Dark Age of Camelot Updated Preview

If you're at all familiar with massively multiplayer role-playing games like Ultima Online, Asheron's Call, or EverQuest, you should already have heard of Mythic Entertainment's Dark Age of Camelot. Dark Age of Camelot will be a fantasy-themed role-playing game that'll let players enter a world at war as part of one of three sides in the conflict: the nature-loving Hibernians, the fierce Norse, and the Britons of Albion, the kingdom of the fallen King Arthur. The game itself will take place shortly after the demise of the legendary king.

In 2680368our last preview , we covered Dark Age of Camelot's second phase of beta, in which Albion, the first of the three realms, had already been implemented. Since then, the kingdom of Albion, its characters, its monsters, and its locations have been further developed, balanced, and rebalanced. What's more, now that the game has progressed to beta 3, the current build of Dark Age of Camelot features the second of the three realms, the Norse realm of Midgard.

Midgard is based loosely on the ancient Scandinavia of traditional Nordic myth. It's a rocky, inhospitable realm of craggy mountains, secluded valleys, and ice-cold lakes, and like Albion, it's a vast land that consists of several huge areas that can be traversed without any sort of loading time or transitional pauses. The land itself has been colonized by a few of its more rugged tribes; the tall, fierce breed of humans known as the Norse; the stout dwarves; the swift and clever kobolds; and the hulking, granite-skinned trolls. Under different circumstances, each of these races would be just as likely to fight each other as join forces, since none bear allegiance to any but themselves and the Norse gods. But the once-united domain of Arthur has been divided, and the inhabitants of Midgard have come to terms with the fact that to compete with their Hibernian and British neighbors, they'll need to join forces and organize themselves into an army.

Fortunately, the inhabitants of Midgard are no strangers to a good fight, thanks to their harsh environment and warlike ways. While the British of Albion have proven to be more well rounded in terms of both magical abilities and swordplay, the inhabitants of Midgard will be the most focused on hand-to-hand combat. Even now, this focus is apparent in Midgard's currently implemented character classes. As with Albion and Hibernia, Midgard has four base character classes: a basic melee class, a basic thief class, a basic healer class, and a basic wizard class (the fighter, rogue, seer, and mystic, respectively). And like those in Albion, characters in each of these classes may change to a different, more advanced class once they've attained a sufficient level, but many of these advanced character classes display tendencies toward powerful combat abilities.

Mythic has already implemented most of Midgard's powerful character classes, including three of the four fighter classes: the warrior, berserker, and the thane (the fourth fighter class, the skald, will be implemented soon). Though none of the fighters of Midgard bother with the fancy and cumbersome two-handed swords and polearms that Albion's paladins and armsmen seem to favor, each is more than capable of holding his own in a fight. The warrior class is the most skilled in the use of weapons and shields, whereas the members of the berserker class specialize in fighting while wielding a weapon in each of their hands. The berserker class can also enter an ecstatic fury that lets it attack even more quickly and more fiercely than normal, increasing its already formidable ability to deal damage. Thanes are the wards of Thor, god of thunder, and can call forth lightning bolts to smite their enemies.

While the fighters take the front line, Midgard's healers, rogues, and wizards usually aren't far behind. Like fighters, Midgard's other base classes have a choice of two or more advanced classes, though some advanced classes are available only to certain races. For instance, members of the seer class, Midgard's basic cleric class, may become a shaman or healer, depending on the character's race. Trolls and kobolds become shaman, a class of characters that may learn to heal and strengthen their allies and also learn naturalism, which is a line of powerful spells that let shaman poison their enemies and shield their allies with shields of thorns. Dwarven and Norse seers may become healers, which also possess curative powers, as well as the ability to immobilize and stun their enemies. Norse, kobolds, and dwarves may all choose the path of the spellcasting mystic and then later choose either the path of the spiritmaster, a class of characters that can summon the spirits of dead warriors to fight on their behalf, or the path of the runemaster, a class of characters that can hurl damaging spells at their enemies, and can also enhance their allies' ability to wound enemies in combat. Norse, kobolds, and dwarves may choose to be stealthy rogues that will eventually change to either the as yet unimplemented shadowblade class or the already implemented hunter class, which is skilled with swords, bows, and spears, as well as the ability to recruit animals to fight alongside the hunter.

No matter which class or race you decide to play, you'll likely find enough for your character to do, whether it's being outfitted, advancing through experience levels and gaining skills, or performing any of Dark Age of Camelot's growing number of quests. In both Midgard and Albion, you'll want to make sure your character is well equipped with proper armor and weapons--though once your character is fully armed and armored, you may wish to purchase dyes or enamels that'll color your character's garments and distinguish him even further from other characters. The characters of both Midgard and Albion may choose three different character heights for their player models, as well as different faces and hair colors.

Once your character is equipped, you'll be able to develop and advance him or her by gaining experience points through combat and by performing quests. Now that Dark Age of Camelot has entered its third phase of beta testing, the developers have already implemented measures to help encourage players to explore new areas, instead of "camping"--that is, staying in one place, fighting a set of monsters, and then waiting for them to respawn. In addition, the current build of the game features new monster artificial intelligence that generally makes fighting them much more challenging and interesting than simply drawing a single one out, fighting it, and moving on to the next one.

But Dark Age of Camelot's most interesting fights won't be against computer-controlled monsters--it'll be the player-vs.-player combat among actual player characters. At release, the game will let players from different realms invade other realms to capture powerful relics and defeat enemy players for prestigious realm points. Mythic recently 2715776implemented a very early build of player-vs.-player combat into the beta, and though it's clear that this type of combat is far from being complete, it already has some very interesting strategic dynamics. And Mythic plans to include even more intriguing features into player-vs.-player, such as arrow volleys and stealth attacks, in the months ahead.

Dark Age of Camelot has made consistent progress over the course of its beta and continues to look extremely promising. Mythic has already announced that it will be showing off the game at E3; we'll have even more coverage of the game right from the show floor.