Massively

Is it just us or are people settling into their habits lately? Age of Conan is a standby for a lot of folks since release, while WoW remains a constant favorite among MMO players. EVE may have seen a little boost in the ratings lately thanks to all the buzz around the expansion (ditto for DDO), but there hasn't really big a big shakeup in the MMO game in quite a while, seems like. Nevertheless, it's Friday, so it's time to ask you, dear reader: What aRe yoU Playing?

Massively's own James Egan is one of those diving back into EVE Online, presumably to blast some nubs out of the sky. I continue to be fascinated by World of Warcraft -- my Hunter is continuing the climb to 70, even if it's slow going lately. And Tateru Nino still hangs out in Second Life and City of Heroes.

So things are pretty business as usual this weekend -- would it be wrong to start asking for an MMO release that actually shakes things up? Have you recently broken ground on a new and exciting MMO, or are you standing by your old standbys this weekend? What are you up to?

Lila Dreams is a tiny little MMO that we've been following somewhat closely here at Massively -- from the descriptions we've seen so far (of an entire virtual world set inside the dreams of a little girl), it seems like an intriguing experimental departure from your standard online game. And now, over on their blog, they've got an interview, translated from Portuguese, that sheds even more light on this innovative little online game.

Unfortunately, there's not too much new here, but the interview does follow some familiar and interesting news about the game: players will be able to actually change Lila's moods using game mechanics, and the setting of the game will change based on whatever mood she has at the moment. While there probably won't be the videogame standbys of swords and plasma guns (though apparently there will be "a mix of modern, medieval, and future stuff"), we are told that players will be able to wander instanced areas with groups, so there will be some MMO conventions in there, tweaked as they may be.

Lila Dreams remains a unique little blip on our radar for now -- the game, as we've said before, will eventually be hosted on Kongregate as a 2D Java and Flash game. There's a long way to go until release -- at least a closed alpha, beta, and then an open pre-release period, but we continue to look forward to it.

When we first sign on to the special Demo server Turbine had set up to show us Module 7, we found that they'd created a level 16 Monk for us to play with. The Monk class has been in the pen-and-paper game for a long time, but DDO is introducing them with Module 7 as the tenth player class in the game.

As we signed in and got set up, the folks from Turbine introduced themselves: Kate Paiz (who we've spoken with before) is the game's senior producer, and Stephen Muray, lead systems designer, and Jesse Smith, a content designer on the game, also joined us as well (Turbine's Director of Communications, Adam Mersky, also spoke up at the end of the session). As the screen loaded up, Paiz said that with the design of the Monk, they wanted to create a class that played significantly differently from anything they tried before. All of D&DO's combat is real-time (as in, you must press a button to attack, rather than just choosing a target), and the Monk's new abilities add a twist to this system. Basically, the Monk has four different stances (Ocean, Mountain, Wind and Sun -- the developers said they drew a lot of the Monk's lore from Dungeons and Dragons' Oriental Adventures supplement book), and each tweaks his or her abilities and attacks -- during most of the playtest, we used the Sun stance to try and do more damage, though the designers said that depending on how the Monk is specced, he would also be able to tank and or do some self heals and group buffs as the class trained up.


All of the Monk's abilities are governed by Ki energy, which can be tseen in a meter below the health bar, and is simply earned by attacking. Muray mentioned that this was to counterweight the pen-and-paper Monk's "times-per-day" abilities -- in pen-and-paper D&D, many Monk abilities can only be performed once or twice a day, and while Ki energy still lets players perform Monk tricks much more often, they are still kept limited enough that choosing what abilities you use your Ki on is very important.

"Did you just Abundant Leap across that gap? Nice!"

But one of those abilities stands above the rest: Abundant Leap (a variant, we were told of Dimension Door in the pen-and-paper game). Starting around level 10 or 11, the Monk can perform a move (with a low cooldown costing a very low amoung of Ki) that pushes them forward in space with a quick jump -- as you hit the ability, the screen blurs, the Monk leans forward, and suddenly you're about 15 yards ahead of where you last stood. Abundant Leap was, during our session, the most fun thing to do as a Monk -- even in noncombat situations (and perhaps especially in noncombat situations), we were leaping and jumping as much as we could. Once, to cross a gap, we jumped, in midair hit the leap ability, and landed gracefully on the other side. It's a minor ability in the overall scheme of things, but Abundant Leap, almost more than any of the other moves we used, makes you feel like a Monk.

Overall, the class seems fairly balanced, and Paiz said that they had put a lot of time trying to keep the class not only faithful to the pen-and-paper version, but also a dynamic part of the MMO environment. It should definitely be a fun reroll for everyone playing DDO, and for the players who level it all the way up, the later abilities should offer a lot of interesting twists on what the team has created in the game.

After loading the game and playing with the new class for a bit, our game began in sight of a peaceful shrine to one of D&D's greatest heroes.

Click here to continue the preview...

We stood in front of a peaceful shrine, adorned with a book and an inlaid gem. This little shrine in the lower level area of Delera's Tomb is a monument one of D&D's greatest champions, co-creator Gary Gygax -- it stands in the middle of the area where the man himself narrated some of the ingame DM text. Paiz also told us that there would be event quests and items associated with Gygax in the game, and though we didn't get to see any of those, it seemed like a fitting tribute to one of the men who came up with the foundation of all these games we play.

Then, we were whisked away (via admin commands in the client) to another updated low level area, Three Barrel Cove. This area was one of the first created for the game a long time ago (all of the Turbine employees present at the play session admitted that it "preceded" all of them), and since so many players will be leveling up again with the Monk class, the devs decided to revamp the approximately level 5 area, and make it bigger, clearer, and completely redistribute the monsters within. This is only one of a number of changes made to the entire game to accomodate the new class -- Paiz said that they did a "full equipment pass" on all the items to make sure that Monks were itemized throughout the levels.
The first area within Three Barrel that we got to see was The Black Loch, a huge pirate ship in a cave that serves as the tavern and hub for the area. Everything was very pirate-themed (though the pirate vs. ninja battle, we were told, would have to wait for another game update), and the devs said they had a lot of fun playing with the pirate asthetic, and turning all of the different races and groups in the game into pirate versions of themselves.

This showed in our first quest, too -- in order to prove our worth as pirates, the party was asked to make it through Rackham's Trial, a test that a pirate captain gave to recruits. There were traps aplenty inside the quest, and as we carefully (and sometimes not so -- we sprung quite a few traps just by walking into them accidentally), the devs talked about how they try to both mix up the gameplay with different types of puzzles, but also give players who aren't as interested in mind games and tricks ways to avoid them if preferred.
One example given was an "agility test" -- there were a series of ladders heading up a vertical tunnel, and as players, we had to jump from ladder to ladder (sometimes even from one side of the tunnel to the other) to make our way up top. After a few tries, we weren't getting too far, so the devs pointed out that there was another entrance in the instance that led past the trap, so only one player had to beat the test and then let everyone else through.
But on the other hand, the devs said, they didn't want to make the puzzles too easy. They also showed us an extremely elaborate puzzle that could have been designed by Rube Goldberg, consisting of a number of different floor designs, levers, dart machines, and rotating directors. With the short time we had to try the trap, we didn't even get through the first phase of it, but as tough as it was, that didn't even compare to the second trap we saw:
In a quest to save a fellow pirate, we made our way through a dungeon, and eventually ended up in a room where the man we were looking for stood in a cage in the middle. As we entered, he beckoned us not to move, but at the devs' hinting, we took a look up around the walls of the room -- every single square inch of the large pedestals of the room was covered in a kind of rotate-able jigsaw puzzle (this one will be familiar to D&D Online players, as you play a much, much simpler version of it early on in the game). The idea was to rotate the pieces to line up and make light paths, but in this gigantic version of that puzzle (the dev who made it, we were told, "is probably certifiably crazy"), there's one twist: every wrong move gets our friend in the cage shocked, and too many shocks means a dead friend and a failed quest. Players who like puzzles will find no shortage of things to do in Module 7.

Our final stop in Three Barrel Cove was in the outer area, to get a look at one of the two new monster types in Module 7, the Sahaguin, a race of fishmen armed with spears living on the coast near the pirate ships. Their design and animations were suitably impressive (their spears did a fun flip before planting themselves in the sand when the creatures died), and we were told that this is only the beginning of the story for these creatures.

After a look at the updated lower level area, we then headed to a wreckage that will also be very familiar to D&D Online players, and that serves as the mouth of the new higher level quests dungeons in Module 7.

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Yes, it's our old friend the Marketplace Tent, now completely destroyed, with a small hole in the middle leading to the Subterrane. The devs told us that there will be a world event to open up the entrance -- the Grandmasters of the Twelve have gathered at the ruined Marketplace Tent and face a barrier, and they'll need players' help to open it up (how that's done wasn't fully explained, but Turbine did say that, in order to balance out server population issues and other differences between the servers, they may be tweaking the quest per server). The server we played on, however, had already had the quests completed, so we jumped down into the instance after the devs, and checked out the new higher-level content.
Inside, you will find a huge cavern, and three different entrances to three different areas within the raid level. The first vortex we entered went, we were told, to the Undead Giant area, where huge skeletons rose from the ground to start beating down our little Monk with all their might. We were playing with just the three of us, but in the actual game, the instance will be open to a full twelve players at a time, and from the forces we met down there, players will need a full group to survive.
The other new enemies we saw down below (besides the fishmen) were "living spells," animate versions of various spells. A Finger of Death spell nabbed a few ability points from our Monk, while a Fireball spell beat on the devs' characters -- while the spells don't have a lot of form to them, they aren't any slouches in the damage and annoyance department.

With not much time, we moved ahead quickly to an area the devs called the "Treasure Room," where, when a lever was pulled, a platform fell out below us and we plunged through a long, deep cavern (past glowing circles in the air), into a room full of gold. We didn't have any time to grab it, though, as a few giant skeletons, one of them a boss, and a whole lot of spectres flew in to beat the life out of us.

The devs explained that during this battle, the boss would eventually throw players back up into the air, and that those glowing circles we had passed represented safe zones, so players would have to aim for those to avoid large amounts of damage. And here, our old friend Abundant Leap came back into play -- as we were thrown up in the air, one of the Monks with us did a quick Abundant Leap sideways before being hit by a trap, and suddenly he was safe in the middle of one of the circles. Seriously: best Monk ability ever.
After the Undead Giant area, we headed next to the Xoriat area, where we saw a few familiar D&D foes -- Beholders patrolled the caverns, while Mind Flayers stalked the party from all sides, and pools of acid threatened every step we took. The DDO team, we should say, takes great pleasure in the Beholders -- not only did we see a new type called a "mini-beholder" ("It's like a little dog," says Paiz, "you just want to love him and hold him and let him take your levels off of you."), but we were told that somewhere in the Xoriat area, there "may or may not be a room full of ancient Beholders" for players to discover, or, probably more wisely, avoid.
The final area we visited in the Subterrane was the Devil area, and here's where players will see some familiar devilish faces from the previous content, as well as get some hints on the next Module, when players will actually take the fight to the plane of Shavarath itself.

But what is a dungeon without raid bosses? We also got to take a look at two big boss fights that will challenge players inside this new high-level content.

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The first fight we got to see was Suulomendes (unfortunately, that spelling might not be right -- the big winged guy wouldn't sit still long enough for us to ask his name), a winged devil who sits up on a big pedestal while he sends baddies out to finish the raid off, a wave a time. Every once in a while he deigns to get off the pedestal, and beat you up himself, but when he does, it's not pretty -- various curses fell down on our heads every time he showed up. It seemed like a fairly straightforward fight as we did it (defeat the minions, work over the boss for a while), but the devs told us there were quite a few wrinkles (and the fight would take a little longer) than what we saw.
The other boss we got to check out was, in our opinion, a little more fun. There is a Lord of Darkness supposedly hanging out in the dungeon below the Marketplace wreckage, but when you show up to take him out, he's not actually home -- his guard dog, named Xy'zzy, is, and she is a real bitch. Literally. She has puppies and minions that you have to fight as well, and oh yeah, one more thing: you can't actually damage her by hitting her. We'll refrain from telling you exactly how to take her out (the devs didn't want us to spoil all the surprises), but we will say that when you figure it out, you'll get to see something really, really hilarious happen. And yes, if you're nerdy enough to recognize the dog's name, you'll realize that these DDO devs know their gaming history.

Like many of the boss battles in DDO, both of these fights (and most of the quests we saw) were all about group coordination and cooperation. While a lot of the Three Barrel Cove quests are soloable, the devs at DDO seem committed to make sure that players find ways to coordinate and work together. They are still working on making sure the Monk has a role of his or her own to play in every group ("this is just the beginning of our development on this class," Paiz told us), but in almost all the quests we say, there were lots of ways for group members, no matter what classes or types of players they were, to make themselves useful.

But the new content isn't all that's being added to the game -- we also saw a number of new UI updates, and we got to talk with Turbine's communications director about what they thought of the Age of Conan release and the future of this game.

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The new content wasn't all we saw -- there were a number of other good UI and feature updates we were shown that are set to enter the game in Module 7. One of the most interesting changes is something that we heard about for the first time on the walkthrough: the devs are going to be introducing a new quest type that players will be able to do once per day (examples given were for bounties and trophies on the local wildlife). They said that a lot of players had asked for quests that could be completed within a short period of time to advance their character -- obviously, World of Warcraft's daily quests design jumps to mind, and by the time they had finished explaining the idea to us, even they were using the words "daily quests." But whether the idea is lifted or not, it is a good one, and it should give more casual players (and anyone else with some extra time to spend) some more to do in game.
There were some good UI updates as well -- the main update we saw was a revamped ingame map, that will show dungeons as red and green doors, so that players can easily see where the quests are and which ones they can enter at a glance. Also, the map now shows where a player has been with a "fog of war" type effect, though uncovered parts of the map are now shown at 50% opacity, so if you look close, you can even see details of where you haven't been.

And we were also told that the Module will feature an improved chat system, as well as the addition of quivers to the inventory (so players can save all of their ammo in one inventory slot, rather than taking up extra space with all of it). And of course the crafting system is getting an anticipated update as well -- there are thirty to forty recipes being added, as well as "about a half dozen" eldritch rituals, so there should be more for players to mess around with in that system as well.

Finally, we had a nice long conversation about the future of DDO. Goals for Mod 8, we were told, include the aforementioned player invasion of Shavarath, and the devs are working on a new tutorial section, as well as revamping the character generator (in order to make it easier for new characters who don't want to spend so much time choosing where to put skill points and abilities).

"This is a marathon, not a sprint."

And we also asked what the devs thought about the Age of Conan launch, and if any of the games on the radar this year were going to have an effect on their licensed property. Mersky, Turbine's director of communications spoke up at this point, and he pointed out that Turbine knows exactly what Funcom is going through right now: launching a major MMO is a tough but super exciting task and they wish them well. But at the same time, DDO's devs seem content to faithfully do their own thing, and not worry too much about the new kids on the block -- Paiz told us that their "very devoted audience" was "a pleasure to work for," and Mersky said that Turbine is in this competition as "a marathon, not a sprint." He said that both Lord of the Rings Online (another big licensed Turbine property) and DDO have ten year plans stretching out ahead of them, and that Turbine is committed to building their games over time, steadily releasing content and improvements with updates.

We've heard for a long time that DDO was considering different forms of payment for their game (they've already tested the waters of free-to-play for former players, and Mersky said that the recently reopened lifetime option helps take the onus off of players to stick to just one game, so they'll keep considering options available for payment plans.

Finally, we chatted about the MMO market at large, and it seemed we all agreed that big things are happening as the genre grows. Mersky said he was extremely happy that the industry is becoming "more than the WoW-killer story" -- that as more and more games enter the space, people are less concerned with having a gigantic online world, and more concerned with carving out their own niche and innovations with what they as a development team can do. Module 7 isn't a groundbreaking update for Dungeons & Dragons Online, but it is a solid core update -- the new classes and new mid and higher level content are serious additions and improvements to the game and large.

We have one more treat for you -- an exclusive video of the areas and bosses we visited in Module 7.

Click one last time to check it out.

In addition to our gigantic walkthrough of Dungeons and Dragons Online's upcoming content update, we also got the chance to get some exclusive video of the new content for you to check out. Above, you can see our run through the revamped content at Three Barrel Cove, a few fights in the new Subterrane instance, and a special preview at the end of one of the impressive raid bosses -- bad doggie!

Keep an eye out for the awesome Monk ability of Abundant Leap as well -- you can see it right in the middle of the kobold battle on the coast. And right after that, there's a look at one of the two new enemy models in the content update: the Sahaguin, a fishpeople living in the pirate-themed area of Three Barrel Cove. Later, there's a look inside the Subterrane's Xoriat area (with beholders and other creeps), and finally, the Hound of Xoriat herself (with puppies in tow) makes a scary appearance.

It was definitely a lot of fun to see what the DDO team has been up to lately, and DDO players will undoubtedly enjoy the free update of Module 7 on June 3rd. If this video piques your interest, be sure to see the entire walkthrough, right here on Massively.

Dungeons & Dragons Online continues to hold their own in a quickly-growing MMO world. When DDO first showed up as a licensed MMO of the grandaddy of roleplaying games, their main goal was just to meet expectations -- so many people have been a fan of the pen-and-paper game for so long that putting it into MMO form was no easy task. But since release, the DDO team has made improvement after improvement, and added so much content to the game that it's moved beyond the license to stand on its own as a very singular kind of MMO.

Massively got a chance to sit down with the team and take a look at the latest update, Module 7, due out on June 3, and currently in public testing. In addition to some extended playtime with the new Monk class, we got to see updates to the lower level Three Barrel Cove area, a shrine to recently passed-on D&D creator Gary Gygax, and the new raid area under the destroyed Marketplace tent, as well as a few new monsters and raid bosses that can be found down there.

To start your tour through Module 7, just roll a d20 and click on through. To jump to any section of the walkthrough (including directly to our exclusive video preview, if that's what you're looking for), hit the links after the break.

Don't tell us -- we already know what you're playing this week. It starts with Age and ends with Conan, and it launched on Tuesday. Everybody and their barbarian are probably heading back into the Hyborian Age to cut off limbs and fight in real-time and build up cities and do what have you.

What else could you be playing. Not Virtual Magic Kingdom, obviously (whoops -- too soon?). You might be setting foot in Dark Age of Camelot to nab some of that sweet, sweet double XP (and in the non-MMO world, we hear Halo 3 has a double XP weekend going on as well). But odds are, unless you tell us otherwise in the comments below (or just shout out your AoC allegiance), you're shedding blood in the newest kid on the block.

So tell us: What aRe yoU Playing this weekend? In the worlds of virtual worlds, where, in the parlance of our times, you at?

Previously on WRUP...