I remember when...
I remember a time of great guild groups that went out and fought for the realm in the old frontiers...
I remember massive battles that lasted for hours for the realm....
I've been away for several years, and have been playing the past couple of days on this caledonia event, not a bad idea...
But...
I also remember a time in which players exploited hacked and crossrealmed and people at mythic refused to do anything about it despite the community complaining. After playing in prime time with this super powered lag-casting, macroing, radar using alb group... I remember the bad times more than I do the good times.
You see your job at Broadsword is to provide a game that is enjoyable to the more than one group. Enjoyable to more than one realm even. You are failing miserably at this. Even worse, after having been in groups for hours with people, I am finding out that when the game was owned by Mythic, they gave a program to certain people to run that would shut down cheating accounts. BUT I am told you won't allow people to run it anymore.... That's pretty bad if you knew what your job is. I wonder how many old players like myself, logged in to try an event, and were reminded only of the bad times...
Broadsword.... Do better.
I remember massive battles that lasted for hours for the realm....
I've been away for several years, and have been playing the past couple of days on this caledonia event, not a bad idea...
But...
I also remember a time in which players exploited hacked and crossrealmed and people at mythic refused to do anything about it despite the community complaining. After playing in prime time with this super powered lag-casting, macroing, radar using alb group... I remember the bad times more than I do the good times.
You see your job at Broadsword is to provide a game that is enjoyable to the more than one group. Enjoyable to more than one realm even. You are failing miserably at this. Even worse, after having been in groups for hours with people, I am finding out that when the game was owned by Mythic, they gave a program to certain people to run that would shut down cheating accounts. BUT I am told you won't allow people to run it anymore.... That's pretty bad if you knew what your job is. I wonder how many old players like myself, logged in to try an event, and were reminded only of the bad times...
Broadsword.... Do better.
Comments
Why would I subscribe to your game when you still allow cheating that effects everyone else's ability to enjoy or have fun in your game? And a bunch of other people probably felt the same way.
The game needs marketing and distribution. Its lacking both while waiting for its player base to slowly die off IRL.
The other problem that seems to be lingering is people really have no idea what is considered "cheating" and try to lop all macro / gaming mouse use into this category. It's just not realistic 20+ years later to expect an evolving game to adhere to tech standards of 2001. This subset of players would be better off leaving the game TBH. Its outright idiotic sticking with a game for 20+ years and not being willing to spend 1 hour and 0 extra dollars learning how to modernize to the current ruleset. Personal use macros were legalized a good while back in a producers letter. Adding native support for them in game is something they want to do. Sure, there are cheaters out there but make sure they are really "cheating".
Did you read what I wrote at all? Because it looks like you came in to say something completely different.
But why PAY $$$ for a 20+yr old game the parent company won't even display on their own GAMING Distribution Portal??? It's like they intentionally go out of their way to NOT do things that might make the game better or simply add more players. Adding a picture of DAOC and making available a link to the game's download file would cost EA literally $0.00. @Valtar was right in the other post. The fact they refuse to do this, after years and years of DAOC players begging for more people shows us all exactly where their priorities are. They're quite content to keep the 150-175 subs they have, with multiple paying accounts, happy. They could care less if new/returning players ever come back.
The low population right now is creating a sort of rvr inbreeding where the same groups are fighting eachother while constantly changing realms. So Ok great we fought a group of mids and a group of hibs today but they were actually the same players... and then I joined them on alb when they switched... and we fought some more mids but they were just my previous group mates who switched because they were tired of losing to the mids and hibs who are now albs. The stealth groups complain there's no stealth groups to fight because they are the stealth group on all 3 realms and don't seem to realize it.
I can justify supporting the game as is because it's lots of entertainment, but it shouldn't be given up on. Do you wonder that maybe, if all of the sudden 1500 new paying subs showed up, that they would have to fix things like catacombs and appeal times, and maybe it's risky doing that if they don't stick around? You would have to fire people and stuff, and I'm not really confident that brand new players have a good chance to succeed against the largely veteran+++ community we are left with. Even on that magic new server that got canceled it would still be the same wolves running utterly amok until only Angry Ram is left. Maybe they don't really have a plan to grow the business anymore and are just ushering out it's final years. It would be nice to see the game get to 30 though so let's try to get the word out there!
Its pointless to keep giving suggestions about this because nothing gets done and now that again the classic server been put on the backburner it's time to just enjoy the game for what it is because I'm sorry to say it's not going to get any better.
... is equal to...
Why worry about new or returning subs when all they (EA) care about is not rocking the boat, not fixing anything, and keeping the status quo? So I've done my part to get to a world of post-DAOC, paid account closed. If enough people stop paying for nothing, maybe we'll get something. There are so many newer games out that have dropped the subscription model with superb graphics and a whole lot more players. For the price of a 3-month DAOC sub I can get a game that plays in 4K and has thousands of players, and I don't have to keep donating $$$ every month to get zero in return. It's a win-win for me. Log in, see crappy numbers, log out. It didn't cost me a penny. I then go play something that has actual players. If they're so content not attempting to bring in new players... I'm just as content playing FREE EC toons until they finally pull the plug.
Back when John Broadsword first took over control of the content creation around 2015, he solicited the player base for what changes should be made to the game. It was so refreshing to see DAoC ask the playerbase what they wanted. Many BG leaders, alliance leaders (Luvly), and players put together 50+ podcasts, describing some small tweaks that would help the game. It was a COMPLETE AND UTTER waste of time. John proceeded to 1) cram new content down the playerbase's throat, 2) make changes to classes that made them OPd and then had to nerf the classes, pissing off everyone and 3) destroy PvP by taking 6 keeps out of action by turning them into border keeps.
John thought he knew better and chose a course of action that he thought would revitalize the game. But the playerbase knew better. What John gave them was not what they wanted and the playerbase left en masse. Now, 8 years later, we see the fruits of John's labor and the catastrophe that has left this once un-kill-able game on life support. WoW couldn't kill it. Warhammer couldn't kill it. The shards couldn't kill it. It was killed by developers who had no idea what made the game fun.
From what someone mentioned on one of my earlier posts, it's possible that they didn't keep a full copy of the original version for the content that they repurposed so at this point the entire Catacombs expansion may just be gone forever in its old form. I just can't see them committing the substantial resources to recreate much of an expansion. I will never understand why they didn't let multiple versions of Catacombs exist side-by-side. LOTRO now has at least one major area that exists in three different versions.
Well said.