It’s unbelievable. I passed most of the last days writing and analyzing the PvP systems between the various games, focusing in particular on the strengths of DAoC. For once I even seem to have people agreeing with my points. I happily reactivate my account to play on the new servers, play with the interface, even plan to build a guild if possible. And then I see once again the game take a bad direction.
It’s unbelievable that every time I reactivate my account Mythic systematically manages to push me away with poor decisions about the future of the game. My motivation to level up my Minstrel on the Lamorak server is now close to zero.
I also wonder if the problem is just about myself. If I just cannot appreciate anything at all. But I believe it isn’t so. There are concrete reasons why I believe they are doing yet another mistake and there could be plenty of interesting ideas that would make me happy, instead, and would help the game to move again in a positive direction.
Concretely. Mythic is planning to throw the players in a “Hot Tub” PvP arena, through the implementation of an island that will now connect the classic frontier zones of the three realms. The main goal is evident:
It has become obvious that the Camelot community misses a central battleground area served in the old frontiers by the Emain Macha zone.
This is in fact one problem of the implementation of “New Frontier” that was already isolated by the players when the patch was still in its design phase: The frontiers are too big, the action is too dispersive, there isn’t dynamism and the actual gameplay consists in painfully long downtimes about your group running endlessly around or eternal sieges at the keeps lasting for hours without a slight evolution (“playing tennis” with siege engines).
A way better solution (still possible and valid today, even more so considering the lack of players on most of the servers) could have been about trashing the concept of the frontiers as three separate homelands (four zones for each realm separated by two zones filled with water for a grand total of fourteen fucking zones) belonging to each realm and replace that with a SINGLE mainland that is kept always contested with a total of ten keeps (so that the realms can never be “even”).
That would have helped to consolidate the RvR in the same environment shared by everyone and removed that painful boat transportation that has always been unfun, unpolished and completely pointless. If this site didn’t start just slightly more than one year ago you would have seen archived plenty of complaints about that foolish, stupid idea of “pirate battles” in the ocean that was used to hype the expansion along the other features.
Instead what we have here, with the announce of “The Isle”, is the repetition of a trend I know even too well. Mythic wants to be “trendy”. Back then at the planning stage of ToA they looked at more popular games (EQ). They saw that those games had PvE raid endgame that was popular.
The stream of thoughts at Mythic was evident: Hey, EQ has a PvE treadmill and endgame raids. DAoC has the PvE treadmill and PvP endgame. So EQ is like 1+1=2 if now we add the PvE endgame raid to DAoC we are like 1+1+1=3! We win! The better of all worlds!
I believe that today it should be evident how that approach was utterly superficial and stupid. All games are successful by building on their own qualities, not by leeching ideas coming from other games. That will just ruin progressively the identity and qualities of your own game by suffocating them in contexts that aren’t appropriate.
The trend is now about quick PvP battlegrounds and Mythic wants to be there as well for its slice of the pie. But they are just fools if they believe that this is the path that will bring them there.
My comments follow:
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I’m the only one with negative comments ready?
With half the servers currently dying what we DO NOT need is more landmass to spread even more the action. Even worst if we go back to the Emain model for repetitive and pointless zerg rush.
A better idea could be about removing those two retarded zones filled with water we have right now and connect the three frontiers via the same bridges but WITHOUT the island in the centre. Or at least a very small isle instead of another full zone.
The players, in particular at this moment, are in a finited quantity. The battlefield need dynamism, not to get rooted in the same form and never move from that point. What we are going to lose is the sieges at the keeps and the actual conquest system that made this game unique. Instead what we will get is a bleached version of the Alterac BG in WoW. Just more dull and without mini-goals. There will be just groups and zergs running around in the new “hot tub” while the other TWELVE zones are left to ROT. Along with the uniqueness of this game.
Believe me, this game is still (partially) successful for the uniqueness of the PvP. Not for the old and obsolete mechanics of the combat. With this island you are erasing the qualities to put the players back in a small garden where they can play. It will be extremely fun for a few days. A week at max.
Then we will be once again all bored to tears. Once again with wasted landmass that noone uses, like 90% of the old PvE.
What DAoC needs is definitely NOT more obsolete space.
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The Island should help concentrate RvR. I don’t see it diluting it at all. Sure, NF is way too big, but this will help in giving players a common fighting area.
But this is yet another poor workaround instead of getting the problem addressed. The “common fighting area” is going to REPLACE the action in the other zones. Sure, you can still go on with the conquest “if you choose so”. But you’ll do it ALONE. That’s the point. How is fun to PvP alone? Really, that’s the point. There aren’t anymore incentives to play anywhere but that damn isle. That’s where you find the action and that’s where you are FORCED to go if you don’t consider the PvP as a stroll to watch the panorama.
This is the mudflation applied even to PvP. A mistake (the zones too big, not enough players) is replaced by “Yet Another Zone” (flavor of the month) where 95% of the players will go. Again with the rest of the world all left to rot.
The fact is there won’t be any incentives to “play the conquest” again. Everyone will go to the “improved zone” and the rest of the system will be left there as ruins of an old game that Mythic refused once again to fix. Instead of addressing the problems they shove once again new stuff to replace what was broken and needed to be improved. And the result will damage the game by dumbing down the gameplay to a level that simply cannot hold the competition with other games.
They are erasing the complexity of the PvP to throw everyone in the “hot tub”. As I said this will last for a week. Then the players will start to notice how the game became dull, pointless and without any depth.
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This decision simplifies RvR again to its basic elements.
For God’s sake, the RvR in DAoC isn’t interesting for its basic elements.
The mechanics of the combat in DAoC are utterly obsolete and the players that just like those basic elements *do not play anymore this game*. The context is different today.
If some players still like DAoC it’s because it has a more complex, meaningful PvP endgame. The players who didn’t care about that endgame aren’t anymore playing THIS game. They are playing Guild Wars and WoW where the focus of the development has been on THOSE mechancs that are now way better than what DAoC can offer.
If Mythic still hasn’t realized this basic point, I really don’t know what could. DAoC isn’t still popular because it has fun combat mechanics. WoW is head and shoulders above it, it is way more fun, it gives you more tools, it is way more fluid and complex.
If Mythic now plans to throw the players in an “hot tub” PvP arena, they’ll just kill those few qualities that are left instead of building on them. The PvP will go back at the old and pointless zerg rush in Emain to give the players an illusion about how cool were the old times. But it’s a silly illusion.
It worked a few years ago. Now it’s just an announced failure. The enthusiasm of some players is about an illusion that isn’t anymore actual today and that will reveal its ephemeral nature as it will get touched. As the players will remember what Emain was and as they’ll notice how that type of gameplay is now available in a better form in other games.
Emain was not pointless. It was the Hub/Mecca/Center of the PvP universe before NF diffused it.
I agree that NF has the problem of diffusing the action too much. But that’s the problem to address so. Adding another zone where the players can go is just nonsense.
I wouldn’t complain if they were planning in a consolidation of the zones. But they aren’t. The model would work if before they add they also rearrange or remove space. But instead they are adding something that will have the result of suffocating all the rest.
Who cares about defending or taking a keep when you can heap 5x more RPs by just roaming in the hot tub?
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From the Herald:
Some nights it’s hard to coordinate a war and you’d just rather kill people.
Every night.