Customer Reviews

Dark Age Of Camelot: Gold (Large Box)

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2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Don't get me wrong, DaoC is a great game and I have two accounts and 14 toons to attest to this fact. The good news, at least for those just entering the game, is that you'll have an easy time immersing yourself in the game, at all levels. The bad, for long-term gamers, is that Mythic has made all of those levels, Master Levels and achievements that took you months and months of work MUCH easier for noobs to achieve, without actually giving you anything in return (you DO get the nice title of "Elder" if you've player for four years or more). Given the ridiculously exaggerated prices for artifacts and scrolls achieved through Atlantis (now available for free download along with the basic DaoC software and Shrouded Isles expansion at Mythic's site), Mythic has made scroll drops vastly easier, and dramatically increased the cost of repairing artifacts (in addition to adding Epic Armor in Catacombs that comes close to approximating artifact quality, and which anyone can, and almost has to, get as part of general class quests).

It's genuinely sad that Mythic, rather than responding to its long time, loyal customer base, has chosen to pander the game to potential new subscribers. It wouldn't be such an issue if something were done to balance this, like giving long-time players some advantages in crafting (getting an LGM "has never been easier"), or benefits for toons leveled prior to the Task Dungeons of Catacombs (where "leveling has never been easier"). Sadly, this is not the case, and new subscribers continue to join, which is, in some ways, great news. What should concern them, however, is one day they'll be veterans, like the rest of us, and will find out first hand how deaf Mythic can be to that group.

*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 skills come from trial and error. Which means several deaths. New generations of gamers could not handle this. So bonus/magical equipment began to be implemented as a balancing tool for slower players. In the end all this did was make the veteran gamers even more lethal. MMOs then began to implement changes to support group PvP or RvR through skill/reward bonuses to counter act the veterans. This overall was a bad mood. This destroyed games such as Ultima Online and Diablo. Games such as DAoC and WoW have supported solo PvP to a extent knowing this but over the years DAoC has all but eliminated this aspect of game play. WoW, still seems to be the remote haven for solo PvP. Where it is still possible to do it but the options are slowly fading away.

Current MMOs did that thinking that it will bolster their player base by eliminating veteran players from the equation but this has actually done the reverse. Eventually everyone gets bored of "easy mode" gaming even the younger generations. In the beginning it was all about solo PvP, then came group PvP, and now solo PvP is back on the wish list for the majority of maturing players knowing that it is the most competitive aspect of a MMO and the most thrilling. Games such as WoW and DAoC have suffered huge blows over the past two years because of this and they are still trying to figure out what is going on. Games will never be balanced which is what fails all current MMOs. They are not able to consider this. The closest to balance that a MMO has ever seen was in the beginning, the 1990's. Where it was skill/reflex based. Not everyone will be able to compete in the end but most will and everyone will have the same chances as the next guy. Gear supplements and group PvP rewards are the very source of imbalance. So they will continue to lose customers until a new MMO finally figures it out.

*Customer Service - I am not going to get back into this. My views and accounts from other players have been documented well above. I feel and I know other players feel this as well - I would play a poorly graphical game minus all of the extra's if I really felt the customer service was there to assist me. This is a make it or break it aspect to me. Mythic and EA fail on all accounts of their customer service abilities. If you are one of those players that are comforted by the fact that the current MMO you are playing is enrolled with the Better Business Bureau(BBB) with a relative high rating. Then again DAoC/Warhammer Online or any Mythic affiliated game is wrong for you. Not only are they not a member but they currently hold a "F" rating. The lowest amongst all current MMO producers. But don't take my word for it, feel free to look it up yourself on the BBB website. Here is the link to the Mythic Entertainment on the BBB website. [...]


From a overall perspective from a nine year vet of Dark Age of Camelot this makes me very sad. What was once a cutting edge game in graphics, PvP/PvE, and customer service. Has now become comparable to free server games. Mythic/EA have become the arc for graveyard games such as Ultima Online, DAoC, and soon to be Warhammer Online. If they were to overall their Developer/Customer Service staff. As well as upgrade their UI/Engine and improve on PvP/PvE Balancing. This game could easily be competitive again. Even more so then their supposed giant Warhammer online. But it will never happen. RIP DAoC - Hello, World Of Warcraft.

do not buy this game it a rip off the gold edition is not supported by the website and is out of date please don't get fooled like i did your wasting your money. buy a more updated editions they will work this one is useless. the guys selling this game should be ashamed of him self