What is the current state of DAOC?

[Araxen]

Shrouded Isles was a pretty decent expansion it gave the game(iirc) a class with it's own mini-zerg aka Bonedancers.

[Kharza-kzad]

Darkness falls was open on the albion side tonight I got totally wrecked by two shadowblades, then killed a spiritmaster later on. Good times.

[Azrayne]

Good to see the age old tradition of stealth zerging weak opponants for easy RP's hasn't died!

[Kharza-kzad]

I probably could have killed them both if they hadn't been buffed I'm a friar.

[Kharza-kzad]

Someone needs to make a page somewhere that is like a catchup for people that haven't played in years. The expansions past atlantis I'm largely clueless on.

Like what do champion levels get you, what is the latest high end craftable armor, what are these essence things I'm hearing about etc

[Grumpy Old Fart]

Nobody has recently summed this up for people who are genuinely curious, so I'll step up since I'm currently playing. I'm assuming nearly everybody who is interested in this sort of RvR action is planning on playing Aion (which is a vastly superior entertainment experience) when it comes out and is basically looking for something to do for a couple of months, so here it is:

1) If you haven't played DAoC before, it'll be mildly interesting to play a character to 20-plus in each realm to get some of the flavor and read some interesting lore. Even if you get into a good guild and get PL'd and all of the end-game crap you need (Master Levels, Champion Levels, Artifacts, "dragon" loot, etc.), you'll still be nothing but a minor speed bump for the extremely experienced, high Realm Rank eight-man groups that roam the frontiers. You really shouldn't plan on experiencing much success in the end game, no matter how "l33t" you were in arenas in WoW. Many of these eight-man groups have been doing this shit for years, and their high-RR abilities only add to your total hopelessness unless you just follow the zerg around. And forget about the lowbie battlegrounds, since these are almost exclusively filled with twinked-out alts with four times your HP/damage/resists.

2) If you haven't read up much on DAoC, you should be aware that things like the ultra-long-duration crowd control spells, caster interruption system, etc. will almost certainly lead to a /ragequit and uninstallation of this shit before you finish your first RvR experience.

3) All of the role-players and other adults with an IQ over 90 have long since quit the game. So, you're basically stuck with something similar to a WoW PvP server, Darkfall, etc., with nearly all of your fellow players being teenage morons with horrendous English skills, no manners whatsoever, and far better "twitch" skills than we older-than-twenty folks.

4) At this point in the game, there is exactly zero realm loyalty whatsoever. At DAoC launch, and for maybe a few years after, you were "a Mid", "a Hib", or "an Alb". Nowadays, these kids just switch around to characters on every realm depending on who's currently winning, who has the relics, etc.

5) Even if you had a level 50 back a few years, you'll still need to find a guild to bug to get all of the current end game toys. With the upcoming big merger of everybody onto one server/cluster, you might have to end up doing this guild search thing all over again once that hits (which might be about Aion Open Beta time). You'll also need to farm up lots of cash, which will take months.

6) If you did have a level 50 that was all tweaked out, high RR, etc., be prepared to not have much fun in RvR. Either you follow the zerg around, get owned solo, or are in one of the elite 8-mans (good luck getting into one of these within the next two months). If you aren't in that elite 8-man, be prepared for some seriously fucking stupid kids to be bitching at you all night for "adding on their fights". This isn't really an RvR game any more; it's basically a $15/month Counter-strike server for teams of eight to fight each other.

[Snugglebear]

I dig GOF's summary. I didn't know it was $15-a-month either - fuck that. I thought it was developed in the era of $9.99.

[Araxen]

It was but like everybody else they bandwagoned to the $15 fee.

[Azrayne]

Yeah because I'm sure you can't afford an extra $5 a month!

[Kharza-kzad]

BTW, thinking about what Grumpy wrote, you might want to choose your class wisely if you want to do the set group of 8 stuff. I never could get in those being a friar.

Friars are really cool, but the primary advantage you have is awesome self buffs. But when everyone else has even better buffs from a cleric sitting 10 miles away staring at the ground, well you aren't much use. Plus some classes benefit more from buffs than others. Savages go from chump city to absolute gods of slaughter with buffs.

I don't know anymore what classes are desired. On albion it was very specific because the battle abilities were spread out alot, whereas a single class in the other realms would have several roles.

[Snugglebear]

Originally Posted by Kharza-kzad

BTW, thinking about what Grumpy wrote, you might want to choose your class wisely if you want to do the set group of 8 stuff. I never could get in those being a friar.

Friars are really cool, but the primary advantage you have is awesome self buffs. But when everyone else has even better buffs from a cleric sitting 10 miles away staring at the ground, well you aren't much use. Plus some classes benefit more from buffs than others. Savages go from chump city to absolute gods of slaughter with buffs.

I don't know anymore what classes are desired. On albion it was very specific because the battle abilities were spread out alot, whereas a single class in the other realms would have several roles.

The buffbot mechanic is retarded and really turns me off. I guess they won't stop it because it encourages multiple accounts.

[Zanetsu]

I'm downloading the patch right now, at 62%. If anyone wants to level together or whatever I'll post back with my character name etc. I used to play this game alot back in the day and I have a 50 shaman, but, it's been a while so i'm just gonna try to get back into it because wow is just dreadful.

[Digits]

Originally Posted by Araxen

Shrouded Isles was a pretty decent expansion it gave the game(iirc) a class with it's own mini-zerg aka Bonedancers.

Shrouded Isles is much like Echoes of Fawder, in that they are both complete flukes from shitty game companies. SI was actually a tremendous product that managed to make the decent/shitty game that was released into something respectable. It introduced the best music system to date into an mmo (ambient music sprinkled with very recognizable tracks depending on the area/time). It made leveling bearable as opposed to agonizing by introducing 1 to 50 content for three realms with epic raid dungeons that genuinely did kick all sorts of ass, class questlines and a revamped quest system. It introduced unique, fun classes backed by concepts that are sorely missing in todays market. It revamped vast swathes of the graphics engine, and introduced some cutting edge visuals (the particle effects were absolutely amazing at the time). Plus, class bugs aside, I believe that the expansion rolled out very smoothly.

Basically, it accomplished what all mmo expansions should hope to accomplish: Put in something shiny, fill in game play gaps, refine working systems, increase aesthetic appeal across the board, and generally expand on what already worked.

It makes a person scratch their head and wonder how the same company that did that could then go on to do Trials of Atlantis, and eventually Warhammer. It's as if they lost all their competent coders, designers and testers when they thought they could wrest the PVE crown from Everquest, and later WoW, in a PVP game and shoved their heads thoroughly inside their collective asshole.

The game is impossible to get into at this point, as others have pointed out. In the old days the population allowed new characters to be introduced easily into RVR, either through the zerg, a guild group, or some smaller group set up, but now it is a wasteland of immature demi gods and the character of the game has been completely lost. Oh, and the gameplay is stale, archaic and gimp as fuck. If you're on the fence, and are acclimated to the relative smoothness of modern mmos, I wouldn't waste your bandwith on this game.

[Goliath]

How the hell did the game turn to sub WoW retards? I wouldn't think they would know about it. I remember the community in DaOc was extremely mature/intelligent, what a shame.

[Azrayne]

At it's peak the DAoC community was among the best. Honestly I think most of those people have just moved on.