DDO - my review
System
DDO plays differently enough from your usual MMORPGs to deserve some words to explain it. Certain things are as one would expect. You can organize guilds, although guild affiliation is no publicly displayed. It is available only when you examine a character more closely (indicative of developers' want to downplay guild affiliation). You can form adventuring parties to take on quests. Maximum group size is six characters - quests are buitl around this fact - and raid parties are twelve-member affairs (haven't been to raids, so no more about those). Chat subsystem works as expected, with guild and party channels, local channels, and the possibility of customizing your chat tabs and their feeds (Horizons players will be like at home with this amount of customization options).
Player search system starts to show some differences. It is clearly built around the idea that you are primarily - and frequently - using it to find company to your quests. There are separate tabs to listings of groups that are looking for more members, and individuals that are looking for group. Group LFM tab allows you to specify classes and minimum level for applicants; a comment may be added to further explain your mission. By default LFM groups are listed with those on top whose criteria you match. LFG tab for individuals prominently displays your class(es) and level(s) and also comes with an option to add a comment. Both have a button to quickly send a tell to group leader/individual and do an invite.
Quest window offers a powerful interface to your past and present quests. All quests are organized by region they were acquired from. On each region, unfinished quests are listed first with complete ones marked separately as so. Each quests lists giver, target, and general overview of the quest. Completed quests will have a blurb that explains the results and consequences of that quest. each quest - completed or not - has a handly LFG button that automatically lists you into LFG system, the name of the quest as your commentary. I'll return to questing later, where you will find out about the full implications of questing in DDO.
The most radical departure from all other MMORPGs is the instancing. Not only are all quests - no matter how minor - instanced, but the 'public' regions are instanced as well. Instead of taking on the headache of having too many players in one place at the same time, the server will automatically start spawning new instances of public spaces when one gets too full. Moving between public insances has been made simple. Above your chart window (visible all the time, see interface section further down) is a dropdown menu of all the instances of your current public space (like 1-market. 2-market, 3 market etc) and you switch by choosing your target. Thus it could be argued - and some do - that DDO is 100% instanced, 0% persistent world. This actually has less of impact than you might think, because public regions are not for adventuring, only meeting and pre-and post-quest operations. I subscribe to the school of thought that says DDO MMORPG doesn't really deserve the 'MM' (massively multiplayer) part, and no game in existence truly deserves the 'RPG' (role-playing game) part. That leaves this game with the 'O' for online, and you can in fact find that in its name: Dungeons & Dragons Online.
Another departure from common norm is regeneration. Taverns is where you automatically regenerate your depleted points and rest (wait) for your number-of-uses-per-quest abilities (in paper version parlance, uses per day) to replenish. And nowhere else. Other choices are limited to potions, healing spells and rest shrines within quest instances. I'll return to this in quests section.
Interface
DDO provides all your usual basic goods, and not much else. There's the health and spellpoint meter with bars and numbers for your convenience. There's a small round map window (they call it 'compass' I think) with your current instance name listed above, and a dropdown menu option if you are in a public area that presently has multiple instances running. A bigger map window can be opened, which displays your entire instance - though quest instances show only parts you have explored. You're also given a hotkey bar that can be multiplied. Unlike in Horizons, there's no scripting language for defining your own hotkey actions. This is strictly a drag-and-drop affair for items, skills and abilities. You have a row of basic interface action buttons too (to open and close LFG/LFM window, quest window, character sheet etc) There's also the 'targeting crystal ball' that displays your current selected target - item, player or foe - and offers if applicable a name, health meter and spellpoint meter for it. This window can be minimized (but not closed) so the display window disappears and only relevant name/HP/SP info is visible. At the very bottom of the screen is a wide progress bar for experience, overlayed by your class name and current level and rank (more about ranks in the ruleset section).
Inventory & equipment window takes the classic approach. You have a number of item slots available and various items stack differently on them. Most items do not stack. Certain items stack 10 per slot, throwing weapons 20, and arrows and bolts can go up to 100. As far as I can tell, there is no means to acquire more carrying capacity. Item weights are considered separately, as total bulk affects your movement speed. Items can be dragged over or double-clicked to equip or unequip them.
The clunkiness of the interface rises to meet you when you attempt to resize or close some things - you can't. Only the chat tabs window is resizable. That, and the quest progress window, are the only ones that can be given full transparency (because they can take up so much space I guess). Amusingly, when you make chat tab window transparent, only chat text remains, the tabs go invisible so you can't move between them with a mouseclick. While the targeting window can be minimized as mentioned above, it is the only one with such capability. The rest of the interface widgets cannot be closed.
While the interface does its job it is, as you can see, unfriendly and barren of special features. One speficic issue that crops up a lot is the inability to create a hotkey for your off-hand weapon: the hotkey button system simply expects that every hotkeyed melee weapon is intended for primary hand. The interface objects can at least be dragged around as you please, but presently the beta client build has some issues at remembering their locations from previous sessions. Specifically, the group window (which does disappear when you are no longer grouped). I have dragged my health bar beneath the basic ations bar, and pushed the map window down a bit. This results in the map window obstructing my view of group window whenever I join a group, as it likes to spawn at its default screen location and not remember where it previously was. At least hotkeys for various items, abilities etc have a cooldown counter as a clockface-type greyout that slowly (or quickly depending on action) ticks away.
All in all, I've seen a clunkier system only in FFXI. But then again, that system is a real nightmare (nonexistent interface/keybind customization) that I fully expect no MMOG to ever do it worse.
Character Creation
All players of D&D pen and paper version will be very familiar with DDO's character creation system. The ruleset in use is the latest, which is version 3.5.
There are five races available (for now) to play in Eberron (the world where Stormreach is situated). You may choose from humans, elves, dwarves, halflings and warforged. Choice of race may bring you modifiers to statistics and certain special racial abilities or perks. Humans get an extra feat fore example (see below), while elves have sleep immunity and heightened detection abilities, halfings are categorized as small creatures (combat advantage) and so on. The screen gives you a very good rundown of racial bonuses and penalties so I won't go into detail. Missing are a few D&D mainstays like half-elf (curious as one of the great Houses present in Stormreach is supposed to be half-elven) and the three other new races of Eberron.
The warforged may be unfamiliar to those who have never played or read about Eberron. Basically, they are constructs - golems if you will - that have gained sentience in their creation process. Originally they were intended as warriors to fight in the Last War (a hundred-year conflict on the setting's main continent that only recently ended) and now find themselves without purpose - or a chance to find a new purpose. Their artificial origins give them certain special bonuses in the form of wide range of resistances, but also makes them harder to heal with clerical magic (50% effect). Instead, arcane casters have a repair spell that will heal them normally.
Avatar customization heavily centers on facial detail. Ok, except for skin color, it completely centers on facial detail. In most cases you'll find a goodly amount choices for hairstyles, eyes, noses and lips. You are allowed to select hair, eye and skin color from several dozen of alternatives that somewhat vary by race. Sometimes choices are lacking however (three elf female nose types), and extra face detail is limited to few scars and tiny ear/nose/forehead jewelry choices. Oh, and spectacles for halflings (and only halflings) I hear. There are no options to customize your height, musculature, paunch, bust, package, or some more exotic proportion-stretchings some games offer. The existing choices do allow for great range of faces and in conjuntion with a good amount of various armor looks available, you won't be running into yourself any time soon. There is no 'return of the clone wars' look that for example Lineage II starter cities had when I tested the beta (that game's amount of customization options was amazingly tiny) but for example Horizons clearly trumps DDO in customization options.
Next step in character creation is the class. I will now digress to D&D rules somewhat, so those familiar with the system can safely skip over - but I will be detailing how this is different from paper version.
Nine classes have been made available, that is all from the core rulebook with the exception of monk. Prestige classes have nto been implemented, at least yet. A class will decide how much health and spellpoints you have available, how much those go up as you gain a level, what are your skills at using armor and wielding weapons, as well as a host of special abilities that accompany the class. Warriors are unsurprisingly your main tanks proficient in all weapons and armor, but no magic. Barbarians are lightly armored version of warrior that most notably have the ability to battle rage. Clerics are your armored main healers with holy magic at their disposal and specials to combat undead. Paladin is the cross of cleric and warrior; their most noteworthy ability is their aura, abilities to combat evil and limited clerical magic. Rogues are lightly armored scouter types that specialize in sneaking, detection, lockpicking and trap disabling. Ranger is a more heavily fortified version of rogue that leans more towards combat, especially ranged. Bard is a generalist class that knows a bit of everything, be it combat, healing, scouting, buffing or mesmerising enemies. Wizard is an offensive-minded spellcaster with damaging, weakening or debuffing spells, but also protective magic. Wizards learn a wide variety of spells unlike sorcerers. Where wizard magic is comes from books, sorcerer magic is innate and is more restrictively learned. In exchange, sorcerers have more spellpoints.
As an Eberron-specific note, all clerics are from the same mold, at least now. There is no option to be a cleric of a specific deity or deity group (even though DDO would most likely restrict it to Silver Flame and Sovereign Host)
Next you will decide on your attributes. For those unfamiliar with D&D, those are Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, Wisdom, Intelligence and Charisma. Their functions however should be quite clear by their names to any MMOG player. More specifically though, wisdom is relevant to clerical magic, intelligence to arcane magis and charisma (in addition to driving paladin abilities) to sorcerers and bards. Every attribute starts at 8 plus or minus racial modifier. Maximum starter score is 18 plus or minus the racial modifier. Instead of giving random rolls to be exploited (dice roll being the usual pen&paper creation type) you are given 28 points to distribute across the attributes. The higher you buy the attribute, more points it will cost. The basis of cost is not the current score, but how much you have already bought, so certain races can easily achieve 20, having the advantage of +2 modifier in some attribute. Your attributes will according to their score yield a modifier that is applied in a wide range of uses.
The choice of alignment is restricted to the six nonevil ones. Alignment comes to play mostly in restrictions of certain magic items and it is claimed by some older beta discussions it will affect NPC reactions (no evidence of this so far).
After attributes you will distribute a certain amount of points to skills. Those points are determined by your choice of class and intelligence. Skills play a big part in game mechanics and are either active (use is initiated by player) or passive (always in effect). Skills your class learns directly are bought up with 1:1 point ratio, the rest (cross-class skills) cost double. Heal skill (and repair to warforged) has a special online implementation; it determines the amount of health you (and your party) may recover in quest instance rest shrines. While the skillset is not very wide, it covers all the expected actions in an online D&D version, from lockpicking and trap disabling to haggling.
Last step for most classes is the selection of feats. These are special abilities or qualities your character can possess, and it makes sense to choose them to augment your class. They come, like skills, in passive and active varieties. There is a wide selection of feats; it is worth noting that in D&D, your ability (or training) to use a weapon or a suit of armor is a feat, not a skill. Thus, as could be expected, classes have certain feats pre-learned, like warriors knowing all weapon nonexotic weapon and armor use feats and wizards coming with spellcasting feat. Metamagic feats allow casters to enhance their spells in various ways (these are active feats). Unlike in paper version, these don't crank up spell level when you memorize it, but instead make it cost more spellpoints. Combat feats provide additional moves or combat enhancements like dual wielding (dual wielding is allowed anyway, but the feat gets rid of most of massive attack penalty). There are also miscellaneous feats that provide enhanced resistances, more hit points or spellpoints, and in case of warforged various base body types (unlike other feats body types are unavailable after initial creation). Some feats have prerequisites in form of other feats or minimum attribute scores. Though the list is long, I suggest carefully reading through available ones as they will significantly affect your character's play style. As an Eberron-specific note, it appears you cannot be dragonmarked and thus cannot be a member of the dragonmarked Houses.
Feats are not handed out like candy, which is why choosing yours carefully is important. You have one base feat and humans get an extra feat. Once very three levels, an extra feat may be chosen. Some classes offer bonus feats (at creation and/or later on), most notably warrior (must be used to buy combat feats) and wizard (must be used to buy metamagic feats)
Casters will have the additional step of choosing spells. Clerics have it the easiest as they automatically know all divine spells. Wizards will choose a narrower selection to their spellbooks. Sorcerers choose only a few and they cannot learn mroe by scribing scrolls, onyl by gaining levels. The rest of casters (bard, paladin, ranger) are given narrower subsets to choose from, and they do not learn spellcasting at creation time.
Ruleset
This is just a basic overview of D&D rules that most affect the gameplay, intended for players unfamiliar with the system. Skip over if you are a D&D aficionado and familiar with the online implementation of the rules.
Let's first get over the basic fodder of all MMOGs, armor and weapons. D&D, and DDO, does not restrict usage. However, unskilled (or let's say feat-less) use is penalized heavily. Armor that is worn without the associated feat (light, medium, heavy armor use) penalizes attack rolls. Even skilled use incurs skill use penalites - mostly to dexterity-based skills which a good deal of rogue skills are - and arcane spell failure chances. Swimming in heavy armor is really not recommendable, as armor penalty goes to swimming at double rate. Expect to drown on long dives if you refuse to remove that full plate.
In similar vein, weapon use is not restricted but unskilled use is penalized. Although weapon feats cover wide swathes of tools of destrution, exotic weapons must be learned on a case-by-case feat basis. Most notably this list includes the largest of one-hand weapons, the bastard sword. The more martial your class of choice, more weapon use feats you can expect them to knwo by default.
The use of weapons, or the attack roll, is governed by armor class and hit bonuses. Better armor and bonuses to your armor class serve as a target number that must be overcome by the roll and your attack bonuses. Centrally, each class has a base attack bonus (BaB). Combat classes achieve higher BaB the quickest, arcane classes the slowest. Dexterity, in a way of evasion, adds to your armor class, but is restricted by armor. Each suit of armor allows only so much of your dexterity to improve your armor class. The heavier the less, and in case of heavy armor feat's types it is usually zero or nearly so. D&D rules for types of bonuses is in use. For example, if you have both a suit of armor and bracers that provide protection, they do not stack as both enchantments are of type 'armor'. Only the higher applies.
Speaking of rolls, DDO will actually display your dice roll results (unless a hidden roll is required) for all relevant actions, along with the total bonus the roll is entitled to. This is a very nice nod towards the paper roots of the game. Certain actions have been decided to not use rolls however. Chiefest is the search skill, which simply needs to be good enough for you to find something. Repeat searches until you find something are thus unnecessary and pointless.
Spellcasting in the online version has undergone a revision. While the basics of the paper roots are still here - memorizing a set of spells from your available options - actual casting is handled differently. Instead of a spellcasts-per-day table, all casters have spellpoints at their disposal. Memorized pells can be freely cast as long as spellpoints are remeining. At low levels, you should be careful of how freely you throw around your magical might however; it is not uncommon to run out of spellpoints before the quest is over, and short ones many times do not offer means to rest and regain them. While clerics, after they have used theirs up, are reasonaby good combatants and have the advantage of heavy armor, wizards and sorcerers will have very little to do once they run dry except shoot crossbows.
Continuing the trend of not not restricting actions, many skills can be used untrained, with penalties. If you want to search even if you have no points in seach, go ahead, just don't expect to find anything that has been more carefully hidden. Again, remember that heavy armro penalizes certain skills. Your move silently for example will be abysmal in full plate.
Currently, the maximum level achievable is 10. Because of the rather low amount of levels in D&D (core ruleset defines 20 levels) the online version adds 4 ranks within every level. You pass through, so to speak, levels 1.1, 1.2, 1.3, 1.4, and finally achieve a full level, 2.0. At each rank interval, you may choose a mini-feat (they are called enhancements) from a list defined by your race and class. Up to four enhancements may be gathered, after which you must trade away an old one to acquire new. My personal opinion of these 'minor' buffs is that they can be... quite powerful. A passive (constant, that is) +3 to two skills at level 2 sounds pretty d**n major to me. So does +1 to an attribute at level 3.
Quest system
Here we return to DDO's major departure from other MMOGs. As previously explained, DDO is fully instanced, this method extending even to public spaces. The basic play concept revolves around acquiring and completing quests. This idea is nowehere else as readily apparent as in your experience points. Experience is awarded only at the completion of quests. There are instances with no quests associated that you can enter, but the experience awarded from slaying an 'encounter' (a group of mobs) is negligible.
This means there is no purposeless mob grind to do. A good part of quest mobs do not award additional experience points, they are effectively part of the fixed experience point total you are awarded at the end. So, while you can aim to finish a quest with minimal killing, certain combat situations are unavoidable as some doors are tied to mob death and will simply refuse to open until the body count has been met (this of course makes your attempts to sneak through certain quests impossible, a definite downer to RP-minded people out there). Many quests have optional extensions for extra experience where you may take care of a named named boss mob or a similar action (clear out a spider nest). A few of these are even random, you never know if a powerful boss mob is present or not until you reach its area.
Do note that when I say fixed experience points, there are ways to increase the amount awarded, above and beyond the optional slay jobs. If a person succesfully detects hidden things, and disables traps, you are usually awarded a bonus award calculated in percentages. Also, destroying breakable objects, curiously enough, counts towards another extra award (as much as 10%, maybe even more). The total experience at the end of adventure is not divided amongst group members. What you see is what everyone gets, so taking a full six-member team into a quest is always a good idea.
As a side note, I think the developers are to some degree aware of the certain absurdity in breaking objects for extra experience. One Harbor quests seems to make a joke out this as your sole objective is to destroy 50 crates and barrels of smuggler's goods before his enforcers show up.
Instanced quests, in other words, are the real meat of a DDO experience. The robust LFG/LFM system I've detailed earlier is a facet of this. The public world part mostly serves as a place to get your group together and dive into a quest. It also provides you with taverns where to rest and shops to sell loot and equip yourself. Quest givers, naturally, mostly inhabit this shared world (there are exceptions: for example the Waterworks has quest NPC in an instance that provides passage between various deeper instances of the quest).
In the vein of DDO's promotion of grouped experience, none of the quests are really soloable at their intended play level. While tutorial instances are solo-enforced, as is the first quest in Stormreach, beyond that only the three introductory adventures and maybe few more (depending on your chosen class) can be completed solo. The rest require a group. Rogues are too weak to battle through mandatory kills and arcane casters will run out of health even faster. Warrior types may be strong but many times magic damage is partially or completely unavoidable. Clerics have heal but they're just as supectible to traps as everyone else and will run dry of spellpoints on longer quets.
To digress, it is noteworthy that many quests have a gauntlet of traps built inside, not to mention hidden doors with optional content beyond. These, and the associated extra experience awards, are a few good reasons to bring along a person skilled in detecting hidden things, disabling traps and opening locks. Usually, a rogue. Traps come in many varieties: spears thrusting up, swinging blades from walls, rotary blades on pillars, poison and fire breathers, electric barricades and possibly otheres I haven't seen yet (no pit traps it seems, what a bummer). As many people have put it before me, finally there is real use for the roguish classes. In the event of the group being unable to secure a rogue, traps can be avoided with some precise timing and quick movements. If I wanted to complain about something about traps, I'd say they are not lethal enough to those who blithely charge into them. Unless you are low on health or dim enough not to step away, chances are you survive your first encounter with the trap. This unfortunately means rushing though quests is very possible, even easy, with a trap-bait warrior tank taking point. (addendum: some spike traps seem nicely long; you are likely to get yourself skewered very dead if you rush through heedless of damage, long before you reach the far side - unless the trap extends to the very end of the corridor)
Like I've mentioned before, regaining HP and SP is done in taverns. Instances usually provide rest shrine or two where you can do this too. The catch is, each can be used only once. This is why really long instances may have several (some are behind hidden doors)... but rationing your rest stops is always a good idea. A common and sensible tactic for a cleric when low on SP is to use the last shreds to cast heals, then rest, allowing the rest of the party to save their rest stop for later. There are potions to replenish health and spellpoints, if you want to spend your cash on them (edit: not sure about spellpoint ones, I've seen them as loot only).
Loot from quests comes in various forms. Firstly, breakable objects may contain some minor loot, usually a small handful of money. This loot is divided on first grabs, first served basis. Secondly, there are items like mushrooms or bookshelves with a small sparkle effect, indicating they can be looted. These give loot once to all party members. Thirdly, a mob may rarely, upon death, have some glowing object on them. This loot too is given to everyone who cares to grab at it. The mob and object loot usually comes in the form of items desired by one NPC or another in public world. They exchange this loot to random minor items like potions, scrolls and such, sometimes even equipment. Fourthly, there are treasure chests. These have been placed at strategic encounter points, usually a boss mob, and various optional quest points (or simply behind secret walls, as extra reward for the sharp-eyed groups). These chests contain the majority of good loot, money and equipment in various forms, always several items for each party member to pick up. There seems to be some logic at work which sometimes, but not always, randomizes loot to fit your character class. All chest loot is reserved per person and you cannot take loot in chests reserved for another person (though you can view them). Finally, the quest NPCs themselves may offer you a random list of items for you choose one from, at completing the quest and reporting back to him or her.
In fact, to me the amount of magical loot seems disturbingly plentiful. Maybe it just has been my own way to run D&D campaigns in the past, but 'monty haul' comes to mind. A second-level character may be sporting a full set of +1 equipment relevant to their class (to compare, +5 is about the top-power enchantment in D&D). A first level character, upon gaining access to Market, may buy +1 items if they have the cash. Additionally, hand-me-downs are not too strictly restricted. While equipment bought from NPCs and some quest loot either binds on acquire or has a minimum level limit, most items can be exchanged freely and handed to freshly created characters. Naturally, due to instanced nature of DDO, this doesn't have as much impact as it could to have, but personally I'd find little incentive to adventure in instances of my level if I sported a full kit of highly enchanted loot.
(And on related-related subject, what's with these +5 items I see floating in pawnbrokers? In my opinion, 10th level characters are far from being entitled to +5 loot. When they implement levels up to 20, does it mean they will invent +10 items? Major artifacts as common loot?)
Quests can be relatively long. The biggest quest in the Harbor area, which you must complete to gain access to Market, is the Waterworks. It is a series of four dungeon (well sewer) instances, plus the upper level instance that connects them. You can run the all four one after another, but as DDO keeps close track of your successes and instance entrances allow choosing between various dungeons contained beyond, it is possible to complete one at a time and return topside to sell, heal or log off. Me, I'm not very far into Market area or House quests yet, but I suspect there are longer quest series available.
Another nice quest available in Harbor area is the kobold assault. This is a very straightforward 'quest'. Your group must defeat 200 kobolds assaulting an outpost. They don't all come at once, but the initial rush of 30-some kobolds at you puts the team to test, to say the least. These ones with simple bodycount requisites offer a change of pace to those may want to do nothing more than slay everything in their path. ^_^
Almost all quests are repeatable. In fact the only nonrepeatable quests I've seen are the tutorial (can't return there) and four introductory quests in the Harbor. The rest can be repeated as many times as you want. Naturally, there's diminishsing returns. Each repeat yields an increasing experience penalty. Looting the same chest too many times makes it empty (permanently or not, I don't know). Quests, in addition to normal difficulty, come in hard and elite modes. This facet I have not studied very much, but according to reports at least some quests contain additional content on higher difficulty levels. (edit: I've discovered that while you can re-entet Waterworks you cannot repeat the quest by reactivating it, meaning you get the equipment reward from the quest-giving NPC only once; there may be more such quests).
If and when you end up incapacitated several things may happen. If your health is zero but not minus ten, you will slowly bleed towards that value unless your body stabilizes (constitution plays a part in this). Characters not at minus ten can be revived with a simple use of heal (or repair) skill or a healing spell, which brings them back to one hit point. Characters hitting minus ten or below die and become faintly visible ghosts, leaving behind a soul stone. They will have two options: release their spirit and resurrect with one hit point at a tavern they have bound to, or wait for a comrade to pick up the stone and bring it to rest shrine where they can resurrect themselves to one hit point.
If the entire group gets wiped in instance, all is not lost. All instances will remain in state (as you left them) five minutes after last character has departed. This is good news both ways; if you want to try from the beginning, you just wait for fve minutes for the instance to reset. If you want to continue from where your group died, you have five minutes to restore your HP and SP and re-enter. Another way is simply to have one charcacter to wait inside instance (bleeding to death or dead) until at least one person has returned.
Note that exiting an instance (alive or dead) and entering again before instance has reset carries a stiff experience penalty for all characters above level one; minus twenty percent for each try. If you need the experience, it may be better to wait after your wipe for the instance to reset and start again from the top.
World
As previously explained in quest system section, DDO is fully instanced. There is also a design concept at play which says you should get quickly to the meat of the business, which is your quest. This all leads to what you may already have guessed: there is no 'overworld', no persistent-world landmass to explore at your leisure. Should there be some distance between location A and B (apparent only if you ever look at the big world map) you get there in a flash. Meaning, no encounters, no prowling monsters, no sightseeing.
So, as you may also have already guessed, the city of Stormreach, where DDO takes place, is the only city in game. Serving as rest stop, recall point and portal between instances, it is not even hugely huge. It is divided into districts, but each of them is pretty much a self-contained unit providing all the required services. Once you get through Harbor quests for example, you don't ever really have to return unless deciding to redo quests. As a point of comparison to Horizons players, the Market - largest shared area - is not quite the size of Tazoon, not perhaps even half of it.
DDO does offer a vault feature, but it is tiny. in fact, DDO takes this a step further and makes it really tiny. It is much smaller than your inventory, and so far I haven't seen any means to buy more vault space. As DDO is not a crafting game, the need for larger vault space is somewhat diminished. There's also pawnbroker, which buys magical items off you and puts them up for sale. There is no consigner / auction house system, so your income is fixed by whatever pawnbrokers say is the appropriate price. Of course you can always do your own marketing and go into taverns to shout and sell your wares.
Naturally, because DDO revolves around quests, there is no housing of any sort either, not even rentable ones. There'd be no much use to house beyond storage space, so I assume the point of the centralized vault is partially to make housing a less requested feature.
While Eberron the paper version comes heavy with lore, not much of it is mentioned in game. Certain quests may touch lore in passing, but do not refer heavily to it. In one harbor quest, it is implied an artifact you are rescuing from the hands of smugglers may be a dragonshard, but as a player you are left scratching your head as to why it is so important. (Dragonshards are commonly thought to be pieces of dragons and enhance the powers of dragonmarked persons; from Siberys the dragon above, Eberron the dragon between, and Khyber the dragon below)).
Combat
Though obeying the rules of the pen&paper version, DDO's combat is naturally realtime. Let me rephrase that: DDO's combat is very realtime. A nasty way of putting it would be, if you have skills in CounterStrike they may come handy. Several aspects of combat reinforce this.
To take Horizons as a point of reference again, movement is a faster. Repositoning yourself can be done very quickly. You are also able to attack with melee weapons while you move although this incurs an attack roll penalty. Curiously, reloading your bow is not possible while you move. I can see this is to prevent kiting in instances with circularly connecting passages, but I'd even take speed penalty while reloading if it was possible (and moving back first is slow so kiting is not possible anyway while constantly facing an enemy). This fleetness of foot in DDO can lead at times to furiously paced combat.
There's also the fact of facing and advantages - bonus to attack roll - of attacking from rear and sides. So, do not let enemies move behind you because it make syou an easier target. Especially those rogues as they sport the same hurt-a-lot backstab ability as player rogues. In tight spots it may be a good idea to push your back against a wall or against your comrades - while you can pass through friends, enemies can not, nor can you pass through foes. Consequently, getting blocked into corner and mobbed down is also a real possibility.
Then there's tumbling around that high-dexterity characters can do (others can still do short leaps). Rolling around both makes you harder to hit and repositions you quickly. In a pinch where health is low, it may thus become advantageous to remain in constant motion, unless facing a mage. Many spells are guaranteed hitters. Strafing is also possible, most quickly accomplished by holding down LMB and using left/rigth turn keys. Because this 'reserves' your mousebutton for strafing, you obviously can't do anything else in meantime... so learning to use keyboard strafing from get-go is a good idea.
Blocking is not a passive action. Holding down a key (shift by default) determines when you block, and for how long you want to block. This can be timed in accordance to hints from opponent that they are about to strike. Blocking increases your armor class (and may decrease damage, not sure about that). Once you have committed to attack (swing a weapon) you cannot block until the attack (animation) is done, so heavy blockers need to consider when to strike and when not. Tumbling and leaping, which I mentioned above, is only possible from blocking stance.
Attacking has two methods. There's the auto-attack hotkey that makes you take this action automatically and strike the enemy repeatedly until dead. Then there's the right mousebutton that can be pressed to swing your weapon once. Mousebutton, of course, lets you time your attacks better. This can be necessary as mobs do scurry around (remember facing advantage) and take leaps. They do know they should clear some room between you and itself if they want to cast spells uninterrupted. And those little reptilian kobolds are quick little buggers at their bounding. Spiders are even faster.
Choosing a target (tab key cycles through enemies, left click chooses one friend or foe, whichever jumped beneath your cursor just when you clicked) is advantageous when using ranged weapons and is required for some spells, but melee weapons can be swung at unselected targets without penalty. Of course, if you don't select your opponent, you have no idea how much health they have left.
There is no concept of friendly fire, so AoE spells can be cast with impunity, weapons swung and ranged weapons launched through friends.
Drawing out battles is definitely not advantageous, for obvious reasons and then more. Your opponents, by the look of things, have the ability to draw upon an infinite supply of missile weapons. I've never seen a kobold thrower run out of oil flasks. I'm not sure about this, but it well looks they have infinite spellpoints too. When I was dealing with two kobold shamans with four hit points left and a bow, they cast spells at me - or tried - to their very last breath.
Line of sight works and can be used to your advantage. Corners protect you, objects protect you. Thrown weapons are not calculating hits before they have flown through their trajectories. This makes it possible to physically evade oil flasks, gobs of spider poison and thrown spears even (strafe or tumble). When you see that mage casting a magic missile spell (purple glow) quickly break their line of sight and they can't complete. That green acid blob spell does an attack roll when it reaches you, but do a 'saving throw' of your own and don't let it touch you in the first place.
Aggro control is possible to some degree. People with good intimidate skill can anger mobs and draw their aggro. Diplomacy can be used in combat to lessen aggro towards yourself. Damage of course is a good aggro creator. I haven't yet seen any evidence of casting healing spells building up any aggro.
The AI has its good sides and bad sides. The mobs sure know to use ranged attacks and movement to their advantage. They know the advantages of rear attacks and having casters stay at back. They know the advantages of sneaking and invisibility (players can spot sneakers and invisible person; they appear as transparent shadows when spotted). And they sure did learn to path up that corner-ramp in the warehouse. I can no longer solo it on level 2 with 400 arrows as my backup, snaring befuddled kobolds, spiders and scorpions to ground floor raining death on their heads. They do have trouble sticking to targets sometimes though because damage from multiple sources makes their aggro jump around like spinning wheel. Many times ranged attackers adamantly stand their ground and continue attacking when their range is lacking, becoming prime targets for your ranged attacks. None of them appear to be able to swim. Level design by and large negates any advantage this could give, expect offering you a place you can flee without pursuit.
While combat is fast-paced and takes some time to fully learn, it is not impossible to survive while learning the ropes and good reflexes are not mandatory. If you don't want to bother with learning well-timed blocking, choose a two-hand weapon and let your armor take care of things. If you don't want to be a rogue that tumbles around in melee, specialize in bows instead. Even wizards, with their minimalistic melee ability, have the choice of swinging staff or shooting a crossbow when not casting. As a wzard, you can simply choose to hold block down all the time, so whenever you are not casting a spell you are blocking.
Crafting
Well, now this will be a short section. There is no crafting whatsoever in DDO. You either buy or loot your equipment, or receive hand-me-downs from your friends. This extends all the way through the system, making casters unable to even scribe scrolls. The presence of spellpoints makes preparation of scrolls less of an issue, though.
Graphics
Generally, the graphics look rather nice.
Characters animate smoothly and well, in movement and in combat. Level of detail is good and their design subscribes to the realistic school of thought.
Equipment, surprisingly enough, has variance to them. Not every longsword has identical look. Not every robe is a cookie-cut job. This brings more uniqueness to outook of characters. All suits of armor are also very detailed, especially the more powerful, magically enchanted types. Melee weapons with special attack properties have special effects on them (not sure about bows but since I haven't spotted one I assume they don't). Fire damage weapons have flames, poison effect weapons drip with green liquid, energy ones have lightning on blade surface, and so on. While all weapons are visible, only armor suits (this includes mage robes) and helmets render; the rest - cloaks, boots, gauntlets, bracers, arrows and so on - have no visual representation.
Spells have good visual effetcs that are easily distinguishable. Magic missile shoots purple bolts that seek to their targets through air. Acid arrow throws a green glob of acid that eats to you upon impact with a hissing cloud. Turn undead is a bright and flashy spell circle that spring to being aroudn the cleric. Paladin's smite evil though is a disappointing, tiny glow on their weapon.
As a somewhat unrelated observation, the city of Stormreach appears to be built upon the ruins of Xen'drik's (the continent) giant civilization. At places you can see remnants of structures that are clearly built for much larger proportions than humans and other inhabitants of the city. A nice touch, that.
Despite this all... well, it has been a good while since I tested out FFXI, but I don't see DDO capturing the grandeur and scenery of that game. Part of the reason may be the lack of explorable terrain. Another part may be the near-claustrophobic feel the narrow streets and cluttered buildings give. There are no large open plazas, although the high bridge to the airship tower offers a very nice view over the Marketplace.
Music and ambience
Music doesn't shine much. There are background tunes and ditties, with taverns occasionally choosing a livelier tune, but everything is clearly designed to enhance the background and stay there. The music does do a good job at fitting into mood and locale, and there are none that are annoying.
Ambient sounds follow along the same lines. They pitch up from time to time to remind you where you are but never flare up to level where you'd take special note of them.
Originally Posted by Tryagain
