Who created the Warforged?

d.3.l.t.r.3.3 writes "James Jones (Turbine), declared on an interview at MMORPG.COM that D&D Online and Turbine basically built the world of Eberron introducing and inventing many elements that, in reality, were already present in the Campaign Settings since early design, like the Warforged race. Since MMORPG dodged the bullet when a well informed Eberron fan pointed out the glaring errors, I asked Keith Baker (Eberron Game Designer) to clarify the matter. He promptly gave his own opinion, confirming that Warforged were his own original creation and that the words of James Jones were a poor choice. He also doctored the Turbine staff about what a Campaign Setting really is. The inevitable conclusion of the article is: how much can online gaming sites be trusted, when they are protecting their own sponsor's image?"

Comments

MMORPG.COM is a good site

[WCMI92]

It's one of the few that don't kiss the ass of the game publishers, such as SOE. They even have stickied "We are angry at SOE threads" in the SWG forum, for example. The MMORPG SWG forum has become the main refuge for us, as we are free from the harsh censorship and favorites playing on the SOE boards.

(Indeed, the suckups called "Galactic Senators" on the SOE boards get so pissed that we can talk freely there that they come over and troll us).

Re:MMORPG.COM is a good site

[d.3.l.t.r.3.3]

Nobody's saying they are bad (they are pointed as good in a wide number of my posts), just saying that there's always something that cannot assure you gaming sites are super partes in an absolute way.

Also, SOE doesn't run massive advertising on the site. My point is not against the sites but against the political choices you are more or less obliged to take when you are under such circumstances.

I really respected the choice of The Escapist to seek advertising outside the gamedom (mostly) to avoid possible retailations against bad press. Funnily enough most of the readers were and still are aginst not gaming-related advertisements.

Dungeon & Dragons Online very brief review

[SmallFurryCreature]

I was in the beta and played it. Now I am not that good a player so it might be me but for the most part it was an extremely simplistic RPG with passable graphics and some astroucious mission design.

The simple problem? Health. As you no doubt know not all classes are equal in D&D especially at the first few levels. D&D makes up for the weakness of some classes in combat by being by nature a multiplayer game. The warrior, the mage and the healer, one player to take the hits, one player to do the damage and one player to rule^H^H^H^Hheal them all.

CRPG's typically are one-player affairs, so they have to adjust themselves to allow this single player to survive even if they have choosen a class that isn't survivable. One way is too be liberal with health potions. Just keep chucking them back and hope that eventually your pathetic rogue will actually kill the enemy.

So what does DDO do? Put all the health potion vendors BEYOND the beginner area. This lead to a lot of players choosing the lesser combat/healing classes getting stuck. If you used the 2/3 potions you got at the start to early you just couldn't survive later dungeons.

No you couldn't group with a healer or tank either, a D&D MMORPG game with NO early grouping. Says it all really.

I was in the late beta and for this design decision to be implemented still tells me everytbing about the game I need to know. Neither am I alone. DDO commercial success is severely lacking. There is a reason WoW sells so well. Not because it is so good or so original, in many ways it is just a cheap Everquest 2 clone but with a shit load of style and class added. WoW is if you like an iPod, not a better music player, not a more capable one but one that looks good and just fucking works.

DDO is not. Play it, but be sure you know you are playing a D&D game designed by people who forbid low levels to group. A MMORPG, with no grouping.

A MMORPG where I had more cash at level 3 then at level 30 in WoW but nothing to spend it on.

Oh and the warforged are a created race that is very very ugly so I didn't play one since I only play pretty girls. Basically they are a strong warrior race that is healed by mages instead of priests.

But no, an old D&D fan probably won't like DDO. It just ain't anything like it. Neverwinter Nights might be more up your ally. D&D Pen&Paper is to me all about the dungeon master who is a human and who can improvise on the spot. No good dungeon master is going to allow the party to be wiped out in the first dungeon or force all the players to play the first few levels all alone.

A human dungeon master is like a writer, he puts the actors of his play in constant peril but also makes sure the cavalery arrives just in the nick of time. A great dungeon master makes you feel like you escaped by the skin of your nose but not actually get killed. That is the difference between computer and human controlled RPG's. Humans care.

Re:Who/what are the Warforged?

[Red Warrior]

The warforged are golems who are A) Intelligent and B) available as a player character race. With some good campaign world backstory. They were built as war machines and ended up with free will. As you would expect, some "built in" AC, don't heal naturally. Must be repaired, etc.

I also quit playing back in the AD&D days, and have just recently started in a 3.5 campaign. The ruleset and gameplay are much improved, in all aspects, IMO. Much more flexable. And a lot of the "rules just to have rules" have been removed (racial limits to class levels, etc). The world of Eberron is particularly well done, especially in setting/backstory. I haven't played DDO, so can't comment on that.
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To the question that might be buried somewhere in TFA, *I* invented the warforged. When I was playing origional (blue book, boxed set) D&D. In '78. I remember encountering a golem and thinking "It would be cool if I could play one of THOSE!!!".

So, there you have it. Please send my royalty checks to.....
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Seriously, there is gonna be a lot of arguing, especially of the "prior art" type, about this. However, it is really a question of "obviousness". I would be surprised if there were more than 20% of D&D campaigns where at least one person didn't think of the exact same thing.

I'm not taking anything away from WOTC (the D20 system in general, and the new D&D rules rock), or the creators of Eberron (one of the best campaign settings I have seen, period.).