D&D 4th Edition and Massively Mulitplayer Online Games

I finally received my glossy D&D books in the mail. The excitement bursts from every functioning portion of my brain. All happiness aside, I will endeavor to provide an objective overview of my initial impressions of D&D 4th Edition.

Dungeons and Dragons rules have become very focused around special powers. There is almost no such thing as a regular attack. While a bit more complicated, and requiring that each player understand how to use all the powers in the game, this version of DnD deserves to be considered a truly new iteration of the ruleset that drastically differs from those of pre 4.0 DnD.

The main positive difference is that all the character classes in the game have an equal amount of special powers. They are all very different from one another but they all have strategic value in large scale battles. There is also a robust formation element to the ruleset that really shines once the players get a hang of it.

This version of DnD has been compared to MMO games. There is some similarity between the powers and the MMO powers. This means DnD will be even more important for MMOs to study. If your MMO can understand how playing DnD enriches the role playing experience, then your MMO can then rival all the other MMOs. People on computers are necessarily lonely because it is a solitary activity. Therefore, MMOs will be most successful when they make communication and cooperative effort between players much more accessible. Today's MMOs have just scratched the surface of gaming, and would do well to contact players of role-playing games who also happen to love MMOs. I am available for consultation on making an amazing MMO, please contact me if I can be of help on your game project.