Would this solve any population problems?

[Das_Hibbie]

Well Mythic has been repeatidly shooting themselves in their feet as of late, and people are leaving for other games, mainly WoW and EQ2. My thought was this:

WoWs and EQ2s hype will not last forever. Once people loose the hype it's natural to look back at something you've enjoyed for a long period of time, in this case Daoc. However, ToA and NF will quickly stand in the way of the thought of daoc as charming.

My idea is an idea that had been brought up many times, but I think soon would be the ultimate time to actually do something about this idea. Say you open up a few servers (not too many!) which are Classic + SI. People nowadays seem to look back at Daoc when they're playing other games, feel a tingling feeling when they look back at how it was, and then shrug it off once they remember ToA and NF.

So by opening some Classic + SI servers only, after day 2-3 months of the WoW launch when the initial hype is settled, people might give it another go?
This for several reasons:

1) They look back at the good 'ol days without ToA and NF and "forget" about these expansions. This would make some leave WoW for sure when the hype is settled.

2) By only opening a few servers, they would get rather full and the sense of a higher population will draw back those who don't want to join a sinking ship and focus strongly on numbers and statistics.

3) New people will have to buy one less expansion if they so wish.

4) People will regain some sense of... trust to Mythic if they would admit such a thing as "not everybody likes ToA and NF, therefore we will <bla> <bla>..."


It would be awesome with a Classic + SI + Catacombs though perhaps? Catas seems more like SI as far as I've seen?

Any comments?

 

[bjorne]

Sounds gr8, i would reroll there as a skald again !
those times with only SI was the best days of daoc i ever enjoyed both pve and rvr, both grp and solo. i miss them badly.

ofc the really old days were very cool to with the super-ugly bufficons and stuff. Been with this game for 3 years and i still enjoy it thou and i feel abit sad when many ppl say bad things about the game.
I don´t know any other game that has been good for that long and allowed me to meet friends in the game that i later met irl.

I vote for the old days again !

 

[Bracken]

NF aint a problem - pop imbalance is. Solve that and NF is fine.

 

[Aonmeamna]

But what will fix that? All the under populated realm stuff won't imo it will just enable the same number to get other classes up quicker. A few may switch, but I doubt many.

ToA stupid balance, NF problems because of populations. Yeah, I'd go Classic+SI, and catacombs definately.

I think every zone in the game needs a dungeon, maybe not housing then again...

 

[Raven]

Well people say they enjoy NF, which is fine if its your thing, but the population crash speaks for itself toa/nf are not populer, however, how many people, after kicking the daoc addiction would actually want to reroll on a new server. I think people should just let it die, Mythic have taken it to far down the wrong road and personally i dont think the massive damage they have done to a once great game is repairable.

 

[Ilum]

Classic/SI wasn't that great either...ToA / NF had good ideas and improvements as well as the bad stuff.

I would like to see Frontiers altered to something inbetween that of OF and NF, have ToA but with all the nice fixes that 1.71 brings + a few more

 

[Devilseye]

just a copy of Gorre would be awesome imo

/level 50 .. pretty good RoG items..
i would leave Excal for it

 

[Flimgoblin]

the problem with nostalgia is it doesn't stand up to close inspection

people would try the classic daoc/si and go "man these graphics are mince, eww ugly trees, bah stupid bugs" and give up after a week or two of being ganked by some overpowered gank groups...

And despite how much people whine about ToA a lot of them still wouldn't be playing were it not for it - it added a whole load of stuff to the high level game which just wasn't there before.

 

[Abel]

Maybe you haven't noticed because DAoC was your first MMO but people move on and DAoC is hardly the best or the only good MMO around either.

The majority of the people who leave for WoW will *NOT* return to DAoC under any circumstance, they're simply bored with the game. They might not stick with WoW either but the hopes of some people on these boards that returning quitters will magically fix the lower populations is quite naive.

Face it, DAoC is over it's peak. The basic problems of DAoC - like population imbalances - are hard-coded into the game design and will *NEVER* get fixed, certainly not by returning to a "classic" server.

 

[Zil]

wow and eq2 prolly gonna be live swg and ps and all the other stuff.. people will be back.

loads said theyd quit for swg and they all came back, same old story

 

[Sendraks]

Face it, DAoC is over it's peak. The basic problems of DAoC - like population imbalances - are hard-coded into the game design and will *NEVER* get fixed, certainly not by returning to a "classic" server.

Seems that WoW is suffering from similar imbalance problems on a few servers. The majority seem to want to play alliance rather than horde and I don't know what measures Blizz have in place to counter this. You can only go so far with game mechanics and tweaking the classes before the problem becomes insurmountable one way or the other.

The only ways round this problem, that I can think of, is to make all the sides involved in a game with PvP content equally appealling at a first casual glance or place hardcaps on the population of each side on any individual server.

As has already been said, a lot of this seems to be about looking at the past through rose tinted glasses for those players who did well in OF, but find their advantaged and superiority eroded under NF. Creating classic+SI servers will not help DAoC, it will just thin the population across more servers and ultimately do the game no good in the long run.

 

[Raven]

wow and eq2 prolly gonna be live swg and ps and all the other stuff.. people will be back.

loads said theyd quit for swg and they all came back, same old story

yes but daoc was actually good in those days..today its just utter crap on the whole.

 

[legaoniel]

yes but daoc was actually good in those days..today its just utter crap on the whole.

..actually I think it had more to do with SWG being crap...

 

[Castus]

NF aint a problem - pop imbalance is. Solve that and NF is fine.

Spot on even though hes a villa fan

 

[Aonmeamna]

I see no reason why a MMORPG can't go on for ever, the business model of subscription and expansion means that the game should never become stale and boring, new graphics engines, zones, abilities all add things and the nature of the game can be changed completely over time if needed. Seems that it is needed somewhat.

The first need to figure out what is fun and what isn't, and I don't think mythic understand that concept, why else all the boring time sinks in the game, god crafting is the dullest waste of time yet created by man, and this is a game you pay for? Hell, it's not hard to figure out why it's got boring. Such limited transports too, and a silly horse system. Why can't I buy a horse ffs? Ride it like a boat.

There also needs to be more for the casual player. I only play the odd couple of hours here and there usually solo, and this suits the time I can give, but it also means that half the game is inaccessible to me. ToA was a waste of money for me, I doubt if I could ever do it, and all new dungeons age high level. If you are not a level 50 fg then Mythic aint interested in you.

How about changing the max level from 50?

 

[Awarkle]

the thing is the company hosting the game needs income to pay for staff/grounds/servers.

A small percentage of that subs will probbly go to shareholders, the rest will be stuck into a pot so after a year of being out the game gets an expansion.

The thing is this goes on and on every year or two they bring out another expansion. personally i think mythic have done it wrong by basically making you buy every expansion they have done.

IS SI an expansion that you NEED! yes if you want to play anims or boneys or necro's etc. But as an expansion it only extends the classic game and improves the engine.

Then comes toa which extends the end game and gives you access to shars/ogres/frostys. is it a requried expansion, probbly not in the beginning but towards the end of your leveling experience then yes toa is an expansion you might need.

Then comes catacombs that rebuilds the game engine and brings in some more pve content. is it required to own the previous two expansions to play this.,

Probbly not and yet you still have to.

Daoc will go on but say you get down to a single server of hard core players you wont see much in the way of new expansions you might see extra dungeons or encounters. That is when the game dies when it can no longer afford to produce expansions.

 

[gervaise]

OKay lets hit one myth on the head for starters: no one said that SWG would kill DAoC. Folks said they would try it but kill it - no.

WoW/EQ2 folks will be back. Another myth. As mentioned above once people move on they move and for all intents and purposes that is it. Yes there will be exceptions and because of ToA EQ1 did indeed see an influx of old players last year returning last February when they brought out there Omens expansion pack. But, as a general statement, its a myth.

People will be back when they have completed there free month. As above a myth. In addition many, many people had access to the free beta and then choose to buy the game. I think if they were going to quit they would have done so before.

After the hype .... another myth.
EQ2. The development and even the launch of EQ2 was incredibly low key. The concensus is that SOE wanted to protect EQ1. Still going and it had 2 expansions last year; as mentioned above the first was very sucessful. I played EQ prior to DAoC and I suspect that if you are still playing EQ1 or have switched to EQ2 then that, as far as you are concerned, is the game for you.
WoW: again no 'hype' from Blizzard. A few trailers and a steady stream of we are only going to release this game when its satisfied our high standards and QA folks. Any 'hype' came from the playerbase, people who tried WoW, were impressed and felt the urge to share. Stop for one moment and think: hype might get you to try the free beta but, I strongly suggest, that if you try the beta and don't like it no amount of hype will convert you.

Anyway the reality is that after the 'hype' and the opening sales of 250,000 copies Blizzard have now sold over 600,000 and had over 200,000 on - at once - over Christmas.

Expansion packs: this was the EQ model of the time. Reading the Blizzard boards it doesn't look like it will be there's - and with the size of the subscriber model they have they can easily afford to develop and release new content periodically. No distribution, no advertising needed, no expansion registration problems. This option may not be open to Mythic.

 

[Raven]

Thats the thing, MYthic have had over a years notice that big competition is coming, hyped by the players, lots of excitement. What do they do? release two crap and obviously unpopuler (everyone knew this from the start) expansions and increase the subs cost. Anyone would think that they want to lose players. Some sort of market test to determine how much you can slap loyal customers until they tell you to fuck off.

 

[Coldbeard]

Server with Classic+SI would be awesome

 

[Sendraks]

obviously unpopuler (everyone knew this from the start) expansions

Did they? Took a while for the TOA whines to surface, for the most part the biggest whine in Europe was that it was taking so long to get over here. As for NF, opinion is somewhat divided. NF is Mythic's attempt to broaded the games appeal to the casual player, the largest player market for MMORPGS now. The hardcore players are the ones bitching and moaning about NF, but as they don't make up the majority of the playerbase any more, its not good business sense to cater to their needs.

Rvr = better for the casual player since NF. They are the people Mythic need to make money from, they just need to pull their finger's out and advertise the game more in Europe.

Some sort of market test to determine how much you can slap loyal customers until they tell you to fuck off.

The loyal customer of yesterday is not represenatative of the customer base of tomorrow. It would be nice to see the loyalty of the long term, hardcore, players rewarded, but this doesn't make for good business.

 

[Red HATred]

the bigger the game gets , the faster the heart of a roleplayer strikes.

at least we'll have the possibities to get a new player, take him/her under our wings and explore the lands... show them treasures beyond their comprehension...


the fact is that every new expansion "should" bring new players.
So the old-core will become even more special..really powerful charcters etc...

in a way i like the evolution that happens..the more that leave.. the better ;-)

no need to try and save this game...i think it stays self-maintaining.

 

[Mabs]

personally i think mythic have done it wrong by basically making you buy every expansion they have done.

SI - bought
housing - free
TOA - bought
NF - free

ok, they are hardly shatteringly important, but still count as expansions

Going back to retro servers wont work, wouldnt last, too much rose tinted nostalgia.

Dare i say it, i think Mythic are better of concentrating on Imperator, getting that right, learning from daoc and that, and then in 4 years time, coming out with DAOC2
cos even with the main bugs, and the little annoyances, its still one of the better options out there atm.

 

[Gravediggah]

Well Mythic has been repeatidly shooting themselves in their feet as of late, and people are leaving for other games, mainly WoW and EQ2. My thought was this:

WoWs and EQ2s hype will not last forever. Once people loose the hype it's natural to look back at something you've enjoyed for a long period of time, in this case Daoc. However, ToA and NF will quickly stand in the way of the thought of daoc as charming.

My idea is an idea that had been brought up many times, but I think soon would be the ultimate time to actually do something about this idea. Say you open up a few servers (not too many!) which are Classic + SI. People nowadays seem to look back at Daoc when they're playing other games, feel a tingling feeling when they look back at how it was, and then shrug it off once they remember ToA and NF.

So by opening some Classic + SI servers only, after day 2-3 months of the WoW launch when the initial hype is settled, people might give it another go?
This for several reasons:

1) They look back at the good 'ol days without ToA and NF and "forget" about these expansions. This would make some leave WoW for sure when the hype is settled.

2) By only opening a few servers, they would get rather full and the sense of a higher population will draw back those who don't want to join a sinking ship and focus strongly on numbers and statistics.

3) New people will have to buy one less expansion if they so wish.

4) People will regain some sense of... trust to Mythic if they would admit such a thing as "not everybody likes ToA and NF, therefore we will <bla> <bla>..."


It would be awesome with a Classic + SI + Catacombs though perhaps? Catas seems more like SI as far as I've seen?

Any comments?

Not to be negative but i laugh kinda hard when i read this lol....Sounds exactly as UO ppl whined at Orgin to throw up a pvp server and ye after 2-3years after most left they actually did...

Only tho there was plenty of restrictions as always and alot of other bs,And last but not least how do you think GoA is handeling the current daoc servers?

:kissit: <----Yep thought so

Anyways as you said in topic"would be great,world peace would too"

 

[Ebra]

The most logic path this game will go is that after a while some servers will close down (1 already did in us).
Chars can be saved to other servers.
When this happens Mythic will sure have a sequel.
About balacing this game well think we mostly wanna see we have a uber char that actully can win a 1 v 1 fight.
Instead off facing with the problems certain chars really have we naging when we loose a fight.
Yes Albs mostly win because we come in numbers.
Yes Mids win because they do best Melee. (read was that a enemy under my feet)
Yes Hibs win because they do best Magic. (read 9 sec stun cast cast dead)
But that was how this game was intended in the first place.
We will see what Mythic will do in a sequel because if they nerf to hard now they will loose all there credit at once.

 

[Bloodaxe_Springskalle]

if they actually made a new server with classic+SI only i would definetly consider daoc as a permanent solution.
i doubt i would play Midgard again tho, but build a few chars on another realm and enjoy a even more casual way of daoc life than ive already had

 

[Asha]

Dare i say it, i think Mythic are better of concentrating on Imperator, getting that right, learning from daoc and that, and then in 4 years time, coming out with DAOC2
cos even with the main bugs, and the little annoyances, its still one of the better options out there atm.

Imperator is going to be pve only zzzzzzzzzzzzzz

 

[gervaise]

I think this and other threads have talked about the 'sense of community' that DAoC first had. And I mean DAoC not DAoC+SI. DAoC was, for want of a better term, the first 2nd generation game and most of the early players had experience in UO, EQ or AC. A new server with just DAoC and SI today wouldn't be the same.

As for Imperator I am one of those who doubts whether it will launch.
Mythic doesn't exactly have a good reputation to trade on at the moment.
More competition incoming:
Guild Wars (another wound),
Matric On-Line (a niche game assuming it launches, may take some folks and makes it that much harder to attract new folks)
and Lord of the Rings ...... well I looked at the website last night: it screamed DAoC at me.

 

[Ixu]

Let's ban 1/2 of albs and we don't have this problem anymore

 

[Smid]

The most crucial mistake Mythic did must have been the release of TOA, not because it was a good addon or not. The fact that it added 6 month to a game that was timeconsuming to start with.

I mean what sane player would buy a game if he knows that he got to invest one to one and a half year in a game before he can even start to anjoy and be competitive in RvR ? (which is what I see as the goal for this game)

 

[Helme]

The most crucial mistake Mythic did must have been the release of TOA, not because it was a good addon or not. The fact that it added 6 month to a game that was timeconsuming to start with.

Who the fuck said you need to have a tiptop ToA template? an SI template is just fine, no need for masterlevel 10 either. The ones who wants thiere uber templates etc. are those who play against equally equipted groups and want an huge advantage, its still possible to compete thought.