MMORPGDot Feature: Dark Age of Camelot Review

Sounds like fun

I always hate commenting on sound and music in mmorpg's. Somehow they're never pleasing enough to me. To this day there is only one mmorpg I ever played in which I didn't turn the music down, and DAoC certainly isn't it. It's not bad, mind you. But it's only good for the first few sessions of play. After a week you'll be bored of it, and will be looking for the option to switch it off completely.

Shrouded Isles added a few nice background music elements which add to the atmosphere in some regions, but again it's not something that you'll notice very much, and will most likely forget very soon. Music is not an integral part of an mmorpg as far as I'm concerned since it becomes too repetitive too quickly. When you spend dozens of hours each week on the same game for months, music often ends up being disturbing.

Sounds in DAoC are a standard fare of hack, slash, and gasps of death. All of them are of quality, although none of them really stand out. There are many ambient sounds during the day and night cycles so as not to make you feel like you're living in an empty world. What I especially like in DAoC is the combat sounds. The swords satisfyingly make nice swoosh sounds before landing a definitive hit with a good smack. You don't need to look at the message box to see if your swing landed or not, you could close your eyes and know it instantly. The spell sounds are equally satisfying, if only slightly lacking the impact sounds that melee weapons have.

If it ain't broke…

By now DAoC is a standard in gaming. It has nothing out of the ordinary, nothing surprising to offer gamers. But as classic as this game might be, the gameplay remains solid, and above much of what is being made today, even among some of the newer titles that came out after it. As the player's character acquires experience and levels, his array of tools to fight with will expand, and by the end he will have a plethora of spells and skills to use during combat, whereas he started with only a handful of limited options at the onset.

The interface is well laid out and very intuitive. Shrouded Isles adds a new interface skin without changing the layout too much. Since it's almost completely customizable, down to the key-map configuration, DAoC is a very adaptable game, and the interface certainly doesn't hinder the player, or make the learning curve too steep. Everything the player needs to see is available in different windows that can be hidden or left up on the screen, and each window can be set to a specific transparency level to suit the player's taste.

Hunt for the red hot group

In general DAoC's community is quite friendly, and ready to help whenever a player needs it. That certainly is a plus when a game forces you to group as much as DAoC does in higher levels. But friendly people don't necessarily equate to good players. Grouping can be fun and intense, or utterly frustrating. The line between the two is thin indeed. The problem with DAoC is that by later levels you need a good group to be able to advance. That is probably where guilds come in. Guilds offer various benefits from a pool of reliable friends to group with, to a source of income for those who prefer to concentrate on trade skills. Still, it's not always easy to find a group of good people, and being part of a guild is no insurance of trust. Many times you might be adventuring with a few friends that are reliable enough, only to log on a few nights later and find out that they are now 10 levels over your own and don't want to tag you along. And by then you have to find new friends to group with, whether they be within the guild, or outside of it. This is a very frustrating aspect of DAoC that still gives me nightmares to this day. But when the group does work it can be very fulfilling, and a very fun experience. When everyone understand their roles, and play them well, a good full group (8 players) can take on tough opponents that will make the experience worthwhile for everyone.

On the other hand grouping in RvR is little more than what you would experience by calling a taxi on Broadway. Oh, sure group balance is somewhat important in RvR, but it's not that critical for the simple reason that people get scattered all over the place during battles. Unless you, and everyone else around follow one person's lead to the letter (which doesn't happen very often), you will find out that the only reason a group will be good or not for you is whether they have someone capable of casting speed spells to make you go faster. In fact, many high level players hang around the frontier keeps asking for a "lift" to the battle, and leaving the group as soon as they get at their destination. Having someone who can resurrect is a good thing though since they can easily track you down through group chat. The whole matter is a little different when planning strike groups, or raiding parties to try and take an enemy keep. In those specific instances, it's good to be surrounded by a well organized team, or many of them.

Honour in Death for your Realm

PvP is where DAoC really shines, even though the consequences for dying in those circumstances are all but eliminated. Dying to a Realm enemy means that you'll get the usual death sickness for a few minutes. That's it. Contrary to death from an NPC or mob, there is no experience loss, and no attribute loss. Nothing. While this can be regarded as "cheap" by some of the more hardcore fans of PvP and perma-death, it in fact encourages everyone to participate, even those that generally don't enjoy PvP as much since they have absolutely nothing to lose in trying it once in a while. And it also helps turn the usual PvP into truly epic battles between large groups. While out defending one of your Realm's keeps from enemy intrusion, it's not uncommon to find a battlefield filled with hundreds of players. And the adrenaline rush a player might experience when that happens is undeniable, and something I haven't quite found again in any other game yet. Here too the Shrouded Isles expansion greatly helps since the graphic engine was drastically improved to permit a smooth frame rate while there are dozens of players on the screen at the same time.

RvR can be hectic at times, it's even chaotic in most cases, but it's the most fun the game has to offer. And a nice distraction too. Because, let's face it, there's only so much mindless fighting and grinding one can do before he gets bored. The only real problem, again, is that you have to be fairly high level (40 or above) before you can really start enjoying it. The battlegrounds are nice to wet your feet in, but they're really not even close to what the real RvR frontiers have to offer on most servers.

Mythic does a good job in tracking the progress of the Realm Wars for every server on their now famous Herald web page. In fact, Mythic is at the forefront of quality player feedback. No other developer is as open with their player base as they are, giving regular updates regarding upcoming patches and changes, however major or even minor they may be.

Is it good or not?

It's not hard to say whether DAoC is worth the money or not. It is, for numerous reasons. It's a PvP game that allows those who hate it to leave it aside without affecting the other players who actually do. It's a great class-based game if there ever was one, with plenty of different classes, and new abilities to discover as the player moves up the experience level ladder. It's graphics are decent enough to still be competitive with more recent titles (if you have the Shrouded Isles expansion), and the interface is adaptable to any player's tastes.

The problem with DAoC is the problem of all earlier generation mmorpg's: the way that character advancement is handled is inadequate by today's standards. There is nothing in the way of freedom here. Characters are rigidly cast into a role, and although you have the freedom to choose where you spend your ability points at every level, there's really not enough options to call it an open-ended system. And open-ended character development is exactly what the genre needs at this point. In a genre that attempts to convince players that they should stick to the same game for years, a system that is as rigid as this is questionable.

Players still have a few interrogations as well. DAoC might be nearly 3 years old, it's still having problems with balancing some classes. And while once upon a time their Team-Leads program (positions held by players on a voluntary basis) was hailed as the best thing since toasted bread, it has fallen into questionable practices in the last few months as some of the more experienced TL's left the program altogether for various reasons. Some might say that Mythic communicates their ideas well, but don't listen to their player-base as much as they should.

Despite all this DAoC shines. It doesn't try to be the game that it could, or should be. It rather assumes its own strengths well and help the players enjoy whatever it has to offer. But it's not for everyone. Some people looking for a game to brake their addiction to another game (EQ, UO, AO, etc.) might find that there is just more of the same here. The main attraction of DAoC, if you're a fan of this type of play, is in the Realm Wars (RvR). And a great attraction it is too! Only to enjoy it to its fullest a player needs to patiently climb a rather steep, and sometimes defying ladder. Many players will give up before they even get there, and that's a shame because PvP is the one thing that DAoC really does best.

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