To the ones saying that their best PvP experience was DAoC (I do not argue that is not the best PvP game, since I have never played it):
Didnt you ever encounter the shortcomings of RvR in that game?:
Like you effort to the faction seems like a drop in ocean?
Like your effort (good or bad) in a siege seems like a drop in ocean?
Like you are just one among many, and it is hard to get a team feel or get good synergy in your PvP with other players because they vary from time to time?
Like the feeling of we conquered this, or build this, and lost it, so what? Let us just take another node that is less defended.
Easy come easy go feel?
The lack of rivalry because you do not play against the same team?
That you probably do not care wether you gear up another player in your faction, because that was the last you saw of him? And you can not be sure to fight for your victories?
I think RvR has so many down sides that GvG does not have. Please show me the strong sides of RvR and what DAoC did so right in that respect.. :-) And if Crowfall or CU will follow that same path..
To the ones saying that their best PvP experience was DAoC (I do not argue that is not the best PvP game, since I have never played it):
Didnt you ever encounter the shortcomings of RvR in that game?:
Like you effort to the faction seems like a drop in ocean?
Like your effort (good or bad) in a siege seems like a drop in ocean?
Like you are just one among many, and it is hard to get a team feel or get good synergy in your PvP with other players because they vary from time to time?
Like the feeling of we conquered this, or build this, and lost it, so what? Let us just take another node that is less defended.
Easy come easy go feel?
The lack of rivalry because you do not play against the same team?
That you probably do not care wether you gear up another player in your faction, because that was the last you saw of him? And you can not be sure to fight for your victories?
I think RvR has so many down sides that GvG does not have. Please show me the strong sides of RvR and what DAoC did so right in that respect.. :-) And if Crowfall or CU will follow that same path..
Unfortunately I believe it was one of those had to be there experiences.
The answer to all your questions is an easy "Heck No!" for me.
While I can't speak for everyone, I doubt I'm alone.
We had pride in our Realm and when their was a big push offensive/defensive, guild leaders and those that ran a lot of the action would call on everyone to come help. People would stop whatever they were doing to go out to the Frontier and fight.
Didn't matter if it was an 8 man killing squad, stealthers watching choke points, multiple guilds rolling around, everyone did their part.
Capturing a tower, keep, relic or just making through a choke point was a big deal. You actually had live actual players defending and attacking with players blocking reinforcements and actual strategy in place. Not a 100 people kicking in a door, killing a few guards, and the lord and moving on. Not that ninja raiding wasn't a thing, but it is what it is.
DAoC was part of the "old school" pack of games and didn't have millions of players or hand holding convenience features so everything we did felt earned and you knew each other. I didn't know "everyone", but I knew most guild logos which everyone had strapped to their backs and it was nothing like modern faceless gaming.
RvR games that came down the line like WAR, ESO, GW2 don't come close.
Basically all the "down sides" you have are due to the explosion of the gaming population and lackluster game designs that have tried to please the masses.
DAoC was a blast while it lasted (even the FFA servers) but they tried to shoehorn in PVE grinding more so than it already had to compete in PVP and it really killed the experience for many. On top of that, I believe many simply got burnt out on doing the same thing which is amplified a lot in modern gaming and relates directly to the items you listed. WoW came along and the rest is history.
CF and CU are both geared towards much smaller crowds and many many people (PvPers or not) will not like them, which is fine.
From what I can tell, neither game is being balanced or cares about 1 vs 1 at all. It is all about social gaming and risk vs reward. Not mindlessly zerging as sheep to complete dailies with a bunch of random people you'll never see again and probably don't even need to speak with to accomplish anything.
I doubt either will be perfect, even for those of us interested, but they can't be any less exciting than what is out. Attempting to bring back some of that "old school" vibe while mixing in modern features that keep interest going are what draw me to Crowfall.
Unfortunately I believe it was one of those had to be there experiences.
The answer to all your questions is an easy "Heck No!" for me.
While I can't speak for everyone, I doubt I'm alone.
We had pride in our Realm and when their was a big push offensive/defensive, guild leaders and those that ran a lot of the action would call on everyone to come help. People would stop whatever they were doing to go out to the Frontier and fight.
Didn't matter if it was an 8 man killing squad, stealthers watching choke points, multiple guilds rolling around, everyone did their part.
Capturing a tower, keep, relic or just making through a choke point was a big deal. You actually had live actual players defending and attacking with players blocking reinforcements and actual strategy in place. Not a 100 people kicking in a door, killing a few guards, and the lord and moving on. Not that ninja raiding wasn't a thing, but it is what it is.
[snip]
RvR games that came down the line like WAR, ESO, GW2 don't come close.
Basically all the "down sides" you have are due to the explosion of the gaming population and lackluster game designs that have tried to please the masses.
DAoC was a blast while it lasted (even the FFA servers) but they tried to shoehorn in PVE grinding more so than it already had to compete in PVP and it really killed the experience for many. On top of that, I believe many simply got burnt out on doing the same thing which is amplified a lot in modern gaming and relates directly to the items you listed. WoW came along and the rest is history.
CF and CU are both geared towards much smaller crowds and many many people (PvPers or not) will not like them, which is fine.
From what I can tell, neither game is being balanced or cares about 1 vs 1 at all. It is all about social gaming and risk vs reward. Not mindlessly zerging as sheep to complete dailies with a bunch of random people you'll never see again and probably don't even need to speak with to accomplish anything.
I doubt either will be perfect, even for those of us interested, but they can't be any less exciting than what is out. Attempting to bring back some of that "old school" vibe while mixing in modern features that keep interest going are what draw me to Crowfall.
Thank you for for in depht answer! Like others who have played DAoC the essence of what you are saying is the same. DAoC must have been a really good game. I get that from people who played drawing a very nice picture of it.
I still do not know what they did right to counter for the obvious facts that there a re a lot of people that do not know eachother in each faction. Maybe I instead should ask what ESO did wrong (since its the only RvR I have played) in order to find out DAoC did right.
Well lets start with some of the issues. In GvG (like AoC) you build something as a guild (keep) and you gear up your guildsmates to better in defence of you keep and to attack another one should you lose it. In ESO eerything is built at laucnh by the developer, hence no guilds get the feeling (we build this and we enchanced it, or we captured this and we rebuilt it). Thats partly why thre is a easy come easy go feel to the keeps. Did you craft PvP buildings in DAoC?
But there is also another factor to the "easy come easy go" feel in ESO. Because no guild can say that just they captured it since a lot of different guilds and pugs participated. When I read about ESO before laucnh I thought that the attacking guild would be locked in a phase/instance vs the defending guild in order to cope with this issue but obvoiusly that was not how this was done in game.
Also in a big PvP world there is a concern with what small guilds can do. And devs' answer to this is "attack smaller nodes like lumber mill, mines etc." This part partly worked in ESO, yes smaller groups could fight over a smaller node with some success. However the big drawback was that once that was done a long time went by until there was some action at that node. How can you fix this? This is one thing even DAoC must have struggled with?
Synergies between classes. Well the ability system in ESO in my opinion made that almost impossible. At least I saw very few synergies between classes the way WoW had hunter/druid, paladin/warrior and rogue/discipline priest/ice mage. Here I am confident that DAoC did better..
By the way, rivalry in DAoC has not been touched on.. Did you typically fight the same guild or group (about your skill level) in the opposite faction over the same resources/areas? Well this wasnt eaxctly common in ESO at least, but very common in AoC and WoW.
These forums just seem to be populated by clueless people. OP, what better pvp games are you even talking about, what sacred knowledge do you posses that has evaded all of us here? This is a pointless post, speculative fiction. You have much to learn youngling.
Originally posted by BearKnight Originally posted by knightofblackvalorDoes it seem like this game isn't going to do well at all since there are already better pvp alternatives out there?
There are absolutely NO "better" alternatives to PVP out on the market. Currently PVE-Themepark is flooding the market. Most of which are failing left and right, and studios close due to this path that they've taken.
More diversity is ALWAYS good.
Please give examples of "better" titles out there that do pvp "better". Please reframe from listing ANY themepark MMOs that simply tacked a "pvp module" on later that doesn't fit at all with the game they designed. (ie: don't list WoW, RIFT, etc...these are themepark games with an emphasis on hand-holding, quest-driven, content).
-Bear
Well said. If people are constructive in their criticism, I listen. Hard to blame the themepark approach since they are simply trying to take a piece of the market share. They are finding out though that the competition is much higher than they anticipated.
You'll never please all players so trying to release a unique product is both a gamble and a necessity in this industry. I give developers credit for trying something different, even if it flops, I respect the effort.
I still do not know what they did right to counter for the obvious facts that there a re a lot of people that do not know eachother in each faction. Maybe I instead should ask what ESO did wrong (since its the only RvR I have played) in order to find out DAoC did right.
Only played ESO's beta shortly so really don't know much beyond articles I've read since of complaints and issues.
DAoC basically had a gang mentality where you didn't need to literally know everyone to feel like you were on the same side. I believe DAoC maxed at 250k players, nothing compared to ESO so "community" actually existed to some degree. I might have not known everyone, but I knew of a lot of guilds/players.
Well lets start with some of the issues. In GvG (like AoC) you build something as a guild (keep) and you gear up your guildsmates to better in defence of you keep and to attack another one should you lose it. In ESO eerything is built at laucnh by the developer, hence no guilds get the feeling (we build this and we enchanced it, or we captured this and we rebuilt it). Thats partly why thre is a easy come easy go feel to the keeps. Did you craft PvP buildings in DAoC?
No, but I believe DAoC had the benefit of being the first major RvR experience so simply attacking structures and large battles made up for the lack of actual feature complexity.
But there is also another factor to the "easy come easy go" feel in ESO. Because no guild can say that just they captured it since a lot of different guilds and pugs participated. When I read about ESO before laucnh I thought that the attacking guild would be locked in a phase/instance vs the defending guild in order to cope with this issue but obvoiusly that was not how this was done in game.
Defenders actually won in DAoC and a guild claimed a Keep for themselves and put their banner up (other games do this as well). Even though it was a realm effort a lot of the time, usually a particular guild ran the attack or simply someone had to claim it and there weren't endless high end guilds fighting over it. A guild meant something and many of them are still around today in some form. Not like today where guilds come and go weekly with stupid names that really don't have any future plans.
Also in a big PvP world there is a concern with what small guilds can do. And devs' answer to this is "attack smaller nodes like lumber mill, mines etc." This part partly worked in ESO, yes smaller groups could fight over a smaller node with some success. However the big drawback was that once that was done a long time went by until there was some action at that node. How can you fix this? This is one thing even DAoC must have struggled with?
Again, everyone had a purpose and if a guild was small or not very good, they simply tagged along and helped where they could. DAoC's RvR was actually PVP, not PVE which it sounds like ESO is like, much as GW2. Might happen to run into others, but it is more about the scoreboard and earning prizes. "Winning" in DAoC was rather non-rewarding most of the time, you played to play. Now gamers expect a prize for logging in daily.
Synergies between classes. Well the ability system in ESO in my opinion made that almost impossible. At least I saw very few synergies between classes the way WoW had hunter/druid, paladin/warrior and rogue/discipline priest/ice mage. Here I am confident that DAoC did better..
DAoC had close to 50 classes and while not the exactly WoW trinity setup, each class had a particular function in a group and siege.
By the way, rivalry in DAoC has not been touched on.. Did you typically fight the same guild or group (about your skill level) in the opposite faction over the same resources/areas? Well this wasnt eaxctly common in ESO at least, but very common in AoC and WoW.
Small groups did tend to run into one another as they had similar purpose. Large guilds as well for the same reason. But overall it was more about the Realm (for me at least) which we were all a part of. There was notorious guilds-members-leaders that we'd go after in a large battle due to whatever drama. But the rivalry was pre-build with the 3 faction system and having people actually care about it, which is important.
With all that said, CU and CF are both trying to get back to much of that along with trying to prevent some of the issues that games like DAoC and Shadowbane suffered from along with pretty much all the games that came after.
Both look to be going for smaller communities, guild and social focus, politics, rivalries, investment (time/money), risk vs reward, "skill" requirement, etc.
Pride is a huge factor for both. It shouldn't be about getting a pretty metal, but dominating the enemy. To me this is what really is different in today's games. Many play to feel individually special and have no concern for the larger group or any common cause. Where as older/smaller games the reward was satisfaction in defeating others.
I still do not know what they did right to counter for the obvious facts that there a re a lot of people that do not know eachother in each faction. Maybe I instead should ask what ESO did wrong (since its the only RvR I have played) in order to find out DAoC did right.
[snip]
No, but I believe DAoC had the benefit of being the first major RvR experience so simply attacking structures and large battles made up for the lack of actual feature complexity.
So you could not build anything or upgrade buildings in DAoC?
Synergies between classes. Well the ability system in ESO in my opinion made that almost impossible. At least I saw very few synergies between classes the way WoW had hunter/druid, paladin/warrior and rogue/discipline priest/ice mage. Here I am confident that DAoC did better..
DAoC had close to 50 classes and while not the exactly WoW trinity setup, each class had a particular function in a group and siege.
Yea if Crowfall and CU can pick up this part it would be great. Really fun, when many classes have different roles to fill.
By the way, rivalry in DAoC has not been touched on.. Did you typically fight the same guild or group (about your skill level) in the opposite faction over the same resources/areas? Well this wasnt eaxctly common in ESO at least, but very common in AoC and WoW.
Small groups did tend to run into one another as they had similar purpose. Large guilds as well for the same reason. But overall it was more about the Realm (for me at least) which we were all a part of. There was notorious guilds-members-leaders that we'd go after in a large battle due to whatever drama. But the rivalry was pre-build with the 3 faction system and having people actually care about it, which is important.
I guess the key element and difference between DAoC and ESo here is the mega server. On paper megaserver had some advantages: Yes, everyone can poteantiall yplay together in each faction and not be stuck on different server. Yes, devs do not have to merge servers when "population" drops, which spares the players of the empty server feeling. But then again multiple servers in many ways is the base for many of the good things you describe about DAoC. Maybe the best way to avoid the "drop in the ocean" feeling...(?)
So you could not build anything or upgrade buildings in DAoC?
While I played, players could only upgrade structures that were always present. Which made them stronger, larger, better NPC guards and what not.
They did add in player housing but was outside of the core gameplay.
No free style building in the game world itself.
As I said, DAoC being the or one of the first games of this type didn't leave the same feeling of lack of options that future games would. Being able to knock down a Keep door or blow a hole through the wall was pretty dang fun and new for the time.
Yea if Crowfall and CU can pick up this part it would be great. Really fun, when many classes have different roles to fill.
CF seems entirely set on having unique classes along with having players tailor them to their own style. CU as far as I can see if going for the same, although as a non-backer I don't know if they've gone more in depth at all beyond there will be classes with roles and players can customize skills. I fear that too much freedom may lead to muddled builds, but no clue really.
I guess the key element and difference between DAoC and ESo here is the mega server. On paper megaserver had some advantages: Yes, everyone can poteantiall yplay together in each faction and not be stuck on different server. Yes, devs do not have to merge servers when "population" drops, which spares the players of the empty server feeling. But then again multiple servers in many ways is the base for many of the good things you describe about DAoC. Maybe the best way to avoid the "drop in the ocean" feeling...(?)
A mega server experience works in games like EVE because space is huge and people don't walk all over one another. In a fantasy system, it isn't quite as easy and with funneled content paths, instancing and other features are used which decrease the chance of any form of community or attachment happening because even though everyone is "together" they are really cut off and boxed into their own little experiences.
So you could not build anything or upgrade buildings in DAoC?
While I played, players could only upgrade structures that were always present. Which made them stronger, larger, better NPC guards and what not.
They did add in player housing but was outside of the core gameplay.
No free style building in the game world itself.
As I said, DAoC being the or one of the first games of this type didn't leave the same feeling of lack of options that future games would. Being able to knock down a Keep door or blow a hole through the wall was pretty dang fun and new for the time.
Yea if Crowfall and CU can pick up this part it would be great. Really fun, when many classes have different roles to fill.
CF seems entirely set on having unique classes along with having players tailor them to their own style. CU as far as I can see if going for the same, although as a non-backer I don't know if they've gone more in depth at all beyond there will be classes with roles and players can customize skills. I fear that too much freedom may lead to muddled builds, but no clue really.
I guess the key element and difference between DAoC and ESo here is the mega server. On paper megaserver had some advantages: Yes, everyone can poteantiall yplay together in each faction and not be stuck on different server. Yes, devs do not have to merge servers when "population" drops, which spares the players of the empty server feeling. But then again multiple servers in many ways is the base for many of the good things you describe about DAoC. Maybe the best way to avoid the "drop in the ocean" feeling...(?)
A mega server experience works in games like EVE because space is huge and people don't walk all over one another. In a fantasy system, it isn't quite as easy and with funneled content paths, instancing and other features are used which decrease the chance of any form of community or attachment happening because even though everyone is "together" they are really cut off and boxed into their own little experiences.
Except Eve does not use mega servers, you are not seperated from other players in Eve, instead, they use TiDi to cope with server load when more people are in the same area, every day, there are over 2000 players in the Jita system, which is one of the main trading hubs, to do that with a megaserver, they would be split off into lots of 50-250 player instances, that does not happen in Eve.
I had the feeling that they do not understand what people really like about gaming and cobble together some lose stuff (that is not even the fun part) like working down a checklist but miss to artfully craft all the stuff in a fun and meaningful way together.
But it does not matter anyway to me bcs my time is already occupied (Offlinegames, Mechwarrior Online, Elite Dangerous - oh, and there is a real life too) and until the day gets 48hours i wont look into it.
I wish them the best for their project though.
"Torquemada... do not implore him for compassion. Torquemada... do not beg him for forgiveness. Torquemada... do not ask him for mercy. Let's face it, you can't Torquemada anything!"
Except Eve does not use mega servers, you are not seperated from other players in Eve, instead, they use TiDi to cope with server load when more people are in the same area, every day, there are over 2000 players in the Jita system, which is one of the main trading hubs, to do that with a megaserver, they would be split off into lots of 50-250 player instances, that does not happen in Eve.
Misuse of the term, meant more the everyone in the same overall experience as being a "mega server." Instancing, phasing, tidi and whatever methods all attack it differently.
No clue if EVE was looked at as an example when going with a mega server for ESO, but wouldn't doubt it. Sounds fun on paper, doesn't work so well in practice.
Trying to put everyone together in a traditional fantasy mmorpg ends up causing more separation than having multiple severs. As tidi wouldn't work for obvious reasons.
Just trying to explain why some older games didn't have the same "lost in the crowd" feeling.
Very glad I at least had the chance to experience games before they turned into what they are today. If I was to discover mmos today, highly doubt I'd find them entertaining at all. At this point it is simply in my blood and hard to walk away from.
Comments
To the ones saying that their best PvP experience was DAoC (I do not argue that is not the best PvP game, since I have never played it):
Didnt you ever encounter the shortcomings of RvR in that game?:
Like you effort to the faction seems like a drop in ocean?
Like your effort (good or bad) in a siege seems like a drop in ocean?
Like you are just one among many, and it is hard to get a team feel or get good synergy in your PvP with other players because they vary from time to time?
Like the feeling of we conquered this, or build this, and lost it, so what? Let us just take another node that is less defended.
Easy come easy go feel?
The lack of rivalry because you do not play against the same team?
That you probably do not care wether you gear up another player in your faction, because that was the last you saw of him? And you can not be sure to fight for your victories?
I think RvR has so many down sides that GvG does not have. Please show me the strong sides of RvR and what DAoC did so right in that respect.. :-) And if Crowfall or CU will follow that same path..
Unfortunately I believe it was one of those had to be there experiences.
The answer to all your questions is an easy "Heck No!" for me.
While I can't speak for everyone, I doubt I'm alone.
We had pride in our Realm and when their was a big push offensive/defensive, guild leaders and those that ran a lot of the action would call on everyone to come help. People would stop whatever they were doing to go out to the Frontier and fight.
Didn't matter if it was an 8 man killing squad, stealthers watching choke points, multiple guilds rolling around, everyone did their part.
Capturing a tower, keep, relic or just making through a choke point was a big deal. You actually had live actual players defending and attacking with players blocking reinforcements and actual strategy in place. Not a 100 people kicking in a door, killing a few guards, and the lord and moving on. Not that ninja raiding wasn't a thing, but it is what it is.
DAoC was part of the "old school" pack of games and didn't have millions of players or hand holding convenience features so everything we did felt earned and you knew each other. I didn't know "everyone", but I knew most guild logos which everyone had strapped to their backs and it was nothing like modern faceless gaming.
RvR games that came down the line like WAR, ESO, GW2 don't come close.
Basically all the "down sides" you have are due to the explosion of the gaming population and lackluster game designs that have tried to please the masses.
DAoC was a blast while it lasted (even the FFA servers) but they tried to shoehorn in PVE grinding more so than it already had to compete in PVP and it really killed the experience for many. On top of that, I believe many simply got burnt out on doing the same thing which is amplified a lot in modern gaming and relates directly to the items you listed. WoW came along and the rest is history.
CF and CU are both geared towards much smaller crowds and many many people (PvPers or not) will not like them, which is fine.
From what I can tell, neither game is being balanced or cares about 1 vs 1 at all. It is all about social gaming and risk vs reward. Not mindlessly zerging as sheep to complete dailies with a bunch of random people you'll never see again and probably don't even need to speak with to accomplish anything.
I doubt either will be perfect, even for those of us interested, but they can't be any less exciting than what is out. Attempting to bring back some of that "old school" vibe while mixing in modern features that keep interest going are what draw me to Crowfall.
Thank you for for in depht answer! Like others who have played DAoC the essence of what you are saying is the same. DAoC must have been a really good game. I get that from people who played drawing a very nice picture of it.
I still do not know what they did right to counter for the obvious facts that there a re a lot of people that do not know eachother in each faction. Maybe I instead should ask what ESO did wrong (since its the only RvR I have played) in order to find out DAoC did right.
Well lets start with some of the issues. In GvG (like AoC) you build something as a guild (keep) and you gear up your guildsmates to better in defence of you keep and to attack another one should you lose it. In ESO eerything is built at laucnh by the developer, hence no guilds get the feeling (we build this and we enchanced it, or we captured this and we rebuilt it). Thats partly why thre is a easy come easy go feel to the keeps. Did you craft PvP buildings in DAoC?
But there is also another factor to the "easy come easy go" feel in ESO. Because no guild can say that just they captured it since a lot of different guilds and pugs participated. When I read about ESO before laucnh I thought that the attacking guild would be locked in a phase/instance vs the defending guild in order to cope with this issue but obvoiusly that was not how this was done in game.
Also in a big PvP world there is a concern with what small guilds can do. And devs' answer to this is "attack smaller nodes like lumber mill, mines etc." This part partly worked in ESO, yes smaller groups could fight over a smaller node with some success. However the big drawback was that once that was done a long time went by until there was some action at that node. How can you fix this? This is one thing even DAoC must have struggled with?
Synergies between classes. Well the ability system in ESO in my opinion made that almost impossible. At least I saw very few synergies between classes the way WoW had hunter/druid, paladin/warrior and rogue/discipline priest/ice mage. Here I am confident that DAoC did better..
By the way, rivalry in DAoC has not been touched on.. Did you typically fight the same guild or group (about your skill level) in the opposite faction over the same resources/areas? Well this wasnt eaxctly common in ESO at least, but very common in AoC and WoW.
These forums just seem to be populated by clueless people. OP, what better pvp games are you even talking about, what sacred knowledge do you posses that has evaded all of us here? This is a pointless post, speculative fiction. You have much to learn youngling.
More diversity is ALWAYS good.
Please give examples of "better" titles out there that do pvp "better". Please reframe from listing ANY themepark MMOs that simply tacked a "pvp module" on later that doesn't fit at all with the game they designed. (ie: don't list WoW, RIFT, etc...these are themepark games with an emphasis on hand-holding, quest-driven, content).
-Bear
Well said. If people are constructive in their criticism, I listen. Hard to blame the themepark approach since they are simply trying to take a piece of the market share. They are finding out though that the competition is much higher than they anticipated.
You'll never please all players so trying to release a unique product is both a gamble and a necessity in this industry. I give developers credit for trying something different, even if it flops, I respect the effort.
Only played ESO's beta shortly so really don't know much beyond articles I've read since of complaints and issues.
DAoC basically had a gang mentality where you didn't need to literally know everyone to feel like you were on the same side. I believe DAoC maxed at 250k players, nothing compared to ESO so "community" actually existed to some degree. I might have not known everyone, but I knew of a lot of guilds/players.
No, but I believe DAoC had the benefit of being the first major RvR experience so simply attacking structures and large battles made up for the lack of actual feature complexity.
Defenders actually won in DAoC and a guild claimed a Keep for themselves and put their banner up (other games do this as well). Even though it was a realm effort a lot of the time, usually a particular guild ran the attack or simply someone had to claim it and there weren't endless high end guilds fighting over it. A guild meant something and many of them are still around today in some form. Not like today where guilds come and go weekly with stupid names that really don't have any future plans.
Again, everyone had a purpose and if a guild was small or not very good, they simply tagged along and helped where they could. DAoC's RvR was actually PVP, not PVE which it sounds like ESO is like, much as GW2. Might happen to run into others, but it is more about the scoreboard and earning prizes. "Winning" in DAoC was rather non-rewarding most of the time, you played to play. Now gamers expect a prize for logging in daily.
DAoC had close to 50 classes and while not the exactly WoW trinity setup, each class had a particular function in a group and siege.
Small groups did tend to run into one another as they had similar purpose. Large guilds as well for the same reason. But overall it was more about the Realm (for me at least) which we were all a part of. There was notorious guilds-members-leaders that we'd go after in a large battle due to whatever drama. But the rivalry was pre-build with the 3 faction system and having people actually care about it, which is important.
With all that said, CU and CF are both trying to get back to much of that along with trying to prevent some of the issues that games like DAoC and Shadowbane suffered from along with pretty much all the games that came after.
Both look to be going for smaller communities, guild and social focus, politics, rivalries, investment (time/money), risk vs reward, "skill" requirement, etc.
Pride is a huge factor for both. It shouldn't be about getting a pretty metal, but dominating the enemy. To me this is what really is different in today's games. Many play to feel individually special and have no concern for the larger group or any common cause. Where as older/smaller games the reward was satisfaction in defeating others.
So you could not build anything or upgrade buildings in DAoC?
Yea if Crowfall and CU can pick up this part it would be great. Really fun, when many classes have different roles to fill.
I guess the key element and difference between DAoC and ESo here is the mega server. On paper megaserver had some advantages: Yes, everyone can poteantiall yplay together in each faction and not be stuck on different server. Yes, devs do not have to merge servers when "population" drops, which spares the players of the empty server feeling. But then again multiple servers in many ways is the base for many of the good things you describe about DAoC. Maybe the best way to avoid the "drop in the ocean" feeling...(?)
While I played, players could only upgrade structures that were always present. Which made them stronger, larger, better NPC guards and what not.
They did add in player housing but was outside of the core gameplay.
No free style building in the game world itself.
As I said, DAoC being the or one of the first games of this type didn't leave the same feeling of lack of options that future games would. Being able to knock down a Keep door or blow a hole through the wall was pretty dang fun and new for the time.
CF seems entirely set on having unique classes along with having players tailor them to their own style. CU as far as I can see if going for the same, although as a non-backer I don't know if they've gone more in depth at all beyond there will be classes with roles and players can customize skills. I fear that too much freedom may lead to muddled builds, but no clue really.
A mega server experience works in games like EVE because space is huge and people don't walk all over one another. In a fantasy system, it isn't quite as easy and with funneled content paths, instancing and other features are used which decrease the chance of any form of community or attachment happening because even though everyone is "together" they are really cut off and boxed into their own little experiences.
Except Eve does not use mega servers, you are not seperated from other players in Eve, instead, they use TiDi to cope with server load when more people are in the same area, every day, there are over 2000 players in the Jita system, which is one of the main trading hubs, to do that with a megaserver, they would be split off into lots of 50-250 player instances, that does not happen in Eve.
I had the feeling that they do not understand what people really like about gaming and cobble together some lose stuff (that is not even the fun part) like working down a checklist but miss to artfully
craft all the stuff in a fun and meaningful way together.
But it does not matter anyway to me bcs my time is already occupied (Offlinegames, Mechwarrior Online, Elite Dangerous - oh, and there is a real life too) and until the day gets 48hours i wont look into it.
I wish them the best for their project though.
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Misuse of the term, meant more the everyone in the same overall experience as being a "mega server." Instancing, phasing, tidi and whatever methods all attack it differently.
No clue if EVE was looked at as an example when going with a mega server for ESO, but wouldn't doubt it. Sounds fun on paper, doesn't work so well in practice.
Trying to put everyone together in a traditional fantasy mmorpg ends up causing more separation than having multiple severs. As tidi wouldn't work for obvious reasons.
Just trying to explain why some older games didn't have the same "lost in the crowd" feeling.
Very glad I at least had the chance to experience games before they turned into what they are today. If I was to discover mmos today, highly doubt I'd find them entertaining at all. At this point it is simply in my blood and hard to walk away from.