Date Posted:1/1/00 12:00amSubject:
DAOC 10 Year Anniversary - Fresh Server?
It not my intention to be contradictory, but a lot of people that left because of TOA didn't leave the day it launched. It took time for the suckness of it to sink in, and then, well they left. But they left amidst an influx of new players, and that may give the illusion that WOW killed DAOC. If DAOC wasn't broken when WOW come out, WOW would have never held the interest of DAOC's pve base.
And it wasn't just the toa bonuses, artifacts, and Master abilities that drove people off. It was also coupled with massive class imbalances when they introduced new classes. I still think some of these classes need to be scraped.
And then, after people 'bought' into the new classes, they nerfed em. Some of them anyway.
A lot of these classes had new abilities that we had never seen before, and the original classes had no counterpart, and were largely made less viable for an rvr or pve setting.
All of that emerging 'wishy washyness' that Mythic would later be known for motivated people to find something new, and when WOW hit, it seemed like a beacon of salvation, but no. Just a crappy 'theme park' mmo. But it doesn't matter, if you left daoc, and left wow, you prolly didn't find your way back to daoc. You prolly found something else to occupy your time.
WOW has many reasons for it's success. I think one of the prominent ones would be 'timing' and DAOC's failure, as opposed to some grand genius gameplay created by the same cats who put together Diablo. Diablo was great and all for what it was, but the pvp aspect of it was garbage. And these guys made a MMORPG, with garbage pvp. but pvp isn't what keeps WOW going. It's there pve content.
ANd it's a game with excellent pve content that all of us pvpers need to be attached to like a parasite. We need a game that draws in the PVE crowd for a huge subscription base so they can afford to maintain a PVP arena for us. It just can't be suck arse pvp like WOW has.
Flaming WOW. Wow is exactly the opposite of what WOW is. WTF would have been a more fitting acronym.
Oh, and you are right again. Crafting is a third type of player. I hear about the complexity of Star Wars crafting and how people loved it. A good Crafting concept would have kept part of the player base. And I remember all the proud crafters on UO too, which was a chore to GM. So I make a correction. We need a company to make a game with attactive PVE and an in depth crafting mechanism that implements a 3 realm pvp system.
Date Posted:1/1/00 12:00amSubject:
DAOC 10 Year Anniversary - Fresh Server?
Ahhhhh, the “TOA or not to TOA†debate (funny thing that). Poor Yorick I knew him well (not).
TOA did not kill DAoC and TOA did kill DAoC.
TOA could not have killed DAoC because DAoC began dieing 9 to 12 months out of the gate. Look at the graph. The graph shows that the population became mostly level (or slightly declined) about 9 to 12 months after launch. That is when the game began dieing.
A games population is not static. Players are always coming into a game and other players are always leaving.
The game of DAoC had enough content to keep players running around doing new things for more than 24 months and then SI came out adding even more content, yet after about 9 to 12 months players became so fed up with Mythic and players became so fed up with the stupidity in DAoC that new players coming into the game almost equaled the number of players running from the game. That was the initial warning sign, that was the initial sign of the impending death, but Mythic totally missed it.
As others mention, Mythic thought they had a great winner. Mythic had no clue how big the market really was/is. Mythic totally misread the writing/warning slapping them in the face. Mythic still does not have much of a clue.
So, the game began dieing long, long before TOA.
But
TOA did kill the game because TOA contributed to the death of the game. Many point to the graph that shows the population level (or mostly level) until WoW. Some use the graph as an indicator that DAoC was fine until WoW came out. There are many problems that must be ignored for this theory to hold any weight.
One problem, WoW has shown us that new games do not cause an exodus from an existing game, not if the existing players are relatively happy. WoW has weathered the storm of many game launches and no one can yet point to the graph that indicates the exodus that took place at WoW when all (or any of) these other games launched. It does not happen if the players are mostly happy with the existing game.
Happy players will check out other games, but happy players usually keep the existing subscription even if they sub to other games. Exceptions do not break the rule. The general rule, as shown by the WoW graph though many other game launches, happy players do not exodus even if they check out other game launches.
Happy players do not exodus, angry player will exodus. Ergo if DAoC players were happy then WoW would not have caused an exodus.
The exodus at DAoC coincided with WoW simply because angry DAoC players finally felt they had a place that was adequate to move to. Until WoW, alternative games were not attractive enough.
While TOA did not kill DAoC (because the game began dieing in the first year after launch) TOA contributed to the anger of players which helped feed the exodus that took place when WoW was launched.
Not getting into a debate over the stupidity of a band-aid like the Classic servers instead of actually fixing problems, Mythic stated that the Classic servers were a direct response to the players that were angry with TOA. Some can argue all they want over how wonderful TOA was, but Mythic certainly had the real numbers concerning the player’s love/hate of TOA.
TOA did not kill the game because the game began dieing long before TOA but TOA certainly did not help make unhappy players happy (as stated by Mythic). TOA contributed to the hatred of Mythic, which fed the fire that ultimately helped push the exodus.
Even without TOA happening, the oscillating but mostly level graph of DAoC subscribers shows that players were not happy. Even without TOA there would have been an exodus as soon as any ‘somewhat viable game’ came to be, but TOA did not help at all. In the case of DAoC the timing happened where WoW was that ‘somewhat viable game’.
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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
Date Posted:1/1/00 12:00amSubject:
DAOC 10 Year Anniversary - Fresh Server?
Semi4 posted: Ahhhhh, the “TOA or not to TOA†debate (funny thing that). Poor Yorick I knew him well (not).
TOA did not kill DAoC and TOA did kill DAoC.
TOA could not have killed DAoC because DAoC began dieing 9 to 12 months out of the gate. Look at the graph. The graph shows that the population became mostly level (or slightly declined) about 9 to 12 months after launch. That is when the game began dieing.
A games population is not static. Players are always coming into a game and other players are always leaving.
The game of DAoC had enough content to keep players running around doing new things for more than 24 months and then SI came out adding even more content, yet after about 9 to 12 months players became so fed up with Mythic and players became so fed up with the stupidity in DAoC that new players coming into the game almost equaled the number of players running from the game. That was the initial warning sign, that was the initial sign of the impending death, but Mythic totally missed it.
As others mention Mythic thought they had a great winner. Mythic had no clue how big the market really was/is. Mythic totally misread the writing/warning slapping them in the face. Mythic still does not have much of a clue.
So, the game began dieing long, long before TOA.
But
TOA did kill the game because TOA contributed to the death of the game. Many point to the graph that shows the population level (or mostly level) until WoW. Some use the graph as an indicator that DAoC was fine until WoW came out. There are many problems that must be ignored for this theory to hold any weight.
One problem, WoW has shown us that new games do not cause an exodus from an existing game, not if the existing players are relatively happy. WoW has weathered the storm of many game launches and no one can yet point to the graph that indicates the exodus that took place at WoW when all (or any of) these other games launched. It does not happen if the existing players are mostly happy with the existing game.
Happy players will check out other games, but happy players usually keep the existing subscription even if they sub to other games. Exceptions do not break the rule. The general rule, as shown by the WoW graph though many other game launches, happy players do not exodus even if they check out other game launches.
Happy players do not exodus, angry player will exodus. Ergo if DAoC players were happy then WoW would not have caused an exodus.
The exodus at DAoC coincided with WoW simply because angry DAoC players finally felt they had a place that was adequate to move to. Until WoW, alternative games were not attractive enough.
While TOA did not kill DAoC, because the game began dieing in the first year after launch, TOA contributed to the anger of players which helped feed the exodus that took place when WoW was launched.
Not getting into a debate over the stupidity of a band-aid like the Classic servers instead of actually fixing problems, Mythic stated that the Classic servers were a direct response to the players that were angry with TOA. Some can argue all they want over how wonderful TOA was, but Mythic certainly had the real numbers concerning the player’s love/hate of TOA.
So TOA did not kill the game because the game began dieing long before TOA but TOA certainly did not help make unhappy players happy (as stated by Mythic). TOA contributed to the hatred of Mythic, which fed the fire that ultimately helped push the exodus.
Even without TOA happening, the oscillating but mostly level graph of DAoC subscribers shows that players were not happy. Even without TOA there would have been an exodus as soon as any ‘somewhat viable game’ came to be, but TOA did not help at all. In the case of DAoC the timing happened where WoW was that ‘somewhat viable game’.
Agreed.
DarkPCK Title: Got to go house is on fire. Posts: 457 Registered: 2003-12-14 12:38:01
Date Posted:1/1/00 12:00amSubject:
DAOC 10 Year Anniversary - Fresh Server?
No thanks.
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DakRT: And 4 Scouts makes a [stealth] zerg huh?
Zyzyg: What anytime snare are you talking about?...Your anytime style should be Polar Rift. Clearly you don't play a Shadowblade.
Steot: Its fact, I just dont have proof.
Date Posted:1/1/00 12:00amSubject:
DAOC 10 Year Anniversary - Fresh Server?
Semi4 posted: WoW didn't kill ToA, it was just a coincidence. ToA didn't kill ToA, because people were already leaving before ToA ever released
So let me get this straight...ToA didn't kill DAoC, because DAoC was already dieing. And WoW didn't kill DAoC even though DAoC's pop dropped significantly during the first three months of WoW's release, that was just a coincidence, because the unhappy people still paying for DAoC were just waiting for an alternative which only happened to coincide with WoW's release.
Serious
Didn't I already say ToA was a big part of why folks departed for WoW or other games that released? I do not consider ToA a successful expansion. I'm merely digging a bit deeper than the usual "ToA ruined the game" comments. It was not ToA, but rather the inability to continue to play casually and be competitive.
Istvanarcher10 posted: It not my intention to be contradictory, but a lot of people that left because of TOA didn't leave the day it launched. It took time for the suckness of it to sink in, and then, well they left. But they left amidst an influx of new players, and that may give the illusion that WOW killed DAOC. If DAOC wasn't broken when WOW come out, WOW would have never held the interest of DAOC's pve base.
I understand both of your points. WoW's PvE kicked DAOC's pve ass. So let's not belabor that point. But I think there is an underlying issue with why ToA 'tanked.' I also don't think ToA killed the game directly, but I do agree ToA contributed to the decline. I don't want to complicate this, but let me present my thinking as succinctly as I can.
Some people hated ToA, some liked it. Whether you liked ToA or not, you did one of three things:
1. You quit
2. You left for WoW
3. You kept playing
I believe ToA was not the problem (it had its problems!) but rather the game was simply old by MMO standards at the time; It lost a big share of people to the next shiny thing (WoW - which for the life of me I don't understand why that game is popular); and lastly, there were a percentage of people who left because they didn't want the grind of daoc anymore, which ToA certainly exacerbated.
My contention though is that it was not the content of ToA; not the scroll farming; not the artifact leveling; and not the ridiculous ML raiding that did it in; the content was very well done, and the new bonuses were a wonderful addition to the game IMO! The real problem is what I alluded to before - they destroyed the craft based economy and replaced it with scrolls and artifacts. I remember the subsequent months as "The Great Scroll Rush of '04"(tm).
I firmly believe that if they had improved the crafting to ease the burden of collecting artifact armor and weapons, ToA would have gone down as a successful expansion. The gap between those who had groups and tons of time to farm and raid MLs and those who were limited to casual playtime should never have been as wide as it was - and only crafted gear could have bridged that gap - much the way it did when SI released (bringing spellcrafting with it).
So in the end, it may be somewhat of a semantic argument. But WoW did steal much of DAoC's population - in part because people were discouraged by the requirements of ToA, but also because DAoC was just old and had run its course for a lot of folks. I remember many, many people who went to WoW and after a few months, turned off by how simple it was, talked fondly of missing DAOC and they eventually returned.
How many left for wow?
How many came back?
How many left because real life told them to stop playing games?
How many left because these games have an average shelf life of 2-3 years for most people?
How would daoc have done if Mythic actually advertised the game the way Blizzard advertised WoW?
Who knows. All we have are generalities and assumptions.
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Date Posted:1/1/00 12:00amSubject:
DAOC 10 Year Anniversary - Fresh Server?
Semi4 posted: Ahhhhh, the “TOA or not to TOA†debate (funny thing that). Poor Yorick I knew him well (not).
TOA did not kill DAoC and TOA did kill DAoC.
TOA could not have killed DAoC because DAoC began dieing 9 to 12 months out of the gate. Look at the graph. The graph shows that the population became mostly level (or slightly declined) about 9 to 12 months after launch. That is when the game began dieing.
A games population is not static. Players are always coming into a game and other players are always leaving.
The game of DAoC had enough content to keep players running around doing new things for more than 24 months and then SI came out adding even more content, yet after about 9 to 12 months players became so fed up with Mythic and players became so fed up with the stupidity in DAoC that new players coming into the game almost equaled the number of players running from the game. That was the initial warning sign, that was the initial sign of the impending death, but Mythic totally missed it.
As others mention, Mythic thought they had a great winner. Mythic had no clue how big the market really was/is. Mythic totally misread the writing/warning slapping them in the face. Mythic still does not have much of a clue.
So, the game began dieing long, long before TOA.
But
TOA did kill the game because TOA contributed to the death of the game. Many point to the graph that shows the population level (or mostly level) until WoW. Some use the graph as an indicator that DAoC was fine until WoW came out. There are many problems that must be ignored for this theory to hold any weight.
One problem, WoW has shown us that new games do not cause an exodus from an existing game, not if the existing players are relatively happy. WoW has weathered the storm of many game launches and no one can yet point to the graph that indicates the exodus that took place at WoW when all (or any of) these other games launched. It does not happen if the players are mostly happy with the existing game.
Happy players will check out other games, but happy players usually keep the existing subscription even if they sub to other games. Exceptions do not break the rule. The general rule, as shown by the WoW graph though many other game launches, happy players do not exodus even if they check out other game launches.
Happy players do not exodus, angry player will exodus. Ergo if DAoC players were happy then WoW would not have caused an exodus.
The exodus at DAoC coincided with WoW simply because angry DAoC players finally felt they had a place that was adequate to move to. Until WoW, alternative games were not attractive enough.
While TOA did not kill DAoC (because the game began dieing in the first year after launch) TOA contributed to the anger of players which helped feed the exodus that took place when WoW was launched.
Not getting into a debate over the stupidity of a band-aid like the Classic servers instead of actually fixing problems, Mythic stated that the Classic servers were a direct response to the players that were angry with TOA. Some can argue all they want over how wonderful TOA was, but Mythic certainly had the real numbers concerning the player’s love/hate of TOA.
TOA did not kill the game because the game began dieing long before TOA but TOA certainly did not help make unhappy players happy (as stated by Mythic). TOA contributed to the hatred of Mythic, which fed the fire that ultimately helped push the exodus.
Even without TOA happening, the oscillating but mostly level graph of DAoC subscribers shows that players were not happy. Even without TOA there would have been an exodus as soon as any ‘somewhat viable game’ came to be, but TOA did not help at all. In the case of DAoC the timing happened where WoW was that ‘somewhat viable game’.
I mostly agree with this. We don't know how much further the game would have died without the TOA disaster, however. So we can never isolate the impact of trials of abortions. Mythic admitted it was a disaster, but the toa fanbois live in denial.
Date Posted:1/1/00 12:00amSubject:
DAOC 10 Year Anniversary - Fresh Server?
Morgash posted: So let me get this straight...ToA didn't kill DAoC, because DAoC was already dieing. And WoW didn't kill DAoC even though DAoC's pop dropped significantly during the first three months of WoW's release, that was just a coincidence, because the unhappy people . . . . .
It would seem that you may be taking some of my comments personally. I did not quote you in my post.
It should be clear that the first two sentences of my post and the lead in few words of each section are tongue n’ cheek comments. The rest of the post though is mostly serious.
While you create a bit of a straw man argument against my post and against my tongue n’ cheek comments, you do not have any comments that counter my main and serious points.
Happy players do not exodus. This is proven by WoW and by other games that do not take hits when new games are launched.
DAoC players were unhappy (unhappy both before TOA and after TOA) with what Mythic was doing to the game. The graph shows that DAoC players typically become unhappy enough to leave after 9 to 12 months of exposure to the game, though many will hold out much longer than that.
Even Mythic states that large numbers of DAoC players were not happy with TOA. (If any know the truth about players love/hate of TOA, it should be Mythic.)
Just because players were unhappy does not mean the players had a viable alternative game to shift to. Most that view the games on the market will admit that until WoW, there were no viable alternatives to DAoC. Many today do not feel that WoW is a viable alternative though history seems to indicate differently.
WoW happened to be a viable alternative to DAoC and WoW came along about a year after TOA. Any game that was viable would have caused an exodus from DAoC because DAoC players were primed and ready to exodus, they just needed a place to go that they considered viable.
Just because players stuck with the game, believing Mythic’s rhetoric that Mythic would fix the problems that came with TOA (remember all the promises Mythic made when angry players were screaming on the boards?), does not mean players were happy. Many players were furious with Mythic about TOA, but the players had no alternative game they felt was viable. Also, players were waiting for the promised repairs/changes that never came. Again, Mythic backs this evaluation by their own comments when they created the Classic servers specifically to counter the player’s anger with TOA.
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I find much of your post very interesting and thought provoking, even if I disagree with some of it. If I were going to comment about your actual post, the following is what I would say
Morgash posted: ToA was a great expansion with one major problem: They destroyed the "middle class;" the players who got by with neither the best gear, but were content to live well with a mix of mostly crafted and some unique/quested items, which was also enabled them to remain competitive.
[colorurple]I agree that TOA destroyed the middle class but I would not call it a great expansion. It was grand in scale but grand is not great. It cause huge Min/Max problems, it was designed to promote the use of bots (even a “solo arena battle†required a bot be stationed outside the arena). The bug problems, many of which took more than a year to fix (that 12 month time frame you mention) ended up angering huge numbers of players.
Before TOA it was easy to show up at a portal ceremony as a level 48 and be invited to a group without ever spamming LFG, but after TOA if a player was not level 50 and TOAed even pugs did not want them.
There was more than just “one major problem†with TOA. [/color]
ToA forced the middle class to get rich or get left behind. The gap between the haves and have nots widened, and since most people became "have-nots," they simply became discouraged and left. But for those who say ToA destroyed this game, they forget that DAoC's population remained strong for another 10-12 months after ToA released, so it is not fully accurate to say ToA "destroyed" daoc, it didn't.
[colorurple] It is very true what you say about players being left behind and about the Min/Max gap (the haves and the have-nots) being discouraged and leaving. In my opinion that is ‘bad’ for a game.
I do not think that TOA destroyed the game, but it did harm to the game and caused the game to decline faster than the game would have declined without TOA having happened.
[/color]
ToA's content was not the problem; nor was it necessarily the conditions that were originally required to get scrolls/arts/MLs; it was first and foremost that there was no alternative to these new items. There was no inbetween: You either got the Artifacts, or you sucked ass. That was the foremost flaw of ToA, imo.
[colorurple]I would disagree with this. Many casuals spent a year or more leveling up a character or two, to be able to RvR. When that player wanted to RvR instead of craft, or instead of PvEing, all the player needed to do is log in with an RvR ready toon and go to the Frontier. After TOA that player could no longer participate in the endgame but instead those casuals needed to PvE for months and months getting scrolls, finishing TOA garbage, etc. . . You even mention this as a problem above but here you say it was not a problem. I do not get why you have the contradiction? [/color]
Its important to understand that ToA + NF essentially re-invented the game for two more years. That is significant, because DAoC was originally designed to last for two years. That's it. And when they were successful beyond their wildest dreams after two years, they put out the "new" version of DAoC (ToA+NF) hoping to get two more years.
[colorurple] I do not know why you think the game was designed to run for two years and then be done. Initially it took a casual over a year to level a single character to 50 and each realm had many, many, many characters. (perhaps two years 'per realm'[/color]
Third, and perhaps most significant of all, is that about a year into ToA, World of Snorecraft released. Within a couple months of WoW's release, DAoC saw its population drop about 40%. That was the real killer of DAoC, and WoW's popularity sealed the fate of DAoC more than any other factor.
So did ToA kill DAoC? Based on the population numbers for nearly a year after it released, you can say definitively that ToA did not kill DAoC. However, it did make other games more appealing, especially the super simple and dumbed down World of Warpuff.
IMO, WoW killed daoc more than anything. But ToA was a very well done expansion as far as content is concerned. But they obviously failed to understand the importance of the crafting community, which practically died overnight after ToA.
[colorurple] I answered the above three points very clearly in my previous postings but I will expand on it a bit here.
It is true that players left DAoC for WoW, but it is not WoW that killed DAoC.
Mythic killed DAoC.
WoW has proven that happy players do not exodus to other games. Happy players will try out other games but they do not exodus unless the existing game has pissed them off and the new game seems to be a viable alternative. With the case of WoW, the DAoC players were both pissed with Mythic and the DAoC players felt that WoW was a viable alternative.
If the DAoC players were not pissed off at Mythic, WoW would not have caused an exodus from DAoC. Ergo it is not WoW that killed DAoC, it is Mythic that killed DAoC. [/color]
The single most significant thing they could do to re-invigorate the popularity of this game is to overhaul the crafting systemand restore it to the prominence it held pre-ToA.
[colorurple] I think that crafting should always be viable and it is a horrendous mistake for any game company to include with any expansion, things that make crafting mostly obsolete. The game is a conglomeration of diverse players and some of those players have crafting as their primary focus. For Mythic to treat those players with such disregard was stupid and caused long-term game damage.
While I totally agree with you that crafting should be restored to prominence, I disagree that this would be the single most significant thing.
Mythic tended to enjoy taking dumps on all the players. Each of Mythic's dumps created problem areas and many of those problems were just as significant as the problems Mythic created with crafting.
It is very unfortunate that there are many significant things Mythic needs to fix. I have always said that Mythic had/has brilliant people but often it seems that Mythic allows those brilliant people to run amok.[/color]
They should pay me for that suggestion, but I am in a generous mood today.
Morgash posted: I firmly believe that if they had improved the crafting to ease the burden of collecting artifact armor and weapons, ToA would have gone down as a successful expansion.
I totally agree with that comment. If players had an alternative way (crafted gear) to get gear/abilities that were almost on a par with the TOA stuff, that would have negated most of the problem caused by TOA and it would have kept crafting viable for those who loved to craft.
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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
Date Posted:1/1/00 12:00amSubject:
DAOC 10 Year Anniversary - Fresh Server?
So basically, you agree with me.
And for the record, not taking anything personal, just enjoying the conversation and the back and forth.
Im afraid what we have here, on most points, is a distinction without a difference.
The distinction Im trying to make is that it was not the content of ToA or its requirements,
but it's lack of a "middle ground" that would have allowed the casual player to keep his status
as an end game player and have the option to pursue better gear, MLs, etc.
If my contention is accurate, then it becomes less about the content of ToA, and more about Mythic's
failure to balance the new content. So I can make the statement that ToA was great on many levels,
but this major flaw was enough to make it a failure, and not a success.
But someone can just as easily come along and say, "ToA ruined the game for me" because it undoubtedly did.
Both can be true statements, and I end up attempting to make a distinction without a difference.
As far as responding to some of your points, I think you disproved some of your own points. You say WoW proves
that good games don't cause an exodus of players, yet you prefaced your initial comments by saying that populations
are not static, players come and go and differing rates. So how can make the claim that WoW did not have an exodus of players after 2-3 years? You and I don't really know, all we know is that they grew to a massive, unheard of scale.
But WoW was released on a much more massive scale, and they crossed over very well due in large part
to their previous success with the franchise as a Multi-player game. So it's not exactly an apples to apples comparison.
Even WoW loses players every couple years. I can't link you to it, but there have been market studies that show
these games have on average a 2-3 year shelf life for the typical consumer.
As far as my comments about DAOC only being designed to last 2 years, that comes from Mark Jacobs himself. Again, its been years, but I remember reading an article or interview of him, and he explained that DAOC was built on a business model that would last two years after release. It was designed to pay back in the first year, be pure profit in the 2nd, and the rest was icing.
If you look how Mythic handled DAOC after two years, the evidence mounts that this seemed to be true. They never advertised the game after the initial release. SI released 13 months after DAOC, but had a poor distribution, and so did ToA, which released 11 months later. Neither were advertised on any significant scale, even though they had a real winner on their hands - you say they had no idea, but I say they knew very well, but only saw it in the context of their business plan of 2 years.
ToA was a cost effective, one last spin of the wheel. They spun it as hard as they could, knowing they'd just let it spin out this time, and not really do much else to the game. Obviously, the game will be maintained as long as the revenue justifies it - hey wait a minute...They actually said that on the herald many times after ToA!
Remember too, that after ToA released, MJ was already dropping hints about Mythic's new project, Imperator. MJ knew DAOC's time was done, the business plan a success, and he was ready to duplicate the process with the new game. That was his method. That only changed when he got the WARHAMMER license. That's when everything really went downhill.
In order to win the warhammer license, and to attempt to capitalize on a successful franchise the same way WoW did (Games Workshop's WARHAMMER - ironically WoW is a knockoff of warhammer), MJ cashed in when EA came knockin. MJ needed
EA's deep pockets to win GW's approval, EA saw the $$$ WoW was making and was hopeful of taking a large chunk of that pie....and you probably know the rest.
The point in that little tangent is that I think there is strong evidence that MJ-led DAOC was a 2 year plan. He followed his business plan for DAOC and dropped it like a hot rock after ToA released. And those of us who have stuck with the game are riding into the sunset, and will likely go down with the ship at some point.
Which is too bad, because DAOC could have been much bigger and better several times, if only someone had that vision 3-5 years ago. Releasing OF won't fix anything.
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Coming to a realm near you
E > P+DAOC
Date Posted:1/1/00 12:00amSubject:
DAOC 10 Year Anniversary - Fresh Server?
I see what your point is and mostly I agree with much of your post.
To clarify a few things.
Morgash posted: If you look how Mythic handled DAOC after two years, the evidence mounts that this seemed to be true.. . .
I did not read MJ’s comments about the life expectation being only 2 years but I would not doubt his short sightedness.
I “say they had no idea†about the winning game concept they had because Mythic seemed to think that 250k subs was the top of the heap (or they acted that way), when it was mostly just the beginning of what could have been a great climb if they only understood how large the market really was/is.
I also think they had no clue by the way they treated their player base. I form this opinion viewing their strange business operating methodology, their lying to the customers and being caught in lies on many occasions, their condescending and often insulting responses to the TL reports, etc. . . the list could go on and on and on.
Back around the time of TOA the VN board had about the same number of complaining and yelling posts that WoW has today on the WoW boards. Back around the time of TOA DAoC only had 250k subs to draw from to create the yelling posts on VN and today WoW has over 10 million subscribers, yet WoW has comparatively very few angry posts.
Combine it all together and while DAoC has the best concept of any game yet to be created, Mythic has done an exceptional job of alienating and angering the player base. There are many levels where MJ and Mythic did not have much of a clue.
Yes MJ had a business plan, but he did not have much of a clue.
Morgash posted: You say WoW proves that good games don't cause an exodus of players, yet you prefaced your initial comments by saying that populations are not static, players come and go and differing rates.
Sorry but that is not what I said. I said that WoW proves that happy players do not exodus just because a new game is launched. The meaning is similar to your misquote, but there are significant differences between them. My statement has no conflicts and in your misquote I fully see some parts that could be seen as conflicting.
WoW does prove that happy players do not exodus just because another game comes along. An exodus is totally different than normal cycling of player subscriptions that happens with all subscription games.
Any game will have players leaving and at the same time have new players subscribing. WoW does have players leaving while at the same time WoW has players subscribing. A few players leaving while a much larger percentage is subscribing, that is not something that should be confused with an exodus.
DAoC went from about the same number of new players subscribing with a similar number departing, to a small number subscribing a huge number canceling (an exodus).
While WoW does have a subscription oscillations (like any game will), that is completely different than an exodus that coincides with a new game launch.
Morgash posted: Remember too, that after ToA released, MJ was already dropping hints about Mythic's new project, Imperator.
I understand how this reinforces your view that Mythic had a short life expectancy for DAoC.
I hope that you do not mean that a company working on a new game is an excuse for neglecting the existing game or an excuse for failing to see trends in the existing game population or an excuse for lying to the customers . . . .etc. . .
Morgash posted: In order to win the warhammer license, and to attempt to capitalize on a successful franchise the same way WoW did (Games Workshop's WARHAMMER - ironically WoW is a knockoff of warhammer), MJ cashed in when EA came knockin. MJ needed EA's deep pockets to win GW's approval,. . .
Interesting. I seem to remember the events a bit differently. I may be incorrect but I seem to recall that MJ and Mythic won the WarHammer deal, started working on the WarHammer project, started running out of money and MJ hunted up some company (EA) that would purchase Mythic and fund the completion of WarHammer.
Morgash posted: MJ-led DAOC was a 2 year plan. He followed his business plan for DAOC and dropped it like a hot rock after ToA released.
Again, to me this is a sign of a clueless person (MJ). Sticking to a plan when there are solid indicators that changes need to be made. (Again combine this with all the other stupidity and “Clueless†seems to fit.)
Morgash posted: Which is too bad, because DAOC could have been much bigger and better several times, if only someone had that vision 3-5 years ago. Releasing OF won't fix anything.
I totally agree. This is much of what I mean when I say Mythic was/is clueless. With a bit of vision it should have been easy for Mythic to take DAoC to over a million subs yet DAoC capped at about 250k subs because that is as far as Mythic could see.
I agree that OF would not fix anything. The game needs 30 to 45 changes to become competitive in the market and many of the necessary changes could only be done with a re-launch. Simply creating OF would not save the game.
Before the game is closed I could see Mythic creating and implementing OF for a short time, say one weekend a month (or for 5 days a month). I do not think it would save the game but it would give a short bump to the subs for a bit while a few old timers signed back up for a last hurrah in OF.
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Date Posted:1/1/00 12:00amSubject:
DAOC 10 Year Anniversary - Fresh Server?
ArkadyTepes posted:
BaconJA89 posted: But what really is the "risk"? EA/Mythic is likely making less than 2 million a year gross on this game. The profit then is much lower. What are they "risking" if they provide something that increases subscription numbers and probably takes a week to release?
I don't think people would quit because there is a new server.
player A stays on regular server,
player B goes to classic server,
player C goes to classic server,
player A misses players B and C, but doesnt want to start over again... leaves the game...
Player C gets bored of the new shiny server and goes back to old server... to find out that player A left... so player C leaves as well..
thats what happened with classics... and thats what will happen again if they launched a new server.
the population would drop so low neither server would be viable and the game would close down compeltely
urple]I agree that TOA destroyed the middle class but I would not call it a great expansion. It was grand in scale but grand is not great. It cause huge Min/Max problems, it was designed to promote the use of bots (even a “solo arena battle†required a bot be stationed outside the arena). The bug problems, many of which took more than a year to fix (that 12 month time frame you mention) ended up angering huge numbers of players.
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