Customer Reviews

Dark Age of Camelot: Trials of Atlantis Expansion Pack

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(13)
1 star:		(57)

 

 

As a Commerce student in the last year of my B. Comm. degree, watching a company do something like this to themselves really makes my head hurt. The first, most basic, fundamental lesson they teach us in second-year Marketing is: Understand what your customers want. I have been playing DAoC since its release years ago, and ToA is what drove me to quitting for good.

Mythic either did not understand what their customers wanted, or decided to deliver something that they knew they did not want anyways. In either case, the result was an unmitigated (and in my eyes, unsalvageable) failure. Customers WANT to have enjoyable fights against other players in this game; what ToA gave them is a truckload of barriers to that enjoyment that only people with an obscene amount of time to devote to a computer game can possibly hope to accomplish.

The main appeal to DAoC was it's RvR (team-based player vs. player) fighting. However, to get to the point where you were good enough to be relatively successful required fighting monsters from levels 1 through 50.

This was rather time-consuming, and by the time people finished, the last thing they wanted to do was to "level" their character more. Mythic did implement more powerful rewards, but they tied the rewards to PvP fighting, so the method to get the rewards was palatable to the customers, even if the many rewards themselves were horrible unbalancing.

With ToA, what Mythic has done is to force players who want to be competitive in RvR to endure a HORRIBLY time-consuming process of getting 'master levels' and insanely powerful artifacts that unbalance the game even more. It's Everquest tedium all over again to get the latest, greatest ML or item, with the exception that the PvE fighting is much, much worse. Now DAoC consists of a crazy arms race with two categories of people: Powergamers in large/elite powerguilds who can devote hundreds of hours a month on a computer game, and casual players who play when classes/jobs/social life allows. Casual players are leaving the game en masse. Playing DAoC now necessitates a huge time commitment to PvE in order to enjoy the RvR element which is what most customers enjoyed. DAoC has an environment now where the uber players rule and casual players drool. Elite powergamers will stick to the party line of "Oh you don't NEED to do MLs and artifacts to compete", because they like having people around to slaughter like cattle. Unfortunately, this situation isn't much fun for the cow.

The new timesinks involve camping the same monsters for hundreds of hours to "level up" items, waiting for hours hoping a certain monster spawns, and hoping you can get into trips with the power guilds for hours at a time to complete stages of quests.

Did I mention that ToA has more bugs than most beta tests? Practically daily, Mythic publishes patches to problems in ToA rather than making fundamental game changes that customers really want.

Mythic really slit their own throats with this one. Save your money for a computer game that can be enjoyable, rather than a second job that you have to pay for.

Mythic really messed up a fun game with all of the timesinks they introduced with this expansion. I won't reiterate the comments below, but I wanted to post this caveat ---

Some of the new artifacts in this expansion are quite overpowered. When players complained about how overpowered one of these artifacts in particular was, Mythic reduced its power. However, they reduced its power so as to make it useless.

So if you're considering buying this expansion, and are willing to spend the hours finding your dream artifact, and the hours sitting around waiting to find the scrolls that activate your artifact, and the hours levelling up your artifact, beware --- it may very well be that Mythic will decide, after you spend all that time, to make your artifact useless.

DAoC Classic and Shrouded Isles was an excellent combination, where DAoC Classic still had some great exp sites, SI added new PvE content and Items. PvE was well balanced with RvR, in the sense that players could exp for a while and then go to RvR without much trouble. The Items from SI had little effect on RvR.

ToA ruined this perfectly balanced relationship of PvE with RvR. ToA turned the game for the casual gamer into a game that is going to be won by the powergamer, for the following reasons:

Artifacts: First of all, Artifacts take a LONG time to activate, and i'm talking from personal experience here.
Do the encounter, get the item, farm for scrolls, and hope that your activation is not bugged. (Did i mention this game has so many bugs that it seems it hasn't been beta tested?) Once you have the item activated, enjoy 4 days of non stop farming a certain mob to level it to 10, where you unleash its full power. Many artifacts are extremely powerful at level 10, and a power-gamer that wears a full suit of Artifact Armor and Items is most definitly going to be VERY successfull in RvR compared to the casual gamer who does not have that.

Trials: The Trials *CAN* be fun, however, expect to do some long hours of waiting before you get a chance to finally get it done. Once again, as stated before, you *WILL* need large groups and a LOT of time to do all Trials. Does the Casual gamer have the capability of this? Nope. Once again, the Power Gamer is the one who benefits.

Overall: Mythic made a *HORRIBLE* expansion that i would DEFINITLY NOT recommend if you are a casual gamer. Paying $30 for a graphics upgrade is not worth it in my opinion. With Trials of Atlantis, Mythic made a bold statement that they prefer the Power Gamer over the Casual Gamer, and not only that, but they lowered their own image among other Gaming Companies by releasing such a bugged game that they have to make patches to fix errors daily. Patching Daily is what Alpha and Beta Tests are for, and DAoC would have been better off had ToA been delayed and tested more.

Buy it if you are looking for a Timesink a la "leveling to 50 all over again", and want some pretty graphics.

Don't touch if your a casual gamer, you will only get frustrated with the game.

Trials of Atlantis is dissapointing at the best if you are looking for game content. I have been playing for two years now and left the realms of norrath in everquest to search for a better game; I thought I had found it in DAOC but with Trials of atlantis it has become everquest revisited. here are a few reasons why.

1.) The jump in system requirements for the graphics engine. Yes this game has better graphics, beautiful. But, it uses up so many system resources its not funny compared to DAOC.
The original everquest was a nice game with decent graphics, but each succesive expansion pack the programmers at verant were determined to show their skill with code, and made this beautiful world, you would have to upgrade your system with every release jsut to keep pace.

2.) What made DAOC a truly distinctive game was the concept of realm vs realm. All the classes were generally balanced in the beginning makeing it viable to compete on any level. With the advent of Trails of Atlantis it reminds me soo much of Dragon raids among others from Everquest its not even funny. At least verant made its expansion packs scaleable to level with new releases. TOA has failed miserably in this aspec as you need large groups of lvl 40 + charactres to complete a master level. On a further note, there are several long standing issues with the classes that have severly unbalenced the concept of r v r. Everything from buffbots(which is not in the spirit of the game) yet mythic allows, to spel crafting system, toindividual class/pathing issues. Trials of Atlantis threatens to further blow this imbalance out of proportion. Well assumeing that it doesnt take poeple the next 4 to 6 months to complete the master levels, compleely disreguarding the new people that come to the game.

In everquest there was no realm vs realm it was just who had the biggest baddest gear to kill slay the beast.

3.) A point similar to the above two. If I wanted to do a strictly player vs environment game I would have never left Everquest in the first place. This game has started to kill the very base that people switched from everquest in the first place.

The only real reason for me to stay in the game right now is to hang with the few friends I have in DAOC who have not closed or sold thier acounts. Its my sincerest hope that either this game gets back to the heart from which it was formed or something similar but better comes out. Its also my hope that with all of the recent patches with Trials of Atlantis tha have come out, that for the next release that Mythic be more comprehensive with its Software quality assurance program, lest players pay for its mistakes.

One last note, there is a post on DAOC Catacombs in the necromancer section saying "Help they are trying to Ruin TOA". Reguardless of the suggestion of the sugesstion in the post. I have to be totally honest on this one based off my own expereinces as well as my experiences of my friends in this game. Have a great day and think twice about bying this one.

There are currently WAY too many bugs in this expansion pack. Patches will fix them, eventually, maybe. The enhanced graphics are nice, if your system can handle them, but it certainly isn't worth $25. I'd wait for the price to drop to $10-15. Dark Age of Camelot is still superior to other MMORPGs currently on the market, and the upcoming FREE expansion should keep it that way for at least the next year. Just don't be too anxious to get your hands on an expansion that is still basically being tested.

If you are just starting this game, this expansion pack is most definitely not for you. You cannot start Trial 1 until you are level 40. Frankly, if you go to TOA before you are 50, you will end up losing alot of gold and xp. I have several level 50's and die frequently in TOA. The main reason *NOT* to get this expansion is that you will be extremely frustrated. You will not be able to find a group to help you complete the trials. Why? Because they have all moved on to the higher level ML's. No one..I mean NO ONE..is going to repeat any trials or help you complete them. So all in all, you're paying for a slight graphic upgrade. The trials themselves are worthless. You need HUGE groups to complete them and if you are somewhat casual gamer, you won't get them done for all the reasons I stated above. This expansion turned a nice game into a horrible game. Many people are leaving due to this expansion. I would not recommend it.

This controversial expansion changed an excellent game into an unbalanced mess. Much of ToA is built on group puzzles for Master Levels and "camping" for objects such as artifacts and scrolls (which you need to activate the artifacts--phew!). The group puzzles are sometimes fun, but often frustrating if your group does not have the ideal combination of classes. Spawn times for "boss" monsters compound an already frustrating experience. Often you will just have to sit and wait...and wait...and wait...and wait some more until the boss mob magically appears. God forbid any key member of your group should need to depart in that period of time. If that happens, you are screwed. That's not to mention the poor people who have real life obligations (imagine!) and cannot devote 24/7 to a game. If you cannot invest a minimum of 4 consecutive hours per session, you will have difficulty accomplishing much in ToA.

Obtaining artifacts is even less fun. First, you have to "camp" a monster type to get the items necessary to activate the artifact (called scrolls). This involves idly killing the same monster after monster, hours on end, hoping the random number generator rolls your way. Then, after you obtain the artifact, you have to level the artifact, often by killing a different monster repeatedly. Boring!

Some people will enjoy this timesink. Unfortunately, those who just want to RvR will be impacted by the new items and master levels. Without these things, you will not be able to compete. DAoC has changed from casual-gamer friendly to hardcore only. Unless you are a serious hardcore gamer who has hours and hours of free time, I do not recommend this game.

=======
Positives:
=======
-- Very pretty -- the undersea world is a real MMO standout
-- Some Good PvE content -- certain encounters challenging & fun if you enjoy PvE
(However, if you are a pure pVe fan, you'd be a fool to leave Everquest.)

========
Negatives:
========
Please refer to many of the other reviews here.
Basically Mythic copied much of the *horrible* aspects of EQ: campfests, mandatory 5-hour raids, etc

=========
Observation:
=========
To many long-time DAoC players, the charm of the game was
once we "paid our dues" & levelled to 50, got a few Realm Abilities,
we could log on whenever we liked, go out, pVp, have some fun, then log off.
There was little mandatory raiding, little mandatory camping for items, just a few class & realm balance problems.

You could be competitive at DAoC and still enjoy your family's company, a social life, etc.
If you wanted to pVe more, play all the time, you could farm cash, start an alt or try a new realm.

All that has changed.
Anyone who tells you you can be competitive at level 50 w/o ToA Master Levels and Artifacts
is either short-sighted, deluded, or lying.
It is now *very* hard to start over in a new realm or with an alt.
It now takes **massive** amounts of pVe to "pay your dues" for rVr.

The long and short: ToA pretty much ruined the best and only semi-casual MMO
in a misguided and poorly executed attempt at mimicing Everquest.
Pray that Mythic decimates the time sinks and releases a good Realm vs. Realm expansion soon.

Toa added a few positive things to Daoc no question.
Great graphics, nice races, very cool looking armor/weapons.

However those cannot even begin to compensate for the mess all the negatives made of it.
Do you like sitting at a camp for 4+ hours waiting for a mob that will require a fg to kill to spawn? Did I mention he will despawn in 20 minutes? Did I mention that even if you do kill this mob he's not guaranteed to drop the item which you are camping him for anyways? I forgot to mention you'll need to spend countless hours farming the same mobs for scrolls to activate the item the rare spawning lvl 70 mob MIGHT drop. Dang, I forgot about the countless hours you will now have to spend killing only female mobs to get all the abilities of said item once you are able to activate it. Daoc used to be pretty casual gamer friendly. Xp would be slow but you could still do it at your own pace. You didn't need to be online for 4+ hour stretches and could get your character to lvl 50 and rvr ready relatively easily.
Now, mythic adds an expansion with abilities only atainable on long drawn out raids requiring multiple groups. They add artifacts which many are gotten from mobs with long spawn times, are not guaranteed to drop the artifact, and require a fg or more to kill. The artifact also requires scrolls which vary from very common to you could spend a week farming the mob that drops them before you get one. Then you must level the artifact and some of these have ridiculous requirements. Some only lvl off of primitive enemy races, meaning you have to kill trolls and kobolds to lvl it. Some only level in Darkness Falls, a dungeon your not guaranteed access to, and it has to be night time while your in df on top of that.
I know this is a power gamers wet dream especially since these MLs and artifacts give you very powerful balance altering abilities. How about a shield proc that absorbs 200 melee damage for you. A proc that turns your enemy into a scarab. A proc that debuffs your enemies armor absorption 18% and returns that 18% to you? If your a casual gamer or someone starting new in Daoc don't even bother. With lvling to 50, farming artifacts, Mls, lvling said artifacts, WoW will already be out and you can start on the same lvl as everyone else.

Many of Dark Age of Camelot's subscribers first started as refugees from other MMO games, getting away from such things as resource contention, massive timesinks, poor customer service, and game imbalance. Who knew that their latest expansion, Trials of Atlantis, would introduce such hated facets into their once wonderful game.

One of my most hated things in such games is the fight over limited resources. Whether it be a special monster for that must-have item, or just finding a place to hunt, fighting over other players over this just isn't fun. Mythic's original quest system was great, since credit is awarded to everyone in the group. Unfortunately, much of Atlantis' items, known as Artifacts, are on the sort of rare-spawn-rare-drop table only the most masochistic players could endure. If that wasn't bad enough, you have to do this three additional times for scrolls to even use an artifact. Let's not forget about the master levels, which have multiple groups of players competing for the same spawn. Result? Instead of players working together for the realm, we have them bickering over who took what wrongfully.

An important feature of such games is the ability to play for a short time and feeling you've accomplished something. Not so with TOA. Many master level trials require gathering 4 or more full groups to dedicate at least 4 contiguous hours of their time. Can't devote that much? Then you'll just get left behind. Think master levels are not for you? Then don't expect to perform well in PVP combat.

To add insult to injury, the once acclaimed customer service has taken a dive. Many of the quests, artifact encounters, and master levels have had problems since the start. After waiting at least 10 hours to contact customer service, you are most likely going to be told that you are out of luck, and receive a form email saying the same.

Realm abilities were bad enough for game balance, but throw Atlantis into the equation and watch out. From the stealth lore ability that effectively nullifies a spec line for seven classes, to the master level ability grapple that puts players totally out of fights, it is a mess. Mythic really needs to provide even footing for all players; nobody wants to feel useless.

It really is a shame to see such a good game ruined by an expansion, especially one that is a "must-have" to advance further. Fortunately there are some promising new titles coming up.