Well, DDO has gone live. I did preorder, so I got into the few days of headstart, and am now the proud owner of a second-level Warforged Barbarian and a Human Wizard. So what’s the state of things so far?

Pretty good actually. With the new video card upgrade, the game is simply beautiful and runs smooth as silk. The servers are responsive and not overcrowded from what I can tell. The core systems all seem to be working pretty much bug-free. Compared to the SWG rollout, this has been a dream come true. Developers that actually know enough about Quality Assurance Testing to get a working product out on time. But all is not roses. The game does have some quirks, most notably the unexplainable system crashes that it seems to cause. Of course, this is somewhat to be expected from any new product at release, so people are rather forgiving.

I suppose my biggest “complaint” is in the social aspects of the game. Even though there are about 6 races and 9 classes to choose from, their progression is pretty much identical. No matter your race or class, you go through the exact same quests as everyone else. This means that “creating a new character” doesn’t really open any new areas of the game, just new mechanics for the same old quests. That’s a minor detail compared to my big beef: Mandatory Grouping. Pretty much as soon as you leave the tutorial island, you’ve left all solitude behind as every single quest will require a group of players to complete. This has been a real pain for me so far, since I actually have a life unlike most of their membership. I don’t have a chance to log-in until around 9 or so, and then usually only for 2 or 3 hours. I’m in a guild, but it seems everyone is already grouped up by the time I log-in. Sure, technically I could go join them in a dungeon-in-progress, but there’s 2 main obstacles to that: 1) Maximum group size is 6, and usually they’re already full as the “good” quests take a full group, and 2) Alot of quests throw up barriers to prevent you from backtracking, which double as preventing new players from entering. So I’ve already had a few play sessions go by where I stood in the inn for about 30 minutes, then logged out bored. Ahh, memories of SWG all over again.  Pickup groups have proven an utter disaster, as they’re usually a bunch of guys who have already memorized the quest solutions, so just as I’m starting to get a feel for what’s goin on, ding quest complete.  Most of the “group quests” that I’ve done so far have just involved me following the trail of scorched corpses, trying to figure out where everyone went. 

In short, what I’ve seen of the game so far is amazing. How close it remains to the pen-n-paper source material is amazing, and continues to surprise me with every new spell and die-roll. Unfortunately, D&D is a primary “story-driven” experience and DDO seems to focus too much on groups (which typically emphasize speed over story) instead of individuals. I remember my old D&D sessions, where we rushed through the action & combat in order to return to the intrigue and storyline.  DDO seems to completely reverse that, with most players blowing through the storyline so they can smash more balsa-wood barrels.   I expect I’ll keep playing it for a few more months, but if my enjoyment of the game continues to be not loosely tied to but entirely dependent on other players, then I don’t think I’ll pull another 2 years with it.
[tag:ddo] [tag:mmorpg]

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