At this year’s GenCon I received an early look at an upcoming free upgrade for Turbine’s Dungeon & Dragons Online called Module 8. This upgrade is an attempt to make the game more accessible to new players and also offers upgraded visuals. Recently Module 8 was delivered to the player base and I was able to spend some quality time with it and I’m still very impressed with how the game has changed since its launch.

Let’s face it—D&D 3rd edition rules can be a bit overwhelming and when you decide to set your world in the land of Stormreach instead of the comfortable Forgotten Realms you’re really counting on new players to spend time learning the rules, something the average gamer is not going to do.

Module 8 makes it much easier for the player who knows nothing about D&D or its rule set and lets you get going with helpful hints. During character creation you’re guided through a several step process, in Step 1 you determine what type of character you want to play; Melee, Spell or Specialist. In Step 2 you’ll be choosing your class, for example if you selected Melee you’ll now need to select from Fighter, Barbarian, Paladin or Monk. If you have no idea which one is for you the screen at the right will give you basic information on the class and lets you know how good it is for soloing, what your stats will looks like, etc.

Step 3 is probably the most important one of this new character creation system as it was here most new players got lost: skill selection. Instead of presenting you with a long list of class and non-class specific skills you’ll be given the option of certain paths. Again you get a nice description, a look at how it affects your stats and what skills you get. These paths are well thought out and besides the obvious benefit of shortening character creation they won’t leave you at a disadvantage if you make bad skill choices. Of course you can customize and choose your own skills if you wish. The other great thing about paths that you won’t see until later on is that when you train in game upon reaching a new level you can continue to follow your path and the trainer will improve and add appropriate skills. Finally, Step 4 is race selection and Step 5 is your appearance.

Korthos Island is also the new starting area. Your ship was attacked by a White Dragon and is turning this island and more notably its village into a winter wonderland. As your start to make your way to the village and become acquainted with the island you will soon find yourself in the middle of a much more interesting story compared to the original release.

The graphics have been vastly improved, if you have a DX10 capable card you’ll really see the finest of details, but even if you don’t the game looks outstanding. More importantly the game has been made friendlier for the solo player. DDO has always been a great representation of tabletop pen & paper role playing. You get a party together, go off and visit some dungeon and solve some quest. The problem was this didn’t work well in an MMO, because when you can’t get that group together or it takes time to find a party you just get bored.