DND Online Now Free to Play

[KrauserKrauser]

After seeing an advertisement I wandered on over to DDO and found that they have gone the Anarchy Online route with free to play with limited access.

Unlike Anarchy Online, which although buggy, unbalanced and annoying has for some reason earned a special place in my heart, you can actually get access to all the game content without paying a dime.

I don't have too much time to play anymore, but it's been enjoyable during the time I've been able to play online.

Anyone have any experience with the game? Any tips?

[Zwinmar]

I have experienced it. Except for fluff bonuses that you could get by actually paying, everything is unlockable by just playing, though you need in game favor points to unlock things (note that these favor points seem to be account wide).

Word of warning: nothing stacks, so if you have a +1 DEX ring it will not stack with the +1 Necklace you have.

Also, do not expect this to be 3.5, it is not, rather it is a vague vacsimile of it (ex: daze monster works on a pc).

[Grandmaster Jogurt]

(ex: daze monster works on a pc).

That's because it works that way in the game. [verb] Monster always affects at least as much as [verb] Person.

This spell functions like daze, but daze monster can affect any one living creature of any type.

Anyway, one thing of warning is that according to a calculation I read, in order to get as much "favor" (points to unlock stuff for free) as you need to unlock all the quests in the game, you will have to fill every server available's two free character slots and beat all the free quests with every one. Granted, that goes down a bit if you start beating the unlockable quests for favor, but also it doesn't account for unlocking any of the extra classes or races or whatever.

So if you don't put a lot of time or any money into it, the game basically ends at level 12 out of 20.

[Zwinmar]

Maybe it's because most of my experience is with AD&D but Daze worked on humanoids while Daze Monster worked on..monsters. /shrug

[General Zod]

I played a trial for DDO months ago, got bored before the end of the week. That said its been free to play for awhile now, this isn't really noteworthy.

[Ted C]

I took the bait. I've been reasonably amused, so far, and the fact that it's free to play allows me to not feel that I'm not wasting money if I don't devote at least 20 hours a week to the thing.

[Molyneux]

How does the gameplay stack up against, say, Final Fantasy XI? Or WoW?

[General Zod]

How does the gameplay stack up against, say, Final Fantasy XI? Or WoW?

It's a prettier version of WoW but the gameplay is nearly the same.

[Civil War Man]

I'd say it's a little more like a Diablo MMO in terms of gameplay, since as far as I've seen it's point-and-click to attack. I'd say the combat feels a little more active than WoW, since point-and-click attacks make it easier to switch between multiple targets. That said, I did try playing it with a Ranger, which at low levels is only a few healing spells short of being the ultimate soloing class.

Speaking of which, I do like how all the dungeons have multiple difficulties, including a solo difficulty if none of your friends are online (or if you don't have any friends).

EDIT: I'm playing with an old graphics card which runs WoW perfectly well but starts to twitch out when I try to run DDO with a higher resolution, so my only major complaint is that with my current PC the screen is a little crowded.

[rhoenix]

A few tips I've discovered so far:

- When doing quests alone, always do Solo difficulty first, and then Normal to get the most XP per quest.
- This game really does reward group questing; doing a quest with someone else that's reasonably competent (usually a rogue for the doors) is more fun than playing alone.

With those two things said, my main character isn't very far; she is only now a level 4 monk.

[Ted C]

In maybe eight hours of play, I have yet to actually crack level 2, so I'm not even sure what leveling will do for me. Haven't found the experience unpleasant so far, but I also have grouped yet. Hopefully I can get some people I know to play so I can try that.

[Civil War Man]

Levels are like D&D levels. Increase your chance to hit, learn more spells, cast more spells, gain skill points, that sort of thing.

It was pretty smart of them to stretch out experience and add the enhancement points deal. It provides a bit more customization and allows them to make it feel like a character is advancing without bumping into the level cap within a week. Plus helps the developers avoid having to venture into Epic Level territory, because D&D really breaks down entirely when you start going there.

Yeah, I know, D&D breaks down long before Epic Level, but this seems to be at least putting forth an attempt to prevent Cleric and Wizard from being as overpowering as they are in the tabletop version.

[Civil War Man]

Addendum:

I did find it hilarious how the game gives some munchkining tips during character creation. Like when I was creating my Ranger, it was giving tips as to good choices for Favored Enemy selection. It listed good short-term favored enemies, good long-term favored enemies, and then at the end mentioned that Undead would be an excellent choice for both short and long term.

They may as well just have put up a note that said, "Make your Favored Enemy Undead unless you have a really good roleplaying reason to choose another group."

[Wing Commander MAD]

(ex: daze monster works on a pc).

That's because it works that way in the game. [verb] Monster always affects at least as much as [verb] Person.

This spell functions like daze, but daze monster can affect any one living creature of any type.

Anyway, one thing of warning is that according to a calculation I read, in order to get as much "favor" (points to unlock stuff for free) as you need to unlock all the quests in the game, you will have to fill every server available's two free character slots and beat all the free quests with every one. Granted, that goes down a bit if you start beating the unlockable quests for favor, but also it doesn't account for unlocking any of the extra classes or races or whatever.

So if you don't put a lot of time or any money into it, the game basically ends at level 12 out of 20.

I don't suppose you'd have a link or anything?

[Molyneux]

Addendum:

I did find it hilarious how the game gives some munchkining tips during character creation. Like when I was creating my Ranger, it was giving tips as to good choices for Favored Enemy selection. It listed good short-term favored enemies, good long-term favored enemies, and then at the end mentioned that Undead would be an excellent choice for both short and long term.

They may as well just have put up a note that said, "Make your Favored Enemy Undead unless you have a really good roleplaying reason to choose another group."

Wait, what? How are Undead a good choice for favored enemy? Aren't they all immune to critical hits?

[Grandmaster Jogurt]

I don't suppose you'd have a link or anything?

Here you go.

Reading it more closely this time, that's not even all the quests in the game you unlock doing this, just enough to get you a decent selection up to level 20.

[Slayen]

Addendum:

I did find it hilarious how the game gives some munchkining tips during character creation. Like when I was creating my Ranger, it was giving tips as to good choices for Favored Enemy selection. It listed good short-term favored enemies, good long-term favored enemies, and then at the end mentioned that Undead would be an excellent choice for both short and long term.

They may as well just have put up a note that said, "Make your Favored Enemy Undead unless you have a really good roleplaying reason to choose another group."

Wait, what? How are Undead a good choice for favored enemy? Aren't they all immune to critical hits?

If its going by 3.5, then a rangers favored enemy damage bonus doesn't give a damn if a creature is immune to critical hits or not.

[Bluewolf]

This does sound interesting yet I'd rather just play a game of normal Dnd (if I played it). What can this game offer people besides a quick fix of vanilla Dnd that a normal game could not (aside from shitty players and GM's)?

[KrauserKrauser]

Well they've made great strides in making the game more user friendly and taken out of the elititst crap that make the game harder for casual players.

You can bring along your own "hireling" that is about ~70% as useful as another player so you never really have to "solo".

There exist tons of 1 use per rest items with useful spells, many of which are quest rewards and relatively easy to get, which greatly expands what your character is normally capable of. Your thief will be able to throw out heal spells, cures and even damage spells in a pinch. As a paladin with the "clickies" that I have gotten so far I feel much more versatile than I would without these items which increases my interest in the character.

From what I can tell it gets a bit hairy with the new free players running around but as most of the loot is instanced for the players, you don't have to worry about ninja looting or alot of the griefing that can be found in other games.

Overall from what I have read I would not have liked the game at release, not by a long shot. A lot of the changes that have been made in the last few content releases fixed what I would have seen as glaring errors and the game is now much better for having them.

Overall I've enjoyed it greatly but I may just be suffering from my fascination with new toys.

Only time will tell.

[Tritio]

Aha, I took a look at this game because of this threat.

Downloaded it (the 2.8GB version) and the installation flopped because it required the installation of .Net Framework 1.1 whereas I am on Vista and using 3.5. Tried the 3.8GB version with the same results.

I searched the internet and found a Dev/Mod on their website telling users to uninstall traces of failed .Net Framework 1.1 installations and try again. But that doesn't do the trick. Why are they running on 1.1?

Otherwise, it looks like an interesting game to play, especially since it's free.

[Lord Relvenous]

i'm definitely having fun with it. The game play is relatively easy to learn, and the difficulty curve is easily adjustable with the multiple difficulties for quests. Also, quests stay interesting past the initial run through and challenging past the first instance level for the same reason. As a level 3 player, the Elite Korthos (Opening area) quests were still quite hard, and I had to have a partner to beat them. Certain Korthos Island quests (harder quests for beginning characters) remain quite challenging up to lvl 4 for small groups. I've been playing for a little while as a paladin, and even though I've unlocked the next area, I'm still running through instances at the beginning area with groups because they are still fun. This bodes well for my enjoyment.

Random question: Does anyone know if you can get experience for a quest for as many times as you play through it? I assume that you could get experience for every difficulty at least once, but do further run throughs effect the amount of experience you receive?

[KrauserKrauser]

Well doing the quest at each difficulty level will give you the full xp for that difficulty and a bonus for doing it the first time. You can do a quest at the same difficulty three times before you run into a penalty for completing it.

The maximum amount of xp you can get is from running a quest elite/elite/elite/hard/normal but that takes alot of time unless you are twinked a good bit. When I restarted my Paladin I went normal/normal/normal/hard/elite on a few quests but I enjoyed it enought o justify paying them for it and have since gone VIP. This and getting to level 5 has advanced so many different areas that I normally just run the quest on normal once and then move on as there are a ton of places and things to do once you get all the adventure packs.

Also Hold Person and Knockdown can kiss my ass, completey annoying stuff there.

Always kill the casters first!

Also soloing as a paladin has been really easy and enjoyable but my first forays into monk and caster have been adventures in getting my ass kicked.

[Mr. Coffee]

Been out playing this for about two weeks now. Like pretty much any MMO, it's a lot more fun if you can happen on a good group of people to play with. If you end up with a bunch of retards it can be pure hell at times. If you subscribe to a VIP account you're going to want to call the customer service phone number to get your 500 points for the in game store. They just set it up about a month ago and they're trying to track down the bug that's borking the automatic point distribution for subscribers. Other then that I've been having a lot of fun with it. Something to do while I'm giving EVE Online a break.

[Ritterin Sophia]

So big question here. I had a DDO account a couple years ago, would my Lvl 10 Paly and 8 Barbarian still be open to me? In other words would I be able to log into my old account?

[rhoenix]

So big question here. I had a DDO account a couple years ago, would my Lvl 10 Paly and 8 Barbarian still be open to me? In other words would I be able to log into my old account?

I don't see why not. Your game client may take a bit updating, though.