Another quarter, another large-scale MMORPG set to turn the industry on its head. This time it's offering up a fantastic franchise's label on its cover, as well as the promise of a new take on many elements that have been fixtures in the genre since its incarnation. Does it hold up to its word? Can it compete with the giants that hold the industry by the jugular?
With both MMO veterans from the development of the Asheron's Call series on the team, as well as dozens of years combined pen and paper Dungeons and Dragons experience, the license has been in very capable hands. These hands have shaped the newest and best contender for the MMO king title since the release of World of WarCraft.
D&D Online is both extremely creative and completely redundant at the same time. It is true that some is borrowed from its cousin MMOs, but D&D Online uses these borrowed elements in whole new ways. Present are the persistent world and instance concepts, but they are handled so uniquely. For example, the expansive city districts are very full, especially within the gathering places like taverns. However, once you accept a quest and head to its origin location, you'll enter the quest area. Here only you and any party members you might be journeying with can enter. Guild Wars and the City of Heroes universes each have this same feature, but D&D Online handles these in its own way.
This is also one of the most beautiful experiences my eyes have had the honor of perceiving. On the most basic level, Dungeons and Dragons Online is a fantastic sight to behold. It has sprawling environments with hundreds of detailed items and very realistic textures and animations. The graphics options are all here in full bloom, so to speak, with the controls right in your hands. Things like specular lighting, multi-pass lighting, bloom and blur effects, high-resolution textures, and stencil shadowing make this game stand out among any PC title on the shelf. However, it isn't just the technical elements that make this a feast for the eyes. The artistic style present truly makes the world of Eberron come to life before you. Little details like armor being textured to show pieces and straps, decorations in the taverns looking right out of a storybook, and the individual customization of the characters make for a very realistic and at the same time very surreal world.
Characters are customizable to their very core. If you're not an MMO junkie, or, more importantly - if you've never picked up a D&D book - don't worry. There are useful hints and guides the game pops up with to show how each option affects the overall person your character becomes. Or, if even these guides seem too deep for you, or perhaps you are truly anxious to jump into the action, there is an automatic character creation function. First players must make the all important decisions like race and class. Choosing a class in DDO is a little easier than most MMOs because the game shows a video for each, displaying its role in the game and many of its abilities, a very nice touch. Players aren't expected to make quite as much of a shot in the dark first time they choose their station in life. Then players can customize everything about the character's facial features, hair color, and scars. This is a very simple but extremely intuitive feature to help separate your fighter from every other dwarf in the game. Finally players can make the statistically important choices, such as allocating stat points and skill points. Each of these has a fair description, though a few of them seem rather useless the majority of the time. Then it's time to dive in!
Dungeons aren't all dank and creepy holes in the ground that only the greedy and the courageous enter. In Stormreach and the surrounding continent, Xen'drik, dungeons come in all shapes and sizes. While many dungeons are the typical thought of dark and spooky tunnels and caves under the city or out in the wild, sometimes "dungeons" take the form of abandoned portions of the city itself, and occasionally even a currently occupied area within Stormreach. These dungeons are very involving, bringing actual goals and status to those who can complete them. Many different types of objectives can be completed in these dungeons: things like protecting goods, wiping out an infestation, or stealing an item of power are regular fares. There are also raid adventures, which are large-scale combat adventures that take a party twice the normal size (up to twelve players) out of the influence of Stormreach and into the wilds to fight off enemies or conquer areas.
