Today I took a new Skald I made into Thidranki. He's reasonably well equipped with capped Str/Con/HPs and even some resists at mid range. While I was there I watched a Valkyrie getting buffed up by their Shaman bot AND their Healer bot. I grouped up, got some buffs from one of the folks in the group because I do not run a 2nd account so i can have a buffbot, and then we went out and got wiped by several other groups. I had fun and got a few RPs, but its obviously going to be a long slog. I expect Molvik to be worse, but when this character gets to 50 it will need to have all the RPs it can possibly get just to get the minimum RAs required to run with the zerg and not die in 2s to anyone else. My character in Molvik has yet to get a group when I have played there.

Another barrier to a new player who wants to try out RvR is that the battlegrounds are evidently full of people willing to run 3 accounts just to ensure they win. There are fully twinked characters there that are wearing equipment that likely cost a LOT more than a new player with their first character to 24 can afford. The end result is a massive disparity in ability and survivability.

As has been said from the start by many people, this game's biggest problem is buffbotting. If players can gain an unfair advantage, someone will, period (since many players dread the idea of an actual even fight, and prefer to stack the odds in their favour as much as possible). This forces everyone else to seek the same advantage, thus almost half the characters in Thid at any point are in fact merely bot accounts. In today's climate for MMO players - particularly in an old game like this one - people are very reluctant to group. Many of the people in Thidranki are likely there on a permanent basis on those characters I would guess, and any new player coming there for the first time is going to feel like they don't stand a chance in most fights. Again, when the BGs were first introduced a lot of people thought it was a mistake, but they gained acceptance primarily because they were a lot of fun. With the twinked-to-within-an-inch-of-their-life characters there, equipped with at least 1 buffbot and new players running solo because they can't find a group, its not going to be the most enjoyable experience sadly

 

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Mythic should follow Eve's example: allow players to purchase, with real cash, an in-game tradeable token which can be redeemed for a month of subscription time.

Instead of buying platinum on the "black market", you purchase one of these gametime tokens from Mythic, and trade it in-game for what you need. The tokens will be sought after by other players, so they should have a lot of purchasing power.

It's a simple and proven concept, that helps both new and old subscribers. New subscribers no longer have to "cheat" if they want to get coin in a hurry, and old subscribers who might otherwise quit can keep their accounts open by trading surplus gear for gametime tokens.

 

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Sorry but with the run away economy I wonder how players will feel when many of the better items no longer cost plat but instead cost 2, 3 or 4 months of subscription time.


No thanks.

 

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They need the Warhammer UI/controls. For me trying to get people to join that was the biggest issue..is it doesn't play like any of the MMo's they come from and feels dated. I agree with it as well, the controls are clunky. Back in the day they were fine, but as time went on the backend of the game wasn't really updated. It's dumb, but why do you have to 'buy' a free horse scroll, then hand it to the guy?

That's really my only complain (and lack of content) everything else is learned on the job. Plenty of helpful people in game still if you ask properly. Even people willing to help with a decent template to get you started and gear.

 

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DAoC won't attract players because it's a 10 year old game. And no company is going to put money and resources into advertising for a 10 year old game when there are new projects to devote time, money and resources to.

 

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Mythic/EA is already putting money into an improved tutorial, so they must be planning on attracting new players somehow.

They added the starter zones what, 5 years ago? That resulted in tons of new players They are testing it for use in other games.

 

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I don't think this is directly related to the discussion we were talking about, but I looked over the producer's letter again and noticed something I must have missed before:





The wording at the end implies that they definitely are working on ways to get new players at least a basic template set up, not just educating them on how the game works.

And here I always thought that Epic and Slayer gear pretty much covered "at least a basic template". SO, they'll have to be stepping beyond that point for this new stuff to matter at all.

Joy! Yet more gear inflation....

 

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Considering the epic and slayers sets don't even include jewelery, I don't think many people would call that a "basic template." Even if the new gear ended up being better than epic armor, you could hardly call that "gear inflation" since I don't know of many classes that use their epic gear in templates. It increases the bottom line, not the top end.