It's with a degree of apprehension that I return to DDO. It's been just over a month since I made some changes to how I approach my MMOing, and so far I've stuck to the new schedule through Lord of the Rings Online, City of Heroes and Secret World Legends. I'm pleased with that, but then seeing as that's two long time favourites and a third with an incredibly good story to pull me onward I'd be a bit concerned if I hadn't stayed on track.
DDO is different. It's the game I was on last year when this blog derailed and the run dragged on for four full months. As I said when it was finally over I don't blame DDO for that, at least not entirely, but if my schedule goes to hell again...
I'm not off to the smoothest start either. I didn't realise until I logged back in to my Drow Rogue that I'd left her with a full inventory that needed to be tidied up before I did anything, and a level up that I hadn't finalised. Having sorted all that out I then looked around for something to do.
Years ago, when I first discovered MMOs but before I fully took the plunge and subscribed to one for the first time, I spent some time jumping from game to game, checking out basically anything that had a free trial. I don't recall all of the MMOs I looked at back then, but I do remember my experience of Anarchy Online.
I'd created my character and done the tutorial zone, and then the game dropped me into the world of AO and left me to work out the rest for myself. I ran around a large and apparently empty city for a while, then wandered out into the wilds to kill a few mobs, all the while waiting to find someone or something that would give me some idea of what I was supposed to do next. I never did, and after a while I left. I've never yet been back to AO.
Looking back on it now it's possible I missed something obvious, but I think it's more that Anarchy Online is an old MMO – it was old even then – and by old I mean pre-World of Warcraft. WoW perfected (for better and worse) the questing structure that has dominated MMOs ever since and which was so distinctly missing from AO.
DDO isn't as old as Anarchy Online. It's not even as old as World of Warcraft, but it is old enough to be more experimental in its structure than a lot of the MMOs that started development after the launch of WoW. Like AO, it's easy to feel at a loss as to what to do next.
For different reasons. After the starter island DDO does drop you in a quest hub, only it's a huge hub, with quest-givers scattered all around the at times maze like streets of Stormreach. There's no lack of things to do, but finding out what's worth doing – what's on-level – isn't so easy.
(This is exacerbated by all of DDO's content – like LOTRO's – being accessible to all players this month, since it adds a lot to the already sizeable number of quest-givers. Not that I'm complaining about free content - it's a terrific gesture by Standing Stone and I will absolutely make use of it during this run.)
Finding suitable on-level quest content can be a cumbersome process – find a quest-giver, talk to them, accept the quest, and only then can I open up the quest log and scroll down to see what level it is. That these quest-givers are spread out across the multiple sprawling districts of Stormreach doesn't help either.
After a while of this – during which I also picked up a 12 person raid that I now can't clear from my log – I decided I'd have to take another approach. Thankfully the DDOWiki has what appears to be a fairly comprehensive list of all the quests in the game, sorted by level, and armed with this I'm now ready to actually embark on some adventuring.
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