That other guy... he clearly lives in another universe. Not once in all my PnP gaming has a DM awarded me experience after I killed a monster. It is always at the end of the gaming session. At the end of the session the DM and players figure out what all they did during the adventure and place an XP amount to it all. Never did I kill a goblin and we stop playing while the DM says, "Ok Shane, raise your experience 21 xp." Then repeat that 20 times for each player. Are you nuts? If DDO gave experience each time you killed a mob THAT would be a betrayal and would make the game exactly like EQ, WOW, GW, blahblahblah.
Hate DDO all you want, but let me tell you... you're missing out. If you're a big fan of PnP and completely forget every other "MMORPG" out there, you will love DDO. If, however, you hate PnP or you're incapable of forgetting your misconceived notions of DDO and you assume it is like all the other MMORPGs... well, I feel sorry for you because you'll never know what you're missing.
Sschrupp, to me your post doesn't make much sense. You are right that most DMs don't add up XP until the end of the session, or at least not until the end of a phase of a session. It makes for easier book keeping in a PnP game. However, few DMs I have ever heard of and none I have ever played with have decided to not award any XP for monsters killed during the session. Here, it's all Quest XP, and monsters in DDO rarely drop any coin or loot either.
I don't get how making use of the powers of computers to keep a running, real time tally, which would be extremely impractical in a PnP game would be a betrayal of anything? Even if I would agree it somehow was and advocated a system where XP wasn't actually tallied and awarded until the end of the quest, I'd have to say that the real "un-DnD like" development is the concept that monsters have no XP or loot value at all. Yes, the concept of such an XP system for PnP DnD is in the 3rd edition DMs Guide as an alternative, but I have met few DMs or players who prefer to totally forgo standard XP rules for this system. It's also a concept that was bandied about in the 2nd edition community, but never won many advocates, which makes it's inclusion in the 3rd edition rules as an optional system more a novelty than anything. (Awarding XP for mosters overcome by some means short of combat, or for achieving certain goals during an adventure, etc... is not at all uncommon in PnP circles, but the total abandonment of standard XP in favor of goal/mission/story awards only doesn't find much support even in theoretical discussions, let alone in practice).
As far as DDO being something PnP fans will enjoy, it's closer to appealing to that niche than the broader MMO audience, but for PnP purists, the game compromises way too much to be a DnD simulator. NWN 2 will be by far the better alternative for those wanting a PnP DnD experience online, which really makes me question what the devs of DDO are really trying to accomplish.
So far it seems to be extremely amateurish game design with a big budget and I can't figure out how it got so far into development with such poor overall design.
Actually in few last PnP games that I DMed I went for no xp for monsters (and similar) option. I gave XP for DC of quest or encounter.It gave me much bigger control of how fast players progressed trough the levels and made players more concentrated towards the goal.
But my players were not to happy with this - even in PnP game geared towards roleplay this didnt seem right. So we went back to traditional XP system
Also I totally agree with you. DDO is right now everything but appealing to , lets call it hardcore D&D player.
Just a comparison
NWN2 gives us - DM tools for creating your own games and quests. Large number of persistant worlds crafted to suit everyone taste - from Faerun to Mystara - from Hack&slash to Elitist (enforced) Roleplay. If you dont want to play online there are hundreds single player modules. And last and not least - good 3.5 D&D rules implementation. No monthly sub
DDO - Action combat ?! (do we care ?) , Supposingly interesting dungeons ? , rule system made to partially resemble 3.5e D&D , questionable instanced world , perhaps some roleplay. All this with monthly sub
"Before this battle is over all the world will know that few...stood against many." - King Leonidas
Originally posted by fiontar Sschrupp, to me your post doesn't make much sense. You are right that most DMs don't add up XP until the end of the session, or at least not until the end of a phase of a session. It makes for easier book keeping in a PnP game. However, few DMs I have ever heard of and none I have ever played with have decided to not award any XP for monsters killed during the session. Here, it's all Quest XP, and monsters in DDO rarely drop any coin or loot either.
So many of you are missing the point here. Everyone wants to jump to conclusions without doing any research on the matter.
YOU STILL GET XP FOR MONSTERS KILLED, YOU JUST GET IT AT THE END OF THE QUEST. All that quest xp is at the end is a tally of things you've killed, as well as a few other xp bonuses for various other things, just like in a pnp session. It's not like they've disregarded monster xp altogether and simply said, "you know, for completing this quest let's give em, lets say...300 xp. That sounds good."
Originally posted by fiontar After the first Stress Test I expressed my generally bad opinion of the game. I'll try to get into this stress because I'm willing to take another look to see if any of the concerns expressed by the stress testers have been addressed. Forced grouping is a very, very, very bad idea for any mmorpg. Offering benefits for grouping is good, but making it mandatory is just going to be the kiss of death. If you look at most mmorpgs today, even the people who most enjoy grouping probably spend less than half of their play time in groups. The arguement that if someone wants solo play they shouldn't be playing a MMO was always silly, but it has been proven completely empty as the genre has evolved and player habits have been examined. Forced grouping for DDO quests completely rules out any solo play, because there is absolutely nothing else to do in the world but do quests. Crafting, resource gathering, exploration even grinding are all non-existant here. The game further compounds the problem of forced grouping because the game design itself is totally non-conducive to roleplaying and the building of friendships through social interaction. A group of established friends or even guilds from other games that already stress organized grouping above all else may find something to play here. However, most everyone else is totally out of luck. The forced grouping will turn off and turn away the vast majority of the potential audience for the game. Add onto that the fact that the game itself, grouping aside, is extremely mediocre (it's game design one might have expected from a (bad) first generation MMO) and DDO looks like a disaster waiting to happen. The graphics are decent. The game mechanics flawed and the game world about two steps back from even the original EQ. At this point, it's only hope at filling any niche would be to provide a really good DnD simulator with a little value added as a result of the pseudo-MMO format. As an MMORPG, it has zero chance of success. People are looking for the next generation of MMORPGs to improve on the current crop of top tier games in some significant manner. DDO has a few gimmicks, but it's not even a tenth the game WoW or EQII is and for the sake of the comparison, you can chose which ever of those two you like the least.
The reason people in these so called "top" MMORPG's spend less than half of their time grouping is because 3/4 of the population is off grinding filler mobs out in "generic zone 003" so there are fewer people around to group. Many of these games are full of retarded raid instances that require 40 people to tap an F-Key for 4-6 hours straight till "uber boss mob Y" finally dies alowing them to /random 1-100 for those 40 people to get a chance at 1-3 pieces of "teh ub4r l00t". Forcing everyone to group means that at any one time 75% of the server population will likely be LFG. And as it's obvious you haven't spent any time on the DDO forums when they say grouping, they mean anywhere from 2-6 players in a group....yes you don't always have to have a full group of 6 players to do the instances, so worst case all you have to do is find 1 more person.
As for forced grouping turning off the vast majority of the potential audience, I doubt it, players that prefer to solo over group are in the minority in most games in my experience. They are basically just the plvlers and those who get a rep for being retards and causing wipes.
Your opinion that the game is mediocre I can't really argue with as you are perfectly entitled to it so I will have to just disagree with you there. ANYTHING that has the potential to change the standard formula that is recycled over and over in current MMORPG's get huge points in my book. I don't understand how anyone can find standing around killing the same mob non-stop for hours on end remotely entertaining, and I'm not the only one. There are a ton of people out there who are sick of the same old crap, DDO has done a bunch of things differently and in my opinion far better than the current crop of generic crap out there right now.
Graphics look pretty good to me, but I was using the high-res client so not sure how the standard looked. I don't get how you say the game world is 2 steps back from the original EQ, please elaborate and maybe I can understand what you mean by that.
I think you will be very surprised at how popular it is, I'm predicting it will sell over 1 million units in pretty short order, remember PnP D&D has 4.5 million players in north america alone, plus the current crop of MMO players that just keep renewing their subs to EQ2 and WoW cause they haven't found anything better to do atm and 1 million really isn't that difficult a number to get to.
Originally posted by fiontar After the first Stress Test I expressed my generally bad opinion of the game. I'll try to get into this stress because I'm willing to take another look to see if any of the concerns expressed by the stress testers have been addressed.Forced grouping is a very, very, very bad idea for any mmorpg. Offering benefits for grouping is good, but making it mandatory is just going to be the kiss of death. If you look at most mmorpgs today, even the people who most enjoy grouping probably spend less than half of their play time in groups. The arguement that if someone wants solo play they shouldn't be playing a MMO was always silly, but it has been proven completely empty as the genre has evolved and player habits have been examined.Forced grouping for DDO quests completely rules out any solo play, because there is absolutely nothing else to do in the world but do quests. Crafting, resource gathering, exploration even grinding are all non-existant here. The game further compounds the problem of forced grouping because the game design itself is totally non-conducive to roleplaying and the building of friendships through social interaction.A group of established friends or even guilds from other games that already stress organized grouping above all else may find something to play here. However, most everyone else is totally out of luck.The forced grouping will turn off and turn away the vast majority of the potential audience for the game. Add onto that the fact that the game itself, grouping aside, is extremely mediocre (it's game design one might have expected from a (bad) first generation MMO) and DDO looks like a disaster waiting to happen.The graphics are decent. The game mechanics flawed and the game world about two steps back from even the original EQ. At this point, it's only hope at filling any niche would be to provide a really good DnD simulator with a little value added as a result of the pseudo-MMO format. As an MMORPG, it has zero chance of success. People are looking for the next generation of MMORPGs to improve on the current crop of top tier games in some significant manner. DDO has a few gimmicks, but it's not even a tenth the game WoW or EQII is and for the sake of the comparison, you can chose which ever of those two you like the least.
I just had to paste this one more time. Since in my oppinion it is the most true statement here. Well done Fiontar.
And Minsc , all I can tell you and your instanced friends is : "Jump on my sword evil! Cause I wont be that gentle!"
No really ... This generation of MMORPG's took two wrong steps. First was forced grouping and the second is ever increasing instancing. (and who ever denys this obviously have little or none MMO experience)
In my view it is because both of this things make MMO easier to produce - since both make game world harder to explore and experience. They are sort of a break so you wont be driving trough so fast.
Instead giving us bigger world with more quests they are giving smaller world with harder quests. Thats is the reason behind it all....
I have waited for a D&D MMO for long time. It saddens me trully DDO went this sad way....
Thanks god there is Bioware , Obsidian and NWN2 in development....
"Before this battle is over all the world will know that few...stood against many." - King Leonidas
Originally posted by darquenblade So many of you are missing the point here. Everyone wants to jump to conclusions without doing any research on the matter. YOU STILL GET XP FOR MONSTERS KILLED, YOU JUST GET IT AT THE END OF THE QUEST. All that quest xp is at the end is a tally of things you've killed, as well as a few other xp bonuses for various other things, just like in a pnp session. It's not like they've disregarded monster xp altogether and simply said, "you know, for completing this quest let's give em, lets say...300 xp. That sounds good."
I don't think they're missing the point, they're just incapable of having an open mind. They obviously need to see numbers scrolling each time they kill something.
Although in this thread I've seen two types of nay-sayers. One group claims DDO isn't a D&D Simulator, the other group claims DDO isn't a World of Quest clone. They both win a cookie, because they're both right. I don't see DDO as a D&D simulator, and I don't see it as a clone of the same-old-same-old. I see it as a unique combination that is terribly addictive. Then again I have an open mind and didn't walk into this looking to denounce it like the nay-sayers here did.
Rarely has anyone in the groups I've been in stated that they didn't love this game.... after we just spent 8 hours together having a blast. I've had more solid parties in this game in the short time I've played it than any of the other MMORPGs I've played.
Obviously with any game there will be the lovers and the haters. Here are a few pointers that seem to point out the general trend of haters and lovers.
The Haters:
D&D rule freaks. "DMG page 62, paragraph 8, line 3 clearly states that blahblahblah.." We all know them and love them. Unfortunately in an online game it's difficult to exactly duplicate every rule of a game based on turn-styled pen and paper games. These guys don't care if the game is fun to play, they hate it because it doesn't strictly follow the book. As if any of the other MMORPG they've enjoyed followed the D&D rules to the letter.
Instance haters. "OMG, you mean I don't have the chance to see 5000 people suddenly appear in front of me??" Truth be told I've seen more players running around town than I see in other games except for when there's some special event going on that draws an artificial crowd. And the taverns are just packed with people. Instances just mean the environment can be more detailed and involving than non-instanced games. The world requires memory and processing time. The bigger an environment is, the more power is required and the less detailed it can be. You won't find the incredible "dungeons" DDO has in other games for a long time unless they're added as an instance.
MMORPG definition people. "It stands for massively multiplayer! That means that I can interact with all 10000 people at once and you can't do that in DDO. Because I do that all the time in every other MMORPG!!" This is the same as point 2. The only time I've ever interacted with a large number of people would be in DAoC or WoW during large PvP/RvR settings. Just because there's 5000 people on a non-instanced game doesn't mean you'll ever interact with them all at once. People are spread out everywhere, and you would never notice if there were suddenly zone lines between you and them.
PVP G0dz. "....." Sorry, I can't do leet speak very well so I won't even try. They'll say the game sucks because it doesn't have pvp. They're right.... for them. If all you care about is PVP, then move along, this game isn't for you.
Solo-ers. "I hate people, but this online game makes me play with other people!" What can I say, this game isn't for you. It is possible to do some soloing, but it is difficult and definitely not what this game is built for.
Grinders. "You mean I can't spend the next two months killing thousands of rats in my secret spot to beat the game?!?" Nope, move along, this game isn't for you.
The Lovers:
Groupers. If you don't like to solo, but always have troubles in other MMORPGs finding decent groups because everyone else is already soloing, this game is for you. Everybody needs a group in this game, so everybody is looking to join one. If you're not invited right away, start your own group and invite people. Bing bang boom, you're on your way to some fun.
Dungeoneers. Do you like to creep through moldy, smelly sewers in search of Jimmy's little girl? Are you terrified of spiders, but just can't resist exploring spiderweb filled temples? Do you love the thrill of discovering a hidden door? Is there a swirling blade of doom out there with your name on it? Do you enjoy trying to solve riddles? Get a kick out of being impaled from hidden spikes? You sicko! Well either way, you'll love this game!
Seekers of change. Tired of the same old same old that is every other MMORPG clone? Sure you've had some fun playing AC, EQ, DAoC, AC2, Horizons, SoR, WoW, EQ2 (well at least I have), but you're looking for something just a little bit different. I can't put my finger on it exactly, but there's something about this one that sets it apart from the others for me.
Originally posted by darquenblade So many of you are missing the point here. Everyone wants to jump to conclusions without doing any research on the matter. YOU STILL GET XP FOR MONSTERS KILLED, YOU JUST GET IT AT THE END OF THE QUEST. All that quest xp is at the end is a tally of things you've killed, as well as a few other xp bonuses for various other things, just like in a pnp session. It's not like they've disregarded monster xp altogether and simply said, "you know, for completing this quest let's give em, lets say...300 xp. That sounds good."
Unless they have done a complete 180 since the first stress test, you are wrong. The XP is set for the quest. There are also bonus objectives for many quests, with set xp amounts. Some quests even give a 10% bonus to xp if all the monsters in the quest are killed. However, it doesn't matter whether you killed a tenth, half or what ever fraction of the monsters, the xp for completing the quest and all it's bonus objectives (aside for any 100% kill bonus) you get the same XP. This is one of the "selling points" of the fans. You don't have to hack and slash, if you are able to find ways to bypass most of the content while completing the objectives, you still get all the XP.
I don't mind the inclusion of quest and objective completion XP, but it isn't in addition to regular XP rules, it's in place of it.
BTW, the XP requirements to level in DDO are X10 the standard 3rd edition amounts. The amount of XP you get for quests are about 1/5th to 1/10th what you would get in PnP DnD. You're talking about an XP progression curve 50 to 100 times harder than in PnP DnD! As different as the DDO quests may feel during the few days of a stress test, can you honestly say that this game isn't going to quickly devolve into as much a grind fest as any other game? It's grinding quests, rather than grinding mobs and quests, but it's still a slow, trudging grind. The novelty of the dungeons will wear off very fast. By eliminating XP and almost all loot drops from monsters, the most efficient path to grinding this game is to bypass as much content as possible while completing each quest. This contributes to the need to balance things with such slow XP rates and such high XP per level requirements.
I fully understand that by designing themselves into a level 10 cap at launch, combined with the fact that completing any said dungeon is going to go faster on a computer than it would for even the most efficient PnP groups, requires the xp requirements for leveling to be increased. However, DDO makes the need for such an increase, and the resulting sense of grind, much worse by using an XP system that encourages players to bypass as much content as possible. Add in the super fast "semi-twitch" combat and the efficiency of game content to tie up players time drops even more.
I can already envision DDO online information sites after launch that detail the most efficient ways to complete each quest in the shortest amount of time along with ratings for each quest telling players how XP per time efficient it is. With the ability to repeat quests, dedicated parties will be able to skip the vast majority of the game's content while climbing to the top. It may seem that these players will be missing out by taking such a route, but once you realize that when the novelty wears off, questing will be a grind, no matter how you approach it and how varied the quests attempt to be, it should become obvious why most players will map out and follow these more efficient routes to leveling.
Of course, then the "hard core" DDO fans will say "We won't play that way, so it won't effect us". However, the biggest reason we are in the current mess is because the hardcore fans pushing for quest only XP thought they would be discouraging powergamers by forcing a radical change in the way XP is awarded. They want to be able to play "their way" and also not be seriously outpaced by the traditional MMO powergamer crowd. Really a case of wanting to have one's cake and eat it too. All this effort to eliminate mob kill grinding just leads to "most efficient questing XP path" grinding. The problem here is that the most efficient path is one that encourages huge portions of content to be bypassed, which then requires the XP rate for casual gamers to be slowed to a mind numbing, grind inducing crawl.
When people say PLAYING SOLO - It doesnt mean - I dont want the group , I want to grind the game alone without talking to anybody...etc.
PLAYING sole means this for most of the people - I am sick and tired of being forced in groups with l33t d00d kid5 , I want to group with roleplayers , people that enjoy playing this game , people that will WAIT TO READ THE GOD DAMN QUEST DESCRIPTION!!!!!!! not interupt it in middle .... And if that is not possible , i would rather explore alone at my own pace, enjoy the game , enjoy the graphic, enjoy the story....
Until i find a good group.
Example: In Guild Wars you are pretty much forced to group almost all the game. Now you have nice animation on end of each quest that explains development of the story. It could be skipped by the group.... And now I have no idea what is happening in the storyline!
I was forced to skip 99% of the story animations.
That sounds fun to you. You like this kind of groups ? This is done 99% of the time in random groups.
And dont tell me DDO will be diferent - What makes you think it will have better community? Roleplayers and D&D freaks are spooked by this game , so who will make this better community ?
Action twitch combat fans?
Seriously
"Before this battle is over all the world will know that few...stood against many." - King Leonidas
Unless they have done a complete 180 since the first stress test, you are wrong. The XP is set for the quest. There are also bonus objectives for many quests, with set xp amounts. Some quests even give a 10% bonus to xp if all the monsters in the quest are killed. However, it doesn't matter whether you killed a tenth, half or what ever fraction of the monsters, the xp for completing the quest and all it's bonus objectives (aside for any 100% kill bonus) you get the same XP. This is one of the "selling points" of the fans. You don't have to hack and slash, if you are able to find ways to bypass most of the content while completing the objectives, you still get all the XP.
Oh, I'm not saying there aren't some valid arguments against this game; there are certianly some things that I don't agree with as well. Just a couple off the top of my head:
- The fact that in eliminating the traditional grind found in most MMOs, they have created the Quest Grind, which will end up being just as bad. Going through the dungeon that awards the most XP for the 50th time just to level doesn't sound extremely appealing.
- Forget about stopping to 'smell the roses' in most quests, as you'll most likely, due to the quest grind aspect, be grouped with players who have done the quest you are on at least a dozen times already, thus they will be rushing through it while you try to keep up.
I do want to comment on the text I quoted above, however. In PnP, the XP awarded for monsters is not just for killing them, it's for overcoming them in any way you can. Granted, I don't think you should get EXTRA if you do decide to kill them (like +XX% xp for killing all enemies or whatever), which the game does have in it.
Either way, I'm an old school gamer who isn't getting all hung up on faithfulness to the ruleset; this game will never replace the pen and paper game, and if you go into it with that mindset, you'll be able to better enjoy the game for what it is. Honestly, I think the biggest beef most people have with this game is that it is not going to be the digital equivalent of the PHB and DMG.
In closing, I'll add this: If people think that this game is being unfaithful to pnp D&D, then they have obviously never played Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance .
In WoW, it is much quicker to kill a bunch of easy mobs and level, then to do quests to level up. I don't think the quest grind is a valid statement because you can't repeat quests and you don't get exp for clearing a dungeon or killing the boss. You get exp by finishing the quest in the instance.
When I read Rattrap, I want to ask him on which server he play for which MMO so I can auto-friend him! Oh he is soloing, time to check if he wanna group!
DarquenBlade: Psss, disagreeing is great. You have peoples like Brad who would never agree with me about raiding, however there are many great designers who would also agree that raiding made at the expense of any non-raiding activity is hindering and limiting how such an activity can progress. It all come down to choice, you want to "hook" a minority of players or you want to please the majority and give them as much fun as possible? A choice has to be made, FUN vs HOOK in the case of such a raiding system, I pick FUN and I also believe a wise company with long term goals will pick FUN as well, hooking with a raiding system is a very short term consideration, a few years of superficial prosperity at the expense of you fanbase. EQ would be FAR more popular today if it was the same game without raiding (just imagine if they put this work into a "end game grouping system" LDoN was their best expension and it was not even group-centered, it was heading that way), peoples would be looking for sequels and other Norrath product a LOT more, however SoE would prolly a little less rich, but maybe not, with all the time, more peoples would have try expension and bump in and out a lot. Me and at least 5 of my friends (prolly much more than that) would be restoring account to EQ every expension if it was not about raiding. Raiding is a short term vision.
- "If I understand you well, you are telling me until next time. " - Ren
Originally posted by poobla In WoW, it is much quicker to kill a bunch of easy mobs and level, then to do quests to level up. I don't think the quest grind is a valid statement because you can't repeat quests and you don't get exp for clearing a dungeon or killing the boss. You get exp by finishing the quest in the instance.
Sorry to burst your bubble dude, but..yes you can. In fact, you can repeat almost all quests several times over save for the beginning tutorial quests. Trust me, I know.
Originally posted by LordDarkmist A game with traps, obstacles, challenge... Why does the devs advocate static? static doesn't work with traps,obstacles,challenge,etc especially when there's repeatables... I want dynamic damn it... Dynamic!!!
Yeah this is one thing I hope they change eventually. Would be wonderful to see random placement of traps and such.
I will also add my thoughts on this instancing issue.
Instacned games like GW and DDO are not MMORPGS. and they are not MMOS. A MMORPG and MMO are none instacned worlds where you run acrouss alot of other real players (poeple) in game. In the world not just towns.
I am against 100% instanced games like GW and DDO. I play Online games because I enjoy the social part of it. I enjoy meeting new people and forming new friendships. Its amazing how you can meet people from all over the world in online games. My whole time in Guild Wars I never got to meet any interesting people or forum new firendships. because its all instanced and everyone is always busy doing stuff outside of the towns. in the instanced part. I joined different guilds looking hoping there would be people to do quests and stuff with and in all of them but 1 it was all of them doing there own things.
Sadly in instanced games like that, its all set story set missions and quests. so if people in you're guild are way ahead of you they don't always want to come back and do that all over again.
I bought Guild Wars not long after it was in stores I had no idea what instancing was when i got it and I didn't know it was like that. I wondered around out side of the starting town wondering whi i wasn't seeing other real players around, and only seeing npcs.
I really enjoy runing across other real players (people) in the world as i go searching, adventuring or questing. Sadly that can't be done in instanced games. I like to be able to log in and if my frieends are out in the world going and joining them, this is not possable in instanced games unless they go back to the towns and start over.
I enjoy the feeling that its a active game wrold with alot of other players around to interact with. not a bunch of npcs.
to me DDO is just a nother version of GW, with a new look and different quests. I would never pay a monthly fee to play a 100% instanced wrold game.
As of yet Anarchy-Online has been the best game I've ever played, I've never found one yet to match the years of enjoyment i got out of it.
This is just my thoughts. I know everyone likes different stuff.
Originally posted by lazerbeard Well, seeing as how I anticipate this game not for its D&D history, but for its gameplay, I think its going to be awesome. I am dearly sorry that DDO isnt really all that close to D&D PnP for all those expecting it, but I still think the gameplay is going to rule anyway, and with the rich history DDO will probably have a cool story to it as well.
Interestingly, DDO is catering more to players familiar the PnP version of D&D than casual MMO players. If you aren't accustomed to the 3.5 ruleset then you'll likely be at sea when it comes to creating characters and outfitting them. There are few explanations for stats or how they'll affect your gameplay. Speaking as someone who never played D&D, a lot of the game is opaque to me, and I find most of it reads like a engineering manual. Players conversant with D&D are having no such problems.
DDO is geared specifically toward grouping over soloing. In fact, outside of a couple classes it is nearly impossible to solo successfully, even in the easiest dungeons and quests. So those of you looking for the roleplaying and social aspects should be well pleased.
Getting xp for completing quests rather than for inidividual NPCs is a great idea. Everyone in the dungeon gets the same xp, and killstealing simply doesn't exist. Your experience will vary depending on the quality of your group, of course.
It's not my cup of tea, but it does have some good ideas in it.
RATTRAP You hit the nail right in, GW is an ok game if you have a group, if you dont its just like playing a non online game. I my self have found great gaming hours playing the old SWG and now it got shot down, the hybreading in the game was awsome, wich leads to my Question, im looking for a game that was or is better then SWG in the fact that you can Hybread.
On to a new subject, WoW is awsome and so is EQ II, but i got bord soon after LvL's 30, any ideas for other games or how i can make it more intresting for my self, i just hate loosing intrest in somthing i know is good.
DD was made for people who wanna play quests with their friends without bein disturbed by the morons that seem too frequent mmo's these days.Anyone who ever grew up playin D&D will not even argue so if your not a d&d fan chances are your not gonna like it so dont try to debate it.still a mmo just cause a game is instanced dont make it not a mmo.
Originally posted by trike Originally posted by lazerbeard Well, seeing as how I anticipate this game not for its D&D history, but for its gameplay, I think its going to be awesome. I am dearly sorry that DDO isnt really all that close to D&D PnP for all those expecting it, but I still think the gameplay is going to rule anyway, and with the rich history DDO will probably have a cool story to it as well.
Interestingly, DDO is catering more to players familiar the PnP version of D&D than casual MMO players. If you aren't accustomed to the 3.5 ruleset then you'll likely be at sea when it comes to creating characters and outfitting them. There are few explanations for stats or how they'll affect your gameplay. Speaking as someone who never played D&D, a lot of the game is opaque to me, and I find most of it reads like a engineering manual. Players conversant with D&D are having no such problems.
DDO is geared specifically toward grouping over soloing. In fact, outside of a couple classes it is nearly impossible to solo successfully, even in the easiest dungeons and quests. So those of you looking for the roleplaying and social aspects should be well pleased.
Getting xp for completing quests rather than for inidividual NPCs is a great idea. Everyone in the dungeon gets the same xp, and killstealing simply doesn't exist. Your experience will vary depending on the quality of your group, of course.
It's not my cup of tea, but it does have some good ideas in it.
You hit it right on the head. I think I'll definitely try and get in on the beta for this game to see what it's all about. I'm not terribly familiar with the D&D ruleset myself, but I've played Baldur's Gate, and Baldur's Gate II which are both based on the AD&D ruleset so I doubt I'll have trouble putting together a character. I've looked over D&D manuals and what I've found is that they have a way of making something sound much more complicated than it actually is. So keep that in mind!
I hope this game attracts and older, more mature audience. Obviously it's going to bring in fans of the PnP D&D game which tends to be an audience that will appreciate role play and at the very least demonstrate a minimul level of maturity. After playing numerous MMORPGs, I've gotten to the point where I can't stand weeks and weeks of grinding followed by one or two weeks of PvP and then the canceling of my subscription. Afterwards you're left with nothing but a feeling of wasted time and money on something that just wasn't that great. Hopefully DDO will bring a new feel to the MMORPG world that will serve as a nice break from the grind fest of the common market MMORPG like World of Warcraft.
Yes rather than listening to Mandy and company who obviousily haven't actually tried the game and are just jumping on the "Instanced is bad" bandwagon, you should try out the stress test going on and see for yourself.
Comments
Minsc, you're dead on right.
That other guy... he clearly lives in another universe. Not once in all my PnP gaming has a DM awarded me experience after I killed a monster. It is always at the end of the gaming session. At the end of the session the DM and players figure out what all they did during the adventure and place an XP amount to it all. Never did I kill a goblin and we stop playing while the DM says, "Ok Shane, raise your experience 21 xp." Then repeat that 20 times for each player. Are you nuts? If DDO gave experience each time you killed a mob THAT would be a betrayal and would make the game exactly like EQ, WOW, GW, blahblahblah.
Hate DDO all you want, but let me tell you... you're missing out. If you're a big fan of PnP and completely forget every other "MMORPG" out there, you will love DDO. If, however, you hate PnP or you're incapable of forgetting your misconceived notions of DDO and you assume it is like all the other MMORPGs... well, I feel sorry for you because you'll never know what you're missing.
Wish I could say more, but of course I can't.
Sschrupp, to me your post doesn't make much sense. You are right that most DMs don't add up XP until the end of the session, or at least not until the end of a phase of a session. It makes for easier book keeping in a PnP game. However, few DMs I have ever heard of and none I have ever played with have decided to not award any XP for monsters killed during the session. Here, it's all Quest XP, and monsters in DDO rarely drop any coin or loot either.
I don't get how making use of the powers of computers to keep a running, real time tally, which would be extremely impractical in a PnP game would be a betrayal of anything? Even if I would agree it somehow was and advocated a system where XP wasn't actually tallied and awarded until the end of the quest, I'd have to say that the real "un-DnD like" development is the concept that monsters have no XP or loot value at all. Yes, the concept of such an XP system for PnP DnD is in the 3rd edition DMs Guide as an alternative, but I have met few DMs or players who prefer to totally forgo standard XP rules for this system. It's also a concept that was bandied about in the 2nd edition community, but never won many advocates, which makes it's inclusion in the 3rd edition rules as an optional system more a novelty than anything. (Awarding XP for mosters overcome by some means short of combat, or for achieving certain goals during an adventure, etc... is not at all uncommon in PnP circles, but the total abandonment of standard XP in favor of goal/mission/story awards only doesn't find much support even in theoretical discussions, let alone in practice).
As far as DDO being something PnP fans will enjoy, it's closer to appealing to that niche than the broader MMO audience, but for PnP purists, the game compromises way too much to be a DnD simulator. NWN 2 will be by far the better alternative for those wanting a PnP DnD experience online, which really makes me question what the devs of DDO are really trying to accomplish.
So far it seems to be extremely amateurish game design with a big budget and I can't figure out how it got so far into development with such poor overall design.
Want to know more about GW2 and why there is so much buzz? Start here: Guild Wars 2 Mass Info for the Uninitiated
Fiontar
Actually in few last PnP games that I DMed I went for no xp for monsters (and similar) option. I gave XP for DC of quest or encounter.It gave me much bigger control of how fast players progressed trough the levels and made players more concentrated towards the goal.
But my players were not to happy with this - even in PnP game geared towards roleplay this didnt seem right. So we went back to traditional XP system
Also I totally agree with you. DDO is right now everything but appealing to , lets call it hardcore D&D player.
Just a comparison
NWN2 gives us - DM tools for creating your own games and quests. Large number of persistant worlds crafted to suit everyone taste - from Faerun to Mystara - from Hack&slash to Elitist (enforced) Roleplay. If you dont want to play online there are hundreds single player modules. And last and not least - good 3.5 D&D rules implementation. No monthly sub
DDO - Action combat ?! (do we care ?) , Supposingly interesting dungeons ? , rule system made to partially resemble 3.5e D&D , questionable instanced world , perhaps some roleplay. All this with monthly sub
"Before this battle is over all the world will know that few...stood against many." - King Leonidas
So many of you are missing the point here. Everyone wants to jump to conclusions without doing any research on the matter.
YOU STILL GET XP FOR MONSTERS KILLED, YOU JUST GET IT AT THE END OF THE QUEST. All that quest xp is at the end is a tally of things you've killed, as well as a few other xp bonuses for various other things, just like in a pnp session. It's not like they've disregarded monster xp altogether and simply said, "you know, for completing this quest let's give em, lets say...300 xp. That sounds good."
The reason people in these so called "top" MMORPG's spend less than half of their time grouping is because 3/4 of the population is off grinding filler mobs out in "generic zone 003" so there are fewer people around to group. Many of these games are full of retarded raid instances that require 40 people to tap an F-Key for 4-6 hours straight till "uber boss mob Y" finally dies alowing them to /random 1-100 for those 40 people to get a chance at 1-3 pieces of "teh ub4r l00t". Forcing everyone to group means that at any one time 75% of the server population will likely be LFG. And as it's obvious you haven't spent any time on the DDO forums when they say grouping, they mean anywhere from 2-6 players in a group....yes you don't always have to have a full group of 6 players to do the instances, so worst case all you have to do is find 1 more person.
As for forced grouping turning off the vast majority of the potential audience, I doubt it, players that prefer to solo over group are in the minority in most games in my experience. They are basically just the plvlers and those who get a rep for being retards and causing wipes.
Your opinion that the game is mediocre I can't really argue with as you are perfectly entitled to it so I will have to just disagree with you there. ANYTHING that has the potential to change the standard formula that is recycled over and over in current MMORPG's get huge points in my book. I don't understand how anyone can find standing around killing the same mob non-stop for hours on end remotely entertaining, and I'm not the only one. There are a ton of people out there who are sick of the same old crap, DDO has done a bunch of things differently and in my opinion far better than the current crop of generic crap out there right now.
Graphics look pretty good to me, but I was using the high-res client so not sure how the standard looked. I don't get how you say the game world is 2 steps back from the original EQ, please elaborate and maybe I can understand what you mean by that.
I think you will be very surprised at how popular it is, I'm predicting it will sell over 1 million units in pretty short order, remember PnP D&D has 4.5 million players in north america alone, plus the current crop of MMO players that just keep renewing their subs to EQ2 and WoW cause they haven't found anything better to do atm and 1 million really isn't that difficult a number to get to.
I just had to paste this one more time. Since in my oppinion it is the most true statement here. Well done Fiontar.
And Minsc , all I can tell you and your instanced friends is :
"Jump on my sword evil! Cause I wont be that gentle!"
No really ... This generation of MMORPG's took two wrong steps. First was forced grouping and the second is ever increasing instancing.
(and who ever denys this obviously have little or none MMO experience)
In my view it is because both of this things make MMO easier to produce - since both make game world harder to explore and experience. They are sort of a break so you wont be driving trough so fast.
Instead giving us bigger world with more quests they are giving smaller world with harder quests. Thats is the reason behind it all....
I have waited for a D&D MMO for long time. It saddens me trully DDO went this sad way....
Thanks god there is Bioware , Obsidian and NWN2 in development....
"Before this battle is over all the world will know that few...stood against many." - King Leonidas
I don't think they're missing the point, they're just incapable of having an open mind. They obviously need to see numbers scrolling each time they kill something.
Although in this thread I've seen two types of nay-sayers. One group claims DDO isn't a D&D Simulator, the other group claims DDO isn't a World of Quest clone. They both win a cookie, because they're both right. I don't see DDO as a D&D simulator, and I don't see it as a clone of the same-old-same-old. I see it as a unique combination that is terribly addictive. Then again I have an open mind and didn't walk into this looking to denounce it like the nay-sayers here did.
Rarely has anyone in the groups I've been in stated that they didn't love this game.... after we just spent 8 hours together having a blast. I've had more solid parties in this game in the short time I've played it than any of the other MMORPGs I've played.
Obviously with any game there will be the lovers and the haters. Here are a few pointers that seem to point out the general trend of haters and lovers.
The Haters:
The Lovers:
Unless they have done a complete 180 since the first stress test, you are wrong. The XP is set for the quest. There are also bonus objectives for many quests, with set xp amounts. Some quests even give a 10% bonus to xp if all the monsters in the quest are killed. However, it doesn't matter whether you killed a tenth, half or what ever fraction of the monsters, the xp for completing the quest and all it's bonus objectives (aside for any 100% kill bonus) you get the same XP. This is one of the "selling points" of the fans. You don't have to hack and slash, if you are able to find ways to bypass most of the content while completing the objectives, you still get all the XP.
I don't mind the inclusion of quest and objective completion XP, but it isn't in addition to regular XP rules, it's in place of it.
BTW, the XP requirements to level in DDO are X10 the standard 3rd edition amounts. The amount of XP you get for quests are about 1/5th to 1/10th what you would get in PnP DnD. You're talking about an XP progression curve 50 to 100 times harder than in PnP DnD! As different as the DDO quests may feel during the few days of a stress test, can you honestly say that this game isn't going to quickly devolve into as much a grind fest as any other game? It's grinding quests, rather than grinding mobs and quests, but it's still a slow, trudging grind. The novelty of the dungeons will wear off very fast. By eliminating XP and almost all loot drops from monsters, the most efficient path to grinding this game is to bypass as much content as possible while completing each quest. This contributes to the need to balance things with such slow XP rates and such high XP per level requirements.
I fully understand that by designing themselves into a level 10 cap at launch, combined with the fact that completing any said dungeon is going to go faster on a computer than it would for even the most efficient PnP groups, requires the xp requirements for leveling to be increased. However, DDO makes the need for such an increase, and the resulting sense of grind, much worse by using an XP system that encourages players to bypass as much content as possible. Add in the super fast "semi-twitch" combat and the efficiency of game content to tie up players time drops even more.
I can already envision DDO online information sites after launch that detail the most efficient ways to complete each quest in the shortest amount of time along with ratings for each quest telling players how XP per time efficient it is. With the ability to repeat quests, dedicated parties will be able to skip the vast majority of the game's content while climbing to the top. It may seem that these players will be missing out by taking such a route, but once you realize that when the novelty wears off, questing will be a grind, no matter how you approach it and how varied the quests attempt to be, it should become obvious why most players will map out and follow these more efficient routes to leveling.
Of course, then the "hard core" DDO fans will say "We won't play that way, so it won't effect us". However, the biggest reason we are in the current mess is because the hardcore fans pushing for quest only XP thought they would be discouraging powergamers by forcing a radical change in the way XP is awarded. They want to be able to play "their way" and also not be seriously outpaced by the traditional MMO powergamer crowd. Really a case of wanting to have one's cake and eat it too. All this effort to eliminate mob kill grinding just leads to "most efficient questing XP path" grinding. The problem here is that the most efficient path is one that encourages huge portions of content to be bypassed, which then requires the XP rate for casual gamers to be slowed to a mind numbing, grind inducing crawl.
Want to know more about GW2 and why there is so much buzz? Start here: Guild Wars 2 Mass Info for the Uninitiated
Good post sschrupp
But still - and try to understand this.
When people say PLAYING SOLO - It doesnt mean - I dont want the group , I want to grind the game alone without talking to anybody...etc.
PLAYING sole means this for most of the people - I am sick and tired of being forced in groups with l33t d00d kid5 , I want to group with roleplayers , people that enjoy playing this game , people that will WAIT TO READ THE GOD DAMN QUEST DESCRIPTION!!!!!!! not interupt it in middle .... And if that is not possible , i would rather explore alone at my own pace, enjoy the game , enjoy the graphic, enjoy the story....
Until i find a good group.
Example:
In Guild Wars you are pretty much forced to group almost all the game.
Now you have nice animation on end of each quest that explains development of the story. It could be skipped by the group....
And now I have no idea what is happening in the storyline!
I was forced to skip 99% of the story animations.
That sounds fun to you. You like this kind of groups ? This is done 99% of the time in random groups.
And dont tell me DDO will be diferent - What makes you think it will have better community?
Roleplayers and D&D freaks are spooked by this game , so who will make this better community ?
Action twitch combat fans?
Seriously
"Before this battle is over all the world will know that few...stood against many." - King Leonidas
Unless they have done a complete 180 since the first stress test, you are wrong. The XP is set for the quest. There are also bonus objectives for many quests, with set xp amounts. Some quests even give a 10% bonus to xp if all the monsters in the quest are killed. However, it doesn't matter whether you killed a tenth, half or what ever fraction of the monsters, the xp for completing the quest and all it's bonus objectives (aside for any 100% kill bonus) you get the same XP. This is one of the "selling points" of the fans. You don't have to hack and slash, if you are able to find ways to bypass most of the content while completing the objectives, you still get all the XP.
Oh, I'm not saying there aren't some valid arguments against this game; there are certianly some things that I don't agree with as well. Just a couple off the top of my head:
- The fact that in eliminating the traditional grind found in most MMOs, they have created the Quest Grind, which will end up being just as bad. Going through the dungeon that awards the most XP for the 50th time just to level doesn't sound extremely appealing.
- Forget about stopping to 'smell the roses' in most quests, as you'll most likely, due to the quest grind aspect, be grouped with players who have done the quest you are on at least a dozen times already, thus they will be rushing through it while you try to keep up.
I do want to comment on the text I quoted above, however. In PnP, the XP awarded for monsters is not just for killing them, it's for overcoming them in any way you can. Granted, I don't think you should get EXTRA if you do decide to kill them (like +XX% xp for killing all enemies or whatever), which the game does have in it.
Either way, I'm an old school gamer who isn't getting all hung up on faithfulness to the ruleset; this game will never replace the pen and paper game, and if you go into it with that mindset, you'll be able to better enjoy the game for what it is. Honestly, I think the biggest beef most people have with this game is that it is not going to be the digital equivalent of the PHB and DMG.
In closing, I'll add this: If people think that this game is being unfaithful to pnp D&D, then they have obviously never played Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance
.
In WoW, it is much quicker to kill a bunch of easy mobs and level, then to do quests to level up. I don't think the quest grind is a valid statement because you can't repeat quests and you don't get exp for clearing a dungeon or killing the boss. You get exp by finishing the quest in the instance.
When I read Rattrap, I want to ask him on which server he play for which MMO so I can auto-friend him!
Oh he is soloing, time to check if he wanna group! 
DarquenBlade: Psss, disagreeing is great. You have peoples like Brad who would never agree with me about raiding, however there are many great designers who would also agree that raiding made at the expense of any non-raiding activity is hindering and limiting how such an activity can progress. It all come down to choice, you want to "hook" a minority of players or you want to please the majority and give them as much fun as possible? A choice has to be made, FUN vs HOOK in the case of such a raiding system, I pick FUN and I also believe a wise company with long term goals will pick FUN as well, hooking with a raiding system is a very short term consideration, a few years of superficial prosperity at the expense of you fanbase. EQ would be FAR more popular today if it was the same game without raiding (just imagine if they put this work into a "end game grouping system" LDoN was their best expension and it was not even group-centered, it was heading that way), peoples would be looking for sequels and other Norrath product a LOT more, however SoE would prolly a little less rich, but maybe not, with all the time, more peoples would have try expension and bump in and out a lot. Me and at least 5 of my friends (prolly much more than that) would be restoring account to EQ every expension if it was not about raiding. Raiding is a short term vision.
- "If I understand you well, you are telling me until next time. " - Ren
Sorry to burst your bubble dude, but..yes you can. In fact, you can repeat almost all quests several times over save for the beginning tutorial quests. Trust me, I know.
It's one of my big beefs with the game right now.
A game with traps, obstacles, challenge...
Why does the devs advocate static? static doesn't work with traps,obstacles,challenge,etc especially when there's repeatables...
I want dynamic damn it... Dynamic!!!
Well said Rattrap. I agree with you totaly.
I will also add my thoughts on this instancing issue.
Instacned games like GW and DDO are not MMORPGS. and they are not MMOS. A MMORPG and MMO are none instacned worlds where you run acrouss alot of other real players (poeple) in game. In the world not just towns.
I am against 100% instanced games like GW and DDO. I play Online games because I enjoy the social part of it. I enjoy meeting new people and forming new friendships. Its amazing how you can meet people from all over the world in online games. My whole time in Guild Wars I never got to meet any interesting people or forum new firendships. because its all instanced and everyone is always busy doing stuff outside of the towns. in the instanced part. I joined different guilds looking hoping there would be people to do quests and stuff with and in all of them but 1 it was all of them doing there own things.
Sadly in instanced games like that, its all set story set missions and quests. so if people in you're guild are way ahead of you they don't always want to come back and do that all over again.
I bought Guild Wars not long after it was in stores I had no idea what instancing was when i got it and I didn't know it was like that. I wondered around out side of the starting town wondering whi i wasn't seeing other real players around, and only seeing npcs.
I really enjoy runing across other real players (people) in the world as i go searching, adventuring or questing. Sadly that can't be done in instanced games. I like to be able to log in and if my frieends are out in the world going and joining them, this is not possable in instanced games unless they go back to the towns and start over.
I enjoy the feeling that its a active game wrold with alot of other players around to interact with. not a bunch of npcs.
to me DDO is just a nother version of GW, with a new look and different quests. I would never pay a monthly fee to play a 100% instanced wrold game.
As of yet Anarchy-Online has been the best game I've ever played, I've never found one yet to match the years of enjoyment i got out of it.
This is just my thoughts. I know everyone likes different stuff.
A nother thing i ment to add to my last post.
Instacned games get boring alot faster then none instaced games.
Interestingly, DDO is catering more to players familiar the PnP version of D&D than casual MMO players. If you aren't accustomed to the 3.5 ruleset then you'll likely be at sea when it comes to creating characters and outfitting them. There are few explanations for stats or how they'll affect your gameplay. Speaking as someone who never played D&D, a lot of the game is opaque to me, and I find most of it reads like a engineering manual. Players conversant with D&D are having no such problems.
DDO is geared specifically toward grouping over soloing. In fact, outside of a couple classes it is nearly impossible to solo successfully, even in the easiest dungeons and quests. So those of you looking for the roleplaying and social aspects should be well pleased.
Getting xp for completing quests rather than for inidividual NPCs is a great idea. Everyone in the dungeon gets the same xp, and killstealing simply doesn't exist. Your experience will vary depending on the quality of your group, of course.
It's not my cup of tea, but it does have some good ideas in it.
On to a new subject, WoW is awsome and so is EQ II, but i got bord soon after LvL's 30, any ideas for other games or how i can make it more intresting for my self, i just hate loosing intrest in somthing i know is good.
K9
Interestingly, DDO is catering more to players familiar the PnP version of D&D than casual MMO players. If you aren't accustomed to the 3.5 ruleset then you'll likely be at sea when it comes to creating characters and outfitting them. There are few explanations for stats or how they'll affect your gameplay. Speaking as someone who never played D&D, a lot of the game is opaque to me, and I find most of it reads like a engineering manual. Players conversant with D&D are having no such problems.
DDO is geared specifically toward grouping over soloing. In fact, outside of a couple classes it is nearly impossible to solo successfully, even in the easiest dungeons and quests. So those of you looking for the roleplaying and social aspects should be well pleased.
Getting xp for completing quests rather than for inidividual NPCs is a great idea. Everyone in the dungeon gets the same xp, and killstealing simply doesn't exist. Your experience will vary depending on the quality of your group, of course.
It's not my cup of tea, but it does have some good ideas in it.
You hit it right on the head. I think I'll definitely try and get in on the beta for this game to see what it's all about. I'm not terribly familiar with the D&D ruleset myself, but I've played Baldur's Gate, and Baldur's Gate II which are both based on the AD&D ruleset so I doubt I'll have trouble putting together a character. I've looked over D&D manuals and what I've found is that they have a way of making something sound much more complicated than it actually is. So keep that in mind!
I hope this game attracts and older, more mature audience. Obviously it's going to bring in fans of the PnP D&D game which tends to be an audience that will appreciate role play and at the very least demonstrate a minimul level of maturity. After playing numerous MMORPGs, I've gotten to the point where I can't stand weeks and weeks of grinding followed by one or two weeks of PvP and then the canceling of my subscription. Afterwards you're left with nothing but a feeling of wasted time and money on something that just wasn't that great. Hopefully DDO will bring a new feel to the MMORPG world that will serve as a nice break from the grind fest of the common market MMORPG like World of Warcraft.
Thanks for headsup. I have GuildWars. Instanceland-Yuck.
Yes rather than listening to Mandy and company who obviousily haven't actually tried the game and are just jumping on the "Instanced is bad" bandwagon, you should try out the stress test going on and see for yourself.