Dungeons and Dragons Online: First Play

Since I don't have the time to play WoW regularly now, I thought I'd give DDO a shot. Feels a little like my first experience with EverQuest, from the somewhat uninspired game design (have you seen the text random NPC tavern dwellers spit out in DDO? "Don't bother me," or, "She said WHAT?" over and over? Seriously, put a little C into the NPC, please) to the slightly green tinge I have when I'm done playing. Yes, it's an engine that gets me seasick.

The game itself is okay so far. I ran through the n00b dungeon/solo experience. It was okay. Everyone in the starting city has a weapon with the same special effect -- flames dancing off of it -- as everyone else. Not surprising in that everyone's carrying around weapons that were rewards from their first question chain, but that every weapon has flames, from Great Axes to Rapiers (do I capitalize those?) smacks of the same issue of underplanning and undercustomizing the uninspired tavern replies also evidence.

Still, there's just enough to the game that I think I'll give it at least another few shots. Game mechanics are just like WoW (quest givers with icons over their head, actionbar tied to numbers, etc), but it might be fun to get all nostalgic and run some D&D again. The free play also seems relatively well done so far. Two races, drow and some wacky machination race, have to be purchased, but otherwise no intrusion from the parts of the game that cost dough on my experience so far. It serves as a very extended trial, I suppose, and there's got to be a serious market for gamers like me, that might play once or twice a month and don't want to shell out a subscription fee. Microtransactions will be much more likely to grab my dollar until I have time to chose to sell out again -- at which point I'll have another option in my head (DDO) to add to WoW that I wouldn't've had before.