three-barrel-cove
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One Shots: Here's your moment of zen
Contrary to what many people may think, working here at Massively doesn't mean we get to sit around and play our favorite MMOs all day. (We wish, though, and welcome any benevolent overlord who would like to pay us to do that.) Add in family, friends, and that whole "life" thing, and time dwindles as much for us as it does for anyone similarly carrying a full-time job and a host of adult responsibilities. However, when you're Massively's own Rubi Bayer, you get all that plus having the mantle of Community Manager, which means you essentially get another big "family" to spend time with! Even so, she still managed to get some time to run around in Dungeons and Dragons Online recently and brought us a shiny screenshot souvenir. Rubi explains: "My time has been pretty limited for gaming lately, and I haven't been able to play Dungeons and Dragons Online for a couple of weeks. This morning I found myself with some free time, so I set a bit of it aside for gaming. I headed for Three-Barrel Cove, an area way below my Rogue's level, but I need to impress the Free Agents. I also have a weakness for the explorable area here -- the sea and coastline are gorgeous -- so I stopped to enjoy the view before heading off to find some ogres to beat down!" Hey DDO fiends, we'd love to hear from you! Send us your screenshots of adventure to oneshots@massively.com along with your name, the name of the game, and a description of what we're seeing. Guild name or any other similar details are also welcomed. You never know -- yours could be the next one we post here on One Shots! %Gallery-85937%
DDO releases new screenshots and video
Turbine's Dungeons and Dragons Online has released a new group of screenshots from the adventure pack, The Halls of Shan-to-Kor. Shan-to-Kor is listed as a "very long" quest for characters level three to five, with five levels and several adventures. It is DDO's third and final quest in the Seal of Shan to Kor series, which sends players on a quest to defeat the Guardian of Shan to Kor obtain the Seal. In addition, Dungeons and Dragons Online has also released a new video from the Three-Barrel Cove adventure pack, a quest series for characters level 4 to 7. Three-Barrel Cove, just north of Stormreach, offers plenty to see as well, including 9 adventures, a full-service tavern and 41 wilderness quests. The video can be seen here after the jump, and on Turbine's new DDO YouTube channel. Both adventure packs are available now and can be purchased in the DDO store. %Gallery-74954%
New DDO screenshots showcase older areas
We've had quite a number of new screenshots thrown our way from the Dungeons and Dragons Online universe as of late, mostly to do with the fact that DDO Unlimited is almost here. For this latest batch of images, Turbine didn't want to show off a new unreleased area from the impending launch; instead, they've opted to display other parts of the world to the players that have never tried the game but are considering entering the fray when it becomes free.The screenshots, which feature the Catacombs and Three-Barrel Cove areas, certainly do a good job of proving that the older content can still look pretty darn nice. We've added the ten shots to their own gallery -- check it out below.%Gallery-68733%
Turbine slates DDO Module 7 for release on June 3rd
Turbine has announced the date that Dungeons and Dragons Online's Module 7 will move to the live servers. Get your wands of Magic Missile ready for June 3rd! Yesterday we posted a preview of all the new dungeon-crawling goodness. Mike Schramm put together a lengthy discussion of all the Mod7 additions, including Monks, a revamp to Three Barrel Cove, and a demon-tastic raid boss. We also have on offer a video showing firsthand what these new areas look like. Take a look!%Gallery-23551%
D&DO Module 7: The Gygax shrine and Three Barrel Cove
We stood in front of a peaceful shrine, adorned with a book and an inlaid gem. This little shrine in the lower level area of Delera's Tomb is a monument one of D&D's greatest champions, co-creator Gary Gygax -- it stands in the middle of the area where the man himself narrated some of the ingame DM text. Paiz also told us that there would be event quests and items associated with Gygax in the game, and though we didn't get to see any of those, it seemed like a fitting tribute to one of the men who came up with the foundation of all these games we play.Then, we were whisked away (via admin commands in the client) to another updated low level area, Three Barrel Cove. This area was one of the first created for the game a long time ago (all of the Turbine employees present at the play session admitted that it "preceded" all of them), and since so many players will be leveling up again with the Monk class, the devs decided to revamp the approximately level 5 area, and make it bigger, clearer, and completely redistribute the monsters within. This is only one of a number of changes made to the entire game to accomodate the new class -- Paiz said that they did a "full equipment pass" on all the items to make sure that Monks were itemized throughout the levels. The first area within Three Barrel that we got to see was The Black Loch, a huge pirate ship in a cave that serves as the tavern and hub for the area. Everything was very pirate-themed (though the pirate vs. ninja battle, we were told, would have to wait for another game update), and the devs said they had a lot of fun playing with the pirate asthetic, and turning all of the different races and groups in the game into pirate versions of themselves.This showed in our first quest, too -- in order to prove our worth as pirates, the party was asked to make it through Rackham's Trial, a test that a pirate captain gave to recruits. There were traps aplenty inside the quest, and as we carefully (and sometimes not so -- we sprung quite a few traps just by walking into them accidentally), the devs talked about how they try to both mix up the gameplay with different types of puzzles, but also give players who aren't as interested in mind games and tricks ways to avoid them if preferred. One example given was an "agility test" -- there were a series of ladders heading up a vertical tunnel, and as players, we had to jump from ladder to ladder (sometimes even from one side of the tunnel to the other) to make our way up top. After a few tries, we weren't getting too far, so the devs pointed out that there was another entrance in the instance that led past the trap, so only one player had to beat the test and then let everyone else through. But on the other hand, the devs said, they didn't want to make the puzzles too easy. They also showed us an extremely elaborate puzzle that could have been designed by Rube Goldberg, consisting of a number of different floor designs, levers, dart machines, and rotating directors. With the short time we had to try the trap, we didn't even get through the first phase of it, but as tough as it was, that didn't even compare to the second trap we saw: In a quest to save a fellow pirate, we made our way through a dungeon, and eventually ended up in a room where the man we were looking for stood in a cage in the middle. As we entered, he beckoned us not to move, but at the devs' hinting, we took a look up around the walls of the room -- every single square inch of the large pedestals of the room was covered in a kind of rotate-able jigsaw puzzle (this one will be familiar to D&D Online players, as you play a much, much simpler version of it early on in the game). The idea was to rotate the pieces to line up and make light paths, but in this gigantic version of that puzzle (the dev who made it, we were told, "is probably certifiably crazy"), there's one twist: every wrong move gets our friend in the cage shocked, and too many shocks means a dead friend and a failed quest. Players who like puzzles will find no shortage of things to do in Module 7.Our final stop in Three Barrel Cove was in the outer area, to get a look at one of the two new monster types in Module 7, the Sahaguin, a race of fishmen armed with spears living on the coast near the pirate ships. Their design and animations were suitably impressive (their spears did a fun flip before planting themselves in the sand when the creatures died), and we were told that this is only the beginning of the story for these creatures.After a look at the updated lower level area, we then headed to a wreckage that will also be very familiar to D&D Online players, and that serves as the mouth of the new higher level quests dungeons in Module 7.Click here to continue the preview...
Massively's video preview of DDO Module 7
In addition to our gigantic walkthrough of Dungeons and Dragons Online's upcoming content update, we also got the chance to get some exclusive video of the new content for you to check out. Above, you can see our run through the revamped content at Three Barrel Cove, a few fights in the new Subterrane instance, and a special preview at the end of one of the impressive raid bosses -- bad doggie!Keep an eye out for the awesome Monk ability of Abundant Leap as well -- you can see it right in the middle of the kobold battle on the coast. And right after that, there's a look at one of the two new enemy models in the content update: the Sahaguin, a fishpeople living in the pirate-themed area of Three Barrel Cove. Later, there's a look inside the Subterrane's Xoriat area (with beholders and other creeps), and finally, the Hound of Xoriat herself (with puppies in tow) makes a scary appearance.It was definitely a lot of fun to see what the DDO team has been up to lately, and DDO players will undoubtedly enjoy the free update of Module 7 on June 3rd. If this video piques your interest, be sure to see the entire walkthrough, right here on Massively.
Massively previews Dungeons & Dragons Online's Module 7
Dungeons & Dragons Online continues to hold their own in a quickly-growing MMO world. When DDO first showed up as a licensed MMO of the grandaddy of roleplaying games, their main goal was just to meet expectations -- so many people have been a fan of the pen-and-paper game for so long that putting it into MMO form was no easy task. But since release, the DDO team has made improvement after improvement, and added so much content to the game that it's moved beyond the license to stand on its own as a very singular kind of MMO.Massively got a chance to sit down with the team and take a look at the latest update, Module 7, due out on June 3, and currently in public testing. In addition to some extended playtime with the new Monk class, we got to see updates to the lower level Three Barrel Cove area, a shrine to recently passed-on D&D creator Gary Gygax, and the new raid area under the destroyed Marketplace tent, as well as a few new monsters and raid bosses that can be found down there.To start your tour through Module 7, just roll a d20 and click on through. To jump to any section of the walkthrough (including directly to our exclusive video preview, if that's what you're looking for), hit the links after the break.%Gallery-23551%
