Back to the Future

[Uncle Sick(tm)]

I am glad everyone agrees -
and yay!
this must have been the first flame free, constructive two page thread on these forums ever.

<edit> You know other people can post intelligent posts like Stick

It's Sick, Uncle Sick - yuo ph00l!!1

 

[old.Charonel]

i live in england and:

1) never seen even one advert for it ANYWHERE, if someone on the avp2 forums hadnt directed me to it (a us daoc player) i would never have known of it's existance at all.

2) only ever seen one copy of it EVER, that's the copy i have in a box near the desk now, since i bought it, never ever seen another one anywhere.

3) nuff said, if people have no way of knowing that the game even exists, and no way of reaching a copy of the game they dont know about, then they're not gonna buy it

 

[Blood]

Originally posted by krait
Although just seeing the game on the shelves would go some way towards getting new blood into the game.

There can be only one! (blood)

What the game needs is hype...

Take advantage of the SI release, and hype the game, get it in magazines, TV programs about computer games, etc. Have your staff write up thorough reviews of the game and submit them to computer magazines and websites.

here are some hints:
- state of the art graphics engine & graphics
- massive 3way battles of 100+ players in huge areas
- up to 3500 simultanious players on the same server
- 3 realms with 14 (+si) huge areas to explore, and numerous dungeons.
- build and use siege weapons like catapults and rams
- quick rundown of the classes, the healing and support classes, the assasins, the fighters, and the hybrids
- spice it up with screenshots of fights with style & spell effects on (and pretty norsewomen).

 

[Uncle Sick(tm)]

I object, Blood. Norsewomen look like guys with pigtails...

Show them newbies some fine celt lasses. Much more convincing than those testosterone filled Brumhildas.

*cackles*

How about female Trolls? They aer teh hot and spicy... GRrrrAargH!

 

[<Wels>]

Hurry, you (GOA) might catch the christmas shopping fever, make sure DAoC is high on the wishlist, go marketers go!

 

[old.Trine Aquavit]

For some reason MMORPGs seem to be seen as something of a curiosity to a lot of game magazines. None of the MMORPG's I've bought have ever had more than "Above Average" reviews but, personally, DAOC and EverQuest are the best games I've ever played (in nearly 25 years of gaming!).

It's got to the stage where I pretty much don't play single player games at all. I bought 3 budget games that I'd been interested in a while, 2 of which are still in the shrink wrap because I don't want to spend time playing them when I could be playing a MMORPG!

Yet, of all the people I know that play games I am the only one I know who has ever even tried playing a MMORPG! If they could get more people interested in starting they would get at least a third of them hooked, I reckon.

The solution is simple. You give away the client and a free months play with the most MMORPG-friendly magazine you can find. Provide them with an exclusive preview of SI and a decent quality guide to the game and get them to provide a good chunk of feature content.

Even bolder would be to start giving away the client in stores as a pre-SI promo. Let's face it - free CD's works bloody well for AOL (another subscription-based service), I'm sure it could work for DAOC.

 

[Gef]

Anarchy Online had a good deal whereby you can download the entire CD from the website. Play a month for free, if you like it you pay the £30 for the boxed game, they post it to you and you carry on playing. If it wasnt for that I never would have even tried it.

Much easier to give someone a link on a forum/iRC than tell them to go down to the shops, computer gamers are lazy gits .. coming from personal experience

 

[cadiva]

Too true

I ended up buying a second copy of DAoC from WH Smith of all places because neither Game store in Bluewater (the biggest shopping centre in Europe ffs) had any copies anywhere on their shelves.

Also the games mags reviewed it when it first came out, PCG priced it at £39.99 in their review for months and months and months. I emailed them to say they'd got the price wrong and it took about 4 months before it was accurately listed at £19.99.

Then PCG did a 4 month follow up just at that point when we were really lagging behind with patches and things were pretty shit and the official boards had just closed etc etc.

What we need now is a positive review and or marketing campaign pointing out that unlike Evercrap, DAoC has always had European servers and the gaming experience is much better (for those of us who think it is obviously).

Sony certainly win the marketing campaign hands down as they've just re-released the whole three part EQ up to and including Ruins of Kunark and Scars of Velious in lovely new packaging.

And EQ seems to have some sort of pact with the BBC Online news team who are constantly finding bloody news stories about EQ and EQ gaming with which to beguile the millions of people who visit www.bbc.co.uk every day - it's really annoying!

 

[Uncle Sick(tm)]

Just to show you guys what kind of coverage DAoC got/gets in Germany...

The Spiegel, the political news magazine in Germany reviewed (compare it with the Times or Le Monde) the game in January - and gave it a full thumbs up.

Makes me wonder why the press coverage for DAoC EU has been so incredibly bad all across the rest of Europe.

 

[old.Charonel]

you know full well it's because GOA hate the english witha vengeance

 

[Uncle Sick(tm)]

One can hope GOA's marketing director has this thread bookmarked...

'ello!? 'elloooooo!! Obtenez travaillant à lui, eh?
Yes, my french sucks arse.

 

[drummer]

I didn't have any problems finding it .
It just was at the nearest gameshop ( though it was sold out and had to wait some days ) called Gamemania somewhere near Antwerp .

I heard about DaoC on a Belgian gamesite and convinced some friends of playing. I did saw a review of DaoC in game magazine but that's it . ( www.spelletjesgarnaal.be )

 

[Garris-]

I found this on the BBC site while looking over cringeworthy EQ articles:

"The end of 2001 saw another major success story with the release of Mythic Entertainment's Dark Age of Camelot, one of the fastest selling online games of all-time,"

I know that refers to the US release.. but it seems to me.. what went wrong?

I discovered DAOC partly through friends in another forum community getting into it and because an online friend, fed up of EQ, was thinking of trying it. I got into the open beta for the last few weeks and bought it on release, I had no problem fiding it in GAME Salisbury.. bear in mind, though, that I got there 5 minutes before they opened on day of release.

 

[Uncle Sick(tm)]

Oh, forgot that one earlier - they were on TV here during beta, too.

German GM (Fogwraith) gave a long interview and showed in-game footage on GIGA/MSNBC - that was in January, I think.

That seemed to get a lot of people going (GIGA is for twats and kiddies - but hey, they are customers after all...).

 

[j000 d000d]

Agree.

I saw a thread on a forum "Are there any free MMORPG's?" and there was just a link to the download for DAoC beta..... if that guy had never posted it, i wouldn't be here

 

[Col|]

I only found out about DAoC from a couple of old CS Clan mates (yeh yeh, I know, I'm a CS "kiddie", only played it a few times since I started DAoC), was my first ever MMOG, the first I heard about it was through one of the clans german players, she sent me loads of screenies and said she was having fun playing the beta. I waited til it was on sale and popped down to my local GAME, where they had 2 shelves worth of the game, haven't looked back since. I'm sure I read somewhere that there was a mix up in the distribution in the UK, and it only ended up being GAME and EB who had copies in their store. I agree with those who said there has been no advertisements in the UK, not seen a single one, which is a shame, because this game has such scope and with SI and the new graphics engine coming, more players would ultimately mean more fun.

 

[old.The McScrooges]

How about advertising carried out by the concerned community?

It was no doubt the massive whining regarding the delays in patching that generated the negative publicity. So why not respond by submitting articles to gaming magazines.

Guild diaries, details of events being/been run or even a simple submission to the letter's page. Dragons and Darkness falls have been added since all the bad publicity went into publication.

 

[old.Tohtori]

What was this thread about anyways? I just saw the name Uncle Sickie and went straight around the first 20 or so posts.

(nyah, payback )

 

[Flimgoblin]

Re: Too true

Originally posted by cadiva

And EQ seems to have some sort of pact with the BBC Online news team who are constantly finding bloody news stories about EQ and EQ gaming with which to beguile the millions of people who visit www.bbc.co.uk every day - it's really annoying!

Articles on the bbc which are just adverts thinly disguised as news?
Never!

 

[Uncle Sick(tm)]

I will bump this again -
"I forwarded this to the marketing department" is fine and I don't assume we'll get first hand information on how GOA's marketing dep. works

but

I certainly would like to know if there are any plans at all to pimp DAoC a little more actively in countries other than France and Germany.
Especially now that SI is on the horizon...

As our retardos would say:
GIV NU PLAYAS!!1

 

[old.tRoG]

when on holiday to the USA i had a nip round their shops, and spotted DAOC US in nearly every store.

there were a couple of posters too.

thats all that is asked

 

[Euthanasia.]

PieRowManica where in teh Nottingham are j00 from ?

 

[old.Zarff]

I totally agree with u guys on this... I live in Denmark and the only reason i started playing beta was cuz some of the ppl i played d2 with recommended it... since that I've only seen 1 review of DaoC. That was in the danish magazine called M and that's a lifestyle magazine and not even a computer magazine.. (it got 3 out of 6 if i remember correctly (bet it was a CS kid reviewing it)) But more advertising about this game wouldn't hurt at all! I've played it for ages now and it got so many cool things that it would be more than silly not to advert more 4 it.

 

[Hulbur]

Agree agree agree

If it hadnt been for the free beta, I would never have played this game.

Come on GOA, time to dish out free trials to players. Im sure even a week of playtime would get anyone hooked.

 

[kain_pravus]

Someone mentioned DAoC on the legend of mir forum (yeah was stupid enough to pay for mir). The Camelot herald and pretty pictures impressed me...

I'm very disappointed with GOA for their cruddy English advertising campaign, well there isn’t one as far as I can tell, I know it’s been said before but we need posters, mag reviews and general getting the name out, DaoC isn’t one of those common MMORPG’s, it was online game of the year at one point so why aren’t the bloody people being told about it, oh wait they are, just only the French and Germans.

Someone write to GOA, ask them what there French, German and English marketing campaigns are…. I bet there's a difference.

 

[minnie]

I was wondering why all the noobs have high level alts. There hasn't been any actual NEW players around for ages. It's all the same people doing alts all the time and yes I agree SI should be released for xmas.

But I don't think it matters a toss what we we want because GOA will do what they want anyway.

 

[Uncle Sick(tm)]

This thread is not about SI or any bloody patch, PvP/PvE server... it's about the lack of new players.

 

[kassei]

I was wondering where one finds this French beta, since I am interested in buying this game but I'd like to now what it's like.

So can anyone maybe help bringing a new player in?

 

[Uncle Sick(tm)]

A french player mentioned it a little while ago (Alrindel was it, I think).
Free week-demo can (or could?) be found somewere on the french www.camelot-europe.com section.

My french is too bad to look for it myself - Alrindeeeel!

 

[kassei]

Thank you for the link.
Unfortunately my French is'nt great either.

How could one contact Alrindel?
I'm rather new to this boards, so I do not know how this can be done.