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DDO: What it is, What it's not
Vincenz
Member Posts: 1,498
Since it gets a little old to see people complaining about aspects of DDO that aren't intended to be a part o the game...I thought this could be useful. I'll start with what it's not...
1. DDO is not a sandbox game. It doesn't want to be, never claimed to be, if you want one...this isn't it.
2. DDO doesn't have a deep crafting system and player economy. Crafting that is coming will probably be extremely rigid and limited, you won't spend 10 hours collecting resources and crafting 100 suits of armor. It's never intended to be that kind of game.
3. DDO is NOT a PVP game. Yes, there is a simple, adequate system to have a little PVP fun between quests...but this is a game about D&D, which is not about PVP.
4. DDO is not a giant world. Again, sandbox...not it. You don't travel for an hour to get to quests, there's no giant open world to explore for days, there are adventure areas that are decent size to accommodate some of that...but that's it.
5. DDO is not about solo play. Concessions have been made that make some solo'ing possible, but again...this is D&D...a game about grouping with friends to confront an adventure, not playing with yourself...
IF those things are what you are looking for in an MMO...this isn't it. Many MMO's offer some or all of those. Go find one.
DDO IS:
1. A deep, immersive questing system. There's no "go kill 50 wolves and bring me back their hides" quests. Each quest has a story, a unique dungeon or quest area, etc. Some are as short as 20 minutes...some as long as a couple hours. Some are part of story arcs, involving 5, 6, 12 quests.
2. An active, twitch based combat system. The combat system is closer to FPS than any other MMO on the market. If you like the simplified point, click, and wait systems of WoW and others, go play them. You can actively block, dodge, swing, trip, stun, cast spells, etc. just as you would in a FPS in DDO.
3. A very deep character system. Forget making your character look different. In DDO your character is different. Between the multiple races and classes, skills, feats, enhancements, stats, and the ability to multiclass, the resulting characters are incredibly customized. Add equipment into the mix, you'll rarely see two identical builds.
4. A fantastic grouping system. The grouping UI is easy to use, the integrated voice chat is terrific, and the fun of grouping and combining various character strengths is what makes this game what it is.
5. GROWING. This is the most important of the list, IMO. DDO has more than doubled it's content amount since launch, approx. 2 years ago....for free. No pay per play additions, if you download the game today you get more than twice the amount of game you got at launch for the same cost. This continues to be the business model for the game, and plans are for new module releases on a 10 week cycle.
There you have it, now make up your own minds.
Comments
I have a few questions about this part and it is not meant as a flame.
Is there really any real difference in your characters performance depending on your race,skills..etc? Is this one of those systems where the options are there but there is really only one choice you are going to make due to the fact that the others kind of suck?
Are you locked in to whatever choice you make with your skills, feats,enhancements and how you chose to multiclass or can these things be changed at a later time if you end up not liking it?
I only played DDO for a few minutes when it was in beta and never really gave the game a chance so Im curious.
Is there really any real difference in your characters performance depending on your race,skills..etc?
ABSOLUTELY.
However, no, there's not a handful of good builds and the rest suck. Sure, you can pretty much gimp a character...but you can also make hundreds of combinations of completely viable, totally unique ones as well. As far as respecs, you can respec both feats and enhancements, but not skills and stats...and feats are not free or easy to respec (enhancements are).
I know people who've built casters with a couple fighter levels and melee and cast, I know "battle bards" who are bard/fighter mixes, caster/rogues, etc. who are all great builds.
It really is a complex system, and I'd recommend playing with it a bit as you go.
I agree completely with the OP. DDO is a very unique MMO, in that there is nothing else really like it in the market today. This makes a great change for those of us looking for an MMO that is not the 'normal' static combat/kill 10 bears and bring me 20 of their paws quest type MMO's. Thats the reason im playing it. Its different.
Cannot disagree with anything anyone has said here. DDO has only gotten better since its launch.
Turbine have listened to its players over the 2 years, a lot has changed and DDO is really blossoming for it.
There are some exciting times ahead too, with lvl 16 imminent, Monks and crafting getting closer.
It does of course still have the best quests, dungeons and combat of any MMO............and I would say graphics too.
You must not leave until you free Arlos and have gathered your party safely in this hallway.
I have a few questions about this part and it is not meant as a flame.
Is there really any real difference in your characters performance depending on your race,skills..etc? Is this one of those systems where the options are there but there is really only one choice you are going to make due to the fact that the others kind of suck?
Are you locked in to whatever choice you make with your skills, feats,enhancements and how you chose to multiclass or can these things be changed at a later time if you end up not liking it?
I only played DDO for a few minutes when it was in beta and never really gave the game a chance so Im curious.
Since part of your question was answered I will try and answer the rest, you are locked into whatever choice you make with you skills and levels you decide to take. Feats can be changed every three days providing you have a dragonshard and a amount of plat (that I cannot recall at the moment based upon what level you are when you decide to respec your Feats. Enhancments can be respecced from the trainers for a amount of cash based upon your level without the requirement of a Dragonshard. Dragonshards are found as random loot.
1. Solo players deserve love too. Guild Wars is a great example of how soloers can be accomodated by bots. Now that said, I find it easier and friendlier to group in DDO than many other MMOs. Plus, the more elaborate mechanics allow for a wider range of interesting build and party combinations, something games like WoW do not allow for.
2. Overland travel....again, as a veteran D&Der from the pnp game, wilderness adventuring is just as big a part of D&D as dungeons are. But again, DDO does, in fact, offer wilderland adventure areas, and they are a lot of fun to explore. My only gripe is that I'd like to see even MORE cool wilderland adventure regions...call me greedy, but if the Cerulean Hills or other sites were doubled in size or region, I doubt anyone would complain
Otherwise, I heartily agree with your assessment, and can safely say that DDO's largest appeal is in it's depth of character design, it's adherence to D&D tropes, and the fact that it does not (except for experience grind) bow to conventional MMO methodology.
Current MMOs: Rift, GW2, Defiance
Blog: http://realmsofchirak.blogspot.com (old school tabletop gaming and more)
BTW, there shouldn't be an experience grind...the only reason people grind the same quest over and over is because it's the easiest quest to exp payout ratio.
You can cap a character in DDO without ever running a single quest twice.
Mad Props to the OP...they really need to sticky this one. Honestly it gets tiring of having to rehash on flamers n trolls or just complainers in general the above sentiments. Every game has a crowd its made for..every game has its own sense of style (though alot are similar) there's no reason for every game to play just like Said Popular game of the moment. Its nice to have a break from other MMOs and just enjoy a good ol adventure.
Please Refer to Doom Cat with all conspiracies & evil corporation complaints. He'll give you the simple explination of..WE"RE ALL DOOMED!
Mostly, I was thinking about the fact that the vastly inflated experience requirements, coupled with the ranking system, is very different from the way the paper and pencil game plays out. It's cool, I like the enhancements a lot, but I suppose it was necessary to implement this system to slow down advancement. If PCs advanced at the rate they do in conventional D&D, the level cap would be 80-100, I suspect!
Current MMOs: Rift, GW2, Defiance
Blog: http://realmsofchirak.blogspot.com (old school tabletop gaming and more)
Yep, if you pop open the quest companion and simply do every single quest of the appropriate level AND adventure area exp, you'll cap long before you complete the quest list.
I agree totally with Vincenz, I'll just add a couple comments directed to some of the commenters:
Does level really matter? Holy crap, yes! In DDO (and I'm guessing D&D these days too?) it's downright amazing how much stronger or powerful you grow with a single level, especially when you compare how gradual and barely noticeable that growth in power is in other games.
GW as a solo game... meh... until you're end-game with specific gear and skill, you can't really "solo" much in terms of "you're the only character out there." GW is very much a group-based game, but your point was they give you the ability to recruit AI henchmen or heroes to take up the slot of a real player. I do that all the time but since I'm still in a group, even if I'm the only human there, I don't truly consider that soloing. Maybe that's splitting hairs, maybe not, just how I feel about it.
Thanks for the synopsis. I found it useful
Torrential
Torrential: DAOC (Pendragon)
Awned: World of Warcraft (Lothar)
Torren: Warhammer Online (Praag)
Great post. I think a lot of what is "wrong" with this game is many of the expectations that this game is to conform to many of the constructs of mmo's. remember that this game is D&D to the foremost.
On the same note, however, I wish it had a little more depth in skills... I mean it has depth, but it doesn't scratch the series it was made after. By this year's standards, the character customization and skill sets are considered antiquated. They also strayed from D&D to balance the classes a bit too much (mainly in meta-magic). I feel as though the melee classes are a bit gimp due to the style of the combat system.
Other than that, I think the quests are pretty decent, the graphics are decent, the growth is GOOD. I think the REGEN system needs a looking at... it's a bit under-powered and it adds tedium that is not necessary.
Other than just overall game quality, I think the OP hit the nail on the head. If they released a major expansion or some manner of D&D sequal with just MORE of everything they have, I would definately be interested. As is, it's not worth the monthly fee unless you have about 8 hardcore friends... but even then you would probably have more fun in another game.
Elite poster by 82
Is this based on double xp weekends or normal play?
Is this based on twinked characters?
The reason I'm asking is that, as I stated above, I found that I was more or less forced to keep repeating quests until I could level to be able to survive the next set of quests [and I needed to buy as much help via "clickies" through the AH as I could afford!] I really liked DDO, but it became a grind [though I actually enjoyed grinding "the Kolbold brothers"
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Nice to see people still enjoying DDO. I enjoyed it the whole time I was there but LOTRO spoiled me with the Lifetime membership. Anyone here know if there is a chance that they do this with DDO? I really miss this game maybe I will end up signing back up for it anyways. The combat was just freaking outstanding.
In America I have bad teeth. If I lived in England my teeth would be perfect.
Anybody currently playing able to respond to the last two posts?
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Currently there's no lifetime, wish there was. My big hope is that something similar to a "station pass" is implemented that you could buy to play both!
Content: Absolutely, they've added that much. Non-twinked, using the adventure zones, you can easily level without repeating a single quest to the cap.
There's a TON to do in this game now, and it grows again this month.
I disagree with point #2. Tabula Rasa and Hellgate London both exist, BTW.
Last I checked, DDO did not have domains for clerics, and they did the turning checks wrong. Have they fixed this yet or is it still D&D by name only?
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Turning works just fine, PnP style. Only problem you have with turning is on elite, where the mob HD are higher. That said, turning loses effectiveness in the high levels in PnP too.
There's a lot of talk about domains and how to implement them right now, probably going to be done like prestige classes, through the enhancement chains.
p.s. Tabula Rasa combat is absolutely nothing like DDO combat, it's better than most MMO's, but still far from twitch/FPS style.
Turning works just fine, PnP style. Only problem you have with turning is on elite, where the mob HD are higher. That said, turning loses effectiveness in the high levels in PnP too.
There's a lot of talk about domains and how to implement them right now, probably going to be done like prestige classes, through the enhancement chains.
p.s. Tabula Rasa combat is absolutely nothing like DDO combat, it's better than most MMO's, but still far from twitch/FPS style.
And last I've heard is Hellgate is much more FPS than MMO, more like Unreal Tournament