Dungeons and Dragons Online, Eberron Unlimited is in its closed beta phases. However the NDA has been lifted and I write this review fully aware that certain aspects of the game are subject to change before launch.
I have to admit; when this was a subscription based game I totally ignored it. But since they decided to turn this title to the free-to-play/RMT market it’s been getting some attention. I wrote a two part article on how some community players felt about the change, and even got some feedback from Jerry Snook of DDOcast, a podcast dedicated to Dungeons and Dragons Online.
I was surprised and excited to receive the invite for the closed beta test in my inbox, so I quickly downloaded the game. Lucky for me I already had a Turbine account through LOTRO; I was good to go in a matter of a few hours. And even more surprisingly enough, I actually liked the game and spent about 20+ hours on it.
Using my new GPA system, this is how I felt about it…
Added: Time Played: 26 Hours 15 minutes
Graphics: Really nothing bad nor good to say about the graphics in DDO except that they could be better. If I had to compare it to another game it would be Age of Conan. That is because that this game would soar if it had the looks of AoC with DDO’s playability. I know for a fact that AoC’s graphics are superior.
But the no-nonsense look to the game give it a certain charm and I found did not way to heavy on my system. There isn’t too much detail unless you turn your setting all the way up and it still doesn’t overpower even an average rig like mine. However, I do feel that the ambience and the lighting could have been better in some of the dungeons. When I walk by a torch, let me look like I am walking by a torch. Some parts of the game look sort of two dimensional. Some of the character details are rather bland, being that most of the faces look alike. It’s a weak point but not a deal breaker.
I give 1 point for graphics.
Game play and Mechanics: Regardless of how DDO looks, the way it plays is how it shines! My first feelings of combat were that I was playing a game of whack-a-mole. Only to find that there were other aspects to DDO besides the traditional “go kill ten rats and call me in the morning” MMO quests. You DO NOT get equipment or experience points for killing a random mob. So the days of standing in the field and grinding to Valhalla are over in DDO. I’ll break it down.
Combat: plays like an fps, but don’t worry about hitting something, if you point in the general direction and you should see the face of the creature/NPC in the portrait box. When it came down to it, I was just spamming my mouse in the portrait box until it was dead. That made things easier and more engaging because I actually had to RUN AROUND, for some mobs actually have AI that says, “Let me run away now”.
Character development: I played Neverwinter Nights 1 and 2, I was surprised on how Turbine stayed true to all the old D and D components. Most of the feats are the same, with the added touch of enhancements. This is like a mini-feat that players can use to customize their character as they’re leveling. I was a little confused on the difference of rank and level, a friend and DDO player explained to me like this, “Rank is for MMO levels, Levels are actually for D and D.” That made more sense as I gathered “action points” for each rank, seems like 5 ranks and you hit a new level. In the beta, you have a maximum of 4 levels that you can expand later. I will hit that further through the review. Turbine kept the depth and breadth of multiclassing elements, while staying true to it’s pen and paper roots DDO gives players a more creative and expansive area to develope their own personal style.
Questing: is your mainstay of gathering experience and character progression. With DDO being a “wheel based” mMO, questing can take place in certain mini-instances within the main village map. Your Newbie area is called Korthos; you will gather many small quests within the village although you can go to a larger instanced map. The larger instanced map, here it’s Korthos Island, and there is smaller mini-achievment quests and some larger quests in instances within the island. Yeah, it’s confusing; it’s basically an instance of instances. Sounds weird and quirky, but it works. You get experience and rewards for completing quests and quests are repeatable with an advancing level of difficulty. With Elite being the hardest it’s smart to bring a group.
Grouping: Since we are on the topic, I’ll talk about the most interesting part of DDO. Are you a soloer? Well then you can buy yourself a party of up to five “hirelings”, that was a HUGE part of the pen and paper version of D & D. There are two ways about it, you can talk to an npc and buys regular NPC hirelings, or go through the case shop for “golden seal” (insert joke here) hirelings. The difference is that Golden Hirelings can be used up to five; meanwhile regular in game bought ones can only be used 1 at a time. So you can literally carry around a party in a bottle!
If you are the social type, DDO has a very intricate and user-friendly grouping system. You are able to search for any certain groups that are in actually doing certain dungeons and filter accordingly. I played a cleric first and needed some DPS, searched for fighters, rogues and monks and put together a great party that I had a lot of fun with.
Loot: is divvied out through a “reserved” system and through quest rewards, you will have loot waiting for you even if a party member acts like dirty ninja. I liked this aspect of the game and it made it so I didn’t have to worry about rolling or missing out on stuff, it was there for me at my leisure. If you like to grind some, then you can grind dungeons for rewards and chest drops but that is by choice not by force.
UI: small, simple and very easy to use. It is very customizable I felt and UI is an important part of the game. This is how I am going to interact with the gameworld, players and even my character. The menus are easy to navigate through and the game also has a built in voice chat that works very nicely. The character screen is very basic and the tooltips are useful but not overwhelming. You can turn them off, but I chose to leave them on.
Footnote on Dungeons and Quests: This game is not all about hack and slash, there is an aspect of puzzle solving that the game mechanics weigh heavy into. Some mini-quests are hidden and I actually had to pull off some Lara Croft moves to find them. That is refreshing to me in a mMO; there are many small parts of DDO that add up to the whole. The FPS combat plays right into having to look around the map for clues on a puzzle. This also creates the ability to make “interesting choices” and employ both platform mechanics AND mmorpg play. Nothing in DDO is just a straight line, it made me stop think and have a few “beardy” moments. KUDOS to you Turbine, you knocked this category out of the park!
I give DDO 2 Full for Game play and mechanics.
Community: Very helpful and polite. Yes there was a part when the gen-chat becomes a wow-fanboi flamefest and it was quickly met with a GM and put to rest. I was happy to see that, but also felt that it was a sort of censorship. However, I see that Turbine and the DDO development team is leaning heavy into the social aspect of mmorpg’s. I fell into a few good parties and everyone was easy to play with and we all had a good time. Parties are easy to find, either through the UI function or good ole fashion spam in general chat.
If you are afraid of asking a question in general chat, then just type it into the /advice chat and someone will answer you. They answered me on many occasions and didn’t mind my line of questioning. I think that DDO is going to retain a lot of the older players, this is going to help all new players to make it through the beginning “newbie” stages, and it’s been fun for me so far.
2 Full points.
Customer service: Honestly, I have never had a problem with Turbine in the past trough Lord of the Rings and don’t think I will in DDO. When I cancelled my subscription for LOTRO it was handled quickly and professionally. I also like the fact that when I do buy something through the item shop it gives me a receipt via email. I like that.
It gives it an almost personal feel to the game other than “thanks for your cash!” of the other free-to-play games I tried. Also, Turbine is primarily an English speaking company so even if you do have an issue there will not be a language barrier that I have ran into before.
Cost and Accessibility: Well, well, well. The moment of truth! OK, first off. Software is free. Downloading is very simple and takes maybe a few hours depending on your internet connection and location. The turbine loader runs in the background even after you finish downloading the game and patching is automatic and went through without a problem. I’ve had TONS of problems in the past dealing with patching issues and download; this was very simple that anyone can do it. Even a younger player can download, patch and find logging in to be fast and easy. Good job there.
On the other hand…
One the positive, they didn’t ask for a credit card, not even to this point of playing. And I am not complaining that they give you $17.00 to use in the form of 1600 turbine points in the item shop of the start in a beta. But the conversion rate isn’t the best when buying Turbine points. At the best rate you are paying over a penny a point. After some mathematics’ it breaks down to .0118181818181 a point.
With most of the items in the shop being 10 points and up it’s not hard to go through 1600 points. It has some of the usual fair, hair dyes, experience potions, increase loot-luck potions. What got me the most was two things: the fact that you had to BUY something to advance past level 4 and the fact that a lot of content of the game is unlocked through the shop. I saw one instance area for $8.25, which is a bit much for a new group to buy on the spot. However you can buy group a member guest passes if they can’t pay for it themselves.
I have heard that DDO VIP’s (that pay 15 a month like a sub) have access to that content. I think of it like this, “if I walk in at $15 a month, isn’t the other stuff I buy going to add up as well?” The answer to that is, yes, of course it will. Considering that you can’t readily find potions and healing pots in a lot of the dungeons, and the token NPC doesn’t sell them either.
Second, as I might have mentioned before the Golden Seal Hirelings only last for an hour. You want to run five through a dungeon area; it will cost you almost the price of a full membership to do so. It will run you $13.75 for 5 hirelings for 5 hours, which can gang up on you and quickly blow any budget out of the window. If you run out of ammo, it will run you $.55 for 100 regular run of the mill arrows. I was stuck in that spot and had to blow some points while I was deep in a dungeon. Make sure that you stack up before you leave, especially casters, I haven’t seen any spell point drops so far in the game and had to buy some from the item shop a few times.
This is a Freemium game, not a free game; you are forced to go through the item shop at some point and it’s not cheap. If you are looking for a game to freeload off of you will not find it in DDO.
1 Point awarded.
Now let’s look at it on paper.
1. Graphics: 1 point
2. Game play and Mechanics: 2 points
3. Community: 2 points
4. Customer Service: 2 points
5. Cost and Accessibility: 1 point
Total: 8
GPA: B “A Very Good Game.”
Bartles Player Profile:
It’s not that DDO wasn’t a good game, is why Turbine had to go an alternative route, it’s because it wasn’t good enough. There is some stiff competition out there and it’s not going to get any easier. I would consider looking to DDO over some of the other traditional free-to-play or freemium games.
As for DDO’s fate on my hard drive, I’m going to keep it around and updated. I enjoyed it so far and am interested to see how it’s going to make out in the future. For the 1600 free Turbine points that they gave me and the fact that they didn’t ask for a credit card up front, makes it a no risk game to keep.
Dungeons and Dragons Online, you defiantly earned your 6 gigs of space you are taking up and would recommend this game my friends and my readers; try it out.
Until then…
Play safe,
Inktomi
You forgot to mention that you can FIND the leveling tokens from either treasure chests or end rewards. I got mine doing kobold assault. Also, when you buy an adventure pack, your entire account gets it, so it might seem expensive, but you won’t have to buy it for every account.
only problem i have with the level sigil is that if you buy one for one character, then delete that character, the sigil doesn’t stay, so you have to find/buy it again
Good review, very thorough!
I have been playing it, too. Name’s Rikoo Rakoo. Maybe we can kill those fish guys together! lol
Beau
just a quick note: you dont have to buy arrows in the turbine shop, just go to the general vendor and buy them for ingame gold
alot cheaper
First of all, nice review but let me add some comments:
1. “Graphics: 1 point”
Hehe … ok, well, I like the graphic … not as good as Lineage, better than WoW … and to be honest … the most important is the play itself as like old timers like tetris and pacman can rock even without huge graphic … I mean, I not walk through the game to see nice renderings but most of the time I concentrate to not get killed by an approching monster or to stumble in a trap :)
2. “the fact that you had to BUY something to advance past level 4”
Not sure about this, maybe this might be true for a player who try to do it all alone but with the right party its aint the big deal to reach higher levels. Anyhow as far as I know even for non subscribers higher instances are availabel and Korthos is only the starter Area but you usualy need to finish a Quest to unlock the way to the City. But well, I am a subscriber so not face the issue of needing to unlock instances via money.
3. “Considering that you can’t readily find potions and healing pots in a lot of the dungeons…”
Well, the second M in MMO stands for multiplayer and one big advantage of DDo is to nearly always find a party. If really a healer is missing you still can get a Hireling to heal you while questing which is sometimes even cheaper then a heal pot. Also heal pots are availabel but maybe not in the starter Area where they aren’t really needed as there are a lot of shrines to regenerate. But smashing some crates will drop them in a regular basis. Just not be afraid to ask other players for party!
4. “Second, as I might have mentioned before the Golden Seal Hirelings only last for an hour.”
As far as I am aware of, the hirelings will last – at least – one hour but they will not suddenly vanish in the middle of a fight. Also they are designed in case you really have a shortage of other players teaming up with you which was never really the case as long as I played or I still had the possibility to run some Quest solo without the need of others at all. One has to mention for that that a lot of Quests not only have the difficulty Normal/Hard/Elite but more and more Quests even can entered in the difficulty ‘Solo’!
5. “If you run out of ammo, it will run you $.55 for 100 regular…”
No offend but I would say – bad planning. At least you have now the possibility to buy Ammo in an Instance which you had not before at all! Also an Ranger is as well skilled with a Longsword and at the very first quest you get both for free. So how often will this then happen? You will face that issue I guess once and after that you will pickup 500 of them right from the start to be prepared as players did all the way before it was possibel to buy them in the instance.
But for sure, content of this game will cost money and this money need to come from somewhere or no new content will be released in teh future. So the way it is implemented to buy ingame stuff is more to attarct players who will not want to spend a monthly subscription if they aren’t online that regular… so not totaly free but not forced to pay …
yeah, healing pots/wands and ammo can be found on the normal vendors. what the store adds is the ability to get more when your deep inside a dungeon which in turn saves you from having to leave to resupply if you forgot to get enough before hand. its a nice choice to have.
mana pots on the other hand are rare things. a budding spell caster has to learn when to burn through the mana, and when to conserve it. so its probably wise to bear that in mind and not throw a ton of cash at the mana pots from the store. unlike healing your not supposed to be able to fill your backpack with tons of mana pots with your gold.
i bet blindness removal pots will sell well though, that one always catches players unaware when a certain necromancer hits you with blindness for the first time :) i’ve seen blind players lead out of a dungeon and through the streets to a vendor for a pot before, i’m sure the store will come in handy then!
… forgot on point ;)
“Some of the character details are rather bland, being that most of the faces look alike.”
Well, the image give a wrong impression … as it shows only elf/drow … you still have the possibility to change skin, eye hair color at character creation as well as several different details… :)
If they not completly change the Favor model as it is in the game actualy you even not need to ‘buy’ the drow race. After completing Quests you usualy get Favor Points and for a total of 400 of those Favor you unlock the Drow Race in the Character creation.
*Favor: Each Quest is usualy given by a representive or member of a Syndicate (Coin Lords, Free Agents, …). While solving Quests for a particular Syndicate your Favor in that Syndicate slowly increase till you are granted access to some house-benefits like buffs or a special shop for Syndicate members only.
I used to love DDO, but let’s be honest here, Gameplay and Mechanics do NOT deserve a 2/2 when the inventory situation is just as much of a mess as it was three years ago at launch. You will spend more time trying to organize and rearrange your inventory before trying to hunt down the “right” merchant to sell an item to than you will spend inside dungeons.
That hasn’t changed. Expect to spend two hours running around town trying to find the proper merchant to sell your _______ (Armor: <500p, 501-1000p, 1001-2000p, 2001-3500p, etc.)… And the run around town looking for the right merchants for your ______ (Jewelry, Weapons, etc.) all of whom also have five or six merchants to locate and sell to.
It would be a lot easier if they created fixed backpack slots. But between the disorganized inventory and annoying Hunt For The Proper Merchant you will still spend more time dealing with inventory issues than you will playing the game.
It’s a shame.
Correct vistella! But if you leave a dungeon don’t you fail the quest and have to restart. Tested that, and Item shop arrows are in a pinch not for stockups, as I write in my posts. They are alot cheaper and do drop from breakables and chests. Just in a pinch I noticed the price in the shop and wasn’t thrilled.
Thanks for stopping i beau, I’m not surprised, you play everything. Beau knows mmo’s.
I’ll hit you up ingame, I play under redrumm and glutezahg dercleric, don’t laugh its a long story.
Ok, Sis, to answer a few of your points:
1) Well, the image give a wrong impression … as it shows only elf/drow
– that proves how bland the graphics are, that was a halfling my friend, your off like a prom dress on that one! It’s ok, compare the graphics to Aion and AoC they are inferior. But are superior to other games. I can’t go tit for tat vs every game but comparable to the other graphic engines they warrant 1 pint. IMO. Have you played Aoc or Aion yet?
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2) Not sure about this, maybe this might be true for a player who try to do it all alone but with the right party its aint the big deal to reach higher levels.
– you do, but that might not be for a subsciber, I am writing from and for people who are just starting out on the re-emerging DDO, but you can get these items from dungeons and certain rewards from quests. Check the item shop please.
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3) Well, the second M in MMO stands for multiplayer..
– Yep, your right. And I wrote in the posts I was in some very good partys, and I did play the healer. My problem wasn’t health pots it was mana (spellpoint) pots. There was alot of rest stops along the way that I might of failed to mention. Even party members remarked on the lack of pots and the fact that they were not cheap in the cash shop. So it’s not only my POV, just making an observation on that. Thanks.
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4) As far as I am aware of, the hirelings will last – at least – one hour
– I your not sure you better ask somebody! At least that was what happened when I used them. I used the fighter and Barbarian because I was a healer.
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5) No offend but I would say – bad planning.
Yep- you got me there, I rolled a new character besides the cleric and put a few hours in as a ranger. I was a rookie ranger! I did this as a once over review of new skills while I was planning the article. I noticed I ran out because I was trigger happy and resorted to my flaming rapier to finish after seeing how expensive they were in the cash shop. ‘\o/’ oops!
This doesn’t change the fact that the item shop is expensive, it does only warrant one point for that reason. I did say that I liked the game and gave it a good score. I want new players to know the score before stepping into a new game.
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Other than those small points that you made, did you or anyone else get anything positive out of the article? I try to write from an honest point of view for the new person. I feel that DDO is going to reemerge as a new game and appeal to many new players. This article was written BY a new DDO player FOR a new DDO player. Thanks everyone for their comments, see you ingame!
I think you have given a fair account of the game through the eyes of a newbie. You have definitely shown how addictive and enjoyable the game is. I agree with Sis on the items point. The Store is a last resort….in case you have run out and are in a pickle.
Yes you will lose xp for recalling and jumping back in but you didn’t mention that a quest will reset itself if noone in the party is inside (takes 5mins to do this or a quick reform of the party does it instantly) and so you will not lose xp.
Also in DDO the quests are instances which is very important to know. Like you have mentioned, you only get xp for completely and not for amount of monsters killed. What is also important is that when you enter an instance, only people in your party can effect it. Which basically means that no other character outside of your party can interfere or affect the instance you’re in.
Maybe as a new player you missed the importance of the favour system. As you do quests on harder difficulties it unlocks favour tiers for a player which will give little extra bonuses. One of which is House Deneith which will allow you to buy stacks of +3 returning arrows -.^
There is so much to DDO that it is hard to put it all down in one article but I think you have done well
Good review, I want to mention a few things about the cost and accessibility and have a few things about the game that will make it even more enjoyable for new people.
While I agree the items generally cost way too much on the store, everything there but the loot boost, xp boost, hair dyes and adventure packs can be gotten by playing the game. And even those things can be gotten by playing so you could play without ever paying actual money for the game.
First for every 4 levels on a F2P account you need sigils these are Copper, Silver, Gold and Platinum. While you can buy these at the store the only time you should ever need to buy them is if you get really unlucky, and even then you could just continue questing until you get one.
They drop off quests, while you may not have seen any on Korthos, where I’ve gathered from other players it doesn’t drop very often. Once you get to the Harbour there is a good chance of pulling it off the quest there. I’ve even meet people that got it as a reward 5 times before even hitting level 4.
Arrows, potions and other convenience items can be bought at vendors, on Korthos there is a general vendor that sells all the basics.
Now adventure packs, those things do cost points and if you’re going to get to 20 you are going to have to buy some of them. To get the points you don’t have to buy them, doing quests rewards favor points with the faction you do the quest for, besides the things favor does mentioned in an earlier comment, favor milestones also awards Turbine Points.
On you very first character getting 100 favor will award you 75 or 100 Turbine points because of extra milestones on the way up to 100 favor, every milestone gives 25 points. After that every 100 favor awards 25 Turbine points.
Now onwards to things to make it easier for new players.
Building your character:
Many people pigeon-hole they character into a very tight build, say they create a Cleric, oh I’m a Cleric I MUST heal things and so I will put everything into Wisdom and pick up Empower Healing as my first feat.
This is a mistake, Clerics and their cousin the Favored Souls are both very capable melee fighters, and you shouldn’t neglect Strength on them, if they buff them selves they can outdo most pure melee classes in the lower levels while still be very capable at higher levels. So instead of spending a lot of points to fill up Wisdom, take 2 points off (Those 2 points costed you 6 stat points) and spend them on Strength, more Constitution and a tiny bit of Charisma (Not really important as clerical Turning is terrible in DDO because of the inflated hp of mobs, basically the turn follows the pnp rules, but as they mobs have more hp than in pnp to not be complete pushovers turning takes a swing for the worse)
Only a few classes benefit from putting all into their primary stat: The Wizard, the Sorcerer and the Barbarian, with Inteligence, Charisma and Strength respectably. For other classes staying 2 points off maxing the primary stat will yield great benefits by increasing constitution, strength and other valuable stats.
Quests can be repeated for xp and loot, doing the short Korthos quests can quickly amass you quite a bit of coin for which at the general vendor you can buy potions, arrows and other things you might like.
The coinage could also go towards hirelings for the rare occasion you just cannot find a party and are too lazy to start one your self.
You mentioned using gold contracts, these contracts are a store thing only to use multiple hirelings. You can however buy normal contracts they don’t cost a lot for the hour you can use them and running with a single hireling is often easier than having multiple. The normal setting on a quest scales with the party up to it’s maximum scaling at 4 members. So having just a single hireling (One that you didn’t pay Turbine Points for) will often make the quest easier than if you had multiple, assuming that you brought a hireling that complements your own class well.
Now lets get more into the hireling and which one is advantageous for you to bring.
Now on your Cleric you should bring a Fighter or a Barbarian, you should avoid picking a hireling that is a Warforged because they get a healing penalty.
Warforged hirelings are ideal for Wizards, as they can pick Repair spells and heal the hireling with it.
With the other way around for melee where you’d bring a Cleric, or if you’re a Warforged bring a caster.
Hirelings are pretty dumb, and if let rampage will often get them selves killed, the key to controlling them are bind a button to their interact with target key, something close to your control key and target things click it and they will attack that particular target.
Like with your self hirelings will gain more abilities the higher level they are and they will not fit on a single quick bar, expand the hireling quickbar to show more of their abilities, this is especially useful for caster hirelings, where you then can control exactly what buffs you want them to cast.
Thanks for the comments guys, keep in mind that this is a “first impressions” review. The next one will be more indepth and titled “In depth”.
I don’t know if this was in the beta but I feel that I should point it out. It is possible to get points thru questing to spend at the ddo store. This does mean that it is possible to get other races, classes, quests, etc…. without paying the dime. I should point out however, that they don’t dole out alot of those points when they do, so to get the more expensive stuff you got to play alot.