One of the best and most viable MMORPGs out there right now.
Massively Multiplayer Online RPGs have a lot of potential. The possibility to interact with thousands and be part of something bigger than yourself is a very enticing venture. Indeed, single-player games will always have their place in the industry, but MMORPGs may just be the wave of the future. But for now, they're just redundant medieval-themed ventures and even games like the futuristic Anarchy Online are no more than the same formula in a different setting. Much like the ill-fated Anarchy Online, the rest have been nothing but bug-ridden, rushed-to-market messes. Not to mention the many promised "immersive" features that never seem to get implemented, such as buying houses and otherwise "building" the world around you. Or what about the ability to become an established merchant with your own shop which has been relegated to nothing more than shouting across the zone with various offers for the oth!er players. The only MMORPG to really implement these features was one of the first, Ultima Online, but a multitude of other problems kept it from reaching true greatness. So where does Dark Age of Camelot fit in all of this? Unfortunately, I feel it makes little attempt to innovate on the formula. The big problem is, that it just doesn't seem to go anywhere. As fun as the much-touted "realm wars," which promote massive battles between the denizens of each of the 3 main areas of the game, may be, there's still very little sense of being part of something epic. DAoC is reduced to the same, endless enemy-killing for days on end for a chance to level and increase your skills to a minute degree. For all intents and purposes, this is probably due to the fact that the developers want people playing for a long time in order to bring in revenue garnered from the monthly fees. Nonetheless, it doesn't help the game design any. However, for all the flaws that today's MMORPGs seem to ha!ve, Dark Age of Camelot is THE most solid entry into the genre yet.
Compared to the other MMORPGs I've played, including the indomitable EverQuest, the interface, combat, and so on are handled in a much more fluid way in DAoC than any other game in the genre before it. The animations are good, movement throughout the world is, for the most part, smooth and lag-free, and the menus/windows are customizable to the point that you can move them anywhere on the screen, resize them, and so on. One of my major beefs with Everquest was the cluttered, static interface, but Dark Age's feels a lot more responsive and clean. It's also easier on the eyes. The graphics and character/enemy models are also much improved and the buildings have a little bit more spice to them, but for the most part, the landscape is still comprised of sparsely-populated hills and plains littered with paper-like trees. Graphical limitations aside, it's still not very immersive nor is it engaging. The world doesn't feel alive with NPCs that stand in place and have nothing intere!sting to say (though there are some interesting mini-dramas found in DAoC that seem to improve over the dialogue in other MMORPGs). What towns there are are fairly small and the "main city" in each of the three realms feel incredibly empty.
However, where DAoC does have variety is in its character creation. There are 12 different races and around 45 different classes split up across three different "realms." There's the Celtic-themed Hibernia, British Albion (the one most associated with Arthurian lore), and the Nordic Midgard. While other MMORPGs rely on modern fantasy to build its world, DAoC gets points for focusing on ancient mythology. This is reflected in the various types of monsters, which thankfully move away from the "rat" formula found in Everquest. Once you pick your realm, race, and basic class, as well as distribute skill/attribute points, you talk to your guild master which will get you started on the usual rigors of killing monsters, trading what they drop for money, and buying basic items/wares until Level 5 when you must seek out an advanced guild master which will allow you to branch out into the more advanced classes which you will be using for most of the game.
The combat is fairly simple and, once again, based on the Everquest formula of "click on enemy, hit auto-attack button" and waiting until either you or the enemy is dead. Afterwards you sit around and recharge your stamina/health. Combat is spiced up by the usual things such as attack skills, spells, and so on. The hotkey bar allows for anything from those skills and spells to items and alternate weapons to be used on the fly. Having everything in one place is very convenient and makes combat a bit faster, as well. While sitting around you might be able to practice your other skills that allow you to tailor armor, smith weapons, and the usual. There are dungeons and a number of fetch/kill quests to complete, but overall, it just doesn't feel incredibly engaging. A lot of it feels more like a chore than having fun and as much as I try to like every MMORPG I play, it all feels the same. There's really just not a whole lot going on. I never feel like I'm influencing or changing! the world in any significant way.
The only way most of these games become engaging at all to me is mostly due to the efforts of the players in PvP combat. Dark Age capitalizes on this in a big way with realm wars that pit denizens of each of the three realms against eachother in "borderland" areas. This also happens to be the cornerstone of the DAoC and the eventual main focus of the gameplay once you reach a high-enough level. Although some players from other realms wander into your realm once in awhile, there is little to no PKing in the realms themselves. This allows the player the option to level to his/her heart's content without fear of player-killers, or go to the borderlands and fight in sometimes massive battles. These battles can be chaotic and fun and the goal is not only to kill players from opposing realms, but to steal artifacts from their forts, as well, which can afford your realm certain attributes and improvements while at the same time detracting from the other realms. This gives the playe!r more incentive to fight in realm wars in order to improve the well-being and prestige of their homeland.
Besides all of this, there are the other usual conventions of MMORPGs including a multitude of different merchants to buy various kinds of armor/weapons/etc. and the ability to form parties and guilds whose members share a common emblem. If you're looking for a well-done, solid MMORPG right now, you can't go wrong with Dark Age of Camelot. It's a good effort and improves on all of the existing genre conventions, but it fails to innovate very much. This could be due to a number of factors from technical and development time constraints to publishers rushing the product to market. Nevertheless, the concepts just don't seem to be there. Dark Age doesn't feel very rushed, either, and that's a good thing. It shipped with much fewer problems as compared to the launches of other games in the genre (Anarchy Online comes to mind) and it's very playable. It's also easily the best experience of had with the genre yet, though considering my grievances with MMORPGs, it's still not up to !snuff. There are some bright spots on the horizon, though. Cryptic Studio's superhero epic, City of Heroes, for instance, appears to be an innovate title that provides a truly immersive atmosphere.
There's no doubt that MMORPGs as they are currently can be extremely profitable, but the gameplay, at least for me, isn't terribly exciting. It's not the non-linear environment or complexity that annoys me, but the fact that it amounts to nothing and that despite the range of options while creating a character, you'll always end up leveling for months on end; these games just don't feel dynamic enough yet. Perhaps an interactive story, city-building, more involved combat, or dungeons with puzzles could improve the genre and I think we're on the way to seeing those things implemented in future releases.
I must reiterate, though, that although Dark Age doesn't innovate much, it's the best and most viable MMORPG out there right now. It's not a bad game by any means, but it could also be a whole lot better.
