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I just played this game READ!
seldan1
Member Posts: 16
This game has got to be the bigest joke i ever seen. The graphics suck, Looks and plays just like asheron's call. So its going to flop bad. Well what did i expect its turbine all they make is crap games. The need to fire all dev and get new. Ive seen free games that look/play better.
Just my 2cents.
PS people that like this game have to be die hard dnd thats only thing i can think of. I love dnd but it will not over shadow this crap game for me, sorry just how i feel. I sugest any one who is thinking of buying this game go and try it at friends or somthing first!!!
Thanks i hope people dont get screwed thinking its a gread dnd game!!!
Comments
The problems with this game have been discussed in broad detail now and most people who participated in these discussion took more than your 2 minutes to articulate their thoughts about the Pro and Cons of D&DO. So who do you think you are starting such a meaningless, uninformative thread and at the same time claim to be in the position to make such judgements for other people? If you are not able to give some well-thought explainations and examples to support your position you might as well dont bother posting. This is nothing personal but such threads really start to piss me off...
OT:
Its certainly not what most DnD fans and MMORPG vets have hoped for, agreed. It does have a concept that might appeal to a certain kind of gamer tho - the quests are more complex and challenging then in many other MMOs. But with the lack of crafting, exploration and PvP it simply does not offer a lot of choices in terms of gameplay. Hence the monthly fee is probably a bit too high compared to what is offered by Turbine / The Devs. The replay value is probably also not very big - again because of the lack of content. Also the storyline seems to be a bit linear to me. The controls need a complete revamp - the camera (middle mouse button) does not work properly with the WASD scheme. I know it does in other games,but not in D&DO. The keys are too responsive which leads to choppy movement and difficulties in manovering - and the camera position is in no way connected to the movement (in other games the camera represents the "head" of the character and can be used to optimise movement - in D&DO it is completely independent). I could go on and on...but all these things have been said before
One more thing tho - the graphics are actually quite nice - on the highest settings impressive in parts. But if I remember correctly the US Beta client was not distributed with this option enabled -only medium gfx quality.
I just wanted to point out that the OP is full of *%$#.
If you look at the other thread he started you will see he cannot even run the game (and by what he says it's obvious he has not played it).
This sort of behavior is as base as it can get in an online setting.
"The graphics suck"
Obviously he hasn't even played the game. The graphics are the best I've seen. Of course it lags like crap but it still looks good.
It's like FEAR, I hear people raving about how great it looks. I never hear about how crappy the engine is and how badly it performs especially when you compare it to an awesome engine like Doom 3/Quake 4.
I'm a diehard DnD fan and I even prefer Eberron over Forgotten Realms on the PnP side but even that fanboism cannot make me buy this game. In fact it leads me to dislike it even more for all they left out.
I really cannot imagine how the meetings went that let some independent game company with one semi-modest sucess with AC1 and an all out failure with AC2 , gain the license to the two biggest "Names" in the fantasy field (LOTRs and D&D) with full rights to produce them into a Turbine MMORPG. Did any of the suits at those meeting ever roll a dice, read Tolkien, play AC2????? The sheer stupidity of this not only will make Turbine look worse but sadly will also cause a lot of gaming companies and investors run screaming away from this genre. I know if I read these forums and the forums over at DnD Online's mainsite and I was a investor who had donated 25 million to Turbine, I would be seriously thinking about either leaving the country or making a WWII FPS.
Why do the same people post this same garbage over and over again? It's not even a matter of the quality of the game anymore, it's just you having some sad little vendetta against Turbine.
Surely there is SOMETHING in your life that your time could be better spent on? Granted, I'm sure the garbage you spewed out in this post couldn't have taken more than a minute, but it's the sad reasoning behind it. Did the game touch you in a bad place? Insult your mother? For christ's sake, it's a video game.
I'm all for well articulated opinions. I'm for improving the game. Every game has room for improvement, but how many times do you need to post how much you dislike the game? Reading your posts, you haven't even played it.
Move on. Go back to whatever game you're diehard loyal to, I'm sure DDO won't take that many players from it.
HELLO WORLD
I can't speak for anyone but myself, however I can say that for me a MMORPG is slightly different than other forms of entertainment.
1. Movies: I'm looking forward to a movie. I look at a few screens/movies and make a mental note to go see the movie at release. I go, spend $20 on movie and popcorn and if it sucks then I am out the movie ticket and two hours of time.
2. MMORPG; After EQI, many view this as a time investment where you could spend three years or more playing your avatar, living in the world and playing the game. With EQII for instance I spent three years posting to forums, scanning for screenshots, and waiting for a "real" release date to come. After that you pay $50 and sign up for a montly fee to play this game and then spend 15-30 hours a week getting into it. If it sucks then with such a huge investment of time it seems logical to me that a lot of people wish to gripe.
In relation to D&D you have a lot of people who are fans of the PnP game and had hoped to see a full living breating world. The same complaining will probably happen with any game but especially with games that had a big license and a established pre-fan base like D&D, Star Trek Online, and LoTRs online. Forums make a wonderful place to vent that frustration. The bad thing is that the same forums suport the fans who love the game and the guys who are let down.
You all asked for it...
And now you've got it...
A totaly, impartial, in-depth review of: Dungeons and Dragons Online...
"This game is rotten, like fart rotten, yeah, you know the kind, when you fart and even you scrunch up your nose at how pugnant it is... that's this game, but wose because at least a fart we expect to stink, but not DnD"
Brrrt...
"Who did that"
*Points to turbine"
ahahaha
----
MMORPG's I've Played: World of Warcraft: 10/10 - Rappelz: 7/10 - Ragnarok Online: 8/10 - DnD Online: 2/10 - Runescape: 6/10 - LotR Online: 5/10 - Anarchy Online: 7/10 - CoV: 8/10 - Rohan Online: 8/10 - Guild Wars: 7/10 - Flyff: 8/10 - Warhammer Online: 8/10
My HARDCORE Story
I can't speak for anyone but myself, however I can say that for me a MMORPG is slightly different than other forms of entertainment.
1. Movies: I'm looking forward to a movie. I look at a few screens/movies and make a mental note to go see the movie at release. I go, spend $20 on movie and popcorn and if it sucks then I am out the movie ticket and two hours of time.
2. MMORPG; After EQI, many view this as a time investment where you could spend three years or more playing your avatar, living in the world and playing the game. With EQII for instance I spent three years posting to forums, scanning for screenshots, and waiting for a "real" release date to come. After that you pay $50 and sign up for a montly fee to play this game and then spend 15-30 hours a week getting into it. If it sucks then with such a huge investment of time it seems logical to me that a lot of people wish to gripe.
In relation to D&D you have a lot of people who are fans of the PnP game and had hoped to see a full living breating world. The same complaining will probably happen with any game but especially with games that had a big license and a established pre-fan base like D&D, Star Trek Online, and LoTRs online. Forums make a wonderful place to vent that frustration. The bad thing is that the same forums suport the fans who love the game and the guys who are let down.
A huge invesetment of time? I don't know about you, but if a game sucks, I just don't play it. I especially don't play it for 30 - 40 hours. Even more so, I don't bitch about it on forums, where no one cares except for people with the exact same opinion as me already. And considering no one has paid the 50 dollar price tag yet, and no one has paid the 15 dollar monthly charge, I'm failing to see your point here.
And why would PnP players be expecting a big open world? That's never been my expierence in PnP games. I've never walked across an entire planet while a DM explains every sight and sound I come across. No, D&D has always been about dungeon crawls. Technically that is what it was designed for. Hence the name, Dungeons and Dragons.
However, I certainly understand it is a game that was meant to have the rules bent, and everyone has their own special memory of what D&D was. It's a game that was played a billion different ways by a billion different people, and there's no way that it would have ever been exactly what everyone's idea of what D&D is. Hell, I've heard arguments for that it sticks too close to the rules, and that it isn't nearly strict enough.
This is all beside the point, seeing as how this guy never even played the game. Go read his Windows ME post, he doesn't even have a computer capable of playing it. Now, try to justify the existence of this thread.
HELLO WORLD
Spot on. Everyone read this again because it is right on. The movement thing you can get used to and I like how you can climb stuff but I can see how it could drive people nuts. I just through night 2 of stress testing and not sure I am even going to log on again. The game has flaws, glaring ones. But it is not the graphics, the graphics are the saving grace, the Lore is great the character creation is adequate. But the small world you live in is too linear and you feel you are trapped in this world doing the same thing everyone else is doing. And if you just want to go off by yourself - forget about it.
I was just going to preorder the game - I had 4 family members we were all going to schedule a time to play together as a built in group. It seemed like the perfect game, like we used to play when we were kids, - but now we can play from our own houses miles away and even use voice chat. So my situation seemed perfect, and I still was not impressed enough to want to play. So if you are not sure try to get a look at the combat system, and the quest system before you plunk down your money. I just don't see it being worth the monthly fee at this point.
I am only level 1 and may give it two more days to wow me but I can just tell as much as I want to like it, and as happy as I am to be playing something new and different - it just does not have it.
I have heard of Turbines past releases and track record but that means nothing to me, used to play D&D back in the day but not a hard core gamer so had no preconceived notions about what the game needed to be. Justing looking for a fun immersive game with a good combat system and questing system and a character system that makes you look different. don't care about PVP or crafting. And this game still does not fit that list of needs, I don't understand how it doesn't.
---MMO EXPERIENCE:---
WoW - 06-2006 to current
COV - 40 Corruptor - 10-2005 to 04-2006
COH - 50 Scrapper - 04-2004 to 04-2006
EQ2 - 35 Barb Berserker - 12-2004 to 04-2005
EQ1 - 55 Barb Warrior - 2000, 2001
Tried: DaoC, DDO, Auto Assault, SWG, Lineage II
I'm surprised you did not like the game looking over your criteria.
I guess it's the instances that simply can't immerse people. Since I've been an avid gamer that plays cRPGs, MMOs, ... or any kind that is -good- I am quite used to instancing.
I wonder if Turbine will add an expansion with an explorable wilderness.
I think the game forces you into this linear path of "okay everyone into this part of town until you reach a certain experience level". Then you can open up another part of the town, it takes you by the hand and leads you through the game. That is my impression, I could be wrong, but I don't see any evidence against that right now. So I see everyone running around to the same 30 doors I have the options to go to right now.
Also I like the option to go as a duo and just be a warrior/healer group and this game seems pretty impossible to pull off that way. Grouping is fine but making you group is another matter. The climbing and puzzles were a nice change (like the turning the floor tiles to move the power flow to the corners of the room to open the magic force field around the book) - but the combat system is just to herky jerky. I was having some lag issues too - probably due to the stress test. But with it got better in the instance zone (thus the point of the instancing) and I also turned the graphics down a bit.
But still it cant decide if it is a twitch click to fight or a passive tab target and click the tray combat game. It is both but really neither - you tab target and attack you will be too slow - you click swing and you will have trouble targeting.
Also no regen of hit point and manna makes for a strange gameplay - seems always at a deficit. Combat comes fast and you will be at low health fast when you survive - you better hope there is not another big encounter planned.
Man it was frustrating - but there are some cool quest ideas and shield/dodge was a cool idea too. But even if I learn to master the combat, which I think can be mastered, I am still stuck in a mostly linear world with no escape.
---MMO EXPERIENCE:---
WoW - 06-2006 to current
COV - 40 Corruptor - 10-2005 to 04-2006
COH - 50 Scrapper - 04-2004 to 04-2006
EQ2 - 35 Barb Berserker - 12-2004 to 04-2005
EQ1 - 55 Barb Warrior - 2000, 2001
Tried: DaoC, DDO, Auto Assault, SWG, Lineage II
I can't speak for anyone but myself, however I can say that for me a MMORPG is slightly different than other forms of entertainment.
1. Movies: I'm looking forward to a movie. I look at a few screens/movies and make a mental note to go see the movie at release. I go, spend $20 on movie and popcorn and if it sucks then I am out the movie ticket and two hours of time.
2. MMORPG; After EQI, many view this as a time investment where you could spend three years or more playing your avatar, living in the world and playing the game. With EQII for instance I spent three years posting to forums, scanning for screenshots, and waiting for a "real" release date to come. After that you pay $50 and sign up for a montly fee to play this game and then spend 15-30 hours a week getting into it. If it sucks then with such a huge investment of time it seems logical to me that a lot of people wish to gripe.
In relation to D&D you have a lot of people who are fans of the PnP game and had hoped to see a full living breating world. The same complaining will probably happen with any game but especially with games that had a big license and a established pre-fan base like D&D, Star Trek Online, and LoTRs online. Forums make a wonderful place to vent that frustration. The bad thing is that the same forums suport the fans who love the game and the guys who are let down.
A huge invesetment of time? I don't know about you, but if a game sucks, I just don't play it. I especially don't play it for 30 - 40 hours. Even more so, I don't bitch about it on forums, where no one cares except for people with the exact same opinion as me already. And considering no one has paid the 50 dollar price tag yet, and no one has paid the 15 dollar monthly charge, I'm failing to see your point here.
And why would PnP players be expecting a big open world? That's never been my expierence in PnP games. I've never walked across an entire planet while a DM explains every sight and sound I come across. No, D&D has always been about dungeon crawls. Technically that is what it was designed for. Hence the name, Dungeons and Dragons.
However, I certainly understand it is a game that was meant to have the rules bent, and everyone has their own special memory of what D&D was. It's a game that was played a billion different ways by a billion different people, and there's no way that it would have ever been exactly what everyone's idea of what D&D is. Hell, I've heard arguments for that it sticks too close to the rules, and that it isn't nearly strict enough.
This is all beside the point, seeing as how this guy never even played the game. Go read his Windows ME post, he doesn't even have a computer capable of playing it. Now, try to justify the existence of this thread.
Juat one quick question... If the PnP DnD is not about worlds to explore, Why are there so many different DnD worlds that have been created... I mean Vast worlds... Forgotton Realms, Greyhawk, Eberron, etc... And if yor DM never took you across a world, then you missed something... WotC even states is one of there modules that Getting there is half the fun...
Wow, just wow. I mean, I could hardly tell I wasn't reading a professional game raters article. Its so detailed and in depth. I am so glad there are people like you out there to help us know what is a good game and what isn't.
Modjoe86- Gambling is a sin.
Laserwolf- Only if you lose.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Waiting for= PSU, WAR
Yeah, I understand what you mean. The game does not have the sense of "being able to go wherever or do whatever."
It has a fairly narrow focus. Most MMOs so far have been like Morrowind/Oblivion while DDO strives to be more like NWN or BG.
Since I enjoy both linear story telling and free-play worlds I have no beef with not being able to leave the city although it would be nice to have an laternative.
I personally don't think it's much different than EQ2, the difference being the quest areas in DDO are instanced 100% and there are social areas that everyone goes to, while in EQ2 you are bound to certain areas because of the level reqs and you meet random people isntead of going to the tavern to find company.
I did find it annoying in EQ2 that the world seemed a linear progression from one area to the next due to the scaling difficulty of the monsters.
Good old AC has the open-world feel, great customization, and engaging quests... too bad the graphics and controls are so outdated.
I think your missing the point as so many people also seem to be. DnD worlds are described in writen form where by the player uses his imagination to create that world in his own mind so every DnD player is gonna have a different idea of what that world is like. BUT the PnP DnD player has never explored that world like some MMORPG player has because DnD is all about exploring dungeons. So, a game that is essentially based on exploring dungeons is not gonna turn into WoW or EQ2 over night.
It is what it is, DnD Online, so all those poor frustrated DnD PnP wannabe's who could never get enough like minded friends together to go explore dungeons can now log on, meet others who never could convince their mates how great DnD was/is and go explore all those Dungeons they could only dream of before.
Was DnD ever about crafting items? was it ever about RPing your walk to the dungeon, rolling the die to see whether you side stepped the cow pat or put your foot right in it? no. DnD is about gettin together with ur mates and having a laugh while exploring a DUNGEON.
TBH a lot of the criticism seems to be against the company and the game is being used as a way of attacking the company, I get the impression that there's a hell of a lot of AC2 players with a lot of pent up anger out there who wont be happy till they see the company fail but it's not gonna happen so get over it. It's also sad that so many MMORPG players are so narrow minded, they bitch about every MMORPG being the same but as soon as a game comes along thats different they suddenly start moaning that it isn't like the WoW's or the EQ2's or the other trillion mmorpg look-a-likes out there and that you cant do the things that you can do in every other MMORPG!
I think your missing the point as so many people also seem to be. DnD worlds are described in writen form where by the player uses his imagination to create that world in his own mind so every DnD player is gonna have a different idea of what that world is like. BUT the PnP DnD player has never explored that world like some MMORPG player has because DnD is all about exploring dungeons. So, a game that is essentially based on exploring dungeons is not gonna turn into WoW or EQ2 over night.
It is what it is, DnD Online, so all those poor frustrated DnD PnP wannabe's who could never get enough like minded friends together to go explore dungeons can now log on, meet others who never could convince their mates how great DnD was/is and go explore all those Dungeons they could only dream of before.
Was DnD ever about crafting items? was it ever about RPing your walk to the dungeon, rolling the die to see whether you side stepped the cow pat or put your foot right in it? no. DnD is about gettin together with ur mates and having a laugh while exploring a DUNGEON.
TBH a lot of the criticism seems to be against the company and the game is being used as a way of attacking the company, I get the impression that there's a hell of a lot of AC2 players with a lot of pent up anger out there who wont be happy till they see the company fail but it's not gonna happen so get over it. It's also sad that so many MMORPG players are so narrow minded, they bitch about every MMORPG being the same but as soon as a game comes along thats different they suddenly start moaning that it isn't like the WoW's or the EQ2's or the other trillion mmorpg look-a-likes out there and that you cant do the things that you can do in every other MMORPG!
Actually in most games I have ran and played in for tabletop gaming, dungeons have only been maybe 50% of the game. Random encounters in the woods, taking a boat somewhere and getting in storms, going to an elf city or a sphinx or some such to iniatate a quest. In fact D&D has new books out now that cover weather conditions. 4 books about adventuring at sea, dessert, winter areas, and wilderness. Granted, D&D in the 80s was mostly about some eight floored dungeon of doom but Forgotten Realms and Eberron both are fully fleshed out worlds with so much more to offer. As the other poster said; half the fun is in getting there. When you do instant poof to dungeon A, followed by instant poof/port whatever to dungeon B some of that spirit is lost.
For the record D&D Online to me doesn't seem all that original and different. Anarchy Online, AC2, LDON, COH, Guild wars, EQII and even WOW all made use of instancing. The biggest difference is that at least most of these games had more to offer than just one meeting area and a bunch of instanced non-community zones. Nothing wrong with that but it certainly seems to be something besides a Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game at that point. I'm all for different but question what I would be paying for if other MMORPGs are offering three or four continents of content at release and D&D has one city. Everything I read about it makes it sound more like a combo of Guild Wars and Neverwinter Nights/Dungeon Siege and you can play all those for free online with five friends.
I'm going to put my 2 cents in for DDO.
Being a DnD nutcase for a good quarter of my life. I found DDO very disappointing. I know I know, here come a bitch on my side. I never been much of a Euberon World fan. Matter a fact they should of made DDO into a Forgotten Realms type setting. Hell, that how many of the older version RPG's for computer where base from. Graphic are piss poor graphics... Game play is a little ehh.. I hate the GUI presonally. Now, I was very surprised about the character creation. A little more open then any normal MMORPG I have seen. <Except PE> Truthy, I personally well not be buying this game when it does come out. It just I'm not a big a fan to the world setting it has.
And I was so jazzed when I heard there was going to be a DnD MMO coming out too.... <sighs>
I can't speak for anyone but myself, however I can say that for me a MMORPG is slightly different than other forms of entertainment.
1. Movies: I'm looking forward to a movie. I look at a few screens/movies and make a mental note to go see the movie at release. I go, spend $20 on movie and popcorn and if it sucks then I am out the movie ticket and two hours of time.
2. MMORPG; After EQI, many view this as a time investment where you could spend three years or more playing your avatar, living in the world and playing the game. With EQII for instance I spent three years posting to forums, scanning for screenshots, and waiting for a "real" release date to come. After that you pay $50 and sign up for a montly fee to play this game and then spend 15-30 hours a week getting into it. If it sucks then with such a huge investment of time it seems logical to me that a lot of people wish to gripe.
In relation to D&D you have a lot of people who are fans of the PnP game and had hoped to see a full living breating world. The same complaining will probably happen with any game but especially with games that had a big license and a established pre-fan base like D&D, Star Trek Online, and LoTRs online. Forums make a wonderful place to vent that frustration. The bad thing is that the same forums suport the fans who love the game and the guys who are let down.
A huge invesetment of time? I don't know about you, but if a game sucks, I just don't play it. I especially don't play it for 30 - 40 hours. Even more so, I don't bitch about it on forums, where no one cares except for people with the exact same opinion as me already. And considering no one has paid the 50 dollar price tag yet, and no one has paid the 15 dollar monthly charge, I'm failing to see your point here.
And why would PnP players be expecting a big open world? That's never been my expierence in PnP games. I've never walked across an entire planet while a DM explains every sight and sound I come across. No, D&D has always been about dungeon crawls. Technically that is what it was designed for. Hence the name, Dungeons and Dragons.
However, I certainly understand it is a game that was meant to have the rules bent, and everyone has their own special memory of what D&D was. It's a game that was played a billion different ways by a billion different people, and there's no way that it would have ever been exactly what everyone's idea of what D&D is. Hell, I've heard arguments for that it sticks too close to the rules, and that it isn't nearly strict enough.
This is all beside the point, seeing as how this guy never even played the game. Go read his Windows ME post, he doesn't even have a computer capable of playing it. Now, try to justify the existence of this thread.
Juat one quick question... If the PnP DnD is not about worlds to explore, Why are there so many different DnD worlds that have been created... I mean Vast worlds... Forgotton Realms, Greyhawk, Eberron, etc... And if yor DM never took you across a world, then you missed something... WotC even states is one of there modules that Getting there is half the fun...
You are completely missing my point. Take FFXI for example: In that game there are honestly 15 minute waits for boats, then there are 15 minute boat rides. 30 minutes of gameplay right there for the sake of "immersion"(in reality it is a way to artifically extend game play). This isn't fun. No DM is going to explain this. No DM is going to say "You stand on the docks doing nothing" while you stare at your watch for 15 minutes waiting on a pretend boat just to feel a little more immersed in the world. If your DM does that, well, he's an idiot. Every DnD game ever has stream lined this process, and DDO is no different. It's because the game is set in the MMO genre that anyone is making a big fuss out of this. You guys were raised on long, monotinous walks and fed ex quests.
DnD creates detailed worlds for many reasons:
-So you have an idea of what the world your in is like
-So there are plenty of places for a DM to set adventures
-So there can be set guide lines to follow
-To add to the roleplaying
-To sell books
DnD is about the world you're in, but more so it's about adventure. And PnP's idea of exploration and adventure and the MMO genre's are 2 very very different things.
HELLO WORLD
One more thing I must mention here.
D&D comunity had high hopes for this game. It was said , there will be lot of quality ROLEPLAYERS playing it - and the game itself will offer lot of possibilities to ROLEPLAY.
(Just notice how jaded MMORPG player I am. I do not even talk anymore about roleplay enforced , or RP servers ... just humbled request for ability to roleplay
)
Well dear friends FORGET ROLEPLAY in DDO
As for what i seen until now - and lets hope it is being reworked for the release (although i doubt it)
DDO has the worse chat interface of all MMOS , no speach text above characters head , you can not discern who is talking , few emotes (you can not even sit in the tawern ???!?!) , the areas in which you could RP are few and overcrowded , also instanced shards - so you can be in the same place like other roleplayer but in diferent shard.
Questing although more dynamic and interesting than other MMOS , is too dynamic to give opportunity to RP.
In my oppinion , if TURBINE had any common sence they would fix this relatively small issues promptly before the release....
"Before this battle is over all the world will know that few...stood against many." - King Leonidas
I think your missing the point as so many people also seem to be. DnD worlds are described in writen form where by the player uses his imagination to create that world in his own mind so every DnD player is gonna have a different idea of what that world is like. BUT the PnP DnD player has never explored that world like some MMORPG player has because DnD is all about exploring dungeons. So, a game that is essentially based on exploring dungeons is not gonna turn into WoW or EQ2 over night.
It is what it is, DnD Online, so all those poor frustrated DnD PnP wannabe's who could never get enough like minded friends together to go explore dungeons can now log on, meet others who never could convince their mates how great DnD was/is and go explore all those Dungeons they could only dream of before.
Was DnD ever about crafting items? was it ever about RPing your walk to the dungeon, rolling the die to see whether you side stepped the cow pat or put your foot right in it? no. DnD is about gettin together with ur mates and having a laugh while exploring a DUNGEON.
TBH a lot of the criticism seems to be against the company and the game is being used as a way of attacking the company, I get the impression that there's a hell of a lot of AC2 players with a lot of pent up anger out there who wont be happy till they see the company fail but it's not gonna happen so get over it. It's also sad that so many MMORPG players are so narrow minded, they bitch about every MMORPG being the same but as soon as a game comes along thats different they suddenly start moaning that it isn't like the WoW's or the EQ2's or the other trillion mmorpg look-a-likes out there and that you cant do the things that you can do in every other MMORPG!
For the record D&D Online to me doesn't seem all that original and different. Anarchy Online, AC2, LDON, COH, Guild wars, EQII and even WOW all made use of instancing. The biggest difference is that at least most of these games had more to offer than just one meeting area and a bunch of instanced non-community zones. Nothing wrong with that but it certainly seems to be something besides a Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game at that point. I'm all for different but question what I would be paying for if other MMORPGs are offering three or four continents of content at release and D&D has one city. Everything I read about it makes it sound more like a combo of Guild Wars and Neverwinter Nights/Dungeon Siege and you can play all those for free online with five friends.
If you're only focusing on instancing, no that alone isn't original. To me what is original about the game is what isn't there. I don't want crafting, 30 minute walks through zones, fetch quests, grinds or any of that, and none of it is here. Even if the game isn't perfect this is a step in the right direction. MMO's attract so many nongamers mainly because the games aren't designed to be fun, they're only designed to be addictive. You might find them fun, but my point still stands. These games are designed from the ground up to keep you playing and keep you paying that monthly fee. It's not debatable, it's a fact. No matter how you feel about the game or Turbine, it's impossible to not give them a little credit for ignoring that model and sticking to their guns.
You don't want to play? That's fine. I will be, and I'll be paying the monthly fee for free content updates, and because it's the first MMO I've had genuine fun in for as long as I can remember. One thing I certainly won't be doing is hanging around forums of games I don't even intend to play, bitching and moaning about every way the game wasn't exactly what I wanted it to be. No, because that's just kind of sad.
HELLO WORLD
Looks like a lot of complaints are directed against the fact that there is no explorable world. Fine, I agree - that is a nice feature in many games, but Turbine decided not to take this approach. But there are two consequences out of this:
1) People who enjoy exploring will not like D&DO
2) BUT: It allows for denser gameplay, where the core aspect - Dungeons and complex quests (more complex than in most other MMOs) - is easily accessible.
So, I understand that the average MMO gamer has been well-conditioned to expect certain features in an MMO - apparently most of those are missing in D&DO. That however does not make it a bad game. It is just not your average MMO world. If that is what you really want - EQ1, EQ2, WoW, and so on are waiting for you ^^
And I agree that the DnD PnP game has never been about exploring huge worlds, but more about a nice get-together with other people and having some fun adventuring. To ensure that this is possible the game world had to be limited - otherwise this quest-oriented approach would not have worked.
So why exactly do you want D&DO to be just like all the other MMOs? From a companies point of you such a concept does not make sense - the competition is already fairly strong there. I really appreciate it that Turbine decided no to make a mainstream game, but instead a game that is easier to get into and focused on the core strenght of the PnP (and I am not talking about the whole AD&D books and stuff...). The only difference between a D&DO MMO as you apparently want it to be and all other MMOs would have been the lore. Yet another EQ-clone..^^
Anyway, this game has some other flaws and problems and we will have to see how it evolves..
I pre-ordered this game and played 10 days pass recently.
I have to say this game is far away to be a product. It is full of bugs.
I played WoW, Guildwars or EQ2, no matter what rank you give to them, they are finished product. But DDO not, 10 level cap, very bad rout AI, can't spawn error, broken text string, very very few backgroud music, less than 30 NPC models, incompatible with lots of graphics cards (that cause sudden computer shutdown).....
It is unfinished!!!