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Pen and Paper translation? I don't think so!
presti71
Member Posts: 51
I am not here to Flame,Troll, or Bash! I am here to give an honest opinion of this game.
I am an old school pen and paper RPG gamer and an old school MMORPG player so am well familiar with both genres. I am not saying D&D online is horrible or a terrible game but i do feel that they completely failed in their premise of a game that accurately replicates the pen and paper RPG experience. D&D online is nothing like pen and paper role-playing and can never be.
Why would i want to play an MMORPG that acts like a pen and paper RPG when i can play an pen and paper RPG? I want to play an MMORPG that acts like an MMORPG!
I regularly play both types of game for different experiences. I did not get into MMORPGs to replace my pen and paper role-playing, but for a different experience when i am not with my live action crew.
Now, let's get into some reasons why D&D online fails to replicate the pen and paper experience:
1. Lets see, an MMORPG that is completely instanced, with NO open game world to roam around? I hate to break it to you but i have played in many pen and paper D&D campaings where we had to do quests in different areas of the game world and spent whole game sessions wandering the open world getting in adventures in between dungeons. There were some game sessions where the DM had no campaign written and we just wandered around getting into random encounters. So much for an instanced MMORPG!
2. Hmmm, an MMORPG where you only get XP for completing quests and not for killing individual monsters or each time you used a skill? Guess what people? Even though we didn't get our XP until the end of the game session, In ALL the pen and paper games I have played in we got much of our XP from individual monsters we killed and for every time we used a special skill or ability. D&D was never "ok you finished the whole quest here is your lump sum XP!"
I think this game is a case of Turbine saying "hey, none of the current fantasy MMORPG's accurately duplicates pen and paper D&D, why don't we make one?" Well, I think Turbine has now learned why Asheron's Call, Dark age of Camelot, Everquest I & II, and World of Warcraft did not attempt to duplicate pen and paper roleplaying exactly: because it can't be done! They are two different mediums and genres!
Hey guys! Stick to what MMORPG's do best and leave pen and paper role-playing to those who love it best!
Comments
The only way DnD can be translated into a game is if the companies are allow to added to the existing content and give class like the Fighter and Rangers better feats to work with.
How does NWN fair in it's implementation of the PnP D&D experience in your opinion? I got a friend who is into it, and he's on a server, in a little world, with real players behind the quest givers. And i think the game is pretty true to the D&D ruleset, although i'm not positive. But my friend has never played PnP D&D. So how do you think NWN fairs in fullfilling the D&D experience?
No game perfectly mimics the experience of a tabletop game.
But DDO is REALLY particularly BAD at it. I love that Turbine and Atari hyped how this would be a replacement for your 'night around the table'. It is not. Not by a long long long shot, unless you just had an abominal DM there is absolutely no comparison.
Other games have proven that it CAN be done, however. Both Baldurs Gate and NWN provided a MUCH better online environment to AD&D players. NWN2 is coming out soon and once it does expect anyone still crazy enough to pay a monthly fee for this online dungeon generator to drop it like a rock once NWN2 is available. Seriously.
Standard NWN is far superior in every way over DDO. There's a world to explore... you can make custom adventures.... you can meet friends online and play... everything DDO offers *and much much more* is available in NWN and there's no monthly fee to play it.
I just don't get why Turbine thinks this game justifies a monthly fee. I also don't get how they think this is even remotely like a weekend night around the table playing AD&D. It just doesn't even come close to comparing. That said, if it didn't have a monthly fee... I'd probably buy, and play it. But for a monthly fee? No way I'm going anywhere near this game. I played the beta and a free trial last week... just not worth the money.
Currently Playing: Dungeons and Dragons Online.
Sig image Pending
Still in: A couple Betas
I am an old school D&D paper and pen player. I liked NWN and the expansions, they did a good job incorperating the 3.0 and a little of the 3.5 rules. Another game that was not too bad was Temple of Elemental Evil.
For you, i will try and be even stupider... (is that really a word? I know dumber is a word, but do we say 'more stupid' maybe?). So just spank me like you mean it! That has to be the most fun part of coming to these forums; getting wailed on by kids because i'm the stupiderest posterer here... lol.
How about this: combine user-created content in the proposed model. Release the server-engine, let users create stories and play with friends, and come out with 'professional' grade stories over time... oh wait, that's nwn. Be better than nwn by putting in-place ads for coca-cola in the major city restaurants? Or maybe just close it down like they did with AC2, but have everyone get excited about a big going-away virtual drunken-orgy-bash on the last day, but don't bother following through with even that? Please help me CaptainRPG, what little brain matter i had left just leaked out in my chair!!
Hugs and kisses... will you be my Valentine?
How about not making people pay for the content or pay to play. How allowing player contribute content to the game similar to what NWN did with Hak Packs. NWN didn't have capse, but the hak packs gave the players capes. NWN didn't have certain monsters, hak packs allowed us to have those monsters. While at the same time, Turbine can endorse the Hak Packs as well make their own.
BTW, why should we come up with these ideas? Shouldn't Turbine be coming up with these ideas? The reason they haven't is because they never intended to and never will. They can't afford to not make people pay for content.
Hey guys, thanks for responding to me post, i appreciate all your comments. To airhead, i have only played NWN singleplayer(which i loved)but from what i hear the multiplayer NWN done right is the clsest to PNP we will probably ever see, but since i have not played it myself I chose not to comment on it.
Remember, i didn't say it was a terrible game, i just said that it failed at its initial promises to duplicate PNP gaming, which many agree that it hasn't.
Plus, as one of you brought up(sorry i forget who) all these other considerations aside, DDO is a terrible business model and the idea that they would charge that much money for what the player is getting is unforgiveable. For what Guild Wars gives you for free each month, it is embarrising that Turbine charges monthly fees for half the content that Guild Wars has.
If DDO was one of the first MMORPG's to come out and there wasn't much to compare it to then it might have worked. However, as each new generation of MMORPG gives players more and more options for less, DDO now comes off as a major step-down from the current crop.
DDO is really only going to sell to new PC gamers who have never played an MMORPG before. In order for Turbine to get current MMORPG players to switch over they have to offer MORE than their cuurent game has, not LESS!!!
Honestly, knowing what we know about DDO, is there anything there that would make you drop your current game to play it? Not for me! Case in point, I played COH for a while but recently switched over to Everquest 2 because I was looking for a deeper more involved MMORPG. I loved COH for what it was, but at the time i was looking for something more. The point is, there were things that EQ2 had that COH didnt that i wanted, such as crafting and a deeper quest system.
There is NOTHING that DDO has that any other MMORPG doesnt have and there are plenty of things that other MMORPGs have DDO doesn't!
p.s. to all you COH fans getting mad at this, I really loved the character creation system and the powersets but, honestly, when u reached about 22-24th lvl, you had most of your good powers and the middle game(20's-40's) was nothing but a massive level grind. It's great for what it is but i wanted something more.