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Dungeons & Dragons Online: Stormreach (abbreviated as "DDO") is an MMORPG developed by Turbine, Inc. Turbine has developed DDO as an online adaptation of Dungeons & Dragons (abbreviated as D&D). DDO is based on the D&D 3.5 Ruleset and set in the Eberron campaign setting. Wizards of the Coast, the current publisher of the Dungeons and Dragons pen and paper game, worked with Turbine during the game's approximately two years of development. DDO was released on February 28, 2006. It is published by Atari.

Game

DDO is set on the fictional continent of Xen’drik, in the world of Eberron. Eberron is a new campaign world, developed by Keith Baker for Wizards of the Coast. Players can create their characters following the revised edition of D&D 3.5 rule-set fashion, and play them in both indoor and outdoor environments, including a large variety of dungeons.

Although the game is based in large part on the D&D 3.5 rule-set, it contains numerous minor changes from the tabletop game, most of which were introduced due to differences in the dynamics between the mediums of computer game combat and tabletop gaming. For example, Turbine wanted DDO to use a real time combat engine, where tabletop D&D uses a turn-based system. This brought about a number of changes in combat and character skills and feats to handle situations where Turbine felt the turn-based combat system and real-time combat did not mesh well.

The core of the game is set in the city of Stormreach, a giant-scaled city built eons ago, and recently settled by humans. There are a number of areas within Stormreach - the Docks, the Harbor, the Marketplace and the four Dragonmarked Houses - House Deneith, House Jorasco, House Kundarak and House Phiarlan. In addition, there are a number of adventures that take you beyond the city walls, into distant lands such as Tangleroot Gorge, Threnal, Three Barrel Cove and Sorrowdusk Isle, each home to one or more adventures of their own.

Generally, the plot of the game revolves around the following dark plots:

  • Giants attempting to regain mastery over the city of Stormreach and the continent of Xen'drik
  • Cultists attempting to reopen the gate to Xoriat
  • Minions of Khyber, attempting to gain power over Xen'drik

Mechanics

Standard parties can be up to 6 players, and Raid parties are up to twelve. Unlike most MMORPGs, players gain experience by completing quests. Killing monsters will usually increase the size of the experience reward, but are not always central to the reward. In some cases, simply running through a dungeon from one end to the other will grant an XP reward.

Typical groups consist of four core character types: a "tank" (fighters, paladins or barbarians), a healer (clerics or bards), a caster (wizards or sorcerers), and support classes (rogues or rangers). A character is not fixed to one class - they can start out as a ranger, for example, and then level up as a rogue at their next level. No one can have more than three classes.

There are currently 14 DDO servers for the US market, named after various geographic aspects of Eberron. For the European market there are 5 servers, named after Eberron deities. Characters are not transferable from server to server. In the US, Turbine themselves deploy the game and maintain the day-to-day operations. In Europe this has been outsourced to Codemasters with the help of Alchemic Dream. In China, the game is operated by Shanda. It is currently in closed beta stages, with 3 servers, named after the dragons Eberron, Khyber, and Siberys.

Quests

The quests in DDO are organized by character level, difficulty and length. Each quest has a base level, and the XP reward increases if all of the party members are below that level, and decreases if any of the party members are above that level. Characters more than three levels below the "base level" are not allowed to initiate a quest, however they are able to join a quest started by another party member.

Note that most quests have an item or monentary reward when finished, but the character must have talked to the quest giver to receive the reward. Some dungeons require several visits to the quest giver to complete the entire quest chain.

The quests are narrated by a "Dungeon Master" who gives additional details and information to the players about what they see and hear on their adventure. For the "Delera's Tomb" quest chain, the dungeon master duties are performed by D&D co-creator Gary Gygax.

Difficulty levels

Currently, there are four difficulty levels for quests:
  • Solo
  • Normal
  • Hard
  • Elite

Hard and Elite increase the XP bonus the first time the quest is run at the given level, and generally provide a much more challenging experience to the players. As a bonus, the quality of the "loot" (items, equipment, etc) in the chests in hard and elite is better. Generally speaking, the highest level quests on the Elite setting offer the best loot, although that is not always the case.

On the other hand, Solo offers very little loot, and few, if any special items. Generally, the Solo difficulty section has been added recently to the game (June 2006) in order to make it more accessible to lower-level characters who do not have a group. There is a significant XP reduction for solo play, and only low (2nd and lower) level dungeons offer this capability.

Features

The game includes built-in voice chat, integrated into the overall experience.

DDO is an instanced game, where each party receives a private "copy" of a dungeon for their own use.

There are localized versions for the European market . Languages available so far are english, french and german.

Characters

Races

Current player character races are:

The game does not feature a full complement of playable races from the Dungeons and Dragons world, and is missing core races (Gnome, Half-orc, half-elf), as well as the additional Eberron specific races of Kalashtar, Shifter and Changeling.

Classes

Currently there are nine (9) playable classes with no race restrictions. Following the 3.5 edition rules and the rules of the Eberron campaign, players choose a class to begin with but are not limited to remaining in that class. For example, a cleric may choose to gain a level in the rogue class, as well as any other class the player chooses; up to a maximum of ten (10) total levels.

Current classes are:

Absent from this list are the standard classes, Druid and Monk, the psionic classes, Artificers (an Eberron exclusive class), and all prestige classes.

Alignments

Dungeons and Dragons Online does not feature the full spectrum of alignments available in Dungeons and Dragons, instead limiting itself to only good and neutral alignments. The ability to play evil aligned characters is unavailable.

The available alignments are:

Updates and modules

Modules

Turbine releases major content updates to the game as "modules", named after the module concept in the pen-and-paper version of D&D.

Dragon's Vault

On April 5th 2006 Turbine released its first module, "Dragon's Vault," which included a new dungeon; this new area included additional content and quests as well as the chance for players to battle a red dragon. Also included were a number of fixes to the combat system and minor tweaks to the user interface.

Twilight Forge
The "Twilight Forge" module, released July 12 2006, added a new player race: the Drow, as well as new enhancements, spells, a patron system, in-game mail, and adventures set in the Restless Isles, a new outdoor area.

Module 3
In a June 14 2006 interview with Turbine, it was stated that the as-yet unnamed Module 3, due out in the fall, will increase the level cap to twelve, as well as add PvP, and an undisclosed new "feature".

  • Now announced as of the release of the second module as Litany of the Dead part1*
*

Update history

After the "Dragon's Vault" update was completed and servers were brought back online major problems arose including inability to cast spells, use ranged weapons, form groups, or enter dungeons. The game was shut down while the problems were resolved, and the game was back up and running in approximately five (5) hours. Character rollbacks also occurred due to exploits/coding errors which enabled players to make massive amounts of in-game money in the time servers were available. Primary among those was a "split-stack" issue which allowed players to sell a bugged item, now appearing as a stack of items in their inventory, for extremely inflated prices to in-game merchants while still keeping one copy from the stack do with as they pleased.

On June 14th 2006, Turbine released an update with a number of minor fixes to bugs and typos. Major changes were that the EXP was adjusted away from the standard D&D 3.5 model to one that helps new characters advance through the first few levels. An option to Solo most of the quests in the harbor. As well as moving some vendors to more central locations.

No major downtime was reported,and no new significant bugs have yet surfaced.

Future updates

On May 11, 2006, the Community Relations Manager ("Sporkfire") confirmed that no new races or classes will be included in the module 2 or 3 updates for D&D Online, outside of the already noted Drow playable race. In addition, it was revealed that neither the Druid nor Monk classes (nor the other core player races/classes) have been developed beyond the "concept" stage to date. *

Aside from the recent announcement of the Drow race (Dark Elves), no other classes or races have been marked for release in the game to date.

Beta testing

On August 1 2005, Turbine sent out invitations to individuals interested in participating in the Public Alpha Test. On November 1, 2005, Turbine announced that the public Beta test was open *. On November 22, 2005 Turbine announced that each copy of the January 2006 issue of PC Gamer magazine would contain a "key" to gain access to the beta. Turbine, in association with Fileplanet and IGN, also completed 3 public stress tests of the game, with the most recent ending on February 12, 2006.

Testing for DDO ended on February 19th, 2006. The game opened February 28, 2006, after a special head start event that started February 24, 2006 for those who pre-ordered.

Terms used by players

  • "FO" or "Finish Out": To exit out of a dungeon or quest using a button rather than accessing a door or other type of exit.
  • "Loot": Items retrieved from chests or as a final quest completion reward
  • "Loot Caves": On the Elite setting, a short adventure set in the jungles of Threnal, with two high value chests at the end
  • "Ransack": After a chest has been opened 15 times in one week by a single player, the chest gives out no loot. One week after the first time the player opened the chest, the ransack timer resets and the loot goes back to normal. Players usually say that they are ransacked on a chest, or that the chest is ransacked.
  • "Shiny" is the term given to any collectable loot dropped by monsters, which gives a visible shine when dropped.
  • "Sparkly" is the term given to static locations where collectable loot is found, which sparkle in a upward snowfall pattern.

References

External links

Media coverage

Dungeons & Dragons | Windows games | 2006 computer and video games | Massively multiplayer online role-playing games | Eberron

Dungeons and Dragons online

 

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the "Dungeons & Dragons Online".

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