Tag Archives: DAoC

Dark Age of Camelot

INFERNO – DAoC 2 is possible, here’s how

by | 4 Comments

On the Vault Mythic asks the dreamer to dream:

Okay, here’s the deal. The producers of Camelot (Walt and Jeff) wanted me to start this thread the other day, and I got bogged down in distractions. So do me a favor and make the most of it, and give the guys plenty to read today :)

What kind of expansion pack would make you excited? Wouldn’t be until next fall, and all the patches between now and then are probably going to be small improvements/fixes/revamp/tweaky things.

Land? Dungeons? Cities? Races? Classes? What about atmosphere, quests, items? What would be cool for you?

Again, leave this thread to the dreamers, everyone.

Despite the fact that the line saying “all the patches between now and then are probably going to be small improvements/fixes/revamp/tweaky things” doesn’t put DAoC’s future into a positive light, here are my ideas:

—
Everyone playing the game would tell you that what would be interesting for the game would be about RvR and not PvE. Fortunately or not, DAoC was thought so that its RvR is designed more as a “virtual world” and that “satisfying repetable content” I quoted often in the last days. So the mudflation just doesn’t stick on it and thinking about an optional expansion for DAoC has always been rather hard since the premises of the game drag it in a completely different direction. In a similar way to what happens with Eve-Online (in fact CCP decided to not release pay-expansions but just work through the subscription fees and keeping to radically develop the game).

This is why the production of the game has always tried to find “tricks” to work on the RvR and still keep it free, like the “free expansion” concept that brought the whole “New Frontier” overhaul. Basically we have a problem. We need good ideas about features and content that can be added to the game but that would still be optional to a degree and not absolutely indispensable but at least desirable. The problem is that the idea of “content expansion” is appropriate for mudflated games but not to one where the real focus is the RvR and the competition between the players. You cannot offer the players buying the expansion a direct advantage over those that won’t. It would just break the game (the design between the past expansions always tried to maintain a delicate equilibre on the edge between desiderable -to encourage the players to buy the expansion- and optional content, sometimes going overboard like it happened with ToA).

One of the basic design principles that was behind ToA but that was also betrayed, is about the possibility to give some of the players access to tools that can then benefit everyone. Considering this premise and considering some humor about other problems, I’d say that whatever could be added in an expansion should NEVER be usable and useful for 8vs8. This to mark a line. If it was, we would just add to the game another brand new requirement that the players would just hate. So what would be left is the possibility for the RvR to develop something related to the keeps warfare or something related to larger RvR missions that could be triggered by someone with the access to the exp and then experienced together.

Another of my ideas could be also adapted to provide a viable and expansion-friendly further character development. While the possibility to raise the level cap (and creating enough content to justify an expansion) is just inconceivable for this game. It would just destroy it and force it for years to tweak and adapt everything to the new cap.

As you can figure out there isn’t much left. As I said, the game just isn’t suited to be expanded in this way. It needs a completely different plan. But this goes also beyond the scope of this article and I don’t want to go too radical and irrealistic. I will just have to find something viable, that doesn’t damage the game and that is still possible to package as an “optional” expansion.

The premises of my thoughs are described here above. These are the ideas I squeezed out:

—
DAoC: INFERNO

+ Add in the exp pack a key-code usable only once. This key-code would allow a player to flag a character and instantly /level it to 45.

+ “The Evolution Server Project”. Transform the “evolution servers” idea into the exp pack (sort of a DAoC 2 built directly on DAoC). This would be a way to go heavy on the development and keep these servers as a separate project that can be accessed only to those buying the expansion. An occasion for Mythic to go back and solve radically the basic mistakes and offer to every player an occasion to start again (and, in the case they choose so, use the key-code to have a levelled up character and enjoy the endgame without really having to repeat the grind). I won’t go in the details about how the Evolution servers should be shaped up because it would go beyond the scope of these notes. But this is supposed to be the major content of the exp and not a superficial tweak to the rules.

+ (all servers) The possibility to use “formations” in RvR groups. These will be selectable by the group leader and will be triggered on/off just by /sticking to the group. Pressing a movement key would break the formation as it currently breaks the /stick.

+ (all servers) Follow and build on the Final Fantasy XI idea of adding NPCs henchmen. At level 20 the players will have the possibility to do a few duties for the realms (similar to the Chapters of DR, with missions based on the classic world) and receive a personal henchman (realistic or not) summonable only on PvE zones.

– These henchman will have their own classes based on the basic archetypes. All their skills and spells will be designed from zero and some can be “commanded” directly by the player (see below).

– An henchman gains experience and levels like the player. He acquires experience twice as fast compared to a normal player and his level cannot surpass the one of the player.

– An henchman can “respec” to different archetypes. Each respec can be executed freely but “burns” 20% of the current exp of the henchman for that level.

– The henchmen will have separate exp bars and levels for each archetype. So each archetype will need to be levelled separately or not at all if the player decides to specialize.

– This is also a chance to rework the AI of pets and the interface to make the controls more deep and interactive (like the possibility to “command” the execution of specific skills from the NPCs).

– The appearance of these henchmen can be customized, both in look and equipment. The henchmen can be equipped with the standard items used by the characters, special items and specific new items only usable by henchmen that will be linked to specific new quests.

– Each henchmen will be named by the player.

– Only two henchmen at max can join the same group.

(A note on the purpose of these henchmen: For a solo player, the possibility to have a bit more involving and interactive PvE and the possibility to level more efficiently, cutting down the downtimes some more. For the groups, the possibility to “fill” roles and classes missing from the group, for example to partially solve the problem of healers, or tanks, or whatever the group misses. The henchmen should never be more effective than a player playing the proper class and they should only count as a “half” player when calculating the group experience, so that the bonus should be inferior.)

+ Style redesign. This is an occasion for all the server types, included the Evolution servers to redesign the styles (both visually and the mechanics). The new style system would included simple “combo” skills that can be performed by coordinating some skills or spells with other players. These combos can also be used with henchmens (see the possibility to “command” the use of a skill). This change would affect players with or without the expansion.

+ Finally my favourite: Add INFERNO (all capitalized because it’s more badass). “Inferno” is a brand new zone, graphically similar to the “Veil Rift”, with chasms and floating platforms moving in circles around Lucifero’s dark castle. This would also allow to introduce a new technical feature: a physic engine (borrowing from Warhammer development). The physic will only be applied to the chasms and platforms. Basically these platforms can “bend” in a direction, randomly, because triggered or because of how the players are distributed (so that the platform will bend if all the players are in one spot instead of spreading around and distributing the weight). The players will have to fight both on these unstable platforms while facing the difficulties added by the physical engine, as well on more stable constructions.

– The physical model won’t factor the collision between the players and affects exclusively the inclination of the platforms. When a platform bends in a direction the players will have to move in the opposite direction in order to maintain the position and not fall off it. The different types of environmental happenings that the physical model includes will be: earthquakes (the player is shaken, making it lose the direction), dynamically opening chasms, and the inclination of the platform.

– If a player falls off a platform he will disintegrate. In this case he will reappear at the entrance of the zone at no loss after a short timeout (think to WoW’s graveyards).

– This zone has hard PvE content tailored for at least three full groups and divided into consequent segments. The players will start on a floating platform and will progressively move around controlling it (like a manual elevator or a flying carpet). With this moving platform they’ll access various points on the map where to fight a sequence of encounters and different mini-bosses to remove progressively the “locks” to the castle. Once the castle’s seals (graphically shown as huge chains attached to the castle) are broken (graphically shattering and falling down in the void), the players can storm in and eventually kill Lucifero in a final, epic battle.

– If a player dies or falls off a platform, he’ll be ported to the entrance as I already wrote. When there, he can have access to some sort of flying “taxi” that will bring him back to the main floating platform where the other players are. These taxis will be named “Charons” and should be shown graphically as gondolas driven by a masked dark figure. The Charons should speak through voice overs.

– Lucifero should be designed to be hard and as a very long fight.

– Once Lucifero is killed the zone will seal, porting out the players at the relic keep. The doors to the zone will remain closed at least for a week.

– The entrance to this zone will be placed in the center of Agramon.

– This zone is flagged for RvR, once open every realm can enter it, fight the enemy realms on these floating platforms (with the added fun of the physic model) and attempt to be the first to kill Lucifero.

These ideas would make DAoC stand out again among the competition and revindicate strongly its predominant role as an unparalleled RvR game for the years to come. The “Evolution server project” would be a way to appeal brand new players with the possibility to start in a brand new world refactored to eliminate all the radical flaws that plagued the game along these years. While the INFERNO would offer an innovating experience mixing brand new mechanics like the physic system of the platforms and chasms with the classic RvR wars for the ultimate RvR experience.

And let’s see if WoW can outperform that.

—
And to conclude I’ll also explain why the ideas I wrote here will never be implemented. Mythic is working on Warhammer, in a year it be in full production mode, while the playerbase of DAoC, in absence of significant changes and signs from Mythic, will be even more shrunk. Planning something daring won’t be considered as worth the effort by the guys at the decision-making positions.

What Mythic can still accept to “waste” on DAoC is the content team. A few artists, the quest team, a couple of new races or zones and so on. This is, sadly, what awaits DAoC, just a dumbed down, inexpressive support that is going to hand out to the players the yearly “sop”. A brand new weapon or piece of armor, a couple of minor skills. The actual “development intensive” roles, the production, designers and programmers will be busy working on the new game while DAoC will be left just to “train” a few new guys at a low risk, just to keep the game running and teach these trainees how the company works and offer them a chance to show their worth and get trapped like a “cog in the vast machine” that kills all the good ideas.

So I don’t expect much because along these years I get to know how Mythic thinks and reacts. Of course I would love to be surprised but I’d lie if I’d say that I think it could happen.

Again, leave this website to the dreamers, everyone.

Another spin to the wheel

by | 1 Comment

It started as a “quick” reply on this thread to finish to include many notes and abservations that I was waiting to organize. This came out even too easily. I rarely can write this clearly and straight to the point. It doesn’t happen always that I can write without struggling with myself and what I want to say.

The main topic is the PvE in DAoC and the newbie experience. But it then joins a bunch of different topics that I’m discussing these days and that are all related.

I’m going to post this on F13 in a few hours, if you want to stop me, do it now :)

—

Doing the Champion quests should get you enough CL experience to reach CL3, assuming you do nothing else. As for the rest, I’d argue that unlike TOA, you absolutely do not need CL5 to be RvR-ready. It’s like the titles at RR11+, something nice as a reward once you get there, not something to “grind” to.

1- This ruins the content. At least assuming that for “champion quests” you mean the three chapters. Retaining these to do them at 50 to maximize the gain (since you can start to acquire the exp only at 50) makes the content even more dull than how it is already since the first chapter is tailored for level 30 and the second for level 40. Fighting a bunch of greys to accomplish very simple and linear tasks won’t be all that entertaining.

2- It’s not that the CLs are required for RvR, it’s just that in this case the reward isn’t really appropriate to the time required. In other words: not justified.

Now the points is: why was it changed (nerfed) at the end of the beta? From the comments, true or not, I heard that you received around a .4 for killing an enemy in solo. Which would still be an acceptable balance considering you would have the bar moving and the ten bubbles filling up at a decent pace. There are already the Realm Ranks to define that type of slow and exponential progress, there’s no reason to add another overlapping.

Since the Cs don’t really stack in power (the same assumption that was betrayed with ToA) their purpose is to broaden the class. Offer it some more minor tricks. This has the sole scope of making them more fun to play since one of the limits of the game is about having classes that are too strict and specialized. Hence it’s another of those parts of the game that you WANT to valorize, instead of keeping it away from the players.

The titles in RvR and the Ranks can be “achievement based”. Because that’s their direct and natural purpose and sense. But it’s not so good to retain the achievement based mechanic for the CLs. There’s nothing to achieve because they don’t offer anything that is worth pursuing. Instead they add some FUN to the classes that would be a good idea to hand out to the players for “cheap”. Like it already happens for the weapons.

What I mean is that there isn’t really a good reason to make it slow instead of more quick. You are just pushing back the fun.

And this goes further because it’s a patter Mythic is repeating. In September you nerfed the exp in the TDs. Why? Again there isn’t a good reason to do this and it just damaged the game some more.

Let’s put it in this way: our life is too short to waste time grinding repetitive and dull PvE content that doesn’t offer any challenge. That’s what the TDs are. So why a designer would want the players to spend MORE time there? Where is the gain? Where is the purpose? This problem is really at the basic level. In a game you can offer a grind only for those parts that are already representing a satisfying repetable content.

The RvR in DAoC is a great and perfect example of “satisfying repetable content”. The PvE is NOT.

This is why noone criticizes the Realm Ranks *grind* and why there are players that always praise it above what WoW implemented. The grind here is appropriate. It doesn’t ruin the game. It valorizes it. But it’s completely different when you reapply grindy mechanics to the PvE (both as exp grind and money grind). ALL KINDS OF GRINDS aren’t fun in a dull, repetitive PvE. And there isn’t a single decent reason why you would find acceptable and useful to TRAP the players in a cavern for days. It follows the same unjustified and unfun design trend that we have criticized for all these years. It’s masochistic.

Players complain because this is logically wrong.

So, again, why the exp in the TDs was nerfed? The only reason I can imagine is to rebalance the experience gained there in relation with the rest of the game. In fact there’s that “triad” that I already commented and that is the reason why I was against AlteredOne proposed changes:
1) In TDs you quickly gain money and exp / but not loot
2) In the instanced dungeons you can “quickly” gain Aurulite, hence items / but the exp is crap
3) The quick task quests around the non-instanced zones give you easier *soloable* and short tasks that give you medium money and exp

Schematizing:
1) ++money ++exp –loot
2) –money –exp ++loot
3) +exp +money ++easy to solo

The first patter was by far the most efficient. In fact with the money you can also go buy equipment and even aurulite. This is why the only reason I found to the nerf to the exp in TDs is about rebalancing those patterns. But this doesn’t justify it. We still lack the satisfying repetable content and these patterns were rebalanced in the WRONG direction. It was the other two patterns that needed to be brought in line with the TDs and not the other way around.

But there’s even another point to consider. Why the hell we would need three different patterns? The PvE is the same in all three. It doesn’t offer anything different:

You have so many different possibilities just with Catacombs. You can level by taking these solo mini-quests in the new zones, you can farm aurulite in the new instances or the instances of the classic dungeons, or you can do task dungeons to farm directly the experience at an insane rate. But, no matter what you choose, the experience (of the player) is completely MISSING. You can trade between voids. Between empty experiences that are there just as excuses (and excusing what exactly?).

This is why I believe that DAoC would need a *consolidation* of its PvE and not a further fragmentation as it happened. Of course, it would benefit from a fragmentation of the PvE intended as: different types of challenge and patterns presented. Different qualities and something that could be actually involving. But what DAoC diversificates is not the actual PvE (which is dull and repetitive in every case) but the rewards. The reward is the only difference setting apart the three patterns. And it is obvious how this isn’t positive for a game that definitely doesn’t need a grind applied to this type of content, in particular when the fragmentation of the PvE is furtherly made worse by the population problems and the isolation of the players through the instanced content.

We already know that instancing has both good and bad consequences. This is even worse in a game with population problems (in particular at the lower levels, where the newbies need reasons to have fun and get involved) and with this fragmentation of the PvE that has no good effects or logical justifications.

This is why it’s always not so trivial to analyze all these parts and why it’s not possible to just claim a bonus to the exp or something similar. All these things delve deeper. Why the hell we cannot have a place where we can get good money, good exp and even good equipment? What are the valid reasons that brought to the fragmentation of patterns I illustrated above? I don’t know any. What I know is that the great majority of the players are grinding the TDs DEFINITELY NOT because they are having fun. But just because they are the most efficient pattern offered. They don’t enjoy the content. They ENDURE it. And this isn’t acceptable in an environment where you are supposed to have… fun. An environment that is supposed to valorize its qualities and not its problems.

Now I hope my point is clear: the existence of the TDs in the game is completely unjustified. So it makes sense to remove them since they damage the game. Now think to what could happen if Mythic would announce the removal of the TDs. The players would RAGE. And here’s another important point. The players wouldn’t be angry because you remove something fun from the game, but because you remove a viable, consolidated and optimal pattern that they *absolutely need*. It’s their pattern of choice. The “fun” and the optimized pattern must be kept separate. They aren’t the same entity. The players are merely choosing the “less worst” pattern they have available to endure the PvE treadmill and reach the endgame, that, contrarily to WoW, is that part of the game that still justifies a subscription fee. How could we “valorize” the PvE instead of balancing the “less worst” patterns as it happened till now?

Imho the TDs must be completely eradicated. That’s the very first step. They never made sense both from the player’s perspective and the design. They are unjustified and just damage the game. They only “dissimulate” a value by offering the best pattern available. But that value is solely functional and totally inappropriate.

The second step, also following the line of thoughts above, is about moving the “TDs mechanics” (go to taskmaster and take the two-types missions, the “clear dungeon” should be just removed) WITHIN the Instanced Dungeons where you farm aurulite. Because there isn’t a valid reason to keep the “reward” patterns separate. There are no advantages. This would instead encourage the players to focus on something more varied. The IDs offer a more refreshing experience than the TDs and they are naturally suitable to inherit their role. We remove the TDs and carry over their functional role to the IDs where the players would benefit from a more rewarding and complete experience:

a) Players will hunt everything they need: money, exp and equipment. Also helping them to be “viable” for the RvR BattleGrounds.
b) The experience will be more varied and refreshing: the IDs offer more varied environments and challenges.
c) This would consolidate the “game space”, encouraging the players to gather and group.

While ToA exhibited a blatantly flawed design under everyone’s eyes, Catacombs still brought new mistakes that are also damaging the game, just in a more subtle and less apparent way. Which doesn’t make those mistakes any less significant.

I think that what I wrote here is a demonstration of why we cannot compile a personal wish list and expect to do something positive to the game. Things are complex and need an involved discussion where the arguments can be delved and explained. This isn’t a conclusion even if I provided my own. This is instead a possible start to confront those ideas, contribute to shape new ones and avoid to repeat the past mistakes.

Darkness Rising – Pitch black

by | Leave a comment

Third batch of screenshots (previous two are here and here), this time coming from the big dungeon concluding the second chapter of the expansion.

I wrote “pitch black” in the title because that’s what I saw in the game. I had to play the whole session with my monitor brightness turned up because I couldn’t see shit (add Levar Burton and Doom 3 jokes here). The player’s torch is also completely broken as it happens with 95% of the content in this expansion and following an awful trend that Mythic brings on till the release of its first expansion.

This is also part of a huge problem of the whole game that was never addressed. The night is too dark and if you want to play you HAVE TO push up the brightness on your monitor. At a “normal” setting the game would be unplayable and the result is that all the colors are washed out. So, the players bring up the brightness more and more and Mythic makes environment more and more dark, breaking completely the player’s torch so you don’t have even a workaround.

This pisses me off beyond what you can imagine. If I’m given a tool like a button to switch the light on around the character because the game is too dark, I WANT IT TO WORK. And instead it is broken in most of the places you go. Some places are too bright, some places are too dark, some places the torch works, some places the torch works only a little, some places it doesn’t work at all, some places it works only on half of the polygons… MAKE UP YOUR MIND! I want a fucking consistent behaviour. Trying to code the game in a constant way and not with all these different quirks and glitches. If you give the player a way to see when it’s too dark, you have to make it ALWAYS work. Not work in some cases and not in some other in a completely arbitrary way. If you want to set yourself what the player can see, just remove the torch altogether and tweak the values as you see fit, like it happens in WoW where the designer can set which place is dark and which is more bright without COMPLETELY FORBIDDING THE PLAYER TO SEE.

Anyway, the dungeon would be pretty if you could see it. In these screenshots I had to push up the brightness by 30% and I hope I reached a good compromise. If you still cannot see shit just imagine how it could be in the game.

Then we arrive at the comments about the actual content. We have all these great places, and despite they are ridden with glitches (that I try to not show in these screenshots), they show a lot of work and dedication from the artists. Well, all this wonderful art (that in this case maybe resebles a bit too much to Quake 2, it’s true..) is simply wasted. We have this rather big dungeon that would make WoW and EQ2 pale. But it’s just there as a background scenery. It glides by. It has more impact and relevance if shown on a website through screenshots than playing inside it in the game.

Why? Because there is very, very little gameplay in this dungeon. And in particular it is exactly the same gameplay that the game offered four years ago. Most of the dungeon is empty and there are only three four types of mobs casually placed just to make you waste some time moving from point A to point B. The most advanced new thing that vaguely resembled to a scripted encounter is about a group of three mobs that rushes in (buggedly) while you are sitting and medding after a previous big encounter. Nothing else. You have to go south to kill Mob A, go north to kill Mob B and go middle to kill Mob C. With some critters in the way. Dungeon done.

We have new places, the art in DAoC has greatly advanced and I really think that it tops whatever this genre has to offer. Actually I think it’s superior to every other game *by far* (despite the glitches and general lack of polish). But the gameplay hasn’t changed in the slightest. EVERY mob moves and fight exactly in the same way. What changes is the variables attached always to the same dull patters (health, damage, if aggro or not, resists and so on). The pathing is still exactly the same of four years ago, completely broken, jerky and unrealistic. The mobs keep aggroing through walls and are completely unaware of the environment. There is zero gameplay involving the perception of the space. You still fight in a flat field from the gameplay perspective. And also all the encounters are just set in the exact same way. There’s a room, a few mobs randomly placed and all aggroing if you go close enough, moving to you and hitting politely.

Every single mob in the game behaves in the same (buggy) way. You can fight inside a small tower, inside a mansion, in a keep, in a tunnel and so on. You can fight mobs with different shapes and colors but STILL, nothing changes AT ALL. They all behave the same and completely ignore every kind of environment, situation or specific nature.

Now I hate to keep bringing up WoW but come on. This is PvE and PvE needs some sort of identity to be fun. If in WoW you go fight in Gnomeragan it’s not the same if you go fight in Zul Farrak. All the mobs behave and must be dealt with in a psecific way. The places are different and you need to learn the environments. You play in and *with* the spaces. The layout matters in the gameplay and your journey through a dungeon makes sense both from the story perspective and the impact on the gameplay. I’m the first to say that WoW PvE isn’t that deep but at least it offers different types of encounters and situations. Maybe the difference is mild but at least it exists.

In DAoC all these new, fancy environments just sort of sit there. They don’t build a *world* they just decorate the margins. They lack an use.

Look at the second screenshot here. See that tower and the big house? I like them but they are *empty*. No really. The artists put a lot of work on those and the interiors are fully decorated. There are a few screenshots showing the inside of the tower. But, still, it is empty. Nothing goes on in there. You would expect to have fun and involving fights in that complex environment. But there’s simply nothing (probably also because the pathing would crap the whole place if they tried to put something to fight in there).

This is why every player trying DAoC thinks that its PvE sucks. Because there’s zero gameplay. Zero. Or the places are just there to decorate the environment, completely empty and missing *any purpose*, or they have a few critters randomly placed that follow one single, four years old pattern that you grinded for weeks, months and years. OF COURSE we are bored. Mythic is keeping reskinning the same stuff to feed it us again. Some can endure this, some others not. Should I bring up Raph again? We (players) can see past the pretty screenshots. We can see that there’s nothing new past them.

So, I’ve shown what a great art DAoC can deliver but, honestly, there isn’t much more to see in the game than what I’m putting here. I’ve shown some of the new models and still the gameplay is completely dull and forgivable. Those models, despite they look great on a static screenshot, still have applied the same ugly animations that the game had at release and, in many cases, they did not even care to update the equipment they use. And then there’s the craptacular pathing, aggro system and general gameplay that hasn’t even minimally moved a tiny step forward.

Pretty DAoC needs a soul (and new pathing code and animations). But then I’m pretty sure that all the programmers have been moved to the greener pastures (Warhammer). And what DAoC gets is the pretty reskin.

Quick note: the broken pieces of stone you see on the ceilings oscillate in the air with a nifty effect. While the red light coming from the cracks is, instead, fixed. Which is sad because it’s since SI that DAoC has the technology to show animated lights, and still it never uses it beside a few exceptions.

(screenshots here)




 

 

 

 


 

 

 

 


 

 

 

 


 

 

 

 


 

 

 

 


 

 

 

 


 

 

 

 


 

 

 

 


 

 

 

 


 

 

 

 


 

 

 

 


 

 

 

 


 

 

 

 


 

 

 

 


 

 

 

 


 

 

 

 


 

 

 

 


 

 

 

 


 

 

 

 


 

 

 

 


 

 

 

 


 

 

 

 


 

 

 

 


 

 

 

 


 

 

 

 


 

 

 

 


 

 

 

 


 

 

 

 


 

 

 

 

Posted in: Uncategorized | Tagged:

Fighting DAoC’s CSRs

by | Leave a comment

I got stuck in the last step of the “baron” quest (The Race to King’s Crossing) because I wrongly clicked and an object and destroyed it. So I miss the letter I have to return to continue and THERE IS NO OTHER WAY to get it back (because DAoC design is that great). I have no other choice than filing an appeal and wait four hours that it gets answered.

I did that. Wrote down the quest, the object I need and started to wait. Then, after an hour, my appeal is deleted without even a notice:

Thank you very much. I tried to file another but they just delete it without telling me anything.

We were saying not long ago that devs should pass some time with the support guys to learn from the game. I wonder if the CSR guys should spend some time as players to figure out how what type of service they are offering and what’s wrong with it.

I’m lucky that in four years this was only the third appeal I sent.

EDIT: I have to rectify:

I squeal too much too quickly :)

Posted in: Uncategorized | Tagged:

More screenshots – Feeling the stone

by | Leave a comment

I pass time photographing stuff like a japanese tourist and the result was that my group was at the end of the task when I still was at the beginning. So now I go solo…

This time more environmental pictures, those I like more.

Stony DAoC. I simply love these textures. It feels almost if I can touch the cold stones. If a game can give me these feelings, I’m happy.

(screenshots)




 

 

 

 


 

 

 

 


 

 

 

 


 

 

 

 


 

 

 

 


 

 

 

 


 

 

 

 


 

 

 

 


 

 

 

 


 

 

 

 


 

 

 

 


 

 

 

 


 

 

 

 


 

 

 

 


 

 

 

 


 

 

 

 


 

 

 

 


 

 

 

 


 

 

 

 


 

 

 

 

Posted in: Uncategorized | Tagged:

Toying with DAoC UI – Part 2

by | Leave a comment

I passed some time to port over DR functions and maps on my “tiny” UI remix. As publicized:

—
This is my own simple mod. It is based on the standard “Midgard” UI look that was released with ToA. The goal is to add all the new features (all dungeon maps, new windows, tooltips etc..), show on screen all the informations that can be useful and still maintain a “clear” look that keeps the UI as simple as possible without cluttering the screen.

I consider this a “light” UI because it’s directly based off the standard one, just reorganized to be more practical and usable, saving space where possible.

This last version is updated to the 1.80 patch and should have full support to Darkness Rising.

NOTE: This UI fits best at 1024×768 (not easily readable at super-high resolutions) and is tailored for the Classic servers. All the references to ToA were cut.

A simple screenshot from the previous version is here:
http://www.cesspit.net/drupal/storeroom/daoc-repository/tinymid.gif

It has map support to DR and all the dungeons, excluded the task ones. Most of the maps and features come from random UIs, Derida in particular. So thanks to the original creators, I just remixed some ingredients to have a simpler UI with the functions I needed without the added disorder.

You can go here to download the .zip
http://www.cesspit.net/drupal/daoc-repository

Posted in: Uncategorized | Tagged:

Darkness Rising – Highs and lows

by | Leave a comment

The expansion is rather unpolished and clunky in most parts. It’s kind of obvious that it was rushed out even if Mythic has never been known for its attention to the detail. Despite my gripes surpass right now the good parts, there are a few touches here and there that are outstanding and show what Mythic is able to do if put in the proper conditions and if there was more support for this game.

The rough highs and lows in the expansion show how they ran out of time and resources as Mythic’s interest move to new projects, sacrificing DAoC and its ambition. In particular the art assets show this ascending and descending quality and also show the difference from all the attentive work that was put in Catacombs and the lack of time, instead, about this last product (and *lots* of reused assets everywhere). The new art assets in the city of Camelot in particular are rather disappointing (missplaced textures, holes, badly joined polygons, lightmaps completely broken, fill-in textures, some uncomplete details and more, but i’m picky. I’ll show screenshots later.) while some of the new character models used for NPCs are mindblowing (even if rare). They are absolutely awesome and already showing an impressive difference in quality even from the models added in Catacombs less than a year ago (which I didn’t like, by the way, and still bugged and unpolished). If you press the “read more” link you can see some examples showing the king of Camelot (I actually hoped he was sitting as the Midgard’s king but I guess they ran out of time to do the proper animations) and one of the NPCs used in an instance which could surpass the photorealism of Half Life 2 and the upcoming Oblivion even at close distance.

Congratulations again to whoever textured and modeled them, that’s some quality work. With “Catacombs” they showed an unmatched art quality with the environments and the textures (that in this last exp are a bit deluding), instead with this expansion they show what they could be able to do even with the models.

Beside the art, there is a lot more I want to talk about. Some of the quests are pretty interesting and curious even if they always leave you wanting some more and digging a bit deeper in the interaction. Despite it’s not a big expansion and despite it could have even been pushed out as a “free expansion” if we were a few years ago, it shows interesting elements and some creativity. So lots of “pros” and “cons” as it always happen with this game :)




 

 

 

 


 

 

 

 


 

 

 

 


 

 

 

 


 

 

 

 


 

 

 

 


 

 

 

 


 

 

 

 

Posted in: Uncategorized | Tagged:

Fighting against the Darkness Rising installer

by | Leave a comment

I WISH I could write something about the game. But the fact is that I’m still here trying to make it run and despite I probably won’t have the nasty hardware issues that others are facing (here, here and here).

To begin with, the installation was confusing (beside having a pixelated splash screen with an ugly figure resembling to an evil version of Firiona Vie and reminding me that EverQuest I do not want to play). Firstly it asks me to locate my “Catacombs” install directory. Then it pretends to install itself somewhere else arbitrary. Why? Wasn’t this a “patch” to apply on the old client? And then when I try to install it somewhere else it tells me it needs at least 13 GIGABYTES! What the hell! I downloaded an installer that was 830Mb and now it asks me 13 gigabytes free (while DAoC’s client is barely above 3 Gb)? And what the fuck does it have to do with all that space?

So I go shuffling my files and delete old, unplayed games taking lots of space like The Sims 2 but then it still doesn’t want to install itself in the new directory I pointed it because, apparently, the installer cannot tell the difference between “DAoC” and “DAoC2”. Finally, after solving all these quirks, it starts to do its work. A *long* work which consists of copying the files ALREADY ON MY HD from the first directory to the second, plus adding the new files in the patch I downloaded. All time (and space) wasted for a simplistic operation that could have been done in a few minutes.

Finally, the result: the expansion is taking 600Mb on my Hard Disk. With the files uncompressed. No, really. 230Mb LESS than the installer and 12.4Gb less than the space it asked me to free.

Obviously, as I tried to connect, there was already a 13Mb patch waiting for me.

I also wonder if WoW’s 1.8 patch has more interesting new features then the whole DAoC expansion. Surely it was easier to install.

Now I go play (I hope).

Posted in: Uncategorized | Tagged:

DAoC – Darkness Rising direct download

by | Leave a comment

For those searching it, there’s already a direct link to the expansion patcher. You can dig here to find it:
http://mythic.fileburst.com/downloads/

I’m already at 27% with Bittorrent and my powerful dialup, so I’m not going to restart from zero even if I probably could finish faster.

They are keeping changing the file name, that’s why I said you’ll have to hunt for it. Right now the name is:
figure_this_name_out_h4x0rz_catacombs_to_darkness_setup.exe

If you are unsure about the validity of the file you could always download a chunk and then load it in bittorrent to verify it. The best feature of that clunky program is that it verifies and repair the files automatically.

EDIT: Both links died long ago. There’s also a rumor about WoW patch being released and I still have to download Rag Doll Kung Fu. Too much goodies these days…

Posted in: Uncategorized | Tagged: