Dungeons & Dragons Online Previews

Now that the NDA has been lifted, a handful of websites have released hands-on previews for Turbine’s Dungeons & Dragons Online: Stormreach. The first is at Ten Ton Hammer:

More than the scenery, the traps in the game were fun, and the creatures interesting to fight with fairly good artificial intelligence (AI). Kobolds would attack and leap away if you concentrated too hard on hitting them. Spell casters were intelligent in their spell casting. A couple times gates would drop down between myself and my fellow party members, usually meaning a group of creatures would attack on one side of the gate from the shadows. Depending on which side of the bars I was on, this was a prelude to me fighting to survive or casting healing and protective spells on fellow party members who were fighting on the other side of the bars from me.

The second is at GameAmp:

The looting system is extremely party friendly. Each chest or lootable item which is found may be looted by each party member. Each character will receive their own loot from each item. This is yet more evidence towards the fact that DDO is geared towards parties. In fact you will receive no XP or loot loss from having a full party of 6 characters versus just soloing by yourself. The same amount of monsters will be present as well making parties the way to go even when looking at leveling from an XP / hr stand point.

The third is at GamerGod:

I’ve looked into many other small things in my few weeks playing the game, and overall I am very happy. The game indeed does have the D&D feel despite the changes that Turbine made. The game does have its bugs; it’s still in Beta for a few more months after all. Turbine is responding to them all and has already fixed many. The game also has people who are unhappy with one aspect or another, but it is mostly minor matters. Turbine is listening to the Beta testers on what things need improvements. They are not letting the players make decisions for them, however, and always make sure to remember the vision they have for keeping this game true to D&D.