Camelot Unchained MMO

Dunhill_sl said:

I really believe that the reason why DAoC was such a hit for so many was that they were mesmerized by the large scale PvP. The melee combat system was pure shit as the only styles you could realistically use was your anytime style or maybe your from behind style, at least before they implemented backup styles. I was one shotting casters from far away on my archer without losing stealth for like six months before they nerfed that. Hib casters killed all classes in less time than it took for their uninterruptableninesecond stun to wear off. How long did it take them to implement stun resists? A year?

I think I still hold the world record for getting the most number of kill shots within a few seconds btw. 38. Through a wall of course. No skill involved whatsoever.

My personal favorite was when they implemented new debuffs on the test server. They made them instant, mana free, no cool down, and had them interrupt all spell casting. It didn't carry over to live, but I always wondered who was behind it. One person? The whole team?

I would love to see large scale PvP done right, but there is no way in hell the team behind DAoC will do it. They only did one thing right and that was realizing many of us love PvP despite of PvP being unpopular in EQ.

As for WAR, I only played the trial version also. Me and my buddies all made that dwarf looking melee character and we all spammed that cleave ability. Unstoppable for 99% of the fights it seemed, heh.

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I think you are fairly misleading. The reason why DAoC was such a hit for so many years were the gank grps. Zerg meant almost nothing in that game because a group of 8 people could kill zergs like it was not problem. Fight could last for 10minutes for a 8v8 and fights could last seconds for 8vZerg.

The thing I hate about games these days is small scale opportunity falls way short. Zergs win almost always these days in current games these days theres almost 0 games where skill means anything vs numbers. DAoC had so much CC and counter CC that almost everything had a counter.

You mentioned 1 shotting casters from range without unstealthing and that literally was when everyone was hitting max lvl and people were figuring out builds and templates in the infant stages of the game, 2h stealthers could run into a zerg and do the same thing from melee. You also mention 9second stun nuke qq, which if you forget that casters could be interuptted in that game just by sneezing at them. All of those things were relativity fixed soon after it was "expolited".

DAoC was a game of skill and timing, it blew up from "oh shit a large scale pvp game" and turned into a elitest gank grp of epeen with huge importance of team synergy, strategy and team fighting.

The only thing i have ever wondered to this day was - was that shit methodically planned or was that all accidental? The game for its time just seemed to good to be true.

Top 5 features for me have alwasy been:

Realm Points
CamelotHerald
Realm Abilities
Crafting
Darkness Falls

I always wondered why no one ever does anything similar to this, too his day.
CamelotHerald added so much drive to be the best.
Realm Points always had something to work for.
Realm Abilities adding another dimension to the game.
Crafting, barnone the best to date in a video game.
Darkness Falls truly an original idea and amazing experience.

and TOA being an amazing expansion with the release of unique looking gear and stats along with master levels adding another layer of dimension.

Sorry for the nostalgia post, you can tell I will always be a huge DAoC fanboy.
One thing I do hope is that MJ doesn't rape my childhood.

But how could possibly fuck this up, when the ground work was laid out years ago.

Crizack_sl said:

DAoC was a game of skill and timing, it blew up from "oh shit a large scale pvp game" and turned into a elitest gank grp of epeen with huge importance of team synergy, strategy and team fighting.

The only thing i have ever wondered to this day was - was that shit methodically planned or was that all accidental? The game for its time just seemed to good to be true.

Top 5 features for me have alwasy been:

Realm Points
CamelotHerald
Realm Abilities
Crafting
Darkness Falls

I always wondered why no one ever does anything similar to this, too his day.

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The current set of devs that rule the mmo industry are cowards.


Just look at the GW2 devs and the pathetic crap they have put into their game. GW1 was also groundbreaking in many ways. GW2 is pretty lame in comparison. GW2 is still better than most current mmo's, but they wimped out on the most important things that made GW1 great, and instead copied some of WoW's worst features... Pathetic.. fucking.. cowards.

ANET also LIED to their fans about what their gaming philosophy is about.. When you have respected devs going back on their word it is pretty hard to put faith in any of them.

Really, most mmo devs are little bitch fuckwits when it comes to doing anything groundbreaking. They have all been herded into this little room that shows WoW reruns every day and they have forgotten what mmos had the potential to be. Even the ones that did something off the wall and original years ago have jumped into the corporate cesspool and took their "marketing research" up the ass to the hilt. F'ing morons.

I really hope Mark Jacobs does something cool and takes the best features of DAoC (whether they were by design or an accident) to the next level. But the reality is that whatwe always end up with is just another instanced daily WoW cloneand everyone is sick of it. I have serious doubts that Mark will have the courage to do anything different.

What you're going to get is a game that you play for <1 Month and you all know it. You may not want to hear it, you may not want to believe it, but at your core you know it is true. When I bought into the GW2 hype I lied to myself and told myself "hey I'm casual, this game will last awhile." Two weeks in and I was done, and I barely played. It sucked dick, and it still does, and it always will.

I remember buying Warhammer Online and buying into that hype as well. I loaded it up and went "this is awesome!" Two weeks later, it was sitting on the shelf. I'll give it credit that it felt a bit more polished than most MMO's at that time, but at the end of the day it was terrible. The PVP was just shit at a certain point, and that was the basis of the whole game! If you're going to limit the game to just PVP then at least make it great. This is why WoW is successful people. The PVP isn't absolutely awesome, but it's good. The PVE is great. You could spend your whole time playing either or both and still have fun. Most of us are tired of WoW, but this is what makes it good.

GW2 made a ton of design mistakes by limiting themselves to mostly PVP and getting rid of the holy trinity. How many people would be in love with that game if it also had a strong PVE set with traditional class roles? The game is gorgeous and feels good when you play it.. but it doesn't last. The PVP is boring.

I think the last MMO I had fun playing for more than a few weeks was Vanguard, so maybe I'm not the best critic.

There are plenty of developers to bitch about, but the crew at ArenaNet is not one of them. They made a pretty good game. Well worth the box cost. Nosub4lyfe

Draegan_sl said:

There are plenty of developers to bitch about, but the crew at ArenaNet is not one of them. They made a pretty good game. Well worth the box cost. Nosub4lyfe

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I would call GW2 successful, I just didn't like it. To me it wasn't worth the $60, but to a large majority it was.

Draegan_sl said:

There are plenty of developers to bitch about, but the crew at ArenaNet is not one of them. They made a pretty good game. Well worth the box cost. Nosub4lyfe

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I really dislike GW2 because it was suppose to be a pvp centric game and its just not - the march pvp patch should be a step in the right direction tho.

March will see the release of the WuvWuv progression system, new ranks you can earn in WvW visible to all other players, and new DubVDub specific abilities/bonuses that you can earn as you rank up. Our team working on WvW will discuss this system in more detail as that date approaches.

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Someone rightly mentioned what was missing from modern MMOs is the group vs group small teams combat we saw in DAOC. I'd add in the stealther wars was fun, too, although I'm not a fan of total invisibility and prefer GW2s stealth mechanics far better.

Outside of Frontiers, the best part of DAOC was Darkness Falls. It'd be nice if they could incorporate that into their design.

To me it sounds like they are proposing DAOCs Frontiers without the crappy PVE stuff they had, and with removing most of the levels and grind outside of the Realm Ranks,etc. I can't say that isn't a very good design decision, but I'm curious how polished and good a game they can roll out with 10 million.

At least GW2 tried something different. And they made a solid, functional game--those 2 things are reasonable expectations and so many developers fail to meet them.

However, one thing that I just don't ever see working is hard faction PvP. PvP needs to be fluid, and adaptable...a lot of that is taken away when you make it impossible to switch sides, or worse, make it so there are a small number of sides to begin with. I really believe the future of PvP is going to be the developer that uses guild systems as a PvP tool, or at least uses fluid factions (Gain rep, sign up ect) as a PvP system. You really have to dig down and allow players to make alliances, betray each other, overpower one side until everyone is sick of it...These are the aspects that make PvP in EVE so god damn fun to read about. If you could meld that with a more interactive environment (In terms of fun pew pew), then I could see a game doing very well, even if it's solely PvP.

But this two or three sides? Eventually it becomes imbalanced through population and one side dominates and there is no recourse for the other side. In a more fluid system, a large, dominating PvP presence might mean there is less trickle down of resources to the soldiers--which lets factions crop up and a self correcting system of alliances (In theory). Hard codes, it just seems, are doomed to fail.

It well always go the way of imbalance no matter what baddies well join the zerg or quit..people like me quite enjoy playing so called underdog and farm the adformentioned baddies..I enjoyed the small group tatics of both war and daoc..it punished zergs for what they are and let good teams have place on the bf. I don't expect sides or classes to be balanced in pvp as the human skill factor can not be I seen people do amazing shit on shit classes.

Crizack_sl said:

I really dislike GW2 because it was suppose to be a pvp centric game and its just not - the march pvp patch should be a step in the right direction tho.

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I agree that their PVP systems are severely lacking. Hopefully they will put something into place that is fun.

Not trying to start a war here but I disagree with a lot of your points.. response in bold.

Dunhill_sl said:

I really believe that the reason why DAoC was such a hit for so many was that they were mesmerized by the large scale PvP. The melee combat system was pure shit as the only styles you could realistically use was your anytime style or maybe your from behind style, at least before they implemented backup styles. I was one shotting casters from far away on my archer without losing stealth for like six months before they nerfed that. Hib casters killed all classes in less time than it took for their uninterruptableninesecond stun to wear off. How long did it take them to implement stun resists? A year?

Really? I thought the stealther chain styles were very complex and were awesome. You could follow up with a bleed against heavy armor, or maybe a armor debuff if you were using a heavier, slower swinging weapon. You could also follow up with additional poisons, snares, casting debuffs etc.. the options were so intense it was just wicked. And I know those styles existed since beta because I was one of the TL's that tested them. Reavers were another really cool class that had a lot of great chain styles with different debuffs or DD's depending on your situation. I really thought that DAoC's melee system was revolutionary in the sense that you actually had to time, position and decide which opening/follow up style was the best for your situation.

I think I still hold the world record for getting the most number of kill shots within a few seconds btw. 38. Through a wall of course. No skill involved whatsoever.

Haha, yea that was just horrible, there were a lot of problems with such an immense undertaking, I won't deny that.

My personal favorite was when they implemented new debuffs on the test server. They made them instant, mana free, no cool down, and had them interrupt all spell casting. It didn't carry over to live, but I always wondered who was behind it. One person? The whole team?

Most caster classes had debuffs like this, instant Dex/Quick/Str AOE debuffs that were used to interrupt, my Bard also had an AOE instant spell that did nothing but interupt.. most people would spec 1 or 2 into a sub spec to get these types of spells because they were so useful. To me that was just part of the game, positioning and dealing with interrupts. I hate the alternative we see in WOW where if your disable is down someone will chain cast through your damage. These games were better when it was all about the interrupts (See UO if you never played it) instead of disables.

I would love to see large scale PvP done right, but there is no way in hell the team behind DAoC will do it. They only did one thing right and that was realizing many of us love PvP despite of PvP being unpopular in EQ.

Hrmm really? So who did large scale PvP right then? Interested to see what examples you would use from games that did better than DAOC? I was never much into the RvR in DAoC anyway, I played for the 8 man... most of my time was spent on Mordred once it came up.. and the 8v8 was among the best most skilled PvP I have seen in any game. Right up there with pre cast duels in UO.

As for WAR, I only played the trial version also. Me and my buddies all made that dwarf looking melee character and we all spammed that cleave ability. Unstoppable for 99% of the fights it seemed, heh.

WAR was horrible, MJ really dropped the ball on that one and that is why I am also skeptical about this new project..

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I guess it all depends on your play style and experience.. I played DAoC from phase 2 beta up until a few years ago. I had a lot of fun and saw a lot of expansions that people said ruined the game.. but I just never got it. It was always fun for me, so like I said, different people.. different experiences.

Crizack_sl said:

DAoC was a game of skill and timing, it blew up from "oh shit a large scale pvp game" and turned into a elitest gank grp of epeen with huge importance of team synergy, strategy and team fighting.

I always wondered why no one ever does anything similar to this, too his day.
CamelotHerald added so much drive to be the best.
Realm Points always had something to work for.
Realm Abilities adding another dimension to the game.
Crafting, barnone the best to date in a video game.
Darkness Falls truly an original idea and amazing experience.

.

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Great summary and I agree with all of those points. The Realm Abilities were great because they could also be beneficial for PvE. Some of the best tanks in the game for PVE were also hard core RvRers that got to a high RR so their PvE group could tank more content. There was the right balance, you PvEd to get some of your gear, you PvPed to get some realm abilities.. it just worked out so great. You never felt like you were forced to do too much of either side.. not grind and grind and grind the honour or grind through the raids.. just enough of both to balance it.

Lithose_sl said:

At least GW2 tried something different. And they made a solid, functional game--those 2 things are reasonable expectations and so many developers fail to meet them.

However, one thing that I just don't ever see working is hard faction PvP. PvP needs to be fluid, and adaptable...a lot of that is taken away when you make it impossible to switch sides, or worse, make it so there are a small number of sides to begin with. I really believe the future of PvP is going to be the developer that uses guild systems as a PvP tool, or at least uses fluid factions (Gain rep, sign up ect) as a PvP system. You really have to dig down and allow players to make alliances, betray each other, overpower one side until everyone is sick of it...These are the aspects that make PvP in EVE so god damn fun to read about. If you could meld that with a more interactive environment (In terms of fun pew pew), then I could see a game doing very well, even if it's solely PvP.

But this two or three sides? Eventually it becomes imbalanced through population and one side dominates and there is no recourse for the other side. In a more fluid system, a large, dominating PvP presence might mean there is less trickle down of resources to the soldiers--which lets factions crop up and a self correcting system of alliances (In theory). Hard codes, it just seems, are doomed to fail.

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We had this about 15 years ago, and it was awesome. SAS and FoH formed an alliance that forced the entire server of Sonoma to ally against us, and they still couldn't beat us. We used to have guilds come from other servers to try and challenge us. One of the things you need to drive this sort of style is a great community. When is the last time you played a game where you truly felt part of the community and not just another random? I don't mean part of your guild, but part of the actual community. UO, DAoC, AC, EQ they all had it.. I can't say I have seen it since.. this is something that MJ AND Firor both claim they are going to recreate.

Well the big difference between a lot of those games that fostered community and the drive through Mc. MMO's we have of late is content to max level. The bottom line is people generally joined servers back then and stuck with it. Mostly because once you had established yourself on a server you had a huge advantage leveling again or trying to do other things like crafting / twinking etc. Everything got easier.

Now we have these games where you are maxed out in 30-60 hours /played and in GW2 case encouraged people to server hop and there is no attachment to your characters, no attachment to your community and if you aren't in a really good guild there really isn't much keeping you in game.

Its like these developers said "ok we want people to get to end game quickly, noGRIND". Ok, everyoneCHEERSthen when they get to end game there is a giantFACTION GRIND,developers suddenly meter out your progression with daily quests like some giantFUNJEWand all of this for a +3 accessory slot. Are these people seriously thinking that is how you get people to play your game for a long time?

Now I don't want to go back to those old days or anything but this new generation ADD friendly MMO needs to diaf as quickly as the camp x spot with guild 24/7 for a month to get everyone keyed while everyone else got screwed on the server. Both extremes are total bull shit and simply not fun. There is plenty of middle ground.

GW2 and DAOC leveling actually were somewhat of a wash. There were loopholes to level fast in both, but it's not a large difference with those.

DAOC was a small grind to level but it was nothing like Everquest. The majority of the game for me was based around the RvR, as well as for the vast majority of people I knew. I honestly can't remember any PVE in the game outside of some crappy DF fights, and those were fun simply due to the added enjoyment of trying to rush through before the Mids rolled in and killed us Hibs.

The 'grind' was for Realm Rank and for Epeen via smackdown in Frontiers and DAOC, which were far more fun than sitting camped in Lower Guk. The community in DAOC on Percival was far better than in any other game, and it was that way due to that RVR and small group fighting, and not from some super long grind.

People don't want to level anymore and will take the easiest path to max level. Look in GW2 how many people yakked to 80. Same thing happens in every mmo over and over again. Making a long grind to max level is simply a stupid business move. You don't make money or become successful by catering to a vocal minority that can't be made happy. Look at all the revisionist history on DAOC lately. I didn't know that 5 billion people played and loved that game. Lately though DAOC is getting brought up as much as EQ as the greatest.

I for one thinks he going at it the right way. He's got a limited budget knows that he cant be all things to all people. Is going with his strength pvp which is a market of die hards waiting to be servered. Vs pve games with pvp tack on..hope he sticks to his commitment to crafting fuck just steal swg pre cu system..Wish he learn people want to level the toon not the class..shit get rid of levels make skill based..

Start small then get bigger ala eve

My point was time to level in DAOC, EQ, Vanilla WoW was significantly longer and required significantly more attachment to your character than say Rift and its free weekend to max level LOL lets go raid GS before head start even finished. Everything since Vanilla WoW has been pathetic in this category and so far towards the casual side that it ruins any character attachment and server community because it is trivial to reroll.

GW2 was a total joke PVE wise. Even then its a game that made leveling trivial. Nothing even remotely close to DAOC the two shouldn't even be in the same sentence. Go check out one of the free emu servers if you think DAOC and GW2 share anything remotely close to the same leveling speed. With or without PL.

Compared to recent games DAOC had a huge PVE grind. Now it wasn't old school EQ grind but it was still a pretty big grind. Sure you had some tasks and stuff to break it up and dungeons but until they added the level via those bracketed instanced PVP it was a pretty big grind.

Of course if you had a pocket necro or an AE group to PL you naturally you could bypass some of this. That was exactly my point. Staying on a server, developing connections meant something because it was to your advantage. Time through the game for an alt or having SC gear / bankroll to twink was huge in those games. Much much less so in newer ones because most of them are a weekend to max anyway even solo. No attachment to anything because it mostly all trivial. Just another throw away character in a throw away MMO because it all means nothing to you.

Now I'm a fan of keeping PVE out of PVP. Which is why I'm optimistic about this game in particular. I'm also not a PVP snob I can enjoy a good PVE game as well its just that there hasn't been one in about a decade or more.

Kedwyn_sl said:

My point was time to level in DAOC, EQ, Vanilla WoW was significantly longer and required significantly more attachment to your character than say Rift and its free weekend to max level LOL lets go raid GS before head start even finished. Everything since Vanilla WoW has been pathetic in this category and so far towards the casual side that it ruins any character attachment and server community because it is trivial to reroll.

Compared to recent games DAOC had a huge PVE grind. Now it wasn't old school EQ grind but it was still a pretty big grind. Sure you had some tasks and stuff to break it up and dungeons but until they added the level via those bracketed instanced PVP it was a pretty big grind. Of course if you had a pocket necro or an AE group to PL you naturally you could bypass some of this. That was exactly my point. Staying on a server, developing connections meant something because it was to your advantage. Time through the game for an alt or having SC gear / bankroll to twink was huge in those games. Much much less so in newer ones because most of them are a weekend to max anyway even solo. No attachment no nothing its a throw away character in a throw away MMO because it all means nothing to you.

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I've never had attachments to characters. I've made attachments to people I have met and still play with people that I met in EQ. Some of that is because as you say a longer leveling process. I just don't see that being viable anymore. People don't want to take 6 months to level anymore. There is simply too much competition out there and those days are dead.