Unoffical Cross-Server is coming to town thread

[dahlatiel]

I forgot to mention the "if you don't like the x-lfg don't use it" mantra in my previous post.

 

The problem with that statement is that once it is implemented it becomes mandatory. That is not an option to not use it, because as soon as it is implemented the option to gather a group to run FP's or ops ceases to exist, except in guilds with enough people to do them.

 

Another point i must refer to is (and i bet that the few "loud" people in the thread will be offended by it) if someone don't have time to run end game content as it should be done, why should that someone have access to that sort of gear "just because they pay the same as the others"?

 

The way i see things, if someone want something should work for it, not get it as a certain thing.

 

And certain self stylized """""casuals"""""" play more than many of the ones they accuse from being hard-core players. It is those sort of people that complain that the game is too hard to get the top notch gear but, once they get their way, those same people say the game don't have enough content and they are bored - that is ALWAYS the way thing happen when a company caves to the demands of ex-FPS/ex-console players/single player god mode players and the like.

 

And again i say, normal modes x-lfg tool can be good, end game content it is a disaster.

[Touchbass]

The problem with that statement is that once it is implemented it becomes mandatory. That is not an option to not use it, because as soon as it is implemented the option to gather a group to run FP's or ops ceases to exist, except in guilds with enough people to do them.

 

Another point i must refer to is (and i bet that the few "loud" people in the thread will be offended by it) if someone don't have time to run end game content as it should be done, why should that someone have access to that sort of gear "just because they pay the same as the others"?

 

The way i see things, if someone want something should work for it, not get it as a certain thing.

 

 

And again i say, normal modes x-lfg tool can be good, end game content it is a disaster.

 

1) Mandatory nature of the X-LFD for people who don't need it

 

I don't think it's quiet fair to say it's mandatory in use, although it is fair to say it becomes difficult to get things done without it. I'm personally seen people advertise for groups after the implementation of the tool and personally organized groups myself. If a person wants to organize a run it's very easy, just announce ahead of time in /fleet that they are doing a run in X amount of time and if anyone is interested contact them. This method worked for me in WoW's trade or I simply posted on the realm boards. The problem is that if you want an immediate run, the nature of the X-LFD makes it difficult.

 

2) The casual access debate

 

I'm with you on this one, content shouldn't be handed out and there needs to stuff to work towards. That being said, if content isn't available for me, with the reality of how busy my work life I won't beat my head against a wall to access content if those type of limitations are placed on it. I'd personally prefer something like the LFR feature for me to see content but if that isn't available that is perfectly fine as I understand with my schedule I shouldn't be handed everything.

[Touchbass]

I'm sure people will read this as sarcasm or passive aggresive, but sadly it's not. I will likely never see a x server player again so it removes all need to act like I would. You are just a tool to get something and I will need on everything and sell what I don't need. I will leave group at the drop of a hat to run with guildies or when I've got what I need. I welcome the removal of any social pressure to act like a decent human. I guess that's why so many people like the tool of course they won't be honest and say it.

 

Why are we trying to build communities around false pretenses? If the argument is nobody will group with me if they aren't forced to, why are we doing this as the cornerstone of community building.

Edited February 13, 2012 by Touchbass

[knightblaster]

Why are we trying to build communities around false pretenses? If the argument is nobody will group with me if they aren't forced to, why are we doing this is the cornerstone of community building.

 

I think that the better argument is that there isn't really any community to speak of in theme park MMOs post-WoW outside of guilds, so the community reason is a weak one.

 

Prior to WoW, MMOs were more like virtual worlds with communities. Post-WoW, MMOs are online games with players. Players are fungible, when it comes to people outside of your guild in PUGs. LFD basically just makes pugging easier. There is no community to harm, really, in games like these -- it doesn't exist, and hasn't existed for many years now.

[Touchbass]

I think that the better argument is that there isn't really any community to speak of in theme park MMOs post-WoW outside of guilds, so the community reason is a weak one.

 

Prior to WoW, MMOs were more like virtual worlds with communities. Post-WoW, MMOs are online games with players. Players are fungible, when it comes to people outside of your guild in PUGs. LFD basically just makes pugging easier. There is no community to harm, really, in games like these -- it doesn't exist, and hasn't existed for many years now.

 

Also, I don't have experience prior to WoW but would it be fair to say there was no badge system in place to force you to run dungeons over and over again that you completely outgeared? In my earlier days of WoW it was the guilds responsibility to ensure that new members are running dungeons on raid offnights to get geared for raids. I honestly don't see many guilds wanting to foot that bill anymore as it's too time consuming so players need something at their convenience or they simply won't play

[knightblaster]

Also, I don't have experience prior to WoW but would it be fair to say there was no badge system in place to force you to run dungeons over and over again that you completely outgeared? In my earlier days of WoW it was the guilds responsibility to ensure that new members are running dungeons on raid offnights to get geared for raids. I honestly don't see many guilds wanting to foot that bill anymore as it's too time consuming so players need something at their convenience or they simply won't play

 

Pre-WoW games were either sandbox (SWG, EVE) or quite hard in terms of time-consumption. This made them less casual friendly (no logging in for an hour or two and running 2-3 instances), and therefore less popular, but much more community-oriented. Not saying that was better (was bad for people who were time-poor), but everything was community-dependent. There was no badge system -- there were only item drops. Heck in Everquest the dungeons were not instanced, so you had groups competing for mob spawns in dungeons. There were some mobs that only spawned once every 24 hours, and had needed gear drops and so on. It was just completely different.

 

Post-WoW it became more oriented towards "getting things done in an hour or two", which made it more friendly to more people (hence the explosion in player populations in MMORPGs), but also made the community increasingly "optional" and, for many players, outright disliked outside their guilds (references to other players as "pubbies", turning off chat other than guild chat and so on).

 

Neither is better or worse, each has pluses and minuses, but there is no going back to the old way. The new way is here to stay. And the new way isn't about community, it's about a manageable gaming session for the average player who has limited time. This is why LFD/LFR is popular -- it's much more efficient. And that makes sense, because the "cost" to community is overblown --> WoW really didn't have a great "community", or much of a community to speak of at all, prior to LFD, so the concern about community is mostly misplaced. All it does is make pugging easier and more anonymous and for the average player, trying to make a bit of progress with limited time to play, it's a big advantage over any system that is more time consuming or "community"-dependent.

[salvadorellama]

Why can't the Imperials just accept that Republic characters NEED this option in order to have access to FP's? If you haven't seen how dead most republic servers are, level up a character and go to the space station. Note the number of people. Then log off and look at the number of people on the Imperial space station.

 

Now, stop saying that you just need to find a group without a tool. When you have a severe lack of players, finding a group without a cross server tool is just too time consuming. By the time you find a group, you could have already completed the FP in the first place.

 

IF YOU DON'T WANT TO USE THE TOOL, DON'T, BUT DON'T SAY THAT IT'S NOT NEEDED, IT IS.

[Bullsith]

What is this? EA actually being smart? I'm speechless. Bring it on. Hell I might even come check out your game in the next 6 months. Assuming it's still around.

 

BTW This is the first good thing I've read on these forums.

[Forsbacka]

Awesome addition, it was needed and a huge success in WoW and im sure it will be same with this game.

[Touchbass]

Neither is better or worse, each has pluses and minuses, but there is no going back to the old way. The new way is here to stay. And the new way isn't about community, it's about a manageable gaming session for the average player who has limited time. This is why LFD/LFR is popular -- it's much more efficient. And that makes sense, because the "cost" to community is overblown --> WoW really didn't have a great "community", or much of a community to speak of at all, prior to LFD, so the concern about community is mostly misplaced. All it does is make pugging easier and more anonymous and for the average player, trying to make a bit of progress with limited time to play, it's a big advantage over any system that is more time consuming or "community"-dependent.

 

I really enjoy your level headed approach to the system, you definately have a very mature look on the situation and we need more posters like you in this discussion.

[MalignX]

Pre-WoW games were either sandbox (SWG, EVE) or quite hard in terms of time-consumption. This made them less casual friendly (no logging in for an hour or two and running 2-3 instances), and therefore less popular, but much more community-oriented. Not saying that was better (was bad for people who were time-poor), but everything was community-dependent. There was no badge system -- there were only item drops. Heck in Everquest the dungeons were not instanced, so you had groups competing for mob spawns in dungeons. There were some mobs that only spawned once every 24 hours, and had needed gear drops and so on. It was just completely different.

 

Post-WoW it became more oriented towards "getting things done in an hour or two", which made it more friendly to more people (hence the explosion in player populations in MMORPGs), but also made the community increasingly "optional" and, for many players, outright disliked outside their guilds (references to other players as "pubbies", turning off chat other than guild chat and so on).

 

Neither is better or worse, each has pluses and minuses, but there is no going back to the old way. The new way is here to stay. And the new way isn't about community, it's about a manageable gaming session for the average player who has limited time. This is why LFD/LFR is popular -- it's much more efficient. And that makes sense, because the "cost" to community is overblown --> WoW really didn't have a great "community", or much of a community to speak of at all, prior to LFD, so the concern about community is mostly misplaced. All it does is make pugging easier and more anonymous and for the average player, trying to make a bit of progress with limited time to play, it's a big advantage over any system that is more time consuming or "community"-dependent.

 

Just when I'd given up hope on healthy discussions. Seeing as it just undulates up and down every time someone new joins in, and I've yet to see it really get anywhere productive. Appreciate TouchBass's continued campaign though.

 

Edit: And Knightblaster's thought out post, obviously.

Edited February 14, 2012 by MalignX

[salvadorellama]

Pre-WoW games were either sandbox (SWG, EVE) or quite hard in terms of time-consumption.

<SNIP>

 

You leave out EQ. It was THE MMO that began all modern MMO's. It wasn't a sandbox at all IMO. It forced you to group to advance. It's the only MMO that's ever HAD a real community since MUDD's. If you didn't spend time with other players and make friends, you would have a real hard time (unless you played certain classes like cleric or enchanter) finding people to group with. This was especially true at high levels By then you'd have a reputation because you would group with guild people and they would tell their guilds what kind of person you were.

 

It's impossible to that that kind of community these days anyway. And look at is this way, some people just don't get along with certain other people. Friction between a very small number of people (just because some people just don't get along with other personality types) could eventually keep you from playing with anyone at all just from a few people badmouthing you just because you had clashing personalities (this applies double to SWTOR where all last name are shared). Sure, it would help you know what kind of reputation someone has and it might keep you from grouping with that person, and that's not really bad. If it's your cup of tea, don't use the tool and the people you group with, you'll have your own opinion of what kind of person they are.

 

 

But consider my above post, with the Republic there just aren't many people to begin with. The tool is needed. Sure there are some Republics that won't use it, but for a lot of them (us), I'd use it in a heartbeat. I haven't tried finding a FP on my main Republic toon since I used every method available to me for 2 hours one night during peak time and failed and finding a group.

 

Again, if you don't like it, don't use it, but don't cry and say it's not needed and threaten to quit because of it. If it wasn't needed they wouldn't be adding it.

 

Edit: Pardon my grammatical errors; I feel like crap and don't feel like fixing them tonight, although I usually would.

Edited February 14, 2012 by salvadorellama

[Kaelshi]

I forgot to mention the "if you don't like the x-lfg don't use it" mantra in my previous post.

 

The problem with that statement is that once it is implemented it becomes mandatory. That is not an option to not use it, because as soon as it is implemented the option to gather a group to run FP's or ops ceases to exist, except in guilds with enough people to do them.

 

Another point i must refer to is (and i bet that the few "loud" people in the thread will be offended by it) if someone don't have time to run end game content as it should be done, why should that someone have access to that sort of gear "just because they pay the same as the others"?

 

The way i see things, if someone want something should work for it, not get it as a certain thing.

 

And certain self stylized """""casuals"""""" play more than many of the ones they accuse from being hard-core players. It is those sort of people that complain that the game is too hard to get the top notch gear but, once they get their way, those same people say the game don't have enough content and they are bored - that is ALWAYS the way thing happen when a company caves to the demands of ex-FPS/ex-console players/single player god mode players and the like.

 

And again i say, normal modes x-lfg tool can be good, end game content it is a disaster.

I don't know who those "stylized casuals" are but as an actual casual player the problem was never that it's to hard. I rarely hear that from casual players(again i have no idea who you are talking about and have rarely heard anyone talk about the difficulty of the content)

 

It's a time management issue.

 

I do not have the ability to say to my guild yes I will be on for sure at x-time in order to join a group for a dungeon or raid and I can promise that I will be available for an hour or two to do it.

 

What I CAN do it log on when I get a chance to, click a LFD, join a group, and if something comes up and I don't have the time to complete it - I don't feel terrible about leaving the group because they can just queue up and get a new player.

 

 

I don't know why so many people fail to understand the advantages of this - I can only assume since you are not a casual player(or you would not be derisive towards them) that you DO have the time to do all of that stuff and not have to worry about babies waking up or being on-call for a job or children needing stuff.

 

It is an ego problem on your part to say that other people should not have access to content and that only you, because of your LACK of time constraints, should.

 

The reality is us casual players are catered to in some regard because we tend to be the adults of the bunch who have steady incomes and won't be canceling subscriptions because mom and dad stop giving us our allowance or because we dont have a steady job.

 

Of course it makes sense to give us access to content that would otherwise be unobtainable.

[knightblaster]

You leave out EQ. It was THE MMO that began all modern MMO's. It wasn't a sandbox at all IMO. It forced you to group to advance. It's the only MMO that's ever HAD a real community since MUDD's. If you didn't spend time with other players and make friends, you would have a real hard time (unless you played certain classes like cleric or enchanter) finding people to group with. This was especially true at high levels By then you'd have a reputation because you would group with guild people and they would tell their guilds what kind of person you were.

 

Yeah I mentioned EQ a line or two later, but should have mentioned it in a parallel parenthetical in the first line to avoid the confusion this caused.

 

It's impossible to that that kind of community these days anyway. And look at is this way, some people just don't get along with certain other people. Friction between a very small number of people (just because some people just don't get along with other personality types) could eventually keep you from playing with anyone at all just from a few people badmouthing you just because you had clashing personalities (this applies double to SWTOR where all last name are shared). Sure, it would help you know what kind of reputation someone has and it might keep you from grouping with that person, and that's not really bad. If it's your cup of tea, don't use the tool and the people you group with, you'll have your own opinion of what kind of person they are.

 

I agree. That was then, this is now. There is no going back. Current games don't have that kind of "community" anyway, so not allowing people to have a tool like this for that kind of reason doesn't make sense to me.

[MalignX]

I don't know who those "stylized casuals" are but as an actual casual player the problem was never that it's to hard. I rarely hear that from casual players(again i have no idea who you are talking about and have rarely heard anyone talk about the difficulty of the content)

 

It's a time management issue.

 

I do not have the ability to say to my guild yes I will be on for sure at x-time in order to join a group for a dungeon or raid and I can promise that I will be available for an hour or two to do it.

 

What I CAN do it log on when I get a chance to, click a LFD, join a group, and if something comes up and I don't have the time to complete it - I don't feel terrible about leaving the group because they can just queue up and get a new player.

 

 

I don't know why so many people fail to understand the advantages of this - I can only assume since you are not a casual player(or you would not be derisive towards them) that you DO have the time to do all of that stuff and not have to worry about babies waking up or being on-call for a job or children needing stuff.

 

It is an ego problem on your part to say that other people should not have access to content and that only you, because of your LACK of time constraints, should.

 

The reality is us casual players are catered to in some regard because we tend to be the adults of the bunch who have steady incomes and won't be canceling subscriptions because mom and dad stop giving us our allowance or because we dont have a steady job.

 

Of course it makes sense to give us access to content that would otherwise be unobtainable.

 

I think I love you too.

[Touchbass]

I agree. That was then, this is now. There is no going back. Current games don't have that kind of "community" anyway, so not allowing people to have a tool like this for that kind of reason doesn't make sense to me.

 

We need to find other ways of building community that doesn't involve punishing people who don't fit into the mold of how something should play an MMORPG.

[salvadorellama]

The reality is us casual players are catered to in some regard because we tend to be the adults of the bunch who have steady incomes and won't be canceling subscriptions because mom and dad stop giving us our allowance or because we dont have a steady job.

 

Of course it makes sense to give us access to content that would otherwise be unobtainable.

 

Best. Reasoning. Ever.

[terminova]

My only experience is with WoW but dungeons were nerfed many times before the LFD came out so we can't say nerfing dungeons is intrinsic to the X-LFD. That being said the X-LFD gives you a 15% buff which makes the content doable in bad situations. The buff can be turned off (I believe) or you can just go the instance manually with a group and recieve no buff and do the content normally.

 

Initially the buff was 5% because there were a lot of undergeared and low ability players using the tool. That wasn't enough, so Blizzard increased it to stack up to three times, once for each player added to the group by the LFG tool. This wasn't because the dungeons were too hard, they weren't. This was done because of the players using the system that were either under-geared or simply not that good at their class/spec.

 

Having a buff applied by the LFD system is simply a way of nerfing the difficulty level of the dungeon, but instead of lowering the difficulty of the dungeon by 5-15%, they increased the damage output and health levels of the players by 5-15%. Same effect, different method of accomplishing the same goal.

 

Basically, Blizzard had to further nerf the dungeons so the LFD system could put together inadequate groups and still have them get a gold star.

[knightblaster]

We need to find other ways of building community that doesn't involve punishing people who don't fit into the mold of how something should play an MMORPG.

 

Actually I think that's very hard to do. The first wave of MMOs reflected the "old internet" in many ways, where people enjoyed making anonymous internet friendships, and things were kept very separate from real life. This informed the older MMOs, as well as other older virtual worlds like Second Life.

 

When Web 2.0 hit, it became the rage to be yourself on the internet, and people's interest in socializing with strangers under anonymity waned to a large degree. The virtual world socialization model, based on anonymity or a separate identity, waned and was replaced with things like Facebook and the like. I think this has also directly impacted socialization in MMOs (they are a part of internet culture as much as anything else, and subject to it as well). MMOs became less virtual worlds for socializing and more online games for gaming, which I think suits what most users want, because they no longer are as interested in forming virtual friendships with people they meet on the internet under the guise of anonymity.

 

So I guess I am not sure that the receding importance of community in these games represents a failure, or means that something is not working. It very well could be that things are simply progressing as many people prefer -- that is, gaming on the internet is for gaming, and socializing is for social sites. Guilds are the exception to this, but in recent years MMO guilds have mostly fallen into two types: (1) older multi-game communities that feature relationships that have spanned quite a few years of time and (2) guilds where people know each other in real life, and are therefore an extension of that for the most part, perhaps with a few outsiders in the mix. This again would reflect the pattern of people relying on other means to socialize online than through games.

 

There is a lot of angst about this in the MMO world, as we can see from the debate about tools like LFD, because there are some people of the old mindset playing still. And merging the two kinds of internet -- making people also play these games as their real world identity -- went over like a lead balloon when Blizzard tried to implement it, indicating, I think, that people want these two worlds -- their online gaming world, and their online socializing world -- to be distinct in many cases.

 

So I guess I think it may be working as well as it can, and in a way that meets the needs of most of the players of these games, really.

[terminova]

Why can't the Imperials just accept that Republic characters NEED this option in order to have access to FP's? If you haven't seen how dead most republic servers are, level up a character and go to the space station. Note the number of people. Then log off and look at the number of people on the Imperial space station.

 

Now, stop saying that you just need to find a group without a tool. When you have a severe lack of players, finding a group without a cross server tool is just too time consuming. By the time you find a group, you could have already completed the FP in the first place.

 

IF YOU DON'T WANT TO USE THE TOOL, DON'T, BUT DON'T SAY THAT IT'S NOT NEEDED, IT IS.

 

There currently isn't even a same server tool to base that claim off of.

 

 

And yelling isn't necessary.

[Squeeges]

For me Cross Server FP isn't a problem, cross server PvP I absolutely hate, it killed WoW for me PvPing and made it completely dull and uninteresting. I'm not against having it for FP but it wouldn't bother me if they didn't put it in either. I like to have the same people fighting against me, form a rivalry etc....

[dahlatiel]

It is an ego problem on your part to say that other people should not have access to content and that only you, because of your LACK of time constraints, should.

 

It's not really hard to have evolution with my 2-3h a day of play, i could do all that the other players do, and not be that constrained by the lack of time.

 

As long as people try to know the community in their servers, there is always a good chance that sooner or later it would advance the gear and professions to the level of the more active players.

 

Just because some players think they should get all without the effort, doesn't mean that the ones that can do it in an organized fashion wont be more deserving to complete end-game.

 

What counts is not the amount of play time, is how each one makes the use of it.

 

And once again, x-lfg for normal modes, sure, harder settings, no thank you.

 

The only thing that WoW got from cross realm anonymous queue was a big loss in interest from the community, which once the tool was installed simply vanished.

 

-Players without a clue of what to do would get into raids, getting carried by the others.

-Master loot ninjaing

-kicking people when the boss is at 5% health to not having to compete with players of the same class for loot

 

Those and many other "side effects" where what it brought to WoW.

 

Nowadays WoW for the top levels is sitting in Stormwind/Orgrimar until the lfg tool gets them the 9/24 players to do something. The chat is childish, no one know each other, but hey... everyone got EPIX.

 

If and when someone gets something that takes real effort to get, that someone like to be recognized as someone that has done something that is not usually easy to do. In an RPG that means better gear to demonstrate the achievement, titles that are hard to get and the like.

 

When every single player has it it's not special anymore, it's common place, which defeats the purpose of it.

[Aricus]

You leave out EQ. It was THE MMO that began all modern MMO's. It wasn't a sandbox at all IMO. It forced you to group to advance. It's the only MMO that's ever HAD a real community since MUDD's. If you didn't spend time with other players and make friends, you would have a real hard time (unless you played certain classes like cleric or enchanter) finding people to group with. This was especially true at high levels By then you'd have a reputation because you would group with guild people and they would tell their guilds what kind of person you were.

 

It's impossible to that that kind of community these days anyway. And look at is this way, some people just don't get along with certain other people. Friction between a very small number of people (just because some people just don't get along with other personality types) could eventually keep you from playing with anyone at all just from a few people badmouthing you just because you had clashing personalities (this applies double to SWTOR where all last name are shared). Sure, it would help you know what kind of reputation someone has and it might keep you from grouping with that person, and that's not really bad. If it's your cup of tea, don't use the tool and the people you group with, you'll have your own opinion of what kind of person they are.

 

 

But consider my above post, with the Republic there just aren't many people to begin with. The tool is needed. Sure there are some Republics that won't use it, but for a lot of them (us), I'd use it in a heartbeat. I haven't tried finding a FP on my main Republic toon since I used every method available to me for 2 hours one night during peak time and failed and finding a group.

 

Again, if you don't like it, don't use it, but don't cry and say it's not needed and threaten to quit because of it. If it wasn't needed they wouldn't be adding it.

 

Edit: Pardon my grammatical errors; I feel like crap and don't feel like fixing them tonight, although I usually would.

 

I agree with this post except that EQ wasn't the only MMO that had a community beside MUDDs. Ultima Online had a huge community and so did Final Fantasy XI. I am pretty sure DAoC had one too. Honestly, WoW had a community back in Vanilla and even early-mid stages of TBC.

 

However, WoW's community wasn't as big as the games I listed before it. In fact now days after playing numerous games that started after WoW, there has been virtually no community. Reason being is two things, One separate factions, the good vs evil or team a vs team b, is a bad idea and always has been as it splits and separates the community from communicating and trading.

 

The other issue is gear, all the games that had so-so or bad communities were heavily focused on gear. I don't know what EQ's gear acquisition was like. But I know Ulitma Online, FFXI, and DAoC at least he early stages didn't have huge gear gaps or focus. In WoW and post WoW everything we do is for the sole purpose of gear and not community. Problem is gear is like money, in fact in the MMO world gear is the root of all evil. Everyone focuses on how to acquire more gear just as if people in the real world (lately) focuses on how to acquire more money, simply forgetting or sacrificing all else like their communities and even close ones.

Edited February 14, 2012 by Aricus

[Touchbass]

Initially the buff was 5% because there were a lot of undergeared and low ability players using the tool. That wasn't enough, so Blizzard increased it to stack up to three times, once for each player added to the group by the LFG tool. This wasn't because the dungeons were too hard, they weren't. This was done because of the players using the system that were either under-geared or simply not that good at their class/spec.

 

Having a buff applied by the LFD system is simply a way of nerfing the difficulty level of the dungeon, but instead of lowering the difficulty of the dungeon by 5-15%, they increased the damage output and health levels of the players by 5-15%. Same effect, different method of accomplishing the same goal.

 

Basically, Blizzard had to further nerf the dungeons so the LFD system could put together inadequate groups and still have them get a gold star.

 

How is that an issue though? I have no problem with people passing though the stuff just so they can experience the content. They wouldn't crack it in one of my organized raids so it would never effect me

[Squeeges]

UO had small communities within the sandbox, DAoC communities were server wide, they had to be if you were on the underpopulated side(Midgard-Gawaine FTW!). DAoC had some of the best features of any MMO to date but the UI is so clunky last time I tried it's unplayable compared to WoW and ToR. I'd die for UO or DAoC to update the original game mechanics with updated graphics and UI, I'd pay for both and drop both WoW and ToR if they were reasonably playable. Warhammer should have been DAoC 2 but while fun it had too many issues, did have great PvP battlegrounds though IMO.

 

I'm really enjoying the back and forth here, good arguements from both sides.