Dark Age Of Camelot: Preview of Mythic From E3: Frontiers and Catacombs

Two and a half years ago, Mythic Entertainment was nearly unheard of. However, with the help of its flagship game, Dark Age of Camelot (DAOC), Mythic Entertainment has become a massive gaming corporation. In fact, Mythic obtained a 36th ranking in the In 500 in 2003. Because most of this growth can be credited to DAOC, it is no wonder that Mythic has released several expansion packs, and is planning on releasing two more by the end of the year.

What sets DAOC aside from other MMORPGs is the unique realm vs. realm combat system. Each player can create a character in one of three realms: Midgard, Hibernia, or Albion. The game geography consists of these three realms, and one realm that connects all three called the Frontier. The three realms battle each other in the Frontier for relics that, when owned, give all characters in that particular realm bonuses.

DAOC has evolved much in the past two and a half years as a result of constant updates, two expansion packs, and one free expansion. While the basic concepts of the game remain the same, many realm vs realm (RvR) tactics have changed as a result of the evolution of the game. To keep the game up to date with its own evolution, Mythic Entertainment has announced that it is releasing a free expansion called Dark Age of Camelot: New Frontiers.

New Frontiers basically replaces the entire existing frontier realm with a new, totally connected realm. This realm will consist of 14 zones, with 12 zones being land zones, and 2 being water zones. These two water zones were added to put the swimming abilities introduced in the Trials of Atlantis expansion in to use in the Frontiers.

Along with new water zones, New Frontiers also introduces the concept of unidirectional terrain. Unidirectional terrain is just a fancy way of saying that there will be steep hills that a character can run down, but can not run back up. The unidirectional terrain will exploit the "higher ground" tactic; where players at the top of a canyon have an advantage when attacking players stuck in the bottom of the canyon.

Not only does New Frontiers modify the terrain of the Frontier, but it also changes key ways that the RvR will be played. There will still be 21 castles in the Frontier, but a new addition of New Frontiers is the presence of four support towers for each castle. These support towers may be used to defend the castle from attack, but also may be taken over, and used to siege the castle until it is take over. Other than providing more seige-type action when fighting over castles, the support towers are also used in another new aspect introduced by New Frontiers.

Each player in the Frontier will have access to a realm map that displays which castles are controlled by their realm, and where fighting is occurring. If the player is at one of the castles, the player can be teleported to any other keep owned by their realm as long as three of the four guard towers around the castle are still under the realm's control. This feature will allow realms to transport help directly to the front lines, which will definitely add to the intensity of the realm battles.

Finally, the relic capturing system has been changed. Each relic will be contained in a "relic temple," which is guarded by an impenetrable gate. The only way to get past this gate is to capture 3 keeps in a row, which will open the gate. Sixteen characters must be present in order to claim a relic. Once sixteen characters show up, the relic will start descending from the sky, and will take ten minutes to reach the ground. This gives the realm losing the relic ten minutes to try to stop their realm fr}

The next expansion planned by Mythic Entertainment is Dark Age of Camelot: Catacombs. This expansion will consist of at least a few new dungeons, and an impressive graphical upgrade.

When I saw Catacombs being played, the vast amount that DAOC has improved since its initial release two and a half years ago finally hit me. With this expansion come completely redone character figures, classic monsters, and world art. The character's faces were actually rendered, instead of simply painted on like before. The characters' chests move when they breathe, and they actually blink as well. A new skeletal structure was created for each character in the game, so no longer will the characters look like statues when they are standing still because they will lead one foot a bit forward, and relax their shoulders a bit.

I was extremely impressed with the new dying system introduced in Catacombs. It used to be that when a player dyed a piece of armor, a simple filter of that dye color was used to dye the entire item. This resulted in items looking dull, and un-detailed. }

With the release of Catacombs, however, dyed items will look very nice. This is because for each item, only certain parts are dyed. This allows for some of the item's natural color to be seen; giving it a more naturally-dyed appearance.

Unlike the previous two pay-for expansions for DAOC, the new graphical updates run off of the same Trials of Atlantis (TOA) engine, so if a graphics card will run TOA beautifully, it will run Catacombs beautifully as well.

From what I have seen of both New Frontiers and Catacombs, DAOC players are in for some very nice changes. Walter Yarbrough, the Content Producer of Mythic, assured me that "There will never be a Camelot Two." Mythic Entertainment is planning on keeping DAOC up to date through a mixture of free, and pay-for expansions in order to keep players interested, and intrigued with the enhancements to come.