Thanks for watching, leave a like if you want me to play more classic MMOs and feel free to suggest some below! Website: www.DogWaterGaming.com

You should do a follow up on DAOC on the Eden server, its where all the people you were looking for are.

I played this game in its glory days. It was an amazing experience, and no game has ever really replicated it. There would be massive realm wars with 100s of players on battling for an objective. And you would see people's names in the cst box appear when they killed someone. They were like the players of legend with very high realm ranks, and you would strive to get to thst point. I truly miss this game, and I hope in some way it gets resurrected.

do a video on the Eden free shard server. Its a more accurate representation of how many people play and it keeps the game alive. There's usually more than 1000 people on at any given time and its free with regular updates. Helps shine light on how good of a job the devs have done to keep the game going.

Now it would be cool if you did a video on the Eden server, so that people know there is a very successful DAoC environment to play this game in all it's glory.

I have such fond memories of DAOC. First character was a Dwarf Thane and the loyalty to faction was strong. We were always the underdogs to Albion BGs. Ended up switching to Albion and felt the same loyalty. 15+ years on and I still remember some of those epic battles in the New Frontiers. I would get so jazzed for Friday night RvR. I even got my Mom playing it with me and we had such good times. Really fun to see it covered again, thanks Sawman! Great video and thanks for the nostalgia wave :).

There were 250k players playing at its peak, if I remember correctly. It was the second biggest MMO on the market at the time, EQ being the biggest.

Another reason why the playerbase is low is because most people are playing on the private servers which are.. free.. and actually has active pvp going on.

Wife and I played this game in its prime when Shrouded Isles expansion released shortly after the infamous left axe nerf, we played for 7 years. No game has ever come close to the RvR this game had also Lance, Merlin etc. original servers had 1,000s of people on them was always something to do even in the lower level BGs ( Thid , Molvik) had 100s of people in them.

This was my first mmo and I got so hooked. Love this game and the concept. Wish it would get updated and rereleased.

Three faction PvP is still the best PvP system in an MMO to date. Games try to reinvent the wheel as time goes by, but nothing has surpassed it.

I know I look like a weirdo now with this many comments, but this struck a chord. Most players who were there at launch would agree. This was a great video!

DAOC was such a great game. I miss those days A LOT.

I am, indeed, old as fuck. I still have my cockmongler memes. I played DaoC back in the day. Hibs for life. Fuck Albion Reavers. Nothing was worse than the hype train leading up to Warhammer Online only for it to end up being a wet fart.

My brother bought this game shortly after it released. It was probably december of 2001 and I was almost 9 years old. I remember watching him play for hours and begging to play. Occasionally if I was lucky he would let me play for him. A year or two later I had a computer that could half run it, sometimes I got to play on his account. I'd convince my mom off and on to let me get a subscription and then I'd make countless characters and level them up to 15 or so before changing for a new character. By the time I was 12 I had a better computer and took my gaming to the next level. I leveled a highlander mercenary to about level 41. The highlight of my DAOC experience was to get a character level 5, buy the best gear I could for the lions den (level 5-9 pvp zone) and then go into the zone and grind all night to be level 15-19 when people came online the next morning. I delighted in being geared with armor and skills people entering the zone couldn't possibly match. I would be able to one hit most characters. I even wiped an entire group once, before eventually getting attacked by two realms at once and being killed as a level 19 Armsman. This was the best mmo ever. I'm not even a lore person but the themes and vibe of this game have never been matched.

A revival of daoc, in a revamp or sequel, might be the only thing that could make me intrested in an mmo again

I also played this game in its glory days. My daughter and I played together and we have such wonderful memories of that! I did play about a year ago and, yes, so lonely and sad. I have been a gamer since Pong and would love to find a new game that is on this level. There was something so special and beautiful and magical about DAOC and the people we played with. I had high hopes for Camelot Unchained but can't see that happening anytime soon, if ever.

It was a great game. Solid 8v8 scene for many years.

Being someone who bought 3 copies of this game day one. I would say the reason it fizzled out was due to the lack of progression after you hit 50. Yes they came out with some alternative levels like Champion levels, but those levels seemed so group orientated that it was hard to get done. I ran a guild of over 200 people and it was still hard to get enough people organized weekly. You were always having to "catch" someone up on what they were missing. Later in the game's history, they released a server for co-op play, allowing different realms to group together and RVR was non-existent. Instead all the RVR areas were filled with elite mobs that, once again, needed a full group or two to take down. While this was no way to save the game, it gave all us the ability to create "dream team" groups. BTW, you didn't mention that there are now FTP servers that are not run by EA. Thanks for the video, love it.

ESO has a lot more similarities than the Realm v Realm v Realm thing, I found out. And, never made the connection of Matt Firoror until you pointed it out! But, when the Imperial City expansion launched in ESO, I found my favorite place to hang out was in the Sewers. The players I constantly hung out with asked me why, and I told them it reminded me a TON of the Darkness Falls adventuring, where players can do all kinds of grinding and farming, but also run into players from other realms.

What song is the 8 bit music at the beginning? Ive looked for it but no english lyrics to search for. Love your videos. I used to play eso too but it's monetization broke my heart.

I was playing this in high school when it first game out, it was AWESOME. The RvR and PvP were amazing

that new world joke was perfect XD

If you're looking for suggestions, the one that pops to mind for me, and what got me into MMOs in the first place, was Legend of Mir. It wasn't great in any sense, but I imagine it has a following if only because it used to be advertised on the Games Network channel like crazy.

Came out around the same time as Ultima Online? UO came out in 97 and DAOC came out in 2001. 4 years might not seem like a lot now, but in those days (the early days of MMO's) that was a massive gap. I remember lol

I played DAOC from launch to about 2004. Recently, my buddy and I have been playing on Eden. Working our way up. Last night in the 35-39 battle ground. We (hibs) were attacked by 3 albs. The fight was slipping out of our favor, but then two mids attacked the albs. The albs die, and then the mids finish us off. All that excitment while running around doing a PVE quest in the battlegrounds!

Probably my 2nd favorite game of all time. I'm playing it right now just listening to videos about it. That's what brought me here. So, thx for the background content! :)

As with all the other comments I too remember the glory. This was my first Mmo and even played it at launch on an old 56k dial up modem!!!

This game in its prime was great. I definitely took some personal days off work to lvl my Troll Thane. Was a blast

I love the "You're old as f***" joke followed by the Wasted banner from the original GTA's ... and I still know what that is >_>. That only rubs salt in the wound, man! Salt in the wound :(.

Play the free shard around 200-300 players per faction at peak times 900 player on at the same time still feels really good and action packed

I still having the CDs for the original game. To be honest, I didn't play it that much as most of my friends played other games at that time.

Yes, I am old... and I played both UO and Asheron's Call. In fact I played Asheron's Call instead of Everquest back then. Anyway, either of those games would be good to cover; Ultima Online will probably be nostalgic for a lot more people, but Asheron's Call is a rarer gem that was very unique. I think there are some private servers, but I have never played on any.

Great video, sawman. Had me almost willing to play it until i heard what the subscription fee was.

I'm fortunate to say that I got to play both this and UO back in their "prime" and while I enjoyed WoW, it's success caused all of the game studios to stop investing in games like these altogether. UO and Daoc got little to no major expansions after WoW came out. I'm also lucky to have played Star Wars Galaxies, Guild Wars 1, Swtor, Aion, ArcheAge, and Darkfall in their hey-days (or in some cases - unlucky lol)

You should review my all time favourite ever: Shadowbane

Lol I was looking at the DAoC buildings and thinking about Valheim right about the same time that the Valheim house music kicked in.

Even in its old state it’s better than any modern day PVP mmo. I played the first 5 years. I’m old as fuck 😂.. it required teamwork, it fostered socialization. Imagine losing 3 hours of ExP grinding in one death or having to rest 5 minutes or so to regen after a fight. It took hours to repair keep doors carrying lumber. Not like ESO.. carrying weight slowed your movement or stalled it completely if you took to much. When I quit they went easy mode. Fast leveling, etc .. I’ve played every MMO. Ever heard of Lineage? To this day DAOC was the greatest PVP mmo ever created. Mark Jacob’s sold out with ESO making it DAOC Fortnite.

My first MMORPG, and the best PvP (RvR) I've ever played. Community was great.

Warhammer age of reckoning was meant to be a spiritual successor to dark age of camelot in a way. It was great at the time and i did enjoy the castle sieges/especially when you got all the way to the enemy faction main base, as much of a zerg fest as they really were.

DaoC was amazing, until they screwed it up with the Trials of Atlantis expansion and PvE raiding to get endgame gear.

I resemble that "old as Fuck". Loved the game for many years. My main on Pellinor was an infiltrator Bodycount Rising. I was hated alot lol. Miss 3vs 1 fights.

I played this for quite a while at its peak. Met some brilliant people - I miss them. Ultimately wanted a little more interesting solo play for variation.

You got me fired up. When I was in the Trinity Alliance on the Tristan server (Hibernia) we had like a 200+ man relic raid on midgard where we all split up into different teams, hit all of their 7 normal keeps at exactly the same time because the guards at the relic keeps were about invincible unless you lowered their strength by taking normal keeps, had advance teams waiting at the relic keeps outside of guard range until the normal keeps fell (think of scrolls in ESO here) - and had all of it take down and were moving with both relics within 7 minutes. People were still talking about that particular raid a year after it happened, it was that good. You just don't get shit like that in ESO, even though that's what Cyrodiil is built for. So that's one part of the game. When we moved to the Kay server to play Midgard, we ran a 2-6 man gank squad. We were taking out zergs and just loving it. So there was this aspect of the game as well. You want small group ganking, or even duo? Do it. You want to play the objectives? Do it. It could all happen at once because you'd have 600 people out there fighting at any given time. This game was EPIC and in the real sense of the word.

I played back then, started when Shrouded isles came out, I recently reinstalled the game and found my old accounts, been contemplating playing again, I was on Midgard, had 3 accounts goin at once, my main was a rr6 50 bow, 44 spear. Had a ton of fun.

Was an amazing game at the time it came out. I have so many good memories of castle sieging. Yeah, have to play on the private server.

Like some of the other replies, I suggest checking out the Eden server where there is a healthy population and lots of innovations that have intensified the original spirit of the game.

I played it right after launch for many years cause I'm old as fuck. PvP was a lot of fun and made some great friends there.

The EDEN FREESHARD is alive and well with a healthy population. No Trials of Atlantis.

One of my favorite old MMOs was Planetside 1, there’s been no other game like it

i played it in its prime. their peak was 250k players actually. it was fun af. the private server scene for this game is far more populated than the official server. GW2 WvW is a lot like the RvR from DAoC, and of course so is Cyrodil in ESO, so honestly people arent missing much with DAoC being history.

Great video. Found you because tells me most of my audience come from you. I think the saddest thing for me and why I never got into DAoC is that (A) I don't want to give money to EA and (B) The private server scene for the game is reaaaaly inconsistent with servers rising and falling like crazy and mostly driven by small cliques. You should checkout UO outlands if you haven't.

This was such a great game! Sadly most of the playerbase is split across a few private shards nowadays.

this game taught me some life lessons. i was a hibernian light mentalist, and i ninja looted respecc gems (world boss drops) so i ended up being shunned/hated by the whole server. switched to wow on launch were i reformed as "the nice guy". and it felt way better. cheers and thanks for the video

I have been waiting for a pvp game like DAOC for over a decade

100,000 is def still local bro lol. but aside from that this was a great video! i personally love albion and brit fantasy/human as an american. im actually interested in playing this now, but is this work playing fr?

I think you should take a look at D&D Online. It's such a fantastic, yet poorly cared for MMO since it's running on a nearly two decades old engine. It was one of the first, and I think the ONLY MMO where it felt like I was playing a true D&D MMO. Because you didn't level up from killing enemies, you leveled up from completing quests. So finally, you could play the game as a super sneaky rogue, avoiding every enemy throughout, and you'd still gain experience.

Have you played final fantasy 14 online, quite a fun mmo with a great community

The big difference between today and 20 years ago there was very limited options on what to play and now there's a crazy amount of options. ESO pvp is heavily influenced by daoc it's probably the only modern option over daoc.

Based on saying that the tab target is outdated. That's because it is! Action combat is much better.

Played all of them but AC was my fav of that era...and yes I am old AF!

Love the content. Would love to see you play OSRS!

Afterr playing Gemstone III and IV for way too long and also not long enough, when stationed oversea's a friend got me hooked on DAoC. Was amazing. Didnt play for long though, as we both converted to SWG pretty quickly. But very few of todays games hold up to DAoC, relatively speaking.

another great video 👏

nice vid man, i suggest checking out the eden private server

Free shard servers are a lot more popular. When a new one pops up easily hits over 1000 players at peak. Ton of fun and usually some what based off the best time period in daoc, SI.

DAoC still is the best realm vs realm mmorpg there was with its unique group fighting and queued moves. Miss the old days, the community and even the hours spent on crafting/trading and just chatting up ppl while doing so... ='( (Midgard/Prydwen for 3v4h!!)

Love your videos ❤

Also, Mark Jacobs was (maybe still is?) THE GOAT. When EA came into the picture, he put a lot of work in to make sure that EA didn't do to DAoC what it does to every franchise that it gobbles up. He lost the fight eventually, but was able to give another 12 - 18 months of solid DAoC back to his original subscribers. If you didn't start at launch and complain about Trials of Atlantis when it came out as a DLC, you won't know what I'm talking about. But the dude is a legend. What happened with Camelot Unchained, on the other hand, is unforgivable.

*chuckles* you could always cover Skyforge. It’s a dead f2p p2progress heap of a game… but man is that combat loot SATISFYING. I hate and love it. I would love to hear your thoughts on it!

The free shard Eden is very populated the rvr in this game is fun

You closing question about PvP. It showed us that people wanted PvP 20+ years ago. PvP in MMOs is never balanced and people want balance. Personally I don’t, I want complete unbalanced classes. Eg, healers that do next to no damage and dps classes that can’t regen health. Also the problems we have with meta these days make game play really dull and meta players gatekeeper content, which put people off. I’ve recently witnessed this in New World. People in my guild only wanting max geared and specific weapons to join their group and they wait hours to get such people into their group in order to complete the content that little bit quicker….. yeah, think on the logic of that…..😂 as a result, people quit as they can’t progress and then the meta sheep quit as there’s no one left in game. As Radiohead sung “you do it to yourself, you do, and that’s what really hurts. You do it to yourself, just you. You and no one else. You do it to yourselfffffff….”

Live is pretty much dead, the populated game you're showing at 7:18 is Eden... which is very much alive and still actively being developed

@SawmanUK .... In times like this I can appreciate some of these older MMOS alot better than I can appreciate the newer ones.. As we both left ESO ...I like to wander back to their forums from time to time just to see whats happening and Zos has not disappointed I got a good laugh at their expense I have never been so glad I left that game more than these past few days of reading the forums. Their 10th anniversary is live atm with horrid drop rates for the event angry people everywhere spending 14+ hours grinding for a single style page lol ... Not to mention the PTS for the gold road went live yesterday ...*Literally* lol The PTS characters that are carrying a billion + gold all the new sets gear everything were on LIVE PC NA People were giving away billions of gold items trying to launder it in their guilds and in the traders.... When players were trying to delete PTS characters to make room for another template they were actually deleting their characters off the main live server... And to top it all off lol instead of a server rollback to undo this literal farce that will have a major impact on the PC NA economy ...Zos in their infinite wisdom decided to lock the account of anyone who logged on the PTS During that time and they are manually rolling back their accounts no way their gona track down all of that gold and items lol that slipped thru the cracks So *anyone* who logged on the PTS during that time whether they exploited or not has their account locked for the time being... And this is all ontop of the recent bug in the past 2 weeks ...Cyrodiil was crashing and the map was rolling back every 15-20 mins due to some weird glitch to the point where campaign scoring couldnt even progress forward Not to mention that new tarnished set was doing like 60k procs due to a exploit Their forums are on fire... Zos has made some serious mistakes over the years and somehow someway they always manage to outdo them selves and top it .... Yet this one is truly their Potage le Magnifique with a lil chefs kiss at the end kind of screw up of literal epic proportion And it literally has happened on their 10th Anniversary celebration of the game We dodged a bullet on that one my friends... And we know what Zos's idea of compensation is in these moments theyl do a little we derped letter and give everyone a hideous non combat pet maybe extend the event by a few days...

I hate EA but if i played daoc again id level up enough for one of the higher level well populated battlegrounds.

I got to play the game during it's prime. It was by far the best endgame of any MMO up till that time. Warhammer Online was the next closest endgame and kind of did some innovations that were good, but it didn't have the 3 faction PVP-based endgame, and was instead just 2 factions, meaning that one side tended to dominate. When there was 3 faction endgame, it allowed the two "losing" factions to work together to compete against the winning faction. Plus, there was a dungeon with some of the best end game gear that only opened up for the faction that had the most control, meaning that there was an incentive to NOT PvP once you had control and let the other two factions battle it out to see which one got to challenge your winning faction for end game dungeon control. I have heard that Elder Scrolls Online has an end game faction system that is probably the closest to DAOC and Warhammer, but I just could never get into ESO. Same with World of Warcraft. As a DaoC player, World of Warcraft actually seemed like a step backwards in gameplay, and the raiding system wasn't fun. Warhammer had raiding, but it was nice because you raided to get PvP gear.

Till this day it is still mY favorite mmo

❤ DAOC, Warhammer Online had the problem of only two factions and i enjoyed the daoc lore more but still cool - still play it (reckoning freeshard project, very cool). Eso didn't catch me, so many confusing questions stuff, lack of motivation for pvp, limited skill bar, weird ui

"Dark Age of Camelot" It's funny now that I think about it; I know where Funcom took the name "Age of Conan" for their MMO from 🤭😋

I played ALL those MMOs damn you. Plus.... you know... more?

Copying this from another video I posted on. This game is what got me into gaming into the first place and will always be close to heart. If there is one MMO that deserves a rebirth, it is DAoC. So many memories, friends made, rivals from the other realms and the best community in any game i've ever seen so many years on. From the in-game funerals honored by all three realms in the frontiers. To the guilds that would peel off in an 8v8 when my group would get AJ'd. To the lvl 50 shaman who would give me stam and dmg buffs when passing by in DF when I was a low level. To the crafters who would grind for hours to become LGM only to charge cost because for the glory to the realm. To the Raid leaders and Relic Raid leaders who brought the community together for the realm. To the people having 8v8s and not killing the lonely solo who just wanted to watch. To the people who would /bow after kicking my butt. To the high level group in the dungeon who brought someone 6 levels under them to soak xp and go deeper with you. To the people of Igraine when dropping Laghammers in OF Emain zerg fights, sorry not sorry :) To the thousands of memories built over the years from every corner of the game. Thank you, for being the best fucking community ever and i'm proud to have been a part of it.

If you take suggestions for older rpgs you should check out the gothic series. Especially the first game is my best game experience ever

Lothani being a real bro

I played that a lot back int he day. before WOW... I din;t like how you had to chain moves together but other than that it was fun

Best game ive ever played. Especially Old frontiers

I want DAoC to come back sooo bad.... just doooo it!

Dungeons and Dragons Online Unlimited is my vote... The music in that game had some a homey feel to it in a way It felt like I was in EQ 1 again The narration of the the quests events like Crystal Cove The PvP area in Wayward Lobster a literal bar with a damn PvP arena so many good times The game is probably on life support but it was fun though I dont feel like DDO was overly popular a link for some of the music from DDO kzfaq.info/get/bejne/p7mUh6Zku9_am6s.html ...

Fancy seeing you here

Some played Meridian59. Just say'in.

Wizard and Pirate101, I dare you.

By far the best MMO I've ever played, nothing since then has done much for me other than WAR which was great at lower levels but it's endgame content was meh.

DAoC is alive and thriving on Eden. Best version of DAoC to date

This game's got them Morrowind water textures.

👍

You could have at least let everyone know that they can play on a fairly active server - it's just not the official server.

Old AF here, checking in.

Ah Mr. Jacobs, for whom the Grift never ends.

Play it on Eden. A lot more players on there.

I played Everquest PvP and Dark Age of Camelot. The people saying they don't want PvP in an MMO have never truly given a real faction based PVP MMO a chance. While the leveling PVP experience is hit or miss, PvP fixes almost everything lame and boring about max level MMO gameplay. All the rule lawyering, raid schedules, boring zonked out gear farming and poop-socking, even the headache of GMs administrating all the bickering on a care bear server. None of that, "but we were here first" baby nonsense matters when at any given moment someone can come along with the squad and simply remove you. Especially in EQ where key item farms could give a guild control of the server's economy, there were high-stakes wars over key territory. It adds a completely new depth of mechanics and things you need to keep in mind when doing just about anything in the game. I'll probably never play another MMO, I have kids and a life, but if the great new MMO comes out I hope they add obligatory PvP starting at raid level and they don't listen to the babies crying for a blue server snooze fest. Minecraft wouldn't have a survival mode if players always knew what they wanted.

Look how they massacred my boy. Eden server is the only way to play this game.