I wasn't trying to represent everything that was wrong with TOA in a single sentence. That horse has been beaten so much, that I'm pretty sure I didn't really need to elaborate on how the players felt about it.

ONly the most blind fanbois think TOA was a good thing - i.e. the 2% of the original players who stayed with the game. Not only did it pull people out of rvr for a year, it was a bug ridden mess, it wrecked game balance and it created an elite few who could roll 10x their numbers. A horrible, horrible expansion.

Well I certainly didn't say anything about TOA being a good thing.

I think something that doesn't get brought up is that casual players like pvp. The problem with many pvp games is how big the gear gap becomes. When you had pugs of casual gamers dying in seconds with no chance of killing even one person in the hardcore 8 man then of course you will not be seeing casual gamers out pvping even though they might have wanted to participate.

If the game had stayed true to its original design and encouraged rvr and not 8v8 or 1v1 and not allowed top end gear to put players in almost god mode to casual players then this game would not be down to the small hardcore population it currently has.

The reason 8mans could take out casual players with virtually no risk had nothing to do with them having better gear than the casual player.

As for the OP: The game is old and nothing will significantly increase the player base. What keeps the game alive is RvR, and he is right; it is why people keep coming back to it even after having been gone for years. It's good to know that they actually realize that.

 

-----signature-----

I completely disagree with your first comment. Go talk to people starting the game for the first time without access to crafting friends and plat.

Thanks angryranger. We all know that teamwork and skill play an important part, but when someone is hitting his opponent twice as hard or casting twice as fast because of the gear he is wearing that is not fun pvp. From what I remember from when toa first came out mythic envisioned only a few players having artifacts? And they thought this would be fun for the players without the artifacts?

I respect what he said but I wanted to smack him in the mouth when he started talking about Realm Pride lol, wtf was he thinking?

 

-----signature-----

I have to aggree with both sides. I feel that established players with cooperation, communication, sound tactics, and an understanding of the skills and abilities available to the various classes of each realm have WAY more to do with success than having the best gear. Yes, they maybe be able to hit harder and faster than the casual player in all epic gear and jewelry, but even if those templates (or lack thereof) were reversed, the experienced player is still going to mop the floor with the casual one thanks to tactical advantage.

It is not just about the crafting friends and plat, but it helps.....eventually, if they stick with the game long enough.

 

-----signature-----

<<There's a disconnect between his claimed focus on rvr and the news they bring>>


I think I would go even further than Angryranger's (spot on) point and say that the disconnect has been there since day 1.


I can remember MJ - and I think MF - on various forums pre-launch talking about guilds being able to have there own keeps; about lines of bowmen firing at the other realm from behind a protective line of fighters, about magic (especially earth magic) being used to undermine walls ... it was a heady stuff.


The concept of RvR was at its peak pre-launch!


So it went downhill from there when Mythic - as MJ said - choose to pursue the EQ1 nodel of regular xpacs (and I happened to look the other night and found that EQ1 was on its 17th xpac, 17). It still had parts of the concept however; guilds were nothing new for example and anyone from EQ was used to participating in guilds to do the major quests / raids etc. But in DAoC they always seemed to have a realm purpose.


Every xpac moved it further away and - the number 1 problem imo with ToA when it launched was that it was a bugfest. Forget the PvE focus the expansion was largely unplayable.


today the realm concept is probably exemplified by - DF Online maybe? - allied guild forming a 'realm'. It hasn't really existed in DAoC for a long time now.