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Long time MMO'er. My review.
CoHsucks
Member Posts: 197
I posted this at gamespot, but wanted to share my review here as well. You may agree or not, but this is what I truely feel about this train-wreck of an "MMO":
Score Overall 2.1
Simply, absolutely awful.
The game is really terrible. The graphics are ok, but hog system resources terribly. The gameplay is sub-par, after the initial few dungeons it becomes a chore to play. Combat consists of a click-fest with zero tactics or thought.
I played for two weeks, couple hours a day, several hours on the weekends and finished the game easily. There is not enough content to keep a casual gamer going for more than 3 weeks tops.
The game is riddled with bugs that Turbine likes to pretend don't exist. Such as mobs inside walls (who can hit you, but you can't hit them), zoneing into other people's instances, doors that won't open, quest items and mobs that don't spawn, it goes on and on..
On the subject of the half-finished code, the in game GMs can not help you in any way. No matter what the issue is, their answer(in broken english) is always "sorry, nothing I can do, please re-start the quest". This may be after you just spent hours getting to the last room of a quest. They have zero power in the game to do anything but "elevate you to a higher GM" if you want to wait for 1.5 hours for the second GM (In broken english) to tell you to "restart the quest" . Pathetic.
The Devs do not communicate with the player-base except to say "Sony-sms" such as "we're working on it", "working as intended", and "Its a known issue". They don't seem to know them selves what they are doing.
The classes have great disparity between them. Who wants to play a ranger? Every quest, save a few, are in the same cramped, identicle dungeon tileset. Every quest is the same everytime. Everyone knows them by heart. Where the mobs, barrells, traps and chests are. So there is no adventure, only grinding out the best xp quests over and over till your eyes bleed. A good team can zerg a quest in 10-15 minutes because there is no reason to take it slow, we all know exactly where to stop to buff, which rooms are a waste of time, and where to complete objectives. Its boring as hell.
The game is forced-grouping. There is 3 starter quests which can be solo'd by 2-3 classes, thats it. And in a game with forced grouping, they have a broken guild/friends list. It will show all your charactors online at the same time, or all off. I had myself and 3 alts online all at once! Lol! Very amature work. The "fixes" they are promising are being withheld until the 1st module(convieniently after people need to pay their first month). They have fixed nothing since early beta, but expect people to pay for this trash?
One last thing that isn't about the game, but the community(which is shrinking everyday).
The forums are a waste-land of rabid fanbois who defend this garbage with personal insults, attacks, and spamming filth in order to silence the vocal majority who are not blind to this train-wreck of a game. I know its like that in any game forum, but i have been a part of many, and this is the worst. The community likes to tell itself the DDO players are "older more mature" gamers. This could not be further from the truth. These fanboys make WoW's boards seem mature. A partcular few are the worst...
In the end, the game is broken, boring, lacking of anything but grinding memorized quests over and over. Its not even 1/2 complete, and the devs are holding off fixing bugs and adding content untill after you pay. Very unethical.
One last thing: The only work the incompetent devs are doing is closing down the few quests there are to do in end game(where almost everyuone is already) for a week at atime to nerf it. They have nerfed every good end-game quest already, and currently they have another "closed for balancing"(read:major nerf).
Sneaky nerfs to, like removing a shrine and replacing it with mobs. Cheap, and low-down. Par for the couse for these devs.
Avoid this like the plague. NWN from 2002 is far superior to this waste of a CD
I played for two weeks, couple hours a day, several hours on the weekends and finished the game easily. There is not enough content to keep a casual gamer going for more than 3 weeks tops.
The game is riddled with bugs that Turbine likes to pretend don't exist. Such as mobs inside walls (who can hit you, but you can't hit them), zoneing into other people's instances, doors that won't open, quest items and mobs that don't spawn, it goes on and on..
On the subject of the half-finished code, the in game GMs can not help you in any way. No matter what the issue is, their answer(in broken english) is always "sorry, nothing I can do, please re-start the quest". This may be after you just spent hours getting to the last room of a quest. They have zero power in the game to do anything but "elevate you to a higher GM" if you want to wait for 1.5 hours for the second GM (In broken english) to tell you to "restart the quest" . Pathetic.
The Devs do not communicate with the player-base except to say "Sony-sms" such as "we're working on it", "working as intended", and "Its a known issue". They don't seem to know them selves what they are doing.
The classes have great disparity between them. Who wants to play a ranger? Every quest, save a few, are in the same cramped, identicle dungeon tileset. Every quest is the same everytime. Everyone knows them by heart. Where the mobs, barrells, traps and chests are. So there is no adventure, only grinding out the best xp quests over and over till your eyes bleed. A good team can zerg a quest in 10-15 minutes because there is no reason to take it slow, we all know exactly where to stop to buff, which rooms are a waste of time, and where to complete objectives. Its boring as hell.
The game is forced-grouping. There is 3 starter quests which can be solo'd by 2-3 classes, thats it. And in a game with forced grouping, they have a broken guild/friends list. It will show all your charactors online at the same time, or all off. I had myself and 3 alts online all at once! Lol! Very amature work. The "fixes" they are promising are being withheld until the 1st module(convieniently after people need to pay their first month). They have fixed nothing since early beta, but expect people to pay for this trash?
One last thing that isn't about the game, but the community(which is shrinking everyday).
The forums are a waste-land of rabid fanbois who defend this garbage with personal insults, attacks, and spamming filth in order to silence the vocal majority who are not blind to this train-wreck of a game. I know its like that in any game forum, but i have been a part of many, and this is the worst. The community likes to tell itself the DDO players are "older more mature" gamers. This could not be further from the truth. These fanboys make WoW's boards seem mature. A partcular few are the worst...
In the end, the game is broken, boring, lacking of anything but grinding memorized quests over and over. Its not even 1/2 complete, and the devs are holding off fixing bugs and adding content untill after you pay. Very unethical.
One last thing: The only work the incompetent devs are doing is closing down the few quests there are to do in end game(where almost everyuone is already) for a week at atime to nerf it. They have nerfed every good end-game quest already, and currently they have another "closed for balancing"(read:major nerf).
Sneaky nerfs to, like removing a shrine and replacing it with mobs. Cheap, and low-down. Par for the couse for these devs.
Avoid this like the plague. NWN from 2002 is far superior to this waste of a CD
EDIT: The game should not have been released with only 1/4 of the content of any other small MMO.
If you are thinking of buying this "game", you really should consider how important $50 is to you. If you wouldn't care if you lost a $50 bill in the street one day, then it won't be so bad. Me? I value my money, and this was a waste of $50. It really is that bad.
Not to mention, the game will die within a year anyway, so no point in being there when it does. Remember AC2 anyone?
Comments
Well, that's a pretty harsh-sounding review, but all the points you made are valid so I really can't argue. The game does have some fun points, but as of now the negatives far outweigh the positives. For the MMO player expecting more out of current and upcoming titles, this game really fails to deliver. Even a lot of the hardcore D&D fans are dropping this title within the first month of launch. Server populations are beginning to shrink, making the forced grouping even more difficult. It will be interesteing to see what happens to the game in the coming months.
Here is something else to think about...
All of the fans of DDO say it is for the more mature older gamer...
But in the interview from the DDO newsletter, the targeted group is the 20-25 year old players. Granted, they may be more mature then 13 year olds. But I hardly consider them to be in the older group.
So a question... Did the Devs hit their target group?
When friends ask me what this game is like I say "It's like Baulder's Gate with 1/4 the content, online and a monthly fee." To be honest I think it's even less than 25% of baulder's gate content. Then I add that there is no world, it's one city, you can't go outside the city to roam the woods, swamp, mountains or tundra areas.
I really don't see how they thought this game was fun. I mean if you had NEVER played any other computer game I guess it might be... but NWN and tons of other games grasp the "D&D" game better than this mess.
http://www.greycouncil.org/
Now, I know it was a rather scathing review, but its all just my opinion of course. But i think its very truthful.
BUT! I wanted to add this:
http://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php?&postid=218564#post218564
From the boards. Essentially, the team leader will be the one to decide, out of the 12-person raid party, and five hours of raid, who gets the TWO rewards. He decides, out of 12(including himself) who gets the uber-loot. Great idea, huh? Lol!
I'm sure the leader won't take one of the two, since its his decision..Lol!
So 11 other people are competeing for the one loot item left. Now the fanboys will have trouble telling everyone else to "go back to WoW". Since DDO wants to be WoW with the incredibly lame "raid for hours, but only if the leader is your personal buddy thing."
They already have 3 servers so low that they are "suggesting" new players start on them. Its generally accepted on the boards that there are two servers to play on so you can actually get a group. Since remember, if you can't find a group, there is absolutely nothing to do.
Pretty telling if you ask me.
This is exactly what i was saying back in beta. why pay a monthly fee for something that you can get for free in NWN?
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Famous people speak out:
Im for the death penalty. If you commit a terrible crime you should have a harsh punishment...So you learn until next time.
-Britney Spears
I am an old fan of D&D pnp, and unfortunately what I predicted happened...........Turbine killed D&D.
I played beta for few weeks but even before testing the game I had my concern:
-100% instanced........hello it s a MMOG.
-No solo whatsoever.....errrhh even people who like grouping want to solo from time to time
-Graphic..........AC2 updated, very boring.
-Turbine...........
Looking above, I can't see how anyone could think that this game had any hope of success.
But I thought, let's give it a try, it s a free beta after all.
So I played the game for 2 weeks, forcing myself to play dungeon after dungeon, hoping that the boredom would go away and the pace of the game will change.
Unfortunately that didn't happen, instead the list of annoyng features got worse:
-Repetitive gameplay, same dungeons same quests (yawn)
-Nothing else to do except doing dungeons (double yawn)
-Tavern looks like job centres or worse like ER waiting rooms, very disturbing.
-It didn't feel like D&D at all, more like a bad version of Guild Wars.
The only positive thing I can see out of this mess, it's that probably Turbine will go bust, which is always a good thing for the MMO industry.
I hope someone get the licence for D&D and will be able to make a better game than Turbine, because I believe D&D deserve better than this.
PS: OMG I just remebered that they have the licence for LOTR, jeez how did they manage to get all the best franchises only God knows.
What kind of player this game is supposed to target?
PVPers obviously not.
Raiders, I don't think so.
Soloers........let's not even go there
Ah yes Groupers.........except this category doesn't even exist, since grouping is the basic of MMORPG by default, every other game has good group content, but at least in other games you have the choice to do something else if you don't feel like grouping.
Very clever Turbine.
Can't argue with many of the facts of the OP; just the interpretation.
True, the graphics are not thrilling, especially when compared with somethink like Oblivion, but they are not that bad either, and we will see what the new module looks like. True there are bugs, but in no way game-breaking in my opinion.
True, there are not enough quests, and it would have been more interesting to have more of a land to travel in and explore.
But if you change your expectations of DDO, based on past MMOs, and see it instead as a 'log in, do a quest for an hour or two, log out' kind of affair, then you can have plenty of fun here.
I have enjoyed myself in DDO, and that's good enough for me.
Look upon it as a kind of fantasy themed Battleground, except pve instead of pvp. The combat is interesting enough, especially on harder levels where you operate right on the edge of your abilities.
(That said, I am a bard, which is probably the most versatile class in the game... so plenty of choices to make)
I do wonder how long I will pay 15 a month for this, however. The new module is riddled with bugs... we'll see how quick they fix it. I suspect I will pay for month 2... to try out the module. If it turns out to be good, then I will stay. If not, I'll move on.
Turbine does have its work cut out.. it will need to keep churning our modules to keep the original player base together; if it fails, it may be difficult to attract new players. The reviews did not demand a purchase.
But ,maybe it's because I found a good guild, I and others have had plenty of fun so far. I think DDO has been a little harshly treated in this and other fora.
That bad is the game?
Thanks for the review....i was thinking in getting a copy.
I guess i have to wait for the next one.
I beta played this game on European test servers and I can only fully agree with the criticism presented in this thread. First time I got to combat with multiple targets it was a frenzied click-fest and since the targets were jumping from side to side and backwards it was hard to even get a solid blow landed on one's chosen enemy. The UI was completely shot to hell and most discussions about this was muted by the angry hordes of fanbois. I'm really happy I got to play this in beta, saved me 50$
I will not play this game, but in it defense I have to talk a little.
DDO is a wonderfull ACTION game. Some of my friends are having a blast in DDO and trying to convince me to join (how hopeless for them to hope).
DDO is the best MMOACTION game on the market, targetted at the casual players at large. I would rather spend time working or chatting here than playing DDO, but it is a very nice game.
Whoever is in charge of the marketing at Turbines should seriously be pounded and talked to. This game is continuously trying to convince the wrong market. Putting an article/advertisement in a RPG area is very ill advised...it should put the marketing efforts on ACTION oriented market and tell them they will introduce them to a action-RPG, but be sure to focus on the action in the game.
In my surrounding, there are more peoples playing DDO than playing all the other MMOs put together. *sight*
DDO have a very weird launch, but it will goes on the rise from now on, the marketing fumble it beyond comon sense, "mouth to ears" is slowly but certainly saving the game for what it is.
Again, I would rather be working than playing DDO, but DDO is a very nice game with it own appeal. It will be flamed to the extreme, but you should consider all those flames target their marketing team rather than their design...oh well.
- "If I understand you well, you are telling me until next time. " - Ren
the problem is in a forced grouping game, that without a good team, (representing at least a cleric, warrior, and rogue at its core), you are screwed. No team=no play.
They added the module today, servers were up for an hour, then crashed and been down for the whole day.
The forums can really be frustrating, since there are such blind fanboys who will make the most far-fetched excuses you ever heard for even the most blatent screw up. Its really quite unbeleiveable what these fools will take and ask for more.
The game stutters, lags, locks up, and makes your hard drive grind like crazy. There are issues which make many people's video cards over-heat, you zone into a quest/tavern, and your charactor is "locked" in place for minutes at a time, or you have to log out, only for it to happen again next time you zone!
Of course the idiot fanny-boys will always say its your computer! God-forbid Turbine didn't optimize the game engine..Even if you're running a couple 7800s SLI, with 2 gigs of ram, lol!
There is no test server. There is no real tech help. The GMs are powerless to resolve ANYTHING. The entire game from log in, to quests, to interface, to graphics and gameplay feel like something from the EQ1 days...The first year of EQ1 that is.
No matter how bad the fan boys will argue with their clever responses like "Go back to WoW", or "can I have your stuff" or "pie" the game is the worst MMO I ever had the miss-fortune to play. Don't bring up these glaring flaws up on the boards unless you have a very thick skin. The fanbois won't tolerate anyone bringing up a negative aspect to the game. Which is tough, because the game is 1/10 good, 9/10 horrible. No, I take that back, not "horrible" but absolutely frikkin' awful, simple and amature.
Look, I wanted to like the game, but it really doesn't represent DnD in anyway. The feats are named the same thing, but most are missing. Those that are there work completely different, there are made up feats and skills. The game is as much DnD as Mario bros.
The best thing any real DnD fan fan can do IMO, is to not give Turbine any money, hope the game dies faster than it will anyway, and hope WOTC give the licence to someone who isn't a total NOOB like Turbine.