Come back to Camelot offer - free log in 7/14 to 7/24

[HaemishM]

I thought the PVP sieging was decently well done, especially in the level 20 battlegrounds. It certainly wasn't perfect (CC being one of the big flaws) but it was decent.

[AlteredOne]

Someone explain to me how, at level one, you contribute anything in PvP?

You're a one-hit kill.

Actually, with the new introductory quests, you can reach level 5 in about one hour.

Then you go to the "Lion's Den" level 5-9 battleground, which has been very popular on the new servers.  Often there are 50+ players in there.  About 10 kills should net you a level.

As Hrose said, siege weapons are badly calibrated, so they do too much damage in that battleground.  But all sides can buy them, and it's easy enough to avoid them by running around.

As for why some of us still enjoy DAOC, I'd say that I enjoy RvR, and I still have a lot of friends playing.  Once you've played with people for 3+ years, you build a nice bond.  We have our most fun rolling new classes on new servers, levelling up to the battlegrounds, and gradually working our way up through the BGs.  There's more skill to PvP/RvR than you seem to indicate, although I'll freely admit many classes have a limited set of usable skills.  Personally I try to find more complex classes, and use the whole tool set.

[Paelos]

You'll have to forgive Boarshead/AlteredOne, he like a good majority of my guild has had an orgasmic response to DAOC getting rid of ToA 

In any case, I agree with most that I can't go back, but I can see the draw. If I ever had fun in RvR I would try it again, but the fighting dynamics bothered me as a melee player.

[eldaec]

Someone explain to me how, at level one, you contribute anything in PvP?

You're a one-hit kill.

He means you can contribute in the first battleground.

Peeveepeeing against other people at aprox level 1.

[Johny Cee]

People enjoy DAoC because it's been the best system so far for semi-meaningful rvr/large group pvp.  Does it have huge downsides and problems?  Fuck yeah.  But it's been the best.

1.  Consensual pvp that isn't asstastically retarded.  No flags, or name colors, or anything you need a manual to understand,  while being easy to exploit for grief or pleasure.  Don't want to fight any players?  Fine,  don't step outside the giant border keep.  Done and done.

2.  Large-scale goals that add meaning.  The joy has faded a bit with age,  but your first coule relic raids or relic defenses were amazing experiences.  And since numbers were important,  even the casuals and hopeless players could make meaningful contributions to the effort.  If by doing nothing else except for dragging out some wood for repairs.

3.  Synergy between RvR and Battlegrounds.  RvR at 50 sucks off the min/maxers.  This generally leaves BGs as great places to go to kill a few people and have some fun,  since you won't run into CC, healing, tank trains, etc.

4.  Good balance between spreadsheet and skill,  in non-8 man situations.  The spreadsheet and RPG portions of the game give you advantages and disadvantages,  but knowledge/strategy/skill still matter.  

5.  Combinations of play styles.  Soloing (stealthers, speed classes), duoing (with speed class), 8 man, 16 man, zerg were all possible.


Yes, DAoC has huge glaring flaws.

It still has some allure for it's pvp/rvr,  which tells you they did something right.

I'd go on, but I just got back from a 3 hour Boy Scout Board meeting,  and I'm going nuts.

[waylander]

Got the email, promptly deleted it.

The last time I played, I wrote a review about it. I can sum up the review in "PVP fun, leveling NOT. I did more leveling than PVP."

Amen, and that's exactly how everyone I know feels about DAOC. We've only had 5 people return to that game since we left it three years ago, and none of them stayed longer than one month.

[Soln]

quite honestly, what other games have good PvP?

how do we rank DAoC against WoW or GW?  I dunno.  I do know with all the listed flaws DAoC has some nice mechanics. Maybe only the BG's are good, but they suffer from low attendance.


Edit: I forgot the dismissal of SWG.  "PvP in SWG STILL sux".  There.  Much better. 

[Xanthippe]

The battlegrounds are really fun when they are populated.

Sieging, taking keeps, defending keeps - some of the best pvp I've ever played.

I'm not fond of the 8x8s but I love the keep stuff, especially the BG keep stuff.

If only they could fill up the battlegrounds - send people from different servers to battleground servers or something.  That would be very cool.

[Soln]

The battlegrounds are really fun when they are populated.

Sieging, taking keeps, defending keeps - some of the best pvp I've ever played.

I'm not fond of the 8x8s but I love the keep stuff, especially the BG keep stuff.

If only they could fill up the battlegrounds - send people from different servers to battleground servers or something.  That would be very cool.

I thought I heard tell there was server consolidation for BG's or something (maybe it was DF?).  I never got past SI and never tried Cats - maybe there's some instanced dungeon they did it for.  Anyways, I thought there was a post about it here some months ago.

[AlteredOne]

Really, at the risk of sounding like a fanboi...  Try the free 10-day trial, roll a new toon on one of the Classic servers.  Do the intro quests that take about 1 hour, and get your toon to level 5 where you can pick your class.  Then try the level 5-9 battleground, and you'll see that these new servers have quite nice battleground populations.  It is simply no longer valid to say "I can't stand grinding to get to the battlegrounds, and then there's nobody to fight."  If getting to level 5 is too much grind, truly you don't need to play MMO games.

[HaemishM]

The question remains though. How long are those battlegrounds going to STAY populated?

[AlteredOne]

The question remains though. How long are those battlegrounds going to STAY populated?

Impossible to predict, but the short term is promising.  The 3 new "Classic" servers have around 8500 people online in primetime, nearly 50% of the total online population.  Since there is no free level 20, there is no lack of low-level activity.  Since Catacombs added another 2 slots per server (10 total I think), it will be a while before people have filled all 30 slots on all 3 servers with high-level toons.

If you ever enjoyed DAOC battlegrounds or RvR, it's worth a look at the 10-day trial on one of those servers.  I would suggest Ector, since it has a good population but isn't pushing server caps like the other two.  And of course if the 10 days are fun, you know the routine...

[HRose]

The question remains though. How long are those battlegrounds going to STAY populated?

With a better model they would. For example by dynamically clustering them between all the same-type servers.

[HaemishM]

Stop using terms you read on the Interweb that you really have no understanding of.

[Johny Cee]

The question remains though. How long are those battlegrounds going to STAY populated?

With a better model they would. For example by dynamically clustering them between all the same-type servers.

No.  They wouldn't.  You would raise different problems.

If you clustered them like this,  you would have zergs of 100s roaming the lands.  Server and rvr lag would be awful.  Regular crashes of rvr zones.  (Some friends and I used to regularly crash rvr zones on Pel,  not a hugely populated server,  because 3 of them were animists.  Just spam pets until the server hiccups)  Not to mention rvr would be slideshow central.

The big killer for most will be when they hit the level range where xp per level really goes up.  High 30s/40s are when the grind starts to kick in now, even with the improvements made over the years.  Expect people to return to normal servers then.

[HRose]

No.  They wouldn't.  You would raise different problems.

If you clustered them like this,  you would have zergs of 100s roaming the lands.  Server and rvr lag would be awful.  Regular crashes of rvr zones.  (Some friends and I used to regularly crash rvr zones on Pel,  not a hugely populated server,  because 3 of them were animists.  Just spam pets until the server hiccups)  Not to mention rvr would be slideshow central.

It depends on how you implement them. Let's say a BG holds a max of 100 players. As there are 101 you spawn a new instance. And so on. Guild Wars already uses this model and demonstrated it can work without endless queues and lag.

The difficulties aren't about the "design". They are about the possibility to implement this since the network must be built with the support for this model.

It remains to be see how much work this will require to work in DAoC.

[Llava]

A few friends of mine were considering going back, and asked if I would.

I was honest.

I told them that Mythic would have to implement a Blowjob Server, they'd have to give me a comped account, and every single one of my core group of friends would have to play there first and vouch that the players actually RECEIVE the blowjob as opposed to giving it.

There was an itch that I couldn't scratch with CoH, I'll admit.  Then Guild Wars came out.  Anything that DAoC had to offer me was done way better, without a monthly fee.  Between CoH and Guild Wars, I'm still only paying for 1 MMOG a month and I have a much better PvE game and a much better PvP game.

And, as I've explained, DAoC was my first MMOG.  So that's no excuse for wanting to go back.

The only, only thing I miss even the slightest bit is the fictional "realm community" that I delude myself into believing to have existed.  When I think realistically about it, I'm satisfied with the B.Net-edness of the Guild Wars "community."

[eldaec]

The difficulties aren't about the "design". They are about the possibility to implement this since the network must be built with the support for this model.

The necessary network for this model is completely trivial.

However, Haemish makes a good point.

The only, only thing I miss even the slightest bit is the fictional "realm community" that I delude myself into believing to have existed.

Much as people like to piss on DAoC for it's dull-as-ditchwater 1-50 experience, the realm community (at least on my server) was something that SWG, GW, CoH, even EQ players would have wet dreams about. Simple things like...

1) Not being able to trivially switch realm
2) Having a common enemy
3) Having realm level goals

...is what made it work. They'll need to do better for Daoc2^h^h^h^h^h Warhammer, and things like...

1) Realm population balance.
2) Having more realm goals at all levels than just relics and DF.
3) Not using dull-as-ditchwater pve as the only method of preventing realm switchers.
4) realm population balance.
5) designing out buffbots.

... are essential, but I suspect they know that.

[Llava]

Oh there was definitely a sense of "we're on a team" with the community.

But that doesn't change the fact that 98% of the people on the team were complete pubes.

[Paelos]

Oh there was definitely a sense of "we're on a team" with the community.

But that doesn't change the fact that 98% of the people on the team were complete pubes.

Agreed, a douchebag trying to lead others in the name of the realm is still a douchebag.

[Hoax]

I'd like to talk more about what all this means for Warhammer, one has to figure that if they have realized everyone hates their fucking PvE "content" and TOA style grindy shite that they will avoid it with Warhammer.  Right?  Please?

[eldaec]

Like it or not, the pve is what stopped the community turning into b.net. If you don't want the pve you need to think up an alternative way to build the realm community. The closest GW has come to this is just by forcing unalterable realm selection (EU/US/Korea), I'm not convinced it won't degenerate to b.net though.

I would hope they try to do the pve better in WH. But pve barrier to rvr endgame is, I suspect, viewed as the unalterable principle.

If, for instance, we got City of Heroes quality pve with BGs along the way and then an improved rvr setup as the end-game (with more realm goals, no buffbots, better pop balance etc). Then that would do me fine for now. If you can make the BGs a viable way to level through pvp then great, but ultimately this will be a matter of how players choose to play it - historically they've tended to show a preference for pve in levelling.

Hell, if they made an exact copy of daoc only with new mechanics to learn I'd play it for the first couple of months, Daoc rvr was at it's absolute best when you were competitive at level 20 but no-one knew what the hell they were doing.

[Llava]

Oh I've got no problem with PvE if it's done well.

Like you mentioned, CoH.  Hell, even WoW and Guild Wars have decent enough PvE that I wouldn't consider it a barricade that stops you from getting to the actual fun.

I'm not sure I'd say it was the PvE that made the community what it was.  There are plenty of games with long PvE grinds and shitty communities.  I really think it was the RvR system, the "we're all on the same team" attitude that did it... Guild Wars doesn't really have this, because the only thing your team does to thwart other teams is controlling favor of the gods.  That's basically like Darkness Falls in DAoC, but only for really high levels.  You still get points for defeating people on the same "team", whereas a Hibernian gains nothing from fighting other Hibernians, and you don't have anything like relics that affect the whole game.

Plus, the smaller servers on DAoC had realms small enough that you could get to know most everyone.

[HaemishM]

Like you mentioned, CoH.  Hell, even WoW and Guild Wars have decent enough PvE that I wouldn't consider it a barricade that stops you from getting to the actual fun.

Unless the time taken to get to the actual fun is too long. And that's really what killed DAoC PVE, besides that it was just uninspiring. It took WAY too long once you got past 20, because you ran out of kill tasks and quests, because the dungeons were uninspiring to say the least, and because it took a group to do anything worth a damn leveling wise. GW totally avoids that with the henchmen, WoW gives you so many quests, you don't have to camp ever (or even do instances or dungeons or groups) and you don't often have to group, and CoH was fun (though its levelling speed is really too slow, IMO).

[Nebu]

GW totally avoids that with the henchmen, WoW gives you so many quests, you don't have to camp ever (or even do instances or dungeons or groups) and you don't often have to group, and CoH was fun (though its levelling speed is really too slow, IMO).

I lasted about 3 days in GW, about a week in WoW, and a month in CoH.  I made it to the highest level in only GW.  I've been playing DAoC for over 3 years. 

As shallow and boring as the pve grind is in DAoC, at least there's something to look forward to in the game once you've finished it.  That's what sets the game apart from every other mmog in my eyes.  After grinding a few levels in the above mentioned game, the transparency of the endgame had me leaving.  The quality (and type) of the endgame in DAoC has kept me playing for years.  I think, at least in my case, that accounts for a considerable amount.  Again, it's all a matter of personal taste. 

[Pococurante]

Any chance the real reason is the "Friends"-sticky?

[Nebu]

Any chance the real reason is the "Friends"-sticky?

I wish I could attribute it to that... perhaps the general player base has something to do with it.  I've played the endgame on at least 6 different servers with more people than I can even remember the names of.  I think it's team-based PvP with enough variety that there is always something to do. 

Now don't get me wrong, WoW and CoH are outstanding at what they do.  For me, "what they do" just gets old really fast.  There's something about the RvR system in DAoC that really has its hooks in me.  Yes, it's flawed... but it's the best I've experienced.  I'm hoping that Warhammer is an improvement on the current system.

[Soln]

GW totally avoids that with the henchmen, WoW gives you so many quests, you don't have to camp ever (or even do instances or dungeons or groups) and you don't often have to group, and CoH was fun (though its levelling speed is really too slow, IMO).

I lasted about 3 days in GW, about a week in WoW, and a month in CoH.  I made it to the highest level in only GW.  I've been playing DAoC for over 3 years. 

As shallow and boring as the pve grind is in DAoC, at least there's something to look forward to in the game once you've finished it.  That's what sets the game apart from every other mmog in my eyes.  After grinding a few levels in the above mentioned game, the transparency of the endgame had me leaving.  The quality (and type) of the endgame in DAoC has kept me playing for years.  I think, at least in my case, that accounts for a considerable amount.  Again, it's all a matter of personal taste. 

I just wish I could get to that endgame -- I never did.  The BG's are the closest I've ever gotten and you can max out one and get kicked out in 1 night of good fun.  The grind is too prohibitive, too few players get to the fun you're talking about.  I experienced a little through the BG's and as a lvl45 but just gave up.  Still think there should be an insta-50 option.  After all, RvR is not a dead endgame -- it's really an entirely other form of play in DAoC.  I just wish Mythic would realize that and get people into it faster because let's be honest -- there is zero hope in RvR if you aren't 50.

[Nebu]

I agree.  The grind is prohibitive and the worst part is: the grind isn't even finished when you actually GET TO 50! 

On the other hand, I think some PvE is good as it helps you learn the ins and outs of some abilities the class has.  The problem is that somewhere between "the right amount of PvE" and "using PvE as a carrot to hold subscribers long enough to soak cash from them while they treadmill to teh fun" there is a communication barrier.  Perhaps Mythic could do something like GW andl introduce a /level 50 server for people that wish to primarily RvR.  The problem is that I think there is little incentive to do this as the market for fresh gamers just doesn't seem like one that Mythic could really draw from at this stage.  Even the new "Classic" servers are doing little more than drawing old customers back.  Though I must admit that I'm seeing people new to the game on the new servers... though their numbers are very small.

[Xanthippe]

Well, I did it.  I came back to Camelot.

It's like going back to an old boyfriend.  "But it's different now - it's changed.  Really."

And I bet before the month is out, I will start complaining about the same things I've always hated about it.

[Xanthippe]

Not before the month is out.  Before the weekend is out.

I have not actually resubscribed, but I did buy Catacombs.  I'm debating still, whether to actually subscribe or not.

DAOC is _exactly_ like a bad old boyfriend.  What I love about it, I really love.  What I hate about it, I really hate.  It's the first game that actually broke my heart.

[Mr_PeaCH]

Xan, you're killing me.  I learned about the DAoC 10-day 'we want you back' trial from this thread and have been following it.  I was curious enough about the new server aspect to re-install the game on my computer just to play it again for free as a newbie.  I have been AWOL from DAoC since... well, post ToA but not long after.  A long, long time. 

But anyways, Xan.  I am about to do exactly what you're doing.  Everything I hear about Catacombs expansion is great, the new server idea is great.  I even think I've found a good guild to join.  I just hope that distancing myself from the ToA madness, and with a new server and a good expansion to dabble in is enough to mitigate teh hate.

May God have mercy on us.