First impressions.

[Fengist]

Decided to really give this shard a test and made a scout.

After 3 or 4 reboots on my first day, finally got the quests from the mayor. But, that bugged out the small keep in the starting zone and getting anywhere near it sent 20 grape hibernian invaders chasing you down because the alb armsmen were all catatonic.

After doing a few of the tutorial 'quests' I got to lvl 6 so I decided to strike out on my own. Went to the bg's. I was surprised to find people there actively engaged in pvp, and killing the other realm gave great xp. I stayed in the bg's till 15.

And that's when the game fell apart.

Went to Killa. 3 Albs in the region and all 3 of us standing in APK. Ran round CK 4 or 5 times, saw nothing. Ok, I thought, I'll just kill a few mobs. I went out by APK and found yellow rats. Hrumph. 0.2 bubs. Went inside APK and thot I'll just get some buffs and speed this up a bit. Buff giver said no. I needed to be bigger. Welllll.... if I were bigger I wouldn't need the buffs now would I.

So, went to WD to get some of the Salisbury quests there. Ummm... no. First, no realm minstrel in WD means doing a slow crawl out to these quests spots and a slow crawl back. Second, the few I checked were red mobs.

Ok, went back to Cots to do some of those lvl 15 quests. First quest: killing yellow drakes. Easy enough.
Next quest. Kill a red mob. No. I'm a scout, not a mage. Pass.
Next quest. Kill 10 red mobs. Oh for the love of....

And that's where I stopped.

My impressions:

1. These 'new' quests serve no purpose other than to create a grind simply for the sake of creating a grind. They give you no gear no buffs, no nothing except xp. If this were a game with a monthly subscription where a grind makes the company money, yea, I could understand that. This shard doesn't. These kill quests serve no purpose other than a manufactured grind.

2. Dual accounts. Buffs have always been a huge thing in DAOC. Disallowing dual accounts and then not providing any way for a solo to buff = a crippled solo and forces them to group. This will quickly turn casual players off.

3. /LFrvr - hey, that worked nice! /LFpve - command not found. Wait? What? Ok, so maybe I got the command wrong. /LFGpve... nope. Ummm, but... if it's /LFrvr then it should be /LFpve... makes sense right? Nope. /LFgxp Ok then. So... /LFGxp in camelot hills. 1 person joined and they weren't even in the same region. So.... that didn't work so well.

I"m sure had I made it past lvl 15 I'd have found a few more disagreeable items.

NOTE! This is not a bitch, just observations.

And for what it's worth I have over a dozen 50's on officials spread across 4 accounts, had 5 lvl 50 mids on Phoenix and a half dozen or so lvl 50 hibs on Celestius. So, I'm well acquainted with grind. This one is bad.

[Fengist]

Oh, and as for the planned resets. Already scared one of my old friends off. Grinding like this for a year to make a bunch of lvl 50's just to see them vanish into the ether didn't appeal to him at all.

[shoke]

Oh, and as for the planned resets. Already scared one of my old friends off. Grinding like this for a year to make a bunch of lvl 50's just to see them vanish into the ether didn't appeal to him at all.

Did your friend read about how the seasons/resets will be implemented?

The server will only reset once the population drops below the level evaluated as the minimum enjoyable population. In this case, you and your friend will most likely have already left, so you aren't losing anything compared to what would have happened any way.

However, on the new season, you do keep your realm points, name, titles (i think) and crafts. So not all is loss.

[Fengist]

Did your friend read about how the seasons/resets will be implemented?

The server will only reset once the population drops below the level evaluated as the minimum enjoyable population. In this case, you and your friend will most likely have already left, so you aren't losing anything compared to what would have happened any way.

However, on the new season, you do keep your realm points, name, titles (i think) and crafts. So not all is loss.

Yes, we did read that part. Losing crafting skills would have definitely been a deal breaker. But with the grind to lvl being what it currently is, I'd rather have seen just a RR reset. That would prevent having to grind the levels back up and still level the RVR playing field. On the other hand, I always loved Thid and seeing it at least briefly repopulated would be most welcome.

[[KotH]Mac]

Oh, and as for the planned resets. Already scared one of my old friends off. Grinding like this for a year to make a bunch of lvl 50's just to see them vanish into the ether didn't appeal to him at all.

Diablo 2 and 3 have had exactly the same thing since time immemorial. They call them "ladders". There are basically two mindsets regarding this mechanic: some, like myself, love the chance to start from scratch again and relive the good times we had before. The other is that of your and your aforementioned friends. Neither is right or wrong....just different strokes for different folks.

[[KotH]Mac]

So, went to WD to get some of the Salisbury quests there. Ummm... no. First, no realm minstrel in WD means doing a slow crawl out to these quests spots and a slow crawl back.

Yup, West Downs sticks out like a sore thumb in Albion. It is a major quest hub - it has always been a major hub of activity in DAoC of all kinds - and yet lacks a hastener *and* a porter. It doesn't even have a bindstone, the presence of which would ameliorate at least some of the misery. It would help some if the devs would add WD to the destinations on the channeler menu - there is plenty of room. I continue to have faith that once the bug fixing frenzy has died down and the quest system is stable, they will rectify this problem, probably in beta.

[[KotH]Mac]

1. These 'new' quests serve no purpose other than to create a grind simply for the sake of creating a grind. They give you no gear no buffs, no nothing except xp. If this were a game with a monthly subscription where a grind makes the company money, yea, I could understand that. This shard doesn't. These kill quests serve no purpose other than a manufactured grind.

You could not be more wrong. In the long view, they provide players with a way to get to 50 w/o having to group or having to level in the BGs. In the short term, they specifically give the devs input about all aspects of the game...it is a literal fountain of information to help them to get the game into shape for beta, where the emphasis will be more on end-game play. Yes, the quest system needs some tuning, but it is already much more stable as I write this.

2. Dual accounts. Buffs have always been a huge thing in DAOC. Disallowing dual accounts and then not providing any way for a solo to buff = a crippled solo and forces them to group. This will quickly turn casual players off.

Once again, you are 180 degrees off the mark. Casual players do *not* want to be forced to have more than one account. The necessity of a buff bot and thus 2 accounts is one of the major reasons I left Live originally. One of the best points of Eden and one of its major draws is its restriction to one account per player.

NOTE! This is not a bitch, just observations.

On the contrary, several of your remarks, and the overall tone of your posting, strikes me as mean-spirited and elitist.

And for what it's worth I have over a dozen 50's on officials spread across 4 accounts, had 5 lvl 50 mids on Phoenix and a half dozen or so lvl 50 hibs on Celestius. So, I'm well acquainted with grind. This one is bad.

Same for me. And you are just wrong.

[Fengist]

[/quote]
On the contrary, several of your remarks, and the overall tone of your posting, strikes me as mean-spirited and elitist.
Same for me. And you are just wrong.
[/quote]

Opinions on the mechanics of a game such as this are neither wrong nor right. They are opinions. Period. You, however are WRONG for thinking otherwise.

And as for elitist... lol... ok, that's your opinion.

[Layr]

You have so many level 50 chars on Live. You have 4 Accounts.. You know the game that well.. But never once did you look for a group? Or another person to do the same quests? If you can`t kill a red monster alone, get a second or third. Its a MMORPG not Singleplayer. You CAN play solo, but if you can`t then just don`t.

[Fengist]

You have so many level 50 chars on Live. You have 4 Accounts.. You know the game that well.. But never once did you look for a group? Or another person to do the same quests? If you can`t kill a red monster alone, get a second or third. Its a MMORPG not Singleplayer. You CAN play solo, but if you can`t then just don`t.

I'll just say this.

Mythic once upon a time came up with the idea of enforced groups. They called it TOA. Still think it's a good idea?