The Worlds/Graphics Engine/Sound

The first thing that struck me when I entered the game was the sheer size and detail of the world. I was standing in the centre of a small village, with dozens of other players and NPC milling around, doing errands etc. I looked around... Beautiful rolling hills, a castle nearby, and a gorgeous animated sky. And the world was populated! One thing that always bothers me about video games is that the world doesn't tend to be populated.... No wild life, no grass or rocks, no fallen trees in the woods. Just flat, textured land and hills. No problems with lack of detail here! There's wildlife all over the place! (To kill, mostly. :) There's grass, trees and details galore.

I was most impressed, and easily got lost in it all. Actually, I really got lost. Badly. Each of the realms is BIG. VERY big. I've never played a MMPORPG before, so I misplaced my ass pretty quickly. There initially was no compass, you had to type /d in your chat console to find out which way you were facing, and it could get quite confusing for n00bs like me. One of the recent patches added an on-screen compass, thank the gods.

There are also some good new online maps that players have created, as the one that comes with the game isn't very accurate at the best of times and can get you very confused and lost at the worst of times. There are literally dozens upon dozens of small villages, castles, keeps, dungeons and mines scatter throught the realms, so an accurate map, and some practise at getting where you're going are vital if you don't want to waste hours and days wandering around lost. (Like me!)

As I mentioned, the maps are huge, and it's quite a walk to get anywhere worthwhile. Fortunately the game designers added two handly little devices to get you where you're going faster. One of them is called a horse, the other is called a Minstrel. You can buy tickets from merchants in some towns to other towns. Buy your ticket, jump on the horse, and wait out the ride. You can also get a minstrel in your party, he can play that funky music and your entire party runs almost the speed of a horse. It's just great. :)

One of the very nice touches is the weather and day/night cycles. As you can see from the screenshots, the sun rises, moves across the sky and sets. The moon does the same. You also get rainy/snowy periods, which dramatically cut down visibility and just looks really cool. Each realm has it's own look and feel. Albion is rolling hills and grass, Midgard is snowbound and Hibernia is much like Albion. Buildings and cities in each realm are complete unique, and reflect the hertiage of each nation.

Keyboard Controls/Console Commands

The controls in DAOC are a little wierd to get used to for a shooter guy. You use your standard WASD controls to move around, but you need to be able to click around on your HUD as well to perform different functions... Sooooooo.. When you hit a key you toggle between mouse look and mouse pointer on your screen. Your WASD keys will still move you around when you're in selection mode, which is handy in combat. Took me a day or so to get fully comfortable with the controls, but then it was cool. They can also be remapped if you don't like the default placement.

Now we get to something that I don't like. I'm a big time console hater from way back in the Quake days. As far as I'm concerned there should be a menu system for everything. I don't WANT to have to use a console. Why the hell should I have to remember 50 different /commands just because the game developer couldn't come up with a good menu system for them? Not my fault! None the less, I find myself /bowing, /following and /crying alot. It's not too, too bad, as you can type /macro <command> and it gives you a button you can place on your quick launch bar for easy use, and there is a quick reference that gives you most of the commands... But still.

The quick launch bar is excellent, as it allows you to place all of your spells and abilities within easy, one or two click/keys away reach. Your inventory and equiping screen is equally easy to use, just a click away and it's all drag and drop. (You can see the bar in the upper left corner of most of our screenshots.)

Combat/Skills/Magic

Ohhhh.. Eye candy galore here. Every class gets a huge variety of spells and skills, depending on their level and realm. Many of which have very, very pretty effects when used. Everything from shielding, fireball, lightening to healing and summoning spells. You also get a pile of special combat skills (moves) for certain classes. Very, very cool.

Combat is fairly simple, you click on an enemy, hit your combat mode key and attempt to hit him. If he's around your level, or below you should be able to do it... Of course, he'll be hitting back. You cast your spells, use your skills. That's about it.