Post by Morreion on Jun 30, 2010 9:20:03 GMT -5
What if... Dark Age of Camelot 2
MMORPG.com's Garrett Fuller writes this article about the possibility of a follow-up to Mythic's first RvR MMO, and what he would like to see included therein.
I get nostalgiac just thinking about this. DAoC 2 would be a FANTASTIC idea. Mythic could redeem itself if it released a good updated version of their classic game!
MMORPG.com's Garrett Fuller writes this article about the possibility of a follow-up to Mythic's first RvR MMO, and what he would like to see included therein.
In many polls on many sites the one game that always comes up for sequel is Dark Age of Camelot. Launched in the pre-WoW era of 2001 DAOC was one of the hottest MMOs before the mainstream hit. Even though Ultima Online really set the ground work for PvP combat, Dark Age of Camelot perfected it and gave it meaning. A game that now lists in the history of MMO players, you hear it referenced many times as a "we wish" or "more like Dark Age of Camelot." Yet somehow the industry lost touch with a game that had a solid player base, a strong PvP system, and some great ideas that never made it into the latter half of the decade. So the question remains; what if Dark Age of Camelot had a sequel?
In the sequel, do not break what was never broken. The three faction system should remain and nothing on that front should be changed. Not only did it give players a team to choose before creating a character, it gave them pride in their realm. It also gave them a zone design which allowed them a place to level without getting ganked. At the time this was a huge difference from the PvP of Ultima where you could be killed on your front doorstep. In DAOC 2 the factions remain as all three themes touched on human history with a fantasy element and created a fun world to fight in.
Realm vs. Realm combat is what made DAOC brilliant. The fact that you could enter into zones knowing the enemy was there and fight it out at all kinds of different levels. From huge zergs that clashed on the landscape, to the deadly eight-man groups which almost became street gangs looking for each other, RvR was an amazing system. The leader boards of DAOC gave rise to fame and fortune among players and soon the realms knew their heroes, but they also knew their enemies. In playing WoW, I have killed endless Alliance members. I could not tell you their names. In DAOC, not only did I know the top enemies I fought, I could tell you their names even today. This sort of thing is completely missing in MMOs today, having a sense of fame among your faction and even your enemies. Forget about a statue in town, people just want bragging rights. Another thing that benefited DAOC was keeping the servers small. Having the server numbers max out at five or ten thousand with three factions would mean only two to three thousand in a realm. The smaller numbers would give players a better social atmosphere to get to know each other.
In the end, Dark Age of Camelot had some core game elements that made MMOs great. Those elements have been duplicated, but never in the same way. With MMOs constantly trying to be like World of Warcraft people forget that World of Warcraft was trying to be like Everquest and Dark Age of Camelot when it launched. Sometimes looking back into the past can give us a great map to the future. Dark Ages was a great map that has not been used in almost ten years. It is time to start the exploration again.
I get nostalgiac just thinking about this. DAoC 2 would be a FANTASTIC idea. Mythic could redeem itself if it released a good updated version of their classic game!
