General Discussion

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Originally posted by Tweedle42
i believe he says if you die your soul becomes attached to a soulstone on the ground there. and you can wait and be picked up by a player, who would have to be in the instance with you since its all instanced, and take it to a resurrection shrine within the dungeon, like a bind point in a dungeon that your party members have to deliver you to.

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I'm glad you gave that explanation. When I read the Q&A (I've not been following DDO much), one of the first things that crossed my mind was "what if a total stranger picks up my soulstone ?". If everything is instanced then that alleviates the concern of someone gathering up soulstones to annoy players.

Is it the case that every aspect of the game where there is a chance of dying is instanced ? I can see I'll need to do a bit of homework and figure this all out, time to interrogate the FAQ I think

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Originally posted by ArKane

As of right now, their faq page still says the lvl limit is 20. So unless they've said something different in an interview/dev chat/forum post and havent updated it.....

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I was talking with one of the Turbine D&D employees at E3 and he let it slip out, then quickly corrected himself.  After asking him to come clean, he did admit that the max level was dropped from 20 down to 10 because Turbine wanted "room for expansion" which we all know means:  "They cannot put in enough content to fit levels 1-20, so they have to scale back the design in order to release."

Take that to the bank.

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Originally posted by Istivan

Although a great interview, he politicianed a couple of questions.

How are they going to deal with Cleave?  He never really answered.  As he never really answered darkvision.

I am sure I will soon enough find out when I begin playing, just do not like it when a good question gets skirted.

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He didn't just "politician" some of the questions, he did it to ALL of them.  Re-read the interview and tell me if you understand definitively what he is talking about.  If you do not, then that means he is "politicianing" the answers.

David Eck is notorious for doing this.  Go back and re-read some of his other interviews and you'll see what I mean.

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Originally posted by Metalslave
I never had much faith in D&D being treated right when the inevitable MMOG became a reality and these Q&A sessions makes for depressing reading. There will be no freedom to roam around and explore the world. The combat system is different. The magic system is different. Death, feats and racial abilities, different. I'm assuming the list will continue as the Q&A sessions do.

Is there anything other than the logo to suggest that this is actually D&D?

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Well... no. The strength of PnP games is in the NPC interactions, the incredible variety of possible settings and opponenets (anything you can imagine and model with the rules) and the social aspects. As well as the fact that the characters could change the world as they played and the stories they went on were THEIR stories, not just stock missions assigned to them.
No computer game (yet) has these strengths.
It will have its own strengths and I, for one, and very glad the designers have decided to play to these strengths and steer clear of the weaknesses rather than trying to force a bad workaround.

To give you a comparison, for a long time architects tried to make modern buildings look like buildings made 100's of years before. Frank Lloyd Wright said "What are you morons doing? You arent limited by wood and stone anymore, we have STEEL! Why not use it!?"

There is no way a CRPG can re-create the strengths of a PnP RPG, but by capitalizing on their own strengths, they can build a darn fine game.

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Originally posted by quix0te
"It will have its own strengths and I, for one, and very glad the designers have decided to play to these strengths and steer clear of the weaknesses rather than trying to force a bad workaround."

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Whoa...

Who decided that the core features of D&D are suddenly weaknesses? And there are no alternatives other than 'bad workarounds' in dealing with them?

This game will be marketed as Dungeons & Dragons Online. I don't think it's unrealistic to expect at least similarities between the two games and right now, it looks like they're 'steering clear' of those.

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Originally posted by Metalslave

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Originally posted by quix0te
"It will have its own strengths and I, for one, and very glad the designers have decided to play to these strengths and steer clear of the weaknesses rather than trying to force a bad workaround."

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Whoa...

Who decided that the core features of D&D are suddenly weaknesses? And there are no alternatives other than 'bad workarounds' in dealing with them?

This game will be marketed as Dungeons & Dragons Online. I don't think it's unrealistic to expect at least similarities between the two games and right now, it looks like they're 'steering clear' of those.

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Well, apparently the game designers have decided it. And I agree. And you are focused on a few features (cleave and spell points) and ignoring the fact that 90% of the game remains unchanged. Now spell points is a pretty big change, but I think its smart of them. It tells me that they think fun>blind adherence to PnP ruleset.
While you may not buy the game and decry the lack of fidelity to PnP rules, I think they are less concerned about you than about me, who would buy the game, and then tell all of my friends to avoid it if they cant make it fun to play. Or the kid who never played PnP but has played three or four other MMORPGs and isnt going to put up with forced downtime (or possibly major xp penalties for death, but thats another story).
If they are making changes to the PnP rules, I'm working off the assumption its not because they woke up after a bad coke binge, but because they tried to make it work and the playtesters were reporting no fun/game balance issues.

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Originally posted by Anofalye

Cleave: They are going to make your next melee attack an AE melee strike in a little cute looking arc. (This dont allow to stack an extra attack on 1 target, it is only good against weaks opponents that can be down in 1 blow)

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Cleave doesn't work that way in DnD anyway...IF you Drop a creature (take it to 0 or less HP) Then you can make an immediate attack on another creature within reach...per 3.5 rulerook, page 92. This ability would be useable once per round. or per the timer.

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David Eckelberry
DD Online’s combat system doesn’t make use of some pen-and-paper elements, largely thanks to being an online role-playing game. We aren’t turn-based, we don’t have “rounds” of combat, and thus Cleave can’t give you an extra attack in a round that you down a foe. When examining feats such as these, my goal is to produce the intent of the original feat (or skill or effect), while making the necessary adaptation for good videogame play. In the specific example of Cleave, use of this feat allows the character to make an area effect melee attack in a small arc in front of the character.

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As per the whirlwind attack feat, that allows you to attack EVERY creature surrounding you, not just the one next to the one you just attacked, aka, the cone for the DDO Cleave would be a 10-15 degree cone, not a 360 degree attack... I think the great cleave feat would broaden the cone to 30 degrees or so...it has the potential to be better in DDO IMO. As you will probably use it more often. Whirlwind attack with a reach weapon can be devastating.

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Originally posted by netboyz

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Originally posted by ArKane

As of right now, their faq page still says the lvl limit is 20. So unless they've said something different in an interview/dev chat/forum post and havent updated it.....

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I was talking with one of the Turbine D&D employees at E3 and he let it slip out, then quickly corrected himself.  After asking him to come clean, he did admit that the max level was dropped from 20 down to 10 because Turbine wanted "room for expansion" which we all know means:  "They cannot put in enough content to fit levels 1-20, so they have to scale back the design in order to release."

Take that to the bank.

 

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