Well the game is out retail as of today.  Who's playing?

I'm not but it's seriously tugging on my purse strings.  I was hoping the AutoAssault beta would hold it off but their useless play schedule isn't doing the trick.

Early reviews I saw for D&D were not overly favourable, though one I saw last week was not that bad.  Anyone know if there was much (if any) change from the beta to the retail release?

I'm barely playing Civ IV right now as it is.  D&D online doesn't stand a chance of getting my little remaining free time.  

Quote from: angramainyuEarly reviews I saw for D&D were not overly favourable, though one I saw last week was not that bad.  Anyone know if there was much (if any) change from the beta to the retail release?

It would have to be a pretty big change to attract my interest.

If anybody buys it let me know if there's a demo key or something. You know, like WoW came with a free 10-day CD-key for you to lend your friends? I don't want to buy it without trying it first.

From what I've read my feelings are mixed.  I think the game actually sounds great and most of the negative comments seem to stem from WoW fatbeards.  What is keeping me at bay is the grouping and quest aspects of it.  There is nothing wrong with grouping but I don't always have a long time to play I'll sneak in some time in the morning or at lunch.  However it's a pretty fixed timeline I can't just play an extra 5 or 10 mins.

So that means I have to find a group which could waste time and then get the quest.  Which ties into the next problem area.  You only gain experience for completing quests.  So if I've got to take off to get to work and the quest isn't done I'm boned, and I'll probably piss off people for disco'ing in the middle of a game.

The fact that there is no large world to just go and explore is also a little annoying.  But that's low on my list.

Re: Grouping.

It MAY be possible to do low level dungeons solo, and repeat them to get enough XP to level up, and do slightly higher level dungeons solo... but even if it is possible you'd be doing much easier dungeons than people of your level who can find groups.

Quote from: Name LipsRe: Grouping.

It MAY be possible to do low level dungeons solo, and repeat them to get enough XP to level up, and do slightly higher level dungeons solo... but even if it is possible you'd be doing much easier dungeons than people of your level who can find groups.

I seem to remeber something about grouping being mandatory as in there is no soloing.  They may have changed that.

We are not in favor of group only MMORGs. As Our time is limited We often have only enough time to play for small bits of time/space.

Quote from: KnightcrawlerI seem to remeber something about grouping being mandatory as in there is no soloing.  They may have changed that.

From all I've read and heard.  Grouping is not manditory.  It's certainly adviced though.  There could be some quests where grouping is necessary because of different qualities certain classes have.  For example if you are a fighter and you need to pick a lock to get through a guest you are boned.  Likewise if you are the thief and need to kill the big bad, plus all the little bads you could be in trouble.

But this weekend (fucking finally) I should actually be able to play some Auto Assault and see if it's as good as I think it could be.  If it fails to deliver I think my resolve will be broken and a moment of weakness will deliver D&Do to my embrace.

In other news, I'm still not certain if you can buy play as you go cards for D&Do but you can buy them online without a credit card through this service, who's name I've just forgotten.  But what you do is use your online banking (works in canada also) to send a money transfer to this service and then they email you a pass code.  Your bank probably will charge 1.50 for the transaction and they charge $33us for a 60 day pass.

Soooo futureshop had a sale and I was pissed off at how disappointing AutoAssault was so in my momment of weakness I picked up DDO.

It's a really nice looking game and I think for at least the time being I'm in love with it.  There is no big world to explore, which is definitely dissapointing - very dissapointing.  But in the short term just having various areas to run quests in is enough.  It surprisingly does feel quite a bit like D&D, more then any other D&D rpg I've played.  They did a really great job of blending in the action to the interface.  You can run around and swing and position yourself in combat.  It really changes the standard MMo feeling of point click and wait for something to die.  You, can play that way but you certainly loose out on the experience.  You have to actively block, you can tumble out of the way sneak up on things.  It's fun, plain and simple.

They've greatly extended the ammount of XP you need to level (10,000 for level2) but given the way you get xp from missions time wise it still feels right. One thing that is great is Action Points.  Every 1/4 on the way to your new level you get an action point.  Action points are little perks that give you a bonus to using skills or even special mini feat like abilites.  It's a great idea.  

Now onto grouping.  I think if you want to Solo you should definitely start out as a fighter type.  They have the HP's, AC's, Attack Bonuses, and weapon skills to survive the starting adventures.  Past that you'd need to DC or group because some missions require a rogue to pick a lock or a clerric to heal for example.  But initially you can do pretty good soloing as a warriror type.  However if you want to keep soloing you probably want to DC with rogue for their skills.

Myself I'm a warforged rogue which I'll d/c to fighter at 2nd level.  For me the missions have been tough to solo as there is usually a couple badies that kick my ass, and healing potions right now are out of my price range to be a successful alternative to a clerric.  So most missions beyond the starting ones (that require you to solo) I'll have to take a few runs into between deaths to complete.  The probelm is that the more times you have to go back in the lower the XP reward.  Since there is no XP bonus for soloing a mission it's entirely counter productive.  Really the only reason to solo is because you want to for the challenge.  You don't have time to form a party or you just feel like being anti-social.

I'll certianly have no problems playing this game for my free month and I'll pick up 60 more days for sure.  After that we'll see.  But for the time being it's D&D glory.

This game is terrible.

Quote from: Ragnarok N RollThis game is terrible.

You may not like it.  But the game is not terrible.  You may also be some WoW troll, but we won't comment on that either.

Quote from: kryystYou may not like it.  But the game is not terrible.  You may also be some WoW troll, but we won't comment on that either.

I'm not a WoW troll I promise. I did beta test for both WoW and DnD online however. I was not impressed at all with the way they have the DnD online game done. No open endedness, you get the same quests for every character you play. Once you've been to a dungeon its the same thing every time, plus a whole host of other issues....

I just got the game for my birthday from my wife. Gotta love a woman with the same hobbies as yourself.

I'm Renimus Piolott on the Thelanis sever. I'm going for a wizard/cleric "necromancer" combo.

I played WoW pretty seriously for about 6 months. But it reached the point, a few weeks after hitting 60, that it was no longer fun. It was just grinding and work. And with the kids and other life stuff, there was almost no way I ever had time for a serious instance run.

A very very good game, WoW, but it just didn't fit well with my free time.

DDO, however, looks to be a much better match so far, though I've only gotten to rank 3 of level 1. There's not much of a world to explore, but that's fine, because there's also not a lot of running halfway across a huge world for 20 minutes just to get to the dungeon. The dungeons, so far, are small and self-contained, with a handful or three of monsters. They're quick and easy. Some of the short ones can even be soloed, even for me, a 1st level wizard. But if I want a group, I've yet to have trouble finding one. And if I just want a quick adventure, not necessarily one on my quest list, I can ALWAYS find a group, almost instantly. Nice.

It's a MMO where I can log in for 30 minutes and actually make REAL PROGRESS. As opposed to WoW, where somebody who only has 30 minute windows of playtime will have a very hard time getting anywhere.