Saturday 1 October 2005

Pic of the day: Doorway to another world...

DAoC Catacombs

The third expansion pack for Dark Age of Camelot has been out for a long time. In fact, the next expansion is slated for October 11th! But here in Norway, we have only been able to buy the version for the European servers. For a goodly number of reasons, I wasn't very interested in that, and neither were many other Scandinavians and British. Probably not the Irish either, if they play RPGs. The French company that runs the European servers don't really add any value for English-speaking customers. We got the same patches and the same expansions, only a month or more later than the Americans, and occasionally with some small text error added. There were only two English-language servers, and one Player vs Player server I think (it is still mentioned in the FAQ). No cooperative server, no role playing servers, no classic servers. All of these are available for US customers. I had an account on these from before the game was licensed to GOA for Europe, but the shops were not allowed to sell expansions to us.

What happened was that Mythic started selling the expansions electronically. You simply register the expansion in your game and download it. (Which takes some hours, as it is pretty big.) Actually you can download it first as well. But you have to pay before you can start playing it. The price is $20 for Catacombs or $30 for it and the next expansion, Darkness Rising, which is another attempt at adding high-level content. (The previous attempt, Trials of Atlantis, was a huge fiasco and led to the exodus of close to half the customer base. These have recently returned when Mythic gave up and offered a new "classic" server type without ToA.)

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Catacombs, like the successful first expansion Shrouded Isles, caters to all levels. It adds five new classes, and by design or luck the best of them (Vampiir) is unique to Hibernia, a realm that tends to feel like an underdog (whether or not they actually are). It is based on Irish mythology, so there may be historical reasons for the inferiority complex. Be that as it may, I've been playing with this class and the new instanced dungeon feature.

One of the greatest features in City of Heroes, apart from the visual and intuitive interface, was the concept of instancing. Instanced missions are pocket universes for a single player or a team of players. No one else can get in and mess it up, and the opposition is carefully designed to match the level and reputation of the player or team leader. Although CoH remains a niche product, the press was Ooh and Aah about this feature. Wisely, Mythic decided to include it in Catacombs. In fact, they made it the centerpiece of the expansion, and succeeded wildly.

The starting villages and some other locations have been fitted with nearby catacombs. You talk to a task master who will prime the dungeon for you. For a single player the monsters will be "blue", meaning they are slightly lower level than your hero. Most classes should be able to continuously hunt blues without much downtime. In addition to the XP and loot for each kill, you get a generous reward in XP and gold if you finish the whole labyrinth, which for starter dungeons holds approximately 20 critters. In other words, this is a task you can do during even the shortest lunch break, without getting a group together and riding off into the sunset. Exactly this was the feature that lured people away to CoH and later to World of Warcraft.

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The Vampiir class has become very popular, and rightly so. However, it is pretty squarely aimed at solo players. You can team like normal, and no you don't take damage from sunshine. But you cannot get "buffs" to your major stats from the support classes, which is one of the main attractions of grouping. You can still receive heals and damage-add spells, but not stat boosts. The reason for this is that the Vampiir already gets stat boost automatically. For each level, a generous bonus is added to the most important stats. Over time you get stronger, healthier and faster naturally. In addition there is a wide range of self buff spells. These have fairly short duration but should see you through most duels, which is where the Vampiir excels. Unlike all other magic classes, the Vampiir starts with zero spell points and increase them during the fight. He wields a piercing weapon in his right hand, and every time he does damage with it, his spell points go up accordingly. This forces the player to develop both his mundane fighting skills and his magic skills in tandem. You cannot specialize in magic, or you will run dry pretty fast. Likewise if you only concentrate on your weapon skills, you become less efficient and start to take a beating.

The Vampiir class is not awesome beyond compare. I would still rate both Necromancer and Enchanter as stronger, but these are both pet classes. Paladin is around the same level of strength, but much of the Paladin's success is bound to his plate armor, which is quite expensive. The Vampiir uses the cheaper leather armor along with his naturally augmented body, and only one weapon, no shield. He is cheaper to maintain, especially at higher levels where the Paladin will likely spend a lot of time doing weird quests to gather the ultimate armor, or paying holes in his pockets for crafted equipment.

Above all, the Vampiir naturally enforces an active play style. The spell points evaporate quickly if you rest after fights, so you are encouraged to keep going. Instead of the downtime to rest and heal, you use special spells that regenerate your health or draw endurance from your opponents to you. The more you fight, the more mana you have to cast these spells. The result is a killing machine that takes a little to get into gear, but is hard to stop. In this way it is probably the most addictive class so far, perhaps in any MMORPG, at least of the rat hunter type.

I have no plans to pack up and leave Paragon City, but I'm having a pleasant visit in Camelot so far. Recommended. In fact, if you intend to play DAoC, don't do so without this newbie-friendly addition.