Dungeons & Dragons Online: Stormreach Preview

PRE-E3 2005: First Look

When it comes to fantasy role-playing games, most of the titles available for the massively multiplayer online market borrow from the pen-and-paper title that began it all, Dungeons & Dragons. Most claim to be founded on the D&D ruleset, but will willingly admit that most of those rulesets have been modified for the sake of gameplay. 

Turbine Entertainment, in conjunction with Atari, is looking to reverse that trend, by stepping back and immersing the game players in the D&D world, complete with the residing ruleset. The game is Dungeons & Dragons Online, an MMO slated for release in December.

The title will be the first and only “official” MMO based on the Dungeons & Dragons world belonging to Wizards of the Coast. That means there are likely to be a lot of expectations on the game, but that is a challenge that Turbine is willing to meet head-on.

Turbine was on hand at a recent Pre-E3 Editor’s event in San Francisco to show off the title. Ken Troop, lead designer, gave journalists a quick walkthrough of the nuances of the title and explained some of the goals of the project. 

He stated that not a lot of attention has been paid (at this stage) to the meta-economics or to crafting, though those are certainly areas that will be looked at as the game gets closer to release. The game is also all space instanced, meaning that when players enter a mission, they will only encounter the other players that comprise their venturing party, not random players who have wandered into that zone. The game has a “noir” feel to it, and implements classic D&D elements. There will be a guild structure in place, and players can forge alliances with NPC (non-playing characters) organizations. 

“It’s a system we want to be easy to learn,” Troop said. And while the game takes place in a new land, Eberron, Troop said that “we weren’t interested in creating a world, we were interested in creating a setting.”

The setting is a viable world full of monsters, traps, treasure and high adventure. Turbine is also looking at smaller server caps than most other games sport, but will counter with population caps for guilds (which right now is around 50), and smaller city sizes. The idea, of course, is to create balanced character classes (again, right from the D&D manuals) with each class bringing unique skills to the party venturing environment. Traps can not only injure players, but will work against monsters as well. If players die in an instanced zone, and go back to the city to resurrect, they will not be able to re-enter the zone. There are altars within dungeons that can be used to rez fallen comrades, and clerics have the ability as well.

The combat system looks strong (this was not a hands-on look), with players given the ability to dodge and block attacks. With partially destructible environments, the game looks like it will have strong class-oriented combat interplay.

Graphically the game was a little more muted, in the color scheme, than expected. Browns played a strong role in the game’s visual design, and there were a lot of pastels in the city shown. But the animation and effects were wonderful and the game’s environment, from the jungle to the dungeon, was diverse and intriguing.  

D&D Online looks to have solid game mechanics, from the imaginative environments to the great combat style, and – of course – all this is underscored with the D&D ruleset. The game is looking terrific and has all the earmarks for a classic MMO experience come December.