Hm.

Yesterday I passed about half an hour studying the introduction movie to Dark Age of Camelot hosted by IGN. This is the actual movie that is now part of the game itself as an intruduction/presentation for both new (if they still exist) and old players. I was expecting some sort of in-game scene, instead I found an actual movie and not even that bad. When I read about this “feature” on the patch notes I considered it as the lowest peak possible, another blatant copy of World of Warcraft, this time about an aspect completely useless. The best idea of fluff you can imagine and a definitive declaration of inferiority: we cannot compete, let us at least copycat what we envies.

Watching the movie didn’t change my opinions but it still moved something. I canceled my account at the beginning of the last September with the determination to never go back. No matter what. It wasn’t the game to drive me away, it was the general attitude at Mythic. I wrote endlessly about the problem but I never tried to join and explain all the points in order to make sense. My site documents what happened at that time in an extremely superficial way (here and here) but it also portraits how I was feeling. I simply didn’t see any other choice if not leave a game that I liked for so much time and that now I was seeing standing still, without even trying to react and produce some creativity, some discussions, a debate, a confrontation or whatever. It just stood still, deep-rooted in its own bad habits and problems, sinking in its own bleeding bandaids and becoming just a springboard for Imperator’s hype: “Imperator will be great because we won’t have some of DAoC’s problems”. Leaving was an obligated choice, in particular because what I like in these games is how they develop, the new plans, the new ideas. Exactly what I wasn’t able to digest anymore.

If you check the day I cancelled you’ll see that I write about “little things that hit on my nerves”. It was the day that the team leaders received the feedback from Mythic: another declaration of surrender. After many months of poor answers to the complaints, ignoring directly every attempt at building a constructive and informative discussion, they finally showed what those reports really were. Garbage. The “feedback” from Mythic moved from a few lines of explanations to this shit. That was the last straw for me. After months fighting to propose a more meaningful and involved communication that choice was another definitive surrender and a retreat. It expressively says that the Team Leaders reports are garbage and that Mythic didn’t directly scrap the whole thing just to avoid the bad publicity. What is left is a just an habit to repeat for the sake of it. A pure formality. For me it was a definitive goodbye, along with a “fuck you” and a “shoot me in the head if I look back”.

As I wrote in other occasions I HATE discussions about the classes. I avoid them as much as possible and for sure it’s not something I like spending time to consider and discuss. They finish to become redundant and superficial without an active confrontation, in particular on the Vault boards (because it’s not like there are other places that I know of where peoples care about DAoC and discuss it). But it was again the *attitude* that angered me. While they preach to be so passionate and close to the playerbase they just demonstrate conceit. They ignore directly the legitimate appeals for an open and honest discussion. What is left are the detached announces on the Herald and a dying community that is losing any interest left in the game. Indifference. That’s probably the comment where I was able to explain better what there is wrong in the attitude. Matt Firor repeats with each letter that Mythic will keep supporting DAoC the best they can till the community will demonstrate interest in it. But it’s not the community to originate the interest and the passion, it’s the game to do that. The community is a vehicle, but you need to own already that passion and commitment in order to express them.

Who cares? There’s Imperator on the horizon. DAoC is a way to market it. “It’s better than DAoC”. In my opinion Imperator could become not DAoC’s death, it could become Mythic’s death. I have absolutely zero confidence in the game and for sure it will erode more than before what is left in DAoC. Mythic isn’t and shouldn’t aim to become a network of games (even if it is already on some level if you count their group of muds and stuff). What it needs is focus and commitment. Exactly what the larger companies cannot deliver. They should aim to remain small and solid in the development in order to grant that continuity that right now is severely hurting “structures” like SOE, with pompous licensed games that now fumble in the need to find a direction. Too many developers switching projects, moving from a company to another. Everything becomes relative. Noone in the development side cares anymore for ONE game. It’s too risky. The commitment (and responsibility) is hard. It’s better to jump here and there, collecting compliments and being fast and experienced enough to abandon a ship before sinking with it. The “Vision” becomes an in-game poll, the highest peak of constructive discussion we can afford today. I believe this is horrid and the result is under the eyes of everyone in the quality of the games and in their systematic waste of potential.

But I didn’t want to go on a pointless rant. I just wanted to say that from a few weeks and in particular from when Mythic proposed the tower razing idea along with the RvR mission (as opposed to pointless instanced arenas that were going to become another bleached copy of what WoW will deliver with the battlegrounds), I felt some sort of nostalgia. I was driving home the other day and I found myself thinking back to the community involvement on the RvR, thinking about epic scenarios, about feeling at “home” and part of something more involving than a pointless treadmill with no aim nor relation with the other players. When I left DAoC I was already in WoW’s beta from six months so it definitely wasn’t the cause of my leave. I miss strongly that type of gameplay and I feel more and more that WoW will never even consider to go in that direction and simulate an environment with purposes and relationships. The reasons why I loved DAoC for so long are because of its scope. It’s sad that after various years Mythic barely improved on that type of potential and, even now, its stongest feature is the RvR model that was there already on day one. Just refined and slightly broaden. But still that’s why it is unique and why on those aspects the game still stands above the competition. I miss all that, I miss in particular the infinite potential that is still in the game. And I miss the work and commitment that Mythic expressed with a restless work. I always praised the pace of the development. DAoC is the game that, by far, was able to evolve and improve more radically. It’s more dynamic. It’s the only who was able to retain my faith for so long and as my hopes became stronger for the game the same happened with my disappointment for the mistakes and the delusions, because I cared for the game, I believed in its potential and I wanted to see it rise instead of standing still in the self praises and bathing in the most rooted problems. I criticize and follow only what I care about and what I consider full of potential. Of new possibilities that aren’t simply a temporary diversion to replace with the new shiney the month after. This is why I HATE the idea of mmorpgs like disposable goods. There’s more, there’s a model of evolution, of discovery, of relationship. There’s something you build on, not something you keep loosing. It’s an endless, constructive path, not a relative replacement to substitute with “entertainment”.

That’s why I hate to stop following a game. Not from the player perspective, but from a contributing perspective. A participation. The game becomes something where I’m the first to invest my time and my passion. When I feel that my expectations are crumbling it’s simply a loss. And it’s also why I feel nostalgic even if I keep repeating to myself that it’s better to not bother. That it’s wasted time in its purest form and it’s better to stay away instead going back to repeat the same path. But, still, I kept watching the video. I strongly criticized the plan of the last expansion and the new style of the graphic but I examined carefully to find out glitches and inconsistences in the video. Instead I have to say that it was great. Maybe it’s a case of carefully picked scenes because from the screenshots I remember plenty of problems, but I watched the new animations, the new models, the movement of the cloaks, I searched continuously for clipping problems and broken textures. It was simply awesome. The voice acting fits perfectly, the opening scene is wonderful and also the scenes from the game are well picked and composed. The only part I didn’t like was the music that felt too much dull and inappropriate, in particular with the starting of the RvR action. I would criticize the presentation of only a fragment of all the classes available but I’m sure that the movie couldn’t fit everything together without forcing the players to simply skip the whole thing. Maybe a divided presentation for each realm could have helped but it would still have lacked as a global glance at the game as a whole. And I loved it. From the movie the new models look awesome. Completely the opposite of the impression I had while looking at the screenshots. I feel taken away at some moments. Some scenes are gorgeous, I remember standing on top of a tower, panning the visual. I remember those battles I used to live. I remember the joined efforts, the strategic RvR, the large-scale organization and goals. I remember the charges, the chaos of large battles in the open and in the keeps. And I miss everything. Luckily it isn’t hard to also remember what drove me away. Mythic’s attitude in the first place. Then the endless downtimes, the repetitive, ipermudflated PvE, the dull environments, the supported cheating in the form of buffbots, the endless camping and farming, the decaying items, the limitations of the classes, the annoying interrupts. The awful quest system, the clunky interface. And, well, the endless problems with the client. But the “what if” grow stronger. They kept growing from some time. They become “what if they solved the problem with the client?”, “what if the decrease of popularity opened them up a bit to a confrontation?”, “what if I could find a less chaotic place where to have less superficial discussions?”, “what if I’d be able again to share their expectations and plans for the game?” and finally “what if I can still find my place and renew my passion for it?”.

See, I couldn’t care less for an invite to beta test Imperator. But I cared to have an invite to Catacombs beta. How stupid I am. I just hope to not be so much stupid to actually fall for the nostalgia.

(I was just planning to comment the video. I hate when I go dispersive for zero reasons.)