Dungeons and Dragons Online (DDO)

"I was the only one in our party strong enough to turn the valve and open the poritculis guarding the crates and barrels in the alcove. As the iron bars lurched up, I steped forward to investigate the contents of the boxes.

Near the floor, behind a spiderweb, I noticed a metal grill that I hadn't seen in any other alcove. I stoped to try and figure out whether it was a trap or not. Before I could say anything, our newest member (the theif of all people) rushed into the alcove.

Which is where we found out I was right. It was a trap. I got a facefull of acid, which thankfully did not get him.

Unfortunately, the other 6 grills I hadn't noticed yet did.

The last member of our party sat staring at our corpses wondering how she was going to get out without help."

Ok. For the record, I knew it wouldn't be 'bad'.

That said, I didn't think it would be 'great'.

I was wrong.

Before I go any further, let me tell you that DDO is an online game, where you play with other people. If this doesn't apeal to you, it's still possible to play, it just isn't nearly as much fun.

Now, on with the main part.

First, combat, is fun. Even for someone like me who prefers turn based strategy to RTS. Combat is fun. I almost never play a fighter in an RPG because it ends up boiling down purely to my stats. They're either good enough to win, or they aren't, which from a play point, is borring. Especially considering most games label the difficulty of every area your in, or creature you face.

But DDO isn't that way. Tactics blended with some low end twitch skills will change your fighters life expectence greatly. In other words, you actually have to fight. You have to DO something, and not just stand there.

Now, don't let twitch scare you. While it makes a huge difference (and can make the difference between life and death) the frenetic running and swinging I'm watching most people do, simply isn't necesairy. It doesn't require hair trigger reflexes, or constant movement. Seeing a big attack comming and jumping out of the way, knowing when to block with a shield, or tumbling around and fighting are a 'help'. They make a difference, but they're a 'plus' not a requirement.

On the other side of that coin, I had the "joy" of adventuring with a group of people who just rushed everything. While there were enough of them to succeed most encounters, it was far more costly than it needed to be.

But that's a side note to what really turned me on.

What really has me excited about the game are thieves. For the first time ever, I feel like I'm playing a thief. Searching for traps, disabling them, picking locks, I feel theify.

You have to change your combat tactics as a thief. You'll be facing the same creatures a fighter would face, but you're not going to have his hp or armor. So where possible AVOIDING them is the key. You'll still get xp, it's not about killing everything in the room. A refreshing change.

Every class had that sort of different style, that really made me feel like I had to play differently. In other RPG's the game's classes feel more like a tint to the screen as opposed to what it should feel like, a different style of play.

Also, 'uber' gear, (AKA overpowered equipment) isn't a problem (yet, but then I only made it to level 2, equivilent of level 6 in most games I've played). You could probably play the whole thing through with starting equipment (though it would be tough).

The game has two hurdles to overcome if it's going to be very successful:

1) Content. The dungeons are 'fixed' so to speak. So, you'll almost always know where and what's happening if you've been there before. Eventually walkthroughs will come out, and there will be a 'path of least resistance' through the game. I have no solution for this, other than to keep piping content into it. And with the quality they've put in so far, that, I fear, is going to be rough.

2) The other players. DDO isn't like any previous game I've played. I love almost everything about the game (see below), but I also have tastes evolved from over 26 years of playing videogames. I need a little challenge, and to truely suprise and captivate me means breaking from the norm enough to be suprising, without drifting off into some LSD infused halucination. Younger players will probably not like DDO because of it's difficulty. Older players may not like the 'twitch' aspect of it (no matter how downplayed it is).

What I'd like to see added:

Honestly, housing/banking is the biggest thing for me. Something I like to do as a MMO'er is collect. Collecting in these games is a game too. I want to keep a set of the ancient daggers from one of the first missions. I'd like to keep all my starting equipment so I can remenis about where I came from now that I have uber gear.

It would be nice to have a little section of the world that I have control over. Something that I could make my own.

And that's it. Otherwise, keep it up.

I go round and round about crafting. But looking at it again, it really wouldn't add much to the game.