you didn't once mention that broadsword plays the game you didn't mention that if you beat up a broadsword player repeatedly they'll heckle/harass, and then ban you. it's happened to me for 20+ years, i build a op reaver, and broadsword bans it/turns off gateway access. (crooks run dark age of camelot, save your money, go play eso, eso is still full of people, and you won't get cheated by moderators who shouldn't even be playing in the first place)
I played this game in its glory days. It was an amazing experience, and no game has ever really replicated it. There would be massive realm wars with 100s of players on battling for an objective. And you would see people's names in the cst box appear when they killed someone. They were like the players of legend with very high realm ranks, and you would strive to get to thst point. I truly miss this game, and I hope in some way it gets resurrected.
Same here. I started it when the shrouded isles just came out. The old box games were on the shelf at Software Etc, and the sales gal talked me into it. Her and her husband showed me the mmo ropes, and I was hooked. I stuck around through catacombs, but it went downhill, imo once ToA came out. Amazing memories, though. Waking up at 3am to join in a "top secret" relic raid and hunting pvp in DF with my SB when albs or his had.
do a video on the Eden free shard server. Its a more accurate representation of how many people play and it keeps the game alive. There's usually more than 1000 people on at any given time and its free with regular updates. Helps shine light on how good of a job the devs have done to keep the game going.
server himself gives alot of good Qol´s in fact, but still no tp to epic dungeon. But... the rvr are boring as hell, too much encounters / currency to do, sometimes u have to wait days for an raid like HoH, CoC etc...no epic dungeons raid on hib or mid side usually. Phoenix with attack and defend events was given by far more action on rvr, for rvr zerg also for small even for solo fights etc...
iam 42 years old now , an i still remember my 10 Years of DAOC..... my Comrades called me at Night that our Keep was raided. i logged in immediatly to defend our Realm. i loves this game so much. Never understood why so many players left bacause of wow
It isnt because of wow, it is because broadsword started to only cater to a select group of people, and allows those people to get away with anything they want.
It was a combination of WoW and Trials of Atlantis. WoW was a new thing so it attracted many players and Atlantis was just an incredible grind fest with Master Level raids, scroll farming, artifact farming, artifact leveling, and the fact you had to do this every time on every class you had made it incredibly hard on a lot of people. If you did not have the master levels or artifacts you were a secondary player in pvp, you were so underpowered compared to people that had all of it, it burned people out greatly.
I left it because of artifacts...I absolutely hated them. The amount of time I spent maxing every character I had maxing every crafting skill and then "hey guys here's new items that take longer to level up than it took your whole character!" No, I don't think I will
My brother bought this game shortly after it released. It was probably december of 2001 and I was almost 9 years old. I remember watching him play for hours and begging to play. Occasionally if I was lucky he would let me play for him. A year or two later I had a computer that could half run it, sometimes I got to play on his account. I'd convince my mom off and on to let me get a subscription and then I'd make countless characters and level them up to 15 or so before changing for a new character. By the time I was 12 I had a better computer and took my gaming to the next level. I leveled a highlander mercenary to about level 41. The highlight of my DAOC experience was to get a character level 5, buy the best gear I could for the lions den (level 5-9 pvp zone) and then go into the zone and grind all night to be level 15-19 when people came online the next morning. I delighted in being geared with armor and skills people entering the zone couldn't possibly match. I would be able to one hit most characters. I even wiped an entire group once, before eventually getting attacked by two realms at once and being killed as a level 19 Armsman. This was the best mmo ever. I'm not even a lore person but the themes and vibe of this game have never been matched.
I have such fond memories of DAOC. First character was a Dwarf Thane and the loyalty to faction was strong. We were always the underdogs to Albion BGs. Ended up switching to Albion and felt the same loyalty. 15+ years on and I still remember some of those epic battles in the New Frontiers. I would get so jazzed for Friday night RvR. I even got my Mom playing it with me and we had such good times. Really fun to see it covered again, thanks Sawman! Great video and thanks for the nostalgia wave :).
I hopped to DAoC from UO with a bunch of people from my Chaos guild in UO. The funny thing is that I resisted for 2 weeks after launch because we were PKers on UO and I thought that DAoC sounded carebear. But then I got a bunch of personal friends to start DAoC after I made the move, and we never looked back. Lots of zergy, roleplaying type PvP on our first server (Hib - Tristan) and then a lot of sweatlord ganking on our second run as Midgard on the Kay server. Spiritmaster + Skald was just a nasty duo. There was one Hib group on Kay that we could never beat duo, but we never batted an eye at fighting any group size otherwise. Fun shit - if not a bit imbalanced sometimes lol. Spiritmaster was so OP. I was kind of being carried in that duo. I'll admit it 🤣
Wife and I played this game in its prime when Shrouded Isles expansion released shortly after the infamous left axe nerf, we played for 7 years. No game has ever come close to the RvR this game had also Lance, Merlin etc. original servers had 1,000s of people on them was always something to do even in the lower level BGs ( Thid , Molvik) had 100s of people in them.
Thid was a great intro to RvR. I used to love playing as an infiltrator and waiting at a bridge or crossing point for someone to come and get killed lol.
I still remember the 3AM RvR raids fondly. You could never do that in this day and age, as you'd have people spoiling within hours of trying to set it up. Good times.
@@xomox5316 Right, this generation couldn't handle that type of game today. For one, perma stealth classes dont seem to exist in gaming today they are on some dumb cooldown of like 20 sec or something, but having a 9 sec stun on a stealth class off an evade or PA? lol
@@rofo2107 I don't think many young players like MMOs, relatively speaking, or even really know much about the genre. I would guess that most players haven't played games with 3 faction pvp, as most current MMOs are nearly single player affairs with instanced pvp.
Agreed. Also 7:58 the player population, the 50 people you noted online said 97, truncated to show a list of 25. This would change when logged into alb/hib as you mentioned just in case you do make an Eden video so you can see the population difference
oh another pretend game where moderators run shit into the ground trying to force their own "lore play" happens all day in daoc ea live servers. fake gaming that is.
Remaking Lurikeen Rangers leveling to 24 and doing BG1 was how I spent many a year. Nobody gives enough credit to the BG system DAoC had, they were extremely fun.
Another reason why the playerbase is low is because most people are playing on the private servers which are.. free.. and actually has active pvp going on.
I played DAOC for a few years, and went back a couple of times. The biggest hit the game ever took, was releasing the Trials of Atlantis expansion, where they focused on PvE, rather than PvP, and added artifacts and master levels, that became something one had to do, for a PvP-centric game. There were new 'cheese' classes and builds, and it changed the game in a way that the majority of the player-base didn't want. And then came WoW, the death-knell of many formerly successful MMORPG titles. Loved the video, cheers for the nostalgia and for showing what it is like now!
Now it would be cool if you did a video on the Eden server, so that people know there is a very successful DAoC environment to play this game in all it's glory.
I am, indeed, old as fuck. I still have my cockmongler memes. I played DaoC back in the day. Hibs for life. Fuck Albion Reavers. Nothing was worse than the hype train leading up to Warhammer Online only for it to end up being a wet fart.
I remember it, EQ2, WAR, WOW... too many games pulling players away, the closing of the european servers and customer support didn't help too. At least they haven't killed it yet - but on the other side Reckoning is better than Warhammer Online was
Hibs forever! My first was a blademaster who ironically had 2 tiny fast AF hammers. My entire account of maxed toons, maxed crafting, and then artifacts came out and I was done.
when this game was stil thriving, the realm vs realm vs realm sometimes had like 200+ players of each faction battling it out in the rvr areas. Theres nothing like it
I know I look like a weirdo now with this many comments, but this struck a chord. Most players who were there at launch would agree. This was a great video!
I thought you looked like a weirdo regardless j/k Most pre 2012 mmos were good and working. Even wow went to shit with them screwing with the game after that year. The amusing thing is it's not devs that mess up the game (usually) it's ppl like that hobbit homer simpson Bosley and other management. That's the same kind of ppl in a lot of corporations these days causing the price hikes because "you'll pay for it anyway" - several CEOs have been quoted saying this.
I count myself extremely lucky, having played DAoC and it's expansions from the launch as a Shadowclan orc. It's still one of the greatest experiences in mmo's I've had
DAoC was a special game, glad I played it before 2004 when WoW came out. Sawman nailed it with the faction comment you really felt apart of a faction and things that happened in RvR mattered in the overall world like having access to Darkness Fall dungeon or a loss or gain in power due to captured relics.
I am 45 and remember my old days playing for many hours on Nimue. They had classic servers before swtor came out and that drew me back in for a brief period of time. To this day it is hands down the best pvp mmorpg I have ever played in my life. I was always amazed that EA didn't just update the engine, refresh the graphics and re-launch the game again. I think it would be a huge success.
I played Nimue too!! 41 and I miss the old RP server...it was so fun I had my own areas I'd drag my buff bot with me to camp and get supplies for crafting...outfit my home... getting old sucks and I really hated when they added artifacts...I left about a month after that happened...just couldn't stand grinding levels on them and the amount of time it took.
I also played this game in its glory days. My daughter and I played together and we have such wonderful memories of that! I did play about a year ago and, yes, so lonely and sad. I have been a gamer since Pong and would love to find a new game that is on this level. There was something so special and beautiful and magical about DAOC and the people we played with. I had high hopes for Camelot Unchained but can't see that happening anytime soon, if ever.
Loved this game back in the day, it felt revolutionary to me at the time. Big love to Prydwen crowd! My friends and I were teenagers when we began playing this and had so much free time to burn so the huge number of hours / days needed to progress wasn't much of an issue. Uni, Full-time jobs, families and real life were ultimately why our time in game diminished. I'm 40 next year but still remember fondly some of the epic battles, rivalries, enemies and friends (admittedly through rose tinted glasses in some cases :D). Still, this game introduced a number of firsts for me personally as a gamer. - First huge multiplayer open world PvE and PvP experience - First game that allowed for our extended group of friends to play all at the same time. - First game to allow us to make our own guild with our own emblem, house etc - First and pretty much only game to allow for a non instanced player house occupying an actual numbered plot in a zone. - First game with such a steep learning curve, in the beginning there weren't even maps of zones available, it was all explore yourself learn from others etc. Ended up buying a 2 inch thick Prima guide :O. - First game to ever give me a rush with hard earned PvP fights. Especially winning 1vs 2, 3 etc. Never could put my finger on why this only happened in daoc and never any game before or since. The list goes on. Good times.
@@monkeh86 Hi sorry for late reply, I had a ton of chars I forget the names of the really early ones, except Shadowfane Pala, Spartal Infi,; - Having the option of so many potential classes was quite new to me as a teenager so I couldn't resist making new ones until I ran out of slots. I didn't get serious till Hydron the Arms though which was a few years later. Edit: Can't even spell my own name right now :P
Copying this from another video I posted on. This game is what got me into gaming into the first place and will always be close to heart. If there is one MMO that deserves a rebirth, it is DAoC. So many memories, friends made, rivals from the other realms and the best community in any game i've ever seen so many years on. From the in-game funerals honored by all three realms in the frontiers. To the guilds that would peel off in an 8v8 when my group would get AJ'd. To the lvl 50 shaman who would give me stam and dmg buffs when passing by in DF when I was a low level. To the crafters who would grind for hours to become LGM only to charge cost because for the glory to the realm. To the Raid leaders and Relic Raid leaders who brought the community together for the realm. To the people having 8v8s and not killing the lonely solo who just wanted to watch. To the people who would /bow after kicking my butt. To the high level group in the dungeon who brought someone 6 levels under them to soak xp and go deeper with you. To the people of Igraine when dropping Laghammers in OF Emain zerg fights, sorry not sorry :) To the thousands of memories built over the years from every corner of the game. Thank you, for being the best fucking community ever and i'm proud to have been a part of it.
I never charged at all, I hoarded supplies for crafting and outfitted everyone I could for free I didn't need much of anything because I had maxed crafting on every skill and I loved helping people to love the game! But I completely understand charging cost...they killed my love for the game when ToA and artifacts came out...I miss it
It was glorious. The best time I had besides my EQ time. The Cookie group pvp roaming on Andred and Mordred has never been matched. Sieging keeps . We had group battles that could last over 30 minutes. I had and Inf and Scout for keeps and port camping. And my battle bard for pvp groups. I wish I could go back.
I played DAOC from launch to about 2004. Recently, my buddy and I have been playing on Eden. Working our way up. Last night in the 35-39 battle ground. We (hibs) were attacked by 3 albs. The fight was slipping out of our favor, but then two mids attacked the albs. The albs die, and then the mids finish us off. All that excitment while running around doing a PVE quest in the battlegrounds!
i played it in its prime. their peak was 250k players actually. it was fun af. the private server scene for this game is far more populated than the official server. GW2 WvW is a lot like the RvR from DAoC, and of course so is Cyrodil in ESO, so honestly people arent missing much with DAoC being history.
I miss this game and the friendships me and my best friend made on this game. Manute (Manny) and Heldir were his main two at the end. My last two would've been Gavenne (Later GavPwnsYou due to deletion of the account) and Brigib TankCaster (midguard on a minor server who protected alb healers against hib stealthrrs lmao) which was my favorite build. A two handed sword which only came out after all my magic was used up lol.
Even in its old state it’s better than any modern day PVP mmo. I played the first 5 years. I’m old as fuck 😂.. it required teamwork, it fostered socialization. Imagine losing 3 hours of ExP grinding in one death or having to rest 5 minutes or so to regen after a fight. It took hours to repair keep doors carrying lumber. Not like ESO.. carrying weight slowed your movement or stalled it completely if you took to much. When I quit they went easy mode. Fast leveling, etc .. I’ve played every MMO. Ever heard of Lineage? To this day DAOC was the greatest PVP mmo ever created. Mark Jacob’s sold out with ESO making it DAOC Fortnite.
So sad.. I played this game back in 2007 for about 5 years and had raids of over 100 people! I was in a guild of over 25 people! It was truly amazing! We would raid castles and take them, and we would do dragon raids and dungeon raids. I was literally thinking about trying to again, but it's sad to see it like this!
ESO has a lot more similarities than the Realm v Realm v Realm thing, I found out. And, never made the connection of Matt Firoror until you pointed it out! But, when the Imperial City expansion launched in ESO, I found my favorite place to hang out was in the Sewers. The players I constantly hung out with asked me why, and I told them it reminded me a TON of the Darkness Falls adventuring, where players can do all kinds of grinding and farming, but also run into players from other realms.
I was there on opening day. It was one of the greatest games. Still have a shirt with my clan crest in a drawer somewhere. I don’t think we will see one like it again.
Road to 100k here we come. Subbed 💜 sorry it took so long to find your content!!! You really are meant for this, please keep at it. I don't know you personally, but I know how quality your videos are. Don't ever give up!!!!
Great video. I quite like these videos documenting online worlds that are now almost empty. The real world, especially online, is so "full" and loud you know. Maybe old MMOs will come back one day
I'm fortunate to say that I got to play both this and UO back in their "prime" and while I enjoyed WoW, it's success caused all of the game studios to stop investing in games like these altogether. UO and Daoc got little to no major expansions after WoW came out. I'm also lucky to have played Star Wars Galaxies, Guild Wars 1, Swtor, Aion, ArcheAge, and Darkfall in their hey-days (or in some cases - unlucky lol)
Being someone who bought 3 copies of this game day one. I would say the reason it fizzled out was due to the lack of progression after you hit 50. Yes they came out with some alternative levels like Champion levels, but those levels seemed so group orientated that it was hard to get done. I ran a guild of over 200 people and it was still hard to get enough people organized weekly. You were always having to "catch" someone up on what they were missing. Later in the game's history, they released a server for co-op play, allowing different realms to group together and RVR was non-existent. Instead all the RVR areas were filled with elite mobs that, once again, needed a full group or two to take down. While this was no way to save the game, it gave all us the ability to create "dream team" groups. BTW, you didn't mention that there are now FTP servers that are not run by EA. Thanks for the video, love it.
My brother and I ran multiple accounts at a time in order to do large boss encounters. You just had to have the right character combinations and a lot of time 😅
I’m a classic wow super expert but back in the day a ton of my guildies were ex-DAOC players. I’ve never actually played it but it’s one of the only other MMOs I hold in high esteem besides Classic WoW, alongside maybe EQ, RuneScape and a few others. It’s a funny genre where 99% of the games are garbage but the 1% are so good you spend your whole life reminiscing about how great they were/are.
I just think of how people screamed and kicked a fuss about New World's PvP centric nature....and the absolute mess that resulted when they tried to pander to those carebears.
It's not that ppl don't want pvp, it's that ppl want pvp that feels rewarding and fair. That's the hard part to do n why we haven't seen many pvp oriented mmos succeed.
You got me fired up. When I was in the Trinity Alliance on the Tristan server (Hibernia) we had like a 200+ man relic raid on midgard where we all split up into different teams, hit all of their 7 normal keeps at exactly the same time because the guards at the relic keeps were about invincible unless you lowered their strength by taking normal keeps, had advance teams waiting at the relic keeps outside of guard range until the normal keeps fell (think of scrolls in ESO here) - and had all of it take down and were moving with both relics within 7 minutes. People were still talking about that particular raid a year after it happened, it was that good. You just don't get shit like that in ESO, even though that's what Cyrodiil is built for. So that's one part of the game. When we moved to the Kay server to play Midgard, we ran a 2-6 man gank squad. We were taking out zergs and just loving it. So there was this aspect of the game as well. You want small group ganking, or even duo? Do it. You want to play the objectives? Do it. It could all happen at once because you'd have 600 people out there fighting at any given time. This game was EPIC and in the real sense of the word.
@@Angelz_Angelz were you around when Lodi used to organize those epic relic raids? I think that he was the lead of the "other" big Hibernian alliance. Hellabatank was the Trinity leader. I actually led it for a while after he took a break from the game.
Awesome Vid. This was the first MMO I ever played, because I could buy game time cards at Walmart and it didn’t require a credit card (which my parents wouldn’t let me use lol). A lot of great memories with this game.
DAoC was amazing in its own way. Something like that is unimagineable nowadays. Having 3 different realms. Each with its own graphic sets, quests, classes and races. And still have a somewhat balanced pvp in a shared area. But it also had huge flaws. 1 account was never enough to fully enjoy the game. For Midgard, two were what you wanted. Having a shaman with a full set of buffs made such a huge different. Due to the ways, all buffs were splitted up among the classes on the other realms, you needed like 3 accounts for playing Albion and ... ummm ... maybe 3 as well for Hibernia. (Thought on later times you could do with 2 in hibernia by picking Barde + Champion (at least I think it was Champion, that hybrid melee class with its own specc buffs).
Yes, I am old... and I played both UO and Asheron's Call. In fact I played Asheron's Call instead of Everquest back then. Anyway, either of those games would be good to cover; Ultima Online will probably be nostalgic for a lot more people, but Asheron's Call is a rarer gem that was very unique. I think there are some private servers, but I have never played on any.
My mother beta tested UO, the most fascinating part for me of that game historically is how innocent everyone was about player behavior. They really didn’t think players would murder each other like crazy or wipe all life off the face of the map
In the beginning of the game they had many different servers. But like you mentioned, the population dwindled down. As a result, they consolidated servers. One server was straight up free for all meaning the frontier and the realms were fair game. So you were constantly getting killed if you weren’t grouped or hidden. I forgot the name of the server, started with an M? Anyway, the game had multiple expansions that added to the game. But the bread and butter was the RVR and battle grounds they had.
This is one of the best games ever played! I have so much fond memories of playing this back in the day. relic raids, call to arms and wow the raids :D
Came out around the same time as Ultima Online? UO came out in 97 and DAOC came out in 2001. 4 years might not seem like a lot now, but in those days (the early days of MMO's) that was a massive gap. I remember lol
I resemble that "old as Fuck". Loved the game for many years. My main on Pellinor was an infiltrator Bodycount Rising. I was hated alot lol. Miss 3vs 1 fights.
I played this for quite a while at its peak. Met some brilliant people - I miss them. Ultimately wanted a little more interesting solo play for variation.
Warhammer age of reckoning was meant to be a spiritual successor to dark age of camelot in a way. It was great at the time and i did enjoy the castle sieges/especially when you got all the way to the enemy faction main base, as much of a zerg fest as they really were.
When EQ was out, I used to play it with my boss. He played EQ all day at work in his office. Anyway, when DAOC came out, I jumped on it because it offered something new - team pvp to conquer realm targets. But in time I shifted to GW2, because it offered a similar team pvp with better graphics and a low level can level match in pvp to participate. My all time fav. mmo with pvp was ShadowBane... it went beyond DAOC and GW2, which held static realms that you were fighting over, with dynamic city building. Guilds in shadowbane were based on cities. Cities could be sieged... so the map of power and control was dynamic. Sadly it is no longer in existence and nothing like that has even been released (afaik).
Played Ibin the Thane on Gaheris. (RoF)Reign of Fury guild with great people. Had a great alliance and fun for years. We made #1 guild on server till WoW hit, and we all left. Miss the old DAoC days. Darkness Falls leveling, dueling Kamehameha the Paladin, whooping Dark and all his bots to the Forts. Typing pages of chat before Vent. Dragon raids with more people than what most games can hold in a server. Great memories...
Great video. Found you because tells me most of my audience come from you. I think the saddest thing for me and why I never got into DAoC is that (A) I don't want to give money to EA and (B) The private server scene for the game is reaaaaly inconsistent with servers rising and falling like crazy and mostly driven by small cliques. You should checkout UO outlands if you haven't.
I would actually LOVE to play UO, but its ones of those games that there is a lot to learn. It could make a good 100 hour experience... also thats funny about my audience, as most of mine comes from a bunch of other people, but im glad you found my channel! I'll have a nose at your content :)
@@sawmanUK Don't it's terrible :P But actually UO outlands isn't that inaccessible. They've changed the game hugely...actually I should do a video on that...
Also, Mark Jacobs was (maybe still is?) THE GOAT. When EA came into the picture, he put a lot of work in to make sure that EA didn't do to DAoC what it does to every franchise that it gobbles up. He lost the fight eventually, but was able to give another 12 - 18 months of solid DAoC back to his original subscribers. If you didn't start at launch and complain about Trials of Atlantis when it came out as a DLC, you won't know what I'm talking about. But the dude is a legend. What happened with Camelot Unchained, on the other hand, is unforgivable.
Honestly, the old days of cyrodiil in the 24 man groups, zerging, all in guild chat... thats what i miss. I think early days eso might of been a bit like daoc, but we know how that story ends...
@@sawmanUK you hit a home run with this video, my man. At least for those of us who know. Thank you for doing it. I know that I pestered you a lot lol.
What song is the 8 bit music at the beginning? Ive looked for it but no english lyrics to search for. Love your videos. I used to play eso too but it's monetization broke my heart.
I think you should take a look at D&D Online. It's such a fantastic, yet poorly cared for MMO since it's running on a nearly two decades old engine. It was one of the first, and I think the ONLY MMO where it felt like I was playing a true D&D MMO. Because you didn't level up from killing enemies, you leveled up from completing quests. So finally, you could play the game as a super sneaky rogue, avoiding every enemy throughout, and you'd still gain experience.
You closing question about PvP. It showed us that people wanted PvP 20+ years ago. PvP in MMOs is never balanced and people want balance. Personally I don’t, I want complete unbalanced classes. Eg, healers that do next to no damage and dps classes that can’t regen health. Also the problems we have with meta these days make game play really dull and meta players gatekeeper content, which put people off. I’ve recently witnessed this in New World. People in my guild only wanting max geared and specific weapons to join their group and they wait hours to get such people into their group in order to complete the content that little bit quicker….. yeah, think on the logic of that…..😂 as a result, people quit as they can’t progress and then the meta sheep quit as there’s no one left in game. As Radiohead sung “you do it to yourself, you do, and that’s what really hurts. You do it to yourself, just you. You and no one else. You do it to yourselfffffff….”
This is what made daoc great and why newer MMOs sucked. A healer that can dps doesn't leave much room for teamwork, nothing beats the coordinated teamwork required to win in daoc.
Heya, I have a MMO suggestion. Warhammer Online through the private server named Return of Reckoning. The private server is very much alive and is getting constant updates from new devs. It's been running since live stopped about 14 years ago.
just focking take this game, remaster it and lets go pvp in Darkness falls ffs ! :p Damn i miss the time we grew 8man groups and went xp lvl 22 in spraggon den ^^
this game taught me some life lessons. i was a hibernian light mentalist, and i ninja looted respecc gems (world boss drops) so i ended up being shunned/hated by the whole server. switched to wow on launch were i reformed as "the nice guy". and it felt way better. cheers and thanks for the video
Probably my 2nd favorite game of all time. I'm playing it right now just listening to videos about it. That's what brought me here. So, thx for the background content! :)
DAoC still is the best realm vs realm mmorpg there was with its unique group fighting and queued moves. Miss the old days, the community and even the hours spent on crafting/trading and just chatting up ppl while doing so... ='( (Midgard/Prydwen for 3v4h!!)
I used to sell characters on ebay for $700 - this was the 1st MMORPG that got me HOOKED!! I never played WOW after it came out. This game brings back so many good memories. I even flew to Belgium and spent the night with friends who I gamed with for over 10 years. Fenrir and Isenhart (Kune and Ina) best time of my life. Still went outside but this is all I looked forward to when I had free time. Would stay up for 12 hours grinding with friends doing Dragon runs and just plain out awesomeness. (Sirum Bakbrakyr - Troll Berzerker)
I was an OG DAOC player from early '02 until WoW pulled me in. I revived my account some years later and visited my old server (EU Excalibur) and I was literally the only person on. It was very sad. I soon found other more populated servers and had a little fun for a while, but it's never going to be the same as those early days - when I was in a cool guild made up of guys I knew IRL.
I played DAoC as a teenager and DAMN that was something different. I had so much fun with that game. My Dad was an Albion player and I was Midgard, so we even had IRL realm shit talking in our house 😂 Good times.
I love the "You're old as f***" joke followed by the Wasted banner from the original GTA's ... and I still know what that is >_>. That only rubs salt in the wound, man! Salt in the wound :(.
I played Everquest PvP and Dark Age of Camelot. The people saying they don't want PvP in an MMO have never truly given a real faction based PVP MMO a chance. While the leveling PVP experience is hit or miss, PvP fixes almost everything lame and boring about max level MMO gameplay. All the rule lawyering, raid schedules, boring zonked out gear farming and poop-socking, even the headache of GMs administrating all the bickering on a care bear server. None of that, "but we were here first" baby nonsense matters when at any given moment someone can come along with the squad and simply remove you. Especially in EQ where key item farms could give a guild control of the server's economy, there were high-stakes wars over key territory. It adds a completely new depth of mechanics and things you need to keep in mind when doing just about anything in the game. I'll probably never play another MMO, I have kids and a life, but if the great new MMO comes out I hope they add obligatory PvP starting at raid level and they don't listen to the babies crying for a blue server snooze fest. Minecraft wouldn't have a survival mode if players always knew what they wanted.
Thanks for watching, leave a like if you want me to play more classic MMOs and feel free to suggest some below!
Website: www.DogWaterGaming.com
Ill subscribe, but I will not like >.>
You should join Eden DAoC community freeshard and do another video. It is better than live and way more people playing there.
Conan unchained or how it is called now would be interesting, for me the respawn was a bit too fast and i got lost after the starting city sadly
you didn't once mention that broadsword plays the game you didn't mention that if you beat up a broadsword player repeatedly
they'll heckle/harass, and then ban you. it's happened to me for 20+ years, i build a op reaver, and broadsword bans it/turns off gateway access.
(crooks run dark age of camelot, save your money, go play eso, eso is still full of people, and you won't get cheated by moderators who shouldn't even be playing in the first place)
@@motoren8536 omgggg I downloaded live T-T I only saw this now
I played this game in its glory days. It was an amazing experience, and no game has ever really replicated it. There would be massive realm wars with 100s of players on battling for an objective. And you would see people's names in the cst box appear when they killed someone. They were like the players of legend with very high realm ranks, and you would strive to get to thst point. I truly miss this game, and I hope in some way it gets resurrected.
It's very active on Eden Shard currently
Yeaaaa same … miss the PvP dates Real PvP !!!!Rip Andred and Mordred Servers
@@ab-bk8fe koth is about as close as you can get to that on Eden (FFA PVP in a specific zone every few hrs)
Same here. I started it when the shrouded isles just came out. The old box games were on the shelf at Software Etc, and the sales gal talked me into it. Her and her husband showed me the mmo ropes, and I was hooked. I stuck around through catacombs, but it went downhill, imo once ToA came out. Amazing memories, though. Waking up at 3am to join in a "top secret" relic raid and hunting pvp in DF with my SB when albs or his had.
Yup. Realm v realm assaults on keeps, patrolling with bands of minstrels and assassins, DAOC was special
do a video on the Eden free shard server. Its a more accurate representation of how many people play and it keeps the game alive. There's usually more than 1000 people on at any given time and its free with regular updates. Helps shine light on how good of a job the devs have done to keep the game going.
server himself gives alot of good Qol´s in fact, but still no tp to epic dungeon. But... the rvr are boring as hell, too much encounters / currency to do, sometimes u have to wait days for an raid like HoH, CoC etc...no epic dungeons raid on hib or mid side usually. Phoenix with attack and defend events was given by far more action on rvr, for rvr zerg also for small even for solo fights etc...
Does it work w W11? And can you transfer tools from Broadsword version?
Exactly!
i want Uthgard back!!! but i will never come back this feeling
Is this still active?
iam 42 years old now , an i still remember my 10 Years of DAOC..... my Comrades called me at Night that our Keep was raided. i logged in immediatly to defend our Realm. i loves this game so much. Never understood why so many players left bacause of wow
It isnt because of wow, it is because broadsword started to only cater to a select group of people, and allows those people to get away with anything they want.
It was a combination of WoW and Trials of Atlantis. WoW was a new thing so it attracted many players and Atlantis was just an incredible grind fest with Master Level raids, scroll farming, artifact farming, artifact leveling, and the fact you had to do this every time on every class you had made it incredibly hard on a lot of people.
If you did not have the master levels or artifacts you were a secondary player in pvp, you were so underpowered compared to people that had all of it, it burned people out greatly.
I left it because of artifacts...I absolutely hated them. The amount of time I spent maxing every character I had maxing every crafting skill and then "hey guys here's new items that take longer to level up than it took your whole character!" No, I don't think I will
My brother bought this game shortly after it released. It was probably december of 2001 and I was almost 9 years old. I remember watching him play for hours and begging to play. Occasionally if I was lucky he would let me play for him. A year or two later I had a computer that could half run it, sometimes I got to play on his account. I'd convince my mom off and on to let me get a subscription and then I'd make countless characters and level them up to 15 or so before changing for a new character.
By the time I was 12 I had a better computer and took my gaming to the next level. I leveled a highlander mercenary to about level 41. The highlight of my DAOC experience was to get a character level 5, buy the best gear I could for the lions den (level 5-9 pvp zone) and then go into the zone and grind all night to be level 15-19 when people came online the next morning. I delighted in being geared with armor and skills people entering the zone couldn't possibly match. I would be able to one hit most characters. I even wiped an entire group once, before eventually getting attacked by two realms at once and being killed as a level 19 Armsman.
This was the best mmo ever. I'm not even a lore person but the themes and vibe of this game have never been matched.
I have such fond memories of DAOC. First character was a Dwarf Thane and the loyalty to faction was strong. We were always the underdogs to Albion BGs. Ended up switching to Albion and felt the same loyalty. 15+ years on and I still remember some of those epic battles in the New Frontiers. I would get so jazzed for Friday night RvR. I even got my Mom playing it with me and we had such good times. Really fun to see it covered again, thanks Sawman! Great video and thanks for the nostalgia wave :).
No worries, im glad I was able to spark some nostalgia!
I hopped to DAoC from UO with a bunch of people from my Chaos guild in UO. The funny thing is that I resisted for 2 weeks after launch because we were PKers on UO and I thought that DAoC sounded carebear. But then I got a bunch of personal friends to start DAoC after I made the move, and we never looked back. Lots of zergy, roleplaying type PvP on our first server (Hib - Tristan) and then a lot of sweatlord ganking on our second run as Midgard on the Kay server. Spiritmaster + Skald was just a nasty duo. There was one Hib group on Kay that we could never beat duo, but we never batted an eye at fighting any group size otherwise. Fun shit - if not a bit imbalanced sometimes lol. Spiritmaster was so OP. I was kind of being carried in that duo. I'll admit it 🤣
@@bminturn spirit master was super dope! 😎
It's still alive and kicking on a Friday night, but you gotta go to Eden shard
@@zeathedaocgaming That makes me very happy to know 😊
There were 250k players playing at its peak, if I remember correctly. It was the second biggest MMO on the market at the time, EQ being the biggest.
This game in its prime was great. I definitely took some personal days off work to lvl my Troll Thane. Was a blast
DaoC was amazing, until they screwed it up with the Trials of Atlantis expansion and PvE raiding to get endgame gear.
Wife and I played this game in its prime when Shrouded Isles expansion released shortly after the infamous left axe nerf, we played for 7 years. No game has ever come close to the RvR this game had also Lance, Merlin etc. original servers had 1,000s of people on them was always something to do even in the lower level BGs ( Thid , Molvik) had 100s of people in them.
Thid was a great intro to RvR. I used to love playing as an infiltrator and waiting at a bridge or crossing point for someone to come and get killed lol.
there still like 1000s people paying eden server free
I still remember the 3AM RvR raids fondly. You could never do that in this day and age, as you'd have people spoiling within hours of trying to set it up. Good times.
... the left axe nerf... was a shadowzerk that killed my build yet infs still ran around with 8394589343 second stun
@@xomox5316 Right, this generation couldn't handle that type of game today.
For one, perma stealth classes dont seem to exist in gaming today they are on some dumb cooldown of like 20 sec or something, but having a 9 sec stun on a stealth class off an evade or PA? lol
Three faction PvP is still the best PvP system in an MMO to date. Games try to reinvent the wheel as time goes by, but nothing has surpassed it.
Except of the problem that only old players like it (cough cough).
@@rofo2107 I don't think many young players like MMOs, relatively speaking, or even really know much about the genre. I would guess that most players haven't played games with 3 faction pvp, as most current MMOs are nearly single player affairs with instanced pvp.
@@rofo2107 and yet games that cater to the "new player" (I guess) generally suck balls. Go figure.
You should do a follow up on DAOC on the Eden server, its where all the people you were looking for are.
Second this... will watch!
Not everyone. I'm not leaving my favorite, hah!
he did use recent eden footage though so i assume hes well aware of it
Agreed. Also 7:58 the player population, the 50 people you noted online said 97, truncated to show a list of 25. This would change when logged into alb/hib as you mentioned just in case you do make an Eden video so you can see the population difference
oh another pretend game where moderators run shit into the ground trying to force their own "lore play"
happens all day in daoc ea live servers. fake gaming that is.
Remaking Lurikeen Rangers leveling to 24 and doing BG1 was how I spent many a year. Nobody gives enough credit to the BG system DAoC had, they were extremely fun.
This was my first mmo and I got so hooked. Love this game and the concept. Wish it would get updated and rereleased.
Come play Eden, devs pump tweaks in all the time
@@MattStub No Eden sucks. Only Season crap and they delete all pve stuff at new seasons. So bad!
Another reason why the playerbase is low is because most people are playing on the private servers which are.. free.. and actually has active pvp going on.
everyone is playing eden at moment free server.
Eden is the best version of DAoC to date. If you Wana play DAoC it's the only choice
Nice see you there
This
Eden is a great experience so far, I never got to play DAoC cause I was just born lol so it's a ton of fun so far
A revival of daoc, in a revamp or sequel, might be the only thing that could make me intrested in an mmo again
Check out Eden Daoc
Same...a real one
@@motoren8536 No Eden sucks. Only season-crap and it deletes all your PVE stuff. Rly bad+toxic there.
I played DAOC for a few years, and went back a couple of times. The biggest hit the game ever took, was releasing the Trials of Atlantis expansion, where they focused on PvE, rather than PvP, and added artifacts and master levels, that became something one had to do, for a PvP-centric game. There were new 'cheese' classes and builds, and it changed the game in a way that the majority of the player-base didn't want. And then came WoW, the death-knell of many formerly successful MMORPG titles.
Loved the video, cheers for the nostalgia and for showing what it is like now!
HATED ARTIFACTS WITH MY WHOLE SOUL!! lol
Now it would be cool if you did a video on the Eden server, so that people know there is a very successful DAoC environment to play this game in all it's glory.
I am, indeed, old as fuck. I still have my cockmongler memes. I played DaoC back in the day. Hibs for life. Fuck Albion Reavers. Nothing was worse than the hype train leading up to Warhammer Online only for it to end up being a wet fart.
I remember it, EQ2, WAR, WOW... too many games pulling players away, the closing of the european servers and customer support didn't help too.
At least they haven't killed it yet - but on the other side Reckoning is better than Warhammer Online was
Hibs for life!!!! Loved my ranger and eld
Hibs forever! My first was a blademaster who ironically had 2 tiny fast AF hammers. My entire account of maxed toons, maxed crafting, and then artifacts came out and I was done.
when this game was stil thriving, the realm vs realm vs realm sometimes had like 200+ players of each faction battling it out in the rvr areas. Theres nothing like it
I know I look like a weirdo now with this many comments, but this struck a chord. Most players who were there at launch would agree. This was a great video!
😹😹😹😹 that’s why I like making videos like these 👌
I thought you looked like a weirdo regardless j/k Most pre 2012 mmos were good and working. Even wow went to shit with them screwing with the game after that year. The amusing thing is it's not devs that mess up the game (usually) it's ppl like that hobbit homer simpson Bosley and other management. That's the same kind of ppl in a lot of corporations these days causing the price hikes because "you'll pay for it anyway" - several CEOs have been quoted saying this.
@@gharm9129 yes, marketing and product ownership has a way of messing up a good thing.
I was around at launch. This game was awesome. I wish they'd bring it to modern platforms since EA bought it.
@@donprater6944 EA generally doesn't buy the rights to games and then make them better.
I count myself extremely lucky, having played DAoC and it's expansions from the launch as a Shadowclan orc. It's still one of the greatest experiences in mmo's I've had
DAoC was a special game, glad I played it before 2004 when WoW came out. Sawman nailed it with the faction comment you really felt apart of a faction and things that happened in RvR mattered in the overall world like having access to Darkness Fall dungeon or a loss or gain in power due to captured relics.
DAOC was such a great game. I miss those days A LOT.
Daoc eden
Eden freeshard
Me too, we might have crossed path
I miss them too. And no p-server like Eden can recreate it. They use these bad season+ delete all your PVE stuff. Its so bad ^^
I am 45 and remember my old days playing for many hours on Nimue. They had classic servers before swtor came out and that drew me back in for a brief period of time. To this day it is hands down the best pvp mmorpg I have ever played in my life. I was always amazed that EA didn't just update the engine, refresh the graphics and re-launch the game again. I think it would be a huge success.
I played Nimue too!! 41 and I miss the old RP server...it was so fun I had my own areas I'd drag my buff bot with me to camp and get supplies for crafting...outfit my home... getting old sucks and I really hated when they added artifacts...I left about a month after that happened...just couldn't stand grinding levels on them and the amount of time it took.
I also played this game in its glory days. My daughter and I played together and we have such wonderful memories of that! I did play about a year ago and, yes, so lonely and sad. I have been a gamer since Pong and would love to find a new game that is on this level. There was something so special and beautiful and magical about DAOC and the people we played with. I had high hopes for Camelot Unchained but can't see that happening anytime soon, if ever.
DAOC EDEN Freeshard Server!
The best MMORPG of all time and it’s not even close. This game in its prime had so many avenues to explore. Multiple expansions.
Loved this game back in the day, it felt revolutionary to me at the time. Big love to Prydwen crowd!
My friends and I were teenagers when we began playing this and had so much free time to burn so the huge number of hours / days needed to progress wasn't much of an issue. Uni, Full-time jobs, families and real life were ultimately why our time in game diminished. I'm 40 next year but still remember fondly some of the epic battles, rivalries, enemies and friends (admittedly through rose tinted glasses in some cases :D).
Still, this game introduced a number of firsts for me personally as a gamer.
- First huge multiplayer open world PvE and PvP experience
- First game that allowed for our extended group of friends to play all at the same time.
- First game to allow us to make our own guild with our own emblem, house etc
- First and pretty much only game to allow for a non instanced player house occupying an actual numbered plot in a zone.
- First game with such a steep learning curve, in the beginning there weren't even maps of zones available, it was all explore yourself learn from others etc. Ended up buying a 2 inch thick Prima guide :O.
- First game to ever give me a rush with hard earned PvP fights. Especially winning 1vs 2, 3 etc. Never could put my finger on why this only happened in daoc and never any game before or since.
The list goes on.
Good times.
I was also on Prydwen back in the pre-WoW days; who were your character(s) if you don’t mind me asking? 🙂
@@monkeh86 Hi sorry for late reply, I had a ton of chars I forget the names of the really early ones, except Shadowfane Pala, Spartal Infi,; - Having the option of so many potential classes was quite new to me as a teenager so I couldn't resist making new ones until I ran out of slots. I didn't get serious till Hydron the Arms though which was a few years later.
Edit: Can't even spell my own name right now :P
Copying this from another video I posted on.
This game is what got me into gaming into the first place and will always be close to heart.
If there is one MMO that deserves a rebirth, it is DAoC. So many memories, friends made, rivals from the other realms and the best community in any game i've ever seen so many years on.
From the in-game funerals honored by all three realms in the frontiers.
To the guilds that would peel off in an 8v8 when my group would get AJ'd.
To the lvl 50 shaman who would give me stam and dmg buffs when passing by in DF when I was a low level.
To the crafters who would grind for hours to become LGM only to charge cost because for the glory to the realm.
To the Raid leaders and Relic Raid leaders who brought the community together for the realm.
To the people having 8v8s and not killing the lonely solo who just wanted to watch.
To the people who would /bow after kicking my butt.
To the high level group in the dungeon who brought someone 6 levels under them to soak xp and go deeper with you.
To the people of Igraine when dropping Laghammers in OF Emain zerg fights, sorry not sorry :)
To the thousands of memories built over the years from every corner of the game.
Thank you, for being the best fucking community ever and i'm proud to have been a part of it.
I played on Igraine, I'll second this. Alb.
I never charged at all, I hoarded supplies for crafting and outfitted everyone I could for free I didn't need much of anything because I had maxed crafting on every skill and I loved helping people to love the game! But I completely understand charging cost...they killed my love for the game when ToA and artifacts came out...I miss it
It was glorious. The best time I had besides my EQ time. The Cookie group pvp roaming on Andred and Mordred has never been matched. Sieging keeps . We had group battles that could last over 30 minutes. I had and Inf and Scout for keeps and port camping. And my battle bard for pvp groups. I wish I could go back.
I played DAOC from launch to about 2004. Recently, my buddy and I have been playing on Eden. Working our way up. Last night in the 35-39 battle ground. We (hibs) were attacked by 3 albs. The fight was slipping out of our favor, but then two mids attacked the albs. The albs die, and then the mids finish us off. All that excitment while running around doing a PVE quest in the battlegrounds!
i played it in its prime. their peak was 250k players actually. it was fun af. the private server scene for this game is far more populated than the official server. GW2 WvW is a lot like the RvR from DAoC, and of course so is Cyrodil in ESO, so honestly people arent missing much with DAoC being history.
I miss this game and the friendships me and my best friend made on this game. Manute (Manny) and Heldir were his main two at the end.
My last two would've been Gavenne (Later GavPwnsYou due to deletion of the account) and Brigib TankCaster (midguard on a minor server who protected alb healers against hib stealthrrs lmao) which was my favorite build. A two handed sword which only came out after all my magic was used up lol.
It was a great game. Solid 8v8 scene for many years.
Even in its old state it’s better than any modern day PVP mmo. I played the first 5 years. I’m old as fuck 😂.. it required teamwork, it fostered socialization. Imagine losing 3 hours of ExP grinding in one death or having to rest 5 minutes or so to regen after a fight. It took hours to repair keep doors carrying lumber. Not like ESO.. carrying weight slowed your movement or stalled it completely if you took to much. When I quit they went easy mode. Fast leveling, etc .. I’ve played every MMO. Ever heard of Lineage? To this day DAOC was the greatest PVP mmo ever created. Mark Jacob’s sold out with ESO making it DAOC Fortnite.
So sad.. I played this game back in 2007 for about 5 years and had raids of over 100 people! I was in a guild of over 25 people! It was truly amazing! We would raid castles and take them, and we would do dragon raids and dungeon raids. I was literally thinking about trying to again, but it's sad to see it like this!
i played at the peak it was a absolute blast and still play to this day just wish more would come
ESO has a lot more similarities than the Realm v Realm v Realm thing, I found out. And, never made the connection of Matt Firoror until you pointed it out! But, when the Imperial City expansion launched in ESO, I found my favorite place to hang out was in the Sewers. The players I constantly hung out with asked me why, and I told them it reminded me a TON of the Darkness Falls adventuring, where players can do all kinds of grinding and farming, but also run into players from other realms.
Played closed beta and still play today 20+ years later. Yes, I'm an old fart, but this is by far the best MMO ever.
Makes me want to cry
I was there on opening day. It was one of the greatest games. Still have a shirt with my clan crest in a drawer somewhere. I don’t think we will see one like it again.
Road to 100k here we come. Subbed 💜 sorry it took so long to find your content!!! You really are meant for this, please keep at it. I don't know you personally, but I know how quality your videos are. Don't ever give up!!!!
As with all the other comments I too remember the glory. This was my first Mmo and even played it at launch on an old 56k dial up modem!!!
Ashes of Creation will bring a new era of MMORPG
I played this for a few years after it came out... yes, I am OAF. If they put this on Unreal Engine 5+, I's so go back. Damn, I miss that game.
Great video. I quite like these videos documenting online worlds that are now almost empty. The real world, especially online, is so "full" and loud you know. Maybe old MMOs will come back one day
I'm fortunate to say that I got to play both this and UO back in their "prime" and while I enjoyed WoW, it's success caused all of the game studios to stop investing in games like these altogether. UO and Daoc got little to no major expansions after WoW came out.
I'm also lucky to have played Star Wars Galaxies, Guild Wars 1, Swtor, Aion, ArcheAge, and Darkfall in their hey-days (or in some cases - unlucky lol)
that new world joke was perfect XD
Being someone who bought 3 copies of this game day one. I would say the reason it fizzled out was due to the lack of progression after you hit 50. Yes they came out with some alternative levels like Champion levels, but those levels seemed so group orientated that it was hard to get done. I ran a guild of over 200 people and it was still hard to get enough people organized weekly. You were always having to "catch" someone up on what they were missing. Later in the game's history, they released a server for co-op play, allowing different realms to group together and RVR was non-existent. Instead all the RVR areas were filled with elite mobs that, once again, needed a full group or two to take down. While this was no way to save the game, it gave all us the ability to create "dream team" groups. BTW, you didn't mention that there are now FTP servers that are not run by EA. Thanks for the video, love it.
My brother and I ran multiple accounts at a time in order to do large boss encounters. You just had to have the right character combinations and a lot of time 😅
I despised the artifacts.
I’m a classic wow super expert but back in the day a ton of my guildies were ex-DAOC players. I’ve never actually played it but it’s one of the only other MMOs I hold in high esteem besides Classic WoW, alongside maybe EQ, RuneScape and a few others.
It’s a funny genre where 99% of the games are garbage but the 1% are so good you spend your whole life reminiscing about how great they were/are.
I just think of how people screamed and kicked a fuss about New World's PvP centric nature....and the absolute mess that resulted when they tried to pander to those carebears.
It's not that ppl don't want pvp, it's that ppl want pvp that feels rewarding and fair. That's the hard part to do n why we haven't seen many pvp oriented mmos succeed.
Here here
You got me fired up. When I was in the Trinity Alliance on the Tristan server (Hibernia) we had like a 200+ man relic raid on midgard where we all split up into different teams, hit all of their 7 normal keeps at exactly the same time because the guards at the relic keeps were about invincible unless you lowered their strength by taking normal keeps, had advance teams waiting at the relic keeps outside of guard range until the normal keeps fell (think of scrolls in ESO here) - and had all of it take down and were moving with both relics within 7 minutes. People were still talking about that particular raid a year after it happened, it was that good.
You just don't get shit like that in ESO, even though that's what Cyrodiil is built for. So that's one part of the game. When we moved to the Kay server to play Midgard, we ran a 2-6 man gank squad. We were taking out zergs and just loving it. So there was this aspect of the game as well.
You want small group ganking, or even duo? Do it. You want to play the objectives? Do it. It could all happen at once because you'd have 600 people out there fighting at any given time. This game was EPIC and in the real sense of the word.
Hib/Tristan for life lol! was in GOV, COL, VEI and Arymn In my later days. I play eden now.
@@Angelz_Angelz were you around when Lodi used to organize those epic relic raids? I think that he was the lead of the "other" big Hibernian alliance. Hellabatank was the Trinity leader. I actually led it for a while after he took a break from the game.
@@Angelz_Angelz I played a bard. Bri Silversong (was not good at MMO names at the time lol).
@@bminturn yup! Great times.
Black Star Mid on Tristan here. we liked Hibs for the most part, couldnt stand the Albs though
Awesome Vid. This was the first MMO I ever played, because I could buy game time cards at Walmart and it didn’t require a credit card (which my parents wouldn’t let me use lol). A lot of great memories with this game.
DAoC was amazing in its own way. Something like that is unimagineable nowadays. Having 3 different realms. Each with its own graphic sets, quests, classes and races. And still have a somewhat balanced pvp in a shared area.
But it also had huge flaws. 1 account was never enough to fully enjoy the game. For Midgard, two were what you wanted. Having a shaman with a full set of buffs made such a huge different. Due to the ways, all buffs were splitted up among the classes on the other realms, you needed like 3 accounts for playing Albion and ... ummm ... maybe 3 as well for Hibernia. (Thought on later times you could do with 2 in hibernia by picking Barde + Champion (at least I think it was Champion, that hybrid melee class with its own specc buffs).
Yes, I am old... and I played both UO and Asheron's Call. In fact I played Asheron's Call instead of Everquest back then. Anyway, either of those games would be good to cover; Ultima Online will probably be nostalgic for a lot more people, but Asheron's Call is a rarer gem that was very unique. I think there are some private servers, but I have never played on any.
My mother beta tested UO, the most fascinating part for me of that game historically is how innocent everyone was about player behavior. They really didn’t think players would murder each other like crazy or wipe all life off the face of the map
In the beginning of the game they had many different servers. But like you mentioned, the population dwindled down. As a result, they consolidated servers.
One server was straight up free for all meaning the frontier and the realms were fair game. So you were constantly getting killed if you weren’t grouped or hidden. I forgot the name of the server, started with an M?
Anyway, the game had multiple expansions that added to the game. But the bread and butter was the RVR and battle grounds they had.
This is one of the best games ever played! I have so much fond memories of playing this back in the day. relic raids, call to arms and wow the raids :D
I still having the CDs for the original game. To be honest, I didn't play it that much as most of my friends played other games at that time.
Came out around the same time as Ultima Online? UO came out in 97 and DAOC came out in 2001. 4 years might not seem like a lot now, but in those days (the early days of MMO's) that was a massive gap. I remember lol
I resemble that "old as Fuck". Loved the game for many years. My main on Pellinor was an infiltrator Bodycount Rising. I was hated alot lol. Miss 3vs 1 fights.
I have been waiting for a pvp game like DAOC for over a decade
I played this for quite a while at its peak. Met some brilliant people - I miss them. Ultimately wanted a little more interesting solo play for variation.
The graphics largely havent aged super well but ToA artifact weapons still look amazing to this day
Play the free shard around 200-300 players per faction at peak times 900 player on at the same time still feels really good and action packed
Warhammer age of reckoning was meant to be a spiritual successor to dark age of camelot in a way. It was great at the time and i did enjoy the castle sieges/especially when you got all the way to the enemy faction main base, as much of a zerg fest as they really were.
Great video, sawman. Had me almost willing to play it until i heard what the subscription fee was.
Could always play on the Eden private server, I just started and am having fun with it.
Eden blows. I can articulate exactly why however it would be a long list.
When EQ was out, I used to play it with my boss. He played EQ all day at work in his office. Anyway, when DAOC came out, I jumped on it because it offered something new - team pvp to conquer realm targets. But in time I shifted to GW2, because it offered a similar team pvp with better graphics and a low level can level match in pvp to participate. My all time fav. mmo with pvp was ShadowBane... it went beyond DAOC and GW2, which held static realms that you were fighting over, with dynamic city building. Guilds in shadowbane were based on cities. Cities could be sieged... so the map of power and control was dynamic. Sadly it is no longer in existence and nothing like that has even been released (afaik).
Played Ibin the Thane on Gaheris. (RoF)Reign of Fury guild with great people. Had a great alliance and fun for years. We made #1 guild on server till WoW hit, and we all left. Miss the old DAoC days. Darkness Falls leveling, dueling Kamehameha the Paladin, whooping Dark and all his bots to the Forts. Typing pages of chat before Vent. Dragon raids with more people than what most games can hold in a server. Great memories...
I hate EA but if i played daoc again id level up enough for one of the higher level well populated battlegrounds.
Great video. Found you because tells me most of my audience come from you. I think the saddest thing for me and why I never got into DAoC is that (A) I don't want to give money to EA and (B) The private server scene for the game is reaaaaly inconsistent with servers rising and falling like crazy and mostly driven by small cliques. You should checkout UO outlands if you haven't.
I would actually LOVE to play UO, but its ones of those games that there is a lot to learn. It could make a good 100 hour experience...
also thats funny about my audience, as most of mine comes from a bunch of other people, but im glad you found my channel! I'll have a nose at your content :)
@@sawmanUK Don't it's terrible :P But actually UO outlands isn't that inaccessible. They've changed the game hugely...actually I should do a video on that...
Also, Mark Jacobs was (maybe still is?) THE GOAT. When EA came into the picture, he put a lot of work in to make sure that EA didn't do to DAoC what it does to every franchise that it gobbles up. He lost the fight eventually, but was able to give another 12 - 18 months of solid DAoC back to his original subscribers. If you didn't start at launch and complain about Trials of Atlantis when it came out as a DLC, you won't know what I'm talking about. But the dude is a legend. What happened with Camelot Unchained, on the other hand, is unforgivable.
Honestly, the old days of cyrodiil in the 24 man groups, zerging, all in guild chat... thats what i miss. I think early days eso might of been a bit like daoc, but we know how that story ends...
@@sawmanUK you hit a home run with this video, my man. At least for those of us who know. Thank you for doing it. I know that I pestered you a lot lol.
So many great memes in this video. Very entertaining and informative. And yes, I'm one of those old AF people who used to play this!
Daoc even had housing that was massive, like 5 different zones with just houses that people could buy... Was pretty cool.
What song is the 8 bit music at the beginning? Ive looked for it but no english lyrics to search for. Love your videos. I used to play eso too but it's monetization broke my heart.
You could always play DAOC? The song is Ievan Polkka, theres loads of remixes, enjoy!
I think you should take a look at D&D Online. It's such a fantastic, yet poorly cared for MMO since it's running on a nearly two decades old engine. It was one of the first, and I think the ONLY MMO where it felt like I was playing a true D&D MMO. Because you didn't level up from killing enemies, you leveled up from completing quests. So finally, you could play the game as a super sneaky rogue, avoiding every enemy throughout, and you'd still gain experience.
You closing question about PvP. It showed us that people wanted PvP 20+ years ago. PvP in MMOs is never balanced and people want balance. Personally I don’t, I want complete unbalanced classes. Eg, healers that do next to no damage and dps classes that can’t regen health. Also the problems we have with meta these days make game play really dull and meta players gatekeeper content, which put people off. I’ve recently witnessed this in New World. People in my guild only wanting max geared and specific weapons to join their group and they wait hours to get such people into their group in order to complete the content that little bit quicker….. yeah, think on the logic of that…..😂 as a result, people quit as they can’t progress and then the meta sheep quit as there’s no one left in game. As Radiohead sung “you do it to yourself, you do, and that’s what really hurts. You do it to yourself, just you. You and no one else. You do it to yourselfffffff….”
This is what made daoc great and why newer MMOs sucked. A healer that can dps doesn't leave much room for teamwork, nothing beats the coordinated teamwork required to win in daoc.
Heya, I have a MMO suggestion. Warhammer Online through the private server named Return of Reckoning. The private server is very much alive and is getting constant updates from new devs. It's been running since live stopped about 14 years ago.
just focking take this game, remaster it and lets go pvp in Darkness falls ffs ! :p Damn i miss the time we grew 8man groups and went xp lvl 22 in spraggon den ^^
DAoC was great until Trails of Atlantis. New Frontiers gave it the rest.
I love the game and the music even to today. I have a level 50 paladin.
this game taught me some life lessons. i was a hibernian light mentalist, and i ninja looted respecc gems (world boss drops)
so i ended up being shunned/hated by the whole server. switched to wow on launch were i reformed as "the nice guy". and it felt way better.
cheers and thanks for the video
Probably my 2nd favorite game of all time. I'm playing it right now just listening to videos about it. That's what brought me here. So, thx for the background content! :)
1st favorite?
DAoC still is the best realm vs realm mmorpg there was with its unique group fighting and queued moves. Miss the old days, the community and even the hours spent on crafting/trading and just chatting up ppl while doing so... ='(
(Midgard/Prydwen for 3v4h!!)
I was also on Mid/Pryd in the pre-WoW days, good times 🙂
I'm upset about that asheron's call 2 footage used instead of the far superior AC1. 😅 cool video though man, I love this stuff.
I was a 20 year old college student when this game came out and I played it in its full glory. I wish there was another one like it
Mark Jacobs is a criminal he robbed backers used to money to build an engine for a different game, dude should be in jail full stop
I used to sell characters on ebay for $700 - this was the 1st MMORPG that got me HOOKED!! I never played WOW after it came out. This game brings back so many good memories. I even flew to Belgium and spent the night with friends who I gamed with for over 10 years. Fenrir and Isenhart (Kune and Ina) best time of my life. Still went outside but this is all I looked forward to when I had free time. Would stay up for 12 hours grinding with friends doing Dragon runs and just plain out awesomeness. (Sirum Bakbrakyr - Troll Berzerker)
I was an OG DAOC player from early '02 until WoW pulled me in. I revived my account some years later and visited my old server (EU Excalibur) and I was literally the only person on. It was very sad. I soon found other more populated servers and had a little fun for a while, but it's never going to be the same as those early days - when I was in a cool guild made up of guys I knew IRL.
LOved Daoc ack in 2001. Gonna get back into it if I can. Loved the vid, the avatar doggo you used. SUBBED! BE well ^~^
Hey great video. I was wondering what's the song starting at the Camelot Unchained section ? 9:04 ish
I cant remember the song name, but just search mozart dog on youtube... trust me :)
Based on saying that the tab target is outdated. That's because it is! Action combat is much better.
I played DAoC as a teenager and DAMN that was something different. I had so much fun with that game. My Dad was an Albion player and I was Midgard, so we even had IRL realm shit talking in our house 😂 Good times.
Look how they massacred my boy. Eden server is the only way to play this game.
I love the "You're old as f***" joke followed by the Wasted banner from the original GTA's ... and I still know what that is >_>.
That only rubs salt in the wound, man! Salt in the wound :(.
This was my first MMO. So many good memories.
I played this game for 15 years, was there before the first expansion, there after broadsword took over. I miss it
Was a great game.
Thank you for the input.. Was considering installing but decided not to due to low population..
Apparently the Eden Private server has a lot of people
I am a new player on Daoc and it is still very populated on Eden private server, you should give it a real shot!
One of my favorite old MMOs was Planetside 1, there’s been no other game like it
I played Everquest PvP and Dark Age of Camelot. The people saying they don't want PvP in an MMO have never truly given a real faction based PVP MMO a chance. While the leveling PVP experience is hit or miss, PvP fixes almost everything lame and boring about max level MMO gameplay. All the rule lawyering, raid schedules, boring zonked out gear farming and poop-socking, even the headache of GMs administrating all the bickering on a care bear server. None of that, "but we were here first" baby nonsense matters when at any given moment someone can come along with the squad and simply remove you. Especially in EQ where key item farms could give a guild control of the server's economy, there were high-stakes wars over key territory. It adds a completely new depth of mechanics and things you need to keep in mind when doing just about anything in the game. I'll probably never play another MMO, I have kids and a life, but if the great new MMO comes out I hope they add obligatory PvP starting at raid level and they don't listen to the babies crying for a blue server snooze fest. Minecraft wouldn't have a survival mode if players always knew what they wanted.