Social panel

Social
Soloing can be fun, but the essence of DDO is adventuring with a party. The game mechanism is built to host groups of up to six characters, (or up to twelve in a raid). While early quests can be completed by yourself, the challenge gets harder with every level, and you are missing the main joy of the game. Even in a party, success usually depends on having a good cross-section of classes present to heal, disarm traps, cast offensive spell and, of course, hack at things.

The Social panel is designed for both aspiring party leaders and those wanting to join a group. It allows you to quickly see who is looking for a group, and to find a group looking for new members. Unfortunately the tutorial of Korthos Island does not cover this invaluable tool, leaving too many players clumsily trying to use the "General" chat channel to arrange this.

Press 'g' to open the Social panel. You will see four tabs at the top of the panel: Grouping, Guild, Friends and Who.

Grouping Tab
The Grouping tab is used to find a group, advertise your own party, and get details about members of your current party. Groups whose leaders are actively recruiting members will appear in the "Looking for Members" or 'LFM' list below.

Groups for which your character is eligible are indicated by a checkmark. To show only those Groups, uncheck the small box "Show Groups I am not eligible for"

Hover over a Group you are interested in, and details of those players who have already joined will pop up.

To join a group, select it then click on the Join button at the bottom. This sends a message to the party leader requesting an invitation for your character.

Click on the Tell button to send a private message to that group leader before asking for an invitation. Note that your text entry will be on the 'General' channel.

If the party leader wants you to join them, they will send an invitation which will pop up on your screen. Click 'Yes' or 'No' to respond.

To let others know that you are looking for a group, click on the “I am looking for a party” button at the bottom of the page. This will make a 'LFG' icon appear above your character’s head and flag your entry in the player list. Click on the 'LFG' button again to turn your LFG status off.

If you want to create your own party and advertise for new members, click on the 'Create' button. This opens a new window to create an entry in the 'LFM' list. You will be able to set parameters such as the range of player level you want, the classes wanted and a comment that will appear with your advert in the 'LFM' list. It is helpful to other players to select the name and level of the quest you intend to run, which will then be shown.

To alter your 'LFM' advert later, click on the 'Create' button again, which will return you to that window. Your 'LFM' advert automatically disappears when your group is full. To close it before then, uncheck all the classes so there are none left.

When other players respond to your advert, you will get requests for invitations. You may accept or reject these requests immediately, but you may also leave them. In this case they are displayed on a list in the Grouping tab. You can then accept or reject them later, until either your group is full, or they apply to another party.

Guild Tab
This panel displays information and commands associated with guilds.

The "Members" shows a a list of all members of your guild. It can be re-ordered by "Name" and "Last logged on" which usefully lets you see who is currently logged on.

The "Rewards" Tab shows the current information about the level of your guild and the benefits enabled for it. See the Guilds section for more information.

Who Tab
The Who panel allows you to find other players that are logged in. The panel contains two drop-down menus that let you limit your search for players to Class and Level, and an input box where you can type a portion of a player’s name. The search will try to match the entered text against any part of a name; for example entering “and” will match players “Andy”, “Cassandra” and “Redhand.” Press "Search" to start the query. The results appear in a scrollable list at the bottom of the panel.

Click on a name and click on the Tell button to send that player a private message, or click on the Invite button to invite that player to join your party. The icon in the left hand column tells you if they are already in a group.

You can sort the list of players by clicking on any of the column headings: LFG, Class, Level, Name, or Comment. Clicking the column heading a second time will sort the list of players in the reverse order.

Friends
The Friends tab opens a window where you can easily keep track of particular players in the game. To add someone to your Friends list, simply click on them when they are near you, and then click on the Add button in the Friends panel, or type their name in the "Add" box. The traffic light tells you if they are online or not.

To remove a character from your Friends list, click on their name and then click on the Remove button.