Dark Age of Camelot

aka: DAoC
Moby ID: 5403

Description official description

Set in the period immediately following the death of King Arthur, Dark Age of Camelot is an online role-playing game which offers a blend of killing AI controlled monsters, and killing (or being killed by!) player controlled Invaders from Other Realms.

Each copy of the world (of which there are many, each holding up to 3000 simultaneous players) is divided into three competing realms: Albion, Midgard and Hibernia. The realm of Albion is based on Arthurian legend, whereas Midgard is modeled after Norse mythology, and Hibernia on Celtic myths. Each realm offers extensive internal areas for straight "monster-bashing" of a style similar to Everquest and other Diku MUD derivatives, as well as a large frontier region which can be invaded by players of the competing realms.

Dark Age of Camelot is a subscription based game.

Spellings

  • 卡米洛特的黑暗时代 - Simplified Chinese spelling

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Screenshots

Promos

Credits (Windows version)

152 People (107 developers, 45 thanks) · View all

President
Vice President
Producer
Production Manager
Executive Producer
Producer
World Development
Art Lead
Designers
Lead Programmer
Lead Server Programmer
Patcher and Client
User Interface
Utility and Database
Monster Pathing and Client
Login Task and Utilities
Server Utility and Network
Art Lead
[ full credits ]

Reviews

Critics

Average score: 87% (based on 23 ratings)

Players

Average score: 3.3 out of 5 (based on 18 ratings with 5 reviews)

Dark Ages of Camelot is a shallow gaming experience that doesn't compel me to keep coming back for more.

The Good
The game is relatively easy to get started in, and it is easy to find partners to group up with and kill monsters. Combat is challenging since all the monsters than give you enough experience to be worth your time have a good chance of killing you. The best part is that you are always tempted to go after those oranges and reds for the extra experience even though they can really ruin your day, even if you are in a group.

There are enough different builds for each class to play around with many different playing styles. Most classes have combat and spell abilities so you can focus on one or both when you spend your skill points.

The graphics and sounds are nothing special, but they are good enough so that they don't get in the way of gameplay.

The Bad
The biggest problem with DAoC is that the gameplay is extremely repetitive. It never varies from the "hunt monsters and sell loot" or the "buy supplies and craft stuff" gameplay style.

This would be ok if the monsters were more varied, but for the most part, even though the graphics vary for monster types, the monsters all fight in the same way: charge the characters and kill them. The monsters do not even behave in an intelligent way: they attack the person that is doing the most damage to them, not the person they could kill the fastest. The silliest part of combat is the practice of "pulling" monsters. If I attack one monster in a group, I would expect a group of monsters to come after me, not only the monster I attacked. There are some monsters that do attack in groups, but even then they don't attack with any sort of tactics other than "rush and kill".

Another big problem with combat are the proliferation of combat moves. Even a 10th level character can have too many moves to fit on one quickbar. Switching bars during combat can cost you precious time that you don't have when you have to sprint away NOW. The main thing that fills up the quickbar are "chain attacks" which are attacks that you execute in sequence to do lots of damage. One wonders why Mythic didn't just make the attacks combination attacks (that is, once you earn the next attack in the chain, the next attack automatically executes its required attack first) to begin with so you wouldn't have to use 3 quickbar slots to execute that cool backstab manuever.

There are no healing potions in the game, (or at least I didn't find any and none were for sale) so if you don't have a healer in your party you have to spend way too much time resting after combat. Finding a healer can be difficult at times, and I hate spending most of my playing time sitting around waiting for my health bar to fill.

The worst part of the game is crafting. Crafting consists of buying materials and hitting the "craft" key for that item until you run out of materials. This is not fun. When a game requires you to do something this tedious ( I read an entire issue of National Geographic while raising my tailor skill from 0 to 100) you know it is badly designed. The worst part about crafting is that no matter how much time you waste doing it, it seems that you still can't craft items that are good enough for your character to wear unless you spend a whole day of REAL time crafting to get your skill in the 400's or higher.

My last quibble with DAoC is in character development. Level 1 characters are very weak. You don't really get to do anything interesting with your character until level 5, and it really takes until level 15 or so until you can really enjoy the game. So why not just start the characters at Level 5 so you can skip all the boring parts like wandering around killing worms and bugs and doing silly item delivery quests?

The Bottom Line
DAoC is an online RPG that is fun for about 4 days, but it eventually gets bogged down in tedious and repetitve gameplay that ruins the game completely.

Windows · by Droog (460) · 2002

Not a persistant world, but persistantly fun.

The Good
DAoC eshews the "virtual life" model of some MMORPGs like Ultima Online for a more direct "hack n' slash" approach. While this might lack depth, it's also a simpler, more direct type of game for beginners of the genre to get into. A real bane of these types of online games has been high-level PKers who get their jollies running around slaughtering newcomers. Developer Mythic has completely solved this by splitting the online world into three distinct areas, and citizens of each of these lands can not kill one another. Instead, after reaching a certain level, players may then venture into frontier lands and do battle with the other races, in epic contests to steal relics from one another's keeps for special realm-wide bonuses. This entire system makes for a great pace; as you increase levels you can match your abilities to the various monsters that roam the countryside. Facilitating this is the HUD the game provides, giving each monster a colour-code alerting you to its strength compared to your own. There is also a quick bar for easy access to spells and special abilities, of which there are a lot because each realm sports plenty of different races and classes. The graphics are also very nice, and the engine seems very stable and optimized. In fact, Mythic pulled off what has to be the most seemless, bug-free launch in the history of MMORPGs. The various quests you can undertake are also varied and seem geared to the race and class and path you ultimately decide to follow.


The Bad
Unfortunately, even though the game strives to ease newbies into the game, the quests are sometime confusing, and the journal fails to provide detailed information on how to proceed, making it necessary for the player to keep comprehensive notes, somewhat defeating the purpose of an in-game notekeeping system. I've even noticed a few instances where the journal provides just outright bogus notes, making finishing a quest rather needlessly difficult. Travel is another annoyance; since it is so hard to make any kind of money when you first begin the game, and since so many of the early quests are simply errands you have to run from one town to another, you won't be able to purchase horse travel immediately. Meaning you have to run on foot, which gets tiresome after awhile. A lot of the commands and interface controls are not intuitive either, so you'll be at a loss as to how to do what until you get used to them. And as I mentioned above, there is no real "liveability" to the game, so if you're looking for something that allows you to sink completely into another, online life, then this isn't the game. Here you just pop in, kill kill and kill again, and then pop out when you get tired of it.

The Bottom Line
A very nice, smoothly paced introduction into the world of online role playing games. It might not be particularly deep in its philosophy, but it sure beats a poisoned arrow in the eye.

Windows · by Ummagumma (74) · 2002

A nice change of MMORPG pace

The Good
While I still pine for a MMORPG that isn't set in a cloneworld of Middle Earth or Blade Runner's LA, DAoC is a refreshingly different fantasy game. Some argue that it's dumbed down, I counter that it is (wisely) less encumbered with annoying minutia. It's also a rather fine looking game. Most importantly, both solo and group combat are fun.

The Bad
As Ummagumma noted, the quest/task journal is pretty lame (although it's worth noting that quests and tasks are completely optional). You might take on a quest from Bob the Smith in town X. Part one is to deliver a scroll to Joe the Enchanter in town Z. If you review your quest log, your instructions are Deliver scroll to Joe the Enchanter. It doesn't record what town Joe is in. It doesn't record who assigned you the quest (Bob) or where you received it (town X). So if you log off before completing the quest, chances are you'll never be able to complete it unless you wrote down Bob's initial instructions.

The Bottom Line
Everquest light, but not in a bad way.

Windows · by Kurt Sample (1071) · 2002

[ View all 5 player reviews ]

Trivia

Come Back to Camelot

From July 14th 2005 through the 24th, Mythic ran the "Come Back to Camelot" Campaign, which invites past Dark Age of Camelot players to experience the game's upgrades and additions free of charge for ten days.

References to the game

The game is referenced in Benoît Demeutre's 2008 novella Customer Service, originally published in French as Service clientèle.

TV series

A television series based on DAoC was in development by Collision Entertainment, but apparently never emerged. Their website describes the series with...

Based on the online game Dark Age of Camelot created by Abandon's Mythic Entertainment, the world of Camelot is filled with as much youthful passion, love, and sex, as it is with hatred, betrayal, war and the supernatural. Arthur, just 17, becomes King, while Guinivere, Lancelot and the other familiar characters, all in their late-teens/early-twenties love and battle in the newly formed Camelot. Think "90210" set in a land where danger lurks around every corner. In the Court of Camelot there is as much danger inside the castle as there is on the outside and alliances shift as easily as the sands on the beach above which Camelot stands.

Awards

  • Computer Gaming World
    • April 2002 (Issue #213) - Online Game of the Year
  • GameSpy
    • 2001 – PC RPG Game of the Year
    • 2001 – PC RPG Game of the Year (Readers' Choice)

Information also contributed by Entophane and Sciere

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  • MobyGames ID: 5403
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Contributors to this Entry

Game added by Dan Homerick.

Additional contributors: Ummagumma, ClydeFrog, Unicorn Lynx, phlux, Apogee IV, Patrick Bregger.

Game added November 27, 2001. Last modified February 13, 2024.