Alternative World

The alternative world I chose to explore was Dungeons and Dragons Online. I chose this because I don't really know much about Dungeons and Dragons, though I do know they got much of the inspiration for their ideas from Tolken, and Blizzard got many of their ideas from Dungeons and Dragons. I wanted to experience WoW's grandfather, even if it wasn't traditional D&D. I know one of the primary goals was to get past the newbie area and explore elsewhere, but true to its namesake, leveling is very, very slow.

First impressions were not terribly positive. I have limited experience with any MMO other than WoW, save for a few hours jaunt into Guild Wars and feeling brave enough one to install the EVE Online demo - that didn't last long, I opened the title screen, decided it wasn't worth the time or effort, and uninstalled it. Basic UI and the way the basic gameplay handled though was just like WoW - granted, I do mean using WASD to move, mouse to look around, and the number keys to use spells. Anything that was too much a derivative from that would probably be very clumsy, I think.

I played as a Warforged monk - pretty much a robot that punches and kicks things, occasionally I could use a staff as well. It sounds a lot more awesome than it actually is. Race means a lot more in Dungeons and Dragons online than it does it in WoW; in WoW the primary reason to pick a race is aesthetics. While all races have racial abilities, they aren't something anyone relies on by a long shot, they're more like little extra bonus spells if anything - especially since a lot of them eventually scale so badly they're useless, like the Blood Elf and Dranei abilities. The race I chose (normally a race you have to buy extra, but I borrowed a friend's account) was immune to many things that non - robots are susceptible to, like drowning, poison, sleep, paralysis. On the downside, normal healing spells didn't help much, but the 'repair' skill did. Other classes are traditional D&D fare, dark elves, dwarves, humans, elves, and halflings - all lifted from Tolken, but that's not really the point.

I was honestly hoping to see more of the origin of some parts of WoW, but like I said I didn't get that far into it. I probably should have also played a more tradition race / class, like a human mage or a dwarven warrior, but I really wanted to be a robot. With my limited experience as a rogue / druid in WoW, I can say the combat felt similar, as a high - dps melee class limited by the weapons it can use. DDO - or at least the starting city, is very small. I got the impression everyone starts there, and virtually all fighting / questing seems to be instances. My first quest and venture into the game was to go into a cellar and kill rats. The originality of this was astounding, I could barely contain my enthusiasm. I partied with some random person to see what the party system is like - you can still see the hp and mana off your party members like WoW, so that's nothing new. Granted, anything different would be pretty dumb. The quest was actually surprisingly difficult - I probably could have soloed it if I had a better idea what I was doing, but I turned off the tutorial out of habit and to also learn the hard way. I started with more abilities - I don't really want to call them spells, but that is pretty much what they are - than you do in WoW, and not being familiar with how to play a monk I basically button mashed and hoped I didn't die - which I didn't.

Graphically, the game also looks radically different. WoW is brightly colored and cartoonish, with DDO is all about the rust, brown, and grey. Overall, I think WoW takes itself significantly less seriously, while DDO is meant to appeal to the tabletop players who are, on average, more hard core than the average WoW player.