I agree that DDO was designed for the pnp audience, but more specifically, I think their target segment is the MMO audience who played pnp as teenagers/young adults during the 80s and 90s.
Sounds pretty specific but the MMO audience is aging and there are a lot of 30-something and even 40-something players who were gaming long before the advent of the internet.
Playing DDO and listening to voice chat gives those ages away. This is a grown man's game... albeit, a grown man with a lot of kid still in him.
Originally posted by smellyfed I agree that DDO was designed for the pnp audience, but more specifically, I think their target segment is the MMO audience who played pnp as teenagers/young adults during the 80s and 90s. Sounds pretty specific but the MMO audience is aging and there are a lot of 30-something and even 40-something players who were gaming long before the advent of the internet. Playing DDO and listening to voice chat gives those ages away. This is a grown man's game... albeit, a grown man with a lot of kid still in him.
Never done this before in a reply, but I'll quote myself:
"Originally posted by spydermr2 Speaking as a player of D&D since the 1970s, and a PnP player of many, many RPGs (from Top Secret to Gamma World to all the versions of D&D, GURPS, etc), I am NOT the target audience for this game. From the first game I played PnP, the awe and wonder of pen-and-paper roleplaying was that we were immersed in another world -- a broad, expansive, fleshed-out world, where we could mingle in the politics of different families/clans/nations; where we could try to get our own place, build our own Keep; where we could roam the countryside looking for adventure and hopefully do things that have significance.
D&D ONline has no world whatsoever to explore, nothing of what drew me into roleplaying in the first place. ONLY if D&D for you is just running DungeonQuests over and over again would this game appeal to you. We don't play D&D for the combat -- we play D&D for the roleplaying, for the ability to impact a fantasy world, to save the village, to FIND the village in the first place by exploring. Over the years my players have founded their own religion; spent a record 9 years in one campaign, playing once/week every week, culminating in the freeing of several races and spanning literally hundreds and hundreds of miles and ruins, cities, the Undermountain (mine, not the Forgotten Realms), and more.
D&D Online offers... none of this. Do NOT say that they are targetting PNP players. They would have to actually develop a WORLD (like Origin said, in a catch-phrase that was perfectly suited to the spirit of pnp roleplaying: "we build WORLDS", not "we build one city and a few dozen instanced dungeons for you to run with your pals")."
Let me repeat this: there is no world, no meaning to alignment, no feel of "being in a world that you can affect", no feel of having a world to explore, to seek out new adventures -- and for this very long-time PnP player, that means that this game has no sense of D&D beyond the raw mechanics (which misses the point of roleplaying in general and D&D specifically, entirely).
I have finally come to the conclusion that DDO is not for me...
I played most of the stress tests and the Pre-Order Head Start... And I have been playing since it went live... And I just cannot get into this game. IMHO there is just not enough to keep my interest, it is not even close to the PnP game and has too many flaws to make it in my book.
So, I have canceled my subscription... I hope all of you who are going to continue to play this game the best. And I hope it succeeds, if for no other reason then to give LOTRO a better chance to make a go of it.
I will probably read this thread for a little while, but I doubt I will respond to any posts...
I disagree about the target audience. Most PnPers that I play with want a good story. They want an interesting world. And they want their decisions to impact the game. DDO is lacking on all of these counts.
Story: There is none. Most of the missions devolve into, "Please go to X and kill the kobolds there." or "Please go to Y and retrieve the necklace that I lost." There is no story arc. Most NPC's are window dressing. There's no story depth at all.
Interesting world: Eberron is a great setting. You'd never know that playing DDO. WoW (despite its faults) tells you more about its world in the first five minutes after entering a new game than DDO does in a week.
Decisions: There are no meaningful conversation choices with NPC's. There are no decisions you can make that impact anything beyond your current mission. The only meaningful decisions in the game are "How can we best get to the end of this dungeon?" which is about the depth you expect from a platform video game, not D&D. Quick example: one mission involves you being "tricked" into fighting some good, normal folks. If you figure out what's going on, and don't want to slaughter innocents, your sole option is to quit the mission and give up any chance of treasure or XP you would have had. That's just sad.
D&D Online is focused on creating a fun online RPG experience that you can play with your friends. We dont compare ourselves to other MMPs DDO takes you straight to your adventure (no endless running to get where you want to go),
Is this "straight to the action" approach really what a supposed target audience of aging ex-pnpers really want? Isn't it more ADD than AD&D? I respect Turbine for laying out their stall clearly and sticking to their vision, but I remember dungeon-crawls as "last-resort" scenarios that GM's knocked up when they didnt have time or just couldn't be arsed to create a proper adventure. DDO seems to bear more resemblance to a glorified online reworking of that old arcade classic Gauntlet than the tabletop roleplaying games of my younger days.
All right... I have followed this thread with little or no comment, but the following two quotes from the same source just baffled the heck out of me....
Originally posted by nthnaoun DDO was designed to target the pnp audience. The pnp audience were a small group of friends, hence group play in DDO. The pnp audience played at most a few times a week, hence the limited content at launch. This game is 20 hours or less a week casual friendly. The only game targetted to that audience in the MMO genre. So it is my opinion that they deserve their own MMO without people complaining about it all the time.
And....
Originally posted by nthnaoun I never played pnp DnD, but from what people have told me of it, you played with a small group of friends and there wasn't any PvP. I have heard some cases after playing DDO of where creative DM's created some brief PvP content to where two groups compete for the same Dungeon, but this was not the standard. I would have loved to have seen DDO take place in the Dragon Lance setting and have an explorable world and such, but I can see the logic in keeping it instanced so that they keep the feel of having a small group of friends going on an adventure a few days a week, which is what I meant by the pnp crowd.
I guess I am just dumbfounded that someone who admits they have NEVER played PnP D&D would make the initial statement that began this entire series of posts without at least qualifying it with a statement such as "I have heard" or "As I understand it" rather than a blunt statement that seemed at least based on personal experience.
The people who are complaining the most among beta testers and even those who purchased the game are those who HAVE played PnP D&D and realize just how little DDO resembles their beloved game.
There is no comparison between PnP D&D and DDO. DDO lacks just about every dynamic that PnP D&D provided to its DM and players. The scope of the game is incredibly small, the game mechanics are static rather than dynamic, there is no reason to roleplay and even for those who try, there are few archetypical methods to express it in game (no evil classes, ergo all thieves are.... good? No interactive elements outside of instanced dungeons, no PvP so no internal group or external environmental player conflict, no crafting which means, among other things, no epic weapons created by players, no spells created by players; anyone who ever heard of Melf's Acid Arrow knows there was a wizard named Melf who created the damn thing).
Like many others, I read the interviews and the FAQs prior to the beta. While I found some of the information there to be disappointing, the full impact of the limitations that Turbine placed on DDO didn't register until I played the beta. At that point, I realized just how little D&D was in DDO.
I am very happy for people who have purchased DDO and are enjoying the game. It's a real shame when someone invests their money and time into something that disappoints them.
However, to be perfectly clear; there is very little besides names, one city setting, monsters and items in DDO that bears any resemblance to PnP D&D.
But finally, what is even more astounding is that the OP spent five pages of posts going back and forth with other posters when s/he has never even played PnP D&D. If you had, nthnaoun, you would understand exactly why many people are so angry about DDO.
I'll state it again, as I stated in a different topic; this may be the only D&D MMO that is made in my lifetime. If you are forty years old or older, it may be the only one made in yours as well.
When a PnP D&D player with twenty-some odd years of experience thinks about what a poor job Turbine has made of DDO and the fact that they will probably never see another attempt made to make a D&D MMO, I think that justifies a lot of the rancor, ire and anger that people are expressing about it.
Abbatoir / Abbatoir Cinq Adnihilo Beorn Judge's Edge Somnulus Perfect Black ---------------------- Asheron's Call / Asheron's Call 2 Everquest / Everquest 2 Anarchy Online Shadowbane Dark Age of Camelot Star Wars Galaxies Matrix Online World of Warcraft Guild Wars City of Heroes
Originally posted by nthnaoun DDO was designed to target the pnp audience. The pnp audience were a small group of friends, hence group play in DDO. The pnp audience played at most a few times a week, hence the limited content at launch. This game is 20 hours or less a week casual friendly. The only game targetted to that audience in the MMO genre. So it is my opinion that they deserve their own MMO without people complaining about it all the time. DDO devs plan to add content and updates at a pace that will satisfy the above targetted audience. In other words if you decide to play this game in a way that it wasn't designed, then you have no reason to complain. All this was laid out for people to see before the game goes live. I don't see the point in complaining about it. So to you newcomers that are wandering if this game is for you, well I offer the above two paragraphs as a truthful answer to that question. For all the complainers and the rest of the people that have something negative to say about this game, it was all revealed to you before you decided to give it a try. They are offering everything they said they would. There is no reason to complain over that. This game gets an A+ from me for fullfilling the needs of who their targetted audience is and not worrying about the audience who they are not targetting. I'm really sorry if your not part of that audience, but I assure you that there are many MMO's out there that do target you and many more soon on the way that you will like...or find something to complain about.
as your logic i'm the socalled DDO's audience, ahhh, but i'v to say that i'v found the lack of content yet although i only played for a week. in another word, it really will be so boring if all MMORPGs were the same genera like the obvious one!!
Originally posted by Somnulus All right... I have followed this thread with little or no comment, but the following two quotes from the same source just baffled the heck out of me....
Originally posted by nthnaoun
DDO was designed to target the pnp audience. The pnp audience were a small group of friends, hence group play in DDO. The pnp audience played at most a few times a week, hence the limited content at launch. This game is 20 hours or less a week casual friendly. The only game targetted to that audience in the MMO genre. So it is my opinion that they deserve their own MMO without people complaining about it all the time.
And....
Originally posted by nthnaoun
I never played pnp DnD, but from what people have told me of it, you played with a small group of friends and there wasn't any PvP. I have heard some cases after playing DDO of where creative DM's created some brief PvP content to where two groups compete for the same Dungeon, but this was not the standard. I would have loved to have seen DDO take place in the Dragon Lance setting and have an explorable world and such, but I can see the logic in keeping it instanced so that they keep the feel of having a small group of friends going on an adventure a few days a week, which is what I meant by the pnp crowd.
I guess I am just dumbfounded that someone who admits they have NEVER played PnP D&D would make the initial statement that began this entire series of posts without at least qualifying it with a statement such as "I have heard" or "As I understand it" rather than a blunt statement that seemed at least based on personal experience.
The people who are complaining the most among beta testers and even those who purchased the game are those who HAVE played PnP D&D and realize just how little DDO resembles their beloved game.
There is no comparison between PnP D&D and DDO. DDO lacks just about every dynamic that PnP D&D provided to its DM and players. The scope of the game is incredibly small, the game mechanics are static rather than dynamic, there is no reason to roleplay and even for those who try, there are few archetypical methods to express it in game (no evil classes, ergo all thieves are.... good? No interactive elements outside of instanced dungeons, no PvP so no internal group or external environmental player conflict, no crafting which means, among other things, no epic weapons created by players, no spells created by players; anyone who ever heard of Melf's Acid Arrow knows there was a wizard named Melf who created the damn thing).
Like many others, I read the interviews and the FAQs prior to the beta. While I found some of the information there to be disappointing, the full impact of the limitations that Turbine placed on DDO didn't register until I played the beta. At that point, I realized just how little D&D was in DDO.
I am very happy for people who have purchased DDO and are enjoying the game. It's a real shame when someone invests their money and time into something that disappoints them.
However, to be perfectly clear; there is very little besides names, one city setting, monsters and items in DDO that bears any resemblance to PnP D&D.
But finally, what is even more astounding is that the OP spent five pages of posts going back and forth with other posters when s/he has never even played PnP D&D. If you had, nthnaoun, you would understand exactly why many people are so angry about DDO.
I'll state it again, as I stated in a different topic; this may be the only D&D MMO that is made in my lifetime. If you are forty years old or older, it may be the only one made in yours as well.
When a PnP D&D player with twenty-some odd years of experience thinks about what a poor job Turbine has made of DDO and the fact that they will probably never see another attempt made to make a D&D MMO, I think that justifies a lot of the rancor, ire and anger that people are expressing about it.
I have done nothing on this thread then to try and help guide those people that are not sure about buying this game. I created this thread at a time when people were complaining about this game not being for them and "them" were people that would not be good in pnp either. I haven't played pnp, but it's no secret what it is and how to play it. I know DDO doesn't carry over many aspects of pnp, but Turbine themselves even said they were aiming at the pnp crowd, so my post is not inaccurate. There are more pnp players saying that it is a close resembalance than people complaining and getting upset like you. Maybe not on this website, but in game and on the DDO website they are. Of course you have those that agree with you too.
Either way, I agree with you in that I would have liked to see a direct interpretation of the DnD rules into DDO, but if they did that, then the game wouldn't be an MMO. I know another poster said they played DnD with like 24 people, but it is common belief that pnp is meant for 5-6 people. If they created a DnD MMO true to the rules and pnp, there would end up being 100's of thousands of heros just like you out there, which isn't true to the rules or any campaign I have ever heard someone talk about. I probably won't be paying $15 a month for this game myself, because I am a family man and this game doesn't really warrant $15 a month to me at this time. It did when I first started playing it, but my values changed.
Either way, there are close similarities between pnp and DDO and those are the similarities that you have to look at when I tell you that the game was meant for pnp players. They may not be much. but they are still similarities. Like adventuring with 5-6 friends. You wouldn't have that in a non-instanced world, because as I said there would be hundred's of thousands of people ruining your experience. No pvp. Some people claimed that their DM added pvp in their campains, but it is widely know that pvp doesn't belong in DnD. The last thing that it holds true to pnp, is the way it forces you to play a couple times a week at most. I have never heard anyone say they played pnp every day for 3-5 hours a day, but more like 1-2 times a week for a few hours. This is the way DDO should be played, because if you play a whole lot more you will run out of content and we all know pnp does not run out of content.
As for me, I will be waiting for NWN2, because that is the game that will fit pnp better than DDO and that is the experience I want (without actually playing pnp). I will be able to play that with other people when I want and I won't have to pay monthly for it.
Originally posted by nthnaoun You've nailed why I think most of the people are complaining and then you reinforced my point on who this game was designed for. A lot of nice points, goo post. People are complaining because there is a high demand on a D&D MMO and everyone has a different idea on how it should play out. There are more people that wanted something different then people that wanted a casual oriented game that holds true to the pnp version. True meaning, to the world they chosen, as close as they can for skills, spells, and feats, and true to making it feel as if you and your 5 friends are the only people playing the game, which is exactly what pnp is like. So ofcourse your going to have plenty of pissed off powergamers, pnp players that wanted a completely true to the D&D experience, meaning not having the changes they had to do to make it playabe on an MMO, and ofcourse the fans that wouldn't expect any less than Forgotten Realms or whatever your gotta have map was. The fact is that DDO was catered to the casual gamers 20- hours a week playtime and people need to live with that.
What hurts any MMORPG with a loyal fanbase is not making the effort to deliver the aspects of the game they have come to love. D&D Online from what I see and heard hasn't improved in quality since Never Winter Nights. No capes, hoods, and limited character models? That's the same problem NwN had. DnD is suppose to be a game where you can make your character look like whomever you please through character generation and the equipment they acquired through their quest. Then there is the case of the game's graphics not being on par on with MMOs such as World of Warcraft (WoW graphics are medicore at the least.) and the dungeon maps have little variation?
If D&D Online is lacking substance from what the other players are claiming then I don't want to get this game. I'm a big fan of D&D and played plenty of Online-PnP in my time, but I'm not a fanatic who willingfully ignores the flaws of D&D based games I've seen in the past. This doesn't make any sense for the Wizard of the Coast to come up short on their ability to deliver a good game to compete against MMOs like EQ2 and WoW. I'm not saying D&D offered should have everything WoW or EQ2 should have in terms of gameplay and graphics, but I'm saying D&D Online should given their loyal fans both of those game didn't...the actual D&D experience fan have come to love about this genre and more.
I wonder just how longer D&D fans are going to endure disappointment after disappointment from the DnD game franchise before they finally give up DnD completely on DnD games.
Originally posted by CaptainRPG What hurts any MMORPG with a loyal fanbase is not making the effort to deliver the aspects of the game they have come to love. D&D Online from what I see and heard hasn't improved in quality since Never Winter Nights. No capes, hoods, and limited character models? That's the same problem NwN had. DnD is suppose to be a game where you can make your character look like whomever you please through character generation and the equipment they acquired through their quest. Then there is the case of the game's graphics not being on par on with MMOs such as World of Warcraft (WoW graphics are medicore at the least.) and the dungeon maps have little variation? If D&D Online is lacking substance from what the other players are claiming then I don't want to get this game. I'm a big fan of D&D and played plenty of Online-PnP in my time, but I'm not a fanatic who willingfully ignores the flaws of D&D based games I've seen in the past. This doesn't make any sense for the Wizard of the Coast to come up short on their ability to deliver a good game to compete against MMOs like EQ2 and WoW. I'm not saying D&D offered should have everything WoW or EQ2 should have in terms of gameplay and graphics, but I'm saying D&D Online should given their loyal fans both of those game didn't...the actual D&D experience fan have come to love about this genre and more. I wonder just how longer D&D fans are going to endure disappointment after disappointment from the DnD game franchise before they finally give up DnD completely on DnD games.
Well, first, the D&D products in terms of PnP (as opposed to any computer-based or online game, actual PEN and PAPER) haven't suffered as the computer games/online products have. And I would argue that the "old days" of the Gold Box games were good D&D games -- the D&D computer games started sucking in the early 90s and haven't stopped to this day. DDO is just another in that line of computer/online games that claim to be "D&D" without understanding what that means... and evidently, from the posts in this discussion (not the one I'm quoting), there's a widespread failure to realise that D&D is more than just a set of mechanics and fighting over and over in dungeons.
To the person who claims that there has not been PvP in D&D: one of the best campaigns I ran (according to my players) started with one character pulled aside and set up to run with his own purpose apart from and as well as the party's purpose (his character took a contract to assassinate someone, and the party was going to that area anyway). The dynamism that that created only got better as the party couldn't figure out what happened to their "host"; and then the consequences of all of their actions led to several years worth of playing. In the end, the party figured it out -- but not before the assassin in the group, who was also the party's thief, had used the party's tasks to further his own and had killed off two PCs (without, I might add, their understanding what had happened and without blaming him therefore). Did it take substantial effort to run that world? Hell yes.
To the person who claimed that crafting was never part of D&D: you might want to brush up the "how to build your own items/magic items" rules in at the very least the latest version of PnP D&D. I've had parties that were quite adept at building what they needed to solve problems -- even when doing so was something I had not remotely considered (They do that very very often, and that's great, because their creativity keeps things fresh and fun -- hint to MMORPG designers).
It is amazing how many people either don't understanding D&D or just played it for the dungeonQuest/fighting aspect.
Originally posted by nthnaoun I have done nothing on this thread then to try and help guide those people that are not sure about buying this game. I created this thread at a time when people were complaining about this game not being for them and "them" were people that would not be good in pnp either.
You tried to guide people by making it sound as though you were an authority, based on actual, practical experience which you didn't possess. As I stated previously, you did not qualify your opening statement by saying "According to the developers, DDO is designed to appeal to the D&D PnP audience" or any other statement to indicate that you were NOT the source of the statement you wrote.
Your initial post basically implied to those of us who have been playing D&D PnP for a considerable amount of time that the problem must be ours if we did not enjoy DDO, because it was designed to appeal to PnP players. It also implied that you were speaking as a player with a D&D PnP background yourself. All of which simply wasn't true.
Why you created the thread or for what purpose is not the issue; the point is that you began it as though you were speaking for yourself based on personal experience which you didn't possess. Which is why I was surprised when I read the post where you stated that you had never played D&D PnP. I saw no point in any of your previous postings to the topic you started that made it clear that you were just spouting the developer line and not speaking from any personal experience.
So basically, I still can't understand why you spent so much energy arguing with people who do have D&D PnP experience for their comparison of D&D to DDO, which you lack.
If you haven't actually played D&D PnP you only think you know how to play it. On the surface it seems a simple enough concept. It's not, especially if you are the DM. Anyone who has DM'd a campaign in D&D would recognize immediately what DDO lacked.
D&D was for 5-6 players because that was a space-based limitation, pure and simple. For most of us, 5-6 people was the most we could comfortably fit into one gaming area for an extended period of time. Technology has made that concept obsolete.
Even with that limited number of people, the places/spaces and lands the players adventured in were never restricted to single dungeons.
The real world of D&D IS a huge, sprawling, open land of adventure. There is absolutely no way that the developers at Turbine did not know that. They made the game that fit their technology and its limitations, not the game that matched the dynamics of D&D PnP.
It isn't about the rules; the ruleset is important but hardly the most critical portion of the D&D PnP experience. Matching the ruleset is a simple matter of number-crunching. That can be tested by doing database comparisons using the functions and variables you propose to use in the game itself, without even playing the game.
Matching the atmosphere, the wide-open, anything-is-possible feeling of D&D PnP, the building of a unique character, unique items, spells, etc.... that was far more important. Taking the extra time to make unique animations, create widely different areas for adventure, strong, involving storylines, a detailed and robust character creation... those things were important and those are the areas that are the most lacking in DDO.
I am also looking forward to NWN2 myself, but mainly because I know that the people who will design modules for it will care enough to put their heart into their creations, rather than just making an uninspired series of dungeons.
Abbatoir / Abbatoir Cinq Adnihilo Beorn Judge's Edge Somnulus Perfect Black ---------------------- Asheron's Call / Asheron's Call 2 Everquest / Everquest 2 Anarchy Online Shadowbane Dark Age of Camelot Star Wars Galaxies Matrix Online World of Warcraft Guild Wars City of Heroes
I've been playing AD&D (and Gammaworld, Star Frontiers, Morrow Project, Champions, Traveler, Space Opera, Mekton, Call of Cthulhu, Teenager's from Outerspace, Mechwarrior, Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, Shadowrun, Vampire, and probably a few others) mostly as a DM since '79.
I never really warmed to 2nd edition D&D and only learned enough of 3.0 to get through BG & NWN. I'm only now getting up to speed with 3.5. I may only run a game or two a year these days.
But I think I know the genre.
I've also played Ultima Online, Everquest (including 2.5 years on Tallon Zek (Team-PvP)), Asheron's Call, Anarchy Online, Dark Age of Camelot (still active), WW2O (they can't all be gems), AC2 (beta only), SWG (pre-CU), CoH, EQ2, WoW, EVE Online (still active), and now DDO.
So I think I've got a good grasp of the MMO genre too.
And I don't disagree with the original posters comments. DDO is designed to capture the essence of good PnP session. So, in a sense, it IS designed to appeal to the older, time-limited, PnP audience.
"D&D was for 5-6 players because that was a space-based limitation, pure and simple. For most of us, 5-6 people was the most we could comfortably fit into one gaming area for an extended period of time. Technology has made that concept obsolete."
No, D&D was for 5-6 players because that's the biggest group that could comfortably tell a cooperative story. And it was better, IMO with just 3 or 4 people, even if some of them had to run multiple characters. More was definitely NOT better. This statement makes me wonder if you were playing a roleplaying game or tactical miniatures.
"Even with that limited number of people, the places/spaces and lands the players adventured in were never restricted to single dungeons.
The real world of D&D IS a huge, sprawling, open land of adventure. There is absolutely no way that the developers at Turbine did not know that. They made the game that fit their technology and its limitations, not the game that matched the dynamics of D&D PnP."
The worls of Eberron IS a huge sprawling open land, etc. But when a DM sets up a BEGINNING CAMPAIGN he usually focuses in on one area... a village or smallish city to detail and use as the base for his adventurers. Can the players decide to run off and explore in the wilderness? sure. But a good DM will steer them back to the setting he's prepared. Bashing random encounters can be fun, but it's hardly the point of the game.
Stormreach is the beggining point of DDO's Eberron campaign. Nothing more, nothing less. And its considerably bigger than "Keep on the Borderlands", I might add.
Matching the atmosphere, the wide-open, anything-is-possible feeling of D&D PnP, the building of a unique character, unique items, spells, etc.... that was far more important. Taking the extra time to make unique animations, create widely different areas for adventure, strong, involving storylines, a detailed and robust character creation... those things were important and those are the areas that are the most lacking in DDO.
There we definitely disagree. The rules do shape the world and the experience, and I'm very impressed with the job Turbine has done in translating the rules to realtime MMO format. "Detailed and robust" character generation is lacking? Are you talking visually or mechanically? There are technological limitations to providing infinite visual customization in an MMOG, but from what I've read of the 3.5 system, it seems like DDO covers that end of things extremely well...
This is the opening chapter of a larger story. There are strong storylines running through much of the content. Another storyline will be added in April, culminating in an epic encounter with a Red Dragon. You may consider the existing content uninspired series of dungeons, but I think they're quite good, and, bottom line...
grimjakk, we've both covered pretty much the same PnP ground and you can see from my signature that we've played pretty much the same MMOs. Again, my central point was that the original poster went on and on at length about the design of the game and its intent having never actually played D&D PnP.
Originally posted by grimjakk No, D&D was for 5-6 players because that's the biggest group that could comfortably tell a cooperative story. And it was better, IMO with just 3 or 4 people, even if some of them had to run multiple characters. More was definitely NOT better. This statement makes me wonder if you were playing a roleplaying game or tactical miniatures.
I was definitely playing a roleplaying game, especially when a typical game took us at least if not more than 24 hours of straight playing, with five players and one DM. I have seen managed groups of fifteen to twenty at GenCon and have myself managed a group of seventeen very effectively at a local D&D tournament. More is just more; certainly, it is a greater challenge to the DM but it has no real impact on the quality of the game if you are managing it properly.
I'm sorry that you have apparently never enjoyed that kind of scale for a D&D game. I would seriously recommend you try a managed game incorporating several groups at once some time.
More was DEFINITELY better, especially if it comprised people you had never gamed with before, whose roleplaying styles were wildly different than yours and added variety to the game. So we can just agree to disagree on that point.
Back to my main point; in MMORPGs I have the ability to effectively serve as the DM for thousands if not millions of people due to the technology being used. I am not limited to space, I don't have to personally manage every single NPC in the game, I do not have to roleplay additional characters as the DM just to fill out the story and I can pre-generate quests and goals for the players that I do not have to sit around and wait to see if they find or not. If they discover them, off they go.
So if we cannot agree that the platform of MMORPGs specifically lends itself to enlarging the roleplaying/gaming world outside of your kitchen table, den, living room or local gaming hall (if you were lucky enough to have one) I guess I do not understand why you have invested so much time in so many MMORPGs?
Originally posted by grimjakk The worls of Eberron IS a huge sprawling open land, etc. But when a DM sets up a BEGINNING CAMPAIGN he usually focuses in on one area... a village or smallish city to detail and use as the base for his adventurers. Can the players decide to run off and explore in the wilderness? sure. But a good DM will steer them back to the setting he's prepared. Bashing random encounters can be fun, but it's hardly the point of the game. Stormreach is the beggining point of DDO's Eberron campaign. Nothing more, nothing less. And its considerably bigger than "Keep on the Borderlands", I might add.
grimmjakk, you wrote a whole paragraph that simply reinforced my point. If the players in DDO decide to just wander off into the wilderness... they simply cannot. Period. Certainly, a DM will steer their players back to the focus of the quest/goal/campaign; but that doesn't STOP the players from just taking off on a tangent at will at any point in the future as well. A good DM plans for those things and makes it a part of the campaign dynamic, they don't pull a deux ex machina on the players and force them back on a linear path. I don't know about you, but as a young DM, I learned very quickly that my players were pretty quick on the uptake and could easily recognize the artificiality of being prodded back to the "correct" path.
Some of my most memorable DM experiences have been when the players took the entire game in another direction, either by misunderstanding part of the story and setting off on a wild goose chase or through roleplaying some facet of their personality or character that was completely unexpected but wildly entertaining. Not only did it test my creativity but it added a dynamic to the game that I could never give it, through all of my planning.
Furthermore; DDO took three? five? years to bring to retail? If I employed just ONE experienced DM to write a campaign for three years I certainly believe I would have more content than DDO currently presents. It makes you wonder what they will be able to accomplish in two months...three months... or whatever their nebulous update schedule will be.
Originally posted by grimjakk
Originally posted by Somnulus Matching the atmosphere, the wide-open, anything-is-possible feeling of D&D PnP, the building of a unique character, unique items, spells, etc.... that was far more important. Taking the extra time to make unique animations, create widely different areas for adventure, strong, involving storylines, a detailed and robust character creation... those things were important and those are the areas that are the most lacking in DDO.
There we definitely disagree. The rules do shape the world and the experience, and I'm very impressed with the job Turbine has done in translating the rules to realtime MMO format. "Detailed and robust" character generation is lacking? Are you talking visually or mechanically? There are technological limitations to providing infinite visual customization in an MMOG, but from what I've read of the 3.5 system, it seems like DDO covers that end of things extremely well...
You rather creatively misquoted me in your reply here, but it appears you also ignored the content of what you did quote. The portion that you did not quote was where I stated that the rules were important to the game. If you want to disagree with me that the rules are not as important to the game as the story, setting, roleplaying, player-created uniques, and creating an interesting character, then again, we most certainly have a different concept of playing D&D.
Without a dynamic story, the rules are nothing but rules dictating how you take actions in an empty world. Without the social aspects and interactions that assist the player in roleplay (a paladin being forced to enter a city based on chaotic evil alignment, a thief operating (as they normally do) in a lawful or at least good aligned city, etc., a cleric or paladin being answerable to their god(s) for their actions.... many, many others that I could name) you take away the main reason for roleplaying.
Without venues for the players to roleplay in (temples, halls) without believable, strong NPCs for the players to roleplay against (active guards rather than automatons, local magistrates, argumentative vendors, getting drunk in a tavern and being thrown out, brawls, cutthroats, etc) the player is merely running around in a large, empty space moving from one task to another with little motivation to accomplish the goal other than reaching the next level.
Without something to spend money on that means something to the player, earning money has little or no meaning. No player property means one less goal to work toward. No player crafting means not only will there never be, as I stated before, a "Melf's Acid Arrow" since in DDO, Melf would never be able to create one, but there will never be a Sting, a Glamdring, a Stormbringer... or the stories that go with the creation, purpose, use and the lives of the character(s) who bore them. Instead, you get a +3 Vorpal Blade of no other interesting or creative property.
When I speak of character customization I most certainly am referring to visually. The only thing limiting how robust your character creation is, is how much work the developer puts into it. Technology has little to nothing to do with it. It all boils down to how much modelling time the developer wants to spend on character creation and how many options they want to give the player. The only time technology really steps into the equation is in the ability to scale the player avatar model, either wholly or in individual body parts.
If I model fifteen different types of earrings for each different type of ear that I model, it will undoubtedly take time. But for that player that wants to play a buccaneer, it would make a difference. If I model four different eyepatches for every type of eye designed, it will take time. If I model forty-eight different types of shirts with fifteen different types of jackets and coats each with different types of buttons and pocket options, twenty-two different types of pants and hose, fourteen separate types of boots with twelve different types of lacings and/or buckles, twelve separate types of shoes with different lacings/buckle types, thirty different types of belts with or without ten different types of scabbards.... you get the idea.
We're talking about time. A lot of time. But what the player gets at the end is a character that they actually feel like they have created, nearly wholly unique. Looking out at a crowd of players, you can pick your friends out of the throng because they are unique as well.
Body hair, not just facial hair. Tattoos on arms, legs, back, face. Piercings on lip, ear, nose, eyebrow. There should be so many modelling options available to the player at character creation that it nearly overwhelms them.
I'm not talking about every MMORPG; I'm talking about an MMORPG based on Dungeons and Dragons, one of the games that pretty much defined imagination and creativity in roleplaying for thousands, if not millions, of people. DDO was worth the time it would take to model a truly robust character creation.
Instead, you get the same basic options available in just about any other MMORPG and fewer options than are available in some.
As far as the ruleset... yes, they did fairly well on the ruleset, minus some skills that simply did not (possibly do not still) work. Like some, I'm not sure how I felt about the twitchy nature of the combat, but I could accept it if I saw evidence that the choices I made in skills were making a difference in my character's abilities.
Again; the rules and how they work are important. But they are not as important as the whole game they were designed to support. Without the whole game itself, you simply have a set of rules.
Originally posted by grimjakk This is the opening chapter of a larger story. There are strong storylines running through much of the content. Another storyline will be added in April, culminating in an epic encounter with a Red Dragon. You may consider the existing content uninspired series of dungeons, but I think they're quite good, and, bottom line...
I'm having a blast.
As I also stated, I really am glad for those who are having a good time. For myself and many others, though, DDO has fallen far short of D&D PnP, when it didn't have to.
Abbatoir / Abbatoir Cinq Adnihilo Beorn Judge's Edge Somnulus Perfect Black ---------------------- Asheron's Call / Asheron's Call 2 Everquest / Everquest 2 Anarchy Online Shadowbane Dark Age of Camelot Star Wars Galaxies Matrix Online World of Warcraft Guild Wars City of Heroes
I stopped playing D&D around the release of Poor Wizard's Almanac (TSR-AC1010) and the first Rules Cyclopedia (TSR-1071) to play Earthdawn, since Greyhawk was basically dead as well as the Lance series. At that time we had 11 players and a GM in our group. Though you can't use prepackaged scenerios with a group that size.
The first D&D comp game I ever played the I liked was Hilsfar that actually had a plot. Half of the concept of the D&D realms is just missing from DDO, the roleplaying part. It is a hack and slash game not an RPG really, I often directly compare it to CoH/CoV (which I consider a MMO not an MMORPG).
The D&D name was just slappedon DDO as a marketing tool. Thank goodness that hasn't happened before in teh MMO market COUGH SWG COUGH.
Originally posted by Somnulus grimjakk, we've both covered pretty much the same PnP ground and you can see from my signature that we've played pretty much the same MMOs. Again, my central point was that the original poster went on and on at length about the design of the game and its intent having never actually played D&D PnP. Originally posted by grimjakk No, D&D was for 5-6 players because that's the biggest group that could comfortably tell a cooperative story. And it was better, IMO with just 3 or 4 people, even if some of them had to run multiple characters. More was definitely NOT better. This statement makes me wonder if you were playing a roleplaying game or tactical miniatures.
I was definitely playing a roleplaying game, especially when a typical game took us at least if not more than 24 hours of straight playing, with five players and one DM. I have seen managed groups of fifteen to twenty at GenCon and have myself managed a group of seventeen very effectively at a local D&D tournament. More is just more; certainly, it is a greater challenge to the DM but it has no real impact on the quality of the game if you are managing it properly.
I'm sorry that you have apparently never enjoyed that kind of scale for a D&D game. I would seriously recommend you try a managed game incorporating several groups at once some time.
More was DEFINITELY better, especially if it comprised people you had never gamed with before, whose roleplaying styles were wildly different than yours and added variety to the game. So we can just agree to disagree on that point.
Back to my main point; in MMORPGs I have the ability to effectively serve as the DM for thousands if not millions of people due to the technology being used. I am not limited to space, I don't have to personally manage every single NPC in the game, I do not have to roleplay additional characters as the DM just to fill out the story and I can pre-generate quests and goals for the players that I do not have to sit around and wait to see if they find or not. If they discover them, off they go.
So if we cannot agree that the platform of MMORPGs specifically lends itself to enlarging the roleplaying/gaming world outside of your kitchen table, den, living room or local gaming hall (if you were lucky enough to have one) I guess I do not understand why you have invested so much time in so many MMORPGs?
Originally posted by grimjakk The worls of Eberron IS a huge sprawling open land, etc. But when a DM sets up a BEGINNING CAMPAIGN he usually focuses in on one area... a village or smallish city to detail and use as the base for his adventurers. Can the players decide to run off and explore in the wilderness? sure. But a good DM will steer them back to the setting he's prepared. Bashing random encounters can be fun, but it's hardly the point of the game. Stormreach is the beggining point of DDO's Eberron campaign. Nothing more, nothing less. And its considerably bigger than "Keep on the Borderlands", I might add.
grimmjakk, you wrote a whole paragraph that simply reinforced my point. If the players in DDO decide to just wander off into the wilderness... they simply cannot. Period. Certainly, a DM will steer their players back to the focus of the quest/goal/campaign; but that doesn't STOP the players from just taking off on a tangent at will at any point in the future as well. A good DM plans for those things and makes it a part of the campaign dynamic, they don't pull a deux ex machina on the players and force them back on a linear path. I don't know about you, but as a young DM, I learned very quickly that my players were pretty quick on the uptake and could easily recognize the artificiality of being prodded back to the "correct" path.
Some of my most memorable DM experiences have been when the players took the entire game in another direction, either by misunderstanding part of the story and setting off on a wild goose chase or through roleplaying some facet of their personality or character that was completely unexpected but wildly entertaining. Not only did it test my creativity but it added a dynamic to the game that I could never give it, through all of my planning.
Furthermore; DDO took three? five? years to bring to retail? If I employed just ONE experienced DM to write a campaign for three years I certainly believe I would have more content than DDO currently presents. It makes you wonder what they will be able to accomplish in two months...three months... or whatever their nebulous update schedule will be.
Originally posted by grimjakk
Originally posted by Somnulus Matching the atmosphere, the wide-open, anything-is-possible feeling of D&D PnP, the building of a unique character, unique items, spells, etc.... that was far more important. Taking the extra time to make unique animations, create widely different areas for adventure, strong, involving storylines, a detailed and robust character creation... those things were important and those are the areas that are the most lacking in DDO.
There we definitely disagree. The rules do shape the world and the experience, and I'm very impressed with the job Turbine has done in translating the rules to realtime MMO format. "Detailed and robust" character generation is lacking? Are you talking visually or mechanically? There are technological limitations to providing infinite visual customization in an MMOG, but from what I've read of the 3.5 system, it seems like DDO covers that end of things extremely well...
You rather creatively misquoted me in your reply here, but it appears you also ignored the content of what you did quote. The portion that you did not quote was where I stated that the rules were important to the game. If you want to disagree with me that the rules are not as important to the game as the story, setting, roleplaying, player-created uniques, and creating an interesting character, then again, we most certainly have a different concept of playing D&D.
Without a dynamic story, the rules are nothing but rules dictating how you take actions in an empty world. Without the social aspects and interactions that assist the player in roleplay (a paladin being forced to enter a city based on chaotic evil alignment, a thief operating (as they normally do) in a lawful or at least good aligned city, etc., a cleric or paladin being answerable to their god(s) for their actions.... many, many others that I could name) you take away the main reason for roleplaying.
Without venues for the players to roleplay in (temples, halls) without believable, strong NPCs for the players to roleplay against (active guards rather than automatons, local magistrates, argumentative vendors, getting drunk in a tavern and being thrown out, brawls, cutthroats, etc) the player is merely running around in a large, empty space moving from one task to another with little motivation to accomplish the goal other than reaching the next level.
Without something to spend money on that means something to the player, earning money has little or no meaning. No player property means one less goal to work toward. No player crafting means not only will there never be, as I stated before, a "Melf's Acid Arrow" since in DDO, Melf would never be able to create one, but there will never be a Sting, a Glamdring, a Stormbringer... or the stories that go with the creation, purpose, use and the lives of the character(s) who bore them. Instead, you get a +3 Vorpal Blade of no other interesting or creative property.
When I speak of character customization I most certainly am referring to visually. The only thing limiting how robust your character creation is, is how much work the developer puts into it. Technology has little to nothing to do with it. It all boils down to how much modelling time the developer wants to spend on character creation and how many options they want to give the player. The only time technology really steps into the equation is in the ability to scale the player avatar model, either wholly or in individual body parts.
If I model fifteen different types of earrings for each different type of ear that I model, it will undoubtedly take time. But for that player that wants to play a buccaneer, it would make a difference. If I model four different eyepatches for every type of eye designed, it will take time. If I model forty-eight different types of shirts with fifteen different types of jackets and coats each with different types of buttons and pocket options, twenty-two different types of pants and hose, fourteen separate types of boots with twelve different types of lacings and/or buckles, twelve separate types of shoes with different lacings/buckle types, thirty different types of belts with or without ten different types of scabbards.... you get the idea.
We're talking about time. A lot of time. But what the player gets at the end is a character that they actually feel like they have created, nearly wholly unique. Looking out at a crowd of players, you can pick your friends out of the throng because they are unique as well.
Body hair, not just facial hair. Tattoos on arms, legs, back, face. Piercings on lip, ear, nose, eyebrow. There should be so many modelling options available to the player at character creation that it nearly overwhelms them.
I'm not talking about every MMORPG; I'm talking about an MMORPG based on Dungeons and Dragons, one of the games that pretty much defined imagination and creativity in roleplaying for thousands, if not millions, of people. DDO was worth the time it would take to model a truly robust character creation.
Instead, you get the same basic options available in just about any other MMORPG and fewer options than are available in some.
As far as the ruleset... yes, they did fairly well on the ruleset, minus some skills that simply did not (possibly do not still) work. Like some, I'm not sure how I felt about the twitchy nature of the combat, but I could accept it if I saw evidence that the choices I made in skills were making a difference in my character's abilities.
Again; the rules and how they work are important. But they are not as important as the whole game they were designed to support. Without the whole game itself, you simply have a set of rules.
Originally posted by grimjakk This is the opening chapter of a larger story. There are strong storylines running through much of the content. Another storyline will be added in April, culminating in an epic encounter with a Red Dragon. You may consider the existing content uninspired series of dungeons, but I think they're quite good, and, bottom line...
I'm having a blast.
As I also stated, I really am glad for those who are having a good time. For myself and many others, though, DDO has fallen far short of D&D PnP, when it didn't have to.
Do you realize how much time it would take to make this dream vision of yours, or how much money. It doesn't seem like you do. To make the game that you want would take a team of 200 people 5+ years and probably costs upwards of 100 million dollars to develop. It's just not feasible. There will always have to be compromises when dealing with a translation like D & D or any ruleset for that matter.
I don't think it's that much to ask for really. There are a lot of games out there that have a robust character creation physically (EQ2 &SWG for example) and of course many games that offer vast areas to explore. Granted, this would throw off the dungeon-oriented gaming aspect, but the point is it could be done. I think that what people want, judging from the concerns of the players, it to have DDO the way it is for the most part, but to add elements that players want in addition to that. Could the character creation benefit from more options and skins? Yes. Are they hard to develop? No. Could they use another race added into the mix? Yes. Is that hard to do? Assuming it's a biped, not at all. Additionally, they already have some outdoor areas you can "explore" on your way to dungeons. Why not then, create instanced outdoor adventures? You could have labyrinths or camp-based battles while keeping the same look and feel of the DDO experience.
I think you give Turbine, or any other MMO corp. too little consideration. These people have professional designers working for them who could likely have a new race up and ready to go in a month. All MMORPGs are modular and usually easily changeable. Now, the question remains as to whether or not they WILL do any of these things, or WHEN the might do them. (Hopefully they will and it won't take too long to see some of the things players want) I enjoy the game so far, but I can also see areas for improvement.
Originally posted by nthnaoun DDO was designed to target the pnp audience. The pnp audience were a small group of friends, hence group play in DDO. The pnp audience played at most a few times a week, hence the limited content at launch. This game is 20 hours or less a week casual friendly. The only game targetted to that audience in the MMO genre. So it is my opinion that they deserve their own MMO without people complaining about it all the time. DDO devs plan to add content and updates at a pace that will satisfy the above targetted audience. In other words if you decide to play this game in a way that it wasn't designed, then you have no reason to complain. All this was laid out for people to see before the game goes live. I don't see the point in complaining about it. So to you newcomers that are wandering if this game is for you, well I offer the above two paragraphs as a truthful answer to that question. For all the complainers and the rest of the people that have something negative to say about this game, it was all revealed to you before you decided to give it a try. They are offering everything they said they would. There is no reason to complain over that. This game gets an A+ from me for fullfilling the needs of who their targetted audience is and not worrying about the audience who they are not targetting. I'm really sorry if your not part of that audience, but I assure you that there are many MMO's out there that do target you and many more soon on the way that you will like...or find something to complain about.
Funny, I am the target audience and I still think the game is horrific and not D&D or even a half-ass MMO. Certainly not one worth paying for.
If your PnP session were as limited as this game then I feel sorry for you. No woods, swamp, mountains or wilderness at all. One pathetic dry and boring city. Who cares if it requires a group I don't even want to play. I also don't remember running the same "adventures" over and over with the same character so I can level up. Sorry, grinding out quests for experience because they didnt have the time to come up with enough adventures for each level is their own fault, not ours.
Trying to say that we had fair warning about the direction of the game and we shouldn't be turned off because it is the way it is ... well is just stupid. NWN captures PnP game more than this, hell even EQ1 did! Microscopic world to adventure in is NOT how my PnP games went. Sorry if yours did.
Originally posted by Minsc Do you realize how much time it would take to make this dream vision of yours, or how much money. It doesn't seem like you do. To make the game that you want would take a team of 200 people 5+ years and probably costs upwards of 100 million dollars to develop. It's just not feasible. There will always have to be compromises when dealing with a translation like D & D or any ruleset for that matter.
Yes, I realize exactly how much time and money it would take to realize this "dream" of mine. I don't think that you do, however, because your evaluation of the resources it would require is extremely disproportionate to reality.
Every single unique model begins with a base. In one afternoon, I could easily design the base models for five separate types of jackets / coats. Every unique model after that I simply add those things that make it unique... different buttons, different texture maps, separate texture designs.... or I change the scale of some of the items making up the jacket/coat such as the cuffs, sleeves or collar. The same exact process is used for every single type of clothing or any and every item you can concieve of.
To design different types of earrings, I begin with a simple sphere, a concave half-sphere and a molded cylinder. After smoothing and texture application, I can easily "create" a pearl, black pearl, diamond, ruby, emerald, etc., post earring. If I add two more spheres and a molded pyramid or prism, I have now created a dangle earring which I can then modify the textures of to create one of each of the aforementioned. And so on.
Of course, you don't have to take my word for it. Download Alias' Maya Personal Learning Edition and take it for a spin. Try some of the tutorials to familiarize yourself with it and once you are comfortable, make a good base model of something. Then modify it to your heart's delight until you have several "somethings" of different sizes, colors, textures, models and types. You'll find it really doesn't take much time at all.
Again; it boils down to how much time you want to invest to create something that is truly unique. Turbine started with an existing engine, borrowed from AC2 although modified, and so they were already ahead of the power curve in the development cycle. That left a very large amount of time that they could dedicate to their database development, scripting, modelling and network coding, besides refining their engine's display abilities and physics models. From my experiences with DDO it appears that either they encountered severe difficulties in their database, scripting and/or network coding (the network code issues seemed apparent during beta) or they simply did not dedicate anywhere near the resources to the project that they could have to give it the treatment I (and many others) would have expected for an MMORPG based on PnP D&D.
I do agree with you that there often need to be compromises. But deciding what area those compromises occur in is up to the lead designer. Sometimes the compromise is to push back the release of a product, rather than going gold on an unfinished design.
Some rather simple changes to DDO that, in my opinion, could have made it much more robust and enjoyable;
A random spawn generator for instanced dungeons
A random location generator for traps
Two to three large outdoor locations for adventuring which included villages, NPCs for lore purposes and random spawns
An experience model that followed D&D PnP; experience per encounter, and experience bonus for overall quest completion
A rest model that followed D&D PnP, allowing characters to "camp" as necessary, with a random encounter generator for periods the party rests.
An increase in the variety of the options available to the player for character creation
Temples for clerics and paladins and NPC guilds for warriors, thieves and casters to join that gave advantages to members and had requirements for membership
Class-specific quests; combat trials for warriors, thieving skill trials for thieves, etc.
Again, I will say that DDO is not a bad game; but as a PnP D&D player I had much higher expectations for the MMORPG.
Abbatoir / Abbatoir Cinq Adnihilo Beorn Judge's Edge Somnulus Perfect Black ---------------------- Asheron's Call / Asheron's Call 2 Everquest / Everquest 2 Anarchy Online Shadowbane Dark Age of Camelot Star Wars Galaxies Matrix Online World of Warcraft Guild Wars City of Heroes
Some rather simple changes to DDO that, in my opinion, could have made it much more robust and enjoyable;
A random spawn generator for instanced dungeons A random location generator for traps Two to three large outdoor locations for adventuring which included villages, NPCs for lore purposes and random spawns An experience model that followed D&D PnP; experience per encounter, and experience bonus for overall quest completion A rest model that followed D&D PnP, allowing characters to "camp" as necessary, with a random encounter generator for periods the party rests. An increase in the variety of the options available to the player for character creation Temples for clerics and paladins and NPC guilds for warriors, thieves and casters to join that gave advantages to members and had requirements for membership Class-specific quests; combat trials for warriors, thieving skill trials for thieves, etc.
Again, I will say that DDO is not a bad game; but as a PnP D&D player I had much higher expectations for the MMORPG.
Just thought I would say this... I love your ideas. Too bad Turbine will never employ them.
Originally posted by Ian_Hawkmoon Just thought I would say this... I love your ideas. Too bad Turbine will never employ them.
Thank you, Ian. Of course, there are many more complex and deep changes that could be made to vastly improve DDO that would require much more development time, but my short list seemed like it would be the easiest to develop and implement in the shortest amount of time.
I have to agree with you.... I seriously doubt Turbine would employ them, unless it is in the form of an expansion.
Abbatoir / Abbatoir Cinq Adnihilo Beorn Judge's Edge Somnulus Perfect Black ---------------------- Asheron's Call / Asheron's Call 2 Everquest / Everquest 2 Anarchy Online Shadowbane Dark Age of Camelot Star Wars Galaxies Matrix Online World of Warcraft Guild Wars City of Heroes
Comments
I agree that DDO was designed for the pnp audience, but more specifically, I think their target segment is the MMO audience who played pnp as teenagers/young adults during the 80s and 90s.
Sounds pretty specific but the MMO audience is aging and there are a lot of 30-something and even 40-something players who were gaming long before the advent of the internet.
Playing DDO and listening to voice chat gives those ages away. This is a grown man's game... albeit, a grown man with a lot of kid still in him.
Never done this before in a reply, but I'll quote myself:
"Originally posted by spydermr2
Speaking as a player of D&D since the 1970s, and a PnP player of many, many RPGs (from Top Secret to Gamma World to all the versions of D&D, GURPS, etc), I am NOT the target audience for this game. From the first game I played PnP, the awe and wonder of pen-and-paper roleplaying was that we were immersed in another world -- a broad, expansive, fleshed-out world, where we could mingle in the politics of different families/clans/nations; where we could try to get our own place, build our own Keep; where we could roam the countryside looking for adventure and hopefully do things that have significance.
D&D ONline has no world whatsoever to explore, nothing of what drew me into roleplaying in the first place. ONLY if D&D for you is just running DungeonQuests over and over again would this game appeal to you. We don't play D&D for the combat -- we play D&D for the roleplaying, for the ability to impact a fantasy world, to save the village, to FIND the village in the first place by exploring. Over the years my players have founded their own religion; spent a record 9 years in one campaign, playing once/week every week, culminating in the freeing of several races and spanning literally hundreds and hundreds of miles and ruins, cities, the Undermountain (mine, not the Forgotten Realms), and more.
D&D Online offers... none of this. Do NOT say that they are targetting PNP players. They would have to actually develop a WORLD (like Origin said, in a catch-phrase that was perfectly suited to the spirit of pnp roleplaying: "we build WORLDS", not "we build one city and a few dozen instanced dungeons for you to run with your pals")."
Let me repeat this: there is no world, no meaning to alignment, no feel of "being in a world that you can affect", no feel of having a world to explore, to seek out new adventures -- and for this very long-time PnP player, that means that this game has no sense of D&D beyond the raw mechanics (which misses the point of roleplaying in general and D&D specifically, entirely).
I have finally come to the conclusion that DDO is not for me...
I played most of the stress tests and the Pre-Order Head Start... And I have been playing since it went live... And I just cannot get into this game. IMHO there is just not enough to keep my interest, it is not even close to the PnP game and has too many flaws to make it in my book.
So, I have canceled my subscription... I hope all of you who are going to continue to play this game the best. And I hope it succeeds, if for no other reason then to give LOTRO a better chance to make a go of it.
I will probably read this thread for a little while, but I doubt I will respond to any posts...
Take Care all and Have fun with DDO...
I disagree about the target audience. Most PnPers that I play with want a good story. They want an interesting world. And they want their decisions to impact the game. DDO is lacking on all of these counts.
Story: There is none. Most of the missions devolve into, "Please go to X and kill the kobolds there." or "Please go to Y and retrieve the necklace that I lost." There is no story arc. Most NPC's are window dressing. There's no story depth at all.
Interesting world: Eberron is a great setting. You'd never know that playing DDO. WoW (despite its faults) tells you more about its world in the first five minutes after entering a new game than DDO does in a week.
Decisions: There are no meaningful conversation choices with NPC's. There are no decisions you can make that impact anything beyond your current mission. The only meaningful decisions in the game are "How can we best get to the end of this dungeon?" which is about the depth you expect from a platform video game, not D&D. Quick example: one mission involves you being "tricked" into fighting some good, normal folks. If you figure out what's going on, and don't want to slaughter innocents, your sole option is to quit the mission and give up any chance of treasure or XP you would have had. That's just sad.
All right... I have followed this thread with little or no comment, but the following two quotes from the same source just baffled the heck out of me....
And....
I guess I am just dumbfounded that someone who admits they have NEVER played PnP D&D would make the initial statement that began this entire series of posts without at least qualifying it with a statement such as "I have heard" or "As I understand it" rather than a blunt statement that seemed at least based on personal experience.
The people who are complaining the most among beta testers and even those who purchased the game are those who HAVE played PnP D&D and realize just how little DDO resembles their beloved game.
There is no comparison between PnP D&D and DDO. DDO lacks just about every dynamic that PnP D&D provided to its DM and players. The scope of the game is incredibly small, the game mechanics are static rather than dynamic, there is no reason to roleplay and even for those who try, there are few archetypical methods to express it in game (no evil classes, ergo all thieves are.... good? No interactive elements outside of instanced dungeons, no PvP so no internal group or external environmental player conflict, no crafting which means, among other things, no epic weapons created by players, no spells created by players; anyone who ever heard of Melf's Acid Arrow knows there was a wizard named Melf who created the damn thing).
Like many others, I read the interviews and the FAQs prior to the beta. While I found some of the information there to be disappointing, the full impact of the limitations that Turbine placed on DDO didn't register until I played the beta. At that point, I realized just how little D&D was in DDO.
I am very happy for people who have purchased DDO and are enjoying the game. It's a real shame when someone invests their money and time into something that disappoints them.
However, to be perfectly clear; there is very little besides names, one city setting, monsters and items in DDO that bears any resemblance to PnP D&D.
But finally, what is even more astounding is that the OP spent five pages of posts going back and forth with other posters when s/he has never even played PnP D&D. If you had, nthnaoun, you would understand exactly why many people are so angry about DDO.
I'll state it again, as I stated in a different topic; this may be the only D&D MMO that is made in my lifetime. If you are forty years old or older, it may be the only one made in yours as well.
When a PnP D&D player with twenty-some odd years of experience thinks about what a poor job Turbine has made of DDO and the fact that they will probably never see another attempt made to make a D&D MMO, I think that justifies a lot of the rancor, ire and anger that people are expressing about it.
Abbatoir / Abbatoir Cinq
Adnihilo
Beorn Judge's Edge
Somnulus
Perfect Black
----------------------
Asheron's Call / Asheron's Call 2
Everquest / Everquest 2
Anarchy Online
Shadowbane
Dark Age of Camelot
Star Wars Galaxies
Matrix Online
World of Warcraft
Guild Wars
City of Heroes
+++++++++
We are creating EBAY of MMORPG industry!
http://WWW.GOOGAM.COM
And....
I guess I am just dumbfounded that someone who admits they have NEVER played PnP D&D would make the initial statement that began this entire series of posts without at least qualifying it with a statement such as "I have heard" or "As I understand it" rather than a blunt statement that seemed at least based on personal experience.
The people who are complaining the most among beta testers and even those who purchased the game are those who HAVE played PnP D&D and realize just how little DDO resembles their beloved game.
There is no comparison between PnP D&D and DDO. DDO lacks just about every dynamic that PnP D&D provided to its DM and players. The scope of the game is incredibly small, the game mechanics are static rather than dynamic, there is no reason to roleplay and even for those who try, there are few archetypical methods to express it in game (no evil classes, ergo all thieves are.... good? No interactive elements outside of instanced dungeons, no PvP so no internal group or external environmental player conflict, no crafting which means, among other things, no epic weapons created by players, no spells created by players; anyone who ever heard of Melf's Acid Arrow knows there was a wizard named Melf who created the damn thing).
Like many others, I read the interviews and the FAQs prior to the beta. While I found some of the information there to be disappointing, the full impact of the limitations that Turbine placed on DDO didn't register until I played the beta. At that point, I realized just how little D&D was in DDO.
I am very happy for people who have purchased DDO and are enjoying the game. It's a real shame when someone invests their money and time into something that disappoints them.
However, to be perfectly clear; there is very little besides names, one city setting, monsters and items in DDO that bears any resemblance to PnP D&D.
But finally, what is even more astounding is that the OP spent five pages of posts going back and forth with other posters when s/he has never even played PnP D&D. If you had, nthnaoun, you would understand exactly why many people are so angry about DDO.
I'll state it again, as I stated in a different topic; this may be the only D&D MMO that is made in my lifetime. If you are forty years old or older, it may be the only one made in yours as well.
When a PnP D&D player with twenty-some odd years of experience thinks about what a poor job Turbine has made of DDO and the fact that they will probably never see another attempt made to make a D&D MMO, I think that justifies a lot of the rancor, ire and anger that people are expressing about it.
I have done nothing on this thread then to try and help guide those people that are not sure about buying this game. I created this thread at a time when people were complaining about this game not being for them and "them" were people that would not be good in pnp either. I haven't played pnp, but it's no secret what it is and how to play it. I know DDO doesn't carry over many aspects of pnp, but Turbine themselves even said they were aiming at the pnp crowd, so my post is not inaccurate. There are more pnp players saying that it is a close resembalance than people complaining and getting upset like you. Maybe not on this website, but in game and on the DDO website they are. Of course you have those that agree with you too.
Either way, I agree with you in that I would have liked to see a direct interpretation of the DnD rules into DDO, but if they did that, then the game wouldn't be an MMO. I know another poster said they played DnD with like 24 people, but it is common belief that pnp is meant for 5-6 people. If they created a DnD MMO true to the rules and pnp, there would end up being 100's of thousands of heros just like you out there, which isn't true to the rules or any campaign I have ever heard someone talk about. I probably won't be paying $15 a month for this game myself, because I am a family man and this game doesn't really warrant $15 a month to me at this time. It did when I first started playing it, but my values changed.
Either way, there are close similarities between pnp and DDO and those are the similarities that you have to look at when I tell you that the game was meant for pnp players. They may not be much. but they are still similarities. Like adventuring with 5-6 friends. You wouldn't have that in a non-instanced world, because as I said there would be hundred's of thousands of people ruining your experience. No pvp. Some people claimed that their DM added pvp in their campains, but it is widely know that pvp doesn't belong in DnD. The last thing that it holds true to pnp, is the way it forces you to play a couple times a week at most. I have never heard anyone say they played pnp every day for 3-5 hours a day, but more like 1-2 times a week for a few hours. This is the way DDO should be played, because if you play a whole lot more you will run out of content and we all know pnp does not run out of content.
As for me, I will be waiting for NWN2, because that is the game that will fit pnp better than DDO and that is the experience I want (without actually playing pnp). I will be able to play that with other people when I want and I won't have to pay monthly for it.
What hurts any MMORPG with a loyal fanbase is not making the effort to deliver the aspects of the game they have come to love. D&D Online from what I see and heard hasn't improved in quality since Never Winter Nights. No capes, hoods, and limited character models? That's the same problem NwN had. DnD is suppose to be a game where you can make your character look like whomever you please through character generation and the equipment they acquired through their quest. Then there is the case of the game's graphics not being on par on with MMOs such as World of Warcraft (WoW graphics are medicore at the least.) and the dungeon maps have little variation?
If D&D Online is lacking substance from what the other players are claiming then I don't want to get this game. I'm a big fan of D&D and played plenty of Online-PnP in my time, but I'm not a fanatic who willingfully ignores the flaws of D&D based games I've seen in the past. This doesn't make any sense for the Wizard of the Coast to come up short on their ability to deliver a good game to compete against MMOs like EQ2 and WoW. I'm not saying D&D offered should have everything WoW or EQ2 should have in terms of gameplay and graphics, but I'm saying D&D Online should given their loyal fans both of those game didn't...the actual D&D experience fan have come to love about this genre and more.
I wonder just how longer D&D fans are going to endure disappointment after disappointment from the DnD game franchise before they finally give up DnD completely on DnD games.
Well, first, the D&D products in terms of PnP (as opposed to any computer-based or online game, actual PEN and PAPER) haven't suffered as the computer games/online products have. And I would argue that the "old days" of the Gold Box games were good D&D games -- the D&D computer games started sucking in the early 90s and haven't stopped to this day. DDO is just another in that line of computer/online games that claim to be "D&D" without understanding what that means... and evidently, from the posts in this discussion (not the one I'm quoting), there's a widespread failure to realise that D&D is more than just a set of mechanics and fighting over and over in dungeons.
To the person who claims that there has not been PvP in D&D: one of the best campaigns I ran (according to my players) started with one character pulled aside and set up to run with his own purpose apart from and as well as the party's purpose (his character took a contract to assassinate someone, and the party was going to that area anyway). The dynamism that that created only got better as the party couldn't figure out what happened to their "host"; and then the consequences of all of their actions led to several years worth of playing. In the end, the party figured it out -- but not before the assassin in the group, who was also the party's thief, had used the party's tasks to further his own and had killed off two PCs (without, I might add, their understanding what had happened and without blaming him therefore). Did it take substantial effort to run that world? Hell yes.
To the person who claimed that crafting was never part of D&D: you might want to brush up the "how to build your own items/magic items" rules in at the very least the latest version of PnP D&D. I've had parties that were quite adept at building what they needed to solve problems -- even when doing so was something I had not remotely considered (They do that very very often, and that's great, because their creativity keeps things fresh and fun -- hint to MMORPG designers).
It is amazing how many people either don't understanding D&D or just played it for the dungeonQuest/fighting aspect.
You tried to guide people by making it sound as though you were an authority, based on actual, practical experience which you didn't possess. As I stated previously, you did not qualify your opening statement by saying "According to the developers, DDO is designed to appeal to the D&D PnP audience" or any other statement to indicate that you were NOT the source of the statement you wrote.
Your initial post basically implied to those of us who have been playing D&D PnP for a considerable amount of time that the problem must be ours if we did not enjoy DDO, because it was designed to appeal to PnP players. It also implied that you were speaking as a player with a D&D PnP background yourself. All of which simply wasn't true.
Why you created the thread or for what purpose is not the issue; the point is that you began it as though you were speaking for yourself based on personal experience which you didn't possess. Which is why I was surprised when I read the post where you stated that you had never played D&D PnP. I saw no point in any of your previous postings to the topic you started that made it clear that you were just spouting the developer line and not speaking from any personal experience.
So basically, I still can't understand why you spent so much energy arguing with people who do have D&D PnP experience for their comparison of D&D to DDO, which you lack.
If you haven't actually played D&D PnP you only think you know how to play it. On the surface it seems a simple enough concept. It's not, especially if you are the DM. Anyone who has DM'd a campaign in D&D would recognize immediately what DDO lacked.
D&D was for 5-6 players because that was a space-based limitation, pure and simple. For most of us, 5-6 people was the most we could comfortably fit into one gaming area for an extended period of time. Technology has made that concept obsolete.
Even with that limited number of people, the places/spaces and lands the players adventured in were never restricted to single dungeons.
The real world of D&D IS a huge, sprawling, open land of adventure. There is absolutely no way that the developers at Turbine did not know that. They made the game that fit their technology and its limitations, not the game that matched the dynamics of D&D PnP.
It isn't about the rules; the ruleset is important but hardly the most critical portion of the D&D PnP experience. Matching the ruleset is a simple matter of number-crunching. That can be tested by doing database comparisons using the functions and variables you propose to use in the game itself, without even playing the game.
Matching the atmosphere, the wide-open, anything-is-possible feeling of D&D PnP, the building of a unique character, unique items, spells, etc.... that was far more important. Taking the extra time to make unique animations, create widely different areas for adventure, strong, involving storylines, a detailed and robust character creation... those things were important and those are the areas that are the most lacking in DDO.
I am also looking forward to NWN2 myself, but mainly because I know that the people who will design modules for it will care enough to put their heart into their creations, rather than just making an uninspired series of dungeons.
Abbatoir / Abbatoir Cinq
Adnihilo
Beorn Judge's Edge
Somnulus
Perfect Black
----------------------
Asheron's Call / Asheron's Call 2
Everquest / Everquest 2
Anarchy Online
Shadowbane
Dark Age of Camelot
Star Wars Galaxies
Matrix Online
World of Warcraft
Guild Wars
City of Heroes
I've been playing AD&D (and Gammaworld, Star Frontiers, Morrow Project, Champions, Traveler, Space Opera, Mekton, Call of Cthulhu, Teenager's from Outerspace, Mechwarrior, Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, Shadowrun, Vampire, and probably a few others) mostly as a DM since '79.
I never really warmed to 2nd edition D&D and only learned enough of 3.0 to get through BG & NWN. I'm only now getting up to speed with 3.5. I may only run a game or two a year these days.
But I think I know the genre.
I've also played Ultima Online, Everquest (including 2.5 years on Tallon Zek (Team-PvP)), Asheron's Call, Anarchy Online, Dark Age of Camelot (still active), WW2O (they can't all be gems), AC2 (beta only), SWG (pre-CU), CoH, EQ2, WoW, EVE Online (still active), and now DDO.
So I think I've got a good grasp of the MMO genre too.
And I don't disagree with the original posters comments. DDO is designed to capture the essence of good PnP session. So, in a sense, it IS designed to appeal to the older, time-limited, PnP audience.
"D&D was for 5-6 players because that was a space-based limitation, pure and simple. For most of us, 5-6 people was the most we could comfortably fit into one gaming area for an extended period of time. Technology has made that concept obsolete."
No, D&D was for 5-6 players because that's the biggest group that could comfortably tell a cooperative story. And it was better, IMO with just 3 or 4 people, even if some of them had to run multiple characters. More was definitely NOT better. This statement makes me wonder if you were playing a roleplaying game or tactical miniatures.
"Even with that limited number of people, the places/spaces and lands the players adventured in were never restricted to single dungeons.
The real world of D&D IS a huge, sprawling, open land of adventure. There is absolutely no way that the developers at Turbine did not know that. They made the game that fit their technology and its limitations, not the game that matched the dynamics of D&D PnP."
The worls of Eberron IS a huge sprawling open land, etc. But when a DM sets up a BEGINNING CAMPAIGN he usually focuses in on one area... a village or smallish city to detail and use as the base for his adventurers. Can the players decide to run off and explore in the wilderness? sure. But a good DM will steer them back to the setting he's prepared. Bashing random encounters can be fun, but it's hardly the point of the game.
Stormreach is the beggining point of DDO's Eberron campaign. Nothing more, nothing less. And its considerably bigger than "Keep on the Borderlands", I might add.
Matching the atmosphere, the wide-open, anything-is-possible feeling of D&D PnP, the building of a unique character, unique items, spells, etc.... that was far more important. Taking the extra time to make unique animations, create widely different areas for adventure, strong, involving storylines, a detailed and robust character creation... those things were important and those are the areas that are the most lacking in DDO.
There we definitely disagree. The rules do shape the world and the experience, and I'm very impressed with the job Turbine has done in translating the rules to realtime MMO format. "Detailed and robust" character generation is lacking? Are you talking visually or mechanically? There are technological limitations to providing infinite visual customization in an MMOG, but from what I've read of the 3.5 system, it seems like DDO covers that end of things extremely well...
This is the opening chapter of a larger story. There are strong storylines running through much of the content. Another storyline will be added in April, culminating in an epic encounter with a Red Dragon. You may consider the existing content uninspired series of dungeons, but I think they're quite good, and, bottom line...
I'm having a blast.
grimjakk, we've both covered pretty much the same PnP ground and you can see from my signature that we've played pretty much the same MMOs. Again, my central point was that the original poster went on and on at length about the design of the game and its intent having never actually played D&D PnP.
I was definitely playing a roleplaying game, especially when a typical game took us at least if not more than 24 hours of straight playing, with five players and one DM. I have seen managed groups of fifteen to twenty at GenCon and have myself managed a group of seventeen very effectively at a local D&D tournament. More is just more; certainly, it is a greater challenge to the DM but it has no real impact on the quality of the game if you are managing it properly.
I'm sorry that you have apparently never enjoyed that kind of scale for a D&D game. I would seriously recommend you try a managed game incorporating several groups at once some time.
More was DEFINITELY better, especially if it comprised people you had never gamed with before, whose roleplaying styles were wildly different than yours and added variety to the game. So we can just agree to disagree on that point.
Back to my main point; in MMORPGs I have the ability to effectively serve as the DM for thousands if not millions of people due to the technology being used. I am not limited to space, I don't have to personally manage every single NPC in the game, I do not have to roleplay additional characters as the DM just to fill out the story and I can pre-generate quests and goals for the players that I do not have to sit around and wait to see if they find or not. If they discover them, off they go.
So if we cannot agree that the platform of MMORPGs specifically lends itself to enlarging the roleplaying/gaming world outside of your kitchen table, den, living room or local gaming hall (if you were lucky enough to have one) I guess I do not understand why you have invested so much time in so many MMORPGs?
grimmjakk, you wrote a whole paragraph that simply reinforced my point. If the players in DDO decide to just wander off into the wilderness... they simply cannot. Period. Certainly, a DM will steer their players back to the focus of the quest/goal/campaign; but that doesn't STOP the players from just taking off on a tangent at will at any point in the future as well. A good DM plans for those things and makes it a part of the campaign dynamic, they don't pull a deux ex machina on the players and force them back on a linear path. I don't know about you, but as a young DM, I learned very quickly that my players were pretty quick on the uptake and could easily recognize the artificiality of being prodded back to the "correct" path.
Some of my most memorable DM experiences have been when the players took the entire game in another direction, either by misunderstanding part of the story and setting off on a wild goose chase or through roleplaying some facet of their personality or character that was completely unexpected but wildly entertaining. Not only did it test my creativity but it added a dynamic to the game that I could never give it, through all of my planning.
Furthermore; DDO took three? five? years to bring to retail? If I employed just ONE experienced DM to write a campaign for three years I certainly believe I would have more content than DDO currently presents. It makes you wonder what they will be able to accomplish in two months...three months... or whatever their nebulous update schedule will be.
You rather creatively misquoted me in your reply here, but it appears you also ignored the content of what you did quote. The portion that you did not quote was where I stated that the rules were important to the game. If you want to disagree with me that the rules are not as important to the game as the story, setting, roleplaying, player-created uniques, and creating an interesting character, then again, we most certainly have a different concept of playing D&D.
Without a dynamic story, the rules are nothing but rules dictating how you take actions in an empty world. Without the social aspects and interactions that assist the player in roleplay (a paladin being forced to enter a city based on chaotic evil alignment, a thief operating (as they normally do) in a lawful or at least good aligned city, etc., a cleric or paladin being answerable to their god(s) for their actions.... many, many others that I could name) you take away the main reason for roleplaying.
Without venues for the players to roleplay in (temples, halls) without believable, strong NPCs for the players to roleplay against (active guards rather than automatons, local magistrates, argumentative vendors, getting drunk in a tavern and being thrown out, brawls, cutthroats, etc) the player is merely running around in a large, empty space moving from one task to another with little motivation to accomplish the goal other than reaching the next level.
Without something to spend money on that means something to the player, earning money has little or no meaning. No player property means one less goal to work toward. No player crafting means not only will there never be, as I stated before, a "Melf's Acid Arrow" since in DDO, Melf would never be able to create one, but there will never be a Sting, a Glamdring, a Stormbringer... or the stories that go with the creation, purpose, use and the lives of the character(s) who bore them. Instead, you get a +3 Vorpal Blade of no other interesting or creative property.
When I speak of character customization I most certainly am referring to visually. The only thing limiting how robust your character creation is, is how much work the developer puts into it. Technology has little to nothing to do with it. It all boils down to how much modelling time the developer wants to spend on character creation and how many options they want to give the player. The only time technology really steps into the equation is in the ability to scale the player avatar model, either wholly or in individual body parts.
If I model fifteen different types of earrings for each different type of ear that I model, it will undoubtedly take time. But for that player that wants to play a buccaneer, it would make a difference. If I model four different eyepatches for every type of eye designed, it will take time. If I model forty-eight different types of shirts with fifteen different types of jackets and coats each with different types of buttons and pocket options, twenty-two different types of pants and hose, fourteen separate types of boots with twelve different types of lacings and/or buckles, twelve separate types of shoes with different lacings/buckle types, thirty different types of belts with or without ten different types of scabbards.... you get the idea.
We're talking about time. A lot of time. But what the player gets at the end is a character that they actually feel like they have created, nearly wholly unique. Looking out at a crowd of players, you can pick your friends out of the throng because they are unique as well.
Body hair, not just facial hair. Tattoos on arms, legs, back, face. Piercings on lip, ear, nose, eyebrow. There should be so many modelling options available to the player at character creation that it nearly overwhelms them.
I'm not talking about every MMORPG; I'm talking about an MMORPG based on Dungeons and Dragons, one of the games that pretty much defined imagination and creativity in roleplaying for thousands, if not millions, of people. DDO was worth the time it would take to model a truly robust character creation.
Instead, you get the same basic options available in just about any other MMORPG and fewer options than are available in some.
As far as the ruleset... yes, they did fairly well on the ruleset, minus some skills that simply did not (possibly do not still) work. Like some, I'm not sure how I felt about the twitchy nature of the combat, but I could accept it if I saw evidence that the choices I made in skills were making a difference in my character's abilities.
Again; the rules and how they work are important. But they are not as important as the whole game they were designed to support. Without the whole game itself, you simply have a set of rules.
As I also stated, I really am glad for those who are having a good time. For myself and many others, though, DDO has fallen far short of D&D PnP, when it didn't have to.
Abbatoir / Abbatoir Cinq
Adnihilo
Beorn Judge's Edge
Somnulus
Perfect Black
----------------------
Asheron's Call / Asheron's Call 2
Everquest / Everquest 2
Anarchy Online
Shadowbane
Dark Age of Camelot
Star Wars Galaxies
Matrix Online
World of Warcraft
Guild Wars
City of Heroes
I stopped playing D&D around the release of Poor Wizard's Almanac (TSR-AC1010) and the first Rules Cyclopedia (TSR-1071) to play Earthdawn, since Greyhawk was basically dead as well as the Lance series. At that time we had 11 players and a GM in our group. Though you can't use prepackaged scenerios with a group that size.
The first D&D comp game I ever played the I liked was Hilsfar that actually had a plot. Half of the concept of the D&D realms is just missing from DDO, the roleplaying part. It is a hack and slash game not an RPG really, I often directly compare it to CoH/CoV (which I consider a MMO not an MMORPG).
The D&D name was just slappedon DDO as a marketing tool. Thank goodness that hasn't happened before in teh MMO market COUGH SWG COUGH.
I was definitely playing a roleplaying game, especially when a typical game took us at least if not more than 24 hours of straight playing, with five players and one DM. I have seen managed groups of fifteen to twenty at GenCon and have myself managed a group of seventeen very effectively at a local D&D tournament. More is just more; certainly, it is a greater challenge to the DM but it has no real impact on the quality of the game if you are managing it properly.
I'm sorry that you have apparently never enjoyed that kind of scale for a D&D game. I would seriously recommend you try a managed game incorporating several groups at once some time.
More was DEFINITELY better, especially if it comprised people you had never gamed with before, whose roleplaying styles were wildly different than yours and added variety to the game. So we can just agree to disagree on that point.
Back to my main point; in MMORPGs I have the ability to effectively serve as the DM for thousands if not millions of people due to the technology being used. I am not limited to space, I don't have to personally manage every single NPC in the game, I do not have to roleplay additional characters as the DM just to fill out the story and I can pre-generate quests and goals for the players that I do not have to sit around and wait to see if they find or not. If they discover them, off they go.
So if we cannot agree that the platform of MMORPGs specifically lends itself to enlarging the roleplaying/gaming world outside of your kitchen table, den, living room or local gaming hall (if you were lucky enough to have one) I guess I do not understand why you have invested so much time in so many MMORPGs?
grimmjakk, you wrote a whole paragraph that simply reinforced my point. If the players in DDO decide to just wander off into the wilderness... they simply cannot. Period. Certainly, a DM will steer their players back to the focus of the quest/goal/campaign; but that doesn't STOP the players from just taking off on a tangent at will at any point in the future as well. A good DM plans for those things and makes it a part of the campaign dynamic, they don't pull a deux ex machina on the players and force them back on a linear path. I don't know about you, but as a young DM, I learned very quickly that my players were pretty quick on the uptake and could easily recognize the artificiality of being prodded back to the "correct" path.
Some of my most memorable DM experiences have been when the players took the entire game in another direction, either by misunderstanding part of the story and setting off on a wild goose chase or through roleplaying some facet of their personality or character that was completely unexpected but wildly entertaining. Not only did it test my creativity but it added a dynamic to the game that I could never give it, through all of my planning.
Furthermore; DDO took three? five? years to bring to retail? If I employed just ONE experienced DM to write a campaign for three years I certainly believe I would have more content than DDO currently presents. It makes you wonder what they will be able to accomplish in two months...three months... or whatever their nebulous update schedule will be.
You rather creatively misquoted me in your reply here, but it appears you also ignored the content of what you did quote. The portion that you did not quote was where I stated that the rules were important to the game. If you want to disagree with me that the rules are not as important to the game as the story, setting, roleplaying, player-created uniques, and creating an interesting character, then again, we most certainly have a different concept of playing D&D.
Without a dynamic story, the rules are nothing but rules dictating how you take actions in an empty world. Without the social aspects and interactions that assist the player in roleplay (a paladin being forced to enter a city based on chaotic evil alignment, a thief operating (as they normally do) in a lawful or at least good aligned city, etc., a cleric or paladin being answerable to their god(s) for their actions.... many, many others that I could name) you take away the main reason for roleplaying.
Without venues for the players to roleplay in (temples, halls) without believable, strong NPCs for the players to roleplay against (active guards rather than automatons, local magistrates, argumentative vendors, getting drunk in a tavern and being thrown out, brawls, cutthroats, etc) the player is merely running around in a large, empty space moving from one task to another with little motivation to accomplish the goal other than reaching the next level.
Without something to spend money on that means something to the player, earning money has little or no meaning. No player property means one less goal to work toward. No player crafting means not only will there never be, as I stated before, a "Melf's Acid Arrow" since in DDO, Melf would never be able to create one, but there will never be a Sting, a Glamdring, a Stormbringer... or the stories that go with the creation, purpose, use and the lives of the character(s) who bore them. Instead, you get a +3 Vorpal Blade of no other interesting or creative property.
When I speak of character customization I most certainly am referring to visually. The only thing limiting how robust your character creation is, is how much work the developer puts into it. Technology has little to nothing to do with it. It all boils down to how much modelling time the developer wants to spend on character creation and how many options they want to give the player. The only time technology really steps into the equation is in the ability to scale the player avatar model, either wholly or in individual body parts.
If I model fifteen different types of earrings for each different type of ear that I model, it will undoubtedly take time. But for that player that wants to play a buccaneer, it would make a difference. If I model four different eyepatches for every type of eye designed, it will take time. If I model forty-eight different types of shirts with fifteen different types of jackets and coats each with different types of buttons and pocket options, twenty-two different types of pants and hose, fourteen separate types of boots with twelve different types of lacings and/or buckles, twelve separate types of shoes with different lacings/buckle types, thirty different types of belts with or without ten different types of scabbards.... you get the idea.
We're talking about time. A lot of time. But what the player gets at the end is a character that they actually feel like they have created, nearly wholly unique. Looking out at a crowd of players, you can pick your friends out of the throng because they are unique as well.
Body hair, not just facial hair. Tattoos on arms, legs, back, face. Piercings on lip, ear, nose, eyebrow. There should be so many modelling options available to the player at character creation that it nearly overwhelms them.
I'm not talking about every MMORPG; I'm talking about an MMORPG based on Dungeons and Dragons, one of the games that pretty much defined imagination and creativity in roleplaying for thousands, if not millions, of people. DDO was worth the time it would take to model a truly robust character creation.
Instead, you get the same basic options available in just about any other MMORPG and fewer options than are available in some.
As far as the ruleset... yes, they did fairly well on the ruleset, minus some skills that simply did not (possibly do not still) work. Like some, I'm not sure how I felt about the twitchy nature of the combat, but I could accept it if I saw evidence that the choices I made in skills were making a difference in my character's abilities.
Again; the rules and how they work are important. But they are not as important as the whole game they were designed to support. Without the whole game itself, you simply have a set of rules.
As I also stated, I really am glad for those who are having a good time. For myself and many others, though, DDO has fallen far short of D&D PnP, when it didn't have to.
Do you realize how much time it would take to make this dream vision of yours, or how much money. It doesn't seem like you do. To make the game that you want would take a team of 200 people 5+ years and probably costs upwards of 100 million dollars to develop. It's just not feasible. There will always have to be compromises when dealing with a translation like D & D or any ruleset for that matter.
I don't think it's that much to ask for really. There are a lot of games out there that have a robust character creation physically (EQ2 &SWG for example) and of course many games that offer vast areas to explore. Granted, this would throw off the dungeon-oriented gaming aspect, but the point is it could be done. I think that what people want, judging from the concerns of the players, it to have DDO the way it is for the most part, but to add elements that players want in addition to that. Could the character creation benefit from more options and skins? Yes. Are they hard to develop? No. Could they use another race added into the mix? Yes. Is that hard to do? Assuming it's a biped, not at all. Additionally, they already have some outdoor areas you can "explore" on your way to dungeons. Why not then, create instanced outdoor adventures? You could have labyrinths or camp-based battles while keeping the same look and feel of the DDO experience.
I think you give Turbine, or any other MMO corp. too little consideration. These people have professional designers working for them who could likely have a new race up and ready to go in a month. All MMORPGs are modular and usually easily changeable. Now, the question remains as to whether or not they WILL do any of these things, or WHEN the might do them. (Hopefully they will and it won't take too long to see some of the things players want) I enjoy the game so far, but I can also see areas for improvement.
Funny, I am the target audience and I still think the game is horrific and not D&D or even a half-ass MMO. Certainly not one worth paying for.
If your PnP session were as limited as this game then I feel sorry for you. No woods, swamp, mountains or wilderness at all. One pathetic dry and boring city. Who cares if it requires a group I don't even want to play. I also don't remember running the same "adventures" over and over with the same character so I can level up. Sorry, grinding out quests for experience because they didnt have the time to come up with enough adventures for each level is their own fault, not ours.
Trying to say that we had fair warning about the direction of the game and we shouldn't be turned off because it is the way it is ... well is just stupid. NWN captures PnP game more than this, hell even EQ1 did! Microscopic world to adventure in is NOT how my PnP games went. Sorry if yours did.
http://www.greycouncil.org/
Yes, I realize exactly how much time and money it would take to realize this "dream" of mine. I don't think that you do, however, because your evaluation of the resources it would require is extremely disproportionate to reality.
Every single unique model begins with a base. In one afternoon, I could easily design the base models for five separate types of jackets / coats. Every unique model after that I simply add those things that make it unique... different buttons, different texture maps, separate texture designs.... or I change the scale of some of the items making up the jacket/coat such as the cuffs, sleeves or collar. The same exact process is used for every single type of clothing or any and every item you can concieve of.
To design different types of earrings, I begin with a simple sphere, a concave half-sphere and a molded cylinder. After smoothing and texture application, I can easily "create" a pearl, black pearl, diamond, ruby, emerald, etc., post earring. If I add two more spheres and a molded pyramid or prism, I have now created a dangle earring which I can then modify the textures of to create one of each of the aforementioned. And so on.
Of course, you don't have to take my word for it. Download Alias' Maya Personal Learning Edition and take it for a spin. Try some of the tutorials to familiarize yourself with it and once you are comfortable, make a good base model of something. Then modify it to your heart's delight until you have several "somethings" of different sizes, colors, textures, models and types. You'll find it really doesn't take much time at all.
Again; it boils down to how much time you want to invest to create something that is truly unique. Turbine started with an existing engine, borrowed from AC2 although modified, and so they were already ahead of the power curve in the development cycle. That left a very large amount of time that they could dedicate to their database development, scripting, modelling and network coding, besides refining their engine's display abilities and physics models. From my experiences with DDO it appears that either they encountered severe difficulties in their database, scripting and/or network coding (the network code issues seemed apparent during beta) or they simply did not dedicate anywhere near the resources to the project that they could have to give it the treatment I (and many others) would have expected for an MMORPG based on PnP D&D.
I do agree with you that there often need to be compromises. But deciding what area those compromises occur in is up to the lead designer. Sometimes the compromise is to push back the release of a product, rather than going gold on an unfinished design.
Some rather simple changes to DDO that, in my opinion, could have made it much more robust and enjoyable;
Again, I will say that DDO is not a bad game; but as a PnP D&D player I had much higher expectations for the MMORPG.
Abbatoir / Abbatoir Cinq
Adnihilo
Beorn Judge's Edge
Somnulus
Perfect Black
----------------------
Asheron's Call / Asheron's Call 2
Everquest / Everquest 2
Anarchy Online
Shadowbane
Dark Age of Camelot
Star Wars Galaxies
Matrix Online
World of Warcraft
Guild Wars
City of Heroes
Thank you, Ian. Of course, there are many more complex and deep changes that could be made to vastly improve DDO that would require much more development time, but my short list seemed like it would be the easiest to develop and implement in the shortest amount of time.
I have to agree with you.... I seriously doubt Turbine would employ them, unless it is in the form of an expansion.
Abbatoir / Abbatoir Cinq
Adnihilo
Beorn Judge's Edge
Somnulus
Perfect Black
----------------------
Asheron's Call / Asheron's Call 2
Everquest / Everquest 2
Anarchy Online
Shadowbane
Dark Age of Camelot
Star Wars Galaxies
Matrix Online
World of Warcraft
Guild Wars
City of Heroes