mxyzplk said:
The problem is, many of the things 4e seems to be borrowing from WoW aren't really the things that make it great, but instead the things that are design limitations. A simple example is respawning monsters and instanced dungeons. These are a "necessary evil" to make a game work in a massively multiplayer environment. No one wants that in D&D.
Well, respawning a dungeon like an MMO would make no sense in D&D, but that doesn't mean a dungeon that has been emptied stays empty. If not all the monsters have been cleared out, and they're intelligent, they can always call for reinforcments while the party heads back to town. To the players, there's no difference between Bob the orc and Joe the orc that they care about anyway.
Even if the players do wipe out a dungeon, there's always the potential for it to be repopulated. Maybe bandits will use it for a new base, a dragon might be in the market for a nice fixer-upper lair, etc. And of course if it's connected to the Underdark, who know what will come up from the depths?
Anyway, good DMs have always used this to some extent, and there's no reason 4e should change it. It makes the campaign world more dynamic.
2. Azeroth is a deep and interesting world. Even for those who weren't into the Warcraft series and don't know anything about the world's history and development, it's at least clear that it's a living, vibrant world that has a realistic feel derived from its evolution over time.
Unfortunately, the 4e direction seems to be away from this. Except for the Basic Set, D&D has shied away from having a setting tied to the core rules
One word: homebrewers. Ever since the early days there have always been players who used their own setting, whatever it was. I'd imagine there's enough homebrewers out there that would not be interested in an official setting and wouldn't bother with 4e if it was so closely tied to a setting that homebrewers wouldn't be able to use the world. They'd just use an earlier edition or d20 variant like C&C.
4. PvP. Sure, there's non-PvP servers, but everyone knows they're for noobs. This is sticky - I'm not sure the best way to incorporate PvP into D&D.
Simple: you don't. PvP has no place in D&D. Not only is it a matter of me not being able to stand PvP in most MMOs to begin with (basically the same 2 or 3 builds using the same cheap tactics with the same uber gear), but D&D is supposed to be a cooperative game and PvP flies directly in the face of it. The classes are built to work together and not gank each other.
And who wants all the player arguments that will ensue from PvP? It won't stay friendly, I can guarantee that. Why to you think DMs ban stuff like evil alignments and kender from their games?
7. Phat lewt. The 3e magic item economy where they're just about "same as cash" makes it very difficult to hand out cool magic, especially if it's not a pure power optimizer. It just gets sold and rendered into a raft of +1 items. WoW has some of this but it's a lot harder to tune MMO treasure to the particular group/characters than it is in D&D. In earlier editions of D&D, people usually had a magic item they were really proud of. Man, that 1e Unearthed Arcana barbarian who got that magic sword from the Forbidden City that could cast Heal once a week - he was hell on wheels. Not so much now, it's a matter of cost optimizing your armor, natural armor, dodge, and deflection bonuses. In WoW, strangers scope you out and compliment you when they see that blue or purple item.
My knee-jerk reaction to this is, "Monty Haul".
But that might not be accurate. And anyway, MMOs do have lots of different items, but nobody ever wants to use them, except for the powerful rare stuff you have to spend days camping. People don't go for the unique stuff on MMOs, they go for all the best uber gear, everything else is a waste of inventory. A lot of gameplay is PL to 70 as fast as you can and then get all the best stuff, while probably 95% of the rest of the stuff is ignored. In D&D's case, why should there be any conversion of most of the magic items? Just stick with stuff like
+5 vorpal swords,
portable holes and
robes of the archmagi, because no one will even bother with that
bag of tricks any more.
Corinth said:
Being able to do click two buttons, fill in a name, and then get going is a big strength for WOW and it should be just that easy to do in D&D: choose class, choose race, pick name, write down handful of gear/abilities and go.
I don't have a problem with this for inexperienced players. I'd rather roll up my own character, and I suspect that most long-time gamers would too, but having a character package like this is more helpful for players who don't know the system. Even having packages that aren't difficult to tweak might be useful for a veteran who just wants to come up with something quick, like rolling up a new character to replace a dead PC.
And lastly with the whole argument of the scope of WoW vs. D&D, sorry D&D wins, hands down. It doesn't matter what can happen in WoW, it's still a computer game and thus limited by its programming. This is a FACT, not an opinion. It cannot exceed its programming. Now the code itself might be very extensive and allow for a multitude of options, but it's still dumb computer code that can only do as it's told.
As for interplayer interactions, that's a different matter, the only real difference is that in a normal D&D game there's only about 4-8 PCs on average interacting, where a MMO will have thousands or even millions. It also ignores the fact that NPCs aren't as static in D&D as they are in an MMO. MMO NPCs largely exist as quest-givers, shops or enemies, and always serve that role, that way the noob who just joined up can take a quest that a player who's been on the server from Day 1 took when he first logged on the game for example. In D&D NPCs die, or they take a new role or whatever, theree's always the possibility that the DM will change things around, because the individual NPCs don't need to keep performing the same tasks
ad infinitum.
I'm not bashing MMOs, there's lots of aspects of an MMO I like. I like exploring the worlds, fighting monsters, crafting items, finding treasaure, etc. I don't like grinding, and I don't like getting ganked by bored players who reached the level cap and get their kicks by killing low-level characters who don't have a snowball's chance in hell of fighting back.
But the fact is D&D or any other tabletop RPG isn't an MMO, and should always function as one either, since the two style of games have different needs in terms of gameplay.
