[MUD-Dev] Interesting DAoC Poll

[Dave Shepherd]

Long time lurker drawn out of the shadows.  Please allow me to offer my =
opinion:

Azeraab wrote:
>> From: Vincent Archer <archer at frmug.org> 

>>>   Realm Point Reward System                 2218  32.64%
>>>   More Quests & Magical Items               2184  32.14%
>>>   More Tradeskills and Player Made Items    1174  17.28%
>>>   More Character & NPC Models/Looks         1219  17.94%
 
>> Judging by the (non-representative, but highly vocal) crowd at
>> VNboards a rather high proportion of the people are approching
>> Dark Age of Camelot as a primarily PvE game, and are not "really"
>> interested in the PvP aspects. They clamor for more content, more
>> content, more content (quests, items, and sometimes areas), and
>> don't care much about RvRc$.

...

> Tradeskills seem to be nothing more than a money sink for those
> optimists who believe someday player crafted gear might be as good
> as magical monster drops.

Tradeskills, are not a money sink for the crafter per se - he makes
a profit from consignments given to him by NPCs until he is high
enough in skill to make items similar or better than the best store
bought items (in fact he can earn many times more coin than his xp
seeking peers).  He can then use player trades to supplement his
skilling by setting a suitable margin (while still undercutting
store prices).  The current perceived problem regarding drops vs
crafted items is down to the stat bonuses that most drops carry.
Drops are always of a lower Quality than crafted items, this
outweighs the minor bonuses that drops have but because of the lewt
mindset that is now so deeply embedded in worlds like EQ, the
players want (or is it need?) bonuses.  It doesn't help that all the
crafted items look identical regardless of level - a copper sword
looks like a carbide sword looks like a sapphire sword.  Mythic have
said they will implement a suitable spellcrafting skill to grant
bonuses to player crafted items and this hopefully will swing more
players towards the appreciation of these superior items, this you
will notice is also asked for by 49.42% of the poll participants if
you want to play with statistics.  As an aside, if you critised
their tradeskills for being a bolt-on module that does not tie in
with any other part of the game - I would agree with you.

You bring up many points, I will try to comment on each of them:

> RvR poorly implemented, it feels untested and thrown together.

They do have a long way to go. There is some structure to it, but
needs a lot of work.

> DaoC violates at least 7 of the 10 of the rules for viable pvp
> system.

There are only 10?  I would have thought there were more than 10,
and perhaps more than one ruleset for viable PvP.

> Most of the keeps are indefensible and guard nothing.

Taking over a keep in an enemy realm reduces the number of defenders
at the Relic keeps and capturing a Relic grants you bonuses over
other Realms.  Sounds like a good start for promoting RvR.  They
clearly have a long way to go with adding more meaning to the
frontier but they do recognise this.

> To spend 20+ minutes traveling to the nearest bindpoint to the
> enemy frontier is another barrier to getting people involved.

If you could respawn right next to the area you are defending then
you probably would have impenetrable keeps.

> I dont blame people for not being interested in a PvP game where u
> can be killed in 1 hit by someone you never see, or spend the
> entire battle unable to move or fight because mezmerize spells are
> virtually unresistable, and dont even break when you are being
> hit.

DAoC is level based, and with such a stratification of power
combined with the inherited PvE bias you will always have this
problem.  There is not much in the way of player skills (bar timing,
movement etc.), almost all the power resides within the character.
A high level ranger will easily kill low levels who venture out into
the frontier.  He expects to, because he has invested a serious
amount of time into building his character.  Those he kills lose no
xp, no items, no coin.  If they insist on returning to his hunting
ground to provide him with even more Realm points then you can
hardly point to design issues to excuse their stupidity.  Although I
would prefer RvR engagements to last longer than they currently do,
to allow support classes the time to actually support.

Character imbalances get ironed out as thousands of players stretch
and sometimes break the design envelope.  Yes, mez/stun is perceived
to be a problem (FYI being hit breaks mez).  Yes, some classes have
found their role in RvR much more quickly than others (like rangers,
hunters etc.)  Yes, some classes need a lot more work before they
can become useful in RvR.

DAoC has a long way to go and they are the first to admit that.
Mythic have taken a few small steps, perhaps as many as they could
afford to take in this niche? PvP market.  I hope they do well, not
just for them, but also for those designers that build on DAoC.

Regards,

Dave Shepherd
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