If you haven't heard yet Dungeon and Dragons Online (DDO) has gone Free to Play. As a former subscriber, I decided to put DDO to the test and find out the nitty gritty on how free it really is. What I have found out is the claims are true.

After character creation you will appear on Korthos island. There you go through a quick tutorial on gameplay and certain things that help you operate the game. You will notice that your newly created toon will display levels 1 to 4 max. So yes, the game is free but Turbine throws a wrench into how far you can go. But they still allow you to get to level 20 it will just take a little more work to get there.

You will also notice that there are premium modules that can be purchased, as well as leveling sigils that you can get in the stores. This is how Turbine intends to make its money. In order to avoid paying as little to get to level 20, or pay nothing at all there are a few strategies that will help you get off to a fast start.

1. Create a new toon on every single server.

Turbine has linked getting free points with its favor system. For every 100 favor points you earn 25 free Turbine points that you can spend in its store. For each first time toon on a new server they give you bonus points. As an example you gain 100 points by the time you reach 100 favor on your first toon. This favor bonus is obtainable on all six servers. So it is in your best interest to level at least one toon and get as much favor as possible.

2. Avoid buying consumable and fluff items.

These are usually small increments in cost but they add up. Nearly everything you see in the store for consumables can be found or bought in the game with plat.

3. When you spend points use them for a new module on sale.

At some point you will have quite a bit of points you earned for free. Hit the tab that says todays deals. A lot of the times there will be a mod that has a reduced Turbine point price. Try to buy a module with a lot of quests in it. Lots of quests = more favor = lots of potential turbine points that can be earned. Avoid buying any high level quests areas until you have a significant number of high level toons for that area.

4. Don't buy the drow.

This is one of the easiest things in the game you get for free per server by gaining 400 favor points on each server.

5. Avoid buying leveling sigils.

The easiest leveling sigil to get in the game is the copper sigil. My new favorite technique for getting this is completing all the Korthos island quests. At this point I am level 2. I immediately go to the harbor run up a ramp off to the left and talk to a guy named Durk. I then enter Durk Has A Secret quest on solo. I do this for two reasons. Copper sigils drop on any setting of Normal, Hard, Elite or Solo. Solo is the easiest of the settings. I can run through this dungeon in under 5 minutes on solo. At the end reward I check it very carefully scrolling down for a Copper sigil. If I don't get it, which is usually the case, I immediately repeat it.

The second reason is Muckbane. When you kill the brothers, turn the wheel that opens up the back entrance. At the fork first go to the left kill the first brother, turn the wheel then make your way to the other side. You will notice a open doorway, run up to it, you will either see a message that says Optional: Slay Muck or not. If not go off to kill the second brother. Muckbane is a weapon that drops in the optional. It is a must have for every non monk melee toon. It allows you to kill the slimes with out damaging your other weapons and avoids splitting other slimes that appear latter through the game. Up until you get a Muckbane use your fists or a cheap store bought weapon to take these down. They wont give you much trouble on solo which is the other reason to run it on solo.

After your 8th run on Durks you will see a message saying you have run this quest repeatedly. I usually pull out one to two muckbanes by this time and have already received my copper sigil that makes my max level 8 now.

For silver sigils any level 5 quest on up will drop them. The last two parts of Depths quests are level 5 quests on solo can be done or get a group together for sigil normal runs. These are very fast runs, not offering a lot of xp but will get you up to level 12.

If you have capped your toon at whatever level 8, 12, 16, or 20 if your really lucky move on to the next server and repeat. If you don't pull a silver sigil once you hit the limit, start building on the next server. This is a great way for those that want to try a lot of different classes. Create a new class on a new server and get paid for it.

I have heard of some running the same quest over and over 30 times to finally get their next sigil to advance. I would reserve this technique for after I have maxed out the favor of all my toons first. Eventually you will pull a silver or gold between all the different toons you are creating. It is best to use that time to build favor and earn points. As a f2P player you need to have an outlook of how much favor can I get vs. how fast can I level.

6. Run every quest that you are high enough to complete up to elite.

Every time you run a quest for the first time only on a harder difficulty will earn you favor points. With all the free quests available there is a potential of 900 plus favor points you can earn without ever having to spend a dime.

So yes it is for free. Turbine will make you work for it if you want to never spend a dime but it can be easily done. It just takes time. The optimal way to really do it is buy points every now and then to supplement Turbine points you earn. But either way using this strategy will allow you to unlock the entire game.

One of the nice features about this F2P way is once you buy a module you can use it on all servers. So make sure you go back on each server and run those new modules up to elite. This will get you more points allowing you to purchase more mods.

Good luck and see you in the game.

Recently added.

House P, K, J, and D quests will all drop silver sigils. The quickest is the last two parts of House D Depths quests. If searching for these silver just run them to ransacked and move on to another quest. It is better to get loot and have the possibility of getting a silver then no loot at all. K there are quite a few short quests in the tavern. J has Mirras endless nights which is a very fast quest as well as Rest for the Restless.

Silver will be tough to obtain. So far I only have one looted. However I am at 100% success getting the Bronze each time before reaching level 4 using the muckbane grind method stated above. Only once on a total of 8 toons so far have I not received a bronze in Durks. Any harbor quest will drop it so if you do not get a bronze in Durks by ransack don't worry you will get one. Just make sure you are checking your end rewards carefully.

Silver will drop on any level 5 plus quest
Gold will drop from any level 9 plus quest
Platinum will drop from any level 13 plus quest

Other notable mentions. Difficulty settings has no effect on increase drop rate. Running a quest on solo vs elite will still have the same chance at end reward

bodhidharma:
If you haven't heard yet Dungeon and Dragons Online (DDO) has gone Free to Play. As a former subscriber, I decided to put DDO to the test and find out the nitty gritty on how free it really is. What I have found out is the claims are true. ...

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Good luck and see you in the game.

Fantastic starter guide for new free players Bod.

A couple quick things I'd like to add for free players...

1) Repeating each quest on each difficulty mode gives you bonus xp, so it's fantastic for leveling your guy. However, if you're not interested in bonus xp and only want the favor (for example farming favor on the alt characters on the other servers that Bodhidharma mentioned) then you may want to skip doing each difficulty level and follow #2 below.

2) As Bod mentioned, each difficulty level of a quest gives favor, for example solo mode=2, normal=2, hard=2, elite=3, for a total of 9 favor points. However, a higher difficulty level will give the favor bonus of the ones below it (if you haven't done them yet), so doing hard mode in the above example would give you 6 favor and elite mode will give all the favor you can earn for that quest. So if farming favor is your only goal, then doing all the quests on elite mode will get you the most in the fastest time (since there is no re-running the quest for all the modes).

This method has a few problems the new player will run into. First, hard mode is locked until normal mode is done, and elite is locked until hard is done, so for the player that REALLY wants to only solo for favor then you'd have to do as Bod said and run each difficulty level to unlock the next one for it's favor. Second, for a solo player, hard mode and especially elite mode may be too hard to be ran solo, and so the solo player will be limited on the favor they can earn until they either group with others or come back to the harder modes after they've leveled a bit.

Now for the player who doesn't mind grouping in order to get the max favor in the fastest time there is a way around the hard/elite locks. If you group up with another player who already has hard and elite unlocked then as long as they go into the dungeon first on the elite mode then it will also be unlocked for you, and you can go in with them. So, if you're able to get into a group that is specifically going into the quest on elite mode then you can earn your max favor by doing that one run.

To find groups doing elite modes, just look on the LFG tool ("O" button...grouping tab) for groups advertising elite mode of the quests you have. ****WARNING**** Favor farming groups tend to zerg through the instance as fast as they can, so if you've never done the instance before and want to experience it more fully at a slower pace, then make sure you let the group know...most players are friendly and patient and will probably take it a bit slower. You can also run through the quest on the easiest (solo mode) first to familiarize yourself with it before looking for an elite group for it.

To check how much favor you have, and how much you've earned so far from each quest, push "P" and click on the adventuring tab for the list of quests/favor per quest, or click on the patrons tab for favor per faction and total favor earned. You can verify how many TP you've earned through favor by clicking on the DDO store button on the menu bar.

Anyway, that's what I wanted to toss out to the free players looking to farm favor for Turbine store points. You can eventually earn enough TP to buy everything in the game this way, but be prepared for a looong grind...it will take a while. Good luck.

I just downloaded DDO to check it out now that it's free - I'll definitely keep this in mind, thanks a ton!

Thumbs up to you for this great guide for F2P players, a lot of very useful information and details.

Made a few changes to clarify things. I will post the quickest quests to run for silver sigils sometime this week.

Great guide, I'll definitely be using this on my next toon, after I unlock some some stuff with Favor. I made the mistake on my Cleric of buying some leveling sigils with left over coins when I bought the low level adventure packs.

Freestyle270:
Great guide, I'll definitely be using this on my next toon, after I unlock some some stuff with Favor. I made the mistake on my Cleric of buying some leveling sigils with left over coins when I bought the low level adventure packs.

A common mistake for most. Every now and then Turbine hides one at the bottom of the reward list so make sure you scroll down every time while searching for a bronze.

Thanks. I just started playing and was wondering about leveling sigils. However 'hard' it may be, it's nice to know I'd don't have to pay to get beyond lv4.

-Azathoth-:
Thanks. I just started playing and was wondering about leveling sigils. However 'hard' it may be, it's nice to know I'd don't have to pay to get beyond lv4.

Yep, copper sigils are really easy. Everything after that though really relies on luck. It gets a lot tougher on silver, gold and platinum sigils.