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ToA KO'd DAoC

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 14 / 14
Date: January 12, 2004
Author: Amazon User

As a Commerce student in the last year of my B. Comm. degree, watching a company do something like this to themselves really makes my head hurt. The first, most basic, fundamental lesson they teach us in second-year Marketing is: Understand what your customers want. I have been playing DAoC since its release years ago, and ToA is what drove me to quitting for good.

Mythic either did not understand what their customers wanted, or decided to deliver something that they knew they did not want anyways. In either case, the result was an unmitigated (and in my eyes, unsalvageable) failure. Customers WANT to have enjoyable fights against other players in this game; what ToA gave them is a truckload of barriers to that enjoyment that only people with an obscene amount of time to devote to a computer game can possibly hope to accomplish.

The main appeal to DAoC was it's RvR (team-based player vs. player) fighting. However, to get to the point where you were good enough to be relatively successful required fighting monsters from levels 1 through 50.

This was rather time-consuming, and by the time people finished, the last thing they wanted to do was to "level" their character more. Mythic did implement more powerful rewards, but they tied the rewards to PvP fighting, so the method to get the rewards was palatable to the customers, even if the many rewards themselves were horrible unbalancing.

With ToA, what Mythic has done is to force players who want to be competitive in RvR to endure a HORRIBLY time-consuming process of getting 'master levels' and insanely powerful artifacts that unbalance the game even more. It's Everquest tedium all over again to get the latest, greatest ML or item, with the exception that the PvE fighting is much, much worse. Now DAoC consists of a crazy arms race with two categories of people: Powergamers in large/elite powerguilds who can devote hundreds of hours a month on a computer game, and casual players who play when classes/jobs/social life allows. Casual players are leaving the game en masse. Playing DAoC now necessitates a huge time commitment to PvE in order to enjoy the RvR element which is what most customers enjoyed. DAoC has an environment now where the uber players rule and casual players drool. Elite powergamers will stick to the party line of "Oh you don't NEED to do MLs and artifacts to compete", because they like having people around to slaughter like cattle. Unfortunately, this situation isn't much fun for the cow.

The new timesinks involve camping the same monsters for hundreds of hours to "level up" items, waiting for hours hoping a certain monster spawns, and hoping you can get into trips with the power guilds for hours at a time to complete stages of quests.

Did I mention that ToA has more bugs than most beta tests? Practically daily, Mythic publishes patches to problems in ToA rather than making fundamental game changes that customers really want.

Mythic really slit their own throats with this one. Save your money for a computer game that can be enjoyable, rather than a second job that you have to pay for.

Dissapointing at best

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 11 / 12
Date: November 27, 2003
Author: Amazon User

Trials of Atlantis is dissapointing at the best if you are looking for game content. I have been playing for two years now and left the realms of norrath in everquest to search for a better game; I thought I had found it in DAOC but with Trials of atlantis it has become everquest revisited. here are a few reasons why.

1.) The jump in system requirements for the graphics engine. Yes this game has better graphics, beautiful. But, it uses up so many system resources its not funny compared to DAOC.
The original everquest was a nice game with decent graphics, but each succesive expansion pack the programmers at verant were determined to show their skill with code, and made this beautiful world, you would have to upgrade your system with every release jsut to keep pace.

2.) What made DAOC a truly distinctive game was the concept of realm vs realm. All the classes were generally balanced in the beginning makeing it viable to compete on any level. With the advent of Trails of Atlantis it reminds me soo much of Dragon raids among others from Everquest its not even funny. At least verant made its expansion packs scaleable to level with new releases. TOA has failed miserably in this aspec as you need large groups of lvl 40 + charactres to complete a master level. On a further note, there are several long standing issues with the classes that have severly unbalenced the concept of r v r. Everything from buffbots(which is not in the spirit of the game) yet mythic allows, to spel crafting system, toindividual class/pathing issues. Trials of Atlantis threatens to further blow this imbalance out of proportion. Well assumeing that it doesnt take poeple the next 4 to 6 months to complete the master levels, compleely disreguarding the new people that come to the game.

In everquest there was no realm vs realm it was just who had the biggest baddest gear to kill slay the beast.

3.) A point similar to the above two. If I wanted to do a strictly player vs environment game I would have never left Everquest in the first place. This game has started to kill the very base that people switched from everquest in the first place.

The only real reason for me to stay in the game right now is to hang with the few friends I have in DAOC who have not closed or sold thier acounts. Its my sincerest hope that either this game gets back to the heart from which it was formed or something similar but better comes out. Its also my hope that with all of the recent patches with Trials of Atlantis tha have come out, that for the next release that Mythic be more comprehensive with its Software quality assurance program, lest players pay for its mistakes.

One last note, there is a post on DAOC Catacombs in the necromancer section saying "Help they are trying to Ruin TOA". Reguardless of the suggestion of the sugesstion in the post. I have to be totally honest on this one based off my own expereinces as well as my experiences of my friends in this game. Have a great day and think twice about bying this one.

They Could Have Messed Up More....Maybe...

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 8 / 10
Date: November 20, 2003
Author: Amazon User

This is not so much an expansion as it is a replacement for the previously existing game. Although they said originally that it would not have a huge effect on RvR, Mythic did not tell the truth on that note. If you want to stay competitive in RvR you will NEED to buy this game and invest about the same amount of time you invested in levelling your first lvl50 character. To say that its booring at points would be an understatement. There are 9 "master levels" to complete that give you new abilities. At the end of master levels 2-9 there is what they call a "smell the roses" component where you must go out into the non-expansion world and endlessly kill creatures you've fought a thousand times before for "master level experience"
As another reviewer pointed out, if you intend to get this you'd better be level 50 already and you'd better get in now because there are sections of the master levels that require upwards of 30 people (on my server we have a hard time getting 15 due to lack of population) to complete, so if you don't get in with the initial rush you'll have a very hard time completing them. I've found that instead of gaming I've turned into a project manager... spend two hours just organizing people and times so you can attempt one trial, which by the way, some of them take more than 3 hours. We have reports of one small guild finishing one of the ml2 trials in 5 hours. I spent a week doing this before I cancelled all three of my accounts. Oh! And as a bonus you get to spend five and ten minutes on a boat every time you want to get to a new island in the expansion. fun fun fun! I have to admit that the graphics are fantastic though as long as you've got a great machine, so if you're the site seeing type of gamer go ahead and buy it. Its also a great buy if you don't work a full time job and you have huge amounts of time to spend.
All I have to say is that I know just over 15 people personally who have cancelled thier accounts so far so make sure you know what you're getting into before you blow your hard earned money on this.
Good luck everybody!

A Very Odd Change in Direction

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 8 / 10
Date: December 06, 2003
Author: Amazon User

Long boat rides, additional PvE levelling, large PvE raids, camping a spawn, long spawn times, kill stealing, slow character movement in water, and more. Everquest? Nope, this is the new Dark Age of Camelot.

Mythic appears to be taking DAoC in a direction none of its long-time subscribers are likely to have guessed. One that would move the game away from its RvR roots (DAoC's excellent team-oriented PvP). This change might have been interesting to me had it been innovative and offered something unique. Unfortunately, most of what I see has the feel of something that's already been done elsewhere. Combine that with the fact that this expansion offers no new RvR content - no new RvR zones, no new RvR objectives, no new keep floorplans, no new seige equipment - and it gets a very low rating from me.

Dark Age Indeed...

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 8 / 8
Date: December 14, 2003
Author: Amazon User

DAoC Classic and Shrouded Isles was an excellent combination, where DAoC Classic still had some great exp sites, SI added new PvE content and Items. PvE was well balanced with RvR, in the sense that players could exp for a while and then go to RvR without much trouble. The Items from SI had little effect on RvR.

ToA ruined this perfectly balanced relationship of PvE with RvR. ToA turned the game for the casual gamer into a game that is going to be won by the powergamer, for the following reasons:

Artifacts: First of all, Artifacts take a LONG time to activate, and i'm talking from personal experience here.
Do the encounter, get the item, farm for scrolls, and hope that your activation is not bugged. (Did i mention this game has so many bugs that it seems it hasn't been beta tested?) Once you have the item activated, enjoy 4 days of non stop farming a certain mob to level it to 10, where you unleash its full power. Many artifacts are extremely powerful at level 10, and a power-gamer that wears a full suit of Artifact Armor and Items is most definitly going to be VERY successfull in RvR compared to the casual gamer who does not have that.

Trials: The Trials *CAN* be fun, however, expect to do some long hours of waiting before you get a chance to finally get it done. Once again, as stated before, you *WILL* need large groups and a LOT of time to do all Trials. Does the Casual gamer have the capability of this? Nope. Once again, the Power Gamer is the one who benefits.

Overall: Mythic made a *HORRIBLE* expansion that i would DEFINITLY NOT recommend if you are a casual gamer. Paying $30 for a graphics upgrade is not worth it in my opinion. With Trials of Atlantis, Mythic made a bold statement that they prefer the Power Gamer over the Casual Gamer, and not only that, but they lowered their own image among other Gaming Companies by releasing such a bugged game that they have to make patches to fix errors daily. Patching Daily is what Alpha and Beta Tests are for, and DAoC would have been better off had ToA been delayed and tested more.

Buy it if you are looking for a Timesink a la "leveling to 50 all over again", and want some pretty graphics.

Don't touch if your a casual gamer, you will only get frustrated with the game.

Highly NOT recommended

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 8 / 9
Date: December 17, 2003
Author: Amazon User

If you are just starting this game, this expansion pack is most definitely not for you. You cannot start Trial 1 until you are level 40. Frankly, if you go to TOA before you are 50, you will end up losing alot of gold and xp. I have several level 50's and die frequently in TOA. The main reason *NOT* to get this expansion is that you will be extremely frustrated. You will not be able to find a group to help you complete the trials. Why? Because they have all moved on to the higher level ML's. No one..I mean NO ONE..is going to repeat any trials or help you complete them. So all in all, you're paying for a slight graphic upgrade. The trials themselves are worthless. You need HUGE groups to complete them and if you are somewhat casual gamer, you won't get them done for all the reasons I stated above. This expansion turned a nice game into a horrible game. Many people are leaving due to this expansion. I would not recommend it.

Don't bother

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 7 / 11
Date: November 10, 2003
Author: Amazon User

They managed to take all the things bad about EQ and stick them in one neat expansion. The need for groups. The need to camp spawns. Only one person getting an item from quests.

In short all the things I started DAoC for. They seem to have forgotten.

Save your money

How to ruin a game

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 7 / 10
Date: November 20, 2003
Author: Amazon User

It's beyond my comprehension how anyone can shill this abomination unless they are a mythic employee.

You've already seen the complaints, let me assure you they are not ill founded. Mythic is totally out of touch with its player base. For two years I played this (formerly great) game, had 50's in all realms, and tried to get my friends involved.

Now I'm telling everyone to run, not walk, away from this game.

DAOC is nothing but an exercise in futility now. Wait for World of Warcraft and save yourself a lot of time, money and unnecessary pain.

Trials of Atlantis heads your 50 back to the grind of PvE

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 7 / 10
Date: December 13, 2003
Author: Amazon User

This is a disappointment for those who expected just a good time and maybe something like SI where you could take any tune and find new places to level. If you like EverQuest, you'll like TOA because that's what you'll be reminded of. Spending 12 hours waiting for certain mobs to spawn and then someone else coming along and killing them.
Bugs, the expansion is full of them and /appeal does nothing, a CSR will tell you "try again".
One poster states he spent 16 hours waiting for a spawn, didn't get the article, then spent another 16 h waiting for a CSR who told him to do it again.
Think you can just ignore all of that? Well, TOA adds master levels to 50's and that would give you an advantage in RvR.
Thought once you hit 50 you were done with the PvE grind, not with this expansion, this sends you right back to the same thing and you can't even do it solo. Many you can't even do with a small group. Often you need battle groups with a lotta people and now you have to find them. Oh yes, that's after you've spent all kinds of time trying to get where you need to go and then you find you need to wait for hours and hours.
Some of your group gets antsy, some just have to get on with real life and leave.
The low population servers are out of luck from the beginning, and once you've done the trials are you going to go back and do them again with your alts? These trials make epics look like a piece of cake.
I don't understand what this company was thinking, no one at DAoC plays in hopes of finding an EQ or AC environment.
DAoC is founded on realm wars and RvR is what draws people to this game. At one time realm abilities were introduced.
People racked up realm points that gave them an advantage in RvR HOWEVER they did that while RvR - something that was enjoyable to those who play this game.
Moral in the game is low because people are up against the wall to find someone to help with the ML and many people are looking for people to RvR with, but they find most are in Atlantis (NOT because they want to be-but you're damned if you do and damned if you don't.)
Atlantis could have been a lot of fun, it could have held a lot of fun for lowbies and anyone who just wanted new places to level. It COULD have added dynamite quests for all with great rewards.
I don't think the expansion is as bad as the idea of the master levels, and because so many people are upset about that entire idea, people I know are totally disappointed overall.
If mythic can pull of the next expansion "frontiers" in which they supposedly fix RvR play, they might keep customers, but right now the game is just going downhill and TOA was a shot in the foot.

Wait for a price break

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 7 / 8
Date: December 26, 2003
Author: Amazon User

There are currently WAY too many bugs in this expansion pack. Patches will fix them, eventually, maybe. The enhanced graphics are nice, if your system can handle them, but it certainly isn't worth $25. I'd wait for the price to drop to $10-15. Dark Age of Camelot is still superior to other MMORPGs currently on the market, and the upcoming FREE expansion should keep it that way for at least the next year. Just don't be too anxious to get your hands on an expansion that is still basically being tested.

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