Game-A-Week Episode 4: Dark Age of Camelot

Arthur was born into the world

A situational pariah

Spoke in tongues, misunderstood

Like some unrecognized messiah

Until the sword, he claimed, that is. King, he was crowned.

But with his death, the kingdom of Camelot was split in three.

The Brits, Celts and Nords are at each other's throats in a three way war.

Camelot has entered its darkest age.

You are no hero.

There is no quest, no evil for you to banish.

Only war.

And so, we arrive at arguably the most successful PvP MMO of all time.

Dark Age of Camelot.

I think I set the stage pretty well. You choose to ally yourself with one of three factions, then its a bare knuckle brawl on the eternal battlefield of war.

Before I delve into what those factions are (Though, you pretty much already know from my EPIC tale I opened up with)

I want to start off by saying Dark of of Camelot is a monumental game in the history of the MMO genre. Like EverQuest, without this game, there would be no WoW. Or at least, not as good as it is today. (Classic, that is, Retail is hot garbage)

Since we played literally every EverQuest game (There was no EverQuest 3 ), it felt only right to continue with another stepping stone on the path of the World of Warcraft.

Well, actually....

I must confess my first choice for this week was Wizardry Online since Wizardry is a classic RPG series. In fact, Wizardry predates and even partially inspired Dragon Quest which many consider to be the grandfather of RPGs (And one of my personal favorites!)

But alas, the Wizardry MMO did not fare well. It was shut down in Japan before the NA game came out and as a result, it never came out here in the west. Such a shame because like I said, the Wizardry name predates even the most ancient RPGs. If Dragon Quest is the RPG grandfather, then Wizardry is the RPG ancestor.

But, I digress.

Back to Ye Olde Camelot

So factions.

The factions of this game are the Brits, the Nords and the Celts but their offcial names are Albion, Midgard and Hibernia respectively.

This is because those three factions don't just contain those three races. This is a fantasy game, after all.

Each faction also has exclusive access to their own classes.

So Albion, the home of the late King Arthur is comprised of the Britons, the Saracens, The Avalonians, The Highlanders, The Inconnu and the Half Ogres. Although, free accounts can only choose Brits, Avalonians and Highlanders. Limitations.

For classes, Albion citizens can become Paladins, Clerics, Friars, Sorcerers or Scouts. There are more, but this is only what free accounts can choose from. Again, limitations.

Hibernia is home to the Celts, the Lurikeen, the Firbolgs, The Elves, the Sylvans and the Shar. But free accounts can only choose Celts, Firbolgs and Elves.

Classes for free accounts are Mentalist, Bard, Blademaster, Warden and Druid. Unfortunately, there are some really cool sounding classes locked behind a subscription in this faction such as Eldritch, Vampiir, Bainshee, Nightshade, Valewalker and Hero.

Midgard has Kobolds, Dwarves, Norsemen, Trolls, Valkyn and Frostalfs. But free accounts can only choose Norsemen, Dwarves and Trolls.

Free account classes this time are Berserker, Healer, Runemaster, Shaman and Valkyrie.

So let's get into the actual game.

The U.I. is bad. EverQuest got a pass for being old but this game came out in 2001. Everquest is older and it has an even worse U.I. It doesn't get a pass for this, it's just bad. I never got the hang of it. And the camera is so zoomed out, I don't feel like I'm IN the game. I feel like I'm watching from a distance and from what I can tell, there's no way to zoom in or fix this. You're stuck feeling distant from the world. I understand this is how many MMO players prefer to play but not me. I just don't feel like I'm playing the game this way.

It took me three days to figure out how to use anything other than my auto attack.

When you level-up you're given specialization points. Now, you REALLY need to be certain what you want to build your character as because these points are much more impactful than any talent trees.

For example, Paladins can put points into Slash, Crush, Thrust, Shield and Chants.

See where this is going?

The only area that isn't connected directly to a weapon or armor type is Chants.

So basically, when you put points into one area, you need to be prepared to only ever use that specific weapon type because you're only going to gain abilities that can be used when you have that weapon type equipped.

In other words, if you put points into Slash, you're only ever using Swords and don't you dare put points into Crush or Thrust. Because then, you'll be stuck with ablities you can't use.

Like I said, you have to KNOW what direction you want to go in before you take your first step or else it'll bite you later.

Since this is a PVP MMO, players are very important. Luckily, I actually had no issue running into players during my time playing this game.

Unfortunately, in a week, I never got to the point where I could experience the legendary PvP that this game is known for.

One thing I did like however is that one handed weapons and two handed weapons have different slots on the equipment screen.

This means you can have both equipped and swap between them by clicking twice on the equipment screen. For a game which such bad U.I., this is a really nifty feature and I appreciated it a lot when I wanted more defense or offense at different times in battle. Two-Handed weapons have their own specialization but because of this feature, I found it worth it to put points into it alongside my weapon of choice just because of how easy it is to switch mid battle. Excellent feature, I wish more games did it.

Well, that's about it. I wish I could say more but I actually wasn't able to play a whole lot this week. Since the game's focus is PvP, I reckon I wouldn't have much more to say about it anyway until I reach max level and can start participating in the grand scale wars. And thus regardless, the show must go on.

I mean, I can't speak from personal experience obviously but the PvP in this game sounds amazing. It's not just killing random players in the open world. It's organizing and waging full blown war against your enemy factions. Establishing outposts, capturing forts, waiting for the perfect moment to rally your troops and strike the opposing forces. It sounds great but as with everything, some piece of that pie must be rotten.

I give Dark Age of Camelot a 6/10. I don't love the game, I love the idea of it. The game SOUNDS awesome and it FEELS awesome to be in a world inspired by Arthurian legend but that U.I. really kills it for me. I'll stick around, keep it on my computer and continue to play it until I make it to that promised endgame PvP. THEN, we'll see if the game is all its cracked up to be. THAT will be the moment of truth. The only thing keeping it from dropping from a 6 to a 5 and therefore receiving a failing grade is the promise of something awesome that I just haven't reached yet. I think its only fair to make the decision of whether or not it stays on my computer when I experience the game's selling point. And so, it stays on my computer if only to find out if that is true.

This is my Avalonian Paladin, Izanagi-No-Okami (A true medieval english name). Because this was the closest the game would let me be to a knight of the round table.