Dark Age of Camelot

Rating:
Summary: Been there, done that.
Review: DAoC has many points in its favor, but it's basically just a minimalist rehash of what Everquest has been doing successfully for years.

The graphics in Dark Age of Camelot are beautiful. The concept seems exciting enough: three realms based upon history/mythology are perpetually at war, but player-versus-player combat can only take place in selected areas. Therefore the player has the ability to "level up" without interference from other players, only engaging in "PvP" when and where s/he chooses.

The game is very stable, and in the light of some recent massive-multiplayer launches, that alone is refreshing. That's where the "refreshing" part ends, however. Like Everquest, players perform "go get this, go kill that" quests, they kill computer-controlled enemies in battles that are level-dependent (i.e., if the player character isn't very close in level to the "monster", no amount of strategy or ingenuity will change the outcome), and the name of the game is gaining "experience points" in order to increase the player character's level. Also, like Everquest, playing "solo" is discouraged by excessive post-combat recovery time and almost no recourse of action should things go wrong (in other words, while soloing should you find yourself in over your head, your character will more than likely die). Again - like Everquest - the penalty for character death is the loss of some of those valuable experience points; players of DAoC often find themselves with less experience at the end of the day than when they started.

DAoC does differ from Everquest in some respects, however. The lands are quite small and the developers compensated by making the player's run speed terribly slow. The "monsters" that players fight were made from a handful of 3D models that have been re-colored, resized, and renamed for different regions or realms. Casters have little spell variety and there are none of those "just plain fun" spells such as those featured in Everquest (such as levitation, invisibility, shape shifting, etc.). While "zones" in Everquest have individual flavor and atmosphere, there is very little difference from one DAoC location to another. Activities such as acquiring experience and performing trade skills are arguably every bit as tedious in DAoC as they are in Everquest, and yet the former lacks so many of the "little things" that the latter used to break up the tedium, such as teleportation to ease travel and the ability to duel to test one's skills against those of another player.

Dark Age of Camelot's retail box boasts "Unique servers [which] support different playing styles and rules - giving both 'power' gamers as well as more casual ones a comfortable place to play the game", a statement which is absolutely untrue by this reviewer's interpretation. As of this writing there are "regular" servers and "role-playing" servers, and while there are more or less un-enforced rules of etiquette on the role-playing servers, the game mechanics are identical on all servers. Like its predecessors, DAoC rewards those who have hundreds of hours to devote to the game while ignoring the plight of the "casual" gamer.

DAoC is a bare-bones rip-off of Everquest that has very little going for it save the fact that it's new. Persistent-world games do change (often dramatically) over time, so I might be here in a few months singing Dark Age of Camelot's praises; as it stands now however, it's a great foundation with very little game on top of it.

Rating:
Summary: Mad Props to Mythic!
Review: First of all, it seemed that the gaming industry was clinging to a trend of terrible launches, including games that were full of bugs and lacking real content, and not enough server hardware to support the number of players they expected, but Mythic has definitely raised the bar and set new standards for the industry. After Mythic's superb launch and spoiling us all, I will never again put up with a terrible game launch. They are extremely responsive and actually listen to their playerbase. And unlike previous games, their patches really do fix issues as intended.

Coming from EQ, I can say that DAoC is everything that EQ should have been. No more dying and spending hours for a corpse recovery, no more having to re-mem spells after every death, no more 20 minute downtimes in between each fight, quests that really work, no more camping a single spawn for days on end trying to get that ph4t lew7, etc., etc. - the list goes on.

Mythic made tradeskills worthwhile and valuable, and because of this and the fact that items decay after extended use or after being repaired too many times, the economy should remain stable.

Only two downfalls that I can see. One is that because there are no Teleportation spells, if you don't have an increased movement spell then you either have to buy a horseride or else run slow to your destination. However, I have had to run it slow many times before and it really isn't that bad. The second is that in each realm there seems to be only five dungeons. I'm not too concerned with this issue because I think the real shining factor of DAoC will be the Realm vs. Realm play. We not only will fight other realms in battles, but we can fight over Outposts owned by enemy realms, we can build seige weaponry, etc.

In my opinion, DAoC is the best MMORPG out on the market, and mad props are in order for Mythic!

Rating:
Summary: Unique Multiplayer Game
Review: I've been playing this game for over 2 years now, and am still enjoying it. It has different systems and style than the other MMORPGs out there at the moment, most notably the 3 realms competing against eachother, each character and guild having a current and custom web page automatically built on the Herald, and a development staff willing to fix its mistakes.

This MMORPG is less of a time-sink than many of the others out there, though still is a bit of one.

Rating:
Summary: Good game but I'm going back to EQ
Review: This review is for EQ players. I tried DAoC for a while but it's not the step up I thought it would be. I played an Enchanter because I heard they get pets. It turned out to be a humanoid creature, not some fantasy entity that I expected. The elven graphics are great but the troll type people look like blocky quazimoto's that stand up straight. I found that there is no downtime to speak of but I don't level much faster than EQ. There's nothing fundamentally wrong with the game but it's just non-stop kill, sell, kill, sell. EQ is like that but with a little more downtime which I enjoy due to the chance to talk with players and develop friendships. Besides, get a full group in velketor's lab when you are post 50 and you can pull almost non-stop anyway if you want. EQ has Shadows of Luclin coming up with it's new graphic engine which is every bit as good as DAoC if not better and they are including a CD with improved textures for all the "old lands" which was just announced as a free bonus. As someone who invested countless hours getting multiple characters post 50 in EQ, I can't say there is enough to offer in DAoC to make the switch with the improvements coming to EQ but it's a good game in and of itself and i'm sure lots of people will enjoy it.

Rating:
Summary: Great Game, damaged Eyesight
Review: Very addictive game, I have no complaints except for the giant leveling gaps. I got to level 39 and its getting hard to get my character up to 50. Since I started playing this game, my eyesight has been diminishing RAPIDLY. This is not a lie or a joke. If you don't know what addiction is, you will now. I have lost hours of sleep and even play this game at work. This game can easily fill a boring weekend. Playing for 5 hours straight in one sitting is not uncommon. Word of Advice: REST your EYES every hour for 15 minutes playing this game, and get another account for the girlfriend/wife or you will be hawked continually about not giving her time (unless you wanna lose a real life relationship for a computer)

Rating:
Summary: technically solid, yet empty
Review: Like all other MMORPGs at the time of writing this, gameplay consists of repetition. Players have no real effect on their environment. The main focus is RvR or Realm vs. Realm battle. Player vs. Player combat is only possible across realms, not within. The best equipment is dropped by monsters, so there is not much reason to work for the pinnacle of a craft. All trade skill products have only combat related applications. Character levels can only be gained by repeatedly killing AI monsters. There is a reward system for RvR, "Realm Points" are awarded for killing members of an opposing realm, however the actual reward system has not been implemented yet, points can be earned but not redeemed for anything of value. the only thing good about this game in my opinion is that it has had fewer technical problems that any other MMORPG at release so far, but other than that its a boring waste of time. if you are a big MMORPG player then maybe this would be a good game for you. i however will avoid MMORPGs for a long while to come, they lack depth.

Rating:
Summary: A lesson in online gaming....
Review: Let's all take a deep breath, and come back to reality. Both Amazon.com and Mythic Entertainment are companies, in a capitalist system, and are out there to make money. There is nothing bad about this, and that is what they are doing.

So, anyone buying the game, must really realize what they are buying. All online RPG's have SMALL monthly fees, to pay for their employees, constant new development in the form of patches to the retail release, brand new servers to play on, etc. I mean, you have to be pretty ignorant of games to not understand that these persistent worlds require alot of money to keep up.

Now, $10 is a small fee. They get money that way, and from the box. God didn't come down from the heavens and make the boxes, CD's, printing presses, CD presses etc., so that they could create, box, and ship the game for free. So, guess what...they have to charge you for the box, which is why you pay for the box...and the $19.99 price from Amazon.com is a steal right now. You can't find the game for anything else, but around $35.99-39.99. Be glad that Amazon is giving such a good deal.

I am playing the european beta of the game right now, for free, and the game is a blast. If you are really upset, search online for it, and have your son play the beta for free, to see if he likes the game. Or, just go to Gone Gold.com and look in their forums, you'll find it.

Mythic is a very good company, they are not here to try and cheat anyone. It's just that most people realize these games come with a monthly fee...read ANY kind of review, either online or in magazines, and it is plainly pointed out.

Later,

Rating:
Summary: The most amazing game I've ever played!
Review: From begging to end, it was by far the best game I've ever played. The only reason I stopped playing was the fee of around 12 dollars a month. Being a 13 year old it's very hard to scrounge up the money. So now I've returned the game and I'm regretting it so bad! In DAoC you are a Hibernian, Midgard, or Albain. There are all types of races, skills, and abilitys that you can choose from to create your character. You start out as a lvl 1, then as you grow about to lvl 5 you choose a class you want to be, from fighter to pladin, rouge to scout, etc... then at lvl 10 you get to choose a last name, for instance my name was Chubbss, then, I added my last name, Chubbss Timestwo! Catchy huh. It gets better though, at lvl 15 you can now interact with other characters from other realms, by fighting them in a speacily made world for this type of thing.. to Albians, it is like hunting moose... haha. Then at lvl 20 if you are in a guild you get a guild embelem, that is somthing that show you are part of that guild. As you progress with your character you learn chants, spells, abilatys, all things that can help you be the ultimante (whatever class you are). There are other things you can do in the game also that I'm not quite sure many of the other reviews have mentioned... one is getting married. Just some little fun thing that they decided to put in.. don't ask me;). Another is dueling. You can duel with characters of your realm by typeing /duel /duel accept or somthing like that, you don't lose xp or gain xp, it's just a fun little thing like weddings haha. If your reading this review right now than let me tell you this, BUY THIS GAME!!! It's the most exciting RPG you can find. Better than SWG anyday! Ignore the people who say this game isn't the best because it is, and definatly deserves the gamers award for best game of the year, which it got! So there ya have it, hope you like this game as much as I do!

Rating:
Summary: The best MMORPG currently available
Review: I have played UO and Daoc and beta tested Eve online. Daoc in my opinion is the best current RPG available. I hear in the gaming community VERY little complaints about this game.

Ive played Daoc for a year and a half. shortly after beta on the american servers as i had to order the game from america as im british. This game has extremely smooth graphics. ive not found much in the way of graphical issues at all since i started playing. I run on a gerforce4MX. The ONLY problem i have sometimes is enlargement of world objects which only happens as i begin to get slowdown in graphics from loading huge battles. which is no big issue. just requires a 30 second reboot of the game. The static graphics in the inventory which update the characters avatar not updating is the only graphical issue. i cannot currently correct this. I dont recommend geforce cards for great graphics like this anyways. apparantly they dont work as well.

Gameplay is somewhat weak nearer level 50. it took a LONG time because of the class i chose and my time zone (and laziness :P) to level my character. My character is also widely agreed as needing improvements (the class) but most classes are customizable to a certain extent as you can specialise a certain line of spells or melee to attain certain spell types and combat damage types. (eg. a light specialised mentalist for direct damage spells. or a mana specialised mentalist for mana regeneration spells and others) the characters play solid roles in groups EXCEPT the stealther types. which have very little to offer groups. thus they have trouble grouping. the nature of these classes is very specialist anyways so requires quite some time and investment.

Tradeskills take quite a long time to raise to a high level. and from what i hear the rewards for this effort is lacking although they legendary gm (HIGH HIGH end tradesmen) are constantly in demand. so i would not be suprised if they were making a big profit. you can train in such things as alchemy. spellcraft (imbues armor with abilities) armorcraft, fletching, siegecraft.

The RVR is fun and although it can end pretty quickly. its a rush. large scale battles are a blast! unless you have slow modem and graphics then its just pure lag and gets annoying. You get the opportunity to take other realms keeps so you can eventually try for a realm relic. capturing these relics gives extra % of damage on top of that relics damage type (e.g 10% extra spell dmg for a power relic and 10% extra melee damage for a strength relic) These take a LOT of people (50+) and can be extremely fun and demanding.

This game is for the high end PC user who has time to burn. Overall this game in my opinion IS the best MMORPG currently available. the customer support is quite stable and they update the game info regularly on the site.

I strongly reccomend this game as a first MMORPG or your next.

Ambadias Kesmai. Level 50 Ranger on the Galahad server

Rating:
Summary: Best MMORPG out there...
Review: I've tried all the MMORPGs that are currently shipping. I played AC for almost 3 years, I started playing DAoC when it came out. And I flowed between AC and DAoC. I was all set to give up DAoC when AC2 and Shadowbane came out.

However, those two games just showed me how much better the game play was in DAoC.