DAoC, promising but not really living up to its potential yet.

I was one of the masses who bought this game on release, and I'm one of the few from that era that is still playing. Dark Age of Camelot had and still has tons of potential to blow everyone else out of the water in the MMORPG market. The game has some very solid characters, and concepts that you won't find in other games. One of the things that drew me to this game was the variety. Three different realms, and Mythic Entertainment really did their homework. Drawing heavily on mythology, and folklore to build dynamic interactive worlds.

General Description

There are three realms, Albion, Hibernia, and Midgard. Albion is the home of Camelot, where the Britons, Saracens, Highlanders, and Avalonians are the races you may choose from. There are many classes to pick from as well; Albion has a nice mix of magic and brawn to make it perhaps the middle ground of the three. The most balanced realm in my opinion and definitely the most finished. The quests are very good, and the countryside is very impressive. The capital city of Camelot is impressive as well, living up to the name that it holds. Not too hard to navigate this realm seems to have a nice selection of areas to play without getting too bored.

Hibernia has been touted to be the magical realm. You’ll hear this debated by long term players but for the most part it’s true. The capital city of Tir Na Nog is impressive looking, if not a little too cartoonish. One of the complaints you hear from long time Hibernian players is that it looks like a golf course or silly with huts made from mushrooms, as well as the feel that the realm just wasn’t quite finished. For the little bit of time that I’ve played there the quests didn’t seem as good as the other two realms but the diversity of the races is kind of fun. You may choose from a Firbolg, which seems to be some sort of giant/human race, Lurikeens, whom remind me of little leprechauns, Elves, and Celts. Hibernia has some very good classes, and I’ve heard it’s easy to get around. Though I’ve never been able to play a character past level 10 there because I just don’t like the feel of the realm.

Midgard is the realm of the Norse; there you’ll find Dwarves, Trolls, Kobolds, and Norseman making up the population. The look of the realm is much harsher than the other two, snows topping most hillsides, rain causing fog that you can barely see through. A bit harder to navigate than the other two realms, Midgard is not for the faint hearted. I played this realm the longest having made quite a number of characters here. My highest characters there being a level 41 dwarven healer, and a level 33 kobold huntress. I like the harshness of Midgard, and the classes seem to be pretty well rounded. Because it is called the melee realm Midgard has the least number of “pure” casters than anyone else within the game having only two true casters. The runemaster who is a damage dealing spellcaster and a spiritmaster who is a pet class, the “tanks” that are available to play within Midgard are probably the best in the game. From Berserkers who can shift into a sort of bear form when they frenzy, to Thanes who can drop large magical hammers and lightening bolts on their foes.

There are 50 levels for each character and all their skills are set up within skill or spell trees. You train at trainers when you level making characters very easily adaptable. Until recently it has been difficult if you messed up your specialization points you could end up gimping your character, after this next patch that they are installing respecialization which will be available at certain levels so you can adjust and fix your class if you make a mistake.

The downtime within DAoC is light compared to some earlier MMORPG’s such as Everquest. Power (or mana) for spell casting resurges quickly after a fight, as well as hit points coming back quickly so you don’t have to sit for too long of a period. Most classes are very able to at least solo to some degree though of course some characters are more suited for groups than others. There are some characters that are very much support characters and then some that are able to handle themselves in or out of a group better. Because of the way the realms are structured and the traveling within (horse routes and well drawn roads in most areas) even if you don’t have a lot of time to play usually you can find something to keep you occupied for a short time and still accomplish something.

Graphics are impressive, though they are starting to get stale in comparison to some of the new games coming out or slated to come out in the near future. Though I must say the spell graphics are very impressive… nothing like seeing huge flaming spears come down on your head within rvr combat as a runemaster lets fly an area effect spell. Even buffing before a fight can look really cool the first few times you do it. At the end of this year Mythic has announced releasing its first expansion where they are redoing the graphics engine and adding a lot of eye candy to keep the gamer happy while they wander the realms as well as adding a new race to each realm, a new class to each realm and a new area to fight in. There isn’t zoning in this game like there was within EQ… there are zones but you don’t have to zone into them, they bump up next to each other, and though I notice my computer skip a little bit when I cross a zone line it’s not too bad. The only areas you have to zone into specifically are capital city zones and dungeons.

The sounds are redone occasionally if Mythic thinks that even footsteps are too intrusive, but the soundtrack to DAoC is very impressive as well. They’ve even had the music tracks put to CD to buy. I turned my music sounds off shortly after I started playing but that wasn’t because I didn’t like them, it was because I was trying to get rid of the extras I didn’t need going. Symphonic compositions welcome you as you come into the game, enter towns, and add an air or mood to the different regions as you go through them. There are many extra sounds like footsteps, wolves howling in the distance at night when you go through the woods and anything they think will add something while you travel from one place to another. Most sounds are good for what they are intended for, and add a richness to the game that otherwise wouldn’t be there.

Starting up on a normal server :

When you wander into the game first you must pick a server to play upon after you sign up for the monthly fee of course. This can be a trickier process than you'd imagine, because of the fact that the three realms never have contact with each other, and has the choice to defend the realm they pick in the end game of realm vs. realm conflict population imbalance can have a significant influence upon the life of the server. There are servers who have a ratio of 2:1, such as the Lancelot server. If you pick to play in Albion there then you are the majority, the other two realms are hopelessly outnumbered and pvp combat within the frontiers is (from what I hear) terribly one sided. Those on a more balanced server will have a much better time of it within the pvp game. Sometimes you have to research a server before you actually settle there. There’s nothing more frustrating than spending a few months on a character only to find out you are the zerg or will be zerged and have no chance. Mythic of course says they are trying to find a way to help keep the population imbalances to a minimum, and fix the ones already skewed so horribly but it won’t be easy from what I have seen.

There are some players that do an occasional statistical analysis of the data Mythic gives to the players to break down server population and realm population even to help those out that are curious. Mythic has an extensive website set up for the players that show realm status, guild status and other statistics, as well as XML data available that can be parsed to find out weaknesses and strengths of servers or characters. Guild commands and abilities for the guild leader to manage the guild are very impressive with ranks, and promotions available. I ran a guild within DAoC and it was very nicely done, along with being able to buy an emblem to give your guild their own crest for shields and cloaks.

General Information :

To make it within in this game you have to be willing to think out your characters life a little bit and look up what’s available to them. Certain weapons do certain damage and have bonuses against some armor’s, and spell lines can be very involved, because of the training issue most try to find a template that will allow a character to use their best attributes. This means finding websites with spell lines, and style lines, as well as maps, or whatever else you may need to feel comfortable within the game. Learning is not necessarily easy and most people are willing to help out someone who has an honest question… not just looking for a handout. Finding a guild or group to play with can be very helpful in this area.

Each realm has strengths and weaknesses. Each realm looks different, so in a sense you can play all three and feel like you are starting fresh with a new game. Though because of strict guidelines set by Mythic you can only have characters in one realm on one server for a normal server. This is to alleviate spying on other realms, though this does happen. If someone is caught spying or using a 3rd party program to help them within the game then they risk losing everything. On a normal server you cannot converse with other realms at all. If you go to the frontiers or pvp zones, you won’t hear what someone else says but will see only, “Silver says something in a language you don’t understand”. This can be very nice as the trash talking that goes along with pvp doesn’t happen unless you find some message boards somewhere or an IRC channel to harass people on.

The newest thing for DAoC is the opening of two pvp servers. Strict pvp, with no real boundaries except those that the player sets. The boundaries between the realms have been lowered, and you can travel to the others. Nice for me because I can play a Hibernian character and not have to deal with the Hibernian countryside. Drawbacks are many, such as not being able to always do quests or use items from other realms, but if you are adventurous this may be the place for you.

RVR can be very intense, and there’s nothing like doing a relic raid to strengthen your own realm. Relics and keeps are within the frontiers where you fight over territory and items that have bonuses to whatever realm holds them at the time. Though rvr can be very intense it can also be intensely frustrating. With big battles comes big lag, frame rate loss can be so substantial that turning can become a huge problem, let alone casting a spell or actually reaching a foe to hack them down. Most times you have to turn off all spell effects, extra text, and anything else that may help just to keep up with the army as they run through the realms, once fighting starts you just try to do the best you can and not get too frustrated. This has led many players to prefer 8 man beat squads to rvr and those people avoid large groups whenever possible further limiting playtime, or the ability to get groups for the frontiers. To play this game I would recommend having a broadband connection, and a tweaked out computer. I know people who don’t and do fine but I also know that if I can lag in big battles with a cable modem, 2.2ghz processor, and 1gig worth of Ram I’d hate to see what some poor sap who has the minimum spec’s and a 56k connection feels like.

As well rvr up until this point has been very fast. So fast that a battle lasts no time whatsoever and usually the one who gets a sleep spell or mesmerize spell off first is usually the winner. Mythic is looking at this and adding new armor tables, and damage tables to try to alleviate some of the rvr problems but that they are still working on it.

The end game in DAoC can get rather boring after awhile. Content is limited once you reach level 40, they’ve added a new dungeon that is a cross between a frontier zone and an experience zone but that is only available to those who hold the most keeps within the frontier, and risky if someone from another realm finds you. Once you reach level 50 there’s not a whole lot to do besides rvr and after awhile that can get boring too. You can accrue realm points and buy abilities that will make your character stronger so that’s a plus but once you get to 50 it’s a question of… get stronger for what? More rvr? More pointless pve play? There are things for people to do… I am rather tired of the manipulations of the company that runs the game, so leveling a character is difficult for me at the moment.

Mythic can and has in the past destroyed what some characters used to be. Archers were once very powerful in rvr and pvp action, perhaps too powerful but those classes have been knocked down and ‘nerfed’ into a class that is a joke, and hard to find groups for in the pve game as no one thinks they are important. Spell lines or abilities are changed or taken away or added sometimes it seems on a whim from the company who uses excuses like…. “This was never intended to act like this so we are bringing it in line with other characters”, “this is a bug that we never fixed so now 9 months later we are going to take away this ability that you have always had because it’s unfair”. This has caused many people to quit or find a new place to play… and eBay has been getting a rather large influx of characters on their sales block of late. It’s difficult to want to start a new character for fear of what they will take away or do to it after you’ve played it for a month or two and invested heavily with your time after awhile.

DAoC has TONS of potential, and I truly enjoyed some of the time I played. There's still a lot to this game that I barely touched on or didn't cover because of length but this I tried to hit on the major points of the game. I hope they get their act together and can keep it going. I had a lot of fun rvr’ing and still play a little bit but for me I’m moving onto other things for now and waiting for the next big crop of games to hit the shelves at the end of this year.