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The following is a 5-PART SERIES of articles, videos, and game interface screenshots put together by our staff after DDO Stratics attended this summer's Penny Arcade Expo (PAX) Event in Bellevue, Washington over the weekend of August 26-28, 2005.

• PART I - My Day At The PAX Event (aka DDO Event)
• PART II - Playing DDO At The PAX Event
• PART III - The Top 6 Things I Learned About DDO At PAX
• PART IV - 4 Gameplay Videos From PAX
• PART V - Interface & Other Images From PAX

PART I - My Day At The PAX Event (aka DDO Event)

Having survived the Penny Arcade Expo (PAX) event here in Bellevue, Washington over the weekend (Aug 26-28), its time to sit down and share with all of you what I found out.

For those not familiar with what PAX is about, it is essentially a "fans & gamers" version of the annual E3 event in LA every year (that one being focused on the media and vendors). PAX is in its 2nd year, so is still at a much smaller scale than anything you would see at E3, or even the GenCon from last week. However, from what I could tell, they seemed extremely organized this year and there were clear signs that they had already outgrown Bellevue's Meydenbauer Center and will need to move on to the much bigger Seattle Center (or even Wa St Convention Center) next year. We'll see...

After sitting outside in the cold (if you can call 65 degrees cold) from 7:45AM until the time when they finally let us poor "non-pre-registered" gamers in the front door at 10:00AM, I pretty much spent the whole time talking with my friend and everyone around me about, you guessed it, D&D and DDO. There were people lined up around the block waiting to get in (thank goodness I was crazy enough to want to get there so early), with several of them already pulling their D&D books out and planning for the day ahead. To say that I felt like I was in D&D heaven would probably be an understatement - it was everywhere.

Once they finally let us in the doors, it looked like everyone's main objective was to run to the Exhibition Hall where all the vendors were showing off their games. Unfortunately, there was a slight delay in opening the doors to that room, so instead it actually meant climbing 4 flights of stairs (okay, for the lazy ones like me there were actually escalators to take too) to the top, just so we could stand in a line that basically wound all the way back down to the bottom floor again. 15 additional minutes of standing in that line, and we were finally in to the area I was here for.

Going through the doors, I was expecting to see about 5 or 6 companies showing off their games. At the time, I wasn't prepared at all for it to be as big as it was (having read up on last year's event, I had been given the impression that it was a fairly small-scale thing). So I was excited to see that in fact there were more like DOZENS of vendors packed wall to wall in the room. From Microsoft to Nintendo to Turbine to Ubisoft to Vivendi to NCSoft...and the list goes on. Surprisingly, there were a lot of MMORPG's being shown off by these companies too, including other games in development like Lord of the Rings Online and Vanguard. But the real reason I had come was for one game, that game being Dungeons & Dragons Online. And right in the middle of all of it, center stage as it were, was 4 HUGE 20' tall Video Screens (movie theatre size). On all four of these screens, impossible to miss from anywhere on the floor, was the only game that really mattered at that point - DDO. Even being one of the first ones into the room, by the time I pushed and shoved my way over to their area, I was already several rows of fans away from actually being able to play the game. I knew at this point that this was going to be a LONG day....

Stay tuned for my experiences with the game itself, to find out some of the "new" things that I found out, and to hopefully see a picture or two (and maybe even some video footage) of the whole event.

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PART II - Playing DDO At The PAX Event

Finally settled in at the PAX event here in Bellevue, WA this weekend, it was time for me to jump in and actually play the game that brought me here in the first place - DDO. After waiting in line for quite awhile (woe to the people who didn't get a chance to play until later in the afternoon), I was matched up with 3 other players so that we could take on the ready-made quest with at least some hope of surviving.

First up came the Pre-made Character Choice Page of 8 characters meant specifically for showing off the game, i.e. they were all 10th Level and fully equipped with armor, weapons, spells, and potions. They made it clear that while normally you would need to create your own characters from scratch, this simply allowed players to jump into the game and start playing immediately. Our only two tasks at this point were to name our characters and then choose an alignment (this second option not seeming to have any impact at all on the game). Interestingly enough, the name filter allowed me to write out my entire character's name as "Morghan d'Lyonhart" (punctuation, spacing, and all), but I was advised that this was strictly part of the demo and may not be the way it is finally done when DDO comes out. I did notice that another player had tried using "Dopey", "Sleepy", and "Grumpy", but kept receiving a message of "This Name Has Already Been Taken" until he finally chose "Crotchity".

As far as class choices, we all four wanted to have as balanced of a party as possible. The developers were telling us that fewer than 20% of the players were actually completing and winning the quest, so we knew it would be hard unless we did everything right. Having seen other players go with wild combos like 4 Clerics or 2 Fighters & 2 Clerics, we instead went the safe route - I chose to be the Dwarven Fighter, another player chose the Sorcerer, the third guy was a Rogue, and the last guy chose the most critical class of all (at least for this quest) - the Cleric.

From there, we all entered into Stormreach proper. It was a fairly basic setting, clearly meant to be some kind of marketplace (carts of fruits & vegetables were nearby). We were able to run around at will and talk to NPC’s and other players that were scattered around the area. One NPC in particular really stood out to me – A guy sitting on the ground near a fountain/mini-waterfall and pounding away at a bongo drum. The reason it stood out so much was because he was actually playing music. And yes, you could hear his music better and better as you got closer to him. It definitely gave me high hopes for the potential of player-made Bards.

Anyway, back to the adventure itself. Tasked with setting up the group, I tracked down the other 3 players using the overhead map (they all showed up as brown dots), right-clicked them with my mouse, and hit the Invite to Group option. Not surprisingly, they all agreed and from there we sought out the NPC that would ask us to complete a quest for him. I’m not sure if this is how it works with all of the quests, but for this particular one we were essentially insta-teleported to the dungeon (via a Loading Screen that described the name of the quest).

Once we were all in the dungeon, our first task was to make it past the first obstacle, the dreaded Locked Door. Being the slow-witted Fighter that I was, I charged forward without even thinking twice and started pounding on the door with my weapon. Splinters flew everywhere and after 2-3 swings, the entire thing exploded (later I found out that our Rogue could have simply picked it and made much less of a mess). Running through the door, we found the main antechamber room. It was filled with what I believe were Specters and Skeletons – I’m not 100% positive though since our Cleric was able to prove his worth for the first time by wiping all the creatures in the room out with one use of his Turn Undead skill before the rest of us had even entered the room completely. What we found after this once all of us were in was a bloody altar and two options – either to go left or to go right.

Choosing to go left, we then all ran through the hallway, up a ramp, and to the next area, where we ran into our first difficult-to-beat monster – A Drow Scorpion (name pending, according to the devs). Still not having had the chance to fight a monster in DDO yet, I wasn’t sure exactly what to expect, but I thought it would be just like any other MMO where you simply run up to the creature, attack, and go eat a sandwich while you wait to kill whatever it is you’ve targeted. Errr, to say the least, I was WRONG. I basically hit it once that way, but then the creature ran right past me and charged our Sorcerer. Gathering my wits and realizing that I was going to have to actively participate in the fight, even as a regular ol’ Fighter, I chased after the Drow again and after a bit of hacking, spell casting, and cooperation by all four players, we were able to bring it down. This was the second point when we realized the importance of the cleric – He was able to heal us all, and especially me, who took the brunt of the damage.

Killing the Drow Scorpion gave us the opportunity to enter the “Puzzle Room”. This room was filled with a mosaic of tiles on the floor that we were all able to turn. We quickly realized that there needed to be a set pattern that would help fill each of them with a blue light when set correctly (it was the equivalent of a Pipes Puzzle). Luckily, we had a very smart player on our team, who was able to finish the puzzle in no time flat (literally within about 30 seconds) and light up all 4 corners of the design. This then set off a trap somewhere in the distance. We started running back to the original antechamber to find out what had happened. Running past a balcony, we looked down below and found out exactly what the trap was – I series of Swirling Blades that were spinning around in a room filled with Hell Hounds and Zombies. So when we finally got over to the room (the “Right Turn” option from the main antechamber), we discovered that most of our work had been done for us already by the Blades. The only thing left for us to do was to mop up – which actually turned out to be a bit more deadly than we thought it would be. Because guess what? Those Blades didn’t care at all that we were players and not monsters. Running into one myself, I discovered first hand why the monsters were dropping like flies – it sliced right into me and left me with barely an inch of my life (at which point I again praised the gods for one of the other players choosing a Cleric as their class).

While in this room, I believe that our Rogue figured out how to get through a force field area (I was busy trying to die at the time, so missed exactly what happened). Once open, he was then able to find a chest, open it, and get some treasure (nope, I didn’t get anything *sighs*). We all congratulated him on his skills, and then headed off to the next hall. Being the first one into the hall, I didn’t really pay attention to a message that flashed across my screen telling me something about a dead adventurer just ahead. A couple seconds later I found out why I SHOULD have paid attention – two huge blades came flying out of the walls and sliced right into me. OUCH…again I almost died (and yet one more thanks to that cleric who kept me alive through all of this). Having backed up, I started watching for the blades and soon enough found a pattern in them – swoosh, swoosh….stop….swoosh, swoosh…stop… - and finally ran through untouched. Of course, the rest of my party was smart enough to rely on our Rogue, who had discovered a contraption in the wall (something that my character couldn’t even see) that then allowed him to disable the trap completely. With the next trap coming up – a series of 4 heads with flames spouting out of them, I took the time this round to let the rogue do his work. And again with the next trap – a series of spikes that kept poking out of the ground and trying to stab us (another pattern that we could have likely figured out eventually). So at this point we were all very thankful for having the rogue on board too. Once we finally made it through all the traps, we discovered a much-needed room, which contained some kind of “Health and Resting” shrine – a big tall rock with a blue glowing moon embedded in the front of it. All 4 of us double-clicked on the stone and began to rest (it is my understanding that this then regenerated all our Health AND Spell Points) before heading off to what we knew would be the main confrontation.

Fully rested up and ready to go we headed over to the next area and, sure enough, found the final boss monster of the quest. He was a huge metal Iron Golem-looking creature that seemed way tougher than any group of 10th Level characters should have been able to take on. However, through a LOT of cooperative play, plenty of heals from the cleric, some critical strikes on the part of the rogue, and more fireballs and flamestrikes than I could count from the sorcerer, we finally brought him down and we had beat the quest.

Congratulations came to all of us from the players watching and the developers alike. I have to admit that my adrenaline was going and my heart was racing pretty fast (the final fight was a big rush), so it definitely felt good to win. We all got our D&D Online t-shirt, our special bag of DDO dice, and one final prize that I’ll leave up to your imagination.

And with that, my very first experience with DDO was over. I would be lying if I didn’t admit that I was initially a bit skeptical about the game prior to getting a hands-on demo of it to see for myself. But having now tried it and then spending the rest of the day watching other players trying it out and either winning or dying, I have to say that I’m a full convert now and can’t wait for more. And from the many players also watching who were talking about the game too (several of them hardcore D&D PnP players), I’m betting that I’m not alone…

In my next article, I’ll be talking about what new things I learned about DDO that I wasn’t aware of before the PAX event. And after that you will all get the opportunity to watch 4 videos of the game and see plenty of photographs of the event itself. So stay tuned for much more!

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PART III - The Top 6 Things I Learned About DDO At PAX

PART III of my report deals with the next aspects of DDO that I learned while whatching and playing the game at the PAX event. Overall, there were 6 new features that stood out to me above everything else. Some of these things you may have already heard about because of other events, but hopefully at least one or two of them will be new to you.

1) "THRILL RIDE" QUESTS - This was the term that one of the developers used when he was talking about the quests found in DDO. He was telling the players that there were two kinds of quests - The standard kind that you go on with your group and friends, then the second kind dubbed "THRILL RIDE" Quests. To quote the developer discussing it, "These quests are meant for those players who may typically prefer a more solo experience, but would still enjoy some form of group goal if the setting was right. Essentially, the Thrill Ride Quest throws your solo character into an instanced quest where, for example, up to 9 other random players have also been sent to. They are then given a single quest to complete as one large group, say like taking down a Hill Giant Encampment." From what I gathered, if you all complete this large scale quest coopertaively, then all of you benefit from experience, loot, etc.

2) NO "SET TRAPS" SKILL - Most of us assumed this would be the case anyway since there is no Set Traps Skill in the 3.5 rules. However, since this skill does show up in Neverwinter Nights, I asked anyway and received the confirmation - NO SET TRAPS option for Rogues. However, with that said, the devs did clarify that resourceful players (Rogues or otherwise) CAN lure monsters to nearby traps so that they get sprung on the monsters instead of the players, and that those traps will definitely do damage to them, if not kill them outright. So while we won't be able to actually set them, players will be able to use Traps as offensive weapons.

3) TAVERN MINI-GAMES LIKELY NOT IN FOR RELEASE - Talking to the devs, they definitely love the idea of having mini-games like Poker, Darts, Checkers, etc in the game to give players something to do when hanging out in the town taverns. Unfortunately, they also said that it is extremely unlikely we'll see any by release. The reason given that, as much as players and devs alike, enjoy playing them, it is a casualty of being a low priority over other aspects of the game that HAVE to make it in by release *sighs*

4) FLEXIBLE CAMERA ANGLES - One of the concerns I had going into the demo was that it looked like the camera angles were locked in one place behind the character you are playing. However, having played the game myself, I found out that it is extremely flexible, allowing me to Zoom In and Zoom Out (using the mouse wheel) so that I could comfortably be much closer to the character than the default set me at. At the same time, much like EQ2 and other MMO's, it also allowed me to right-click my mouse and move the camera angle Vertically to adjust my Horizon View. Standing still, it also allowed me to rotate 360 degrees around my character so that I could set myself up for screenshots, etc.

5) COMPLETE NAMING CONVENTIONS - In other words, the current build of the game (at least the one at PAX) was allowing players to use a First Name, Middle Name, Last Name, and even "Punctuation". However, the devs were clear to point out that this may not be the case with the final build, so it is possible that it may change (or might have already in beta).

6) FULLY INTEGRATED DICE ROLLS RIGHT ON THE SCREEN - If there was one thing that made this game feel more like D&D than anything else out there, it was the fact that every single thing that I and other players did was the result of a dice roll that literally showed up in the bottom of the screen every time it was needed. In combat, during spot checks, when making an attempt to save against a particular attack (like poison) - everything. They even provided a specific Chat Tab so that you could go back and look at the history of your rolls in case you wanted to find out exactly how close you came to dying to a trap, etc. It was very cool to see in the interface and I really hope that this is something that stays in the game past release.

At this point, these are the 6 things that stood out to me about DDO as being completely new. I'm not including the things like "awesome graphics", "great combat with action feel", or any of the things that was already pretty much expecting to see even though I didn't know for sure.

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PART IV - 4 Gameplay Videos From PAX

Following up on my experiences with playing and watching DDO at the PAX event, I also wanted to take the time to show all of you exactly what the quest itself LOOKED like. So with that, DDO Stratics is excited to show off 4 new gameplay videos which step you through the primary quest that the players got the opportunity to take on:

VIDEO I - STARTING OUT IN STORMREACH

VIDEO II - JUMPING INTO THE DUNGEON

VIDEO III - FIGHTING DROW SCORPIONS AND SOLVING PUZZLES

VIDEO IV - TAKING ON THE BOSS MONSTER

Keep in mind that these are all .WMV Files, so you'll need the Microsoft Windows Media Player (possibly the latest version) to view them. Also, another option besides just left-clicking them to automatically view them is to RIGHT-CLICK on the links and save the videos to your own hard drive for a smoother viewing.

Enjoy!

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PART V - Interface & Other Images From PAX

Next on the list in our multi-part report on DDO at the 2005 PAX Event is a series of images that we took of the game's interface, as well as a picture of the event itself and of a Hill Giant that was determined to smack some players around:

Interface: Watching the Dice Roll During Combat & Savings Throws

Interface: The Active Quest Menu

Interface: Your Current Target AND Your Own Health/Spell Point Bars

Interface: The Menu Bar, Radial Map, and Group Info Area

Interface: The Chat Menu and Activate Skills Bar

Interface: An enlarged optional Overhead Map to help you find your way through the quest

Monster Manual: A very unhappy Hill Giant takes on an attacking player

Gameplay: A Warforged and a couple Elves recharging inside a dungeon at the Resting Shrine

Gameplay: A Warforged player catches on fire and runs from the enemy

Attending the PAX Event with DDO at the center of everything (look at those 15' screens!)

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