Dungeons and Dragons Online going free to play

[Nifty]

Sometime later this summer, DDO will be moving to a free to play model with optional goodies via an a la carte payment system. I'm getting a chance to check it out at the moment in the beta for the free to play model, and it's rather amusing. I got to beta it prior to original launch but concluded it was fun but not worth $15 a month.

It's definitely a fun game to play with friends, but it's not too bad for killing time alone as well. The main flaw in my opinion has always been the fact that once you do a quest, it's always the same layout if you repeat it. That's an aspect of most MMOs of course, but in DDO, you're expected to repeat the quests on harder difficulty modes (the monsters and traps are harder to overcome, but they are still in the exact some places) for more experience points and better loot. Even if it's a quest you've never done before, if someone else in your party has, they tend to ruin the exploration aspect of it. This was pretty much why I decided it's not worth $15 a month. I can deal with that a bit better if I'm not paying for it.

Anyways, free games mean nothing out of pocket lost to at least give them a chance, so I figured I'd pass along the heads up. I'll dig up more info as they get closer to launching public free to play version.

[Malap]

I tried DDo when it first came out but i didn't play it for long. At the time i was mainly playing Vanguard Saga of Heroes and none of the VG guild i was in tried DDo and back then it was very hard to solo anything in DDO lol. At the moment I'm trying a beta of a game a little like Fallout3, but i cannot say what it is LOL.

[Nifty]

Most lower level quests in DDO now have a solo difficulty level option. In addition, you can get NPC hirelings (retainers if you played old school PnP D&D) to help you solo through quests on normal level. You can get one hireling at a time if you only use the in game vendors, but if you purchase them through the a la carte store you can have more at once. In beta, they've given us some points to play around with, and I went through a couple of 3 player quest solo with a couple of hirelings and made it through. If you remember any of the quests from when you betaed the game it was The Butcher's Path and the first chapter in the Waterworks. Both are rather tough with a small group.

Last night, I did both chapters of Waterworks with a group of other players. It was a lot of fun, even with knowing the dungeon layout on the first chapter, and remembering most of the 2nd chapter.