Dark Age of Camelot Developer Chat 1

Dark Age of Camelot Dev Chat - Logged by Donnie Temean
Hosted by http://camelot.stratics.com/

Q: *Aloran* How do you plan to avoid "camping" for experience or loot to avoid problems that are experienced in other MMOGs?

A: Camelot has an extensive questing system. Part of this is ensuring that a monster that drops a weapon/object as part of quest requires that the player perform ALL the steps of the quest before the monster drops the object. So, no one will be able to "camp" for an object unless they go through all quest steps first. And, players will be allowed to go on most quests only once.

Q: *Odiar* Game balance question: In the event of a dominant realm, will there be any active measures taken to help maintain realm balances? Or do you maintain that having 2 realms attacking the realm with all the relics will be enough to balance things out on its own?

A: Actually, we were just discussing this today. We're going to set things up so that relics from other realms are in keeps closer to the enemy Port Towns, which will make it fr more difficult to defend. Add in the need to split their defense between all the possible locations, and it would become nearly impossible for a single Realm to dominate in that way for long.

Q: *Elden* System Requirements? what are they, i have a voodoo 2 right now and cant beta test, will i have to upgrade or will the requirements change

A: Minimum system requirements will be a P2 / Celeron 350 or 400 with a Voodoo 3 or TNT card, the more memory the better. Voodoo 2's just can't handle everything we want to do.

Q: *Sylune* How death will be Handled, will it be more innovative than the usual exp loss system?

A: We're still thinking about new ways to do this. We want to make death something to be avoided, but not so crippling that it makes you want to stop playing the game. We're experimenting with a combination of (minimal) experience point loss combined with constitution point loss, but let you earn both back in different ways.

Q: *Solrac* will there be MORE weapons?

A: Yes, there are definitely going to be more weapons. I've got about 8 or 9 historical weapons I'd like to se in, and we're going to have some "Fantasy" weapons with no historical equivalent. In addition to that, we're looking into some tricks with texturing to make weapons that really *look* magical.

Q: *Solrac* will there be music in the game and ... will enemies have different sounds than they do now?

A: Yeah, the sounds that are in the game right now were done by me -- they are just placeholders and will be replaced with professionally done sounds as soon as tomorrow (hopefully). We also have contracted with a professional music studio to do custom soundtracks. We have a programmer experimenting with 3D sound right now, so hopefully we'll have that in as well.

Q: *MikeD* Matt mentioned realm-capturable fortresses in the frontier on camelotvault. Any chance of these captures having effects beyond NPC spawns in the fortress, for example economic enhancements or item scarcity/surplus?

A: Well, taking control of enemy outposts is going to be one of the most rewarding things to do, in terms of loot, and a major source of the high-level materials. In addition to that, many desirable materials will come from only one or two dungeons, which may not be in your Frontier. It's a strategic metagame layered over the top of the day-to-day wars. Initially it will spawn guards/merchants of the Realm it is located in. However, when another Realm's players have killed all the NPC guards and merchants and PC players guarding it, the fortress will start spawning merchants/guards of the conquring realm, and the flag flying from the top of the fortress will be that of the conquering realm.

Q: *Headhunter* I was wondering if they are going to have geocentric servers..or servers located in various locations?

A: This is another question that will have to be answered when we find a publisher. However, we have been talking with entertainment companies all over the world and may well end up hosting different versions in different countries.

Q: *CreamSoda* If player made weapons, armor, etc are going to be very important. How will Mystic keep players from having a main character, an a smithy/mule?

A: The key part of being a player smith/merchant is going to be being where the customers are. It's not going to be very practical to invest all that time leveling up a mule, then having to log off and transport him to your customers when you find them in your primary.

Q: *Moo* Are you designing for future updates? New lands, new dungeons, possibly even new factions?

A: No, we're trying to get the first three done! Seriously, we have given some thought for fun about future Realms, but haven't really done any serious work on it at all. We have enough to keep us busy for now.

Q: *Guest1* are there going to be a wide asotment of cinema clips or none at all?

A: We're dying to get some video clips of the in-game action to you guys - but in all honesty, the game needs to "cook" a little more before it's ready for AVIs and such. We're only now finishing a major overhaul of all the player character models in the game, and we'll have to re-tune all the animations to go with it. We have the technology -but I think it will be several months before we can post anything.

Q: *Garvyn_Gyani* Is there an ETA on the first realm's completion?

A: To answer your question, we plan on wrapping up the Briton realm in just a few weeks. Our beta plan calls for having a version of the Norse Realm up for testers by early February. During the time that the Norse realm is under construction, we'll continue to make tweaks and updates to Albion.

Q: *King_of_Dreams|SB* How do you learn spells? Do you do it through purchased\researched scrolls ala EQ? Points per level ala Diablo 2? Have some sort of systme like AC? Or something totally different?

A: You get your core spell list automatically as you make the appropriate levels. Later, as you explore the world, you may be able to quest for other spell lists, and of course those quests could have just about any set of pre-requisites, from money to Realm points.

Q: *Andamanen* How far along (if at all) is the quest system you had in mind?

A: We have a basic quest system in place now that lets you do "fedex" quests (take object from one place to another) -- and hopefully we'll have a version of the step-by-step system I talked about earlier as soon as next week for us to start testing internally at Mythic. So, the "real" quests should start showing up online in the beta in about a month.

Q: *Physikal* Will Items be given real stats other then the lvl of the person they should be used by? like dmg/dly and whatever + to stats they might give.

A: There will be some more info, certainly, things like what classes can get the effect of the bonuses. Exact Damage/Delay information, probably not.

Q: *Chade* How do you Plan on incorporating strategy into PVP. In most games it is like tic-tac-toe i am looking for something more complicated.

A: Most of the strategy comes from the makup of your party. You can't expect to sucessfully PvP solo against a group of enemies -- and you'll definitely want a good mix of range weapon fighters and spellcasters as well as melee guys. If a party of all magic users or all fighters takes on a like-level mix group, they will have little chance. You'll have to use your Realmmates to make a solid party with a good mix of skills in offense and defense.

Q: *Friday* How will you enforce player conduct? Will you give the usual uneffective multiple warnings or will you take a stricter stance?

A: Well, we generally have a progressive warning system. This means that depending on the severity, a player who commits an offense will receive a warning. A second time will be a little more severe and will include a warning with some time out of the game. Generally, a third "strike" will find the person banned from the system for at least 6 months. Again, this may be adjusted depending on the severity of the situation.