The First of it's Type to Get It Right

I find it really tough to review something as large and subjective as a Massively Multi-Player Online Game (MMPOG). The amount of content and potential in a game like this dwarfs almost every other game and genre out there.

I’ve played a few of these. Asheron’s Call, Shattered Galaxy, and now Dark Age of Camelot.

I first started playing in the beta. I’d just quit Asheron’s Call out of boredom, and was looking for something new. I have to hand it to the developers, Mythic, for adding some evolutionary features, while managing to fix problems with other MMPOGs out there.

Like most MMPOGs, buying the game is just the start. There is a monthly subscription fee of $13 US dollars (though your first month is free).

---Overview---
The game is based in medieval times, ten years after King Arthur’s death, with three competing realms to choose from. You have Midgard, the Viking warriors. They focus on battle, not magic. Races include troll, kobold, human and dwarf.

There’s Hibernians are the Celts of Ireland; worshipers of nature, they are comprised of humans, elves, lurikeens and firbolgs. They use more magic, and depend less on their strength in arms.

Finally, there are the Albions (Britons) of King Arthur. Albions races include human, Avalonian, Highlander, and Saracen. The Albions are the middle ground between the magical Celts and the warrior Norsemen.

The game is like many others. You do things that give you experience. As you gain experience, you gain levels, which in turn makes you stronger.

In each realm, you pick a “class” to be part of. For example, in Midgard, you can be a healer (usually a non-combatant that heals, entrances, resurrects dead players, and stuns enemies and monsters), a warrior (a jack-of-all trades with weapons and shields), a bezerker (all offense, no defense, and you when enraged, you turn into a giant bear), a shaman (you have cave magic that enhances the abilities of other players, plus casts damaging spells on the enemy), a runemaster (you cast offensive spells), a shadowblade (an assassin who can creep around unseen, attacking when someone’s back is turned), or a hunter (you wield a bow or a spear, and have a wolf as your companion to help you out).

The Albions and Hibernians have somewhat similar classes, with more emphasis on magic than on fighting.

Mythic, the developer is constantly making small tweaks to each class to try to improve balance. They’ll never get it right, due to the complexity; as a result, there is constant complaining by people who feel that their class was “nerfed” (read: changed for the worse). At any given time, one realm and one class is considered to be the strongest of all. If you decide to investigate the game, keep in mind that this is a constant process, and what’s considered great today, will be nerfed tomorrow.

---Gameplay---

Once you’ve dropped into the world, you need to start interacting with it. Some of that interaction will be passive. You’ll buy and sell items with merchants and other players. You might decide you want to be a weapon/armor/arrow/magic-item crafter, making items for other players. You might just want to hang around and talk to other players. Some if it is active; you might run out into the wild and start slaying monsters, or you might want to perform tasks for the guards and merchants in the game. The options for improving your character are limitless.

---Crafting---

Players can craft items. Not all classes can craft all things. For example, spellcrafting is the making of magical gems that you can then attach to armor and weapons, giving the item magical abilities. Spellcrafting can only be done by pure-casters (players who don’t depend on weapons).

Or you can craft armor, and sell it to players or merchants, or make armor on consignment from the master armorer. Same with weapons, and arrows (fletching).

---Socializing---

This is a very social game. You’ll get farther by working with other people. In addition, there are “role-playing” servers. When you start the game, you pick a server to play on. Some servers are “regular” servers, some are “Player vs. Player” (where players from the same realm can fight each other - more on that later), and some are role-playing. Role-playing servers mean you must talk and act as a medieval character. You can’t talk about football, your car, and so on.

Players can also start a guild. This is an organization of players that have special communication channels, and often group together and form raiding parties. With enough players, you can even take on the mighty dragon!

---Tasks and Quests---

For the first twenty levels, you have the option of asking merchants, guards, and so forth, for tasks. A task might be to deliver something, or it might be to find a specific type of creature and kill it. Each task earns some money and experience. It can be a nice break, and helps you get familiar with the geography and monsters.

---Hunting---

Finally, there is fighting monsters. Most characters do this most of the time. Some creatures are hard, and some are easy. For each level, there is something out there that will be a challenge, but not impossible. When you get close enough to a creature, the name of the creature will appear over its head. The color of the text will indicate how difficult the creature for you to fight. If it is gray, it means that it’s too easy; you’ll get no experience, and no “loot”. If it’s green, it’s probably too easy. If the text is blue, the creature is about right. Yellow is a bit harder, but easily doable (and worth more experience). Orange is hard, but it can be done. Red can’t be done by yourself, and purple means it’s a nasty one. Monsters can be found wandering the woods or plains, and they can be found in massive dungeons that seem to twist and turn forever. Where you play is up to you.

In order to fight the tougher creatures, Dark Age of Camelot (DAoC) has created a great facility for people to group together. You can advertise that you are looking for a group, you can find other people that want to be in a group, and you can join an existing group. Groups are the safest, fastest way, to gain experience and make your character stronger. They add that great social component to the game, and change the game every time you sit down to play.

Along the way, your character will die. In fact, it will happen a lot. One of two things will happen. One is that a healer or shaman will be close, and they will resurrect your character. The other is that you’ll have to “release”.

Your character is capable of “binding” in many locations in the game. When you’ve died, and you have to release, your character is returned to that spot. You’ve probably lost some experience due to the death, and you’ll have “Resurrection Sickness” which weakens you for a bit. At the location where you’ve died is a tombstone; if you go back and pray, you’ll get some of the lost experience back.

Every time you gain a level, your character receives specialization points. These force you to decide which abilities you want to improve, and those that you don’t. A warrior might decide to focus on the sword and shield only. Another might decide to spread points around to axes, hammers, and throw weapons. Your decision will affect what your character is able and unable to do.

When you hit a certain level, your trainer will tell you to head to the capital city; there, you will start your epic. Each class has an epic. Every five or so levels, you’ll be given a new task to complete that will take you closer to completing the epic. The reward at the end (level 50) is usually quite good.

All the game play I’ve described to this point is Player vs Environment (PvE).

There is another type of game play, called RvR (Realm vs Realm). For most people, this is where it gets really exciting.

Between the three realms of Midgard, Hibernia, and Albion, there are borderlands with castles. Players from each realm can be found running around in their own borderlands. Sometimes, players from one realm will leave their borderlands and go into the borderlands of another realm. Each person they encounter from an enemy realm will speak in a foreign language. And there is almost always a fight.

If a realm can get a large army together, they can invade the borderlands, attack enemy castles, overwhelm the guards, and claim the castles for your realm. Frequently one realm will “own” conquered castles in an enemy realm.

Some castles have special relics of power; each realm has two. If you can conquer the keep with an enemy relic, and then take the relic back to one of your realm’s relic keeps, then everyone in your realm gets stronger, and everyone in the realm where the relic came from gets weaker.

The complexity here is not overwhelming, but it’s too much to go on any longer.

Note that if you play on a Player vs. Player server, then the option of fighting other players is always there. In addition, two players of the same realm can duel, regardless of what type of server they are on. The loser re-appears a moment later, with no loss of experience or resurrection sickness.

---What Makes it Different--

There are several MMPOGs out there, and more coming out every month. Each MMPOG has different features, and emphasizes different things.

But these sorts of games are still in their infancy. Each new game tries to do something better than the next. Sometimes they fail, sometimes they don’t.

Dark Age of Camelot is much more complex and enjoyable than Asheron’s Call. I’ve never played Everquest or Ultima Online, but people that have that I’ve talked to claimed to enjoy Dark Age of Camelot more. I can’t say. Who has the time or money to play each of these games that come along?

What I find appealing is the social context that you can create with groups and guilds, and how working together is always more successful than going it alone.

The hardware requirements are somewhat steep, though you can turn down the graphics. The quality of the graphics is very good. The music is great, and changes to match the situation.

Lag with these types of games is always an issue. I have a DSL connection, and it's been over five years since I've used dialup, so I can't really say how a dialup connection will affect the game play, but in general lag has been minimal to no-existant, and the servers are quite stable.

Overall, it’s a time sink, and it costs $13 every month for the subscription, but it’s better than watching television.