[DAOC] Endless Conquest is Live

Roe

Endless conquest is launching sometime at the end of the month. Endless Conquest is a fp2 mode where players can sign up for a new account and play as one of the available classes(most underused) and play them forever and for free.


You cannot pause rps or exp when playing for free, but you can max out your end game realm points and collect all of the gear you can.

There are some drawbacks, however. You cannot use master levels or champion levels. Some endgame gear is off limits.

Start playing here.

Feldorn

this game was awesome. i still miss playing it, just don't have the time for MMOs really.

Best PVP of any MMO i've played. at least that's my opinion. having war with 3 realms totally added a lot of awesome to it.

Fiatil

This is pretty much the best MMO. I wish I had more time to play it now-a-days, but I'll still probably cry the day that EA finally decides to end it. If only Mythic would have made DAoC 2 instead of Warhammer (and not sold their company to EA in the process), those jerks.

Lucky Cynic

This game holds a special place in my heart since it took me through my gaming adolescence.

The Mythic Entertainment that set out and made DAoC back in 2001 is a radical departure from what it is today. If there is any analogy for the crew behind DAoC, it is that of a guild past it's prime and has since been disbanded. Marc Jacobs was the head of Mythic and was the guy who started out making MUDs out of the backseat of his car. A few bold moves later, they shipped out DAoC in 2001 and essentially set the rules for how MMOs should be constructed. It never was perfect, but the imperfections that stung people back in the day are nothing compared to the half complete MMO launches that seem all the norm these days. The economy the players set up was fair, and gold could only take you so far, but the best currency was points. Points won in battle against other players- and those you had to earn.

DAoC had a mixed bag of expansions. While the first few were solid and added a whole slew of content, the rest gradually became more focused and less extravagant and ultimately made with different purposes in mind. Catacombs for example was meant to breathe new life into the game via fresh new graphics and new underground cities which provided new players an easier venue of leveling up. The deeper you go, the higher the level.

That being said, the heated PvP (Called Realm vs Realm or RvR combat) still is very much active these days. I was playing on Christmas Day and had several tense moments as mini groups of novices colliding in the battlegrounds (lower level RvR areas).

More or less, the game is 'done' these days. An MMO is always in some kind of development cycle but there are no more expansions planned. There will be no more boxed sets released. And there are no more patches to wait to fix things. This is a mixed blessing. In a way, it creates an interactive Museum piece in that little changes, but it belongs in that museum in the first place, seeing it has accomplished many firsts, and more or less, has had everything fixed. Bugs are squashed, classes are balanced, mob encounters, while tough, are rewarding. The game is an MMO with all the polish already applied and now has built up a lovely patina.

For those of you who haven't played it, do yourselves a favor and try the demo. It is an old school MMO meaning quests don't lead you by the hand. No, you have to read to see what you are doing and where you are going. But those who like that bit of mysterious lore, you will appreciate the dialogue. A quest line that starts at level 5 for example begins with a magus talking about the history of the previous king, how he had been struck down in battle and lost a hand, but was forged an enchanted silver hand. The trouble is, the very same silver seems to be used against town guardsman by an anarchist group of villains who seek to bleed the empire and ultimately, at the end of the quest line late in the game's progression, you thwart the plot.

Awesome. Epic. Deep shit. All of that with none of the "please kill 4 bears for their pelts. I am cold and would like pelts."

Lucky Cynic

Also, the original box art looks like something from an 80's metal album. So awesome.

Feldorn

that box art was awesome. vikings vs knights vs pansies.

buddylee

A nostalgia post for DAOC makes me shed a tear of remembrance. Good times on Alb/Guin with my Cabby and Reaver. This was one of the most epic games ever.

darkmayo

My only max level character was my Spiritmaster, loved that bitch.

Joshmvii

DAoC was such a great game. All the wonderful PvP design Mythic can do is in TOR now, which is phenomenal, but I'll leave it at that so this thread doesn't get derailed in that direction.

I loved playing a healer in DAoC back in the day.

Fiatil

Fuck, I had forgotten how awesome that box art is.

Avynte

Man, DAoC was such a great game, but I don't think I could put up with the early days again knowing what I know today.

1-shot stealth kills, obscene CC, buffbots, and more.

Still, it'll be a grand day an mmo can recapture the magic that was darkness falls.

Axen

DAoC has a very special place in my heart. It was the second MMO I ever played (Everquest being the first) and I think it was also the start of the "modern" MMO. By that I mean a lot of the concepts and such that are a staple in today's MMOs first appeared (AFAIK) in DAoC.

I still can't believe other games haven't gone the three faction PvP route. It worked so well. Even Mythic's own Warhammer Online failed to live up to the glorious PvP of DAoC.

I loved my Mercenary. His speed was so ridiculously buffed that I do not think he ever stopped attacking.

Who knows, maybe one day we will have DAoC 2, not sure if that should be a good thing or not.

Super Namicchi

shit yeah, i remember shrouded isles so fondly

playin my necro, soloing orange and red mobs straight to 50

rhylith

I miss this game when it was at its peak during SI. No other game offered the true feeling of a massive multiplayer game like this one. Having someone coordinate your entire realm to pull off relic raids was amazing. Hell even doing a PvE raid usually involved inviting the everyone along and watching the chaos ensue. Even despite this, you'd have the option of running a small, tightly focused 8 man group and you'd still be able to make a difference if you had the skill. No other game has done combo chains, reactionaries, and positional styles as complex as DAOC yet either. Using crafted gear with capped stats as a method of balancing PvP was genius as well (though buffbots were sooooo annoying). I keep holding out hope for a true successor to this game (Dominus maybe?), but unfortunately I don't think we'll ever see anything like it again.

Saeris

Tree-hugging mind-bender here. I miss being a mentalist. It had everything I like in a class: range, heals, pets (charms, not summons!), and of course an almost-useless joke spell (confusion) for funsies.

Other MMOs have good classes too, though. That's not what I really miss about DAoC. What I'll always miss, and what no one else has yet replicated, is the three-faction PvP. The complexity of combat increases exponentially, not linearly, with the number of factions. All of my favorite fights were in Darkness Falls, because you essentially had FOUR factions if you count the huge trains of mobs that would get dragged around when the dungeon changed hands. The very best fights occurred when temporary, informal, wholly unreliable truces were formed between two factions to beat up the third, and then it all fell apart and chaos erupted halfway through.

I still get a little chill when I hear that loading music. And damn I love that box art.

But if a DAoC 2 ever wanted to succeed, they'd have to get rid of the less polished aspects of the game. No buff bots, no unending CC, and lower burst damage all around. Aside from that, though, they could almost just release a graphically updated and geographically expanded version as a sequel and call it good.

Syrionus

Axen wrote:

DAoC has a very special place in my heart. It was the second MMO I ever played (Everquest being the first) and I think it was also the start of the "modern" MMO.

DAoC was my first one and I loved the hell out of it back then. If it was FTP or Freemium, I would go back to it. I loved my Paladin. However, I never got into the PVP side of things and I think WoW improved on everything I liked about DAoC. Like others have said, it still holds a special place in my heart but I would perfer to remember the good old days, rather than try it again and have those memories tarnished.

darkmayo

Daoc had some of the most interesting mechanics for classes, especially when Shrouded Isles came out, Necros, Reavers, Bonemasters and those plant dudes with the mushroom turrets.

Roe

You guys are talking like DAOC died. The game is still thriving.

darkmayo

its dead to me

buddylee

Animists. Damn those animists.

darkmayo

buddylee wrote:

Animists. Damn those animists.

Thats what it was, those were great. Mushroom Mushroom! Necro's were fun too, leave your body laying around and sick your pet over the castle walls.

Dr_Keenbean

This was my first MMO and it instilled in me the idea that PVP = endgame, which I have yet to shake off entirely in spite of most PVP being an afterthought anymore.

Sieges, Relics, and of course old-school Emain gank squads. I miss them all.

Madpanda

First MMO also here, I think I still have more /played in DAOC than wow.

Relic raaaids were awesome. I loved pvp in this game.

I keep trying to play this again every year or so, can get to about level 45 and then just burn out. The UI and not having a guild kinda hurts. Finnaly transferred all my pve chars to ywain, unfortunatley most of my playtime was on Mordred so I can't move those due to "technical issues". I wouldn't really care if they were stripped, just don't feel like leveling ~5 rr6's up again.

Loved the lore and zone atmosphere. Night is actually dark in this game. While that sounds nothing spectacular, keep in mind that if you are in a level appropriate zone soloing as a new/average geared player, there is still quite a chance of death.

I still remember doing pookha or wraith groups in one of the hibernia vanilla endgame zones, bog of cullen maybe? Your group had to be pretty hudled because pulling random siabra adds could get you wiped really easily. I remember either raiding or doing an epic quest with a few groups going deep into the bog and fighting a siabra queen maybe? and we got eradicated.

Feldorn

@madpanda you could turn on your torch while you're adventuring at night :P

Madpanda

Oh I know all about the torch, it provides you with good visibility in the immediate area, but past that its still dark. I only bring it up because anytime I try playing daoc its very noticeable after getting used to wow.

Roe

Madpanda wrote:

Oh I know all about the torch, it provides you with good visibility in the immediate area, but past that its still dark. I only bring it up because anytime I try playing daoc its very noticeable after getting used to wow.

World of Warcraft dropped the ball in that section in my opinion. They could have made the game marginally better by darkening the game like its competitors do.

Saeris

One of my favorite things about DAoC was the complete absence of an in-game map. If you wanted to find something, you had to either explore it yourself or ask around. The former fostered a tremendous sense of immersion and awe, as you could actually become lost, especially at night. The latter helped to build a sense of realm unity and community, as you'd typically need to find a guide if you wanted to go into some of the higher level raid zones or take some of the sneakier back routes through RvR territory. They added maps later on, but (at least when I was still playing) they didn't show your location on the map.

There's no way a game today could get away with omitting a marker for you and all of your objectives on the map, let alone omitting the map entirely. Which is fine, really; I understand that the majority of players are there for the primary purpose of playing a game, not necessarily to be immersed in another world.

Madpanda

Saeris wrote:

One of my favorite things about DAoC was the complete absence of an in-game map. If you wanted to find something, you had to either explore it yourself or ask around. The former fostered a tremendous sense of immersion and awe, as you could actually become lost, especially at night. The latter helped to build a sense of realm unity and community, as you'd typically need to find a guide if you wanted to go into some of the higher level raid zones or take some of the sneakier back routes through RvR territory. They added maps later on, but (at least when I was still playing) they didn't show your location on the map.

There's no way a game today could get away with omitting a marker for you and all of your objectives on the map, let alone omitting the map entirely. Which is fine, really; I understand that the majority of players are there for the primary purpose of playing a game, not necessarily to be immersed in another world.

Oh my god this so much. I am spoiled by maps nowadays but man do I miss navigating by landmarks sometimes and being known as "that guy who knows how to get places".


My first Daoc/MMO character was an Eldritch, no speed or stealth or anything, just a squishy caster. Anytime I would level up I would try to explore new zones. Which led to a lot of fun deaths in a game with corpse runs if you wanted exp back.

I remember hitting 50 and exploring the cursed forest, I was tense as hell because I couldn't see anything, which I assumed just meant the mobs were invisible and waiting to gang up on me at any second. Little did I know the zone wasn't populated that close to launch.

When I went to Mordred my main was a Minstrel, speed and stealth. With all 3 realms open I explored everywhere and lead groups. I really miss this archtype and no game has captured it again. I had hope for Rift and the Bard stealth soul but that didn't really pan out the same mounts were much faster than bard speed and while exploring was kindof a thing, it still didn't feel the same.

Feldorn

the compass was a huge help for getting around once you kinda knew your way from various landmarks.

Madpanda

So i've been playing this on and off for a few days. Turns out after 3 months of inactivity you get 14 days to check out the game again.

I've been disappointed the previous few times I've checked it out as not much had changed, task dungeons were the biggest thing I can remember and those were kinda boring. Grinding the same things over and over. Not much different from vanilla except it was streamlined.

These past few days I can easily see why some people on the boards are calling it daoc 1.5. They have greatly re-done the early game. The tutorial has been re-done again and its actually really useful now. You get gear every step of the way which is actually relevant. And from the onset they put you on a rvr, albiet with npc's, type enviroment.

The little cities are about the same but they are quest hubs now, each with their own quartermaster and armor sets, which again are really useful. This feels like a great progression of the "free weapon and chest from the trainer every 5 levels" which they had previously put in.

Oh also quests are a thing now, I barely remember them from vanilla because they just weren't worth it in terms of time/reward. Thats changed. Either they are giving you armor with relevant stats, or a choice of the expensive dyes which you can sell off. I started a Luri pierce champ with no resources and at level 16 i have 200g and a set of yellow/orange equipment just from questing or hub quartermasters. Doing just fine soloing yellow/orange mobs. Oh also you can respec for really cheap.

They also do a good job of relaying the storyline from the get go.

The bg's also have a similar quartermaster system which I will start checking out a bit more. Wanted to do some actual rvr but the really early bg's seemed empty.

Any PA people have a guild that doesn't mind casual players?

Feldorn

they implemented some good quests in Shrouded Isles back when it was released, once they weren't bugged so you could complete them, that is. other wise, the only quest i remember doing (in midgard) was a lvl 20 quest to run to the other side of the damn world and kill njessi.

i miss getting killed by wandering monsters in the vale of mularn. i remember as a newb in this game, when i really didn't know how to play an MMO, lvl 10 seemed like such an accomplishment. getting a group just to kill world trash at lvl 8 :P so good.

Dr_Keenbean

Madpanda wrote:

So i've been playing this on and off for a few days. Turns out after 3 months of inactivity you get 14 days to check out the game again.

I've been disappointed the previous few times I've checked it out as not much had changed, task dungeons were the biggest thing I can remember and those were kinda boring. Grinding the same things over and over. Not much different from vanilla except it was streamlined.

These past few days I can easily see why some people on the boards are calling it daoc 1.5. They have greatly re-done the early game. The tutorial has been re-done again and its actually really useful now. You get gear every step of the way which is actually relevant. And from the onset they put you on a rvr, albiet with npc's, type enviroment.

The little cities are about the same but they are quest hubs now, each with their own quartermaster and armor sets, which again are really useful. This feels like a great progression of the "free weapon and chest from the trainer every 5 levels" which they had previously put in.

Oh also quests are a thing now, I barely remember them from vanilla because they just weren't worth it in terms of time/reward. Thats changed. Either they are giving you armor with relevant stats, or a choice of the expensive dyes which you can sell off. I started a Luri pierce champ with no resources and at level 16 i have 200g and a set of yellow/orange equipment just from questing or hub quartermasters. Doing just fine soloing yellow/orange mobs. Oh also you can respec for really cheap.

They also do a good job of relaying the storyline from the get go.

The bg's also have a similar quartermaster system which I will start checking out a bit more. Wanted to do some actual rvr but the really early bg's seemed empty.

Any PA people have a guild that doesn't mind casual players?

Oh god. I'm balls-deep in TOR but you're making me want to download this.

GnomeTank

I loved DAoC for it's time, but some of the nostalgia sauce in here is applied a bit thick. Like saying quests didn't require you to kill 10 Ass Bears or whatever...you're right, you just had to go find 100 Ass Bears and farm them mindlessly to level up. You were still killing endless supplies of Ass Bears, there just wasn't a reward attached to it.

DAoC was certainly a pioneer during it's time, but most of us probably wouldn't enjoy it today, given how many "standard" features it never had (because they weren't standard yet).

Feldorn

@gnometank i kinda miss xp groups being an option. the only time you'll group for xp now is in a dungeon, but i enjoyed being in a group, pulling mobs, having to get CC on them. i thought it was fun.

edit: if by standard you mean "make the game easy for even casual players" then you're right. those features weren't "standard" when DAOC came out.

GnomeTank

It could be fun. It could also mean the waste of an entire night because you couldn't find an XP group. This was especially true in the 45-50 range, when just leveling on mobs in the open world was painfully slow. You really needed to be clearing out Dark Fall and the werewolf area (that I can't remember the name of), both of which required raid groups.

Feldorn

you're right about that, i never leveled in Malmohus (?) since SI was out by the time i was leveling that high. nostalgia or not though, DAoC gets my personal vote for best MMO i have played. bugs and balance issues included.

Saeris

Yeah, that's true. I was fortunate, though, never having any trouble leveling up. When people raise that complaint against DAoC, I can sympathize (it was indeed horrible), but it doesn't really resonate with me. This was for a very specific reason, though.

I played, in order: bard, mentalist, another bard, necromancer. The bards provided endurance regen and the mentalist provided power regen, so I was in such high demand by groups that I remember leveling in the Coruscating Mine starting at level 25 (whereas normally you wouldn't even enter that dungeon until the high 30s). And the necromancer, of course, could just solo everything forever without stopping.

Madpanda

Pre-epic dungeons and df leveling entailed sitting at the same spawn for hours on end. Hibernia was Pookhas outside of allin bin, and I think finlaiths in the frontiers. Or the bottom of uhh some mines, doing wee-weres for hours. Alb was uhh pygmies maybe in lyoness.

Lucky Cynic

Saeris wrote:

Yeah, that's true. I was fortunate, though, never having any trouble leveling up. When people raise that complaint against DAoC, I can sympathize (it was indeed horrible), but it doesn't really resonate with me. This was for a very specific reason, though.

I played, in order: bard, mentalist, another bard, necromancer. The bards provided endurance regen and the mentalist provided power regen, so I was in such high demand by groups that I remember leveling in the Coruscating Mine starting at level 25 (whereas normally you wouldn't even enter that dungeon until the high 30s). And the necromancer, of course, could just solo everything forever without stopping.

I liked that the Necromancer was basically a tank caster. Those Necroservants were just tough as nails when you buffed and built them the right way. Plus our endurance in RvR was amazing. I've had skirmishes where I would just lifetap for a serious two minutes straight and just wear everyone down.

CrewMember169

I wish somebody would remake this. Or at least an MMO built from the ground up for great PvP.

Feldorn

that was one nice thing about Midgard. we were almost always in control of DF.