MMO Quest: Dungeons and Dragons Online

I am on a quest. The goal of which is to check out the other MMOs available and see what they have going for them.

First up is Dungeons and Dragons Online (DDO).

Quality Developer. DDO is made by Turbine, who is known for their frequent and high quality patches. Looking at the patch notes, it looks like they are pushing out some very nice content updates, as they do with LoTRO. A good developer is a huge plus for DDO.

Multi-Class. As DDO follows the 3.5 rules, your character is not tied down to a particular class. Want a Wizard/Ranger/Rogue... go for it. You only have so many points to go around though, so some big choices will be made. With the addition of some very nice max-level (capstone) abilities, multi-classing may not be of much of a benefit anymore. Still, the option is nice.

Quality Quests. DDO centers around Adventures (Quests, Instances). The starter ones were very nice and looked like a lot of work went into making them. Each dungeon had multiple difficulty levels although not all of them are always available. These look like the meat of the game.

Little Crafting. There is not much crafting in DDO, what is there seems like an after thought (looks like it was patched in). You can combine some items to make some equipment, but it really is not a big part of the game.

Eh Interface. The interface is not very user friendly, in my opinion. It feels old and clunky. From the patches, it looks like they are working on it.

Deeper Character Customization. There are a lot of skills, feats and enhancements that will allow you to hopefully make a wide variety of characters. I'm not sure this is true or not.

Controls. The controls seem a bit off. During the trial I had a hard time staying in melee range for some reason. I was swinging, but not hitting. You get no error message, so I wasn't sure if I was just missing.

PvP. There is no meaningful PvP to speak of. It seems they will be adding a dueling system in soon, but that's about it.

Conclusion. DDO looks like a fine game, but very PvE focused. Beyond running the dungeons, there does not appear to be much else to do. If you like that sort of thing, then it may be worth checking out. For me though, I need more alternatives.

*If I am missing something about DDO, please let me know.

Posted in: DDO,MMO Quest