Originally posted by swordsbane Originally posted by dj-wedge Originally posted by Rattrap I feel the same way. DDO is a mistery for me right now. Turbine seems to be making some horrible choices that can only be either a completely revolutionary steps in making excelent MMO - or utter mistake ? One of the biggest issues on everybodys mind is instancing. We all grown to hate it... can DDO change this? New guy here (never posted) but this game is very interesting to me and I had to comment on this. "We all grown to hate it..." I do not think it is fair to encompass the entire MMOG community in here. 1) I've been playing PnP D&D since about 1980... yes, I am that old. I'll let you do the math. I'm a Dungeon Master by preference. I have ran campaigns with as little as 2 people (me and one player) and as many as 27 people (3 DMs and 3 parties of 8 all in competition). So I've seen the solo play and I've seen the PVP all along with the more classic "instanced" party in standard D&D. 2) I've played MMOGs for 5 years now. I won't go over my pedigree here, but I've seen quite a few of them of all genres. I, for one, greatly prefer the Instanced adventures. I get tired of the competition with other players. In PVP I get tired of having to watch my back. There is a time and a place for this type of play, but I do not necessarily think Dungeons & Dragons MUST have it. If it is optional (battlegrounds) that would be fantastic. I support Instancing, and I know many of the people whom I game with online now in a MMOG would agree with me. Let me Instance and keep the PVPers and the Pharmers off my back. As long as they include social interaction on more than just the party level, I don't feel like they can go wrong. Got you beat.. My first D&D game was in 1977 and I've DMed 30 people in the same campaign on a time-share basis and through email and chat (my hats off to you for 1/3rd of 27 at the same time though ) I am very much against instancing, because where the P&P game has logistical limits artificially imposed on it, a computer has physical limits based on bandwidth and server power. The worst thing they could have done to D&D was to carry the good AND the bad over to computer games. One of the BAD things is instancing. The argument is that you can provide a better gaming environment to a smaller group of people if you isolate them from the rest, but that is exactly what being an online game is set up to avoid, and in any case there is a LOT more than can be done to a PvP online game to make it more role-player friendly than anyone is doing now, so obviously instancing LOOKs better, but it inherently limits the game and by consequence shortens it's play life on our hard-drives. Its the wrong fix for a problem that shouldn't need to exist in the first place. People behave themselves in the real world because there is a structure surrounding everyone that creates consequences for people when they misbehave. Your standard PvP game is either on or off. You're either in a place where you can do what you want with no consequences except coming from your victims or you're in a "safe zone" which prohibits you from attacking anyone but allows you to do all sorts of mean things to people with no consequences even from your victims. Naturally, you're going to get chaos and a generally poor role-playing environment. Why anyone thought that was a good idea in the first place is beyond me, but that seems to be the standard now. So now you have this argument about instancing. If the problem with PvP didn't exist, there would be no debate about instancing. Everyone would think it was a bad idea, but since no one has tried to solve PvP any other way (although some games in development look promising) we decide PvP is a bad thing instead of the way it is implemented. That's a cop out if I ever heard one. A good role-playing game has to be inclusive, not exclusive. Everyone who is playing has to be free to interact with everyone else who is playing. That's what an online game is all about and that's how you start groups of players who like to adventure together. You must also allow the solo players and those who want to organize large groups, even armies for the purpose of building their own world inside yours. If you're not going to do that, then you don't need to have a persistent world. You don't even need a server to run the game. A game that has only three to six players in it isn't an online game. I agree DDO isn't an mmorpg, but the D&D I used to play was. It just didn't have the internet to allow it to do it very well.
Pretty much all you have posted is exactly the way things work in a game called EVE-ONLINE.
1 server, no sharding - check open pvp rules in most areas - check player built alliances and empires controlling vast tracts of space - check outlaws that suffer consequences for their actions - check. biggest player-run market ever - check
sure it's not a fantasy based mmo but it is still the most open-ended one out there and the devs are commited to providing the players with as many tools as possible to create their own content.
That said I have been playing the DDO strest test and the way they have used instancing works and it works well. They use the instancing to provide enviroments and situations that you can't get in an open enviroment, it also allows them to do things with scripting that aren't possible either. I was really gung-ho about GW when they first announced it and played through the beta weekends and bought the collectors edition. I stopped playing it a month after release because with all of the possibilties that they opened up through instancing all they used it for was "go here, kill 30 mobs, walk some more, kill 30 more mobs, cheesy cutscene here that doesn't really mean anything, now kill 30 more mobs ad infinium". DDO uses the instancing in a way different way than GW does, and to much better effect. They have kobolds who will run away and ring a gong to call for backup, traps and secret doors that my dumb-ass fighter is to dense to notice but a ranger or thief pick out in a second and the thief can actually disable/unlock if necessary. Traps that can be bypasses if you can work out the timing to run through them, or there is also the ones that were put in by evil devs that make you think there's something worthwhile through that underwater tunnel, but only turns out to be a deathtrap.
I can understand why they added in the action points as well, the stuff that they add is very minor but provides players with a measure of accomplishment since it takes so long to actually gain a level in the game, and will only be longer the higher the level gets. The rest system is still pretty harsh compared to most other mmo's as well.
After playing in the stress test I can without a doubt say that I will be buying DDO on launch day. IMO it is a better game than NWN and I absolutely love NWN. NWN2 looks very interesting as well and I will be setting aside a large part of my hard drive for that puppy as well.
Originally posted by kishe D&DO will not attract D&D fans...reason: Same as with why movie always sucks after reading book first. it's always the creators imagination vs your imagination when trying to form text in to pictures.
I have played Guild Wars and I play WoW. There are benefits and detriments to both systems of instancing. While GW's instancing method (only the towns are shared, the rest of the game world is instanced), does help prevent such things like camping and farming of the mobs you may need for a quest and avoids the problem of randomly running into people out to spoil your fun, it also introduces new sets of problems which can ruin your sense of fun too.
What ruined my fun in GW was that the immersion was ruined by the instancing. You leave town and fight your way up a road to a big encounter. You're successful and you want to complete the quest for that new item or skill. Or perhaps you found the encounter too tough and you need to recruit aide. You go back to town and when you set out again, guess what? Everything is reset like you had never been there. With GW, you had to advance the story and keep going to new instances. If you ever have to backtrack and re-enter a part of the map you've already been to, it's as if you've never been there before.
While non-instanced MMOGs have respawning so eventually, the same condition exists, you know that this is happening for a reason and expect it. There's no claim of higher immersion in a shared world especially since there is a lack of scripted events in non-instanced areas. The lack of scripting means that whenever you pass by an area, it could be the same or different depending on who may have passed by before you. That said, however, if I clear out a spawn of mobs and I leave the area for a minute and come back, most of that area is still cleared out - I don't have to worry about breaching an instance barrier.
Another drawback to GW style gameplay for me is that if I'm playing a Massively Multiplayer Online Game, I want to be in a social world. Yes, while that means that I may come across a griefer who wants to kill-steal or ruin my fun in other ways, it also means that I can come across someone who is in over their heads in a fight and I can rush in and try to help - or vice versa. Situations like that generate some really cool social interactions that you can't get in instanced worlds like GW. And it doesn't even have to be dire situations like that. In WoW, if I'm running around in the world and come across a friendly player, I can throw some buffs on him/her and be on my way. This usually prompts that player to buff me as well and I'm better for it. Also, sometimes if I help out a player who happens to be questing near me and we find that we are on the same quest, we end up grouping. The difference here is that it is a non-planned grouping which gives me the freedom to solo when and what I want to and only dynamically pick up a group when I want to or absolutely need to without having to run back to town and restart the whole instance again.
All in all, WoW feels much more social to me than GW. Being able to run across other players, whether friend or foe, out in the general world just makes the world feel more Massively Multiplayer than having that limited to towns where most of the transactions is "LFG" and "WTS/WTB". I don't like being griefed and I don't like open PvP (I play on PvE servers in WoW) but just because there is the chance of it happening doesn't mean I'd give up socialization for the safety of a completely instanced world. Besides, the few times that my fun has been ruined by those annoying players is completely outweighed by the many, many times I've had an enjoyable encounter with a complete random stranger out in the open world.
Lastly, the ultimate goal of GW is guild-oriented PvP. The single player experience is a way to train up to the PvP... learning your character and his/her abilities. Without PvP a completely instanced world would seem to me like playing a single-player game with the ability play through with friends... kind of like playing online Diablo 2.
So this would be running instances in WoW with pickup groups, except ALL the time. Pickup groups in WoW are far from fun, would DDO be any different. If it was a normal RPG but with online capability I might buy it, but they have gone down the GW route and why buy this with NWN2 in the pipeline?
I must compliment Jon Wood on a well writen article. It flows quite nicely, and I'm glad to hear the opinion of a hard core D&D player. The only complaint I could make regarding the article itself is the tittle. For all it's purpose it's not exacly a preview, it's not telling us much about the game as you're playing it, but more of an opinionated article of what we already know based on the developer's discription.
Both GW and WoW use instancing. Does it work? I would say no for GW, but a strong YES for WoW. In fact, 5-person instance runs are a wonderful way to meet new people and get to know them intimately over the few hours you have to play together under pressure to accomplish common goals.
The vast majority of quests in WoW are not instanced. That is why instancing works in WoW.
Instance runs are a horrible way to meet people; typically, they force you into relationships that everyone in the instance understands is extremely temporary. I've played games that relied heavily on instancing and those with open designs (AC, CoH, EQ, DAoC, AO, GW, etc) and instancing tends to make people flinch outright because they never know what kind of idiot they are going to get stuck with.
Oh... and there's the added factor of standing around waiting for a group to form, of complete unknowns, so you can accomplish a short term goal that has no long-standing storyline of any significance.
Friendship is most likely to develop in these exact conditions, as any psychologist will tell you. Most of my friends in WoW are from instance runs, and 10% that are not are from quest groups for non-instanced quests that could mind as well BE instanced anyway, you find a group and then do it like it was instanced.
Actually, no psychologist would tell you that. Friendships are formed on mutual likes, dislikes, shared interests, shared experience and repeated exposure. Rarely are they formed on short term experiences, unless those experiences are extremely traumatic or intense. Saying that long term friendships are more likely to be formed between players on a short-term instance is akin to saying that you are more likely to form a life-long friendship on a two-block bus ride than any other method.
If I am in an open-design quest area and have repeated positive experiences with another player, it is more likely that I will form a long-term gaming relationship with that person than during the eight minutes it takes us to defend an objective against kobolds in a dungeon in DDO.
Why then doesn't it work in GW? Simple: all servers are combined, so there are so many people that reputation doesn't matter, you never meet the same people again anyway. You also level so fast that any friends you meet are never in the same phase, and all quests and instances need to be done only once since there is no point in making loot runs. And on top of all that, you can hire henchmen and so don't actually NEED other players at all; in fact, the henchmen seem to play better than other players, because people never actually learn to play in group. I managed to do all quests with henchmen, which probably means that anyone who is actually any good plays solo, and thus you mostly just have crappy players asking for group.
Actually, instancing in GW works exactly as intended, as GW is not, technically, an MMORPG and does not claim to be.
Further, you did not manage to do all quests with henchmen, or you have not been in Sorrow's Furnace, one or the other. This would devolve into a you said - I said debate, so I'll save you the time and just tell you outright that you are not being truthful here and nothing you say will convince me otherwise.
There are plenty of reasons to make loot runs, unless you simply enjoy having the standard armor, items, weapons or dyeing options. I don't know anyone who made 50,000 platinum just doing the quests, which just happens to be the base cost of the best armor in the game. That is only one example.
Henchmen seem to perform better than players for one reason only; they always attack the same target you are attacking and do not get distracted from the goal you set for them. Unfortunately, they aren't particularly bright either; if you are in the volcanic areas, they will run directly into lava following you and stand there burning until you finally move or attack something. They also have no idea which target is the most important, unless you target it for them. If you, the player, goes down, they will most likely all die, especially considering that they have no concept of retreat.
The healer henchmen spend more time attacking targets than they do healing. You cannot design strategies based on powersets using henchmen.
I finished a good portion of GW completey solo, but there was no way I was going to complete Sorrow's Furnace myself and I do not see how anyone could unless they just kept plugging away for hours on end or even days. Which would be pointless, since you could find a capable group and knock out every quest in just a few short hours.
Instancing does not work in GW because it forces small teams of people together who don't know each other and will never see each other again for a short-term goal and it forces people to search for parties to complete dungeons/missions. DDO and Guild Wars will be very much alike in that dynamic.
Guild Wars is a competent game for what it offers, which is quick levelling and fast paced PvE and PvP combat. It certainly offers considerable content for a multiplayer fantasy game with no monthly subscription... and so far, its servers and code have shown incredibly solid performance in comparison to just about every other MMORPG / network game I have played.
So how does DDO differ? For one thing, DDO worlds are very small, so reputation matters - you must be more polite and respectful of others since it doesn't take long for half the server to /ignore you, and you WILL meet the same people again. There may not be much of a countryside other than inside instances, but in WoW your non-instanced encounters with others are generally limited to being ganked and /spit on, seeing their back as they go about their business, or if you get really lucky, having them steal your loot or quest kill(s) and lolling at you because "you sux0rz n00b, I pwns y00". But you don't befriend new people in the wilderness.
Reputation makes absolutely no difference... the people who are going to be mean are still going to be mean, they'll just make new characters if they are feeling too much heat. Not that it matters, because there are really no negative actions you can take against other characters that would have any effect, besides perhaps some verbal abuse. In which case, please re-read the first sentence. Woop de doo.
Not much of a countryside; let's be specific. There is NO countryside. You run from building to building, instance to instance.
It would appear that you have had some truly miserable gaming experiences in WoW. I can't say as I've had those experiences, myself. Then again, I don't play on a PvP server. If I did, I'd say that being ganked and spit on should be de rigeur and anyone who didn't understand that should move to a RP server.
Further, I haven't had a soul use "leetspeak" around me and I have had several people befriend me in the wilderness. When I started one of my first characters, a level 30 travelling by a cavern I had to explore stopped and offered to clear it for me so that I could travel the whole cavern and return for experience. If he hadn't, there would have been no way I could have completed the quest without spending time to round up a full team.
I'm not a proponent of WoW.... it's a good game for what it is. But so far, what you have stated in connection with DDO could either be avoided with server selection or is simply inaccurate.
Instanced or non-instanced, you still use the LFG channel to meet people. For those who ask for more "realism", I can only say that I meet enough idiots in the real world already, I have no need to see them in the game as well.
I have no idea what games you have played that seem to make you think that you use the LFG channel for finding friends. The vast majority of friends I have met were players I bumped into in the middle of absolutely nowhere and we joined together either for farming or to explore dungeons. The people I have met on pick-up groups are the ones I am least likely to form friendships with, as it is highly unlikely that I will ever see that person again.
Rattrap, you asked why they are saying that quests are the real strength of DDO. I can tell you that: because instancing allows them to develop actual stories and adventures, whereas without instances all quests would be limited to "go to spot X, kill monster Y, return to get lame reward Z". Instancing allows them to control challenge level, story progression, etc. As for roleplay, I would imagine roleplay works better when you just have your roleplay group in an instance, rather than a bunch of l33t kids running by all the time telling you how RP "sux0rz" and lolling at you, but the city is probably a pretty vibrant place too.
Story progression and challenge level are just as easily controlled in non-instanced games as they are in instanced ones. That isn't an advantage of instancing. Try playing Asheron's Call sometime.
I guarantee you, you will get the same annoying people speaking over broadcast channels in the city as you do in any other game. Instancing is only temporary relief, since the vast majority of the instances are extremely short term.
The one thing that instancing does allow you to do is to create a temporary area for a small group to adventure uninterrupted. But it can be pretty damn lonely.
The real issue here is that DDO is NOT D&D. It has so few of the dynamics of D&D that it is basically unrecognizable when compared to other fantasy games. It's only distinction is the name DDO and its endorsement and franchise rights from Wizards of the Coast.
One thing that has really bothered me is when people mention things like crafting... weaponsmithing, armorsmithing, spellcrafting, etc.... and say it doesn't matter that it isn't in the game because they rarely or never did it when they played D&D PnP. Well, my group did those things. We used the skills we took. The fact that other people don't mind being limited doesn't mean the limitation doesn't exist.
Encumberance? Camping to recover health? Random encounters? Wilderness areas? Forgotten temples, caverns, castles? Climbing, like REAL climbing? Drunken brawls? Stealing the crown jewels from the tallest tower? I mean, the limitations on play here are staggering.
The real question is, why do the limitations exist? There's no concrete reason for it, other than laziness or a belief that gamers are so stupid they will buy anything regardless of how unfinished, flawed or unrecognizable it is.
You say you "shudder in disbelief at the total lack of understanding what makes a great game". Personally, I shudder in disbelief at what some people consider a great game.
DDO is a game. It is not a great game.
I honestly hope that everyone who purchases DDO gets everything out of it that they want and expect. But I also believe that people should have some idea of what to expect of the game before spending their hard-earned dollars on it and being seriously disappointed.
Abbatoir / Abbatoir Cinq Adnihilo Beorn Judge's Edge Somnulus Perfect Black ---------------------- Asheron's Call / Asheron's Call 2 Everquest / Everquest 2 Anarchy Online Shadowbane Dark Age of Camelot Star Wars Galaxies Matrix Online World of Warcraft Guild Wars City of Heroes
Originally posted by swordsbane Originally posted by Leppard Originally posted by Jade6 Originally posted by riggsville Well, as far as I can see, that applies to every online game ever made. Even in RvR games nothing ever really changes, cities and fortresses just change hands back and forth forever.
Not so. In Shadowbane you actually made cities, equipment, trainers, etc. Things you could not get with out player made cities. You could also destroy your enemies cities.
So you're wrong about that.
So cities get destroyed and created. What is it about Shadowbane that really changes? The Lore changes based on what the devs do, not what the players do. Of course I have yet to see a game where the Lore really matters anyway. People mostly see the lore as an impediment to what they want to do in the game
What I find ironic about Shadowbane is that people get upset when one guild begins to dominate a server. If that possibility isn't there, then what the hell is all this fighting for? Are you fighting just to fight or are you fighting for something? It's the only way that the game really changes based on what players do and the players themselves are against it. I don't get it.
The players ARE the lore in Shadowbane; entire empires rise and crumble, created entirely by the players. Various nations gather together to put down one tyrant kingdom, individual nations draw up their own rules and laws within their lands and enforce them.
You're not just building A city; you build an enormous city, and another one, and another one... all part of the empire you are building.
When I played Shadowbane, we had six cities and controlled an entire island continent with an iron hand. Our nation was never defeated, although we were attacked constantly. It was a constant struggle to maintain control of our island against other nations who allied to destroy us, and we roleplayed it to the hilt. The politics, nation-building, treaties, pacts.... that atmosphere was incredibly dynamic. We lost cities and rebuilt... we made and lost alliances. That was the history of our world, made by us.
Getting upset over a dominant guild is critical to Shadowbane... so that alliances can be formed. What you are fighting for is entirely up to you. You can create your nation to be an expression of whatever lore you want it to express, from tyrannical warrior nation to a shining bastion of justice.
So what changes in Shadowbane? Everything. Without the players, there is nothing... no quests or external storylines, which was part of the reason SB wasn't popular among many MMORPGers. Plus, the open PvP design, and finally, of course, the horrible lag and game bugs.
Abbatoir / Abbatoir Cinq Adnihilo Beorn Judge's Edge Somnulus Perfect Black ---------------------- Asheron's Call / Asheron's Call 2 Everquest / Everquest 2 Anarchy Online Shadowbane Dark Age of Camelot Star Wars Galaxies Matrix Online World of Warcraft Guild Wars City of Heroes
] Jon's article was most clarifying and gave me a good ideia of on what them developers are basing the gameplay.
] but I must disagree that PvP for pen and paper means u got the game wrong, and I'll tell why.
] The best D&D campaign I ever ran was a surprise. It started with a group too mixed up to be reasonable to be kept toguether. But they had a commoon objective, and so it went. When they had that done, they split in two groups and the objective of the 'good' ones was to stop the 'evils' ones.
] It got simply awesome and we had both groups alternating games and eventually meeting and fighting each other, wich was absolutelly great. You need to listen a lot, reason a lot and show some control for it not to become complete chaos, but if you do (and if you're lucky enough to be running that to good, mature players), I'd say that the chance is it will be tons of fun.
] And it was not a pointless arena: that was role-play!
pnp D&D game is too abstract to ever be converted into a MMO. i guess ill just try ddo once it's released because it's new, and im getting kinda bored with the MMOs im playin right now.
Although, ive honestly given up on the D&D franchise ryt after they released the 3rd ed. gone were the days when players actually would think up of something to get out of a sticky situation, but would instead just look up their char sheets just to see if they have enuf skill points to survive.
How can any serious fantasy on line player not atleast try DDO out and see if they get it right. It will never appeal to everyone, that's not possible, but there is always a chance that it will work and become a great game.
Shadow Bane was great for PvP...Undead Lords, we ruled Mouring with an Iron Fist also, until we were destroyed by the nation known as WoW Beta.
Zerackus the Bane Son of Myrkul Undead Lords www.undeadlords.net
A few things about D&D Online that people need to be aware of.
The differences between D&D Online and PnP D&D.
1. Alignment has no meaning. A paladin and a thief can go on the same quest to STEAL a book from a library. You can not choose evil or even something as "bad" as chaotic neutral.
2. No god's churches, temples, shrines or any hint whatsoever to other world entities. No elements of "faith" in any shape or form.
3. Static linear storyline, that REQUIRES you to repeat quests up to 4 times with no change in content. It is true, a major design element is the idea of repeatable quests. Quests that can be repeated fro more exp at harder MOB settings, but nothing inside changes, the traps and mobs are in the same spots etc.
4. No oportunity or incentive to interact with the game world outside of lame taverns (with no booze).
5. No sense of adventure or purpose otehjr than do quest xyz for loot 123 and repeat.
Being a pre-order person for DDO, I have been able to beta test the game. I did it also as a File Planet member. I LOVE the game but I have some serious concerns in one main area. Rushing. Alot of people when you group with them are often people who have already done the quest and decide to rush you through it to the end. OR they are new and have no patience and try and play it like an EQ2 or WOW where you just burn and pillage your way through a dungeon. Dungeon crawling, when done right adds more atmosphere to the game. When you rush through it, you might just miss that secret door that nobody knows about (because they all rush through the game). Take your time. If I cannot find a good group of people to play with (since grouping is critical here...no lone wolfing) I dont know if I am going to stay. This is a big and main part of the game and if I cannot enjoy it because I am being led around the dungeon like a little kid in a store who does not want to leave the toy isle...the game will suck hard (see G4's definition of suck).
One last thing, its a great game again...dont get me wrong I love it. BUT they dont like archers again. Turbine used to love them in AC! In this game there are certain quests (Miller's) where if you try and get on higher ground to get a shot at a monster, they dont allow you to hit the monster! Namely any named monster. This does not make it fair since a Ranger is going to do just that...find a place to launch arrows from. What they do is make you automatically miss. You waste tons of arrows not knowing that you dont stink, you just are not allowed to hit the beast.
By in large if they make some tweaks this game is going to rock. It is not your standard MMO. Kiddies...stay home (which btw, there is no WoW type audience here). This is meant for serious play.
Originally posted by Mysk Bhagpuss, you hit my thoughts perfectly. This is what I would ask anyone who has played DDO: First, as I'm sure we all know, the terms mod and "TC" come from the first person shooter genre, with TC being short for "total converstion". DDO to me seems to be little more than a mod, or at best a TC, for Guild Wars. If you have played both DDO and Guild Wars, what is your honest and realistic comparison of the two? In the long run, after playing the game for awhile, do you expect it to boil down to the same basic game experience of going through the same quests once again with new characters? Those are the questions that I want addressed before I give any serious thought to DDO. I don't in the least mean to come across snobbish, but DDO to me seems like what would be created if NC released a campaign editor to their players. ~Mysk
Having played both I can tell you it is NOT Guild Wars. First, Guild Wars is all outside crap for the most part, DDO is indoors and introduces the concepts of traps and such. Guild Wars is a burn and pillage model of gaming. DDO is more about finding a group of people and goirng through an indoor adventure (there are places outdoors but I have yet to reach them because I am taking my frigging time not blasting through it like I would if I were in WoW or Guild Wars). There is no "running" someone through an instance. That gets you nowhere. You have to work as a team and use the skills of each other. Also, there is no PVP (dont see a need for it actually unless you plan on adding it). By and large, instances of dungeons in DDO are ALOT like EQ2. They are there to isolate the group from campers and to offer a standalone group a chance to work without distractions. I like instancing because I remember going through AC1 and dealing with people camping a quest item. I felt like I was a the butcher with a number. You had to actually keep a line of progression. That kills the game playing experience. DDO does instancing very well and in fact allows you to chat across instances since the taverns and major gathering places in the game are instanced as needed to avoid lag. You can still find people across instances. They dont have hard zone rules, so you can easily find people who are "right off the boat" and work with them or people deeper in the city.
So no, to your question, it is not anything like Guild Wars IMHO...its a totaly different way of playing it and just because they use instancing does not mean they are alike unless that is the level of your comparison. Game play alone they are vastly different.
Originally posted by Rattrap Jade6 You make a very good point there. Actually if we could belive DDO instancing would work as you described it , it might work very good.
Still as many people stated there is lot of things that arise suspicion in DDO. I say we will just have to wait and see.
It is sad really when you think about it. Turbine deciding to make a first D&D mmorpg like this.
Imagine online Faerun Even just online Swordcoast , where you can go freely and roam the land as you wish. You see abandoned ruin , you enter it (perhaps this could be instance - instanced dungeons). All 20 levels implemented , most of the skills , classes and feats. Crafting. And why not even the PvP. This game would be a dream, and would surely kill the competition. It would take some time to make but it it would be doable, and D&D fans would know it is worth the wait.
What DDO offers ? Well first thing that spooked me was ACTION BASED COMBAT !?!! I mean it is an excelent concept ... but do D&D players really look for it ? No, D&D player looks for faitfull implementation of the game rules....They are surely no ACTION fanatics Only first 10 levels , no druids ?! Lets wait and see. I surelly wish to be suprised.
Anyway D&D players do not despare. We know that DDO is not only D&D game comming for us. A real jewel is soon to follow NWN2
Why dont people just put down $10 (heck I even got away with putting down $5 at my local gamestop) and TRY it before you complain. Alot of people are going by what they read without trying it out. If that were the case, I would never have played WoW and alot of other decent MMO.
Comments
D&DO will not attract D&D fans...reason:
Same as with why movie always sucks after reading book first.
it's always the creators imagination vs your imagination when trying to form text in to pictures.
Pretty much all you have posted is exactly the way things work in a game called EVE-ONLINE.
1 server, no sharding - check
open pvp rules in most areas - check
player built alliances and empires controlling vast tracts of space - check
outlaws that suffer consequences for their actions - check.
biggest player-run market ever - check
sure it's not a fantasy based mmo but it is still the most open-ended one out there and the devs are commited to providing the players with as many tools as possible to create their own content.
That said I have been playing the DDO strest test and the way they have used instancing works and it works well. They use the instancing to provide enviroments and situations that you can't get in an open enviroment, it also allows them to do things with scripting that aren't possible either. I was really gung-ho about GW when they first announced it and played through the beta weekends and bought the collectors edition. I stopped playing it a month after release because with all of the possibilties that they opened up through instancing all they used it for was "go here, kill 30 mobs, walk some more, kill 30 more mobs, cheesy cutscene here that doesn't really mean anything, now kill 30 more mobs ad infinium". DDO uses the instancing in a way different way than GW does, and to much better effect. They have kobolds who will run away and ring a gong to call for backup, traps and secret doors that my dumb-ass fighter is to dense to notice but a ranger or thief pick out in a second and the thief can actually disable/unlock if necessary. Traps that can be bypasses if you can work out the timing to run through them, or there is also the ones that were put in by evil devs that make you think there's something worthwhile through that underwater tunnel, but only turns out to be a deathtrap.
I can understand why they added in the action points as well, the stuff that they add is very minor but provides players with a measure of accomplishment since it takes so long to actually gain a level in the game, and will only be longer the higher the level gets. The rest system is still pretty harsh compared to most other mmo's as well.
After playing in the stress test I can without a doubt say that I will be buying DDO on launch day. IMO it is a better game than NWN and I absolutely love NWN. NWN2 looks very interesting as well and I will be setting aside a large part of my hard drive for that puppy as well.
D&D fans will not play DDO because it is not actually D&D.
If I were to compare I would say it is a blend of GW (totally instanced world) a diablo (click to attack)
look at the screen shots they suck no bump mapping at all.
the content can be ran through in a few days a hard core gamer will cap before the free month is over.
Trainwreck.
reason? its not DnD and doesnt use DnD rules.
read their boards. its a mad house over there.
I have played Guild Wars and I play WoW. There are benefits and detriments to both systems of instancing. While GW's instancing method (only the towns are shared, the rest of the game world is instanced), does help prevent such things like camping and farming of the mobs you may need for a quest and avoids the problem of randomly running into people out to spoil your fun, it also introduces new sets of problems which can ruin your sense of fun too.
What ruined my fun in GW was that the immersion was ruined by the instancing. You leave town and fight your way up a road to a big encounter. You're successful and you want to complete the quest for that new item or skill. Or perhaps you found the encounter too tough and you need to recruit aide. You go back to town and when you set out again, guess what? Everything is reset like you had never been there. With GW, you had to advance the story and keep going to new instances. If you ever have to backtrack and re-enter a part of the map you've already been to, it's as if you've never been there before.
While non-instanced MMOGs have respawning so eventually, the same condition exists, you know that this is happening for a reason and expect it. There's no claim of higher immersion in a shared world especially since there is a lack of scripted events in non-instanced areas. The lack of scripting means that whenever you pass by an area, it could be the same or different depending on who may have passed by before you. That said, however, if I clear out a spawn of mobs and I leave the area for a minute and come back, most of that area is still cleared out - I don't have to worry about breaching an instance barrier.
Another drawback to GW style gameplay for me is that if I'm playing a Massively Multiplayer Online Game, I want to be in a social world. Yes, while that means that I may come across a griefer who wants to kill-steal or ruin my fun in other ways, it also means that I can come across someone who is in over their heads in a fight and I can rush in and try to help - or vice versa. Situations like that generate some really cool social interactions that you can't get in instanced worlds like GW. And it doesn't even have to be dire situations like that. In WoW, if I'm running around in the world and come across a friendly player, I can throw some buffs on him/her and be on my way. This usually prompts that player to buff me as well and I'm better for it. Also, sometimes if I help out a player who happens to be questing near me and we find that we are on the same quest, we end up grouping. The difference here is that it is a non-planned grouping which gives me the freedom to solo when and what I want to and only dynamically pick up a group when I want to or absolutely need to without having to run back to town and restart the whole instance again.
All in all, WoW feels much more social to me than GW. Being able to run across other players, whether friend or foe, out in the general world just makes the world feel more Massively Multiplayer than having that limited to towns where most of the transactions is "LFG" and "WTS/WTB". I don't like being griefed and I don't like open PvP (I play on PvE servers in WoW) but just because there is the chance of it happening doesn't mean I'd give up socialization for the safety of a completely instanced world. Besides, the few times that my fun has been ruined by those annoying players is completely outweighed by the many, many times I've had an enjoyable encounter with a complete random stranger out in the open world.
Lastly, the ultimate goal of GW is guild-oriented PvP. The single player experience is a way to train up to the PvP... learning your character and his/her abilities. Without PvP a completely instanced world would seem to me like playing a single-player game with the ability play through with friends... kind of like playing online Diablo 2.
So this would be running instances in WoW with pickup groups, except ALL the time. Pickup groups in WoW are far from fun, would DDO be any different. If it was a normal RPG but with online capability I might buy it, but they have gone down the GW route and why buy this with NWN2 in the pipeline?
Top Ten Most Misused Words/Phrases in MMO Industry...
Originally posted by Jade6
The vast majority of quests in WoW are not instanced. That is why instancing works in WoW.
Instance runs are a horrible way to meet people; typically, they force you into relationships that everyone in the instance understands is extremely temporary. I've played games that relied heavily on instancing and those with open designs (AC, CoH, EQ, DAoC, AO, GW, etc) and instancing tends to make people flinch outright because they never know what kind of idiot they are going to get stuck with.
Oh... and there's the added factor of standing around waiting for a group to form, of complete unknowns, so you can accomplish a short term goal that has no long-standing storyline of any significance.
Actually, no psychologist would tell you that. Friendships are formed on mutual likes, dislikes, shared interests, shared experience and repeated exposure. Rarely are they formed on short term experiences, unless those experiences are extremely traumatic or intense. Saying that long term friendships are more likely to be formed between players on a short-term instance is akin to saying that you are more likely to form a life-long friendship on a two-block bus ride than any other method.
If I am in an open-design quest area and have repeated positive experiences with another player, it is more likely that I will form a long-term gaming relationship with that person than during the eight minutes it takes us to defend an objective against kobolds in a dungeon in DDO.
Actually, instancing in GW works exactly as intended, as GW is not, technically, an MMORPG and does not claim to be.
Further, you did not manage to do all quests with henchmen, or you have not been in Sorrow's Furnace, one or the other. This would devolve into a you said - I said debate, so I'll save you the time and just tell you outright that you are not being truthful here and nothing you say will convince me otherwise.
There are plenty of reasons to make loot runs, unless you simply enjoy having the standard armor, items, weapons or dyeing options. I don't know anyone who made 50,000 platinum just doing the quests, which just happens to be the base cost of the best armor in the game. That is only one example.
Henchmen seem to perform better than players for one reason only; they always attack the same target you are attacking and do not get distracted from the goal you set for them. Unfortunately, they aren't particularly bright either; if you are in the volcanic areas, they will run directly into lava following you and stand there burning until you finally move or attack something. They also have no idea which target is the most important, unless you target it for them. If you, the player, goes down, they will most likely all die, especially considering that they have no concept of retreat.
The healer henchmen spend more time attacking targets than they do healing. You cannot design strategies based on powersets using henchmen.
I finished a good portion of GW completey solo, but there was no way I was going to complete Sorrow's Furnace myself and I do not see how anyone could unless they just kept plugging away for hours on end or even days. Which would be pointless, since you could find a capable group and knock out every quest in just a few short hours.
Instancing does not work in GW because it forces small teams of people together who don't know each other and will never see each other again for a short-term goal and it forces people to search for parties to complete dungeons/missions. DDO and Guild Wars will be very much alike in that dynamic.
Guild Wars is a competent game for what it offers, which is quick levelling and fast paced PvE and PvP combat. It certainly offers considerable content for a multiplayer fantasy game with no monthly subscription... and so far, its servers and code have shown incredibly solid performance in comparison to just about every other MMORPG / network game I have played.
Reputation makes absolutely no difference... the people who are going to be mean are still going to be mean, they'll just make new characters if they are feeling too much heat. Not that it matters, because there are really no negative actions you can take against other characters that would have any effect, besides perhaps some verbal abuse. In which case, please re-read the first sentence. Woop de doo.
Not much of a countryside; let's be specific. There is NO countryside. You run from building to building, instance to instance.
It would appear that you have had some truly miserable gaming experiences in WoW. I can't say as I've had those experiences, myself. Then again, I don't play on a PvP server. If I did, I'd say that being ganked and spit on should be de rigeur and anyone who didn't understand that should move to a RP server.
Further, I haven't had a soul use "leetspeak" around me and I have had several people befriend me in the wilderness. When I started one of my first characters, a level 30 travelling by a cavern I had to explore stopped and offered to clear it for me so that I could travel the whole cavern and return for experience. If he hadn't, there would have been no way I could have completed the quest without spending time to round up a full team.
I'm not a proponent of WoW.... it's a good game for what it is. But so far, what you have stated in connection with DDO could either be avoided with server selection or is simply inaccurate.
I have no idea what games you have played that seem to make you think that you use the LFG channel for finding friends. The vast majority of friends I have met were players I bumped into in the middle of absolutely nowhere and we joined together either for farming or to explore dungeons. The people I have met on pick-up groups are the ones I am least likely to form friendships with, as it is highly unlikely that I will ever see that person again.
Story progression and challenge level are just as easily controlled in non-instanced games as they are in instanced ones. That isn't an advantage of instancing. Try playing Asheron's Call sometime.
I guarantee you, you will get the same annoying people speaking over broadcast channels in the city as you do in any other game. Instancing is only temporary relief, since the vast majority of the instances are extremely short term.
The one thing that instancing does allow you to do is to create a temporary area for a small group to adventure uninterrupted. But it can be pretty damn lonely.
The real issue here is that DDO is NOT D&D. It has so few of the dynamics of D&D that it is basically unrecognizable when compared to other fantasy games. It's only distinction is the name DDO and its endorsement and franchise rights from Wizards of the Coast.
One thing that has really bothered me is when people mention things like crafting... weaponsmithing, armorsmithing, spellcrafting, etc.... and say it doesn't matter that it isn't in the game because they rarely or never did it when they played D&D PnP. Well, my group did those things. We used the skills we took. The fact that other people don't mind being limited doesn't mean the limitation doesn't exist.
Encumberance? Camping to recover health? Random encounters? Wilderness areas? Forgotten temples, caverns, castles? Climbing, like REAL climbing? Drunken brawls? Stealing the crown jewels from the tallest tower? I mean, the limitations on play here are staggering.
The real question is, why do the limitations exist? There's no concrete reason for it, other than laziness or a belief that gamers are so stupid they will buy anything regardless of how unfinished, flawed or unrecognizable it is.
You say you "shudder in disbelief at the total lack of understanding what makes a great game". Personally, I shudder in disbelief at what some people consider a great game.
DDO is a game. It is not a great game.
I honestly hope that everyone who purchases DDO gets everything out of it that they want and expect. But I also believe that people should have some idea of what to expect of the game before spending their hard-earned dollars on it and being seriously disappointed.
Abbatoir / Abbatoir Cinq
Adnihilo
Beorn Judge's Edge
Somnulus
Perfect Black
----------------------
Asheron's Call / Asheron's Call 2
Everquest / Everquest 2
Anarchy Online
Shadowbane
Dark Age of Camelot
Star Wars Galaxies
Matrix Online
World of Warcraft
Guild Wars
City of Heroes
Not so. In Shadowbane you actually made cities, equipment, trainers, etc. Things you could not get with out player made cities. You could also destroy your enemies cities.
So you're wrong about that.
So cities get destroyed and created. What is it about Shadowbane that really changes? The Lore changes based on what the devs do, not what the players do. Of course I have yet to see a game where the Lore really matters anyway. People mostly see the lore as an impediment to what they want to do in the game
What I find ironic about Shadowbane is that people get upset when one guild begins to dominate a server. If that possibility isn't there, then what the hell is all this fighting for? Are you fighting just to fight or are you fighting for something? It's the only way that the game really changes based on what players do and the players themselves are against it. I don't get it.
The players ARE the lore in Shadowbane; entire empires rise and crumble, created entirely by the players. Various nations gather together to put down one tyrant kingdom, individual nations draw up their own rules and laws within their lands and enforce them.
You're not just building A city; you build an enormous city, and another one, and another one... all part of the empire you are building.
When I played Shadowbane, we had six cities and controlled an entire island continent with an iron hand. Our nation was never defeated, although we were attacked constantly. It was a constant struggle to maintain control of our island against other nations who allied to destroy us, and we roleplayed it to the hilt. The politics, nation-building, treaties, pacts.... that atmosphere was incredibly dynamic. We lost cities and rebuilt... we made and lost alliances. That was the history of our world, made by us.
Getting upset over a dominant guild is critical to Shadowbane... so that alliances can be formed. What you are fighting for is entirely up to you. You can create your nation to be an expression of whatever lore you want it to express, from tyrannical warrior nation to a shining bastion of justice.
So what changes in Shadowbane? Everything. Without the players, there is nothing... no quests or external storylines, which was part of the reason SB wasn't popular among many MMORPGers. Plus, the open PvP design, and finally, of course, the horrible lag and game bugs.
Abbatoir / Abbatoir Cinq
Adnihilo
Beorn Judge's Edge
Somnulus
Perfect Black
----------------------
Asheron's Call / Asheron's Call 2
Everquest / Everquest 2
Anarchy Online
Shadowbane
Dark Age of Camelot
Star Wars Galaxies
Matrix Online
World of Warcraft
Guild Wars
City of Heroes
] Jon's article was most clarifying and gave me a good ideia of on what them developers are basing the gameplay.
] but I must disagree that PvP for pen and paper means u got the game wrong, and I'll tell why.
] The best D&D campaign I ever ran was a surprise. It started with a group too mixed up to be reasonable to be kept toguether. But they had a commoon objective, and so it went. When they had that done, they split in two groups and the objective of the 'good' ones was to stop the 'evils' ones.
] It got simply awesome and we had both groups alternating games and eventually meeting and fighting each other, wich was absolutelly great. You need to listen a lot, reason a lot and show some control for it not to become complete chaos, but if you do (and if you're lucky enough to be running that to good, mature players), I'd say that the chance is it will be tons of fun.
] And it was not a pointless arena: that was role-play!
] That was it, I just wanted to raise that.
] Thanks a lot!
] Sean
pnp D&D game is too abstract to ever be converted into a MMO. i guess ill just try ddo once it's released because it's new, and im getting kinda bored with the MMOs im playin right now.
Although, ive honestly given up on the D&D franchise ryt after they released the 3rd ed. gone were the days when players actually would think up of something to get out of a sticky situation, but would instead just look up their char sheets just to see if they have enuf skill points to survive.
How can any serious fantasy on line player not atleast try DDO out and see if they get it right. It will never appeal to everyone, that's not possible, but there is always a chance that it will work and become a great game.
Shadow Bane was great for PvP...Undead Lords, we ruled Mouring with an Iron Fist also, until we were destroyed by the nation known as WoW Beta.
Zerackus the Bane
Son of Myrkul
Undead Lords
www.undeadlords.net
A few things about D&D Online that people need to be aware of.
The differences between D&D Online and PnP D&D.
1. Alignment has no meaning. A paladin and a thief can go on the same quest to STEAL a book from a library. You can not choose evil or even something as "bad" as chaotic neutral.
2. No god's churches, temples, shrines or any hint whatsoever to other world entities. No elements of "faith" in any shape or form.
3. Static linear storyline, that REQUIRES you to repeat quests up to 4 times with no change in content. It is true, a major design element is the idea of repeatable quests. Quests that can be repeated fro more exp at harder MOB settings, but nothing inside changes, the traps and mobs are in the same spots etc.
4. No oportunity or incentive to interact with the game world outside of lame taverns (with no booze).
5. No sense of adventure or purpose otehjr than do quest xyz for loot 123 and repeat.
I will go on later ( got to leave work now).
Being a pre-order person for DDO, I have been able to beta test the game. I did it also as a File Planet member. I LOVE the game but I have some serious concerns in one main area. Rushing. Alot of people when you group with them are often people who have already done the quest and decide to rush you through it to the end. OR they are new and have no patience and try and play it like an EQ2 or WOW where you just burn and pillage your way through a dungeon. Dungeon crawling, when done right adds more atmosphere to the game. When you rush through it, you might just miss that secret door that nobody knows about (because they all rush through the game). Take your time. If I cannot find a good group of people to play with (since grouping is critical here...no lone wolfing) I dont know if I am going to stay. This is a big and main part of the game and if I cannot enjoy it because I am being led around the dungeon like a little kid in a store who does not want to leave the toy isle...the game will suck hard (see G4's definition of suck).
One last thing, its a great game again...dont get me wrong I love it. BUT they dont like archers again. Turbine used to love them in AC! In this game there are certain quests (Miller's) where if you try and get on higher ground to get a shot at a monster, they dont allow you to hit the monster! Namely any named monster. This does not make it fair since a Ranger is going to do just that...find a place to launch arrows from. What they do is make you automatically miss. You waste tons of arrows not knowing that you dont stink, you just are not allowed to hit the beast.
By in large if they make some tweaks this game is going to rock. It is not your standard MMO. Kiddies...stay home (which btw, there is no WoW type audience here). This is meant for serious play.
Having played both I can tell you it is NOT Guild Wars. First, Guild Wars is all outside crap for the most part, DDO is indoors and introduces the concepts of traps and such. Guild Wars is a burn and pillage model of gaming. DDO is more about finding a group of people and goirng through an indoor adventure (there are places outdoors but I have yet to reach them because I am taking my frigging time not blasting through it like I would if I were in WoW or Guild Wars). There is no "running" someone through an instance. That gets you nowhere. You have to work as a team and use the skills of each other. Also, there is no PVP (dont see a need for it actually unless you plan on adding it). By and large, instances of dungeons in DDO are ALOT like EQ2. They are there to isolate the group from campers and to offer a standalone group a chance to work without distractions. I like instancing because I remember going through AC1 and dealing with people camping a quest item. I felt like I was a the butcher with a number. You had to actually keep a line of progression. That kills the game playing experience. DDO does instancing very well and in fact allows you to chat across instances since the taverns and major gathering places in the game are instanced as needed to avoid lag. You can still find people across instances. They dont have hard zone rules, so you can easily find people who are "right off the boat" and work with them or people deeper in the city.
So no, to your question, it is not anything like Guild Wars IMHO...its a totaly different way of playing it and just because they use instancing does not mean they are alike unless that is the level of your comparison. Game play alone they are vastly different.
Great read.
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