Those lucky people who got to play the Dungeons and Dragons Online Beta have
some thoughts...

GamerGod
has the scoop on their first impressions:

It was a dark and stormy day in my mid-Fall 2005 school quarter when I received
an urgent instant message from Grimwell, our Editor-in-chief. He wanted to
talk to me on the phone. Now. "This is it," I thought, "He's
finally decided to bill me for all the bandwidth I've spent hanging around
his forums without contributing enough articles." No sense running from
danger, I picked up the phone and put on a brave face.

What awaited me on the other end of the receiver was a call from gaming nerd
nirvana, an offer to beta test Dungeons and Dragons Online: Stormreach. Yes,
the Dungeons and Dragons Online, based on the game that was to pencil and
paper RPGs what Everquest was to MMORPGs. A game that was so popular it leapt
off the pages and into an 80s cartoon series, dozens of computer games, and
a bona-fide bomb of a full motion picture. Now I was being offered the chance
to see the bliss of the twenty-sided dice through the eyes of a Turbine-made
MMORPG engine.

I accepted Grimwell's invitation, and we immediately fell into habit of discussing
our favorite, cheesy D&D mechanics of old --things like multiclassed Monk/Wizards
and the joys of what it means to be a Gnomish Illusionist. It immediately
occurred to me that there was a great deal more Dungeons and Dragons knowledge
hanging around in my noggin than I thought. How many more gamers instinctively
carried such knowledge? This game wasn't just a game: it was our birthright.

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