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D&D Online Event Wrap-Up
On Tuesday, November 8th, Turbine Entertainment and Atari held a media event at the Dragon Bar in the Chinatown district of San Francisco to publicly reveal the new Dungeons and Dragons Online (DDO) beta for the first time. I was fortunate to be one of the few press members invited, and to be completely honest, I am very impressed with the work that Turbine has put into this exciting new Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game (MMORPG). This report encompasses three elements; where Turbine currently is in the production cycle of DDO, what the lead designer on the project Ken Troop thinks are the best features of the game in its current state, and where the game is headed in the future.
Having played DDO during its Alpha stage, I was immediately impressed with the changes Turbine had made as they launched the Beta stage of the product. Graphically, the game has been a marvel since its Alpha stage, but players were limited to a maximum of 1024 x 768 resolution, and that restriction had been lifted with the game moving to Beta. We were playing the game on 23" widescreen monitors, at a resolution of 1920 x 1240, and the game was incredibly sleek and lifelike. The graphics presentation has a different feel from the realism of EverQuest 2, and the vivid colors of World of Warcraft, probably because the graphics seem to be the best of both worlds.
While the graphics were a major improvement over the Alpha stage, there were a number of new features unveiled by Turbine in the Beta stage which had me excited. First and foremost was a new friends list, as well as an experience gain window, and a robust new guild system (which is one of the keys of a game based in the Dungeons and Dragons universe). The Beta stage of DDO also featured a vastly expanded armor loot table, including a number of new graphical armor meshes, armor colors, and armor was finally added to the loot table for armor slots which had no presence in the Alpha. Finally, particle effects have been added to the weapons, making the weapons truly come alive. Gone are the days of a short sword with flame damage that looks like an ordinary short sword, in the DDO Beta, a flame imbued short sword has pillars of flame which whirl around the sword at all times. One thing Turbine has proved with its past games (Asheron’s Call and Asheron’s Call 2) is that it can tap the fantasy elements players look for in the appearance and design of loot items, and DDO is no different.
So now that you know what you can expect from the DDO Beta, the question remains, what does the game’s lead designer, Ken Troop, think of the game’s progress, and what are his favorite features of the game? Ken was kind enough to spend nearly an hour speaking with me, and the first thing I noticed was how excited he was about this project. For the first time since Ken arrived at Turbine during Asheron’s Call’s prime, he was able to influence a game project from the moment of its conceptual inception, to the day it went to Beta. So what does Ken love about DDO.
First and foremost, Ken wanted to assure the media that DDO is definitely a game based on the d20 system, but is not limited by that system in any way, shape, or form. He pointed to a number of the monsters created by Turbine to illustrate his point. Although DDO is set in the world of Eberron, Turbine has not been limited by Wizards of the Coast in using only monsters that appear in the Advanced Dungeons and Dragons 3.5 Edition Monster Manual. The creative members of the Turbine design team have not only created monsters which are faithful re-creations of the monsters which appear in the monster manual associated with Eberron (such as a huge rust monster which causes issues with players metal weapons and armor), but Turbine has been allowed to create monsters which are entirely new to the Eberron universe. Some of these monsters have been so good that Wizards of the Coast has asked Turbine if the monsters could be used in later editions of the Advanced Dungeons and Dragons pen and paper campaigns.
Because Atari and Wizards of the Coast have allowed Turbine to enjoy such creative freedom, Ken has set his design team up to create a special series of quests which replicate the feel of a true pen and paper campaign. Located within the world of Eberron are 13 houses which deal with all facets of a living, breathing city. These houses affect the social, economic, and political values of the Eberron world, and each house has a “campaign” associated with it. The campaign is essentially a set of related quests which advance both the storyline for the player, but also gives the player the opportunity to pick up these quests and truly learn them, which is an element of MMO design that Ken feels is important to affecting gamer satisfaction. He explained to me that while random dungeons certainly involve an element of surprise to game play, they do not allow a gamer to truly feel immersed by a dungeon which is constantly changing. This makes perfect sense, as many gamers pride themselves on being able to not only conquer a difficult dungeon, but also to be able to lead others through that difficult dungeon, which gives those gamers an opportunity to show others just how much they know and understand the game which they play.
Finally, Ken stressed that Turbine is going to continue its tradition of patching in tons of content to its subscribers. One of the key elements to Turbine’s success with Asheron’s Call was its monthly content additions, which were key to retaining its subscriber base. Although Ken wouldn’t commit to monthly content additions to DDO, he did say that it will be a conclusive feature to DDO that content updates which are free to subscribers, as well as expansion packs that DDO subscribers can pay for, are going to be major elements for DDO.
Now that we have seen where DDO currently is, and we know how its lead designer, Ken Troop, feels about its design features, what is on the horizon for the title? First and foremost, the game is extremely polished, and is nearly feature complete. With a release date set for the second or third week of February, the majority of the DDO team is working on the current content’s polish, as opposed to the addition of new content. However, Ken did state that there will be some limited raid content available at release, and that he is aware that the end-game for DDO needs to have some element of indirect player competition, to include extensive raid type content. And although there will be no crafting at release, Turbine has not ruled bringing crafting to DDO, either through a free update, or in an expansion. Additionally, Ken stated that it is extremely likely that additional character races, as well as prestige classes, will be items on the agenda for live updates and feature expansions.
So now that you know what state DDO is currently in, what Ken Troop thinks are its most important features, and what the feature holds for DDO, the major question is still unanswered…and that question is the question everyone asks when they talk to people who have played it. “Is DDO fun”? The answer to that question is a prolific yes. Whether playing by yourself, with a group of 5 other adventurers, or with a large guild, DDO keeps the d20 elements alive, stays true to the Eberron universe, and has combat which is both addictive and compelling. You will be able to pick up DDO, and within the first 5 minutes, realize that this game is definitely going to bring you an excitement that many MMO veterans have missed since their first MMO experience. So, kudos to Turbine, Atari, and Wizards of the Coast on a tremendous title, and I will be speaking to you from the next press event!
- Mark “Deathstryker” Norris
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