Daoc Europe keep losing players

[Fediuld]

Hi all

The last days I decide to try a trial account and see how DAOC is those days before activate again my main account.

I was very dissapointed to see that the game is fading so much (especialy the English servers).

Prime time the last days and no more than 800 people between 3 Eng Servers (last year when I played for 6 months in the classic only was hitting the roof).

Everything was empty, I was trying hard to see if there are any other people around.

I remember the good old days (start playing back in Feb 2002) when you couldn't find a spot not be taken over by another group and everything was populated and "live".

DAOC means a lot for me since it changed my real life (I met my wife in DAOC and I moved to UK from Greece because of her 3 years ago) and it is very sad see, today's state.

How things can be improved? People said that above. Give free 1-2 months to old players along with all the expansions. That might kick the numbers up and give motivation for people start playing again. They don't lose anything but it might keep those few new guys around when they see more numbers.

The less people play DAOC the less new comers will stay. That's fact.

Another viable option is let people to move to German servers (they look healthy) but not change their interface & language to german. Leave it in English. That will boost more the servers and the community it will find it's only "language" based guilds.

Currently as the game is it doesn't motivate me to open my main account again and play. With whom to play since none is around???

Hopefully Mythic/EA will not do the same mistakes with WAR. Btw GW started already the advertising of WAR and a lot of people new to MMORPG will start playing it.

 

[Nadine]

greetings to all from a new player.

i started playing couple of weeks ago with my husband and a few of his friends since we grew tired of other games. i will give you my impressions of the game.

personally i think the game has nothing to envy graphically most of more modern games. it has it's unique look and feeling to it wich i like.

as far game content, i really think is very very hard. for new players to make their way through. first of all, not many people around our own level to play with. therefore people have to search all over to find guides of recommended solo class. so they can at least play alone. but this doesen't happen with all classes. what if i want to play a cleric or druid? keeping in mind that most new players only will have one account. they wont have a bot. so their leveling will be very slow and boring. and no chances of finding a group mate whatsoever.

sometimes i sent tells to people around my level range, that was once we got to 20, thanks to a kind player who decided to give us a hand so he did some leveling for us with some of his high level characters. that way we managed to get to 20, after that we were on our own. playing a blademaster and druid couple. we still had a huge ammount of downtime. noone would ever wanted to join us, cause they all were just getting PL by their mains, or a friend or you name it.

i think what is killing the fact of the daoc pve is not the slow leveling. are the bots. players no longer require to group or interact with others. old players ofcourse are tired of leveling the old fashion way, but then instead of maybe be willing to let some new players get PL along their new toons, they just ignore us new players totally, leaving us to our own fate. wich is understandable. but the lack of grouping makes it nearly impossible for the few of us playing new.

advertisement is also positive and would always help to atract more players, but that alone wont do it, cause the fact still remains. i dont think that watering down pve content for new comers is a good idea. i dont want to be PL to 50 in one day. i d like to have the feeling you all experienced once . before all the botting ruined all that. want to feel the acomplishment of getting a new levels. yes i also think pve should also be fun and not just a waythrough to rvr. pve should be also about fun, working together, socialising, making new friends. doing raids with guild and fight powerful creatures. i dont find none of that boring.

i find bad having to slowly level with 30 mins downtime after each kill or power rest, i find bad not being able to group with players my level. i find bad that old players are simply ignoring new comers. i find bad that old players PL a new char with one of their many bots, dont let a new player in.

so bottom line is, i think daoc needs a bit of more adversement and a bit of more effort from the old players to make the process for new players a bit more pleasant according to the current situation. bot less and group more is the key, if you want to start a new char, ofcourse you can just make one right from level 20. then you plan to pl him with your bot, well instead of that, try to send a tell to that new players around and ask if they want to group together. that will bring back those old good days you all seem to talk about with a bit of homesickness , sorrow feeling.

 

[Puki]

The Problem is that GOA doesn't invest really in public relations. With some effort the daoc customerbase could be easily doubled or even trippled. But that would mean they have to hire 2 or 3 people who really know what they are doing, starting special competitions, organising round tables, booking commercial space in print media and launching promotin actions in game which are announced on a wide spectrum of medias.

 

[Muylaetrix]

i can`t say i read all of this thread..

but here are my 5 euro cents.

my wiz took 22 days played of blood sweat and tears to reach 50.
my last char i PLAYED to reach 50 took ... 36 hours. i even managed to, at times, earn multiple levels WITHOUT recasting my damn pet !

xp is easy !

this is not a solo game, get mates.

Get a nice and friendly guild. i have a rr11 ice wiz, but hell, i spend more time in pve helping friends & guildies than i do spend time in rvr. i think i helped over 100 chars of friends to get level 50. and believe me, PoC / AC / DF / get boring after having spend 1000`s of hours there. i guess i am more of a carebear than an achiever.

XP is easy, just get friends.

nowadays, you can get a char level 50, toa`d, cl5 and finished the first mls (partially, getting full ml10 i reccon takes about a week extra) in under a week.

leveling an arte to level 10 can be done in ... 1 hour, 2 hours max.

 

[Muylaetrix]

and second subject,

goa and advertising.

goa has a liscense, is not the developer. i know of no liscence owners who promote their liscense. it`s always the developvers/publishers.

Chances are we might see for the first time advertising in the games mags with lotm due to EA.

 

[Gahn]

greetings to all from a new player.

i started playing couple of weeks ago with my husband and a few of his friends since we grew tired of other games. i will give you my impressions of the game.

personally i think the game has nothing to envy graphically most of more modern games. it has it's unique look and feeling to it wich i like.

as far game content, i really think is very very hard. for new players to make their way through. first of all, not many people around our own level to play with. therefore people have to search all over to find guides of recommended solo class. so they can at least play alone. but this doesen't happen with all classes. what if i want to play a cleric or druid? keeping in mind that most new players only will have one account. they wont have a bot. so their leveling will be very slow and boring. and no chances of finding a group mate whatsoever.

sometimes i sent tells to people around my level range, that was once we got to 20, thanks to a kind player who decided to give us a hand so he did some leveling for us with some of his high level characters. that way we managed to get to 20, after that we were on our own. playing a blademaster and druid couple. we still had a huge ammount of downtime. noone would ever wanted to join us, cause they all were just getting PL by their mains, or a friend or you name it.

i think what is killing the fact of the daoc pve is not the slow leveling. are the bots. players no longer require to group or interact with others. old players ofcourse are tired of leveling the old fashion way, but then instead of maybe be willing to let some new players get PL along their new toons, they just ignore us new players totally, leaving us to our own fate. wich is understandable. but the lack of grouping makes it nearly impossible for the few of us playing new.

advertisement is also positive and would always help to atract more players, but that alone wont do it, cause the fact still remains. i dont think that watering down pve content for new comers is a good idea. i dont want to be PL to 50 in one day. i d like to have the feeling you all experienced once . before all the botting ruined all that. want to feel the acomplishment of getting a new levels. yes i also think pve should also be fun and not just a waythrough to rvr. pve should be also about fun, working together, socialising, making new friends. doing raids with guild and fight powerful creatures. i dont find none of that boring.

i find bad having to slowly level with 30 mins downtime after each kill or power rest, i find bad not being able to group with players my level. i find bad that old players are simply ignoring new comers. i find bad that old players PL a new char with one of their many bots, dont let a new player in.

so bottom line is, i think daoc needs a bit of more adversement and a bit of more effort from the old players to make the process for new players a bit more pleasant according to the current situation. bot less and group more is the key, if you want to start a new char, ofcourse you can just make one right from level 20. then you plan to pl him with your bot, well instead of that, try to send a tell to that new players around and ask if they want to group together. that will bring back those old good days you all seem to talk about with a bit of homesickness , sorrow feeling.

Yup that's the main problem tbh, it's our own community not open to new players, i rolled a new bard and skipped the /level20 thingie to check around if some1 still new to the game and found some peeps. Am gonna try and give advice to em and group with em a bit in next weeks even if it'll slow down my leveling experience (i really hate pve).
More peeps from the Old Guard should go down this road and invest some time on new comers.
Oh and btw u got it easier since u are with your husband and found your way to the Community Forums at least

 

[Muylaetrix]

Yup that's the main problem tbh, it's our own community not open to new players, i rolled a new bard and skipped the /level20 thingie to check around if some1 still new to the game and found some peeps. Am gonna try and give advice to em and group with em a bit in next weeks even if it'll slow down my leveling experience (i really hate pve).
More peeps from the Old Guard should go down this road and invest some time on new comers.

i see it as a priority to invite at least one newby to the game every month in my guild.

these lads are fun as hell and refreshing for all players.

and it makes new players stay in the game.

 

[Fediuld]

greetings to all from a new player.
i started playing couple of weeks ago with my husband and a few of his friends since we grew tired of other games. i will give you my impressions of the game.

Nadine welcome. My wife and I (I met her in DAOC 3 1/2 years ago) walked slowly towards L50 before even ToA comes out, and it took a while. (16 months).

Because back on those days none wanted a full healer spec Druid (my wife) or a Celt Piercing Champion (me) and all good spawn places have being taken by powerleveling groups. But we enjoy the game and found a lot of other casual gamers on the way making good friends. We searched almost all the map for viable places to play/level and we had a lot of fun. We still remember those nice days.

The last time we played DAOC (we started on Glan playing Nov - Jan) it took us less than 2 weeks (2-3 hours of gaming per day) to hit 50 trying instasing etc. Then we realise that the game lost it's appealing and we left once again.

 

[Nadine]

Yup that's the main problem tbh, it's our own community not open to new players, i rolled a new bard and skipped the /level20 thingie to check around if some1 still new to the game and found some peeps. Am gonna try and give advice to em and group with em a bit in next weeks even if it'll slow down my leveling experience (i really hate pve).
More peeps from the Old Guard should go down this road and invest some time on new comers.
Oh and btw u got it easier since u are with your husband and found your way to the Community Forums at least

well yes we always play games together. but sadly i have been a lot playing alone due to his new job schedule. so we got the chars to play together during weekend. weekdays i play everyday, but all lonely and alone with my elven eldrich. kill 3 and rest 20 mins, repeat, kill 3 rest 20 mins repeat:

i found a very nice and helpful person, he took pity of me and actually helped me out with some better equip, also showed me around the places i could hunt. but honestly to god, doing 5 runs of those taskmasters tasks without being able to talk or group with anyone ever is insane. i managed to get to level 17 currently. otherday i asked a player who has like 5 level 50th chars, if he wanted to group with me together with his new level 17 bainshee. he just told me, no thank you i PL her with my bot. i say oh np is ok.

our mains are not doing too bad, at first we found a very good helpful person even invited us to his guild, we got to level 20 very fast. but from that point on, we were all on our own, killing with druid and blademaster is very , very slow. specially if blademaster has a grey weapon. that is our case currently. then our guild mates were always busy with rvr, noone ever had time nor wanted to group or allow us in their pve groups. i asked helped in guild for doing a part of epic quest, people simply ignored us and went on with their rutine. so no need to say we left shortly after that. cause if noone could invest 5 minutes to help some fellow guild mates with an epic quest, i dont think they d do anything else as far a guild should be. so we found a system to level them currently wich is, get one slow level (takes us 2 whole days to get) and wait for the free level day. so currently we are 43. god bless the free level day

we are currently searching for a new guild with active players who are somewhat helpful at least. but im a bit discouraged atm. not sure how long we ll remain if things stay this way. but we d like to make it to 50 and try the rvr fun even if we ll be easy killed

 

[Nedo]

Nadine welcome. My wife and I (I met her in DAOC 3 1/2 years ago) walked slowly towards L50 before even ToA comes out, and it took a while. (16 months).

Because back on those days none wanted a full healer spec Druid (my wife) or a Celt Piercing Champion (me) and all good spawn places have being taken by powerleveling groups. But we enjoy the game and found a lot of other casual gamers on the way making good friends. We searched almost all the map for viable places to play/level and we had a lot of fun. We still remember those nice days.

The last time we played DAOC (we started on Glan playing Nov - Jan) it took us less than 2 weeks (2-3 hours of gaming per day) to hit 50 trying instasing etc. Then we realise that the game lost it's appealing and we left once again.

hmm celt pierce champion rings a bell ^^ were you guys in Roses of Dawn on Prydwen? (could have been more then 1 though hehe)

 

[Gahn]

well yes we always play games together. but sadly i have been a lot playing alone due to his new job schedule. so we got the chars to play together during weekend. weekdays i play everyday, but all lonely and alone with my elven eldrich. kill 3 and rest 20 mins, repeat, kill 3 rest 20 mins repeat:

i found a very nice and helpful person, he took pity of me and actually helped me out with some better equip, also showed me around the places i could hunt. but honestly to god, doing 5 runs of those taskmasters tasks without being able to talk or group with anyone ever is insane. i managed to get to level 17 currently. otherday i asked a player who has like 5 level 50th chars, if he wanted to group with me together with his new level 17 bainshee. he just told me, no thank you i PL her with my bot. i say oh np is ok.

our mains are not doing too bad, at first we found a very good helpful person even invited us to his guild, we got to level 20 very fast. but from that point on, we were all on our own, killing with druid and blademaster is very , very slow. specially if blademaster has a grey weapon. that is our case currently. then our guild mates were always busy with rvr, noone ever had time nor wanted to group or allow us in their pve groups. i asked helped in guild for doing a part of epic quest, people simply ignored us and went on with their rutine. so no need to say we left shortly after that. cause if noone could invest 5 minutes to help some fellow guild mates with an epic quest, i dont think they d do anything else as far a guild should be. so we found a system to level them currently wich is, get one slow level (takes us 2 whole days to get) and wait for the free level day. so currently we are 43. god bless the free level day

we are currently searching for a new guild with active players who are somewhat helpful at least. but im a bit discouraged atm. not sure how long we ll remain if things stay this way. but we d like to make it to 50 and try the rvr fun even if we ll be easy killed

Pair of hints:
Farm human mobs for tinderboxes, they are a sort of junior fop (regain power hits and endo while lit).
Farm aurulites in Catas instances for getting quite a decent gear.
Do the Epic for some more good gear.
For starters

 

[Fediuld]

hmm celt pierce champion rings a bell ^^ were you guys in Roses of Dawn on Prydwen? (could have been more then 1 though hehe)

Sorry mate. Excali we were in Unseen University and Evolution guilds.

 

[Gear]

well yes we always play games together. but sadly i have been a lot playing alone due to his new job schedule. so we got the chars to play together during weekend. weekdays i play everyday, but all lonely and alone with my elven eldrich. kill 3 and rest 20 mins, repeat, kill 3 rest 20 mins repeat:

i found a very nice and helpful person, he took pity of me and actually helped me out with some better equip, also showed me around the places i could hunt. but honestly to god, doing 5 runs of those taskmasters tasks without being able to talk or group with anyone ever is insane. i managed to get to level 17 currently. otherday i asked a player who has like 5 level 50th chars, if he wanted to group with me together with his new level 17 bainshee. he just told me, no thank you i PL her with my bot. i say oh np is ok.

our mains are not doing too bad, at first we found a very good helpful person even invited us to his guild, we got to level 20 very fast. but from that point on, we were all on our own, killing with druid and blademaster is very , very slow. specially if blademaster has a grey weapon. that is our case currently. then our guild mates were always busy with rvr, noone ever had time nor wanted to group or allow us in their pve groups. i asked helped in guild for doing a part of epic quest, people simply ignored us and went on with their rutine. so no need to say we left shortly after that. cause if noone could invest 5 minutes to help some fellow guild mates with an epic quest, i dont think they d do anything else as far a guild should be. so we found a system to level them currently wich is, get one slow level (takes us 2 whole days to get) and wait for the free level day. so currently we are 43. god bless the free level day

we are currently searching for a new guild with active players who are somewhat helpful at least. but im a bit discouraged atm. not sure how long we ll remain if things stay this way. but we d like to make it to 50 and try the rvr fun even if we ll be easy killed

Try to get in touch with anyone in Celtic Fist (if you're playing in the cluster) and ask if Gear is around. I got shitloads of low-lvl equipment that I don't feel like selling or destroing but then again they will never be usefull to me. That should help you killing things easier at least.

 

[Hazeroth]

I play since european beta. And now a days I think that soon Mythic will just cancel DAOC and focus totally on WHO.
Maybe if they would give game + expansion packs + 1 month, for free they could get some more players. But they never did anything to bring some new people.
Sad but true they dont care about us anymore

 

[Dr_Evil]

well yes we always play games together. but sadly i have been a lot playing alone due to his new job schedule. so we got the chars to play together during weekend. weekdays i play everyday, but all lonely and alone with my elven eldrich. kill 3 and rest 20 mins, repeat, kill 3 rest 20 mins repeat:

i found a very nice and helpful person, he took pity of me and actually helped me out with some better equip, also showed me around the places i could hunt. but honestly to god, doing 5 runs of those taskmasters tasks without being able to talk or group with anyone ever is insane. i managed to get to level 17 currently. otherday i asked a player who has like 5 level 50th chars, if he wanted to group with me together with his new level 17 bainshee. he just told me, no thank you i PL her with my bot. i say oh np is ok.

our mains are not doing too bad, at first we found a very good helpful person even invited us to his guild, we got to level 20 very fast. but from that point on, we were all on our own, killing with druid and blademaster is very , very slow. specially if blademaster has a grey weapon. that is our case currently. then our guild mates were always busy with rvr, noone ever had time nor wanted to group or allow us in their pve groups. i asked helped in guild for doing a part of epic quest, people simply ignored us and went on with their rutine. so no need to say we left shortly after that. cause if noone could invest 5 minutes to help some fellow guild mates with an epic quest, i dont think they d do anything else as far a guild should be. so we found a system to level them currently wich is, get one slow level (takes us 2 whole days to get) and wait for the free level day. so currently we are 43. god bless the free level day

we are currently searching for a new guild with active players who are somewhat helpful at least. but im a bit discouraged atm. not sure how long we ll remain if things stay this way. but we d like to make it to 50 and try the rvr fun even if we ll be easy killed

I highly recommend to try the Leirvik Battleground lvl40-44 and learn about how to play in rvr so you're ready when you get to lvl50. In Leirvik there will be players from all realms.

Also I recommend to try Thidranki Battleground lvl20-24 sometime, it's the most populated battleground, and is very fun. In battlegrounds (a.k.a. BGs) it's a lot easier to compete, compared to lvl50 frontiers, and a lot easier to learn. Because if you go to lvl50 frontier unprepared, you will just die and don't know what happened.

About guilds I know nothing of Hibernia, as I'm in Aquamarine in Midgard myself. I know all my guildies are always helpful whenever they can, it's in the guild rules so they have to be nice. We also give new players a chance to join our guild if we find them, and have lots of equipment in our vaults ready for them. I hope you can find a nice guild in Hibernia.

 

[Xxcalibur]

LoL when i created this post i didnt expect so much replies.

Anyway i payed acc 1 month 15 days ago, didnt come back to play after see the action was a shi t compared with the past (OF)

THE CANCER OF DAOC:

New frontiers
Water and Boats
Requirement of a second acc/Pc or good pc to compete if you play alone.


To meet those things.... i prefer Freeshards


Salutes to my old friends !

 

[Daedalus]

LoL when i created this post i didnt expect so much replies.

Anyway i payed acc 1 month 15 days ago, didnt come back to play after see the action was a shi t compared with the past (OF)

THE CANCER OF DAOC:

New frontiers

Yes. The old frontiers were so much better. They were! Honestly! I can't even remember any bad moments! </sarcasm>

Water and Boats

Lack of transparancy and penalties for entering/exiting water kind of ruins the water support in the Frontiers, yes. This matter needs more discussion.

Requirement of a second acc/Pc or good pc to compete if you play alone.

True, but irrelevant. Read on.

The problem with DAoC is that the game is old. Not old in the lacks-novelty kind of way (Well, maybe a little. I mean, cows?), but old as in age. The game has been patched too many times and has too much addons. This is what went wrong:
When you develop a game, the design part is an ongoing process. It never stops, however, there is a certain minimum amount of 'design' required before even a prototype can be made. That minimum amount of 'design' is the foundation of the game-to-be, if that foundation isn't solid then the game will fail. The problem with DAoC, any any other MMO, is that the game is essentially never finished, changes to that foundation are not uncommon for MMOs. Every patch changes some aspect of the game its 'design' to fix an issue. Every add-on is as if adding another part to the construction that is the game. Eventually it becomes too much and will collapse.

Why do we need buffbots? Because buffs help. Well, of course they do, they're designed to do that! Well, look at it like this; buffs were in right from the start or at least as long as I can remember. Your gear gave you an x amount of stats and buffs added a nice bonus to it. As a buffed character, you have an advantage over non-buffed characters and that really helps, it's really supposed to work like that and that's okay.

Now after various addons, we've still got buffs but 'lo and behold! We also have higher base stats! Sure. Great. The difference between an unbuffed player and a non-buffed player is still the same as it always was, right? Wrong! Even though we can't possibly know all of the formulas that the game uses to calculate damage and the various statistics such as health (or to an extent, anyway), the problem lies with the original design. It may or may not have been made with scalability in mind, but even then,
those 'original' values and maximums were thought out. They were precisely calculated, they didn't pull them out of their arse (altough sometimes it might seem that way). It's like a spider's web with nicely distributed threads. The web isn't perfect, but hey, neither is the spider.

A single addon might completely fuck up a game. Believe it or not, DAoC did a pretty good job at balancing out the balance after an addon. Yes, new classes are initially overpowered and then quickly nerfed, but even then, no addon really completely broke the game. There have been addons/patches in the past that did this to games. Anyhow, any change to the game's original design is like moving a single thread in the web. Things are no-longer balanced and the rest of the web needs to be re-ordered to compensate the change.

And that's where our problem lies, too. The 'fucking up of DAoC' has been inevitable but, more importantly, an ongoing, long and slow process. Small changes, small adjustments stacked upon eachother, big changes cancelled out by big adjustments, in the end the design is no-longer similar to the original one. Stats have gone through the roof, classes are no-longer fun to play, certain gameplay elements no-longer work. Etcetera.


Of course, most of us have noticed that something is wrong and wonder what happened to the game? Or did something happen to us? Have we simply become bored of the game, or fed up? The Old Frontiers were so much more fun, or was it really? ToA ruined everything, or was it SI when it all went downhill? Where did everybody go?

It was to be expected. You can't push change upon change and not have the world eventually explode.

I think it's time for a revamp, but I doubt that Mythic will succeed. Revamping a game is one of the hardest things to do, if not impossible.

Oh well. DAoC was great while it lasted(lasting). I might even resubscribe again to find out why I cancelled my account last time .

 

[knighthood]

Yes. The old frontiers were so much better. They were! Honestly! I can't even remember any bad moments! </sarcasm>


Lack of transparancy and penalties for entering/exiting water kind of ruins the water support in the Frontiers, yes. This matter needs more discussion.


True, but irrelevant. Read on.

The problem with DAoC is that the game is old. Not old in the lacks-novelty kind of way (Well, maybe a little. I mean, cows?), but old as in age. The game has been patched too many times and has too much addons. This is what went wrong:
When you develop a game, the design part is an ongoing process. It never stops, however, there is a certain minimum amount of 'design' required before even a prototype can be made. That minimum amount of 'design' is the foundation of the game-to-be, if that foundation isn't solid then the game will fail. The problem with DAoC, any any other MMO, is that the game is essentially never finished, changes to that foundation are not uncommon for MMOs. Every patch changes some aspect of the game its 'design' to fix an issue. Every add-on is as if adding another part to the construction that is the game. Eventually it becomes too much and will collapse.

Why do we need buffbots? Because buffs help. Well, of course they do, they're designed to do that! Well, look at it like this; buffs were in right from the start or at least as long as I can remember. Your gear gave you an x amount of stats and buffs added a nice bonus to it. As a buffed character, you have an advantage over non-buffed characters and that really helps, it's really supposed to work like that and that's okay.

Now after various addons, we've still got buffs but 'lo and behold! We also have higher base stats! Sure. Great. The difference between an unbuffed player and a non-buffed player is still the same as it always was, right? Wrong! Even though we can't possibly know all of the formulas that the game uses to calculate damage and the various statistics such as health (or to an extent, anyway), the problem lies with the original design. It may or may not have been made with scalability in mind, but even then,
those 'original' values and maximums were thought out. They were precisely calculated, they didn't pull them out of their arse (altough sometimes it might seem that way). It's like a spider's web with nicely distributed threads. The web isn't perfect, but hey, neither is the spider.

A single addon might completely fuck up a game. Believe it or not, DAoC did a pretty good job at balancing out the balance after an addon. Yes, new classes are initially overpowered and then quickly nerfed, but even then, no addon really completely broke the game. There have been addons/patches in the past that did this to games. Anyhow, any change to the game's original design is like moving a single thread in the web. Things are no-longer balanced and the rest of the web needs to be re-ordered to compensate the change.

And that's where our problem lies, too. The 'fucking up of DAoC' has been inevitable but, more importantly, an ongoing, long and slow process. Small changes, small adjustments stacked upon eachother, big changes cancelled out by big adjustments, in the end the design is no-longer similar to the original one. Stats have gone through the roof, classes are no-longer fun to play, certain gameplay elements no-longer work. Etcetera.


Of course, most of us have noticed that something is wrong and wonder what happened to the game? Or did something happen to us? Have we simply become bored of the game, or fed up? The Old Frontiers were so much more fun, or was it really? ToA ruined everything, or was it SI when it all went downhill? Where did everybody go?

It was to be expected. You can't push change upon change and not have the world eventually explode.

I think it's time for a revamp, but I doubt that Mythic will succeed. Revamping a game is one of the hardest things to do, if not impossible.

Oh well. DAoC was great while it lasted(lasting). I might even resubscribe again to find out why I cancelled my account last time .

repped

 

[Ctuchik]

Yes. The old frontiers were so much better. They were! Honestly! I can't even remember any bad moments! </sarcasm>


Lack of transparancy and penalties for entering/exiting water kind of ruins the water support in the Frontiers, yes. This matter needs more discussion.


True, but irrelevant. Read on.

The problem with DAoC is that the game is old. Not old in the lacks-novelty kind of way (Well, maybe a little. I mean, cows?), but old as in age. The game has been patched too many times and has too much addons. This is what went wrong:
When you develop a game, the design part is an ongoing process. It never stops, however, there is a certain minimum amount of 'design' required before even a prototype can be made. That minimum amount of 'design' is the foundation of the game-to-be, if that foundation isn't solid then the game will fail. The problem with DAoC, any any other MMO, is that the game is essentially never finished, changes to that foundation are not uncommon for MMOs. Every patch changes some aspect of the game its 'design' to fix an issue. Every add-on is as if adding another part to the construction that is the game. Eventually it becomes too much and will collapse.

Why do we need buffbots? Because buffs help. Well, of course they do, they're designed to do that! Well, look at it like this; buffs were in right from the start or at least as long as I can remember. Your gear gave you an x amount of stats and buffs added a nice bonus to it. As a buffed character, you have an advantage over non-buffed characters and that really helps, it's really supposed to work like that and that's okay.

Now after various addons, we've still got buffs but 'lo and behold! We also have higher base stats! Sure. Great. The difference between an unbuffed player and a non-buffed player is still the same as it always was, right? Wrong! Even though we can't possibly know all of the formulas that the game uses to calculate damage and the various statistics such as health (or to an extent, anyway), the problem lies with the original design. It may or may not have been made with scalability in mind, but even then,
those 'original' values and maximums were thought out. They were precisely calculated, they didn't pull them out of their arse (altough sometimes it might seem that way). It's like a spider's web with nicely distributed threads. The web isn't perfect, but hey, neither is the spider.

A single addon might completely fuck up a game. Believe it or not, DAoC did a pretty good job at balancing out the balance after an addon. Yes, new classes are initially overpowered and then quickly nerfed, but even then, no addon really completely broke the game. There have been addons/patches in the past that did this to games. Anyhow, any change to the game's original design is like moving a single thread in the web. Things are no-longer balanced and the rest of the web needs to be re-ordered to compensate the change.

And that's where our problem lies, too. The 'fucking up of DAoC' has been inevitable but, more importantly, an ongoing, long and slow process. Small changes, small adjustments stacked upon eachother, big changes cancelled out by big adjustments, in the end the design is no-longer similar to the original one. Stats have gone through the roof, classes are no-longer fun to play, certain gameplay elements no-longer work. Etcetera.


Of course, most of us have noticed that something is wrong and wonder what happened to the game? Or did something happen to us? Have we simply become bored of the game, or fed up? The Old Frontiers were so much more fun, or was it really? ToA ruined everything, or was it SI when it all went downhill? Where did everybody go?

It was to be expected. You can't push change upon change and not have the world eventually explode.

I think it's time for a revamp, but I doubt that Mythic will succeed. Revamping a game is one of the hardest things to do, if not impossible.

Oh well. DAoC was great while it lasted(lasting). I might even resubscribe again to find out why I cancelled my account last time .

best post in FH history!

and repped..

 

[Dunny]

Guys, in all fairness Euro servers suck. I played for roughly a month after being on the US servers and was shocked at how terrible the RvR was. The players and the attitude made glast so mind numbingly crap. I play on the US classic cluster now. Trust me, if you are willing to level up to 50 again and buy the expansion/s US classic is soo so so much better. Don't worry about the timezones too much. If you log on at 12pm gmt you can expect at least 700 or so people and then around 2000+ at euro prime time.

Also, If you're into 8mans then gareth has some damn good ones around. There are a few euro guilds but they seem to die out quickly because they are so bad at 8man. I would recommend to any 8man who are thinking of leaving glast to join US classic because a well played euro 8man would dominate at primetime.

My point is, its not daoc that sucks, it's euro servers

 

[Tilda]

clueless or something Dunny?

Glast is not active anymore, the decent RvR people left a long time ago and returned to the Excal cluster.
Most if not all of the decent RvR players either play excal cluster, or, (like a few days ago) have rerolled to play on avalon for a bit.
You are sadly mistaken to presume that the EU 8mans are shit, and I doubt very much that many US groups could match Raindrop, ApocDudes, The Greeks amongst others.

 

[Dunny]

clueless or something Dunny?

Glast is not active anymore, the decent RvR people left a long time ago and returned to the Excal cluster.
Most if not all of the decent RvR players either play excal cluster, or, (like a few days ago) have rerolled to play on avalon for a bit.
You are sadly mistaken to presume that the EU 8mans are shit, and I doubt very much that many US groups could match Raindrop, ApocDudes, The Greeks amongst others.

Every EU 8man that I saw during the first four months of glast going live were nothing compared to some of the US 8mans.

My point is that half of the posts on this topic complain about buffbots, balance/population issues and/or the age of the game. Glast obviously never fulfilled the need for a non toa environment and so I am suggesting to all of you that feel that this game is dying in some way or another to try the US classic server/s. The US cluster certainly made the game fun again for me.

 

[Lamp]

I must say, that its a little demoralising playing Midgard Glastonbury when only 70 ppl are on at anyone time. Depressingly quiet.

The other night I walked from Svasad Faste to Odin to Agramon, PVE'd all around Emain, swam the width of the Irish Sea and PVE'd for a few hours in Forest Sauvage (via Snowdonia & Hadrians) without seeing a single playing character from any other realm. No death reports either.

 

[Rhana]

I must say, that its a little demoralising playing Midgard Glastonbury when only 70 ppl are on at anyone time. Depressingly quiet.

The other night I walked from Svasad Faste to Odin to Agramon, PVE'd all around Emain, swam the width of the Irish Sea and PVE'd for a few hours in Forest Sauvage (via Snowdonia & Hadrians) without seeing a single playing character from any other realm. No death reports either.

70, you luckey bastard.. I think it was some 13 lvl 50's online when I loged in at 22:00 CET (didnt check for other lvls so maybe some took the time to lvl alts ect as nothing else hapend anyway)

 

[RS|Phil]

clueless or something Dunny?

Glast is not active anymore, the decent RvR people left a long time ago and returned to the Excal cluster.
Most if not all of the decent RvR players either play excal cluster, or, (like a few days ago) have rerolled to play on avalon for a bit.
You are sadly mistaken to presume that the EU 8mans are shit, and I doubt very much that many US groups could match Raindrop, ApocDudes, The Greeks amongst others.

You've played on US servers?

 

[swifteagle]

I must say I was surprised(in a good way ) when i rolled on the US servers a couple of weeks ago.
Within 3 days some guy had run up to my lvl 12 skald and just handed me 200 gold,maybe it was because i was still wearing half the newbie quest gear still , but still a nice surprise and very welcome.

The attitude of everyone I've met so far has been good which again surprised me after reading some of the stuff on the message boards over there,all in all a good experience so far.

Before anyone jumps all over me I'm not saying its for everyone but not paying for 2 accounts and the lack of iRvR,or it seems like it on the US classic server anyway, swung it for me

 

[Rolv]

I havent read all pages (hey its 20 pages! lol)

Anyway. I dont think the pve and arty grind is what makes new players leave, its the lack of rvr groups and being slaughtered by high RRs.

It seems to me that 90% of the groups only invite friends, or are already fixed. Imo we need to help the new players (the low rr), cause without new blood the population will drop.

People should try get some new friends too! Those noobs may be wonderful people, who if they get the chance may become very good players.

 

[knighthood]

Since Glast is so low on pop and dying, why dont u all come back to the cluster and help fill it up a bit more lol.

 

[Tilda]

You've played on US servers?

yes.

Dunny, the reason, perhaps, because a large proportion of 8man groups decided not to reroll, but to stick with their established charachters on excal.

 

[Z^^]

Yes. The old frontiers were so much better. They were! Honestly! I can't even remember any bad moments! </sarcasm>
3000 excalibur and 2000 prydwen players say it was

blabal...

A single addon might completely fuck up a game. Believe it or not, DAoC did a pretty good job at balancing out the balance after an addon. Yes, new classes are initially overpowered and then quickly nerfed, but even then, no addon really completely broke the game. There have been addons/patches in the past that did this to games. Anyhow, any change to the game's original design is like moving a single thread in the web. Things are no-longer balanced and the rest of the web needs to be re-ordered to compensate the change.
That was the basic design problem mythic actually never solved, yes it was pretty obvious they tryed balancing out the casters vs the meleers, and the initial Classes of every expansion have never been tested or it where overpowered ever sence si to make player "HAVE TO" get the expansion...
si.. Bonedancer, savage, animist, and necro where especially good at what they where back then.. etc as a longtime player at daoc you just knew when you saw the warlock abilitys that it was so stupid and op but did mythic release a balanced class after several expansions?... quite clearly no.
Your right about the web dmg, was upped many times and such things as interupts ment less for pure casters after nf and did alot more harm to support players, dmg was adjusted upwards toward healing power and alot of abilitys that was put into the game was stupidly silly and still are.

Of course, most of us have noticed that something is wrong and wonder what happened to the game? Or did something happen to us? Have we simply become bored of the game, or fed up? The Old Frontiers were so much more fun, or was it really? ToA ruined everything, or was it SI when it all went downhill? Where did everybody go?
Well your partly right end of si it was one of the best patches for balance in 8v8 and this doesn't meen (rvr) but the patch was 1month 1.65 and toa came and everyone where forced to get thise abilitys or quit or option 3 be a gimp, and if you where a competative casual daoc player back then you quitted, because I remember clearly how many groups there where before Toa and after and there was a drop either to toa or maybe it was some release of another game.
I did toa tho personaly and found it pretty funny one time but I imagine that doing that to several chars wouldnt be something I've do again.

But Nf is where it when't wrong.. I Just dont like it maybe it did make the game better and removing such high cooldowns of powerful spells and changing them to fit their faster timers, but imo that made it so you always used abilitys in every fight.. and that changed some of the things that could happen to groups who didn't have such high realmranks and meet "harder opponents" with ras up and their opponents down..

It was to be expected. You can't push change upon change and not have the world eventually explode.

I think it's time for a revamp, but I doubt that Mythic will succeed. Revamping a game is one of the hardest things to do, if not impossible.

Oh well. DAoC was great while it lasted(lasting). I might even resubscribe again to find out why I cancelled my account last time

No need to fix daoc, infact Warhammer will be Like Daoc2, just need to start over from scratch, and this will make it feel new again.

I've come back to daoc two times but I think im finnaly of the drug, There is nothing that will bring back the fun of summer'03 on excal for me.