Sunday 13 April 2003

Pic of the day: A plated friend: Itlandsen, Guardian of Darkness, Paladin of Camelot.

Meanwhile, in Camelot ...

Yes, I've been playing Dark Age of Camelot again. I play almost exclusively on the cooperative server (Gaheris, on the US server chain) and mostly my paladin, Itlandsen. Today he reached level 30, a great day for all paladins. Well, at least all real paladins, those who have kept their chant skill maxed. This is the day they are allowed to resurrect the newly dead.

Resurrection, while less dramatic than in real life, is still a big deal in role playing games. "Dyin sux" as one player put it. To avoid ending up at a bind point far away and with your constitution reduced, be sure to have a "rezzer" nearby. And once again I am one of them. Or my character is. Anyway, it feels great.

30 is also a good age for a paladin because by now he can wear all of the armor from the Darkness Falls merchants, the imps that sell various goods in exchange for seals. Since seals come automatically (but randomly) when you kill necyomancers or anything tougher, I already had dozens of them. With the new magic armor, shield and weapon it is easier than ever before to hunt more of the plated fiends in there. Darkness Falls may not be the most exciting place in the realms, at least not the upper levels. But it is probably the most profitable. Besides, I don't like excitement. I like to be able to do other things while my character methodically kills off plated fiends one by one. If I wanted excitement, I'd play on the PvP servers.

***

Speaking of which, the coop server has a nifty feature to make up for the lack of training battlegrounds. Each level from 20 upward, you get 1 free realm point. Realm points can be used to buy "realm abilities". I have Augmented Dexterity 2, Mastery of Blocking 2, Mastery of Parrying 1, Mastery of Pain 1. Saving up now for Mastery of Parrying 2. The problem is that they grow more expensive for each level. Mastery of Blocking 1 cost only 1 realm point (after I got the prerequisite, Augmented Dexterity 2) and added a 3% chance to block. Mastery of Blocking 2 set me back 3 realm points, while adding only another 3% chance. The next level would cost me 6 points, and this is when I start to wonder whether it is worth it. There are many other cool realm abilities, most of them improvement on stats or skills, and the system encourages you to branch out. Of course, not all abilities are useful for all classes. As a paladin, I don't really need any magic enhancement beyond my natural abilities. But I could always use extra speed or strength or health.

You have the same realm abilities on the Realm vs Realm servers, but I didn't get to use them much because I hate fighting other players. After all, I try to do to others what I would want them to do to me. And I would not want their character to kill my character. Neither do they, I believe. I have played in all 3 realms, and it's widely agreed that dying sucks. Therefore, by extension, killing sucks.

And it's not like the lack of human opponents makes the game too easy. The coop server is the latest type of server made, and the border keeps are populated with high-level humanoid monsters with the latest in artificial intelligence. They may not fully emulate a human player, especially as relates to group tactics, but this is offset by various bonuses. Taking a keep is no casual thing even on the coop server, so the realm points won by taking part in a keep raid are well deserved. Now I only have to kill a few hundred (or perhaps thousand) plated fiends, and I should be ready to trail along with the keep raids and resurrect the coalition forces. ^_^