Is now free. I started playing it about a week ago, and so far I find it pretty entertaining. It's entertaining enough to hold my attention for a week, which is pretty good. It's not just like WoW like every other MMORPG out there, which is the main thing it has going for it. I would describe the combat as somewhere between WoW and Oblivion. The gameplay is probably most similar to Guild Wars.
I'm not a huge fan of the UI, but it's definitely tolerable, unlike a lot of other MMORPGs (usually the asian ones). This could just be because I've been too lazy to actually explore how to use it to the fullest.
The game is pretty challenging, but it's not overly hard, nor does it feel too much like a grind when you're leveling. Most of your experience comes from quests. For the most part, you get NO experience for killing monsters, nor do you really get much loot from them, and this is really the biggest downfall of the game in my opinion. The only loot you get from monsters (that I've seen so far, anyway) is loot that is turned in to NPCs for items such as arrows, throwing knives, potions, etc. Coming from and loving so many loot-based games (Diablo being the first one that comes to mind), this is difficult for me to overlook. The game is composed entirely of instanced dungeons and instanced wilderness, and these places are often filled with barrels and such that you can destroy in the hopes of finding money or potions or arrows. I've never seen a single armor piece or weapon drop since I've started the game, so I can only assume that they don't. The only way I've found to get these items so far is through quest rewards, the auction house, or chests, which while not necessarily rare in dungeons, tend to have pretty crappy gear in them.
As I mentioned above, the game consists of instanced dungeons and instanced wilderness. Now, when I say dungeons, I mean just about any sort of building or warehouse or whatever. A lot of the quests are "go retrieve this from my warehouse" or "go kill this thing in the sewers" and such. These dungeons are located inside of the towns, for the most part, but there are dungeons out in the wilderness as well. In case anyone doesn't know, when I say "instanced" I mean that you get your own version of the world or the dungeon to interact with. This is another thing that I'm not a huge fan of in MMORPGs, and was the main reason I didn't like Guild Wars (aside from the fact that you couldn't jump which pissed me off to no end). However, it actually isn't that bad on DDO, and for the way they have quests set up, nothing else would even work. Every single quest/dungeon is made to feel like an actual adventure, from the scripted events to the Dungeon Master voice that's narrating (apparently Gary Gigax did some of the DM voice work before he died.) I would say that this is probably the main reason why I'm still playing the game, and it redeems them for having instanced dungeons and wilderness, because the game couldn't be so interactive otherwise. Also, you can hire hirelings to help you out, and they actually seem to be pretty decent.
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| I failed to mention that you can actually party with other players and go into the same dungeon, but that should be kinda obvious anyway I think. |
While the game is "free", it does have optional content and such that can be purchased. There's a "DDO Store" which can be accessed in the game, where you spend DDO points on convenience items, cosmetic items, potions, hirelings, leveling zones (for instance, there's a zone you can buy for leveling 3-7) where the rewards and such are superior to the free zones. Also, you can buy a couple of new races and a couple of new classes. However, NOTHING in the store is required to play or to enjoy the game, and people who buy things from the store are not absurdly overpowered like a lot of other games. The items you can buy in the store are not crazy good items, they're just convenient if you're starting a new character and you don't want to start with garbage. Also, you can get points for the store through playing the game, without ever having to pay a cent.
The character creation process is almost overwhelming, if you don't know what you're doing. You really get to do a lot of customization and decision making. You spend your stat points however you decide, you choose your feats and skills. In some ways, I think this is a good thing, and in others, I think it's bad. To a new player, it's really overwhelming, because you're basically blindly creating your character without knowing what would be best to choose and such. However, the benefit of having characters be so customizable is that you're not just like every other person playing X class. From what I understand, you can even multiclass, having a certain number of levels for whichever classes you decide.
The graphics of the game aren't the best, but they're not really bad either. I'd say they're about average. I've got the settings as high as I can make them go, and things run and look great. I've seen a few things that are on par with things I've seen in WoW as far as cool factor goes.
Downloading and starting the game is about as easy as it could possibly be. You can go to
https://trial.turbine.com/ddo.php to begin the process by creating an account. Once you do that, you can download the client, either using the full download or the express download. I would recommend the express download, because it downloads the game in bits, starting with what you need to get the game started. It took me literally like 20 minutes to get into the game and start playing, I think.
Keep in mind, I've only been playing the game for about a week, so I'm reviewing it from the viewpoint of a new player. I don't know how things are at higher levels, and your mileage may vary. I'll try to get some screenshots of the UI and some cool shit up shortly. My character's name is Grobbley on the Thelanis server. Level 3 (soon to be 4) Elf Ranger.
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