Best Seller Series: Dark Age of Camelot

by Vivendi Universal

Product Features

• Massively multiplayer online role-playing game incorporating Arthurian legends, Norse myths, and Celtic lore
• Team-based player-vs.-player combat with territorial acquisition and siege warfare
• Exciting combat with advanced combat styles, animations, and effects
• Intelligent monster AI requires player strategy and tactics
• For one or more players using Internet connection

Product Details

• Shipping: This item is also available for shipping to select countries outside the U.S.
• ASIN: B0000CDYIS
• Media: CD-ROM
• Release Date: September 30, 2003
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #46,200 in Video Games (See Top 100 in Video Games)
• Discontinued by manufacturer: Yes

Product Description

From the Manufacturer

Dark Age of Camelot is an exciting, vibrant online game. Its high-definition 3D graphical engine presents you with a world that is so realistic, you almost feel like you are living your character's adventures. You'll start out with a low-level character in Camelot, but there's so much to do! As you quest, adventure, fight monsters, meet other players, make friends and enemies--eventually you'll grow in power enough to be able to go out and defend your Realm from your enemies.

Three Realms

The world of Dark Age of Camelot is comprised of three Realms at war - Hibernia, Midgard, and Albion. The struggle between the Realms resulted from the power vacuum created by King Arthur's death. Each Realm is geographically diverse from one another and follow a specific mythological tradition. Albion is the land of King Arthur's heirs. Hibernia is based on Irish Celtic legends, with a dash of high fantasy. Midgard follows the Viking Norse sagas and legends.

Many Classes and Races

You can choose to be one of 15 races and over 30 classes in Dark Age of Camelot. With this many choices, there sure to be one to meet your particular playing style.

Realm Vs. Realm Combat

A cornerstone of Dark Age of Camelot's gaming experience is Realm vs. Realm combat. This means that everyone in your Realm is you friend, and you are safe from enemy players as long as you are in you home realm - but if you venture out to a frontier, you'll be able to fight other enemy-Realm players. If you don't want to fight other players, you simply don't go out to the frontier. However, RvR combat in Dark Age of Camelot is fun and exciting--you can even build siege equipment and storm enemy fortresses!

3D Graphics

Dark Age of Camelot is presented to you in a rich 3D graphics engine that renders players, monsters, terrain, dungeons, and bodies of water using state-of-the-art graphics techniques. Everything looks like it is almost real, allowing you to become immersed in the ongoing struggle for supremacy among the Realms.

Constant Updates

The world of Dark Age of Camelot is always being updated and enhanced. Dungeons are added, new monster encounters and quests are scripted, new armor and weapons are created--in fact, so much new content goes into the game on a regular basis that it is impossible to list it all here.

Product Description

this is a must have game. your sure to love this one and also try the expansion packs to available on amozon. check out my any items listed on this site. there are so many to chose from

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fun and Addictive!, June 3, 2004

By A Customer

This review is from: Best Seller Series: Dark Age of Camelot (CD-ROM)

This game is definatly a keeper. After the first few days of playing you are hooked. Even though you have to pay a monthly fee, you'll find that it is well worth it.

Choose between 3 exciting realms, Midgard, Albion and Hibernia. Then choose between your favorite type of class, whether that is rouge, caster, fighter, or healer. In the game, you will find that leveling is a must, and with each new level you earn points to advance your self. The whole idea of leveling and finding your way around is difficult at first but becomes easier later on. Certain things come with certain levels such as:
Level 5: Choose your main class, instead of you base class, and specialize in new and more exciting abilities.
Level 10: Earn the right to a last name.
Level 15: The first level you can enter Battle Grounds, also known by BG's. There are 4, BG0, BG1, BG2, and BG3. 15-19 BG0. These are RvR area's (Realm vs. Realm) where you can tear at the other realms and battle for center keep. Here you are fighting useing your skills agaisnt real people, not just creaters in the game.
Level 20: Guild embelem. BG1 20-24 (I've found not very active)
Level 25: BG2 Also not a very active Battle Ground.
Level 30: Ahhh yes, one of the most enjoyable levels (I thought) you can go into BG3 which is a very exciting, jam-packed Battle Ground. This level also enables exciting new areas to go in!
35+: You can go into the frontier battleing Levels from 35-50, enjoy new and better groups, find newer and exciting guilds, get better items, and help lower levels. Gets very fun from here on...

It's not just the leveling and gameplay of the game, you can build strong social relationships, make friends with other people, I even have relatives who I play with in the game all the time. Find new guilds, the real people playing in the game make it all the funner. Having some one to talk to as you play is always fun.

Enjoy!

1.0 out of 5 stars Stay away from Mythic and EA, May 30, 2010

By 

Elite Gamer - See all my reviews

= Fun:1.0 out of 5 stars 

This review is from: Best Seller Series: Dark Age of Camelot (CD-ROM)

*WARNING LONG READ - IN-DEPTH REVIEW - But well worth it!*

*KEY*

PvP- Player versus player combat.
RvR- Realm versus realm combat.
PvE - Player versus environment. Player versus computer AI enemies or MOBs.
MOB- Monster or Beast (pertaining to MMO play)
CC - Crowd Control. Disabling effects on your character to limit or completely remove your character from the fight.
Lag - Move slowly; delay. Due to connection speed or due to gaming engine.
Zerg - Reference to a playable race on Starcraft. Tactics of this race are to create mass numbers to overwhelm the enemy.
MMO or MMOG - Massively Multi-player Online game
Pathing - The direction or manner a MOB is programmed to attack the player.








I started playing Dark Age of Camelot shortly after release. Since that time Mythic has undergone many changes - bad changes. Once EA bought out Mythic and laid off about 80% of their customer service staff and replaced them with a outsourcing firm. The game has become horrendous. To compare with another well known MMO - World of Warcraft. Mythic/EA falls considerably short compared to Blizzard.

For example, I have had several customer service interactions with both Blizzard and Mythic. Blizzard reacted to my issues concerned, empathetic, communicative, and extremely. Where as Mythic/EA consist of emails from reps that cannot speak English and have a total disregard to your question. When you finally get a actual Mythic/EA rep they either claim to have very little power to assist you or they are flat out unwilling to do so. Under cases such as; Guild Functions, stuck characters, harassment issues, account recovery, graphic errors, and one of the most troubling player hacking. To highlight a few of these cases, lets first take Player Hacking.

Several players have been complaining about this for years. Hackers use speed, buff, map hacks to destroy everyone's gaming experience but their own. Proof of these encounters including screen shots have been sent to Mythic/EA by players for several years but these hackers still log on everyday like everyone else. Able to exploit the game over and over with little to no disciplinary action. To compare with Blizzard, Blizzard goes out of its way to stop hackers immediately and quickly located/eliminate the exploit.

Next highlight, stuck characters. If your character gets stuck in a wall or falls in the floor(which happens a lot)then I do not envy your pain. This has happened to many friends, guilders, and myself several times. Sometimes you will get lucky and the /stuck feature will be able to get you out but this rarely happens. If you're lucky and appeal it a Dev will get you out in about 3-5 hours and remember that is if you are lucky. Most players are stuck for several days. Anywhere from 3-5days. Some players including myself got a response from a dev/csr about four days later saying "We are showing that you character has already been un-stuck. Is there anything else I can help you with?" They send this while you are falling through mid air underneath Darkness Falls or Labs by the way. Which is almost as funny as it is sad.

Harassment issues - You could have several players harassing you, even threatening to kill you and they do nothing. They just tell you to ignore the player. Well that's all well and good but Dark Age of Camelot issues free trials without entering a Credit Card number which entitles players to open unlimited accounts - each with a period of 14 days at their whim. But this issue is not address and guilty players again go without even a slap on the wrist.

Do not even contemplate playing this game if you are unwilling to play at least two accounts. You have to use a "Buffbot" to even be competitive. Buffbots are Buff/Heal classes that are used by players to buff their "Main Character" for a distinct advantage in PvP or PvE. If you can't afford at least 27.98 a month and that's not including tax.(Yes, I said tax. Unlike other MMO's Mythic/EA tack on a extra dollar amount on their subscriptions. It comes out to almost $40.00 USD a month for two accounts.) Then steer clear of DAoC.

The population of Dark Age of Camelot in its prime was 250,000 users. A far cry from Warcraft but formidable non the less. This number is now at roughly 5,000 players and this is on the weekend. A weekly average is about 2,400. The reason in this vast decline is mostly due to what I have listed above. Also including the support of zerg pvp. Which gives the large population of solo-pvpers a slim to non chance to enjoy this game. You definitely won't enjoy it if you are the type of person that dislikes if when enemy players /spit and /laugh at you when eight of them kill you and you are all by yourself. The use of Master Level itemization has destroyed class balancing to favor caster class pvp/pve in all forms. Also a big problem is the lack of a engine/UI upgrades which has drove many players away to greener pastures. Group/Guild options are extremely limited compared to other MMO's. Services that have been proven to be invaluable to other MMO's such as character transfers and name changing are non existent. Sure, you can use the feature known as "Account Splitting" but it has to be a fresh account with no characters on it and it has to be fully upgraded with current expansion. If you ware a multi-boxer like myself and you want to re-arrange your multi-box combo then you can forget it. All of the above have deterred the majority of the previous Dark Age of Camelot player from any Mythic game. Including Warhammer online which suffers from the same issues. If you enjoy countless headaches from customer service. Deaths and item losses due to bugs that will never be recovered then by all means this game is for you!



-Positive Features-

*Housing - True as it was when the Foundation expansion was released, the housing in DAoC was implemented almost perfectly with the housing instancing feature. In this aspect DAoC trumps the competition. Blizzard has failed to even implement housing, explaining that it would turn lag warped cities into ghost towns. Uh, hello right? Not implementing it has been one of Blizzards biggest mistakes. The housing expansion offers four different house models for each realm. Prices ranging from one platinum to twenty five platinum. You also have a fair amount of decorating options. Not as much as many players would like but fair. Mythic planned to add more features to this expansion but due to loss in server populations they did not continue forward.

*Ambiance/Environment- The overall scenery in the game can be breath-taking at times. Even with the adherent graphic chop. Especially the New Frontiers. Which brings me to my final positive note.

*Keep Siege- Keep siege on DAoC was absolutely well implemented when first released. The excitement of attacking or defending a keep with siege weapons such as catapults,rams, and boiling hot oil kept you on your toes. You would be sucked into the battle for not knowing that you have been playing for hours. The release of Trials of Atlantis destroyed this aspect of the game to a mere shadow of what it once was. Due to over powered itemization.

-More in-depth Negatives-

*PvE Dungeon/Environmental- Another downside are the constant bugs with MOBs and Dungeons. Pathing for MOBs is horrid. The will attack you or aggro you through walls, buildings, and even from what seems to be miles away in-game. Causing unnecessary durability loss or frequent experience loss. Most of these bugs have been existent for at least six years without repair. Specifically the dungeons of Darkness Falls and Avalon City. This in my opinion is unacceptable in any current MMO. Stress to a paying customer due to the failure of upkeep is just bad business practices.

*Crowd Control- Many new MMOs have figured out that a player wants to be involved in a battle and not mesmerized for at least a minute. Even unbreakable in many situations if you are being attacked. You are just left their helpless. To some extent CC is a must but unbreakable one minute CC is just bad news. The game does have anti CC abilities in place such as Purge and certain ToA items but the minimum Purge ability is a 5 minute cool down which requires several realm levels which equals countless hours to achieve which is not in the cards for a casual gamer. Even hardcore gamers have issues with the CC. The ToA items mostly of a cool down of between 10:00-15:00 minutes. And with the zerg friendly design you will find yourself in several situations sitting back in your chair picking your nose while getting destroyed by the opposing faction. Many of these CC spells are also instant cast with little or no cool down.

* Zerg friendly and pro-group PvP- While there should always be a place for group player vs. player combat in any MMO a game that purposely hinders solo PvP will destroy the game itself in the end. As many of us veteran gamers know. Group PvP can be fun to a extent. Eventually it becomes as repetitive as PvE. Solo PvP is where the true challenge at the end of the day lies. The adrenaline rush of fighting someone 1v1. Your survival depending on your reflexes and quick thinking. At least this is how it use to be. When MMO's first came to be solo PvP was prime. Group PvP was thought of as "easy mode" by veteran players and it is. The aspect that made group PvP in DAoC worthwhile was keep sieges. Unfortunately many MMOs are turning their backs towards solo PvE/PvP. This is mostly due to different learning curves and abilities of the players themselves. Many in-experienced gamers could not keep up with the reflexes of a veteran gamer. Which is intended - your player vs. player... Read more ›

5.0 out of 5 stars Caution guys its addictive, May 4, 2009

By 

M. Robinson (West Virginia) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

= Fun:5.0 out of 5 stars 

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Best Seller Series: Dark Age of Camelot (CD-ROM)

I loved this game. If you like role play games with great PVP action its great!