Dark Age of Camelot: Shrouded Isles Preview

If haven't familiarized yourself with online role-playing games for the PC yet, you may want to get started soon. Some of the most popular, ambitious, and controversial computer games in history have been online RPGs. Their premise seems so simple: You create a character from some fantasy or sci-fi race, customize that character's appearance, and then go off into the game's online world in search of fame and fortune, which are often acquired by pummeling computer-controlled monsters to death and making off with their treasures. But don't be fooled--online RPGs tend to be surprisingly addictive, and the best ones draw in hundreds of thousands of players. This popularity has led to some pretty serious competition, but last year, developer Mythic Entertainment was able to really make a name for itself with its fantasy-themed game Dark Age of Camelot. Camelot became quite popular and received lots of critical acclaim for its mythology-inspired setting of medieval Europe just after the death of the legendary King Arthur. The game received even more praise for its technically stable launch, as Camelot allowed new players to jump right into the game and play without serious technical problems, unlike just about every other role-playing game prior to it.

It's a year later, and Mythic is now hard at work on Shrouded Isles, the upcoming expansion pack for Dark Age of Camelot. The expansion will build on what Mythic has already created for the game--namely, a world consisting of three warring fantasy realms known as Albion, Midgard, and Hibernia (roughly corresponding to medieval England, Scandinavia, and Ireland). Much like its predecessors EverQuest and Asheron's Call, Dark Age of Camelot was launched on separate game servers. Each server was a different version of the same world, but players couldn't transfer characters across them. In the original game, you could play as characters from only one of the three realms. For instance, if you wished to be a rugged Nordic berserker, you'd have to choose the Midgard realm, and all your characters on that server would also have to hail from Midgard. Fortunately, the original game had four distinct playable races and lots of different character classes for each realm.

The expansion will add a new playable race to each of the realms, bringing the total number of player races to 15. In addition to Albion's Britons, highlanders, Saracens, and Avalonians, Shrouded Isles will let players who align themselves with Albion play as iconnu, a diminutive race of albino humanoids that hail from the underworld, and are proficient with magic. Midgard's population of Norse, trolls, dwarves, and kobolds will by augmented by the valkyns, a race of feral savages who have appeared in the realm in order to the help the trolls and their brethren. Finally, Hibernia's Celts, firbolg, lurikeen, and elves will be joined by the sylvans, a new race of creatures that are rumored to be spirits of nature incarnate.

In addition to the new races, Shrouded Isles will add three new character-class professions to Dark Age of Camelot, one for each realm. As before, new characters will begin their lives in a base profession like fighter, rogue, wizard, or priest and then change their class at level five. In Albion, the necromancer and reaver classes will be added. The former will be a priest class with expertise in raising dead spirits as bodyguards, while the latter will be a hybrid fighter with the ability to use some heavy weapons and some forms of magic. In Midgard, players will be able to play as the savage, a character class that fights with bare hands and crude manual weapons, or as the bonedancer, a spellcaster with the ability to animate the remains of dead creatures. Finally, in Hibernia, players will be able to choose either the animist, a magic user with the ability to influence plants, or the valewalker, a fighter hybrid with some magic ability who can wear only cloth armors but can wield a scythe in battle.

Welcome to Fantasy Island

In addition, Shrouded Isles will also introduce three huge new islands to the game, one for each realm. According to the expansion's background story, these new islands are contested areas for their respective realms that will require characters to work together to clear them. For instance, the expansion will add the mysterious land of Avalon to the realm of Albion. Just like in traditional Arthurian mythology, Avalon is the home of the kingdom's most ancient and powerful magic, but in Shrouded Isles, it has been seized by the evil Morgan La Fay. La Fay has allied with the powerful drakoran dragon men (the archenemies of the new inconnu race) in an attempt to seize control of Albion now that King Arthur is gone. The Nordic adventurers of Midgard will be tasked with taking back the new island of Aegir, the ancient home of the trolls, from the vicious morvaltar. And the heroes of Hibernia will be allowed to explore the new land of HyBrasil, a sanctuary of nature that has been overrun by the evil fomorians, who seem to wish to destroy all of nature itself.

As you might expect, most of the expansion's new areas will be intended for high-level characters. Shrouded Isles will feature new quests, new monsters, and new dungeons for high-level players to explore. And with the release of the expansion, Mythic will continue to improve upon Dark Age of Camelot's features, old and new--including the soon-to-be-released spellcraft and alchemy skills, which will let players concoct their own sorcery and magic potions and are scheduled to go up on the Pendragon test server soon.

Of course, many competing online RPGs that are currently in development will have much more advanced technology than was featured in the original Dark Age of Camelot. That's why Mythic will be implementing the latest edition of NetImmerse's game and graphics engines into the expansion. Shrouded Isles will allow for considerably more in-game detail on its characters and in its areas. It will have improved textures, better animation, and new special effects for its characters and new water effects, terrain, and trees for its various areas. The improvements will be universal--that is, the entire world of Dark Age of Camelot will look better, but players will need the expansion to see the enhancements.

Judging from what we've seen so far, the Shrouded Isles add-on might very well be worth it. The expansion's new areas, new races, new character classes, and new quests should go a long way toward breathing new life into the already popular game. Naturally, these additions won't just be tossed haphazardly on top of the existing game--Mythic plans to have a beta test phase for the expansion first. But all of Shrouded Isles' new additions will become available when the expansion is released this November.