How to Draw in New Players:

In this post I’m going to address some of the issues of being a new player in Dungeons and Dragons Online, the good, the bad and what could be changed to make being a new player much easier, to start:

DDO’s Character Creation:
Customization and creative options is what makes the game amazing. As amazing as it is, this customization is super intimidating to new players.
Possible Solutions:
– Reduce amount of “Skills” i.e. Listen, Tumble, Intim, Diplo etc.
– Reduce amount of useless feats i.e. when is the last time someone built a build w/ slicing blow? OR a majority of skill bonus feats??
– Make premade builds WAY better then they are currently, the premade builds are super bad

More logical Tutorial system:
As fun and interactive the current tutorial is, Dungeons and Dragons Online definitely needs to help new players further explain how:
-Enhancement Trees work
-Why Feats are VERY important in building your character
-Allow for new players to trial a capped(max level) character in a basic dungeon? i.e. player selects trial character, it gets input automatically upon signing in, into an instance(dungeon) where the player gets to try out a basic build with tooltips guiding the player on how to properly use the basic build per class/enhancement tree of choice

Add a form of ranked/competitive queue system:
New players in recent times want an incentive to play games OTHER than just for “fun.” As wild as it seems, people crave some form of competitiveness, possible solutions in Dungeons and Dragons Online are as follows:
– Create a massive PvP focused balance patch: i.e. “While in PvP players take 80-85% less damage (testing required to really find a solid balance point for casters and melee/hybrid builds)
– Similar to reaper mode, give PvP its own enhance trees to gain experience in to gain defensives/passives usable ONLY in PvP scenarios (arenas, the tavern pits, etc.)
– Offer a Quarterly/Yearly tournament to bring players together to practice specific runs/PvP events
– Prize Pool (Community funded even?) tournaments

I just don’t see why we can’t produce a competitive environment allowing players to practice with one another and gain something for their efforts. If DDO had a system to reward PvP, or even a time trial type event for dungeons/raids, I believe it would be well reviewed and liked.

Naturally if the game had a way of producing in game weekly/monthly tournaments run by an in game que system that was thoroughly debugged with either in game rewards/prize pool rewards; DDO would THRIVE with new players, in my opinion.

In short, I believe these options are among many that can really generate a good amount of newer players and would help guide them to stay playing the game. Send out an email and let me know what you think
– Dan, DDO Savant