Edit 6:20PM: Gaheris is back online.
Gaheris will be coming down to rectify an issue with housing.
Downtime is expected to be about 1 hour. We will update the Herald when the server is back online.
THE HERALD
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It’s the Friday Grab Bag!! Wait…What Day is it?
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Welcome to another edition of the Grab Bag!
Please click the ‘More’ link to review this round of questions from our fervent players. Among today’s topics are: pet buffs, upcoming events, and some information on the priority order for combat events such as blocking and evading. Read on, there’s some good information in there!
Please visit the Post Count Grab Bag Submission page to submit question for our next Grab Bag on Frday, October 25th!
Q: Some of the template programs give a Utility number based on the amount of stats on an item. I find this handy to tell the power of an item at a glance, and then I can look at the stats to decide if its an item I can use. Would you consider adding utility scores to items in game to help people see the sheer amount of stats on an item at a glance?
A: We won’t be adding anything like this to the items themselves, but we would like to make changes to the UI system so that UI designers can add things like this to their custom UIs.
Q: When can we expect the changes to legendary weapons?
A: We are still planning to roll out those changes with 1.115, which is tentatively scheduled for the end of the year.
Q: Archer block mechanics, it appears unless I engage arrows can not be blocked, why is it that I block 50% of melee blows and that arrows are at best 1%?
A: We tested this with a RR1 L50 Ranger (50+9 Archery) vs. RR1 L50 Warrior (50+10 Shield) standing still, facing each other. The warrior passively blocked at least 2 out of each of 5 shots fired of each Archery shot type. This was a cursory test but it demonstrates that blocking arrows does not require engage and happens more often than 1%.
Q: Any chance on getting new weapons? Would be really awesome to see some new weapons to throw in templates or even update states on a lot of old TOA weapons that used to be good
A: We can certainly look at this. Once the NF revamp is done and enjoyed a few weeks of being stable and fun, we’ll be shifting our focus back to endgame PvE content as a lot of it needs polishing and updating. Expect more weapons around then. In terms of Class Balance (because we know you are all wondering!), we’ll still be adding changes here and there but we’d rather not introduce huge Class Balance changes (like last patch) around the same time of something as impactful as a New Frontiers revamp.
Q: How do player concentration buffs affect pets? (ie: druid base/specs on an enchanter’s pet)
A: Strength buffs increase a pet’s melee damage.
Constitution buffs decrease damage done to a pet.
Dexterity buffs reduce a pet’s spell cast timer, decrease damage done to the pet and increase its chance to hit with archery and bolts.
Quickness buffs reduce a pet’s melee attack timer.Q: Will there ever be any interest in giving incentives to boost the idea of 8v8? I understand the large scale of this game is ‘zerg warfare’, yet no offense to them- The elite players of this game do in fact 8v8, it is who has the better group of players to best the other group.
A: We respect all play-styles. Certainly 8v8 combat can be some of the most strategic, rewarding, and compelling in the game. The idea of the various ‘best’ group setups comes into play heavily when we determine the direction of class balance and is also a big factor in our upcoming changes to the New Frontiers. Indeed part of our goals for those changes is to make NF a smaller and more engaging landscape for all players, including our fervent 8v8’ers. I suspect, however, that your question has more to do with incentivizing group vs. group fights in a general way.
We’ve had wish list meetings where we talked about an Arena system (2 groups enter…1 group /rofls.) but features such as this would almost certainly pull players away from the Frontiers to say nothing of the fact that it would require the dedication of nearly all of our resources for a nontrivial amount of time – so we always return to the feedback and do our best to apply the resources we have to features and changes that are requested most often by the highest number of players. That said, we’re always open to suggestions, so leave feedback, start a thread on PostCount, or get a discussion going amongst your friends and realm mates. We’re listening.
Q: What is the order of operations used to determine whether a combat swing hits the enemy? (ie: miss/fumble/block/evade/parry/etc)
A: They’re checked in this order: target Evade, Parry and Block, then attacker Fumble and Miss.
Q: I recently read somewhere that if a class has access to a certain level of armour (say plate), that any levels below that armour, except cloth, will give them the same absorb bonuses. People often run studded chests/sleeves because the procs are better or the stats fit, and I thought it was a trade off on defense – but is it in fact the same?
A: It is a tradeoff with defense. An Armsman wearing Leather is going to get melee’d for a lot more than one wearing Plate armor.
Q: All my artifacts have a /reuse of 15 minutes apart from Traitors Dagger which has a /reuse of 30 minutes. Why is this?
A: There are a good number of spells which require revision and normalization. Customarily, longer re-use timers were an indication of a more powerful spell or ability, but what was true several years ago may not hold up in today’s game. We can look at adjusting these (and other) spells or abilities with a significant disparity in re-use timers. Please don’t hesitate to bring them to our attention via feedback or bug reports!
Q: Why do we still have to lvl arti’s on test servers? They should be lvl 10 for testing purposes!
A: We can look into a Mob or an item which grants Artifact Experience for Pendragon. It’s certainly possible.
Q: Could we get some info on the next set of events planned? Halloween quest? Infernal merchant tents perhaps?
A: Halloween event is just around the corner. We’ll then be capping the final piece of the Pict event at or just after the NF revamp. Once the dust has settled around that we’ll begin a brand new long-term event and quest line in addition to the usual seasonal events we do. And yes, we’ll do the Infernal Merchants again, but probably not until next year.
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Once again, we thank our question contributors and our friends at http://www.postcount.net for their participation in the Grab Bag! We encourage you to submit more questions for us – there’s so much left to learn about Dark Age of Camelot!
Until the next edition, friends – we’ll see you in the Frontiers!
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12 Years of Dark Age of Camelot – A Retrospective
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A very happy birthday to you, Dark Age of Camelot.
Twelve years ago today, hundreds of eager players caught their first glimpse of the newly released MMORPG: Dark Age of Camelot. What was to follow came as a bit of a surprise, both to players and Mythic developers. Follow us on a journey through the history of a game that would go on to leave an indelible impact on a young and vibrant game studio, the hearts and minds of hundreds of thousands of players, and the entire MMORPG genre.
HUMBLE BEGINNINGS
Mythic Co-Founder Rob Denton writes:
“Some parts of the Camelot server codebase and architecture go back over 25 years. In 1986, I started my first game company with some friends and we purchased a franchise to the dial-up, text based MMORPG known as Sceptre of Goth. That whole thing fell apart rather messily and we set out to code our own text based MMORPG. Over the next few years, we wrote the initial command parser, character state system and back-end kernel for a new game known as Tempest. This grew to become a commercial enterprise with 20 phone lines in my house connected to 1200 baud modems where players could dial in and play for $1 an hour. Many of the core Tempest players became the first employees of Mythic Entertainment in the mid 90’s!
Tempest evolved into the three-realm, PvP, text based MUD known as Darkness Falls. In Darkness Falls, you could join the realms of Good, Evil or Chaos to fight for supremacy in a magical, fantasy world. The Darkness Falls server and basic three-realm “RvR” eventually formed the server and base game architecture for Dark Age of Camelot.
The graphical client for Camelot had its beginnings with Mythic’s initial first person shooter – Splatterball! Splatterball was developed to run on the internet and AOL and featured three teams all fighting for the flag in various, fanciful arenas. Splatterball used a “2 1/2 D” voxel based engine (look that one up!) with sprites to present pretty simple immersive graphics to the player. We leveraged Splatterball to create our next graphical, fantasy based FPS, Magestorm. Magestorm had three teams (see the pattern here?) with characters who leveled in power, fighting over various medieval dungeons to conquer resource pools to defeat the other teams. Magestorm evolved into Spellbinder – and we were finally into the era of actual, model based 3D graphics!
Everquest, the first popular 3D graphical MMORPG, hit the market in 1999 and was far more successful than anyone imagined. We had been discussing the idea of a fully 3D MMORPG for a while and felt the time was right to start development in earnest. DAOC was originally “Darkness Falls 3D” – a three realm, PvP game based on the Darkness Falls text based MUD. Mark Jacobs, Mythic’s President, developed the wonderful idea to use the popular myths around Arthurian, Norse and Celtic themes as the base story. We mixed together the server and three-realm RvR from Darkness Falls, the graphical client from Spellbinder, and the story around Albion/Midgard/Hibernia and a star was born!”
Humble is truly an appropriate term to describe our start as a small studio creating some of the first online multiplayer games. Stories of the elder days are still shared with old friends, new employees, and Mythic fans everywhere.
Producer, James Casey writes:
“Any early Mythic employee will tell you the story of their first day. You would be shown in, introduced to a few people then directed to your area where you would find a few packages waiting for you. Your first responsibility as a Mythic employee was to unbox and assemble your desk, chair, and computer. It made for a pretty memorable first day.”
DEVELOPMENT
With an initial team of 12 people, production began on Dark Age of Camelot. By Closed Beta, 13 additional Engineers, Artists, and Designers joined the team to bring Arthurian Albion, Nordic Midgard, and Celtic Hibernia to life.
The realm of Albion was created first, and our expectation in early development was that the well-known lore of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table would make Albion the “hero” Realm, to which most players would give their allegiance.
Senior Producer, Colin Hicks writes:
“The first zone we built during development was Camelot Hills. We used that zone to build out our game engine / terrain renderer as well as prototype our development tools. Of course, at first we had no tools! So I spent a couple weeks building Camelot Hills by hand, via text file, manually entering X,Y,Z, Rotation coordinates by hand for every tree, house, rock, clump of grass, etc. I would walk around the zone in game, finding where I wanted a prop, and writing down coordinates to enter in later. I would enter a bunch of props into the text file, then re-load the game to check my work. It was quite tedious, but also very exciting to see the world slowly take shape. The trees and buildings in Camelot Hills still use the same placement as that first layout.
The terrain itself was painted with a grayscale image in Photoshop – one pixel in the image equaled one vertex of the terrain mesh, with lighter values being higher than darker. This was done by feel and trial and error – painting a bit, then loading the game to check the work, quitting out, then repeat. We did not have a true graphical terrain editor until after the Shrouded Isles expansion. By that time I could pretty much translate the grayscale image to what the terrain would look like in the game in my head. I sometimes still see a grayscale image when looking at terrain in real life!”
The Realms of Midgard and Hibernia were developed next, almost in tandem. As designers poured their creativity and passion into the Realms, something quite magnificent occurred: our expectation of the “hero” Realm had been proven false. Albion, Midgard, and Hibernia became living worlds, all three equally rich in feeling, steeped in lore, and with landscapes beautiful to behold.
Senior Producer, Colin Hicks writes:
“The first NPC / Monster encounter built was Mulgrut Maggot, the zombie in the graveyard in Camelot Hills. This was the first NPC that did anything more than just wander around. He had a path he followed, a group of skeletons to help him out, and a treasure table that dropped real items. It was a hint of what was to come, our ability as designers to create an immersive world for our players to explore and interact with.”
Mythic developers gathered regularly to play their content, and from these sessions came many features that are to this day integral to the unique feeling of DAoC’s gameplay.
Senior Producer, Colin Hicks writes:
“The most exciting single moment during development was the first time a group of us Devs were able to get onto the server together, group up and try out RvR action. This was in a test zone, that later became one of the battlegrounds. We divided up into teams and had a howling good time chasing each other around the zone, setting ambushes, and trying to capture the bridge and keep in the zone. It was the first glimpse of the magic that could be three- Realm RvR. We knew at that point that we had something special.”
Engineer, Matthew Doetsch-Kidder writes:
“Players would be interested to know that stick, follow, face, and Q-Binds were suggested and implemented by some Engineers working on Camelot who played the game in development, and felt that the addition of these features would be very useful in both a testing and a playing capacity.”
During development, the team certainly faced its share of challenges; Dark Age of Camelot was the largest endeavor to date for Mythic and in a market that was in its infancy. So it followed that our solutions to some of these challenges would set industry standards for the MMORPG genre
Engineer, Marty Brown writes:
“You have to remember what things were like circa 2000. There were not a lot of resources out there for game development and we had to figure everything out ourselves. We were pretty experienced with networked games, but when it came to 3D, we were a bunch of newbies (well, except for Rob).
Case in point: when Rob was working on the terrain system, he asked me to create a skybox. This was new for us, as our other games were either top-down and didn’t display a sky or just used a flat texture for the sky.
My first thought was to create a big hemisphere (a Skydome seemed more appropriate than a skybox) that would be attached to the terrain. But I quickly realized that wouldn’t work. It would have to be so big that it would always clip in the distance and you would notice clouds getting bigger and closer as you approached the edges and so on. But then I thought if I just attached a small version of the dome to the player and made sure it was the first thing to be drawn, it would look the same and appear to be the same distance away all the time.
It was really an “Aha!” moment when it worked. Since then, it’s always seemed funny to me that if you could see actually see other players’ Skydomes in game, everyone would be running around with a basketball-sized dome floating just over their heads.”
As Camelot grew in scope, so too did the systems used to polish the many areas of the game. DAoC’s unique and wonderful combat system was inspired in-part by the table-top Role Playing Game Rolemaster. Camelot’s code is layered with years of new features and improvements on old systems. Many portions, including segments of programming borrowed from previous Mythic games, have remained exactly the same since launch. With a keen eye, one may find in Dark Age of Camelot sections of code which were borrowed from Tempest! Yet another example of how systems evolved over the course of development is the Monster Pathing system.
Engineer, Matthew Doetsch-Kidder writes:
“The pathing system in Dark Age of Camelot originated as a way for mobs to move around within Dungeons. Eventually, the system became robust enough that it was put to use throughout the game. The same pathing system is still in use today.”
By the end of the summer of 2001, we had completed the three Realms, the combat system, the Relic system, and fleshed out the archetypes and classes for each realm. Dark Age of Camelot was ready for the world.
LAUNCH
In all the excitement, a few things were overlooked. Some of these things were not insignificant.
Engineer, Matthew Doetsch-Kidder writes:
“We were rapidly approaching Beta and Launch, and it dawned on us that we didn’t have the servers we needed for a public release. When we approached Dell for the hardware we needed – we were denied. Mythic, it seemed, did not have sufficient credit. This was several hundred thousand dollars of hardware, and it was necessary. We ended up purchasing the hardware we needed out of the studio budget at what was close to the last minute.”
After a successful Beta program, Mythic leadership and our publisher at the time, Vivendi Games, worked to determine the best possible approach to getting Dark Age of Camelot released to the public. Based on the climate of the market at the time, and the confidence they had in our product, Vivendi chose to make a 100,000 unit run of boxed product. They chose to place 50,000 units in stores across the country. This was the biggest event in Mythic’s history, and the whole office was abuzz.
Engineer, Marty Brown writes:
“Just after launch, I recall a few people running down to the local game stores to see the games being purchased by players. It was a very satisfying and exciting time to see the results of our hard work and creativity.”
The folks in the office were watching too. We looked on in anticipation as the numbers on the servers began to climb.
And then…
And up and up!
Within five days, the first run of box copies had flown off store shelves. Dark Age of Camelot was sold out! Our servers were filling to capacity, and things were running smoothly. Our Publisher immediately released the remaining copies, but the limited stock and slight delay came as something of a blessing.
Engineer, Marty Brown writes:
“We sold about 50,000 units within the first five days. We had not expected such a positive response, so our publisher (Vivendi Games) had made a limited run of boxed product. This, I believe, contributed to our very smooth launch. We did not get slammed all at once as do modern MMO’s, rather we enjoyed a very steady and gradual increase in players which allowed us the time to respond from a development perspective.”
A few weeks later, Dark Age of Camelot proved to be the best selling PC game of October, 2001. Thousands of players were pouring in, and we added additional servers to meet the demand.
In December of 2001, the Camelot Herald went live and thus began the flow of information from Mythic to our players and from our players back to Mythic. The overwhelming majority of this information cycle came via our beloved Community Manager, Sanya Weathers (née Thomas).
Through its twelve years, Dark Age of Camelot has seen five expansion packs, countless large-scale feature-updates, and innumerable small fixes and additions. The number of players to experience the Realms of DAoC numbers in the millions and in 2010, Dark Age of Camelot received Ten Ton Hammer’s “Best PvP Game of the Decade” award.
While working on Dark Age of Camelot we knew that we had converged on a moment in space and time which would result in something truly magical. This feeling has stayed with us through the years and still echoes in the halls, meeting rooms, and offices of Mythic. Indeed several other developers have attempted to combine Dark Age of Camelot’s ingredients in a similar way in hopes of producing the same success, but in the estimation of many (ourselves included) no other MMORPG can match the magic of Dark Age of Camelot.
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Producer’s Post Script:
The history of Dark Age of Camelot’s success cannot be told without paying tribute to Mythic Founders: Mark Jacobs and Rob Denton as well as all of the Mythic employees, too numerous to mention (many of whom are still part of the Mythic family), who helped pioneer the MMORPG genre by bringing DAoC to life. I have been a part of the Mythic family and culture for several years, and in that time I have had the honor and pleasure of working alongside so many of these excellent people. I have also had the opportunity and pleasure of working closely with the Dark Age of Camelot community who are in my estimation, the finest community of gamers to be found.
I am currently the custodian of what is to so many, a great deal more than ‘just a game’, and it is quite simply a dream come true. I never tire of speaking with members of the original launch team and hearing their accounts of the early days of DAoC and Mythic – the game and studio I love so dearly.
I hope you have enjoyed this retrospective as much as I have. Let us raise our glasses to all those who have served Dark Age of Camelot over the years, to our wonderful community of players, and to many years of Realm vs. Realm action yet to come.
Faithfully yours,
Talal Saad
Producer, Dark Age of Camelot
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Dark Age of Camelot 12th Birthday Bonuses!
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Happy 12th Birthday Dark Age of Camelot!
There’s more to come so keep an eye on the Camelot Herald for additional Camelot Birthday fun, but for now – the following bonuses are now live!
On Normal Ruleset servers, the following bonuses have been added:
100% bonus to normal XP gain in all classic zones and dungeons.
100% bonus to normal BP in all NF zones.
25% bonus to RP in all NF zones (including Darkness Falls)On the PVE Ruleset server the following bonuses have been added:
100% bonus to normal XP gain in all classic zones and dungeons.
100% bonus to normal BP gain in the capital cities.
100% bonus to normal RP gain in the capital cities.In each Capital City:
40% Bonus to Crafting Speed
20% Bonus to Crafting Skill GainIn all Housing Zones:
20% Bonus to Crafting Speed
10% Bonus to Crafting Skill GainEnjoy the the bonuses, and we’ll see you in the Frontiers!!
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Caledonia Hotfix and Event Update!
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An issue with the Portal Keep and Central Keep doors not opening has been resolved. Any player wishing to rectify the problem must log out and re-patch their client.
Additionally, the Caledonia event has been extended through Tuesday, October 8th! The Portal will be closed on the morning of Wednesday, October 9th, 2013.
We’ll see you in Caledonia!!
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Caledonia Weekend!
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By order of the Kings of the Realms, the wise Master Visur at Castle Sauvage, the bold Stor Gothi Annark at Svasud Faste, and the Fair Glasny at Druim Ligen are to channel their arcane power to open the portal to the ancient Battleground at Caledonia.
Storm the slopes and ramparts of Caer Caledon to capture and hold the mighty fortress. Slay the Lords of the keep for vast treasures which they have collected from across many exotic lands for it is told that there is a hoard of powerful merchant stones, weapons and armor of Celestius, sleeves imbued with a dark and infernal power and more.
The Channelers’ ability to maintain access to the portal is limited, at sunset on the 5th day of their ceremonies, the portal will close. Fight bravely for your realms, reap the rewards and the glory! Conquer Caledonia!
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September Grab Bag – Edition 2!
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Welcome to the second installation of September’s Bimonthly Friday Grab Bag!
In this Grab Bag, we cover a wide variety of topics from additional Housing Teleporters to opening up new Race/Class combinations! To view some selections from the Q and A, please click the ‘More’ link in this article. We encourage you to view the full PostCount Grab Bag here!
We hope you enjoy this week’s questions, and remember – anyone may participate! Simply visit the Post Count Grab Bag Submission page to submit question for our next Grab Bag on October 11th!
On to the questions!
Q: Will there ever be any interest in giving incentives to boost the idea of 8v8? I understand the large scale of this game is ‘zerg warfare’, yet no offense to them- The elite players of this game do in fact 8v8, it is who has the better group of players to best the other group.
A: We respect all play-styles. Certainly 8v8 combat can be some of the most strategic, rewarding, and compelling in the game. The idea of the various ‘best’ group setups comes into play heavily when we determine the direction of class balance and is also a big factor in our upcoming changes to the New Frontiers. Indeed part of our goals for those changes is to make NF a smaller and more engaging landscape for all players, including our fervent 8v8’ers. We suspect, however, that this question has more to do with incentivizing group vs. group fights in a general way.
We’ve had wish list meetings where we talked about an Arena system (2 groups enter…1 group /rofls.) but features such as this would almost certainly pull players away from the Frontiers to say nothing of the fact that it would require the dedication of nearly all of our resources for a nontrivial amount of time – so we always return to the feedback and do our best to apply the resources we have to features and changes that are requested most often by the highest number of players. That said, we’re always open to suggestions, so leave feedback, start a thread on PostCount, or get a discussion going amongst your friends and realm mates. We’re listening.
Q: Is there a possibility of allowing celts to be eldritches and enchanters? Maybe norsemen bonedancers? I always liked human characters and this would not unbalance things since norse and celts don’t have the best dex.
A: We’re open to new race/class combinations. It’s a very straightforward process and we would all love to open up races in new and interesting ways. A discussion like this would start with our esteemed Knights, then discussed further with the remaining internal board members. Because we would want as many people as possible to weigh-in on this, we think it would be a good idea to put a poll in the field to see how the majority of players feel about the best possible new race/class combo, so keep your eye out for this in the near future!
Q: Would it be possible to get a few more filters available for the Market Explorers? A few that would be nice are:
- Available on current server
- Usable by current character
- Bonus level
- Non-crafted
- Expanded Procs listing
A: We’ve talked about improving the Market Explorer to include much finer granularity on searches. This is on our list for upcoming changes. When the change is made, we will ask that as many players as possible test it out on Pendragon to make sure that everything is in good order.
Q: What is the order of operations used to determine whether a combat swing hits the enemy?
A: They’re checked in this order: target Evade, Parry and Block, then attacker Fumble and Miss.
Q: With the recent “retirement” of Mordred, are you planning something similar for Gaheris? Player base on the Co-op server isn’t that high at this point.
A: We have no current plans to retire Gaheris. We acknowledge that Gaheris has not received its due love and attention for quite some time and we can only apologize. We are currently in discussions about what we can do to revitalize our PvE server in a meaningful way.
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Sincere thanks go out to the question contributors and to our good friends at Post Count!If you had submitted a question and it did not get featured on this installation of the Grab Bag, do not fret! We still have it and it will be in the running for the next edition.
Until next time, friends and realm mates – we’ll see you in the Frontiers!
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Account Center Issues
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We have received some recent reports of players experiencing difficulty making changes to their Dark Age of Camelot accounts via the Mythic Account Center. Maintenance is being performed and these issues should be resolved shortly.
We will provide an update when the maintenance is complete.
Thank you for your patience and understanding.
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The Grab Bag Returns!
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Welcome, dear friends, to the return of the Friday Grab Bag!
Our allies over on PostCount ( http://www.postcount.net ) have been working with our community members to gather questions from Dark Age of Camelot players so that the Devs can provide their answers.
We have selected 5 questions (in old school Grab Bag fashion) to post here on the Camelot Herald. If you would like to participate by submitting a question we strongly encourage you to visit the PostCount fansite where you will also be able to see the full version (link to the full version below)!
Please click the ‘More‘ link on this post to read through the questions and answers.
A big thank you to our friends at Post Count as well as to those of you that took the time to submit your thoughtful and interesting questions. We hope you continue to do so! Now! Onto the questions!
Q: What are some of the changes incoming/suggested for the NF revamp, and what’s your current estimate for its arrival?
A: It’d be easy to write volumes on this topic, but to spare your tired eyes, We’ll do our best to cover the basics.
The problems (as we see them):- Too much battlefield real-estate – action spread too thin
- Too many battlefield objectives – takes focus off engagements
- Inability to find reliable action, primarily during lower population hours
- Easy access to enemy realms – too easy to bypass players and move about the frontier
There are certainly more, but these are some examples of some significant issues. We don’t need to describe the implications, because you are experiencing them daily when you’re out there in the frontiers and feel like you should be getting more out of that experience.
The solutions (as we perceive them):
- Provide players with the ability to find reliable action without compromising the realm war
- Reduce the number of unnecessary battlefield objectives (just as an example – we could cut the number of towers in NF in half, and I don’t think anybody would miss them)
- Changing the way players navigate the frontiers by considering Portal keeps, Agramon, boat routes, the Labyrinth and more in order to allow for players to move *rationally* within the frontier to conduce strategy, realm cohesion, and a return to having RvR be a *realm-wide* endeavor.
This is a very small cross section of the discussions we’re having. It’s more appropriate to identify the goals we hope to achieve. Goals such as: preventing our changes from marginalizing any particular play-style. 8 mans, small mans, soloers, zergs. The challenge here is to come up with a solution that every player can embrace no matter which play style they prefer. WE promise that you’ll hear more on this as it develops.
As for the time-frame, that’s always been a tricky question – but we’d much rather garner disappointment from the DAoC community for keeping our timeline under wraps than make a claim and not follow through. We can’t and won’t deny that this has happened, and we hate the feeling of breaking trust. We can tell you that we would really like to open up the NF Revamp for public testing as early as this Fall. You won’t have long to wait, but If you’re asking for a month and day, we’re afraid we cannot oblige.
TL;DR: We’re working to make NF more fun, and it’s coming soon.
Q: How come the lower level battlegrounds (Killaloe, Thidranki, Molvik etc…) do not contribute to RvR?
A: We’d love to make the BGs more meaningful to the entire RvR campaign. As it stands, the BGs are a great place to get experience, both literal and figurative. They’re training for level 50 and the ‘true’ realm war in the Frontiers but we agree that they can be much more than that. We have some ideas, and are always open to more. If it turns out that the NF revamp comes in phases, integrating BGs into later phases of the revamp is entirely possible. Post some ideas, get some discussions going and our trusted internal forum members will offer their contributions, as will the DAoC team.
Q: Will the Re-Enlistment Campaign be coming back?
A: Yes. We talked about this some time ago and discussed a cadence for our features which included Patch 1.114, Mordred Transfers, followed by the return of the Re-Enlistment Campaign. It looks like we owe you the third part of this deal. We’d like to give you a little bit of information as to why you’re not yet able to re-enlist:
We very much wanted to time our Re-Enlistment Campaign with the release of our updates to the New Frontiers. A long story made short: our updates to NF are behind our initially planned schedule and therefore the Campaign has not yet been initiated. When we are able to put forth our NF revisions, you’ll see the Re-Enlistment Campaign offered right alongside.Q: Which pieces of armor are hit the most in melee? (Please provide a list in order)
A: If you mean which areas of the body are hit most in melee, it’s Torso 40%, Legs 25%, Arms 15%, Head 10%, Hands 5% and Feet 5%.
Q: What’s next for DAoC?
A: This is a fairly broad question and we suppose it merits a fairly broad answer. We want to solve for the problems that are causing players to lose interest in the game.
- We know something must be done about action in the Frontiers so we can tell you with confidence that working on NF is ‘next’.
- We’ll also continue to make the game enticing for new and returning players by making once again interesting the journey to level 50 and 50+ RvR.
- We’re working to restore the Herald, continuing our fine tuning with Class Balance, and making an honest effort to re-connect with our community.
- It’s been long understood that our UI needs a great deal of modernization, and we’re investigating how to accomplish this without neglecting other parts of the game which have long needed some love and attention.
Because the ‘problems’ in Dark Age of Camelot are almost entirely subjective (save a few features on which we can get almost universal consensus), we try to address the issues that come up most often, and are considered a concern by the highest number of players.
TL;DR: ‘What’s next’ is navigating a road to a stable, balanced, and successful Dark Age of Camelot while on shifting sands. Difficult: yes. Impossible: no.
For the full PostCount Grab Bag, please visit this link: http://www.postcount.net/index.php?pageid=grabbag_091313
Postount.net is a player operated fansite which is not operated by Electronic Arts or Mythic. The Dark Age of Camelot Development team does however have somewhat of an official presence there. We will be pleased to continue our alliance so that we can enjoy meaningful and constructive dialogue with the Dark Age of Camelot community.
Until our next Grab Bag, we’ll see you in the Frontiers!
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Pendragon Maintenance
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Pendragon is back up!
Notes from today’s update below:
• Spell, ability and item use timers now take into account time elapsed while offline.
• Added more checks to detect and lessen the effect of the “Endo” bug.
• The Realm War Map player location marker now shows proper player facing.
• PBT spells no longer affect fire and forget pets.
• All crafted item use timers have been reduced to 90 seconds (down from 180 seconds)Thank you, and we’ll see you in the Frontiers!