Wednesday, October 23, 2013

Dark Age of Camelot and Champions of Regnum

Lately I've been playing Dark Age of Camelot (DAOC) and Champions of Regnum with a friend. They've been playingd DAOC off and on over the years, so they've been introducing me to the game. Oddly enough, I was immediately hooked on the game because of two reasons. One reason, and probably the biggest factor, is the PVP-centric gameplay. I've always enjoyed PVP, and I tend to find games that center around it a lot more fun.

The second reason I've been enjoying DAOC is the large selection of classes. Most games nowadays are consider diverse if they offer six classes. DAOC offers a lot more than that, and most are pretty unique. So far I've made a Runemaster, a Bonedancer and a Vampiir. Playing DAOC has made me realize that it's not just the Nostalgia that makes me love old games and keep coming back to them, it's the diversity of their classes and gameplay.

 Trying to figure out how AOEs work...

For example, Istaria, another old game that I played for several months back in 2010-11, there are a lot of unique and interesting races and classes to play. You can be anything from a fairy to a half-giant. The classes available are pretty numerous compared to most games, too. Because of this, there are ton of options in play-style. There's also player housing, something that is slowly becoming the norm for MMOs again (Thankfully). The numerous race choices (that include dragons that can fly, which is why I liked the game so much :P)

Another old game I liked a lot because of its classes were pre-NGE Star Wars Galaxies. The game didn't make you choose a class when you played, instead you would just do things, get exp and then buy skills from trainers. It was great because people could basically create their own classes that fit their play-style, or just follow the various skill trees til they hit master in it. Age of Wushu was also a great game due to how free-form it's classes worked - you started with no class and then could learn any skill in the game, from any school. It was great and I wish more games were like this.

Just to be complete, I'll mention other games with similarly diverse skill or classes system. Darkfall (Original and, to a lesser extent, Darkfall Unholy Wars), Mortal Online, and Wurm Online. I made a thread and people brought up their own favorite games with a lot of classes. Ragnarok Online was the one that was brought up the most. Feel free to post your suggestions/favorite games with a lot of classes.


As the title says, another game I've been playing the past week or so is Champions of Regnum. I've been playing this casually, so I only have a level 26 Barbarian. I've participated in a bit of PVP, but all I've been able to accomplish at this level is a couple of stuns and a lot of dying. I made a new character, a mage, to level up with the same friend I was playing DAOC with, but so far we haven't played to much.

The appeal Regnum has for me is the RvRvR-centric gameplay, along with the pretty neat class system. Honestly, there aren't many choices, but I'm a fan of the divergent path system. That is, you start as a fairly generic character and then later on advance into something else. For example, my Barbarian started as a warrior and could have gone the path of a Knight but I chose Barbarian instead. I plan to take my mage down the path of a conjurer so it can support others in combat. I like having choices in a game, and choosing which path your character will take is a pretty nice one to have, I think.


Anyways, that's it for now. I've done five articles for OnRPG this month. One of which is a review on the recently released Path of Exile. Feel free to check it out and leave a comment to let me know what you think of the game, or the review itself. Thanks for reading.