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Video Game / Dark Age of Camelot

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Launched in late 2001, Dark Age of Camelot is a long-running MMORPG from Mythic Entertainment.

The game presents three realms: Albion, a typical The Dung Ages representation of medieval England which is heavily steeped in Arthurian myth; Midgard, a frosty, fjord-y representation of Norse mythology populated by Vikings and trolls; and Hibernia, built on Irish folklore and legend.

The three realms war in Player Versus Player frontier areas, while each realm's home territory is dedicated to Player Versus Environment play.

The MMO is still active as a free-to-play game.

Dark Age of Camelot provides examples of:

  • All Trolls Are Different: Here they are big rock people from Midgard with short tempers and strong codes of honor.
  • All Your Base Are Belong to Us: This trope tends to get invoked when one realm's keeps and towers are taken away by the enemy realms. Reclaiming them largely depends on the morale of the realm's population, and losing all of them can be detrimental to many players' willingness to go out there. Since this is a three-way war, whose keeps are taken changes repeatedly.
  • Ambiguous Time Period: While the game obviously takes place during the Dark Ages, that is a pretty big time span (about 500-1200). The most common fan theory is it takes place around the time of Charlemagne (late 700s to early 800s)
  • Dynamic Difficulty: The instanced dungeon difficulty is largely based on how many players are in the group, and it scales up or down as players join or leave.
  • The Fair Folk: There are tons of fairies and fairy-related creatures who are anything but benevolent, they are led by the Faerie Court who make their home in the more remote regions of Hibernia. They are especially defined by their vengeful personalities, lashing out at all the factions for small slights and even going after you directly if you kill too many fairies in a day.
  • Good vs. Good: All three factions are heroic, but fight one another for territory and/or glory. Noticeably while they are perpetually at war, they will quickly work together whenever an evil rises.
  • Istanbul (Not Constantinople): The Realms of Albion, Midgard, and Hibernia are Fantasy names of England, Scandinavia, and Ireland respectively.
  • Last Stand: Players defending a keep lord as the room is being breached often experience this. Sometimes they hold off the attack, other times it doesn't go very well for them.
  • Loads and Loads of Races: The game boasts an impressive 19 selectable races, from different types of humans to various non-humans. Each faction has six races exclusive to them, while the 19th race, the minotaurs, can be part of any of the factions.
  • Keystone Army: The Bonedancer class can summon up to 4 pets to aid them in combat...who all die instantly if the bonedancer dies. Averted by the Animist class in hibernia, whose turrets can stick around for a minute or two after the character's death.
  • Player Versus Player: The main focus of the game, Called Realm vs Realm in the context of DAoC. There is still Player Versus Environment with dungeons and raid bosses, but the meat of the game is meant to be the PvP.
  • Purple Is Powerful: The game uses a color system to indicate a monster's level relative to yours. The highest color is purple, which basically means the monster is way above your weight class and trying to kill it alone is likely suicide.


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