The Concept

Developer: Mythic Entertainment
Publisher: Vivendi Universal Publishing
DAoC official page: http://www.darkageofcamelot.com/

Refining the genre

There have been many MMORPGs released, but none is more popular now than EverQuest. Despite its faults, EQ has the largest player base in the US even with the release of Anarchy Online and Dark Age of Camelot.

Anarchy Online tried to chip away at EQ's player base by offering something vastly different - a futuristic setting and an established player vs. player conflict. Unfortunately, a multitude of bugs seriously hampered its release and the game is still recovering from the initial disaster.

Dark Age of Camelot seems to be taking another tack at beating EverQuest - by outdoing it at what it does best (no, not camping!). Any gamer who has even a few days of experience with EverQuest will feel quite at home with Dark Age. The faction system, the way classes, races and combat work are all clearly inspired by EQ.

However, while similar to EQ, Dark Age of Camelot takes great pains to address that game's faults. The player vs. player combat system is totally revamped, as players now fight in distinct and very clear teams. The Realm in which the gamer created his character decides his team. On every server, there are three Realms - Hibernia, Albion and Midgard. Hibernia is a land that focuses on magic and is comprised mainly of elves. Albion is balanced between magic and martial arts and is predominantly human. Midgard contains races with a clear melee focus, like Dwarves and Trolls but still has its fair share of magic. No communication is possible between members of any two different Realms, and the characters can only be of one Realm per server. This ensures that there will be no cross-teaming issues, as on EverQuest's Race War server.

Welcome to Camelot

Magic seems intriguing

No groups close enough in level to me

Indeed

The way that skills are set up is quite different from EverQuest. The player does not have to worry about basic skills such as swimming, meditate or dual-wield. Skills cannot be built up through practice. To get better at a skill, points must be expended on it. The character gains these points every level and can go to a trainer to spend them. Then there are abilities, which are often skills inherent in a class but they work more like spells. Melee character abilities appear when the character has reached a certain skill level. No other training or practice is necessary. The use of abilities drains stamina from a warrior, just as spells drain mana from a spellcaster.

Mythic Entertainment is trying to improve upon trade skills as well - making them more useful and logical. Characters can only create equipment that they themselves use, so if a Thaumaturgist is selling plate armor, he sure as heck did not make it himself.

Camping, questing and quest-camping problems are on the chopping block as well. Quests have a measure of randomness involved to keep players from competing for the same item or NPC. Monster spawning grounds and rates are quite rich and there are multiple spawn points per monster per area. Some are designed with groups in mind, others cater to solo players or pairs. Camping will always be around since players will find their favorite hunting grounds, but the abundance of prey and the quest system eliminate the most glaring problems with campers.