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The Beta has been awesome for months!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 71 / 80
Date: September 24, 2001
Author: Amazon User

Unlike the last several MMOGs to come out, this one actually works and works well. I've been in the beta and it has been rock solid for months. The game is beautiful, the 3 realms couldn't be more different from each other, the number of choices you have for your characters is huge.

Hibernia is a 'magical' realm, most of the races have pointy-ears and the feel is a bit "irish" While it's my least favorite of the 3 realms it's still fun to play. Most classes were fun but I'd avoid playing a Hero, choose the Champion and get a few spells instead. The enchanter is also a pretty nifty class that gets overlooked a bit.

Albion is the human land and while it's areas and classes are some of the best it still sits second with me. They've got a good mix of aspects but I'd avoid some of the support classes until you've tried something else. Both magic and melee classes work well but perhaps the Scout, an archer is the best. I'd again avoid a pure melee class and go with one that has a few spell add ons (or at least the highest possible armor if you're going pure melee)

Midgard is easily my favorite realm. I love it's stark land and all the lakes that you come across. The players are the most visualy distinctive with just one human race, 2 small races (blue kobolds and little dwarves...and I have to say those litttle dwarf girls are cute!) and one giant race of trolls (the look very little like 'standard' fantasy trolls more like big rocks.) Each has it's advantages. I've played several troll melees and just love the way they look and move. Here I'd avoid the Berzerker and go with the very flexible hybrid fighters. I'd also avoid healers for Shaman. The healer is just a bit to easy to kill and even in realm combat the less group oriented shaman is needed because he's just a bit more likely to be around at the end of an attack. While billed as the darkest of the realms I actually find that Midgard players tend to be friendly and ready to help out new players even more often than the other realms. Hibernia seems to attract the 'power players' who's main goal selfish advancement. A bad strategy when they enter realm wars and find that solo tactics lose to the better coordinated teams.

This is easily the most fun I've had playing computer games in my life. This is a must have game if there ever was one!

Review focusing on character differentiation

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 39 / 40
Date: November 05, 2001
Author: Amazon User

There are many other reviews here and elsewhere on the net that talk about all aspects of the game. Here, I'm going to focus only on how Dark Age of Camlet allows me to make my character different from others who are the same class and race as mine.

For me, one of the most appealing aspects of an MMORPG game is the ability to make a character as unique an individual as I am in real life. In an online RPG, most of us are known by our name and our class - "Hi I'm Brach, level 16 Armsman" - and this is usually the extent of individuation. Furthermore, since most MMORPGs cannot provide more than a handful of character facial and body models, most player avatars look fairly similar (especially once people playing your same class being acquiring the same quest items as you have).

In Dark Age of Camelot, however, the game artists and designers have provided a great number of ways to make your character not only look and feel different, but even play differently than others of your same class and race. Here's how:

1. Realm and race selection. You can choose to be from one of 3 different realms on any given server. Each realm has four different racial types, so you have essentially 12 different races to choose from in the entire game. All are visually distinct, even the four human races of Albion.

2. Body type. Each character can be short, average, or tall.

3. Face and hair. Each gender of each race has about 10 different faces and 10 different hair colors to choose from.

4. Class and Skills. Each realm offers about 10-11 different classes to choose from. Within each class, you receive a set of basic skills which all others of your class also receive. However, as you advance in level you also receive specialization points to spend on advanced skills. How you spend these points is up to you. This means that even if another player has chosen the same realm, race, body, face, hair, and class as you, you might have a completely different set of strengths than that other player. This is true across all classes - for example, one tall blonde Highlander Armsman of Albion might specialize in polearms, while another tall blonde Highlander Armsman of Albion might specialize in using a shield and a slashing weapon.

Furthermore, you might choose to develop crafting skills - adding yet another way to make your character more unique.

5. Weapons and Armor. The choice of weapons and armor is simply staggering. Each realm has its own look and feel for armor. While there is only one kind of cloth armor, there are three different kinds of leather armor, three kinds of studded leather, chain, mail, and plate armors. Visually all are unique, and armor can be mixed and matched among six different pieces (helm, sleeves, gauntlets, jerkin or breastplate, boots, and leggings). There are also a number of different shields available in varying styles, sizes and materials. The two Highlander Armsmen described above could very well look quite different depending on the kind of armor each is wearing.
Weapons add another amazing choice. Even if both characters specialize in the same weapon type - Slashing, for example - there are half a dozen different slashing weapons available, all with differing but balanced damage and speed ratios. Your choice of slashing weapon will tend to suit your style of play - do you want a weapon that is quick but deals less damage, or one that is slow but really packs a punch? The visual models of the weapons are outstanding and people use them - it is entertaining to see some people using short swords, others using scimitars, others axes, while others prefer morning stars or great two-handed swords. And given all other things being equal, no one suffers for choosing to use one weapon over another - all are effective.

6. Cloth Dyes, Leather Dyes, and Armor Enamels.
Right from the beginning of the game you can easily dye your clothing and enamel your armor with colors available from local vendors. No special skill is required - but the richest colors are also for the richest characters - and this allows you to "show off" your wealth, because most players know that if someone is walking around in a royal purple cloak, they must be quite wealthy or have a wealthy patron.

7. Guild emblems.
If your guild is successful enough and powerful enough, they may have enough money to purchase an emblem which can then be emblazoned on cloak and shields. The emblem consists of one of three patterns, a primary color, a secondary color, and one of 40 symbols (each realm has 40 different symbols, unique to that realm). The combination of pattern, colors, and symbols means that there are over 5000 different possible guild emblems. Nothing quite screams "prestige" like a guild emblem.

With so many different ways to visually distinguish your character from other characters, Dark Age of Camelot provides an excellent foundation for creating your own unique avatar and experience of the game - all that's left to do is for you to add a dash of personality and live it up!

If you enjoy creating a unique individual in an MMORPG, Dark Age of Camelot provides all the tools you could hope for, on top of an extremely fun to play game.

BOOYAH!!!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 50 / 61
Date: September 25, 2001
Author: Amazon User

I've been BETA testing this game for a month now and I have got to say it's been extremely stable and very playable. My friends just got into the BETA last week and we have been in groups every night since. How good is it? I just pre-ordered it. I'm definitly going to play this game. My EQ guild is wondering where I am. Spectactular graphics, great gameplay. They say that they are concentrating more on RvR than on PvE, but man, PvE is very nice. There won't be any 'grief players' in RvR because you won't know who is who in RvR.

Camping? No! There is no reason to camp specific mobs. Everyone doing the same quest and needs the same mob. Group up, everyone gets the quest item on the kill. Quest items and loot items are on seperate tables. THAT ROCKS. You can do low level quests that you haven't done, that you have found and still be able to complete them even if you are too high for the level intended.

Rain? Sure it rains, but it's not all fog and can't see, heck there are even breaks in the clouds.

There is so much I can say about this game I would definitly run out of room. But this game, look at all these reviews, this game ROCKS.

EQ-improved, EQ-lite, EQ/3

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 24 / 25
Date: December 07, 2001
Author: Amazon User

...whatever you want to call it, DAoC is still EQ. It's the same levelling treadmill, loot-based, kill-rest-kill-rest-kill-rest gameplay of EQ.
Its good points:
- Fast levelling: Damn good idea. The best one in an MMORPG. I can level in a few hours if I'm hunting yellows, and, unlike EQ, I know how much XP I'm getting, which is a small but commendable addition.

- Graphics: The graphics, especially the spell effects, blow me away. I'd become so used to EQ's particle graphics that when I saw an Eldritch's Void spell explode in front of my I jumped! When I saw Runemasters at the Druim Ligen gate dropping three or four people with giant spears from the sky, I gaped. Then I saw a wizard's mini-nuke and stared wide-eyed.

- Fighting Styles: There are lots of them, and lots of combos, too. A definite improvement over EQ.

- Tradeskills: Yes, I can make weapons right off the bat now! NO more making hundreds of metal bits, needles and molds just so I can be a beginning blacksmith.

- Detail: From the Condition/Durability/Quality of equipment, to the conning of items, there is a lot more detail accessible to the player base.

- Quests: Quest journals, tasks, and consignments. 'Nuff said. This is my favorite part of the game, because you can do quests at any level, and in Hibernia at least, you have wandering NPCs who can actually tell you what quests are available.

Its bad points:
- Fast levelling: It's still a treadmill, and it still gets boring. Basically, you find a good camp spot, and live there for two or three levels (maybe more if you're in a "good levelling dungeon" like Tomb of Mithra).

- Small world: I swear, sometimes it feels like Hibernia is about as big as West and East Karana combined in EQ. That may be big for running, but it in no way matches EQ's vastness.

- Variety: The lack of it, rather. You see the same damn models everywhere you go. A bleeder in the Tomb of Mithra in Albion uses the same model as a swamp drakeling in Midgard. A Gale in Hibernia looks like a Spriggan in Albion. A grass spirit near Tir na Nog looks like a rotting tomb raider in Albion.

- Repetitiveness of combat: Even the fighting styles are boring. With fighters, it generally boils down to hitting your most powerful style over and over, except on those rare occassions when you'd parry or block an attak, in which case you'd hit the appropriate style.

Bottom line:
DAoC, so far, has been a fun game for me. I feel like my actions have a tangible result in the end. This may be because DAoC is so closely related to the real world (being based on real myths and all), but I like the game's atmosphere of feeling grand and heroic no matter what level you're on.

For example, take the low-level dungeons. In EQ, you have dungeons like BB and CB that, if anything, LOOK and SOUND low-level. They remind you everytime you enter the place that you are only a newbie. The mobs drop cloth armor, rusted weapons, and coins.

In DAoC, however, you have dungeons like the Tomb of Mithra, which has the look and feel of a high-level dungeon, even if it's only the names of the mobs and the loot that they drop. I feel a much greater sense of accomplishment killing a dreadful cadaver and getting an Armorpiece of the Forlorn and a Ceremonial Scimitar than I would killing a gnoll and getting a piece of cloth armor and a rusted dagger.

This sense of accomplishment is practically the only reason I'm playing DAoC instead of EQ, because otherwise the two games are essentially identical.

Everquest without the crappy parts

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 34 / 42
Date: September 04, 2001
Author: Amazon User

If you liked Everquest, you will absolutely love this game. It is similar in premise, but better in execution. Like EQ, DAoC is a fantasy multiplayer role playing game with a huge world, plenty of interaction, lots of monsters, spells, quests and things to do. However, they obviously learned from EQ's mistakes. There is no twinking, no camping and a well developed pvp that you can choose to participate in or not as you wish. There are three distinct worlds, each with their own classes, spells, items, mobs, etc. that border on each other and compete against each other in pvp on the borderlands. And unlike Anarchy Online, this game actually works. All reports from beta are that the game runs smooth and lag free. You will not be disappointed in this one.

The good, bad and ugly sides of DAoC

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 23 / 25
Date: January 10, 2002
Author: Amazon User

I first got my hands on DAoC about five months ago during the early beta stages and it was an instant addiction. The landscapes were lush and beautiful (or grim and menacing if you play the dark realm of Midgard), creatures and player models were well designed with new ones being added every patch, leveling was fun and easy and new things kept popping up with every step. These are the things that most positive reviews address and it's all true. However, after you've been around for a few months this is not something you will pay a lot of attention to. You will see all the landscapes a hundred times, you will kill the same creature a thousand times over, and nothing new will please your eye for a very long time, if ever. This is what it will break down to:

The leveling grind; fun with gaining levels stops around 30. After that it's a slooooooow process that gets simply unbearable after level 40. At that point it will take about a week to gain a single level (provided you don't die too often), a week spent killing the same creatures in the same setting over and over and over until either you level and finally move somewhere else or quit altogether and start from scratch on another realm to maybe once more experience that "it's all nice and new to me" feeling.

But wait, what about the much talked about revolutionary realm vs. realm system? Those huge battles, where armies of players from each realm struggle for domination, leaving for everyone a chance to earn for himself fame and glory and rich rewards through skill in combat? Please. RvR (for short) is for people over level 40. Period. Any "younger" group, no matter how large/experienced/organized will get slaughtered by a single high level character because of the enormous gap between levels. Balance between classes is also a joke in RvR, dividing everyone into three categories: archer, assassin, and fodder. You either shoot people from very far away for huge damage while hidden, or you sneak up while hidden and backstab them for the same effect, or you serve as a target dummy for both because there isn't a thing you can do.

No, wait, you can, of course, go on raids so let me define that concept in terms of the DAoC world. In a group of 8 you run around the enemy's frontier (which is where all the fighting is) and kill everyone you can find. Since most people are there to level (past level 30 there is nowhere go other than hostile frontier zones) they never even see you coming and fall prey to your group without ever knowing what hit them. Even if you are on the dealing end of this situation you get bored after a while.

You could take keeps, but again you'll need to be pretty high up there to do it and there seems to be no incentive whatsoever for you to do so. Keeps allow safer passage through a particular realm, something that people leveling there could benefit from greatly, but by the time you get to take some over you will no longer care about that aspect of the game. As a result hardly anyone bothers to take keeps, and nobody ever bothers to defend them.

In short, RvR is only fun for very high level characters against which nobody lower has a fighting chance. To get there you must spend (at the very least) a month pressing the same pattern of buttons over and over to kill the same creatures the sight of which you already could not stand before you even hit 30, the level where it all slows down to a crawl. There is also an extensive system of restrictions in place that prevents you from going up faster than a certain pre-set speed (slow) that includes everything from monsters only a few levels about you being virtually immune to your attacks (both magical and physical), same monsters not giving you any experience beyond the pre-set "cap" should you somehow manage to kill them alone (preventing which seems to be the only job of the AI), and giving you even less experience should you get a high level character to help you.

Quests are also rather boring and repetitive and are composed under the archaic (yet still the only) "go kill this creature or talk to this guy and bring me what he gives you" system. Interesting at first, those quests quickly turn into errands you do to get new stuff, often without even reading the story behind them. To prevent, yes, forcibly prevent, not ameliorate, this unfortunate situation, many quests will send you out with very vague instructions that you will most likely not be able to finish without asking somebody who did the quest before, having himself stumbled upon the solution by pure luck...

To summarize all the ramblings, if you get this game prepare to be amazed by the quality of the product that in your eyes will blow all competitors out of the water. Visually pleasing, rich, intense, and, above all, new and refreshing world of DAoC will suck you in and become an addiction faster than you can flip through the last few pages of the manual. But if you think this feeling will last all the way up to the end, you are dead wrong. The high level content is dull, frustrating and in essence empty, taking you away from the beautiful and exciting world of exploring and interacting with a rich and skillfully designed immersive universe of DAoC and landing you into that of an endless grind where the only reward you see over the faraway horizon is finally getting back at (the lower level realmmates of) those who have been making that grind ever more tedious. A MMORPG is supposed to be an investment and this is exactly what Dark Age of Camelot isn't. `Nuff said.

Fills a niche in the MMORPG world!

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 18 / 19
Date: April 21, 2002
Author: Amazon User

Dark Age of Camelot (DAoC) provides a very different MMORPG experience for those seeking one. I played Everquest for years and had grown quite comfortable with the leveling structure, experience & combat systems, and difficulty. Because you could just as easily find a spec chart and description of the game somewhere else, I'm going to compare DAoC to Everquest, for those players considering buying DAoC.

Plusses:
-Camp times are almost non-existant. While down time certainly exists, there's almost no "waiting for repop" time, like there constantly was in Everquest. Rare spawns and perms respawn within a reasonable amount of time throughout the game, never taking longer than two or three hours at the most (compared to oh, say, the Raster camp from EQ...average of 90? 100 hours?).
-Twinking is impossible. One of DAoC's unique features is assigning a level to all of the items in the game. Items too high level for your character will not give you their maximum benefits and will degrade much faster, thereby preventing people from handing down gratuitously good equipment to their lower level characters. Because items are only useful within a 3-4 level range (above or below), DAoC's economy will remain much more stable than Everquest's for a long time. Instead of hunting in a dungeon to get loot that sells to players half your level, you go into a dungeon and get loot that's better than what you're using.
-The quest system is much more user friendly. A built in journal tracks your progress and next step, and the quests are fun and much more engaging than the average EQ quest, where most of your time was spent camping some monster.
-The classes are infinitely more balanced than in Everquest. I've only played in the realm of Albion, but within Albion every class has its strengths and weaknesses which manage to balance each other out. There's also a lot more variety between individual characters of the same class; every level you are awarded "spec points" which can be used to increase specific skills your character uses.
-The player versus player system is for the most part excellent. There's an appropriate battleground for every level so you can PVP without fear of being victimized by people twice your level. Teamwork PVP is intense, engaging, and absolutely necessary, because DAoC rewards you in PVE for being effective in PVP. Players can also choose whether or not to participate in PVP; the game never requires it, and you can go for pretty much the entire game without worrying about it if you so choose.

Minuses:
-You level really quickly compared to Everquest. While some might consider this a good thing, it makes the overall amount of game time much smaller. Players have gone from level 1 (minimum) to 50 (maximum) within a period of a couple weeks of dedicated play, whereas a similar level jump in Everquest would take months, possibly years.
-The game is incomplete, and more is added slowly via patches. While this may discourage many people, it shouldn't, as all MMORPGs function this way.

A comparative review.

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 15 / 15
Date: November 30, 2002
Author: Amazon User

I hate writing reviews that compare one thing to another, but since I a have experience in both Everquest, and Dark Age of Camelot, and since Everquest is the MMORPG groundbreaker, I'll have to use it as a basis of comparison.
With that being said, let's take a look at how these games match up and differ.

1) PLAY-TIME: EQ requires an enormous commitment to get just about anything accomplished. Most players in DAOC that approached the game with the same type of commitment reached level 50 in less than 6 months. DAOC requires far less game-time to reach the high level content than EQ does, so it caters much more to the casual gamer, or the more adult gamer who has to work, spend time with children, etc.
2) DOWN-TIME: To me, one of the most frustrating things in EQ is the horrible amounts of time sitting, waiting for a camp spot to respawn. Though there is downtime in DAOC, it is GREATLY reduced. So much so that the camp will probably respawn before you are even ready to pull another monster.
3) PURPOSE: The purpose in EQ was always to get XP, so you can hunt harder mobs, to get loot, so you can get more XP, etc. etc. DAOC is much different. There is purpose in gaining levels. You are working towards the end-game goal. RvR! PvP with a purpose... what a concept.
4) QUESTING: having a quest journal in DAOC makes doing these much easier. No longer do you have to fill up pieces of scrap paper with obscure NPC names, and cryptic lists of items. It's all there for you anytime you need to see it.
5) GRAPHICS: This goes without saying. DAOC blows EQ out of the water here. Spell effects are fluid and gorgeous, the environment is rendered beautifully and the character models look like real people, not cartoon characters.
6) GUI: I always found the GUI in EQ to be obtrusive and aggravating, even with the upgrade in Planes of Power, I still found it to be in the way 90% of the time. DAOC has removed the bulky obtrusive GUI and replaced it with a sleek, easily navigated system that takes up next to no screen space. EQ should take a hint from this. Cleaning up the GUI is something it desparately needs.

The only real problem I had with DAOC is only being able to have 4 characters per server. But, this is getting revamped before Shrouded Isles goes live. They are raising the character limit to 8 so all us old fogeys can try out the new classes without deleting our characters. DAOC also now has 2 PvP servers where you can kill anyone you want (besides guild and alliance members) and Geheris will go live soon, which is a coop server. No PvP at all, and the ability to adventure in all three realms. In response to some of the other reviews here:
1) Mob models have been drastically updated, so mobs do not all look the same anymore.
2) Ambient sound has been added, making the realm feel more real and enveloping.
3) You can now duel people in your home realm to the death, with no fear of XP or Con loss.
4) Advanced tradeskills of spellcrafting and alchemy have been added, allowing far more customization of armor and weapons.

I fall somewhere between the casual gamer and the hardcore gamer, so it took me about a year to get my character to 50, but I also have 4 characters in the mid 20s, so my time was split. I plan to play this game for a long time. I haven't given up EQ completely, since it is the classic mother of all MMORPGs, but DAOC, in my opinion, has the best designed system and gameplay I've seen in an online title. It's definitely worth a try.

Excellent

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 16 / 17
Date: October 19, 2001
Author: Amazon User

I've started to be pretty pessimistic about games. When I go out and put the plastic down to buy one, I figure if I play it a few weeks to a month, I've gotten my entertainment value. Sometimes I play it a few times and it doesn't appeal, well, that's a shame. (And sometimes it's Anarchy Online, the installer bluescreens my PC, and the company is so unresponsive I issue my first complaint ever to a Better Business Bureau.)

And with luck, you find a game that you play day after day, week after week, month after month. Everquest was that game, since I started playing 6 months ago, I have probably averaged playing 5 days a week, almost every one of them pure pleasure. I bought DAOC figuring I'd play a month to check it out and then it would probably join the other games on my shelf. Instead a week later I find myself cancelling my Everquest account in favor of DAOC.

Dark Age of Camelot is, by far, the best MMPORPG on the market today. It has taken the best aspects of Everquest, Asheron's Call, and Ultima Online, taken out all the things that people hate about the genre, and combined them with a very responsive and customer friendly company to produce a game that is clearly the industry leader.

The specifics about gameplay can, at this point, be found on dozens of sites. It's not hyperbole. This game is addictive and enjoyable. It's not hype. If you're a current MMPORPG player, this is the game you've dreamed of. If you're not, don't bother with the others, start out with DAOC, it's the best.

That's not to say that there aren't problems, but one of the biggest pleasures of DAOC is the company's attitude. Customer Service stats posted for the public. Apologies for problems. Explanations of future plans. It all equals a company that makes you feel like you're valued as a customer and that they will do what it takes to keep your business.

Played the beta version, looks promising but not spectacular

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 37 / 55
Date: October 09, 2001
Author: Amazon User

If you're not familiar with beta testing, it's a process where gamers test and play the game before it is released. I beta tested the game up until a few days before its release and while I thought Dark Age of Camelot was a decent game I wasn't overwhelmed by it.

First off, Dark Age of Camelot is an online multiplayer game and it seems to be more stable than some of the recent disasters that have been released. One disclaimer to this is that I experienced bad lag (pauses or slow gameplay due to slow internet signals) in the major cities in the last days of beta testing because more beta testers were allowed in the game which makes me think that when the game is released it will only get worse. If you're going to purchase Dark Age of Camelot I would check recent news and PC game bulletin boards to see if the company's servers are holding up and the game isn't experiencing too many bugs.

The graphics are definitely impressive and I would compare it to the game Asheron's Call with better resolution. As a matter of fact, the game plays similar to Asheron's Call with a set of rules resembling Baldur's Gate or any Dungeons & Dragons PC games.

While the game looks to be stable and takes advantage of better graphics than most online games it just doesn't seem to offer much. After picking a server to play on, you also pick a realm to play in which affects what type of races you can play. Some of the races are large creatures such as trolls or small creatures like kobolds and are a nice change from the usual formats for swords & sorcery online games. After the races though, the choice of professions for your character are very limited. Essentially, you can only be a warrior, mage, thief or cleric with subtle distinctions occuring as you reach higher levels and are able to swear to different gods in the game who give you special abilities.

I didn't enjoy the setup for gameplay. Many easy actions such as simply quitting the game require you to type in a command. I felt the chat options were more technical than they needed to be and the chat box wasn't large enough to begin with. Your actions are also recorded in the chat box and the game seems to be more oriented for the keyboard than the mouse.

It's fun to see some of the warrior classes allowed minor spells at higher levels but the spells that are provided don't match some of the online competitors's games. The quests and adventures provided are difficult to find and most cities are very small. It's almost like the game was perfected to look "pretty" while forgetting vast quests, subplots, NPC activity and other elements that make many online games enjoyable for months. Also, if you are a gamer than enjoys playing solo, this might not be the game for you because it's oriented for group play with some clever options put in such as screens that allow you to find any players in your region that are seeking companions.

I would give the game a try to see if you enjoy it but in my opinion, it doesn't match up to Ultima Online, Asheron's Call or Everquest.

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