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Serious PvE Comparison between DAoC and EQ
So I was standing in the store, in the computer aisle, looking for a game to play on my computer I just bought from a friend. I never bought a computer before, much less a computer game, so I was entering into a new realm of possibilities. It was only 2002, and two particular games caught my eye, because they said I could play with other people online in a persistant world. They were DAoC and EQ.
I chose DAOC, because the pictures on the box looked better, and they talked about teaming up with others to defend your realm. I had no idea what PvE or PvP was back then, but I entered the world as if I was actually the character exploring that world.
What I loved most about DAoC is the selection of classes, the variety of playstyles for each class, the many starting areas, the variety of realms, and finally the community.
Zooming in on the community part, I liked the PvE, because I could group up with 7 other people and just kill stuff or dungeon crawl, while chatting it up for hours. I had a blast doing this and it's still my preferred method of playing. The quests in DAOC, while few, were pretty deep and engaging. The combat was a lot of fun, which made killing monsters (later I learned it is called grinding) a blast.
So what did I miss by going with DAoC, instead of EQ? Can someone compare the two in terms of PvE? How is the game now while leveling up? My favorite part of games is the journey, although I do enjoy the end game aspects. Is there a new server to play on?
I've been playing MMORPG's since 2002, remember how games were, and how the communities who played them were. I do prefer the classis games, but the population size has always turned me off from going back. In relation to EQ, the sheer amount of content, and the community focus (raiding), and the lack of new servers kept me from trying it. I never got into EQ2, because I'm not really into games that instance off every zone. I've heard a lot of good and bad things about EQ over the years, but I'd still be interested in trying the once great EQ if I thought I wouldn't be wasting my time.
MMORPG's w/ Max level characters: DAoC, SWG, & WoW
Currently Playing: WAR
Preferred Playstyle: Roleplay/adventurous, in a sandbox game.
Comments
Nevermind, I just read a thread talking about how rampant hackers are in EQ. I like to play on a relatively fair playing field and EQ doesn't sound like it. Plus some person named SWFD or whatever made a slam against WoW players, and since I'm a WoW player, I'd hate to get slammed on by the EQ playerbase on a regular basis. I see a lot of WoW slamming in other games, and I'm really sick of it. If EQ does this too, I might as well just not play, because I'd be defending WoW the whole time, instead of playing. I don't know why people can't keep their opinions of games to themselves, knowing that others will probably disagree with them. It's usuallly some generalization about the age or maturity level, or skill level of WoW players that get me riled up. It just is ignorant to say things like that and I wish people would chill the heck out with it.
Anyways, thanks anyways for the help if you were typing while I was replying to my own post, but I guess I should stick with holding out for the Origins server for DAoC.
MMORPG's w/ Max level characters: DAoC, SWG, & WoW
Currently Playing: WAR
Preferred Playstyle: Roleplay/adventurous, in a sandbox game.
Considering it was 2002, you probably made the better choice. After 2002, EQ was on the decline, not in terms of numbers, but in terms of the "magic" of the game.
If you had chosen EQ in 1999 or 2000, it would have been a different story altogether.
EQ (1999 - 2000):
PVE: Great
World: Great
PVP: minimal
EQ (2001 onward):
PVE: Good
World: In decline
PVP: minimal
DAOC (first few years):
PVE: Good
World: Good
PVP: Good to Great
Bottom line (IMO): Early EQ (pre-Luclin) had a world immersion experience unlike any game before or since. And I've played lots of MMO's and other games before MMO's.
Hmm, what was I doing in 1999?
Well, that was the year I graduated High School. I also went to Marine Corps bootcamp June of 1999. As for games, I didn't play video games much. In fact, I only owned a Playstation, and I don't even remember if I owned any games for it. What most kids did back then, at least in my circle, was cruise around in our cars trying to pick up girls, and party. I didn't even know how to work a computer back then.
MMORPG's w/ Max level characters: DAoC, SWG, & WoW
Currently Playing: WAR
Preferred Playstyle: Roleplay/adventurous, in a sandbox game.
Then you didn't miss anything. Real life is always worth more experience points.
I was basically saying that 2002 was not the best year to compare EQ and DAOC. The latter was a better game in 2002.
But early EQ, for those who played it, was truly magical.
As far as MMORPG's go, I definitely would say WoW is the best. So I'm not looking to replace WoW anytime soon, I was just thinking about resubbing to a second MMORPG. I gave EQ2 a real honest go after the Kunark expansion released and it wasn't bad. The game just didn't grab me, because it felt devoid of like. I never thought I'd say this, but the game simply has too much content. People are just spread out everywhere and once I left the Kunark area, I didn't run across levelers much. Now they released another expansion and I'm seeing a trend here, which I really don't like. They release an expansion, which makes a great deal of something else obsolete, just like they did when they released their previous expansions. The idea with expansions is to expand upon a game without taking something away. Granted, WoW takes away the value of doing previous raids when they release a new expansion, but the raids are still worth something. People can still do them for achievements, which in the end grant titles or other rewards, or some people even do them for the gear as they level.
I was just feeling nostalgic and was about to resub to DAoC, when I thought maybe EQ would make me happier since my favorite part of DAoC was grouping up with others to dungeon crawl and etc. I just decided to buy a single-player game instead to play along WoW.
MMORPG's w/ Max level characters: DAoC, SWG, & WoW
Currently Playing: WAR
Preferred Playstyle: Roleplay/adventurous, in a sandbox game.
EQ is pretty much dead. More people play EQ2, and EQ2 is a much smaller world.
I feel i must defend myself a wee bit since im assuming i am the SWFD you are talking about. I never bust on WoW players for being WoW players, i was once a WoW player, but those who come on to other game forums, like EQ, and state how Great WoW is and how WoW invented everything and how noone wants to play a game with useless timesinks like EQ or DAOC (for that matter) anymore, those i bust on. Sorry for the rambling sentence.
Anyway. I think you made a pretty fair choice with DAOC. I played EQ in 99 when it came out and i bought DAOC as soon as it came out to give it a try. I really like DAOC, to this day it is my second favorite game ever played, but i ended up going back to EQ. I went back to EQ because of the PVE. PVE in DAOC was great but it just seemed like the EQ world was so much bigger the DAOC's PVE world. Also while i enjoyed a number of the race/class combinations of DAOC there was more that i liked in EQ.
But i would say you should have no regrets on your choice. I loved EQ but i imagine if DAOC was my first game i would have the same love for it, it was really an excellent game.
As for starting EQ now, i would not recommend it. The game is really just a raiding game now with most of the population well over level 50. There is still a ton to do and a ton to see but you will most likely being doing it all alone if you were to start from scratch now. I recently went back and to true hotspots of the old days (at lower levels) were completely empty. I didnt really see a whole lot of people in the teen or twenties and those that i did see were all mega twinked and soloing stuff. You would not now get to experience what made EQ so great back in the first 3-4 years.
And sorry if i offended you with a WoW comment. I do hate WoW, i wont deny that, but i mainly hate it because of some of the players it has created and how it has become the death of games being made in the same mold as those games that i really loved, like EQ and DAOC.
And as another option i am thinking about giving Vanguard a go. I tried it when it came out and like many others was unable to play it well on my computer.
I have heard good things about the game, alot of fixes and whatnot, but i also believe the population isnt real large. Though they say the servers are all on medium now, medium can still mean pretty empty in a world as large as Vanguards.
Might be worth the free trial if you havent done it yet though.
I bought Vanguard shortly after it released. I recently went back, about a few weeks ago, and the community drove me away, next on the list was the obvious bugs that the devs weren't fixing. The community that I seen, were fanatics about their game and flamed the crap out of me when I asked about bugs I was encountering in the game and why SOE hadn't fixed them yet. Believe it or not, some companies, like Mythic, acknowledge bugs and will set a time table on when you can expect them to be fixed.
Like I said, I'm not really looking to replace WoW quite yet. Ulduar is coming out soon, and I actually enjoy raiding. The raids have their own challenges and raiding with a nice mature group of guys/gals is a lot of fun I guess many disgruntled WoW players never got to experience. Unfortunately, Blizzard only allows you to raid an instance once a week, so I'm left with nothing to do the rest of the week, other than play an alt, which I do. So I was thinking I could play another game as my "alt" and was thinking DAoC, when I thought that maybe I could finally give EQ a go, but since you've read the entire thread, you know I won't be doing that now.
As for your WoW slam on the other thread, I acknowledge what you're saying and I won't hold that against a person that seems otherwise mature.
MMORPG's w/ Max level characters: DAoC, SWG, & WoW
Currently Playing: WAR
Preferred Playstyle: Roleplay/adventurous, in a sandbox game.
Lets put it this way, EQ had a more PvE centric crowd then DAoC. I can remmeber doing two raids my intire lifetime playing DAoC since day one, raiding the Dragon and Raiding Caer sidi, and by raid I mean like 24+ people. There were Master Levels, but I don't really consider those raids because they were boring as hell and buggy as shit. And eventually you could do most of 'em with 2-3 people.)
In DAoC it was all about RvR and PvP (I never played Gaheris so, maybe it was different there)
In EQ however, unless you played on the Zek servers, PvP was non-existant. And Raiding and high end PvE content was champ.
In terms of style, DAoC and EQ were pretty much the same in PvE, but EQs PvE content was bigger and the community was driven more towards doing it.
So, if you didn't like DAoC for its RvR/PvP more then its PvE, you maybe should have picked EQ. But whats done is done.
I have to be honest. DAoC's strong point was it's pvp, it's PvE just looked like mobs plonked around. I didn't try the end level's PvE in DAoC though to know whether that was any better.
I agree with this post and I regret not buying and playing DAOC when it first was released. I would have liked to experience that world as well. I heard it was great. I was caught up in EQ at the time but it was definitely in the decline after Velious. I was there was a server that would stop at Velious.
So I feel the same way as the original poster, but the other way around. Wish these two games were not running at the same time. I would have liked to be addicted to both of them. : P Now they have both been destroyed with expansion packs. It is ashame MMOs are unplayable after a period of time, they all are destroyed by expansions.
I agree with this post and I regret not buying and playing DAOC when it first was released. I would have liked to experience that world as well. I heard it was great. I was caught up in EQ at the time but it was definitely in the decline after Velious. I was there was a server that would stop at Velious.
So I feel the same way as the original poster, but the other way around. Wish these two games were not running at the same time. I would have liked to be addicted to both of them. : P Now they have both been destroyed with expansion packs. It is ashame MMOs are unplayable after a period of time, they all are destroyed by expansions.
Well, I liked all of the DAOC expansion packs. They all offered something interesting. Shrouded Isles was a nice alternative xp continent with its own challenges. Trials of Atlantis introduced boats, underwater combat, Master Levels, and Artifacts, all of which I thought was cool. Catacombs offered 3 new ways to level up, more armor and classes. Darkness Rising introduced CHampion Levels, quests, and weapons. Very cool. Labyrinth of the Minator offered a new RvR dungeon, a new equipment slot; not sure what else. Basically, they offered actually expansions to the game. Others would argue against 1 or more of the expansions, but they just want to lvl to 50 asap and RvR until their eyes bleed. I been there and done that, and RvR gets boring after a while, so it's nice to have other objectives to strive for, such as ML's, CL"s, artifacts and etc.
It's not Mythics fault that the community is a bunch of min/maxers and suck the joy out of the extra activities by turning it into a job, due to their overcompetitive attitude. I just wish people could log into a game just to have fun for once.
MMORPG's w/ Max level characters: DAoC, SWG, & WoW
Currently Playing: WAR
Preferred Playstyle: Roleplay/adventurous, in a sandbox game.
I played EQ for about 5 years and DAoC for about 6 motnhs on a private server.......Maybe it was jsut the server I was on but I thought the PVE in DAoC was severly lacking compared to EQ........I remember there would be large groups of mobs standing together and I could jsut just cast a spell on any of them and he would be pulled.....If we did that in EQ it was disaster and your group was toast......Also soloing was much much easier in DAoC.......DAoC just felt more like a niche game to me and, while it had some nice things aobut it, it jsut didnt do alot to impress me.......The strength of the game, the RVR PVP, didnt do a thing for me......I guess because I jsut couldnt compete well that made it no fun....I was literally one shot several times until it came to the point that it was just a waste of time to try.........