f13.net

I received the following email, and thought I'd pass along the information.

Ha, I'm playing. My website has miscellanea blathering and screenshots. Nothing too mindblowing but a little exp pack finally available as download for a game that could still have a lot to say if Mythic was a little more daring.

But you know already my point of view.

I think this next week they'll release an "epic" box in the shops that will finally include ALL DAoC complete with every expansion and including this last one.

In May I was preaching (http://forums.f13.net/index.php?topic=3131.msg81515#msg81515):
This was the most intelligent move from Mythic.

EB Games has it for $39.99. (http://www.ebgames.com/ebx/product/258888.asp)

It was also in the Fry's ad on Friday for $29.99 or something silly.

Fry's also has WoW for $29.99 this week.

Btw, the actual features of the new exp pack are:

- Reskinned capital cities (+ throne room)
- Reskinned Darkness Falls (+monsters and loot tables, despite the latter still suck)
- Champion quests and levels
- Champion weapons
- Subclassing skills (through champion levels)
- Customizable mounts
- Massive new dungeon for each tied to existing DF (instanced / 1 group)

The new quests are a bit more interesting and fun to do that what they offered till now. But when it comes to PvE combat you'll still have NPCs randomly placed, aggroing with broken, absurds paths and behaving exactly like they did more than four years ago. So, again, decent quests but very dull gameplay. These new quests seem to not take a lot of time, so not an incredible amount of content and seem to take place both on the classic world and specific small instances with some new art assets.

Plus there are a few "champion tasks" that give tons of exp and only take a few minutes to complete (fetch quests or kill quests all over the world).

I have a summary of the "design" of the game here (http://www.cesspit.net/drupal/node/926).

The expansion is very unpolished as it always happen with Mythic. Not long ago I was writing (http://forums.f13.net/index.php?topic=3758.msg111789#msg111789):
Well, my worries are confirmed. The animations are ok but with the same horrible clipping problems as always. Horses have saddles and bridles but no way that they are centered on the character feet and hands.

Just by staring at people I noticed:
- Bad clipping while riding
- No dedicated controls
- No turning animations, just spinning in the place
- No following the slopes of the terrain, the model remains perfectly just horizontal and looking stupid, half buried on the ground and half on the hair
- No falling effects/animations
- Leaving "ghosts" everywhere
- They can go in water but they have the exact same animation, just slowed down and with the model tilted up

I find sort of fun that the excuse that Mythic gave on the reason why they added horses only now was that: "We still aren't satisfied with the technology to implement them as we'd like".

As for the other features there's always Mythic's brand applied: very unpolished, lots of glitches and total lack of attention to the detail.

But at least they showed that they have the talent to deliver an awesome (http://www.cesspit.net/drupal/node/937) graphic (http://www.cesspit.net/drupal/node/939) and the possibility to do a lot more than this if they just used better their resources.

I have to admit, some of those screenshots you have are pretty nice. A part of me would like to play DAoC again, but a larger part of me hits myself in the nose with a newspaper whenever I think about it.

I resubbed for the opening of the classic servers, I really can't see the point with DAoC anymore.  The whole playerbase is obsessed with getting the cheese the quickest way.  Sadly, this sucks any remaining fun from the game and you're left with a MMO version of progress quest. 

Isn't that the case with....Just about every mmo though (at least of this variety)?

Anyways...I'll admit too, those new models look great.

Nice graphics. Unfortunately, if Mythic wants some more of my money they'll have to make a single player Arthurian game. I dunno maybe I'm still bitter that I never got to play Vengeance of Excalibur (http://www.mobygames.com/game/dos/vengeance-of-excalibur/screenshots) because it never worked with my CGA monitor.

heh, looks like quake2 with some high res textures.

Personally, I think DAoC has become hopelessly complex and unwieldy over the course of "balance fixes" and expansions/addons.  All the slash commands, realm abilities and new spells...or maybe it's just that I'm getting too old.

That's only the tip of the iceberg. You should see how the effects on these new "champion weapons" work.

Basically you have to open your equipment window, right click on the weapon icon, type /use or /use2, then press return while you have the enemy targeted.

And it's not enough because *you cannot do this while in combat*, so you have to switch out of it, follow the procedure and then reenter the combat stance.

Just think how pretty WoW could be if to use an effect you had to exit the combat stance, open a bag, right click on the icon, type /use with the mob targeted and then reenter the combat stance.

Whoever coded this in DAoC deserves a medal. Maybe they hired Serek Dmart.

Nice screenshots. But why are you congratulating yourself (http://www.cesspit.net/drupal/node/923)?


Maybe you didn't mean it that way. a game not look good a game fun (http://forums.f13.net/index.php?topic=4898.0)

I was wondering what they'd do with all the assets they made for Imperator.

Don't ask questions. He does that a lot (err...and the other two things).

Yeah, bad english, I guess. That's the italian grammar for the verb translated to english.


In fact I went with the third batch of screenshots (http://www.cesspit.net/drupal/node/947) showing the Quake 2 dungeon (you asked for it) and a long rant about what you actually (do not) do into it. Beside Levar Burton and taking screenies.

It's quite obvious that Darkness Rising will not gain any new fans for DAOC.  Almost all of the new content is for level 50 characters, and it seems very optional even for them.  Wheee, now my hero can cast wimpy short-range bolts for 1/4 the damage of a real caster!!  I guess the main selling point is the horses, which certainly look nice and offer decent speed options for soloers.  On the Atlantis servers (where many players have returned after toying with the Classic servers), the new "Champion Weapons" will be largely ignored, in favor of the more powerful Artifact weapons.

Catacombs was a much better expansion, even if many of the dungeons are hopelessly buggy.  New player races and classes were introduced, along with a whole new rapid levelling path from 1-50.   Some of the dungeon zones were fairly attractive and interesting.

As it stands, my level 39 battleground toons on the "Classic" servers will see precisely squat from Darkness Rising, other than maybe the new graphics for buildings in capital cities.  I really don't care about hitting 50, since occasional battleground fights are my main fun in DAOC.  Honestly I don't see much reason to buy this expansion.

/emote Soln thinks...

"If Mythic could *promise* me a quick PvE levelling from 1->50 AND that there would always be people on I might resub.  I just don't know how I'd do it though, suffering those fucking runs from AvMarsh to CornStation etc. etc. etc.  Also, doing it without n+1 accounts with a buffbot seems impossible.  But I'm too old and jaded to play 2 accounts anymore..." 

Old problems and not anymore so. DAoC has still many deep issues but not those.

The levelling is now faster compared to every other game. But it's more grindy than ever since the most efficient way is about running the same small instance that autobalances with you and where you have to kill "x" mobs just waiting there before going out, resetting and going back in for another round.

So while the treadmill is sensibly shorter, it's still the worst grind you'll ever experience. In a few cases even worst than how DAoC was at the beginning. One of the comments I heard is that "Catacombs" was like a "PvE lobotomy" and it's indeed what happened (besides, they nerfed the exp in the September patch).

And the travelling is also not anymore a problem. We have horses, we have porters pretty much everywhere and we have "Catacombs" linking every dungeon of the game. So you can basically travel underground and use each dungeon a a quick exit point all over the world.

Buffbots are also not an issue, like ToA. Since we have the classic servers.

So basically, DAoC has become one large game of workarounds?

I thought the "Classic" servers and the new RvR gank island would be sufficient to keep a certain part of the player base happy for some time to come.  Yes, the PvE grind is still painful even if massively shorter than the original game.  But I figured that the RvR lovers would flock to these Classic servers and stay there.

Instead we have seen the usual dropoff.  After running at server cap of 3500 simultaneous users for a month or so, the two main Classic servers have seen steady declines, and the third one (Ector) is a ghost town.  Instead of 8K+ players at primetime for 3 servers, we are down to maybe 3-4K.  Gareth and Lamorak are still reasonably populated, but the excitement is gone and we're back to the usual powergamers doing their thing.

Darkness Rising is simply incapable of attracting new gamers, given the exclusive focus on high-end content.  I doubt many ex-players will be drawn back for it.  And I doubt Mythic will ever again see a massive return like they did for the Classic Servers combined with a 14-day free trial. 

Overall the only real question is whether DAOC can not only continue to break even financially, but whether it can also give Mythic room to develop Warhammer.  It's impossible to pretend it's anything more than a game far past its prime.

I thought the graphics looked dated.  Too many of the models glow with that classic "Hi I'm 1990s CGI!" feel.  Even the architecture looked lame considering there is no dimensional texturing in the walking surfaces.

Yes. As always. Some better than others. The idea to link the dungeons is a really good one because it joins the world without breaking or disrupting something else. Then there are all the other problems that are less apparent to a former player but that would be glaring in the case of a comeback.

As I wrote long ago WoW has a "spoiled" effect. After you get used to some of its features they become invisible. But if you go back to an older game you suddently remember what you hated and now aren't anymore ready to tolerate.

well fuck.  That's disappointing.  My $ for Blizz I guess.  I would resub if I could stop feeling I was on a treadmill.  At least with WoW it's still all new to me, and I can level to 2 characters in either faction through the quests on either continent.  So that's 4 toons possible never playing in the same area, never playing the same quests again.  Yes, I could do that with the 3 realms, but the problem for Mythic is that like a lot of other players I've already done that.

I would like to resub, but I would like not to have to play the same game again, if that makes any sense.

Ok WTF is up with this?  http://www.darkageofcamelot.com/downloads/   


can I buy a digital download of something that presents a tutorial and puts me into a BG?  And which BG?  And is it consolidated to ensure other ppl are there?  Anyone current peeps know?

Oh no! I'd better resub so I can... rescue my poor skills?

ok found this below.  Good management.  Going to check out.  Always liked a lot of the member facing stats and support stuff from Mythic.  We shall see what fubarness awaits.

Darkness Rising has brought back quite a few of the old hands on my server.  Pure anectodal, I know.  I think it's as much a bone thrown out to encourage people with stagnant accounts to reup for a few months. 

Workarounds now the system: 

It's human nature.  The first time you do something,  fun.  The second time, you bitch.  After that,  you look for shortcuts any way you can.  There are plenty of people who skip right to step 3 after barely partaking in step 1, as well.  The internet, with strategy fan pages and dedicated forums,  has only exacerbated the min/maxing of how we play.

Classic Servers:

Everyone who followed the game knew that the Classic servers population was going to collapse.  People switched servers or reupped for a new experience.  When the new got old,  they left.  When flaws were exploited until gameplay broke, they left.  Saw the same thing with PvP servers,  which were overflowing at 2 servers before they started the decline that continues to this day.

Of course, this is the point to the continued roll out of new server types.  Each new type will provide a new experience and a fresh start,  coaxing a few more dollars of subscription price from people until they tire of the new system and it's gamed to hell.

I've been party to hundreds of conversations about "How Mythic messed up the game!!!1!"  The truth is,  like any human system or game, it has flaws;  and we can't help exploiting those flaws until we destroy our own enjoyment.  After each one of Mythic's major changes or rvr revamps,  players figured out how to game the system.  And then gamed the system until they made it not fun to play.

Whether it was buffbots,  or sced armor, or Determination, or Left Axe, or MLs, or overpowered snipers.

All other games have examples of the same flaws,  that get gamed until fun is the casuality.  Which is why random factors tend to be included,  to offset the advantage of experience or knowledge of optimal strategies.

Yes, and as with all the flaws the point is to move ahead and use them as a strength. Because are those flaws to point you the right direction where to go.

If I leave a mmorpg it's not because I know its flaws too well, but because noone cared to learn from them and move from that point. It's about deluded expectations and disappointment. That's also because many players rant about it before finally leaving. Because they care and wouldn't like to leave.

Old players don't leave DAoC as the "new" fades out. They leave as they remember the reasons why the left before. The "new" fades because it's often just a superficial illusion that finally reveals itself as a delusion.

A few notes from my first impressions returning to the game last night (maybe will pen a review if I spend more time actually engaging the new content and rulesets, since there is no DAoC area in f13 to chew about).  Suggestion to the mods:  maybe create an MMO holding pen for threads?  This general forum is fine but holds console and more general game issues.  An MMO mini-den might be good for discussions about minutiae.

--found and installed the old DAoC and SI disks.  Realized too late needed only to run SI.  May have screwed up a later patch (see below).

--was directed on login to http://www.darkageofcamelot.com/patches/ automatically (nice).  Took 2hrs and change to download upgrades over Cable.

--installed, rebooted, remembered old account info since I recycle some names.  I logged in, got a welcome back with a commitment I could use my old toons and all their gear, then got a referral popup, and then was given the login with all my characters.  I have to say, being away for maybe 4 years to log in find all my toons (and I later checked that their gear in the vault was still there) is very impressive to me (nice).  SOE only commits to 90 days from end of cancellation period to maintain a character and their gear.  Maybe this is because Mythic is small, but regardless, color me impressed.

--logged into my lvl44 Wizard into what I eventually realized was the expansion area near a raid zone (barbarian encampment on Isle of Avalon near Caer Sidi).

--was disappointed that the UI was so poor (sad).  Was disappointed nothing had changed, that there was no hearthstone-like equivalent to warp to bind point (sad), was disappointed that the graphics looked appalling on my high end PC (that survived running two instances of SWG).  So I'm hoping this was my fault with the Catacombs install and that the options will be revealed to improve all the blocky circa-1999 graphics.  The character models seem all the same.  I understand with ToA there are XML UI mods to use, so I hope those are available without ToA.  After all, they make WoW bareable.

--So finding my locale, seeing they added an ingame map (nice) I ran a good way across the expansion island to where I remember a horse vendor was to monorail back to the only exit zone on the island (some sadness  in there).  I died in sight of the village from 3 greens (sad). 

--the movement controls and mouse controls are disappointing (sad).  There is no support for the mouse-wheel?  Only very basic zoom, no FP perspective?  (sad).

--the combat is still frustrating, so far.  The interruptions on spells is too much (I was fighting 3 greens for Christ sake).  With WoW at least you are shown a timer bar for cast time.  You're not given any sense in DAoC of where your cast is.  I literally would try casting and then wait only to see my toon was standing still -- he would get interrupted and stop casting! (SAD!)  Fuck....  And, the button UI was not new enough to show a texture timer -- they were just greyed out and I had to keep punching to recast.  Also, the directions of combat in DAoC are good enough that you need to face directly all attackers, so my attackers shifting on me would get out of focus (as it were).  Trouble with the controls added to my pwn'ness.

--died, waited....waited.... waited.....  remembered/figured out I had to type "/release".  Dumb.  (sad)

--rezzed 20feet away in the village... rez sickness.  Was stupified by a CROWD of trainers.  Holy shit there are a lot of classes.  This tiny log fort had maybe 15 trainers.  Mind boggling.  Makes me remember all the laughs we would get in SWG wondering how newbies start -- when you have 15+ classes there's really a lot of swirl you shouldn't have trying to start a game.  Extra cognitive load != fun.  Still, that's the game so neither sad or nice.

-- Got a horse, monorailed back to the harbour zone.  Remembered you have pay for rez sick healing.  Lost 10% of my fucking gold (sad).  Again, Christ Mythic -- stop being so fucking punitive and puritanical with players.  Can't other players cure other players? Why mandatory?  Why so expensive?  At least in WoW it's just item decay and you can select which items you want to repair.  In DAoC you have to pay 10% it seems to cure your Con back to normal. 

--got a port from an NPC to Camelot.  Was stupefied by number of players all with EQ2-like shard titles, like "Bumbum of Pellinor".  We'll see what happens tonight.

All in all, I am still very impressed they have my characters and their gear from so several years of not playing.  However, the first impressions are blocky, balky, dated, and a little annoying.  I will keep at it, however, since I want to check out the content and some PvP

Some responses on details for you...  Overall you are correct that the graphics look dated, however I believe the free trial lets you use the Catacombs client, see http://catacombs.darkageofcamelot.com/downloads.php.  You no longer need your original disks -- everything can be downloaded online including the latest expansion.


You don't need ToA for the XML UI Mods.  The Catacombs client will use them, available with free trial.  A great Catacombs UI is the "Whattie" UI found at www.daocmods.com.


Catacombs added much better support for the mouse wheel and mouse look.


Can't argue with any of the above...


The "of Pellinor" is due to server clustering.  Several servers are grouped so that all of their players can RvR in the same zones and teleport from server to server for PvE.  Every player from a clustered server will show up with those titles.


If your wizard is 44, definitely try the 40-44 battleground.  It's just a big island with some towers and a keep, in the middle of a huge ocean.  It really bites if one side controls all the towers and the keep, but it can be fun in the right scenario.

As for your other thoughts, yes the graphics are definitely dated.  Darkness Rising actually has some very nice graphics in certain zones, but those are mainly instanced quest zones.  DR did not help the general appearance of the game, outside the capital cities.  And I'm sure Hrose will mention that the DR zones are graphically interesting but fundamentally empty of interesting content.  PvE is still boring as watching batshit dry, and RvR is really the fun side of the game. 

RvR is mainly fun in certain battlegrounds.  I've found that the level 35-39 BG is by far the most fun on almost all servers -- it's the most populated, there is no water, and there is some half-interesting terrain.  In fact I have found guilds who specialize in playing that battleground.  They literally have no characters above level 39, and they powerlevel alts to that level range ROFL.  It's a level range where most characters have received their key abilities, and you can earn enough realm points to specialize your character a bit there.  Leave it to Mythic to make their mid-range "RvR training ground" the most fun part of the game.

See, this is already a problem. Because a fair view on the game cano only be given with the current and complete version of the game. even better if with a toon newly created on the Classic servers.

Then we can speak about the complaints and problems, but running an old version just won't help you to get a "brand new" impression. 


The UI is poor and would benefit from many tweaks and features (I've suggested many in these years and recently). But it does the work nicely when you get used to it. It's not an insurmountable barrier. it isn't fancy as WoW but it's still one of the most linear and usable.

The new UIs are surely better, but they are still simple reskins and layout tweaks since the UI isn't programmable as in WoW.

The hearthstone in WoW is one of the most intelligent feature ever. And you'll miss it in every other game, no doubt on that.

The (Catacombs) models are bearable. They are glitchy and not so good but overall they fit with the world and I don't think they are an element that prevents someone to appreciate the game.


I never had any problem with DAoC's controls. I have them configured to work exactly like WoW and despite they aren't as smooth and polished they are still working okay and without major problems I had in other games. I zoom in and out with the mouse wheel exactly like in WoW and I can go quickly to the FP. DAoC has also a fancy camera mode where you can "drop" the camera in one spot and move your character indipendently.


These problems are from a player that now expects everything plays as WoW. In DAoC you don't use spells if you are melee. You just cannot (if you don't use quickcast). The game is balanced considering that the target should be dead once it reaches you. In a group you also aren't supposed to get aggro.

The tooltips and buffs shows the correct timers. Again assuming you aren't in melee.

Of course this doesn't mean that the mechanic is well designed. This is what I suggested a while ago to not change the mechanic but to, at least, make it usable:
"- Redesign completely how interrupts, stuns and immunity timers work -> The interrupts shouldn't break an action but just put it "on hold". So without requiring the player to keep spamming a key. The spell should trigger as (if) there's a right moment to cast it. The spell should remain in the queue till the spell is succesfully casted or the players interrupts it directly. Stuns should never last longer than 5 seconds, mezz should never last longer than 15, immunity timers should last a fixed amount of time (like 15 sec) without a variation or special cases. When an immunity timer is active it should show a specific blinking icon."


This is the usual lack of polish of the game. There are almost endless examples like this one. Just with the last patch they added a "/release entrance" to use inside an instance. I find this kind of design completely unacceptable and, once again, something I ranted about for years:
"They also follow a principle that I think should be always applied to every game and that is a recurring fault in DAoC: when a new patch is ready to be released publicly, one of the devs should browse through each fix and new feature to see if it passes a simple test. If the test is passed the fix can be approved and published, if the check isn't passed the new feature/fix must go back in development and adjusted accordingly.

The test is simple: a player should always be able to understand a change or use a new feature without reading the patch notes."


Many classes are both good and bad. Since they cannot go back, they could at least improve on the weaknesses by making them all-around.


DAoC's economy is HARSH on new players. But the money is also rather easy to make. There are way more significant moneysinks than the one at the healer. Basically all the game seems pivoting about timesinks, grinds, treadmills, moneysinks. It's really old style on this aspect and it didn't improve at all. Whenever they add a new mechanic or try to solve a problem they always go back to use those patterns (for example the new horses were a way to add epic mounts costing up to 15 plats).

It's definitely blocky, balky, dated, and a little annoying. And in most cases it learnt nothing from previous mistakes and didn't much to add something really new that wasn't already there on day one.

Still, it's RvR is unrivaled when it comes to have some serious fun and getting involved in some large-scale environments that aren't a dumbed down version of Counterstrike. The RvR is both the area where the game has the most problems and potential and the whole game basically follow that trend. From a side it's still the best out there. From the other it ruins all its potential because of awful design and a general attitude that damaged the game so much.

It's all ambiguous, the RvR in particular. It can go from the most boring and dull experience ever, to the most fun PvP you'll remember.

I just wish they dared and experimented a bit more instead of sitting and enjoying the momentum (that now is gone).

thanks for the reply.  I only did have the old and SI installs and not sure about what to do about Cats.  I understand the new skin is free (and have it now working -- had reinstall everything last night), but I guess I still need the "Cats expansion".  All in all, it's a bit harder to rejoin than I thought, but I won't criticize Mythic for it.  The following, however, is vague:


Do I have to purchase the Cats expansion to access the new content?  Hopefully, it's part of the 10/8 days free trial I have left.


On to last night...

I had an unfortunate night running around Cammie, trying to remember and get help.  A few observations:

--the "advisors" program is still there, but no one responded. (sad) but mostly unlucky for me

--I could not remember the short-cut key to auto-reply to a tell (/r puts me into rest).  I also could not figure out how to quickly reply to e.g. "Silverwing-Pellinor" -- the shard-titles are now required to reply to all toons?  You have to type in the person's name for every tell plus their server name?  (sad?)

--could not figure out the mount stuff.  Ran around and around... Eventually deduced I need the Darkness Rising expansion (on trial) which requires Cats (on trial) etc.  Again, my problem, just some severe large downloads to do, however.   We're talking more than 3hrs total now on cable.  So be it, again my problem if I decide to renew to get to some new features.  Figured would be a little easier though.

--tons of new NPC's, all seeming to be revolving doors.  It seems Mythic is making a big effort to get players to the content and RvR quickly. (nice) Hopefully, I can find out where the fuck things are actually going on, however...

--last observation, again highly subjective:  I'm on Kay, whatever consolidated cluster that is.  I was pretty surprised that the few players on -- and for Cammie like IF in WoW, it's a central hub for Albion -- there were maybe 50-100 I saw over my time there last night but no one seemed to give a shit.  There's always reluctance to help newbies, but I figured in game so pounded down some people would've welcomed returning players.  I was spamming things like "anyone able to answer a few questions?  I'm lvl44 and just returned from a year+ away"  for nearly an hour.  No fucking exaggeration.  I couldn't tell how to see the bonus features on my gear (not just the stats you see from right clicking).  Other basic UI and expansion troubles etc.  I got one tell after the 40min mark from someone who likewise had been gone a while.  But of limited help.  So, not sure what the attitude of the player base is, but if I renew I'd like to learn where people are playing etc.  Guildless too.  Again, my problem, but one would think if Mythic was serious on getting players back they would have a CSR on or an email etc.  I mean, there's less 1000 people playing on that cluster -- you would think there'd be some extra help or basic goodwill to get people some info.  (sad)

so, not giving up, but so far not really enjoying myself.  Will make an effort to get Cats and get to some content.  I won't quit until I've had a chance to RvR, which was indeed the best PvP I've ever had. 

The default is the "r" key (not /r) when you get a tell. Typing /keyboard brings up a window with all your current keybindings (something which was added while you were away I think - you can now change your keybindings without logging out through that window).


Only if there's a Silverwing on another server that's on. It's a necessary evil when having multiple characters with the same name in the same gamespace.


As others mentioned, your best bet is to bite the bullet and download the Catacombs engine, which is free (the Catacombs content, such as new classes and instanced dungeons isn't, but is available online for download now (http://catacombs.darkageofcamelot.com/downloads.php) for a $20 fee). Basic player controlled horses don't require Darkness Rising (which doesn't have a free trial, since it was just released this month) but advanced mounts do.


One thing you can do to help is talk to "Barkeeps" ("Wanderers" in Catacombs areas) that will point out level-appropriate quests that are available to you in that area.


Asking for help in cities probably isn't the best way to get help, unfortunately, as people are usually in a hurry to get to where they're going. Frontier keeps are usually more social.


Thanks for your comments, they've been circulated among the team. It's rare that we get detailed feedback from someone looking at the game as a complete newcomer. We've been working on the experience a new player sees upon joining the game; as you've noted we still have quite a lot of work to do.

I wish you could also have listened to those that offered those comments for *years*. And yes, about the newbie experience and, yes, even if they come from experienced players.

My two pages of more or less fancy suggestions are here (http://www.cesspit.net/drupal/node/678) and here (http://www.cesspit.net/drupal/node/859).

I'd also add that it could be a good idea to add a /release and /release entrance button to the UI window with the green time out bar.

Oh, I think Mythic has been fairly responsive over the years.  It's just that their responses tend to be driven by a sort of "what's easiest for the developer" mentality.  Just take Catacombs...  They obviously wanted to make the game much easier to join with new introductory quests and an incredibly fast levelling path (relative to years past).  They even added a pretty impressive number of new dungeons and instances.   Yet the whole expansion suffered from a feeling of bugginess, copy-pastedness, and general tedium.  Yes I can get to level 50 in a couple of days on a Vampiir in the task dungeons, but by god could those dungeon runs possibly be any more repetitive?  Not to mention, could Vampiirs be any cheesier as a class?  Talk about the ultimate soloer's OMGIWINKTHXBYE class. 

This is all coming from a guy who still generally likes DAOC and hasn't quite managed to cancel after re-subscribing for Catacombs.  I guess that's why guys like me and Hrose keep posting about DAOC.  Mythic frustrates us to hell, but they manage to keep the game halfway interesting.  If only Mythic could spend slightly less time copy-pasting, and really rethink how to develop in a user-centric manner, they could make some great stuff.  Hell, why not pick some people off the street in Northern Virginia, offer them some cash to play your game from a true MMORPG idiot's perspective, and make them your brain trust?  Mythic would do better with that approach than listening to the junk that's spouted on VN Boards and at their fan fests.

As it always happens with games starting to heavily use instanced content, now you'll hardly see people willingly to group randomly, in particular if you play on a old server.

Without Cats the PvE will be a nightmare for you, because basically noone is out there for the "standard" PvE. From 1 to 50 now everyone just runs Task Dungeons (TDs). These are small caverns with four total entrances: near Camelot (1-10), Campacorentin (10-20), Avalon Marshes (30-40), near Castle Sauvage (40-50). You basically run to a taskmaster NPC that gives you the task (kill a named, kill "x" foozles, kill everything) and then in the dungeon. Then rinse and repeat till you fall asleep. They recently nerfed the exp but when you finish the task you get a huge exp reward and money.

Running TDs give you good money but you won't get loot. Or you go into the housing zones and buy stuff by searching the market (there's an NPC named "market explorer" or something), or you farm "Aurulite" in Cats to buy good items from NPCs (Aurulite is a special currency dropping off monsters).

You can also read here (http://www.cesspit.net/drupal/node/862) where I somewhat explain how the design of Cats is put together.

Basically everyone runs TDs (solo or groups), gets powerlevelled or runs Cats instances to farm Aurulite (or the tasks quickies).

I also suggest you to start a new character on a classic server, do (download?) the tutorial and go through all the first newbie quest chain (should bring you up to lvl 6). It's refreshing and will help you to remember tons of details that you could have forgotten.

The DR-less mount can be bought at level 30 for 250 gold pieces. It's slower than the DR-enabled mounts and cannot be used in the RvR zones.


Get a guild. New toons start in noob guilds, so this was a really good idea from Mythic. It's odd to see a returning player at level 40 asking for help.

Some of us spend a lot of time helping other players but this usually happens within a guild. I spend TONS of time talking with new players, trying to recruit them in the guild and helping when I can. So it really depends on what you find.


The biggest problem beside the clunkyness is that new players enter from PvE to reach, maybe, the RvR later on. And the PvE is now completely Cats dependent. And also dull as others have commented.

Yes, what makes me upset is that those flaws were already extensively examined. It upsets me that these new comments were treated as a precious source that popped up right now and wasn't available before.

I can link endless threads and articles, both from me and other players, that examine extensively all those points plus more. It's kind of frustrating when not only you see all that work being ignored but also someone else being somewhat praised when he repeats precisely the same points.

*shrugs*

There's nothing wrong with sampling from an outside source is there?

Tsk.

Maybe it was one guy and 99 bots?

I tried to answer someone's questions and thanked them for their feedback. Would you rather I snarled at them?

HRose, you don't want your feedback read (quite a few designers and producers read this board and others), you want your feedbaclk implemented. Minor but key difference. You've written about 50 metric tons of feedback since DR came out (and yes, I read it all.) I'd explain which parts I nodded and went, "Yup", which parts I shrugged and went "Sorry, the designers disagree", and which parts I exclaimed "Dear lord, he's overdosed on crack". But that's probably unfair to, well, everyone else.

It's a slow night, I could use some more entertainment.

I don't want to fight on something so silly.

It's completely false that I want my feedback implemented. I would like it considered. And, if it makes sense, possibly implemented.

Fact is that noone ever thanked me for my feedback (..this is going childish) and I doubt it does something more than just bouncing back like if made of gum.

It's unrelated but your wife writes: "he got where he is on his MERIT - in SPITE of having LtM, not because of it"

Sometimes I feel that those ideas I suggested and bugs report I've sent are implemented *in spite* of what I wrote, and not because I contributed.

I think I felt legitimately upset when someone wrote comments that I also tried to "push" for a long time and was thanked as a precious resource when what I did seemed completely vaporous and easily dismissed like an annoying fly.

So the problem is you haven't been thanked for what you wrote? Uh, ok. I'd say "thanks" here but it'd come off as snide, and really, it's not. You are absolutely passionate about DAOC (among other games). If you didn't care, you wouldn't be as passionate.  I have to remind myself of that on days when you and others flame the work of myself and others.

A lot of what you write about DAOC I disagree with. A lot of what you write is absolutely unrealistic. And some of it is correct (when you dinged a bug in DR with lightmaps - "torch not working reliably" for example).

Because I disagree with it doesn't mean it isn't valid feedback.

(Shockeye, was that entertaining enough? :D)

You're too nice these days. Back to work I go. <sigh>

Heh, I wish there was more dialogue. Not with me, in general. I'd care more about what you and others disagree than what you agree.

But it's an old topic.


Really, it's nowhere fun ;p

Ah, the succession of player-wants that ultimately leads to "Vacate your offices and let me be the developer."

First players just want to be heard.  So the Devs put up a forum.  Then the players spout ideas onto the boards, and they demand that the developers acknowledge them.  Once the devs do that, the players invariably demand that the suggestions be implemented.  If devs demure at any point along this chain, they are accused of not comminicating / not caring / being out of touch / living in an "ivory tower."

Now that we know we have Lum's ear...   :-P  Several ideas that might help Mythic get and keep truly *new* players.

1.  Make Catacombs content (not just the client) part of the free trial.  Probably this is already slated to happen, now that DR is out.
2.  Do some work to make Task Dungeons more interesting.  Add some more maps, improve the mob AI (my god those monsters are stupid), and add a few useful drops (just stuff newbies can use -- coin only gets old).  You may recall that AO had a similar instanced dungeon system, and they kept adding new maps and mob types for quite some time.  It worked reasonably well.
3.  Look at your bottom battlegrounds, all of those between level 1 and 19.  Remove siege weapons, or tone down their damage massively.  Make them *beautiful*.  Add more interesting terrain.  Basically, make these the most damn fun they can possibly be.
4.  Finally, change your intro level 1-5 quests so that they send people into a cool small dungeon, preferably something you create specifically for that quest.  Make that dungeon look like the most impressive artwork in DR.  Give them something to look forward to.

a quick thank you to Lum and HRose and Altered -- I likewise appreciate the feedback -- and an update:

Basically, the PvE indeed is pretty much the same as I remember, but I got bored/lonely/frustrated pretty quickly trying to solo.  There was indeed no one around the zone I was in (DF).  After stumbling around a bit more I decided to go for Cats.  Thanks to HRose's update, I now know where and how to play:)  I wanted to head to a Frontier Keep (CS), but decided to bit the bullet as Lum advised.   I downloaded Cats (was nearly 3hrs, but went out, so not an issue) and 1) resubbed, 2) bought the Cats expansion, and 3) bought the DR expansion.  I don't mind giving Mythic a try and some $ to explore, all in the hope of getting to some good PvP.  It was my first serious MMO, and frankly, any players who are currently active are probably dedicated enough to the game to make any play-time interesting.  We shall see.

Soln, you just won Lum a player retention bonus  :-P

I would offer to play with you a bit, but I'm a Hib on Lancelot in your cluster.  I mostly play on Alb Gareth anymore anyway, so if you're feeling like a new start on a Classic server, there's an option for you.  That said, I haven't exactly been active recently with the new baby.

I've been playing DAoC off and on since beta and have a love-hate relationship with the game.  It's the best PvP game for my playstyle and I enjoy the game world and the people.  I hate the PvE.  I can't stress this enough.  At least the introduction of Classic servers and catacombs has reduced the PvE grind  to a level that's tolerable.  I may dare to even say that the cost to entry into the endgame is about the lowest of any of the major MMOG's available.  The PvE is still mindless and unimaginative, but a necessary evil to get to "teh fun".  Is it me or did that just read like an introduction at some kind of 12-step program?

For any considering coming back to the game, I recommend playing on one of the classic servers, particularly Gareth.

The good: 

1) There are enough players starting/rerolling that you can usually get a group.  Especially if you're a class that is desired.

2) ToA is a massive time sink that can be avoided, getting you into competitive rvr faster.

3) The large playerbase tends to be pretty friendly to new people. Starting in a newbie guild can answer a lot of questions, you just have to filter all the white noise.

4) With all the new comers and rerolls, the bg's are much more populated than on the ToA servers.  You should be able to find enemies in almost every bg making pvp accessible at all levels.

5) With epic gear and some purchased/quested jewelry you'll be able to compete in the endgame.  You won't be ideal, but you'll be far more competitive than you would on the ToA servers.

The downside:

1) Money is tighter so you'll have to fend for yourself.

2) You have to start over.  This is the worst part as PvE is mind-numblingly dull in DAoC.   

3) If you aren't a class that people are looking for, it may be a lonely journey.

Feel free to post or PM me with any questions. 

No. I don't fucking accept this stupid oversimplification.

Players expect a dialogue. Because it's exactly because Lum disagrees with me the reason why we write: so we can have a discussion and FORM opinions. Without a discussion and without different ideas the opinions cannot be formed.

It's not about "do this because I said it and I'm right". It's about having a forum where a problem is examined from various points of view. And what matters is the point of view that ISN'T YOUR OWN.

This is why I care more about what Lum disagrees with me. Because that's what I'd find interesting to discuss.

AlteredOne here wrote suggestions that I disagree almost on every point. This is why I would find interesting a discussion. But it would be many times better if this discussion wasn't just some academic work going nowhere but also including those that actually work on the game and whose opinions matter.

What is fun is that EVERYONE is interested to discuss this. This is why as Lum says "we are reading stuff here" everyone (me included) starts to post lists of points that should be considered.

The majority of players do not expect any kind of dialogue. The majority of players play the game and don't get caught up in trying to get their views on certain issues heard. I'm still not sure if having CM's and "dialogue" helps or hurts games in the long run.

Official game forums are too filled with morons whose opinions are based 100% on a self-serving desire to see their class/race/faction/item/spell's power be preserved.  Regardless of anything resembling game balance and who believe that by starting large whine threads, petitions and other iterweb garbage and demanding response from the devs they can accomplish the lofty goal of keeping the game fucked up.  The idea that official game forums are a place of "dialogue" is fairly laughable to anyone who as ever spent time of the worldofwarcraft.com boards or any other MMO.

Well, I do know this: Lum himself wouldn't even exist if there was no such thing as "dialogue".

We wouldn't want that now, would we?

Ironically, Imperator would exist if there was no such thing as "dialogue."

Open door, etc.

I agree. Most players are so caught up in the circle that surrounds themself that they fail to see the big picture.  I empathize with most CSR's and developers forced to filter the gobs of white noise for the tidbits of useful information coming from the player base at large.

I think that Mythic has done a better job than most with regard to handling feedback from the playerbase.  Could they do better, sure.  I still think that they've done a fine job.  Hell, they kept a cynic like me playing their game for 4 years.

I got a question-

Did they ever fix the bug with Ripper?  Does it do more damage than Hamstring and Leaper now?  Does Ripper even exist anymore?

Ripper does exist I believe (if you're referring to the 50 CS line style).  The growth rate on Ripper is still higher than hamstring and leaper, but to the best of my knowledge its damage is still determined by base weapon spec rather than by CS spec.  So, yeah... in most cases it still does less damage.  I wouldn't use it even if I were to spec to 50 CS... besides, it's like the 4th in chain and you'll virtually never get that off in rvr.

I'll have to copy to Pendragon and test it for sure.  That's the answer I got from a guy I play with.

I'm not sure how many years this is after the bug was reported, explored, and finally mapped out.  At least 2.  Still broken, eh?

I actually DID manage to get it off in RvR a couple times, before I dropped down to 44 CS and raised my weapon spec.

Remove the "virtually", it's just impossible.

Since we were talking also about the guilds I think that DAoC improved a lot with a social panel but it still has a long way to go before it will be feature complete. In particular Ubiq has a good piece (http://www.zenofdesign.com/?p=457) about the guild support that I also commented. This is another essential part of the newbie experience.

In particular there's a "looking for guild" tab but to use it you should be aware that there's a /lfg commands that puts you on it. It would be really simple to add a button on that panel to set your flag. And the same goes for all the infinite list of slash commands that you are forced to use in DAoC and that are systematically excluded from the UI (considering as UI both the graphical parts and the controls).

This is also why the /release command should become a button you can press as you die and why the effects you can fire off items should be clickable instead of going through that awful list of commands I explained in the other page. DAoC simply isn't consistent and continues to be clunky and not consistent even with the new things they are adding.

Another good idea could be about working with the TLs to put on the Herald a complete and maintained FAQ for ALL classes. As today I still have no clue about most of the mechanics. I don't remember some effects of the stats, I don't know how the specs points exactly affect my skills, I don't know which skills benefit from the points above 50 and which don't, I don't know how damage is calculated and so on.

Every class in the game behaves in its own specific way and it's filled by an high number of quirks and exception. The FAQ won't fix the ruleset but it would at least help the players to find the informations organized in a clear and direct way.

And the list of little things and more substantial features could go on forever. Because an in depth analysis of the newbie experience would produce a really long list of observations and not just an handful of features that the game needs.

The point is there's a nearly infinite list of things to consider and a whole lot of work. You can start from everywhere. But Mythic always lags behind. The do a little step and then completely change the focus instead of progressing on every front. They put out some changes in a couple of months and then completely forgot everything for months and years, till the point everything crumbles and they have to go back for another try. This just doesn't work. Since there's a lot to do, this process should be steady and progressive. It cannot be done in chunks and it needs a definite plan ahead with all the steps set. That is also open to integrate new feedback coming from the new features that are added.

Oh, and I've finally dinged 50. Got my champion weapon as well. I couldn't believe I got it basically for "free". Mythic never gave me anything if not after spitting blood on some endless grind or moneysink. So this was something new. Now there are the Champion levels and they are definitely NOT how they were described in the beta. In 3-4 days with various hours dedicated to the RvR I went just near to two bubbles. I need 10 of those to get CL1. And there are a total of five levels. This means I'm looking for MONTHS of daily RvR, and assuming I can play for a few hours each day and that I don't spend time on anything but my minstrel.

That's definitely not fast as bragged during beta. And just to get some minor skills. The reward is definitely NOT worth the grind, despite, in this case, the grind is the direct purpose of the game. So somewhat tolerable even if still just insane.

And again about the comments on the accessibility of the RvR and, so, the accessibility of the WORTH of the game for a new player: the moneysinks are absurds. I'm running around with crap equipment just because I cannot afford anything. I cannot afford to buy potions, to buy the horse and all the rest and also buy a complete spellcrafted set.

I'm at 50 and I would finally like to enjoy some RvR but the treadmill just started. I'd have to spend twice the time I already invested in the game to hunt down the items I need and gather the money I need to buy crafted armor and spellcraft it so I can have a decent performance on RvR. All these are *impassable walls* for anyone that isn't a pure catass. And the more time passes the less players are going to tolerate all these long grinds just to finally have access to the WORTH of the game.

This again doesn't work. A game should offer its worth in the best way possible, and not hide it or make it inaccessible. The itemization in DAoC definitely needs some work (I wanted to write about it, I have a bunch of notes but still didn't have the time to organize), not because it's not powerful enough, but because the gap to be able to access a viable build should be reduced by a good amount.

And finally I'd beg them to work on the damn client. Everyone I know complains about performance problems, memory leaks and so on. In particular I wish I could finally have the window of the game client finally fill the whole screen instead of 80% of it. In every other mmorpg I play I can "maximize" the window. Like it happens with every other application, you double click on the title bar and the windows goes to fill the screen. In DAoC this is impossible. Or you play in a window that goes off your screen and covers the taskbar, making impossible to do anything, or you play in a smaller window than your desktop, so that you have to see all the time something else below, without being able to take advantage of the rest of the space you have.

Little changes like this one or adjustments to the usability of the UI really improve the quality of the game for everyone and along the whole experience. Oddly, all the development time is spent on something else.

Oh, and also consider that if I don't have the money to afford the clothes I need to have a chance at the RvR, I have even less to be able to afford the actual RvR (siege engines, repairs and so on). And if I spend my time and money on the RvR, I also don't have any other source of income. So the RvR is just impossible on its own if not feeded/twinked through an alt farmer.

Basically you are set in the game without anything. No equipment, no money, no experience and so on. To be able to do anything you have to move on a bunch of different treadmills that skyrocket beyond every scale you can expect (and build new characters to feed and support your main ones). While some of the players can afford this, most of them are just going to splat their face against a brick.

Actually, you're wrong here.  Kills in RvR now drop cash.  I've had many weekends where I've made 1-2p by doing nothing but RvR.

It's not easy getting started.  Once I have my rvr suit ready, I've found that I have more money than I ever need.  Even with the cost of pots, repairs, rent, etc. I still have plenty of cash left for frivilous expenses. My only real need once I have my template for RvR finished is for repairs/replacements and the occasional realm/skill respec.  I've gone for months doing nothing but RvR and money has never been a concern.  Mythic got this right when they awarded gold for rvr kills. 

I will agree that the REAL treadmill starts at level 50 IF you play on a ToA server.  I left to play on the classic servers and I can now be RvR ready and compatitive in about 2 weeks starting with a level 1 toon.  The classic servers are the best place for a new player to start unless they REALLY enjoy PvE.

I disagree.  "Virtually" impossible is just about right.  As I mentioned, I did actually get it off a few times when I had it.  Unfortunately, I was not rewarded for that incredible feat.

I'll be honest, I would've thought they had the bug fixed by now.  My jaw hasn't hit the floor from the shock, exactly, but I still would've thought that it would receive SOME attention after the cancellation of the much vaunted style review.  I mean, they did say they were just cancelling it because they were going to handle it in smaller doses, didn't they?  And yet...

In fact, next time my friend brings up DAoC and tries to get me reinterested, I think I'll just sum up my objection with the sentence, "Ripper is still broken."  That expresses more than I could in a two page rant.

I'm trying to not flame or be overly critical about it, and I'm not sure I'm expressing that well- probably because it's late and I'm tired.  The point I'm trying to make is this:  A new level of polish has become standard in the MMOG genre, and DAoC not only doesn't meet that standard, it isn't even polished for what it is.  It's one of those "If you can't get excited about your work, why would you expect anyone else to?" kinda deals.

Well, I must not be aware of the jedi mindtricks because I also spent a decent amount of time in RvR recently and my money went down instead than up.


My RvR suit it's a myth for me, right now. Maybe I'm that awful, or maybe you are more of a catass than what you think :)

There actually is a button to /release. The fact that you didn't know about it is a good demonstration that our UI needs some serious reworking, you'll never get me to disagree on that point.


Doing the Champion quests should get you enough CL experience to reach CL3, assuming you do nothing else. As for the rest, I'd argue that unlike TOA, you absolutely do not need CL5 to be RvR-ready. It's like the titles at RR11+, something nice as a reward once you get there, not something to "grind" to.

I'm asking about that now. Considering that fixing these sort of bugs is actually my job now, uh, you can get schild to sucker-punch me this week in retaliation I guess?

I liked DAOC, and all the end game stuff looks good.  However I have no desire to engage in the PVE character advancement model that the game offers, just to get to the part where I want to get too.  Maybe if I was a total daoc newbie I wouldn't care, but no winback will ever get me or my friends if we have to go through all that crap again.

If you have a decent group, there's really no trick to it.  50-60k rp's is a pretty common saturday for me with about 3-4h in rvr.  No tricks, just good solid fun.  Lay off the seige.  You spend a lot of money and the rp's are awful... unless you enjoy beating on doors. 


For RvR on the classic servers, you can get by with quest items (SI neck and bracer quests), armor from the epic quest (done by level 45 and decent exp), drops from the champion levels (which take a day or two), aurulite gear (rings are ok), and maybe a piece or two that you purchase.  I made a template for one toon entirely out of this stuff and from money I made leveling from 1-50.  I have known to be a catass at times, but on the classic servers it's not necessary. 

Get off the ToA servers.  Now that I'm playing there I can't even imagine having to go through the grind of 1-50, artifacts, scrolls, leveling artifacts, ML's, Champion levels, and then needing RR5 to compete. 

Gratuitious propaganda link:

http://camelot-europe.goa.com/downloads/videos/daoc_goa_b_wmv_en.zip

Created by our European partners. Probably the best DAOC movie I've ever seen (and I've seen a bunch).

You know what DOAC needs? A decent backend Question and Answer database on their webserver to answer these questions.

See, but it ain't your fault.  It's been bugged, to my knowledge, from release.  I still remember Sanya saying years ago, "According to our spreadsheet, Ripper should be the most damaging attack in the line aside from Perforate Artery.  So go ahead and send me logs if you're experiencing something different."

So I hit 50, took it, and recorded tons and tons and tons of logs of Ripper.  This was in... I think 2002 or 2003. I put them up on the Safehouse as well, we all talked about it, and then someone figured out what was wrong with it and showed the specifics of the bug- that its growth was based on weapon spec instead of Critical Strike spec.  Since the style requires 50 in Critical Strike, this makes it useless to anyone but the most deranged Infiltrator.  In fact, below a certain spec (maybe 20 or so, it's been a while) the display would actually be further bugged- the performer would see "You perform your Ripper! (+34289127397812) You hit for 123409873429734 damage!" while the recipient would see "You are hit for 0 damage!"  Naturally, the latter was actually the correct one.

Ah, memory lane.

See, it's cool that you're looking into it.  The problem is, I no longer have a stake in DAoC.  I did once.  But from the time the player community experimented with Ripper and found out what was wrong and repeatedly told the devs, without a word of response, the game has seen 9 new classes, a huge RA review, horses, housing, a billion balance changes, etc, etc, etc.  It's things like that which make you question how big of a priority it is that everything be polished and working well.

But anyways, I hope you fix it, Lum, that'd be cool for everyone still playing.  But personally, I'm as finished as it gets with DAoC.  It's because it was my first MMOG that I can't stop myself from talking about it every so often. >.<

I'm fairly certain Ripper has been "fixed" for some time.  The problem is that, if you do a min/max calculation on potential DPS,  the styles in the chain and lack of good effects (no long duration stun) plus difficulty in getting off the 4th in chain style,  mean it's more efficient to use Diamondback/Dragonfang (hib/alb pierce stun styles) for evade reactionaries.

Money is actually very easy to come by even on ToA servers.  I've made a couple hundred plat just from gaming the market,  knowing which items/scrolls sell for a premium, buying low and selling high.  All it takes is scanning some of the posted templates and then noting what is a "chase" item is,  and once a night taking 10 minutes to scan the Market Explorer for target items.

People have pointed out one serious problem with DAoC: 

The lack of an up to date and easy to access general game overview or manual.  Especially for new or returning players,  this is a real hardship.  I know that the Herald has a searchable archive,  and that there is a help system in game,  but both are not particularly intuitive and it can be difficult to dig info out of them.

A newbie manual in .pdf format, or easily reachable while in game,  would be a huge boon to new folk.  Just something that lays out, "casters need int and dex,  and spec points in your spell line increase your damage" or "your chance to evade is based on your dex and qui" would be great.

Right now,  newbies are dependent on being in a guild with semi-helpful people.  If they don't find that guild,  I can see why new player retention would be difficult.

That's what I used to do.  In PvE, I'd evade, then Diamondback, Hamstring, Diamondback, Hamstring (enemy unstuns here), Leaper, Rib Separation, Ripper.  In PvP, due to status immunity, I couldn't extend it out so long, so I'd Diamondback, Hamstring, Hamstring (enemy unstuns here), Leaper, Rib Separation, Ripper.

It was very tricky to pull off the whole chain and sure would've been nice if Ripper made it worthwhile.

I'm sorry but in my book you are both catasses.

I'd be lucky if in a 4h session I get more than 15k at the moment. In the Old Frontier I used to farm a lot more but right now I don't have access to that type of RvR.

How come he plays successfully for 4 hours, you play with less success for 4 hours, and he's the catass?

I thought catass was strictly regarding amount of time played, not the rewards gained from that.

Boo.

More hate please. Too many damn people defending shitty games lately.  :x

We aren't here just to hate on games for the sake of hating. If Mythic can improve DAoC, why should we be getting down on them for trying to do so? Sure we can complain about the pace of the improvement or whether the improvements actually matter, but they are trying to do something.

Okay, that was just totally INSANE.

Really, at times it seems almost using CG. Some parts remind me more Final Fantasy than DAoC.

Btw, just out of the blue, it would be cool to recode the /follow command to use formations. That's an idea that the video gave me. Instead of running around with the characters all overlapping in a line it would be great to code 4-5 types of switchable formations like it happens with the squads in Homeworld. These would work only when /sticked and would even add some tactics to the game since they would actually simulate the formations in the medieval battles.

Not only they would be cool to watch and use, but they could define different strategies. For sure this wouldn't be trivial to implement, but it would be really a cool feature :)

Fair enough, but I'm only hating a specific type of game really (and this isn't even about DAoC specifically). And I only hate, because it hates me first.

I also hate that a lot mmog discussion around here has turned from that of broad criticism (positive and negative) of the genre to that of specific game fans who care only to discuss things from one angle. An angle that, I personally, completely fucking dread. People who like the core of the games, but only want to see little "tweaks" and "improvements" here and there. Anything touching on the underlying design (and the shoddiness thereof) is off limits --- Because that's the part they like.

Anyways, I'm terribly sorry for taking this into "Star Wars ownz Serenity!!" territory, but what can I say? The hate made me do it.

Carry on, etc..

What makes them wrong to enjoy the underlying design?

I mean, not all games are going to appeal to everyone.  CoH, for instance, isn't a game where I'd do much to change the underlying design.  DAoC has definite problems in this realm (largely stemming from when it was created, I believe- certain rules just hadn't been broken yet, certain technology just wasn't available) but if someone does enjoy the underlying design of DAoC, who am I to say they're wrong?

Of course, if you're saying that the problem is that they don't want to debate the virtues of the design and just immediately shut those conversations down and move onto specifics/particulars, then I can agree with that.

Heh. Funny that you mention the underlying designs of CoH and DAoC as being different from each other.

That would be the angle that I'm talking about.

If you think one needs changing and another doesn't, then what you have in mind are still particular/specific.

[edit] In other words, say DAoC and CoH are "Poker" and "Blackjack".

Both may be different as card games, but still, they're both card games. For the sake of argument, lets say that I don't care about either the virtues of Blackjack or Poker simply because I don't care about cards in general. I want to throw the whole fucking deck out. I want to replace them with, for example, Legos.

That would be a fundamental change in design. Taking the Joker out of a card deck wouldn't.

'm not entirely sure if I should post all this here. It risks to kill the whole thread (but I'm noticing it's already at a good point) or just take unneeded space. But since I wrote it and it explains my point of view and what I think would be good for the game, I'll try.

Yes, in the command window that has plenty of useless buttons. That's the first thing I modded.

The /release button should be moved where it belongs, on the "time out" window that appears as you die and with the "/release entrance" aside. At least for the NEW commands and things you introduce it would be a good idea to implement them in the proper way.

1- This ruins the content. At least assuming that for "champion quests" you mean the three chapters. Retaining these to do them at 50 to maximize the gain (since you can start to acquire the exp only at 50) makes the content even more dull than how it is already since the first chapter is tailored for level 30 and the second for level 40. Fighting a bunch of greys to accomplish very simple and linear tasks won't be all that entertaining.

2- It's not that the CLs are required for RvR, it's just that in this case the reward isn't really appropriate to the time required. In other words: not justified.

Now the points is: why was it changed (nerfed) at the end of the beta? From the comments, true or not, I heard that you received around a .4 for killing an enemy in solo. Which would still be an acceptable balance considering you would have the bar moving and the ten bubbles filling up at a decent pace. There are already the Realm Ranks to define that type of slow and exponential progress, there's no reason to add another overlapping.

Since the Cs don't really stack in power (the same assumption that was betrayed with ToA) their purpose is to broaden the class. Offer it some more minor tricks. This has the sole scope of making them more fun to play since one of the limits of the game is about having classes that are too strict and specialized. Hence it's another of those parts of the game that you WANT to valorize, instead of keeping it away from the players.

The titles in RvR and the Ranks can be "achievement based". Because that's their direct and natural purpose and sense. But it's not so good to retain the achievement based mechanic for the CLs. There's nothing to achieve because they don't offer anything that is worth pursuing. Instead they add some FUN to the classes that would be a good idea to hand out to the players for "cheap". Like it already happens for the weapons.

What I mean is that there isn't really a good reason to make it slow instead of more quick. You are just pushing back the fun.

And this goes further because it's a patter Mythic is repeating. In September you nerfed the exp in the TDs. Why? Again there isn't a good reason to do this and it just damaged the game some more.

Let's put it in this way: our life is too short to waste time grinding repetitive and dull PvE content that doesn't offer any challenge. That's what the TDs are. So why a designer would want the players to spend MORE time there? Where is the gain? Where is the purpose? This problem is really at the basic level. In a game you can offer a grind only for those parts that are already representing a satisfying repetable content.

The RvR in DAoC is a great and perfect example of "satisfying repetable content". The PvE is NOT.

This is why noone criticizes the Realm Ranks *grind* and why there are players that always praise it above what WoW implemented. The grind here is appropriate. It doesn't ruin the game. It valorizes it. But it's completely different when you reapply grindy mechanics to the PvE (both as exp grind and money grind). ALL KINDS OF GRINDS aren't fun in a dull, repetitive PvE. And there isn't a single decent reason why you would find acceptable and useful to TRAP the players in a cavern for days. It follows the same unjustified and unfun design trend that we have criticized for all these years. It's masochistic.

Players complain because this is logically wrong.

So, again, why the exp in the TDs was nerfed? The only reason I can imagine is to rebalance the experience gained there in relation with the rest of the game. In fact there's that "triad" that I already commented and that is the reason why I was against AlteredOne proposed changes:
1) In TDs you quickly gain money and exp / but not loot
2) In the instanced dungeons you can "quickly" gain Aurulite, hence items / but the exp is crap
3) The quick task quests around the non-instanced zones give you easier *soloable* and short tasks that give you medium money and exp

Schematizing:
1) ++money ++exp --loot
2) --money --exp ++loot
3) +exp +money ++easy to solo

The first patter was by far the most efficient. In fact with the money you can also go buy equipment and even aurulite. This is why the only reason I found to the nerf to the exp in TDs is about rebalancing those patterns. But this doesn't justify it. We still lack the satisfying repetable content and these patterns were rebalanced in the WRONG direction. It was the other two patterns that needed to be brought in line with the TDs and not the other way around.

But there's even another point to consider. Why the hell we would need three different patterns? The PvE is the same in all three. It doesn't offer anything different. This is why I believe that DAoC would need a *consolidation* of its PvE and not a further fragmentation as it happened. Of course, it would benefit from a fragmentation of the PvE intended as: different type of challenges and patterns presented. Different qualities and something that could be actually involving. But what DAoC diversificates is not the actual PvE (which is dull and repetitive in every case) but the rewards. The reward is the only difference setting apart the three patterns. And it is obvious how this isn't positive for a game that definitely doesn't need a grind applied to this type of content, in particular when the fragmentation of the PvE is furtherly made worse by the population problems and the isolation of the players through the instanced content.

We already know that instancing has both good and bad consequences. This is even worse in a game with population problems (in particular at the lower levels, where the newbies need reasons to have fun and get involved) and with this fragmentation of the PvE that has no good effects or logical justifications.

This is why it's always not so trivial to analyze all these parts and why it's not possible to just claim a bonus to the exp or something similar. All these things delve deeper. Why the hell we cannot have a place where we can get good money, good exp and even good equipment? What are the valid reasons that brought to the fragmentation of patterns I illustrated above? I don't know any. What I know is that the great majority of the players are grinding the TDs DEFINITELY NOT because they are having fun. But just because they are the most efficient pattern offered. They don't enjoy the content. They ENDURE it. And this isn't acceptable in an environment where you are supposed to have... fun. An environment that is supposed to valorize its qualities and not its problems.

Now I hope my point is clear: the existence of the TDs in the game is completely unjustified. So it makes sense to remove them since they damage the game. Now think to what could happen if Mythic would announce the removal of the TDs. The players would RAGE. And here's another important point. The players wouldn't be angry because you remove something fun from the game, but because you remove a viable, consolidated and optimal pattern that they *absolutely need*. It's their pattern of choice. The "fun" and the optimized pattern must be kept separate. They aren't the same entity. The players are merely choosing the "less worst" pattern they have available to endure the PvE treadmill and reach the endgame, that, contrarily to WoW, is that part of the game that still justifies a subscription fee. How could we "valorize" the PvE instead of balancing the "less worst" patterns as it happened till now?

Imho the TDs must be completely eradicated. That's the very first step. They never made sense both from the player's perspective and the design. They are unjustified and just damage the game. They only "dissimulate" a value by offering the best pattern available. But that value is solely functional and totally inappropriate.

The second step, also following the line of thoughts above, is about moving the "TDs mechanics" (go to taskmaster and take the two-types missions, the "clear dungeon" should be just removed) WITHIN the Instanced Dungeons where you farm aurulite. Because there isn't a valid reason to keep the "reward" patterns separate. There are no advantages. This would instead encourage the players to focus on something more varied. The IDs offer a more refreshing experience than the TDs and they are naturally suitable to inherit their role. We remove the TDs and carry over their functional role to the IDs where the players would benefit from a more rewarding and complete experience:

a) Players will hunt everything they need: money, exp and equipment. Also helping them to be "viable" for the RvR BattleGrounds.
b) The experience will be more varied and refreshing: the IDs offer more varied environments and challenges.
c) This would consolidate the "game space", encouraging the players to gather and group.

While ToA exhibited a blatantly flawed design under everyone's eyes, Catacombs still brought new mistakes that are also damaging the game, just in a more subtle and less apparent way. Which doesn't make those mistakes any less significant.

I think that what I wrote here is a demonstration of why we cannot compile a personal wish list and expect to do something positive to the game. Things are complex and need an involved discussion where the arguments can be delved and explained. This isn't a conclusion even if I provided my own. This is instead a possible start to confront those ideas, contribute to shape new ones and avoid to repeat the past mistakes.

Would have killed the thread if I had read it, but considering I saw DAOC's short commings a mile away and quit before I'd even got my first character to 40 its no biggy.  Not to mention for all its bug-free launch goodness DAOC had the worst class balance I've experienced ever in a pvp game.

Ignore Stray for the next week or so, he's in the bitter stage everyone who realizes just how utterly worthless WoW's pvp is and how the endgame is like a truffle but made of brick instead of chocolate and once you finish breaking your teeth then your jaw getting to the center its full of shit not the fluffy dark goodness you sacrificed so much to enjoy.

Ok not the best simile but you get the point.

Heh. Funny that you mention the underlying designs of CoH and DAoC as being different from each other.

That would be the angle that I'm talking about.

If you think one needs changing and another doesn't, then what you have in mind are still particular/specific.

[edit] In other words, say DAoC and CoH are "Poker" and "Blackjack".

Both may be different as card games, but still, they're both card games. For the sake of argument, lets say that I don't care about either the virtues of Blackjack or Poker simply because I don't care about cards in general. I want to throw the whole fucking deck out. I want to replace them with, for example, Legos.

That would be a fundamental change in design. Taking the Joker out of a card deck wouldn't.

Okay.  Well.  I like a lot of the basics of MMOGs.  A lot of things need to be fixed, but I do enjoy them for the most part.  If I didn't, I wouldn't play them.

Why am I wrong and why are you right?  I'd say neither of us is right or wrong, but that we like different things.  While you might not like cards, surely you can respect that, while I can think of a few ways to make cards better, I ultimately do want to stick with cards.

Nobody's wrong. I'll get that out of the way first.

In fact, I think everybody's right (Err...."Bartle-wise", that is). A deck of cards can be made to both create a game of Poker, or, like Legos, used to build things (i.e. a House of Cards). Whatever.

It's not that "I" am the one telling people that they're wrong. It's the complete opposite. Look at the mmog market and see who's telling who what's "wrong" or not. Look at most mmog discussion and see what particular system is under discussion. That I say "Fuck that" doesn't mean I'm judging any point of view. I'm merely asserting another. One that doesn't paint the entire the genre with one brush and color (that's not as condescending as it sounds....it's more a point of inclusivity than anything).

The reason why I brought it up here of all places is, like most discussions about EQ-ish/Diku games, players envitably are driven a little nuts about things....But they only come up with and look at solutions that are drawn up from the same well that created the very same problems that drove them nuts in the first place (This is a bit abstract mayne? Hopefully it makes sense). As good as some ideas and improvements may sound, they'll still be playing the same game with the same goals ("goals" being a key word here) that'll leave them wanting for more.

"Improvement" threads are like treating the symptoms of a disease, but never curing the disease itself. They're like trying to solve the problems of crime only by putting criminals in jail. It irritates me because I'm more interested in cures, not the other stuff --- And I know that none of you would even be here if you didn't want the same thing too! You just derail yourselves sometimes (like I'm derailing this thread).

I simply do not have time to respond to Hrose in detail.  However I will say this...  Clearly you would like to see some major revolutionary changes to DAOC, with idea like abolishing Task Dungeons.  That's all fine and good, but I guarantee you Mythic's energies are 90% directed at Warhammer now.  My focus tends to be on how we can take the existing game, and make it actually fun at low levels.  The catasses and hardcore players already have their game, and they must like it if they're still playing. 

The battlegrounds are a fascinating artifact of DAOC's patchwork development process.  They have no effect on anything, and players are discouraged from staying in the BGs by many game mechanics.  In short, they were an afterthought for Mythic.  Yet there is a substantial community of BG lovers who play DAOC almost purely to mess around in these pointless zones.  So it occurs to me that Mythic might win some new customers simply by improving the BGs.  This would not be a big development effort, and it might make a lot of casual gamers happy.

I would just like to stick my head in here and say that Shadowbane actually had working formations of this type, but they were rarely used in battle. They were great for marching over distances, but in battle, you really needed your own autonomous movement.

And frankly, without collision detection, formations in battle really mean fuckall, since the whole idea of most formations in medieval combat was to press a mass of bodies onto another mass of bodies so that an individual always felt the morale boost of his buddy next to him.

We spent alot of time spreading out in DAOC (and yelling at folks to spread out) to keep from having our entire squad mezzed.  Even if formations were nothing more then spread distance they would have been helpful, and may have reduced the total effectiveness of mez classes sufficiently to not require more drastic measures.  Course, there would be even more getting stuck on trees and run off cliffs, but folks that did that weren't allowed to lead all that much.

Everyone on my floor's on Camelot. Warhammer's upstairs.

So it's not that we wouldn't remove task dungeons because we don't have anyone working on Camelot, we wouldn't because it's an insanely drastic change to the game at this point and wouldn't achieve what is being asked for, anyway.

There's nothing preventing people solely from levelling up solo in Catacombs instances that drop aurulite. However, they're not balanced for solo players and often have monster layout that would be hot death to a class without, say, crowd control. But they're fine for what they are - group challenges. If we changed those to be solo-friendly, they wouldn't be a challenge for a group (and HRose would complain about "static mobs that just sit there waiting for you to kill them" - in other words, no wanderers or scout mobs that might present aggro control issues).

Task dungeons present one thing and one thing only - a short, hour-long or so play session that allows a solo player to advance their character when nothing else is available. It succeeds in that. If you hate task dungeons - uh, don't do them? There's plenty of other things for a solo player to do. Darkness Rising introduced champion tasks, which are basically kill tasks 3.0 - go out in the world, kill things (that are already there), get quick XP. Catacombs introduced quite a few quests outside of task dungeons. If you're doing TDs over and over because it's the minmaxer's quickest way to level, that's fine. But there are other options.

Never underestimate the number of players who will do whatever the best xp/time ratio activity is no matter how boring and stupid.  Also never underestimate the number of players who will bitch at you while they do said activity, even though you've given them a million other options that are wonderful and fun.  For the majority of MMO players anything that is not considered the best xp/time way to level might as well not exist.  Myself included, because I hate all forms of PvE leveling so it might as well get done as fast as possible.

Granted, I may have overestimated the % of Mythic employees devoted to Warhammer, but then again the Camelot floor might be a very small one :P

As for Mythic strategy, a few things should be clear...
1.  The Classic servers and free trial were good for convincing a lot of old players to re-up at least short-term.  From what I've seen in a couple of large guilds, this was a big boost for a few months, and now the numbers have dropped off.  End result, probably a decent boost from some old-timers returning and staying.  This was your best shot to win these people back.
2.  Darkness Rising is aimed exclusively at high-end players.  Which is fine, if your goal is to retain your existing base.  I've only seen a few people reactivate for it, but lots of current players seem happy with it.
3.  WoW has brought a lot of new players to the genre, and many of them are burning out on that game.  Mythic can market themselves as the RvR game with true complexity.  Hence Mythic is likely to reap good rewards, if they focus on making the game more exciting for true new players.  So long as the game's most unique aspect (RvR) is fun at all levels, at minimum you should get a lot of people thinking "DAOC is cool but maybe a bit dated -- man I can't wait to see Warhammer."

Thats like saying you have the option of walking to work if the commute bothers you.  Its nonsense.

I believe Statesman said something to the effect of, "The best route should also be the most fun route."

<shrug>  Making combat in DAoC fun, though, would require a huge rebalancing of how that all works.  Notable above in Lum's post is how he mentions that interesting AI behavior like scouts or wanderers is out of the question for solo players, because single characters are not built to handle that kind of aggro.  Ding, problem.  The player-to-mob strength level is so low that mobs /have/ to sit there and wait to be killed, or solo players can't take them.  That, in my opinion, would require rebalancing the PvE game so that a solo player /can/ handle adds, to a certain degree.  But it would change so many core aspects of the game so late, not to mention the perceived assault on already-good soloers, and require so many resources, it's probably not worth it.  Most people who are willing to play DAoC nowadays seem willing to slog through the PvE.  The tradeoff is that you just have to listen to them complaining.

Oh and I wanted to mentioned, Stray, that I understand and agree with that point.  I just wanted to be clear on what you were saying.

Nobody reads manuals (especially me).  The real problem is all that complexity - I don't like dealing with 4+ scrollbars of hotkeys full of new spells and buffs, weapon styles, slash commands, item procs, realm abilities, and then ToA master abilities.

Assume that Mythic moved from beautiful downtown Fairfax to beautiful downtown DC. I now have a problem. My commute turns from 5 minutes to 2 hours (most of which is spent waiting to cross over the Beltway).

Walking to work if my commute bothers me is out of the question. It's a fairly idiotic thing to do.

Taking the subway if my commute bothers me is not out of the question. It's not the most convienent of alternatives. I probably have to walk further (from the metro station to my new office instead of just from the parking lot). But it is an alternative, it presents its own pros and cons different from taking my car to work.

So, I would argue that the alternatives I presented are less walking 20 miles, and more taking the metro in to work.

I would also note for the record that the last 50 I levelled saw the inside of a TD only a few times between 40 and 50, and I soloed my way through 49 to 50 by doing high-end Catacombs quests. It wasn't the most efficient way, but it did work.

I would also note that I personally would claw my eyes out before sitting in a finnlaith or redcap group for hours. I'm not a very good min-maxer.

The problem here is that you can't min-max fun. Even in World of Warcraft, which has done an absolutely outstanding job of creating non-grindy content for levelling up, people still grind levels, because they percieve it to be more efficient. You can't out-design the player's desire to race through content as quickly as possible, and in fact I'd argue it's a mistake to try, because it will inevitably result in penalizing the casual player who doesn't min-max their way through the game.

I strongly agree with this.  My highest level WoW character is 42, I have a few more between 25 and 40.  Every time I play I have a blast.  I do almost nothing but PvE quests/instances - in fact having to kill something not on my quest list bugs me.  I've done a couple of raids and had fun but it is still not my preferred playstyle.  I had much the same fun with CoH until Cryptic also began gearing more content towards group-only play.

I enjoy WoW.  I'm not tired of it yet.  I consider it the ideal Diku-derivative even though I'd really rather have "lite" virtual worlds like UO.  I tried to play EQ and DAOC the same way as I play WoW but unfortunately those games were not really for casual players who wind up soloing more often than not.

Anyway when I watch people group and grind levels I don't see what I call outward exclamations of fun - unless fun is defined solely as comparing jockstrap sizes.  Since 2000 I've castigated MOG houses that ignore casuals and chase the catass crowd and then wonder why there are so few subs left after the catasses have burned out on the product and the casuals have long since been driven out.

Not to be snarky but Mythic has been one of those shops.  Sounds like they realize that now and are taking strong steps.

That is so sig worthy.

Wait.

I'm speaking strictly of DAoC and the /stick command. As the player presses a directional key the "/stick" breaks and even the formation would break.

So you have the autonomous movement in the exact same way you have now.  It's exactly and solely to move around, not for the battles. The formations would just help aesthetically, because the characters will maintain their own position instead of overlapping on a line, and tactical, because if the characters aren't all stacked the whole "mezz/root" wars will acquire a different depth.

Yes, what you are describing is identical to Shadowbane's formations system.

Excuse me, but moving the taskmaster from the task dungeon to the aurulite doungeons isn't "major", nor "revolutionary". Just intelligent. "Take this here and move it there where it is more appropriate and fun."

And it's EXACTLY because I cannot propose anything a bit more daring that I try to hand out suggestions that are doable. This "small" change wouldn't shift the PvE from "dull", to "interesting". But it would move the game more toward a positive path that valorizes what's already in the game.


You know already my opinion. If even this is a too drastic change, DAoC will never go anywhere. Moving a taskmaster to equilibrate and streamline the PvE is really a minimal step to what DAoC would need.

Yes, it's just, I don't know, seven times slower? Both in solo and in a group, mind you.

As I wrote above I'm not questioning the "target" of this PvE pattern. I'm questioning the *reward*. The exp in the aurulite dungeons sucks. Even if, as you say, this would be optimal for group challenges. But in my experience 99% of the groups don't go in the aurulite instances as the design would imply. They go in the Task Dungeons. In your theory these TDs are supposed to be there for solo players instead.

So there's something broken already there.

And here you twist what I proposed. I didn't propose to take the aurulite dungeons and replace their content with the task dungeons. I just proposed to move the frigging taskmaster. The Aurulite dungeons wouldn't change at all.

As you should see this is logical. The Aurulite would provide everything they provide now: the aurulite dropping and optimal group challenges. By adding the taskmaster and completing those missions they would also finally offer good exp.

So not only good experience points. But it would also move the "optimal group challenges" to where it belongs (and is more fun) instead of the awfully boring (and now nerfed) TDs. Basically I wouldn't do anything else than what has been quoted:
The best route is about those Aurulite dungeons that are tailored for groups. That offer something slightly more than mobs standing still and that would finally also become the "best" route.

Why this wouldn't make sense?

Is this their design? Because if this is their design, it's broken. I dread to go in a TD in solo. That's way too slow and dull to be able to tolearate. But the TDs have been where I levelled for most of my character life. And the same for most of the players. Just not solo but in a group.

The TDs aren't used just by players soloing, they are used by the groups and simply because they are the most efficient way to farm exp and money.

The TDs offer just one simple pattern: you complete the task and get a dump of money and a bubble of exp (back then). At the level of content they offer NOTHING. This is why the TDs should be removed, because the content is already null. What we would retain, instead, is their function (money+exp) that would be carried over to the aurulite dungeons where the money+exp would be aintegrated with items. Bingo.

This is what would be optimal content for a group and without going down to propose something actually radical like changing the combat mechanics or the classes. This is why I wrote that my idea valorizes the content. The content that is already there and wouldn't require brand new development time.

This would also encourage the players to... group. Since the aurulite dungeons would become even more appealing and, as you wrote, tailored as "optimal group challenges".

What we would lose (and need to reintegrate) is the original purpose of the TDs: "a short play session that allows a solo player to advance their character when nothing else is available". Since the Aurulite dungeons wouldn't be appropriate for this (being "group" content, but this is even questionable considering I actually soloed way more time the aurulite than the TDs).

About this problem you already say that there are patterns available:

Which would finally bring to another point that I didn't want to bring up, but that was the direct consequence of what I wrote above (because, as I said, this is the START of a long process, not just a change to fire and forget):
- The solo quest missions should be really tweaked in a viable solo experience. Right now they hand out medium money and medium exp, they should be instead organized in "chapters" where at the end of each you are able to also have access to all the items you need for your character. So, basically, the idea would be to integrate the medium exp and money also with usable items. (and following this idea to integrate the rewards instead of splitting them without a logical reason)

Right now what I see in the game is a broken pattern: players solo the Aurulite and group in TDs. My ideas, among the goals I listed above, is aimed to encourage the players to group in the Aurulite dungeons and solo the task quests.

From a "technical" point of view the *content* wouldn't need any work:
- The TDs would just be removed. The art assets in there wouldn't be lost since they are just reused and mixed from other parts of the game.
- The taskmasters and their tasks would be moved at the door of the Aurulite dungeons (and the mechanics adapted so that they aim at the mobs and boss monster within each, shouldn't be a biggie)
- The solo task missions should be integrated with good items along the path and maybe buffed up even in money and exp in the case the solo players rant about the removal of TDs.

If this is "an insanely drastic change", well, it would be better to just give up altogether.

Camelot negates that idea, though.

The optimal pattern is about grinding TDs. The casual players have full access to this min/maxing because it is soloable (or accessible with small and not balanced groups) and doesn't requires hours. This is why Catacombs was well accepted.

WoW is exactly the same. What is fun and also rather optimal is what is accessible to the casual players. This is why WoW was well accepted (and now criticized at the end game).

If we now change WoW and make the exp bar moving consistently only by joining raids of 20 or 40 players and for long hours, the players would complain.

I believe what matters here isn't what is min/maxed, it's just the accessibility.

The "rule" is that it would be a good practice to keep what is fun also accessible and optimal.

If it's accessible the casual player is never penalized.

WoW is soloable because IT DOES offer good exp and items by questing. And it is praised BECAUSE those patterns are also rather optimal. I hope we aren't going back to the point where we claim that you can even solo FFXI if you want.

Well, this means that my ideas aren't always that crazy so :)

What I'm saying is that in a game where the only thing to do at level X is to try to get to X+1, then players are not interested in the less efficient alternative.  They will always take the efficient, boring route, and then complain about the boredom. In response, simply saying that they could stop trying so hard to level is silly - its the game itself that demands that they level.  Its a confusion of purpose.

 Its not a DAoC thing, its a class/level-based game thing. 

Here's where I think I'm an atypical gamer.  When I start playing an MMOG, I want to know what the game is like when I reach the max level.  All of the newer MMOG's offered me nothing but raiding and slapped-on PvP of some sort.  I play DAoC because it offers me the endgame I'm looking for.  I can stomach the crap from levels 1-50 because I know that the majority of my time in game will be spent at level 50, not on the way there. If they could make the trip from 1-50 more fun, that would be nice. 

As for the timesink: On a classic server I just got a toon from level 1-50, fully equipped, and ready for competitive RvR in 15 days.  I work 60+ hours a week and didn't play all that much on the weekends.  I also did at least half of each level doing tasks (not task dungeons) and quests.  The problem as I see it, is that DAoC has a steeper learning curve than the other MMOG's and is less new player friendly.  If you know exactly what to do, getting to the endgame is pretty easy.  If you don't, it can be a confusing and slow affair. 

After 4 years of playing DAoC there are a million small suggestions I'm sure I could make.  I accept the fact that the game is flawed, but in my eyes it's flawed in ways that I can live with.  I'd love the chance to have a dialogue with the people that work on this game, but realize that I'm just another blip on the radar.  The truth is, that as a player I'm less able to see the big picture both in terms of balance and the business model and it's naive of me to think otherwise.  For now, I'll keep playing until it stops being fun.  It's well worth my $15 a month in entertainment.  I can't think of anything that gives me so much entertainment for so little money... ok, maybe a set of guitar strings. 

 

That's not true of all players.  I don't like to watch the bar at all, not at all.  If my eyes stray to the bar, then that means I'm not having much fun.  Not having fun means I won't play. 

(ToA broke the DAOC fun for me, being generally a solo type who hates hanging about for an hour while a large enough group forms so that I could spend 4 hours on some dumb mob killing quest with 40 other people.)

I'm not sure that it's a class/level-based game thing.  I'm currently playing City of Heroes (again) and enjoying the content.  I don't care when I ding, I don't notice when I'm about to.  I drop into the game for an hour here or there, get into a pickup group (or not, I can still do missions and so on, grouping is not required), the missions are interesting.  My toon is 31 currently (out of 50).  I don't think there's an end game, so there's really nothing to race to, and no real reason to race through the content - unless I was dying for the next power or something, I suppose.

I think maybe it's a DAOC thing.  The fun of DAOC starts at 50 - unless you're playing the battlegrounds, which is also quite fun.  DAOC has the best pvp system around.  What would really make sense to me is if Mythic realized that the game is not in the pve portion, but the pvp.  I would go back in a heartbeat if I could have an insta-50 on a classic server that had hot pvp action.  But I don't want to level another toon in that painful way, not even if all it took was my free time for two weeks.

(Although I do have some fond memories of Huginfell, and Skona.  For some reason I enjoyed that content - also the Hib quests pre-35.  The travel speed of DAOC is just too damned slow for me, though.  It's like slo mo.)

I wonder how many people would sign up for a insta-50 DAOC old frontiers server (which would probably devolve into Emain ugh)?  How many people want to play on classic servers for pve?

This brings back an idea I suggested many times and that I still don't understand why they didn't implement:
- Instead of destroying the playerbase for new players through the /level 20 commands they should have just added a key-code in the expansion box that would /level one and only one character up to level 45.

This would allow the community at the low levels to still remain decent and for the new players buy the expansion the possibility to have an high level toon right out the box to experience the RvR from the start instead of weeks or months later.

This was changed recently.

Well, that's encouraging news.  Whenever my husband saw me playing, he'd say, "how can that be fun, you're always running from one place to another?"

Insta-50 server.  Seems like a no-brainer.  What am I missing here?  What's the problem with that idea?  Sounds like a money maker to me.

Because it's a mindset bringing nowhere.

ToA is broken? Ok, we remove it.
Levelling is dull? Ok, we remove it.
Too many casses? Ok, we cut a few.

This doesn't lead anywhere. It's just a superficial way to deal with problems and progressively discorporate the game. It makes the game poorer. It can be good in the short term but's it a  dead end.

The game is like 4 years old.  Acting in the short-term may not be such a bad idea. If you can get blood from a stone, why the hell not?

Nothing will ever make me change idea about this. DAoC has endless potential. It was always a big mistake to pull the brake and if the game is suffering down it's because that brake was pulled long ago. Dave Rickey could have a few ideas about this.

On the Vault Mythic asks the dreamer to dream and imagine the next expansion. Here's my work. I'm sure that if Mythic had the resources and concrete possibilities to pull it out, in a year DAoC would drastically invert the trend and strongly revindicate its role in this genre.

--
DAoC - INFERNO

+ Add in the exp pack a key-code usable only once. This key-code would allow a player to flag a character and instantly /level it to 45.

+ "The Evolution Server Project". Transform the "evolution servers" (http://www.cesspit.net/drupal/node/913) idea into the exp pack (sort of a DAoC 2 built directly on DAoC). This would be a way to go heavy on the development and keep these servers as a separate project that can be accessed only to those buying the expansion. An occasion for Mythic to go back and solve radically the basic mistakes and offer to every player an occasion to start again (and, in the case they choose so, use the key-code to have a levelled up character and enjoy the endgame without really having to repeat the grind). I won't go in the details about how the Evolution servers should be shaped up because it would go beyond the scope of these notes. But this is supposed to be the major content of the exp and not a superficial tweak to the rules.

+ (all servers) The possibility to use "formations" (http://forums.f13.net/index.php?topic=4892.msg128183#msg128183) in RvR groups. These will be selectable by the group leader and will be triggered on/off just by /sticking to the group. Pressing a movement key would break the formation as it currently breaks the /stick.

+ (all servers) Follow and build on the Final Fantasy XI idea (http://www.cesspit.net/drupal/node/863) of adding NPCs henchmen. At level 20 the players will have the possibility to do a few duties for the realms (similar to the Chapters of DR, with missions based on the classic world) and receive a personal henchman (realistic or not) summonable only on PvE zones.

- These henchman will have their own classes based on the basic archetypes. All their skills and spells will be designed from zero and some can be "commanded" directly by the player (see below).

- An henchman gains experience and levels like the player. He acquires experience twice as fast compared to a normal player and his level cannot surpass the one of the player.

- An henchman can "respec" to different archetypes. Each respec can be executed freely but "burns" 20% of the current exp of the henchman for that level.

- The henchmen will have separate exp bars and levels for each archetype. So each archetype will need to be levelled separately or not at all if the player decides to specialize.

- This is also a chance to reword the AI of pets and the interface to make the controls more deep and interactive (like the possibility to "command" the execution of specific skills from the NPCs).

- The appearance of these henchmen can be customized, both in look and equipment. The henchmen can be equipped with the standard items used by the characters, special items and specific new items only usable by henchmen that will be linked to specific new quests.

- Each henchmen will be named by the player.

- Only two henchmen at max can join the same group.

(A note on the purpose of these henchmen: For a solo player, the possibility to have a bit more involving and interactive PvE and the possibility to level more efficiently, cutting down the downtimes some more. For the groups, the possibility to "fill" roles and classes missing from the group, for example to partially solve the problem of healers, or tanks, or whatever the group misses. The henchmen should never be more effective than a player playing the proper class and they should only count as a "half" player when calculating the group experience, so that the bonus should be inferior.)

+ Style redesign. This is an occasion for all the server types, included the Evolution servers to redesign the styles (both visually and the mechanics). The new style system would included simple "combo" skills that can be performed by coordinating some skills or spells with other players. These combos can also be used with henchmens (see the possibility to "command" the use of a skill). This change would affect players with or without the expansion.

+ Finally my favourite: Add INFERNO (all capitalized because it's more badass). "Inferno" is a brand new zone, graphically similar to the "Veil Rift" (http://www.cesspit.net/drupal/storeroom/daoc-repository/cat028.jpg), with chasms and floating platforms moving in circles around Lucifero's dark castle. This would also allow to introduce a new technical feature: a physic engine (borrowing from Warhammer development). The physic will only be applied to the chasms and platforms. Basically these platforms can "bend" in a direction, randomly, because triggered or because of how the players are distributed (so that the platform will bend if all the players are in one spot instead of spreading around and distributing the weight). The players will have to fight both on these unstable platforms while facing the difficulties added by the physical engine, as well on more stable constructions.

- The physical model won't factor the collision between the players and affects exclusively the inclination of the platforms. When a platform bends in a direction the players will have to move in the opposite direction in order to maintain the position and not fall off it. The different types of environmental happenings that the physical model includes will be: earthquakes (the player is shaken, making it lose the direction), dynamically opening chasms, and the inclination of the platform.

- If a player falls off a platform he will disintegrate. In this case he will reappear at the entrance of the zone at no loss after a short timeout (think to WoW's graveyards).

- This zone has hard PvE content tailored for at least three full groups and divided into consequent segments. The players will start on a floating platform and will progressively move around controlling it (like a manual elevator or a flying carpet). With this moving platform they'll access various points on the map where to fight a sequence of encounters and different mini-bosses to remove progressively the "locks" to the castle. Once the castle's seals (graphically shown as huge chains attached to the castle) are broken (graphically shattering and falling down in the void), the players can storm in and eventually kill Lucifero in a final, epic battle.

- If a player dies or falls off a platform, he'll be ported to the entrance as I already wrote. When there, he can have access to some sort of flying "taxi" that will bring him back to the main floating platform where the other players are. These taxis will be named "Charons" and should be shown graphically as gondolas driven by a masked dark figure. The Charons should speak through voice overs.

- Lucifero should be designed to be hard and as a very long fight.

- Once Lucifero is killed the zone will seal, porting out the players at the relic keep. The doors to the zone will remain closed at least for a week.

- The entrance to this zone will be placed in the center of Agramon.

- This zone is flagged for RvR, once open every realm can enter it, fight the enemy realms on these floating platforms (with the added fun of the physic model) and attempt to be the first to kill Lucifero.

These ideas would make DAoC stand out again among the competition and revindicate strongly its predominant role as an unparalleled RvR game for the years to come. The "Evolution server project" would be a way to appeal brand new players with the possibility to start in a brand new world refactored to eliminate all the radical flaws that plagued the game along these years. While the INFERNO would offer an innovating experience mixing brand new mechanics like the physic system of the platforms and chasms with the classic RvR wars for the ultimate RvR experience.

And let's see if WoW can outperform that.

And when I start to have foolish ideas I cannot stop anymore:

The expansion would also need an appropriate marketing strategy to become the phenomenon of the next year.

The idea is to launch another client contemporary to the expansion. This client will be free for everyone, subscribed or not and will work like a sort of trial. With the difference that it will work on a separate server and the accounts will never expire.

On this new server the players will start with one character already at 50 and equipped. Nothing can be customized or tweaked. The only zone accessible will be exclusively the INFERNO, working directly as a permanently active RvR battleground.

This special server would be open every weekend, from Friday evening to Monday morning.

This client will then be included in all the most important magazines about computer games.

I'm going to go way out on a limb and assume that DAOC was/is your first MMO?  Or I could be completely misreading..

That's a lot of good ideas you've got there.  Expensive to implement, all that new stuff.

I guess my take on DAOC is that it's an old game, and at some point it might make sense to just be done with it and let it go, more or less (hence, my insta-50 server idea - grab some old customers back for rvr, but forget about gaining new converts).

But if Mythic revamped the client, hell, they'd have to rewrite the whole thing, I imagine - so that the performance, graphics, sound, and so on, was all improved and modernized - then... I don't know.  I am horrible about trying to predict what people want, and how successful companies will be with products.  Visionary, I am not.  (If it was up to me, we'd all be driving Studebakers or something).

I keep thinking about AC2, EQ2, and stuff like that.  While I would buy DAOC2, would I play it a few months after launch? And would other people buy it? I don't know.  But I would buy DAOC insta-50 server and play it.  Especially if it had old battlegrounds in it.  (I liked em better).

DAOC was my first graphical mmo; although I tried EQ, I could never get into it, plus I heard too many bad things about the company that made me want to stay far away.  I will always feel a soft spot for DAOC, despite its shortcomings.  Pre-ToA DAOC, that is.  I wanted to throttle Mythic for ToA.  They broke my heart :(

No, I played MUDs for a long time before moving to mmorpgs and my first was UO as for many of us. DAoC is the very first game that got me "involved", though.

But they did already. The client was always upgraded at least till ToA, the sound engine was tweaked many times, the graphic were redone. Only on the "design" they went lazy. DAoC is nowhere where it was. The technology supports now way fancier effects. That's in fact the very first quality of a mmorpg: the possibility to have a continued ongoing development and build upon what was before. After all, they'll HAVE to do that for Warhammer.

In fact I hate Warhammer. It represents the reason, like it happened with Imperator, why we'll never see the ideas I wrote above. Because Mythic's producers will never accept to dare in that direction and actually offer something that requires some brand new development beside a small "content team" pushing out a couple of zones, armors and skills like with happened with DR. That's, in fact, what we'll have in a year. We will here again discussing about product lifecycles and why DAoC has lost even more subscribers.

It loses subscribers not because its game-world has lost potential and quality. But because DAoC is in "maintenance" mode while Warhammer is in "development" mode.

That's what we get. Every idea about actually DEVELOPING the game would be discarded. Because all the work on the ideas is cut to just leave these game drift and disperse till they aren't more commercially viable and need sequels.

Bullshit. No game has endless potential. It doesn't matter how much content you add on top of a decent foundation, EVENTUALLY human beings will just tire of the same game mechanics.

While Warhammer is drawing a good deal of the dev resources, that will not necessarily be the case forever, nor can we assume that Mythic will let DAOC rot or just be maintained.  Warhammer is a very different game.  DAOC still has the most interesting pvp that I know of, what with the 3-realm system and fortress combat.  It makes sense for Mythic to continue to hone DAOC for the unique pvp system rather than recreate it completely.

But if the pve development mostly goes toward Warhammer, while DAOC only has improvements to what's existing, that'd be fine with me.  The DAOC pve system is quite dated; others have better pve content (by better, of course I mean "more interesting to me").

I would love to see espionage and diplomacy integrated somehow in DAOC's system - I'm not smart enough to figure out how it could be implemented to work and be fun; it's just a dream of mine to play a mmog with that stuff in it.  I want to be Mata Hari.

When I say that a game has endless potential it doesn't mean that you have to play it for 20 years straight. My stance is about the appeal to new players. We still have Final Fantasy, Zelda and Super Mario. These *worlds* don't have life cycles and they already build on top of what they have till that point. You can get fed up with FF random battles and mechanics, but this isn't stopping that world to still remain so popular.

The players will move between these worlds and follow their preferences, but if the quality is maintained these worlds just won't need to be replaced as "disposable goods" that you eat and throw away.

Imho it's so much more important to build the game so that it remains appealing to the new players than trying to retain the players you have already. It's harder, but if done in the right way, it will pay off. All in this genre is a challenge and s risk. This is a fundamental one.

Of course you can just give up on this and go in the opposite direction. The final results will be appropriate to the mind-set.

I LOLed at that. Warhammer will use the exact same RvR system of DAoC.

There is so much wrong with that post.

I'm almost positive that in pure dollars, it is much less expensive to keep an old player than it is to recruit a new player. So constantly building the game to appeal to new players, especially if it's at the expense of old players, is going to cause asstons of churn. CHURN IS BAD FOR SUBSCRIPTION-BASED BUSINESSES.

Churn is also very bad for communities. Communities, which are and should be the heart of the MMOG experience, demand continuity and continuity means the same people. Churn destroys community because where you once felt like a well-recognized and appreciated person in town, all of a sudden you are a stranger.

You mention Final Fantasy, Mario and Zelda. The thing you are talking about isn't the gameplay, it's the brand. The brand keeps people coming back to these games. But what you are really missing is that these games are single-player games, with hardcoded endings. Thus a new FF game IS a new game, even if the mechanics are nothing but a rehash. They also do not have the same kind of in-game community that makes MMOG's so sticky; they have a metagame community that has little effect on gameplay.

It sounds like you are arguing for DAoC to be a series of sequels, which might work, but is not how the game world is structured. It is also not conducive to a subscription-based business. I'm not saying you should totally ignore bringing new players into the game, but the older an MMOG gets, the more barriers there will be between vets and new players, even if you don't take into account mudflation and level-based advancement systems.

I'd suggest you leave off, Haemish....   

I 100% agree with you, but there's no way to convince the Italian of that.  We've been down this road in the last big DAoC thread to hit.  Reading his responses hurted my brain,  and tends to kill any other discussion.

For HRose:

Could we agree to let disputed points remain disputed points,  and move on in the discussion?

The thing that really puzzles me about the whole DAOC thing is why play it at all?  The RvR is so great!

Planetside - twitch + a bunch of / commands = fun?   :|

Really good MMO pvp hasn't been even attempted since Shadowbane and we all know how that turned out.  By good MMO pvp I mean the potential for player conflict to influence events in the gameworld.  Please dont insult my intelligence by claiming that relic captures or DF does that for DAOC, which is a glorified CTF with all the meaningfulness of Planetside base captures.  SB really wasn't a grand attempt either, as the system was very simple (build castle, destroy other people's castles, rinse, repeat).

That is my gripe with DAOC threads, I could care less over what game's other people go fanboi about.  To do otherwise would be hypocritical, Hellgate:London doesn't even have a playable version and I'm thinking it might be robot jesus..

You're assuming by saying "good MMO pvp" that everyone wants that.  Not everyone does. Yep, that's why as you mentioned it's kind of stupid to interject yourself in these threads.  There's nothing here you want and never will be.

I simply don't participate because until there's a /level 50, I don't really even give a shit.  Even then, there's other crap that's probably a better bang for my buck.

No, not everyone wants that but anyone who is still playing DAOC because "its the best MMO pvp" obviously is a pvp player.  I really can not imagine someone who cares first and foremost about PvP (or RvR or whatever you want to call it) not wanting a more influential form of PvP then we have now in games like WoW DAOC and Planetside.  Why bother to play MMO's at all if not for the fact that you have a character and a world that are persistent?  Higher levels of pvp challenge, with better systems and easier access can be found in RTS, FPS, TBS et all.  But conflict that influences the gamespace is a goal that can only be accomplished in MMO's.

Do not assume I'm implying the "play to crush" of SB is what I'm saying all pvpers want.  I'm just saying something that matters more then Pside/DAOC's never-ending capture the base, lose the base or WoW's instanced resetting BG's and meaningless bindrush outdoor pvp would sure be nice.  There has to be a happy medium tucked away between the two sides, pvp the matters but doesn't cause people on the loosing side to quit as they fall hopelessly behind the power of the winners.  Until that middle ground is found pvp in MMO's will continue to suck when compared to genre's that can focus on just making fun gameplay and having players kill each other aimlessly.

Really? There are 3 sides?

http://warhammeronlineforum.com/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=1991

Oh that is cool.  I take it back, I take it back!

I was confusing Warhammer with Imperator - thinking there was no pvp.

So nevermind what I said.  It doesn't make sense for Mythic to continue to put a lot of cash into DAOC; makes more sense to put it into the new one.

Well, it's nice that there's going to be PvP and all.....But 3 sided RvR just tells me they're not exactly shooting for the stars here (And it's not that in and of itself....It's just that it speaks of whatever other decisions they're probably going to make). It'll be DAoC with new skins, just like the naysayers (including myself) have been saying since it was announced.

Hell, keep the "RvR" if you must. But how about just making it 4 sided? Or maybe two sided? No wait --- One sided!

Yeah....

At least that'll tell me that they're at least trying to do something different.

The general design of the RvR system is the one thing that no one has any problems with.  Makes sense to keep.

It's all the rest of the details that will decide me, one way or the other,  on the game.  Crowd control, interrupts, what the pve experience is like, whether class min/maxing > anything else, stealth, etc.

If it's just reskinned DAoC (alliance: "Who has finns list???"), no thanks.

And buying that licence and designing the game to be exactly a DAoC's clone makes sense? Or "DAoC done better"? Or DAoC without the suck?

And if they know what are the problems of DAoC, beside new shiny graphic, why they don't solve them? And if they have so wonderful ideas waiting to be implemented, why we don't see them already?

The problem is right in the contradiction in Mark Jacobs words. Every few lines he repeats that "it's not DAoC2", but then everything he says beside that confirms that the game IS DAoC 2, will repeat the same models and will be targeted at the same public.

Or this is a problem of schizophrenia or someone is confused.

I hate Warhammer, but I'd appreciate some honesty about the true intentions at Mythic. Supporting (in the real sense, not just fixing a bug here and there and keeping up the servers) two identic games is neither possible, nor convenient.

In Shadowbane, you got to make whatever you wanted and then pick a team.  Some guilds had rules, sure, but there was no in-game mechanism preventing a whatever from being in the same guild with whatever else.  And if you didn't like the direction your team was going, you could leave and join another team while keeping your character.

Not so in DAoC.  It's entirely possible for Hibernia as a realm to be faltering, but have a few select groups who are at the top of their game.  I find it hard to imagine a situation in which RvR would have a significant effect on world events without "punishing" all members of losing realms.  Perhaps an example could be provided?

Otherwise, DAoC already gives enough investment into the "forced teams" that the Realms are, and doing any more would discourage individuality moreso.

I just want to see somebody do "Warhammer". Simple as that. Why is Dark Ages (and it's assorted mechanics) even relevant here?

Mythic should see it as an opportunity to be stewards of a great license. Not as an opportunity for their ideas per se. "Good" ideas or bad --- I do not care. Warhammer fantasy has been around as long as it has BECAUSE IT ALREADY HAS GOOD IDEAS. Whatever "ideas" Mythic brings to the table shouldn't even be "ideas" in the strictest sense of the word. "Interpretation" or "Translation" is more like it.

It's just entirely the wrong angle to approach it from. When does Warhammer itself actually enter the equation? All I ever hear or read about whenever WHO comes under discussion is actually more talk about DAoC.

It's the same problem (with all due respect) that Raph did with SWG.....Where the license becomes a simple backdrop, and the developer goes in the forefront. Bad idea.

Good post Stray, I agree completely.  What I would have expected to hear is - we're focusing on RvR with three factions to start.  That would make me believe that they are creating a game that flexible enough to accomdate more factions as time goes by.  Instead, it does look like they are leaning toward using the DAOC game mechanic again.

Well, hopefully they learn something from the success/popularity of the battlegrounds and WoW's failure with wait queues.

Let's hope not, thank you.

If DAoC has NOTHING to learn from WoW it's about that completely fucked up PvP. Nothing in WoW's PvP is salvageable.

Btw, multiple PvP factions is possible, but it would be stupid to use them and not also allow the players to set their own. "Wish" had something similar and even my design ideas about the dream mmorpg start from there.

Here's a thread with the type of open pvp ideas that are needed to avoid the pointless shit we have now AND the crushT mentality of a game like SB where eventually most people quit because they've been driven into the ground, their sword is broken and their land was burned then plowed with salt.

http://forums.f13.net/index.php?topic=4733.0

Other than the fact that it's fun, right? But I guess that's not important.


Your dream MMOG design starts from a failed MMOG that never made it out of an Alpha stage? /sadf

To be fair Wish Alpha was pretty much a blank slate with a little bit of leanings towards UO.  It could have become just about anything.

For who is fun? I've yet to know someone that is truly satisfied of WoW's PvP. If you think it's fun I won't argue with that, but considering the general impressions I got this is sort of surprising.

Grinding honor in a pointless environment without a purpose if not the girnd itself, isn't fun. Irt's nowhere satisfactory, nor rewarding.

If I have to join for a brief PvP skirmish without a purpose, a depth and just as a fun digression, I go play other games that are designed to do this, deliver this type of fun thousands times better and do not require a monthly fee.

Really, you are the first one I hear who likes the PvP in WoW.


You decided to start trolling my posts in your spare time?

I'm not going to justify my idea or some parts of "Wish" design. But I'll say that there are a bunch of reasons why a mmorpg can be canceled. And the "guild house" idea is surely the very last.

Haemish, your making me side with the DAOC fanboi over you, why?  WoW pvp is fun, and might be more shiney, more balanced and less clunky interface-wise then DAOC.  But it is AS stupid, unsatisfying and completely inadequate as any other current generation MMO not named ShadowBane (which takes it too far to the other side of the scale).

PVP + raiding = WoW's endgame.  Anyone playing WoW for over 6 months falls into one of these catagories:

a)has to play a MMO and can't find anything else to play
b)is too invested in the MMO despite how much they hate it to quit  (this can be account accomplishments or social)
c)is too stupid to realize how pointless WoW pvp is and that <insert any fps here> provides a better pointless pvp excercise in every way
d)is a fucking uber raid loving whore

So MMO RVR players (specifically the WoW folk) are either:

a) bored
b) stupid and delusional
c) stupid and oblivious
d) catasses
(Yike, this really pegs most people I've met in game. Especially if you add an e) all of the above. )


Is it impossible to enjoy pointless combat that doesn't involve headshotting someone at 100 yards with a handgun?  I mean, I'd love to see Mount and Blade's combat in a MMORPG. I think that'd provide a good buffer between twitch skill, tactics and ye ole dice roll.  But you're erring here on the side of gross over simplification.  FPS really doesn't do it for a lot of people, and those people aren't left with much. 

The group I play with in every one of these games REALLY loves PVP but hates the hell out of FPS games and really disliked Shadowbane.  Of course, that's kind of a bad yet relevant example as now they're playing nothing (quit WoW pre-battlegrounds). I think they would have loved the battlegrounds (it's right up their alley) but instead they went back to DAoC to give the new classic servers a try and ended up leaving more bitter than ever.

If WoW's PvP had an impact on... something, anything, in-game (i.e. a point) I would have been able to stay interested.  Hell, if WoW PvP resulted in my char developing in any permanent way I'd have been able to stay interested.

That it was decently balanced is the best (and not inconsiderable) thing I can say about it, but it was so not-interesting to me that I actually cared about the $15 enough to quit  very quickly after getting my druid to 60 (and not wait and hope it would get better).  If I wanted FPS-style "bragging rights" type PvP I'd play a FPS game.

So I guess I'm a data point at the far end of the WoW PvP spectrum.

Okay, I still don't get it, but why the hell can't they just let us level up real fucking quick and let us RvR?  I can't stand the bloody long assed grind!

Here, want to solve it?  Make a command, after one hour of time played you type /level and bam your the next level.  50 hours to reach level 50 is the max it should take.  And make it if your in a group you can do it quicker.  Then I can go and freaking crack some skulls on the battlefield and not worry about playing wak-a-mole!

Let me clarify, because obviously I speak in motherfucking riddles. And since it's Tuesday, I'll put the RAGE filter on.

DAoC's PVP is fun. WoW's PVP is fun. Neither is damaging to my soul, because frankly, I give two shits about GODDAMN MOTHERFUCKING SHITSUCKING COCKGRINDING HONOR OR REALM POINTS. I'd actually put WoW's PVP above DAoC's because of a number of reasons:

1) DAoC's realm points are required for PVP because of the uber super abilities that are granted at regular intervals. WoW's Honor points are not required because you can get similar rewards from PVE, with similar amounts of time dedication (which is indeed the arbiter of all things MMOG related). Unless you absolutely have to the UBAR BESTEST PVPER EVAR, you can choose to indulge in WoW's PVP at your leisure, whether that be gankfests in Hillsbrad or battlegrounds or PVE switching.
2) WoW's PVP crowd control is much better balanced than DAoC's ever was. Warriors and melee classes actually have options in fights, as opposed to either being stunned the entire fight or pounding on a door for 8 hours.
3) On a PVP server, WoW's PVP doesn't feel artificial (i.e. restricted to specific zones), and yet most of the time I don't feel like I'm going to get ganked at any moment.
4) The PVE grind in WoW is much shorter, full of quests (some of which are actually interesting), and its PVE combat isn't dirt boring.

With all that said, Shadowbane still WTFPWNBBQ's both of their PVP games, and it's not because SB had no restrictions on PVP. It's because the class/level/powers system was much more interesting, with more options, and the level differences didn't have nearly as much sway over PVP victory than skill. Of all the things SB did wrong, its classes, races and powers was not one of them.

The difference is that SB's PVP crushes your soul, in both a good and a bad way. It pulls no punches and revels in kicking you in the junk. It's the type of system of losing and winning that has to be, moreso than any other goddamn system, it HAS TO BE FUCKING AIRTIGHT. It can't be buggy, it can't be wildly unbalanced and you can't have performance issues.

But it did, and that's why I'm not playing it.

As for Wish, sure it could have been a lot of things. It would have been nice if it had actually been a fucking game once they got to Alpha 6/Beta, because it wasn't. There was no combat interaction that made a damn bit of difference, and it had a long way to go to realize a good game. Dave Rickey was, IMO, the real heart of that game, and was the only guy who was going to make it playable. When they started shitcanning his ideas, or rushing to put something out without even realizing the gameplay implementations, I knew it was a dead duck. It was well on its way to having a world, but no game to put in that world.

As for the question of the person WoW's PVP is fun for? Me. And that's all I give a shit about. I really don't give two flying rat's testicles whether some catass overachiever can get his uber +2 pixels from grinding honor until his nutsack shrivels up like rotten peanuts.

VIKLAS!

Its not just fps games though, if your only going to play BG's you might as well play GuildWars, with everything being pvp unlockable, a short (but quite lame) pve mission grind and even better balance and skill > time played once you've fully unlocked.  Or play RTS, or turn based, whatever.  The only logical reason I can give for why I am constantly trying MMO's despite the $15/mo, stupid grinds, and underemphasis on skill versus time played is the fact that I keep hoping that pvp would act as content for the gameworld.  But when you have infinate gaurd spawns, no ability to capture and hold anything in so-called contested zones, and your pvp focus on resetting instanced scenarios that sure as hell is not happening.

The history of every SB server revolved entirely around certain guilds and alliances, key player figures, sieges and alliances.  Nothing will ever be accomplished through pvp on a WoW server, because there is even less world influence then DAOC or Planetside's musical chairs with keeps/bases.

What are you hoping to accomplish?

And what happens when 10 minutes after you accomplish the 9th wonder of the world, a stronger group comes along and shapes it into a giant penis?

But its been shown, that even trivial accomplishments will retain players (Pside/DAOC) I dont see how you can feel satisfied as a MMO dev if your player conflict has less meaning and weight then most FPS games (where servers keep stats and top tier players/clans are involved in very competative league matches).  Its a fucking virtual world, or should be.

But I digress, for fear of hearing one of your anti-innovation rants.

I do truly believe however, that WoW will loose ALL players who are not achiever types well before their expansion hits shelves.  One day you'll be doing AB, or whatever and look up and realize what a stupid joke it is to be paying $15 a month to fight meaningless instanced battles that have gear (aka /played) as a major factor in who wins.

No, it isn't, and can't be (http://www.f13.net/index2.php?subaction=showfull&id=1129654069&archive=&start_from=&ucat=1&).

I have no problem with innovation that works. But don't expect me to pay for some limp-wristed hippies college thesis on the dynamics of virtual herd behaviour.

You hate innovation, admit it!

Yeah I finally sat down and read the whole article and thread, I tried to respond but ran out of time before I really fleshed out my thoughts.  My feelings toward the whole VW vrs Game thing is, why make MMO's that are just games?  They play worse then every other genre and then fail to take advantage of any of theoretical advantages MMO's can have (in my mind they are mostly tied closely to VW's).  The only thing that really seperates GW from WoW at the moment is the fact that WoW caters more to PvE achiever EQ types, while GW is too different and someone who has played fives times as much as me still isn't gaurenteed a win.  Not that I'm saying WoW sucks (it is a great EQ clone) or GW is awesome (it isn't at this time in the slightest) but wtf is WoW other then GW with even more timesinks, +shiney and raid dungeon foozlefests?  I'm talking strictly endgame here.

And finally I was expecting this.

So let me say that while you can be right about these arguments, you are wrong in the discussion. And we were discussing in a context.

The context was the *structure* of PvP. We were discussing the division in realms, the use of keeps, the Realm Points, the involvement with the guilds and so on. All these elements are about the RvR but not about the direct fighting mechanics.

Noone will ever argue with you that DAoC combat mechanics are superior to WoW. Because they aren't. WoW is way more carefully elaborated and designed and it's way more direct, intuitive and smooth. Despite I like the slower pace of DAoC where I can see clearly what is happening instead of the messy chaos in a fight in WoW, the second is head and shoulders above the first. That's undeniable.

But that great combat system is the supported in a structure that SUCKS FROM EVERY POINT OF VIEW. Where nothing at all is salvageable. The Honor system is fucked up, the instanced BattleGround with no persistence are fucked up, the repetitive and dull type of play is fucked up. This type of PvP, BESIDE the combat mechanics, is the most dull and pointless ever imagined. After half an hour fighting in Alterac, Arathi or Warsong I'm bored to tears and I go log in DAoC. Those who stay in there are doing it because they have to catass the reputation, or catass the honor points. And most of the tactical gameplay is about exploiting it (http://tobolds.blogspot.com/2005/09/exploiting-wow-pvp.html) or going afk while running against a zone wall.

And if you give it a slightly deeper glance, you'll even see that even the mechanics are dull. In WoW every fight is the same, absolutely predictable. 95% of the encounters are just messy zerg fights that can be fun just for a couple of times. I'm sure everyone noticed: in WoW there's ABSOLUTELY ZERO group synergy. Everyone throws mindlessly in the battle, die, respawn and repeat. In most of the cases the only reason to group is just to share a chat and the honor points farming from kills. And this doesn't happen just because the players are stupid, but because the classes have no definite PvP roles and everyone just goes down to kill the other. With no real support classes, crowd control and all the rest that is criticized in DAoC. In DAoC the classes HAVE TO rely on each other to be effective. This is both a huge flaw AND a strength.

From this point of view both the different environments and situations where you fight (the keeps and towers, water, night, rain) and the stronger reliance on group tactics and synergy of the classes make DAoC deeper EVEN if we consider the combat mechanics.

The power treadmill of the PvP in both games is similar. You just have no chance against an uber player. But in DAoC this happens on a persistent level. You can organize and react, you can avoid. The more powerful elite group ganking everyone becomes like the "lore" of a server. It's a reality that you can face.

In WoW people avoid these fights. If they see that there's a uber guild in the other faction the BG will be deserted in two minutes. Noone cares about what happens in the BG itself because the purpose of the war is NON EXISTENT.

That's what PvP should be. A war with a reason. Because we are supposed to play in a self-consistent world where you should have an actual justified goal that isn't sitrictly about the size of your e-peen. I wish to be involved into something slightly more consistent and motivating.

But WoW's BGs are nulls. They do not exist, being instanced. And if you see a more powerful player out there you don't go and try, you just go out and enter a new BG. Because it's not convenient for you. And it has no purpose.

I agree here, in particular about the warrior. In fact this is a part where DAoC has always needed more work to be more fun.

On the other side DAoC's CC undeniably add more strategy in the group fights. And I'd actually replace WoW's fear with a simple mezz since the fights are chaotic enough without the need to send people running all over the place.

The "charge" ability of the warrior is probably one of the best ideas ever added.


And in fact I loved the PvP servers. They were the dream game I wanted to play and that DAoC never accomplished. Sharing the same world is already a great and solid reason for conflict and it's one of those elements that make the game move away from a simple arcade, to a "world". But then the Honor system wrecked most of the "good" that was in these types of servers. The BGs did the rest.

Not shorter but at least justified. Not much to argue here.

P.S.

One interesting bit about BlizzCon was the revelation that the BGs were originally supposed to be persistent. In fact the PvE quests were added to give the players something to do while noone was around.

I get a group together and change it back into a vagina... or not, based on what is compelling/interesting to me.

That WoW has no wonders at all is what turns me off.  It obviously doesn't turn you off, which is fine.  I don't want to get in the way of you yelling at the Italian, but I would like to point out that neither one of you are "correct", you are both just stating preference.

Or, those who stay might actually be enjoying it. Perish the motherfucking thought.


I'm just going to have to fall back on the old "I disagree with what you said." And call you a twat for good measure.

I don't think either DAoC or WoW's gameplay mechanics are necessarily superior to the other. They both have their good bits and their flaws. I think you are out of your fucking mind saying that every fight is the same in WoW, or that every fight is a huge zerg and that's it. I found that to be more the case in the DAoC RVR battles, especially around castles. Run up, get mezzed, get arrowed or backstabbed to death by a stealther, then watch the rest of your crew get mowed down until it was your turn. The battleground fights I saw were great in the level 20-24 zone. I will say that DAoC does sieges quite well. But I think both PVP gameplay mechanics have merit, I just happen to like WoW's better because I don't have to grind so long on uninteresting content to get to them.


The only way they are deeper is that they have the legacy of 4 years worth of realm abilities, artifcats and other shit hanging on. Not only is that daunting for a newbie, it's often entirely unbalancing, creating a mudflation gate to get into meaningful PVP. And in the end, DAoC's PVP is just as transitory as WoW's because of the trivial nature of retaking lost keeps.

Some people avoid these fights. Pussy-ass coward honor farming catass twats do not decide for me whether or not I enjoy the PVP.


You want war with a "reason," go play Shadowbane. That's the only world that's persistent and self-consistent. DAoC's RVR goals are just as ephemeral as WoW's. You just don't happen to like WoW. I will also say that SB's character system is deeper and better balanced than either of them.


You are too worried about rankings. But then since it's obvious you didn't enjoy the gameplay, the rewards seem all that much worse.

The Honor System in WoW IS SHIT. Which is why I don't give a fuck about it. The same would go for DAoC except I NEED realm points in order to compete. I don't need honor points.

Exactly!

The mechanics of the combat and which is better are irrelevent because in the end both are devoid of any meaning in the context of the gameworld.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but these are games. You're not going to find a PVP experience that lets you delete characters or burn down an opponent's house in real life or something. For PvP to be fun for both parties you can't have TOTAL CARNAGE DOMINATION VICTORY OMGOMG. Games which do give you a significant ability to make the lives of others hell (Eve, Shadowbane) tend to be niche-oriented since many people, well, don't like having their lives made hell and 90% of everyone playing a PvP game will lose at some point.

DAOC's relic system allows you to gain a 20% boost to damage output for melee, magic or both (30% on the PvP server) for everyone in your realm. I don't think people quite understand how much of an overpowering boost this is. It dwarfs every possible magic item bonus in the game. To say that making everyone on your side 1/3 more powerful isn't meaningful enough makes me wonder what you would consider meaningful short of pitching a planet into the sun.

TOTAL CARNAGE DOMINIATION VICTORY WTFPWNBBQ, of course.

Had this been a part of Imperator, I don't think people would've complained about it so much on here.

I'm not bashing DAOC or WoW's systems I save that for relevant threads like the most recent one related to Haem's game to world article when I pine for a "wild west" (new interweb jargon!) "virtual world" where I can burn pillage rape and salt the earth of my enemy.  But in all seriousness, yeah relics are a big deal blahblah but it is just CTF where nobody keeps score.  Also try not to be so defensive as to act like your too stupid to realize that making a game where player conflict influences the gameworld doesn't have to mean PLAY TO CRUSH.

Afterall you guys are supposed to be making a Warhammer game, jesus if you think that just making a planetside/daoc base capture-recapture scoreless CTF fest with elves and orcs is going to cut it I'm looking forward to the spinfest when GW steps in and yanks the plug.

While I agree with everything, I'd argue on this point about the possibility of success. Both Eve and Shadowbane are niche for reasons beside and before the PvP ruleset.

It would be interesting to see a niche PvP game made by an high-profile company, with a very high production value, graphic quality, impressive engine etc...

That's a model that surely needs refinement and more reiterations to be accessible and reach its goals. But I would be careful to claim it cannot be truly successful. In fact I believe that SB could quintuplicate its subscription base if it offered an high-production value, sleek engine, smooth controls and fancy graphic.

But you would be wrong believing that those buffs are what makes DAoC different compared to WoW. This is in fact the common misconception that shifts the discussions to the wrong points.

It's totally not the point of just adding an overall buff or debuff on every player. This is fluff that you do not play (http://www.cesspit.net/drupal/node/757). I can put my hand on the fire about this. It's not because of the reilc buffs that people like DAoC's PvP model. That's also not the actual strength of its persistence. The persistence is not about those buffs. (by the way WoW is going to add general buffs as well with the upcoming patches. Guess what? It won't change absolutely anything and it will continue to suck)

What makes this game persistent and fun about this persistence, is the conflict over the conquest. There's some land, the space is finite. And shared. This space is YOUR OWN, and it doesn't belong to just some NPCs while you glide on the background unable to affect anything. In fact what drives the game is the strong guild involvement. You can go conquer those towers and keeps, you upgrade them, you raze them, you plan tactics and deploy your sources. You play a wargame above the direct action.

And are these persistent elements to make it a "world". The relics are persistent not because of their buffs. But because they are solid objects kept in a relic keep. And to have access to it you need to conquer keeps and open the milegates. The defenders can decide their tactics, camp the relic or milegate, send out stealthers to control an area, counterattack to break ports, deploy siege to be ready for the last battle.

The persistence matters when it is *gameplay*. Not an intangible buff that can be coded in a couple of minutes. That buff is just an excuse so we can have fun. But it is not the source of that fun.

The persistence is also the possibility to raze a tower, deploy siege engine, upgrade the keeps, buy guards on hookpoints, fight through the loopholes, break a door or opening an hole into a keep, the guild banners, the boiling oil, the ladders and so on. This is what creates an involving environment instead of a repetitive and dull skirmish that goes nowhere. Thanks to all these different possibilities and tactics available, the gameplay is enriching. And not a simple deathmatch in a featureless room.

The fun isn't about preventing the grass to rise forever or kill a player in RL. The fun is about the gameplay within a world where you can play with a bunch of tools and toys that make you at the center of that world. It's all about *the gameplay*. That gameplay that you have the instant you play and not on the effects that you'll have on the gameworld in the years ahead. Who cares if that wall or door will be repaired? Of course it will, but the game is supposed to be fun as you play, not after you are done with it. The fun and the persistence is about all those elements that have a role and a purpose, that are self-consistent with the world and make the gameplay more rich and involving.

This is why the persistence is nowhere tied to that "TOTAL CARNAGE DOMINATION VICTORY", that's a terrible and common misconception and the bigger mistake you can make.

Um. Do you think relics reset automatically? (Honestly curious) I'd think they qualify as "keeping score" (as do realm ranks, and any number of other of ways we, uh, keep score) but that may be just my crack talking.

You say you want "player conflict that influences the gameworld." So, player conflict making your entire side 1/3 more powerful isn't good enough for you. What is? Again, honestly curious. I mean, most of the things I've seen bandied about really just wouldn't work in practice. "Make it so we can have deformable landscape and effect the terrain when we fight!" (2 weeks later when the entire game world is a barren moonscape) "uh can we have it back plz"

PvP servers traditionally have far fewer users. WoW breaks this mold, and I'm not sure anyone (especially including me) really understands why at this point.

I agree with all of this, but many (including Hoax I suspect) demand a reason for going out and bashing people over the head with sticks. Relics serve to give that reason. The gameplay itself is what delivers the 'fun", the relics are the reason for the battle that you fight. Generally people like their gameplay to have purpose (or a well crafted illusion thereof)

I really do think that, in a game with a community like DAoC's, just adding some "trophies" to be fought over would motivate people to take them.

If you put Excalibur in a giant tower and tell one faction, "This is yours.  It is a symbol of your pride." all the other factions will try to take it, just to prove they can, and the other faction will try to take it back, just to prove it's theirs.  Whether it does anything or not is just a side bonus.

You've exposed a weakness in my conviction I haven't played DAOC since 3 months into launch, at that time the RvR had all the depth of Planetside, and HRose does make it sound much more involved.  So I will defer to the rabid fanboi when it comes to DAOC factoids from now on.

Abstractly speaking though, relics that are captured from static keeps just dont cut it for me.  They might make for a fun game, I loved MPBT3050 very much and it was nothing more then static, unchanging, systems that were captured and recaptured.  But I expect more from MMO's then the simple things that make for fun games.  ShadowBane is the ONLY game I've ever seen where every server had a very player-centric history that was quite important to people, and most SB players can relate their guilds role in said history.

But static keeps designed to be fought over, lost, retaken then lost again are just the tip of the iceberg with this medium/genre/whatever.  I'm looking forward to the day when somebody tries something a little more daring then that, because I think it'll be a ton of fun.

So the next logical step would be bases that can be razed to the ground, then it's left to the players of the defeated faction to rebuild it- potentially in a new location.  That could be fun, if the developers are sure to design the eligible areas with base building in mind, offering a myriad of potential strategic choices (maybe there's a plateau that forces enemies up a few stready narrow paths, or a steep hill with a flat top that forces them to take painful volleys before reaching the base, or an island that requires enemies either swim or boat over, or a valley that only leaves one side of the base exposed to attack, etc, etc).

Then, of course, you need the ability to personalize these bases so there's real investment.

But this is all very "next logical step", what would be after that?

I think it is because WoW pve servers were boring in that there was not enough conflict between the realms.  Certainly this is true prior to the implementation of battlegrounds, anyway.

Losing in WoW pvp doesn't mean much.  No xp loss, no monetary loss, not much of a run back to get to where you were.

Politics, espionage, diplomacy.

But even the "next logical step" sounds so much better right?  Thats really my point, I have never felt that any of the EQ clones were trying very hard to do anything other then:

1. long grind
2. something to keep people occupied while we design new grind elements <slap on half baked simplistic pvp elements here>
3. power creep to force players who want to compete to be involved in new grind elements
4. repeat

This is like the Principle of Induction. Something can probably be successful because it has been successful "x" times in the past. It makes sense but we miss the reasons. Copying trends is the very first reason why new ones cannot rise. And why the first who will do that will have at least a momentary money hat and set new rules (commonplaces) that will be broken again in the future.

I could make the example of Squaresoft games. Their "lesser" titles are often used to test new ideas and system that then they port to the main ones. Most of these ideas don't seem so great and you would expect them to be dropped. Instead it happens the opposite. They keep indefinitely refining them, fixing what didn't work, and when you finally have their main title you find again that awful mechanic that is now really good instead of bad. And it's a surprise. Actually I'm starting to believe (but not yet) that there aren't "good" ideas. There is just more or less polish, more or less refinement, more or less reiterations. At the end you could turn everything into something good with enough of those.

The mmorpgs in particular should take advantage of this process, because it's something directly available to them. It's about the possibility to reiterate. Try something, see the result and refine. Incorporating in the proccess al the feedback you received.

In the case of WoW something similar happened. With the difference that in this case they didn't reiterate from their own experience, but from the experience drawn from other titles. And they are great at doing that.

There are a bunch of reasons about why WoW is an exception. The first is rather silly. When they launched they had an equal number of PvE and PvP servers and this already tells the players that the PvP isn't just going to be a niche option. It's instead something on which the developers have faith and support. It sets their mind-set. And their mind-set affects then the development.

Then there's the polish, accessibility and reiterations. The game world is defined in "friendly", "contested" and "enemy" territories and structured so that the transition is gradual and painless. The faction identity is retained so you know what is dangerous and what is not, the game puts you in a group, not alone in a forest waiting to be assraped by a "red" and left weith just a white cloak. The death penalty is trivial and, as I wrote in the past, At worst the PvP is a timesink, an annoyance, at best it's a whole new stack of fun possibilities and situations.

Before the honor system fucked up things (http://www.cesspit.net/drupal/node/452), the PvP servers where coherent and fun. And I believe that if DAoC launched retaining the faction identity and consolidated them in one, shared territory, the PvP servers could have been popular in the exact same way. It's not an exclusive of the brand. It's an exclusive of a ruleset (and I was truly deluded when DAoC's PvP servers revealed to be a superficial "free for all" instead of retaining the factions).


Yeah, I'm just saying that the well-crafted illusion is the least relevant element in the discussion, even if the most apparent.

This, in my opinion, is why a game like Shadowbane fails.  Having permanent, powerful, lasting effects on the game world tends to suck for both the winner and the loser.  In the end, the winner finds himself alone and at peace (OMG NO, NOT PEACE AND HAPPINESS) and searching for people to squash while the loser gets to sit in their brand new parking lot and wonder what the hell they're supposed to do.   Everyone loves the war when it's going on; it's when the final blow has been struck, that you're left with the consequences.

I've heard there's a server now with periodic resets, but then after a while I'd imagine the game world would start to feel like Groundhog Day.

Edit: Of course, the big thing was that a destroyed nation couldn't easily get back on it's feet, since the conquerors usually squashed any insurrections out of boredom and the build times were prohibitively slow.  Where in Dark Age, relics can be retaken and often were (according to my friends who played a lot more than myself).

Ah, that's something I was going to comment about the AGC and that I was forgetting: "Unbalance is fun." (that's written in the report that Shild wrote, near the end)

In this context, the momentum when a side temporarily wins and the other has to organize to counterattack in a nearly hopeless situation is potentially the MOST FUN. This sounds like an heresy but it is fundamentally true.

The movies with really cool heroes and exciting action and battles aren't those where the protagonist has the huger faction with more resources than everyone else. That's not really all that involving and you have to recognize that the other situation is way more exciting. This is a core point. Being the underdog can be potentially more fun.

Now there's the point of a PvP environment because we all know too well that without an equal chance to win, the game isn't all that fun. So where's the problem? How it could be possible to simulate these situations so that they can be a strength and a source of fun instead of just frustrating the player?

My point of view is about the goals and patterns. In these games being the underdog isn't fun because the goals are all set. EVERY player has the same goals and competes over the same functional gameplay. It's the game itself to set how you should behave. Now the heart of the problem, from my point of view, is that these systems just don't expect an unbalance. The system itself is coded in a given, hypothetic, abstact environment where the factions are always perfectly even. But this environment DOESN'T EXIST.

As Raph wrote, the players "see past fiction" and they can clearly see that the game wants them to compete in an unfair condition. These unfair conditions are not those of the character. They are those of the *players*. Because we fight over the power-up, not over the roleplayed immersion. The players see that the game is basically cheating and that the goals that they are supposed to fight for are definitely not fair compared to those of the *players* on the other, stronger side. You, as a player, see the other player having a direct advantage over you. And this comprehensibly pisses off everyone, like it happens with the unbalance between the classes.

Now the point is that there's a line here. There's the *player* and his perception and there's the *game* and the situation it offers. If the unbalance is the one of the player, noone is going to have fun. But if the unbalance is the one of the *game* and the player has the role to play WITH it, this can be a HUGE source of fun, imho. In Doom noone complains that you are just one marine against a zillion of aliens. That's the fun, in fact. I even remember a mod for a FPS where one player was the "hunter" with special powers while all the other players where against him. 1 vs 10. And it was hell of fun again.

What I believe is that we cannot anymore pretend to design games thinking to abstract, theoretic environments that just won't happen in the reality. We must stop to design games assuming that there is going to be a matematically perfect balance. The reality is different and in the reality of the game a fight will be *always unbalanced* for a reason or another. It's absolutely impossible to have two groups fighting with even numbers, same classes, skills equipment and so on. And, despite this, the game is still balanced after an ideal situation and model that is nowhere what will actually happen in the game. This is why you can balance something mathematically perfect over some spreadsheets but still risk to fuck everything when that system actually enters the real game.

Now the point is, noone likes a game where everyone has one hit point, uses the same weapon and moves in a featureless room. The perfect balance is an illusion, it just brings to the most dull gameplay ever. What is important is to start to design a game so that it is AWARE that there is going to be an unbalance. It's the system itself that must anticipate that one faction WILL BE stronger than the other because at this point it is retarded to assume that everything will be fair and even always. We must design games after the reality, not after the imaginary ideal situation that a dev is thinking and that will never actually happen.

When the mechanics will be "aware" that there is going to be an unbalance, the goals can finally change. Because this is the most important point. The underdog realm CANNOT share the same goals of the bigger one. That's what is unfair and makes the game frustrating. The goals of the *players* must be balanced. This is why the goals of a player playing the underdog MUST DIFFER from the goals of the other player in the bigger faction. This is how we retain a balance between the *players* while we use the unbalance *in the game* as a strength to create new gameplay. This is why in the example above about the 1vs10 the fun was coming from a disparity of goals, not just a disparity of powers or numbers.

Now, concretely, I have my own ideas (http://www.cesspit.net/drupal/node/798) about how it could be possible to achieve this. But I think we can agree on the fact that:
1- The unbalance can be a source of fun and a strength instead of a terrible plague.
2- The game must be aware of this unbalance and it should be designed after it. So that the underdog has specific patterns to counterattack and its own specific goals to achieve.

Back than (this is a very old idea) I wrote a rather complex idea on the Herald feedback that now I cannot find anymore. But basically it was based on a fixed pool of points that cannot be increased in any way. Nor decreased. These points must be distributed among the keeps owned by the realm so that each point corresponds to one level (the keeps in DAoC can be upgraded till level 10). It's obvious that, since the pool is fixed, if you own many keeps you'll have to spread those points, while if you own only a couple you could consolidate them, making the keep stronger.

The goal here was to exploit the weaknesses of the bigger realm (chatoic zergs, confusion, lack of organization, visibility) so that the smaller realm could consolidate the defence through the points and keep upgrades, while setting a small task forces to infiltrate in the enemy realm to quickly take the weaker keeps (since the bigger realm will have to spread the points among all of them, so keeping the keeps at a very low level and making them easy to conquer. Bigger realm = more vulnerable spots).

Now it's not important to go in the details of the idea or argue about the implementation. The idea itself needs a lot of refinements but what is important is the main goal: set patterns that can be accessible and fun in those occasions when there's the unbalance. Instead of just closing possibilities and force the player to stand there knowing that he is going to lose, the design should OPEN UP possibilities and tactics that can be fun and involving in those situations.

Oh, I found the original idea hidden on a text file. Just to explain better from where the idea was coming and give some concrete substance to what I wrote:

--
This is an idea I proposed more than one year ago when NF was in testing, maybe you could give it a second consideration. The purpose is to improve, some more, the problem of the population unbalance in the RvR.

My heretical idea is that unbalance can be "fun" if it is included as a mechanic. Till today you always tried to remove the unbalance from the RvR. My idea doesn't touch the difference in population between the realms, it doesn't help to make the numbers even. Instead it tries to give this unbalance a role in the gameplay, so that the game itself is "aware" that there's an unbalance and so offer specific rules to provide fun gameplay in those situations.

I believe that being the underdog can be fun. It can be a more rewarding experience than always be on the winning side. My idea is only a way to express these qualities that in this game are choked since the game was planned and designed with the idea that all the three realms are always even.

Today we know that the realms aren't even. So I suggest this idea for a minimal, possible change that would make the gameplay more fun and dynamic for everyone (from my point of view):

--
More than a year ago I also suggested a way to partially solve the unbalance of the population. It was about giving each realm a fixed pool of points that could then be "allocated" in each keep to set a cap to its upgrade level. For example if the fixed pool is set at ten points and you have two keeps, you could decide to put nine points on one keep and just one point to the other. The first keep could then be upgraded to level 9, while the second only to level 1. Or allocate the points uniformly, so five for keeps, and have both at level 5.

This mechanic could help a lot the underdog realm because the stronger realm owning many keeps will be forced to distribute the points between all the keeps, so exposing many weak points (more keeps = less points for each = lower cap for the upgrade). At the same time the underdog realm would have less keep under its control and could focus all its points to just a few keeps to make them stronger and resist the assault.

The basic idea is: the more you expand, the more you expose weak points to the enemy realms, the more you retreat the more you can consolidate your defences and resist the assault.

The system is supposed to balance itself dynamically no matter of the situation and give the underdog realm always a possibility to counterattack (considering the weaker points of the stronger realm).

--
The implementation could be varied. For example you could set the fixed pool at 50 points. So that each realm can have its own standard keeps all at the level 10 cap as it is right now and require to distribute the points only when the realm expands beyond its territory.

Or you could set the pool to an even lower value to add more tactics and dynamism in the distribution of the points.

That's just the formal idea, it could then be integrated and expanded with other mechanics once it has been tested and it seems to have a positive and worthwhile effect. For example these fixed points could become solid objects that the players need to "physically" transport from keep to keep. Joining the mechanic with the caravans that I believe were implemented along the RvR missions.

At some point you could also change the mechanic of the "lord" in a way resembling "The Settlers" game. The lord could spawn at one of the keeps already under the control of a realm and then requiring to be escorted through the zone till the enemy keep before being able to get it under his control. Adding more dynamic situations to the conquest and the sieges.

There are many possibilities. The limit is just about what you can imagine.

Please notice that my formal idea doesn't overlap, contradict or replace any of the rules already in the game. It just sets a dynamic cap to the maximum level of the upgrade on a keep. Requiring the players to distribuite those points between the keeps and decide which should be privileged and which shouldn't. Making strategic choices and opening up possibilities for the underdog.

Explaining. I got lost in the stream of thoughts and forgot to write the context of my idea above about the "unbalance is fun".

My point was that these worlds should *never* reset and restart. The reason is that the reset itself can be the most fun moment. When the losing side tries to counterattack to regain what it lost. Cutting this possible gameplay out and just making the server reset automatically is like wasting what could be the very first source of fun. An automatic reset cuts out the fun instead of adding it. The best of the game just goes away.

This is why I went on with my ideas on the unbalance. Highly unbalanced situations where you are losing everything are the very natural potential of a PvP environment, imho.

While I absolutely agree that it's a blast when the underdog rises up and destroys the existing reign (Hib/Nimue of '02 I believe, we had just lost our last relic to Midgard, held a meeting of the major guilds, and we all agreed "We have nothing to lose anymore, let's just pound on them non-stop for as long as we can", two-three weeks of nonstop attacks later, Midgard was destroyed) more often it ends in so many defeats for the underdog that people on that side just stop wanting to try.

The game can only do so much to help out the underdog before player actions lose their influence.

So yeah, being the underdog is fun- when you can do something about it.  When you're going out every night with 1/3 to 1/4 the size of an army that your enemies are mustering, though, it's only so long before even the most hardcore start asking "Why am I even going out and giving them free points?"  Those times are most definitely not fun.

So.  How do fix plz?

I never said that being the underdog is fun *right now*. Because it isn't. What I said is that it *could* be fun if the design adapts to a different model and offers gameplay in those situations instead of just frustrating the players and destinate them to be farmed over and over and over in a hopeless situation.

Here you simply say: right now being the underdog isn't fun because you cannot do something about it. And that's the point in fact. It isn't fun as a result of the rules.

This is why I proposed a change. The change itself isn't important. What is important is to recognize that potential and that goal. Then the possible implementations to achieve those goals may vary. We can discuss those once we agree on the premises and I'm sure there are many better ideas than the one I suggested above about DAoC.

The fundamental point is in what you wrote: "So yeah, being the underdog is fun- when you can do something about it."

1- Being the underdog can be a source of fun instead of a problem to eradicate
2- We need to find ways so that "you can do something about it". Which translates to: offer specific, fun gameplay in those situations.

I think this would be a huge leap forward if we can agree on those points. Because right now all the work has been put trying to *eliminate* the unbalance instead of turning it into a source of gameplay. Or not?

A few brief points...

1.  Lum is correct that artifacts in DAOC offer a substantial bonus for any realm holding all of them.  However players do not seem excited by these bonuses, and top-end battles are more determined by organization than by such bonuses (trained 8v8 gank group will beat random pickup groups 100% of the time, whether or not the pickup people have a 20% bonus)
2.  The new "Title" system seems popular, giving a meaningless prestige boost for those who thrive in RvR.  Seems to be a hit, and has no impact on RvR balance.  More such prestige options would be nice.  Let me make a trophy of the head of any RR11 player I kill :P
3.  DAOC needs more reasons for players to visit Frontier zones.  Why not make certain rare crafting resources only available in these zones, and implement a limited economic warfare system for controlling these resources?  How about a wandering dragon that drops incredible loot, and can be killed by all 3 realms?
4.  Many have mentioned that DAOC suffers from problems with population imbalance, with some realms massively overpopulated.  Why not take a SimCity approach, and have disasters befall the overpop realms?  Earthquakes, monster invasions, whatever...  This would also help cultivate realm spirit, as people would have to work together to overcome their peril.  And it would distract some of the zerg from RvR, evening out the numbers a bit in Emain.

A few observations from someone that plays DAoC almost nightly:

1. There are many incentives now in game to encourage RvR.  a) titles, b) RA's, c) Capturing relics, d) Capturing an enemy Guild banners to hang on your house wall, e) Champion experience with the new expansion.  The sad truth is that the primary motivator in game is still rp farming.  With rp's come abilities and power.  Players with the most rp's stand the best chance in combat and are the most desired by groups.  The players that consistently top the weekly rp charts are those interested in doing nothing more than farming more rp's to pwn_with_impunity. The artificially created motivators listed are a nice carrot for some players, but rp's are still the rvr god.  I think you could eliminate all other rewards and people would still find their fun in chasing rp's.  This game caters to the achiever mentality.

2. While I agree with HRose about the underdog being fun part, most people can't and don't appreciate it.  On the Gareth server, Hibernia currently holds all 6 relics (a 20% advantage to both magic and melee).  This gives their realm a sizeable advantage and has the effect of bringing a larger percentage of the playerbase out to RvR nightly.  The result is that the other two realms will mount an offensive to get their relics back and get crushed by not only superior firepower, but the now superior numbers.  Keep in mind that the populations in the three realms are roughly equal on this server.  Having this 20% advantage is what brings the players out to RvR in greater percentages. Second, If you play in one of the other two realms, you see an interesting phenomenon: most people will rapidly lose interest if they lose.  I've been monitoring the RvR population in my realm over the past week with no relics and find that after Hibernia wipes the opposing realm's force during an assault, a large number will either quit or retire to more PvE.  I have a blast playing underpowered classes in underdog realms and overcoming the odds.  The truth is that most people rapidly give up when they don't win a majority of conflicts.  People seem to only enjoy RvR when they're winning.  With all of the cheat/spoiler/exploit sites out there this really comes as no surprise.  I'm guessing this is just a maturity issue.  Most still fail to recognize that the fun is in the challenge, not in the victory. I'm still amazed by the number of people that will quit after being beaten once or twice. 

In my opinion, the elements where DAoC is lacking have little to do with a persistent world.  Here's a summary:

1) Either make the PvE grind to 50 fun or eliminate it. People that enjoy PvE are playing CoH or WoW. Stop punishing the people that flock to DAoC for the PvP. I'll grind a toon to 50 because I enjoy the rvr enough to stomach it.  It's a pointless grind, particlarly for those that have done it a few times.

2) Balance the realms. Easier said than done considering all of the new classes in game.  I think the player base has outsmarted the developers on the use of classes in ways that they hadn't imagined.  There are some severe inequities in the way that abilities are spread.  Can this be done without homogenizing the game?  I'm not sure.

3) Remove AE cc and non-melee stun from the game. Stun is the bane of my existence. It's not FUN standing around being unable to act when purge is down.

4) Fix lag exploits and LoS issues.  I've been killed numerous times by players that couldn't even see me by casting through walls or lag casting pbae spells.  I could forgive this more easily were the game not 4+ years old.

5) Remove insta cast spells.  There's no trade off here nor is their skill involved. 

Hell, this list could get long... I know at least another 20 points I'd touch on.

Edit: Don't get me wrong, I have a lot of fun playing this game... even after 4 years.  I just see so much untapped potential that it makes me want more.  I realize that the bottom line is that it's a product.  The changes I'd like to see are potentially not worth the resources to approach. 

As written just everywhere the problem isn't in the greed of RPs. Nor to give RvR more incentives.

The problem is that the best pattern to farm RPs is nowhere what the game should promote and valorize: RvR warfare instead of 8vs8 repetitive skirmish.

Not so different than the other long post about the PvE problems I wrote in the other page. Again a problem of the game never showing and valorizing the best it has to offer, instead actively dumbing down and choking the potential that is already there.


And again this is totally NOT my point. The current behaviour of the players is the consequence of the current rules.

I criticized those rules. Only when they change we can expect that being the underdog will be fun. Not before. You cannot push the cart ahead of the horses.

We could go on about how most people like to play against human opponents, and conversly, how most mmorpgs failed at making this fun.  I'd guess you know that.  I assume you're refering to the differences between WoW and DAoC.

1) Better class balance
2) Ability to be competative without a huge pve grind
3) Accessablity to new players in all things, including pvp
4) WoW had brand-name appeal

WoW's pvp has burned me out, though.  I can see mudflation on the horizon, and 40-man raids can eat my ass, so I'm not too sad to be leaving.  Now, someone make a mmorpg with twitch/physics based pvp in an open skill-tree class system that's not heavily item dependant, and you'll have my worship.

Well, if that wasn't your point then we'll have to agree to disagree.  My premise is that in this day and age most people play for the victory rather than the challenge.  Why do you think they are always looking for a shortcut to get them victory.

Games are made to entertain.  I fear that you're looking for more than that much like literary scholars search for unintended meaning in books.  Sometimes the story is just the story.

Because the game is about victory. You can even design games where you win only by deliberately losing. And the players will lose.

The players just see past the curtain and see what THE DESIGN is really about. If the design is about farming RPs, that's what the players will do in the most efficient way.

If you then provide fun and rewarding patterns that trigger when the realm is under attack and at a disadvantge, the players will use them and the unbalance will be less of an issue.

The biggest problem with the score keeping aspects in daoc is that while the effect of a relic shift is big, there aren't enough objectives to fight over to make progress seem meaningful. Relic raids are still really one time events that are compelely overidden by the next one time event. Ideally in RvR I'd want a process by which casual level small groups can work toward realm level objectives by completing minor group level sub objectives in casual play sessions. As it stands in a typical play session you cannot contribute to the inter-realm 'score' in any meaningful way. Towers/keeps don't help us becuase the act of taking a tower or keep is what causes your opponents to act to retake it, and once a tower or keep is retaken it as if you had never taken it in the first place.

One way this could be improved might be if a realm has to accumulate a certain number of hours ownership of keeps in order to unlock relic gates (or to unlock something in PvE land) with accumulated hours remaining on the realm 'score' after a keep is retaken (rather than basing relic defences and DF solely on current state of keeps). This way the contribution made by taking a keep persists in the game for a longer period and can never be completely undone by an enemy uber guild immeadiately after you achieve something.

I appreciate the frontiers did improve things in this respect by making keeps a bigger deal. And there may well be other things in game by now that do more of this sort of thing.

They added realm-wide tasks exactly with this purpose. But they are completely ignored by the players.

Probably because the reward is nowhere worth it like every other RvR incentive they added.

I was excited about those tasks, until I tried them.  I had pictured the tasks serving to send realms into collision...  For example, if I am told to take an enemy keep, I would like to see an enemy given the corresponding task to defend that keep.  Or the taskmaster could systematically send the next 50 task-takers of opposing realms to explore the same area.  Much merriment would ensue.

Instead what we got was a random task generator, sending me to deserted areas.  On top of that, the "exploration" missions sent me to areas with names not found on any map other than one pay-to-download PDF map.  The travel times were huge, and the rewards were trivial.

If such a task system were more focused and had better rewards, I predict it would be hugely popular and would help players find good spontaneous open-field battles.

Finally regarding RP-farming being the ultimate catass grind of DAOC... I agree somewhat, but there are some offsetting factors.  I like the sliding scale, where it becomes enormously difficult to gain Realm levels past level 7 or so.  I found that the first 5 realm levels were fairly easy to achieve casually, and the realm abilities gained were enough to make a player fairly competitive.  The true catasses could indeed be more uber by playing 24-7, but I did not find the difference between a RR10 and a RR7 player to be overwhelming.  The true dominance was achieved through systematic teamwork, voice chat, and (often unfortunately) by radar programs.  Sadly those radar programs still keep chugging along, despite Mythic's periodic bannings of radar users.

I think you are confusing powerful with meaningful.  I think meaningful would have to have both a game effect AND at least some level of acknowledgement in game that is a persistent reminder/alters the game in some way.  So my foozle-wacking ability went up 1/3?  That's great, I'm still wacking foozles exactly like I was before, using exactly the same methods, gathering exactly the same elements.. etc..

Darkness Falls was a good idea, that gave people something to work towards, but how about less conflict ridden changes?  What if the environment changed cosmetically and the creatures you fought altered based upon how many relics you had?  Meaningful is different to different people, but I think you'll find that for many playing the game "larger damage numbers" won't count.

Great point.  Indeed I remember many times having to explain to casual/PvE players that we had a realm bonus from our relics.  They had been happily whacking foozles without even noticing they had a new bonus.  In my experience, those types of players have largely migrated to other games, and the remaining DAOC population is heavily weighted toward the min-maxers who care whether they have a 3% faster swing speed from their latest Augmented Quickness RA level 3, or whether they get a 20% melee damage boost from relics.

Such players may make a long-term customer base, but they do not make a WoW-style mega-hit.

Yeah, I always supported a mission system working like a matchmaking service for RvR, maybe also "leading" the overall action.

There must be something behind the screnes why they just decided to glide on those missions and why now they offer little to no reward.

That's actually the way it's SUPPOSED to work. So if it's not working that way, something's broken.  :-D

(technically, you're supposed to get mission locations spawned at the periphery of 'flames' areas.)

dammit! you're the dev! if you admit it's broken, you can never site it as an enhancement later when you fix it.  sheesh, I don't know anything and I know that.

I don't have a very good experience about this, probably also because other players don't care about it that much. In general everyone just takes a guard mission or a general kill "x" enemies.

The idea about the matchmaking would work in a different way, even if it wouldn't be too easy. Besically you give to two groups in different realms the same mission, and only one of the two groups will be able to get the reward.

An example could be the one AlteredOne made, you give a Hibernia group the mission to take a precise tower in "x" time and the "Albion" group to defend that keep. The reward will go only to the group who wins. Or maybe you can give both Hibernia and Midgard the same mission about conquering the same tower and the first who does it gets the reward.

The point is about having colliding goals so that the conflict is preserved. If the current mission system was giving out very good rewards you would have all three realms trying to AVOID each other so that they can maximize the points from missions. This is a sign of a flawed system. Instead if you need to "win" the mission and have a goal that is already competitive you'll see the realms actually fighting for their reward.

But then if I was responsible for ther game I'd probably put its resources somewhere else (I'd still try to create a battle system that could give some organization to the large battles, like skills available to commanders that do not affect in any way the 8vs8 but that could make the larger battles and sieges more organized and meaningful instead of just a zerg rush).

Hey, did those escort missions in the old frontier ever get fixed?  Attacking worked fine, but defense gave no reward.  Does that work now, or did it just poof with New Frontiers?  Is it on the classic servers?  Is it still broken there?

They've been replaced with new mission types.

I was just thinking that this would work like WoW's battlegrounds, which are in fact a matchmaking service. The difference is that in DAoC this would work on a persistent environment instead of an isolated one.

Just an observation out of the blue.

P.S.
And notice that it would be a WoW's BG without the suck:
1- You still don't see the names of the players in the group in the other realm. So you won't be able to choose your fight against an easy group like it constantly happens in WoW (players leaving en masse if the other side is an organized PvP guild).
2- You won't compete with your own allies in the honor calculations, nor you are competing over time like in a race. So with an actual interest in the conflict and not in trying to avoid it for optimized "arranged matches".

Not really trying to ressurrect a thread that has been derailed in every direction, but the last patch that is going live in December is way, way, way more interesting than the fluff that was in Darkness Rising and that originated this thread. It's not as crazy as what is happening to SWG and not as significant as the development in Eve-Online, but at least they are trying and I (mostly) like what I'm seeing.

The patch is branded "Realm vs Realm and Class focus" and should focus on some significant (I hope) changes to the classes (tanks in particular) and larger RvR, but for now the first piece we got on test (http://www.camelotherald.com/more/2263.shtml) is a rather HUGE and further nerf to ToA:

There's more to it, in particular generous nerfs to many encounters. This seems to effectively solve most of the complains about ToA (have - have not) but we are left with the other critical flaws of the standard servers: buffbots, damage scale out of the roof and clumsy interface to trigger the powerful effects bound to the artifacts (drop out of combat, right click on icon, left click on macro, reenter combat). So they removed most of the accessibility barriers of ToA but we still have the negative impact of its other parts.

About the rest we have only hints through a letter from the producer (http://www.camelotherald.com/more/2262.shtml):

Which is all good, I just would like to see some significant enhancements, features or systems that don't come just as a bonus, timesink, timeout or a mix of all these... Something that even a brand new player could see without reading the patch notes and feel motivated to play.

I'm not really sure if I like this Jeff Hickman or not, but at least he seems driven by consensus (which is again both a good and bad thing).

I blame and praise in (nearly) equal quantities.

Tomorrow we should be served the second part that should be more "on topic" with the title. I'm curious to see what they are planning.

Changes to the tanks have landed:

About the only one I see really being worth a damn is the level 30 shout, except that it can't be used when the character is CC'ed.

Level 50 shout isn't terrible.

The higher resists and hitpoints are good (along with climb walls and resist to boiling oil for sieges). In 8vs8 Fury+Bolstering Roar can be good. Going past that would be too much with the current mechanics.

The Climb Walls is a bit of a fun change, though I'm not really sure how useful it's going to be without some kind of stealth. Were it me, I might have given the tanks some kind of a charge ability, an AE snare/root effect that worked like a bard song (and called it Grapple) so they could slow down or stop the folks trying to run past them towards the crunchy casters, or a kind of shield wall effect that allowed for an AOE arrow block in a short radius around them (for board and blade type warriors).

All love, Haemish, I know you aren't a current player :) (Two of these were from New Frontiers, Grapple was from TOA.)

All of the new changes are great for heavy tanks.  As a long time, fairly hard-core player, I've played both a hero and a warrior past rr5 and it's true that they needed to add a little something to make the class more group friendly.  I do think that the climb walls was a bit much.  Assassins are already clammoring that they have no role in RvR.  Now they will potentially have to deal with not only other assassins, but vampiirs and heavy tanks on their walls.  A RR5 warrior with testudo and a healer within range will be able to devastate most things on a wall. 

Overall I'm pleased with the current changes to the game and hope that they continue.  I just can't help but wonder why it has taken them 4 years to start implementing these features.  I'm guessing some of this is "proof-of-concept" stuff for Warhammer.  Not a bad way for the current Mythic playerbase to beta test and pay for the priviledge.  Sorry... sometimes the jaded gamer in me seeps out.

Some days I feel like dusting off my Thane, but I don't really want to go through the trouble of levelling on a classic server no matter how "painless" people say it is.

Unless the Testudo also protects those around the Warrior from arrows, it's not exactly what Haemish was talking about when he said:
a kind of shield wall effect that allowed for an AOE arrow block in a short radius around them (for board and blade type warriors).


Personally, My 50 Hero was a Sword and Board (or Blade and Board I guess, technically) but the one thing I wanted to be able to do was to target an ally and automatically be able to use my shield to help defend him. 

Actually, by biggest complaint about DAOC was the interface.  It's awful.  NO game should have "/command" type interfaces as a requirement.  EVERY ability should not only be a Button, but there should be an easy way to link that button to any key on your keyboard in an easy visual way.

It's still painful.  It's just an order of magnitude less painful than it was.  Let's say that it's now like a swift kick to the groin where as it used to be having your sack gnawed off by a colony of fire ants.  DAoC is pretty much the last game anyone should play expecting a fun and interesting PvE experience.  It's all about the endgame.  

If that weren't bad enough, the sad truth is that Thanes still suck.  So... you'd go through South Park's rendition of rochambeau only to end up with a level 50 toon that will never get an RvR group.

I totally felt that way and still do mostly. Although i love the lowbie BG's so i resubbed and started on a classic server for when i can't get anything going in WoW. DAoC pve is still dull as ever, but the catacomb task dungeons have greatly reduced the amount of dullness required. I got one char to 15 and another to 10 in about 3 hours play. Levelling seems to be about the same pace as WoW - without the interesting quests or locations mind you.

You can make a /macro of any /command you wish and turn it into a hotkey.  You can then /qbind that hotkey to any key on your keyboard.  The new UI even allows the use of 3 hotbars at a time using 1-0 or alt+1-0 or ctrl+1-0.

The interface is still dated relative to WoW, but they have made some improvements.  I've found it more than adequate for RvR.

EDIT: I've played nearly every MMOG to date and DAoC is the one I've kept going back to.  Matter of fact, I think I'm the only person on these boards that even plays this game regularly.  That being the case, I'll be happy to answer any questions to the best of my ability. 

What Valmorian said about Tetsudo, as well as the Grapple that's in the game not being an area effect thing. Granted, I wouldn't have known these abilities were in the game because I haven't played a tank since I quit DAoC the first time, and when I reupped around the release of New Frontiers, I played a scout.

As for interfaces, Shadowbane still had one of the best interfaces I've ever seen, at least as far as customization out of the box. The capability to drag any skill, power, spell or ability to the screen and have it be a button (which could be clicked on or hotkeyed or both) as if the screen was a desktop... le brilliant.

Spoken like the pansy lurikeen you probably play.

Testudo is basically an ability that gives a warrior high immunity to melee attacks with the cost of his movement being greatly reduced.  This makes their already high hp last even longer.  

Grapple is an ability on the ToA servers (from a Master Level) that allows the user to essentially take another player out of a fight at the expense of themself (i.e. the player that grapples can do nothing else and the grappled player is unable to act).  This works especially well in the case of a low RR player being able to grapple a high RR player during a conflict.  This one of the primary abilities that caused me to leave the ToA servers.  It's a "cheese" tactic used commonly to lock down a key target with an expendable foe.  

I couldn't live with myself if I played Hibernia on the classic servers.  The current balance issues make Hibernia easy-mode. 

The reason I mention the part about thanes is that I played one for almost a year (like 3 years ago).  I finally gave up when SI came out.

I don't think I was clear enough.  At no point in the game should I ever have to type "/anything".  I shouldn't have to even type it into a macro box.  There should be a menu of all the abilities I have, with full descriptions of what they do, unique (or at least clear) icon buttons beside each description that I can drag and drop onto the screen/taskbar.

If you ever require your customer to type a command to perform a non-communication related function, you need to hire a better UI team.

I'm guessing you never played any mmogs 4 years ago. 

Sure I did.  I also drive a car that I don't need to crank from the front to get it to start.

My point is that you're expecting a 2005 UI from a 2001 game.  A bit much, don't you think?

If I bought a Model A, I'd expect to crank it.  In the era it was made, that was the appropriate technology.

No, its had a couple expensions.

I guess we'll just have to disagree.  I'd personally rather they work on content and balance issues than reinventing the UI.  The current system does everything I need it to do.  Is it dated? Sure.  Does the current UI keep me from being able to have fun in the game: no, not really.

Do you even play DAoC?  I'm guessing no. I just find it hard to believe that improving the UI would be a better business decision from a $$$ standpoint than adding content.  I've got to think that more people leave the game due to gameplay elements than the interface.

What are the graphics like in DAOC these days?  They seem to be not to shabby compared to many recently released MMO's.  Not to mention how many expansion packs have come out?  Boats? A complete reworking of the frontiers?

With all that, I don't think it's too much to expect the UI be overhauled.

I used to.  I had a level 50 Hero on one of the servers (I can't even remember the server name now though).  Part of the reason I won't go back is the UI.  In fact, I'd say that quality of life issues in that particular MMO is the primary reason I won't go back. 


Why do you have to think that?  Try sitting someone down who has never played an MMO in front of DAOC and watch them flounder with the UI.  I have, and it's not pretty.  Do you know of any reasonably popular game on the computer outside of MMORPG's that require you to type in crypic commands to perform operations?  Do you ever have to create a macro to perform a basic ability in any other game?  I don't think so.

DAOC is amateurish in it's UI.  Painfully so.  And I think it hurts them FAR more than they know.

Being that the game is over 4 years old now, I'm guessing that any future investments will either be in duct tape to hold the sinking ship together and depositing the rest into their new project (Warhammer Online).    I'm betting that the UI will be much more streamlined on the release of their next product.  Of course, I'd be interested in seeing if they have any market research on the UI and its acceptance, but the game is already too old to attract many new players.  My assumptions is that they are just cutting their losses at this point. 

Also keep in mind that the major UI innovations in mmogs came after the 2 major expansions (SI and ToA) and that Darkness rising brought pretty small content additions.  I'll agree with you that a UI overhaul could have helped with the release of Catacombs, but I imagine that the content, class, and graphics upgrades were probably quite an investment given the small playerbase they were hoping to buy the expansion. 

I'm agree that the game could use a UI upgrade. I'm just saying that this late in the game they must have figured that it would yield a low return on investment.   

So why the hell even with this very last patch they introduced brand new /commands completely unsupported in the UI or through more accessible modes?

The mistakes are still going on today.

They aren't mistakes.

Mythic has always been about functionality > style.  I'm no programmer,  but I'd imagine that it ties down orders of magnitude less resources to skip over fancy icons, animations, etc etc and slap in a new slash command, which the user base is familiar with and understands,  and 95% of can turn into a macro button in less than 5 seconds.

Which means development resources can hit the next trouble area.

And, to be blunt,  the player base doesn't care.  They bitch about outdated graphics/loot tables a hell of alot more than that.

I'm also a continued DAoC subscriber,  though on a month or two vacation now.  What server you on Nebu?

Currently playing on Alb - Gareth. Since the release of the classic servers I can't even imagine ever going back to ToA and the grind from hell.

Are you kidding?  A UI upgrade alone would be worth an expansion pack( doubling as a standalone complete install for new accounts).

Next patch is going to make things really, really interesting.

I'm tempted to reroll some bg toons to take through rr4 in Leir;  and if these ToA changes go live,  will make life a helll of alot easier.

Sigh,  wish my shade and vamp weren't lvl 49.....   May have to roll up a light chanter or a bainshee and make life hell for people.

Edit:  I'm on Hib/Pel,  and been there since Feb after release.  What server cluster your old toons on Nebu?

Played Hib-Pel from realease to 3 months in (like Dec) then moved to Hib-Guin.  I have 50's on Pel, Guin, Gawaine, Lance, Andred (now gone), Nimue, Igraine, and Gareth.  I'm pretty much a server nomad.  When the rvr got dead on one server, I rerolled to a different realm/server and went at it again.  I'd say the servers I played the longest on were Nimue-Hib, Igraine-Mid, and Gareth-Alb.

If you're thinking about playing on Gareth, feel free to send me a PM here.  I'll help what little I'm able. 

I'll ignore the discussion about the UI because frankly a) you're right, /commands are an outdated and arcane construct and b) it's not going to change in this game so either deal or don't.

With the darkness rising exp-pac i've noticed some significant upgrades to the visuals in the game. One of the things i'm enjoying about DAoC after WoW is the variety in classes that i encounter in the BG's. Spell effects, armour and other tell tale signs are key to me figuring out what capabilities my opponent has, as opposed to knowing which of the 8 generic classes they belong to. That said, it pales in comparison to WoW in terms of environments and atmosphere, particularly in PvE sessions. It's *still* DAoC. But it's better.

I will say that Darkness Falls and the reworked Catacomb dungeons look very good now, still in the DAoC art style but with new shiny capabilities. More importantly though on both my 50's on a ToA server and my newbies on a classic the framerate is much improved even in large siege situations. Now i have a much improved PC from the last time i played, so i expect better performance, but the graphics are significantly better and the framerate is equally improved. I'm happy about that aspect. I still think that the game has some decisions to make in terms of recapturing players - the PvP/RvR is IMO better than any of it's competitors (small caveat for the travesty that is Shadowbane - how i love thee but you broke my heart and i'll never trust you again) but i am undecided if i'll resub after my 30 days.

The Net Result though as far as i can see is that if you liked the DAoC RvR system and can stomache the thought of levelling a character to 15 to get to the 15-19 BG it's worth coming back to check out, provided you're willing to spring for Darkness Rising and the included Catacombs expansion. It has many of the problems it always did but they've been allieviated to the point that they're bearable and on Gareth at least the RvR is constant, fun and available right from level 5.

EDITS: Spllening

A good UI is always functional.  There's a reason the world as a whole went from command line interfaces to GUI style ones.  The thing is, having /commands doesn't make your product MORE functional, it just makes it more cryptic for the masses.  It's alienating.


I have a hard time believing that having a single, simple icon for a command is orders of magnitude more difficult.  Hell, even in 2001 adding an icon to an existing application is something a single developer could do with ease.


To be blunt, it's impossible to tell without some real investigation.  I know that amongst every ex-DAOC player friend of mine, UI is HIGH on the list why they don't play it, and instead play games that are more professional.  A poor UI is the software equivalent to broken window theory.  If the developer cares so little about my play experience with the little things that require such a small amount of effort to improve, what does that tell me about how serious they'll take the big things?

I take it it's the same reason people went from textbooks to comic books?

First: Icons are hardly ever intuitive. People learn them just like they learn textual commands. In WoW, do you intuitively see which leaf-icon is instant heal and which is heal over time? What aspect of the arrow in a box Windows adds to an icon says "this is a shortcut"? Icons should be simple and distinct, icons in MMORPGs are largely different blotches of color.

Second: Desktop as a metaphor only works for desk-oriented people (clerks and salarymen). People in their homes aren't desk oriented. Which is why e.g. Bob would have worked better for them. But Bob is dead and buried. The world went to GUIs because the text option disappeared.

Third: GUIs are strait-jackets. In most GUIs you cannot chain commands together to form more complex tasks out of the components. That is piece of cake in text interfaces. So they end up as less functional than text interfaces, because for every combination of three apps you need to make a distinct app - or make a script full of the text commands of the CLI.

Fourth: Don't pretend a MMOG is more than a fancy text chat client with a nice backdrop. Practically the only exception to this rule is ToonTown.

Not sure what this has to do with what I was saying.  The USE of icons(buttons) are far more intuitive than typing commands.  What does that icon do?  Press it and find out.  What's the text command to perform a given action?  I suppose I could try typing variations of the command until I get it right. 


Nonsense.   You're going to tell me that the average person is going to be more skilled at memorizing text commands as opposed to being presented with a visual display that can be manipulated by simple actions?   


What THIS has to do with activating character abilities is beyond me.  Yes, GUI interfaces cannot always perform complex tasks as efficiently as text based ones.  Of course, since I was never talking about complex actions, I'm not sure why you even brought this point up.

I haven't read everything here, but all I know is: I had more fun using 2 buttons on a Nintendo controller and the most minimalist UI's than I ever have had with any keyboard+mouse+mmo ui + /command combo thus far.

There shouldn't be the need for so much action done through either /commands OR icons/hotkeys. Actions should be more fluid than that, requiring a button/control combo at the most, with corresponding icons hidden from the main screen. The only thing that seems to behave this way in most mmo's is  1) Movement/WASD   or   2) Jumping/Spacebar (though some games are so crappy as to not even have jumping.....wtf).

But anyways, it's not the interface that's the real problem. It's the games. They have crappy interfaces because they are crappy games.

You're so quick to write off all these games as crap? These games are not complete crap. Some parts are very crappy and in DAoC's case it is the /commands and the PVE.

Now, now...

You can say a lot of things, but you can't say that I'm "quick" to write them off.

I did my time.

Icons are memory placeholders. We have now tooltips so that we can quickly relearn an association. Once the association is made you don't need anymore to work with it. You just need to remember the placeholder.


The point is that text command required you to know they exist. If you don't read the patch notes you cannot even be aware that a new command is available. The UI has both the purpose to ease the use (so that it doesn't get in the way) and organize.

Text is never organized, it must be already in your head. You aren't interacting with an object, you are executing.

Right now, yes. For both technical and design limits. This is why so many players prefer the more direct experience of a FPS or other games not so much UI-heavy.

My model of a design masterpiece and something to port to the mmorpg is "God of War".

Checkboxes and drop down menus can do that. The point is, once again, about having the possibilities organized and *visible*. So you are aware they exist and aware of their proper use.

That's also true. The successful games of tomorrow will be those with as less UI as possible and where the accessibility is way improved.

You should feel immersed right in the scene you see, instead of learning symbolic interfaces (both text and iconic).

The UI is a transition. These words start as digital (text) because they are symbolic for their nature, then we transition through the analogic (iconic) because it's something we can relate to better.

And finally we'll reproduce worlds as they are, directly visual. This process will also require new controls (evolutions of Joypads, etc..).

Okay,  without getting into Sirbruce levels of nested quotations:

1. Functionality vs. style:  

Most of the used slash commands originated over the years as a "quick and easy" fix thrown into patches.  Mythic has tended to throw out new abilities/mechanics/whatever regularly and at short intervals,  instead of, say, an SWG style "real big fix" once in a while.  Decentralized game evolution.

Hrose as well as others here have noted that this has led to increasing layers of complexity over the years,  without that much unified theme or simplification.  Of course, it also meant that the whole system didn't get fucked by a wild hair the lead dev at the time had....  (Counting ToA as half a fuck up.)

Slash commands aren't really used that much,  except for the dreaded /use1 and /use2 from artifact item abilities.  And you can turn that into a button macro in about 10 seconds.  /release <location> is kind of a fucking pain.


2.  Popular player opinion on the slash commands/lack of GUI:

Yes, it's obnoxious to get used to.  People don't love it.  From playing the game and listening to /as or rvr chatter,  as well as browsing the pools of idiocy that are the popular DAoC message boards,  it isn't high on the list of complaints.

Class balance, realm balance, class balance, class balance,  graphics, gameplay issues (whatever the hot new minor bug is;  line of sight is popular),  RADAR!11!!, and CSRs are all popular targets.  Interface is mostly a new player complaint,  but behind the "I have no one to group with" complaint.


3. I agree,  an unified and updated GUI that was effective without losing any of the versatility would be great.  The problem is that you would have to adopt a system that could accomadate hundreds or thousands of options,  and sell the player base on the change.  Look at some of the questionable GUIs rpgs have implemented over the years.  

There are still people on this site that won't touch Temple of Elemental Evil because they thing the radial GUI thing is the devil,  even if it's a fun hack 'n slash style rpg.

Why devote that much effort and work in a system the player base is largely ambivalent or content with?  

More new DAoC patch notes.  More tank fixes.  RPs for realm beneficial activites (repairing and tearing down keeps), RPs for heals and mezz/stun,  a portion of the RPs for killing a pet (i.e. necromancers).  More artifact and quest changes.

http://www.camelotherald.com/more/2274.shtml

Yeah, but it's also rather hard to figure out the actual impact of these changes on the practice.

Many of the changes to the RPs are merely technical and do not add anything to the gameplay. Nor they leverage the actual warfare around keeps Vs 8vs8 ganking. So failing completely the goal, imho. ("implementing several new systems that will help to focus the players on larger RvR contributions to the realm, instead of small scale PvP")

I also don't like the "autoloot" option because I think looting is a fun mechanic and shouldn't be automatized. It just needed a better interface instead of requiring tenths of irritating mouse clicks that often aren't even registered. (my idea was here (http://www.cesspit.net/drupal/node/859), which isn't so different from WoW)

Other changes are obscure. for example:
"- Dead players will now continue to retain and receive their realm point credit on targets until they release. This will work for solo players as well as grouped players in terms of continuing to contribute their share to the kill if a target is being attacked by another non grouped player as well."

What does it means exactly? That nothing at all changes from before or that dead players now receive full RPs even while dead?

And what are the design reasons and thoughts behind this (and the other change to the calculations)?

All the new changes to the classes look minor, despite the players are being loud.

My impression is that there's less meat than how it appears at first glance.

I'm also puzzled at this:
"- A number of petitioners have come to the Throne Room in hopes that an audience with their ruler will help address their concerns. While waiting for their petition to be heard, they may ask level 50 players to help them solve their problems or prepare for their audiences."

Level 50? So what exactly will be the reward of this task if not exp? Maybe for the CL exp?

Late edit: Also notice how the new "autoloot" feture arrives in the form of yet-another-slash-command.

As I said early on this thread the bad habit is well alive today. Even more than before.

I direct this question at Lum. This is the most feedback I've ever seen from an actual Mythic employee and it got me excited to post here.

I hope you will forgive that this is just a bit off topic. I was very excited to read about the Classic servers and it got me thinking about something I heard mentioned long ago. There was speculation that DAOC was originally built with the intent that you could invade your enemies border keeps and gain access to the protected lands beyond. I was curious if any thought has gone into the possibility of having a Hard Core server where it is possible (though far from easy) for a large group to lay siege to the border keeps. The thing I enjoyed about Ultima Online and now World of Warcraft PvP is that it happens while I level. I know many people are frustrated when the two cross paths, but I know that many of my friends and I find this to be the most exciting form of play.

I know this would have been more easily accomplished with old frontiers where the enemy frontier was part of the same zone as their protected lands. I'm not sure if its possible now for an enemy realm to zone into a differen't realms home lands.

Note that @Lum posts will tend to cause me to clam up faster than a shell. Mainly because my role with DAOC is that of an implementor, not a designer. I can't explain why things are the way they are, just explain how they work (or don't).


When DAOC was in beta, that was in fact how the frontiers worked, and if you managed to power your way past the frontier keeps, you could lay waste to the newbie zones. This was changed before the game shipped, because, honestly, it's not that fun for the new player to be ganked by someone he has no hope of fighting back against.

We've taken polls several times recently, and "Home Invasion" servers (such as you describe) never rank that highly on the results.  We do have an open PVP server where you can be killed repeatedly while levelling, though, if that's what you're looking for.

Thanks for the feedback. I've played the PvP servers, and they were pretty fun. But the siege warfare is what I really enjoyed for RvR and I figured "Home Invasion" would give people the incentive to participate in the siege part of the game more regularly.  :-D

Oh well, I will face the rest of my meager existance with this shattered dream.

Home invasion servers wouldn't work right now in DAoC for two reasons:
1- There aren't packaged shared zones as in WoW where all factions go around a set level range. So the invasion would be mostly about griefing and distrupting gameplay as Lum pointed.
2- The great majority of PvE now happens in closed instances, so no point about roaming around an empty world.

The only possibility would be about opening high level zones and share them. I think there's something vaguely similar in ToA.

But then I just wish they could make DF relevant again. Because even after the recent overhaul I still see noone going in there.

One of the biggest problems in DAoC right now is the itemization. But it's not something simple to figure out as there are other parts giving problems (crafters, PvE and PvP all clashing together for opposite needs).

Point of order regarding slash commands in daoc.

You don't need a single one to play the core fighting and looting game. Ever.

The only things I can remember that weren't on buttons when I left were things like guild management, repairs, certain navigational tech, animated emotes, some keep management commands etc. This isn't stuff you will be doing until you know your way around.


As for home invasion servers, the lack of chokepoints to fall back to inside a realm combined with the positioning of the newbie zones right by the frontier gates make them a silly idea. At least in current daoc.

If, for example, someone were to make another fantasy based RvR game, perhaps based on a popular tabletop gaming franchise, it wouldn't be totally crazy for them to put the high level hunting/leveling/raiding zone next to the frontier gate, and then design the game for realm invasions at least into that high level area.

You mean kind of like how Darkness Falls used to be?  PoC has some elements of this as well as the ML 10 area.  All are PvP contestible zones.  They just don't have any real ingame significance and drop loot that isn't necessisarily the best in game.  All the home invasion idea brings to the table is the ability for high level characters to run around and gank gray newbies.  Considering the current issues with realm balance, a home invasion server would just be a nightmare scenario for those servers/clusters where one realm already dominates.

/disembark /use /use2 /release /stick /face are just a few.

Plus the new looting commands they added with this patch.

All of the commands you have given are easily keybound or affixed to a macro that may be executed by a single button/key. If I wanted to, I could play DAoC with only the arrow keys and the push of hotkeys or buttons.  I will agree that the learning curve is steeper than current mmogs, but this does not mean that these options don't exist.  There are also a number of very good player-made UI's that make in-game functions much more user friendly.

As Nebu stated.

/release is the only command you NEED for the day to day game.  /stick and /use make things easier,  and are default bound to keyboard so you never need to type them.  You can change your keyboard setup either through the options menu,  or in game by using /keyboard.

/disembark.....   I thought that was only used on the ships to enemy frontiers,  or have they changed that?

Obviously,  it's nice to have dual functionality.  Like, to disband from a group,  you can either go to the group window or type /disband.  The aforementioned options menu or /keyboard is another good example. 

Again,  my concern would be implementing a UI that is more intuitive and less immersion breaking than a series of nested popup windows.

I fucking hate popup menus in MMOs.

Perhaps my thoughts on what the realm invasion server would be are different than everyone elses. Its not supposed to be something that happens every day. Taking a border keep should be the hardest thing to accomplish in the game. It should take over a hundred well organized players with a lot of siege. Its ok that the newbie lands are near by. The ability to ravage the friendly country side would be a big motivation for a lot of players to participate.

I didn't see this as something that would happen a lot. But it would provide a fun PvP distraction on occassion. Make the keep near impossible to take so that the effort justifies the reward. But make it very easy for the home realm to retake it. Or better yet don't make it capturable. Just make it so that once all the guards are killed that they will respawn within a certain time limit.

The only real problem would be gankers that log out inside the friendly lands with intent to come back and kill grays with no defense. But that can be solved by sending all players back to their bind point if they log in while the border keep is not under their realm's control.

Anyway, it doesn't sound like much of the player base thinks it would be a fun idea. And it seems like people are quitting left and right. I was going to get the game the other day but didn't bother since everyone made it sound like a ghost town with the instances and such. Its too bad really. DAOC was the most fun I ever had in a MMORPG after UO.