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I had an avid mythology craving for many years. I’ve read many books on Celtic folklore, Norse mythology, and Arthurian legend. I am fond of pagan lore and I’ve read just about every book on King Arthur that I could find. I even owned shops at a Renaissance Fairs. Where was this gaming technology in the 1990’s when I was still into all that? Apparently it was a MUD that grew up and became a highly acclaimed MMORPG.
Dark Age of Camelot (DAoC) was originally released on Oct 10, 2001 and instantly had a devoted following. It launched supposedly without a hitch which was a tremendous feat in it’s day. Much of it is handled slightly differently than in other MMORPGs but the heavily borrowed earmarks from the MMORPG’s of it’s time are there, which were Asheron’s Call, Ultima Online and Everquest. It shows in it’s gameplay underpinnings. I received two boxes from Mythic. The first was the DAoC Platinum Edition. It includes a free 30 day subscription. After that it costs a rather pricey $14.95 each month to play, and it also requires a credit card to join. They do not accept PayPal either.
I also go the box for DAoC Catacombs which is the latest expansion for the series. The packaging is handsome with knotwork and metal tone box art. Inside I found many disks and booklets. The installation process was long and set up for the six disk install took 90 minutes. At first I took it to a friend’s computer to try it out, but it does not run on Windows 2000. To start with - this isn’t just a game it’s an occupation. Everything about it takes lots and lots of time to do. It is not a quick and easy console game. But herein lies the strengths of this title. Obviously this game is an ongoing labor of love. It gives me the impression that lots of time and effort was put into it on the part of the developers.
The DAoC scenario begins after the death of King Arthur. The land of Albion which is the home of Camelot is besieged by raiding parties from two other countries within the game. Hibernia is based loosely on Celtic folklore and Midgard is a cold icy realm derrived from Norse myth. All three realms have different races that inhabit them. Unique to DAoC at the time was the twist of “realm vs. realm” combat. At the beginning of the game you have to make an irrevocable choice of which realm that your character will be born into. Once you create your character you are bound by fealty to king and country.
For instance in the anglo inspired Albion races are Humanoid. Regional cultures exist within Albion from different areas of the realm. There are Britons living in and around Camelot, Highlanders from the hills and even Saracens from the desert. I chose to be an Avalonian because of a long ago held desire to be one of the inhabitants of the mysterious isle of Avalon. Hell I even have a Lady of the Lake tattoo. I can only describe my first tour of virtual Avalon as an online homecoming.
Midgard has a diverse batch of races to choose from such as Norsemen, Dwarves, Trolls, and small blue Kobalds. Hibernia has Elves, Celts, giant Firbolgs, and tiny Lurikeen. It is all plausible under the rules of fairy-tales. The setting itself is almost educational in that many mythology books have been digested and come to life on screen. That is the main strength of this game and I believe why it has such a strong fan base.
I have to take a moment to talk about elves. I am bloody sick to death of elves. I am giving any game that has elves an automatic - .5 for having them ingame. The mythological existence of elves is mentioned in several books where they are referred to as ‘alfar’ or ‘alf’. J.R.R. Tolkien himself was a mythologist and derrived his high elves from the mythological literature of the British Isles. I wonder how well DAoC is going to do with more popular elvish titles like The Lord of the Rings and Dungeons and Dragons MMORPG’s running. Will there be a mass exodus by members to embrace games that have the name recognition that these powerhouse franchises do? Only time will tell.
For DAoC time is both a blessing and a curse. I always choose magic users and female characters when I am gaming. These tend to be the weakest and hardest type of gender and class to level up with. When will game developers stop making fem characters weaker than males? It just isn’t true. Plenty of women are as strong as their boyfriends or husbands. It might have been true that women were the fairer sex back in 1955, but it isn’t so in 2005. Get with the program guys. In this game that was the case.
At level one in Albion targets consisted of small snakes, wolf pups (no way I’m killing those) spirit dogs (nope not gonna kill them either) and plague spiders, (I hate dead bugs). Normally in games I evade or flee from spiders because I just don’t want to deal with them. Throughout Diablo / Baldurs Gate I managed to keep them at bay by hurling fire and lightening spells that kept the creepy crawlies at a distance and provided a satisfying barbecue. But in DAoC I was not so lucky. My neophyte elementalist/wizard was only supplied with some very wimpy cold based frost spells. Turning spiders into a frosty is just not my idea of fun.
The first four and half hours of gameplay were spent with repetitive running back and forth and swimming because of lousy directions given by guards who merely pointed quickly rather than giving detailed instructions about where to go. I had to repeat the tutorial quests over and over again because the tasks would not stay in the the task journal if I got killed, lost, or logged off by the server. I would have to return to the same NPC to get the instructions over and over.
On my second day I played from 10AM until 8PM. Yes I did take breaks for meals and to walk my dogs. I killed many of the small snakes and somehow acquired level 2. Huzzah! I picked up several items and sold them. I decided to travel and see as much of Albion as I could. I entered the Catacombs and was killed instantly. I decided to try that when I leveled up a little more. About eight hours into the game I finally discovered something that was totally awesome. Avalon. The Apple Isle, it was like walking into The Mists of Avalon by Marion Zimmer Bradley. The book, not the movie. There were apple trees and willows and cattails down by the water. Dragonflies zoomed about daintily. I was of two minds about killing those, but since DAoC offered many realistic animal pests to slay rather than monsters I had to kill a few of them.
I was negotiating with a merchant when suddenly from behind I was killed by something called a ‘nuisance’. Which was indeed a nuisance, I don’t see the fun in having a merchant screen open in front of you and getting killed from behind by something that you can’t even see. Later as I took up my staff and began my walking tour of Avalon I got dead again from something else I never saw that is called called a ’slime’ or was it an ‘ooze’ ? :Sigh: I do dearly want to love this game…
On the third day I had a good time. At last! After the arduous install and the annoying first several *days* things began to look up. I managed to kill some sea pups which were only moderately cute. Damnit I can’t kill enemies if they look so darn cutsey. Later the ‘monsters’ were black bears. How the heck do they expect me to kill those? I was fascinated by the ‘corpse flares’ and water elementals - which immediately killed me of course. I even got killed by the Fairy Queen Tatiana! Hmmn… when the highlight of my day is the excitement of what creatures murdered my unsuspecting character - something is wrong. I think I picked the wrong profession for this title. Maybe the warrior classes have better luck.
On day four I tried the task master again and put up with the lagging interface and the repetitious instructions. I got lousy directions “go to caves in the southwest”. Yeah well, I went to all the wrong caves, and you guessed it - got dead some more. Finally I found the correct caves and was immediately dispatched by some tiny brownies. This dungeon was what is referred to as instanced which means that it is actually in single player mode so that you can level up in there. In theory.
I enjoyed the interiors of the spooky caves and eventually the Catacombs too. On the fifth day I reached level 5 which was some relief. I began to die a little less often. I had started to feel like I was Hyatt the perpetually dying Martian woman from the animé Excel Saga! I killed the troglodytes and dispatched some heretical followers of Pluto in the Catacombs beneath Camelot. (After getting repeatedly stuck in the walls between maps.) I admired standing stones and watched ships set sail. I stood in the rain and I watched the magnificent sunset and moon rise. I managed to log off alive for change.
On the sixth day I discovered that the core group of DAoC gamers are caring and helpful individuals - to a fault. “Hey if I want a spell cast on my character I will ask for it!” Some would do so even though I said no. Goddess save me from well meaning wizards and humanitarian healers. “I’m trying to do research here I don’t want help.” I matriculated as a Wizard and decided to take a celebratory vacation tour on horseback to Snowdonia. The scenery whizzing by looked amazing. I was on a spiritual quest the likes of which I had only experienced by listening to Led Zeppelin while wearing headphones… Then the broadband connection sneezed, the server burped and my horse disappeared leaving me in the middle of no where. Yep, I got killed by a pack of pissed off Undead. I have a -15% low standing with the Undead since the ‘Soggy Corpses’ weren’t too cute to kill.
The Catacombs expansion pack included new facial graphics for existing players. In addition it added a vast acreage of spooky tunnels to explore. The eerie sounds echo menacingly in these caverns giving the game a dark side that isn’t found above ground. I didn’t mind annihilating any creatures I found below stairs. Five new classes were added to Dark Age of Camelot: Catacombs. Each realm got a new class, while Hibernia and Midgard each got an extra bonus class (to encourage players to create a new Catacombs character in a Realm other than Albion). There’s storyline for why each of the game’s three realms has new dungeon content. Catacombs features instanced play for the first time in Dark Age of Camelot. Groups will be guaranteed access to dungeons without other players. All of DAoC’s existing dungeons are got a graphical upgrade with this expansion also.
This is the game for those of us who have whined that “there aren’t enough games for older players”. If you want to test your acquired skills and match wits against other players you can do so in the PvP mode. It’s a plus that you can use your built up character in either game mode. For variety you can stay in your own home realm and hunt, or dungeon crawl, or even make armor. You have options. It plays like an RPG in the towns, and you can live a fairly non violent life there if you wish.
Death is always a difficulty. MMORPG developers obviously believe that you have to have some penalty when you die for impact. Just how much impact is the $100.00 question. In DAoC when you die you go back to a “bind” point which is a resurrection point, but not a true save point. Then you have to travel back to where you died and find a gravestone there. Then, you pray to regain a portion of the experience that you because of death. You also are penalized by a Constitution (HP) Penalty, and you have to visit an NPC healer too. Death is tedious. It’s repetitive if you are a fledgling Wizard that tends to die often. This aspect of the game is aggravating, especially since it is done so much more fluently in more up to date games :cough: Guild Wars :cough:.
In the past one of the chief complaints from the original EverQuest players was the amount of downtime spent resting or meditating to recover hit points and mana. In DAoC if you do have to sit, it takes only a few minutes. You don’t have to stare at a spellbook like the magic users in EverQuest did. In EverQuest you had to use a skill called ‘Sense Heading’ or buy a compass, which wasn’t affordable for low level players. The Sense Heading idea wasn’t a practical one, it’s virtually unusable. Complaints from EQ players having a hard time finding their way led to adding a compass in DAoC. No wonder why it was so well received back then. In DAoC there is an option to add your name to a list of players looking to join a group. You click a checkbox that indicates what level and class you are and is there for anyone to see who’s looking to form a group. You can also click ‘not looking’ but that doesn’t guarantee that you won’t have male players following you around.
DAoC has won several awards and kudos of all kinds. All well deserved I am sure. It has a rabid fan base (don’t hate me this is a good review you guys.) The support site http://www.camelotherald.com has also won awards. Mythic Entertainment regularly holds two major Roundtable events each year. One on the East Coast and one on the West. That sounds like a party I’d like to go to sometime.
This is a good game even though it’s fourth anniversary is coming. It is a great game if you enjoy historical reenactments. And if you like to read. And read, and read. There are several booklets included, and forums and tutorials galore. There is almost too much information to take in. “How the heck do I attack? Or quit?” I found myself saying out loud. Sometimes in the effort to create excellence a game can suffer from a lack of simplicity. But I’m not complaining. It’s just like a Ren Faire if you want to be there - there is a certain amount of fustiness that you have to put up with.
The music is beautiful and symphonic. The graphics are clever and are designed to make you feel like you have stumbled into an authentic recreation of pre Christian Europe which is delightful. It is a romantic game with finely crafted adherence to it’s mythological roots. But as Mordred came and destroyed Camelot I wonder what the destiny will be for DAoC, as new MMORPG’s dawn on the horizon with easier installs, quicker level ups and more exciting gameplay? As I learned from one of those infernal disappearing elves - easier is not always better.
I give this game a solid 8 out of ten for two reasons. Since the eight is the cosmic leminiscate or infinity symbol I convey it in hopes that this game will persist and be around for a long time to come. And because I had to deduct .5 for well, you know.
Are the outfits of the fem characters cool? No not really. I like wearing revealing sexy costumes as much as any guy does. (hah ha we girls know that men play as fem characters!) But the outfits have to look like they are functional too. Since this game seems to put historical accuracy above other considerations you won’t see thongs and bra tops.
G-V Replay Factor (Replayability): Very good, virtually endless gameplay
Girls Point of View (Graphics): Good. Mythologically accurate.
Girl Power (Are girls going to want to play it?) Yes. This is a serene place to play, it isn’t overpopulated. Gamers stay in character for the most part and there is no trash talking. A polite world.
Purse (Value for money) : Reasonable. US $19.99 DAoC Platinum comes with Dark Age of Camelot: Shrouded Isles
Dark Age of Camelot: Trials of Atlantis Dark Age of Camelot: Catacombs $19.99 Monthly fee Pricey $14.95
System Requirements:
PIII 1ghz; 256mb RAM or higher; 32mb 3D accelerated video card; DirectX 8.0 or above required. Supported Operating Systems:Windows 98/98SE/ME/XP (Windows 2000 is not supported, but Camelot MAY run without incident on systems running it.);Internet connection and monthly fee required
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