D&D Online: intial thoughts from an (ex) devoted Lineage 2 player

[Zak33]

Well, one week as passed since Sair and saofg and I signed up to D&DO and started playing, and it's been a suprise.

Firstly...it's harder than Lineage. With that game, you target with a click of a button for "next target" click the attack button once, and while your character smashes four shades of excrement out of the monster, you can target another... waiting patiently until the death blow.. them immediately click attack and off your character sprints to attack the next one WHILE you're looking around for another target.

Oh how different this is!

Firstly, you HAVE to facing the monster for it a hit.. and you can ONLY target the one you'r looking at.. not another one in advance. They move fast.. and sometimes you lose "target lock" and have to do it again.

In Lineage2, when you cast a spell, or fire an arrow it curves to hit the monster if it moves. Not soin D&DO... you have to keep it in target.. and likewise, as I proudly managed many times yesterday.. you can side step spells and arrows if you are fast.

And that's player skill...not character skill.

It's also much more like tomb raider than I expected.. there are things to jump onto, ledges and edges to creap around... and today I got stuck and blocked by 4 monsters and had to JUMP out, over their heads to get free. This is all SKILL... not character earned skill, but my skill (or lack of it sometimes)

Some of the quests in the early stage are very cool because they need brain power. Moving multipl blocks to unleash a stream of power through series of pipelines... and so forth. Quite basdic but well made.

And then there's Mana and Hit Points. Well, you only get what you leave the town with.. and you can only shortcut the spells that yuo can memorise from your spell book (this is traditional D&D rules) so even if I know 10 spells, at level 1 I can only memorise 3 of them to use. And once the Mana/Spell power is gone.. I cant just sit down and recuperate it, Like I did in Lineage.. oh no.. I need a special Rest Altar.. gotta find that... gotta fight through a few more monsters.. and I can only use it once per dungeon session.

This is not new for a D&D player.. but it's harder than Lineage, where a sit down.. even in a field of monsters, will bring back your health and spell power.

It's a deep game.. it's less grind and more dungeon crawling.. and it's grwoing on me immensely,

Hardest thing to get over? Dying when 3/4 of the way through a dungeon quest and having to respawn back at town with NO extra XP. None. That hurts.. makes me a lot more cautious.

Halfling MagicUser for the WIN eventually

[Saracen]

Interesting perspective. Thanks for that, Zak. Who knows .... I might even give it a try.

......

Hardest thing to get over? Dying when 3/4 of the way through a dungeon quest and having to respawn back at town with NO extra XP. None. That hurts.. makes me a lot more cautious.
....

Frustrating ..... but maybe a good thing. The "shoot anything that moves, and anything that doesn't" blaster games are okay for frantic action, up to a point, but personally, I tend to prefer something a bit more thoughtful, and this approach may just achieve that.

[danroyle]

i tried this wasnt impressed by the fact you can only get to level 4 rank and then you have to start paying to get more levels, preferred archlord shame it ends in a week

[Zak33]

I'm only just lvl 2 and apparently we CAN get to Lvl 20 somehow.... just not sure how yet!

[Zak33]

yup...Gerrard knows how...

http://forums.hexus.net/hexus-mmog/1...o-lvl-4-a.html

So there ya go.. free adventuring for a looooog time

[Zak33]

Rightyo.. I've played (solo) tonight and had a ball

Have repeated some quests, and practived my skills... used my mouse better for views and tried some new weapons that I gained on my quests. Te most UNLIKELY things were best

Have really enjoyed it with headphones on loud..much more atmosphere, and a few proper tense moments when I eld my nerve and carried on..

Really a very good game. Of course, made harder with my choice of character (Halfling Wizard) bt also, ironically, better for it

[Zak33]

oh.. and as an aside (for the likes of Saracen, who, like me dislikes signing up for "free things" in case it beings mountains of spam....

so far...nothing

[Gerrard]

Whilst you can get to lvl20 for free, I think you would struggle without buying some of the adventure packs as there doesn't seem to be much beyond lvl5 that I can see for free. I used to play this 3 years ago when it first came out, so a lot of the mid-level quests I did then I think I have to pay for now. I've managed to get to lvl 5 so far (although I've only leveled to 4 so not to get penalties for doing lower level quests, of which there are plenty). I doubt I would be able to get far into Lvl 6 without starting to pay. However, from what I've read, it could actually be cheaper to buy stuff rather than subscribe (if you were to play for months). Very tempted by the Monk class as that wasn't out when I played.

As for dying, you know that you can resurrect at the shrine? If you're in a party, then someone can pick up your stone so your ghost can reach it. If you're solo, then there's usually a shrine close enough to run to. If you do recall, you can heal up and re-enter within 5 minutes and carry on, but you lose 10% bonus for re-entering (you might lose another 10% bonus for dying, I can't remember).

[Zak33]

When we were partied I got carried to the shrine but I was solo last night for most of it... died a fair bit

[ajones]

Played this after leaving WOW (EQ > EQ2 > WOW > DDO > LOTRO > ROM).

It encourages group playing, something that MMORPGs should do (else why bother with the MMO bit), as IMHO soloing rapidly becomes extremely difficult without just grinding. Character makeup can be mixed up with the ability to dual class, but I always got the impression that if you didn't pure-class, you'd ultimately be worse off.

I did enjoy the quests, and would argue that the tea-leaf was probably the most fun toon to play... You actually have to work to spot, shimmy and disable them!

I eventually gave up when I got bored hanging around trying to get a group, and the player turnover was really high so grouping with established toons became tricky.

[Gerrard]

The needing to group is a mixed blessing. Great when you can find one, bit of a problem when you can't. The addition of the Solo difficulty was a good one, and allows you to do something whilst waiting for a group.

With regards to characters, a good multi-class can be a lot better, but you can't go wrong with being "pure". Of course, it's a lot easier to make a bad multi-class then a good one, so unless you know what you're doing, it's probably best to leave it. However, you don't need to be a min/maxer to enjoy this game. As long as you don't really screw up at the start (giving a Wiz no INT, or a Sor no CHA), you should be fine. You might have problems is you wanted to do raids at the end, but the chances are that you'll reroll by then (you can get 32pt builds when you get 1750 favour, which looks like it would take you until at least lvl12, if not later before you got that).

[Output]

I had a quick play, but got stuck in the first mission unable to find the hidden door and get out (and I think I accidentally used up all my search power thingy somewhere else in there).

[Zak33]

I think it's a great game, but today got a tad angered while trying to find 2 out of the 3 "Rare Encounters" on the initial island. I know where to find them.... they just didn't spawn only regular versions of them.

Still... I made Lvl 3 today and though I can't use the Lvl 2 spells because I dont have the material ingredients, and those are away from this island, I still feel like I'm more powerful

My Halfling Mage is getting quite handy with his fists too thanks to the rags of min or somesuch. I have just trained Weapons Finesse to use my Dexterity (very high, I made it so) instead of my strength (veeeeery low, I made it so) in combat, and with the flaming rags on my fists, plus a bit of kicking, I'm feeling quite Ninja

[Zak33]

I had a quick play, but got stuck in the first mission unable to find the hidden door and get out (and I think I accidentally used up all my search power thingy somewhere else in there).

hidden door.. in the warehouse... click the beer barrel

[Output]

hidden door.. in the warehouse... click the beer barrel

Ah, thank you - I'll try it out later then (can't connect right now, it says 'Server Full').

[Gerrard]

If you like fists Zak, then Monk might be good. However, it would cost about £5 to get, although it was on 25% off offer yesterday. I'm not sure whether it would be that good mixing it with a mage anyway.

I think it took me about 4/5 goes on the island to get all 3 encounters (not at the same time of course). I only got to 400 on the slayer part, and now that I'm level 4, I'll only get 50% of the XP if I reach 750 now.