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Ok, you asked for it, and here it is, the DAoC FAQ, it just got overhauled recently, so it's a little more up to date than it was before, enjoy.

What is Dark Age of Camelot?

Dark Age of Camelot is a massively multi-player online role-playing game conceived and developed by Mythic Entertainment. Set in the Kingdom of Albion in the years immediately following the death of King Arthur, players of the game enter a world in chaos, where Arthur’s peace has been shattered and dark forces threaten the Kingdom. Unlike traditional role-playing games in which a player’s greatest challenge is fighting computer-controlled monsters, players in Camelot will come face-to-face with their greatest challenge yet, other players. In Camelot, players must choose to be members of one of the three Realms that are striving for mastery in this chaotic world: The Britons, the Celts, or the Norse. The Britons are the former kingdom of Albion, once ruled by the great King Arthur. The Celts are from the wild and magical western island of Hibernia. The Norse are the large barbarians from the lands to the north of Albion.

Building upon the foundation laid by such great games as EverQuest, Asheron’s Call, and Ultima Online, the game features 3D-accelerated graphics with movable camera, multiple class and race combinations, and has built in and balanced team Player vs. Player (PvP). Unlike its predecessors, in Camelot, PvP conflict is an integral part of a player’s experience in the world, not an afterthought.

The game is slated to be complete by Fall 2001. The game’s beta program has been under way since September 2000. Currently we are in the third phase of beta testing.

Mythic Entertainment is the most prolific and one of the most successful online gaming developers in the industry today. With eleven online games to its credit, Mythic has been a major part of all of its distribution and publishing partners pay-for-play games including AOL, the Centropolis Gaming Center, Gamestorm and ENGAGE. Our titles include some of the most popular online-only games of all time including Spellbinder: The Nexus Conflict, Aliens Online, Starship Troopers: Battlespace, Silent Death Online, Rolemaster: Magestorm, Darkness Falls, Darkness Falls: The Crusade, Splatterball, Godzilla Online, and Dragon’s Gate.

Mythic has more experience in developing and running multi-user online role-playing games than most of its competitors. Dragon’s Gate is one of the longest running online RPGs out there, having just hit its 12th anniversary and is still going strong on America Online. Mythic also has the successful Darkness Falls RPGs, which are available on America Online, Centropolis Gaming Center and Gamestorm.

In order to make a great game, we’ve delved into many different Arthurian traditions, and have come up with a good mix of romantic Arthurian myths, pre-Christian Welsh legends and high fantasy. First and foremost, Camelot will be a fun game, and we will never let a strict adherence to any of the legends get in the way of that. That being said, any fan of the King Arthur legends will feel right at home playing on the side of the Britons.

Of course, only the Realm of Albion is based on the Arthurian legends – the Realms of Midgard and Hibernia are based on Norse Eddas and Irish Celtic myths, respectively.

Camelot uses a 3D graphics proprietary engine developed by Mythic which is built upon the NetImmerse engine from NDL Inc – the same API that Mythic used to develop Spellbinder: the Nexus Conflict. It features 3D accelerated graphics, detachable camera, first and third person views, and all the visual splendor you would expect from any other large graphical multi-user online game.

Camelot has an immediately identifiable background that will be familiar to anyone with even the most cursory knowledge of mythical history. The Arthurian legends, the Norse Sagas, and to a lesser extent, Celtic folklore, are all represented in the game. The gods in the game will come from the pages of well-known mythology – gods like Odin and Thor, heroes like Cuchulain, Lancelot, and Galahad will all be part of the game’s background (and maybe foreground!).

Camelot also has a built in PvP system, which strongly guides the player into conflict against members of opposing Realms. The PvP system has been strongly thought out and is an integral part of the game itself, unlike the other large commercial online RPGs. Instead of having every player be able to fight any other player, as in Ultima Online, in Camelot, PvP is team based, where you can only fight characters in opposing Realms. This will encourage teamwork and cooperation among the members of a Realm as they must band together to fend off attacks, raids, etc. from the other Realms.

At high levels, where other games tend to grow stale, players in Dark Age of Camelot can participate in PvP struggles, territorial conquest, and protecting their Realm's Relics (objects of power) from enemy invasion, as well as attempting to pilfer enemy Relics themselves.

The Realms in Dark Age of Camelot are Albion, home of the Britons, the Celtic land of Hibernia, and the Norse Midgard. Players will be able to play characters in each of the Realms – each Realm’s characters will specialize in different types of magic, different fighting techniques, and of course each will have geographically typical terrain. Midgard is full of fjords, ice, and pine forests; Albion has gently rolling hills and Roman ruins; and Hibernia is a wild land of deep forests, enchanted hills and magical beasts.

Each Realm is the possessor of a number of ancient magical Relics, which give bonuses to all members of that Realm – when the Relics are safely in their shrine. However, Relics can be stolen away by enemy raiding parties and taken to their shrines, making the raiding party’s Realm stronger. When safely in shrine, Relics give moderate attack and damage bonuses to fighting races, and magical spellcasting bonuses to spellcasters. Any Realm that does not have its Relics fights at a disadvantage.

Relics must be protected at all costs from theft – this concept forms the core of the PvP conflict in Camelot. Relics come in all shapes and sizes and are based on each Realm’s history and legends. Some of the ongoing quests in Camelot will be centered around discovering many lost Relics.

PvP is shorthand for "Player vs. Player". Some online RPGs do not allow player vs. player combat at all; instead characters fight with NPC monsters – this is the model that EverQuest follows, with the exception of a few EQ PvP servers. Others, like Ultima Online, allow everyone to fight everyone else, which can sometimes be chaotic. Camelot will be team-based PvP (based on Realm), where characters will be able to rise up to medium level without having to worry about being marauded by high-level enemies. As the players grow in stature, they will be expected to protect their realm from enemy incursions, as well as occasionally go on raiding parties against other Realms.

In order to allow new players some time to gain experience in the game, each Realm will have its own unique protected adventuring areas that are designed for new players. These areas will allow the new player an opportunity to gain experience without worrying at all about an invasion from across the seas.

Player levels will be based on experience vs. monsters, not vs. other players. At higher levels, players will have to adventure out into regions between the realms, which could bring them into conflict with enemies, but not necessarily so. The true PvP comes into play when actively going out on raids, or protecting your Relics from enemy invasions.

Each player accumulates "Realm Points" while either defending their Realm against enemy invasions or going out on raiding parties. As the player gains Realm Points, they gain special titles, objects, and status. For example, a player with a high number of Realm Points will be able to use a horse; a player of the same level who has not participated in PvP will not. The game will not force players into PvP, but if you choose to do so, you will become more powerful.

An unfortunate situation has arisen in several currently-available online games where some game players go out of their way to ruin the gaming experience for other players by killing them repeatedly, “stealing” their monster kills, and generally making an nuisance of themselves. Camelot has several built-in methods for discouraging this behavior.

The main protection against grief players is that, in Dark Age of Camelot, you may attack only members of opposite Realms. Also you cannot communicate with players of enemy realms – there will be no chatting allowed with enemies – this is done to heighten the “foreigness” of enemy players. In fact, the game makes enemy players seem as much like NPCs as possible.

You will not be able to fight characters from your own Realm, in any normal playing sense. However, we will probably have a dueling system in, or at least special arena areas where you can go to practice PvP with friends. This way, you’ll at least have the chance to get accustomed to player versus player combat before you get involved in Realm PvP.

Yes. In fact Camelot is based in many ways on Mythic’s text online RPG Darkness Falls: The Crusade. This game has a three-Realm conflict based in an original fantasy setting. Camelot will use the lessons learned from this game, in creating a balanced PvP system. While DFC is not a graphical game, it contains all the non-visual elements that will exist in Camelot: an extensive guild system, character classes, races, and a huge database of objects and monsters that are already fully tested and balanced. The PvP system in DFC is well-rounded and although not perfect, is a good jumping off point for Camelot. It is because we are able to use most of DFC’s underlying database structure, we can cut the development time to the short 18 months that we envision.

Camelot’s class system is based on Guilds. In much the same manner as Darkness Falls: The Crusade, players in Camelot start out as a base class, which is dependent on Realm, but usually includes Fighter, Acolyte, Rogue, and Mage. At 5^th level all characters choose their career path by joining a guild. Their choice of guild determines what skills they get. Usually more than one base class can join each guild, resulting in several character types per guild. For example, an Albion Fighter can join the Guild of Shadows to become a Mercenary. A Rogue can join the same guild to become an Infiltrator.

Of course there will be player-created Associations as well, which will let same-realm characters band together and form their own organizations.

The Camelot development tools include a proprietary monster scripting engine that will make is possible for the world developers to make monsters that act in an intelligent way. They can truly interact with the players, have conversations, exchange objects, make deals and generally act in any way as conceived of by the world developer.

Huge. There are many zones for each Realm, which allows the player to gain levels and adventure without running into many (if any) player-character enemies. Then there are middle zones, which link the Realms together, where you may encounter enemy players.

The zones will be taken as much as possible from the maps of Scandinavia, Wales/England, and Ireland. The English zones will have Roman ruins, stone circles, and deep dark forests. The Norse zones will be full of ice and pine forests, tundra, and taiga. The Irish zones will have rolling hills, magical creatures and places, and a distinctly Celtic feel.

Dark Age of Camelot features a unique world architecture that almost completely removes the need for players to "zone" between game areas. The system has "Regions" that are made up of huge areas of the game -- inside which players will not have to wait to zone, as in other online RPGs. Instead, the player moves inside a "bubble" that keeps track of all monsters and other characters near the player. As the player moves around, the bubble continually refreshes itself by loading in new objects, monsters, and players that come in contact with the edges of the bubble. In essence, it is like playing EverQuest and being able to see and move across zone borders into other zones.

To give an idea of the size of the Regions, each Realm's territory consists of one region, allowing players to adventure inside their home territory and frontier regions without ever zoning (unless they are entering a dungeon or city).

Each Realm’s territory consists of a "home area" and a "frontier area". The home area is where low to mid level characters will cooperatively group and fight to gain levels. The frontier region consists of tougher high level areas where players go on high level quests and to engage in PvP combat against players from other Realms.

Camelot will support some sort of housing for characters, although these will be pre-built structures. Player Associations will also be able to rent structures and rooms.

In the game you will have the basic "say" commands and group chat commands that let you talk to all within a certain radius. Added to that will be the ability to send messages to single players who are currently online and who are members of your Realm. This ability may be tied to gameplay (i.e. via spells or objects).

Due to the competitive nature of the game, we will not allow inter-Realm communication in Camelot. The other realms are your enemies, so there will be no need to talk to them. We’ve learned from our other PvP games that if you allow players to communicate with players from other sides, cheating will certainly follow.

You will be able to have seven characters per server, but all must be of one Realm. If you want to play characters from another Realm, you must create them on another server. This will cut down on players entering the game on one side to see what’s going on, then logging in as a character in another Realm to tell everyone what’s happening in the enemy camp.

Somewhere between 2000 and 3000 per world, with as many world shards as demand warrants. Each shard will be a completely separate world. 

We have a lot of good ideas to make quests non-repetitive and so each player that does a quest will have a different experience. In most online RPGs, quest consist of going from step 1 to step 2 – talk to the NPC, find an object, give it to him, he gives you a note with more instructions on it, etc. These usually end up with a lot of high-level characters "camping" the same area waiting for a specific NPC to spawn so that they can kill it/talk to it/etc. This can often be frustrating to the players, especially if the NPC only spawns once every couple of hours.

Camelot will alleviate these issues in many different ways, by included an extensive questing engine. First, the steps in the quest will be randomly generated, so two players going on a quest for the same item will probably not do the same steps, and definitely not in the same order. Second, players on quests will have to fulfill earlier parts of the quest in order to get quest items off of NPCs. For example, if a player has to say a certain phrase to an NPC to get an item, the NPC will not respond even to the correct phrase if the player has not done the previous steps on the quest.

Camelot will also have a special Questing Journal that lists the quests that the player has accepted, and shows the steps that need to be taken, as well as the steps that the player has done already. This will alleviate the need for tedious note taking and the "what do I do with this piece of pottery" that happens on other games.

Realm of Albion

Albion is the realm of the Humans, and as such, there are a wide range of classes that each race can play. They have a good solid mix of fighters, clerics, and magic casters.

Britain
Common man of Albion

Highlander
Big and strong, hailing from the mountains of Wales and Scotland

Avalonian
Tall, thin, and intelligent, come from the mystical city of Avalon

Saracen
Descendents of Palomides, a Saracen Knight, are dusky-colored peoples from the deserts.

Realm of Midgard

The Norse inhabitants of Midgard are hardy mix of human and creature, but all are rough, tough, and love battle. As such, the Norse are the best fighters, but have the weakest magic, which is mostly limited to the priests of their different gods.

Human
Common man of Midgard

Dwarf
Wise short stocky creature hailing from the underground caverns of Midgard

Troll
Huge, slow, strong creature

Kobold
Mischievous, quick dexterous small creature

Realm of Hibernia

The inhabitants of Hibernia, the island to the west of Albion is a kingdom ruled by the elves. In their conquest, the elves have bred several races to help them with their ongoing struggles with the other Realms. The Hibernians are the strongest magicians of the three Realms, but generally have weaker fighting skills. Almost all their classes have at least some magic casting ability.

Elf
A tall thin beautiful humanoid creature, with haunting magical eyes, who specializes in all forms of magical casting.

Human
Standard Celtic human.

Firbolg
Creating by breeding humans with giants, the Firbolg are larger than humans, are strong, hardy, and make great fighters.

Lurikeen
Small dexterous magical casters, the Lurikeen are similar to the Elves, but are much smaller and more hardy.

What are different classes I can play?

Each of Dark Age of Camelot's Realms has unique classes for the player to choose from. These classes are different in each Realm -- there are very few directly comparable classes across the Realms. This gives each Realm a different "feel" and will make each Realm slightly different in Player vs. Player combat.

For a complete list of Races and classes per Realm, see the Classes page on the official Dark Age of Camelot web site.

How will my character look different from everyone else?

During character creation, you can choose hair colors (from many available depending on your character’s race), your character’s size (small, medium, or large), 10 faces per character, and, of course, your character’s race and sex.

Additionally, in game you will be able to choose from a large range of visually distinct armor – and each piece of armor can be dyed or enameled a wide range of colors based on the player’s taste.

What will armed combat be like?

One of the biggest problems with other online RPGs is that a magic-using character is fun and exciting to play, but an Arms-wielding fighter usually has only a few options to keep combat fun and interesting. Camelot, however, will feature "combat styles", which are unique fighting moves that must be learned by fighting characters in much the same way that a spell casters has to learn new spells.

Combat styles are initiated based what is happening in the fight. For example, a style could be performed when you parry an attack, or when your attacker misses you. Some higher-level styles are based on previous styles – i.e. you cannot perform them unless you have performed a lower level one. The highest level styles are “chained” – they require that you have performed two other styles in succession. When a high-level “chained” style hits, it will result in massive damage.

By studying the fighting styles of monsters and other players, fighters will find that some styles work better in some situations than in others. Fighting classes will be able to learn new styles by going on quests, by advancing in their guild, or by gaining levels.

Primary-fighting characters can expect to learn about 20 styles during their career, including several that “chain” to others. Each style will have a special animation and weapon effect graphics so that everyone watching will know that a style has been performed.

Are their magical weapons, armor, or other items?

Yes, there are several different types of magical items available to players. These items are almost never found in stores; instead they are found on monsters, quested for, or in some cases crafted by other players.

The most basic type of magic type is a magical “bonus” that simply makes weapons easier to hit with and armors harder to hit.. This is described by an adjective denoting the level of magical bonus (bright, shining, glowing, brilliant, etc.). If you see a suit of “bright iron chainmail armor” you’ll know instantly that it has a basic magical bonus on it making it a little more difficult to hit than a regular suit of iron chain.

Another type of magical item gives bonuses to player statistics (i.e. strength, constitution, intelligence, etc.). These items are also found on quests or from monsters. As players advance in level, they should accumulate as many of these items that effect their primary stats as possible. These items can also increase player hits and power (magic) points.

Other items can also increase player skills such as hiding, evading, dual-wielding, and any of the other dozens of skills that are supported in the game.

Spell-casters can quest for special “focus” items that make their particular type of spellcasting more power. For example, Wizards can specialize in the elements of fire or ice, and can quest for a focus item (a fiery pendant or frost ring) that gives them more skill in that element type. Each type of spellcaster has skills directly relating to his spell ability, and thus can find items to increase that ability.

How do Spellcasters get spells?

There are many different types of spellcasting and spellcasters in Dark Age of Camelot. Primary spellcasters such as Wizards and Sorcerers (in the Realm of Albion) learn spells as they advance in level. Each class has several different types (or “lines”) of spells that they receive. For example the Wizard of Albion receives four lines of spells based on the elements of fire, ice, air, and earth. All spellcasters can then specialize in one of their lines, making them more powerful at casting that particular line of spells. A spellcaster that has a high specialization in a particular line of spells is often invited by his guild to go on special quests for items relating to that specialization: robes, wands, and other focus items, as well as the ability to get new spells in that line that only specialists can receive. This makes a Wizard who specializes in fire different from another Wizard that specializes in ice.

Will Spellcasters get pets?

Yes. Each Realm will have at least two spellcasters that can utilize summoned or enchanted creatures to aid them as they adventure.

Additionally, a number of other casters (and semi-casters) per Realm also get the ability to charm, mesmerize, and otherwise control NPC monsters they find wandering about.

What happens when your character dies?

Death systems in online RPG games are often maligned, criticized, scorned, and outright hated. However, they fulfill a critical aspect of games that is almost always overlooked by the player: having something bad happen when your character dies imparts a sense of tension and excitement. There is simply no excitement in adventuring through a world where loss of life is meaningless – a game with no or little penalty for death will soon be fully explored, and become boring.

In Camelot, we will balance the good of excitement and tension with the bad of having a death penalty. There is no death penalty for characters under 6^th level. When your character dies, over 5^th level, no equipment will be lost – but he will lose experience and a small number of constitution points. Even with the exp loss, your character will never “lose” a level based on the death exp loss – instead he will just remain at the beginning of the current level.

To mitigate the experience point loss, when a player dies, a gravestone is erected at the death spot. When the player goes back and prays at this marker, half of the experience that was lost will be returned. Also the first death the player has (per level) will be at half experience point loss.

If a dead player is resurrected by a PC Cleric, Priest, or Druid, he will lose half the normal amount of exp point loss, and will not lose any constitution points. Constitution points can be bought back from NPC healers.

Where are the Knights?

The initial design of the game called for a Knight class in the Albion Realm. The observant follower of Dark Age of Camelot has noticed that the class/guild list for the game no longer lists Knight as a playable class. The reasons for this are many, but essentially, we decided to reserve the title of Knight for players that have a large number of Realm Points – i.e. they show that they are indispensable to Albion. So, in the game if you ever see someone with the title of “Knight”, you can assume they are a Realm leader; someone who has done many brave deeds in the defense of Albion.

We may extend this to have different high-level Realm titles for the different classes, so that Wizards and Sorcerers would be called “Archmage”, Paladins and Armsmen would be “Knights”, etc. We’re still working on that concept.

What Can You Do To Gain Levels Besides Fight Monsters?

We realize that players don't always want to kill monsters to advance in levels -- Dark Age of Camelot is designed to allow the player to attain from 30-50% of the experience required to level from quests. Some monster hunting will always be required, but through judicious use of quests, players can greatly enhance their playing experience by going on quests.

In order to facilitate gaining experience through quests, Camelot  an "auto quest" generator, where a player can go up to an NPC and ask it if it has any "tasks" for them to do. The NPC can then randomly create either a "carry task", where the player takes an object to another NPC, or a "kill task" where the player has to go and kill a certain number and type of monsters as dictated by the NPC. These tasks are automatically generated based on the player's level, so they will always be level-appropriate.