See You In Fifteen: Realm Vs Realm Combat In Dark Age Of Camelot | MMORPG.com

System · June 2021

See You In Fifteen: Realm Vs Realm Combat In Dark Age Of Camelot | MMORPG.com

Niklas is back with another Dark Age of Camelot column, this time focusing on the realm versus realm combat in the MMORPG.

Read the full story here

Scot · June 2021

Back in the day we originally did not even use IRC, but then those were naïve years. Good to see RvR is still going strong!

RandomCasualty · June 2021

Out of all the remakes/enhancements of video games these days ... THIS one is a must! Especially as Camelot Unchained is a big ?

Iselin · June 2021

Played the crap out of this game at release and for a few years after. I have a lot of great memories of specific battles that I still remember very well nearly 20 years later and a lot of great people I met there. It's great to see it's still trucking along.

I didn't know about the 15 minute thing. It was always choose a realm for a server and that was it -- a lot of us played on 3 different servers for that reason -- but I guess with the server mergers they had to do something.

I'm skeptical though of the 15 minutes thing being about sharing time-sensitive spy info since it can easily be shared out of the game with everyone being on Discord or what have you. There's really no way to prevent it except a "need to know" hierarchy in game with trusted mates.

Back when I played, as rudimentary as out of game coms were back then, we had strict policies about info sharing with the guild leaders in an alliance knowing the plan, alliance officers a bit less, guild officers even less and everyone else almost nothing or often the wrong plan for decoy purposes. It worked more or less but there were still leaks that turned plans upside down.

I doubt the 15 minute rule does much in that regard.

Slapshot1188 · June 2021

In my day, after we walked uphill to AND from school, we had Realm Pride. I understand that they are down to one server so they have to allow cross realming but it’s totally incestuous in my eyes. It’s now GvG game and not really an RvR game.

Viper482 · June 2021

Iselin said:

Played the crap out of this game at release and for a few years after. I have a lot of great memories of specific battles that I still remember very well nearly 20 years later and a lot of great people I met there. It's great to see it's still trucking along.

I didn't know about the 15 minute thing. It was always choose a realm for a server and that was it -- a lot of us played on 3 different servers for that reason -- but I guess with the server mergers they had to do something.

I'm skeptical though of the 15 minutes thing being about sharing time-sensitive spy info since it can easily be shared out of the game with everyone being on Discord or what have you. There's really no way to prevent it except a "need to know" hierarchy in game with trusted mates.

Back when I played, as rudimentary as out of game coms were back then, we had strict policies about info sharing with the guild leaders in an alliance knowing the plan, alliance officers a bit less, guild officers even less and everyone else almost nothing or often the wrong plan for decoy purposes. It worked more or less but there were still leaks that turned plans upside down.

I doubt the 15 minute rule does much in that regard.

Agreed. It is a game killer to me. The main thing that drove this game was realm pride. Even if you did play on different servers as different realms whichever realm you were on that server you fought with pride. When you can switch sides on the same server on a whim that all goes out the door.

If any game needed a classic server it is this one.

Gorwe · June 2021

Slapshot1188 said:

In my day, after we walked uphill to AND from school, we had Realm Pride. I understand that they are down to one server so they have to allow cross realming but it’s totally incestuous in my eyes. It’s now GvG game and not really an RvR game.

Having a sense of Realm pride and allowing people to help their Realm in any way they want(PvE, PvP, Crafting) is the key to RvR. It's not a simple zergball against the fort walls. That's merely a component of it.

As I like to say: RvR is not a game mode, it is how you design an entire game.

Slapshot1188 · June 2021

Gorwe said:

Slapshot1188 said:

In my day, after we walked uphill to AND from school, we had Realm Pride. I understand that they are down to one server so they have to allow cross realming but it’s totally incestuous in my eyes. It’s now GvG game and not really an RvR game.

Having a sense of Realm pride and allowing people to help their Realm in any way they want(PvE, PvP, Crafting) is the key to RvR. It's not a simple zergball against the fort walls. That's merely a component of it.

As I like to say: RvR is not a game mode, it is how you design an entire game.

Not sure you understood my point. These folks are literally fighting, then logging out and logging in with their guild on another realm to fight again. Rinse and repeat. They have no identity as Hibs, Albs or Mids. Their identity is IRC... their guild name.

Tokken · June 2021

a classic game. Loved playing it

stebo104 · June 2021

Would love to see this game revamped to todays graphics/engines/ui/animation standards. Just also make different server types based off of each expansion.

ashiru_1978 · June 2021

A few weeks ago I tried playing the game on the Phoenix Freeshard and the biggest problem I encountered was how tiny the UI is. It literally looks like it was designed specifically for a 640x480 CRT monitor.

KnightFalz · June 2021

I was interested in trying it out but also found the UI and text quite small, ultimately making it not worth the bother.

Scot · June 2021

Iselin said:

Played the crap out of this game at release and for a few years after. I have a lot of great memories of specific battles that I still remember very well nearly 20 years later and a lot of great people I met there. It's great to see it's still trucking along.

I didn't know about the 15 minute thing. It was always choose a realm for a server and that was it -- a lot of us played on 3 different servers for that reason -- but I guess with the server mergers they had to do something.

I'm skeptical though of the 15 minutes thing being about sharing time-sensitive spy info since it can easily be shared out of the game with everyone being on Discord or what have you. There's really no way to prevent it except a "need to know" hierarchy in game with trusted mates.

Back when I played, as rudimentary as out of game coms were back then, we had strict policies about info sharing with the guild leaders in an alliance knowing the plan, alliance officers a bit less, guild officers even less and everyone else almost nothing or often the wrong plan for decoy purposes. It worked more or less but there were still leaks that turned plans upside down.

I doubt the 15 minute rule does much in that regard.

Totally agree that realm pride was the core of the game but maybe guild pride eclipsed that for me. The whole problem of players passing on information to the other side has been with us from day one. It can be destructive to the ethos and comradery of PvP, but it can also be a boon if everyone knows there is communication and what it is for.

We used to set up fort raids in AoC with other guilds, or having been told the Mids where massing against Hibernia send a team to help the Hibs out. Where it can be totally destructive is when you have actual spies, some players and guilds have an "all is fair in love and war" attitude, but all the guilds I have been in reject this.

Gorwe · June 2021

Slapshot1188 said:

Gorwe said:

Slapshot1188 said:

In my day, after we walked uphill to AND from school, we had Realm Pride. I understand that they are down to one server so they have to allow cross realming but it’s totally incestuous in my eyes. It’s now GvG game and not really an RvR game.

Having a sense of Realm pride and allowing people to help their Realm in any way they want(PvE, PvP, Crafting) is the key to RvR. It's not a simple zergball against the fort walls. That's merely a component of it.

As I like to say: RvR is not a game mode, it is how you design an entire game.

Not sure you understood my point. These folks are literally fighting, then logging out and logging in with their guild on another realm to fight again. Rinse and repeat. They have no identity as Hibs, Albs or Mids. Their identity is IRC... their guild name.

Do you think I'd bring that up if I didn't understand you? It's just that what you wrote about is a subdomain of my topic, so I merely latched on.

kitarad · June 2021

Why can't any game just duplicate the system in Dark Age of Camelot. It was really successful and the combat was not twitchy and right up my alley.

Viper482 · June 2021

kitarad said:

Why can't any game just duplicate the system in Dark Age of Camelot. It was really successful and the combat was not twitchy and right up my alley.

Agreed. It is baffling to me. These sorry attempts by ESO and GW2 to replicate an entire game design with their stupid e-sports 30-day points-based campaigns that are all but forgotten corners of their games is as close as we've gotten to it.

Infern · June 2021

I love this Game, played it for like 15 Years, i still exactly remember how i started my Caster in MegMell (love the Music). I accidentally delete my Staff and couldnt cast my spells anymore, had no idea what to do. Met a Guy, he gave me a new one so we leveld abit and like 8 Years later we still played together.

Daoc is still very Unique, i have no idea how they managed to build so many so different Classes and Builds, with a good balance (most of the time).

Hengist · June 2021

Brings back some great memories, and really enjoyed the article.

Totally have to agree with people who have said that ESO and GW2 have both missed the mark. I think people love those games, and they are much bigger, but the niche that was DAoC has yet to be equaled. (I admit, did love Warhammer too....but it still wasn't DAoC.)

Also, great point that a game has to be designed around the RvR principle to let people contribute. Back in the day, Realm Pride did matter, from the tone of the article, it appears that now the PvP is what matters most. Good and bad to that, fun, but still doesn't bring diverse groups together for the benefit of the realm.

GatsuZerk · June 2021

Slapshot1188 said:

Gorwe said:

Slapshot1188 said:

In my day, after we walked uphill to AND from school, we had Realm Pride. I understand that they are down to one server so they have to allow cross realming but it’s totally incestuous in my eyes. It’s now GvG game and not really an RvR game.

Having a sense of Realm pride and allowing people to help their Realm in any way they want(PvE, PvP, Crafting) is the key to RvR. It's not a simple zergball against the fort walls. That's merely a component of it.

As I like to say: RvR is not a game mode, it is how you design an entire game.

Not sure you understood my point. These folks are literally fighting, then logging out and logging in with their guild on another realm to fight again. Rinse and repeat. They have no identity as Hibs, Albs or Mids. Their identity is IRC... their guild name.

What's wrong with that? That's how they enjoy the game. They enjoy the PvP and there's nothing wrong with it. People have been using IRC to set up fights since the dawn of DAoC.

Just like there's nothing wrong with how you want to play with your Realm Pride non-sense.

Two way street, just like most of everything else in life.

GatsuZerk · June 2021

kitarad said:

Why can't any game just duplicate the system in Dark Age of Camelot. It was really successful and the combat was not twitchy and right up my alley.

Kinda twitchy if you played main CC. First group to mez is gonna win 90% of fights.

Hengist · June 2021

GatsuZerk said:

Slapshot1188 said:

Gorwe said:

Slapshot1188 said:

In my day, after we walked uphill to AND from school, we had Realm Pride. I understand that they are down to one server so they have to allow cross realming but it’s totally incestuous in my eyes. It’s now GvG game and not really an RvR game.

Having a sense of Realm pride and allowing people to help their Realm in any way they want(PvE, PvP, Crafting) is the key to RvR. It's not a simple zergball against the fort walls. That's merely a component of it.

As I like to say: RvR is not a game mode, it is how you design an entire game.

Not sure you understood my point. These folks are literally fighting, then logging out and logging in with their guild on another realm to fight again. Rinse and repeat. They have no identity as Hibs, Albs or Mids. Their identity is IRC... their guild name.

What's wrong with that? That's how they enjoy the game. They enjoy the PvP and there's nothing wrong with it. People have been using IRC to set up fights since the dawn of DAoC.

Just like there's nothing wrong with how you want to play with your Realm Pride non-sense.

Two way street, just like most of everything else in life.

I don't think he was saying anything is wrong with it.

In it's prime though, when it likely had it's biggest subscriber numbers, it was largely driven by the realm pride. These days it's not, which is a change. It's evolved...

Iselin · June 2021

Viper482 said:

kitarad said:

Why can't any game just duplicate the system in Dark Age of Camelot. It was really successful and the combat was not twitchy and right up my alley.

Agreed. It is baffling to me. These sorry attempts by ESO and GW2 to replicate an entire game design with their stupid e-sports 30-day points-based campaigns that are all but forgotten corners of their games is as close as we've gotten to it.

Most current players, who started with or after WOW, seem to think that e-sports PvP is real MMO PvP with scoreboards and prizes.

That was the first big ESO mistake. The second one was not tying Imperial City entry to Cyrodiil controlling faction status like DAoC did with Darkness Falls.

ESO identified casuals and looky-loos as their core audience, went with it and apparently reaped rewards and games media praise for "turning the game around."

We're not in DAoC any more, Dorothy

Hariken · June 2021

Played the heck out of this game with my friends back in the day when it first came out.

Gorwe · June 2021

Hengist said:

Brings back some great memories, and really enjoyed the article.

Totally have to agree with people who have said that ESO and GW2 have both missed the mark. I think people love those games, and they are much bigger, but the niche that was DAoC has yet to be equaled. (I admit, did love Warhammer too....but it still wasn't DAoC.)

Also, great point that a game has to be designed around the RvR principle to let people contribute. Back in the day, Realm Pride did matter, from the tone of the article, it appears that now the PvP is what matters most. Good and bad to that, fun, but still doesn't bring diverse groups together for the benefit of the realm.

If you don't use RvR as a guiding game design principle, but merely as a large scale PvP game mode, you end up as WAR. With constant infighting not only between players, but even between systems on a theoretical level. Everything ends up vying and fighting for players and their time. And then the game fails(...what a shock!).

It's a mighty shame that we had to use Warhammer Fantasy IP(of all the things) as a learning experience, but it had to be done.

Luiden · June 2021

"In the early beginnings of the DAoC, players were restricted to one realm per server and there were strict rules with regards to so-called "cross-realm" communications between the realms on each server."

This was the Golden Age of MMORPG gaming, you had rule sets in the game that were designed to protect the integrity of the game. I played a Hib for the first 5 years or so and hated.. hated the other realms. I didn't give 2 shits about playing them only killing them. I could have cared less about the players behind the characters and had no interest in interacting with them. This game was fun beyond it's time and easily the best PvP MMORPG ever created.

There are so many things that this game does well that as many others have mentioned it's shocking, shocking that nobody has tried to create a sequel. Just basic foundational things that game designers just don't understand today.

For example, I don't need my class to have 200 different abilities, tech trees, massive customizations, ability to morph into other classes etc at the release of the game.. this is where so many games fail. They spend so much time designing an insane class that they only get 5 of them done at release. DAOC had something like 30 different unique classes at release across the 3 realms. They weren't perfect and they grew over time but they were your class. Class variety is huge.

I could go on and on about detailed design decisions that they made that were super innovative and just made this game unbelievable (and some that weren't so great either), but this would turn into a huge post.

Luiden · June 2021

ashiru_1978 said:

A few weeks ago I tried playing the game on the Phoenix Freeshard and the biggest problem I encountered was how tiny the UI is. It literally looks like it was designed specifically for a 640x480 CRT monitor.

That can be fixed but it takes a little work. Best thing to do is to take the time and download one of the custom UIs that allow you to adjust all of that. It's kind of a pain but it's worth spending an hour or so getting everything setup. It's a complex UI with a lot going on (game is old) and you need to get it setup the way you want it before starting.

And to be clear, you probably wont be able to get your keys and movement set up exactly like the standard that we see today that WoW kind of defined.. you just have to mentally accept that and get use to some of the quirks. But you can definitely fix that screen size issue.

Howdy, Stranger!

See You In Fifteen: Realm Vs Realm Combat In Dark Age Of Camelot | MMORPG.com

Comments

Proud MMORPG.com member since March 2004! Make PvE GREAT Again!

Howdy, Stranger!

Quick Links

See You In Fifteen: Realm Vs Realm Combat In Dark Age Of Camelot | MMORPG.com

Comments

Proud MMORPG.com member since March 2004! Make PvE GREAT Again!