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Dark Age Of Camelot - The Old Game That Did It (Pvp) Right (Mostly)


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#1 Thorqemada

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Posted 06 October 2021 - 02:50 PM

Sometimes the first love of your life is the true one.
Some think that is fortunate - bcs you found from the start what other people search lifelong.
Some think that is sad - bcs for the rest of your whole life you know what you are missing!

After this insignificant little lesson of human wisdom lets go to the topic:



Dark Age of Camelot - the MMORPG that had PVP right in the beginning


The game was the reason for my Father to ask me to get us Internet (he was retired and had some health issues that made it necessary to take care of him so he lived with us) - until then we had a 33k Modem and played Multiplayer in LAN-Party sessions.

I guess it was early 2002 when DAOC launched in Europe and living in a big city we got DSL Internet quite soon after making the request for it.

Everquest was only known from some advetising, ofc so was Ultima Online.

DAOC (Dark Age of Camelot) was by the time announced in the mags you had to read for all news and it seemed to click with my father and so we bought us the game.

For the time it looked ok (it used the early game egine that runs Morrovwind and Fallout 3 i.e.) and was quite smooth as long you would not exceed some limit of Playercharacters on Screen.

Its beauty was the ambience, the social aspect, the way it interconnected PVE and PVE and made them symbiotic instead of anticlimatic, the variety and depth.

I will link some Vids i found on YT so if you want you can make yourself a picture of it.

Why it worked PVP aka RVR and PVE so well together was that it made PVP and PVE exclusive but dependant on each other and offered also shared experiences but all the time it never took away player agency (PVP could not be forced upon you it was allways your conscious decision to take the risk or stay away).

Also the 3 Realms PVP aka RVR was ever dynamic so it would never stop in a 1 sided supremacy situation as the 2 wekaer sides would allways band together (either informal/ooportunistic or even with negotiated intend via Alliance leaders).

Winning in RVR ment that your Realm would get buffs in PVE which ment you could get better ressources from stronger PVE-enemies that were used to craft better PVE and PVP gear.

The economy was allways booming bcs everything had wear and tear even quest rewards like the Epic Gear from the Class Quests.

It was in the interest of the PVP Players that the PVE Players were as strong as possible and vice versa bcs it benefited both of them.

Darkness Falls was a shared PVE/PVP zone used for high end ressource farming that switched allegiance to whomever won the RVR objectives that granted them exclusive access into that zone.
Only with that access you could enter that zone (but you could stay/log out there and log in back regardless of which side had access - the genious thing was that you were kicked out of the zone only upon death and respawn).

That gave the shared zone a whole new dynamic and was also a way to intorduce PVE oriented players into low intensity but high engagement PVP.
Bcs Stealthers (classes with stealth ability) from enemy reals would go on PK sprees and the whole dungeon would band together to hunt them down.

A PVE Player is not that interested in killing his enemy PVP Player, he will respwan anyway and death thus is meaningless aside of a more or less lenient death penalty but getting a PVP Player killed and this deny him access to that zone until his Realm has won back the right for access - that is very meaningfull and highly satisfying!

So, imho DAOC was the game that did it right in the beginning (and lost it later).

Yet ofc the game is 20yrs old and technically it shows but i find it highly astonishing that nobody every really recreated that experience with better tech and modern accessability while keeping its depth and 3 Realm dynamic with the exclusive and shared elements of mutual togetherness of PVE and PVP.



Vids:

"Dark Age of Camelot is the among the greatest MMOs ever released, and is still filled with fulfilling action. It's a game with an high skill ceiling and incredibly deep combat mechanics. In this era of thriving PVP games, I contend that this 20 year old "lightning in a bottle" game not only holds up, but deserves its place among some of the best games available right now.

The Legend of Dark Age of Camelot - YouTube


Dark Age of Camelot - HOW TO START!

Dark Age of Camelot - HOW TO START! - YouTube



Classic Dark Age of Camelot - Beginner's Guide Primer

Classic Dark Age of Camelot - Beginner's Guide Primer - YouTube



Ambient Music of DAOC

DAoC Albion Salisbury Plains ambient music music (night) - YouTube



Have fun digging in mmo history Posted Image




PS: How DAOC influenced daily live:
When i started in 2002 it took roughly 9 months of 6 hours per day (twice and thrice at weekends) to get a Char to max level.
The end levels were especially hard to get and it was in a high level zone were a Dragon was sleepding that every now and then (dont remeber the time but it was a set time frequency) would wake up and fly a patrol.
Every Player on flat ground would inevitably get killed and the death penaltys became very severe really quick.
So farming the mobs there in 8man groups (bcs lesser groups could not do it usually) there was allways a contdown clock set to alarm when the Dragon would wake up.
That would enforce a break in the gameplay called in german "Drachenpause" - in english it probably translates into "Dragon break".
The Hills at the very edge of that zone where safe and everyone in that zone would gather together there for that break.

As you could not afford to be absent from you group while in action all things human were put into this Dragon break.
So for all of us old german DAOC vets Drageon break (Drachenpause) is still today the synonym for following the call of nature... Posted Image


PPS:
DAoC Dem Hibbies HQ - YouTube

Edited by Thorqemada, 07 October 2021 - 10:34 AM.


#2 Thorqemada

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Posted 06 October 2021 - 10:46 PM

"Dark Age of Camelot has been around for almost 20 YEARS, but the Phoenix server has just been out for a few months. How is this old MMO able to retain such a dedicated community? Here are my thoughts on DAOC [Phoenix Freeshard] in 2019."

Is Dark Age of Camelot Phoenix Worth Playing in 2019? - How this almost 20 YEAR OLD MMO is doing - YouTube

Edited by Thorqemada, 06 October 2021 - 10:46 PM.


#3 Thorqemada

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Posted 06 October 2021 - 11:06 PM

From a comment (Kristen Pierce):

"I also play DAoC when it first came out. Played EQ before that, and WoW afterwards. DAoC is still the greatest game I've ever played. Darkness falls and RvR was some of my best memories. I played all the realms but Midgard was definitely home . I mained a dwarf healer named Arguile, mezzing an Albion zerg and picking them apart /assist was a thing of beauty. Watching my servers elite guild <Drumvettr> in action was one of the most amazing things to witness. I remember countless times, laying on my back as my 8man group had been trashed by a alb or hib Zerg during a keep battle, and <Drumvettr> Inc out of nowhere against 2-3 groups or more of each realm, picking them apart and zipping from corner to corner of the keep as one consisive unit, slowly but surely taking EVERYTHING out. I would watch in awe, they were truly elite. I loved playing a healer in that game. It really made you feel important and necessary unlike other support classes in games I've played. I'm not usually support, I tend to play melee dps in most any game. The classes of each realm were amazing, so distinct. Skalds, Thane's, Shammys, Bards, ******* pallys (lol) and ******* scouts, chanter, hero...all unique, very balanced ( atleast in the beginning before all the new classes ). Beserker was an absolute blast, and playing a stealth class really was a stealth class. It was a class that was used for espionage and recon etc. I can't tell you how many times I would be hanging out waiting at a keep for the rest of our groups or whatever and BLAAAM I jump tf outta my chair as some stealther slams into my chest with both blades lol ! Poisons and stuns everywhere, ticking away and 3 shots later I'm on the ground and my team is aoe'ing the entire area, but they gone :-) . Buffs meant something as well. Not only to your group but to the random low lvl. I would be in some dungeon halfway in camping some mob and someone w a shambot hits me with buffs and for the next 30 min I'm soloing reds and xp is through the roof. Raids were huge too!! I will NEVER forget my first dragon raid. Must've been 100+ and it was so hard, healers didn't even bother healing. Just stand back and rez. That's a ****** raid lol. Would take hours just to.take one out. I will never forget DAoC and have been strongly considering coming back. WoW is getting ridiculous these days and I can't find any other MMO worthwhile it seems. Oh, just a sidenote, I noticed while you were playing that not only do you press attack w your mouse, you also use your mouse for every attack you need. Just use your ~1-10 for all main attacks and place them accordingly for your rotation. Also use tab to cycle nearby enemies and create a hotkey for /assist so you can target your main tanks target. Will change everything and make you 3x better w just those small adjustments ."

Edited by Thorqemada, 06 October 2021 - 11:06 PM.


#4 Thorqemada

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Posted 07 October 2021 - 08:26 AM

MMORPG about the closure of the DAOC Phoenix Freeshard:

"On Saturday, July 24, 2021, the long-running and highly popular Dark Age of Camelot freeshard Phoenix was announced to be closing by the end of August. In a Phoenix forum post titled "The Sky Is Really Falling This Time", gruenesschaf, one of the creators behind the freeshard, explained the reasoning behind the decision and the remaining timeline for the server. Eventually, gruenesschaf explained in a rather fatalistic fashion, every online game—freeshard or not—reaches a point after the hype has died down and player interest has waned when the player population is just too small to warrant the server's continued existence."

DAoC: Phoenix Falling - The Life And Death Of A Free Shard | MMORPG.com

Edited by Thorqemada, 07 October 2021 - 08:27 AM.


#5 ScrapIron Prime

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Posted 07 October 2021 - 06:14 PM

I played Everquest... right up until the day my fiancee moved in. On that day, I sold my account. Temptation, you know. Got a rather large wad of cash on PlayerAuctions for my lvl 65 warrior, mostly because I was the only player to have EVER finished the bugged Katta Castrum Shield quest, as a volunteer for the two Moderators who were mapping out the bugs. The quest was never fixed, and the no-drop, shield-or-back-slot item still isn't listed on Allakhazam. Posted Image

#6 Thorqemada

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Posted 07 October 2021 - 09:24 PM

Yeah, sold my DAOC Account when we moved on - preventing me from geting torn apart between games.

Chosing your game back then around the yr2000 was easy:
Ultima Online: RP, PVP
Everquest: PVE, Questing
DAOC: RVR, PVE

And then there was Asherons Call i never got to know - i have no clue what that game was about.

#7 Thorqemada

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Posted 08 October 2021 - 04:58 PM

So, bcs i wondered what that was about Asherons Call i looked after a Vid for it.
Death of a Game: Asheron's Call 1 & 2 - YouTube

From my perspective having not a "Tab Targetting" MMOrpg at that time is simply insane and blind to the state of the tech.
Even in 2005 we still had players coming from a dial in line via a 33k or 56k moden, or in germany via ISDN which is twice as fast as a 33k moden and could be switched to a "double line" mode which made it 4 times faster than a 33k modem.

People with pings between 200ms and 2000ms or more would play together.

In DAOC RVR when 300 to 400 players clashed together FPS would go down to fractions of a single FPS at times.
You needed Tab Targetting and the /Follow /Stick /Face /Assist commands among others to overcome these difficulties.

Even today i would argue a MMOrgp is better of with Tab Targetting bcs it is the big equalizer between players using high end equipment and connections and players using second hand gear on shared lines in areas were the local monopolist does not want to invest like it happens even in the US and Germany.

Aside of that a PVP System that requires a Player to be ever online and ever vigilant does not work for a gameworld you have time limited or at times sporadic/irregular access to.

Having no world wide representation is even back then a fatal oversight.

So in the end its no wonder it stayed in its obscurity instead of capitalize on the early pre WOW internet craze.

Edited by Thorqemada, 08 October 2021 - 05:00 PM.


#8 Thorqemada

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Posted 10 October 2021 - 11:34 PM

Eurogamer about:

Remembering a golden era in Dark Age of Camelot


Remembering a golden era in Dark Age of Camelot • Eurogamer.net

In the comments a person wrote it took them one and a half year to reach the max level 50.
It could even take longer if you were not able to find a spot in a good leveling group.
To get into a good leveling group you needed to be very on schedule and disciplined so that the game dictated your day.
It was good for a while but is not a sustainable way of life - stil great to have it experienced though Posted Image



PS: Afair the first Level 50 Player (i think we played on the EU Server Stonehenge after moving away from Logress for population reasons right soon after the game started so it was not a problem at all) was leveled up by a group of players that played 24/7 in shifts and it took around 6 months.

My Guild was called "Lords of Midgard" but it seems any Info is gone but for some stats when we had already left the game - i know exactly 1 Player in their rooster called Etana.

You would meet all kind of people, one of the Players made as all chuckle as one day he asked:
"Hey Guys, my PC has Watercooling, when it drips that means it works right, does it?"

Glorious! Posted Image

Edited by Thorqemada, 11 October 2021 - 12:01 AM.






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