Dungeons and Dragons Online at E3

Admittedly, I don’t know much about role playing games. I played a
little BattleTech in high school, but mostly just to create original
characters and practice drawing. I know enough though that when Atari
announced that Dungeons and Dragons would finally be incarnated as an
online gameplay experience, that we oughta take notice.

Video games often take place in fantasy worlds and have even more often
described themselves as “a D & D like experience”. Some games have
even taken place in the D&D universe, but not recreated the
character building and dungeon exploring in an online, Everquest type
format until now.

During E3, Atari announced Dungeons & Dragons Online: Stormreach.
The game takes players into the familiar D&D world with expansive
areas of exploration and plenty of opporunity for combat. Though much
of the combat system is still unknown, Atari was able to demonstrate
some of the character classes and show off several of very well
rendered explorative areas of Eberron. Race options include human, elf,
halfling, dwarf and Warforged. Classes include barbarian, bard, cleric,
fighter, paladin, ranger, rogue, sorcerer and wizard.

Small party adventures are promised for release, letter players force
bands with their friends online for group adventuring in specialy
realized landscapes and dungeons. Regular business is done in
metropolitan areas where players can gather supplies, buy weapons and
armor, or look for adventuring buddies.

Currently, the MMO is still in Beta testing, but as of this writing, release is expected Fall 2005.