The Pros and Cons of the game.

Ravkeen · January 2008

These are some Pros and Cons of DAOC I would like to share with people that might try the game out.

The Pros

It is one of the few true PVP games made. In DAOC it is called RvR (Realm vs Realm). The core of the game is PVP and the remainder of the PVE content is built around this conflict and supports it. Most MMORPGs are PVE based and then just adds a PvP angle.

Realm V Realm is a contest between three sides. Most Games seem to be happy making 2 sides (one good one evil generally speaking). In daoc there are three. So its a unique feeling that you could be fighting one enemy and always in the back of your mind you are worried about the third realm ..will they help us? help them? or kill us both?

The esprit des corpes is something that is not often seen in most games. When you chose a side you must play that side. you cannot play all the realms on any one server. So in chosing you truely feel like a member of that group. Clustering has diminished this soemwhat but it generally still holds true. Now, understand that there are jerks in every game. So finding a good guild or alliance where the community is still fairly loyal will make your in game experience a LOT better.

Its casual player friendly. The level grind is very quick. The best weapons are player made and available. Equipment discrepencies do not have as much an impact as in other games. Thus someone in average gear can still take on and beat someone in ultra God mode gear. Solo play is available and you can solo up to high levels.

You can start fighting right out of the gate. The battlegrounds are small instanced areas where you can fight at any level again similarly leveled opponnants. These can be great fun

There is a HUGE number of player classes. Each with thier own abilities and function within a group of battle. Within each class there are specialization choices. This basically gives a wonderful feature of replayability. Many people have 4 , 5 or even 6 classes they enjoy.

Siege warfare. This game has a very robust and balanced siege system. Likely the best yet seen in any MMORPG. The attacks on castles and towers constantly occurs and is a great event. Scores of payers atacking and defending the walls/towers and rooms inside the castles (Keeps). Catapults, Batlle Rams, Boiling Oil, trebs, etc...are all here. This is one of the few games where the siege combat is very well developed. In the frontiers each realm has 7 keeps each one surrounded by 4 towers. Both Keeps and towers can be attacked individually or at the same time. As an attacker you are able to produce weapons to assist you in attacking and gaining control of your opponants towers or keeps. As a defender you can also construct siege weapons to attack opponants or destroy their siege machinery. A full scale keep siege is a thing of beauty. The walls become damaged and crumble leaving large gaps through which your force can charge through. Entire towers can be razed to the ground producing a cloud of dust and debris. One of the biggest draws to siege warfare is that this game gives you a reason to attack the castles. conqueing towers prevents easy access for defenders to quickly mount a defense and gives bonuses to your entire realm in XP or money that you recieve as you grind. It also opens up control of a PvP dungeon to your realm called Darkness Falls which is by far THE best place to level your character (or alts). Succesful control of many keeps will open up that realms relics which then you can steal. By doing so you make your realm stronger (In magic or melee ..depending on the one you take) and the victimized realm weaker.

The Cons

It had a disasterous expansion called Trials of Atlantis (TOA). Similar to SWG (star wars galaxies) it changed the game drastically and in many players views killed the game. Fortunatly (and unlike SWG) it made a classic server that eliminated this expansion from the game. These Classic servers are the most popular to play.

It has a buff bot problem. Buff bots give a significant advantage over players who do not have them. These are quite prevalent on the main servers. Fortunatly on classic servers this is also rectified and buffs have a range after which they are lost. Because of this some players place a buff bot on autofollow behind thier main fighting character. In this case they can still be a deadly force, but at least you have the ability to attack the bot. Whenever I see this I make it a special point to kill the bot first, even if I die ....players get especially angry when you kill thier bot..and that is a source of my joy.

A siege can be a very long ordeal if defended well. Sometimes this adds to the frustration. Also when it comes to keeps and towers the melee classes really lose out. Since they generally stand around whacking a wall or door the whole time while archers, casters, and stealthers are fighting a ranged battle on the walls (this may have changed). In my opinion ranged DPS have a distinct advantage over melee DPS.

As with all PvP games class balance is a fine line. Mythic has taken the stance that it doesnt balance classes but balances sides. Because of this you may find there are just some classes you have very little chance against. The game assumes you will have a complimentory group at your side. obviously this is not the way things work in practice. However, unless your a stealther, players learn to stick together and safety comes in numbers. This also adds to the esprit des corpes mentioned above. To Mythic's credit, given the sheer number of classes in this game, they have done a pretty good job.

The economy is probably the most fragile aspect of a MMORPG. In the beginnning it is solid, because there is little currency in the system. however, as a game gets older more and more money are placed into the syetem and thus devaluing it. Since this game is now 7 years old, the currency is not as valuable and items bought at player run vendors and crafter services tend to be higher. However, if you sell items or services you can charge more money for them.

Its an old game. The future of it is unclear. How will it coexist against Mythics upcoming project WARHAMMER online is unknown. It may be the last hurrah for DAOC, as many of the current DAOC players will move to WAR upon release. There are rumors that DAOC will become Free to play (F2P) upon the release of WAR, but this is only player speculation and there has been no official announcement from Mythic to this.

Czzarre · January 2008

Or you could just link to my website HERE where I wrote the article

Torrential

JulianDracos · January 2008

A few things to add to this. Not everyone hated ToA. The subscription numbers actually went up with ToA and only declined when WoW came out. ToA has been nerfed to hell so there is really no reason to play the "classic" servers. The classic servers are not comparable to SWG. SWG change the fundamentals of the game, ToA is an expansion. An expansion that added raids, uber loot and new abilties. Not really an apt comparison to SWG.

There is inflation, that happens with every game because no one ever addresses the fundamental problem - an infinite supply of money into the game. Instead they focus on money sinks. However, you do not need to spend money and most things leveling and by the time you are 50, you probably have enough money to get whatever it is you do need.

As for seige warfare, sometimes it does go on for a long time. I am not sure that is really an issue. What is an issue is they way in which realm points are awarded in siege. Where if you are there for 2 hours, but it takes an additional hour to take it that you do not get those rps. That the realm points are not high enough to justify spending time in a large scale siege. I think the little return for the large amount of time spent is the real problem and not that it just last a long time.

Stealthers do not fight on the walls. Assassins would be stupid to go near a siege because of archers with MoS. You will have minstrals and archers on the walls, but that is it. Heavy tanks can now climb walls and you can no construct siege ladders. Heavy tanks are used for rams and generally run the other siege equipment as well.

Distance matters, but tanks have gotten better at things. It certinaly is not a melee paradise during a keep siege, but they have improved over the past year. DAOC has a balancing aspect of the game. Casters do damage at a distance, but close up they get killed easily. Casters have a few tricks to avoid this, but not an infinite supply of those tricks. In order to keep themselves safe, the best thing is to be able to design the class to kill targets before they get to you. This is the cause of the problem and why some games have gone to making tanks/casters pretty much the same type of class. No huge damage at a distance, but you can also cast while being hit.

Czzarre · January 2008

Hey Julian, thanks for the comments. Ill add those into the article.

Torrential

Fadedbomb · January 2008

Originally posted by Ravkeen

These are some Pros and Cons of DAOC I would like to share with people that might try the game out.
The Pros
It is one of the few true PVP games made. In DAOC it is called RvR (Realm vs Realm). The core of the game is PVP and the remainder of the PVE content is built around this conflict and supports it. Most MMORPGs are PVE based and then just adds a PvP angle. (Best part about this game)
Realm V Realm is a contest between three sides. Most Games seem to be happy making 2 sides (one good one evil generally speaking). In daoc there are three. So its a unique feeling that you could be fighting one enemy and always in the back of your mind you are worried about the third realm ..will they help us? help them? or kill us both? (I love this aspect as well, plus when you get bored you can goto another server and have fun their on another realm for a short time, or to just learn your enemies weaknesses.)
The esprit des corpes is something that is not often seen in most games. When you chose a side you must play that side. you cannot play all the realms on any one server. So in chosing you truely feel like a member of that group. Clustering has diminished this soemwhat but it generally still holds true. Now, understand that there are jerks in every game. So finding a good guild or alliance where the community is still fairly loyal will make your in game experience a LOT better. (Unfortunately some people use 2nd accounts or even 3rd accounts [the losers of the game] to spy on other realm's raiding practices in pvp/rvr. However, this is counteracted almost all the time by serious guilds who keep it in-house and between alliances only.)
Its casual player friendly. The level grind is very quick. The best weapons are player made and available. Equipment discrepencies do not have as much an impact as in other games. Thus someone in average gear can still take on and beat someone in ultra God mode gear. Solo play is available and you can solo up to high levels. (It should be noted, the game really isn't "quick" as it has a good balance of time vs reward. The equipment differences can mean something if your fighting someone who has fully crafted and SC'ed whilst you have nothing but free gear. However, if your going to complain because the other guy worked for his where you didn't your just aiming yourself up for a shooting with a short barrel.)
You can start fighting right out of the gate. The battlegrounds are small instanced areas where you can fight at any level again similarly leveled opponnants. These can be great fun (Most people don't goto the battlegrounds below lvl 19, due to the /freelevel system. However, some do for kicks. However most noted that it is normally empty of action.)
There is a HUGE number of player classes. Each with thier own abilities and function within a group of battle. Within each class there are specialization choices. This basically gives a wonderful feature of replayability. Many people have 4 , 5 or even 6 classes they enjoy. (The fun about having the different and non-linear/non-clone classes is that ANYTHING you choose will have it's advantages and short comings regardless of whom you face or run from . Unlike games such as COH or WoW your class will stick out as unique in almost every encounter regardless of how many of the same class there are of you in your group/raid. A great example is "O noes there are 7 wizards outside our gate! But wait.....only 2 of them are fire wizards, one of those fire wizards took halfy halfy for good roots and decent nukes. Whilst the other fire wizard took full fire for full ranged fire bolts!! All the other wizards are different specializations of earth and ice!! Lets formulate a plan to decimate them!!"" .)
Siege warfare. This game has a very robust and balanced siege system. Likely the best yet seen in any MMORPG. The attacks on castles and towers constantly occurs and is a great event. Scores of payers atacking and defending the walls/towers and rooms inside the castles (Keeps). Catapults, Batlle Rams, Boiling Oil, trebs, etc...are all here. This is one of the few games where the siege combat is very well developed. In the frontiers each realm has 7 keeps each one surrounded by 4 towers. Both Keeps and towers can be attacked individually or at the same time. As an attacker you are able to produce weapons to assist you in attacking and gaining control of your opponants towers or keeps. As a defender you can also construct siege weapons to attack opponants or destroy their siege machinery. A full scale keep siege is a thing of beauty. The walls become damaged and crumble leaving large gaps through which your force can charge through. Entire towers can be razed to the ground producing a cloud of dust and debris. One of the biggest draws to siege warfare is that this game gives you a reason to attack the castles. conqueing towers prevents easy access for defenders to quickly mount a defense and gives bonuses to your entire realm in XP or money that you recieve as you grind. It also opens up control of a PvP dungeon to your realm called Darkness Falls which is by far THE best place to level your character (or alts). Succesful control of many keeps will open up that realms relics which then you can steal. By doing so you make your realm stronger (In magic or melee ..depending on the one you take) and the victimized realm weaker. (This is the MOSt fun part of the game when you get into a large drag out brawl with another realm. However, yes it can become frustrating if your playing with people who don't understand tactics.)
The Cons
It had a disasterous expansion called Trials of Atlantis (TOA). Similar to SWG (star wars galaxies) it changed the game drastically and in many players views killed the game. Fortunatly (and unlike SWG) it made a classic server that eliminated this expansion from the game. These Classic servers are the most popular to play. (TOA's short comings and flaws are based on a person's point of view ONLY. In reality what it did was reward people who worked harder than others, and whom had the more and resourcefull friends than others. Basically, if you were committed to it and had good friends you could get some nice artifacts that would boost your power by a few percentages. this was not a "disasterous expansion" and in NO way can be considered or even compared to SWG's "NGE".)
It has a buff bot problem. Buff bots give a significant advantage over players who do not have them. These are quite prevalent on the main servers. Fortunatly on classic servers this is also rectified and buffs have a range after which they are lost. Because of this some players place a buff bot on autofollow behind thier main fighting character. In this case they can still be a deadly force, but at least you have the ability to attack the bot. Whenever I see this I make it a special point to kill the bot first, even if I die ....players get especially angry when you kill thier bot..and that is a source of my joy. (This was "kind" of bad, but was outweighed heavily by group numbers. Buff bot or not you still had a chance to kill the "leet buffed" individuals. I remember a year ago when my unbuffed SB whooped the complete CRAP out of a fully buffed infiltrator. Buffs aren't everything but they indeed help a considerable deal. As said before, classic servers reduce this problem. Most noticeably to assasins.)
A siege can be a very long ordeal if defended well. Sometimes this adds to the frustration. Also when it comes to keeps and towers the melee classes really lose out. Since they generally stand around whacking a wall or door the whole time while archers, casters, and stealthers are fighting a ranged battle on the walls (this may have changed). In my opinion ranged DPS have a distinct advantage over melee DPS. (The"keep frustration" is not a part of this game. Frustration only occurs when your attacking a keep with new players or inexperienced rvr players whom run at the slightest show of force [this used to be an albion exclusive problem, back in the day albions would run and cower from midgard on Merlin specifically in the battlegrounds due to albion seemingly populated more with children than midgard]. And no, I played both sides equally as that was just an observation I made compared to Albion/Merlin and Midgard/Lancelot. As for melee's in keep sieges, that has gotten considerably better and are now required for keep sieges or else you cannot at ALL EVER EVER EVER take a keep in the main rvr. The Guards of a lvl 10 keep are just too tough.
It should also be noted that recently the developers added "free lvl 10 keeps", or in other words keeps no longer require bounty points to progress to lvl 10. This has angered the community as a whole and has reduced subscriber counts considerably.)
As with all PvP games class balance is a fine line. Mythic has taken the stance that it doesnt balance classes but balances sides. Because of this you may find there are just some classes you have very little chance against. The game assumes you will have a complimentory group at your side. obviously this is not the way things work in practice. However, unless your a stealther, players learn to stick together and safety comes in numbers. This also adds to the esprit des corpes mentioned above. To Mythic's credit, given the sheer number of classes in this game, they have done a pretty good job. (Having played DAOC, on every realm, ever since release I must COMPLETELY disagree with you. A question in the grab bag was actually suggested like this nearly to the T and completely shut down by Missy [community manager]. They "fix" classes based on how overpowered they are in pvp based on THEIR own testing and raw data found from rvring/pvping. Vampires were most noted to be the hardest class to kill 1v1 when they first came out. Now, if you know their weaknesses it's not hard at all to beat one. You just have to be good at your style times .)
The economy is probably the most fragile aspect of a MMORPG. In the beginnning it is solid, because there is little currency in the system. however, as a game gets older more and more money are placed into the syetem and thus devaluing it. Since this game is now 7 years old, the currency is not as valuable and items bought at player run vendors and crafter services tend to be higher. However, if you sell items or services you can charge more money for them. (This is a rather broad a generic statement. However, items sold on servers with respectable crafters do not have this issue. Classic the most noted, does not have a devalued system because it has a stronger community. If someone is overcharging that person is told they are, and is then warned about by the community,or at least thats how midgard is 60% of the time. The crafter might normally ask around for the right pricing methods and will fix his prices based upon time+effort+material costs. Though I'ved noticed this to be a rather poor problem with albion classic servers. I tried playing on the albion classic side for awhile only to be met with hostile prices. Comparative only to midgard and hibernia prices [a lot lower for the same level stuff].)
Its an old game. The future of it is unclear. How will it coexist against Mythics upcoming project WARHAMMER online is unknown. It may be the last hurrah for DAOC, as many of the current DAOC players will move to WAR upon release. There are rumors that DAOC will become Free to play (F2P) upon the release of WAR, but this is only player speculation and there has been no official announcement from Mythic to this. (The game is unique in every aspect compared to other MMO's. It has yet to be successfully copyed to this date. Your assumption "many Daoc players will move to War upon release" is a rather poor one I must say. Granted some will leave to "try" Warhammer out for, if anything, a change of pace for a short time. Most players normally come back out of nastalgic purposes. Further more the DAOC and WAR developers have stated time after time in official forums that the "F2P" part was a COMPLETE rumor and nothing more. They'd never do anything so stupid to their consumers.)

-DraGa

Czzarre · January 2008

Also thanks faded. I will make some adjustments and comments to the article based on your responses

Torrential

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