Dungeons & Dragons Online Forum News (Dec. 03, 04)

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Here are today's Dungeons & Dragons Online forum highlights, collected from Dungeons & Dragons Online forums. Please take into account that these are only single parts of various threads and should not be taken out of context. Bear in mind also that the posts presented here are copied as-is, and that any bad spelling and grammar does not get corrected on our end.

Xundau, Community Relations

Planar travel

Eberron does indeed have a different cosmlology than other D&D campaign settings. The actual world of Eberron is still on the material plane, and the astral, ethereal, and shadow planes are present as well.

The elemental and outer planes, however, have been replaced by thirteen planes that orbit the material plane within the astral. As Chaosprism points out, when one of these planes gets close to the material plane, they become "coterminus," and weird things can happen.

As far as DDO is concerned, we are not planning on including any planar travel for release.

Cisren, DDO Dev Team

non combat pvp

Yet more surface-dwelling interlopers that are wishing for the removal of my wards against rogues and their sticky fingers! As if isn't bad enough that they are able to open the dungeon side passages in which I lock my most prized possessions, now I have to pay the costs of fixing all the blasted traps these rogues are disarming on me!

(For the amounts of platinum I pay to those twisted hobgoblins, one would think that they would get traps that would be more capable of resisting the feeble efforts of these rogues.)

And I still have to replace some of my more sinister pets in the dungeons due to the blasted thieves creeping past and triggering my own defenses on my minions. Such gall these surface dwellers have -- I will have to up the rewards I give my assistants for each rogue kill they can verify!

That should teach them all!


(OOC)

Rogues in DDO are going to be a very busy class. They will be utilizing skills that are more party friendly as opposed to griefer friendly. Some examples:

Locate / Disarm traps. In past MMO's this was non-existent or laughable as a skill, in DDO traps are no laughing matter. Traps are everywhere and can be found on about anything. There are the slice and dice, spitting flames, and standard traps lining many halls in the game, not to mention that about any chest, door, lever or other interactable object always has a chance of being trapped.

Unlock Doors. While we don’t lock away the primary path for the parties in the dungeons so that rogues are "required" to get through, rogues will be the ones you want along to unlock those side areas that contain additional treasures for the party to acquire. There are also times where having a rogue to pick the lock would save the pain and suffering that would have to be endured in retrieving a key from a bunch of very angry monsters at the bottom of a pit.

Stealth! The old tried and true of stealth has some bonus effects in DDO. Rogues will be able to take out guards before an alarm can be tripped, saving a party a world of hurt. Not to mention getting to levers past some monsters and trigger traps to kill them, or even just scouting out what could be in that big room ahead or down the dark and dingy hall.

These are some of the primary roles of the rogue in the parties that make them not only valuable but a necessary contributing member to have along. Not to mention rogues are really good all around back up fighters for any group, able to be of assistance in both melee combat as well as from range.

- Cisren
- Lead Level Designer

[ December 13, 2004, 21:43: Message edited by: chevalier ]