Dungeons and Dragons Online (DDO)

Well following my invitation to the European Beta of DDO last week, and the lifting of the Non-Disclosure Agreement, I finally managed to get logged in last night and have a very brief play of DDO. These are only my first impressions of the game, and I’ll post more as and when I get the chance to delve deeper into the game itself.

I’d read a few previews and interviews with Turbine software, and was quite excited by the prospect of play D&D again. It’s quite a few years now since I sat around a table with friends and played the pen and paper version of the game, but I still have very fond memories of those gaming evenings. Undoubtedly Turbine and Wizards of the Coast have taken on one of the most difficult tasks in trying to produce this game. That task being to recreate the atmosphere of a table top session, and replacing the mental images that each gamer had in their head of their surroundings with a believeable on-screen world. So how have they done?

Well I have to say I’m pretty impressed. As anyone who comes here often will know, PC MMORPG’s have been abandoned by me recently in favour of my XBox 360. My Everquest 2 subscription has now expired and I can’t say I’m really missing it. So it was from an unbiased standpoint that I approached DDO. I didn’t need to enjoy the experience as I’m not short of games to play at the moment. But enjoy it I did. The graphics build into a very believeable world and it looks good. It even reflects some of the elements that I had in my head from my table-top D&D days.

The game starts with you just landing in a training area and proceeds to give you a quick walkthrough of the controls, and how to interact with objects. A couple of interactions with NPC’s later and you are in an instanced training area. At this point the game changes slightly and you have a new window on-screen – the Quest window. This shows you what the next objective is and ticks off any that you have already achieved. Another tab on here is the XP window which then shows how much XP you can expect to receive from this quest. It’s worth checking back here often as bonuses are applied as you get further in. Perhaps one of the best touches in recreating the table-top sessions is the games use of narrative in an area. On approaching one door I was informed by the “GM” that I “can hear scrabbling and scratching on the other side of the door”. Sure enough on opening the door the GM tells me that I am “being rushed by a conjured spider”. A swift kicking ensued and that was that. But the atmosphere and suspense is there by the power of suggestion of the GM.
My first quest was to find 5 objects in the cellar of the inn, and this built upon the initial “tutorial” area by adding some combat and interaction with things such as levers and the like. The area was quite atmospheric, looked good (the large mirror in the first room looks fantastic), and is paced about right for a starting area.

So through this area, a quick bit of advanced training and you’re ready to head off to Stormreach, the main town in the game. And that’s as far as I got. So will I be buying DDO when it comes out? Well if the game continues as it has started then I could be very very tempted. It looks good, it plays well and, for me, it recreates those long-lost table-top sessions with friends that I have enjoyed so much in the past.