What is the current state of DAOC?

[jsspam]

I just read about the new consolidated server going live in DAOC, Ywain. It looks like all existing accounts whether active or inactive are being moved to this new server which is going to have some new ruleset and all of the other servers are being shutdown. Also, I just read that a former DAOC dev who was working on WAR is coming back and that Mythic is expanding the dev team for DAOC. Is this just a last gasp or is Mythic trying to breather new life into DAOC?

That being said, is there anyone here still playing that can give an idea of where this game stands now? Is it as dead as some people say it is? What's the learning curve? Are the lower levels areas dead? How long of a grind is it from level 1 to a level where you can participate in some meaningful RVR?

[Azrayne]

I've got no idea what state the game is in currently, but if they merge all the servers into one and it has a 2500 - 3000 population I might try go back for one last hurrah. So many great memories from DAoC

[jsspam]

Originally Posted by Azrayne

if they merge all the servers into one and it has a 2500 - 3000 population I might try go back for one last hurrah

Everything I am reading is saying that's exactly what should happen post merge.

[Araxen]

Maybe they can use one of the old servers to make a true classic server finally with the old frontiers and no TOA shit.

[Snugglebear]

I've only got the original camelot, and none of the expansions - how do I play?

[Goliath]

So fucking weird. I just randomly thought of DAOC like thirty minutes ago, out of complete nowhere. I even went here for nostalgia:

YouTube - Dark Age of Camelot - Main Title

Good ol' memories. Can't say I'd ever play again though.

[lost]

My buddy went back a week ago after quitting WoW and said it's pretty awesome. I've got one of my old accounts I might activate it up and see if my stealther guild is still around. If anyone wants to join up I'll post back here and let yah know. Pre-WAR I played (bought an account so I didnt have to level a new one) and had a fully templated scout - found a top stealther guild and we ran around with scouts, infils and minstrels, mostly rr7-rr12 (yes rr12) was soo much fucking fun.

[Rica86]

Daoc. <3 My first love. I cannot imagine it has aged well at all though, class balance was abysmal and small skirmishes were boring as fuck if you had one or two of your realms totally overpowered classes. No game has ever come close in large scale player vs player though. God I loved that game, but no way in hell would I ever go back. That youtube link to the main title is money too, I use to sit at the main screen all the time just to listen to it.

Edit: I cannot believe I forgot to mention it. But fuck ToA. Fuck it with a tire iron, covered in nails.

[lost]

Yeah Fuck ToA but now adays (when I played fwe months ago on my bought account) it seemed real easy to level a character.. you can get one leveled to 50 in a couple of hours, I've seen cabalists pull that whole drak castle (the one in SI) like ONE HUGE fucking zone pull, imagine how many levels you get per pull ,its insane how fast you can level, you can do that too with artifacts.

So, leveling artifacts and shit are easy, there were easy pug runs for dragon loot too.. it seems easy just takes a lil time not nearly as much as before. When I played they have the latest expansion where you go into the labyrinth for PvP instead of age old DF, and that was fun with stealther groups, we would jump visible groups NP and walk away maybe one dead, fucking sick as shit. That's got to be my favorite part of DAOC, being a full stealther group and owning a full visible group.

My ultra favorite though is my scout, he's ful ltemplated, maxed stats and I have him setup as a hybrid, so I dont do as much damage with my bow but I can solo a lot of classes in 1v1 matches, based on my block rate and gear.. its fun and I like how DAOC requires some skill to play your class.

I'm redownloading the game atm, taking a little long for the trial.exe but i guarantee you its fun and since its a dying game you could probably get a kickass character for mad cheap. Few months ago I got an account with all level 80s, not one of them less than RR6, and 6/8 were fully templated (they do templates now, to maximize ur stats/resists etc for ur char), hence 6/8 were end game and didnt need more gear, just feel free to pvp. It also came with a house and tons of plat.. pretty sweet deal, I took the rr8 templated priest and made it my buffbot until I leveled a new one a week later.. good stuff. Only cost me 150 for that account.. and that was back when max of 1k people on the server at PRIME TIME, with atleast 3k now that'll be sickkkk.

[Goliath]

Originally Posted by lost

Yeah Fuck ToA but now adays (when I played fwe months ago on my bought account) it seemed real easy to level a character.. you can get one leveled to 50 in a couple of hours, I've seen cabalists pull that whole drak castle (the one in SI) like ONE HUGE fucking zone pull, imagine how many levels you get per pull ,its insane how fast you can level, you can do that too with artifacts.

So, leveling artifacts and shit are easy, there were easy pug runs for dragon loot too.. it seems easy just takes a lil time not nearly as much as before. When I played they have the latest expansion where you go into the labyrinth for PvP instead of age old DF, and that was fun with stealther groups, we would jump visible groups NP and walk away maybe one dead, fucking sick as shit. That's got to be my favorite part of DAOC, being a full stealther group and owning a full visible group.

My ultra favorite though is my scout, he's ful ltemplated, maxed stats and I have him setup as a hybrid, so I dont do as much damage with my bow but I can solo a lot of classes in 1v1 matches, based on my block rate and gear.. its fun and I like how DAOC requires some skill to play your class.

I'm redownloading the game atm, taking a little long for the trial.exe but i guarantee you its fun and since its a dying game you could probably get a kickass character for mad cheap. Few months ago I got an account with all level 80s, not one of them less than RR6, and 6/8 were fully templated (they do templates now, to maximize ur stats/resists etc for ur char), hence 6/8 were end game and didnt need more gear, just feel free to pvp. It also came with a house and tons of plat.. pretty sweet deal, I took the rr8 templated priest and made it my buffbot until I leveled a new one a week later.. good stuff. Only cost me 150 for that account.. and that was back when max of 1k people on the server at PRIME TIME, with atleast 3k now that'll be sickkkk.

Fuck when I played (beta 2 through before the first expansion and first dungeon where all three sides could go, oh and before realm artifacts and pvp level/skills) it took hours just to navigate around the frontiers and find a way to get up close without getting owned by archer/wizard npcs. I remember hiding in trees outside of Albion's main frontier and owning people on my 44 hero, who because I was in early high school, was way higher than most everyone else.

The most fun part about Daoc for me was exploring and being on the edge of everything. I remember some crazy jungle zone that was mid 40's that had insane orange loot (can't even remember wth that means, just that it was good). Nobody was in that zone when our group would do it, and we'd struggle just to kill mobs, but it was worth it because the loot was insane.

It's too bad I lost my screenshots a long with all my EQ screenshots because my sister deleted them, I shall never forgive her.

[lost]

I feel you, before I came back a few months ago I hadnt played since ToA came out and i said fucking leveling this spear or that dagger for my infiltrator.. now shits a lot better, you even have your own personal mounts! you can deck them out with armor and shit, bags etc its easy to get around now. Not to mention they have teleporters to certain keeps in each realm's frontier.. and boats from frontier to frontier although i think the boats arent too new. ML and CL leveling is mad fast too.

[JohnQuincyAdams]

the good:
- leveling is very fast. i got 50 in about 5 hours played just with a mentalist blasting stuff single-target
- artifacts/MLs are easy to acquire, you can purchase them with bounty points
- realm ranks are faster
- VERY active toa server, usually 2500+ ppl on. even assuming 1/3 of them are buffbots, that's still more than any warhammer server

the bad:
- the only active cluster is the toa cluster. the classic one pretty much died, there's maybe 60 ppl on per night
- class balance still an issue. i realise it's an inevitable struggle but this stuff has been going on forever. infs are still twice as good as ns/sb, savages can kill ya in one quad crit, melee classes without det are worthless, etc. things have gotten better but not by much
- buffbots. you (or your friends) need one or you're boned

the ugly:
- the ui
- it moves like a game made in the 90s

[Grumpy Old Fart]

I'm actually in DAoC at Blend tower 3 as this is written. Killbury cluster is showing 521 total players, and "/who" in Midgard is showing 140 (guessing one-third are buff-bots, as usual), of which only about 15 are level 1-49 (so you'll definitely not be getting groups while leveling up). The Albs, Hibs and we Mids have been going at it all night long, and now there are about 20 of us, and 20-40 of them running around in the RvR zones. Other than the fact that we all hate Mythic - and this game has *TONS* of glaring flaws - this is still pretty damn fun, and should keep any of you busy until Aion comes out.


EDIT: I should add that you can get the "Epic Edition" CD key for ~$15 in a few places, which is all you'll need. Unless you're starting from scratch, of course, in which case you'll want to pony up some cash to our Chinese friends to buy some plat.

[Goliath]

Originally Posted by JohnQuincyAdams

the good:
- leveling is very fast. i got 50 in about 5 hours played just with a mentalist blasting stuff single-target
- artifacts/MLs are easy to acquire, you can purchase them with bounty points
- realm ranks are faster
- VERY active toa server, usually 2500+ ppl on. even assuming 1/3 of them are buffbots, that's still more than any warhammer server

the bad:
- the only active cluster is the toa cluster. the classic one pretty much died, there's maybe 60 ppl on per night
- class balance still an issue. i realise it's an inevitable struggle but this stuff has been going on forever. infs are still twice as good as ns/sb, savages can kill ya in one quad crit, melee classes without det are worthless, etc. things have gotten better but not by much
- buffbots. you (or your friends) need one or you're boned

the ugly:
- the ui
- it moves like a game made in the 90s

I don't remember buff bots being a problem early in the game, didn't you have a limit to the number of people you could buff? I do remember there being a really good damage shield in Albion though.

I also remember making a cabalist because they were so insanely badass with the lifetaps. I did come back once after the second or some expansion to test an animist, was fun and op for a while, but got boring fast being so lonely.

Funny note: Listening to the Daoc title theme for me is synonymous with KFC. My mom would always buy me popcorn chicken/gravy and I'd eat that shit as I loaded up Daoc. Good times. No, I never got fat, lol.

Edit: Also, the Friar was such an awesome class. I think Daoc was amazing in that it had so many classes, and yet they were all pretty damn unique. I just got a flashback of Wardens being WAY OP and just realized that Daoc invented bubble, not WoW. God, wardens were a must for doing cutting edge shit, but I remember they got nerfed =/.

Another memory I have is in beta on Midgard. Furor was playing and I sent him a tell asking him if he thought the game was better than EQ (at the time, I thought Daoc owned EQ, until I quit and went back to EQ), and he laughed and said EQ blows Daoc outta the water and he was just jerkin around, I really thought he'd start rambling about how badass Daoc was and how dead EQ was, since he always bitched about it, but nope. Were you playing too Sean, for some reason I remember your name in game.

[lost]

On the classic server you dont need buffbots as I think they did the "distance buffs" nerf on that server so if you go to far it goes away? I forget. Anyway if they're merging all the clusters then its worth a shot.