F2P Series - Dungeons & Dragons Online

Ah Dungeons & Dragons! Arguably one of the most popular war-gaming franchises to date, steeped in history (hey, it's from the 70's so it's practically, like, ancient /side-eye) and controversy (who can forget the religious propaganda claiming it was the gateway to hell!) even in this modern day. One of my first experiences with the game was in college when I was visiting a friend, she introduced to me to her circle of peeps (mmm peeps) that just so happened to be playing the table top game.  I watched for a while and thought it seemed kinda neat, if you're into LARPing, which I'm not. ANYWAY. Later on a co-worker of mine mentioned he played the table top as well and then got me into painting minis. It was a phase, don't judge me!


In short: I've never played the game!  


So, when Bheez and I sat down to figure out what we were gonna do with ourselves over the next several weeks until GW2 goes live he threw out the names of a bunch of F2P games we should explore. And, naturally, being familiar-ish with the D&D brand I decided it would be a good place to start. 




PICS AND MAYHEM... AND MORE WORDS... AFTER THE JUMP!

And as promised...


BEHOLD:

GLYNNIA (...THE DWARF). No relation to April the Heartless (she was adopted).

So let's get down to it, shall we?

Customization-

Glynnia: Visually, there isn't alot to play with and what is there really isn't all that pretty. You can change your hair, skin, and eye color... but once you see what you've managed to come up with, you can't un-see it. The UI is standard, most things are where you expect them and the things that aren't don't take too long to get adjusted to. See below for my comments about key mapping.

2/5 Lounging Frankies (AKA- STARS)


Bheezem: (Bheezem puts his burrito down for this- for realies) Customization was not a strong point of this game, while it did offer a variety of hair styles and colors, compared to modern day MMOS variety paled in comparison. (But remember the game was released in 2006). The actual class customization in terms of character building however was quite extensive-extensive enough to where i felt completely lost as a noob and was blinded by the vast amount of skills, spells, and feats (i still havent figured out the differences yet) The game offers a plethora of ways to build and customize your character's abilities, that being said since we only played for 3 days it is arguable whether each build would be viable.

3/5 Lounging Frankies

Game Play-

Glynnia:  This is probably the the most punishing aspect of a game if the devs did not get it right. Sadly, in my opinion they did not get it right. Key mapping is possible but unfortunately you can't do it to the extent that is NEEDED to make this game playable to the majority of their audience. If you really (reallyreallyreally) wanted to play this game you could put in the time to retrain your gaming muscle memory. 

1/5 Lounging Frankies


Bheezem: The gameplay was quite dissapointing from someone who is new to the whole dungeons and dragons thing, that being said those of you who had been with the game since the table top days will be happy to know that pretty much everything you do in this game is influenced by a dice roll. Even your basic auto attacks. My biggest complaints with this game are the controls felt clunky, out of date, and just downright ineffective. Not to mention you spend (at least at the start of the game) 3/4 of your time missing your attacks. (This can be very painful as a magic user when you run out of magic points).

2/5 Lounging Frankies

Graphics-

Glynnia: This game launched early 2006, and it shows. The surprising part is that it has held up really well. I would liken it to playing a recent title on the Xbox 360 (got nothing but love for you Xbox but YOU KNOW) such as Dragon Age. It's hard to pull off super serious graphics as time passes and your engine doesn't support the latest and greatest physics and environmental sophistication that we have become accustomed to... and spoiled by! They could have gone the cartoony route (ALA World of Warcraft) and had alot less visual depreciation to worry about but I think the graphics suit the tone of the game and it would have been odd had they gone with the latter.

4/5 Lounging Frankies


Bheezem: The one thing I was impressed with in D&D was the graphics, a game that was made in 2006 has graphics that are on par with Rift's lower settings. A lot of the spells were also very cool to see as well, such as mist effects.

4/5 Lounging Frankies

Creativity-

Glynnia: To be honest we did not make it three whole days before we gave up on this game, so my feedback for this category is going to be limited to what they offered up at the start of the game. The game flows much like you would expect at the start, it is very linear and once you free yourself of the shackles of tutorialdom the quests are spread around and you have to hunt for them like Easter eggs. Everything is instanced off except for the towns, so you don't deal with asshats unless you invite them into your party (or have a bad habit of idling in a town) which I found to be a nice change of pace. Another nice touch is being able to select the difficultly of each instance depending on your party size.

3/5 Lounging Frankies


Bheezem: Its hard for me to give props creatively to the video game developers themselves, as they were working with a world that existed before hand. However, in terms of gameplay creativity the game was pretty unique for its time, as it came out right about the time MMORPGs were becoming mainstream. You definitely find a few unique concepts to this game such as the dice rolls and the character sheets.

3/5 Lounging Frankies

Fun Factor-

Glynnia: This is one of those times that despite the sum of the parts, the view in its totality is to the contrary of what you would expect. Kinda like a movie that is unintentionally funny. I enjoyed myself simply because playing this game was so maddening at times (I blame the controls) and yet so full of random silliness and graphic faux pas that I couldn't help but laugh. Bheez' crying was also a plus.

3/5 Lounging Frankies


Bheezem: This will vary from person to person, but for someone like me who enjoys a fast paced game with minimal RNG, fluid and visceral combat, and a good story line to LARP out to, this game failed me in many ways. I had problems with the combat to the complexity of the character sheets(although if I spent more time on the game the character customization may have actually been a plus).

2/5 Lounging Frankies






Here's a run-through of a typical DDO instance (sped up so you wouldn't fall asleep, cause that keyboard imprint on your face is not a good look):

In closing, I think it's safe to say that Bheez and I both agree here: There are so many F2P titles to pick from,  unfortunately this one stands out from the crowd in all the wrong ways. Unless you're a die hard fan of the D&D franchise and love dungeon crawlers you are probably not going to enjoy this.
To find out for yourself, click here!






Next up on the F2P Series: DRAGON NEST


xoxo~glynnia