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My D&DO Review/Experience
sirk242
Member Posts: 9
Alright, 3 day weekend just pasted and i spent alot of it playing DDO and takeing a break from WoW and hardcore raiding. When i logged in, the animation of my toon felt really cheap, weapon moves are always the exact same two swings, when spining around the toon doesn't move his feet. Players can walk through you, and a some other things take away from movement and you toon in this game.
Graphics looked great after some tweeking of my video settings, the controls are fine, no where near WoW's UI, but enough to play the game really good. One thing i love from a game is to make sure movement and fast thinking gives you an edge, this game does exactly that, example: holding shift blocks, moving back can get your toon out of way of swings, holding shift and moving right or left can move you out the way of arrows and incoming spells.
I heard the creature AI in this game sucked, but thats actually far from the truth, its hands down better than WoWs. Most MMO monsters run up to you and go through a series of attacks get to a certain health and run away. The creatures in this game group up, one will fight you from the front, the others run to hit your back, cast debuffs, call for help, set off alarms, and really seem to be working together to kill you.
Instances in this game are not a grind at all, they actually are an adventure, with puzzles, traps, hidden doors that only certain toons can find, overall gameplay for me was an 8 and 1/2 atleast, best pve i've done so far in an MMORPG.
I only made it to level 3, the time i spent to get level 3 in this game(about 6 to 8 hours of play time), which is broken up in 5 ranks throughout the level, i could have created a level 20+ character in WoW.
It was not hard for me to find groups in a low population server at 2am PST, i found myself in a full group of level 2 aussies clearing a very deep and detailed kobald dungeon. Turned out to be tons of fun, and one of the best mmorpg PVE experiences i've been on in long while.
To sum up my experience over all with this game, i really enjoy the 6 man group experience over the 40 man mind numbingly boreing raid experience of WoW. If you can only deticate a few hours a day or less, you will actually get somewhere in this game.
If your trying to escape from the gimmie gimmie all da phat lootz and die personality of people in WoW, its a very refreshing change, to actually hear people helping those who make mistakes instead of curseing them for "nubs" and leaving the party or carrying on like the usually attention needing asses.
Seeing that people are actually enjoying the current game experience instead of blowing through it for the loot is a nice change. Not to say you wont run into a jerkoff know it all power player, but theres ALOT less of em in DDO.
Hope this helps out somebody.
Cheers!
-Sirk242
Comments
Thanks.
-W.
- Yes, there currently is no PvP (this may change in future).
- You only have the city to explore (and the quest dungeons). The city consists of main areas like the Harbor and Marketplace, and some of the Great Houses. Once you've explored all the areas within Stormreach (which you'll go through pretty quick, at least I did). That's it. It's not a big expansive world like WoW or EQ2 and others. It's basically just the city and it's various "zones".
- You don't have to repeat quests, however you almost feel "forced" to repeat quests in order to get the good loot. You really feel the need to repeat quests when dealing with PUGs, and less so (at least for me) when you are playing with a group of RL friends. Whenever I PUG'ed people only wanted to do the quests that gave the best loot. So you found yourself repeating quests a lot. Also, if you plan on trying to solo you're way through (I did this with one char) you'll most likely find yourself repeating quests in order to get the XP you need to level. Content is really lacking in this game, and it's a known problem. They add content with each module, but definitely not enough for my taste.
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Played: Age of Conan, DDO, Saga of Ryzom, SWG, DaOC, MxO, EQ2, and so on...
Wish List: Jumpgate Evolution, Star Wars: TOR, Star Trek
- It's instanced, yes. You and everybody else in the game are together in the city/taverns/shops/etc., but all the quests are instanced (just you and your team).
Did they change this since they went live? When I played, the whole game was instanced... The taverns, the streets, the shops were all instanced...
- Yes, there currently is no PvP (this may change in future).
- You only have the city to explore (and the quest dungeons). The city consists of main areas like the Harbor and Marketplace, and some of the Great Houses. Once you've explored all the areas within Stormreach (which you'll go through pretty quick, at least I did). That's it. It's not a big expansive world like WoW or EQ2 and others. It's basically just the city and it's various "zones".
- You don't have to repeat quests, however you almost feel "forced" to repeat quests in order to get the good loot. You really feel the need to repeat quests when dealing with PUGs, and less so (at least for me) when you are playing with a group of RL friends. Whenever I PUG'ed people only wanted to do the quests that gave the best loot. So you found yourself repeating quests a lot. Also, if you plan on trying to solo you're way through (I did this with one char) you'll most likely find yourself repeating quests in order to get the XP you need to level. Content is really lacking in this game, and it's a known problem. They add content with each module, but definitely not enough for my taste.
Sorry, when I said "instance" I meant, a zone in which only you and your team members can enter. So what I said was little misleading. Taverns, the shops, etc. haven't changed since release.
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Played: Age of Conan, DDO, Saga of Ryzom, SWG, DaOC, MxO, EQ2, and so on...
Wish List: Jumpgate Evolution, Star Wars: TOR, Star Trek
Sorry, when I said "instance" I meant, a zone in which only you and your team members can enter. So what I said was little misleading. Taverns, the shops, etc. haven't changed since release.
That is no problem... I was just wondering if they have changed things since I quit playing...
Sorry, when I said "instance" I meant, a zone in which only you and your team members can enter. So what I said was little misleading. Taverns, the shops, etc. haven't changed since release.
That is no problem... I was just wondering if they have changed things since I quit playing...
Not yet... and if that 90k subscription figure is accurate... they won't change much... nor very fast. Unless the subs tank.
Currently Playing: Dungeons and Dragons Online.
Sig image Pending
Still in: A couple Betas
If you consider EQ2, and COH/V to be 100% instanced then yes, this game is 100% instanced. Basically anyzone where you can be attacked by monsters is instanced only for you, your party, or your raid. Outside of that, in the community zones, if the zone is full enough it'll spawn another zone to control lag. You can change your zone with a pulldown. This method is identical to EQ2 and COH/V and several other games I can't think of the names of at the moment. I believe the most instances I've seen were 5 copies of the Harbor zone and that was on release day. Unlike Guild War the game has servers, so there is a sense of community as you actually do run into the same people occasionally(or quite often, if you're more active in PUGs or the RP scene)
There is currently no PvP, but they are supposed to be adding arena-style PvP at some point. I'm not some anti-pvp carebear, I've got years of PvP games(DOAC, SB, etc) under my belt and I'm drooling over WAR, but personally I think this is a waste of dev resources and has no place in D&D. I also can't see how it'll possibly be balanced between classes.
You don't have to redo missions, but you cannot reach level cap without it. Some people are very turned of by the idea of repeating content. Those people need to stop and think about every other game and how often you repeat the content. If you've ever sat in DAOC and ground Finns or been PL'd in Avalon City, or played WoW and done you're 800th "collect 10, rinse, then 20, rinse, then 50 body parts from X mob", then you've repeated content. DDO has the advantage of the repetive content consisting of an entire area. So yes, you can say "I've already done Delera's Tomb", but the Delera's Tomb chain is 4 different missions with some 10 different mobs types, and probably 400 mobs total, about 15 or so traps, several hidden doors, random spawning named, etc, and takes about two or three hours to do the whole thing.
Does it suck to do it a dozen times? Of course. But there's no reason to do it a dozen times. Yes the game has limited content, but it's certainly not that limited. It's more an issue for power gamers. A handful of quests give/gave exceptional XP, and people just ran them over and over and over and over(Waterworks, Shan To Kor, Stormcleave Outpost, etc). I have met a guy who ran Stormcleave Outpost over 20 times and hadn't even heard of the 4 different quests I was looking to run, all the same level as Stormcleave. My goal is to do every quest in the game. I've certainly repeated a few, but I believe 4 is the most I've done for any quest. I'm currently level 9.2 and have 8 or so quests I haven't done at all.
Also, each mission has 3 difficulties, Normal, Hard, and Elite. Doing a mission on Normal unlocks Hard, and doing it on Hard unlocks Elite. I can confidently say that for 90% of the missions, doing them on the higher difficulty presents a VASTLY different experience. The level of the quest goes up, the power of the monsters goes up, difficulty of the traps goes up, and the spells availible to the monsters goes up. Situations change quickly when that Kobold shaman stops casting spells Fear(normal) and starts casting really nasty things like Fireball and Hold Person on the Cleric(elite).
Where the real issue of repeating content crops up is the rolling of Alts. Some classes do have a vastly different play experience from others, but you're still redoing the same things you've already done with another character.
Exploration of land is one of those things that always cracks me up. Everyone seems to want it, once. Afterwards it's pointless space to cross. Once you've been in an area more than a few hours you start wishing you could teleport where you want to be, and I have an ironic little story about that. But I digress, back to DDO.
Stormreach isn't that big, true. You've got the Harbor zone, the Market, the 4 House zones, and the Twelve zone which is currently closed. These zones contain most of your collectors, the quest givers, and the zone in points for the inns, shops, and dungeons. My personal opinion on it? It's pretty to look at and largely a waste of space. After a night of questing I have to bounce between all those zones to sell off my loot, turn in my collectibles and hit the bank. Fortunately there's a teleporter between the 4 house zones, but it's still largely a waste of space.
Anyway, on to the outside of Stormreach. If exploration is your thing, there's a ton to see. First, to say there's "nothing to see" you have to ignore the fact that every quest has a unique map for the most part(Splinterskull chain is somewhat of an exception), and that going with a better rogue might just let you see a hunk of the place you didn't see before. In other words, don't count quests(99% of the game) as being there. Now you have nothing to explore right? Wrong.
Certain area's are tagged as "Adventure Zones". These are zones you enter, instanced for you and your party, that unlike quests don't have a specific agenda tied to them. Waterworks is an example, it contains the quest giver and quest entrance for the Waterworks chain of quests, but it not a quest zone in itself. It has several monster encounters that pop up and you gain XP for defeating, but most are skipped if doing the quest inside is all you're after. Some of these zones are quite large and are built to be explored but not required. In particular, the Threnal Ruins adventure zone has alot going on in it, including several "instant quests"(enter the monster's den and it puts you on a standard quest), and an NPC town with the standard quest givers and class trainers. It's a huge overal area to cover as well.
Here's my little ironic story. One of these zones, Tangleroot Gorge, is also quite large. It contains the entrance to the Splinterskull chain, and it's a pretty decent run from inn where you start to the Splinterskull entrance no matter which route you take to get there. Splinterskull has alot of chests and is a long chain, so people often took a break to run back to the inn and sell off loot and replenshi supplies(arrows, components, etc). A few patches back, a teleporter was added at the player's request so you could skip the run. Man that exploration is a great thing.
Blazing through content is always an issue for powergamers. Yet, I'm not a powegamer and I leveled VERY fast. I even remarked on that in Beta in my feedback. I had the same goal as you, to do every quest in the game, but the fact of the matter is that if you aren't part of a guild or like-minded players that share the same goal you are going to be at a big loss. All the PUGs wanted to do were the same old quest chains you listed...WW, Shan, Stormcleave, (one other one too, name escapes me. They wound up nerfing it a bit). With the character I grouped with guild members on I repeated quests, but only because we either liked the quest or needed better loot so we could tackle other quests better. With the character I only grouped with PUGs on I did WW more times than I care to count. Try to stear people to a different quest or start your own team? Ok, but eventually someone would pipe up and say they wanted to do one of the quest chains in your list. It got tedious real fast.
Not to mention that for some of the quests the risk did not match reward IMHO. The "Stolen Signet" springs to mind as one of those. The reward we got for doing that quest on hard did not match the risk in the slightest. They've commented on this risk vs. reward problem in the forums as well. Since the rewards were so much better in the quest chains like WW, and so poor in some of the other dungeons people gravitated more to the quest chains. Also I didn't get a feel of a vastly different experience going from Normal to Hard to Elite. Yes I might run across a named boss I hadn't run across before, and the mobs definitely got more powerful and harder to defeat, but I didn't get the same feeling of "difference" that you did. It was the same quest, but harder. Same story. Same mobs, but harder. Yes, tactics changed to match the difficulty but that was it, and again after doing it once you know how to beat it if you need to do it again.
I used to think the same way you did on this as well. I used to also tell people that all the exploration was done "in the quest". Which is still true. However those unique maps again wear real thin if you run the quest more than once. They cease to be unique because you know where every trap is, exploring the adventure zone ceases to be all that great because the mobs spawn in the exact same places and you know what's behind every door. Before I left there was talk of making the quests more dynamic. I hope they follow through on that, because this game doesn't just need more content, it needs more dynamic content.Also the more I played the more I realized the I actually missed exploring in a vast world. I disliked not being able to leave the city unless I went into one of those adventure zones or a quest. I'm not a big advocate of long travel times, but there is something to be said for getting the "feeling" you are in a big world. I never got that feeling in DDO, but it seems like others did. But I'm digressing...
Bottomline is...get in on a good guild or jump into the game with a good group of friends and you will probably avoid a lot of the bad (repeating quests, zerging though missions just to get to the chests, etc.) and see a lot of the good (exploration, tactics/thought in combat, etc.). And, as always, try to grab a free trial if you can.
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Played: Age of Conan, DDO, Saga of Ryzom, SWG, DaOC, MxO, EQ2, and so on...
Wish List: Jumpgate Evolution, Star Wars: TOR, Star Trek
I made the 12 minute run from Druim Ligen to Emain easily over 800 times. I can't think of any sudden spawns of new camps I saw alone the way. Did you know the uncontrolled horse ride from Ligen to Innis Caithag takes exactly 14 minutes? There is a reason why these old games have added every type of teleportation you can think of. I can now get just about anywhere in DAOC in less than 5 minutes, though it might take me a ton of porting to get there. It's not like DAOC is the only game this is true in. If you think running Shan To Kor a few times wears thin, my guild is doing it's 50th or so Molten Core raid in WoW this week.
I understand what you mean about getting that "feeling". That feeling has nothing to do with how much turf you cover and alot more to do with the random player element. When you're out in the middle of nowhere and another player happens by, suddenly it's not nowhere anymore. That doesn't happen in DDO due to it's instanced nature, there'll never be that random player element. it's a tradeoff that doesn't bother me in the least, because of all the hassle that a game goes through to get you that feeling of being in a bigger world.
They've taken out the enjoyment that comes from randomly running into someone and having a good encounter, but with it they took out the frustration of having to cover vast amounts of pointless turf, griefers, campers, kill stealers, and just plain normal folks that beat you to the mob. I think it's a fair trade.
I made the 12 minute run from Druim Ligen to Emain easily over 800 times. I can't think of any sudden spawns of new camps I saw alone the way. Did you know the uncontrolled horse ride from Ligen to Innis Caithag takes exactly 14 minutes? There is a reason why these old games have added every type of teleportation you can think of. I can now get just about anywhere in DAOC in less than 5 minutes, though it might take me a ton of porting to get there. It's not like DAOC is the only game this is true in. If you think running Shan To Kor a few times wears thin, my guild is doing it's 50th or so Molten Core raid in WoW this week.
I understand what you mean about getting that "feeling". That feeling has nothing to do with how much turf you cover and alot more to do with the random player element. When you're out in the middle of nowhere and another player happens by, suddenly it's not nowhere anymore. That doesn't happen in DDO due to it's instanced nature, there'll never be that random player element. it's a tradeoff that doesn't bother me in the least, because of all the hassle that a game goes through to get you that feeling of being in a bigger world.
They've taken out the enjoyment that comes from randomly running into someone and having a good encounter, but with it they took out the frustration of having to cover vast amounts of pointless turf, griefers, campers, kill stealers, and just plain normal folks that beat you to the mob. I think it's a fair trade.
I agree. THis is a problem that developers will, hopefully, fix soon. I read on the Van Guard forums (I know, I know- this insn't Vanguard, but I'm only using it as an example) that they want to try some form of advanced encounter system that will spawn creatures and items in different locations. I do not know if that means every creature spawns in similar locations, you just do not know what will spawn there at that time, or if creatures will spawn at any random spot on the maps- it will be interesting to see how it works and how it will change (if at all) encounter systems in the future of new games/expansions. Maybe DDO will incorporate a unique system in the future to make exploration fun.
As for the barren wastes with other players running by, I never found that to be much of a problem personnally, but I can see how you may not like it. But, like you said, it is a trade off.
-W.
I made the 12 minute run from Druim Ligen to Emain easily over 800 times. I can't think of any sudden spawns of new camps I saw alone the way. Did you know the uncontrolled horse ride from Ligen to Innis Caithag takes exactly 14 minutes? There is a reason why these old games have added every type of teleportation you can think of. I can now get just about anywhere in DAOC in less than 5 minutes, though it might take me a ton of porting to get there. It's not like DAOC is the only game this is true in. If you think running Shan To Kor a few times wears thin, my guild is doing it's 50th or so Molten Core raid in WoW this week.
I understand what you mean about getting that "feeling". That feeling has nothing to do with how much turf you cover and alot more to do with the random player element. When you're out in the middle of nowhere and another player happens by, suddenly it's not nowhere anymore. That doesn't happen in DDO due to it's instanced nature, there'll never be that random player element. it's a tradeoff that doesn't bother me in the least, because of all the hassle that a game goes through to get you that feeling of being in a bigger world.
They've taken out the enjoyment that comes from randomly running into someone and having a good encounter, but with it they took out the frustration of having to cover vast amounts of pointless turf, griefers, campers, kill stealers, and just plain normal folks that beat you to the mob. I think it's a fair trade.
I think the problem is not that you have to do everything over and over as much as it is how quickly you have to do that. In the examples you gave, at least to me, it took a while to get to that point. In DDO, you are there almost before you finish with your free month.
I don't ever recall the cities in EQ 2 to have any instancing at all. Nor have I ever seen a pull down to let you choose your instance, the only way to change it is to zone out and back in. I have never played CoH so I cannot speak for it however I cannot think of many other games that use that method.
What place in DDO is not instanced that you would refute the 100% instanced comment?
- Scaris
"What happened to you, Star Wars Galaxies? You used to look like Leia. Not quite gold bikini Leia (more like bad-British-accent-and-cinnamon-bun-hair Leia), but still Leia nonetheless. Now you look like Chewbacca." - Computer Gaming World
If you consider EQ2, and COH/V to be 100% instanced then yes, this game is 100% instanced. Basically anyzone where you can be attacked by monsters is instanced only for you, your party, or your raid. Outside of that, in the community zones, if the zone is full enough it'll spawn another zone to control lag. You can change your zone with a pulldown. This method is identical to EQ2 and COH/V and several other games I can't think of the names of at the moment. I believe the most instances I've seen were 5 copies of the Harbor zone and that was on release day. Unlike Guild War the game has servers, so there is a sense of community as you actually do run into the same people occasionally(or quite often, if you're more active in PUGs or the RP scene)
Your're wrong about COH/COV being 100% instance , MOST but not all missions take place in instances but there is a whole world out there that is not instanced that mobs can be killed or farmed, try walking through the center of St. Martial on a level 5 character and see how far you get. And DDO is fully instanced you cannot kill anything without entering an instance in the exactly same way as guild wars.
You seem to be confusing what most people would class as an instance and your personnal programming oriented view of a an instance. In MMOS an Instance is where you and your party are the only players present to kill the mobs there , this is clearly not the case in COH/COV or EQ2.
And in my personall opinion a little instancing is good, but too much such as in DDO or Guild Wars just kills the game for me, apart from the PvP aspect og GW you may as well be playing games such as NWN because 100% instancing detracts from the MMO part of these games too much.
I made the 12 minute run from Druim Ligen to Emain easily over 800 times. I can't think of any sudden spawns of new camps I saw alone the way. Did you know the uncontrolled horse ride from Ligen to Innis Caithag takes exactly 14 minutes? There is a reason why these old games have added every type of teleportation you can think of. I can now get just about anywhere in DAOC in less than 5 minutes, though it might take me a ton of porting to get there. It's not like DAOC is the only game this is true in. If you think running Shan To Kor a few times wears thin, my guild is doing it's 50th or so Molten Core raid in WoW this week.
Which is exactly why I also tired of DAOC and am currently tired of WoW. It's the same formula used over and over again. Doing the same raid 50 times holds absolutely no allure to me (that goes for ANY game), but to each his own. In any case, DDO is guilty of using the same tired forumla. I never said DDO was the only game guilty of this. Somebody already mentioned CoH/CoV so I won't go on about it. But that game is an example of instancing done well. You get the "feeling" of being in an expansive world, but you don't have to deal with the turf, campers, and kill stealers if you don't want to (heh, there are griefers in EVERY game
In DDO's case I think their 1st mistake was starting on Xen'Drik instead of starting on another continent in Eberron. Xen'Drik only has one city, Stormreach, the rest is dangerous wilderness. If they had used another continent the could have had the potential to have mutlitple cities/towns/etc. and also have the best of both worlds: quick travel to quest instances and the ability to explore while traveling from one city to the next (or going from one city to the next via air ship/train/etc.).
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Played: Age of Conan, DDO, Saga of Ryzom, SWG, DaOC, MxO, EQ2, and so on...
Wish List: Jumpgate Evolution, Star Wars: TOR, Star Trek