	Dark Age Of Camelot: Darkness Rising
	Developer: Mythic Publisher: Goa Release Date: Out Now Players: MMORPG	Words By:
A little while back Dunk confessed to being a nerd and liking the hack-and-slash of the massively-multiplayer world that is the Dark Age Of Camelot. Time has passed since then and although Dunk is still a nerd things have changed and Camelot faces even more challenges with the Catacombs and Darkness Rising add-ons. The world of Camelot is already vast, stretching across three realms (Albion, Midgard and Hibernia) and as the last expansion, Trials of Atlantis, extended the worlds further outwards - Catacombs brings a whole new dynamic to the game by going underground. In each land you now have access to nine underground locations, three exclusive to each realm. These crypts, dungeons and caves aren’t just another place to find some obscure item and slag some infidels but are combined with a personalised mission system to let everyone have fun in completing quests. When a quest is given for the catacombs, the enemies in the caves are set to your current level, so they provide a challenge but don’t hand your medieval ass to you on a plate. If you happen to have any mates, like Magnathor the Sorcerer, then they can all tag along without the threat of some level 50 bully coming along and ruining it, thanks to the “personal zones”. The graphics have had a detail overhaul since the last outing and run fairly smoothly but the engine is showing its age in places, but it is coming up to its fifth birthday. Character choice and development has also been pepped up a bit, with another five classes for you to develop, ranging from Bainshee to Heretic - as if there wasn’t already enough choice! After you reach level five you can choose which class you want to base your character on and you can head off in hundreds of directions after that, making this a game with unlimited possibilities. Take a stroll around the towns and you’ll be amazed at what you see: people run bars, churches, tailors and even wedding ceremonies! This truly is a game where people pour hour upon hour into it, making it part of their life and forming strong bonds with people, and a sense of community resonates through the whole game. This is exactly the reason why internet gaming was created; to bring a group of completely diverse people together from different countries, united in a community under one love – and so geeks could make friends without having to leave the house and without having their lunch money stolen again… As has been said with pretty much every MMORPG that’s doing the rounds, DaoC is not a game for those who’ve got a spare half hour on a Thursday night, or even tend to laugh at how far these people have fallen into their computer-generated characters - it’s one for the serious gamer who’s got a lot of time to spare. I’ve spent a good twenty hours plus on this and I’ve not even touched the surface. I’m a level 8 warrior with a cool cape and a nice hat but some people have several characters across each realm and still haven’t visited everywhere in the game. This game is like looking at the Grand Canyon (or Michelle McManus’ arse), where all you can say is “Woah… that’s big.” The Darkness Rising add-on not only adds even more content to the DAoC world but also tidies up some of the things that were starting to look a little tired thanks to WoW. The main cities of each realm have been given overhauls, looking larger and sharper than ever, although the differences between Catacombs and DR aren’t a huge leap and the characters still look a little rough around the edges. DR brings even more diversity to the game for the serious gamers, meaning that anyone who has a character below level 40 probably won’t see any of the benefits (I certainly didn’t). For those with a lot of time and a comfy chair there are more character development options, that now let you take your warriors above level 50 into Champion classes and branch out even further into obscure skill classes like Champion Elf-Disemboweller… As I mentioned earlier, the game stretches for many, many virtual miles and just walking from A to B can take ages, so DR brings in something new - horses! Well, there were horses in the other versions of DAoC but they acted more like taxis - you never had control of the horse, you started at ‘Point A’ and once you reached ‘Point B’ the horse would disappear. As a reward for reaching above level 45 you now get the chance to own your own horse and either love it like a 12 year-old girl or make it a badass warhorse, complete with chainmail armour! This extra mobility enables you to cover the new special quests DR adds, so players can find the wealth of new items the update brings, such as Unicorns and crazy magical weapons that you can boast about when you stroll into town on your spruced-up mare. Unfortunately, these new quests are only available to the higher-levelled players (given the difficulty), meaning the newcomers to DAoC again are ignored. The Darkness Rising add-on expands the world of Camelot further than it has ever been, but in doing so creates a huge gap between the hardcore fans and the casual gamers. Pretty much everything new caters for those who play this pretty much non-stop. Spending hours slashing rats and spiders simply doesn’t seem worth the effort to claw your way to level 40, where things actually get interesting. Although DAoC completely ignores those who want to play this casually at the end of the day, this isn’t really that kind of game and those who will pay the monthly fee will spend hours slashing rats and zombies to get that golden helmet everyone’s looking for. The Dark Age of Camelot has pretty much everything that you need in a good MMORPG, it just takes a while before you reap the benefits of all those hours of play.