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[golem]

http://www.gamespot.com/pc/rpg/ddonline/preview_6104907.html

That's right! Dungeons & Dragons Online will feature combat that you'll control in real time. This will let you run through hallways, click your mouse buttons to swing your sword, use your mouse pointer as a targeting reticle for aiming arrows, and use your movement keys to dodge incoming attacks. Turbine made this unusual decision with support and input from Wizards of the Coast, the publisher of the original Dungeons & Dragons, in hopes of creating a massively multiplayer online game with truly dynamic and engaging combat. The combat system is being designed to take advantage of the instanced dungeons, and since only a small party of adventurers will be in each dungeon, the game can provide more-responsive controls (rather than having to handle an area with 100 different characters that are all running around).

According to lead designer Ken Troop, the combat system will add additional layers of strategy to the game on top of creating and developing a distinctive and powerful character with the appropriate skills and heroic feats--which are special abilities that Dungeons & Dragons characters may choose to acquire as they gain experience levels. For instance, by choosing the "dodge" feat, you'll receive a basic defensive bonus that your character will benefit from whenever you're attacked, but it will also let you perform an evasive roll-away maneuver with your keyboard. As another example, Troop explained that according to the standard pen-and-paper rules, high-level characters gain "base attack bonuses" that increase their chances to strike true in combat. This ability will be represented by special attacks that can be pulled off with good timing. So a fighter character with a +5 attack bonus might have a five-part sword attack that can be pulled off by clicking the mouse button in a correctly timed fashion.

 

[Tellaerin]

OK, that just put the game on my radar. Interest +1

 

[explodet]

They've obviously got necromancers working around the clock to insure there are enough skeletons for heroes to crush.

 

[madara]

"instanced"
I'll pass. Typical wimping out of mmorpgs continues but I get feeling this is more for diablo crowd anyhow so any sense at a real community likely does not matter to them as long they get uber sword08.

 

[Buggy Loop]

Instancing is the new way of avoiding huge costs of servers by going PSO style and still rip peoples off with their monthly fees

I was going to say that its going to be fun seeing hundreds of players on a raid cry LAG because their "real-time" swing didnt hit, but if its instancing and, its nothing more than a 3d diablo, cept probably not even as good.

 

[Tellaerin]

Instancing is the new way of avoiding huge costs of servers by going PSO style and still rip peoples off with their monthly fees

I was going to say that its going to be fun seeing hundreds of players on a raid cry LAG because their "real-time" swing didnt hit, but if its instancing and, its nothing more than a 3d diablo, cept probably not even as good.

*shrug* I prefer instancing. The idea of multiple parties sacking the same dungeon at the same time makes the world feel smaller to me, not bigger. In your typical fantasy novel, movie, or single-player RPG, you don't see scores of adventurers from a half-dozen different groups all running around in the same dungeon at the same time, camping spawn points and stealing one another's kills.

 

[clipunderground]

*shrug* I prefer instancing. The idea of multiple parties sacking the same dungeon at the same time makes the world feel smaller to me, not bigger. In your typical fantasy novel, book, or single-player RPG, you don't see scores of adventurers from a half-dozen different groups all running around in the same dungeon at the same time, camping spawn points and stealing one another's kills.

You know, besides the whole "camping" thing, I loved it whe a bunch of people are in the same dungeon. Especially when things get outta hand. Anyone remember Gnoll dungeon in EQ? I had some good times in there...

 

[Buggy Loop]

It sucked for camping, but the ambience that was in lower guk, parties mutually sharing areas, you could go see them and chat a bit when it was a bit relax, if you would lose your party or if someone left the party you could quickly replace or join another. And massive trains to zone

 

[teepo]

hmm sounds like asherons call and if ken is in charge, i can only see good things for this title .

 

[teiresias]

Instancing basically makes the PSO mother-ship hub just a massive world. I'm not sure what my opinion on that kind of thing is in terms of being charged a monthly fee for it. On the one hand it perhaps makes it easier to get items that are necessary for quests because you don't really have to camp (though you probably will have some kind of time limit before being able to enter an instanced dungeon for a second time - assuming you completed whatever the main "quest item" was in there), but on the other hand it really does turn it into PSO with server-side character storage (granted, with the massive hub).

I wouldn't mind instancing in dungeons, but does this kind of game-design mean there's no combat whatsoever on the main world map, that would seem kind of stupid - "What, there are no monsters whatsoever out in the open??

 

[belgurdo]

So brown...

I'll stick to Capcom's interpretation, thanks

 

[Bizarro Sun Yat-sen]

All MMORPGs have realtime combat as far as I know.

 

[firex]

I think they are saying no auto-attacking stuff like in EQ, although I bet anything this doesn't pan out quite like it's being said it'll be.

Also, I can understand (to an extent) being afraid that instanced stuff means a loss of the "mass" feel in an MMORPG, but at least so far in WOW it just makes dungeons easier to handle (no spawn camping, for example) and they are at least planning for a variety of instances beyond just the 5 man group one, such as raid instances and battlegrounds. It really personalizes the encounters, too, so it feels like you fought against overwhelming odds and a tough boss and won, rather than having a 50 man rotation to kill a boss in 2 minutes.

 

[shoplifter]

All MMORPGs have realtime combat as far as I know.