Whenever there’s something happening in the Massive-Multiplayer Online RPG field, I find myself searching for what all the fuzz is about. This time it was with Dungeons & Dragons Online (DDO). In this case, especially as D&D newbie, it is again very hard to find the significances. But hey, I take it as a challenge.

Not very suprisingly, the realm doesn’t depart much from the D&D conventions, which is nothing that you haven’t seen before. It’s got Halflings, Humans, Elves, Dwarves, Warforged and Drows (a fancy name for dark elves) to choose from, and offers the straight-forward class archetypes ranging from different spellcasters, melee and rogues (although mixing class skills is also allowed, as with Runes of Magic). You start off as the only of survivor of a shipwreck, from this point the usual questing and raiding starts.

What sets DDO apart from other MMO’s when it comes to gameplay is the direct control over a character. While the control scheme itself is quite similar to other third person games, it plays a lot more like a hack ‘n slash game in contrast to the static MMO’s in which you sequentially activate skills while standing still. In order to attack your foe, you got to have your target in your crosshair, and sweep your weapon with one mouse-click. This demands more of an active play, which also makes PvP’ing a more hectic experience. (The aiming mechanism is most welcome, but not all revolutionary, it’s been implemented earlier in e.g The Chronicles of Spellborn.)

Tragically enough, besides the controls it’s the common MMO stuff including the usual points and levelling systems. I’m seriously beginning to wonder if these games are being developed for people OTHER then those who gave up on World of Warcraft to look for something fresh (although probably they won’t find much satisfaction here). The world feels bland and stitched together by numberous dungeons (there are plenty of those), that all feel similarly generic. My biggest problem with DDO would be that besides questing, there’s no profound neccesity that people will actually interact with each other. Most likely, you’ll merely stumble upon other players in front of some of the harder dungeon for the sheer purpose of raiding.

Yet, I’m still waiting for an greater dynamic in which player skills and actions complement each other (and not just in the form of archetypes) and where gameplay isn’t split up in small instances that are deliberately isolated from the world as a whole. Warhammer Online already implemented scenario’s that were triggered when groups of players coincidently run into each other to participate in an instant quest. Ultimately, this group mechanic alone did not lead to a more balanced world in stead of a ego network, but it was a starting point.

The MMO genre, in my opinion, has been stuck in an long-lasting identity crisis of not being able to combine group dynamic and individual character-development. Why not ignore all of the artificial point systems and focus on gameplay, player interaction or, for instance, the design of possible hypernarratives that involve the worlds as a whole? And if the latter idea seems too big to implement, why not scale the whole project down and make it at least more comprehensively balanced? DDO in that way feels like an aged iteration that constantly raises the feeling of lack of relevance while playing.