Customer Reviews

Dark Age of Camelot: Shrouded Isles (Prima's Official Strategy Guide)

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(8)
1 star:		(11)

 

 

This is a good strategy book for someone with no internet access. Oh wait, Dark Age of Camelot can only be played by people that have net access! D'oh!

There are numerous web sites with more accurate, up-to-date information. Particularly in a game such as this which is being patched and changed constantly, a paper guide has limited value. Especially when the paper guide contains factual errors and bad character development advice.

In my experience, the only truely useful part of this book is the bestiary. It's handy to have and seems to be pretty accurate and comprehensive.

If you're too lazy to go online and find the information go ahead and buy this book but be advised of its limitations.

This current release of the DAOC strategy guide is well below average. There are plenty of tables and statistics, but often the information is inaccurate and incomplete. The book lists all the items in the game (at the time of printing) but neglects to tell you where you can find any of them, and provides cryptic and often incorrect abbreviations regarding their attributes. Same thing with monsters - you can read about their approximate levels and damage types, for instance, but nowhere will you find out what area they're located in.

Maps in the book are completely useless. They only give you a vague overview of each area, with eight or nine general "points of interest" - no mob listing, no hunting ground suggestions, no recommended levels. Town maps are slightly better and do list most NPC locations.

The brief, one or two page class guides are also inaccurate and have misleading information. Investing time to develop a character is important, and following the book's suggested spec paths for most of the classes will result in a below average character. The class guides do list most of the skills available to each class and at what levels.

Important information such as horse routes and class trainer locations are hidden deep within each realm's chapter, and a chapter on craft skills is heavy on numbers (which you find in game anyway) but short on help with getting started. The books shows a listing of many quests available in the game, but gives you no help or information or even an idea of what the rewards are.

Darkness Falls addition is okay, but nothing really above and beyond anything you will find online. The expanded RvR section is useful to only RvR newbies. You also don't even get an index.

All of the information in this book can be found in better, more accurate detail for free on the game's more popular fansites. Don't be fooled by the size of the book either, as well more than half of it is filled with those data-intensive tables which have little practical use.

Only a DAOC newbie has any use for this guide, and even then it's recommended that they cross-check any of it's information with the fansites for accuracy.

Wow, this book is great, not only is it bigger then the orginal guide, its orgainzed and written much better. Class descriptions are more detailed, so you get all the info about the class in one section. There is a huge list of player crafted and droped items, maps for every zone including the RvR zones and Darkness Falls. Certainly a must buy for any true DAoC fun.

This book is a vast improvement over the first version of this book. This book is more organized, up-to-date and helpful. Obviously, with a game that is contstantly changing, no book could ever be perfect, but it seems like they put a lot more thought and effort into gathering information.

I definitely recommend picking it up, it's very well done. For those of you who were burned by the first one, go to a book store and computer store and look at this one. You'll be able to see the difference immediately. I do not regret buying it.

This book is way out of date, but the best parts of it -- the reference tables -- are mostly correct. You can read the class info for a high level overview of each class, and the game info is useful if you are a newbie, but all that stuff has changed a lot since beta when this book was written. The maps are useless, obviously an afterthought.

But the reference tables are still mostly correct, and the information in the bestiary in particular I haven't found anywhere on the web. The spell lists are easier to read in the book than on the web, but you need to check the web for spells that aren't in the book and that have changed.

For all of the information in this book except the bestiary, you can find on the web and it's much more current. But I still refer to the book often just because it's handy.

This strategy guide compares VERY favorably with the first edition of, for example, the Everquest strategy guide from the same company. It is a good reference for spell and monster information in particular.

However, the character guides were based on beta test experience, and are now completely out of date. This is also true of the spell information, as so many changes and patches have been made that this guide is quickly becoming obsolete. I would wait for a second edition rather than buying this book now (February 2002).

OK, i'll be first to admit that it's handy to have the book around while i'm playing. having said that, prima really should've done their homework before putting out this "new and revised" edition. Or at least put out free addendums on the net somewhere! If you buy the book, remember that websites like the herald exist that are far more up to date and accurate than this book could ever be. Spell line info especially. DO NOT rely on this book for planning your character spec!!!

One quote from mythic is that this book is easier to use than your binder full of maps. Maybe, but most of the mosters are not labelled on the maps. If you look at a map of vanern swamp (midgard), it doesn't list 60% of the monsters which is dangerously misleading since it's a high aggro area and this could get you killed. There are many better monster maps on the internet. Don't waste your money. The revised strategy guide, however, is great.

Don't waste your money on this. By going through this book I wonder if the authors have ever played the game. Even the worst DAoC website is far far FAR more useful.

The book has several sections. A brief write up of each class, a monster guide, an item guide, a spell list and some maps.

The writeups for each class are what you would expect to have been in the DAoC manual. The combat tips are vague and tactics are minimal. The monster guide is incomplete, poorly organized and full of errors-- it doesnt't include even the most basic things like monster hit point ranges, monster damage ranges, etc. The spell list is missing several lines of spells along with those added by patches.

The maps are utterly worthless. The overland map is a miniture black and white version of the color map that comes with the game, nothing additional is labeled. The town and city maps dont provide specific person locations, so you'll still wander around your capitol city looking for, say, a healer.

The guide doesnt even touch quests...

The only reason this gets 2 stars is because its a little better than the first version but not by much. Maps are terrible, char guides are bad, inconsistent and wrong, online information is easier to find and use. Mob info is sparse and usless, drop info is just a print out. Sorry I want this to be a good book but its not. If you are totally new to the game you may feel that this is a good companion to your gaming however if you have any char > lvl 40 its kinna useless.