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Brilliant

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 49 / 57
Date: March 01, 2006
Author: Amazon User

Long-time fans of fantasy-oriented MMORPGs will remember the glory days of Ultima Online. When that game was heavily distressed by the "next-generation" MMO, EverQuest, fans of both games found themselves at a disadvantage that would continue for nearly a decade. There were no good games. The heavy penalties for death in EverQuest alienated the casual players of the time, while at the same time the open PVP in UO alienated its fair share of folks, causing both games to suffer heavy population detriments. It didn't help when the MMO boom began, either. Dark Age of Camelot, City of Heroes, Asheron's Call, AC2, EverQuest 2, and many others followed in quick succession, each having their own flaws that left MMORPG fans with the plain and saddening belief that no good game would ever see the light of day again. Dungeons and Dragons Online: Stormreach proves this notion wrong.

The biggest and most terrifying thought about this game is that it is based on the Dungeons and Dragons pen-and-paper RPG. Set in the DnD realm of Eberron, players must know the d20 system backwards and forwards if they expect to reach their full potential. This leaves two different groups of people with two different questions. Long-time DnD fanatics will want to know how closely this game sticks to the rules, while at the same time, World of Warcraft junkies will want to know how easy this game is to pick up. Both of them will want to know if it is fun.

First off, DnD. The city of Stormreach and the Eberron campaign operate under Dungeons and Dragons Revision 3.5 Ruleset by Wizards of the Coast. This ruleset features d20 (combat, skills, saves, etc.) and feats. Most of the general rules are followed very closely. Every time a d20 check is made, you see the actual dice roll on your screen. That's right: every swing of your sword, every disarming of a trap, every attempt to use a magical device: the dice are -always- rolling. The huge discrepancy this game has from PnP (pen-and-paper) is Action Points. You do not use Action Points to reroll your dice, as you would in PnP. Instead, four times per level, you achieve a new rank, at which point you gain Action Points to spend on enhancements. Low level enhancements are approximately equal to one additional feat. Higher level enhancements can equal nearly four feats combined (example: level 9 rogues get one that gives +7 to Disable Device and Open Lock simultaneously, passive). All players may have four different enhancements granted to their character at any time. While some may think that this may make your character terribly over-powered, this is not necessarily the case. The game is designed to overcome the problems a live action environment creates with the PnP game, and, as a result, your character will be expected to have the proper enhancements. These abilities are what make characters of varying levels significantly more or less powerful than each other in DDO. Each class and race has their own unique enhancements to choose from, but you must keep in mind as you develop your character that you are limited to having four at any given time. In addition, every time you level, you lose unspent Action Points, and the set of available enhancments will change every level also. The current level cap is 10, which Turbine has announced that it will raise in a few months. Prestige classes are also in the works. Other than Action Points, the game plays largely like PnP DnD, with a few very minor exceptions. Fans of the game will undoubtedly enjoy the MMO atmosphere of DDO.

Now for the gamers. So you're used to sitting in dungeon, blasting away at countless critters until you eventually gain a level? Maybe a few Catacombs raids will do you some good. Not in Stormreach. In this troubled city, you must use your brain more than your braun. Each class has a very specific purpose that you must play well to survive. If a fighter runs ahead of the rest of the party, for example, trying to blaze the way, he will undoubtedly be killed quite quickly by hidden dungeon traps that can only be disarmed by well-equipped rogues. Similarly, a rogue cannot hack and slash his way into a group of enemies without getting severely torn up. You have to use strategy, and you have to read up on your class. Know how the game works. It is very important. This game also features active combat. You click to swing your sword, fire your bow, raise your shield, or tumble away from an attack. DnD features both a targetting cursor and a targetting system, allowing you either to mouse-over the specific enemy you want to shoot at and fire or, if you happen to be trying to aim at a small critter that jumps around quickly, you may decide that you simply want to target it and auto-attack away. Both options are available (when using a weapon--spells can't be autocast). The game has no crafting system, which does not affect your ability to acquire items. The economy (at lower levels) is quite an easy one, with most players giving gear they do not need to other players in their party who do need it, free of charge. Mosts quests also offer very useful item rewards. You do not regenerate spell points or hit points unless you rest or are in a tavern (and resting is only possible at special shrines found in dungeons), although healers can heal you and even sometimes restore your spellpoints. This system makes strategy very important. The game is very easy to play and user-friendly, but difficult to master. You do not need any knowledge of DnD to get started, but, as your interest in the game grows, you will undoubtedly spend hours reading up on how things work and what people think works best. This is a huge boon to the players who take pride in their accomplishments. In addition, DnD features quest-based advancement. You do not get any experience for "grinding". In fact, you do not get any experience at all for killing individual monsters. Your experience comes from quests, which are all instanced. The quests are very well-developed, featuring a wide variety of stories, monsters, and objectives (everything from rescues to obtaining an item to defeating an enemy to solving a mystery and more). The graphics, controls, and musical scores are without a doubt some of the best I have ever seen. I have seen better graphics (namely in Asheron's Call II: breathtaking), but combined with the other artificial elements, this game is very pretty indeed. The avid gamer will not be disappointed. The main issues for some players will be the following: lack of player versus player combat, different gameplay style of Dnd, lack of crafting skills, and necessity to complete quests in order to advance (the good ones are long and involved). The pros of the game, though, heavily outway these potential cons: grouping is VERY heavily encouraged (meaning it is always possible to find a group), the storylines are extremely engaging (if you take the time to read them), combat is intense, and strategy is important. Most gamers will very much enjoy this game.

Overall, then, players will find that DnD Online (also known as DDO) is a great game. It fills a niche that many MMORPGers have sought for years. DDO isn't just your next hack-and-slash, ding, level up game. It is very involving, requires strong knowledge of your character, and features many things never before seen in MMORPGs. The game is fun at all levels; not just at maximum level. You will find the depth of character advancement to be absolutely astonishing. On the whole, Eberron is an amazing world and Stormreach an amazing city. With so many ways to customize your character and so many things to do with him (or her), many DDO players feel confident in calling the game flawless--the best ever made. After all, it is Dungeons and Dragons, which has remained a brilliant RPG for decades. And there you have it: Dungeons and Dragons Online: Stormreach is simply brilliant.

Other game notes: DDO features the races and classes of the DnD 3.5 ruleset, with the current exception of Monks and Druids (which are in development). These classes are Paladin, Ranger, Fighter, Cleric, Rogue, Barbarian, Sorcerer, Wizard, Paladin, and Bard. Each class has its own role in a group, except for the Bard (who is a sort of jack-of-all-trades). Each character may choose one class at character creation and either continue that class to the level cap or multiclass to a second class when they reach their next level (so if a level five Fighter just reached level six and wanted to multiclass to a Ranger, he would become all of the following: a level five Fighter, a level one Ranger, and a level six character, meaning that the sum of your class levels cannot exceed your current character level, which cannot be higher than the level cap). Each character is also of a particular race, and each race receives particular advantages or disadvantages that may allow it to excel at one or more particular class types. Available races in DDO include Humans, Elves, Half Elves, Dwarves, Halflings, and Warforged. You may only select one race. Information on feats, spells, enhancements, skills, racial abilities, and class abilities can be found at many DDO fansites, but documentation on the game can sometimes be hard to find because of so many inaccurate references. Check with reliable sources (open source works best, such as Wikis). The game also features a sort of tutorial area to help new players get started. It is optional.

If you are considering trying this game, do it. Period.

DO NOT buy the Limited Edition!! - RIP OFF WARNING

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 37 / 48
Date: March 05, 2006
Author: Amazon User

What I was expecting was something along the line of what I have gotten from other LE in the past. A NICE box (not a cardboard rubik's cube) made of metal, wood and/or gold plating. Some thing cool inside like a special book with artwork from the game, a set of limited dice, a CLOTH map of the town, a plastic figure, or a gold piece. An in game item would be cool but not something that would effect the overall game and not something that gets thrown out within an hour of play.
What DID I get:
The same box as everyone else (with a very lame LE cover on top)
A very cheesy poster that should have come with everyones copy of the game or no ones at all
A CD that had a Standard edition key that doesn't give me the benifit of an item I really don't want or need. (boots of running that can be found within 15-30 minutes of play)
A BROKEN CD JEWEL CASE!!!!
A waste of my time that could have been spent playing the game I paid for in order to send e-mails in to customer service get the item I don't really want or need.

The rating here is to show my total distaste for the Limited Edition of the game. ITS NOT WORTH ANY MORE THAN THE STANDARD EDITION. Frankly I am extreamly mad at Turbine/Atari for this and have canceled my account. The game is good... but buying a limited edition copy for the $20 more I paid for it left such a bad taste in my mouth that I won't be buying product from then again. Before you discredit this post... I urge you to check the www.ddo.com forums to verify that I am one of many to feel this way. Cheated by Atari and Turbine out of money for a Limited Edition copy of the game that wasn't worth a penny more than the standard version.

Enjoyable dungeon crawl, but forced grouping and other issues challenge viability

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 25 / 30
Date: February 28, 2006
Author: Amazon User

Dungeons and Dragons Online (DDO) is an above average dungeon crawler that has the potential to be a lot of fun for a while with enjoyable instanced quests and lively gameplay. Unfortunately, there are a lot of little things that will likely make the value of the subscription fee here questionable in a month or two, and even early on many will have issues with forced grouping. Having actually purchased the headstart, I am having a blast - but take a star off of fun for the grouping issue, and two stars off of overall for the rule implementations, lack of PvP, and value proposition, leaving this at 4 fun/3 overall, or 3.5 stars. Finally, because you can get an equivalent 5% running boost item with about 45 minutes of work very early on, the LE special item (boots of striding) is worthless, meaning you should buy the regular edition rather than LE.

With Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) having spawned literally tens of thousands of imitations at the top of the family tree of RPGs, MUDs, and MMORPGS, publisher Turbine has both the blessing of an eager audience and curse of a really tough comparison. The good news is that they've done an enjoyable job of implementing the heart of the D&D experience, which is the dungeon crawl. Unlike many MMORPGs, support classes like rogues are a requirement for almost all dungeons - there's no uber single class build here - and a well designed group and careful gameplay is a more important than any particular player, item, or spell.

However, the group aspect is double-edged. Outside of the first 5 or 6 early dungeons (even less for certain weak combat classes), solo play simply doesn't work - meaning your entire gaming experience will depend on finding a suitable group or guild. The support for this isn't bad, with ingame voice chat and being able to select exactly what you want in terms of a class and level in group search, but even players within a good guild can have significant waiting times while everyone gets ready. Turbine could and should have come up with a way for solo players to do something to advance. All adventure is instanced, which in this implementation makes sense but does mean like Guild Wars the only 'massive multiplayer' aspect of the MMORPG feel is when you're at the taverns.

D&D purists will probably not like the rule implementations either. Monks, druids, and several races are left out as are any number of skills, but the biggest wildcard is adding 4 class and race 'enhancements' which provide benefits far above even the best feats (like +5 to all skills or +3 in a certain statistic). Given how the game is set up, it doesn't really affect balance much - can't solo anyway - but between that and loot drops that rival the taj mahal (down a bit from beta, but not much), it does annoyingly throw traditional character builds out the window. Why bother making an especially stout fighter with high constitution if you're going to get 25 free hit points from the start?

More significant is longer term viability. Advancement is quick enough so the current level cap (10) was actually reached by any number of people in the 10 day beta. This will shortly be raised to 12 and eventually to 20, but the real issue is the lack of any alternative to the dungeon crawl - PvP, crafting, or anything else - that encourages people to stick around to pay the $14.95 monthly fee.

Don't get me wrong. I'm having more fun playing this now than any game in a long time. The issue is that I can also easily see not playing this in 30 or 60 days from now, which is a real shame. Hence, why this is rated 3.5 stars, and why I hope Turbine thinks carefully about how to improve it.

Solo need not apply

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 8 / 17
Date: March 17, 2006
Author: Amazon User

I'm going to keep this short and to the point. There is very little solo content in this game. It reminds me much more of Guild Wars than WoW, DAoC, EQ or EQ II. The only MMO going on in this game is when your waiting for a group (which you must be a part of to quest in a practical manner). I joined up for the head start preorder but after playing the game, I'll probably never pay them a dime to play once my "free" 30 days is up. Honestly I feel like I just tossed $50 plus out the window. I can only hope Vanguard is better.

D&D Online

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 3 / 5
Date: December 03, 2006
Author: Amazon User

Let me first start by saying this is not World of Warcraft. If you like extensive solo play, this is not the game for you.

The Good: If you like playing with others, such as a guild or with friends, then this can be a VERY enjoyable game. The integrated voice chat is better than most and the graphics are a notch above what else is available in terms of MMORPGs. And thanks to the in-game DM narrating the scenes for you, and the robust character generation process, it certainly has the D&D flavor.

The Bad: There are some things that I don't like, namely being limited to only the one city, ranks, and the confining nature of the game. While this may lend itself well to dungeon crawling, its not what most are accustomed to, which probably has more to do with my playing WoW for a year or so before ever touching DDO. Being used to open environments, sprawling cityscapes, and a multitude of vendors, the world of DDO seems tiny.

Something else that took some getting used to, while not "bad", is the combat controls. There is a small learning curve to DDO, but its easily worked out by the first rank or two.

Summary:
Pros:
Graphics
Character generation
It actually feels like D&D
Grouping is easy once you get the hang of the interface
Integrated voice chat
Great game for friends to play if they like to group a lot

Cons:
Limited to a single city
Solo play is limited
Ranks instead of full levels
No large-scale outdoor exploration
Small learning curve for controls

Score: I docked it 1 star due to the limited availability of solo quests and their use of ranks in between levels. The rest of the game is a really good D&D experience.

The bottom line: If you're looking for a good translation of the pen & paper version of D&D to the PC, and you really like dungeon crawls, then you'll fully enjoy DDO.

DDO is the best!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 1 / 1
Date: August 01, 2007
Author: Amazon User

DDO is a great MMO. It's very unique and although it doesn't hit the actual Dungeons and Dragons on the nail, those who enjoy playing D&D will find this game very interesting. I was skeptical at first when I heard of an online version of D&D and thought, "that's stupid. You'll NEVER get the freedom of actual D&D". But despite those feelings, I absolutely LOVED the game. It's still updating every month or so and still gets better and better.

If you are a WOW fanboi, Nothing to see here, move along.

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 1 / 2
Date: September 02, 2007
Author: Amazon User

Yep, if you think WOW, EQ2 and now LOTRO are the best thing since sliced bread you will hate this game. It is not zerg friendly, solo friendly or mindless. In short it is mature and lends itself to tactics and cooperation.
The graphics are cutting edge, if your rig can handle them you can dial in a superbly rendered world. Not the last generation cartoons of the older MMORPGS. You can let the computer fight for you if you are WOW lazy or you can twitch fight like the best first person shooter out there. Some of it is soloable for anyone, most of it is soloable by somebody who takes the time to figure out what is what. Because of the superb use of instances most of the quests are lag free if you have a 1/2 way decent machine to play with.

Problems? Sure, all games have them. The game company, Turbine, is treating it like a niche game so its new content expansion is not getting first priority like its whitebread cousin LOTROL. They figured out the WOW fanbois just want more of the same and went towards the money. It is not PnP D&D but is a reasonable facsimile. It can be laggy in the central game zones and when transferring between zones. If you don't understand how easy they have made voice chat you would think the game is unfriendly as few talk in the general channels. The world is limited, there is only limited exploration or random encounters (a hallmark of PnP).

This is the worst game I played

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 2 / 14
Date: May 23, 2006
Author: Amazon User

Their customer service is the worst too. Their stupid technique person can not resolve any problem. Every time I tried to contact them, they always said that their manager or technique people are not available. I usually have to wait one week to get the response.

I realy really wanted to like this one

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 0 / 3
Date: November 22, 2006
Author: Amazon User

I sounded like the perfect blend of the Challange of an RPG and the Online Community of a Massive Roleplayer. Unfortunatly from a Roleplayers point of view it's just another massive multiplayer repeating the same quests over and over, grinding, farming, ect. ect. The only thing is it does have a nice D&D "Feel" about it with all the newly trademarked monsters, it's also got solid graphics and such but in reality it's not close to an RPG and the tech support for paying a monthly subscription service is terrible.

No Love for Clerics

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 0 / 6
Date: November 24, 2006
Author: Amazon User

Great game, if you want to feel like it was to be a minority in the Jim Crow South

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