I am a huge fan of pen and paper Dungeons & Dragons. I’m one of those people who have all the rules memorized and really love the system. This was half the reason I enjoyed D&D Online. They took a fair amount of care to match the D&D Online system to real life pen and paper D&D. There are actually skills that are non-combat related, such as traps and secret door discovery, diplomacy for NPCs, jumping, swimming, sneaking, and more. There are also plenty of combat related activities to partake of, from your hack and slash warriors to your back row spell casters and everything in between.
The other half of why D&D Online was an enjoyable experience was because the whole universe, from what I could tell, was instanced, which means that the overall world is like an MMO, but the actual “missions” and “quests” are cut off from that huge world. When you enter a quest it is just you and your party fighting your way through a dungeon. Now, some may dislike that, but the focus on small (up to 6) player parties is the heart and soul of D&D. For those that are unsure of this method, there are also player “Raid” groups you can form with up to 42 players; however I was unable to see one of these in the beta.
There are some persistent flaws with the D&D Online system that the pen and paper fans will notice. The trouble all stems from the fact that Pen and Paper D&D is a turn based hex strategy game and D&D Online is a real time 3D action game. Because of this transition some of the nuances are lost. Certain areas of the game become insane click-fests, such as trying to defend a keep from 200 invading kobolds, which was a fun mission but seriously painful to your wrist. In the kobold invasion it seemed tactics went out the window beyond “try not to die and kill as many as possible.” The other potential problem, which seems unlikely to be fixed, is there are no or very few missions in the game that aren’t, in the end, hack fests. Some missions require stealth to complete, in some having a high wisdom or intelligence party member made the quest much easier, but in the end every one of them seemed to come down to killing a boss character. I understand the reason for this, but for anyone who is thinking that D&D Online is a replica of a good Pen and Paper D&D DM, it isn’t. It is a replica of a NORMAL D&D DM, who leaves every mission to be solved by violence.
That said, now that the beta is over I am finding myself wishing I was still playing. Since I moved away, I no longer have a real life D&D group. D&D Online seemed to fill a nice section of that gap, though I question if it could hold my interest for more than a couple months. For anyone in my shoes, D&D Online seems to at least be a temporary solution to the “No pen and paper blues.”
I am the PR Manager for a successful game company and enjoy writing reviews for non-competing products. I am married to a lovely wife and we have a lovely daughter named Rowan, who is currently two. I am also a professional juggler and swordfighter, which comes in handy in a variety of situations.
