Originally posted by Lienhart

Originally posted by Vaedur

I say lotro, as a 3 time a weeker, you can experience much of the game, and just seems so much more laid back then wow..IMO

 

I tried it. I couldn't get past the graphics. The character models, specifically, look horrible. I prefer gfx closer to Aion and FFXI. I personally find anime characters close to real humans than the other stuff put in games (with the exception of AoC).

DDO : Dungeons and dragons online

Both Turbine games are good,

If you want to try a PvE MMO with a totally different experience try the other Turbine MMO, DDO... It has :

-Grown up community

-Free to play..

-Best combat system of any MMO

-Deepest character system with multiclassing

-Smartest MOB AI ever seen in any MMO.

-Best most intrigueing quests, they all have story and background, no more kill 10 rats.

- Soloing is fun, almost all content can be done soloing... every quest/instance can be done on deifferent levels solo/normal/hard/epic

-Content comes in nice tidy bits so espescially friendly for casuall players

-Many many players at all level ranges, easy to get groups

What it lacks ...

- Crafting (but i am not a crafter)

- No real PvP... just some small PvP area's that will do for an occasional PvP experience

- No open hunting areas, no seemless world... players only meet in towns like in GW.. With the great content i don't miss this feature, just takes some time to get used to it if you come from a seemless MMO.

I can advise everyone that loves a deep MMO to try this game

Originally posted by Suomalainen1

Well the combat system is pretty nice, dungeons are cool too, but the game lacks crafting. So be prepared for that. There are also a lot of training possibilities and many routes to choose. This might be a bit complicated but you will learn it when you play. A word of warning too, the game is quite repetitive because it's pretty much dungeon quest, level up, next dungeon quest etc.

- The combat system and AI is far beyound any other MMO... they rock big time

-Most people will never miss the crafting

-Every MMO (even every game) is repetitive

Just keep in mind that there are some major things missing compared to WoW, crafting just being one of them. Personally what i miss most is the fact that there are no open area's except for the townhubs, but once you accept these things you have the best PvE MMO out there at your hands... As you stated this is the only MMO different enough from WoW and EQ to give an all new player experience, and thats what people need in this genre.

Even the Lotro developers play DDO (both are turbine games)

Originally posted by theAsna

*edited* The header is misleading. I thought you ment DDO EU, but I see it's DDO Eberron Unlimited (US).
 

/agree

Time for some little criticisme...

1st, the Auctionhouse interface is bad..

2nd there is no real crafting..

3rd The weak part of the D&D ruleset is the gear part... it could be done better with another ruleset.

4th, there is no housing, i'd love to see housing like EQ2 has

5th, the game really needs a few open zones where people can combat and quest together. the wild lands would have been perfect for this.... maybe even add  a public quest series to these wild lands to make them even more special... tough they are a bit small and should be better... 

6th, The game should have been situated in the forgotten realms (personal opinion)

7th, Some great spells are still missing

8th, Turbine is about to damage the game when top items like +3 tomes will get available through the webshop.. 

9th, to get the really best experience people need a VIP account (Adventure packs) yet on cancelation of the account .. or even halting it temporarilly, you loose a lot not only access to the adventures, but also character slots.

10th, The hirelings system is okay... but the next step would be to have true henchman.... (aka Heroes and better from GW)

 Tough its still one of the best games ever....

Just try Dungeons and Dragons online....

The game is actually different enough then most WoW clones to give a totally new player experience...

And it has a class system that lets you create anything you can think of...

Originally posted by moorewr

Originally posted by Rokurgepta

Sorry but DDO was not growing since launch. It has grown greatly since the F2P launch, but since 2006 the game steadily got smaller. Turbine did not do enough to make the game ready for the MMO market, the world was plenty ready for a great MMO, DDO was not that game then.
 

 

Between launch and DDOU we received eight major content updates and the level cap went from 10 to 16. That's about half the quests in the game, all the public zones outside town and nearly all the quests outside Stormreach. How is that smaller?

 

Public zones outside town?

I only found the wildlands and those are not public...

So are there actually public zones where you could hunt in an MMO fashion and meet other people ?  Or are these zones mere player hubs where people meet without combat just like in Stormreach.

THis is actually my only bummer with the game untill now (2 weeks of intensive playing) I tried out almost all classes and they are all fun to play,  Mobs are smarter, the class system has more depth and espescially the spellcasters have so many options its mindbogling. Mellee is fun. The graphics are good, more then enough to immerse me in my adventures. The adventures are great, they are really really entertaining.

But be warned, this is not a free game, if you really want to enjoy the best, you'll need to unlock some content by paying (adventures) ,.... this can also be done by a VIP account, which actually makes it a payed game...

For now i spend €30 unlocking content, and the VIP account is about €10 a month...

Best of all, the game is filled with nice and enthousiast players.... that love to group up with you.

I also found a great guild, international with many many europeans.

TO BE CONTINUED

They missed a chance with the wilderness area's..

They should have allowed multiple people (maxed out at 40 or so) in the wilderness zones... with multiple instances of these zones.

I think that might make the game even better... But then a lot of the wildreness zones are not that huge... So maybe they should only start adding these zones in expansions... ((Tip... add them in variety PvE and PvP))

I can live with the current zones, nevertheless Some open zones would be a great addition to this game...

Originally posted by Nadia

 

I'm currently level 8 and finding that the number of free adventures are diminishing but I'm still having fun

I think the game might be word some investment at this level, the payed adventures I have seen are worth their moneys value. This offcourse is part of their subscription model. At some point the game makes you feel you are better off with a subscription.. This might be the best subscription model ever ...  

Originally posted by Shadowschild

I must agree with the original poster. I thought the game was neat at first, having played NwN in the past. The graphics are okay & the gameplay is alright but the level design is poor. Its always the same dungeons with no variation, if they were random it would make gameplay alot funner. There are only so many times you can do butchers quest before you start to lose interest in the game...

I uninstalled it 3 times before getting to level 6, thinking that I gave up too easily. In reality I was simply reaching out, trying to tell myself this game is mundane & boring. Uninstalled, game files deleted.

Perhaps its the entire wave of Free to Play mmo's that has tired me... I feel that there is no decent f2p mmo & i've tried just about all of them.

Regards
 

<sighs>

You revived a 3 year old post

You can not agree with the OP as this was a totally different game then todays game.

Originally posted by Wootson

I played the game for about an hour or two just yet, and I must say that I am quite surprised by how it felt! The intro dungeon already made me smile and it actually felt like a little adventure. The combat system is so far the best I've ever seen in an MMORPG. Very responsive and meaningful. No silly characters standing minutes in front of each other bashing their heads in, but action-based combat with possibilities to dodge attacks and things like that. Simply stunning!

 

This game caught me by surprise.

 

I play the game from Europe (The Netherlands), by the way. No problems with connecting to the USA. No lag whatsoever!

I am from the Netherlands to, (I play on Cannith)

And i never mentioned lag as i am having a good connection to the US. (we all have in Holland, as we are the Internet backbone of europe) In the lower levels there are allways enough people to group up with at the european main time. SO thats not an issue..

This is my most fun MMO since EQ, DAoC and WoW (yes i actually had fun in that game) that gives me the feeling of playing a new game and not just another MMO.... I love that, next to that this game till now is very sweet for my casual playstyle.

There are some things i'd love to have seen different, espescially the wilderness zones should have allowed multiple people/groups to access it would have made the game a bit better, more to my liking and almost perfect. I still think every MMO needs open zones where everyone can enter and meet other people in the wild.

But thats the only true weekness of this game so far....

actually the game has 100 levels....

every level has 5 ranks, and at every rank you get some minor abbility....  At the main levels you get major things. so all in all there are 100 ranks.

F2p in DDO is nothing more then an extended trial...  I have been playing for over a week now and i have spend some real money in the store just to unluck the class i wanted and to try a mission pck/adventure. I am currently thinking about subscription..

Sadly as a european i have to play this game on US servers. I personally like their payment system...  In the end its just as expensive as any normal subscription game, but you deicde what you want to pay.

Most important, the game is fun. But since the game is so much different from any other mmo's (EQ and WoW clones) with true monster AI, i am having so much fun.

Seems turbine makes the true MMO's for us roleplayers, with depth and detailed stories.  Compared to Lotro, this games combat is so much more fun  And character development is really really deep..... Thats why i prefer it over the other Turbine game.

Best combat system :

PvE Dungeons and dragons online because its tactical and the mobs actually have some AI, very diverse abbilties.

PvP Spellborn, nothing comes close.

More actionivolved combat systems....

-Spellborn (sadly i did not like their world development and quest system)

So i can only advise you  DDO, best combat system sofar, verry deep character development, more then just hack and slash combat, smart mobs that will actually attack you when they see you.  If you can live with instanced gameplay only this is an awesome game and a must try for everyone, the only MMO that comes close to a single player RPG.

And whta both these games have in common, they are not WoW/EQ clones... they both play totally different.

The turbine games have much more immersion and interesting stries then the average WoW and its clones..

The books (main stire quests) are really awesome.

Currently i play the other Turbine MMO because it has a more high fantast theme with more sorcery among the swords...(Dungeons and dragons online) I really like high magical settings, like DDO. Also it reminds me of my happy times with pen and paper D&D.  Next to that DDO has the most inrigueing character development system of all MMO's, the best combat system so far and a bit of PvP compared to LOTRO.

But Lotro's epic stories are a bit better then DDO's .....

Needless to say, i like both games and if you haven't tried both you should try them both out, wether by free trial, or even free to play (DDO)

Originally posted by Rokurgepta 

Not nice to hate us for not going slow in a quest we have seen too many times. For some max XP per hour is part of the fun.
 

I don't hate you or the players, just the attitude... It can be quite overwhelming for people trying to get hold of a new game...

For me XP is nothing more then a number that indicates some advancement.. I play these games to have fun in my adventures, To hear the stories of the world and to find some challenging fights...

Replayabillity of an MMO is over rated, as is currently end game content , as all it is comes down to rinse and repeat. And thats not my idea of fun.

DDO keeps managing to surprise me, as i level it looks like the fights keep getting more and more interesting... Spellcasters add diversity to every encounter. Never any fight is the same. And mobs react like mobs should react... Inteligent beings attack me when they see me. Every fight is fun. I currently solo my adventures on normal and thats quite challenging. If i get the chance i try grouping, but thats still hard on european times, i am actively looking for a earopean guild on Cannith.

Originally posted by PhelimReagh 

That said, I'm a bit depressed that grouping means finding dungeon grinders/zergers to race through the content with. It could very well be D&D brought to life, except that no one seems to want to treat it that way.

Aye... how i hate these people that try to push everything to max, they play for max XP/hour instead of having fun. I hate this attitude more then Wzizzards trying to mellee or healers forgetting to heal..

I play this game for fun, and thats  not zerging, so i think some of the tips on your comments will help us both out...

Vaszal ; "Healer lvl 4 looking for fun group, no zerging"

that would be me from now on.

Originally posted by tkreep

im too lazy to make a unbiased review but i did quit the game at 36.  And you should spend that 50 on dragon age.

Have you actually played dragon age?

So why do you advise people to play something you have not played yourself ?

Aion is a game for PvP... PvE is just more of the same old stuff, but PvP is what makes this game different, it has the PvP Warhammer should have had.

Its not a bad game. But its not the all mighty all in one package we where hoping for either.

Originally posted by Papadam 

Yea the low levels are not very "epic", alot of kobolds and sewers ;) but I guess thats what D&D is like.

At lvl 10 you will be fighting dragons, giants, beholders, mind flayers and thoer scrzy stuff... And then you are just halfway through the leveling ;)

Also keep in mind that the Free quests are for the most part j ust single quests, the longer quests lines and epic stories are found in the adventure packs.

Have you done any grouping yet?

 

Yes,

I loved the grouping... first group was a bunch of noobs and they all ran in all directions..

But when i got intoo a better group the game showed how much fun this game is, Monster AI is far beyound any other MMO's...

Today my first quests on hard,

And suddenly i find that those kobold shaman are casting dark clouds of smoke, if i walk intoo it i am blinded and everything around me is turned dark....

It makes me remeber my first time blinded in EQ... boy was i surpised back then, as i was now..

Combat is fun, and the world feels like a true fantasy world, all this fun makes me wonder why this game failed in the first place. The Dungeon adventures with sproken (GM like) hints tell a story of them selves. I still have no clue what this world expects from me, everyone wants something from me... but its far from Epic...But then this may change soon.

By now i canceled my Aion subscription...