Dungeons & Dragons Online Review

Well I've been talking about it for months now and I finally have spent enough time with the game to be able to work up a solid review. On with it then...

Dungeons & Dragons Online is the latest MMORPG from Turbine. It officially launched last week and I haven't been able to focus my attention on anything else since (OK except for the XB360). I'm a self-proclaimed, former addict of many other popular MMOs over the past several years, having played Turbine's Asherons Call and Asheron's Call 2, along with six month memberships to City Of Heroes, World Of Warcraft and Guild Wars. I'm also an old D & D player from the old school when a book, paper, some geometrical astounding dice, a couple pals and a decent imagination could keep you gaming for hours. This game is based in the Ebberon campaign setting, which is the latest and greatest set of adventures published by Wizards Of The Coast.

So what makes this game different than the others?

1. No crafting. None whatsoever. No customizing weapons or digging up resources either. That's not to say there isn't trading...there's just no trade skills to build up or crafting. The game is mostly about quests and loot.

2. No PK. No plans to add any either. Turbine wanted to capture the spirit of the old pen and paper as much as possible and exploring dungeons with your friends is what this game is centered around.

3. Built-in voice chat. Grab a headset and mic and sit there like a teenager in a fast food drive through because now you can talk to everyone in your party in real time. I personally contribute that (along with no PK) to the fact that there aren't as many pointlessly mean, smack-talking children. People are a lot "tougher" when they're hiding behind a keyboard.

4. No soloing. Without a well-balanced group, don't expect to get very far in this game. Again, capturing the spirit of D & D here. You ever see a Dungeon Master running himself through an adventure? Many of the level 1 and 2 quests work well with a duo, but after a few days, you will need more than 2.

5. No farming. No grinding away for hours. In fact, you don't get ANY XP for killing creatures. The only way to get XP in this game is to play through quests. If you can play through without killing one single creature, you get the same XP as killing everything that walks. It's the main incintive for playing smarter and not just harder or longer.

6. Rogues are useful. The dungeons are littered with traps. Flame traps, spear traps, traps that make you wish you had put a couple more points into your search skill. Clerics (healers) are pretty useful, but the rogue class is equally as useful and often necessary to complete key quests. They can find and disable traps, open locked chests and locate hidden areas with ease. I'd take a rogue in my group over a healer any day (but both would be nice). The game is not about rushing through instances as fast as you can. It's about solving puzzles, taking your time to explore, stealth, strategy, clever ways of thinking and working together as a team.

7. No open-ended hunting areas. Mostly dungeon crawls here, although there are several areas, called Danger Zones, that allow you to run in outdoor areas, killing random encounters for XP, but not like hunting where XP is divied per kill. These encounters are more like mini encounter

An example would be the use of magic to outsmart (not necessarily overpower) your enemies. Recently, we played through a dungeon that opened up into a large area with a high level and a lower level. There were kobold shamans along the top and bottom, so instead of rushing through and taking the lower ones while the top caster beat us up from above, I snuck in and casted Charm Creature on the top kobolds. They started attacking the lower kobolds, keeping them occupied enough for us to run through, loot the key out of the chest and run out before the charm spells wore off. Playing smarter can equate to more loot in your pack. I can't stress how different this game is in that respect.

The graphics: Just like you'd expect from Turbine, the graphics are perfect. Players from AC2 will recognize the interface and even some of the models (I'm almost certain that the new Warforged character class uses the old Lugian models). The interface is the same and the GUI is fully customizable. There are some nice enhancements, like the 20-sided dice that actually shows on the screen so you can see when you roll a hit or a miss. Turbine really took the time to translate the D & D 3.5 ruleset into this game flawlessly with only a few minor changes.

Overall, it's a great game if you're looking for something different. There are only a few minor things I would change. An in-game chest or bank shared between characters would be nice to make it easier to move items between characters. Also, there's a heck of a learning curve if you're unfamiliar with D & D rules. I'm sure I'll be sick of this game sooner or later, but for now, it's terrific.