...

At one point I was about to work out a way to navigate the world using starmaps, and was gathering screenshots in game to try map it out and invent constellations from the star patterns. Then they added the compass

 

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I would support that for sure, although it may simply be too late to recover the mass of lost players who have moved on to other games or given up MMOs in the meantime.

 

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/loc
run run
/loc
run run
/loc
run back
/loc
turn around again
/loc
aw dammit, I had x and y mixed up
/loc
run run
etc

 

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setup

 

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Page.

And the answer is no.
I prefer to grind Xp at monster's camps.

 

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"setup" "page" = lame

You could contribute moar here, y'know.

The fact remains I don't have the senses and experiences that my character does so good maps, quest journals, waypoints, and on-screen indicators need to be there to help me identify what is important.

As far as quest structures go, I really like kill tasks in DAoC, but I wish the special-item-in-the-inventory part would go away. eg You talk to an NPC and he says, "hey, I hear you've been killing wolves... here's a gift!" without having to drop inventory items on the NPC.

We'd need a separate sub-quest journal for that, which would mean more database work.

MySQL's been through quite a few changes since 2002. I presume Mythic is still using it.

How big is a character record anyway?

And, hey, anyone know if the cap on active quests is going to be increased?

 

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I completely agree. . .well mostly. I would add a few items and a few adjustments.


I agree about not starting out with SI as part of the initial launch but I would add it later as an expansion. They would need to rework SI to add quests, keep the story more in line with Camelot and then add the expansion about 20 – 24 months after Classic is launched. Also, a few rules for any expansion, 1) it can have gear with slightly higher stats but it must not have OP gear. 2) Crafting must advance to always ‘almost’ completely keep in line with new gear that is available in the expansion. 3) Darkness falls gear needs to advance to ‘almost’ completely keep up with the new gear available in any expansion. 4) To ensure that DF is always worth fighting over, every expansion should include some newly discovered areas of DF. 5) No expansion should ever make old world areas obsolete. With each expansion, drop tables of all areas need to be updated so that the drop tables are ‘almost’ in line with what is available in the expansion. 6) With each expansion all quest drop tables need to evaluated and updated.


Then about 20 – 24 months after SI is launched they should launch an adjusted/reworked Catacombs without TDs.


To continue your list I would add the following:


5. The RNG must be adjusted so that wild swings are eliminated


6. The experience death penalty needs to be removed.


7. Leveling need to be slowed back down like it once was, but regen needs to be sped up tremendously.


8. Quest experience needs adjusting so that it is never more advantageous to simply grind mobs than it is to do quests. Questing and grinding mobs should both give about equal experience and gold for the time invested by the player.


9. LOS problems in the world, and in dungeons, need to be addressed and fixed.


10. Flying taxies need to be added to most areas.


11. Classic needs to include a ‘player controlled horse/mount’.


12. The UI needs to be upgraded.


13. Pet pathing in the world and in dungeons needs to be fixed.


14. Guild leaders need more and better tools so as to be better able to manage a Guild.


15. Many old bugs need to be eliminated.


16. Bots need to be mostly eliminated.


17. The game needs mail.


18. PLing needs to be eliminated or coded to be almost impossible to do.

 

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I would disagree. I would add noob areas with expansions.


I agree with the problem that you have identified, it is a real problem and needs to be addressed, unfortunately Mythic never identified it as a problem so they never addressed it.


This is one of the areas where Mythic broke what I would consider a ‘Fundamental Rule for Expansions’. Mythic began making old world areas obsolete with the new expansion. This is a basic rule that when broken eventually contributes to the death of the game.


The expansion should have new low level areas just like SI had/has but those areas should not be any faster leveling than the low level old world areas. This ensures the old area are not pointless and it gives old time PvE centric players new areas to level the new characters rather than just leveling in the old areas, which would eventually become boring.


To solve the challenge of spreading out the noobs over additional new noob areas:

I did not mention it in the posts that I have made on this thread but in other threads I have mentioned that one thing the game needed/needs is a better group finder. The existing group finder was/is so useless that . . . it is not used.


The new group finder needs to include a Quest Help feature where a player can sign up to be on a list of players that need help with specific quests. Any and all quests should be able to be added to a player’s list where the player is asking for help to finish the quest. Even quests that some may consider easily done solo could be confusing for others so any and all quests should be able to be added to the Quest Help list.


Once the quest is added to the players Quest Helper the player goes on their way doing whatever it is they want to do. When enough players are in the game that have selected that specific quest in their Quest Helper, each player gets a popup window asking if they want to join in a group to complete the quest. When enough players accept, then all players that accept are ported to the town that is nearest to the location of the quest. Once the players finish the quest the players can be ported back to where they were or elect to stay in the area of the quest that they just finished. Mythic could even add a feature where players that stay grouped after finishing a quest get a bonus of some kind (perhaps access to bonus areas). This would give players incentive to stay grouped after the quest is finished.


Some players that did not have a specific quest to finish could simply select to make themselves available to assist others and they would be added to any list where players needed assistance. Mythic could give players some kind of bonus toward titles or gear for players that assisted others.


While the above system accomplishes many things, one thing it accomplishes is to make players in remote parts of the world suddenly and quickly close to each there so they can easily group together and help each other.


There are also other modifications to the group finder that would make joining and finding groups much easer. There are other modifications to an expansion that would promote players in the expansion low level areas to search out players in the low level old world areas.


Adding low-level areas with an expansion does not need to be a bad thing, actually it can be a good thing as many PvE centric players can become bored leveling alts in the same old areas. Mythic made it a bad thing by the way they implemented the expansions. I have always said that DAoC is one of the best game concepts with some of the worst implementation possible.

 

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Sem, I like the cut of your jib.

The Quest/Group finder is an excellent idea.

Right after Champions Online released they quickly added a feature that lets group members see what quest step others were on so you could tell if you needed to double back so everyone was on the same step. The group leader would, of course, designate what quest the group was focusing on. It was a BIG help.

 

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