Hot topic. Like “Hulk vs The Thing”. I love these.

I wrote this in a rush on QT3, so it’s not well planned and clear. But it allowed me to touch a number of hot topics I wrote about along this year.

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DAoC vs WoW? Ohh .. Interesting. About PvP? Even better.

The point is that a complete comparisons would require pages and pages. But it may be possible to summarize the essential.

From the gameplay point of view DAoC definitely loses on most aspects. The mechanics of the combat, the design of the classes, the actual PvP fights etc… All these parts are way stronger in WoW by a good span. From this point of view WoW is a completely different generation while DAoC never cared to address problems like the interrupts, the damage scale, the limits of the classes and so on.

A character in DAoC is highly specialized. Here the two games are diametrically opposite. In WoW you have nine classes in total with all around skills. Buffs well spreaded and the possibility of using many different tools. So from this point of view WoW opens up a lot of tactics, experimentation and variation.

DAoC is different since the same gameplay has been shattered between an high number of different classes that further break in so many different specializations. So where WoW consolidates roles and skills so that a single character has all of them, DAoC did the opposite by shattering the possibilities and making every class highly specialized, limited and vulnerable (specialization = vulnerability to situations outside your role). So there isn’t a lot to play.

This is also inherited by the rest of the gameplay. Fighting in WoW is so way more fun, creative and fulfilling. The PvP encounters in DAoC are often the product of consolidated patterns that are based on a few “workarounds”: you run around /stuck with your group till you bump on an enemy group, hope to root/mezz them before they root/mezz you and then your designated MT will target one by one the enemies while everyone else /assist. Who lands the mezz first will generally win.

I like more zerg encounters exactly because they open up the possibilities and sometime offer fights that last longer than 10 seconds (or less). Which is another huge problem in DAoC since the damage is gone out of the roof and you usually hug the ground before you can blink.

So, if you expect a better *gameplay* from DAoC you are going to be deluded. WoW learnt and fixed many, many parts that in DAoC went wrong and they never cared to address since they always had this conservative policy that never goes at the roots of a problem.

What DAoC shines over WoW isn’t the gameplay but the structure of the PvP. As a direct example in WoW the guilds are a shared chat and a tabard. They aren’t directly connected or have a purpose in the game. In DAoC the people play BECAUSE of the guilds. Look here. This is one of the main reasons why players like DAoC. There’s a complex ladder system that tracks a bunch of statistics that are then made public.

The guilds can then run on their own or make alliances and all their “work” will then be shown in those pages. You can track your own progress as a single character or at the level of a big alliance. Everyone loves stats and freeform ways of competing.

But that’s just the first step. Already in the game the guilds are strictly connected with the structure of the PvP. In WoW the battlegrounds are nothing more than theme parks added to the game with the duct tape. In DAoC the players are finally the FOCUS of the gameplay instead of just being there to repeat the same pattern endlessly as in WoW.

There are various zones connected together and this becomes your play field. Guilds and groups can conquer towers and keeps and then defend them. They make directly the gameplay and set the dynamics of what is going on instead of being seconded as in WoW. Usually the core difference is that you “care” about what is going on. There’s the possibility to feel involved and to really feel a battle. To be part of it and, if you have charisma, lead it.

In WoW everything is faked and secondary because the Battlegrounds reset as you exit it. It’s just there as an illusion that has less than zero relevance for the other players or the rest of the world outside. If you are in Ironforge while other players are in Alterac you simply DO NOT CARE about what is going on. This is why the PvP is considered pointless in WoW. The goal is to win your catass ladder and nothing else. There is NOTHING that builds ties between the players and that gives the guilds a ROLE in the game.

In WoW the PvP is essentially another advancement path instead of a “world”.

This is so much more evolved in DAoC. Even if you aren’t there you care about what is going on because the result is *persistent*. An action has a consequence and all that happens in the PvP, happens on top of a previous event. There are no “resets”.

In WoW everything becomes like a series of linear “cutscenes” that you progressively triggers. Think to Onyxia. It starts at phase 1 where everyone works “x” to finally unblock phase 2 where the gameplay is about doing “y” and then hope to trigger “z”. It’s really an arcade. Surely fun but also EXTREMELY BORING after a bit because it’s the cutscene the center of the game. Not the players.

PvP is about the fucking players, not about triggering phases and events. In WoW everything becomes a dance, back and forth. Sometimes you progress to the next stage, sometimes you have to retreat. All that you can do within a BG is strictly codified in a pattern and you have no freedom, because, again, the shape of the design is about the BG itself instead of being there for the *players*. It’s the designer that planned the possible tactics that you may follow, not the players. It’s the BG that plays you and not the other way around.

On the contrary in DAoC the guilds are strictly connected with the fabric of the game in a number of ways that is too long to explain. But again the environment is there to get USED, instead of using YOU. Your guild can decide where to attack, how to plan a strategy, how to play with the enemy, which keep to conquer or defend, how to split, how to focus on something and so on. The players decide and make the difference on the dynamics. If you conquer a keep the flag of your guild will be on it. The keep is yours, it’s static and it becomes your own responsibility under the eyes of the whole realm. There aren’t other instances where the same keep is owned by someone else. The scenario is ONE. You are there. You aren’t virual and since THAT precise keeps is yours now the other players have to play along. They cannot “ignore” what happens. You are there with your ass, occupying a place. Now people need to adapt themselves and *react*.

On top of this there are other complex layers like the teleport sistem, the siege engines, the relic raids, the crafting (to repair doors etc..), the personal treadmill (realm ranks and skills) and more.

So it’s obvious how the “shape” of the PvP is so much more involving and intersting. The players are finally the center of the PvP.

But it’s at this point that I also criticize Mythic. Aside the problems of the gameplay that they refused systematically to address, the shape of the PvP I described is like a wonderful starting point to improve and add progressively more complexity and dynamism. Instead Mythic just sat there.

Only recently (last four months) they started again to add elements to the RvR like changing the mechanics of the towers or adding the carryable guild banners. They again followed a conservative trend that was limited to adjust marginal details instead of keeping to build on the premises of what they did till that point.

Now I can bring a third example: Eve-Online. This last game was able to develop a PvP system way better than WoW, way better than DAoC and way better than Ultima Online. (Even if the gameplay isn’t fun and accessible as in these other games)

The world in Eve is built like an onion, stratified. Each layer has a progressive “security”. So if you are in the center you are basically in PvE, because noone can do harm to you and because everything is protected. The more you move to the external layer the more you put yourself at risk.

While toward the center the “world” is owned by NPCs, as you move out the players acquire more and more power. In the outer layers the world is COMPLETELY in the hands of the players, which is the ideal model of PvP. Corporations can manipolate the market directly, they can conquer star system and build their stations, they can set there their headquarters, their homes and then move to attack another alliance. Here the politics start to become part of the game at a basic level and the developers of the game have done a wonderful work to provide more and more tools to the players to support this type of gameplay.

Here the players are definitely in control of what is going on. Everything is directly persistent and nothing is “virtual” or faked. It is as real as a digital world can be. You are there, you have an impact. The world is open to YOUR choices, not the choices of an hardcoded system that sets your behaviour.

New players spawn in the center of the “onion” but then the game gives them incentives to move further out, progressively flowing into the REAL game. Where the PvE part of the center of the onion becomes more like a “tutorial” about the possibilities that the game really offers.

Now, all this reminds you of something? Yeah, it’s the fucking WoW. Even in WoW you start out at the “center”, in protected zones, and then progressively move out to those contested. This is the WONDERFUL model of the PvP servers.

The point is that they fucked it BIG TIME. Instead of building on THAT, they decided to “port out” the PvP outside. WoW had the promises of a great PvP that were wrecked. Instead of integrating the PvP in the fabric of the game they completely removed and detached it elsewhere.

Mythic believes wrongly that what they did better is the idea of these external zones where the PvP happens. This is their bigger mistake and WoW copied Mythic on what they did WORST.

DAoC isn’t great because the PvP is “outside”, but because the PvP has the players as the center and because it provided tools that the players can use. A persistent world that just begged for an increased complexity, depth and breadth that never arrived.

Eve-Online, despite its problems and its gameplay, was able to offer a new model that improve on all aspects and finally realizes what the PvP *is*.

Sorry for length. That’s just the beginning of what can be said. I have years of thoughts stacking on this topic.