When I first heard about Dungeons & Dragons Online I was very skeptical. The first reason was probably as simple as my un-hinderable lust for World of Warcraft at the time, but I also felt that there was little DDO could do to improve beyond what WoW provides. D&D Online provided a decent amount of content in its initial release, but it was still a pale comparison to the months of gameplay provided in many other MMO’s. To counter this, Turbine announced with the release of the game that regular expansions would be released to add content, and add to the overall gameplay experience at reasonable intervals. Naturally, I immediately assumed that this would not be the case and that the game would begin to rot at a stage of uncertainty until content was forced out the door half-baked and unfulfilling. It seems I was mistaken.
As the Gamespot article details, or the more detailed official release notes, the release adds…surprise! Dungeons and Dragons! More specifically, 15 new dungeons and a red dragon to challenge players and keep the game interested and feeling fresh. This feels very refreshing as the Burning Crusade expansion for World of Warcraft was announced last year and will be lucky to see the light of day in 2006, not to mention some of the glaring problems with adding a new race to the game. I say new race (singular), because no one cares what the Alliance race is going to be, there will be a number of Blood Elves running around on each server equal to the total players. To me this speaks of crashed realms and lag worse then Iron Forge during Christmas 2004. Not to mention the fact that raising the level cap to 70 only serves to further segregate the high level players, and the battlegrounds will be fiercely elitist as players rise through the 60’s. It seems like it could be a giant mess that Blizzard will have to deal with.
What Turbine is doing ties back to the discussion Joshx0rfz and I had about The Elder Scrolls. They have released a smaller finished product to begin with, and are simply adding content after the fact. Most of this added material was no doubt in the works while the original was being produced, but anything that was not finished could be saved and used in the expansions. The success of this design and production model relies entirely upon the companies ability to consistently release quality content. If they can maintain the pace across a period of 6-12 months, releasing 4 or 5 additions in that time, then their game should grow to become an epic adventure with countless hours of gameplay. We’ll just have to wait and see.
The question remains, why does it have to be a god damn mmo?
Actually many reviews comment that it doesn’t even feel like one. It’s very party-based, which I was also unsure about when I first heard it, but supposedly it’s easy and fast to find a group and get through dungeons. Plus the instancing of every dungeon prevents the annoying camping/following that happens every day in WoW.
But as you know, it has to have crafting!
Oh well, I probably won’t want to play another RPG for a while thanks to Oblivion. It has sated that hunger quite nicely.
Your mom sates that hunger quite nicely. (edit – I like to watch your mom play RPG’s. Pervert.)
That’s just gross….RON DIRI!
i think the website should use some of its vast resources to purchase a copy of the for (ME). A hands on review would be great (by me). I know this place is just swimming in money (for me).
Hmm, I would dissagree that the success of the release-then-update-for-content model is entirely dependent on the regularity of updates. True, this has a large section of how to make this model successful, but I think a good portion — a “primer pump” if you will — remains in that a complete game must be released first.
One cannot simply release some half-assed piece of crap and expect people to wait for updates to make it any good. Any game that uses this model of continuing improvement must first have an actual, fully formed game for release, even if it is limited in some way.
Oblivion and Galactic Civilizations 2 are good examples. Both were quite fun games on their own on initial release. But Oblivion is of course improved by user mods and Stardock has released (I believe, it might be more) no less than five content-additive patches in the three months it’s been out.
Niether game was released incomplete. Despite my bitter distaste for humanity, I think most people realize when they’re being played for fools as paying beta testers and would resent it, even if a complete product comes out later down the line.
I agree with you 100%, as I stated at the beginning of my last paragraph: “They have released a smaller finished product to begin with”
Finished product would be what you’re talking about, I was just referring to the size, meaning the length of non-repetitive gameplay included in the release.
Ah, I am enlightened!
That’s it! I’ve had it with these motherfucking dragons in this motherfucking dungeon!
Justin- Hahaha
In reference to the Burning Crusade versus DNDO release this past week, there is a huge difference. The DNDO game release 15 very small instances with probably 15-20 related quests. I highly doubt any new items were released and there were no changes made to the characters or character advancement. The Burning Crusade is releasing so much more!!!!
New levels, new skills, new talents, 100’s of new items. 100’s of new quests, an entire new continent; yes 2 new races though if the Alliance race is indeed the Draeni (sp?) as has been specualated I think I’ll just level up my Hunter to 70 and explore the new content. You have to look at the amount of content being released and how much they have to test it to make sure it runs smoothly. Also when has Blizzard ever done anything in a timely manner?
First off, we’ll see how many expansions come out for D&D Online before Burning Crusade ever comes around. Also I’d like to put to a test the “hundreds” of new items and quests. Items, okay, but hundreds of new quests? I doubt it.
Plus I never said that this release for DDO and Burning Crusade were the -same-, I was just comparing them as expansions released for popular MMO’s.
I wish WoW would get periodic (FREE) content like this, but I also like Blizzard’s expansions, so I’m torn on this one…we’ll see.
Plus, there’s no guarentee that the hundreds of items will be of any real use. It’ll probably be like Oregon Trail when you bought the totally unnessisary banjo (which was the only thing you’d never loose when fording a river).