General Discussion

In the first of our New York Comic Con panel reports, News Manager Keith Cross recaps some of the things that were said at the Turbine panel with Craig Alexander and Kate Paiz as the two discussed both Lord of the Rings Online and Dungeons and Dragons Online.

At the New York Comic Con, Sunday was the big day for MMO fans, with a day full of panels, demos and discussions about the industry, its fans, and the games that keep us coming back for more.  Two of those games were Lord of the Rings Online and Dungeons: The shadows of Angmar and Dragons Online: Stormreach, both from Boston based developer Turbine, the largest privately held online game studio in North America.  Craig Alexander (LotRO), Vice President of Product Development, and Senior Producer (DDO) Kate Paiz were on hand to give presentations on each of these products and answer questions from journalists and fans alike.

The talk started with Kate Paiz giving us an overview of DDO’s history since it launched two years ago to a lukewarm reception.  There were a number of complaints from fans early on.  There was no wilderness adventuring, the early game was a bit dull, many veteran D&D players weren’t fond of the Eberron campaign setting which was relatively new at the time, and there were no dragons.  To many, running around Eberron as a Warforged and not slaying dragons in the wilderness just didn’t feel like D&D.  The game received a lot of flak early on from nerds like me, because the promise of a persistent world with many different players all playing at the same time sounded like it would be the truest incarnation of D&D in an electronic game space that had yet to exist.

Read it all here.

I couldn't get into LotRO's static feeling combat system.  It seemed very lacking with a dumbdowned approach; can face away from the target and still hit with a weapon, like most MMO's.  

DDO on the otherhand, very weak at launch but has an intuitively tactile combat system that emulates D&D in real time and one of the most dynamic character building systems availble in an online game.  While I hated the game at launch and stepped away for a year it's now become something that's likely to be emulated by future game developers.   

I'm surprised how narrow minded the majority of gamers are in terms of online games.  DDO is a game all gamers could benefit from experiancing, in it's current form. 

This was my favorite quote from the article:

"defeated monsters will be paying off with more rear items."

I'm not so sure I want to find out what that means.

Originally posted by mindspat

can face away from the target and still hit with a weapon, like most MMO's.  

Funny, I always get "must face target" if I try hitting while not facing.

I have to agree with the inteviewer, I THINK he was quietly referencing the fact that so many gamers feel that every released game has to have as much content in it at release as an established game has.  LoTRO's approach has been great, yet they still had a lot of people at release complaining because it wasn't as big as WoW.  Personally, I think the developers and staff have done a FANTASTIC job.

Originally posted by angerbeaver

Originally posted by mindspat

can face away from the target and still hit with a weapon, like most MMO's.  

Funny, I always get "must face target" if I try hitting while not facing.

Yep, that's completely untrue. You cannot hit a target if you have your back to it. In fact, in every MMO I've played over the last 5-6 years, you couldn't do that either.

I'd love to return to DDO, but I've been away from it too long for one. For two, the community meta-games, so it ruins the experience when you're running through something for the first time. For three, where the hell are the prestige classes?

Right now, a person can pick up a Never Winter Nights 1 or 2 copy, have more character customization, prestige classes, more content and the ability to play with other people for free. I still think Turbine didn't do the IP justice. It should have atleast been better than any other DnD game out to date.

Originally posted by JK-Kanosi

I'd love to return to DDO, but I've been away from it too long for one. For two, the community meta-games, so it ruins the experience when you're running through something for the first time. For three, where the hell are the prestige classes?

Right now, a person can pick up a Never Winter Nights 1 or 2 copy, have more character customization, prestige classes, more content and the ability to play with other people for free. I still think Turbine didn't do the IP justice. It should have atleast been better than any other DnD game out to date.

Also, like they said, MMO's are a game in progress.  If you want prestige classes then hang in there.  Maybe they're coming, who knows.  When you see them create them, then you have the option to start playing again.  That's part of the growth of the game as a whole.

I wish Turbine would revisit Asheron's Call again.  I really miss AC2.

Screw AC2, I want to see a new AC1 with todays graphics.

I like LotRO but it just didn't grab me enough to subscribe.  The combat did feel lacking to me compared to some other games.  There was nothing specific I could point at and go "that's wrong" but it didn't quite work for me.

I really wanted to like DDO.  It's too bad Turbine ignored alpha/beta testers and continuously made it less and less like tabletop D&D.  As with another poster, I'd rather play NWN 1 or 2 (with how DDO turned out).