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Worth trying for the first time now?
Hardanger
Member Posts: 226
I can only assume that this question is asked somewhat commonly, and is fairly arguable. However, I'd like your opinions about whether or not DAoC is worth trying now in 2012 for somebody who never played it back in its "golden age". How's the learning curve? The community? Is it so dated that it's a major distraction?
Thanks in advance.
Comments
i have the same question....
I think a first time player would be very distracted by the dated ui. There's a free trial and the download is small regardless, minus well give it a go.
The game is about as far from you can get from its original form. Just about everything that made it great is long long gone.
But, even still, it has the best PvP out there. By far.
The learning curve isn't all that high, its been WoWified over the years, and laced with tons of tutorials. It's really easy to level up and there are plenty of guilds to help. Just make sure to find a guild, because I'm sure you'll run into things that don't make sense from a modern MMO perspective.
But just know, when people go off and praise DAoC, they're not talking about the game as it exists now.
Why do people people going on about the "dated UI"? What exactly is dated about it? It has all the functionality of a modern UI and, it is FULLY MODDABLE. So you can literally download any UI you want. Is it because the game (as of 4 years ago) used slash commands as well as buttons?
If you can get past the combat mechanics then yes. I never liked not being able to cast spells just because something just hit you or shoot your bow because the mob is in melee range
Battlegrounds are also completely while leveling up so you don't even have that as a diversion to the PvE side
But that just makes sense. To each their own I guess.
Maybe but I don't look for realism in MMOs. I look for the fun factor. That rarely includes realism
It's not just realism, it's balance. Having casting interrupted by melee is a balance against the insane amount of damage they do.
Darkfall Travelogues!
IMO
if you LOVE soloing quests its a great mmo for you cuz no1 / rarely does it..
if you love PVP grouping or soloing or just with a few friends you LOVE it...
but if you hate doing the same thing over and over and over this game WONT be for you..it has become very easy in lvling and geting artifacts gear and such..like many this game has been dumbed down for the masses..i resubbed about 3 months ago and now unsubbing cuz im tired of rolling lvl 50's in 1 day..the game gets old fast and seems to be and plays like a f2p mmo that you have to subb for
pve i give it a 4 / 10 ..only cuz no one does it anymore..other than that id score higher
pvp id give it a 8 / 10 ..love the pvp but like a said..gets old fast but if you like a all out mmo that focuses on pvp mmo this is it
overall 6 / 10 ..i rly love pve in daoc of old ..but now its totally focused on bg / rvr ..i guess you gotta take the good with the bad but the game has always been steered for pvp ...like shadowbane but with pve imo shadowbane was much better..if i wanted to play a all-out pvp mmo..id play a all-out pvp mmo that has no pve..this is a hybrid that 90% plays pvp
oh and if you played WAR HAMMER before playing this..its sorta whats its like..but much better than war-hammer and balanced
Might worth it if it was free to play.
But it's not.
So I would say no. Don't waste your money on that old game.
Was good back then, but not anymore.
It's still far better than most MMOs, it's just nowhere near as good as it used to be.
Darkfall Travelogues!
You cant go home again
The main problem that I forsee is that the UI and nuances of this game are, in MMO terms, antiquated, and so a youngster such as myself would have a hard time getting the hang of the pre-WoW formula. Especially since the community is, form what I've heard, small and tight-knit, I figure newcomers would be outcasts when grouping near endgame.
I don't know, there's just so much about it that makes me want to jump in, but so much that makes me hesitant. Mainly the UI.
I am debating going back on the free trial just to see. Hoping it is not dead pop wise
I agree with Signus here. It bothers me when I am playing a caster in an mmo and I can continue casting while some dude is chopping me up with a sword. Interrupts just make sense to me. The job of the caster is to stay out of the enemy's melee range. That's why DAOC was live action chess. Both players couldn't just stand there and dish out DPS on each other like Rock Em Sock Em robots, one melee and one casting. Positions and locations mattered. Planning out where to run and where to stand all mattered. Extending mattered.
Fine then why doesn't getting blasted by a bolt of fire/cold/energy stop you from swinging your sword? It bothers me when I am playing a melee that I can ignore attacks on me and still swing. Everyone always tries to nerf the caster. Me big brute me swing axe nothing stops me.....
Btw this is a game and as far as I know realism has already gone out the window when they introduced magic and invis/stealth.
Somebody suggested Uthgard to me in a pm. What can you guys tell me about it (not much information on its website)?
like someone else said, it was for balance purposes when i played (this was a long time ago) a caster could kill a melee VERY VERY quick.. so getting to the caster was extremely hard if the caster if the caster got the jump on the Melee.
so thus the interupt system.
I don't know when you tried to come back, but it might have been before all servers (Euro&US) were merged into one cluster server Ywain 1-10.
I recently joined DAoC again and it is actually very very active. As Euros as well as US play together the server basically has action all over the place all day and night with 2 prime times. I would guess the pime times' populations to be around 2,500.
I love it. Just nothing matches its pvp system and you still have epic battles of 150 vs 150 with 50 from the third faction coming in from the side on a daily basis.
Try it out and see for yourself. Unfortunetaley you wont experience the real frontier RvR (castle sieges etc.) until you are 50, but you can get a pretty good sense of the combat and RvR system in the Molvik BG (Level 35-39). Molvik together with Cathal (45-49) tend to be the under-50 RvR battlegrounds nowadays. The other battlegrounds are mostly used for leveling w/o much pvp action (maybe some in Thidranki - 20-24).
If you start go though the tuturial to get some info on the game and then join the battlegound leveling at around lvl 15 or so. Try to get into a guild as well and experience at least a little bit of RvR before you decide to stay or quit again.
Cheers
If the game was free and you'r looking for a filler until...I'd say try it.
It's not free........... and the core concept of realm vs realm has been destroyed with cross realming(playing in another realm) in 5 minutes.
So players are killing their friends and guildmates .
If you are spoiled by modern games you will probably dislike DAOC.
I downloaded the game to give it a try. The UI is terrible by modern standards. It was painful to use. Tab targeting is only short range. So you have to click to target on enemies in PvP. The game does a stutter when strafing and turning at the same time.
In RvR players warp all over the place. It is also possible to be one shot if you get hit by a crit. Even if you don't it is quite common to be two shot. The cc is ridiculous IMO. You can get snared or mezzed for close to a minute.
Buying stuff is also painful. It makes SWTOR's auction house look amazing in comparison.
But don't take my word for it. Grab the 14 day trial and see for yourself.
I would suggest the custom UI's if you dislike it. However, I find it to be about on par with current game UI's. Only people that do not know how to target use tab targeting, you are supposed to pick the best target for your damage type not just what ever happens to be nearest to you. I would suggest looking up a video called DAOC Fundimentals to assist you in this.
As for the stutter or warping all over the place, I would take a look at your ping to the server sounds like you have an issue there. As I do not get a stutter or warping on my game cept when I am deployed and login from a crappy connection.
As for snared or mezzed, invest in Purge 3 then you do not have that problem. As for getting one shotted, please seek assistance on making a good templet that will prevent you from that. I have played close to 10 years and only time I get 1 shotted is by a shadowblade 2 hand crit when I am sitting down. Of course you do not need to sit down to regain power or end anymore so that solves that problem. Super high RR's might two or three shot me, but that is part of a assissan VS caster, it's kind of what they do. Granted they die right after to the rest of my friends cause they are one trick ponies, but yes I got two shotted.
Buying stuff, yes we would like an auction house. Other then that the explorers are not to bad if you know what your looking for, if you are just going to try to find a random item but do not know the name it can be frustrating. There again friends or a guild will help this problem.
There should have been a disclaimer at the start of DAOC, WARNING THIS GAME IS NOT FOR THE EASY MODE CROWD. This game has a more complex fighting system than any other game besides a few like darkfall. Star Wars is easy compaired to DAOC RvR. Yes it is an older game however, graphics are not so far outdated that it looks bad, its just not cartoon look like most modern games IE Rift, WoW, Aeon to name a few. The UI is moveable and up gradeable, there is even a host of custom UI skins you can chose from if you do not like the standard one. I personally suggest this just because the upgraded maps help locate things faster and easier.
There is a large learning curve to DAOC, the new tutorials and battle grounds assist greatly in this. However, if you are RR 10 and do not know how to play your class well, you just tab NUKE till dead, tab, nuke till dead. You can have great fun at the game, however I will beat you on a lower RR char if I know my class better. I will know how to counter what you are doing and how to beat you. 9 times out of 9.5 times. So learning the little things about your class makes a large difference. Like what type of armor is the class your fighting wearing? if I cast this spell on them it should do this but if not then I need another spell, which you know and have ready.
Melee fighting is about positional and reactional styles, for the most part its not just spam your attacks till dead. Its where are you standing, what attack did you do, what is the follow up, did you block or parry , what is the reactional style to that, is that reactional style also position based? Also did they block or parry and what is their reactional styles thaty might do to you?
This game is a thinking game, if you want a button mashing game then please play one of the 40,000 other games out there that do not have all that this game offers. We offer a challenge for thoes that enjoy beating someone, not based solely off of items, Realm Rank, and equipment, but off of your skill at your class vs their skill at their class.
I found RvR the opposite of what you just said.
It was a bunch of people nuking each other from max range. Melee was for the most part irrelevant. Except to help clean up once on side was routed.
I'm not sure that it requires much thinking to start nuking from max range. We must have different views of thinking I guess.
I was told the opposite of what you said as far as gear goes. Why does DAOC have templates and template sites if gear isn't important? It seem more important than most games I've played.