I tell you what, I logged into wow the other day and got with some friends to do a Quest for my druid in sunken temple. It took us nearly 45 minutes to get everyone to the zone then another 15 minutes to get ready. Last night I logged into DDO with a buddy of mine and we started up a group and ran the Shan-To-Kor quest line. It took less than 15 minutes to get a group together and meet up at the door. One of the things I like about Wow is running instances. The DDO quests are like running instances all the time. It doesn't take long to get from point A to point B. Granted when I get on a bird in Wow to fly 15 minutes from one side of the continent to the other, that gives me time to go to the restroom and get something to drink and snack on. But it gets to a point that what I really enjoy is running instances... and that is what DDO really is...one big instance. So I will give it a good showing and see what comes of it..

Indeed it does do that, but I have found times where I can not get a party together for the life of me sat around waiting to do something. No parties where looking and no one was wanting to join one. And Solo in DnD is lame at best. On WoW you can still go grinding solo, not the most fun but at least you can still advance your character slowly. It’s swings and roundabouts I've been able to get an instance going in WoW very quickly if your part of a good guild with like minded individuals and a large allies/friends list. 

I tent to rate games here on there over all MMORPG'ness and I feel DnD falls short on some key area's as I've said in other similar themed threats.  At the end of the day it’s what you want from a game and DnD is great for a group of mates to causally have some fun.  But I want more than just instance from a game and this is where DnD falls short for me.  It’s not as immersive as other MMORPG's on the market. My recent review cover’s my take on DnD much more in depth. 

I first started playing DDO back when it first came out, and my chief complaint was..."were the hell are the grinding spots??"

Well they have those now...there are outdoor areas you can go to and some indoor areas that allow you to rack up kills and find rares and find certain locations... Now I know that is nothing compared to what wow offers but in the end my need for grinding spots dwindled fast...and I finally realized what I was looking for in a game. So to DDO I go. The sad thing is tho....I still keep my Wow account active, Just in case.

It is all about what you want from a MMO, I happen not to enjoy tromping through randomly spawned generic scenery in the hope of finding a certain type of mob to kill, or a named mob.

I like the DDO quests because they are different, not just mass produced content and they play differently depending on the group you are in.

I love the soloing in DDO, and I don't mean the solo level setting, that's a joke. I mean real soloing, taking on an elite quest alone, a real challenge and adrenaline rush.

But deep down what I really like about DDO is the physics engine, I love the way projectiles actually track through space, so if a mob or player moves in to its path the collision detection fires, no lame line of sight on trigger and lets ignore the fact the projectile moves through scenery or becomes strangely homing. I also love the freedom of movement, climbing, jumping, ledge grabbing.

To be honest I am so addicted to the Turbine engine, I hope deep down they decide to use it in its full glory (not simplified LOTRO style) for other MMO genres.

DDO is better than WoW but as the pop drops its getting harder and harder to party. Definitely max out the free trial to understand what I'm saying

I guess the real interesting thing will be what 4.0 in the pen and paper world bring to the MMO world, If anything. I have not done any real research into it, but maybe someone else has that can spawn an answer.

Originally posted by farok

I guess the real interesting thing will be what 4.0 in the pen and paper world bring to the MMO world, If anything. I have not done any real research into it, but maybe someone else has that can spawn an answer.

From what I have read it is basically a simplification of the rules to make them easier to use in tabletop D&D, including a lot of skill reduction (plus a few urban type skills), class homogenisation (including removing Bards).

There was the odd interesting change, but to be honest looked like change for the sake of change to me, and in the wrong direction. Can't understand why we have to dumb everything down all the time, how about trying to make people use their brains more.

AHHHHH it hereisy!!! evil and dam right evil.  Sorry when will they stop trying to make RPG's more simple! If you don't have the brains to understand d20 system as it stands now then you'll never get role play. Leave Cow boy and Indians for the dumb and leave d20 and other systems for us bright individuals! 

That a side can someone tell me why the spell checker here never works? Being dyslexic means it an invaluable tool for me.

Originally posted by madjimbob

AHHHHH it hereisy!!! evil and dam right evil.  Sorry when will they stop trying to make RPG's more simple! If you don't have the brains to understand d20 system as it stands now then you'll never get role play. Leave Cow boy and Indians for the dumb and leave d20 and other systems for us bright individuals! 

That a side can someone tell me why the spell checker here never works? Being dyslexic means it an invaluable tool for me.

Heresy, hardly I don't play D&D so don't really give a damn it they change the rules. I do hope they don't change DDO, because I feel it is a step backwards.

However they are clearly being changed so that people will buy lots of new books, and so that they can sell more minatures. An improvement hardly, accept to maybe their bank balance.

By the way bit of a chip you have on your shoulder there.

   I have to say that the combat and movement system in DDO was one of the best I have ever played.  The few problems I had with the game are the ones I think caused most of thier problems. trouble finding groups and the feel of it being a small world, Yes I know Instances and all but it had that small feeling and when I played there was no open area to just grind away time while waiting for a group. As said before hanging on ledges and the combat was great both melee and ranged. To bad it is not in a much larger feeling of a world.

Oh please the movement system is so flawed! It's got some great ideas, like the rolls etc. but half the time people float about like Michael Jackson on helium "Shmown M'ther F***er Heee heee!" Whats with the Giant at the end of STK? I mean what is he doing braking wind, jumping, trying to levitate?! How the hell can you say thew movement system is good when it glitches 1/2 the time.  The leg animation is almost never in sink with the movement speed of the characters, it's all glitched to hell.

Now you might be thinking I'm using some old P3 with dial up living in northern wastes of Russia or something using 56K dial up. I can assure you thats not the case I always keep my graphics settings down on MMORPG's and I'm using a VAIO Sony laptop barley 6 months old.  2.8 Gig Duo Centrino 2Gigs of DDR, GForce 8400GT 256mb graphics card.  It's a bloody fast laptop faster than most of my mates desktops. This was always an issue to even when I was playing when it came out on my old AMD Athalon XP desktop.

Sorry not trying to have a dig at you but I can't for the life of me see that as the greatest thing about DDO. DDO was a great idea but the end result just wasn't up to the competition, except in one area grathics...untill they started to move. This game is nothing new or ground bracking or anything really to make it stand out from all the other compertion.

Originally posted by madjimbob:

"2.8 Gig Duo Centrino 2Gigs of DDR, GForce 8400GT 256mb graphics card. It's a bloody fast laptop faster than most of my mates desktops."

Your mates have slower than 8400GT cards? Ouch.

Sure sometimes monsters have pathing problems, but I'd bet the movement being talked about is mainly player movement. MMOs generally don't have that kind of freedom. You can see the giant about to swing and then tumble out of the way to avoid it. You can't do that in WoW or whatever else. You sort of can, but it's not the same. DDO is like a third-person shooter.

In other MMOs, when people talk about kiting a monster around, they usually don't mean doing it in DDO fashion where you have Jump and Haste on you. Can you even jump in Guild Wars yet without typing /jump? In DDO I can dodge a fireball!

You can still get the odd floating mob, but they tweaked the AI so that if you block its path it will trigger in to attacking the wall rather than trying to climb over it. Personally I would have give them a jump so that they could just climb or jump over shield walls.

Always room to improve AI, but I have seen a lot worse. Pulling individual mobs out of a pack for instance or whole spawns ignoring each other being attacked.

As for movement yes that is very attractive, jumping, swimming, edge catching and being able to go where you want is great fun. Although the quests that involve tombraider style play such as 'The Pit' or swimming/flying around spiked walls, tend to draw love and hate in equal measure.

overall i though it was a pretty good game. something i could play fairly casually. the tendency for the groups i joined to rush the low level dungeons would be fine if i was just after the xp grind, which i am not. i know if i put the effort in i could have found people that were not just leveling up.

the gameplay was quite good from what i saw.

although there were a few issues i had with soloing with stealth, that there was pretty linear dungeons, no alternative routes to find if you did spot the secret doors they only lead to another encounter. along the linear route through the dungeon, if you opened a door you lost your stealth, not exactly unrelistic, but with no alternative routes findable by exploration you generally had to bash your way through.

unfortionately the European distribution has put me off along with the underlying expence. I am wary of the pay as you go models of games, and i found it difficult to actually sort out how much my subscription would cost. none of the e-mail regarding the trial even mentioned the fees. Also as i am in Switzerland, i am not in the EU. this means that for eve-online i can pay for my subscription in US$ not euros so that is much cheaper. Can you buy larger blocks of time for cheaper amounts? Also is there a download version of the game? i couldn't easily find out.

so basically the effort of working out how much and where from put enough of a barrier in the way so that i won't buy into the game.

as a different example, i had no difficult finding out these details for WoW or for Tabula Rasa. To me they are the primary consideration, i do not spend my money unless i know how much and what i get.

thanks for the help.

EU is all through Codemasters so you get a central account for all their managed games.

https://cogaccounts.codemasters.com/

Originally posted by madjimbob

Oh please the movement system is so flawed! It's got some great ideas, like the rolls etc. but half the time people float about like Michael Jackson on helium "Shmown M'ther F***er Heee heee!" Whats with the Giant at the end of STK? I mean what is he doing braking wind, jumping, trying to levitate?! How the hell can you say thew movement system is good when it glitches 1/2 the time.  The leg animation is almost never in sink with the movement speed of the characters, it's all glitched to hell.

Now you might be thinking I'm using some old P3 with dial up living in northern wastes of Russia or something using 56K dial up. I can assure you thats not the case I always keep my graphics settings down on MMORPG's and I'm using a VAIO Sony laptop barley 6 months old.  2.8 Gig Duo Centrino 2Gigs of DDR, GForce 8400GT 256mb graphics card.  It's a bloody fast laptop faster than most of my mates desktops. This was always an issue to even when I was playing when it came out on my old AMD Athalon XP desktop.

Sorry not trying to have a dig at you but I can't for the life of me see that as the greatest thing about DDO. DDO was a great idea but the end result just wasn't up to the competition, except in one area grathics...untill they started to move. This game is nothing new or ground bracking or anything really to make it stand out from all the other compertion.

The issues you describe sound very specific to your graphical capabilities, or incapabilities.  That "video card" isn't something I'd label for modern gaming; gpu 460mhz, ram 400/800mhz effective.  My old ATI x850pro AGP was pretty good yet I couldn't play with full graphics and my ti4200 128mb was barely enough to run DDO at low settings - now using an HIS x1950pro 512mb (ddr3) AGP and I only turn off shawdows when I', running around outdoor areas to help with hitching I occasionaly experiance since I'm still using a P4 2.8 prescott.    :D

There are settings which will increase the looks and fell of the game while resolving the twitchy animations you're experiancing the make it look like characters are moving out of step; they look like walking scissors snapping about and sliding around?

The Construct at the end of STK does act a little funky.  It will move too close to the party members and actually step on them - luckliy you're not taking damage from that!  There's an acceptable trade off and this is something that's VERY rare in the sense that you'll spend an hour or two running the quest to encounter a single mob at the end who's movement seems a little "odd". Seriosuly, not all the mobs through all encounters are doing this - it's an AI issue?

Regardless, you're likely to benefit from tweaking the settings on DDO's graphics to enhance the performance of your laptop.  I'm not at the client and can't give a step-by-step walkthrough so you'll have to experiment.  Starters, turn OFF all video processing effects (ie, bloom) turn down ALL textures to low. Make sure ALL shawdow effects are off.  There will be an option to sync movement, you'll want this the highest. 

Thankfully you can find a broad range of settings for DDO which will perform well on most desktops and many laptops.  Problem is, default isn't always best and the average user has their settings way too high for adequet performance. 

Bottom line, it's easy for us to expect the best, perforamance wise, from a shinny new machine and it frequently causes us to go to the graphical settings and CRANK IT UP!!1  ;)

p.s. try adjusting your graphics.  You'll get a lot better performance. 

Originally posted by nurgles

overall i though it was a pretty good game. something i could play fairly casually. the tendency for the groups i joined to rush the low level dungeons would be fine if i was just after the xp grind, which i am not. i know if i put the effort in i could have found people that were not just leveling up.

the gameplay was quite good from what i saw.

although there were a few issues i had with soloing with stealth, that there was pretty linear dungeons, no alternative routes to find if you did spot the secret doors they only lead to another encounter. along the linear route through the dungeon, if you opened a door you lost your stealth, not exactly unrelistic, but with no alternative routes findable by exploration you generally had to bash your way through.

unfortionately the European distribution has put me off along with the underlying expence. I am wary of the pay as you go models of games, and i found it difficult to actually sort out how much my subscription would cost. none of the e-mail regarding the trial even mentioned the fees. Also as i am in Switzerland, i am not in the EU. this means that for eve-online i can pay for my subscription in US$ not euros so that is much cheaper. Can you buy larger blocks of time for cheaper amounts? Also is there a download version of the game? i couldn't easily find out.

so basically the effort of working out how much and where from put enough of a barrier in the way so that i won't buy into the game.

as a different example, i had no difficult finding out these details for WoW or for Tabula Rasa. To me they are the primary consideration, i do not spend my money unless i know how much and what i get.

thanks for the help.

Just in regards to the stealth. Stealth is very very difficult to master, it is possible to open doors without getting spotted but it takes patience/good timing/skill/luck. The direction a mob is faces is used to help determine if it spots you and the longer you are in front of it the greater the bonus it gets to it's spot skill to find you. It is ectreamly difficult to solo using stealth alone. We used to be able to open door/use switches/levers ect. while stealth they changed it, apparently the ability to do solo loot runs is to be the possesion of Arcane casters & Clerics only :(

Originally posted by mindspat

 

Originally posted by madjimbob

Oh please the movement system is so flawed! It's got some great ideas, like the rolls etc. but half the time people float about like Michael Jackson on helium "Shmown M'ther F***er Heee heee!" Whats with the Giant at the end of STK? I mean what is he doing braking wind, jumping, trying to levitate?! How the hell can you say thew movement system is good when it glitches 1/2 the time.  The leg animation is almost never in sink with the movement speed of the characters, it's all glitched to hell.

The issues you describe sound very specific to your graphical capabilities, or incapabilities.  That "video card" isn't something I'd label for modern gaming; gpu 460mhz, ram 400/800mhz effective.  My old ATI x850pro AGP was pretty good yet I couldn't play with full graphics and my ti4200 128mb was barely enough to run DDO at low settings - now using an HIS x1950pro 512mb (ddr3) AGP and I only turn off shawdows when I', running around outdoor areas to help with hitching I occasionaly experiance since I'm still using a P4 2.8 prescott.    :D

Should have read OP a bit closer, but tone tends to make me skim posts. This sounds like an old problem with syncing to refresh rates and certain video card drivers.

Solution is make sure that AllowFakeFullScreen=False in the UserPreferences.ini file located in the My Documents\DDO folder and that in advanced graphics option 'Sync with refresh rate' is checked.

Originally posted by Splatzor

   I have to say that the combat and movement system in DDO was one of the best I have ever played.  The few problems I had with the game are the ones I think caused most of thier problems. trouble finding groups and the feel of it being a small world, Yes I know Instances and all but it had that small feeling and when I played there was no open area to just grind away time while waiting for a group. As said before hanging on ledges and the combat was great both melee and ranged. To bad it is not in a much larger feeling of a world.

The games that tries to cover the whole world, and then it takes 30 minutes to run from one end to another, are not realistic and feels artificial and plastic. DDo doesn't show the whole world, it shows a large town and hundreds of dungeons around. This game gives me the most realistic feeling of a large world that is present, and opening with every new update.