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Italy has no shortage of Churches, Wine and Italian Food.

All the travel has shifted my gaming to more mobile pastimes. I've spent some time working on my 4E Eberron campaign, and I'm really excited to get back to playing. I was one of the great holdouts on moving to fourth edition, but now that I've made the switch, I'm absolutely hooked. They have put so much thought into making the game easy to run while making it your own. In 3.5, it was almost impossible to come up with custom creatures or items without worrying that you were going to break the balance of the game. 4E has made all of that so much easier that it's actually a lot of fun to come up with your own custom stuff (not to mention that digital tools like the Adventure Tools help a ton).

Speaking of digital tools - if you run a D&D game, you have to check out Masterplan. It is an amazing free application that lets you map out your entire campaign. You can build it out in flowchart mode, map out all of your encounters and experience (so you can see at any point how much XP your party will have earned, making planning level progression a breeze), and keep track of all those little details with the encyclopedia function. It also integrates with WotC's D&D Compendium, so you have all of that information at your fingertips from within the application, making encounter building fast. You can even export handouts or even entire modules at the click of a button. It is by far the best roleplaying tool I have found.

Other than that, I've been playing a ton of Tomb Raider: Anniversary on the PSP. I picked it up to play on the long plane rides, and I've found it completely addicting. Normally, I have a hard time getting into portable games, but I can't seem to put this one down. In fact I've spent the last few nights at home playing that instead of Mass Effect 2. Weird, I know.

Instead of playing Mass Effect 2 on a 42' HD LCD, I'm playing this.

I think I'm back in town for a while now, so I hoping to get back to at least a little more of a routine. I dug out my Warmachine stuff last night and started working on a Khador Decimator. I know this isn't a secret to anyone, but red is really hard to paint well. It just looks so obnoxiously bright while you are working on it, and those Khador 'jacks have such big flat spaces. If I get him done tonight, I'll post some pics. My FLGS is having a 15 point highlander (1-1-1-1) format event in a few weeks, and I'm thinking about playing the Reds in that... I like the occasional small point event - it makes trying out new factions very feasible. I'll keep you posted.

Labels: Dungeons and Dragons, Eberron, miniatures, roleplaying, RPGs, video games, Warmachine

Happy new year to my friends in the blogosphere! Here's hoping that 2009 treated you well, and that 2010 treats you even better! All told, it was a good year for me - I find myself more than a little disappointed that we are almost a decade into the twenty-first century and I still don't have a flying car or a robot sex slave, but what can a guy do? A new year always makes me feel both nostalgic and hopeful, and this morning I'm sitting at a coffee shop this morning looking back on the year gone by, and thinking a lot about the year to come, and I thought maybe I should put some of those thoughts to digital ink. So here goes...

Last year was my first full year playing Warmachine, and it was a great year. I've made some great new friends down at my FLGS, and I've learned a lot about how important a good community is to the health of a game. When I first started getting interested in Warmachine I was really intimidated. The game had been out for years, and was on it's fifth expansion. I hadn't really played tabletop games before, and I thought there was no way I would be able to get involved in any competitive way - but thanks to a great local community and an outstanding press ganger, I've been able to jump in with both feet. I've won more than I've lost, I've been in the hunt at several tournaments, and even placed third in out Breast Cancer Brawl!

Of course this year looks to be one of the best ever for Warmachine players. Mark II promises to clean up much of the sediment that has built up in the system over the years, and new models and books will revive interest after what felt like a long draught in 2009. We should see even more new players as the new rules level the playing field - at least for a short time. I know that I personally can't wait to get my hands on a Cyclone and a Firefly and put them to work!

I picked up a couple of started fleets for Firestorm Armada, and I'm hoping that game catches on (and that Spartan Games doesn't errata the rules to death like they did with Uncharted Seas). I'm a huge fan of Sci-Fi fleet combat stories like Jack Campbell's Lost Fleet series or David Weber's In Death Ground and Shiva Option, and I love the idea of playing out my own fleet-scale broadside battles in deep space. I have no idea if the game will even catch on locally, but I'm hoping I can find at least a few other folks with an interest.

I also finally got my D&D game back on track last fall. I DM a long-running Eberron game that went on hiatus late in 2008 when 4E hit the scene. Between D&D and Warmachine, it has become abundantly clear that a change in core rules (even for the better) is a disruptive thing, and the shift to fourth edition had quite an impact on our game. It was only after playing in a couple of RPGA events at PAX that everything clicked for us, and everyone finally decided that 4E was going to be a good thing. When we got back, we rebooted the game, and we've been having a blast ever since.

So, what's in store for 2010? We'll, I still have the goal of paining my entire Cygnar army (as well as their supporting mercs). I didn't make as much progress on that as I wanted to last year, so I'll have to keep working on that. I like to get a regular schedule and play Warmachine at least one time a week, and I need to do a better job of planning for (and defending) that time. I'd like to get my Khador army on the table and get some play time in there.

On the roleplaying side, I'd like to see my D&D game push well into the paragon tier and finish the current story arc of their campaign. I'd like to host of couple of "NanoCons" and run one-shot games of couple of other systems that I have a lot of interest in - most notably Spirit of the Century and CthulhuTech. I'd love to go to GenCon (I've never been!) but I need to figure out how to do that while still being able to attend PAX (GenCon is a convention, PAX is more like a family reunion.)

Ah, so much opportunity. There is nothing like the first day of a new year. Hope springs eternal, and none of my best-laid plans have had a chance to go completely to hell yet. Here's to a great year!

Labels: Dungeons and Dragons, Eberron, Firestorm Armada, miniatures, MKII, PAX, wargaming, Warmachine

A late Merry Christmas to everyone out there!

Every year around this time, I take a bunch of time off from work. It is one of my favorite breaks – not a lot is going on at the office, so I’m not worried about getting behind, and it’s the only time that I get to take time off and just stay home and just relax. We had company for the first half of the week, but the last of them went home this morning, leaving me next five days to relax and revel in geekish pleasures.

Knowing the break is coming, I laid out a laundry list of dorky activities I wanted to get accomplished. Of course, I wouldn’t be a true hobbyist if that list wasn’t several times larger than anything I could reasonably to hope to accomplish in the time allotted. Still, it’s my intention to give it a good effort. Here’s what I’ve got:

Wargaming: Warmachine Army

Since I got hooked on Warmachine over Thanksgiving, I’ve decided to put my Chaos Space Marine army on hold for a bit and focus on getting a full-fledged Warmachine army painted up. I have a significant amount of both Cryx and Cygnar pewter, but for now I decided to focus on Cygnar. I want to:

Finish my Trenchers. I’ve got three of ten trenchers painted now, and so far they look great. I think for the rest of them I’m going to experiment with a quasi-production line approach. I’m going to lay down the base color coats on all of them at the same time, and them probably shade and highlight them individually. As far as the models themselves, they are really beautiful and just ooze character. I am constantly amazed at the amount of detail Privateer Press puts into each model.

Finish my Stormblades. Okay, to be fair, the Stormblade unit is actually all finished, but I’m also working on the unit attachment. The Captain is done, but I still need finish the standard bearer. I’d love to leave the holiday break with two fully painted units.

Assemble my Sword Knights. I bought the Sword Knights unit boxed set along with an extra blister a while back, and then promptly stowed them away in the closet. After listening to the Pod Thralls list their “500 pts for 100 bucks” Cygnar list, I pulled them back out and decided they would be next up. Then I open the blister and looked at all the little parts. And then I puked a little in my mouth.

Roleplaying: Eberron Campaign

In my last post I talked a little bit about how much I like the Freeport setting. Over the last few weeks, I’ve spent a bunch of hours working on integrating it into my Eberron game, as our party will be spending a great deal of time in the Lhazaar Principalities. If there is any interest in seeing how I’m tying that all together, let me know, and I’ll post it. Beyond that, I’m “redeveloping” a significant portion of the Eyes of the Lich Queen to better fit our campaign and play style, so I’ve got a lot of work to do.

Video Games: A Cornucopia of XBOX Goodness

There is so much good stuff out on XBOX 360 right now that it is almost mind-numbing. I’ve been working through BioShock and Oblivion: The GOTY Edition, all the while playing through the Halo 3 campaign co-op over XBOX Live. To add to that already impressive list, my wife bought me Mass Effect for Christmas, and I used some Best Buy gift certificates to pick up The Orange Box. How I’m going to get through these and still take care of everything on the list above, I’m not sure, but it should be fun trying. That many A-List games at one time is truly remarkable, and that list still leaves CoD4: Modern Warfare and Assassin’s Creed waiting in the wings.

We live good lives.

Labels: consoles, Dungeons and Dragons, Eberron, miniatures, podcasts, RPGs, video games, wargaming, Warhammer 40K, Warmachine, XBOX

It's been a busy week at work once again, leaving me very little time for endulging in geekish pleasures. My visiting friend and I did manage to sqeeze in one last game of Warmachine before he left town, bringing an end to our best-of-three tournament. He won in the end, but the last game was our best yet. The final turn could have went either way, and ultimately came down to the luck of the dice. The big learning breaktrough in this game was when my friend discovered the joys of two-handed throwing my arc node around the battlefield with his Slayer, inventing the sport of 'Jack Bowling.

With him gone again, I've been moving back into developing my D&D campaign. I run an Eberron game about once a week, and we're in the middle of running a heavily-modified version of the Eyes of the Lich Queen module. We are just wrapping up the first act, about to head off and explore the Lhazaar Principalities. It just happens that one of our characters is also a Lhazaaran, and has quite a few unresolved "issues" lurking in her backstory. We are going to take advantage situation and make a few little side excursions to bring some of these to closure.

If you aren't familiar with Eberron, the Lhazaar principalities are pirate islands, and considering we were going to be spending some time there, I wanted to take full advantage of such a fun setting. Unfortunately, there isn't a lot of background on Lhazaar in the sourcebooks, so I went looking elsewhere for pirate-y goodness. Eventually I came across Green Ronin's Pirate's Guide to Freeport. I'd heard about Freeport here and there, and the reviews had all been good, so I took a chance and ordered a copy.

The book showed up earlier this week, and I've got to say, it's awesome. It's by far one of the best "flavor" books I own. It covers the pirate city of Freeport, and is built in such a way that you could play it as a stand-alone campaign setting, or drop it into any existing campaign with very little work. The world they create is rich and intriguing, and does an great job of blending swashbuckling pirate fiction with the classic high-fantasy of D&D. On top of that, it has a bunch of really nice art from Wayne Reynolds, who is my absolute favorite.

I assume because of the looming threat that is Fourth Edition, Green Ronin took a little different approach with The Pirate's Guide to Freeport - they made it system-less. That right - it's a great big book with nary a stat block in sight. Instead, they focused on just giving us the historical and descriptive stuff in this book, and they plan on releasing additional books with system-specific information later (the first two being a True20 and a d20 companion.)

Truth be told, I like this approach to producing game books much better. I'm pretty balanced in my appreciation of crunch vs. fluff, but I realized that I don't particularly like them mixed up together. I found myself wishing that more gaming books were built this way - setting books full of fluff and rich descriptions while the cruchy books could just be reference tomes of prestige classes, feats and spells. Iron Kingdoms did a very similar thing with their Character Guide and World Guide, and I really like how they turned out.

It also made me realize how stale the WotC stuff is becoming. It seems that WotC has been taken over by the rule designers, and the imagination of the products is suffering. Even the new modules focus heavily on providing a string of detailed tactical encounters rather than engaging plots with facinating charcters. As I've read through Freeport and the first four installments of Paizo's Pathfinder series, it makes me remember what I enjoyed about running games in the first place.

Labels: Dungeons and Dragons, Eberron, miniatures, RPGs, Warmachine

Well, it sounds like the other shoe has finally dropped, and Wizards has announced Dungeons and Dragons 4th Edition. Like some Cthulhuian beast clad in only in a shroud of black malice, it slithers forth from the darkest corners of my mind, its wet tentacles grasping, reaching. It is a shapeless dread, a formless fear, but I can feel dark eyes upon me, hungry and loathing. The malevolence is palpable.

If you haven’t read the news, stop now, and check out the official announcement, then bounce over to YouTube and watch the GenCon presentation videos, parts one, two and three. Finally, check out this Gamer Radio Zero podcast tries to tackle what this all means.

Honestly, I don't have a particularly good barometer of the general anxiety level that surrounds fourth edition, but I do know this – I am not excited. I agree that there is a lot wrong with the tired old workhorse that is D&D 3.5, but at this point I find the familiar brokenness of third edition akin to the comforting familiarity of a horribly dysfunctional marriage. The fourth edition might be better looking, have a great smile and a perky rack, but the gal I already have will cook me dinner.

What is the old saying? A bird in the hand is better than two in the bush?

Heh, he said bush.

There is also the very real financial investment I have already dumped into building my 3.5 library. I’ll be the first to admit that when it comes to my geekish hobbies I can become somewhat… compulsive. When D&D found its way back into my life after a fifteen-year hiatus, my investment in the hobby was fairly significant. I began with the Forgotten Realms, but when Eberron showed up on the scene I was hooked deep. At this point, I’ve own almost every hardcover they’ve put out on both campaign settings, plus a smattering of core books. That’s the kind of investment you don’t want to see just wash away - unfortunately, the early word makes it sound like cross-version rules compatibility is not in the cards.

Theoretically, it's easy enough to just say “I'll stick with 3.5 then,” but I think this is going to be a lot harder to do in practice. From a core rules standpoint, it’s not a huge issue, but it really hurts in terms of setting books. Eberron is only about half-documented at this point in its short life, so what now? Is campaign setting is going to be split across two different versions of rules? Am I expected to re-buy books?

If you follow that idea it leads to the next logical question: What does a fourth edition mean for the third party d20 licensees like the Iron Kingdoms or World of Warcraft? I'm not sure smaller presses (like Privateer Press) have the resources to turn out new versions of their core books...

At this point, I may end up one of those curmudgeony players that doggedly sticks with what he already has even though better alternatives clearly exist. Or maybe the time has come to go off the proverbial reservation and try running Eberron using on of the new-fangled small press system like Savage Worlds or Sprit of the Century?

There's a lot more to talk about, but at this point I've been caught flat-footed - now I get to spend the next few rounds stunned. When my head clears, maybe I'll have a better sense of the gravity of the announcement. In the mean time, I’d be curious to know what anyone else thinks… Is a fourth edition a good thing? Drop me a comment and let me know what you think.

Labels: Dungeons and Dragons, Eberron, podcasts, RPGs

If you haven’t seen the news yet, both Dragon and Dungeon magazine will be coming to an end. A couple of days back Wizards of the Coast announced that the magazine would cease publication after the next 3-4 issues. The magazines were actually published by Paizo publishing, who put them out under license from WotC. Now it seems that WotC is choosing to end that licensing agreement, bringing the magazine to a close, at least in it's current form. Pulp Gamer had a podcast interview with Phil Lacefield Jr., the sales manager of Pazio Publishing, where he talked openly about the events that transpired. Unfortunately, the link seems to have gone dead – leaving me wondering if it wasn’t just a little too open.

I never subscribed to either magazine, but I have picked them up on occasion (usually when they had some kind of expanded Eberron content) and I have always enjoyed flipping through them at the bookstore with my Sunday morning coffee. I think Paizo has done a nice job with the magazine over the last few years, and it will be sad to see them go… It’s just another piece of role-playing that is falling away from the mainstream. At the same time, I’ve got to imagine that selling D&D content magazines isn’t exactly huge business… It’s almost a niche market within a niche market.

So, after a thirty year run of Dragon, why pull the plug now? My guess is that we are seeing the next steps toward making the D&D Insider concept a reality. Rumors of D&D Insider first surfaced last year, describing an online, subscription-based model for expanded D&D content and services. I’m sure the ideas presented were all pretty hypothetical at the time – I would guess they were more aspirational than concrete. Still, if you look back over WotC’s course for the last year, it becomes pretty clear that they are actively moving in that direction:

In November of last year they reeled in their licensing for electronic rule sets from Code Monkey Publishing. Being a micro-market player, this didn’t make many waves, but I would guess they were beginning to prepare for the online play component of D&D Insider. I think making D&D easily (and enjoyably) playable online is a huge opportunity for WotC. When I say that, I don’t mean a video game style representation like NWN2 or DDO… I mean a true virtual tabletop where you bring your books to the PC, and play with friends all over the world just like you were sitting at the kitchen table. The best example I’ve found in the space is Fantasy Grounds, which almost perfectly recreates the feeling of being together at the gaming table. If it wasn't for Fantasy Grounds, I can safely say I wouldn’t be playing D&D at all in my adult life.

Next, back in the end of January, WotC posted a slew of job openings to support a “digial initiative,” with a fairly heavy push on the main page of their site and mentions in their monthly podcasts. At this point, we know without a doubt that something electronic is in the pipeline.

Finally, we see this week’s move to cease publishing both Dungeon and Dragon magazines. My guess is that all of the content that used to come to you via the two magazines will now be re-purposed to whatever subscription-based Web service they are brewing up. It will be interesting to see where this is all going, and if any of my prognostications are on the mark.

The real question is how will it be received by the community? Personally, I’m feeling cautiously optimistic. I would be willing to subscribe if the content and services warranted the price, which is something that I was never willing to do with the magazines (I didn’t need to explain yet another nerd-ish compulsion to my wife as a magazine showed up every month).

For something like D&D Insider to work, I think WotC will have to figure out how to walk the fine line of value proposition… As a community, we already get tons of content for free on the Web… so why should be pay? The internet has created an entitlement culture when it comes to information. How do you pitch paying for something that used to be free? I think pulling back the magazines and re-launching them as online properties really can help them win that battle. Both magazines represent an already established value proposition that people are used to paying for. Paying to get that recognized brand in an online format is an easier sell that just saying “we want you to pay for content now.”

The part I’m most interested in is where they will go with the online play piece. Some of the details in the initially came out were a little frightenting to me. I won’t accept any model for online play that is less functional than Fantasy Grounds, which represents the high-water mark in online clients in my mind. I also don’t want to pay for things I think they already owe me. For example, they mention providing a master index – I shouldn’t pay for this! I have already invested hundreds of dollars in source books (most of which don’t have indexes – which they should), and I don’t think I should pay yet again just to be able to cross-reference them. (I also think that by not having a master index online, they are missing a sales oppotunity – if I found out that other books touched on a topic I’m trying to work into a campaign, there is a good chance I’d buy it.)

I think if they can sort out the value proposition, it could actually be a pretty cool service. It would also create a more consistent revenue stream for the D&D line, which I’m sure is a point of frustration for a company that is used to the type of constant revenues generated by collectable card and miniatures games. Clearly, World of Warcraft has taught us all the financial power of the subscription model, and WotC is smart to try to get a piece of that. For us as players, anything that makes D&D more financially attractive means more support and stability for our hobby in the future.

Labels: Dungeons and Dragons, Eberron, podcasts, RPGs

I'm back, baby. In a way, the last few weeks have been somewhat of a renaissance for me. For two months I've been transitioning between jobs at work, a process which taught me that "transitioning" is apparently corporate speak for "two jobs for the price of one." It has been a process that has been both exhausting and frustrating, and has kept me from pursuing much else (including this blog.) It is also a process that is now, thankfully, over.

With time freeing up again, I'm easing my way back into my hobbies. (For me "easing my way" into something is a process akin to cliff-diving.) We've fired up the D&D game again, which seems to have benefited all around from the brief hiatus that it's had. It's good to be back in Eberron again...

Not much has happened on the videogaming front, but once again we stand of the precipice of the holiday season deluge. As an avid RPG fan, these are heady times, with the next installments of both Neverwinter Nights and Final Fantasy looming on the immediate horizon.

Bioware has released another one of their premium modules - this one actually being set in the Forgotten Reams. Figuring it would be a good way to while away the time while I pine for the arrival of the sequel, I picked it up. So far I'm very impressed. It's got me it's hooks into me deeper than the original campaign ever did. It seems to have just the right balance of story and adventure, along with some much needed editions to the aging toolset (rideable horses!)

Other than that, my time has been pretty evenly split between Chromehounds and Final Fantasy XI on the XBOX 360. I've fallen in love with Chromehounds, and at this point I'm convinced that it's a game that is just misunderstood. If you were a fan of the old Mechwarrior 2 era games, you'll like this one. It's all about big, stompy mechs bristling with weaponry plodding about and blowing the hell out of each other. No more, no less. The single player campaign is only there as a trainer for online ass-whooping. Know these things, make peace with them, and you too can learn to be one with the 'Hounds.

Final Fantasy XI is another matter all together. I don't know why I like this game, because by all standards, I shouldn't. World of Warcraft is, in fact, a better game by almost any measure. FFXI has grueling character progression which leads to a massive grind, very little story-driven gameplay, a whole lot of camping, and heavy grouping requirements. So why play? Because when you get a perfect group, the battles just sing, and they are somehow so much more rewarding. Plus, the Mithra are hot.

It’s good to be back. See you around.

Labels: Dungeons and Dragons, Eberron, video games

After a long hiatus, my best friend and I finally managed to resurrect our D&D game. Late last fall, we started talking about how we both played D&D growing up, and how much we enjoyed it. When the conversation turned to why we stopped playing, it soon became apparent that it wasn’t because we tired of the game… It seems like life just catches up with you. It starts with college, where classes and homework consume your time, and whatever free moments you have left need to be spent swilling cheap beer right from the pitcher until you pass out cold. Then, after college comes work, which is followed by more work, and then marriage, which is followed shortly thereafter by kids, which makes you long for the days for drinking the beer right from the pitcher.

But I digress. The real point is that grown-up life leaves precious little time for lugging all of your books to your best friend’s house and taking over their kitchen table for a Friday evening. Not to mention that such activity would open up your nerdish little chamber of secrets for your wife’s full perusal. I’ll be the first to admit it – I’m a nerd, but, I’m a closet nerd. I have worked long and hard to push all that nerdish exuberance down deep and surround it with the bland veneer of a suburbanite professional. One night of rolling dice on the kitchen table, and that’s all gone You can't un-ring that bell, my friend.

Yet, the more we discussed the possibility of resurrecting “the game” the more the siren’s call affected us. And then, as if a divine answer to our lowly petitions, a solution was delivered unto us. In a newsletter from RPGNow.com they mentioned several programs for playing d20 games over the internet. I went out and grabbed demos for all of them, but quickly fell in love with a tool called Fantasy Grounds. Basically, Fantasy Grounds is a “virtual tabletop” for d20 games. It has everything you would have if you all at the kitchen table: Character sheets, modules and maps can all be managed in the client, and it also comes with reference material for monsters, classes, spells, etc. (all taken from the d20 SRD).

Most importantly, it comes with dice. Taking the virtual tabletop metaphor to its ultimate conclusion, FG includes a full set of virtual D&D dice – and yes, you can choose the color of your dice. Where most of the game clients have random number generators, in Fantasy Grounds you actually pick up your dice and roll them with a twitch of the mouse. They tumble across you desktop, spinning and bouncing before landing on their ultimate result, which is then broadcast to the other players. My first reaction was that it was completely unnecessary chrome – a vanity feature that the developers threw in as a marketing gimmick. Now I realize just how critical actually rolling the dice is to the experience. You’ve never hear anyone say “Yeah! I just randomly generated a 20!”

The game itself is fantastic. As much as I love a good CRPG like World of Warcraft or Oblivion, nothing compares to the depth and flexibility of old school pen and paper gaming. You can go anywhere, do anything, and often adventures take you places that neither the players nor the DM ever expected to go. We’ve seen our fortunes change on a failed skill check, launching whole mini-adventures as you brave party must now deal with a whole chain of calamities. We are just now crossing the threshold of third level, and these characters already have an incredible sense of history that surrounds them. When a PnP session goes right, the experience is almost transcendent.

Labels: Dungeons and Dragons, Eberron, RPGs

First off, I guess I wouldn't consider this a review - as is the case with most massively multiplayer games, it will take quite a few more hours before I've seen enough of the game to weigh in on the whole of what D&D Online has to offer. Still, I've spent a fair amount of time wandering the streets of Stormreach, and I've already seen enough to weigh in with some first impressions.

D&D Online is a bit of a departure from your traditional MMO game. Rather than roaming across the countryside grinding away at random spawns, D&D Online rewards player almost exclusively for completing quests. Each quest has it's own dungeon, and the tend to be somewhat complicated affairs, carefully constructed with multiple stages and objectives. Each dungeon is instanced, as seems to be the trend these days, so you and your party will have each adventure all to yourselves. The hand-crafted feel of the levels and the instanced nature go a long way to conveying the feel of a good old D&D game, at least the first time you go on each quest.

Which leads me to the game's primary downfall: You will go go through each of the adventures many, many times on your way through the game. Thankfully, each level can be played at one of three difficulties, each unlocked successively as you complete the last. As with any online game, it doesn't take players long to figure which missions offer the most bang for the buck, and they tend to want to run those over and over, which can make it hard to find groups for the less popular missions. This is also where the hand-crafted levels run into one of their biggest issues - they play the same each time through. The game could have really benefited from random trap placement to keep the rogues on their toes.

The instanced dungeons end up making the game play a lot like Guild Wars, where the town is the only true massively-multiplayer space, and exists only for finding a party or buying and selling goods. This makes for a light and fast experience that is easy to jump into and find some action almost immediately. At the same time, it also makes for somewhat of a thinner experience than I was hoping for. In many ways, this is MMO-lite, and I have a feeling that it won't take long before the subscription fee starts to chafe because of it. In many ways, it's too little game for too much fee.

The game focuses almost exclusive on group play. This is not a game for soloers or duo players. While it may be possible, it's certainly not enjoyable or rewarding. In fact, most dungeons demand a full and well-balanced party.

As you would expect, the tried and true D&D rules are in full effect here, although with some slight tweaks to make them work for an online game. Almost everything is exactly how you would expect it to be, from races and classes to attack rolls, feats and skills and saving throws. Spells per day and resting work a little differently, just to keep the game from becoming overly-punishing for casters. Spell casting classes now have a mana pool, like most MMOs, which regenerates when you rest. The catch: You can only rest in taverns in town, or at special rest shrines in the dungeon. It's about as close to D&D as I think they could have gotten and still put together a online game that wasn't just miserable for low-level spellcasters.

While D&D Online does a good job adapting the 3.5 rules, I was a little disappointed with their handling of the Eberron campaign setting. Eberron is an amazingly deep world, and already well built for a more traditional MMO. Just look at a map of Khorvaire and you can see how easily this game could have been translated into an epic MMO of sweeping scope. The world already comes equipped with it's own Lightning Rail mass transit system to move people quickly around. The Five Nations and the Last War provide a context for active PvP. The various nations and territories even have their own natural level progression: Starting in the Five Nations, moving to the Mournland, the Eldeen Reaches, or the monstrous nations (Darguun, Droaam and Q'Barra), and finally on to the Shadow Marches, Demon Wastes, and ultimately across the sea to Xen'Drik or the Argonessen. Okay - let's be fair. What I'm really saying is I wish they had made a game with World of Warcraft scope set in Khorvaire.

In the end, D&D Online does delivery a dandy little hack-and-slash multiplayer experience, but not much more that that. Without a $15 a month subscription fee, the game would be a slam dunk. As it is, I have to say that I'm less than enthused. I can't imagine that D&D Online is going to have any real longevity with players. For most players I think the experience will be too one-dimensional, while the hardcore players who really like the game's structure will chew through the available content in no time.

Labels: Dungeons and Dragons, Eberron, MMORPGs, RPGs