Post by Gilvan Blight on Jan 20, 2006 9:37:28 GMT -5
Okay I got to try this out during the free preview beta stress test. This means I did not play the completed game but an in progress work, it also means I played it during a stress test which means they had as many people on as possible in an attempt to break it. This will also be a long one as this isn't the type of game you can just rent and I know lots of people are interested in it.
Quickly: not like MMOs I have played, felt very much like D&D, had some issues, yet had some fun and wish I was playing now.
Summary: DDO attempts to re-create the feel of tabeltop pen and paper D&D in a MMORPG. To this end there are a lot of things that make this different from other MMOs out there. The game is set in D&D's newest setting Ebberon, and fully utilizes the 3.5 edition rules. You make a character, start off in a newbie town and learn the ropes. From there you move to the giant town of Stormreach. After a bunch of city adventures you move out into the world. Most of the 3.5 classes are there (Monk was a notable exception) and the Ebberon races are featured. This includes the Warforged, characters that are magic constucts like Golems. The game is action based way more then turn based, with real time combat, actually having to sneak around, jumping and swimming. You can of course make a party. All parts of the games are instanced, which means quests exist only for your party and no one elese can 'steal the treasure, or the mob' from under you.
THE GOOD:
The graphics are awesome. They have created a great looking world filled with wonderful sites (and I only saw the first city and the port section of the main town). The monsters look good, the pcs look good. It just looks good, even when on the lowest settings (see the bad).
This is D&D 3.5. You can even see the die rolls when you do things (skill checks, attacks, saving throws, etc). The races are familiar, the classes, the class abilities, the spells. If you know D&D you know most of this. The game feels like you are playing a game of D&D. There is no ever present ever changing world that goes on with or without you, things happen because characters go on quests (I think guild wars is like this as well). You make a party, find an npc that needs help, go to the dungeon and your own instance of that dungeon shows up. Before you go you get to see the potential xp award, the level of the dungeon, and any optional rewards. Once in you get a nice quest tracker pop up that keeps track of things you need to do and new optional quests (eg: (optional) Kill all Kobalds in the sewers, 9 left). Once completed your task in the dungeon you can immediately use a retun button to show up at the start (no backtracking).
The Xp system is well done. You get 0 xp specifically just for killing things. There is no 'bunny field' where you start off killing small things for hours. You get xp by doing quests. Each quest has three levels normal, difficult and hard. Each is worth a certain amount of xp, and you get bonus for being lower level then the quest, for doing it the first time, for completing optional parts etc. One cool one I noticed is when Church and I played last night, we completed a quest and we got bonus xp for all kinds of things. We got 20% more exp for being observant as my theif found 2 secret doors, we got another bonus for destroying objects (crates, barrels, etc). This also didn't have the level treadmill feel at all. As you move on you find more quests appropriate to your level and thus worth more xp. I was able to get the first advance fairly quickly and was nearly at my second by the time I quit in one nights play. I am sure it will slow down but due to the quest system I you never have to 'kill bunnies' for hours. They also did something interesting to add longevity. As D&D only has 20 levels (without epic, which they say is coming in an expanion way later), they made it so that you get 4 parts to each level. So I am a level 1 thief with 1 focus. Once at 4 focus I will be a level 2 thief with no focus. When you hit the focus point you get part of what would would get for the next level. At focus one I got a feat. At another focus I would get the improved saves perhaps. As I haven't gotten past focus 1 I can't really tell you exactly how it works, but what it means is really there are 80 advancements to get.
Another thing that will add logevity to the game is there was no limit to characters I could create (that I found) and I could switch between them. This means that if you get sick of your current char, make a new one. I know other newer mmo's (guild wars) has this but many of the traditional ones have you stuck with the same character forever (even FF where you can switch jobs, I will always be an Elvaan named Gilvan).
The GM rocks. Okay you wouldn't think you would need this in a modern game with good graphics but the first time I got a voiceover that said "You enter the damp corridor, a grizled halfling stands before you staring at you disaprovingly" I litterally said out loud "That's Awesome!" This gives the game such a D&D feel. Walking up to a door you get "You hear faint sounds of talking on the other side of the door, it doesn't sound human", or in the sewers getting "The scent of the wastes of Stormreach assault your senses" was just too cool. The GM also comes up when you make a skill check like spot. You will get "SPOT: you feel a slight breeze coming from the direction of the wall to your left" or "LISTEN: you hear a faint scrapping sound further down the corridor".
The quests themselves feel like D&D quests. It felt like a D&D session. You talk to the barkeep and he asks you to get a barrel of ale from the basement in exchange for a meal. While down there you find a Kobald a strange door you can't open and an evil artifact. This leads to part two where you go down to vanquish the evil. Eventually find out it's not just cobalds but an evil cleric of some demon god with an alter. All the time also looking for a lost necklace for one of the bar wenches. Another quest Church and I did had us searching for a Healing Salve Cask in the sewers of the city. There were traps galore (spreying sewage that caused poision), blade traps and more. All could be disabled if you found the right secret pannel (and make your diable devices roll, which I did not ) or secret door. The dungeon ended with a Warforged poised to attack if we didn't answer his riddle. Which was a traditional D&D style. "What starts with my rage, ends with your death, and is the begining of the end." or something like that. I actually figured it out which for some reason brought me way too much joy (I was dancing in the game).
The one thing I loved is they expanded the instance system to include public areas. This means that if a particular tavern ends up with too many players in it it will spawn another instance, and all new players entering end up in that one. Switching between them is though a simple drop down. I found this great as when I was looking for group I would switch to the first instance (with the most people in it) and when soloing I would switch to the last (litterally was in an inn with maybe 100 people, switched to last and there were 3, much easier to walk around and chat up the locals).
Death: this is done well. A common gamebreaker for MMORPGS, I like what they did. If you die you turn into a soulstone. You then can choose to get resurected in town (when you meet a cleric you can set your resurection point) which exits the current quest and puts you back in town (with some xp penalty, though it was 0 for lvl 1 so I don't know how bad it is, an no loss of CON like the rpg). Instead a high level cleric can Raise Dead you, as expected. Here is the third option that I really like. A party member can pick up the stone. Throughout the dungeons there will be a pillar with a red flame marker on it. You can use these to resurect a character from a soul stone. I love the concept of the party trying to 'carry the body' until they can get it raised. Plus I love that if the party isn't wiped out and you don't have a high level cleric there is a change you could still be brought back without failing the quest.
That reminds me of another good. You can quit quests at any time. You don't get the xp but you keep any items you found. This is excellent for when the phone rings, or something comes up when you have to quit pronto. You are never locked in to playing.
THE BAD:
Graphics Requirements: okay I have a new pc. It's a 3.0gh, I have 512 Ram and a Radeon 9700 pro. I ran the auto detect graphic settings and it recommeneded the lowest possible. Geesh! Maybe they made them that damn good so that in 3 years when there is a PC out that can actually run at the full settings the game won't look out dated. I did put everything to max level and you could play the game, if you didn't mind horrible lag and skippy graphics, but it was great to see. Actually a recommendation for the game I will make: first time in an area bump up everything to full and use mouse look to look around... then jump back to the lowest setting to play.
The controlls. Okay I have been out of PC gaming due to my old system for like 5 years or so (since The Sims 1) and I am just not used to WASD for controlls. Combat is real time and lacking good keyboard co-ordination really hindered me. Sure this is something you can get used to but man was it hard at first. The quick menu bar at the bottom doesn't hold enough. Even a first level D&D character has a wide range of skills and feats and usable items and you just don't seem to get enough slots for all that you might need. This actually didn't bug me as much once I got more into it as I would just prep the bar before entering a quest with the skills etc most useful for that quest.
It's action based. This means there is swimming, jumping, climbing running etc. The game actually reminded me a lot of Tomb Raider in a couple parts as the controlls were a bit similar. I am not a fan of any game with a jump button as that usually means bottomless pits and high frustration. The combat was difficult as the monsters jumped around all over and attempted to flank and I had a hard enough time just trying to block when needed and attack when not blocking let alone dodge, tumble and flank. This is probably something that you would get better at though. I died twice against kobolds as a lvl 1 thief, which didn't seem right.
Finding a party: okay I have a feeling this is only because it was the stress test and everyone was playing the game for the first time, but finding someone who was willing to party was hard. It's D&D, it's a party game more then any other MMO... if anything says you need a balanced party D&D is it, then why aren't people partying? Again I really think this was due to it being the preview event but it was frustrating.
Character Models. What is it with MMOs not having enough character models. There are a limited number of character models avalialbe so you may be seeing alot of yourself out there. If Phantasy Star online can add a size/weight slider and actual RGB settings for colour, why can't a game 10 years it's senior do it. It's better then say Final Fantasy for options, but still found it lacking. Plus clothing is determined by what armour you are wearing. I guess this is a D&D thing, but I miss the Ulitma Online and The Real, where you could buy a shirt and dye it to make it unique, and make your own outfit.
THE UGLY:
Lag. The lag could get horrible. Now this was a stress test so it's highly possible there were way more people playing in each server and each instance then there ever will be once the game launches, but I did have lag issues. Especially if I upped the graphics settings. I personally found once in a quest though I had no issue, though when Church and I did one he complained of bad lag.
Environmental interaction: okay this is true of most games especially mmos. Way too much of the stuff around is just scenery that you can't interact with. It's just dumb that I go to a Tavern filled with empty tables and I have to sit on the floor because the chairs don't actually exist (well they do in a way I can stand on them), but not as a unique item in the background. Also in the same vein, due to the action based system you get way too many people bouncing around and climing and juming everywhere. Sitting in a tavern you will see people standing on npcs, climbing the walls, floating over barrels, etc. It's very very silly looking and detracts from the feel of the game. There were also a lot of object interaction issues. For example I killed a golem near a pillar, when he fell he fell toward the pillar and because of this he floated about 4 feet of the ground half in the pillar when he finally fell. I found myself standing on air instead of a barrel I jumped on, I watched people sit through tables, etc. This is a common thing with 3d games but still, this is supposed to be 'next gen'
OVERALL
At this point it's kinda funny. While playing it last night I was thinking this is pretty cool, but not sure if it would be my mmo of choice if I could only afford one. Now the next day all I want is to play it some more. Noting down the good and bads really made me think about it more and I think I am leaning more towards giving this one a real go.
A great adaptation of a pen and paper rpg to an online game. Due to trying to be a p&p game if feels very different from other mmorpgs. It's plays and feels like D&D which is a great thing. There are a ton of cool things and a few issues. If you don't mind action based combat, keyboard controlls in an action game, a confusing control and shortcut system (that can be learned in time), instance based questing, fetch quests, puzzles and riddles, then you will probably enjoy this one.
If there is another preview or an open beta I strongly suggest trying this out. If not due to the ability to make multiple characters I suggest you find someone who has the game and ask them to let you make a character to play around with to see if you like it.
I think this game could really shine if you played it like you would D&D. If you got a group of friends and all logged in and formed a party then went looking for adventure. The game is designed specifically for that style of play and I think it does a great job of it. If I know people are willing to do that, I may just pick this up myself when it's out.
Lastly: I apologize for the length. I just wanted to make sure I summarized this well as so many people have been asking me about it since I signed up for the beta and so many people here are D&D fans.
Quickly: not like MMOs I have played, felt very much like D&D, had some issues, yet had some fun and wish I was playing now.
Summary: DDO attempts to re-create the feel of tabeltop pen and paper D&D in a MMORPG. To this end there are a lot of things that make this different from other MMOs out there. The game is set in D&D's newest setting Ebberon, and fully utilizes the 3.5 edition rules. You make a character, start off in a newbie town and learn the ropes. From there you move to the giant town of Stormreach. After a bunch of city adventures you move out into the world. Most of the 3.5 classes are there (Monk was a notable exception) and the Ebberon races are featured. This includes the Warforged, characters that are magic constucts like Golems. The game is action based way more then turn based, with real time combat, actually having to sneak around, jumping and swimming. You can of course make a party. All parts of the games are instanced, which means quests exist only for your party and no one elese can 'steal the treasure, or the mob' from under you.
THE GOOD:
The graphics are awesome. They have created a great looking world filled with wonderful sites (and I only saw the first city and the port section of the main town). The monsters look good, the pcs look good. It just looks good, even when on the lowest settings (see the bad).
This is D&D 3.5. You can even see the die rolls when you do things (skill checks, attacks, saving throws, etc). The races are familiar, the classes, the class abilities, the spells. If you know D&D you know most of this. The game feels like you are playing a game of D&D. There is no ever present ever changing world that goes on with or without you, things happen because characters go on quests (I think guild wars is like this as well). You make a party, find an npc that needs help, go to the dungeon and your own instance of that dungeon shows up. Before you go you get to see the potential xp award, the level of the dungeon, and any optional rewards. Once in you get a nice quest tracker pop up that keeps track of things you need to do and new optional quests (eg: (optional) Kill all Kobalds in the sewers, 9 left). Once completed your task in the dungeon you can immediately use a retun button to show up at the start (no backtracking).
The Xp system is well done. You get 0 xp specifically just for killing things. There is no 'bunny field' where you start off killing small things for hours. You get xp by doing quests. Each quest has three levels normal, difficult and hard. Each is worth a certain amount of xp, and you get bonus for being lower level then the quest, for doing it the first time, for completing optional parts etc. One cool one I noticed is when Church and I played last night, we completed a quest and we got bonus xp for all kinds of things. We got 20% more exp for being observant as my theif found 2 secret doors, we got another bonus for destroying objects (crates, barrels, etc). This also didn't have the level treadmill feel at all. As you move on you find more quests appropriate to your level and thus worth more xp. I was able to get the first advance fairly quickly and was nearly at my second by the time I quit in one nights play. I am sure it will slow down but due to the quest system I you never have to 'kill bunnies' for hours. They also did something interesting to add longevity. As D&D only has 20 levels (without epic, which they say is coming in an expanion way later), they made it so that you get 4 parts to each level. So I am a level 1 thief with 1 focus. Once at 4 focus I will be a level 2 thief with no focus. When you hit the focus point you get part of what would would get for the next level. At focus one I got a feat. At another focus I would get the improved saves perhaps. As I haven't gotten past focus 1 I can't really tell you exactly how it works, but what it means is really there are 80 advancements to get.
Another thing that will add logevity to the game is there was no limit to characters I could create (that I found) and I could switch between them. This means that if you get sick of your current char, make a new one. I know other newer mmo's (guild wars) has this but many of the traditional ones have you stuck with the same character forever (even FF where you can switch jobs, I will always be an Elvaan named Gilvan).
The GM rocks. Okay you wouldn't think you would need this in a modern game with good graphics but the first time I got a voiceover that said "You enter the damp corridor, a grizled halfling stands before you staring at you disaprovingly" I litterally said out loud "That's Awesome!" This gives the game such a D&D feel. Walking up to a door you get "You hear faint sounds of talking on the other side of the door, it doesn't sound human", or in the sewers getting "The scent of the wastes of Stormreach assault your senses" was just too cool. The GM also comes up when you make a skill check like spot. You will get "SPOT: you feel a slight breeze coming from the direction of the wall to your left" or "LISTEN: you hear a faint scrapping sound further down the corridor".
The quests themselves feel like D&D quests. It felt like a D&D session. You talk to the barkeep and he asks you to get a barrel of ale from the basement in exchange for a meal. While down there you find a Kobald a strange door you can't open and an evil artifact. This leads to part two where you go down to vanquish the evil. Eventually find out it's not just cobalds but an evil cleric of some demon god with an alter. All the time also looking for a lost necklace for one of the bar wenches. Another quest Church and I did had us searching for a Healing Salve Cask in the sewers of the city. There were traps galore (spreying sewage that caused poision), blade traps and more. All could be disabled if you found the right secret pannel (and make your diable devices roll, which I did not ) or secret door. The dungeon ended with a Warforged poised to attack if we didn't answer his riddle. Which was a traditional D&D style. "What starts with my rage, ends with your death, and is the begining of the end." or something like that. I actually figured it out which for some reason brought me way too much joy (I was dancing in the game).
The one thing I loved is they expanded the instance system to include public areas. This means that if a particular tavern ends up with too many players in it it will spawn another instance, and all new players entering end up in that one. Switching between them is though a simple drop down. I found this great as when I was looking for group I would switch to the first instance (with the most people in it) and when soloing I would switch to the last (litterally was in an inn with maybe 100 people, switched to last and there were 3, much easier to walk around and chat up the locals).
Death: this is done well. A common gamebreaker for MMORPGS, I like what they did. If you die you turn into a soulstone. You then can choose to get resurected in town (when you meet a cleric you can set your resurection point) which exits the current quest and puts you back in town (with some xp penalty, though it was 0 for lvl 1 so I don't know how bad it is, an no loss of CON like the rpg). Instead a high level cleric can Raise Dead you, as expected. Here is the third option that I really like. A party member can pick up the stone. Throughout the dungeons there will be a pillar with a red flame marker on it. You can use these to resurect a character from a soul stone. I love the concept of the party trying to 'carry the body' until they can get it raised. Plus I love that if the party isn't wiped out and you don't have a high level cleric there is a change you could still be brought back without failing the quest.
That reminds me of another good. You can quit quests at any time. You don't get the xp but you keep any items you found. This is excellent for when the phone rings, or something comes up when you have to quit pronto. You are never locked in to playing.
THE BAD:
Graphics Requirements: okay I have a new pc. It's a 3.0gh, I have 512 Ram and a Radeon 9700 pro. I ran the auto detect graphic settings and it recommeneded the lowest possible. Geesh! Maybe they made them that damn good so that in 3 years when there is a PC out that can actually run at the full settings the game won't look out dated. I did put everything to max level and you could play the game, if you didn't mind horrible lag and skippy graphics, but it was great to see. Actually a recommendation for the game I will make: first time in an area bump up everything to full and use mouse look to look around... then jump back to the lowest setting to play.
The controlls. Okay I have been out of PC gaming due to my old system for like 5 years or so (since The Sims 1) and I am just not used to WASD for controlls. Combat is real time and lacking good keyboard co-ordination really hindered me. Sure this is something you can get used to but man was it hard at first. The quick menu bar at the bottom doesn't hold enough. Even a first level D&D character has a wide range of skills and feats and usable items and you just don't seem to get enough slots for all that you might need. This actually didn't bug me as much once I got more into it as I would just prep the bar before entering a quest with the skills etc most useful for that quest.
It's action based. This means there is swimming, jumping, climbing running etc. The game actually reminded me a lot of Tomb Raider in a couple parts as the controlls were a bit similar. I am not a fan of any game with a jump button as that usually means bottomless pits and high frustration. The combat was difficult as the monsters jumped around all over and attempted to flank and I had a hard enough time just trying to block when needed and attack when not blocking let alone dodge, tumble and flank. This is probably something that you would get better at though. I died twice against kobolds as a lvl 1 thief, which didn't seem right.
Finding a party: okay I have a feeling this is only because it was the stress test and everyone was playing the game for the first time, but finding someone who was willing to party was hard. It's D&D, it's a party game more then any other MMO... if anything says you need a balanced party D&D is it, then why aren't people partying? Again I really think this was due to it being the preview event but it was frustrating.
Character Models. What is it with MMOs not having enough character models. There are a limited number of character models avalialbe so you may be seeing alot of yourself out there. If Phantasy Star online can add a size/weight slider and actual RGB settings for colour, why can't a game 10 years it's senior do it. It's better then say Final Fantasy for options, but still found it lacking. Plus clothing is determined by what armour you are wearing. I guess this is a D&D thing, but I miss the Ulitma Online and The Real, where you could buy a shirt and dye it to make it unique, and make your own outfit.
THE UGLY:
Lag. The lag could get horrible. Now this was a stress test so it's highly possible there were way more people playing in each server and each instance then there ever will be once the game launches, but I did have lag issues. Especially if I upped the graphics settings. I personally found once in a quest though I had no issue, though when Church and I did one he complained of bad lag.
Environmental interaction: okay this is true of most games especially mmos. Way too much of the stuff around is just scenery that you can't interact with. It's just dumb that I go to a Tavern filled with empty tables and I have to sit on the floor because the chairs don't actually exist (well they do in a way I can stand on them), but not as a unique item in the background. Also in the same vein, due to the action based system you get way too many people bouncing around and climing and juming everywhere. Sitting in a tavern you will see people standing on npcs, climbing the walls, floating over barrels, etc. It's very very silly looking and detracts from the feel of the game. There were also a lot of object interaction issues. For example I killed a golem near a pillar, when he fell he fell toward the pillar and because of this he floated about 4 feet of the ground half in the pillar when he finally fell. I found myself standing on air instead of a barrel I jumped on, I watched people sit through tables, etc. This is a common thing with 3d games but still, this is supposed to be 'next gen'
OVERALL
At this point it's kinda funny. While playing it last night I was thinking this is pretty cool, but not sure if it would be my mmo of choice if I could only afford one. Now the next day all I want is to play it some more. Noting down the good and bads really made me think about it more and I think I am leaning more towards giving this one a real go.
A great adaptation of a pen and paper rpg to an online game. Due to trying to be a p&p game if feels very different from other mmorpgs. It's plays and feels like D&D which is a great thing. There are a ton of cool things and a few issues. If you don't mind action based combat, keyboard controlls in an action game, a confusing control and shortcut system (that can be learned in time), instance based questing, fetch quests, puzzles and riddles, then you will probably enjoy this one.
If there is another preview or an open beta I strongly suggest trying this out. If not due to the ability to make multiple characters I suggest you find someone who has the game and ask them to let you make a character to play around with to see if you like it.
I think this game could really shine if you played it like you would D&D. If you got a group of friends and all logged in and formed a party then went looking for adventure. The game is designed specifically for that style of play and I think it does a great job of it. If I know people are willing to do that, I may just pick this up myself when it's out.
Lastly: I apologize for the length. I just wanted to make sure I summarized this well as so many people have been asking me about it since I signed up for the beta and so many people here are D&D fans.