If you?ve been considering playing Dark Age of Camelot but haven?t felt like going through all the trouble of learning a new game, there?s never been a better time than now. The team at Mythic Entertainment has been hard at work to provide continuous content for their hugely successful MMORPG, having just released the 5th expansion, Catacombs. With Catacombs, players will be treated to five new character classes, including Warlocks and Campiir?s, as well as completely redone character art and a re-vamped character creation system. Along with a new hands-on tutorial mode specifically for new players, a new introduction movie will further introduce players to the world of Camelot as it is in this stage of the game?s development. For returning players, perhaps the most exciting addition - aside from the 180+ new zones and 500+ new quests - is the introduction of instanced content. Instanced combat involves something called ?Private Adventuring?, a term used to describe missions or locations which are private to either solo or group players. In other words, instanced content allows players to engage in completely unique and private adventures spawned specifically for them and/or their group. Private Adventuring is available to all players, and will scale in difficulty accordingly based on the strength of those participating.

We got to see some of these improvements in action, including some hands-on time with the new tutorial mode. As a new player myself, it?s difficult to imagine that there wasn?t already one in place - the amount of commands and options even at the beginning can be a little intimidating. Thankfully, the in-game tutorial handles this situation well, demonstrating the basics of combat, equipping items to your player, communicating with NPC?s, and the mechanics of buying and selling items.

We also got a chance to play with the character creation system, which is easily one of the deepest of it?s kind. After selecting a race for your character, you can adjust everything from the basics such as height and skin tone to the size of their eyes or the length of their nose. These subtle adjustments add a level of personality to the characters not found in other games, ensuring that there?s a truly unique cast of player-characters adventuring through Camelot.

Along with character art, the rest of the graphics in DAoC have been largely overhauled. Just look at these before and after shots:

Before	After
Before	After

For all of the comparison screenshots, check out our Dark Age of Camelot Media Page.

Aside from the large expansions - two of which are offered online for free - patches have been steadily released to help balance and improve gameplay. Patch 1.74 introduced server clustering, a technique which allows the combining of two, three or more servers into clusters that allow for flexible combining of populations where needed. All areas on the servers will remain independent, except for the Realm vs Realm (RvR) zones, which need the added population to keep the game as enjoyable as possible.

Scheduled for an April release, Patch 1.75 will focus on RvR missions. Personal, group, and Realm missions will keep gameplay interesting so that the player can constantly aid the war effort, and new additions such as caravan guarding, tower razing, keep sieges, and others will add a whole new element to gameplay. June 2005 will see even more changes with the release of the Guild Patch, who?s improvements include the introduction of a user-friendly guild interface as well as guild RvR missions. Guilds will also possess banners which can be carried into battle and used for gain during RvR combat.

Castle and tower razing will add a whole new element to battles since they are now destructible, as showcased in this video.

As if that isn?t enough, Mythic has also informed us that a new expansion is planned for the fourth quarter of 2005, the details of which will be announced at E3.

-Matt Wetsel, PC Games Editor