I think the biggest difference WoW -> Daoc is the caster/combat mechanics. While Daoc is increasingly getting more, WoW is based on cooldowns and timers. To be fair , I only played WoW in beta, so I have little to base my opinion on. However, I prefer PvP to PvE which DaoC seems to be better at.

 

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Only if mail is a $99.95 upgrade to your account.
$199.95 if you want the option to bypass the mandatory spelling and grammar check.

 

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Could not agree more.
This sums up DaOC vs Generic WoW MMO.

 

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Mythic did try and implement a mail system but at that time found that while coding a mail system into a game in development was pretty simple the same was not true of a game well past that point, like DAoC. Though that was a few years ago as I recall so maybe it's no longer the challenge it once was for them...
-Jo

 

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Is this with the compulsory special keyboard that electrocutes the user whenever they make a spelling mistake?

 

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Mythic has spouted many things that were untrue.


Stacking pots were impossible, until GAO just went and coded it.


Player controlled horses were virtually impossible without recoding the entire game but at almost the beginning of the game we had shape change (so Mythic could have coded a character to look like anything. . . perhaps even look like a character sitting on a horse), there actually existed the visual of characters on horses, the game had various forms of speed that dropped when entering combat, etc. . . From almost the beginning, the game had everything necessary to code a character on a horse but Mythic got a hair up their butt and refused to code a player controlled mount.


They lied when they said dueling was not possible in Housing because the code for fighting in housing was never created. (then some players found out how to get into enemy housing areas and proceeded to kill NPCs and any player they came across). Yes, it is a trivial thing but still a lie.


Etc. . . there are other examples but the above is enough to prove that Mythic lies whenever they do not feel like coding something or whenever they do not feel like delving into difficult projects.


Coding Mail isn't even difficult, it is fairly easy and most of the interface code already exists.


Mythic has the interface code that allows characters to access a database and that interface code is now used for the ME. The ME is basically just an interface that access a database where some players add things to the database and other players remove things from the database.


Creating a database for Mail should be fairly easy and aside from the interface the actual database of stored Mail need not be part of the actual game code. The only part of Mail that would need to be incorporated into, or have access to, the game code would be the interface (the ME style interface that already exists). Mythic/Bioware could create a Mail database that operate outside of the game code and simply allow characters to interface with the Mail database just like a player now interfaces with the ME database.


The game also has an existing system of sending automated messages to a player when they log in or when some event happens that necessitates some message be displayed. That same system could be used to notify a player when they logged in should Mail be waiting and that same notification system could be triggered should Mail arrive while the character is active.


There are some minor points that would need to be addressed but all of the major challenges already have been solved.


Almost all the code necessary for Mail already exists.


edit:

The only plausible reason I can see for Mythic to actually think that Mail could not be coded into the game would be if Mythic was trying to create a convoluted and excessively complex Mail system instead of simply using solutions provided by existing code. If Mythic’s vision of Mail was convoluted and excessively complex, in that case I could see how a person could go to their boss and spout, “It just can’t be done”.

 

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The art of war is simple enough. Find out where your enemy is.
Get at him as soon as you can. Strike him as hard as you can,
and keep moving. - Ulysses S. Grant
Only the dead have seen the end of war - Plato

buy a house

/housefriend account


/qq less

 

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Actually DAoC characters are stored in a flat file system. To add the data points necessary to story character by character mail is non-trivial. Once you modify the flat file you have to change every character ever made, and just one corrupted character can screw up EVERY character after it. Also one of the reasons they use a flat file system is for data storage. It is possible that they simply don't have the hard drive space to add that much data to each character without running out of space on their servers.

Actually it does not matter much how DAoC characters are stored. A Mail system does not need to modify any existing database at all. All the Mail system needs is its own database, a continually updated list of existing and active characters (which Mythic/Bioware has) and some interface nodes (which they have in the form of MEs) placed into the game and designed to look like Mail carriers or Mailboxes. With just a bit of modification the ME interface nodes would work fine for a Mail database interface node.


Again, most of the code for a Mail system interface already exists and a Mail database does not need much in the way of changes to the game code. Most of the changes to the game code would be to the ME UI interface so it would look and operate like Mail rather than as part of the consignment system. Then there would be the notification system that triggers the, “You have Mail” announcement but that too does not require modification of the existing database.


As I previously posted, the Mail database can be completely separate from the existing game character databases. Mythic/Bioware need not modify the existing database to incorporate Mail into DAoC. Ideally it would be best to have Mail integrated into the existing databases but it would also require excessive resources.


DAoC does not need a complex Mail system. A simple Mail system would suffice and a simple Mail system is fairly easy to add to the game.

 

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and where are you getting the information on how the characters are stored?

cause i've never seen mythic release that information...

if its based on the DOL project, that is 3rd party server software, built up completely from scratch... with no mythic code.. so the way DOL stores files isnt the same as the way Mythic stores files...

 

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