Besides eliminating the foul evil in the lands, another activity you will probably spend a lot of time on in Dragon Quest IX is shopping. Why? Because Square Enix is expanding the in-game shopping to the online space. The merchant at the online store will be a character named Roxanne. She is one of the four bartenders at the pubs in the towns and villages; her store will have downloadable content for you to purchase.

There will be plenty of goodies to surf around for-rare items, discount items, and special holiday items. One goal behind the internet shopping feature is to encourage players to get into multiplayer. Each person will have their own unique list of items available for them at their shop. If you play with a friend hosting the multiplayer, you can visit Roxanne and look at the different set of items they have compared to yours.

Also available at Roxanne's store will be new quests to take on, from treasure hunts, monster fights, and plot related missions.

The first batch of downloadable content will be available on the same day that Dragon Quest IX will be released, which as of right now is March 28, 2009. From then on, they will continue to release new content every week.

As for wether you have to pay real money for these downloadable content, the consensus is most likely not, since it wouldn't make sense for a Dragon Quest game.