Dungeons & Dragons Online Module 8 Preview

The guys at Massively have put together a three-page preview of the "new player experience" aspect of Turbine's upcoming Dungeons & Dragons Online Module 8 update.
Waking on a beach, you notice yourself barely clothed in rags, and completely penniless. The crying of the seagulls seems amplified into your throbbing temples, and each wave crash makes you wince in pain. A man stands before you, his dark scowl pierces through your good-natured morals. He keeps trying to communicate with you, although you're still too groggy to realize what he's saying. Finally you focus enough to decipher his ramblings.

"Can you move," he asks. Frankly, you're not sure if you can.

This is your first experience with the outside world. You're not sure how you got here, but you're here. Once you speak to the NPC in front of you, he'll guide you through a tutorial that has been completely revamped for Module 8. There are more tooltips with clearer information, an introductory dungeon experience and an opportunity to try out gameplay features like swimming, using ladders, opening chests and doors, using the search skill to find hidden doors and using rest shrines. Once you've finished that tutorial -- assuming you've read all the tooltips -- you should have a working comprehension of how DDO works.

From here, you'll venture into the world to explore the other new features introduced with Module 8. You'll get to play with Hirelings, which work much like NPC henchmen that you can purchase for one-hour contracts. You'll adventure through new maps and gape at the newly-implemented DX10 graphics.

They've also whipped up fifteen screenshots, in case you're interested.