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Message: <blockquote data-quote="I'm A Banana" data-source="post: 3842990" data-attributes="member: 2067">So, a short list of things that WoW (and other CRPG's) don't do well that D&D can either emphasize or otherwise prey on:#1: "Ownership." My D&D game is going to be totally MINE. *I* get to say what's cool, who's in power, what races there are, how they interact, what their histories are, etc. It takes place in a world *I* make up, with characters that *I* created. With WoW, it's a shared environment, and you don't get to decide, for instance, that the night elves are lame and cut them from the world (though you could always avoid the part of the world that night elves are in, chances are you'll see or hear about one or two in your journeys). 4e Status: Solid. They've got a really strong "metasetting" and tone this time around, but I think it will take quite a bit of effort to stop people from doing their own thing with them, and I don't think Wizards is interested in stopping people from doing their own thing at all (they'd just like to give you a good baseline).#2: "Modding." Related to #1, I can fiddle with D&D as much as I want to make it brand spankin' new. I can make a new monster, a new race, a new class, and I can post it online or share it with my friends or (now with the OGL) even publish it myself. I don't just get to change the game, I get to GROW the game. I can't change WoW. The most I can do is post a suggestion to the message boards, but there's no way that I will just be allowed to make and add a new class that all the players can then start using. 4e Status: Okay. Gleemax and the DDI and the SRD show that they know their community is key, but a focus on being "software ready," Gleemax's "all your posts are belong to us!" policy, and a strong core design for a specific setting and mood make this something of a step back from 3e's "skeleton system." There will still be modding, but they seem to be trying to control and corral the modding community, which is undoubtedly a mixed success (I get everything important from Gleemax over here at EN World, why the heck would I need to go over there?)#3: "Stories." D&D can be a very narrative game. It works if it's not, but a narrative plays to it's strengths. It can be interactive storytelling, where the characters and the DM riff off of each other to create wonderful shared tales of adventure and derring-do. WoW makes a stab at this, but largely falls up short: the stories are there, but are related only by static NPC convos, hoops you need to jump through, and the ever-present "kill 30 orcs so I can move to the next zone and kill 30 pallette-swapped other orcs, so I can eventually move to the final zone and kill 300 Dire Mega Ultra Battle Orcs, and their Big Boss, and then just kill lowbies for $15/month" grind. In D&D, I can be the world's last great hope for survival, and if I fail, the world can truly fall, and my next character may have to struggle against an ascendant evil. In WoW, there is an "if everyone's special, no one is" kind of mentality, where it doesn't matter where the endboss hides, he can't do anything to hurt you from there anyway. This also relates to the "everything is boring until level 40" problem in WoW, where certain types of quests are reserved for higher levels. In D&D, I can be 1st level and be a world's hero.4e Status: Okay. I doubt they're going to play it up much, but I don't think anything they're doing will *remove* the ability to do this, so people who were will keep doing so and people who weren't won't be persuaded to do so. #4: "Action." Believe it or not, the best D&D games are more action-packed than any pitched WoW battle I've ever been in. This is accomplished largely through players talking about what happens: their characters weaving, dodging, screaming battlecries, taking blows...in WoW, you've got the pretty flashing lights and colors, but your mind is occupied with the logistics of battle, the strategy of your abilities. This is good for fast-paced instant combat, of course, but it leaves something to be desired in the cinematic angle when you just stand there and glitter a lot. WoW battles can be exciting, but they won't be as full of running jumping aerobatics and visceral descriptions as a good D&D battle. "Sparkle sparkle blargh" is the general course of a WoW battle. 4e Status: Very good. Adding mobility to combat is a good idea, and I think the streamlining of the abilities leaves less in the way for descriptive action. ....those are just some ideas off the bottom of my head. Just a few. I'm sure there are more.</blockquote>

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