Well, the DDO Beta program is coming to an end and the “Head Start” for pre-order players is scheduled to begin on February 24.
I didn’t get to play a whole lot on my Beta license before it expired, but here are my observations.
1) The integrated voice chat rocks. It makes grouping a lot easier. In WoW, it’s common for serious players to use voice chat, but the guild has to maintain its own TeamSpeak server outside the game to do this. So, if you join a pick-up group outside of a guild, you’re out of luck. In DDO, you are automatically set up on a voice chat channel when you join a party. I think this will become very interesting when the real game launches and players who haven’t previously bothered with headsets in other games come on board.
2) Character creation is less detailed than SWG but more detailed than WoW. Also, you can create female characters that don’t look like Barbie dolls. I understand this is a problem in most other games. It is in WoW, unless of course you play a giant cow like I do.
3) Since everything is dungeon-based, the game itself feels a little claustrophobic. You don’t have the experience of running around and looking at dramatic fantasy landscape, which is one of the most appealing aspects of games with geography.
4) DDO players, being probably the most dweebish MMORPG audience of all time, have really amusing conversations on the forums. I was skimming one thread last week that was discussing the history of the social role of the Paladin in D&D (versions 1-3), D&D fantasy literature, non-D&D fantasy literature, and European history and mythology.
5) There is almost nothing that you can do by yourself. Yes, the group experience is the most important in traditional D&D. However, part of the appeal of MMORPGs is that you can partially live there. This includes days when you do not have a lot of time or are feeling anti-social. Therefore, I think a lot of people would like to see a few solo dungeons. Also, crafting professions would be nice.