Why I play Dungeons and Dragons Online

[Deacon Cole]

I have been trying MMORPGs lately and thanks to seeing this thread (not reading it, mind, but just seeing it) encouraged me to actually try Dungeons & Dragons Online. I have thus far played for maybe ten minutes and I hated ever one of them.

Why did I hate it?

Well, for one, I apparently have some sort of technical issue and sound effects just are not happening. It's kind of weird killing a monster in total silence like that. I can't blame the game for that aside that other games managed to work with my system without coaxing. Why doe this one?

The other reason is that I think combat is the worst I have ever experience in a MMORPG outside of Two Moons, a game I probably did not give a fair chance, but that's what it gets for being frustrating.

Back to Dungeons & Dragons Online. I have not tried an especially huge number of games, but in every single one of them, combat works like this:

* You select a target
* Your character walks over to the target
* Your character starts smacking the target until it falls down

Dungeons & Dragons Online omits the second bullet point. Maybe this is an optional feature that can be turned on and off with off being the default, but I cannot think of a single solitary reason for this. It make the usually frustrating (although sometimes in a good way) combat of adventure games like this even more frustrating, but in a bad way as the enemies mill around like square dancers so I can quite get a bead on the enemy I have selected and as often as not, I swing at empty air.

If the idea was to replicate the desperation and chaos of real melee combat, then it fails. Real melee is desperate and chaotic because of the jumble of movement and the prospect of dying since people are swinging sharp pointy things at you. Not because you move about the battlefield with all the acumen of a blindfolded, quadruple amputee hedgehog on a skateboard with no wheels. I mean, car racing is exciting because you're driving really fast and one wrong turn can cause a horrific crash, not because your car handles like a shopping cart loaded down with bags of cement.

Maybe I just did not make my peace with the control scheme, but I found simply walking from one place to another to be difficult and combat situations where quick movement and responses are vital only highlighted how difficult it was. And it did not help that it was up to me to move toward the intended target to hit it rather than my character positioning itself automatically. It makes me wonder why hitting Tab selects a target since it doesn't do anything. It may have something to do with ranged combat or magic, but I don't really care.

So, I didn't like the game at all. I still have the bulk of my free trial yet, but I'm not sure if I'll bother. I probably will, but I sincerely doubt if I'll buy this thing.

 

[Gumerk]

Turbine has simply, yet amazingly, changed the way I look at an MMO. DDO, imo, is the very best and most underrated MMO in existence. The developers genuinely care, listen, and sometimes even implement player feedback into the magnificent world that is Dungeons and Dragons Online, and to be part of that is, well, amazing. For anyone who has never heard of DDO, or even thinking about giving it a try, I strongly encourage you to come adventure with us. I suggest the Argonnessen server, or any of our fine servers to make yourself at home with. Your attention will be held, amazed, and at awe of the beauty that is DDO. Please try some of these links if interested. Thank you...Gum

http://trial.ddo.com/ Free Trial
http://www.ddo.com/ Official DDO site
http://forums.ddo.com/index.php Official DDO Forums
http://www.turbine.com/ Official Turbine site

 

[Deacon Cole]

Ah, so I played a little more and it just keeps getting worse. I completed the startup mission. I don't know if there are several of these, but I got the one where you're a survivor of a shipwreck and you throw in with a female cleric and her buddies to fight lizard men. They aren't called lizard men in this game, but some weird name because they think it's clever or adds something to the proceedings when it doesn't. But, anyway, that starter quest was a chore and a half because just getting from place to place was a pain and combat was impossible for the above reasons. I wound up standing with my back to the wall and the lizard men largely ignored me and fought the NPCs. Occasionally one or two would walk up to me and then I would hit them, but my presence was largely unnoticed and unnecessary. I would have gotten stuck in, seeing as I chose a melee character because I'd rather eat ground glass than deal with ranged combat or magic, but trying to actually do it is a lot like trying to drive a car with a steering wheel that's make out of Jell-o. So I hung back and let the other guys fight and this worked well. I probably got a lot less experience than I should have, but I didn't care.

Anyway, after defeating the initial band of lizard dudes, they send me down into a water pit to retrieve a key so we can continue with the dungeon crawling. Needless to say, I drowned because swimming is not any easier than any other method of getting around. Only a convenient spell placed on me kept me from dying. I haven't deal with swimming controls this poor since the Half-Life demo. that this is here in what is essentially the tutorial tells me there's going to be more of this, and I don't like this at all an am not looking forward to doing any more of it.

Anyway, we finally get to the lizard man boss and again I hung back, which is probably just as well since the boss ran all around the room with the NPCs in hot pursuit. It looked like something out of the Keystone Cops or Benny Hill. If I made YouTube reviews, I would add Yakkity Sax to the video, if that wasn't already a tired joke.

So the NPCs kill the boss without my help, and god bless 'em. I'm then given an option to take stuff out of a treasure chest, but I don't care to have any of it since it was all potions or something which I didn't know what they were and didn't care about the ones I did know what they were. But I did get a better ax from the paladin which has fire on it. Because everything is better when it's on fire, I guess.

So, now I get into town and they Should have called this town Tedium. I guess all town/hub areas of a game are tedious since it's all just running around, bumping into other players and not interacting, while trying to find merchants, trainers, and quests all while navigating the waaaay overdone landscape that seems to be designed to make it as easy as possible to get lost.

Incidentally, my character was stark naked, or the equivalent thereof all this time since all of its equipment was lost in the shipwreck. It has no armor nor regular clothes save the undergarments it's depicted in. It even has bare feet. If there was a shop where I could get such things, it wasn't evident. So my character is naked with a flaming ax. Makes sense to me.

Anyway, to be different, this game puts cups over people's heads if they have a quest for you rather than exclamation points. A nice touch, I guess. But I didn't care for the quests being given.

One quest involved going into a warehouse to retrieve a scroll of dubious usefulness while killing rats and spiders. (What is it with giant spiders?) It seemed doable until the guy mentioned there was a protection spell on it which might mean some kind of idiotic puzzle I did not feel like dealing with, especially if it involved finding an anti-charm or whatever.

Another quest I stopped paying attention to because it seemed like an overcomplicated plot thing involving a cult and a dragon and when will people learn that their world is not very interesting so quit cramming all of this stuff down my throat?

To add insult to insult, some creepy guy started following me around since none of the other players seemed to be doing anything. I eventually got rid of him by swimming out into the frozen river and drowning, and then exiting the game.

Most of my gripes have to do with the controls which I find unintuitive and cumbersome to use and the game lack some of the tools other games have to help make them more user-friendly. I suppose it depends on how much the game manages to draw me in if I'll manage to get over the learning curve of these controls. I doubt if it will, since i don't care about the game world since it reminds me too much of the typical pencil-and-paper RPG game world as designed by the GM. That is, it's fanfic-awful. (many such things are crack!fic-awful, but this game doesn't look that bad... yet) With just that one quest, I had been given a taste of several factions with silly names at work here with deep political intrigue and a whole lot of who's-doing-what-to-whom. Unfortunately, all it did was twang my cynicism meter so I just didn't care about any of it. It's just overdone. You can tell someone spent a lot of time putting it together, mostly likely alone in their dorm room with very unrealistic expectations on how real live other people might react to all of this nonsense. Why couldn't they have just sent me off to kill ten kobolds instead?

On another note, I fail to see how this is at all "just like the paper-and-dice game." Granted, I haven't looked at that game much since the overhyped third edition, but this doesn't seem like the tabletop game at all. Which is not necessarily bad, but I just don't see how this is like the tabletop game any more than any other fantasy game on the market.

 

[sneakthief]

The other reason is that I think combat is the worst I have ever experience in a MMORPG outside of Two Moons, a game I probably did not give a fair chance, but that's what it gets for being frustrating.

Back to Dungeons & Dragons Online. I have not tried an especially huge number of games, but in every single one of them, combat works like this:

* You select a target
* Your character walks over to the target
* Your character starts smacking the target until it falls down

Dungeons & Dragons Online omits the second bullet point. Maybe this is an optional feature that can be turned on and off with off being the default, but I cannot think of a single solitary reason for this. It make the usually frustrating (although sometimes in a good way) combat of adventure games like this even more frustrating, but in a bad way as the enemies mill around like square dancers so I can quite get a bead on the enemy I have selected and as often as not, I swing at empty air.

If the idea was to replicate the desperation and chaos of real melee combat, then it fails. Real melee is desperate and chaotic because of the jumble of movement and the prospect of dying since people are swinging sharp pointy things at you. Not because you move about the battlefield with all the acumen of a blindfolded, quadruple amputee hedgehog on a skateboard with no wheels. I mean, car racing is exciting because you're driving really fast and one wrong turn can cause a horrific crash, not because your car handles like a shopping cart loaded down with bags of cement.

Maybe I just did not make my peace with the control scheme, but I found simply walking from one place to another to be difficult and combat situations where quick movement and responses are vital only highlighted how difficult it was. And it did not help that it was up to me to move toward the intended target to hit it rather than my character positioning itself automatically. It makes me wonder why hitting Tab selects a target since it doesn't do anything. It may have something to do with ranged combat or magic, but I don't really care.

So what you are saying is that you dont like the combat system because it doesnt do all the work for you?

I don't know what to say to that. That's the reason most of us like it! LOL
I mean, there is the option to turn on auto-attack, but it wont move your character for you. You still have to at least target it (auto-target nearest is coming next month(?) if you are insterested). And in the case of melee combat, you still have to run up to the target. Tab is just a shortcut for target nearest. I personally use it a lot because I use my mouse for nav.

Think of it less like MMO combat and more like FPS combat. You have to run up to stab/chainsaw/blackjack/or otherwise melee your opponent, yes?. It doesnt do it for you. You can target people from ranged and just shoot at them if you want. Different classes have different tactics (EVEN the mobs). Enemy rangers will do thier best to NOT melee you, so you have to either imbolize, range them, or chase them down. You can switch weapons on the fly (like switching from a handgun to a machine gun) for the situation, as weapon effects work much better in certain situations (vorpal on vampires for example). In melee combat, you can trip, sap, and flank enemies, you can even run away to try to get a better posistion (they will chase you though). You dont even HAVE to 'target' enemies. Just run up and start whacking on them, or for range, use the targeting thingie in the middle of the screen to shoot preciesely where you want. For example: Throwing a rock (dagger in DDO) and hitting an enemy in the head makes him yell out and get his buddies to come get you ... Throwing a rock 20 ft from him to make noise that he investigates pulls him away from his buddies where you can jump him. LOL

Again ... in melee you always have to at least run up to them, but you have the option to just stand there and swing. Assuming someone is healing you and not them, it will eventually die, but where is the fun in that?

 

[Gumerk]

Ah, so I played a little more and it just keeps getting worse. I completed the startup mission. I don't know if there are several of these, but I got the one where you're a survivor of a shipwreck and you throw in with a female cleric and her buddies to fight lizard men. They aren't called lizard men in this game, but some weird name because they think it's clever or adds something to the proceedings when it doesn't. But, anyway, that starter quest was a chore and a half because just getting from place to place was a pain and combat was impossible for the above reasons. I wound up standing with my back to the wall and the lizard men largely ignored me and fought the NPCs. Occasionally one or two would walk up to me and then I would hit them, but my presence was largely unnoticed and unnecessary. I would have gotten stuck in, seeing as I chose a melee character because I'd rather eat ground glass than deal with ranged combat or magic, but trying to actually do it is a lot like trying to drive a car with a steering wheel that's make out of Jell-o. So I hung back and let the other guys fight and this worked well. I probably got a lot less experience than I should have, but I didn't care.

Anyway, after defeating the initial band of lizard dudes, they send me down into a water pit to retrieve a key so we can continue with the dungeon crawling. Needless to say, I drowned because swimming is not any easier than any other method of getting around. Only a convenient spell placed on me kept me from dying. I haven't deal with swimming controls this poor since the Half-Life demo. that this is here in what is essentially the tutorial tells me there's going to be more of this, and I don't like this at all an am not looking forward to doing any more of it.

Anyway, we finally get to the lizard man boss and again I hung back, which is probably just as well since the boss ran all around the room with the NPCs in hot pursuit. It looked like something out of the Keystone Cops or Benny Hill. If I made YouTube reviews, I would add Yakkity Sax to the video, if that wasn't already a tired joke.

So the NPCs kill the boss without my help, and god bless 'em. I'm then given an option to take stuff out of a treasure chest, but I don't care to have any of it since it was all potions or something which I didn't know what they were and didn't care about the ones I did know what they were. But I did get a better ax from the paladin which has fire on it. Because everything is better when it's on fire, I guess.

So, now I get into town and they Should have called this town Tedium. I guess all town/hub areas of a game are tedious since it's all just running around, bumping into other players and not interacting, while trying to find merchants, trainers, and quests all while navigating the waaaay overdone landscape that seems to be designed to make it as easy as possible to get lost.

Incidentally, my character was stark naked, or the equivalent thereof all this time since all of its equipment was lost in the shipwreck. It has no armor nor regular clothes save the undergarments it's depicted in. It even has bare feet. If there was a shop where I could get such things, it wasn't evident. So my character is naked with a flaming ax. Makes sense to me.

Anyway, to be different, this game puts cups over people's heads if they have a quest for you rather than exclamation points. A nice touch, I guess. But I didn't care for the quests being given.

One quest involved going into a warehouse to retrieve a scroll of dubious usefulness while killing rats and spiders. (What is it with giant spiders?) It seemed doable until the guy mentioned there was a protection spell on it which might mean some kind of idiotic puzzle I did not feel like dealing with, especially if it involved finding an anti-charm or whatever.

Another quest I stopped paying attention to because it seemed like an overcomplicated plot thing involving a cult and a dragon and when will people learn that their world is not very interesting so quit cramming all of this stuff down my throat?

To add insult to insult, some creepy guy started following me around since none of the other players seemed to be doing anything. I eventually got rid of him by swimming out into the frozen river and drowning, and then exiting the game.

Most of my gripes have to do with the controls which I find unintuitive and cumbersome to use and the game lack some of the tools other games have to help make them more user-friendly. I suppose it depends on how much the game manages to draw me in if I'll manage to get over the learning curve of these controls. I doubt if it will, since i don't care about the game world since it reminds me too much of the typical pencil-and-paper RPG game world as designed by the GM. That is, it's fanfic-awful. (many such things are crack!fic-awful, but this game doesn't look that bad... yet) With just that one quest, I had been given a taste of several factions with silly names at work here with deep political intrigue and a whole lot of who's-doing-what-to-whom. Unfortunately, all it did was twang my cynicism meter so I just didn't care about any of it. It's just overdone. You can tell someone spent a lot of time putting it together, mostly likely alone in their dorm room with very unrealistic expectations on how real live other people might react to all of this nonsense. Why couldn't they have just sent me off to kill ten kobolds instead?

On another note, I fail to see how this is at all "just like the paper-and-dice game." Granted, I haven't looked at that game much since the overhyped third edition, but this doesn't seem like the tabletop game at all. Which is not necessarily bad, but I just don't see how this is like the tabletop game any more than any other fantasy game on the market.

LOL. Thank you for that assesment. I really laughed at some of your descriptions, because I can remember when I started the game and was thinking the same thing. Like the whole swimming controls. ROFL, this took me a little while to master, and was so frustrating, but once I got it right, twas no problem. I think you will find as you get off of korthos village/island, the story lines start changing and some of them are better than others. I agree, there should be an armor vendor in korthos as well; perhaps maybe even a potion vendor =P. There is also no mailbox on Korthos, but this was done in an effort by Turbine to keep down the plat farmer spamming with trial accounts, and let me tell you, it has really worked. That's the great thing about DDO bud; when you give feedback like you just did, the developers listen, and are always striving to make everyone's experience even better. It's brilliant. Just like the feature I explained that gets rid of most plat farmers spamming us. This was a real serious issue for the players, and was driving us mad. Turbine listened and developed a way to eliminate almost all plat farmer spams. I think you will find the starter island just the tip of the iceberg so to speak, of a wonderful world of adventure. The controls should get easier with more experience, and the story lines will improve as well. What server are you on by the way? I have several lowbies I would love to run with ya, and show you around. Best of luck to you bud, and thank you for trying our beloved game.

 

[sneakthief]

Ah, so I played a little more and it just keeps getting worse. I completed the startup mission. I don't know if there are several of these, but I got the one where you're a survivor of a shipwreck and you throw in with a female cleric and her buddies to fight lizard men. They aren't called lizard men in this game, but some weird name because they think it's clever or adds something to the proceedings when it doesn't.

Well, I dont know that I have done that particual starter quest. Im going to have to go roll a new character now. And they arent called lizard men because they arent lizard men. They are creatures from the D&D MM. Most probably you are thinking of the fish men (cant remember the name), and since you are on an island, it makes more sense.

I wound up standing with my back to the wall and the lizard men largely ignored me and fought the NPCs....

I chose a melee character because I'd rather eat ground glass than deal with ranged combat or magic...

I probably got a lot less experience than I should have, but I didn't care...

I don't like this at all an am not looking forward to doing any more of it....

Anyway, we finally get to the lizard man boss and again I hung back, which is probably just as well since the boss ran all around the room with the NPCs in hot pursuit....

I'm then given an option to take stuff out of a treasure chest, but I don't care to have any of it since it was all potions or something which I didn't know what they were and didn't care about the ones I did know what they were....

But I didn't care for the quests being given....

It seemed doable until the guy mentioned there was a protection spell on it which might mean some kind of idiotic puzzle I did not feel like dealing with...

Another quest I stopped paying attention to because it seemed like an overcomplicated plot thing involving a cult and a dragon and when will people learn that their world is not very interesting so quit cramming all of this stuff down my throat?

Did you try this game at gunpoint while being force fed brussle sprouts? Seriously? LOL
After all that it sounds like you WATCHED an intro quest and then just ran around griping.

Most of my gripes have to do with the controls which I find unintuitive and cumbersome to use and the game lack some of the tools other games have to help make them more user-friendly. I suppose it depends on how much the game manages to draw me in if I'll manage to get over the learning curve of these controls.

Well ... I dont have a fresh install, but the default controls used to be set up much like most FPS controls, which seems like where you might have a problem. W forward, S back, A D side to side and space for jump. Either hold down the right mouse button or hit T for mouselook and use the mouse to look around and turn. You can always go into the controls and change the layouts. It really sound like you were looking for some other game. Movement and combat in DDO is far more akin to a FPS than to anything else.

I doubt if it will, since i don't care about the game world since it reminds me too much of the typical pencil-and-paper RPG game world as designed by the GM. That is, it's fanfic-awful. (many such things are crack!fic-awful, but this game doesn't look that bad... yet) With just that one quest, I had been given a taste of several factions with silly names at work here with deep political intrigue and a whole lot of who's-doing-what-to-whom. Unfortunately, all it did was twang my cynicism meter so I just didn't care about any of it. It's just overdone. You can tell someone spent a lot of time putting it together, mostly likely alone in their dorm room with very unrealistic expectations on how real live other people might react to all of this nonsense.

Well ... Um .... It's meant to seem like "the typical pencil-and-paper RPG game world". You know it is called Dungeons and Dragons Online, right? And in that RPG game world, there are always story lines. Unless you are playing "Serial Killers Online" your character wouldnt just be killing things indiscriminantly, right? Of course, if that's more your thing, you can do what a LOT of people do, and just not read the story! LOL

Why couldn't they have just sent me off to kill ten kobolds instead?

Ah ... wait ... non interactive combat, fluffy clothes, kill 10 somethings ... You want LOTRO, thats the next door over.

On another note, I fail to see how this is at all "just like the paper-and-dice game." Granted, I haven't looked at that game much since the overhyped third edition, but this doesn't seem like the tabletop game at all. Which is not necessarily bad, but I just don't see how this is like the tabletop game any more than any other fantasy game on the market.

But you just finished saying .... Nevermind ... If you havent played 3.0 or later then no, its probably not what you remember. I was a diehard AD&D 2.0 guy, but I'm starting to like the 3.5 stuff. 3.5 gives you WAY more control and customization of your character than 2 did. It works a lot better for DDO than if they had used something older, which wouldnt make any sense anyway since 3.5 was the lastest and greatest when DDO was made. It will never be EXACTLY like it since many things have to be adapted to the digital environment. What makes it more like D&D than other games is the fact that its using the D&D rules (again adapted for online digital gaming) for almost everything (character creation, combat, spells, etc) and not some made up, "we wanna be like D&D", rules someone else fabricated to try and mimic them.

Again ... it really sounds like you would be much happier playing LOTRO. It doesnt require you to do anywhere near as much yourself. And it has Hobbits ... fat stupid Hobbits ...

 

[Deacon Cole]

So what you are saying is that you dont like the combat system because it doesnt do all the work for you?

No.

What the hell is wrong with people that they can't take someone criticizing their favorite game/movie/whatever without leveling a borderline insult at the person offering the criticism?

"Oh, you thought the movie was confusing. So you're not smart enough to understand it?"

Bah!

 

[Jotchua7]

As much as I'm still dealing with my LotRO addiction(going for more than 2 years now), I have to say I've been impressed with the DDO people's fervour...I'm gonna' find some free time and download the trial and give 'er a shot. If I like it, the prospect of being a Drow Elf is very intriguing!

ooohhh! Converts from LotRO!! Thelanis Server... Ask for Trissa.

Will do, as soon as they sort out this latest problem and the free trial key is available again!

Ok, I'm in and off the starter island. So, far it's pretty cool...I need to investigate class customization more. Look for an elven ranger named Eruedraith!

 

[doctorwhofan]

BTW folks . . . the MOD 9 splash screen is out!

http://forums.ddo.com/showthread.php?t=177746

oh you mean my avatar?

No my avatar, it shows the awesome graphics off so well.

 

[ntomlin63]

As much as I'm still dealing with my LotRO addiction(going for more than 2 years now), I have to say I've been impressed with the DDO people's fervour...I'm gonna' find some free time and download the trial and give 'er a shot. If I like it, the prospect of being a Drow Elf is very intriguing!

ooohhh! Converts from LotRO!! Thelanis Server... Ask for Trissa.

Will do, as soon as they sort out this latest problem and the free trial key is available again!

Ok, I'm in and off the starter island. So, far it's pretty cool...I need to investigate class customization more. Look for an elven ranger named Eruedraith!

So you chose Thelanis???

 

[Darkf0rge]

Ok, finally got into the game. Doesn't seem to bad so far. But how the hell do you configure voice chat?

I go into options > Audio and their simply doesnt seem to be any options for it. Looking around online it mentions everywhere that you just go into this screen and scroll to the bottom to find the mic options. But there is absolutely nothing there. I have even seen screenshots of the options. but my audio option screen looks very sparse nothing like it...

 

[doctorwhofan]

Ok, finally got into the game. Doesn't seem to bad so far. But how the hell do you configure voice chat?

I go into options > Audio and their simply doesnt seem to be any options for it. Looking around online it mentions everywhere that you just go into this screen and scroll to the bottom to find the mic options. But there is absolutely nothing there. I have even seen screenshots of the options. but my audio option screen looks very sparse nothing like it...

options>audio. thereshould be a button that says Enable Voice chat.

 

[doctorwhofan]

As much as I'm still dealing with my LotRO addiction(going for more than 2 years now), I have to say I've been impressed with the DDO people's fervour...I'm gonna' find some free time and download the trial and give 'er a shot. If I like it, the prospect of being a Drow Elf is very intriguing!

ooohhh! Converts from LotRO!! Thelanis Server... Ask for Trissa.

Will do, as soon as they sort out this latest problem and the free trial key is available again!

Ok, I'm in and off the starter island. So, far it's pretty cool...I need to investigate class customization more. Look for an elven ranger named Eruedraith!

So you chose Thelanis???

Because Thelanis is awesome

 

[Gumerk]

Ok, finally got into the game. Doesn't seem to bad so far. But how the hell do you configure voice chat?

I go into options > Audio and their simply doesnt seem to be any options for it. Looking around online it mentions everywhere that you just go into this screen and scroll to the bottom to find the mic options. But there is absolutely nothing there. I have even seen screenshots of the options. but my audio option screen looks very sparse nothing like it...

Hmm, weird. Yeah, should be options, audio, then a box that you can check-mark enable voice chat. Did you have any errors in your download? Let us know if you were able to find it bud.

 

[Darkf0rge]

yeah, there deifnately isn't anything there. It's wierd. There is even a "voice chat powered by gamespy" message but no options for it anywhere. The last thing I see is an option to select my audio device and then just a black empty screen underneath.

Is there anysort of file check I can do on the client?

 

[doctorwhofan]

yeah, there deifnately isn't anything there. It's wierd. There is even a "voice chat powered by gamespy" message but no options for it anywhere. The last thing I see is an option to select my audio device and then just a black empty screen underneath.

Is there anysort of file check I can do on the client?

The best thing I have heard is to uninstall and reinstall.

 

[Darkf0rge]

So, it's a known problem then?

 

[lava_lamp]

D&D srsly?

 

[Quanefel]

yeah, there deifnately isn't anything there. It's wierd. There is even a "voice chat powered by gamespy" message but no options for it anywhere. The last thing I see is an option to select my audio device and then just a black empty screen underneath.

Is there anysort of file check I can do on the client?

Have you made a thread and asked in the proper place in the DDO forums? Many players would more about your problem than others. Also, there is generally no forum mods there on weekends to answer questions. You can also get in game, group with others for a party to use party chat to ask them how or where to turn on voice. Maybe get some other advice as well. I'd say use help there to get a GM but....I tend not to rely on any customer support like that. But you can still try to ask for help from one.

Good luck.

 

[ghaldar]

There is one...I've interupted plenty of casters castings...but you need to deal massive damage. My crits tend to do the trick on fighter and my monk.

I forget the dev who posted I think it was El but something along the lines if you wack em hard enough it interrupts all actions. Next time with on ogre wack him hard enough to make him go arr arr and it dies only getting a couple swings off.