Dark Age of Camelot Comes Under New Management

[Andy Chalk]

Dark Age of Camelot Comes Under New Management

The aging MMO Dark Age of Camelot is now under the control of a new studio called Broadsword Online Games.

Dark Age of Camelot is one of the grand-daddies of the MMO genre, having launched all the way back in 2001. That makes it awfully old for an MMO, so it's not entirely surprising to learn that Mythic Entertainment has in recent months been "discussing the question of Camelot's future." After all, even an old MMO that's more or less on cruise control costs money to maintain.

But instead of winding it down, Mythic has decided to place responsibility for the game in the hands of Broadsword Online Games, a new studio formed by veterans of the company including co-founder Rob Denton and two members of the original DAoC development team.

Broadsword will "partner with EA's Mythic Entertainment to operate, support and develop Dark Age of Camelot on EA's behalf," although an FAQ following the announcement clarifies that it is not actually an EA studio. It also says that players shouldn't notice any change during the transition but adds that the studio hopes to implement significant changes in the future.

"Going forward, we hope to bring about some exciting new changes, improved Customer Support, and increased correspondence with the DAoC community," it states. "Broadsword's dedicated team will also work to modernize and improve existing DAoC content, complete long-awaited improvements to The Camelot Herald, and establish compelling new features for Dark Age of Camelot, both in-game and out."

More information about the Dark Age of Camelot handover will be provided in a later update.

Source: <a href="http://www.broadsword.com/daoc_producers_letter.html
">Broadsword Online Games



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[Crazy Zaul]

Didn't know this was even still going...

 

[Imperioratorex Caprae]

This is the one MMO I was never interested in back in the day. EQ kicked its ass sideways, and I still have fond memories of that world. Hell Asheron's Call was more interesting.

 

[iniudan]

This is the one MMO I was never interested in back in the day. EQ kicked its ass sideways, and I still have fond memories of that world. Hell Asheron's Call was more interesting.

DoC focus is PvP focused, so cannot really compare the world of PvE MMO to it.

 

[Falterfire]

I'll join the 'this is still alive?' club. I remember following the release when I was 8 and thinking it sounded like the coolest thing ever, partly because I was 8.

 

[infinity_turtles]

Ah, DAoC, how I miss your competent pet focused classes. A shame I wasn't too into the PvP focus. Still wish more games would just out and out copy the Bonedancer mechanics though.

 

[00slash00]

It's still around? I thought the game shut down years ago

 

[Gorrath]

Having played a metric ton of MMOs, DAoC was always, by far, my favorite. Rarely have I ever felt the sense of accomplishment from a video game like a small skirmish becoming a six hour siege resulting in victory! I don't mind saying, the reason this MMO is still going when so very many others have died all around it is because it is one of the very best ever. I do hope the venerable old DAoC eventually makes way for a DAoC 2, but only if this new Broadsword company actually develops it. I want Mythic and its EA overlords far, far away from any reincarnation.

 

[Sanunes]

Having played a metric ton of MMOs, DAoC was always, by far, my favorite. Rarely have I ever felt the sense of accomplishment from a video game like a small skirmish becoming a six hour siege resulting in victory! I don't mind say, the reason this MMO is still going when so very many others have died all around it is because it is one of the very best ever. I do hope the venerable old DAoC eventually makes way for a DAoC 2, but only if this new Broadsword company actually develops it. I want Mythic and its EA overlords far, far away from any reincarnation.

DAoC was my favorite MMO, the only reason why I played WoW as long as I did was my friends stuck with it for a long time, but once a couple of people moved on we all left.

I don't think a new DAoC style MMO would survive very long anymore for the marketplace has changed so much, a lot of people are still playing an existing MMO because that is where their friends are and F2P is probably someone most people look for.

 

[Gorrath]

Having played a metric ton of MMOs, DAoC was always, by far, my favorite. Rarely have I ever felt the sense of accomplishment from a video game like a small skirmish becoming a six hour siege resulting in victory! I don't mind say, the reason this MMO is still going when so very many others have died all around it is because it is one of the very best ever. I do hope the venerable old DAoC eventually makes way for a DAoC 2, but only if this new Broadsword company actually develops it. I want Mythic and its EA overlords far, far away from any reincarnation.

DAoC was my favorite MMO, the only reason why I played WoW as long as I did was my friends stuck with it for a long time, but once a couple of people moved on we all left.

I don't think a new DAoC style MMO would survive very long anymore for the marketplace has changed so much, a lot of people are still playing an existing MMO because that is where their friends are and F2P is probably someone most people look for.

I don't know, I think there are reasons to believe it could be a success. The first and most obvious is that DAoC 1 is still going while, presumably, charging 15 bucks a month. Obviously it doesn't have a huge population anymore, but it has far outlived many other contenders and done it on a business model many consider to be impossible to sustain if you aren't WoW. The second reason I have hope is the massive popularity of PvP based games like LoL and Planetside 2. There seems to be a large audience of people who like the competitive multiplayer experience, and that is something DAoC delivered better than anyone else. Some might point to the failure of WAR, but I think that was more to do with the fact that it wasn't well designed in either the PoE or PvP areas. They tried to be a game that would get both WoW's fanbase and the PvP oriented types and ended up appealing to neither.

 

[Sanunes]

I don't know, I think there are reasons to believe it could be a success. The first and most obvious is that DAoC 1 is still going while, presumably, charging 15 bucks a month. Obviously it doesn't have a huge population anymore, but it has far outlived many other contenders and done it on a business model many consider to be impossible to sustain if you aren't WoW. The second reason I have hope is the massive popularity of PvP based games like LoL and Planetside 2. There seems to be a large audience of people who like the competitive multiplayer experience, and that is something DAoC delivered better than anyone else. Some might point to the failure of WAR, but I think that was more to do with the fact that it wasn't well designed in either the PoE or PvP areas. They tried to be a game that would get both WoW's fanbase and the PvP oriented types and ended up appealing to neither.

The reason why I don't think it will do as well is because of LoL and other games that don't have a monthly sub, the thing about DAoC is that they have a built in fanbase that started playing ages ago. Of course I am willing to be proven wrong, but it requires a good concept of what the game needs and Warhammer Online showed that even if its made by Mythic it still can fall apart fast.

 

[Gorrath]

I don't know, I think there are reasons to believe it could be a success. The first and most obvious is that DAoC 1 is still going while, presumably, charging 15 bucks a month. Obviously it doesn't have a huge population anymore, but it has far outlived many other contenders and done it on a business model many consider to be impossible to sustain if you aren't WoW. The second reason I have hope is the massive popularity of PvP based games like LoL and Planetside 2. There seems to be a large audience of people who like the competitive multiplayer experience, and that is something DAoC delivered better than anyone else. Some might point to the failure of WAR, but I think that was more to do with the fact that it wasn't well designed in either the PoE or PvP areas. They tried to be a game that would get both WoW's fanbase and the PvP oriented types and ended up appealing to neither.

The reason why I don't think it will do as well is because of LoL and other games that don't have a monthly sub, the thing about DAoC is that they have a built in fanbase that started playing ages ago. Of course I am willing to be proven wrong, but it requires a good concept of what the game needs and Warhammer Online showed that even if its made by Mythic it still can fall apart fast.

I agree with you on that, and I think the pricing model should be along the lines of F2P. WAR failed mostly because it tried to be the game that appealed to everyone and ended up appealing to very few. They ruined too many elements of the wonderful siege game play from DAoC, the RvR minigame concept was an awful grind and while there were some good ideas in the PvE, it mostly followed the same old boring formula of other MMOs. Hell, DAoC was never all that great on the PvE side anyways, it just made up for it with the wonderful RvR, fun player housing and a crafting system so well integrated that crafted items were necessary, rewarding and didn't completely trump endgame equipment.

I'd like to see a DAoC 2 that has strong story quests like The Old Republic, but that are also actually challenging. Mix that with the ability to build guild defensive structures in RvR land, guild ships, guild/personal housing and have a really good crafting system and I think you'll catch some of that lighting that the first DAoC had while improving on the parts that were weak. I strongly feel that DAoC's success is that it did something so few other MMOs do, it gives the players a sense of ownership of the game. That's the secret formula that made SW: Galaxies great, before they ruined it and why EvE is still running strong.

 

[Mortuorum]

I wonder how many users they have? because if it's not enough to be self sufficient EA won't help.

I'm sure it's enough to be self-sufficient. It probably costs next to nothing to support a game where the significant development work was completed ten years prior. I would imagine that the server overhead is so low, you can probably run the entire game from a single virtual machine. It probably costs more for datacomm than server maintenance.

So, pure profit as long as there are still subscribers.

 

[Sanunes]

I wonder how many users they have? because if it's not enough to be self sufficient EA won't help.

I'm sure it's enough to be self-sufficient. It probably costs next to nothing to support a game where the significant development work was completed ten years prior. I would imagine that the server overhead is so low, you can probably run the entire game from a single virtual machine. It probably costs more for datacomm than server maintenance.

So, pure profit as long as there are still subscribers.

They are still actively patching the game which is nice to see, it does keep the people there interested in the game itself.

 

[Remoteaccess]

been a very very very long time sins i played this game but have very very fond memmarys of playing it loved it when emain crash cos of the overload of players heading out in to old emain server overloads cos of the X number of millions of players all at the same time trying to play to get the relics then the release of emain 2 and wow was that grate
lost count the amount of times i ended up playing then waking up with the keyboard inprint on my forhead lol after non stop of a 72 or more hour marathone play time

then sadly thy shut WOW came out and thy took the DARK servers off of use to put WOW on and 80% of players left to go play WOW
so i moved from the EU servers to the USA servers played on there for sum years then the game started to die so left for sum thing with mre players
my char was all albion
char names RemoteAccess
izewizeletsgetbizy
boofyboty and meny meny more

wishing i could aford to play it again as i would come back to it loved this game and would love to reinvent my chars again on all of my game accounts all 8 of them as i had in the end as there was no way of getting a full 8 player grp for the vpv side of the game to take the keeps even then it was hard to do so

here i am rembering the good times with massive grps of players and holding the list for who was next in line for a dragon spot for sum power leveling lol

o well best of luck to the new owners of this ever soooo grate granded of all mmo pvp games keep it going i mite be back 1 day

RemoteAccess (clan of the mad cow)