Amber Night

I played a little D&D in college.  I was the only female in a group of about 6 other guys who were very cool about sharing their love of role playing in the world of the Forgotten Realms with someone whose idea of role playing games was, up until then, Diablo II.  I played a halfling thief, which made me somewhat useless for their style of play (break open the door, take trap damage, kill everything in the room, blunder into more traps, kill everything in the room, etc) but I had a great time playing the clueless, bumbling hanger-on.  Actually the role wasn't much of a stretch, if truth be told.  But I brought beer, which increased my utility by magnitudes.

Dungeons & Dragons Online (DDO) went live to pre-order customers last weekend, and being in between games (except DAoC, which I still play about 2-4 hours a week) I thought I'd give it a try.

My 10,000 foot view is this: DDO is fun.  It's very different from the standard MMO fare, where you are turned loose on the world with a pat on the butt and a good luck from your trainer.  There is a huge emphasis on quests and grouping.  Every quest has its own instanced dungeon, so there is no getting tangled up in crowds and waiting for another party to leave a spawn camp.  You talk to an NPC, they give you a quest, and you go do it.  Experience points are awarded at the completion of the quest.

Character creation is very well done, and even if you don't know the difference between a skill and an attribute, the system provides plenty of information without being overwhelming.  There are many ways to customize your character, although my standard rant still applies: in the end, you wind up looking mostly like everyone else who chose your race, gender, and class. (why, in every single game, must all starting characters wear the same exact outfit?  Is there a Gap for Noobs, and we are all just slaves to fashion?)

Another unique aspect of the game is that it makes no pretenses about being soloable.  Some of the quests are soloable depending on your class, but most are not.  You need to group, and this makes sense.  D&D has always been about players coming together to share in the experience.  Some of the social interplay that made the pen and paper game successful don't apply of course, but if you don't like being in groups then DDO is not for you.  Fortunately Turbine have made it easy to find a group through the use of taverns (one of the few places where you can heal up, so they're bound to be populated) and a robust LFG interface.

To help bring players even closer together, voice chat has been integrated into the game.  We all know how I feel about voice chat, so I can't speak to its implementation.  I'm told you can listen in on the chat even if you can't or don't chat yourself.  I haven't tried.

One element that players will either love, get used to, or leave the game for, is that combat is not just pushing a button and sitting back until the fight is over.  Mobs will try to outflank and use various other tactics against you.  Players will need to consider the tactical situation and use feats and skills appropriately.  Casters can't just nuke away and hope the fighter keeps agro. The will need to think carefully about casting, because spell points can only be rejuvenated in taverns or the odd shrine.  So if you blow all your spells in the first 1/3 of the dungeon, you're without spells until you find a shrine or head back to a tavern. (Shrines can only be used once, so no going back.)

A concern that I do have is the repetitive nature of the game.  Right now I'm a noob, and I enjoy the different encounters and quests.  There are interesting puzzles to solve, and it's not all just mindless dungeon crawls.  But I know there's going to come a time when I want more.  Crafting isn't in the game yet, and progression within the world feels somewhat linear.  In fact, it's hard to get a sense of an outside world beyond the city walls.  Whereas the worlds of Norrath and Azeroth actually feel large and expansive, the world of Eberon feels somewhat small and cramped.  As I progress towards higher levels this will hopefully change.

Artistically, DDO falls somewhere between the more realistic art of DAoC and the heavy stylization of WoW.  Turbine chose not to get too crazy, but neither did they play it too conservative either.  The dungeons are remarkable in their variety and use of space, and the scenery is vibrant and visually interesting.  Characters and monsters are drawn well, although the animations tend to be a bit stilted.  Visually, the game doesn't jump out at you, but it doesn't detract either.

If you like grouping, and you're tired of the same old MMO fare of farming and camping, you might give DDO a try.  But be prepared for a very different experience, one that, like the original pen and paper game, rewards thinking and teamwork.  How well DDO plays long term I can't say.  But I'm having a lot of fun right now in the early game.

Bonus: If you read this far, and haven't seen “Fear of Girls,” you should. (no sex or violence, but probably NSFW all the same)

This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 1st, 2006 at 5:16 pm and is filed under MMOs - DDO, Main Page. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.