Originally posted by HorrorScope DAOC RvR isn't even a bar anyone should be trying, it should be that with a building/crafting/mining. Lets get a good game with having not only to fight but to gather resources and build the forts etc. I mean come on already. Same crap over and over.
You are either referring to Camelot Unchained or have not heard of it yet.
Yep don't know specifics but to me it makes sense a RvR only MMO with crafting/mining/building and defending the sole need. It could be epic if done right, but couldn't anything?
Once the NDA drops, and people start posting videos and seeing for themselves how PvP works in ESO, the DAoC crowd will come.
... Oh yes.. They will come.
There will be a few old DAoC vets playing ESO. This one isn't going to touch that nasty looking thing though. Quest system is crappy, graphics are bad, and the worst part of the game so far is the horrible combat system. DAoC had the best combat system I've played so far, this piece of garbage system in ESO isn't worth playing.
Have to remember, that DAoC is of the Pre-WoW era, where a game was considered a success even if it had only 250,000 players,
^This right here; DAoC is also on the receiving end of a huge amount of nostalgia, especially when it comes to RvR. I really dislike all these automatic assumptions of RvR meaning DAoC and even Zenimax using the older title as a kind of buzzword when they first announced ESO. Just because it was the first title to really focus on that aspect of PvP does not mean it did it perfectly.
People have nostalgia for things for a reason.
Actually, I would go so far as to say that nostalgia is the ultimate test of how successful a game truly was -- not sales, not the hype, not the hate -- it isn't until years have passed that the actual verdict lands. It is like this with all works of art. Time reveals the truth. When DAoC was out, it was just like these forums. People absolutely smeared it with hate. Yet today, most agree it was one of the greatest games ever made. I never played WoW (well, I played for a couple weeks), but I am sure that when the game dies and years pass, the nostalgia will be great.
I'd agree that time is actually helpful to the reception of many games features/mechanics. People, especially nowadays, seem to judge those traits outright and develop a opinion on it before they even try it. I also think time warps people's views on what they liked; if you were to go back and play your favorite MMORPG, you'd have a much different opinion on it then you did when you first started to play it. You would not want that TB-stylish combat or the need to constantly defend your holdings.
MMOs are social games and those 250,000 players were the reason many players have great memories of DAoC. In today's environment, with the overall increase in MMO players and the variety of their attitudes, community-based concepts such as the (in)famous "realm pride" are extremely difficult to create. Best example of this is Warhammer Online; with it's huge amount of players compared to DAoC and it's launch window in the post WoW environment, it's community was vastly different compared to it's predecessor. On Karak-Azgal, Destro simply chose to wait till nighttime to do it's city pushes and Order's response was to do them during the daytime. When a guild decided to stop this cycle, the opposing realm would simply log off after a few wipes and try again the next day. It was about getting Sovereign gear and if you got a good (and winning) fight even better, but it was less risky to farm empty instances. People's attitudes will completely shape the social landscape of the game, whether for good or ill.
ESO will most likely have a life that is a mixture of similarites between DAoC and WAR: It's box sales and initial subscription numbers will be large, but overtime they will fall just like WAR. Unlike it though, ESO will develop a a core fan-base that will keep it jogging along and it will also get support. Until you get to that core group of players, creating a social landscape like DAoC had will be next to impossible, as there will just be too many new generation players otherwise (and also those of the older generation who most likely do not/can not commit to a game like they used to).
I'd agree that time is actually helpful to the reception of many games features/mechanics. People, especially nowadays, seem to judge those traits outright and develop a opinion on it before they even try it. I also think time warps people's views on what they liked; if you were to go back and play your favorite MMORPG, you'd have a much different opinion on it then you did when you first started to play it. You would not want that TB-stylish combat or the need to constantly defend your holdings.
MMOs are social games and those 250,000 players were the reason many players have great memories of DAoC. In today's environment, with the overall increase in MMO players and the variety of their attitudes, community-based concepts such as the (in)famous "realm pride" are extremely difficult to create. Best example of this is Warhammer Online; with it's huge amount of players compared to DAoC and it's launch window in the post WoW environment, it's community was vastly different compared to it's predecessor. On Karak-Azgal, Destro simply chose to wait till nighttime to do it's city pushes and Order's response was to do them during the daytime. When a guild decided to stop this cycle, the opposing realm would simply log off after a few wipes and try again the next day. It was about getting Sovereign gear and if you got a good (and winning) fight even better, but it was less risky to farm empty instances. People's attitudes will completely shape the social landscape of the game, whether for good or ill.
ESO will most likely have a life that is a mixture of similarites between DAoC and WAR: It's box sales and initial subscription numbers will be large, but overtime they will fall just like WAR. Unlike it though, ESO will develop a a core fan-base that will keep it jogging along and it will also get support. Until you get to that core group of players, creating a social landscape like DAoC had will be next to impossible, as there will just be too many new generation players otherwise (and also those of the older generation who most likely do not/can not commit to a game like they used to).
You know, it is utterly clear to me that I would not enjoy older games as much as I did at the time if we are talking about single-player games or FPSers. I would be extremely hard pressed to play any of the old strategy games I enjoyed either. The new games in those genres are like the old games . . . but more awesome.
But when it comes to MMOs this isn't the case. Everything you said is exactly right, I'm not sure I would want the old school combat or grind or need to constantly defend your holdings. But while I recognize that, I also recognize that I was getting something out of those old games that isn't in the new ones . . . and I can't put my finger on what that was. It is a bit of a mystery honestly, and not just to me, I know many long time MMOers feel the same way. The question is continuously, "was it something in the games or was it something in me that has changed?"
New games fail to reproduce the addictive thrill and excitement those old games did for me. That isn't to say I don't get a taste of it now and then, particularly when a game is new. But the thrill quickly wears out and before long I am bored, I'm constantly having that feeling, "I've already played this game before". So while it may be true that nostalgia causes me to overestimate the games of the past, there can be no doubt that I did enjoy those games more and that the nostalgia points to something real. Whether that means the game was "objectively" better or not (can there even be something that is "objectively better"?) I cannot say. I suppose it is a bit like the first great anything. No pop star will ever be "better" than Michael Jackson, even though if you ported Michael Jackson into today's scene he would probably look like a bad joke. (I just wish I could shake that feeling that I am like someone trying to recreate the Michael Jackson era for themselves through watching Miley Cyrus videos, and wondering why they just fall short . . . )
About WAR. Was it just that the audience was different, or did the design of the game also MAKE the audience different? From my perspective, all MMOs are at least in part mini experiments in social engineering. Players go about denying this, but the reality is that simple changes to the rules of the game can have profound effects on how players behave. WAR was quite dramatically different from DAoC in more ways than one, not the least of which was the absence of a third realm.
The thing about the old MMOs -- and I am including WoW which was designed pre-WoW -- is that there doesn't appear to have been any "rules" in how to make a successful MMO. That is what made them innovative. I think great games are often like that. When I look at a game like DayZ, for example, it has all the makings of a great game . . . but it also clearly isn't following any rules or guidelines as to the "correct" way to make a game. It isn't adding the sex scene just to get a younger demographic, it isn't constantly checking with the big money guys upstairs over whether everything in their list has been checked. You know what I mean? The problem with modern MMOs is that the usually feel like they start with that list, and then once they have made sure everything that is "supposed" to be in a MMO is in there, they add a few "innovative" features and declare the game "cutting-edge" in order to entice more seasoned gamers to buy the box.
But it may be that it isn't possible to deviate from that list and remain a MMO, it may be that the old games were "innovative" simply because they discovered that list like the early European explorers discovered America. Once it was discovered, it couldn't be discovered again.
ESO does not seem like DAOC to me. I never played WoW, so can't say if it's a WoW clone, but it certainly is not a DAOC clone.
In DAOC, there were three realms, each with its own set of classes, each of which had their own skills. Each class was complicated, and there were more than 5 buttons to play with. ESO is nothing like that.
I'm looking forward to playing ESO, but not because it is anything like DAOC.
well, no game will ever be EXACTLY like another. But there is no question that the 3 realm approach to pvp, with keeps and persistent campaigns/results, are very much like DAoC.
You are right about the complicated classes, but IMO that is a good thing for ESO. For one thing, the different classes in different realms made DAoC a never-ending nerf-fest because every time they made an adjustment, they weren't just adjusting a class, they were adjusting an entire realm. And since they had unwisely given the 3 realms different numbers of classes, some realms like Midgard had the key skills spread across fewer classes than say Albion (Hibernia was in the middle). So it was much easier to build a good group in Midgard than Albion. No question its fun to have different classes in different realms, but when you add the balancing issues, IMO its a bad trade-off.
About the 6 buttons, IMO that is an awesome improvement. Somewhere along the line people decided to make MMORPGs more 'complicated' by adding skills, so that a typical character had 2 or 3 toolbars with skill buttons all over their screen. Often people would spend as much time looking at their buttons as they would watching the action on the screen. ESO is very different, the complexity is in the on-the-screen gameplay and in selecting which skills to put on your quickbar, not in the searching for which button to push.
ESO is not a clone of anything. It is similar to some games (DAoC, WoW, SWTOR) in some ways but different from all of them in other ways. In fact, looking at the videos and such, the UI looks like Skyrim, not a MMORPG.
About the only thing that is DAOC-like in ESO is the 3-way RvR with keeps, etc. Everything else is different: the style of play, the types of classes, the skills you get.
Is 3-way RvR enough to get DAOC players to play a game that is nothing like DAOC? We'll see. I'm going to play
ESO does not seem like DAOC to me. I never played WoW, so can't say if it's a WoW clone, but it certainly is not a DAOC clone.
In DAOC, there were three realms, each with its own set of classes, each of which had their own skills. Each class was complicated, and there were more than 5 buttons to play with. ESO is nothing like that.
I'm looking forward to playing ESO, but not because it is anything like DAOC.
well, no game will ever be EXACTLY like another. But there is no question that the 3 realm approach to pvp, with keeps and persistent campaigns/results, are very much like DAoC.
You are right about the complicated classes, but IMO that is a good thing for ESO. For one thing, the different classes in different realms made DAoC a never-ending nerf-fest because every time they made an adjustment, they weren't just adjusting a class, they were adjusting an entire realm. And since they had unwisely given the 3 realms different numbers of classes, some realms like Midgard had the key skills spread across fewer classes than say Albion (Hibernia was in the middle). So it was much easier to build a good group in Midgard than Albion. No question its fun to have different classes in different realms, but when you add the balancing issues, IMO its a bad trade-off.
About the 6 buttons, IMO that is an awesome improvement. Somewhere along the line people decided to make MMORPGs more 'complicated' by adding skills, so that a typical character had 2 or 3 toolbars with skill buttons all over their screen. Often people would spend as much time looking at their buttons as they would watching the action on the screen. ESO is very different, the complexity is in the on-the-screen gameplay and in selecting which skills to put on your quickbar, not in the searching for which button to push.
ESO is not a clone of anything. It is similar to some games (DAoC, WoW, SWTOR) in some ways but different from all of them in other ways. In fact, looking at the videos and such, the UI looks like Skyrim, not a MMORPG.
About the only thing that is DAOC-like in ESO is the 3-way RvR with keeps, etc. Everything else is different: the style of play, the types of classes, the skills you get.
Is 3-way RvR enough to get DAOC players to play a game that is nothing like DAOC? We'll see. I'm going to play
You mean my Ice Theurgist won't be able to root an unlimited number of players for > 1 minute with one cast? Man how I used to piss-off both the Hibs and Stungards with just that one skill But even DAoC itself evolved over time - the CC was just over the top in the beginning... fast forward to 2014 and RvR has been honed and refined into what it is today... it's called progress.
"DAoC-like" as well as "TES-like" are very subjective impressions you get from how the whole enchilada feels. If you try to dissect it and compare it feature by feature you'll fail. As I've already said, this will be a worthy DAoC successor as well as a worthy TES installment.
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Anyone who won't play a game because someone called it a WoW Clone is somebody I don't want to play with anyways. I don't know how many times I have to say this, but there is no such thing as a WoW Clone...if there was, then Blizzard would be suing them. They're all the same genre of game, so they're going to be similar. It's like calling Borderlands a CoD Clone, because they're both shooters. Or calling any car a Benz Clone, or any currency a Sumer Clone, etc. There is no such thing as a WoW Clone...so please don't even say it.
Now as for DAoC players, I think the problem is that the NDA hasn't been lifted, and until you get your hands on the game itself, or the NDA is lifted, you really can't get a "feel" for the gameplay. I can sit here and describe the greatest thing that will ever interest you, but until you see it for yourself, it's not going to be the greatest thing to ever interest you
About WAR. Was it just that the audience was different, or did the design of the game also MAKE the audience different? From my perspective, all MMOs are at least in part mini experiments in social engineering. Players go about denying this, but the reality is that simple changes to the rules of the game can have profound effects on how players behave. WAR was quite dramatically different from DAoC in more ways than one, not the least of which was the absence of a third realm.
Both. The whole idea of doing RvR for the loot was very strong and easy to underestimate, but at times even a few of my guild-mates (who were totally fixed on this idea) could be persuaded otherwise, but only if the fights were really engaging. I agree that small changes can make players behave differently, but there are some mindsets that would need quite a bit of work to break.
Of all the things I wanted WAR to fix, a third realm was at the bottom of my list. The main reason people wanted it was to balance out population and to ensure one side does not completely dominate the other. The population part I'd agree with on some levels, but the dominance part absolutely not. A single guild with a full warband, who knew what they were doing could wipe the floor with the zerg and turn the campaign around in literal seconds (after a single wipe, the zerg would loose people to "deserters", those that simply logged off because they were loosing). One Order guild (iirc, one on Karak-Norn) funneled Destro through an absolutely brutal meat-grinder at a Dwarf(?) keep, specifically to level their last two folks to rr80. They played the zerg liked a fiddle. To me it highlighted that the problem lay in the mindless grouping that WAR's public groups enabled.
It will be interesting to see if the public groups in ESO push players into the same mindset.
This old ex-DAoC player is greatly looking forward to ESO's RvR action. My only concern is how first person combat and a limited list of spammable skills will work in a cluttered group pvp environment, but I'm definitely going to play it and see if they pull it off. If they do, I'll be here for a long time.
Originally posted by Valatheus This old ex-DAoC player is greatly looking forward to ESO's RvR action. My only concern is how first person combat and a limited list of spammable skills will work in a cluttered group pvp environment, but I'm definitely going to play it and see if they pull it off. If they do, I'll be here for a long time.
I can't speak on the skills issue, but you certainly can play this game in 3rd person if you choose to. There is nothing forcing you to play in first person all the time, or even at all if you don't want to.
War didnt burn my love for DAoC RvR. It taught me something. When you spread PvP over too many zones over too many levels it just get watered down and no longer has that DAoC epic large scale feel. ESO is the first MMO since DAoC to get the key elements right for RvR magic. GW2 tried but made some huge mistakes. This hard core DAoC fan cant wait too get into AvA and never come out.
War didnt burn my love for DAoC RvR. It taught me something. When you spread PvP over too many zones over too many levels it just get watered down and no longer has that DAoC epic large scale feel. ESO is the first MMO since DAoC to get the key elements right for RvR magic. GW2 tried but made some huge mistakes. This hard core DAoC fan cant wait too get into AvA and never come out.
Same! Although what ruined WAR for me was the fact that scenarios were much more rewarding. So, sadly the vast majority of people ended up doing those instead. RvR pretty much just became a wasteland then. I'm so glad ESO has no battlegrounds :-)
ESO does not seem like DAOC to me. I never played WoW, so can't say if it's a WoW clone, but it certainly is not a DAOC clone.
In DAOC, there were three realms, each with its own set of classes, each of which had their own skills. Each class was complicated, and there were more than 5 buttons to play with. ESO is nothing like that.
I'm looking forward to playing ESO, but not because it is anything like DAOC.
You only have 6 buttons to play with until you can get a second weapon to swap to. Technically you get twice that but people can look up the mechanics freely enough (and I do not know if the so called back up weapons offer more slots changes or not. Dev talk was confusing as hell on that point from what I read from dev questions released).
I have to say it is a pretty weak argument saying the class structure is why the games differ so dramatically. The essence of this thread is about the rvr style combat which is similar in design to DAOC.
It is not the 6 button combat alone, nor any other element alone. It is a summary of different aspects, which make it not that much like DAoC. But most importantly, that they don't advertise their AvA.. what do we seriously know, or have seen about their part of AvA? Not a lot.
But i will go on for a few other elements either missing, or most probably(because of lack of information) missing or beeing different.
- Combat. Call it 6 buttons vs. 6 skill bars. Call it massive CC vs. do no harm CC. Call it more strategic skill sets seperated between different specialist classes to a more action casual combat, where everyone can do everything(or at least a lot).
- Size of the pvp realm. I read somewhere about TESO that they aim for 2 minutes run time from keep to keep, and that one developer required 15 minutes to run through the RvR zone. DAoC pre Frontier got 4 zones and each of them was larger then the complete ESO rvr zone. You required above 30 min with speed buff to go through one zone, without even longer maybe double the time of it.
With that fights/battles of different size were spread much more and usually a battle in the wilderness was not that often interupted from another group or faction. Do you really think you will even have one fight not interupted in ESO?
- Death penality, which ties together with the point above. If you died you were out of the rvr zone, which meant that you have to run 15 min or more to the last fighting scene.. with other word it was not possible to join again the ongoing fight. With that said fights/battles in DaoC, where meant to have an finite end. A winner and a loser. In ESO(assumption here, with that little information we really have) a battle will much more like GW2.. it will never really end as long as there a players interested in joining or randomly passing by. No winner. No loser. And that really turns off in the long run.
- RvR in DAoC was meaningful for everyone. And i will not talk about Relic bonuses or things like that.. because that was not the most important stimulating factor. You could only enter the Dungeon Darkness Falls if you got the majority of keeps in comparsion to the other realms. And Darkness Falls was the number one gold source, crafting material source(salvaging materials), and best leveling spot for all levels in the entire game. With other words everyone from lvl 1 to lvl 50 participating in RvR or not was highly interested to be able to go to Darkness Fall.
And on top of that it was also a good pvp ground, when the owner of Darkness Falls changed, because one realm wiped out the other realm which could not reenter darkness falls because of the keep majority rule. A lot of fun for everyone involved. But the last owner, or the player actually staying in DF was really interested to stay as long as possible, or stay alive after the wipe because it was the best gold income source.
With other words every realm, every player from every realm was very interested that their realm got the majority of keeps, and with that you got ongoing RvR, and ongoing Keep raids and defends on every side.
I really can't understand why noone has copied that in the last decade.. it was most probably the best idea, the best feature from DAoC and was most probably the most important factor in DAoC RvR.
- Different classes, different roles for all three different realms. In DAoC group setups in all three realms where rather different and all of them had their own flavor.
And i could go on what is different, and why ESO will most probably not like DAoC. And why not every old DAoC fan screams around for the second coming. ESO might be a good game, and i will most probably actually buy and play it, but i don't expect a lot from the AvA in all honestly, although we really don't know enough details about it.
War didnt burn my love for DAoC RvR. It taught me something. When you spread PvP over too many zones over too many levels it just get watered down and no longer has that DAoC epic large scale feel. ESO is the first MMO since DAoC to get the key elements right for RvR magic. GW2 tried but made some huge mistakes. This hard core DAoC fan cant wait too get into AvA and never come out.
Same! Although what ruined WAR for me was the fact that scenarios were much more rewarding. So, sadly the vast majority of people ended up doing those instead. RvR pretty much just became a wasteland then. I'm so glad ESO has no battlegrounds :-)
Ya the RvR map has too be where PVPer go to make the system work.
Still waiting to hear about the variety within the three factions and between the three factions. When I get info on that I will make a decision.
You mean in classes? If it is, the variety will come from the players. There are 4 classes that in the end are not really classes. They each have 3 Unique skill lines that no other classes can use. Thing is there are so many skill lines you dont even need to use them. The options are so out there its almost you think it up you can play it. 1/2 healer 1/2 mage, check. Mage/Tank, check. Pure healer, check. CC/Debuff, check. The skill system is something I have missed since SWG took it away from us.
To me, ESO looks to be the best DAoC replacement since a long time.
WAR never really had a shot, at some point I believed in WAR, but the many PVP scenarios were too much of a distraction from the real PvP : RvR. Plus resetting the keeps and campaign was not a smart move and the way the RvR areas were setup was not great either. There was just too much WoW influence in WAR, as if they were scared to go full RvR mode.
However, in ESO, so far on paper, they made some good compromises.
Starting with the mega server, which is a great way to handle the population problem from all the angles : server load, server bleed and faction imbalance. The mega server is certainly a smart solution, WoW is partly doing the same already, with cross server bg's, instances and instanced zones, and in the future cross server auction house etc. However ESO is planning this right out of the box, before the server bleeding ever starts.
Coupled with the mega server you have campaigns which are very large persistent RvR instances ( so they are actually zones ) of cyrodil , and once you are tied with a campaign, you can stick with it for as long as you want. The keep and scroll ownership are persistent, only the scoring will reset every x months. So basically once you know your friends and enemies, grudges will be held and blood will flow It remains to be seen if the realm pride will be as great as it once was in DAoC, on the other hand, DAoC crashed pretty bad after its initial prime, because with the single server structure, a medium server bleed is a disaster. And with all the server merges in DAoC the realm pride was killed instantly. So while DAoC in it's prime ( during the SI era, pre ToA/NF ) will probably be better than ESO, I see the megaserver in ESO as a more durable solution.
They also made the decision to not include BG's ( the DAoC version nor the WoW / WAR version ), which will improve RVR focus and realm pride. And there will be large non instanced raid dungeons, which will also contribute to community building.
What DAoC also had was group PvE, it was there also that part of the realm pride was build. These days most of the PvE content can be soloed or you can do cross server instances with people you don't know and will never meet again ( yes talking WoW mainly ). I hope the PvE will be good enough so that you have to make friends to PvE and as I understand your friend list and guild will be in the same persistent campaign indefinatly, Looks promising indeed.
So to sum things up, I don't see any reasons why DAoC vets like me would not look forward to ESO. And there is more to ESO than just the RvR.
If you are interested in subscription or PCU numbers for MMORPG's, check out my site : http://mmodata.blogspot.be/ Favorite MMORPG's : DAoC pre ToA-NF, SWG Pre CU-NGE, EVE Online
its still in beta, i am sure there will be many people flocking to this game. It will steal all or most of the core swg and UO fans. People that played SB might like it a lot also.
The thing that made DAoC PvP interesting was crowd controll... if you got the move, 2 groups of 8 could kill a full raid...
I dont see this happening in TESO... there is no reason not to join the zerg in this game, and zerging is not fun... Thats why i have become a fan of smaller PvP instances, and cherish my DAoC memmories for what they are..
That's the thing that killed DAoC PvP for me, the stupid amounts of CC. There wasn't even skill involved with it. Whoever got their CC off first won. I remember running 8 man groups and thinking to myself how utterly stupid it was that we had 2-3 groups CC'd and we just got the pick them off as our CC was being spammed to catch anyone trying to purge.
There's ways to help dilute the zerg, but that's a subject for a different thread entirely.
Once the NDA drops, and people start posting videos and seeing for themselves how PvP works in ESO, the DAoC crowd will come.
... Oh yes.. They will come.
Yes all 10,000 of them!
All joking aside - I played DAoC from launch til a bit after SI, awesome times. But even at peek - DAoC had 250K subs, and you're never gonna get all them back.
Agreed DMKamo. There weren't that many of us.... and some of us like me were old THEN already when DAoC launched... now, well let's just say I am too old to PvP now, too slow, mental map crumbled and can't keep track of where the enemies are anymore. I wonder how many other Players of DAoC from back then are in the same shape as me.
Add to that this little tidbit, it might not be much, but it IS a pet peeve of mine.... original DAoC had arrows... actual arrows... Like Skyrim... when I found out TESO weren't using actual arrows but them "magic" arrows with a bottomless quiver... I decided I wasn't interested in TESO anymore... just like I quite DAoC for good when they got rid of actual arrows as well.
I consider it pretty LAME that Skyrim had Actual arrows, and yet the DEVs of TESO couldn't do the same.
I do play other MMOs and some of them don't have actual arrows... but each time I buy a new MMO and then find out it uses magic arrows I am disappointed, and playing an archer bugs me. My Hunter in LotRO that is as old as the game itself, love him, but the magic arrow things gets on my nerves and now I don't play him much because of it.
I won't buy another fantasy/primitive/medieval time period MMO that doesn't use actual arrows that we have to keep track of, aim to hit the target, buy/make more when we run out, etc. No more magic arrows in my MMOs.
People remember daoc in the wrong light, they remember the epic keep fights the rush to darkness falls when the dungeon opened for PHAT loot and the best xp in the game.
They remember the all night relic raids where you tried to sneak 300 people through a game that most people played on dial up.
the thing which made daoc fun as a 3 way RVR game was the fact that each three realms classes were ALL different even if they were slightly similar in some respects, some where different and it opened the dynamic of the three way rvr up.
You needed to fill spots with specifc classes and your uber group may be rolled over by someone fielding a different tactic, I remember being invited to go out in rvr on my VERDANT animist before they were fixed (or broken) they thought it was funny and because I was ignored in afight for being an animist their tanks couldn't understand why they couldn't kill anyone due to blade turn bubbles stacking on everyone.
The only issue was the constant calls for nerfs against other classes or my class is under powered compared to xx class, I don't think the forums ever agreed that one class was as equal as another class.
It was always the same argument you class is gimped so you cant be in my group which is what I had with my animist for the years I played him. It wasn't until I started to farm the dragon and drop trials of atlantis masterlevel mobs with my team of animists that people woke up and then boom nerfed into the floor.
but its all rose tinted glasses you remember the good times you don't remember the chain dying or begging for groups in cursed forest or farming trees as a ranger
People remember daoc in the wrong light, they remember the epic keep fights the rush to darkness falls when the dungeon opened for PHAT loot and the best xp in the game.
They remember the all night relic raids where you tried to sneak 300 people through a game that most people played on dial up.
the thing which made daoc fun as a 3 way RVR game was the fact that each three realms classes were ALL different even if they were slightly similar in some respects, some where different and it opened the dynamic of the three way rvr up.
You needed to fill spots with specifc classes and your uber group may be rolled over by someone fielding a different tactic, I remember being invited to go out in rvr on my VERDANT animist before they were fixed (or broken) they thought it was funny and because I was ignored in afight for being an animist their tanks couldn't understand why they couldn't kill anyone due to blade turn bubbles stacking on everyone.
The only issue was the constant calls for nerfs against other classes or my class is under powered compared to xx class, I don't think the forums ever agreed that one class was as equal as another class.
It was always the same argument you class is gimped so you cant be in my group which is what I had with my animist for the years I played him. It wasn't until I started to farm the dragon and drop trials of atlantis masterlevel mobs with my team of animists that people woke up and then boom nerfed into the floor.
but its all rose tinted glasses you remember the good times you don't remember the chain dying or begging for groups in cursed forest or farming trees as a ranger
You're right, I don't remember that. I was Albion. Always Albion.
But I do remember same happening my my Realm. My memory of DAoC is bittersweet because of it... but I would rather have bittersweet and mixed good and bad memories of a MMO than the "Meh" memories I have of some newer MMOs now.
I try to get Players in SWTOR to understand why I will only play Republic... why I am "Faction loyal"...they just don't get it.
I will say this...If your server was Percival, then I met you in battle in the Frontiers and in Darkness Falls.
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Yep don't know specifics but to me it makes sense a RvR only MMO with crafting/mining/building and defending the sole need. It could be epic if done right, but couldn't anything?
There will be a few old DAoC vets playing ESO. This one isn't going to touch that nasty looking thing though. Quest system is crappy, graphics are bad, and the worst part of the game so far is the horrible combat system. DAoC had the best combat system I've played so far, this piece of garbage system in ESO isn't worth playing.
In a world of sharp knives, you would be a spoon.
I'd agree that time is actually helpful to the reception of many games features/mechanics. People, especially nowadays, seem to judge those traits outright and develop a opinion on it before they even try it. I also think time warps people's views on what they liked; if you were to go back and play your favorite MMORPG, you'd have a much different opinion on it then you did when you first started to play it. You would not want that TB-stylish combat or the need to constantly defend your holdings.
MMOs are social games and those 250,000 players were the reason many players have great memories of DAoC. In today's environment, with the overall increase in MMO players and the variety of their attitudes, community-based concepts such as the (in)famous "realm pride" are extremely difficult to create. Best example of this is Warhammer Online; with it's huge amount of players compared to DAoC and it's launch window in the post WoW environment, it's community was vastly different compared to it's predecessor. On Karak-Azgal, Destro simply chose to wait till nighttime to do it's city pushes and Order's response was to do them during the daytime. When a guild decided to stop this cycle, the opposing realm would simply log off after a few wipes and try again the next day. It was about getting Sovereign gear and if you got a good (and winning) fight even better, but it was less risky to farm empty instances. People's attitudes will completely shape the social landscape of the game, whether for good or ill.
ESO will most likely have a life that is a mixture of similarites between DAoC and WAR: It's box sales and initial subscription numbers will be large, but overtime they will fall just like WAR. Unlike it though, ESO will develop a a core fan-base that will keep it jogging along and it will also get support. Until you get to that core group of players, creating a social landscape like DAoC had will be next to impossible, as there will just be too many new generation players otherwise (and also those of the older generation who most likely do not/can not commit to a game like they used to).
You know, it is utterly clear to me that I would not enjoy older games as much as I did at the time if we are talking about single-player games or FPSers. I would be extremely hard pressed to play any of the old strategy games I enjoyed either. The new games in those genres are like the old games . . . but more awesome.
But when it comes to MMOs this isn't the case. Everything you said is exactly right, I'm not sure I would want the old school combat or grind or need to constantly defend your holdings. But while I recognize that, I also recognize that I was getting something out of those old games that isn't in the new ones . . . and I can't put my finger on what that was. It is a bit of a mystery honestly, and not just to me, I know many long time MMOers feel the same way. The question is continuously, "was it something in the games or was it something in me that has changed?"
New games fail to reproduce the addictive thrill and excitement those old games did for me. That isn't to say I don't get a taste of it now and then, particularly when a game is new. But the thrill quickly wears out and before long I am bored, I'm constantly having that feeling, "I've already played this game before". So while it may be true that nostalgia causes me to overestimate the games of the past, there can be no doubt that I did enjoy those games more and that the nostalgia points to something real. Whether that means the game was "objectively" better or not (can there even be something that is "objectively better"?) I cannot say. I suppose it is a bit like the first great anything. No pop star will ever be "better" than Michael Jackson, even though if you ported Michael Jackson into today's scene he would probably look like a bad joke. (I just wish I could shake that feeling that I am like someone trying to recreate the Michael Jackson era for themselves through watching Miley Cyrus videos, and wondering why they just fall short . . . )
About WAR. Was it just that the audience was different, or did the design of the game also MAKE the audience different? From my perspective, all MMOs are at least in part mini experiments in social engineering. Players go about denying this, but the reality is that simple changes to the rules of the game can have profound effects on how players behave. WAR was quite dramatically different from DAoC in more ways than one, not the least of which was the absence of a third realm.
The thing about the old MMOs -- and I am including WoW which was designed pre-WoW -- is that there doesn't appear to have been any "rules" in how to make a successful MMO. That is what made them innovative. I think great games are often like that. When I look at a game like DayZ, for example, it has all the makings of a great game . . . but it also clearly isn't following any rules or guidelines as to the "correct" way to make a game. It isn't adding the sex scene just to get a younger demographic, it isn't constantly checking with the big money guys upstairs over whether everything in their list has been checked. You know what I mean? The problem with modern MMOs is that the usually feel like they start with that list, and then once they have made sure everything that is "supposed" to be in a MMO is in there, they add a few "innovative" features and declare the game "cutting-edge" in order to entice more seasoned gamers to buy the box.
But it may be that it isn't possible to deviate from that list and remain a MMO, it may be that the old games were "innovative" simply because they discovered that list like the early European explorers discovered America. Once it was discovered, it couldn't be discovered again.
About the only thing that is DAOC-like in ESO is the 3-way RvR with keeps, etc. Everything else is different: the style of play, the types of classes, the skills you get.
Is 3-way RvR enough to get DAOC players to play a game that is nothing like DAOC? We'll see. I'm going to play
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2024: 47 years on the Net.
You mean my Ice Theurgist won't be able to root an unlimited number of players for > 1 minute with one cast? Man how I used to piss-off both the Hibs and Stungards with just that one skill
But even DAoC itself evolved over time - the CC was just over the top in the beginning... fast forward to 2014 and RvR has been honed and refined into what it is today... it's called progress.
"DAoC-like" as well as "TES-like" are very subjective impressions you get from how the whole enchilada feels. If you try to dissect it and compare it feature by feature you'll fail. As I've already said, this will be a worthy DAoC successor as well as a worthy TES installment.
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Anyone who won't play a game because someone called it a WoW Clone is somebody I don't want to play with anyways. I don't know how many times I have to say this, but there is no such thing as a WoW Clone...if there was, then Blizzard would be suing them. They're all the same genre of game, so they're going to be similar. It's like calling Borderlands a CoD Clone, because they're both shooters. Or calling any car a Benz Clone, or any currency a Sumer Clone, etc. There is no such thing as a WoW Clone...so please don't even say it.
Now as for DAoC players, I think the problem is that the NDA hasn't been lifted, and until you get your hands on the game itself, or the NDA is lifted, you really can't get a "feel" for the gameplay. I can sit here and describe the greatest thing that will ever interest you, but until you see it for yourself, it's not going to be the greatest thing to ever interest you
Both. The whole idea of doing RvR for the loot was very strong and easy to underestimate, but at times even a few of my guild-mates (who were totally fixed on this idea) could be persuaded otherwise, but only if the fights were really engaging. I agree that small changes can make players behave differently, but there are some mindsets that would need quite a bit of work to break.
Of all the things I wanted WAR to fix, a third realm was at the bottom of my list. The main reason people wanted it was to balance out population and to ensure one side does not completely dominate the other. The population part I'd agree with on some levels, but the dominance part absolutely not. A single guild with a full warband, who knew what they were doing could wipe the floor with the zerg and turn the campaign around in literal seconds (after a single wipe, the zerg would loose people to "deserters", those that simply logged off because they were loosing). One Order guild (iirc, one on Karak-Norn) funneled Destro through an absolutely brutal meat-grinder at a Dwarf(?) keep, specifically to level their last two folks to rr80. They played the zerg liked a fiddle. To me it highlighted that the problem lay in the mindless grouping that WAR's public groups enabled.
It will be interesting to see if the public groups in ESO push players into the same mindset.
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I can't speak on the skills issue, but you certainly can play this game in 3rd person if you choose to. There is nothing forcing you to play in first person all the time, or even at all if you don't want to.
- DAOC was years ago
- WAR and other games burned the DAOC fans
- general skepticism
- Zenimax has shown very little
People don't ask questions to get answers - they ask questions to show how smart they are. - Dogbert
War didnt burn my love for DAoC RvR. It taught me something. When you spread PvP over too many zones over too many levels it just get watered down and no longer has that DAoC epic large scale feel. ESO is the first MMO since DAoC to get the key elements right for RvR magic. GW2 tried but made some huge mistakes. This hard core DAoC fan cant wait too get into AvA and never come out.
Same! Although what ruined WAR for me was the fact that scenarios were much more rewarding. So, sadly the vast majority of people ended up doing those instead. RvR pretty much just became a wasteland then. I'm so glad ESO has no battlegrounds :-)
It is not the 6 button combat alone, nor any other element alone. It is a summary of different aspects, which make it not that much like DAoC. But most importantly, that they don't advertise their AvA.. what do we seriously know, or have seen about their part of AvA? Not a lot.
But i will go on for a few other elements either missing, or most probably(because of lack of information) missing or beeing different.
- Combat. Call it 6 buttons vs. 6 skill bars. Call it massive CC vs. do no harm CC. Call it more strategic skill sets seperated between different specialist classes to a more action casual combat, where everyone can do everything(or at least a lot).
- Size of the pvp realm. I read somewhere about TESO that they aim for 2 minutes run time from keep to keep, and that one developer required 15 minutes to run through the RvR zone. DAoC pre Frontier got 4 zones and each of them was larger then the complete ESO rvr zone. You required above 30 min with speed buff to go through one zone, without even longer maybe double the time of it.
With that fights/battles of different size were spread much more and usually a battle in the wilderness was not that often interupted from another group or faction. Do you really think you will even have one fight not interupted in ESO?
- Death penality, which ties together with the point above. If you died you were out of the rvr zone, which meant that you have to run 15 min or more to the last fighting scene.. with other word it was not possible to join again the ongoing fight. With that said fights/battles in DaoC, where meant to have an finite end. A winner and a loser. In ESO(assumption here, with that little information we really have) a battle will much more like GW2.. it will never really end as long as there a players interested in joining or randomly passing by. No winner. No loser. And that really turns off in the long run.
- RvR in DAoC was meaningful for everyone. And i will not talk about Relic bonuses or things like that.. because that was not the most important stimulating factor. You could only enter the Dungeon Darkness Falls if you got the majority of keeps in comparsion to the other realms. And Darkness Falls was the number one gold source, crafting material source(salvaging materials), and best leveling spot for all levels in the entire game. With other words everyone from lvl 1 to lvl 50 participating in RvR or not was highly interested to be able to go to Darkness Fall.
And on top of that it was also a good pvp ground, when the owner of Darkness Falls changed, because one realm wiped out the other realm which could not reenter darkness falls because of the keep majority rule. A lot of fun for everyone involved. But the last owner, or the player actually staying in DF was really interested to stay as long as possible, or stay alive after the wipe because it was the best gold income source.
With other words every realm, every player from every realm was very interested that their realm got the majority of keeps, and with that you got ongoing RvR, and ongoing Keep raids and defends on every side.
I really can't understand why noone has copied that in the last decade.. it was most probably the best idea, the best feature from DAoC and was most probably the most important factor in DAoC RvR.
- Different classes, different roles for all three different realms. In DAoC group setups in all three realms where rather different and all of them had their own flavor.
And i could go on what is different, and why ESO will most probably not like DAoC. And why not every old DAoC fan screams around for the second coming. ESO might be a good game, and i will most probably actually buy and play it, but i don't expect a lot from the AvA in all honestly, although we really don't know enough details about it.
Ya the RvR map has too be where PVPer go to make the system work.
Still waiting to hear about the variety within the three factions and between the three factions. When I get info on that I will make a decision.
You mean in classes? If it is, the variety will come from the players. There are 4 classes that in the end are not really classes. They each have 3 Unique skill lines that no other classes can use. Thing is there are so many skill lines you dont even need to use them. The options are so out there its almost you think it up you can play it. 1/2 healer 1/2 mage, check. Mage/Tank, check. Pure healer, check. CC/Debuff, check. The skill system is something I have missed since SWG took it away from us.
To me, ESO looks to be the best DAoC replacement since a long time.
WAR never really had a shot, at some point I believed in WAR, but the many PVP scenarios were too much of a distraction from the real PvP : RvR. Plus resetting the keeps and campaign was not a smart move and the way the RvR areas were setup was not great either. There was just too much WoW influence in WAR, as if they were scared to go full RvR mode.
However, in ESO, so far on paper, they made some good compromises.
Starting with the mega server, which is a great way to handle the population problem from all the angles : server load, server bleed and faction imbalance. The mega server is certainly a smart solution, WoW is partly doing the same already, with cross server bg's, instances and instanced zones, and in the future cross server auction house etc. However ESO is planning this right out of the box, before the server bleeding ever starts.
Coupled with the mega server you have campaigns which are very large persistent RvR instances ( so they are actually zones ) of cyrodil , and once you are tied with a campaign, you can stick with it for as long as you want. The keep and scroll ownership are persistent, only the scoring will reset every x months. So basically once you know your friends and enemies, grudges will be held and blood will flow
It remains to be seen if the realm pride will be as great as it once was in DAoC, on the other hand, DAoC crashed pretty bad after its initial prime, because with the single server structure, a medium server bleed is a disaster. And with all the server merges in DAoC the realm pride was killed instantly. So while DAoC in it's prime ( during the SI era, pre ToA/NF ) will probably be better than ESO, I see the megaserver in ESO as a more durable solution.
They also made the decision to not include BG's ( the DAoC version nor the WoW / WAR version ), which will improve RVR focus and realm pride. And there will be large non instanced raid dungeons, which will also contribute to community building.
What DAoC also had was group PvE, it was there also that part of the realm pride was build. These days most of the PvE content can be soloed or you can do cross server instances with people you don't know and will never meet again ( yes talking WoW mainly ). I hope the PvE will be good enough so that you have to make friends to PvE and as I understand your friend list and guild will be in the same persistent campaign indefinatly, Looks promising indeed.
So to sum things up, I don't see any reasons why DAoC vets like me would not look forward to ESO. And there is more to ESO than just the RvR.
Links to my sources :
http://elderscrollsonline.com/en/news/post/2013/10/21/ask-us-anything-variety-pack-9
http://www.pcgamesn.com/elderscrolls/circle-strife-elder-scrolls-online-pvp-campaigns-provide-great-sense-persistence
http://elderscrollsonline.com/en-uk/news/post/2013/12/23/ask-us-anything-cyrodiil
If you are interested in subscription or PCU numbers for MMORPG's, check out my site :
http://mmodata.blogspot.be/
Favorite MMORPG's : DAoC pre ToA-NF, SWG Pre CU-NGE, EVE Online
That's the thing that killed DAoC PvP for me, the stupid amounts of CC. There wasn't even skill involved with it. Whoever got their CC off first won. I remember running 8 man groups and thinking to myself how utterly stupid it was that we had 2-3 groups CC'd and we just got the pick them off as our CC was being spammed to catch anyone trying to purge.
There's ways to help dilute the zerg, but that's a subject for a different thread entirely.
Agreed DMKamo. There weren't that many of us.... and some of us like me were old THEN already when DAoC launched... now, well let's just say I am too old to PvP now, too slow, mental map crumbled and can't keep track of where the enemies are anymore. I wonder how many other Players of DAoC from back then are in the same shape as me.
Add to that this little tidbit, it might not be much, but it IS a pet peeve of mine.... original DAoC had arrows... actual arrows... Like Skyrim... when I found out TESO weren't using actual arrows but them "magic" arrows with a bottomless quiver... I decided I wasn't interested in TESO anymore... just like I quite DAoC for good when they got rid of actual arrows as well.
I consider it pretty LAME that Skyrim had Actual arrows, and yet the DEVs of TESO couldn't do the same.
I do play other MMOs and some of them don't have actual arrows... but each time I buy a new MMO and then find out it uses magic arrows I am disappointed, and playing an archer bugs me. My Hunter in LotRO that is as old as the game itself, love him, but the magic arrow things gets on my nerves and now I don't play him much because of it.
I won't buy another fantasy/primitive/medieval time period MMO that doesn't use actual arrows that we have to keep track of, aim to hit the target, buy/make more when we run out, etc. No more magic arrows in my MMOs.
People remember daoc in the wrong light, they remember the epic keep fights the rush to darkness falls when the dungeon opened for PHAT loot and the best xp in the game.
They remember the all night relic raids where you tried to sneak 300 people through a game that most people played on dial up.
the thing which made daoc fun as a 3 way RVR game was the fact that each three realms classes were ALL different even if they were slightly similar in some respects, some where different and it opened the dynamic of the three way rvr up.
You needed to fill spots with specifc classes and your uber group may be rolled over by someone fielding a different tactic, I remember being invited to go out in rvr on my VERDANT animist before they were fixed (or broken) they thought it was funny and because I was ignored in afight for being an animist their tanks couldn't understand why they couldn't kill anyone due to blade turn bubbles stacking on everyone.
The only issue was the constant calls for nerfs against other classes or my class is under powered compared to xx class, I don't think the forums ever agreed that one class was as equal as another class.
It was always the same argument you class is gimped so you cant be in my group which is what I had with my animist for the years I played him. It wasn't until I started to farm the dragon and drop trials of atlantis masterlevel mobs with my team of animists that people woke up and then boom nerfed into the floor.
but its all rose tinted glasses you remember the good times you don't remember the chain dying or begging for groups in cursed forest or farming trees as a ranger
You're right, I don't remember that. I was Albion. Always Albion.
But I do remember same happening my my Realm. My memory of DAoC is bittersweet because of it... but I would rather have bittersweet and mixed good and bad memories of a MMO than the "Meh" memories I have of some newer MMOs now.
I try to get Players in SWTOR to understand why I will only play Republic... why I am "Faction loyal"...they just don't get it.
I will say this...If your server was Percival, then I met you in battle in the Frontiers and in Darkness Falls.
Thank you. I had a blast, I hope you did as well.