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I have played many MMO's.. tell me about DAOC..
Otach
Member UncommonPosts: 74
I've gone from SWG (back in the day), to CoH, back to SWG, NGE hit, went to WoW (for several years), bounced between those games and Planetside, tried Darkfall and EvE.. but nothing has quite satisified me like vanilla WoW and Pre-CU SWG.. can you guys tell me a bit about DAoC? Is it still worth trying If I never got a shot at it? Will I have to grind up a ton before I can PVP? How does the leveling / class / skill / PVP system compare to WoW, or other popular PVP MMOs? (exclude Darkfall)
Mostly I just want to get an idea of what the game relatively like and what I will have to do to get PVPing. Sorry for being lazy but I just want opinions / advice from other people with my MMO experience
Comments
Well for starters DAoC is the easiest game to level to cap and also get the items you want in your templet, solo leveling you can get to 50 in ~2 weeks if you are proactive in asking vets where to go and where quests are(for if you get tired of killing mobs) while only playing ~3hours a day, altho most peaople dont because they like to enjoy the BG's( i'll get to this in a bit). Then getting top end equipment can take a few days to a week or two(again depending on how proactive and social you are, joining a guild helps alot.) DAoC's RvR right now is hurting from realm popualtion imbalance and realm hopping( basically if you choose to go Hib, if you're not in a RvR active guild, groups are hard to get, and for every realm you never know when your allies will become your enemies with the 5min realm timers) The free trila can really help you make the choice tho, simply spend a few days getting to lvl 24 and a couple hours to farm up some aurulite in the cata dungeon instances(best to ask vets where the bst one for each realm for ~lvl 20 is) and the Battle ground Thidranki will pretty much tell you if you will like the end game or not. Now Thid isnt the whole picture of endgame RvR, but it paints a good picture of the basics, and some even think it's better than other RvR in the game. BTW BG's are non-instanced.
Classes vary on the wants to group them in rvr, stealth classes pretty much only group with stealth, Heavy tanks are usually passed over for melee's who get the Charge realm ability, and as a CC class or healer being good will make people love grouping you, and being bad can get you blacklisted, it's even more extreme for Hibs bard class, where generally if you dont play perfectly in pug's you are blamed for stuff.( reason why hib has a lower pop, noone wants to play the main cc class)
All right, first off I'll clarify that I'm not a DAoC fanboy, it's just that it caught me and immersed me that much that it's become my favorite MMO, as for experience, I've played practically every P2P MMO from UO until Aion.
Ok with that out of the way DAoC is a game based on the aftermath of King Arthur's death, three realms, Albion (England Mythology), Midgard (Viking Mythology) and Hibernia (Celtic Mythology) come to war for territory and power.
-Is it worth to play this late in the game? Yes, the game has a high re-playability rate, you'll always find someone leveling, and the learning curve is easy enough for you to understand the mechanics. Now that all the servers got merged, there's always a lot of players on, specially for Rvr.
-Do you have to grind up a ton to RvR? No, in DAoC the Battlegrounds start at lvl1 (they have different level ranges), all you have to do is find a teleporter npc and tell him to take you to the Battlegrounds (BG for short). The Battleground maps and objectives change as you level, at first is just an open area to fight, as you level up you'll find a keep without a door to take, and so on to the point of a fully claimable keep, upgradeable with towers to also conquer.
-How does the leveling compare to other games? Open grinding is more rewarding when it comes to exp, quests are also pretty good but they tend to make you take longer trips the higher you get, there are taskmasters in the towns that give you a quest to do inside instanced dungeons, which give a lot of exp and money and it escalates in difficulty the more players are in you party (you can solo it tho), and the maps don't change so once you memorize where things are you can do them even faster for faster exp. There are also regular non instanced dungeons for when you want a change in scenery and different loot. And then there's RvR, you can level from 1-50 with just RvR as long as you find enough enemies...or enough allies to have a chance
-How does the classes compare to other games? Boy that's a tough one, specifically there's a lot of differences, would need some specific questions to answer, but they all get skill points as you level, the more skills your class has the more points you get, you don't need to pay for them, just visit a trainer and allocate them, once you reach a skill level that offers a new style/spell it'll be automatically added to your list. Most casting classes only have 3 skills and at max level you can only max cap one skill and 20 points into another one, while some melee classes (not all), can get up to 8 skills, so they can max cap 2 skills and 31 into another skill, of course it's always better to try to strike a balance between the skills you'll mostly be using or up to certay skill/spell you want. For more detail on what each class gets, styles, spells, etc I recommend that you google "charplan" which is a DAoC character builder that you download and install.
-How does the skills compare to other games? Like the previous question, hard to answer without specific questions, but melee wise you get your positional styles, you get chain styles and situational styles, spells are pretty straight forward, you will need to get used to using CC a lot, the skill vs resist margin is pretty average, and you will get spell interrupted every single time you get hit, so the moment an enemy is in melee range, you use an ability called "quickcast" that allows you to cast 1 spell without interruption, and you use it for a root or snare so you can move away, takes practice and some skill to master a nuking class in DAoC.
-How does the PvP compare to other games? Well compared to other games, DAoC does have real PvP, it's called RvR, there's no jumping around non sense, it's active and always moving, there's two commands in DAoC that are bread and butter for RvR /stick (to stick your target, friendly and enemy) and /face (to lock on your target), the second one is important if you're being attacked and you don't know where as the moment you are attacked, the enemy gets auto targetted, the first one is better when you're a melee class, so if you're a jumper from WoW, you'll die pretty fast in DAoC, as jumping stops some commands like /stick and sometimes can break line of sight, and yes line of sight (los) is very important too.
While in other games you simply ran out there and smacked on your enemy or held a flag, in DAoC you still get the old run out and get smacked, but there's also the Battlegrounds as I explained earlier, there's also sieges, there are Keep and Towers you can siege, you can Ram the doors open (you actually get the to drive, aim and fire the ram), you can use massive Trebuchets to make holes on the Keeps walls or to raze to the ground a Tower, you can use Catapults with different ammo, from greek fire, to ice stones and even rotten carcasses (to disease), there's Palintones to attack enemy siege, or you can build a Siege Tower so your allies can flood into the walls and yes even the dreaded boiling Oil to burn anyone trying to ram your doors! Now if you're the one defending, if your guild claimed the keep, you can upgrade it to make the doors, walls and guards stronger, and any friendlies can buy more guards or other NPC's inside the Keep, you also get to repair Keeps and Towers with the Woodworking skill (from crafting) and of course wood, and that also gives Realm Points (RPs) which is the RvR points needed to advance in Realm Levels (separate from regular levels).
Now that I mentioned Realm Levels, gotta explain it eh? As in regular leveling, in RvR when you kill enemies, take Keeps/Towers, defend Keep/Tower, and repair them, you get Realm Points (that little program I suggest also shows you the RPs you need for each level), as you advance in Realm Levels you get a special point also called Realm Point with which you can buy special skills from your trainer that you cannot obtain via PvE, there's passives that increase your stats, resists, crits, etc, and there's also active skills that have long cooldowns. Also as you advance an entire Realm Rank (RR) which is every 10 levels (2L0, 3L0, etc that stands from Rank 2 level 0, goes all the way to 9 before you get the next rank), all your skills are increased by 1 and you get a new Realm Title which is the name that your enemies see, there's a table here.
-Other bits of info
You get a free mount at lvl10 with a quest from the stables in your faction's capital, the next one is at lvl35 for 250g, then 45 for 1platinum, and then more advanced one that cost more, they are nothing but extra speed and storage, which you only gt from the 45 ones and you need player crafted bags for the horse.
In DAoC you don't need bag upgrades, nor bank upgrades, both are pretty big.
Most likely you'll start in the tutorial, don't fret about the movement, just type /keyboard to remap everything the way you like it.
You can swim and dive, but you'll need a water breathing potion to swim faster and be able to breathe underwater.
Crafting is more of a money sink than a time sink, as in contrast to other MMO's all you really need is money, NPC's near the crafting tools sell everything you'll ever need to level from 1-1200 (or was it 1120?), you can have all the crafts in one toon.
Macros are your friend, there are things that become simpler and faster with a macro, for example, there's a Hastener NPC in every town center (where the bind stone is), and usually at the Capital entrances (they all have 2), so when you interact with them they give you the bracketed option of [movement] so now that you know what the NPC needs to hear to give you the speed buff all you do is type /macro /s movement and press enter, a new button will appear at your pointer which you place in your quick bar, so every time you click it your toon will say movement and give you the buff without you having to stop.
There are horse and boat routes all over the land besides the teleporters (a NPC actually) that takes you to the key places and other towns.
When out in the Frontiers (big boys RvR) you can do /rw (realm war) to display a map of the RvR land and you can actually see by colors which Keeps and Towers are owned by your realm and which are invaded, also you'll see fires which means a current siege (stealthers kill a guard to have the fire pop and have players teleport in and then kill them when they are solo), and you can also see colored cross swords so you know which realms are fighting in that location and how big the numbers (bigger swords).
Classes like the Infiltrator (albion), Nightshade (hibernia) and the Shadowblade (midgard), are all assassin archtypes and at certain skill point into Stealth (25 I think) they can climb Keep walls but you gotta find the climbing stones. Pure tanks like the Armsman (albion), Hero (hibernia) and Warrior (midgard) can also climb walls with a special skill at lvl35.
Most of the skills and spells in DAoC don't have a cooldown, so yes you can spam a style as long as the animation is over, and you can spam spells as long as you have mana and you are not being interrupted (which is pretty much any kind of attack, melee, spell or ranged).
In DAoC you can PvE peacefully in your lands as enemies can't get in there, the only way to get to RvR is via the teleporters to the Battlegrounds, the teleporters and the Portal Keeps (border keeps) that zone you into the Frontiers, and there's a PvE/RvR dungeon called Darkness Falls (lvl15+) that's only accessible to the realm that owns the most Towers in the Frontiers.
Another "Epic" RvR feature are the Relics, there's 2 Relics per realm, one that boosts Melee and one that boost Magic, Realms have to invade and conquer a specific order of Keeps to open up the Relic Gates and being able to capture the enemy Relic. During Relic Raids there's non stop RvR fun, as the realm organizes and unites to stop the raid, you have to defend Keeps, Towers, block enemy routes, find and eliminate late reinforcements, and if worse comes to worse, your realm has to mass up in the open Relic Temple and protect it with everything you have (besides some pretty uber Relic Guards). When a relic is captured and the winning Realm has their matching Relic, it creates a realm wide bonus for every player in PvE and RvR of any level. The Realm that loses it's relic doesn't get any penalties, just to morale, but that doesn't last long as retaliation is always being planned even before the Relic is lost.
Groups are composed of 8 players and Battlegroups of 200.
There's a housing zone if you're interested in buying a house and decoration.
There is a Epic Quest line that you get every 5 levels from your trainer in the Capital, in the end you get a great armor set that should be sufficient until you can get some player crafted and spellcrafted one. In the same manner there's a Champion Quest line that serves the same purpose but it gives you a Epic Weapon instead of armor.
Also keep in mind that the game is a little old, older than WoW, so graphics are not so detailed but yet they are not cartoonish (I actually find them better than some newer MMO's) and the default game interface like other MMO's is just meh compared to some player made ones, so make sure to ask in-game for a good interface.
The best thing about DAoC? 3 realm RvR, there's always a fight somewhere, and if a realm gets too big and powerful, the other two band up to take them down.
cool. Sounds a bit like Planetside..
I can't believe you typed all that. It really gives me a better idea of what it's like. Thank you.
so how long should I expect to grind for before I can cap out and concentrate on max level pvp?
As a new player, if you're hyperactive I would say 2 weeks or so, once you learn where the best places to level are you can do 1-50 in 3-4 days (no joking).
But you can go into the Frontiers and be competitive around 40s for a healer class, 45 for everything else, well 42 if you're a speed class as that's the skill level for the highest speed buff.
I would recommend that you enjoy the way there, specially if you're doing the Battlegrounds to level and learn the RvR, the 21-24 BG called Thidranki is the first popular one you'll hit, as it has the Keep to fully siege (except siege tower), and the 3 bridges (one for each realm) which usually are stalked by stealthers. The second popular BG will be the 35-39 one called Molvik, that one also has a fully siegeable keep, can be upgraded by a guild, and there's 3 towers to be conquered and claimed/upgraded as well.
If you do get lucky and find a good guild, you might reach the cap faster and they'll help you with the learning curve, some even enjoy helping with crafted equipment, I know I was one hehe.
Early DAOC was one of the great MMO's of all time. Good PVE, great PVP design, and great atmosphere and music.
Present DAOC is stripped down to a fast leveling-to-cap experience, which I feel misses the point. For some reason, older MMO's toss in insta-ports, fast-leveling, and welfare gear, then wonder why veteran gamers are bailing.
Thanks for taking the time to write such a wonderfully detailed post, Pedrob.
I tried DaoC a while back and couldn't get past the UI and the feeling of being "in over my head". I've played lots of mmo's both before and since that time, and despite not having a good experience in DaoC, I've always thought I might return and try again because there was just something about it which grabbed me. I didn't get very high level, can't remember what class or race I chose and wasn't there long enough to find a guild, but it's been a game which I've never forgotton.
I'm tired of playng games which don't feel satisfying and where there is no sense of community, so I'm still searching for a game which feels like home. Your post has moved me another step closer to trying Dark Age of Camelot again, so thank you
Well as Veteran player, I do appreciate some ports, the horse ride from Camelot to Lyonesse to join a Dragon Raid was so long I could cook lunch before I got there.
As for the fast leveling, if you look at the game how it was before, the speed of leveling is the same when it comes to grinding, we just didn't know then when we know now, like how useful PBAoE actually is, and the best grinding spots. But besides grinding, yes the instanced dungeons increased the leveling speed, and the exp bonuses given to certain lands.
But it all comes down to the player, yes sometimes I did speed level a class to 50 and pimp him out to get him to RvR faster, but that was usually for classes that we needed, healers, speed, utility, I always had a couple classes that I enjoyed leveling the old fashioned way, on the outside land, the regular dungeons, and I used to invite anyone I saw around the same level.
Thanks for taking the time to read it, some would disregard it as a wall of text, and I apologize for the bad grammar on it too
Hope you do end up giving the game another try, and check the Camelot VN boards for the Interface, the game is night and day with the right Interface