Has anyone done PvP as well since DAOC? I know there were lots of complaints about 8-man gank squads, but battlegroups and such provided zerg protection, and it was pretty fun to be in a good 8-man. Suicide PBAOEing zergs on keeps or milegates never got old.

I remember being pretty disappointed just by the 5-person group limit in WoW, let alone how bad its PvP sucked.

 

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PvP hasn't been done well since DAOC, and arguably it hasn't been done well since pre-TOA.

Talking to a Guild Wars 2 developer makes me hopeful for it though.

Yeah, I only popped back for a small amount of time post-TOA, and from what it seemed it just made the gap between elite and non-elite that much bigger (and I'm sure introduced that much more balance-screwing complexity with every artifact and ML ability addition). Ahhh, for the golden days when leveling to 50 sucked balls but after you finished you were done and done with PvE, and the playing field was pretty even equipment-wise in PvP.

 

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Exactly.

This is why games like League of Legends are stealing the PvP thunder away from MMOs. At least everyone's on even footing when a match starts there. Gear based games cannot have good PvP without stat caps and the like.

Speaking of which League of Legends is the ToS: profanity, and is also free.

Maybe I should make a thread on that.

One of the biggest problems I see today is the lack of a community.

Look at us, it's been personally 6 years since I've played DAoC, and we're still all reading and posting on this board. The IRC channel had 50+ people in it before the merge, and for a good time afterwards, more than 100. I dare you to find a WoW server where 100 people from both factions idle and chit chat all day. (On another note, I'd bet Ziphy is still idling in the channel right now)

If Guild Wars can't foster a community outside of guild ties, which is hard because of the general populace playing them now, then I don't see how playing it will be any different than WoW other than the pvp system.

Yeah, another thing I noticed when I started playing WoW was the total lack of community. You rarely even grouped outside of your guild, let alone PvPed with, let alone chatted in any channel (in game or out) with. And getting to know anyone from the other faction on your server? Never. Was such a jarring change too; it's not like DAOC's servers' population at their peak were much smaller than a WoW server's population, but everyone seemed to get to know each other just fine in DAOC.

I also think lack of dyeable armor, 5 person group limit, and of course no real PvP except canned and small population BGs (that were multi-server to boot) killed any chance of recognizing and wanting to talk to the enemy. Guild cloaks are a pretty minor thing but something DAOC got very right because they have a big impact; I was shocked that WoW hadn't copied that.

 

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I had really never thought about that before - but it's true. That was a big deal. I remember approaching a keep from a distance and seeing, say, Ook Ook's emblem on the flags and just thinking "ugh....."

 

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That's why I have Old Glory insurance.
And when they grab you with those metal claws, you can't break free.. because they're made of metal, and robots are strong.

 

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Don't forget this one http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1aqSp7Qji-M&

 

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