The Future of DAoC - from one who has been enlightened

ToA has been out for a few months in US DAoC, but already the elitism is setting in, although not as much in my server/realm as most of the others. Artifacts are generally thought to be required to compete, although, in my personal experience, save yourself the hassle and grab a few nice ToA jobs to stick with your SC'd armour - you won't be the best but not the worst either. However, the elitist players certainly won't invite you if you don't have a visible artifact on your person, and I believe this will affect Prydwen the most out of all the servers I've played. You can expect to spend a good 2 months on artifacts and master levels, if you have the time, so most normal players (those of us with social lives ) are kitting themselves out with a few popular artifacts only, usually just the harpy feather cloak. At the moment, RvR is ruled, on the US servers, by RvR guilds - it's still possible to RvR casually, but harder, although more rewarding when you tear through a troll with his harpy feather cloak proudly adorning his large frame.

This is set to change, however. Frontiers is going to be geared more towards zergs than RvR guilds (I've heard rumours there will be a RP bonus if you're with lots of other people) and we should see the game salvaged for the casual player. The point of this rather jumbled post is - do not despair, ToA may be geared towards the elite of the game, those with a lot of spare time etc. but Frontiers should redeem that - and even with ToA, it's still possible to enjoy RvR with a little extra effort.

Nice info chap, thanks for that.

I always enjoy exploring new areas and so on, appeals to the PvE Whore in me, though lately I have spent a lot more time in RvR, particularly guild, alliance and the odd Hunter group - you really do need optimum kit to survive at the moment, the right choice of RA's, etc.

Casual groups have been hard to get for a good while now, I've always found it difficult despite having a spread of various classes - I think ToA will bounce this for a while, but as you mention - Frontiers might pick that up.

But....

I hope Frontiers provides for ALL the types of player, not just Zergs, but the soloers, stealthers, 1337 FG Gankers, etc.

That remains to be seen, but it sure looks like they are pulling out all the stops at the moment.

Bring on Atlantis, I've got me chainmail drowning suit all ready.

Cheers

Azo

Azorius said:

Nice info chap, thanks for that.

I hope Frontiers provides for ALL the types of player, not just Zergs, but the soloers, stealthers, 1337 FG Gankers, etc.Azo

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I agree. I for one would be alarmed if zerging became the only realistic option.

I think frontiers will ge very good. I really have high hopes for it

The best looking mmorpg out there at the moment is DAoC without a shadow of a doubt.

This uber item thing has already started, as some twat on BW suggested that even PvE groups must have SCd gear (no epics) and even a few minimum RAs was suggested.

Like you say, RvR is dominated by "must have itemz" and "RR5+ only FOTMs". With ToA I have watched the VN boards and seen the whine increase dramatically over the last couple of months. The thing is whine becomes general concern for the state of the game once you see 80% of the population complaining.

Frontiers I sincerely hope will remove the rather stale odur that Emain has for its repuation. This one off bottleneck has consumed RvR for far too long, and many like me got bored with the ritual port>shout LFG for 20 minutes>run for 1 minute>die>/rel>rinse>repeat.

Lets hope it brings a certain amount of balance to the force, although I am not holding my breath.

old.Whoodoo said:

This uber item thing has already started, as some twat on BW suggested that even PvE groups...

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Sms that were used only in Lair groups

Naetha said:

The best looking mmorpg out there at the moment is DAoC without a shadow of a doubt.

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Agreed. Current WoW graphics are not as good as DAoC with ToA and suffer from being cartoony (though it may be a great game, only time will tell).

To date there's been nothing on the market to touch DAoC for longevity and it still remains, in my opinion, a great game.

I'm absolutely convinced Frontiers and ToA will rock. Now that Mythic have released info on the keeps themselves and some of the changes there it just gets better and better. I think Mythic are definately keeping pace with the competition, despite what some people may think

Dragon Empires

Been playing US myself for a while now, although I haven't discovered the elitism Sigurd mentions (I'm assuming it's just a server thing because I've yet to witness it on MLF, which server are you on Sigurd?) artifacts play a big part in changing fights than MLs. So far my experience is that:
Artifacts are-
- As useful as RAs when soloing
- As useful as RAs when full grouping
- Mostly useless when /keep defending/attacking

Whereas MLs are-
- Useless when soloing
- Minority useful when full grouping
- Very handy when zerging/keep defending/attacking

Sigurd pretty much got it spot on, yeah artifacts help a lot and you can build an uber twinked char with them but you'll do just fine without them or with just one or two and grab some standard ToA items with ToA bonuses on. The thing is, the more artifacts you have, the more stats/resists you have to sacrifice to fit them into your SC template so it's not like someone can become an artifact demi-god.

The VN whines should be ignored, I've met VERY few people in game who dislike ToA, as usual VN is just showing up the vocal minority (as did SI, RAs and whatever) and they can be safely ignored IMO, only about 1% of their concerns are even valid.

Have to agree, don't despair about ToA at all, although it's not the RvR expansion it's only positive for DAoC IMO, don't think of MLs as an extra levelling grind, doing an ML raid is more like Galladoria/TG raids where EVERYONE gets rewarded at the end of it and has some often pretty cool encounters other than just pounding on purple con mobs for hours on end. ToA has done wonders for DAoC's PvE and Frontiers looks set to do the same for PvP - as has been said already, ToA's engine is graphically superior to that of WoW's, it looks FAR better and quite frankly, the way Frontiers is heading if it's pulled off as well as they're claiming on the Herald then WoW or any other MMOG just aint gonna be able to touch it for PvP any time soon. IMO the only thing WoW's gonna have over DAoC is a less tedious levelling grind and perhaps more fun PvE - if that's what you like then fair enough.

Naetha said:

The best looking mmorpg out there at the moment is DAoC without a shadow of a doubt.

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This is what scares me...cause daoc is seriously wearing thin, at least for my part. Looking forward to DE and WoW...but how long till they get here...*sigh* guess ill hang around daoc till then like many will...but roll on frontiers, indeed gifv better RvR zones!

/Dracus

sounds good especially for the long term player and also the peeps who enjoy pve who will devote endless hours pve ing and not the fotm infil/savage/chanter who follow the bandwaggon who plays the game with no adventure and not many morals win at all cost seneario's these people will be put of (hopefully) by releveling with thier artifacts.

any way here is one who is looking forward to seeing both of these released as there is no new areas to be expolored in the realms atm

Falcon said:

Been playing US myself for a while now, although I haven't discovered the elitism Sigurd mentions (I'm assuming it's just a server thing because I've yet to witness it on MLF, which server are you on Sigurd?) artifacts play a big part in changing fights than MLs.

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Lance/Hib myself, we're ok for elitism here, a few examples but not many, but I was in Lance/Alb before and that was pretty bad

Need to still check up on whole ToA thing.

Sounds like Frontiers may be the silver lining the realms need.

The Mythic site on the add on is well worth a peek if you want to see what is in it...

http://www.camelotherald.com/newfrontiers/keeps/

Naetha said:

The best looking mmorpg out there at the moment is DAoC without a shadow of a doubt.

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i can agree to that...but horisons dosent look to bad eiter or EQ 2...but i still think WoW will pull many ppl from Daoc for the Time being...new mmorpg is always fun to try out!

Dwali said:

i can agree to that...but horisons dosent look to bad eiter or EQ 2...but i still think WoW will pull many ppl from Daoc for the Time being...new mmorpg is always fun to try out!

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Horizons might look good in a couple of screenshots but even with a decent spec machine (2800+, 1Gb Ram, 128Mb ti4200) you have to turn of almost all the gfx and still get tremendous lag. Crafting is very good but adventuring is dull and tiresome.

think i'll set aside WoW, looks nice, but will be a somewhat simple version of DAoC, will be fun in the beginning but after a while the fun will fade.
Tbh Ultima X looks more apealing, combat system based on Ut2004 so it means you actually need to do something to kill, which is much better then point&click play like WoW or DAoC.
Anyway i don't see the real problem of TOA, the artifact are just fluff and each artifact has a similar anti-fluff counterpart, meaning they'll rule eachother out, only the casual player who plays 2 hours/day max will have a slight problem, but with frontiers expansion inc. aswell he should still be able to join mass scale fights like the new frontiers are intented to,
Besides new encounters/mobs/zones/gfx are worth buying TOA for , at least until something better comes as playing without TOA is like not playing at all anyway.

I'd have to disagree, you can still enjoy DAoC without ToA, although you may need to buy a few ToA drops from people.

Sigurd said:

I'd have to disagree, you can still enjoy DAoC without ToA, although you may need to buy a few ToA drops from people.

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Although you may well be thoroughly bored with playing in all the same zones that you have been for the past year
Just adds a lot more variety to the types of rats that are available for your whacking pleasure.

If you're in a guild who does things regularly as a guild, you should well be fine. Don't expect to solo much in ToA, aside from scroll farming/XPing. Most nothing in the game of any significance can be obtained solo in ToA. Some would argue soloable uberdrops would cheapen their value. I agree.

Plus, it's prolly worth the money as the new ground textures don't make your eyes bleed so badly Delling Crater in the SI client anyone? :/ Compulsory purchase for all middies who are going to roll a caster of course

Horizons. Hrm. I started waiting for that game a year before I quit playing UO, what... 3/4 years ago now?
I think they must have written out their original game plan on a blackboard, and while turned around to lecture the developers on it, the designer wiped half of it off with his shirt without noticing, and didn't notice.
It's such a disappointment. I don't think you can use any term to describe it other than RPG-lite. No ammo, no mana bars, enemies that despawn when you walk off, then real-time spawn AROUND you while you stand there. Nothing more disconcerting that walking along for hours not seeing anything, then you stop, and suddenly you're surrounded by nasties.
There's still a massive memory leak in it. You start off with next to no framerate stutter at all, after literally 2-3 minutes of walking around it turns into a slideshow. This is especially noticeable in the very first area, where you pick your school (class). Not a good advert.
Kinda disappointed. I wanted to love that game ): the orignal game design draft sounded like my perfect game.

~Willow~

One thing I have to mention, at the moment there are very few casters around on the US servers, mainly sorcerers and theurgists only - although I've heard mythic are willing to try and save casters from extinction (perhaps with frontiers) another thing is a recent announcement told us that, with the latest patch, all artifacts can gain experience in RvR - this is a huge bonus to everyone who can't stand the thought of endless hours of killing the same monster - instead we can enjoy endless hours of killing the same necro