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Is DDO Like the Classic RPG?
Deathclock
Member Posts: 1
Hey, I am a big fan of the old pencil and paper roll playing game called Dungeons and Dragons. I always looked at this game and watched all different reviews for the game, but I always wondered, is this game like the RPG?
I know the game came out when 3.5 was the new edition, but now there is 4th edition, and I want to know if this game is at all similar to 3.5 edition (Like the ability scores, combat, etc.)
Thanks in advance if you help me out. 
Comments
It is like the 3.5 RPG as far as stats, feats and skills go, but with the limitations of an electronic DM and quite a few house rules to make it work as a MMO. So less DM roleplay (nothing to stop you doing your own) and a lot more fast paced action.
IMO it has the spirit of D&D, a small group working together to solve a quest. It doesn't anally follow the rules like NWN at the expense of boring gameplay.
Give the trial a try, is the surest way.
I don't think explanations will really help you definitely try the trial. The trial is pretty good, gives almost a full capabilities.
The problem is that DDO is both fairly faithful but also a fairly wide departure since the combat is real time/collision based.
Just how much people think it captures D&D varies widely. For example playing a rogue and disarming traps and doing acrobatics is captured far better than any other MMO has ever even come close to ( except maybe Neocron ).
But its also mainly centered on dungeon crawls if you want a campaign style thing then it will be alot different.
Is you want to play DnD games that are more true to the pnp version then ditch this and go with Baldurs gate and the old Black Isle, Bioware games. Yes I know most of em are 2nd ed but they are still more fun to play after 10 years then DDO.
its a real shame DDO was not created in the true spirit of D&D....
...as a SANDBOX
That's not exactly true at all.
Or, to be more specific, it all depended on the DM. We always had a campaign and if the players tried to take it too far away from what was planned for the evening we would steer them back.
So, it's only a sandbox if your DM ran your sessions that way.
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
That's not exactly true at all.
Or, to be more specific, it all depended on the DM. We always had a campaign and if the players tried to take it too far away from what was planned for the evening we would steer them back.
So, it's only a sandbox if your DM ran your sessions that way.
True, tabletop is only really a "sandbox" for the DM and that only goes as far as that individual is willing or able to take it, everyone else is like an MMORPG player. They ride along on the content and bitch when its not up to par or not enough
The DM is more like the content dev lol.
In all reality, TP RPGs are just as linear as anything else they just have the flexibility of a human in charge to handle all the whims of the players and administer the rules.
Wow... this is utterly hilarious. D&D was linear, huh? Let's see...
D&D may have sometimes been limited in scope to something less than an entire world, but it was never anything but a sandbox. If you wanted to beat down a door or pickaxe your way through a wall, it was something you could attempt. Claiming otherwise is beyond silly.
and thats what i really liked about D&D you could try anything you wanted, and the DM could also improvise too.
you could play through the same dungeon dozens of times and it would never be the same.
Wow... this is utterly hilarious. D&D was linear, huh? Let's see...
Within the context of a planned adventure or module, yes. Not sure if you were trying to take it out of context to be a smarty pants.
If you tried to read my rambling you would see that I said it was a "sandbox" from the DM or the adventure / campaign creator perspective. The players enjoyed whatever the DM had whipped up and took the ball and ran with it in whatever direction they could. The main difference is the interaction between DM and player in tabletop. DMs are free to intergrate whatever the player may suggest or desire to custom any story / adventure to suit any taste or location.
So yes, it is in a sense, linear from the player perspective. Unless the DM was able to totally create "on the fly" which is very difficult to consistantly do with any sort of quality. Usually it gets blended in.
Everything is linear to some degree. Choice is what it comes down to. A well preparred DM may have had several adventure locations / storylines preparred and the party had options to do whatever they wanted in whatever direction or storyline.
It is all totally dependent on the ability of the DM much like MMO's are completely at the mercy of Devs as very few MMO's have player created content and the MMO player base has shown in the last few years they don't really have the desire for that sort of tool and seem pretty content with killing 10 rats over and over.
DDO for example. In the few days I have played I have observed that this game is extremely linear, right down to doing the same quest and areas for any alts that one might create. No real storyline and hardly any scope. If this was a P&P campaign it would be a pretty poor one. Individual dungeons are a lot of fun but thats about all it has.
Anyway, enough of that. Next time don't just read what you want to read to suit your sarcasim.
I read what you said and I understood what you were trying to say, and it was complete hogwash. A DM has to improvise, he has to know the materials, because the players can say anything they want and he has to have an answer.
Player: I am going to try to pickaxe my way through this wall.
DM: The stone is incredibly dense and hard, you make no appreciable progress through the stone, and your hammering has attracted a band of orcs...
If you had a DM that said, instead, "no you can't do that," then you weren't really playing D&D. The players help make the storyline in a D&D session, just as much as the DM and/or module maker.
I read what you said and I understood what you were trying to say, and it was complete hogwash. A DM has to improvise, he has to know the materials, because the players can say anything they want and he has to have an answer.
Player: I am going to try to pickaxe my way through this wall.
DM: The stone is incredibly dense and hard, you make no appreciable progress through the stone, and your hammering has attracted a band of orcs...
If you had a DM that said, instead, "no you can't do that," then you weren't really playing D&D. The players help make the storyline in a D&D session, just as much as the DM and/or module maker.
That is not sandbox play that is freedom of choice. There is a difference.
D&D is exactly what the DM and the players agree upon. If the players like how their dm does it then they will play he does it. Otherwise they can do it themselves or find another. Otherwise, a DM can very easily say "no, you can't do that by any number of ways".
This might be how you played D&D but I recall the creator saying that you can follow the rules or break the rules or do whatever you need to do in order to make it fun.
So yes, the players can say "I'll pickaxe through the wall" but that is not exactly sandbox play. Because they can't really alter the story if the dm doesn't want them to. Or decide on another place to go that circumvents the evenign's play. A sandbox would allow a player to do whatever he/she wants. But D&D only allows the player to react however he/she wants.
So yes, you can attemp to knock down as many doors as you want. All I have to do as DM is say "nothign happens, the bladed dulls, there are blue green sparks flying as your axe hits the door and you notice the blade getting dull, this might blunt or ruin the weapon".
That will make the player stop pretty fast. So that is their reaction choice but not really their choice to "do whatever they want regardless of the story.
In that example, if there was a throne room on the other side and burrowing through that wall would bypass monsters or guardians that the dm wanted them to encounter then in a complete sandbox game I would think the dm would have to let the players get through that wall if it was feasible to do so. But that isn't exactly fun if they bypass everything that is planned.
I know when I was a dm I had a story planned. Sure, the players could tackle the story in their own way, take on encounters as they saw fit, but in the end, there was a beginning, middle and an end. In the end they were going to make it to the large circular room with the large caterpillar being wearing a Top Hat (this was a friend's campaign actually but I like the example).
In the end they were gonig to experience a story and be a part of it but there was no way that they would not find the caterpillar with the top hat.
Esecially after we spent so much time creating all the possibilites that we saw as being fun.
D&D is about a story that the DM creates and the players get to experience in their own way. But there is no way that they are going to say "hey, let's get out of here and head to "x" continent to get dancing women. Because though I can make up some stuff to get them there, that is not what I spent my time on, sometimes hours.
So I saw D&D as more like module making.
You don't start Vault of the Drow and then say "you know, let's go and hang out in Greyhawk and pick up chicks". Becuase I'm going to say "ok, sounds good" and then my players will head up and just as they reach the surface there will be an ambush and they WILL be taken to the Vault of the Drow.
How they react within the story, that is their play.
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
If there is a difference, it's that sandbox play in a computer game would always aspire to freedom of choice, but would never be actually able to obtain it completely. I think they agreed in another thread that freedom of choice was the defining characteristic of a sandbox game. Personally, I would equate imaginative childhood play in a sandbox with miniature-like figures to be almost perfectly identical to D&D play. And, obviously, that is from where the term "sandbox" was drawn.
Bypassing something that is "planned?" You had the whole encounter mapped out, including the actions of every player? Sounds like you are a domineering DM that is actually mostly interested in role-performing, not role-playing.
The only thing that should have been planned was the existence of an encounter. Bypassing such an encounter is a perfectly effective means of dealing with it, and if you are into playing D&D rather than performing it, bypassing encounters is usually the preferable method if you like keeping your character alive. A DM could always invent realistic-seeming scenarios on-the-fly to help control abrupt ending of a session, but other than that PnP D&D is supposed to be about interactive storyline creation. IMO, if a DM wasn't letting players control their direction while the DM controlled opponents and peripheries, then that DM wasn't playing right.
The bottom line is that people had a myriad of ways of playing D&D. None of the acceptable ways included steering characters by limiting choice, which is what a sandbox is all about.
If when you say Classic you mean the old boxed sets of D&D or the first rules printed under AD&D then No, DDO is nothing like Classic D&D.
DDO is a D&D themed MMO with a dynamic loot based system and realtime tactile combat mechanics that was mostly based upon the 3.5 rule set.
Regardless of it being like, or unlike, the classic version it is still a good game with one of the best combat systems to be had in an online game. The narrations in dungeons do provide for a similar feeling as if you were playing D&D but it's about as close as you can get to it being like Classic D&D/AD&D.
If there is a difference, it's that sandbox play in a computer game would always aspire to freedom of choice, but would never be actually able to obtain it completely. I think they agreed in another thread that freedom of choice was the defining characteristic of a sandbox game. Personally, I would equate imaginative childhood play in a sandbox with miniature-like figures to be almost perfectly identical to D&D play. And, obviously, that is from where the term "sandbox" was drawn.
Bypassing something that is "planned?" You had the whole encounter mapped out, including the actions of every player? Sounds like you are a domineering DM that is actually mostly interested in role-performing, not role-playing.
The only thing that should have been planned was the existence of an encounter. Bypassing such an encounter is a perfectly effective means of dealing with it, and if you are into playing D&D rather than performing it, bypassing encounters is usually the preferable method if you like keeping your character alive. A DM could always invent realistic-seeming scenarios on-the-fly to help control abrupt ending of a session, but other than that PnP D&D is supposed to be about interactive storyline creation. IMO, if a DM wasn't letting players control their direction while the DM controlled opponents and peripheries, then that DM wasn't playing right.
The bottom line is that people had a myriad of ways of playing D&D. None of the acceptable ways included steering characters by limiting choice, which is what a sandbox is all about.
It seems you don't understand.
Every encounter is made. What the players do with that encounter is up to them.
Our campaigns were like modules. Effectively an interactive book. There is no point in allowing players to bypass that if you are going to give them freedom to just "leave" the area and do what they want. What would be the point of creating the scenario? All you would have to do is to have random encounters and be done with it. In that way, sure D&D would be a sandbox.
But following a module is not sandbox. It is a linnear story with the choice of the players as to how they would experience it.
You have to understand the difference between "freedom of choice" within a given scenario and "being allowed to do whatever you wanted to do".
A sandbox is "freedome of choice" but also the ability to do whatever you want to do. This works very well in a video game where you can just do what you want without worrying whether or not your fellow players want to join you.
so, if D&D were a complete sandbox then you might have one player deciding that he was going to go to greyhawk, another player deciding he wanted to seek out the long lost sword of Atlantis, another set of players exploring the cave and another who wanted to craft.
But obviously as a DM you are faced with the idea of that scenario not being "fun". So you create parameters and you let your players work within those parameters. If a player finds somethign that will break the scenario you need to alter the scenario so it doesn't break. I do believe you CAN do that if it makes sense to the evening's entertainment. ; )
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
I think it's you who is having a hard time understanding. I'll try to make a quick itemization of the hurdles you don't seem to be able to get over, then I'll be done with this. No point arguing with people who aren't going to do anything but repeat themselves over and over.
1) D&D is linear because the players can't leave the group.
Wrong. A player or character can leave the group because he doesn't like what they are doing, has real life problems, or whatever. Freedom still intact.
2) D&D is linear because the prepared materials must be explored fully.
Wrong. None of my groups ever explored the materials fully. We actually wanted to explore as much as possible, but some things were avoided because they looked too dangerous. We most definitely didn't try to spring every trap we came across.
3) D&D is linear because your group all winds up in the same place at the same time.
Wrong. Some characters may die. Some may leave, as explained before. Most will choose to stay with the plot and follow their quest to completion. They may not end up there at the same time.
4) D&D is linear because the prepared materials are the entire scope of what's available.
Wrong. A module is a tiny universe, a separate sandbox of its own. Seldom is anything encountered in a particular order, and as I've already noted characters and/or players can leave the sandbox at any point they wish. Freedom still intact.
A D&D campaign, or module, will always have more available function than any computer game... ever. I'll repeat it one last time: calling D&D linear or anti-sandbox is beyond ridiculous. It's actually the epitome of sandbox play.
I think it's you who is having a hard time understanding. I'll try to make a quick itemization of the hurdles you don't seem to be able to get over, then I'll be done with this. No point arguing with people who aren't going to do anything but repeat themselves over and over.
1) D&D is linear because the players can't leave the group.
Wrong. A player or character can leave the group because he doesn't like what they are doing, has real life problems, or whatever. Freedom still intact.
rolls eyes. The "party" ok? My god. Of course a player can leave "the group" if he doesn't like what the dm is doing. But if you have 6 players they can't leave the party and do whatever they want at that session and keep up exciting narratives for all players throughout the evening and be particular successful. Otherwise you can find yourself with 6 different things going on. The energy tends to wane when that happens in my experience.
2) D&D is linear because the prepared materials must be explored fully.
Wrong. None of my groups ever explored the materials fully. We actually wanted to explore as much as possible, but some things were avoided because they looked too dangerous. We most definitely didn't try to spring every trap we came across.
Rolls eyes again. Of course they don't have to go and trip every trap and find every room. But they do have to play in the module (and I use that loosely to indicate the adventure prepared that evening - or will you be so adamant to also point out that players can play at any time of th day. My god man) ) If you prepare an adventure in a tower and the players decide to go outside and find a sea adventure, sure you will be able to give them somethign but is it going to have the same depth of actually creating somethnig as opposed to making up something on the fly?
3) D&D is linear because your group all winds up in the same place at the same time.
Wrong. Some characters may die. Some may leave, as explained before. Most will choose to stay with the plot and follow their quest to completion. They may not end up there at the same time.
I agree they don't all have to end up at the same place at the same time. However in my experience, once the players start going to different places you start creating different story lines. This is fun however unless you want to fracture your entire group and allow them to explore different places at the same time you are going to end up running multiple sessions. that is time consuming at best.
4) D&D is linear because the prepared materials are the entire scope of what's available.
Wrong. A module is a tiny universe, a separate sandbox of its own. Seldom is anything encountered in a particular order, and as I've already noted characters and/or players can leave the sandbox at any point they wish. Freedom still intact.
Not at all. The DM must be able to adapt to whatever happens. no one is saying differntly. However as I pointed out in my previous post, the game is NOT a sandbox because unless you are willing to allow your life to be a full time DM you are not going to have 6 or more sessions running at the same time or within a week. Who has the time?
A D&D campaign, or module, will always have more available function than any computer game... ever. I'll repeat it one last time: calling D&D linear or anti-sandbox is beyond ridiculous. It's actually the epitomy of sandbox play.
Yes, I completely agree. HOWEVER what a video game allows players to do is to simultaneously explore completely different content at the same time.
So, If in DDO for example, I log in and I don' t want to do a certain mission and I instead want to spend the entirety of my gameplay crafting or doing an outside adventure I can because the game allows that. But in a real D&D session the DM has only so much time in a given night.
Are you going to say that having 3 parties in the same night doing different things at the same time is going to be as remotely successful? Because it seems in my experience one group eventually gets restlesswaiting for you to finish up with what another party is doing if that parties particular leg of the adventure starts taking longer.
Sorry I don't exactly agree with you so that is essentially that.
I feel you are talking about an idea of D&D where the DM has infinite time to cover whatever any player wants to do at any particular session. I also feel like you are taking the definition of Linear too specifically. Take one of the D&D modules for instance. Of course the players are going miss rooms, and take different parts at different speeds. But the evening's entertainment will revolve around that module. And a good story teller allows for the drama to build and come to some sort of cliff hanger toward the end of the session. We built in actual evolving plot with heightened tension as many sessions that we cold have. This created a sense of narrative that really kept our players interested.
You aren't going to be so at the whim of what the players are going to do that every time you prepare for something they take you somewhere completely different. Or may YOU are. We did find every evening that keeping things together allowed us to have a good time.
If players fractured within the given adventure we allowed for some separation but brought it back together as it ended up being too fractured with everyone doing different things. I also found the energy of the evening waned much faster when the players did things that broke up the party and kept them broken up. it also created the need for so many different and smaller narratives that if allowed to continue would result in too many different d&d sessions.
It is not the DM's job to just cater to what the players want. If you believe this then again we disagree. I believe it is the dm's job to be the coordinator of an evening's entertainment for a group of people who are there because they like the adventures you create a well as how you manage the ebb and flow of content.
Not just someone to roll dice and tell the players the result of that dice. But to really allow for their decisions to build upon a greater narrative. I would also say that it is very akin to improvisational theater. And NO, in improvisational theater you dont' just find everyone doing anythign they want. At least in something that will allow for an audience to enjoy and not be overwhelmed by some sort of experimental dadaesque experience. There is a spine to what goes on on stage and an eventual touching on key plot points to some sort of climax that has meaning for the players as well as the audience.
I will throw in a caveat though. The idea of D&D is so powerful that it allows for people with such competely opposing ideas of what it is about (you and I) to create fantastical settings for their players and most likely players who have extremely diverse ideas about what an evening's entertainment should be.
As I write all this I think the issue with our disagreement is that you are sitting on one side of a quarter and I on the other and we are arguing vehemently on which face the quarter has. This most likely has to do with our own personal experiences with our own group of players and what we both found to have worked.
My players came to sessions to experience a more theatrical but cohesive narrative which they could take part in and shape to their own liking. It seems that you players responded best to your extensive knowledge of you universe and the ability to allow them to go where they wanted to go.
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
If the guy who originally posted this thread is still reading, yes it's like the original game. Amazingly so. Now if you're following the new rule system I can't vouche for that, because I took one look at the books and said "Wow this seems a lot like, well... WoW."
So with that being said if you're looking for a decent MMO that has a new feel and definently unique character creation system (perhaps the only two that allow as much freedom are Asheron's Call and Ultima), then you should really try this game.
Alot of what you'll do is repetitive, but no more so than doing the same freaking instance ten times in WoW to get your Tier V belt (always a fun experience).
I really don't know many people who have quit this game because it wasn't fun to play, most people have left because it's hard to find groups and you end up spending alot of time looking for people to adventure with.
If you're reading this, you probably need to get some sun.
Answer is NO, nope, DDO aint the old D&D we all love.
The rules are all distorced, not all core races in game, classes are slightly diferent from the core ruleset ones.
Casters use an hilarious mana pool instead of the normal # of spells per day, wich makes them quite overpowered and almost like wall of fire + fireball machine guns.
Traps are useless 99% of the time. Dungeons are not random although lately they been adding some random details like diferent locations for the traps.
The npc hit points attacks and defenses are so overboosted that the only common thing between them and the monsters compendium is the name.
Loads of npcs are imune to effects like vorpals etc.. making those special wepaons almost useless.
Npc bosses pretty much imune to almost everything.
The world is claustrophobic, you have a city and areas in that city you can go to after zoning. Theres no open areas [ a few 'open' maps limited in size wich you can run from one side to the other in 5 minutes ] and thats it.
No mounts, you just teleport to all your locations, not even random encounters on the way to anywhere you go.
Crafting very simple system that aint nothing compared to d&d crafting.
Graphics totally outdated.
Funny armors, shields and looks on most wearable clothes. Really bad art in this point. I wonder sometimes where did they recruited the 'graphic artists' from.
The game is nto all bad tho.. the combat system is very good anf fun.. and thats about it.
Dont listen to Eduardo. I'm fan of D&D 2nd and 3rd edition and I think DDo did the best adoptaion of the rules for the video game along with Temple of Elemental Evil.
I don't think he is incorrect about the art design. This seems to my thinking to be a general problem with Turbine as I really don't like the armor and weapon design (for the most part) in LOTRO. And their characters leave something to be desired. Plastic and weird looking hair, weird faces, etc.
I also have to say the world is a bit silly. it's a little too "oh, we're in a magical place... look, magic permeates everything in the form of glyphs and shimmering rings" and other such things. Still I do find it enjoyable. Just in small doses.
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
I don't think he is incorrect about the art design. This seems to my thinking to be a general problem with Turbine as I really don't like the armor and weapon design (for the most part) in LOTRO. And their characters leave something to be desired. Plastic and weird looking hair, weird faces, etc.
I also have to say the world is a bit silly. it's a little too "oh, we're in a magical place... look, magic permeates everything in the form of glyphs and shimmering rings" and other such things. Still I do find it enjoyable. Just in small doses.
Unfortunately I agree here with you. But it was not Turbine's decision to use Eberron world. Eberron is the only world made by Wizards of the Coast (owners of D&D license) and wanted to promote it. It was their requirement for Turbine in order to use D&D 3rd edition rules.
Eberron is a world full of magic and weird artificial wonders. It's a steampunk high magic setting with a diversity of inhabitans similiar to Planescape world. I would still rather prefer low magic more like a medieval setting, but I realize this is not a thing we can blame Turbine for.
I don't think he is incorrect about the art design. This seems to my thinking to be a general problem with Turbine as I really don't like the armor and weapon design (for the most part) in LOTRO. And their characters leave something to be desired. Plastic and weird looking hair, weird faces, etc.
I also have to say the world is a bit silly. it's a little too "oh, we're in a magical place... look, magic permeates everything in the form of glyphs and shimmering rings" and other such things. Still I do find it enjoyable. Just in small doses.
Unfortunately I agree here with you. But it was not Turbine's decision to use Eberron world. Eberron is the only world made by Wizards of the Coast (owners of D&D license) and wanted to promote it. It was their requirement for Turbine in order to use D&D 3rd edition rules.
Eberron is a world full of magic and weird artificial wonders. It's a steampunk high magic setting with a diversity of inhabitans similiar to Planescape world. I would still rather prefer low magic more like a medieval setting, but I realize this is not a thing we can blame Turbine for.
Now that you mention it, I can see it. But did it have to look like it does now? It's as if they went with "silly" over "cool".
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
Now that you mention it, I can see it. But did it have to look like it does now? It's as if they went with "silly" over "cool".
No the "cool" factor is actually heavily reduced in the game in compare to the actual artwork in the Eberron Campaign official books. Based on the artwork, there should be things like weird purple-orange lights and colors all around, huge levitating platforms in cities, extreme illogical architecture and people dressed in all sort of metrosexual clothing.
I actually feel like the devs are trying to do a world based mainly on the steampunk atmosphere avoiding the extreme magic usage, but there are a couple of Wizard of the Coast employees all the time watching over devs shoulders and shouting "NOT COOL ENOUGH" every now and then. So the game is somewhere in between these two styles.
well i dont see the connection between beeing a fan and not letting the others express their points of view.
See im a fan of d&d too, been playing it since 1986 when you could still play it with all the freedom of a sandbox game, before 3 and 3.5 versions appear to destroy its extremly agreable flavour.
And beeing a fan of what d&d is and what Gary Gigax wanted d&d to be, i feel compeled to tell the truth to peopple when they ask "is ddo like the classic rpg?".
And the truth is no, unfortunaly it aint my friend.
I feel compeled to tell them that all the awesome diversity of classes and races in d&d was packed in a digital product that should be called "Wizard and Sorcerors & Teleport to Instances", or maybe "Fireballs & Imune Bosses" or maybe even "Wall of Fire & SP Pool", cos thats what ddo really is.. and beeing set in eberron aint what caused it.
About the art.. there are several eberron drawings on the net [ can be found doing a google search ] made by several artists shwoing it is possible to have good art in a game based on eberron. but you have to pay those artists and not in popcorns i bet.
I believe Gary Gygax said that you could do whatever you wanted. Follow the rules, don't follow the rules, change any rule you wanted.
The point was to make it something that you and your group found fun. So you could adopt new rules or not. Up to you. You could throw most of it out and just use the names of the monsters if you want.
The rules were there to be broken, follow and/or thrown out.
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo