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Why is DDO not D&D MMORPG - and why it should be avoided ...
Rattrap
Member, Newbie CommonPosts: 1,599
First of all let me adress the issue of instancing. I know DDO promises to have realy meaningfull missions but some resemblances with Guild Wars exist. Most of all completely instanced world.
- While 100% instanced world can prove to be a way to enjoy the game without interference of other players it also does quite the opposite. Namely it hinders you in meeting other players and experiencing the thing MMORPG are all about - player interaction. What GW offered us and now DDO is trying to offer is nothing more than a network game. In case of DDO network game with clever dungeons - but in fact I trully doubt that dungeons will be even 10% of let say Baldurs Gate quality. And Baldurs Gate (i know it is old game now) gives you completely same option of networking play together with your friends. Nothing justifying the monthly fee.
And note that i say - with your FRIENDS . Because both GW and DDO due to heavy instancing make it imposible to meet other people online and form new friendships. Basically if you have group of buddies you play with regulary the game is good , otherway it is bad.
Tipical scene from guildwars : You stand in one of many shared world areas. And shout " W/M lvl 20 LFG Tyrra balls murder " - Now this is a total roleplay killer and miserable way to go trough any game , but it is what full instance offers. .. After 10 minutes of yelling you get your random group , half of them dont speak english , other half knows only to say " GO GO GO !!! " or " You kn0 t mishn ?". Once you enter the instance the group rushes any opponent acting like mindless zerg. And than 2 of them quit half way in mission and you have to cancel. On the end if you ever reach the mission goal people force you to skip the cutscene movie (wich is only fun and RP part of the game) and on the end tell you finall "GG" and leave.
In all 5 months of my GW experience i never made one friendship or ever EVER EVER noticed anything resembling roleplay.
In Warcraft however with all its kiddies and camping - i encountered 100% more roleplay , made tons of friends and enemies , and gennerally had more fun watching people run around.
In one word instancing is good if there are some instanced missions in the game. Total instanced world is a SCAM . And should be treated as anyother network play game - withouth monthly fee.
- Second thing about DDO is the action based combat. It is sure fun and good thing. But let me assure you - none of D&D fans are actually looking for action combat.
What we are looking is all skills, races, classes, feats and spells implemented in a way that resembles D&D gameplay
>>> Not few skills, races and classes implemented in a way that resembles LEGEND of ZELDA gameplay !!!
D&D online game should be serious and adhere to 3.5 D&D rules that by the way were written with online computer gaming in mind.
- So finnaly they said the strenght of DDO is in the dungeons. But i am hearing some betatesters complaining about boring dungeons ....
So what is this game all about ? And who are its target audience ?
Certanlly not D&D fans
"Before this battle is over all the world will know that few...stood against many." - King Leonidas
Comments
Well said!!!!!!!!!!!
I agree
I could see how just doing dungeon runs could get boring. I am wondering how they are going to pull off a living, breathing world, when you're restricted to a city? I am not dogging the game, I am just a little put off by the whole instancing thing. I tried GW and did't like it too much. I am hoping DDO will have an online community, where I can meet and make friends to do some dungeon crawls with, as well as socialize.
EDIT: Sorry, my sig is a little old. I need to change it
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Fuego
Level 21 Gnomish Mage
Casador
Level 19 Night Elf Hunter
Silvermoon server
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Well as long as DDO does have RP servers and less deserted outposts I don't see the problem.
The problem with GW is that it is basically a rush through game, has little or non-existant RP elements and no RP servers. The GW environment has no rich RP tradition either.
As for the dungeons: PnP D&D has groups of 2-8 players, so that's just the tradition How else do this, dungeon sieges with 80 players isn't exactly what PnP D&D is about?!
I hope that there will be just a few outposts and that people on RP servers will have a lot of fun meeting in town and the taverns.
It can't get worse than GW, RP-wise!!
Cast your vote: The importance of character customisation
There was a time when i played MMORPG's and warned people for not ROLEplaying on ROLEPLAY server.
We complained to the companies to enforce roleplay on rp servers - but they said " We give you the tools to roleplay , it is your choice if you do or not " These as bad as they were - were the good times
Dear Findariel today you will be happy to see people ACTUALLY roleplay on RP server. If there IS a RP server at all! Even the "roleplay sandbox" they so generously gave us was taken away.
So not only that you have no RP servers , you dont even have a quiet place to roleplay IF you wish.
GW showed us that some enviroments and game mechanics can squash every feable attempt of roleplay like a coakroach.
Community shows us that roleplay is dead.
DDO is showing us that no attempts are maid to resurect roleplay > in fact they are geared towards FUN ACTION PLAY , are they not ?
Among any good things i expect to see in DDO , roleplay will be most suprising...
Dont get your hopes to high
"Before this battle is over all the world will know that few...stood against many." - King Leonidas
Originally posted by Tbacan
Who of you, have played D&D old fasion way (PnP)?
*raises hand*
me me me!
Cast your vote: The importance of character customisation
I did and still do
"Before this battle is over all the world will know that few...stood against many." - King Leonidas
i agree while i do injoy playing guild wars from time to time i still never have made a friend like i have in other mmorpgs. to me player interaction while being postive or negative is what these games are all aobut. totally instanced worlds should = no monthly fee.
-Gosh you're cute. Wanna buy a monkey?
i agree while i do injoy playing guild wars from time to time i still never have made a friend like i have in other mmorpgs. to me player interaction while being postive or negative is what these games are all aobut. totally instanced worlds should = no monthly fee.
-Gosh you're cute. Wanna buy a monkey?
Originally posted by colep53
i agree while i do injoy playing guild wars from time to time i still never have made a friend like i have in other mmorpgs. to me player interaction while being postive or negative is what these games are all aobut. totally instanced worlds should = no monthly fee.
instanced worlds should = no monthly fee - I can't really see where you are coming from when you say that. If the monthly fee is used to create additional content all the time (which is noticably lacking in GW) I see no reason why a fee would be so bad. A DM on each server, perhaps to watch behaviour and help people and enforce rules on RP servers?
never have made a friend like i have in other mmorpgs. Yes GW is very, even extremely anonymus game. Perhaps partly caused by the dispersed population (35 settlements which often only provide 1 quest), the ease to rush through the game (usually any communication isn't necessary), the fact that 90% of the population leaves withing a few months (no fee = not much content) so guilds are continuously shrinking at a very fast rate so people hardly have a chance to get to know each other?
I expect DDo to be a lot better. One big town with taverns, people coming from PvnP D&D are far more used to socializing. More content, harder to level up (more than 2 days to reach max lvl - like GW) and a restricted server population should provide a lot better community.
Cast your vote: The importance of character customisation
Findariel I also expect that , or should i say hope for that.
But for now there is apsolutely no indication DDO will be any diferent than GW.
Not by game instancing mechanics , and not by developers intentions.
People forget quickly but GW used to be highly expected game. It actually have excelent graphic and clever skill system. Combat in GW is not boring but highly active. And GW has abundance of quests.
But this all pales to the INSTANCING.
It is a big issue , and frankly I dont see Turbine grapling this seriously. In no developer posts in their forums I ever noticed they are doing anything to promote ROLEPLAY or immersion.
No, they clearly say there will be no roleplay servers...go figure...
But I am not dissapointed NWN2 is just around the corner
"Before this battle is over all the world will know that few...stood against many." - King Leonidas
I think the OP is right, the instancing will kill the imersion, which in effect will create a impersonal and anonymous atmosphere which will rub of on all players. Ive seen this before on guildwars...people i played with in coh were also on GW yet thier personality's was completely different...at least to strangers, they were much ruder and less helpfull then i remembered them.
At best they may still manage to make a great game that still is imersive, but that would be despite the instancing and not because of it.
Just curious where exactly you have seen any of the devs "clearly" say there will not be RP servers? I have been reading the turbine and codemaster forums for a while now, and have not seen this. Indeed, the impression I had was that RP servers were a high possibility, especially so in Europe.
I -have- also seen plenty of dev comments that imply RP is a definite consideration for them in the development of this game.
GW for me was utterly dull! Landscapes that were pointlessly long and irritating to navigate, crammed with boring mobs. Bland quests. And generic, dull gameplay. And had absolutely no RP emphasis at all. DDO is immediately in a different league, just because of the community it is appealing to. There is soooo much talk about RP, and how much players want to be able to RP, on the two official forums.
Personally I definitely expect / hope to see RP encouraged servers, and see a definite RP community, guilds, et al. With an ale or three tossed back after a particularly arduous quest.
There will be a lot of players of MMORPGs that will probably not like DDO. But for those who know what the RP stands for in MMORPG, I really do think this has the potential to be a great game.
Cheers,
Sirac
Okay, I bought the GW collectors edition version and played the game in beta and release extensively. I also played the DDO stress test about a month ago. The games are completely different other than the fact that they both use instancing.
They instanced missions in guildwars suck...period. They don't use them to do anything remotely interesting and they are pointlessly big in order to extend the time it takes to complete the mission so the easily duped are tricked into thinking they are getting lots of content. The main focus of guildwars is PVP. The whole game is built around it, but it's more like UT with instanced farming areas to make money with. The story is contrived and is only designed to give you an excuse to do the next mission. I haven't touched the game in months and don't plan to play it ever again. What a waste of $80.
From my way too short time in the DDO ST I experienced some of the most fun and addictive gameplay I ever have in an MMO and I have played many of them. The instance dungeons were very fun and well put together, the classes all play quite differently and I had absolutely no problems finding a group to play with. Their LFG tool works great. Many quests are given in taverns, which were always crowded when I went in.
I was surprised at how many of the PnP rules I noticed in the game. If you think they can incorporate all of the PnP rules in the game ver batim then you are deluding yourself. NOT POSSIBLE. when they needed to they always went with fun gameplay over rules lawyering, it was the right decision. If you can't come to terms with that then don't buy the game and wait for NWN2, or continue playing World of Borecraft. I'll be buying both DDO and NWN2 anyways so it's no problem to me.
I did a lot. I DM a lot. I play nearly every product with the TSR label on it. When most designer on the teams at Turbine would have troubles to names 20 products of anything with TSR label on it, I could name 20 computer games with the TSR label and naming all the books would be something harder than naming the 50 states of the US (which I can) for a crazy Canook!
DDO critical mistake: Raiding.
DDO big concerns/mistakes: Real Time, Enforced Grouping, No XP for killing a mob, servers restriction(peoples should not be bound to their server for good, maybe for the week or whatever the company figure out), EQification (I am a fan of EQ, but when Heroes of Might and Magic IV borrow Magic the Gathering system(I am a fan of this as well), I was feeling betrayed and shocked).
DDO slight annoyance: Eberron, the MMO fans who are kicking in despite not been D&D fans, lack of any "basic and vital" component of D&D (druids, monks, skills, feats). When I see someone who hardly know what D&D is defend Turbines choices while been unable to bring anything under the D&D light, it annoy me.
- "If I understand you well, you are telling me until next time. " - Ren
Well, seeing as how I anticipate this game not for its D&D history, but for its gameplay, I think its going to be awesome. I am dearly sorry that DDO isnt really all that close to D&D PnP for all those expecting it, but I still think the gameplay is going to rule anyway, and with the rich history DDO will probably have a cool story to it as well.
They have people who worked on the PHB and DMG ON STAFF. I think they'll be able to name a few more than 20 products with the TSR label on it.
There is no raiding in DDO, they are called danger zones and they are something that is significantly different.
The real-time combat system is actually really fun and works well, enforced grouping (and that doesn't always mean you have to have 6 people in a group, it can be as few as one other person) means that everyone will be LFG so groups are easier to find.
No XP for killing mobs is a great thing, it means no-one is going to be able to just grind through levels, and groups can be rewarded for things other than killing all the mobs.
As for restricting servers, it's a common occurance in mmo's, to transfer a character from one server to another requires messing with 2 servers databases, not something to be taken lightly.
No there will not be Monks or Druids available on launch, they weren't able to implement the classes in a worthwhile way because they function differently from other classes, so instead of putting them in halfassed they are going to wait till they can do it properly. Quit being so elitist and deal with it already instead of just whining.
They? I was saying most of them, individualy. As a team maybe they can name 20 TSR product, but if you take them individually in a room with a blank sheet, I have serious doubts for MOST of them succeeding that easily, most of them will have troubles to put 20 names of TSR products from their memories. I still have a full library here...and many computers products.
Changing the name is hypocrit. Raiding is a critical mistake.
Real time is a betrayal, even BG have a very friendly approach to offer pretty much both (space bar was actually acting like a GBT system). A D&D product that doesnt offer an appealing alternative for the GBT lovers is a betrayal.
Restricting servers could have been solutionized and they avoid this MAJOR issue altogether.
No XP for killing mobs IS an awful betrayal. Someone become a better fighter by fighting, not by talking!
It is you who are been elitist by praising a system who deny good solo, yet you see this in me while I am as casual friendly as I can manage to be and trying to figure great ideas. D&D was not a group enforcing system, it is been EQified in DDO. No druids or monk is a slight annoyance, but it is an annoyance nonetheless...the work they put to make it Eberron rather than an existing setting could have been put to implement the druid or the monk.
Minsc the beserker is 1 of my favorite character, but you are certainly not heading that way.
I am a fan of Magic the Gathering, Heroes of Might and Magic and D&D (more D&D). Turbines is making MANY mistakes that are going to harm the franchise. Customers always remembers betrayals. Fans who doesn't complains may be great for the devs, but it also blind them to what might be major issues.
- "If I understand you well, you are telling me until next time. " - Ren
Who cares if only a few of them can name 20 TSR modules by heart, my group hardly ever played official adventures, we preferred to either make up our own adventures or even the whole world, just because we wanted to play something that is our own creation, which is the spirit of PnP D&D.
Once again they are not raid zones, it is not 40 people all grouping up to hack away at one mob with 1,000,000 as many hp as any normal mob, it is going to be, at most 18 people in a semi-public instance that will have quests and goals to complete either individually or as a team in that area. As far as we know that could be defending a town from raiders while someone else tracks down the raiders camp to take out the leader while yet another group performs some other, possibly non-combat task in order to complete the main quest of the instance. Who knows for sure what will be involved but if it's anything like that then imo that is still completely true to PnP rules and sounds like fun.
BG was a turned-based, single player game (and a great one at that) and the system worked for that game. It would not work in an MMO or online game, even NWN was designed to work in real-time though you could pause it if necessary it was seldom used. You need to come to terms with that and accept that fact. The other option they have is to go with the cookie cutter auto-attack and ability que like all the other MMO's that are out right now. The so-called "press auto-attack and go make a sandwich combat system".
Having the characters stored server side is the only way to do it, anything stored on the local users machine is far too open to hacking so it's not even an option.
The reason they don't give xp for killing mobs is that many people would just sit and grind them to gain levels, also when you play PnP do you give everyone xp after every encounter or at the end of the adventure or playsession? In my experience its usually at the end and that fits right in with the way they do it in DDO, you are rewarded for successful completion of the quest, not for killing 10,000 kobolds.
DDO is being built on grouping, if they provide for those who want to solo then there is no need to group, if there is no need to group then everyone will solo and it will be hard to find groups. By forcing grouping then because everyone needs to group to complete most quests then there will be plenty of people in taverns with which to form groups. It's the only valid way to make it easy to find groups. Also there is no saying that you won't be able to solo group dungeons, it will just be extremely difficult and slow for your progression, if you don't have a problem with that then go nuts.
Grouping at the expense of solo will not work, it never work. You lose your best players progressively and folks complains more and more about pick-up group and the fact they only do in-guild grouping to avoid the lames...
DarquenBlade is right on 1 point, we will not agree. See, when I express an opinion, my mind is already made and I am adamant about it because I think about it a LOT already. I just try to convince other, I can't be convince myself (well, I can, but it is hard), since if I can be convince, I read and listen rather than talk. When I talk, I know what I am talking about. That doesn't mean everyone have to agree with me, but if you expect me to change opinion, you waste your time, you can't convince me, when I talk it is because I think over the topic. However, as far as flawed goes, I would have to say it is more folks like DarquenBlade who adopt flawed logic and believe silly stuff.
Enforcing a group is a mistake, giving better reward to folks who are in bunch of 18 is removing all form of skills on an inidvidual level. Individuality is destroyed in those system and this is unacceptable. A good grouping system is built side by side with a good soloing system, not at the expense of the soloing like in WoW or CoH!
- "If I understand you well, you are telling me until next time. " - Ren
LOL Fair enough
.
Just as a side note Anofalye...I know I jump on and make comments about your posts fairly regularly. I just want to point out and make it clear that I don't have a problem with you at all...I just tend to disagree with you pretty much every step of the way on game design
It's all good though
.
After the first Stress Test I expressed my generally bad opinion of the game. I'll try to get into this stress because I'm willing to take another look to see if any of the concerns expressed by the stress testers have been addressed.
Forced grouping is a very, very, very bad idea for any mmorpg. Offering benefits for grouping is good, but making it mandatory is just going to be the kiss of death. If you look at most mmorpgs today, even the people who most enjoy grouping probably spend less than half of their play time in groups. The arguement that if someone wants solo play they shouldn't be playing a MMO was always silly, but it has been proven completely empty as the genre has evolved and player habits have been examined.
Forced grouping for DDO quests completely rules out any solo play, because there is absolutely nothing else to do in the world but do quests. Crafting, resource gathering, exploration even grinding are all non-existant here. The game further compounds the problem of forced grouping because the game design itself is totally non-conducive to roleplaying and the building of friendships through social interaction.
A group of established friends or even guilds from other games that already stress organized grouping above all else may find something to play here. However, most everyone else is totally out of luck.
The forced grouping will turn off and turn away the vast majority of the potential audience for the game. Add onto that the fact that the game itself, grouping aside, is extremely mediocre (it's game design one might have expected from a (bad) first generation MMO) and DDO looks like a disaster waiting to happen.
The graphics are decent. The game mechanics flawed and the game world about two steps back from even the original EQ.
At this point, it's only hope at filling any niche would be to provide a really good DnD simulator with a little value added as a result of the pseudo-MMO format. As an MMORPG, it has zero chance of success. People are looking for the next generation of MMORPGs to improve on the current crop of top tier games in some significant manner. DDO has a few gimmicks, but it's not even a tenth the game WoW or EQII is and for the sake of the comparison, you can chose which ever of those two you like the least.
Want to know more about GW2 and why there is so much buzz? Start here: Guild Wars 2 Mass Info for the Uninitiated
