Dark Age of Camelot for Windows

Where to start with this game? It seemed to have a lot of promise when I first started playing it. Lots of nice things that were handled so well made it a lot of fun to play despite some of the problems. But the more I played the more the problems stood out until I finally just couldn?t stand the thought of even loading the game again. I gave it three months but finally had to cancel my account or shoot myself.

I?ll start with some of the big pluses to the game that made it really stand out coming in to play from Asheron?s Call, aka AC. First and biggest in my book was that macros are not allowed. Macros are programs that play your
character for you so you can have your character earn experience and level while you aren?t even at the computer. The game is designed to make it very hard to macro anyway but even if you come up with a way to do it you?ll be shut down. It is NOT allowed.

The next big thing would have to be grief play of all kinds. Griefers are people that play these types of games just to try to ruin the fun of other people playing in any way they can. Grief play is pretty much standard fare in AC so coming to DAoC was a breath of fresh air. Some examples of grief play that DAoC is hard on include offensive character names, kill stealing, loot stealing, and abusive language. Mythic takes a hard line on this type of stuff. Some types of grief play, loot stealing to name one, are impossible because of the way the game is designed. Other things, offensive names or kill stealing, can be done but at least up to the time I quit playing Mythic did a VERY good job of handling complaints of those types.

One thing that was important to a lot of people, but not so much to me, is that there are even role-playing only
servers. For instance not only must a name not be offensive it must even fit into the context of the game. You won?t find Darth Jason or Killa Bee in Camelot. All public chat must fit in as well. You won?t see Urmommaluvsme talking about his pokemon collection or how kewl his new star wars shorts his mother bought him are.

One last thing I?ll mention with a little detail that?s good is that the game is designed to make ?twinking? very hard. Twinking is when high level characters do things that give what is usually considered unfair advantages to low level players. Giving them really high level weapons or armor is one example. Casting high level magic spells on them or on monsters is another. Game design makes this fairly ineffective in DAoC. Armor and weapons are level sensitive and if low level characters try to use high level items they won?t work very well and they?ll end up breaking in fairly short order. Because of how monster levels and player levels compare even casting high level spells for newbies typically won?t let them kill things that are much higher level than they are anyway so nothing to be gained there either. It does make it hard on experienced players that start new characters but it?s a price I was willing to pay and I?m one of those people that are always starting new characters just to try out different things.

A few quick mentions of good things include graphics and sound which are very good for this type of game. There
are usable trade skills. There?s a large number of quests for all character types. Some are harder than others but you CAN play solo with any character class.

Now to the dark side of the dark age. Biggest in my opinion is the camping. Camping in this type game is when
people sit in one spot or stay in one very small area killing the same monster or monsters over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over as they spawn. In some games, AC for instance, camping is a choice that the very lazy player makes. In DAoC it?s something you really don?t have very much choice in. The
land area is very small meaning there?s not that many places for stuff to spawn in to start with. Then when you have to keep monsters of much different level in different areas just adds to the problem. Then add on top of that that you only have 50 levels for characters. It means there are going to be certain areas that have monsters that players of a narrow level range can kill. So all the characters of this level range are going to be in those few areas. It can make for some pretty packed areas even at off times.

Another game killer, at least for me, is that there?s nothing new to do after you reach higher levels. You have two choices ever in the game. One is that you kill monsters for loot and experience. You can only go to level 50 anyway so after a while there?s no reason to kill monsters. Your other choice is to do what Mythic calls RvR, or Realm vs Realm. There are three realms you can play in in DAoC and they are all at war with each other. This is player vs player. It will be groups of players fighting other groups of players. This just isn?t much fun. You don?t get experience so you can?t level, assuming you aren?t level 50 already, and you don?t get money or loot. You have these big free for alls where the only thing that matters is having the biggest group of the highest level players you can get together.

The last thing I?ll mention isn?t as bad as the other two already covered but it?s still pretty bad. The game pace is really really really really S L O W. It?s just horrible if you solo. You fight one monster at a time and then you sit and rest for up to a couple of minutes and then you do it again. In groups it?s better but coming from AC it?s still just awful. I assume that?s linked to only being able to go to level 50.

There are other things of lesser importance that I could cover but these are the big things in my opinion. As I said, there?s a lot of things that Mythic did right but the wrong just kept getting to me more and more over time. If you like a fast paced game with lots of action and exploring this game is NOT for you. If you don?t mind sitting around a lot and camping all the time maybe you?ll like it.