Dark Age of Camelot: Catacombs Expansion Pack

by Vivendi Universal

Product Features

• Expansion pack for Dark Age of Camelot; the full version of the game is required to play
• Large underground areas to explore
• Old-world buildings, dungeons, and new monsters
• Major graphics overhaul -- characters can now having blinking eyes, moving fingers, and more
• EMotion FX 2 allows players to enhance their character models with realistic motions

Product Details

• Shipping: This item is also available for shipping to select countries outside the U.S.
• ASIN: B0001XLNUC
• Media: CD-ROM
• Release Date: December 7, 2004
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (39 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #32,328 in Video Games (See Top 100 in Video Games)

Product Description

From the Manufacturer

Dark Age of Camelot: Catacombs is the third retail expansion pack for the award-winning MMORPG Dark Age of Camelot. It features expansive underground areas, dungeon instancing, and graphical upgrades to the player race models, as well as old-world buildings, dungeons, and monsters.

Graphics Overhaul
Dark Age of Camelot: Catacombs features completely reconstructed player character models. The polygon count of these models has been dramatically increased to allow for significantly improved visuals and fun additions, such as blinking eyes and moving fingers. The changes are firmly grounded in the original character and armor designs. Accompanying the implementation of the new models is a "level of detail" toggling system, which allows players to customize the bells and whistles to their liking in order to achieve the desired system performance. Players can turning off the Catacombs player models, too.

Players who have Vertex, Pixel Shader 2.0, and a Direct X 9.0-compatible graphics card will enjoy an additional feature--an enhanced texture tinting (armor dyeing) system. With Catacombs, dyed armors are no longer simply darkened to the selected color. A special masking technique is used to retain the highlights and shadows of the base texture resulting in a more realistic effect. For example, leather will dye a deeper color than metal, since the metal now keeps its characteristic shiny highlights.

In addition to the model and texture rendering improvements, Catacombs incorporates the EMotion FX 2 real-time character animation system, an engine upgrade that allows artists to enhance the character models with more realistic motions. The efficiency of EMotion FX 2 provides a performance boost while also decreasing the memory footprint of the animation system.

Note: This is an expansion pack and requires the full version of Dark Age of Camelot to play.

Product Description

Dark Age Of Camelot: Catacombs introduces all-new classes and graphics into the game world of Camelot. As the war between Albion, Hibernia and Midgard rages on, a new threat is growing deep within the Earth. Powerful forces of evil have launched an attack upon the realms from below, revealing hordes of menacing creatures never before seen. New allies have emerged desperately seeking aid, for if their world falls, the surface will be next. Save your realm by venturing deep into the Earth -- the Catacombs!

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Those who don't like MMORPGs should stick to Unreal & Quake, April 12, 2004

By A Customer

This review is from: Dark Age of Camelot: Catacombs Expansion Pack (CD-ROM)

Dark Age of Camelot (DAoC) is, arguably, the best MMORPG currently available due to its unique focus on 'realm' (i.e., large-scale player v. player - PVP) combat. It *loosely* weaves Arthurian, Celtic and Viking lore into a world in which the three are always in conflict. However, in its effort to combine character development (i.e., largely player v. environment - PVE) with PVP, it has attracted a core of players who want nothing more than to have the game become a first-person shooter - ala Unreal Tournament.

While most players aren't big PVE fans, we can understand appreciate the importance of 'investing' some time and effort to develop a persona in a MMORPG environment to progress to an end-game goal, which includes defending your lands (by slaying 'invaders' played by other people). It makes good business sense if you're trying to keep a monthly subscriber base.

It's a shame that the featured responses are panning a very good game and giving you a warped sense of its merit based solely upon their selfish desire to turn DAoC into yet another mindless first-person shooter game.

16 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Buy this Expansion!!!!, June 30, 2004

By 

C. Russell (Jacksonville, Florida USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Dark Age of Camelot: Catacombs Expansion Pack (CD-ROM)

After reading some of the reviews I felt this Expansion needed some explaining.
This Expansion is for ALL the realms within DAoC to enjoy not just the Albions as noted in a previous review. The reference to the name Catacombs just means that the game will now have Instanced Dungeons. This is something that was made popular with games like EverQuest. It just means that a group of people can have a undisturbed encounter in which just their group can participate in a dungeon adventure without another group stumbling into the encounter. The other reason to buy this and the most important is the character graphics upgrade. I feel it is the best look in the online games so far. To many times only the world is made to look realistic and the character suffers. Not here!! It will blow you away the detail made in a truly 3D rendering. So now not only does the world in DAoC look great due to the Trials of Atlantis expansion but now you can have a character thats looks like they fit in that world

(TWO THUMBS WAY UP!!!!)

11 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Mixed Review, February 4, 2005

By 

D. Loomis "Percival" - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

= Fun:2.0 out of 5 stars 

This review is from: Dark Age of Camelot: Catacombs Expansion Pack (CD-ROM)

I have played DarkAges since the first day of the games release, across 2 servers and 2 realms (I have not played Albion).

The Catacombs Expansion will give a solo or casual player a much less stressful time levelling and earning decent PvE gear. The instanced hunting can make for relatively fast levelling compared to the old zones.
All in all, it is a good expansion if you like the PvE content of the game. Its not if you only play for PvP.

Regardless, if you are new to the genre or DarkAges in particular there are a few things you should know...
Levelling may be quick with the Catacombs expansion (if you are casual or solo and dont have friends to powerlevel you), but that is less than half the battle. That is the only selling point.

The real flaw in the game comes from the amount of time required to farm gear - very much of it with poor drop rates (soon to be increased, though spawn times will be made even longer which is just robbing peter to pay paul) and excessive camping by people (including guilds that will log in as a mob spawns and steal it). These items however are 100% necessary to the completion of a character. Some characters, such as the warden, are almost useless if they have not done the full run of MasterLevels and ToA farming. The time for this farming is very intense.

All in all, there is a Very Steep entry level for starters.

On top of that, there is a confusing and easy to mess up specialization system, where you spend your skill points. Respecs (rechoosing your skills) for these points are rarely handed out by Mythic (once per year or less), and the stones you need to use to retrain your skills go for insanely high prices that nobody but the most dedicated and equipped players can afford. In a recent statement Mythic said they were happy with this system.
This means once you create a character it will have to stay like that. Once you have put in the time to level, gear out, masterlevel, and then begin the realmpoint treadmill - you will have put in hundreds upon hundreds of hours. If you made a mistake or found you do not like your specialization, or found it to be in poor demand, or would just like a change - you will be stuck with it for good.

The game is plagued with a poor interface, strict class selection for PvP (many classes are unwelcome), finicky PvP (as the interrupt system attests to), and Extremely Fast paced PvP. Literally there are classes that can kill you instantly, and there is almost no give and take in a battle.
The hallmark of the game is PvP, but the pace of it makes it very difficult to enjoy. It is faster than most FPS games. If you do not have a planned organized competitive group you will just be farmed & frustrated.

So in the end, even though I play it to this day, I have a powerful guild and support network to make levelling or getting gear tolerable, and PvP a success instead of being repeatedly killed over and over. Guilds like mine however, do not invite newcomers or people who play less than 6 hours per day.

I cannot, and do not, recommend this title for a beginner or a newcomer.
If you are a veteran DarkAges fan, you may enjoy the solo exp of Catacombs, or the change in appearances (though SI is still the superior PvP engine if you do not depend on healers helper, etc).

Rates are now increased to the same price as Warcraft, EQ2, etc. The President now only promises to support the game as long as the community does, and such a non-committal message does not bode well for the future.

I hope this review was helpful.