What will likely stand out to most player is the quality and artistry of the graphics, effects and environment. To put it bluntly, Dungeons and Dragons Online is simply a beautiful game. Every facet of the graphical experience exudes and attention to detail and level of quality that I believe outstrips all other MMORPGs. Oh, I’m sure there will be plenty of dissenting naysayers who will cast aspersions upon my opinions and cite the capabilities of other titles such as Lineage II and Tabula Rasa, and valid points they may be, my opinion would still be that as a graphical experience, D&D Online is unparalleled. Certainly the competition may be able to boast more triangles per mesh or some other capability, that D&D Online does not match, but those same competitors will also fall flat on their faces when it comes to other equally or more important features. D&D Online has the total package.
Alright, I admit it, I was disappointed when I final features list and saw that only the basic classes would be included, but I was also comforted in the knowledge that in true Dungeons and Dragons fashion, the newly created realm of Ebberon would be used as the setting instead of relying on well established realms such as the Forgotten Realms used in previous titles. With the new realms comes new, original content, the standout being that of a new playable race, the Warforged.
Warforged are described by the user guide as “a race of sentient constructs built to battle in the Last War”. I like to think of them as flesh golems with an armor upgrade. Essentially a Warforged has body comprised of a resilient but pliable material (like flesh) covered in metal plating (like armor). On the upside, the Warforged receive a nice bonus to constitution but suffer a hit to wisdom and charisma. Another benefit is that most magic is designed to influence or affect creatures of flesh and blood and therefore have a reduced or negated affect on the Warforged. The downside of course is that this applies to all magic both the malevolent and beneficial. To compensate for the mitigated effect of traditional healing spells, a new arcane spell was created simply titled Repair. It should be obvious, but apparently not to everyone, but a Warforged cannot wear armor. Combine the natural armor and constitution bonus of the Warforged with the skills and abilities of the Barbarian class and you have one seriously powerful melee specialist.
All of the classes are adequately represented and play precisely as one would expect but I feel a special mention should be made for the Rogue and Bard classes which are mishandled far too often. In both cases my expectations were greatly exceeded and these unique classes are truly fun to play.
My final standout feature is that of the unprecedented ability to choose the difficulty level of a quest instance. In most cases a quest will not begin until you enter the quest instance through a portal of some type (door, sewer grate, etc). Before entering the player is presented with a dialog window that will sometimes allow them to change the difficulty of that instance to suit the needs of the player. If you’re trying to maximize your experience gain then you can bump up the difficulty and slog your way through the quest. If you just need to complete a quest or series of quests simply to move on to another set or into another adventure zone then you may want to minimize the difficulty of a quest so that you can burn through it more quickly. In order to preserve balance you may not select a higher difficulty rating until you have first completed the quest at a lower level. In theory you could perform the same quest (if it is repeatable) three times, once at each difficulty level. However, if you are a member of a party and one of the party members has already completed the quest and is the initiator of the quest, then all of the party members are allowed to attempt to complete the quest regardless of which difficulty level was chosen.
The Lawful Evil
Lag is the name for evil in all online games and in D&D Online, the evil has manifested and taken root. Not even the Pope himself could exercise this evil.
When soloing through a quest instance the lag is hardly noticeable. In fact if it were not so bad in common areas, you probably wouldn’t notice it at all. But when trying to do something as simple as walk across a tavern containing only a few other players the lag is nearly unbearable. The controls become erratic, pop up dialogs are slow to appear and slow to respond. Considerable lag is easily noticed when in a quest instance with only two other players.
Originally I believed it was the performance of my gaming system, but even with the video options minimized and every tweak and tune and optimization I can come up with, it hardly made a dent. In fact, the recommended system requirements of a 3 Ghz processor and 1 GB of RAM seems laughable and the minimum system requirements of a 1.6 Ghz processor and 512 MB of RAM an impossibility. The hard drive footprint ranges from 3 to 5 gigs, with 5 being recommended for better performance.
While it isn’t really a problem, per se, there is one more item that really got under my skin. There does not appear to be a single “open” environment anywhere. It feels like I’m playing the entire game inside of a box. Adventuring basically consists of running through the streets and paths of “adventure zones” in search of portals that begin quest instances. I even managed to squirm my way into “the wilds” and take on some wolves but even here the vegetation was so dense that there was no sense of distance, no sky, nor horizon. It was really just another box with walls of trees and bushes.
The Chaotic Neutral
It is clear that Dungeons and Dragons Online is planning to release content incrementally in the form of additional “modules”. This really harkens back to the original pen and paper RPG. There are some great benefits that can come from this method such as being able to introduce more classes and races slowly and subtly. However, I am concerned that these additions will require additional charges. Subsequently, and also in keeping with its origins, “leveling up” is not easy or quick. The user manual tags tenth level at four hundred and fifty thousand experience points. That is a staggering amount of time, effort and money to put out only to be told you cannot continue without shelling out additional cash for a new “module”.
