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WHY TAKE OTHERS SOULS WHEN YOU ONLY NEED ONE???
98% of the teenage population does or has tried smoking pot. If you're one of the 2% who hasn't, copy & paste this in your signature
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DDO could have been good but for me when I think of a game based on AD&D I wasnt expecting the restrictions. Mabey if they had more content and levels and never associated the D&D name that it might have been alright. Everything felt the same to me ( to many sewers). But again mabey I just had my hopes to high because of the D&D name, I never felt so restricted in a game.
P.S.
Oh and I dont think you could use the word grind in this game, way to short. If this game wasnt a pay to play and mabey came out with new content you could buy every 2 or 3 months then yeah I still would be playing.
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Yeah, I was also disappointed in the lack of DnDness and Eberroness of the game. Its just another MMO with less content than any of recent MMOs (within the last couple of years, at their launch). I really had high hopes for this. If it was done right, it could have been huge.
I think they can still improve on the game, but I've never seen a game make a comeback from its launch. I also think we are going to see a CU/NGE type of upgrade to DDO next year or by the end of this year, especially if they add PvP.
There's no pvp yet, but it will be implemented later.
And it's pretty likely that extra content will be added too.
Actually i liked it a lot. Especially because there is no grinding.
Killing monsters won't give you exp, so grinding is pointless. The game is to survive dungeons, not to clean them off... which is a very good thing. If you can avoid an encounter you gladly do so, as it should be. Nobody risks if live if there is no reason to do so.
Actually I think Turbine did a good job with this game, they managed to save d&d flavor. It was not easy to make an mmrpg not based on hack'n'slash everything... but they managed to do so.
Guild Wars is similar, but its PVE is not comparable IMHO. In Guild Wars you can't make two steps without being overwhelmed by billions of monsters, and all the game is to kill them before they kill you. D&D Online's PVE experience is muuuch more developed. If GW is second to no-one in PvP... D&D Online is probably the best in PvE at the moment.Actually, there is grinding in DDO. It is just not grinding mobs... It is grinding quests, since most if not all players reepeat quests quite often...
And I thought that there was a bonus for cleaning out the dungeon/basement/whatever you want to call it. In other words breaking everything breakable, killing all mobs, ets... Am I wrong here?
Captain John Matin
Royal Red
Quests are tough. It take some thinking, to survive the dungeons. Many players a bit too used to other MMRPGs formats did not realize this. They just think they need to be more powerful, and so they do what they are used to: they grind, repeating easy quest they've already done to try again the difficult quest when they're more powerful.
But it's their choice. It's not the game who forces them to do so, it's just that they find it easier to grind rather than to acknoweledge their mistakes and find a way to do it.
Moreover, they're used to games like NWN or Baldur's Gate where you can rest after each encounter, and engage the next one at full strength. So, they make characters shifted on dealing out as much dmg as possible, with no endurance. Is it really needed a dual-wielding fighter with low CA and STR 18 to take out a cobold? Wouldn't it be better a solid STR 14 tank with tower shield proficiency (damage resistance 4, +3 AC)? Cobolds would hardly scratch him when he's in defence mode, allowing other party members to kill them easily.
The key in D&D online is not to kill the enemies quickly (before they kill you as in other games). The key is to survive the dungeons with limited resources. A good warrior is not one who kill foes quickly, but one who kill them without loosing too many hps. This takes a careful approach, planning, teamplay. Just what I like in a PvE game.
Yes, there is a bonus if you kill most of the monsters in the level. But there is another equivalent one if you dodge all of them out using your stealthy skills...
I really think that the PvE experience is solid indeed, much better than anything else i've seen around so far. The problem is, it might be a bit short. Probabily this game would have been perfect if marketeed in the same way Guild Wars was: you pay it once, you play all the content, and when new content comes out you pay again the expansion. However, we still have to see what the game will become with PvP, and how will it be handled.
We'll see, but... I don't think that buying this game means wasting money. You can always stop paying the account when you've finished it, and resume it when something new comes around. Always better than grinding again, again, again and again in a traditional MMRPG to get to the next level...
Bull.
All there is to DDO is grind. There is absolutely nothing else to do in the game. There is no crafting ... there is nothing to explore. Stormreach itself is completely threat free .. you can wander down the darkest of alleys without a care because there are no random encounters. You will not get jumped.
The only difference is that in DDO instead of grinding mobs, you're grinding dungeons. But a grind is a grind. All you can do in DDO is grind XP, becasue that's all the game offers you.
Because if it is so, I think we've played different games!
Grinding XP is grinding XP. If you can't see that, no amount of explaining will make you understand it.
Please enlighten me as to what other game mechanic there is in DDO besides XP grinding. Have they implemented crafting? Player housing? A world to explore just for the sake of exploring? PvP? Factions to be built up or destroyed? Random mobs? Because from closed beta all the game had was grinding XP, despite the calls from testers to add more.
They have created an instance router and XP generator. Given as that's all they intended to create, the game is working as designed. However, since no one is buying that, they're now backtracking and adding things like solo instances, PvP, NPC faction, open areas to explore, random mob placement, and crafting.
Too little too late, I'd venture to say. By the time they get all of that coded and implemented, they'll be butting heads with NWN2, Vanguard, and Turbine's own LoTR:O.
DDO is dying. It's necrotic. No new blood is coming in to the game, and now the staunchest of fanboys are leaving because Turbine "sold them out" with the E3 announcement. Turbine is grasping at straws to get subscribers, and they're doing it by going back on their own words. Had they done what we told them they should've done many months before live, they may not find themselves in the situation they're in now.
The problem is ... that's all there is. There really isn't anything else to do with your character. You can't exlplore a virtual world, take in lore by talking to NPCs or reading books or other lore items, craft things, purchase and furnish a house, etc. .... there isn't anything else to do other than the quests. The town area is a lifeless backdrop between quests ... very dead and disappointing. So, yes, good quests, but you need more than good quests to make a good game, and DDO is missing the other stuff.
If they had taken another year to release a game with the rest of the stuff that makes people like MMOs, people would have liked it much more, I think.
There were a few things I was going to write about here, but I decided to just focus a little on one... I have never understood the concept of playing a game like DDO till you finish all of the content. And in DDO that seems to be less than a couple of months. And then canceling your subscription till new content comes out then re-subscribing... and so on and so on... Just does not make sense to me. Why come back at all?
Just wanted to clarify one other thing... Are you saying that you can reach level 10 without repeating any quests?
The problem is ... that's all there is. There really isn't anything else to do with your character. You can't exlplore a virtual world, take in lore by talking to NPCs or reading books or other lore items, craft things, purchase and furnish a house, etc. .... there isn't anything else to do other than the quests. The town area is a lifeless backdrop between quests ... very dead and disappointing. So, yes, good quests, but you need more than good quests to make a good game, and DDO is missing the other stuff.
If they had taken another year to release a game with the rest of the stuff that makes people like MMOs, people would have liked it much more, I think.
Here's a Founder who gets it ... finally.
http://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php?t=36316
This player is a member of OTG. At launch, OTG was the reason that Turbine found that the number of players per guild had to be raised. They blew the cap within minutes of Headstart launch, and within a few days had four different iterations of the guild (at 200 members per iteration, IIRC) on Ghallanda. I just hit their site, and they are consolidating into one DDO guild to make getting guild groups easier. Most of their players have gone to WoW, EVE, or Vanguard beta (OTG is a cross-game guild).
http://www.oldtimersguild.com/vb/showthread.php?t=7547
At this point, DDO could really be a case study in how not to launch a MMO game. It remains to be seen if it can become a case study in how to save a poorly launched MMO game.
The problem is ... that's all there is. There really isn't anything else to do with your character. You can't exlplore a virtual world, take in lore by talking to NPCs or reading books or other lore items, craft things, purchase and furnish a house, etc. .... there isn't anything else to do other than the quests. The town area is a lifeless backdrop between quests ... very dead and disappointing. So, yes, good quests, but you need more than good quests to make a good game, and DDO is missing the other stuff.
If they had taken another year to release a game with the rest of the stuff that makes people like MMOs, people would have liked it much more, I think.
Here's a Founder who gets it ... finally.
http://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php?t=36316
This player is a member of OTG. At launch, OTG was the reason that Turbine found that the number of players per guild had to be raised. They blew the cap within minutes of Headstart launch, and within a few days had four different iterations of the guild (at 200 members per iteration, IIRC) on Ghallanda. I just hit their site, and they are consolidating into one DDO guild to make getting guild groups easier. Most of their players have gone to WoW, EVE, or Vanguard beta (OTG is a cross-game guild).
http://www.oldtimersguild.com/vb/showthread.php?t=7547
At this point, DDO could really be a case study in how not to launch a MMO game. It remains to be seen if it can become a case study in how to save a poorly launched MMO game.
That was a dang good post. Being 39 and playing D&D since it came out maybe I should look into this OTG.
I'm 42 myself.
If you play console games as well, you might want to take a peek at GeezerGamers.
www.geezergamers.com
They/we started as mostly XBox Live, but have moved in many different directions. I haven't been an active poster there in many moons, but the folks are first rate.
Of course there is a difference... Just like there is a difference between a Delicious apple and a Granny Smith apple... But when it comes right down to it, both are still apples and very few if any will confuse apples with oranges. The same is true with grinding... Grinding mobs Vs grinding quests, is still grinding.
I have played WoW since open beta... The only time I ever did any grinding was when I was just a few exp from leveling... And that was usually just killing 5 or less mobs.
And as someone else stated either here or on another thread, it is the players choice wether or not to grind. In DDO you have no other choice. You either do quests, or you don't play.
I also love the built in voice comm system. That was genious, as it's very nice to be able to communicate as a party to work effectively and solve the puzzles within the dungeons. The DM narrator adds a real nice touch to presenting an over mood of the instances you enter.
I played WOW and got to 60 and did some raids and was like blah. I've pretty muched played all MMO's out there and they all lead to complete boredom.. I'm sure soon enough something better will come out than D&D for now it's really holding my interest and find it fast paced and excting.
Also because of the incorporation of the 3rd edition ruleset, there is something that just seems more technically complex about advancing your character and the way he interacts with the environment and creatures. Combat system is much more interactive that WoW as well..
Anyways that's my $0.02.
Oh and to the person who said the chat system sucks? I find the chat system find and actually superior to other games due to the fact you have party voice chat. Also the group party matching system works great.
To the person who said you GRIND dungeons in D&D.. well I'd rather be doing a fun well designed dungeon over that entertaining, rather than going to a section of land and killing the same thing over and over 1000 times just to meet a quota and make expected exp for my level..
D&D plans on adding more content as well as PVP and I find that something to greatly look forward to.
-=XB=- XBones
Six of one, half dozen of the other. If one sort of treadmill makes you happier than another, by all means climb on.
My point is that a treadmill by any other name is still a treadmill. And at least in other games I can choose to get off of the treadmill and still have something to do in the game. Last night I felt like gaming but didn't feel like climbing on the levelling treadmill, so I spent about an hour buying items for and redecorating my in-game apartment while I caught up with my guildies.
If you get off of your treadmill in DDO you have absolutely nothing else to do.
If that's what you like, more power to you. Personally, I expect quite a bit more for a monthly subscription than simply an XP generation engine.
You're saying that you DON'T run around killing the same thing over and over again? You've got to be joking. There are kobolds everywhere, and they are the main mob in the game. You spend so much time killing kobolds it's completely rediculous. There are no other types of quests other than, go in and kill. Go in and kill kobolds for the most part. No exploration, no escort missions, no gathering, no messenger missions, NOTHING! You try to say there is no grind to DDO but that's really ALL there is. Sure, you can argue that it's the same thing in most MMOs but at least there is variety to them.
People complain and say that you should group only with new players because all the vets know the dungeons inside and out. But the vets are the majority of the population in the game. You just TRY finding groups of new players and you're going to wait hours to find a group. Sure, there are more during the free trial period, but after that it's going to dwindle and you going to have people who have made many characters and repeated the quests time and time again. And most of them only want to grind the exact same quest over and over again ad nausium. Trying to find a group of new players and people who don't want to do WW or STK is nearly impossible unless you want to spend 2 hours looking for a group.
There is nothing to this game but a grind, and deep down you all know it. You do down into the dungeon, kill a bunch of kobolds, then repeat the same quest again (though maybe with an increased difficulty). Anyone who says you don't do that is a liar. I played the game for almost 2 months and that was practically all I did. Not because I wanted to, but because that was all most dungeons contained. Sure, there is the occaisonal ogre or undead here and there, and that only changed when you are high level. Anyway, the main point is, it's a grind, and a repetitve grind at that. Enjoy farming your kobolds.
Take a mission/quest/adventure/whatever:
While doign mission you get xp for killing various critters along the way and any tasks you do during the mission.
Then when mission is completed you get the XP for the mission. So even if you don't finish the mission in the same session you still make progress on your character if you have to logout/disconnect/whatever during the mission. You can come back and finish it later to get the mission XP... but at least, in the meantime, you made SOME progress.
As to adding PVP? Who f'ing cares.
As to adding content? A Few more newbie quests around the harbor is hardly what I'd call a lot of content. DDO needs to Quadruple the number of quests available in the game. They need to do it NOW and they need something to do BESIDES the grind. As long as all there is to do is Grind the game is nothing but a dungeon grind. Nothing more, nothing less. Even roleplayers have a hard time roleplaying in DDO due to the extreme instancing as well as the lack of anything to support roleplay at all. Sure hard-core roleplayers can roleplay. But the utter lack of any support for roleplaying (crafting, housing, non-combat roles, etc) makes it more difficult and less immersive for the roleplayer. Add on top of that that opposing races are all living in the same city and that just muddles things even more.
Currently Playing: Dungeons and Dragons Online.
Sig image Pending
Still in: A couple Betas
In regards to the long post above regarding grinding. D&DO is not a grind, and kobolds are only in the first levels of quests (among other mobs as well) as you play later in the game, kobolds aren't even something you can attack, they act more like NPC's.. I doubt you played this game very long if all you saw were kobolds.
The difference in D&DO and other MMORPGs in regards to grinding.. Is that most other games require you to kill a certain number of a certain level mob because it calculates out to the near amount of XP that would equate to you leveling..
In D&DO you dont even get XP for killing mobs, you get a bonus at the end of the instance added to your total for mobs killed, items broken, discovered, etc..
So in essance you dont even have to kill anything for XP, therefore it's not a grind.. And what the hell would a game be without having to kill something anyways.. D&DO incorporates more of an encounter rather than attacking some stationary wondering beast or whatever.
The only thing that would be a grind is having to do a quest over for a new char or if you just want to get more xp.. But that's a choice not a madatory factor.. You can always go to the next quest up.
And if you want to say doing quests is a grind, then why play games at all! !Because every game continues the same basic elements over and over through the course of the whole game, FPS, RTS's, everything! It's how it's all packaged together to bring that one element's fun factor to front.
I've played almost every MMORPG out there and I only compare to WoW because that's where most of the people who are posting negatively on D&D come from.. But my experience comes from a vast knowledge of just about MMORPG that ever existed.
And all of this is just my opinion, no reason to argue that.. Just try the game and if you like it, great then you will have fun.. If you dont, then play something you think has more of what you are looking for.
Tell you this, I can't wait for the new SCI-FI NCSoft game to come out, that thing looks totally incredible!
-=XB=- XBones
Um... wait till you run out of quests and are still level 6 or so Then talk to me about how you don't have to do the same quests over
I never said that doing a quest is a grind. It's not.
Being forced to do the same quests over and over and over (because there aren't even 1/4 of the number needed) is a grind. And, trust me, once you get up a bit in levels you'll see it. It shouldn't take long... Most people finish all the content within the first month. If you're playing 15 hours a week like you say you MAY manage to last 2 months before running out of content.
It's also sort of a grind if that's all there is to do in the game. And in DDO that *IS* all there is to do: Go do quests. I'm done... what now? Sell loot, get another group, get another quest.... you can't go craft, you can't go wander and explore... you can't do anything but quest in dungeons. You can't even quest on the surface... nope, if you wanna quest you gotta go dungeon crawling. Which is OK but damn.... it gets BORING fast.
Currently Playing: Dungeons and Dragons Online.
Sig image Pending
Still in: A couple Betas