Dungeons & Dragons Online® Reviews

This MMO is very different than other MMOs on the market, so it's mostly a love/hate case. Personally I find it very relaxing and i like its gameplay. The graphics are a bit dated if that bothers you. Though the gameplay is pretty good and requires teamwork in later levels.

Even though this game is pretty dated and the community isn't as big as i'd like, It's still a very fun game. It's got the classic MMORPG feel that I love, but with all kinds of mechanics unique to this game that make it pretty special.

I have to say this is my favorite MMO of all time. I have played off and on since 2006. The game is just different from other MMOs. The dungeons and combat have a way of making you feel like you are in the world. Trapped down in a dungeon. At times you will find yourself just barely getting through a dungeon. The best way to enjoy this game in my opinion is to get a small group of friends (2-6). Even if it's just two of you. Only play the game together if possible, and only run dungeons on elite. The joy of experiencing a fresh dungeon with a few friends, and not knowing what is around the corner is much of what this game has to offer. That feeling of getting one shot by a trap is beyond anything I have seen in a MMO. The game suffers from a few balance issues, but it's acceptable given the amount of customization it has to offer. The microtransactions are fair. I would say just get a sub and everything else is pretty unnecessary. It’s always fun to come back to DDO and run some dungeons with friends.

I won't sugar-coat this. This game is dated as all hell, and it shows mostly in the graphics department. Beyond this little bit, the game is VERY fun, can be incredibly challenging (scaling difficulty), and is in my top 5 favorite games of all time. It's based around 3.5 rules in terms of character creation, but apart from only being able to multiclass into 3 total classes, the character levelling process is staggeringly varied, and the best part is that most builds will work to some degree, whether it be a niche setup, a full out min-maxed badass, or some fun little generalist you enjoy tinkering around with. You might not be clearing Epic Elite Reaper 5 difficulty quests on everything, but there's many settigns you can try, as well as solo/group support on every quest and dungeon. If you've got some spare time and are looking for something MMO-based, but still want the ability to explore on your own, give this game a shot. It's free to start, and you can unlock most game content withuot spending a penny. Some things are gated by Micro-Transactions, but they aren't required to enjoy the game, and merely add more options and more flavor to an already packed game.

I've played allot of MMOs, and this is my favorite by far - I even like it more than my first MMO, which I played for 4+ years and still love. I don't like it just because it's D&D; I don't care about that. DDO has the most complex, demanding, and rewarding game mechanics I've seen - by far. The dungeons are carefully crafted to [on the harder settings, which you can control completely when subscribed] require intense strategizing: if you screw around for a second, if you don't think your way through every moment, you will fail. But, when you learn the system, and set the difficulty correctly, it's also completely fair. The dungeons provide an extremely wide variety of carefully crafted strategic situations, and regularly surprises you as everything suddenly spirals out of control due to intentionally placed surprises - this, however, becomes a nonexistent factor once you've played through them once [changing trap locations aside]. Though they've implimented a new system which can randomly spawn very potent enemies which demand some strategic changes. The intitial dungeons [levels 1-3] aren't a great example of my claims, especially on F2P, since you won't be able to increase the difficulty to the hardest settings without first playing through the easier settings. But, give it time. The game is also stellar for team-play: every class has dramatic strengths over other classes, which when combined, make your team that much more powerful. Though I personally consider this game to be, mechanically, decades ahead of all other titles, it has many flaws. Though the mechanics are extremely complex and fair [both the character building system, and combat], the game nevertheless has a wide variety of minor yet annoying bugs. Game-breaking? No; if we exclude the atrocious hireling AI. I don't recall ever being deep in a brutal dungeon and losing because of a bug. Nevertheless, you'll just have to get used to issues which have always existed on this old engine. Nothing to be done about it. And while the mechanics function correctly, and are precisely fair, there are a wide variety of issues when it comes to understanding them: there is very little explanation of how many of the mechanics work [even ddowiki, which is your best source of information, has blindspots], so you'll be spending allot of time researching from multiple sources. For example: many tooltips for spells and skills are incomplete or blatantly - unbelievably - inaccurate. Another issue to keep in mind is that the game can be a serious money-pit, even when carrying a subscription: there are numerous convenience upgrades which can only be bought with real money. Though many of those upgrades can be earned ingame through simply playing, are available as long as subscribed, and a subscription includes currency which can be spent toward those upgrades. All that aside, when deciding whether or not to commit, keep in mind that I have understated the complexity of the system, and that you will have to learn a great deal if you want to play on the level of difficulty which I love. Also that, to be completely blunt, you will need to play with at least 2 total people - ideally 3 or more, if you want to get the most out of the game. Though you can simply turn down the dungeon difficulty, and use "hirelings" for most situations while soloing, there are nevertheless many which demand specific classes and multiple people. There are plenty of player groups [guilds] to join. In total: If you're the hardest-core strategist, if you love extremely tight team-play, this is the absolute best option for you - though remember that you need to carefully calibrate the difficulty settings, and your second playthrough of a dungeon will remove the surprises. Still, it's a flawed masterpeice; you will have to take the bad with the good. To whomever was in charge of building this game's mechanics: I consider myself in your debt, for the joys you've granted me. I appreciate and understand the intense mastery you possess and hope you are given your due.

In short: I strongly recommend this game WITH 2-4 friends in tow. Otherwise, given the current state of the community, I strongly recommend against it! Note: Some folks are having problems with becoming a subscriber or purchasing in the market. This is a problem with the Steam launcher. To circumvent, you need to go to your Steam folder ...\steamapps\common\Dungeons and Dragons Online\ and run TurbineLauncher.exe. The long version: I had thousands of hours of gameplay prior to acquiring on Steam. I have recently returned to check it out. DDO, iirc, was the first Western mmo to go f2p-microtransactional. With Daybreak Games acquiring publishing rights recently, it's unclear how bad microtransactions will become. The claim is that DBG won't have undue influence, but this could easily be pushed into the P2W zone. That said, DDO remains the "unique" mmorpg out there. Nuts-and-bolts it was built with grouping, suspense, problem solving, humor, quirkiness and discovery in mind, rather than grind or plain action. In its prime, it had 4 core group roles, with a nod to a fith: tank, healer, dps, trapper and a lil' bit control. The trapper was essential for finding and disarming invisible traps and unlocking key doors. For newcomers who find a balanced and patient/dungeon-crawl group, the experience is unparalleled. DM narration, complex dungeon/mission mechanics (vs simple boss scripting), puzzles, and slower pacing really do rival your most acute PNP nostalgia. Like all mmorpg's, however, the dev team has allowed this to degrade into solo'able content, or dps biased grouping. But unlike other mmo's, the original experience is still viable and worthwhile! The graphics aren't 'modern,' but they have always had an ineffible charm.

Introduction; I have spent many hours on this game over the years, and even though it may feel a little antiquated now, it is still one of the best RPG's that I have played in a very long time. It feels like a true RPG, and a true adaptation of the AD&D Rule Set that true AD&D gamers are familiar with. There is none of that level scaling crap in this game which has become a trend recently. It is all leveled content. This is one of the few games which I install every time I have to do a re-install of Steam for what ever reason. The Game; The world is huge, to be frank. AD&D has access to areas of the Forgotten Realms region that, I assume most of us are familiar with, as well as the main city hub of Stormreach, and several huge explorer regions. For instance, when you get into the Forgotten Realms Campeign setting, you gain access to Evening Star, and eventually gain the keys to the city. If you don't want to be there, then you can go to Stormreach, the Kings Forest, or even the Underdark. The game has all of the usual enemies which you would associate with the AD&D world, including Dryads, Dire Bears, Kobolds, Druids, and Drow. The enemies are plentiful, the loot is plentiful, and the traps which can be powerful enough to kill you in one shot, are also plentiful. It is a true AD&D game in every way. The amount of loot that can be acquired from various quests is so expansive that I cannot list them all here, but there is everything from +5 Daggers, to +6 Docents, to +1 Kite Shields, to specific, named loot. It turly is immense, and the amount of ways to get that loot is even more expansive especially considering the depth of the crafting system, and the wilderness areas which contain specific bosses who can be farmed for fat lewt. On top of that, farmable item sets of great power can be farmed in Evening Star, simply by farming event tokens in the Kings Forest. That only takes a few nights to get, and you are essentially fully geared. The quests are plentiful for both groups, raids and solo players. The main issue with that however, is that the servers can feel a little empty at the minute, but to help tackle this issue, the game does still receive constant new updates. Later this year for instance (2017), the development team will be releasing the Ravenloft expansion pack. Besides which, you can cut the need to do low level content out by purchasing the Shadowfell Conspiracy Expansion Pack and start from level 15 with a heroic class. Furthermore, a lot of the content does not require a group, so there is nothing stopping you from playing solo, scene as every class has access to certain spell casting and healing items. With all that said, the game is ageing well, for a 10 year old game. The highlight of this entire game however, is the level of character customisation. Every character can be specifically customised in a variety of ways, whether it is through the character generation screen when you first start, or through the epic destiny system, or the tallents trees. For instance I play a mage, that might sound boring at first, until you realize that I play a 20th level Eldritch Knight / Pale Master with 7 Epic Levels in Draconic Lineage. That makes him one bad ass character in both melee and for spell casting. The range of spells available are not only equal to anything in the original 2nd edition AD&D rule set, but also exceede it, because of these epic level spells and the abilities granted through the tallent trees. Updates; As I mentioned earlier, the game is constantly updated, and always in the right direction. New raids, new quests, new player races are added, and a whole plethora of other things are usually added. THERE IS NO NERFING which is important to mention, because the trend these days seems to be that if something is deemed too powerful, nerf it and that is usually your update in other games. That doesn't happen in AD&D DDO. Instead, we get new raids, new quests, new loot, new hero classes and races, in otherwords, content that we actually ask for. It is all done right. I would highly recommend buying both of the available expansions packs however. In particular, The Shadowfell Conspiracy DLC is well worth purchasing on F2P accounts. If you plan to do some F2P gaming on DDO, especially as a solo player, without having to pay a subscription fee, buy that DLC pack before you do anything else. I will tell you why below. These are probably my two main gripes against the game. I don't like the fact that you may feel like you are forced to buy content packs to get the most out of the game if you don't want to subscribe to DDO, or want to treat DDO as entirely F2P, but you can work around this by buying the expansion packs instead. The only times that locked content may be a pain though, is if you are farming for specific loot, and that loot is only available in a certain part of the game world that you do not have access too, or when you may want to do a quest with your friends, and you don't have access to those quests because you haven't unlocked them. My other gripe is that I really don't like how Spell Points are regenerated via Rest Shrines. Rest Shrines can be used every 5 minutes, 15 minutes, or once only, depending on the difficulty setting. This isn't a problem really for classes who don't use spells, but since many of us do, SP management becomes critical, and that is also the chief reason why I chose to play an Eldritch Knight. Even when my toon runs out of SP, he can still go melee. The SP elixers should also drop much, much more frequently in game, and I don't think that they should be listed on the store in all honesty. Selling Spell Point recovery pots may be seen P2W, and may put potential new players off DDO. Subbing Vs F2P. don't bother subbing over a long period of time, it is not worth it. The only real benefit to subbing is the "free" DDO store points that you get each month. There is a better, cheaper way to unlock most of the games content on F2P accounts, wihtout ever having to pay a subscription fee; 1: Buy the Shadowfell Conspiracy Pack. This will unlock a shit load of content and allow you to start from level 15, as a heroic class character. This will also make a lot of the lower level, locked content worthless. 2: Buy the Menace of the Underdark Pack. This will unlock the Forgotten Realms setting as well as the Drow Race and Druid Class, and give you a permanent xp boost for your account. 3: Use any store points given to buy the "Hall of Heroes pass" so that you can transfer between Eberon and Eveningstar without having to fight Lolth on a new toon each time. Subbing for a year would cost well over $100. Buying both of the expansion packs and the Hall of Heroes Pass costs around $50 and you will unlock a lot of the base games content. you then have access to that content forever, without ever having to pay a subscription fee and can start a new toon at level 15, with access to those campeign settings instantly, forever. Conclusion. I can whole heartedly recommend this game at the minute. I am slightly nervous because news broke recently that the Development Team were teaming up with Daybreak Studios, which is a bad sign in my book, but still, I am willing to give them the benefit of the doubt, for now simply because I enjoy this game so much. IF DAYBREAK do anything to harm the success and longevity of this game, I will never have anything good to say about that business again, and I will probably hate them until the end of my days. For now, I will continue to actively support this game, and I do plan to buy the Ravenloft Expansion pack later this year, if for no other reason than the goodies it should contain. Hopefully, aside from the new content, it will include new heroic races, Experince Tomes, and DDO points. We shall have to wait and see though, how well this unholy alliance with Daybreak plays out.

I've played this for years and still have a lot of fun. New expansions and content constantly increase the play and variety. While a lot of content requires purchase or subscription, you can also earn points from playing that will allow you to purchase that same content. Admitedly the totally free route is much more of a grind, so you may find you want to purchase or subscribe for convenience. Overall a beautiful full 3D game, with movement in all directions including high altitudes and deep pits and water you have to swim through. There is day, night, rain, sunshine, multiple moons moving across the sky and beautiful sunsets. And yes, there be dragons too! There are a lot of areas, but you seldom have to run too far as there are telporters and guild ship docks all around to move you quickly to the various regions. Choose the difficulty that makes your play the most fun while still challenging - casual, normal, hard, elite and the new "reaper" mode. Many in-game Guilds welcome players - players' "renown" build up the guild and your character receives numerous buffs as the guild level increases. A rather unique feature in DDO is the ability to reincarnate. Tired of your current capped build? Have it start again from level 1, but stronger and better each time you reincarnate. While DDO characters only have 30 levels there are 5 sub-levels within each level. Each of these sub-levels or Action Points are roughly equivalent to a level in other MMOs, so it's comparable to 150 levels in other games. There are hundreds of quests to play either on your own, with your friends, with potential new friends, or even purchase an AI hirling to help out. The game starts in the D&D Eberron world, but has expansions to Forgotten Realms and soon Ravenloft. There are also questpacks for D&D modules Against the Slave Lords, Temple of Elemental Evil and Haunted Halls of Eveningstar. Normal quests have up to 6 players and raids have up to 12 players. There are so many ways to customize your character, You can even take multiple classes and try to combine benefits from both. But it's also fairly forgiving and if you make mistakes you can adjust the difficulty, rebuild your character or just wait and reincarnate into a better version. While the game has a lot of features, is very "learn as you go" and you don't have to do everything. E.g. Craft it you want or skip it altogether. Most of all I simply enjoy playing and experiencing the various worlds within the game.

This is one of the old school grouping favored MMOs that well, we just don't see anymore. This is not your World of Warcraft aka: Forever Quest for +Gooder items. Items are meaningful, the world is huge and its D&D. Excellent character building. D&D 3.5 is an amazing system. Pros: Old School feel Grouping encouraged and easy D&D 3.5 Traps matter Excellent itemization Excellent character building Big Huge World with tons of content Lot's of free content Cons: Graphics a bit dated in some areas D&D 3.5 can be daunting The store is not pay to win, but can be costly.

I have been playing this game for years and only recently started playing it through steam. I would say my actual hours are probably closer to 2000. this is a huge, well established MMO with tons of content. if you like customized builds, look no further. you have the ability to create your character from the ground up. you choose where every ability, skill, feat and enhancement point goes, and you can even multiclass. ever wondered how an Archer Monk Wizard would fare in combat? Now you can find out. Quests are anything but the repetitive "find 12 of this". most quests have you go through intricate dungeons that have puzzle solving and traps and interesting story lines. while the game is less biased to balanced parties than it used to be, you will certainly reap rewards by teaming up with friends or other players although solo play is quite viable. The game is nearly infinite in how playable it is. once you reach max level you have a variety of options that allow you to continue improving your character by "reincarnating" back to a lower level, different class, etc in exchange for more feats, enhancements and ability points. as I mentioned earlier there is also a massive amount of quests and content to go through, and the devs regularly come out with more. The game is free to play and I would say it is fairly free to play. expansion packs are the only things you have to purchase with real money (if you want them) other than that all the quest packs and quality of life items can be purchased through in game points that you gain from completing quests. I am very much against the pay to win trend you see in alot of f2p games and even paid games these days however this game is not one of those. if you get serious about the game you probably will put real money into it in order to buy the expansions or pick up some of the adventure packs you don't want to grind for but there are no lootboxes or gambling and everything is reasonably priced. Getting to max level as well as getting good gear is very achievable without paying anything. out of all the games I have spent time on, I would say this has actually been one of the least expensive when I compare how much enjoyment I have gotten out of it over time. If you are into MMOs and like excellent fantasy lore, challenging dungeons, highly customized characters and don't want to spend alot of $$$ for a full gaming experience, I would highly reccomend dungeons and dragons online.