Who created the Warforged?

d.3.l.t.r.3.3 writes "James Jones (Turbine), declared on an interview at MMORPG.COM that D&D Online and Turbine basically built the world of Eberron introducing and inventing many elements that, in reality, were already present in the Campaign Settings since early design, like the Warforged race. Since MMORPG dodged the bullet when a well informed Eberron fan pointed out the glaring errors, I asked Keith Baker (Eberron Game Designer) to clarify the matter. He promptly gave his own opinion, confirming that Warforged were his own original creation and that the words of James Jones were a poor choice. He also doctored the Turbine staff about what a Campaign Setting really is. The inevitable conclusion of the article is: how much can online gaming sites be trusted, when they are protecting their own sponsor's image?"

Editors

[Anonymous Coward]

Do your job and clean up that summary. It's atrocious.

This is painful to read

[Goaway]

Besides the awkward and nearly unreadable sentence structures in the article, 'dodged the bullet', 'doctored' and 'inevitable conclusion' do not mean what the submitter seems to think they mean.

If the editors won't actually edit articles (to keep Slashdot "more real", apparently), how about just not posting articles that are incomprehensible gibberish?

College interns for teh win!

[RingDev]

I'm sure there are plenty of would be professional editors out there who would love to get some intern time with /. as an editor. Think about it, you can pay them crap, but they get work experience, and /.ers don't have to spam every post with complaints about the lack of editing.

-Rick

PS: Hiring an editor, even an intern editor, WOULD be news.

Re:Sorry for the horrible summary

[kafka47]

This not what DDO staff said at PAX and it's irritating that to make users believe they did some serious work for their pretty shallow and superficial (at least at start) D&D licensed game they have to steal another designer's work that should have to be the base for their own game setting (like Baker pointed out).

I'll grant you that this was an unsightly boast on behalf of Turbine. Not giving proper credit, even.

But stealing someone's work? They didn't steal anything. They have been tasked with creating a gameworld based on the Eberron campaign setting. It's a fully licensed effort, on behalf of the copyright holders, Wizards of the Coast.

To say they "stole" Eberron is like saying Peter Jackson "stole" Lord of the Rings when he filmed it.

/K

Re:Enquiring minds want to know...

[Sage Gaspar]

I thought it was actually a lot of fun. If they'd added more content and maybe made the engine a little bit smoother, I'd probably still be on board now.

D&D definitely isn't slam-dunk though. It and its licensed game are much less relevant to newer generations of gamers. The people who'd be likely to get into it are instead using fantasy MMOs or MUDs as an outlet, whether they're poor substitutes or not. When guilds I've in have had discussions about who plays D&D, usually it's only maybe 10% of the membership, max, and it's vastly skewed towards the 30+ demographic.

I run in very dorky circles, and I've only actually seen D&D played once when I stumbled into a group of acquaintances hiding in the community kitchen. Those are the only four people I know that have ever played a game of D&D. I'd say, bottom line, D&D is the granddaddy, and new gamers know that and have a bit of respect for it in that regard, but they're just not motivated to play it. Lord of the Rings has the potential to be the WoW killer, DDO just had the potential to be a solid niche game.

Re:Dungeon & Dragons Online very brief review

[AuMatar]

So what does DDO do? Put all the health potion vendors BEYOND the beginner area. This lead to a lot of players choosing the lesser combat/healing classes getting stuck. If you used the 2/3 potions you got at the start to early you just couldn't survive later dungeons.

No you couldn't group with a healer or tank either, a D&D MMORPG game with NO early grouping. Says it all really.

THere were 3 quests you couldn't group for. One was a learn the interface quest with 3 CR .1 spiders. THe second was a quest with 1 mob. THe third was difficult, but easier even for a rogue than made out. There was a healing shrine halfway through most people missed. In addition, you could get healing pots on noobie isle from doing the training rooms. Furthermore, the quest has since been nerfed, the CR1 kobolds made CR .1. After this, you could group for every quest.

So if you're complaining about no grouping, you didn't beat the 1st 3 quests. Try actually playing the game, then you can make valid criticism. Until then, your points are null.

A MMORPG where I had more cash at level 3 then at level 30 in WoW but nothing to spend it on.

Did you do Waterworks and get into the market? In there are brokers where you can buy potions, wands, and magical weapons/items. Waterworks is a level 2 quest, and you don't even need to do the last 2 parts to get harbor access.

A human dungeon master is like a writer, he puts the actors of his play in constant peril but also makes sure the cavalery arrives just in the nick of time. A great dungeon master makes you feel like you escaped by the skin of your nose but not actually get killed. That is the difference between computer and human controlled RPG's. Humans care.

SO you don't want a real challenge- you want to be able to screw up and hope for the DM to take mercy on you. You'd never make it in my games.

In short, you played the game for probably under a day, and weren't good enough to hack it. D&D, unlike WoW PvE or EQ, requires real skill. Thank you for leaving, it makes finding a good group that much easier.