I pretty much love this game

It would have been a worthwhile article if there were some actual tough questions, instead of the standard softball questions, asked of the people at Mythic. As a result nothing was learned from the article and a golden oppurtunity missed, yet again.

Some examples of some possible non-softball questions to ask.

1) Player base has declined dramatically over the years forcing Mythic to cluster many servers as a result. Other then the classic servers--what other plans does Mythic have to bring former/new players into the game and keep the current player base from leaving?

2) We did some research and spoke to players via the various messages boards. <Note MMORPG does not  talk to the game's player base to get a "feel" for what they the believe are issues within the game> Some of the issues that players say have not been addressed by Mythic are class balance, class spec lines that are subpar for RvR or do not work at all, and RvR balance issues.

What steps does Mythic plan to take to address some of these player concerns?

3) We at MMORPG normally ask only softball questions because we do not want to offend employees from any game company. So with that in mind permit us to ask a softball question. Once the game Warhammer is released does Mythic plan to set a timetable to cancel DAoC ?

Yes, me and my softball questions.

Step back and consider reality for a moment.

1) I asked about the playerbase in Las Vegas. Their answer was simply that it had declined some after WoW and has then been rising slowly ever since. They remain in a happy range. Not exactly news worthy and not shockingly contradicts the assumption in your question.

Making no assumption in a question does not make it softball.

2) You'll note several of our Q&A series we do are actually generated largely from threads on these boards. I also believe the article specifically mentioned that class balance will be an issue (specifically classic sever balance) they are addressing soon.

3) I asked about the the future of DAoC in Vegas, but again the answer was hardly news worthy. What do you expect them to say exactly? For the record, they said they will continue to support DAoC indefinitely and cite their still-running text-muds as proof of this.

For all the problems, issues and flaws this game may have I think it has the best pvp/rvr system I have seen in an online game. I just wanted to say something good about the game

Lepidus, next time you have the chance to ask them some questions really try to consentrate them on things like class balance. I would say right now that is the #1 issue for players, we're happy with the content atm, happy with the mechanics of rvr, happy with all the little goodies mythic gives us, but wishy washy when it comes to class balance.

some of the classes were just left in the dust when they introduced New Frontiers, and the classes from Catacombs are proving to be some of the cheapest ever concieved.

Ask a question like; "We heard some of the players commenting on class balance as there main concern for the game.  Is there any plan to bring up some of the underperforming classes up to par with the others? I do understand that class balance must be a very touchy subject, but any shred of light shed on the subject might help to reinforce an already strong player base."

And if they say something like; "We're planning on working on class balance for classic servers at the moment." Then you should *casually* (key word there to help keep them comfortable) ask; "what about the regular servers?"

if they have no comment so be it, but it would be a good question to ask.

I've talked to them about class balance many times.

It's an eternal thing. Unfortunately, I cannot be an expert in every game and at things like AGC do not have time to do that level of research to ask things like "why are Warlocks too good?" ;)

I appreciate the feedback. I usually do ask about class balance, the reason it doesn't always make the article is because they had nothing huge to say on the topic.

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Originally posted by Lepidus

I've talked to them about class balance many times.

It's an eternal thing. Unfortunately, I cannot be an expert in every game and at things like AGC do not have time to do that level of research to ask things like "why are Warlocks too good?" ;)

I appreciate the feedback. I usually do ask about class balance, the reason it doesn't always make the article is because they had nothing huge to say on the topic.

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"Why are warlocks too good?"

i can prolly answer that for you, i believe the person in charge of Class design for Catacombs (mackey was it?) was also the designer for NF. well he's a total

Very clear however that Mythic once again does NOT take the players concerns into their rationalization of clustering, new ineffective xpansion and nonexistant Mythic employed (not volunteers) customer service. The issue with the imbalanced classes are the MAIN issue with many who have left, thinking of leaving, or will eventually leave. Glossing over the main concern does not make it go away, adding new fluff and goodies does not make it go away, adding a paid xpansion which once completed (done in two days and includes what should have been in the game a long time ago and made an update instead of xpansion) is over does not make it go away, adding goodies to a realm simply becuz no one wants to play there does not make it go away.

 What DAOC DIDNT tell you was they lost quite a few subscribers, not only with the most recent clustering and xpansion but with thier CONTINUED absolute refusal to do a true balance of classes within the game.