THE HERALD

Over the weekend, the Dark Age of Camelot Account Center experienced intermittent outages. The issue is being investigated, and access to the Account Center should now be restored.

If you are experiencing any issues with your account, please contact our Billing Support department by email at support@darkageofcamelot.com 

Thank you!

Welcome, friends and Realm mates! Carol Kenny here, bringing you the Friday Grab Bag!

Also, be sure to keep an eye on the Herald, as I will be opening new avenues for question submission. You’ll be able to submit your Grab Bag questions via The Camelot Herald, Facebook, PostCount, and more! Submitting a question along with a valid Email address puts you in the running to win a 30-day Dark Age of Camelot Game Time Code!!

Click the ‘More‘ button on the right to view the questions!

These days a fair amount of people play DAoC on a laptop. For some, including myself, that presents a problem when it comes to taking screen shots! My laptop doesn’t have a numpad and it doesn’t have a Fn key to use to emulate the numpad. It appears that the screen shot button, = on the numpad, is hardcoded into the game as I cannot find the option to assign a new key via /keyboard. Is this something that can be changed? Thanks

This is a change we can make for our players who primarily use laptops. There are a number of Engineering tasks ahead of changing the default screenshot key, but consider this added to the list. 

Until then: ALT + PrtScn FTW! I realize it’s not quite as elegant – but you can still capture that special moments when you’ve ripped a small man by yourself and are standing triumphant over their defeated characters!

The current range for tab targeting (using a key to cycle through monster or player targets) is 1025. Would it be difficult to allow the player to choose this range in game? It would be like a dream come true to be able to set it to 1500 for my caster class. I am sure archers would be joyful as well. 

Yes! We can update the tab-targeting radius to 1500 and see how players react to it. If it’s too large a radius, or not large enough we will tweak until we get it right. 

Man, it feels great to say yes =]

Is there any chance to implement a new encounter that gives either an OTD or a quest reward that takes the entire realm to accomplish, that does not occur in an RVR zone? Raids in an RVR zone tend to be often beyond a realm’s ability to control with the largest zerg winning or the realm with the most macro teams entrenched or the realm with the most active 8man groups trying to ruin raids means that it is difficult especially for the casual player to participate. 

Large scale raids offer a unique opportunity to the community in that all have to band together to accomplish a task. Making a limited duration raid in a pve zone, can help bring the realm together and avoid many of the realm balancing problems of a PVP centered raid. This request would probably apply more to a Caledonia king killing quest rather than a springtime bunny kill quest as the king pops once every 8 hours and takes 60-100 people to kill, while the bunny pops every 10-20 minutes and is easily killed by a full group. 

Community-driven encounters and events are an initiative that Carol and the Dev team are currently working out. We will have more representative of the community engaging their Realm in encounters and raids. There’s a wealth of content in Dark Age of Camelot that deserves an upgrade in mechanics, difficulty, and rewards. Look forward to polls and questions from Carol as to which encounters we should start with, and what kind of rewards you would like to see. 

You have heard a bit, and you will continue to see a trend regarding the community. We have a great time engaging you folks and you deserve to be heard. Dark Age of Camelot belongs to you and we would like to help make your vision for DAoC’s future a reality.

Are there any ‘events’ planned for the near future involving Broadsword employees? I was not around for a Live DF event years back; I think events like these will be great for the community. 

There are mixed feelings about Dev-run events. Under no circumstances will we enter the game and use our super awesome powers during an event, unless it were on Pendragon for the purpose of testing. It would however be an honor to stand and fight with you as ordinary players. New, exciting, and rewarding events are a big part of Camelot’s future and we will do our best to provide as much advanced notice as possible so that everyone may plan to participate!

Could it be possible to change a toon’s name?

We’ve had a goodly number of requests to change character names. Currently, doing so requires the time of one of our In-Game Support representatives and is currently categorized as a service we do not provide on an ‘on-demand-basis’. Automating the process will involve the investment of resources, primarily Engineering. If we reach a critical mass of feedback, this type of request moves up the priority chain and we would start looking at how such an initiative could potentially be implemented. 

Short answer: it is possible but it’s not currently part of our plan.

Hello, and thank you for taking the time to read my question:

I know that there are so many other things to tackle, but UI features (eg configurable buffbar dimensions) have a direct impact on a players appreciation of the game. I also know that implementing adapters for something like inventory would be way more complicated than it was to implement scalar/text adapters. But it couldn’t hurt to ask, thanks! 

Improved UI/UX (User Interface and User Experience, respectively) is a strong commitment we have for the near to mid-term. We’ve talked about this in previous Q&As and Grab Bags, and have often cited a lack of resources as the blocking factor. Under Broadsword, this landscape has changed and I’m happy to say that we are examining and prioritizing the updates and improvements we want to make to UI/UX. How players interact with and equip armor, weapons, and accessories is fairly high on that list, I’m happy to say!

When the RVR changes are ready to be implemented, are there any plans on beta testing the improvements? Maybe some sort of Pendragon event with incentive to make a decent amount of people test the mechanics behind it. 

Yes! We are planning a Pendragon event where we will funnel as many players as possible to test the changes we’ve made to NF. This will occur after the next round of feedback-based changes go in and you’ll hear about specific dates and times from Carol. We will do our best to have a live Q&A during or directly following that event so that we can exchange ideas and hear your feedback while it’s still fresh. Those that show up will be rewarded for their participation as well, so /charcopy now and beat the rush!

Dear Broadsword, some years back RAs where made to light up when they where off cooldown. Could you please do the same for item /use and for potions? 

Great question! This is certainly something we will look at as we plan and execute our UI/UX improvements. I know that it would be very helpful to players to have this type of direct visual indication of your potions use-ability, and this is exactly the type of improvement that we are planning to make.

Will the mythril currency ever be added to the game? If not then why was it ever there in the first place?

Why is that a guild bank can hold more than 200 plat, even more than the max limit on consignment merchants, but players cannot hold more than 200 plat? 

1) It is unlikely that Mithril will ever be added as a useable currency. From an economic perspective, we would like to deflate the available currency so that players may conduct their in-game business without having to resort to other methods of holding and trading funds. This is an appropriate segue to the answer to your second question. 

2) It stands to reason that a Guild Bank be able to hold more plat than any one player can hold. Some Guilds set fairly aggressive Guild Dues and a 200 Plat cap would certainly be reached very quickly.

After having problems with the billing section of the dark age of camelot website regarding the free time given to players. I am left with questions as to why the website is not as effective as it should be. For example, why do you require to validate my payment for an account that has been inactive for many months and yet the free game time is there to be had. Second, why does the daoc website not offer the paypal section as opposed to the referal of a card payment. Things have moved on, even Origin offers it and even an Origin advisor is actively saying that I only need to do this via their website and not the daoc website via me game account. Thirdly, is there a plan to integrate Origin and daoc billing sections as one item thus to save subscribers the means of going through effectively two payment methods on two websites if you get my meaning. You can see this is ineffective and inefficient, So when are the plans to make the daoc and origin sites at least acknowledge the details of one another to get a more effective system? 

The simple answer is YES and ASAP! This is a priority for us, and is being worked on as we speak. We have recognized that the process by which a character re-subscribes, links, un-links, or engages in the Return to the Realms campaign is not as intuitive as it should be. In-fact it can be downright frustrating. This is why we have placed Account Center improvements as a top priority for Broadsword. You’ll see a good deal of changes to Dark Age of Camelot as we move forward. Expect a more intuitive and user-friendly Account Center to be among the first!

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That concludes this Friday’s Grab Bag! Thank you to those who submitted the questions, and for a list of Time Code Winners, please visit the Grab Bag page on Post Count.

Cheers, and we’ll see you in the Frontiers!

Carol Kenny
Community Lead

The Dark Age of Camelot Account Center has been experiencing intermittent outages over the past few days. This issue has been resolved. If you had been unable to access the account center during one of these outages, you may try again now by clicking the link below.

http://accounts.eamythic.com

Thank you for bearing with us through this transition, and we’ll see you in the Frontiers!

Feeling lucky? Great! Platinum-Bound Mystery Boxes have returned!

These mysterious chests contain an updated variety of great loot, and are available from  the following merchants:
Mary – near the portal pad in Castle Sauvage
Edith – near the portal pad in Svasud Faste
Sybil – near the portal pad in Druim Ligen

Happy Valentine’s Day!
 

Greetings my friends, and welcome to the first edition of the Broadsword Friday Grab Bag!

We requested a list of questions from the fine community of players over at PostCount, and a fine list we recieved! 

Click the ‘More’ button to read the Q&A, and follow the link below to see the question contributors on http://www.postcount.net! 

For the Post Count Grab Bag – Click Here!

• What do you feel will be the biggest benefits to Broadsword being the new caretaker of the Legen…wait for it…Dary Dark Age franchise? Are there any plans to perhaps launch a F2P origins server?

• Any chances of a revamp of Cursed Forest, Raumarik and Llyn Barfog? lovely zones gone to waste, so much potential!

• In addition to focusing on patches and balance issues, will Broadsword be making any marketing attempts to advertise DAoC publicly?                    

• I recently came back to DAoC from a very long break. One of the things I have immediately noticed was that there were a TON of very high realm rank players, people who have been playing the game for a very long time, as is expected of an older but brilliant game like DAoC. With the recent news of Broadsword taking over, I am sure there will be many people returning to the game to check it out. I really have two questions: 

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• 1. What, if anything, is broadsword going to do to help the returning players close the gap a little bit between them (older gear, lower rank, etc) and the very high realm rank and temped players. Things could get frustrating for newer players if they are not able to quickly get back into the game. But at the same time, not make it too easy or “dumbed” down.

• 2. Personally one of the things that I have found incredibly difficult is finding what gear is current in the game, what to use and what not to use, etc (stopped playing around catacombs and everything is different). Are there any plans to introduce some of database of gear or the more popular gear so that players will be able to get a clearer sense on how to equip their characters for RVR without getting completely ripped open by players that have been here for years and years?

• Any chance of the old bridges being brought back into the game? I know it’s beating a dead horse at this point, but I think the community would like a definite yes or no.                       

The answer is ‘No’. I’m sorry, bud. Those bridges were removed for a good reason: overwhelming player feedback. I’d like to remark that the aspects of action and strategy offered by those old bridge models can be found around and amongst the ‘Ruined Keeps and Towers’, which are part of the upcoming New Frontiers changes in Patch 1.115. If there are other aspects the old bridge models which represent a really positive improvement to the game, get a discussion going about them, and we will listen.

• With the NNF patch we will see a lot more traffic going through Agramon, but will players be able to go around Agramon without using merchant boatrides (by using personal mount, scout boat, or swimming)?

• What positive impacts do you see the New Frontiers Revamp doing for the community as a whole and for each different type of play style – large scale, small man and solo?

• Are there any plans to have an incentivized event on Pendragon to promote the testing? I feel that the majority of players won’t playtest NNF unless there is an event that creates a larger population on the test server. 

• Are there any plans to add incentives for playing and keeping loyalty to one realm?

• Are there plans in the near future to update some old(er) contents item drops? Currently there are so many awesome encounters that people have never seen before because nobody does them with the loot being /salvage. Some of the SI dungeons, and Darkness Falls are the coolest places in the game, but yet the drops are not even on par with dragon drops. I’d love to see Legion on a similar loot table as ML10, except he drops Infernal armor, and maybe some new stuff! Updating the Prince/Princess would be cool too.

• Let me start off by saying I love the dock changes. Capturing the dock so that the enemy cannot use it is a great idea, but what I am worried about is what incentive is there to take the dock? I mean sure capture it so the enemy cant use it and you can but then what? I feel as if all that effort will be wasted. Is there any other way to increase the incentive to capture these docks?

• I’m originally a European player (since the release of DAoC). When our servers died I started fresh on the US. When I was told I could migrate my old Camlann (EU PvP server) character over I was excited, but later found out I would not be allowed to merge it into my US account. After being told this I stopped playing altogether. 

           Now with the company going to broadsword, will you allow players to merge old European accounts?

• In terms of development time, what percentage of Broadswords time will be spent on DAoC and what percentage on Ultima Online?

• Would Broadsword be interested in redeveloping the old “Knights” or “Team Lead” positions in an effort to funnel information to them from the community in a format not watered down with trolls and #OMGnerfTHIS? And if so, would they be inclined to have the community itself vote on the leadership?

Thank you to the question contributors and to the folks at www.postcount.net for their support and dedication! We’ll see you next time!

Friends and Realm Mates!
 
Dark Age of Camelot cordially invites you to Return to the Realms! Effective immediately, any account inactive for more than 60 days is eligible for one week of free game time!
 
Activate your free week of game time now to check out recent changes to Dark Age of Camelot! Also, be sure to use some of your free game time to log onto Pendragon to explore, test, and submit your feedback on the updates to The New Frontiers coming with Patch 1.115! 
 
Click to visit the Dark Age of Camelot Account Center, redeem your free game time, and Return to the Realms today!!
 
We’ll see you in the Frontiers!

Update: 1:30 EDT / 1930 CET: The Account Center is back online!

The Dark Age of Camelot Account Center is coming down for brief maintenance. 

Service will be restored just as quickly as possible. Thank you for your patience while we resolve the issue!

My name’s Carol Kenny, known to many as “Beibhinn” on the forums, IRC, and in-game. I’m absolutely delighted to be working with Broadsword in the role of Community Lead for Dark Age of Camelot! I’m aware that there are many of you in the community that know me, but for those that don’t –  let me tell you a little about myself!
 

I began playing DAoC at release and am still actively playing to this day! Shortly after I began playing, I found my way to IGN’s VN Boards and quickly became a part of Camelot’s thriving community. After some time, I became a moderator for the DAoC boards on the Vault Network and rose through the ranks to Senior Manager! During this time, I put a lot of time into other community sites such as the WarhammerVault and CamelotVault. Eventually, I earned higher status on these boards and had the opportunity to work alongside the other main VN Community Coordinators over all Vault sites!

In 2012, after IGN merged the Vault forums in with their main forums, the community migrated to www.postcount.net, and to this day postcount.net thrives as the main community-operated forum for Dark Age of Camelot! 

I’ve worked with Mythic’s community and Dev team in many capacities since 2004 and now have the chance to give back even more to the game and community I love! I’m really grateful for the opportunity, and hope to do the community proud.

Cheers,
Carol

Friends and Realm Mates,

In our announcement of Dark Age of Camelot’s transition to Broadsword, we mentioned many changes on the horizon. True to our word, we are very pleased to announce Carol Kenny in the role of Community Lead for Dark Age of Camelot!

Carol has a long and dedicated history with the DAoC community and Dev team, and we could not be more pleased to have her as part of the Broadsword team!  Keep your eyes on the Herald for an introductory post from her shortly, and in the mean time – please join me in giving Carol a sincere and heartfelt welcome! We look forward to continuing our work with Carol in her new role!

Friends and realm-mates,
 
For more than twelve years Mythic Entertainment’s flagship game: Dark Age of Camelot™ has been remarkably successful. Since its launch in 2001, DAoC forever changed the MMO genre.
 
Inspiring thousands of gamers and game developers alike, it paved the way for a generation of MMOs to follow. Through the years, Camelot has also seen its share of rough times – but thanks to its many loyal fans and its wonderful and dedicated community, Dark Age of Camelot has proven to be a true survivor. In recent months, Mythic’s leadership began discussing the question of Camelot’s future. Councils were convened, options were discussed – and finally, a decision was made regarding the best possible future for Dark Age of Camelot.
 

I write to you now with news of the exciting next chapter in the life and history of our beloved game:
 
Mythic Entertainment co-founder Rob Denton and a number of Mythic veterans (including two members of Camelot’s original team!) have formed a new game studio – Broadsword Online Games! 
 
Broadsword Online Games will partner with EA’s Mythic Entertainment to operate, support and develop Dark Age of Camelot on EA’s behalf.  Electronic Arts will continue to provide billing and account services through its Origin™ portal.   Broadsword and Electronic Arts will work closely together to ensure a bright future for Dark Age of Camelot.  For future inquiries and support, you can contact daoc@broadsword.com.
 
There are sure to be many questions, and we will certainly be providing more information very soon. But for now please join us in celebrating this momentous event, and spread the word that the Broadsword team will guide Dark Age of Camelot into the future with renewed dedication and the utmost respect.
 
 
Faithfully yours,
 
Talal Saad
Producer
Dark Age of Camelot

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In the wake of such exciting news, we know that there shall be numerous questions about this transition and what it means for Dark Age of Camelot. Let’s explore the answers to some basic questions:

What does the transition to Broadsword mean for Dark Age of Camelot?

EA/Mythic and Broadsword are working really hard to make sure that this transition is as smooth as possible. On February 5th, you shouldn’t notice a thing. Going forward, we hope to bring about some exciting new changes, improved Customer Support, and increased correspondence with the DAoC community.

Broadsword’s dedicated team will also work to modernize and improve existing DAoC content, complete long-awaited improvements to The Camelot Herald, and establish compelling new features for Dark Age of Camelot, both in-game and out.

Is Broadsword an Electronic Arts studio?

No. However, for purposes of DAoC, Broadsword will be operating the game on EA’s behalf to continue its success.  

Will there be a change in the payment system?

Nope! Players will continue to access DAoC through EA’s Origin™ portal. There will be no interruption or change in the payment service. Players may notice that charges on their bank statements will still indicate a payment to Mythic or EA – and Game Time Codes will still be available via the EA Origin™ Store.

What will happen to any information I’ve provided to EA/Mythic?

Nothing.  Since Broadsword is operating DAoC on EA’s behalf, all the information you provided and may provide in the future will continue to be managed according to EA’s Privacy Policy and Terms of Service.

Will there be changes to the Dark Age of Camelot development team?

Broadsword is made up of a people who are passionate about DAoC, and many of whom were responsible for the development and operation in the past.

You can continue to expect the same high level of dedication and commitment to the game, as well as continued interaction with the player-base. You will see some new names, or possibly names you know quite well taking a role in the development of Dark Age of Camelot going forward.

Will this transition alter the plans for Dark Age of Camelot’s near term changes?

DaoC’s transition to Broadsword will certainly have a positive effect on our future plans. With increased bandwidth and resources we will work toward modernizing some of the game’s features and developing a tangible marketing plan to attract more players, both new and returning.

The mission of the Dark Age of Camelot team will remain the same: to improve the game, listen and respond to feedback, and to provide the best possible content to ensure a great game experience for our players.

Are you bouncing off the walls with excitement?!

Why yes! Yes we are!
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We’ve just scratched the surface with these basic questions. We’ll set up an avenue for you to submit your questions about the transition, and do our best to provide the answers.

Speaking for the entire Dark Age of Camelot team: Thank you all, very sincerely, for sticking with us through the years. We will do our utmost to take DAoC into a bright and exciting future!

Until next time friends, we await your feedback and questions – and we’ll see you in the Frontiers!

Respectfully yours,
The Dark Age of Camelot Team