Dungeons And Dragons Stormreach

Friday, 29 August 2008

I felt in an MMO mood today, and as I did not have a valid WoW sub active, and LOTRO was unspeakably shitty, I thought i'd try out Dungeons and Dragons, another big name MMO from Codemasters.

It downloaded nice and quickly, and a trial key was easily obtained, And by about midday I was creating my character, DarkW ingstalker, Yes that space was deliberate. His last name really is Ingstalker.


As you can see, I stuck with the Generic human race with the fighter class. First impressions were pretty meh as both me and random dave looked upon it as just another mmo but when I got into the combat, I realised it was very enjoyable. For a start, You can block by hitting shift, and dodge around and positioning and movement affects damage. For example, your less accurate if you swing your sword while running headlong at someone while screaming like a banshee. This seems fair. Its all abit stat heavy, but lets not forget this is the RPG genre. Its easy to forget this though, as sometimes it feels like a dungeon crawling action game, this belief being strengthened by the primarily instanced quests. Its also nice to see an MMO that takes itself seriously, World of Warcraft started to really grate on me with its "comedy" elements, and the cartoony style rubbed me up the wrong way, None of these game breaking faults in a mostly social game, but still, Its nice to see a serious game with decent graphics. Helps the kobold slaying. And finally, Did I mention that there are Prestige classes, and that in true DnD fashion, you can Multi class? Its true.

There are however, A few downsides. The interface is needlessly cluttered, and isnt as smooth as World of Warcraft's, or indeed city of heros, so a simple trip to buy skills can be confusing, Let alone trying to read the map. This is further hurt by a Quest log that's like a Chinese encyclopedia, Full of information, but impossible to totally understand without an intricate knowledge of the game [or Chinese if you haven't dropped that metaphor yet.]
I am aware the game has been out for a very long time, but my recommendation stands. An MMO is never at its best at launch, and so i IMPLORE you to download this game [nice and tiny at 3gig download] and use a 10 day free trial, just to see if you enjoy it. After all, Its free right?

Labels: Dungeons and Dragons Online, MMO, PC, RPG, Stormreach

Author: DW | Comments: | Leave Your Response?

New Bioware MMO

Friday, 18 July 2008

EA CEO John Riccitiello confirmed today, [well, late last night] that well known studio bioware is creating an MMOG. This is newsworthy alone, but here we go: Bioware are creating an MMOG based in the Star Wars: KOTOR universe.

Thats pretty much all thats on the table so far, but i'm depressed that this pretty much signals "No KOTOR3".

I'll keep my eye on it.

Labels: KOTOR, MMO, RPG

Author: DW | Comments: | Leave Your Response?

World of Warcraft - Wrath of the Lich King: Death Knight update.

Monday, 26 May 2008

Now like i said i play a spell caster on World of Warcraft, anyone that plays with me will tell you that i am allergic to melee DPS so as you can imagine the fact the the first of these "hero classes," the Death Knight is primarily a Tank or melee DPS makes me very upset (unless they make it very like the Necromancers from Diablo 2, in which case i shall be a very happy bunny).

Now they have announced how the death knight character slot is unlocked "Simply have a character of at least level 55 on the World of Warcraft account you play," also that "You will be able to create one death knight per realm, per account." which in credit to Blizzard is something that i think they have done well with because figuring out a way to have an "unlockable class," but not making it to easy is a task i wouldn't like to have, so well done Blizzard *thumbs up*.

They have also announced the two role that a Death Knight will play in a group, there is the obvious DPS role, this is the one i will be interested in mainly because i know this will be the one that will concentrate more on the Spell casting raising the dead abilities that make me wet in my trousers. The other group role it has is "a capable tank for small groups as well as raids. His or her damage output while tanking will be respectable."


But the thing that really got me interested is that the Death Knight will be a tank that doesn't use a shield, because it was at this point i thought Blizzard have totally lost the plot, that being said i am reserving my cynicism for when the actual game comes out, though there is a distinct possibility that we may all have died by then, thats pretty much all i can say about the Death Knight as that is all that has really been announced.

DSF

Labels: MMO, RPG, World Of Warcraft, Wrath of the Lich King

Author: Darkshadowfang | Comments: | Leave Your Response?