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DDO is a pale, sad little monkey
Nomad40
Member Posts: 76
What is good about the game?
VOIP in game
Good graphics
Cool effects and ambiance
Sound is super
Good UI
Entertaining quests (on first run)
What is bad?
No crafting
No housing
No exploration or overland travel
No PvP
Forced grouping
Forced downtime (In the form of going to the INN to regen health and mana)
Repeating quests on Easy, Hard Medium.
This last one is the game's fun killer for me. Like an abused child I just kept coming back to the game hoping things would get better. I liked a lot of things so I put up with the lack of content for quite some time figuring they were holding content back for release. WRONG.
On higher difficulty the mobs have more HP and the treasure is better... ala DIABLO. But the traps are in all the same places. The chests are in all the same places. The mobs are in all the same places.
In short, you run a quest once and you pretty much know it back to front. Then the devs expect you to want to repeat it ad nauseum to be able to level.
If this appeals to you, as it does to some, than this is the game for you.
Personally I am disappointed beyond words with the way they chose to go. I had hoped for a large world with instanced dungeons. A world that you could drop new instances into infinitely. Basicly a skeleton of a UI that let you plug and play modules to your hearts content. This is not that hard to imagine with what is out already and what is being developed right now.
But that is not the game they are going gold on. And I for one find myself sad but unsurprised that a DnD product outside the PnP game fell flat.
Comments
I have not played DDO, I have not read much about DDO, in fact, I believe the most I know about the game is what I've read in the forums and the screen caps that I've seen on mmorpg.com. So, I reserve the right to be proven wrong without being verbally bashed.
I can state that the response to this game doesn't surprise me much. As soon as I read the title, 'Dungeons & Dragons' Online, my head began to ache. Several decades ago, Dungeons & Dragons was largely responsible for rekindling the 'fantasy' craze, and they set a standard in gaming in general, not just on 'pen and paper.' So many fantasy based games after Dungeons & Dragons have borrowed heavily from them, and despite having so many problems in the past (switching owners, the original writer being robbed of his creation, waxing and waning popularity of table top role playing, and so on), the game has been very successful. You could say that this 'MMO' has a tough act to follow, but they're not even trying to 'follow' the act. By giving this product the D&D's name-sake, they're trying to BE that 'act.'
Every successful fantasy based MMO that I know of had its lore created from scratch, for the most part (they all borrow from hundreds of years of myth, and legend, and the last few years of popular entertainment). As soon as I heard that they were creating Dungeons & Dragons 'Online,' a question immediately popped up in my head: "I wonder if they're just trying to stick the name of a popular table top game on their product just to draw in a fan base without actually trying to put some real work into said product?" Sure, you can throw in millions of dollars into creating a new graphic engine, and say that you're trying to be 'revolutionary' in your game's development. But in the end, if you're more worried about using a name to rev up the hype and draw in players, all that work was probably done half-heartedly at best.
Ultimately, I think this game will be a disappointment for most. Of course there will be the 'fan boys' who will drive up enough of a market for the game to keep it going, and maybe a few 'non-traditional' MMO players: but for most people out there, I doubt the game will measure up to what they're hopes or expectations are.
Call me a skeptic, but that's what all of this seems like to me. I can only hope that 'MMO's' like this (all instance, 'real time' combat.) don't become a standard, or else I'll have to pray that EQ is still around years from now.
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Cythraul
47 'Lock
Zul'Jin Server