D&D Online

First of all, if you already have a good idea of what DDO is from a trial or owning the game, this review will not help you really. For the rest, hopefully it will shed some fresh light on what DDO is to a veteran player.

Setting the Stage

I am a 27 year old married gamer w/ a 6 yr old son. However, I am able to play on average of 3-5 hours a day w/o really neglecting my responsibilities or family. I know, I'm lucky. I've been playing MMORPGs since 2002 w/ the start of DAoC. I eventually started playing 2 MMORPGs at a time when I found out about SWG. I was devistated when SOE killed SWG and stopped playing DAoC when Catacombs started ruining group xp groups. Since then, I've played practically everything on the market. I've rearranged my values, likes and dislikes with games since then. Now, although I prefer a virtual world, skill-based sandbox game w/ FFA PvP, I am just as content playing a game w/ a good community that likes to group, where the adventuring is fun and character development is varied.

Previous Experience w/ DDO

I started playing DDO at pre-release. I got a character to level 5 when the max level was only 10. The launch was relatively smooth for me, with only 1 Raid adventure. My major gripes was that it wasn't an open world, you needed to repeat content a lot, and the game wasn't completely true to the 3.5E rulebook. I ended up quitting the game after the first month.

I returned to the game probably a year and a half later to check it out, but never got a good feal of the game, because I joined a perma-death guild and never made it past lvl 5 w/o dying. I got utterly bored with running the same 20 quests over and over again, due to my self inflicted perma-death style and quit at the end of that month.

DDO at Present Day

I just resubscribed about a month ago, when the new Module was released. Some of my opinion of this game will have carried over from my previous experiences with DDO.

Character creation is a blast. You can spend as little time as you want creating a character or you can spend literally hours creating your ideal character. The choice is yours, but in this game, you must choose semi-wisely.  You can modify your characters look, which isn't much, but the strength of DDO's character creation isn't in picking your look, it's in designing your class.

You have your choice of 9 classes and 5 races at the start of the game. After getting some favor w/ various factions, your choices of races increases by 1 w/ the Drow. After choosing a class, you can go with a default build or you can pick and choose where you want your attribute points, skill points, and which feats and spells you want to start out with.

While leveling up, you will be able to further inrease your attributes, skills, feats, and spells. You also can greatly improve your character through items, gear, and weapons.

After a great deal of work on increasing favor with the various factions, you can create a 32 point attribute character, which gives you a nice goal to work towards while playing the game naturally. This is an increase of 4 points from a standard character, which makes somewhat of a difference in-game and really makes multi-classing a lot easier.

Speaking of Multi-classing, you can pick up the 3 classes to be on your character. Be warned though, not all classes compliment each other, and multi-classing takes some skill with the character builder. However, the rewards for multi-classing can be many and it offers a multitude of ways to play the game.

The combat system is a 3rd person twitch system. It adds the ability to use tactics in the game, which is needed if you are to pass some of the more challenging quests. The AI in the game seems to react to your actions, so running a dungeon more than once offers a different experience.

The quests in the game vary, but you don't have your cookie cutter MMORPG standard quests in DDO. You have dungeons and open landscapes designed with plenty of twists and turns, traps, and surprises to keep you busy while you are on your quest to do whatever for whoever. The quests are set up with different lengths and difficulty and are designed for different levels of usually a full group. For example, you can take a lvl 5 Medium quest. This means you will need a full group of lvl 5 people, and the quest may take your around 30 min to complete. There are quests from 1 to I believe 18, and lengths ranging from Short to Very Long. There are a lot of single quests and quest chains. Every quest has a short to medium length story to set the stage.

I'd have to say that the quests are very entertaining and is one of the games strengths. Between being able to create a variety of character builds, having actual fun and challenging quests to do, and a good community to do the quests with, I haven't even though about ending my subscription this time. I barely even notice I am leveling when I do. Your concentration is on the quest when you are doing it, not the xp.

My initial complaints of having to repeat quests aren't much valid anymore. There are more quests than I know what to do with right now. At this rate, I am lvl 8 w/ quests ranging from lvl 4 and up that I havne't even done yet.

I will point out that if getting a 32 pt build is your goal, which a lot of people don't care about, you will have to repeat dungeons for favor. Drow is really easy to unlock w/o repeating dungeons and you will unlock it early in the game.

The game also has raids, which are designed for 12 people. The first raid is lvl 10 and there are many more raids after that. I did my first raid in DDO last weeked as a lvl 8 and we succeeded. The raids are very challenging, a lot of fun, and very rewarding in terms of xp and loot. It's a great way to spend a few hours. I'm doing a raid this weekend to kill a Dragon, that required me to complete 4 pre-requisite quests first, which sets the stage for the last 2 quests, which are designed for raids. I can't wait.

The community is mostly good. There aren't many servers anymore, only 4, so the smallish community compared to your mainstream games is concentrate into those 4 servers, which  makes you not even notice the total subscribers playing DDO. I rarely have trouble finding groups, and when I am having trouble, I can easily fix that by creating one of my own, which people join fairly quickly.

There are many roleplayers to group with and run things slow with if that is your thing. There are also many powergamers whose main goal is to conquer and destroy the games content as quickly and as efficiently as possible. You do have those that care which build your are and choose to roll with the most optimal builds for whicher roll, but there are also a lot of people who can careless as long as you can pull your own weight.

I pick up group a ton and I have only had one bad group this past month, and that was when I joined a group that ended up being some really young kids. The rest of my PUG's were all adults and varied on the gender of the players. Both men and women call this game home and you will have your fair share of both in your group. Mostly everyone is able to play well and is pretty patient and understanding. The playerbase is overall pretty mature.

My only gripes w/ DDO is that it doesn't include all of the races/classes that the setting offers, nor does it follow the rules for the feats and classes exactly. However, it isn't a gripe that is even close to game breaking. It also can be very complicated creating and building your characters. Depending on your class, and especially if you multi-class, you can easily gimp yourself. The good news is that there are plenty of people to help guide you, a character planner to use before you create one, and it is just plain fun recreating characters anyways, so when you screw up, you can start over w/o much grief and pass your nice items down through the mail to your new characters.

Conclusion

My conclusion to this rather limited in scope review is that this game is a lot of fun. It is a niche game and will attract people who would rather adventure with their time than traveling for 20-30 min to a destination to finally start killing thing. The game has added crafting as well, but is geared towards adventurers, not full time player crafters. There is always something to do, unlike how the game was at release, and you won't notice that you are in a city mostly. Your quests will take you all over the continent, so you will get a variety of scenary, but you will have Stormreach to come back to to sell and regroup. I'd recommend this game to anyone who wants to get straight to the adventuring when they have time to play, likes a great character creation/building system, and wants to play with a mature community. You must like to group, because you will be grouped mostly. You can solo some quests and even solo some group quests once you outlevel it by some.

If anyone has any questions, please respond to this thread with them. I know I didn't cover every aspect of the game, nor do I desire to. I know this thread will be baried eventually, so it really isn't worth the effort. However, it is always worth the effort answering questions and helping other people out who are thinking about playing DDO.

I've never been a real fan of D&D or played the online version so I don't understand some of the features you're trying to explain such as "32 point" builds or multiclassing. Although, those don't seem like something I really need to worry myself with. The part of your review that really caught my eye is..

Originally posted by JK-Kanosi

The combat system is a 3rd person twitch system.

I was wondering if you could elaborte a bit more on that comment.

Are you suggesting the gameplay is comparable to a melee/ranged based FPS? I suppose all I'm really trying to get at is - can you manually dodge melee & ranged attacks? When using a ranged weapon does the game require you to aim at your target manually? If so, how "laggy" is the game - will the monsters be swinging at air but also reliably hit me in that manner (clearly, lag or clunky gameplay so good to ask)? Lastly, how does the PvP work and is it balanced?

I'm a huge fan of twitch based combat but I'm just really suprised that of all the MMO's that DDO is the one that has it.

Originally posted by DT-Dyne

 

I've never been a real fan of D&D or played the online version so I don't understand some of the features you're trying to explain such as "32 point" builds or multiclassing. Although, those don't seem like something I really need to worry myself with. The part of your review that really caught my eye is..

Originally posted by JK-Kanosi

The combat system is a 3rd person twitch system.

I was wondering if you could elaborte a bit more on that comment.

Are you suggesting the gameplay is comparable to a melee/ranged based FPS? I suppose all I'm really trying to get at is - can you manually dodge melee & ranged attacks? When using a ranged weapon does the game require you to aim at your target manually? If so, how "laggy" is the game - will the monsters be swinging at air but also reliably hit me in that manner (clearly, lag or clunky gameplay so good to ask)? Lastly, how does the PvP work and is it balanced?

I'm a huge fan of twitch based combat but I'm just really suprised that of all the MMO's that DDO is the one that has it.

Yes, you can dodge arrows, spells and melee attacks. No need to target anything, except for some spells. If you swing a melee weapon and there are 3 monsters in front of you, you can hit all 3. If you play a ranger and fire an arrow at someone, if something moves into the firing line after you have fired, they will get hit, same with ray spells etc. Hell, if you have a high enough jump skill, you can even jump over attacks! Combat is very fast paced and the main reason a lot of people play the game. I could not play another MMO after experiencing DDO's combat, it is fantastic.

I have never had a lag problem.

PVP is not an integral part of the game. There are areas where you can pvp that are seperate to the main dungeons such as taverns and capture the flag type areas and arenas. There is no balance. The majority of players do not want balance either. If a Sorcerer finger of deaths you and you fail your saving throw, you are dead. Some aoe spells are disabled in the tavern brawls because a cleric or caster could literally wipe out 10 or 15 people in one spell!!!

Have been playing for 2 years come August and I am not going anywhere!!!!!

Originally posted by DT-Dyne

I suppose all I'm really trying to get at is - can you manually dodge melee & ranged attacks? When using a ranged weapon does the game require you to aim at your target manually?

Lastly, how does the PvP work and is it balanced?

I'm a huge fan of twitch based combat but I'm just really suprised that of all the MMO's that DDO is the one that has it.

first answer: yes!  You can run, dodge, roll and jump out of the way of attacks.  You can get a lock on a target by clicking on it or "tabbing' till you selct the one you want.  Range attacks are the same, you can not target anything and shoot in the general direction, in fact, you must actualy do this in some areas as required by certain content.  Melee attacks function with a "hitbox" kinda of mechanic so you can hit mobs around you even if they are not selected.

second: Fun, not balanced.  Balance in PvP is based upon your players rather then their characters.  PvP is "stand still so I can hit you" in open areas with taverns or a "capture the flag" and "death match" team events which are an abaoslute blast!  There's no risk and there's no reward from PvP.  It's there to pass the time and to have a few good laughs with your friends. 

You should give the free trial a go.  DDO has one of the most dynamic character building processes out of the current MMO's and it really is pseudo-twitch type of combat.

Let everyone know what you did or didn't like after your trial.  ;)

That is a great review, because it is honest. Can I suggest you repost it in the LFGame section, I think it would be helpful for people. DDO is a niche game, but it is also pretty unique and ideal for a certain type of player. But I wouldnt be surprised if it never gets on their radar.

With regards to the twitch combat, it really has some seriously good projectile physics. I think someone once summed it up by saying it is amazing how a slow turn based rule set could turn in to one of the fastest most action packed MMOs.

Great review, Validorn.

32 Point Builds: You get a certain amount of points to add to your attributes (str, con, dex, int, wis, cha).  By default, you get 28 points, which you can use however you want to increase those abilities.  They cost more as they are increased, so going with a really high stat will greatly decrease your overall stat points.  Once you reach 1750 favor (a tough grind), you get access to 32 point builds.

Multiclassing: In D&D, you are not limited to one class.  You chose to be a fighter at level 1, but want the ability to cast some spells, too?  Level up as a wizard at level 2.  Want to be able to disarm traps?  Level up as a rogue at level 3.

Each class that you take has its own level, all of which contribute to your total level.  You can be a level 1 rogue, a level 1 wizard, and a level 1 fighter, as a level 3 character.

In DDO, you can only multiclass into a maximum of three classes.  I don't know if those rules exist in D&D, too (I've never bothered to multiclass much in D&D), but they exist in DDO.

First, to the OP, this is a great review.  Thanks!

I also tried DDO "some time ago" (probably over a year I'd say) and I got pretty bored pretty quickly.  For me I think it was the closed-off nature of the world - e.g. one of the things that I love about MMO's is the completely open world where you can walk anywhere and bump into random NPCs, mobs, other players, etc.

It wasn't clear to me (sorry if I missed it) in your post as to whether or not that dynamic has changed.  Is it still a mostly dungeon/instanced world with nothing else to see, or have they made the game more "open" like most MMOs (EQ, WoW, etc.)?

If they have indeed opened the world up, I will absolutely try it out again!