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Worthing coming back to?
Onoma
Member Posts: 44
Havn't played in like 2 years so obvouisly theres some changes ive missed. I did not play long either due to the fact I just got bored. Basically im going to ask is this game revamped enough and funner for NEW PLAYERS? To stay intrested in? In seemd like leveling took way to long evne at lvl 10. Worth coming back to? Dunno id like to get far enough to try out pvp but I was never able to stay intrested in the game that long. I did like the guild halls / houses though that was cool. Who here has played al ong time and thinks the game is better now?
Comments
Speaking as someone who has played the game since release and experienced all the changes over the years first hand and as a Mythic Rep...
Yes, the game is definitely worth coming back to, especially at this point in time. There have been a lot of changes to the game to make the area you're specifically referring to better. Leveling takes NOWHERE near as long as it used to. The newbie game has been revamped significantly. Lots of changes have gone in recently, almost all of which were direct results of player feedback and requests. And more changes are coming down the pipeline in every patch to make it even better.
Richard J. Cox
"There were much of the beautiful, much of the wanton, much of the bizarre, something of the terrible, and not a little of that which might have excited disgust."
Onoma, all I can say is you are in for a treat! Buy the Epic edition as it has every expansion inluding Catacombs (graphics revamp) and the new Darkness rising expansion. It's under 30 bucks at Wal-Mart and I just can't really express how great the game is now.
I agree that the lowbie levels are nowhere near as difficult to get through. As a newer player you won't see some of the things that have been "added" recently as being unnecessary. I have to admit I left the game recently just because I'm not a grinder/power gamer and alot of the newer content seems aimed at keeping an aging fan base interested in teh game. If you were around for Housing I believe that puts you somewhere in the ToA release area of th timeline. Some cool things since then.
1. Catacombs:
Excellent release including more playable classes and more areas that are for lowbies. One of the best things about this release is the addition of instance dungeons that will spawn for you and you alone making kill stealing and lack of mobs a thing of the past. Only thing I don't like about the instance dungeons is it kills camping, this is both a good and bad thing, I'm lazy and don't like running around. Low levels are still a bit of a nuisance though as more group dependant classes may find it difficult to level due to lower populations.
2. Major Clustering:
Also an interesting change that doesn't affect the beginning game too much is the addition of many large clusters. Several multi-sever clusters have been grouped providing the ability to move from server to server and efectivly doubling, tripling, or even quintupling then number of characters that you can have in one world.
3. Darkness Rising:
This expansion came out recently which is nice including the addition of player mounts and several higher level areas and graphics. Unfortunately this does very little for the boredom in the beginning of the game.
4. Traditional Ruleset Servers:
These servers limit the usage of buffbots by requiring the buffing player to be in the group as well as a range limitation on buffs. This type of server also eliminates ToA and artifacts which made alot of non-power gamers very happy. I myself tried this ruleset and found it enjoyable until the grind of trying to make my 20th character get to 50 was too much tedium.
Overall I think DAoC is a good game but the level of powergaming and grinding required to be truly competitive in the end game makes the destination not really worth the journey. If you like the challange of trying to get into a well established game then by all means this is the game for you. A game doesn't stay around for years without fan appeal and this game has a great ability to hook you in and keep you playing but when "keeping up with the Jones'" wears thin some of us move on.
I think DAoC is worth the initial investment and some of your time, but unless you plan on sinking a great amount of time into a game then the eventual time/money cost may prove prohibitive to your becoming one of the great playersin this game.
Does your guild have a website yet? Find out how easy it is to get one.
You'd have to pay for Catacombs and Darkness Rising, which would be $20 each independantly. I think the downloads page has a deal where if you register them together they're $30 total. But the Epic Edition is the same price and you'd save yourself several hours of downloading and patching.
Richard J. Cox
"There were much of the beautiful, much of the wanton, much of the bizarre, something of the terrible, and not a little of that which might have excited disgust."
Well a lot of the changes and stuff that made the game more newbie friendly came in the Catacombs and DR expansions. Try telling the patcher to do a full file check (check the box before you click 'start update').
Richard J. Cox
"There were much of the beautiful, much of the wanton, much of the bizarre, something of the terrible, and not a little of that which might have excited disgust."
I played in original beta and release. Left a long time ago, right around when player housing went in. I remember the announcement and that it was coming I don't remember if it went live before I left or not.
I recently came back just before Christmas. The new player experience is TOP NOTCH now... easily better than any other MMORPG I've played. The tutorial gives you the basics and the newbie quests that the game immediately sends you into get you very familliar with the game in a painless and friendly manner (Kudos to mythic!).
Levelling is TONS faster now. In 1 month of play after I returned I had 3 characters over 20th and 2 in their teens.
Worth coming back to? Absolutely.
You can PVP from level 1 now if you so desire. There are battlegrounds for 1-4, 5-9, 10-14, all the way to 50. So from day one of coming back, if you want, you can jump into a battleground for some RVR action.
Good luck whatever you decide.
Currently Playing: Dungeons and Dragons Online.
Sig image Pending
Still in: A couple Betas
Here is where Mythic misses the point: levelling is easier. The game is levelling and exploring the wonder of the world, not in racing to 50 to go play tag with the PvP crowd.
Not sure why these older games seems to think that the solution to subscription drops is to race everyone to max level. I think the way to boost subscriptions is to revamp the low-level game and make it something folks want to experience again and again.
"When the low level game dies, the overall game is dying."
Erm.... okay
Currently Playing: Dungeons and Dragons Online.
Sig image Pending
Still in: A couple Betas
Part of the changes I was referring to WAS a revamp to the low level game. The easing of the leveling treadmill was a direct result of player feedback and requests, not something we did in order to bring in new players but rather to give the existing players what they were asking for.
Richard J. Cox
"There were much of the beautiful, much of the wanton, much of the bizarre, something of the terrible, and not a little of that which might have excited disgust."
I dunno... you're talking a pretty niche concept there. I like the idea but I'm not sure many people would pay for an MMO that took "years" to reach the highest level unless it was a VERY open ended system. It certainly couldn't be a class/level based game because being locked into that kind of choice for that long would make it VERY painful to start over. A system like UO would work very well for it but even still... a game that takes 'years' to reach the upper end of the game would not attract a very large following.
Just a simple fact. When thinking about MMORPG's you have to remember that they need tens of thousands of players just to cut a profit.
Currently Playing: Dungeons and Dragons Online.
Sig image Pending
Still in: A couple Betas
Contrary to popular believe, the hardcore player isn't the biggest demographic for a MMORPG, its the casual player. The person who has a wife and prolly a couple kids, a full time job and only plays a couple hours a night if they're lucky, quite often only getting to play on the weekend. While us in the industry strive to make everyone happy, we all know it isn't possible. We make as many people as happy as we can. While the hardcore players may be a VERY vocal minority, they're still a minority. While the level grind has lessened over the years (in every game really, even new games hitting the market are far faster to level in than new games a couple years back) there are other aspects of the game put into place for the hardcore players in the bunch, like raid encounters and alternate leveling systems etc.
While the leveling treadmill in DAoC has been sped up a bit in no way do I think it is too easy these days. Unlike some games out there we don't hand everything to you on a silver platter, there is still some work involved, we just made it seem less like work and a bit more fun.
Richard J. Cox
"There were much of the beautiful, much of the wanton, much of the bizarre, something of the terrible, and not a little of that which might have excited disgust."
I played in the beta for DAoC years ago. At that time the game did not grab me. I didn't think it was bad necessarily but I just thought it was boring and soloing was difficult. It took a long time to level and I would die so often that at the end of an evening I'd be worse off than where I started due to exp lose. I didn't buy the game when it went retail.
About a month ago, I decided to give the game another look. Boy has this game changed and its all for the better. It drew me in this time hook, line, and sinker. Let me give you the run down on what I like about the game now.
Leveling: This is a breeze for any class. Its not difficult to go from 1-10 in only a few hours. The catacombs expansion introduced a slew of wonderful quests, dungeons, instanced dungeions, and task dungeons. The art work is gorgeous in these areas. There are hundreds of quests with rich rewards for exp, cash, and items. Instanced dungeons and task dungeons are dungeons that once you enter are private for you and/or your party. Monsters here do not respawn. Task dungeons give groups an instant focus without the time sink of travel. You can jump right in and play.
Grouping: I have not had any problem at all finding a group of low level players to adventure with. I have met a lot of people new to the game just like me. I'm not sure if this is how it always is or if there are a large group of new players coming into the game but the low level game is far far from dead. A couple of night ago, I was in a full group of eight for serveral hours as we all went from around level 7 to level 12. Great fun.
RvR/Battlegrounds: These areas are easily accessible and offer yet another avenue for play and advancement. You can start to play in the battlegrounds right away if you want PvP. You get exp for killing other players and you start accumulating realm points at level 15. These realm points can be used to purchase realm abilities that give you new powers and skills. Battlegrounds are for the sub 50 crowd. Frontiers are for the end game. Last night I was in Killaoe(level 15-19 BG) with lots of other Midgard players and was in a force that took the central keep. It was a ton of fun. We fought the Hibernians for about an hour, got a battering ram and stormed the inner keep. We took it over and raised the flag of Midgard. I received a very nice exp bonus for my efforts. It was a ton of fun.
Crafting: If you like crafting, the game is very deep in this area. Armor crafting, weapon crafting, fletching, tailoring are accompanied by spellcrafting and alchemy. I won't go into to much detail here but you could spend a lot of time crafting. Even if you dont want to craft you can raise your crafting skills to the point that you can salvage loot drops in the game and earn a greater profit selling the salvaged trinkets back to NPC vendors.
Player housing: I'm just a newbie and don't have the cash to buy a home yet but there is a large area where you can but property and build your own home. How nice and big a home is depends, of course, on how much cash you have. You can place all sorts of NPC's that do various things. You can place items for sale on these NPC's for other players to buy. Buying is not a hassle, there are market explorer NPC's at the entrance to every housing zone where you can search for and buy items that interest you.
Graphics/Sound: Top notch and very well done. I love the music and sound in the game as much as the graphics.
Server types: I play on a classic server. A classic server has a few differences from normal servers. First of all, classic servers don't use the Trials of Atlantis expansion. They use the classes but not the areas, quests, items, or master levels. However, the thing I like the best about the classic servers is that buffs work very differntly. To receive buffs on a classic server you have to be grouped and in range of the person that buffed you. I think the range is 3000 or 5000 units. This gives new people a chance to compete without having to face other players that use buff bots from a second account parked a mile away from their characters out of their group. It's probably the way the game should have been designed from the beginning. The classic servers have a very nice population and plenty of new/low level people to group with.
I have been playing MMORG's since 1999 when AC1 came out. I have played a lot of them over the years. I would say this game as it stands now is the best on the market. I plan to be here for a good long while.
Thanks for the kind words and great review PB&J, glad you are enjoying your time in DAoC.
Richard J. Cox
"There were much of the beautiful, much of the wanton, much of the bizarre, something of the terrible, and not a little of that which might have excited disgust."
Currently Playing: Dungeons and Dragons Online.
Sig image Pending
Still in: A couple Betas
I'm also a married with kids MMORG Dad. Everybody has a right to their opinion. I tried EVE twice and just couldn't get into it. Too much travel. It seemed I was either staring at an asteroid, a jumpgate, or a spec of light in the distance representing an NPC or PC. I realize EVE is all about getting into a corp and dong things with the corps. I appreciate its open ended game play but some of those skill ups were just awful. Real life training time to get one skill one point higher could take a month! It just didn't seem like you made any progress in that game. I did a lot of the quick missions in EVE but they quickly became repetitive and once I got to the level 3 missions, it seems my ship was constantly getting destroyed. I probably just sucked at it but it was frustrating.
EVE was a game where I could see other players clearly in chat but it seemed like I was the only one in space. I would see other players coming into jumpgates but that was about it. I tried joining a corp a few times but it seemed like mainly people would mine asteroid fields which is a tedium I simply was not interested in sinking my time.
So far, in DAoC I don't find myself paying attention to my level much. Its fun to gain new skills but I fully enjoy each level as it comes.
I'm also married, have 2 kids and well, obviously a full time job, even if it is for Mythic. I also have to disagree with EVE's system being the solution. Yeah, it seems great in the begining, but later on when you're waiting 3-4 weeks for one skill point, meh, sorry, not for me. It's a great game and has a large following, but it just doesn't fit my playstyle. I don't see how waiting that long for real time to pass to get a skill point benefits me as a casual player. Personally I feel there is plenty to do in DAoC that you're not thinking about your level. The levels come at a nice steady and decent pace. You can quest, do kill tasks, instanced task dungeons, craft, RvR in the BGs, etc. Plenty to do without constantly watching the XP bar and counting the minutes/hours till your next level.
Richard J. Cox
"There were much of the beautiful, much of the wanton, much of the bizarre, something of the terrible, and not a little of that which might have excited disgust."
I'm also a married with kids MMORG Dad. Everybody has a right to their opinion. I tried EVE twice and just couldn't get into it. Too much travel. It seemed I was either staring at an asteroid, a jumpgate, or a spec of light in the distance representing an NPC or PC. I realize EVE is all about getting into a corp and dong things with the corps. I appreciate its open ended game play but some of those skill ups were just awful. Real life training time to get one skill one point higher could take a month! It just didn't seem like you made any progress in that game. I did a lot of the quick missions in EVE but they quickly became repetitive and once I got to the level 3 missions, it seems my ship was constantly getting destroyed. I probably just sucked at it but it was frustrating.
EVE was a game where I could see other players clearly in chat but it seemed like I was the only one in space. I would see other players coming into jumpgates but that was about it. I tried joining a corp a few times but it seemed like mainly people would mine asteroid fields which is a tedium I simply was not interested in sinking my time.
So far, in DAoC I don't find myself paying attention to my level much. Its fun to gain new skills but I fully enjoy each level as it comes.
I didn't play EVE much because I couldn't stand it. Not because of the level, but because there wasn't much to do besides kill people and mine. Not my cup a tea and neither is a space based MMO. I think EVE is probably a good game to some people, just not me. I was using the idea of their level system, that was it. You may have found it to take too long, but what if you were to busy doing things in the game than worrying about how long it was taking to level? The majority of the people if you haven't noticed in DAoC are in a rush to 50 which puts a hurt number on the lower level things. Sure you have plenty of people at lower levels to grind with, but what if you don't want to grind, craft, or BG. What if you want to group up and explore or take down a really hard named in a field or dungeon? This part of the game is still there, but is being ignored by people rushing to lvl 50.
From personal experience; EvE has a waaaaaaaaaaaay bigger grind then DAOC. I can see where you are coming from because I always thought the same, untill I tried it out for six months. In those six months I spend all my time training basic abilities and learning skills to actually learn skills and increase learning speed. Six months further I was still 1-1.5 years behind from getting my skills near/up to endgame quality (for example one skill point would allready cost me one month (real life time!!) and you'd need 5 of them (at even further increased time costs). Then there is a second grind... The money grind to be able to buy the books to start l;earning skills from.... And yet another grind doing agent missions to get your standing up (very very very repetitive and uninspired). Then there is also a mining grind and research grind.... I.e. EvE deceptivly looks like a casual player game but in fact it's the most hardcore MMORPG with the most extensive grind available in the current MMORPG market, they just hidden it very well but after playing it for a few you'll notice it all to soon.
Fun is relative in EvE, I personally didnt find it fun staring at my screen for 30 minutes while my ship was getting from A to B with nothing other to do then help other players in the help channel and listen to EvE Radio, something I do enjoy doing but I'm not paying a game for just watching some ship model 'fly' through a desktop theme background, which isnt even customizable. And don't get me started on your actual toon (pilot) which is nothing more then a static jpg in the ship info window.
Also the EvE skill system doesn't invite you to play with others at all, it keeps you away from the community.
Bottomline, the /freelevel system in Daoc is way more rewarding and gets you there faster then the always-on training system of EvE even if you would only logon once every two weeks you are near the endgame a lot faster then you would have been with EvE. And with Catacombs and Darkness Rising the quests are a very good way to get xp as well as well as good lore and a break from hack/slash-xp-ing.
From personal experience; EvE has a waaaaaaaaaaaay bigger grind then DAOC. I can see where you are coming from because I always thought the same, untill I tried it out for six months. In those six months I spend all my time training basic abilities and learning skills to actually learn skills and increase learning speed. Six months further I was still 1-1.5 years behind from getting my skills near/up to endgame quality (for example one skill point would allready cost me one month (real life time!!) and you'd need 5 of them (at even further increased time costs). Then there is a second grind... The money grind to be able to buy the books to start l;earning skills from.... And yet another grind doing agent missions to get your standing up (very very very repetitive and uninspired). Then there is also a mining grind and research grind.... I.e. EvE deceptivly looks like a casual player game but in fact it's the most hardcore MMORPG with the most extensive grind available in the current MMORPG market, they just hidden it very well but after playing it for a few you'll notice it all to soon.
Fun is relative in EvE, I personally didnt find it fun staring at my screen for 30 minutes while my ship was getting from A to B with nothing other to do then help other players in the help channel and listen to EvE Radio, something I do enjoy doing but I'm not paying a game for just watching some ship model 'fly' through a desktop theme background, which isnt even customizable. And don't get me started on your actual toon (pilot) which is nothing more then a static jpg in the ship info window.
Also the EvE skill system doesn't invite you to play with others at all, it keeps you away from the community.
Bottomline, the /freelevel system in Daoc is way more rewarding and gets you there faster then the always-on training system of EvE even if you would only logon once every two weeks you are near the endgame a lot faster then you would have been with EvE. And with Catacombs and Darkness Rising the quests are a very good way to get xp as well as well as good lore and a break from hack/slash-xp-ing.
No offense, but why are you telling me this? I don't want a game like EVE. I was trying to use an example and you all took it as if I wanted an EVE type fantasy game. I just wanted to see a game where the focus of the community was not on getting to max level or end game asap. I also think endgame should only be half the game and not neccessarily the better half either. Grinding for 6 months would get really boring, like grinding for Jedi was. If you take grinding out of it and put a different leveling system in to where people can't rush to endgame and skip all the middle stuff, I think players of all levels will end up happier. I don't have all the answers nor a whole lot of ideas. It is not my job to do so, or to come up with a plan so you all can agree with me. My job as a gamer is to put an idea out there for developers to look at and expand on and fill in the gaps.
I do see what you are trying to say though, DAOC is sooo much fun if you take your time exploring, learning, battlegrounding, grouping and making friends on your journey to 50. A wiseman once said it's not the destination that counts it's the journey to the destination (Stephen King, Dark Towers closing notes). Daoc however is a real treat since both the journey and the destination can be extremly fun and jummy....