I download the 817mb installer, I patch, I crash, I downgrade my video drivers, I install old drivers, I spend 1 plat on my horse, and finally I crash again. At least they are taking the servers down. So far it’s been a hoot.

I’m just pretty stoked that I got a horse to be honest.

Did I mention I was playing Dark Age of Camelot again? I often go back to this one. It’s on my mind enough to post this info on the new expansion pack called Darkness Rising. Yeah I’m bored. Here is the info:

In Darkness Rising, an evil uprising threatens the land and the mightiest heroes in the Realms are called into service. For the first time in Dark Age of Camelot, players will be able to earn the right to be called a Champion of the Realm. Players become Champions by exploring new zones and revisiting altered lands while investigating the mysterious uprising to discover its sinister underpinnings. By performing this service for their Realm, players achieve new levels of advancement and gain the ability to wield class-specific Champion Weapons. Darkness Rising also introduces majestic player-controlled horses and other more fantastic steeds which can be ridden into conflict in the war between the Realms.

And here is what little info they spill on these Champion classes:

Champion of the Realm Details:

• Champion Weapons are available for all Champions of the Realms. Each class in the game has their own specific weapon, uniquely tailored to that profession.
• Advanced mounts are available to Champions of level 45 and above. Mounts include Nightmare, Unicorn, Warhorse, and the Undead Phantom steed, among others. Advanced mounts can be used in PvE and in Realm vs. Realm zones, given a unique name, and customized by adding saddlebags, armor, and barding.
• Champion Levels allow players to gain new skills and learn abilities from other classes (“sub-classing”) – for example, a fighter can learn mage spells by sub-classing.

And finally four screen shots of the horses:

This expansion pack will be available from Mythic selling for $19.99 via digital download this October or so they say in their press release. Once again I think World of Warcraft has influenced features in DAoC. Horses of course getting an upgrade or two compared to how they function in WoW. And how about Mythic beating WoW to the Hero class? I’m not sure if either games really hold my interest anymore. I do have a very strange fascination with the game Vanguard: Saga of Heroes. But that’s a story for another time.

So I picked up the Dark Age of Camelot expansion Catacombs and what follows is my first experience in these new areas. I installed the game first of course which comes on 4 cd’s. And like the other expansion packs for Camelot this is a whole new version of the game. Each expansion that has come out has had it’s own client for the game. Which means that I’ve wasted another 2 gigs or so for this game that I’ll play maybe for a month at the most and end up canceling again.

Then of course I patch. Patching Catacombs involves the normal Camelot patching system plus a download of some bigger file not added by the patcher. No problem here of course since the expansion has been out a while and it’s not having to patch everyone and their brother. Once the game loads up your greeted with a new character selection screen, which is a nice fluff feature added by the expansion. All of my character except my level 50 were able to change their faces here at this screen. Turk (my level 50) could not do so. Which is no big deal as I found out I can talk to a npc in game to do this later. I picked my 50 and entered the game.

And of course I zone into Avalon City. This of course just shows how long ago it was I played the game last. So to get to these new expansion areas I have to run to a nearby town and take a horse to another town where I’m able to teleport to Camelot City. Then one goes behind the church and enters the Roman Aqueducts. And this is where the games unfriendliness becomes very apparent. You zone into this area and there is no real indication of where you need to go, other than heading forward. I guess I’ve grown used to WoW and it’s hold my hand approach.

So I’m exploring these Roman Aqueducts and having a general fun time minus the fun. I go past this Blue shiny thing and pay no attention to it. Which was a mistake because it is an Obelisks that transports you into the city for your side. But I had no idea and I explore all around this maze that is the Roman Aqueducts. And I’m having a fairly decent go at it until I come to a dead end which the only way to go is to jump off down to your death.

And of course I skillfully manage to fall to my death at this dead end as I’m making my way out of it. Which is no big deal I’m level 50 the experience loss is not an issue nor is the 17 gold it costs to buy back my con. It’s just the whole idea of this death. It’s like the game (or the developers) relish the idea of killing the player.

I can invision some sort of big scoreboard at Mythic that keeps a tally everytime the game kills one of their players. And again maybe I’ve been babied to much by World of Warcraft. But I just can’t find the fun in it anymore and I’ve tried. Oh well I’ll spend a few more days in Camelot as I gain up some great rested xp in WoW and see how many more times Catacombs can kill me.

Well I have returned to the game Dark Age of Camelot. And don’t think for a second that I’m forgetting about World of Warcraft. It’s just that I’ve grown to used to the company of all the people in the guild I’m in. Playing WoW without them is just boring. So I decided last week that I would reactivate my account and start playing again. And it appears this was a good time to get back into the game. A huge patch just came out today that make some of the more painful parts of Camelot a little less painful. Which is good because I don’t like pain.

I also picked up my first artifact tonight thanks to some help from my friends. It’s called the Harpy’s Feather Cloak. That’s the good news. The bad news is that I got to find three scrolls to activate the damn thing. And on top of that once activated I have to level the artifact for it to get more special abilities. I just can’t wait.

But I’m happy to have something to do again in the game. For a long time my only goal was getting 50. And afterwords I felt like I no longer had a purpose in the game. Which was my own fault for wanting to hit 50 so bad. I still have all kinds of things to do. Like try out this new frontiers that I hear such bad things about. And of course I will continue to preach WoW to all the guildies.

It seems Mythic is going to beat a dying horse to death. This Mythic Press Release details how they are at work on a third retail expansion for their game Dark Age of Camelot. Here is the mandatory quoted text:

Catacombs deepens the world of Dark Age of Camelot by adding new content beneath Albion, Hibernia, and Midgard, said Matt Firor, Vice President of Development and Executive Producer at Mythic Entertainment. Instanced dungeons support a more casual gaming style by giving players exclusive play sessions for groups of all levels and abilities.

Catacombs system of player versus monster instanced dungeons will allow more casual players of Dark Age of Camelot to quickly find and adventure in exciting and challenging areas geared to their level. By eliminating the need to search (and sometimes wait) for monster encounters, in Catacombs, players generate private adventuring areas for their groups on their schedule.

New technical features for Catacombs include:

• Major art upgrade to Dark Age of Camelot player character models utilizing the EMotion FX 2 graphics engine that provides more detailed facial features, hairstyles, and skin tones as well as enhanced armor, clothing options and character animations.
• Instanced content will allow player groups to adventure in private dungeons.

New content for Catacombs includes:

• Players can explore a new underground city for each Realm based on the backstory of one of the Realm?s underground player races. Each city leads to new dungeons, catacombs, enemies, loot and adventures.
• One new playable class for each Realm.
• Content will be provided for all character levels.

As if the tedium that Trials of Atlantis was not enough. Now we get to have instanced dungeons. It just seems like that is the hot thing to have in a mmorpg these days and those boys at Mythic didn’t want to be left out.

My question is will this be enough? A november release is pushing it’s luck with entering the retail market around the time World of Warcraft will come out (I hope). Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying Mythic should put it’s collective heads between their asses and kiss it good by. I’m just wondering if this expansion and the free RvR expansion will be enough to keep the mass migration to WoW when it comes out. And I know it’s going to happen.

If Mythic should take anything from WoW it should be the way quests are done. Make them more fun. Make them more accessible to the newbs. I’m not saying for them to steal the yellow exclamation point or anything. I’m just saying do something to add on to the “story” of the game. Make it interesting to do quests that are sorely lacking in the current game as it stands today.

Well after 32 days, 18 hours, and 14 minutes of total played time in Dark Age of Camelot I finally dinged 50. I’ll update my little picture later (it still says 49) because I’m still playing. I oddly enough feel pretty happy for finally dinging. I guess I should be happy. Anyway now all I can say is “bring on World of Warcraft!”

It doesn’t happen often. Usually I hate it. But tonight was different. I actually had fun RvRing in Dark Age of Camelot. For those of you who don’t play Camelot or mmorpg’s in general, RvR is realm versus realm. Which is what Camelot calls PvP (player versus player). RvR in general is a chaotic mess in Camelot. It is unorganized and the side with the most numbers wins. It’s called zerging in the game. A term coined from the game Starcraft. There are no tactics involved to the RvR portion of the game.

Below are a few screen shots showing off my kill spams. You have to look in the upper text window to see it. It just says “you killed so and so”, to others it says who did the killing.

In the group were two fellow guildies, Dderapapp and Etnoan. When I do play I enjoy the company of my guildmates. Dderapapp is the leader of the guild and a guy that has been playing as long as me. Except he has the level 50’s to show for the time he’s spent playing the game. Etnoan is funny guy and will probably soon hit 50, way before I do.

One of these days I do plan on getting at least one character to 50. It’s kind of become my goal in life, at least my life in this mmorpg. You could say it’s my New Year’s resolution. One resolution I would like to fulfill. I’ve added my in game experience bar under my character picture on my website (on the right hand side down towards the bottom) to remind myself just how far I have to go.