It’s been about a year since I lay aside my level 10 barbarian in DDO and went looking for greener pastures elsewhere. Yesterday, I re-acquainted myself with this Turbine title and overall, I’m glad I did.
The first big adjustment this return entailed for me was regarding it’s group and instance-centric philosophy. Sure in DDO you can do so some stuff on your own, but if that’s really your thing, there are games out there that will better cater to this play-style than DDO. Loners and Dungeons and Dragons Online are not a good mix.
The second important adjustment I had to make was to DDO’s action oriented combat and world interaction model. In short, playing DDO often feels like playing Tomb Raider. Indeed in this game, your opponents run around you and jump on top of crates instead of standing still, which means that if you’re a melee class like my character, you often have to do the same to score some hits. To get through many of DDO’s instances, you also often have to exhibit a fair degree of manual dexterity and problem solving skills, for example to time your jumps to get past a stake-filled pit or to figure out which ledges to use to cross a yawning chasm. There is definitely a twitch-factor involved in playing DDO and to my surprise, I kinda enjoyed it!
These two elements give DDO a certain “vibe” that I find quite refreshing compared to other games. The feeling that my character is just one free agent among many in the city of Stormreach, an interchangeable cog in the mechanics of a typical adventuring group, gives this game an adventure atmosphere that I find no other title seems to have, at least not to the same degree.
So far, I feel that my coming back to DDO has been a good decision and it seems that I am not alone in this regard. Indeed, when I joined groups and mentioned that I was a returning player, a very common reply that I got was “Me too!”. A lot of people seem, like me, to be giving it another go, which augurs well for the future of the title.
So for now, I give Dungeons & Dragons Online a thumbs-up.
