Dark Age Of Camelot Eden

Chaos

Chaos

Chaos

Soldato
Joined
20 Oct 2002
Posts
5,571
Just a heads up, this new Daoc server goes live tomorrow at 14:00

eden-daoc.net

Eden-DAoC.net

A Dark Age of Camelot Free shard with a custom classic experience (post 1.90), based on Bossiney / Glastonbury servers.
eden-daoc.net


I played some of the beta and it was solid compared to other servers and I liked the 1.9 patch level.
The low level battlegrounds will be mobbed.



 
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Ah, the happy days of camping for rare loot (I can't even remember the name of it) for all of a Saturday in Shrouded Isles. Then getting tee'd off and going ganking Mids in Emain (PA inf on Prydwen) and missing the spawn.

Best comment I ever saw about DAOC was in PC Zone "the most fun you can have, where you're so afraid to leave the keyboard you pee into a 5-Alive carton."

As I said happy days. I think. ;)

Edit: Also how cool was PC Zone? I'd buy it now, just for the humour.
 
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Jumped back into this recently and its been fun, I think realm invasion is comming soon.

 
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Best MMO ever for me. I tried that other server that went online last year and it was a disaster. In the little bit of time I did get to play it I realised I just don't have the time for it and it's pretty impossible to solo.
 
Mercurial said:
Ah, the happy days of camping for rare loot (I can't even remember the name of it) for all of a Saturday in Shrouded Isles. Then getting tee'd off and going ganking Mids in Emain (PA inf on Prydwen) and missing the spawn.

Best comment I ever saw about DAOC was in PC Zone "the most fun you can have, where you're so afraid to leave the keyboard you pee into a 5-Alive carton."

As I said happy days. I think. ;)

Edit: Also how cool was PC Zone? I'd buy it now, just for the humour.
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Man those were the days I was Mid pryd shadowblade. Darkness falls was my camping ground along with emain from time to time until rambo and his minstrel goons spoilt it.
 
I never played it, WOW was my first MMO and nothing ever came close. Think I tried EQ2 for a bit but it just didn't grab me the same. Pretty dead genre now I guess with only two really going that strong.
 
Ahhhh DAOC...one of the best MMOs I ever played. An MMO from the golden era of MMOs before they became crap. Golden Era being the Pre-WoW era, when the likes of UO, EQ1, AC1 and DAOC showed just how incredible a gaming experience MMOs could be before WoW came along and showed just how braindead an experience MMOs could be :D
 
Tombstone said:
Ahhhh DAOC...one of the best MMOs I ever played. An MMO from the golden era of MMOs before they became crap. Golden Era being the Pre-WoW era, when the likes of UO, EQ1, AC1 and DAOC showed just how incredible a gaming experience MMOs could be before WoW came along and showed just how braindead an experience MMOs could be :D
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Boomer take :D

Things were better back in my day grumble grumble :P
 
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Noxia said:
Boomer take :D

Things were better back in my day grumble grumble :p
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Nah it's true to a large extent.

WoW is a theme park. Everything is designed to be maximally convenient and byte-sized.

Prior to this, MMOs and the MUDs from which they were derived, didn't treat the player like a King, and weren't afraid to be harsh and punishing. Or even simply to require the player to invest themselves and explore and learn.

I'm not saying they were perfect by any means, but they were simply better when assessed as alternate realities/virtual worlds/immersive cohesive worlds.

Later we got things like "!" floating over the heads of every quest-giver (who was henceforth entirely static and basically a vending machine), GPS maps (so you didn't have to take any notice of your surroundings/remember landmarks/learn to navigate). Every objective marked on your map so you never had to read anything or remember anything.. Fast travel so you never had to learn the safest route from A to B, or the quickest.

Also worth noting that EQ1 (where I put most of my MMO time) surrendered to the dark side and introduced as many WoW-style elements as they could fit in their old, knackered engine. So EQ1 now has GPS maps, instant travel, yadda yadda.

And in so doing EQ1 made itself less a virtual world and more a theme park. I am, of course, amazed that it's still going at all. It's freaking ~25 years old ;)

For those that don't know, let me briefly describe NPCs in EQ1. They would have their own daytime and nighttime routines. In the day, they might man a market stall. In the evening, they might head to the tavern. As they walked around, they would talk to other NPCs they bumped into. Sometimes, listening to those conversations would give you the information to prompt another NPC with to start a quest. Sometimes they would drop an item that would be part of a quest.

Sometimes they would even leave their zone completely and go roaming about in the world at large.

It couldn't have been massively expensive to program, but it was immersive as all hell. Compare that to a static quest giver that stands in the same place all day with a "!" floating above their head to tell you they have 5 fetch quests available. No contest.
 
FoxEye said:
Nah it's true to a large extent.

WoW is a theme park. Everything is designed to be maximally convenient and byte-sized.

Prior to this, MMOs and the MUDs from which they were derived, didn't treat the player like a King, and weren't afraid to be harsh and punishing. Or even simply to require the player to invest themselves and explore and learn.

I'm not saying they were perfect by any means, but they were simply better when assessed as alternate realities/virtual worlds/immersive cohesive worlds.

Later we got things like "!" floating over the heads of every quest-giver (who was henceforth entirely static and basically a vending machine), GPS maps (so you didn't have to take any notice of your surroundings/remember landmarks/learn to navigate). Every objective marked on your map so you never had to read anything or remember anything.. Fast travel so you never had to learn the safest route from A to B, or the quickest.

Also worth noting that EQ1 (where I put most of my MMO time) surrendered to the dark side and introduced as many WoW-style elements as they could fit in their old, knackered engine. So EQ1 now has GPS maps, instant travel, yadda yadda.

And in so doing EQ1 made itself less a virtual world and more a theme park. I am, of course, amazed that it's still going at all. It's freaking ~25 years old ;)

For those that don't know, let me briefly describe NPCs in EQ1. They would have their own daytime and nighttime routines. In the day, they might man a market stall. In the evening, they might head to the tavern. As they walked around, they would talk to other NPCs they bumped into. Sometimes, listening to those conversations would give you the information to prompt another NPC with to start a quest. Sometimes they would drop an item that would be part of a quest.

Sometimes they would even leave their zone completely and go roaming about in the world at large.

It couldn't have been massively expensive to program, but it was immersive as all hell. Compare that to a static quest giver that stands in the same place all day with a "!" floating above their head to tell you they have 5 fetch quests available. No contest.
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Modern WOW might be but sure as **** wasn't for the first three expansions. It is regarded (or was) as probably the 'best' because it made the genre far more accessible, you didn't have to be an unemployed basement dweller to progress any more, though you would still get left behind from the 'hardcore' raider types. Not sure on subscriber numbers but I doubt any other MMO at that time could have been within 10% of those numbers.

I recall playing UO in the 90s and it was tortuous, skills raising by 0.2% after however long, horrible animations etc, that wasn't 'hardcore' it was just not respectful of the players time with the busywork. I don't think having a map is a bad thing at all but I get what you mean about the not taking note of surroundings, but then that is a choice, you can turn it off, at least it had the choice. Some of the features you described are not standard UI but can be added via mods.

Modern WOW I agree is awful, probably why classic is doing well, you get items thrown at you for just turning up. I think the first three years/expansions of WOW are unmatched, but then I've not played many other MMO's in depth, and when I did get in to one it would die a few months later (Conan, Warhammer, Rift).

The NPC behaviour does sound more interesting than static quest givers but then I'm not a quest reader so aside from the main storyline stuff, I wouldn't care what the NPC's had to say. Different in a single player game though.
I don't even know how a new player is supposed to play most MMO's, if you aren't there from the start it can be very hard to know what is going on.

BTW: Not sure if standard but the video linked above clearly has a map and icons above quest giver heads.
 
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Maps are fine - even in game maps, possibly. What's not (imho) is when they mark the player location on the map, and even the objectives! And update it all in real time. Then all you have to do is guide a dot around the map with the map screen open, and not even have to look at the 3d render of the world!

That's how EQ became. How pointless making a complex dungeon layout when the player will just open the map and guide a red dot around a fully spoiled maze. By so doing you even reduce the possibilities for having things like mazes and the like, which players would possibly enjoy if they were forced to do it properly.

But many players will take the easy way out and just open the map and not even give themselves a chance at figuring it out. And that's sad.
 
Tombstone said:
In the world of MMOs, they really were :D
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I gave up playing MMOs years ago, because they were all simplistic and shallow, compared to what had gone before. No mystery to solve, nothing to figure out, exploration spoiled, no detective work, reduced complexity.. Reduced community, cooperation, fast travel everywhere from level 1...

I felt no tie to the world nor any reason to keep playing.

As said, haven't tried any MMOs for years now, I wonder if anything will ever bring back those elements.
 
I don't think it matters how 'complex' a game is, it's not like it used to be, now with all the easy information sharing people making wiki's and data mining. It's just never going to be like it was, and nostalgia tinted glasses won't help.
 
FoxEye said:
I gave up playing MMOs years ago, because they were all simplistic and shallow, compared to what had gone before. No mystery to solve, nothing to figure out, exploration spoiled, no detective work, reduced complexity.. Reduced community, cooperation, fast travel everywhere from level 1...

I felt no tie to the world nor any reason to keep playing.

As said, haven't tried any MMOs for years now, I wonder if anything will ever bring back those elements.
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I dont think anything will bring back those golden days of MMOs, not necessarily because of the games themselves but because of the playerbase. People in the 1997-2004 MMOs were generally more sociable, more willing to team up and chat, more willing to work out challenges and things for themselves. Possibly because many back then came to MMO gaming from a background of having played social boardgame RPGs and pen and paper RPGs. The playerbase today is more interested in how much they can do without having to interact with people and when something has to be worked out, will just run straight to a website/youtube rather than work it out themselves.

I've always said that WoW making MMOs gather mainstream appeal was simultaneously the best thing to happen to the genre and the worst thing to happen to the genre.
 
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