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Do you Remember Dark Age of Camelot?
Lucky Cynic
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
I am Sure you all remember Dark Age of Camelot, yes? Been 5 years released and still going strong, imo, but is highly underrated especially with many of the changes they have implemented in about the last major patch or two. Of course for those of you guys who don't know, the Story of Dark Age of Camelot is pretty simple. King Arthur died and now Albion, his home realm, Midgard, the Norse and vikings, and the Celts and Elves in Hibernia are all at war going ape shit for each other's relics which actually do give a bonus to your character if your realm has them. The PvP in DAoC, or RvR (Realm versus Realm) is of high quality and the class balancing isn't perfect but you shouldn't have a problem if you are in a well balanced group.
Besides RvR, DAoC features the 3 main realms, 16 races to play, 45 classes, and plenty of raiding, soloing, and questing to do, not to mention of the many places to PvP. Those including are the Demon filled hell of Darkness Falls, Celestius, The New frontiers, and of course, the latest zone, the Labyrinth of the Minotaur which is advertised as the dungeon in any MMO and RvR in it is glorious.
Quick rundown of the game:
Albion has the Armsman, Cabalist, Cleric, Friar, Infiltrator, Mercenary, Minstrel, Necromancer, Paladin, Reaver, Scout, Sorcerer, Theurgist, Wizard, Heretic, and the Mauler.
Hibernia has the Animist, Bard, Blademaster, Champion, Eldritch, Hero, Mentalist, Nightshade, Ranger, Valewalker, Warden, Bainshee, Vampiir, and the Mauler.
Midgard has the Berserker, Bonedancer, Healer, Hunter, Runemaster, Savage, Shadowblade, Shaman, Skald, Spiritmaster, Thane, Warrior, Valkyrie, Warlock and also has the Mauler.
For the Races, just browse here. Just don't forget they just recently added the Minotaur as a playable race to all the realms.
Now for the Expansions:
First, there was Shrouded Isles which introduced 3 new mainland like islands to the existing game and 2 new classes and a single race for every realm. This Expansion is now free.
Next came the Trials of Atlantis which introduced more races and classes but also introduced the heart of the raiding in the game for Artifacts and Master Levels which are several hour long raids but grant new abilities and summons and while they were frustrating, Mythic has revamped and changed them to be more streamlined. A lot of players though hated ToA because it made the casters too powerful and too quick, especially with all of the Master Levels toys, so Mythic made the "Classic" servers which skip the Trials of Atlantis races, classes, zones, and abilities. This Expansion is also now free.
Then came foundations, the first free expansion pack for Dark Age of Camelot, which gave players the ability to set up merchants and housing and it streamlined trading. The houses are pretty boring actually, but they do serve their purposes.
Next came the New Frontiers which to some, kind of ruined the game because it removed the popular play style of one zone in Hibernia, Emain Macha but Mythic has replicated the old pre-New frontiers zone on a new island, Agramon. New frontiers tweaked the siege weapons in the game and made it a whole hell alot better, as well as added better keeps and towers to loot and destroy. This expansion is also now free.
After which, came Catacombs which introduced another class to each of the realms, added instanced and task dungeons, and also many underground zones and bosses. Not only though, Catacombs was the first step that Mythic took towards revamping the graphics in the game which at that time, were the same as 2001. Here are a handful of Before and After screens:
Also: Now Catacombs is also free.
Next after that, Darkness Rising, which redid the popular Darkness Falls dungeon, introduced the Champion Levels which take your character past Level 50 and grant them the ability to train in a sub spec from another class. Also introduced, various Steeds that can be customized with their own armor and barding, as well as Champion weapons which are some of the most powerful weapons in the game. Cost of this Expansion pack is a meager $20 stand-alone or only $30 total when combined with the Labyrinth Expansion.
The latest Expansion pack is the Labyrinth of the Minotaur and features one of the largest dungeons in an MMORPG period. It also features the Minotaur race which is available to all 3 realms but each is assigned a different tribe of the minotaur. Also, the Mauler class is shared among the 3 realms. The labyrinth also includes the ability to get 5 more champion levels, making it to a max. total of 10. Also there are more mounts and unlockables available. This isn't the best part though. The Labyrinth is an RvR zone and within it, has Minotaur relics that put up an icon as to where you are, and put like a pillar of light on top of your character, essentially acting like a huge ass target, they offer nifty little bonuses and add a little something more to the game play. These relics however are timed and you must participate in RvR to get them to last a bit longer but even then, they don't last anything more than maybe 20min or so, but it all depends. Just a cool little twist to the game play.
Also: new Labrinyth Video, for those of you who haven't gotten it yet.
http://darkageofcamelot.com/lotm/video/files/LotM_teaser.html
Hibernia has the Animist, Bard, Blademaster, Champion, Eldritch, Hero, Mentalist, Nightshade, Ranger, Valewalker, Warden, Bainshee, Vampiir, and the Mauler.
Midgard has the Berserker, Bonedancer, Healer, Hunter, Runemaster, Savage, Shadowblade, Shaman, Skald, Spiritmaster, Thane, Warrior, Valkyrie, Warlock and also has the Mauler.
For the Races, just browse here. Just don't forget they just recently added the Minotaur as a playable race to all the realms.
Now for the Expansions:
First, there was Shrouded Isles which introduced 3 new mainland like islands to the existing game and 2 new classes and a single race for every realm. This Expansion is now free.
Next came the Trials of Atlantis which introduced more races and classes but also introduced the heart of the raiding in the game for Artifacts and Master Levels which are several hour long raids but grant new abilities and summons and while they were frustrating, Mythic has revamped and changed them to be more streamlined. A lot of players though hated ToA because it made the casters too powerful and too quick, especially with all of the Master Levels toys, so Mythic made the "Classic" servers which skip the Trials of Atlantis races, classes, zones, and abilities. This Expansion is also now free.
Then came foundations, the first free expansion pack for Dark Age of Camelot, which gave players the ability to set up merchants and housing and it streamlined trading. The houses are pretty boring actually, but they do serve their purposes.
Next came the New Frontiers which to some, kind of ruined the game because it removed the popular play style of one zone in Hibernia, Emain Macha but Mythic has replicated the old pre-New frontiers zone on a new island, Agramon. New frontiers tweaked the siege weapons in the game and made it a whole hell alot better, as well as added better keeps and towers to loot and destroy. This expansion is also now free.
After which, came Catacombs which introduced another class to each of the realms, added instanced and task dungeons, and also many underground zones and bosses. Not only though, Catacombs was the first step that Mythic took towards revamping the graphics in the game which at that time, were the same as 2001. Here are a handful of Before and After screens:
Also: Now Catacombs is also free.
Next after that, Darkness Rising, which redid the popular Darkness Falls dungeon, introduced the Champion Levels which take your character past Level 50 and grant them the ability to train in a sub spec from another class. Also introduced, various Steeds that can be customized with their own armor and barding, as well as Champion weapons which are some of the most powerful weapons in the game. Cost of this Expansion pack is a meager $20 stand-alone or only $30 total when combined with the Labyrinth Expansion.
The latest Expansion pack is the Labyrinth of the Minotaur and features one of the largest dungeons in an MMORPG period. It also features the Minotaur race which is available to all 3 realms but each is assigned a different tribe of the minotaur. Also, the Mauler class is shared among the 3 realms. The labyrinth also includes the ability to get 5 more champion levels, making it to a max. total of 10. Also there are more mounts and unlockables available. This isn't the best part though. The Labyrinth is an RvR zone and within it, has Minotaur relics that put up an icon as to where you are, and put like a pillar of light on top of your character, essentially acting like a huge ass target, they offer nifty little bonuses and add a little something more to the game play. These relics however are timed and you must participate in RvR to get them to last a bit longer but even then, they don't last anything more than maybe 20min or so, but it all depends. Just a cool little twist to the game play.
Also: new Labrinyth Video, for those of you who haven't gotten it yet.
http://darkageofcamelot.com/lotm/video/files/LotM_teaser.html
But the latest storyline/expansion is revolving around the story of each realm's dragon and how they are acting very oddly. This is a slowly progressing Expansion pack and about every two weeks they install a new chapter into the game which adds a few more items, a few more quests, and keeps your interest in the actual storyline versus the rewards. The Dragons have laid several eggs, have been seen in game flying around the sky, and have each destroyed 1 whole village while also laying siege to another one. The quests can be fairly tricky to actually very challenging. Also included, new dragon models will be added into the game very soon. Clickie for more info!
But the big question remains, Why should I play DAoC? Well first off, Mythic has been losing a lot of it's player base and for the past several patches has especially listened to Player feedback from the team leads and a lot of class, spell, and general game tweaks have made the game a lot more fun. Besides which, they are redesigning as much as they can to try and get players back into the game, by means of quick leveling, ease of getting good gear (but by far not the greatest) and fixing other things like trade skills.
Players:
Kyder, Level 50 Necromancer of Albion on Palomides/Gwaine/Bors/Merlin server cluster. Played by Darkest_3|i+3
Lucky Cynic on
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I'm not sure I'd be able to really go back.
- The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (2017, colorized)
1.) Classic servers. Man, what the hell Mythic. Rather than really fixing what sucked about ToA, they appeased the whiners and removed the entire expansion, races/classes and all? They took the easy way out. What's worse, I've heard that they fixed buffbots only on Classic servers, so if you want that you have no choice but to play there. No thanks.
2.) I just have a hard time justifying getting onboard with a game that has such obvious population issues. I can only imagine how completely abandoned the leveling zones are. I would rather they did server merges than clusters.
Any PAers playing on the Classic group, or want to start playing with me? I'll be starting with Albion, probably a Friar. Assuming you can play different realms within the same group, I'll probably roll Midgard characters too if all goes well. Fuck the Hibbies though.
Classic server removed Atlantis. Coop servers allow multi-realm grouping. They are seperate.
Oh, yeah, I'm pretty sure you can do that.
If we got a steady group of PA people playing this I'd pick it up again in a heartbeat.
PSN ID : DetectiveOlivaw | TWITTER | STEAM ID | NEVER FORGET
Btw, maybe you guys didn't see the recent Patch notes, but in the Next patch, you can buy really nice items with Bounty Points, not to mention ML EXP, ML Credit, Artifact Credit, as well as Scrolls.
Also: Zek, yes you can do that.
Although, with the next patch allowing you to buy MLs, artifacts and scrolls with bounty points, I may dust off some of my Guinevere mids.
PKMN White FC: 0046 2138 1298
It does have some good points though... it's one of the oldest-running MMOs and the world PVP is pretty good.
Who remembers the brutal PvP servers when the population was still decent. People's characters could essentially become worthless if you were grieved enough and couldn't pay to restore your constitution. Players would transfer money from other servers just to pay to keep their characters debt paid up.
I've dabbled in quite a few MMO's but the early PvP servers in DAoC were by far the most brutal on ones self esteem.
And only the capital cities were safe, good times.
I will admit that despite all of this the PVP has managed to still be enjoyable. While there isnt nearly as many players as there used to be, you can still join large groups in new frontiers and participate in keep/relic raids.
I think the only thing that could bring me back to DAOC at this point is either the greatest expansion ever made or a server that is actually "classic" (only original and SI zones)
The thing about DAoC is its just for pvp... if you are thinking about playing this to have fun leveling up or doing quests or whatnot.. don't. The point is to get to 50 (or your fav BG level) as fast as possible and get out to the frontiers for pvp fun. Although the pve is still painfully boring, they have made it a LOT quicker if you know what you are doing, the catacomb expansion(is it free now?) is a must if you plan on leveling.
I am very suprised that the game has actually been getting better since EA bought mythic. They are focusing more on the games strongpoint, pvp. Being able to buy all the toa stuff with bps next patch will be very nice.
anyway I play Charek, an eld on palo if anyone wants to group
i remember turning the pages in my latest Computer Gaming World and i open to a page featuring a screenshot of this game and a little story. It was about how some guild had finally killed the first dragon after X ammount of time trying since release. It was at that moment that i knew i had to be a part of this type of thing.
Never got to end game raiding since I stopped playing when my characters hit 30 somethings. Guess I've tried to get back into it to many times so I keep hitting the same road blocks of un-funness.
Also, Oddjob, sorry to hear you had some unfun times in Camelot. Leveling does have that impact but some of the Newer dragon quests have been loads of fun actually and there has been some new life pumped into the game. You can find a group at any level pretty easily now, for both RvR and PvE.
Download and install is clean and easy. Hrm. While reading on some site, I notice some talk about a graphical expansion that all players can get. Sure enough, they have the Catacombs expansion for everyone, including trial players. Wonder why they didn't just package it with the trial?
After installing the expansion, I get it up and going. The player numbers are disheartening. 50-200 on each server, so everything seems to have pretty low population. Why don't they combine some servers?
The game is telling me to go Midgard on Palomides, but Darkest says choose Albion on Palomides, so I go Albion on Palomides. After much hemming and hawing, I choose... some race... as an elementalist. The customization options aren't amazing, but they aren't terrible, either. One thing I really liked about character creation is that they gave an explanation for all stats and showed which were useful to which classes. To Albion I go!
Wow, this game is ugly. *After* a graphical upgrade, it's a bit better than Everquest 1. Whatever. I can get around that. The tutorial's decent for combat and basic movement, but after playing the tutorial, I have no idea how I gain skills or how to craft, so it fails pretty hard as a tutorial. Initially, I couldn't figure out how to close an interface window. Turns out the tiny smidge of pixels in the top-right corner of the window is an X. The interface isn't scaling to resolution, so with a resolution of 1920x1080, the fonts and buttons are tiny. That's cute. I don't see anything in the options, which, by the way, I had to leave the game and restart to see, to change this. Pain in the butt, but I'll either live with it or go with a lower resolution. For now, I'll live with it.
After getting to town, I gather all the quests I can and head around and start doing them. While in a burial tomb, I notice that either combat as a mage sucks or I'm lagging something fierce. I attempt to cast a spell and it gets canceled saying I was interrupted by the enemy. A second or two later I actually get hit. Terrible. While exiting the tomb, I notice I can't jump. No idea why. I could before, but not anymore. Fantastico!
On my way back to town, I notice another tomb, so I decide to explore. I head in and look around. It's all red and has demons, but they're all grey-con'd, so they drop in one shot and it's kinda useless for me to be here. I head back to the entrance and... hm. Where's the exit? What the hell! There's no exit! Let's look in the in-game help to try and find a stuck command or a way to page a GM to figure out how to get out. Nothing about being stuck and nothing about paging a GM. Does Dark Age of Camelot have GMs? No idea. Looking around, I see something about an advisor program, so I check that out. No advisors online, so no luck there either. No one in my starting guild responds to my pleas for help.
I've been looking for an exit for 10 minutes now and haven't been able to find one, so I just quit.
And that was my first experience with Dark Age of Camelot. Overall, I'm not impressed at all, but from everything I've heard, I'm willing to give it another shot if someone can help me out of the damn dungeon.
[Edit: The game also ran like ass. I've got a quad-core 2.6 GHz, 4 GB RAM and an 8800 GTX, so even taking into account that it's prolly not multi-threaded, it shouldn't be running bad and there should never be a hitch. I wasn't running constantly bad, but it would give some FPS hits every now and then when stuff happened.]
Sounds good.
It's actually disabled from the start, those higher poly player models. I would go under Options, and choose Player Models and then choose Catacombs for all. And presto! Just warning you though, these models can really beat the shit out of your graphics card if your in a very highly populated area like during the bigger raids or in Camelot sometimes. I would recommend you turn off shadows and names during this event as it does help.
Don't be discouraged, getting to 50 has never been easier and people tend to play their main characters during the weekends/holiday weekends. They also don't combine the Servers, rather they "Cluster them" or basically combine only some parts of the server, while keeping other parts separate, just in case they need to pull the servers apart, it's possible. Look for an Extension on someone's name, like "JoDoe of Merlin" meaning that person is from the Merlin server.
Good choice young grasshopper. The game suggests going to Midgard because they are underpopulated and as such, they get XP bonuses and such often. Not worth it in the long run but really, no realm is soo underpopulated where you will get your ass handed to you day in day out.
You actually caught us at a bad time in the game. Mythic decided to upgrade the UI a bit and as such has fucked up some things. For one thing, the spell icons I think from the older versions looked a whole lot better, these are too bright and colorful, I'll post examples later. The [X] button will likely be changed soon.
Wizards are different in leveling. The thing is, you will have at Levle 5 I believe, an ability called Quick Cast which let's you get hit and still be able to cast 1 spell. It's very handy but really, casters need their distance, and if your stuck meleeing enemies down, you might have to fight greens or something... I'll help you with leveling up.
Heh, oh shit. You Found Darkness Falls! Darkness Falls or DF as it is called is a PvP dungeon that's all demonesque and everything. It used to be really cool hot shit and it still sort of is. It's where I leveled up 2 years ago. Each realm can have an open portal to DF, but they must own the most towers in the New Frontiers. However, if the entrance closes, and your still inside, you woln't be kicked out. It's a cool kick ass dungeon. I went from about Level 25 to 47 in about 2 weeks in there, and this was back before any population bonuses or anything. Don't fret though, you can get out. Either commit suicide and release or find the exit which you just drop down the series of huge steps and hang a right. IIRC.
Sorry to hear that. I will be on at about 5pm today, Chicago time. Either send me your name or "/send Kyder-p Hey!" in game.
This game is still having some issues with people using newer GPUs and such. What was your average FPS? Your Res? Your Settings? I have a 7600gt and thus recommend Catacombs models, A resolution of about 1200X1024, No shadows except for non dynamic shadows or only a dynamic shadow on yourself or maybe nearest 5 and with my setup of 1gig of DDR2 ram, an E6400 gpu, an a 7600GT, I can get the game to run smooth very nicely though only at 1200x1024 resolution and at about an average of 50 FPS. Be sure to close out other programs and such in the background. DAoC tends to not really favor Multitasking too much unless your doing basic stuff like crafting.*
*Which I will guide you through as they have changed a lot of shit but haven't changed a lot of the documentation.
So go ahead PM me your name and for god sakes! Post a picture of your toon!
I turned all my settings up to full and use Catacombs settings for everything that has the option. I can run STALKER and Supreme Commander on full settings with no hitches, so I damn well better be able to run DAoC on full settings. I think you're probably right and they just haven't caught up to newer technology yet.
If I'm on sometime today, I'll shoot ya a PM.
I'll be on a bit later. I'm out of the house now. As for the technology support, usually they do this stuff in the background in some of the major patches. One of my friends got a new 7900GTX when they first came out and the game didn't perform so hot at first but by the next patch, he noticed he could really crank some settings up with no hitch at all.
Be sure to PM me your name and character and everything. If you want, I can later add you to the OP's list of players but right now your are still new to DAoC so it might be premature.
I'm in, so I guess I'll explore this place and try to find an exit.
Also, the casting isnt a lag thing, every time your caster is hit, there is a 2 or 3 second interruption period, the higher your dexterity is, the shorter the interruption period is. Some characters can get their dexterity up near 300 - 400 and their interruption period is like 25ms.
I remember when I quit and had to cancel all 4 of me and my roommates accounts, for each one I put the reason as waiting on a sequel. I just wanted to get in on a whole new game, the current one isnt that broke.
MWO: Adamski
Thanks man, but we already got some of the stuff figured out when I met him in game.
The Dexterity buffing and everything can lead to insane casting times but at the same time, people with quicker casting are not impossible to defeat.
Do not wait for a sequel because it just won't happen, at least not for any foreseeable future as in not this decade. The game has been patched over really well though and do recommend you at least try the classic servers. The game is far from dead and has actually come a long way. Oh and those of you who protest how ToA sucks how you have to go on raids for everything, quite your bitching, they have it now set up so that you can get anything from ToA with Bounty Points. Even master level experience, master level 10 credit, artifact credit and scrolls. :P
To be honest, I really loved this game, the crafting system was perfect in every way except the amount of grinding it required to level up, and I'm guessing they still have yet to add jewel crafting for making of jewel slot items.
The fact that properly crafted and enchanted gear was a very close 2nd best for best gear made it pretty accessable, and that crafting itself required no gathering, all materials were available in town.
And I really enjoyed the PvP, except it was extremely difficult to find enemies or allies sometimes. The fact that every PvP kill automatically gave you cash and XP without having to loot anything was pretty neat once they added in New Frontiers. I had characters pay for their own gear and level from 20-50 by only doing battlegrounds. Casters were pretty overpowered with extreme spell damage and fast casting, but were balanced against being fragile and once you interrupted a spell they were generally unable to cast again.
Damn you.. now i'm all, lets reactivate and play a heretic / warlock / random hibbie i got to 50 already
MWO: Adamski
DAoC is just ok, I hear the PVP is good, but the graphics are HORRIBLE. Even after the "upgrades" I can't stand to look at the game. It's ugly, the characters are ugly, and I don't feel the sense of being in a cohesive world. The controls are NOT user-friendly and are rather clunky and difficult to get figure out. It was a frustrating experience at best.
It's worth checking out since it's so cheap, but unless you have a group of friends playing it with you that you enjoy playing with, I would recommend investing your time in playing something a little more current.
Unfortionally the pvp in DAOC makes pvp in other MMO's sub par, so if your into PvP with sieges and stuff its the game for you.
I agree with group of friends comment. Friends are really needed to whoop some ass in RvR or even Thid.
You loose all rights to complain about other MMO's because you've soiled your soul with Lineage II
Bah, I only played L2 for like a month, and it was on a private server, and that was AFTER the hell of trying to play DAoC... DAoC is really the only MMO I would complain about, and not just because of the graphics. As for the controls... it's not the running around or fighting that's the problem... it's learning all the silly little slash commands that you are required to memorize to do the simplest things. Ugh. The interface needs cleaning up... tool tips, etc. It's just messy... and I doubt they've ever done the most basic of usability tests on it. I've played plenty of MMOs, including betas in languages I don't even speak that had interfaces that were easier to follow. It's the difference between being able to guess how to do something intuitively and having to read paragraphs of instructions just to learn the exact process for doing something as simple as equipping items or interacting with an NPC.
Getting over the learning curve of DAoC's interface is extremely frustrating... I would equate it to pulling teeth... two weeks into the game and I was still trying to figure out how to do things like trading with another player. It really should not be that hard to figure out... you really should be able to get over the learning curve in the first day or two of playing a game. IMO, the interface/controls for DAoC is probably one of the things that is holding the game back. Sure, it's still popular, but I doubt they are bringing in as many people as they could with a better interface.
Seriously though, did you play the same game? Is there something else out there called DAOC? I played it for ages, and it was my first MMO before I even tried EQ and I picked it up in under an hour before my Armsman was hacking away at wolfs, skellys and very large ants.
You are the first person I've ever seen complaining of a learning curve.
ok
1. what /command do you actually ever NEED to use
2.(your trading problem) in those two weeks you never thought of dragging the item and clicking the player with it?
3. (equipping to your character) the slots in your inventory list tell you where you need to put your equipment. im not quite sure how you missed them
4. i dont think you can call a dying game "popular"
this was my first mmo ever. I figured everything out within the first hour. I have never even heard of someone who had any of the problems you described