Wayback Wednesday - Rolling Albion

By Robert Lashley on January 16, 2013 | Columns | 0

From Dwarves in Moria two weeks ago to Inconnu in Thidranki last week. It could only be the Wayback Wednesday recap. Last week was episode nine in our running series featuring Dark Age of Camelot. We have completed our adventures through the Realms of Midgard and Hibernia and have shifted our attention to the Realm of Albion.

For this episode I decided to play a Reaver. I enjoyed playing a melee character again, and the debuff auras that this class has provides an interesting twist to the standard hack and slash. I also trained my character to use a whip. This is the first time I have wielded a whip as any class in an MMO and I felt like Indiana Jones running around in Thidranki, DAoC's level 20-24 battleground. I was joined on this foray by Talal Saad, a producer for Mythic and the project lead on DAoC.

Over the course of the past few episodes Talal has become more candid with his answers. Last week was no exception. Talal provided very definitive answers to questions and gave specific reasons why. One of the recurring questions he receives each month is, "Will there be an expansion?" The answer to that is no. Talal explained that it has been discussed but they work with limited resources and those resources are best spent elsewhere on the project. In the same vein Mythic is consistently asked, "Is there ever going to be a graphics overhaul?" The answer to this is also no, and for the same reason. But all is not doom and gloom.

We found out that there will be a new reenlistment campaign. While the specifics are not finalized, we should see it materialize on the DAoC herald in March or April. Mythic is trying to figure out what would be the appropriate incentive to provide players. They are also reworking the legendary weapons so they feel more legendary again. While Talal was not able to provide specifics on what would be changed he did tell us when we could expect these changes: in patch 1.115. Players could also see new race and class combinations. As they’re requested, and if it makes sense in the lore to do, Mythic is open to the idea.

Talal reversed roles for a moment on the stream and asked me a question. After playing Dark Age for months on these streams Talal wanted to know what I like most about DAoC. The reason I like to play DAoC is primarily due to the way groups are composed in RvR. With so many new games creating characters that are jacks of all trade it is nice to play a game where characters can have very specific roles. There is a need for classes that cast debuffs, there is a need for a class that buffs the group, as classes become more generic I really enjoy going back to older games that almost brutally force you to make solid groups composed of classes that have very specific and important jobs.

Congratulations are in order to Kujiiii, Arilio, and Sgtsteveo. They randomly won 30 day time codes to Dark Age of Camelot for being present at last week's live stream. Brynx received a 30 day time code for his answer to, If DAoC went F2P how would you monetize it? Everyone who answered had their name put on a list and the random number tool picked Brynx at random. You can see all the submitted answers here. Next month's DAoC stream will take place on February 13th. During that episode I will randomly give away one 30 day time card from the pool of people who comment below answering the question, "What is your favorite memory in Dark Age of Camelot?"

Tonight's edition of Wayback Wednesday will feature EverQuest II and I will be joined by SOE Producer Holly Longsdale. The action will kick off at 9:30 EST on our MMORPG.com stream channel. If you have any questions about Everquest II or comments about DAoC please leave them in the comments space below. You can follow me on Twitter or friend me on Facebook. We also have a rapidly growing community on G+ which you can find here, apparently that is what all the cool kids are doing these days. As always, thanks for watching!