All Posts by rhunter103

After having thought about this for a while I have submitted an all new idea for changes to DAOC hope you all like it and mythic listens to some of these suggestions:

PVE:  Three realms—update the mythology and maintain myth appropriate quest lines throughout the entire length of character progression.  Have the quests mean something to the health of the realm—by accomplishing quests, the world changes.  Example, towns threatened in certain zones could fall to the NPC enemies—the Morgan Le Fay could raze a town for example—with the threat to the capitol a real possibility without player help—defending the realm would be a real need.  Have myth based quests released throughout the year that could possibly damage the realm as a whole if not completed, there should be consequences to the world for not accomplishing these quests.  There should not be a separate housing zone, have areas in each zone, around the NPC villages available to housing plots which would be given to players as a result of realm defense, just like the feudal lands granted to nobles for protecting the king’s lands, thereby giving the players a reason to defend it against all enemies.  So the king or the land owning nobleman of the specific zone would grant a plot to the player if it is warranted through quest completion.  Even areas, such as Avalon City could be reclaimed through player lots, a series of realm quests could allow players actually defeat an enemy permanently, the idea is that the players as a whole can affect the world, of course the myths are never short on enemies and something new will always pop up.  Instance based leveling should be removed, as it currently exists—the game is just grinding these instance zones now, just reserve instances for lower levels as a type of PVE to get players accustomed to the mechanics of the game.  Major dungeons can be instanced but not as a grinding tool.  Grinding in general should be reduced as an emphasis is placed on quest completions.  Even the standard quests should allude to the changing situation of the realm.  Also, if the “standard” quests are not completed in due time then there should be a consequence for it—ie…the bandit chief becomes more powerful with a larger army and begins to attack the closer towns.

Crafting: Allow crafting to actually run the economy of the game.  Allow castles, bridges buildings, portals etc… to be built by players with the combination of crafts.  NPC town will naturally grow with player influence and be protected the same way, as facilities are built more NPCs should arrive at the town—some with quests some to assist in the building.  To allow for the economy to develop properly, players should be able to craft for all aspects of the game.  Drops should never be better than crafted items and actual drops should consist of ingredients to allow for better crafted goods, drops on NPCs should also only consist of items they would be wearing at that time, so if a “bandit” drops chain mail—it is because he was wearing it and it was not destroyed in the fight.  These items should also have the ability to be improved and grow to higher level with players maintaining the equipment with the appropriate crafting skills.  Only realm items should be more powerful than player crafted items—ie. Excalibur.  Players should be able to craft houses and sell to other players—no more purchases through the NPC as a house must be built.  For example, House building should be done in the following manner: allow a house crafting player to generate blue prints, he then hires NPCs (if available in the town, and the player does not want to do it himself) to manufacture the new facility over the course of a week.   Mounts should be obtained by someone who specializes in that craft.  A player would have to find wild horses, capture them and then have a stable built for breeding, then breed the horses and every week or so a new batch of horses is available for sale.  Characteristics of mounts could be built in to the type of horses (do not have to restrict to horses, unicorns dragons etc…) that the player is using to mate, ie faster horses color of horses etc…and there should be no level requirement to own a mount only controlled by the ability of the horse tamer, and the price he sells it for.  Each tradeskill should also allow for apprenticeship if the level is high enough, an NPC can be conscripted and used as a crafter of materials at a slightly lower level, and/or the player can train other players.   Bridges would have to be crafted to get to a zone—a miner will have to open a mountain to gain entry to an old pass etcetera.  Permanent portals should be player crafted as well.  Food, Drinks, Armor, Weapons, Enchantments, Auctioneers (merchants) etc…all useable items should be player crafted, this would allow for a proper economy and the growth of towns within each realms area.  Players would have the ability to affect the look of their realm and actual feel like they have ownership of it through proper cooperation.

RVR:  Have all the realms linked through a shared area—not like the current frontier but an actual shared area from which each side could enter the other realms PVE zones, and allow each realm’s leader to attempt claim the shared zone and grant land lots to players there as well.  PVP should occur throughout each realm’s PVE zones at all levels, sometimes the “Vikings” should be able to raid even the villages within the “safety” of a kingdom, and put Camelot in danger of being sacked.  Players could flag themselves as to not being available to RVR within their own zones, but the enemy realms could still destroy the infrastructure (houses castles bridges) and steal the horses, gold, and equipment from the realm.  Other realms vendors, auctioneers should be able to be raided, player constructed facilities will have to be rebuilt and it is not a fast process to rebuild—depending on damage it could take a week.  What is worn by a player remains untouchable, but his house could still raided.  Even the greatest heroes could not take down an army alone, so level differences should not account for so much, for example a level 50 will not be able to take down 5 level 40s, unless the player is very skilled.  On 1V1 encounters, this should occur easily but allow three levels 30s the ability to take down a level 50 or even 10 level 10s for that matter, this would make RVR more inclusive no matter what the level, and it would give players a chance to truly aid in defending their realms.  Classes should not be altered so much—stability and realm mythology should be predominant not realm equality.  Each realm should have a weakness to another realm while a strength against the third, for example, given that all are at full strength and meet alone on common ground, the skills of a berserker should lend itself well to defeating a blademaster but have inherent weaknesses against the mercenary—the blademaster should have the skills necessary to defeat the mercenary but weaknesses against the berserker and the mercenary should have the skills to promote a strength against the berserker but have a weakness against the blademaster.  Midgard should have the better tank class races, Hibernia the better magic class races and Albion the better hybrid class races—this does not mean that each realm is not proficient in each class, but there should be a bias towards the realms.  Encourage larger scale battles by having realm quests inside another realm—for example—storm Camelot and take Excalibur—if one realm is much more powerful than the other two (populations) even cross sector quests could be created see if tow realms could get together to complete a quest against the third.  Another example—make it so the best horses are in Hibernia and the horse craftsman will have to raid Hibernia for their wild horses.  Battlegrounds could still be available as an instance for training, and maintain the level restrictions.  Only buffs from grouped players will be accepted, with a specific range, make party sizes smaller, instead of 8 it should be 5 or 6, thereby removing buffbots, because the player will need all those available slots for the battle.

Hope you like my suggestions—always trying to fine tune them, just hope that DAOC can go back to the great game it once was.  Please let me know what the thoughts are.

The game could go back to wat originally made it great--stay with the realm specific mythology--have a more interactive system of quests which actually affect the world--early quests could be instance based but epic quests would change the look of the realm or could even affect another realm...definitely stick with the original mythology though--still so much to look at--housing should only be allowed in the frontier--the frontier would change as realm towns grow or are destoyed--allow bridges castles etc... to be built instead of stationary bases...realms should also be equal as a whole but individual classes do not have to be so clearly equal--Ie... Berserker should be better than a BM, BM better than a Merc, Merc better than a Berserker (something like that)--do it for each realm to equal them out--have weaknesses and strengths that are evident and consistent with the actual realm and mythology---make it so that 3 lvl 30s could take down a 50 so that more RVR will take place despite the lvl--it was fun when 49s used to actually lead realm in pvp (long time ago)--make it hard to level again--and the story line more organic so that the player has an effect on the PVE world--maybe once a month allow for an epic quest to open a gateway into another realms actual pve area to encourage realm defense at that level, store the relics within the pve realms to encourage that type of interaction--just some ideas...