Tag: Dungeons and Dragons Online

Try LOTRO and DDO In Your Browsers With Gaikai


Well, don’t get your hopes up. Turbine today announced Gaikai, allowing players to trial Lord of the Rings Online and Dungeons and Dragons Online without having to download either game’s client. Playable through your browser, the trial is heavily limited: One hour, due to technical issues that prevent any repeat or extended play at this time.

Currently, the LOTRO trial on Gaikai will allow you to play for up to one full hour. For most players, this will allow you to create your character and complete the starting area for your race. At the end of the trial, you will be logged out from the game and your character and progress will be stored on our servers. You will then be provided with links to download the game client to continue your adventure.

You can find the entire FAQ at the link below, this promotion (for now at least) is only an incentive to give the game a try.

(Source: LOTRO website)

Turbine Breaking Out The Forgotten Realms


Less than a week ago I discussed findings on the Dungeons and Dragons Online forums by sleuths far more skilled than myself, that Turbine has been buying up domains relating to Forgotten Realms and “____ of the Underdark,” as well as related to the fictional deity Lolth. Well that speculation has come to fruition, in a far shorter time than I had expected (generally domains are registered when the work is still in the “we can trash this if we ultimately don’t like it” stage, to prevent information leaking and squatters taking the domain). Turbine has announced the upcoming expansion to Dungeons and Dragons Online: Menace of the Underdark.

Menace of the Underdark takes place in the Forgotten Realms village of Eveningstar, and the area surrounding King’s Forest. Players will battle the forces of Lolth and the Underdark Drow. To aid them in their fight, the level cap is being raised to 25, and players will have access to the new Druid class.

Happy birthday, Dungeons and Dragons Online. A new class, Forgotten Realms, and an upcoming free adventure pack? Color my account reactivated. Menace of the Underdark is expected to hit sometime this summer.

(Source: DDO website)

Turbine Vs Cryptic: Turbine Introducing Forgotten Realms?


In the past, I’ve discussed the ongoing “fight” between Turbine and Cryptic Studios over how Cryptic’s upcoming Neverwinter MMO will directly compete with Turbine’s Dungeons and Dragons Online. After an undisclosed settlement with Turbine, Cryptic made it clear as day that Neverwinter is not an MMO, and never will be an MMO. That being said, when Perfect World Entertainment purchased Cryptic, the developer did a flip and announced that the game would be a full open world MMO.

According to DDO Cast, Turbine has been busy purchasing domain names relating to Dungeons and Dragons, as well as Forgotten Realms. The optimist in me wants to believe that Turbine is planning on throwing the first punch by expanding the game into Forgotten Realms territory, and pulling back any customers who might have left for Cryptic’s game. The pessimist in me, however, feels the need to point out that companies buy domain names all the time for a variety of reasons. A selection of domains are below:

ddounderdark.com
ddoforgottenrealms.com
ddo-motu.com
lolthiscoming.com (Lolth is coming, thank you comments.) 

But why is this relevant? The Dungeons and Dragons community is fractured (to say the least) when it comes to Eberron and Forgotten Realms, to the point where some won’t even touch Turbine’s MMO because it takes place in the former rather than the latter. In the event that Turbine does launch a Forgotten Realms expansion, it would offer a substantial increase to their potential player base.

(Source: DDO Cast)

Additional Links:

Turbine Issues Account Security Warning


Greetings,

Turbine is concerned that a third-party recently may have attempted to access forum account information. There is no indication at this time that your account was modified or compromised. For your protection we suggest you change the password to a unique, hard to guess password not associated with any other sites or services. If you changed your password after October 11th, then you can disregard this message.

To change your password, please follow these steps:

  1. Go to https://myaccount.turbine.com/ and click on “Forgot your password?” You may also click this in the game launcher.
  2. Follow the instructions on how to recover your password. A new password will be sent to this e-mail address.
  3. Once you have received the password reset e-mail, change your password. Please remember to use unique, hard-to guess passwords that are not associated with other online services or sites.

Turbine takes your account security seriously. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact us at https://support.turbine.com/. You may submit a new inquiry to our Customer Service team, and they will be able to assist you further.

Thank you,

Turbine Support

(Source: Email sent out to Turbine account holders.)

Turbine: Change Your Passwords


Number one question coming into MMO Fallout over the past few days: Has username and password information been stolen from Turbine’s forums? The answer, until something official can be confirmed, should be taken as a probably. While not confirming that any data was stolen, Turbine posted a news bulletin of the forum maintenance with the added note that polayers should change their passwords.

As an additional precaution we recommend that all players change their passwords by visiting http://myaccount.turbine.com. Please remember to use unique, hard-to guess passwords that are not associated with other online services or sites, and always look for and report unusual activity in your account to Turbine customer support.

I recommend changing your password proactively.

Week In Review: Tardiness Is Not Tolerated Edition


здравствуйте! I’ve been spending the past few days not on homework or work-work, on figuring out exactly how I want to inject videos into MMO Fallout, as I’ve promised many times in the past. My first video, that I’ll hopefully release in the next week or so, is a quick look at the Sony Authenticator. Since my skills with improvisation in front of a microphone are essentially zilch, I’m taking the old fashioned model of writing out a script.

Needless to say, what did I miss?

1. There Was No Ganking In The Old Republic

Any game with player vs player of any kind faces this issue: How liberally do we allow ganking? A majority of games take the approach of rule-bound servers, where players can choose from PvE (only in certain areas) or PvP (virtually everywhere). A select few, including Darkfall and Mortal Online, have mandatory PvP all over, with the exception of small safe zones. Bioware’s statement on the matter:

To put it bluntly: If that is your fantasy, you will have to find another game, because The Old Republic will not cater to that. For every player who enjoys that particular fantasy, there are a lot of players that don’t enjoy being on the receiving end of it. That’s a fact, a business lesson learned from existing, still running MMOs.

Good.

2. Dungeons and Dragons Online: The Offline Novel

The Shard Axe: An Eberron Novel is hardly out of the ordinary if you’ve read a Dungeons and Dragons book before. The story follows Sentinel Marshal Sabira d’Deneith, and surprisingly requires little knowledge of the world inside. The story does a great job of explaining places and people, in great detail, to newcomers of the series, and doesn’t tie-in with the game at all aside from a few locations. The action is quick, brutal, and author Marsheila Rockwell does a wonderful job painting believable characters in mythical situations that are just magical enough to still be grounded in some sort of realism.

The Shard Axe is a decently sized book at 352 pages, and is a must for any fan of Dungeons and Dragons novels, fantasy novels, or the MMO. You can buy it in paperback for around $7.99, or through your favorite ebook app for a minor price decrease.

Amazon

3. An MMO Coming To WiiU and Wii? Dragon Quest X

Now this is a surprising story. As a fan of the Dragon Quest series, the announcement of Dragon Quest X on the WiiU is about all the incentive I need to buy the console when it comes out next year. To add icing to the cake, however, the news feeds are buzzing that the game will feature persistent online multiplayer with components reminiscent of an MMO. The game, developed by Square Enix, apparently pairs up to the title enough that the game will carry a subscription fee in Japan (although this will likely be changed for American/European releases).

All I can say is where do I sign up?

4. Book #2: Book Series Based Off of Gods & Heroes

As it turns out, Heatwave Interactive has more plans for libraries than simply burning them down while murdering your family and leaving you for dead. Announced last week, Gods & Heroes is exiting the digital world and entering the world of paperback novels. Book I, titled “Blood and Laurels” is set to release at some point in the future by a nondescript author who has won an award. You can read an excerpt with the rest of the announcement here, with another excerpt to release on September 16th.

I have a feeling this is going to be one of those book-learning Week in Reviews.

5. Bi-Weekly Star Wars Galaxies Articles

I haven’t played Star Wars Galaxies since my last article on the game, but with my newly renewed Station Pass, I will be rebooting the previously weekly series as a bi-weekly piece.

Dungeons and Dragons Online: Now French/German


It’s that Cylon picture again! Must be another Dungeons and Dragons Online story. Technically when Turbine stated that they were “taking back” the Dungeons and Dragons service in Europe, from Codemasters, they shut the service down entirely. Instead, European Dungeons and Dragons players were transitioned over to the North American service, where they’ve been ever since. Not exactly a global service, especially considering it was one only available in English…Sorry!

Today, however, Turbine announced the launch of Dungeons and Dragons Global, and new languages with it. German and French players will be happy to know that their languages are now officially supported.

“We’ve successfully migrated players from the former European service and we are very excited to begin welcoming thousands more to DDO Unlimited,” said Fernando Paiz, Executive Producer of DDO Unlimited.  “This is going to be another outstanding year for the game as we continue to roll out new content and features for our growing legions of players.  We’re very excited to begin engaging directly with German and French speaking players and look forward to introducing them to a truly premium free to play MMORPG.”

Head over to this link to read a whole bunch of advertising lingo, or just go to ddo.com to sign up for an account. More on Dungeons and Dragons Online as it appears.

April Fool’s 2011 Roundup


April Fool’s is one of my favorite days of the year, because I love seeing what jokes companies will come up with, my personal favorite being Google’s yearly jokes. Today isn’t even over, and I think the award for the best joke goes to ArenaNet with Guild Wars, who not only created a trailer and page for the Commando class, but added in an entire mini-game to Guild Wars as a “preview.”

Here is an ongoing roundup of today’s jokes, good and bad.

April Fool's 2011 Roundup


April Fool’s is one of my favorite days of the year, because I love seeing what jokes companies will come up with, my personal favorite being Google’s yearly jokes. Today isn’t even over, and I think the award for the best joke goes to ArenaNet with Guild Wars, who not only created a trailer and page for the Commando class, but added in an entire mini-game to Guild Wars as a “preview.”

Here is an ongoing roundup of today’s jokes, good and bad.

Neverwinter Will Compete With D&D Online Directly


This article requires a bit of backstory, so if you are already in tune with the Atari Vs Turbine saga, feel free to skip ahead. To start, we must set the stage for the players in this ongoing drama. Wizards of the Coast owns the Dungeons and Dragons IP, and in turn license the video game creation to Atari, who in turn licensed the MMO rights to Turbine. Turbine creates Dungeons and Dragons Online, and pays royalties to Atari, who pay royalties to Wizards of the Coast. Atari owns Cryptic Studios, who were rumored to be creating a Neverwinter Nights MMO, in direct competition with Turbine.

Now this is where the story becomes shady. Turbine sued Atari, claiming that the company had plans to sabotage Dungeons and Dragons Online, in order to nullify the contract with Turbine, take over control of the MMO, and shut it down in preparation for release of a Neverwinter Nights MMO. Given Cryptic being Atari’s chief MMO studio, it was only a given that Bill Roper’s team would be leading the project in some secret underground base, likely in the middle of an active volcano. Although the lawsuit was settled and the terms kept secret, there was a distinct timing between the settlement and Cryptic announcing Neverwinter Online, specifically noting that the game was not an MMO. I theorized at the time that Atari agreed not to make any D&D MMOs as a result of the settlement.

[Backstory over]

I’m a little concerned over how quickly the public took this news and said “phew, at least Atari won’t be trying to destroy D&D Online,” and this raises the question: Is the fighting really over? Or is Atari still adamant in their attempts to shut down Turbine’s MMO, and set up a new title in an environment where they can benefit from more income? Consider this, if you will:

Dungeons and Dragons Online is an action-oriented cooperative combat role playing game where players meet up in a lobby, take quests, and raid dungeons in small groups. The game relies on class-based skills in order to accomplish feats such as disarming traps and finding secret passageways. Each class holds its own place in a team, and in solo will also require different means of play. The game is free to play and supported via VIP and cash shop revenue.

Neverwinter Online will be an action-oriented cooperative combat role playing game where players meet up in a lobby, take quests, and raid dungeons in small groups. The game relies on class-based skills in order to accomplish feats such as disarming traps and finding secret passageways. Each class holds its own place in a team, and in solo will also require different means of play. The game is free to play and supported via cash shop revenue and likely a VIP program. In addition, Neverwinter Online will also feature user-created dungeons and other yet-announced bits and pieces.

So when Cryptic stated that Neverwinter Online will not be an MMO, it’s important to remember that Dungeons and Dragons Online isn’t a true MMO either. The likelihood that the two titles will directly compete is high, simply because the mechanics in both games (at least as they are currently presented) are so similar.

Despite my past differences with Cryptic, I honestly believe that Neverwinter Online could be a great success because the fundamentals play to Cryptic’s strengths. Unlike Champions Online and Star Trek Online, both of which attempted to take a massive world and cram it into a tiny container, Neverwinter Online is in all train of thought built to be a small-scale cooperative game. Of course, given Cryptic’s choice of D&D rulesets to follow, they won’t be gathering in all of the Dungeons and Dragons fans, but if they stay true to the formula and bring the social experience to an online format, Neverwinter Online could be a real contender.

So I call bogus to the idea that Neverwinter won’t directly compete with Dungeons and Dragons Online, and feel that with the right developers behind the wheel, Neverwinter could wind up scooping a good amount of Turbine’s revenue.