I did a little researching on D&D Online and after a bit of reading I think I'm about 90% sure thats the MMO I'm going to go with next. Here's some interesting tidbits from the preview I read on Gamespy:
Gamespy wrote:
The first mission I got was to head down into the cellar of a local tavern to retrieve a cask of ale. When I did so, that's when I entered my first instanced dungeon -- and it's where I really got an experience of how powerful instancing can be when the whole game system is built around it.
Apparently everything is instanced. While the ultra competitive HNM camping of FFXI was fun for awhile, sometime ya just wanna actually not waste your time online, so this instancing that they seem to use for all quests should be nice. Imagine being an FFXI noob going for limit break items back in the day and fighting over fungars in the "secret" cave. Would have been much more enjoyable instanced I think.
Gamespy wrote:
Throughout the entire experience, I had to constantly fight game-playing instincts honed on World of Warcraft and similar games. I kept expecting the wrong things and it was hampering my enjoyment of the game. Take the game's pace. Dungeons & Dragons will feel pretty slow to anyone used to MMOs where every mob drops some sort of prize and players can hit the level cap in a month. Dungeons & Dragons Online's quests only give out a few prizes each, mostly in chests, and mostly in the form of money. It takes 10,000 experience points to reach level 2 in a game where the level cap is 10. That might rankle those who pride themselves on being the first on the server to reach the level cap.
Haha and you thought the XP grind in FFXI was bad. Honestly I don't see this to be too bad as the cap is only 10 at the time it will be released. Again though, doing quests for XP as opposed to hours upon days of XP whoring seems fun lol.
Gamespy wrote:
One particular dungeon I was in was guarded by two mechanical constructs. Locked into my "damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead" mindset, I kept engaging them in combat and getting my face torn off. These things were just too damned tough for a single sorcerer with very few hit points to take on. I racked my brains, thinking about potions and temporary buffs I could use to make myself tough enough to take them on. Then I realized that combat in D&D Online is action-oriented, not locked into a combat cycle. I could run away! I could climb a ladder! I could fire a magic missile down at my stupid opponent and not get scratched, which is exactly what I proceeded to do. Dungeons & Dragons Online constantly throws situations at the player that demand, if not lateral thinking, at least the idea of non-combat or clever solutions to problems.
Ok this last quote to me is by far the most encouraging for me. An MMO that requires thinking as opposed to the usual zerg zerg zerg? A novel idea I think.
Again this is just one review I read and of course you can't really get a feel for how its going to be just from one review. I just thought I'd share some of the most important things he said in his preview with everyone else. I won't be preordering this as I have no idea where I will be living on 2/28/06, I finish my training around that time and will be moving to my apartment around then, but I expect to pick it up within that week as soon as I get settled in. If anyone else is going to pick this one up, lemme know here or PM, maybe we can try to get on the same server.
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