This past week on Wayback Wednesday I had the opportunity to sit down with special guests, Kai Schober and John Thornhill, and play Dark Age of Camelot (DAoC). Kai is the Community Manager with BioWare/Mythic and handles all Mythic properties including DAoC. John is a designer with BioWare and has been a member of the Camelot team for the past three and a half years he is also a DAoC player for the past 9 years.
DAoC is celebrating its 10th anniversary this year and is a perfect fit for the show and is the first MMO that I ever played. 10 years after its original release and DAoC is still the litmus test for player versus player combat, or in this case realm versus realm combat. Too often in MMOs players are limited to two factions to choose from. Inevitably this leads to population imbalances and lopsided PvP. You are either the underdog, or the zerg. The designers had a wonderful idea when they created Camelot: create a third player controlled faction. This third faction has added a level of balance that is rarely seen in games today.
We spent the majority of our evening in the Thidranki RvR lake. This is a level 20-24 area that is normally very popular and tonight was no exception. Before each show I talk to the guests to get a general idea on how long they plan to stay. All of them have stayed longer than they commit to because they end up having so much fun playing their own game. Tonight was no exception. Even with travel staring Kai in the face to go to PAX East the following day we found ourselves participating in RvR for almost three hours. One of the goals I had established was to attempt to take the keep. This was difficult because of the three faction system. At one point early on we had the Mids pinned in the keep and it appeared as if we were going to be successful only to have the Albs march in behind us and wipe us. Finally by the end of the night we were able to make a final push and capture the keep. (See part 2 for the final push and keep capture).
In addition to capturing the keep some of the other highlights are:
- 0:00:00 Introductions
- 0:04:00 John and Kai's take on RvR vs PvP
- 0:07:35 Thidranki and the New User Experience
- 0:15:45 What happens if I reach the experience or realm points cap for a lake?
- 0:19:30 Grouping
- 0:23:45 From fans to Mythic employees
- 0:24:59 Future content? Full fledged expansion or free DLC?
- 0:28:45 I'm a noob so what is a Relic?
- 0:35:40 How to make a macro. (It really is easy)
- 0:36:45 Will we see a free to play DAoC?
- 0:43:00 Could we see another graphics update?
- 0:45:00 Our first attempt to start taking the keep.
- 0:55:45 Equipment slots
- 1:00:00 What happened to the Herald?
- 1:02:45 Old Frontiers
- 1:05:45 What is an infernal sleeve and will we see upcoming events?
This episode was so popular that I plan on streaming DAoC at random times and I'm currently working with BioWare/Mythic on hosting upcoming community events. Keep an eye on this thread for the upcoming community events announcements and make sure to follow our Twitch channel for announcements on when we go live.
