Its....beautiful

[Eclipsed]

Here's the FAQ I was telling you about, Gluck

http://vnboards.ign.com/daoc_origins/b23269/107659613/p1/?63

[Gluckon]

When will this server be released?
Okay, I'd like to take a moment to clear something up (and I'm actually surprised no one asked). In my letter I stated that are targeted launch was Aug/Sep... In all actuality, we'd like to get Origins out there sooner, preferably Jul/Aug. The Aug/Sep timeframe was used to be conservative.

They posted that on 6/16/08. The Jul/Aug and Aug/Sept timeframes were for 2008

[Eclipsed]

Probably should have checked the time stamps on that...

[Gluckon]

Here ya go, this was posted the other day.

http://www.camelotherald.com/news/news_article.php?storyid=3799

Several of you have been asking about Origins.  While I would like to be able to provide you with specific information about its development, it is not something I can do at this time.  As the lead on the team that had originally begun the project last spring, I have a lot of investment in the project and would love nothing more than to deliver it to you as soon as possible.  However, other considerations have come in to play since that time.  Our plans are to proceed forward with caution and without jeopardizing the existing game and the subscribers who are happy with the server types we currently offer

Pretty much sounds like it's not going to happen because of WAR. The so called "happy" people are prolly not happy but content. They are not gonna bitch about anything because of all the time they already have invested.

[Quethel]

I stand by the premise that Origins was a bad idea. I'm not sure what it is people want out of DAOC, but I'm pretty sure Origins isn't it. It's a shame, it's still a fantastic game and I like the siege combat more than WARs primarily due to the diversity. Of course, the only diversity DAOC's siege had until New Frontiers was assassins climbing walls, which WAR will quasi replicate with the postern gate unlocking in 1.2(which is odd it's taken so long since that worked in beta...).

I'm not sure if we have higher standards now or if it's just because we're older, but we wouldn't tolerate release day DAOC for more than a week. With no spell crafting the player made gear was pointless. There were no teleporters and no horses and the horse route from TNN to the high level content(which was pretty much just the Bog of Cullen as Coruscating Mines wasn't itemized for the first 6 months) takes a full 10 minutes with at least one jump off to switch horses. Leveling was extremely painful, dying was extremely painful(a whole 1/3 of a level, gone!). There were no mini-dings and no spec points from those. I remember having to sit and med after every kill, with mana taking 5 minutes to regen(gogo 50% penalty!) when I could burn through a full bar in about 40 seconds.

RvR was mostly a terrible experience, at least for me. One shotted repeatedly by archers who got away, and while I was sitting, being perfed(which did double damage cause I was sitting, not that it wouldn't have killed me anyway) by Assassins who wouldn't lose stealth so long as I died in 1 hit, letting them perf every single caster in the middle of the zerg and get away with it. Watching the entire zerg get rolled 1 person at a time by 1 group from Stungard, getting nuked for 3/4 of my health by a healing class wearing chain armor. And all so I could get some Realm Ranks for no reason other than to have the guards salute me(game was out 8 months before they added Realm Abilities)

And we absolutely LOVED every second of this because it was much better than the other games we'd played at the time. Does this sound like a game anyone on the planet would actually WANT to play now? I'm not sure why I stuck around long enough for it to get better(as I recall, most of us actually didn't, we just came back shortly before Shrouded Isles. But it did take 8-10 months before we quit the first time)

Overall it makes me wish we hadn't started playing WAR at release. It's going to get better too. I happen to think it's pretty damn good right now, but I don't ask for much other than a decent RvR fight to keep me happy. Just looking at what they've got planned though, this game will get it's Darkness Falls, it will get it's equivalent  1.50(the Realm Abilities patch), it will get it's equivalent of Shrouded Isles. But apparently our attention spans and our patience aren't what they once were, and apparently it's not just ours. I don't think they pushed the game out early or anything, it's just that MMOs need a bit of time out of the gate to hit their stride. When there were only four or five games on the market people were willing to give them that time. They don't anymore and I'm just as guilty. I'm sure 1 year after it's release that Age of Conan will be a fine game, and I'm sure that few of us who once played it will care.

[Alpheus]

I think what we recall with nostalgia is the newness of DAOC for the first year or so.  We grew with it and suffered the growing pains of the game.  I remember the rants and tirades with each patch that was released.  At this point there is so many games on the market that when a new game comes along it is overly aggravating when new games take steps back from what has been learned and evolved in the earlier games.  To me this was especially upsetting with WAR.  So much of what Mythic learned and discovered in DAOC was left out or abandoned or forgotten in WAR.  Don't get me wrong I think WAR is a pretty dang good game, however they have much development and fixing to do and they seem to be moving at a snails pace.  

What we ultimately want is a game that has the development and refinement of a 4 year release but the fun and excitement of a brand new arrival.

[Quethel]

What we ultimately want is a game that has the development and refinement of a 4 year release but the fun and excitement of a brand new arrival.

Which is of course impossible to do, which is why WoW will have a stranglehold on the MMO market well into the 201Xs. Essentially every released game makes it completely unfair for every new game(WoW being the released game that the vast majority of the players are all familiar with) as people seem to be exporting their expectations into every new game they try.

A perfect example, during the 2nd week of WAR's release there was a guy bitching in a PQ about how long it takes to "get around" in WAR. Now granted, the run from Chapter 1 to the Warcamp in most zones is pretty dang long in elf land...but it's really different from other games starting run I can think of, topped off by the fact that when you DO arrive at the Warcamp, you are insta ported to your next destination. No 5 minute griffin/horse/boat rides, no waiting on a blimp to show up. I can't think of many games that let you get from place to place as fast as WAR does. But this guy was bitching that his level 4 in WAR is slow because his level 70 in WoW has a mount and a flying mount in BC. Those characters get from place to place fast, so that's what he expects. It's hardly fair to bring that baggage over, but he was hardly the only one as I saw several people agreeing with the guy. Are we to expect that every new game gives a character a mount at level 2? I suspect we will see something along those lines within the next 10 years.

Many of us ex-DAOC people are good examples as well. Lots of people wanted things that DAOC has brought over such as more varied siege options than what's in game now. What people don't realize that it's not something Mythic forgot, it's something Mythic intentionally left out to make the game less "DAOC2". Believe me, I was there, fighting tooth and claw for the system we currently have. Originally designed it was all BOs and empty fields. So some of this stuff isn't accidental, it's intentional, for better or for worse.

Just out of curiosity, I'd like to hear what people think WAR is missing from DAOC that it really needs. From my own perspective the obvious missing element is having 3 realms, however I have no good ideas on good ways to implement it. Even having 2 opposing sides adds a ton of duplicate development that is essentially "wasted" from more traditional games like EQ and LOTRO were all content is open to nearly all players. There's also the issues with picking sides in the Warhammer lore. I'm not really sure how you could 3 way split it without one side really eating it on numbers. Population issues with three realms were a never ending source of trouble for Mythic since launch day of DAOC and it would be here as well.

Of course, for as much as I miss the chaos of having that 3rd factor appear in every fight, I have probably cussed the Albgard attacks just as much. Nothing worse that being tied up by the alb zerg while the mids snatch the relic.

What do you feel is missing?

[Alpheus]

A third realm is definitely a lacking element.  I know the balance issues and content spread and all those associated issues make a third realm very hard to implement but I think that is what made DAOC RvR so special.  But as it is now they have too much content spread over too large of an area.  I think the only reason they couldn't do it realistically would be because of warhammer lore, of which I don't really know very much.

Relics are another element that is clearly missing.  When you held the relics there was a clear and distinct advantage for your entire realm.  In WAR when one side ransacks the capitol city it doesn't really do anything for the realm for any period of time.  There are zone bonuses as control flips from side to side in each zone which is cool in it's own element, it makes it so the fights in tier 1 aren't being influenced by fights in tier 4.  Zone control issues are being worked out and will continue to improve but having a trophy that says these guys are better than those guys is pretty cool.

The crafting system is really just an ass rape that went bad.  I don't know if it was ignored, or added as a second thought, or what exactly went wrong with it during development.  I can't rightfully say it's a missing element more like a really bad design/execution.  Its like expecting to see a world class 100m dash and actually seeing the special olympics.  They are working on it and that's what is important.

In large measure it's the little things, item linking and stuff like that.  When things that have become commonplace and standard are left out, intentionally or not, that make game less than anticipated.  I remember reading a post from a developer several months ago in response to the question of item linking and the answer being essentially they didn't think people would care if it was there or not.

[shavas]

WAR's biggest mistake is they havent copied DAOC unique code bas  / damage settings for pvp. DAOC had 2 differant rules sets for damage. PvE and PVP . these were distinct. You took far less damage in pvp compared to what you could do in pve. War is trying to balence both... witch really doesnt work well. I personnally will give war a good long break. Resistances are still borked. I am afreaid DAOC 26% cap was good. You could be even all over. 50-60% res are 2 high. This hands the advantage to melee / Phyusical damage delaing chars (SH PLINK!!!!!) classes in a big way.

[Quethel]

A third realm is definitely a lacking element.  I know the balance issues and content spread and all those associated issues make a third realm very hard to implement but I think that is what made DAOC RvR so special.  But as it is now they have too much content spread over too large of an area.  I think the only reason they couldn't do it realistically would be because of warhammer lore, of which I don't really know very much.

Well, we're already playing the 6 most popular factions from the tabletop game, so you would assume the 3rd faction would come out of one of those. As I understand it, the originally envisioned match was to be Dwarfs and Humans(while they are individual armies in the tabletop game, in lore they've helped each other for over 2000 years), Chaos, and the Greenskins. The concern was that there wouldn't be enough Greenskins(and current population seems to bear this out, as there seem to be far fewer Greenskins on Dest).

The crafting system is really just an ass rape that went bad.  I don't know if it was ignored, or added as a second thought, or what exactly went wrong with it during development.  I can't rightfully say it's a missing element more like a really bad design/execution.  Its like expecting to see a world class 100m dash and actually seeing the special olympics.  They are working on it and that's what is important.

Hmm. Not sure how to say this without it coming out as a contradictory post, which is not what I want this to devolve in to. But I do have to ask why you were expecting a 100m dash. Even the podcast on crafting only mentions talismans and potions/dyes, which is what we got. I know you're big into crafting and were probably hoping for more. From my perspective, the DAOC crafting system was the ass rape, hah. Taken as a whole the system works well(as a whole it's probably the best crafting system in any MMO out there), but the individual grinding up of the crafting skills was just painful and dumb. I think 600 something was as far as I could make ever make it. I'm currently 10 points from capping talisman making and that will be the first time I've ever capped out a crafting skill in any MMO, so from my stance I kinda like it

In large measure it's the little things, item linking and stuff like that.  When things that have become commonplace and standard are left out, intentionally or not, that make game less than anticipated.  I remember reading a post from a developer several months ago in response to the question of item linking and the answer being essentially they didn't think people would care if it was there or not.

Item linking was put in back in December.

[Alpheus]

I just mentioned item linking as a quick thing to grab.  I'm aware of it being added in December.  It was just one of those things that when it is missing you stop and wonder where the hell is X and why is it not in the game.  For the most part that stuff all gets sorted out in the first 6 months of a game being released, and it has mostly been sorted out.  I still wish there was an option to use daoc chat commands but that will never happen (it's probably physically impossible in addition to being against the core of the game is WAR not DAOC2.)

For me crafting is always a big part of the game.  Something that I actually enjoy doing and becoming good/knowledgeable about.  I was excited about the crafting concepts that were coming forward for WAR.  When I finally delved into crafting I felt like I was getting something opposite of what I was expecting.  There is a lot of really cool good stuff about the way they've designed crafting, but also a lot of really bad crap.  A great deal of the bad is getting fixed with 1.2 and I'm going to be coming back for that patch.  I think I made a huge post about this a while ago but I will relate it again.  One of the things that was unduly aggravating about the crafting system was the inability to know what level product you were making, I capped Apoth when I was level 23ish.  Once I capped I was unable to make potions that I could use until I reached level 31.  It didn't matter what level ingredient I used I nearly always got a potion that was for lvl 30+ when I was in my low 20's.  If I used low level ingredients I would get level 10 potions, I couldn't get a level 20/25 potion using ingredients that I was harvesting from mobs.  There were at the time many posts on the WAR forums about the problem, at 199 apoth you could combine ingredients and receive a level 20/25 potion, if you dinged to 200 combining the exact same ingredients would then yield a level 30/35 potion.  It seems quite logical that as you learned new potion combinations you would keep a list in your tome of what ingredients make what items but this is not the case and I don't believe was slated for addition either.

I liked WAR and will be coming back.  I seem to always play something for 4-6 months then take a break and come back and take a break and so on.

[Klagdon]

I just wish I actually had TIME to play any MMO  I miss the feeling of wanting to get home from work just so I can log in and fester for hours and hours until I passed out, staying up late RvR'n in Emain, then getting up early to do a relic raid Saturday morning... Ahh the good ole days when I didn't have a girlfriend, a motorcycle or an XBox...

[Quethel]

Well girlfriends are tough but it's pretty easy to give up the other two...

[Quethel]

Casts Perfect Ressurection.

Ok, for a long set of reasons I explained to Dirk but won't bother here, I was poking around last night seeing what DAOC was up to. While doing so I stumbled on to something that you Origins people might like.

http://www.uthgard-server.net/

Yes it's a freeshard. But this freeshard has 700+ people on it right now, which is impressive considering the live game only has around 3000 total logged in. It's also roughly the amount we averaged on MLF for quite a while.

[Quethel]

Oh and here's a video of the instructions that outta jolt your memories.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k0KKWaP8sSk