Dark Age of Camelot Preview
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Mythic is building a game of epic proportions. Each realm will be gigantic (I've witnessed Albion myself, it's huge), broken into an assortment of different regions, similar to each of EverQuest's zones. However, a welcome addition to anyone who is familiar with MMORPGs is DAoC's seamless (zoning) between each region. There is no loading phase unless you enter another realm, dungeon, or city. The landscapes are intricate and spectacular at even the lowest resolution, with all sorts of interesting landmarks to behold. And, to reduce the amount of long distance travel, there will be (bind) points where you can bind your character within most regions. That way, in the event that your character should die, you will (hopefully) be bound somewhere in the vicinity. Each server is projected to hold between 2000 to 3000 characters, which would optimistically be divided equally into the three realms that make up each server. Mythic will hopefully not make the same mistake that Verant did with EverQuest in the beginning of its popularity. overpopulation. Even though DAoC is programmed with anti-camping measures, I venture to say that an excessive amount of players in the same realm/server will cause camping problems regardless. Looking at all of the other precautionary measures Mythic has taken, however, one would think they will be ready to provide the number of servers needed.
Overall, Dark Age of Camelot has everything you'd expect from an online game, as well as many enhancements to areas or features that other games have had problems with. There will be an assortment of different types of magic items and plenty of them. There will be structures and rooms that player associations will be able to rent as housing. There will be well designed team-oriented PvP (for once). And quests? Lots. There is even going to be a quest system implemented that will allow for two characters virtually never having to complete the same quest, at least not in the same set of steps.
Having played the beta for numerous hours myself, and having spent a ridiculous amount of time playing other MMORPGs in the past, I'd be willing to say that Dark Age of Camelot looks to be one of the most promising online games to be released in the next couple of years. Will it be the online game to overtake EverQuest's lofty perch? It's too early to tell, but I will most definitely pay my hard-earned cash to be a part of Camelot.
