[TLDR at bottom of Part 2]
I’ll start by saying that ever since I stopped playing DAoC many years ago, I am constantly on the lookout for the next game that can bring me the same level of enjoyment that I had in RvR. I compare every new game against DAoC, and thus far I have been disappointed by every MMO. It seems that no one really understands what made it so good. I suspect there are a lot of former DAoC players that feel the same way.
So without further ado:
No Real Reason to WvW
Right now, the reasons to WvW in GW2 are all focused around acquiring gear. If you’re like me, wearing all exotics, there isn’t much to gain. Karma, Tokens, Cash, none of it will really advance me in any meaningful way. There is always the quest for legendary weapons, but to be honest the bar is set so high that only the most obsessive people have their sights set on it. I wrote it off already as Not Gonna Happen. World bonuses are nice temporary rewards, but they’re too transparent and more of a product of the whole World’s performance, not my personal performance.
There is a serious lack of permanence to WvW. One of the main driving forces for going out to RVR in DAoC was that you could constantly gain Realm Points for yourself. The more realm points you had, the more realm abilities you could buy, by achieving higher realm ranks. These abilities were passive bonuses and active skills that make you a stronger fighter. This was in addition to your quest for the best gear.
Lack of Community Building
The lack of community building in recent MMO’s has really been unfortunate. It’s a difficult problem, which is likely why every MMO seems to fail so hard at it. Communities form organically, they can’t be forced. All you can do is provide the opportunities for those communities to form organically. Maybe DAoC had such a great community because the player base was smaller and that type of thing isn’t possible anymore. But here are some of the things I can say for sure had a positive impact on building its community.
In DAoC, enemy players are masked as Invader/Defender like this game, but unlike this game, when I clicked on a player it registered their name in my combat log. When I damage them, I see their name in my log. When a player death occurred in the zone, everyone got a broadcast of who killed who, by name.
In addition to Invader/Defender, the player’s Realm Rank name appears as well, so you can get a sense of the type of fight you’re about to have. This gives people notoriety. I still remember my early days of RVR in DAoC and getting steamrolled by a group of high ranked Alb’s. I remember the combat log spam from that group killing tons of people. This got people talking to each other. “Where was that?” “Which way are they heading?” “kitten you guys got killed quick!” “Wow, nice job guys, you got em”. Notoriety and communication breeds leadership. Leaders and followers breed communities.
The current GW2 model doesn’t foster any of this. Servers are rotated, so you can’t develop a fear or respect for the enemy. Everything is anonymous. It’s a glorified Battleground. Anyone who participated in RvR in DAoC can tell you, Battlegrounds fun for a little while, but have no real long term appeal.
In addition, DAoC had VNBoards message boards where the players could interact, both out of game, and while gaming. You could trash talk someone for arsejamming a good fight, or give praise for a good fight. This let the enemy player get to know each other, and even when it was negative interaction, still built a stronger community.
Lastly there was the Camelot Herald where you could track Realm Point progress vs. others. Being able to actively track yourself vs. others kept it interesting. With weekly sub totals so if people had a good week, they could achieve some level of notoriety.
(Part 2 continues)