[DDO] NDA lifted

[Deverill]

[url]http://www.ddo.com/index.php?page_id=66&pagebuilder[module]=article&pagebuilder[display_item]=171[/url]

[Ziv]

Einfach mal ein paar Eindrücke von Leuten, die Turbine und AC1 kennen...


Nicht wirklich objektiv, aber lest selber...

[Ziv]

Its been many months since I got in the first wave of alpha 0 of DDO, and now the NDA has been lifted(got an email today).

Lets see, what can I say about it?

DDO is a fast, skill-based game that has been set in a D&D world. It is in NO way "D&D Online", despite the name. Its much more like "Guild Wars with Kobolds", only with the very very narrow focus of hoping online, getting a group(solo is not viable), and hopping into an instanced dungeon that looks like...every other dungeon. There are no land areas to run(all 'travelling' is a static cut screen), nothing to explore, and only the very faintest of disjointed plots (and then only if you keep clicking NPC's and reading the text). The content at launch will be so anemic that you will be *required* to repeat the same quests in order to level. Game balance does not exist even conceptually.

None of this matters, though, if the gameplay is fun.

It is not, at least for me and a great many others.

It is boring to the extreme and holds no suprises. The quests never change and there is no dynamic aspect to any of it. How boring? So boring that by the time they invited each new wave of testers, most of the previous group had stopped playing in disgust. Even I quit playing a few weeks ago because it was too painful to log in. This is yet another crap-o-vision implementation of Ken Troops moronic vision of how a game should be. Its literally AC2 all over again. They have not learned. Oh sure they will fix things over time, but they will launch yet another sinking terd rather than wait. Of course, that will financially ruin the company to the point that AC1 will be shut down when they liquidate the rest of Turbine.

Go ahead, order it, try it, play it. Only by experiencing it can a person even begin to grasp how much they 'could' have done and how far they could have gone, but didn't.

[Ziv]

They'll get a big influx of cash from people who want to start in on "the next big thing" like all MMOs, people will figure out they have no content, quit and turbine will shut the game down or fix it over a long period of time.... or they will push back the release date.

Either way, instancing is the most moronic concept in MMOs to date and when people call it the "future of MMORPGs" it makes me feel sick. Instancing kills community and a sense of presence, feeling like a game world is devoid of any real life aside from npcs mobs and people spamming for trades and such in "towns".. might as well play ac2 or a single player rpg.

Either way, if the game sinks and Turbine shuts it down, its gonna look real bad for them after that as far as developing anything goes, best thing to hope for would be for them to sell out the AC franchise to a company who won't drive it into the ground under bull headed devs with no clue on what their playerbase wants.

[Ziv]

Speziell das hier hat mich nachdenklich gestimmt:

Ok, this is MY opinion of the game. I can also tell you that a LOT of people in Beta have been clamouring that most of these issues need addressing for the past 3 months, and none have been addressed.

Playability

Right now DDO has serious lag issues. With only 800ish people on the server we still get freezing lag in public areas, and even sometimes in 6 person instances. This is with settings on normal on a machine well above the min requirements. If you put the settings on low or very low, your toon becomes a blob and nothing is distinguishable.

While the game is BEAUTIFUL on max settings, very few people will be able to run that way effectively. You will need top end equipment, and I personally am not willing to spend $1000 on upgrades for a game that is this bad.

Levelling

Currently, and according to Ken Troop for the forseeable future, the ONLY way to exp in this game is quest. While this sounds like a good idea, hear me out. The problem here isn't that you quest, it's that you quest the EXACT SAME QUESTS EVERY TIME. Ken Troop had a MUD experience of repeating the same thing over and over until he mastered it. He wants to bring that to DDO.

Almost 90%+ (and yes, that's an estimation) of the players in Beta can agree that repeating the exact same thing over and over is NOT fun. It's really not an issue until you're over level 6 and there are no more quests, but it is a serious issue.

Some claim you can always add content, but you can never add it quick enough. If this game is released as is, the damage will be done.

Also, on the fact of levelling. The Action Points are just plain stupid. They have nothing to do with D&D and they imbalance the game. D&D had 20+ years of testing to get it's rules right, Turbine wrecked that in < 2 yrs. Action points (while they DO make you more powerful, at least 2 per level do, you'll find that you usually have 2 rot) are a feeble attempt to appease people that can't wait to level. By having these in the game Turbine is trying to make DDO like other MMOs, instead of shooting for making it something different.

Choice

Sigh. You really have none. There is no choice how to level. You MUST group, and you MUST quest, and you MUST do the same ones over and over.

There is no choice in what to do in down time, cus there is NOTHING to do in down time but shop for loot.

There is no choice in your characters looks. All humans look the same, all elves, etc. Sure there are a few things you can do to customize them, but if you make 3 humans and make em all look different, then you scroll back and forth between them on the char select screen? You'll see that they all could be paternal triplets.

CONTENT

At first, I didn't believe this. I came into Beta in November and I was like "WTF, you guys are bitching about no content just because you play 40 hrs a week". Boy was I wrong. I play a couple hours a night, and MAYBE 8-10 on the weekends if that. And I have seen everything in this game. Not only that, but I have been FORCED to repeat the same dungeons over and over, up to 20+ times each in order to level past level 7.

Random content would go a long way toward helping this game. And Ken Troop has said that they will add "some" random content at a later date. My opinion is why didn't they add it in Beta instead of waiting until they lose half their fan base on release? Why not add it when you can test it, instead of introducing it to the public in a half-completed bug-ridden nightmare.

Ya see, every single dungeon is exactly the same. Once you know where the traps, loot and mobs are, where is the challenge? There is none.

This is prolly the #1 beef with beta testers. Even the fanbois cannot dispute that a game that gives you ONE way to level is VERY SLIM on quests. There are less than 200 quests in the game, closer to 100 that work atm. How can that possibly be enough? Well, Ken Troop wants you to repeat them again and again.

Communication

Like 20 emotes. The sit emote works for 2 seconds, you sit - then you stand back up again.
Chat system bugged to hell - hopefully it'll be fixed before launch. Not being able to talk to your group sucks.
Voice chat bugged to hell - same.
No public chat channels - good and bad.
No DMs in game. If you get stuck, tough luck. No idea when they plan to train GMs, but beta would have been a good time IMO.

Combat

I am torn on this one. Sometimes I like the fast action, sometimes I don't. Some of the things are rediculous though.

If you're going to have twitch combat, then you can't have abilities that take 2-3 seconds to activate, like Diplomacy, Intimidate, Trip, etc. These things should be INSTANT, and they're not. I find them useless in combat early on. Later they play a small part on boss mobs.

Enemy spellcasters have unlimited spell pools. They fire spells at massively increased rates without end. They also have unbalanced hp and ac vs their warrior companions. Isn't the drawback of being a caster that you have crappy AC and HP? Not for the mobs in DDO!

Jumping up and down still confuses the mobs, so if you're in trouble you just start jumping. How is that like D&D? You ever hop around like a bunny in pnp??

The Travel Myth

Turbine said that they want instances so that you cut on travel time right? Errnnt. You run more in this game than any other MMO because you keep running ALL THE TIME. So much for cutting down the travel factor.

Don't believe me? Here is an example of how much you run:

1- Get a group together in the tavern
2 - Run 2-3 zones to get to where the quest giver is
3 - Zone usually 1 zone to where quest is from quest giver
4 - Run inside the quest, constantly moving only stopping to do traps, rest and get loot
5 - You're done with quest, time to run to the pawn shop to sell, 2-3 zones
6 - Then run to the weapon shop to repair, 2 zones
7 - Then run to the trainer to train, 2 zones
8 - Then run to the Tavern to rest, 2 zones
9 - Rinse repeat

How is that NOT travelling? I zone so much I think I have memorized every loading screen there is. On average, I would estimate that 35-40% of your online time will be actual questing. The rest of time is spent getting stuff straight. Selling goods, repairing, etc.

Summary

I really was looking forward to this game, and I've been totally disappointed. Nothing that Turbine advertises is in this game. It's not revolutionary, it's the same old thing. The grind is just grinding quests now instead of mob camps. It has it's good points, and is fun at first or was to me, but after a while it becomes the same ole same ole.

Maybe it'll come around in 6-12 months like SWG has done, but on release a lot of people are gonna be disappointed like I was. You may not agree with me, especially if you haven't played it yet, but you will see. This game is nothing like PnP, and it's a weak version of an MMO. It's something in between and has fallen well short of the goals that were set.

[Ziv]

Ich schreib mal was zu den obigen Punkten:

Playability
Server-Lag hatte ich eigentlich nicht so viel, lag vielleicht auch daran dass es ja US-Server waren.
Client-Lag hatte ich fast nicht, ich habe allerdings auch auf 1024 gespielt da mein Rechner etwas älter ist ( 3.06 GHZ 533FSB, 9800pro 128MB, 2 GB Ram)

Levelling
Ist halt nur über Quests...musste aber kaum was wiederholen, allerdings kam ich auch nur bis Level 4. Quests waren gut gemacht.
Action Points finde ich nicht so schlimm, die Auswirkungen sind nicht sehr groß und man hat was auf was man sich freuen kann.

Choice
Ja, mit Gruppen ist es viel einfacher. Alleine ist es sehr schwer, geht aber wenn man "niedrigere" Quests macht. Das wird wohl stark auf die Community ankommen.

CONTENT
Ja, der ist zwar gut gemacht, dürfte aber zu wenig sein für den "PowerGamer" im Augenblick. Muss man sehen wieviel Turbine jeden Monat hinzupackt.

Communication
Hab ich nicht groß probiert. Nur normalen Chat halt..der funktionierte eigentlich auch. VoIP nicht benutzt, da kein Mikro.

Combat
Gefiel mir sehr gut. Mal was anderes, nicht nur klicken und warten.

The Travel Myth

Ja, das nervt teilweise. Liegt wahrscheinlich daran, dass es kein Grinden per se gibt, also nicht Stundenlang Monster ohne Sinn töten, von daher kommt es wohl einem etwas mehr vor.

Summary
Ich denke ich werde es kaufen und mal reinschauen.

Wer sich nicht entscheiden kann, der sollte mal in die Beta reinsehen wie es ihm gefällt

[Sun_al-Mage]

...und hier ein paar Videos incl Kommentar von Ken Troop

http://media.pc.ign.com/media/619/619908/vids_1.html