Originally posted by Kravos I find it strange that people are complaining about content in a game thats in beta. I thought content in beta was intentionally scaled down so as to test certain game mechanics to make sure they work before the full version is released to the public?
Firstly... the answer is no. Sometimes you can restrict content, but not on such a massive scale. Were not complaining about the content, rather, how the content presents itself. Theres TONS of content AND content potential. But how the world is scaled, makes the content not worth anything. You go through content atleast 3x faster in DDO because you dont have to walk anywhere. Its like, I want to do this quest... ooh im in a magical field now... and I magically killed these things, teleporting me back.
Frankly, its sad. Everything worth having, is worth fighting for. Why do the quest if you dont need to fight hard for it? The travel is part of what makes the quest worth it. You have to find your way, hunt down your prey, etc.
DDO just makes MMORPGs a massive cage where you lock yourself in a little corner, questing on your own. No thanks.
I enjoyed reading this preview, and I have to say that it just makes me look forward to the game even more. My friends that have played the beta have had nothing but good things to say, and it seems like Turbine has made a game that (while maybe not a classic MMORPG) I would like to play.
Add some non-instanced explorable areas besides what's already there, Turbine, and I would be your undying lapdog.
Im on my third day of the 10 day preview, and I am a long time DND player (PNP and computer). Like the author I like instancing for the main quests, and I find it wonderful for that purpose. However, I find the lack of a world to adventure in sad.
DND has always been about more than dungeons, wandering monster encounters, searching for rare components, tracking down evil bandits etc..) DDO has got a small portion of the overall DND experience right.
I am also dissapointed in the character creation graphics. Scaling in both size and body build is a definite must in a third generation MMORPG. 2 year old games have this technology in them (SWG).
My major gripes are two fold. I find it highly likely that twinking of low level characters will be a common occurance by the time this game is 1 month or 2 months old. This will lower the challenge of the game for players who dont join initially dramatically. Higher level equipment needs to have player level limits attached to its use to maintain game balance. This is not turbines first game, and in fact AC2 incorporated this feature on a large scale. I realize this is not a DND thing, but in PNP you had a DM who could tightly control the economy. This is as necessary to an online game of this type, as other adjustments turbine has made.
I also feel that turbine has made several changes to the game to try to deal with the realtime interactive combat environment. Some change was obviously necessary, and yet I disagree with almost all of the ways, turbine chose to solve the issues.
On the hitpoint issue: Turbine should have scaled the hitpoints proportionally rather than add a bonus to all classes equally. Ie multiply the PNP standaards by 2 or 3 rather than add 25. This would have preserved the fighter/barbarian advantage, and made mages dangerously weak as they have always been. Clerics would have also been less effective than fighters as is intended by the game design.
On the spellpoint issue: Wrong solution, it would have been much better to multiply the allowed number of spells by a factor and preserve the requirement for wizards to and clerics to select thier spells ahead of time or at rest periods. This would have preserved not only the feel of the game, but helped overall game balance as well.
I could go on and on, and I dont believe that I'm the final word or anything, but I just think it could have been done a lot better. I also know that a lot of this was suggested by the community and turbine nixed a lot of good ideas early on. Its their franchise and therefore there right, but that doesnt mean its gonna sell either.
Now I like the clever AI for combat, the fact that they got lots of weapon choices in game. Overall I am impressed by the combat system. I also find the quests that I've done so far, well done, and like the author I really like the voice overs. I am impressed by the inclusion of the voice system in the game from start.
If i could summarize in short I would say, Its a game based on DND...sorta. It has the potential to be fun to play, but only for a short time. The graphics are good but limited during character creation. I agree with several posters in that without major revisions and additions it will be in poor financial shape sooner rather than later. I predict that the need to have enough people in an area to be able to get a party together with will compete with lag as a serious game issue. (ie out of 200 people in an area, you may find enough people to form a group for the quest you want to do in a relatively short while, however if turbine allows that many people in one part of town, lag is definitely an issue.) When you do the initial beta test, the number of people is limited and they are all doing the same quests at the same time (or nearly) and finding people for quests is easy. Now, even with the town areas so loaded with people its laggy, it is difficult to find a party of 5 to quest with. It is very clear to me now why Guildwars world is set up the way it is. The game self sorts players into different towns by level (by dint that you have to be of a certain level and finish a quest area to get to each of the higher level areas) It makes it very easy find people doing the same quests. On top of that they have NPC henchman available to fill out parties. Henchman are by the way a DND staple, and turbine should have definitely considered adding them into the game to enhance gameplay and to help reduce dead time between quests looking for party members. People rarely want to pay to stand around in a game. Several MMORPG's have struggled with this issue, Turbine dropped the ball here severely. Oh well, good businesses thrive, bad businesses go out of business.
Originally posted by Kravos Also i'm finding it funny that some people are complaining that it doesn't stick to the DnD PnP tradition then the same people are moaning because you cant do things like other tradional mmorpgs. I was always under the impression that DnD PnP was about getting together with a bunch of mates and exploring a dungeon, I never realised that that included wandering round country side killing stray mobs and having your GM RP your treck across fields and roads to get to the dungeon in the first place?
Well, in a traditional PnP game, the players really have carte' blance to do, or try to do, anything they want. That would include wandering the country-side killing any living creature they come across if they felt like it. It's up to the DM to moderate and keep things interesting.
So... having open fields to explore, hunt in, whatever, would be perfectl fine in that regard. You could RP your Fighter, and they want to train in their sword work.. Hey.. practice makes perfect, and there's no shortage of things to practice on! Of course, in reality it would be people grinding to get to max level (because it seems that's all many peopl care about in MMOs anymore.. throw 100 unique things at them and their first and only concern is, "how fast can I get to max level?"... but I digress). The point is, it would not be at all out of place.
Well in theory yes a DM could in a traditional PnP game, have the brave heros molest a poor defenceless sheep on their way to slay the evil dragon truly giving the player carte' blance to do, or try to do, anything they want, but the fact of the matter is i really dont think any one would really be that interested in doing so in a traditional D&D PnP game. D&DO is what it is, as close to the traditional game as any game designer can get to D&D.
The way I see the game is I create a Char, meet in the Inn, group with a few fellow hero's go have a fun adventure in some dodgy dungeon and return with a blood soaked sword, a very nice reward and a night of naughtyness with the feisty wench who served me at the Inn before I left. Because THAT is what D&D is all about. It sounds like it's gonna be totaly different to the usual grind fest mmorpg's and I cant wait
So if the thought of not being able to walk across a field and kill a few cows or the odd boar or 2 so you can bask in the warm glow the XP gives you or the fact you can't give your Char dodgy breath and a lazy eye when creating it turns your stomach then go play a game that will give you that ability and stop bitchin
I have to say it, one of the most important things to me aside from the grand adventure of exploration, combat and quests... is character customization. I need to feel like a unique individual in whatever gaming realm I join. Having read up on the articles for the game and the previews I can honestly say I won't be investing in this game. I'm sure that it will be alot of fun for DnD fans, it just doesn't sound good for me.
Originally posted by kspada I have to say it, one of the most important things to me aside from the grand adventure of exploration, combat and quests... is character customization. I need to feel like a unique individual in whatever gaming realm I join. Having read up on the articles for the game and the previews I can honestly say I won't be investing in this game. I'm sure that it will be alot of fun for DnD fans, it just doesn't sound good for me.
Character customization, prey tell, which MMORPG gives the player the ability to create a unique individual cus I've never come across one
Which as I was saying in my above statement is that I am HOPING that there will be one that does and DnD online at least from what I have heard does not. I haven't found even one yet that does a great job of character customization and I have played many MMORPG's which is why I haven't stayed with any of them to this date. So I'm thinking that what I meant in my above statement is that it would take a bit more of it to make me buy another online game. That being said there is no such thing as the perfect MMORPG, but I am careful where I spend my money.
Originally posted by kspada I have to say it, one of the most important things to me aside from the grand adventure of exploration, combat and quests... is character customization. I need to feel like a unique individual in whatever gaming realm I join. Having read up on the articles for the game and the previews I can honestly say I won't be investing in this game. I'm sure that it will be alot of fun for DnD fans, it just doesn't sound good for me.
Character customization, prey tell, which MMORPG gives the player the ability to create a unique individual cus I've never come across one
I think the review was pretty fair but what the review fails to mention is the price. The instancing in DDO FORCES you to group. You don't get to go explore and randomly meet people and group with them. You have to join a group at the pub. Much like joining an NWN game on Battlenet or Arenanet or what have you. Or like in GuildWars.
Then you get a quest and go in a dungeon. There's no crafting at all, no activity other than questing whatsoever, in fact. Sure you can buy NPC items or items other players found. But no crafting means no real player economy. Drop rate will control pricing, etc. Just not fun imo.
You can't explore. Period. You can't go out and wander the lands as a solitary ranger in the wilds, etc. It just doesn't lend itself to roleplay at all. There's no 'roleplaying' content. Sure you can go hang out in a pub and type as if you're talking in elvish or english or dwarven or use a scottish brogue or what-have-you. But the things that always make people LOVE an MMORPG are typically:
Character diversity, which DDO blatantly lacks Exploration, which DDO blatantly lacks Crafting, which DDO blatantly lacks
I would rate those as the 'big 3' that an MMORPG needs to really be worth a monthly fee. DDO lacks all of them. As to the comment of the review about startup areas being to crowded? This is caused DIRECTLY by the whole concept of how the game is played. You can't wander the world, everyone is stuck in one general area. If you go 'explore' it's part of a quest. It has ZERO impact on the environment as well. Which means nothing you do matters. What's the point? Where's the roleplay in being able to repeat any quest ad-infinitum. I don't mind that different CHARACTERS can repeat the same quest. But once a character DOES a quest that should be it, over, done can't go back and do it again, the guy you killed or the treasure you went after is now GONE. DAOC even has that down pat.
In summary:
DDO looks like a decent enough game. If it weren't subscription based. If it were just purchase price I'd probably buy it and play it occasionally. But for a monthly fee? Not worth it to me.
Currently Playing: Dungeons and Dragons Online. Sig image Pending Still in: A couple Betas
I thought I would add something positive about DDO Beta which I have been playing for a couple of days:<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />
It has shown me that paying any money for the game would be stupid and wasting any more time playing it would be even more stupid. I have played many Betas and have never dropped one quite so fast as this.
Why?
1. Quests: I appreciate that DnD was always a group-based game; rarely did a lone warrior go into a dungeon to clear it of kobolds and their leader. However, there needs to be some solo content, none of which was evident in the Beta, as a) Some people like soloing b) Grouping could be hard at different times of the day c) Its nice to quickly pop on for 30 mins and do a quick quest. Quests are given a Level and Length rating, for example Level 1 Short or Level 3 Long. Completing even a Short mission solo can be very tough depending upon pure luck of dice rolls and your class. I struggled with my Rogue on the early quest to kill a series of kobolds and a boss underneath an <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" />Inn for example.
2. Graphics: Nicely done, but very brown and yellow as someone else said. Not really a problem here, but I had to drop the settings more than I expected to do to play it smoothly. I also get extremely tired with eye strain playing this game, not had that before.
3. Levelling: What is this all about? Why can't we just level up normally and not have to go through an odd Rank system. For those that don't know, you level up as follows: Level 1 Rank 1, Level 1 Rank 2....to Level 1, Rank 4. Once you hit Level 1 Rank 5 you become Level 2 and have to repeat the Ranks process again to get to level 3. I think the amount of XP I had to earn to get to Level 2 would make me Level 5 or so in the PnP (Pen and Paper) rules. I would have more hitpoints, better skills, more Feats, more special abilities for my class etc. You DO get a mini-advance each time you gain a Rank, but its not the same as levelling as you know it.
4. Gameplay: Some aspects of general gameplay are awful: a) Ladders are too easy to miss, your character does not seem willing to climb up or down unless you are EXACTLY in the right place. I learned this after falling to my death by missing a ladder slightly, expecting my char to grab hold and he did not. b) Breaking Items: It seems really easy to miss boxes and crates that you are trying to break open as the camera view is odd and you are often not quite facing the right way or are too far away.
5. Combat: The main reason I ran away from DDO. Sorry, the twitch system may be excellent to some people, but I hated it. By "twitch system" I mean you are actively taking part in the combat and are supposed to be able to dodge, block, tumble etc when you wish. Block/Dodge in WoW is a passive skill that happens automatically for example, whereas in DDO you have to make yourself do these actions. You also have special attacks on your hotbar but unless you are fighting a single boss I found it difficult to use them. When you are surrounded by 5 kobolds you are better off just repeatedly clicking the right mouse button (attack) until everything is dead. You DO have the option to auto-attack, but to do this you need to select the next target (Tab or `) then press the auto attack key. By which time it is probably dead already from the right-click spamming maniac you are with I also struggle to see whether any of my special attacks worked or had any affect. There is a "Focus Orb" that shows the selected object and apparently you get a success message or something, but in the heat of battle (right-clicking like mad) I find it hard to glance at the Focus Orb with everything else going on. I prefer the WoW-style interface where the enemy has its own health/mana bars and picture and clearly shows what buffs/de-buffs whatever it has.
6. Resting: Give me a break!! You cannot rest in an instance, unless you find a rest shrine that lets you rest once only. You will not regain spellpoints or hitpoints by sitting down, you cannot eat or drink anything in an instance either. The only way to regain hitpoints is to kidnap a Cleric and drag them along, hoping they don't run out of spellpoints of course. You CAN drink healing potions of course, but there is nowhere to buy them from (that I have found) so you rely purely on drops and therefore run out quickly. You can o course leave the instance and go heal up in an Inn, but when you re-enter the instance you get a 20% XP penalty because you left and came back. Note: You can buy and eat food/drink in an Inn to speed up your downtime between quests.
7. Content Concerns: I am worried that the game will consist solely of get-a-group-and-do-a-quest. The ONLY goal you can have is to earn experience and level up, which though true to the rules and the game itself becomes very dull online I think. Other games I have played offer additional tasks for players if that interests them. Even Asheron's Call 2 which has been closed for sometime now (*sniff) had other things to try, crafting, mining, deliberately repeatable quests, vaults designed to be group-only and were excellent etc.
Thats it really, an overall summary of what my thoughts and feelings are. If you like the idea of the combat system, love grouping up all the time and never liked crafting or anything other than xp-gaining then go for it and have fun. But you won't find me there.
I must say after reading through this thread that the majority of you either have absolutely no idea what in the hell you are talking about, or have simply completely missed the point of what DDO is supposed to be about. The graphics look great, and I'm damn happy it's not one big cartoon world ala WoW. The quests are fun and challenging, and of course you can't just rest anywhere. That's the entire point to resource management just like in PnP. If you could just rest after every fight, where's the challenge? The combat is a refreshing break from "target, stick, cycle attacks" till one of you dies. No long ass boring travel times to get to the fun? Sign me up! I will not miss the 30 minute trips just to GET to what I wanted to do in WoW, kthx.
To Lugger. Your keyboard must be borked cause anytime I get near a ladder I'm right on it and have no trouble at all climbing them. The rank system was put in for the typical MMO crowd who only care about "dinging". They are however, an adequate translation of Eberron's action points, and even though powerful you can only ever have 4 of the enancements that go with them no matter your level. See my above comments on the combat, and I have had little trouble using my hotkeys. Perhaps "twitch" is just too fast for you. Healing potions can be purchased in the alchemy shop. A bit expensive if you lean too heavily on them, but available nonetheless. As far as crafting, they have already stated they will add it once they have a system they are happy with. If nothing else, simply check back when they do add it, and see if it's to your liking.
Personally, I'm pretty happy that so many close-minded people who want DDO to be nothing more than another MMO to level and max out in before moving to the next one are so vehemently saying they aren't going to play it. Trust me, you won't be missed. Also, those D&D fans who don't like it. Please speak for yourself when saying things like "most D&D gamers won't touch this." Myself and many of my RL friends have been playing PnP for many years, and not one of us feels DDO doesn't feel like D&D, and not one of us aren't going to play it.
I found your post offensive, harsh, irritable. You can say you like the game without trying to denigrate peoples who pinpoints precisely where DDO fail for them.
Peoples like you are common and devs are usually happy to hide behind them. CoH got 5 or 6 nasty nerfs before they understand they where listening to the wrong peoples. Blind supporters doesn't help a game, you sink it.
EQ and Brad are so heavily believing in peoples supporting them that they build the whole end game for a minority calling themselves uber raiders. WoW fall into the same pit.
Now if you want to aggressively defend DDO, don't expect me to smile and take it without a word. DDO is FAR from a D&D product, it only have a superficial skin...DDO is a much D&D than a dark elf is an elf. You enjoy to denigrate peoples who dislike the TWITCH reliance, well, you are actively trashing a big part of the core of the D&D fanbase, maybe a big part CAN twitch, yet they all where happy in a non-twitch system.
I think it was clearly demonstrated that DDO is not even close to been D&D, again a barbarian should have 3 times the HPS of a wizard (especially that in this system, the wizard should be human, take toughness at level 1 X2, at level 3, at level 6 and at level 9, which mean having +65 hps from toughness + 20 from starting bonus + 20 from constitution...lol the barbarian will not even have the double, heck a barbarian who doesn't focus on HPS may even end up with less, that is pathetic). Good luck to do that in DDO! They screw Cleave beyond recognition. The encounter system is not a satisfactory answer to the XP/mob system. Solo...I can't talk for others peoples...but me I was hoping for a MMO about D&D, not an action super sonic adventure with a D&D skin. City of Heroes was a starting comparaison point for me, DDO was having to respect the franchise and to beat CoH...which they failed miserably as far as I am concerned.
I expect a new MMO to beat CoH gameplay wise, not to be backward! And/or to stick to a franchise I enjoy. DDO does neither.
- "If I understand you well, you are telling me until next time. " - Ren
Well I was highly looking forward to taking this game for a test drive. After playing the preview I was very dissapointed.
The two good and bad points that stick out in my mind in this preview write up is the annoyance af the waiting area, and the instancing. The author says on one hand standing around in the common areas are an anoyance, yet instancing feels ok. This says to me this game would be better suited as a lan game or a game better suited to a text based lobby interface..... hardly a MMO. Sorta the way I felt when I tried the preview.
To me those are the key reasons why this game fails. Standing around in a crowded bar waiting for a party, then entering a world where there is no other user contact except for your party defeats the reason I play MMO's.
In the days when I played PnP D&D, we didn't hang in a sequestered group playing because that's necessarily the way we wanted to play, it was because there was no avenue to hook up with other players to expand the experience. Yes this may feel like getting together with friends and playing DnD, but it doesn't take it any further. More importantly it doesn't offer the person who happens to want to occationally solo the oppertunity to do so (yes you can solo in DnD provided you have a GM).
Well.. everyone just stifle your opinions now. You're all wrong and have no *clue* what you're talking about. Because Keldros says so.
Thank you, Keldros, for setting all of us wayward independent thinkers straight.
Originally posted by Keldros I must say after reading through this thread that the majority of you either have absolutely no idea what in the hell you are talking about, or have simply completely missed the point of what DDO is supposed to be about. The graphics look great, and I'm damn happy it's not one big cartoon world ala WoW. The quests are fun and challenging, and of course you can't just rest anywhere. That's the entire point to resource management just like in PnP. If you could just rest after every fight, where's the challenge? The combat is a refreshing break from "target, stick, cycle attacks" till one of you dies. No long ass boring travel times to get to the fun? Sign me up! I will not miss the 30 minute trips just to GET to what I wanted to do in WoW, kthx. To Lugger. Your keyboard must be borked cause anytime I get near a ladder I'm right on it and have no trouble at all climbing them. The rank system was put in for the typical MMO crowd who only care about "dinging". They are however, an adequate translation of Eberron's action points, and even though powerful you can only ever have 4 of the enancements that go with them no matter your level. See my above comments on the combat, and I have had little trouble using my hotkeys. Perhaps "twitch" is just too fast for you. Healing potions can be purchased in the alchemy shop. A bit expensive if you lean too heavily on them, but available nonetheless. As far as crafting, they have already stated they will add it once they have a system they are happy with. If nothing else, simply check back when they do add it, and see if it's to your liking. Personally, I'm pretty happy that so many close-minded people who want DDO to be nothing more than another MMO to level and max out in before moving to the next one are so vehemently saying they aren't going to play it. Trust me, you won't be missed. Also, those D&D fans who don't like it. Please speak for yourself when saying things like "most D&D gamers won't touch this." Myself and many of my RL friends have been playing PnP for many years, and not one of us feels DDO doesn't feel like D&D, and not one of us aren't going to play it.
"If you just step away for a sec you will clearly see all the pot holes in the road, and the cash shop selling asphalt..." - Mimzel on F2P/Cash Shops
Originally posted by Kravos Originally posted by WSIMike Originally posted by Kravos Also i'm finding it funny that some people are complaining that it doesn't stick to the DnD PnP tradition then the same people are moaning because you cant do things like other tradional mmorpgs. I was always under the impression that DnD PnP was about getting together with a bunch of mates and exploring a dungeon, I never realised that that included wandering round country side killing stray mobs and having your GM RP your treck across fields and roads to get to the dungeon in the first place?Well, in a traditional PnP game, the players really have carte' blance to do, or try to do, anything they want. That would include wandering the country-side killing any living creature they come across if they felt like it. It's up to the DM to moderate and keep things interesting. So... having open fields to explore, hunt in, whatever, would be perfectl fine in that regard. You could RP your Fighter, and they want to train in their sword work.. Hey.. practice makes perfect, and there's no shortage of things to practice on! Of course, in reality it would be people grinding to get to max level (because it seems that's all many peopl care about in MMOs anymore.. throw 100 unique things at them and their first and only concern is, "how fast can I get to max level?"... but I digress). The point is, it would not be at all out of place.
Well in theory yes a DM could in a traditional PnP game, have the brave heros molest a poor defenceless sheep on their way to slay the evil dragon truly giving the player carte' blance to do, or try to do, anything they want, but the fact of the matter is i really dont think any one would really be that interested in doing so in a traditional D&D PnP game. D&DO is what it is, as close to the traditional game as any game designer can get to D&D. The way I see the game is I create a Char, meet in the Inn, group with a few fellow hero's go have a fun adventure in some dodgy dungeon and return with a blood soaked sword, a very nice reward and a night of naughtyness with the feisty wench who served me at the Inn before I left. Because THAT is what D&D is all about. It sounds like it's gonna be totaly different to the usual grind fest mmorpg's and I cant wait So if the thought of not being able to walk across a field and kill a few cows or the odd boar or 2 so you can bask in the warm glow the XP gives you or the fact you can't give your Char dodgy breath and a lazy eye when creating it turns your stomach then go play a game that will give you that ability and stop bitchin
Well... you sorta expressed the same concept as me... only using a different example. I used the concept of killing anything that moves out in the wild as an example only.. not as "the way it should be done". It just so happens that being able to hunt creatures at will is an intrinsic part of MMORPGs.
You're having some fun with the barmaid after a tough battle... Meanwhile, I'm out honing my skills or hunting for the thrill of the fight. The bottom line is.. we're both doing what we want to do. And both examples are completely feasible in the framework of a MMORPG, and have been for every MMORPG I've tried. Except that Turbine has cut off the abilitiy for me to go hunt at will due to the instancing.
"If you just step away for a sec you will clearly see all the pot holes in the road, and the cash shop selling asphalt..." - Mimzel on F2P/Cash Shops
It appears to me to be a little like AC2 as far as the graphics go. Lot of brown and yellow and some of the houses and awnings look almost like the ones in AC2.
I am not impressed with the quest system. I did solo the first 2 dungeons but I found it difficult. Maybe with some time I could get use to the controls but I am one of the few that likes to log in and jump into the adventure without setting a LFG flag and waiting to be selected.
In the short time I was at the inn, only one person advertised for a group. I was declined invite because I was not a healer type. If I had to wait 20 to 30 minutes then I would loose out on a lot of my play time.
Just FYI, I liked AC2 for the first 40 levels but after my char hit 40 the game started going down hill due to such a low population on the server. I finally canceled my account due to standing around for 1/2 to 3/4 of my play time waiting for a group to form. I see the similar trend here so I doubt I will buy it.
WHat would help me change my mind:
Solo quests and ability to adventure. Hireable NPCs. Something in a common area to do like crafting.
Well... you sorta expressed the same concept as me... only using a different example. I used the concept of killing anything that moves out in the wild as an example only.. not as "the way it should be done". It just so happens that being able to hunt creatures at will is an intrinsic part of MMORPGs. You're having some fun with the barmaid after a tough battle... Meanwhile, I'm out honing my skills or hunting for the thrill of the fight. The bottom line is.. we're both doing what we want to do. And both examples are completely feasible in the framework of a MMORPG, and have been for every MMORPG I've tried. Except that Turbine has cut off the abilitiy for me to go hunt at will due to the instancing.
I dont think I am expressing the same concept as you at all, you seem to be saying that because the DnD game has been turned into MMO then it should comply with every other MMORPG on the market. You say "I used the concept of killing anything that moves out in the wild as an example only.. not as "the way it should be done"" but the next line you say "It just so happens that being able to hunt creatures at will is an intrinsic part of MMORPGs", isn't that a slight contradiction?.
What I was trying to explain is that the whole concept of DnD PnP is about jumping straight into the adventure, not wandering around honing your skills when ever you please, the whole point of DnD PnP is to hone your skills while you adventure. As far as I see the company have taken that core concept and put it, as best they can, online. The whole point of DnD PnP isn't about wandering around or doing anything else you may be able to do in other MMORPG's, it's all about you and your friends dungeoneering, slaying dragons, avoiding traps, opening chests full of gold and thats what they have tried to recreate.
It's NOT a MMORPG in the traditional sense, it's a computerised recreation of the PnP version, just without the dice and a DM
Originally posted by WSIMike Well.. everyone just stifle your opinions now. You're all wrong and have no *clue* what you're talking about. Because Keldros says so. Thank you, Keldros, for setting all of us wayward independent thinkers straight.
No problem. Seriously though, I never said everyone was wrong, I said MOST in this thread have no clue. Just look at the posts and notice all the examples of incorrect and outright blatant BS and anyone can see that. If someone doesn't like the game fine, but when they start bashing it just for thehell of it and saying total crap just to make others hate it too, that's just sad.
Anofal, I find most people's posts on here harsh and irritable. But to be honest, I could care less what you thought of mine. I was responding to the idiot doomsayers and people who obviously haven't tried the game or just never gave it a chance. If someone doesn't like it because it doesn't fit their idea of what a DnD MMO should be that's fine. Never gonna please everyone. But people making up crap or just saying "This gume sux! It will fail in a year!" is at best hasty, at worst just being an ass. Either way, I stand by what I said. I'm not blindly devoted, but I'm not so stubborn as to not even give the game a chance just cause it isn't perfectly in line with PnP rules.
The first few steps that you take in any MMORPG are arguably the most important. It tells you whether or not youre going to like a game, from UI to story.
Couldn't agree more. After playing the Beta test for a couple days, I'm sure I will not be paying for this crappy game. I hated the character creation, I hated the combat, I felt like I was playing a game at home by myself instead of being immersed into an MMORPG. There are no perfect games out there, but there are a lot of games better than this one. Unfortunately, it looks like this is going to be another dissappointment from Turbine.
Alright, heres my little review. I played DDO for about 2 weeks before giving it up in boredom. It was after those two weeks that my account at City of Heroes was reactivated for some valentines thing, and after playing CoH again, I have to say, DDO is CoH in fantasy land.
The whole game plays almost exactly the same. You go to your contact in CoH, Quest giver in DDO, get a mission/adventure, gather a few other people to tag along, then go into an instanced area that looks identical to every other instanced area you've been in, and fight your way through until you've completed it.
The combat system is also much the same, with lots of moving around and whacking of keys to get off different attacks. The entertainment is in bars/inns. Its like they went, "Yeah, lets make City of Heroes with AD&D rules..", and came up with DDO.
Is this a good or bad thing, though? Well, personally, I like the combat system. People tend to go, "Ooh, I gotta twitch.. twitch baaaad!", but I like it. I'm really starting to hate those games where you trundle up to the monster, hit auto attack, then go make a cup of tea and come back in time for the creature to be dead. If I wanted to stare at damage numbers rolling up my chat box, I'd grab a random number generator.
As for the game itself.. well, that I don't like. I can't exactly put my finger on why, though. Theoretically, being able to take your team into a private area to do your own mission sounds like a good idea, but in play, it seems to really lack something. I just can't figure out what. I 'grew up' with EverQuest, so maybe I'm just used to having people around, random passers by to say Hi to.
Outside of the instanced areas, CoH and DDO both suffer. Its like, these big cities, or in DDO's case, small villages, are nothing more than eyecandy to make you spend more time in game.. i.e. by forcing you to run all over the place. Nothing I hate more than running to a contact and having them tell me to run across the other side of the city to pick up a tin of beans, then running all the way back to find out I have to run to the other side of the city to grab some toast to go with it. Ack!
Where DDO fails on all this running is.. theres nothing around. Anywhere. In CoH, you'd run across the city, maybe beat up a few street thugs on the way, et voila, quest fulfilled. In DDO, you just walk around and take in the pretty surroundings, and wish to yourself that you were either a) a wizard with teleport or b) the owner of a very fast horse.
Breaking away from the CoH comparisons, lets get deeper into DDO. Firstly, I hope to God they don't release it as it currently stands. It at least needs to have its code optimized, because when I enter an Inn and have to stand there for 2-3 minutes waiting for the graphics lag to catch up, well.. theres something wrong. And thats on Low settings, on an AMD64 3000+ with 2Gb RAM and a 128Mb Geforce 6.
Lets break it down a bit more:
Graphics: I love 'em. If I could only have them on all the time, I'd be happy. I can easily run High graphics settings in instanced areas, but the moment I start walking around outside the game stutters very badly. I have to drop it back down to Low to let things run smoothly.
Gameplay: There is no way you can solo in this game. At all. I don't mind that so much, because I've always been a firm believer that I join an MMO for the other players. But sometimes theres just nobody around to group with. What happens then? Do I sit in an Inn for hours, waiting for other players to arrive? I've seen this happen especially in EverQuest. If you play EQ nowadays, the low-mid level game just doesn't exist. You either solo or you die, but soloing is possible in EQ, albeit with some troubles dependant on character class. In DDO, however, theres no soloing at all. That, I can see, is going to cause some major problems in the future, especially when its settled down to the 'core' players and they're all high level. Adding some henchmen you can hire from Inns would be a good idea.
Background: The game is just a series of quests, one after the other, with no background plot going on at all. Theres no history to pick up on, theres no famous characters that you can aspire to meet, theres no story at all as far as I could see. You're just dropped into this island, and people are saying, "Can you do this for me? Can you do that for me? Ooh, I wouldn't go down there if I were you..", etc. I'd like to feel a part of the world, to know what exists beyond all the questing, but there was nothing. I felt like I was pointlessly going from one quest to the next, just so I could reach the next quest, like some X-Box game or something.
Well, thats enough, I can't think of much more to add.
Overall: Nice combat system, the character classes stay roughly similar to their D&D counterparts, and the graphics and sound are nice. However, the game lacks a lot, and needs to be expanded on - let it become more than just a series of quests. The developers need to breath life into the world.
I have already preordred DDO, and i played a few of the stress tests. I'm going to keep playing wow, but ddo will be a nice break from the grinding of wow in high end instances. I like how there isn't much grinding to the game, and it promotes more cooperation between group members in the lower end instances.
I've met the guys at Turbine in Boston and they were all extremely nice and completely into D&D. The plans they laid out for the game seemed quite interesting. Destructible environments, puzzle levels, the ability to complete missions in more than one way (combat, stealth, magic, etc.), a lot of good-soundng stuff. After all that, I was really looking forward to playing DDO.
I played DDO for a couple months and came away unimpressed. The "destructible environments" are just things you have to break in missions to get gold, and you break the same things over and over and over again. After the fiftieth mission of breaking the same three things, it's becomes tremendously tedious. The "puzzle levels" are all of the "pull this level, push this switch" variety. Even the few interesting ones -- like arranging the tiles in the floor into a pattern -- weren't neither challenging or engrossing. Those missions just felt like simplistic puzzle games. In all the time I played DDO, I never encounter a mission that could be completed even in part by stealth.
I've never played D&D in any of its guises, so the settting made no difference to me. It's pretty drab in the early levels, which will probably turn most people off, and the character creation is rather lackluster. I don't know if that's part of the Eberron setting or not. Despite assurances that anyone unfamiliar with D&D would be able to pick it right up, that just wasn't so. Perhaps to someone steeped in D&D rules this game is easy to understand, but for outsiders it's opaque. The stats seem well-explained, but their in-game effects had little apparent correlation to their explanation. Class and race seemed more important. The weapon stats had even less to do with their performance. All in all, the minutiae of D&D seemed to make no sense or had any apparent affect.
It's true that there's no solo content. You can solo some early missions, but they're difficult for some classes. Once I acclimated to the controls, gameplay was fairly staightforward. I didn't care for it, but once you grasped the logic behind it, there wasn't much problem. Use the geography to your advantage, climb up on something and shoot down on the bad guys and you could win fairly easily in most instances. The downside was that falling off of something -- even a relatively short fall of a couple feet -- seriously damaged your health, and usually you weren't able to recover your health before the next encounter, resulting in death. That was quite frustrating, and it happened even when you had someone on your team to heal you. That was a little harsh.
Turbine is sticking to their guns and making a hardcore game with no apologies. While I applaud that, I do wonder if it's going to severely impact their bottom line. DDO seems too opaque to non-D&D players, while it doesn't strike the right chord with longtime D&D players. After playing in the beta, neither I nor any of my MMO-playing friends are picking it up, even the ones who are D&D PnP players.
I wish them well, as they seemed like good people, but I can't see DDO being a hit.
Comments
Frankly, its sad. Everything worth having, is worth fighting for. Why do the quest if you dont need to fight hard for it? The travel is part of what makes the quest worth it. You have to find your way, hunt down your prey, etc.
DDO just makes MMORPGs a massive cage where you lock yourself in a little corner, questing on your own. No thanks.
I enjoyed reading this preview, and I have to say that it just makes me look forward to the game even more. My friends that have played the beta have had nothing but good things to say, and it seems like Turbine has made a game that (while maybe not a classic MMORPG) I would like to play.
Add some non-instanced explorable areas besides what's already there, Turbine, and I would be your undying lapdog.
Im on my third day of the 10 day preview, and I am a long time DND player (PNP and computer). Like the author I like instancing for the main quests, and I find it wonderful for that purpose. However, I find the lack of a world to adventure in sad.
DND has always been about more than dungeons, wandering monster encounters, searching for rare components, tracking down evil bandits etc..) DDO has got a small portion of the overall DND experience right.
I am also dissapointed in the character creation graphics. Scaling in both size and body build is a definite must in a third generation MMORPG. 2 year old games have this technology in them (SWG).
My major gripes are two fold. I find it highly likely that twinking of low level characters will be a common occurance by the time this game is 1 month or 2 months old. This will lower the challenge of the game for players who dont join initially dramatically. Higher level equipment needs to have player level limits attached to its use to maintain game balance. This is not turbines first game, and in fact AC2 incorporated this feature on a large scale. I realize this is not a DND thing, but in PNP you had a DM who could tightly control the economy. This is as necessary to an online game of this type, as other adjustments turbine has made.
I also feel that turbine has made several changes to the game to try to deal with the realtime interactive combat environment. Some change was obviously necessary, and yet I disagree with almost all of the ways, turbine chose to solve the issues.
On the hitpoint issue: Turbine should have scaled the hitpoints proportionally rather than add a bonus to all classes equally. Ie multiply the PNP standaards by 2 or 3 rather than add 25. This would have preserved the fighter/barbarian advantage, and made mages dangerously weak as they have always been. Clerics would have also been less effective than fighters as is intended by the game design.
On the spellpoint issue: Wrong solution, it would have been much better to multiply the allowed number of spells by a factor and preserve the requirement for wizards to and clerics to select thier spells ahead of time or at rest periods. This would have preserved not only the feel of the game, but helped overall
game balance as well.
I could go on and on, and I dont believe that I'm the final word or anything, but I just think it could have been done a lot better. I also know that a lot of this was suggested by the community and turbine nixed a lot of good ideas early on. Its their franchise and therefore there right, but that doesnt mean its gonna
sell either.
Now I like the clever AI for combat, the fact that they got lots of weapon choices in game. Overall I am impressed by the combat system. I also find the quests that I've done so far, well done, and like the author I really like the voice overs. I am impressed by the inclusion of the voice system in the game from start.
If i could summarize in short I would say, Its a game based on DND...sorta. It has the potential to be fun to play, but only for a short time. The graphics are good but limited during character creation. I agree with several posters in that without major revisions and additions it will be in poor financial shape sooner rather than later. I predict that the need to have enough people in an area to be able to get a party together with will compete with lag as a serious game issue. (ie out of 200 people in an area, you may find enough people to form a group for the quest you want to do in a relatively short while, however if turbine allows that many people in one part of town, lag is definitely an issue.) When you do the initial beta test, the number of people is limited and they are all doing the same quests at the same time (or nearly) and finding people for quests is easy. Now, even with the town areas so loaded with people its laggy, it is difficult to find a party of 5 to quest with. It is very clear to me now why Guildwars world is set up the way it is. The game self sorts players into different towns by level (by dint that you have to be of a certain level and finish a quest area to get to each of the higher level areas) It makes it very easy find people doing the same quests. On top of that they have NPC henchman available to fill out parties. Henchman are by the way a DND staple, and turbine should have definitely considered adding them into the game to enhance gameplay and to help reduce dead time between quests looking for party members. People rarely want to pay to stand around in a game. Several MMORPG's have struggled with this issue, Turbine dropped the ball here severely. Oh well, good businesses thrive, bad businesses go out of business.
Rigghawk
Rigghawk
Well, in a traditional PnP game, the players really have carte' blance to do, or try to do, anything they want. That would include wandering the country-side killing any living creature they come across if they felt like it. It's up to the DM to moderate and keep things interesting.
So... having open fields to explore, hunt in, whatever, would be perfectl fine in that regard. You could RP your Fighter, and they want to train in their sword work.. Hey.. practice makes perfect, and there's no shortage of things to practice on! Of course, in reality it would be people grinding to get to max level (because it seems that's all many peopl care about in MMOs anymore.. throw 100 unique things at them and their first and only concern is, "how fast can I get to max level?"... but I digress). The point is, it would not be at all out of place.
Well in theory yes a DM could in a traditional PnP game, have the brave heros molest a poor defenceless sheep on their way to slay the evil dragon truly giving the player carte' blance to do, or try to do, anything they want, but the fact of the matter is i really dont think any one would really be that interested in doing so in a traditional D&D PnP game. D&DO is what it is, as close to the traditional game as any game designer can get to D&D.
The way I see the game is I create a Char, meet in the Inn, group with a few fellow hero's go have a fun adventure in some dodgy dungeon and return with a blood soaked sword, a very nice reward and a night of naughtyness with the feisty wench who served me at the Inn before I left. Because THAT is what D&D is all about. It sounds like it's gonna be totaly different to the usual grind fest mmorpg's and I cant wait
So if the thought of not being able to walk across a field and kill a few cows or the odd boar or 2 so you can bask in the warm glow the XP gives you or the fact you can't give your Char dodgy breath and a lazy eye when creating it turns your stomach then go play a game that will give you that ability and stop bitchin
Aspire to Inspire before you Expire...
Aspire to Inspire before you Expire...
City of Heroes 8)
I think the review was pretty fair but what the review fails to mention is the price. The instancing in DDO FORCES you to group. You don't get to go explore and randomly meet people and group with them. You have to join a group at the pub. Much like joining an NWN game on Battlenet or Arenanet or what have you. Or like in GuildWars.
Then you get a quest and go in a dungeon. There's no crafting at all, no activity other than questing whatsoever, in fact. Sure you can buy NPC items or items other players found. But no crafting means no real player economy. Drop rate will control pricing, etc. Just not fun imo.
You can't explore. Period. You can't go out and wander the lands as a solitary ranger in the wilds, etc. It just doesn't lend itself to roleplay at all. There's no 'roleplaying' content. Sure you can go hang out in a pub and type as if you're talking in elvish or english or dwarven or use a scottish brogue or what-have-you. But the things that always make people LOVE an MMORPG are typically:
Character diversity, which DDO blatantly lacks
Exploration, which DDO blatantly lacks
Crafting, which DDO blatantly lacks
I would rate those as the 'big 3' that an MMORPG needs to really be worth a monthly fee. DDO lacks all of them. As to the comment of the review about startup areas being to crowded? This is caused DIRECTLY by the whole concept of how the game is played. You can't wander the world, everyone is stuck in one general area. If you go 'explore' it's part of a quest. It has ZERO impact on the environment as well. Which means nothing you do matters. What's the point? Where's the roleplay in being able to repeat any quest ad-infinitum. I don't mind that different CHARACTERS can repeat the same quest. But once a character DOES a quest that should be it, over, done can't go back and do it again, the guy you killed or the treasure you went after is now GONE. DAOC even has that down pat.
In summary:
DDO looks like a decent enough game. If it weren't subscription based. If it were just purchase price I'd probably buy it and play it occasionally. But for a monthly fee? Not worth it to me.
Currently Playing: Dungeons and Dragons Online.
Sig image Pending
Still in: A couple Betas
I thought I would add something positive about DDO Beta which I have been playing for a couple of days:<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />
It has shown me that paying any money for the game would be stupid and wasting any more time playing it would be even more stupid. I have played many Betas and have never dropped one quite so fast as this.
Why?
1. Quests: I appreciate that DnD was always a group-based game; rarely did a lone warrior go into a dungeon to clear it of kobolds and their leader. However, there needs to be some solo content, none of which was evident in the Beta, as a) Some people like soloing b) Grouping could be hard at different times of the day c) Its nice to quickly pop on for 30 mins and do a quick quest. Quests are given a Level and Length rating, for example Level 1 Short or Level 3 Long. Completing even a Short mission solo can be very tough depending upon pure luck of dice rolls and your class. I struggled with my Rogue on the early quest to kill a series of kobolds and a boss underneath an <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" />Inn for example.
2. Graphics: Nicely done, but very brown and yellow as someone else said. Not really a problem here, but I had to drop the settings more than I expected to do to play it smoothly. I also get extremely tired with eye strain playing this game, not had that before.
3. Levelling: What is this all about? Why can't we just level up normally and not have to go through an odd Rank system. For those that don't know, you level up as follows: Level 1 Rank 1, Level 1 Rank 2....to Level 1, Rank 4. Once you hit Level 1 Rank 5 you become Level 2 and have to repeat the Ranks process again to get to level 3. I think the amount of XP I had to earn to get to Level 2 would make me Level 5 or so in the PnP (Pen and Paper) rules. I would have more hitpoints, better skills, more Feats, more special abilities for my class etc. You DO get a mini-advance each time you gain a Rank, but its not the same as levelling as you know it.
4. Gameplay: Some aspects of general gameplay are awful: a) Ladders are too easy to miss, your character does not seem willing to climb up or down unless you are EXACTLY in the right place. I learned this after falling to my death by missing a ladder slightly, expecting my char to grab hold and he did not. b) Breaking Items: It seems really easy to miss boxes and crates that you are trying to break open as the camera view is odd and you are often not quite facing the right way or are too far away.
5. Combat: The main reason I ran away from DDO. Sorry, the twitch system may be excellent to some people, but I hated it. By "twitch system" I mean you are actively taking part in the combat and are supposed to be able to dodge, block, tumble etc when you wish. Block/Dodge in WoW is a passive skill that happens automatically for example, whereas in DDO you have to make yourself do these actions. You also have special attacks on your hotbar but unless you are fighting a single boss I found it difficult to use them. When you are surrounded by 5 kobolds you are better off just repeatedly clicking the right mouse button (attack) until everything is dead. You DO have the option to auto-attack, but to do this you need to select the next target (Tab or `) then press the auto attack key. By which time it is probably dead already from the right-click spamming maniac you are with
I also struggle to see whether any of my special attacks worked or had any affect. There is a "Focus Orb" that shows the selected object and apparently you get a success message or something, but in the heat of battle (right-clicking like mad) I find it hard to glance at the Focus Orb with everything else going on. I prefer the WoW-style interface where the enemy has its own health/mana bars and picture and clearly shows what buffs/de-buffs whatever it has.
6. Resting: Give me a break!! You cannot rest in an instance, unless you find a rest shrine that lets you rest once only. You will not regain spellpoints or hitpoints by sitting down, you cannot eat or drink anything in an instance either. The only way to regain hitpoints is to kidnap a Cleric and drag them along, hoping they don't run out of spellpoints of course. You CAN drink healing potions of course, but there is nowhere to buy them from (that I have found) so you rely purely on drops and therefore run out quickly. You can o course leave the instance and go heal up in an Inn, but when you re-enter the instance you get a 20% XP penalty because you left and came back. Note: You can buy and eat food/drink in an Inn to speed up your downtime between quests.
7. Content Concerns: I am worried that the game will consist solely of get-a-group-and-do-a-quest. The ONLY goal you can have is to earn experience and level up, which though true to the rules and the game itself becomes very dull online I think. Other games I have played offer additional tasks for players if that interests them. Even Asheron's Call 2 which has been closed for sometime now (*sniff) had other things to try, crafting, mining, deliberately repeatable quests, vaults designed to be group-only and were excellent etc.
Thats it really, an overall summary of what my thoughts and feelings are. If you like the idea of the combat system, love grouping up all the time and never liked crafting or anything other than xp-gaining then go for it and have fun. But you won't find me there.
I must say after reading through this thread that the majority of you either have absolutely no idea what in the hell you are talking about, or have simply completely missed the point of what DDO is supposed to be about. The graphics look great, and I'm damn happy it's not one big cartoon world ala WoW. The quests are fun and challenging, and of course you can't just rest anywhere. That's the entire point to resource management just like in PnP. If you could just rest after every fight, where's the challenge? The combat is a refreshing break from "target, stick, cycle attacks" till one of you dies. No long ass boring travel times to get to the fun? Sign me up! I will not miss the 30 minute trips just to GET to what I wanted to do in WoW, kthx.
To Lugger. Your keyboard must be borked cause anytime I get near a ladder I'm right on it and have no trouble at all climbing them. The rank system was put in for the typical MMO crowd who only care about "dinging". They are however, an adequate translation of Eberron's action points, and even though powerful you can only ever have 4 of the enancements that go with them no matter your level. See my above comments on the combat, and I have had little trouble using my hotkeys. Perhaps "twitch" is just too fast for you. Healing potions can be purchased in the alchemy shop. A bit expensive if you lean too heavily on them, but available nonetheless. As far as crafting, they have already stated they will add it once they have a system they are happy with. If nothing else, simply check back when they do add it, and see if it's to your liking.
Personally, I'm pretty happy that so many close-minded people who want DDO to be nothing more than another MMO to level and max out in before moving to the next one are so vehemently saying they aren't going to play it. Trust me, you won't be missed. Also, those D&D fans who don't like it. Please speak for yourself when saying things like "most D&D gamers won't touch this." Myself and many of my RL friends have been playing PnP for many years, and not one of us feels DDO doesn't feel like D&D, and not one of us aren't going to play it.
Keldros,
I found your post offensive, harsh, irritable. You can say you like the game without trying to denigrate peoples who pinpoints precisely where DDO fail for them.
Peoples like you are common and devs are usually happy to hide behind them. CoH got 5 or 6 nasty nerfs before they understand they where listening to the wrong peoples. Blind supporters doesn't help a game, you sink it.
EQ and Brad are so heavily believing in peoples supporting them that they build the whole end game for a minority calling themselves uber raiders. WoW fall into the same pit.
Now if you want to aggressively defend DDO, don't expect me to smile and take it without a word. DDO is FAR from a D&D product, it only have a superficial skin...DDO is a much D&D than a dark elf is an elf. You enjoy to denigrate peoples who dislike the TWITCH reliance, well, you are actively trashing a big part of the core of the D&D fanbase, maybe a big part CAN twitch, yet they all where happy in a non-twitch system.
I think it was clearly demonstrated that DDO is not even close to been D&D, again a barbarian should have 3 times the HPS of a wizard (especially that in this system, the wizard should be human, take toughness at level 1 X2, at level 3, at level 6 and at level 9, which mean having +65 hps from toughness + 20 from starting bonus + 20 from constitution...lol the barbarian will not even have the double, heck a barbarian who doesn't focus on HPS may even end up with less, that is pathetic). Good luck to do that in DDO! They screw Cleave beyond recognition. The encounter system is not a satisfactory answer to the XP/mob system. Solo...I can't talk for others peoples...but me I was hoping for a MMO about D&D, not an action super sonic adventure with a D&D skin. City of Heroes was a starting comparaison point for me, DDO was having to respect the franchise and to beat CoH...which they failed miserably as far as I am concerned.
I expect a new MMO to beat CoH gameplay wise, not to be backward! And/or to stick to a franchise I enjoy. DDO does neither.
- "If I understand you well, you are telling me until next time. " - Ren
Well I was highly looking forward to taking this game for a test drive. After playing the preview I was very dissapointed.
The two good and bad points that stick out in my mind in this preview write up is the annoyance af the waiting area, and the instancing. The author says on one hand standing around in the common areas are an anoyance, yet instancing feels ok. This says to me this game would be better suited as a lan game or a game better suited to a text based lobby interface..... hardly a MMO. Sorta the way I felt when I tried the preview.
To me those are the key reasons why this game fails. Standing around in a crowded bar waiting for a party, then entering a world where there is no other user contact except for your party defeats the reason I play MMO's.
In the days when I played PnP D&D, we didn't hang in a sequestered group playing because that's necessarily the way we wanted to play, it was because there was no avenue to hook up with other players to expand the experience. Yes this may feel like getting together with friends and playing DnD, but it doesn't take it any further. More importantly it doesn't offer the person who happens to want to occationally solo the oppertunity to do so (yes you can solo in DnD provided you have a GM).
Well.. everyone just stifle your opinions now. You're all wrong and have no *clue* what you're talking about. Because Keldros says so.
Thank you, Keldros, for setting all of us wayward independent thinkers straight.
and the cash shop selling asphalt..." - Mimzel on F2P/Cash Shops
Well... you sorta expressed the same concept as me... only using a different example. I used the concept of killing anything that moves out in the wild as an example only.. not as "the way it should be done". It just so happens that being able to hunt creatures at will is an intrinsic part of MMORPGs.
You're having some fun with the barmaid after a tough battle... Meanwhile, I'm out honing my skills or hunting for the thrill of the fight. The bottom line is.. we're both doing what we want to do. And both examples are completely feasible in the framework of a MMORPG, and have been for every MMORPG I've tried. Except that Turbine has cut off the abilitiy for me to go hunt at will due to the instancing.
and the cash shop selling asphalt..." - Mimzel on F2P/Cash Shops
I got a few hours of beta last night.
It appears to me to be a little like AC2 as far as the graphics go. Lot of brown and yellow and some of the houses and awnings look almost like the ones in AC2.
I am not impressed with the quest system. I did solo the first 2 dungeons but I found it difficult. Maybe with some time I could get use to the controls but I am one of the few that likes to log in and jump into the adventure without setting a LFG flag and waiting to be selected.
In the short time I was at the inn, only one person advertised for a group. I was declined invite because I was not a healer type. If I had to wait 20 to 30 minutes then I would loose out on a lot of my play time.
Just FYI, I liked AC2 for the first 40 levels but after my char hit 40 the game started going down hill due to such a low population on the server. I finally canceled my account due to standing around for 1/2 to 3/4 of my play time waiting for a group to form. I see the similar trend here so I doubt I will buy it.
WHat would help me change my mind:
Solo quests and ability to adventure. Hireable NPCs. Something in a common area to do like crafting.
As it stands, not my type of MMO
I dont think I am expressing the same concept as you at all, you seem to be saying that because the DnD game has been turned into MMO then it should comply with every other MMORPG on the market. You say "I used the concept of killing anything that moves out in the wild as an example only.. not as "the way it should be done"" but the next line you say "It just so happens that being able to hunt creatures at will is an intrinsic part of MMORPGs", isn't that a slight contradiction?.
What I was trying to explain is that the whole concept of DnD PnP is about jumping straight into the adventure, not wandering around honing your skills when ever you please, the whole point of DnD PnP is to hone your skills while you adventure. As far as I see the company have taken that core concept and put it, as best they can, online. The whole point of DnD PnP isn't about wandering around or doing anything else you may be able to do in other MMORPG's, it's all about you and your friends dungeoneering, slaying dragons, avoiding traps, opening chests full of gold and thats what they have tried to recreate.
It's NOT a MMORPG in the traditional sense, it's a computerised recreation of the PnP version, just without the dice and a DM
Played about 3 hours of the Beta....and for all the varied reasons listed above - quickly deleted it and decided this isn't the game for me.
It's almost like a PVE version of Guild Wars, except not as pretty.
I'd go back to AOL's NWN before picking this up
But that's just me!
Rob
No problem.
Seriously though, I never said everyone was wrong, I said MOST in this thread have no clue. Just look at the posts and notice all the examples of incorrect and outright blatant BS and anyone can see that. If someone doesn't like the game fine, but when they start bashing it just for thehell of it and saying total crap just to make others hate it too, that's just sad.
Anofal, I find most people's posts on here harsh and irritable. But to be honest, I could care less what you thought of mine. I was responding to the idiot doomsayers and people who obviously haven't tried the game or just never gave it a chance. If someone doesn't like it because it doesn't fit their idea of what a DnD MMO should be that's fine. Never gonna please everyone. But people making up crap or just saying "This gume sux! It will fail in a year!" is at best hasty, at worst just being an ass. Either way, I stand by what I said. I'm not blindly devoted, but I'm not so stubborn as to not even give the game a chance just cause it isn't perfectly in line with PnP rules.
The first few steps that you take in any MMORPG are arguably the most important. It tells you whether or not youre going to like a game, from UI to story.
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Couldn't agree more. After playing the Beta test for a couple days, I'm sure I will not be paying for this crappy game. I hated the character creation, I hated the combat, I felt like I was playing a game at home by myself instead of being immersed into an MMORPG. There are no perfect games out there, but there are a lot of games better than this one. Unfortunately, it looks like this is going to be another dissappointment from Turbine.
Aspire to Inspire before you Expire...
A guy trying to make a chick character and it would not accept the name? You got what you deserve.
Guys, if you want to be a chick, they have surgery for that now you know? Poor suckers.
Alright, heres my little review. I played DDO for about 2 weeks before giving it up in boredom. It was after those two weeks that my account at City of Heroes was reactivated for some valentines thing, and after playing CoH again, I have to say, DDO is CoH in fantasy land.
The whole game plays almost exactly the same. You go to your contact in CoH, Quest giver in DDO, get a mission/adventure, gather a few other people to tag along, then go into an instanced area that looks identical to every other instanced area you've been in, and fight your way through until you've completed it.
The combat system is also much the same, with lots of moving around and whacking of keys to get off different attacks. The entertainment is in bars/inns. Its like they went, "Yeah, lets make City of Heroes with AD&D rules..", and came up with DDO.
Is this a good or bad thing, though? Well, personally, I like the combat system. People tend to go, "Ooh, I gotta twitch.. twitch baaaad!", but I like it. I'm really starting to hate those games where you trundle up to the monster, hit auto attack, then go make a cup of tea and come back in time for the creature to be dead. If I wanted to stare at damage numbers rolling up my chat box, I'd grab a random number generator.
As for the game itself.. well, that I don't like. I can't exactly put my finger on why, though. Theoretically, being able to take your team into a private area to do your own mission sounds like a good idea, but in play, it seems to really lack something. I just can't figure out what. I 'grew up' with EverQuest, so maybe I'm just used to having people around, random passers by to say Hi to.
Outside of the instanced areas, CoH and DDO both suffer. Its like, these big cities, or in DDO's case, small villages, are nothing more than eyecandy to make you spend more time in game.. i.e. by forcing you to run all over the place. Nothing I hate more than running to a contact and having them tell me to run across the other side of the city to pick up a tin of beans, then running all the way back to find out I have to run to the other side of the city to grab some toast to go with it. Ack!
Where DDO fails on all this running is.. theres nothing around. Anywhere. In CoH, you'd run across the city, maybe beat up a few street thugs on the way, et voila, quest fulfilled. In DDO, you just walk around and take in the pretty surroundings, and wish to yourself that you were either a) a wizard with teleport or b) the owner of a very fast horse.
Breaking away from the CoH comparisons, lets get deeper into DDO. Firstly, I hope to God they don't release it as it currently stands. It at least needs to have its code optimized, because when I enter an Inn and have to stand there for 2-3 minutes waiting for the graphics lag to catch up, well.. theres something wrong. And thats on Low settings, on an AMD64 3000+ with 2Gb RAM and a 128Mb Geforce 6.
Lets break it down a bit more:
Graphics: I love 'em. If I could only have them on all the time, I'd be happy. I can easily run High graphics settings in instanced areas, but the moment I start walking around outside the game stutters very badly. I have to drop it back down to Low to let things run smoothly.
Gameplay: There is no way you can solo in this game. At all. I don't mind that so much, because I've always been a firm believer that I join an MMO for the other players. But sometimes theres just nobody around to group with. What happens then? Do I sit in an Inn for hours, waiting for other players to arrive? I've seen this happen especially in EverQuest. If you play EQ nowadays, the low-mid level game just doesn't exist. You either solo or you die, but soloing is possible in EQ, albeit with some troubles dependant on character class. In DDO, however, theres no soloing at all. That, I can see, is going to cause some major problems in the future, especially when its settled down to the 'core' players and they're all high level. Adding some henchmen you can hire from Inns would be a good idea.
Background: The game is just a series of quests, one after the other, with no background plot going on at all. Theres no history to pick up on, theres no famous characters that you can aspire to meet, theres no story at all as far as I could see. You're just dropped into this island, and people are saying, "Can you do this for me? Can you do that for me? Ooh, I wouldn't go down there if I were you..", etc. I'd like to feel a part of the world, to know what exists beyond all the questing, but there was nothing. I felt like I was pointlessly going from one quest to the next, just so I could reach the next quest, like some X-Box game or something.
Well, thats enough, I can't think of much more to add.
Overall: Nice combat system, the character classes stay roughly similar to their D&D counterparts, and the graphics and sound are nice. However, the game lacks a lot, and needs to be expanded on - let it become more than just a series of quests. The developers need to breath life into the world.
I have already preordred DDO, and i played a few of the stress tests. I'm going to keep playing wow, but ddo will be a nice break from the grinding of wow in high end instances. I like how there isn't much grinding to the game, and it promotes more cooperation between group members in the lower end instances.
I've met the guys at Turbine in Boston and they were all extremely nice and completely into D&D. The plans they laid out for the game seemed quite interesting. Destructible environments, puzzle levels, the ability to complete missions in more than one way (combat, stealth, magic, etc.), a lot of good-soundng stuff. After all that, I was really looking forward to playing DDO.
I played DDO for a couple months and came away unimpressed. The "destructible environments" are just things you have to break in missions to get gold, and you break the same things over and over and over again. After the fiftieth mission of breaking the same three things, it's becomes tremendously tedious. The "puzzle levels" are all of the "pull this level, push this switch" variety. Even the few interesting ones -- like arranging the tiles in the floor into a pattern -- weren't neither challenging or engrossing. Those missions just felt like simplistic puzzle games. In all the time I played DDO, I never encounter a mission that could be completed even in part by stealth.
I've never played D&D in any of its guises, so the settting made no difference to me. It's pretty drab in the early levels, which will probably turn most people off, and the character creation is rather lackluster. I don't know if that's part of the Eberron setting or not. Despite assurances that anyone unfamiliar with D&D would be able to pick it right up, that just wasn't so. Perhaps to someone steeped in D&D rules this game is easy to understand, but for outsiders it's opaque. The stats seem well-explained, but their in-game effects had little apparent correlation to their explanation. Class and race seemed more important. The weapon stats had even less to do with their performance. All in all, the minutiae of D&D seemed to make no sense or had any apparent affect.
It's true that there's no solo content. You can solo some early missions, but they're difficult for some classes. Once I acclimated to the controls, gameplay was fairly staightforward. I didn't care for it, but once you grasped the logic behind it, there wasn't much problem. Use the geography to your advantage, climb up on something and shoot down on the bad guys and you could win fairly easily in most instances. The downside was that falling off of something -- even a relatively short fall of a couple feet -- seriously damaged your health, and usually you weren't able to recover your health before the next encounter, resulting in death. That was quite frustrating, and it happened even when you had someone on your team to heal you. That was a little harsh.
Turbine is sticking to their guns and making a hardcore game with no apologies. While I applaud that, I do wonder if it's going to severely impact their bottom line. DDO seems too opaque to non-D&D players, while it doesn't strike the right chord with longtime D&D players. After playing in the beta, neither I nor any of my MMO-playing friends are picking it up, even the ones who are D&D PnP players.
I wish them well, as they seemed like good people, but I can't see DDO being a hit.