Dark Age of Camelot Reviewed by Dave Booth Dark Age of Camelot - DAoC - is the newest of the online massively multiplayer RPGs on the scene. The game engine was designed by Mythic, who also host the game's US based servers. Initially it was launched in the States only, a curious trend that it shares with all the other MMORPGs except Anarchy Online which is a Scandinavian developed game. In February a cluster of servers were opened in Europe, based in France and run by the hosting company Goa. That was when I decided to buy the game and give it a run. The game installs cleanly and runs off the bat without a hitch, which should be no surprise but these days it increasingly is, and a pleasant one. It requires DirectX 8.0 which comes bundled on the CD. Once installed, the game launches a browser directing you to the registration site to log your CD key. The default language for the site is French but the presence of three flags is a *big* hint that clicking the relevant flag will display in either French, German or English. Once back in langua franca, the signup process is quick and simple, and soon enough I was presented with the main login screen. Your first option is to select the game server you want to play on. In the European version of DAoC there are three German language servers, two French, and two English. The latter are called Excalibur and Prydwen. Next comes the fun of character creation. The big decisions are which Realm your character will live in, and their profession. The game world consists of three Realms, loosely based on Arthurian times (Albion), Irish mythology (Hibernia) and Norse legend (Midgard). This is the cornerstone of the player versus player interaction, as we'll see later. In a similar fashion to Everquest, you choose the race and profession of your player character. Depending on which Realm you sign up with, you might go with a Dwarven fighter, an Elven mage, a Human archer, or one of a rich variety of combinations. I had read up on the web about character strengths and chose an Albion Briton (Human) who was to train in the ways of the Rogue. Characters have 8 base attributes such as Strength, Constitution, Intelligence and Charisma. A sword-swinger would expect to be strong but not necessarily charismatic, a mage intelligent but frail. The base attributes though are derived from your race. Being a Briton my character was small in build and with equally balanced attributes. You can distribute bonus attribute points at character creation, so for my Rogue Charisma was added to, with a boost to Quickness and Strength, the latter for the melee ability that the character type possesses. Finally, you arrive in the game. Your character starts in the hometown of their Realm, which for Albionians is the city of Camelot. To get you started there is an ingame help feature, invoked by the power of the F1 key. It's pretty good too, though by now I had realised that there is no substitute for RTFM and had boned up on the game basics before character creation. The game is level-based. Upon levelling you receive a number of skill points, spent at the NPC Trainer for your chosen profession. There you can improve your abilities, which will vary by profession, spending skill points. Melee users have a starter weapon, magicians a staff, and archers a bow and arrows. So what better way to get up and running but to go annilihate the local wildlife? I tootled out of town to find something to kill, and was mildly surprised to see the plethora the bugs and dogs that were scattered around the scene. Players too abounded, but not many were stopping to clear up the fauna. As I proceeded with the necessary task of just that, it became clear why. The monsters and animals you encounter have a Level in the same way as you. A kill will grant you experience and loot based on your and your foe's levels, from those opponents much higher than you (good exp and loot) through to those close to your level (decent) to those below (poor). If you are five levels or more above your prey, you get *no* loot or experience. So, all the level 10 and over characters were charging past the puny skeletons and plague spiders that were meat and drink to newbies like me, en route to more vicious beasties. It's a good system for new players in that it enables you to gain valuable exp in your back yard. Of course the monsters don't appreciate it, and will gladly kill you for your insolence. Dying means returning to your 'bind point' for resurrection. The bind point is set by, tada, typing /bind at one of the Bind Stones that are located at major in-game locations - cities typically. Died? Oops. You will lose experience, but not loot, and suffer a hit to your Constitution. Con loss affects your hit points, and is cumulative. So it is important not to loose too much. You can retrieve lost Con by visiting an NPC Healer, who will reverse the loss - for a fee. Experience loss means a slight setback to your level progression, at least at the lower levels. Beating up the city mutts will soon put you back on track. Once you hit level five you have the next big decision to make. At this time your character becomes a specialist in their chosen field. In the case of my Rogue I could choose to become an Infiltrator (strong in hiding, stealthing around, and climbing walls - good for PvP), an Assassin (hide, stealth up to your enemy, poison your weapon and cut their jugular), or a Minstrel (charm monsters, attack with a weapon and direct damage shouts, heal players, and boost run speed for quick escapes). The Minstrel way was my choice. Experience is key to character progression and wandering around killing things that "con" killable (i.e. identify as on or near your level) a valuable source. Other ways of gaining exp are available. NPCs will grant tasks, either a fetch and carry job, a kill quest, or a consignment task. Each character can choose a subsidiary non-combat trade skill at level 10. You might decide to make weapons, or armour, or take up fletching. The nice thing about this is the possibility of making your own items, plus there is a flourishing market for good player-made items, which are always of higher quality and durability than shop-bought ones. Usng a trade skill also opens up the consignment tasks. This is where you make an item and take it to a named NPC, on the request of your trade Trainer. Generally consignment tasks are low on exp, but good cash reward. Kill tasks award good exp and cash at a significant risk to you. FedEx jobs are decent exp, but typically low coin is given. Named NPCs will also dole out Quests to you. These are keyed to your level, and normally involve a measure of travel and exploration, with kills required en route. They reward the adventurer with money, experience, and a nice piece of equipment. The gear you collect is often higher quality than shop-bought and has magical bonuses to boot. It is possible to progress through the low levels at a decent rate by doing tasks and quests and slaying monsters on your own. The game does however reward players who group together in teams. A team of a healer, fighter, wizard, and archer can collectively wreak havoc much faster than they could individually. Separately they can deal damage, take hits, blow up opponents with spells, or pierce them with arrows. Following each kill though each would have to rest to regain endurance or mana, or heal up. Their strengths combined are a different story! The archer attracts the attention of a monster some way off with his bow, then the fighter weighs in with melee attacks, the wizard launches fire or ice bolts, and the healer keeps the fighter's health up. The battle is over more quickly, so downtime for recovery is reduced. The Minstrel's job in such a team is primarily crowd control. Monsters in DAoC only rarely spawn alone, and even then a 'mob' under attack may shout for help, upon which nearby mobs will dash into the fray. The minstrel can then use their mesmerize (mez) song to paralyze the approaching mobs while the damage-dealers finish off the leader. Once the additional attackers have been despatched and the party settles down to rest, his healing and power songs will replenish hit points and mana respectively quicker than normal. Combat in DAoC whilst solo is more complex than other games, due to the range of abilities at your character's disposal and the way that the AI behaves. There's something unnerving about the first time you encounter a Scout mob - they come into detect range, run off, and return with a gang of mates. Or having a mob in combat nearly down to its last sliver of health, only to see "Filidh Sacrificer yells for help!" followed by an influx of its buddies heading your way. Useful therefore to have the backup of a group of your own to combat the incoming hordes. So teaming up, over time yields more experience than solo hunting. Some Quests require dealing with packs of mobs, so a Group becomes even more useful. As an added bonus, if one of the team members is on a Quest and the team achieves it, everyone gets the reward item. For those people with a fear of rain (of which there is a LOT in Albion), there are dungeons to crawl. This is where the powergamers live. My own experience has been exclusively in the great outdoors by preference, but for sheer amounts of exp per hour, the dungeons are the place to go. They have a minimum and maximum level restriction. Combined with the reducing exp granted by monsters below your level, this means that they are not camped full of high-level players farming exp. This illustrates how game design can make a levelling spot work for those that need it. Incidentally, the loot you get from a mob will drop on the ground as it dies. If you need to run off to temporarily escape a pursuing mob helper, and come back a minute later, the loot will still be there. Loot is tagged with the killer's name and can't be collected by another player. The killer is the person who did the most damage to the mob. So there is absolutely no incentive, experience or loot-wise, for kill stealing. Another way Mythic have tried to code 'grief play' out of their game, and very welcome it is too. Indeed in my experience, these controls have brought about a game where players are much more civil than in other MMORPGs I've played. People are more likely by far to help you with buffs, spare cash, or assistance in solving a Quest, where their is nothing to be gained by grief playing. Stealing of kills and loot drops, the bane of other games, is non-existent. Many players join a Guild. Guild membership in and of itself offers nothing, beyond the Guild crest appearing on your cloak. However it's great to be in a Guild with members of similar level, for questing purposes in particular. Still if Guilds are not to your fancy, the game design assists finding players of similar level and location with whom to group. There are a number of command line instructions that help : /who shows all of the player characters of that level online, with their class and location; /who shows the same info on characters in a given place, such as a dungeon. The GUI includes features to help grouping. There's a toggle you can set to show that you do or don't want to join a group. Set it, and your name will appear in a list of soloers wishing to group up in the zone that you are currently in. Of course you can also approach other soloers to team up. Coming from a background of MMORPGs that didn't have grouping, I found this to be a fascinating experience. There was never long to wait to establish a group, or join one, and then we'd head off to a hunting area and spend the next hour or so ploughing down the residents. Regarding Everquest, a game that relies on grouping, I had heard of players spending literally hours camping at spawn spots where rare items dropped. The mob with the drop was slow to spawn - as in 30 minutes or more - and only one person in the group got the item. Imagine a team of six or seven wanting the item! This isn't the case in DAoC thankfully - one mob drop gives the required item to all team members, and a spawn rate of 30 minutes is not so much unlikely as, well, never. Occasionally you'll acquire a kill task or Quest for a denizen of the night, but a DAoC day only takes around 15 minutes end to end. Once your character hits level 20, the tasks are no longer available. There will continue to be Quests, but these alone don't make up for the drop in exp over hour that tasks gave. So you could continue to play solo, but more so than ever the benefit of grouping with other players is important. What you also get at 20 is the ability to kill and be killed by other players. The player-vs-player (pvp) aspect of DAoC is designed into the Realms system. In the Dark Age of Camelot lore, the three Realms are currently at war with each other. Their lands adjoin at the extremities. If you choose to hunt in these Frontier lands there is the likelihood that your encounter with a mob will be cut short by an arrow or backstab from a member of an enemy Realm. Some of your Quests will require you to venture into the Frontiers. Some of the best mobs for experience and loot live out there. You just have to contend with the enemy players! Bring a good group and hold your own against the human-controlled players. Another feature that avoids jerkish play is built into DAoC. In Ultima Online, dying to a player-killer was bad enough. But worse was the high probability that your ghost would be verbally taunted by your assassin, fine if done in a roleplaying fashion, but that was very rare. More often the kool dood killer would be extremely rude and insulting. In DAoC, the inhabitants of the Realms literally cannot understand each other's languages. Whatever an opposing Realm's player says comes over as gibberish to you, so taunts and insults are a waste of time. Good for you Mythic. The Frontier skirmishes are one aspect of RvR (Realm vs Realm). DAoC includes a 'Capture the Flag' feature. Each Realm has two Relics, which are conveniently located in Keeps out in the Frontierlands. Possession of a Relic grants the Realm's inhabitants with boosts to their statistics, and the effect is cumulative. So nicking another Realm's Relics can be lucrative. Nightly, sieges are being undertaken between Realms and large-scale battles fought. This is what lots of people strive for when developing a character, and so power-levelling takes place. In early life a character will be using items donated from a developed character. Then they will move into a dungeon and live there, never seeing the sun rise or set unless leaving to stock up or sell acquired loot. When the character outgrows that dungeon, the player moves on to the next underground exp farm. I can understand the drive to get to RvR, and how it motivates people to play this way. However I prefer to explore the overlands, getting wet (did I say it rains a lot in Albion?) and smelling the proverbial roses. Hard to do though when a Salisbury Giant is bashing you on the head. That's DAoC folks! To finish off, here are some web links to useful DAoC sites. DAoC EU Homepage http://www.camelot-europe.com/en/home.php Camelot Herald : http://www.camelotherald.com Catacombs : http://daoc.catacombs.com Stratics : http://camelot.stratics.com Allakhazam : http://camelot.allakhazam.com/ - o -