View Full Version : Anybody tried Dungeons & Dragons Online?
Goofball
08-02-2006, 22:41
Bought it but haven't gotten around to playing it yet. Any pointers/comments from anybody?
(Other than telling me I'm a big nerd)
Kekvit Irae
08-02-2006, 23:55
Bought it, installed it, got a blackscreen and crash to desktop, uninstalled it, never bothered with it again.
That pretty much sums up my experience with D&DO, which is sad because I'm a hardcore AD&D/D&D player.
It's a total ripoff and scam in my view. Paying a monthly fee for a 100% instanced game is extortion.
Much better off going with Guild Wars if you wanna play a 100% instanced game.
Goofball
08-03-2006, 18:06
Crap. I guess I should have asked around before buying...
:embarassed:
Crap. I guess I should have asked around before buying...
:embarassed:
That's actually a very good idea in this day and age. Myself and some others pointed this stuff about Dungeons and Dragons Online out in a thread here when the game first came out.
In addition to stuff like that, these days one also must be wary of Starforce-infested products and other such nastyness attached to games.
Only way to do that is extensive research before buying anything.
No wonder PC gaming is just about dead. :no:
Gregoshi
08-04-2006, 04:33
Don't give up on it yet Goofball. Try it yourself. We all have different likes and dislikes. Maybe it will be a great game for you.
I have thought about getting it too. I don't know if they are still doing it, but they did offer a 7 day free trial. I will/would try that but I want to find 7 days in which I will have some time to play and evaluate if it is worth the money. I know the game did get some pretty good reviews and it did get a lot of comment and feedback from the D&D and gaming community as the game was being developed. So hang in there and don't go "oh crap" unless you reach that point via your own experience.
Let us know what you think once you've tried it.
Weeeell...if you're okay with a 3rd Ed video game (BARF), fine. I don't know much about the game beyond that it's pay-to-play and it's using the shoddiest incarnation of the rules system I have ever come to know.
Kekvit Irae
08-08-2006, 06:59
3rd Edition and 3.5 are certainly better than trying to look up a combat matrix (1st Ed) or calculating THAC0 (2nd Ed).
Mr Frost
08-08-2006, 09:39
It's quite good when you find a good group to quest with , which is usually pretty easy once you figure out how things work .
3rd Edition and 3.5 are certainly better than trying to look up a combat matrix (1st Ed) or calculating THAC0 (2nd Ed).
My balls. 3rd Ed and its following moneygrab edition are what's wrong with Wizards today. It entirely misses the point.
Kekvit Irae
08-09-2006, 02:01
My dice. 3rd Ed and its following moneygrab edition are what's wrong with Wizards today. It entirely misses the point.
The Open Gaming License gives even unknown writers a chance to produce works of art without having to be employed by TSR (now WoTC). Wheel of Time, EverQuest, Big Eyes Small Mouth, Star Wars, even the famous Gygax adventures and settings are being produced under OGL. I hardly doubt that something that allows independant publishers to produce their own works using a standard engine without giving WoTC a cut of the profits is "moneygrabbing". Without the OGL, I would have to spend days or weeks learning new rules for each game an game setting that was put out. Now, with 3rd edition and 3.5, all I have to do is ask "What's different?"
If you want something confusing and "old school", play Hackmaster (the player's handbook is a beast). If you want something fun that you can get into easily, go 3.5.
Kekvit Irae
08-09-2006, 11:24
The only thing I'll love about 2nd Edition (which is rare, because I used to be a diehard 2nd Edition player when 3rd came out) was the absolutely beautifully descriptive campaign settings, and support for those campaign settings. Whereas Forgotten Realms is now the flagship of D&D, many other beautiful campaign settings have been lost to time or barely mentioned. Ravenloft got a facelift, but only about two books. Only two pages in the official Planeswalker Guide describes Sigil, the City of Doors, from Planescape (and removes the factions entirely in favor of prestige classes). And my absolute favorite campaign setting got... nothing. RIP Spelljammer.
Darksun and Al-Qidem all got the same treatment as Spelljammer and Planescape. But thanks to the OGL, independant publishers can easily bring the settings back to the gamers for 3.5, though they can not be considered official unless it's from WoTC.
The Open Gaming License gives even unknown writers a chance to produce works of art without having to be employed by TSR (now WoTC). Wheel of Time, EverQuest, Big Eyes Small Mouth, Star Wars, even the famous Gygax adventures and settings are being produced under OGL. I hardly doubt that something that allows independant publishers to produce their own works using a standard engine without giving WoTC a cut of the profits is "moneygrabbing". Without the OGL, I would have to spend days or weeks learning new rules for each game an game setting that was put out. Now, with 3rd edition and 3.5, all I have to do is ask "What's different?"
If you want something confusing and "old school", play Hackmaster (the player's handbook is a beast). If you want something fun that you can get into easily, go 3.5.
I'm not sure how the Open Gaming Licenses are pertinent. There were always other companies who made RPG's. Writers never HAD to be employed by TSR (WotC [Hasbro]). In any case, if someone wants to write a game using the 3rd Ed system, people still need to know how to play 3rd Ed to play his game.
Hackmaster was a joke and it was always intended to be. I bought the PHB for novelty value and found the inherent humour in it (and it appears that you did not). 2nd Edition isn't confusing, but then, if you can't perform basic subtraction with the THAC0 system, then maybe you aren't cut out for anything but the mindless hack-and-slash of 3rd Ed.
Kekvit Irae
08-09-2006, 21:58
Being an avid reader of KoDT, I knew of the humor. What I mean in the previous post is he actual substance within the book, not just for the humor value.
I like 3rd edition DnD more than 2nd, although I mainly know them through computer games like BG and NWN (my pen and paper days ended with 1st ed. AD&D). The main thing I appreciated were the changes to character creation - I like the more graduated bonuses to differing stats and the feats. 3rd ed also got rid of some of the silly rules quirks - like the uber dual classing at mid to high levels and the ridiculously powerful bows at low levels.
I'm not sure why 3rd ed is seen as more hack and slash - I have a vague impression you level up much faster in 3rd ed, so I would have thought you hack less before you are done. (The NWN OC got around this by dividing XP by 10 or something, IIRC, so we could have more mindless hack and slash, yeah :no: ). It did happen that the best 2nd ed computer games like BG and PST were far superior to hack and slash, whereas some of the 3rd ed were not (NWN OC, PoR and ToEE). But there were other less stellar 2nd ed games and I am keeping my fingers crossed for NWN2 (I liked KOTOR2).
Papewaio
08-10-2006, 02:09
I think one of the issues is that with the rise of 3rd popularity and the amount of alternate rulebooks (read feats) that players can get, munchkinism has risen quite a lot.
People spend a lot and I mean a lot of time crunching out how they can min/max their characters stats while paying lip service to the characters concept and roleplaying is put on the backburner.
I think one of the issues is that with the rise of 3rd popularity and the amount of alternate rulebooks (read feats) that players can get, munchkinism has risen quite a lot.
People spend a lot and I mean a lot of time crunching out how they can min/max their characters stats while paying lip service to the characters concept and roleplaying is put on the backburner.
That's the daddy right there.
Kekvit Irae
08-10-2006, 05:27
The DM is always the law. Always has been, always will be. There are certain suppliments or feats or PrC I will not allow, to control munchkinism. Psionics, for one. In 2nd Edition, there was a psionic ability where, if active, all damage you take was subdual. There was another psionic ability where, if active, you take no subdual damage. Both can be active at the same time. A smart person can add 2 and 2 together and come up with good reason to ban them from the game.
If the fault all falls squarely on the DM, then there is no reason to bother with comparisons between rule-editions at all, since he would tailor the campaign to his liking. Clearly, while this is true, one cannot reform the entirety of the rules without destroying them.
L'Impresario
08-10-2006, 09:12
Pre-Made worlds like FR are kind of shallow anyway
FR...shallow? *gasps*
L'Impresario
08-10-2006, 10:01
If the players had the patience and will to read through all that material, then they would 've become DMs themselves heh
Although I didn't play AD&D with any regularity,I enjoyed reading stuff about it and from 1995 to 2001 I bought a few hundreds of FR campaign settings, supplements, accessories and novels, and I tell you that an individual's effort can't even reach 1% of the depth in there. The NPCs, the novels about them and how all info and products intertwine make up for a unique experience. Plus, if Faerûn is too small for you, you can add Maztica, Kara-Tur, Al-Qadim (Zakhara that is - damn, I still remember too much of this stuff) and The Horselands expansions, truly a very diverse number of settings, easily combinable (ofcourse after locating and buying each boxed setting I was broke for quite a while - The Horselands costed me the equivalent of $150+, those were the days, bah).
I also told my players that they needed my permission before reading any FR novels heh
Most players won't even scratch the surface of FR secrets, as that requires not only reading, but cross-referencing info from various products. A nice thing was that by doing so you could accurately predict the flow of some official events a year or two before their public appearance. I honestly don't believe there's a more "live" setting, so many updates. Don't forget that it started as Ed Greenwoods' personal campaign setting for his playing group, becoming gigantic over the years.
Nowdays though, with games like BGII and NWN, interested players can become acquainted with the world easier and learn some things that they shouldn't, but even so, there are plenty of places, chronologies and characters to use that allow you to be original and consistent with the setting, at the same time.
L'Impresario
08-10-2006, 10:40
Well, that's a bit different than saying that "FR is shallow"~;)
As a core system, 3rd edition is alot more streamlined and modular than previous additions, allowing for more manipulation by the DM.
A nice way of saying 'watered-down'.
Where do you get that? 3rd edition is far more complex than 2nd. The difference is that all that complexity can be moved around and messed with with far more ease.
Even though its complexity is not what I'm deriding, it's not. Everything about 3rd Ed screams 'simplicity', from the revamped XP system to the prestige classes, feats, skills and ridiculous abilities gained by the classes at high levels (the Monk especially...). It's become Diablo II on paper - turn off your brain and roll 20's.
Gregoshi
08-10-2006, 22:52
I'm in the process of learning the 3.5 rules after having played D&D since the "white box" rules of the mid-70s. There is a lot to like about 3.5, but there is also a lot to dislike as well. The streamlined rules take a bit of getting used to coming from the 2nd Edition world, but I can see they are simplified, i.e., the calculations make more sense. They have also done some nice stuff to make the character classes more balanced from what I can tell so far.
At the same time, the seemingly infinite number of prestige classes and other things to make characters more unique and individualized just muddy up the simplicity in my mind and promote munchkinism (and threaten that balance I mention above). This is where I have my biggest problem with 3.5. While I can see the desire to distinguish one fighter from the next, 3.5 takes it way too far in my mind. When Wizards of the Coast posts articles on their website on playing a half-dragon/half-minotaur necromancer-ninja, I just want to puke. They recently published an article on handling players who get bored of their characters after a few sessions of playing. My kids are just started playing with their friends earlier this year and they are being exposed to this boredom factor. They have played about a dozen times and started four or five different "campaigns". The players in my campaign have been playing the same "boring" characters (humans, elves, fighters, wizards, etc) for about a dozen years or more. Little do they know they are supposed to have been bored with these characters years ago...:no: My stupid players see their characters as cherished friends with whom they have been through many fantastic adventures over the years. Anyway, when I start my 3.5 campaign for my kids and their friends, it will be with the traditional character classes and races and none of these countless prestige classes or monster races. It is the adventure and what your characters do on them that matters much more than how many special abilities (read "advantages") they have.
BTW, the claim the WotC is just grabbing for money with all the rules expansion books may be true, but TSR was no better with 2nd Edition. Just take a look at all the softcover rule booklets they published over the years: The Complete Fighter, Gladiators, The Castle Guide, The Crusades, just to name a few.
I guess that's why different DMs run different games, eh? :inquisitive:
Seriously, there's no more volotile subject for conversation than which PnP system is better, whether it be DnD 3rd ed, AD&D 1st or 2nd ed, GURPS (which I love), White-Wolf, ect.
Sadly, I never got into GURPS. What's it like? My groups has decided to take a jaunt into the short-lived Alternity system, as well, which, I think, has great merit, despite certain proto-3rd Ed concepts.
BTW, the claim the WotC is just grabbing for money with all the rules expansion books may be true, but TSR was no better with 2nd Edition. Just take a look at all the softcover rule booklets they published over the years: The Complete Fighter, Gladiators, The Castle Guide, The Crusades, just to name a few.
Granted, they published supplemental material and made money, but they didn't see fit to re-release the core rulebooks shortly after their appearance on the market with an 'updated' rule system...and they never released a PHB or DMG 'II' (three guesses as to my mood when I saw those on the shelf two weeks ago).
I agree with the rest of your points. By the way, do you have any back issues of Dragon kicking around? I've been looking for the '101 Dirty Orc Tricks' for a long time. I should have photocopied it when I had the chance.
Whoa...are we all DM's here?
Kekvit Irae
08-11-2006, 11:23
I agree with the rest of your points. By the way, do you have any back issues of Dragon kicking around? I've been looking for the '101 Dirty Orc Tricks' for a long time. I should have photocopied it when I had the chance.
I have an entire CD of Dragon Magazines. TSR (not long before their assimilation) released a Core Rules CD with a good number of books in PDF form, along with an expansion CD that included Player's Option. One of them had all the Dragons from the first magazine up to the current date of the CD release, fully scanned. They even kept all the advertisements, for sake of completeness.
Gregoshi
08-11-2006, 14:48
I have The Dragon Archive CD (or whatever it is called) set too. It is 5 CDs covering issue #1 thru about 225 (250?). I'm on vacation at my dad's place in Canada right now, but I'll look for the dirty orc trick article when I get home.
BTW, none of the guys I play with have wanted to make the jump to 3/3.5. We all have purchased the books from each of the previous editions and aren't interested in re-buying everything again - especially me as the DM. I'm messing around with 3.5 because that is the edition my kids learned to play and the books I'm using are theirs.
Going a little-off topic, but we are already: I know 3rd edition DnD changed a lot over 2nd edition, but what did 3.5 change over 3.0?
Kekvit Irae
08-11-2006, 15:14
Balance issues, mostly. One major change was a complete redesign of the Ranger. Before, Rangers were always seen as dual-wield fighters. Now, starting at second level, you can pick one of two paths to choose. Archery or dual-wielding. Both paths recieve bonus feats and abilities to their chosen weapon style.
Kekvit Irae
08-11-2006, 15:23
Just about everything you need right here to convert 3rd Edition rulebooks into 3.5: http://wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/dnd/20030718a
English assassin
08-11-2006, 15:56
OT slightly, but I must admit my inner geek is pleased to hear people are still playing DnD after all these years.
I have happy memories of playing ADnD at school. I guess that was what people call "first edition"? Do people still play old school, you know, sitting in a room with rule books and using their imaginations? Hope so.
Oh, and aren't the police looking young these days...
Those of us who have been playing PnP for a long time have probably all been DMs at some point. Although I personally have always been the DM of our group.
Come now. We all know there is a difference between 'having been the DM' and 'being a DM'.
As for GURPS, it's really nice. Even more so than 3rd ed DnD, it is extremely modular. You can easily tailor the rules to fit your own ideas of complexity. And if you're into designing your own campaign worlds, GURPS is the way to go--everything from Sci-Fi to Fantasy fits. Unfortunately, my players were not as enthusiastic, so we stuck with DnD. I'm surprised they were so willing to make the jump from 2nd to 3rd ed, though.
Sounds a little like Alternity, but then, I suppose, it should. Care to run me down on the play system?
Gregoshi, that sounds great! Are they still selling these CD sets?
Gregoshi
08-12-2006, 04:37
Gregoshi, that sounds great! Are they still selling these CD sets?
GoreBag, I think you are going to have to track down a used copy on eBay or some other business that sells such software. Or you can go to paizo.com (subsidiary of WotC) and download a pdf of an issue of the Dragon magazine for $15 - which is outrageous when you consider the old 1st and 2nd edition module PDFs sell for about $5. :no:
$15 for an issue of Dragon? Are you kidding?
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