All Posts by jeddak

I love the game and only play on the mp side and have for 5 months. It's not balanced but the heroes must have an edge to draw them to the moors. My weaver isn't much stronger at rank 5 that I was at rank 3 but we have some great battles daily (prime time at night is the busiest). It's the most fun I've had in pvp since Camelot and it's only going to get better as Turbine adds to it. But then Turbine is the worst problem as they seem to make changes no one wanted and the server gets in a tizzy as folks try to adapt (or give up without hardly trying). But I still look forward to logging in daily as a weaver (Prob the hardest mp class to rank). Now if only the server would come up from maintenance.

Mummy Rank 5 Soldier Weaver. Brandywine

Veteran of UO, EQ, EQ2,AC,Lineage,DDO,EVE and many I can't remember at this moment.

I love the pvp in the ettenmoors. Now it's heavily slanted towards the free persons but us dedicated monster types love it. So many in fact that Turbine is having to spend development time on the mp side on what orginally was supposed to be a side game. But I've been at it for 5 months now and play everyday. It's not for everyone and it's not your typical pvp as there is no real balance but if you ever wanted to be a spider, wolf, orc or uruk this is your chance. You just have to play a free person up to level 10 (fairly easy to do since that side of the game is quest driven).

Mummy. Soldier Weaver on Brandywine

From a pvp point of view which is all I play I have to say burglars are very tough to kill and cause havoc everywhere they go. Hunters tend to be looked down on due to their ability to desperate flight out of trouble every 30 minutes. Some use it if they even see trouble. Just my 2 coppers.

I just wanted to add (I also started on day 1) that I think it's great that uo is still going and that they are trying to get a new client going. Haven't been back in awhile (too busy with lotr) but I have  relative still playing who also started on day 1. He still loves the game (and the current destruction of magicia where folks are watching the city be destroyed and taking home rubble, trees ect to their houses) which is great.

Before trammel I hated it but it was a challenge and I miss it now. But it's gone forever and even if you organized folks and got them to return to fel there would be one thing missing...the victims. Without the folks who avoid pvp it's just open warfare where connection speed, exploits and just plain cheating rule the day.

So the old game is history and if orgin hadn't changed it the game would just be a footnote now. As it is it's a lesson for us all. If you play a game take the game as it is and stop trying to always remake the game in your image. That's why games tend to be clones of one another. We as customers buy the game, move in and start trying to change it to suit us. That's all I have to say, now if only Lotr's would come up from maintenance...Mummy.

I see lot's of new folks appear in monster play asking almost this same question. You play either Orc Reaver, Weaver(spider), Stalker (warg or wolf type to those that don't know about lotr) or uruk war leader or blackarrow. You are confined to one large area 'Ettenmoors' where pvp against the forces of good, (any of the people playing the main part of the game as champions, captains, loremasters ect). This freeps (free persons) come to the Ettenmoors to pvp against the forces of evil (creeps) once they reach level 40 or higher).

You start off at level 50 as a creep but with no ranks (roughly equal to a level 40 freep). Most freeps though are either level 50 or close to that and usually have many ranks earned after 50 so they tend to be much stronger than a starting creep.

Monster play can be frustrating and tough. You really should play a freep for awhile (you have to level one freep to level 10 just to activate the monster play button anyway) before trying the monster side. There is no real pvp balance and this balance tends to change from book to book (what the update patches are called). Generally though, freeps are stronger and will use their crowd control (cc) to hold you and then kill you. But as in most pvp it can come down to a numbers game. During the day it can be quite slow but you can do some questing to gain your maps (that allow teleportation to different parts of the moors). Later in the evening or on weekends it can get pretty busy on many servers (I play on Brandywine so that's the only server I know about). So it's either feast or famine.

But while freeps can advance though pve (fighting npcs) monster players can only advance by killing real players (the freeps) and it can be a slow process. So while I enjoy it immensely it can be kind of overwhelming to new players. So try to join groups, earn destiny via questing to buy skills) and jump in and be ready for a bumpy ride.

Mummy Rank 4 Weaver.

It sounds like you don't get much out of mmo's. I'm not trying to be insulting but if you are moving through games that fast then you probably just like to exhaust the content and move on (or get bored very easily). In the last 10 years most mmo's keep me interested from anywhere to 4 months to 3 years with quite a bit of time interacting with others. I suggest you try something else for entertainment so I won't bore you with what I have loved playing and am playing. Good luck.

I played the first 10 levels (just to get to mp) and never talked to a soul. Got a few blind invites but that was it. But to some that's a bonus. :p

Now I know it's a crime to like something but I do think highly of the game. But admittedly my perspective is skewed. Not because I'm new to mmo'ing (10+ years of daily playing from UO, EQ's, AC's, AO ect) but because I got the game only for one reason: monster play. Now I not a big fan of pvp and the only other time I liked it was in Dark Age of Camelot and then only in the battleground for levels 20-24. That small part of the game was the kind of pvp I liked. Imbalanced, unfinished and temporary (too most).

Now it's back with monster play in the rings. Imbalanced, unifinished and temporary (to most). The free peoples 'freeps' rule when they venture into the Ettenmores as the monsters are weaker comparatively to the powered up 50's that mostly venture into fight. You wouldn't expect anything else would you? It's human nature: must win and any cost. And when I say any I mean it as a well organized freed army can wipe the field with the usually smaller numbered and weaker creeps. With their 30 second constant stuns many creeps leave in disgust before they get very far into that part of the game. No one likes to lose especially badly. (Nerfs are coming..time will tell how that goes but I'm not holding my breath).

The creeps start at level 50 and that's great. All you have to do is make it to level 10 as a freep and in you go with 5 classes to choose from. So if you think about it it's no wonder the freeps are strong, they should be after grinding 50 levels. Now when I say grinding I am probably way off since I can't stand questing. Even good questing as those first 10 levels were. The game is well populated, well designed and a pleasure to behold especially when you enter a larger town like Bree. But enough about that. As I said you start at 50 after only 10 quick levels. But if I had to guess (and this is a very vague guess due to my lack of pvp experience so far) I'd say a level 45ish is probably close to being equal to the monster 50 but I may be off as much as 5 levels in either direction. Now after my first night of MP although I had fun I was disheartened that I'd spent so much on the game. After all I had said I would never play Lotr but like usual I jumped in on a whim (mostly due to my extreme boredom with DDO after a year and a half (good game but I was tired of it). So I posted on their forums (Lotr) and was set straight as most posters due on forums very quickly.

Now a few days later and I love the MP. I'm still not rank 1 with my spider (barely half way) but I have a few new skills (you get skills by earning destiny (from combat and questing) but xp is measured by infamy and that as far as I know can only be gained by killing freeps. And being a fringe player being a spider I tend to get small does of it so it's going slow. Comparatively others get 60 or more from one kill while I get 1-8 and I can see why. Front line creatures like the reaver can charge in and due massive  damage with a finishing move but they are putting themselves out there as there isn't much healing on the monster side (at least so far..I hear orc shamans are coming).  Many MP's are stalkers (wolves) as they are stealthy and deadly. But I'm a bug at heart so it's spiders for me. And I can't wait to keep changing my appearance (can look black eventually) and gain some more powerful skills. But it's not for everyone. I spend lots of time in a burrow waiting on the right opportunity when I'm not on the fringe of a large battle spewing poison and web.

And the game itself is not for everyone (like anyone is) but its build for the masses overall but monster play, well like someone said last night, "How do I get out of this land so I can go back to the fun part of the game?". And to many this will be what they find in monster play. A tough road but I have to laugh as the apparent fun the freeps are having in slaughtering us monsters. But I can tell that in the next few months that fun my be tempered by some death and destruction brought on by the monsters. Like one monster said, "You just don't know how to play yet". And this is true as well as you are pretty weak when you first start. I am hopeful that will change over time. But for now I love it.   Mummy level 50 weaver.

The reality is that our expectations as gamers far exceed what is possible for a mass appeal game. There is a lot of originality out there but most of us wouldn't even try it so why would a developer risk millions on something completely original? They would have to be driven by someone with a vision, the money to back it up and the luck to hit the scenario that would satisfy enough folks to be successful. Or as I heard once and love to quote badly when talking about the strange beasts gamers are: We have met the enemy and they are us.

Just reactivated my swg account. Now thinking of deactivating it. Their may be a good game in there somewhere but the horrible interface hasn't changed much. And mobs still appear several seconds after you enter an area, force lightning still arrives well after the mob is dead and once again I found myself trying to access the menu on a mining machine and couldn't get it to pop up. I could go on but my point of view is fairly limited so I'm probably not being very fair but hey: this is what anyone new is going to run into and my prior experience didn't seem to help much. And I was really in the mood for some star wars.

UO was the best gaming experience I've ever had  but it was also at times the worst. It was wide open and chaotic like the myth of the old west and it didn't take long for the more nefarious gamers to exploit it to their full advantage. The outcry that came from it easily topped anything that has occurred since which forced OSI down the eventual path the game took. So while I miss it I also know it was poorly designed and doomed to fail in it's original form.  Which I imagine spurred Verant to take the anti -uo path with EQ which has endurred ever since to become the safest way to develop an mmo. I can't think of anything that has been super successful since that has varied from the well worn path. And I am still in love with the skill based character system over level based and still hold out hope for it to reappear in a successful game.

Started in beta and have been playing almost daily since then. It's a good game although the devs had made quite a few questional decisions along the way. And even though I'm not into the high level game (and that goes for all games that push raiding as the endgame) I've been happily rerolling, designing characters and trying out new ideas over the last few months.  That and the comraderie of questing with others made the game worthwhile and fun for almost a year and a half. Finally, I am reaching the end  of my time with the game. No real fault of Turbine but just getting tired of the game (losing most of my cash after the first merge didn't help my attitude since I have no idea what caused it (I could of missmailed it...who knows).

What would keep me interested? New classes, new ways to add some flavor to character design, some specialization in casting (trading generalization for immense power against certain types of foes) and finally I want to be a mummy, liche or any evil creature in the game. The possibilities would be endless. But I know what I listed is either months away or impossible as Turbine continues to cater too the fast levelers, raid and loot fiends all the while trying to become more appealling to the warcrafters.

And the types of players over time has changed from the sturdy adventurer types to a younger and younger crowd who seem to have the patience of fleas.

So unless something peaks my interest soon I can feel the end coming. And nothing current or planned holds much interest these days. Thanks for reading.

Of course it's worth it if you like the game (and I don't even play wow). And consider what you are calling a large amount of cash is probably less than you spend each month on your usual things you find entertaining or tasty. :)

As of 10-25-06 we had module 3 added (either monthly content or a module added each month) and the game has taken a large step upward with 12 more high level dungeons, level cap increase, spell additions and a huge outdoor area containing all the new content. And pvp has come to ddo and although it's not usually my thing it's kind of fun just to jump into it (actually enter a tavern and move to the pvp area and drop down into the fight from above) for some quick action. Team pvp is in the pvp arena but I haven't seen it yet. Been too busy questing for that.

I know it's traditional to slam games you don't like and DDO is not for everyone so that's going to happen. Even WoW's forums are full of complaints (just came from there) so I guess that's all they are for. But DDO is progressing although it never had a content shortage to begin with. The real problem is that the average gamer wants instant gratification and something totally new each time they log in and it's just not possible. They take the easiest and quickest path to reach the maximum level and then proclaim the game has no content. Those types are going to find nothing but disappointment in DDO.

DDO is about questing with others and finding a way to work together via voice chat to survive the combat and finish the quest. With the new module that just got quite a bit harder to do and I feel the game is the better for it.

Like I said before the game isn't perfect and never will be and Turbine seems to be very intent on putting out content on a schedule so there are always a few bugs they need to hotfix for. Today the servers are down for a hotfix (2hrs) to fix the newly added auction system (that's why I am here). But I don't mind. Maybe they don't have the backing to hold up additions like blizzard does until they are perfect but then they also face the continueing cry so many gamers constantly scream about..CONTENT. Well that's what we are getting monthly.

And I still say this is the best game I have played in ten years of mmog's. (wont drop in the caveat of imo since most of what we spew is opinion so I don't see why "IMO" is used like a disclaimer to avoid negative responses). Just like I won't waste my time trashing games I don't play anymore. Thanks for reading.

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Originally posted by Syngexx
IMO

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I'm still having fun with DDO (started in the beta) and it's improving steadily with each months addition but of course that's IMO. Pray tell, is there any game worth your time mr wordsmith? Or do you just travel the wide ranging roads through all the game forums bringing your vast knowledge of online gaming?

DDO is not the best game or the worst game (and I'm played most of them starting with UO) but it's kept me interested longer than any other game I've played in the last couple years.

If you wait long enough we all get tired of a game and move on (Though some stick with games like UO since their inception and still play daily ..stupid brother!). Not sure why a player leaving a game they once loved is that much of a surprise as most of us have done it at one time or another.

For me personally, I really didn't like the game in the beta, but I've been steadily building a great love for the game over time once I got past my anti-social habits of the past. The game is far from perfect and at times Turbine's handling of the game reminds me of Verant reborn.  I don't care for TF (or the dragon) much but new modules bring other changes to the game that I do like. But content, while nice, isn't why I play games. Grouping with friends and adventuring with players I don't know is what keeps me looking forward to the next quest. I don't farm things to avoid boredom that will surely come and I know eventually I will tire of DDO like all the other dozens of mmog's I've played over the last 10 years but for right now I think it's headed in the right direction and I'm having fun. That's all I need. 

 After reading through the forums on this site I get the idea that everyone hates everything and anyone that dares to enjoy something. Well go ahead and attack me. I'm an easy target and I'm too busy to remember to come back here and check these forums more than every other month. Good luck finding something you like to play.

It's cool to trash games and very uncool to like them alot. Hopefully all of us find a game we like in the future (I doubt that it ever happens for some of you) and you can bet it will be the same negativity on the forums.  After the fun years of UO, EQ ,AC, AO and DAoC I played nothing new that interested me and I left those games quickly. I didn't spend my time on forums bashing them though and I kept trying games till I found one I like. I can see that if you are bored by a game then you move on but to spew the hatred like I hear is kind of rediculous.

There are lots of us that do like the game although I don't come up for air often as I'd rather be playing than argueing. Don't like a game then don't play it. But if you haven't tried it don't follow what any of us says and try it for yourself. Otherwise you become a clone waiting to be told what to play. Good luck and Good bye. I'm done with these hate spewing forums.

Hands down Dungeons and Dragons Online. Been mmoging for 10 years and I'm hooked. Can't wait for the next module.

That solo mode is only available in the harbor area and not for all quests. No blinking needed. They are just helping new folks to get going. But why listen to me since I love the game (started in beta and it took me awhile before I got past my previously learned mmog habits and got into the tame)? And while it's gotten off to a slow start and will not appeal to the masses I am confident it's going to become something special after the next two modules (one in july and another in august). And just for reference I quit the following games either in their beta's or after 3 to 6 weeks: EQ2, COH, GW,WoW,EVE. I hate to group EvE in with the rest but it's kind of like DDO and will appeal to a niche crowd.