Maybe if you just seperate out the items that are your opinion, and put them at the bottom with a disclaimer. I personally agree with some of your opinions, but it is a bit misleeding to have them mixed in with facts about the game. For example, on the crafting debate I personally feel that DAoC has a pretty Okie dokie crafting system. Not the best, but far from the worst you can find. At least it's possible to get crafted gear with whatever stats you feel like. That's amore than I can say about most games.
On the other hand, I couldn't agree more about ToA, it's pretty much the devil to me personally (abandoned a bunch of chracters on old servers when I started playing again). But I also see that many players think raids are awesome, and like having gear that gives them a huge PvP advantage as proof that they are a giant studly raider with more spare time than a prison inmate.
I think the FAQ would be a much better resource if you just make it easy for a new player to discern which items are your opinion. Cheers!
I don't want to write this, and you don't want to read it. But now it's too late for both of us.
I guess it is that what people object to I do not see as opinion. If I were to state that you should go play in Hib and not another realm then that would be opinion. Lets look at ToA. People want to know why three servers do not have an entire expansion! What I wrote covered the basic reasons why many people were upset with that expansion:
ToA stands for Trials of Atlantis. It was DAOC 2nd paid expansion. The expansion adds in great looking zones, mobs that drop lots of coins, new quests, 10 "Master Levels" and extremely powerful items called artifacts. ToA, when launched, was confusing and most of what you had to do was Raid content. ToA is wrongly blamed for many things and rightly for some things. What ToA did was bring out the difference between many groups of players and polarized the DAOC community. For example, it brought about a noticeable difference between more casual players and 'hardcore' players. At the launch of ToA it took 50+ in game days played to reach level 50 and then you had to spend another 50+ days doing ToA. So for those that could play 14 hours a day, they had a huge advantage over those who didn't. Another issue are those who just wanted to RvR and were upset at the PvE content. The addition of essentially mandatory PvE content in order to RvR again greatly upset many people. The year before ToA Mythic made a commitment to player made goods being the best in the game. However, Mythic went back on this commitment with ToA when artifacts and many drops were added. This did huge destructive damage to the crafter community and the economy as a whole.
The response to ToA was slow to come but it finally had come. DAOC launched new servers without ToA content. Further, the last patch (1.81) addressed many of the issues with ToA. Essentially ToA has become a lot quicker to do. This has helped make it so that more people can get ToA items they need to compete.
So while not back to pre-ToA play style on the regular servers, changes are certainly for the better and those who do not remember the 'good ole days' should find the content easy to do and many will find it enjoyable as well.
I will correct this if you tell me what is the opinion part. By that I mean what of these issues is something that is significantly disputed? The state of the game when SI came out stated that they intended from launch that crafted gear be the best, and then ToA changed that. Crafters were, and are, rightly upset about that. ToA did offer a lot of new abilities that affected RvR. Thus it did require people to go on long raids. That also upset people. Those are many of the reasons why a server without ToA one on the poll than ran. No buffbots only got 3% of the vote.
As for crafting, what I wrote seems pretty clinical:
Crafting involves buying material from an NPC merchant. You then sit or stand in place. You click on the icon you want to make. If you make the item there is a chance that you will raise your skills. There are 100 points to each rank. When you make it to the next rank it opens up new items to make (or often just higher level items of the same item depending on the tradeskill). In order to be of the use for most of the player population you will need to get near the max skill for your craft. Crafting is a secondary skill to your primary class. It is nearly impossible to level a tradeskill to the point of being useful if you are a level 1 character. It involves a significant monetary commitment. It is best to get to level 50 and get the money and then begin crafting. On the regular servers, the only profitable tradeskill by pure crafting is spellcrafting (putting magical bonuses on items). On the Classic Servers, if you are willing to put in the time to make the highest quality gear, then you can make a profit from the mundane tradeskills such as armorcrafting.
I can see some slight modifications perhaps. I could list all of the tradeskills the game has to offer and what spellcrafting and alchemy can do. This is perhaps the one good point about the DAOC crafting system over say EQ1. In fact I will probably make that edit tomorrow. But what else? I could rephrase it such that given the significant monitary commitment is is highly unlikely you will be able to raise your skills to LGM status by pure crafting. For spellcrafting and alchemy it is impossible because there are no tasks. I could change it to saying that on the regular servers you will most likely only make a profit from spellcrafting and not the mundane crafts. But to me, this is something more in terms of semantics.
I am willing to change the FAQ once I know exactly what people have an issue with and why. Kunou posted something about crafting and I changed it to this. I asked him if that was acceptible enough for him and he said nothing in return. I would not have gone into ToA in detail like that if it wasn't for the need to explain why people would want to play on servers without an entire expansion.
just to make sure I am understanding this right. I am new and considering what game to play now that i left COX within the last couple days.
anyways. If i D/L the 14 day free trial and decide i like it and then go buy the platinum edition I will basically play 45 days for free using the same acct? Thaat would be a nice edition and a good selling point to keep WIFE AGGRO to a minimum.
Thanks I am new to these threads And i must say since the community manager is following this thread...This is the greatest site I have used in 2 years (almost) of playing COX. eVERYONE HAS BEEN SO HELPFUL ON assisting me on my difficult decision of what game to start on now.
thank you all for the info and your time you put into posting this stuff for us "noobs"
also as i read further i cam eup with more questions about crafting. Now the crafting this is totally new to me personnaly; COX only implemented it recently with Supergroups in bases making things for the grp. To me IMO it just seems as "something else to do with your time". If i purchase this game, can I play alot without having to do much crafting or none at all. maybe after I have played for abit and decide i want to see something new then I would like to try. just right now It is not my cup of tee, but i am always willing to try. this thread is awesome thanks alot for taking the time to post we 'noobs' appreciate it.
1. Crafting is entirely optional. You do not need to do it unless you want to. If you want crafted gear you can purchase it from crafters or from the merchants they can put at their houses. But there is droped gear, quested gear, gear you can trade for via seasl or aurulite. There are plenty of ways of getting good gear in DAOC.
2. If you use the trial you can then by the EPIC edition and add it on as an expansion. This will allow you to have a total of 45 days for free at the cost of just the epic edition. Someone posted you can get the Epic at gamestop for $20. I have not verified that, but I have seen it at Wal-Mart for $29.99.
While you might not feel it was opinion based on your own experiences and such, the crafting section was very much clouded by your opinions. While you may feel that it is slow and boring and not profitable in any form, there are many others out there who don't feel that way. I mean in one breathe you said that the crafting system was pointless, and that there were entirely too many crafters on the server... If it is pointless why are there so many people doing it then?
Don't get me wrong, I'll be the first to admit that the crafting system does indeed need some work, but as someone who has crafted extensively in every game on the market with a crafting system, DAoC's is BY FAR not the worst available, and a lot of people actually enjoy it, myself included...
Richard J. Cox "There were much of the beautiful, much of the wanton, much of the bizarre, something of the terrible, and not a little of that which might have excited disgust."
Originally posted by Kunou While you might not feel it was opinion based on your own experiences and such, the crafting section was very much clouded by your opinions. While you may feel that it is slow and boring and not profitable in any form, there are many others out there who don't feel that way. I mean in one breathe you said that the crafting system was pointless, and that there were entirely too many crafters on the server... If it is pointless why are there so many people doing it then?Don't get me wrong, I'll be the first to admit that the crafting system does indeed need some work, but as someone who has crafted extensively in every game on the market with a crafting system, DAoC's is BY FAR not the worst available, and a lot of people actually enjoy it, myself included...
I never said it was the worst available. My actual words were it was the worst aspect of DAOC.
Why are so many people doing it? Salvage mostly. Some also to be able to provide their guild with the occasional non ToA piece they need. I do think the the smaller servers being made smaller by the addition of the Classic servers has helped the crafting economies out. There are now fewer crafters out there so less supply and more demand can lead to an increase in cost. Further, there are fewer crafters who will sell crafted gear at or below cost like before and this has also helped.
I think you provide the best example of the people who like the crafting system. If I recall, what you enjoy is sitting down and talking to people while crafting, right? That is usually the answer I hear from people who enjoy the crafting system. However, I would like to point out the clicking the button and watching the green line is not what you enjoy (although I think crafter do get conditioned to the ding just like a dog). What people enjoy is the community they are talking to. Which says a lot about the community as well as the state that crafting is in.
In any case, since you are using the past tense, does this now mean the crafting section has your approval?
I'm sorry, I think you misunderstood the point I was trying to make about chatting with people while I craft. Yes, that is what I enjoy, naturally I don't enjoy staring at the green bar. I don't think there's ever been a crafting system made that was completely enjoyable in its own right. Regardless of what it entails it is always repetitive and monotonous until you max out your skill in it. No matter how "interactive" a game tries to make its crafting system everything on the market always boils down to the same thing, watching that green (color may vary) bar fill up over and over. EQ2 added a lot of interactivity to their crafting system, you had to pay attention and use counters to improve quality, etc. But even with all that it was still just a matter of watching the bars fill up over and over. Honestly if that is what you're using to determine if the system is good or not I think you're off the mark. Nobody crafts because they enjoy the mechanics of the system itself, watching the bar go up, etc. They craft for the end result, the interaction with the community, selling their wares, the fame it can bring them if they're one of the top crafters on their server in their line of work, etc.
While I have stated several times that I feel the crafting system in DAoC isn't perfect and needs work, I don't feel that work is needed in the mechanics of the system. HOW the system works is fine imo, how long it takes, how much it costs, etc, all fine to me. What needs to be changed is making it a viable option again, making crafted goods as desirable as farmed drops, artifacts, champion weapons, etc. Not made better than, cause then you just reverse the problem, everyone only wants crafted goods and all the dropped/farmed loot becomes worthless, etc.
Again, all this is purely in my opinion as a player/crafter, not anything official as a Mythic Employee.
Richard J. Cox "There were much of the beautiful, much of the wanton, much of the bizarre, something of the terrible, and not a little of that which might have excited disgust."
1. I do have issues with the mechanics of crafting. I think you are right that for the most part every crafting system is the same. Some just happen to try and make it more interactive. However, I would make the same claim for most aspects of the PvE experience. You kill things over and over to get XP to get a level. You then train. Go back to the spot and continue to kill. It is just as monotonous as crafting in theory. What makes it not feel that way is how it is impleneted. How many distractions there are? What are the risks/rewards? Am I actually doing something that requires me to look at the screen? Do I move? Do I press more than one button?
All I am suggesting is that we dress crafting up as much as possible to be like the rest of the PvE experience. It is monotonous at its core, but we dress it up pretty so that people do not mind it. Many will actually enjoy it.
2. The desirablity of the crafted goods. I am 100% with you on this. At one time I would have prefered crafting to droped loot. But I think many players like questing for items. It gives them something to do and a feeling of accomplishment. So I think in terms of desirablity that crafted items need to be on par with almost any droped/quested item in the game.
So is what is written now acceptible or does it still come off to you as crafting is worthless?
Looks good, though you still contradict yourself somewhat... How can SCing be the only profitable tradeskill when you need crafted armors and weapons to do the SCing to... Granted SCing is definitely MORE profitable, seeing as one SCer can take an order to work on many different pieces constructed by various other tradeskills.
Also there is a typo in the Alch part, by "crates" I assume you mean "creates".
Also, one minor suggestion which you may hate me for... I think the whole thing would be A LOT easier to read if you differentiated the questions from the answers in some manner, bolded and underlined for example...
Richard J. Cox "There were much of the beautiful, much of the wanton, much of the bizarre, something of the terrible, and not a little of that which might have excited disgust."
Fixed the Alch typo. I did not see where I said you could only make money with spellcrafting. I mean it said that at one time, but not the current version. It still might be there and me, being such a bad editor of my own work, am unable to see it.
In any case it is now color coded for your viewing pleasure. If you think other colors would work best let me know and I will change them.
Originally posted by JulianDracos Fixed the Alch typo. I did not see where I said you could only make money with spellcrafting. I mean it said that at one time, but not the current version. It still might be there and me, being such a bad editor of my own work, am unable to see it. In any case it is now color coded for your viewing pleasure. If you think other colors would work best let me know and I will change them.
Hmm try just making the questions yellow or cyan and leaving the answers white... might be easier on the eyes.
Currently Playing: Dungeons and Dragons Online. Sig image Pending Still in: A couple Betas
I found the white harder to read so I went with yellow. But yellow is somewhat harsh on the eyes. I will either change it back to white or make the Questions yellow and then the answers red. Red seems to be easier on the eyes.
Richard J. Cox "There were much of the beautiful, much of the wanton, much of the bizarre, something of the terrible, and not a little of that which might have excited disgust."
Originally posted by frankyz669 Originally posted by JulianDracos
2. Crafting is horrible in DAOC. For me, it is the #1 thing that needs to be changed. I am crossing my fingers that crafting changes will be in 1.83.
So - did they fix crafting? And would you mind providing a good link for crafting in DAoC?
Very good FAQ!
No, it has not been changed. There have been minor chance to crafting over the summer, but nothing that has really fixed the problems. The updated crafting system is scheduled for this fall around the time the next expansion is released.
As far as I know, there are no longer any good crafting links. www.daoctradeskills.com used to be a great site. It is virtually abandoned outside of a few people on their message boards and no updates. The only possible links I can think of are:
Thank you for the helpful summary of info about DAoC, which I have just installed and asked several questions about in another post here of my own.
As for the inclusion of opinions, here's mine: you wrote it, free speech ftw. Anyone who dislikes what they are reading can aways elect to immediately stop reading if they are feeling upset, unhappy, etc.
I would just as soon know up front about major issues such as the ToA debacle and outrageous costs for a mount, ok fine, the fanciest in the game, but I don't appreciate the unattainable either for whatever that is worth, which basically is zero, except to me ;-)
I too wish for crafting that is fun, DOABLE for mere mortals timewise and ingame money-wise and I won't do it unless it is. I never did it in EverQuest until my last epic forced me to. Then I gave it a fair try, maxed one skill, found it a little fun, but so repetitious and time consuming that I knew I would never do any other trades. Too bad, they can and should be fun things to do but not time and money sinks that require hard core playtime to accomplish anything worthwhile. Because as WoW has hopefully taught the gaming development world, normal people will play these games if you make them a little more accessible and a lot less time consuming. I know, the end game such as it is sucks, but until 60 that statement holds true.
I am coming from years of EverQuest and all that I have read thus far, here and elsewhere, tells me that while DAoC like any MMORPG has its issues, some longstanding, it is miles ahead of where I come from and that sounds pretty damned good to me, let me tell you. It's lore, world and RvR conflicts also appeal to me far more than the likes of Orcs vs Humans, etc. or space cadets, etc. elsewhere. D&D style faire will always be my favorite kind of RPG. If Turbine fixes thier attempt at that, I may play that too someday, assuming it lives long enough, which is questionable now.
A couple years ago, a cable guy was in my home fixing my connection and saw the EQ books, boxes, etc. lying about near my PC and told me, "Oh, my God! Why do you play that? You should join us in Dark Age of Camelot! It's so much better." He was referring to himself, his wife and a couple they were friends with, all of whom played together on the same server somewhere at the time. I never saw him again as fate would have it but I have since come to wish I had listened to those sage words of advice. I wasted countless hours of real life time raiding the EQ endgame and sinking deep into the many and horrific time-sinks that "Evercamp" is rife with and infamous for.
My guess is, faults and all, Dark Age of Camelot will turn out to be a far more enjoyable experience for me namely because at least some player disputes can be resolved at the end of a sword or lightening bolt, as the case may be, RvR has got to be an incredibly fun experience vs camping named and raiding npcs over and over and over, often the very same damned ones, until all the raid has needed progression drops, etc. I absolutely hate this sort of artificial time wasting content. People waste 40 hours a week raiding in EQ and I admittedly did too for some time. Even if I have that much time to play some weeks, I don't ever again want to waste it that way, doing repetitious, incredibly boring raids and all simply to get gear that enables you to live through more of the same basically, with the all the numbers cranked up.... rinse, repeat, waste life.... And that of course, is simply my opinion about another game I have played. But it's worthy of mention here as I come to DAoC hoping for much better, namely fun and adventure with others doing a variety of things that hopefully are not simply repetitious, empty, wastes of time designed to feed the greed of those playing for gear more than fun, shared experiences, adventure and new found friends to share it all with. That to me, is this sort of gaming at its best and I hope that DAoC has a lot more of it than where I come from.
I may be as green as the new grass to this game, but I didn't need any help seeing what was opinion and what was not in this post and I didn't mind seeing those opinions either. I will form my own when I play, but I am always interested in what others think of a game I take interest in too, whether or not I share thier view.
There's way too much "policing" of people on the net in general from grammar to content to opinion. As far as I see it, if you don't like it, write a better one rather than give somebody who took the time to help somebody new like me, flack because you don't care for him taking a little literary license. Fine, do it better then. I'll read it, pure facts, opinions, mix of the two, I don't care. It's all good. Jumping on people who take the time to help others, opinions and all is not goodness. I'm sorry but no matter how you want to slice that it simply is not.
One of the things that I still like best about the game is that there are so many choices. I guess I think its important to mention that from time to time.
While I primarily play a TOA server (family and RL friends there) when I am tired of that I can play one of the other choices . For a Regular/TOA server I like the Devon cluster and the addition of Akatsuki has been pretty positive so far.
Gaheris is a nice change once in awhile and I find the community there to be very friendly.
Mordred is not for me ...
I like Classic - much better after getting into a guild and out of the starter guild - I have Mids Gareth and Albs Lamorak.
Julian, you forgot the Role Play server -
I find 15 plat for a mount to be a bit much so I can manage without one.
I have big hopes for the Trades Improvements but a little uneasy about what that means for the LGM I have already spent a lot of Plat and time on..
Comments
Maybe if you just seperate out the items that are your opinion, and put them at the bottom with a disclaimer. I personally agree with some of your opinions, but it is a bit misleeding to have them mixed in with facts about the game. For example, on the crafting debate I personally feel that DAoC has a pretty Okie dokie crafting system. Not the best, but far from the worst you can find. At least it's possible to get crafted gear with whatever stats you feel like. That's amore than I can say about most games.
On the other hand, I couldn't agree more about ToA, it's pretty much the devil to me personally (abandoned a bunch of chracters on old servers when I started playing again). But I also see that many players think raids are awesome, and like having gear that gives them a huge PvP advantage as proof that they are a giant studly raider with more spare time than a prison inmate.
I think the FAQ would be a much better resource if you just make it easy for a new player to discern which items are your opinion. Cheers!
I don't want to write this, and you don't want to read it. But now it's too late for both of us.
I guess it is that what people object to I do not see as opinion. If I were to state that you should go play in Hib and not another realm then that would be opinion. Lets look at ToA. People want to know why three servers do not have an entire expansion! What I wrote covered the basic reasons why many people were upset with that expansion:
ToA stands for Trials of Atlantis. It was DAOC 2nd paid expansion. The expansion adds in great looking zones, mobs that drop lots of coins, new quests, 10 "Master Levels" and extremely powerful items called artifacts. ToA, when launched, was confusing and most of what you had to do was Raid content. ToA is wrongly blamed for many things and rightly for some things. What ToA did was bring out the difference between many groups of players and polarized the DAOC community. For example, it brought about a noticeable difference between more casual players and 'hardcore' players. At the launch of ToA it took 50+ in game days played to reach level 50 and then you had to spend another 50+ days doing ToA. So for those that could play 14 hours a day, they had a huge advantage over those who didn't. Another issue are those who just wanted to RvR and were upset at the PvE content. The addition of essentially mandatory PvE content in order to RvR again greatly upset many people. The year before ToA Mythic made a commitment to player made goods being the best in the game. However, Mythic went back on this commitment with ToA when artifacts and many drops were added. This did huge destructive damage to the crafter community and the economy as a whole.
The response to ToA was slow to come but it finally had come. DAOC launched new servers without ToA content. Further, the last patch (1.81) addressed many of the issues with ToA. Essentially ToA has become a lot quicker to do. This has helped make it so that more people can get ToA items they need to compete.
So while not back to pre-ToA play style on the regular servers, changes are certainly for the better and those who do not remember the 'good ole days' should find the content easy to do and many will find it enjoyable as well.
I will correct this if you tell me what is the opinion part. By that I mean what of these issues is something that is significantly disputed? The state of the game when SI came out stated that they intended from launch that crafted gear be the best, and then ToA changed that. Crafters were, and are, rightly upset about that. ToA did offer a lot of new abilities that affected RvR. Thus it did require people to go on long raids. That also upset people. Those are many of the reasons why a server without ToA one on the poll than ran. No buffbots only got 3% of the vote.
As for crafting, what I wrote seems pretty clinical:
Crafting involves buying material from an NPC merchant. You then sit or stand in place. You click on the icon you want to make. If you make the item there is a chance that you will raise your skills. There are 100 points to each rank. When you make it to the next rank it opens up new items to make (or often just higher level items of the same item depending on the tradeskill). In order to be of the use for most of the player population you will need to get near the max skill for your craft. Crafting is a secondary skill to your primary class. It is nearly impossible to level a tradeskill to the point of being useful if you are a level 1 character. It involves a significant monetary commitment. It is best to get to level 50 and get the money and then begin crafting. On the regular servers, the only profitable tradeskill by pure crafting is spellcrafting (putting magical bonuses on items). On the Classic Servers, if you are willing to put in the time to make the highest quality gear, then you can make a profit from the mundane tradeskills such as armorcrafting.
I can see some slight modifications perhaps. I could list all of the tradeskills the game has to offer and what spellcrafting and alchemy can do. This is perhaps the one good point about the DAOC crafting system over say EQ1. In fact I will probably make that edit tomorrow. But what else? I could rephrase it such that given the significant monitary commitment is is highly unlikely you will be able to raise your skills to LGM status by pure crafting. For spellcrafting and alchemy it is impossible because there are no tasks. I could change it to saying that on the regular servers you will most likely only make a profit from spellcrafting and not the mundane crafts. But to me, this is something more in terms of semantics.
I am willing to change the FAQ once I know exactly what people have an issue with and why. Kunou posted something about crafting and I changed it to this. I asked him if that was acceptible enough for him and he said nothing in return. I would not have gone into ToA in detail like that if it wasn't for the need to explain why people would want to play on servers without an entire expansion.
just to make sure I am understanding this right. I am new and considering what game to play now that i left COX within the last couple days.
anyways. If i D/L the 14 day free trial and decide i like it and then go buy the platinum edition I will basically play 45 days for free using the same acct? Thaat would be a nice edition and a good selling point to keep WIFE AGGRO to a minimum.
Thanks I am new to these threads And i must say since the community manager is following this thread...This is the greatest site I have used in 2 years (almost) of playing COX. eVERYONE HAS BEEN SO HELPFUL ON assisting me on my difficult decision of what game to start on now.
thank you all for the info and your time you put into posting this stuff for us "noobs"
Thx again :>)
also as i read further i cam eup with more questions about crafting. Now the crafting this is totally new to me personnaly; COX only implemented it recently with Supergroups in bases making things for the grp. To me IMO it just seems as "something else to do with your time". If i purchase this game, can I play alot without having to do much crafting or none at all. maybe after I have played for abit and decide i want to see something new then I would like to try. just right now It is not my cup of tee, but i am always willing to try. this thread is awesome thanks alot for taking the time to post we 'noobs' appreciate it.
1. Crafting is entirely optional. You do not need to do it unless you want to. If you want crafted gear you can purchase it from crafters or from the merchants they can put at their houses. But there is droped gear, quested gear, gear you can trade for via seasl or aurulite. There are plenty of ways of getting good gear in DAOC.
2. If you use the trial you can then by the EPIC edition and add it on as an expansion. This will allow you to have a total of 45 days for free at the cost of just the epic edition. Someone posted you can get the Epic at gamestop for $20. I have not verified that, but I have seen it at Wal-Mart for $29.99.
Updating the Crafting info - perhaps less people will object to it now
Added auto training and acronyms.
While you might not feel it was opinion based on your own experiences and such, the crafting section was very much clouded by your opinions. While you may feel that it is slow and boring and not profitable in any form, there are many others out there who don't feel that way. I mean in one breathe you said that the crafting system was pointless, and that there were entirely too many crafters on the server... If it is pointless why are there so many people doing it then?
Don't get me wrong, I'll be the first to admit that the crafting system does indeed need some work, but as someone who has crafted extensively in every game on the market with a crafting system, DAoC's is BY FAR not the worst available, and a lot of people actually enjoy it, myself included...
Richard J. Cox
"There were much of the beautiful, much of the wanton, much of the bizarre, something of the terrible, and not a little of that which might have excited disgust."
I never said it was the worst available. My actual words were it was the worst aspect of DAOC.
Why are so many people doing it? Salvage mostly. Some also to be able to provide their guild with the occasional non ToA piece they need. I do think the the smaller servers being made smaller by the addition of the Classic servers has helped the crafting economies out. There are now fewer crafters out there so less supply and more demand can lead to an increase in cost. Further, there are fewer crafters who will sell crafted gear at or below cost like before and this has also helped.
I think you provide the best example of the people who like the crafting system. If I recall, what you enjoy is sitting down and talking to people while crafting, right? That is usually the answer I hear from people who enjoy the crafting system. However, I would like to point out the clicking the button and watching the green line is not what you enjoy (although I think crafter do get conditioned to the ding just like a dog). What people enjoy is the community they are talking to. Which says a lot about the community as well as the state that crafting is in.
In any case, since you are using the past tense, does this now mean the crafting section has your approval?
I'm sorry, I think you misunderstood the point I was trying to make about chatting with people while I craft. Yes, that is what I enjoy, naturally I don't enjoy staring at the green bar. I don't think there's ever been a crafting system made that was completely enjoyable in its own right. Regardless of what it entails it is always repetitive and monotonous until you max out your skill in it. No matter how "interactive" a game tries to make its crafting system everything on the market always boils down to the same thing, watching that green (color may vary) bar fill up over and over. EQ2 added a lot of interactivity to their crafting system, you had to pay attention and use counters to improve quality, etc. But even with all that it was still just a matter of watching the bars fill up over and over. Honestly if that is what you're using to determine if the system is good or not I think you're off the mark. Nobody crafts because they enjoy the mechanics of the system itself, watching the bar go up, etc. They craft for the end result, the interaction with the community, selling their wares, the fame it can bring them if they're one of the top crafters on their server in their line of work, etc.
While I have stated several times that I feel the crafting system in DAoC isn't perfect and needs work, I don't feel that work is needed in the mechanics of the system. HOW the system works is fine imo, how long it takes, how much it costs, etc, all fine to me. What needs to be changed is making it a viable option again, making crafted goods as desirable as farmed drops, artifacts, champion weapons, etc. Not made better than, cause then you just reverse the problem, everyone only wants crafted goods and all the dropped/farmed loot becomes worthless, etc.
Again, all this is purely in my opinion as a player/crafter, not anything official as a Mythic Employee.
Richard J. Cox
"There were much of the beautiful, much of the wanton, much of the bizarre, something of the terrible, and not a little of that which might have excited disgust."
1. I do have issues with the mechanics of crafting. I think you are right that for the most part every crafting system is the same. Some just happen to try and make it more interactive. However, I would make the same claim for most aspects of the PvE experience. You kill things over and over to get XP to get a level. You then train. Go back to the spot and continue to kill. It is just as monotonous as crafting in theory. What makes it not feel that way is how it is impleneted. How many distractions there are? What are the risks/rewards? Am I actually doing something that requires me to look at the screen? Do I move? Do I press more than one button?
All I am suggesting is that we dress crafting up as much as possible to be like the rest of the PvE experience. It is monotonous at its core, but we dress it up pretty so that people do not mind it. Many will actually enjoy it.
2. The desirablity of the crafted goods. I am 100% with you on this. At one time I would have prefered crafting to droped loot. But I think many players like questing for items. It gives them something to do and a feeling of accomplishment. So I think in terms of desirablity that crafted items need to be on par with almost any droped/quested item in the game.
So is what is written now acceptible or does it still come off to you as crafting is worthless?
Looks good, though you still contradict yourself somewhat... How can SCing be the only profitable tradeskill when you need crafted armors and weapons to do the SCing to... Granted SCing is definitely MORE profitable, seeing as one SCer can take an order to work on many different pieces constructed by various other tradeskills.
Also there is a typo in the Alch part, by "crates" I assume you mean "creates".
Also, one minor suggestion which you may hate me for...
I think the whole thing would be A LOT easier to read if you differentiated the questions from the answers in some manner, bolded and underlined for example...
Richard J. Cox
"There were much of the beautiful, much of the wanton, much of the bizarre, something of the terrible, and not a little of that which might have excited disgust."
I will fix the typo.
And yes going through it I agree it needs to be color coded. I will go in an mark the question and answers in differnet colors when i get the chance.
Fixed the Alch typo. I did not see where I said you could only make money with spellcrafting. I mean it said that at one time, but not the current version. It still might be there and me, being such a bad editor of my own work, am unable to see it.
In any case it is now color coded for your viewing pleasure. If you think other colors would work best let me know and I will change them.
Currently Playing: Dungeons and Dragons Online.
Sig image Pending
Still in: A couple Betas
Stickied!
Thanks Admin!
Richard J. Cox
"There were much of the beautiful, much of the wanton, much of the bizarre, something of the terrible, and not a little of that which might have excited disgust."
Anyway, I have unyellowed it and updated a few things given some recent changes.
2. Crafting is horrible in DAOC. For me, it is the #1 thing that needs to be changed. I am crossing my fingers that crafting changes will be in 1.83.
So - did they fix crafting? And would you mind providing a good link for crafting in DAoC?
Very good FAQ!
"I have live my life by these nine simple words: It sounded like a good idea at the time."
--Livingston Taylor
So - did they fix crafting? And would you mind providing a good link for crafting in DAoC?
Very good FAQ!
No, it has not been changed. There have been minor chance to crafting over the summer, but nothing that has really fixed the problems. The updated crafting system is scheduled for this fall around the time the next expansion is released.
As far as I know, there are no longer any good crafting links. www.daoctradeskills.com used to be a great site. It is virtually abandoned outside of a few people on their message boards and no updates. The only possible links I can think of are:
Prissy Alchemy Guide
Old offical guide
Thank you for the helpful summary of info about DAoC, which I have just installed and asked several questions about in another post here of my own.
As for the inclusion of opinions, here's mine: you wrote it, free speech ftw. Anyone who dislikes what they are reading can aways elect to immediately stop reading if they are feeling upset, unhappy, etc.
I would just as soon know up front about major issues such as the ToA debacle and outrageous costs for a mount, ok fine, the fanciest in the game, but I don't appreciate the unattainable either for whatever that is worth, which basically is zero, except to me ;-)
I too wish for crafting that is fun, DOABLE for mere mortals timewise and ingame money-wise and I won't do it unless it is. I never did it in EverQuest until my last epic forced me to. Then I gave it a fair try, maxed one skill, found it a little fun, but so repetitious and time consuming that I knew I would never do any other trades. Too bad, they can and should be fun things to do but not time and money sinks that require hard core playtime to accomplish anything worthwhile. Because as WoW has hopefully taught the gaming development world, normal people will play these games if you make them a little more accessible and a lot less time consuming. I know, the end game such as it is sucks, but until 60 that statement holds true.
I am coming from years of EverQuest and all that I have read thus far, here and elsewhere, tells me that while DAoC like any MMORPG has its issues, some longstanding, it is miles ahead of where I come from and that sounds pretty damned good to me, let me tell you. It's lore, world and RvR conflicts also appeal to me far more than the likes of Orcs vs Humans, etc. or space cadets, etc. elsewhere. D&D style faire will always be my favorite kind of RPG. If Turbine fixes thier attempt at that, I may play that too someday, assuming it lives long enough, which is questionable now.
A couple years ago, a cable guy was in my home fixing my connection and saw the EQ books, boxes, etc. lying about near my PC and told me, "Oh, my God! Why do you play that? You should join us in Dark Age of Camelot! It's so much better." He was referring to himself, his wife and a couple they were friends with, all of whom played together on the same server somewhere at the time. I never saw him again as fate would have it but I have since come to wish I had listened to those sage words of advice. I wasted countless hours of real life time raiding the EQ endgame and sinking deep into the many and horrific time-sinks that "Evercamp" is rife with and infamous for.
My guess is, faults and all, Dark Age of Camelot will turn out to be a far more enjoyable experience for me namely because at least some player disputes can be resolved at the end of a sword or lightening bolt, as the case may be, RvR has got to be an incredibly fun experience vs camping named and raiding npcs over and over and over, often the very same damned ones, until all the raid has needed progression drops, etc. I absolutely hate this sort of artificial time wasting content. People waste 40 hours a week raiding in EQ and I admittedly did too for some time. Even if I have that much time to play some weeks, I don't ever again want to waste it that way, doing repetitious, incredibly boring raids and all simply to get gear that enables you to live through more of the same basically, with the all the numbers cranked up.... rinse, repeat, waste life.... And that of course, is simply my opinion about another game I have played. But it's worthy of mention here as I come to DAoC hoping for much better, namely fun and adventure with others doing a variety of things that hopefully are not simply repetitious, empty, wastes of time designed to feed the greed of those playing for gear more than fun, shared experiences, adventure and new found friends to share it all with. That to me, is this sort of gaming at its best and I hope that DAoC has a lot more of it than where I come from.
I may be as green as the new grass to this game, but I didn't need any help seeing what was opinion and what was not in this post and I didn't mind seeing those opinions either. I will form my own when I play, but I am always interested in what others think of a game I take interest in too, whether or not I share thier view.
There's way too much "policing" of people on the net in general from grammar to content to opinion. As far as I see it, if you don't like it, write a better one rather than give somebody who took the time to help somebody new like me, flack because you don't care for him taking a little literary license. Fine, do it better then. I'll read it, pure facts, opinions, mix of the two, I don't care. It's all good. Jumping on people who take the time to help others, opinions and all is not goodness. I'm sorry but no matter how you want to slice that it simply is not.
Live and let live I say.
He who hesitates is lost.
Nice job Julian.
One of the things that I still like best about the game is that there are so many choices. I guess I think its important to mention that from time to time.
While I primarily play a TOA server (family and RL friends there) when I am tired of that I can play one of the other choices . For a Regular/TOA server I like the Devon cluster and the addition of Akatsuki has been pretty positive so far.
Gaheris is a nice change once in awhile and I find the community there to be very friendly.
Mordred is not for me ...
I like Classic - much better after getting into a guild and out of the starter guild - I have Mids Gareth and Albs Lamorak.
Julian, you forgot the Role Play server -
I find 15 plat for a mount to be a bit much so I can manage without one.
I have big hopes for the Trades Improvements but a little uneasy about what that means for the LGM I have already spent a lot of Plat and time on..
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