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Originally Posted by
Hexenblut
I started out with WoW. I enjoyed the rich colors, the immensity of the world, the different landscapes, the ability to play an Orc or undead, the vast amount of items and componants, and the various lttle quirks. I played non-stop for a while and it was pretty cool until about level 10. I had expected that that was when the real fun would start to happen and that the gameplay might be different. It wasn't. So I figured, well, maybe by level 20. No again. I was never able to get a one up on the enemies, cause as I got stronger, so did they. Nor did the quests become any more interesting. Level 60 is no different than level 10. And the battle experience never changed, just the faces of my foes. It was still nothing more than point and click, watch the automated trade of attacks, hit a hotkey here and there, wait for foe to die, wait for health to raise, select the next enemy, and do it all over again. Most of the time I would be playing my guitar or psp waiting for the battle to end. It was mindless, boring, and took too darn long. I hated that you could only take on one enemy at a time, and gods forbid you ever aggroed! Of course, you could take on more enemies by doing lower level quests, but you got only a fraction of xp, if any at all. And too many times I had to wait for several respawns to acquire the neccesary quest items, and that seemed to take forever. I finally decided that Wow was a waste of time.
I tried other MMOs, but they all had too much in common with Wow. Then I found DDO. Here was a place I could use my brain, make use of tricks and tactics, and get lost in a world so full of story and content. I could be creative, and had more options when it came to building my character. Every quests was somehow unique. I could attack a whole mob at once. I could gain an advantage over my foes by relying on my skills and strengths that I choose, as well as equipment combinations that I put together for a specific benefit or purpose. I could make meaningful choices for the first time. "Hmmm...a couple of Kobold warriors in the distance. They haven't noticed me yet. Probably a spellcaster nearby. I'm rather low on health, so I don't really want to fight them face to face. I think I'll hide just within the range of my bow and take em out from there. Some +2 poisoned arrows should take them out before they get to me, if the sneak attack doesn't do them in off the bat. Maybe a potion of resist magic, just in case." All this and more is why I choose DDO.
On the downside, however, it seems a lot of WoW fans have spilled over into DDO. Why not, it's free after all. But these players don't always choose DDO for the same reason I did. And what sucks is that they bring the mindless boredom of WoW along with them. They are not very interesting to play with. They're more or less here to "take care of business," rather than kick back and take in the adventure experience. They're characters have no character - they are merely "tools" to get the job done. I mean, that's what's most imprtant, isn't it? Getting the job done? getting another quest under their belt, getting to that next level finishing the game? That's why we read books, right - to get to the end? Yeah, and the point of living is to eventually die.
What's everyone's hurry these days? The only thing special that happens when you reach level 20 is that you get to start over from the beginning. (some might argue the value of bragging rights, but I'm not that easily impressed.)
It's nice that this game is free to play. There are some good folks out there who otherwise wouldn't be able to afford to play. I want them to be here. But because it is free, there is more riff-raff. More people who don't really care about the game. Some of these people do more harm than good. They could care less about enhancing the overall gaming experience of others, or about working as a team, or whether or not their actions are annoying or offensive. they're just here to take up space and bog down the servers. Many of them spend more time in General chat adding their two cents than adventuring. And they can be quite rude and obnoxious.
Of course the same could be said about some VIPs. $15 a month is nothing to them, so they don't have much sense of appreciation either. But it is rather irritating when a bunch of free-loaders do so much to ruin a game that I pay to enjoy. One moment I relaxing in my backyard enjoying a nice, peaceful day, then some neighbors in the projects next store start blaring music and bickering loudly. Just like the other day a guildie and myself were RPing in one of the Taverns, enjoying some good food and drink, reflecting on previous adventures, when all of a sudden this guys starts jumping on our table, swinging his swords at us. Anyone who uses headphones knows how annoying that is. Anyways, it totally killed the mood, distracted me out of the fantasy world I was enjoying, and just reminded me of how clueless people can be. And I could think of no other reason for someone to do that than to simply be a nuiscance. There are sveral good ways to get one's attention: through an emote, through a tell, or merely be standing close by and waiting. Imagine runninga PnP campaign at a local gaming hall. The DM is describing the situation as you close your eyes and envision it. The picture becomes so vivid that you are no longer in the gaming hall, but rather inside the gameworld - a world so life-like, no computer could hope to match. And then: BAM! Some dude starts jumping up and down on your table waving his arms madly as papers, dice, and books go flying everywhere. Now tell me that wouln't get on your nerves.
Another great think about DDO is that it is a TRUE RPG. In fact, it is the mother of all RPGs. What do you do in an RPG? You Role-Play. You create a fantasy character who lives and ventures within a fantasy world. You give them a name, a general backround of who they are, where they come from, and a reason for doing what they do. You give them features, decide their strengths and weakness, as well as decide the path they are to undertake. You choose what they say, what they do, and how they do it. You inevitable give this character life. They are the sole medium through which you experience the world in which they exist. And this experience is only possible through your character. You cannot play DDO without RPing. You can only control the degree to which you wish to immerse yourself into the fantasy world. Such degree may depend on your mood and level of focus, but you cannot seperate the RP from and RPG.
Thus I return now to the first part of this thread. I disliked WoW because it did not allow for the meaningful choices necessary for an enriching RP experience, nor did the game contain the right level of complexity to fully immerse oneself into it. Why I choose DDO: it offers that and much more. The only thing I dislike about DDO: the buzzkillers that bring too much reality into an otherwise wondrous fantasy world.