f13.net

Received an email inviting me to play DAOC again (as a former player).  From the website
http://www.comebacktocamelot.com


The "classic" servers are running at capacity - well, 2 of the 3 of them - while the others are running far less than capacity.  I wish they'd made the classic servers such that one could make an insta-50 - I played enough today to remember how much I hate the pve in DAOC - which was very little actually - spent the time catching up with friends who were levelling an artifact.  Ugh, levelling an artifact.  What kind of bonehead thought that one up?

The game looks old, and feels slow and kludgy.  Predictably, RAs and artifacts and MLs have turned rvr battles into very quick things, over way too soon.  Hell, I recall people bitching about fights being over too fast before RAs were even in the game.  Now it's way worse from what I was told.

If only I could be a lady farmer or fisherman.  Maybe then I could stay in the game, chatting away and happy with the social aspect.  The crafting hasn't been changed at all that I could see.  I don't have Catacombs, so I don't know how that is.

OTOH, I spent more time downloading the EQ2 trial than I spent playing it.  Thus far, it hasn't called to me to play it again.  So much about that just felt wrong and buggy.

Ah, the ennui of summer has drifted upon me.  Nothing is good enough.  Pass the pamprin.

This should be two-fold lesson to any and all developers. Not all changes, especially ones centered on empty shiny and mudflation, are good. Going back on something can be worth-while, UO I'm looking at you.

Too bad I never got any expansion, or even to lvl 20 in DAoC.

DAOC was my first MMOG, and thus I have an attachment to it. However, the grind still made me quick the game once before I got to 50, and the only reason I made it was a dedicated guild bent on getting me there. I'll say it again, the idea of trying to level another toon, Catacombs or not, fills me with an unending rage only Haemish could fathom.

No.

But I offer this:

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."

I can't bring myself to ever play it again. The PvE was just so tedious and boring. Even more so than EQ, or any of the later games.

I was surprised to find that the pve in EQ2 was no better.  The graphics didn't thrill me either.  Only having played EQ for about 4 hours though, maybe the unfamiliarity of the interface was partially to blame for my dissatisfaction. I expected something more ... quick, I guess.

No, your first impression was a good one.  The PvE in EQ2 is still a boring treadmill with little hope.  Even the best of interfaces couldn't have saved it.

As for Camelot, it's all about delayed gratification... something that a "game" shouldn't require.  If you can stomach the treadmill to the endgame, the rvr is quite fun.  It's just a shame that so much tedium has to be endured just to get to the enjoyable part of this or ANY game.

I wonder how many copies would fly off the shelves if Mythic decided to open some Frontiers only servers with insta-50s.

I would pay for that.  That's what it would take for me to go back.

I'd be there in a heartbeat. But no-way no-how will i grind to 50 again, no matter how 'easy' catacombs makes it.

I was going to try it and downloaded the 1GB+ engine upgrade from SI to Catacombs. Unfortunately I decided to check to Herald to see the stats on my characters and it looks like they got purged (although they've been inactive for about 2.5 years). 2 50s down the drain...

I'll third (?) that. Let me pay extra for a 'fifdee and I'll resub.  Played for 1.5yrs (x2 accounts) and only got to lvl 45.  RvR was a blast, although at 45 it was usually over after the first 3-5secs in the first skirmish then a lovely 5-10min trip back... Love those AoE's:(  So, let me correct that last sentence:  BG's were a blast, RvR sux a$$ unless you are a HC catass lvl 50 (I quit before the horror that is ToA, but I hear now that's made it unplayable for the non-artifacted). 

So I'd resub if I could start at 50 and there was none around with artifacts playing at effectively lvl55+.  After the whole endgame of DAoC is RvR, why just people get on with it?  :heartbreak:

..sry my bad less Diet Coke

My characters were still there, despite not being listed on the Herald.  Yours probably are, too.  I don't think Mythic has yet purged any characters, other than perhaps banned characters.

I wish they had took my old idea (http://forums.f13.net/index.php?topic=243.msg4356#msg4356) (12 April 04).

Slap in the Catacomb expansion a one-time use code that instantly levels your toon to 45.

I wish you'd quit whoring out your old links on this site. FYI, they don't listen to you because you don't work for them.

Whaddya know?

I wish that too.

Don't like the idea of the insta-50 bit. 

You'd have people breeze in,  roll some 50s,  get rolled by the nearest powergamer/gank group.  Quit.  Even without inequities caused by artifacts/ToA,  people who know what the hell their doing and run in regular groups will drop casuals no problem.

In the process,  I think it would pretty well shatter the communities.  And the big draw of this type of game is the social scene/community.

I'd like to see the levels 40-50 have their xp cut massively.  Again.  Bump xp for bgs to a point where it's inefficient NOT to go to the BG.  Maybe cut out level 1-20 in it's entirety.  Change health/power regen rates in the homelands only so that if you have to xp or kill a mob, it's not a game of watching your character sit.

Unfortunately,  the main problem with the game is the systemic flaws in the magic/combat system.  Interrupts,  the fact that you can neither live with or without CC, no diminishing marginal returns to investment in spec lines, high damage in rvr, etc.  Overhauling and tweaking the underlying mechanics that much would be a fucking disaster.

I do hold out some hope for Warhammer.  Mythic has proven to be a good adapter/emulator,  if not a great innovator.  I'd expect to see them adapt to WoW and their own strengths,  while minimizing the weaknesses.

Unless Mythic makes "Warhammer", and not "everything we learned from Daoc, but with Warhammer skins", I'm not going to like it. No matter how good of a "better Daoc" it may be. I don't want to see one ruleset or design referenced from that game. [EDIT] Ok, I'm not going to be THAT shitty about it...But still, I hold little hope that this won't be anything but Warhammer in a superficial sense.

Difference of opinion. 

I'd like to see "Everything we learned from Daoc, WoW, and CoH;  now with Warhammer".  Mostly,  that's because I have more faith in evolution over innovation.  Innovation tends to be tricky,  risky, and not particularly done well.

I just don't see Warhammer as being all that compatible with the other three. I don't expect an exact translation or anything, but I'd be pleased if they start taking the approach Turbine has done with D&D. At least with DDO, they're trying to be loyal to D&D moreso than they are AC, EQ, WoW, CoH, etc..

The video game medium and the MMO genre as a whole should be taken into account, of course, but the first priority should be to accurately represent the license. Not the other way around. If Mythic starts giving me signs that they're building upon a Warhammer foundation, then adding on all of their good ideas on top of that, then I'll be interested. If they're going to tack on Warhammer on top of said ideas, then I won't.

I just dont see how it can possibly work...

Unless GW/Mythic suddenly grow two brains and realize in order for it to make sense in a MMOG they need to use something more akin to Mordheim then WHfantasy.  Which they wont, therefore the whole thing is just going to be "teh new shiney" with some GW looking characters.

You are asking too much.

that's all valid, but I just wonder how big the server communities are that are left (no insult).  There could easily be bad behavior and inbalance with insta-50's, but frankly the endgame is RvR and I would think most people would welcome new opponents in the Frontiers.  Also, these people would be coming in more or less untwinked (unartifacted at least), and in my case, without any knowledge and PvP experience of many of the new skills.  I don't think an "insta-50" would be on par with a 50 in-game already.  And finally, the game needs life.  Again, not trying to be rude, but DAoC seems a dying game.  There are several people here all saying we would gladly resub if there was some mechanic and advantage to get us into RvR quickly.  We all agree that would be worthwhile.  The problem, as were discussing, is how Mythic could implement it.  I agree it would not be trivial, but hopefully they could start on a new instance as a test.

Even if you have instant 50, you still have a crushing grind ahead of you. The last time I played I had a 48 or something or other. First thing my guild wanted was for me to spend the next two months every sunday afternoon getting my MLs. That was like 4+ hours in what was basically supervised autofollow while some ubers actually did the quests. And then lots of groups to XP what was it artifacts?

That was to get me up to "competitive" in RvR.

I really liked what I was seeing with new frontiers, but I just couldn't deal with that.

Ummm, yeah. Fuck that noise.

Okay, but ToA is GONE.

When I write about DAoC I don't consider anymore the artifacts. From my point of view from now the game is just about the "classic" servers and nothing else.

Yes, there are still the realm skills but I definitely do not think that the PvP is inaccessible right now. Even without my idea of the one-time use code we still have to remember that now you can enter PvP right at level 1. Yes, there are huge problems (siege engines wrongly calibrated, not enough players around etc..) but the possibility is there and you can enjoy the PvP right away.

There are MANY points to criticize about the game but the most popular ones aren't anymore valid today.

If you hate ToA now you can play WITHOUT it. So it's pointless to still rant about it.
If you hate the PvE you can now just level through PvP.

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

You're a one-hit kill.

Except that even on the classic, no-TOA servers, I'd imagine finding PVP at levels under 20 isn't going to happen. And on the other servers, you know, the majority of the other servers, you DO have TOA, everyone has outleveled you, yadda yadda yadda.

EDIT: For Strazos, Hrose is talking about the level 1 battlegrounds, I'd imagine, which only have levels 1-4. But really, who the fuck is going to go into them before level 3 or 4? That's right, no one. At least not more than once.

I think some people misunderstood my post about the insta-50s.

Classic server, frontiers only, no homeworld.  Thus, no ToA - so no artifacts or MLs. 

No uber loot.  Just some sort of generic whatever armor - give em epic.

No crafting.

So no pve grind what-so-ever.  Just rvr.  That's all.

I think this would attract a different sort of player in general, so the DAOC community wouldn't suffer any more than it already is.

In other words, Guild Wars style.  :-D

You mean, without the godly, balenced PvP?

It is Camelot. Of course without.

Why does everyone get a hard-on for DAOC regardless of how much of the horrible craptastic grind they get rid of?

Other then you poor souls who had this pile as your first MMG I dont see what the appeal is.  RvR is shite, follow trains, pointless positional chains nobody used trumped by 1-3 skill mashing for each class.  AoE cc, horrible balance, did I mention AoE cc oh and horrible stealth implementation.  Not to mention Buff bots, the endless ctf-without-score boredom that was taking Keeps/relics and the ugly gfx.

I just dont get it, if DAOC was not your first MMG and you still keep wanting to go back to it would you please explain why to me?  I know such people exist, hell I've gamed with a bunch of them, there must be a reason I'm missing.

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.

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.

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  :wink:

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.

He means you can contribute in the first battleground.

Peeveepeeing against other people at aprox level 1.

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.

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.

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. 

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.

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.

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...

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

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

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.

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.

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."

The necessary network for this model is completely trivial.

However, Haemish makes a good point.


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.

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.

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?

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.

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.

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).

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. 

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.