Dungeons & Dragons Online: Shadowfell Conspiracy Announced, Producer Letter
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WARNER BROS. INTERACTIVE ENTERTAINMENT AND WIZARDS OF THE COAST UNVEIL DUNGEONS & DRAGONS ONLINE®: SHADOWFELL CONSPIRACYâ„¢
Second Expansion to Award Winning MMO Launching Summer 2013
NEEDHAM, MA 26th February 2013 Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment and Wizards of the Coast unveiled today Dungeons & Dragons Online®: Shadowfell Conspiracyâ„¢, the second expansion to the award-winning free-to-play massively multiplayer online roleplaying game (MMORPG) developed by Turbine. Shadowfell Conspiracy takes place in the beloved Forgotten Realms setting, features an increased level cap, introduces new Iconic Heroes and much more!
(Last year we expanded the world of DDO into the Forgotten Realms universe with the launch of our first expansion,) said Erik Boyer, Senior Producer of DDO. (This year we're introducing more content and making it even easier to experience the latest content with the introduction of Iconic Heroes that begin at level 15, allowing players to jump right into the action.)
DUNGEONS & DRAGONS ONLINE: SHADOWFELL CONSPIRACY FEATURES:
'¢ Two New Forgotten Realms Adventure Packs -- Featuring gorgeous new wilderness areas packed with new D&D monsters, dangerous encounters and a host of challenging dungeons.
o Wheloon: Horrors from the Shadowfell pour into Wheloon, a prison city full of irredeemable criminals and traitors to the Crown. In this place, Netherese agents conspire to forge an army out of the Kingdom's enemies. Masquerade as a traitor to infiltrate the Prison City, fight marauding criminal gangs, and destroy the army before it marches all the while battling creatures made out of the very shadows.
o Stormhorns: Deep in the Stormhorn Mountains, the Netherese Empire prepares to unleash its secret weapon against the Kingdom of Cormyr. Brave treacherous mountain passes through griffon territory and overcome cunning harpy ambushes. At the peaks of the mighty Stormhorns, overcome an alliance of giants and monstrous creatures only to have to contend with a terrible Netherese secret weapon.
'¢ Introducing Iconic Heroes -- Jump into the action of DDO with these new prestige characters that start in Forgotten Realms at level 15 and feature unique looks and skills. Each of these classic D&D heroes is a paragon of their race and class and features custom iconic gear, appearance options and new abilities to enhance their power.
'¢ Attain Epic level to 28 -- Master your destiny and gain new epic feats and spells with three new Epic levels of advancement that let you reach new levels of power.
Dungeons & Dragons Online®(DDO) is a free-to-play MMORPG featuring the industry's best combat system, a massive world with state-of-the-art graphics and gameplay, and a rich set of features that until now could only be found in premium subscription-based MMOs. DDO offers an innovative pricing model that allows players to download and play for free, purchasing adventure packs, items, and account services a la carte from the new DDO Store, or to subscribe to get unlimited access to all of the game's content. Players can download and play DDO Unlimited for free by visiting http://www.ddo.com.
About Turbine
Turbine, Inc. is a premier creator and operator of massive, persistent online worlds that foster powerful social gaming communities. Turbine is wholly owned by Warner Bros. Home Entertainment Group and has created some of the world's most popular and award-winning online games, including The Lord of the Rings Onlineâ„¢, Dungeons & Dragons Online® , and Asheron's Call®. For more information on Turbine, its products and services please visit www.turbine.com.
About Hasbro
Hasbro, Inc. (NASDAQ: HAS) is a branded play company providing children and families around the world with a wide-range of immersive entertainment offerings based on the Company's world class brand portfolio. From toys and games, to television programming, motion pictures, video games and a comprehensive licensing program, Hasbro strives to delight its customers through the strategic leveraging of well-known and beloved brands such as TRANSFORMERS, LITTLEST PET SHOP, NERF, PLAYSKOOL, MY LITTLE PONY, G.I. JOE, MAGIC: THE GATHERING and MONOPOLY. The Hub, Hasbro's multi-platform joint venture with Discovery Communications (NASDAQ: DISCA, DISCB, DISCK) launched on October 10, 2010. The online home of The Hub is www.hubworld.com. The Hub logo and name are trademarks of Hub Television Networks, LLC. All rights reserved. Come see how we inspire play through our brands at http://www.hasbro.com. © 2010 Hasbro, Inc. All Rights Reserved
About Wizards of the Coast
Wizards of the Coast LLC, a subsidiary of Hasbro, Inc. (NASDAQ: HAS), is the leader in entertaining the lifestyle gamer. The company holds an exclusive patent on trading card games (TCGs) and their method of play and produces the premier trading card game, Magic: The Gathering, among many other trading card games and family card and board games. Wizards is also a leading publisher of role-playing games, such as Dungeons & Dragons, and publisher of fantasy series fiction with numerous New York Times best-sellers. For more information, visit the Wizards of the Coast Web site at www.wizards.com.
To spill a few more details and to celebrate the title's 7th anniversary, producer Erik Boyer has shared this letter to the community, as well:
This is going to be another amazing year for DDO and I am excited to get to share with you some big news on our plans. Just last week, we launched Update 17 where we got the chance to go back to Gianthold and give it a refresh. We managed to put some giants into Gianthold, not to mention more dragons and that infamous Dracolitch we've been talking about since year one. It's challenging but also exciting when we get the chance to update beloved DDO features to make them even better, and you'll see that happening on a few different fronts this year. On that topic, I know what you all want to hear about! And yes, its true, we'll be overhauling our bug reporting tool with updated functionality to help us capture even more of your problem details and feedback, and process them more efficiently. With that news, I know now, you are thinking, (that sounds really good. but I was sort of thinking of the rumors of an updated character enhancements system.) And I also have great news to share on that!
Work on the new enhancement system is well underway and it will be heading to its first public beta this spring. In its current iteration, each class has at least two prestige class paths. The UI, similar to the Epic Destiny tree, will be a long awaited simplification to planning your character build, but more importantly, the goal is to make better choices more accessible for both new and advanced players in the heroic levels. We are planning an extended beta for this one. We'll be doing multiple trips to Lamannia and lots of player events to give us all an opportunity to try it on various characters and gather lots of feedback.
Another area where you will see several changes is in the introduction of more uses for Astral Diamond shards throughout our game. Volume 3 of the monster manual, which is now available as of Update 17, not only offers a chance to earn your own beholder pet, we also now let you earn direct-to-pocket Astral Shards. In the near future we will add more ways for you to earn free shards as well as some compelling new ways to use them to enhance your DDO gaming experience.
As I have always said, one of the strengths of DDO is great adventures to undertake and that is why I am most pleased to announce DDO's second expansion titled '˜Shadowfell Conspiracy' coming this summer! We are turning our attention back to the Forgotten Realms and we are taking you to some new regions in Cormyr. We will be taking brave heroes, level 15 and up, to a foreboding prison city to the south east of Eveningstar called Wheloon, and high up into the Stormhorn Mountains, north of the high road.
Shadowfell Conspiracy will have more than just new quests and regions, we will also be raising the level cap to 28 and providing something often requested by fans: faster access to the Forgotten Realms! With a new prestige character feature we are calling Iconic Heroes; we think we have an innovative solution that will get you right into the Forgotten Realms starting at level 15. Each of these Forgotten Realms born characters will start as a race class combination with new racial abilities. I can't wait to tell you more about these characters in the coming months.
Later in the year we have some other great stories planned and we plan to focus our attention on the True Reincarnation options and update the system to work for Epic level players. Epic True Reincarnation would also introduce a new completionist track. What would two more stat points do to your TR character? Well, stay tuned this summer for an update on our development progress!
