First off, I'd like to say hello and say a bit about myself.


I'm a pretty big fan of MMO's. Ironically, the first MMO I ever played was The Realm (ironic because that game is way before my time)... and moved to Final Fantasy XI, Runescape, Guild Wars, World of Warcraft, Lord of the Rings Online, and Age of Conan from there. So, that's been about six years of my life now. Not all at once or for cut and dry periods of time, mind you... anyone who plays MMOs understands that you go through hot and cold periods. Recently, I had gotten in to LOTRO (again) but found it missing something, so I went back to WoW. I like WoW. It's got "it." But I want to try something new, and DAoC appeared in the list of things EA owns - I read Wikipedia a lot, so that was my exposure. I've seen it in stores, years ago, and never really paid too much attention to it. Naturally, I've heard it about, too. Not much, though.


Anyways, I realize this is already approaching essay length, so I'll stop the introduction and get to what I wanted to ask. I figured I'd head straight to the people instead of poke around myself. That being said, I apologize for obvious or easily answered questions. I'll probably find some of this in a bit on my own, but this will be a good place to keep track of everything. Pardon my laziness, eh? Anyhow:


-----You have a choice. The short or long version. If you want the short version, see directly below. If you want the more in-depth version, skip to the next section. Choose your own adventure forum posts at their best!


--------Tell me about these topics:

*Cost

*Community

*Guild Structure (how’s it work, what can you do?)

*Graphics

*Ease of Entry (will I fit in quick?)

*Lag Tolerance (my Internet sucks!)

------------------------------------------


You are a brave soul for picking the long version. Here you are:


*What's the subscription cost?


*How complex is the game? Is it difficult? Hard to get in to?


*How long does it take to reach maximum level? For the average player? How about a motivated one? What’s the endgame like?


*Economy; broken or still functional? In other words, will I need to have a bajillion of the game’s currency to do anything? Or is it still “reasonable?” What about “premium” items… you know, paying extra for in-game stuff? While I’ve had mixed experience with that, I honestly prefer when you can’t pay your way up.


*My Internet connection is, for lack of a better way to put it, just crap. It’s “high speed…” but not necessarily great. I think I downloaded the client at 197kb/s average, and that’s fast for me (it IS 1:20am right now, so that helps). I don’t have terrible problems with WoW or any other MMO I’ve played… but I’m curious how much lag tolerance there is in DAoC.


*How’s the community? I’ve heard there’s only one super-server, which is kind of nice… we’re all in it together, right? How hard is it to come in, as an outsider; a new guy, and fit in?


*How are the graphics? The screenshots I’ve seen have been of varying quality. I don’t mean the pictures themselves, but the graphics they depict. I know the game is old; not expecting to have next-gen graphics or anything (plus it’s an MMO; you don’t play those for graphics).


*Strictly from an “appeal” perspective, how easy would it be to get my friends in to this? I love playing online games with my friends, especially MMOs. Had some killer times in WoW and LOTRO with my best friend and girlfriend, but I’m not sure they’d take to older games the same way I do. Opinions?


*Okay, guilds… the way they’ve been described, from what I’ve read, sounds pretty awesome. I won’t lie, I love the organizational and functional aspects of being in a guild. Assigning roles, being cooperative, having shared structures / goals, etc. DAoC seems to have all of that, and a much greater emphasis on it than even Guild Wars or LOTRO (both of which have quite a few systems for guilds/kinships in place). How in-depth are guilds, really? And how do the people who currently play make use of guilds? I could see it being tight-knit or basically dead at this point.


I’ll just apologize now and pray to the Gods of Flame that you all are in to reading. If not, well, I’m sorry. Guess I’ll be dead. Haha. Aside from that, I really appreciate anyone who takes the time to answer any or all of my questions. I know there’s a lot, and I know it’s in-depth… but hey, it’s how I roll. Thanks again, times a billion.


~Scratch

 

-----signature-----

Ah, the short version. Good choice! Thanks for the reply, validates what I generally expect from MMOs. I've got everything all patched up and will take care of my trial account shortly.


~Scratch

The complexity in terms of how to gear and play your character is fairly high -- you have a lot of options, and some significant tradeoffs to make. You will be familiar with choosing a "spec" for your character, but there are also a lot of tactical options which can be added by using gear with unique /use abilities. You can start with some basic recommendations from the various class forums, and then once you learn your play style, the game is very deep in giving you choices for customizing or optimizing it.





There are no micro-payments. As for in-game economy, it will take a *lot* of currency for some of the most premium items, but none of those are strictly necessary, they're just expensive because the coin is out there. It's not like WoW where there were one, maybe two best items for every slot -- you have dozens of viable choices, so you can template to your budget.





My favorite part about DAOC's guild system are the alliances, actually -- up to 20 guilds can band together to form one. That's one of the things I missed most when I tried WoW; I really liked having that larger community always available outside my guild as well.

 

-----signature-----

Thanks for the reply! Sounds good. I've tried the game out and find it interesting. It holds my interest, at least... not a bad thing. Seems like the complexity is there. Takes a bit of getting used to, but I'm starting to pick up questing a bit better... having to read is a first. xP


Oh, and something I probably should've asked before: what's a good starting class? I picked Armsman... usually the 'warrior' class is a good one to start out with. Think I'll be okay with this? Thanks!

Arms is pretty straight forward. That should be a decent introductory class.

 

-----signature-----

*What's the subscription cost?

Roundabout $15 a month. However I caution you that many people believe you need a second account (buff bot) to compete. This is a widely accepted practice, as the PvE in DAoC favors having a second account as well. I maintain that it is not necessary, and have never paid for a second account in all my years of DAoC.

*How complex is the game? Is it difficult? Hard to get in to?

Yes and no. From your diverse background I'm assuming that you're very familiar with different MMOs, so the learning curve should be much less severe for you than for someone who has played no games or only played WoW. That being said, this game does have an... imposing learning curve. I hesitate to say steep, because when you're starting at the bottom the curve looks much steeper than it actually as.

*How long does it take to reach maximum level? For the average player? How about a motivated one? What’s the endgame like?

For the average player, no more than 24 hours of played time. For the motivated player, it can be done half that time or less. Keep in mind that DAoC is entirely about the endgame content (mostly the PvP), so while this seems like a short trip to the maximum level, there is still plenty of endgame PvE content to keep you occupied when you're not PvPing (or the other way around).

*Economy; broken or still functional? In other words, will I need to have a bajillion of the game’s currency to do anything? Or is it still “reasonable?” What about “premium” items… you know, paying extra for in-game stuff? While I’ve had mixed experience with that, I honestly prefer when you can’t pay your way up.

Before I answer this, I want to give you a quick overview of the way gear works in DAoC. There are hard caps for all your stats and attributes. The idea is to come up with an item template that maximizes your characters potential. That being said, the basic idea is to use the best drops and quest rewards from the world, and use player crafted gear (which you can enchant with SPECIFIC bonuses) to fill the holes.

So, is the economy broken? Some would say that, yes, it is, if you're buying your entire template. I can tell you that you can play your entire DAoC career and only have to spend a small amount of money on player-crafted gear. Most drops are easily attainable, even for the casual player, and player crafted gear/enchanting (called spellcrafting in DAoC) is cheap.

*My Internet connection is, for lack of a better way to put it, just crap. It’s “high speed…” but not necessarily great. I think I downloaded the client at 197kb/s average, and that’s fast for me (it IS 1:20am right now, so that helps). I don’t have terrible problems with WoW or any other MMO I’ve played… but I’m curious how much lag tolerance there is in DAoC.

197 kb/s? You'll be fine. I get about 16.5 kb/s at my school if it isn't passed 2 am.

*How’s the community? I’ve heard there’s only one super-server, which is kind of nice… we’re all in it together, right? How hard is it to come in, as an outsider; a new guy, and fit in?

Not hard. There are a plethora of recruiting guilds on all servers. It shouldn't be a problem.

*How are the graphics? The screenshots I’ve seen have been of varying quality. I don’t mean the pictures themselves, but the graphics they depict. I know the game is old; not expecting to have next-gen graphics or anything (plus it’s an MMO; you don’t play those for graphics).

Yeah this game has been out for a long time but the graphics were updated with one of the more recent expansions, so the models are modern and polished. Worth noting here is that every single gamer I've ever showed a DAoC video to (and that's a lot of gamers) has commented that it has BY FAR the best spell effects out of any MMO.

*Strictly from an “appeal” perspective, how easy would it be to get my friends in to this? I love playing online games with my friends, especially MMOs. Had some killer times in WoW and LOTRO with my best friend and girlfriend, but I’m not sure they’d take to older games the same way I do. Opinions?

This is the best PvP MMO on the market. (And that's not just one players opinion either. Many well known game reviewers have called DAoC the best PvP MMO available.) If that isn't enough to entice your friends then I don't know, they must not be into PvP.

*Okay, guilds… the way they’ve been described, from what I’ve read, sounds pretty awesome. I won’t lie, I love the organizational and functional aspects of being in a guild. Assigning roles, being cooperative, having shared structures / goals, etc. DAoC seems to have all of that, and a much greater emphasis on it than even Guild Wars or LOTRO (both of which have quite a few systems for guilds/kinships in place). How in-depth are guilds, really? And how do the people who currently play make use of guilds? I could see it being tight-knit or basically dead at this point.

It exists at both ends of the spectrum really. A guild is what the people in it make of it. If it has good leadership and motivated players, DAoC provides all the tools necessary to run a well-organized guild with clearly defined roles and objectives. But if no one cares about that kind of thing, a guild can just be an extra chat channel.

 

-----signature-----

Welcome!

 

-----signature-----

As others have mentioned there is a subscription cost, but the initial game and/or expansions do not need to be purchased (The game and all the Xpacs are free to install). The download/install from Mythic includes all expansion packs.


Try the free 14-day trial.

 

-----signature-----

Armsman is a good class and quite simple to play. At higher levels, as with all characters, a few more spells are added in addition to Master Levels.

If you plan on sticking with the armsman I recommend playing caster class a few levels just to get a feel for how the interrupts work. DAoC has hard interrupts, unlike WoW, where you must re-cast the spell instead of just a longer cast time.

 

-----signature-----