Dark Age of Camelot Roundtable 2006 Report

Oct 4, 2006

Next week, Dark Age of Camelot will celebrate its fifth anniversary. When it was announced in February of 2000, many gamers, even those interested in the massively multiplayer category, weren't particularly familiar with its developer, Mythic Entertainment, now EA Mythic. Quite a few thought the studio, which only numbered about 12 people at the time, was new. In fact, the team had a wealth of knowledge and experience to draw upon, its principals having already released around a dozen online titles. Roughly 18 months later, that background, the collective talent of those individuals plus the others who came on board during development, and factors such as a proven tripartite realm-based conflict system and a bit of luck in the form of fortuitous market timing came together in a title that quickly became and still remains a landmark within the genre.

The past five years have years have seen the world grow substantially, both in physical size and depth of content. During this period, two free add-ons, Foundations and New Frontiers have entered service, as have four commercial expansions. First, Shrouded Isles added new continents, races and classes. Trials of Atlantis took players into the depths to explore another fabled land while also adding one race per realm plus a Master Levels advancement system. Catacombs followed, taking the action below the ground while introducing more classes and instanced adventuring areas. Last year, Darkness Rising brought a variation on the subterranean theme accompanied by a supplemental Champion progression scheme and a form of sub-classing. Coming up next, likely within the fairly near future, is Labyrinth of the Minotaur, with highlights including the playable titular race and a hybrid class called the Mauler.

Naturally, this upcoming product was a major focus of attention at the 2006 Dark Age of Camelot Roundtable fan event, which returned to the convention center of the massive Rio Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas, running from late afternoon last Friday through Saturday night. While registration officially began at 5pm, the first attendees started trickling in somewhat earlier. To accommodate them, Mythic had set up a room with round tables, many of which had signs bearing the names of servers in order to facilitate players meeting up. The formal activities included some words of welcome, some prize drawings and a few games.

There was also a second room open where one side had several PCs set up to provide access to the game, including the Labyrinth of the Minotaur beta. Across the way was a stand with a few stations showing Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning. Overall, it appeared there was a good level of activity compared to last year, in part because the total amount of space in use was probably somewhat less, while attendance was approximately the same, which would mean at least 300. In any case, the mood was certainly positive as the fans had the opportunity to interact with each other and with various team members.

Saturday morning brought a couple of notable speakers. The first was best-selling fantasy author R.A. Salvatore, whose presence had apparently been arranged by his son Bryan, an avid Dark Age of Camelot player. Bob - that's how he refers to himself, not as R.A. - delivered a keynote address that was both entertaining and interesting. He began by talking about how he arrived at the profession that has seen him sell some 15 million copies of his books, many of which are about the adventures of his tremendously popular Forgotten Realms dark elf character, Drizzt Do'Urden. The spark that first pointed him in this direction was provided by a Tolkien boxed set he received for Christmas in the late '70s. When he finally got around to reading some weeks later, it re-awakened the love of reading he had somehow lost.

It would be another 10 years or so before Salvatore's first novel would be published. Like Mythic, he benefited from being in the right place at the right time. He submitted a work to TSR that caught the attention of an editor who was looking for someone to write a novel set in the Forgotten Realms campaign world. His manuscript wasn't adaptable for this purpose, but it did get him an audition, which he won. The result was The Crystal Shard, which launched his career. The lucky part was that it was just the second Forgotten Realms book. After the first two both sold very well, it would have been much more difficult to break in since TSR's experienced writers all wanted the subsequent assignments.

Bob then told a very funny story from his tabletop D&D group. In case you ever have the chance to hear his "wubba wubba" story, all I'll say is that the denouement was a truly precious moment. He then moved on to how he got into online world gaming as a player. He tried Ultima Online, but it was EverQuest that hooked him. Next, he spoke briefly about his recently announced appointment on the development side as Creative Director at Green Monster Games, a new studio headed by another aficionado of the latter title, baseball star Curt Schilling, with another well known talent, Todd McFarlane of Spawn fame, as Art Director. Salvatore views his role as heading the creation of a world in which the players will create their own stories, not as the author of one they will pass through; this may seem natural enough to most online gamers, but does seem to diverge from his goal as a spinner of tales focused on specific characters.

Dark Age of Camelot Executive Producer Walt Yarbrough knew he had a tough act to follow, and said so. However, he came armed with something all the fans were keen to see, information about the Labyrinth of the Minotaur expansion. He began by showing a trailer with gameplay action featuring the new race and various new monsters in the titular maze, then described the add-on's key features. The Minotaur is the first playable option that will be available in all three realms. The lore explaining this involves the ancient race returning to Albion, Midgard, and Hibernia, seeking help to reclaim powerful but corrupt relics hidden by their ancestors. As you might expect, characters will have high strength and constitution. Male only, they will also possess a degree of natural resistance to heat and cold. Available classes will include the new Mauler plus a selection of three others that will differ in each realm.

The Mauler class will become available after the completion of a world quest in each realm cluster. As a reward for capturing a number of the aforementioned relics, a Minotaur Emissary will reveal its secrets. It is a melee-oriented alternative that makes use of gravity, magnetism and aura abilities to augment its physical abilities. The preliminary impression I got was that it would be better suited to a supporting fighter role than that of a primary tank. Once it is unlocked, the class will be playable by a few other races including Britons, Celts and Norse.

The Minotaur relics will also factor into a new level of realm vs. realm play. There will be 23 in total - one for use in battlegrounds, one in the labyrinth dungeon and 21 in the frontier areas. Offering diverse single-player, group and area effects, they won't be as powerful as the artifacts currently in the game, but are intended to come into play more often. It will be necessary to have the expansion to retrieve them, but anyone can take them from a dead foe. No matter how they are acquired, keeping them will require fighting; trying to sit on one away from the action will result in losing it. And retaining them won't necessarily be easy since any carrier will show up on the mini-map.

The expansion's labyrinth dungeon will naturally incorporate confrontations with new monsters such as corrupted, golems, doppelgangers and clockwork constructs featuring natural materials like wood and stone. A few examples may be seen in the accompanying screenshots. All player characters will receive a slot that can hold a Mythical item; three tiers will be available, with every article offering a different combination of bonuses. The Champion advancement system introduced a year ago in Darkness Rising will add five levels, bringing the total to 10.

After lunch, attendees had the chance to rotate through three breakout sessions that allowed them to ask questions on the respective areas. The one entitled Live Game had Director of Community Relations Sanya Weathers, Designer Jen Gordy and Programmer Matt Kidder-Deutsch fielding the queries. Mauler / Minotaur had Content Manager Chris Rabideau, Content Developer, Items Martin Smith and Content Developer, Character Abilities DJ Larkin, while Labyrinth Content brought together Content Developer, Encounters James Casey, Content Lead Mike Stone and Content Developer, Quests Woody Gordy. The segments I saw were notable for the seemingly straightforward, frank nature of the communication.

Following a break for dinner, the Saturday evening activities included a couple of take-offs on television game shows, Camelot Feud and 100 Plat Pyramid, plus a costume contest and one for videos on the theme of Dark Age of Camelot's biggest fan. All of these seemed to be well received, with a good deal of laughter along with cheering for friends, realm mates, fellow guild members, etc.

Again this year, attending the Roundtable proved to be not only informative but refreshing. The primary purpose of a typical publisher event is showing a game to invited members of media. At this one, the main focus was the fans. Of course, those who came represented the hardcore portion of the player base, so it was natural to expect a high level of enthusiasm. Nonetheless, even after factoring that in, it was abundantly clear that the game's community still has considerable passion. In combination with the EA Mythic team's knowledge, talent and commitment, this certainly bodes well for Dark Age of Camelot's continuing success, both in the near future with the Labyrinth of the Minotaur expansion and well beyond.