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Ok so i have played MMO for well over 13 years, but i have played DnD for well over 30 years ( my first box set was the original "Keep On the Border Lands"), i enjoy DDO, not a fan of the Game world they used but meh i can live with it. I got into the NW Beta weekends and this my opinion of the 2 games compared and who wins in what areas.
Graphics - Its a Draw - Neither Graphics are as advanced i as i would like, but they are both very playable. NW has a slightly darker overtone to the graphics which to me works a little better to get the feeling of the PnP version, but graphics fluidity seems better in DDO
Customization - As of right now DDO wins hands down on both the ability to Multiclass and Subcalss, but NW is truer to the PnP version (well 4th edition at least), and hopefully with time NW will loosen its grip a bit and let more variations in Customization, most games do over time.
Game World - As i said i am not a fan of Ebberon as a game world, its ok but it dosen't have the true spirit that DnD was created with. With the multitude of posibility of creating adventures as the game progresses in the Forgotten Realms, a world featuring the most Iconic characters from DnD Massive library, NW totaly wins in this department.
Magic and Combat - DDO wins in this department at this point, NW has potential but it is as yet untapped. I predict a year down the road after its release they might find a way to tap into that potential, make it more user friendly, but till then DDO will still reign.
BUT.... Here is the main issue between the 2
You NEVER need to buy anything in NW unless you want to, its all handed to you for free from the start. DDO on the other hand is pretty useless unless you subscribe or spend tons of money in the Turbine store since in my estimation only about 1/4 of the actual game is availible to the F2Players.
This will be the thing that will some day kill DDO, unless they realize it and change thier entire marketing strategy. Once NW is out and the updates and game improvments start DDO will be in serious trouble! I subscribed to DDO for a few years then i had to go to Premium, I was AMAZED at how much of the game is now lost. With NW i wont have that problem, and given how much of the MMO world is moving in the F2P direction, DDO has entered it twilight unless they seriously reconsider how much access the F2Players get, i hope they do before its too late!
Comments
For the most part, I agree with your assessments of Dungeons & Dragons Online and Neverwinter. I only had something to add regarding your speculation that DDO is essentially killing itself off if they do not alter their direction.
The "free to play" option for DDO evolved from being a bit restrictive, to more player friendly, to a nearly "pay to win" situation, and back to being a bit more player friendly. For those of you who recall when DDO initially made the transition from exclusively a subscription model to free to play with shop and subscription option, there were these evil things called Sigils of Leveling. The cap for premium and free to play players was (I think) Level 4 and Sigils of Leveling were required to unlock the ability to raise to cap (which was 20 at the time). The amount of Turbine Points that could be earned via gameplay were restricted as a result. This did pose a bit of an obstacle in the ability to enjoy most of the game for completely free or nearly free for premium and free to play players. Those who were VIP (subscription) were not afffected by this.
Eventually, the Sigils of Leveling were done away with and there was much rejoicing. Earning Turbine Points through playing the game and earning certain favor milestones made being able to unlock content much easier. The ablity to earn enough points to unlock "relevant" adventure packs put exclusively free to play folks on par with their premium or VIP counterparts for the purposes of "end game." I suppose the easiest way to sum this up is you could either invest time grinding out Turbine Points (free to play), spend a little bit of money (premium), or omit the need to unlock content all together via points by going VIP (subscription). Items (sans certain adventure packs) in the shop were available to enhance gameplay or for convenience and were not necessary to play the game.
With the release of the Menace of the Underdark expansion, suddenly things began to change in this regard. Whether VIP, free to play, or premium, all players now had to purchase at least Epic Destinies in order to hope to compete. The content in this expansion was not something automatically granted to those of VIP status and one would be hard pressed to be able to progress to the new level cap of 25 without it. Eventually, the means to obtain MotU features were made available to be purchased through Turbine Points instead of cash. However, due to the sheer amount of points needed to obtain features of the expansion, a large time cost existed for those who did not have the financial means. As a result, there was a marked rift between those who had MotU and/or Epic Destinies and those who did not, thus shifting DDO's course towards "pay to win."
With the recent release of the Gianthold upgrade, free to play and premium folks are now a bit more on an even keel with their VIP counterparts content-wise due to the reasonable amount of points needed to purchase this pack. Yet, Epic Destinies would still be needed in order to be properly in-line with general playerbase expectations for PUGs which would cost additional time and points in order to purchase if spending cash was not an option. Despite this, I believe the Gianthold content somewhat steered DDO away from the dangerous road of "pay to win."
It will be truly interesting to see what happens with the rise of the next planned expansion due to be released this summer, Shadowfell Conspiracy. With new content available to Level 15+ characters, a raised level cap of 28, new race/class combinations, and probably much more we aren't aware of yet, I suppose this could go either way. From what I understand, this will be another situation where money will be required to obtain the expansion - at least initially. Being a long-time player who is at premium status currently and a former VIP, I sincerely hope this will not redirect DDO towards "pay to win."
I was SUPER excited about Neverwinter; having played DDO since beta, despite hating Eberron and wishing that it had been published by a company that didn't hire the rudest people they could find for customer service, I was more than ready for a new D&D game.
Then they said it was going to be based on 4th edition.
Needless to say, I will be playing DDO for the foreseeable future. Someone please let me know if someone with a brain gets a hold of the franchise.
Ya, I was laughing hard when I read that Neverwinter was "truer to D&D" because it followed fourth edition rules more closely than DDO follows 3.5. For a very large large number (I was daresay the vast majority) of D&D fans, fourth edition is in no way affiliated with the D&D of history - whether they find fourth edition somewhat appealing or not.
I don't recognize the classes of Neverwinter, let alone the game mechanics. And despite the rampant distortion of the rules that has been inflicted on DDO, it still has the capacity of being played in a manner consistent with historic D&D if the players regulate themselves. I'm not sure that applies to Neverwinter.
That said, I'd be far more likely to play Neverwinter. DDO has a playerbase problem that has become exacerbated by time and F2P RMT mechanics. Neverwinter may be interesting for a while, especially if they have incorporated some of the work-arounds for disfunctional players that other MMOs have started to incorporate.
Or I may leave both to the relatively rapid demise that is their fortune. No MMO will succeed without successfully introducing people to each other that actually want to play together.
After trying every class in Neverwinter, I've wiped it off my hard drive. None of them are fun, and honestly I can't get past the fact that this is supposed to be D&D (R.A. Salvatore's horrid version of it, but still). Seeing mages machine-gun magic missiles, clerics shooting 'divine lasers', fighters being stuck with one weapon type (and no bows), and rogues teleporting around like Nightcrawler stabbing people is just too much.
If DDO took place in the Forgotten Realms, I would be playing it. At least it has proper classes.
It's a sad day indeed when a family is too afraid of reprisals to publicly thank somebody for saving their lives.
Both games are terrible if you want the D&D experience. DDO is about as close to 3rd edition as NW is to 4th. That's to say, not at all. You can't have a game even resemble D&D without an open world, which both games sorely lack. Both games are themeparks, both games are action hack and slash.
Neither is worth your time if you care about D&D at all. Sad to think it's 2013 and still no passable D&D MMO's.
You are completely right in that neither game follows the rulesets they claim to emulate. I would be absolutely thrilled if someone out there actually created an MMO that could provide a very good approximation of the D&D experience while only straying from the ruleset a fraction just to accommodate the unavoidable. However, it would seem there are no parties willing to take on such a feat yet. The reasons are pretty varied and usually have to do with money.
DDO and Neverwinter are not a complete waste of time for folks who care about D&D. Despite straying very far from the rules, you are still surrounded by the D&D settings with aspects of recognizable lore. In pen and paper, the players and the GM make the game enjoyable with the rules serving merely as a guide and a campaign providing the setting. I guess I view DDO and Neverwinter as essentially doing the same thing in the very basic sense.
DDO has puzzles, skill checks, ability checks, and the need to carry a ton of stuff in your inventory in order to be ready for most situations... Very D&D. Neverwinter also has some of these things, but it's clear that the Foundry is the jewel here with players being able to be a GM of sorts by way of creating quests with their own storylines for other players to enjoy.
I am not wholly dissatisfied with instancing in DDO and Neverwinter. However, I do agree with you as I believe an open world would further be in the spirit of D&D.
DDO was fun, but they really turned me off by focusing so much on raid content and nerfing the hell out of melee. Judging by the lack of forum activity, and in game action I think many agree with me.
Neverwinter will never be what DDO was at its best, but its better right now.
DDO is healthy and well aged IMO. Players looking for good D&D experience will not find their home in shallow game like Neverwinter. Casual players will find it fun tho.
Don't judge for the game and community activity by the activity in mmorpg.com.
LOTRO and DDO always had great and active community in their own forums. Most players see no point posting here.
Are you guys versed in 4e enough to answer a couple questions ?
( playing rogue btw @ level 23 )
I have used basically the same 4 abilities the entire time.
The only complexity in fights is more monsters it seems.
So basically what i am seeing is Neverwinter is Diablo3 basically... That said, is 4e as diablo-esque as I am seeing here ?
Lets count all the ways I disagree, and I have been playing or checking up on DDO for its entire 7 year existence:
1) DDO is not healthy. It used to be the #3 MMO shortly after they went F2P. Today they are a ghost town. It can take hours to fill groups for even the most popular high level content.
2) It is not well-aged. It is a frazzled, wilted, mish-mash of good new ideas meshed with horrid old ones meshed with poorly implemented overpoweredness. Oh ya, and it has a lot of power creep that makes low level gameplay pointless.
3) DDO's community is the worst in the world. It is, by far, the worst community of any game I have ever played online. The forumites are barely better, as well. This is, historically, the primary reason why this game has failed so hard.
4) The activity is so low on mmorpg.com because the vast majority of actual gamers have completely crossed DDO off their list of games to consider, not because their own forums are so healthy. DDO's forum is about as third as active as it was at one time.
5) The person you quoted is correct. Melee have been made useless in all but the most horrid of content, and even there they are inferior in general. This is the current #1 reason why this game fails so hard. A fantasy RPG without melee... sounds like a winner, doesn't it? Not...
That said, I agree that DDO has better potential than Neverwinter. After playing Neverwinter for only a short while I got a headache and lost all anticipation of the game. If I wanted to play Diablo, I still have my CD.
Gotta say I disagree with some of the assessment and claims.
1) Think that's probably server dependent, as during a weekday Argo might be relatively low, but afternoon and weekend it's rather easy to pop into a raid or quest group for any of my characters.
This is somewhat because on Argo there's a lot of TR players and while the players there are largely powergamers, there are pretty cordial regular social groups you'll interact with, more so when you hit cap (excusing the random PUG-nut).
2) I agree on this one really, they have multiple craft systems and gameplay elements piled on one another, and they're almost entirely disjointed which makes itemizing a strange game of either jumping between disparate systems, or saying 'screw it' and only getting the most recent item additions. Like I currently have to farm up the epic bits to make an Assassin kukri, but I really don't want to farm, so I haven't logged into the game in a while now.
3) I'd definitely disagree here, but seeing as this is a matter of experience and perspective, you probably found the ass end of the game which I have not interacted with. This is a claim thrown into doubt mainly be the fact anyone can point to any other game forum and it'll show a volatile cesspool living there. Depending on server you consequently get pretty different communities too.
4) No real argument to make. It's simply conjecture.
5) Certain conditions for melee has been marginalized, but both fighters and barbarians can still top kill count and DPS in Epic Elite quests. The main factor is that they have been reduced in viable builds, much like ranged classes honestly.
The problem presently exists that the bulk of a classes performance in E Hard and E Elite content is in the Epic Destinies. A fighter and a Barbarian both derive a lot of their performance from the Legendary Dreadnought Destiny. Without that they lose a very large chunk of their DPS and killing ability, which nerfs the hell out of their performance.
This is actually a similar problem on casters too right now. Evocation (read, any caster that uses DC combat spells) is generally in a bit of trouble with EH and EE content too. The solution presently for mages to be compatible is to either go with non-DC spells, just work crowd control, or use the most effective option of playing an archmage wizard and spam cheap spells with many hits while using Shiradi to get a lot of proc damage.
Which even in that case they play second fiddle to the likes of the Artificer, as they can use shiradi with their repeater for faster hits and more procs. They don't get the same damage output or aoe as the 2h Dreadnought melee builds, but they get large single target damage with the arbitrary splash.
Rogues are somewhat borked in that the best build forces you to be an Assassin Shadowdancer. You can actually pretty reliably one shot kill things on EH and EE if you go that route, so your dps is technically minimal (though you're still dealing consistently high sneak damage, it's just not where the bulk of your kills comes from), but you are staying at an actually competitive level of performance.
Like notably with my Rogue (Quis Mei on Argonessen) the only person that consistently outpaces me in kills is a friend's Barbarian Dreadnought who just attacks for a few thousand damage a hit at a silly-fast pace.
I'd honestly call that the problem more so than anything else. The powerbuilds in the game has come to dictate the difficulty of the high end content in order to keep the game competitive, so a lot of people's personal builds becomes ineffective for the content they wish to enjoy.
Like I personally wanted to stick with a Mechanic Rogue, but it simply wasn't effective enough in the long run. I 'could' run the content as a Mechanic and do ok, but my kill count would suffer and at best I'd be a sub-par Artificer with evasion.
The game is playing with rampant numbers and scaling because their classes and builds are so wildly flippant in their balance, and in general that's the source of a lot of issue. Melee is perfectly viable and actually great in EH and EE, but only if you build it in a particular way. They've shot the ability to make 'your own' character in the foot.
Which ironically, is my main complaint about Neverwinter too (the lack of personal character design).
"The knowledge of the theory of logic has no tendency whatever to make men good reasoners." - Thomas B. Macaulay
"The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge." - Daniel J. Boorstin
I prefer the DDO way. When you haev bought an adventure its open forever and it does not cost you to play as much as you want and get everything the adventure has to offer.
NW is build around the idea that if you want to play the content to its full you have to pay, and keep paying each time you play.
Its a matter of taste. You like the NW, I like the DDO way.
Well, I'll go another round cause someone spent the time:
1) I play on Thelanis which according to server statisticians is close to Khyber, tying for the most active of the entire gamut. As I wrote that last post my choice of level 25 LFMs included 2 destiny farming activities of extremely easy and lame quests, or a Shroud run that was taking forever to fill.
2) Nope, not what I was talking about at all. Their crafting is semi-decent, actually one of the better less-grindy systems I've seen. The fact that is what you find to be poorly aged is an excellent transition into our 3rd issue:
3) YOU are exactly the type of gamer I'm talking about, guy. The non-gamer. You play a marginally effective rogue (in content where casters have a LOT of options to make you pointless) and brag about how you and one other guy are really the only contenders on your entire server. You are the effigy of the bad community, and most everyone still playing DDO is exactly like you.
4) No, its not conjecture. It's a massive amount of experience. Everytime I see an excellent twitch gamer join the ranks of DDO, within a few months they have either converted to the grind or have left - never to be seen again. Plus I've read a lot of posts (hundreds and thousands) decrying DDO for exactly the reasons I "conjectured."
5) Yes, epic elite is the horrid content (and I've played it, so don't be discounting my opinion because of lack of experience) where melee can offer something. They are not as useful as just a standard ranger or bard that applies their destiny and class crowd control techniques. Casters can still outdo melee in a majority of EE content (see EE Devil's Assault), so there is no real reason to be grinding up a melee for the few and minor situations where their sustainably high DPS can make an impact.
As for epic hard, I'd ask you to take your rogue into a run of EH Gianthold Tor with 3 air savants and see what's it like. They'll move faster than you, instakill harder, and put the red and purple names in their place before you can hit your attack boost.
cool, well rebuttal time
1) I haven't seen server statistics, so I can only reference how I see my own server behaving, which is as I already mentioned.
2) You #2 commentary was vague at best and referenced things as being a 'mish-mash'. You say the crafting is good and 'less-grindy'.
I have to ask then, which crafting system are you referring to. Vale, Dragontouched, Gianthold, Cannith, Normal Item, Epic Tier, Challenges...
Each one is contained somewhat within it's own mechanics playing off at least three different ways to go about doing the crafting, and each one requires you to run quests and raids a ton of times to gather up the resources you need to make anything.
I called it out in particular because of this. Rather than make a single cohesive crafting system, they have made individual ones that exist detached and incoherent from one another.
3) I can understand you getting that impression from my poorly worded commentary, but I have no illusion that I have played with every person on the server, and there are plenty of good players that achieve any mix of success in comparison to me. I can only say from anecdotal evidence of what I've experienced, what I find the case to be.
That case being that I've seen what numbers get churned out on my character and those I've played with, and I find most of it to be comparatively low. Derive from that fact what you want. If that makes me sound like an elitist prick to you, then I'm sorry, I wasn't aiming to call myself the top gamer on the server, I am far from being a dedicated player and as I mentioned in my last post I generally don't like having to grind for stuff. I gave you my character name and server as a means for you to get confirmation of my commentary, not as a form of bragging.
And additionally I have to question you calling me a 'non-gamer' and then proselytizing on casters having options. Does having a plethora of abilities you don't use really make you a gamer? Do you know how I play my rogue? What premise are you building in your head to define both a 'gamer' and myself, that you divide and insult me baselessly?
4) Yes, it is conjecture. I won't say it's not based on fact, but it's a line of commentary that leads to nothing. Plenty of people didn't like DDO, plenty of people don't play DDO. Plenty of people have hopped in and out of playing DDO. It's easy to say that the population on the forum is 1/3rd what it was 'at one time', that gives us nothing in terms of a real metric or a point to be considered. It's conjecture until it's provided rationale.
5) This entire segment I can only see going as as a 'she said, he said' type argument. I can tell you one thing and you can throw at me something entirely different to rebuke the comment. The 'facts' sits with the game and whatever we say ends up just coming as what we are going to say that appeases our side of the commentary.
Hardly conducive to meaningful conversation.
All I can do is reference what I experienced, and what I have seen very apparently doesn't mesh with your interpretation. Certainly there are more viable builds to run EH than there are for EE, but your claim rests on the idea that their spells still work, which I noted previously was an issue being had with DC based spells and abilities. Many of them aren't being see as effective right now because a lot of creatures have high saves. That's changed a wee bit with the last patch as far as I understand, some things being lowered in DC so they have a choice in action again, but for the EH and EE content last I knew it still stood as the primary issue and why Sorcs on my server are mostly acting like crowd control instead of combat.
You wanna talk about EE content, don't bring up the simplest part of the game as a metric. Devils Assault is already known on Argo for being broken-simple. Any player can do it on EE easily by getting a cleric and Tarlov, spawning a feat for augment summoning, and letting those two NPC's clear the quest for you. It's been used to AFK solo farm some Epic Destinies for a while now. Being able to take that mission yourself does not earn you a gold star.
And EH Tor with Air Savants. The only saving grace they have is the quick dashes. Their spells do not consistently one shot enemies, even on EH due to the ridiculous amount of HP the enemies have, so even with them critting for a few thousand on a giant because they have lower reflex doesn't mean the savants are getting insta-kills like you claim.
How would my rogue fair? Well I can only go by my experience, and my experience says that I'll probably be doing the same thing I always do with such a group. I don't use attack boosts, I don't use clickies. I built my rogue so that I'd never have to be reliant on such things and consequently I generally am just scooting about popping things dead. I perform just as well in EH as I do on EE.
If you really want a frame of reference for me, I prefer Mechanic Rogues. I like the concept of self sufficiency and utility. As such, I built a character with the premise that I'd never be reliant on something I consider unsustainable (have to rest or otherwise to recover use). Excusing the need of scrolls for self healing, I carried a suite of such things so that I could offer minor support, be it at a lower performance than an actual caster, and additionally provide consistent DPS damage and all my trap monkey abilities.
I loved that character build. I didn't top anything, but I was happily consistent and could contribute help to most every situation. I referred to it as a 'Utility Rogue', as in I had a generally universal level of utility.
And honestly I'd say it was a perfectly viable EH and EE build too. I didn't get to scoot about one-shotting everything, but I was able to not only hold my own, but help others from dying or otherwise as well. When shit would occasionally hit the fan in a group, I was capable of dodging about, recovering all the corpses, and getting what was a nigh wipe back to performing. So I didn't overcome on my own, but I found it fun and helped out a lot.
What made me change was my brother's pestering honestly. He's a bigger player than me by far, and he perpetually nagged about the performance of the Assassin being worth the penalty taken to my other functions. I still don't entirely agree with his claim, but for what exists in the game right now he is largely correct. The game wants DPS and death, that's what the class build provides, and it performs that role admirably from what I've seen.
If your experience is different, I can only chalk that up to a different community and a different style of play. It's quite likely what I'm saying is passing through a filter in your head any ways and you're taking my commentary to mean something it's not, simply because you assume a character to be built in a manner I did not claim it to be(hence my present clarification).
And seriously dude, at no point did I flip my lid at you. Taking one phrase from me and making me the poster child of 'what's wrong with the game' is rather a giant douche moment on it's own.
EDIT: To give my own frame of reference, as of right now I have nine LFM's up for my 25, 7 of them being 24-25 and the other 2 being 20+. 4 of them being raids, 2 of them being flagging, and the other 3 being a destiny farm and xp chains for hitting 25.
"The knowledge of the theory of logic has no tendency whatever to make men good reasoners." - Thomas B. Macaulay
"The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge." - Daniel J. Boorstin
A copy n paste on my guilds forum of my opinions on Neverwinter and pretty much gives the reason why Neverwinter will NEVER kill DDO.
People from the DDO chapter have been asking me about my beta experience with Neverwinter so I am going to attempt to do a comparison with DDO so people can get an accurate feel of the game. I'll try to be as unbiased as I can, this review will be from a DDO perspective of the game. Keep in mind I only got up to 17 or so.
Class Customization
DDO = Dungeons and Dragons
NW = Street Fighter with Dungeons and Dragons tag.
DDO win hands down, NW is not D&D.
Help support an artist and gamer who has lost his tools to create and play: http://www.gofundme.com/u63nzcgk
Iunno, think the dungeon instancing/partitioning of the game world itself isn't really a major problem, it's kinda like laying out a map in tabletop games.
You don't go at the whole world, just snippets of it. I do like DDO's implementation of explore areas coupled with quests, it seems like a decent approximation.
Think that's something Neverwinter lacks is the 'romping about' part between the hub locations and the quests.
Originally DDO could have been accused of the same as there were no explore areas. Once they added them in it's been something that's added a bit more immersion I guess to the experience.
EDIT: Overall yeah, instancing doesn't really seem to be an enemy in the case of handling a D&D experience, and in some regards is welcome as D&D tends to focus on the party, which is hard to do if the quest looks like a party.
"The knowledge of the theory of logic has no tendency whatever to make men good reasoners." - Thomas B. Macaulay
"The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge." - Daniel J. Boorstin
For those who have played the classic AD&D computer rpgs (like OLD days, 80386 type of old days):
DDO feels more like the classic Golden Boxes series of AD&D
Neverwinter feels like playing Hillsfar
That pretty much sums up my impression from playing both.
Simple:
DDO = D&D <- with all complexity and rules of 3e
, NW =/= D&D (no, not even 4ed) <- Its simply action rpg with D&D skin
However
NW has pretty good story (written by Salvatore) ,
its set in Forgotten Realms (and they did the lore right)
and it has foundry <- which is still completely untapped potential.
(like i tried to make a roleplay guild, where we make modules based on our story (basically DM campaign)
I could not have said it better myself. NW is trash. Since when does a "D&D character" rise to levels higher than 40 ? Well, they sure do in NW. Ridiculous.