D&D online

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D&D online

PostPosted: Fri Feb 10, 2006 7:28 pm

Kiang
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Location: Texas
Didnt know where else to put this. Anyone planing on trying it out? Ive been playing in the stress test for the last couple of days. Right now only issues I have with it are lag in crowded area's and during combat. Its a pretty fun game so far. Its all about quests which I enjoy. Only other issue Ive run accross is when I hit the options buttun while in game my whole comp locks up and I gotta hard boot. I thought I might give it a try for awhile. I dont really see much of an end game yet though other then questing for items. Levels only go up to 10 right now. They said 20 later on. Who knows. I have wanted to play this game since I first heard about it. Which means I might take a little break from NC. If DDO doesnt hold my attention Im going back to NC. So just a heads up. Im gonna preorder and try out the 10day beta pass. If its not what Im hopeing Ill cancel.

Re: D&D online

PostPosted: Sat Feb 18, 2006 8:59 am

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Futile Resistance
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Kiang wrote:Im gonna preorder and try out the 10day beta pass. If its not what Im hopeing Ill cancel.
Hrm... Didn't think of that. I've been tempted, but I've always had more of a bias towards the scifi genre. So they'll let you cancel pre-order even after you've participated in the beta?

Edit: This is what i saw on EBGames:
EBGames wrote:Due to the nature of this promotion, orders cannot be cancelled.
Guess I'm back to hoping I get a day in from random beta draws :(

PostPosted: Sat Feb 18, 2006 8:56 pm

Kiang
Posts: 48
Joined: Tue Dec 13, 2005 9:40 pm
Location: Texas
No you cant cancle them, but there is an EBgames pretty close to me. Ive chatted with a couple guy quite a bit. I can return the game to the store as long as I have not opened it. Since the key inside is what Ill need to continue the account once the game goes live it will be ok. However Im not gonna be returning it. Ill be playing this for awhile I think. It doesnt take alot of concentration. Levels will be caped at 10 for awhile. I went from 1 to 3 in a day of play. Some people on the boards claim they went up to lvl 8 in their 10 day beta with minimal play. I can see alot of potenial for the game down the line. At least as far as the D&D world is concerned. I dont know. It will be something to do for awhile. I need some kind of addiction to curb my gameing hunger. =)

PostPosted: Sun Feb 19, 2006 2:27 am

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Futile Resistance
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Hrm... Getting me tempted...

Oh, and Kiang, could you start using paragraphs (or put some lines into all those bunched up sentences)? LOL. Your one big paragraph is kind of exhausting to read :sweat:

Question: The one thing that's gotten me interested in this game is the combat system.

How "action-based" is the combat? I hear you can dodge stuff etc. Was wondering what that was like, as I'm tired of the same point and click system.

PostPosted: Sun Feb 19, 2006 10:31 am

Kiang
Posts: 48
Joined: Tue Dec 13, 2005 9:40 pm
Location: Texas
Combat is interesting. Ill use DaoC as an example. In that game a Palidin could effectivly hold agro on several mobs at once. I know. I did it all the time. I know other games had that ability as well. Tank holds agro. Support blows the hell out of everything. Healers keep everyone alive.

Its not like this at all. Well not entirely. Useually you are fighting more then one mob in a group. Ive tried out Ranger, Rogue, Palidin, and Cleric. Everyone fights even the cleric. Its been stated on the boards several times that Clerics are probably the easiest class to solo with. Weird huh?

Anyhow, Ive noticed that holding agro with a Palidin with high charisma isnt that easy. Charisma actually effects how the mobs react to you. They seem to go after ugly people. A dwarf fighter has a better chance of holding agro on a single mob then a Palidin does. However there are useually more then one mob. If you attack and hit that mob it will attack you first regardless of what everyone else is doing. Mobs actually move around when you are fighting them. They dont stand still.

If you invest in the Tumble skill you can roll around on the ground. Tumble is dex based and if you are tumbleing (rolling around) mobs have a really hard time hitting you. In fact I have yet to be hit while tumbleing. That might have to do with the actual mechanics of combat. You have to be faceing something of course, and at the moment you tumble it seems like people and mobs miss ALOT. Which I guess is what the Tumble skill is supposed to do. If you dont have tumble you just kind of jump side to side and back to front. Essentially the same thing just without a roll.

Everytime you start swinging or shooting at something a little 20 sided dice pops up on the screen and shows you your roll. I had my Rogue up to lvl 3 and every time I attacked something I needed a 12 or better to hit. The die has two numbers on it. Your roll with your attack bonus. Mine was +4 with melee and +6 with a bow. I had alot of magic equipment that enhanced my attack bonus's. There are a few special attacks that Ive seen. You can do attacks like slice for instance with a rogue that adds a + to hit and +to dmg. Though there are no special graphics other then a glow that shows you attempted the atttack.

Combat is pretty basic still though. I konw they have said they will be trying to enhance it some. Not sure how yet though. Mostly its Select target. Hit auto attack. Toss in a special move if you happen to have one. Then follow the mob around. It gets interesting in the simple fact that you are constantly moving. Nothing stands still. Ranged mobs like archers and casters will stay WAY out of range to attack you and if you move in will often run or jump up on things to make it harder for you to get to them. Even to the point where it forces you to pull out your wimpy shortbow instead of useing your Two handed greataxe of reptilian bane on them. Like I said its interesting.

I personally think this game has quite a bit of potential esspecially if they really and truely try to make the game more and more PnP like. As of right now there are alot of things they had to leave out it seems like just to make it an MMO.

There are buggy things like useing a bow for instance. Everytime you move no matter what its fore you have to reload your bow. If you run up to a door and try to open it and are just a hair to far away you reload your bow, wait to finsh, click door, realise your two far away, move one step closer, reload your bow, wait to finish, click door to open. Little things like that.

There are other things as well. Like trying to use Two weapons at the same time. You cant switch from a bow to two weapons. You can go from bow to one weapon then you have to open your inventory and put the other weapon in your off hand slot. They know these things are an issue and have stated they are working on them. Mostly I think they are just trying to get the game out on the market in a very close to finished state. Hell the games allready gone gold for release. Beta ends tomorrow the 19th. Preorder Launch is on the 24th so Friday. There is a 4day preorder headstart then launch is on the 28th.

There are some special offers for ingame items if you preorder. They are neat, but you'll outgrow them soon and you wont be able to trade them. All preoder people will get a +1 AC amulet that can be used by any race/class. Every character you ever create on that account will get one on creation. Also if you start or join a guild there is some quest you can run to get somekind of boots or a helm that give a pretty nice AC bounus as well. If you run the quest your account supposedly gets taged and every character you creat gets the boots/helm. However you will outgrow those items pretty fast so they are more of just a teaser.

All in all I think its going to be a pretty fun game to play and definitly wont require anyone to play on hardcore mode. I lvl'd a rogue to 3 in two days of casual play on a weekend. So say 10or 12 hours tops. Lvls will be caped at 10 on launch. Some post somewhere said by march it may raise to 15 and they definitly want to get it to 20 as soon as possible. D&D cap. Games supposed to hit shelves on the 28th in the states and the main site has a DDO euopean site. They do plan on realeasing there as well. In fact if I read things correctly its not long after the states release. Anyhow not sure how much this helped I know its a bit long winded so Ill cut it off here. If there is anything else let me know. =)

PostPosted: Sun Feb 19, 2006 11:19 pm

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Futile Resistance
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Awesome summary. Been looking for some insider info like this. It's getting me more and more tempted. The quests seem like alot of fun, and they sound unique, unlike alot of L2/WoW clones these days. Hope when launch hits you choose an East Coast server, lol, even though I noticed you're in Texas (Georgia here).

PostPosted: Mon Feb 20, 2006 7:55 pm

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Ambush
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"Ambush, You Have deceived us! I'm gonna hunt you and your ship to the ends of the universe!" --SSC-Fahd "Ham Chronicles"

PostPosted: Tue Feb 21, 2006 1:35 am

Kiang
Posts: 48
Joined: Tue Dec 13, 2005 9:40 pm
Location: Texas
From what Ive read all servers will be east cost on launch. They will be at Turbines HQ or in the same town. Something like that anyway. I was hopeing they would designate specific RP servers, but since D&D is supposed to be RP anyway I doubt they will. Problem is there are not many people who were RP'ing during beta.

Quests are pretty fun. Ive tried to do the whole rogue sneaking past everything to accomplish the quest, but alot of the early quests require you to kill something or several somethings esspecially if you want to loot a chest. AND there is no crafting, so chest looting is about the only way to get items. Alot of quests give you an item for completeing the quest, but not all.

Also the harder the quest the better the loot. When you enter a quest you get a pop up screen that has difficulty lvls. Normal, Hard, Elite. You or someone in your group needs to have done the quest allready to do it on hard and I belive everyone has to have done it to do it on Elite. It seems that at low lvls though Elite is really that. Its hard as hell.

Also they up'ed Hitpoints. You start out with a feat called Hero's something or other. It gives every class an additional 20 HPS at creation. Every class gets it. It also seems that monsters HPS are raised quite a bit. Im personally guessing this is to compensate for the fact that if they left it true to D&D rules fights would be very fast.

I was in a 6 person group (max group number) on the last day of beta and we were doing a mission that required us to kill a total of 80 Kobolds throughout the dungeon. There are 8 ten group encounters. Those fights generally lasted about a min or two. Im guessing that if HPS were true to D&D rules those fights would be cut in half.

Everything is set up on a Point Buy system. When you create your character all stats start at 8 and you have 28 points to spend in your stats. From 8 to 14 its 1 point to raise. 2 from 14 to 16, and 3 from 17 to 18. 18 is max. They left out some skills like rope climbing from the skills selection list. All the knowledges are gone. You can raise any skill that they do have by 4 points. Then you have alot of auto asigned feats. Almost every class gets to chose at least one feat for themselves. Humans get one extra feat and 4 extra skill points. I think thats the same in PnP D&D as well.

Most of the rules are the same as PnP. Though I know they took a few liberties here and there like with the HPS issue. Other then that its pretty "accurate". Its not exactly a PnP feel, but its close. If your not to critical then its pretty close and fun.

There are a couple of people that are makeing character builders allready. This guy is doing a pretty damn good job, though its not finished yet. Has some bugs, though its getting much better.

http://www.onarom.com/Cage/#CSharp

You should check out the DDO boards if you get a chance. Lots of stuff to wade through to help answer some questions I probably dont have the answer to. Like any other MMO out there though people are allready argueing about whats best and whats not. What I personally like so far is that there are SO many different bests and worst arguments out there that I doubt there is a best or worst. I think Turbine did a good job of makeing just about any character viable in a group. At least in some aspect.

I mean D&D was pretty much set up as a pick one class and specialize to be the best at something. If you want to muti-class dont expect to be the best. Thats how PnP is thats how DDO is. If you multi-class you can still be pretty useful in a group you just wont do the most dmg or disarm that really hard trap. Seems like alot of people are advocateing things like a Rogue with a lvl or 2 only of fighter/barb or ranger if you wanna go bow, but 10 lvls of fighter and 10 lvls of rogue are not recomended.

At lvl 10 from what Ive been reading a half half rogue character wont even get invited for his rogue skills. He will get passed up for a pure rogue. He might get invited just for the extra dmg in a fight though.

All in all I think Im gonna have some fun with the game. At least untill something crazy fun comes along.

Oh and as far as dragons are concerned there is a lvl 10 quest that has a dragon in it supposedly. I never got there so I dont know for sure. Dragons were not that common in PnP anyway. Giants however are supposed to be very common later on. I personally want more dragons.

PostPosted: Tue Feb 21, 2006 8:27 am

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Chimera
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Conversation at a local game store:

1st edition D&D player: Yeah..it took some doing but I made 14th level with my wizard last week. Been working on him for 18 years.

2nd edition D&D player walks up: Hey thats pretty cool. Took me 8 years to get my fighter up to 10th. (1st edition player looks dumbfounded)

3rd edition D&D player joins in: Well you know, I finished the Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil with my half-dragon assasin psionic monk. Was a breeze since I been getting my character up to 20th over the past year and a half (2nd edition player is dumbfounded, 1st edition player looks depressed)

D&D online player passes by and nonchalantly says: Big deal. My character is a 20th level priest of Thor, took me 2 months. Our group went on a dungeon crawl yesterday to the lower planes.
I have Asmodeus's Ruby Rod, and have my eyes on the Hand and Eye of Vecna purples next.

Only paid 50 bucks for the game plus 2 months subscription to get an epic level character equivalent to what you all paid years and hundreds of dollars for.

(3rd edition player is dumbfounded, but snaps back to attention trying to hold back the 2nd edition player from strangling the DDO player. 1st edition player has hung himself)

It could happen.
Pain is weakness leaving your body.

PostPosted: Tue Feb 21, 2006 10:45 am

Serberus
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LMAO, that is so true.... cept when u play 3.5....twice in a year lol in which case u level sorta slow.

PostPosted: Tue Feb 21, 2006 5:05 pm

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Bladesinger
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When I found out the game was based in Ebberon I completely lost interest.

WoW is my new mistress now. :)
Shattered Star since 1998

Gallarien of Lorien, Hunter/Woodsman

PostPosted: Tue Feb 21, 2006 8:32 pm

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Chimera
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I hear that on Eberon.
Pain is weakness leaving your body.

PostPosted: Wed Feb 22, 2006 2:00 am

Talon
Posts: 86
Joined: Wed Sep 01, 2004 8:09 pm
Location: Virginia
Alright so I pre-ordered DDO so I could get the 10 day beta. I gotta say I was pretty disappointed. To me the whole interface was just clunky and I wasn't too thrilled with the combat. I think if this game didn't have a subscription fee it would be nice to play with a group of people one or two nights a week. The trouble in a subscription game is sometimes you want or need to play alone... this isn't the case with DDO in my experience. Without a party you aren't really getting anywhere. Maybe that is the point of the whole thing, but I was a little disappointed by it.

I do like the DM narration when you enter dungeons, and it follows the D&D guidelines well. This game just didn't spark it for me. Maybe I was expecting too much or I was spoiled by WOW. I will probably play a little bit for the first month and see how it is, but I don't see myself renewing the subscription. I think this game will be for some people but not everyone. I think I would probably have more fun with our weekly Thursday night game then playing this.

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