Launcher

DDO's launcher is a small, secondary program responsible for starting up the game. The launcher file is called "DNDLauncher.exe", and it is located in your DDO folder. This is the file your shortcut for launching the game should point to.

Loading screen download issue

The launcher is notorious for downloading loading screen images each time you boot up the program. The launcher tries to download and update 20-somewhat .jpg files, stored under "raw" folder, including now discontinued DE/FR loading screens. There used to be a file called "DownloadFilesList.xml" where you could modify and fix minor filename reference mistakes and avoid download them; this has since been removed.

To force the launcher skip downloading them, use command line option, or use alternate launcher below.

• Downloading "XX Loading Screen..." workaround (2019)
• Default Downloading "XX Loading Screen X" takes too long (2017-)
• Skipping Download Loading Screens?? (Steam forums, 2017-)

Commandline options

There are a couple command line options (Windows start button or keyboard shortcut WIN+R > type "cmd" ) that modify the behavior of the launcher.

• -nosplash
• -skiprawdownload (skips downloading of 30 loading screens)
• -disablepatch (can help with error patchclientDLL::checkdatfiles failed {unable to decrypt or decerialize data downloaded from server} DDO Forums)
• -username myusername
• -password mypassword (note: this works, but is unsafe since the password is not encrypted)

For example, your shortcut might point to:

"C:\temp\Dungeons & Dragons Online\DNDLauncher.exe" -skiprawdownload -nosplash

NOTE: You must use the title "DNDLauncher.exe" for the file. Anything else like "TurbineLauncher.exe" will not work with these commands. Furthermore; you need to be running the command line program in administrator mode or you will not have permission to use the commands above.

• How to: launch DDO from command line (2012 forum thread)
• Windows 10 issues (2017 post by Cordovan)

Launcher crashes

If the launcher crashes regularly before anything loads, you might need to delete, redownload and reinstall the whole game.

Quote:
Originally Posted by rfachini I found that if I was VERY fast I was able to get into options before the launcher crashed and use the repair installation option

Alternate launchers

Players have created alternate launchers to start the game:

• Dungeon Finder with the possibility to launch multiple accounts at once.
• Launcher Script For Mac OS X (2015-)
• DDO-ML (2014-, last updated 2020)
• pylotro (2012)

See also

• Launcher problems - summary (2023)
• Remove -skiprawdownload from launcher shortcut after game update (2024)