Darkness Rising in PC Zone

[Gordonax]

Anyone noticed how WoW quotes 5 million accounts...doesnt say active, I wonder how many DAoC had, considering on its launch 90% were still on dial-up and were put off playing this genre of game due to lag etc...

Ohh, trust me, that 5 million isn't fake. It's actually quoted as five million *subscribers*, not accounts. There are (at last count) 75 English servers in Europe, about 60 German servers, and about 25 French servers. Plus about 160 US servers.

DAoC still has the best PvP of any MMORPG I've ever played, by a long way. But for PvE content, and the ability to retain interest - WoW is damn good.

 

[Gordonax]

damn right the sycophantic approach to WOW by the bbc is just disturbing they seem to release the same bloody story(with a twist) at least once a month saying how great the game is, theres no futher research into other MMOs. Its like WOW is the first and only game of its kind.

The previous biggest MMORPG had around 400,000 subscribers at its peak. WoW has 5 million, and has been out a bit over a year. That's why it's big news. It's the biggest thing in gaming since, oooh, evah?

 

[Zebolt]

The only reason it's so huge though it cuz' it's made by Blizzard, it's not cuz' the game it great.

 

[semanon]

GOA had a official forum. but after about a year they gave up on trying to have it flame free and just closed it blaming all the forum trolls.

just look at FH. ppl cant be polite if even their lives were depending on it.

I refer to a previous quote of mine "I still don't understand why all the other MMOs can deal with any comments on an official forum but GOA can't. Does that say more about the type of person playing DAOC or more about the game?"

 

[DocWolfe]

You wouldn't be able to have the same freedom of speech on a goa forums as you have on an unofficial forum...

 

[Efour]

The previous biggest MMORPG had around 400,000 subscribers at its peak. WoW has 5 million, and has been out a bit over a year. That's why it's big news. It's the biggest thing in gaming since, oooh, evah?

STARCRAFt!

i just dont like that beardy weirdy bbc journalist.

 

[Treyguard]

DAoC still has the best PvP of any MMORPG I've ever played, by a long way. But for PvE content, and the ability to retain interest - WoW is damn good.

I played wow from when it came out in UK until just before christmas..it is a good game. IMO it's not as good as daoc though, when all is told, it is lacking....an end game point. PVE it revolves entirely around huge raid dungeons that take days to do and everyone needs to be with the right classes, in the right place and doing the right thing all the time because by god isn't a horrendously badly disguised timesink a good idea (Reminded me somewhat of the dark days of early ToA )
Don't get me wrong, I really liked WoW, it was just after a few months of being lvl 60 and doing places like Zul'gurub and Molten Core lots, I realised there is no point. Do them once, what do you get? Gear so you can do a repeat performance. Hurray. Now you can do Blackwing Lair. Again, why? so you can copy teh ubahleet stratz from some forum and get equipment you don't need except for doing that instance again easier? Make it stop!

PVP....argh. War? No, there is no war. Some pointless skirmishes in far removed parts of the world that are instanced so have no peristant affect on the game whatsoever are about it, barring the occaisional endless standoffs at crossroads and tarrenmill/southshore. Capture the flag a great idea for a battleground? Come again?

As someone said it is all a matter of opinion...and mine is DAoC has a lot more going for it in terms of depth and persistance than WoW can even begin to dream of
(Not that DAoC doesn't have it's own problems, PLEASE...next expansion/major patch, give us an upgrade on all the classic/SI stuff! Iarnvidiur needs some good drops, Trollheim an instance or two, quests updated rewards to bring them up to date etc ! )

 

[Rediknight]

and it looks like disney online...

group of 8? 7 dwarves and one trusting but dumb female...

 

[Chimaira]

I dunno but according to myself and many of my real life friends is that Daoc compared to wow is HARD. its hard to understand it, its LOTS of commands. a strange interface thats not helpful. If you roll daoc and hit 50 you are absolute useless player. where as in WoW you would probably have somewhat decent gear. in WoW you arent relying on other people to level/get gear/skill up and so on. DaoC is absolute horrible if you dont play with people of some caliber and have a fully kitted out character. there is a reason we have "randoms" and "elites". the elites in WoW also exist ofcourse but its not like a character with a couple of drop gear at 60 is unable to kill things.

Im the only one of my RL friends that still play DaoC today, and according to them is that they never got the chance to play RvR in the way I do. With a fully sced character decent rr´s and 7 other people of somewhat skill
Oh and the funny part is. I was the God at Daoc amongst me and my pals. cause I had sc and RR´s and stuff. Now I play WoW a bit aswell. they all have lvl 60 characters with nicely gear. they level fast. I think my highest WoW character hasnt reached 40 quite yet. I just get bored of grinding the same bloddy way over and over. That happens when your a DaoCer 4 life

Once you get to know both games and DaoC is HARDER daoc wins. Just as spamming amethyst slash on my mercenary on a monster in daoc I can spam eviscerate on my rouge in WoW. there is nothing thats much funnier there. And considering DaoC has something called 8 people in a group that makes for example a pbaoe group is way funnier than running solo 99% of the time in WoW. YOu dont level the same way you dont pvp the same way.

Reason WoW is so big:
1. Blizzard. Been doing so many insanely great games its unbeliable
2. the term WARCRAFT. Nothing to say about that
3. Its Easy, get 5 million to try daoc for free and 4.9 million would quit cause they dont understand the game.
4. user friendly

Just my 15000 pointers. Im probably wrong when wow carebears read it though

 

[Flimgoblin]

I still don't understand why all the other MMOs can deal with any comments on an official forum but GOA can't. Does that say more about the type of person playing DAOC or more about the game?

They could hire people to moderate/administer their own forums (they'd need far more attention than FH does) but what benefit would it give?

A much less useful place to get feedback. If people don't think there's a dev listening for them to whine their heart out to they'll not post quite so much rubbish - if you wanted anything useful about what people's issues were on VN a few years ago - the "Dev's Round Table" board was useless. However, the individual class boards were great.

Not to mention there's not an awful lot GOA can do with feedback either.

GOA do have an official forum (as do mythic) however both companies limit it to a small number of people so that the amount of feedback is manageable - that plus feedback forms and the like plus trawling the other message boards is how they get their feedback.

Maybe a public official board would give them more or better feedback - personally I really doubt it.

 

[Flimgoblin]

Oi!

You'd *love* high-leve WoW, given your love of PvE

Come to the dark sideee... luke.....

yeah but I like the variety I like going out to the frontier to take keeps and the like , only to get flattened by a warlock, then going to bash big monsters

 

[Flimgoblin]

The only reason it's so huge though it cuz' it's made by Blizzard, it's not cuz' the game it great.

they had a big name, and targetted it squarely at gamers who didn't already play mmorpgs. They also benefitted from it being the right time - more people with broadband, more people getting used to the idea of online subscription services.

I do wonder if Warhammer will give it a run for its money though...

 

[Chronictank]

WoW high lvl PVE is alot more challenging than DAOC yes,
doesnt help that mythic make it easier every patch either

 

[Gahn]

WoW high lvl PVE is alot more challenging than DAOC yes,
doesnt help that mythic make it easier every patch either

It does help, i wanna rvr not pve grinding some ai mofos :/

 

[scorge]

I do wonder if Warhammer will give it a run for its money though...

thats left to be seen, warhammer does have a brand and a good name behind it so i think it will be more sucessful then DAOC. Will have to see what mythic do with it, good job games workshop have given them some of there designers so they can steer them in the right direction.

 

[Zebolt]

they had a big name, and targetted it squarely at gamers who didn't already play mmorpgs. They also benefitted from it being the right time - more people with broadband, more people getting used to the idea of online subscription services.

Pretty much what I said? :>

 

[Rediknight]

I've not played high level WoW - it bored me before i got there, and i kept expecting a little chipmunk to pop up and start offering me flowery kisses or Mickey Mouse to appear as an NPC - but i wonder if when you say High level PvE is more challenging on WoW, you actually mean High level PvE requires more people in WoW...

A lot of people equate numbers required to how challenging a task is, whereas i guage it more on the interaction and quality of the plot (if there is one).

The CL quests, i thought, were really really well thought out - not all just out and out kill this, talk to this fella, run this to there rubbish - you had to think about it a bit and actually take part in a well designed story. The instances help, but generally i like that kind of quest...

 

[Tio McShire]

I do wonder if Warhammer will give it a run for its money though...

There are other issues too...

Will Mythic in europe continue to deal with the goa/open transit comedy double act?

I can say for certain that myself and friends have deep reservations about investing time and money on anything involving these two parties.

 

[Garok]

I dunno but according to myself and many of my real life friends is that Daoc compared to wow is HARD. its hard to understand it, its LOTS of commands. a strange interface thats not helpful. If you roll daoc and hit 50 you are absolute useless player. where as in WoW you would probably have somewhat decent gear. in WoW you arent relying on other people to level/get gear/skill up and so on. DaoC is absolute horrible if you dont play with people of some caliber and have a fully kitted out character. there is a reason we have "randoms" and "elites". the elites in WoW also exist ofcourse but its not like a character with a couple of drop gear at 60 is unable to kill things.

Im the only one of my RL friends that still play DaoC today, and according to them is that they never got the chance to play RvR in the way I do. With a fully sced character decent rr´s and 7 other people of somewhat skill
Oh and the funny part is. I was the God at Daoc amongst me and my pals. cause I had sc and RR´s and stuff. Now I play WoW a bit aswell. they all have lvl 60 characters with nicely gear. they level fast. I think my highest WoW character hasnt reached 40 quite yet. I just get bored of grinding the same bloddy way over and over. That happens when your a DaoCer 4 life

Once you get to know both games and DaoC is HARDER daoc wins. Just as spamming amethyst slash on my mercenary on a monster in daoc I can spam eviscerate on my rouge in WoW. there is nothing thats much funnier there. And considering DaoC has something called 8 people in a group that makes for example a pbaoe group is way funnier than running solo 99% of the time in WoW. YOu dont level the same way you dont pvp the same way.

Reason WoW is so big:
1. Blizzard. Been doing so many insanely great games its unbeliable
2. the term WARCRAFT. Nothing to say about that
3. Its Easy, get 5 million to try daoc for free and 4.9 million would quit cause they dont understand the game.
4. user friendly

Just my 15000 pointers. Im probably wrong when wow carebears read it though

Disagree to some extent think WoW is by far the harder game to master easy to pick up yes but due to the amount of counter's and and combo techniques knowing when and how to use them or counter them, that takes time. In daoc the vast majority of charecters will only use 2 or 3 moves in any cituation (utility ones like Healer Sorc excluded).

Gear part not exactly true either.. Good gear in WoW is like RR in Daoc boosts to passive damage crits increased AF Hits etc. And the same rules apply realy if you not in a dedicated set group you wont get the RR in daoc and you wont get the epics drops in WoW

Problem WoW has is the endgame is unacessable to the vast majority of players. After you got 60 spent a few months getting two whole templates worked out to enable you to PvP and PvE with bind on pick up drops. Its basicly like haveing to ToA 4 times (2x Decient blue sets 1x Molten core set 1 x BWL set). Sure possibly fun for the first charecter but there is no quick way around it for you 2nd + 3rd one.

Problem with WoW PvP is its healing is pretty impossible. Without an increase in casting speed you can't out heal the type of damage assist trains can put up against you soft targets which kind of destroys to flow of a flight. With only 5 group spaces you can't afford 3 healers in a group hence PvP is either Zerg or solo/duo. Also the PvP serves no purpose you get no real abilities from it the majority of the people who are a decient rank will have better gear from Instance dungoens

Which I guess its why so many people includeing myself have come back to DAOc, compaired to the WoW megagrind (NPC faction grinding, item grinding, xp grind) Daoc is like ezmode.. specially with the recient changes. Can get from 1-50 in a few days get free 1/2 decient epic armour overcapping all yur important stats plus you got about 10 plat to buy gear for your template from the CM.

 

[Flimgoblin]

Pretty much what I said? :>

I was agreeing

 

[Svartmetall]

Also the PvP serves no purpose you get no real abilities from it the majority of the people who are a decient rank will have better gear from Instance dungoens

To play devil's avocate, one very big problem with DAOC's RvR is that you only get abilities from player-killing, not necessarily helping in the realm war as a whole. Which is why RvR has, over time, largely degenerated into Team Deathmatch rather than the original idea of an actual bona fide realm war. If you're at a keep defence, destroying an enemy war ram will do a lot more for the battle - i.e., the realm - overall than ganking one enemy player, yet the poor bugger dutifully running the palintone and destroying the enemy siege equipment gets nothing, while the guy who ganked one enemy player gets the RPs. Logically, if the idea of a realm war was being adhered to, destroying that ram would have given a lot more RPs than killing any one enemy player.


Hopefully the changes incoming in 1.81, giving RPs for many more activities than just ganking players, will go some way to redressing the balance.

 

[SkarIronfist]

To be honest we are not comparing like with like with WoW and DAOC.

Ask me what WoW will look after 4 expansion packs? WoW is about to have a major level increase 60 - 70. So lets equate that to doing your Champion levels (XP wise), though I would expect the 1 - 60 xp curve to be flattened slightly. So overall time is still the same, just the level 60s having to do 50 - 60 again.

To sell expansion packs you have to come up with new content - Which will equate to -> CLs, RRs (Which they have now), MLs, artifacts. So a newbie coming to WoW in 4 more years will find the world alot different to what it is now.

So when people say, to do a level 50, you need artifatcs, MLs, CLs etc. Don't expect anything different in WoW in a few years time. Though I grant you the execution of the ideas, will be excellent with Blizzard. Would anyone like to bet against experience gaining artifacts in WoW ?

I would also love to compare the size of the development teams for WoW. Excluding support and language translaters i.e. coders, artists and designers, system architects (along with hanger ons i.e. managers).

 

[xxManiacxx]

Raising level caps only works in PvE games imo.(Like everquest. Man I wish daoc had some of those epic encounters)

 

[Svartmetall]

Raising level caps only works in PvE games imo.(Like everquest. Man I wish daoc had some of those epic encounters)

The Phoenix encounter isn't epic enough? I think that's one of the coolest things I've seen in any game...

The game-mechanic function of raising level caps is basically just character progression, adding more stuff to do at the "endgame" (i.e. once you've hit the existing level cap) point. Same as MLs, CLs, RRs...I actually half-expected them to add level 60 to DAOC when SI came out. The thing is, games like this aren't kill-the-boss-game-over-insert-coin type affairs, they're all about the journey. So you have to keep adding new journeys to undertake or the endgame quickly becomes the end of the game.

 

[Thegreatest]

I've bought WoW with lots of excitement. I got bored of DAoC and wanted to play something else to fill some of my free time with. I bought it and activated the free 30 days, I got bored after playing a Warlock to lvl 15 and a Rogue to lvl 10...I was reading some WoW forums around and was thinking "damn what are they talking about..." and I had the idea that I was just gonna lvl to 60 and then had a char I could do almost nothing with...I like the idea of DAoC to take part in rvr battles, keep takes, relic raids and that kind of stuff. Yes it takes a lot of time to get a good gear and decent realm rank in DAoC but at least you know that you'll have a hell lot of fun in RvR once you get there. It's not that much better in WoW really, having heard about the dungeon raids which takes hours and hours just for the chance that you'll get a drop of a good item, I've decided I could better not renew my WoW subscription and go on with DAoC. My WoW sub ran out, I've paid 40,95 euro's just to try the game out for 2 weeks...

 

[Zebolt]

I was agreeing

Oh... I'm not used to that

 

[Konah]

(Flogging a dead horse)

 

[Mundokar]

It's not that much better in WoW really, having heard about the dungeon raids which takes hours and hours just for the chance that you'll get a drop of a good item

This is exactly why i stopped playing WoW. The scenery in WoW is awesome. But to do shitloads of "Tuscarian Glacier"-type raids to get my equipment wasnt appealing at all.