The end is nigh?

[Whoodoo_RD]

Over the last couple of months, all I seem to have done is read on here and my own guild forums is "bye bye, off to play x" or "ive had enough of this game!".

Now even my guild seems to be down to 1 active GM out of 5. 3 have gone SWG and 1 cant decide to go or stay, as shes drawn to Tatooine as well

Daily Im seeing veterans moving off to pastures new, or rediscovering their real life, and I must admit Im feeling the same lately.

Despite the changes with SI, Foundations and the forthcoming ToA, i feel the game has began to decay. Nothing really changes.

Mobs are all the same, they never move, theres no suprise there. We all know our factions, we all know what routes to take to avoid agro, the dragon still does her thing, SMs still camp TG daily taking all the best loot, then charging the earth for it. The exp grind even with /level is the same, all realms have their PL or normal exp spots, they have been the same for 2 years. By the time we get ToA, there will be anough spoilers for us to run round blind fold to get all the uber items.

SI killed the normal realm for exping, Jordheim became a ghost town, Bledmeer became the last place to craft, now foundations has killed Hagall and Aegirhamn. Just do /who Jordheim / Munin / Skona / Vanern / Raumarik / Mularn / west Svealand or just wonder round them yourselves to see what i mean. To make things worse, the new parts of TOA make it even harder to find ppl in the classic realm.

Variety is the spice of life, and at present the only real variety we have is rolling a new toon. Even that gets tedious.

I guess what I want to ask is, sensibly, what would you alll suggest that could put in the fresh sounds and sights you had the day you first got past the loading screen and poped up in Galplen as a large rock looking thing?

My suggestion:
Move the mobs, so paths change, quests are not so easy, and spoilers can only give basic info. One patch Malmohus could be as it is now, level 40-90 mobs, the next, level 20-40. Surely this is only a case of changing a DB or 2.

i know this wont bring ppl back to the game, but it might make those of us left a little more willing to stay.

Discuss.

 

[kameh]

Well since I play Bonedancer and Necromancer the number of pet bugs I can expect in TOA will give me erm something new

I know what you mean mate, personally I don't think housing helped at all. Now instead of the main crafting towns like Aegir/Diogel being busy with traders and chatting most people choose to do it in thier own homes. Partly because they have to justify the massive cost of purchasing them and lets face it they're useless except for crafting..

The game is getting a little tedious especially if you're not a RvR hound like some people, but right now they're nothing else worth trying and I suspect that most of the people playing Horizons and SW:G will return after a few months. Most people that I know that played SW:G say that there's even less to do once you're high level than in SW:G other than get money... at least in DAOC we can go and get killed by the /assist trains.

My biggest problem is finding people who want to play together, not just be in a guild together. Excuses for not turning up etc. it's the same on every server think I need to have a bath or something..

 

[Kahland]

rps = respect irl

 

[Tafaya Anathas]

Ppl will leave until Mythic making new zones etc. instead of fixing 1 year old bugs and balancing the realms.

 

[Worm_th]

Do yourself a favour... Dont bother with SWG.

Zero content...
Running countless terminal missions to level, mastering then surrending a minimum of 8 professions to even stand a chance of opening your Jedi slot, a few bugged themeparks (quite pretty, but pointless) crap loot, buggy as hell and full of lamers.

Give the game anotehr 12 months to mature... then it might be worth playing, excellent system, the way you can mix and match your skills to what you want... good crafting system, with emphesis on crafted items beign the best you can get, putting worth into the crafting professions... shame most of them are bugged.

The game is 150% grind, if you thought DAoC grind was bad, its a walk in the park compaired to that game.

The only saving grace for you maybe, is if you have a guild/group of friends already there, you can have a bit of fun with them... but seriously... consider long and hard before you hand over hard earned cash for it...

I've got two months active subscription left for it, but i doubt i'll ever load up the game again...

Did i mention the daily downtime? yep thats right the servers get pulled down once a day and can take hours to reload. Once the servers marked as "loading" you can forget it for at least one hour. If theres any kind of technical problem or a patch you can forget playing for a minimum of 4 hours.

But thats just my opinion, do your own thing, make your own choices and maybe you might be the kind of player who actually likes that kind of game... who knows.

 

[Whoodoo_RD]

Originally posted by Tafaya Anathas
Ppl will leave until Mythic making new zones etc. instead of fixing 1 year old bugs and balancing the realms.

Thats my point, we really dont need new zones, we need the old ones revamped once in a while.

Like i said, each time a new zone appears, an old one dies needlessly. Take Emain, its the zerg zone, always has been due to its design. The valley makes an ideal combat zone, but its old now, change it ffs, move mobs in the valley to make it harder to run thru for all.

 

[kameh]

Mythic did say that they were going to redo the older zones, god knows if and when they'll do that and then when we'll get it "translated" into english so we can have them too.

Personally I'm dreading TOA, from what I hear of it on VNBoards it's like starting leveling all over again and those RvR peeps out there that have spend months getting high RR will lose fights when PVE mad people use thier master level win buttons

 

[Falcon]

Since moving to the US servers I've come to really like DAoC again, I think it's largely because GOA's merging of patches means there's months where the game just gets stale to nothing new at all. When I moved to the US I first got to play with foundations, shortly after the new island came out for SI with 1.65 and before I'd had time to play with that properly TOA is out, not only that but by the time I'm anywhere near finishing the content with ToA, Frontiers will very likely be out.

Don't listen to what they say about ToA on VN Boards, there's a much bigger silent majority who are playing it and loving it. In ToA PvE isn't just mindless boredom anymore, it's actually quite damn fun. Mobs that use spells, try to kite you, quickcast stun/root you, AE mezz groups then try and attack the healer - some of the ToA mobs will push the skills of seasoned RvR players. There are bugs in ToA yes, and quite a few, but there's so much content that even if you were one of the few to encounter a game stopping bug there's still a million other things you can go do until it's fixed.

A good group or two can fly through the MLs in no time, you can easily do a couple of MLs a day unless you hit a bottleneck ML that requires a zerg. ML1 and 2 can be done in a day no problem however and as said, it's nothing like dull farming, it's actually good fun.

All in all, there's two ways of doing the MLs. You can gather a zerg and take ages over them, or you can form a VERY good group of players - the RvR groups will love this - and go out and blitz them. RA's will come in very handy for the good groups blitzing them, things like Ichor, BoF, SoS, GP, TWF will be real nice for helping along with the MLs in a group like this. So essentially, although the RvR groups will need a few mid level ML perfectors to stay on top, they can get them pretty quick and whilst doing PvE that who knows, they might even enjoy.

 

[Moody]

Originally posted by kameh
Personally I'm dreading TOA, from what I hear of it on VNBoards it's like starting leveling all over again and those RvR peeps out there that have spend months getting high RR will lose fights when PVE mad people use thier master level win buttons

Lol. And thats your main concern? Don't worry. RvR people will powergame themselves for a week or so then go destroy everyone with their RA's AND ML's.

I do share the same feeling as Whoodoo about new expansions making old ones obsolete for a part. And indeed craftertowns are a lot more interesting than doing it in the house. The best thing about the hosing zones are the porters, the vaults, and a central meeting point for if you want to meet up with a guildmember or the start of a hunt.

However, we can't blame Mythic for everything. In SI, there are already mobs that nuke and run away into a camp, and try to kite you. Strange behaviour and pathing. Do I see people xp'ing there? No. Why not? Because people like it easy. Don't forget RvR is supposedly Teh endgame so why choose to have a hard time getting to 50.

Xp'ing in Albion is still (counting from lvl 20) Keltoi -> Cornwall/Catas -> Barrows -> Avalon City which has replaced Lyonesse. The hard times being 30-40 since they nerfed pygmy goblins.

I'd love to see the capitals of the realms restored to their old role, because they are ghosttowns now. Zones like Dartmoor are great, but even the best drops are /salvage. If a Lava Forged Sword would drop with a quality range from 91%-98%, I would salvage it most of the time, but a 98% one, I would actually use.
The so called "epic" mobs in Lynn Barfog are bored to death, because nobody cba to hunt them anymore. It used to take 3fg's. Now it takes a focuspuller and a buffbot but for /salvage drops which used to be uber before spellcrafting ruined PvE (and RvR too fyi)

Looking at some of the drops which can be obtained in ToA, Sidi will no longer be the place to be. Hall of the Corrupt? Just delete the place. Badly designed in the first place and crap drops except 1 or so.

But, despite all that, their is nothing better on the market today. So let's enjoy the things that are good in the game, of which there are plenty, it's just easier to remember the bad things

 

[kameh]

Moody - nice to know someone else thinks Spellcrafting fooked up the game, I also don't think DF helped much either.


P.S. I'm a LGM Spellcrafter so it's hardly in my interest to call it lame (but it is)

 

[Falcon]

However, we can't blame Mythic for everything. In SI, there are already mobs that nuke and run away into a camp, and try to kite you. Strange behaviour and pathing. Do I see people xp'ing there? No. Why not? Because people like it easy. Don't forget RvR is supposedly Teh endgame so why choose to have a hard time getting to 50.

Well of course it's stupid xp'ing on mobs like that, that's not what they're there for. They do however drop artifact scrolls and some are parts of Master Level quests, what this means is that farming for scrolls and ML quests aren't just a case of farming dull mobs that do nothing special and don't stand a chance against you, it involves fighting mobs that offer a challenge and put your skills and knowledge to the test.

I know a lot of people still use frontier dungeons for xp due to very, very good xp there so they're not totally obsolete even if they offer little for the level 50s, either way I'm guessing Frontiers may offer them a bit of an overhaul.

Agree on Spellcrafting, when I got my first char to 50 I spent a good month researching and farming drops, looking for drops to increase the most important resistances too me, I managed to cap slash, thrust, crush, matter, body, spirit, dex, str, const, qui, +11 blades, +11 celtic dual, +11 bow - the result was my ranger being pretty damn powerful, sometimes not even needing to break a sweat vs. two opponents, then SC came in, suddenly everyone had a char as powerful as both mine and anyone else who'd put the time in to make their char powerful. Spellcrafting changed the game from an elite few into an elite many, and made Epic armour totally redundant.

ToA is taking steps to correct all this, you can't just cap everything anymore, those who get the perfect balance between artifacts and capping stats/resist/whatever are offered a chance to once again be superior on the battlefield. The reason Mythic held back on Jewelcrafting was by their own admittance because people would then be able to cap everything with 97% qual armour - they didn't want that. I think a lot of people have not actually noticed what ToA has acheived, it's actually solved a lot of long term problems - that PvE was boring, quests were dull and repetitive and of course, that everyone was running round with fully capped stats - they can't do that now without sacrificing things such as +melee damage or some of the weird and wonderful artifact procs. This is in fact why artifact farming and levelling and ML progression (after the first few MLs) is indeed such a timely process, because they don't want any old joe to have every artifact/ML on earth and have everything capped.

 

[elewyth]

sadly my SWG box arrives on monday and ill be off for good, DAOC just doesnt offer the old timer anything new, new zones? like id even go there anyway... the new frontiers will be good..but not enuff to stop me going.. i like SWG for its possibilities....its IMPOSSIBLE!! to gimp your char...u can drop and raise whatever skills take your fancy...cant do that in DAOC without respec stones... RvR aint everything... some of use like the PvE aspect, and having seen the way combat works in SWG is waay more hectic than..pull....bash...bash....bash...woot xp!! rinse repeat!
Mostly i like the player run towns!! now that would never work in DAOC..sadly... land speeder anyone? sod horses!!

 

[- Fedaykin -]

player towns in SWG are nearly all deserted form what i've seen, although i only played on chimaera (new euro server) and they seem pretty pointless to me as most people hang out in the same few places.

I played SWG for a month, liked it and quit without renewing subs.

You think savages are overpowered? wait till you see some of the classes in SWG.

Exp grind is boring, i found soloing lots faster than the 20 man zerg groups - although on occassion i found a nice 5-6 man group.

Atm nearly everyone is a creature handler (being fixed) which is pretty annoying.

PvP system is pretty flawed IMO, i much prefer DAOC RvR - by a long way, buffs require a doctor to obtain and mind buffs require entertainers - lots of hassle to get them, only to die in a few seconds to some bounty hunter/commando/Teras kasi spamming specials.

 

[bracken_woodman]

Bottom line is if you don't like the game then just leave. Personally I still enjoy it..that's the only yardstick that matters.

 

[Twaize]

Originally posted by bracken_woodman
Bottom line is if you don't like the game then just leave. Personally I still enjoy it..that's the only yardstick that matters.

Other people should also like it

 

[Nightchill]

Seem to be a lot of misconceptions about swg here, and a lot of people playing it the "wrong way" (as much as you can in a mmorpg). Far too many soloers because "the xp is better" (which it's not usually if you get a *good* group). Cut and pasted this from one of my older posts:

I was in SWG closed beta (just like I was for EVE, E&B etc.etc.). Going off the beta I didn't buy the release. But I kept tabs on what they'd changed and were planning to change.

The SoE team work very, very hard. It was common to see them up at 3am (their time) still putting out fixes and trying to sort out issues in the beta. Their hand was somewhat forced into releasing it when they did.

Anyway, a little over a month ago I bought the release (and so did my fianceé). Several of the best players from my alb/pryd guild had finished with DAoC and moved over to SWG, so another incentive. We've just started a PA there in fact in one of the player cities.

I'm loving it, people who say "it's only fun for 2 weeks" probably treated it like DAoC. DAoC is about the grind to 50, then (in theory) the fun starts with RvR.

Do you remember UO? You could max your skills out extremely quickly and yet people played the game for years.. With their character not getting more powerful (except in monetary terms). Where was the fun? In UO it was partly in the community and partly in the depth of the system.

SWG has both of those, and a PvP system that is getting on its feet and being balanced. The community is wonderful, everyone is friendly, many people roleplay. Cantinas *are* the social centres. Walking into one and seeing a full band and dance troupe performing (and shockingly it does look and sound good) was a wow moment for me. I'm a "combat class", as much as you can be in swg, and I haven't xpd in the past few days. Not because I'm bored but because there's so many other things to do (and enjoy doing). Player cities, player vendors, shopping malls, you can spend a whole day just shopping for your character.

New players need to just have the right mentality for it and I fear many DAoCers (especially if DAoC was their only mmorpg) don't. Relax, explore all the dungeons, go to the Points of Interest, do the Theme Parks (like Jabbas Palace). Don't get caught up in Holocrons, they'll be fixed eventually. Whatever you do, don't solo. It may be quicker in some cases but it's defeating the point not only of SWG but of a mmorpg itself. With dungeons like The Warren that involve teamwork, problem solving, puzzles and have creepy and twisted plot, I'm still going strong and can't see myself finishing anytime soon.

If you do buy it, have a look at the New Player Advice I posted over on the swg boards here on BW, might help a little. If you've got two other players to start with, you'll love it. It can be a daunting game (you actually need to read the manual shockingly) for a solo new player.

 

[kameh]

Mythic haven't really put any effort into creating the same sort of community you had on UO though, these boards for all their bitching and whining do help though but inter-realm competitions should be something that's possible, get some guild v guild fights (optional of course) opened up and let there be some fun behind the frontiers for those that want to participate.

I'm lucky in that I enjoy XPing and crafting in DAOC, but without those I'd be bored as hell Having a good guild and some nice friends also helps.

erm although I'm not in a guild now hehe.

 

[kameh]

double post! crap laptop!

 

[cHodAX]

For a long time the game was improving but for most of this year it has been going downhill, if they had shipped SI without new classes I doubt things would be as bad as they are now. That said, they have made the classic areas virtually obselete by not keeping them up to date and varied. How often do you see people exping in North Black Mountains or Llyn Barfog anymore? Nothing wrong with the zones but the new one offer better rewards so the older ones are left to rot.

 

[Twaize]

since playing from March I have been in Llyn Barfog 2 or 3 times...

 

[SilverHood]

SWG isn't everyones pie.... neither was DAoC

DAoC had one handy feature - you had to group to get anywhere.... in SWG, you can solo your way to the top.

People leave and join MMO games all the time....

I quit a while back - April I think it was.... before that, I had been in 3 guilds... first one I joined..... second one was formed from members from the first one.... we merged with SoR after 7 months, and then when I left, the guild were talking about merging with another guild with member problems.

I guess what I want to ask is, sensibly, what would you alll suggest that could put in the fresh sounds and sights you had the day you first got past the loading screen and poped up in Galplen as a large rock looking thing?

That one is quite hard. "Oh my god. I'm a troll!! Look how small kobolds are!!"

Making DAoC interesting and varied is quite a challenge, as there's only 2 aspects to the game, where UO had bagloads..... you have combat, and you have watch-the-green-bar-move-across-the-screen
aka crafting.

Crafting is a bit of a dead end, since it's only tagged on to give you something else to do when not fighting.... (something for gimps or people who feel the urge to make money hinging)

Combat, well, lets see what they do with frontiers before I comment

---Also---
I wish they'd make the world a place where you belong, rather than where your forced to go.
For example (using midgard) - why on earth would you ever want to go to vanern swamp? So many better places around. It's pointless... except for the epic quests (getting there is a pain too)

So, rather than have vanern swamp out there in the middle of nowhere....
Why not have all zones, bar a few, as frontiers?

You could have levels 2-25 inside the safe zone, with a dungeon or 2 ranging up to level 40ish. To get to 50, you'd have to go xp in the frontier....
The frontiers would naturally have to be a lot bigger.... but imagine 10-12 malmohus or dartmoor like frontier zones.... not a pretty place unless you know what you're doing. After all, the frontiers are meant to be dangerous places.... why not make them?
Get rid of any xp/con penalties while fighting in the frontiers, and people could start going RvR'ing from level 40 - they'd get xp from the many mobs, rps from the enemies they encountered.
Rather than the few uber gank squads that run about, you'd have several hundred people from each realm in the frontiers at any time...
You'd have no lone stealthers sitting outside the gates, since he wouldn't be able to solo mobs in the frontier.....
Using the faction system, people could build up faction with mobs in certain areas, so they had a respite from certain mobs.... meaning you had to choose where you went and fought....

Gonna go to bed.... the ramblings of a beatiful mind

 

[cHodAX]

I have played 2 years 2 weeks and probably only been to Llyn Barf twice in the last year. Nice zone for exping and item hunting before SI and spellcrafting, now the poor place is deserted 24/7

 

[Twaize]

Originally posted by SilverHood
I wish they'd make the world a place where you belong, rather than where your forced to go.
For example (using midgard) - why on earth would you ever want to go to vanern swamp? So many better places around. It's pointless... except for the epic quests (getting there is a pain too)

So, rather than have vanern swamp out there in the middle of nowhere....
Why not have all zones, bar a few, as frontiers?

You could have levels 2-25 inside the safe zone, with a dungeon or 2 ranging up to level 40ish. To get to 50, you'd have to go xp in the frontier....
The frontiers would naturally have to be a lot bigger.... but imagine 10-12 malmohus or dartmoor like frontier zones.... not a pretty place unless you know what you're doing. After all, the frontiers are meant to be dangerous places.... why not make them?
Get rid of any xp/con penalties while fighting in the frontiers, and people could start going RvR'ing from level 40 - they'd get xp from the many mobs, rps from the enemies they encountered.
Rather than the few uber gank squads that run about, you'd have several hundred people from each realm in the frontiers at any time...
You'd have no lone stealthers sitting outside the gates, since he wouldn't be able to solo mobs in the frontier.....
Using the faction system, people could build up faction with mobs in certain areas, so they had a respite from certain mobs.... meaning you had to choose where you went and fought....

Gonna go to bed.... the ramblings of a beatiful mind

GOA you listening? This is what u gotta do. Also you Mythic!

 

[Nightchill]

GOA can't really do much besides pass suggestions on (which they do regularly I believe). Not allowed to make permanent changes to the game world etc. etc.

 

[wildsorcerer]

what really gets me the most is the time delay from US to here makes me really wish i had bought a US version of the game tbh


and aye its not the old zones that is the problem really its the loot ... 89% qua 93% qua items just ever gonan b used if they could make em as susgested above random qua 93-99 say it woudl make thease items viable in the game and ppl would hunt there