E3 IGN DDO Info - Yay for cut/paste

[Noah EQ2]

E3 2005: D&D Online
Okay, but if there are any hot girls there, I'm going to do them.
by Steve Butts
May 18, 2005 - The MMO licenses are out in force at this year's E3. From Lord of the Rings to Conan to Star Wars, there's no shortage of brand-bound development. With that in mind, I was pretty anxious to see what Turbine had in store for the D&D license. We've heard and seen bits and pieces over the years but this was the first chance I had to really sit down and play through a bit of the game and be offered a fairly comprehensive overview of what we can expect.


Since our E3 time is limited, the gang at Turbine wisely decided to skip over character creation and get right to the game itself. (Seriously, it takes me like twenty minutes to choose the color of my character's eyes.) With just a few minor omissions, there will be the standard range of classes and races to choose from here, including the new Eberron race, the Warforged.
Lead designer Ken Troop showed us around the main social hub of the game, the city of Stormreach. It's a well realized medieval city with some nice Eastern touches spread about here and there. Since the game takes place in the ultra-magical Eberron setting, you can expect all manner of wondrous sights -- everything from floating towers to magical airships drifting through the sky. Better still, Ken says that players may eventually get access to these types of locations.

This city is the game's main public space, where players will meet up to get new missions and form adventuring parties. The Looking for Group options will all be centered on the taverns in the game. Players who are looking for a group to join or groups who are looking for a few extra players can all find what they're looking for here. This should make filling out a six-player group pretty simple. Since players can share their quests across the entire group, D&D Online eliminates a lot of the running around needed to ensure that everyone's on the same page.

In contrast to the large public space of Stormreach, the adventures in D&D Online will be instanced. Better still, players won't have to run back and forth to quest areas. Instead, they'll simply be transported to the dungeon in question. (There will also be some compelling rewards for overland exploration as well.) At this point, a handy adventure panel will appear in the upper right corner of the screen, letting you know what your objectives are. As you find new opportunities during the course of the mission, this adventure panel will get updated in real time.


The dungeon missions themselves are very smartly designed. Instead of putting the emphasis on killing monsters over and over, the missions in D&D Online stress completion of the overall goal. In fact, players won't typically gain experience just from killing enemies. If you can find a way to achieve the stated goals without killing, you'll still get the same rewards that the more killing-oriented players will get.

We ran through one example of an instanced mission, taking a cleric character down into a dark, underground shrine. This particular mission has a time limit, so it's important to get to the action right away. As we approach a wooden door in front of us, we see some of the new "DM Text" appearing before us telling us that the door needs to be broken, picked or burnt. This is meant to give a little direction to players and let them see how to bypass the obstacle. Since the cleric can't pick locks, she tries to bash down the door. Another line of DM text shows up, telling us that she's too weak to break down the door. The last resort is for her to cast Flame Strike. The door explodes in fiery splinters and we move on.

In the next area, a group of skeletons rise from nearby coffins and rush to attack. Ken explains that the team wants to place monsters in a more realistic context. Just walking from room to room finding monsters just doesn't seem believable enough. As the skeletons surround the cleric, she activates her turning ability and makes short work of the enemies, thanks to a turn-boosting altar located nearby. There are going to be plenty of items located throughout each dungeon that can amplify or dampen certain abilities.


Since the world of Eberron is still fairly new, the gang at Turbine have actually been able to be a little more creative in introducing new content. They've even created an entirely new Drow Scorpion that will be incorporated into Wizards of the Coast's properties. Longtime fans will know that the drow have always had an association with spiders which was taken to its most dramatic expression in the half-drow, half-spider creatures known as Striders. Turbine has taken the Eberron drow's fascination with scorpions and created a similar creature.
There are also plenty of traps and logic puzzles to work in these dungeons. In the one we had the chance to take a look at, the cleric had to twist a variety of tiles on the floor to connect lines of energy from one end of the room to the other. Working this puzzle correctly will spring a trap in a nearby room causing it to damage to the creatures waiting to attack you.

Ken points out that the dungeon adventures aren't scaled to match the player's abilities. His explanation that scaled content presents too uniform a challenge to players is convincing. I tend to think that having a range of difficulties across the missions is probably more exciting than having one single difficulty. Hopefully there will be some way to indicate to players the approximate difficulty of a given mission.

In addition to the dungeon adventures, there will also be landscape quests that take place above ground. Our example had the cleric seeking out a shrine in a deep, dark forest. Along the way, we're told that defeating the giant patrol is an optional objective. Never wanting to shirk her duty, the cleric dispatches the wandering hill giant and his pack of wolves before moving on to take out the gargoyles and iron defenders at the shrine site.


Both combats reveal something of the physics engine behind the fights. In the case of the giant and his wolves, the character can quite likely end up on the ground, either from the massive blows of the hill giant's club or from being clipped by the wolves. The iron defenders are capable of dropping oil slicks that can trip up characters as well. Even cooler, the oil slicks also work on the enemies as well. If a gargoyle fails his saving throw, he'll go down just as easily as you would.

There will be a beta soon and you can bet we'll do everything we can to bring you even more information on D&D Online in the near future.

[Noah EQ2]

If you saw the movie DDO had out it mostly describes that... the key info that seemed new was

- Taverns are tied to the LFG function.
- Dungeons will not scale to the groups lvl.

Like in D&D PnP, taverns have always been a "place to go to" in a city. I like how they will make players go there causing PC traffic and roleplaying... I just hope the Bnet kiddies dont make these seem areas a haven of supidity.

More links/paste will come as I get some better info.

[Elgonn]

Longtime fans will know that the drow have always had an association with spiders which was taken to its most dramatic expression in the half-drow, half-spider creatures known as Striders.

Longtime fans know your wrong.

[Khalikryst]

Originally posted by Elgonn
Longtime fans know your wrong.

If you mean wrong about the name yeah, they were called "Driders." But he's right about the spider association. They were introduced as spider worshippers in that big 7 part official TSR module set that led up to "Queen of the Demonweb Pits" (which is the module that introduced Driders)... all written by the man, Gary Gygax/Furor, himself.

That was also the module they introduced Lolth's giant mechanical spider winnebago. Everytime I groan over the things Salvatore has done with that license, I remember that goddamn spider ship thing and remember he was actually handed quite a fucked up universe to begin with.

[Renbeny]

Here's what I don't get. Why in the world would you have a license that spawns in its players the desire to fight, I dunno, dragons? And then place that game into the official setting where they're rarest as far as PC interaction is concerned.

I'm wary. In so far as the source material is concerned, this isn't the best for an MMO. That's not some sort of bias or anything, my D&D campaign is set in Eberron. It's just that Dungeons and Dragons has a sort of "branding" association with it, where you come to expect certain things when you hear the name, and that very thing would've been one of the stronger draws in so far as pulling in casual tabletop gamers that haven't played MMOs. And believe it or not, that's a big ole' market. Out of all the pen and paper roleplayers I know, only three of us play MMOs. But a lot of the things you come to expect from D&D aren't really represented too well in Eberron, or they're altered in an unfamilair way, such as demons and aberrations in general.

And I don't really understand the decision to set the game in Xen'drik. Doing that kinda' makes it pointless to set the game in Eberron, because not only are you now changing around the standard D&D fare, but you're also working around Eberron's own material. Most of the interesting stuff in Eberron takes place in Khorvaire; Xen'drik is just a place to go to do some crawling. In my opinion, they should've set the initial release in "civilized" Khorvaire, then ran with either Xen'drik, the Mournland, or the Demon Wastes as their first "epic" expansion.

[Fattyfat]

i cant wait for this beta to start... and i hope i can find a way in!

[beepbeepbeep]

Do they really need "GM text" to state that the door needs to be picked, broken, or burnt?

[Elgonn]

Originally posted by beepbeepbeep
Do they really need "GM text"

It is DM as in Dungeon Master. Who cares if virtually every other game uses GM. But yes the current DM text seems overly inane.

Oh and Khalikryst I did mean the name. I actually have all those old Gygax modules.

[Deathwing]

Originally posted by Noah EQ2
- Taverns are tied to the LFG function.

I guess no one learned from Blizzard's great implementation of meeting stones...

[Duppin]

Originally posted by Deathwing
I guess no one learned from Blizzard's great implementation of meeting stones...

This sounds to be very, very different from the rickshaw rocks.

I don't have any real problem with the idea of a centralized (read: in a city hangout, not 10 feet from the dungeon) hub for forming groups that do it in an intelligent way (read: not grouping you with four other random people).

[Jait]

A lot of ideas sound stupid until you see them implemented.

Give this one a shot.

[Noah EQ2]

Here is some info I got from Loki_D20 from IGN. He demo'd the game today and gave us some juicy infos... read below. Sorry for the horrid layout. I didnt spend much time to touch up the log.



Loki_d20|E3> I played through the first time as a cleric, by the way. My abilities were turn undead, light cure wounds, moderate cure wounds, serious cure wounds, firestrike, smite, and some other stuff that I'm going to have to get back to you on.

Anyway, NPCs have the golden torches above their heads, but they can't be seen from very far away.
That is, NPCs with quests. We are only allowed in one of the areas of Stormreach. The same one with the bum playing the drums in it from the Screenshots. So, start the first quest (goal, find the entrance to some shrine).

Anyway, DM flavor text works wonders. I couldn't sneak upon the giants and wolves, but I was able to firestrike them from afar and take them out without any issues using movement, shift defense (which really blocks things quite well). Shift defense with a shield applies the shield bonus. Shift defense with the two-weapon defense applies the two-weapon defense bonus
You really have to watch what the creatures are doing. The Hill giants had three primary attacks that I saw. First, normal strike with the club. Slow, but it hurts. Second, a stomp attack that knocks you on the ground. You really can't defend against it it seems. Third, they pick up some dirt and chuck it at you. The giants are really easy to defend against because they're slow. Just make sure you move when they stomp. The wolves are fodder. Fast attacks, but low damage. Only required 18 damage to take them out. I had the choice to take on more Hill Giants who were sleeping and so I did. Took them all out with ranged firestrikes.

people complained about the "chopiness" of some of the alpha anaimation...how fluid dsid things feel to you?

I found it hard to tell when I was in range to use the firestrike, though. At long range distance you can target the creatures, but that doesn't mean that you can use an ability on them.
It has it's bugs a little bit. But, it was pretty smooth. Neither Dan or the other gentleman could inform me on the hardware running the game.
Movement was wasd, of course, with q and e for straffing. It was very fluid and something that will take you a few minutes to get used too.
Space is jump, of course. Left mouse for attack. Right mouse for camera movement which works well with the wasd.

any first person options you found?

No.
Only going with 1-0 for hotkey bars, but of course you can make multiple hotkey bars at once.
For 3rd person, it wasn't as far out as I liked, but it will be allowed a greater distance during release/beta.

ask if the damage done appears above their heads like other games.

Yes. Red text means you are dong the full damage you can. Yellow text means that you're doing damage to them that they are resistant to. Such as for skeletons, with a slash weapon the damage is in yellow and less than normal whereas with a blunt weapon it is in red and at maximum damage.
You can see the d20 and both the text under the die and the text for damage tells when you do a critical hit. No noise with it that I could tell due to the room we were in (Atari booth).

As you progress through the dungeon area, you are updated with new quest goals. Each element that you find can update the quest journal. When I spotted the Hill giant scout, it gave me that as an optional quest item. I could have just snuck past them if I wanted. As I reached the shrine, I then had to kill the two gargoyles and the four sentinel puppies there. They were pretty easy. Gargoyles pretty resilient to my magic
Then, I had to loot items from a chest. As a cleric, I got a cloak of protection and another item (can't recall). As a fighter, I got something different (ring of protection, some boots, and some arrows).

how does the pace of DDO compare to other MMO's

DDO is pretty fast.
You get a quest. If you want to group, you go to what they call a *group* Tavern. You then can find and see others who want to group and join up there. You then can join with someone on their quest or get a whole new quest. Getting a quest took me less than 30 seconds. The total quest, the first one, took me about 5 minutes. That was with me rushing through it, though.

Did the fighter have any kind of taunt you couldsee?

Good question Zed. Yes. It's called Intimidate
And, bluffing will be available for feinting.

Okay, now, the next dungeon I went through was the one with the spectre room, the scorpion drider, and the traps. You have to find the item in 10 minutes or less.
The first part is the door to the spectre room.
You can bash it with melee or demolish it with a spell.
It seems that you can also pick lock it since it looks like it has a lock on it similar to the screenshots from long time ago.
I died in this a few times just for playing around. I even turned into a spectre

How much "twitch" will be a key function of success in a battle

IMHO, if you use more twitch, you're going to succeed a lot more. But, for the best gameplay, you will want to be knowledgeable of what you're fighting, how they attack, and what you use against them. But, it sure as heck helps. I used a lot of straffing, jumping, and running backwards to avoid attacks

how did the spellpoint system feel?

It felt like I could cast a lot, but I ran out of spells before I wanted to. I ended up having to solo the last gargoyle and two defenders using my mace and shield.
For melee, my cleric was pitiful at damage. My fighter could take out a wolf in one, two at most, hits, whereas my cleric took about four to five swings.

Okay, Archer skeletons move out of range.
They don't switch to melee weapons.
The spectre has a few attacks and can go intangible/invisible. !!!!!!!

I asked if we'd have the ability to see intangible wth spells... sorry... they're not releasing spell list right now. Same answer for levitate, fly, etc.

Inventroy is composed of small icons representing the items, no fancy stuff. I like it. Hover over it to see whta it was. You can double click to equip. Your character sheet updates the information accordingly like a Character Sheet.
Cleave will dash you forward and slash through one to two opponents.
Great cleave will dash you forward and slash through however many opponents are there
Both are great for getting out of the middle of melee as well.

Okay, you remember that floor puzzle? If you activated it (optional) it starts up the floor blades. Those floor blades... they kill the mobs that are there waiting for you. So, you can eitther do that or fight them yourself. Same xp worth in the end You can see from that room the floor blades activate and kill all the mobs as well.

The drider felt like a freaking impossible battle.
It had about five different attacks, kicked my butt twice, and attacked so fast that I really couldn't keep up with blocking and attacking.

Climbing will be limited to certain areas, though. You won't be able to just attempt to climb any surface. But, you'll know when. He didn't go into detail on this.

[beepbeepbeep]

Originally posted by Elgonn
It is DM as in Dungeon Master. Who cares if virtually every other game uses GM.

I meant DM, too much WoW on the brain.

[Camerous]

Damn that sounds like a alot of fun. Seems they are sticking to the real roots of PnP D&D which is ++++ imo. I am defiently looking forward to trying this one out!

[Khalikryst]

Yes, but can we munchkin the fuck out of the system?

It's hard thinking of it as "D&D" without being able to pointfuck or otherwise exploit the system just to piss off your DM haha.