I just wanted to take a quick sec to wish a happy 20th anniversary to my first MMORPG, Dark Age of Camelot (the actual date is October 10, 2001 when it went live but the anniversary event starts this week).
I picked this game up right when it went live and played for three years until switching to WoW in December 2004. I’d seen other MMO’s before, primarily EQ, but I couldn’t get into them. But DAOC managed to hook me and draw me in.
It’s pretty dated now but back in the day the graphics and gameplay were very well done. Although DAOC did have a PVE experience, the main theme of the game was always team-based PvP (also called Realm vs. Realm).
You have three separate realms, Albion (based loosely on Arthurian legend), Hibernia (ditto for Irish mythology), and Midgard (Scandinavia), each with their own classes, zones, and gameplay. Each realm had their own leveling zones and then you had three “frontiers” which were accessible to all classes and is where the bulk of the PvP takes place. At the time it was a lot of fun, and a fairly unique approach to PvP.
DAOC was always a fairly small game. I don’t remember the population numbers but they were never really that large. The game is still active and does get updates but the population now is very small.
Anyway, Happy Birthday, DAOC!