Comments on: Dungeons and Dragons Online: An Early Look http://www.aelon.net/2006/01/dungeons-and-dragons-online-an-early-look/ Random babblings from a few digitally inclined people Thu, 21 Aug 2008 00:12:39 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.0.2 by: Holliday http://www.aelon.net/2006/01/dungeons-and-dragons-online-an-early-look/#comment-1710 Wed, 25 Jan 2006 16:50:51 +0000 http://www.aelon.net/2006/01/dungeons-and-dragons-online-an-early-look/#comment-1710 I can't believe they would take the first part of the D&D name so literally. I have a personal gripe with dungeons, I hate'em. In any RPG when I end up in a dungeon my interest really starts waning. Dungeons are quite possibly the most boring titleset available for an RPG. Stone walls, spider webs, some coffins and what not, just blah, meh, vanilla. I want goregous forests, magical coasts and hell, why not the heavens? With a lore so rich as D&D why can't we go to the underdark? Or one of those astral planes? If you can't guess I too played the D&DO:S beta. I didn't even use up the full 3 days. It has nothing to "grip" you. Most MMORPGs, even pedestrian knock-offs, can suck you in for about 10 hours in the beginning. From Lineage II to junk like Savage Eden the first couple levels should always be easy to nail. A whole world to explore, pretty stuff to look at, combat or questing that is not yet repetitive. DDO has none of that. The world is muddled, brown and gray. All of the armor looks very lame and often cuts into the character's hair/face. The weapons are uninspired, and all the characters (minus warforged) are very boring looking. I've never seen such unnattractive elves. DDO has come up with some really cool novelties and put them in a very tame and uninteresting MMO. The Warforged race has a neat history that works into gameplay. Being half living and half machine you cannot fully heal them with cure spells. You need "repair" spells or kits. Also the combat just screams for some PvP since you have an active hand in blocking, dodging and attacking. I would have actually prefered if they took those things alone and plopped them into a WoW-ripoff kind of world. The idea of many instances could still work if they were actually interesting instances. Say, I dunno, not a dungeon? Wouldn't it be pretty badass to take a group of rogues on a rooftop heist kind of quest? Instead of some dank and dull dungeon the instance is a whole section of the city. Complete with some drunk NPCs wandering about the streets at night (whats up with everything being an enemy in an instance?). Some guards too that you would have to avoid. You could crawl along the rooftops in shadow dispatching guards of an estate and break in to steal something for yourself or a client (quest). Guild Wars did a decent job of "faking" a huge world. There were towns occupied by NPCs in their instances, huge expanses of land filled with life and what not. DDO really just feels like a hub with a bunch of doors leading to another boring collage of brown and gray. And in all the MMO betas i've played I am pretty certain things will not improve. I can’t believe they would take the first part of the D&D name so literally. I have a personal gripe with dungeons, I hate’em. In any RPG when I end up in a dungeon my interest really starts waning. Dungeons are quite possibly the most boring titleset available for an RPG. Stone walls, spider webs, some coffins and what not, just blah, meh, vanilla. I want goregous forests, magical coasts and hell, why not the heavens? With a lore so rich as D&D why can’t we go to the underdark? Or one of those astral planes?

If you can’t guess I too played the D&DO:S beta. I didn’t even use up the full 3 days. It has nothing to “grip” you. Most MMORPGs, even pedestrian knock-offs, can suck you in for about 10 hours in the beginning. From Lineage II to junk like Savage Eden the first couple levels should always be easy to nail. A whole world to explore, pretty stuff to look at, combat or questing that is not yet repetitive. DDO has none of that. The world is muddled, brown and gray. All of the armor looks very lame and often cuts into the character’s hair/face. The weapons are uninspired, and all the characters (minus warforged) are very boring looking. I’ve never seen such unnattractive elves.

DDO has come up with some really cool novelties and put them in a very tame and uninteresting MMO. The Warforged race has a neat history that works into gameplay. Being half living and half machine you cannot fully heal them with cure spells. You need “repair” spells or kits. Also the combat just screams for some PvP since you have an active hand in blocking, dodging and attacking. I would have actually prefered if they took those things alone and plopped them into a WoW-ripoff kind of world.

The idea of many instances could still work if they were actually interesting instances. Say, I dunno, not a dungeon? Wouldn’t it be pretty badass to take a group of rogues on a rooftop heist kind of quest? Instead of some dank and dull dungeon the instance is a whole section of the city. Complete with some drunk NPCs wandering about the streets at night (whats up with everything being an enemy in an instance?). Some guards too that you would have to avoid. You could crawl along the rooftops in shadow dispatching guards of an estate and break in to steal something for yourself or a client (quest).

Guild Wars did a decent job of “faking” a huge world. There were towns occupied by NPCs in their instances, huge expanses of land filled with life and what not. DDO really just feels like a hub with a bunch of doors leading to another boring collage of brown and gray. And in all the MMO betas i’ve played I am pretty certain things will not improve.

]]> by: Kelmon http://www.aelon.net/2006/01/dungeons-and-dragons-online-an-early-look/#comment-1702 Tue, 24 Jan 2006 07:06:42 +0000 http://www.aelon.net/2006/01/dungeons-and-dragons-online-an-early-look/#comment-1702 From what I understand, Worlds of Warcraft has really thrown down the gauntlet (Gauntlet Online?) to the MMORPG industry and it's a game that I really want to play. In contrast, D&D Online isn't something that I've either read about or have that much interest in playing because I've not had much invested into (A)D&D over the years. When the computer is replaced this year WoW will be bought with it but I doubt that D&D Online, assuming that a Mac-client was made, would be. It all seems a bit generic... From what I understand, Worlds of Warcraft has really thrown down the gauntlet (Gauntlet Online?) to the MMORPG industry and it’s a game that I really want to play. In contrast, D&D Online isn’t something that I’ve either read about or have that much interest in playing because I’ve not had much invested into (A)D&D over the years.

When the computer is replaced this year WoW will be bought with it but I doubt that D&D Online, assuming that a Mac-client was made, would be. It all seems a bit generic…

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