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What is there to do in Dungeons & Dragons Online?
jakebaker13
Member Posts: 55
I was just wondering: What kind of non-combat things can you do in DDO? Can you take part in alchemy, blacksmithing, any other various fun things like in LOTRO?
Comments
When I played DDO, I did not find any crafting in it... I didn't look too hard but I don't remember there being any other options besides dungeon running...
Maybe someone can confirm or deny but I'm fairly certain there wasn't any crafting.
No required quests! And if I decide I want to be an assassin-cartographer-dancer-pastry chef who lives only to stalk and kill interior decorators, then that's who I want to be, even if it takes me four years to max all the skills and everyone else thinks I'm freaking nuts. -Madimorga-
The world of Eberron is a place filled with magic and intrigue, and nowhere is that more evident than with DDO’s crafting system. Crafting in DDO revolves around mysterious items known Eldritch Devices. The Eldritch Device allows players to create and upgrade items, and to create their own raid loot, using ingredients collected from their adventures! Much is still unknown about the devices, and their full potential and power remain a mystery. The greatest scholars in Stormreach are committed to studying these altars to find out more. What is known about crafting is this: http://www.ddo.com/ddogameinfo/crafting
Not much, I got bored with it.. there is a stone of change in marketplace where you can do some crafting, check the DDO wiki about, when I say some... I mean very little..
Dustin
Crafting in DDO probably the worst crafting in any mmorpg you may found. The stone of exchange device is designed afterwards since the game nearly dead long time ago. It is temporary device like a patch. It is same as the collectibles in the game, mobs drops many different type of trash and junks after being killed. You collect them and found certain NPC to change for another junk.
Actually, these collectibles might be used for crafting, but you may know crafting is basically difficult to get balanced. So Turbine just reward you with another junk from junks.
The later in game, there are raids, it is very difficult in crafting, very complicated and not user's friendly at all. All and all, just because bla bla bla.
I kind of liking the WOW style, you doing a raid and collect coins, or reputation to earn certain armor or set armor instead of the crafting in DDO. It sucks.
I play this game when 4 of my friends call and beg me to play it with them.
It's fun with a full on group. So the best thing to do in this game is find a good sized group to play with as often as possible.
And then there's breaking barrels. You can break a lot of barrels.
I like that it's a squad based MMO at its core, but I don't care for it's hub nature. I thought I wouldn't mind it, but I like being able to just randomly run west as far as possible it seems.
DDO is abit of a one trick pony. It does dungeon crawling beetter than any MMO but there is not much outside of that. There is some crafting and now guild housing (air ships) and sometimes some fluff events, but most things are tied to dungeon crawling.
If WoW = The Beatles
and WAR = Led Zeppelin
Then LotrO = Pink Floyd
Too bad the description sounds a whole lot better then the reality. DDO crafting is not good and considering what DDO comes from D&D it is a shame. So much better could be in place and might yet be one day but for the most part the crafting is a let down. Shroud items are worth the time to grind for the ingredients but in general crafting is not something you do as a side job or hobby for a character it just kind of happens as part of the grind and there is no blacksmithing or skills involved.
Non-combat? Well you get to disable traps, pick locks, sneak past most mobs, buff people, solve puzzles, jump platforms, navigate mazes.
If by non-combat you mean the god awfull crafting most MMOs have you can rejoice, DDO has one of the worst ones, it sounds arcane, has no official documenattion, not even crafting result preview and rarely an ingredient list, requires ultra rare drops, yet there is nothing to discover and no place in the world for crafters. Just high level gear drops broken into pieces. Turbine is obsessed by tokens upon tokens that make no real sense at all, you take a twig a bone and a pebble and make a sword, or so, unless it is called red relic and green relic and blue relic and you need several and it is random, or so, but in the end it is really just dungeon tokens you trade in for gear.
Well, you can always do some role playing, provided you find some like minded players.
As to the crafting. The others already said what crafting is like. Collect some ingredients from various quests and use it to craft better equipment. There should be a crafting planner somewhere to download. I can't provide a link. Look for it at ddowiki or the ddo fourms.
Neverwinter Nights shows how D&D style crafting could be implemented, but Turbine, I guess, decided to make a crafting system which doesn't require to make long term decisions concerning player builds (good crafter vs. bad adventuring build). In D&D some classes have advantages concerning crafting (wizards, priests, bards or subtypes). As D&D (since 3rd edition) introduced a skill type system all classes have access to things like blacksmithing, etc. But without the help of magic you can't really make powerful magic items.
DDO is a great game, lots of fun combat scenerios that just seem to pop up every five seconds. It's a great game especially if you like to group with others.
You can get familiar with the game, make some fun builds with friends and try to complete as many quests as you can just together. The game is a lot easier than it was in the past so sometimes you have to run stuff shortmanned for the most fun. I did a lot of that with two buddies.
Or you could rush through the game and then become a hardcore raider. A lot of them aren't such elitists (though some are) so that is actually a fun time too. I had a bunch of friends back in the day that got seriously into raiding, introduced me to some cool people.
You can make a Permadeath character for a very fun challenge through the game. If you like grouping, just do make a PD character. It's basically like anytime fine grouping and great gameplay with voice chat. What's not to like? The Core permadeath guild is especially fun as it is the most strict I believe, great people there too.
Entering the world of DDO is very fun as I've described, however if you don't enjoy the game itself than what I've just said means little.
(copy and pasted from my post in another thread)
There is nothing to do in DnD except quest and redo ques on a different difficulty. You spend most of your day grinding dungeons and possibly abusing glitches. The dungeons have same types of enemies regardless of how the enemies look.
Equipment isn't all that hard to get, but money is. You don't have to work hard for the equipment because you can buy equipment using favored points. Same with quests, classes, races, and tomes. If you do try to buy the equipment, most of it's high priced because players will overcharge you for the same equipment you can find for free or for less from a vendor. 3000pp for a +2 Fullplate? I can get that doing Water Works on normal difficulty.
The only fun aspect as one poster pointed out is that you have fun when playing with a active and social group. Other than that, this game doesn't give you any incentives to do anything beyond questing. Even after 5 years, this game hasn't added anything new visually or gameplay wise.
Indeed, the game is dead as I can hardly find anyone playing at times unless I go to certain servers.
This is false. Thelanis, Argo, and other servers have more groups than the game has ever had EVER.
I've been with the game since a month post release, the game has more players now that it is f2p than it ever did p2p (on a general scale of time)
Now this is false. I currently play on Thelanis, Khyber, etc as well as Argo. Hands down Argo has the most players, especially on a WEEKEND. Thelanis does not. If you want to find me, look for Sorya on Thelanis. Same with Argo where I have a character named Aldorna. I've also played since release and I've do remember this game had 15 server and has since dropped to 7.
Not true. The game was more crowded about 3 or 4 months after the F2P was released. The population has slowly dwindled again since then and anyone who was around then should be able to see this.
Does it still have more then it ever had before F2P? Yes, but the game is no longer at its peak population like it was a year ago this time.
1) No, when the game first start and after content was put in the game was dwindling. People blew through the content in a month. Later on, several of the servers were taken. I know I was there. On official forums, the moderators would mod any negative post and poster would attack complainers cause people to avoid both the boards and the game. As the game got more content, people came back, but left as fan as they came in because the content was still easy.
2) No, you know how I know. This was the same crap that was said several months ago on this forum and GAMEFAQs.com. They also said more servers were going to be made. It never happened. This game doesn't get more players, but rather players who are hurting on money come to DDO. They only come on updates. When they blow through the content, they leave. They've been doing this for the past 5 years.
Maybe you did not understand what I posted.
DDO RIGHT AFTER F2P was introduced had its largest population ever. Since then the population is getting smaller but it is still larger then it was when the game was subscription only and maybe had 30K players left.
Sorry but you know not what you speak of. If you think DDO does not have more people now then it did 2 years or more ago you were not there. The game was dying and F2P gave it new life. Unfortunately that new life includes game play changes aimed at the simple minded and the dumbing down is now irreversible and permanant.
I remember days of seeing 2 groups on the LFM, I remember specifically not playing at all and just standing around for three hours looking for a group a long time ago. I log on now and I can see a lot more than that (Thelanis) at any time of day, I can usually find a group in twenty minutes, otherwise I just make one and it usually always fills.
The game is so not DEAD. I agree that it is probably not at its peak right now. But dead? Not even close.
The game isn't really designed or meant for crafting. It's meant for doing dungeon crawls. Thats the whole point of the game.
This isn't a signature, you just think it is.
That's why the game did and still is doing poorly because it wasn't really a deep game. It doesn't anything outside of dungeon crawling when other games have this and more.
Not sure what math your doing, since number of servers doesnt mean jack when it comes to population, a game could have 100 empty servers, doesnt mean it has more people than a game with 7 servers.
Apparently stating the truth in my sig is "trolling"
Sig typo fixed thanks to an observant stragen001.
I wonder what he thinks of games that run entirely on one server. Guild Wars must have no people since it runs on one server.
Yeah actually it does. If you have a server that holds up to 5,000 people without crashing or causing lag and you have 7 servers then you only have 35,000 players and probably less than half playing at a given time. WoW has to merge servers in the same way DDO did when some of their servers came up short, but DDO had to do with more than half their servers.
So, yes, having few servers can hurt population.
Guild wars has every area instance and every areas, including non-combat areas have several version of the same areas in which a certain amount of people can exist. The more people that come into the area, the more versions are made. If this were the case with DDO, it would be one big server instead of several.
Actually they do zone instancing of all areas in DDO.
Dunno why they chose to make multiple servers on top of that, but they actually do complete server instancing of all zones as they hit a pop-cap for a zone.
So yeah...
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"The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge." - Daniel J. Boorstin