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Dungeons & Dragons Online

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Dungeons & Dragons Online
Developer(s)Turbine, Inc.
Publisher(s)Atari
Platform(s)PC
ReleaseFebruary 28 2006
Genre(s)MMORPG
Mode(s)Multiplayer

Dungeons & Dragons Online: Stormreach (abbreviated as "DDO") is a massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) developed by Turbine, Inc. Turbine has developed DDO as an online adaptation of Dungeons & Dragons (abbreviated as D&D). DDO is based on the D&D 3.5 Ruleset and set in the Eberron campaign setting.

Development

Dungeons & Dragons Online: Stormreach was developed by Turbine, Inc. over the course of approximately two years of development. The initial prototyping and concepting was done by Jason Booth, Dan Ogles, Cardell Kerr, Ken Troop, and Michael Sheidow, in coordination with Wizards of the Coast, the current publisher of the Dungeons and Dragons pen and paper game. Later this initial team was moved to work on Turbine's other title in development Lord of the Rings Online, or left the company. Development was then led by James Jones, and DDO was released on February 28, 2006. It is published by Atari.

Game

DDO is set on the fictional continent of Xen’drik, in the world of Eberron. Eberron is a campaign world, developed by Keith Baker for Wizards of the Coast. Players can create their characters following the revised edition of D&D 3.5 rule-set fashion, and play them in both indoor and outdoor environments, including a large variety of dungeons.

Although the game is based in large part on the D&D 3.5 rule-set, it contains numerous minor changes from the tabletop game, most of which were introduced due to differences in the dynamics between the media of computer game combat and tabletop gaming. For example, Turbine wanted DDO to use a real time combat engine, where tabletop D&D uses a turn-based system. This brought about a number of changes in combat and character skills and feats to handle situations where Turbine felt the turn-based combat system and real-time combat did not mesh well. There are a good number of other differences between DDO and D&D, most of which have been listed on the DDO Wiki.[1]

The core of the game is set in the city of Stormreach, a giant-scaled city built eons ago, and recently settled by humans. There are a number of areas within Stormreach - the Docks, the Harbor, the Marketplace and the four Dragonmarked Houses - House Deneith, House Jorasco, House Kundarak and House Phiarlan. In addition, there are a number of adventures that are taken beyond the city walls, into distant lands such as Tangleroot Gorge, Threnal, Three Barrel Cove and Sorrowdusk Isle, each home to one or more adventures of their own.

Generally, the plot of the game revolves around the following dark plots:

  • Giants attempting to regain mastery over the city of Stormreach and the continent of Xen'drik
  • Cultists attempting to reopen the gate to Xoriat
  • Minions of Khyber, attempting to gain power over Xen'drik

Mechanics

Standard parties can be up to 6 players, and Raid parties are up to twelve. Players gain experience by completing quests. Killing monsters will usually increase the size of the experience reward, but are not always central to the reward. In some cases, simply running through a dungeon from one end to the other will grant an XP reward.

Typical groups consist of four core character types: a "tank" (fighters, paladins or barbarians), a healer (clerics), a caster (wizards or sorcerers or bards), and support classes (rogues or rangers). A character is not fixed to one class - they can start out as a ranger, for example, and then level up as a rogue at their next level. No one can have more than three classes.

There are currently 5 DDO servers for the US market (merged from the original 14), named after various geographic aspects of Eberron. For the European market there were initially 5 servers, named after Eberron deities. After a server merge in early 2007, 2 remain. Characters are not transferable from server to server. In the US, Turbine themselves deploy the game and maintain the day-to-day operations. In Europe this has been outsourced to Codemasters with the help of Alchemic Dream. In China, the game is operated by Shanda.

There are currently no servers for the Oceania market. The game distributed in Australia by Atari is the US version. Players in this region will get a ping of ~300msec to the US servers. Weekly downtimes take place during the PM hours (7pm to 12pm GMT+8) in Oceania, often on Friday nights.

Quests

The quests in DDO are organized by character level, difficulty and length. Each quest has a base level, and the XP reward increases if all of the party members are below that level, and decreases if any of the party members are above that level. Characters more than three levels below the "base level" are not allowed to initiate a quest, however they are able to join a quest started by another party member.

Note that most quests have an item or monetary reward when finished, but the character must have talked to the quest giver to receive the reward. Some dungeons require several visits to the quest giver to complete the entire quest chain. Speaking to the quest giver also generally allows you to repeat the quest.

The quests are narrated by a "Dungeon Master" who gives additional details and information to the players about what they see and hear on their adventure. For the "Delera's Tomb" quest chain, the dungeon master duties are performed by D&D co-creator Gary Gygax.

Difficulty levels

Currently, there are four difficulty levels for quests:

  • Solo
  • Normal
  • Hard
  • Elite

Hard and Elite increase the XP bonus the first time the quest is run at the given level, and generally provide a much more challenging experience to the players. As a bonus, the quality of the "loot" (items, equipment, etc) in the chests in hard and elite is better. Generally speaking, the highest level quests on the Elite setting offer the best loot, although that is not always the case.

On the other hand, Solo offers very little loot, and few, if any special items. Generally, the Solo difficulty section has been added recently to the game (June 2006) in order to make it more accessible to lower-level characters who do not have a group. There is a significant XP reduction for solo play, and only low (3rd and lower) level dungeons offer this capability, though Turbine has indicated that upcoming updates will expand the Solo difficulty level to dungeons as high as 6th level.

Features

The game includes built-in voice chat, integrated into the overall experience.

DDO is an instanced game, where each party receives a private "copy" of a dungeon for their own use.

There are localized versions for the European market . Languages available so far are English, French and German.

Characters

Races

Current player character races are:

The game does not feature a full complement of playable races from the Dungeons and Dragons world, and is missing core races (Gnome, Half-orc, half-elf), as well as the additional Eberron specific races of Kalashtar, Shifter and Changeling.

Classes

Currently there are nine (9) playable classes with no race restrictions. Following the 3.5 edition rules and the rules of the Eberron campaign, players choose a class to begin with but are not limited to remaining in that class. For example, a cleric may choose to gain a level in the rogue class, as well as any other class the player chooses for a total of three (3) classes; up to a maximum of fourteen (14) total levels.

Current classes are:

Absent from this list are the standard classes, Druid and Monk, the psionic classes, Artificers (an Eberron exclusive class), and all prestige classes. In addition, no multi-class penalties are incurred if ones classes exceed a given range.

Alignments

Dungeons and Dragons Online does not feature the full spectrum of alignments available in Dungeons and Dragons, instead limiting itself to only good and neutral alignments. The ability to play evil aligned characters is unavailable.

The available alignments are:

Updates and modules

Turbine releases major content updates to the game as "modules", named after the module concept in the pen-and-paper version of D&D. Additional content is release between modules as "updates"

Module 1: Dragon's Vault

On April 5 2006 Turbine released its first module, "Dragon's Vault," which included a new dungeon; this new area included additional content and quests as well as the chance for players to battle a red dragon. Also included were a number of fixes to the combat system and minor tweaks to the user interface.

Update 1.1: The Harbor

This first update include changes to the low level Harbor quests.

Update 1.2: Solo Enhancements

More changes to the Harbor area, including the addition of several solo-only quests there.

Module 2: Twilight Forge

The "Twilight Forge" module, released July 12 2006, added a new player race: the Drow (playable only if certain requirements have been met), as well as new enhancements, spells, a patron system, in-game mail, and adventures set in the Restless Isles, a new outdoor area.

Update 2.1: Litany of the Dead Part 1: The Necropolis

In August 2006, an update called "Litany of the Dead Part 1: The Necropolis" was released. This update is the first part of the Litany of the Dead series that will carry into next year. The update has five full quests as part of the first part of Litany, and culminates in an encounter with a powerful vampire. [1]

Update 2.2: Stormreach Under Siege!

This update for September 2006 introduced the first quests above level 10, other than the Twilight Forge raid, including a level 12 quest in the previously low-level only Harbor area.

Module 3: Demon Sands

The newest module by Turbine, the largest the game has yet seen, was released on October 25 2006. With this update, Turbine attempted to alleviate many of the player bases' most acute concerns. Primarily, it introduced some more meaningfully explorable areas to the game in order to give the world a feeling of greater breadth. It also introduced some consensual PvP (Player vs. Player) elements to the game (in the form of "Tavern Brawl" arenas and objective-based quests; Capture the Flag, Indoor and Outdoor Deathmatch), as well as an auction house, and the first level-cap raise from ten to twelve.

Update 3.1: Evil Resurgent

This December 2006 update included a rework of the social panel, many bug fixes, and six high level quests. Most of these new quests, all of which are rated at level 11, are sequels to previous quests, extending the storylines of the characters involved.

Update 3.2: Litany of the Dead Part 2

Five new monsters (phase spiders, shadows, umbral worgs, umbral gargoyles, and invisible stalkers) were released in this update, along with five quests for party level 8-9. These quests continue the storyline of The Necropolis from Litany of the Dead Part 1.

Update 3.3: Academy Training

This update completely revamped the Action Point enhancement system. Also, in celebration of DDO's one-year anniversary, all chests were at +1 level from 2/28 to 3/4, and all xp awarded from 3/2 to 3/4 was +50%.

Module 4: Reaver's Bane

April 2007's new module, Reaver's Bane, brings the level cap up to 14 from 12, and introduces a new terrain mechanic along with many new spells and abilities for characters of all levels.[2] Two new areas (the Cerulean Hills and Gianthold Ruins) use the new mechanic that includes entrances to traditional quests, plus 3 new type of quests.[3] The new quest types are slayer quest (where you get experience for how many monsters you or your party have killed), explorer quests (where you get experience just for visiting a new part of the area for the first time) and rare encounter quests (where you get experience for killing infrequently spawned named monsters).[2]

Update 4.1: Mark of the Dragon

The May 2007 update included, among other things, the implementation of Dragonmarks and the addition of a new encounter area: Ataraxia's Haven.[3]

Update 4.2: Searing Heights

This July 2007 update revamped the Menechtarun desert landscape and the Waterworks adventure area. There is an added desert landscape for level 4 characters to battle the Sulatar firebinders. New spells, abilities, and enhancements including Holy Sword and Warchanter. Players get 3 more weapon set configuration slots, for a total of 7. Also fixed were several bugs. Many new spells were added for all spellcasting classes. Extra enhancements were also added. One additional level 4 dungeon was added.[4]

Module 5: The Accursed Ascension

File:DDO tooltip.JPG
The tootip modifications since Module 5.

This new module, released in Septempber 2007, includes the part 3 and 4 of the Litany of the Dead. And by doing so, doubling the amounts of quests in the Necropolis area. It ends with a new high level raid. Apart from the addition of new enhancements and some minor corrections the metamagic system went through a major revision and the items tooltips were vastly improved. Some new additions are collectable and gem bags, made to reduce the cluttering of inventory space. [5]

Future updates

In a recent public chat event, the developers stated that they are currently working on a new class (Monks) and a new playable race (Half-Orcs) for the game, both of which they hope to implement before the end of 2007. It was also revealed that the developers are planning to add the Druid class to the game, although it was not made clear exactly what stage of development the class is currently in. DDO's producer stated that, due to the difficulty involved with introducing such a class into the game, Druids would not be playable until "next year at the earliest".[4]

Beta testing

On August 1 2005, Turbine sent out invitations to individuals interested in participating in the Public Alpha Test. On November 1, 2005, Turbine announced that the public Beta test was open [6]. On November 22, 2005 Turbine announced that each copy of the January 2006 issue of PC Gamer magazine would contain a "key" to gain access to the beta. Turbine, in association with Fileplanet and IGN, also completed 3 public stress tests of the game, with the most recent ending on February 12, 2006.

Testing for DDO ended on February 19, 2006. The game opened February 28, 2006, after a special head start event that started February 24, 2006 for those who pre-ordered.

Awards

  • Best Multiplayer Game, 2006 British Academy Video Games Awards[5]
  • Most Anticipated Game, 2005 MMORPG.COM Reader's Choice Awards[6]
  • Best Persistent World Game, IGN.com Best of 2006 Awards[7]
  • Nominee, Massively Multiplayer Game of the Year, 10th Annual Interactive Achievement Awards (ongoing)[8]
  • Third Prize, Best Graphics, Les JOL d'Or 2006[9]
  • Third Prize, Public's Award, Les JOL d'Or 2006[9]

References

  1. ^ "PnP differences". DDOwiki. Retrieved 2007-02-24.
  2. ^ "In Development: Module 4 spells levels 13-14". DDO.com. 2007-02-14. Retrieved 2007-02-24.
  3. ^ "Solas' Dev Dairy: Wilderness Quests". DDO.com. 2007-02-16. Retrieved 2007-02-24.
  4. ^ "Warcry Dev Chat Transcript". DDO.com. 2007-02-22. Retrieved 2007-02-24.
  5. ^ "British Academy Video Games Awards, Latest Winners and Nominees". British Academy of Film and Television Arts. 2006-10-05. Retrieved 2007-02-24.
  6. ^ "2005 Reader's Choice Award Winners". MMORPG.com. Retrieved 2007-02-24.
  7. ^ "Best of 2006: PC, Best Persistent World Game". IGN. Retrieved 2007-02-24.
  8. ^ "10th Annual Interactive Achievement Awards". The Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences. Retrieved 2007-03-01.
  9. ^ a b "Les JOL d'Or 2006". JeuxOnline. Retrieved 2007-03-05.

Media coverage

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