Dark ages of Camelot? Should I get?

[faded glory]

http://www.darkageofcamelot.com/

Should I get it? Anybody here got it? I hear there is great mplayer action.

[Zkribbler]

Ugh, one of those mega-players online games. I tried Everquest and hated it. Half the time when you log on, it's nighttime & you can't see anything. Plus, you start out the game so weak, you can't really do anything. I found Everquest to be a frustrating waste of time, and I doubt that Dark Ages is any better.

[FrustratedPoet]

I got it, played it for quite a long time and then just got bored of it. I think that MMORPG's only work if you're prepared to give over your life to them. Building up your character is so slow and painful that I always get annoyed with it and give up. Playing solo is pointless and finding a good group is very difficult, although it's great fun when it happens.

In my experience too many people on these type of games take it far too seriously. I suspect that for many of them it is the only form of social interaction they get and the power that comes from the faceless gameworld causes many of them to behave like a$$holes. The best way to have fun with it is to join a Guild, but I never found one where you weren't expected to refer to the Guild Leader as 'Master' or something similarly stupid. Also, many seem to demand that you spend the dozens of hours required building up your 'Weaponcraft' skill (or whatever) in a hugely boring way just so they could buy slightly discounted swords from you. There must be good guilds out there, but I never found one.

I'm biased because I don't like these type of games, generally speaking. DAOC was the first one I tried and I don't think I'll bother with any others. If one of my friends buys it then I'll probably be tempted to give it another try, but the genre feels kind of souless to me.

If MMORPG's are more your style, though, I suggest you give DAOC I try ... the Realm .vs. Realm combat sounded really good, but unfortuantely I gave up before my character was a high enough level to compete.

You could also check out Shadowbane - I know nothing about it, but there's a lot of talk...

[faded glory]

thanks. Any other reviews? ill get it this weekend I think. But the massive mplayer games are really somthing. Im not hardcore to it. But 4-5 hours a week...no big deal.

[Sarxis]

Of all the genres out there, this one is the only one I have yet to try. I think the monthly subscription fee is the one that keeps me at bay.

I still would like to try it out someday- but I have 250 other games already.

[Grumbold]

DAoC is a newbie-friendly MMORPG so I suggest you give it a go. The game leads you in fairly gently and its possible to gain levels relatively fast, especially compared to Everquest. They've also minimised the amount of time you have to sit on your butt waiting to heal after a tough fight, "camping" and other EQ tricks to make you waste hours of time. I never had a problem with finding good people to team up with even though I avoid guilds.

If you can only play 5 hours a week you may not get enough out of it, however. You can get something productive done in an hour soloing but really it gets better when you can find a team and hunt for 2-3 hours or (later) go on a raid into enemy territory. Playing so little you will always be having to find new people because most will outlevel you too much within days. Joining a big guild will help there because they should always have some new recruits who will be happy to team up with you.

[Sarxis]

A query: what happens when you die?

[FrustratedPoet]

you can either type '/release' to reappear at the last bind stone you bound yourself too, or you can wait for a friendly healer to resurrect you.
but most people just spam "rezzzz!!!! rezzzzzzz!!!!!RREEEEZZZZ!!!!!" for about 20 minutes until somebody gets so annoyed they decide to help.

you DON'T lose any items or gold when you die. Diablo 2-style corpse popping is impossible.

you DO lose some experience (a certain percentage of what you need for you next level-up), but half of what you've lost can be regained by returning to where you died and typing "/pray" in front of your grave.

you also suffer from "resurrection sickness" (or something") after you die. it last for a few minutes. i forget exactly what it does, but it can be easily removed by talking to an NPC in most towns.
another thing is that you lose a few points of Constitution, but these can also be regained - at a price. The price to regain them is fairly small, but increases with your level. You don't have to restore your lost constitution points, but if you don't do it for ages then you'll only end up dying loads more anyway.

[Grumbold]

A nice touch is that your first death per level (from 5th onward, before that there is no penalty at all) is only 1% and 1 CON point, the second 3% and 2 CON points and only your 3rd onward are the full 5% penalty and 3 CON points. Until you get to level 30+ those sorts of XP losses can be regained fast. You can never lose a level by dying, a big difference to Everquest.

If you /release or timeout then a tombstone is left at your death location and has a further XP penalty (same amount) bound into it. You appear at your last bind point (monoliths usually found in towns) can visit the town healer to immediately lose all rez sickness effects (you don't want to fight solo with it after level 10 or so, you're damage will suck unless you're a caster) and regain your CON. Best to do it fairly soon as the cost gets more expensive every time you level. You can then go anywhere you like, but if you return to your tombstone and /pray you will regain the XP bound up in it. The tombstones last a considerable time at high level but you cant have more than 1 or 2 at a time. Die again before you /pray and your oldest tombstone will be gone forever.

If a local PC healer resurrects you (they get the first version of the spell at 10th level) then you will resurrect next to them and they can cast the spell from several yards away from your body as long as they can see it to target it. This is very handy if you died at the feet of something very nasty they don't want to get too close to They can't regain your CON or remove the rez sickness so you need to spend a few minutes resting unless your team can cope fighting with you in a weakened state. You don't leave a tombstone. I've found using the tools to discover healers in the vicinity and sending them polite requests is a lot more effective than spamming for a Rez on the general channels

[Victor Galis]

Get it, so that I can k... er, we can work together

Building up your character is so slow and painful that I always get annoyed with it and give up. Playing solo is pointless and finding a good group is very difficult, although it's great fun when it happens.

-Ah, but you are mistaken. Getting good groups is not so hard... well, unless you play something like a ranger (D'oh!) and then it takes an insane amount of patience But I've seen some people level up insanely fast.

The best way to have fun with it is to join a Guild, but I never found one where you weren't expected to refer to the Guild Leader as 'Master' or something similarly stupid.

-Lol... you should have joined my guild. Except we were very small and crappy, but I inherited the Guildmastership which I share with a friend who is currently able to play. The guild is very small, and rank is just about irrelevant.

Also, many seem to demand that you spend the dozens of hours required building up your 'Weaponcraft' skill (or whatever) in a hugely boring way just so they could buy slightly discounted swords from you. There must be good guilds out there, but I never found one.

-We had people who did this voluntarily... though never weaponcraft. I tried weaponcrafting... it stinks. Fletching though 8 hours and about 5g, got me to 500 skill.

the Realm .vs. Realm combat sounded really good, but unfortuantely I gave up before my character was a high enough level to compete.

-It's great fun, but yeah, it really does take too long to be able to take part, especially as a Hibernian Ranger who has waited until level 33 to regularly start grouping... but hey, my next character will level up much faster.

[General Ludd]

Do you still play the game, Victor? (Or anyone else, for that matter)


I was thinking about trying this out (against my better judgment) 'though I was wondering about a few things...

Is there as much of a focus on levels and powergaming as in EverQuest, ie. will you be forced to sit around and powergame/camp to reach high levels before you can actually go on some interesting adventures, and enjoy yourself?

Is level advancement as slow and rigid as in EQ, or something more fluid, like Asheron's call?

Have any of you played on the RolePlay servers? Do people actually roleplay, and what's the difference between them and the regular servers?

[General Ludd]

Oh... and, could anyone direct me to a good fansite with active forums and everything?

[Victor Galis]

Do you still play the game, Victor? (Or anyone else, for that matter)

-Yes and no. My current locatyion makes it difficult for me to be able to play the game, but in a week's time I will be back, sort of. Two weeks from then I get my high speed dorm room connection and no parental supervision... then I will dish out the pain

Is there as much of a focus on levels and powergaming as in EverQuest, ie. will you be forced to sit around and powergame/camp to reach high levels before you can actually go on some interesting adventures, and enjoy yourself?

-Depends on what you consider enjoying yourself. On the normal servers, you need to be fairly high level to take part in the real action, but it's not too hard to get there. If you can powergame well, you can hit level 40 in a week. I'm assuming you wouldn't want to do that, but even so, most people can get to a decently high level fairly fast as long as they're playing a good class (some classes just suck for gaining levels fast). Also, find groups. Gaining experience in groups is much faster, easier, and possibly more fun. On the regular servers this shouldn't be too hard to find a group (but some classes suck at this). I don't know about the new PvP servers, where you can be randomly killed, but I intend to try those out soon.

Is level advancement as slow and rigid as in EQ, or something more fluid, like Asheron's call?

-I haven't played either of those, but I'm told level advancement is much faster than in EQ. Certainly you can hit level 7-8 in your first day/evening of play, 10 if you're good or you don't like sleep much. It slows down, but with good groups it can be pretty fast. I played a ranger, and up to level 33 I hunted largely by myself and was starting to get really frustrated (this took me about 4 months, though I started out as a newb with no guidance, a crappy guild, and wasted time exploring, and took weeks off to do stuff like go skiing). I found a nice group in a dungeon. I got level 34 in 1.5 hours, and 35 in 4 more (where alone levelling up took days). I hit level 40 by the end of the week, and I got to start making some sort of a difference in realm wars. So that was fun.

Have any of you played on the RolePlay servers? Do people actually roleplay, and what's the difference between them and the regular servers?

-I only play on RolePlay servers (Hibernia on Gwen and Albion on Nimue). People don't roleplay too much, but it's a lot better than non-roleplaying in terms of naming and lack of outside world comments.

Oh... and, could anyone direct me to a good fansite with active forums and everything?

-http://www.camelotherald.com might have some links.

[Victor Galis]

Say what class or type of class are you planning on playing, what realm?

[Grumbold]

I'm not currently playing but my subscription is still active. Just too many good games out at the moment to devote my life to a MMORPG. When their patch mugged my cleric I decided it was a good time to take a break.