Miss Tweety's Dark Age of Camelot Preview
posted at 5:00 PM on Thursday, December 7th, 2000
Introduction
| Publisher |
| Mythic Entertainment |
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| System Requirements: |
PII 266
~500MB HD Space
64 MB Ram
16 MB video card
Soundblaster Live! sound card or equivalent.All subject to change before final ships. |
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| Other Info: |
| Producer: Matt Frior Release date: September 2001 |
| Related Links |
| Official DAoC Site Crossroads of Camelot |
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In the beginning, there was light. Light coming off teeny little integrated monitors, and the light shone on the faces of people roleplaying and pretending to kill elves and dragons in BBS format. Then this begat that, and that begat this other thing, and blah blah blah until your head starts to spin and you want to barf from all the self-righteous twits telling you which game really revolutionized gaming. Moving right along to the present, what you have right now in the MMORPG market is the Big Three: Everquest, Ultima Online, and Asheron’s Call. In adolescent terms, we would call them the Big Man on Campus Who Secretly Hates You, the Head Cheerleader With Permanent PMS, and That Guy Who Girls Won’t Sleep With Because They Just Want To Be Friends. For some unknown reason, other game designers look at the roiling, semi-hysterical masses of humans filled with venom aimed at the makers of their favorite game, and the up and comers think, “Damn, I want me a piece of that!”
Okay, okay, I lied, they aren’t interested in the venom, they’re interested in the great big wads of money growing on the tree a gamer becomes after he sits in front of his computer long enough to send down roots.
And yet, in this sea of skepticism, occasionally you can find game designers doing nothing more than quietly making a really neat game. Quietly, in the sense that they don’t have marketing people, they pull no stunts designed to whip up a frenzy of expectation, they don’t pick fights with other companies. If games were girls at a high school dance, Dark Age of Camelot would NOT be the chick in the low cut dress rubbing her boobies all over everyone. DAoC would be the one with a nicer face and a prettier dress, but you’re too busy trying to see the slut’s nipples to take a look at anyone else. So, c’mon. Let’s take DAoC around the dance floor a few times. The quiet ones are more likely to put out in the end. [ed note: This is the last time I send you to a company's offices...]
Mythic Entertainment has made other games before, such as the Dragon’s Gate text mud (still running after twelve years), and a few others besides. This isn’t about Mythic, though, go read their website if you’re into their pedigree. Let’s talk about their pretty new game.
Bear in mind that what I saw was NOT a finished game. This chick isn’t at the dance yet, she’s got her underwear on and she’s trying on dresses. The folks at Mythic are aiming to have her dressed and ready to party in September 2001, so don’t complain about her messy hair just yet. In addition, if you want general information about the game and the playable races, go to the Dark Age website instead of this article, I’m here to tell you what it looks like. My guide to the game was Matt Firor, the producer.
World Graphics
Ooh, pretty. Rolling hills, rounded trees, graceful swooping bridges, real nice. Tons of detail, but they haven't put in the "every leaf actually flutters" effect that lags out even decent machines. It just looks gorgeous - if you ever meet lead world developer Colin Hicks, be sure to give him some love. Details in the distance fade gracefully in as you approach, which caused one heart stopping moment as Avalon appeared out of the mist. I was most impressed with the architecture, myself. The art staff, led by CJ Grebb and Lance Robertson, did their homework. Even the scale is thought out well, Stonehenge is at this moment to scale - if you're a human, and you wander up to the stone circle, that's how it would appear in real life. I say at this moment, because that could change - I nearly put my pen through the producer's neck when he said they were considering making it bigger than scale to be more impressive. More impressive than Stonehenge? What?!?
The world structure is also pretty damn nifty. Zone lines are close to invisible, with the different terrain types fading into one another. Standing in one zone, I can see everything in the next zone the same way I see across a street. Zoning takes no time at all - cross the line, and get the message "You have entered…" That's it - guess we're all going to have to find some other time during gameplay to go take a leak. Zoning into dungeons large and small will take a few seconds, maybe that's when you're supposed to go. Oh, and except for a few specific zone lines, like the lines between realms and the lines between the dungeons and the world, monsters can chase your ass across the seamless zones.
The clouds in the sky move at the speed of… clouds. The stars in the night sky are a nice touch. The woods are suitably gloomy, and really the lighting is solidly designed throughout. Don't go charging across the windswept plain in the zone near the ocean, or your ass is heading over a cliff. Overall, a lot of love went into making the world, and it shows. It's the most visibly complete aspect of the game.
Monsters and NPCs:
Monsters are attractive (or frighteningly ugly), and the humanoid NPC types have a decent amount of variety. I got a kick out of the goblins, and I liked the undead Roman soldiers in Briton as well. Mythic is still working on the animations and sound effects, and hopefully my criticisms will be moot in a few months - my main problem was that after you kill a critter, it falls over and it looks… flat. Steamrollered, actually, like a cartoon. The sound effects are currently pretty limited, and I wasn't too impressed with what I did hear. I shrugged to myself and thought, well, the game won't be out for another ten months.
Characters and Appearances
You’ll get a highly customizable look - aside from all the varied races you can choose from the three realms of Celts, Norse, and Briton, you can select from a double handful of faces and three different heights.
Let me start off this next paragraph by saying that contrary to what you might expect from a hardcore feminist like me, I want great huge boobies when I roleplay in a fantasy game. My personal set are great and all, but if it’s my fantasy, I want cleavage that I didn’t pay for at Victoria’s Secret. At the same time, I LOATHE most
gaming versions of armor for females. No real fighter would ever wear a metal thong and a chain mail bikini. I tried one of those outfits on once at a Renaissance Faire, and let me tell you, it pinched in places I didn’t know I had. Attach a clothes pin to your no-go zone, boys, and that’s a rough equivalent. That crap wouldn’t deflect a heartily thrown egg, let alone a slashing weapon. The only thing women’s fantasy armor could stop is traffic.
So, in my terribly humble opinion, the female armor in Dark Age ROCKS. It looks like… the stuff the men are wearing. Studded looks like studded, leather looks like leather, plate looks like plate - it’s good shit, and historically accurate. AND the women have big hooters. The real women working at Mythic are putting in dress up clothes for folks to wear to non-battle events.
Interface
There’s a whole lot of hotkeys. I can’t read my own handwriting, so I can’t tell you how many, but I distinctly remember the producer telling me that if I wanted to make a hotkey for every stinking spell in my spellbook, I COULD. Your character has the standard armor slots for bracelets, rings, breastplates, yadda yadda.
You won’t be hauling around packs in this game. You get forty inventory slots, period. Stuff them with maces, stuff them with stackable spell components, whatever. You might not want to haul around forty maces, because weight will be a factor.
Two separate chat windows are on your screen - the bottom one is for speech, the top one is for system messages and combat - you have zoned here, you hit the critter for ten points, etc. It sounds clunky, but it’s actually easier to follow that standard integrated chat windows.
Oh, and your exp bar is on the main screen display, nice for you leveling junkies.
Gameplay Stuffs
Tradeskills - you want to be a master smith? Go ahead, make your armor and sell it, because it will be worth your time. Player made armor is going to be exactly like the armor sold in stores, only better - not as quick to degrade, easier to keep in good repair, and other goodies. Yes, yes, I hear the howls of dismay from my chair: “They’re putting in armor that wears out?! I HATE that, it sucks!” I’m as wary of degrading armor as the next person, but they say they’re going to make it not suck. As in, your weapon isn’t going to need sharpening after one lousy battle.
Loot - monsters will drop components, trinkets, and little crap. The uber spear of duck raping will not be found on the fourth amphibian to the right. For that stuff, you need to…
Quest - Each quest is generated for each player, and the order the steps are performed is unique to the player. Say step one for Bob is killing the flying gerbil, and step two is getting the thong underwear off Queen Lickme. Her majesty won’t be shucking her panties for Bob until he has those gerbil whiskers. She won’t shuck her panties for ANYONE who hasn’t activated the quest, so camping her will be pointless, unless all you want is the exp.
Twinking - Armor and weaponry is level based in this game. Levels 1-5 can equip, say, nylon boxer shorts. Levels 6-10 can equip silk. You, at level ten, are free to give your first level twink some silk boxers, but on the level one it will provide only the AC of nylon. The highest level armor needs to be made or quested for. Thus, the extent to which you can camp ‘n’ twink is to save your version of Mini-Me money.
Scouting the enemy - The concept behind the game is that the three realms are battling one another in a three-way war. What’s to stop you from logging in your Viking to find out what the Norsemen are planning, and then logging in your Briton and spilling the beans? All of your characters on one server have to be from the same realm, that’s what. If you want to change realms, you’ll need to change servers. You won’t even be able to talk with folks from other realms, so y’all with existing player guilds might want to discuss which realm you’re joining before you roll characters.
Guilds and associations - A “guild” is more like a professional organization in DAoC. Tweak your armor and your skills at your guild hall, among other things. An “association” is a player-run organization. At a price, an association could “rent” a building in a home city - and Mythic is planning on implementing locks to keep the rooms secure.
Roleplaying - The framework is there, if you want to use it. Richly detailed, taken straight from myth and legend, you can roleplay your little heart out. Or not, Mythic isn’t going to run your leisure time for you. I made a snarky comment about one of the characters named Ashley Judd in the released screen shots, and the poor producer muttered something about the character being run by Mythic’s vice president. Could it be? A game with roleplaying, but without the Roleplay Police?
Leveling up - well, now, Mythic isn’t reinventing the wheel here. Go out, kill stuff. Get exp. Level. The only things that seem to be differing here is that anyone can bind at any of the widely distributed bind stones, and you can solo OR group and make exp all the way to the top level. The death repercussions Mythic are discussing are fascinating, and I’d love to tell you about them because they don’t completely suck and waste your time. Unfortunately, I’d have to kill you if I told you - they’re still ironing out the kinks, and asked me not to print them.
PVP - This is the endgame. You’ve leveled, you’ve beat down the monsters, you’ve bought all the armor for your level. Now you go out and whack the monsters with the really awesome AI, the other players. This is where I got excited, by the way. Each of the three realms have two huge areas made up of the aforementioned seamless zones, a home area and a frontier area. The frontier area is filled with risk, and guards who are friendly to you are few and far between. If you come upon a character from another realm, whack him and loot his head (nothing else, though). When you take the head back to town, you’ll be rewarded with realm points, which build up and are redeemable for titles. I am Tweety, the Destroyer. MUHAHAHAHA.
Or get together with a small army of friends, and attack the fortress of the other realm along the border. If you can clean out all the players, all the merchants, and all the guards, the banner of the other realm will descend from the flagpole, and the banner of your kingdom will rise - and guards and merchants of your nation will begin spawning inside the fort.
Or go out on a relic raid. Send your rogues into the heart of the other realms, looking for sacred relics to steal to increase the power and prestige of your kingdom. Then invade (those rogues can unlock doors and sneak, but they aren’t going to be able to take on a guard). Be careful - you can only use the bind stones in your home realm, and your realm’s frontier. Once you cross into the lands of the other realms, you can’t bind - even if you take over their border fortress.
Customer Service:
This is probably the least defined area of Dark Age of Camelot right now. Mythic’s policies in the past have been to rely on a cadre of volunteers, with the banning stick reserved for hackers and dupers. With Dark Age, the makers are waiting on a few things before they set policies in stone. First, they’re still looking for a publisher (I still don’t get that, they have a concept, a game, a beautiful world, and a working beta - what the fuck does a company have to do to get publishers interested? Oral sex and bribery? Here you have a game that WILL be marketable, ALREADY exists in a limited form, and has some solid people and financial backing. It’s a no-brainer. They don’t need help making the product, they need distribution and marketing), and a publisher is likely to want input into CS policies. Mythic is also closely watching the volunteer lawsuits before they set up any volunteer programs.
Their policies in previous games have been “anything goes,” as long as you keep a lid on bigotry and open obscenity. Outside the game, it’s unlikely that they’ll have a Whineplay in any form, because with active fan boards, maintaining a company board is considered a waste of resources. The current preference is maintaining close contact with the fan forums and email.
Summing Up:
I don’t see too many hardcore PVP types getting into this game. The PVP aspect doesn’t really come into play until you’ve matured your character via PVE style leveling, and although the makers tell me that leveling to the highest echelon isn’t going to take you a year, leveling to max is still going to take time. There’s no point in playing this game strictly for the player killing aspect, because until you leave your home realm, you simply won’t encounter anyone from the other kingdoms. The game is being designed so that high level characters will have challenging things to do, and Mythic knows that no matter how gifted your programmers, monster AI is no substitute for a human player. Will a dedicated PVP player want to wait until they’re high level before commencing the hunt for other players? I doubt it. I also don’t see the PVP elite being interested in a game where killing other players doesn’t enrich you a bit except for titles and bragging rights.
(On the bright side, this game looks to be completely and utterly pointless to d00d grief players. Oh, thank you, thank you, small god of gaming.)
I’m also concerned about the armor degradation aspect. It’s a boring waste of time in most of the other games I’ve played or seen played, with your sword going blunt after a measly two fights. I’m not too worried about this, since Mythic has gone to a lot of trouble to remove the things that suck - and what sucks the most about these games is the wasted time. I can’t see them eliminating the not fun aspects of bind points and spell memming just to put in the grandfather of all time wasters. I’m willing to give it a chance - if they implement it right, it’ll be an item sink, not a time sink. It’ll also lessen the obsession with gear so prevalent in other games.
The sound effects were about 75% lame (what is it with every damn game I look at having the male “oh shit I’m dead” noise sounding like an orgasm - uh uh UUUUHHHH), but as I said earlier, this game isn’t finished yet. I took notes with my elbow on a stack of CDs containing new sounds not yet implemented. I liked the theme music a lot.
Basically, going back to my chick at the dance analogy, this game looks like it’s going to put out for casual players, roleplayers both casual and serious, and players who want a little more structure than you’re likely to find in games like Shadowbane. It will especially appeal to folks who like the old myths and legends, and who have an appreciation for detail. It’s not just a beautiful world (more kudos to the crew that made those bits, can’t say that enough), it’s a comfortable one to people who cut their literary teeth on King Arthur and other tales from that region.
Without a marketing or even a public relations guy (I called the press contact number, and got the producer), DAoC is at a disadvantage in the game of “who can develop the biggest frothing fan base.” Their focus is entirely on making a great game right now, and as a result the word of mouth is not spreading as fast as it could be. Conceivably, this game could get to market without being widely anticipated, and in an industry where perception is everything to early sales, that’s going to hurt. After actually seeing the game, I’m not sure why there aren’t more EQ refugees eagerly looking forward to this puppy.
Shadowbane appeals to a different kind of player than the truly avid EQ people, and doesn’t represent a serious challenge to the core Verant customer base. Dark Age of Camelot, on the other hand, feels like a real contender for that market. [ed- I know I'll be playing it...]
Our discussion thread on DAoC
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