Here are my tips for new players to Dungeon and Dragons Online: Eberron

General tips

I will limit these tips to those who are playing the game for free. Many of these tips are not relevant to paying subscribers. I assume that you are at least passing familiar with the subjects in the manual. Some may find it fun to figure out the following things on their own, but for those who (like me) have minimal time, the following might speed up the learning curve.

Turbine Points:
You will occasionally be given free Turbine Points that you can use in the DDO online store. Go ahead and look around the store, but don't spend anything yet. Most of the things that you could afford with 25 or 50 points are things you will find in the level 1 or 2 quests. Instead, I recommend that you save up and buy an adventure pack (wait until a store sale), a larger collectibles bag, or a hireling. If you do most quests on Elite, then by level 8 you should have around 350 points. There are several "worlds" on which you can play. Each is a separate server. Free accounts can have two characters PER world. However, turbine points are only given to the account - regardless of how many characters you have. Thus, if you want to maximize your character's potential levels, you should apply all your points to enhancing that one. You will likely be disappointed if you try to split up your points enhancing several different characters. Note that for less than $10, you can buy about 400 points, so even if you have a free account you can still get store items, including adventure packs.

Combat areas:
There are special areas in the game which are effectively quests that are not assigned by an NPC. There is one each for levels 1-4. Korthos Island is the level 1 combat area. The Stormreach Harbor Waterworks are the level 2 combat area. The Cerulean Hills are the level 3 combat area. The Searing Heights is the level 4 combat area. Combat areas each have three sub-goals: 1) kill a certain number of monsters, 2) find all locations of note, and 3) experience all special encounters. Each time you reach the sub-goal of killing a certain number of monsters, you get experience points and the sub-goal changes to a larger number (the number depends upon the area) up to some limit. As you travel to your various quests, you will have opportunities to kill monsters, so until you've completed all quests at Elite level, and completed the other sub-goals you won't need to be concerned with reaching your next "kill" quota. Oh, and don't bother entering a combat area that is a higher level than your character.
Of special note is the Harbor Waterworks combat area. Unlike the other areas, there is plenty of loot lying around in crates. On average, I got one potion of Cure Light Wounds each time I went through. Much of the other loot I sold when I left the area. No need to purchase healing potions (at 60 gp each) when in the Harbor area. I also quickly amassed huge amounts of silver and copper while running through the waterworks, apart from items that I obtained in the waterworks and then sold.

Vendors and Money:
Remember, 10 cp = 1 sp. 10 sp = 1 gp. 10 gp = 1 pp. There are general vendors and specialist vendors. Each one offers different types of goods, but they all will buy anything (at the same price) - including the barkeeps. So, unless you are looking for something specific to buy, just go to the nearest vendor when you want to sell something. However, vendors only offer about 10% of the stated base value of things you sell them. Pawnshops offer more, but still not the base value. And they sell for more than base value. So what's a character with empty pockets to do? You could try the auction house. You can find nearly anything there. Each item listed has a current price (which may be the initial price) and a "buy now" price. You can bid up the amount and, if you have the highest bid when the item's auction expires, it is yours. Or, if you don't want to wait, you can buy it immediately at the "buy now" price. Once you look at the auction, you will see that there is a very wide disparity between prices for the exact same item. In some cases, the asking price is several times the base value and you'd be better going to a vendor. But you can usually find what you are looking for much cheaper than vendor prices, even if you want to "buy now". However, selling things can be problematic. Several times, my auction has expired without selling. This despite the fact that the "buy now" price was only 40% of the base value and the starting bid was 20%. And putting something on auction costs a nominal fee. Not to mention that you have to wait until the item sells or the auction expires (8 hour minimum) before you either get paid or get your item back. So, I've found that the auction house is a good place to buy things, but perhaps not a good place to sell things unless you have something truly unusual.
Another option is to see if you can find another player to trade/buy directly with. This can be a problem due to different instances of public areas if you want to simply announce it. Or you can go up to someone and make an offer, but that is decidely a hit and miss approach. So, what is my approach? If I need money right away, I just sell to a vendor. Otherwise (about half the time), I simply look around for someone who I think would like the item (based on class and level) and then just go up to them and offer them free items. More often than not, they accept. I free up an inventory slot and make someone's day in the process. I am not alone in this either. There are actually many people that go around and offer free items, or even money to others. In fact, I was once the recipient of 10,000 gp (tax free!). These kind acts make the community side of DDO very enjoyable and I'm glad to be able to occasionally contribute.

The Community:
Speaking of the community, there are several ways of interacting with other players. The most common means is via the Chat window. You will want to keep track of messages showing in the chat window in case someone is specifically talking to you. Obviously, in the midst of battle your focus will be elsewhere, but otherwise you should keep track of chat messages. If your attempt to communicate with another player is unanswered, it could be that they are not checking the chat window. I always position my character directly in front of, and facing, the person I'm speaking to as a clue that they should check the chat window to see what I want. Remember to play nice - don't fill up other people's chat windows with worthless text: only talk when you have something (nice) to say. Another means of communication are the guilds. A guild is an invitation-only group. Once within a guild, you can send and receive messages that only fellow guild members can see. There is no other advantage to guilds - they are simply another channel for communication.
The DDO community seems to be a generally polite and helpful group. I've lost count of how many times I was unexpectedly healed by another player, who was a cleric, after I had died and been resurrected in a tavern. And I've already mentioned those who go around giving away items and money. Consider what you can offer. If you are a cleric and are about to log-off, why not use up any spell points you have healing someone who is injured (taverns are the most likely place to find these people)? When you log in again, your spell points will be at maximum so you lose nothing but a moment of your time to show a kindness to someone else.

Quests with parties and hirelings

Quests are given by specific NPCs in the game. Before you start the quest, you can choose the difficulty level. "Casual" is for those who wish to do the quest by themselves. "Normal" assumes a party of 2-3 who have a level equal to that of the quest. Normal difficulty can be done by a single individual but will be harder. Some quests I found to be quite easy by myself on Normal, but mostly you had better have sufficient quantities of healing potions. "Hard" difficulty is the next possibility, and then "Elite", and finally "Epic" (Epic quests cannot be done unless you are level 20). Quests are repeatable as often as you'd like, but the more often you repeat a quest, the less experience you get. Repeat a quest enough times, and you will get zero experience. Note that for any given quest you cannot proceed to Hard until you have done Normal and you cannot proceed to Elite until you have done Hard. If you can, find another player or two to join with in doing quests. Simply invite someone who is not a member of a party already. Also, you should only invite someone who is within 2 levels of yourself: lower level players will find your quests too difficult, and higher level characters will most likely not be interested in low-level quests.
If you cannot find someone else, you can hire a temporary computer-controlled character to join you. There are some restrictions: 1) you cannot use hirelings that are a higher level than your character, 2) hirelings must be summoned near the entrance of the quest, 3) they cannot take you to a resurrection shrine if you die, and 4) once you summon your hireling, you have 1 hour (real time) to use them, whether you are on a quest or not. However, within that hour, you can use them in any number of quests. When you exit the quest, the hireling will be resurrected, if dead, and will have full hit points, spells, etc. Note that hireling Artifical Intelligence is almost non-existant. In other words, they are dumber than rocks. They fall into pits, stand in the middle of continuously-operating traps until they die, have trouble finding you if you get separated, etc. Thus, you must be prepared to micro-manage them.
If you cannot afford to hire someone and cannot find a real person to join you, you can try the quests at harder difficulties by yourself. If the quest was very easy on Casual, you should have no problem on Normal. Otherwise, I recommend an additional level for each increase in difficulty. For instance, on a level 2 quest, Solo will require a level 2 character, Normal will require a level 3 character, Hard will require a level 4 character, and Elite will require a level 5 character. In fact, I was able to do all of the quests solo up to level 8 (although some of them required me to be a couple of levels higher than the quest to do them on normal, and for some of them I hired a cleric). However, at level 8 the difficulty increased such that I was simply unable to progress on my own.
Why repeat quests? Several reasons: 1) each time, you get experience, 2) each time, you get items in chests, boxes, barrels and so forth, 3) you must repeat in order to do the quests at Hard and Elite difficulties, and 4) The harder the difficulty, the more "favor" you have. Gaining favor will eventually net you some more Turbine points. The higher the difficulty level the more experience points you get and the better the loot. Also, if you repeat a quest too often, you will get less experience from completing it. Favor is not like experience points - you do not get more favor if you do a quest over, unless you do it on a harder level than before. And if you repeat it too soon, the chests will have less treasure.
If you are experiencing severe difficulties on a given quest, here's what you can do. Quest "instances" reset 5 minutes after you leave (regardless of what method you use to leave). As long as you re-enter the quest within 5 minutes, you will pick up where you left off. That is, all killed monsters are still dead (but beware of those that respawn), opened doors are open, looted chests are empty, etc. although you will be physically at the start of the quest. When you are killed, you are resurrected at a "bind point". These are usually in a tavern. So, before your quest, go to the tavern nearest the entrance of the quest and talk to the Spirit Binder priest there (each tavern has one), and have him set that location as your resurrection point. Then go on your quest. If you die, you will appear at the tavern. Immediately go buy some food from the barkeep and eat it. This will quickly restore your hit points. As soon as that effect wears off, race back to the entrance to the quest. You should be able to accomplish this for any quest that is not located deep inside a combat area (such as about half of the Korthos Island quests). While healing in the tavern, you may wish to sell any items you've collected so far, and have any worn items repaired. You can repeat this cycle as many times as you want. However, you will be subject to an experience point penalty upon re-entry. But this may be a good tradeoff on a quest that you simply cannot get through otherwise.
I have noticed something about questing with parties versus questing solo. Several times I have been in a party that was wiped-out on a quest, yet I was able to complete the quest quest solo (with a cleric hireling) at the same level of difficulty. In fact, once I was the last surviving member of a party after everyone else was either killed or gave up and quit. I was able to nearly complete the quest by myself (with a hireling). How can this be? After much reflection and observation this is what I've discovered: 1) people get cocky and less cautious when in a party. The tendency is for a group to rush into battle with a group of enemies. Some groups end up being too powerful for the party and everyone gets killed. When solo, I stand far away, just within site of the enemy, and use missile fire to draw a few members of the group out, where I could dispatch them singly, or in groups of 2 or 3. I'd repeat this until all the enemies were dead. 2) People are impatient. I understand the desire to complete things quickly since I have very little time to play DDO and would rather not take longer than absolutely necessary. However, getting killed half-way through a long quest is, itself, a huge waste of time. I'd rather take things more slowly and actually finish the quest. This is a contributing factor to Rapid Party Death (RPD). Going too fast means that you trip traps, rush into large groups of enemies, get separated from other party members, and so forth. Stick together. If you have a faster movement rate than others, don't get too far ahead and wait for the rest to catch up with you. 3) often there is a marked lack of teamwork. The party is sometimes nothing more than a party in name, as each individual goes off on their own. Each member then gets picked off by enemies until the whole party is gone. When I join a party, I feel that it is my job to follow the party leader around and do as they direct - killing any enemies that get too close, but otherwise sticking with the leader. Unfortunately, too often I see other party members rush off to fight monsters, and then I feel an obligation to go help them before they get killed. In this way, a single "independant-minded" party member can drag the entire party into RPD, as described above. And it doesn't matter if the party leader is a lower-level or less experienced; when I join a party, I expect to follow the leader's directions. So should you. 4) Kill enemy spell-casters first, especially priests (who can cast Hold Person). It is better to be hacked from behind by a group of enemies while you take out the spell-casters than to avoid being flanked and have the spell casters inflict Fear, Hold Person, Command, and so forth. 5) Except for the previous case, avoid being flanked by fighting groups with your back to a wall or some other non-destructable obstacle. If you are not a fighter-type character, avoid this situation. 6) When possible, do as much damage as you can from a distance, even if you are a fighter. 7) When you can not draw a few enemies out of a group (ie they all attack en masse), or when facing a really tough individual, take your battle to a shrine so that you can resurrect if killed. Note: it may be best to NEAR a shrine, but not IN the shrine, since resurrecting right in front of an enemy will usually result in them killing you before you can heal. If you are near a shrine, your "ghost" can go to the shrine and resurrect in relative safety. Just be sure that the door to the shrine is left open or your ghost cannot get in. If the door closes automatically, you may have no choice but to fight in the shrine itself.

Final words

Turbine did a great job on this game. I've played a few different MMORPGs and DDO is the best one, overall. Their choice to make it available for free was a business decision, but I still have to say, "Thanks, Turbine. Well done."