Dungeons & Dragons Online: Eberron Unlimited
- Obszar: Global,North America
- Strona oficjalna: Dungeons & Dragons Online: Eberron Unlimited
- Wydawca: Atari
- Developer: Turbine
- Platforma: Microsoft Windows
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- Obszar: Global,North America
- Strona oficjalna: Dungeons & Dragons Online: Eberron Unlimited
- Wydawca: Atari
- Developer: Turbine
- Platforma: Microsoft Windows
Like this game? Tell your friends!
Review
By Ron Keith
A little history
Dungeons and Dragons Online (DDO) was released in 2006 as a pay-to-play MMO. For lots of reasons the reviews were mixed. The prevailing opinion was that Turbine, the game's developer, had remained faithful to the classic game, but had failed to provide the varied MMO experience gamers expect.
DDO had fabulous dungeons, the kind fans of the classic tabletop game would love, but the game lacked the social mechanisms and casual gameplay options many MMOs provide to their players. There was no significant world exploration, no crafting, and no gathering places for the player community, such as guild halls.
In 2009, after years of declining interest from the MMO community, DDO released an update to the game and went to a free-to-play (F2P) model.
Has DDO improved? Is it a worthwhile F2P game?
Character creation
The very first thing you do in DDO is design your character, deciding what type of character you want to play and how you want to allocate its skills. The character creation process can be as simple or complicated as you want. DDO does an A-plus job, offering players the option to simply choose from preset character builds or to get nitty-gritty and design your character from scratch. Even within the preset builds there are lots of options, so you still feel like you have a direct hand in the type of character you're going to play.
At character creation you choose your playing style – melee, spell caster, or specialist. Within each play style there are three or four classes to choose. For instance, if you go with the melee play style, you can choose to play a fighter, a barbarian, a paladin, or a monk (Monks are a pay-to-play option, by the way.). Then you choose your path, essentially your fighting style, and after that you get to choose your race – human, elf, dwarf – which determines many of your starting traits.
If you want to go hardcore, choose customize. You can assign all your skill points and choose all your feats yourself. Fans of the classic game will love this option.
In most MMOs, you don't get to decide which traits are important to you. If you want to play a rogue, you get the preset rogue build. You don't like it? Tough.
But DDO absolutely excels at character skills customization. From the very beginning you can design a character with the abilities and skills you want. Want a pure tank? Pour all your points into strength and constitution. Maybe a character who's hard to hit? Pump up the dexterity. Probably more than any other MMO, DDO allows you to tailor your character with the skills you want.
The character appearance... Well, that's something else. It's not bad, but it's may not be what players of contemporary MMOs expect, though. The hair, facial and body options are limited when weighed against more modern MMOs, such as Star Trek Online or Aion. These games and others have raised players expectations in this regard, but these games are also pay-to-play.
Try not to be put off by this. In spite of this, DDO still has much to offer that other modern MMOs don't.
Dungeons are a blast!
DDO provides players with a varied and challenging instanced player-versus-environment (PvE) experience. Dungeons in DDO are exciting and fun. Players of the classic game won't be disappointed and if you're new to Dungeons and Dragons (D&D) you're in for a treat. Dungeons are filled with all the things you love in the classic game: secret doors, traps, puzzles, and pools of acids. All the other elements that make a Dungeons and Dragons (D&D) dungeon fun await you.
D&D dungeons are not your standard tank-and-spank dungeons popular in many MMOs. Tougher D&D dungeon runs require all your skills and a varied party: You need rogues to find traps; clerics for heals and to turn undead; rangers to kill enemy archers; and sorcerers to counter the enemies spells.
When was the last time you saw someone in region chat spamming, “Looking for rogue”? You will in DDO. A well-balanced party is essential for finishing many of the more difficult dungeons in DDO.
DDO has taken steps to help make the dungeon experience about as painless as possible. Dungeons have difficulty settings, for instance. If the dungeon proves too difficult or too easy you can also adjust the difficulty level. A very nice feature. Chances are you'll want to repeat some dungeons just to see if you can run them on elite. Good luck.
If you're having trouble filling out a party, you can hire non-player characters (NPC) from vendors. Pocket healers, fighters and wizards are all waiting to help get you through a run. They aren't as good as real people, of course, but in a pinch they'll do.
Unfortunately, if you don't want NPCs, you'll have to broadcast in region chat – the same, old looking-for-group approach - or the in-game grouping system. DDO could use a dungeon runner system like World of Warcraft's that automatically pairs players looking to run dungeons.
All together, DDO excels at instanced PvE. The game's dungeons are different from any you've encountered in typical MMOs. There is very little grinding and players will often find themselves in situations where they have to stop and think, rather than just running to the next mob or boss.
Limited social features
One of the complaints about DDO when it was first released was that it lacked many of social features common to MMOs. Originally there wasn't any player-versus-player (PvP) or activities, like crafting, that would give players a reason to come online when they weren't running dungeons.
The game has made progress, but it still has much room for improvement. There is limited PvP, arenas and dueling, but no preset scenes like Star Trek or Warhammer. There still isn't any crafting to speak of; it's really more like enchanting. There are no guild halls and taverns, which could serve as hubs of social activity, are primarily just resurrection spots.
DDO is still lacking in many of the activities that help build social communities in MMOs, however they have made some progress.
Restricted free-to-play
DDO advertises itself as a F2P MMO. Be aware free means lots of different things in the F2P world. In DDO, you can play a lot of the game and you can run a lot of the dungeons, but if you're not a subscriber, there are restrictions on what you can do.
Do you want to play a drow? Sorry, you can't play Drizzt. That's restricted. However, you can unlock the drow as a character option if you play long enough and earn enough favor with various factions in the game. So it's not that bad. But chances are, if you've read the Drizzt books, you won't have the patience to wait and you'll fork over some dollars.
Many of the dungeons are restricted, too, but there are still plenty of dungeons to keep you busy. The pay-to-play dungeons aren't significantly better than the free-to-play dungeons, so you're not really missing out on better content, just more content.
How's that free-to-play thing workin' for ya'?
Turbine might very well have saved DDO by going free-to-play. Since going with their F2P model, their subscriptions have jumped. Turbine boasts over one million subscribers to DDO, now. After going with their F2P model, they actually had to bring more servers online.
Today's MMO market is extremely competitive. Players expect a lot from their pay-to-play MMOs, but are willing to be more forgiving with their F2P games. By going to a F2P model, DDO might be able to fill in the gaps of their MMO. If they do, they could end up with one of the best MMOs on the market.
Pros: Superb character skills customization. Absolutely fantastic dungeons.
Cons: MMO social aspects are lacking. Free-to-play model is restricted.
Conclusion: Play this game. If for no other reason, play this game to experience DDO's wonderful and exciting dungeons. Sure, some of the social aspects are lacking and the free-to-play restrictions might get a bit annoying, but you should play this game to simply to experience the thrill of DDO's exceptional dungeon design.
