Avast me hearties and welcome to Day 1
of Free to Play Week. We have chills, spills and thrills awaitin' ye
brave enough to journey forward but make no mistake! For death
awaits you all with big, sharp, pointy teeth and breath that could
concuss a cow. Ahem... excuse me but it is just fun to dramatize
now and then.
From the humble beginnings of TSR
(Tactical Studies Rules) and from the hands of Gary Gygax and Dave
Arneson this realm was devised for table top gaming in 1974 to being
a staple in the Wizards of the Coast publications, Dungeons &
Dragons has seen four decades in as one of the first role-playing
games available. But what if you cannot get all your friends around
a table, have soda and rip off famous sci-fi fantasy and horror
movie lines? Enter Turbine's development of Dungeons & Dragons
Online: Stormreach.
Death from above! |
Beta tested in August 1, 2005, Turbine
sent mass emails and invites to a public alpha testing this open
ended fantasy game allowing parties to be formed, bonds to be forged
and even dragons to be slain as the party learns teamwork and proper
treasure sharing... or so we are lead to believe. Within the first
hour of being on the attitude of the massive server seems to be XP
(experience points) Fantatics, 8 Hour Gamers
(Hopping from one long campaign to the next) , the lost
NEWBIES (New Person)and the rude NOOBS (New Person who
is ignorant, swears and in general demands all the knowledge without
any experience). Quests ranging from 20 minutes to up to
hours on end can be a hassle to lower appendages, bladder and hunger
issues.
Avengers Assem... oh wait, that is a law suit waiting to happen. |
After 4 hours on here as I have not
frequent it as often as I had in the past, this was a steep learning
curve. Fortunately for me, I came across a party of easy going folk
that simply wanted to take out goblins and later tackle some orcs.
All this for more experience points in order to level up their
characters. Our wizard was a bit whiny on needing potions and
demanded someone stay by him in order to cast spells and watch his
back so he was not jumped but all in all a fun time of hack and
slashing evil creatures and looting the bodies.
Now, the hook. Other adventures can
only be added to your existing collection if you have either Turbine
Points or simply a credit/debit card or Paypal purchase to these
different modules. You can even do a monthly charge of 9.99 and
there are items, weapons and spells at cost. Make no mistake, guys
and dolls this is a money pit if you are not careful. "Hey,
where did that guy get that flaming broadsword of many hurts??!!"
"Why, I bought it at ddo.com," Events are held through
out the months offering prizes, funds and treasure for the hard
hitting dungeon divers as well as the casual player.
Overall, the game play's camaraderie is
pretty sound. Yes, there are some rude people hiding being enmity but you will have that in any form of electronic media and these
trolls sadly you cannot slay with silver but simply ignore. The
graphics are sound, the audio is most impressive but take it from me,
if you do not want to hear every town, campsite or dungeon babbled
about via narrator or Dungeon Master, go to audio and tweak the
sounds. Chatting and IM codes differ from some games like Warcraft
but essentially the same. Combat can lag only if you are swarmed by
beasties or the servers is overloaded with so many folks onboard.
This system will only cost what you put in it, so mind your spending
like any other nonessential purchase.
I'M HUGE!!! Dig me. |
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