Massively's DDO Unlimited developer tour, part 2
The second part of the tour dealt with some of the new content coming with DDO Unlimited. We ventured into Amrath, a dark and desolate place filled with lots of new baddies to fight. The actual zone starts as an incredibly vertical area, but thankfully falling off only results in the game teleporting you back and not your timely, clumsily earned death. Far off in the distance stood The Devil's Tower, an ominous black edifice slathered with a blood red glow. It was quite a sight; so very much so that several screenshots were taken for your benefit.
The Devil's Tower is where the new Amrath content culminates. Players will be raiding the evil structure, no doubt walking away with robust treasure and/or phat loot. I was quite curious what the inside looked like, but it was time to check out the new wilderness area that makes up much of Amrath.
I was told that respawning mobs would be fairly limited in this area. The developers wanted a streamline, minimally frustrating experience -- magically reappearing monsters en mass definitely seemed counter-productive. At this point, we opened up the DDO Store and purchased some hirelings before venturing any further. Each player character in our party was a caster, you see, and we didn't want to be crushed instantly.
As we fought, I was introduced to some very cool new content. Some of my favorite new additions are the summoned demon Hezrou, an entertaining crowd control spell and the new targeting system. Hezrou is both terrifying and disgustingly cute in more ways than one, so naturally I couldn't help but summon him as much as possible. Unfortunately, if the player who summoned him logs off while playing (or get's disconnected) Hezrou will eat whatever flesh is nearest, including that of other party members. Hezrou likes meat, you see -- keep that in mind.
Then there was a spell I really loved to watch. I like to call it the dancing spell, because makes your enemies dance -- complete with techno beat! No Turbine producers were harmed in the shooting of this image. At least, I'm fairly certain none of them were mentally harmed.
The new targeting system is much welcomed, especially by someone like me who tends to be spam-happy in DDO. Its best feature is that, if you're using an ability on a target just as the target dies, the system will automatically snag the closest baddie and go for them instead. It also does this if you try to attack a dead target, which I sadly attempted to do a few times. For someone like myself -- a relative DDO greenhorn -- it was a real lifesaver. The other half of the new system allows for different control modes, such as the FPS mode. As you can imagine, these new controls schemes are being implemented for potential free account players who may find having the 'E' key mapped to the "Use" function quite appealing. I didn't get a chance to delve into these alternative controls too much, but the old setup worked just fine for my needs.
The Favored Soul
Finally, I asked about the newest class addition: The Favored Soul. To me, it kind of sounds like the ultimate soloing class, but that really depends on which build you pick. Balance will of course be your best soloing option. However, there's also a nuker and support build -- and then players can always go full custom build via traditional tabletop D&D.
The team's design goals for the Favored Soul called for the class to always be a desirable addition to any party, whether it was a hireling or an actual player. They also wanted it to have good solo functionality as well, something that's been an increasing focus for DDO ever since launch. To that end, Turbine wanted to make sure that as a Favored Soul, the game could be played solo, with a single hireling for help at times. It sounds like a pretty cool class to me, but until I get some hands on time with it I can't really say one way or another.
