Dungeons & Dragons Online Preview at GameSpot

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GameSpot, too, has a preview of Dungeons & Dragons Online, and one more interesting than that from GameSpy. Actually, it's quite interesting. The author describes shortly the starting conditions, the questing system and the combat from the point of view of his level 10 cleric. Here's a snip:

We had the chance to sit down with Turbine Entertainment recently for a look at its upcoming massively multiplayer adaptation of Dungeons & Dragons. Although we didn't get to play the game ourselves, we were shown parts of the main hub city, as well as a couple of the instanced quest areas that players will be hacking their way through. We're pleased to say that the game is shaping up to be impressive in its own right, incorporating some features to set it apart from the crowded field of fantasy-based online role-playing games.

Turbine is designing the game so that it's role-play friendly and with the intent to emphasize the community aspects of online gaming. To this end, you can expect to see servers cap out at around 1,000 concurrent players, with the goal being for each server to have a smaller and more tightly knit player community. In addition, all players will use the same city, which is the bustling frontier port of Stormreach, as a base of operations. Although the city itself is quite large, most players will be using it as a hub to interact with each other and to obtain quests (combined with the somewhat smaller population on each server), which will result in a more neighborly feel because of the likelihood that you'll be running into the same players multiple times. Hopefully this will turn out to act as a self-corrective influence on player behavior, as you can expect your reputation to become a matter of word-of-mouth public record as you spend more time in the game.

And more of it is, as the title suggests, at GameSpot. Enjoy the good read.