As many of us know there is a lot of content in DDO, much of it is behind a pay wall and myself I don't really mind that so much - the idea that by playing the game I can gradually earn enough currency to just buy the content in the cash shop is appealing.
But over and over when I've suggested DDO to someone when the factor of monetization and playing together comes up I kind of wince.
"Oh well starting out it's a good idea to run the tutorial and every quest upto level 3s on every single server so you can get some points and maybe buy something you want, ideally a quest pack" doesn't sound appealing.
"If you're willing to spend some money, VIP makes a huge difference starting out because it unlocks every single quest pack, all races and classes bar two temporarily" sounds a little better I guess

Now guest passes could help with this, but I honestly feel guest passes are kind of clunky with them being time limited and a friend I tried bringing into DDO a while ago felt very uncomfortable about me effectively paying so he could play just one quest pack.
I've had an idea in mind for a while about a longer duration thing similar to guest passes to help with easing someone into the game, something similar to a refer a friend system used in other MMOs that would convey a kind of bonus for playing together.

What I have in mind is an extended pass, with access to all quests that the referrer has access to however with the condition that the receiving player be partied with the referrer in order to enter. This pass would only be receivable once (maybe twice) per account and last somewhere between a week and a month.