Rumor: Turbine to bring Dungeons & Dragons Online to consoles...maybe

by Jason Dobson { Jun 10th 2008 at 8:10AM }

It's time to fire up the speculation engine boys and girls, as a pair of developments at Lord of the Rings Online developer Turbine indicate that MMO studio may have aspirations to bring Dungeons & Dragons Online to the living room. The Westwood-based company has posted a job opening for a senior console engineer with a MMO background as well as experience developing on both the Xbox 360 and PS3. Additionally, Turbine made public on its DDO community forum that the game's developers are "working full-tilt on several things that are still under tight wraps," and that "DDO will be getting more and more focus from Turbine's marketing and PR teams over the coming months."

While far from conclusive, together this information makes a convincing argument for Turbine prepping its pen-and-paper inspired MMO for the console market. It makes sense, particularly given the company's recent financial investments, part of which Turbine CEO Jim Crowley admitted will go towards expanding the dev's supported platforms. For now, however, we continue to wait for any official word while making saving throws vs. patience and taking all of this with 1D6 grains of salt.

Tags: ddo, dungeons-and-dragons..., dungeonsanddragons, lord-of-the-rings-on..., lordoftheringsonline, lotro, rumor, speculation, turbine

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Pandar @ Jun 10th 2008 8:24AM

This game still exists?

Nate @ Jun 10th 2008 8:47AM

Yeah, exactly. Didn't that game totally flop? Wasn't good enough for the MMO fans OR the D&D fans. At the time, I was both.... and it just wasn't good.

Hollywood Ron @ Jun 10th 2008 9:00AM

Uhh, the more logical idea would've been to bring LotR Online to console games, wouldn't it?

Bam! @ Jun 10th 2008 9:04AM

DDO has active combat and plays like a cross of neverwinter nights and tomb raider, so it would actually be engaging with a controller.

Schad @ Jun 10th 2008 9:02AM

I was sort of in the same boat. I played it at launch, hated it, but then came back about 8 months ago and got hooked. I'm not gonna lie, I submitted that screen shot and the info over at massively (suprised it made it this far). I actually thought this game was going to die as well, but about 2? months ago they had a big live event, and my server had 57 instances of the central marketplace (captured in a SS). It certainly has alot more population than I had thought it had.

For what it's worth, I've dragged in about 50 or so goons from somethingawful with the free trial, and people love it these days. I think it primarily stems from the giant outdoor areas that didn't exist before. Of course it's always had the active combat system, but I think most people felt trapped in sewers the first 3 levels of the game, which has been fixed 100x over.

Yes I'm a DDO fanboy, no it's not for everyone, yes it has much more of a population than you thought.

TwistedBishop @ Jun 10th 2008 10:19AM

Agreed, people sell DDO way too short with no real knowledge of the current situation. I know I was disgusted by the beta over 2 years ago, yet the free trial I played back in April was enough to make me purchase the game. Turbine listened to complaints and addressed them, and they've added big batches of free content consistently throughout the years.

All this is not to say the game is flourishing. It still has a relatively tiny subscriber base -- only 5 servers, maybe 50-70k players -- and Atari's complete lack of marketing doesn't help. But it's a game that could do very well if people gave it a second chance, and I think Turbine has earned one. This console port could do just that.

PojoMofo @ Jun 10th 2008 9:44AM

they have to do something with all there investment money.

SuiXide @ Jun 10th 2008 9:49AM

The free trial was really cool. If this came out on consoles, I'd definitely buy it. I'm not able to play 'real' D&D anymore so it was cool to be able to have something similar to play.

Grimjakk @ Jun 10th 2008 9:54AM

Turbine's gonna need to do a package subscription deal. I'm already subscribed to LoTRO... among others. Too many MMO's out there I wanna play. ;)

riggs @ Jun 10th 2008 10:49AM

are there any MMO's planned for the 360 at all? i would really like to play one.

LZBravo @ Jun 10th 2008 11:24AM

Age Of Conan: Hyborian Adventures is coming to 360, not sure about PS3. The main problem with MMOG on Xbox live is that Xbox live is already a paid subscription. I don't think many people would want to pay additional fees to play certain games in addition to the actual cost to purchase the game. I know I don't. MS is going to have to figure out a way to subsidize the monthly fees.

TwistedBishop @ Jun 10th 2008 11:31AM

Playing MMOs on Xbox Live does not require a Gold Subscription.

Korova Pyro aspect @ Jun 10th 2008 2:07PM

Dont bother

WizarDru @ Jun 10th 2008 4:08PM

Yeah, that's great...right in time for the new edition of D&D which uses a totally different rule-set. Yeah, that would make PERFECT sense. Not.

The new D&D ruleset is almost tailor-made for it's OWN MMO, not DDO. DDO failed to appeal to hardcore MMO players AND hardcore D&D players AND Hardcore D&D players who also enjoy MMOs. It's not a bad game, but it's not a great one either...and in a market with WoW, you need to more than just 'OK'.