Dark Age of Camelot Preview

Mythic Entertainment's new massive multi-player on-line treat, Dark Age of Camelot, just concluded its second stage of beta testing. The final version of the game is scheduled for release in the fall. Games like Ultima On-line, EverQuest, and Asheron's Call provided a nice foundation for the developers of Dark Age of Camelot. The game follows the tradition of these popular titles with the classic features of a standard MMORPG, and of course introducing a couple of new ones.

The basic storyline follows both middle age historical events and mythological anecdotes: "It is the time just after the death of King Arthur. His kingdom of Albion sorely misses his firm leadership, for the ancient land is under constant threat of invasion by the wild magical Celts from the western island of Hibernia as well as from the wild and uncivilized Norse from the icy lands of Midgard, far to the north. At stake is each Realm's Relic - rare and extremely powerful talisman that must be kept safe in special keeps in the Realm, lest enemy raiders come and steal them."

The worlds of Camelot encompass three different realms: the Celtic land of Hibernia, the Nordic land of Midgard and the British land of Albion. Each Realm possess races and classes that have their own distinguishing features - way of combat, magical specialties, and so forth. Races are assorted by their unique specifics, which are not only based on historical facts, but also on a wide variety of legends and mythologies of Arthurian Britain, Viking-era Scandinavia, and ancient Ireland. Let us look on the Scandinavian Norse; they are rather a crude nation, yet they're physically superior in contrast to other realms. The human citizens of Albion are divided into four chief races: Britons, Avalonians, Saracens, and Highlanders. Every race has a primary attribute that presents an advantage over the enemy realms. The Avalonians have a greater intelligence than the human-Briton race and are even more powerful when they use their magical abilities. Saracens outshine their opponents with enhanced dexterity and quickness. As for the Highlanders, they possess impressive skills for armed combat and they stand out in their loyalty for the realm. To boot, a lush character customization system will be included in the game, allowing the player to manipulate the appearance of the characters by modifying their skin color, hair color, etc.

Choosing one of the four realms a player receives the possibility of engaging only players of the opposing realm. This means that the basic combat-features consist of either defending your realm from invasion, or simply invading another. One of the most important features that will greatly influence gameplay is the mislaid possibility of attacking your own realm members. Mythic's text on-line RPG, Darkness Falls: The Crusade, is sort of a foundation ground for the specific PvP system that's going to be implemented in Dark Age of Camelot -- PvP modes in Camelot are focused on the cooperative realm-based system, which features the important factor of realm points. In Camelot, the player cannot fight against members of his own realm, whereas other games (like Ultima On-line) allow the player to engage every character he encounters along the way. Once you assault the opposing realm, you will soon realize that your main purpose is to engage in battles and gain as many realm points as possible. So, it all narrows down to attacking the enemy player, hacking his head off, turning it at your Realm for realm points - which are kind of like experience points. Although, you won't get any extra levels from these points, they will provide you with special realm titles, communication abilities, and an opportunity to carry out special quests. What the developers are actually hoping to accomplish, with this kind of slightly restricted PvP gameplay, is a reduced amount of both grief players and looting events.

In relation to that, the game features a detailed questing system that gives a player the opportunity to advance in his guild level, to learn new spells, and survey the environment. Quests are a crucial constituent of the game. The flow of a typical quest contains a few features that are going to prevent the massive player entanglement in a single quest. These features are fairly straightforward: players engaged in a quest for the same item will have randomly chosen quest steps, meaning they'll perform their tasks at different time and in a different order.

Weapons are another authentic feature of Camelot; they all originate from the dark ages and are going to be true to their original models. Here's a sample of the sort of weaponry and armor you're sure to find in Camelot: Slashing: Hand Axe, Dagger, Short Sword, Broadsword, Long Sword, Bastard Sword, Scimitar. Thrusting: Dirk, Stiletto, Rapier, Spear, and Trident. Crushing: Hammer, War Hammer, Mace, Flanged Mace, Spiked Mace. Two-Handed: Two-Handed Sword, Great Hammer, War Pick, War Axe, Battle Axe, and Great Axe. Shields: Kite, Buckler, Tower, and Full.

All of these weapons are significant to those players who do not possess the ability to cast spells. Basically, each weapon-using class gets at least a few styles, which they can use as special attacks during combat. Every Style has an opening move, and primary arms-using classes will probably get up to 20 of those in their career. The player looks for this opening move (such as a parry, block, hit, miss, etc.) and then initiates the style.

The monsters in Camelot will make the most of their artificial intelligence. Which means that they won't sloppily dash into battle with the players, quite the contrary they'll tend to retreat looking for reinforcements.

As I've stated before, the second phase of the beta test recently ended using Albion as the experimental realm. This kingdom featured a few things that will appear in the final version of the game. Also it introduced the basic combat system, character customizations, skill advancing, and other similar features. A lot of work awaits the game developers before the game is released in the summer of 2001. Right now we know that they're still tweaking the monster AI. Moreover, the developers intend to create a more efficient technique of traveling through the in-game environment, although it is currently unknown what the method of moving about will look like, there had been some speculations regarding teleportation as the most effective means of transport.

For maximizing the game's visual performance, the developers have built in the same NetImmerse graphic engine from NDL Inc, that was also used in Mythic's Spellbinder: The Nexus Conflict. Evidently, it was enhanced for the requirements of a massive multi-player game environment. Other visual features include day/night changes, fog, and other atmosphere features.

All in all, the one thing that's certainly going to relieve most of our readers is the fact that the players will be able to cross the huge terrains without any loading screens and similar transitional sections.