I posted this in another thread but I was just wondering what other people think of this.

I was a big D&D fan spending most of my youth playing pen and paper D&D and later computer games (mostly the SSI Curse of the Azure Bonds and Pool of Radiance).

I played many different campaign settings including Dark Sun, Ravenloft, Dragonlance and even Planescape. However, I spent 90% of my gametime in The Forgotten Realms, anywhere from Al-Qadim to Kara-Tur.

When I first heard of DDO I immediately imagined how Waterdeep would look like in an online environment. Sadly the chosen game setting was Eberon, a setting I knew nothing about. So it instantly nullifed any positive effect D&D as an IP had. I knew the map of Faerûn, the cities, the gods, everything. Eberron was just a name.

So as a D&D player, what else could draw me towards DDO? The D&D game mechanics? The mechanics may be great for P&P sessions and also quite good for turn based games so popular early 90's. But and MMORPG? Horrible system that just does not work, even with the few changes introduced by Turbine late in development.

My point? Well to all those people saying "Turbine suck for taking one of the most famous RPG IPs and turning that into garbage!" or "I want Turbine to fail so that some other company can develop DDO2!" I am just going to say this:

1. The D&D system will never be anything better than acceptable for an online real time MMO game. It was just not designed for that. It doesn't really have balance, it doesn't support PVP well. And in Turbine's case, it was mostly a curse rather than a blessing during development.

2. If anyone will ever create a new D&D online game please stick to one of the more famous and popular settings like Dark Sun or Planescape. Using the Eberron setting is not better than let's say Runes of Magic Generic fantasy world. And then abandon the classic D&D mechanics. Use the classes, maybe the attribute names but that's it. Develop and change it freely in order to make the game work online, not to please some old D&D players who will most likely just stick to the P&P version for obvious reasons.

Would you play a Dark Sun MMO that uses the classi setting but with a new mechanic loosely based on D&D but adopted for online realtime gameplay?

At first I really hated the Eberron setting and it was one of the reason I never stuck with the game before. But now after playing it som more and gotten into the lore it has started to grow on me. Forgotten realms feel old and not very exciting in my opinion but I really love Planescape (since PS:Torment is one of my favourite games of all time).

Turbine wanted to create the best dungeon crawler and thats where DDO shines and no ther MMO comes close when it comes to dungeon crawling and thats what D&D always have been about for me. But D&D have never been my favourite pen and paper rpg anyway.

To be honest, i think Eberon is complete trash. It is a crappy rehash of everything that has been done before, only with robots called Warforged (who supposedly make great wizards lol) and it does all this not even twice as good as previous campaigns.

Im sorry but D&D online is misleading... it should have been called EberonOnline. DDO doesnt even follow the rules of D&D, its a kind of hybrid... they chose the name hoping to increase sales. Nothing more.

Actually, Im glad Turbine went with Eberon though... it means they didnt have a chance to ruin the better campaigns.  This is part of the problem however, Atari has the license to make D&D games, and they continue to ruin them by allowing (for the most part) crappy developers work on the projects. Bioware is the only one actually able to do some small amount of justice to the franchise.

The other problem is Turbine. They, in my opinion, are one of the worst mmorpg developers out there. They get these big franchise names, deliver a horrible product built on an equally ancient engine, and expect the names to sell the game. The franchise name is more important than having a equally blockbuster level game. Its like the next SpiderMan movie being on the level of a B movie with a small budget and no special effects. The name sells it, but the actual product itself isnt up to the same level (blockbuster type) as the franchise.

Originally posted by Rabenwolf

Bioware is the only one actually able to do some small amount of justice to the franchise.

Yet Bioware will NEVER make anything associated with the license ever again. Why?  Cause Atari owns the license along with EVERY digitialy interactive product version that Hasbro controled.  Atari screwed Bioware, as they do to every developer, and now Bioware's sequel to the lone D&D title they made isn't even D&D! 

While I was also dissapointed that this Eberron was chosen over Greyhawk or Forgotten Realms I'm mature enough to look beyond that and enjoy the game for everything else it does.  DDO is leaps and bounds beyond most MMO's regardless of the attention its recieved. 

I agree, 3.5 ed rules do not a MMO make.  The game isn't that bad though, so long as you are willing to pay the 14.99 a month for it instead of playing for free.

IF a DDO 2 is ever made, they better base it off of 4th ed. rules if for no other reason that the books read like a PnP MMO.

Eberron is all-in-one? Popular opinion, because it's the newest popular setting (after FR). Yet, very untrue.

FR is still the ultimate All-in-one solution if you seek one. And I don't say I don't like it, I've played long in that setting. But, let's imagine for a second we're open for something new, yet ultimately oldschool in D&D terms.

This will be my attempt at Eberron's lore (from memory). I tried to mark important or very original things with some color, for better scanning.

About Eberron:

Well, we can try to say it's a bad setting, but that's just not true. It's very original, D&D to the core at the same time, has better "technology", though this technology is very interesting factor here --> in our world we know mechanical and technical progress. In Eberron, ships are driven by enslaved Elementals, there are everburing lights in richer cities, etc. A lot of intrigue, complicated stories, Dragonmarked Houses, Last War (resembling our World War II), etc.

In Eberron during Last War (the one mentioned in the intro to DDO), one nation was destroyed in something looking like a Nuclear blast. It all started when Great Kingdom of Galifar's ruler died, and his sons couldn't agree who'll be the next king. This great war laster more than one generation. People were born during the war, and died during the war.

One of Dragonmarked Houses, House Cannith, was supplying... all sides of the conflict. They are and were the organization of inventors, artificers and mages. When they've managed to create and produce magical-mechanical warriors without own will, the Warforged, got only even more terrible. All sides bought them.

Then, Cannith created Warforged Titans - colossal mechanical warriors laying death and destruction on the battlefields. Regular Warforged got better and better AI (sic!), so finally they were able to cast spells, allowing them fry whole armies with their lightings and fireballs.

And then homeland of Cannith, the Kingom of Cyre (in the center of previous Gallifar - center of the War!)... Exploded!

No one knows what really happened, because no one survived the gigantic explosion. Now "former Cyre", even while being in the center of mostly human continent, is a wasteland. Not only that, but there's not breathable air in it. Former Cyre is filled with deadly gased and smokes. No breathing creature can survive there (hint - warforged do not breath).

So, most of the Warforged lost mental links to their masters. Since then, they're pretty lost, as they can think not worse than humans, but they're constructs and don't have much of a history of their race. They were created for War, now War is no more.

Last War ended after destruction of Cyre. Other self-proclaimed Kingdoms agree that's it, that's enough. Name "Last War" is due to it being so terrible, that all of the world hopes it won't happen again... but situation isn't as stable, as it could look.

There are even gossips, that some Warforged God (or his Avatar) was born during the explosion. People call him "Lord of the Blades" and say that he seeks to make the whole Eberron look like Cyre - where only Warforged can survive.

This is for continent of Khorvaire, but D&D Online takes place mostly on Xen'Drik, as of yet - newfound continent, which previously belonged to Giants. Giants disappeared, and their slaves - the Drow - are now a free race, like they were millennia ago.

Why Eberron is Eberron?

That's, according to legend, a name of one of the 3 Giant Dragons which created the world.

There was Siberys, Eberron and Khyber. Siberys was of all that is good, Eberron was more neutral, down to earth, and Khyber - an incarnation of evil.

One day Siberys and Khyber started to fight. Siberys was defeated, and when she died, her body made the skies, stars, planets and trail of meteors which surrounds the planet. Eberron stepped in to stop Khyber, but he managed to do is to trap Khyber within itself - this way Eberron created whole surface of the world, while under it, in dark corridors of Khyber (something like Underdark in GH and FR) lurk many evil secrets and creatures of the night.

Now, to this day in Eberron rains of meteors happen from time to time. What falls from the skies are either stones, or crystals - named Siberys Dragonshards. Those have pretty big value, because they hold significant magical power.

There are also Eberron Dragonshards to be found on the surface, and Khyber Dragonshards which are native to the tunnels and caves deep beneath in.

Those shards help to create _very rare_ high level magic items in Eberron. Because while low-level magic is popular in Eberron, higher levels are even more rare than in other Settings.

Dragonmarked Houses? What the crap?

They are mainly trading organizations. Dragonmarks are "magical tattoos" which started to appear thousand of years ago on some particular individuals of every civilized race. One day you could go to sleep without them, the next you woke with them.

Once people got to see and learn that those strange marks grant people some strange magical powers, they tried to categorize Dragonmarks. There are different types of them.

That was the beginning of Dragonmarked Houses. Dragomarks were and are still very rare, and tend to appear in certain families, which led to think they were carried in blood. Still, most people born in those families don't have the marks.

Most dwarfs got similar marks, most elves different, most humans different. And while they're not entirely exclusive to any race, they tend to stick with them.

House Cannith (Cannith is the name of new DDO server) was founded by humans bearing the Mark of Making.
Dragomarked Dwarfs created House Kundarak, which specializes in Banking, powerful sealing of valuable goods and similar services. They're the masters of Protection.
Dragomakred Elves created House Phiarlan. Their Mark allowed them to perform complicated illusion, scry, perform divinations and deceive.
One of halfling enclaves with specific Dragonmark created House Jorasco, which specializes in complex healing and regenerations.

But there are more than 13 official Dragonmarked Houses, and a few illegal, like House of Vol - which deals in Death.

And to that very mysterious race, which most likely isn't native to Eberron's plane, shapechangers, intrigues, and you have plenty do and of places / hooks for adventures.

I really encourage to try it, read about it and play it! That's really fun place play in for a D&D fan PnP fan.

PS: Sorry for typos, this was a lot of writing...

Originally posted by Sarr

Eberron is all-in-one? Popular opinion, because it's the newest popular setting (after FR). Yet, very untrue.

FR is still the ultimate All-in-one solution if you seek one. And I don't say I don't like it, I've played long in that setting. But, let's imagine for a second we're open for something new, yet ultimately oldschool in D&D terms.

This will be my attempt at Eberron's lore (from memory). I tried to mark important or very original things with some color, for better scanning.

 

About Eberron:

 

When they've managed to create and produce magical-mechanical warriors without own will, the Warforged, got only even more terrible. All sides bought them.

Then, Cannith created Warforged Titans - colossal mechanical warriors laying death and destruction on the battlefields. Regular Warforged got better and better AI (sic!), so finally they were able to cast spells, allowing them fry whole armies with their lightings and fireballs.

.........SNIP........

Dragomakred Elves created House Phiarlan. Their Mark allowed them to perform complicated illusion, scry, perform divinations and deceive.
One of halfling enclaves with specific Dragonmark created House Jorasco, which specializes in complex healing and regenerations.

But there are more than 13 official Dragonmarked Houses, and a few illegal, like House of Vol - which deals in Death.

And to that very mysterious race, which most likely isn't native to Eberron's plane, shapechangers, intrigues, and you have plenty do and of places / hooks for adventures.

 

I really encourage to try it, read about it and play it! That's really fun place play in for a D&D fan PnP fan.

PS: Sorry for typos, this was a lot of writing...

Im sorry but all that sounded incredibly cheesy, and in fact I didnt see anything D&D about it. IN the first part you try to explain the Warforged... with comes across as something you would see in a mech focused japanese anime. Magical robots that got ai and used magic and were suddenly people. And the big giant robots were laying waste until Neo showed up...er wait.

Then there are the people who wake up with tattoos and are like "hey look now im an inventor magic dude thing". In the cities which seem to be the main focus of Eberron, everything is conveniently floating and super magical. Oohhh Aaahh.Then you hint at other planar aliens.

Honestly, i really cannot see anything original that can be considered good in Eberron. Eberron is a world created by some guy that wanted to win a contest ( i also participated in that event). It is not the product of a brilliant author and pnp player, fans so to speak, such as the creators of Dragonlance, Forgotten Realms, Greyhawk...ect but rather a world picked because the latest owners of the D&D franchise thought they could market it better. This is a good case of "when business gets in the way of creativity". If D&D were still under TSR, something like Eberon wouldnt have been allowed to exist as an official campaign, especially in its current form.

In fact, if they wanted to use an already created campaign with some science involved, they should have just used Spelljammer. Also, better campaigns such as Ravenloft, Darksun, Birthright, and planescape continue to be ignored.


On a final note, in DDO's Eberron, there is a dungeon with all sorts of enemies every few feet you walk in the city, which is just bad. "oh yes adventurer, please slay the army of undead in my basement", add that line or one version of it, to every NPC in the game and you have DDO.

Originally posted by Rabenwolf

Im sorry but all that sounded incredibly cheesy, and in fact I didnt see anything D&D about it. IN the first part you try to explain the Warforged... with comes across as something you would see in a mech focused japanese anime. Magical robots that got ai and used magic and were suddenly people. And the big giant robots were laying waste until Neo showed up...er wait.

Do you know that D&D, even the first edition of it, had them? They're called Golems . Here, just less powerful.

Matrix? Do you know that Eberron was created before the Matrix film came? Plain ignorance, my friend, and plenty of ill will.

 

Then there are the people who wake up with tattoos and are like "hey look now im an inventor magic dude thing". In the cities which seem to be the main focus of Eberron, everything is conveniently floating and super magical. Oohhh Aaahh.Then you hint at other planar aliens.

If that's how you think, well, congrats : ). Cities AREN'T the main focus in Eberron, anyway. Most of the land is rather rural or even nomadic - halflings are mostly nomads, which is a trait very original to Eberron Setting.

Everything conveniently floating and super magic? You didn't read it here, probably saw Stormreach screenshots? That's the biggest city on Xen'Drik, built upon ruins and still there's much left of these ruins. Giants lived there. Pioneers who discovered Xen'Drik used ruins of this giant city to build their own, but Xen'Drik is a novum, like America was in Columbus times.

Honestly, i really cannot see anything original that can be considered good in Eberron. Eberron is a world created by some guy that wanted to win a contest ( i also participated in that event). It is not the product of a brilliant author and pnp player, fans so to speak, such as the creators of Dragonlance, Forgotten Realms, Greyhawk...ect but rather a world picked because the latest owners of the D&D franchise thought they could market it better. This is a good case of "when business gets in the way of creativity". If D&D were still under TSR, something like Eberon wouldnt have been allowed to exist as an official campaign, especially in its current form.

You don't seem to know a thing about Eberron, and what you say isn't even backed by facts, so I think you should consider to learn about something before you speak your opinion : ).

And what can you tell me about Spelljamer, if you think Eberron wouldn't be allowed by TSR? 

Or Mystara? Or Dark Sun?

In fact, if they wanted to use an already created campaign with some science involved, they should have just used Spelljammer. Also, better campaigns such as Ravenloft, Darksun, Birthright, and planescape continue to be ignored.


On a final note, in DDO's Eberron, there is a dungeon with all sorts of enemies every few feet you walk in the city, which is just bad. "oh yes adventurer, please slay the army of undead in my basement", add that line or one version of it, to every NPC in the game and you have DDO.

 

Either you're trying to be funny, or have a really pale idea about D&D.

Want to read a review, smarty? : )

www.critical-hits.com/2009/07/22/review-eberron-campaign-guide/

www.rpg.net/reviews/archive/10/10455.phtml

www.seankreynolds.com/rpgfiles/opinions/review-eberron.html

www.sfsite.com/09b/ec184.htm

www.d20source.com/2009/07/product-review-eberron-player%E2%80%99s-guide

dungeonsmaster.com/2009/06/review-eberron-players-guide/

I haven't tried to write a real review, just wanted to hint some things. So above you have plenty of lecture, and no single opinion like yours. Written by good writers on respected PnP sites, at least most of the links.

I can find you much more, those were just picked fast from the top of google for "eberron review". You can check it.

Generally no review says it's a bad setting, or cheesy, or not D&Dish - you can even find people writing it's very oldschool D&D Settting. Most reviews are very positive, and those people (at least somo of them) are seasons veterans and writers.

i would vote for turn based combat system as well with the ruleset of d&d ofc.. Besides there are mmorpg s right now using turn based system like atlantica online,and if u put together the strong pen n paper player base you got a solid mass of players fond of that.