the single-greatest RvR-based MMORPGs in the industry

Ovi · Post by **Ovi** » Fri May 20, 2005 3:05 pm

Personally I have been much more impressed by Blizzard than any other company running MMORPGs I have played.

The release of WoW wasn't without issues, but then so far no one else has even come close to getting the same number of subscribers at release.

I also think that comparing a "free" service such as battle.net to a subscription service such as a MMORPG is a little unfair. For the price (nothing) Battle.net was also pretty good too imo! I think Diablo 2 had about 10 patches? That's quite a few more than most offline games get

I don't have experience of playing on the US servers, so obviously can't compare with Mythic, but certainly GoA can get nowhere near Blizzard.

Ankh Morpork · Post by **Ankh Morpork** » Fri May 20, 2005 3:23 pm

Ovi wrote:I don't have experience of playing on the US servers, so obviously can't compare with Mythic, but certainly GoA can get nowhere near Blizzard.

I doubt this game will be run by GoA..

/Ankh

Cryn · Post by **Cryn** » Sun May 22, 2005 10:58 am

I was very impressed with Blizzard, too, on their ability to deliver the game and keep it stable. But that's only one aspect of the product, and it was rendered pointless by the game having no longevity. For whatever reason (my theory is dumbing down in order to broaden the market), WoW PvP does not have the depth to make it interesting or the risk factor to make it exciting. Without engaging PvP there is no endgame and therefore no longevity.

Mythic have a good track record on the technical front, delivering patches and a stable platform (if we ignore the Open Transit issues which are arguably beyond Mythic's control). More importantly, Mythic have demonstrated an understanding of what's needed for engaging PvP, the only thing (outside truly dynamic content) enabling MMORPGs to be something more than an exercise in character progression.

I was very excited by Xest's post. The Warhammer universe has the potential to field a great MMORPG. It would be amazing if they could incorporate Warhammer roots beyond the fantasy roleplay, and enable characters to become captains of military units. That's just me fantasising though

Finding out Requiel's shady history was a bit of a bummer. I stopped subscribing to White Dwarf when GW gradually made it an in-house only mag by excluding material relating to other company's products. I liked Warhammer, but GW's attempt to homogenise the gaming market stole a lot of valuable diversity.

Ovi · Post by **Ovi** » Sun May 22, 2005 11:23 am

Cryn wrote:I was very impressed with Blizzard, too, on their ability to deliver the game and keep it stable. But that's only one aspect of the product, and it was rendered pointless by the game having no longevity. For whatever reason (my theory is dumbing down in order to broaden the market), WoW PvP does not have the depth to make it interesting or the risk factor to make it exciting. Without engaging PvP there is no endgame and therefore no longevity.

I think it is a little too early to judge WoW PvP, as the PvP side is still a little "unfinished". When the next patch goes live and battlegrounds are active it would be a fairer comparison, and also the game still needs time for play styles to evolve.

I wasn't in DAoC at the start, only joining when SI came out, but from the way people talk of what PvP was like before RAs etc I think WoW isn't a huge step different.

I do think WoW is a little "dumbed down", and to be fair that probably suits me a little more. Fights take longer, there is more use for the whole range of character abilities (Except when being jumped by Rogues obviously) and so far all classes have their uses.

I am interested what makes DAoC PvP more engaging than WoW? Most of the Main PvP in DAoC is a fg running around trying to find another fg to fight, no reason you can't do the same in WoW.

Then we have Keeps, towers etc, but surely BGs will provide the lower level NPC type PvP events, and there is already the ability to raid the capital cities which would be the equivalent to a Relic Raid.

Is it not partly a case of fond memories of your first love? (To use a cheesy cliche

)

Cryn · Post by **Cryn** » Sun May 22, 2005 5:05 pm

I'm comparing WoW now to DAoC now. Maybe that in some sense is unfair, but only if the purpose of my comparison to offer some kind of objective review, which it's not. Its purpose was to compare the pros and cons of launching either game when I get home from work in the evenings and unfortunately, neither game would score any points for what they might or might not deliver in a few months or what they were like 3.5 years ago before I started playing.

WoW PvP is not engaging because there is very little depth. A raid is put together and it entails a large mob of Horde fighting a large mob of Alliance. The scope for tactics is narrow - beyond luring people into your guards it's mainly just attacking with your biggest guns into the thick of the enemy. There are no siege pieces, few class abilities that can be used in complex or imaginative strategems and - due to the honour system - no real way of excelling (you do as well as the mob around you is doing).

In DAoC there's a wider variety of play styles and scenarios. You can play at siege or open field, or you can play around choke points that are not siege pieces. In open field there is scope for a variety of tactics, though mostly people just CC+blast I'll admit.

Possibly Battlegrounds will address this for WoW, but I'm not so sure. I always thought certain aspects of DAoC are key to its success, such as having three realms rather than two, having a clear divide between the frontier and the home zones, having conquerable territory (BGs look like they wil have conquerable areas, but without territorial affiliations), and having a breadth of distinct classes that gives more options for tactical experimentation than WoW's small number of (often hybrid) classes. One of the biggest things missing from WoW is consequence - you said that a raid on a capital city is like a relic raid, but really it's not. At most the attacking force cause a bit of disruption. There's no real impact on the environment, so people can ignore it if they want and after it's over, who cares that it took place at all?

On top of all that, the RPs system is a lot more exciting than the honour system. Honour has been reduced to nothing more than a function of time spent in raids, rendering it insignificant. RPs are also partly a function of time spent, but they do require skill as well in a way that honour doesn't, giving more of a thrill to success. I don't play DAoC for RPs but the competitiveness generated by RPs for a lot of players has helped maintain RvR tension and enthusiasm over the years.

Heta · Post by **Heta** » Mon May 23, 2005 5:13 am

Cryn wrote:I was very impressed with Blizzard, too, on their ability to deliver the game and keep it stable.

wth? you cant been playing wow? cause during the ~2months I was in it I experienced more crashes/lag and server downtime then I have during my whole 3 years in daoc. Servers went down 5-10 times a day, was a nonstop going lag on a 5-15 min intervall that froze you up for 30-60sec. You were lucky if the instance servers didnt crash while you were in one. So stable? I dont realy know about that.

Ovi · Post by **Ovi** » Mon May 23, 2005 8:17 am

Heta wrote:wth? you cant been playing wow? cause during the ~2months I was in it I experienced more crashes/lag and server downtime then I have during my whole 3 years in daoc. Servers went down 5-10 times a day, was a nonstop going lag on a 5-15 min intervall that froze you up for 30-60sec. You were lucky if the instance servers didnt crash while you were in one. So stable? I dont realy know about that.

Personally my Experience with WoW has been much better than DAoC overall, although I do believe that some servers have had more problems than others though, and one of the datacentres had issues that the other didn't.

/reply to Cryn

Thx for taking the time to post. It's not that I disagree with you, I haven't hit 60 yet to know for sure what the endgame is like. I do have concern's in the areas you suggested, although I do feel that the biggest killer may not even be the game itself, but the attitude and playstyles of those playing.

Hopefully BGs may provide a meeting ground for those with more competitive goals (as opposed to zerg / solo gankers).

Nedo · Post by **Nedo** » Mon May 23, 2005 8:21 am

Heta wrote:Blizzards handeling of wow is realy pathetic tho

Blizzard lost their best gang to Arena

Blizzard still the company that I respect most for what they done gamewise in total. So much wubbly gaming hours from their little boxes.

/off back on the route to keeeeel itam hungry Koreans

Heta · Post by **Heta** » Mon May 23, 2005 8:24 am

game was fun up to 60 for me, but pretty much died after that due to beeing force to ~3fg to do anything and mostly total n00bs that dont understand even the simplest thing so you keep dying to stupid things, that is things like Leeroy happen way to often. No realy community etc made me /cancel, guess I'm just to old and to much teens/cs people playing

Ovi · Post by **Ovi** » Mon May 23, 2005 8:40 am

Having read the rest of the forum, it seems that big raids not having a lasting effect does have one bonus... No point doing Alarm clock raids

Also with respect to the RPs vs Honour, I felt that RAs were too powerful but on the other hand I don't think the honour rewards are powerful enough

Where the honour system is good giving equipment rewards, hopefully it means you get a choice of how to equip your character, either through PvE raids, or through consistent PvP.