Dark Age of Camelot FAQ

What is Dark Age of Camelot?

Dark Age of Camelot is a massively multi-player online role-playing game conceived and developed by Mythic Entertainment. Set in the Kingdom of Albion in the years immediately following the death of King Arthur, players of the game enter a world in chaos, where Arthur’s peace has been shattered and dark forces threaten the Kingdom. Unlike traditional role-playing games in which a player’s greatest challenge is fighting computer-controlled monsters, players in Camelot will come face-to-face with their greatest challenge yet, other players. In Camelot, players must choose to be members of one of the three Realms that are striving for mastery in this chaotic world: The Britons, the Celts, or the Norse. The Britons are the former kingdom of Albion, once ruled by the great King Arthur. The Celts are from the wild and magical western island of Hibernia. The Norse are the large barbarians from the lands to the north of Albion.

Building upon the foundation laid by such great games as EverQuest, Asheron’s Call, and Ultima Online, the game features 3D-accelerated graphics with movable camera, multiple class and race combinations, and has built in and balanced team Player vs. Player (PvP). Unlike its predecessors, in Camelot, PvP conflict is an integral part of a player’s experience in the world, not an afterthought.

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You can buy Dark Age of Camelot at any computer software retailer in the United States, or click here to order it online. Camelot is available in many other countries as well. Visit our Camelot International section for more information.

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Who is Mythic Entertainment, and what games have they done?

Mythic Entertainment is the most prolific and one of the most successful online gaming developers in the industry today. With eleven online games to its credit, Mythic has been a major part of all of its distribution and publishing partners pay-for-play games including AOL, the Centropolis Gaming Center, Gamestorm and ENGAGE. Our titles include some of the most popular online-only games of all time including Spellbinder: The Nexus Conflict, Aliens Online, Starship Troopers: Battlespace, Silent Death Online, Rolemaster: Magestorm, Darkness Falls, Darkness Falls: The Crusade, Splatterball, Godzilla Online, and Dragon’s Gate.

Mythic has more experience in developing and running multi-user online role-playing games than most of its competitors. Dragon’s Gate is one of the longest running online RPGs out there, having just hit its 12th anniversary and is still going strong on the Centropolis Gaming Center. Mythic also has the successful Darkness Falls RPGs, which is available on the Centropolis Gaming Center.

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In order to make a great game, we’ve delved into many different Arthurian traditions, and have come up with a good mix of romantic Arthurian myths, pre-Christian Welsh legends and high fantasy. First and foremost, Camelot will be a fun game, and we will never let a strict adherence to any of the legends get in the way of that. That being said, any fan of the King Arthur legends will feel right at home playing on the side of the Britons.

Of course, only the Realm of Albion is based on the Arthurian legends – the Realms of Midgard and Hibernia are based on Norse Eddas and Irish Celtic myths, respectively.

What are the system specifications for Camelot?

The minimum system specs you'll need to play Camelot are:

If you have a Pentium II:

PII 450
256mb RAM
600mb free hard drive space
32mb 3D accelerated video card

If you have a Pentium III/IV:

PIII 450
128mb RAM
600mb free hard drive space
16mb 3D accelerated video card

(Please note that Voodoo 1/2/3/5 cards are not supported in Camelot, although Voodoo 3's and 5's may work).

The recommended system is:

PIII 1ghz
256mb RAM or higher
32mb 3D accelerated video card

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Camelot uses a 3D graphics proprietary engine developed by Mythic which is built upon the NetImmerse engine from NDL Inc – the same API that Mythic used to develop Spellbinder: the Nexus Conflict. It features 3D accelerated graphics, detachable camera, first and third person views, and all the visual splendor you would expect from any other large graphical multi-user online game.

Camelot has an immediately identifiable background that will be familiar to anyone with even the most cursory knowledge of mythical history. The Arthurian legends, the Norse Sagas, and to a lesser extent, Celtic folklore, are all represented in the game. The gods in the game will come from the pages of well-known mythology – gods like Odin and Thor, heroes like Cuchulain, Lancelot, and Galahad will all be part of the game’s background (and maybe foreground!).

Camelot also has a built in PvP system, which strongly guides the player into conflict against members of opposing Realms. The PvP system has been strongly thought out and is an integral part of the game itself, unlike the other large commercial online RPGs. Instead of having every player be able to fight any other player, as in Shadowbane, in Camelot, PvP is team based, where you can only fight characters in opposing Realms. This will encourage teamwork and cooperation among the members of a Realm as they must band together to fend off attacks, raids, etc. from the other Realms.

At high levels, where other games tend to grow stale, players in Dark Age of Camelot can participate in PvP struggles, territorial conquest, and protecting their Realm's Relics (objects of power) from enemy invasion, as well as attempting to pilfer enemy Relics themselves.

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The Realms in Dark Age of Camelot are Albion, home of the Britons, the Celtic land of Hibernia, and the Norse Midgard. Players will be able to play characters in each of the Realms – each Realm’s characters will specialize in different types of magic, different fighting techniques, and of course each will have geographically typical terrain. Midgard is full of fjords, ice, and pine forests; Albion has gently rolling hills and Roman ruins; and Hibernia is a wild land of deep forests, enchanted hills and magical beasts.

Each Realm is the possessor of a number of ancient magical Relics, which give bonuses to all members of that Realm – when the Relics are safely in their shrine. However, Relics can be stolen away by enemy raiding parties and taken to their shrines, making the raiding party’s Realm stronger. When safely in shrine, Relics give moderate attack and damage bonuses to fighting races, and magical spellcasting bonuses to spellcasters. Any Realm that does not have its Relics fights at a disadvantage.

Relics must be protected at all costs from theft – this concept forms the core of the PvP conflict in Camelot. Relics come in all shapes and sizes and are based on each Realm’s history and legends. Some of the ongoing quests in Camelot will be centered around discovering many lost Relics.

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PvP is shorthand for "Player vs. Player". Some online RPGs do not allow player vs. player combat at all; instead characters fight with NPC monsters – this is the model that EverQuest follows, with the exception of a few EQ PvP servers. Others, like Ultima Online, allow everyone to fight everyone else, which can sometimes be chaotic. Camelot will be team-based PvP (based on Realm), where characters will be able to rise up to medium level without having to worry about being marauded by high-level enemies. As the players grow in stature, they will be expected to protect their realm from enemy incursions, as well as occasionally go on raiding parties against other Realms.

In order to allow new players some time to gain experience in the game, each Realm will have its own unique protected adventuring areas that are designed for new players. These areas will allow the new player an opportunity to gain experience without worrying at all about an invasion from across the seas.

Player levels will be based on experience vs. monsters, not vs. other players. At higher levels, players will have to adventure out into regions between the realms, which could bring them into conflict with enemies, but not necessarily so. The true PvP comes into play when actively going out on raids, or protecting your Relics from enemy invasions.

Each player accumulates "Realm Points" while either defending their Realm against enemy invasions or going out on raiding parties. As the player gains Realm Points, they gain special titles, objects, and status. For example, a player with a high number of Realm Points will be able to use a horse; a player of the same level who has not participated in PvP will not. The game will not force players into PvP, but if you choose to do so, you will become more powerful.

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An unfortunate situation has arisen in several currently-available online games where some game players go out of their way to ruin the gaming experience for other players by killing them repeatedly, “stealing” their monster kills, and generally making an nuisance of themselves. Camelot has several built-in methods for discouraging this behavior.

The main protection against grief players is that, in Dark Age of Camelot, you may attack only members of opposite Realms. Also you cannot communicate with players of enemy realms – there will be no chatting allowed with enemies – this is done to heighten the “foreigness” of enemy players. In fact, the game makes enemy players seem as much like NPCs as possible. Please note that there are special servers (see question below), where you can group with players from other Realms, and thus communicate with them.

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Camelot’s class system is based on Guilds. Players in Camelot start out as a base class, which is dependent on Realm, but usually includes Fighter, Acolyte, Rogue, and Mage. At 5^th level all characters choose their career path by joining a guild. Their choice of guild determines what skills they get. Usually more than one base class can join each guild, resulting in several character types per guild. For example, an Albion Fighter can join the Guild of Shadows to become a Mercenary. A Rogue can join the same guild to become an Infiltrator.

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Huge. There are many zones for each Realm, which allows the player to gain levels and adventure without running into many (if any) player-character enemies. Then there are middle zones, which link the Realms together, where you may encounter enemy players.

The zones will be taken as much as possible from the maps of Scandinavia, Wales/England, and Ireland. The English zones will have Roman ruins, stone circles, and deep dark forests. The Norse zones will be full of ice and pine forests, tundra, and taiga. The Irish zones will have rolling hills, magical creatures and places, and a distinctly Celtic feel.

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Dark Age of Camelot features a unique world architecture that almost completely removes the need for players to "zone" between game areas. The system has "Regions" that are made up of huge areas of the game - inside which players will not have to wait to zone, as in other online RPGs. Instead, the player moves inside a "bubble" that keeps track of all monsters and other characters near the player. As the player moves around, the bubble continually refreshes itself by loading in new objects, monsters, and players that come in contact with the edges of the bubble. In essence, it is like playing EverQuest and being able to see and move across zone borders into other zones.

To give an idea of the size of the Regions, each Realm's territory consists of one region, allowing players to adventure inside their home territory and frontier regions without ever zoning (unless they are entering a dungeon or city).

Each Realm’s territory consists of a "home area" and a "frontier area". The home area is where low to mid level characters will cooperatively group and fight to gain levels. The frontier region consists of tougher high level areas where players go on high level quests and to engage in PvP combat against players from other Realms.

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You will be able to have eight characters per server, but all must be of one Realm. If you want to play characters from another Realm, you must create them on another server. This will cut down on players entering the game on one side to see what’s going on, then logging in as a character in another Realm to tell everyone what’s happening in the enemy camp.

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We have a lot of good ideas to make quests non-repetitive and so each player that does a quest will have a different experience. In most online RPGs, quest consist of going from step 1 to step 2 – talk to the NPC, find an object, give it to him, he gives you a note with more instructions on it, etc. These usually end up with a lot of high-level characters "camping" the same area waiting for a specific NPC to spawn so that they can kill it/talk to it/etc. This can often be frustrating to the players, especially if the NPC only spawns once every couple of hours.

Camelot will alleviate these issues in many different ways, by included an extensive questing engine. First, the steps in the quest will be randomly generated, so two players going on a quest for the same item will probably not do the same steps, and definitely not in the same order. Second, players on quests will have to fulfill earlier parts of the quest in order to get quest items off of NPCs. For example, if a player has to say a certain phrase to an NPC to get an item, the NPC will not respond even to the correct phrase if the player has not done the previous steps on the quest.

Camelot will also have a special Questing Journal that lists the quests that the player has accepted, and shows the steps that need to be taken, as well as the steps that the player has done already. This will alleviate the need for tedious note taking and the "what do I do with this piece of pottery" that happens on other games.

What is armed combat like?

One of the biggest problems with other online RPGs is that a magic-using character is fun and exciting to play, but an Arms-wielding fighter usually has only a few options to keep combat fun and interesting. Camelot, however, will feature "combat styles", which are unique fighting moves that must be learned by fighting characters in much the same way that a spell casters has to learn new spells.

Combat styles are initiated based what is happening in the fight. For example, a style could be performed when you parry an attack, or when your attacker misses you. Some higher-level styles are based on previous styles – i.e. you cannot perform them unless you have performed a lower level one. The highest level styles are “chained” – they require that you have performed two other styles in succession. When a high-level “chained” style hits, it will result in massive damage.

By studying the fighting styles of monsters and other players, fighters will find that some styles work better in some situations than in others. Fighting classes will be able to learn new styles by going on quests, by advancing in their guild, or by gaining levels.

Primary-fighting characters can expect to learn about 40 styles during their career, including several that “chain” to others. Each style will have a special animation and weapon effect graphics so that everyone watching will know that a style has been performed.

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Does Camelot have magical weapons, armor, and other items?

Yes, there are several different types of magical items available to players. These items are almost never found in stores; instead they are found on monsters, quested for, or in some cases crafted by other players.

The most basic type of magic type is a magical “bonus” that simply makes weapons easier to hit with and armors harder to hit.. This is described by an adjective denoting the level of magical bonus (bright, shining, glowing, brilliant, etc.). If you see a suit of “bright iron chainmail armor” you’ll know instantly that it has a basic magical bonus on it making it a little more difficult to hit than a regular suit of iron chain.

Another type of magical item gives bonuses to player statistics (i.e. strength, constitution, intelligence, etc.). These items are also found on quests or from monsters. As players advance in level, they should accumulate as many of these items that effect their primary stats as possible. These items can also increase player hits and power (magic) points.

Other items can also increase player skills such as hiding, evading, dual-wielding, and any of the other dozens of skills that are supported in the game.

Spell-casters can quest for special “focus” items that make their particular type of spellcasting more power. For example, Wizards can specialize in the elements of fire or ice, and can quest for a focus item (a fiery pendant or frost ring) that gives them more skill in that element type. Each type of spellcaster has skills directly relating to his spell ability, and thus can find items to increase that ability.

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What happens when your character dies?

Death systems in online RPG games are often maligned, criticized, scorned, and outright hated. However, they fulfill a critical aspect of games that is almost always overlooked by the player: having something bad happen when your character dies imparts a sense of tension and excitement. There is simply no excitement in adventuring through a world where loss of life is meaningless – a game with no or little penalty for death will soon be fully explored, and become boring.

In Camelot, we will balance the good of excitement and tension with the bad of having a death penalty. There is no death penalty for characters under 6^th level. When your character dies, over 5^th level, no equipment will be lost – but he will lose experience and a small number of constitution points. Even with the exp loss, your character will never “lose” a level based on the death exp loss – instead he will just remain at the beginning of the current level.

To mitigate the experience point loss, when a player dies, a gravestone is erected at the death spot. When the player goes back and prays at this marker, half of the experience that was lost will be returned. Also the first death the player has (per level) will be at half experience point loss.

If a dead player is resurrected by a PC Cleric, Priest, or Druid, he will lose half the normal amount of exp point loss, and will not lose any constitution points. Constitution points can be bought back from NPC healers.

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What can you do to gain levels other than fighting monsters?

We realize that players don't always want to kill monsters to advance in levels - Dark Age of Camelot is designed to allow the player to attain from 30-50% of the experience required to level from quests. Some monster hunting will always be required, but through judicious use of quests, players can greatly enhance their playing experience by going on quests.

In order to facilitate gaining experience through quests, Camelot  an "auto quest" generator, where a player can go up to an NPC and ask it if it has any "tasks" for them to do. The NPC can then randomly create either a "carry task", where the player takes an object to another NPC, or a "kill task" where the player has to go and kill a certain number and type of monsters as dictated by the NPC. These tasks are automatically generated based on the player's level, so they will always be level-appropriate.

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Where can I get more Information about Dark Age of Camelot?

Dark Age of Camelot's Official Website is a wealth of information about the game, containing screenshots, Realm, Class, and Guild information and much more.

The Links section of the official site contains links to many other fansites, each of which has information, playing guides, and lots of other cool game-related information.

I have a problem! Where can I get help?

If you have the game and need help, go to Dark Age of Camelot's Customer Support Website. This site contains a wealth of information, support options, and methods of contacting Camelot's Customer Support department.

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Shrouded Isles FAQ

What is Dark Age of Camelot: Shrouded Isles?

Dark Age of Camelot: Shrouded Isles is the first expansion pack available for Dark Age of Camelot players. It extends the story of the original game with new character classes, new races, and three new continents to explore – displayed in an all-new state-of-the-art graphics engine that will make it look as advanced as any game on the market. Here is a short list of features:

• New graphical engine with spectacular new visual effects
• Three new Continents in which to explore and adventure (one per realm)
• One new player race per Realm
• Two new player classes per Realm
• All new ambient music
• Revamped user interface

Dark Age of Camelot: Shrouded Isles is available in stores now.

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Yes, you must have the original game in order to play Shrouded Isles. This is an expansion pack, not a standalone product.

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In order to play Shrouded Isles, you'll need a current-generation 3D accelerated video card that supports the new DirectX 8.1 feature set. Our plan is to support all GeForce 2-4 cards (including MXs), as well as other DX8-compatible cards. However, the more advanced graphical features will probably only work on the current generation of GeForce 3/4 cards (as well as cards from other manufacturers that fully support DX 8). If you don't have a current-generation cards, you'll be able to play the expansion, but you won't see many of the graphical upgrades. For complete information on system requirements for Dark Age of Camelot: Shrouded Isles, visit our support website at www.support.darkageofcamelot.com. 

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Yes, when you upgrade to Shrouded Isles, even the older parts of the world look much better. New trees, water effects, and especially textures will look much more sharp, detailed, and realistic. Of course the new continents will look best of all, as they are being designed specifically with the new engine's features in mind.

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Yes, if you are a former Dark Age of Camelot player, after your purchase Shrouded Isles, you can reactivate your account and play in the new areas with your old characters. We have not deleted any characters from the game database, so even if your account has been closed for a long time, your old characters are still accessible should you decide to reopen your account.

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