Darkness Rising could (should) be free!

[~Latency~]

Maybe I missed it, didn't read up much about DR, but it cost £19:99 like usual expansions I guess, but it barely adds anything?

So, what's new?
-Champion Levels = watered down pve, all you needa do is grind the exp? how boring
-Champion Weapons = only thing worth buying dr for, £20 for a weapon c00l
-New epic armours = should've been updated for free ages ago
-New city and town graphics = should be free
-New Darkness Falls graphics/atmosphere = should be free
-Horses = suckage fluff
-Ability to equip weapons on any class = thx I picked a melee to use a weapon
-A few new instances for the Champion quests, and one(I think) zone = |although this may not be open to those under a certain CL level.)


The opinions of many I know think that this could and should be free, most stuff isn't new content , just stuff that needs updating and should be free / fluff tbh!

 

[Righthandof]

it works the other way. its been a half year since a bigger expansion was developped(cata), so now they want to get a huge ammount of money again, so they've created an "expansion" including all the stuff they could do..

 

[Ballard]

Seriously I wouldnt comment on something you havent really experienced. The game is so much more an immersive experience with DR. I am a RvR'er and even I have enjoyed leveling on US TOA in the last week. Champion quests are genuinely fun and unlikely any other quests in the game. The are trulely epic in scope. The last one I did involved defending a town with the help of NPC guards (setting their tactics aswell) and then after beating off the attack storming a well defended keep and killing the evil lord. DR also adds a myriad of other random quests to the catacombs areas. These quests generally involve trips into unique instances to accomplish certain goals. Horses really ARE useful and do look very cool and the horse emotes still havent gotten old

The DR client itself is by FAR the smoothest and fastest client I have seen for the game. This is the first client other than TOA that I would consider using for RvR. Loading times to zones are so fast and character movement/animation is so smooth.

Darkness Rising is without a doubt my favourite expansion to DAOC.

Btw DR cost $19 US so about 12£ in our money. Dont know what the price will be when it comes here tho.

 

[Rellik]

They created the expansion to grind out those extra bucks before the game goes belly up

We have to think about the poor fellows that made the game they need to be able to retire at the age of 30!

No but seriously they could really have made this expansion free its just so damn greedy to charge for multiple expansions and still expect people to pay for the game monthly its quite bad of them indeed.

 

[Ballard]

I do agree there should have been a free expansion.

But really DR is just too big in scope to be considered equvalent to any free expansion we have gotten before.

 

[scorge]

I do agree there should have been a free expansion.

But really DR is just too big in scope to be considered equvalent to any free expansion we have gotten before.

didn'y mythic say in an interview that they wouldn't be doing a free expansion this year, but bringing out a series of big free "content" patches for the players. Seems that mythic realised that they could get more money by putting these big free content patches together ass a little extr fluff and sell it..

http://www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm?fp=1280,1024,102208000,20051219072601:m00:

 

[Gamah]

If you don't want to pay for it, don't buy it.

 

[Ballard]

Ye I did read that too, but was under the impresion it mainly refered to rvr balance and other nice free stuff like agramon.

 

[Er-Murazor]

Bought Cata for my US account and only thingie I found useful there were the instances to get decent xp when leveling. All the other stuff was more or less not interesting to me. For my EU accounts I didn't bother to buy that crap and I'm pretty sure I'm not gonna do it when DR released. I've been playing mainly on alternative rules server now and have kept my bot acco closed for some time now. So far it seems that "the über fun-ruiner ToA" was the last expansion I bought for EU servers. Not so interested for new PvE thigies ... or at least not willing to pay for them.

Nowadays it seems I'm having less and less time for playing the game and therefore not keen to make more investments to it. I'll try to have some fun with my old chars as well as my n00blet sorc on Glastonbury as long as I'll continue playing DAoC.

Still, I wish the most enjoyable playing sessions for those who will buy this new expansion and hope there will be some real goodies that make it worth paying for.

 

[scorge]

Ye I did read that too, but was under the impresion it mainly refered to rvr balance and other nice free stuff like agramon.

In my opinion an expansion is not an expansion unless it comes with new classes or races. Teh art department could at least of got there fingers out and created a new race for each realm...

 

[Er-Murazor]

If you don't want to pay for it, don't buy it.

Yep-yep... definately won't.

 

[Kaun_IA]

didn'y mythic say in an interview that they wouldn't be doing a free expansion this year, but bringing out a series of big free "content" patches for the players. Seems that mythic realised that they could get more money by putting these big free content patches together ass a little extr fluff and sell it..

http://www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm?fp=1280,1024,102208000,20051219072601:m00:

i guess you can call 1.81 a small change patch...

 

[Fana]

DR does add a new client, and some significant changes imo - subclassing and horses, an epic questline with much instanced content of a sort we havent seen before etc (as i understand it).

It also doesnt really affect rvr in any big way, so if rvr is all you are interested in then you *really* dont need to buy it. Sure the champion levels add alil hitpoints but not so much that it will significantly unbalance a fight between a DR and non DR toon. So, if you dont think its worth 30 euro or whatever it will cost here then dont buy it. Personaly I think its worth it, so I will buy it. It isnt that much money, and i will gladly pay it to Mythic/GOA since i like the game, and want it to keep going.

 

[Tesla Monkor]

I dunno what the final price for DR will be, but I doubt it will be 30. More likely something like 14.99, seeing as there is no manuals to print, cds to ship. It's all online. (30 would be a bit of a rip-off for DR. It's nowhere near as big an expansion as SI/TOA/CAT.)

 

[Sye]

-New epic armours = should've been updated for free ages ago

Lemmie get this straight, you dont have access to the new epic armours unless you buy the expansion ??

 

[Reno]

Lemmie get this straight, you dont have access to the new epic armours unless you buy the expansion ??

Nope, new epic armours are in 1.79, so it's not part of the DR expansion.

Danita

 

[Fana]

Lemmie get this straight, you dont have access to the new epic armours unless you buy the expansion ??

Without DR you will still get new updated epic armours (with new quests - this was introduced in 1.79 but we get 1.79 and 1.80 in same patch) and you will even be able to buy a basic horse at level 35 (but it cant go into the frontiers and isnt as fast as a "real" horse).

 

[rampant]

my guess is that GOA will give ToA away for free - (in time for chistmas 2005 ).

I hope that GOA act sensibly and implement DR with 1.81 - as this is likely to bring back a lot of players who hated the grind! (btw i think 1.81 is watering down the game somewhat - but i totally respect the opinions of other people who want it - and it will certainly make toa'ing characters much much easier)

 

[boppas]

DR is nice (imo) its one of the better expansions thats been released from mythic. Champion levels are great, base/spec buffs & ability to heal yourself or a group even if your a caster is just one of the choices, seems going seer (on mid) as a caster is the best choice as alot of people have

*if* it was free, then it would not be released in shops which in turn would bring no new players to DAoC.. & DAoC needs new players. Chances are it will be released as a boxed set (as well as single) along with all other expansions so im sure it will bring quite a few new players, & tbh £20 is fk all if you can afford to pay £8 month or alot more if you have more than 1 account.

Horses are also a nice touch, being able to kit them out with armor & being able to fight on them is also nice..like i said DR is one of the better expansions ive seen released from mythic.

on US atm ToA/SI is free & if you purchase DR & Catac at same time they will cost £16 for the two instead of the usual £15 each that is the normal price in US, so im happy ^^

 

[Awarkle]

i think you will find that the previous expansions Si/TOA/Cats have all had the whole "you have to buy these expansion" whine threads so they made darkness rising more of a choice expansion.

it is true you dont "HAVE" to buy darkness rising however the extra content you get as it is technically a 30+ expansion so saying its a must have from lvl 1 isnt really relavent.

Its a PVE content patch that gives you extra things to do instead of just doing task dungons. Im sure we will see whine threads from folk a few weeks after its been released saying " i dont have DR and im being killed by champion level's" or somthing along those lines.

However i am going to buy DR you dont have to noone says you have to and chances are it might be the last expansion released by mythic while they work on the bug fixes and tweeks they are still doing on TOA and Catacombs.

But then its always been choice, noone ever forced you to buy SI / TOA or Catacombs it just makes it easier when you do buy the expansions

 

[Azathrim]

I hope that Mythic releases 1.82 mid February.

And that GoA consequently releases DR with 1.81 last half of february.

The alternative would be, that GoA releases DR with 1.80 in start of February and then we won't see 1.81 until mid April as they tend to do the "two patches a release" cycle. Ugh!

 

[Isunder]

Pretty sure at release DR was only $20 US instead of the normal $40 expansion price because Mythic took into consideration it's size(not that it was an online release). Would expect GOA to have it at half normal expansion price as well.


Edit: But I guess pricing would be entirely upto GOA and depend on their goodwill.

 

[Fana]

and chances are it might be the last expansion released by mythic while they work on the bug fixes and tweeks they are still doing on TOA and Catacombs.

I believe its been stated that they intend to do one more retail DAOC expansion before Warhammer Online. Otherwise they would lose important revenue since WHO isnt going to be out until 2007, and they need those box sales as well as monthly fees, both for the extra cash and to revitalize interest in the game - every time an expansion is released alot of people resub, even if its only for a while, and theres always some new players etc.

 

[old.Whoodoo]

I believe its been stated that they intend to do one more retail DAOC expansion before Warhammer Online.

I can see it now, a new expansion launching at the end of '06, entitled "Dark Age of Klingon", I can see it now (heres the wobbly scoobie doo scene cut!)

• New improved graphics for the GFarce 22 series (please note, min spec will now be 55Ghz with 9Tb of ram, while this hasnt been invented yet, it gives you time to save some money)
• A rich and colourful new landscape for all realms, borrowed directly from the Wizard of Oz!
• New teleport system, no longer will you have to walk or ride, just flip your communicator and ask your guild to "Beam you up!" (this feature only available in Hibernia as there are no "Scotty's" in the other realms).
• Item degredation ramped to 100%, instant item decay! Now just get your characters to plug into the Matrix, artifacts no longer required!
• Self DDOS software to ensure a crap connection even on 28 Mb Broadband.
• Random charater loss!
• A forth realm known as the Iraqi, who hide dark secret weapons you must unlock to defeat! (spoiler: the weapons dont exist, but it will keep you all xp grinding for months to figure it out!)
• Oil is discovered in Darkness falls, and the people of the new lands of Yanksrnoobs threaten to take it all from you, you must defeat their smiling leader!
• New customer service assistants are there to help now 24/7, they come from Dubai, dont speak Enlgish and will constantly remind you the warrentee ran out weeks ago and to "Have a nice day"!

That seems enough to get us off the servers so they can close them ready for WHO.

 

[Andrilyn]

Alot of people say you don't need DR though wouldn't someone with a horse in RvR be alot better than someone without a horse?
What I thought that if you are on a horse you move alot faster (read that somewhere on herald) so someone on a horse will outsprint someone on foot which to me is quite a big thing.
Though bare with me as I never played DR only read some things about it.

 

[Twinky]

Question: Will Norse male have new looks.. ? couse cata looks = crap.. my sb looks like he had smth planted up his arse while running.. and by having hood up, he looks like a santa wannabie

 

[Naffets]

I agree with everything Mikos(Ballard) said really.

NS are playing on US servers with patch 1.81 atm and its a pleasure to do toa and to level tbh. Thats coming from an rvrers point of view too. Tonight i took part in an arti raid which took the best part of an hour, we did the following:

Gov, jacinas, erinys, scalars and tarts.

All 80 odd people in the raid effectively have the artifact now, and afterwards i activated Erinys and Tarts on my level 46 SM. Toa honestly has become less of a chor and more of a pleasure to do, additionally to that, so far we've stormed through 4 mls (5 as of tomorrow (Wednesday) night) and 46 normal pve levels in ~2 days played, some do it quicker.

The game is so much sweeter with 1.81 and stable(US) servers that i feel its worth paying for the expansion aswell as a subscription fee. (Edit: On topic, EU servers, I'll probably not come back to considering how sweet US is, and as such wont be pumping any more cash into GOA)

 

[Bahumat]

i pay for 2 things, food and hoff porn.

Seems im gonna have to go hungry for a while when this comes out.

 

[Flimgoblin]

my guess is that GOA will give ToA away for free - (in time for chistmas 2005 ).

I hope that GOA act sensibly and implement DR with 1.81 - as this is likely to bring back a lot of players who hated the grind! (btw i think 1.81 is watering down the game somewhat - but i totally respect the opinions of other people who want it - and it will certainly make toa'ing characters much much easier)

DR is already in testing under 1.80 and I imagine there needs to be gold disks and the likes (even if it's just download though I believe GOA are doing boxes after the US launch showed a lot of people like to have the CDs)

1.81 _just_ went live in the US - GOA won't see the files for a few weeks till mythic decide it's stable (for reference it took a month for 1.80 to finish)

Would be nice to have 1.81 sooner I agree but I don't see it happening with DR launch.

 

[big_ish]

It's 20 Euros (£12) for gods sake, it's not life altering amounts of money is it.