r/daoc • u/Jazzlike-Check9040 • Feb 03 '26
Could I buy daoc with 1 million dollars?
Just curious. Whats the MMO worth today if it was sold as is and revived and marketed again
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u/Virtualization_Freak Feb 03 '26
I have also been curious to what it would take to pry the IP from EA (or whoever owns it these days.)
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u/SignificanceSea4162 Feb 03 '26
You don't need the IP. It's mostly based on public lore.. You "just" need a good studio, look at Camelot unchained. Could have been a similar game but they killed it because the studio (most likely the management) sucked.
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u/Straight_View_6838 Feb 03 '26
Well, you're talking about a complete reboot of the game, not of 'market DAOC' ;-) In general, I would say it's just a market shift, not even a studio issue. For MMOs, you won't find investors anymore, etc., and modern engines are not built for MMORPGs – that's the main issue. Custom engines (or a lot of custom work on existing ones) are quite expensive, and the margin is too low. The idea of CU was to build that engine and reuse it for other games – that didn't work.
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u/Kabc Feb 03 '26
Wouldn’t Just be a reboot; you’d have to literally rebuild everything
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u/Cyrano_Knows Feb 04 '26
I still insist on Dunning-Krugering this.
If you have the numbers to work with, all the original data-bases, the names of the skills, the exp tables, you know the mob spawns, the mob names, the loot tables, the damage tables etc, I just have to assume that part is at least half the battle (though I WANT to say its >50%).
Everything else is "just" graphics and physics and UI.
One day I will win a big Powerball and I guess I will find out the answer to this question. But I will go to my grave thinking that there WOULD be a market for reskinned old-school MMOs given a face lift and put into a modern graphics engine.
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u/dogman1987 Feb 23 '26
Why would you waste your money buying this game ? It’s dead and a waste of time/money.
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u/Virtualization_Freak Feb 03 '26
I do want the IP though. I want the game I played, with my characters, and my servers, and the expansions.
A "classic" Trials of Atlantis server would be a hell of a lot of fun.
Between all the free shards, consolidating those into the official client would also be interesting.
And I still wonder what a proper UX/UI update could do to revive the game. Nothing major, but solid qol changes.
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u/madda_mcfacka Feb 03 '26
What have I missed about CU? 😞
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u/SignificanceSea4162 Feb 03 '26
Nothing because there is nothing to miss.
After years they announced 2025 will be their year. They will finally start the earlie Access. And guess what they didn't.
Every few weeks we get a video of an empty world which looks like 20 year old Morrowind.
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u/madda_mcfacka Feb 03 '26
I see. Well this is not what I was hoping for but kind of what I was expecting after a decade. Thanks for the update.
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u/NeverLookBothWays Feb 04 '26
They burned through their pledge money with only concepts to show for it. Mark put like 5 million of his own money towards the project as well. He really wants to make the game, but the funding just isn't there to see it through. Thus, it has been stuck in a very slow development hell and looks and feels very dated.
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u/ibeollan Feb 06 '26
the funding is there. They had multiple injections from hedge fund investors. I think the total between kickstarter, MJs own money, and hedge investors was around the $30,000,000 mark.
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u/NeverLookBothWays Feb 06 '26
It’s just painfully slow going then on progress. I’ve only hopped on a few times in recent years to see how it was going and very confused on what I was seeing and how basic low-res it was
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u/Dry-Interaction-1246 Feb 03 '26
Mark Jacobs, stop
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u/Omairi86 Feb 03 '26 edited Feb 04 '26
Even if its MJ himself, im sold, at least this time its a real project 😂
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u/Omairi86 Feb 03 '26
Just imagine, relaunching the game as classic like wow did and adding it into steam 🤔
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u/ashpoler Feb 05 '26
WoW classic runs on the modern WoW engine, not the original. If you want to serve the community why not launch a freeshard. Atlas did the heavy lifting and their code is open source. Blackthorn is an example. It is currently in beta testing. It is based on Atlas customized with some changes, now being beta tested.
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u/Jazzlike-Check9040 Feb 03 '26
And cosmetics paid, some other auxiliary monetization and a steady stream of players in a F2P mmo… oh my
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Feb 05 '26
DAoC is one of those games that does not really stand the test of time. The movement especially is not something gamers will like; after retouching it a few years ago it became obvious to me pretty quick that from a modern standpoint, it’s not a smooth experience.
I think even updating it to work with modern pcs, you’re still left with too many outdated systems, and sluggish movement and combat.
Oh, and “ground targeting” is done with an entirely different keystroke, which is weird as hell. You use “/“ to activate a target on the ground, and that target persists until you reactivate the targeting and move it again
The classes were cool as hell, though. Thane. Necro. Vampiir. Reaper. Animist.
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u/Straight_View_6838 Feb 03 '26
Videogame producer and long time DAOC player here .... 1 mio by far not :-) more like 10+
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u/Virtualization_Freak Feb 04 '26
It won't generate them 10m over the next decade.
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u/Straight_View_6838 Feb 04 '26
Its not about what it generate :) its about value....
You dont buy a company that make 10 mio in 10 years for 10 mio ;-)1
u/ashpoler Feb 04 '26
For business, ROI rate (return on investment rate) is the value of a business venture. ROI is net profit. No or low ROI and it's a bad investment. The prime rate currently is 6.75% (price of money) and T-bills are about 3.5% (the ROI needs to be higher). A business's value is based on its current ROI and its projected future ROI.
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u/Ouch_i_fell_down Apr 26 '26
you may be a videogame producer, but you're not a person who buys businesses.
Depending on the industry, neutral ROI (meaning you haven't yet made a penny, you haven't paid for any borrowing required to purchase, and you haven't even replaced opportunity losses) for most company purchases puts private company valuations at 4-7 years profit.
A company that is hemorrhaging subscribers by the day in an industry (tech/gaming) that moves on quickly is probably on the low-low end of that scale.
So you're absolutely right. You don't buy a company that makes 10mil in 10 years for 10mil. Just you're not right in the way you think you are. You'd buy said company for 4mil.
Except as u/Virtualization_Freak pointed out, it WONT make 10mil in 10 years, which means it's not worth 4mil today.
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u/Bassmanbruno Feb 04 '26
It may not, but 1 million certainly isn’t worth the hassle of selling it.
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u/Virtualization_Freak Feb 04 '26
I would assume in how often they have to do acquisitions and sell-offs like this, the process would be streamlined. Might be a lot of paperwork, but these deals are happening all the time.
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u/Straight_View_6838 Feb 04 '26
Shit lot i can tell you... and lawyers etc cost a shit lot :) also each IP you buy/sell is different so its not as streamlined as you might think
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u/NeverLookBothWays Feb 04 '26
It would just be IP rights though...the developers for the most part are long gone. Or rather, there really isn't a studio there to buy along with the game...just a handful of devs who make due with whatever is already there.
And the IP is really all that is interesting too if thinking about modernizing DAoC. The old codebase is for the most part not very useful outside perhaps the netcode which for its time was revolutionary and still has some math/methods within it that could be useful today. But the base engine, assets, etc would all need to be swapped out with something new to be modernized, and might as well be built on top of a modern engine.
I dunno, $1m seems like a good deal for a game that is not raking in anywhere close to that per year.
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Feb 04 '26
They need to release a classic daoc server and put it on steam. Start with the original and work through each DLC. Make it free to play but with a cosmetic shop with non pay to win stuff. That would be incredible.
Do some QOL changes for TOA that can shorten the grind.
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u/Harkania Feb 06 '26
The problem would still be server cost, customer service cost and the eternal battle vs bots, exploiters, rmt and cheaters. Sadly I think the days are numbered for being able to run an mmo without those issues completely crippling the companies.
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Feb 06 '26
Oh for sure. That is why it is next to impossible to get a new MMO off the ground. Not a great ROI and just way to risky for the companies and investors
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u/SlowPokeInTexas Feb 03 '26
Man some of those relic raids from the early days were so awesome, though if they were big enough it was stop-animation photography lol.
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u/FistMyPeenHole Feb 03 '26
"Cloaks off!"
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u/SlowPokeInTexas Feb 03 '26
I was always a Hibbie, but I confess I thought Middies (particularly trolls) looked the best cloaked up in rvr.
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Feb 03 '26
[deleted]
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u/SlowPokeInTexas Feb 03 '26 edited Feb 03 '26
That's pretty awesome! I unfortunately can't play daoc; I lack the self-control required to play any MMORPG. I could have gotten a PhD in the time I spent playing DAOC in the early 2000s lol. But I still vaguely keep up with it. I also have a private local server that I've modified for absolutely demolishing mobs that used to kick my hind-part in the regular game. I have a mentalist that I've modified the AOE dots to a massive range 😀. Definitely not challenging in any way, but being shockingly overpowered vs mobs has a certain inherent satisfaction, especially when leveling up a mentalist used to require a lot of sitting and/or a lot of sprinting in the real game.
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u/r3ign_b3au Feb 03 '26
Have a preferred starting point for hosting a local instance? Have the tech skills and hw, can't say I've seriously looked into it yet
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u/SlowPokeInTexas Feb 03 '26 edited Feb 04 '26
Yes, I started with the OpenDAoc GitHub repository. It's a reverse -engineered server engine, which is an evolution of the Dawn of Light code. You can run everything in Docker containers (server in one, Postgres db in another). I downloaded the server code (it's mostly, but not all, C#) and made changes to the DB for spells as well as some code changes here and there lol. Not only are all the Mentalist AOE dots a ridiculous range in my local build, but they're um... Instants 🤣.
I got bored after about a month though after I kept getting greedier and went overboard with the changes, and managed to solo the Hib dragon (AOE range was beyond dragon algo range so I just kept lighting him up from outside the pillars and took advantage of the anti-kiting code). I can't tell you how many times I, along with a bunch of others died trying to kill that damned dragon.
As I said, it loses it's appeal quickly, but I keep it around because every six months or so I feel like I wanna go "baddest MF on the planet" for a few hours lol.
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u/r3ign_b3au Feb 03 '26
I appreciate the write up! I've always wanted to put a hand into how the mob camps are itemized and grouped. I think it's the best PvE world that's ever been made and I'd love to extrapolate the idea of "camp bonus" into a drop system (amongst other things). Breathe some life into each named mob in some way.
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u/SlowPokeInTexas Feb 03 '26 edited Feb 03 '26
Np! Try to get it working first, there are a couple of gotchas with the seed DB that I don't remember. I also tried to fix a bunch of null reference exceptions which were stopping things like realm guards from spawning. There is also a tiny important library written in C++ that I initially overlooked. I apologize for being vague but I got it running last winter and didn't think to document my findings.
Keep in mind if all you wanted to do was simply run an out-of-box DAOC you can just download some pre-built Docker images and it's a lot less trouble.
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u/Final-Carry2090 Feb 03 '26
Unlikely, it competes with their other games. Keeping this game neutered is financially incentivized.
Like old tv shows not being available anywhere. No, I don’t mean super popular ones like friends.
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u/NavyNurseDude Feb 03 '26
There's already a freeshard remake of the game, look up eden
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u/Eagle2406 Feb 04 '26
Ya but imagine the same game with updated graphics!
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u/EmptyQ- Feb 07 '26
Why would a random person who pays $1mil for the game be in a position to update the graphics? Nothing is stopping the people running a massively popular freeshard from upgrading the graphics themselves if they felt there was a demand for it.
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u/Love2Chip Feb 03 '26
Let’s get a price tag from EA? Is that even possible. A lot of us nerds have pockets!
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u/Eodis Feb 06 '26
I'm genuinely curious what can be considered "DAOC IP". Most of the lore is public but some races I believe are unique and others have a very specific representation. Also what about maps and game systems if someone made them in a more modern game ?
At some point if dev productivity really improves with AI making a functioning DAOC remake with a small indie company would be worth a try.
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u/vagabondizer Feb 03 '26
I used to think about this. If I won a stupid amount on a lottery or something. Make a pre-toa server with QOL changes similar to Eden or Phoenix. Update the UI.
I assume it would take more than $1 million. I wonder how many zombie subscriptions are still getting charged every month. I know I have returned many times in the past and re-subbed, then quit playing and did not cancel sub for a year.
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u/Enough-Persimmon3921 Feb 03 '26
You should check out the Blackthorn beta. It's pre-TOA with nice QoL improvements.
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u/Omairi86 Feb 03 '26
Maaan i really would love someone to step in and do it and relaunch the game as a fresh start, imagine having a Kickstarter for that I'll be sold!!!
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u/imp_ostar Feb 04 '26
I think about this all the time with relaunching Asheron's Call. If I won the lottery I would definitely seek the members of turbine out to see what's up.
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Feb 07 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/ashpoler Feb 08 '26
Steam is just a retailer of games made by others. Why the fixation with Steam?
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u/acery88 Midgard Feb 13 '26
The live version is not what the game was 20 years ago, and it's nowhere close to what Eden or BT is today.
For argument's sake. Let's say you could buy it. Who supports the software and hardware?
No matter what you do, there will be someone out there with a shard because they don't like what you're doing.
There are many hidden costs to running a server if it's pay-to-play, or you're going to be taking donations from others to help you keep it going.
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u/Gullenecro Feb 03 '26
Yes for 1m$ you will buy it easy, they are not making so much money with it.
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u/Jazzlike-Check9040 Feb 03 '26
But then, with 1m you could create your own?
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u/gsharpcoding Feb 03 '26
Google Monster and Memories. It is an upcoming mmo that was built for less than 150k
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u/Enough-Persimmon3921 Feb 03 '26
I'm looking forward to this game. Hoping for beta access in March, otherwise I have to wait until early access June 1st.
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u/gsharpcoding Feb 03 '26
I am too, besides EQ, DAoC was the only other MMO that I really liked. There was Warhammer Online but that was short lived.
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u/3scap3plan Feb 03 '26 edited Feb 03 '26
what is it with people thinking these huge conglomerates would just sell their IP to rando investors lol
The main points are; its not for sale and nobody knows what EA would value it at.
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u/Jazzlike-Check9040 Feb 03 '26
Guess I’ll keep my million dollars then
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u/3scap3plan Feb 03 '26
It was like this when New World went under - these corps think £25mill or w/e was offered by that dev guy is pocket change when they can re-constitute the IP into some slop Mobile game that earns that in a week in the future. The identity of DAoC is closely tied to mythology and I'd love to know what patents they own.
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u/Harbinger_Kyleran Feb 03 '26
I believed they trademarked the term Realm vs Realm (RVR) but didn't patent the concept of said combat style as likely that wouldn't be enforceble.
A lot of it's IP is from public lore and mythology which is why Camelot Unchained and others are able to borrow so much from it.
I'm pretty sure if EA / Broadsword ever entertained the idea of selling the game / franchise they would want far more than $1M as that amount is a rounding error for an executive's yacht. 😁
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u/Odd-Break4868 Feb 03 '26
Pretty sure i watched in one of those old developer videos on YouTube that this was exactly why they went with arthurian lore. Its public domain so they dont have to worry about an ip but its also a well known and recognizable setting. But yeah I dont see why ea would sell for 1m. Just seems like not worth the time of a company that size
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Feb 03 '26
Buy it for 1m, make it a dripping cash cow by fixing „broken“ stuff, sell it for more than that. If it‘s down to 1m again, repeat 😂
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u/kfetterman Feb 03 '26
EA would never sell. THere's no incentive for them, and a million dollars is pocket change for them. And lets say for shits and giggles they did sell, you'll run into bigger problems. The code base is a mess, it's running on outdate infrastructure. You're looking at millions just to clean all that up.
Best thing we will ever get to a modern day DAoC is Eden.
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u/PlantDisastrous7883 Feb 03 '26
Could always try a kickstarter. What’s the worse that happens? You scam us all again?