DDO is fun game, but it’s difficult for me to recommend it to anyone without a couple of caveats...
The developers did brilliant job of capturing the Friday-night Fritos, nerd-fest, core dungeon-crawl elements of the tabletop game. However, I’m greatly disappointed that they didn’t set the game in a classic D&D setting like Greyhawk or Mystara (Hell, even Forgotten Realms could be considered “classic” D&D for these purposes.) I understand that WotC is trying to push their new Ebberron setting and tie it in with their tabletop products, but the new-fangled Ebberron setting badly dilutes the effectiveness of the classic D&D themes. On the other hand, as a 30 year-old gamer I understand that I may not be their core audience, but that doesn’t change the fact that Ebberron isn’t the D&D I’ve played.
I very much like the mechanism of giving out XP at the end of an instance rather than for each monster. It diminishes the feeling that you are in a dungeon to massacre every living thing with no other purpose. I also like the combat mechanism, and the fact that you can manually control your weapon swings for precision, or use the auto-target for ease of play.
The graphics look great, and give everything a photorealistic, but out-of-this-world feel to the game. I do have some issues with the performance though. This may not be an issue for others, but even at low graphics settings the game stutters and chokes for a several seconds anytime I enter a new area. In outdoor areas this continues occasionally as I move around, but in dungeon areas it runs perfectly smoothly. (That’s OK with me I suppose, as most of the game takes place in dungeons.)
Even though this is clearly a different type of game than other MMORPGs, I can’t help but compare it in some ways. For example, the sense of wonder as I move around is insignificant compared to WoW. At no point in DDO have I found myself wanting to explore an area just to see the sights, as I have numerous times in WoW.
Another comparison I must immediately make between DDO and WoW is in the variety of the early game experience. In DDO the early game is always the same. Yes, it plays out slightly differently for you depending on your class, but the quests and areas are the same. In WoW, you can play essentially six completely different early games depending on which race you choose. For replayability by gamers with a low-attention span like myself, this is a significant weakness of DDO.
This brings me to my most substantial complaint of all. One that is complex and difficult to describe, but I’ll try: The game doesn’t really need to be a MMO at all. The game is so group-oriented, and the quests so few and linear, that the benefits of having thousands of players in a persistent world is negligible. In playing the game for several weeks in beta and since it’s release, I have not once typed a general chat to anyone I didn’t already know. That might just be my own issue, but I the biggest benefit of DDO (thus far) is that it has gotten me excited about playing Neverwinter Nights again!
That’s lots of complaints, but I am still having lots of fun playing, and expect to for at least another month or two!