They completely ruined a whole expansion for the horrible Curse campaign. The excuse? Well, not many people ventured into Catacombs anymore. Well same goes for every single other zone now days huh
Hi, I was wondering when are you activating Catacombs again? All of the Dragon Curse chapters have been released already. Some of us miss hunting there (zones, dungeons etc).
Catacombs regions are still under construction and are currently planned for release after Endless Conquest is out. While these areas do and did have lots of great content, much or all of it ran parallel to many other encounters and content in the rest of the world, which contributed to splitting up the game’s population too much.
Catacombs’ re-release will be focused on high-level single-player to group-size encounters that reward *cosmetic* options for existing loot. That said, we have heard your feedback regarding access to the Darkspire instance and will be providing access to the instance only, with patch 1.125!
Please open an Emergency Appeal with a brief description, or PN me the name of the character @Keltorius !
DAoC German Community Admin
Broadsword Online Games Shileahs Camelot-Kompendium - DAoC-Infos auf Deutsch
Shileah of House Dara, the First of Her name, the Unressed, Master of Stickloss, Queen of Inc-Screams, Purge-Fails and lost Line of Sight, Breaker of Mezz, Mother of Doggos
The Catacombs classes are directed to go to Catacombs zones for their Epic Quests.
DAoC German Community Admin
Broadsword Online Games Shileahs Camelot-Kompendium - DAoC-Infos auf Deutsch
Shileah of House Dara, the First of Her name, the Unressed, Master of Stickloss, Queen of Inc-Screams, Purge-Fails and lost Line of Sight, Breaker of Mezz, Mother of Doggos
Sadly, when catacombs re-opens, the 5-10 subscribers that remain will have no care to venture into it. Well. the 25 minstrels with st's may enjoy it.
Enjoy it they certainly will !
"I think what he is doing is good. For a long time Albs not have very good leaders. Natebruner is perfect, his accuracy, his pushing"
HERORIUS
"Nate calling out fights in the Alb public bg has been a recent source of entertainment for me, most of those folks have never heard anyone call targets during US prime." Teddie
"First off I am pretty sure most Mids agree that Albs previous leaders were weak and Nate is actually bringing out action." Impounded
Stop BSing us. Carol, I don't know if your fully informed or just relaying what you are told to say. In 2015 an admin said they were working on revamping catacombs. Here is a copy of the post from may 31, 2015.
""The zones, yes! The quests will depend. We will likely keep some of them but most will be changed or replaced. Stay tuned for the completion of A Dragon’s Curse campaign for the full details on the Catacombs expansion’s areas. In the meantime, it’s disabled for several reasons:
•With the campaign, we’ve re-introduced the aurulite currency and are strictly controlling its economy going forward and so want to limit access to Catacombs areas that dropped it until we’re ready for players to venture into those areas again.
•While some players do enjoy the low level content in the expansion, it had become redundant with the New User Journey and dungeon revamps in the classic-world zones.
•Not only was the content redundant but it spread out the population a bit too much, especially at low levels, which is not good for the health of the game. This is mostly the case for new and lower level players who we want to funnel into shared areas. It’s also true for the number of instances that Catacombs introduced (at all levels) which provide too many options, further diluting the population, while also not being high-quality, engaging encounters due to their sheer number.
•Closing the zones to players allows us to more actively and comprehensively develop and revamp them behind the scenes so that we can provide fewer, but more engaging instances, quests, and world content in the Catacombs expansion areas. Again, stay tuned for more details later this year!""
That was 4 years ago. A whole new mmorpg game can be written in that amount of time. Any half wit can deduce that the company is using lawyerspeak to answer the question. "When are catacombs going to be reopened?"
I personally don't care too much because the game has way more content that I will ever discover by casually playing. I just hate seeing how companies function when asked to admit any kind of fault.
Hi, I was wondering when are you activating Catacombs again? All of the Dragon Curse chapters have been released already. Some of us miss hunting there (zones, dungeons etc).
Catacombs regions are still under construction and are currently planned for release after Endless Conquest is out. While these areas do and did have lots of great content, much or all of it ran parallel to many other encounters and content in the rest of the world, which contributed to splitting up the game’s population too much.
Catacombs’ re-release will be focused on high-level single-player to group-size encounters that reward *cosmetic* options for existing loot. That said, we have heard your feedback regarding access to the Darkspire instance and will be providing access to the instance only, with patch 1.125!
Sorry Carol_Broadsword, your answer is just a bad excuse. I don't care for Darkspire, but I still have some quests open for some of the Catacombs zones and want to finish them. You still can get XP tasks at the border keeps that send you to catacombs zones. And you have to take these tasks and delete them afterwards as you obviously cannot finish them.
The catacombs zones offered really nice quests for your way to lvl 50, we paid for that expansion and cannot play these zones for several years now. "Spreading the population..."blablabla... Population is so thin that you better disable any zones except for starter zone and battlegrounds. Why not just disable all, but the first SI zones in addition to Catacombs? They too have content that is parallel to that in the old world. And i rarely see anyone there except if they are doing their epic quest.
Why not close Nisse et. al. as people are not leveling there anymore?
I get you, but they're not areas being revamped, they already were and aren't individual expansions or areas like Cats is. Delays happen, and while we've had to prioritise we feel it also, I assure you.
Sorry Carol_Broadsword, your answer is just a bad excuse. I don't care for Darkspire, but I still have some quests open for some of the Catacombs zones and want to finish them. You still can get XP tasks at the border keeps that send you to catacombs zones. And you have to take these tasks and delete them afterwards as you obviously cannot finish them.
The catacombs zones offered really nice quests for your way to lvl 50, we paid for that expansion and cannot play these zones for several years now. "Spreading the population..."blablabla... Population is so thin that you better disable any zones except for starter zone and battlegrounds. Why not just disable all, but the first SI zones in addition to Catacombs? They too have content that is parallel to that in the old world. And i rarely see anyone there except if they are doing their epic quest.
Why not close Nisse et. al. as people are not leveling there anymore?
You can delete the quests you still have active, it's not like the inability to complete those quests are hindering you from some monumental accomplishment. If you were around when you paid for that expansion specifically, it has more than been paid for by this time and if you didn't purchase it specifically, then you purchased the game entirely. Either way, the argument that you paid for it carries no real weight, I mean you could use that argument for Caledonia, old Leirvik, etc.
Now I agree that if those areas aren't accessible npc's should be updated to no longer offer quests that send you to inactive areas. I can see how that makes developers look a little lazy or dumb but again, those quests can simply be removed with very little effort. I get what you and others are asking for and there's surely no harm in asking but I don't feel the tone being used, that this is some kind of huge impediment to your ability to play through the game is proper or even realistic especially given all the other areas where their attention is needed.
Sorry Carol_Broadsword, your answer is just a bad excuse. I don't care for Darkspire, but I still have some quests open for some of the Catacombs zones and want to finish them. You still can get XP tasks at the border keeps that send you to catacombs zones. And you have to take these tasks and delete them afterwards as you obviously cannot finish them.
The catacombs zones offered really nice quests for your way to lvl 50, we paid for that expansion and cannot play these zones for several years now. "Spreading the population..."blablabla... Population is so thin that you better disable any zones except for starter zone and battlegrounds. Why not just disable all, but the first SI zones in addition to Catacombs? They too have content that is parallel to that in the old world. And i rarely see anyone there except if they are doing their epic quest.
Why not close Nisse et. al. as people are not leveling there anymore?
You can delete the quests you still have active, it's not like the inability to complete those quests are hindering you from some monumental accomplishment. If you were around when you paid for that expansion specifically, it has more than been paid for by this time and if you didn't purchase it specifically, then you purchased the game entirely. Either way, the argument that you paid for it carries no real weight, I mean you could use that argument for Caledonia, old Leirvik, etc.
Now I agree that if those areas aren't accessible npc's should be updated to no longer offer quests that send you to inactive areas. I can see how that makes developers look a little lazy or dumb but again, those quests can simply be removed with very little effort. I get what you and others are asking for and there's surely no harm in asking but I don't feel the tone being used, that this is some kind of huge impediment to your ability to play through the game is proper or even realistic especially given all the other areas where their attention is needed.
The guy who quit saying the guy who plays has no real weight in his argument. Sounds legit
"I think what he is doing is good. For a long time Albs not have very good leaders. Natebruner is perfect, his accuracy, his pushing"
HERORIUS
"Nate calling out fights in the Alb public bg has been a recent source of entertainment for me, most of those folks have never heard anyone call targets during US prime." Teddie
"First off I am pretty sure most Mids agree that Albs previous leaders were weak and Nate is actually bringing out action." Impounded
Sorry Carol_Broadsword, your answer is just a bad excuse. I don't care for Darkspire, but I still have some quests open for some of the Catacombs zones and want to finish them. You still can get XP tasks at the border keeps that send you to catacombs zones. And you have to take these tasks and delete them afterwards as you obviously cannot finish them.
The catacombs zones offered really nice quests for your way to lvl 50, we paid for that expansion and cannot play these zones for several years now. "Spreading the population..."blablabla... Population is so thin that you better disable any zones except for starter zone and battlegrounds. Why not just disable all, but the first SI zones in addition to Catacombs? They too have content that is parallel to that in the old world. And i rarely see anyone there except if they are doing their epic quest.
Why not close Nisse et. al. as people are not leveling there anymore?
You can delete the quests you still have active, it's not like the inability to complete those quests are hindering you from some monumental accomplishment. If you were around when you paid for that expansion specifically, it has more than been paid for by this time and if you didn't purchase it specifically, then you purchased the game entirely. Either way, the argument that you paid for it carries no real weight, I mean you could use that argument for Caledonia, old Leirvik, etc.
Now I agree that if those areas aren't accessible npc's should be updated to no longer offer quests that send you to inactive areas. I can see how that makes developers look a little lazy or dumb but again, those quests can simply be removed with very little effort. I get what you and others are asking for and there's surely no harm in asking but I don't feel the tone being used, that this is some kind of huge impediment to your ability to play through the game is proper or even realistic especially given all the other areas where their attention is needed.
The guy who quit saying the guy who plays has no real weight in his argument. Sounds legit
About as legit as the person who spends half of his time banned making threads about what is and isn't in the spirit of the game. I understand you're in desperate need of attention but this thread is discussing a specific topic, remain on topic or back to the dustbin that is the video sub-forum with you.
I have to agree with @Sovereign , while it would be nice to access catacombs, they could also say that it's completely out of focus for now, or even never will return. Seems like this is just a reason to bash against the developers, which I kind of understand in some matters, but I would agree on that, that currently Catacombs should be the least important thing to focus on.
I don't know how much savings Broadsword got left, but currently the main and only goal have to be to make changes ASAP to get population up, and serve peoples needs to achieve it. Won't go into detail since it's completely irrelevant to to this topic, but every currently active playerbase has a tolerance range on how low the active population can go, but right now that's the most alarming issue that need resolving, since the effect going to snowball or already has. People started leaving just based on population issues, which will make even more leave, and it is for sure a huge issue.
DAoC has potential, and as we can see it's achievable to build up playerbase, or make people return, but if DAoC live comes to an end, that won't be because of Catacombs was sealed. We have to aim discussions toward making the game healthy, and appealing for players to return right now, and I really wish we can come back to Catacombs issue later.
You can delete the quests you still have active, it's not like the inability to complete those quests are hindering you from some monumental accomplishment. If you were around when you paid for that expansion specifically, it has more than been paid for by this time and if you didn't purchase it specifically, then you purchased the game entirely. Either way, the argument that you paid for it carries no real weight, I mean you could use that argument for Caledonia, old Leirvik, etc.
You see? You can't delete lots of those quests, especially those leading you to the Deadlands and connecting zones. You simply cannot delete them from your journal.
And these are the quests that give you 5-6 bubles of champ-xp each. Without the risk of being rolled by a 6-man stealth-group with bard support and such bullshit. And yes, i paid for the expansions back then they came out. But this doesn't mean that i'm not allowed to play them anymore. I paid full price for all expansions, so it's quite naturally that i want to go there from time to time just to have a way to get champ-xp in a way that doesn't lead me to the frontier or slow-ass xp in classic dungeons. I paid for that in addition to the monthly fee that i'm paying.
I mean... you paid for your windows license several years ago... maybe Microsoft should just disable half of the operating system remotely in addition to disabling the license as your argument that you paid for it carries no real weight...
You can delete the quests you still have active, it's not like the inability to complete those quests are hindering you from some monumental accomplishment. If you were around when you paid for that expansion specifically, it has more than been paid for by this time and if you didn't purchase it specifically, then you purchased the game entirely. Either way, the argument that you paid for it carries no real weight, I mean you could use that argument for Caledonia, old Leirvik, etc.
You see? You can't delete lots of those quests, especially those leading you to the Deadlands and connecting zones. You simply cannot delete them from your journal.
And these are the quests that give you 5-6 bubles of champ-xp each. Without the risk of being rolled by a 6-man stealth-group with bard support and such bullshit. And yes, i paid for the expansions back then they came out. But this doesn't mean that i'm not allowed to play them anymore. I paid full price for all expansions, so it's quite naturally that i want to go there from time to time just to have a way to get champ-xp in a way that doesn't lead me to the frontier or slow-ass xp in classic dungeons. I paid for that in addition to the monthly fee that i'm paying.
I mean... you paid for your windows license several years ago... maybe Microsoft should just disable half of the operating system remotely in addition to disabling the license as your argument that you paid for it carries no real weight...
Paying for software doesn't mean you own it. You paid for the privilege to access content. The company that owns the software has every right to change and/or remove content as they see fit.
"The grab bag isn't for explaining every single class change decision or reasoning or that's all we would ever do." - John_Broadsword
"The type of of dev communication of 30 mins a day updates mentioned here just isn't feasible." - Carol_Broadsword
"Our Studio. Our Rules." - http://www.mythicentertainment.com/
You can delete the quests you still have active, it's not like the inability to complete those quests are hindering you from some monumental accomplishment. If you were around when you paid for that expansion specifically, it has more than been paid for by this time and if you didn't purchase it specifically, then you purchased the game entirely. Either way, the argument that you paid for it carries no real weight, I mean you could use that argument for Caledonia, old Leirvik, etc.
You see? You can't delete lots of those quests, especially those leading you to the Deadlands and connecting zones. You simply cannot delete them from your journal.
And these are the quests that give you 5-6 bubles of champ-xp each. Without the risk of being rolled by a 6-man stealth-group with bard support and such bullshit. And yes, i paid for the expansions back then they came out. But this doesn't mean that i'm not allowed to play them anymore. I paid full price for all expansions, so it's quite naturally that i want to go there from time to time just to have a way to get champ-xp in a way that doesn't lead me to the frontier or slow-ass xp in classic dungeons. I paid for that in addition to the monthly fee that i'm paying.
I mean... you paid for your windows license several years ago... maybe Microsoft should just disable half of the operating system remotely in addition to disabling the license as your argument that you paid for it carries no real weight...
I will agree that all quests should be removable and if there continue to be some quests that are not removable that should've been addressed by now and certainly should be an ongoing update.
However, over time games change and the idea that you should be able to access everything you could at any point in time in the game is ridiculous. As Beetle said, you paid for the right to access the content, nothing more. In no way does your payment for the subscription entitle you to freeze the evolution of the game. Using your example of the a windows license, if I paid for one back in 2000 I also don't expect it to be the same thing in 2019, that's just not in touch with reality.
I will agree that all quests should be removable and if there continue to be some quests that are not removable that should've been addressed by now and certainly should be an ongoing update.
However, over time games change and the idea that you should be able to access everything you could at any point in time in the game is ridiculous. As Beetle said, you paid for the right to access the content, nothing more. In no way does your payment for the subscription entitle you to freeze the evolution of the game. Using your example of the a windows license, if I paid for one back in 2000 I also don't expect it to be the same thing in 2019, that's just not in touch with reality.
There still hasn't really been a good reason given for why the Catacombs zones needed to be blocked off while they worked on the revamp as opposed to just blocking the aurulite dungeons, so this "freezing the evolution of the game" comment is is completely off the mark. The most I've ever seen was the vague mention of it supposedly spreading the playerbase too thin. Has anyone seen an increase in the number of players grouping for 1-35 PvE content since those zones were closed? More players grouping for glass quests? More new players grouping up for dungeons? Were there large numbers of new players trying to level in Catacombs zones then having a bad experience due to it? Because I sure haven't seen it.
If we're so worried about the new player experience then maybe instead of locking off whole expansions' worth of content, we should look into things like ingame class and spec descriptions being wrong due to years of changes shifting classes/specs away from their original identity. The character creation description for Necromaners still talks about them acting through their pet, for example.
A big part of the reason anyone would want to engage with old PvE content like that anymore (or, arguably, resubscribe to the game in general) is out of nostalgia, completely blocking it off is just removing even more of the little incentive there is for these kind of players to stick around.
I get it's going to be revamped or is in the process of, but what does blocking it off until then do? It's not like it's phisicaly under construction haha (don't you have a test server) and if it has to do with controlling you in game economy just change the loot table can't be harder then a simple update (maybe if it's geven for a question reward it's a bit more annoying). I feel reusing a old currency was silly anyway though, unless all the content was coming with it seems a new currency might have just been better?
However, over time games change and the idea that you should be able to access everything you could at any point in time in the game is ridiculous. As Beetle said, you paid for the right to access the content, nothing more. In no way does your payment for the subscription entitle you to freeze the evolution of the game. Using your example of the a windows license, if I paid for one back in 2000 I also don't expect it to be the same thing in 2019, that's just not in touch with reality.
In fact Windows XP is still the same as several years ago. You can install it, and use it. You're not getting any updates for it, true, but you still can use that old system to your delight (if you find drivers for it). Nothing of it is being disabled by Microsoft. Everquest 2 had way more expansions than DaoC ever had (and still gets additional content up to today), and all of that is still accessible, all zones, everything. Same with World of Warcraft.
So yours and Broadswords argument is still invalid. The argument about spreading population is invalid as shutting down these zones didn't help with thickening population or promote grouping of people in other zones at all. Instead most of the people leveling their alts do that solo with battleground quests or up to lvl 35 with classic world quests which with the exception of the mythirian quests are all soloable. And the mythirians are just bought for up to 600 bountypoints with your main character. Controlling Aurulite as a currency just needed to disable task dungeons, nothing more. A revamp of zones could've been done on their internal servers without closing the zones until they are really pushing the update onto live. Comparable what they did to the starter towns like Mularn, Vasudheim, Cotswold, whatever. They didn't shut down these zones due to revamp of the new character experience, instead these zones were always accessible.
Yes, we just license the game, but that doesn't mean that bringing false arguments about closing an entire expansion down is the way to go.
So, why not opening these zones up again?
Revamp? Cannot be it, as the redevelopment of the zones can be done off of the live servers.
Controling spread of players? They still don't group up most of the time as you're leveling so fast these days and it's so few that you basically just need trainers in the portal keeps in the battlegrounds instead of any open world zone, except for the epic quests, otherworldly quest, Cursed quest and the named mobs that drop mandatory items for lvl 50 templates and the dungon that drops alchemy components.
Currency control? Only task dungeons in Catacombs dropped Aurulite.
All arguments pro shutting down the expansion were falsified. So what are the real arguments behind shutting down the Catacombs?
However, over time games change and the idea that you should be able to access everything you could at any point in time in the game is ridiculous. As Beetle said, you paid for the right to access the content, nothing more. In no way does your payment for the subscription entitle you to freeze the evolution of the game. Using your example of the a windows license, if I paid for one back in 2000 I also don't expect it to be the same thing in 2019, that's just not in touch with reality.
In fact Windows XP is still the same as several years ago. You can install it, and use it. You're not getting any updates for it, true, but you still can use that old system to your delight (if you find drivers for it). Nothing of it is being disabled by Microsoft. Everquest 2 had way more expansions than DaoC ever had (and still gets additional content up to today), and all of that is still accessible, all zones, everything. Same with World of Warcraft.
So yours and Broadswords argument is still invalid. The argument about spreading population is invalid as shutting down these zones didn't help with thickening population or promote grouping of people in other zones at all. Instead most of the people leveling their alts do that solo with battleground quests or up to lvl 35 with classic world quests which with the exception of the mythirian quests are all soloable. And the mythirians are just bought for up to 600 bountypoints with your main character. Controlling Aurulite as a currency just needed to disable task dungeons, nothing more. A revamp of zones could've been done on their internal servers without closing the zones until they are really pushing the update onto live. Comparable what they did to the starter towns like Mularn, Vasudheim, Cotswold, whatever. They didn't shut down these zones due to revamp of the new character experience, instead these zones were always accessible.
Yes, we just license the game, but that doesn't mean that bringing false arguments about closing an entire expansion down is the way to go.
So, why not opening these zones up again?
Revamp? Cannot be it, as the redevelopment of the zones can be done off of the live servers.
Controling spread of players? They still don't group up most of the time as you're leveling so fast these days and it's so few that you basically just need trainers in the portal keeps in the battlegrounds instead of any open world zone, except for the epic quests, otherworldly quest, Cursed quest and the named mobs that drop mandatory items for lvl 50 templates and the dungon that drops alchemy components.
Currency control? Only task dungeons in Catacombs dropped Aurulite.
All arguments pro shutting down the expansion were falsified. So what are the real arguments behind shutting down the Catacombs?
BS has already given their rationale. Sounds like you're fishing for an answer that doesn't exist.
"The grab bag isn't for explaining every single class change decision or reasoning or that's all we would ever do." - John_Broadsword
"The type of of dev communication of 30 mins a day updates mentioned here just isn't feasible." - Carol_Broadsword
"Our Studio. Our Rules." - http://www.mythicentertainment.com/
To be honest I am happy the game is not closed completely. Would be lovely to see Catacombs back, but I would say that's the least important issue right now if it even an issue compared. With NF numbers being 25-70 during the day on some realms, even on primetime, I actually agree not sucking more players out NF atm. These numbers like that during a ghost keep (pun intended?) event that brings one of the most powerful item rewards in game.
Since it's legal to shut down a game after 2 weeks you purchased "access" to it, don't get why pull out the paid for it card, it does nothing, and not a valid argument on the subject.
While I don't like the idea of rolling back main server to SI, even that has been suggested by many, so this is simply not the right time to argue about Catacombs, regardless how nice it would be.
I will be here supporting this issue or at least the removal of quests that send there since it can be confusing / frustrating for some, once the game is back on track.
I give up. BS please drop everything you're doing. Stop working on the F2P model, stop working on bug fixes, stop working on making campaigns easier, stop working on balance, stop working on housing bugs, stop working on realm warfare adjustments, and please devote all of your resources to reopening a zone that saw little traffic the years it was active for the two people that for some reason can't enjoy the rest of the game knowing this zone is closed so that they can spend all of a week or so (being generous in my estimation) in that zone and then leave so it then again becomes another abandoned zone.
So many zones are dead in the classic areas. I started on Alb/Bors back in 2002. I rolled a Highlander Armsman starting at Humberton. All those areas aren’t visited much anymore due to all toons starting in the tutorial zone. While I spent time in catacombs for a little bit back in the day I’d rather see classic zones revamped.
I give up. BS please drop everything you're doing. Stop working on the F2P model, stop working on bug fixes, stop working on making campaigns easier, stop working on balance, stop working on housing bugs, stop working on realm warfare adjustments, and please devote all of your resources to reopening a zone that saw little traffic the years it was active for the two people that for some reason can't enjoy the rest of the game knowing this zone is closed so that they can spend all of a week or so (being generous in my estimation) in that zone and then leave so it then again becomes another abandoned zone.
Are you suggesting that Broadsword halted all other development for the game in order to block off the Catacombs zones? Because that would have to be the case if removing the zoning restrictions would also require them to halt all development in order to let people zone into them again. You're right, that absolutely seems like it was a huge waste of Broadsword's resources if that's the case.
But I'm willing to bet it's not, and that you're just making up nonsense here.
I give up. BS please drop everything you're doing. Stop working on the F2P model, stop working on bug fixes, stop working on making campaigns easier, stop working on balance, stop working on housing bugs, stop working on realm warfare adjustments, and please devote all of your resources to reopening a zone that saw little traffic the years it was active for the two people that for some reason can't enjoy the rest of the game knowing this zone is closed so that they can spend all of a week or so (being generous in my estimation) in that zone and then leave so it then again becomes another abandoned zone.
Are you suggesting that Broadsword halted all other development for the game in order to block off the Catacombs zones? Because that would have to be the case if removing the zoning restrictions would also require them to halt all development in order to let people zone into them again. You're right, that absolutely seems like it was a huge waste of Broadsword's resources if that's the case.
But I'm willing to bet it's not, and that you're just making up nonsense here.
No, what I'm saying is the severity of not having access to Catacombs is apparently so great that all other projects should be suspended until it is reopened because apparently the future of the game hinders on a few people having access to zone that prior to being closed off, was already dead.
Let the guy have his opinion he pays just like everyone else. People ruined it by farming in the instances so they just shut down catacombs. It is lame and a lazy way to stop aurlite farming but they want you in [Curse]...
Would really love to see these zones come back. I used to have a lot of fun crawling around these zones. Would also love the option to actually do the Epic Quests for my catacomb classes (Vamp in particular).
I dunno why everyone is so sensitive about having Catacombs back. I mean I honestly love those zones, they are beautiful and fun to just go exploring, but that's the extent of it. There is no necessary quests or gear that we are missing out on. The only thing I can think of it I remember some very cool weapons for skinning.
Maybe some people don't understand Broadsword. They can only do one thing at a time, so let them focus on f2p and getting people back to the game, then worry about cata... seriously
I really liked Catacombs dungeon for their scaling and for them being difficult single player content if you wanted to.
But considering the dwindling amount of subscriptions and the lower financial options that come with that I agree that there are more pressing matters than bringing those back for the 3 people who enjoyed them.
When this game became more about PvP than PvE was when the population died. They could have implemented more ideas for solo, not only group or BG quests, but instead they did PvE strictly geared towards obtaining gear needed for RvR templates.
As much as I hate to say it that heavy snowfall company’s game has that.
That's not actually true @Keltorius. Nearly every expansion that came out was focused on PvE and the game started its long decline between ToA and Catacombs which is also the time WoW was released. The long grind of ToA waned on players and WoW pulled them to something fresh.
The game is a mix between PvE and PvP, but in the founders own words, it was never meant to be competitive in the PvE world. This game was developed to be PvP focused since its inception because that was what Mythic was known for at the time. More PvE elements than PvP have been incorporated into the game over the years but the population declined anyways. It's been made quite clear that PvP, specifically RvR, is the primary reason this game still exists. You can grind or quest or explore in nearly any other MMO; however, you can only have large scale fights between players in DAoC pending CU. GW2 may be the only exception here but its WvW feature receives minimal development time.
"The grab bag isn't for explaining every single class change decision or reasoning or that's all we would ever do." - John_Broadsword
"The type of of dev communication of 30 mins a day updates mentioned here just isn't feasible." - Carol_Broadsword
"Our Studio. Our Rules." - http://www.mythicentertainment.com/
Carol, would you be able to provide an update on the progress that has been made. I understand the Endless Conquest has now been delivered. I am just returning back to the game and always loved playing Catacombs content. Any non canned update on the progression of the work for Catacombs? How quick is the work moving along? Are currently any resources assigned to the task?
Hi, I was wondering when are you activating Catacombs again? All of the Dragon Curse chapters have been released already. Some of us miss hunting there (zones, dungeons etc).
Catacombs regions are still under construction and are currently planned for release after Endless Conquest is out. While these areas do and did have lots of great content, much or all of it ran parallel to many other encounters and content in the rest of the world, which contributed to splitting up the game’s population too much.
Catacombs’ re-release will be focused on high-level single-player to group-size encounters that reward *cosmetic* options for existing loot. That said, we have heard your feedback regarding access to the Darkspire instance and will be providing access to the instance only, with patch 1.125!
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Because then players would get the content they payed for, and that can't happen.
I’m guessing this was the easier solution. It was in one of the patch notes.
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https://darkageofcamelot.com/article/friday-grab-bag-08312018
Broadsword Online Games
Broadsword Online Games
Broadsword Online Games
Shileahs Camelot-Kompendium - DAoC-Infos auf Deutsch
Shileah of House Dara, the First of Her name, the Unressed, Master of Stickloss, Queen of Inc-Screams, Purge-Fails and lost Line of Sight, Breaker of Mezz, Mother of Doggos
I have done a lot of toons Epic quests lines, never once did I have to go into Catacombs. Pretty sure you are referring to non-epic quests.
http://camelot.allakhazam.com/Epic_List.html#c09
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The Catacombs classes are directed to go to Catacombs zones for their Epic Quests.
Broadsword Online Games
Shileahs Camelot-Kompendium - DAoC-Infos auf Deutsch
Shileah of House Dara, the First of Her name, the Unressed, Master of Stickloss, Queen of Inc-Screams, Purge-Fails and lost Line of Sight, Breaker of Mezz, Mother of Doggos
Which toons are you talking about specifically? According to alakazam that’s not true.
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Enjoy it they certainly will !
HERORIUS
"Nate calling out fights in the Alb public bg has been a recent source of entertainment for me, most of those folks have never heard anyone call targets during US prime." Teddie
"First off I am pretty sure most Mids agree that Albs previous leaders were weak and Nate is actually bringing out action." Impounded
Discord me: Natebruner#3781
""The zones, yes! The quests will depend. We will likely keep some of them but most will be changed or replaced. Stay tuned for the completion of A Dragon’s Curse campaign for the full details on the Catacombs expansion’s areas. In the meantime, it’s disabled for several reasons:
•With the campaign, we’ve re-introduced the aurulite currency and are strictly controlling its economy going forward and so want to limit access to Catacombs areas that dropped it until we’re ready for players to venture into those areas again.
•While some players do enjoy the low level content in the expansion, it had become redundant with the New User Journey and dungeon revamps in the classic-world zones.
•Not only was the content redundant but it spread out the population a bit too much, especially at low levels, which is not good for the health of the game. This is mostly the case for new and lower level players who we want to funnel into shared areas. It’s also true for the number of instances that Catacombs introduced (at all levels) which provide too many options, further diluting the population, while also not being high-quality, engaging encounters due to their sheer number.
•Closing the zones to players allows us to more actively and comprehensively develop and revamp them behind the scenes so that we can provide fewer, but more engaging instances, quests, and world content in the Catacombs expansion areas. Again, stay tuned for more details later this year!""
That was 4 years ago. A whole new mmorpg game can be written in that amount of time. Any half wit can deduce that the company is using lawyerspeak to answer the question. "When are catacombs going to be reopened?"
I personally don't care too much because the game has way more content that I will ever discover by casually playing. I just hate seeing how companies function when asked to admit any kind of fault.
https://darkageofcamelot.com/article/friday-grab-bag-08312018
Broadsword Online Games
The catacombs zones offered really nice quests for your way to lvl 50, we paid for that expansion and cannot play these zones for several years now. "Spreading the population..."blablabla... Population is so thin that you better disable any zones except for starter zone and battlegrounds. Why not just disable all, but the first SI zones in addition to Catacombs? They too have content that is parallel to that in the old world. And i rarely see anyone there except if they are doing their epic quest.
Why not close Nisse et. al. as people are not leveling there anymore?
Broadsword Online Games
You can delete the quests you still have active, it's not like the inability to complete those quests are hindering you from some monumental accomplishment. If you were around when you paid for that expansion specifically, it has more than been paid for by this time and if you didn't purchase it specifically, then you purchased the game entirely. Either way, the argument that you paid for it carries no real weight, I mean you could use that argument for Caledonia, old Leirvik, etc.
Now I agree that if those areas aren't accessible npc's should be updated to no longer offer quests that send you to inactive areas. I can see how that makes developers look a little lazy or dumb but again, those quests can simply be removed with very little effort. I get what you and others are asking for and there's surely no harm in asking but I don't feel the tone being used, that this is some kind of huge impediment to your ability to play through the game is proper or even realistic especially given all the other areas where their attention is needed.
The guy who quit saying the guy who plays has no real weight in his argument. Sounds legit
HERORIUS
"Nate calling out fights in the Alb public bg has been a recent source of entertainment for me, most of those folks have never heard anyone call targets during US prime." Teddie
"First off I am pretty sure most Mids agree that Albs previous leaders were weak and Nate is actually bringing out action." Impounded
Discord me: Natebruner#3781
About as legit as the person who spends half of his time banned making threads about what is and isn't in the spirit of the game. I understand you're in desperate need of attention but this thread is discussing a specific topic, remain on topic or back to the dustbin that is the video sub-forum with you.
Me too. I find it annoying that there are so many quests that cannot be completed, because the zone is locked.
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I don't know how much savings Broadsword got left, but currently the main and only goal have to be to make changes ASAP to get population up, and serve peoples needs to achieve it. Won't go into detail since it's completely irrelevant to to this topic, but every currently active playerbase has a tolerance range on how low the active population can go, but right now that's the most alarming issue that need resolving, since the effect going to snowball or already has. People started leaving just based on population issues, which will make even more leave, and it is for sure a huge issue.
DAoC has potential, and as we can see it's achievable to build up playerbase, or make people return, but if DAoC live comes to an end, that won't be because of Catacombs was sealed. We have to aim discussions toward making the game healthy, and appealing for players to return right now, and I really wish we can come back to Catacombs issue later.
Here things happen or major bugs remain in the game for months or even over a year. Many have posted that quests are frustrating.
For me personally it’s the fact that you can only have a very limited number of active quests.
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You see? You can't delete lots of those quests, especially those leading you to the Deadlands and connecting zones. You simply cannot delete them from your journal.
And these are the quests that give you 5-6 bubles of champ-xp each. Without the risk of being rolled by a 6-man stealth-group with bard support and such bullshit. And yes, i paid for the expansions back then they came out. But this doesn't mean that i'm not allowed to play them anymore. I paid full price for all expansions, so it's quite naturally that i want to go there from time to time just to have a way to get champ-xp in a way that doesn't lead me to the frontier or slow-ass xp in classic dungeons. I paid for that in addition to the monthly fee that i'm paying.
I mean... you paid for your windows license several years ago... maybe Microsoft should just disable half of the operating system remotely in addition to disabling the license as your argument that you paid for it carries no real weight...
Paying for software doesn't mean you own it. You paid for the privilege to access content. The company that owns the software has every right to change and/or remove content as they see fit.
"The type of of dev communication of 30 mins a day updates mentioned here just isn't feasible." - Carol_Broadsword
"Our Studio. Our Rules." - http://www.mythicentertainment.com/
I will agree that all quests should be removable and if there continue to be some quests that are not removable that should've been addressed by now and certainly should be an ongoing update.
However, over time games change and the idea that you should be able to access everything you could at any point in time in the game is ridiculous. As Beetle said, you paid for the right to access the content, nothing more. In no way does your payment for the subscription entitle you to freeze the evolution of the game. Using your example of the a windows license, if I paid for one back in 2000 I also don't expect it to be the same thing in 2019, that's just not in touch with reality.
There still hasn't really been a good reason given for why the Catacombs zones needed to be blocked off while they worked on the revamp as opposed to just blocking the aurulite dungeons, so this "freezing the evolution of the game" comment is is completely off the mark. The most I've ever seen was the vague mention of it supposedly spreading the playerbase too thin. Has anyone seen an increase in the number of players grouping for 1-35 PvE content since those zones were closed? More players grouping for glass quests? More new players grouping up for dungeons? Were there large numbers of new players trying to level in Catacombs zones then having a bad experience due to it? Because I sure haven't seen it.
If we're so worried about the new player experience then maybe instead of locking off whole expansions' worth of content, we should look into things like ingame class and spec descriptions being wrong due to years of changes shifting classes/specs away from their original identity. The character creation description for Necromaners still talks about them acting through their pet, for example.
A big part of the reason anyone would want to engage with old PvE content like that anymore (or, arguably, resubscribe to the game in general) is out of nostalgia, completely blocking it off is just removing even more of the little incentive there is for these kind of players to stick around.
In fact Windows XP is still the same as several years ago. You can install it, and use it. You're not getting any updates for it, true, but you still can use that old system to your delight (if you find drivers for it). Nothing of it is being disabled by Microsoft. Everquest 2 had way more expansions than DaoC ever had (and still gets additional content up to today), and all of that is still accessible, all zones, everything. Same with World of Warcraft.
So yours and Broadswords argument is still invalid. The argument about spreading population is invalid as shutting down these zones didn't help with thickening population or promote grouping of people in other zones at all. Instead most of the people leveling their alts do that solo with battleground quests or up to lvl 35 with classic world quests which with the exception of the mythirian quests are all soloable. And the mythirians are just bought for up to 600 bountypoints with your main character. Controlling Aurulite as a currency just needed to disable task dungeons, nothing more. A revamp of zones could've been done on their internal servers without closing the zones until they are really pushing the update onto live. Comparable what they did to the starter towns like Mularn, Vasudheim, Cotswold, whatever. They didn't shut down these zones due to revamp of the new character experience, instead these zones were always accessible.
Yes, we just license the game, but that doesn't mean that bringing false arguments about closing an entire expansion down is the way to go.
So, why not opening these zones up again?
Revamp? Cannot be it, as the redevelopment of the zones can be done off of the live servers.
Controling spread of players? They still don't group up most of the time as you're leveling so fast these days and it's so few that you basically just need trainers in the portal keeps in the battlegrounds instead of any open world zone, except for the epic quests, otherworldly quest, Cursed quest and the named mobs that drop mandatory items for lvl 50 templates and the dungon that drops alchemy components.
Currency control? Only task dungeons in Catacombs dropped Aurulite.
All arguments pro shutting down the expansion were falsified. So what are the real arguments behind shutting down the Catacombs?
BS has already given their rationale. Sounds like you're fishing for an answer that doesn't exist.
"The type of of dev communication of 30 mins a day updates mentioned here just isn't feasible." - Carol_Broadsword
"Our Studio. Our Rules." - http://www.mythicentertainment.com/
Since it's legal to shut down a game after 2 weeks you purchased "access" to it, don't get why pull out the paid for it card, it does nothing, and not a valid argument on the subject.
While I don't like the idea of rolling back main server to SI, even that has been suggested by many, so this is simply not the right time to argue about Catacombs, regardless how nice it would be.
I will be here supporting this issue or at least the removal of quests that send there since it can be confusing / frustrating for some, once the game is back on track.
Are you suggesting that Broadsword halted all other development for the game in order to block off the Catacombs zones? Because that would have to be the case if removing the zoning restrictions would also require them to halt all development in order to let people zone into them again. You're right, that absolutely seems like it was a huge waste of Broadsword's resources if that's the case.
But I'm willing to bet it's not, and that you're just making up nonsense here.
No, what I'm saying is the severity of not having access to Catacombs is apparently so great that all other projects should be suspended until it is reopened because apparently the future of the game hinders on a few people having access to zone that prior to being closed off, was already dead.
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Epic is given for free now via the King and was recently boosted to be pretty amazing.
Maybe some people don't understand Broadsword. They can only do one thing at a time, so let them focus on f2p and getting people back to the game, then worry about cata... seriously
But considering the dwindling amount of subscriptions and the lower financial options that come with that I agree that there are more pressing matters than bringing those back for the 3 people who enjoyed them.
As much as I hate to say it that heavy snowfall company’s game has that.
The game is a mix between PvE and PvP, but in the founders own words, it was never meant to be competitive in the PvE world. This game was developed to be PvP focused since its inception because that was what Mythic was known for at the time. More PvE elements than PvP have been incorporated into the game over the years but the population declined anyways. It's been made quite clear that PvP, specifically RvR, is the primary reason this game still exists. You can grind or quest or explore in nearly any other MMO; however, you can only have large scale fights between players in DAoC pending CU. GW2 may be the only exception here but its WvW feature receives minimal development time.
"The type of of dev communication of 30 mins a day updates mentioned here just isn't feasible." - Carol_Broadsword
"Our Studio. Our Rules." - http://www.mythicentertainment.com/
Edit: oh, its albs.
Carol, would you be able to provide an update on the progress that has been made. I understand the Endless Conquest has now been delivered. I am just returning back to the game and always loved playing Catacombs content. Any non canned update on the progression of the work for Catacombs? How quick is the work moving along? Are currently any resources assigned to the task?
Thank you.