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D&D Online: Stormreach Preview (Page One) |
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Dungeons & Dragons Online: Stormreach (DDO) is a massively multiplayer online roleplaying game (MMORPG) based on the Dungeons & Dragons 3.5 edition ruleset and the Eberron setting. Now, depending on how you grew up, that first sentence might or might not have a lot of meaning to you. I’ve never played Dungeons & Dragons how it was designed -- with dice and a table and other people in the room -- so all I know about it is what I’ve seen in other computer games. If that’s your experience as well, then let me sum up DDO in this alternative way: it’s sort of like playing Neverwinter Nights on a massively multiplayer scale.
At first glance, DDO starts up just like every other MMORPG ever designed. You create a character, you choose a server, and then you start playing. Character creation is about what you’d expect. The available classes are standard for a Dungeons & Dragons game, with the likes of fighters, rangers, bards, clerics, and wizards. I’ve heard that an artificer class might make an appearance at some point, but otherwise the only class I was expecting to see but didn’t was the monk class. Similarly, the available races should be familiar, with humans, elves, dwarves and halflings taking center stage. Since DDO takes place in Eberron, the warforged race is also an option.
Once you’ve selected your class and race (and perhaps messed around with things like the color of your hair and the shape of your nose), you also have to select feats and skills for your character. This is a place where veterans from Neverwinter Nights will feel right at home -- well, almost. In both games, feats and skills are handled in about the same way (you choose a feat every couple levels, and you spend skill points every level), but the feats and skills have been implemented in slightly different ways. For example, where in Neverwinter Nights there was a weapon focus feat for each and every weapon type, in DDO the feat is based on weapon classes (such as slashing weapons), making it much more convenient. Or take the “cleave” feat. Instead of it being a passive feat that triggers each time you kill an enemy, in DDO it’s an active feat with a cooldown timer. Finally, dialogue doesn’t seem to be all that important in DDO (I didn’t see a single persuade or intelligence check or anything of the like while I played), but the game still has skills like “intimidate” and “diplomacy.” It’s just that those skills are now active combat skills, with “intimidate” working as sort of a taunting skill and “diplomacy” doing just the opposite.
Once you have your character all put together, you’re thrown into the game in a place called Smuggler’s Landing. This is where the tutorial takes place. The tutorial includes a few quests to teach you things like how to move and use the camera (there are multiple modes, including one where you use the WASD keys to move and the camera to aim), how to cast spells (you have to memorize spells, but you also have spell points, and so you can cast your memorized spells as many times as you’d like until you run out of points), how to rest in the game (there are special shrines), how to fight and block (the right mouse button swings your weapon and the shift key causes you to block), and more.
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| Article Details |
| Previewer Steven Carter
Previewed D&D Online: Stormreach
Published 02.18.06 |
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