For the record I played DDO at launch and had a Cleric as main character... healer monkey.

A few days ago I jumped back in the game with the trial.

Character creation: 

The preset characters are interesting. It's really a good feature for players not fully aware of D&D rules.

Still one feature is missing: you can't first choose your class then your race.

If you want to play a specific class and are wondering what race you can choose you're obliged to go through all of them. It's not very user friendly.

Also there are no indication why you can't make a Drow from start. That certainly leaves many players puzzled.

I wish there was an option to stop the characters from moving when setting their appearance.

Custom builds:

This is one of the really nice  features of DDO. Not only there are 10 classes but you can mix them together.

Even better, from the initial race and stats, through feats and enhancements to the highest levels you can level 3 characters of the same class(es) and still have a wildly different experience.

First jump:

The small tutorial is not bad. Even the initial ones with the specific classes mini instances were quite handy. It would have been interesting to keep the old ones and add the new tutorial before them. In the first ones players could exoerience thief, caster, combattant and healing game play separately.

Even there is a big issue with the starting area. I made a first character, played a bit. Made a second character to play with my wife and skiped the tutorial = WRONG! We were unable to group and so to play together. The time I find out that it's because I'm locked in the sunny Korthos village  instance and she's in the snowy one (no clear indications at all) she nearly quit the game. As both my characters were in the latter instance I had to make a 3rd character to join her.

Firsts instances:

Pretty fast we got back our old habits, me tanking and her doing some nasty magic on mobs unwilling to let us loot the treasures. The combat is still really good and I would say maybe even better than AoC as you don't have the delay between a keystroke hit and the execution of the skill (combo) 2-3 key later.

We loved the traps but as there is no separate sound slider for them. Either you set them to a reasonable level and quite don't hear others special effects or you get deaf. The traps were in the same spots. Funny how I remembered them 2 years later. I guess they still aren't random.

We saw the small changes made in the beginner quests and they weren't bad, but for a few voice overs that are still really bad and break the immersion.

However dungeon crawling is FUN.

Loot:

After having played many games having your loot reseved is a nice welcome. No more hassle on loot distribution. Even I wonder about higher levels and bigger instances. Is there still limited loot like it was in the dragon encounter?

Character customization:

We can say we really missed LotRo social clothing tab. In a non PvP, gear stats based game it's a must to have. We remembered how we had to constantly switch our look gear to the combat  one in DDO. Some might find it funny but we really appreciated to see a few symetrical clothes. Please hang the designer who choosed that all robes or armors should have only one shoulder.

Dyes, well they are simply lacking.

Inventory Management:

Soon enough we had plenty of items. Would I say too much?

Even at low levels, the game once again started to be an inventory management mini game. We were surprized that there was still no feature to lock an item in a specific inventory slot. 

I checked the web and I was astonished by the UI print screen of higher level players. It was like they had 3-4 different items for each equipement slot.

The gems and collectibles bags are welcome but we forsee DDO is still a pain to manage inventory.

I didn't play a lot with arrows management and the new bags so I don't know if knowing what arrows you have equipped and switching them is now handy as it was really an issue before..

Grouping and solo play:

There are (only?) few servers now but the good thing is you won't anymore be short of players to group with.

Henchmens aren't as smart as good players but they certainly help you to fill some mandatory spots (but rogue) and are a nice addition to soloers.

Playing alone is really possible in DDO but it requires knowledge (builds), skills and plenty of gear.

Still the LFM interface is well done and is a good help to find people to join you in your errands.

On a side note, as in all MMO, there is no way to select multiple quests and advertise or browse for people that have one or more of yours.

Access to the game:

The game isn't for non D&D geeks. Mouse over  feats, enhacements and you will mostly end struggled by the tooltip. And when you understand the key words, more than often you will be cluess of what's the exact bonus or effect you're getting. Be ready to play with google at you side. You are at 1000 miles away from diablo.

Game interaction & more:

One thing we never liked is all characters running around with weapons drawn in DDO. It's nice to show off your weapons but too much is too much. Even if MMO are unrealistic characters should automatically sheathe their weapons while in cities.

Call us lazy, but for a dungeon crawler game, we missed dungeon Siege or even Chronicles of SpellBorn autoloot system.

More important, there is still no /follow comand. As there is no pause in MMO and players need sometimes to go AFK for real reasons. It's a pain not ot have this especially in some dungeons in wich players can get stuck behind if they don't follow.

As LotRo players we really liked the mouse look toogle feature (sic!). Although after 10 minutes we were bored to have the back of our character head in the middle of the screen, not to say the pain to swim in 3rd person view. The first person view supposed to land in module 9 will be much welcome.

Worth it?

It depends on your style.

For casual gamers the beginning of the game is perfect but the learning curve is a bit hard.

For more hard core players the higher levels are a good challenge especially in hard or epic mode. But they'll burn the content too fast.

For the others the inventory management is a pain, there are too few external zones, character customization is seriously lacking for an MMO and finally the UI needs a whole redo.

And for PvPers: forget it. Unless a major overhaul of the game, one can wonders why they are still wasting their time on this.

DDO II?

Apart the license DDO is really a half cut gemstone. It's shining but on a few sides and very rough on others.

The first and biggest mistake was to choose Eberron as setting for the game. It was the worse of all choices. The warforged are nice but one would say, were are the orcs? As a note healing warforged is a pain. Long time ago Turbine should have added a warforged stone that would impove a lot normal healings spells.

Contrary to others games, in DDO many "skills" comes with equiped gear. In that regard it gives a lot of freeness to the players of how they can tweak their characters. The bad thing is the inventory managment needs a whole revamp.

There are more external zones but each time you zone out  then in the whole map gets undiscovered and mobs respawns. Not only it kills immersion but it can be frustating.

DDO graphics aren't the best ones but DX10 added a nice topping and they are still much better than some others games. Even the clothes  textures are better than AoC ones.

I'd say DDO II isn't needed at all.

The chore mechanic of DDO is really good (combat, character levelling and dungeon crawling). The game engine is very stable and the graphics are more than fair.

It needs some of the fluff from LotRo: social cloting, dies, maybe even housing (instanced appartments),  a whole redo on the GUI, trading and inventory management AND a magical portal to Greyhawk, Dragon Lance or Forgotten Realms planes with many external areas.

All that can be done in a nice and paying expansion. First opening the gates, then with the arrival of (many?) new players use the $$$ to add more and more. And who know maybe someday players will be flying on the back of real dragons, not their WoW pale imitation ;)

B4 Sarr comes in here shouting fanboi crap i can just let you in to a little sercret, mod 9 isn´t close aprox 2-3 months away, you have WF healers friend as an enhancement line so they get easier to heal em (along with items). I recon that the overview you made is correct and fair.

Originally posted by Deewe

Loot:

After having played many games having your loot reseved is a nice welcome. No more hassle on loot distribution. Even I wonder about higher levels and bigger instances. Is there still limited loot like it was in the dragon encounter?

Good balanced review.

Virtual world or real world it is hard to stop your wife stealing your loot!

Edit: In case you didn't know you can use /sheath I believe to sheath your weapon, although it doesn't show on your character.

Originally posted by Bennyblyfot

B4 Sarr comes in here shouting fanboi crap i can just let you in to a little sercret, mod 9 isn´t close aprox 2-3 months away, you have WF healers friend as an enhancement line so they get easier to heal em (along with items). I recon that the overview you made is correct and fair.

Do you have a link that references Mod 9 being "aprox 2-3 months away"?  if that's more of "if you play through codemasters the mod will be aprox 2-3 months later" then I would agree, but most of the speculation as to the delay is due to legal interference more then design. 

OP, even though a few things were overlooked are a few assumptions were made that's a very good account of experiances as a new player.  The issues with Korthos Island seem very sevre and could potentiall turn away new players - I hope there's a fix or something that would allow players who've not completely the quests to return to the "snowy version" of the island. 

/Sheathe puts away your weapons and shields.  This game, even though penned as one of the founding properties of Role Play, has an extremely poor selection of /emotes and commands to facilitate players looking for a greater social experiance.  /emote <comment> will say something in the first person if you're into RolePlaying; ie "/emote step's away from the greasy spot forming underneath the creaky Warforged."

I agree this isnt' a perfect review and I as there are a few assumptions I thought it was important to point that I only played at low level with the trial.

I now know for the /seathe functionnality, even my comment stands as weapons should be seathed by default.

And thanks for the comments.

Originally posted by mindspat

Originally posted by Bennyblyfot

B4 Sarr comes in here shouting fanboi crap i can just let you in to a little sercret, mod 9 isn´t close aprox 2-3 months away, you have WF healers friend as an enhancement line so they get easier to heal em (along with items). I recon that the overview you made is correct and fair.

 

Do you have a link that references Mod 9 being "aprox 2-3 months away"?  if that's more of "if you play through codemasters the mod will be aprox 2-3 months later" then I would agree, but most of the speculation as to the delay is due to legal interference more then design. 

Is there a link that says Mod 9 is less than 2 months away? I would agree that the legal issues are a big part, but the truth is the last time Mod 9 was on the test server it was not polished and ready for release so legal issues alone getting resolved will most likely not make Mod 9 get released. Mod 9 needs work and from what Turbine has said will have a couple of releases to the test server before it is ready to go live. I may be wrong here but my count is one release to test server so far.

Originally posted by Rokurgepta

Originally posted by mindspat

Originally posted by Bennyblyfot

B4 Sarr comes in here shouting fanboi crap i can just let you in to a little sercret, mod 9 isn´t close aprox 2-3 months away, you have WF healers friend as an enhancement line so they get easier to heal em (along with items). I recon that the overview you made is correct and fair.

 

Do you have a link that references Mod 9 being "aprox 2-3 months away"?  if that's more of "if you play through codemasters the mod will be aprox 2-3 months later" then I would agree, but most of the speculation as to the delay is due to legal interference more then design. 

 

Is there a link that says Mod 9 is less than 2 months away? I would agree that the legal issues are a big part, but the truth is the last time Mod 9 was on the test server it was not polished and ready for release so legal issues alone getting resolved will most likely not make Mod 9 get released. Mod 9 needs work and from what Turbine has said will have a couple of releases to the test server before it is ready to go live. I may be wrong here but my count is one release to test server so far.

People (fanbois) who haven´t played on the beta servers always think they know everything and all they do is read the forums and therefor think they know it all  (wich they ofc don´t) yepp what you say is a fair assumption just what my spectulation is aswell.

P.S yeah i did try mod 9 on beta the new server D.S

To those people who think DDO is still or again dying, a funny post. That's a fact people:

community.codemasters.com/forum/showthread.php

And two screens from it:

The first seems strange to me, I've never seen so many of one level personally - but I rarely scroll down to lev 16. Second is something usual these days. I've seen many more LFMs sometimes.

I haven't played DDO for a while, I rarely play anything since 2 weeks, but I'm certainly comming back when Mod 9 is live.

Originally posted by mindspat

Originally posted by Bennyblyfot

B4 Sarr comes in here shouting fanboi crap i can just let you in to a little sercret, mod 9 isn´t close aprox 2-3 months away, you have WF healers friend as an enhancement line so they get easier to heal em (along with items). I recon that the overview you made is correct and fair.

 

Do you have a link that references Mod 9 being "aprox 2-3 months away"?  if that's more of "if you play through codemasters the mod will be aprox 2-3 months later" then I would agree, but most of the speculation as to the delay is due to legal interference more then design. 

OP, even though a few things were overlooked are a few assumptions were made that's a very good account of experiances as a new player.  The issues with Korthos Island seem very sevre and could potentiall turn away new players - I hope there's a fix or something that would allow players who've not completely the quests to return to the "snowy version" of the island. 

/Sheathe puts away your weapons and shields.  This game, even though penned as one of the founding properties of Role Play, has an extremely poor selection of /emotes and commands to facilitate players looking for a greater social experiance.  /emote <comment> will say something in the first person if you're into RolePlaying; ie "/emote step's away from the greasy spot forming underneath the creaky Warforged."

 

I don't understand what legal interference there could be at this point. Can anyone elaborate please?

Please, allow me to explain.

Anytime Turbine fails to come through for the community, a certain number of "Fans" attempt to justify or rationalize Turbine's shortcomings. They pin the fault on some external, outside circumstance that is way beyond Turbine's control or ability to foresee, thus rendering Turbine the innocent victim and the unfortunate result is a side effect of cosmic circumstances.

In addition, they also explain delays as the inevitable result of something "wonderful" that Turbine has planned for the community. It's either an expansion pack, a sequel, a re-design, or a console port, or a re-release, or any of the things Turbine has expressly said NO to.

This phenomenon that you are seeing is nothing more than a figment of imagination. The contractual interference is the latest rumor as to WHY Mod9 has not been released. They even go so far as to say that Turbine CANNOT confirm or deny this, or they would instantly be found in default of whatever said legal action may be pending.

The truth is it is not a crime, nor is it illegal nor punishable nor could be used against you to say you are involved in legal action. Whoever thinks that obviously has never been involved in any legal proceeding. Commenting on the reasons WHY the legal action arose, or commenting on their legal position of the action may cross the line, but saying that "Yes we are involved in legal action which is causing delays, and no we cannot say any more than that." is not wrong.

My opinion is - if Turbine is waiting the result of legal action against WOTC or some other organization, then they have even less of a reason to ignore the community who are leaving in bucketloads.

Originally posted by eagle4x4

Originally posted by mindspat

Originally posted by Bennyblyfot

B4 Sarr comes in here shouting fanboi crap i can just let you in to a little sercret, mod 9 isn´t close aprox 2-3 months away, you have WF healers friend as an enhancement line so they get easier to heal em (along with items). I recon that the overview you made is correct and fair.

 

Do you have a link that references Mod 9 being "aprox 2-3 months away"?  if that's more of "if you play through codemasters the mod will be aprox 2-3 months later" then I would agree, but most of the speculation as to the delay is due to legal interference more then design. 

OP, even though a few things were overlooked are a few assumptions were made that's a very good account of experiances as a new player.  The issues with Korthos Island seem very sevre and could potentiall turn away new players - I hope there's a fix or something that would allow players who've not completely the quests to return to the "snowy version" of the island. 

/Sheathe puts away your weapons and shields.  This game, even though penned as one of the founding properties of Role Play, has an extremely poor selection of /emotes and commands to facilitate players looking for a greater social experiance.  /emote <comment> will say something in the first person if you're into RolePlaying; ie "/emote step's away from the greasy spot forming underneath the creaky Warforged."

 

 

I don't understand what legal interference there could be at this point. Can anyone elaborate please?

Turbine has or can not elaborate so neither can anyone who is not in the know. Until Turbine tells what legal issues no one else can.

Originally posted by Sarr

To those people who think DDO is still or again dying, a funny post. That's a fact people:

community.codemasters.com/forum/showthread.php

And two screens from it:

The first seems strange to me, I've never seen so many of one level personally - but I rarely scroll down to lev 16. Second is something usual these days. I've seen many more LFMs sometimes.

I haven't played DDO for a while, I rarely play anything since 2 weeks, but I'm certainly comming back when Mod 9 is live.

So what are you trying to prove? 8 LFMs almost full or not are pathetic. A few months ago on Thelanis I could scroll through that many or more at 2AM local time. 8 LFMs tell me the population is not doing well. All evidence leads to more people quitting then there is joining. Turbine and Atatri have done nothing to make me believe DDO is growing. Maybe the Euro servers have always been low because on the American servers neither of those photos are anything special. AT least they were not special a couple months ago. Now they might be.
 

Even you have left the game for a break.

Edit: The first picture looks phony, seems like some people were making LFM as jokes and not serious at all. Notice the messages in the LFM.

Edit2: After reading the entire codemasters thread I see the first picture was just for fun. The second is the one they are basing the entire theory of a healthy thriving game on. Not exactly much evidence.

Originally posted by eagle4x4 

I don't understand what legal interference there could be at this point. Can anyone elaborate please?

Nobody knows, but there have been a few references and signs of dev frustration.

"We know that they've been waiting, and we know that it has been tough. The delays to Mod 9 were not due to the development of Mod 9. They've already seen quite a bit of it on the test servers and it's fairly robust. There are just some other 'forces' at work, and that's really all I can say. The team is still really dedicated at getting it out the door, and work on Mod 10 has already begun and planning for beyond. We know they're [the players] frustrated with the wait and we've all been really appreciative of their patience."

Originally posted by Dr.Rock

Originally posted by eagle4x4 

I don't understand what legal interference there could be at this point. Can anyone elaborate please?

Nobody knows, but there have been a few references and signs of dev frustration.

"We know that they've been waiting, and we know that it has been tough. The delays to Mod 9 were not due to the development of Mod 9. They've already seen quite a bit of it on the test servers and it's fairly robust. There are just some other 'forces' at work, and that's really all I can say. The team is still really dedicated at getting it out the door, and work on Mod 10 has already begun and planning for beyond. We know they're [the players] frustrated with the wait and we've all been really appreciative of their patience."

Interesting, I hope it's for the better for the players. Could it be some changes aren't appreciated by Wizards of the Coast?

Reading your posts I foresee:

1. Majors rules changes going farther away from D&D rules
2. Going away from Eberon and setting new content in more popular planes.

1) Turbine has much power than WTC has they are the pro in terms of MMO game mechanics

2) WTC has the power has they are owning the licence and want to keep selling Eberon paper related stuff.

Originally posted by Deewe

Originally posted by Dr.Rock

Originally posted by eagle4x4 

I don't understand what legal interference there could be at this point. Can anyone elaborate please?

Nobody knows, but there have been a few references and signs of dev frustration.

"We know that they've been waiting, and we know that it has been tough. The delays to Mod 9 were not due to the development of Mod 9. They've already seen quite a bit of it on the test servers and it's fairly robust. There are just some other 'forces' at work, and that's really all I can say. The team is still really dedicated at getting it out the door, and work on Mod 10 has already begun and planning for beyond. We know they're [the players] frustrated with the wait and we've all been really appreciative of their patience."

 

Interesting, I hope it's for the better for the players. Could it be some changes aren't appreciated by Wizards of the Coast?

Reading your posts I foresee:

1. Majors rules changes going farther away from D&D rules
2. Going away from Eberon and setting new content in more popular planes.

 

1) Turbine has much power than WTC has they are the pro in terms of MMO game mechanics

2) WTC has the power has they are owning the licence and want to keep selling Eberon paper related stuff.

 

Nope : ). Turbine is "very excited about where the franchise is heading". Also, they don't want to go away from D&D rules - in fact, I was reading about how they struggle to make it as close as possible.
It's not a change to 4e rules too - Eladrin said it's not going to happen, but they may bring content from 4e - like new classes or races, magic items, "spells", etc.

Read here too:

"Marissa: Anything new on Dungeons and Dragons Online?
Craig: We’ve got some big announcements planned for DDO and I was hoping to talk about it here but we’re not quite there. We’ve been doing a lot of work on it and are really excited about the direction the franchise is heading. On the content side, we have our Module 9 update, and our natural level progression has been increased to 20 which is full DnD level range.

(So watch out for exciting news on DDO SOON!)"

Source: vault.ign.com/View.php

Originally posted by Sarr

Originally posted by Deewe

Originally posted by Dr.Rock

Originally posted by eagle4x4 

I don't understand what legal interference there could be at this point. Can anyone elaborate please?

Nobody knows, but there have been a few references and signs of dev frustration.

"We know that they've been waiting, and we know that it has been tough. The delays to Mod 9 were not due to the development of Mod 9. They've already seen quite a bit of it on the test servers and it's fairly robust. There are just some other 'forces' at work, and that's really all I can say. The team is still really dedicated at getting it out the door, and work on Mod 10 has already begun and planning for beyond. We know they're [the players] frustrated with the wait and we've all been really appreciative of their patience."

 

Interesting, I hope it's for the better for the players. Could it be some changes aren't appreciated by Wizards of the Coast?

Reading your posts I foresee:

1. Majors rules changes going farther away from D&D rules
2. Going away from Eberon and setting new content in more popular planes.

 

1) Turbine has much power than WTC has they are the pro in terms of MMO game mechanics

2) WTC has the power has they are owning the licence and want to keep selling Eberon paper related stuff.

 

 

Nope : ). Turbine is "very excited about where the franchise is heading". Also, they don't want to go away from D&D rules - in fact, I was reading about how they struggle to make it as close as possible.
It's not a change to 4e rules too - Eladrin said it's not going to happen, but they may bring content from 4e - like new classes or races, magic items, "spells", etc.

Read here too:

"Marissa: Anything new on Dungeons and Dragons Online?
Craig: We’ve got some big announcements planned for DDO and I was hoping to talk about it here but we’re not quite there. We’ve been doing a lot of work on it and are really excited about the direction the franchise is heading. On the content side, we have our Module 9 update, and our natural level progression has been increased to 20 which is full DnD level range.

(So watch out for exciting news on DDO SOON!)"

Source: vault.ign.com/View.php

The whole very excited about where the franchise is headed line scares me. A couple of months before pulling the plug NCSoft said almost that exact same thing about TR, another game with middling population and poor decision making.

Originally posted by Rokurgepta

The whole very excited about where the franchise is headed line scares me. A couple of months before pulling the plug NCSoft said almost that exact same thing about TR, another game with middling population and poor decision making.

It doesn't scare me at all. To me it's just like with comparing SW:Galaxies case to DDO, old one and not very reasonable.

The logic is like this: "Someone went on vacations and had an accident. So don't go on vacations, because you're surely have an accident! I bet!"

For me, even if DDO was going to close (and it isn't, unless there was a major revolt in Turbine recently), it could be reason to feel good to. Just think about what could Turbine do with DDO 2 if they could start it with all this 3+ year experience... more streamlined code, core obstacles removed at the start, etc.

 Thanks for the update Sarr.

And I agree with your point, if Turbine was to make a DDO II it would certainly be a really good game.

Originally posted by Sarr

Originally posted by Rokurgepta

The whole very excited about where the franchise is headed line scares me. A couple of months before pulling the plug NCSoft said almost that exact same thing about TR, another game with middling population and poor decision making.

 

It doesn't scare me at all. To me it's just like with comparing SW:Galaxies case to DDO, old one and not very reasonable.

The logic is like this: "Someone went on vacations and had an accident. So don't go on vacations, because you're surely have an accident! I bet!"

For me, even if DDO was going to close (and it isn't, unless there was a major revolt in Turbine recently), it could be reason to feel good to. Just think about what could Turbine do with DDO 2 if they could start it with all this 3+ year experience... more streamlined code, core obstacles removed at the start, etc.

How does it make sense that Turbine would get DDO2 if such a game was coming out? Turbine has treated DDO like crap the last year. Thay have treated their players just as poorly. Sarr you need to take off the rose colored glasses and see some reality.

Do you honestly believe that if DDO closed Turbine would get to make DDO2?

Originally posted by Rokurgepta

Originally posted by Sarr

Originally posted by Rokurgepta

The whole very excited about where the franchise is headed line scares me. A couple of months before pulling the plug NCSoft said almost that exact same thing about TR, another game with middling population and poor decision making.

 

It doesn't scare me at all. To me it's just like with comparing SW:Galaxies case to DDO, old one and not very reasonable.

The logic is like this: "Someone went on vacations and had an accident. So don't go on vacations, because you're surely have an accident! I bet!"

For me, even if DDO was going to close (and it isn't, unless there was a major revolt in Turbine recently), it could be reason to feel good to. Just think about what could Turbine do with DDO 2 if they could start it with all this 3+ year experience... more streamlined code, core obstacles removed at the start, etc.

 

How does it make sense that Turbine would get DDO2 if such a game was coming out? Turbine has treated DDO like crap the last year. Thay have treated their players just as poorly. Sarr you need to take off the rose colored glasses and see some reality.

 

Do you honestly believe that if DDO closed Turbine would get to make DDO2?

/signed finaly one who get what´s going down in the mmo world, people just let DDO be it will DIE i promise you, i posted on the SWG forums here and the acctualll game foums that turbine has lost most if not all interset in the DDO we had from beta, they stoped listening to the players who kept the game floating, many of whom are leaving both on the U.S side and the EU side.

So if turbine want to mlik the cow just like SOE let them but the game is more or less dead on the EU-servers compared to the US and the US servers dosen´t have that large population.

Sarr get a U.S account unless your playing on a 56kb modem and you´d see what i´m talking about.