What went wrong.

[WindupAtheist]

I made me something to post every time anyone asks what went wrong with any game!



 

[UnSub]

Thing is, Sony couldn't make EQ 2.0 and nor can mythic make DAOC 2.0

Face it, once blizzard announces their new mmo is world pvp oriented they will be making your robot pvp jesus.

Has there been a MMO studio yet who's second title is actually better than its first?

This is a serious question.

[eldaec]

EQ2 is better than EQ. Though you could argue they are different studios.

It just had a shitty launch (like EQ). People only ignore it because WoW is exactly the same game with more polish.

I'd need to find a chart I'm too lazy to look for, but I don't actually think the RVR in DAoC was even at its best when DAoC had the numbers that made it 2/3 of EQ1. RVR had to continue improving through all subsequent launches from CoX through SWG and beyond while it shed numbers to those titles in the wake of EQ1 doing nothing but growing through 2003.

EQ was flat at 400-450k subs from 2001-2004.

DAoC was flat at 200-250k subs from the beginning of 2002 to mid-04.

Both started to decline at the same point in mid 2004 in the wake of the EQ2/CoX generation, and both declined at about the same rate.

It is true to say that the best RvR design didn't kick in until mid 2004 with the launch of New Frontiers, but by that time ToA had already poisoned the game.

[Fordel]

DaoC might have had a stronger showing, if they didn't nerf XP gain near release. I recall many people basically being duped by the Beta or the first week or so, then having all the XP/Leveling changed for the worse, with everyone slowing to a crawl and people being heavily penalized for grouping with anyone that wasn't in their exact level range. Details are sketchy, was so long ago 

The other thing that constantly held DaoC back, was this utter insistence on trying to get everyone to PvE. Not just the people who wanted too, but *everyone*. A lot of effort was funneled into the PvE game, where the PvP got life support attention only. It wasn't till NewFrontiers that truly new and improved systems were being put in place to fix the flaws. But as Eldaec said, it was already too late.




I can start ranting about the "style review" again if we want 

[Venkman]

That.

And you'd think after all this time that it'd be axiom to not do a near-launch huge XP nerf.

So the fact that people were willing to grind through shitty PvE proves RvR isn't mass market?   Doesn't that just mean RvR is awesome enough that people will go through shit to get to it?  Surely no one in DAOC was happy about it.

Correct. Not anywhere near a mass market number of them. Precisely because of this. In that order

That is my reasoning. I think this is more specific to the western world though.

[Fordel]

Thing is, Sony couldn't make EQ 2.0 and nor can mythic make DAOC 2.0

Face it, once blizzard announces their new mmo is world pvp oriented they will be making your robot pvp jesus.

Has there been a MMO studio yet who's second title is actually better than its first?

This is a serious question.

Lineage 2 is better then Lineage... I think?

The second has way more up skirt shots of blue skinned elves, so I think that makes it better!

[UnSub]

It is true to say that the best RvR design didn't kick in until mid 2004 with the launch of New Frontiers, but by that time ToA had already poisoned the game.

What made New Frontiers the best of DAoC's RvR design?

[FellintoOblivion]

Well it's been over a month and by all accounts it looks like people have been jumping ship left and right once 'teh shiny' wore off.

Now the question is, what happened? There's at least three threads that have all spiraled off into this land so let's try and consolidate.

Specifically not what's bad about the game but what happened, or could have happened to change the outcome?

My personal thought is the beta is where it all started. Testing by teir, keeping things very hush, it led to an isolationist development, poorly implement(but good) ideas and a confused vision.

Number one reason - Too many servers, not enough people.

This.

+ They should have named all the head start servers "Server 1, Server 2" etc. and then gone back and renamed them later. Would have prevented the masses from rolling on the servers with 'cool' names leading to stupid server queues followed by ninja server cap raises that came exactly as people became fed up enough to stop playing.

[khaine]

Agreed with too many servers being #1 problem , I've never seen a game depend more on healthy populations than tihs one , for me at least

In EQ or WoW even if it was a dead server/zone/area there was at least remotely interesting and/or challening PVE to do , but in WAR the zero social aggro, crap xps for anything PVE related ,  and severe lack of mob variety makes PVE a non option for me

Last night while I was downloading WoW on another computer , I played my Tier 4 BW for 3-4 hours and Serpents Passage popped 4 times , I saw two enemy players total in open rvr across 6 Tier 4 zones , and a few Tier 3 ones even ,

Combined with zero chat , fewer guild members each night online , it's just suddenly hit that wall of , this is not really all that fun anymore , why bother

[eldaec]

It is true to say that the best RvR design didn't kick in until mid 2004 with the launch of New Frontiers, but by that time ToA had already poisoned the game.

What made New Frontiers the best of DAoC's RvR design?

It tweaked the design to make it easier and quicker to find fights (with the battle map and teleport supply line system), and encouraged tower/keep battles over mindless 8v8 emain roaming. It also made relic raids a little more involved and less dependent on alarm clocks.


Of course every subsequent change made pandered to 8v8.

[Venkman]

Wait, DAoC started pandering to 8x8? 

[Pringles]

Fuck WAR.

The only sad thing I have to say about this is that people are going to say PVPers are what ruined WAR, ultimately it was the developers indecisiveness on who they wanted to support that led to its current problems.

Yes, my grammar sucks, and I'm new here.  Sup.

[schild]

Serious Question(s):

Why was your first post so short and on point and your second post so long and dramatic. Aren't we like 4 days past drama? Have you even read these threads?

[Pringles]

Better? 

[lariac]

So I did a 12 hour marathon today running keep takes and being a longtime DAOC rvr guy, here are the things I like and don't like about the ORVR....

In DAOC, you can repair doors. I haven't been able to figure out if you can in WAR. Some of the best times in keep defense was fixing a door while the enemy (for me it was Albs and Hibs) were working on the inner keep door. Then it was just getting on top of the parapat and pretty much like shooting fish in a barrel.

Siege weapons. I really like the whole raming requires 4 people to operate each trying to maximize the hit. Totally awesome. Only drawback is that you can only setup one ram. DAOC, love setting up like 4 on a keep door and watching that door go down like a cheap hooker. On the other hand, I don't understand the point of the catapults and ballistas other than taking out enemy catapults and ballistas on the keeps but you can have you range folks do that as well pretty quickly. If the cats and ballistas were for killing other players, good luck with that it was really more pyschological when I set them up. They feared them but they really didn't need too. Oil rocks.

BOs - Really like the BOs however I think that they should work the same way keeps worked with relics in DAOC. The more keeps you take the less guards you had at the relic keeps. BOs should work this way in that if we spend the time to get the BOs in the area, there should be a skeleton crew at the keep with maybe the keep lord and one bodyguard on the second level with minimal troops on the outside. This way if a raid does all the BOs, they should be able to take the keep easily even if a group shows up to defend (today 24 of us were getting pwned by 5 folks in a keep because it was just too hard to recover from trying to take the lord, his 5 bodyguards, other guard respawns and these order guys respawning quickly due to war camp being closer than ours).

Notification - In DAOC, you were notified when keeps were under attack. I don't understand why it isn't more prevelant in WAR. Especially the BOs. You can't even view them unless you in the actual zone so you can't see if the other side is making a move in that zone or whatnot. Also, notification should be relevent. I don't know how many times today I looked at the maps, saw a keep under attack, spend the time to fly there, then ride, then get there and nothing is going on; nobody is around. Doors are fine. Very frustrating.

Respawns - I mentioned this above, but some of the warcamps are really close to warkeeps while others are not. Take a look at Badlands, I think Order is almost quarter the distance to the keep than Destruction is. This really smacks as unfair.

Scenerios - agree with whats been mentioned before; However, I haven't figured out the renown point scoring. Sometimes I think it is very random. Most of my guild wonders how I average +700 renown every scenerio with only doing >11,000 in healing. I tell them I have no fucking clue.

As mentioned before, it would be cool if guilds could claim keeps. but rather than use gold, maybe use GRPs (DAOC way) or some other way to pay for the upkeep. Also make keeps claimable right off the bat so even low level guilds feel like they are making a difference in the overall war. Guilds will outlevel the keep and move on to the next.

Guild emblems was a huge thing in DAOC and really don't understand why they didn't carry it over in the same way. That should be something that guildies should be able to wear early and be proud of.

Agree with the islands, gear and other things mentioned here.

Outside of RVR and just to make a shoutout for the Shaman class, why the fuck does my AOE knockback knock myself back as well? Also why does it take me 6 secs to rez somebody? Two things that are totally bullshit in my book.

Edit: 24 not 36

[Meldrath]

- On a similar note, mobs don't pull in groups, likely because players lack group-mitigation abilities (root, mez, fear). As frustrating as these abilities are when used against you in PvP, their absence makes PvE less tactically interesting.

Somebody played lotro too, lol. I agree with just about everything said here, and I hope god to honestly that the transfers are incoming to higher populated servers and not the reverse. If they are the reverse, I belive that alot of people will hang up their hats and call it quits.

[ashrik]

It's an interesting question, that's for sure.

We can all say that time spent not in control of our characters (feared, mez'd, rooted) is not fun.

But does the lack of these things make the game less strategic?

Does that lack of strategy, if it exists, make the game less fun?

What is more fun? A game without strategy or a game without roots and shit?

I'm really starting to hate how appealing WoW is looking to me. What the fuck

[Azazel]

EQ2 is better than EQ. Though you could argue they are different studios.

It just had a shitty launch (like EQ). People only ignore it because WoW is exactly the same game with more polish.

I haven't played EQ2 since launch, but it was shittastic, ugly as fuck and unplayable for a solo player at launch. Nothing like WoW with more polish at that stage, anyway.

[Simond]

SOE got a good live team for EQ2, who spent the better part of two years removing as much of the original "working as designed" suck as they could get away with.

[Venkman]

EQ2 is better than EQ. Though you could argue they are different studios.

It just had a shitty launch (like EQ). People only ignore it because WoW is exactly the same game with more polish.

It took them a bit over a year to release the EQ2 they should have launched with, and the one that would have done much better for them. Archetypes/sub-classes bite without /level, locked encounters, call for help, being actually kinda ugly, all that noise was so contrived it was in no way a "better" EQ1 at launch. It was a hackneyed sibling of it at best.

Pub 19 changed much of that and now EQ2 is better than EQ1, and imho one of the better MMOs out there in general. Hmm, sorta like the RvR everyone talks about from DAoC vs the RvR that was in at launch...

[Numtini]

They really really turned EQ2 around, it's arguably the best game out there right now. Unfortunately, it also shows the issue of momentum. While its a great game, it has never really been able to win back anything like serious numbers and even among people who play and love it, it still seems to be considered a "playing while waiting for..." game.

[Righ]

Face it, once blizzard announces their new mmo is world pvp oriented they will be making your robot pvp jesus.

Probably not. But they will probably get closer to the lowest common denominator before Tigole fucks it all up.

[Gurney]

I have a question that has been nagging me.  And I am not a former DAOC player so this isn't one of those the old game is always better things.

The easiest thing for Mythic would have been to completely copy the RvR mechanics of DAOC.  Yet they did not even though many people, even people who quit DAOC, say those mechanics were good.  Why is this?  Why did they throw away what works?

The BFO seem really half ass to me.  And victory points/ zone control seem kind of weak and currently insane.  It is kind of mind boggling that they threw out what works and replaced with weak mechanics.  It really should be obvious the zone mechanics are quite weak, IMO.

My theory is they purposely "dumbed it down" under the misapprehension that most WoW players are dumb and in the process just strung some things together that don't do much.  This happens a lot with computer scientists, a lot of things they make that they think are simple to use are barely comprehensible and hard to use to normal people.  Also I think they wanted to make things like BFO very "casual friendly" but in the process just made them barely important and also misunderstood that casual for PvP means getting into the action quickly and not getting utterly smashed in 5 seconds not winning some prize (other than xp and renown and therefore gear) once every 5 minutes.   I think they misunderstand that casual PvPers want to have a quick personal impact and do not really expect to take a keep or even a BFO if they only have 15 minutes to play.  You could do this in Planetside. 

So in other words BFO exist they way they are so that a "casual" can go into a RvR zone join a open party take two BFO in 10 minutes and get two whole carrots (Yay!) in 10 minutes.  But the consequences of this are that BFOs get taken quickly and cheaply and then people leave and they have no real value and do nothing to encourage RvR.  A casual PvPer in WAR would much rather be able to log in join an open party or warband and run to a fight then run some weak-ass BFO that dole out carrots.  If BFO actually inspired more fighting and more  drawn out fights they would attract more casual PvPers not less IMO.  Because PvPers want action and they want that action to reward them.  The BFO are just alternating renown farms.

[Venkman]

They wanted to make RvR more casual. They just didn't implement all of the required features to make it so because when it came down to prioritizing stuff, they deprioritized the wrong things. And now they seem to either be incorrectly assessing the outcome (typical MMO stuff), or specifically focusing on the players they have now (typical Mythic practice).

[Goreschach]

In DAOC, you can repair doors. I haven't been able to figure out if you can in WAR. Some of the best times in keep defense was fixing a door while the enemy (for me it was Albs and Hibs) were working on the inner keep door. Then it was just getting on top of the parapat and pretty much like shooting fish in a barrel.

That kind of strenuous physical labor could only be performed by a level 40 tank.

Really.

[Warskull]

DaoC might have had a stronger showing, if they didn't nerf XP gain near release. I recall many people basically being duped by the Beta or the first week or so, then having all the XP/Leveling changed for the worse, with everyone slowing to a crawl and people being heavily penalized for grouping with anyone that wasn't in their exact level range. Details are sketchy, was so long ago 

The other thing that constantly held DaoC back, was this utter insistence on trying to get everyone to PvE. Not just the people who wanted too, but *everyone*. A lot of effort was funneled into the PvE game, where the PvP got life support attention only. It wasn't till NewFrontiers that truly new and improved systems were being put in place to fix the flaws. But as Eldaec said, it was already too late.

Replace "DAoC" with WAR and that sounds a lot like this launch.  Beta showcased a quick leveling, fun T1/T2, launch revealed a huge grindfest T3/T4 which is causing lots of players to reroll and go back to T1/T2 to actually play the game or quit.  Your second statement is looking ominously true too.

Has there been a MMO studio yet who's second title is actually better than its first?

This is a serious question.

Blizzard is pretty fiercely protective of their name and IP.  They realize that the way they have maintained their image so far gives them the liberty to shit in a box and have it sell millions if they wanted.  They the are most likely company to cut their loses on a second MMO that is turning out bad.   They make enough money from WoW that they can afford to.  It makes more sense to milk WoW for a longer period of time and take their time with their next MMO.

[waylander]

DAOC RVR seems more fun and better thought out than War RVR at this point. The PVE in this game is like going back in time to 2003. You can't PL your friends who fall behind, your exp is maximized by solo grinding than by actually grouping up, you can't even get a guild cloak with your emblem until guild level 20 (lol?), the PQ loot roll system is horrible, and you can't progress without the other side showing up to fight. At least in DAOC you could cap relics, towers, hell even walls could be destroyed in RVR.

They nerfed the rifts mechanic for magus/engineers but they can still pull in 9 people per time. Even more fun are teams that run multiple magus specs and you are constantly pulled from one magus to the next, knocked down by Marauders, and aoe nuked to death before you can do anything.  Destruction is easymode PVP, and on the Order side people dislike the White Lion (Marauder counter), Archmage (Shaman counter), and Engineer (Magus counter).

Even though Order guilds on our server lead in guild rankings and renown we get stopped cold due to the zone control issues, destruction boycotting, unpopular classes that could help overall pvp balance, and several other of the same issues we have repeated over and over here. There isn't another game out before 2010 that is PVP focused so we're going to stick it out but if AOC or another game provides more action then War could lose a lot of people.

[Lakov_Sanite]

[
Blizzard is pretty fiercely protective of their name and IP.  They realize that the way they have maintained their image so far gives them the liberty to shit in a box and have it sell millions if they wanted.  They the are most likely company to cut their loses on a second MMO that is turning out bad.   They make enough money from WoW that they can afford to.  It makes more sense to milk WoW for a longer period of time and take their time with their next MMO.

It's because wow is so popular that I don't see blizzard in a rush to make a sub par mmo, they clearly have one in the works and I bet it's already a lot more finished than we think it is.  Diablo 3 is an excellent example. They could have just repackaged D2 and sold millions but they are making another quality game in the same vein but with quite a few new features and improvements.

Now I'm not going to keep fellating blizzard but they've at least shown that while they do print money hats they don't rest too much on their laurels.

Edit for Righ: Wow may appeal to the dreaded mass-market diku crowd that is so vilified but blizzard makes a lot of games that are not wow, that are also very popular and tigole doesn't work on those games. If all blizzard ever did was wow, then I would agree as to not having much faith in their second product being any different but thus far they've shown to me that can effectively produce quality products in other genre's so while they may make wow 2.0 I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt.

[Aez]

And to the graveyard it goes.  I SO love the speed at which they're getting buried.

No fucking around.  BAM! - to the back of the head.  Who's next?   

[EWSpider]

DAOC RVR seems more fun and better thought out than War RVR at this point.

Everything about DAoC is better in my opinion.  It completely baffles me to be honest.  DAoC's combat system is one of the best I've seen with the exception of a few frustrating mechanics (one could argue the interrupt system licks donkey balls).  How does DAoC have such an awesome system while's WAR combat system is complete ass?  Don't get me wrong, I've still managed to have fun in WAR and continue to do so, but DAoC's combat system is better in every way.  It's much more responsive and visceral.  I absolutely love the animations and their variety.  When I get into melee range and start laying the hurt on someone combat just flows and is satisfying and enjoyable.  When I get into melee range in WAR I'm just mashing buttons and fighting with the system to try to kill the other guy.  I don't feel any satisfaction when I lay a big hit on someone.  Everything is just so sluggish and disconnected and what few animations there are, are uninspired drek.  If Mythic had just taken DAoC's system and maybe replaced how casting and interrupts work they would have had a real winner.

At any rate, I just hope Mark Jacobs removes the cockblock on Origins and let's the DAoC team release DAoC 1.5.

[Nebu]

Interrupts were one of the better aspects of DAoC.  They served the purpose of keeping casters in check with melee while allowing non-dps classes to server a crucial role in pvp (cc + interrupts).  If you played a caster/healer in DAoC, you learned quickly what the ranges of your enemies were and how to properly position yourself to avoid interrupts.  If you got interrupted a lot, you weren't doing something right.  Caster dps was insane when played by a solid player.  The difference being that you had to be conscious of not only range to an enemy, positioning, but also had to be constantly panning to be effective. 

Yet another reason why DAoC >>> WAR.  Subtleties in combat.  Sandbox-like pvp.  Solo, 8v8, zergvzerg all fun and viable.  Damnit... if they had simply fixed the shortcomings of DAoC, this would have been one hell of a game.

[Azazel]

They wanted to make RvR more casual. They just didn't implement all of the required features to make it so because when it came down to prioritizing stuff, they deprioritized the wrong things. And now they seem to either be incorrectly assessing the outcome (typical MMO stuff), or specifically focusing on the players they have now (typical Mythic practice).

Except for the part where they ignore pretty much every one of their players asking for less shitty PVE and more great PVP.

[EWSpider]

Interrupts were/are definitely required within DAoC's current system.  What I meant to say is that it's a very unforgiving system (along with long duration CC) that prevented it from having more mass appeal.  If I were going to redesign the system I'd probably go about it differently (were mass appeal my goal).  Origins, which I consider DAoC 1.5, will/would have retained the interrupt system, and was still something I was/am very much looking forward to.

[lariac]

In DAOC, you can repair doors. I haven't been able to figure out if you can in WAR. Some of the best times in keep defense was fixing a door while the enemy (for me it was Albs and Hibs) were working on the inner keep door. Then it was just getting on top of the parapat and pretty much like shooting fish in a barrel.

That kind of strenuous physical labor could only be performed by a level 40 tank.

Really.

Lvl 50 actually, but the thing was I was usually in a group with a bunch of ranged guys. So they would actually be doing the shooting.

[FellintoOblivion]

[
Blizzard is pretty fiercely protective of their name and IP.  They realize that the way they have maintained their image so far gives them the liberty to shit in a box and have it sell millions if they wanted.  They the are most likely company to cut their loses on a second MMO that is turning out bad.   They make enough money from WoW that they can afford to.  It makes more sense to milk WoW for a longer period of time and take their time with their next MMO.

It's because wow is so popular that I don't see blizzard in a rush to make a sub par mmo, they clearly have one in the works and I bet it's already a lot more finished than we think it is.  Diablo 3 is an excellent example. They could have just repackaged D2 and sold millions but they are making another quality game in the same vein but with quite a few new features and improvements.

Now I'm not going to keep fellating blizzard but they've at least shown that while they do print money hats they don't rest too much on their laurels.

Edit for Righ: Wow may appeal to the dreaded mass-market diku crowd that is so vilified but blizzard makes a lot of games that are not wow, that are also very popular and tigole doesn't work on those games. If all blizzard ever did was wow, then I would agree as to not having much faith in their second product being any different but thus far they've shown to me that can effectively produce quality products in other genre's so while they may make wow 2.0 I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt.

People like to bash Blizzard for making games that make money. I don't get that.

Blizzard impressed me when they shit canned Starcraft: Ghost. They aren't afraid to dump a project that isn't good enough and judging by the success of the games they HAVE released I think they have a pretty good idea what's going to be popular and sell well.