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Enigma
Member UncommonPosts: 11,384
And again... I got bored of it.
Why of why oh why in the name of all that is Holy and Just did they:
A. Set the damn game in Eberron. That has to be the single worse realm in DnD ever construed. How.... glowy crystals and sentient golems. How original.
B. Stuck in the city with nowhere to go. 95% of all of the games Quests and activities takes place in a city. Can you imagine spending your entire MMO life of EQ2 adventuring within the gates of freeport? I mean, nevermind the fact you get no xp for killing mobs or forget the fact that grouped dungeon runs is a free for all or forget the fact that they slaughtered over 60% of the DnD Rules whilst making a "DnD" MMO.... Im just pissed that Im confined to a city and nowhere to go. No damn world to explore. None at all.
C. No evil alignment. What DnD game doesnt give you an evil alignment?!?
There it's off my chest lol
People who have to create conspiracy and hate threads to further a cause lacks in intellectual comprehension of diversity.
Comments
PS.. I know they didnt have a choice in making it Eberron...but then again...if they let us explore the world...I could have overlooked the fact.
Whether or not Turbine was responsible for making it Eberron, it still sucks. lol
People who have to create conspiracy and hate threads to further a cause lacks in intellectual comprehension of diversity.
People who have to create conspiracy and hate threads to further a cause lacks in intellectual comprehension of diversity.
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Promote what you love instead of bashing what you hate.
I remember oh so long ago starting my first trip through the world of DnD, and lo and behold it began in a city in a simple tavern. Turbine has stated numerous times they wanted to bring the old pen and paper feeling to life in an online version and I believe they have come as close as you can in today's world. The problem with that is people expected more of a sandbox and that is not what you experienced with the original DnD. The DM always set you up to go his way and not yours, even though you thought you were making your own decisions. That is how Turbine has done it, they are the DM's and we are the PC's. Many people don't like that kind of gameplay anymore because they weren't exposed to it through the pen and paper games like many of us were, they only experienced their styles of gameplay through video games and I want to cry when I see what it has done to the imagination of gaming today.
The faults of bringing DnD from pen and paper to the vid are many, but the main one now is the fact that people love numbers today and DDO just doesn't pump em out like WoW, EQ2, EVE and others. You don't see uber lvl 70-100 characters, items, etc when you play DDO, but you see what you would have seen if you had played the pnp DnD.
DDO is a great game, but will never reach the masses because it came out in the wrong decade to get the real interest it should have gotten.
Furthermore Turbine listens to the player base (for better and for worse, sadly): they added the open areas, the solo content, the PvP, all of these, even though the game was not designed to support them.
As a niche game it caters to specific people: those who don't want to waste time traveling, those who don't want a second job, those who don't want to endlessly grind the same mobs, those who want a fast paced, yet still complex game mechanic.
DnD is about tweaking the rules, when I played DM I tweaked the rules, and it was still a heck of a good DnD experience! All that said, I don't like how they ruined touch spells, but DnD is also about moving ahead with the times, and I am an open minded man, I can accept and adapt change.
The plague is, many people just can't seem to think out of the (very boring, might I add) EQ box. Games have evolved, I like them complex, but I like them fast paced, I don't need 6 seconds to figure out my next move, I need 1/2. (AoC seems to be heading the right way)
All in all, I think DDO is a solid game, you just have to evaluate it as a stand alone product. Having said that DDO has very many irritating faults I could also spend a lot of characters talking about (like the existence of +6 items at lv 14), but that's a different topic.
Oh yeah, and Eb really is a weak setting.
I'm still enjoying my time in DDO when I get to do something. I have such a difficult time getting groups since I just now (finally) reached level 5 on my wizard. I joined one of the bigger guilds on my server, Umber Hulks, but I still have a helluva time doing anything since I'm a legit lowbie. Seems like everyone except me is level cap and only wants to do the same couple quests over and over. From what I've seen there's tons of quests in the game but only a few get used.
I kinda look at DDO as a hybrid casual hardcore game. Hardcore in that it's similar to being a raider in other games, login, get a group for some uber dungeon or raid, logout. But the content doesn't take 4+ hours like the other games (at least nothing I've done up to level 5 has taken that much time) and with the scripting and better environments, it's more entertaining. No need to play all day, and the quests take less time once you get them going, so that's casual as well.
I'm fine with Eberron though. I'm not a D&D/d20 player. I've read Forgotten Realms novels forever, Dragonlance (I'd love to see a DL MMO but unlikely now that it's no longer part of D&D), and they're fine but FR especially is very 'put a fork in it, it's done' traditional fantasy at this point. At least Eberron has a different take on the whole thing. We all whine "we want different" but as soon as we're given different we whine "noooooo, we wanted the same!" Turbine has hinted they have multiple projects in the works they can't discuss yet. I can't help but wonder, perhaps hope even, that AC3 is one, and DDO: Eberron is the other, giving us a full Eberron to explore, turn-based true D&D combat, and both NPC quests to follow and sandbox elements, including player-created (but Turbine-approved) quests. Oh, and no Dungeon Master talking to me all the damn time.
People who have to create conspiracy and hate threads to further a cause lacks in intellectual comprehension of diversity.
People who have to create conspiracy and hate threads to further a cause lacks in intellectual comprehension of diversity.
When I DM'ed I did as you did, made side quests and such to branch out what players could do, but what I am talking about is mainly the modules that were sold at stores and hobby shops. If you remember some of those in the early days, they were alot like what DDO is now, very narrow in what you could explore. Each module set you up in certain areas with little exploration outside those areas. The sandbox feel of DnD didn't come till later when they consolidated all the modules into a single world.
You stated you started in '86, hahahah I got you beat by about 7 years. That is our difference in perspectives, you got into it when it had more of an open feel than when I started. I agree that DDO would have done alot better if it was set up more open, but there intention from interviews and statements was to keep it centralized. What they did wrong was make the city WAY too small. I had imagined this huge sprawling city like you would have seen in Thieve's World books, but what we got was a village basically.
Maybe they will change things with and xpac or not, only time will tell.
People who have to create conspiracy and hate threads to further a cause lacks in intellectual comprehension of diversity.
hey maybe we shold get together and host a PnP session over live chat! Man, would that be something.
I remember my best DM session. It was when Ravenloft first came out. God, I love that realm. So full of misery lol. I remember we placed it after a halloween party. All the lights were turned off save for a few candles. There was four players and me. It was a very scarey atmosphere.
But yes.. you do got me beat LOL. I bow down to your experience
People who have to create conspiracy and hate threads to further a cause lacks in intellectual comprehension of diversity.
Candlelight sessions, only had like 3 of them, but my friends didn't like my sarcastic and demoralizing tone, so I had to lighten up a wee bit afterwards.
And wasn't it you that said that you heard a rumor that a Baldur's Gate MMO was being worked on? If that was true it would be most excellent.
I heard a rumor on the DDO forums that one of the reasons why the game was sooooo limiting was that they rehashed the old AC2 servers and just didn't have enough memory/processing power to flesh out the game the way it really needed to be.
Could just be a rumor, but if it's true, major blunder on Turbine's part just to save a few bucks. There have also been rumors on the forums that server merges are coming soon. But again, this could just be a rumor.
Lastly, just a point of observation, DDO has one of the worst turnovers for an MMO company I have ever seen, one week your dealing with one senior GM who does something he's not supposed to be doing and bam, he's gone and you're dealing with someone completely different. Their developers get fired left and right which may be a reason for the inconsistencies in the game. But their biggest fault has been their total abandonment of the rule set. It's one thing to DM and "tweak" rules, it's another thing to abandon them altogether.
Ahhhh Dark Sun kinda makes me all teary eyed " sigh " those were the days,I miss games like that so much boo hoo.
I have always found that NWN is the game most true to the PnP D&D, I love NWN online role play mods, there is no game where you will find more role players than in NWN and NWN2.
Well, there is one new campaign that lets you be evil. But everyone is SUPPOSED to be neutral or evil in that one. A guy in my group wanted to play his paladin. We also have a chaotic evil cleric. Yeah, we have to fudge a bit when playing that one, which is one of the reasons why evil characters aren't allowed in sanctioned play. D&D is a group game, and evil doesn't play well with others.
Dunno what RPGA is, but evil characters don't play well with others, correct, but they make it fun! The friction between characters is more entertaining than friction between npc's any day. I would never bar anyone from playing an evil character. In case you are thinking of evil as in 'the devil' (and concequently, good as 'a saint') thats a broad overgeneralization. Evil characters are self serving, which alot of people are. If I were to equate those labels to real-life people, those self-serving(evil) people can still be functioning members of society. They still have coworkers, teammates on sports teams, and get married.
I had a nice lawful evil character that really made our campaign interesting. He wasn't dark lord of the underworld evil, but given the chance he'd take the more evil route
RPGA is the official PnP D&D Role Playing Games Association. Its kinda like this big group of DMs & players that do different things like sponsored game events at store locations and conventions. You can't take an evil alignment or do evil things but that doesn't mean you can't do things that aren't unlawful like steal or breaking and entering. Just no killing and slaughtering of the innocent for example; which is usually what associates with evil in D&D.Dunno what RPGA is, but evil characters don't play well with others, correct, but they make it fun! The friction between characters is more entertaining than friction between npc's any day. I would never bar anyone from playing an evil character. In case you are thinking of evil as in 'the devil' (and concequently, good as 'a saint') thats a broad overgeneralization. Evil characters are self serving, which alot of people are. If I were to equate those labels to real-life people, those self-serving(evil) people can still be functioning members of society. They still have coworkers, teammates on sports teams, and get married.
I personaly enjoy DDO. Its not what I'd hoped it be when they first started the spin for it, but its enjoyable as it is. I log in one or two nights a week with a couple of friends we group up recruit a few people (none of us are max level we're all around lvl 6 /7 on Argonnesson which is a really well populated server) we play an adventure or two and just generally enjoy ourselves with shits n giggles.
The whole idea that all MMO's have to be serious exploring, conquering, pvping, raiding time consuming games to me is just ridiculous. There's already enough 'hardcore' time wasting MMO's out there that are perfectly fun (i really enjoyed eq and eq2) I needed a break, I needed an end to the worry and seriousness of other MMos where if you can't raid or pvp alot your left out of the fun, and DDO has given me that.
Like all games it has frustrating points, like I'd really enjoy if we had some crafting. D&D crafted items are awsome. You either like ddo or you don't. Case Closed (atleast in my book its just pointless to complain at this point DDO would not survive a major NGE style overhaul).
Please Refer to Doom Cat with all conspiracies & evil corporation complaints. He'll give you the simple explination of..WE"RE ALL DOOMED!
DDO recently had server upgrades as well. Yes, server merges are coming to help with the population, which will be a good thing though many of the DDO regulars question some of the choices of which servers merge but oh well. Even if DDO did in fact use the AC2 servers, what would that matter? The game design is the same.
Everything regarding D&D and DDO rules, and I mean everything has to get approved by Wizards of the Coast first. If WotC says it's ok, then it's not "abandoning" anything at all. PnP already has various "alternate" rulesets, and D&D has always said "the rules are guidelines, DMs can alter/change/ignore what they want for their campaign." Turbine is DDO's DM and DDO is their campaign. They have to decide what actually works in the sense of a videogame and WotC has to approve it.
Yes, you "traveled" in your imagination, skipping most of the world, and what was left was controlled by the DM and tailored to your specific group. That can't happen in an MMORPG. You can "travel" in DDO too, and again skip the mundane stuff and get to the point of it. A number of the upper level content isn't in Stormreach.
True D&D (or any other PnP RPG) is flat-out impossible in an open world MMORPG for many reasons. It can be done for a single-player or multi-player game such as the NWN series, but not in an MMORPG where you just never know who is going where, what they're doing, and how big the group is (or are they solo?). The only way it works in an MMORPG is to use only the PnP RPG IP (gee, enough acronyms?) only, and throw out the ruleset. Which would completely piss off the PnP crowd. It's a lose-lose situation, and companies are much better off using non-PnP concepts and IP for their MMORPGs.
It's important to understand what RPGA is because the RPGA is a part of WOTC, which is a part of Hasbro, which owns D&D. I see people say DDO doesn't let them do this or that like their PnP games do, but there's a lot of things that simply aren't allowed in RPGA campaigns or at conventions, and plenty of the stuff people want included in DDO only ever happens in their own particular home games, or in older versions of D&D.
RPGA also can save a lot of time since your DM can download pre-made modules for what particular sanctioned campaigns you are playing. And if you play at conventions, you pretty much have to have sanctioned characters. For those who don't like Eberron, there is still Living Greyhawk that can be played, too. Living Greyhawk is more of a grass-roots campaign, almost completely run by volunteers. I think WoTC would get rid of it if they could, but it's too popular. If you like the opposite of Monty Haul, try Living Greyhawk. If you can take crafting feats in there, you usually do, otherwise you can't afford much. 25-point-buy, too. Ouch.
There are disadvantages to playing RPGA campaigns, though. One glaring problem is the previous two main Eberron campaigns they ran something happened near the end, and if you didn't know the right people, you probably weren't getting a copy of the final module(s) to play. And let me tell ya, it's not fun to level a character for a year+, get to 15 or so, and then have the final module that finishes out the year-long story arc not be released for home play. One of them just turned out to be like a tournament mod anyway... get as far as you can until you die. Pretty dumb.
So, anyway, that's probably part of why you can't be evil in DDO. Like in Terminator: "You can't go around killing people!" "Why not?" "You just can't!"