DAoC fans gather in Las Vegas to celebrate game, get preview of next expansion

By Michael Lafferty

Contests and Catacombs, conference Roundtable provides wonderful opportunity for every age of player

‘How many times have players blown themselves up when spellcrafting?”

The contestant thought a moment, and then answered, “20.”

There was a moment delay, and then the number of those who agreed popped up on the overhead screen. Sanya Thomas, the Mythic Entertainment Internet Relations manager, serving as host of the Camelot Feud, chuckled, “The No. 1 answer is zero,” she stated, which elicited moans from the assembled gathering.

The Camelot Feud was the concluding contest (based on the television game show, The Family Feud), pitting players from different realms in a competition to emerge the winners. It was Hibernians versus Albions versus Midgards in a setting well removed from the realm-versus-realm battles waged on the 18 servers (plus a test server) of DAoC. A Hibernian team preserved and won the title, with each member of the team receiving an Nvidia 6800 video card, one of several prizes awarded throughout the daylong gathering of Dark Age of Camelot fans in Las Vegas Saturday.

It was a day filled with information and entertainment. The event, which drew approximately 300 fans from throughout the nation, began with a Friday check-in/registration at the MGM Grand Conference Rooms. The attendees gathered at tables bearing names of their servers to meet, greet and finally put a face to some of the avatars they may have seen in-game. It was also a chance to make new friends, to arrange for new online meetings (for hunting and/or questing), to share knowledge and to participate in roundtable discussions.

While Friday was an informal gathering of players, the event began in earnest Saturday morning with the keynote address by Tracy and Laura Hickman, renowned fantasy writers who discussed the importance of fantasy in the modern world.

“Fantasy, myth and story are essential to humanity,” Laura Hickman stated, “I believe they are as essential as air.”

“Why does fantasy endure?” said Tracy Hickman. “Because at our core we long for the myth; we long for the story; we are the hero of our own story.

“Fantasy endures because fantasy endures within each of us and binds us all together.”

Following their address, the duo field questions from the gathering, and one fan drew a laugh when he stated that the Hickman’s address is that “y’all have just given me the most amazing excuse to give my wife why I play Dark Age.”

Next the players were treated to a fly-through of the coming expansion for DAoC, Catacombs, which will launch in December. Catacombs represents a major step forward for the massively multiplayer title. While the title will feature new areas to explore, a new storyline which expands the mythos of the world, the expansion also marks a significant graphical upgrade for the title. Not only have the old map areas received an upgrade, but the characters/avatars have been changed and look rather amazing. While DAoC has always been a three-dimensional world, the look of the new avatars is so detailed as to make the existing avatars look somewhat flat and two-dimensional by comparison. Using the new Direct X 9 shaders, the whole game has jumped into the modern era of MMO graphics, and will certainly appeal to old gamers as well as draw in the newer ones who may be enchanted at first, with the eye candy of the game.

Those who do go to the game, lured in by the graphics, will find a rich world of content – where players can create avatars and tailor the experience to their own desires – which may be part of the reason that the game has such a wide range of players, in terms of age. But as the Camelot Feud gently reminded, the No. 1 lure for DAoC is the community.

The conference attendees represented an amazing cross-section of those who play the game. There were young children and grandparents; a mother and her 11-year-old son made use of the LAN room to connect to the game and play their characters together – much like they do at home; and a woman even coerced her boss to attend the conference to see what the fuss was all about, which proved to be an eye-opening experience.

The computers in the LAN room were all supplied by Planet Computers, and the machines proved more than worthy of giving players a wonderful experience, whether playing their own characters in the game, or getting a cursory look at Catacombs. But Planet Computer did not stop there. The company awarded a gaming computer (which retailed at more than $1,800) to the winner of the Saturday night costume contest (which was won by a young boy who attended the festivities as a Kobold, face and hands painted dark blue, hair a shocking red and dressed in black, a clear crowd favorite), and a sound system to the director of the winning Fan Movie (a DAoC series of clips which told the tragic tale of a lost killed and avenged to the theme of “My Immortal” by Evanescence).

While the costume contest was an incredible demonstration of the creativity and passion of the players, the fan movies provided ran the gamut of laugh-fest, to somewhat touching, with music spanning the ages (Thin Lizzy’s “The Boys are Back in Town,” “Dead Puppies” by Steven Lynch and featured on the Dr. Demento show, and an amalgam of classic tunes in a tribute to the game’s RvR – realm versus realm – combat.)

Prima Books also threw in guide books and a DAoC book containing all the existing world maps for the raffle ticket prizes, which were drawn throughout the course of the event, while Thread Impressions offered clans the opportunity to have their guild logo placed on shirts, or just to pick up a shirt featuring a machine-stitched DAoC logo. Nvidia was also represented at the event.

After the sneak peek at Catacombs, and a quick break for lunch, the fans were able to attend three discussion groups by the Mythic developers, programmers, and community liaison, which dealt with community relations, programming and web support, and a discussion on the new expansion. Those who attended the conference were able to fill out an application for the pending beta of Catacombs, which should be launching rather soon.

The previous fan festival/conference was held approximately 16 months ago, but Mythic promised that it would not take so long for the next. Look for the next DAoC Fan Conference to be held in the spring 2005 on the East Coast. In the meantime, the Las Vegas Roundtable could be termed a success, both for the gaming community in attendance and for Mythic.

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