I actually played it and test server. UI overhaul is a major change, not cosmetic. Whole DDO gameplay will be much improved and modernized now, you'll see. Access to items and auction house will be probably one of the best from all MMOs. New inventory list is perfect for DDO, where you need to access specific equipment as fast as possible.
Those bugs will soon be fixed fresnoboone, and nobody new will even know they ever existed ; ). That's normal, just be patient and there won't be much to complain about, Turbine is an outstanding company.
Actually, in reality it's exactly opposite to what you've written. If buying "new stuff" would be the idea for cash shops, then all balance in the game would be lost and those with bigger wallets would rule over "free players".
The current implementation (I'm a beta tester) rewards you for what you have done and it rewards you very often. It feels very good and you really have A LOT of content to play in. Of course, if everything you do is playing games, you can complete it in one week. But if you have some life, then it might be more than a month per one character - after that you'll be either in love with LotrO, or would leave it anyway. If you enjoyed your stay, this will be the moment you'll see that there's actually some places that might be worth unlocking by your work or few dollars. And what you unlock is yours forever, on every server, for every character : ). Don't compare it with WAR, LotrO has 10x more free content, 10x better graphics and depth, and no such restrictions like in WAR. LotrO just lacks real PvP, offers unique PvM instead.
Well, after defending some truth about DDO, it's time to say a few words on this "Neverwinter". I think this will be interesting for sure. It doesn't say it will be a good or a poor game, but it will be interesting to see it. If Atari/Cryptic wants to get into direct competition with DDO, they sure think they have some balls.
But I think they won't need them. They have R.A. Salvatore and his books, they have FR, the most McDonald-type D&D setting ever created, they have NwN in the title and rules made for an MMO. They have an easy job so they just want not to spoil it, do this title as good as they can. Because if they'd fail horribly, that could as well be their last title under the name "Cryptic" (not that big problem, as current "Atari" has nothing to do with legendary brand "Atari", right?).
But let's put it all together. Basically, what Jack Emmert said about "Neverwinter" in last interview is that the game is DDO/Neverwinter Nights.
So, how it will look in my opinion? 1. The game has main storyline, which can be sometimes public and sometimes will be private. In other words, public are cities/town-squares/explorable areas from DDO. Just better polished, as it's a new game and Cryptic-must-not-fail. No problem, people will see some Drizzt and forget all the bugs. 2. Where is the space for player created content? a) In various places of main story line, for example - optional dungeons with some goal (get the "item", etc.). Such player-created content would need a goal which is defined by storyline, so you wouldn't be able to submit a dungeon if you didn't place the "item" somewhere. That "item" is needed in main storyline, but you can play someone's dungeon to get it and move further. This adds repeatability, and dungeons are rated by players, so no one will randomly get into a crappy dungeon - 500x 5 stars is 500x 5 stars, plus there might be player comments. b) In main places you'll see a person or billboard with available optional quests. Just view and choose something, then get into a fully instanced adventure. Just like in DDO, but those optional quests will be made by players. 3. The game WILL feel more RPG-ish, because it's going to have storyline and dialogs. So yes, you can finish this game, complete it. But then Cryptic will release new adventures, main stories to fill with optional (or even mandatory) player-created adventures. Just like DDO, but with player's toolset and FR mainstream shiny stuff.
So, Cryptic won't need to be very creative, just copy and mix some D&D titles, including DDO and voila. It's playable, and Cryptic will be able to say they did create first D&D MMO (OMG, right) with player-made content. So their main focus is to polish it and be sure it won't suck anyway, because that would be an epic fail. One fail too much.
So, this game has chances to be nice. It even has a chance to be outstanding, great game. Cryptic has good approach, it's almost fail-safe and already tested by other developers. But DDO's Executive Producer, Fernando Paiz, said they want player-toolset in DDO. Now that would be exiting to see and be able to choose between both games :). But I think Turbine should start developing an RPG-oriented D&D Online 2. I'm sure that if they'd mix DDOs active combat and LotrO's vast beauty, place it in D&D Setting like Greyhawk or Dragonlance... make it open world with instances and player-created dungeons / explorable areas (both open and instanced), add PvP and sandbox crafting... then Turbine would have a winner. They're experienced, they'd be able to do it.
Actually DDO has many classed now. Plus, they allow more options than you could expect if you played only WoW-clones and similarly simple games. Those classes are really different - playing rogue, then fighter, then wizard is like playing 3 different games in DDO. No other MMO offers such thing, they give very similar templates with the purpose of easy PvP-balancing.
I don't know in which world some people live. Saying that DDO is a poor game is utter nonsense to say the least, the same when you say that DDO is not D&D.
I bet you'll see how not-D&D will be D&D-ish theme-park MMOs of other developers. Actually, Turbine is exceptionally true to D&D roots. The problem is that no D&D ruleset was even slightly balanced, which is a must for MMO - that's why Turbine made some changes. But they still do all those changes in spirit of D&D. If some numerical values aren't 100% D&D, they do always keep in mind that it must fit the D&D philosophy. Plus I really think people who say DDO isn't much D&D don't really know D&D. Spell point system and "ranks" + "trainers" (leveling up) were optional rules in Ad&d 2nd Edition 10-years ago... Some of it was described or at least mentioned in core rulebooks, guys.
To see what could have been, look at Warhammer Online ; ). Turbine is exceptionally true to D&D rules and feel, that's why it's not WoW-clone.
Dungeons and Dragons Online previews new Update 7 screenshots
Oct 15th 2010 10:38AM (Massively)Exploring Eberron: One year of DDO free-to-play
Sep 11th 2010 1:43PM (Massively)PAX 2010: DDO Update 7 bringing half-elves, half-orcs, more [Updated]
Sep 4th 2010 7:57AM (Massively)Exploring Eberron: The sum of their parts
Sep 4th 2010 7:50AM (Massively)The Road to Mordor: Frugal free-to-play
Aug 27th 2010 8:13PM (Massively)The current implementation (I'm a beta tester) rewards you for what you have done and it rewards you very often. It feels very good and you really have A LOT of content to play in. Of course, if everything you do is playing games, you can complete it in one week. But if you have some life, then it might be more than a month per one character - after that you'll be either in love with LotrO, or would leave it anyway. If you enjoyed your stay, this will be the moment you'll see that there's actually some places that might be worth unlocking by your work or few dollars. And what you unlock is yours forever, on every server, for every character : ).
Don't compare it with WAR, LotrO has 10x more free content, 10x better graphics and depth, and no such restrictions like in WAR. LotrO just lacks real PvP, offers unique PvM instead.
Exploring Eberron: Neverwinter nightcaps
Aug 27th 2010 7:38PM (Massively)I think this will be interesting for sure. It doesn't say it will be a good or a poor game, but it will be interesting to see it. If Atari/Cryptic wants to get into direct competition with DDO, they sure think they have some balls.
But I think they won't need them. They have R.A. Salvatore and his books, they have FR, the most McDonald-type D&D setting ever created, they have NwN in the title and rules made for an MMO. They have an easy job so they just want not to spoil it, do this title as good as they can. Because if they'd fail horribly, that could as well be their last title under the name "Cryptic" (not that big problem, as current "Atari" has nothing to do with legendary brand "Atari", right?).
But let's put it all together. Basically, what Jack Emmert said about "Neverwinter" in last interview is that the game is DDO/Neverwinter Nights.
So, how it will look in my opinion?
1. The game has main storyline, which can be sometimes public and sometimes will be private. In other words, public are cities/town-squares/explorable areas from DDO. Just better polished, as it's a new game and Cryptic-must-not-fail. No problem, people will see some Drizzt and forget all the bugs.
2. Where is the space for player created content?
a) In various places of main story line, for example - optional dungeons with some goal (get the "item", etc.). Such player-created content would need a goal which is defined by storyline, so you wouldn't be able to submit a dungeon if you didn't place the "item" somewhere. That "item" is needed in main storyline, but you can play someone's dungeon to get it and move further. This adds repeatability, and dungeons are rated by players, so no one will randomly get into a crappy dungeon - 500x 5 stars is 500x 5 stars, plus there might be player comments.
b) In main places you'll see a person or billboard with available optional quests. Just view and choose something, then get into a fully instanced adventure. Just like in DDO, but those optional quests will be made by players.
3. The game WILL feel more RPG-ish, because it's going to have storyline and dialogs. So yes, you can finish this game, complete it. But then Cryptic will release new adventures, main stories to fill with optional (or even mandatory) player-created adventures. Just like DDO, but with player's toolset and FR mainstream shiny stuff.
So, Cryptic won't need to be very creative, just copy and mix some D&D titles, including DDO and voila. It's playable, and Cryptic will be able to say they did create first D&D MMO (OMG, right) with player-made content. So their main focus is to polish it and be sure it won't suck anyway, because that would be an epic fail. One fail too much.
So, this game has chances to be nice. It even has a chance to be outstanding, great game. Cryptic has good approach, it's almost fail-safe and already tested by other developers.
But DDO's Executive Producer, Fernando Paiz, said they want player-toolset in DDO. Now that would be exiting to see and be able to choose between both games :).
But I think Turbine should start developing an RPG-oriented D&D Online 2. I'm sure that if they'd mix DDOs active combat and LotrO's vast beauty, place it in D&D Setting like Greyhawk or Dragonlance... make it open world with instances and player-created dungeons / explorable areas (both open and instanced), add PvP and sandbox crafting... then Turbine would have a winner. They're experienced, they'd be able to do it.
Exploring Eberron: Neverwinter nightcaps
Aug 27th 2010 6:18PM (Massively)Exploring Eberron: Neverwinter nightcaps
Aug 27th 2010 6:09PM (Massively)I bet you'll see how not-D&D will be D&D-ish theme-park MMOs of other developers. Actually, Turbine is exceptionally true to D&D roots. The problem is that no D&D ruleset was even slightly balanced, which is a must for MMO - that's why Turbine made some changes. But they still do all those changes in spirit of D&D. If some numerical values aren't 100% D&D, they do always keep in mind that it must fit the D&D philosophy.
Plus I really think people who say DDO isn't much D&D don't really know D&D. Spell point system and "ranks" + "trainers" (leveling up) were optional rules in Ad&d 2nd Edition 10-years ago... Some of it was described or at least mentioned in core rulebooks, guys.
To see what could have been, look at Warhammer Online ; ). Turbine is exceptionally true to D&D rules and feel, that's why it's not WoW-clone.
Updated: DDO Update 6 to release today with player bonuses
Aug 18th 2010 4:51AM (Massively)http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PIvHa8w-xMQ
Updated: DDO Update 6 to release today with player bonuses
Aug 17th 2010 8:11PM (Massively)http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xBLVy9VELHs
(underwater combat)