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DAoC: Phoenix Falling - The Life And Death Of A Free Shard | MMORPG.com

SystemSystem Member UncommonPosts: 12,599
edited August 2021 in News & Features Discussion

imageDAoC: Phoenix Falling - The Life And Death Of A Free Shard | MMORPG.com

On Saturday, July 24, 2021, the long-running and highly popular Dark Age of Camelot freeshard Phoenix was announced to be closing by the end of August. In a Phoenix forum post titled "The Sky Is Really Falling This Time", gruenesschaf, one of the creators behind the freeshard, explained the reasoning behind the decision and the remaining timeline for the server. Eventually, gruenesschaf explained in a rather fatalistic fashion, every online game--freeshard or not--reaches a point after the hype

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Comments

  • ultimateduckultimateduck Member EpicPosts: 1,306
    edited August 2021
    DAoC remains as the best MMO ever made. A huge PvE world that effects RvR. The best PvP system ever created that effect PvE. A deep loot and crafting system. A variety of classes all valid and all vastly different, flat our incredible character growth and development.

    If they could reskin/update the DAoC world like the did with Diablo II, I think there would be a flood of people playing it again.
    RandomCasualty[Deleted User]ScotdacianusNaitakal
  • [Deleted User][Deleted User] Posts: 0
    The user and all related content has been deleted.
  • RandomCasualtyRandomCasualty Member UncommonPosts: 330
    edited August 2021
    Totally agree with the above. I'm one of the suckers that had hope for Camelot Unchained to be the sequel. Really wish there was a reboot in the works. Heck just make it more 1920X1080 fiendly somehow and I would certainly be back. Such fun until the world moved to flatscreens.
  • ultimateduckultimateduck Member EpicPosts: 1,306
    templarga said:
    1. Upgrade graphics

    2. Make the game more modern instead of /keyboard commands and an UI from 2001.

    3. Increase play speed and movement moderately

    4. Actually control botting and dual boxing (related to #3)

    Do those 4 things and I would return to my Friar and my Thane is no time flat. DAOC is still my all time fav MMO but its age is felt by modern standards.
    I liked having a bot, probably because I mostly played a stealther and they weren't very group friendly... so I made my own group.
    Roin
  • herculeshercules Member UncommonPosts: 4,925
    It is the faith of all mmorpg and guess all things to die.
    Question is what did you do with the time
    I still have fond memories from the live SWG and though the servers been gone a very long time I still have that
  • LuidenLuiden Member RarePosts: 337
    A game like DAOC classic the developers didn't need to pander to the players... use the classic rule set and get out of the way.. let the players create the drama and fun. That's always been the secret to the game and every time the developers try to extend or enhance the game they generally failed... both the main servers and the free shards.

    It still blows me away today that Mythic never spent any money on marketing/advertising.. dating all the way back to when the game was released. It was a word of mouth game that not many people knew about. When WoW came out I remember Blizzard running ads on TV, movie previews.. it was everywhere and the game just exploded... thought to myself, how could Mythic F this up so badly? Maybe they didn't have the budget for some of the bigger things that Blizzard did but it wouldn't have killed them to do something.. anything.

    ultimateduck
  • KyleranKyleran Member LegendaryPosts: 43,975
    Luiden said:
    A game like DAOC classic the developers didn't need to pander to the players... use the classic rule set and get out of the way.. let the players create the drama and fun. That's always been the secret to the game and every time the developers try to extend or enhance the game they generally failed... both the main servers and the free shards.



    It's not that easy, what exactly is "classic" DAOC, Uthgard lived and eventually all but died over the battle for version 1.68 "purity."

    SI in, or out? New Frontiers or Old? Enhanced UI, or back to the stone age? Nevermind about TOA.

    What really kills most free shards? Lack of significant change, few gamers can enjoy a MMORPG stuck in it's own version of "Groundhog's Day."









    [Deleted User]ultimateduck

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  • UtinniUtinni Member EpicPosts: 2,209

    templarga said:

    1. Upgrade graphics



    2. Make the game more modern instead of /keyboard commands and an UI from 2001.



    3. Increase play speed and movement moderately



    4. Actually control botting and dual boxing (related to #3)



    Do those 4 things and I would return to my Friar and my Thane is no time flat. DAOC is still my all time fav MMO but its age is felt by modern standards.



    They did its called ESO.
    KyleranultimateduckTheocritus
  • nursonurso Member UncommonPosts: 327

    RandomCasualty said:

    Totally agree with the above. I'm one of the suckers that had hope for Camelot Unchained to be the sequel. Really wish there was a reboot in the works. Heck just make it more 1920X1080 fiendly somehow and I would certainly be back. Such fun until the world moved to flatscreens.



    Well, I'm not giving up on Camelot Unchained just yet.
  • ultimateduckultimateduck Member EpicPosts: 1,306
    Utinni said:

    templarga said:

    1. Upgrade graphics



    2. Make the game more modern instead of /keyboard commands and an UI from 2001.



    3. Increase play speed and movement moderately



    4. Actually control botting and dual boxing (related to #3)



    Do those 4 things and I would return to my Friar and my Thane is no time flat. DAOC is still my all time fav MMO but its age is felt by modern standards.



    They did its called ESO.
    ESO is nowhere near the game that DAoC was.

    KyleranSensaiNaitakal
  • SBE1SBE1 Member UncommonPosts: 340
    First, I remember when MMORPG policy was not to officially discuss free shard servers (as one of my comments long ago was deleted and was told about the policy about absolutely no commentary on free-shards). I suppose that's changed. If it hasn't changed, you probably should go check in with your boss to verify you should be writing about free-shard servers.

    Second, there are several DAOC free-shard servers in the works, not just Atlas (Era and Celestius are two examples) and many Phoenix players are now on the Brotherland free-shard server. I'm a tad surprised you didn't mention these servers in your article.

    Third, as to why Phoenix closed, it's odd because the staff was spending a lot of effort in events, melee style changes and other improvements right before the announcement. The population, while down from Covid lockdown peaks, was still very playable. But with the sudden influx of multiple freeshard servers, it almost makes you wonder if the Phoenix staff had a break-up and are making their own servers.

    unfilteredJW
  • KnightFalzKnightFalz Member EpicPosts: 4,522

    ultimateduck said:


    Utinni said:



    templarga said:


    1. Upgrade graphics





    2. Make the game more modern instead of /keyboard commands and an UI from 2001.





    3. Increase play speed and movement moderately





    4. Actually control botting and dual boxing (related to #3)





    Do those 4 things and I would return to my Friar and my Thane is no time flat. DAOC is still my all time fav MMO but its age is felt by modern standards.






    They did its called ESO.


    ESO is nowhere near the game that DAoC was.




    DAoC is nowhere near the game ESO is. Such is to be expected. Both have their strengths and neither was meant to be the other.
    Kyleran
  • sirfrog0sirfrog0 Member UncommonPosts: 31
    Why does the author seem to be afraid of saying "private server"? Took me a bit to figure out what what going on with this article until they mentioned the Warhammer private server. Never heard the term "freeshard" before.
  • justintbhsjustintbhs Member UncommonPosts: 80

    Utinni said:



    templarga said:


    1. Upgrade graphics





    2. Make the game more modern instead of /keyboard commands and an UI from 2001.





    3. Increase play speed and movement moderately





    4. Actually control botting and dual boxing (related to #3)





    Do those 4 things and I would return to my Friar and my Thane is no time flat. DAOC is still my all time fav MMO but its age is felt by modern standards.






    They did its called ESO.



    Just...no..
    ultimateduckKyleran
  • ScotScot Member LegendaryPosts: 24,273
    edited August 2021
    This is an ages old MMO that was out again on this server for four years, how many modern MMOs run for at least four years, bearing in mind this is not even an official server it has done well.
    MendelKyleran
  • Carsomyr87Carsomyr87 Newbie CommonPosts: 1
    Hope to find that similar excitement I had in DAoC in Camelot Unchained. Please don’t mess this up MJ.
  • ScotScot Member LegendaryPosts: 24,273
    Carsomyr87 said:
    Hope to find that similar excitement I had in DAoC in Camelot Unchained. Please don’t mess this up MJ.
    Welcome to the forums! :)
  • MTMedleyMTMedley Newbie CommonPosts: 1
    Been playing DAOC since 2001 and still going. My only complaint is that the developers seem to cater to Frontiers and not put some creative thought into adding new content into all of the lower BG's. I would make the lvl 10 BG free from killing to give players a jump at lvling. There is no Realm Points anyway. We all have ideas we would like to see which would improve the game I'm sure. Anyway, come back to DAOC Live. We are having fun!
    Kyleranultimateduck
  • ScotScot Member LegendaryPosts: 24,273
    MTMedley said:
    Been playing DAOC since 2001 and still going. My only complaint is that the developers seem to cater to Frontiers and not put some creative thought into adding new content into all of the lower BG's. I would make the lvl 10 BG free from killing to give players a jump at lvling. There is no Realm Points anyway. We all have ideas we would like to see which would improve the game I'm sure. Anyway, come back to DAOC Live. We are having fun!
    Welcome to the forums! :)
  • JhaerikJhaerik Newbie CommonPosts: 3
    Phoenix banned itself to death. They banned over 4x as many players as the server had players during the last year of the servers life. They banned for literally everything. Didn't like your name? Ban. Disagreed with a staff member? Ban. Used necro pet to scout? Ban. Aoe'd and it hit someone through a wall? Ban. Streamed? Ban. Ran two accounts? Ban. Played on different a different Realm than your roommate? Ban. Went AFK for over 10 minutes? Ban. Used a keyboard that could macro multi button presses? Ban.

    Out of the 5 friends I played with every single one of us was banned for things the retail server had allowed for 20 years.
    Kyleran
  • camelotjestercamelotjester Newbie CommonPosts: 1
    edited December 2021
    I had a fun time on Phoenix, particularly early on. I think they definitely were overzealous with the banhammer, eventough I never met that fate. There's lots of reason the server reached its demise ultimately. Inevitably these servers can't maintain near peak population anyway. They definitely focused too much on events, which constantly took players out of the frontiers. I've been playing the Celestius Beta, its launching in a few weeks, and I guess its made by some of the same Phoenix staff. It has more QOL which I welcome.
    Post edited by camelotjester on
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