GOA loses the Dark Age of Camelot licence

Doesn't affect anyone in the US, but over here there HAS to be some rumblings. For what it's worth I think GOA do a good job for European customers. The CSR's have been friendly and helpful and any server crashes I believe are more related the game stability rather than the server itself. Updates to the game are within 48 hours (barring European holidays/weekends) compared to DAoC's weeks - months. It's news on a slow news day...

http://camelotherald.com/news/news_article.php?storyid=3999

Mythic Welcomes European Players of DAoC

Posted By: Andy Belford

2010-01-07 12:26:32

Today, it was announced that after eight years of operating Dark Age of Camelot in Europe, GOA’s license with Mythic Entertainment will soon expire and they will no longer publish or support the game.

Over the years, GOA has fostered a vibrant and dedicated community that is passionate about the game. In the coming weeks, GOA will be entrusting Mythic with this community of players.

We are currently working with GOA to take over operation of the game and its European community, and will soon be providing details about pressing player questions such as existing subscriptions, character transfers, game versions, localization, and more. We look forward to welcoming all players from the European servers and look forward to supporting them in the years to come.

While this closes one chapter for DAoC in Europe, a new one begins with a bright future of RvR ahead.

We’ll see you in the Frontiers!

Mythic Entertainment

DAoC in the Crysis engine

Noticed this little gem while browsing through a WAR blog I'd never seen before (That's Skar with a K) and thought I'd share it as well. It's Dark Age of Camelot (well parts of) re imagined through a modern game engine (in this case Crysis), it's nice to see what could have been....

http://mharjula.blogspot.com/

What if we had three sides?

In Dark Age of Camelot you had three sides (or rather realms). Albion (Arthurian legends), Midgard (Nordic legends) and Hibernian (Celtic legends). The obvious advantage to having three sides in realm versus realm was that no-one side ever became too powerful since the other two could combine to take down the dominant side, and the cycle repeated itself so no-one ever gained continual dominance over the other two. The major flaw was that power and population on sides would change dramatically with each patch and people would often hop servers to play the perceived imbalanced realm only adding to the need for the other realms to team up.

So the question lies, would WAR have benefited more by having three sides rather than the traditional two and if so, how would they have managed it?

The more I thought about it, the more the concept of a third realm grows on me. It would certainly help towards a lot of balance issues should one side be buffed a bit too much in a patch, plus allows for more interesting battles as two sides possibly take on one only for the two to turn on each other to claim the keep or fort for victory points for there own realm.

Of course, this will never happen, it would require building the game practically from the ground up and a lot of what we have (the tug-o-war tier 4 zones for example) to be completely redesigned and ripped apart, but it's nice to think.

The fun bit however is imagining how the realms would form as the current triage for both sides wouldn't work too well. I'd imagine something like this.

Empire & Dwarves:
Knight of the Blazing Sun, Warrior Priest, Bright Wizard, Witch Hunter

Ironbreaker, Runepriest, Engineer, Slayer

Greenskins (Orcs and Goblins)
Black Orc, Boss (imagine an orc healer.. Shouting instead of traditional healing... "Oi, dat was a scratch, get movin' again", "Yer not dead ya runt, get back up an 'it 'im"), Arrer Boy, Choppa

Troll (with Goblin handler.. imagine a pet tank class), Shaman, Squig Hunter, Fanatic

Dark Alliance (Chaos and Dark Elves)
Chosen, Zealot, Magus, Marauder

Black Guard, Disciple, Sorceror, Witch Elf

So of course, one realm had to disappear and (not so) sadly it was the High Elves. Simple reason is that I couldn't 'fit' them in anywhere and they seem quite stuck out there on the little island of Ulthuan. However, the same case could be made for Dark Elves so you could change them for Greenskins and simply add in the "Brettonia and Wood Elf" realm in place of the full Greenskin faction.

Ach, as said, it's just not going to happen but would WAR have been better with a third realm to balance out the odds when one side starts to become the dominant force, or is the Order vs. Destruction working fine?