TOA would have been one of the best expansions to a MMORPG in MMORPG history...IF...all the abilities and equipment would have only functioned in PVE zones. It would have added a ton of depth to the pve side of the game (which was and still is lacking) without hurting the pvp side.

 

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NF

Added much more variety to RvR.

ToA

Interesting and challenging PvE. Never should have had to level artifacts and bonuses should have been lower.

SI

Interesting zones, more challenging mobs. New classes/races were good although caused some problems.

Darkness Rising

Champ weapons were a good easy to get decent weapon, champion levels added to a character without being OP'd. Mounts.

Catacombs

Great for levelling but it introduced the most ridiculous class in the game, Warlocks.

Foundations

Personally I didn't need a house, I just wanted more vault space. The ME was a great addition as well but we didn't need a new zone for it. I personally rate it low but overall it should probably be higher.

LoTM

I hate RvR dungeons, after I levelled my first 50 I rarely ever went back to DF so I rarely went into the Lab. Mytherians were a bad idea, it completely eliminated a balancing mechanic of the game. Maulers are meh. Some people don't like cows, I couldn't care less.

Shrouded Isles: Great amount of content, while the structure behind the new zones followed a similar pattern - the realms still felt very unique. Most of the important new items were easy enough to get, the epic dungeons were difficult, full of rare items, but weren't too overpowered.

Darkness Rising: Not exactly the biggest expansion, but a nice amount of content. Some of the quests felt a bit too similar across the realms, but it wasn't too bad. Champion levels gave certain classes a few additional tools which mostly aren't overpowering.

Foundations: Much needed extra inventory slots, a great way to personalise your character with a house. The only annoying thing with this expansion at the time was the lack of merchant search (which was eventually added), then the lack of cluster merchant search (added again), and the fact that everyone crafted in their houses and left the capital cities dead (now fixed).

Labyrinth of the Minotaur: I enjoyed the continuation of champion levels, the additional quests, the idea of another mixed RvR/PvE zone, but the graphical requirements for the zone just makes the place far too laggy. The design of the labyrinth should've been a bit easier to allow realms to avoid each other a bit more, instead of forcing everyone to confront each other in a central zone unless you can port elsewhere. Darkness Falls got it right, Labyrinth wasn't so great.

Catacombs: Far too many new zones added which are rarely used. Task dungeons are awful for the community feeling on a server if everyone is hidden away inside them. The mob density for Catacombs is absolutely great, but it's yet another bunch of zones for 1-50 all over again.

New Frontiers: Mythic took the worst aspect of RvR (boring siege with siege engines) and made it the biggest feature, instead of concentrating on the players being the most important part of a siege. Whilst DAoC needed some updated action for the frontier zones, they took it too far. The huge NF zone requires much larger server populations, which forced clustering too soon.

Trials of Atlantis: It's an absolute shame to rank this expansion as last, because the amount of content in this expansion is absolutely huge. However this is the problem with it, perhaps if ToA was just master levels alone it could've been a more polished expansion, but added artifacts, forced farming for artifact scrolls, levelling of artifacts in the most obscure places, it turned DAoC from something fun into a second job. If ToA was just MLs, along with all the needed battlegroup features which were added after the release (grant credit), it could've been a much better expansion. Although this was ultimately the start of where they just pushed the same content to three realms for a single expansion - each realm losing uniqueness.

ToA was also a huge part of the min-maxing. Whilst it was going on before ToA, adding a huge bunch of uber items which gave a considerable advantage to those who used them just enforced the fact that you had to get the same items just to be able to compete.

The Positive Expansions:

Shrouded Isles
This one seems to be almost a unanimous favorite. The game really needed more land mass and areas for players to PvE and level up. The new zones were done very well. And the epic dungeons were a great addition. Some of the new classes a bit OP'ed though.

Darkness Rising
Adding player mounts makes this the second best expansion. We waited years for this feature.

Catacombs
New character models and graphics (I liked, some didn't). New zones and the introduction of instancing. More OP'ed classes.


The Neutral Expansions:

Labyrinth of the Minotaur
The new PvP dungeon was great. The new race and class however really brought this expansion down in my eyes.

Foundations
Player housing and a market system were nice and players needed something. However I think a lot of mistakes were done with the design and decisions.

New Frontiers
This expansion also added much needed change, however I don't think it was the right kind of change.


The Negative Expansions:

Trials of Atlantis
The problem with the expansion is it had too much of an EQ feel to it and DAOC players were not EQ players. Originally the master levels were a major pain to run through, some of the encounters were just downright epics pains in the asses. Some encounters were bugged, causing an entire battlegroup of players to have wasted an evening. And gathering rare scrolls and leveling artifacts only on certain mobs or only at night was about as much fun as watching paint dry.

Mythic put a lot of work into the expansion and it is very much evident and I think it would make any EQer giddy with joy. But the expansion gave the impression Mythic was trying to steal EQ players and make DAOC more of a PvE game and that was a turn off to many of the existing DAOC players and RvR crowd.

It took Mythic years to address many of the issues the player base had with the expansion. These days it's pretty docile.

/agree

ToA was nearly a great expansion.
The only thing wrong with it was that it ruined RvR.
If all the ToA abilities had been disabled in RvR zones it would have been an awesome expansion.

I feel I'm going to have a stick the boot into SI somewhat - a;though yes it was the best purchased expansion but:


SI introduced epic non=casual dungeons that took lots of planning, big groups and often an age to divide the loot afterwards; it was no longer 'casual' PvE . And you often seemed 'a long way' from the frontier. As a result a significant number of people saw SI as a serious move away from RvR; DAoC moved much close to EQ. (And again putting things into context EQ wasn't that far away from launching the very significant LDoN).


Europe took an initial 20-25% player population loss when SI came out.


Numbers recovered - the population in those days was increasing - but post SI the game was not the same.


So yes SI the best but ... would DAoC have fared better if it hadn't bothered?

1.Shrouded Isles - One of the best expansions, EVER, it was fantastic; it added almost another 30-50% to the PvE game. Added some decent classes to the game.

2.Darkness Rising - This would have been a perfect 2nd expansion to the game. It added the awesome new weapons, that looked awesome as hell. Plus the champ levels and bonus quests really did some wonders for game play.

3.Foundations - DAoC still has like the best housing system in the game world; most games still haven't grasped this concept.

4.Labyrinth of the Minotaur - The addition of the new items, and rvr area was a great idea. Myths really helped imbalance this game, as well as giving the first all three realm class (gayyyy).

5.Catacombs - Love/Hate with this thing. I LOVE new quests that help the grind, new PvE, new factions and new items... what I hate is the load screen between each map, the classes introduced, the non-introduction of underground cross RvR (even if it would only be like DS or something).

6.New Frontiers - Having all three realms look the same; sucks. (build wise). There are really few points like Emain anymore; unless a realm owns crim... then you can get a huge action area between the bowl/dc bridge.

7.Trials of Atlantis - Expansion generally rated in the top ten worst expansions ever made in almost every poll, for good reason. It made the game unplayable for casual players... and the items it introduced could make or break fights.

 

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/bump

 

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If they had done si -> darkness rising and left it at that, this game would be great.

 

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How was this fixed and when?


This was THE single worst aspect of housing. They should have never allowed materials merchants in houses IMO as it was one more nail in the social aspect of the game. Houses did still provide value for Tropies, Salvaging, Teleport Merchants, "Porch" Merchants, and vaults. I thought they should have had set aside different areas for the different crafts (since the cities could get laggy)