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Dark Age of Camelot General Article: What if... Dark Age of Camelot 2
MMORPG.com's Garrett Fuller writes this article about the possibility of a follow-up to Mythic's first RvR MMO, and what he would like to see included therein.
By Garrett Fuller on May 10, 2010
In many polls on many sites the one game that always comes up for sequel is Dark Age of Camelot. Launched in the pre-WoW era of 2001 DAOC was one of the hottest MMOs before the mainstream hit. Even though Ultima Online really set the ground work for PvP combat, Dark Age of Camelot perfected it and gave it meaning. A game that now lists in the history of MMO players, you hear it referenced many times as a "we wish" or "more like Dark Age of Camelot." Yet somehow the industry lost touch with a game that had a solid player base, a strong PvP system, and some great ideas that never made it into the latter half of the decade. So the question remains; what if Dark Age of Camelot had a sequel?
Imagine the perfect storm, Mythic is now part of Bioware all under the umbrella of EA. In a meeting somewhere among the corporate office someone decides that DAOC should be given its due again. The game having launched in 2001 with its highest numbers in the pre-WoW era of 2002-2003, is now due for a sequel. EA approves, Bioware approves, and Mythic goes to work.
Forget Warhammer for a minute. The game had its good points and bad points. It had some revolutionary ideas and yet dropped the ball on areas that were critical to the player base who had known and loved Dark Age. Also, Warhammer did a lot of Warcrafting in its design. It had to, as every other game did that was launched in the post-WoW era. So here we are in 2010, almost ten years after the launch of Dark Age of Camelot and Mythic gets a fresh canvas to paint on. What do you think they will do?
Let's start by looking at the strong points from the original game. The three faction system is by far one of the best features in DAOC. Albion was clearly the main faction with Camelot as its capital. Hibernia took on the Celtic myths and Irish lore and created a sub faction with a more magical inclination. Then Midgard became the third faction with its Norse theme and huge looking trolls. The fact that no side was considered evil or good was an important element in the mind set of the game. You were not playing Undead vs. Elves. No, you were playing your realm. That realm was your first choice in the game before even creating a character. There was no two sided conflict. This was a power struggle between three factions for control. In this three faction system, RvR was born. In players minds, the choice of three sides gave them a bit more choice and that made all the difference.
In the sequel, do not break what was never broken. The three faction system should remain and nothing on that front should be changed. Not only did it give players a team to choose before creating a character, it gave them pride in their realm. It also gave them a zone design which allowed them a place to level without getting ganked. At the time this was a huge difference from the PvP of Ultima where you could be killed on your front doorstep. In DAOC 2 the factions remain as all three themes touched on human history with a fantasy element and created a fun world to fight in.
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The changes should come in the races that each faction has. DAOC was great about putting in multiple races for each faction. Even if the Albions were all human, at least you had Saracans and Scots to mix it up. This is where a strong change can be made. Similar to how Diablo 3 is changing up with classes. Sure the old classic races should be there, the Midgard Stone Trolls would have to return. But perhaps here is where Mythic could inject some new ideas. Taking creatures of myths from the three factions and making them into playable races. The thing is, DAOC had a good share of races to choose from all with a different look and feel. The design would almost have to be streamlined down into what was popular and would appeal to players the most.
Aside from races, the classes would have to be recreated as well. DAOC did suffer from launching many classes within the game each with a very basic core set of skills. The large variety of classes was a good thing, but the endless class balance system they created after the launch was rough. Sure there was variety and each class could be played effectively, but it did not take long for players to figure out which classes were the best at RvR and those became the top. In the sequel, rolling the dice on a large number of classes would benefit the game. Class balance has come a long way and could be improved upon long before the game hits digital downloads for launch. It was the variety of play styles that gave DAOC its fun.
[Edit]
Nevermind, working now... Going to read!
Come on Garret, your comment on Trials of Atlantis was ridiculous. It was most certainly the demise of DAoC because it gave the people who played all day a huge advantage. The majority of the population just gave up when it was clear there was no way to be competitive without a huge grind in front of them. Mythic was told this a million times and only made token changes.
I can remember a party of hibs(Hibernians) coming and controlling the frontier of the other factions for 3 days. Who wants to compete with such an overpowered group.
Secondly, you missed a major issue with DAoC, the ridiculous CC(crowd control). That is a current issue with WAR too. Mythic seems to be in love with something most of us hate.
I do agree that DAoC had far too many classes. They never did manage to ever balance them. That was the beauty of Wow, the wow developers played DAoC and realize trying to balance so many classes was futile, hence the limited classes in Wow.
I tired the first one and didn't play to long, but with all the hype it sounds like it was great. I need to have people to start with to get into a game, which I didn't then. I would definitely bring some friends and give it a shot.
Heard a rumor not long ago that Mythic actually did a workup and internal pitch for a DAoC2. EA (shock) back-burnered it.
Maybe we'll see it taken back off the shelf someday.
Good article, you touched on the key points like DF and the expansion sets.
Agree with you on the demise of DAoC, NF did it in for me as well. And the xpacs after ToA were simply not worth mentioning.. mauler class anyone
Totally disagree with the article. DAoC does NOT need a sequel, it needs a graphic / tech upgrade which is doable. Sequels have a HORRIBLE MMO track record
Fans do not want a new game, they want the old game with improvements and upgrades. EVE and City of Heroes are perfect examples of this. That has been made clear so many times it's not funny, only the MMO nomads want brand new sequels so they can rip them to pieces.
DAoC is made with Gamebryo engine, the newer versions of this engine have been used to make Fallout 3, Warhammer and Oblivion.
A new game would be corrupted by todays market expectations and nothing good will come of it.
Upgrading DAoC would cost a fraction of a new title.
MMOs and sequels just don't work out that well. In the end we will end up with a buffoon game like Warhammer.
The comment on Trials of Atlantis was a personal statement, hence the "For me," part. I still played through Trials and did not quit because of it. I know many people who did though which is why the comment was stated accordingly. If a sequel was ever made, I will say this:
There is no place for Trials of Atlantis in a Dark Age of Camelot sequel.
:)
DAOC was the first, true MMO that I played actively. It holds a special spot in my heart not only for being the first MMO I played actively, but for the fact that I always compare games of today with DAOC. Its surprising how much of an impression the game has had on me and my play style in other games. Call me crazy, but I still look back and wish I was still playing.
I would have to agree with Ozmodan, ToA killed DAOC. The endless grinding, boredom of waiting for a spawn, etc is what finally drove the nail into the coffin. I was ok with the imbalance issues as I could find ways around it (Mastery of Blocking 5, Twisting, Shield Pally for the win). On a side note, the twisting pally was a VERY unique aspect to the game I would hope they keep that element alive. Honestly though, I wish some elements they removed they kept and some that they added they removed. I liked Frontiers, but it needs some changes that remove so much focus from the keep/tower sieges and more focus on the player versus player aspect. Do get me wrong, I enjoyed massive battles between 100+ players in RvR at fortresses or keeps, but its about the player, not the structure. However, no game has even come close to matching that level of conflict and fun. I just hope that Mythic, Bioware, and EA can figure it out and squash WoW once and for all.
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.
Dont forget that in DAoC each Realm had its Unique skills/effects etc too.
Well they certainly have to do something because WAR is not cutting the mustard for them. I'm just not sure how many are left still hold faith in Mythic to do anything.
I was an avid DAoC player, and I absolutely did quit due to ToA. One week after ToA I hit the cancel button. It was buggy, and it brought raiding into DAoC. The reason I left EQ!!
DAoC 2? It will never happen. Mythic is about as close to death as a studio can be. None of the original talent is there. Not that I would even trust the original team after the debacles of ToA and Labyrinth. Even if they started development I agree with Torak. We saw what happened with WAR. They would just try to WoW it up instead of sticking to what made DAoC great; community. Just look at WAR. They are still fumbling around trying to make it easier, instead of looking for ways to bring players together.
Focus on a game that builds community instead of making a game where one can get to max level as quickly and easily as possible. DAoC had that at one point.
I agree with a previous poster. I would be more than happy if they didnt make a daoc 2 and just gave the original a nice graphics overhaul.
Good article.
However, I have to agree with the previous statements that a true DAoC sequel will never be done, because it can't survive in the modern MMO space.
You spoke of Warhammer's attempt to be more like WoW, and therein lies the issue. The majority of modern MMO players expect MMO's to be like WoW in 2 key areas - Community and PvE.
We can all agree that PvE was substandard in DAoC, even in it's time. If I'm not mistaken, EQ had better PvE content (que Trials of Atlantis, which tried to do much more with PvE, as did Catacombs later with instancing). Players now expect a great PvE game, and development tends to focus on either developing quality PvE content or quality PvP content, and rarely in between shall meet.
Moreover, the grind and difficulty of the game forced (And that is the proper term) players to interact with the community around them just to be able to get to RvR. You had to group with others to level in any sane amount of time. This meant having to get along with others, play well, or be known for not doing either. Players now expect to be able to have solo options for most of their content, so that they can reach max level with minimal interaction with the community.
It's a brave new MMO world, and DAoC, and games like it, aren't where the money is anymore, despite the wishes of some of us, including myself.
Now.. Garrett.. Can you put your feet in the fire and do a "What If.. UO 2"?
There was already raiding in Shrouded Isles, and there was already raiding in the core game (the dragons, the giant in jamtland IIRC).
Maybe it was more like this: ToA killed the PvPers, the /level20 command the newbies, and the elitism around 8vs8 the casuals.
I had much fun in DAoC. But I am not sure, if I would play the same thing again. Maybe a DaoC 2 would be interesting for the post-WoW generation, if they would ever hear of it.
Btw another interesting thing of DAoC´s PvP was: you didn´t got items as a reward, you got additional little active and passive skills which also helped you in PvE. Kind of horizontal content instead of items.
Mythic blew it with WAR, so I don't think they'll be given resources to make Daoc 2.
EA could redo the game, add some ideas, use new engine, do some class balancing - but not in the way of WoWing it up as brostyn said.
This game would be awsome, maybe someday EA will decide to milk this old cow?
Also to quote Garrett ''With MMOs constantly trying to be like World of Warcraft people forget that World of Warcraft was trying to be like Everquest and Dark Age of Camelot when it launched''
Have been wishing for a daoc 2 for ages. A new daoc where they would keep the good stuff and improve/change the bad parts. It is true, realm fighting gave some sense of belonging somewhere to everyone. If they can do it again but bit better I am sure they would get bigger numbers than old daoc. Time will tell but hopefully it won't take too long....
I loved DAoC, and if a sequel came out I would most certaintly try it. However, I agree with Coldren. I don't think a sequel would work in today's post WoW era. You needed guild groups to run your quests for your Epic armor. I remember completing my set and being so proud. Today, that just wouldn't work. Everyone would want soloable quests. Forced group quests that take days to complete wouldn't be welcomed. Also the grind from 49 to 50 was a bit ridiculous. I think I spent a good 12 hours grinding in the frontier. I don't remember how much that got me closer to 50, probably not much. You also had to queue up for groups, and you might be waiting a couple hours until someone drops group. I don't particurally miss that. However, once you got 50 you did have a certain since of accomplishment.
a DAOC2 would fail, because gamers do not want the kind of game that DAOC is, and DAOC has been made easy mode over the years.. so you'd get a WoW version of DAoC and it would be Warhammer Online part 2
my love affair with classic DAOC will never end, but it will never be seen again in another game
end of conversation
I would love a DAoC 2, that returned to its roots.
Sadly, Mythic has proven dozens of times over the past 5 years that they are simply incapable of returning to the roots that made it great. They keep piling more junk to fix the initial junk, and bury themselves with it. They don't KNOW what made the old game great it seems. I can almost promise DAOC 2 would be a giant mess, removing core ideas, and putting in WoW ideas. Hell, they already did that to original DAoC.
The stupid archery system, RAMPS in castles, putting in a quest grind with glowing ! over NPC heads, destroying immersion and group cohesiveness, instancing the hell out of everything, again destroying the social side of PvE, too many battlegrounds, breaking the balance with every expansion so that people would buy it to play the new overpowered class, removing tanks from being viable, adding teleporters EVERYWHERE, added a /map, I'm shocked at just how many bad ideas started flowing like water after the Trials of Atlantis expansion.
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.
Two things I felt were subtle, but great things in DAoC, both involve combat.
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.
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.
So, while you were mowing down this large group of monsters, you really felt like you were smashing them.
A few more things, when items dropped on the ground, they displayed in the world (same for decorating your house) so if the mob dropped a sword, there it was shiny on the ground.
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.
I just KNOW if Mythic got their hands on DAoC too they'd make it a WoW knock off, a game with some instanced PvP, and not a virtual world like DAoC was. The vistas and atmosphere in Albion were so immersive. I know Mythic would add in junk like quest hubs, people standing around with big ! over their head, tellilng you exactly what your reward is gonna be in a cute little box, add in some silly xbox live achievement system that doesn't tie in with the lore at all, break the world into a series of linear instances, bleck.
And for those that want to know what killed DAoC...
/level 20 command for anyone with a level 50, killing the incoming newb population who had no one to group with, and bloated the battlegrounds.
ToA killed off endless amounts of PvPers who didn't want to grind another 9 months to get gear to compete in RvR, after going through the 1-50 grind.
And the ToA gear shifted balance to the caster classes and made it impossible to survive as anything else.
Ahhh.. Epic armor. I remember the coordination it took to get all the people needed to complete the Paladin epic armor quest. Thankfully, I had a friend who had more social ties than I had. He helped me out a lot in getting people down there. Made a lot of new friends that day.
The flip side of that was, if you were around that area and people asked for help, most of the time, complete strangers would show up and help you get it, because they knew someday they would need help too.
Good memories, good times.
Upgrade the original, remake it into a new game, I'd give it a go if it was contained most of the design concepts that made the orginal game great.
But I don't think such a game would ever generate anthing near WOW-like subs, and EA isn't known for catering to niche markets, they've been staring at Blizzard with bitter envy for years now hence their all or nothing approach with SWTOR.
Our best hope would be for EA to sell the franchise off, or let some former Mythic execs (the smart ones) take the license back and develop it on their own and it might have a chance.
i just downloaded the 10 day free trial of DAoC the other day after reading an article similiar to this one.
i played DAoC at launch for a few months and it was great but eq1 was my main game so i went back to it.
the DAoC i played the other day was nothing like the launch version i played. i thought i downloaded wow accidently, just with a lot clunkier controls. wtf mythic....
what the hell is wrong with all these damn gaming companies! STOP TRYIN TO MIMIC WOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I know I am repeating myself, but I have to say that again... The key problem between old school MMO and since-WoW MMO is the target audience... Game designed for teenagers won't give adults that kind of content needed for them to be happy players. Definitely not for long.
If there was DAoC2 made, it would target teenagers (since it's major game buying force)... and would be just another WoWism like WH.
I am afraid there is no chance for DAoC 2 to be DAoC 2 as we imagine it. Not unless someone went very rich and quite insane to pay and oversee whole development process and remove dependancy on crap like EA and 'most profitting target audience'.
And better than having WoWDaoC I rather keep my best gaming memories and share them with a bunch of very good friends I made in DAoC.
There were many flaws in DAoC, but overall the result was that DAoC imho is the closest to being ultimate MMO.
Dear mythic, read this, do this.
Well see, I think it'd generate a very VERY large amount of subs, just for being a new shiny, and then the oldschool MMOers/ the PvP players would stay with it.
What most people, and almost all publishers don't understand is you don't need to aim for the WoW market. DAoC 2 would almost instantly pull in 500k+ old veterans that were in the original game. That's more subs than most WoW clones ever sustain.
You just have to manage your budget, don't pump 100 million into a game you expect 500k subs for. Set realistic expectations.
Original DAoC was made with 30 people. It can be done. Just I don't trust EA Mythic to do it.
DAoC 2, if done "right", would instantly be my new game.
I played DAoC for a couple years from a month or three after launch, until right before whatever the x-pac after ToA was, and I enjoyed every minute of it. I totally disagree that DAoC PvE wasn't any good...while it certainly isn't a "LoTRO" in regards to PvE, but it isn't (insert game w/ terrible PvE here) either. Of course, DAoC's unique blend of PvP was where it was at. When I first started playing DAoC I had a distaste for PvP as it had always been fairly pointless in games up to that point. DAoC was one of the first games to give PvP meaning, w/ unique settings w/ specific goals, and rewards.
I can't say I've ever really been as disapointed w/ any game as I was w/ WAR, I was expecting DAoC in the awesome Warhammer setting, and it....wasn't that. I have to admit though that my disapointment was mainly due to my inflated, and in hindsight, misplaced expectations. It's not that WAR is a bad game, b/c it's really not, it's just not what people were expecting and/or hoping for. I personally wanted more DAoC, and less WoW, but it turned out to be the opposite. WAR is a fun game for the most part, the classes are enjoyable, and the combat isn't bad, it's just, IMHO, a poor mix of scenarios and open-world RvR. WAR's original design was actually all scenarios and no open-world PvP, but the early beta-testers railed against what they got and thus that long halt in beta testing, while they tried to redesign the game w/ open-world PvP/RvR thrown in the mix. Eh.
If would've just taken the DAoC design documents, updated it slightly, and applied the Warhammer lore in place of the Camelot/Hibernia/Midgard lore, I think they'd have an awesome game on their hands that people would've played.
Hell, if they take the DAoC and just update it slightly in terms of gameplay and graphics, I'd be all over that piece. Sadly though, there has been an exodus from Mythic over the past few years, culminating w/ Mark Jacobs, so I don't know if the talent that remains is up to the task. Jeff Hickman, one of the main devs from DAoC days is still there, but beyond him <shrug>. Of course, w/ Mythic now being part of BioWare they should have what they need, but the question that remains is whether or not EA would ever greenlight an MMO that they aren't expecting WoW-like numbers from again...
I agree with most of the posts, but one thing I don't understand is about the original post.
Why make leveling easier? Has WoW ruined your view on MMOs?
Whatever happened to accomplishment? Why do I want to be max level in a month? Then again I come from the everquest days where it actually took hard work and much risk in order to acheive greatness, but the new generation wants everything handed to them within a month or so, otherwise the game is "fail". That is a main problem I see with many mmos is that you are in a hurry to get to end game, then when you get there, and use up all the content, you whine and complain about the lack-there of. But god forbid you have tons and tons of content getting to max level, but then you whine and moan about how long the level grind is. Face it...any mmo is exactly that...a grind. You spend time "grinding" whatever you are doing...leveling...crafting...pvp. It is all the same, you do the same thing over and over, just diferent circumstances.
What happened to the adventure? To the fun you have along the way of getting to the max level?
I saw someone complaining about ToA brought raiding to DAoC, but like it had been said, there was raiding before ToA, and the raiding was incredibly fun. Some may not think fun as pulling tons and tons of mobs, taunting/CC-ing/and aoe-ing them, but it was incredibly fun.
Others complain about the CC in PvP. Personally, I loved it. This is comming from a Blademaster, the absolute worst class in the game. They implimented abilities to counter the CC, Purge, I beleive was one of them, as well as other classes had abilities to bring people out of CC.
Sure, some things were overpowered, especially initially, but I enjoyed the CC, not always of course, because I would die as a result of it, but I liked the concept.
Who can forget the great Lurikeen Uprising that effected mostly all servers of the game, mainly Guinevere(sp). Many people from all servers came to Guinever to roll Hibernian Lurikeens in protest to Mythic in order to allow the Lurikeens to be Heroes, thus donning the age of "Mini-Moose". Though I was albion on guinever and it brought much annoyance to me, the concept, the community, the whole idea is awesome in itself.
A revived daoc pre-toa would be great, but as it has been said, I don't like sequels so much, due to them trying to make it as glorious as the first one, and ending up making a sub par game.
Also - EA is involved, and well, everyone knows EA's track record and what is going on with them. Maybe it will take a private investor to restore this classic hit, but until that happens, I doubt we will see a daoc:ressurection or daoc 2.
And before some sad grammar nazi who never got anywhere with their english degree bashes my spelling or grammar, I really don't care.
If only this would become reality. WAR was so fail.. I miss the good ol DAOC system.
Raiding was fun when it wasn't the only way to get good items, because it was done purely for fun.
And CC was a bit out of control, playing a tank after ToA was IMPOSSIBLE, absolutely impossible. Before purge could even go off you were dead most of the time.
And leveling, eh, I don't mind slow leveling, but in a PvP game, many do.
The ToA content was amazingly well done, it just... hurt the PvP, which was the core of the game. Would have been raved has revolutionary over in EQ.
Mythic is now in the same league as Cryptic to me I would not touch a game from either of them.
hmm , i played daoc for 6 years almost. Toa was a bit of a pain , but it was an interesting concept. new frontiers to me was the Game killer. and the lvling system was just fine , why because when u hit 50 you were like BAM BOO YAH I GOT A 50.
The amount of time to level was fine to me. Don't carebear the game please!
If they could keep the same amount of classes, same music and sfx, and same type of gameplay to be almost exactly like DAoC1, then it would be perfect. Too much change would just ruin it for me.
The original team would have to be the one working on it to make me interested. Too much change and i would say forget about it...
If they would keep the gameplay the same and upgrade the graphics engine I would head back.
i played daoc for over 4 years. if daoc 2 was this i would return:
1. keep the three factions-but increase the timers to stop realm jumpers
2.NO TOA- or at the least allow for non-toa servers
3. no instances or teleportation- yes i am old school, if you have to travel its by horse. i remember the anticipation of standing on the pod waiting for the druids to port you into the frontier.
4. focus on realm pride and commaderie-promote grouping as the way to level-bring back the epic areas of leveling- from an albion perspective-STONEHENGE, DARKNESS FALLS, AVALON CITY
5. maintain and enhance the crafting system- i was a legendary crafter in all areas- keep player crafted items in demand
6. keep the housing area-but have it centered around guild houses-as a member of a guild you can build a house near your guild
^ This
^ and these, I esp like #6.
*rofl* Realm jumpers, what a horrible game idea. I read they introduce that crap to WAR now too. Wasn't possible when I played DAoC.
There won't be a Daoc2. At least none which deserves that name. I played it for 2 years from release until ToA. It was one of those mmo's that forced you to group if you wanted to achieve anything viable. And it was great that way.
Nowadays every mmo in fact really is a mso game. At least all those published by major companies. You can achieve anything solo which a group can. At least till max level where some add some raid content. That way there is no chance for a real community to build.
There are some independant companies which still develop group focused mmo games. But those are few and usually they struggle concerning quality and content because of their limited budgets.
The only way to re-enjoy games like DAoC, EQ and so again would be a time warp into the past. The time of mmo's is gone. This is the era of massive single player games. ;)
Yeah, I agree. If a DAoC 2 was ever in serious development and the dev's followed this outline, they'd pull it off.
While I only played DAOC for about a year shortly after launch this part really jumped out at me as something that I've known has been missing from MMO's these days but which I never could articulate until reading,
"In DAOC, not only did I know the top enemies I fought, I could tell you their names even today. This sort of thing is completely missing in MMOs today, having a sense of fame among your faction and even your enemies. Forget about a statue in town, people just want bragging rights. Another thing that benefited DAOC was keeping the servers small. Having the server numbers max out at five or ten thousand with three factions would mean only two to three thousand in a realm. The smaller numbers would give players a better social atmosphere to get to know each other."
So true. I was very active in Asheron's call for a number of years and remember my time on Darktide (PvP server) well especially when I was a lower level character. Given the fact that there were essentially no safe zones and you could be killed at any time some PK'ers (guys whod attack pretty much anybody they saw on sight) amassed some really infamous reputations in certain regions where they'd prowl for victims. It was probably almost ten years ago and I must've been 12 or 13 at the oldest but I still remember the fear I'd feel when I'd see some of those players pop up on my radar and I fled in desperation for the safety of a level capped newb dungeon or tried to make it off to the woods before they noticed me. I still remember the big names, Og, Fury of Napa Valley, Bill the Hill... man those were the days. We used to have epic battles between the PK guilds and the anti-PK guilds made all the more exciting by fighting familiar enemies and nemesis' alongside your allies and clan mates.
Have to agree with this 100%. DOAC would be a goofball game when all it needs is to be modernized. Can you imagine how bad an EVE2 would be? CO was pretty much the COX 2 and look at how badly people responded to that.
realm pride is a myth, get over it... its a video game
i've played 8 man squads on all 3 realms, i could care less what realm I played in as long as my squad wrecked face
I don't agree at all. Most of us are not saying we don't think it will survive. DAoC 2 done right would flourish. DAoC made like WoW will fail, because there already is a WoW, and many games like it. Sadly, that is the only game that devs are willing to make, atm.
I'm not sure what the majority of MMO players want. I'm not one. I loved DAoC, and that put me into a minority(one that would meet or beat LOTRO sub numbers and crush others besides EVE). I do know we need community and balanced PVP that doesn't require raiding.
Man, don't get my hopes up like this. I absolutely loved DAOC. It was my favorite game for a good 2-3 years.
Umm, dude, look at the italics underlined part, and do a face-palm, please? Mythic is the company that MADE DAoC! It's just that the team has changed since the early years. If the old crew were to make a new DAoC with a different name, under a different company, then I'm sure that we would have what everyone these days likes to call "WoW-Killer".
Mythic is also the company that killed DAoC. Then killed it again. And again. And again. Sorry, I don't trust them to make a proper sequel, they'd WoW it up.
And no, realm pride is not a myth, sorry if you're an exception.
What applies to you must certainly be true for everyone else.
P.S. - Viva La Hibernia!
Great article, and I agree DAOC's RvR was amazing hopefully they make DAOC 2 :D
DaoC had raiding before ToA was released. ToA didn't discourage me, in fact I liked the expansion. The expansion that burned me was SI. It was what my guild called the land of waste. Nobody went there, and when they did it was just to PL people. All the dungeons in SI were horrid and half of them had respawn rates nobody in the guild wanted to deal with. What I love and still love to this day about DaoC, is the way they designed there dungeons. Public dungeons are the best way to implement dungeons. DaoC dungeons were public and huge. I could walk into any dungeon and find a farming party. It was like they were all laid out like DF but without the other side taking over and no seals. Fun stuff and it allowed you to meet with new people. Housing and crafting to an extent was also done pretty well.
I agree, I'm so sick of instanced dungeons. It makes you dependant on finding a party before you head there. With it non-instanced you can meet people there and join their team. It also makes it feel a lot more alive and part of the game world.
I honestly just want a copy and paste of the original game, just modernized lol
Going to have to agree, I would love a DAOC sequel.. Or an upgrade at the least.. Or at least have them advertise it again because we need more people!! Also, from what I've seen, DAOC is going back up again.. I wish it would reach a population larger than WoW.. For me, WoW seemed good but when I tried it, and comparing to DAOC.. I hated it so much.. :s; DAOC so far for me has been the ONLY good MMO with PVP that could keep me playing for more than 2months straight.. I wish Mythic didn't sell to EA.. =/
You're right. I didn't participate in them, and they weren't required for progression. In no way did not raiding hinder one's performance in RvR until ToA.
pride for something that isn't real? cool story bro
I'd proberbly play it by game card but not by giving my credit card details .
Let's keep the enthusiasm going on this one. I think this could really be a success if they did the following:
I agree with all the posters in this thread that said there will not be a DAOC2, it would be DAOC mixed with WOW (just like WAR). The gaming industry has changed, from the times when we were the core that the gaming industry went after. I honestly do not know one person (that is a friend or I have meet traveling) in my age bracket late 20 early 30s that plays a AAA MMO. Most play niche MMOs or have went back to single player games, Yes at one time they all had played WoW for years. I would love to see a game like DAOC again come to life and be successful. Unfortantly when I look at gaming it is not what the vast majority are looking at right now. Games now days focus on the shiny, the new sword and armor and the new cool graphics. When at one time that was just a single asspect of gaming! When you look back at the games you are fond of from your past, like Pitfall for the Atari, or Final Fantasy 1 or 2; Batttletoads; Metroid; Legend of Zelda for the Nes, or even final fantasy 7 for the playstation. I am betting that those memories just do not center on getting the new sword or armor for your character (although for a certain percentage of the population it does). There was more involved in those games then just getting a cool new sword for Link or Cloud. There was the challenge, the thrill of victory and the great story. There was the moments that made you happy and made you sad that you can see in your mind when you think of final fantasy 7. Or the thrill of defeating Ganon for the first time in Zelda. All of these moments are being boiled down to the loot drop in games now. I would love to get my hands on the coding for WoW for a week and change one sever so no items drop in any instance or raid and see how many people actually do them. Change it so that you get the items from crafting vendors like guild wars that just have items you get from killing mobs around the world. I wonder how many raiding guilds in WOW would raid with out the shiny in there to make them come to the instance. Since that aspect of gaming was so successful with WoW and Diablo it seems like all of gaming is trying to get a piece of that pie. The days of games being made with a diverse center, is slowly fading to memory.
I am not bashing the people that like collecting in games and play games for that aspect. I am happy you like that, it is just sad to me that is what gaming has adopted at its center for its whole reason to exist. I can not count 10 games in the last 5 years that have all the aspects that made Final Fantasy great. Or gave me the found memories of Battletoads or Double Dragon. In the end it is the reason why I get burnt out on MMOs and bounce from one game to another, it is all about the shiny. So while I look forward to the day when another game like DAOC where the shiny is not the main point to come out, I do not see it happening anytime soon.
The biggest selling point of DAoC was the strong community. To me these bonds were forged through the long leveling process (which the OP suggests should be significantly reduced) so that should be considered for any sequel.
As for realm pride - sure, I think that was a real thing. I also played in setgroups and yes, that was more of an eSport than anthing else. But one has to realize that the game was more than just setgroup fights and this sense of comradierie and realm pride made up a lot of the 'e-cosystem' that was DAoC. Take away all the 'zergers', 'crafters' and 'casuals' and all you are left with is a hollow shell.
But I maintain that DAoC in todays market could never be more than a niche game. It did require a substantial willingness to cooperate and a good understanding of the mechanics to progress. Doesn't work well with the whole 'instant gratification' approach cultivated by post-WoW games.
Interesting article and some very good and varied comments, I have played DAOC pretty much from beta, it’s had some tremendous highs “Darkness Falls & Shrouded Island's” and some quite awful lows “Trials Of Atlantis & New Frontiers” But Mythic truly made a gem of a game when they came up with DAOC but like a lot of people have said I wouldn't trust them to do it again DAOC really was a one off.
DAOC was far from perfect at launch it had some major RvR balance issues due to there perhaps over ambitious class system which took them far too long to correct, and the grind was frustrating but at the same time it helped to form the Community, and the three realm aspect of the RvR helped to keep it bonded.
Anyhow DAOC is still limping on all though a much mutated version of the original and the RvR is still unmatched in my opinion, Thank fully they removed the god awful /level command which was in my mind one of the major internal contributions to its user base numbers dropping, you still get the odd influx of new players every now and again and the game is quite easy for them to get in to now.
I just don’t think a sequel could survive in the modern MMO market with the huge cost involved and quite fickle user base it would be trying to appeal to, a major GFX over hull would be more beneficial and probably bring some new subs in and maybe get some older players back but even that would be somewhat of a financial gamble for BioWare Mythic.
Why does everyone think classes need to be balanced ... the best part of DoaC was that RvR was balanced for the 8 man group not the single toon. If you are a healer ... and come across a damage dealer then you should die...
Eight Man groups were never really balanced between the three realms to start with, and when they did get a nice balance Mythic messed around with the Realm ability's and messed up the sort of semi fragile balance that existed IMO any way.
The whole balancing issue was a bit more complicated, I think.
Yes, a good setup would stand a chance against any group from any realm, usually. But I think what people refer to are things like stealther balancing (Shadowzerker!), Archer balancing, and the traditional overpowered class with each expansion.
I remember vividly when Savages were released onto the world and would run around 2 hitting heros in full scale armor. True story. All those gank squads with 3 healers 3 savages ... and later we had Warlocks that could pretty much instant-kill entire groups with the right RAs and a decent healer-backup. Hib casters with stun spells, or thinkof of sorceres before their mezz was pimped versus instant-mezzing hibs and mids ;)
So there were a lot of issues, but people sort of put up with it (not all, mind you).
Ok so first off...Ive read these forums for over 2 years...and never subscribed until i saw this topic...that says something.
DAOC, of all the 8 MMOs i have played, was by far the best. I would still be playing it now, except the classic servers are no more and there are like 14 people playing the game.
The thing that DOAC had that no other game did...was the bonuses to grouping up with other players. Bonus to exp and it made leveling much less painful. These new MMOs are all about soloing; not so fun to level. The community was GREAT because of this
PVP, omg it didnt have a timer on it. you could stay in the BGs for years and have loads of fun and thats just what i did.
You could have great year, ya it helped, but if you didnt have skill, you were dead.
I remember my minstril killing groups of 4 by myself. so much fun
DAOC2...ya, I would buy that
p.s. TOA did kill DAOC, you cant argue the truth
The classics are dead sadly, but there is currently 3339 on the Ywain cluster far from dead but a bit zergy.
NO
What original landmass, you mean the frontiers? That shouldn't even be an issue to you unless you liked the 1 min walk to AMG or MMG in Emain to zerg.
WTF? You could go into others players lands on the open server (Mordred, Andred) and on the regular servers, you'd goto the other realm's frontier zones.
They revamped the game with catacombs, it isn't that bad... equal to EQ2 for a lack of a better way to explain it
GUI is fine, the fluff companies put on their shit games now is annoying, and most of the games that have UI s that are modifiable have people making "simple" versions
class balance will never be fine unless classes mirror each other, meaning all sides have the same class (BORING) and that they are only allowed to fight their own class (BORING), there is no such thing as balance when some people just suck :)
Loot & Dungeons was never the problem in grouping in the game (grouping had bonuses unlike the crap new games), people learned how to beat pve with powerleveling, between that and bots is what killed grouping. ---- and to add onto this, the game was about 30% about what loot drops you got and 70% about the crafted gear and how you built your template (which is the best in any game to date imo, FK sets)
Public Quests in Warhammer was about the best thing about the game, everything else was pretty much crappy versions of the "next gen" daoc people want (or think they want)
if you mean all 3 realms hang out and have in game tea partys, no.. they're enemies
if you mean you hang out with your realm and do something, sure.. make your own event.. why do you need it handed to you ? you can have weddings in game, you can have a cyber party in your decorated house, you can play cards (its built in , but text based) or play dice (also built in)
:D
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 think that if they updated the interface (such as quest interface) to modern standards and made things a little more easy then i think we would have a WOW killer.
And i would love to have my DAOC back.
Its funny, i played the game for 5 years...Now when i play MMOs, i find myself saying "i wish this was more like how DAOC did it"
Yeah, that might be a bit zergy, in its hey day even the most populated DAOC servers had like 2500 people online at any one time, and on MLF where I played 1700 was the rule.
But it would be nice if DAOC could get a bit more attention and updates, might actually need to re-open a cluster.
Many people have pride in things that have no control over... race, country, etc. I find that type of pride to be silly. At least one has a choice in which realm they fight for.
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)
Torak
I completely agree with you man, that is such a strong point! We dont need another part 2 all we needed was better graphics and get rid of all those extra zones that no one uses. After I left DAOC i went to EVE and stayed there for 5 years.
However I agree with many points Garett made too. MMO have gotten very watered down, I still remember fighting Anakin, the hibernia nightshade on the lancelot server. Stealthers hunting each other in the woods with knifes, Good times.
Kudos to everyone for posting great comments and bringing back good memories. Ultimately I don't think it would survive today, there are just too many MMO' out now but it was good to have been part of DAOC for 3 years.
Nemesiz
MrHooke
I’m going to agree with Coldren. Community and PvE are the bottom line. There are no current “community” oriented players in the current MMO market. I do miss that era though. Current marketable playing styles always win. If DAoC was released for the first time, in the current market and playing styles - it would fail. Hopes for DAoC2? I’m not holding my breathe, but I would try it in the hopes they could rekindle community oriented playing and get rid of that horrible grind work lvl 49-50. In my opinion that is were they began to drop the ball.. They lost many more players with ToA because of the same type of “grind“ work needed - it became monotonous.
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.
IMO the way forward is a rebranded version of current DAOC but with an entirely revamped UI and movement controls/mechanics, and maybe some higher polygon models and environments.
The gameplay is already there, it just needs new window-dressing.
ps: if you had/have issues with DAOC CC, it means you're bad. DAOC CC and the hard interrupt system are what made DAOC's 8v8 so engaging.
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.
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 agree that CC was one of the components that gave a chess aspect to RvR. I also think the variety of classes (and three realms) in the game really played its part as well. Learning what to do against which classes and situations, was a big part of the fun for me.
The big one though, is community. Getting into a good PvE group and actually talking to the people in it, and getting to know them. Those are some of my fondest memories of the early days of the game.
On another note, as was mentioned in the article, there is something to be said for being able to recall a slew of names of people that I fought in RvR. Especially considering I never spoke a word to most of them. Except to say:
"Krendor says something in a language you dont understand!"
Unfortunately, I think those days are probably gone. The MMO crowd when DAoC released was a much more mature bunch. I was graduating high school when it came out, my Uncle told me to try it. I remember a lot of realm mates being suprised at my age. Today's market is a different beast.
With that said, here is another voice, asking for DAoC 2. It would probably be a niche market, but full of dedicated subscribers.
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).
However, I do agree with the horribly clunky movement and combat flow. That, along with /stick and /follow in RvR (the dumbest ideas possible, worse than the idiotic minute long mezzing) keeps me from going back.
Your last statement is the most irritating, however. I wanted to play the game for large scale RvR, not 8 vs 8 elitist roaming groups. That's what the game was marketed on.
These issues are what made me absolutely hate the RvR and what it could have been opposed to what was produced.
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.
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).
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
I agree with a couple things here but I don't think there should be a DAOC 2.0 but more of a DAOC Re-launch. I think all the current systems in place (except ToA) around 1.65, when I left, were pretty good. I think all it would need is graphic updates, UI Update, and some systems they learned from WAR.
The Spiritmaster grind groups from 45-50 were some of the best parts as a tank.
Auto-folowing one person in RVR and roaming for people to kill
Mile gates
Specs in to weapon trees and not talens
Most of these new games want to make it easy for the player. I say make it easy to work for but takes time to obtain. Take the random PVP ganking away from AION and this is what you have. I think DOAC should stay to its roots but just completely strip out ToA, and just update its systems. Don't make any drastic game play changes. While RvR in DOAC and Realm Rank is harder to achieve, it certainly wasn't handed to you like it is in WAR's scenario/fort grind fest. You had to go look for people or have them come to you by taking Towers or Forts.
Most of my friends agree that these new-gen MMOs just don't have that same mystery and majestic feel as Everquest did during it's height around Lost Dungeons or Camelot did when ToA came out despite it's obvious direction change. If either of these games had the same numbers they did during their heights, with only those same number of expansions - we'd re-sub in a heartbeat,
Completely ignore my post where I take the air out of this argument, eh? Here let me remind you.
Thanks for the shout out! :)
I dream of the day MMO's get away from this horrible WoW style of game and get back to the roots of what actually makes a solid MMO. And DAOC 2 would be a perfect fit, so many people love that game including myself. Every forum for every MMO I follow now always has a billion threads asking for features from DAOC. I registered just to make a comment and show my support of DAOC 2 (done right).
Agreed, that was the best thing about having a house in DAoC. You could actually show what you accomplished with your trophies, and you could get some solo, or some with raids. And people really noticed what you did when they went to your house.
This. A hundred times this. Keep the game the same - bring it into this decade visually and mechanically.. but don't change it. A sequel would no doubt be different in many core areas.. It would no longer be DAoC to those of us that actually played it when it was released and experienced it during its prime.
The problem is, the original game is already broken in many regards in the eyes of a majority of players, they'd have to revert it entirely back to the game in 2002, and build upon THAT, and some of the few good features they've introduced since (siege weapons, housing, drinking!, ect ect). If they just built upon current DAoC, I wouldn't go back, theres a reason I'm not playing DAoC right now. They really need to go back to Origins, which... they were doing, until EA pulled everyone off the job to save Warhammer.
You mean those servers opened long after the population had dwindled to less than a tenth of its peak player base? Yeah they were so successful that sub numbers didn't increase and now longer even exist because long-time players all migrated back to the TOA servers! rofl.
What a fantastic way to shoot yourself in the foot, how funny.
For me, the diversity of classes and the depth of the lore (on top of RvR) is what made DAoC my favorite MMO.
I have never played an MMO since that has had classes that I enjoyed that much. I tend to be a fan of pet classes: the theurgist ability to summon as many elementals as he had mana or the bone dancer ability to control an army (1 commander and 3 skeletons) of skeletons or the necromancer casting all spells through his pet while he remained a ghost. Frankly, I'd probably play WAR if the squig herder could actually herd a bunch of squigs at once. I also like the ability to tame pets from just about any mob with some classes. Although I liked these classes, I had many characters of all sorts of classes that I enjoyed playing.
Also, the lore of DAoC was great. WoW had a bit of this, but since the game had no actual war like the warcraft games, it got old really quick (I don't really care about some random farmer, I want to battle mythical creatures or help bolster my realms defenses against the nearby Midgard force). Plus, Celtic, Irish, and Norse lore is just cool. Who wouldn't want to fight in King Arthur's army or play as a viking and raid nearby villages or just be awesome as an irish warrior of old. It has potential for so much with the mythical creatures also.
Combine all of this with the great RvR combat that the game had due to the faction system and you have an outstanding game.
What would be nice if there was a new game, would be, as the author said, to have faster leveling. I like fighting against mythical monsters and that should have some sort of award system, but you shouldn't make me fight mythical monsters for months (can't play all the time) before I can actually do most of the RvR.
I would like to see some sort of integration of fighting mythical monsters and RvR also. To do this, the moster AI would need to be a bit better than just who attacked me first.
Other than that, the basic feel of the game would have to be similar to the original. No WoW cloning like in WAR.
I would definitely play this game.
All i can say is, yes, hell yes. If they made a sequel, or whatever you want to call it. Another game like DAoC, with some changes of course, but keep the core elements that made DAoC great, I would play it. Hell, i'd give another 5 or 6 years of my life to the game.
I'm talking about the servers that opened because there was a HUGE backlash about the ToA expansion, and people were BEGGING for it to be removed from the game.
So, if ToA had absolutely no effect on the game, and everybody loved it, how come the non ToA servers got FLOODED with people as soon as they opened?
Also, once again, you ignore the largely unpopular New Frontiers, people left in conjunction with that, and the changes from ToA.
Did they ever cut the monthly price for that game, I know I would have went back to it a long time ago if they would have, $14.95 is too much a month for that game.
sadly I think they'd screw it up..
my bank account being hit for over $500 was the last straw... my faith in Mythic is long gone.. they can't get something as important as security in the accounting system they sure as hell can't manage DAoC II..
What % of old players were returning to classic (those who had quit playing) vs. the % of ToA players who stayed, did not want to deal with MLing alts or gearing them up, or wanted a fresh start)? <---and went to the opening classic server. Of 7 people I regularly grouped with, all 7 went just to try it out. Of the 7, 3 stayed and 5 went back to our regular server.
The reason the classic servers got flooded initial was not due to old players returning...it was for the second reason mentioned. The pull of people from other servers only help deplete the population that floundering servers were already experiencing.
There are a multitude or reasons why people left as I will totally agree with; heck, I even knew folks who left due to realm population imbalances (of all things).
Was a fun game while I played it; but, until buff bots are removed in full, I will not resubscribe...I do not like to ask for buffs nor will I pay for two accounts to be competitve.
It's the game that got me hooked on MMORPGs and the game that I still have my best memories from and I have played them all. But I must say that at times it was frustrating with the overpowered classes and items (after ToA). If they ever make a DAOC2 I really hope they'll continue to have many classes and also a different way to play all those classes. That is another strenght with DAOC. You could be a successful melee-ranger or using your arrows as an example. All classes had different ways to go that were pretty fun to play.
The crowdcontrol was a bit over the top. They need to cut down the long durations. In Warhammer they did just that, but instead they gave every class a bunch of CC-abilities that made the battles just look silly. People were flying all over the place and sure it's fun to CC someone, but not very fun when yourself are flying all over the map all the time.
The items after ToA made the game unplayable for me and also some of the new classes (Warlock etc). I remember when I fought a Paladin with my ranger and I did like 15 in damage everytime I hit him with my dagger. But everytime I hit him there was a chance that some sort of spirit attacked him as well and lifedrained him and gave me the health. So since the Paladin did very low damage to me and I did low damage to him he suddenly had like 20 of those spirits on his back and my health were back to 100% every second while he was slowly dying.
People that spent time in ToA became ridicolous overpowered with the items, new abilities and so on. Still I would support a DAOC2 even though Warhammer Online had a lot what I wanted, but still it went wrong in my opinion. Three factions is a must.
Would love to see a DAoC2 as long as it isnt dumbed down. ToA wasnt the issue, it was ppl who didnt want to play a MMO that hated ToA, they wanted RvR (FPS) and complain over and over that they had to "put time" into the game to compete, rather than do that they just quit.
One of the great things about DAoC was that it had down time, time to get to know ppl, ya ya 16 hour ML 3's seemed like a pain in the arse waste of time to me to back then, but now that its so easy you can do it with a group or a few of the right classes, or even not at all, just get the BPs to complete it, i miss the "edge of your seat" stuff those nights used to be. The realm is under attack! do we stop the 2 hours we have already done on this PvE raid and go defend?!...great stuff.
I didnt think it was so much fun then, when you could die to many times in a night and be further away from 50 then when you started the night, but now that the market is saturated with easy mode games, I'd love to see that again...just dont die, do something realistic that night, dont go fight the boss mobs..your not ready yet.
Alas, DAoC like that wont ever happen, to many ppl want it and want it now, they dont really want a MMO, they just want to go play the end game.
Before EA took over mythic, 100% yes.
Before EA gave mythic to Bioware, 50% yes.
After Mythic has no authority to make any game ever again without EA and Bioware fucking everything up, 0% yes.
After reading almost all the post, I find it baffling to see soooo many people complaining about CC... its amazing that its even a complaint? Did you guys even have 50's? Now if your in the Thidranki (sp?) and your level 20-24 ... there is really nothing you can do about mezz.. but a level 50!?!?!?... without any Anti-CC!?!?!? ... you deserve to die in your sleep ZZzzzZZ ..LOL
I would LOVE to play a Doac 2 but for the reason previously stated... it can never be. Unless I won like 300 million dollars... then my friends we would have ourselves a game... I would of course buy Houses and cars but some where along the lines... during my big spending spree's my father would ask me if im going in invest in something... thats when Doac 2 would come into play... I would personally oversee EVERYTHING .. and I would have a big bouncer-type bodyguard there to give away free involuntary "Anal Fisting" to anyone that thought up anything even remotely "Wowish" ... kidding (not really tho)
I had some great memories from that game... I remember we (mids) dominated Caledonia (yes, that long ago) and we got the bright idea to try to take a hib keep. So picture about 4 full groups of level 35 mids out there trying to take a keep. We didnt believe we could do it until we actually killed a 50 on our way up to the keep, after that we were AMPED! Of course after we reached the keep we were horribly slaughtered but it still fun knowing those Hibs at their comp were either saying "these mids are truly brave" or "WTF are these idiots thinking"
Another Truelevel Comparison
Doac will always be like that X-girlfriend that was good to you the first couple of years... but going back to her now... you know it will never be the same
BUT... if you gave her a makeover and maybe a tit job ... ill consider MuAHHahaha
I agree 100% man, CC was the main difference between DAOC and warhammer. The ability to zerg bust and just the overall added strategy to 8v8. CC made it so you can not just have your perfect setup, roll in with your perfect armor, smash your assist macro and win every time with perfect armor.
No one ever implied it was old players returning.
I simply said that the classic servers were insanely popular because ToA was insanely UNpopular. Saying ToA didn't help kill the game is just silly.
But yes it was a combination of things, including the shift from focus on group play and social dynamics, to soloing with buff bots.
I agree with most of the OP's suggestions. I also believe it was the 1-2 punch of ToA and Frontiers that killed it. I think Frontiers pretty much finished everyone off. ToA had so much to explore that it took a good 5 months before everyone realized how genuinely awful it was. I believe you could pull this off but probably not with EA breathing down their necks.
First things to NOT do:
1. No instanced battlegrounds. I'm referring to WAR and WoW brand here. It negates the purpose of "the hunt" and turns it merely into a numbers game. There is something to be said to have a favorite spot in Thid and act as brigands and pick people off from your favorite tree. But this new fad of FPS instanced deathmatches is silly to me. It's popular among new people which is cool. But wait till you get a look at DAoC's battlegrounds. These will make you forget all about "other" games whom claim to know pvp.
2. Don't dumb it down or overly complicate. Keep the keep and sieges simple and not so "overly compensating" (New Frontiers)
3. Get rid of Vampiir unless you plan to make them glittery, overly angsty, and weak to emo music ala (Minstrels and skalds)
Things I don't agree with.
1. Making leveling easier- just because the current breed of gamer demands and easier go of it doesn't make it more fun. It makes 1-40 typically empty. I think the pace was monotonous for a reason. It required fun work. I actually enjoyed leveling even though it was arduous. Most people gave up before 50..so it wasn't populated with a bunch of the same people with 20 different 50's. It was hard. Leave it that way. People never respect (respect as in the game itself) the games who make it too easy for them. Sure they will complain about death penalty. But those are the first to leave when they reach 50
2. Classes. I loved the number of classes. You don't need 4 prime classes to float a ship. You need a steady and varied group, so that YES a nightshade can take down a healer in 1.5 seconds. That creates a need for teamwork and grouping, instead of the 5 solo players you have in warhammer every time a scenario pops. The archer classes were each different and had a role to play in a group. This means this same archer had to make friends when leveling through pve.
3. I never minded CC. Everyone complains about DAoC CC and I seriously don't see the fuss. Yes, it sucked to get mezzed by a single Minstrel under a bridge, but that is part of the charm (frustration). Most of the time, you can tear right through that guy if you get him in open field. That same Mentalist who mezzed you so annoyingly can also be torn to shreds by a Scout from behind a tree. I'm sure he'll also say stealth crits are poor form.
4. I don't agree that this could ever be made. It's a simple as that. It doesn't mean I won't hope for it... but there it is. Never going to happen. Still, it's a dream. And as with all dreams (my dating of megan fox is one too) this dream will no doubt be consumed by the big corporations and placed in a contained next to the holy grail. Thus, we will never see DAoC2 outside of our foggy cloud of nostalgia and dreams.
My concern for any reincarnation of DAoC is that the community will never be the same.
The pre-WoW MMO community that played on the DAoC RP servers (I was primarily on Percival) offered plenty of fun for the dedicated player and some great all-night frontier fights. Good times were always there for Old Frontiers+Foundations+Shrouded Isles because the layout was accessible and most players were VERY well mannered.
DAoC in 2001-2003 took patience and loyalty among players just for the glory of the kill count and a sense of victory for your faction and guild. Loot was on your mind, but it was the icing on the cake rather than the whole dessert.
Could that type of game really succeed these days?
I fear that "play for the fun of it" and a common choice of "player immersion in a virtual world" has been lost forever...
No...because it has to have mass appeal. That is, unless you're insanely so self confident that you're perfectly fine with being a niche game...such as EvE.
Nice article! I really do hope something like that would rise up and make me addicted to mmorpgs agains since atm I am really bored.
This is a holy grail for MMO's, recreating DAOC's success with current generation graphics. It could be done and the lessons from Warhammer are there to see. But in todays climate of MMO's being launched too soon and every MMO trying to be everthing to every player I doubt they could do us proud.
I Loved DAoC! An updated version would be great! Grats to the OP for a great article!
I played from beta on till may last year. The only reason i stopped was my disability didnt kick in.
Some say i quit when ToA came out , it did have it's peoblems and later on they mayed it workable. I myself would and prob go bac in a heart beat now got coin comming in, just waiting on new computer to really get bac in game. That and SWToR cought my eye.
Seen the good side of DAOC and bad the years i played it, and my biggest concerern was they made it to easy to lvl and PL went rampeted and then RvR suffered due to all ppl out there didnt have a cllue what their toons could do. So saying that I do disagree with the arthur of aticle. I will say bring it on a DAOC2 would be game for a Run again...
I actually just resubbed to DAoC US, moved my old EU characters over.. and so far I'm having a blast. I played DAoC EU from 2002-2005, then I returned and played DAoC US during late 2007 and early 2008.
I've always wanted to see a DAoC 2.
What I would like to see is:
lets face it money talks and immagination walks. dark age of warcraft comming up. thankyou to all the millions of asians who caused the snowball effect and help kill the mmorpg genere!
Good article! Mythic really dropped the ball with WAR, making to too WoWish and not enough DAoCish :).
DAoC was almost perfect as it was and I don't know why there hasn't been a DAoC 2 yet that builds on those strong points and lessons they learned with DAoC.
Most fun PvP system ever, 3 realms battling it out, roaming groups, keeps, siege mechanincs, relics.
Gifv DAoC 2 nooow!
DAOC2 would be a truly great thing, 3 realms, RvR focus, PvE improved with PQ's etc., less major impact by CC... trying to avoid the gear focus of WoW (maybe make a completely separate version for asia using same engine/world/quests etc but slightly tweaked gfx and a steep gear grind)
Would love it but has no chance of succeeding with EA at the helm, they simply can't do MMO's right, period.
DAOC holds alot of fond memories to most MMO players. I'm playing DAOC even today, and I'm still addicted to the brilliant PVP. First started playing on EU servers back in 2001, I love this game, and I'm hoping Mythic are working on DAOC2.
Mythic, you did a good job on WAR, but DAOC was MUCH better, stick with DAOC.
its funny, you can level a toon to 50 in a day if you really tried, and thats not with paying to get plvled, if you cut that by 75% they should just add /level 49.9, glad they took out the /level though, if you dont actually play the game and learn the toon how will you know the styles and spells it gets.
I agree, it's a huge problem in any RvR game that they tend to favor the hardcore over more casual players. The only real way around the gank groups preventing other factions from leveling is to protect the leveling game by making it entirely separate from the end-game RVR. Say you have an instanced largely non-PvP game for leveling, teaching the basics of gameplay, and to set the lore of the game, followed by entry into the open world RvR and PvE end-game zones. That might work, though it might be sort of what you find in SW:TOR on release next year.
I miss DAOC, I started with MUDS, Meridain 59, Ultima, and EQ... out of all of those, DAOC was the most fun. I would love to see them bring back the glory of the this game. I just don't know if they have the skills to do it. DAOC had unique ideas that we no longer see in the MMO industry... every game is trying to capture the WOW mechanics and making a boring vanilla game just like WOW is to this day.
If they hired some people that understood DAOC - or developed it.... ( which I hear most of those devs now work on Darkfall ) It would be possible... but it just seems like no company can capture the fun and adventure that MMO's used to be. However, if they DID make a sequel to this game, I would buy it no matter what and give it a try.
A reboot of DAoC would be a great day for MMO gaming, but it would be tricky for it to avoid the same pitfalls that hurt it and other games. I think there are alot of good mechanisms from newer games that might be worth including, but also alot of freshly popular game concepts that I think DAoC was, and still would be well enough without. If I were in charge of the project's direction, I would envision it in this way:
General:
Keep:
* The same class/race combinations as original daoc, no expansion classes or races (yet?).
* Original character customization (different races have different stats, players can allocate stat points at creation).
Get Rid Of:
* Everything that came after original DAoC, examine each expansion individually, and incorporate only the best elements from each.
Add:
* A graphics overhaul, updating DAoC's beautiful mechanics with an equally pretty facade.
* Highly customizable skill trees, with rewards that scale with depth of investment.
* Controllable mounts
* Collision detection
PvE:
Keep:
* The world of DAoC vanilla, including different starting villages, horse routes, and iconic dungeons.
* The dragon fights as a source of endgame equipment.
* Class based epic quests; doing these every 5 levels was a fun and guaranteed way to meaningfully upgrade an inventory slot.
* Unique class specific epic armor sets in endgame. Make them a bit more powerful to be competitive with player crafted.
* Dynamic XP bonuses (group, camp, etc..)
Get Rid Of:
* The clunky conversation interface and quest journal. Replace it with a simple user friendly one. Alot of players avoided quests simply because keeping track of what to do was such a hassle, and almost required looking up quest spoilers online. DON'T switch to the other end of the spectrum, where you put a red circle on the map showing exactly where to go. Keep the mystery there, but make it clear enough that you can figure it out on your own.
* Tasks. There is enough content in the world that the player doesn't need to let an NPC tell him what to farm.
* Instances.
Add:
* A second meaningful raid or group encounter (dungeon?) in previously underutilized zones like Llyn Barfog, Vanern Swamp, and the Cursed Forest.
* Public Quests in wilderness areas and dungeons.
* Boss monsters with unique abilities, rather than simply mobs that hit harder and have more HP.
* In game maps
* Something similar to WAR's Tome of Knowledge that tracks the player's accomplishments and stats.
RvR
Keep:
* A world similar to the original frontiers.
* Milegates and other non-objective fortifications (ruins, towers, etc..)
* Darkness Falls and the keep control system
* Relics
* Improvements in CC resistance (charge, determination, purge)
* Meaningful realm abilities
* Player stat tracking
* Low level battlegrounds (non-instanced).
Get Rid Of:
* New Frontier's emphasis on keep siege, make keeps important, but not paramount.
Add:
* Better siege mechanics.
Social
Keep:
* Player and guild housing.
Get Rid Of:
* Having to run to someone's house to buy an item.
Add:
* Simple, but functional looking for group, and looking for guild panels.
* Guild levels with perks (banners, easier crafting, guild hall...)
* Guild experience mechanics that scale with size to not discourage small guilds while rewarding zergers.
This is by no means comprehensive, but it's what immediately springs to mind when I think about what I would want to see in a DAoC rebirth. I really hope that some day this vision comes to fruition, but I'm a bit jaded by the trends of recent MMO releases to be overly optimistic.
I can't be bothered to look it up specifically, but someone earlier in this discussion noted that ex-DAOC players are the most difficult group of MMO gamers to satisfy. I think that's probably true. Those of us who loved DAoC experienced the best MMO that has been made to date, and unfortunately we had to watch it be suffocated by poor design decisions, and the WoW hype machine. I'm sure there are thousands of gamers like me who would leap at the chance to relive the glory of DAoC.
I hope that Mythic recognizes what a gem they have in Dark Age of Camelot, and can convince the powers that be at EA and BioWare to let them reincarnate it into the game we all want to see.
Well i for one, came back after being away for 2 years to play the game without TOA
i LOVED the Gareth server, i played there until it died :(
If it didnt die, i would still be there
Ohhhh Yes! Give us a DAOC 2 !
Good article Garett.
No game did ever approach how i felt for daoc.
If EA goes for it, and Mythic/Bioware don't mess it. It will be THE MMO of the next decade!
I would buy DAoC 2 without even knowing anything about it, thats how much I loved DAoC. Mythic would sell millions of copies if they made DAoC 2.
Come on EA, get it STARTED!!!!!
I actually liked the length of time it took to get to 50. It helped solidify the community.
I remember being in the middle of the pack, on our way to 50 when DAoC came out. It made me feel like the front runners were the pioneers of the server. Listening to them talk about the RvR and their experiences out in the frontier had me hanging on their every word. I couldn't wait to join them and fight for my realm.
When we finally had a good number of 50s on the server we really felt like an army that had matured as players together. There were three realms of players who had gone through months of leveling. All tight-knit armies. It created the most heated rivalries in all of MMO history.
Another big plus was the sense of danger you felt in the frontiers, because if you died you were actually sent packing. WAR really got it wrong in how fast you could return to any said fight in the open RVR lakes. The penalties for dieing in DAoC really made your heart race in every fight.
Reading through this thread the problem with updating old MMOs becomes very apparent: old MMO players all want different things. When dealing with a small audience this is a large problem.
Mythic would know that their audience for a modern DAoC would not be large to begin with so they would want to please as many DAoC fans as possible. However, some people want an upgrade to the existing DAoC, some people want a DAoC upgrade but with no expansions, some people want a sequel that gets rid of the bloat from DAoC.
If a sequel is made the upgrade people will complain, if an upgrade is made then the sequel and opposing upgrade people will complain.
DAoC fans want a modern DAoC but they all have different ideas of what that should be. When that ideal is not met(and it wont be) they will complain.
It would be for the best if DAoC was left to live on forever in the fans' memories instead of having an upgrade or sequel torn apart by fan infighting.
I would give both of my testicles for DAoC 2.
If they cut instancing to appeal to the mmorpg players, I would subscribe. If they include instancing so to appeal to the off-line or multi-player RPG players, I'll pass, just as I canceled other subscriptions that switched over to instancing (it’s stale rpg not mmorpg).
Doh, pressed enter too soon.
I agree with the horse travel. I enjoyed how when your team got together to do some PvE, it felt like you were truly running a quest. YOu had to hop on a horse and get there just like everyone else. In battle, we played our parts well and worked together, but afterwards it was just like midieval times. Gotta mount up and head to town. Fast travel removed the fun of the journey. And I think that's what many of us are saying: we enjoy the journey more than the destination.
insanex
1:TOA the raids or encounters were really good (a few buggy and too long reswapn off the bat) but not scrolls or little levelign should have been required (if artifact weaposn in daoc2 how about you can customize stats a bit when leveling like leveling a character)
2: CC is what made daoc , at least one of the things.
3: some classes issues existed , shamans were super bad for a long time, zerks too strogn thena bit up , etc. But NON-STOP SMALL NERFS AND BUFFS ARE GOOD FOR MMMOs. They keep people interested and things changing.
4: daoc was fun becuase of the crazy number of classes, even mixing core abilities up often provided different play styles. I know i had a blast with all the different classes, it keep me playing roling alts and rvring for new experiences. I would rather have small imbalances than 8 total classes ... boring (which are still going to be unblaanced, so why not have a ton of classes all were effective in pvp and pve).
5: Clear definded class roles, some hybridization is alright but their should be downfalls or different purpose /gameplay with them. (friar, damage with buffs and a small side of healing, great, thane damage with some nuking great, skalds, damage with da speed) So purpose (damage/healing) + desired unique or helpful sides (tanky/cc/secondary healing/sped/buff)
6: Less free and easy loot. Warhammer throws loot at you .... why its simply to easy to acomplish gettign good equip make it som,ethign to strive for.
7: this ties in with #6 Make it challenging, force or make grouping more productive. IE no maaive group bonuses.
8: Instances are NOT your friend , why play an mmo if you spend 90% of your time in an instance? Make big dungeons and maybe random spawnign instances that last for a few mins in them (running through the low part of a dungeon your party comes across an instance that will be open for 5 mins hop in and kill da boss pop back out at nearest safe point in dungeon) This allows one less fights over named mobs with ok item drops and still provides a open world expereince.
These are justa few things that any mmo rpg that wants good pvp should think about,
Not spell checked cuz i don't care
Edit- also no skill trees plz i ment they are ok , or maybe even a combo but daocs talant /point system was better than a skill tree in how and what your character did.
Skill trees add like 3-6 abilitys and via daoc customization i got 8-15 easy, and then it also impacted the strength/ level of those abilities allowing for MORE character development. Mayeb a combo for every 5 points in a catagory 1 point for that mastries skill tree. Even more combos this way.
This! Good Lord, how can Mythic (EA) be so thick-headed? Then, just when I almost came back with the Origins idea, they BLEW IT AGAIN and made the current server cluster TOA....epic failure.
I would play DAOC2 in a heartbeat if they went back to Shrouded Isles type play with a major graphics/UI upgrade. Alas though, what makes anyone think EA Mythic would listen to any of this?
They certainly have showed that they have NO IDEA or simply DO NOT CARE what the customer really wants with their latest DAOC and WAR decisions....
Its really hard to make a mmo ... Sooo many conflicting things
I hear people complain about Instances .... but when you enter a dungeon or there is a place that is good exp and there is a group there already, you have to be that @$$hole that says "Umm how long are you guys going to be here" or you gotta worry about somebody like me pulling within your camp just because I wanna piss you off. Nobody should have to deal with somebody like me... period
But instances hurt the game in another way... so just like a non-gay threesome... somebody is going to be left out
But would I would like to see daoc 2... would be the best part (to me) in daoc .. would have to be the solo game ... I loved just running out alone and seeing what poor straggler I could get my hands around ... So I had this idea that they could make some kind of zone or small portion of the map that didnt allow groups and once inside there was no map to find your way out. the zone would have random entrances so nobody would start in the same place ... Kinda like "Lab" where you cant choose the obilisk, No maps or groups.. but I was thinking more of a Evil forest type theme... I WOULD LOVE THAT... but I dont know how many people enjoy the solo game as much as I did... I can already see the holes in it... nevermind guys
WAR was supposed to be "DAOC 2", but kinda failed miserably.
Ahhh..if only......
Great read. Its to bad so much of what is pointed out in this great read is either ignored or ...hmm...ignored!
Anyway , I'm ready to invest, call someone and beat them if needed til they get it.
I'm not convinced it ever was.
I know players wanted it to be "DAoC 2" but at no time did I ever see anything from the deves that implied it was supposed to be a spiritual successor.
Did anyone else have an nerdgasm when they saw this article?
I'm pretty sure I did.
I have played EQ since beta and I have also played DAOC and a few other MMO. If DAOC came back I would not make a DAOC pt2 I would just overhal the game by putting in and taking out the best/worst things people did and didnt like.
Dont make leveling faster but make sure there is good solid content from levels 1 to 50 then perhaps put class quest you have to do to level from 19 to 20 then do the same thing at lvl 39 to 40 then at 49 to 50 make help break up the grind.
If I could find a game like DAOC but with the playability of EQ I would be done for ever.
I never played DAOC because I did not get heavly into mmo's till SWG, but I have never heard a bad thing about the game and would for sure buy it if a part 2 was released.
I beg to differ. You can't customize the way windows work, such as combining your inventory into 1 window. You can't change the functionality of any part of the ui. Sure you can move it around, color it, give it prettier graphics but you can't actually get rid of the annoying aspects of the UI. You can't add much to it, and to be honest they started allowing what customization you can do a bit too late. By then half the people (myself included, because I released one of the first skin packs) were fed up with TOA and the game in general.. Good players like us left because we got sick of a lot of the crap that mythic forced down our throats. TOA, NF, /level, etc..
Ahh yes... SWG... I was playing both SWG and Daoc at one point ...
I never left after TOA ... I stayed until Lab came out ... Second one on my server with a level 50 Mauler thanks to Moderna ... after SC'ing on my MP armor set and was still getting raped after testing and respecing like 4 times.... I gave up ... I hated the fact that all 3 realms got Mino's ... not very creative. I know its dumb.. staying through all the BS with ToA just to leave over something Cosmetic
I also stayed after the CU in SWG... just couldnt grind the jedi
I agree almost whole-heartedly, with a an exception or two.
They added controllable horse mounts in game. The only thing I would add to this list would be faster action to character response, including movement and overhauling (see: smoothing out and streamlining) both combat and movement.
Otherwise, thinking of these changes made me smile only to realize it'll never happen.
I have to disagree with the digs on the combat in DAoC. I loved the combat and still prefer it to any mmorpg on the market. WHile WoW "feels" better and is easier to get into, DAoC combat and controls took you some time to adjust or readjust to. But once you did, it was very precise which I loved. And actually knowing when you blocked or parried because you clearly saw the animation and heard the metal of your shield or weapon clack to fend-off a blow . . . priceless. And the heavy use of reactionary skills were great, it made the game more reactionary and fluid. In the WoW era, most every class has a skill/style progression where everyone is using the exact same skills at the same time.
And while the ToA argument doesnt matter really, the mix of ToA, NF, and WoW together killed DAoC. And using subscription numbers does not prove anyone's point as 1. Not all of those numbers were official and 2. Those numbers did not account for lagging subscriptions and multi-term (month) subscriptions that kept going though no one was playing. WoW would have killed the game regardless, but without NF and ToA, it would have taken at least a year longer.
Also, the huge number of classes were part of what made the game great. While you had mirrors for the most part in the other two realms, every class was unique enough to make it a completely different experience. And having 3 separate realms made rerolling fun as each realm was very different and took on an "attitude" of its own. This transfered to RvR as well, for better or worse.
Finally, a graphics update of sort has already been played with: http://mharjula.blogspot.com/ All the screenshots on that site are a rendering of existing DAoC zones using the Crysis engine. Clearly, the game can look pretty damn good with the right settings and engine. Making it stable and accommodating for hundreds of people in one area is another matter, but it goes to show you what just one person came up with in his spare time. Imagine a competent development team.
Okay, I had to get in on this discussion. I played DAoC for over 5 years and LOVED IT. I joined with 4 friends and continued to play LONG after they had moved on. I finally left after the populations was going way down and I felt as though I had already done everything and there wasn't much left to do.
That being said, I still remember that game very very fondly. I loved Mythic so much back then that I wanted to marry them and have little lepruchan babies that would play in our Hibernian backyard. When Warhammer came out, what I wanted badly was DAoC 2, but that never happened.
Recently, a friend of mine was so bored that he pressured me to go back and play DAoC, which is still running. I hadn't played in so long that I was against ruining all of the good memories that I had, but he was insistent. The servers have been condensed and combined to the point where the population feels extremely close now to what it did back in the day. The gameplay is extremely dated by today's standards though and after wandering around through the misty water colored memories for a while, I logged off again, saddened that I could never really go back. Some aspects still hold up really well, while others just seem very out of date.
A few things I would NOT want in DAoC 2 would be the RIDICULOUS crowd control. The most frustrating part of the game is that many many fights in the frontier ended without you being able to take a single swing at the enemy because they would time their CC so that you were completely unable to fight.
Also, casters that can't cast once melee reaches you. Basically, you were helpless once melee got up to you and stealthers always started right next to you. It was a lesson in frustration that never ended.
I loved the variety of classes, but like the author stated, there were so many that balancing them all was just plain impossible. Also, the stealthers were so overpowered that they had to be nerfed just to bring them down to ridiculous.
Combat was so lethal that a 1v1 fight would often be over in only a few seconds. When I think of how much running and jumping and crap I do in WoW, the stand in one place and do your combos style seems like it's time is past.
One thing that I really loved was the reactive combo styles, though. You would queue a primary and secondary combat move and if the first one failed, your second one was an anytime move. Nothing else seems to match the fun and skill of that combat system these days.
Well, i could go on forever, but I at least wanted to add my comment, seeing as DAoC was the first game I truly loved.
I too read those forums once in a while, but never subscribed until i saw this topic.
Funny because i called last week to EA/Mythic to get my username for my account, i intend to go back for that 10 days, just because i miss DAoC too much, i also compare any MMORPG to DAoC, and none come close to it.
Would i buy DAoC2 or even return to DAoC ? Yes absolutely.
(off topic, i was Bowbow, a hunter on merlin/midgard so if any old friends see this post, or if any of you want to discuss DAoC for fun, or like my points of view, feel free to contact me via email
Before i keep going, i just want to mention that being french, i'll do my best to explain what i mean or feel, it just might take more words for it :)
DAoC was and still is my favorite game of all times, MMO and solo games altogether. Here are my reasons why i so loved DAoC.
It had basically a good mix of everything, you could do PvE solo, or in group, both were good, and both had their charms. being a human, i have different moods, so sometimes i'd prefer to go solo, sometimes i'd prefer being grouped. crafting was long, but it was fun too, housing was great Battlegrounds, was SO fun ( still remember my 1st one, i was litterally shaking with excitement). Scouting RvR to report any activities was so cool, everyone on FOOT was great too ( i love mounts in WAR, but still, gotta hate when you run on feet to escape, a destro pops out a mount from his back pocket and chase you down lol....nonsense)
Leveling was indeed a bit too long at times, but it wasnt a big deal, i mean come on, one of the main aspect of an RPG is leveling, and i remember that above 40, when you said "DING 43" in public chat or guild chat, you were HAPPY ! you were one step closer to be 50 and be an RVR grown-up lol. It could be around 15% faster it wouldnt hurt, but i wouldnt mind if it stayed long as it is.
Buffbots ? i didnt really mind
RvR, IMHO, was absolutely perfect, before NF. even tho i didnt like NF, i have to admit that i got used to it after a while, although i would have prefered they never made it the way it was. It had some good features, but the main reason i think i didnt like it was that it made realm population imbalances more flagrant.
Gank or being Ganked, thats all about RPGs and MMOs. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. My main was a kobold hunter, and for quite sometimes, a lot of people considered this class to be one of the weakest, but i loved playing it. i don't think that anyone should (although i respect and understand those who do), complain about imbalances in classes. If every human on the planet is different, we like different things, we hate different things, but in MMORPGs the big factor is that we play differently. So lets talk about classes and classes imbalances...
DAoC had the best variety of classes, ever. although my favorite one was the hunter, i also loved to play my troll warrior,my 2 shamans (one buff shaman and the other was with the poison dot spec line) my SM, of course my fire wizard, and some of the classes on the alb side. overall there was about 30-40 classes on DAoC and i can honestly say that i absolutely loved 8-10 of them, like quite a few others, and didnt like to play 10 or so. On WAR, i like (not love) 2 classes, period: Bright Wizard and White lion.
Important point here. CLASSES were basically ALL DIFFERENT ! i dont recall that there was a counter-attack for every other class when you played one, it is totally normal to not be able to fight and win agaisnt every other classes. You had to choose your battle, know your terrain. A lot of people complains (not bithcing anyone here, just stating facts)about classes imbalances when they cant win agaisnt that class, most of the time. The way i see it, in DAoC at least, when you met a certain player that really knew how to play his character, it seemed indeed imbalanced, because of one factor that i think isnt there in WAR or WoW; the human factor... DAoC left room to the human factor, the talent, the FEELING ! Battles took time (often anyways) for many reasons, but nonetheless was far more better than WAR is. DAoC was the last true MMORPG, now its only MMO/action games. i mean come on, MMORPG has RPG in it, and i'm not talking about the role playing part itself (talking someone else and all), but the feeling attached to the tabletop RPGs where fighting was long, where you had time to think (at least a little time sometimes lol), the excitement, the expectation, the adrenaline rush etc. i never found that again in any other game since DAoC...ever. WAR REALLY disappointed me... i played DAOC nearly 4 years, stopped due to change IRL, not because any of the good/bad changes they made. i played WAR for 2...maybe 3 months, and the last month was trying some classes, hoping that i d learn to like the game...it didnt work.
One other thing about your characters in DAoC...you could PERSONALISE them :) you had the basic stats set to a certaint amount, (according to your class and race), but after that you had points you could put wherever you liked! and same thing at each level afterward. Other games nowadays basically offers 1 character per class, cloned for everyone. PQs and quests offer same item for everyone. Characters were different because people are different, that left room for personalisation, and personality. (realising right now that i prefer to take time to talk about DAoC then play WAR atm, wich says alot). Each character was TRULY unique, even tho you would see alot of people asking on public chat "how should i spec my
CC was ok, it made it, like alot of people mentionned, more strategic to play, although you didnt need to be a brain surgeon to play DAoC, strategy felt more real in it than other MMOs.
UI was good too, it did the job, and imho i dont need (heck i dont like) to have to have 20 windows on my screen, i in fact also miss the DAoC UI, it was good for me at least.
The Lore was great, there was a feel to it, WAR has a nice polish, but the raw material underneath seems....well, even though WARHAMMER rpg was there for 25 years+, the online version just don't show that.
Now the flaws, as to why (my opinion only, just sharing my thoughts here, i aint no messiah lol) as to why it almost died:
WoW of course came around when DAoC had problems, maybe Mythic got nervous before WoW came out, and reacted nervously and did wrong moves, like ToA and NF.
ToA isnt the direct cause or at least not the same way ( or not totally the way) that other people mention; many things have to put in consideration:
- population : at only about 2200 people per server(i remember that Merlin server reached 3000 most of the times), you dont go add MORE grounds to cover, that only spread out the people, wich diminish the density of the population, you instead should add more stuff to explore in the already existing land. DAoC had LOTS of empty spots, so the expansions only gave us more empty spots :/ The more expansion they came out with (expansions that gave us new territories to explore) only spreaded us out more. Expansions that happens WITHIN the already existing grounds are ok, (i.e Darkness falls) was perfect, evne though it was "elsewhere" (had to load DF to get in) it was, on the main map, inside the main and first existing land, thus people had to converge toward that spot to get in, and since it wasnt always opened to your realm, you could only go there at certain moments, thus making it a popular destination for lot of people when you could get in.
Spreading players across more land made (sadly), teleportation an almost must, since people were all spreaded apart, it was necessary to give them faster means of transportation to get together wich is good, , but it also killed a part of what made DAoC great: When it first came out, organising a RVR raid needed time and coordination, and acting fast and smart was a factor...the other realm/realms had to also react fast to save their land from invaders. I remember how i felt when i was so far from the RvR zone and someone yelled in public chat " 10 + groups of albs just crossed the MG !" you d run like a crazy mad man, take all the shortcuts you knew to get to a horse, then while rifing on the horse, i'dgo to the bathroom for a bio break, to the kitchen to refill my glass ( heck even brought the whole 2L of pepsi with me lol), grab some food, cuz you knew you wouldn dare to go afk for a while after that, not until your keeps were safe. Teleportation killed that (RvR call = suicide, teleport and be on site in a flash), No matter how long and well you prepared your RvR raid, the other realms simply could be there WAY too fast. Of course you want to have a battle, meaning you want your ennemy to be there, but not at the cost of annihilating the time and energy put in place to prepare your raid, you want the excitement to not know when or where you will have a fight, what you will be able to capture before they arrive, etc.
NF changed the RvR that people were used to play for many years. Not necessarly in open field battles, but in and around keeps and such. Most of RPG players DONT like major changes. they feel confortable in what they know. Take that away from them, and give them something TOTALLY different, and the reaction will rarely be good. Those 2 things arrived around the time WoW was announced or came out, wich added to the exodus of players.
When Mythic announced WAR, i was SO excited...when it came out i was so disappointed. Maybe Mythic lost control of the content they could put in WAR when they joined EA, maybe they wanted too much to compete to WoW that they tried to make a WoW 2 named WAR, maybe maybe maybe...Not trying to find out who's fault it is, its pointless.
BUT...if most of the decision made toward WAR were taken by EA, then i suggest or want to point out a few things thing...Leave the MMORPG creation in MMORPG and RPG people that plays it, like it, love it, live for it. RPG and MMORPG players are not common video gamers they seek something else, something that only MMO players can understand...sometimes disagree totally lol, but understand. No one would ask to an accountant to create a new recipe, they'd ask a chef. You guys want to make an MMORPG ? hire MMORPG lovers. MMORPG players, are much like LARP players, they complain all the time, they always have something to say, but give them a good game that has a feeling, that allows them to have a unique char, that respect their change of moods by offering lots of classes as in DAoC, balanced or not, they will play...tools to bond with other players that fit their styles, little changes at a time (smart and small), so they can adapt and they ll follow you till death.
If WoW is popular today, cuz its mostly teens that plays it (and are not seeking that same sparkle), those teens will grow older and look for something else, so start making a DAoC2 now, or rework DAoC, then you will have that big piece of the market that you look for.
And trying to make a WoWlike game with WAR was a mistake, for a reason that i mention earlier. RPG players dont like big changes, and WAR isnt very different then WoW, but then again, its not working...why ? cuz its not another game, it looks like another version of the game, so its better for them to stay where they are comfortable then to switch to something thats not different enough to be appealing to them.
A lot of time, money and energy were put in the wrong places in WAR (imo at least). having tome unlocks for winning 10 battles naked is funny, having 1,000 titles choices is cute, but both are pretty damn useless. PvE is too easy, PvP battles are too fast, too expeditive. Getting to places is too easy, too fast, WAR is almost a MMOFPS
DAoC2 or rework DAoC ? absolutely
Why not try something...offer a 3 month free to all ex DAoC players or even to everyone this fall ? you got everyone's email in your database, copy the servers for that time, with a pre ToA/NF version...10 or 14 days is not enuff to get addicted or to learn the ropes enuff for new players to switch to DAoC. when that 3 months is over, send a poll or a list of questions to those who have played during that 3 months, get their opinion (mostly the good points). I mean Mythic, their DAoC fans need it, want it, deserve it :)
Heck i'd join the team if you ask me to :)
Ok, its late, i'm stopping now, even tho i feel like i forgot quite a few things i wanted to talk about,
G'nite everyone, hope to see you all somewhere in the future in a DAoC land, friend or ennemy :)
Okay, what I really WOULD love to see in DAoC 2:
Reactive combat styles!!! Like I said previously, those were so great. You could queue a reactive combat style and an anytime style to be safe, or queue 2 reactives to take a risk that you were gonna get a big combo off.
COMBOS!!! I played a Valewalker primarily and my most powerful combo was like 5 moves long. If I actually got the full thing off it did so much damage that I would be STOKED!!
Seige warfare that was EXCITING!!! God, I remember defending keeps and sniping through windows to try to keep the Albs and the Mids from capping our keep was so fun. You could see the door health going down and someone would be trying to repair it and I would be trying to kill the enemies on seige. It truly was some of the most fun in an MMO.
DARKNESS FALLS!!!! I remember the excitement of being in DF and seeing the message that the enemy had taken control of it. You KNEW that they would be sending an extermination squad immediately to our side of the dungeon to wipe us all out. We had to immediately group together to try to hold them off as long as we could, even though we knew, ultimately, we would all be killed.
CHAMPION LEVELS!!!! When Mythic introduced Champion Levels instead of just increasing the level cap, it was a great idea. Funcom is doing the same thing or something similar with the AoC expansion. Those, combined with all the RVR abilities you got made you feel like you were badass, not because you were just a higher level, but because you were MORE BADASS!!!
Oh, and this has been said before, but THREE FACTIONS instead of the usual 2. Out on the frontier fighting your enemy and then suddenly having your OTHER enemy take advantage of the situation by blindsighting whoever was losing or teaming up with you against the hated Albs to wipe them out before shaking your hand and then trying to cut it off when you were the only enemy left.
HOUSING!! Having my own house that I decorated myself and collected trophies for, where I could work on my crafting. Wow, that really did feel like home.
Ah, good times. I'm sure there are more things, but these are a few.
After going back and reading all of the posts, I wanted to add a few more things. Almost everyone hated ToA it seems. While I wasn't a fan either, the reason I didn't care for it was because of how much of a pain it was to get in on the raids and how long they took. From the sounds of it, I am in the minority, because I generally prefer to adventure solo and join groups only to accomplish something. Generally, I like to level alone and then go pvp with everyone else. That is why ToA annoyed me, you had to sit around waiting for a huge group then go on a giant raid that took soooo long. That being said, I loved almost every expansion Mythic put out through Labrynth of the Minotaur. ToA was my least favorite though.
Of the ideas people posted the most intriguing one to me is DAoC REBORN!!! Instead of a new game, as in, DAoC 2, how about DAoC REBORN, where they take the best aspects of the game, throw the worst crap in the garbage, and pimp the graphics and UI. Now THAT would make everyone happy I think. Not only that, but it would be a fraction of the cost of developing from scratch, since most of the legwork has been done already. That would leave them more time to really do a fantastic job on the details.
The worst problem that surfaced in DAoC was mentioned in passing, but that is diluting the players. Every MMO thinks that every expansion has to add more new areas and more and more zones. That makes the old areas ghost towns and the players keep getting spread further and further apart. I would like to see DAoC Reborn avoid that altogether by keeping the popular areas and throwing the rest in the garbage. Any expansions that come along would add detail to the popular areas instead of adding more and more new zones to spread people out.
Yes, get rid of instancing; no battlegrounds or instanced dungeons. You meet a lot of people by chance while working the same dungeon or out wandering around the frontier looking for people to kill. Being forced to come up with a group before you can even attempt a dungeon makes it a pain, whereas wandering in, pulling some mobs and maybe joining up with some other players who also happen to be there makes it just part of the fun.
Those are my thoughts for now. DAoC REBORN, people!!!! Think about it!!!
I wanted to comment really fast on some of the negativity towards Mythic. Yes, most didn't like ToA and Frontiers. But when SI came out..man...it was buggy but they nailed it. I remember the first time I rode through those giant houses on my autohorse. My imagination hadn't been captured like that since my first day on Eq's first day.
And don't get me started about the awesomely arduous (yes at the same time) housing.
What an utterly exhausting and yet exhilarating read this is.
I was very young when i started playing my first real MMO (Meridian 59) but DAoC was my first true love. I think the ex-girlfriend analogy is very fitting - having slowly grown apart as your goals in life took different paths and wishing things could go back to how it was.
As a player situated in Europe, playing on the US servers was quite a hassle at times (Hib/Perc!) but having beta tested, I fell madly deeply in love with the game and stuck to it.
It was a game that nursed and really awarded realm co-operation and pride. For all its flaws (looking back) it is to date my favourite game ever and I too find myself missing and hoping for many many of the things that made it great.
Allthough the hard interrupts were perhaps one of the bigger flaws in the combat system it put a lot more emphasis on positioning and tactics, even strategy in larger scale warfare than most games to today. The positional an reactionary styles for melee was involving and exciting allthough i wish similar systems were put in use for casters (Aion chains, Warhammer shaman comes to mind)
Having to put effort as a realm to defend the frontiers, or conquer your enemies working for a common goal not just as a guild created a strong sense of community and pride and the non-instanced raids made the world feel alive and exciting. Our first dragon kill is still one of my proudest moments, having massed 250 people at first and finally killing Cuuldrach with 200 people.
While in conlcusion utterly dissapointing, WAR made some great advances in doing the same. Public quests, tome of knowledge and contributing to zone control even at low levels was genious.
In conclusion, a remake or sequel to DAoC, if done right, would in my mind have the prospect of being a huge success, building on three very notable and familiar mythologies as well as sporting some of the absolute best PvP (RvR) gameplay to date.
Don't think there will be a DAoC 2 but DAoC 1 with graphics of WAR + and frequent updates would definately bring in new and old players alike. I support the idea of a DAoC 2. It's been said so many times though so won't go into any great details. Basicly anything with RvRvR and no good or evil and pvp with purpose is something which is a great option in any game. But seriously, the old game + graphics / tech update with frequent updates is all anyone really wants.
Incase anyone hasn't seen this, some neat stuff with a guy that imported DAoC maps to the Crysis engine. It's from a few months ago, but cool none the less.
http://mharjula.blogspot.com/
i still love DAoC !! if there will be DAoC2 it will be my next game !!!
I LOVE THIS NEWS ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! !
I Hope you manage to keep the feeling of sucess when you get a sidestyle or a backstyle in. So it's not just a fontain of numbers flying arounds in different colors. I realy do not like that.
I want a clean hit!
You sidestyle for 666 damage and the weakass lurries ribs crush like crispbread beneath a bowlingball!
He accualy tryes to redo them himself. I saw them and it was pretty cool But then i realized that DaaaMn thidranki looks small ^^
Well, in conclusion I think most agree that DAoC is one of the best MMOs to date - even if it may not have such a broad appeal as e.g. WOW. Sadly, I don't think that EA Mythic is going to invest another dime into the game, seeing how they struggle to keep WAR afloat. The feeling that I have is that MMOs these days need to foremost make a lot of cash upon release (hypehype) and everything that comes after that is just a bonus. A re-release of DAoC would probably not make huge amounts of money, unless aggressively advertised. And that would mean EA competing against itself (WAR). Some interesting novel ideas aside, DAOC is a much more solid game than WAR ever was (and probably ever will be) - for all the reasons mentioned in this thread. I am actually half-considering buying an account again... But the game feels somewhat tired to me, the publisher is not really supporting it anymore and it is therefore only a matter of time until the last server will eventually be shut down. So I say "Give DAoC:Reborn!" ...
That is pretty damn cool. To be honest, even with the graphics upgrade, the old, flat terrain still looks a bit dated though. Seriously though, if some guy is doing this for fun, a small team of 30 like Mythic had back in the day could do wonders with a DAoC Reborn release.
There is a difference between converting some maps into something the crytec sandbox can render and changing the engine on which a game is running. The best we could hope for is face-lift using the Warhammer engine (which is, I believe, a somewhat advanced version of the DAoC one).
Just imagine 200vs200 keep fights using the crytec engine... and now add exploding computers and melting gfx cards to that mental picture.
I'll have to agree with Torak here.
Also as painful as ToA was, it was doable, those that gave up early missed on a lot, ToA became an after thought when dedicated PvE'ers would run entire ML raids in primetime with everything ready and holding all items needed, heck I remember co-hosting with Lyli (Hib-Kay) a ML8 and we capped the BG at 200, this made it go so much faster when everything died oh so fast.
As for NF, yes I was also one of those Emain open RvR players, in those days I was in Alb as a Cleric, and yes the change from OF to NF was overwhelming, at first. And while NF was more centered toward keeps, there were still "hot spots" that were used for open RvR, specially around all the Towers in the 3 realms that were surrounded by ruins. And the keep sieges was actually quite fun from a melee point of view (I ended up spending most of my years as a Mid Zerk in Gareth), and all that led to Relic Raids which by themselves they are fun because once you open the Relic Gates, it's all open RvR all over the map, from the main force clashing with the main defenders, to defender groups running blocking reinforcements, setting traps, etc.
It's a shame all the ones that jumped ship after NF released, had they given it the chance, they would have liked it. I for one have to say I was lucky to have an active guild with active RvR leaders that always took whoever was on, regardless of group balance, and go out there and fight (Thanks Mystchivious - Skald) :)
For the CC complainers, it's part of the game, part of the mechanic, can't be pure straight fight all the time, good PvP has tactics, takes longer than 5mins, CC helped in doing that, yes we all banged our desk when we saw the ZzZZz, but we all had ways to deal with it, ToA added all kind of artifacts that dealth with CC, and those of us in the Classic servers we knew that our first 5 RP were for Purge 1, pure tanks didn't worry too much about CC with stoicism and some determination RA. It was all about finding the balance with your RA's and some items and could avoid CC all together. Does CC have a long duration? yes, but somehow as I look back at all the big fights that we won and lost because of CC, I wouldn't change a thing!.
Pedro - 50 Berserker RR7 Gareth - Myth
Hanamichi - 50 Cleric RR8 Kay - The Forsaken
Pedrob - 50 Bard RR4 Iseult - Storm's Fury
What if....fluffy bunnies fell out of the sky and we were able to kill and eat them at will?
If we are gonna dream....we should dream big.
I definetly agree with this. I would prefer more "dated" graphics as people call them, than the best graphics available and having everyone crash all the time.
I would rather have low graphic 200v200 than high graphic 50v50
I didn't post the link to hint that his was a solution to updating the graphics in DAoC. Just thought some people might find the work he was doing interesting.
On that note, you are right. Although, 200 vs 200 fights would take down a DAoC server anyway. We managed that plenty of times in the early days of relic raids.
Definitely bring DAOC2 to the table. I haven't found a game yet that parallels its complexities. PvP, RvR, PvE, hell even crafting was difficult. But it was all fun because of the sense of community. Games since then have lost that.
Update the graphics, take out the stuuuupid mez spells, take out the mindless grinding, make the game unhackable (I left because of the hack and the mez spell), add some other creative things, and I'll play DAoC again.
So, to repeat: No mindless grind, no mez spell that renders your character unplayable for 10 seconds (idiotic idea--like who wants to lose control of their character?) and a hack-proof client.
Kapeesh, lol?
Lets not forget the problems that DAoC had, and to large extent were overcome in WAR. Pretty much no instant death, limited stealth, crowd control that worked (in my option, certainly the Mez, stun, stun, didn't happen).
Taking what is good with WAR and putting that into DAoC2 would really work. Mirror classes put pay to the "realm" balance arguement. However three realms is a must. I think city invasion could work, but not a "moving" battle front - that pretty much killed the "ruddy hibs own our tower, lets go get it back!" feeling. Tomb of Knowledge, quest system, public quests, and maps, all worked pretty well.
To conclude, really what we want is a melding of the best bits of DAoC and WAR; now that would be a game worth a testicle or two (well someone elses testicle anyway, preferable a Hib!)
I played DAoC from release up to the archer patch (not sure which number it was). That turned me finally off as Mythic dd something no one in the archer community wanted. We asked for apples, but were given rotten oranges. The consensus was that DAoC had turned into a test lab for WAR.
Anyways, DAoC was my first MMO love, and will remain so. These days I play LotRO, but still wish for DAoC's combat system. The style system makes you pay attention during fights, unlike the 1-2-3-1-2-3 sequences I hit these days.
I would love to play DAoC again, if they opened a new server with just the original content. The useful addition such as housing, mounts, etc. can be added later. One of the problems with the expansions were that they added stuff which made balancing impossible. A hunter and an Infiltrator may have tough close fights, but if one has Shades of Mist up, or some other artifact ability or RA like Purge/Ignore Pain (not Infil though), the fight is one-sided. The new classes also added many problems that were hard to solve. Animists in keeps come to mind.
One of the big discussions revolve around CC. I would like to see changes, but not elimination. As a mid, it was a huge difference between running into a fight with the insta-CC up, or not. Reducing CC-timers would eliminate the need for Stoicm and other anti-CC solutions. Reduce mezzes to 15-20 seconds, enough for the mezzing side to have a slight advantage, but not enough to make the fight one-sided.
Baseline, I would love to see DAOC 2, or a stripped version of DAoC, but the key is in the implementation.
Ah yes, the 200v200 definetly would crash the server. I recall when the game first came out, we took about 200+ people (i was hibernia at the time) to raid a midgard keep. No one was max level yet, I think the highest person was 35, but mainly everyone else was 25 and below.
We got in, managed to get to the lord, but the server crashed before we could take him down. Following that, many hibbies petitioned to mythic that we should get the keep, but sadly we did not. (This was on Lancelot server btw)
I respectfull disagree. Mirroring classes is, well, lame... for a lack of a better word. Sure, there were issues with class balance, but much of the whining was either adressed or was just that, whining. If you get your ass kicked, it's easy to point fingers and say "because this class has this or that ability, it's overpowered!". Personally, I played all three realms (with and without setgroups) and the reality is that group or zerg balance was pretty ok, but player skill (and realm rank) factored in immensely. The class system was something that makes DAoC so unique, to this day.
I do agree that WAR got some things right, but classes isn't one of them. And the whole debate on CC has been done a few pages back. If you surround yourself with half-way decent players, there was no problem with CC imho. There were enough ways to counteract it. And I found CC in DAoC much more tolerable than in WAR with all the silly knockbacks and whatnot.
I couldn't agree more, on both points.
Mirroring classes is just awful, in my opinion. I played Mid for two years, then switched to Alb for two, and finally played Hib for a little less than a year. When friends/family that I played with wanted to switch realms, it was exciting for me. Playing a whole new realm with completely different classes, all of which had vastly different abilities. Sure that can make balancing a little more interesting, but honestly WAR has no less complaining about some other classes abilities than DAoC did. And those classes are mirrored pretty closely, for crying out loud.
Two of the things I liked least about WAR were the mirrored classes, and the complete lack of versatility of any classes in the game. Compared to DAoC, every class in WAR seemed boring and easy to master.
The CC complaints in this thread really suprise me. My only guess is a lot of people weren't around when things were better. Perhaps there is a parallel with people that quit because of ToA, and people that have bad memories of CC. I felt that post-TOA, CC was pretty well balanced. Mez was good for initial position, and as an interrupt mostly.
Man, that is a bullseye at 20 miles. Great article and if it happens, i will probably go back.
there are no innocents
ALL MMOs are now corrupted by today's market expectations. This is the biggest disconnect (between INVESTORS and Players) of all, the one that has resulted in mediocre MMOs the last few years.
I agree that what DAoC needs is a makeover... not a replacement. I seriously doubt EA is the megacorp to do it. I have never been convinced they know what they are doing with MMOs.
As long as Investors control the MMO world instead of the Devs, I have no faith in any attempt to repolish and upgrade any of the old school MMOs. The Investors will ruin the end result.
The worst thing to ever happen to MMOs was that Blizzard made a MMO that massively financially successful. Blizzards success brought in aa Army of Investor Suits that took over the MMO genre and MMOs I doubt will ever again be anything like what they once were or could have become.
I have played DAoC since US Closed Beta. I still play it but not the post ToA version. I play classic DAoC with Old Frontiers, no SI, no ToA, no artifacts, no MLs or CLs. Yep, its like stepping back into the DAoC of 2002. Its hosted on the Uthgard shard of a free portal.
If Mythic were to just run that version of DAoC they would have a LOT of players returning. If they updated the graphics and UI, so much the better.
It's not engine which kills your machine, it's graphics department :)
Crysis can easily get same and even more fps than DAoC, and still manage to get dynamic lights.
I'm waiting new Crysis so I can test if there is difference as this new engine might be even more optimized.
I heard also rumor that WAR engine was tested by Mythic in DAoC environment, but only as 3D engine .. not really as real client.
http://mharjula.blogspot.com/
Also Daoc RVR had open combat with teams of 8 that roamed looking for fights, and almost a sub culture within known as stealth wars, which was great for those who liked to play a more solo/duo pvp - I played both and it was the best pvp I have ever experienced. Wow pvp is just meankingless to me, like the op said - I never remember the names of those I kill in Wow, but I can still remember those from Daoc after all these years.
Hell no, i look at this like the music industry, some things are Evergreens a 1 time hit that was kinda unexpected and everything after that is just plain shit. WAR showed that Mythic can't repeat it so just let it be, or let someone else try it.
Oh the fantastic memories Daoc brings back, It was my very first MMO and I had nothing but fond times.. Er I think I was one of the few that even enjoyed TOA, though I didn't like NF.
Would welcome a Daoc 2 immensly, I made many friends playing it and all would come back for a second stint of Daoc action if fressh sequel was brought out :)
I'm actually not sure whether I want a DAoC 2 or a facelift for the current version. I think a DAoC 2 would allow them to re-invent the world and classes to make the game fresh again. I suspect that a mere graphics update wouldn't bring the game back to life for very long. Most players have been there and done that, so to speak. An 'origins' server may sound interesting, but since most old-timers have little to discover there, it would probably all come down to a race of which realm gets the most toons to 50 as soon as possible to dominate the frontiers. That could be fun for a while, but it wouldn't really bring back the game many of us remember.
Just make the game! It's so obvious that it's a perfect thing to create.
Realistic looking chain, plate, leather and cloths. The architecture from the different realms, the feel. Different music themes. Different classes for each realm. Keep everything that makes daoc , daoc.
Just do it for crying out...
Before someone else does. (With enough small changes to make it there own)
Count me in for DAOC2! I left a couple months after ToA. Loved the 3 realms - instant team. Loved the different realm abilities. Darkness Falls was a great addition to realm pride and RvR. Say No to Raiding. Say no to Stealthies 2 shotting heroes.
You can count me in fr DAOC II also. I did almost five years in the original and still check the DAoC Herald in hopes of a population explosion.
-=[ Maz ]=-
I'd support a DAoC 2 but I know it would just slowly start getting turned into shit by the devs listening to the "QQ forum babies" saying it is too hard to level, or nerf that they beat me in 1v1. That was why older games were better they barely listened to the criers. They fixed bugs and progressed with the story through THEIR eyes.
It would just turn into a WoW clone after 2 months of alpha/closed.
Ruining the game once more, players complained about the grind from 40-50 but it really wasn't that terrible, It was very rough but when you got to the happiness of 50 you were satisfied and enjoyed the great game laid infront of you.
Ok. About the PVE being too long to level. YOU ARE WRONG! DAOC was a MMORPG. Remember? When the game first come out and we leveled to 50 IT ACTUALLY MEANT SOMETHING TO DO IT! Most people did NOT have buffbots back then so you had to LEVEL IN A GROUP. The adventures I had meeting new peeps and killing mobs and getting cool drops was AWESOME. Each time you leveled you felt like you EARNED IT, not like it is now, just an after thought for rvr. Dark Age of Camelot was NEVER just about pvp early on.
DAOC, in the beginning, was about a good balance of a fine PVE adventure coupled with good PVP/RVR. But soon the kiddies only wanted rvr and it became the main focus. No longer did alot of peeps want to get to level 50 again with another character because it took so long. This sometimes hurt players looking for groups for pve because alot were rvring all the time. But Mythic fixed that. They added battlegrounds for every 10 levels so peeps could take a break from all that pveing and kick some buttox. The only problem here was that the lower level BGs were, imo, way to big. The level 10's through 30's should have been 1/4 of the size of the last BG at level 40.
One more thing about pve. Mythic did an OUTSTANDING JOB with the few people they had to provide pve content for all 3 realms, at least in the beginning with Shrouded Isles, arguably thier greatest and first expansion. That expansion had HUGE CONTENT for 3 realms and each new land , races, and classes, were DIFFERENT. Every expansion afterword got alot smaller each time but they still provided great content.
I want to make one thing perfectly clear, IF YOU DONT HAVE GREAT PVE CONTENT THAT MAKES the leveling of your character IMPORTANT and you dont give peeps the journey to level thier characters with PURPOSE and ADVENTURE, then DAOC 2 would be NOTHING MORE THAN A NICH PVP GAME. Not many people will play that. Period. See Warhammer.
To make a good DAOC 2 you need to great expansions, like Shrouded Isles, realistic graphics and not cartoony crap like World of Warcraft, the same basic 3 realm rvr system, AND BAN THE USE OF BUFFS OUTSIDE OF A GROUP,
then DAOC 2 would be succesful. Make it simple yet fun and give us both great pve and pvp adventures.
Charge only 9.99.
And do away with Minstrels. :)
End of Line.
I love DAoC and would gladly go back if a sequel was made. I like what Mythic did with DAoC and Warhammer minus some small complaints. If a DAoC sequel had a better interface, less grinding to level, and a way to make every class valuable in RvR, I'd be there in a flash. I also think that a way to promote grouping and guilding is to take a couple of game mechanics from Warhammer. Public quests were fun, fast, and rewarding with small groups coming together easily to complete the specific quest. This is a great way to meet other players around your level. The other game mechanic that I like from Warhammer is the guild tactics that can be unlocked from leveling up a guild. I think DAoC is due for a redo. Please Mythic, give us a reason to go back to the realms.
Wow,
I'm blown away, if all these comments don't speak for themselves to the community DAOC had, I don't know what will. I'm in the same boat, first love, last love, lost interest in most games since then. Something great would have to happen to peak my interest once again.
LF
The biggest thing I loved about DAoC was that you could own an actual piece of the game. Your guild could capture, maintain, patrol, and upgrade the keeps. I used to spend hours on end, doing absolutely nothing but patrolling the walls of my guild's keep and talking in guild chat. Then all of a sudden 10 catapults and trebuchet (sp?) pop up and 50 tree-huggin hibbies are standing at the gate waiting to be slaughtered by the might of Midgard (I'm biased, sue me). The article has a great point about realm pride. To this day I still despise alb zergs and hibbies, and nothing will ever change that.
I really enjoyed the level of the original game. When you finally got to 46-48, you got a nice reward of being able to participate in frontiers and being effective. I liked the addition of battlegrounds, but still wished they had thier own gates, like the frontiers gates, to make it more realistic (not just teleporting into a realm keep). I still can't get the rush in any game I used to in DAoC after capturing a keep.
I would love to see a DAoC 2 get released with the following:
Oh and one other thing, if a Mid is within the realm of Albion, then the Mid can only initiate an attack on an Alb who is 1 level under his level, equal to him or greater.
Oh yeah, and lastly, nazi-ban all radar users and buff-bots. Better yet, write some code on the server side that rejects any further connections originating from the same IP address as an existing connection and write some code on the client side that rejects any further connections beyond an existing connection to the Dark Age of Camelot server and also client side code which rejects any other Dark Age of Camelot client instances as well. (Can we say the more overkill on this kind of checking... the better?)
I miss DAoC. It was great. It would be great to see a comeback.
Massive MULTIplayer online games - should be just that. MULTI -player. I played WoW for about 6 months. There is no incentive to group. There is no incentive to interact with other players in a communal like faction. It's quite sterile as a community.
DAoC had that community feel.
Though, it was far from perfect. As a casual player, I was generally incapable of keeping up with the hardcore.
Good article.
If they made a decent expansion and updated the graphics, I would play this again.
DAoC had some epic ideas that nowadays just wouldn't be done again. One of the posters reminded me of the best one and that was team leads. Unlike many games where they became reactionary to the whiners on forums, Mythic created a web site where you can find out anything about the game and where people could post their questions/complaints. Rather than the norm of a game listening to just the feedback from all the people who would complain (stealthers are too overpowered, LoS sucks, where's MY Ground Target ability, why can I have a high damage quick cast spell, etc), they "promoted" players who specifically interviewed for their particular class to give them the feedback on the class and that team lead would be responsible for making sure that particular class was in balance.
WAR was killed as soon as it took 6 races per 2 factions approach to ape wow. It's funny that they missed that 3 factions as per daoc was the only way to go. I see GW2 will have WvWvW PvP, ie same 8 races but 3 servers slogging in open-world pvp for a week or 2 over RTS elements.
It's the closest I've heard to DAOC's system for a long time!!
I regret missing the first one. I was not much into MMORPG PvP at the time, so I let it pass by. I know it's still around, but it would have been fun to experience it in it's hayday. I don't think the communities are willing to support such a game any longer. They have become much too selfish and greedy in my opinion. It seems like most players are only in it for themselves. They generally will no longer participate in things that have no direct benefit for them, personally.
I agree with the article, and I think ToA really drove a lot of more casual DAoC players away, but they've made improvements lately that fix all of those problems. The amount of classes is very rare for a MMO, especially a RvR/PvP oriented game, and class balance has always been an issue, but I wouldn't trust the new mythic under EA to be able to replicate the magic in DAoC 1. I believe it would be much better to revitalize the game, add lots of new content, spend money on improving RvR elements, add public quests, maybe even further the level cap, and actually try to make the game feel new. Maybe even run an advertising campaign for it. Who needs a sequel if you can effectively update the original for today?
other mmo's might be able to compete if they had a /stick
I would love to see DAoC 2. I really want to go back to DAoC right now (as WoW, WAR, Aion, etc did not even come remotely close to pre-toa DAoC)--but I hated ToA enough that I wouldn't return unless it was a classic or origins server.
I did quit DAoC when NF came out--and I believe the poster hit the nail on the head there--but I think that ToA was just as damaging to my playing experience as a pvper. I did not feel the MLs were balanced across the classes (compare skald ML10 to armsman ML10---remember getting thrown into the ground for quite a while by skalds..and getting garbage as an armsman?) I hated doing pve raids, and grinding for scrolls/artifact levels--so all in all, I felt that ToA was just as damaging as NF was--Granted the lack of small-medium world pvp that occured when NF came out was what drove me out (I'm not much of a zerger, and as a melee fighter, I hated beating on doors all day).
I, like many other ex-daoc vets, hoped that WAR would be like DAoC 2..that mythic would learn from their mistakes...but I, like many others, was sadly mistaken.
I would pay for and play a new DAoC 2 game, or even DAoC origins if it were to come out. I've been hoping for it to come out for many years now...but hey..the gamer in me has not died---it is as strong as ever (even if I have less time now) :D
I Started playing DAOC from Beta test on GOA Europe . I playd there for 2 years , than moved to USA sevrers & there i playd for 5 years more. Than i made a pause just before LOTM came out & after i came back , i noticed that i mist so much with this pause ... So i left on the free shard Uthgard & started from the begining.
So if EA-Mythic will make DAOC 2 - i will subscribe !!!
DaoC 2 is probably the only game outside of Mechwarrior I would get a lifetime subscription to. PvP and crafting has never been made that much fun and creative and that chaotic and eventful. You never knew who sided with who in what fight. It was amazing. And colors to armor... really is amust. Noone should be forced to look like a clown... ever. I hate clowns.
There were also class helpers, you could register yourself to be a helper (cant remember the actual name) and when a new player was wondering something about that class, they opened a window, searched for their class anda list of "helpers" came up.
I loved helping new players, i even spent whole days in Jordheim crafting newbie gear for players, the only reason beeing that one day they would be helping our realm in the RvR battle. Ive never felt that way about any other mmo.
I remember many players contacting me when they got to max level thanking me for helping them out, it was amazing.
The community was just 100 times better in DaoC then in any other mmo ive played, atleast on my erver (Guinevere)
I'll definitely agree with you there--the community on my server, Percival, was also fantastic :D
Guess youre not one of thouse who loved daoc. I love the fact that there are many classes. The many classes, 3 factions and the fact that they all had there own world, there own set of classes and uniqueness is what made it such a good game.
If you want a game more like wow, i would accualy sugest wow itself. Huuuuuuge money chest and real quality expantions etc.
Let wow be wow and daoc be daoc.
Just make another daoc !!! a new, fresh one.
Very interesting read.
My only problem with this is, EA Execs would get hold of it and say "it isn't WoW enough" or "it's too hard for the casual gamer, fix it" or any combination of things expecting it to be more like WoW instead of DAOC. As such, it would kill the potential of the game. Mythic was on right path with WAR. We all saw what happened to WAR after EA took over. No disrespect to EA, but big companies don't give a rats ass about the gamer or the gamers that make games. All they care about is R.O.I. IMHO, the EAs of the world don't have any business buying up development houses unless they are willing to stay out of the house's game development process and let the guys that know how to make games do their jobs. EA proved with regards to WAR, they don't know how to stay out the way.
I still play after all these years, I didnt mind ToA so much as I like the leveling part of MMO's as well as the RvR, what has made the game less appealing now-a-days, for me anyway; is the lack of realm pride that clustering brought on. I would buy a DAoC2 for sure, no question, and I would hope that you could only make one faction on a server again. If you want to play the other two, be my guest, but on a different server.
I agree, TOA had some nice zones, a good story line, but the abilities, and the resulting grind that came with them was........really the killer. People were happy with Shrouded Isles, their Player Made Gear, (Comunity), and yes the rock star status the top players recieved, along with in realm rivalries, etc.....I can go on and on.............
Rel Por, Tyfud, or Kiamar anyone??? Yeah that's MMO gaming at it's best!!
I say no to DAoC2, instead revamp DAoC1 :)
From what I remember.
Change the frontiers - Keep NF castles and such, no bridges leave that for bg's. Delete boat travel and bring back the Gothis (teleporters for mids) bring back the giant teleport pad (memories i swear). Delete agramon. Delete laby, thats what DF is for + its a lot more fun. Battlegrounds was the sh*t, its what introduced me to RvR which in turn made me fall inlove with the addicting game I spent countless memorable hours on, Still miss it.
Update the PVE system for new players - No quest quest quest quest ect ect ect.... Spread them out like they did epic quests and make each quest a lot more fun, longer, and better for the most part. Maybe an instance/quest as if your playing a great rpg (MASS Effect) with co-op, make it so people actually read or better yet make cut-scenes with dialog so you are drawn into your epic story or some type of story (Thats where BIOware comes in !!) ect... And instead of one big chunck of exp for that long entertaining and fun instance/quest, you give them an item with an xp boost that they can wear or whatever for a couple of days so that they are encouraged to grind with your group of friends, cuz all grind and no play makes me go crazy (although the boring grind brought up some very interesting and or funny convos lololo!), which in turn brings them to their next fun/entertaining epic quest/instance a bit faster and repeat. I guess some small quests in between to upgrade your gear and items... Improve combat maybe? Delete everything after SI, including classes and races. Maybe keep artifacts but make them a bit easyer to get, example; no scrolls!!! And having some classes being useless at some but very good at certain things is brilliant! it encourages and almost forces grouping!!! And having 3 factions 1vs1vs1 is also brilliant for a couple of reasons!! A lot of other stuff on my mind but this is long enough as it is. Sh*t.. this probably wont even be read! but its okay.
All in all, im sure almost all agree, DAoC was a great great game for the most part, I played it for 5-6yrs off and on even after trying other mmo's, but thats the thing, it WAS a great game, was....
Elementzero berserker rr6 7 or 8, Shadowblast suppression (funnest caster i have ever played btw) runemaster rr7 or 8. and Elementxero rr7 or 8 champ + countless low rr alts.
I loved Daoc. Coming from UO, was more relaxing and what I was looking for.
Great community, no instancing meant that you had to cooperate with the guys around you and had more contacts
I met there my ex-wife, and we both together levelled slowly our toons.
Who cares if she was a pure heal Druid (no BB) and I was a Celt pierce Champion? It was the fun that matter.
If they could put back classic servers without any expansions other than SI (ONLY Original & SI) would be perfect.
Also ToA didn't killed the game as such. ToA as area was awesome and HUGE. You could easily get lost. :)
Yeah the artifacts levels etc were the bad point, however still if you want to enjoy a game and not powerplay who cares.
The instasing on the next expansions killed off the game.
Broke the feeling of a single whole living world.
RvR was awesome, especially when you had to do a quest in the area :D (or in DF)
Also who forgets Galladoria? Huh. 100 lvl 50people went in once, two came out alive. :D
The best entertainment on Sunday afternoons to be on a raid there. Also how many had a low character just to go to the first battlefield? Awesome days that I will always remember, and no other game since then made me have such vivid and happy memories.
DAOC Rescue Plan - How to make it free for all.
Free all the way. Reset Server play to original rules of release in ALL THINGS.
Keep in mind Farmville sold $400,000,000 in tractors last year. Yes, look it up.
Charge real money for mounts, weapons that yield High Experience 1-20, 20-30-40-50 (for no grinding) and any other fancy (I look cooler than you) weapons that have fire on them.
Charge for high level instances - $2.00 to get in. (Best drops would be here and they would not be tradable) Some folks might pay to get in every night if they are trying for an epic set of armor/weapons.) 5 days a week? Mythic makes $40.00 a month from one customer. Why not? Arcades used to do it that way for those of you old enough to remember them.
Sell Gold. You would think we would be as smart as the Chinese buy now.
Note: Think of these games currently like a mall. They let you come in the door for 14 days, or they won't let you go up the esculator less you hit a certain level. No-no-no... Let the whole mall be open to everyone and let the people who pay be rewarded.
Balance - People pay a lot of money for vanity. The minstral speed can still match a mount, but the only way you're getting one is if you buy one. Weapons: A Paid weapon may do slightly more DPS but will yield a nice full (and noticable) chunk of experince, not to mention it has fire coming off of it and no one else has one. (People who pay do not have to grind their way to the top) People who don't pay would have a hell of a ride. (The way it used to be)
Marketing - America's Top RVR MMORPG game NOW FREE all over Facebook.
Next you thing you know - Your servers are jammed packed. People impulsively buy from the stores, and Mythic is making $400,000,000 a year in "tractor sales".
And what made them such a good game? High Populations and lots of GREAT PVP! You have that formula, I'm sure Mythic will out shine Zynga.
The End.
Would love an updated DAoC
Sadly, the industry is all about money. Somewhere out there, there has to be someone who loved DAoC - and has the wealth and willingness to invest in her descendency.
Will someone please take up the mantle? This mmorpg is a valid investment...so much so that I guarantee the first people to be furious about a DAoC 2 would be the part of Mythic that keeps trying to pretend Warhammer is a viable mmorpg with it's limited 2 realm (typical faction model), quick run instanced BGs, endless gear grinds.
It's been nigh ten years - I do hope someone who has the invesment power can consider this discussion from earlier this year and give it some critical thought. We don't need more underimagined Alganons, overly processed Allods FtP, broken code and low end investment titles,sandboxes from countries that have no clue as to what a medieval fantasy mmo would look like, we need something of substance and quality - i.e.,
Golden Age of Camelot
Special XP bonuses
Option to engage in group realm vs realm quests which offer special xp bonuses for:
1. amount healed on your party 2. Ressurecting your dead 3. Forming pvp alliances between guilds in open RvR
4. Maintaining shield guard on grouped or ungrouped player. Special bonus for guarding a healer. Healer as well
recieves special xp bonuses for healing the tank that guards him.
The list goes on....
First off, if they did a DAoC 2 they definitely get my $50-$60 for the game and a six month subscription from me, I would HAVE to play this game, even knowing that I prolly signing up to play a WoW clone.
I do agree with all those who are saying just upgrade the original. That game is NOT, quite, dead. It may be on life support, true, but it isn't dead. I see one of two approaches being at least successful enough to be worth the time, even for the bean counters at EA.
1) Full on upgrade of the engine and graphics. The engine is too clunky to compete with even some non-AAA titles. The game design (best concept for an MMO in every way, IMO) isn't good enough to support the poor game mechanics and graphics (as compared to other AAA titles - I personnally have no problem with the graphics). Just give the original a facelift, keep the game downloads free, and get the server populations back up so the game is playable again.
2) Give the game a minor facelift, concentrating more on the engine than the graphics (I do realize that upgrading the engine is prolly the hardest of the two), and drop the sub fees to $12 - $13.
Granted, these are based on personal opinion, but the only thing the current game needs for it to be playable and enjoyable for me is, ironically, more players. Dropping the sub fees alone would prolly gain the game a few k more subs. Then show the devs are going to support the game more than just keeping one server up, and there is a few more k subs.
Its also interesting to me how mature this whole thread has been, by and large. It is an example of the difference in the player base of games like EQ, UO, AC and DAoC and games like WoW (yes, I played WoW too, for quite a while). This one of the few threads on this website that don't seem to have a lot of flaming, trolling, etc. Forget about themepark vs. sandbox, hardcore vs. carebear, group vs. solo, etc. I want a game that is going to focus on the type of community that exists on threads like this one. For me, the game becomes more enjoyable with the right community, and DAoC had the best community I have ever played with (back at launch, and in its current form). EQ's was pretty good too, but DAoC just had that something extra in its community.
1) Trials of Atlantis was the biggest mistake in the history of MMO expansions. 'Nuff said. Developers said the players were to blame because they wanted more PvE content. No, players wanted interesting PvE content, not mindless grinding content to get overpowered items.
2) Mythic's developers were absolutely clueless about PvP balancing for the first 2- years of the game. I think after that they started getting a clue about how things worked.
3) How long did they allow Radar-users to play their game? It was only after their billing server was shown to have security problems (similar to how Radar worked) did it finally get corrected. People who used radar were never punished and were given several warnings before getting banned (finally).
4) Mythic had their chance at MMO and failed miserably with Warhammer. How many servers did they have to close? They also showed with Warhammer that they are still clueless about PvP balancing. Bright wizards? Seriously, what a joke. But if you were to go back and read the pre-release interviews, they claimed to have PvP balancing down to a science with all their new tools. Laugh. They didn't even take the most core aspect that worked in DAOC, the 3-realm faction based fighting and went with the 2-realm faction, which probably was one of the biggest mistakes in making WAR. I believe they did this because that is how WoW is set up.
If WAR had been successful (and I'm saying its unsuccessful because of the # of servers that had to be closed within the first year), then perhaps the core Mythic/Mark Jacobs team would be charged with making the DAOC sequel.
Of course, if you want to go back and play DAOC the way it used to be prior to ToA, all you have to do is use Google to find the information on how to do it. Probably against the rules to post more than that.
Ohh god NO!
I will never ever play another Mythic game, WAR was a disaster! The only reason people look back at DAoC is because they wear rose tinted goggles. DAoC did nothing right as far as im concerned. Anyone remember the leveling in DAoC? I do, becasue its the only game I never got to max level because of the tedious grind involved. I can disgustingly remember sitting in Lyonesse pulling non stop goblins and trees for hours on end, it was painful and boring. I finally quit and a guildie of mine powerleveld the rest of the way so I can get into RvR action. Ohh yea speaking of RvR! Loved sitting at Milegates for hours on end or the ability to lose control of my character for minutes at a time due to absurd Crowd Control.
The game sucked and ToA finally killed it and put me out of my misery. Never again, WAR was the same damn thing but people refuse to believe it, becasue of those rose tinted glasses.
Give me a game with quest based leveling, balanced classes, fun and engaging PvP activites that are artifically made fair any day of the week. Theres a reason that WoW is the most popular and Rift is following in their footsteps, RIFT is the next best game.
Couldn't agree more. Upgrade the graphics, and perhaps fix a few of the class mechanics. I would love to see a revamp of this game. Please EA!
I remember being around lvl 40 Mercenary in the very beginning and the first Call-to-Arms went out as Hibernia had taken most of our frontier and was about to hit one of the relic keeps. I can not name a time I've been more pumped up and excited in my entire gaming life as we beat back Hibernia and held the Relic. Amazing! Later, when I understood RvR better and we were running 8man squads on Midgard rolling multiple groups at a time. Or hiding out as the other 2 realms went at it and then striking at just the right time to roll them both. OHH I miss my infiltrator watching the Mile Gate and busting healers as their groups attacked the opposing realm and completely destroying their chances of winning and then hitting Vanish. OH and what about 2 or 3 vs one... you could land the PA chain, DF the 2nd and then Vanish. Oh yea, you're getting a PA too!
Mythic, I'd fondle unspeakable things for DAOC 2.... Just let me bring back the Mercenary 1 last time..
I hate quest based leveling first of all. and artifically made fair PvP is terrible. I want 32 vs 8... That's when me and my groups name gets remembered.
Rose tinted glasses? Disagree. I have many fond memories of DAoC both Pve and Pvp wise. No other fantasy game since has given me near the satisfaction. I would give a testicle to medical research for DAoC 2. Not watered down for the masses but a true sequel and improvement upon the original.
DAoC leveling hasn't been a problem since they implemented starting new characters at 20 and 30 for low population realms. Not to mention, PLing in instances made leveling from 1-50 take about a day, maybe 2.
RvR wasn't sitting around waiting, never has been cause any activity shows up on your RvR map, so you know exactly where to go.
As for class balance, I agree, it was bad, but with 24+ different classes, I'd like to see Blizzard do a better job on their budget. LOL, they can barely handle 10 classes.
The three worst things that ever came into existence in DAoC was ToA expansion, cross realm jumpers and the amount of Crowd Control used.
Other than that, best PvP MMO ever created.
I really don't think the leveling was that bad in DAoC. I had 3 50s before ToA came out. However they need to do something about the damn buffbots and the insane CC. I do like the ideal of smaller servers so people get a rep and we can weed out jerk offs. I can still remember during my time in albion the one name that would send masses of us charging in a rage hoping to be the one to put him down. That damn midgard troll Kubota. I think a revamped DAoC or a sequel would at least be worth checking out.
I would buy Daoc 2 in a heart beat. WoW is ok but it's a bit like the saying "That'll at least make a turd" after eating at a fast food restaurant.
Things I loved about Daoc.
1. Uninstanced dungeons.
2.Community through leveling. This created opertunities to know your fellow realm mates and create friendships and join guilds and alliances with other guilds.. Alliance war meetings were cool too.
3. siege warfare. The complex siege engines and the strategic use of them fascinated me. I loved every bit of it. Though, I had always wished for a fully destructable world, not just keeps. I also loved the addition of other engines later. Though movable siege towers would have been better in my opinion, I know the coding would have been a nightmare.
4. The frontiers were huge and persistant. We never had an 8 man. We had a 3-4 man crew that ran around at times. We would try to avoid the 8 mans and do what damage we could. Danr was our leader in the twilight of the waning days of Daoc. We had a very well oiled machine, we didn't use vent or anything like that, but we knew instinctively what was needed. We were true pros at our role in the group. The fact that a solo or even just a 3-4 man crew could make a difference in the overall war was novel. you can't really do that in WoW these days.
This I hated about Daoc.
1. buffbots. I couldn't afford the same luxuries as the guys that ran with buffbots so inevitably I always died in a 1v1 with these guys. It made all your accomplishments meaningless.
2. Baseline CC. Especially Hib baseline caster stuns, and AE mezz. Nothing is more frustrating then dieing before you can even have a chance to fight.
Nostalgia...
I remember the very moment my first character spawned in a small Troll village in the middle of Mirkwood. I also remember meeting a crew of friends that day that went on to become the closest thing to a family I have ever had in the virual world. This was in the month following release of the game so everything was still very new. Community was everything in Daoc, I still go to our community site for the old server Bors. Borsboards.com
At level 8 my firends were invited to join the guild Fimbulvetr on Bors server. We all had so much reverence for these guys.
The guild master taliored a brand new suit of leather for my Troll shaman and we thought we could do anything.
One day we came across the gate to the old frontier and we went outside and all the people there and the monsters were purple. We knew there was a world much bigger then us out there and that made us really scared.
Eventually we made it to the mid levels and started to get involved in RvR this was before the low level BGs I became a master at siege warfare even back then when no one knew how to use them. The first time our relic was in danger, the Albs and hibs had formed and alliance and attacked us at the Grallerhorn. I had a small ballista there waiting for them. It didn't do much dmg but it was a huge accomplishment to have fired the first siege weapon in a warfare situation. I remember the call to arms that night. we had 200+ vs at least 400 albs and hibs. The server crashed twice. But eventually it became stable enough to have our first major skirmish. There were so many bodies laying in the snow that you could not have walked a single pixel without stepping on one. I was hooked from that night on.
There are many stories like that still in my head. The game made a lasting impression on me. Unlike WoW. There are very few BGs I will remember in WoW. But I will always remember the moments we fought to defend a keep or tower or relic totally outnumbered and yet we held our ground and defended it to the last man. When you fought a battle in the frontiers THEY MEANT SOMETHING. Heros would rise up, men of great leadership. Shiztroll was the greatest of Midgard in those days, one mention that he was in the frontier would easily muster every available Midgard player to be out there following his every word. There were a few moments when I rose to the occaision and became a general in small battles. I learned how to be a good leader and how to lead by example playing this game. My character Farve was a small Kobold warrior. He was not strong, he didn't hit very hard. But his defenses were impenetrable. The most unhittable tank you have ever seen.
I miss those days, and would love to play Daoc 2 if it measured up to half of what the original was.
for me apart from ToA the other big problem was/is botting. I remember when it started and the odd player had a speed or buffing class in toe to make the game easier then the BK's had huge numbers of AFK bots. Now the game is so bad people run 3-4+ accounts to buff a single character. Rather than DAoC 2 I would like DAoC fixed. Remove ToA, fix the frontiers and remove and adjust the buff system and balance that part of the game to greatly reduce the need for buffbots but keep those classes viable.
I look at EvE as an example of a game that has been constantly devaloped and improved. DAoC has been constantly devaloped but in some ways it wasn't improved (apart from graphics updates). For me the major difference is that when EvE updates it gives players more "options" but not actually content that players "have" to do or get to stay compedative in the game. With DAoC if you didn't grind & get all the new bells & whistles that came out your character and redesign a new suit with all the extra bonuses and abilities you became RvR fodder.
DAoC post SI release just before ToA release was the best online gaming experience I've had. You leveled to 50 visiting the battlegrounds on the way which was awesome fun then at 50 you collected some quest jewelery and got a suit SCed and you were 100% ready to fight for your chosen realm.
A few expansions later getting to 50 was easy but not much fun, because everyone leveled in instances solo with bot(s) battlegrounds weren't as fun competing against botted maxed out characters. once you made 50 you still had to get Master levels, Champion levels, artifacts, champion weapons then get all the master/champion level experience you needed. Get all the dragopn drops you need then finally build a uber suit. Then struggle in RvR because everyone is RR10+ and the difference between RR3 & RR10+ is HUGE
The balance issues in he game between realms & classes was small compared to the difference between the people who have a level50 and the ones that have level50, ML's CL's RR10 and all the Leet gear.
IMO this is why I think DAoC is now all but dead/reduced down to a couple of servers. The focus of the game was taken away from teamwork as a realm and put on leet buffs, gear and abilities.
Quoted this part, though I agreed with your entire post, because I feel strongly about this point. I could not agree more. During one of my longest breaks from EQ1 during those early years, DAoC at that point in time was one of the most amazing MMORPGs that I have played.
I also agree that I would very much settle for DAoC fixed rather than DAoC 2. I would jump on DAoC 2 in a heartbeat of course, but the original fixed and rewound a bit would be just fine.
This thread is making me want to activate again and start at level 1 and experience the 'old content' that no one ever visits any longer again. Level up on my terms, the way it used to be. RvR, not sure if I would bother at this point. I would have to wait and see. But I wouldn't mind experiencing the PvE again.
Anyway.. I imagine this is all moot. I highly doubt we'll ever see either one come to fruition. Why no other company has tried using the 3 realm/faction model and making all the right decisions is beyond me. Wouldn't we all flock to such a beast? Be it DAoC 2 or another company.. Anyway, I'm just babbling at this point. Or perhaps that's all I have done. Either way, if you are reading this, congratulations on not being one of those people that can't seem to read an entire post! I salute you. Truly.
Acidon
fact of the matter is - now there's about a 1300 sub base constantly online, if you're an Irc buff then u can arrange 8v8 scrambles, if you play to enjoy there are pug slots 24/7, and most (most) of the a-holes stay out of general chat and just squable on the VN boards.
that solved : Dicks in trade chat, No room for new players, Too small of a player base.
I found there is a competent competitive 21+ population. Nice to get away from the over-compensatingly competitive 12+ population I run into w/ WoW and eq2
That being said, I'm as biased as any other person here.
If it aint broke - dont fix it. ~ but you can certainly polish it!
a new graphics engine would probably double the subs which isn't saying a lot.
doesn't matter what game you play or log into - min/max'rs are everywhere. ML's you flat out get when you ding 50. The game has literally funneled an overwhelming amount of "Help a Buddy Out" buttons. Bounty points will min max you'r gear with BP items, buy your MLs, and i think CL's too now (definitely not certain on that though).
IMO DAoC is much more of a community than eq2 w/ eq2flames . com , wow w/ the official blizz forums etc. And it's a sub 5k subscription platform who's main web forum is through VN....
Make the game into what you want. The champion quests / Epic lines are absolutely great. sure i don't want to run to lyonesse to bop a goblin and run back to CS to hand in it's eye, but the epic lines literally forced you into the content. much more-so than EQ's epic lines from Kunark, Their 1.5's and the 2.0's. (not knocking EQ's epic quests)
Player's make the community.
If you want casual/daily ease play WoW.
If you REALLY want competitive PvE load eq2
If you want a unique PvP or RvR experience load DAoC.
And If you want to succeed in school, you have to uninstall all 3 for your senior semester. :( FML
I dream of a 3 faction RvR game without guilds and Teamspeak disabled.
Guilds, especially pre-made Guilds are the Death of any "Realmpride".
DAoC was good becausese 8vs8 PvP? There are millions of small scale PvP games. Go there if you want to bang with your friends.
In my opinion DAoC (and Planetside) was great when big zergs met, or 50 of your faction fought on this side, then the 3rd faction hit from another side.
Stop thinking about A vs B
This.
Upgrade DAoC graphics engine and I am resubbing right now!!
I would also buy and play a DAoC 2... But after reading this reply, I think A new enigine for DAoC would be better than a part 2
Side note / Plug : Mythic offers a free 10 day Come Back and Play period. your toons your account entire game no limits etc.
Twenty-five pages on this topic, and yet DAoC will remain gagged in a basement while the Warhammer employees try to keep Warhammer from drowning - all for the sake of their investor's interests. What a damned shame. I just wish some wealthy gamer (Robin Williams?) who loved DAoC, would buy the rights to it and let it grow. Damn how I wish that.
1. New engine
2. 30 mins to 1 hour on a realm timer (if even allowed)
3. A complete deletion of ToA, Master Levels, etc (even if they are "easy to achieve" they are still not part of what made the game great).
The Warhammer folks know their struggling Games Workshop title would die if DAoC was freed from her shackles. But, since these people are all about the money and could care less about what the fans want (at least an Origions server??!!), then it is arguably possible that a wealthy investor could buy the rights out from under their noses.
Am I just dreaming?
/My 2 cents - Robin Williams, where are thou good sir? =D
I'm right there with you. I'm so disgusted with the way current MMOs are going, I'm thinking about re-subscribing to DAoC. Downloading the trial now.
EQ1 was my first that opened my eyes to the world of MMOs, DAoC was my second and was the MMO I called home for years.
Going go D/L the trial and give it a spin.
http://reviews.cnet.com/pc-games/dark-age-of-camelot/4505-9696_7-30976101.html#reviewPage1
...
Read more: http://reviews.cnet.com/pc-games/dark-age-of-camelot/4505-9696_7-30976101.html#ixzz1EWlZXKal
and
http://pc.ign.com/articles/164/164162p1.html
Massively multiplayer game launches have pretty much become a joke lately. After the chaos at the EverQuest launch and the clumsy launches of both WWII Online and Anarchy Online, most people just decided that any MMORPG wouldn't be worth playing until it has been out for a month or so.
Dark Age of Camelot from Mythic Entertainment takes that perception and shatters it. From day one, the game has been stable with only a few minor bugs to cause players grief. Instead of logging on to find the servers down on day one, each was up and I was able to get right into the game with no problems.
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The above were two reviews from 2001. Note how the second review sounds like a lot of things have not changed in 10 years. Massively multiplayer game launches have pretty much become a joke lately
So, here we have two references from 2001 - one month after Dark Age of Camelot released. The game broke barriers, raised the bar, and blew away the competition. They saw EQ's endless quest grinds and made a mistake in 2003 or so with Trials of Atlantis - but even with that - the game was still far more pvp depth than anyone has yet to experience (eat your heart out Warhammer).
But, DAoC is dead if you discount the 3k players on Ywain server. The game lost its luster for me when they allowed you to transfer to an enemy realm on the same server in under 6 minutes. What happened was the pvp' die hards that needed daoc until a new sandbox came out (Darkfall, Mortal Online), ended up just logging on whatever realm that was "pwning" the most at any given moment. Twenty-five players of Faction A would log and twenty-five players of faction C would log in - in about 6 minutes. Realm pride died, and the sense of Us vs Them vs The other guys died.
Mythic was bought up by EA/Bioware and DAoC, a game that with a little investment could had destroyed any concept of Warhammer, was instead swept under a carpet with a lot of her staff including Mark Jacobs (president) were fired/layed off. It was a buy out and delete move and very corporate. Good for Warhammer since they created a propoganda team that lied non stop about game imbalancing and endless boredom what they referred to as RvR IN THE FACE - myself and all my daoc buddies referred to as "oh god, seriously?."
DAoC 2 had a great start. Made a mistake a few years down the road, then WoW came out and every developer since has tried to create their own capture the flag battleground game with 2 factions and generic lore.
What a shame.
The biggest draw back to bringing back DAoC community in this day in age is almost impossible. You think now about all the Vet. DAoC players and think of how much they've aged. Most people who truly played within the first 4-5 years of the game have a completely different mindset to the players of today. WoW was the breeding ground for trolls, and since it's inception has only increased by 1000x fold. The same courtesy you'd see in DAoC today isnt the same you'd see in most MMO's of today. It suck b/c DAoC had an amazing array of revolutionary ideas, even though some like to say it was the bane of the game. CC and an exorbinant amount of classes, RVR, Guild houses, unique grinds, world bosses that werent as bad as EQs, etc. I mean the things it brought to the table are limitless but, I think bringing back DAoC would be a terrible call. It would be like putting two warring tribes together in the same house without any restrictions. Not only would you alienate an older crowd, you'd cause an outcry to a company that kinda has a track record after Warhammer of not being able to keep up with its customers.
new frontiers and toa killed daoc, the game was soo much fun and you never had to look far for people to kill. just get to a mile gate, or past a mile gate and find some lowbies to kill, always made the big boys come out in force
DAoC was the best pvp mmo ever made, simple. Mythic's warhammer made me sick... how could they have fallen so far from what they first created. DAoC 2 would challenge and beat WoW IMO.
Honestly, if I were Mythic, I wouldn't touch it with a ten foot pole.
No matter what you create as "2nd Edition", it will not live up to the rose-colored memories from years past. See: EQ2.
I agree with pretty much most of the article, however there is one part i strongly disagree on.
Limiting servers.
Although there is a valid point there, stating that it would create a closer comunity, limiting server population in this day and age just not advisable. We now live in an age where people are measuring and comparing the health of mmo's and the amount of people seen online at once factors heavily in that comparison.
As an example head over to the EVE online forums, you will on a daily basis see posts complaining that EVE is dying and losing players, heck they have 40k people playing on one server at a time.
Age of Conan is another one, thye usually have roughly 1.5k to 2k people playing on each server at one time in peek hours, a similar number to what is proposed. Look at their forums . "the game is dying" is a common theme.
Simply put nowdays people compare player numbers with other high population games such as WoW and EVE, if they don't see at least a 10% figure they will say the game is dead and move on.
Add into that people who play and invite their friends to play only to find the server is cap'd and their friends can't play on the same realm/server as them, the new player might say screw it i'll play something else, leaving the existing player with a decision .. to stay and lose a friend or to fidn another game to play with that friend .. i knwo what my choice would be.
Wow... DAoC. I tried a couple of other games a couple of years post DAoC... nothing ever challenged, thrilled, or inspired like DAoC. I haven't played a MMO for 5 or 6 years, and not interested in playing one again... A DAoC 2.. I'd play.
Like most people here, and those I am still in contact with, I think Mythic lost its customer base, or began to with ToA... I was okay with the idea of expansions, new races, new classes, but what truly aggravated me, along with so many others I know is that it forced a person to recreate their characters. I began DAoC 1 month after launch... I grinded to 50... and oh what a grind it was in early DAoC, all of that so that I could RvR...
I loved the realm pride, and guild pride that was in DAoC... I'm kind of gettng to be an old guy, but I'd play DAoC released in its early form again in a heartbeat, or a sequal that emulated the early edition....
Garrock "The Hand of Uruz"
Arsham Applefinder rr11 shaman