DAoC Trials of Atlantis controversy

[Morreion]

Trials of Atlantis (and my gaming patience) (Snaffy's Space)

Trials of Atlantis ruined DAOC for me. The only reason I stuck around for as long as I did was because my guild was intensely resourceful, hardcore, and helpful. My friends would log me on in a new client window or second machine and take me along for the various ML raids. They would actually group me as I /stuck to the leader and went AFK for a four hour shift at my second part-time job in college. Without my guild, or a guild like it, I wouldn't have lasted a month past ToA's launch.

It also ruined RvR in general for me. Skillful players were given overpowered abilities to pwn me even faster than before. I could hold my own in most situations pre-ToA but worrying about which potions to quaff, which MLs to fire, and which artifact abilities to use became quite a mindfu** on top of my usual hotbar of skills and realm abilities. Before I got enough abilities to compete, I stood even less of a chance.

I welcomed World of Warcraft with open arms when it arrived in November 2004. My WoW guild was actually named Enmity because that's what I felt towards Mythic for ruining such an awesome game (this sentence is false but included for poetic license). I would rather have done the 1-60 grind in WoW five times over than make a single new character in DAOC with all the MLs and artifacts overshadowing any (mis)perception of fun.

Trials of Atlantis was DAoC's 2nd expansion, releasing in 2004. It was very ambitious.

I know that the majority of players did not like the ToA expansion. My experience was both positive and negative. I enjoyed the challenge of the Master Levels and felt fantastic when, after months of effort, I gained ML 10 on my main character. But a couple of times I almost gave up, it was pretty intense. This is one MMO achievement I am proud of, though. It took a lot of effort and scheduling.

I think that the worst effect of ToA was that it divided up the DAoC player base. There was all sorts of things to do in Atlantis- the series of Master Levels, gaining and leveling artifacts, farming scrolls. Before all of this, players would all get together and either RvR or PvE at a certain spot. But with a huge choice of things to do- which sounds great- players were off doing their own particular highly specific thing. Instead of getting together for a dungeon crawl, people would be out looking for a particular scroll for a particular artifact, or doing ML 1.5 or whatever. Suddenly the community fragmented, and that was stressful. I think it hastened the decay of the general community- the prevailing 'we're all in this together' feeling declined. To me, this is a good example of the law of unintended consequences- game mechanics matter, and seemingly minor changes can have big effects.

[sinaedh]

I totally agree with most points of the rant. It did fracture the community, it did make the 'haves' have MUCH more than the 'have nots', and even though Mythic has dumbed it down, it still is something that should not have been (and should not be) in the game, imo. A casual player does not have the time to learn what they need, and to level up artifacts (which still must be done), and as a result, the casual player is still penalized.

Especially after the recent server crashes on Ywain, which Mythic forced everyone to play on, the idea of forcing everyone to play this flawed game irritates me. I was happy on Classic servers. I am not happy on Ywain. It is only the group I'm currently playing with that keeps me there (along with memories of what the game used to be like).

-Cueaveb, 6L3 Healer and other assorted Midgard characters.

[EchoVamper]

One can point to a host of things that contributed to the decay of DAoC, "The Wonderful Game That We Remember". Certainly ToA was one of those, along with spellcrafting, farming classes, windowed mode, realm points, /level, and housing, all of which created stresses, some very subtle, on the community.

Or one could say that the DAoC "society" progressed through the stages of Auguste Comte's Positivism en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Positivism. He postulated three sequential phases for all societies. These phases overlap, but might look something like this for DAoC.

1. Theological Phase - I would say that this stage ran from launch up until sometime just after the release of Shrouded Isles. It includes the early explorations. The pioneers of the game were struggling against the game itself (God); finding their way through the world. It was an exciting time, and those who were there for it remember it perhaps the most fondly of all stages. Mythic was in a sense co-creating the game with its players during this phase. The player base was more accepting of the doctrines of Mythic at this stage and working within them. The focus was on accepting and physically exploring the world rather than the largely rational approaches that would come later. It was the "Genesis" of DAoC, so to speak.

2. Metaphysical Phase - This probably began before Shrouded Isles and is a stage most of us here remember quite fondly. It is the phase (in positivism) where human rights reign supreme. Communities flourished and realm pride was at its peak. The vast expansion of guilds and even more so alliances happened then. Shrouded Isles actually set the stage for the coming third phase, but it didn't happen immediately. Websites and online forums were seen in abundance. Poetry and prose was plentiful. Roleplaying was at its peak. I'm estimating there were at least two great years of this phase; long enough to seal and lock some wonderful memories for people like us.

3. Scientific Phase - This is the stage when all of those elements I mentioned in the first paragraph (and a few added in by Mythic) converged to thrust the game into this third phase. It took a while. Temporally, the beginning of this phase does indeed correlate quite well with ToA, but I think it is multi-factorial. At any rate, this is the phase where "individual rights" reign supreme and replace human rights and endeavors as the focus. In a sense, the community yields to rational prowess, and there is no higher power guiding the community other that individual rights and aspirations of the people using rational principles. It is the time where a scientific understanding of the universe is at the front. Thus, a hallmark of this is the templated, bot-driven, min/max, solo community that came to replace what we hold dear.

Comte's views were never widely heralded, but they do seem to provide an interesting way to view the evolution of DAoC. Oddly enough, it is the third phase that Comte himself also called the "positive stage". It is actually that third stage that gave rise to the name "positivism". In the case of DAoC, I'm not sure how positive that stage was.

Well, there is one rather philosphical look at it. For what it's worth.

[Rakul]

Good analysis, Echo!

[Regolyth]

I quite liked ToA and the challenges it brought. Now I think the game as at it's best around the release of ToA. It followed the formula (that I still think most games should) that crafted gear is king. Sure, you could get magic gear that was really good, or had effects some cool effects. But gear crafted by a grand master crafter was the best. I also liked how you templated your character to max your stats in the best way, then went out on the battlefield and had a pretty decent chance of survival, as long as the Alb zerg wasn't around. =P

However I did like ToA. I think this brought a lot to the game. It opened up the game to those who preferred PvE and gave them something to do. It also gave a lot of achievements for those who like to accomplish stuff. Being ML9 and/or having an artifact was quite an accomplishment. Being ML10 and/or having a level 10 artifact was something entirely different; a huge accomplishment (or a testament to the amount of free time you have).

Now, ToA was a bit hard, and too much. I do agree with that. I think that the current implementation of MLs and artifacts should have been how it was from the beginning. They did it right with CLs.

[EchoVamper]

Actually, my memories of actual game play in ToA are quite good. It really was pretty nicely crafted in a lot of ways. I have some issues with it on other fronts, but I'm not really one of those people that thinks, "ToA ruined DAoC". I think that the factors in its decay were the convergence of many decisions by Mythic, changes in the MMO player base, and some kind of natural evolution of the game; and I also tend to think that many of the consequences of those decisions were quite impossible to predict.

That said, Mythic has had a way of making decisions that turn out to be problematic later in its games. ToA did meet a need for PvE. What was unforeseen was the profound effect it would have on communities and on the nature of RvR. A current example would be having the endless trial in Warhammer, and then permitting twinked up free Tier 1 characters to make life miserable for paying customers trying to level through the game (a sort of "endless trial" for its paying customers if you will). Mythic somehow has embraced an historical tendency to disrespect some of its most loyal and passionate customers (and quite frankly, a maddening tendency to make life miserable for its new players).

Personal opinion here, but I think Mythic has made far worse mistakes than ToA in the grand scheme of things.

I'm really not a Mythic apologist. In fact, I am quite disgusted with them for several reasons. But PvP/RvR has proven to be a tough thing for MMO developers to nail in general. If one looks at it that way, and notes the shortcomings of subsequent attempts, then DAoC was a pretty remarkable success...given that it was about the first of its kind at the scale it was attempted.

[Regolyth]

Jan 7, 2010 14:33:58 GMT -5 EchoVamper said:

Mythic somehow has embraced an historical tendency to disrespect some of its most loyal and passionate customers (and quite frankly, a maddening tendency to make life miserable for its new players).

...But PvP/RvR has proven to be a tough thing for MMO developers to nail in general. If one looks at it that way, and notes the shortcomings of subsequent attempts, then DAoC was a pretty remarkable success...given that it was about the first of its kind at the scale it was attempted.

I agree with you there. And I do think that no one has done RvR better than Mythic with DAoC (and WAR's was a close second).

I am probably one of the few who like ToA, but maybe that's because I didn't have any real issues with getting my MLs and artifacts leveled. I had a pretty dedicated group that would always get the individual and group steps done prior to MLs, and I ran the ML raids myself (after trying to attend several that busted, or not finding the ones I needed.

[Morreion]

Nice analysis of DAoC using Auguste Comte's ideas, Echo!

One thing I will say about Mythic and DAoC- they have some former players that really trash them because of class balance issues, but I give them full credit for inventing 3-way realm-versus-realm fights with 20-odd different classes. That was a risky move due to the complexity involved, and despite other issues (such as the aggravating buff-botting situation and expansions that have irrevocably changed classic gameplay) they deserve full credit for coming up with an audacious game. Remember, DAoC released in 2001- there was nothing else at all like it then, and it hasn't been repeated since.