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Whats this game like?
Shownder
Member Posts: 72
Well, WoW is getting old =/
My guild moved from SWG to WoW, and now we wish to move yet again. We are watching DnL and so far it seems to be the winner. But, its November release date is a fair ways off...
Can someone give me a generalization of this game? I have read up on it, so you don't have to do a FAQ. What i'm looking for is some info that can't be found at info sites =P Some of my questions are:
Is it easy for newbies to get into the game? IE finding groups to level.
Whats the crafting like? We loved the in depth crafting of SWG, hate the craptastic crafting of WoW.
I've heard alot on unbalanced classes for RvR, is this true? If we choose the 'Wrong' class will we be gimped forever?
What is leveling like? Is it just a grind like L2? Or does it have quest xp rewards like WoW? Is there some side stuff to do when you don't feel like killing stuff IE: Crafting worth the effort, a house to decorate, etc...
Thanks =D
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Tested: SWG, Sims, EVE, CoH, RO, Darkages, Neocron, AO, Lineage 2, ATITD 2, AC 2, WoW, MxO, LotRO, Armada Online, VsoH
Playing: WoW
Waiting for: StO
Comments
I also have some questions about joining this game. I played EQ for a while, but got fed up with the camping and all things that go along with camping... camp-stealing, kill-stealing, trains, etc. I also didn't care for the massive twinking of characters since I would rather earn my character's equipment, and that put me at a huge disadvantage in comparison.
Next, I went to WoW. I liked what they did with the equipment to prevent twinking, but the game quickly got boring. It's just too simplistic, which attracts a less mature community in my opinion (I did find a lot of exceptions). The quest-based system was an improvement over EQ's grinding, though.
So, my question is: Am I in for more of the same with DAoC? I like what I see so far, but I'm not looking for a repeat of EQ's crap.
Ok if you play on the higher population servers it is much easier to find a group at lower levels. If you are playing on a lower population server it can be hard. There will still be toons your level, but fewer of them, and they might not want to group. They were the first mmorpg to my knowledge to offer a looking for group window. You put the flag on and you can search for people that way as well.
They are launching two new servers on July 14th. The people who play there will all start off at level 1 so in that case it really won't matter if you are new if you play on those.
Crafting is a grind. It will become addictive, but it sucks to level. You pick your tradeskill: fletcher, armorcrafter, weaponscraft, tailor, spellcrafter, or alchemist. The 'mundane' skills you can do quests for, but spellcrafters and alchemy you cannot. So you basically make and item and sell it at 50% loss and then repeat over and over. Skilling up goes quickely until you are half way to the top. Then it becomes slow. They talk about changing crafting and it might happen this year, but not yet.
RvR is not 'unbalanced.' This is the internet. People who go to message boards are there to complain and will bitch about their issues with the game. I will admit there are problems, but almost everyone agrees that the RvR blows WoW out of the water. Further you can start doing RvR at level 1, altough on the current servers it is really level 20 when it picks up. So you can test your character out before level 50. You also have 10-12 character slots so not a problem in having more than one character.
Leveling is a grind only if you make it a grind. There are a huge amount of quests and they are easy to find. The people with quests will have yellow circles around their feet. If you do the quests in the new zones leveling is extremely fast. The older zones and quests do not give as much and it will take you longer to level. The quests are not as involved as what WoW has done, but if you are a quest person then you can do that. In fact at higher levels that is what I would suggest. I commanly get 60-80% of a level done by quests I do at level 46+
I am not a quest person, but I just cannot stand to sit in one spot over and over killing the mobs for hours on end to level. It just drives me nuts and makes it feel like a grind when I do that.
You can buy a house. You can decorate it. You can put NPC merchants there to supply you items. You have a vault to store extra stuff. You can bind at your house. You can sell items from your house. And you have crafting.
This is not EQ or an SoE game. In fact one of the first reviews of DAOC when it came out was that it fixed everything that was wrong with EQ. In fact most of the changes that EQ made in the past few years have been in response to DAOC.
There are a huge amount of places to level and do quests so camp stealing doesn't happen. The more you pull from one area the less XP you get so people do not want to kill from the same camp anyway. Not to mention you have a far more mature community than you find in EQ.
There are not trains in DAOC. That is monsters actually give up after a while of chasing. Further, trains do not attack other players. They will go back to their spot.
How your equipment relates to other people's is unimporant. Although since EQ is all about grinding I can see why you might care if you are keeping up with others, but that will frustrate you in any game. In DAOC crafted equipment is almost always the best equipment anyway. There are some great loots out there, but you would only use a few of those most of it is player crafted.
Items have levels. If it is too high above your level it is not as effective. Further it degrades quicker. Lets say you are level 20 and you are wearing level 25 gear. You can get +5 to a resist at that level and that it what your equipment gives you. You fight someone who is 20 with level 50 gear that has +11 to a resist. That level 20 person at most will get the +5 resist.
There are something like 45 different classes I think spanning 3 realms. You have a lot of character slots. You have trade skills. You have RvR. You do not have the EQ BS going on.
I am not saying the game is for you, but it is a vast improvment of EQ.
I was asking this same thing lastnight, so I said screw it, im gonna DL the 14 day trial. I played for about 2 hours. The first thing I noticed was difficulty controling the camera with the mouse. Just a tiny set back. Holding down the right button and rolling the mouse will zoo,. That was the big achievment of the night.
Anyhow I got to level three killing some critters, and doing a quest. I thought that went by pretty fast. The graphics are good, and the theme is really midievil (spl) NPC names are something straight out of a history book. Which oddly it made it feel like a first person Age of Empires. Not your typical fantasy world. I chose a mage as a break from the normal ranger I play in other games. MAGIC IS FUN!!! In other games I have played, your mana typically runs out really fast in the starter levels, and magic users arent known for physical attacks, so you have a hard time getting experience. I used my spells alot lastnight and never dipped under 75 percent of my mana stores. I could not cast during combat because when I was attacked the spell was interupted. So that gave me a reason to find a decent staff to bash heads with. Without a manual I don't understand what all the numbers and colors mean, but this game has kept my attention really well.
The unpopulated areas in some servers will give you bonus XP, coins and other freebies as an incentive for people to play in that particular area. Kinda cool idea. I will be trying that soon. I didn't run into many players, mostly because I was in a noob town, but there were a few high lvl guys running around.
If you watch the opening trailer you can see castles being attacked and destroyed. Apparently you can set up shop in one of those things and defend em. Now that looked really fun to me. All lastnight there were messages of on Realm taking over another Realm. That gave the game a good dose of community and purpose rather than your standard dueling if you are a PvP person. Since you played Galaxies, it looked to be a little bit like a base attack, except you can physically destroy the castles. Not just take it over while everybody respawns and try to slice into the terminal....I thought Galaxies had a good idea with that, but it didnt feel like I was really attacking or defending anything.
Have your people give it a shot while the trial is going. I'm prolly gonna be playing this for a while if that means anything to you.
Well not to be real negative here but stick to a mage class. The ultimate class to solo is a full summoning speced Spiritmaster. I do mostly task dungeons (Catacombs expansion which BTW is one of the best things to happen to DAoC IMO) and I think I have not died since I started doing them.
Now why would I say not to play a ranger? I play on Coop server which allows me to play on all realms. My level 50 Huntress can not survive as well against mobs over her level like a SM can. If you go with a archer class you are going to be a support class in PvE but in PvP you will find solo running in frontiers the way to play. If you play a summoning speced SM you are going to rock in PvE but PvP is going to be an upward battle.
Other good solo classes for PvE (IMO) full mind spec Sorc is a great class as they can charm anything up to their level. Minstrel speced in music can over charm up to level 55 creatures however there is limitations and a chance to break charm when over charming. I have heard a Minstrel claim to have charmed a level 60 mob but can not confirm that.
I have tried a lot of MMOs and I came back to this one because it is probably one of the best out there. (my opinion of course)
I dont use my mouse to pan camer I just use the arrow keys to run around and then the "a" abd "z" key to look up and down.
i think it works better that way.
Two clean, brand new servers on the 14th?
No character transfers? Meaning no mega twinks? Or yes?
And are those two servers full PvP or are they PvE or whatnot? I've no idea how the rest of the DAoC servers are set up though.
Am interested to try it until RV kicks off. Especially if it's a clean slate start at level 1 on the new servers.
Cheers
"(The) Iraqi people owe the American people a huge debt of gratitude." - George W Bush.
Oh. My. God.
2 new servers have alternative rules bu they are the basic DAOC server types with PvE and PvP.
PvP is the RvR part of DAoC
Great, thankyou for the fast reply.
Any idea if they are allowing character transfers to these servers?
"(The) Iraqi people owe the American people a huge debt of gratitude." - George W Bush.
Oh. My. God.
Ok great
Looking at the trial though, it's a 1.8gig download, and that's for the basic trial with no expansions etc right?
Am just thinking, if I really did want to try this game, I can probably get a box for $10..
But is it *that* good?
hehe
"(The) Iraqi people owe the American people a huge debt of gratitude." - George W Bush.
Oh. My. God.