I was very excited about DDO, unfortunatly it fell short. but it still is a decent MMO, just not what I was looking for.
The game is very intuitive as in you finally don't have to kill countless monsters for XP. All you need to do is complete quests and the quests give you all the XP you need. Well that's the Idea. After about 8 quests, 4 hours, and ALOT of killing I was still level 1! For one the quests give very very little XP, so you have to do alot to get anywhere. aside from "sidequests" within each quest you get no actual XP for anything you do in the quest.
If you rush through a quest and just hurry to the objective, or complete each and every little task and kill each and every monster there is not difference in XP gained. and in most of them you HAVE to kill each and every monster to get anywhere. basically your grinding away on these monsters and not getting any XP for them. you would think that by the end of the quest it would give you ample XP for the amount of mobs in the quest, but it does not. I went through one quest where I needed to get an item out of a chest and bring it back, very very simple. well the get to the quest you have to defeat about 20+ mobs and 3 mini bosses, they were all very easy, but after all of this I only recieved about 2% of my level in XP. in any other MMO 20+mobs and a few mini bosses would be about level 3 to 5.
To make it worse each quest get's harder and harder. not by alot, but noticibly. and you stay the same through it all. you would think you would nearly have to get more tactical about things, but there are no real tactics in the game. it moves to quickly for that. if someone is going to defeat you they are going to do it in 3-5 hits.
As far as the gameplay goes, it compares to alot of the MMO's out there, but you don't get the reward you would get in those MMO's. So to finish this review off... No! you do not have to grind to get XP, but the stuff you have to do forces you to grind anyways?!