Well, when they release the list of server names, you know they’re close to launch. Yes, next week Dungeons and Dragons online joins the Post World of Warcraft MMO market. This is essentially the first big launch since EQ2 and WoW came on the scene around Christmas of 2004. City of Villains is doing quite well, as far as I know, but I view that as an expansion to CoH more than anything else. This is the first new IP trail blazing that’s been tried. I know that there is interest, as I’ve already heard talk about the beta in World of Warcraft City chat, and the leader of my guild has already quit to form a similar organization in DDO.

I don’t think he should have bothered. My impressions from the DDO Beta will form the basis for a launch-week review on Slashdot, but here is my very cynical two cents.

First, some background. DDO is a very ambitious game. They’ve attempted to combine the hack and slash combat of a Guild Wars with more traditional MMO elements. On top of that, they have a thick layer of Dungeons and Dragons ’stuff’. Think of the D&D stuff as a delicious layer of carmelized sugar on top of the creme brule that is the game. I use that analogy very specifically; Like a creme brule crust once you’re past the surface the dish is completely different.

Real-time combat is fun … for about a week. Then you start to recall the part where your hand didn’t hurt just trying to keep up with the baddies coming at you. Like City of Heroes, almost every mission area is instanced. The heavy reliance on instancing is not something that I personally have a problem with, but it’s been a big bone of contention with traditionalists. The thing that does kidn of stick in my craw is the flakey D&D layer. Eberron is a very rich setting, one I’m fairly familiar with. I’ve read all the books (thanks for the love WotC), and I’ve run a campaign in the setting. DDO has only a very passing familiarity with Eberron. It knows the names of places and people within the setting, but the action-pulp flavour of the setting is not very well captured.

All of these things would be quibbles if it wasn’t for the biggest problem: content. Turbine is drastically underestimating the rate at which catasses will consume their content. I don’t know if it’s because they’ve been presiding over dying games for the last several years or what, but they just don’t seem to understand how quickly their content will be consumed. At launch, there are only 10 levels to gain. Now, each is split up into ‘rankings’, a sort of mini-level where you gain in some power. Even with the artificiality of mini-levels, the grinders will very quickly consume the content Turbine is setting out for them. I know people who have already hit the level cap in the Beta. Good for testing, a bad sign for retail.

All of these issues will end in one thing MMO developers have to dread: Bad word of mouth. People are going to be ‘done’ with the game inside of two months, and then the whining is going to start. It will spread from the official forums to the commentary sites, and from there into the general playerbase. Assuming the average (non-casual, non-catass) player is two to three months behind the grinders, that puts the average player at content completion just about the time Blizzard was talking about releasing Burning Crusade. I don’t imagine that will bode well for subscriptions.

At this point I’d really like to say something like “Turbine has a chance. All it has to do is…” (dance, dance) but I don’t think there is anything that can be done at this point. Unless most of their 10-20 content will be ready around May or June, they are going to have a very rocky Summer. My hope is that the success or failure of their launch with this game will give them a good concept of what to do with Middle Earth Online, which some gamers are still very much looking forward to.

I am not one of them. Besides Burning Crusade, the only MMO release I’m looking forward to is Tabula Rasa.