We played DAOC last night for the first time in months–long enough that there were some unwelcome changes waiting for us. Some of the few, good things were like the Hunters getting Evade 3, and being able to purchase single-line respecs.

Wasting time in the housing zone
To pay for the needed respecs, we ventured into Darkness Falls to farm seals for trinketing (always a good way to waste a perfectly good evening). 30 minutes netted one and a half plat, which took nearly two hours to turn into cash–remind me how standing at the forge, watching a green bar crawl across a dialog is fun, please. Crafting in DAOC, although richly detailed and well considered has always been an exercise in patience, and has resulted in me watching our entire DVD collection twice, with weaponcrafting still in the low 800s.

Getting wasted by old friends
We made two trips to DF. The first ended prematurely at the Princess, but we were willing to chalk that up to oddness in the pull. My wife, playing her 50 Hunter, Cheetah (famous for pulling aggro off Darkfury the Paladin during ToA raids), and my 50 Kobold Warrior, Kobalt, (Hammer 50+13, Shield 42+13, Parry 39+13, MoBlock IV, MoParry III, Aug Dex II) and 50 Kobold Shaman bot, Tuleray, (two-boxed, giving us full buffs, healing, and DOTting) worked our way through an empty DF Diamond Loop, pulled the entire princess room safely and with no-sweat, but kept wondering why the Ambassador wasn’t BAFfing with the last Succubus and the respawned Succubi. We learned why when we pulled him, and the Princess BAFfed with her Haunted Soul companion.

Quote: “I’ve never seen the Princess BAF like that before. That must be a fluke.”

13 gold in res costs, 1.5 plat earned via trinketing, and a conversation later, we moved back into DF.

Our second trip was down to the knights, this time with my Warrior, Shaman, and her Reaver–we killed stuff a little faster. My wife placed us where we were guaranteed to get aggro, but three or four knights and inquisitors on the ramp aren’t a big deal. A few provokes from my Warrior kept the adds on him, and group Friggs was sufficient to keep us at full health. We cleared the antechamber up to Gatekeeper Dommel with mostly single pulls (she wanted BAFs), and were ready to take on our old friend, the relatively easy Dommel, so that we could move on to the inner knights and pull some mid-high 60’s mobs.

No one told us that Dommel had been bumped from level 58 to 78. Nor did we know that his nukes had changed, as had his melee. Our threesome valiantly did all we could against him, but without knowing in advance that we’d need mana pots, heal pots, full fire resist gear, possibly my Paladin, and five more group members, we died with Dommel down to 25% health. (Yes, we did manage to trio him down by 75%.)

What were you thinking, Mythic?
We’ve done most everything we’ve wanted to do in DAOC–my wife has been on most of the ML raids up to 8 (or so), we’ve trioed our way deep into all but the epic (raid) dungeons, been on dragon raids, killed Legion, helped clear Galladoria, Caer Sidi, Tuscaran Glacier, and every other old world, SI, and most ToA dungeons, and while not being heavy raiders or RvRers, managed to have an enjoyable time exploring and collecting neat stuff.

I’ve always felt that DAOC concentrated more on mechanics than character, more on abstract game design than flavor. Where EQ had illusion spells, useful for getting into certain factioned areas, and enjoyable in their own right, it took util ToA for illusion items (like the Mad Scalars) to be introduced into DAOC. WoW has put in lots of little touches, little cute or funny things, cultural and in-jokes for people to find and appreciate. In DAOC, off-hand, I can think of a few (like the dancing cluricans north of TNN), but not many. The game and design takes itself very seriously, and there’s not a lot of room for frivolity.

DF is old, I’ll admit. It’s been around for three and a half years, if I recall correctly. But because it’s old, it’s a familiar touchstone, a place to reminisce about our past adventures there, and see how we can better ourselves and our performance from previous trips. We liked a lot of the new touches, like the mobs that are consumed in flame and the evil eyes watching, and the messages or emotes that are made by mobs in DF–it shows (finally) a sense of trying to tie the zone into an overall story. Finding the behavior of the Princess and Gatekeeper Dommel changed, however, really turned us off. What was a reasonable challenge (for us) and enjoyable high reward activity changed into frustration. We pulled knights because they presented an appropriate level of challenge, and camping and pulling to the room behind Dommel would keep us interested and active, unlike clearing the loop.

Mythic, you broke what we liked about DF. You broke it, and you probably broke our desire to return to your game. You raised our level of frustration, and didn’t increase the rewards commensurately. Don’t assume everyone is ML10, RR5+, and is in the best possible gear and ideal group–we’re not, and we feel that you broke an unspoken contract with us, that as casual players, people who enjoy your game but don’t need to catass it, have now found a barrier that we can’t cross. And that barrier ends up being the end of the game for us, because it isn’t porous. It requires a particular group to get through, and I’m sorry, but on a server with a peak population of 350 people, we’re not going to be able to assemble that effective group to penetrate that barrier, and we still won’t be achieving our goals (cash for respecs) by spending our evening grouping with strangers.

So what does the future hold?
We probably won’t be putting food on Mythic’s families tables next month, and we probably won’t be buying three copies of the expansion. We may choose not to try Warhammer when it finally arrives.

I’ll likely spend some time in DAOC this weekend farming and trinketing, and put a couple more plat on the vendor of each of our three houses (it was the cost effective way to get the number of hookpoints I wanted). Each vendor still has over a year and a half worth of rent payments on them, so I’m not worried about our Gjalpnulva head and other trophies disappearing anytime soon.

Mythic, I need a compelling reason to come back to DAOC. So far, all I’ve received are changes that made the game more frustrating, and nothing that makes it less of a time sink.