Dark Age of Camelot - Loving the Latex
Mythic Entertainment's MMORPG Dark Age of Camelot has been
around long enough now to prove its durability and functionality.
In many ways, it's quite like a lot of other on-line RPGs,
especially EverQuest, but that's a more superficial impression,
and the game does have several unique features that make
it different.
As far as atmosphere goes, the most important of these
is the setting. Dark Age of Camelot is, obviously, set in
a mythic Britain, but AFTER the death of King Arthur, removing
all those pesky big iconic Round-Table characters. Britain
is descending into chaos. You can choose from three cultures
for your character; English Albion, Celtic Hibernia, or
Norse Midguard. A love for the history and mythology of
one of these cultures is going to make the game a lot more
enjoyable, though it's obviously not necessary. Like all
role-paying games, you then make choices within choices
to determine your character's race, class, and skills.
Unlike some games, though, Dark Age of Camelot sets up
direct conflict between its different realms. PvP in this
game is largely in the form of huge PC armies battling each
other in the designated PvP areas. It's best reserved for
high-level characters, but the sheer scale is quite something
to see. Crafters can band together to create hugely powerful
siege weapons, too.
DAoC has quite a nice system for getting around the tendency
of some players to 'camp'. You get more experience points
for killing different types of monsters, or fighting multiple
monsters, or ones that haven't already been killed over
and over again. So, branching out into new areas is going
to mean you level up faster, which also takes away some
of the 'grinding' element common to on-line RPGs. You can
get XP by questing, too, and the quests get harder as your
level goes up. So there are interesting 'tasks' to do even
for low-level characters.
Graphically, Dark Age of Camelot has come a long way through
its expansions, the most recent of which is Catacombs. The
original graphics were quite chunky and unimpressive: the
improvement through the expansions is huge. The down side
is, in order to play Catacombs, you have to have not just
the original game, but both the expansions that came before
it. The characters are now much more customisable, and you
can tinker with the appearance of your existing characters,
which is a nice touch.
Dark Age of Camelot's developers, Mythic Entertainment,
continue to add content to the game over time, meaning you're
going to keep finding new things to do. Like most MMORPG,
Dark Age of Camelot is a time bandit, requiring the investment
of many hours of its players time, yet the immersive experience
is rewarding for those with the time and stamina.
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