WoW just isn’t doing enough these days to keep me occupied outside of raiding, so the release of Dungeons & Dragons Online as a free-to-play title earlier this week was just the thing to distract myself with.
My first character was a female Dwarf rogue, and all I can say is… Are they supposed to be part Ogre? Seriously, after the very aesthetically pleasing female dwarf model in Wow, the lumpy short being you get in DDO is a little… disappointing. Having said that, while the model isn’t appealing, the animation of said model is. Seriously, watching her dual-wield a rapier and a dagger looks really good.
I’ve taken her through the starting zone, and she’s sitting in the Stormreach harbour at the moment, just short of level three. WTB people to level with. (sigh)
Yesterday I rolled another character, a female halfling cleric this time to try a class with a little more utility. Sure, rogues are awesome for dps (especially when you can kill things fast enough that you don’t get de-stealthed), but the healing potions needed to keep your health up are not cheap.
On my cleric, I healed a couple of the starter instances with some random players in the LFG channel; while it’s not the same as 5-mans in WoW, it was still quite enjoyable, not to mention pretty frantic at times. There seems to be less differentiation between the classes at lower levels (there was no designated healer or tank, and it was very much a free-for-all melee), so I’d like to think things would start to gel as characters gained levels and gear.
And the inability to customise the UI bugs me just a little. (I think that’s something that’s going to buy me about most games I play, now – WoW really did hit that one out of the park)
But, it has three things in its favour.
- It’s new. I wouldn’t say I know Azeroth from back to front, but I’ve been in there for going on 4 years.
- It’s free to play. It’s hard to underestimate just how much this lowers the bar to entry. Yes, you can purchase stuff with real money, but you don’t need to in order to get a lot out of the game.
- It’s not WoW. (See point #1)
I haven’t stopped with WoW, of course. I’ve actually managed to get some more personal goals out of the way, and increased my overall personal wealth in the process.
Mingle’s finished her Colosseum grind, and bought the Swift Gray Steed for her collection, and is now (slowly) working towards an Argent Warhorse (when I can be bothered with dailies).
Fingle has completed the Netherwing grind, and followed that up by completing the Leading the Cavalry achievement in order to get her Albino Drake.
And I’ve broken the 70k gold barrier. I remember when…
/wave
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