A picture is worth a thousand words:

UK/major guilds ----> Spatalos
Spanish ----> Castor
Russian ----> Castor
Romanian ----> Telemachus
Roleplaying ----> Gorgos

p.s. Spatalos is atm most populated server ( based on aionsource polls )

Russians -------> Castor
forums.goha.ru/showthread.php

UK ----> Spatalos ( a lot of old guild from SWG days etc.. )
Spanish ----> Castor
Russian ----> Castor
Romanian ----> Telemachus
Roleplaying ----> Gorgos
 

I am always amazed when someone ask if pvp will be as good as in WoW.
In my opinion WoW PvP is pure crap and whoever say different never played Daoc.

The step in right direction was mad by Age of Conan where PvP mechanics are great (mages not that good),  but reward vs loss is not that good.
Darkfall tried something new too but I found it pretty blend and not that interesting.

As for Aion well cant really say it seems they are going in right direction, with different bonuses while you moving ( parry etc.. ) and abilities that you can do while you move.

Originally posted by Crashloop

If I play the xpac my ranger will go for the animal as a pet I think. extra dps over some fancy riding mount :P

My thoughts exactly :)

Btw Crashloop did you manage to reset your passwords on our site ?

Originally posted by Krewel

Lol, interesting that all of a sudden AoC has sunk so low that 10k subscribers are considered a success for the game. Remember the pre-launch hype? "Alternative to WoW"? "The next WoW killer"? So now the conformist fanboys are suddenly satisfied if Funcom not only tries to copy the game according to Blizz's schemata,

Heh Krewel the problem is guys like you aka people that really got bored with WoW started "the next WoW killer" thingy :)
And after they figure out hey but this is nothing like WoW they said fuck it and when back to WoW and ofc to forums to flame how bad AoC is :)

I can still remember days when you bash the WoW ( and me :P couse we were just PvPing and not doing the content .. for those who did not know Krewel is my friend and guild mate and I really like him and I also like to argue with him  ) and praised AoC.
But you got bored and went back to WoW and started to bash AoC :)

Personally I was never WoW fan and I started to play it at 2004 and was stickign with it for around 3 months and started it again in 2007 and got bored with it after less then 2 months.

The WoW was ok as a game but it just did not apeal to me.
I also really liked  LOTRO but no real PvP killed it for me  -> I consider PvE = work and PvP = fun :) .. but iam weired in that regard anyway.

Thank god there is not that much content in AoC so people have more time to do PvP :)

Omg people read Jackdog signiture and stop arguing :)

As for the AoC dead penalty or Lotro or WoW imo everything is crap, full loot / deleveling is the only way to go -> for my taste ofc.
Eve handles death penalty really good.

I would love if other MMO's adopted that like you have a way to "insure" your things so not everything is lost ( yea I know Iam a bit of carebear too but I will never admit it )

Well with this recent offer I returned to AoC and I must say that PvP mechanics are one of the best, lets leave aside there is no real point to fight except PvP levels/items but somehow that not enough of incentive.

And yes AoC will survive but on how many subs dunno but we all know once Funcom make something they are willing to run it for years like AO that is considered success with 20K subs so go figure.

I dont mind if AoC have 20K subs just make sure that in that case you have only 2 server and each have 10K of players.

Could care less if any of MMO Iam playing have 50K or 50m players all i need to have is populated server so its not the ghost town ( and aoc had quite few of those before the merges )

Originally posted by Vagrant_Zero

 

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Originally posted by Jackdog

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Originally posted by openedge1

 
As to the Xfire numbers, of note is that WAR and LOTRO also had returns going on. WAR jumped 3 spots in Xfire during that period. LOTRO jumped 4 spots. AoC? 10 SPOTS.
 
Cheers

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I don't think LoTRO or WaR had the equivalent of a 1.05 patch either. I know if they had instigated the vet return campaign before 1.05 I would not have even bothered with the download.

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I also think it's in part that LOTRO is just a GOOD game period. Ever since Moria launched the game has definitely seen a continued increase in activity and subs. Good for Turbine. I really hope they knock Rohan/Gondor/Mordor out of the park.

Well it also help that LOTRO had those life time packages, I have quite a few friends that play it from time to time because of it .. especially when they are between MMO's.

Its free so they will always have some player base, especially because whoever get really bored with LOTRO and do not come back will sell Life time subs account.

Hmm 5 days to hit level cap.

I assume you have PvE level 80 character thats also PvP level 5 ?

Gratz man, I know quite few people that managed to level up PvE 80 in 2 to 3 days ( especially in the begining when game was released and you couse (ab)use apprentice.

p.s. I dont play AoC since March ( or any other MMO )

Originally posted by Genesis88

How'd you just buy it? I thought the shop didn't open till 7:00pm GMT

Probably yesterday.. and yes ques are normal :)

Originally posted by robertb

AoC and Darkfall are simply two very different games.

 

I, personally, am having more fun in Darkfall than I ever had in AoC.

 

(I played 2 tunes to 80, btw...)...

You always have more fun in the game you just started to play otherwise you would stick with AoC :)

Originally posted by Axles

Round2

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GRAgB87OVh8&fmt=22

Lol you could take some better DF movies .. now DF really looks like crap.

The video was not fair as for Darkfall you took devs made video and we all knows those look far better ( always the right zoom and angle, scenario is writen in advance etc.. ) then reality.

This is how DF PvP looks like : www.youtube.com/watch

Originally posted by TheBouncer

Originally posted by Tjommis

But directional combat? What is there not to like about it? To be able to swing your sword on the side of your opponent were his defenses are lowest is a great step forward in MMOs in my opinion. It makes melee combat much more engaging and adds a new dimension to the genre. 

 

Directional combat sounds good on paper and is fun for the first 10 minutes. Then it becomes boring button smashing.

Actually you get used to it and then if you try to play any other classic autoattack MMO you go WTF is this boring shit.

After the initial omg combos are great I got so use to it that i did not give a second tought to the system until I tried to play some other MMO with classical combat .. well its far from the same or boring.

When it comes to melee fight AoC really shines ( to bad range/magic was not done the same way ).

Originally posted by TheBouncer

Originally posted by ste2000 

 

Well I for once just canceled AoC subscription to play DF, so I contraddict your theory.
As I said, at the moment AoC is ok and I might come back, but for me is a bit too carebear, and by playing 3 months after release and 2 months recently I had the impression a big chunk of the community, particularly big guilds, were looking for something a bit more extreme.

Time will tell though.

 

I think AoC will lose a lot of players to DF. They both attract hardcore pvp gamers but DF is much more hardcore.

One third of my AoC guild went to DF.

Heh keeping them there will be the tricky part for DF.
The thing is its not real release atm its payed beta and they dont dare to make it open for everyone thats the reason why there is only 6K-8k sold accounts.

Its funny for the released game to have options in menu DO NOT TOUCH THIS AGAIN 

Personally Iam quite sad of such bad DF release.
As gamer I like to have my options open and would prefer all games to have decent release not saying uber polished but decent.

Hopefully DF will survive ( on more then some skeleton crew ) and with time they will finish the features and polish the game.

I was playing DF beta and the main problem I see in DF is that game is "jack of all trade and master of none".

Its hard for any game to pick up after bad release however with enough time invested its douable.

AoC have quite few things going  as graphics/combat/animation/sound/lore.
Its funny how people say fck that gameplay is most important well I agree to certain point however with all those people praising how DAOC was an ultimate RvR game -> well why does not have that many players now ..maybe cause graphics is outdated .. gameplay is stil there.

DF started with the list of shitload of features ( most not tested in beta as it was said it locked ) but graphics is barely acceptable ( the terain nice, the items characters, buildings feels very outdated ).

If AoC would be released now it would have more then 500K subs and yes players would leave despite in what state is game.

Personally  in the long run I see great future for AoC ( feature, gameplay, fun wise ) especially after expension release ( maybe early 2010 or end of 2010 who knows ) to bad for me as I dont think I will stay that long with it.
( playing AoC very activily since Oct 07 Beta and usually I quit all MMO''s before 2 years mark )

Originally posted by ste2000

Originally posted by IKShadow

Originally posted by ste2000

I agree the game is getting better, but for what I ve seen in game, most of the community will move to Darkfall, so it might be a tiny bit too late for Funcom.

AoC has to make bold decisions in order to cut it.
At the moment is a little bit carebearish for a PvP game, but not enough depth for a PvE game.
I believe the times of "let's make everyone happy" are gone.
I think we are approaching the diversification era, and AoC needs to decide which side it wants to be.

 

Actually once DF sort out shit together and allow people to buy and play the game we will see the raise of population in AoC.

There is quite a lot of people that left AoC in early days and said fuck it Iam waiting for DF now and the main reason was players want different combat system.

As everyone saw DF have some huge issues were do you think all those "diff combat" fans go.

 

 

Well I for once just canceled AoC subscription to play DF, so I contraddict your theory.
As I said, at the moment AoC is ok and I might come back, but for me is a bit too carebear, and by playing 3 months after release and 2 months recently I had the impression a big chunk of the community, particularly big guilds, were looking for something a bit more extreme.

Time will tell though.

Like I said see you back in AoC after the DF free month

p.s. Hopefully AoC will go in more extreme direction. They said pvp resources drops/loot are just the begining to test the system and more items will be marked as lootable in PvP.

Originally posted by ste2000

I agree the game is getting better, but for what I ve seen in game, most of the community will move to Darkfall, so it might be a tiny bit too late for Funcom.

AoC has to make bold decisions in order to cut it.
At the moment is a little bit carebearish for a PvP game, but not enough depth for a PvE game.
I believe the times of "let's make everyone happy" are gone.
I think we are approaching the diversification era, and AoC needs to decide which side it wants to be.

Actually once DF sort out shit together and allow people to buy and play the game we will see the raise of population in AoC.

There is quite a lot of people that left AoC in early days and said fuck it Iam waiting for DF now and the main reason was players want different combat system.

As everyone saw DF have some huge issues were do you think all those "diff combat" fans go.

pfft fanboi you probably made that account in 2004 just to do some viral marketing for AoC.

Originally posted by Grunties

Originally posted by IKShadow

Originally posted by Seytan

And no pics? No video? Surely you are joking...

 

I have video of that "massive" battle = www.youtube.com/watch

 

That was a pretty boring vid.. wasnt that limited to 48v48 and in an instance? That doesn't look like darkfall.

  Ups wrong link.

( yup limited to 48vs48 (96 people) and no its not instanced )

There is dueling video from beta: files.filefront.com/df+tourny+2wmv/;13323486;/fileinfo.html

Originally posted by Seytan

And no pics? No video? Surely you are joking...

I have video of that "massive" battle = www.youtube.com/watch