Dungeons & Dragons Online Preview at The Armchair Empire

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The Armchair Empire has previewed Turbine's Dungeons & Dragons Online, looking most notably into character advancement, combat and spellcasting system. Here's a snip:

Taking place in Xen’drik, in the world of Eberron, it looks like Dungeons & Dragons Online is going to be trying some new, and different things with an online RPG. One such feature is that the game will not give experience points for killing monsters. Instead, players will have to complete quests in order to advance their character. It has been mentioned that at lower levels the game will be quite soloable, but as players increase in levels, they will have to group more often if they want to accomplish their goals. With only quests granting experience points, and an increasing need for grouping at higher levels, it will be interesting to see just to what extent forced grouping comes into play in D&D Online. More importantly, it will be interesting to see how willing gamers are to embrace this slight tweak to a traditional formula in MMORPGs.

Read the whole thing at the Armchair Empire.

 

Well, Turbine deserves much applause for adopting Unearthed Arcana's much better magic system rather than going with the insanely stupid "Fire & Forget" system of old.

Funny that the new UA came out in, what...2004? That means it only took D&D until 2004 to make it's way into the 1980s !

 

'Slight tweak' to MMORPGs ... okay, but that's a FRIGGING MASSIVE tweak to D&D. I'm sure some rabid group of people is going to have to rise up in arms over this...

 

Guild Wars has forced teams although there are NPC's available to fill out your team. I played the beta. What I didn't like about it was that no one seemed to understand what the word 'team' meant. Maybe doing away with getting XP for killing monsters will help. In a team you need a strong leader and people willing to follow. That doesn't mean they can't voice an opinion or advice.
I will probably try this game when it comes out.

 

I don't know where the authors of the above article got the idea that D&D Online was doing something new in regards to the forced grouping at higher levels. This is exactly what Everquest has done since it's inception(and a chief criticism of said game). Allowing for solo play at low levels but forcing you into grouping in order to advance further.

Not granting XP for killing monsters is stupid! Especially for D&D! I understand that it is fashionable to bemoan the "hack and slash" element of "common" rpgs because it is intellectually beneath you but for them to do this to D&D is like DC comics replacing Superman's cape with a kilt!

 

Yeah, you should always get XP for your kills. But I'd really like to see an equal or even higher amount of XP for letting your opponent live after defeating him, especially if he surrenders. It's not like XP mystically comes from life force of felled foes, so something could be given to those who spare their enemies.

 

What, you mean that the characters aren't going around and harvesting their opponents to obtain more Quickening?