Dungeons and Dragons Online

I’ve recently been dabbling in the world of Ebberon through Dungeons and Dragons online and I must say that the free to play MMORPG has surprised me. I entered my first dungeon and was greeting by some narration by the mysterious “Dungeon Master” in an attempt to recreate the feeling of playing a tabletop. I loved it, it gave me a feeling that I was doing more than just running around beating the snot out of anything that moved in the hope of getting some fat loot.

One particular adventure had me reach the final room of a dungeon to be faced with a puzzle and I must say I was amazed, here was something I couldn’t just bluster through with brute force as is most often the case in MMO’s. I imagine when replaying adventures it is less impressive but as a change of pace it was welcome. I also found secret doors, hidden treasure chests and locks that would require a rogue to pick open which meant groups have more to offer than simple combat utility.

DDO has a fairly low concentration of enemies from what I’ve seen so far which fits the D&D 3.5 edition ruleset which it is based upon where some powers can have very tight limits on the amount they can be used but doesn’t lend itself to the action game mentality that I initially approached it with. Being able to use my main Paladin ability once per adventure to add a negligible damage boost seemed unrewarding and meant I ended up forgetting I even had it. D&D 4th edition would be more friendly to an action game system but wasn’t out at the time, I can understand that remodelling the whole game from the ground up would be a mammoth task but if a sequel were to be based in the 4th edition rules then it would certainly be a game to watch out for.