Our Dungeons & Dragons Online veteran, Goat, has finished his review of the game in its new "free-to-play" business model, and offers some insight and advice for players interested in trying out this MMO variation on a classic table-top game.  If you're a player of old-school D&D or an MMORPG fan, you'll be interested in what he has to say.

Six years ago, our editor (Fox) somehow got into the closed alpha testing for DDO, and the closed beta, and of course the open beta. He was even nice enough to let me go over to his house and hijack his computer to play them for hours at a time (yes, I know it's technically against the NDA, but so is watching someone over their shoulder). As a long-time pencil and paper D&D player, I was excited (even if it did force me to learn more about 3rd edition).

Since then I've had an on again, off again affair with DDO. I usually get on, play for 3-4 months and then fall away in favor of something else (usually some single player RPG).

Graphics

This game is 4 years old. That said they did update the engine a little over a year ago to support DirectX 10. The graphics are not quite as spectacular as perhaps Age of Conan or Modern Warfare 2, but they are very high quality and do not detract from game play even on lower settings.

On high settings and using DX10 is where the visual quality of the game starts to shine.   They make good use of advanced shaders and post-processing effects like bloom, reflections, and advanced lighting.  For an “older” game, this is pretty top-notch.  The character animations are smooth and natural, and there is a nice variety to the motions.

Connection

DDO, like a lot of MMO's was plagued with lag issues right from the start.  From alpha phase, right through launch the “rubber-banding” was a constant complain from players.  That said, their lag issues are not nearly as bad as other games I have played, and they have improved significantly over the years.  There are still occasional lag spikes, rubber-banding etc., but these are usually brief and unless you are losing all connection, usually do not end with your character's death.  I have had a few issues but I think that may be more a function of the fact that I play using a 802.11G  wireless network card and not ethernet direct LAN connection.

Community

The community on DDO is pretty good, and has historically been home to a majority of mature players.  Now that it's free you do run into more of the annoying “newbie” 8-year-olds, but most of the community is 20+ years old and the veteran players are pretty helpful if you're just starting out.  Unlike some other MMO's, and nearly ALL the free ones, you're not going to get bombarded with constant immature banter and stupidity in your chat.

Free to Play

Yes, technically this is a free game. Turbine does have a store where you can buy additional quests, races, cosmetics, XP/Loot boosts and other varied and sundry items using “Turbine Points”.  You can acquire these points 2 ways. First, you can earn them in-game at a rate of 25 points for every 100 total favor you earn (which is done through quests) OR you can buy them using cold hard real-world cash.

Realistically earning your points through the favor system stinks. You just cannot earn enough to purchase high end store items like new quests. However, I did calculate how much you would need to shell-out to play like a VIP (paid subscription account) without giving Turbine your $15 every month. You can find out how in my blog! (Staff Blogs section: www.mmosanctuary.com/mmo-staff-blogs/)

Character Creation/Advancement

There are countless options for your character. Want to be a ranger, fine. A fighter/wizard? Great! A Rogue/Monk/Bard/Cleric/Paladin? Now you're getting ridiculous, but sure, go ahead.  The problem with infinite possibilities is there are also infinite ways to royally screw up your character.  Within the last few months, Turbine has added Lesser Reincarnation and Greater Reincarnation to the game (which are essentially respecs)  Prior to this, some of your character's abilities were not able to be changed once selected.  However, you may still want an idea about your intended path rather than making choices "on the fly". So, check out the forums if you aren't familiar with the D&D multiverse for build ideas.  Reading as much as you can about the classes before hand will really give you a head-start toward making a good character that fits your play style.

I mentioned feats, skills and enhancements earlier; let me explain. Unlike a lot of MMO's (WOW, LotRO, etc...) the level cap in DDO is 20. To keep people interested for the days it can take to level up at high levels, they introduced the “enhancement system”. During your progress toward the next level you will earn 4 enhancement points which you use to purchase bonuses or extra class abilities from trainers.  This is similar to the “talent trees” many of the newer MMO's are using. Feats and skills augment your characters combat and specialized skill sets. You can become proficient at dual wielding weapons, or at disabling traps for example.

Gameplay

Unlike a lot of other MMO's, unless you are a spell casting class there is not a lot of button mashing in DDO.  Combat in DDO is more of a “twitch” or skill-based system. The melee combat system consists mainly of picking your target and holding down you left mouse button to attack. You can even attack (or cast spells) without selecting a target. I usually end up playing one of the “specialist” classes (rogue, ranger, bard) myself so I have used every type of combat skill there is in DDO.  Melee, Ranged, Spells. Personally I like the combat system. I think it's part of what makes DDO unique.

Every quest in DDO is instanced, so be prepared for that. Most will require you to either be way above the quest's level to solo it or get a group together to run it. This was done on purpose. Table top D&D is all about grouping with friends to get through the dungeon. The DDO devs wanted to bring this same dynamic to this online version. That said, they got a lot of complaints that you couldn't solo anything.  Prior to going to the “free-to-play” method, it could sometimes be difficult to get a group together for a quest. They solved this problem by adding the “casual” difficulty level to quests to augment the normal/hard/elite they already had in place.

They had another update to the game that addressed the players' concerns for not being able to find a group when they needed one.  They added in a “hirelings” system.  This allows individual players or their groups to hire NPC's to fill in spots left vacant in their group.  There is a similar system in Guild Wars.  With this in place, players could hire a cleric to heal their party if no players were around to fill that spot.  Virtually any party need can be filled by adding hirelings to the group.  They do, however, cost you gold, and the higher their level the more expensive they are.  So, it's probably not something you would want to do for every quest.

One other somewhat unique feature of DDO is a built in voice chat (though more and more games are starting to have this as an included feature). There is no need for a Ventrilo server (unless you want it for guild voice). Not everyone uses it, especially if they do not speak English, but it is a nice feature and the parties that do use it are much more efficient and work much better than groups that do not.  Playing DDO often required strategy, coordination, and teamwork, much like the traditional table-top version.

Conclusion

All-in-all DDO is still fun for me after 4+ years. I'll probably wander away from time to time, especially when I'm playing a new game for MMO Sanctuary, but DDO was my first MMO and it is still one of my favorites.  If they can continue to provide new content and keep the game moving forward, it will likely be around for a long time.  Since they instituted their new business model, popularity of the game has skyrocketed.  We even published an article not long ago with the results of an online gaming survey placing D&D Online as the third most popular MMORPG on the market!

If you haven't yet had the opportunity to try out this game, there is no reason not to give it a whirl.  It's completely free to get started, and there is a lot of content there to keep you busy for a while without spending a dime.  You can learn more about the game at their official website: www.ddo.com

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