Still in Beta product development and testing stages, this massive multi-player online role-playing game (MMORPG) promises to give EverQuest a run for its money. Its current release schedule is for Fall 2001, which in real life terms means Christmas 2001 (if we are lucky).
The Realms in Dark Age of Camelot are Albion, home of the Britons, the Celtic land of Hibernia, and the Norse Midgard. Players will be able to play characters in each of the Realms - each Realm's characters will specialize in different types of magic, different fighting techniques, and of course each will have geographically typical terrain. Midgard is full of fjords, ice, and pine forests; Albion has gently rolling hills and Roman ruins; and Hibernia is a wild land of deep forests, enchanted hills and magical beasts.
Dark Age of Camelot is designed to provide players with a general roleplaying experience while their characters are low and mid-level. However, upon achieving the higher levels in the game just when other games get stale and players run out of things to do characters in Dark Age of Camelot will embark on their player vs. player careers by participating in Realm invasions and by protecting their Realm’s Relics from enemy thieves. This almost guarantees that the game will never become boring, even for long-time players.
Each Realm is the possessor of a number of ancient magical Relics, which give bonuses to all members of that Realm - when the Relics are safely in their shrine. However, Relics can be stolen away by enemy raiding parties and taken to their shrines, making the raiding party's Realm stronger. When safely in shrine, Relics give moderate attack and damage bonuses to fighting races, and magical spellcasting bonuses to spellcasters. Any Realm that does not have its Relics fights at a disadvantage.
Relics must be protected at all costs from theft - this concept forms the core of the player versus player (PvP) conflict in Camelot. Relics come in all shapes and sizes and are based on each Realm's history and legends. Some of the ongoing quests in Camelot will be centered around discovering many lost Relics.
Here is a summary of features that caught the eye:
- 3D interface. UI screenshots look very similar to EverQuest.
- It is fantasy based (not sci-fi).
- It is based upon Northern European mythos, in post-Arthurian times.
- There are 3 primary mythos/races: Albion (British Arthurian/Camelot), Midgard (Norse) and Hibernia (Celtic).
- It is based upon Race-Team PvP from its inception. The quote is: "built in and balanced team Player vs. Player (PvP). Unlike its predecessors, in Dark Age of Camelot, PvP conflict is an integral part of a player's experience in the world, not an afterthought."
- A questing system designed to avoid camping of rare spawn quest NPCs.
- True to the period weapon types.
- Magic is based upon their race-team, not class. All magic classes are unique to their race.
- Classes begin to specialize in types of attacks when they join "guilds" at a pre-defined level. Some of the "guilds" also determine what skills (crafts) the character can acquire.
- There are EverQuest style guilds known as Associations.
- There is absolutely no cross-teaming. None. You cannot group with, chat with, or send private tells to any other race team. They have even taken it to the point where when you create an account on a server, you choose your race team FIRST and then all characters created on that server are of that race team ONLY.
These folks obviously spent some time playing UO and a LOT of time playing EverQuest. Instead of being based upon AD&D, they really went for the semi-real legends of the Dark and Middle ages. On the surface, the design has the feeling of the old text-style MUDs. As an avid MMORPG player, it has promise.
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