Originally posted by Wolvards

Originally posted by PyrateLV

Originally posted by Garvon3

Originally posted by PyrateLV

Originally posted by Garvon3

Originally posted by PyrateLV

I dont get why people are still holding DAOC up to be such a great game. It wasnt.

It was a niche game that never got over 250k players and was constantly in some sort of Over Powered - Nerfed - Over Powered - Nerfed balancing act that Mythic could never get right.

Niche? It was in the top 3 MMORPGs of the time, in terms of subscribers, and pioneered many features that are now standard today, as well as having the best PvP system and raiding systems to date.

The PvP balance was constantly being reworked, sure, but that didn't break the game. Balance issues exist all the time in PvP oriented games. Starcraft and LoL both get regular patches because they can't "get it right".

So what was so bad about DAoC?

Thats only because there were just 5 MMOs out at the time. UO, EQ, AC, AO and DAOC and if AO wasnt so broken and buggy it would have retained more subs than DAOC.

 

Im not saying DAOC was a bad game. It wasnt SWTOR, but it wasnt this end-all-be-all game that some remember it to be.

It was MEH.

 

 

Off the top of my head...

Meridian 59, DAoC, UO, EverQuest, Asheron's Call, Asheron's Call 2, Final Fantasy 11, Lineage, Earth and Beyond, Star Wars Galaxies, Horizons, Runescape, City of Heroes, Anarchy Online, Second Life, Sims Online, Shadowbane, all existed with DAoC. And those are the successful well remembered titles.

DAoC was the pinnacle of PvP design, and solved almost all the design issues that EQ had (and that WoW inherited) without using any instances.

 

DAoC was EQ's rival back in the day. You don't have two games with a rivalry if one is a "niche" with no subscribers. That's like saying that Fallen Earth is WoW's rival.

Games listed in RED released AFTER DAOC had hit its 250k peak and was already in decline

 

How many gamers were playing MMOs back in 03-04? Maybe a couple mill? Now we got what... 20 mill(+)? You can't compare 10 year old numbers, to todays standards. DAoC was huge for its time. Before the Wow Era of MMOs, DAoC was large, very large in population. Compare its numbers from 10 years ago, to todays, then say it was a very "Niche" game.

It won Best PvP of the decade. And was released at the START of the decade. It may not have been yourcup of tea. But it had a large following.

DAOC was big, but not huge. It never came close to EQ which was who it was trying to beat. It was like what SWTOR is to WoW. Tried to be the next big thing. Wasnt. It came in 3rd

And by "niche" I mean that the only people that really kept playing it were those interested in the PvP aspect. PvE players when back to EQ and Sandbox players went back to UO or AC. Some even stayed with AO or waited for the next big "Next Gen" game. (SWG? I believe)

Winning "Best PvP game" is easy when you are pretty much the ONLY PvP centric game at the time.

DAOC was a fairly good game. Until Matt Firor made Trials of Atlantis

Originally posted by PyrateLV

Originally posted by Wolvards

Originally posted by PyrateLV

Originally posted by Garvon3

Originally posted by PyrateLV

Originally posted by Garvon3

Originally posted by PyrateLV

I dont get why people are still holding DAOC up to be such a great game. It wasnt.

It was a niche game that never got over 250k players and was constantly in some sort of Over Powered - Nerfed - Over Powered - Nerfed balancing act that Mythic could never get right.

Niche? It was in the top 3 MMORPGs of the time, in terms of subscribers, and pioneered many features that are now standard today, as well as having the best PvP system and raiding systems to date.

The PvP balance was constantly being reworked, sure, but that didn't break the game. Balance issues exist all the time in PvP oriented games. Starcraft and LoL both get regular patches because they can't "get it right".

So what was so bad about DAoC?

Thats only because there were just 5 MMOs out at the time. UO, EQ, AC, AO and DAOC and if AO wasnt so broken and buggy it would have retained more subs than DAOC.

 

Im not saying DAOC was a bad game. It wasnt SWTOR, but it wasnt this end-all-be-all game that some remember it to be.

It was MEH.

 

 

Off the top of my head...

Meridian 59, DAoC, UO, EverQuest, Asheron's Call, Asheron's Call 2, Final Fantasy 11, Lineage, Earth and Beyond, Star Wars Galaxies, Horizons, Runescape, City of Heroes, Anarchy Online, Second Life, Sims Online, Shadowbane, all existed with DAoC. And those are the successful well remembered titles.

DAoC was the pinnacle of PvP design, and solved almost all the design issues that EQ had (and that WoW inherited) without using any instances.

 

DAoC was EQ's rival back in the day. You don't have two games with a rivalry if one is a "niche" with no subscribers. That's like saying that Fallen Earth is WoW's rival.

Games listed in RED released AFTER DAOC had hit its 250k peak and was already in decline

 

How many gamers were playing MMOs back in 03-04? Maybe a couple mill? Now we got what... 20 mill(+)? You can't compare 10 year old numbers, to todays standards. DAoC was huge for its time. Before the Wow Era of MMOs, DAoC was large, very large in population. Compare its numbers from 10 years ago, to todays, then say it was a very "Niche" game.

It won Best PvP of the decade. And was released at the START of the decade. It may not have been yourcup of tea. But it had a large following.

DAOC was big, but not huge. It never came close to EQ which was who it was trying to beat. It was like what SWTOR is to WoW. Tried to be the next big thing. Wasnt. It came in 3rd

And by "niche" I mean that the only people that really kept playing it were those interested in the PvP aspect. PvE players when back to EQ and Sandbox players went back to UO or AC. Some even stayed with AO or waited for the next big "Next Gen" game. (SWG? I believe)

Winning "Best PvP game" is easy when you are pretty much the ONLY PvP centric game at the time.

 

How was DAoC going for EQ with focusing on 3 Faction PvP?

Never got to try DAOC, but i'd like it to be a good large scal pvp mmorpg, however, i have a feeling it won't be.

The game doesn't sound like a WOW clone, much like GW2 and TSW. A more open-ended themepark, which is great (yes, it's not Skyrim online, but, oh well).

But the problem i'm having is that it's looking like a 90% pve game with solo story, quests, dungeons (5, raid and open) and who knows what else, with some pvp area for RVR in the middle (the pve part isn't bad). What i have a feeling will happen is that the rvr continent is going to be really small, like the ones we have today, and be called big scale just because it's not a BG or instanced.

10 bucks says that you can run across the inteir map in 20 minutes of less. Then they'll give some castle, sieges, etc and say it's awesome. All in all, what i'd like is a truly huge pvp area with multyple objectives that can take days, if not weeks, to conquer the full thing. But what we'll get is a map that you can take over 75%, atleast, with a single session of gameplay.

Originally posted by Fearum

Originally posted by SEANMCAD

Originally posted by Coldren

Originally posted by Garvon3

Er... the TES system didn't fail in Darkfall.

 

And it's looking more like 89% WoW, 9% DAoC, 2% TES.

They're already butchering the lore and gameplay.

DAoC was a game without instances and the guy heading this project understands that for an MMO to be fun and interesting, it needs public dungeons. Then in the same breath he talks about how the world will be phased/instanced, and how there will be instanced dungeons. Kind of defeats the whole point. I imagine the higher ups funding the project lost their shit when he said he didn't want instances and they had to find a compromise somewhere, because man, that's really mixing signals.

 

And no, its ONE DAOC guy on the project, not Mythic.

 

I'd hardly call Darkfall a success.. It's a niche game for a niche audience, at best. And only 2 servers worldwide that are NOT over capacity. How many millions with an international IP do you think they'd want to throw at a niche? Not everyone likes the idea of a twitch-based combat with full loot. It works in single player TES games because you aren't getting ganked and looted by strangers when ping can play a factor. And then you just load up a save and haven't lost anything. That's a problem for a game with thousands of people.

The way they've describe instancing/phasing so far, yes, there will be some dungeons that are instanced, but most of what they talk about appears to be for story. In one of the videos, they talk about how you go back in time and fight some battle, and based on the decisions you make, some things change in the present for you. Phasing is ideal for this, but I understand your concern. I hope they have battlegrounds (Persistant, but isolated RvR zones) like in DAoC in concert with Cyrodil (Frontiers) more often than capture-the-flag type scenarios that are timed and scored.

And it's Matt Firor.. I'm farily certain he played a major, major role in RvR development. Sure, he's just 1 guy... But if Bill Gates went to work for Apple, and not all of Microsoft's founding members, you don't think people would take notice?

And besides, without Matt, MYTHIC made Warhammer...

the ONLY reason Darkfall wasnt a massive mainstream hit is because of skill progression and very little safety around FFA.

Darkfalls 'nitch' didnt have anything whatsoever to do with the following:

1. FPS view.

2. no class based, skill based.

3. open world non-instances

4. no forced factions.

5. housing.

 

ALL of which is the subject matter here. Not the XML file with the skill progreesion numbers in it that for whatever reason they decided to not bring up in a text editor and change.

 

That was the only reason Darkfall failed? Haha your living in a dream world bubba.

1. like I said, it didnt fail because its still online but that is not the point.

2. yes, it is the reason mass of people dont like it. its not because it has non-instanced housing for f8ck sake! nor did people say 'holy sh8t I cant stand this no class thing I am out of here!' nor did they say 'f8ck me no factions? what the hell is up with that I quit!' but you are saying that is exacly why they quit. ok well if that is the position you want to take.

When you guys compare Dark Age to Everquest in terms of subscribers, wasn't EQ free while Daoc was pay to play?  That gives EQ a huge advantage in terms of playerbase. But Dark Age probably made a lot more money (and put money back into the game). A lot of people just aren't willing to pay monthly for a video game, but I've always felt I'm willing to drop $15 a month for a game I play consistently.

I just returned to Daoc a month ago and its pretty awesome still, It may be just the nostalgia but its super easy to pick up and play for a game thats 10+ years old and they have combined the servers into one and there is quite a lot of activity.

I know whenever EQ2 comes out Daoc is going to take another hit probably (blah). I have no clue what I'm going to play next.  WoW seems like it will be around forever, who knows, it still is pretty attractive for an MMO with that playerbase and the content.

What are you guys going to play next? Im thinking about giving planetside 2 a roll as well haha.

Originally posted by Garvon3

Because it's missing many of the things that made DAoC great, and it's RIDDLED with instancing and phasing, which DAoC did not have in its best years, and started going downhill after they got it.

And no, DAoC did not have the same UI as WoW, it was a lot better, and more moddable.

Open dungeons don't mean anything when you've also got instances and solo oriented quest chains around every corner.

- It's going to be "Riddled" with it, eh? When did you get the chance to play it?

- And that's EXACTLY my point - DAoC is a LESSER version fo the WoW interface. WoW improved on it, but the similiarities are there in almost every other sense. And in case you didn't know, you can indeed mod the DAOC UI now, again, to a much lesser extent than WoW. So why would they release a DAoC UI if it's inferior to WoW's, by almost every measurable standard?

- Again, your assuming 2 things that we do not know:

A) That the value of doing non-instanced dungeons  is LESS than that of doing instanced ones by some metric. We don't know what the purposes of either will be, or how they'll be utilized (Except for the phasing example they gave in the video, and it wasn't a dungeon). And if they have an equivalent of Darkness Falls, that mixes PvP with good PvE rewards... Screw the instances anyway, cause I sure as hell won't be playing in them. I didn't do DAoC Catacombs instances either unless I was terribly bored or couldn't muster up enough people to take keeps.

B) Assuming more instanced than non-instanced. I don't think they'd be touting open dungeons as a feature if there were 2 of those, and than 10 instanced. I'm hoping it's going to be the other way around.

Originally posted by Coldren

Originally posted by Garvon3

Because it's missing many of the things that made DAoC great, and it's RIDDLED with instancing and phasing, which DAoC did not have in its best years, and started going downhill after they got it.

And no, DAoC did not have the same UI as WoW, it was a lot better, and more moddable.

Open dungeons don't mean anything when you've also got instances and solo oriented quest chains around every corner.

- It's going to be "Riddled" with it, eh? When did you get the chance to play it?

- And that's EXACTLY my point - DAoC is a LESSER version fo the WoW interface. WoW improved on it, but the similiarities are there in almost every other sense. And in case you didn't know, you can indeed mod the DAOC UI now, again, to a much lesser extent than WoW. So why would they release a DAoC UI if it's inferior to WoW's, by almost every measurable standard?

- Again, your assuming 2 things that we do not know:

A) That the value of doing non-instanced dungeons  is LESS than that of doing instanced ones by some metric. We don't know what the purposes of either will be, or how they'll be utilized (Except for the phasing example they gave in the video, and it wasn't a dungeon). And if they have an equivalent of Darkness Falls, that mixes PvP with good PvE rewards... Screw the instances anyway, cause I sure as hell won't be playing in them. I didn't do DAoC Catacombs instances either unless I was terribly bored or couldn't muster up enough people to take keeps.

B) Assuming more instanced than non-instanced. I don't think they'd be touting open dungeons as a feature if there were 2 of those, and than 10 instanced. I'm hoping it's going to be the other way around.

ok yeah just going by trend alone it appear those who think WoW was an improvement on anything also happen to think TES might be a good game.

anyone see a pattern here?

No you're not alone. I'm honestly excited to see some of the old DAOC team working on TES:O. I kind of missed out on the prime of DAOC and regret it, this is sort of a chance to see RvRvR in action. I think this will set TES:O apart from other MMOs in the sense that most modern MMOs really lack any competitive PvP. 

For DAoC2, just join the GW2 hype train, it all starts in August

DAOC was a fantastic game that struck a good balance between PVE and PVP with the introduction of RVR. Large scale keep battles were amazing. It was ahead of its time and it was a game that really needed a large population to thrive. The one thing it really had going for it atleast the first few years was an awesome community. Thats what made the game so much fun imo. For all the warts and yes it had its share DAOC was a great game but time marches on.

Im an old school gamer and I kind of wish more than anything is that the pain would return a little bit to an MMO. Not gankfest ffa pain just meaningful consequences instead of carebearing and spoon feeding the game to the players ala WOW. I know I  wish that a game came along that would challenge me to think. . Also a game where how you PVP is decided by the players but does not interfere with PVE or vice versa. but thats just me.

Time for a studio to produce a game that is unique in its approach that thinks out of the box. I was hoping TESO might be heading in the right direction.. I guess we shall see. I'll definately keep an open mind.