DDO Alpha Signups

[El Gallo]

Anyone know how they are handling AI/aggro control in this game?  How does a mob decide who to attack, and how can players change that? 

Also, 1st edition in the hizzy.  WTF is with this unlimited multiclassing, fancy feats and crap?  Back in my day, my warrior had a +1 shortsword, some banded mail and a THACO number.  And I was damn thankful...

[Xilren's Twin]

Anyone know how they are handling AI/aggro control in this game?  How does a mob decide who to attack, and how can players change that? 

Also, 1st edition in the hizzy.  WTF is with this unlimited multiclassing, fancy feats and crap?  Back in my day, my warrior had a +1 shortsword, some banded mail and a THACO number.  And I was damn thankful...

Yep, and elves were a friggin class, not a race. Pointy eared tank mages ho!
Heh, was moving stuff in the basement last week and came across my box of old D&D stuff.  Keep on the Borderlands, Isle of Dread, Original Tomb of Horros, etc etc.  Ah memories.

Damn, I think Im offically old now.

Xilren

[Shockeye]

Also, 1st edition in the hizzy.  WTF is with this unlimited multiclassing, fancy feats and crap?  Back in my day, my warrior had a +1 shortsword, some banded mail and a THACO number.  And I was damn thankful...

That's THAC0, n00bler.

If there's ever an Oriental Adventures expansion for DDO I will cry.

[SirBruce]

To be fair, the D&D spellcasting system was used pretty much as-is in NWN, and it worked pretty well there.

Cannot be directly compared: In NWN you can rest at any time for eight speeded-up "hours" to restore spells and regain HP. While you do this, nothing at all happens elsewhere in the game: You're the centerpoint, the rest is triggered events.

This "rest when convenient" mechanism would not work in a MMORPG where there are a lot of players who are active during those eight hours.

Wrong.  There's nothing wrong with saying your 8 hours only takes 60 seconds.  This is a game, not a virtual reality simulation.

Bruce
PS - If you prefer, you can just say the rest times are changed in the rules from 8 hours to 60 seconds.  Far better rule change than reworking the whole spellcasting system so you can cast 10 times more spells and then rest 8 hours.

[SirBruce]

4 or 5 fights in a PnP session is a WHOLE session.  So it should be no surprise that the game over time settled into the point where your average caster had enough magic for 4 or 5 fights.  4 or 5 fights doesn't even get you started in most MMOG's so it's pretty obvious something had to give.

That's most MMOG's.  That's what should give -- most MMOG's.  Because if you're just going to make a game like most MMOG's, your chance of success is lessened.

Again, I'm not saying that fast-paced combat isn't the way to go.  Just that you can do that with faster rest times, without compromising the integrity of the PnP system.

Bruce

[SirBruce]

Bruce your an idiot if you think your avg player is going to put up with his wizard or mage running out of spells with any regularity.

You can't make a DDO game for the average player -- you're starting with a license that's already a lose.  Rather, you make a DDO game for the average D&D/CRPG/MMOG player, and those player will put up with a wizard or mage running out of spells with regularity.

We all know how much everyone in EQ loved playing Wizards with the whole nuke 3 mobs go afk for 20min fucking medition in early levels when you weren't gaurenteed to have crack at all times.

That's EQ's problem.  You identified the problem yourself - 20 min meditation.  If the meditation were 20 seconds, it wouldn't be such a big deal.  You people keep bringing up this straw man obviously aren't listening to what I said.  If frequent resting is the problem, then you change the dungeons so you don't have to rest as often, and you shorten the time it takes to rest.  You don't give spellcasters an N-fold increase in their number of spells they can cast before resting, because that just upsets the rest of the game system.

As long as your not really doing anything different (EQ clone) you have to compete with WoW, if you want to stand a chance the game better look great, have good atmosphere and move quickly.  Fast paced combat will make bad combat systems seem more skill-based and interesting for your avg gamer who doesn't look too deep beneath the surface and see he's still only using 4 skills just he has to hit the buttons faster.

1. DDO is doing something different.
2. Fast-paced combat is not orthogonal to spellcasters resting for 20 seconds every 4-5 fights and, in some fights, not casting spells at all.

I'll have to play with it in beta, but if changes are not made to the system described then I predict DDO will within 6 months be forced to massively nerf spellcasters.

Bruce

[Murgos]

That's most MMOG's.  That's what should give -- most MMOG's.  Because if you're just going to make a game like most MMOG's, your chance of success is lessened.

Again, I'm not saying that fast-paced combat isn't the way to go.  Just that you can do that with faster rest times, without compromising the integrity of the PnP system.

Bruce

I addressed those points obliquely in my second paragraph.  You want 1.5 million subscribers?  You gotta have a game flexible enough for both the casual and catass.

Anyway, they addressed that (rest times) in that diary, and what happened was it turned out that stopping to rest for even a few moments every couple of fights was too tedious, while upping the number of spells significantly was too cumbersome.

If the solution was a simple and obvious as lowering the rest time I really hope they would have explored that earlier in the process.

[Hoax]

It is an EQ clone in my mind.  

Classes w/ specific sets of spells / abilities:  check
Abilities gained through killing for xp to gain level ups: check
Constant search for the better item: check -hell they keep it simple +1, +2, +3 none of this prefix/suffix stuff.
Killing more boring monsters, then eventually dragons and other amazing foes:  check
Dungeon crawls:  check.

EQ is based off D&D, but from what I've read here (I'm not interested enough to go to the site and read-through it yet and I doubt there is a ton of info available at this point) it doesn't sound like DDO is trying to break the EQmmog-mold in any way.

Anyways, I think I'm only involved in this because Bruce comes off as such a cocky asshat in some posts I really couldn't care less about this game at the moment, wake me up if they announce some really badass sounding complex combat system that would make for cool/strategic/challenging pvp.

[SirBruce]

I addressed those points obliquely in my second paragraph.  You want 1.5 million subscribers?  You gotta have a game flexible enough for both the casual and catass.

You can make the game flexible enough for both. But it's still D&D.  If you want to make WoW, you can't with the D&D license.

Anyway, they addressed that (rest times) in that diary, and what happened was it turned out that stopping to rest for even a few moments every couple of fights was too tedious, while upping the number of spells significantly was too cumbersome.

No, they didn't really address that.  They claimed it *would* be too tedious, but there was no indication they actually tried it.  Moreover, no discussion was made of adjusting the rest times or the encounter schedule so it WASN'T too tedious.

I don't think anyone expects they were going to have 8 hour rests between every 20 encounters, either.  It seems obvious the rest period every 20 encounters was already going to be short.  They simply needed to make it shorter so it was acceptable every 5 encounters, and adjust the encounters so wizards don't have to cast spells every encounter, and maybe even reduce the overall total number of encounters.  Again, all of these are far easier to implement and adjust to taste than changing the entire spellcasting system.

If the solution was a simple and obvious as lowering the rest time I really hope they would have explored that earlier in the process.

I do too.  Sadly, they don't mention it at all.  As I said in my original post, I hope someone was as smart as I was to at least discuss these ideas, and someone else on the team was even smarter still to find reasons why they weren't worth trying.

Bruce

[e_bortion]

Figured ya'll might be interested in this. We opened up registrations for the DDO Alpha today.

http://www.ddo.com/index.php?page_id=66&pagebuilder[module]=article&pagebuilder[display_item]=43

Sweet! All signed up. Thanks Cal  :-D

[AOFanboi]

Wrong.  There's nothing wrong with saying your 8 hours only takes 60 seconds.  This is a game, not a virtual reality simulation.

There is nothing wrong with it in a single-player game: Nothing else happens during those eight virtual hours when you rest, so they are speeded up.

In a multiplayer game, someone somewhere are doing something else than resting. The game needs to cater for them. The game is no longer centered around your (party's) actions. You cannot accelerate those eight hours for everyone, unless you make time irrelevant. And you can not because effects have durations and whatnot.

Hey, look, I was right and you were wrong! How did that happen?

The only way the "8 hours in sixty seconds" of NWN can be implemented in a MMORPG is in a hub+instance model like Guild Wars, because then the "game" is centered around your party again.

If you prefer, you can just say the rest times are changed in the rules from 8 hours to 60 seconds.  Far better rule change than reworking the whole spellcasting system so you can cast 10 times more spells and then rest 8 hours.

Yes, you can throw out the one thing that balances D&D wizards. 60 second rest period? Yes please. Very fine for making a traditional MMO, very bad for trying to implement D&D.

[SirBruce]

Wrong.  There's nothing wrong with saying your 8 hours only takes 60 seconds.  This is a game, not a virtual reality simulation.

There is nothing wrong with it in a single-player game: Nothing else happens during those eight virtual hours when you rest, so they are speeded up.

In a multiplayer game, someone somewhere are doing something else than resting. The game needs to cater for them. The game is no longer centered around your (party's) actions. You cannot accelerate those eight hours for everyone, unless you make time irrelevant. And you can not because effects have durations and whatnot.

Hey, look, I was right and you were wrong! How did that happen?

Because you are confused.  You can, indeed, "make time irrelevant" in the sense that it can go faster for one person and not another and it's all okay.  Again, this is called "dramatic compression" and MMOGs already have and will do this.  There's nothing wrong with DDO doing it; I believe it's been said before it will do this with regards to travel time, but that might have been another game.

But this is really a side-issue.  There's very little wrong with saying that wizards don't take 8 hours of rest, period, but rather a shorter time to recover their spells.  I admit, it's a change, but not as vast a one as the spell point system.  It preserves the underlying principle of the system -- that spells are limited and can run out and you'll need to be outside of combat to recover them -- while adjusting the time required to do so to fit the needs of the game player.

The only way the "8 hours in sixty seconds" of NWN can be implemented in a MMORPG is in a hub+instance model like Guild Wars, because then the "game" is centered around your party again.

That's certainly one way, but not the only one.  Then again, DDO might have a similar model.

If you prefer, you can just say the rest times are changed in the rules from 8 hours to 60 seconds.  Far better rule change than reworking the whole spellcasting system so you can cast 10 times more spells and then rest 8 hours.

Yes, you can throw out the one thing that balances D&D wizards. 60 second rest period? Yes please. Very fine for making a traditional MMO, very bad for trying to implement D&D.

Er, what?  But you're already throwing out the one thing that balances D&D wizards via the spell point system, which will allow wizards to cast vastly more spells.  And you don't honestly believe that, whatever the rest time ACTUALLY is in DDO, that it's akin to 8 hours?  The developer mentioned the 20-encounter mark in DDO as opposed to the 4-5 encounter mark for the PnP game.  Do you really think every 20 encounters in DDO (which spellcasters can now reach thanks to the spell point system) is really going to be followed by an 8 hour rest period?  Please.  It's going to be a far shorter period of time.  Now, why not take that period of time, divide it by 4, and make that the rest period for every 4-5 encounters?  Or, as I said, shorten the number of encounters, and not require the spellcaster to cast a spell every encounter, etc.  You balance all these together and you come up with a very workable and flexible system.

Bruce

[Trippy]

In a multiplayer game, someone somewhere are doing something else than resting. The game needs to cater for them. The game is no longer centered around your (party's) actions. You cannot accelerate those eight hours for everyone, unless you make time irrelevant. And you can not because effects have durations and whatnot.

Hey, look, I was right and you were wrong! How did that happen?

You really need to try NWN in multiplayer mode to see what Bruce and others are talking about. It's really not rocket science, seriously. It's not that time is "accelerated" while you are resting to regain spells in MP NWN, it's just that the rest times needed to regain spells are very short (on the order of seconds).

If you prefer, you can just say the rest times are changed in the rules from 8 hours to 60 seconds.  Far better rule change than reworking the whole spellcasting system so you can cast 10 times more spells and then rest 8 hours.

Yes, you can throw out the one thing that balances D&D wizards. 60 second rest period? Yes please. Very fine for making a traditional MMO, very bad for trying to implement D&D.

Again there are successful games that have done what you are saying is a very bad thing to do. Yes the PnP DnD purists probably look down on games like NWN but that model has proven itself as something that works in a multiplayer environment, though there certainly are issues with it. For example in the default MP NWN setup, you don't get the kind of tension you had when resting like in Baldur's Gate where random encounters might wake you up and you would have to fight them with a reduced number of spells. A NWN scripter could add that sort of behavior into their module but that's not in there by default, and it would look kind of weird for mobs to suddenly pop up around the resting player.

But even with these sorts of issues, what NWN did is arguably much closer to the "spirit" of the PnP DnD spellcasting system than what Turbine seems to be proposing for DDO, so what Bruce and others like myself are wondering is why Turbine is making such a radical change when games like NWN have shown that it's possible to design a MP spellcasting system closer to the way the PnP system works. I read the dev diary linked above and I can understand the UI issues involved with multiplying spells but it doesn't say whether or not they tried simply making the rest times relatively short. If they did try it, what were the problems with the gameplay?

[Margalis]

I like how everyone is just ignoring the points made in the blog (or whatever it was). It's like hens clucking.

Let's go over some of the points you guys are ignoring:

1: Even if it only takes 5 seconds to rest, you have to re-memorize spells, and changing what spells you are going to memorize is going to take much longer than five seconds.

2: Once you get a lot of spells remembering how many of each you have left is going to be a pain in the ass in real-time combat.

And I would add:

3: If resting only takes 5 seconds then it's totally different than D&D anyway and you've missed your original goal of being true to D&D, which is the whole reason this argument is occuring. Making the rest time insignificant makes it not D&D.

[Riggswolfe]

I like how everyone is just ignoring the points made in the blog (or whatever it was). It's like hens clucking.

Let's go over some of the points you guys are ignoring:

1: Even if it only takes 5 seconds to rest, you have to re-memorize spells, and changing what spells you are going to memorize is going to take much longer than five seconds.

Most wizards and other spell casting classes rarely change their spell lineups. At most they might have a "combat" lineup and a "utility" lineup. Games like BG handle this very simply. You select your spells once. The game has you rememorize those same spells unless you decide to manually change one for some reason.

2: Once you get a lot of spells remembering how many of each you have left is going to be a pain in the ass in real-time combat.

BG combat was real time and I never had an issue with it. You have a little counter in the corner of your spell icon which counts down each time you cast. When it hits zero you're out of that spell.

And I would add:

3: If resting only takes 5 seconds then it's totally different than D&D anyway and you've missed your original goal of being true to D&D, which is the whole reason this argument is occuring. Making the rest time insignificant makes it not D&D.

It still maintains the flavor of the dnd wizard though. They've basically changed them to the same wizard every other mmo has.

[SirBruce]

Riggswolfe basically said everything I had to say.  No one is saying it's not a change, but I think it's pretty self-evident that modifying the rest times, and the frequency with which an adventure would require you to rest, are far less radical than changing the way spellcasting works.

It's also important to note that if players don't want to re-select their spells every time (even from a pre-set theme list that is saved so it only takes a click or two), they are free to play a Sorcerer....

Bruce

[AOFanboi]

BG combat was real time and I never had an issue with it. You have a little counter in the corner of your spell icon which counts down each time you cast. When it hits zero you're out of that spell.

What, you never pressed the spacebar to pause/unpause the continous turn (not "real time") combat? Of course in a MMO pausing is right out the window.

[SirBruce]

BG combat was real time and I never had an issue with it. You have a little counter in the corner of your spell icon which counts down each time you cast. When it hits zero you're out of that spell.

What, you never pressed the spacebar to pause/unpause the continous turn (not "real time") combat? Of course in a MMO pausing is right out the window.

This has nothing to do with "Once you get a lot of spells remembering how many of each you have left is going to be a pain in the ass in real-time combat." which is what he was responding to.  You don't have to pause the game to find out how many spells you have left.

Bruce

[Strazos]

Well, the real-time aspect should be balenced against the fact that you're controlling only 1 character, as opposed to (at max) 6 in the BG series.

[WayAbvPar]

Thanks for the heads up, Cal. Finally got around to signing up.

[Riggswolfe]

What, you never pressed the spacebar to pause/unpause the continous turn (not "real time") combat? Of course in a MMO pausing is right out the window.

Rarely. Only in huge battles where I couldn't win by brute force. But, I was controlling 6 PCs. Had it only been 1 I would probably have never paused.

[Strazos]

Bwahaha, my Cavalier wielding a +6 Carsomyr could probably have won most of my battles by himself....I kept 5 other PC's around for comic relief...and inventory storage I suppose.

[Riggswolfe]

I needed help killing the dragon to get the sword in the first place. That, and, like most truly geeky guys, I had a script that let me romance all the women at once, so I had to have them in my party.

Sadly, my first video game scripting was figuring out how to bring one of the girls back to life who'd been killed in such a way that she could never be rezzed. (IE a nice glitch I didn't notice until after I'd quick saved.)

[Strazos]

Shoot, it's an automatic quick-load for me if someone dies in battle. Also, I too needed the help of my party to get my Holy Avenger. My post underrated the value my party members had:

Main PC Cavalier
Jahiera
Minsk
Imoen
Aerie
(The Royal chick who was a thief/mage dual-class)

Most of my battles were simply me and Minsk, and occassionaly Jahiera, beating the mobs in the face. Most of that spellcasting went unused, especially later in the game.

I need to go through that game again, with an Evil Sorcerer or something.

[Riggswolfe]

It wasn't a battle perse. Remember the vampire chick who will kidnap one of your lovers? Well, when she did, for some reason the drow babe stepped forward and ganked the lover when she turned to an undead. So, when I did the whole cure quest what I got back was a body. And since she wasn't in my party I had no way to res her.

Had to hack the damn game basically.

I later chocked it up to the drow figuring it was the perfect way to get rid of a rival.

[El Gallo]

1: Even if it only takes 5 seconds to rest, you have to re-memorize spells, and changing what spells you are going to memorize is going to take much longer than five seconds.

They could let you save spell sets like EQ did (after Luclin, I think).  Basically, you memorized a set of spells and saved them with whatever name you wanted.  You could do this a bunch of times, so you could memorize an entire spellset with just one click thereafter.  The magic system would then became "you can refresh your spells any time you are out of combat by clicking the rest button" a la NWN.  Not really D&D, but does anyone really enjoy being a low level D&D wizard, who is essentially a one-charge magic item?

[HaemishM]

Not really D&D, but does anyone really enjoy being a low level D&D wizard, who is essentially a one-charge magic item?

And that's the problem with using the D&D rest system in an MMOG. In D&D, the wizard/caster type is someone who tosses a spell or two, then runs in with the pigsticker and tries not to get hit. MMOG's are completely different. You can't make a class that essentially stands up, does one thing every minute or so, then tries to avoid getting the monster's attention for the rest of the fight. That's boring, and it's one of the reasons EQ's clerics were such an underplayed (yet vitally needed) class for so long. MMOG players want to be involved. People who like to play casters DON'T WANT TO MELEE. That's why they chose casters in the first place. Say what you will about spoiled MMOG gamers, or what have you, they want to be tossing spells and seeing those spells have an effect.

The fact that the sytem they are using is based on another "official" alternate spell system should mean it's still closer to D&D than say, WoW.

Time compression could work, since as I understand it, most(all?) of the D&D combat is instanced, a la Guild Wars style hubs. But I really think it plays more to the tastes of MMOG casters to use a spell point system.

[SirBruce]

MMOG's are completely different.

No they aren't.

You can't make a class that essentially stands up, does one thing every minute or so, then tries to avoid getting the monster's attention for the rest of the fight.

Yes you can.  Moreover, there's nothing wrong with getting the monster's attention, since you want the wizard to do some melee.  Yes, it's very tricky at the early levels, but later on, magic-users and sorcs will have tons of magical items at their disposal that make them potent.  They'll also have enough items to keep casting spells, if that's their wish, by using up charges on stuff.  And they'll have items to help them in melee combat as well.

That's boring, and it's one of the reasons EQ's clerics were such an underplayed (yet vitally needed) class for so long. MMOG players want to be involved. People who like to play casters DON'T WANT TO MELEE.  That's why they chose casters in the first place

You're projecting.  There is no evidence to support your claim, either.  I accept you're offering your learned and experienced opinion, so okay, but my experience say you're wrong -- most people who play casters will accept they will melee at times, ESPECIALLY IF THEY KNOW IT'S D&D AND THEREFORE EXPECTED.

Time compression could work, since as I understand it, most(all?) of the D&D combat is instanced, a la Guild Wars style hubs. But I really think it plays more to the tastes of MMOG casters to use a spell point system.

Oh, come on, people have different tastes and are a lot more complex than that.  They expect different games to provide different experiences.  2001: A Space Odyssey was a great sci-fi movie.  But if it had explosions and space battles and laser guns, it would play more to the tastes of sci-fi movie-goers, right?  Yeah, maybe, but then it wouldn't be the same movie.  If you want to make as broadly appealing MMOG to the existing MMOG player as possible, you shoudln't be using D&D.  But if you want to make a game with a particular angle that other games currently don't satisfy, with a strong hook that can appeal to some existing players AND appeal to some D&D players who maybe don't play MMOGs, then it makes sense to stick to the spirit of the game as much as possible.

Bruce

[Margalis]

So far in this thread, nobody has advocated a system that keeps the feel of D&D any more than the way the game is going to work. A 5 second rest period you can take at any time as often as you want is really nothing like D&D.

[Samwise]

I disagree there.  In a tabletop game, you can at any point leave the dungeon, go back to town, say 'time passes', and then go back to the dungeon fully healed and with a fresh complement of spells.  You just can't rest in the middle of the dungeon or in a monster-infested wilderness, because presumably some wandering monster will ravage you and make the time counterproductive.

In game terms, you'd just say that you can't rest while you're in the instance, or whatever, but once you leave and get to a 'safe' area, or possibly even once you've cleared out an area that you can easily fortify while you rest, you can take your 5 seconds and everyone's refreshed.  Of course, your 5 seconds of real time represents a day of game time, so when you go back into the adventure area, the monster population has refreshed itself as well to some extent, just like will happen in a tabletop game if the GM is on top of things and wants to make sure you don't just go back to town after every piddling encounter.

Of course, every dungeon/instance/adventure should be planned in such a way that a group that manages its resources effectively won't have to break the flow by dashing out and resting after every encounter.  The D&D system handles that pretty well already since you can theoretically calculate what percentage of the group's resources (e.g. prepared spells) a given encounter will take up, based on its level and the party's level.  All you have to do is plan your adventure so that the party is ready to go back to town at about the time that the adventure ends.

[Signe]

I never played D&D.  I just want to kill some stuff. 

[Hoax]

"Oh, come on, people have different tastes and are a lot more complex than that.  They expect different games to provide different experiences.  2001: A Space Odyssey was a great sci-fi movie.  But if it had explosions and space battles and laser guns, it would play more to the tastes of sci-fi movie-goers, right?  Yeah, maybe, but then it wouldn't be the same movie.  If you want to make as broadly appealing MMOG to the existing MMOG player as possible, you shoudln't be using D&D.  But if you want to make a game with a particular angle that other games currently don't satisfy, with a strong hook that can appeal to some existing players AND appeal to some D&D players who maybe don't play MMOGs, then it makes sense to stick to the spirit of the game as much as possible."

Where does it say that they are trying to make anything but a broadly appealing MMOG?

-No PvP?
-Instead of auto-attack you have to get clicky w/ it ala Diablo?  (sorry I'm going to go out on a limb and guess this is what "super dynamic action combat of DOOM" really means).
-Almost 0 solo content
-Instance everything?
-Quests???

Admittedly I just now quickly read the FAQ but please show me where it says they are going to do anything outside the box, that would make me very happy frankly.  The sooner we grow out of everyone with lots of $$$ making the next version of EQ the better.

*edit*
I apologize to everyone, I dont mean to get all anti-fanboi, frankly I hope the game kicks ass.  I really want MMOG's to stop sucking but they just keep failing me time and again.  I just dont see anything in the limited documentation I've looked at that points at this being anything but another "look we've got an established name!  BUYBUYBUY". 

Also, I blame Bruce.       For everything.

[SirBruce]

Where does it say that they are trying to make anything but a broadly appealing MMOG?

D&D and "broadly appealing" are not totally orthogonal.  You can have elements of both.  But when there's a conflict, you don't want to stray too far from "the vision", which is D&D, simply to create a broadly appealing game.  Of course, people have different opinion on what constitutes the integrity of the game.

Bruce

[Roac]

So far in this thread, nobody has advocated a system that keeps the feel of D&D any more than the way the game is going to work.

That's because in tabletop D&D, a GvG encounter can take 30 min to an hour to finish up.  When you throw it online, the pacing will by neccessity change, and it's no longer D&D.  That was pointed out.  Few people are crying about how DDO isn't like tabletop.  They're not ones who need to do their own taxes.

[kaid]

I find it kind of funny that everybody is pointing at NWN's casting system as a good reason to keep the memed spells frequent rest mechanic. Honestly it is NWN that convinced me that such a system just does not work very well in a faster paced game. My friend who I played NWN was always mocking my wizard for taking 2 to 3 years to finish a dungeon due to having to rest after every fight or every other fight. At low levels a wizard with only 1 maybe 2 spells would be seriously boring to play. Also since you cannot simply grind up xp wacking the foozle and only get xp for finishing quests I am thinking leveling will likely be quite a lot slower in DDO. This would mean you would be at the very limited ability phase for a longer period of time. I am not sure how many people would play where they were stuck with only using 3 or 4 spells for a long period of time.

Sure it would be more accurate but I am thinking the play style would either be A) dull or B) cumbersom.

The other downside of being able to rest all the time which would be the only way to make that system work is that it would eliminate alot of the strategy of wizards. Being able to change your spell load out every couple of minutes would render the bonus of the sorc meaningless.  The spell point system still slants this in favor of the wizard a bit but they still have to pick which spells they want memed and can only swap them out at specific rest points which does preserve some of the strategy.

Kaid