Dungeons and Dragons Online (www.ddo.com) offers a considerable amount of free gaming content that is augmented with pay to play packs offered within the game from their store. All DDO players that are not monthly VIP members have to purchase additional content that they then own forever. If only it were that simple to understand how much, if any, money you should spend to play this game!
The game is free to play and there is no reason for anyone to say otherwise. You can play for free without significant difficulty and enjoy the DDO experience. What spending money on this game will do for you is make it easier to advance your character. It will also allow you to see more and do more in the game. There are so many payable options in DDO that it’s no wonder Turbine, Inc. (www.turbine.com) has little difficulty getting people to join as VIP monthly members. VIP members get the majority of all game content for around $10 USD per month. But if you stop paying monthly dues the account reverts back to Free to Play or Premium, depending upon which account you had prior to buying VIP.
Turbine added an option to help free to play players gain access to paid content without having to spend money. Favor Rewards are given when players complete quests. If you accumulate enough of these points, you can use them to purchase adventure packs or other pay to play options. Still, even with Favor, you can expect to run out of ways to gain experience at around level 8-10. DDO allows players to advance to level 20, so you can see that you would be missing at least half of what the game offers by remaining free to play.
Whether you explore and plunder while paying money or not, you will still be playing one of the most interesting and team-oriented MMOs out there. And DDO is more than fair in how much they offer players for free. Other similar games have much more rigid game advancement restrictions for free to play players. Parents should stay on top of what money is being spent on the game by their kids, because the game is addictive. Advancement, in some cases, can be purchased with real-life money.