DAOC was my first love. I played it for 4 years, and quit shortly after TOA came out. I would love to see a DAOC2, if it wasn't made by Mythic. After what they did to Warhammer, I'll not buy another Mythic made game ever.

My random thoughts...

DAOC is mostly perfect the way it is. What it does need is a substantial UI overhaul. I mean seriously, tooltips and not having to click special keys to view item properties please. The UI customization was a cool idea, but it didn't go far enough. Look at all the WoW mods out there, some of the most useful, graphically brilliant, stuff out there. So much so that Blizzard sees fit to implement some of the mods themselves (though usually not as good).

My opinion of what killed DAOC was a combination of things.. First, the /level 20/30 bullcrap. (The population was already in a downward spiral by this point but this didn't help) New players couldn't learn from more experienced players because there was no one to group with anymore. The experienced players just went to the capitol city and /leveled thier way to 20 or 30.

Secondly, TOA was a HUGE failure. Raiding is one thing.. Raiding on that scale was just rediculous. Encounters like that needed to be instanced.

Third, was the lack of keeping up with the industry. Mythic plans to put no more money into this game and will ride out the subscriptions until the last person cancels.

I for one absolutely LOVE DAOC, I miss it. I think it has one of the richest set of quests and characters in any game I have ever played. I loved the community (though I despise the VN boards). I loved the idea of RvR, and even participated in it. But honestly, PvE is why I play.. I will always remember the first time I saw a Salisbury giant, or got killed by a purple wisp at level 1 cause I didn't understand the con system yet. The tons of grave markers that littered the landscape.. DAOC was original, and one of the greatest games I've ever had the pleasure of playing. It's just too bad they can't do it again without effing it up.

Originally posted by Garvon3

Originally posted by Polarisation

TOA never killed DAOC, WOW did. Various records of player stats clearly show this. DAOC simply got old.

 

Every time I go back to DAOC to check it out, I always end up quitting not because of the game, rather the old/kludgey UI and movement controls.

 

 

You seem to be the only one that thinks that.

The UI is fully customizable (and has absolutely everything you could ever need, I have no idea what's clunky about the vanilla UI). In fact, it was the first MMO to have this, not WoW. 

And the controls are also completely customizable as well, and more reponsive combat wise than any MMO I've played since (especially LotRO, ugh) 

WoW is not even remotely the same kind of game that DAoC is, and frankly, at launch it didn't do anything better than DAoC did either. 

It's very clear that /level 20 made the population stop increasing, ToA made the veterans leave/become disgruntled, they tried it, they didn't like it. Then New Frontiers launched, and that was the last straw. DAoC has been in a downward spiral since. 

Most people that I know that did leave for WoW just came right back, as they'd been there and done that already. 

Who cares what (stupid) people think? Evidence is what matters.

TOA came out in Oct, 2003. Subs then went up and plateaud (as in - did not go down at all) for over one whole year until WOW came out at the end of 2004, which then caused DAOC's subs to plummet like a stone.

There is zero doubt that WOW killed DAOC. TOA was a tiny contributor at best. Anyone who says different needs to spend more time studying the sub numbers and less time crying about why they personally didn't like TOA. 

DAOC UI and movement mechanics are horrid. You can't bind arbitrary keys/mouse controls to arbitrary actions, base character movement is horrid (even after having buffed the hell out of when WOW came out), character movement lag is so common that using it to your advantage is part of standard gameplay (lag-casting, spiralling).

Originally posted by Angorim

While I completely disagree with your WoW comment as it's wrong in every sense (ToA saw a loss of over half the playerbase almost immediately after it's release - but I was actually playing then so I doubt you were).

No it didn't.  I was playing then as well.

I miss that game so much. I still have it installed on this computer, but no one I know plays anymore. I wish they would really come out with a DOAC 2!

I played DAoC from beta upward through Lab, and while ToA did put a few kinks in the system and cause players to get frustrated, I do not agree that it was the end-all for the game in general. Try to remember what made DAoC so great: The seemless lands for all 3 realms where finding a group could be as a easy as just passing some people by on your way to your camp. And actually getting an open camp through competitiveness with other groups or people; now I know some may not agree with this, but player interaction in PERSON was key, not interaction through global chat.

And what killed all of this? Task Dungeons. Those damned task dungeons killed what made DAoC fun to begin with, which was grouping with some of the nicest people I had met to date in any mmo community. I remember running around Salisbury Plains looking for little fairy camps (at the clumps of trees) and saw a group doing the giants; they let me join and after that I never felt so involved..... Grouping was fun, but it's the conversations we had that made the experience a golden memory for me. Instancing killed the seemless experience, and lets be honest, I didn't and still do not pick up MMO's to solo, it's retarded.

DAoC 2 would sadly only attract mainly the old-timers of MMO's up and foremost. There will be others that will sub for it as well I am sure, but to truly enjoy what the OP suggests as a second DAoC, they would have to make it exactly or pretty damned close to the original game to hit it mainstream. The UI would def have to undergo a facelift, but I am sure that WoW has already set this bar as a necessity for any game to "really" succeed.

Originally posted by Polarisation

Originally posted by Garvon3

Originally posted by Polarisation

TOA never killed DAOC, WOW did. Various records of player stats clearly show this. DAOC simply got old.

 

Every time I go back to DAOC to check it out, I always end up quitting not because of the game, rather the old/kludgey UI and movement controls.

 

 

You seem to be the only one that thinks that.

The UI is fully customizable (and has absolutely everything you could ever need, I have no idea what's clunky about the vanilla UI). In fact, it was the first MMO to have this, not WoW. 

And the controls are also completely customizable as well, and more reponsive combat wise than any MMO I've played since (especially LotRO, ugh) 

WoW is not even remotely the same kind of game that DAoC is, and frankly, at launch it didn't do anything better than DAoC did either. 

It's very clear that /level 20 made the population stop increasing, ToA made the veterans leave/become disgruntled, they tried it, they didn't like it. Then New Frontiers launched, and that was the last straw. DAoC has been in a downward spiral since. 

Most people that I know that did leave for WoW just came right back, as they'd been there and done that already. 

Who cares what (stupid) people think? Evidence is what matters.

 

TOA came out in Oct, 2003. Subs then went up and plateaud (as in - did not go down at all) for over one whole year until WOW came out at the end of 2004, which then caused DAOC's subs to plummet like a stone.

 

DAOC UI and movement mechanics are horrid. You can't bind arbitrary keys/mouse controls to arbitrary actions, base character movement is horrid (even after having buffed the hell out of when WOW came out), character movement lag is so common that using it to your advantage is part of standard gameplay (lag-casting, spiralling).

 

Man, I'm starting to wonder if you ever played DAoC. 

Yes, ToA wasn't a big deal at all, I mean, it's not like Mythic launched classic servers excluding the entire Trials of Atlantis expansion pack due to public outcry, its not like these servers were the most populated for years. 

Know what else launched in late 2004 that most people didn't like? 

New Frontiers. 

Know what New Frontiers emphasized? How unbalanced the game had become with the ToA items. 

Check mate. 

And I still have no idea what's wrong with the UI, its FULLY CUSTOMIZABLE. The ENTIRE thing, not that you even need it, there's nothing WRONG with it. 

As for the controls, funny, DAoC had a long list of control setups, one is the EXACT same setup used for WoW. Guess WoW controls suck too. 

Originally posted by Polarisation

Originally posted by Angorim

While I completely disagree with your WoW comment as it's wrong in every sense (ToA saw a loss of over half the playerbase almost immediately after it's release - but I was actually playing then so I doubt you were).

No it didn't.  I was playing then as well.

I beg to differ.  Perhaps it was an exaggeration on my part about the immediate cancellations but it became increasingly hard to put together any groups for the ToA encounters to the point I gave up trying and ultimately left myself.

Originally posted by Garvon3

I would love a DAoC 2, that returned to its roots. 

 

 

If they just rewound DAoC to the Shrouded Isles days, gave it a new coat of paint, polished up the leveling, added in public quests, tightened up the battlegrounds, removed /map (like it was at launch), removed all the teleporters, putting back in the necklace ceremony, improving upon the naval combat aspect, that'd be sequel worthy. 

 /agree

 

When you were in a good group, you KNEW it. In a decent group, you could of course, pull higher level monsters for more loot and experience, and handle a few of them. 

GREAT groups, you could almost nonstop pull WAVES of purple+++ monsters and kill them with ease. You truly felt unstoppable, because you were mowing these baddies down so quickly, and the exp ran in rivers. 

Group dynamics just have never felt the same in any other MMO I've played since.

 

 

And the combat in that game, it was KINETIC. You had to be right up against your opponent to hit him, none of this, stand 10 feet away and melee the air stuff in LotRO and other modern MMOs. Your sword would actually look like it hit your enemy, the enemy would flinch, or it'd do a block animation. The recoil and animations were good enough that it almost didn't seem auto attack based, especially with the quick reactionary chains. 

I remember lots of people complaining about the /stick command and the need for it made PvP 'less skilled', but its apart of that great combat you mention above.  You knew when you evaded/blocked/parried or were hit.  Its again something I miss in most MMO's today.

 

 

 DAoC supported a healthy balance for those who liked PvE, crafting, AND PvP. Raiding was done as recreational fun usually, not a second job, cause most people were concerned with the frontier, and items gotten from raids weren't game changing, cause you could get comparable items from crafters, the crafted items just didn't glow and sparkle. 

/agrees again

 

 

Just wanted to say that I enjoyed the "What if... DAoC2" article, and I thought Garvon3 made some great mentions on what made DAoC so memorabile for me.

 

daoc 2 rememeber when  ppl said WAR will be daoc2 there you have daoc 2

Great write up!

It's certainly one of the games which is so unique that it feels like it deserves a sequel to redo things properly.

From my point of view, Shrouded Isles is where things were great, Trials of Atlantis turned the game from a hobby into a full time job with artifacts.  Instead of being with your realm in trying to fight the enemy, you were turned into fighting against your own realm just to try and get the artifacts you wanted by camping them.

If they ever did a DAoC2, perhaps they shouldn't go down the entire route of making the game so friendly that anyone could solo quests.  Make the game a group game again and highlight this as a strong point.  Don't do instancing, it doesn't help build communities.  Put the epic quest encounters back near areas where people would be likely to be levelling so they're more likely to come and help you instead of ignore you.

Most important thing - don't do a WAR and reinvent the things which worked well.

Sorry but I can't just ignore the defending of Trials of Atlantis that the article tries to attempt. That was a major factor in the game's downfall. The attempt to try and make the game more like Everquest at the time did not work and was not wanted at all. It made it so those that could spend hours and hours more in the game were at a significant advantage over everyone else. DAoC wasn't a pure PvE game with high level raids. It was a PvPvE game. Even the focus on keeps and outpost weren't bad I felt. The best way to defend a location is with range but once the doors or walls were down melees were front in center. It makes sense. That change I don't think was ever a big problem. It gave everyone something important to do and it didn't stop field battles from what I could tell. ToA deserves a lot of blame as does Mythic for refusing to address it until it was to late and even then they never really did and the damage was done.

There is a reason why when they added the server/cluster that didn't have ToA active on it that it became so popular and became THE server to play on.

Was in the beta for DAoC, it was great, loved it for a time. Expansions channged things... A basic problem with Class/Level based games. I would love a DAoC2, it could be wonderful.

would be great, DAoC was before my time, as far as gaming goes so i would love to play the second one.

Originally posted by Garvon3

Originally posted by aldrinstorm

Originally posted by Lasastard

Not sure if I agree on the whole 'reduce CC' issue.

I think CC was fine the way it was. Having better reflexes (i.e. a good bard, sorc or healer) and paying attention (spread out and quickly take down the CCer) was really important. But CC has already been nerfed since the early days, right? Back then you would stand mezzed for 60 secs if your group sucked and you had the wrong RAs... Then again, that's what made it exciting and challenging, to me anyway.

Each realm had ways of dealing with CC, too (group purge, SoS, a bunch of tanks with det5, etc).

I agree

 

CC MADE the game what it was. It made things count. Sure everyone hated being mezzed, thats why you had realm abilities, to counteract them.

 

CC made the game kind of like chess. People that knew how to play, did well....button mashers..well they died (IE a person mashing MEZZ while i have charge up)

You didn't have to play a tank who would get nuked to death, despite having the highest HP in the game, before purge even went off. Or purge mez just to get stunned. 

The CC combined with the overpowered casters after ToA made tanks extinct in RVR.

----------------------------------------------------

 

I'm sorry, Just reading your posts tells me how you played the game, and it tells me you didn't know squat about playing, anyone who purged Mez as a Tank was a tard.. Simple as that, and I played Tanks the entire time I played that game.

Originally posted by Angorim

Originally posted by Polarisation

Originally posted by Angorim

While I completely disagree with your WoW comment as it's wrong in every sense (ToA saw a loss of over half the playerbase almost immediately after it's release - but I was actually playing then so I doubt you were).

No it didn't.  I was playing then as well.

I beg to differ.  Perhaps it was an exaggeration on my part about the immediate cancellations but it became increasingly hard to put together any groups for the ToA encounters to the point I gave up trying and ultimately left myself.

I'm sorry, but you are wrong.. So wrong its almost scary, Its well noted that the Population increased by about 20k after TOA came out, It was like that for over a YEAR before it went down along with every other MMO did to WoW.

TOA/NF had nothing to do with DAOC's demise, WoW did..

Daoc2 isnt going to happen yet because the first is still going:) and if you think about it if the 2nd came out the 1st would die!!...But what if the 2nd one was bad? there would be no going back to the old 1servers would be closed down due to cost :/....one thing i do hope for (even tho i dont play it any more) is it goes on and on for years to come because it real is the greatest game of all time

I never played DAoC.  But I have read a lot about the concepts and it sounds like it had a good formula.  If they made a DAoC2 I think I would jump all over it.  Hopefully they consider it.

Originally posted by Khalathwyr

I'd have to hold the opposite opinion on the number of classes. I thought it was great. Those people who are going to look for "the class" for RvR are going to do that no matter how many classes and eschew all others. Those people aren't, however, the only people that play the game (I wouldn't say the majority either). Plenty of people pick a class that "speaks to them" and enjoy it, in and out of RvR, even if it isn't the most optimized.

On that note, I'd say keep the classes. As far as the whole idea, if they made this game and didn't wowify/themepark it and instead patterend it after the original, well, I'd be subscribed to an MMO.

I agree completely, the amount of classes is needed in my opinion.  WoW was fine for awhile, but anybody that has played since launch can attest that one of the reason's to get that game in the first place was the fact that more classes and even hero classes were coming,  and that never happened until DK's.   That's an aweful long time with the same few classes, now no matter what WoW does I can never go back until they put in something new to play, and that ain't happening anytime soon. 

One of the things that I loved about DAoC was the variety, the majority of the people that played that game, played the classes they wanted to and didn't care about the 'best of' variety.  Sure you might not get into a goon squad party roaming Emain, but you could still go out there and have fun with your class and help your realm.  The realm pride was 2nd to none, and has never been duplicated in any game since,  Darkness Falls was it,   you wanted DF,  you did what you could to get DF, and you had a blast cleaning out the enemy realm when you got it.   People needed DF, crafters, leveling toon's what have you, best place for xp, best place to delve for mats, great place to get gear that wasn't the best but good enough.

ex-daoc community is the worst mmorpg community. it is a waste of time to please them because you never would.