The Sky Is Really Falling This Time

As it was said numerous times and in many threads, the (freeshard) server lifecycle is rather predictable, the most recent daoc examples would be Uthgard -> Genesis -> Uthgard 2 -> Phoenix. All with wildly different settings, change policies or approaches to moderation. Here once more the basic summary of the lifecycle for (freeshard) servers for games without advertisement or major expansions:

Week 0 - 2: Launch + hype = huge number of players, some caught up in the hype realize they don't like the game but that's still offset by "stragglers" who somehow missed the launch hype
Starting in Week 3 - 6: Honey moon phase is over. The majority of the leavers just realize the game / setting isn't for them, a few are already bored, influx of new players still about covers the loss.
Week 7-20: Player loss exceeds influx of new players. The majority of the leavers are now starting to be those that are getting bored. This will be rather slow at first but has the chance to accelerate once a critical point is reached.
Week 20+: If the server is still alive it should have a rather healthy and stable population that very slowly bleeds those that get bored until a critical point is reached where the number of players can't sustain the gameplay anymore at which point the leaving accelerates, it can take months or even years until that point is reached but eventually it will be.

We were pretty close to reaching said critical point in March 2020 but with the Corona lockdown there was a quite persistent influx of new and returning players, however, once the restrictions were lifted the decline picked up pace again and we basically reached the critical point a while ago. This is further exacerbated by a new server on the horizon, even if it's still a while off, there is pretty much no point for us to compete with their launch given the dynamics of the launch hype and the grass always being greener on the other side: the most we could achieve by some elusive magical change is splitting the already rather small daoc freeshard community.
For these reasons and under the assumption that the new server project stays on track and doesn't implode from common freeshard drama, we will close down on the 31st of August and at a later point make good use of our name.

The all cap gloves and free respecs will remain active. Starting today and until we close down, we'll disable the realm timer and run a number of events:
July 24th - July 31st: 5vs5 Arena
July 31st- August 7th: 1vs1 Arena
August 7th - August 31st: Arena, any group size, cross realm

We'd like to thank (almost) everyone who played here over the last 4 years and especially those who gave their input. The server would not have been possible without you and we look forward to welcoming you back at said later point.

We will use the downtime to reevaluate a couple systems / changes and especially work on some long term projects like supporting dynamic path finding obstacles to allow for destructible keeps and towers as well as the surrounding utilities that have been somewhat neglected, like the herald, web app and this forum. On that note, we'd like to emphasize that any features of the new server project that seem "inspired" by our setting are absolutely welcome, taking what works and improving upon it is the way the game industry at large and the mmo genre in particular has always evolved and moved forward.

Sat 24 Jul 2021 9:15 AM by Lollie

Everybody back to uthgard! /Shudder

Sat 24 Jul 2021 9:30 AM by Astaa

Gutted, can't put it any other way.

Thanks to all the team for giving us DAOC for a little longer, your efforts have been nothing short of outstanding. You have all been extremely approachable and professional and gone above and beyond. The entire server, from updates to development to community interaction, have been professional to a T and you will all go far. Sure there have been some raised eyebrows from time to time but that's all part of being such a small scale operation, you have listened and adapted. Definitely something to put on the CV and I see no reason why a professional outfit wouldn't snap you all up.

As for lockdown, DAOC pretty much got me through it, I have been lucky enough to keep my job but I have been working from home since March 2020 so DAOC has been an outlet for me.

As for the community, I'm not a particularly social person but have enjoyed the vast majority of my game time with you all, Albs, Mids and my home, HIb, be it chilling in the BG, knocking keeps over, soloing, PVE raids, I will miss you all.

Sat 24 Jul 2021 9:32 AM by thomyg

July 24th - July 31st: Level Playing Field Event -> lol

Sat 24 Jul 2021 9:51 AM by baran81

I can't see the point. I see people playing... And we are in summer.... Community is active. Rvr is going... What is the problem? Money? We can help. Time? Freeze changes. People? Ask for help. Lost of interest... Pass the flag... Really...
What the problem?

Sat 24 Jul 2021 9:53 AM by Sepplord

Makes sense to shut it down before it goes into a state where it ruins the name you have build up for your team and the server. Knowing when to stop is very hard, but it's Just like overstaying a Party when the Lights are already on, Just because you can't accept it's over. It just leaves a bad taste

Still sucks to hear happening this fast now, but the critical mass being reached has been visible. I Just didnt want to see it, but the last few weekend evenings i ran with my friends were noticebly different

Thanks for all the effort and work you put into the Server, wish you the best for future plans and If you make a new project sometime down the line i am sure many players will be there to support it again. I will

Sat 24 Jul 2021 9:56 AM by Gamean

Had a lot of fun here, thanks to the Devs and all the staff for putting up with us.

Sat 24 Jul 2021 10:04 AM by Griselda

Thanks to the staff and especially the devs for the work that you guys put into this project so we could all enjoy DAoC as we like it (for the most part

) for free.

Sat 24 Jul 2021 10:13 AM by Hellekin

Ich schließe mich dankend an, auch wenn ich nur ein paar Wochen in den guten alten Genuss kam... es hat echt Spass gemacht und die Arbeit, die Ihr in einen Freeshard investiert habt...Hut ab! Danke.

Schade

Sat 24 Jul 2021 10:14 AM by Johny Rousquille

I told you, a year ago you took me for an idiot, now laughing out loud. Well done for you

By not listening to part of your community you let the game die.

I only thank Uthred

Bonne chance !

Sat 24 Jul 2021 10:18 AM by ulf

Hello,

you need help , do a post for it, and we help you

but please dont close

Sat 24 Jul 2021 10:20 AM by Tamy

Thanks for the ride into the past with my favourite game of all time. I did not always agree with certain decisions you made but always appreciated all the hard work you put into this project. Hope to be able playing the game again in some form in the future. A little break is probably the best for all of us. /salut und auf Wiedersehen, Tamy/Yarna

Sat 24 Jul 2021 10:22 AM by Messj

the game died when you touched the styles good luck

Sat 24 Jul 2021 10:25 AM by Dallorian

I had a great time on Phoenix, thank you!

Where can I find information on that new server project you mentioned, and where could I find info if you ever make a new freeshard? I love DAOC like no other game and would like to continue playing on a freeshard or even live if they ever make a classic version.

Thanks again!

Sat 24 Jul 2021 10:38 AM by neonow

Ich bedanke mich auch für die schöne Zeit, es war extrem aufregend, nochmal die epischen Schlachten an den Milegates zu erleben in den ersten Monaten...aber auch später hat es mir hier sehr viel Spass gemacht.

In meinen Augen war es ein wenig unglücklich, (fast) sämtliche Rüstungen und Waffen in Händlern verfügbar zu machen, weil ich auch PVE-Raids interessant finde...ebenso wurden die Leute etwas schnell RR 11/12.

Ich bin gespannt, was kommen wird.

mfg Stefan

Sat 24 Jul 2021 10:57 AM by DJ2000

My thanks go to the Dev and Mod Teams.
But also thanks to everyone in the Community as a whole, for the passion and desire to play and experience DaoC.

Obviously, there is always room for growth and improvement.
There have been a lot of great experiences been made.
I enjoyed my time greatly here on Phoenix. Best DaoC Freeshard as far as i am concerned. Great time overall.

#Thank you

I also would like to keep in touch/stay informed of any new/side Projects of the Phoenix Team. Will there be a (new) Discord set up?

Sat 24 Jul 2021 10:59 AM by Lynee

Aww, what a sudden surprise! But well, thanks for all the work you put in. Here I found hands down the best community since a long time and I'm grateful for that.
Ring me up when you try somthing new

Sat 24 Jul 2021 11:06 AM by Smricha1

Thank you guys so much. While I believe you’re making a mistake, I do appreciate all the time and effort you’ve put into this wonderful project. Hope you will reconsider! God bless you and your team.

Sat 24 Jul 2021 11:14 AM by Bejarid

Thanks a lot Gruenes, Uthred and all the staff I didn't have the pleasure to talk to.

You dedication and benevolence were wonderfull! See you in your next project

Sat 24 Jul 2021 11:16 AM by Crazyphader

Hallo Grueneschaf und liebe Community,

im Prinzip müsstet ihr euren Server nur Resetten und auf den stand ausm alten Emain bringen.

Jede Veränderung von dort an hat euch Spielerzahlen gekostet. Neben dem normalen abgang.

Damals war alles so wie es sein sollte.

Wir die deutsche Ally auf Midgard bedanken uns bei allen die uns die 4 Jahre ermöglicht haben zu Spielen.

Im Namen von " Weltenbrand " Diamond Party " Yggdrasil " die Primär die Ally getragen haben und auch allen anderen die noch dabei waren,

sagen wir DANKE für ALLES und verabschieden uns mit Herzblut bis die Server wieder aufmachen.

Besonderen dank gilt dem " Gruenesschaaf " der manche Situation die wir hatten, auch überblicken konnte und eine Lösung gefunden wurde.

Nvidia

Sat 24 Jul 2021 11:16 AM by Moahr

Zunächst möchte auch ich mich für die schöne Zeit auf Phoenix und die Arbeit des ganzen Teams bedanken. Es war ein wunderschöner Flashback in alte (Classic-) Zeiten mit dem ich eigentlich nie gerechnet hatte. Fast alle Features und Komfortfunktionen waren sinnvoll und haben das Spielen sehr angenehm gemacht.

Bis auf wirklich sehr wenige Ausnahmen war auch die Community wirklich toll und hilfsbereit. Gemeckert wird immer und überall und die anderen sind sowieso immer bevorteilt - insgesamt war es aber sehr ausgeglichen und gerade die wirklich epischen Zerg- und Keepschlachten waren phänomänal. Auch an den Zergleitern wurde oft herumgemosert - auch hier weiß jeder (hinterher) alles besser - dennoch möchte ich mich auch hier gerade bei jenen bedanken die die Leute Abend für Abend zusammengebracht haben und einen nicht unerheblichen Teil ihrer Zeit darauf verwendet haben das im RvR etwas geht.

Sicher, durch Corona hat der Server vor gut 1,5 Jahren einen kräftigen Schub bekommen, ich bin selbst auch erst dadurch hier gelandet. Es ist die letzten Wochen leerer geworden. Ich denke aktuell ist durch das schöne Wetter und die allgemeine Ferienzeit generell weniger los und die Spielerzahlen würden sich danach wieder etwas steigern. Daher ist es wirklich schade den 31.08. als festes Ende schon vor Augen zu haben.

Die am Ende genannten "Teaser" auf zerstörbare Keeps und Türme klingen interessant - da wären sicherlich viele nochmal dabei. Ich hoffe ihr könnt mit diesen Ideen und der Erfahrung des aktuellen Servers etwas draus machen.

Vielen Dank - schön war's - hoffentlich kein Abschied auf immer.

LG Moahr / Chris

PS: Ich hätte noch knapp 3 Mio Federn rumliegen

Sat 24 Jul 2021 11:21 AM by Zik

Thank you for that amazing freeshard, I've spent thousands of wonderful hours meeting amazing players from all around the world and having lot of fun thanks to all the QoL you implemented. I'll keep excellent memories of this server for long. I wish you all the best.
Zik, from Belgium.

Sat 24 Jul 2021 11:22 AM by sav

Thanks to all involved and all players on the server. For the most part it was a good and fun time and some of the ideas and events were great, even if they probably did more harm to the server than good. E.g. the PVE event, which is really great, but takes away the complete incentive to level normally in PVE if you could just wait a few weeks and become lvl 50 and rr4+ in a fraction of the time. And you also have more fun than camping a mob spot. Same for the 5vs5 and 8vs8 events at Primetime, that dragged a lot of the action away from the main rvr zones.
Maybe you could have waited a bit with the announcement until it was really clear what the new freeshard would be and when it would come, or even until winter to see how the population would develop. Summer months are always rather difficult anyway. But well, now the news is out, let's hope that the server will be halfway populated until the end of August and that Phoenix will do its name justice and rise again from the ashes at some point.

Sat 24 Jul 2021 11:50 AM by exveer

The selfish part of me is really sad to see my toons be wiped away in a cataclysm of recurring deletes, but I get it. Thanks for all your work and generating a universe that allowed for some great memories and allowed for the creation of long lasting friendships.

Sat 24 Jul 2021 11:54 AM by aLittleGamer

Ok, free servers have a short lifetime.
But, you can help the community by making your work on code Open Source like DOL Server,
cause not all changes were that bad to be forgotten.
regards

Sat 24 Jul 2021 12:06 PM by Lerox

Thanks for the good times and your dedication to make the server possible, even if you faced harsh feedback sometimes.
See you all soon somewhere else.

Sat 24 Jul 2021 12:08 PM by mrdaoc

This old man is very grateful for the 100s of hours of good fun I have had since first day Phoenix opened it's doors!

To Uthred and the team - I thank and salute you all.

To my fellow Albions - I thank and salute you all too.

To the enemies on Mid and Hib I very much enjoyed killing you on the rare occasions I was able to!

All good things come to an end eventually.

Best wishes everyone!

Sat 24 Jul 2021 12:09 PM by Bry

First off, thank you so much for the time spent creating this server. It was great coming back and playing old school daoc with some quality of life improvements (Phoenix eggs, task items, 50% power regen penalty removed, faster regen when sitting, craftqueue, and many more). You all have done a wonderful job of creating and managing a community.

Second, say it ain’t so. Population has dropped off during NA time from 600+ a night to just recently 300+ a night due to other mmos having expansions or being released, summer, and other reasons. While I know the population of any game will dwindle over time, it was stable for an incredibly long time on Phoenix. The style changes seemed to have a large impact on population recently. I know some change needs to happen to keep things interesting. I think the rvr tasks were a great way to keep gameplay fresh without changing the core game. It became the game within the game and the task system hasn’t changed in a very long time. I’ve played here consistently since launch and will be sad to see it go.

Third, if there is someway to leave the server up, that would be awesome. There seems to be a core population that wants to stay. EU time still has a strobe 800+ population.

Thanks again

Sat 24 Jul 2021 12:14 PM by gian

Thanks Uthred and team for the hard work you put in.

I had a blast!

see you all on the next up and coming daoc incarnation guys!

Kingdiamond.

Sat 24 Jul 2021 12:20 PM by Killaloth

Thanks so much for everything you've done for DAoC, you've set up the best shard I've played on by far. It was a pleasure to go back in time and play once again what for so many has been their favourite game ever. Good memories, good buddies and some v. good fights especially during the events.

I'm sure there is no need but feel free to circulate your CVs, requirements like full/part remote and ideal company profile. I'm more than happy to return the favour and hook you up with some headhunters here in the land of Albion

Good luck with your future endeavours guys, chapeau!

Sat 24 Jul 2021 12:29 PM by evert

Thanks very much for the server guys, fully understand closing it now. Was a real lifesaver during covid even if I didn’t know it would be when I started Feb 2020. Looking forward to the next edition.

And thanks to everyone who played here, even the haters and losers (to paraphrase the former leader of the free world).

Sat 24 Jul 2021 12:42 PM by Shamissa

First freeshard i had a blast. Thank you Uthred, Schaf and the whole Phoenix staff. I am really sad at this time i have not much words.

I have met a lot great folks in this game ....you all take care and good luck everyone.

Shiane

Sat 24 Jul 2021 12:45 PM by Tommylad

I have been a bit unkind to some of the whiners { a lot of them deserved it tho :-} } and also to the devs a times. But I have also met some great people who I'll miss. Cortesia the best tanking cleric in Thid and Gwen who always buffed Hari, and Saragirl, a great Scout. Don the Wanderer who never took offence at the teasing and still never finished painting the Mid Bridge :-} FoA, a great Guild. I think maybe the Devs should have left Thid be, it was great fun but sadly they messed with it and killed it. Also they messed around too much with other stuff and it wasn't always for the better. BUT....I will give them a lot of credit for being brave in much of what they achieved, so thx everybody.

Sat 24 Jul 2021 1:01 PM by Nunki

Thank you for your time and efforts!

I met old friends, made new ones and experienced countless wonderful hours on your server.

I really hope that you get back with another project at some point!

Greetings Nunki

Sat 24 Jul 2021 1:05 PM by gotwqqd

Ah
Was just about to build a new rig so I could play with the kid…..

Sat 24 Jul 2021 1:09 PM by Magesty

It has been an absolute pleasure. After a decade+ of disappointing DAoC experiences between live and either poorly programmed or entirely too rigid freeshards, Phoenix really brought back my love of the game. Well run server from start to finish.

Looking forward to a second iteration in the future.

Thank you.

Sat 24 Jul 2021 1:26 PM by ExcretusMaximus

Well this is just a swift kick in the dick.

I know I've been a pain in the ass at times, but I really do want to sincerely thank you for running the server; this server has been the best gaming experience of the last decade in my life. Without your server I wouldn't have met the people I call my friends today. I hope you have another project in sight, and it does well.

Thank you.

Sat 24 Jul 2021 1:48 PM by Prometheus

I take it you all will be working on the new server that was spammed to many people on discord then because even Uthgard has kept their server online so this announcement doesn't really make sense.

Sat 24 Jul 2021 1:51 PM by Kennan

This was an unexpected decision to say the least. I hope there's still a chance you'll reconsider it because I enjoyed a lot playing on this freeshard, and it was my first real DAoC experience. I'd love to be able to continue.

If not, thanks a lot for all the work the team put in this server, and I sincerely hope you'll consider releasing your source code as free software under say GNU GPL so that others can benefit from it.

No idea if I'll go to live or to another freeshard, but what's certain is that I'll ask first (myself and others) if there's a chance the server will close unexpectedly (see Uthgard, they're still online even though I can't play there because their login system doesn't work under GNU/Linux).

Thanks again, hoping to continue to play here, otherwise good luck in your future endeavors.

Shanen

Sat 24 Jul 2021 2:00 PM by Ariesel

I've always been impressed by all of the devs here. Thank you for donating your time & talent to give us a fun place to play my favorite MMO of all time. It's enabled me to reconnect with old game friends as well as play with new ones. I wish you MUCH success in your future endeavors! <3

Ariesel of Nimue, DAOC

Sat 24 Jul 2021 2:51 PM by Kazimir

@staff - für das kostenlose Bereitstellen des Servers und für viele angenehme und positive Features kann man sich nur bedanken

Schade das ihr es versäumt habt ein ausgewogenes Kräfteverhältnis zu schaffen, schade das es diverse Features gibt die möglicherweise viele Spieler vergrault haben ... Realmwechselei, Porten im RvR-Gebiet, ROG System, Style-Changes, was auch immer - viele Leute sind euch von der Stange gegangen. Schade das ihr den Server runterfahren wollt - DAOC ist open End und es ist jammerschade dass Charaktere nebst investierter Zeit im Nirvana verschwinden sollen.

Den Server runterfahren ist echt das Letzte!!

Sat 24 Jul 2021 3:07 PM by spacetoner

Thank you for running this server! I got on a little late in the game (ha)...don't remember how long ago...but had a FANTASTIC time. I always rolled with the changes because hey, FREE FAIRLY OLD SKOOL DAOC! What else could I want? As others have said, best game ever. To be able to come back and enjoy it as much as I have on this server is a gift I will always appreciate.

Much love to the FoA peeps. I joined that guild and have had a lovely time trying to improve my game while learning from crazy great players like Legenderry and others. Super thanks to the Good Fellas I ran into, as they were always exactly that. I ran with one of their groups in RvR one nite recently. I kept getting lost, falling into the water in the center of...sheesh I can't even remember the name of that place. Anyway, they kept coming back to me and helping me out, and never reminded me that I play like an idiot half the time. But for me this game has always been about having fun. Yeah, I wanted RPs and "prestige" (whatever that is worth in what is, ultimately, a video game), but what I always wanted was to enjoy the game I love more than any other I have ever played, and probably ever will play.

So, again, thanks...so very much.

I do want to know if Phoenix rises again, or if something new comes from you all.

Cheers...Albion forever (tho I have a few Dirty Mids and Stinkin Hibs :-D )!

Spacetoner
----
Plonko, Extinguisher, Indycar, Harmfool, Theurgio, SImoleon, Thruxer, Palooka, Teodore and other personalities on Alb.

Sat 24 Jul 2021 3:11 PM by sh0ck

It was a blast. Thanks for bringing me through the pandemic and giving me the opportunity to refresh my memories and travel back in time.

@devs, you are great talents, hope you enjoy your well deserved free time and I'm looking foward to see you on Phoenix II in a couple of years

Sat 24 Jul 2021 3:18 PM by Romanas

Absolutely heartbreaking... I only just joined this year and spent so much time already T_T
It is what it is though.
The server populations have been dwindling particularly over the past month or two; Probably is best to extinguish a tiny flame rather than let it simmer down to weak dying embers.

I truly hope someday Phoenix rises from the ashes once more.

Sat 24 Jul 2021 3:32 PM by romulus

A Love Letter to Phoenix
Thank you, thank you, thank you devs, world builders, GMs, and players for the absolute pleasure that was Phoenix 1.0 !!! <3
I am thankful for all the hard work that you guys and gals put in to give all of us DAOC grognards a place to call home for the past 3-4 years.
I am also thankful for all the friends and guildies that I've met along the way.
Many of them are no longer with us, having left for one reason or another along the way.
I want to say thanks to all the folks that took the time to join us in Thidranki over the years, and in Molvik when that was a thing.
To my Thidranki family, you guys were the greatest and I loved playing with you all.
To my guildies who found refuge with the Knights of the Hospital at some time during the last 3 years, let me say that you were the greatest, and it was my privilege and honor to have been your guild master for all that time.
The friendships that I've made, or that were discovered again, are what I carry away me.
For some, Phoenix-DAOC is just a game, a past-time, something to do to fill the idle hours between work and sleep.
For me, it was something else.
It was an important part of my life.
I met and lost the love of my life on Phoenix.
While I always tried to be helpful and supportive of the community, I am sorry for any drama that I caused, especially in these waning days of the server.
To anyone that I may have wronged, or slighted, I am truly sorry.
Most of us are joined together in this journey we call life by our shared love of a funny little game called Dark Age of Camelot.
For a time, Phoenix has been home. Replete with family, friends, and good neighbors.
Take care, my friends, my guildies, my realmmates.
I pray that we may all meet again under the furling banners of DAOC someday,
somewhere where we can rejoice in the sight of a familiar face, a loving embrace, and regale each other with tales of past battles, past exploits, and past loves.
Thank you, Phoenix,
for everything.

Tamlan Tenderheart, the Heart of Albion

Sat 24 Jul 2021 3:34 PM by Tharlin

What is that "upcoming freeshard project"?

Did not get any information about anything and could not find any informations so far.
Can anybody help me and tell me where I can find informations about it?

Sat 24 Jul 2021 3:35 PM by Tharlin

Romanas wrote: ↑
Sat 24 Jul 2021 3:18 PM
I truly hope someday Phoenix rises from the ashes once more.

I think that is what a Phoenix usually does!

Sat 24 Jul 2021 3:52 PM by Nephamael

Thanks to the DEVs for bringing the best DaoC i have played yet!

You guys did make a ton of awesome changes to make a game that has many natural flaws last a lot longer than expected.

I am unsure, if a DaoC-server can last forever, without a reset, but you came close.

The only criticism i hope you can accept for a future server would be not doing enough for solo-content as a fundamental content, everyone can fall back to, if they don't have a zerg or group. - I think if you did better here, you could have prolonged Phoenix's lifespan by at least a few more years.

I would have liked to see the final version of balanced style-changes and maybe you can still fix the biggest flaws to inspire the coming freeshards with a few good changes and bring those experiences into your own next project.

Thank you for all your work!
And thanks to all the players for playing this awesome old game - it is you that make it a fun experience to play!

Sat 24 Jul 2021 4:06 PM by Topenga

I'm going to keep it rather short... thank all of you boys and girls for your time, effort and dedication.
If the need arises and the Phoenix rises again you know how and where to find me

Sat 24 Jul 2021 4:31 PM by Ugramu

With all the amazing work done on Phoenix it might be wise to maybe RAR/ZIP everything down and share it so others can build upon it as a base for new servers or just playing alone. I presume this server is using DOL Server as a base so technically all that has to be share out is the database (excluding user data) and maybe some client hacks.

Please don't let the ship sink, if possible share out your work and Phoenix will in one form or another live on forever.

Sat 24 Jul 2021 4:46 PM by boridi

Thanks for the fun all.

-Borideux

Sat 24 Jul 2021 5:06 PM by Parole

Fair enough. Let’s max everyone’s RR and make this server a chaos fest for the last 30days. Realm invasion, the whole enchilada. I dare you.

Sat 24 Jul 2021 5:11 PM by Curax

Thanks for the effort into creating and maintaining this server. Although I left a while ago, I had a great time starting in beta up until then. Good luck to the entire staff for future endeavours!

Sat 24 Jul 2021 5:23 PM by LrdRahl

Thank you so much to the Dev's and GM's of Phoenix,

These last few years have been one of the best gaming experiences I have had my whole life, the playground and dedication to the project and to the community was amazing. The level of work that was put in constantly on your own time is crazy. So thank you truly from the bottom of my heart.

To the community also thank you to so so many of you who for some reason joined me, followed me, and supported me here. Each step was accomplished only from the incredible level of support I received. There are so many of you I want to thank personally, but if you were here, if you enjoyed Albion enjoyed coming along on our raids or our RvR BGs thank you!

The next steps seasm strange to know that this is coming to a "sort-of" end, but weather its one of the other Freeshard projects, a relaunch of Phoenix, or new games like New World or eventually Camelot Unchained. Look for the Federation community we will be there and we would love your support and love there too!

Rahl - GM - Federation of Albion

Sat 24 Jul 2021 6:06 PM by Svekt

Thanks for everything Phoenix. You gave us a place to call home when our world was in chaos. You kept a lot of us safe in the house not spending money or getting into trouble. Much love for the work you’ve done for a community that is not always grateful. Till next time!

-pcom, perchtacom productions, svekt , Etherbunni, ArcticPika...

Sat 24 Jul 2021 6:15 PM by Glelle-Instaguard

Sat 24 Jul 2021 6:16 PM by bluerubberduck

Wait, what? I just joined last week, I've been having so much fun! It's shutting down??? What's this other server? I've never heard of it. Anyone able to quick post it before it gets taken down? Whhhyyy I just joined wtf lol

Sat 24 Jul 2021 6:22 PM by Raginbull

Thanks a bunch for everything you guys did!
Looking forward to redo this experience with every single one of you
Till then, you'll be missed <3

/curtsey
Nilson

Sat 24 Jul 2021 6:24 PM by Nauti

Wasnt active for a while now, but i had a lot of fun and more memories to add to the huge pile of good daoc memories.

Im sure daoc will live on, and im sure we'll all meet again on the battlefield, somewhere, somehow.

/wave

Nauti

Sat 24 Jul 2021 6:31 PM by Aminita

Perhaps a bit premature???
Summertime is ALWAYS THE LOWEST population time for DAOC..
And you are "Assuming" that a newer game will pull lots .. Possibly a false presumption.. ?
The "New" game is 8 man focused... 99% of the players here are casual and ONLY zerg..
So WHY do you think it will pull SO many people. ???

Please consider giving it another 3 months.. ?
I would bet 85% of the people trying ANY new game will return to Phoenix..
In you efforts to "improve the game .. inre , the styles changes, you have driven many away..
Dont " overthink" this game...

Stan

Sat 24 Jul 2021 7:15 PM by drhmphoenix

Heartbreaking news but the logic is sound.

Huge thanks to the team working on this server -- it has often appeared to be a thankless job with 40 classes and 3 realms and endless different playstyles to balance and a community that is passionate but very... vocal. This has been the best gaming experience I've had in a long time and I appreciate the time and effort you guys put into making this a great server.

Looking forward to Phoenix Season 2

Sat 24 Jul 2021 7:34 PM by AlacrityF42

Ah, poop. I had just come back and was re-educating myself on DAoC. Until next time!

Sat 24 Jul 2021 7:36 PM by Kaiawin

Tharlin wrote: ↑
Sat 24 Jul 2021 3:34 PM
What is that "upcoming freeshard project"?

Did not get any information about anything and could not find any informations so far.
Can anybody help me and tell me where I can find informations about it?

A new server called ATLAS is supposed to going to open. You can already test the beta.

Sat 24 Jul 2021 7:47 PM by Kimahri

Pack it up, GMs are taking their ball and going home

Sat 24 Jul 2021 8:02 PM by necrolove1

Dang this stung, but nothing lasts forever. This was without a doubt the best DAOC experience I've ever had. Thank you for you efforts during these years!

I hope too see you guys again!

Sat 24 Jul 2021 8:10 PM by Reklewt

As always, thank you for your hard work. We disagreed on some of the direction, but this is without a doubt the best Daoc experience I have had and I am grateful for it.

Sat 24 Jul 2021 8:18 PM by Alghanite_EU

Zik wrote: ↑
Sat 24 Jul 2021 11:21 AM
Thank you for that amazing freeshard, I've spent thousands of wonderful hours meeting amazing players from all around the world and having lot of fun thanks to all the QoL you implemented. I'll keep excellent memories of this server for long. I wish you all the best.
Zik, from Belgium.

Same as Zik with who i was playing for al ong time every thursday

I didn't like some actions/decisions you made but always recognize your hard work on this server (i was for some time a mapper on another server) so i know how long and how hard it can be to only implement one little dungeon so a whole game ... Thanks for your invest on that.
I was amazed by the possibility to get back to my favorite old game #firstloveandwillbethelast when i discovered your server. And i can say, as far as i know the best expérience i had from all freeshard i tried.

I spent countless hours in that game during 20 years and you gave me back that feeling i had in the first moments in 2001 and for that i will always be gratefull.

So even if i was sometimes furious, sometimes angry, sometimes disappointed... i had great fun and fantastic people encounters / adventures / discussions / quests and so on....

Thank you for all that and hope to meet again in a next project you may have.

Sat 24 Jul 2021 8:46 PM by Numatic

I left phoenix awhile ago (before Covid) when it became apparent that it was not going to be classic/SI with QoL improvements like it was said it was going to be. I saw things getting screwed with on a regular basis. Biased changes towards groups (like really, you need to buff an 8man against solo players?). These shards never last because they are always of the opinion of the developers and how *they* perceive the game they want, and not what's best for the many. This is why freeshards die. Because only a few people agree with a freeshard following one niche specific direction. Instead of appealing to the more broad audience. Obviously there's always going to be a certain downward progression. But that's also because you guys aren't game developers. You're software engineers/programmers. But that also doesn't mean it inevitably has to end due to low population.

I won't begrudge you your fair dues. You guys put a lot of hard work into it and gave many people a great experience. I just hope you learn from your mistakes and maybe give it another shot down the line.

Also, quit sucking on the 8man meta. It kills this game. Every. Single. Time. The best time in DAoCs history was when there was no meta. It needs to be discouraged because it takes away from the spirit of the game. Then again this is just another random person's opinion. But obviously the other way didn't work as per this post, right?

Sat 24 Jul 2021 9:14 PM by keen

Congratulations to the whole staff for what you have achieved. Out of the blue, setting a new benchmark for the servers to come.
Thanks for the ride and thanks for the contribution for the daoc community. hope to see phoenix#2.
keen

Sat 24 Jul 2021 9:31 PM by ExcretusMaximus

Numatic wrote: ↑
Sat 24 Jul 2021 8:46 PM
But obviously the other way didn't work as per this post, right?

Let's see ... their posted typical timetable of freeshards has them dying around six months, but this one lasted over four years. I'd say you're wrong, but after reading the rest of your post, I'll just say you're clueless.

Sat 24 Jul 2021 9:41 PM by Svperstar

I'm a nobody here, I have only played PHX extremely casually and have not logged on at all in like 7 months.

I did no life Uthgard 1 in 2013 and ground out 7L8 on an Inf which was waaaay harder then here. I think 7L8 on Uthgard 1 is like RR10 on PHX lol.

Anyway people have tried to get me to play on PHX more and RvR and such but the RP inflation on this server is so high that I don't know how I would compete with all of the like RR11 stealthers on his server.

I really did appreciate the stealth changes here tho. Very nice.

Sat 24 Jul 2021 9:53 PM by Lucifeur

Svperstar wrote: I'm a nobody here, I have only played PHX extremely casually and have not logged on at all in like 7 months.

I did no life Uthgard 1 in 2013 and ground out 7L8 on an Inf which was waaaay harder then here. I think 7L8 on Uthgard 1 is like RR10 on PHX lol.

Anyway people have tried to get me to play on PHX more and RvR and such but the RP inflation on this server is so high that I don't know how I would compete with all of the like RR11 stealthers on his server.

I really did appreciate the stealth changes here tho. Very nice.

Why do they call it Xbox 360? Cause when you see it you turn 360 degrees and walk away.

Sat 24 Jul 2021 9:59 PM by Tharlin

Nephamael wrote: ↑
Sat 24 Jul 2021 3:52 PM
The only criticism i hope you can accept for a future server would be not doing enough for solo-content as a fundamental content, everyone can fall back to, if they don't have a zerg or group. - I think if you did better here, you could have prolonged Phoenix's lifespan by at least a few more years.

Agree!

Sat 24 Jul 2021 10:26 PM by Tyrlaan

Dunno, just because almost everything (including DAoC and its servers) has a lifecycle doesn´t mean you have to end it. Every server inevitably dies (if only new games, technology phasing out or a plethora of other reasons) but you don´t have to kill it just because it would have died at some point. Strange idea really to do that.

Anyway, thanks for the project I guess. I hope the QoL stuff will see a return in other games I play, I appreciate what you initially did for the casual players playing after work. Until you started "balancing" around 8v8, or that´s what we were told. Or listening to the wrong people (DAoC Knights anyone). I´m not sure I want to invest time in another server run by people who would shut it down on short notice (or threaten to do because people don´t follow their visions of this game or don´t like the changes made).

Sat 24 Jul 2021 10:57 PM by Numatic

ExcretusMaximus wrote: ↑
Sat 24 Jul 2021 9:31 PM
Numatic wrote: ↑
Sat 24 Jul 2021 8:46 PM
But obviously the other way didn't work as per this post, right?

Let's see ... their posted typical timetable of freeshards has them dying around six months, but this one lasted over four years. I'd say you're wrong, but after reading the rest of your post, I'll just say you're clueless.

"We're posting these statistics based on our own information"

Like, no dude. You can't just say they made up some timetable about freeshards lasting months and they lasted four years so they did everything right.

Freeshards typically last year's. The larger ones like phoenix do. You can't lump in some moron with basic sql advertising on some forum about his new server.

Phoenix is no standout exception. Get over it.

Sun 25 Jul 2021 12:06 AM by Greasle

Well.. I'm bummed.
I greatly appreciate the time you put in, and although there were some things I did not enjoy... there were many more that I did.
I think what will suck the most is losing the random socializing.. But that's me.
I think you may be premature on your decision to pull the plug, as historically, summer time always drops population... but if you want to go out on top, so to speak, to maintain the integrity of your name/brand... I understand.
Good luck to you all in the future.
Thank you for what you have done to this point..
Time for me to pull the plug today, as part of the enjoyment for me personally, is building characters as much as the rvr.. No sense building further knowing it will be gone soon.
I wish you all.. devs and players alike... all the best in life.
Peace all.

(Too many toon names to list.. but latest project.. Silverbakk.. )

Sun 25 Jul 2021 3:04 AM by oldmanukko

with my utmost sincerity, thank you so very very much

Sun 25 Jul 2021 4:18 AM by kensuke

Thanks Phoenix team for making a great server. It was truly wonderful to see DAoC come roaring back in a way I never expected to see again when this server launched. Massive battles in frontiers (old and new) and huge epic dungeon raids was a blast. Being able to relive that with old friends again was something I'm grateful for. Best of luck in whatever you guys decide to do next.

Sun 25 Jul 2021 6:15 AM by malcon

This is sad news indeed. Thank you for providing entertainment during a dark time, Phoenix devs =)

Until next time, so long and thanks for all the fish.

Sun 25 Jul 2021 7:37 AM by Sepplord

Kaiawin wrote: ↑
Sat 24 Jul 2021 7:36 PM
Tharlin wrote: ↑
Sat 24 Jul 2021 3:34 PM
What is that "upcoming freeshard project"?

Did not get any information about anything and could not find any informations so far.
Can anybody help me and tell me where I can find informations about it?

A new server called ATLAS is supposed to going to open. You can already test the beta.

According to themselves, it's PRE-alpha

I don't Seen them launching soon, but i would be Happy To be proben wrong

Sun 25 Jul 2021 8:10 AM by Arafel

Thank you very much for all your efforts, I had a lot of fun on phoenix and the memories will remain.

Bye bye to all the soloers I met

Sun 25 Jul 2021 8:16 AM by ybaar

pour moi ce fut un retour quelques années en arrière ,je suis déçu par cette fermeture brutale mais un grand merci car ce retour m'a permis de faire de nouvelles connaissances avec des fous rires sur le discord et des personnes que j'étais pressés de retrouver au soir pour un bon moment de détente, pour la plupart nous partons ensemble vers un nouvel horizon. Malheureusement l'avantage et l'inconvénient de daoc est que graphiquement il a du mal à séduire les plus jeunes et c'est donc assez dur de renouveler le panel de joueurs ,mais sa m'a permis de jouer avec des personnes de mon âges même si comme on dit l'âge c'est dans la tête.
Pour tout cela un grand merci aux admins du serveur Phoenix et peut être à prochainement car daoc resteras pour moi le mmo indétrônable

Sun 25 Jul 2021 10:35 AM by Gloti

Will you shut down the forum too? It would be very sad to lose the community here.

Sun 25 Jul 2021 1:57 PM by stewbeedoo

It does seem quite premature to pull the plug in summer as Covid restrictions are lifting. I have played very little lately, but had no intentions of quitting.

Overall I have mixed feelings regarding this announcement.

The only reason I quit playing Live was the launch of Phoenix had seriously decreased the Live population, so I had to join Phoenix. So it is quite annoying that I wasted my time.

On the other hand, I deeply appreciate what the Devs did in creating this server. The QOL improvements were awesome and it was good to see cheaters punished.

Take care all!

Sun 25 Jul 2021 2:45 PM by CowwoC

Thanks to the whole phoenix team for your effort and commitment to the server. May the Phoenix rise from the ashes and be born again in it's full glory.

So long.

Sun 25 Jul 2021 2:53 PM by Tohu

To OP:
You are right, there is a "freeshard cycle", and the server intake of players has to be higher than the server players loss.

But the only thing that is cyclic is how freeshard GMs push away their player base with stupid and stubborn decisions.

We thought you got it, coming after Uthgard, with interesting and QOL only improvements.

Then you started to play god, unbalancing classes and fucking up the basics of the game.

Thank you for the time and efforts put on this server, it has been an awesome ride.
But if you ever plan to open a server again, maybe spend some time first to understand what you are trying to do.

Sun 25 Jul 2021 2:55 PM by Scorpio86

Sadly, no one to blame but the dev's on this one. You guy's manipulated the game so much that no one wanted to play it anymore. It wasn't 'classic' style. It was balanced, but with the style changes and everything else in between.. it had the DAOC look but the gameplay was all different. Listen to your community, you know...the people actually playing the game.

Sun 25 Jul 2021 3:22 PM by JamesFullard

......... and this is why I will never play another Freeshard again.

PS: Say what you want about Live DAoC but they did not give up or quit on it's player base like what appears to be going on here. Live might suck ass but at least it is still running.

Sun 25 Jul 2021 3:33 PM by joshisanonymous

This is a surprise. I really do appreciate the free work y'all put into this server. It is by far the best DAoC experience other than the first few years of Live, and the only thing that made Live a better experience was because it was a new thing still. Phoenix has far better balance than any other server I've played.

It sounds like there are plans to reset and start a new server later? I find that kind of odd. DAoC isn't a "seasons" kind of game; that's why it's special; but starting over does fit what you're saying about freeshard life cycles. If you do open another server, I would like to suggest to absolutely not do the quick leveling events. Part of what makes an MMO with no expansions still enjoyable is that there's always some kind of character progression to work on. The quick leveling events obliterated that. Even very casual players suddenly had RR5s of every class in every realm. Naturally, there's little left to do but RvR at that point, making this more of an arena game than an MMO. There was no longer any need to hold DF; no reason to do any kind of PvE raids; if you got bored of the back and forth of RvR, you had nothing to do but log off. Whereas the leveling pace of Uthgard was too slow for such an old game, there's still a need for some of that. You can't just cap everyone in everything instantly. They might like it for a second, but then they're off to a new game because they got their quick fix and now have nothing left to do.

Sun 25 Jul 2021 3:53 PM by Runental

Not much to add here.
Thanks Uthred, Schaf and all Staffmembers for the massive effort you've done over the last years. I had a great time.
Good luck on all your further projects

Sun 25 Jul 2021 4:03 PM by Moondragon

First, I've enjoyed my time on Phoenix and met a lot of great people and a few really bad people. I think for the most part the game was relatively well done with the quality of life improvements, events, etc. Developers and GMs here always showed that they cared about the game, unlike some other places I've played. I wish the server was going to continue for much longer and I'm depressed that it's closing.

However, I will always be disappointed that there never was a longer-term realm RP balance option; the bonus you had immediately disappeared as you logged in to the underpopulated realm. That never was going to work as it was always easier to stay on the over-populated realm rather than switch (and then notice the bonus goes away when you enter the frontier). If you can't balance the classes (probably impossible without totally reworking the game), you could have tried to at least balance the tendency to go to the overpopulated realm where winning was much more likely. This was a major reason I kept hearing while playing that population was drying up; casual players either switched to Hibernia (making it worse) or started to log off because getting rolled by an overwhelming majority was boring (making it worse). Only the hard-core players like Pilzpower would switch realms because it was too easy on Hibernia, but players like him represent a minority of the DAOC population. Expecting players to change the server might be naive; casual players only respond to the environment created by developers.

As for your plans for the next generation, like destruction of objects and pathing. Who really cares? The developers care because it's a cool project to do, but players? Players enjoy leveling characters in interesting ways (very well done on Phoenix), epic encounters for loot (all the encounters appear bug free), and PvP in its various forms (8v8, solo, zerg, etc). We had good PvP but not great after realms got imbalanced; the imbalance became more pronounced over time as population declined. But I never hear a lot of players say, "Oh man, I can't wait to get a catapult to destroy a keep wall." So, if this is what you plan to work on during a down-time, I think you might have priorities a bit off. Again, I can see why developers like it, but not really the players. I'm sure you can find someone who thinks destroying a wall in RvR would be neat to justify doing it, but what a waste of time for such a minority desire. It also is puzzling that working on such a project requires the server to be down.

Lastly, couldn't there have been a survey of players in game as to why they thought population was getting lower? Sure, we know over time it happens, but was there some kind of issue that should have been addressed? Was it really the lack of style balance? That seemed to take an awful amount of time and coding recently. Perhaps what I heard about the decline in population was incorrect. We've had survey's in game before, why didn't we have one earlier so developers could have addressed the biggest issue? I'd say it's easier on your conscience to blame Covid or natural tendency of freeshards over time than admit it might have been a major issue overlooked. How many players were muted because they complained about realm population imbalance in /advice chat? If you can't see them complain about it, then it doesn't exist, right?

Sun 25 Jul 2021 4:40 PM by Sotor

Restart similar to classic live servers imo, with Laby, Cata, DR and RR5 abilities. Revamp task-system too with more specialised tasks.

Btw. reraiding keeps in own FZ giving more rps than enemy FZ is nonsense. Taking keeps in enemy FZ is mostly more effort and more difficult.

Shouldnt listen to forum criers who complain about anything. No need to try to make it everyone right.

More rpg and thoughtful ruling would make the server better.

Greets Sotor

Sun 25 Jul 2021 4:56 PM by whattheforest

Just a big thanks to you guys!

I am however wondering why you didn't consider to propose other people to take over (with a new name if you want).
I am not sure that ATLAS will attract that many Daoc players in the coming months.

Sun 25 Jul 2021 4:58 PM by Jodocus_Quak

This is what I wrote on the style changes 2 months ago, when the server still had around 1-1,4k peak players:

"I dont understand the need to change the styles, when they have been tried and tested over a long time and nobody has complained about them. What I see is not that the styles arent working, but overzealous devs who want change for the sake of change, because they feel the HAVE to always work on something (doing nothing is no option).

I recall that Uthgard2 died, because those devs never wanted to deviate from the 1.65 patch, even when the community asked for quality of life changes (aging daoc community cant committ to their gaming time from younger days). Maybe it will break this server, maybe not. But if a new freeshard somehow comes along or a daoc classic server (old frontiers with core daoc feeling and some quality of life changes) and phoenix pop really declines, ppl may point to these changes as a key reason."

Beside these decisions, I thank the devs for providing the server in the first place. I had a blast in the early days with old frontiers. The changes to speed up lvling and giving everybody the chance to obtain all items via feathers were key to the success of the server.

Sun 25 Jul 2021 5:12 PM by Prometheus

Thanks for all the great fights I've had, Catkain, Mcnastyy, Ahkilleo, Eulogy, Jackle, Hambone, Naas, Sioned, Kasimier, Drunkstains, Mrharp and others, it was fun soloing with my warden even if most times I would die or get ganked, I hope in the future we meet again!

-Crystaa

Sun 25 Jul 2021 5:18 PM by Gothos

I think the server admins are overestimating how popular, or what kind of draw Atlas will actually get. With this announcement I have absolutely no intention of signing up to play that server and start over again, just doesn't sound fun starting from scratch on a game that I've played on and off for twenty years. The only thing I ever complained about on here was wanting ToA because I think it enriches the game with extra content (I know I'm a minority in liking ToA) and makes templates far more varied and interesting.

Anyway, was great while it lasted, I hope the admins will reconsider, or take it off line but keep a record of everyone's characters in case they decide to reboot the server.

Erererer - Infiltrator

Sun 25 Jul 2021 5:34 PM by watbrif

I'm very sad to hear about this. But nothing that the devs did or didn't do "killed" the server. We're talking about a freeshard of a 20+ year old game that always had a tiny community, but - somewhat unfortunately - needs about 800 people to function properly, given the three realms. DAoC is a very flawed game and balancing rvr is somewhat of a nightmare. The population will always and inevitably drop. I really don't think that style changes or similar things had any impacted on the long term server population

.

I hope this will go on in some way or another. Personally, I think Phoenix was hugely impressive and I can't even fathom the kind of motivation and skill you need to run such a huge project for free. You did an amazing job, with the game and its continuous updates (including the more controversial changes which at least showed that you had a coherent philosophy - the feather system and the QoL changes for instance were brilliant), but also the running of the forums, the app etc. Again, hugely impressive job.

Thanks!

Sun 25 Jul 2021 9:14 PM by WildWilbur

“Some things are fairly obvious when it's a seven-foot skeleton with a scythe telling you them” (T. Pratchett)

Ok, da ich davon ausgehe, dass Uthred und Gruenesschaf deutsch sind, erlaube ich mir, auch meinen wohl letzten Post auf deutsch zu schreiben

Echt schade, dass Phoenix (v.a. so plötzlich) endet. Ich habe es wirklich gemocht hier, auch wenn ich wie andere auch noch andere Games daddel, die um meine begrenzte Zeit konkurrieren. Aber das alte DAoC-Feeling, das ich v.a. mit dem alten Classic-Server verbinde, hatte ich hier wieder und trotz aller neueren MMORPGS hängt mein Herz scheinbar doch an diesem völlig veralteten Grantler von einem Game.

Ich habe mich oft gewundert und euch bewundert, wieviel Zeit ihr in dieses "Hobbyprojekt" stecken konntet (und wieviele Nerven das verbraten haben wird), aber zumindest ich kann euch dazu nur gratulieren - habt ihr echt gut gemacht! Danke dafür!

Vielleicht sieht man sich bei einem anderen Projekt noch einmal wieder. Denn wie wir alle wissen:

"Niemals geht man so ganz..." (D. Bohlen)

Sun 25 Jul 2021 9:39 PM by Svperstar

Gothos wrote: ↑
Sun 25 Jul 2021 5:18 PM
I have absolutely no intention of signing up to play that server and start over again, just doesn't sound fun starting from scratch on a game that I've played on and off for twenty years.

One of the reasons I never went back to Uthgard after the wipe is it was no fun having like 10 level 50s all of them templated and having to start over from scratch. A few people will go back to live or Uthgard then go to Atlas.

Sun 25 Jul 2021 9:57 PM by kensing

This is complete news to me (I realize I'm late)

There's still so much joy and potential in Phoenix. Absolute bummer!

Cool move to do the event cycle towards closing time... Looking forward to 1v1 for a week.

I never got bored and would play constantly if not cockblocked by life circumstances. It's been the best DAoC experience since Mordred/Camlann closed and I will miss every single Phoenix player. Except maybe Beckett for accusing me of bug abuse in DF

Sun 25 Jul 2021 10:04 PM by Astaa

I don't mind a fresh start in 6 months, a year's time. When/if the team are ready. Phoenix has some great features and some good ideas. Just the day to day stuff, crafting, acceptability to gear. It would be nice if they came back with some focus on BG RvR for the meat of the server, something other than just bashing doors. Have a zone for 8v8 and perhaps one for solo. There are several zones that might be suitable, some dungeon zones for solo, labby, darkness rising areas etc and some of the outdoor TOA zones for 8v8. Maybe even utilise the entire TOA zone for a kind of Camlan area, with your phased mob level function built in.

Events were a good idea, but perhaps more spaced out and more varied. Some sort of 3 realm co-op event would be great for overall server community.

An idea I had to try and promote non-toxic gameplay (it's not really toxic) would be to give weekly rewards for solo kills, the taking of keeps, 8v8 fights etc, all things equal, 1 token for each. Those tokens can be spent on extra cosmetics, MP item charge tools, access to tinctures that would ordinarily only be found on epic items, or even buff pots, RP pots etc.

Mon 26 Jul 2021 11:02 AM by Cyba

Thx for this Server !!

Mon 26 Jul 2021 1:05 PM by ZioRed

Even if my realm pride was not possible and it was eventually ridiculed, I'd like to thank the staff of this server which has been one of the most successful and QOL-friendly since many years (and as one of the earlier programmers of DOL project I played many shards along the years). Above all I'd like to thank this server for the chance to meet and forge relationships with awesome people like the ones I'm still currently in contact and with whom I'll start new adventures in the years to come.

See you later on your next projects, just let us know when it'll be the time.

Mon 26 Jul 2021 1:45 PM by Plurk

OMG the best Daoc server ever stops. I m condemned to sit next to my wife on the couch every evening ;-(

I really gonna miss Phoenix, loved the setup - the ideas -the improvements to make a 20 years game still up to date

Thanks to all Devs, for the great work on this server and to keep the best game over the last 20 years alive and kicking.

Mon 26 Jul 2021 3:14 PM by tyrantanic

I haven't played here in a while now but I definitely enjoyed my time on Phoenix last year. Hats off to the devs for putting in the effort to make a fun and stable server, even on a patch setting I personally don't care for. I'm looking forward to another great server by you in the, hopefully, not too distant future.

Regarding other players sentiments on freeshard life cycles...that's how it goes. Freeshard developers have no obligation to maintain a server. We, the players, are extremely lucky that there are people willing to donate their time and money to provide us with a place where we want to play, for free. If DAoC players truly desired protection of their progression, then they would be on the Live server where the developers are obligated to keep the game running as they are being paid to do so. Yet, Live remains sparsely populated because how a server is managed/developed heavily outweighs progression security. We all made that choice, whether consciously or not. You only wasted your time playing if you didn't enjoy it.

I'm personally okay with freeshard life cycles as it keeps DAoC from becoming stale, so long as the next server is different in some aspect(s) than its predecessors. I will definitely be jumping on the bandwagon for the upcoming shard. DAoC is a game that thrives on a large concurrent population but always fails to maintain it for a variety of reasons. However, fresh starts continue to bring in the most players and seems to be a good approach to keep the game itself alive into the future.

Mon 26 Jul 2021 4:18 PM by Joc

I would like to thank all the staff that took their time to make this server possible. It's a 20 year old game that truly has a predictable life cycle (as stated in the original post) and they are correct to take it offline and preserve the phoenix name until a later date they decide to carry on another project.

The staff here has listened to the player base as much as they can and has given reasons as to the changes made when they have made them. You can't make everyone happy, especially the trolls.

Thank you all for the great time. Thank you to the player base also. I doubt I'm going to the new shard. I will probably be casually playing live until something else catches my eye.

Signing out.
Joc SB, Mid/Lance

Mon 26 Jul 2021 4:44 PM by gotwqqd

I think this is a way where they can do a reset and not have everyone rage quit. It will not have the same negative stigma on the brand.

It’s a shame though as some’s playstyle take long times to catch up to those that progress many times faster.

If the server ever opens as a restart, I think it would be great to have Level Playing Field Event within first week so everyone can get to end game quickly.

Mon 26 Jul 2021 5:06 PM by malcavianofdoom

Wanna reemphasize what others hve said thank you so much for the hard work you guys put in to provide freeshard for us Daoc junkies to play in i had an absolute blast. Ill see you in Midgard in another life

Gwarp Speed

Mon 26 Jul 2021 5:36 PM by Baya

Truly bummed about this. I've had a great time playing on your server, and would have continued to play for years. Sad to see it go, but I suppose the reasons are valid. I'll miss it while you revamp and redirect. That said, when we return, will our toons still be viable as they are, or will we have to start over again? What will happen to our houses/equipment in vaults? Will they disappear, or be held for us until the Phoenix rises again? Because when it does come back, I hope you know that I'll be returning to run around Mid-side again.

Thank you, again, you guys have been great.

Mon 26 Jul 2021 6:12 PM by lurker

I left at the point of the style changes. Was just too much for me.
I probably left a not so constructive moan about the changes at the time. Apologies.

But you guys did a cracking job with your comms, adjustments and work over the servers lifetime. You should be proud.

Implementing a progressive server whilst Maintaining a viable player pool is a fine line to walk... may even be impossible to do in reality. You guys certainly got a lot right and came very close.

Thanks to Uth and Gru & the others who made the world run well.

Mon 26 Jul 2021 7:17 PM by Splusse

Thank you to the Phoenix team - it was a great experience and you all did a fantastic job! I've been part of the free shard community for 15 years now and this has been one of the best experiences I've had.

Voltage

Mon 26 Jul 2021 7:47 PM by i3ladez

I'm going to miss playing Phoenix but I can't argue the decision as I only play here and it isn't work for me.
Just please, let the ones still hanging on until the end go out with a bang.
Much love devs.

Mon 26 Jul 2021 8:15 PM by borodino1812

It's the right decision. The journey has been great, but every server has its time.

I look forward to the next project you come out with. Thank you for the hours of entertainment you provided through lockdown. It certainly helped to keep me sane.

Mon 26 Jul 2021 9:53 PM by NoExit

Respekt dafür was mit diesem Server soviele Jahre nach Release noch erreicht wurde und Respekt dafür
den richtigen Zeitpunkt dafür zu finden in guter Erinnerung zu bleiben.

Ich hoffe wirklich, dass die Zeit kommt in welcher ihr an diesen Erfolg anzuschließen könnt damit DaoC noch
ein paar weitere Jahre auf der Bildfläche bleiben kann. Die Messlatte habt ihr auf jeden fall sehr hoch
gesetzt und ob andere da mithalten können wird sich zeigen.

Auch Hut ab was das generelle Management und das Projektmanagement hier angeht, absolut professionell
und sicherlich Hauptgrund für den Erfolg.

Mon 26 Jul 2021 10:28 PM by The Skies Asunder

I hadn't logged into the server in almost 7 months, and was getting ready to return when I read this thread. Just want to say thank you to everyone I played with over the last few years, it honestly was a great time. Specifically though, thank you so much to the staff. I sincerely hope your work in the DAoC community isn't done. I would love to be involved in any future projects, and I can't wait to see whatever you all end up working on, as Phoenix has been the best freeshard experience I have ever been a part of. Thank for everything!

Tue 27 Jul 2021 12:12 AM by easytoremember

If you're going to the best time to mess with the fundamentals of this or that is before launch/beta when nobody yet has any sort of investment

Tue 27 Jul 2021 2:33 AM by snaw

First up thanks for all the hard work and dedication by the team to get the server going and keeping it going. Had a blast playing this game again after a 17 year hiatus, and realised this is, for me, the greatest game ever. Had some epic zerg fights ,and to a lesser extent 8 mans when they went well.

It's a real shame it's shutting down, though get the rationale about splitting a small player population between servers if a new one is starting. Personally I wouldn't have switched (Same way I've always played mid, I'm a one team kinda guy). I have been enjoying it less of mate, but that's purely down to low population at some of my playing times, it just wasn't fun going out and getting rolled constantly by philosopher kingz and their 12 man meta (For sure that had some impact, I know a few who quit because of it, people play to have fun).

I didn't mind the style changes, though I do think something was a bit skewed with the events pumping out mid RR toons every couple of months. That felt wrong, and I hated the events, at the later stages anyway.

Feeling very sad just now, I'll get some of my life back I guess, but I enjoyed my time and the people I met on the server.

Concretejungle/Sympathy/Killinginthenameof

Tue 27 Jul 2021 2:41 AM by TheMineFighter

Just wanted to say its been a pleasure playing this game with (in my opinion the greatest online community I've played with). I wanted to thank the following people from Midgard who made the experience the best it could be.

- Unos/Hincha - thanks for teaching me how to become a better peeler. Learned an incredible amount from you. You gave harsh criticism sometimes, but it was generally deserved and often helped my game improve.
- Wryce - had a blast duoing and smalling with you. Hope to see you in the next rendition of this game some day.
- Hensly - had some of the best 2v2 fights with you against those BM/Bard duos. Was great grouping with ya. /Howl with rage.
-Cbreezy/Kylethegreat - The game wouldn't be the same without you slapping your head in confusion at me every time we ran into each other at relic town. We had some great fights as well, and the great skald race from relic town to cruscan gorge to see who would die first to the champion of the grove.
-Maelich, Neef, Spider, Maces, Slippster, Zog and all the members of Pillager - Amazing experience creating a guild for the first time with you guys and logging into discord chat to joke around every day and laugh my face off.
-Sparkle Motion - thanks for letting me run with you guys from time to time, had some great fights.
-Gabs - thanks for all your effort in running an awesome alliance! Even though you wouldn't let us play that badass demon music in discord (a/k/a screamo/heavy metal)

- Rollyen, Oadin, Nordia, Lieutenant, Frape and all the bg leaders who gave it their all to lead the Mid BG; a very brutal, difficult and often thankless job. I appreciate what you did and definitely feel you prolonged the life of this server.
-Zrabar and Broma - thanks for the tips and helping me get adjusted to the game when I was just getting started on phoenix.

I wish you all the best and hope to see you all in a future version of dark age.

-Grymlgar

Tue 27 Jul 2021 2:54 AM by dougrighteous1

everyone saying ty when its the dev's garbage decision making that actually killed it.

o well

Tue 27 Jul 2021 2:57 AM by ExcretusMaximus

dougrighteous1 wrote: ↑
Tue 27 Jul 2021 2:54 AM
everyone saying ty when its the dev's garbage decision making that actually killed it.

o well

Pretty sure it was the devs' money and hard work that made it exist in the first place. If I'm going to place blame anywhere, it's on the spoiled and ignorant player base who threw a revolt anytime anything "not classic" was floated or implemented. This server had the most toxic (God, I hate that word, but it's the only appropriate one in this situation) player base of any game I've ever played.

Tue 27 Jul 2021 8:33 AM by lurker

dougrighteous1 wrote: ↑
Tue 27 Jul 2021 2:54 AM
everyone saying ty when its the dev's garbage decision making that actually killed it.

o well

I assume that them having to manage hundreds of ungrateful man children didn’t help with motivation to keep the server alive.

Tue 27 Jul 2021 8:51 AM by Simon73

Thanks for allowing us to play our loved game.
Hope to see you all around again.

Simon aka Poeta
Warden 11L and more

Tue 27 Jul 2021 2:19 PM by Runental

ExcretusMaximus wrote: ↑
Tue 27 Jul 2021 2:57 AM
This server had the most toxic (God, I hate that word, but it's the only appropriate one in this situation) player base of any game I've ever played.

This

Tue 27 Jul 2021 2:32 PM by Kwall0311

Runental wrote: ↑
Tue 27 Jul 2021 2:19 PM
ExcretusMaximus wrote: ↑
Tue 27 Jul 2021 2:57 AM
This server had the most toxic (God, I hate that word, but it's the only appropriate one in this situation) player base of any game I've ever played.

This

Guess what, no matter what shard you plan on , it will be the same. Why? Its the same people.

Tue 27 Jul 2021 2:58 PM by Ajvar

I'm one of those that kinda stopped playing ,but IMHO you guys did great job running this server,by far the best communication and attitude between players and "devs", considerig this is 20 years old game with many,many issues that were never truly resolved in the game's original format i truly think you guys did great job.

Btw im kinda out of the loop,what is this "new" server on the horizon?

Tue 27 Jul 2021 3:19 PM by ExcretusMaximus

Ajvar wrote: ↑
Tue 27 Jul 2021 2:58 PM
Btw im kinda out of the loop,what is this "new" server on the horizon?

Atlass.

Personally, I don't know why anyone would want to play there. 30 RA points to achieve a 15 minute Purge? Primary healers nerfed to near uselessness before the server even launches? Needing to spec RA points to get Prevent Flight? Every change I see on their list is pure garbage.

Tue 27 Jul 2021 3:37 PM by Jerrian

Well, I quitted playing for a while, but it was not about the server itself, but a tiredness of Daoc. The server was/is great and I really liked the setup. Maybe it was a bit overmatched later on with all these changes, but the devs did an amazing job, thx for all your hard work and hopefully there will be a phoenix 2 someday, or perhaps even a Daoc 2 or Daoc enhanced. Dunno if I will check the new project though, maybe it´t time for me to lay daoc to it ´s deserved rest.

best regards
Jerrian

Tue 27 Jul 2021 4:51 PM by Ajvar

Thanks for the answers,but yeah Atlas seems its not even close being close to release.
I really wish something new releases thats not a pile of garbage...maybe the pigs will grow wings and hell will froze over and CU will deliver.......

Good luck,have fun everyone!

Tue 27 Jul 2021 5:12 PM by jg9109

I have not heard of celestius freeshard. Any link to where to sign up or follow for more information?

Tue 27 Jul 2021 5:27 PM by Freudinio

My sincere thanks for keeping the server alive as long as you did. While I didn't agree with all the changes made (and in the end, I didn't agree with most of them, hence why I quit) I can appreciate the time and effort you all put into it.

Tue 27 Jul 2021 5:41 PM by Anaris

Sincerely thank you for having made this server

Tue 27 Jul 2021 9:06 PM by Galdrick

I rarely post.
Huge thanks to devs for this server. I really had fun met fantastic players... QoL were on spot for people who do not have much time to spend into the game (we are not 15 yo anymore!).
I will miss it very much. Really hope your 2.0 project will be live one day because you are definitely way above other freeshards.
Don't let spoiled children tell you otherwise.

Tue 27 Jul 2021 10:30 PM by jg9109

Can you pm the link to celestius your other post was removed

Wed 28 Jul 2021 1:43 AM by lourock

I was on this server since beta. I was critical of this server at times and skeptical it would even work from the beginning. I must admit I enjoyed my time here and had fun doing the custom content that I was critical of. These devs were very impressive. That being said not everything was perfect but thats ok. I had a lot of fun and had many memorable fights solo, zerg and small man! As a casual but life long fan of DaoC these devs get an A - from me. I have played almost every freeshard but uth 1. This one and Genesis were my favorites.

Thanks Phoenix Devs I wish you guys the best.

Wed 28 Jul 2021 6:57 AM by Blitze

Excellent server, thanks thanks thanks.

I’ve played genesis/uth1/uth2 and live… you guys did a good job on a number of balance issues inc. the Friar (which due to buffpots is tough)

I am undecided about starting Atlas, but on reading their patch notes, I think the’ve only learnt from some of your changes… I expect a rocky road.

Wed 28 Jul 2021 7:49 AM by Durandal

Thank you guys for making this a great and memorable DAoC experience. Enjoy the relaxation! I met some awesome people here. Phoenix was a success and you guys did a really good job. I wish we never lost the old frontier, but I still put in a lot of hours with the change and it helped me get through last year when things weren't good in the world.

I just fear what will become of DAoC. It is still the best, but now there is no place I would like to play for now so maybe I'll move on, until next time we all get together in the same place...

Wed 28 Jul 2021 2:30 PM by FaBx85

A big hug to everybody, we'll meet again in some months or in some years from now, take care of all you guys.

- Dragonik

Wed 28 Jul 2021 2:48 PM by Jacksontown

You guys allowed me to play my favorite game. I can't thank you enough.

Wed 28 Jul 2021 4:18 PM by Enyore

Shout out from Malerhjerner/Malerfjerner/Malerstjerner to Uthred + crew, it has been 3 great years of fun.

We will miss the shard very much.

You did a great job with the server. You brought back the old days and made it even more fun than live ever was.

Wed 28 Jul 2021 5:28 PM by Toss

A big reason this server has Died is because of the extreme control from developers and GM's. I have never enjoyed a server as much as this one, The core and everything how the gameplay works can't be much better. But then again. You accidently log in from the wrong computer and you are PERMA INSTA BANNED for account sharing and what not. Half of my friends have been Permabanned and are no longer able to play the game they enjoy so much, What happens when half my friends dissapear? They want me to enjoy other games with them instead. And sure, then people like me move on to other games.

YOU Developers have basicly created a perfext sandbox for us to play in just to Kick us out without any sort of redemption if you do the slightest mistake. So this is on you, its your own fault this has come down, not the players.

I would gladly continue to play. I have never been on a server that listens so much to the community, voting for changes and what not. THAT is extremely good! I just think you failed massivly on the Supervision end. Its good that you guys prevent botters, afk-farming and what not, but it's like Covid. The lockdown does more damage to players than the actual disease

Wed 28 Jul 2021 5:41 PM by johneyde

Ich wollte mich auch noch für die schöne Zeit auf Phoenix bedanken, die mich teilweise immer wieder flashbackartig an längst vergangene Tage erinnert hat.
Dieses Spiel verfolgt mich einfach schon gefühlt seit meiner Jugend und ich bin dafür dankbar, dass ich noch ein letztes Mal in den vollen Genuss von DAoC gekommen bin
und Teil dieser Community sein durfte. Es hat mir einfach wahnsinnig Spaß gemacht auf diesem Server zu spielen, bis zu einem Zeitpunkt an dem (meiner Meinung nach) zuviel in diversen Dingen herumgeschraubt wurde. Vielen Dank an das gesamte Team, die diesen Server zu dem gemacht hat, was er dann schlussendlich auch war. Es gab immer gute Events, die Community wurde bei Laune gehalten, geheult wird und wurde sowieso immer. Ebenso habe ich dank euch auf dem Server viele Leute wieder getroffen mit denen ich als junger Teenager zusammengespielt habe und alleine das war die Zeit auf Phoenix Wert!

In diesem Sinne,
vielen vielen Dank!

Wed 28 Jul 2021 7:19 PM by ZioRed

Thank you very much for all the fun along the last years, see you on your next project!

From my main characters: /wave

Wed 28 Jul 2021 10:40 PM by Magesty

Toss wrote: ↑
Wed 28 Jul 2021 5:28 PM
Half of my friends have been Permabanned and are no longer able to play the game they enjoy so much, What happens when half my friends dissapear? They want me to enjoy other games with them instead.

Get smarter friends. That is hardly the devs' fault.

Plus, there was a system in place where they could be reinstated and on probation. If the 50% remaining were willing to stand in as probation officers you could have all been back up and running in a matter of two months.

Unless, of course, there is more to the story...

Thu 29 Jul 2021 12:34 AM by reckoom

Havent played in a while, tryed to play yesterday and saw the population and figure something was going on and learn about server closing. i truly enjoy my time here, of all the freeshard this is the only one where it felt like the good old days to me, i level soo many toons just going in the frontier ganking people around my level leveling deep in enemy territory, there was soo much people

thx for the great memories and thanks to everyone for playing this game that we all somehow comeback too all the time

hopefully a new popular server in the future

Thu 29 Jul 2021 1:28 AM by Toss

Magesty wrote: ↑
Wed 28 Jul 2021 10:40 PM
Toss wrote: ↑
Wed 28 Jul 2021 5:28 PM
Half of my friends have been Permabanned and are no longer able to play the game they enjoy so much, What happens when half my friends dissapear? They want me to enjoy other games with them instead.

Get smarter friends. That is hardly the devs' fault.

Plus, there was a system in place where they could be reinstated and on probation. If the 50% remaining were willing to stand in as probation officers you could have all been back up and running in a matter of two months.

Unless, of course, there is more to the story...

Well for starters, we are a family of 5, whole family played on 3 computers. BAM! 4 of us were banned for "Account sharing" and the answers we got was like "You know what you done wrong Silly!" And thats that.... My Daughter really enjoyed the game but lost all will to play any games after she got banned. She basicly logged into her account on my computer. But NOPE! NOT ALLOWED!

So in order for us to play legally on that server we have to have 5 computers wich i think is total BS. No other game has anything remotely like this.
Also a few of my friends got into similar situations. And i think that such things are just bullshit. Way to kill your own server tbh. They banned alot of Multiboxers and botters, but alot of innocent people was drawn down the same hole and they just basicly shrug it off. "Who cares?

Thu 29 Jul 2021 10:34 PM by watbrif

Toss wrote: ↑
Thu 29 Jul 2021 1:28 AM
Well for starters, we are a family of 5, whole family played on 3 computers. BAM! 4 of us were banned for "Account sharing" and the answers we got was like "You know what you done wrong Silly!" And thats that.... My Daughter really enjoyed the game but lost all will to play any games after she got banned. She basicly logged into her account on my computer. But NOPE! NOT ALLOWED!

So in order for us to play legally on that server we have to have 5 computers wich i think is total BS. No other game has anything remotely like this.
Also a few of my friends got into similar situations. And i think that such things are just bullshit. Way to kill your own server tbh. They banned alot of Multiboxers and botters, but alot of innocent people was drawn down the same hole and they just basicly shrug it off. "Who cares?

I agree that this rule was rather unfortunate. I doubt though it came about because the devs were mean/cruel/void of empathy, but rather because the requests were too many (this is my conjecture) and couldn't be handled by a bunch of volunteers.

Fri 30 Jul 2021 6:42 AM by Toss

watbrif wrote: ↑
Thu 29 Jul 2021 10:34 PM
I agree that this rule was rather unfortunate. I doubt though it came about because the devs were mean/cruel/void of empathy, but rather because the requests were too many (this is my conjecture) and couldn't be handled by a bunch of volunteers.

Yes i understand why the rule is there. But the whole "Auto-ban" And all that stuff just made me puke. And then they re-patch so whole computer goes Bananas thinking of viruses and what not just so Dev's can scan your computer for illegal programs and what not. Im 100% Sure that this server died 2x as fast as it should/could because of unneccesary bans

Fri 30 Jul 2021 7:53 AM by

Beckett

Toss wrote: ↑
Fri 30 Jul 2021 6:42 AM
Yes i understand why the rule is there. But the whole "Auto-ban" And all that stuff just made me puke. And then they re-patch so whole computer goes Bananas thinking of viruses and what not just so Dev's can scan your computer for illegal programs and what not. Im 100% Sure that this server died 2x as fast as it should/could because of unneccesary bans

There were/are no auto bans, all bans require a member of staff to activate. We were also up front about our actions. The rules state that we will possibly scan your computer for "Illegal" programs. We announced all changes to the rules regarding sharing/computers. Nobody was permabanned for if they inadvertantly shared, they recieved a 3 day ban. If they then proceeded to repeat the sharing they were then permabanned for the 2nd offence.

Sat 31 Jul 2021 12:54 AM by Toss

Beckett wrote: ↑
Fri 30 Jul 2021 7:53 AM
There were/are no auto bans, all bans require a member of staff to activate. We were also up front about our actions. The rules state that we will possibly scan your computer for "Illegal" programs. We announced all changes to the rules regarding sharing/computers. Nobody was permabanned for if they inadvertantly shared, they recieved a 3 day ban. If they then proceeded to repeat the sharing they were then permabanned for the 2nd offence.

Well you are not 100% here. Cause we created 3 accounts on 1 computer, those 2 "non main" accounts were permabanned. But in fact i just helped my family create the accounts, but you guys permabanned them. In the rules back then it stated something like "You are only allowed to have 1 account per PERSON" It did not say anything about where the account should be created or such.

So hence half of my family was banned because they were "Secondary accounts" And when i talk to you guys about it i get the answer like "You know what you done!"

Also a GM threatened me ingame cause i was putting shrooms on Castle walls (dont remember the exact thinge but it was something like inner door not down and shrooms on walls. I filmed it and sent to Another GM who said it was completely fine. So seems like the rules were vague or GM's not sure how to handle things.

I say it again, its probably the most fun Daoc server i played on, but the whole "Big dark shadow in the skies" watching every move you make and just waiting for a reason to ban you is there kinda ruined it for me among other things. Like Nerf my main Animist to the ground while having 10ppl GTaoe blasting a tower making the game unplayable was totally fine felt like priorities were meh

Sat 31 Jul 2021 4:05 AM by dbeattie71

Had loads of fun, thank you to everyone that put this together!!!

Sat 31 Jul 2021 5:45 AM by Jlauth

If you let us multi account, i will never left DAoC

Btw thanks a lot for what you did !

Sat 31 Jul 2021 10:48 AM by Kaldoris

Couldn't play as much, could play really big events, lots of afk kids, but most of all, thank you for your work and make me feel 20 years younger while playing, even if my reflexes took 20 years too

And hope to see you all soon on Atlas.

Sat 31 Jul 2021 9:26 PM by Chaskha

Thanks for months of fun !
I hope you come back soon with Phoenix II.

Sun 1 Aug 2021 12:16 PM by coufourier

une grande déception , moi qui eu du mal à quitter Uthgard...

Sun 1 Aug 2021 12:31 PM by Revian

I came back from a week of vacation to this sad news. For the little I am able to play between my job and taking care of my 3 kids, word of Phoenix closing has absolutely gutted me. This was the server I always came back to when I had time, and I recently was really enjoying the hours I was getting to share with others in the frontiers. I have immense respect for Reix, Smap, and Wicheals, and others like them, who took leadership roles in Hib BGs to make the nights I had a couple of hours to spend in game all the more fun. Some of the BG vs. BG fights I have experienced on Phoenix are among my favorite moments playing DAoC. I was initially one of the players who left after NF was implemented, but I came back months later and learned that I really enjoyed, and ultimately preferred, the NF maps. Go figure.

To the entire Phoenix team, thank you for all that you have done. You brought countless hours of escape to me and I will really miss the experience of being a small part of this server and this community. I hope to hear more about Phoenix 2.0 in the near future.

Revian / Revid / Barrin

Mon 2 Aug 2021 12:02 AM by Sarkon

Been trying to detox from gaming this summer, sad to hear, this is the best server. My biggest criticism of DAOC is they never remastered it. One thing it has over WoW is the three realm dynamic. I always thought that added a lot of complexity to RvR that I haven't seen in an mmo since. I think a DAOC2 would be really popular. Personally, the retro graphics do not bother me, but to kids that didn't grow up with it, it looks unplayable.

On a side note, I have an embarrassingly high amount of phoenix feathers in my vault, was saving them for some fresh alts... thanks for the fun!!

Mon 2 Aug 2021 11:23 AM by Druth

Have not played for more than 1 year.
But none the less, thanks a lot for all the great/hard work, for a time you filled up my nostalgia-bar almost to the max

Damn hard work to juggle; balance, interest, and what people expect from DaoC, at the same time. You had success and failures, but at no point did I think I, or anyone else, could have done better as a whole.

People tend to forget that DaoC 1.65 was balanced, but only in that small fraction of time it was Live, because it took time for people "exploit" the weaknesses every patch had in terms of balance.
And people forget that what we think is best, is best only in our worldview, it's very doubtful it's actually best for anyone else.

Mon 2 Aug 2021 1:30 PM by Olk

Sarkon wrote: ↑
Mon 2 Aug 2021 12:02 AM
Been trying to detox from gaming this summer, sad to hear, this is the best server. My biggest criticism of DAOC is they never remastered it. One thing it has over WoW is the three realm dynamic. I always thought that added a lot of complexity to RvR that I haven't seen in an mmo since. I think a DAOC2 would be really popular. Personally, the retro graphics do not bother me, but to kids that didn't grow up with it, it looks unplayable.

There is a tiny slither of hope for Camelot Unchained to actually ve somewhat of a DAoC 2, but I wouldn't count on it.

Mon 2 Aug 2021 8:11 PM by Jeterix

This decision makes me sad. I just came back in to check out the server again only to find out it is shutting down. The last thing I remember is that while the server was declining it still had some action. I actually thought that the phoenix server would stick around, I am sad to see you guys close your doors.

I don't know what people remember about why uthgard died but what I remember is that uthgard still had an active declining community when phoenix launched a lot like the phoenix community was about a year ago. But when phoenix launched it drew away any hopes uthgard had for a healthy population. So I can't help but feel like phoenix killed uthgard.

So now that this server is dead too then now where do we go?

I don't think this is just about the phoenix brand, I think it is also about the dwindling daoc community. The phoenix server rounded up the last remnants of the daoc playerbase and now the server is just going to shut down? Well that hardly seems like a fair commitment to the playerbase. Besides what else could possibly be in the future for the phoenix brand? A camelot unchained freeshard?

Well I hope you guys are right about atlas and I hope it develops a healthy population.

But as the saying goes... One in the hand is better than two in the bush.

-Pwnpigeon RR7 sorc

I have been checking out the mmo scene lately and it is unbelievable how millions of people are playing these new trash mmos. Where is the RvR combat? Its all flagging and 10v10 instance battles and guild v guild matchups but that just doesn't compare to how awesome RvR can be. Why does every mmo have a global cooldown timer and reuse timers on every ability so you have to have "rotations" instead of just having a DD spell or positional styles??? It is unbelievable how mmos have not improved at all in the last 10 years. I am still waiting for a game that does RvR better than DAoC, hell DAoC group pve was even better than most of these other trash mmos, but for now I think daoc was the best mmo ever made.

I am sad to see this server go, this just feels like the death of daoc.

Tue 3 Aug 2021 1:24 AM by Doiri

You all see it too pessimistically. Read Gruenesschaf's post again carefully and read between the lines.

Here's a bit of hopium.

"Phoenix" was Origins 2 (same team, more or less). Origins 1 also closed its doors after a few years, after player numbers dropped. They came back after a break with Phoenix and the improvements compared to Origins were MASSIVE. The way I see it, that's the mentality of this team: leave with dignity when the time has come (Uthgard, take note), reorient, improve, fix bugs, build back better. I'm sure many of the big changes were seen as not beneficial in retrospect; however, these can't be rolled back without losing more players with each patch. Therefore, a hard reset makes the most sense at this point.

Origins was Part 1 of the story.
Phoenix was Part 2 of the story.
Part 3 will come, and it will be a jump in quality like between Part 1 and Part 2.
I will make sure to shill in other games in chat for the new server, as I have done consistently for the launch of Phoenix in Black Desert Online by buying megaphones with my Pearls and loyalty points.

DAoC's time is not over now any more than it was over 5 or 10 years ago.

Instead of crying here in the thread, start thinking of name suggestions for Part 3. Both "Origins" and "Phoenix" (after the death of Origins) made sense.
The name for Part 3 has to make sense too.
Ressurection? Ascension? Revelation?

Cheers.

Tue 3 Aug 2021 3:13 AM by easytoremember

Olk wrote: ↑
Mon 2 Aug 2021 1:30 PM
Sarkon wrote: ↑
Mon 2 Aug 2021 12:02 AM
Been trying to detox from gaming this summer, sad to hear, this is the best server. My biggest criticism of DAOC is they never remastered it. One thing it has over WoW is the three realm dynamic. I always thought that added a lot of complexity to RvR that I haven't seen in an mmo since. I think a DAOC2 would be really popular. Personally, the retro graphics do not bother me, but to kids that didn't grow up with it, it looks unplayable.

There is a tiny slither of hope for Camelot Unchained to actually ve somewhat of a DAoC 2, but I wouldn't count on it.

The moment Mark bowed out on DAoC2 that was doomed. CU is an engine demo that doubles as a dollar roller

Tue 3 Aug 2021 10:40 AM by Hector

I think a simple wipe > revert settings to what they were when Phoenix launched in 2019 > go again with Phx 2.0 would probably instantly give you the players you seek.

Tue 3 Aug 2021 3:22 PM by BaldEagle

OF is comical. That crap will die in 4 months and people will be begging to come back to phoenix.

Tue 3 Aug 2021 6:47 PM by borodino1812

Doiri wrote: ↑
Tue 3 Aug 2021 1:24 AM
You all see it too pessimistically. Read Gruenesschaf's post again carefully and read between the lines.

Here's a bit of hopium.

"Phoenix" was Origins 2 (same team, more or less). Origins 1 also closed its doors after a few years, after player numbers dropped. They came back after a break with Phoenix and the improvements compared to Origins were MASSIVE. The way I see it, that's the mentality of this team: leave with dignity when the time has come (Uthgard, take note), reorient, improve, fix bugs, build back better. I'm sure many of the big changes were seen as not beneficial in retrospect; however, these can't be rolled back without losing more players with each patch. Therefore, a hard reset makes the most sense at this point.

Origins was Part 1 of the story.
Phoenix was Part 2 of the story.
Part 3 will come, and it will be a jump in quality like between Part 1 and Part 2.
I will make sure to shill in other games in chat for the new server, as I have done consistently for the launch of Phoenix in Black Desert Online by buying megaphones with my Pearls and loyalty points.

DAoC's time is not over now any more than it was over 5 or 10 years ago.

Instead of crying here in the thread, start thinking of name suggestions for Part 3. Both "Origins" and "Phoenix" (after the death of Origins) made sense.
The name for Part 3 has to make sense too.
Ressurection? Ascension? Revelation?

Cheers.

Just the type of positive post you need when the holiday is over and the true grind awaits!

Wed 4 Aug 2021 4:48 AM by lolhisup

Thanks for the time that I got to spend playing here. I slept on it and I realized I spent a lot of time playing here. I played in Thid a lot at the start. I leveled characters, I farmed plat, I sold stuff on the house market, I did some solo pvp at 50, ran with zergs, and did small man seldomly. I leveled on Alb, and Hib, and tried Mid but couldn't get into it. Looking back, for what it is worth, I just recall hours and hours of playing, day in and day out.

Wildsquirrel

Thu 5 Aug 2021 1:58 AM by dbeattie71

Will there be a, Delta is coming, beg to keep Phoenix open, thread?

Fri 6 Aug 2021 3:04 AM by Faltain1

Well, as someone whom was enticed to this server as an Uthgard alternative with QoL improvements I cannot say I'm surprised, (and if anything I'm more surprised this server lasted as long as it did). It's obvious you put hard work in, and that should be commended no doubt, but there was clearly a lack of vision on what you wanted the server to ultimately be.

People won't admit it, but we are lemming-like in how we make decisions, especially for something as niche as this. We won't bother playing on a freeshard for DAoC (a now 20+ year old game) if there isn't a likelihood the server will stick around awhile and make our time investment worth it. I think that was a huge reason why this server was as successful as it was for as long as it was; it was the real only alternative for people to play DAoC (and not have to worry about 20+ years of people on the live servers who've stuck it out there having such huge headstarts to the point starting there as a fresh account is a waste of time).

Having said that, with all the changes made here, this wasn't a Classic DAoC server anymore. I'm not sure what I'd call it - but I wouldn't call it Classic. It doesn't have ToA or any of the follow-up expansion sure, BUT I'd argue with all the changes made you pushed it way past a Classic ruleset. In my instance, when you switched to New Frontiers you basically relegated me to battlegrounds as I LOATHE the generic layouts and wide-swathes of nothingness they have compared to the Old Frontiers. I won't get started on the changes to the loot system, nor will I prattle on about the Kill Task system or the XP item turn ins (both of which have positives and negatives attached to them). I at least sort of understood those features.

The looking for group feature sounded great, in theory --- until you realize the playerbase nowadays are min-maxing tryhards and it's nothing but "LOOKING FOR ANOTHER PBAOE FOR OUR GROUP!" spam. People rolling Ice Wizards/Enchanters/Spiritmasters should just get auto-grouped and save the spammers the trouble when playing on Phoenix. People calling that crowd toxic earlier in this thread aren't wrong, either. You even started seeing people using their XP bonuses from PVE dungeon clears to screw over casuals further, (something I could've called a mile away happening). If you have systems in place that discourage casuals from sticking around, and encouraging the people who treat this as a second job, you only have yourself to blame when the casuals stop logging in. I was getting WoW "Gearscore of XXX required!" vibes - yeah, no thanks there Sparky.

Lastly, as others have pointed out, it felt like you guys (the Devs) had a coding itch you just had to keep scratching. I would routinely check the News section on here to say "What new scheme have the Phoenix Devs come up with next to screw with their DAoC shard?" You didn't disappoint me in that regard as time after time you'd present (often boggling) decisions to "spruce up" the game, (that in the end hurt rather then help). I was looking through the style and mob changes that were posted and I got a solid laugh and realized I wasn't going to be playing here ever again as what you'd be running at that point was DAoC themed in name only.

I almost feel like you guys needed an Editor of some sort when it came to your server changes. Community votes are fine for some things, but changing CORE concepts of a game that we all know and love just for the sake of changing them should've been more thought out and debated rather then just dumping them onto players.

C'est la vie. Good luck if you open another server down the line, and if you do hopefully you'll approach it with a more careful laser-focused approach from the getgo.

Fri 6 Aug 2021 10:27 AM by MeatBicycle

Faltain1 wrote: ↑
Fri 6 Aug 2021 3:04 AM
Lastly, as others have pointed out, it felt like you guys (the Devs) had a coding itch you just had to keep scratching. I would routinely check the News section on here to say "What new scheme have the Phoenix Devs come up with next to screw with their DAoC shard?" You didn't disappoint me in that regard as time after time you'd present (often boggling) decisions to "spruce up" the game, (that in the end hurt rather then help). I was looking through the style and mob changes that were posted and I got a solid laugh and realized I wasn't going to be playing here ever again as what you'd be running at that point was DAoC themed in name only.

That is also my opinion. Sometimes things were changed just because you felt you had to change something. It's just that a lot of it wasn't well thought out. The community has certainly made many mistakes themselves and often acted stupidly. But that also applies to the decisions of the devs.

Nevertheless, it was a nice time and I found an old friend after almost 20 years, with whom I now live together. Many thanks for that.

Fri 6 Aug 2021 4:04 PM by sebbo

Well, thanks for the fun which we could have, as long as it lasted.

I really appreciated the release, it really felt like classic DAoC with a lot of QoL improvements.
For me, the fun dropped with some changes, like taking out the unique abilities/skills of several classes, "adjusting" styles. I came here to experience the old classic DAoC feeling, and over time, it turned into a nearly-i50-with-lack-of-unique-classes-experience, getting grouped became ponintless somehow due to enough xp loot. lvl 50 in one day, solo? no big deal.

A complete PRO for me was leveling bonusses when having different classes in your group, that was a huge QoL improvment. A total NO-GO for me was the whole loottable baseing on ROGs only, except for a few OTDs. Crafting was pointless until working on your level 50 equip (which still based on ROGs at the end). NF was also a big deal, the rvr ended up in porting around like crazy, just to get some RP´s from the zerg. People just ran between towers and keeps, PvEing the guards and the lord for a few RP´s.

You´ve put in a LOT of work, just sometimes the effort was put in the wrong decisions. Serving the part of the players what we would call "erlebnisorientierte Spieler" in german wasnt the best decision from the staff.

Sat 7 Aug 2021 3:55 AM by Sarkon

Jeterix wrote: ↑
Mon 2 Aug 2021 8:11 PM
I have been checking out the mmo scene lately and it is unbelievable how millions of people are playing these new trash mmos. Where is the RvR combat? Its all flagging and 10v10 instance battles and guild v guild matchups but that just doesn't compare to how awesome RvR can be. Why does every mmo have a global cooldown timer and reuse timers on every ability so you have to have "rotations" instead of just having a DD spell or positional styles??? It is unbelievable how mmos have not improved at all in the last 10 years. I am still waiting for a game that does RvR better than DAoC, hell DAoC group pve was even better than most of these other trash mmos, but for now I think daoc was the best mmo ever made.

I am sad to see this server go, this just feels like the death of daoc.

Well said. No other mmo has captured the beauty of daoc, especiall rvr.

Sat 7 Aug 2021 2:26 PM by boridi

Faltain1 wrote: ↑
Fri 6 Aug 2021 3:04 AM
I won't get started on the changes to the loot system, nor will I prattle on about the Kill Task system or the XP item turn ins (both of which have positives and negatives attached to them). I at least sort of understood those features.
.
.
.
You even started seeing people using their XP bonuses from PVE dungeon clears to screw over casuals further, (something I could've called a mile away happening). If you have systems in place that discourage casuals from sticking around, and encouraging the people who treat this as a second job, you only have yourself to blame when the casuals stop logging in.

The kill tasks and xp items helped casual players. How does instance bonus screw over casual players? They can group with someone and get the bonus. Either way, leveling and farming were fast.

Sat 7 Aug 2021 8:17 PM by Fram

Hey guys,
I loved playing on this server and want to thank the devs and the community.
This was really fun, hope to see you again sometime soon.
Bye

Mon 9 Aug 2021 8:57 AM by SlowMo

Well, had some really nice evenings on your server.
I Really appreciate the efforts and work you guys and players put together.

Would love if you guys send some emails out to your community, if you are going to set up a new server. since you got all our mails anyway :-)
Maybe just rethink some changes you did :-)

Cheers Mo

Mon 9 Aug 2021 12:34 PM by Greenangel

Was really great fun thanks for helping me recover a bit after looseing my dad to cancer and now i have a 2 year old boy as well.
Got admit since lockdown ended and with a baby boy i been playing less and less and stoped for a summer brake.
Very sad hear about server . But i got plenty keep me busy in real world and got work lots and lots like everyone these days in this modern world to stop socity totaly collapsing .

Thanks to everyone on the server and all there free time they put in to make it possible..
Life is short have fun.

see you all in the dark ages of the future

Mon 9 Aug 2021 8:01 PM by Delgado82

where do i start

man i know that phoenix wasnt perfect but honestly what game is and ever will be. I didnt like some thing but i really really really enjoyed playing with every single person on phoenix and that means even the people who who destroyed me some days lol. I havent played any other game since phoenix announced its closing an hell i havent even sat at my computer since now. Honestly at the end of the day i have so many great memories with daoc/phoenix. i always looked forward to loggin in to get destroyed by a stealther or even gang banged by a small man/8man lol. I'm really sad that phoenix died and i cant play with any of you anymore. Im bummed just writing this and wish it wasnt true really but i'm going to miss everyone of you guys and i am in limbo right now video wise but guess eventually a game will come into my life. Nothing will never replace Daoc for me.

Thanks everyone for the memories and fun

Michie signing out

Mon 9 Aug 2021 9:06 PM by s3b

Just logged in to pay my rent and found the server almost empty. Wondering what happened I saw the news. I'm sad to see this server go. Thank you for everything! Take care.

Wed 11 Aug 2021 4:20 AM by Adelchi

I haven't logged in Months and I read the news.
I just wanted to say thanks to the devs and community, this has been the best free shard I have ever played in (and I played all of them I guess).
The attention to the player experience was incredible!

A few things I never saw anywhere and I think could be food for though in the future:
- rvr/pvp events of 8+ players per group (extend group limit to 12-16 and if it goes well more)
- pve 8vs8 instances (or even roaming in the map) with very high xp bonus. Mob "group" roam around and have cc, heal, tank, caster and such
- longer term rvr/relic/invasion to avoid boring grinding of the same keeps
- drastic change of setup/playstyle following seasons (like conqueror's blade ones)

Wed 11 Aug 2021 9:11 PM by florin

Thank you to all the team and players. Hope you see you all again.

Mon 16 Aug 2021 8:40 AM by whitewolf253

I'm heartbroken to see it all go. I hadn't gamed in years, when I found out about Pheonix I went out and bought myself a really nice gaming laptop just to play and never have the "lag" I always had back in day on 56k when I first leveled someone up (2001). The memories here were great, the experience was exceptionally positive for me. I genuinely hope we get a 2.0, if so I'll be there.

Cheers to good times. Cheers to all that made the experience truly great, I salut you all.

Tue 17 Aug 2021 5:30 PM by Der_Eisbaer

Dear Devs,

thank you so, so much for creating and maintaining Phoenix!

For me, this was peak DAoC, hands down!

Would love to see you creating perhaps an even more perfect version of Phoenix 1-2 years in the future... who knows!

Until then, wishing you all the best, and God bless!

Wed 18 Aug 2021 11:42 AM by Lev

first of all, thanks to the devs.
they did a marvellous job on the technical side. proper professional server setup und stability. I mean we had raids where it blew up, but I think this was unavoidable because of client issues. we all can remember the 300+ players tuscaran raids.

then of course, thanks to have the vision AND the will & skill to get the necessary work done.
for me personally the state of the server some months after release (with OF and rvr tasks) was the best DAoC experience after the glory days of Uthgard 1. thanks for that.

and I got to say: if I hear of another project of this dev group, I will be checking it out for sure.

thx. and have fun.

Thu 19 Aug 2021 9:21 AM by Yarik

</3

Sun 22 Aug 2021 4:46 PM by coufourier

je suis dégouté ... Janclode Albion à 100%

Sun 22 Aug 2021 9:22 PM by pantssama

Please open source your sql database, customizations, tooling, etc.

Sat 28 Aug 2021 1:18 PM by Freedomcall

The Phoenix Server was a great fun for me!
I enjoyed playing Uthgard 2 until it lasted, but since I started to play Phoenix, I realized everything was better here.
I was actually suffering constant yellow ping on Uthgard, and my skills would start to fire like 0.5 seconds after I press the key.
But ping was very good on this server and I really loved it.
I don't know what difference between 2 servers made that happen though.

Devs and GMs were very friendly and helping.
It was not every plan or patch that I supported, but I think most of the patches done here were relevant.

Covid-19 was, and still is, a tragedy for us in real life, but I think all those quarantine and self-isolation made this server even more crowded.
That was the same for me as well.
I spent a lot of time playing Phoenix due to this pandemic.

But again, this success with such an old game would've not materialize without GMs and players.
I want to thank all the GMs and players for their contribution on this great server.
I'm not sure if or when this server will be back, but if it ever does come back, I hope I could have some fun again.
Till then, good luck to you all!

-
Bisu/Bisuya/Bisuda
Multiple chars from <Hasta la vista Baby>
Multiple chars from <Thats what she said>
Multiple chars from <Im not new Im just Bad>

Sat 28 Aug 2021 3:20 PM by naglorand

hope u guys release a new server soon, this was the strongest freeshard I have seen yet! great stuff really, and hope to see all that effort constitute in phoenix 2 or whatever u guys decided next. thank you phoenix team and good luck

Mon 30 Aug 2021 10:33 AM by Slyst0nex

I'm going to keep it short but thanks for the fun, the memories and for helping to cope with the past year and a half with all its craziness.

It was a blast.

Ad maiora,

Sly

Mon 30 Aug 2021 8:57 PM by Francisco13

Many thanks to the developers for their hard work and to the whole community who make this great game survive.
Special thanks to the stealthers for all the memorable duels we have had! (Exo, Mixalis, Brainstorm, Wutan, Naas, Lonelyheart, Eriel, Zigushade, Therabbin... and many others!) and to my guild, the "Gobelins" with whom I spent a lot of great times.

Hope to see you soon guys! (on Atlas maybe?!)

Tue 31 Aug 2021 6:13 PM by Shamissa

This sucks balls just not being able to loggin anymore and you guys arent here make me cry/sniff

rest in peace Phoenix . Come back some day please!!!

Tue 31 Aug 2021 7:40 PM by ParadiseOne

RIP, thanks for the devs and players for the memorable experience. -Dead

Tue 31 Aug 2021 8:45 PM by captainjuv

Best freeshard ever !!! Thx 4 all.

Wed 13 Oct 2021 10:34 AM by Zephyos

If I may be honest, one of the bigger reasons for people to leave is the staff.

I doubt you going to actually take this as senseful critic.
But compared to Atlas now, that is a huge difference.

You made a lot of people I know leave by just your guys behaviour.

Wed 13 Oct 2021 6:08 PM by Kurbsen

Zephyos wrote: ↑
Wed 13 Oct 2021 10:34 AM
If I may be honest, one of the bigger reasons for people to leave is the staff.

I doubt you going to actually take this as senseful critic.
But compared to Atlas now, that is a huge difference.

You made a lot of people I know leave by just your guys behaviour.

dont worry people be saying that about atlas after they decide to change things ;p

Mon 18 Oct 2021 6:10 PM by phixion

Although I stopped playing DAoC a while ago, this is very sad. It's obvious there is a lifecycle for DAoC, most people love a new server and a fresh start.

I just wish all the hard work was open sourced to allow other devs to build upon it, although I understand why it isn't.

Thanks for the memories and thanks to the devs for all the hard work they put in, I guess we will see Phoenix 2 when Atlas dies off.

Sun 31 Oct 2021 5:46 PM by carnalito

Late to the party. Wow the server went down. Didnt realize, was gonna come check it out again

Wed 5 Jan 2022 5:24 PM by Komaf

The wonderful thing about the I assume you meant Phoenix - Beckett shard is that for folks who did not know, the Phoenix developers were amazing, intuitive, and well-versed in programming. You could also tell they legitimately played DAoC. Atlas feels like a secret Blue Uthgard server, except Blue and friends knew how to code. While I honor anyone who gives a DAoC shard a shot (I know it must be incredibly taxing, tedious, and thankless work), I must say that while I quit the beta/alpha that is Atlas, there were at least a good number of people that I grouped with who missed what we all had or perhaps took for granted, on Phoenix (amazing how many issues compiled with Uthgard level xp grind during a 'beta' phase).

Here's to hoping Phoenix rises from the ashes (see what I did there? ;p)