Dark Age o’ Camelot Preview

It’s very nice to see women becoming much more active in game development, the media and as players. There were exceptions in the past; Roberta Williams comes to mind… but it’s great to see less of a gender boundary, though still a long way to go. MMORPG’s I believe are partly responsible for this emergence (it’s that social factor). Miss Tweety from TheCorporation gaming website offers her very insightful perspective from a detailed look at the MMORPG supposedly taking the best from EverQuest and Arthurian Legends and adding their own PvP philosophies, Dark Age of Camelot. It’s a game with possible mass market appeal, but yet little hype. Here’s a snippet from the preview:

Scouting the enemy – The concept behind the game is that the three realms are battling one another in a three-way war. What’s to stop you from logging in your Viking to find out what the Norsemen are planning, and then logging in your Briton and spilling the beans? All of your characters on one server have to be from the same realm, that’s what. If you want to change realms, you’ll need to change servers. You won’t even be able to talk with folks from other realms, so y’all with existing player guilds might want to discuss which realm you’re joining before you roll characters.

On a tangent:
You’re not going to be able to talk with people from other realms, eh? So, basically, you’ll see these other REAL people coming at you with their spells and halberds, and, since they are just another face in the crowd without a name, you’ll try and kill ’em. Sounds like war to me, training in the military. Depersonalization. To incorporate that into a massively multiplayer game is definitely a change of pace. Of course, any Quake-style game has that aspect. But not to this extent. There is something yummy about that, but you know what’s even more yummy? If you could in fact talk to the other realm in some fashion… maybe by Morse Code spell signals or something, and be a spy. Now that would be great. “Poof poof, whiff, shaboing!” <meanwhile on the other side…> “Hey, Arnie, that’s our man. He says they’re coming in from the left ridge. Let’s prepare an ambush.”