This game has so much potential; but, like the power hitting phenom who strikes out too much, this game is minor league.
Another major issue for me was the fact that the City of Stormreach is 'door to door' dungeons. The evil cult is right next door to the entrance to the sewer lords lair.....c'mon! How can I get immersed (no pun intended) in that?
In Paper D&D, imagine running your character through the same adventure (module) 5 or 10 times........it just wouldn't work and this just doesn't work. (Nothing about the dungeons is randomized.......even that would have helped a little!)
Why not intersperse shorter cookie cutter quest content in with the 'hand crafted' dungeon quests? At least i'd feel different! Why not allow for travel between population centers with random encounters and Ogre caves to clean out and nasty little goblins to slay?
If Turbine had simply taken the LOTRO model and converted it to D&D they'd have had a huge hit! DDO just feels so limited that even the magnificent combat system and hand crafted dungeon adventures can't overcome the boxed in feeling.
The sad thing is that the game is still fixable if they'd just listen to the gaming community and do it! The world should be huge and explorable; if i take my level 3 character out too far from civilization and get whacked....so be it! Just open up the DMG and look at the random monster tables for every type of terrain and climate! Ogres and bandits and trolls and orcs and goblins and .................. Mixed in with all these encounters would be the quest adventures given to the players by the powerful personalites of the land. There could be surprise instances hidden out in the Wilderness as well to reward the adventerous. There could be good, evil, and neutral kingdoms to explore along with the untamed wilderness areas........ruins of ancient empires.....the storys have all been wriiten over the past 30 years all Turbine has to do is ask!
There could be race and class and area of origon specific quests........there could be story arcs and..............ah well, I've run on too long.
Please Turbine FIX THIS GAME while you still can!