General Discussion

GameSpy continues to build on their Dungeons & Dragons Online feature with a developer's roundtable.  The discussion includes: 

• Ken Troop, Lead Designer (Turbine)
• Pete MacDonald, Senior Artist (Turbine)
• Dan Ogles, Senior Engineer (Turbine)
• David Eckelberry, Game Systems Designer (Turbine)
• Ed Stark, Special Projects Manager, RPG R&D (Wizards of the Coast)

The piece covers much, from issues surrounding the Atari/Turbine/WoTC collaboration to the issues of translating P&P games to the computer:

Moderator: How does D&D Online, and online gaming in general, fit into D&D's grand scheme? Ed Stark: I've seen it said many times that there wouldn't be any online RPG if D&D hadn't existed in the first place, and whether or not that's true, those of us who've been working on role-playing games and D&D for years are finally happy to see the industry come full circle. D&D Online will be another way to play D&D with your friends. D&D has always been a social activity, and this is yet another expression of that. Dave Eckelberry: The online game represents the next evolution of the Dungeons & Dragons. Let's face it, online games from the early text MUDs to Asheron's Call are basically unique D&D campaigns taken to a new medium, and it's a pastime that fans of the original game get to see their game take form in a persistent online world.

The roundtable, moderated by Miguel Lopez, may be read in its entirety at this link.

*drool*

As long as for them *social* and *raiding* are not a necessary equation, I am looking forward to it! :)  Raiding have very little with socialisation, folks cant talk much and express themselves as much with 23 folks around as in small groups! :)

- "Coercing? No no, I assure you, they are willing to bring my bags and pay public transportation just to help me, it is true!''

It's good to hear that some of the core designers have a background from the book style playing of D&D, however, I challenge them to introduce it the game.

D&D with Dice....The content was up to the creativity of the DM ( Dung Master).....There are so many varibles to play from and I don't want to see those taken from the game. I don't want them to program the game so a scenario only has 1 way to play out.....That would be wrong...thats more of hack and slash style game and not the True D&D.

First they need to look at the char's themselves....I agree leveling should not be a key factor in playing this game, Skill developement and Knowledge should be... They need to keep the alignments from the traditional D&D in this game.....Good - Nutral - Evil....combinding a party of diffrent alignments was always a key factor in the adventure and success of the quest.

I would have to say next would be the crafting skills. Basic crafting like sharpening blades and repairing broken bow strings was a key factor for the char's Items....It showed that wear and tear on a suit of armor or a weapon could possibley hinder the char's ability if these items were not maintained. That part of the game really needs to be introduced.

I would have to say next would have to be communication, I don't think a global communication should be introduced.....Nothing beyond the normal hearing range, but I do think that a friendship list should be allowed to maintain if a friend is on line or not.........When you introduce the communication range beyond what is natural, it has a way at promoting unfair game play and alot of content is lost due to word of mouth through out the world....the loss of adventuring and discovery.

Then I would have the game built around the necessity of having multi char partys to be sucessful on an adventure....this means...bowers, swordsman, mages, thieves...etc etc they all have key individual skills that contribute to the partys success.

I would say that traditional monsters should be the core critterbase from the old D&D guides..... and be a key item in the developement of the worlds....after the game breaks they can start being creative and make up thier own critters but for now...it's important to the traditional D&D player to enter this game on a level that is believable, then build it from there.

Questing and Items and Loot are handled by the DM or now gaming engine....I hope they build a dice factor in for rewards so they randomize and change....never reproducing a duplicate item....They key factor of D&D was uniqueness....that's what seperated the traditional players...not levels....but skills and uniqueness of items....

one other mention....limiting playerbase size is a bad idea.....large world= large playerbase= always something to do and someone to do it with.

There rest is pretty much trivial....I just feel the key factors should not be dismissed out of the game because D&D has been around for 20+ years and to introduce a game missing core eliments will really affect the success.

thats my 2 gold pc worth.

Oh one last thing.....Keep PvP out of it.

I believe the char's should have the ability to kill each other but key factors like alignment should play a key role in it....the core of this game is adventuring and not a player shooter game....

The small -world thing is pretty much a wait and see... I see good arguments for both sides.

I'm all for the involvement of alignment though... one of the good points given for the small worlds was that players could form closer ties and have their actions resonate more within the community. But as it allows closer friendships to form, it could do the same to create intense enemies and rivalries. Alignment could have repercussions on how NPC's react to you, or even how certain monsters react to you.

I'll be the first to agree with you, I'm a True D&D follower. I've been waiting for years for this game to actually be brought into the online gamming market. I've been waiting patiently and with anticipation, I just don't want to see the core elements of D&D be left out and disappoint a very large following. What Turbine is doing will make or break the success of this game.

I can see the points of trying to keep the playerbase size to a managable level, like the round table effect of the book era, but seeing this game is a global game, I think a large world would be the route to go, let the individual players break up into communitities rather than be forced to choose from a selection of a couple hundred, I really don't want to be dependent on a small number of players to all log in and be on for the same length of time just to get something accomplished.

I'll tell ya, I Play AC and it's not fun logging in to a empty virtual world and spend hours trying to find enuff players all interested in the same thing...quest or adventuring. The success of this game will be based on a couple of things. (The game itself, The content, The playerbase)

Like yourself, it's a waiting game for me too, but I feel strong about the core of the history from were D&D came from and don't want to write off years of a following because of predetermination that core elements didn't warrent a place in this version. I wait with anticipation but I hope it doesn't turn into disappointment. 

Just like in the P&P version, one could eventually just decide with friends exactly when they plan to have a session, such as once a week or whatever.

The same could be done in D&D Online; on for example, the official server forums, people can decide when they want to meet up, what they want to do, etc etc.

Logging into an empty virtual world definitely sucks... but the way they describe the main city, its likely that anyone who's in the game and not in an instanced dungeon or in the wilds.... will likely bump into one another in the city.

Also, designing a world for hundreds of players, rather than thousands, means that each player will be more unique and important in the world. Content can be more dynamic and interesting if its catering to less people. I also have a feeling that the community will be much closer and RP more than in a traditional sized mmorpg.

I thought that the interview was a good read. They came across as being honest in their discussions, like when a few of them admit they they will always prefer face to face pnp games over the computer ones. It's rare that someone releasing a computer game will be honest like that.

Next, I'm not real sure how this small servers/world will work out. If the games is popular are they going to have 100's of servers? From what I can understand it is going to be pretty much impossible to solo. If you cant solo at all then I think that will be a big problem. I've been in a million groups/guilds/raids so I'm not anti-social but sometimes you want to be able to play and progress without having to group up. What if you only have 30 minutes or even an hour? If you find a group instantly even, it's not really enough time to accomplish much and the group won't really like to be left hanging in the middle of some dungeon hunt.

I plan to give the game a shot and see how it turns out, but for you other old-school D&D players you may want to check out Lejendary Adventure Online. That's the one that Gary Gygax himself is helping to develop. For those that don't know, he's the one that invented D&D. I intend to check it out to if it makes it to release.