[Dungeons & Dragons Online] The NDA for D&D Online has been lifted so anyone in it can start blabbing. I suggest you start by reading here. Follow that up by reading here. Check out Tobold’s take here.
I’m not sure if I want to write anything about my experiences, but I will say this: Turbine made this? Not bad. Regardless, I don’t see me playing it any time soon. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice … you can’t get fooled again.
– Ethic
Well, from all I have read about this game… I’m going to give it a miss.
I have a few reasons…
1) DnD has yet to see a successful incarnation online. NWN was close… but it still missed somehow. How/why.. I still cant put my finger on.
2) The genre is saturated. Sad to say, but it is… there are a half dozen MMOs out where I can dungeon crawl/kill dragons/cast spells at things….
3) My childhood. I was there when Gary G laid down the FIRST rules for DnD. Anyone remember him? I dont care for how the game progressed in the rulesets… I’m old… I earned the right to be an ass about this… it’s not faithful to the oldschool rules. Thus I don’t like.
I’m sure many can overlook the 3 items I stated, and #3 especially… but I am talking about me, not Johnny12yrold with his momma’s credit card.
Many games can come and go…but DnD is sacrosanct. It’s holy on it’s own merits. I am a purist on this one, and as such, I might be doomed to nerd hell…. so be it. But any “DnD” game that is not faithful to the original PnP rules… well, it just aint DnD…. and I have no recollection of “LFG, phat lewt dragon PST” in any DnD I ever played….
It’s late… the nurse says it’s bedtime….
The big problem facing it, I think, is the lack of ‘Dungeonmaster’ playable class – the key defining aspect of the whole D&D-style genre.
Then again, NWN did offer this, only for me to discover that I’m far too lazy too put that much effort in any more – years of grinding have beaten that out of me. Very few people woudl make decent DMs, especially for a bunch of anoymous pinatta-beating WoW migrants.
I’ll give it a go, but am not expecting anything signficantly different from EQ2, WoW, et al, and not expecting to last more than two months in it.
OK, I will say a few things.
1. Content is not huge. There is something like 130 quests. They have not added any since Alpha. They promise more after “go live”. No faith that it will be enough, considering questing is really all there is in this game.
2. It does feel closer to D&D than any other MMOG, as it should. The DM plays a part by putting text on your screen. It might tell the rogue he senses a draft, but nobody else will see the message. With integrated voice chat, there is a need to communicate urgently amongst the party, so they better have it working right.
3. There are quests with a lot of traps, so a Rogue is needed. They designed the dungeons to be something you take a little time working through it, but I suspect people will hit the cheat sites and rush through it killing everything they see, even though they get no XP.
4. Solo? Forget about it.
5. People playing beta hard, seem the think there is a month or two worth of content in game. Ouch. I could not get very far in the test because it required groups and I really had a hard time finding a group to do my specific quest.
6. I think it looks great, and you can use vertical space. Climbing ladders, what a concept!
7. Combat. Love it or hate it. I hated it.
8. It is no WoW or EQ2. It’s more like Guild Wars, in my opinion – without any PvP or henchmen. But add a monthly fee. Good luck.
9. The quests are real quests. No “kill ten rats” quests here. Sweet.
10. I’m with Inhibit, if it ain’t Gygax, it ain’t D&D.
my experiences since alpha…
this is the worst mmo that is going to make more money than it deserves, due to its license.
Drypulse: vs SWG, considering CU and NGE?
I was part of the stress tests (two of them) and have to say the following things:
– it’s very pretty
– it follows the latest d&d rulesets pretty closely (which I DON’T like – v.1 for me thank you – where’s my THAC0, what the hell is a familiar….etc, I want Demons!!!)
– it’s an active, graphical IRC chatroom (the pub) that launches an instanced and totally disjoint “dungeon” (read: the game itself) — read below
— read above – it’s like Guild Wars, but you have to pay for it
Gone are the days of the old school multiplayer rpg’s (think Diablo) or fps’s (BF, Quake, HL) which USED to allow hanging around free GameSpy rooms or in game multiplayer clients (also free). Not much can be done outside of a dungeon, other than the aforementioned graphical chatting. As far as in-dungeon is concerned, it’s pretty slick, nice and fast, with only occassional lag while in a group. MMORPG? Certainly not! I don’t classify five of my buddies talking about the Toronto Maple Leafs’ last game while killing ten rats as being “Massively Multiplayer”….and I don’t think we should have to pay the same amount as you would on say Anarchy Online or Eve – truly massive worlds. Anywho, just my 3 and a half cents worth (CDN $ still pretty weak)
> Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice … you can’t get fooled again.
I think that’s just a saying in Texas :)
Zubon, i steared clear entirely of the trainwreck known as SWG, so i can’t make that comparison.
there has certainly be alot of comparison to guild wars tho recently. due to the heavy instancing. in guild wars defense tho, their instancing and the areas you go to have far more land to wander in if you choose. not to mention guild wars is much much more polished and actually enjoyable to play.
ddo is just miserable, i feel sorry for anyone that buys it on the name alone without knowing what they’re getting into. way too much instancing for my blood. i prefer to solo most the time, so i’m fucked there too. the graphics and animation for my tastes are uninspired and bland. combat is more of a chore than anything exciting or fun.
i tried to give turbine another chance due to the license they bought, and i learned once again that this company does not make games to my liking. i won’t be putting anymore faith in them, not even for lotr.
but hey, i’m sure there are people somewhere that like this kind of thing… ?
Wow. I haven’t played D&D since 3rd edition hit. I remember playing Baldurs Gate, that was fun. Eye of the Beholder was amazing the first time I saw it. I have not read a positive review of this game yet. Realy sounds like they missed the AD&D mark, sorry D&D…..I miss the advanced part. TBH though the work needed to rival the old pen and paper games would be daunting. Who can forget having your party burn down a villiage because the mage couldn’t get parchment at a decent price, or that time Rusty’s elf was turned into a lich. A game where all 130 quest are cookie cutter copies just would not be the same.
I have always liked the idea of having real players play the good guys and the bad guys. I did not stay in CoH long enough to see if CoV hit the mark. I never played WoW but I hear it failed at this. DDO, and any clone there of, would never embrace such an idea. EvE is the only game that got this right, the NPCs are mere diversions to full out PvP. Imagine if DDO had alowed that level of complexity.