State of Albion..

[Dakkath]

To sum it all up in one word... Depressing

You'd have to be a drunk, eternal optimist, high on prozac, having just got laid to think things can turn themselves around for Alb (and possibly Mid) it seems... Although somehow the Hibbies manage (not gonnna whine/suggest reasons why)

If we set a very low threshold for RvR activity, say 20k in the last week (I would consider that total poor on any of my chars but still) then we can see the following:

Total 167 Albs, 164 Hibs 164, 136 Mids

Strangely, the number of healing classes seemed pretty close across all realms
which kinda flies in the face of a few theories posted on here.

Alb scouts far outnumber any of the other classes (not so for hib/mid)

From what I can see, we've become a realm of soloers

 

[Awarkle]

its probbly true about the realm of soloers

But more and more times i group up with lower level people or group up even with same level people and we level up alts or powerlevel bots etc i end up being the only person not AFK for 30 mins i end up doing all the work so i end up suiciding the whole group and rezzing the non afk people.

Its frustrating that more and more people think that the most important thing is

LEVEL 50

and that the only way to get to level 50 is to power level i wonder how many people just /anon their chosen class (anim/necro(midspowerlevel class)) just for the peace and quiet of not being spammed every 30 seconds for powerlevel requests.


As for albion i cant talk for them ive been out of the rvr loop for a while finishing off this bot getting some new artifacts together (ones that arnt fotm)

i would like to group with more people but lets face it when you have nothing to do in the group whats the fun of grouping. And if you have rolled a class that solos why dont you just invite other soloers to the group.

Daocs gone from the comunity to the pwn with a bit of a devestating consequences. Hibs dont do any major epic raids in any of the SI dungeons now and i liked epic raids although loot sucks and people would rather do artifact farming or scroll farming or master level farming.

I would roll a cleric straight away on albion but for the simple fact of soloing a cleric isnt fun and high level people arnt prepared to invite a low level cleric for power leveling. Eithe on excal or prydwen because i tried on both servers clerics who are below level 20 do not get invited to groups and if you do get invited to groups you end up loosing more experience than gaining if you were chaining blue con mobs. Because people think

Healer class = win against anything

then forget about protect or guard or expect support classes to be able to buff an entire group with only 1 cleric and no friars.

I recomend albion do a /who cleric 1 30 and power level up some clerics even if they dont stay just get them to a level where exping isnt a chore where they can get groups easilly. And lets face it albion is the realm of the necromancer number 1 power levelr

anyways i ramble

 

[nikolas]

I went to WoW because I knew this would happen. WoW has sold about 400k copies in the EU which was more than than the total EU MMORPG market before WoW.

I loved Daoc before I went.. I was making quite a few rps and looking forward to Catacombs. Many of our daoc guild moved to Stormreaver and we have all decided not to renew our daoc subscriptions. WoW has far exceeded our expectations tbh.

If your hoping for a boat load of peopel to return for Catacombs I wouldn't hold your breath

Daoc will need new blood, it's up to Goa's marketing team now

 

[Lubbock]

What matters most in the whole discussion of whatever people will return or not is the coming WoW Battlegrounds, if this proves a good RvR expansion for WoW then people wont leave, if it sucks then some might return to daoc so time will tell, for me i wont come back the whole relief of getting away from the frustration that was daoc felt really good and if i someday get tired of wow <wont happen atm as it kicks ass> then i wont come back to DaoC as it gone down the crapper even before WoW came

 

[Darzil]

The one thing that sounded worrying about the WoW battlegrounds for me was that they are numbers limited so that sides are even. So if you are in a bigger realm, you'll have long waits for the battlegrounds. Don't expect to just log in and fight, you'll have to queue first.

I'm sure some will worry about the fact that the more powerful allies/abilities to use in the fight are gained by fighting mobs rather than players.

Darzil

 

[Lubbock]

Yup there are some things that sound worrysome but since im an optimist i say lets see whats it like before making any conclusions

 

[Vermillon]

Some good points, however I think the big problem from the Euro point of view is that although we may have GMS who listen, Mythic make the game, and Mythic don't listen to us.

We have had DAoC for 3 years, and all through that time Mythic have proved they don't listen, until it's too late. Blizzard's passed history on the other hand has some really good and well balanced games.

One good thing that might come from the WoW release is the fact that the Euro release beat the US release by over 100k!!! That's a lot more subs cash from Eu, maybe MMORPG companies will start to take the Eu market more seriously, instead of feeding us US leftovers.

Instead of balancing and fixing the existing bugs, Mythic keept tring to throw dust in our eyes by introducing new things (abilities, classes, zones etc) in the game. Some times were features that we (players) never asked for. I played daoc for almost 3 years and i dont remember the game beeing without need of ballance or bug fix for a single day.
Enough said.

 

[charmangle]

Well all got hit badly by wow...but...

So far since Wow came and before..

AoD quit
Forgotten Legends inactive
Seven inactive/quit
The Rigante 95% gone to WoW for a bit at least
Stigmata gone to US servers
Rising Force moved to Hibernia
TLW gone to WoW

Our alliance is down to around 25 people online in total from previously having on average 3 out of 5 top RP earning guilds per week
GoP, The Rigante and AoD

At the rate this is going ALb/pryd will cease to exist, the average nights RvR before WoW consisted of put together an average RR4 group go for a run praying you don't run into an average rr9 hib or mid group 2 out of 3 times you do and die half of the rest of the time you get hit by mids and hibs or 2fg+ 2nd to last night in DAOC we ran into 3fg hibs 4 times in a row then Maelstrom...

Why do you think Albs are quitting think about it..and yes maybe it is Albs turn to feel the zerg ect but the difference now is that instead of albs moving to mid or hib they'll just leave for WoW

The idea of catacombs coming won't help at all everyone know Alb get a real stuffing with the new classes and at least for me it means nothing new except new classes to be ganked by, why bother playing my Cabalist who gets insta killed by a Warlock when I can just go play WoW and have fun?

All got hit badly by wow...but I have to agree it hit Albs hardest. 1.71 was a real midgard killer. With 1.72 at same time as wow they hit albs hard. Ofc this is visable to us at the other realms. Atm its only hib that is strong. When albs was strong during 1.71 hibs and midgardians made an effort to hit albs harder so that it would even out. Maybe same thing would be good against hibs now ? That would help albs having more fun actually accoplishing something ?

(Mids are after their own relic in hibland, and maybe albs can use that to get an efficient relic raid going ? (And hopefully not against midgard

In my opionion these small things actually help the overall feeling on the server.
/Charmangle

 

[affractas]

Its do darn expensive and to mush to learn, i remember back in the days i had problem figureing out Classic Camelot, and when i finaly figured that out, SI came with SC'ing and Alch etc, then after that ToA came with artis +cap items etc.. i meen if i had start from squeer one today, with Catacombs comming up it is a shit laod of infromation to learn.. and it costs to mush to play it for a Party happy student, i meen 10$ in sweden is 10 beers ..

 

[Belgareth]

Pryd has one of the lowest server populations if not the lowest. As a result, Alb cannot make use of the zeurg tactics that counter the better utility that Mid and Hib have. Albs cannot counter insta mezz <purge> interrupt interrupt stun nuke nuked, etc; lack of cc, utility, etc.

Catacombs hasn't arrived yet but when it does, I guarrantee you'll see even less Albs - being banshii'd and warlocked to death isn't my idea of fun - Alb populations on US servers are falling.

If you like RvR roll Hib ... otherwise you'd better enjoy PvE.

 

[Ironfalcon]

Tbh.. I dont think the problem is WoW.. Ofc it does have a little to say.. but one of the biggest problems as I see is that.. Mythic keep making Languages specefic servers.. so they can earn more money, from those who do not speak english, and if they made a danish server, ofc I would go ther, but I dont think its very wise to spread the people out on so many servers..m but tbh.. How many people dont speak english in Europe in 2005? ofc the fact that wow came out was a major blow for us. but if the servers where clamped together.. would we notice? I think not..

 

[Kained_again]

10$ in sweden is 10 beers ..

Im a gonna emigrate to Sweden tbh

 

[Kained_again]

They serve Carling there?

 

[Dorimor1]

tbh NF really killed rvr.. I remember in old frontiers when you could just roam with a fg and always have a fight, the only rvr I get now when I enter nf is when their is a relic/keep raid, or the odd stealther camping poc entrance, as so many ppl have said, no more fg vs fg encounters.
with nothing to do apart from mls (pls no ) and artifatcs (which can get rather tedious after about 5 minutes) daoc can get rather boring. my last resort has been to roll a shaman and start fresh on another realm.. but once again I get kinda bored
<flys off to WoW>