Dungeons And Dragons Online: YAFIDDO (Yet Another First Impression of DDO)

[p]I know you've read several "impressions" by now, so we'll skip the part about "what is DDO" and get to the good stuff!

Character Creation: You have the typical paper doll to make your character look like you want. You have the class selection screens, letting you choose race, class (with cool little movies that attempt to show that class in action), and you have your stats. You can choose to set your stats up how you like (min/maxers take note), or you can go with prerolled stats. After having played with my own stats and the prerolled stats, let me give you a piece of advice: roll your own. I can't survive as a barbarian in the first quest outside of the Harbor with the stats Turbine gives me!

Introduction: After you create your alter ego, you're dropped on 'newbie island', and here are my first two issues. First, the keymap is displayed right there in front of you, showing you what keys do what. That's fine - but that happens EVERY time you log in, newbie or not. It'll be no end of annoying to log in every day for 3 years, and have THAT be the first thing that greets you. Second, why are you here? NO character reason is given for you to be on the island or on Xendrick. Most of my gaming days, my characters had a reason for being where they were. You don't get that here, which breaks the immersion. The island has the standard NPCs and quest type mechanics to get you used to the game, it's controls, and interactions (as well as some side bar popups that point out additional newb info). The intro island is good for what it is, with the distinctions noted.

The Harbor: Ok, here's the beginning of the real adventure (other than not knowing why I'm here, of course). Talk to the first NPC I see, and I'm off. The quests he starts you on lead to a series of quests designed to propel you forward into the game and into the city. You talk to the NPC who tells you the tavernkeep needs help, you help the tavernkeep, talk to the original NPC who sends you on more quests (more newbie quests basically), and finally get enough quests to leave the harbor and enter the City proper. The quests in this section are done fairly well, and a well designed character can solo these pretty easily. The quests each have 3 difficulty levels - as you complete a quest, you can try it again on a higher level. This brings me to my next issue: repetition. How is repeating a quest, with increasing difficulty any different than grinding away in HoD (AC2 reference!)? Again, back to the PnP days, I didn't go into the kobold lair and steal the silver goblet back for the innkeeper three times! I did it once, he paid me, and told me about some farmer who lost his sheep (or whatever). The only reason I repeated the quests in my time with DDO Beta was to look for bugs (of the programming kind). The quests were fun to do the first time, but I wasn't interested in doing them over and over for fun. From what I gather, tho, this is intentional. However, the Harbor quests are entertaining (at least once), and they do tie loosely in with the ongoing quest arc.

The Upper Harbor: Once you actually enter the upper part of the Harbor, you find that the core of DDO is grouping. This is NOT a solo friendly game. You need a balanced group to play this game with any chance of fun. Head to the inn, set your LFG (Looking For Group) flag in the social panel, and wait - with a big yellow flag over your head. The social panel is an attempt to let you find others with similar interests/needs, but it still needs some work, in my opinion. The quests in the Upper Harbor follow a loose arc, involving making yourself known to the Houses in the City, and each completion leads you to another House representative.

However, here is where my beta experience ends. I played most of the races, most of the classes, but only through to the Upper Harbor. Unlike others that made it to level 8 in their time in game, I never made it beyond level 1, with one exception. During a "Player Event" I was lucky enough to stumble upon a Dev, who gave me some phat l00t and enough l33t xp to make it to level 3. Otherwise, I was playing the game more as a Beta "tester" than a Beta "gamer", and I still had a website to manage.

Overall: I think this game is a 'niche' game. It'll play best for those dedicated gamers that like to play with a core group of people. In this aspect, I think DDO recreates PnP very well - it's the type of game that you'll log on on Tuesday night with all your gaming pals, play for 4 hours, and say 'see you next Tuesday'. It's not solo friendly, it's not a grinder (except for repeating quests), and that's not going to set well with a lot of gamers. You'll want to stick together, too, because if one person wants to advance more quickly than the others, he'll find himself outgrowing the group, and have to resort to 'pickup' groups instead.

You'll also need to bone up on your DnD 3.5 ruleset, and the Eberron universe. This is not your father's DnD, it's not Greyhawk or Forgotten Realms. The rules are different, and you'll need to know them. That's not to say you can't play without knowing them, but you'll definately feel more comfortable with them.

It'll do just fine for those wanting to play DnD on the computer with their friends, tho, and that's how I think I'll approach it: Gather some of my friends that I've made in AC1 and AC2, set aside a game night, and play this game with them. On Tuesdays. When my wife joins her league shoots darts.

Side Note 1: Buildings aren't enterable - every place you head has a cutscene and teleports you to where you are headed behind the cutscene. During AC2, I missed the buildings from the AC1 days, and I'm sorry to see that they're not here either. On the plus side, everything's in one place. You don't have to portal or run or ride to get to the dungeon where you need to kill the bad!

Side Note 2: NPCs that talk in the open have their chat displayed above their heads. It's annoying and hard to read, especially if you have 'floating names' turned on. I'd rather have their chat show up in General Chat than this way.

Side Note 3: There's no first person mode. Partly I don't care, because I can't play in First Person or I get seasick. Partly I do care, because I like taking pictures, and every picture I take has the back of my head in it. That's annoying!

Side Note 4: Voice Chat ingame is a nifty idea who's time has come. I couldn't get mine to work in game, however. MSN and Trillian worked just fine, but the game just refused to pick up any sounds I made, regardless of how loud I yelled. Hopefully, they'll fix that before release.

Side Note 5: Visually, the game improved in quality over the various iterations of the Beta. More color entered the game, animations of background (like the crane in the harbor). It's still too dark for my taste however, very brown and drab. Of course, that could be just the Harbor.

Side Note 6: From an audio perspective, sound is good. Ambient sounds in the tavern are there (although you have to wonder who's playing the music? Unless they've found the Eberron version of Muzak, that is!) Sound also changes in the dungeons when you're being attacked, lending a sense of drama to the fight, although I found the game was slow to recognize the fight had started (or finished). The DM voice was a shocker the first time I heard it (Beta 3.5, I think).

Side Note 7: Quests. That's all there is to do in this game. You quest (and repeat them if you'd like), and quest. There's no hunting grounds, there's no grinding for xp, there's nothing to do BUT quests. If you're into crafting, try Horizons. If you're into PvP, try Guild Wars. If you're into raiding, try WoW. If you like questing, tho - you've definately come to the right place.