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D&D Review - from F2P player
takayi
Member Posts: 158
Allright, this is my first review about an mmo, and english is not my native language.
* VIP Status = Subscription
* Turbine Points = TP's are points, that you can buy to unlock most of the quests, and other important & not-so-important things. You can also get TP's just by playing the game, by getting enough favor. You gain favor from doing quests in-game.
Table of Contents
1. Graphics
2. Player Character
3. Gameplay & Interface
4. Questing
1. Graphics
- D&D Online's system requirements allow alot of people to play this game. The lowest graphical settings are, ofcourse not, that awesome & "cool", but with a decent computer you can make this game look absolutely brilliant. My own computer, which is a pretty old one, can run the game on medium settings, and the game looks really nice. However, the very high quality graphics are good eyecandy for all those, who are in need of it.
- The player models of the game are decent, and often can look very, very ugly. The armors & some of the weapons, however have a really nice touch in them, and you can see little details in them, if you take a closer look.
2. Player Character
- When you first create your character, it instantly asks do you want to be a melee, spellcaster or a specialist "class archetype". The melee classes of the game are Fighter, Barbarian, Paladin and Monk (unlockable via VIP status or Turbine Points).
The spellcasters of the game are Cleric, Sorcerer, Wizard and Favored Soul (unlockable via VIP status or Turbine Points).
And last, but not least, the specialists: Rogue, Bard and Ranger.
When you have chosen your character's class, you will get to choose a "path" for your character's class. However, these paths are not the greatest, and it is recommended to make your own build if you are familiar with D&D earlier. You can find some character builds from the internet aswell, e.g. from the games forums.
- There are 5 playable races in the game; Human, Elf, Dwarf, Halfling, Drow and Warforged. Drow & Warforged are unlockable via Turbine Points or VIP status.
- The visual customization of the character is quite lacking in the game, but theres still enough choices to choose from.
- The leveling is one of the things, that make this game truly unique. You can multiclass with any class combinations, and create your own powerful classes (practically), however, as I said earlier, it recommended ONLY if youre familiar with D&D.
3. Gameplay & Interface
- The combat of the game, is not that boring auto-attack & buttonsmash thing, that you have seen in many of the other MMO's. In DDO, you have to manually attack your enemies, so your mousehand will have to do more than just acquire the target. There is an auto-attack option, if youre too lazy to turn your mouse & use your right click, but it is highly recommended to play manually.
- The early parts of the game, can be quite boring, and you might think that the combat is nothing, but hack'n'slash... But approximately at level 5 and above, you should have some other skills & spells to use, and the quests are not that easy anymore, so you actually have to use them. (They are quite easy, but still harder than the very early quests).
- Interface can be moved freely, and you can download custom UI packs from the internet, if you dont like the normal look of the UI bars & such.
4. Questing
- Questing is what makes the game fun. Most of the quests contain secret doors, and puzzles, which makes questing even more fun. There is, ofcourse, alot of smashing aswell. The quests, however, can get quite boring, because there is unlockable difficulties. The difficulties are; Solo, Normal, Hard, Elite, Epic (the last one avalaible only for lvl 20 characters). To do Hard, you must first complete Normal. To do Elite, you must first complete Hard. However, you dont have to unlock the Normal mode, and there is some Solo only quests. Grouping is highly recommended, because it makes the questing easier, but also funnier. You can also hire hirelings to help you, but they are not that trustworthy teammates. The difficulty levels can make the game feel a bit grindy, and that can be a reason, why this game is not the game for you. However, solving puzzles are fun, and make the gaming experience totally differ from other MMO's on the market.
- By doing quests, you get favor, and via favor you can get unlockable favor rewards (Turbine Points, Drow -race & so on)
Final Thoughts
- I love the D&D setting on the game, and everyone who likes the D&D setting, should give this game a try. Its completely free to play, even tho' you will miss alot of the quests (& fun), if youre only an F2P player. This review was written by a F2P player (will subscribe / buy TP's later), and hopefully it contains some information that you people want to hear.
Comments
Good review takayi, but can I add just a little ?
Many non D&DOnline players are under the impression, that this game is all instance based. And " yes " it is HOWEVER, people are also under the impression that you just sit in a waiting room looking for a group. " NO " it's not like that. The city of Stormreach is very large, in fact I would guess about 5 times bigger than Stormwind Castle in WoW.
When your out of a dungeon their is much to do in preparing for your next adventure, or find a pub ( many ) and do some pvp brawling if you like. It's so large that you can really spend several hours just exploring the city, or socialize like in other open world games.
Some of the instances are very open outdoor themes, with its very open plot to them.
This game is well designed, much more than people would think. It is more designed for grouping, but it has the best LFG system than any other game to date in my opinion. With very little work you can have a group together FOR ANYTHING in less than 5 min.
Thank you for adding that! Forgot to tell about cities & such, so aye.
I'll admit it's been 2 years since I played D&D Online. I have limited time to search the names of the dungeons, but that's what I would like to talk about.
D&D Online has the best Dungeons HANDS DOWN. For some reason the first few levels have basic dungeon models, such as all ware houses, and basic cave types look identical to each other. Around level 4 or so this changes or at least adds different styles. Some are deep fire caysims, where your fighting and jumping across lava, and stuff oozing from the wall's. Others are grave yards that seem very scary, where you would be fighting un-dead among coffins. Speaking of coffins their is one of the best vampire theme dungeon's I had ever seen, where the final boss can only be taken with magic, this took our group three runs to figure this out.
I played a Cleric ( healer ), Our group had to enter this cave that we had to climb, and slip across boulders to get to the main rooms. I was in luck because I was playing with some vets, that told the group that they had to protect the healer ( me ) at all cost, as every heal caused the entire area to agro and attack me with one shot. They had to hide me in the room's before, and come back for their heals.
Three Barrel Cove instance,has a pirate theme that has three sub instances to it, and even has it's own pub.
Their was this miners excavation, where the mobs were so strong that it was every man for himself to enter, we would have to jump off a Cliff, land on a rock to zone in. This took several tries to get our group in. Inside it was a deep deep hole with a rap around path leading down to the bottom, opening gates in crevasses along the way, at the bottom was a pool of water, we had to swim to a later, at the top when you stick your head out of the water, only for a super strong mob that would pulverize you. We spend hours trying to figure what needed to be done with this one. I swearer I really felt water logged from being in the water so long. Never could another video game do this to me.
I could go on and on, as this is a small sample of what this game has to offer, but I really have to get to work. I'm sorry I could not attach names to these adventures, as i'm already late for work
Much has changed in the two years you have been gone.