Thinking about giving DAoC a spin

RiemannLives

I've been kind of pining for an MMO recently and was thinking of giving DAoC a spin. Honestly, what I really want to play is Warhammer Online but that is not going to be out for ages. I've played a bit of WoW (and tale in the desert II) and neither were something I really enjoyed.

What I want out of an MMO are:
1) Interesting crafting (I would say WoW's crafting is the bare minimum to interest me)
2) The ability to play for short periods of time but still get things done
3) Not requiring large groups working together (eg: raiding in WoW). I'm all for grouping but I prefer smaller scale groups. I had a lot of fun in the early instances in WoW but later gameplay killed it for me.
4) Huge bonus if solo is an option. Sometimes (sometimes!) I just want go wander around and kill some stuff / craft / get some loot on my own. If solo isn't an option than easy to find pick up groups are a must. I could never stand the waiting for a group in FFXI for example.

Any idea if DAoC fits any of these?

SlyJoker

Seems like Burning Crusade fits most of, if not all, of your criteria.

HadjiQuest

2, 3, and 4 make it sounds like you'd like any of the GuildWars games.

However, GuildWars's crafting was pretty so-so. Kill things, collect materials, refine them with a refine kit, and then go to a crafter. Pretty basic.

RiemannLives

SlyJoker wrote:

Seems like Burning Crusade fits most of, if not all, of your criteria.

Definetly not. WoW has amazing art direction. I love the look of the character models and most of the areas. But I can't stand the high level gameplay. Some people like raiding and that's fine. But it is the antithesis of what I would want to do for fun.

Talous

On DAoC:

1) Interesting crafting.
Well interesting is not how I'd describe it, but it certainly is there and extremely in-depth. This of course is coming from someone who has only found crafting enjoyable in Ultima Online (and that's due to the atmosphere).

2) The ability to play for short periods of time but still get things done.
These days DAoC takes almost no time to reach level 50 (max). Since you're new it would probably take 3-5 (96hours) days played (took me about four but I could've done it sooner). Be sure to pick up all of the expansions so you can use the instance dungeons and play on one of the classic servers. You could log on, complete a dungeon, log out, and have felt some accomplishment.

3) Not requiring large groups working together.
The only thing you will need more than 8 men for is to take a well defended keep. Small, well organized groups of eight could take down groups of unorganized players two to three times their size. You can do alot on the frontier with eight people and sometimes with even less. However going solo in RvR is not usually a great option. I've had great fun hiding behind trees and ambushing Middies with my Minstrel and a Paladin.

4) Huge bonus if solo is an option.
Soloing is most definitely an option with almost every character class. Certain classes are better at it than others (one's with pets). Task dungeons (enabled with the catacombs expansion pack) means easy leveling for every class, even solo. However, nothing beats playing with a group. Just about every MMO has the same lame combat system, and unfortunately so does DAoC.

There is no other game out now with medieval warfare on such a grand scale. Really if you dig the setting and can't stand WoW's atmosphere/graphics/story DAoC is your best fantasy MMO option. WoW certainly has more polish, but fuck that -- I'll take Mythic over Blizzard any day (please don't shoot me).

Edit: Guild Wars, while good, is definitely not an MMO. It's enjoyable but in a Diablo II sort of way.
Edit2: For increased readability.

powersurge

Eve Online? You can pretty much play how you want to play. No real 'end game' (unless you consider being a trader with your own freighter or a pvper with your own dreadnaught/carrier).

RiemannLives

Talous wrote:

On DAoC:

1) Interesting crafting.
Well interesting is not how I'd describe it, but it certainly is there and extremely in-depth. This of course is coming from someone who has only found crafting enjoyable in Ultima Online (and that's due to the atmosphere).

2) The ability to play for short periods of time but still get things done.
These days DAoC takes almost no time to reach level 50 (max). Since you're new it would probably take 3-5 (96hours) days played (took me about four but I could've done it sooner). Be sure to pick up all of the expansions so you can use the instance dungeons and play on one of the classic servers. You could log on, complete a dungeon, log out, and have felt some accomplishment.

3) Not requiring large groups working together.
The only thing you will need more than 8 men for is to take a well defended keep. Small, well organized groups of eight could take down groups of unorganized players two to three times their size. You can do alot on the frontier with eight people and sometimes with even less. However going solo in RvR is not usually a great option. I've had great fun hiding behind trees and ambushing Middies with my Minstrel and a Paladin.

4) Huge bonus if solo is an option.
Soloing is most definitely an option with almost every character class. Certain classes are better at it than others (one's with pets). Task dungeons (enabled with the catacombs expansion pack) means easy leveling for every class, even solo. However, nothing beats playing with a group. Just about every MMO has the same lame combat system, and unfortunately so does DAoC.

There is no other game out now with medieval warfare on such a grand scale. Really if you dig the setting and can't stand WoW's atmosphere/graphics/story DAoC is your best fantasy MMO option. WoW certainly has more polish, but fuck that -- I'll take Mythic over Blizzard any day (please don't shoot me).

Edit: Guild Wars, while good, is definitely not an MMO. It's enjoyable but in a Diablo II sort of way.
Edit2: For increased readability.

Thanks for an insiders perspective. I do very much like the atmosphere and especially the graphics and WoW (well, most of it anyway) it is just the actual gameplay that drove me off.

I think I'll definetly give the free trial for DAoC a spin though. If you have a spare minute any extra info about crafting and which server to go for would be appreciated.

RiemannLives

powersurge wrote:

Eve Online? You can pretty much play how you want to play. No real 'end game' (unless you consider being a trader with your own freighter or a pvper with your own dreadnaught/carrier).

I was thinkin' about that one. Played a lot of tradewars back in the day (had an instance on my BBS and played it on several) and Sci-Fi does appeal (though I'm definetly not jaded or burnt out on fantasy / tolkienesq settings). What was holding me back was that a friend played it shortly after launch who has very similar taste to my own. He quit after a while due to the "this game is work" factor. It never really felt fun or involving to him.

Talous

I can't promise you much in terms of game play. The combat system is basically the same as WoW's. I have to say though that I have never met better people in an MMO. I don't know how it is now, but an amazing percentage of the player base was not shit-tarded.

This site has alot of fantastic information and probably more than I could ever give, especially regarding tradeskills.

The Gareth/Ector/Lamorak server cluster is the one you probably want. They're the newest servers and have the highest population. They get rid of all of the shitty baggage that "Trials of Atlantis" brought and just generally improved the game. It was sort've like what would've happened if EA would make a non-trammel server.

Lucky Cynic

I'm currently playing DAoC, If you want, send a PM over to Kyder-p from Albion on the Palomides server/cluster. The game now is aging well, hitting just after 5 years, but the thing is, it's really great. It's endgame galore and you can really end up enjoying it if you put time into it. Leveling takes up no time at all now, the crafting is excellent and is actually in demand and can be a source of money if you put time into it. Now for smaller groups and stuff, you can get by with soloing and with a 3 man group, but a lot of the game is very much so grouped play, but don't expect to be running in an 8 man group for PvP all the time or running in with a huge crowd in a dungeon.

Shoot me a PM if you want more info.

Narian

RiemannLives wrote:

SlyJoker wrote:

Seems like Burning Crusade fits most of, if not all, of your criteria.

Definetly not. WoW has amazing art direction. I love the look of the character models and most of the areas. But I can't stand the high level gameplay. Some people like raiding and that's fine. But it is the antithesis of what I would want to do for fun.

WoW's armor art totally sucks. Their Landscape art is really good though.

Lucky Cynic

Narian wrote:

RiemannLives wrote:

SlyJoker wrote:

Seems like Burning Crusade fits most of, if not all, of your criteria.

Definetly not. WoW has amazing art direction. I love the look of the character models and most of the areas. But I can't stand the high level gameplay. Some people like raiding and that's fine. But it is the antithesis of what I would want to do for fun.

WoW's armor art totally sucks. Their Landscape art is really good though.

I dislike it all, it feels like I'm playing a cartoonish MMO and will always dispise WoW because I just cannot find it attractive. Which is prolly why I really apprecaite DAoC, everything is properly proportioned and looks fairly realistic for a fantasy MMO without having to need some powerhouse of a GPU.

Andorien

HadjiQuest wrote:

2, 3, and 4 make it sounds like you'd like any of the GuildWars games.

However, GuildWars's crafting was pretty so-so. Kill things, collect materials, refine them with a refine kit, and then go to a crafter. Pretty basic.

I would never recommend Guild Wars to anyone really looking for a traditional PvE experience, and the content it has is so so. You play Guild Wars when you're ready to do hard core PvP.

Talous

Unfortunately DAoC is a little bit less gritty thanks to the later expansions.

Lucky Cynic

Talous wrote:

Unfortunately DAoC is a little bit less gritty thanks to the later expansions.

New Frontiers still is fairly gritty, I can't really think of any area that really is 'clean' per se. I mean, even in towns, you see tiny NPC rats scurrying about.