When D&D online goes free….

When D&D online goes free, I think RPGwatch members should form a group.

I hope there is somebody around here smarter than me to organize this.

Read this at Digg.com :

It is Free.

It's not available FREE until about the 9th of next month. Our Team Corwin NWN group has discussed giving it a try!!

When it goes free I'm going to give it a try. Wouldn't mind joining a few others from here when I do.

I still thought it was not free in Europe ?

Not free in Europe.
I played the beta and liked it a lot. Only times I didn't enjoy it was when some old DDO player joined my group and knew where everything was, including telling our rogue where each secret door, trap and trap disarmer was located, which to me removes more than half the fun of being a rogue.
By the way (in the US at least), you can buy a very cheap DDO box for like $5 shipping included, that will make you VIP for a month and will give you 500 Turbine points (value about $6) and 2 extra char slots, plus you'll be able to start playing the 1st instead of the 9th, and you'll be able to play all 'adventure packs' for a month.

I just wonder how long it will get interesting before you start needing to pay money

new pricing model … allows players to download and play for free, purchasing adventure packs, items, and account services a la carte from the new DDO Store, or to subscribe to get unlimited access to all of the game's content.

and

Free content is widely available for low-level characters and becomes sparser as a character's level increases. However, additional premium adventure packs are available for purchase through the DDO Store. Once the adventure pack has been added to your account, it will be permanently available to all your characters.

it sounds like a it could be a good business model if done right, though its bound to annoy players without and will ultimately put people in two classes: those who pay and those who don't.

servers that got donations on NWN ultimately just had trouble.

it was a drag when I played the beta, since there was no way of knowing what 'adventures' people in the group had, so it was like this…
Leader: Let's rescue the princess in "The forbidden cavern!"
Wizard: Hmm… don't think I have that
Leader: Oh, ok, then let's defend the poor villagers at the "Fort of Sunshine"!
Rogue: Sorry, I didn't buy that one
Leader: hmm… so does anybody not have "The singing hobgoblin"?
(silence)
Leader: Great! let's all go there.
(everybody gets inside except one, 30 seconds later…)
Cleric: Sorry, was AFK. Oh, no I don't have this one.

The good thing is that leaders can set a message in the "looking for members" interface (which is awesome, and something all MMOs should have) saying they're going for a specific adventure pack and it's paid, but you'll still get people who don't bother to read the text.

Is it free for US only? Not australia?

that may be fun, Sir Markus. I'll have to check it out

Originally Posted by purpleblob
Is it free for US only? Not australia?

Nope - apparently US only.

Nice find, worth looking into, thanks.

wow… gonna try this. when is the date again?

Anyone actually in the beta, atm? Can you report anything, happy/sad, tequila/scotch?

Also if anyone has played this, is there a link to a good read about the game? When the game first came out, there was talk of no solo play, iirc. Plus, it looks like atm they only give xp for completing Instances/Missions whatever they call them.

Lol, will this really be like D&D, I mean go to dungeon, have a couple fights in the first hallways, camp to regain powers, get random encounter, everyone dies has to run back from closest town OR complete a level, every ones bags are full, run back to town, then be forced to refight the whole level again?

in beta how many features are there for the players that haven't bought anything or don't plan to?

how good of a game has it become? I've heard its nothing like the P&P game rules.

Originally Posted by Acleacius
Anyone actually in the beta, atm? Can you report anything, happy/sad, tequila/scotch?

http://www.rpgwatch.com/forums/showthread.php?t=7951

Basically gameplay is like this… You are in a city/town. NPCs with quests will have the standard flag over them, you talk to them accept the quests, check map and head to the adventure. You can play adventures as solo, normal, hard or elite difficulties (first time you'll be able to select solo or normal, with hard and elite opening up when you complete the previous one). All dungeons are hand-made, which has the advantage of being very well done, but the disadvantage that you know where everything is after you play it the first time. You only (or mostly) get exp by completing the dungeons primary and secondary objectives.
You can solo if you want as all adventures have a 'solo' mode, although obviously grouping will have more rewards and well, more fun. And it's not difficult at least in the beginning to find groups, as there is a very robust 'LFM' (group looking for members) feature that makes it very easy to join groups.

Originally Posted by txa1265
Nope - apparently US only.

On this, aren't people outside the US able to maybe use a proxy in the US so they can join US servers? (if they're restricted by IP at all)

Originally Posted by wolfing
On this, aren't people outside the US able to maybe use a proxy in the US so they can join US servers? (if they're restricted by IP at all)

Possibly … always hard to tell.

I played the beta and I'm definitely NOT in the US!!