Yah, the DDO Free to play, (F2P) is nice, but its not the entire game. There are 'adventure packs' that are only available to VIP (paying customers). If you dont mind leveling up a bunch of characters and grinding favor (faction) you get DDO points that are usable in the store, I think its 25 every 50 points of favor? Then 50 I beleive when you reach the jumps, like 400 in coin lords, 400 in house D. So it is possible to unlock the entire game if you dont mind farming and doing the same quests like 300 times without spending a dime.
Also, Free 2 play, after level 4 or 5 you need leveling sigil's to level up, they only drop for free 2 play players, as I never once got one. They can also be bought in the DDO store.
Drow can be unlocked via Favor, Warforged, 32 point buy, reincarnation, Monk's, Favored souls, I beleive they can still be unlocked via favor as least use to be able to, they can all be bought for $$ in the DDO store as well, same with healing potions, exp potions, dungeon packs, dungeon passes, hirelings, weapons (nothing great, dont waste any money on that crap). The have specials every few days 25% off certain items.
VIP's get 500 DDO points a month with there subscription to spend in the store as well as unlocking all the adventure packs.
As a F2P you have gold limits how much gold you can have on characters depending on your level, after level 4 you need Leveling sigil's to level up as well. I dont remeber off hand how much is it, so if you have friends better to have them buy ya stuff and pass it on, as stuff in the AH can be ridicolousy expensive.
Hirelings have been added it, so soloing is alot more plausible than before. You can hire any class as an NPC besides a rogue, you still have to find and disable traps yourself or another player, NPC's wont find/disable traps.
Updates are coming out a helluva lot quicker, more since Free 2 play went live, than since the game has been out.
I havent played in a few months, since last 2 updates I beleive and went to Free 2 play. Also if you have a friend that is VIP, they can purchase passes for the non free dungeons like 2 hours to take you on as well for fairly cheap since they get the free points every month, such as delera's tomb.
Its got a very different combat system than most MMO's, and having traps and stuff is kinda cool, but IMHO after like 10-12th level, random PUG's can be a pain in the ***, cause of the way you can build your characters and can be a pain in the butt sometimes to find a group, especially with the seperation of Free 2 play and VIP having access to different dungeons.
They also added in Epic Dungeon's as well as solo difficutly to alot of dungeons, Level cap upped to 20
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