A familiar brand to many PvP fans,
style="font-style: italic;">Dark Age of Camelot
has met acclaim from gamers and media as the fundamental PvP (or RvR
more accurately) MMORPG experience. After almost nine years on the
market it has become inevitable that the game would become dated. It is
true that the technology is old, but is its life nearing its end? Not
according to the game’s Producer, Stuart Zissu.
I sat down with Zissu at gamescom in the German-Club-themed business
area for the EA teams to discuss the current state of the game, where
it was going, and even where it has been. Zissu was very pleasant and
candid with me and, it wasn’t hard to tell that his
appreciation of the game was quite genuine.
February of this year, Mythic Entertainment adopted the European market
of DAoC
players, who were formerly playing under the umbrella of GOA. According
to Zissu, the process has gone “phenomenally well.”
To support this move, Mythic is working diligently to open a
multilingual server. The new server requires an update to the game
client as previously the servers assumed everyone playing on them was
playing the same language. Once the project is complete all players
will be able to play on the same server in their own language,
interacting globally with players of all languages. The reasoning
behind the move is somewhat
obvious. With a game like
style="font-style: italic;">DAoC,
or any other game that relies on Realm vs. Realm combat, player
population is paramount to the game’s ability to entertain.
The next item on the docket for Mythic is the addition of Live Events
to the game. Zissu explains the project as “immediate and
intimate interaction of the players,” meaning the developers
and GMs will be in game during these events, organizing and running
them. As an example of one of these events, the devs logged into the
game from Wednesday through Friday and posed as merchants. They
auctioned unique and impressive items to the players through a classic
bidding war scenario. More events are in the works, and Zissu assured
me the team is committed to making these events fun and bringing the
community together.
I asked Zissu how a company like Mythic approaches further development
of Dark
Age of Camelot which,
let’s face it, is of an age of its own.
“We’re going back and reworking some of the
UI,” he responded. “We just had our patch 1.105
come out where the training windows were redone to make them a lot more
sleek and easy to use. We also improved the buff display. Previously,
you could only see 21 buffs even if you had more. So we’re
going back and trying to make it as user friendly as we can, not just
for the returning and new players, but also for the core market of
those who have been playing forever. They’re still very
important to us.”
Customer retention is one thing, but
style="font-style: italic;">DAoC
has a lot to live up to. As one of the front runners of enjoyable RvR
combat the game has a big challenge retaining that name, especially
given the amount of new MMO games coming out, many of which are PvP
focused. I asked Zissu how the team stands up to their reputation. His
response was immediate.
“The players. We have three sides, which hasn’t been
done again since we launched PvP. If one side gets too powerful the
other two will team up and bring them back down to size. When we look
at the numbers of player on each side they’re pretty well
balanced, despite what some may believe. It’s a lot of fun to
watch as you’ll see the ebon flow of the war going on, and
it’s part of what makes
style="font-style: italic;">Dark Age of Camelot
so much fun.”
The MMO market is a different beast from other games, and it was
apparent Zissu knows this. While other genres focus on launch they
rarely have very little to consider after the game has been released.
That is not the case for MMOGs, and meeting with Zissu at gamescom
reinforced that fact. Mythic was also able to reinforce the message
that even though
style="font-style: italic;">DAoC
is aging,
it’s not yet time to call the coroner.
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