It's time for another Turbine Tour! This time around, we checked out DDO's ultra-hefty update 5, which includes airships, party crashing and circuses... What more do you need?

But what about decorating your airship? That's where the fun begins. With this update, the DDO team has also introduced "Guild Renown," which is essentially a form of guild experience points. So every time you kill a monster, or you get lucky with a treasure chest, you may end up receiving some Guild Renown points, which will go towards leveling your guild up. Guilds that level up will immediately begin to gain access to some pretty neat things, like unlocking NPCs that can then be "leased" to work on the guild airship. Some of these NPCs can include auctioneers and vendors, or EXP shrines that give minor EXP buffs, navigators that can let your character "land" in virtually any adventuring spot in the world, or even, as the community has been demanding, chests which can act as guild storage for all (if you purchase a guild storage lease from the DDO store, you can even get a chest only available for guild leaders and officers).

In an effort to balance this guild leveling system, however, players will quickly realize that most of the important NPCs and neat guild bonuses are accessible before level 50. This is simply the DDO team's way of balancing the guild renown system without forcing players to dedicate enormous amounts of time to getting guild levels. Essentially, the first 50 levels of the guild renown system were designed with functionality and accessibility in mind, while the levels from 50 to 100 were more designed with guild prestige in mind. In this way, for guilds above level 30, guild renown will very slowly begin to decay - ultimately culminating into a fairly noticable decay by level 90 to 100. Thus, competitive guilds that will quickly rocket through to level 70+ will soon be competing with each other for the highest level guild on the server.

In addition to adding these gorgeous airships to the game, the DDO team took the time to address player concerns about needing longer, more "epic" quests in the lower levels. In this way, they've introduced a fantastic new adventure pack where players will engage in wars of subterfuge against the Maleficent Cabal, a malicious band of circus performers who also double as ruthless spies. Ultimately, players will find themselves sneaking around the House Phiarlan to crash parties and thwart the assassination attempts currently being planned by the Maleficent Cabal. Following this, the adventure will direct players to a full-scale confrontation with these demonic circus performers, and there are some great rewards to be had in these particular carnival games (top hats!).

In the end, DDO's update five, "Guilds of Stormwind," or whatever they end up calling it, is probably one of the biggest updates to come to DDO, and it really showcases the team's enthusiasm for the development of this game. Everything in this update is polished and just screams fun, and the DDO team has done a great job of appealing to all players. Hardcore raiders will find themselves blitzing up the level charts to be the first level 100 guild on the server (it comes with a neat server-wide announcement of your achievement), while casual players can slowly make their way to level 25 and then purchase a small airship for their friends to hang out on and, according to the DDO team, munch on bacon, since all airships are now equipped with pans with bacon. As well, update five is a fantastic indication of how Turbine is managing to combine incredible quality with a free-to-play game. For any other MMORPG that plans to follow in DDO's footsteps will certainly have some giant shoes to fill.