How good is DAOC?

[old.job]

DAOC is the only online game I've played for more than 10mins, I found AO very tedious.
People out there must have played loads, how does DAOC hold up against the competition?
Is EQ better gameplay but poorer graphics?
What keeps you playing it rather than changing to another MMORPG?

 

[Rubric]

Originally posted by old.job
DAOC is the only online game I've played for more than 10mins, I found AO very tedious.
People out there must have played loads, how does DAOC hold up against the competition?
Is EQ better gameplay but poorer graphics?
What keeps you playing it rather than changing to another MMORPG?

Its the best there is at the moment. Planetside is good if you fancy a laid back more action packed game.

 

[celtavigo]

The big diffrence with EQ and Daoc is that in Everquest you raid mobs(creatures) like big dragons and giants.. And in Daoc you raid other realms (players)..

The boring thing with eq and the reason I quit is that you raid the same stuff over and over and over and the creatures you raid always do the same stuff, so it get so insanely easy after you killed them once.. In daoc you always raid new players and they use new tactics etc each time..Everquest is also way way more time consuming.. You can camp 1 item for 50 hours without geting it..The lack of PVP in Everquest makes it so boring aswell.. When you are max level in eq the only thing you can do is to wait until your whole guild is online to raid the same shit over and over, day in and day out..

 

[-Lonewolf-]

Asking a bit of a biased audience don't you think?

 

[old.job]

Ah yes, but I wish to know why they are biased

Ta for answers it looks like EQ isn't for me that description sums up my fears.

 

[longshot]

There are 3 major things I like about DAOC.

1. Pace.

It has a good ratio of action vs. downtime. In EQ I often found myself doing dishes and other household stuff while waiting for mana or hit points to regenerate. While this did keep the place fairly clean, it also meant that I lost interest in the game itself because I was doing more of the "other" stuff than playing the game. In DAOC I can manage to grab a cup of coffee and a snack, then it's back to the action.

In addition to that, fights also seem to be a lot better paced. In EQ I felt like all there was to do was to hit A for attack, then pick a book and read a page while my warrior was hacking away. It would take so many hits and swings that I lost track before the fight was over. In DAOC it might be as quick as 3 arrows and 2 hits with a spear from my hunter, which seems a little more in line with reality (if you can say anything like that when it comes to MMORPGs) than my EQ who had to root, fire 10 arrows, root, fire 10 arrows, root... etc. before finally killing the mob. I mean, talk about a walking pincushion!

2. Atmosphere.

I like Midgard... a lot. Some say it's grey and depresing. Maybe it is, but I somehow feel much more able to identify with Norse gods, Arthurian legens and Celtic myth than with a complete D&Dish Tolkien ripoff (REAL Tolkien rocks, it's the cheap knockoffs I got a problem with) where all the women have big bazoonkas and show more skin than clothes.

DAOC just hits closer to home... and part of that probably has something to do with my scandinavian origin. It's just easier for me to identify with Thor, Odin and the whole bunch than Tunare (sp?).

3. PvP without the griefing.

Fighting other players can be loads of fun, but it can also be utterly frustrating. DAOC makes is possible to experience the fun parts without having to deal with the ugly side, such as corpse camping, random ganking etc.

Yeah, I know some might say "what about greyganking in the frontiers?". Well, tough luck! That's the risk you run when going there and you know it. Nobody is forcing you to go there and there are PLENTY of good places to hunt in the mainland/SI. All in all, I find the DAOC RvR (PvP) fun and it serves some sort of grander purpose that normal XPing can't give you (RAs).

All we need now would be some dynamics to be added so it's not always the same old same old. Still beats the crap out of EQ PvP though.

 

[Belsameth]

DAoC is absolutely the best hack&slash mmog out there at the moment, if you fancy a bit more then that I can really recommend giving AO another spin or, ofcourse, SW:G. DAoC isn't at all bad, it's just fairly limited in scope.

 

[old.job]

Just what I like, the fact that the human characters look like real people, and move very realistically (I especially like the female characters 'model' pose )
The whole thing is close enough to real life to draw me in, speeds, dimensions, weather landscapes etc.
Being an old timer I have waited many years for all the technologies to come together to make these games possible and when I got cable this is the first thing I went for, it constantly amazes me how it all works and when people look over my shoulder I always say 'watch this, I do a wave, and every single player on line in clip range has that wave sent to their pc, can't believe it can work on a dial up!!!!

 

[cadiva]

Originally posted by longshot
3. PvP without the griefing.

Fighting other players can be loads of fun, but it can also be utterly frustrating. DAOC makes is possible to experience the fun parts without having to deal with the ugly side, such as corpse camping, random ganking etc.

Yup this is the bit that does it for me too. I played EQ on Rallos Zek because that's where my friends played. The only prob for me was that they were all level 40 plus and I was lvl 2 (at the start obviously) and was just constantly ganked by pain in the ass players while in cities (a bit like the pain in the arseness that is Camlann at the mo).
Now having level 40 plus mates should be an advantage to stop you being ganked you'd think, cept they were always about three hours away in a different zone either on an item camp or on their way back to retrieve their corpses and that was pretty much the killer for me.

EQ without the PvP was even more boring, but the PvP was awful because there were no restrictions at all. At least on Camlann you have security til level 10 if you want it and there are safe areas to go to avoid fighting if you don't feel up to it at any particular time.
Still the people who camp the exits to the major cities on Camlann should have red hot pokers shoved up their arses too

 

[naetha]

The girls run like....well, girls...

And its nice to have female characters that you can understand as being just as good as the male ones, rather than the male ones being all tough and musclebound, and the female characters apparently killing mobs by stunning them with a huge pair of boobs, flimsily (and very unrealistically, trust me) held in place by a small amount of leather and/or metal.

I'd like to see one of those tarts run for a bus without knocking themselves out

That aside... I like the universe - it looks GOOD, not to mention fairly realistic, and its easy to move around/control, so moving in daoc feels like driving a car after a while - which really helps in situations where you have to act before you can start thinking.

There is a fair amount of skill involved - sure, most classes can kill blue cons, but if you play your class well, then you can kill yellows, and sometimes oranges+ in the same time, or at least safely. There are very few 'by necessity' one button classes, which I like.

The chat system is great, easy to keep control of, and gives you the opportunity to make some really excellent mistells <nods to Hendrick> as well as roleplay as much, or as little as you want.

When I think of the new games that are coming out, I'm hoping that they're going to be similar to daoc in about 90% of the ways, but sort out the whole class/realm balance thing. Daoc RvR is a damn good system, and if it were more balanced, I'd say it would be the best MMOG on the market. Lets hope they sort some stuff out in the coming patches

If you're forgetting why you play the game, have a look at some of the daoc movies out there, and watch them as if you were seeing them for the first time.

 

[Eyeinthedark]

Originally posted by old.job
DAOC is the only online game I've played for more than 10mins, I found AO very tedious.
People out there must have played loads, how does DAOC hold up against the competition?
Is EQ better gameplay but poorer graphics?
What keeps you playing it rather than changing to another MMORPG?

played ao for 1 and a half year but that was way back and i didnt know about many mmos, tried many mmos now and ended up playing daoc =) definetly is the best one out to my knowledge.

ao is boring xping there is a nightmare pvp is so sucki they may just aswell remove it entirely its also a bug infested nightmare 3 years after release. Dont get fooled by the fancy grafix and new zones added by the sl xpansion its all the same game i still log on to my brothers account now and then so i know how it is. The game is also very very uberitem based. And I was one of the top 4 players on my server at that time so have tried it all.

ps is very very fun the first 2 - 3 weeks after that me and all my m8s got bored and dropped the game : ) its basically ut with no zone dmg no twitch slow action high lag and only 1 map since there is basically just 1 type of base u attack over and over again, ps is the most repetetive game i have ever played. dont know anyone who thinks ps is fun after 3 weeks.

Eve online is a perfect game nothing wrong with it at all, its a very very cool game, but its also the type of game that is either for you or not, if you like to spend hourse mining asteroids, hoarding money building ships in factorys or floating in space hours after hours looking for people to rob =) then u will love it. But keep in mind it is very real time that game, very slow : ) there is no short cuts to success there no matter how much money u got.

AC2 sux enough said

Rubys of eventide cool game but u have to be cool with stoneage grafix

pristons tale sux enough said

well after trying those i landed on daoc and still love the game 1 week after my first char hit 50 =) cause even tho all mmos are repetetive and boring after a time i c that daoc offers more activitys than anyother mmo i have played.

 

[Hrogar]

The deal with DAOC is the doesn't have an actual end. Sure, it's no more exping when you get to 50, but then another aspect of the game starts with the grand Realm vs Realm. And that never gets boring in my opinion :lol:
Also it is a whole different experience when you try different classes. You never use the same keys and tactics for two different classes, not to mention most of the classes are realmspecific too, although some are more alike than others (warriors = armsmen = heroes).
Not to mention the enviroment. By God Camelot is beautiful! Oh, and the northern road from it too. And many other places in each realm. Sure, some are really boring (lost in Uppland anyone? )
but most places are really original and lovely.
Sure, the service has its flaws, but all and all this is the best game on the market by far. It's well done, it's epic and it's simply great.

 

[old.Trine Aquavit]

I played EQ for just under a year before starting to play DAOC.

Reasons I prefer DAOC:

Less downtime. This is the biggie, especially for anyone who can't always play for 4 hours at a time. Downtime in EQ is simply horrendous (regeneration, scribing spells, learning spells, corpse runs, boat rides, distance to travel on foot).

More to do in melee. While EQ has a similar variety in spell-casting melee is less rewarding (no styles, principally).

Better interface. While I believe the EQ interface has got a lot better it was pretty horrible when I played. DAOC's interface is very clean and logical in comparison, so it's much easier to get into.

RvR. DAOC has the best implmentation for PvP in any MMORPG to date. It also has the best foundation for PvP. The fact that you spend so much time levelling with your own realm-mates generates a good sense of 'us and them' when it comes down to RvR.

More classes, and more flexibility in the classes (i.e. different specs).


Things I liked about EQ:

It is more challenging. EQ is a pretty tough and unforgiving game, which means everyone has to b working to a higher level in order to get the job done. Even moving around the world is a challenge as the aggro radius on mobs is greater, there are more high level mobs in low level zones, etc. And the baf code is much less forgiving - if you pull a group of baf mobs you get the lot, not just a convenient 2,3 or 4.

There is more content. Not just zones but languages, significant faction influences, skills, getting drink.


Hopefully the 'next generation' of MMOGs with combine all of the above.

 

[Rubric]

Re: Re: How good is DAOC?

Originally posted by Eyeinthedark


Eve online is a perfect game nothing wrong with it at all, its a very very cool game, but its also the type of game that is either for you or not, if you like to spend hourse mining asteroids, hoarding money building ships in factorys or floating in space hours after hours looking for people to rob =) then u will love it. But keep in mind it is very real time that game, very slow : ) there is no short cuts to success there no matter how much money u got.

Eve could have been the greatest game of all time imo.
Ive waited years for Frontier Elite II to be multiplayer. But this game just didnt grab me. Maybe its the timeframe, maybe its the bugs or maybe its the customer service which is actually worse than GOA.

Ill revisit it in a few months and see how its going there.

 

[Eyeinthedark]

Re: Re: Re: How good is DAOC?

Originally posted by Rubric
Eve could have been the greatest game of all time imo.
Ive waited years for Frontier Elite II to be multiplayer. But this game just didnt grab me. Maybe its the timeframe, maybe its the bugs or maybe its the customer service which is actually worse than GOA.

Ill revisit it in a few months and see how its going there.

its the time frame a bit to realtime no shortcuts : ) , tho some love it even so.

 

[Repent Reloaded]

Originally posted by old.job
DAOC is the only online game I've played for more than 10mins, I found AO very tedious.
People out there must have played loads, how does DAOC hold up against the competition?
Is EQ better gameplay but poorer graphics?
What keeps you playing it rather than changing to another MMORPG?

keep away from DAoC, its addictive.

 

[klavrynd]

eq is everything i hate in daoc

camping an uber for 6 weeks, getting the drop, get pk'ed and byebye uber

 

[chretien]

The thing with MMO games is that a large part of your enjoyment doesn't come from anything the game designers put in like eyecandy graphics or loot or whatever it comes from the community. That's why people still play UO which has craptastic graphics and some really bad design decisions because the playerbase is really good. It's why a lot of graphically really nice games like AC aren't fulfilling their potential because the community isn't there. You can't compare MMOs in the same way you'd compare other genres. The content is only part of what makes the game worth playing and coming back to.

 

[gengi]

Only played 2 MMORPG's this and UO, I prefer this game.
UO was good, but the economy was a bit screwed, and I disliked the PvP, having to dress down and take your crappest items when visiting Felluca was not much fun . It was also skewed a bit in classes, some could do just about anything ingame solo. Group play was therefore not as big an issue as it is here, and I prefer playing in groups.
I think the PvP concept in this game is excellent, the frontier is well thought out. It could of course be improved the new style keeps they are reporting in 1.65 sound interesting, changing Emain so it does not remain the defacto lvl 50 bg may make things more interesting too. And making all classes useful in RvR would be a good step.
This game has something for everyone from the RP people to the wtfpowners to the l33t who need the Uber items. PvE is still fun even when your 50, RvR for the casual player (me included ) can be good, it can also be awful.
When all is said and done I like this game, I will be looking into WoW when it comes out, maybe Horizons too, SWG if it gets European servers. I do not fancy Dragon Empires or Lineage 2 as they both seem to be far more PvP based than I like, I am not too good at twitchy Games
Finally as someone said there is community, I met some great people on UO and have met some great people on DAoC too, and in the end if the community is no good then the game will be far less of an enjoyable experience. I don't know about you lot but I like to spend my leisure time doing something I Like

Later

 

[Edaudric]

Originally posted by longshot
2. Atmosphere.

I like Midgard... a lot. Some say it's grey and depresing. Maybe it is, but I somehow feel much more able to identify with Norse gods, Arthurian legens and Celtic myth than with a complete D&Dish Tolkien ripoff (REAL Tolkien rocks, it's the cheap knockoffs I got a problem with) where all the women have big bazoonkas and show more skin than clothes.

DAOC just hits closer to home... and part of that probably has something to do with my scandinavian origin. It's just easier for me to identify with Thor, Odin and the whole bunch than Tunare (sp?).

They still do. Haven't you seen female trolls?

What makes me come to DAoC is Midgard.
There are TONS of stuff I would love to have, like onehanded spears and shields combined (like they were used most of the time) and red hair for dwarves (like really red as the norsemen, not the natural red they have. Or light, light brown if you wish).

What I utterly hate of it though, is that it's very repeative, and mobs are just idioticly placed.
I mean, skeletons just roaming around? I think PvP should be more epic at all times.
But despite what I hate about it, I still come back to it.

I've played EverQuest, Anarchy Online and EVE, but they don't appeal to me as much as DAoC does.