Dark Age of Camelot

"They expect people to pay... for this?!"

I bought DAoC and am very disappointed. I'm a long time RPGer/Gamer, and I can tell you this is one of the most boring RPGs thus far. The combat is soooo slow, it puts me to sleep. And theres not even any skill. Winning a fight is mostly luck. You walk up to an enemy, hit F6 to go into ''combat mode'' and go get a soda while your character beats the stuffing out of a guy. When you get back, he may be dead, or you'll be dead.

And don't think about taking on multiple enemies. Just 1 enemy on your level takes you down to 1/4 - 1/5 life. How do you recover life you ask? You sit down for 2 minutes, and your life magically refills. What is up with that?! When I'm hurt in an RPG, I cast a Cure3 or drink a potion, I don't sit down.

I've gone through 8 classes so far, and every one plain sucks. It's way to easy to die, and after level 5, the penalty costs you an arm and a leg.

Not only that, the community is awful. Even after you save people from dying, you don't even get a thanks. They just call you an EXP Stealer.

And what is up with the quests? I'll give you example of one quest:

1) Give this scroll to some guy on the other side of the world.
2) Upon giving that guy the scroll, deliver the the reply to some other guy on the other side of the world.
3) Go to this place on the other side of the world, and kill this monster thats supposed to spawn but never does. After sitting there for 3 hours you give up, and crack your CD into 8 pieces.

And what do you get out of this? You waste a few hours of your life walking.

Now for the summary...

Graphics: 5

The graphics are... okay. The engine looks a bit dated, yet the requirements to run this game are astronomical. I'm on an Athlon 1.3 system, with a Geforce2 GTS and cable modem, and when I enter the capital the framerate slows to a crawl. We're talking 1 FPS here. The rest of the world has a smooth framerate though.

Sound: 3

I didn't really care for the sound too much. The effects are nice, but the music gets boring really fast. Luckily they use standard file formats, so you can just replace the music with whatever you want by renaming one of your favorite songs.

Control: 2

The control in this is just awful. The buttons are placed all wrong, and if there is an option to remap keys, I've yet to find one. Who's bright idea was it to press F6 to enter combat?

Gameplay: 1, if not less

Like I said, this game just plays SLOW. Slow to the point of being suicidally boring. You don't level fast either. One standard enemy gives you 1/50th of a level. And if you consider the time required to fight and then heal, you'll be fighting for a long time.

Replayability: 4

If you for some strange reason liked this game, I guess you'd enjoy playing it again. There are tons of classes to choose from, although only a few are good.

What I'd like to see in this game - The Realm vs Realm (RvR) combat is a fantastic idea, but you have to be level 20-30 to participate. And if you don't play this game religiously, you'll be waiting a long time. They should launch you in RvR right away, I think. There also needs to be more strategy in RvR. You should be able to attack and hold key cities in other realms, set up supply lines, stuff like that.

I realize the game has only been out for 2 months, and that this review was kind of harsh, but in its current state I'm disgusted with it. This game could be saved if they gave it a massive overhaul, but thats really not likely.

So if you want a good MMORPG, this is not for you. Ultima Online is still fun, and we still have Everquest.

I'm going to go play Final Fantasy now.

Reviewer's Score: 3/10, Originally Posted: 12/10/01, Updated 12/10/01