Dungeons & Dragons Online

The DDO Unlimited experience is rather different to the normal game. It's technically free-to-play, with no upfront cost or subscription, but requires you to buy a lot of the content that would otherwise be part of the subscription, along with many additional consumable and permanent items, using Turbine Points. Anything ranging from extra character slots to different races or classes - the Drow Elf and the Monk - are charged for, and it can be a little hard for new players to understand what you're meant or not meant to buy. Those that don't quite get it can opt to pay a subscription every month to become a VIP and receive all of the content, the ability to have more hirelings than "free" customers, and a monthly stipend of 500 points, amongst other things. It's an interesting business model, and for the most part makes sense, but the amount of things you can buy is intimidating.

For the European crowd, DDO is a lot simpler to grasp. The game retains the same subscription model as ever, and houses a great deal of genuinely rich, charming content. It's not quite as epic in size or scale as Lord of the Rings Online, WOW or EverQuest II, and doesn't have the former's gloss. Combat still lacks the sharpness and crisp sense of contact that would make it a truly real-time RPG, and occasionally you'll see the cracks in encounters.

However, DDO is solid to the core, sticking to a clear mission statement of letting people get into a dungeon and kill things until they're too tired to do it any more. What Turbine wants DDO to do it does, for the most part, exceedingly well, scratching a Diablo-esque itch with social gameplay leaps and bounds beyond that of the current Battle.net.

While those who understand the DDO rulebook (3.5, detail-fans) may flourish, those who just like a good old RPG romp will too, appreciating the new character facilities and the ability to survive without the need to stake out Craigslist for like-minded men and women to play with. Though it may lack the glamour of some of its peers, it makes up for it in sheer complexity and size, and those with a head for numbers (and the time to read) will be able to create the most individual RPG characters in an online game.

The question is, ultimately, what kind of gamer you are. If you're very much part of the casual RPG crowd you may want to play DDO Unlimited and pay (and play) piecemeal. In bite-sized chunks, DDO's new model flourishes, with a few casual hours here and there and the occasional $5 investment into a content pack proving a fun diversion. If you have the time to invest - and we're not talking 1999-era-EverQuest, but just a little more than WOW's current demands - learning and questing in DDO is worthy of your attention and a subscription fee.