Last Week, Garrett Fuller and Jon Wood headed down to Fairfax VA for an EA Mythic Press Event. Today, Garrett lets us know what they had to say about their flagship, Dark Age of Camelot.

Dark Age of Camelot if a game that has come a long way. After five years it is considered one of the top old-school MMOs and is often ranked in with Ultima Online and Everquest. However, the Dark Age of Camelot we saw this week carries many upgrades and features which keep it in competition with the current MMOs we are all playing today. After five years on the map, Dark Age of Camelot still delivers and plans to deliver for many years to come.

Producer Walt Yarborough gave us a presentation on the changes that we can expect from Dark Age of Camelot in the near future. After going through and highlighting points on The Labyrinth of the Minotaur, he went right into the new content that players will be able to enjoy. Also, he did mention that GOA will be launching the expansion in Europe sometime in February. The expansion has been available in North America since November.

You can read the whole article here.

Very nice improvments,

However....when I went back and popped in eariler this year to see how things are in old DAoC one thing really needs to be looked at and that is the "downtime". Kill one mob, sit around for several minutes resting. Its really really dull, slow paced gameplay. Doling out free levels every so often is no solution, the message that sends is "yeah we know our gameplay/leveling sucks, so here, have a free level on the house".

DAoC was my first MMORPG and I started playing it back in 2002, so I really want to see this game succeed. But nothing will bring me back until they find a way to bring in the old community and increase their subscription numbers. No game will be populated as WoW is at the moment, but it should not be hard to find a group if you want one. When I used to play DAoC, I never had problems finding a group and we would level for hours. I found that fun, but now the population is pretty low and most people are already lvl 50 and most of them just want to RvR. Again, when I used to play, I found no shortage of people who liked to do the PvE content. But now people just want to RvR and could careless about the PvE content. Even in-game people say that this game is all about the RvR. Well, it wasn't all about the RvR back then. RvR was a large part of it and the stories were built for it, but PvE was also a big part and big enough that they had a server dedicated to PvE alone. Now I liked RvR too, but I didn't want to have to RvR 24/7. I wanted to be able to also go do a raid maybe a couple times a week and maybe some RPing events.

So unless they can provide that feel that it once had for me, I won't be coming back. To produce that feel, they need to encourage RPing, bring back the community that likes to do the PvE content as well as the RvR content, and provide measures that encourage the already scarce community to group together instead of soloing all the time.

Originally posted by Torak

Very nice improvments,

However....when I went back and popped in eariler this year to see how things are in old DAoC one thing really needs to be looked at and that is the "downtime". Kill one mob, sit around for several minutes resting. Its really really dull, slow paced gameplay. Doling out free levels every so often is no solution, the message that sends is "yeah we know our gameplay/leveling sucks, so here, have a free level on the house".

I thought that the leveling was the best part of the game. You had no downtime if you were grouped with others that can replenish your hitpoints, endurance, and mana. But yeah, soloing sucks and that is why I left after Catacombs. I tried it out this past fall and they've improved the amount of xp you get in the Classic and SI areas, which has given people a reason to come out of the Catacombs and group up. But it was still a lot harder to find a group than it was back in the day, so I left. I have all, but the LoTM expansions too. I don't want new areas to explore, I want the old areas with people to play in them with. These new campaigns will help, but they are targetted for lvl 50's, which is something I don't have. And I prefer not to have to solo to 50 just to see that new content. I'll just stick with WoW and The Burning Crusade. I just found a great guild on a new server and I am having a lot of fun. Plus we RP. Imagine a guild of 80+ accounts of RPers who also plan to do all content in-game and also have experience with it. The results is a lot of fun times.

DAoC is OldSchool, and the main thing OldSchool MMORPGs have working for them is that they dont appeal to everyone = compromises less to none (and in my opinion a good game cant appeal to everyone, we're only human here .. )

What I love about DAoC and why i've played it a few years = it's PvP,  I  L U V   it

Long life DAoC!

ED : Yes it is "grindyR" compared to recent releases, it has fixed class roles, team play works wonders.

    Realm VS Realm endgame PvP and the Battlegrounds (having toons for as many BGs as possible) are what gives it it's wonderful coating. Those that 'been there know.

Originally posted by Snivellus
"Kill one mob, sit around for several minutes resting. Its really really dull, slow paced gameplay."


This was changed in 1.87. It takes about 30-60 seconds (depending on level)  to go from 1% to 100% now. They've also added campfires (drops in SI and classic areas)  that increase power/end/hp regen rates.

That sounds nice, how recent was 1.87???

Other replies, I played DAoC for over a year, had several level 50"s and higher RR toons. The game was slow paced and grindy hence the empty servers and free levels.

1.87 went live last week I believe. 

No matter what I play, I always come back to this game.  Not only does levelling fly when you are in a group, but many, and I mean MANY classes are so soloable now it is nice.  Did not go back to RVR this time around, but rather Gaheris which allows you to play any class and any race and explore the world.  Always raids going on, and plenty of people around to play with so its good!!!

Originally posted by Torak

Originally posted by Snivellus
"Kill one mob, sit around for several minutes resting. Its really really dull, slow paced gameplay."


This was changed in 1.87. It takes about 30-60 seconds (depending on level)  to go from 1% to 100% now. They've also added campfires (drops in SI and classic areas)  that increase power/end/hp regen rates.

That sounds nice, how recent was 1.87???

Other replies, I played DAoC for over a year, had several level 50"s and higher RR toons. The game was slow paced and grindy hence the empty servers and free levels.

DAOC is a good game, I still have accounts on it because the RvR is good times, and I really enjoy it.  Maybe not as flashy as some of the newer games, but still a good time.

Originally posted by davidab
For people worried about population problems on DAOC, and having a hard time finding a group, you should really try out the Bossiney cluster (Classic).  The population there is always good, and they do not offer the free jump to level 20 for veteran players...so you can  easily find a group even from the earliest levels.  You also don't have the buffbot problem as the earlier poster mentioned.  It's a well populated, casual friendly server.

I played on Gareth off an on since its release and I just recently quit this past December when the double xp was around. Finding a group is not easy like you say it is. You almost have to solo or wait for a group for a pretty long time. There are some levels that is easy to find groups for, but not all of them. When I played DAoC from 2002-2004, grouping came natural to everyone and you could find one within 5 min. But now it is not natural and a lot of people would much rather solo. Finding a group can take anywhere from 5min to never depending on your level and the time of day.

Im really glad theyre still actively putting out content updates for this game. It is  too great a game to let die especially in pvp. I often rue ebaying my account several years ago and would certainly go back to it however i just cant bring myself to grind soem more toons again sadly.

With the 1.87 changes that somneone mentioned about the regen and xp rates being uppped i might try it out on the free trial again although im tempted to go more for the us servers as opposed to the euro servers as i hear theyre very low populaiton now

Have to say ive still never quite managed to recreate the thrill i got pvping in daoc on many occasions.

The biggest problem with DAoC now is population.

I started on the Gawaine server 4 1/2 years ago.  I'm still here, but the population is almost non-existent. 

When I first started, Gawaine would have 2500 people on in the evening.  Now it's usually under 400.

They addressed this for RvR and for raids (MLs, Dragon, Caer Sidi, etc) with the clustering, bringing the cluster population up to about where Gawaine used to be on its own. 

The problem is most of the zones are not clustered so the PvE is spread out across 4 servers. 

You used to be able to go into just about any of the main dungeons in classic or SI and find a group.

In addtion to the population spread across 4 servers, the task dungeons and other instances mean lots of people are leveling out of sight and are harder to find to get into a group.

Merge all the zones but housing (have no idea how you could merge housing fairly so leave it alone) and drop the instance dungeons would go a long way to help.

Then they just need to find a way to attract people back or get new players.

If something significant doesn't happen, a successful release of  WAR will signal a serious decline in DAoC if not it's death.

-G

the ehancements mentioned that will be coming (like extra slots for characters, etc)  -- He failed to mention that they are considering this to be a "Real Money Transaction" -- meaning yeh, its gonna be available but you are gonna pay for it. Much like the nickel and dime shenanigans of SOE and Station. Since its EA now, this wasnt a surprise. EA will bleed every cent they can out of you.

As far as the rest, as an Elder of the game, I think EA Mythic making some of the changes that were screamed for 4 -5 years ago is more like --yeh thats nice but its a little late.

Top that with a joke of customer service sending canned responses --- nah gonna leave it off my game list.