DDO UI Interface

Ok so go ahead and click on the image to see it full size.  As you can see at the very bottom what level I am and rank.  Level 1 of 4 (Rank 6) 6,513/8,000.

Then you see the obvious things like the chatbox on the bottom left.  You don't have to look at the chatting though with the tabs.  You can see General chat, Guild chat, Party chat (which is your group) or combat.

Then the top left is the menu bar which you can choose to look at your inventory or your current quests so you know what you are supposed to do next.  I'm always forgetting where I'm supposed to go so I have to check that hehe.

Then below that is the map so you can see where you are going.  Click the compass on the map and it fills the screen with the map of the whole zone you are in.  You can even mouse over certain things like gates and zone entrances and the resurrection statues.  Actually you don't have to find out what that is because you know what it is by it's icon.  As you can see it's black except for the path that I ran to get to the cliff to take the screen shot.  It blacks out the entire zone and it only reveals on the map what you've already seen.  Even if you die and are sent to town when you come back the whole zone is blacked out again (bummer).

To the right of the top menu bar is your HP and Mana bar which is kind of obvious hehe.

Then the top right of the screen is your buffs, you can't see much because there is only 1 buff icon there but when I have buffs on that little area shows a bunch of icons hehe.

Below the buffs is the quest information window that shows my progress in a quest.  I don't know what the XP button does but the Recall button takes you out of the quest and I'm not sure but it might erase all of your progress YIKES!  I haven't tried it so I don't know.  When you are finished in a quest that Recall turns to Finished, I think, I can't remember now.  But when you click it, it returns you to the outside of the dungeon so that you can run back to whoever gave you the quest so you can get your reward.

The very bottom middle of the screen is your skills and spells.  They are numbered 1-0 so you can press those numbers on your keyboard and it activates those spells or skills.  You can also add your gear like I have an earring that when activated it casts a everlasting breath spell on me so I can go under water and not drown.

And last but not least the very bottom right you see a circle with a smokey swirly thing.  When you are near or in front of a mob (mobile object aka the bad dude) it shows their picture in there along with their name in the box below.  Or if you are near a barrel or a crate you can see those items in there and after you beat it and it breaks apart and there is money or potions inside there you will see the picture of that in the smokey swirly circle thing lol.

You probably remember D&D to be the paper and pen game where you roll the dice that have like 100 sides lol and you have to move and you write it all down blah blah blah.  And how you have to take turns just like any other board game.  Not in this game.  Yes the dice is still there, when you are hitting a mob you can see the dice come up on the screen and it shows a number and the damage you do to the mob that you are hitting all depends on the dice.

When you die you are laying there unconscious and you are just waiting for it to turn you into a ghost so you can get up and go over to the resurrection statue but then you see the dice coming up on the screen saying whether you are healing enough to come back to life or not.  It does depend on the dice but you can choose to just let the game res you but then you have to run back to where you are.

Oh that's another thing, the res statue is too far from where you die.  I mean, if it is too far.  Yesterday I fell off a cliff like 2 times and died and I turned into a ghost so I would try to run to find the res statue but the soul stone kept pulling me back to it.  You are supposed to be able to run to the res statue but I don't know how to pull my soul stone with me so I'm still working on that lol.  It said when I first started that you can get resurrected by the game and lose experience points or you can resurrect yourself with the res statue and not lose any exp points but I don't know how yet.  But at my level you don't lose any exp points so I have lots of time to learn heh.