| This is one game that I really hope succeeds, however I do have some very serious concerns about the development of this game.
First, the chosen developer(Turbine) does not have a very good track record with regards to mmorpgs. To date the only 2 games that I'm aware of that they have developed are Asherons Call(AC) and Asherons Call 2(AC2). AC was only a moderate success and while being a great game failed to attract much of a following(in relation to other mmorpg's). AC2 was for all intense purposes a complete and total failure. However, lets not turn this into a "lets bash Turbine" thread. I do think its very reasonable to bring up the fact though that Turbine does not have what I consider to be one successful game to their name.
Secondly, the focus of D&D is on the adventure, not the end result. What I mean is the "fun" of D&D is the actual journey, not the end result of being a level 40 demi-god like character. How are you going to force players to play the game the way its meant to be enjoyed? Today's mmorpg's in my opinion have all left their "roots" and are more like MMOG's than MMORPG's. For the most part I think that most players of these games today are looking for a game that has more of a FPS(first person shooter) feel than an RPG feel. The focus has become "how do I power-level though all the content" rather than "how do I have fun playing through the content". I simply don't see how they are going to design the game to capture the "spirit" of D&D and stop the power-leveling crowd from ruining the game.
Third, content wise there is no way they are going to be able to have enough content in the game to satisfy true D&D'ers. The biggest problem that mmorpg's face upon release is the lack of content followed by bugs. If your going to be honest about this there is no realistic way that they will be able to release this game with D&D type content. I predict that for the most part whenever they release this game any quests you can get will be fed-ex or go kill random monster x type quests. Yes this is a lot of conjecture on my part, as not much is known about how they plan to develop this game, but being realistic I see no way for them to develop this game and have true D&D type content at launch. It will take them years to get this game to even resemble a D&D type world.
I know its awfully early to make a prediction like this but my honest opinion at this point is that whenever this game gets into beta I predict that it will not appeal to true D&D fans at all. Currently NWN embodies everything the true PnP D&D'er wants in a computer version of our beloved game. Turbine has in my opinion picked an impossible game to develop. Yes they might develop a successful game but I highly doubt it will appeal to the true D&D geeks (being the ones who played PnP growing up).
I hope I'm dead wrong about what I've said above but I'm not going to get my hopes up on this one. I can forsee a total failure of a game before its even in beta.
And as a final note I'm really not trying to sound like a troll or trying to just be negative for the sake of stirring up people. If you can respond to the above posted fears and give me reasonable answers then by all means lets hear it.  |