Dark Age of Camelot Review (no fat)

Game Description

When Ultima Online hit the shelves in 1997, MMORPGs were their infancy and game developers were reluctant to start huge projects that required constant care and big maintenance costs. However, the next few years brought the bloom of the genre through games like the ever-popular EverQuest, Turbine’s Asheron’s Call, or the sci-fi Anarchy Online. Developers Mythic Entertainment have played their part in the growth of the MMO genre through Dark Age of Camelot.

Dark Age of Camelot Storyline

Unlike other MMORPGs up to the date of its launch, Dark Age of Camelot doesn’t create a totally new fantasy world, the story of the game being set on the grounds of Great Britain, during the Dark Ages. Although being set up in a familiar environment that some players might not enjoy as much as the abstract fantasy worlds, Dark Age of Camelot makes up with it’s highly polished way of treating Anglo-Saxon and Norse mythology.

Dark Age of Camelot’s game world is set in the legendary time period after King Arthur’s death. The great kingdom of Camelot is in great suffering, because of the constant struggle skirmishes with its two rivals; Hibernia and Midgard. The game lets you play from all three angles of this war, leading to three totally distinct gaming experiences.

Dark Age of Camelot-The Great Realms

The three great realms of the game are in a constant war over supremacy and each of them has a solid hatred for the other two. While Hibernia fights mostly with the help of magic and Midgard uses brutal hand-to-hand force, the Albion uses a combination of the two, making it a more versatile realm to play in.

The realm of Albion, whose capital is Camelot itself, is the former realm of Arthur and has several architectural designs and topologies that make it feel a lot like medieval England. All characters starting from this realm are derived from the Human race, the difference laying in the fact that they come from different parts of the realm. You can either choose to play the Britons, people coming from the capital city of Camelot, the rugged Highlanders coming from the North, the dexterous Saracens brought in Britain by the Roman Empire, or the inhabitants of Avalon, called Avalonians. Each race has unique abilities and characteristics but an overall view on the realm shows that it offers a balanced equilibrium between casters and fighters and magic and brute force.

The realm of Midgard is inspired from Norse mythology and it respects the northern landscape and the rugged way of life of its people. Vast pine forests and snowy mountaintops are home to four diverse races that you can choose from: humans, kobolds, dwarves and trolls. Midgardians nurture a great hatred for the other realms and brute force is their main fighting method. Choosing a character from Midgard will limit your abilities as a caster, although these exist.

The Celtic Hibernia is the land of faeries and magic. Its races include Elves, Celts, Lurikeen and Firbolgs, all of the races being more or less adept in wielding magic. The landscapes of this realm set up a magical aspect, a dream-like, unearthly feeling generating a wonderful playing experience. Like with all caster classes in other RPGs, the Hibernians are not very adept in close combat, so a ranged fighting style will prove much healthier.

Dark Age of Camelot-The Realm vs. Realm Concept

Player versus Player (PvP) plays a major role in any MMORPG, and Dark Age of Camelot takes the concept to a whole new level through Realm vs. Realm combat. Think about gathering up your whole Midgardian crew or forming an alliance with other guilds, to set up a siege on a Albion city, battle engines and everything.

Total war breaks out almost every month between the realms, sometimes organized by the game developers, other times taking place spontaneous, with the help of elite players that organize these events. Being in a huge realm vs. realm war is undoubtedly the most fun experience you will have in Dark Age of Camelot and it will give you a good bragging opportunity: “You’ve heard of it? I’ve been there!”

For those that don’t want to get that involved in the game story and want to solo out the game like a single-player RPG, the Player versus Environment system (PvE) gives them enough to do on their own. Hundreds of quests, hundreds of NPCs and hundreds of dungeons are bound to give a solo fan a good time, although a good part of the game’s fun is lost by not interacting with other players.

A negative gameplay aspect includes the boring attack system, where you only have to click on the monster and your character will do the rest. This aspect is mainly noticeable when playing a warrior class that resolves every conflict to robotic pounding of the enemy. However, the system does allow for special moves that can be carried as well.

While the resting system means long waits, that often get annoying, death in the game costs little at lower levels. However, as you progress the curve gets steeper. However, a healer has the powers to resurrect and restore your constitution, or you can rush to your grave and pray to get some of your XP back (yup, it works).

Dark Age of Camelot Interface

Another great improvement is the game interface. This ever-important game component is high up on the user-friendliness thermometer in Dark Age of Camelot. Very few people starting out have difficulties in adjusting to the game interface.

The chat window is split in two, offering one window where chat messages are shown, while the other window offers combat and loot information. This avoids the somewhat chaotic chat window found in other similar games. Quick bars, shortcuts, a map system and group icons that show your team members’ mana, the spells that are cast on them and much more useful information that makes the user interface a powerful tool.

Dark Age of Camelot- Game Stability

One of the first things that impressed MMORPG fans about Dark Age of Camelot was its stability. While Anarchy Online or EverQuest had chaotic, bug-prone launches, Dark Age of Camelot’s release ran smoothly, with only a few bugs that were quickly fixed and some lag problems in the first days. With 16 game servers active from the very first months of the game, Dark Age of Camelot had no server crashes or security issues that could rim the playing experience.

Dark Age of Camelot Graphics

The graphics of the game are a step its compatriots. The huge cities and superb landmarks are bound to impress even the most reluctant players. Weather conditions are done realistically and they can create a gloomy atmosphere in any part of the game world.

A few minor annoyances regarding the game’s graphics are also present. For example when traveling through large distances, the landscapes can sometimes get dull and variety is scarce. Also monster models seem to be re-used a bit too much and some of them actually look funny instead of scary…or serious at least.

Dark Age of Camelot Sound

Although ambient sound is great in Dark Age of Camelot, you cannot notice that monster effects are not up to the standard. The sound effects of the monsters or NPCs get a tad annoying. However, if you get past that, you will find the musical themes quite well built, blending in to the overall game atmosphere.

Dark Age of Camelot - The Final Word

Offering a great game experience and a huge world, Dark Age of Camelot can be considered an original clone. It’s a clone because it takes a lot of aspects from other MMORPGs (especially EverQuest), for good and worse. But, it is original with its myth-based theme that took the place of the fantasy or sci-fi of its contemporary games.

Dark Age of Camelot- The Price

Dark Age of Camelot retails for $9.99 and $14.95 per month to play online. Like most MMO, it has a month's worth of free trial period as well.