Merging of servers?

[Oldfaravid]

Don't like the game don't play it, and if you don't play it don't whine about it, because some of us like TOA and some of us like NF so go fucking play HL2DM if you want a game where u can just jump in and play.

This is a MMORPG it takes TIME to make your char the best..I know people like you want things handed to you on a silver platter but come on..

Most of the fucking bitchy whiney wanks that come here don't even play anymore but just fill up the boards with there whiney shit arsed drivil.

There is a reason for us being here whining.. most of us have been with the game since release.. and WE ARE NOT LIKING the direction the game has taken.. You on the other hand is a complete n00b to the game (atleast i never saw you in the old frontiers anyway, pre SI or whatever) you cant compare the game to what it actually has been.. Also your playing the most silly class in the game (not even gonna bother specifying it to you) havent ever said this before buT STFU!! my first year in daoc i played 100 days!! out of 365 days.. THAT IS SICK.. But right now my RL dont give me the time to play that much, suddenly im not viable to compete... "Takes time make your char the best" ROFL just gather your other 14 year old friends and zerg the fuck out of everything usingepic gear, having speed in a stealth group etc etc Read my sig newbie..

 

[Chimaira]

There is a reason for us being here whining.. most of us have been with the game since release.. and WE ARE NOT LIKING the direction the game has taken.. You on the other hand is a complete n00b to the game (atleast i never saw you in the old frontiers anyway, pre SI or whatever) you cant compare the game to what it actually has been.. Also your playing the most silly class in the game (not even gonna bother specifying it to you) havent ever said this before buT STFU!! my first year in daoc i played 100 days!! out of 365 days.. THAT IS SICK.. But right now my RL dont give me the time to play that much, suddenly im not viable to compete... "Takes time make your char the best" ROFL just gather your other 14 year old friends and zerg the fuck out of everything usingepic gear, having speed in a stealth group etc etc Read my sig newbie..

Gamah rr7 Winstrel. been around as long as I can remeber.
get some info d000d. was in PE to afaik.

Omg you wasted 30% of your IRL one year to play a game? Is that supposed to make us impressed or feeling sad over you rly?

Less bloddy fucking insults.

 

[nerfbbs]

The biggest problems in the game IMO are all related and won't be solved by merging servers, clusterin servers or introducing bonus levels for those who are already levelling quite fast -

1/ To level as a solo player takes a looooooooooong time.

2/ To reduce the time ned to lvl, either to 50 or gain arti xp or RP's people form groups. Groups ARE fun, sometime when things have been slow I and other guild members will just sit in various aplces and talk to each other.

3/ Overpowered solo classes such as BD's and Necromancers are introduced, they don't need groups to level quickly.

4/ Allowing BB's unlimited buff range and combining that with OP classes means less groups which for players with only 1 account means less fun - what's the point in me even thinking about trying out the new characetrs as a player with only 1 account if by the time I'm lvl 20 the powerlevellers are all TOA'ed and Arti'ed and posting threads and putting out in-game messages explaining exactly how to do X,Y or Z meaning that there's not much left to discover.

5/ Would like to ask Requiel if he can tell me where I can xp where a Necro isn't gonna come in and clear the room in like seocnds - wouldn't be so bad if Necros actually functioned in RVR but that's a different problem.

6/ Some tweaks are URGENTLY needed - why allow arxhers to fire from a range that means they can't be targetted AND give them a bow that can hit for 1k dmg AND take down keeps AND assist ( one of my guildees had 9, yes 9, archers assisting on him ).

There should be no such thing as an instant ae spell / effect - people are whining a bit about TWF but that has a 2 second timer on it and my reaver is within easy range of getting ganked and is often killed before the TWF goes offf not like a fire and forget shroom field for example. The propsed changes to immunity timers won't help a lot when you get insta mezz, stun, nuke, dead - only a moron would enjoy hitting those buttons over and over again and only a masochist would enjoy being on the receiving end over and over again.

Possible solution would be to upgrade epic armours so that they are actually of use to the particular class - +AF for casters, +hits/det for hybrides, etc

Finally:

The thing that makes a MMORPG worth playing is the people who play it and I don't care if WOW is supposed to be the greatest invention since the wheel if the people on your server are not the kind of people you enjoy spending a lot of time with you arent going to enjoy it.

I will be trying WoW but I don't think I want to give up the time and effort I've put into DAOC without VERY careful consdieration.

Please note: the examples I've used in this post are from an Alb point of view as that's the only realm I've evr played none of my comments are meant to be taken as a whine against another realm.

 

[IainC]

I think the flaw in your argument is "friend". You had a friend who asked you to come play the game. He helped you with the basics and probably gave a you a bit of cash. Many who start dont have that and are dependant on help from strangers. Also knowing where to lvl, where what scrolls drop ,know what which classes do, could be considered another flaw in your " I am a newbie " quest

Well I did say without twinking or PLing. He gave me some kit appropriate to my level which at level 5ish isn't exactly awesome and about 100g. Hardly uber twinked. I chose a class I'd never played and realm I wasn't particularly familiar with (there's a difference between zipping around solving issues with a GM character and actually playing a realm). I'm not even at the stage with that character where RvR knowledge, ToA info or whatever is even remotely important. I'm talking about the newbie game at under level 20, I found players around my level I could group with, had some fun groups and actually explored while levelling. Once you get to a level where knowing about ToA drops etc is important, you'll probably know a fair few people in your realm and will be either in a guild full of veteran players or be looking for a guild full of veteran players. This brings me back to my point about a friendly and helpful guild being the best resource for a new player.

The discovery game has been over for many players long time ago. Discovering new things while leveling was fun with first character, to some extent also fun with first character on different realm. Same with ToA, especially MLs were ok first time. Getting artifacts, farming scrolls and leveling were "ok" as long as there was new zones to explore but spending 20hours on a spot leveling just one artifact... Artifact spawn timers, scroll drop rates and artifact exp requirements are simply ridiculous. Of course it's necessary that people have to invest plenty of time to develop a character but ToA is just way too much.

Again I was talking about brand new players who havent done all of that. The original point was about more help for newly started players who don't know the basic stuff that a player who already has one or more 50s will take for granted. For these players, it is still a game of discovery. Obviously once you've done it once, you may have a different view of doing it again.
As far as artifact exping is concerned, it will no longer be necessary to 'spend 20 hours on a spot' as the artifacts now level in zones rather than on specific mobs.

 

[Chimaira]

As far as artifact exping is concerned, it will no longer be necessary to 'spend 20 hours on a spot' as the artifacts now level in zones rather than on specific mobs.

Ye now we can move a few yards killing Greater yabbadingang instead of normal ones eh? ;d

artifact xping is ridicilous.

Put all artis rvr xp or any pve mob and make as fast as battler in rvr /som in pve is currently
Would be decent after the damn scroll farming.

 

[gervaise]

Posted by Requiel:
Well I did say without twinking or PLing. He gave me some kit appropriate to my level which at level 5ish isn't exactly awesome and about 100g.

Requiel: !!!!! ONE HUNDRED GOLD AT LEVEL 5 !!!!!!

Ye ******* have you ever tried this game as a newbie.
This statement flat out astonishes me.

I can remember the grind of my first theurgist. The sense of achievement at getting 1gp - I think I was level 19 or 20 and I managed to do it by hunting close enough to a vendor so that I could go back to sell whenever my non-existent bags were full.

I can remember making my scout in the opening days; scrimpng to buy a set of longer range arrows, firing the first and then - because of the cost - switching to medium and then short range arrows. Deciding that I simply had to take up fletching because there was simply no other economic way of surviving. Ah the joy of crafting all those arrows .... And that first magic bow drop ..

The comment about your knowledge of how / where / what to hunt is also spot on. It all helps. And did I mention the 100GP !!!!.

It is possible to level a character from scratch. I made a paladin and played from scratch. No hand outs, no money - so it was random drops all the way. And to add a bit of extra spice I autotrained in both slash and chants all the way to 50 (technically to 48). It was a challenge. It was a grind.

Well its 600,000 copies sold for WoW and over 200,000 on (at once) over Christmas. .....

 

[Luperyn]

A solution maybe to if there wud be a merge, is to have 16 slots and choose mid/hib/alb at startup ;D. And to be able to change your name etc.

i would like to solo withotu beeing stealthzerged so a bit more quiet isnt to bad for me.

 

[Amuse]

I havent botherd reading trough all the pages, but some of them (the 4 first).

WoW WILL have a huge impact on the daoc comunity.

For those of you that trye to compare it to SWG, it cant be done. Its 2 compleatly diferent games.

1. SWG is a futuristic game, based on movies and books. The pvp system was good in the start, but got more and more boring. The reason why daoc didnt get any large effect from this game, in my opinion, is that its a sci-fi game, and daoc is a fantasy game.

2. WoW is a fantasy based game, like DaoC. Its based on a game that has been popular with most gamers since Warcraft 1/2 (the older gamers that is ) and Warcraft 3.

3. I personaly think that the PvP system in WoW is good, aswell as the lvling system, a lvl 20 person can do damage to a lvl 60 person, and participate in PvP. The PvP servers are realy nice, with a good system.
Let me give you an example. In "war zones" any horde player can attack any aliance player at will, and the other way around, like on the normal servers. But if a horde player manages to sneak in to aliance teretory, an aliance player HAS to attack the horde player in order for the horde player to be able to attack the aliance player, since this is the aliance players "homeland". Some of you may think this sounds silly, but its not, concidering that you can go ANYWHERE asloong as you manage to sneak/fight your way past the NPC guards and players. When i played on the US open beta, i even fought a Nighelf (rouge ofc, since someone without stealth has no chance of geting in to the place alone) in Ogrimar (the orcish capitol) and went wandering with a 30 man raid party into night elf teritory.

4. The PvP system is way more balanced, like mentioned before, where it depends more on the player than the class.

Im not saying that daoc will die, but it will get a bad punch in the face by WoW.

Feel free to reply, i will prolly not see it though, since i dont read FH anymore (im at school atm, bored) since i left daoc (to check how SWG was doing )

 

[Gotrag]

I think you have it confused Amuse... they wasnt trying to comprae the two games what they were trying to say is....

Evryone said DAOC would die with the release of SWG and it didnt so... thats what they are trying to say

 

[Esselinithia]

ToA is about as appealing as a trip to the dentists, only to realise your detist is actually BLIND!

then NF... hmmm NF

You got thins wrong mate, lets start from the begining: TOA was responsible to expand the game for people who like PVE and Raids more than RVR, and a good half of players enjoy it. yet TOA is purely optional, many people who don't go for opted fotm groups with maxed out abilities enjoy it, and if they play RVR for fun, it can be much fun even if you don't own all the enemies all the time.

For NF: First, the server is designed for the population you see on US edition which is normally far lower than what we have here, and for the lowest population US servers they designed a plan to make things work: Clustering. So the size of RVR zones with the population you have shouldn't be a factor and I think you can still get to places quickly, the difference is simple: It is no longer constrained to ftom gank groups killing each other in a small area of a single zone. With NF it became more open to all.

For catacombs: 1st: Easier leveling helps people who don't like PVE. Who like it gets more content. 2nd: If you fear mostly PVE games will kill daoc, I have to say: They should improve PVE...

If you can't play the game to have fun, can't read quest text, etc. but farm farm farm: That is your decision, there are plenty of other options.

And you trust blizzard to make a good balance? They failed to balance Diablo 2, and WoW will be a far more complex game. Makig differences smaller won't make the gme better, and the 25th similar spell won't make the character more versatile. I don't think if a company who left out roleplaying from a roleplaying game, had bugs and balance problems with simple games will do better in MMORPG market than any company which had more than one MMORPGs and successfull at making them. Blizzard lacks the experience.

What can kill DaOC in EU is simple. Support and community problems. Lets see a few examples.

It is about opentransit. When there are problems with it, they say only opentransit is present in france with any net backbone and inftrastucture. Lets see this page: http://www.sprintlink.net/faq/citynetworks.html as you see sprintlink has a city code for its own routers (its own parts of infrastrure) for their routers in paris, france. They are linked to their other routers on their other lines. Some goa employees say: Only opentransit has infrastucture and all major backboine providers lie and if your traceroute data shows other french nodes, it should be false. And he and friends can badmouth and pwn you. Should I find vivendi-universal nodes as well? Yes, the later ISP is related to blizzard...

I know that a community manager is a community person, who knows marketing and knows how to handle most customers and make them happy. Yet if someone who knows IT and telecommuication presents facts, they should accept them. Why? Because there is factual proof. Why? because they belong to FT and if there is another MMORPG hosted in france that will get better connection to most of the EU than them, it will be highly pointless to claim they can do nothing with theirs. This is where WOW is dangerous. Since you will hear that they have less "LD" and lag problems yet it is still in france.

We talked about it, and goa said, the www.goa.com site is very outdated, about the time of SI coming out. I checked it and some press releases on the site are from June, 2004. Yet with 1.70 logo changed and so do the owner of goa they say, which can be true, except: FT owned them indirectly even before. Asking about where their other services (mentioned on the page) and whats up with goa brand is pointless. Again, there is solid proof.

You ask how to buy daoc since, you don't know french, and the shops they listed doesn't ship to half of EU and the stores they listed doesn't sell to your country: You get a french address and on FH "you should check other topic that shows what companies sell daoc in other countries (only)" type answers are typical and you still can't buy daoc. People will stop playing with time, RL reasons, other games, boredom, etc. what you need is to have new players, but if in half of EU they can't buy it, if they find an unfriendly (and sometimes rude) support and community, they will move to friendlier games.

The TL programs, the ability to contact mythic, etc. made daoc successfull and friendly. Many of the overpowered RAs are fixed. Yes, mythic is slow since if you see a problem they have to fix stuff in a coming patch that is under development (one after the in test patch) which can take months, and yes sometimes even small changes can change balance dramaticallyso sometimes the nerfbat hits hard.

But when you want to buy daoc, they try to help you except in EU (yes, Mythic web store helps). And if you point to a network they don't say "it doesn't exist". If you can trust another publisher more, see a better community with less offensive talk, that can make you move. And it is where goa is weak and many publishers can be strong. EQ2 isn't a great game, yet many moved to it, you fear wow, and they hope many will buy daoc with catacombs. But if they can't buy, and you can move? And your friends do move?

 

[Bloodaxe_Springskalle]

might been mentioned earlier in this thread, i didnt read all of it ^^

but merging servers would be impossible as for example I play mid/excal, hib/pry and and alb on a german server that i never remember the name of lol.

merging for example excalibur and prydwen would result in me losing several characters or being able to crossrealm on same account, neither of them being acceptable imo.

but future games tho, where there's 2 or more sides to choose between there should be regulations making it impossible to create a new account on a side wich is more than 50% populated than the least populated etc.
as all the sides in theory should be equal in power anyway the side u choose or is forced to choose shouldnt affect your game experience.

 

[Esselinithia]

I don't think limiting the choice is a good way, but they can "recommend" a realm on each server for new players, friends still can play in the same realm, yet it "invites" people to the underpopulated realms.

 

[Bloodaxe_Springskalle]

i would sacrifice my option to play with my RL mates if the realms could be more even populated as a result of it.
if u think its a problem u could start on a different server/realm while you wait for a spot in the realm/server your friends already play etc.

the balance/quality for the players as a whole is way more important than our individual wishes.

taking excalibur as an example, if albs want (and they have alot in NF) they can steamroll hibs and mids with 1 massive zerg or 2 smaller (still bigger than the biggest mid/hib zerg) and therefore own 5 of 6 relics and no one is capable of taking them away from them.
is this the ideal server status?
with population restrictions this could easily been avoided, too late to do it now but in future game releases assumingly even more massive than daoc this should definetly been included.

i consider my mid/excal chars broken as i cant hardly move anywhere with any of them without being pwned by outnumbering forces that outdamage me as i have no relic dmg bonus etc.
and im not a member of a guild that opt. groups much either and the combination turns out to be fatal for me and "casuals" like me, we either play other games or other servers and leave the alb horde alone cos there is nothing we can do about them.

 

[Azathrim]

You can't restrict where people can create characters. It's simply not good practice.

The only reasonable way to fix the population at this time is to hunt down half the Albion population IRL and beat them thoroughly up with a large stick.

Uhm, wait that was the option that was skipped as 'Too violent and the sticks might get dirty'.

Hmm. The reasonable solution would be that they created an option to convert all characters on an account in a realm on a server to another realm on another server/same server.

That ofcourse requires tons of coding and raises lots of issues with classes. But, in all reality that is the only way to do it as far as I see it.

Unless ofcourse this clustering allows for cross-server cross-realming.

Forinstance.
Alb/Excal + Hib/Pry
Hib/Excal + Mid/Pry
Mid/Excal + Alb/Pry

... or something. But even then, in that setup two underpopulated realms (Hib/Excal + Mid/Pry) would be joined together and thus still leave a bad situation.

 

[Esselinithia]

The best way would be simple: allow moving characters from overpopulated realms to other servers, and use clustering with much smaller population per server, and make sure clusters can get balanced.

 

[Amuse]

I think you have it confused Amuse... they wasnt trying to comprae the two games what they were trying to say is....

Evryone said DAOC would die with the release of SWG and it didnt so... thats what they are trying to say

They are trying to compate them when they say that the same thing is going to happen.

and i already listen the reasons why SWG didnt have any noticable effect on DaoC, and why WoW prolly will.