Where will be your next adventure?

As we approach what I feel is the twilight of DAoC my thoughts turn to the future. What will I do? Where will I go when the end officially comes? My answer to you is Elder Scrolls Online. As an Elder Scrolls fan and avid MMO player I eagerly await another epic adventure to rival my first journey outside of Mularn or the first time I saw the walls of Camelot crossing the Cotswold bridge.

Over the many long and rich years I have played DAoC I feel I have developed quite a bond with my fellow players both friend and foe, and so fellow DAoC'ers I would like to know, do any of you plan to play ESO? If so Which alliance will you play for and why? Will you make your choice solely on your Elder Scrolls interest? Or will your choice be influenced by your DAoC experience? For example, I'm interested in either the Ebonheart Pact or the Aldmeri Dominion largely because of my Elder Scrolls interest, but also because I see the Daggerfall Covenant as an Elder Scrolls version of Albion (my home realm) and I'd like to try something new. Who will you play for in this game?

Referred to IGN

What ToA stand for ?

ToA stands for Trials of Atlantis. It was DAoC 2nd paid expansion. The expansion adds in great looking zones, mobs that drop lots of coins, new quests, 10 "Master Levels" and extremely powerful items called artifacts. ToA, when launched, was confusing and most of what you had to do was Raid content. ToA is wrongly blamed for many things and rightly for some things. What ToA did was bring out the difference between many groups of players and polarized the DAoC community. For example, it brought about a noticeable difference between more casual players and 'hardcore' players. At the launch of ToA it took 50+ in game days played to reach level 50 and then you had to spend another 50+ days doing ToA. So for those that could play 14 hours a day, they had a huge advantage over those who didn't. Another issue are those who just wanted to RvR and were upset at the PvE content. The addition of essentially mandatory PvE content in order to RvR again greatly upset many people. The year before ToA Mythic made a commitment to player made goods being the best in the game. However, Mythic went back on this commitment with ToA when artifacts and many drops were added. This did huge destructive damage to the crafter community and the economy as a whole.

The response to ToA was slow to come but it finally had come. DAoC launched new servers without ToA content. Further, the last patch (1.81) addressed many of the issues with ToA. Essentially ToA has become a lot quicker to do. This has helped make it so that more people can get ToA items they need to compete.

In 1.89 ToA has been redesigned around groups.  Almost every encounter can be done by a single group of less.  Drops that used to happen from encounters that were not related to artificats or ML have been placed on new mobs that you can farm.  These are elementals and Affritis. 

The first tier of encounters, designed for solo players or duos (depending on class).  The second tier, designed for small groups (3-6 players), is made up of the basic Afrit.  The third tier, designed for full groups, is the Master Afrit. He waits safely outside the trial planes, using his bound servants to fight and steal for him. Note that camping the same spot you find one in isn't generally the best idea, as they may not always show themselves in the same place.  When afrits from the new encounters are slain, they will drop portions of their essence along with their master level and artifact loot. Five of these essences can be combined into the reforming energies of an afrit and then traded to the "Trogo Zontanos Mageia" for loot from the ML/artifact encounter monster of your choosing.

In addition you can now use bountry points (earned from RvR kills) to purchase ML step credits and Scrolls.  In theory, this allows someone to avoid doing ToA and earn the abilties from RvR. 

So while not back to pre-ToA play style on the regular servers, changes are certainly for the better and those who do not remember the 'good ole days' should find the content easy to do and many will find it enjoyable as well.

Advice for encouraging new people to DAoC

There are several articles dedicated to the concept of F2P and it's supposed effectiveness in drawing in new people. I'm personally skeptical of it, and I don't believe it is the only thing Mythic could do to turn the game around.

So what suggestions can you think of to help reverse the games decline?

I know a lot of people say they would like a fresh server start. I could see that being an interesting idea, but the major problem would be the risk of dividing the population and doing further damage. However, the risk could be minimised with a limited duration server reboot.

Why not open a new server for one month, two months, three months etc, allowing everyone to start from scratch. At the end of the set time, the server closes and characters from that server are transferred to Ywain. The server could have restrictions like limited character slots, one realm, anti-bot coding, etc.

It would also allow mythic the opportunity to play with PVE and RVR without messing with Ywain. Perhaps the new server could use an old frontier, or modify PVE to give it a more classic DAoC feel.

If it proves successful, there is no reason Mythic couldn't do it over and over, using different modifications each time.

Anyway,that's what I thought.Hope it can work for you.

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The second part of new race/class on DAoC

 I was thinking on what would make me or some of the players I used to play with come back to game and new race/class combos is something I def think would work and add to the game overall. I based my ideas off of races that are lacking in game and/or missing to make a race specific guild like a race not being able to be 1 support at all is kinda lame. Thread is just a open discussion to maybe get some devs eyes on it and bring these changes to future patch.

Midgard.

Valkyn is mine and many others favorite race but so rare due to not being able to be a support/only one caster and most mid tanks use strength which they lack in so they really do get screwed. Class I would love to see would be Shaman(they are tribal race and yet cant be a shaman cmon bro this should of been from launch of Si) Valkyn valkyrie to give another tank in chain and they use a dex based wpn in spear and cast heals so valkyn would benefit alot. Valkyn mauler I would love to see too since most savages are troll or kobold. Any other caster like a scam or runie or warlock just to break it up giving someone a choice to play a valkyn caster and not be a bad. Skald or thane would be cool too but above combos I think are more needed and more important.

Frostalf really just lacks in the tank area and even though they don't benefit being any other tank then a thane I think a warrior or zerkervage any 1 of those just to add some uniqueness would be cool.

Hibernia.

Sylvan is a very underused race and are made out of wood so I don't see how they weren't able to be a ranger from is release with living among all those tall trees in domain you think they would use a bow well. besides ranger I think one more tank for the sylvan should be added I personally think it should be blade master don't know why luris got that cause now u cant tell at all what your fighting a ns/bm/ranger all having dual wield being tiny as hell. Other option is champ or mauler for the sylvan I think would be cool choice(staff sylvan mauler u know that's awesome). Sylvan vampiir might draw some people to that class as well and would be very unique looking.

Some more options for races to bard/bainshee I would propose as well I am not saying luri bard but like shar bard/bain or elf bard. 

New Race/class combos that should be added next patch on DAoC

Albion

Friar being a saracen would be really nice but i could see why this is not allowed cause they are presumed muslim but i think after 11 years of daoc some saracens are willing to convert and follow the path of the friar and go to church, They can be paladins so why not friars

Heretic needs some more choices briton and inconnu dominate the lands so highlander and saracen would be choices some people might enjoy to play opposed to those too(everyone hates cows it seems which brings me too next topic)

Minotaur.
this is my 2nd favorite race but is really just never played cause the only race where minotaur was best was mauler but then mythic allowed the higher str races to be maulers (troll/firbolg/ogre) so now they are even more in the hole. What really bothered me was in the labyrinth expansion video u showed minotaur support classes like druid/shaman/healer/cleric and yet they were not included which is false advertisement and really pissed me off. So i think minotaur should have access to all support classes like shown in video (healer/shaman/cleric/bard/druid/friar) since maulers can be the heavy tank and dw class on each realm i think they should have access too the si melee classes as well Savage/Reaver/Valewalker. Reaver would be nice for str based wpn reavers and valewalkers would really just be amazing looking and add another choice besides the 3 atm. Cow Savage just fits as a combo dont see why they cant be that class already.