

It's not even a little bit about whether or not it's a fun game with lots of content to do, I can't buy in to any game which butchers its source material like D&D Online does. If I want to play an Eberron MMO, I want to play a goddamned Eberron MMO.

 

[Graf]

I appreciate the fact that you're participating in the conversation and I'm certainly not out to hassle but there is something key to what I'm saying in the following.

The fact is, every WotC book (with maybe the occasional rare assumption) is parceled out to various writers and then put together by the lead designer. But in most cases, or at least most cases in which I've been involved, the writers do make an effort to correspond with one another.

The vast majority of DnD books aren't about cohesive settings. Lot of locations/PrCs/groups presented in the splat books are contradictory. They're -supposed- to be different and conflicting options for DMs to pick and choose from for their own worlds.

(This is good but) it's not what Eberron is. While it had ideas from many sources Eberron was put together to tell a specific kind of story and focus on a specific sort of game world.
(IMHO natch)

Unfortunately, the product line has either been weak-collections-of-filler (Five Kingdoms) or unfocused collections of random mechanics (Magic of Eberron). There have been a few great books (Races of Eb) but at lot of it's just random stuff. Why is it that there is no material on halfings or gnomes or elves but there have been like 5-10 new/exciting developments for Warforged! (most of which contradict each other)
Because it's not being developed as world but as a grab-bag of random ideas, writers turn out their x-number-of-words-on-whatever-topics-seem easy (mostly warforged) and move on to the next product..

The model that you're mentioning, which is very successful for the whole 101-new-ideas-for-fighters-books (AKA complete , races, environment series) is UNsuccessful because Eberron's appeal was never about having 10 different kinds of blegh.

It was about having 3 different sorts of blegh that fit together in an interesting way and allowed for fun stories.

 

[Graf]

Precisely the issues The Realms had during the Dark Days of TSR...never recovered IMO...but I find it interesting that some feel this is how the Eberron books are "progressing"

I'm not sure that I agree with the specifics, but it's interesting to compare the two.

:shrug: When one of the designers of a product isn't really "jazzed" about the setting he's writing for, I cannot imagine they are putting forth their best effort.

I am -not- an RPG writer. But I think that when someone puts a lot of effort into a creative writing project they're often completely sick of it at the end.. Every possible thought, every avenue has been explored and their just emotionally burned out.

Especially if one writer has strong views/belief/vision and their vision is subordinated by someone else I could see it being aggravating. (That's not to say one person was right or wrong, but emotionally it can be draining to work on something and have someone shut you down).

I'd be disinclined to see Wolfgang posting something on his blog is "evidence" of a his lack of interest, or general lack of interest.
Especially if he's re-orienting for a possible shot at his own steam-punk style supplement (which was a possibility at the time for the Open Design project). If he's targeting a different but similar fantasy world I would expect there is some re-ordering of brainspace going on.

 

[Mouseferatu]

I appreciate the fact that you're participating in the conversation and I'm certainly not out to hassle but there is something key to what I'm saying in the following.

I don't feel hassled at all.

And your point is certainly valid. I'd love it if there were more of a single vision guiding the Eberron line as a whole. (Note: I'm not saying there's no guidance. I'd just like it to be even more cohesive/narrow than it is.)

But I wasn't addressing the line; I was addressing the book in particular. And at least where Faiths is concerned, C.A. and I made quite an effort to ensure it didn't come together like a bunch of people did their own thing and then stapled it. If you feel we failed at that, well, so be it. But we certainly attempted it.

Alas, in a setting like Eberron, the books will never fit togethre quite as well as the fans would like them to. Be it Eberron, FR, Dragonlance, or what have you, there will always be at least the occasional contradiction between books. That's simply an artifact of the use of multiple authors across a line, and the fact that nobody, not even a setting's creator, can keep the contents of umpteen books 100% straight in his head.

The trick is to minimize said contradiction, and again, I can only speak for the parts I dealt with.

 

[blargney the second]

I think the conflicting information is a feature, not a bug. History is different from each person's perspective.

 

[Desdichado]

I know a lot of us are playing still in Eberron, but is it considered a "dead world" yet in regards to true product support for it's future?

I just dont' see it surviving much longer with what's happening in gaming today...

Thoughts?

What a bizarre question?! Wishful thinking from a non-fan perhaps? Eberron still has product in the pipeline and seems to be going strong. I can't imagine what would prompt you to ask this.

 

[ragboy]

I don't necessarily agree with your usefulness ratings (I find Faiths of Eberron to be of much more use than you seem to, for example), but might it be that they're slowing a bit because the "obvious" books have now been done? I think that the main thing that Eberron has been missing are good adventures (which is why I think both Secrets of Xendrick and the Explorers Guide are must-have books for Eberron), and that seems to be the direction that Wizards are taking the setting.

Totally agree. The adventures have not supported the "as advertised" look and feel of the setting (high action pulp). The first three, I thought, were abyssmal, actually. Secrets and Explorers at least gives you tools to build your own on the fly.

Faiths has not been useful to my game, however, I haven't had it that long. I didn't think Magic would be either, but I started digging deeper and got some goodness out of it. I was looking for some specific information in Faiths and it looks like the designers/writers took a different course.

Any "quality" assessment above shouldn't be read to reflect the writers. I've found all the writing to be of high quality. I think everyone working on it seems to like the setting, at least (with the exception of the adventures). Dragonmarked and Faiths just seem to be put together weird. Like I said, I just got them, so I haven't had time to dig deeper.