General Discussion

Nice! Ive been waiting for this , thanks.

Looks promising.  The D&D brand name will be enough to make me at least try it.  Now that WoW has introduced hundreds of thousands of new players to the MMOPRPG world, good brand recognition games like this have a chance as WoW players start looking for new adventures in new games.

If the gameplay is up to par with the graphics, it should be a very fun time indeed.

This looks to be one of the best MMO-style games coming our way.  The graphics, the history, the gameplay, the DM narrative...   It's all falling into place.

Keep in mind that this isn't PnP D&D.  Not at all.  It borrows heavily from it, but it will never be like having a virtual card table (insert your /pizza jokes here) with someone constantly bugging to use your bathroom and pencil sharpener.  For some, this is a good thing.

Spells are currently slated to be used with mana and will likely not include friendly fire (FF).  Fighting is fast and furious, though there will be time to be proactive and reactive - if you have good hand-eye coordination.  If you don't; don't sweat it.  The game will be just as playable as EQ for you stand-and-die types.

Aside from all that, I've heard those who have had their hands on the game say that it FEELS like D&D.  Whether they were talking about those horrid console games or PC CRPGs or PnP, I cannot say.

Walk in expecting nothing and walk away amazed.  It's the only way to enjoy anything anymore.  Check your cynicism and unreal expectations at the door.

This article dampens my enthusiasm. Eberron? I haven't bought any D&D stuff since WotC bought TSR, and I never heard of it. It sounds kind of lame. It seems like the author is bending over backwards to justify this choice, as opposed to choosing a world that is very popular, like Greyhawk or Planescape.

Puzzles to wipe out monsters? Find the red card and the green card to open the door; play the musical notes in the right sequence to lower the bridge sort of puzzles? What is this, Myst?

Endless instanced dungeon crawls don't sound too exciting to me either. I was always a player that liked to travel, find adventures in odd places on the road or on the seas. Maybe I didn't read it right, but the article makes it seem like there will just be a couple big cities, where avatars hang out in bars, talk, trade, and find groups, and then warp to a dungeon instantaneously. Where will a wizard build his tower and a cavalier his castle?

My one concern before this was the lack of a DM. All of the D&D computer games and rip-offs have always lacked that one vital element, the DM. Neverwinter Nights at least tried to come up with something, with user-designed and submitted adventures. But some random white text that is supposed to represent "Mythical Dungeonmaster"? That sounds kind of weak. Just some generic, unspecific and non-responsive gabble. How cool would it have been to have individuals designing adventures? Better yet, controlling them, to a degree, while a party was running through it in realtime? Oh well, one day.

To sum up, this preview has really turned me off. I'm not bashing the writer, though he/she does sound like a shill for Turbine saying All Will Be Well, but none of the design decisions appeal to me. Too bad.

While i realize what turbine is doing here and what they want to accomplish with this game.  There are still factor's that in my opinion will hold the game back in a way. One being the fact that you only gain experience by questing.  Response anybody familiar with mmorpg's knows that most quest take time, this being half the fun of them, but at the same time a lvl 1 questing with say a lvl 25 kinda takes away from it since both players are getting same xp even with the huge lvl diffrence.  Second being that they are going to limit the amount of players to what roughly 1000.  If this game is going to popular and takes off like they want it to they are going to need a bigger server to allow for more players, because if you release a game country wide odds are more then a 1000 people are going to want to play it.  While this may drop on their lag and other resources for the game, some sacrifices are more important.  I am not bringing this game down i have been playing paper D&D for almost 17 yrs now and have played a variety of online mmorpg's that have come out.  Of them all i have stayed tried and true with Everquest,  I wasn't impressed with everquest 2 at all, I have about 3 yrs now on everquest and the game has definitly raised the bar on what i expect out of mmorpg's. Yes i agree the name itself of D&D will bring alot of old timers to the mmorpg world and hopefully alot of new, so hope to see you all there old and new alike. 

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Originally posted by coyotetoad2u

While i realize what turbine is doing here and what they want to accomplish with this game.  There are still factor's that in my opinion will hold the game back in a way. One being the fact that you only gain experience by questing.  Response anybody familiar with mmorpg's knows that most quest take time, this being half the fun of them, but at the same time a lvl 1 questing with say a lvl 25 kinda takes away from it since both players are getting same xp even with the huge lvl diffrence.  Second being that they are going to limit the amount of players to what roughly 1000.  If this game is going to popular and takes off like they want it to they are going to need a bigger server to allow for more players, because if you release a game country wide odds are more then a 1000 people are going to want to play it.  While this may drop on their lag and other resources for the game, some sacrifices are more important.  I am not bringing this game down i have been playing paper D&D for almost 17 yrs now and have played a variety of online mmorpg's that have come out.  Of them all i have stayed tried and true with Everquest,  I wasn't impressed with everquest 2 at all, I have about 3 yrs now on everquest and the game has definitly raised the bar on what i expect out of mmorpg's. Yes i agree the name itself of D&D will bring alot of old timers to the mmorpg world and hopefully alot of new, so hope to see you all there old and new alike. 

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Thank you for the preview!

   I love the whole adaptation of skill checks, such as "you hear a noice" that are not just simply scripted but actual D&D style gaming. I do however wish that they would have added mounts just for the RP perspective. Please the Paladins out there who probably have a horse in their campains. But, rather have the fun gameplay that D&D Online is promising than a digital horse