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CaptainRPG
Member Posts: 794
Don't get this game or download the free trial. The lag is a pure lag-fest with setting on low. The graphics are horrible even on the best setting largely due to the lack variety in charater models, animations of the models (which remind of the animation of the ol'school doom games) and brightness of the atmosphere. Not much difference between low and high setting on graphics.
Half of the time, you find yourself lag sailing. Lag sailing is the termniology I use to define accidents due to the result of lag like falling off a huge stairway or running in circle in a area full of traps. Instance did nothing to stop the overwhelming lag in this game as I find myself lagging even with the settings on low while in a dungeon.
The gameplay revolves you talking to people, getting quest to hack and slash your way through question only to get piss poor loot. It's like games theses day aren't trying anymore to make really good loot. The combat is repetitive and the controls are unresponsive. To stop it offer the gameplay is combination of dice/roll with turn base of PnP and the real freedom of movemnt and skill cooldowns of your average rpg, which makes for frustrating gameplay. Even when you feel like you are getting the hang of the gameplay, you see little difference in your performance. A.I doesn't make any better as they aggro you from nearly a mile away and their A.I patterns are random, making fights extremely easy at times.
If you're a Ranger, don't expect to stay in far range for long because once the enemy sees you, he'll be right in front of you in 2 seconds. Most of the time, you'll find yourself using melee weapons more than your bow. Paladins suffer from the lack of melee moves. It suggested that you put points towards INT as a paladin, which is a really bad tip since most paladin need at least 13 to 14 Strength, 12 Con, 14 Wisdom to cast spells and At least 13 to 15 to Charisma. I seriously doubt most of the paladin will want to spare any of their attributes just so they can use shield bash and such.
Warriors get some melee attacks, but they all suck except for Sunder Armor. Wounding, Trip and Power Attack leave much to be desired. Speak of melee, melee is the worst aspect of the game. You find yourself trying to keep a lock on your enemy so they won't get out of sight and your melee attacks are often avoided, especially at low levels. Like past DnD games, it's really hard for NPC enemies to hit really good geared melee classes making the gameplay real easy in the beginning and borning. My paladin took on three kobolds, four slimes, three thieves and bugbear all by herself. Only time I died in battle is when I ran into a spellcaster.
While we are on the subjects of spellcasters, this game must be a nightmare for spellcasters as the hallways are so narrow and small it's almost impossible to keep out of reach of your enemies, making for a very fast death. Targetting is also a b#%#% with both narrow corridors and crappy camera angles (which can't make them stick in the position you want, btw) obscuring your view making it impossible for melee and range class alike to get a good aim. Even if you do target the enemy, your auto-attack is unresponsive half the time.
Players can only rest one time through the whole quest. How about a cooldown on rest or a make a requirement to have food, but giving players one chance to rest is f#%king stupid. Not all of the traps can be disarmed or avoid easily so one would find themselves on low health often. The actions skills do nothing to improve performance or least not enough for you to notice.
As I've said in the past, DnD game will never be made into a true MMORPG because the system is outdate. Rapid fanboys will deny this fact by noting the success of Baldur's Gate and Neverwinter Nights, but what many people seem to forget that Bladur's Gate had limited amount of player pictures, couldn't add any feats from the original game and it had only one camera view.
Neverwinter didn't get any better. The game system allowed for classes to become gods through classing and like DDO and BG, many of the feats and skills were chucked because they couldn't be implemented in a turn based game nor did they have the graphics some of the moves. Also NWN character were prone to non-updates, leaving the Ranger at a disadvantage as the only feats they were able to use that help them out was Rapid shot. They didn't not get any 3.5 updates to their class like some of the other classes.
When you look at the rest of game after game DDO has made, the ideas of Gary Gygax and the ideas of other writers that came after him, don't translate well into PC or console game. None of them ever have and the ones that did successful often ignored the traditional Gary and other DnD writers used making it more console-RPG or MMORPG. DDO cannot co-exist in the MMORPG as the events were also controlled by the DM and not respawn of default A.I. like todays games.
I'm a big fan of DnD, but like Pac-Man, a lot of the old stuff just isn't fun to play anymore because the repetitveness and limitation of what games like these are more apparents when compare todays game, which not only offer the same thing, but better. I think it's time for WotC to either, change the way gameplay works or close the doors of DnD forever.
Half of the time, you find yourself lag sailing. Lag sailing is the termniology I use to define accidents due to the result of lag like falling off a huge stairway or running in circle in a area full of traps. Instance did nothing to stop the overwhelming lag in this game as I find myself lagging even with the settings on low while in a dungeon.
The gameplay revolves you talking to people, getting quest to hack and slash your way through question only to get piss poor loot. It's like games theses day aren't trying anymore to make really good loot. The combat is repetitive and the controls are unresponsive. To stop it offer the gameplay is combination of dice/roll with turn base of PnP and the real freedom of movemnt and skill cooldowns of your average rpg, which makes for frustrating gameplay. Even when you feel like you are getting the hang of the gameplay, you see little difference in your performance. A.I doesn't make any better as they aggro you from nearly a mile away and their A.I patterns are random, making fights extremely easy at times.
If you're a Ranger, don't expect to stay in far range for long because once the enemy sees you, he'll be right in front of you in 2 seconds. Most of the time, you'll find yourself using melee weapons more than your bow. Paladins suffer from the lack of melee moves. It suggested that you put points towards INT as a paladin, which is a really bad tip since most paladin need at least 13 to 14 Strength, 12 Con, 14 Wisdom to cast spells and At least 13 to 15 to Charisma. I seriously doubt most of the paladin will want to spare any of their attributes just so they can use shield bash and such.
Warriors get some melee attacks, but they all suck except for Sunder Armor. Wounding, Trip and Power Attack leave much to be desired. Speak of melee, melee is the worst aspect of the game. You find yourself trying to keep a lock on your enemy so they won't get out of sight and your melee attacks are often avoided, especially at low levels. Like past DnD games, it's really hard for NPC enemies to hit really good geared melee classes making the gameplay real easy in the beginning and borning. My paladin took on three kobolds, four slimes, three thieves and bugbear all by herself. Only time I died in battle is when I ran into a spellcaster.
While we are on the subjects of spellcasters, this game must be a nightmare for spellcasters as the hallways are so narrow and small it's almost impossible to keep out of reach of your enemies, making for a very fast death. Targetting is also a b#%#% with both narrow corridors and crappy camera angles (which can't make them stick in the position you want, btw) obscuring your view making it impossible for melee and range class alike to get a good aim. Even if you do target the enemy, your auto-attack is unresponsive half the time.
Players can only rest one time through the whole quest. How about a cooldown on rest or a make a requirement to have food, but giving players one chance to rest is f#%king stupid. Not all of the traps can be disarmed or avoid easily so one would find themselves on low health often. The actions skills do nothing to improve performance or least not enough for you to notice.
As I've said in the past, DnD game will never be made into a true MMORPG because the system is outdate. Rapid fanboys will deny this fact by noting the success of Baldur's Gate and Neverwinter Nights, but what many people seem to forget that Bladur's Gate had limited amount of player pictures, couldn't add any feats from the original game and it had only one camera view.
Neverwinter didn't get any better. The game system allowed for classes to become gods through classing and like DDO and BG, many of the feats and skills were chucked because they couldn't be implemented in a turn based game nor did they have the graphics some of the moves. Also NWN character were prone to non-updates, leaving the Ranger at a disadvantage as the only feats they were able to use that help them out was Rapid shot. They didn't not get any 3.5 updates to their class like some of the other classes.
When you look at the rest of game after game DDO has made, the ideas of Gary Gygax and the ideas of other writers that came after him, don't translate well into PC or console game. None of them ever have and the ones that did successful often ignored the traditional Gary and other DnD writers used making it more console-RPG or MMORPG. DDO cannot co-exist in the MMORPG as the events were also controlled by the DM and not respawn of default A.I. like todays games.
I'm a big fan of DnD, but like Pac-Man, a lot of the old stuff just isn't fun to play anymore because the repetitveness and limitation of what games like these are more apparents when compare todays game, which not only offer the same thing, but better. I think it's time for WotC to either, change the way gameplay works or close the doors of DnD forever.
Comments
particularly agree with this point you made. Having quest penalties is equally daft.
I'm sorry I don't agree, if anything EQ is a version of DnD. In fact I would say EQ2 does a pretty good imitation of it. DDO itself is just a very poor example of a rushed product. DDO is a failure of Turbine, not the DnD system. I'm just hoping Bioware get it right with their mmorpg. Does that make me a DnD fanboi?
No annoying animated GIF here!
CaptainRPG,
While i compliment you for a good read (unlike many others you've used paragraphs), i don't understand why you feel the need to flame this game.
If you don't like it, simply don't play it. No need to tell everyone your opinions.
As for your claims of the lag in DDO i played the trial and experienced barely any lag, and must insist that it must be that you have a bad internet connection, or need more ram.
Also, the trial is there to try out the game, it is not costing us anything to try the game for ourselves so there is no need to try and ward us away from the trial. It cant do any harm trying the game.
Thanks,
-Afrit
Umm, if no one gave their opinions, boards like these would be barren.
Thanks for your review CaptainRPG, I appreciate getting your opinion on this game.
Excellent points by CaptainRPG,
Let me add for the fanboi's that the reason for the flaming is because so many of us had high hopes for this game and we were all looking forward to it. This is the game that started it all, the granddaddy, the roots of all mmo's and rpg's. Look what they gave us!!! Turbine has made mess and that mess is going right down the crapper. Yes I'm mad and disappointed as many others are. We have a right to be upset that something that could have been great was handled with such incompetence. To answer the typical remark "If you don't like it then don't play". You do realize if you convince enough people of that you won't be playing either. game over!
You know I'm starting to lean more to towards EQ2 as both WoW and DDO were both huge disappointments. In fact, playing DDO is like chewing on tin-foil.
Excellent points by CaptainRPG,
Let me add for the
fanboi's that the reason for the flaming is because so many of us had
high hopes for this game and we were all looking forward to it. This is
the game that started it all, the granddaddy, the roots of all mmo's
and rpg's. Look what they gave us!!! Turbine has made mess and that
mess is going right down the crapper. Yes I'm mad and disappointed as
many others are. We have a right to be upset that something that could
have been great was handled with such incompetence. To answer
the typical remark "If you don't like it then don't play". You do
realize if you convince enough people of that you won't be playing
either. game over!
Now don't get me wrong, I believe DnD can be a mmorpg if some changes were to be made to it's system, but companies like Turbine aren't making the effort to make DnD for our generation. Morever, I think they aren't trying at all to please the fans of the series. I think they crap this series down the drain on purpose because they think they'll win big with LOTRO.
Lag kills this game and it will kill LotRO in a similar way. The DDO/LotRO/AC2 engine is hopeless.
It is a truly sad sight when you find so many persons to dislike a game and yet have such a wide expending amount of reasons. I can't stand the game myself, for completely different reasons than Captain and if peoples care, they can search the forum.
However, I also have many friends who actually enjoy that game. It is an ACTION game with a D&D skin, nothing more, nothing less. It is very nicely done, the lag is only in non-fighting areas, so even if bad...it is still in a non-fighting area.
I was really angry first, but now, at least Turbines let's me try it before I buy it, so I just have to cancel my pre-order. I strongly dislike what I read about LotRo, but I didn't discard them completely, otherwise I would not read about it...ask Boromir why they hate soloers, that would be the most important point.
*shrug*, someone should also try to pinpoint the strong points of a product unless really angry...I guess the angriness will pass, with time...I understand...as a D&D fan I was hoping for something and I got absolutely nothing, DDO is not for a D&D fan, it is not either for a MMORPG fan, it is an action game...and a very nice action game might I add.
- "If I understand you well, you are telling me until next time. " - Ren