D&D Online

Hey Everyone,

I have not played this game or followed it, however I do remember a few times playing something with my friends on a table ^_^.  Why do so many people have a problem with this game?  Where did they mess up on it in the game?  And what do you guys/gals beleive they should have done better?

I loved this game... but yea they messed it up

1) 40% complete at launch (only 10 levels, not enough armor, not enough classes for dnd like monk, no crafting.. anyway the list is long)

2) no solo content at launch.  Grouping could be amazing but getting a good group was hard.  I guess if you had a few friends that just wanted to play together it was fine but hey why play DDO when neverwinter was so much better.

3) Neverwinter was so much better... I love neverwinter.

All in all it was a great game, I may go back one day if it doesn't go under.

They created the game they intended to create, it is different, people don't like difference so it was always going to be a gamble.

They didn't create wide open spaces, they didn't create lots of low level quests (kill x, collect y), they didn't try to appeal to the PvP crowd (although they did waste time later trying to) and they focused on groups.

In fact they went for the small group around a table playing through D&D modules.  Active combat, detailed quests and complex builds.

Personally I don't think they did anything wrong game wise, because they cut out all the stuff I dislike in MMOs, mindless quests, tromping around massive areas for no particular reason, boring click and forget combat, PvP.

Naturally it got slammed for what it didn't do and ignored for what it did. LOTRO is sort of what you get if you take all the difference in DDO out and put those elements people wanted back in. Which is great if thats what you want, but it is hardly different.

Finally they were never going to appeal to the PnP rule slaves, the D&D rules just don't transfer in to an active game that well. But then they never were meant to they were supposed to be adapted on the fly by a living breathing GM, who can see the rules are only guidelines. If you stick to the rules you end up with something like Neverwinter Nights which I thought was an awful game and demonstrated how totally dull and clunky you can make a game if you focus on solo play and don't use your imagination.

It certainly slipped under the radar of a lot of people, which is pretty obvious when people say AoC has revolutionary combat. When DDO had it already, with proper projectile physics and group AI, years before. But a lot of people haven't got the will to go against the popular opinion and decide for themselves.

Dr. Rock summed it up pretty well [although I personally always DID like just randomly exploring, both in PnP and in MMOs like Ryzom].

I think the main "problem" with the game was that they launched with far too little content in the game.  It seems that games nowadays live and die by their launch - DDO, bad launch [in terms of content and some gameplay elements - all fixed now] - small population; LOTRO, smooth launch, much larger population; Vanguard, horrible launch, minute population. 

I'd suggest to the MMORPG staff that they allow another game rating one year after launch [or one that is just "current rating"]  They have the hype-meter for before launch and ratings at launch, but all games should have a "how is it now?" rating also, so that people who are considering trying a game can have up to date information.

Basically the game had a lot more potential to do things right than things it actually did right.  As others have said, the combat system is a lot more fun than many MMOs.  The grouping system was well done (and I personally love the built in voice chat).  Graphics were pretty decent for the time.  Sadly, that's all the game really had going for it at launch.  Now look at the negatives:

-Buggy as all hell.  Honestly it would be hard to find a game as consistently buggy as DDO...and this hasn't changed, bugs from beta are still around.  This is an especially big problem for a game like DDO where everything is instanced and you dont get XP for killing indiviudal mobs (instead, you usually get a big chuck of XP when you finish an instance).  Often bugs make instances uncompletable, which means you spend and hour and have nothing to show for it (and the DMs simply will not help).

-Less content than many single player games.  Honestly - at launch this game was a joke in the MMO community when it comes to content.  No argument of niche marketing holds up here either...their isn't a community out there that wants a game as small as DDO was.  This has been remedied a lot over the last few years, but even after two years it lags behind most of the competition when it comes to content.

-Antagonistic developers.  This game promised players the opportunity to use strategy to find multiple ways to solve problems.  Sadly, whenever creative players come up with a new way to beat an encounter (a way that doesn't match what the developers had in mind), they change the game to make that tactic no longer work.  This often leaves players feeling like it really is a game of D+D with that horrible infamous GM who always railroaded the group and squashed any attempt at ingenuity.

-Nothing to do but quest.  For the longest time, the ONLY thing this game had for players to do when they logged it was look at the LFM to try to find a team and run quests.  Very limited solo content, no crafting, no AH,no PvP, nothing but quests.  Now they have an AH and some very limited questing, but when you look at all the things you can do the most popular MMOs, it's no wonder DDO is laughed at. 

DDO is fantastic in what it tries to achieve. It's a miracle that developers are still brave enough to use a popular license like D&D for this kind of mmorpg. We should praise them and not whine about lack of pvp/world etc. It was not a bad decision to go that way, but a different decision. I do not want to see every game the same for christ sake, let's praise the difference.

Simply put, it's not for the typical MMO addict, who will get bored real quick without even enjoying what DDO has to offer.

I personally love the fact that I can develop a character without playing 40h/week, and without having to spend hours doing boring stuff like running through large outdoor zones, crafting, bearing with kids bragging about their leet PvP skills, etc. You can log in, play some quest(s) for 1-2h, and have lots of fun. I certainly disagree on the above comment that the game is buggy as hell: there are definitely bugs (just like in all games), but situations where you lose your progress are extremely rare in my experience (it did happen to me, maybe 2-3 times in 2 years).

It's a great game if you appreciate what they do have rather than what's missing in comparision to other MMO's.

Originally posted by devacore

I loved this game... but yea they messed it up

1) 40% complete at launch (only 10 levels, not enough armor, not enough classes for dnd like monk, no crafting.. anyway the list is long)

2) no solo content at launch.  Grouping could be amazing but getting a good group was hard.  I guess if you had a few friends that just wanted to play together it was fine but hey why play DDO when neverwinter was so much better.

3) Neverwinter was so much better... I love neverwinter.

 

All in all it was a great game, I may go back one day if it doesn't go under.

All of the above was true...

At launch

Now?  Not so true.... 16 levels (with expansions coming out this year to bring it to 20)...   Remembering that 20 is as high as you can go in D&D anyway so they will have the full level range available in the PnP game in the game.

Solo content?  Loads of it now.  It's fully possible to solo the entire game, as almost any class.  Personally I find soloing boring and generally only solo as a way to kill time while finding a group.  But for those who love to solo.... this point has been adressed as well.

Neverwinter?  I dissagree... The original Neverwinter was quite good but character development was lacking, AI was abyssmal and the game itself was kind of kludgy... and Neverwinter 2 was abyssmal in my opinion.  I never was able to get into it.

Actually at release I hated DDO.... but now?  I came back about 3 months ago now... and haven't stopped playing since.  It is now what it should have been at release, imo.