Dungeons and Dragons Online; shoulda, coulda, woulda, wasn't

Quickie: This cake was a lie!

Dungeons and Dragons Online


I have attempted to play the tabletop version of Dungeons and Dragons (DD) with my friends, but the games always seemed to fall through. But I did find Dungeon and Dragons Online (DDO) and it was “free”.

Liars. It was only free until level four. Not only that you have to pay to register and guild and to access some dungeons, what the hell.

It was not a bad game visually, it was actually like Guild Wars in style because it was mostly colored in bland colors like brown. At least World of Warcraft (WOW) had some color, it just felt too real to be fun, no escapism could be found in the repetitive sewer dungeons or towns, which was all you could do, unless you paid.

In other RPGs with my friends, like Exalted, the dungeon master (DM) was a least creative and gave us unimaginable challenges that gave us a mental workout, but with DDO it was the same dungeons with three different monsters.

Not only that, but if you wanted the good equipment you had to go through the dungeon again on a different difficulty. What a horrible way to extend playtime, it’s like a bad NES game tactic.

Also, the character choices are minimal:
human
pointed ear human
husky small human
small human

and the other two choices, dark skinned pointed ear human and molted giant human, the Warforged, weren’t available unless you paid. I will never complain about WOWs verity again after seeing how little imagination went into creating races for DDO.

The way you controlled the character was also very difficult. From what I understand the mouse was used for character movement/targeting and the keyboard dealt out spells, special attacks and abilities. This was at least how I play it, but DDO decided to make the left mouse key attack, requiring you to move with the keyboard.

It was jumpy, hard to control and why the hell did they change a good system? I wonder if they even test their ideas sometimes.

I also do not understand why they include what dice was needed for the attack, even if you didn’t actually use dice rolling in the game.

It was also unbalanced in solo playing, but DD was based on group campaigning, so unless you like groups, I would stick with something else, like Navy Field or WOW, which has excellent balance in solo characters.

Monotonous dungeons, enemies, character designs killed this game for me. I expected time and creativity to be poured into it, but found average graphics covering up horrible gameplay.

DDO was a killjoy to the creative tabletop franchise dooming nerds to their homes and fanfiction. Don’t play it, pretend it never happened.

The Finish Line

Finishing a video game should be a honor for both player and game because it is an accomplishment shared by both programmer and player when a game is worth the gameplay.

I will admit I do not finish the majority of games because I come to the moment where the game looses its sense of immersion and the game and becomes grinding.


In “Fable” there was a little bit of this, but the fact I could kill everyone in the
entire town and own it kept me very entertained, along with the witty sense of humor and sick plot. But in games like “Chrono Trigger” and most of the “Final Fantasy” games I come to a point where I have to level up to progress further.

My opinion is a game should flow in a way where the character should be able to progress with little to no grinding, like “Prince of Persia: Warrior Within” a game I loved for it’s storytelling, amazing visuals and the slow-mo sequences when heads would fly.

I also hate games which have a good premise and decide to interject another game. For example “Thief: Deadly Shadows” had a nice concept of rob everybody and fence their stuff, with a little bit of a mission until you were blasted to the past.

I lost interest immediately, not only because it was creepy, but why did they have to add a time paradox to a thief game? It was downright moronic.

So, I don’t like playing games that grind you to level up and games that try to sneak in different games. These types are at the top of my crappy, other than ones that generally just suck, like “The Sims”.