Name: Andrew
Age: 24
Occupation: Government contractor, student, Air Force National Guardsman (yea I have a very busy life)
Playing D&D since: As long as I can remember really. Anyone else play the Darksun games on DOS?
Rule System: Some second edition, but over the last 4 years some friends and I have been playing a 3.0-3.5 hybrid (mainly because we don't want to buy all new books)
Favourite settings: Forgotten Realms, Dark Sun (never played Ravenloft, but it seems fun)
Games running: Homebrew world (DM makes it all up on the fly), on our 5th or 6th campaign over the last 4 years.
Non-D&D RPG-experiences: Rifts, Shadowrun, lots of homebrew
Non-D&D RPG interests: I am beta testing DDO. It's not as D&D as I'd hoped.
Other interests/hobbies: Football, Fantasy Football, Computer games, video games, school (going for BS in Computer Security)
In my kitchen: Fridge, oven, sink, dishwasher....what a strange question!
On my desk: What a mess. Both mine and my wife's computers. My D&D books, several empty Pepsi cans, television, printer, all of our bills (it's a big desk).
My non-gothic avatar on this board would be: Batman, although I guess he's kind of gothic too...
What do I do in the SB game: Nothing yet
Ravenloft: Origins OOC-Chat
-
Le Noir Faineant
- Rafe, Agent of the Fraternity
- Posts: 4567
- Joined: Thu Jan 06, 2005 12:25 pm
- Gender: Male
- Location: Saint Grimmin’s-in-the-Wold
-
Boccaccio Barbarossa
- Evil Genius
- Posts: 272
- Joined: Fri Jun 03, 2005 2:33 am
- Location: Montreal, QC, Canada
- Contact:
Tavian: Those DOS games were AWESOME! In fact, I STILL play them occasionally and still have them on my PC. 
Wake of the Ravager and... Shattered Lands, I think? Great games!
Wake of the Ravager and... Shattered Lands, I think? Great games!Barbarossa Vineyards - Fine Brandies. The choice of true connaisseurs. (Located an hour's ride outside of Karina.)
A loose collection of writings about our (sometimes) ongoing campaign. http://ravenloft.inoveryourhead.net/
A loose collection of writings about our (sometimes) ongoing campaign. http://ravenloft.inoveryourhead.net/
Yeah Shattered Lands was the first one. You had to escape from a gladiator's arena and eventually bring together all the different groups to fight the final war. It was awesome.
I really liked Wake of the Ravager though. My favorite thing to do was take my ranger (my group was always 1 ranger and a bunch of half-giants) and climb a tree outside of town, then ambush people and guards as they came by. It was great fun!
I really liked Wake of the Ravager though. My favorite thing to do was take my ranger (my group was always 1 ranger and a bunch of half-giants) and climb a tree outside of town, then ambush people and guards as they came by. It was great fun!
Turbine announced today that they have lifted their Non-disclosure agreement for Dungeons and Dragons Online. Therefore, I have decided to share with you my opinions.
Combat:
This is where DDO shines. There's no more clicking autoattack and walking away. Well, at least not in melee. Monsters jump around, strafe, etc. You get bonuses for flanking opponents so positioning in combat is very important. Clerics can heal at a short range (making them touch spells with be horrible in an MMO). Rogues can get sneak attacks while flanking or sneaking of course.
Special attacks, such as bluffing, tripping, sundering, etc, take way too long. Each one takes like 3 seconds, during which time you could have swung your weapon several times.
Ranged weapons are extremely slow. Using a BOW (not a crossbow mind you) it takes about 3 seconds to reload. Using a crossbow takes about 6 seconds. Therefore, if you want to deal damage, you will want to be in melee.
Two-handed weapons cause damage to monsters near your target. This is a new addition to D&D. It makes two-handers very powerful (I thought they were already really good). My rogue/fighter uses a two-hander with sneak attacks. Can you say one-shot-kill?
Overall, combat is very fun, but it becomes a click fest. I haven't playtested a wizard or sorcerer much (I can never survive past level 1 dungeons!) but Clerics, Rogues, and Fighters are very fun to play.
Content:
The one thing you can do in the game is quest. Now when I say quest in D&D you're like "well of course, it's all a quest." No. In DDO you are either in town buying/selling/recovering or you are in a quest instance. Last time I checked, there are about 100 quests. There are around 10 1st-level quests, 15 2nd-level quests, 15 3rd-level quests, and a smattering of higher level stuff. Each quest has three difficulties. Once you've completed a quest on normal you can do it on hard, then on elite. Hard quests have monsters with CRX2, elite is CRX3, and the treasure in chests scales up as well (oh and each person gets stuff from every chest, just as if you had done the quest solo). You get a 50% bonus xp for completing a quest on elite. Unfortunately, each time you repeat a quest, you take like a 10% penalty to xp. You also take penalties for leaving and coming back to the instance (for example if you die).
Herein lies the problem of diminishing returns. If, for example, a group of level 1 characters did all of the level 1 quests on every difficulty, they still would not have enough xp to gain a level. This is after repeating all of these quests 3 times, by which time they are tired of them. Now, they will need to do the level 2 quests. If they do this, they will get to level 2 but not level 3. There are also fewer and fewer quests at higher levels. Therefore, most characters tend to have to repeat quests many many times by level 5 in order to continue to gain xp. This gets really really boring.
I have 4 characters. If I did all of the level 1 quests 3 times with each character (which I didn't, but I did alot of level 2 and 3 quests that I enjoyed until they stopped giving xp), I would have to do them all 12 times. How boring is that? Have you ever been in a PnP game where your DM said, "alright guys you killed the dragon. You get back to town and get your reward and the chieftan tells you there is another dragon in the same cave, please save us!" You might say ok and go do it again, but most likely you'll be pretty pissed.
Now, assuming you did go in and go back to the town and the chieftan asks you to go back AGAIN, I can guarantee your whole group will get up and leave. No DM would get away with that. It's boring to repeat stuff.
Bottom line: The quests are great the first time (per character) because you don't necessarily know what to expect. The traps are cool, hidden doors are fun to find, monsters abush you, it's great! It's not so great the second, third, and tenth time around. At higher levels, especially, you find yourself in groups in which most people have done the quest already and are just rushing through it to get to the phat lewt and xp.
Roleplaying:
Non-existant. Sure you may hear one or two people talking in-character in a tavern, but in a month of playing I have never once had someone in a group roleplaying. There are like 5 emotes and 2 of them are broken. If you do /sit, you sit for a second then stand back up. Same with /sleep. There is no afk command. The guild system is broken and even if they fix it there are very few tools.
Extras:
No housing, no crafting, no mounts, no pets, no monks, no druids, no gnomes, no half-orcs, no flying, no levitation, no boats, no fishing, no games, no alcohol.
All in all DDO is a great game to try, but a bad game to buy. It has about the same amount of content and immersion as GuildWars but they want to charge $15 a month.
Save your $50 for Elder Scrolls: Oblivion.
Combat:
This is where DDO shines. There's no more clicking autoattack and walking away. Well, at least not in melee. Monsters jump around, strafe, etc. You get bonuses for flanking opponents so positioning in combat is very important. Clerics can heal at a short range (making them touch spells with be horrible in an MMO). Rogues can get sneak attacks while flanking or sneaking of course.
Special attacks, such as bluffing, tripping, sundering, etc, take way too long. Each one takes like 3 seconds, during which time you could have swung your weapon several times.
Ranged weapons are extremely slow. Using a BOW (not a crossbow mind you) it takes about 3 seconds to reload. Using a crossbow takes about 6 seconds. Therefore, if you want to deal damage, you will want to be in melee.
Two-handed weapons cause damage to monsters near your target. This is a new addition to D&D. It makes two-handers very powerful (I thought they were already really good). My rogue/fighter uses a two-hander with sneak attacks. Can you say one-shot-kill?
Overall, combat is very fun, but it becomes a click fest. I haven't playtested a wizard or sorcerer much (I can never survive past level 1 dungeons!) but Clerics, Rogues, and Fighters are very fun to play.
Content:
The one thing you can do in the game is quest. Now when I say quest in D&D you're like "well of course, it's all a quest." No. In DDO you are either in town buying/selling/recovering or you are in a quest instance. Last time I checked, there are about 100 quests. There are around 10 1st-level quests, 15 2nd-level quests, 15 3rd-level quests, and a smattering of higher level stuff. Each quest has three difficulties. Once you've completed a quest on normal you can do it on hard, then on elite. Hard quests have monsters with CRX2, elite is CRX3, and the treasure in chests scales up as well (oh and each person gets stuff from every chest, just as if you had done the quest solo). You get a 50% bonus xp for completing a quest on elite. Unfortunately, each time you repeat a quest, you take like a 10% penalty to xp. You also take penalties for leaving and coming back to the instance (for example if you die).
Herein lies the problem of diminishing returns. If, for example, a group of level 1 characters did all of the level 1 quests on every difficulty, they still would not have enough xp to gain a level. This is after repeating all of these quests 3 times, by which time they are tired of them. Now, they will need to do the level 2 quests. If they do this, they will get to level 2 but not level 3. There are also fewer and fewer quests at higher levels. Therefore, most characters tend to have to repeat quests many many times by level 5 in order to continue to gain xp. This gets really really boring.
I have 4 characters. If I did all of the level 1 quests 3 times with each character (which I didn't, but I did alot of level 2 and 3 quests that I enjoyed until they stopped giving xp), I would have to do them all 12 times. How boring is that? Have you ever been in a PnP game where your DM said, "alright guys you killed the dragon. You get back to town and get your reward and the chieftan tells you there is another dragon in the same cave, please save us!" You might say ok and go do it again, but most likely you'll be pretty pissed.
Now, assuming you did go in and go back to the town and the chieftan asks you to go back AGAIN, I can guarantee your whole group will get up and leave. No DM would get away with that. It's boring to repeat stuff.
Bottom line: The quests are great the first time (per character) because you don't necessarily know what to expect. The traps are cool, hidden doors are fun to find, monsters abush you, it's great! It's not so great the second, third, and tenth time around. At higher levels, especially, you find yourself in groups in which most people have done the quest already and are just rushing through it to get to the phat lewt and xp.
Roleplaying:
Non-existant. Sure you may hear one or two people talking in-character in a tavern, but in a month of playing I have never once had someone in a group roleplaying. There are like 5 emotes and 2 of them are broken. If you do /sit, you sit for a second then stand back up. Same with /sleep. There is no afk command. The guild system is broken and even if they fix it there are very few tools.
Extras:
No housing, no crafting, no mounts, no pets, no monks, no druids, no gnomes, no half-orcs, no flying, no levitation, no boats, no fishing, no games, no alcohol.
All in all DDO is a great game to try, but a bad game to buy. It has about the same amount of content and immersion as GuildWars but they want to charge $15 a month.
Save your $50 for Elder Scrolls: Oblivion.
Oh and three words that sum up the majority of my experiences in DDO:
Basements and Kobolds.
Lots of kobolds...in fact, I've seen more kobolds than all other creatures combined (which isn't much, I think I've seen 10 different kinds of creatures).
Basements and Kobolds.
Lots of kobolds...in fact, I've seen more kobolds than all other creatures combined (which isn't much, I think I've seen 10 different kinds of creatures).
Last edited by Tavian on Wed Jan 11, 2006 12:22 pm, edited 1 time in total.
-
Boccaccio Barbarossa
- Evil Genius
- Posts: 272
- Joined: Fri Jun 03, 2005 2:33 am
- Location: Montreal, QC, Canada
- Contact:
My firend, who I have been gaming with for about... 10 years or so, had never fought an orc in his "career" until last summer, when I purposefully ran a nothlands/viking-inspired game where they got to roll up some real killers and bring it to the orc tribes!
Barbarossa Vineyards - Fine Brandies. The choice of true connaisseurs. (Located an hour's ride outside of Karina.)
A loose collection of writings about our (sometimes) ongoing campaign. http://ravenloft.inoveryourhead.net/
A loose collection of writings about our (sometimes) ongoing campaign. http://ravenloft.inoveryourhead.net/
-
Mad Skipper
- Agent of the Fraternity
- Posts: 62
- Joined: Mon Jan 10, 2005 4:07 am
Guys, FYI, I'm not trying to take over the leader role in the group. Stocker may come across as mister know-it-all or arguably bossy, but this is only because he is "in his element". Take him out of survival mode, which hopefully we'll all still be around to eventually see ( :wink: ), and you'll see a much different sort of man.
Just thought I'd say.
That, and thanks. This PbP is both fun and interesting. Here's to it... :)
Just thought I'd say.
That, and thanks. This PbP is both fun and interesting. Here's to it... :)
-
Boccaccio Barbarossa
- Evil Genius
- Posts: 272
- Joined: Fri Jun 03, 2005 2:33 am
- Location: Montreal, QC, Canada
- Contact:
no worries. I am rather busy of late so I applaud ANYBODy who can take a leadership role. Because I don't have the time for the game to start thinking out careful strategies and serving as an example... That, and I don't picture my character doing that for any length of time.
Barbarossa Vineyards - Fine Brandies. The choice of true connaisseurs. (Located an hour's ride outside of Karina.)
A loose collection of writings about our (sometimes) ongoing campaign. http://ravenloft.inoveryourhead.net/
A loose collection of writings about our (sometimes) ongoing campaign. http://ravenloft.inoveryourhead.net/
-
Mad Skipper
- Agent of the Fraternity
- Posts: 62
- Joined: Mon Jan 10, 2005 4:07 am
I hear ya. Me? I try to pop in twice a day to keep up (and read other PbPs); once when I get up, and once before I lay down. Nice, simple, and it beats television brain rot! :lol: That, and it helps that I'm now on the graveyard shift. Anti 9-5, if you know what I mean...for better and for worse.Boccaccio Barbarossa wrote:no worries. I am rather busy of late so I applaud ANYBODy who can take a leadership role. Because I don't have the time for the game to start thinking out careful strategies and serving as an example... That, and I don't picture my character doing that for any length of time. :)
-
Le Noir Faineant
- Rafe, Agent of the Fraternity
- Posts: 4567
- Joined: Thu Jan 06, 2005 12:25 pm
- Gender: Male
- Location: Saint Grimmin’s-in-the-Wold
Hello again,
I would have answered to some of those very interesting posts earlier, but some wicked forces prevented the topic email notifications from my mailbox...
I just hope they'll release some mods for other D&D worlds like RL, Greyhawk, whatever...
YOUR BOSSINESS IS DESTROYING MY ROLEPLAYING SESSION!!!
Seriously, NO!!!
You're doing a very good job right now that the party is at a point that is purely horror and not to much hackin'...
So far, I hope my form of telling the story isn't too slow and to lethal... The party will have to suffer a good while longer, I think...
Avra's heroism will be tested soon enough, BB! ...
I would have answered to some of those very interesting posts earlier, but some wicked forces prevented the topic email notifications from my mailbox...
So, basically, skip of DDO? - I think I'll have no problem with that...Tavian wrote:Edited to say that my experiences in DDO is mostly kobolds, since thats what almost every quest involves killing. In D&D I've fought everything under the sun, including the mighty Terrasque!
I just hope they'll release some mods for other D&D worlds like RL, Greyhawk, whatever...Yes! Yes! Yes! You're so bossy, we can barely stand it any more! Every day, two or three times, I get PMs saying, "Stocker is so bossy, we don't want to play any more!" ...Mad Skipper wrote: Stocker may come across as mister know-it-all or arguably bossy...
YOUR BOSSINESS IS DESTROYING MY ROLEPLAYING SESSION!!!
Seriously, NO!!!
You're doing a very good job right now that the party is at a point that is purely horror and not to much hackin'...So far, I hope my form of telling the story isn't too slow and to lethal... The party will have to suffer a good while longer, I think...
Avra's heroism will be tested soon enough, BB!
... -
Boccaccio Barbarossa
- Evil Genius
- Posts: 272
- Joined: Fri Jun 03, 2005 2:33 am
- Location: Montreal, QC, Canada
- Contact:
Heroism?... No, no... you must be mistakning me for the OTHER Avra. He would like to suffer much more than I would... 
Barbarossa Vineyards - Fine Brandies. The choice of true connaisseurs. (Located an hour's ride outside of Karina.)
A loose collection of writings about our (sometimes) ongoing campaign. http://ravenloft.inoveryourhead.net/
A loose collection of writings about our (sometimes) ongoing campaign. http://ravenloft.inoveryourhead.net/
-
Le Noir Faineant
- Rafe, Agent of the Fraternity
- Posts: 4567
- Joined: Thu Jan 06, 2005 12:25 pm
- Gender: Male
- Location: Saint Grimmin’s-in-the-Wold