It is strange that my parents and I share a connection in MMORPG's, and yet play different ones. So most of our conversations tend to involve us describing our incredible feats in our respective MMORPG's, neither of which we have any real understand of what the other's talking about. Also, my dad asked me why DAoC's better after 50, and there's more of a complex answer than I gave him. So, here's my vain attempt to get all you WoW players interested in DAoC.
Some background, I began playing DAoC very shortly before coming back to St. Louis, and have been playing since, for about 3 and a half years now. It's always the MMORPG I come back to, but I suppose every MMORPG player has a home game they always return to. I have played quite a few MMORPG's, and none of them seem to offer quite what DAoC offers.
Leveling in DAoC is a complete chore, and while there's only 50 levels, it's a straight grind. Leveling can be a joy in WoW, and indeed usually is up until you get to the 40's, where it becomes a grind. DAoC's leveling is a straight grind, through and through. Fortuantely, for me anyway, I have the capacity to power level myself and know exactly where to go for anything, so it's not a huge deal for me now, and I tend to find leveling a new character pretty relaxing. But it's not exactly what you'd call an easy game to get into.
The fun part of Dark Age of Camelot is the not-fun part of World of Warcraft, what happens when you hit level cap. Both games have high-end PvE and PvP content, but that content is, in general, far more rewarding, less people intensive, and more of a grind in Dark Age of Camelot.
Once you hit 50, you have the following things to accomplish:
Artifacts - Much like various quests for epic items in WoW, DAoC's artifacts comprise the "high end" of the item scale. Unlike those items, though, artifacts tend to have a bit of a personality of their own. Each has a specific encounter required before you can obtain the artifact, and you must also have a book of three scrolls in order to obtain it. Getting artifact credit is generally relatively easy, as artifact raids are common, and quite a few are doable solo or with a small group. Getting the scrolls can be a grind. After obtaining the artifact, then you have to level the artifact itself, a total of 10 levels, with new abilities granted along the way.
Unlike most items in WoW, artifacts tend to convey new and better abilities to your character. Some artifacts' abilities are so powerful as to be requirements (Battler, Malice), while some are more cherished for their stats and passive abilities (Guard of Valor, Crocodile Tear Ring, Eerie Darkness Stone). Almost all higher-end characters in the game have around 4 to 6 artifacts. The best part about artifacts is that their stats, on the whole, suck. This forces most players to make a decision between sacrificing utility (the stats on the item) for the abilities the artifact gives you.
My Minstrel currently has 11 artifacts, and uses 10 of them regularly (Guard of Valor, Winged Helm, Shades of Mist, Eerie Darkness Stone, Crocodile Tear Ring, Ring of Dances, Battler, Malice, Cyclops' Eye Shield, Traitor's Dagger). This template is very artifact heavy for just about anyone, but most of the items there have some ability which my character relies upon. For some examples:
Guard of Valor (a vest) is a passive bonus artifact which improves melee and magic damage. As a hybrid caster/melee character, Guard of Valor is almost a necessity for any Minstrel.
Winged Helm, Shades of Mist (a cloak) and Battler (a sword) are all defensive utilities prized for usable abilities. Melee in the game is handled through styles, basically mini damage buffs that you can apply to each individual swing, not unlike many of the Warrior abilities in WoW. Winged Helm offers a self-buff which reduces the bonus of those styles by a dramatic amount. Shades of Mist generates a defensive proc buff which will, occasionally, give a buff which negates the next 100 damage you take in melee. Battler's charge has a dual effect, giving me a 10% reduction in melee damage I take, while giving every enemy around me a 10% increase in melee damage they take.
Ring of Dances and Cyclops' Eye Shield both have an ability called "stealth lore." As a stealther, I generally walk around hiding like a pansy. As a hybrid, though, my stealth's not very good, and these charges allow me to overcome that in finding other stealthers. Usually, I use this ability to be a total prick and pop enemy stealthers out of stealth so that the group of 7 other people behind me can kill them without remorse. Sue me.
Anyway, high end items in DAoC are generally considered as much a part of a character as the abilities that come from the character itself. Artifacts are a requirement, and many are considered standard for their given class. Each class as different artifacts it can acquire, though the majority are obtainable by everyone (though with slightly different stats.)
Master Levels - Master Levels are, essentially, levels 51-60, except without any stat bonuses. Each one offers a different ability, some of which are exceptionally dramatic. Each class has the option of choosing between two different "tracks," for example, my Minstrel can be either Sojourner or Warlord. I chose Sojourner, mostly because people bitch about needing bubbles.
Sojourner, once I finally get it to 10 (I'm at 2 right now) offers a few important abilities, the first being Unending Breath, which is a group-castable water-breathing buff, affectionately referred to as "bubbles" for its spell graphic. The game-changing abilities in the line are Phase Shift, a short buff in which I can't do anything but run around like a pansy, but no one can hurt me either. Nifty little getaway tool, and Forceful Zephyr. FZ, as it's commonly called, requires a ground target, selecting a point on the ground. When you fire the Zephyr, it summons a pet in front of you that travels toward the ground target. If it comes close enough to the guy you have targeted, it picks him up and takes him with it. During this ride, the target can't do anything but curse at such an overpowered ability, or, in my case, getting on Ventrilo and scream "going for the big ride!" Tons of fun. Sojourner offers other silly little abilities, such as teleporting for me or my group (not unlike the Mage), summoning my own little merchant to sell crap, or finding and destroying traps, of which there are many in the other ML lines.
Champion Levels and the Champion Weapon - Lumped together because the only real reason to get Champion Levels is to unlock your Champion Weapon. CL's give you a hit point boost, and give you a bunch of almost useless abilties. Mine give me a very weak heal that I usually use when I've mezzed some target. I can't tell you how much it sucks to be mezzed and staring at someone who's just standing there healing, and how delightfully sadistic it is to be the one standing there healing. :)
Every class has its own little set of champion weapons appropriate to their class, though a lot of them are similar (all the caster staves are generally identical). For most melee classes, this generally just presents the question of choosing between the champion weapon and Battler or Malice. For the Minstrel, one of the champion weapons is a Harp, which can function as any instrument for any song that I might play. It's like an air guitar. Anyway, instead of having to carry a Drum for my Speed Song, and a Flute for my mez, and a Lute for the completely useless songs that I never play anyway, I can just carry the Harp, which is good, because you only have four slots for weapons: Right hand, left hand, two hand, and ranged. These slots are the only ones you can fire charges from, so having the harp (which can go in that ranged slot.) means I have a slot free for Battler, and swing Malice or Traitor's Dagger (which have much better procs).
RvR! - Where DAoC really shines is RvR, its PvP system. Much like WoW's Horde and Alliance, from birth, you are divided into Albion, Midgard, or Hibernia, and that's the realm you fight for. The other two are hated enemies you can't talk to. The difference, though, is that any time you see one of these mopes, they're killable, so you only generally see them when either you want to kill them, or they want to kill you.
Because of the huge amount of variety in characters, as well as their specs, as well as how they're equipped (which, as stated before, can have a dramatic impact on how your class plays), each and every fight can be completely different. In fighting a Valewalker (a Hibernian hybrid caster/tank) four times, twice he beat me, twice I beat him. Each fight went differently depending on what items and abilities we had active each time.
So why do you beat on them? Realm abilities! Each time you kill an opponent, you gain honor-like points called realm points. Your average person is worth around 1500-2000 RP's, that get divided between the number of people/groups that damage them. Generally, in a group, you get anywhere from 300-500 per kill. As you gain realm points, you go up in realm rank, expressed as X rank, Y level, or XLY. Levels are exponentially spaced, meaning, each level requires significantly more points than the previous. The early levels go by quick, so fast that it's rare to see an RR1 or RR2 opponent. The latter ones generally take months or years of farming. Each rank is a badge of honor, changing what others see when they target you (enemies always appear as "Race Realm Rank," for example, my Minstrel is "Briton Phoenix Knight" to all the Hibbies and Middies out there), as well as providing a passive bonus to everything you do. More realm ranks, tougher you are, in general.
Each realm level gives you a realm ability point, allowing you to purchase yet more abilities for your character. Some of these abilities, like artifacts, are so important that your character isn't complete without them. For example, Minstrels are almost required to have Speed of Sound, an unbreakable speed buff which makes their group immune to all forms of crowd control for a short duration. Some realm abilities are simply passive improvements to various things, some are attacks, some are defensive.
My Minstrel is currently 6L3, and rising fast, thanks to an 11L0 Sorceror who has decided that I need RR10. As stated, I am a Phoenix Knight, my Sorc friend is a Lady, since he likes to crossdress. An interesting side note, at RR12, your name to enemies includes your actual name, which normally it doesn't. For example, in one realm rank, my Sorc friend goes from "Inconnu Lady" to "Baronetess Alaenta," which is uber cool to me. There are only 6 active RR12 characters on all the US servers, only one of which I might ever run into (Ard Bantiarna Pathiss, who is the Minstrel's counterpart in Hibernia, a Bard. In further showing the creativity in class design, the three song classes, Minstrel, Bard, and Skald, are all different class types, the Minstrel is a stealther, the Bard is a healer, and the Skald is a tank).
6L3 gives me 53 points to play with (you start at 1L0), which I have spent to get the following abilities, which I use to delight friends and confound enemies:
Purge is a simple ability, it removes all negative effects on you when you fire it. It's a requirement for any person in RvR. It breaks mezzes, roots and stuns, cures poisons and disease, removes debuffs, washes the dishes, and takes out the trash when you fire it. Kinda handy.
Speed of Sound I've mentioned.
Ignore Pain is a self-heal that's usable in-combat (as compared to First Aid, which you have to be out of combat for 10 seconds before you can use it.) Almost all soloists get this ability, the only ones who don't generally are casters. While I don't solo too much anymore, it's useful in a group when I'm out of heal range.
Ameliorating Melodies is a concession I made to Alaenta as I'm grouping more than soloing now. It gives the group a heal-over-time effect which heals for about 200 every second or so for about 10 seconds. Characters average out to around 2000 hit points, so it's a free health bar for everyone. If the healers have problems keeping up, I fire this, and generally they get back on their feet pretty quickly. It's also a huge effect in small group fights, such as duos with my Minstrel mentor, Iteph. The downside is that it doesn't affect me, so I'm generally screwed if they're all beating on me. But they like those squishy casters more than the guy warping around at speed and wearing chain anyway.
Longwind is a passive buff which reduces the endurance cost of sprinting. Much like standard mana costs, styles cost endurance, generally quite a bit. Sprinting is a self-buff that increases run speed, but ticks off your endurance very quickly. Longwind reduces this, and when combined with endurance regeneration from a Paladin, lets me gain endurance while sprinting. It's a one-point blow off ability.
Mastery of Focus reduces the chance for spells to be outright resisted or "miss." Minstrels have a problem in that most of their targeted spells get resisted a lot, so Mastery of Focus helps with that. Another one-point blow off ability.
And I have one point that I have no idea what to do with. I'll probably save it...
I'm far from done with RA's, I want to get a higher level of Speed of Sound (my current version only lasts 10 seconds, I want the 20 second one), and I want to improve my selection of passive abilities (Toughness, Augmented Constitution, Avoidance of Magic, etc. for better survivability, Mastery of Pain, Mastery of Magery, and Wild Power for more damage, etc.) There's also other utilities to think about, such as Second Wind, which provides a full bar of Endurance every 15 minutes, and First Aid, which I'm better than most at using, since I can use my crowd control and Speed of Sound to get away from combat for a bit to fire it.
As RA's go, Minstrels' selection is pretty boring. Other classes get much cooler abilities, such as Thornweed Field, which is a ground-targetted area of effect which snares and damages every enemy in the area. Usually a brutal tide-turner in a fight, doing significant damage to anyone in the area, allowing your healers and casters to kite around with all the snared tanks, and generally disrupting any fight massively. Like artifacts and ML's, every class has a different selection, and different things to worry about as far as making that selection.
RvR itself is very compelling due to the variety of conflict. As a Minstrel, I can solo, stealth around, creep up on poor unsuspecting low levels and drop them like bad habits, or I can group up with 7 others, and fight small-scale conflicts, generally, jumping people on their way to bigger action, or I can follow around two or more of these groups and fight some seriously epic battles. Fights can be straight open field, which just devolve into complete chaos, or take towers and keeps from the enemy, which become tactical fights. Every time I have gone into the frontiers (the PvP areas), the fights have been dramatically different, even against the same opponents.
And that's the real appeal of the game.
