D&D: Eberron Unlimited goes Live

[wyeast]

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2596/3904569538_8245469ccf_o.jpg

Today, Turbine has launched to the public their free-to-play rebirth of Dungeons & Dragons Online in D&D: Eberron Unlimited. (http://www.ddo.com) Based on the Wizards of the Coast (http://www.wizards.com/) fantasy franchise, the game promises to have you walking through a full featured MMO with your choice of payment options.

Following the popular-in-Asia model of supporting the game through microtransaction mania, time will tell if players in other regions will embrace the "Freemium" MMO style or if they'll opt to choose more traditional subscription models to get the all-access pass.

DDO Unlimited introduces an innovative new pricing model that allows players to download and play for free, purchasing adventure packs, items, and account services a la carte from the new DDO Store, or to subscribe to get unlimited access to all of the game’s content.

Hopefully "site maintenance" over at ddo.com will clear up soon, allowing us a first look at details on what you get in the "Free is a Very Good Price" plan.

Source: BluesNews (http://www.bluesnews.com/cgi-bin/articles.pl?show=1014)

[torrefaction]

The free stuff is a lot of fun, and the additional content (Which has some modules voiced by Gygax and things like that) is pretty reasonably priced.

[torrefaction]

I'll be playing this for sure...I loved playing during the beta. Probably going to fork the little bit extra (I have 500 DDO store points for being in the beta and whatnot) so I can start out as a monk.

[LordDon]

Mmorpg.com had nothing but good things to say about the changes since release.

[roboninja]

Will definitely check it out next week; my Internet usage is near the cap for this billing cycle.

Just typing that has driven me into a rage.

[BigJonno]

I was in the beta for the free version and only played briefly as I wanted to save it for playing it with Mrs Jonno and the Fishman. Unfortunately the account creation was FUBAR for a lot of people, which I'm assuming is the reason for the maintenance.

[MosBen]

Hmmm, the site is down now. Is the client free?

[Ten19]

Hmmm, the site is down now. Is the client free?

The client and creating an account are free, yes.

[MosBen]

Nice. I like free and will have to give this a try.

[J Arcane]

It's a relatively fun game, that does some interesting things, but that I unfortunately just couldn't put up with it as a fan of tabletop 3.5.

There are so many pointless rules alterations, that it winds up being interminably frustrating to try and make a character in that game if you're at all familiar with tabletop. Every time you think you're getting somewhere, you hit a roadblock where you realize some feat or power or spell you took doesn't actually work anything like you expected it to, for really no good reason at all, and now you've gone and botched a character with a pointless pick you didn't realize was pointless until it was too late. There's respec options for some of it, but not all, so you're left either putting up with the lost points, or rolling a new character again.

Nothing felt right, none of the classes seemed to play quite right, and the attempt at action-RPG combat feels both out of place, and proves to be a paper-thin illusion over time.

The dungeons are lots of fun, the potential of a game with "more D&D, less EQ" class roles is good (but even that gets subverted by the addition of useless taunt/threat mechanics). It's also very much a grouping game. You can solo, and there's even a difficulty for most dungeons for it, but it's not as much fun by a long shot.

[jpublic]

What the hell is up with that site? I go to enter a username/password combo for the registration page, and the web page hangs.

[bapenguin]

There were a lot of these style games at PAX. And a few on horizon as well.

[J Arcane]

What the hell is up with that site? I go to enter a username/password combo for the registration page, and the web page hangs.
Turbine's account management page sucks. Also, it's finicky in anything but IE.

[Wilkz07]

will have to try this one out. usually like free2play games.

[Karmakin]

I was never able to get the beta copy to work right, apparently some computers had really bad permissions issues with running it.

[Spockrocket]

Website is down :( Guess they got more traffic than they expected today.

[Lint of Death]

I had a good bit of fun with the f2p beta. I'd recommend giving it at least a try, as my favorite aspect in any game is exploration and they put a very healthy emphasis on it.

[Wilkz07]

downloading now. should take a while.

[MagGnome]

I got into the beta (who didn't?) but never had a chance to play it. I'll give the full client a go sometime soon.