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D&D Online Stress Beta Begins
kafka47 writes "Turbine's much-anticipated MMO, "Dungeons and Dragons Online: Stormreach", is now opening up its stress test to Fileplanet subscribers. The registration is free, and it is a great opportunity for MMO and D&D fans to sign up and try out the game! Paid subscribers get a higher-rez client, but if you're curious about what DDO has to offer (and by all accounts, it's a lot) this is your chance to see it early."
How do they deliver your 20-sided dice via snail mail?
TPJ - Founder, The Amazon Basin
Us Mac users don't really play games. We're obviously too busy going "ooo ahhh" while moving the mouse over the icons in the doc with magnification turned on.
</sarcasm>
Looking at those screenshots, it looks like EverCrack on steroids. I dare not try it. Must... not... try...
Sign up early, see what's behind door #3. Ah, a +5 broadsword. Haul it over to eBay for some nice coinage.
I'm reminded of an old friend from high school who hated the game franchises on the older consoles (like Mario Bros) because he was certain that their high pricing and continuous rehashing of the same story line not only stifled creativity but turned off gamers looking for something fresh. What do you think?
If you're playing Super Mario Bros. for the story, then you're playing it for the wrong reasons.
I agree. Along those same lines, I happen to have a 1954 Alfa Romeo, and you can't get those plastic window rain gutter things to fit them. They don't make them to fit my car! Those stupid window rain gutter people are not going to get my business, or any other business from 1954 Alfa Romeo owners. Bastards!
I don't respond to AC's.
These kids have it easy. Why, in my day, we'd start White Plume Mountain or Temple of Elemental Evil on a Friday at 4pm (enough time to get off the bus, grab the backpack with books and dice and pedal over to someone's house) and game straight through until Sunday morning.
The Luddites were ahead of their time.
Now I only played D&D (the table-top RPG) for a few months on the weekend with a group of friends. I didn't really get into that either (they took it WAY too slow, all had characters in levels 3-4 after playing this certain campaign for easily 3 years), but I don't remember any instances where we had to break into a room, and destroy tons of barrels to find this "hidden" key.
In pen&paper, that's the kind of thing that gets glossed over with a "search check". Or just say that you destroy every barrel in the room untill you find it. It's as simple as the player maybe saying one sentence, and perhaps having to roll the dice once or twice.
If your tabletop DM were to try to run a game like an MMO does, he would have set down miniatures of their characters and each barrel, and the conversation might have gone something like this:
Player1: I destroy all the barrels untill I find the key.
DM: Ok, which barrel do you destroy?
Player1: All of them.
DM: No, which one do you bash in first?
Player1: Alright, I'll play along, the one on the left.
DM: Ok, make an attack roll.
Player2: It's a barrel, it ain't going anywhere!
DM: I have to know how much damage you do to the barrel.
Player1: I'm just beating on it untill it's destroyed!
DM: But you didn't roll to attack, how can you know if you really hit it?
Player3: I fireball all the barrels. Does that destroy them?
DM checks his notes, measures the room for radius of effect of the fireball, then replaces mini barrels with mini piles of ash.
DM: Yes, that destroys them.
Player1: Ok, so we have the key now. I just dug around in the ash untill I found it.
DM: No, which pile of ash are you going to search?
Players all stuff the pile of minis down the DM's throat.
Well, doing the PnP version you could also do a form of this that drives the DM crazy.
DM: Ok, you're in a room with 3 barrels inside of it, what do you do?
Player1: My character does what is appropriate to find whatever clues are inside the room and discovers them if there are any.
DM: Um...what are you talking about?
Player1: Well, I'm role playing.
DM: what?
Player1: I'm role playing. I'm role playing a character that is smarter than I am. Since he would know what to do and I wouldn't, the only way I can say it is to tell you that he does the appropriate thing.
DM: Um, why don't you just tell me what he does.
Player1: Because I have no idea what he does. But that doesn't mean he wouldn't know what to do. Don't penalize my character just because the person playing him is dumber than he is.
DM: Ok, I quit...is there any Mountain Dew left?
"Leo Fender was in a 'state of grace' when he designed the Stratocaster." -- Paul Reed Smith
Hey, I took a bath last week!
fuckin
In my dreams!
nerds should be out of harms way for another 18 months once this gem hits the newsgroups.
I never leave the basement anyway, so HA!
I put on my robe and wizard's hat...
What about Photoshop? That's a damn fun game.