A Return to DAoC

One player's return from another MMO.


Although I don't play much DAoC these days purely due to lack of time, I was gratified to hear that RvR strategist Gisli of Mid/Percival had returned to DAoC from [another MMORPG]. I was curious why, so I PM'ed him. This is his reply, which he graciously allowed me to post here.

[The other MMO] eventually got boring for me. I'm not all that interested in a game whose main focus seems to be high-end dungeon raiding. Our original interest in [the other MMO] was due to believing that it would have something equivalent to RvR (which I distinguish from PvP). To me, PvP is when players or groups of players fight each other to see who can win. RvR for me requires something more. There needs to be two (or more) sides fighting, with goals that extend beyond just seeing who can beat the other, however many times. Prior to BGs, [the other MMO] had a nice PvP system. But there is little motivation beyond the individual character development level. You can build yourself up (through equipment). But there is no realm-level goal. There is nothing persistant. No keeps or relics. Killing the world boss NPCs didn't seem to be motivating either.

One of the biggest differences between the games is the sense of community. In DAOC, there was always the idea that everyone in a realm was on the same side, like it or not. And everyone was dependent on each other, like it or not. Because we all shared the same benefits or losses based on who held what keeps and relics. So it tends to make people work together and have some common bond beyond the guild level. [The other MMO] has none of that that I could sense. Your guild in [other MMO] is important so that you can do instances. Possibly some guilds would form an alliance so they could do big instances. But there was no sense of community for RvR.

So what about battlegrounds? That's just more PvP to me. There's no point to battlegrounds that I can see. There's no persistance. OK, so you win or lose tonight. I guess one can keep score. But it seems so sterile.

Worse yet, from what I understand, battlegrounds doesn't seem to have much scope for strategy. Too few people, too small an area. So its just a big slugfest. But I'm getting that second-hand, so I can't be sure. What I like about DAOC is motivating people to fight, getting them together for a common goal. And then having a big enough playing field that strategy matters. I don't beat the other side by taking my army against their army and slugging it out (usually). I win by getting a stronger force together than the other side can. Or I win by putting more people at a given spot then the other side has there at that time, and taking something strategically valuable. Then going somewhere else (where they are not prepared) and doing it again, until they wear out. I don't think there is room for that sort of thing in [the other MMO] battlegrounds.

[Gisli, July 2005]


(I removed direct references to the Other MMO for professional reasons! -editor)

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