Dark Age of Camelot is a massively multiplayer online role-playing game released in October 2001 in North America, and in January 2002 in Europe. The game combines Arthurian lore, Norse mythology, and Celtic mythology with high fantasy. It is set in the period after King Arthur's death, when his kingdom has split into three realms, which are in a constant state of war with each other. Dark Age of Camelot includes both player versus environment (PvE) and realm versus realm (RvR) combat. Developed by Mythic Entertainment, the game is in large part an adaptation of a previous text-based game Darkness Falls: The Crusade (1999). The development of Dark Age of Camelot was later transferred from Mythic Entertainment to Broadsword Online Games, a newly established studio, which also subsequently took over development of Mythic's other MMO game, Ultima Online. Mythic was shut down in May 2014. As of 2019, a new "progression" server was revealed to be in development, which is said to be limited to the content from the original release, the Shrouded Isles expansion, and the housing zone additions. With regard to "Old Frontiers" returning to the game, the development team plans to poll the community for their preference.

Gameplay

The character is controlled by either the mouse or keyboard. The player can customize up to three "Quickbars" of 10 slots each with spells, melee or ranged attacks (depending on the equipped weapon), or macros, which can be either clicked on or selected with the number keys to activate. Dark Age of Camelot class system is balanced at the RvR level instead of in direct comparison to the other realms' equivalent classes. Dark Age of Camelot classes are very rigid with specific roles, play styles, and specialization point allocations. Guilds offer social, economic, and PvE/PvP advantages that contrast with or exceed those of soloing and "pick-up groups". Each guild comes with its own chat channel, in-game ranking system, territory claiming ability, guild banking system, guild housing, emblem, and reward system in the form of guild bounty points and merit points. Guild leaders can define their own set of rules and goals, and can customize the privileges (such as inviting new members, speaking in alliance chat, and claiming captured towers for the guild) of each Rank within the guild. Furthermore, alliances can be formed between player guilds, permitting them to create a shared chat channel for all guilds within the alliance to communicate. Realm versus Realm gameplay is the main focus of Dark Age of Camelot. The storyline revolves around what happens after the death of King Arthur and the fragmentation of his former kingdom. Albion, Hibernia, and Midgard are in a three-way war against each other and constantly war for control of powerful relics, keeps, and towers, as well as control of the entrance to Darkness Falls.

Realms

Dark Age of Camelot has three realms, allowing a unique dynamic of RvRvR gameplay. Each of the three realms is inspired by historical folklore and mythology:

Storyline

Each realm has a unique but parallel storyline, which is expanded with retail expansions. In the original Realm zones, smaller cities need protection against monsters. Albion is menaced by undead raised by Morgana, Hibernia is torn apart by the Unseelie Court and Siabra, and Midgard by the treacherous Blodfelag.

Development

The decision to develop Dark Age of Camelot was made in late 1999, with it originally being conceived of as a graphical MUD. Mythic Entertainment president Mark Jacobs proposed the idea of using Arthurian legend since it was on the public domain and thus the company would be free of any licensing issues. Total development costs excluding equipment leases was about US$2.5 million and took 18 months with a team of 25 full-time developers. 3DS Max and Character Studio were used to create all models and animations within the game. Toward the end of development, Mythic found itself in a difficult financial situation: since it had never borrowed money, it lacked a credit rating sufficient to lease the Dell servers needed to run the game. After being denied the lease by Dell, Mythic had to purchase each server using its development funds. Securing a publisher was also a difficult task; every publisher that Mythic initially approached rejected the game except for one, Vivendi Games. In 2014, Jacobs still expressed gratitude to Vivendi for taking a chance on the studio. During the game's prime, Mythic operated 120 dual-processor Pentium servers running Linux. Out of those, groups of six servers were devoted to running one world, or as the player saw it, one server. The servers were designed to handle 20,000 players simultaneously logged in at any given time, but Mythic limited them to about 4,000 each in order to keep the world from feeling too cluttered. Much of the game's code was also stored on the servers, with the user client more focused on graphics and texture loading based on a data stream limited to 10 kbit/s per player. Broadsword Games later released Dark Age of Camelot: Endless Conquest, a non-subscription style game account allowing players to play the game for free, with some restrictions on how many characters the player can have, character classes, as well as some services within the game. Their timeline originally placed release in fall of 2018, but "unforeseen issues and technological constraints" with the v1.125 patch has forced them to delay the release until early 2019. The user's prior accounts are eligible for Endless Conquest as well as new accounts.

Expansions

Mythic has produced seven expansions (which originally had to be bought separately, but are now free downloads) for DAoC. The expansions were not released on European servers (run by GOA), until typically months after the Mythic release.

Reception

Sales

Before the release of Dark Age of Camelot, Mythic Entertainment forecast "30,000 players on launch in the United States", according to GameSpy. In that country, the title entered NPD Intelect's weekly computer game sales rankings in first place for October 7–13, 2001. Its initial shipment sold out within one day. Its sales reached 51,000 units within four days of release. Dark Age of Camelot remained at #1 for the week ending on October 20, but fell to third and fifth in the following two weeks, respectively. The game claimed first place on NPD's monthly chart for October 2001. After a ninth-place finish for the week ending on November 10, it was absent from NPD's weekly top 10 and monthly top 20. By the first week of November, Dark Age of Camelot had sold 115,894 units in the United States. Remarking on this performance, GameSpot's writer Desslock explained that the game had "sold extremely well during the first few weeks of its release", and considered to be larger success than the other massively multiplayer RPG released that year, Anarchy Online. He cited its performance as evidence that "there's probably never been a larger demand for RPGs". Dark Age of Camelot's sales in the United States reached 300,000 copies, for revenues of $10.4 million, by August 2006. At the time, this led Edge to declare it the country's 63rd-best-selling computer game released since January 2000. The Dark Age of Camelot franchise, including its expansion packs, totaled sales of 780,000 units in the United States by 2006. The game was also a hit in Europe, where it sold above 100,000 units by March 2003.

Reviews and awards

During the 5th Annual Interactive Achievement Awards, the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences (AIAS) honored Dark Age of Camelot with the "Massive Multiplayer/Persistent World" award; it also received nominations for the "Computer Game of the Year", "Innovation in Computer Gaming", and "Game Design" awards. At the following year's awards ceremony, AIAS nominated the expansion Shrouded Isles for "Massive Multiplayer/Persistent World Game of the Year", which was ultimately awarded to The Sims Online.

Legacy

In 2012, a Kickstarter campaign to develop Camelot Unchained came about, designed by Mark Jacobs.

Uthgard

The longest living freeshard. Features: