Dark Age of Camelot: Trials of Atlantis Expansion Pack

List Price: $29.99 Discount Price: $0.01

Features:

• Expansion pack for the award-winning Dark Age of Camelot
• Explore the mostly underwater lost civilization of Atlantis
• The three Realms, Hibernia, Midgard, and Albion, must uncover the power left in the ruins
• All new underwater areas, effects, dungeons, and exploration capabilities
• Master Levels teaches your character new abilities, spells, combat styles, and more

Accessories:
PC Gamer (1-year)	Games for Windows: The Official Magazine

Customer Reviews:

Time Sink [Posted on 2004-10-29]
PvE Expansion for a game wich end game is PvP. Great Idea Mythic.

A good, but misguided expansion [Posted on 2004-12-08]
When the TOA expansion came out, it suffered from its share of bugs and balance issues. Many of these have been fixed. It is attractive and fun, with many quests, artifact mobs, and other challenges. The problem is, its a high level pve expansion in a game that appeals mainly to a PVP audience. PVP lovers usually hate the "repetition" (leveling treadmill, etc) of PVE. And to compete effectively in PVP you are pretty much forced to complete the Master Levels and acquire the Artifacts that are introduced in the expansion.

So if you like PvE, this is good fun. If you are like most folks that play DAOC for the PVP, you will agree that this was a misguided expansion.

This expansion damaged the game [Posted on 2004-12-09]
I've played DAoC since it's release. i had a great time - original RVR was a lot of fun, and my friends and i could always find a new distraction to keep us occupied. trials of atlantis, coupled with the updated new frontiers ruined DAoC. atlantis is centered around gaining artifacts, earned through absolutely tedious encounters that often require several groups of players. then, you still need to collect three scrolls to activate the artifact - these drop randomly from some creatures, calling for camping toa mobs endlessly. some of these artifacts are so overpowered that they've made players who don't get them obsolete. also, player crafted armor and particularly weapons have taken a serious blow. they can't compete with the perks on toa drops and artifacts. this expansion has pushed many original players, like myself, to walk away.

Mythic's Misstep [Posted on 2005-09-26]
Since Dark Age of Camelot was released in 2001, it has received almost universal praise. However, when the second commercial expansion pack came out, a great number of players slammed it, turning their backs on the game. It seems almost superfluous to write a review of an expansion pack that is now included in most all purchases of the original game (e.g. the Platinum edition), but Trials of Atlantis deserves some attention, even at this late date.

Dark Age of Camelot (DAoC) was (and is) adored by the MMORPG populace for many reasons, not the least of which was its unique RvR system. It was a solid, balanced, three-way player battle that had both incentive and reward. Those not wishing to participate were not required, but for those who did, the game truly blossomed in the culminating RvR endgame (if one can accurately term it as such).

The crux of such a system is balance, and not just among the realms. Players have to have an equal footing. Atlantis introduced new lands, quests and items, but its major selling point was that this was an expansion for higher level players, and as such offered rewards for those hardcore aficionados. Atlantis included 10 extensive multi-group quests called "master levels." Each ML would grant the player who successfully completed it a certain power. The problem is that the MLs took a great amount of time and effort, which many DAoC players did not wish to invest.

Not that it was/is easy to get to level 50 (the ultimate character level in DAoC), but once a player got there, he had "arrived" and was able to go toe to toe with all other high level players. The master levels gave an unfair advantage to those who had the time and desire to gather up large raid groups and spend several hours pursuing a single goal. Therefore, regular players found themselves behind those who had put in all the time.

The other benefit of ToA was artifacts. These were high level items that were rather difficult to obtain. Once obtained, the user then had to find 3 scrolls that dropped off certain mobs to activate it. This introduced camping into DAoC...something from which the game had remained relatively free. Suddenly players found themselves in turf battles with their own realmmates. Even after the artifact was activated, the owner still had to fight certain monsters to level it. Only then was the artifact useful. Artifacts leveled slowly and each artifact required different opponents, so time spent leveling one artifact did little for another. Frustration mounted.

Mythic heard the cries of its players and went to work on Atlantis. MLs were made easier and less time consuming and artifacts became less difficult to obtain and level. Still, the basic premise of the expansion as it fit within the framework of DAoC was flawed.

Mythic recently brought up a few non-ToA servers and they have quickly become the most popular shards out there. ToA has effectively been neutralized for new players on some other servers as their average populations have dropped to a point that gathering a large ML raid force is a difficult proposition at best, thus throwing the balance off even further as it will be considerably tougher for those without MLs and artifacts to obtain them. There are stories of once strong guilds almost folding as the lion's share of their memberships relocated to the new servers. It would not be a complete surprise to see Mythic convert more servers to this model, leaving ToA servers as the niche product.

So why three stars? Because ToA is a great expansion. In another game, it would have been hailed along the lines of EverQuest's Scars of Velious. Instead, it had a negative effect on the aspect of DAoC that makes the game so appealing, and therein lay its problem. Some of my most enjoyable times in DAoC were spent in the lands of Atlantis. I achieved ML5 and owned multiple artifacts. The expansion was fun, but only for a limited number of players. I think Mythic was probably stunned to see the reaction to ToA, both negative and positive (when the non-ToA servers became so popular). The expansion is a good one, but it is not wildly popular and, at this stage in the life of the game, is almost irrelevant.

If you are a newcomer to DAoC, you will likely have ToA included in your purchase. If not, it is the one expansion to skip, given a choice. Shrouded Isles and Catacombs have been huge successes and are essential to the experience, but ToA is an unfortunate stepchild in the DAoC family. Buy it if you want the hardcore camping and grinding experience and make certain you join a highly populated server. Otherwise, you'll find it is a waste of time and money.

Now available for free download [Posted on 2006-07-12]
Don't get me wrong, DaoC is a great game and I have two accounts and 14 toons to attest to this fact. The good news, at least for those just entering the game, is that you'll have an easy time immersing yourself in the game, at all levels. The bad, for long-term gamers, is that Mythic has made all of those levels, Master Levels and achievements that took you months and months of work MUCH easier for noobs to achieve, without actually giving you anything in return (you DO get the nice title of "Elder" if you've player for four years or more). Given the ridiculously exaggerated prices for artifacts and scrolls achieved through Atlantis (now available for free download along with the basic DaoC software and Shrouded Isles expansion at Mythic's site), Mythic has made scroll drops vastly easier, and dramatically increased the cost of repairing artifacts (in addition to adding Epic Armor in Catacombs that comes close to approximating artifact quality, and which anyone can, and almost has to, get as part of general class quests).

It's genuinely sad that Mythic, rather than responding to its long time, loyal customer base, has chosen to pander the game to potential new subscribers. It wouldn't be such an issue if something were done to balance this, like giving long-time players some advantages in crafting (getting an LGM "has never been easier"), or benefits for toons leveled prior to the Task Dungeons of Catacombs (where "leveling has never been easier"). Sadly, this is not the case, and new subscribers continue to join, which is, in some ways, great news. What should concern them, however, is one day they'll be veterans, like the rest of us, and will find out first hand how deaf Mythic can be to that group.

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