Average Reviews:
(More customer reviews)Dungeons and Dragons Online (DDO) is an above average dungeon crawler that has the potential to be a lot of fun for a while with enjoyable instanced quests and lively gameplay.Unfortunately, there are a lot of little things that will likely make the value of the subscription fee here questionable in a month or two, and even early on many will have issues with forced grouping.Having actually purchased the headstart, I am having a blast - but take a star off of fun for the grouping issue, and two stars off of overall for the rule implementations, lack of PvP, and value proposition, leaving this at 4 fun/3 overall, or 3.5 stars.
With Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) having spawned literally tens of thousands of imitations at the top of the family tree of RPGs, MUDs, and MMORPGS, publisher Turbine has both the blessing of an eager audience and curse of a really tough comparison.The good news is that they've done an enjoyable job of implementing the heart of the D&D experience, which is the dungeon crawl.Unlike many MMORPGs, support classes like rogues are a requirement for almost all dungeons - there's no uber single class build here - and a well designed group and careful gameplay is a more important than any particular player, item, or spell.
However, the group aspect is double-edged.Outside of the first 5 or 6 early dungeons (even less for certain weak combat classes), solo play simply doesn't work - meaning your entire gaming experience will depend on finding a suitable group or guild.The support for this isn't bad, with ingame voice chat and being able to select exactly what you want in terms of a class and level in group search, but even players within a good guild can have significant waiting times while everyone gets ready.Turbine could and should have come up with a way for solo players to do something to advance.All adventure is instanced, which in this implementation makes sense but does mean like Guild Wars the only 'massive multiplayer' aspect of the MMORPG feel is when you're at the taverns.
D&D purists will probably not like the rule implementations either.Monks, druids, and several races are left out as are any number of skills, but the biggest wildcard is adding 4 class and race 'enhancements' which provide benefits far above even the best feats (like +5 to all skills or +3 in a certain statistic).Given how the game is set up, it doesn't really affect balance much - can't solo anyway - but between that and loot drops that rival the taj mahal (down a bit from beta, but not much), it does annoyingly throw traditional character builds out the window.Why bother making an especially stout fighter with high constitution if you're going to get 25 free hit points from the start?
More significant is longer term viability.Advancement is quick enough so the current level cap (10) was actually reached by any number of people in the 10 day beta.This will shortly be raised to 12 and eventually to 20, but the real issue is the lack of any alternative to the dungeon crawl - PvP, crafting, or anything else - that encourages people to stick around to pay the $14.95 monthly fee.
Don't get me wrong.I'm having more fun playing this now than any game in a long time.The issue is that I can also easily see not playing this in 30 or 60 days from now, which is a real shame.Hence, why this is rated 3.5 stars, and why I hope Turbine thinks carefully about how to improve it.
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Product Description:
Dungeons & Dragons Online: Stormreach is not sprawling game you might expect based on some other online role-playing games. Set in and around the city of Stormreach, you will spend most of your time in the sewers and dungeons hidden beneath this supposedly civilized place, rather than traveling to the far corners of some over-large fantasy world. The gameplay in Dungeons & Dragons Online: Stormreach is designed more as combat-intensive quests, which means you will spend more of your time undertaking meaningful missions and trying to achieve specific sets of objectives than you will spend blindly exploring an expansive fantasy world. Classic Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) conventions, such as saving throws and critical hits, are at work behind the scenes, which allows combat itself to remain simple, fast paced, and packed full of action.
Combat remains simple, fast paced, and packed full of action. View larger.
Choose from various non-human D&D races, including elves, dwarves, and halflings. View larger.
The quests provide a good balance of combat with light, thoughtful puzzle solving. View larger. Dungeons & Dragons Online: Stormreach lets you choose from the standard non-human D&D races, including elves, dwarves, and halflings, as well as one new Eberron race called the warforged. The warforged are wood and metal golems, originally created to be a race of soldier slaves, which have since gained their independence and who now live alongside the other races in relative equality. Once you have selected your race, you will need to choose your character class. Here you will find the core classes, such as the fighter, cleric, wizard and rogue, make an appearance alongside the more specialized classes, such as the barbarian, sorcerer, bard, paladin and ranger. With this accomplished, you are free to select your character's appearance, which is where the tough choices must be made. Finally, you must determine what your character can, and can not, do. While the game will suggest a certain set of ability scores, skills, and feats for your character, you're free to customize them in any way you wish.
As in other online D&D games, there is an auto-attack feature that allows you to relax and watch the action play itself out, but the real-time fighting -- which utilizes the right button on the mouse to control attacks and the shift button on the keyboard to control blocks -- adds a lot more excitement to the game. Your various spells and ranged abilities are controlled via hot keys. An auto-lock feature makes your ranged attacks a lot easier to manage, but you are still free to aim and fire on your own. Characters pay a four-point penalty if they attack while moving, though you can get around this penalty by using the tumble skill. This convention can take some time to get used to, given that some monsters in the game are highly mobile, but once you manage to get the rhythm of moving and attacking, you will quickly to learn to fight without being penalized.
In between all the fighting there is still a lot of exploring to do. The dozens of quests that Dungeons & Dragons Online: Stormreach has to offer provide a good balance of pure, sweet combat with light, thoughtful puzzle solving, and they are structured in a way that keeps you constantly in motion. Whether you are searching out secret doors, swimming across an underwater labyrinth, fighting for your lives against sudden kobold ambushes, or smashing open barrels looking for treasure, you are always moving towards the end of your quest.
Each quest is rated in level, length, and difficulty, and you have the option of repeating quests at a higher difficulty level to face greater dangers and receive greater rewards. Unlike other D&D games where you earn experience from each individual kill, Dungeons & Dragons Online: Stormreach only lets you earn experience points upon successfully completing the entire quest. The game was designed this way to help avoid putting players through the typical grind of repeatedly killing the same monsters as a way to level up. All of the quests in Dungeons & Dragons Online: Stormreach are singular "instances" that offer fresh challenges exclusively for your party; you won't be pushed into the middle of an ongoing quest that others have already started. Most quests can be easily completed in a reasonable period of time, although some quests are part of a greater, story-driven series that can take much longer to complete.
Dungeons & Dragons Online: Stormreach presents loads of opportunities for party-based dungeon crawling expeditions, all launched from a large urban common area. The taverns located throughout the city of Stormreach serve as social hubs, in which you can find other players to join. For chat capability, Dungeons & Dragons Online: Stormreach requires only a standard microphone and headset that allows you to talk, rather than type, to your party members. You get your first 30 days for free, after which you must pay a monthly fee to remain online.
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