Is there too much hand holding?

[Boxy Brown]

I don't remember being able to level by quests before WoW, there were quests earlier MMOs but the bulk of my exp in DAoC and earlier games came from killing things as far as I can recall. Maybe they added that after I left DAoC but certainly you could not level by quests in the games before that. I wouldn't be surprised if older MMOs added questing after WoW got popular, though.

That's true, but keep in mind that a lot of older MMOs (albeit less popular ones) were skill based, so there were really no need for quests if the only thing that leveled up your sword skill was swinging your sword enough times.

[Sillywilly]

I don't remember being able to level by quests before WoW, there were quests earlier MMOs but the bulk of my exp in DAoC and earlier games came from killing things as far as I can recall. Maybe they added that after I left DAoC but certainly you could not level by quests in the games before that. I wouldn't be surprised if older MMOs added questing after WoW got popular, though.

That is what happened. Questing didn't really make a significant appearance in DAoC until the catacombs expansion. That's when going from 45 or so to lvl 50 became easy mode because a few hours of catacombs quests could get you there quickly. I didn't play WoW when it first came out so my first experience with quest banging was in LotRO. And it was frustrating there because of poor quest design. (from shitty descriptions to shitty mechanics like getting hit by an enemy once reset the quest).

EDIT: It's been so long since I played that I can't remember if maybe there were some kind of quests in ToA. If there were I don't think they were used for leveling, just getting you on the right track for collecting artifacts or ML.

[Alex Mars]

That's true, but keep in mind that a lot of older MMOs (albeit less popular ones) were skill based, so there were really no need for quests if the only thing that leveled up your sword skill was swinging your sword enough times.

There weren't that many MMOs before DAoC. Only UO used skill gain in combat, EQ1 was straight exp for levels with 5 points in stats gained through combat and skill use per level, AC1 had level gains granting points to spend on skills as was AC2 I think, and AO also had gaining levels granting skill points to spend. As far as I recall there weren't any other MMOs prior to DAoC, other than the Lineage 1 Beta that never made it to release.

And just for the historical record, UO did launch with kill and escort quests in the game, but they were broken and never fixed, when you crossed a server line it cancelled the quest so no one did them.

[Alex Mars]

That is what happened. Questing didn't really make a significant appearance in DAoC until the catacombs expansion. That's when going from 45 or so to lvl 50 became easy mode because a few hours of catacombs quests could get you there quickly. I didn't play WoW when it first came out so my first experience with quest banging was in LotRO. And it was frustrating there because of poor quest design. (from shitty descriptions to shitty mechanics like getting hit by an enemy once reset the quest).

EDIT: It's been so long since I played that I can't remember if maybe there were some kind of quests in ToA. If there were I don't think they were used for leveling, just getting you on the right track for collecting artifacts or ML.

Wasn't ToA the expac that everyone said ruined DAoC?

[ofrm1]

Wasn't ToA the expac that everyone said ruined DAoC?

Yes, and those people are wrong imo.

[Valec]

Yes, and those people are wrong imo.

Then your opinion is wrong, lol.

[Ero Elohim]

Wasn't ToA the expac that everyone said ruined DAoC?

ToA is probably the most prominent example of a company calling bullshit on its players wanting less hand-holding. Mythic kept the whole thing in the dark and released an expansion where you simply explored all the lands around Atlantis looking for hints of an encounter. I remember most people got into the zone, wandered around for a bit, and then went "What the fuck am I doing?" Only the super-dedicated guilds got anything done. Until some guild opened up their website that had guides written for the artifacts and master-levels, hardly anyone I knew bothered with the garbage out there.

[Sillywilly]

Yes, and those people are wrong imo.

The thing is I wouldn't say ToA killed the game because of my personal opinion of ToA, because I liked it ok. I thought it was a little to tedious and overdone in it's release state but the general idea and the theme of it I liked.

I also wouldn't accuse ToA because of population as I don't think the population in DAoC dropped all that significantly at the beginning of ToA.

However when I'm in the forums for other games I do regularly hear people say DAoC was their favorite MMO of all time "until ToA ruined it for me". So on that I would have to assume that alot of people really didn't like ToA and whether they quit right then or migrated to WoW later on it was definitely not a big hit with a lot of people.

[Valec]

The thing is I wouldn't say ToA killed the game because of my personal opinion of ToA, because I liked it ok. I thought it was a little to tedious and overdone in it's release state but the general idea and the theme of it I liked.

I also wouldn't accuse ToA because of population as I don't think the population in DAoC dropped all that significantly at the beginning of ToA.

However when I'm in the forums for other games I do regularly hear people say DAoC was their favorite MMO of all time "until ToA ruined it for me". So on that I would have to assume that alot of people really didn't like ToA and whether they quit right then or migrated to WoW later on it was definitely not a big hit with a lot of people.

Population dive was probably right after people started getting rolled by people with TOA goodies. The level of retardation that TOA brought to the game was extreme. Gamebreaking abilities all over the place.

[Alex Mars]

I heard a lot of complaints here at this site about ToA, something about a real harsh grind and overpowered items, but I was out of the game by then.

[Zoobi]

TOA ruined DAOC because of the sheer amount of shit you had to do to compete after it came out. Before it was all crafted items in RvR, after you had to have certain artifacts to even compete, because they gave you such a huge advantage. Not to mention ML's. I didn't mind the grind for artifacts and master levels myself, but I can see why other people hated it.

[Boxy Brown]

Wasn't ToA the expac that everyone said ruined DAoC?

Yes, but as ofrm said, those people are wrong. All ToA did was add more endgame PvE content. Granted, the way that they did it was by introducing massive gear discrepancies and giving you a pool of 10 more abilities that literally guaranteed you a win if your opponent didn't have them, but it wasn't enough to make people quit. At ToA release, DAoC had the most innovative and challenging PvE that I had ever played up until that point, and most of the encounters were awesome. What killed the game was New Frontiers, WoW release, and Catacombs. NF basically revamped the RvR zone into a giant inconvenience. They made it so you had to take a 10 minute boat ride just to find some action, and you couldn't AFK during it because there was ALWAYS a group of stealthers camping the endpoint. Then there were relics, which were just silly. Add to that people's gripes with the original bridge design and those types of things, and you can see why people were pissed off.

So yeah, it was NF and WoW release that did it initially, then Catacombs came out and made it so you could solo 1-50 on any class in a weekend and it almost completely killed the non-RvR community.

[Draconian]

I don't remember being able to level by quests before WoW

Quests have been in MMOs for a while before WoW. What WoW did was standardize their presentation (map markers, above the head ! points to tell you to talk to someone, quest log, etc). They made them impossible to miss, because they were to be the intended method of progressing through the levels and you had all the interface tools to make WorldofQuestcraft foolproof (mostly). In games previous to this, quests were never really developed on this scale or focused on so intently. They existed, but you had to explore and converse with NPCs - you had to read and pay attention like in MUDs, no surprise that DAoC started development initially as a commercial MUD. When I first played DAoC I was dumbfounded that they highlighted the trigger words for you on NPCs, I was like wtf is the point, I'm supposed to chat with the NPC and find info on my own.

Anyway, DAoC absolutely had them years before WoW was released, I'm not sure if they were in pre-SI because I did not play until 2002. They rewarded xp and items sometimes, just like wow. They had you killing this, or clicking that, just like WoW. What they didn't have was much polish at all nor balancing. It was nice to have the option, but without knowing which quests were worth it, what level they were, etc - a lot of them gave you useless gear or measly xp. WoW's innovation was to feature quests with a very transparent and easy to use system with a shitload of quality control and polish. And cheers to WoW's legacy for the accomplishment - but I much prefer the puzzlement and sandbox adventure that few MMOs have ever attempted and you can only really find on handful of MUDs in a sea of shit pet projects.

And yes, once Blizzard bitchslapped everyone who ever put but drop of sweat into making an MMO by inflating their market volume and share to ridiculous numbers, most MMOs running at the time rushed to retrofit with new quest systems featuring all of the core elements that WoW established, DAoC included. Many of the old quests still existed in DAoC after that and probably still do, so you can still find the shitty rewards from random NPCs in the middle of nowhere if you just will talk to a couple kilobytes of creative writing.

[ofrm1]

The thing is I wouldn't say ToA killed the game because of my personal opinion of ToA, because I liked it ok. I thought it was a little to tedious and overdone in it's release state but the general idea and the theme of it I liked.

I also wouldn't accuse ToA because of population as I don't think the population in DAoC dropped all that significantly at the beginning of ToA.

However when I'm in the forums for other games I do regularly hear people say DAoC was their favorite MMO of all time "until ToA ruined it for me". So on that I would have to assume that alot of people really didn't like ToA and whether they quit right then or migrated to WoW later on it was definitely not a big hit with a lot of people.

I have always thought that was a misconception. Every time I'd get onto the subject of "what killed DAoC", the answer would almost unanimously be ToA. Yet when pressed about why, a clear majority of the time the complaints were actually about New Frontiers. People have this notion that New Frontiers is just an addon of ToA when it isn't.

While finding subscriber numbers for mmo's back in 2003/2004 is difficult at best, I managed to find a chart which estimates subscriber numbers for DAoC.

http://users.telenet.be/mmodata/Charts/Subs-2.png

Note that the drop is towards the end of quarter 3 into quarter 4 of 2004. To compare, ToA came out in October 2003, New Frontiers in June of 2004, and Catacombs in December of 2004. That places the time of population decline right in with New Frontiers, as ToA had already been out for a good year at that point and Catacombs hadn't released yet. The game is driven by rvr. Screw with that and people get pissed.

Lastly and likely most importantly to the decline of DAoC is simply more competition. I think it's ridiculous to claim that there's no connection to DAoC's decline in late 2004 and WoW's launch in November 2004. Not to mention just the sheer number of mmo's on that chart that sprung up between 2003-2005. There's x number of mmo gamers unless you have a success like WoW which breaks through to the mainstream. DAoC was never that game. More than likely, people just assumed that New Frontiers was a sign that the game was on the downfall and decided to jump ship to this new Blizzard mmo instead of giving their $15 to play a game that was 3 years old with dated graphics.

[Zavon]

You have a correlation there, sure, but not a cause. Could it not be the case that numbers declined because of TOA ruining the game, and WoW simply was just a change of pace? Can you say so many would have jumped ship if TOA never existed?

I can't.

[Sillywilly]

You have a correlation there, sure, but not a cause. Could it not be the case that numbers declined because of TOA ruining the game, and WoW simply was just a change of pace? Can you say so many would have jumped ship if TOA never existed?

I can't.

I was gonna say that OFM1s findings were also what I found. The population didn't drop because of ToA, at least not at it's release. It is quite possible that ToA is what made it possible for people to let go of DAoC though. For example I didn't drop DAoC until the last official RP server was destroyed by a merger. So it is quite possible that ToA was a cause for the later exodus.

It might also be true that some people confuse NF with ToA. Most of the people I talked to that didn't like ToA didn't like the idea of having to do "epic raids" in order to get MLs and artifacts and such. Later Mythic made all these things more accessible and achievable through PvsP so I would presume that this means the ToA grind was the most complained about feature in that expansion or they wouldn't have bothered.

But alas, I don't know for sure.

[ofrm1]

You have a correlation there, sure, but not a cause. Could it not be the case that numbers declined because of TOA ruining the game, and WoW simply was just a change of pace? Can you say so many would have jumped ship if TOA never existed?

I can't.

It is important to note that the adage correlation does not imply causation also does not imply that correlations cannot imply potential causes. In this case I contend that it is perfectly reasonable to claim that WoW's release caused the downfall of DAoC simply because of the fact that there is a limited pool of potential players that will pay $15 a month to play a game. Further, if you look at the graph, it notes a marked decline in virtually all other comparable games at that same time with the exception of EQ 2 which launched to compete and Ultima Online for obvious reasons. Lastly, by this point, ToA had been out for around a year. If the expansion was truly the root of the game's downfall, it would have been either a gradual downfall of subscribers or a rapid downfall ala vanguard. You don't see that. Instead, you see the game holding at the same zenith; 250,000 where it stayed all through ToA's lifetime straight up to quarter 4 of 2004. If ToA was the cause, the line would have slowly fell from 250,000 through that whole year. Instead it drops along with just about all other mmo's right when WoW launches. The timeframe points directly to WoW for the aforementioned reasons and New Frontiers because it was the closest to the exodus. It simply does not take an entire year to see a marked decline in subscribership from a bad expansion. It does take roughly 1-3 months which would be roughly correct for the purposes of this graph. This, to me is incontrovertible.

It might also be fair to state that EQ 2 likely had a significant effect on DAoC's population decline as it also released at roughly the same time and many players of DAoC were transplanted EQ players who grew tired of EQ's grind and shallow pvp system. I could see many of them giving EQ 2 a try to see if it compared to the original. Ultimately, it doesn't really matter which game is responsible as my point was that ToA wasn't the party responsible for the downfall of DAoC.

Another thing of note is that it would appear that ToA did not attract a new subscriber base, but merely convinced those few who left between SI and ToA to Re-up.

That, and Catacombs was, for me, the worst expansion hands down. It completely gutted the PvE which was already suffering by everyone skipping the level grind via PL'ing. As much as people want to avoid a boring grind, it is essential to keeping a game well populated as there needs to be plenty of people farming items and people to encounter while leveling to keep the world and trading markets alive. If anything, this rule applies more to DAoC than any other game as DAoC sold itself on it's large-scale pvp and siege battles. Catacombs killed leveling in 90% of all zones and taught people to run the same tasks over and over ad nauseum.

To be honest, I never really understood the hatred of the ToA grind. I can understand the imbalance of artifacts/ml's complaint because it's a fact that they were and I can even understand the complaint that Old Frontiers made rvr'ing far easier to find fights. However, I can't understand why people would complain about having to deal with a grind to template your character. When you decide to buy an expansion, you're effectively signing up for additional content, whether it be a level increase to reach on your character or new dungeons with higher tier loot to farm or both. Honestly, I found ToA to be a very well made expansion in that it added zones that were visually appealing and some very interesting scripts and encounters that were a huge step up from what Mythic had done in SI. I still have fond memories of raiding ML2 in Sobekite Eternal and getting the shit kicked out of us by Gaurmaes from his ridiculously powerful AoE.

[Zavon]

I never said that a correlation relationship couldn't also be a causation relationship. Its just that that is all you had. Counter to your correlation, is a lot of people crying that TOA ruined the game for them.

Though I mostly agree with your argument, I'm still not convinced that everyone would have jumped ship quite as quickly had TOA never existed. Either way, you are right that WoW sealed the doom.

[Alex Mars]

Quests have been in MMOs for a while before WoW. What WoW did was standardize their presentation (map markers, above the head ! points to tell you to talk to someone, quest log, etc).

No denying that, but you could not level by going from quest to quest to quest prior to to WoW (except possibly late DAoC after I quit the game, not sure as I wasn't there), you still had to stand in a camp and kill things for the bulk of your exp. In EQ1 the quests mainly gave out items, with minimal exp rewards. WoWs big innovation was removing the need to grind kills to level.

[Marou]

No denying that, but you could not level by going from quest to quest to quest prior to to WoW (except possibly late DAoC after I quit the game, not sure as I wasn't there), you still had to stand in a camp and kill things for the bulk of your exp. In EQ1 the quests mainly gave out items, with minimal exp rewards. WoWs big innovation was removing the need to grind kills to level.

I've been thinking about it, and the reason these older games without respecs and highly structured content has so much more replay-ability is your growth as a player through knowledge, tactics, game mechanics, and twinking (no bound items).

Yeah, your first character was a sometimes boring grind, but the demi-gods that followed behind them could zip through that shit in less than a week. How your first character leveled up was probably dramatically different than how your subsequent characters did. True of DAoC as much as Diablo II, at least, until ToA.

I understand *why* companies introduced auction houses, and quests, bound items, hard tethers, and artificial enemy level difference debuffs. An attempt to control the in-game economy, players rate of progression, and the way they use the content. However, all those things have done is fucked the replayability completely up because new characters are needed less often, must progress through the exact same content as initial players, and receive little benefit from player knowledge.

In EQ, Vanilla DAoC, or Diablo 2 you could spend 3 hours trading and make out like a bandit. Also, you'd never know about the best shit in the game unless you read about it on some website or saw it on a very impressive looking toon. It wasn't constantly in your face how shitty your own character was. Everyone's character was fairly shitty, or median. This didn't change, but perception did because everyone can easily see all the stuff they don't have.

Bound indestructible items and auction houses put the emphasis on gear and gold farming, while preventing the development of real economies within game.
Questing, hard tethers, hard penalties on hitting high level mobs, progression leaps, and respecs killed the fun (and speed) of leveling alts.
Instanced dungeons and quest "chains" killed the social aspect of forming parties with random people. Even if you wanted to group with that random guy you ran into the enemies are tuned to certain levels, so it's not needed, and even if it would be beneficial the odds you are both at the same place in the content is low.

In a nutshell, they are over-engineered to provide a very specific experience. The novelty of a multiplayer world compelled us progress characters in the old "you're on your own" grind system and after that we had so many options for new characters and things to do in the game we kept playing a long ass time. That replay-ability of alts and relatively free form (easily twinked) itemization and leveling is what keeps people who don't give a fuck about item farming around.

TOA introduced repetitive long raids and quest chains to DAoC. The abilities and items it introduced were too powerful to ignore. In one stroke it sucked out most of the fun out of rolling new characters. Task dungeons were the nail that sealed the coffin, by being so much more rewarding and predictable than anything else you could do that it made little sense in most cases to do anything else.

Somewhere along the way multiplayer rpgs turned too much to social engineering. They said it wasn't ok to powerlevel the buddies you just got into the game, it wasn't ok to twink new characters, it wasn't ok to pull half a zone and aoe them to death, it wasn't ok to form a specifically engineered party and tackle content twice your level. Basically alot of shit that is really fun? It's not ok. Do your time like everyone else and be fedex bitch fo life. If you don't like your class, you're only a respec, some raids, some PvP "farming", and a bunch of gold away from a new you. Why do you need all these gears? To be even better at farming? You certainly can't build a new warrior around that greatsword you just found. That stuff is being vendored, and that great unbound item? Level 52 required. Too much quest grinding to build a mage around it, and it's way inferior to the same level bound drop anyways.

[Zavon]

I think Marou nailed exactly the essence of what I was trying to say.

Eq 1 was by far the greatest experience in an mmo I've ever had for the reasons listed. The difficulity of the game, and also the complexity made the entire experience so much more rewarding. Yeah it SUCKED when you died in EQ. You lost experience (even a new level) and had to go retrieve your corpse while completely naked.

Nothing told you that you had to save up money and purchase spells at some random merchant in the city, that made you stronger.

Every character I had I worked, sweat, and bled for any single piece of advancement. There was a little section on my character sheet that I used to fill out with a complete biofor my characters. I grew attached to them. It was like, mmos started out trying to be a table top d&d game, but along the way just became a regular old video game.

[Aeinna]

Every character I had I worked, sweat, and bled for any single piece of advancement. There was a little section on my character sheet that I used to fill out with a complete biofor my characters. I grew attached to them. It was like, mmos started out trying to be a table top d&d game, but along the way just became a regular old video game.

DDO gives me that feeling. It also helps that you can do whatever the hell you want with your characters. There isn't any hand holding. You want to make a character that is 4 levels of wizard, 2 of rogue and the rest as a monk? Sure, go ahead! They are your characters, with their own set of advancements that you can do whatever you want with.

I also think other MMO's don't know how to do quests. WoW quests were boring for the most part and lacked depth. The reason why I can go back over and over to DDO is even though I absolutely hate some of their quests, its not because they are hard in a stupid way or bland and give you nothing, its because they are just fucking hard in the good way. After 2 hours of being in a dungeon trying to figure out a puzzle, you feel a since of accomplishment when you are done.

And you have to be prepared. You can't just go in, run around and kill shit, thinking that will get the job done. There will be traps, puzzles (some that require up to 4 people), mazes, mobs that will blind/hold person/finger of death you and more. These things aren't labeled so you know when they are coming, you just run into them. Which is why I always go back to it.

Well the whole point of that was is that MMO's fail at making questing fun. There is a way to do it right, most just don't.

[Draconian]

In a nutshell, they are over-engineered to provide a very specific experience.

Aye, well said.

[Sillywilly]

I think Marou nailed exactly the essence of what I was trying to say.

Eq 1 was by far the greatest experience in an mmo I've ever had for the reasons listed. The difficulity of the game, and also the complexity made the entire experience so much more rewarding. Yeah it SUCKED when you died in EQ. You lost experience (even a new level) and had to go retrieve your corpse while completely naked.

Nothing told you that you had to save up money and purchase spells at some random merchant in the city, that made you stronger.

Every character I had I worked, sweat, and bled for any single piece of advancement. There was a little section on my character sheet that I used to fill out with a complete biofor my characters. I grew attached to them. It was like, mmos started out trying to be a table top d&d game, but along the way just became a regular old video game.

2nded. Pretty much everything he pointed out in that post is what I was thinking and why current gen MMOs don't suck me in as a hardcore fanboi anymore.