Introduction
Dungeons & Dragons. The name alone is infamous. Since 1974 Dungeons & Dragons (affectionately referred to as D&D most of the time) has spread around the globe being as the first RPG (Role Playing Game). As such it is the great great great grand daddy of all RPGs you see on the market today. It started with D&D. Creating a living online world based on this popular game would be no small task.
Turbine is the developer of D&D Online (called DDO for short) and has had previous experience in the medieval/fantasy area of MMORPGs. Turbine is responsible for Asheron’s call and it’s sequel, Asheron’s Call : Dark Majesty. Publishing was handled by the legendary company, Atari. Atari has been in the game biz for well over 30 years so they need little introduction. I am sure that many pen and paper players of D&D were salivating at the mouth when they heard the news about D&D’s upcoming release. I know that my husband was pretty pumped about it for a while.
Other recent games based on the D&D realm were not very well received as each game had glaring short-comings. Could this game be THE ONE to catapult the realm of D&D into the digital realm? Turbine and Atari sure hope so.
Install
The install went smoothly with little hassle and offers the usual options for installing the game in a predetermines directory or allows you to install the game in a directory of your choice. The game launcher doubles as an application that scans you current game each time you log on to ensure that you are using the most recent version of the game since updates are made on more than a weekly basis. The updates include fixes to quest exploits, improved graphics performance, improve GUI features etc. The dev team is very active on improving the game.
Less than 6 weeks after the game was released Turbine released a new adventure module which added a slew of new quests. With more modules and fresh content coming up the lifespan of this game looks to be very good. This fresh content will help to keep the audience that DDO earns.
