The Devolution of DAOC... Game or Players?

[Shike]

German servers are also declining in population though over time.. atm they have a slight influx because of rerollers from UKservers but overall the population is dropping there too.

Funny how a game like EVE-online is hitting new peakrecords now and then still after a couple years going under CCP icelandic hands, GOAs and Mythics DAoC has been declining for years and is pretty much at the rockbottom. Can the conclusion from that be that:

a) GOA and Mythic is doing great jobs and the players are 100% to blame. We are all motherless dogs that treat all the thousands of new players that wanna give it a go like shit?
b) GOA and Mythic is doing ok jobs and the players are somewhat to blame. A very small portion of the community actually work for the DEVIL which ofc is SONY, and the secret plan is to make all the thousands of new players deciding to give DAoC a go the big bad asshattreatment so they leave to never return?
c) GOA and Mythic is doing shit and the players arent really to blame, a few sure are but those are about as important as the ants on my backyard that I sometimes accidently step on.

Take into account that CCP has ran EVE for years and their playerbase is growing, GOA/Mythic has ran DAoC for years now and their playerbase hardly even exist anymore.

Cmon now.. you give too much credit/power to the players I think. Sure, players are asshats now and then, but they are that in every game, DAoC is no different. In a healthy game with a proper company running it the amount of people leaving is lesser than the amount of people joining. With the flawed logic that the playerbase is to blame, WOW would be crap already, EVE wouldnt exist and every other game out there is basically doomed to fail already before launch, because those players you blame for DAoCs downfall is the very same players that will join WAR when it comes.

Some single events here and there with some poor fella getting shafted doesnt reflect the truth, that GOA/Mythic are quite crap at what they are doing and have been doing the last years that in the end have brought down DAoC on its knees. Only this last year have Mythic actually shown some clever moves and some good choices, I do wish they had made some things they have done just now, 2 years ago, it would definately have revitalized the game for alot of people and perhaps they would have stayed longer.

 

[Mephz]

All of what you said above is mostly wrong.

Sorry to say but DAoC (from a perspective of our two servers) has never been greatly populated, thats why we never needed more than 2 servers. The reason, is because even during the peak of play it was impossible to buy the fucking game anywhere, so you never had a constant stream of new players.

If you wanted to get a buddy to play in the old days, god help you.

The attitudes thing is bullshit, every single MMO on the market, from WoW to UO has the same types of players. Simply put if you had newbies coming in to play with other newbies this wouldn't have been a problem. The scaring of newbs is a by product of poor merchandising by GOA.


TOA/RA's/NF etc were all necessary to keep the core players playing and it worked. Simply put if TOA never came out the game would have died alooooong time ago, and I always said it. Proof is in the pudding, the classic servers came out, all the idiots proclaimed it the greatest thing since sliced bread and it died quicker than it filled up.

So to conclude, the game died over here quickly due to poor promotion by GOA NOTHING else.

Sorry I didnt read every post as they all seemed to reiterate the same tripe so I just replied, so I apologise if what I said has already been stated.

Man it's been a long time since I visited these forums.

Good day.

Hit the nail on the head, OF & SI got boring like anything would.

 

[OohhoO]

For me it was 6 of this & half a dozen of the other

I started at release on the US servers where I had my only RR5+ in pre-ToA OF.
The 1st tiny nail in the coffin was allowing crafting in houses.
Then came ToA, & I could no longer compete in RvR as MLs weren't doable on the server I played on at Euro times.
NF... I hated it so I took the consequences & quit for about a year.

Then I rerolled on Prydwen so I'd be more able to complete MLs.
By this time there were so many high-RRs that getting to RR5 was nigh-on impossible without serious guild support or months & months of mind-numbing assassinations, neither of which made RvR any fun at all, so I ended up quitting again.

I think raising the RR-cap was ok, but making such high RRs realistically achievable was a big mistake. Capping RRs at RR10 on 100'000'000'000 RPs would have been way way better. There's almost no way of getting to a competitive RvR level as a lowbie now unless you can get into a serious RvR guild, none of which are interested in recruiting lowbies... Go figure.

 

[Infanity]

Did you take that book home or? If not I'm gonna have to hunt it out soon

Dunno where it is Craigs i think!

 

[morfans]

Hi
I think is a bit of both i left 4 a few months due to the rvr and other reasons.
I came back to DAOC and was taken a back by how low the severs where.
The problem is not many new ppl want to stay.
Buff Bots are another problem.
I could go on and on but whas the point.
maybe i day all the ppl that have left should return for 1 night to show our overlords at GOA if they do something maybe every 1 will return.
Theres something to think on.

:england:

 

[Thadius]

Hi
I think is a bit of both i left 4 a few months due to the rvr and other reasons.
I came back to DAOC and was taken a back by how low the severs where.
The problem is not many new ppl want to stay.
Buff Bots are another problem.
I could go on and on but whas the point.
maybe i day all the ppl that have left should return for 1 night to show our overlords at GOA if they do something maybe every 1 will return.
Theres something to think on.

:england:

1 night, no thanks. 1 night = 1 months subs, meaning GOA gets money, so they dont give a shit. They dont care, as long as the server makes money, GOA will keep it running

 

[Flimgoblin]

I remember buying that daoc book when i first started (SI was already out) it advised me that Xbow was best spec on armsman and a load of other bull shit.. dye your armour blue and you get roxor stealth and other random things.

It's true what you say but now there is NEVER a new player.. I'd really be interested to know how often someone starts daoc new and plays Dyvet.

;]

hrm, did I write that book?

Things that I think contributed to my playtime dwindling to 0:

1. WoW et al stealing people... as said above whole guilds went at a time and it hurt the game.

2. Clustering - it probably would have happened soon enough after it did but as nice as it was to have a load of new faces to play with it did a lot of harm to the "realm pride" that people had - suddenly anyone who played an alt realm was fighting against themselves...

3. the game becoming "easier" - but us knowing about it in advance (I quite liked doing ToA stuff with my guild, but when we were waiting for the "easy-ToA" patch it became pointless doing anything, because it'd be a doddle next patch)

4. Running out of PvE - a combination of 3 and just having played for so long, meant that all there was to do in game was go RvR... which can be a frustrating thing.

5. RvR frustrations, partly the attitude of other players, partly just how frustrating the game can be when the odds are stacked against you. Combine that with 4 and it's a "hmm, logging now".

6. Baby stealing playtime (games with "pause" are good with a newborn...)

7. WAR beta (muhauha)

 

[Aranka]

Great post

/clap

Are there still some complete new players on the European servers? And if not, why?
It seems there are many on the US classic cluster.

 

[Raven]

Are there still some complete new players on the European servers? And if not, why?

GOA don't advertise, never have done so nobody has even heard of DAOC. Not to mention the fact that even if you do find out about it you can't buy it anywhere.

 

[Gear]

GOA don't advertise, never have done so nobody has even heard of DAOC. Not to mention the fact that even if you do find out about it you can't buy it anywhere.

One has to be worthy to play daoc, which means that s/he has to find out about it first, then buy it somehow and then get to play it

 

[Rubric]

One has to be worthy to play daoc, which means that s/he has to find out about it first, then buy it somehow and then get to play it

And then quit for the this and many other reasons.

 

[Aranka]

The classic servers

Simply put if TOA never came out the game would have died alooooong time ago, and I always said it. Proof is in the pudding, the classic servers came out, all the idiots proclaimed it the greatest thing since sliced bread and it died quicker than it filled up.

The classic servers are the most populated in US, and I think not only because of the european players coming...

And all the people playing on the classic servers are not idiots I hope

 

[Gear]

The classic servers are the most populated in US, and I think not only because of the european players coming...

And all the people playing on the classic servers are not idiots I hope

Classic (Lamorak) was great fun at launch. Non-stop grouping, invites at the moment you'd log on, everyone rushing to 50 and about 8 DS runs to get equiped then rvr-ing non stop

The best part was that a you knew that a druid/cleric/shaman was actually played by a person

 

[MegaFriendz0r]

All of what you said above is mostly wrong.

Sorry to say but DAoC (from a perspective of our two servers) has never been greatly populated, thats why we never needed more than 2 servers. The reason, is because even during the peak of play it was impossible to buy the fucking game anywhere, so you never had a constant stream of new players.
The attitudes thing is bullshit, every single MMO on the market, from WoW to UO has the same types of players. Simply put if you had newbies coming in to play with other newbies this wouldn't have been a problem. The scaring of newbs is a by product of poor merchandising by GOA.

If you wanted to get a buddy to play in the old days, god help you.


TOA/RA's/NF etc were all necessary to keep the core players playing and it worked. Simply put if TOA never came out the game would have died alooooong time ago, and I always said it. Proof is in the pudding, the classic servers came out, all the idiots proclaimed it the greatest thing since sliced bread and it died quicker than it filled up.



So to conclude, the game died over here quickly due to poor promotion by GOA NOTHING else.

Sorry I didnt read every post as they all seemed to reiterate the same tripe so I just replied, so I apologise if what I said has already been stated.

Man it's been a long time since I visited these forums.

Good day.

Think your the one with the flawed logic bro. You need to look at the statistics and use linear logic, you have to compare pears with pears and apples with apples.

The US classic and the EU classic was not both apples. On US you had a single english speaking community on EU you had spanish, italian, german, english, scandinavian, polish etc etc etc. All those diffrent languages and cultures clashed. Just as in real life language barriers and culture diffrencies do have an impact weather you chose to realize or not.

Another way to describe it would be to compare servers and diffrent playstyles that where amplified with the diffrence in culture/language. Germans play their way, italians, french etc etc all had their general characteristics, on US it was a more homogene playerbase, although it had diffrencies from server to server but without the cultural/language as an amplifier to it.
-Everyone who played on Camlann knows what I'm about.

If you do some proper comparing and "reaserch" in statistics you will realize DAoC lost alot of customers just after ToA, and then regained. Then when NF hit ppl left in droves. Thats hard facts for you, you can't deny interperet, alter or fabricate that.
Infact the decline and raise is linear on both US and EU..US having abit more "clear/steeper" indications, probably due to cultural diffrencies, where europeans are perhaps more tollerable towards companies that have you on your four legs thrusting.

So in clonclusion your deadwrong buddy and you seem to have little insight in the matter and merly came on to shift some gears.

/edit, On an agreeing note, I think they had a poor PR strategy, or lack of it, but that might been due to their own surpise that the game actually appealed to so many people, I mean lets behonest "Mythical Realms" or whatever their previous game was called wasn't a blockbuster. It's no exucuse though and a large company have to adapt quick to the shiftings in market and whatnot.

 

[Ctuchik]

scandinavian,

scandinavian is a language? >.<

who speaks this "scandinavian"? no country i've ever heard of


sorry i know its a minor thing but it got to me.

 

[Imgormiel]

GOA don't advertise, never have done so nobody has even heard of DAOC. Not to mention the fact that even if you do find out about it you can't buy it anywhere.

That's strictly not true

 

[ford prefect]

That's strictly not true

It might not be "strictly" true, but lets face it, GoA's history of advertising DAoC in the UK is as practically non-existent.

They are contractually obliged to keep an english speaking server up and running, so Dyvet won't close, but it won't improve either.

The simple fact is that GoA are no longer making the money they need to sustain Dyvet profitably, and it is now at the point where the situation cannot be repaired without throwing a massive advertising budget at the problem, and I doubt very much that will happen, as the coffers will be needed elsewhere for the launch of WAR in europe.

Well placed advertising = subscriptions, you don't have to be a marketing guru to work that one out. If there is one thing that GoA has done wrong over the past five or six years, and one thing that the remaining Dyvet subscribers should be annoyed about, it's GoA's complete failure in marketing. There can be no excuses for that. If the budget wasn't there for advertising, GoA should have held their collective hands up to that fact a long time ago, and sought help from Mythic or some third party.

In short GoA and the remaining Dyvet subscribers are in a no win situation, largely due to GoA's own short sightedness.

 

[Konah]

the ridiculous "additions" that TOA brought us was a strong contributor to this great games spiralling downfall...

TOA was indeed the beginning of the end. It should have been the actual end... because from that point on the game became more work than fun, a chore to be endured, hoops to jump through for the sake of it - just to remain competitive in RvR (or PvE).

Unfortunately game companies (and software companies in general) just do not know when to leave well enough alone. Dev teams manage to come up with grand plans for the future and endless "expansion packs", which amazingly serve to keep themselves in jobs, seemingly without regard for the impact on their game.

If Mythic were to release a bug fixed and fully balanced DAoC:SI and promise no expansions, no new items, no new races, no new classes and no new frontiers, I would reactivate my account tomorrow.

But they won't.

 

[Aranka]

Indeed

I totally agree.

 

[Aranka]

ToA was like a whole new game, too big and like work to do as you said
It made me stop playing for about a year...

Well, you can at least play on a classic server, but indeed not the same than just Classic+SI, which are the essence and the best of the game in my opinion, and what made me love it

 

[Dannus]

I remember playing a merc on alb/pryd (was be4 i switched over to hib) and I met this guy that was around my lvl in campacorentin forest near the keltoi dungeon, we were having fun xping and doing some tasks we found in the village near keltoi, after we had dinged approx 5-7 lvls he had to leave, but before he left he said he had something he wanted to give to me, he logged on his lvl 50 main char which happened to be a merc also, that guy gave me a full epic armor with 100dur and con, I was stunned, I thought I would never live the day to see any1 this generous, that player was playing the way (imo) GoA meant the game to be at first.

If every1 would play like him, daoc would prolly have a whole lot more players around today.

 

[Golena]

If every1 would play like him, daoc would prolly have a whole lot more players around today.

Spot on. In my view the problem with TOA was never the amount of work or effort it took. In the general scheme of things it wasn't really that much.
It was the fact that they designed it deliberately with not enough for everybody, so spawns were always overcamped. Before TOA if somewhere was camped there was always another place you could go instead so people didn't need to compete with people in the same realm for stuff.
With TOA your realm mates were your enemy also wanting the same drops and so the idea of helping a stranger out died almost overnight.

In PvE only MMPORGS you need stuff that everyone can't have to keep people playing and competing. DAoC never needed that element.

 

[Raven]

Personally i enjoyed TOA the first time around, it was a massive drag to do it on alts though. Nothing could beat getting the first 50 when pve groups were fun, focus pulling pretty much destroyed this in hib, the journey to 50 was boring, you either soloed or sat semi afk at fins.

 

[GReaper]

Spot on. In my view the problem with TOA was never the amount of work or effort it took. In the general scheme of things it wasn't really that much.
It was the fact that they designed it deliberately with not enough for everybody, so spawns were always overcamped. Before TOA if somewhere was camped there was always another place you could go instead so people didn't need to compete with people in the same realm for stuff.
With TOA your realm mates were your enemy also wanting the same drops and so the idea of helping a stranger out died almost overnight.

ToA felt like a second full time job at the time. Levelling artifacts one at a time with it taking 30 mins to an hour per level is a typical example of this.

Mythic eventually realised that you can't force people through crap like this and now gives multiple options to advance your character.