The lack of people due to the /level 20 or /level 30 command is a problem. It was hard for me to get my Ranger up to lvl 38 and tha was the highest character I had before I stopped playing due to my guild going to the coop server and I didn't really enjoy it there. I liked the RvR. Anyway why they don't allow new players to use the /20 or /30 command doesn't make any sense to me. All the people that are high levels or have lvl 50 characters will not make a newbie character since they can automaticly level up to lvl 20 or higher depending on the server and realm. That makes it really hard for new players with no level 50 character to get into the game since they are alone with no one to group with. Sure you can solo at those levels but its slow and not really a lot of fun. A lot of areas are empty. Dark Age of Camelot is one of the best mmorpg I've played but its only fun when played with people around your level. I remember when there used to be a waiting list for Parth farm in the Hib realm on the Merlin server. Last time I played it was completely empty. As where the surrounding dungeon areas. Everyone was in the Keep closest to Tir na Nog going into the battlegrounds with their level 30s or going into the Frontier to take keeps. I enjoyed being friends with those in my guild but hated when they were always creating 30s to screw around in the battlegrounds after they maxed out there when I was stuggling to level up since I could no long go into the battlegrounds and wasn't high enough to go into the frontier. It destroys the game that way.
Honestly there are times when I hate when a guild breaks up but I was happy when they finally left to go to the coop server. I hated how they acted at times, even though I been a member for a few months, I never felt as one of them due to this but stayed since I couldn't find a better guild to be honest. I don't think I'd ever go back to DAoC. Its to broken now due to certain things. From what I understand if you dont' have Trials of Atlantis or the time to do the trials then there is no point in going into RvR anymore cause you won't be able to match up with the benefits of the Trials expansion. If you don't have a level 50, forget about trying to find groups cause people would rather recreat characters to hunt in the battlegrounds. The Coop server is actually boring due to the low number people on it which makes finding a group even harder. I couldn't recommend DAoC to anyone. Sorry you bought the game but there are better games out there right now. Not many though. Best to try Everquest 2 or World of Warcraft or Eve Online. It would be easier to get into and you'd most likely have a lot more fun.
Its starting to look like if you haven't joined and started playing a MMORPG in its first year of life it just gets harder and harder to get into one as the years and months go on since it becomes so top heavy and the devs only tend to focus on the high level elements of the game and less and less on the lower level of the game.
If I ever did go back, I'd only go back if I could buy an account online so I could create a lvl 20 or a lvl 30. No way would I try a new character from the very start anymore. Then again maybe this line of thinking is just adding to the problem but don't see any other way of enjoying this game. EQ is like this as well since its hard to find people at the lower levels. AC1 and AC2 are even worse. Anarchy Online doesn't have this problem that much since peopel can solo missions with a good pace of advancement compared to toher games.
I played this game for more thna 3 years, and i dont think i could recomend a person to start paying the game now. First of there are so many lvl 50's in the game that many ppl might not wanna start yet another char. But then on the other side Catacombs are out and ppl wanna try out the new classes.
The biggest prob with a new chars are that first u got to lvl it to 50, thats about 5-10 days playtime if you got good grps going. Then u got your artifacts and lvling those...another 7-14 days of playtime if you can get the help doing them. After that you got to get your masterlvls (no way to say how long that takes) and that is a royal pain in the butt, you cant be competitiv in rvr in this stage of the game without masterlvl abilitys.
Daoc is a great game and it has the best pvp/rvr in any game out there in my opinion, but i dont not think its a game you start out with when you join the mmorpg scene. If you do join daoc, check at www.camelotherald.com and find a server with a lot of ppl on it and join that server.
I've been playing for six months now and having a great time!! I don't think that I would say "NO" to the game....but instead give the trial period a chance.
now this is a realy big problem with daoc, when they added the /level command all the experienced players starts at lvl 20, so if a new player comes they will most often find it abit lonely untill they get to lvl 20-30.
sure the /level command is usfull but it makes it harder and more boring for a newbie/new players to establish in the game, almoste the only way to beat this is to join a guild where you will always have someone to speak to/ask for help/find anyone to play with.
i play the eu ver. on excal/mid and its not to often you see a realy lowlvl player, most are pl'ed or /level'd.
so maybe for the sake of newbies goa/mystic should remove or change this, it kind of stops new players to start the game. witch will get even lower when WoW hit us.
If you have no fun playing to higher levels solo you should try to find a guild. Since there isnt much to do when you reached lvl 50 and upped your master level you will find people who have fun to help you getting a high level fast by killing high lvl mobs with you in party.
There will be too many people upset if they remove the /level command. So many people wanted it. i do admit it has hurt the lower level community somewhat. On the other hand it has kept many people playing the game that might have quit. I hate camping one spot for hours on end killing crap for days of my life just to get high enough to go to the BG or RvR. With the /level command I can always go out to Thid and I get the avoid 1-20.
Right now is a good time for someone to start. With the new expansion there are a lot of people around leveling under 20. By a lot I mean on my server there were maybe 10 people below 20 and now there are about 30 and some aren't vamps. I am actually having some fun for once leveling because it has become so much faster and the game has become much more solo/newbie friendly than the last time I was stuck leveling a toon under 20.
I woudl say if you play now pick one of the more populated servers. If you start in a month of two then it won't matter that much when they add server clustering.
Catacombs might add lot but you'd have to buy all of the expansions. I never understood why you had to buy Trials of Atlantis just so you could play Catacombs. Trials is a HIGH level expansion while Catacombs, like SI is for everyone it seems.
I've been playing for about two and a half months now, Hibernia on the European server, Excalibur. I have to say I've had no trouble at all finding other newcomers to the game - indeed, since my character passed about 15th level, I've had many people asking for power-levelling, cash, or gear. Since I got similar help when I was starting, I've been happy to help out - but there's definitely a newbie population there. How long did you wait on any given server?
Right now I think that DAOC is more popular in Europe than it is in the US. I think it is growning there more which helps, and you have fewer servers. Excalibur is one of the more populated ones, at least for English speakers right?
I play on a low populated on in the US. Maybe 1200 at peak times and I would say not including the people leveling new characters there are maybe 10 people below level 20 on at that time. Which means they are probably new or new enough to not have a level 50. Occasionally I will get someone asking me to power level them which I take as very odd. It is one thing for someone to ask for a group while people are hunting, but when I am crafting minding my own buisness I take it as rather rude.
Just with so many servers in the US the new population is spread out way too much. Server clustering will help out a lot. Also, use your find a group option. I think most new players never use that so they never find groups.
Originally posted by JulianDracos Right now I think that DAOC is more popular in Europe than it is in the US. I think it is growning there more which helps, and you have fewer servers. Excalibur is one of the more populated ones, at least for English speakers right?
I think so. When I logged on at 16:00 or so this afternoon, there were 1600-odd on. Thidranki was oddly quiet, but the dungeons and Tir Na nOg were all reasonably busy.
Originally posted by Chazinator I just got the platinum edition, I jumped around to about 8 servers, and I am always the only one on. I have run into a handful of players, what fun is it to play an online game with only yourself? Is it always this way? I am a bit frustrated because I paid for the game and there is no one around. Can someone please tell me what is going on? Is there a newb server I am missing? thanks!
Yes, the last time I played (6 months ago) same experience. This was a very cool game in its infancy, but I think it ran through its life quickly. Some of this was because of a disastrous decision to implement an auto-levelling command that started players who had level 50 characters with new character that could start at level 20. Over time, the low levels areas (which had lots of charm) emptied out. Next to early Everquest, I think early DAOC was one of the best MMORPG gaming experiences I ever had. Was just a cool game. Great weapon and armor graphics.
Was ?! it's still is and will be, i dont know where ppl geting things like DAoC only whants your money they got lots of bugs in game bad in-game support, hard leveling show me a game with good in-game support try to prove to me that EQ2 or WoW got les bugs in those games , and before yalling that there is no balance in RvR think about that there is 3 realms and 44 classes its waaaay more than in EQ2 and specialy WoW, and those who are talking about only noob on server lol i can get to lvl 20 in 4hours without buff bot and only with Si.
my friends telling me that WoW got bether gameplay yah right, in wich way and they saying that wow pvp is bether cus there is no mezz but after 2 weaks of playing i started to realize that they cud use one. and bash with polymorf even vorse than mezz
Why do people blame this issue on Mythic? That fact is you could log on to EQ servers and find the same issue - no one around. This is what happens when you show up late to the party. You are always going to have problems finding a low level group in any game after about 18 months. People will have gotten bored with leveling - I know I did. It was often ahrd to get groups, then you ended up camping a spot in CM. Sat there for hours killing wees to get a level. That was some of the most borning crap to do espically after you have done it a couple of times.
In DAOC people stopped starting new toons way before the /level command. If they did level it was powerleveling. If the /level command was something people didn't want they did not have to use it. But pretty much everyone does. What does that tell you? That people would prefer to have it than not to have it.
Add into all of this trying out other realms and servers; also that even when people are active in a game after a couple of years the amount of time they play decreases and you have the population problems that are going on in DAOC.
To new players here is what you do. First put up your flag that you are looking for a group. Second use the /who command to find people near your level and ask for a group. Third things will get better with clustering. You will now have instead of 10 people around your level, 30-40. That will help out a lot.
In the end, if you expect a game that has been out a long time to have lots of new characters in the starting areas your expectations are going to be disapointed.
Opinions are opinions, but a general concensus is that the "/20" command killed the low level game which made it much less friendly to newcomers. I have a personal saying that goes, "when the low level game starts to die out, the MMORPG dies out."
Noobs are what help to make a vibrant game world. Just seeing folks run past you to buy/sell/trade/craft or simply pass through makes for a better game. MMORPG's are part chatroom and part RPG. When the low level game dries up, all that's left is RPG, and for that you might as well be playing Diablo instead of a MMORPG.
Now all MMORPG's will dry up at some point. Some of the pioneers of MMORPG design say that a good MMORPG should have a life of about 8 years. I imagine that after 4 or 5, things start to get old, the expansions are pushing the envelope and in the last few years, the game is a high-end grind for uber guilds.
But DAOC dried up more quickly. Even after the first year, it felt like the low-level game was thinning out a bit too much. And that dastardly "/20" command killed the low level game. The bulk of the players are now in the upper levels. To get up there, in order to have plenty of folks to game with, you almost have to grind alone because groups will be very occasional.
This was a good game; it just raced by too quickly.
JulianDracos is right, after 18 mounths game will have a low pop of low lvl chars but it didnt made DAoC bad for new players. And think about that im having atlest 5-10 tells from noobs evry day whos asking for advice or 1g i cant say that there is no low lvl, just if they ask ppl will tell them what to do and most of questions is where can i exp. Evryone who got 2 lvl 50 allredy knows where and will send them there thats why its hard to find low lvl near towns. And its fast to get to lvl 20 it takes near 3-5 hours even for most new players, thats why you use /who and see most of players 15-20+ but it makes ppl to think that they are only one whos that low, all they need is to exp to 20lvl and they will see even too many players.
Originally posted by TheGrimReape JulianDracos is right after 18 mounths game will have a low pop of low lvl chars but it didnt made DAoC bad for new players and to think im having atlest 5-10 tells from noobs evry day whos asking for advice or 1g i cant say that there is no low lvl, just if they ask ppl will tell them what to do and most of questions is where can i exp evryone who got 2 lvl 50 allredy knows where and will send them there thats why its hard to find low lvl near towns and its fast to get to lvl 20 it takes near 3-5 hours even for most new players thats why you use /who and see most of players 15-20+ but it makes ppl to think that they are only one whos that low, all they need is to exp to 20lvl and they will see even too many players.
Lol, nice block of text. Try using more "." and spacing maybe
(could not hold my breath long enough to read all the text myself).
As said above my post, the "/who" command is your friend ! (then send tells to the guys who are about same level as you)
Originally posted by panache My fondest memories of the game were at the low levels too. I took various classes from 1 to 50 going through the same spots/dungeons and never got bored once. Daoc offered a great chance of meeting people and having a laugh. Compare this to SWG's "solo grouping" experience is like comparing chalk and cheese. Even at 50 i would still like PVE groups....but on my very last group, out of the 8 that were in it 4 were bots. Daoc will be around for a while longer...i just wish they hadn't turned it into a uber loot fest. If you have a few mates who could try this game at the same time as you so you're never alone, you will have a great time in one of the best mmorpg's i've ever played.
Pan
Whole heartedly agree with ya man! DAoC is by far the BEST MMORPG I've ever played (I currently play WoW, was playing EvE). The housing, the PVE enviorment, I remember the opening of Darkness Falls, I remember running along the beach with a group of friends, running away from crabs, asking for heals. Then going into the Ravines, seeing werewolves, getting freaked out.. Going into a spin, slapping through all of the weird looking creatures.. I remember being level 50 right in DF, being really happy..getting my armor SCed finally, buying a house, joining the best guild ever, (for 4 consecutive weeks, we were the top weekly realm point earners on Kay with 11 people (Furvos Latros) hehe) and running around instant healing people, laughing at stupid hibs and albs who tried to rush our one FG, and us killing zergs at a time..
Making new characters, on different servs, being different realms, seeing all the other realms and cities and mobs.. It was an amazing year and a half. Best MMORPG..
HOWEVER..
DAOC is dying out. It's got some life left in it, maybe a few months more. But there are just too many games out overtaking it's place. Yeah, it was probably the best game ever two years ago. Best MMORPG in my experience, and I miss the old times. But now it's way different, there's too many people who are 50, so the leveling experience sucks, everyones so serious now..you can't even make new friends..hardly..
Originally posted by Spokrey HOWEVER.. DAOC is dying out. It's got some life left in it, maybe a few months more. But there are just too many games out overtaking it's place. Yeah, it was probably the best game ever two years ago. Best MMORPG in my experience, and I miss the old times. But now it's way different, there's too many people who are 50, so the leveling experience sucks, everyones so serious now..you can't even make new friends..hardly.. ahh.. i miss the good ol' days..
Ok let me see here. EQ which has been around longer than DAOC has over 400,000 subscribers, but it doesn't have months left, just DAOC? The release of EQ2 and WoW while having some impact on the total subcriptions it has not had any impact on the number of active players. WoW is having a huge amount of problems. Those problems probably won't be fixed until after DAOC next path. WoW still doesn't have any good RvR yet and part of the system is still missing. EQ2 doesn't appeal to most of the DAOC player base.
Now given all of that, DAOC is somehoe going to die in a few months? So 250,000 subscribers are all going to go 'hmm, people on message boards keep telling me the game is dying so they must be right. I will quit this game that I like and go play a new game.'
For all of you that think DAOC is dead you are simply wrong. No game the size of DAOC has ever gone away yet. The game will stay around for many more years. It will still have around 250,000 players. In fact in 6-12 months I might expect it to grow. WoW has pulled in many players to the MMORPG. They will eventually want to try other games. If they want a game with RvR out there, they will try DAOC.
There is a cycle of certain people in games. There are a large amount of people that come into a game thinking it is really great. Then between the game changing in directions they do not want and/or the newness wearing off they move on to another game. Face it, in any MMORPG that has been around you will have seen everything. You will get a new expnasion every year. It will offer new classes and some new zones to go look at. Once you play them and look around, then what? Wait for the next expansion. That is never enough for a part of the playre community that wants total newness. That wants totally new classes, everything new, and the enjoyment of entering a game with a bunch of other new people and exploring and leveling.
I know that if I were to buy a new game and try it out I would be very into it for a few months. Then I would realize that it is mostly the same as any other MMORPG. I would then go back to whichever one I thought was the best. Others will continue to move on to newer games seeking that same rush again.
But to counter what message boards love to say DAOC is not anywhere near dead.
looks like somone didnt play after toa release. now casters own rvr in most cases. and mythic realised that mistake with TOA and created Catacombs all peopels happy with it. And EQ isnt same like DAoC sony games have strange (how do you say taht .......oh) way to stop evolving. that what kills game.
hmm i think itas off topic theam but i dont know why so many ppl mad about toa even after that huge nerf that mythic made to all artifacts g my VW got only on art SoK and i can kill sorc BoD3 purge1 IP2
Comments
And your reasons for that statement would be? :P
Looking for something new.
Honestly there are times when I hate when a guild breaks up but I was happy when they finally left to go to the coop server. I hated how they acted at times, even though I been a member for a few months, I never felt as one of them due to this but stayed since I couldn't find a better guild to be honest. I don't think I'd ever go back to DAoC. Its to broken now due to certain things. From what I understand if you dont' have Trials of Atlantis or the time to do the trials then there is no point in going into RvR anymore cause you won't be able to match up with the benefits of the Trials expansion. If you don't have a level 50, forget about trying to find groups cause people would rather recreat characters to hunt in the battlegrounds. The Coop server is actually boring due to the low number people on it which makes finding a group even harder. I couldn't recommend DAoC to anyone. Sorry you bought the game but there are better games out there right now. Not many though. Best to try Everquest 2 or World of Warcraft or Eve Online. It would be easier to get into and you'd most likely have a lot more fun.
Its starting to look like if you haven't joined and started playing a MMORPG in its first year of life it just gets harder and harder to get into one as the years and months go on since it becomes so top heavy and the devs only tend to focus on the high level elements of the game and less and less on the lower level of the game.
If I ever did go back, I'd only go back if I could buy an account online so I could create a lvl 20 or a lvl 30. No way would I try a new character from the very start anymore. Then again maybe this line of thinking is just adding to the problem but don't see any other way of enjoying this game. EQ is like this as well since its hard to find people at the lower levels. AC1 and AC2 are even worse. Anarchy Online doesn't have this problem that much since peopel can solo missions with a good pace of advancement compared to toher games.
I played this game for more thna 3 years, and i dont think i could recomend a person to start paying the game now. First of there are so many lvl 50's in the game that many ppl might not wanna start yet another char. But then on the other side Catacombs are out and ppl wanna try out the new classes.
The biggest prob with a new chars are that first u got to lvl it to 50, thats about 5-10 days playtime if you got good grps going. Then u got your artifacts and lvling those...another 7-14 days of playtime if you can get the help doing them. After that you got to get your masterlvls (no way to say how long that takes) and that is a royal pain in the butt, you cant be competitiv in rvr in this stage of the game without masterlvl abilitys.
Daoc is a great game and it has the best pvp/rvr in any game out there in my opinion, but i dont not think its a game you start out with when you join the mmorpg scene. If you do join daoc, check at www.camelotherald.com and find a server with a lot of ppl on it and join that server.
now this is a realy big problem with daoc, when they added the /level command all the experienced players starts at lvl 20, so if a new player comes they will most often find it abit lonely untill they get to lvl 20-30.
sure the /level command is usfull but it makes it harder and more boring for a newbie/new players to establish in the game, almoste the only way to beat this is to join a guild where you will always have someone to speak to/ask for help/find anyone to play with.
i play the eu ver. on excal/mid and its not to often you see a realy lowlvl player, most are pl'ed or /level'd.
so maybe for the sake of newbies goa/mystic should remove or change this, it kind of stops new players to start the game. witch will get even lower when WoW hit us.
over and out
over and out
If you have no fun playing to higher levels solo you should try to find a guild. Since there isnt much to do when you reached lvl 50 and upped your master level you will find people who have fun to help you getting a high level fast by killing high lvl mobs with you in party.
Guess your in the wrong places....
There will be too many people upset if they remove the /level command. So many people wanted it. i do admit it has hurt the lower level community somewhat. On the other hand it has kept many people playing the game that might have quit. I hate camping one spot for hours on end killing crap for days of my life just to get high enough to go to the BG or RvR. With the /level command I can always go out to Thid and I get the avoid 1-20.
Right now is a good time for someone to start. With the new expansion there are a lot of people around leveling under 20. By a lot I mean on my server there were maybe 10 people below 20 and now there are about 30 and some aren't vamps. I am actually having some fun for once leveling because it has become so much faster and the game has become much more solo/newbie friendly than the last time I was stuck leveling a toon under 20.
I woudl say if you play now pick one of the more populated servers. If you start in a month of two then it won't matter that much when they add server clustering.
I've been playing for about two and a half months now, Hibernia on the European server, Excalibur. I have to say I've had no trouble at all finding other newcomers to the game - indeed, since my character passed about 15th level, I've had many people asking for power-levelling, cash, or gear. Since I got similar help when I was starting, I've been happy to help out - but there's definitely a newbie population there. How long did you wait on any given server?
http://fireflymmo.com/
Right now I think that DAOC is more popular in Europe than it is in the US. I think it is growning there more which helps, and you have fewer servers. Excalibur is one of the more populated ones, at least for English speakers right?
I play on a low populated on in the US. Maybe 1200 at peak times and I would say not including the people leveling new characters there are maybe 10 people below level 20 on at that time. Which means they are probably new or new enough to not have a level 50. Occasionally I will get someone asking me to power level them which I take as very odd. It is one thing for someone to ask for a group while people are hunting, but when I am crafting minding my own buisness I take it as rather rude.
Just with so many servers in the US the new population is spread out way too much. Server clustering will help out a lot. Also, use your find a group option. I think most new players never use that so they never find groups.
I think so. When I logged on at 16:00 or so this afternoon, there were 1600-odd on. Thidranki was oddly quiet, but the dungeons and Tir Na nOg were all reasonably busy.
http://fireflymmo.com/
Yes, the last time I played (6 months ago) same experience. This was a very cool game in its infancy, but I think it ran through its life quickly. Some of this was because of a disastrous decision to implement an auto-levelling command that started players who had level 50 characters with new character that could start at level 20. Over time, the low levels areas (which had lots of charm) emptied out. Next to early Everquest, I think early DAOC was one of the best MMORPG gaming experiences I ever had. Was just a cool game. Great weapon and armor graphics.
Was ?! it's still is and will be, i dont know where ppl geting things like DAoC only whants your money they got lots of bugs in game bad in-game support, hard leveling
show me a game with good in-game support try to prove to me that EQ2 or WoW got les bugs in those games , and before yalling that there is no balance in RvR think about that there is 3 realms and 44 classes its waaaay more than in EQ2 and specialy WoW, and those who are talking about only noob on server lol i can get to lvl 20 in 4hours without buff bot and only with Si.
my friends telling me that WoW got bether gameplay
yah right, in wich way and they saying that wow pvp is bether cus there is no mezz but after 2 weaks of playing i started to realize that they cud use one. and bash with polymorf even vorse than mezz
P.S. sorry english isnt my home language.
Why do people blame this issue on Mythic? That fact is you could log on to EQ servers and find the same issue - no one around. This is what happens when you show up late to the party. You are always going to have problems finding a low level group in any game after about 18 months. People will have gotten bored with leveling - I know I did. It was often ahrd to get groups, then you ended up camping a spot in CM. Sat there for hours killing wees to get a level. That was some of the most borning crap to do espically after you have done it a couple of times.
In DAOC people stopped starting new toons way before the /level command. If they did level it was powerleveling. If the /level command was something people didn't want they did not have to use it. But pretty much everyone does. What does that tell you? That people would prefer to have it than not to have it.
Add into all of this trying out other realms and servers; also that even when people are active in a game after a couple of years the amount of time they play decreases and you have the population problems that are going on in DAOC.
To new players here is what you do. First put up your flag that you are looking for a group. Second use the /who command to find people near your level and ask for a group. Third things will get better with clustering. You will now have instead of 10 people around your level, 30-40. That will help out a lot.
In the end, if you expect a game that has been out a long time to have lots of new characters in the starting areas your expectations are going to be disapointed.
Opinions are opinions, but a general concensus is that the "/20" command killed the low level game which made it much less friendly to newcomers. I have a personal saying that goes, "when the low level game starts to die out, the MMORPG dies out."
Noobs are what help to make a vibrant game world. Just seeing folks run past you to buy/sell/trade/craft or simply pass through makes for a better game. MMORPG's are part chatroom and part RPG. When the low level game dries up, all that's left is RPG, and for that you might as well be playing Diablo instead of a MMORPG.
Now all MMORPG's will dry up at some point. Some of the pioneers of MMORPG design say that a good MMORPG should have a life of about 8 years. I imagine that after 4 or 5, things start to get old, the expansions are pushing the envelope and in the last few years, the game is a high-end grind for uber guilds.
But DAOC dried up more quickly. Even after the first year, it felt like the low-level game was thinning out a bit too much. And that dastardly "/20" command killed the low level game. The bulk of the players are now in the upper levels. To get up there, in order to have plenty of folks to game with, you almost have to grind alone because groups will be very occasional.
This was a good game; it just raced by too quickly.
Lol, nice block of text. Try using more "." and spacing maybe
(could not hold my breath long enough to read all the text myself).
As said above my post, the "/who" command is your friend ! (then send tells to the guys who are about same level as you)
[url=http://p
lol was that the only reason you posted your topic ?
but your right.
Good enoght now ? engish isnt my main lanuguage.
Whole heartedly agree with ya man! DAoC is by far the BEST MMORPG I've ever played (I currently play WoW, was playing EvE). The housing, the PVE enviorment, I remember the opening of Darkness Falls, I remember running along the beach with a group of friends, running away from crabs, asking for heals. Then going into the Ravines, seeing werewolves, getting freaked out.. Going into a spin, slapping through all of the weird looking creatures.. I remember being level 50 right in DF, being really happy..getting my armor SCed finally, buying a house, joining the best guild ever, (for 4 consecutive weeks, we were the top weekly realm point earners on Kay with 11 people (Furvos Latros) hehe) and running around instant healing people, laughing at stupid hibs and albs who tried to rush our one FG, and us killing zergs at a time..
Making new characters, on different servs, being different realms, seeing all the other realms and cities and mobs.. It was an amazing year and a half. Best MMORPG..
HOWEVER..
DAOC is dying out. It's got some life left in it, maybe a few months more. But there are just too many games out overtaking it's place. Yeah, it was probably the best game ever two years ago. Best MMORPG in my experience, and I miss the old times. But now it's way different, there's too many people who are 50, so the leveling experience sucks, everyones so serious now..you can't even make new friends..hardly..
ahh.. i miss the good ol' days..
Ok let me see here. EQ which has been around longer than DAOC has over 400,000 subscribers, but it doesn't have months left, just DAOC? The release of EQ2 and WoW while having some impact on the total subcriptions it has not had any impact on the number of active players. WoW is having a huge amount of problems. Those problems probably won't be fixed until after DAOC next path. WoW still doesn't have any good RvR yet and part of the system is still missing. EQ2 doesn't appeal to most of the DAOC player base.
Now given all of that, DAOC is somehoe going to die in a few months? So 250,000 subscribers are all going to go 'hmm, people on message boards keep telling me the game is dying so they must be right. I will quit this game that I like and go play a new game.'
For all of you that think DAOC is dead you are simply wrong. No game the size of DAOC has ever gone away yet. The game will stay around for many more years. It will still have around 250,000 players. In fact in 6-12 months I might expect it to grow. WoW has pulled in many players to the MMORPG. They will eventually want to try other games. If they want a game with RvR out there, they will try DAOC.
There is a cycle of certain people in games. There are a large amount of people that come into a game thinking it is really great. Then between the game changing in directions they do not want and/or the newness wearing off they move on to another game. Face it, in any MMORPG that has been around you will have seen everything. You will get a new expnasion every year. It will offer new classes and some new zones to go look at. Once you play them and look around, then what? Wait for the next expansion. That is never enough for a part of the playre community that wants total newness. That wants totally new classes, everything new, and the enjoyment of entering a game with a bunch of other new people and exploring and leveling.
I know that if I were to buy a new game and try it out I would be very into it for a few months. Then I would realize that it is mostly the same as any other MMORPG. I would then go back to whichever one I thought was the best. Others will continue to move on to newer games seeking that same rush again.
But to counter what message boards love to say DAOC is not anywhere near dead.