Wednesday, February 7, 2018

Dark Age of Camelot: The best PvE MMO that you probably don't know much about

For about the last year most of my MMO play time has been spent in Dark Age of Camelot.  Back in the olden days before WoW it was the second most popular MMO behind Everquest, peaking at around 250K subs (compared to the 500K peak of EQ).  According to Google it launched a boggling 16 years ago in 2001, and it's still going.  It was the first MMO I really enjoyed, though in it's early years the grind-wall to get to the level cap was slightly insane (par for the course back then).  It is largely known for it's unique Realm vs Realm PvP setup.  Three factions fight constantly in asymmetric battles where class balance is closer to rock-paper-scissors than what you find in more modern MMOs, and how many players show up to a fight determines the outcome more often than not. 
One of the front gates of Tir Na Nog, the Hibernian capitol city.  
What has kept me playing since I tried it on a whim last year is not the PvP (which is great, and I'll come back to), it's the the solo/ small man PvE.  There is an absolutely fantastic PvE game buried in DAoC, which you'd have no way of knowing even exists based on casual observation.  It's not something the developer really hypes.  In fact just the opposite.  Last year Broadsword set about half of the solo PvE game on fire, removing access to all of the Catacombs expansion for low level players so that the zones could be re-purposed.  In the process they removed hundreds of solo quests across all level ranges from the game.

The central chamber of the Labyrinth, a huge dungeon that almost no-one goes to any more. Funnily, the one time I decided to rely on this and go AFK down there an enemy player came along and killed me the five minutes I was away. You can spend a lot of time in the Labyrinth during an obscure but fun PvE quest chain that opens up at level 50.
It's also something you'd never guess existed from interacting with many of the current players. These days the vast majority level to the cap doing repeatable kill quests in PvP battlegrounds, barely setting foot in the PvE zones.  This play style has become so ingrained that there was recently a thread on the official "unofficial" DAoC boards where a player pointed out that you can still actually level doing PvE, and posted a guide for how to do it in Hibernia (one of the three realms).  The only response he got was pretty close to "Why the hell would you do that?" All of this is a shame, because there is a genuinely great PvE game to be had in modern DAoC if you look for it.

Swimming around underwater near the ruins of Atlantis.  If you level doing PvE, you will spend a surprising amount of time underwater.
It's an old school MMO in the vein of Everquest, but the grind-wall to see all of it has been sanded down to just the right level.  There is a PvE path through the game that will take you to level 50 in 10-20 hours depending on how much time you decide to spend on side quests.  You level quickly enough that you are never bored, but not so fast that you are getting new abilities faster then you can make sense of them.  You also steadily gain new and better gear, such that you always feel a strong sense of progression.  When you hit the cap, every class in the game gets a unique set of starter Epics.

Riding a nightmare steed in Volcanus.  As you go up in chamion levels, many different types of horse become available, ranging from normal horses to more exotic varieties.
Which leads into how replayable the entire experience is.  From 1-35 or so, there are entirely different "New player" quest chains for each of the three factions, and each faction has a distinct feel to it.  Albion is based on Arthurian legends, Hibernia on Celtic lore, and Midgaurd is inspired by viking myths.  The quest writing is also above average.  It's certainly not up there with heavy hitters like  SWTOR, TSW or LoTRO, but a lot of the stories on offer are entertaining.  Story lines vary from quite silly (e.g., minotaur tipping) to attempts at real gravitas (e.g., watching a NPC commit suicide to protest the political system you are working for).  On top of that there are optional Epic quest lines.  Depending on your class, you will have one of roughly a dozen epic quest lines available.  It's not very likely that any two classes you decide to play will share the same story, and each step in the chain grants a piece of gear uniquely tailored to your class.  Finally, when you hit the cap and get your shiny starter Epics, a challenging but rewarding quest chain that will push solo players of most classes to their limits opens up. 

Fighting a monsters for a repeatable kill quest in Cathal Valley.  Notice the position my character's sword is in.  That animation lets me know that he just parried a blow, which enables chain of reactive attack styles.  DAoC was the first MMO that I am aware of to implement reactive combat abilities, and still does a better job than most of telegraphing blocks, parries and dodges with sounds and animations.
However, that's not really why I find the game so replayable.  At this point I've played through every quest line so many times that I barely even read the text.  However, I'm still having fun trying out new classes.  DAoC has an absolutely absurd number of classes (something like 45), and each class can play very differently depending on how you decide to specialize them.  The class designs are also wildly varied.  You can definitely tell that this is an MMO that was designed before the genre had settled into the basic tropes that dominate modern games.  Yes, you will find fairly standard tank, healer and DPS classes.   However, on top of this you will find classes that vary from subtly different from what you'd expect to fairly gonzo.  For example, on the subtly different end there are three melee stealth classes, one for each realm.  Two of them are fairly standard sneaky stabby types (one dual wields, one uses large weapons), but a third (Nightshade) also has a line of ranged DPS spells.

An enchanter fresh out of the newbie instance wearing the gear he got there.  Notice that his pet, standing behind him, is better dressed than he is . . .
On the more bizarre end you have classes like Bainshees and Animists.  Bainshees turn into ghosts when you activate their abilities, and radiate a death aura that does very high damage to everything near them.  Animists are casters that specialize in summoning mushrooms and kamikaze willow wisps.  With an Animist, in any given encounter you have a lot of choices as to how to proceed.  You can summon a ton of explosive wisps.  They will slowly float towards your target and explode on impact.  By the time your foe even realizes it's under attack, four more wisps are already on the way.  Alternately you can set up a patch of a half dozen attack turret mushrooms and lure foes into it.  Yet another option is to send in your angry tank mushroom and use life draining nukes once it gets aggro.

A level 50 enchanter wearing the free set of epic gear he got at level 50 from the Hibernian King.  The steady trickle of gear that is both better looking and more powerful as you level gives the PvE game an addicting sense of progression.
Even classes that seem bog standard take a while to get the hang of, and for me learning the peculiarities of a new class is where much of the fun of the game comes from.  For example, the Armsman is the Albion heavy armor pure melee class.  Last week I decided to try it out after leveling a string of casters, and specialized in polearms because I had read that Armsmen can do high burst damage with them.  For the first 30 or so levels, I was honestly hating the class.  It did ok damage, but I was going though half of my endurance bar every fight.  However, I eventually discovered a strange two weapon ability rotation that does slightly better damage and uses half the endurance of the pure polearm rotations I was using to that point.  A class I wasn't enjoying suddenly became pretty fun.  DAoC is not a game where you can randomly mash buttons and play effectively, even in the easiest solo content.  Just getting competent with a class actually takes some practice.  Compared to many more modern MMOs I find it refreshing.

A fresh 50 Armsman in his King's Epics.  At level 50 every class gets a different set of armor with a unique look.  Across 40+ classes, that's a lot of different gear sets to discover.  You won't be using most of this gear for long if you decide to get serious about PvP.  However, it's certainly enough to get you started and a nice upgrade over the gear you are likely using to that point, particularly when you make it to Champion Level 10 and unlock the final abilities of the armor set.  
All of this brings me back to my original point, which is that there is a much better PvE game in DAoC than you would likely guess based on the complete lack of hype for it.  There is a pure PvE server, Gaheris.  Unfortunately, this server is also pretty dead.  I'd  be surprised if the entire population is more than 500 players.*  The regular server, Ywain, on the other hand is positively hopping . . .with PvP enthusiasts that don't really care about the PvE game.  For example, recently I was amazed to discover that a multi-year veteran I was running battle grounds with has never even done most of the glass quests (a PvE quest chain that rewards a ton of currency you can use to buy artifacts and master levels).  When you combine the lack of player or developer emphasis on PvE with the intimidating depth of modern DAoC, you end up with a lot of content that I imagine few will ever see. To try and at least make the learning curve a little less steep for new players,  I recently started a companion website where I am posting game guides.

*There aren't a ton of players, but the server does have more hardcore multi-boxers than I've seen in any other MMO.  On the somewhat infrequent occasions that you stumble across someone else, there's a good chance it will be  will be a single player running 3-5 characters.   

If you stray off the beaten path, there are a lot of interesting things to discover.   Some of it serious and hinting at deep lore, some of it quite silly. These gentleman, noticing that for whatever strange reason wild animals tend to drop money when you kill them, have decided to investigate what types of food produce the greatest amount of coin.
So far I am posting guides to things I think are important to know about but aren't well documented in game. Really basic items like where and when you can buy a fast horse or even what to do after the intro quest series runs out at level 35 are much more mysterious than they should be for new players.  So far I have have four guides up:

PvE leveling for new players.  Everything from how to set up your hotbars when you first start to a quest path to the cap and optional side quests as you level.  It covers all three realms and both Ywain and Gaheris.

How to get your first artifact.  Artifacts are powerful magic items that gain abilities as you level them.  The process of acquiring artifacts is a bit arcane, and the game itself doesn't give you much clue that they even exist on a normal play through.

Champion Levels.  This is an essential but poorly documented advancement system that opens up when you reach the level cap. 

Mounts.  Another really important system that isn't well documented anywhere else that I could find.

I have a few more guides planned, but it's not a project I have the spare time to support as much as I'd like.**  The main reason I put the guides up is so that web search engines can find them.  A lot of the resources for DAoC currently available on the web are badly out of date in the modern game and/ or don't really help much unless you already know most of the basics.  Dated graphics and steep learning curve with nary a hand to guide you equals a game doomed to obscurity.  I hope my site helps out with the lack of guidance for new players at least a little bit.

**Update:  I eventually also posted walkthroughs the "obscure but challenging PvE quest line," but after that the project wound down.  You can find an overview of the final website here.

Sheero Hills, Hibernia.  It seems to be set up as an end game PvE zone, but what if anything there is for a solo player to do there besides kill random mobs for dragon scales I still have no clue.  Even after playing for a year, there are a ton of zones I have yet to really explore.    
On the PvP game that you probably have heard of 

No post on DAoC is really complete without at least touching on the PvP.  There are a few MMOs that also offer three faction PvP, but none I'm aware of where that's the primary focus of the game and the player base.  One of the main areas where you can see this difference is in class balance.  Classes are designed to be roughly balanced with their mirrors in other factions (if they have one), and to make for a fun and varied PvP playing field.  No attempt is made to achieve balance among characters of different roles, or really to balance classes in PvE at all.  The PvP on offer is ruthless, very often completely unfair, and surprisingly fun.  Knowing what fights you are likely to win and being on the side that can get organized well enough to bring the most bodies is at least as important as gear or skill.  If you are a huge fan of well balanced battleground style PvP, it probably sounds terrible.  However, it really has a very different feel from PvP in most MMOs.  The persistent PvP areas feel much more like real places than an instanced battleground that despawns after a match ends.

It's also less hardcore then you might think. Death is pretty painless, there is no real penalty for getting killed.  It isn't EVE where one bad choice can make months of progress disappear like a fart in the wind.  Victory, on the other hand, is absolutely elating.  Hitting new realm ranks and earning realm abilities feels very rewarding.  The primary PvP map (Frontiers) is enormous, with tons of objectives to fight over.  There is also keep warfare complete with battering down doors, siege engines, and some classes being able to infiltrate keeps by climbing the walls.  All of this is embedded in a full featured MMO, with crafting, housing and fun PvE content ranging from solo quest chains to raiding.  Overall, I'd say that if you can get past the dated graphics and a steep learning curve, Dark Age of Camelot is absolutely one of the best MMOs on the market today. The main server, Ywain, is also extremely active and the players there are generally quite welcoming.