Thursday, March 19, 2009

Dungeons & Dragons Online - First impressions


Yep, another MMO I decided to try out. Got it at the local EB a few days ago for 10 bucks and today I finally got the chance to play it. It's made by Turbine, the guys responsible for LOTRO (which I have never played) .Having never played D&D, I wasn't exactly sure what to expect. But, as it turns out, it's pretty fun.

The first thing that drew me to this game was the "real-time combat," which works pretty well in the game. You right click to swing your weapon, and you press shift to block. Why this doesn't sound like much, it actually makes the game feel very unique. It reminded me of Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance (which was a 4-player dungeon crawler) minus the overhead camera.

This is probably one of the more customizable MMORPGs I've played. From the very start, the game gives you many different class options, each with different "paths" you may follow. You can customize all of your characters stats and there are a lot of abilities to be learned. Just like it's pen and paper counterpart, the game is very diverse. You can even write your own character's biography (heh). You can also spec in two classes, though at my level I haven't been able to play around with that just yet.

The quests are awesome. Each one is unique and fun to play. All of them involve you going into an instance somewhere and doing certain things within them. In the 10 or so I played I destroyed crypts, defended a crystal and a tavern and awoke a giant. Each dungeon is different from the last, and turbine did a very good job of making sure none of them are bland. There are also very many things to interact with in these dungeons, such as levers/switches/hidden doors/traps and even puzzles. I found the questing/dungeon crawling very refreshing.

Graphics in this one are really great. I wasn't expecting much but man, on max settings the game looks really nice. One of the nicer looking MMOs out there. The gear is all different too. Every armor piece I found looked very different from my others, and not just the same with different stats (*cough cough* Warhammer *cough*). I am really enjoying this one and I hope it continues to impress. Even happier I managed to get some game time this week. Woohoo.

-Rav4ge

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