I´ve shwown DDO to many friends of mine and everyone except one said immidiatly that DDO is boring and an old appearance. So I have some suggestions.
First, the animations of the landscape should be reworked, for example birds or mountains. Especialy for older areas, because there, mountains look like ugly brown angular things and animals and plants look quite unnatural.
Then the FTP low-lvl adventures should be a bit reworked to show new players that this is a very nice game and its worth to spend money in it. For example lvl 2 quests in the harbor could be connected, because at the moment it often feels like "little job-little reward-little fun". I persoally dont like these, too
Another point are paths. I had a look on them and there is now information what you have automatically learned. You have a ready character, which is often really bad, and dont know what the game is about. The starter tutorial only gives information how to fight, walk and interact with items. No explanatins which could be your role in battle, which special abilities you have and no boring, but helpful tutorial like in other games. The Grotto, the Tutorial quest, should be remade at all, making it more interesting and more challenging. Back to pre-created characters. There should be at least a bit information what the gained feats do and why they help you. I tried the "Virtuoso of the sword" and bamm there was my char. No information if you cast spells or fight with bare hands, no information about the weapons you fight with and no information which type of items you should look for.

There are much ways to make it more easy and interesting for new and also old guys, and especially new payers are potential customers.

(It could be that there are some mistakes because Im not really good in english but I think you can understand.)