This guide is intended to serve as a jumping off point for people who are unfamiliar with Dark Age of Camelot (“DAoC”) and want to try it out. Being an older MMO, DAoC can be quite intimidating to start up as a new player. The systems can be poorly explained, the community insular and gameplay unintuitive, but fret not! I, Varnarok, am here to place my hands on your hips and guide you…

Part 1: The Scope of This Guide

This will be a very surface level guide, so as to not confuse or overwhelm any readers. Essentially, in this guide I will do my best to help you enjoy your journey to max level.

The guide will assume you want to play on the Eden fan-project server but the grand majority of things will be applicable across all three. Additionally there will be minor elements pertaining to both Live and Blackthorn specifically.

Part 2: Installation

Each server has pretty detailed and straight-forward installations so not much that needs to be said.

Do not install the game to your Program Files or Program Files (x86) folders. Anywhere else is fine.

Troubleshooting tips and tricks can be found below.

Part 3: Choosing your versions

There are currently three vastly distinct ways to play Dark Age of Camelot. Live (official), Eden (fan-project) and Blackthorn (fan-project)

[SERVER OVERVIEW]

Live: Comes with all the ups and downs that the game has experienced through the decades.

Eden: The older of the two fan-projects. I would describe Eden as being what it would be like to have an alternate timeline in which the developers of Dark Age of Camelot saw the writing on the wall when the game was at its lowest point and World of Warcraft was busy taking the captive audiences of all other MMOs. On Eden, you will get to experience most of (but not all... yet) the content that Live offers but vastly tweaked, as well as a ton of custom quality-of-life changes and even completely new content, such as high end instanced group content.

Blackthorn: Currently still in open beta (expected release sometime in November 2026), Blackthorn is designed to be a “Classic+” / enhanced version of the base game, without the additions of things past those of the first expansion (excluding the zones), save the reworked keeps from the New Frontiers update. A big selling point for Blackthorn is it will utilize the Old Frontiers maps but with the old, cramped keeps replaced by those of the New Frontiers update. It also features a slower levelling experience where the average player should expect to take between 40 and 60 hours to reach the maximum level through normal group play.

EDEN:

Windows: https://eden-daoc.net/how-to-play/

Linux: https://lutris.net/games/dark-age-of-camelot/

Steam Deck: https://eden-daoc.net/viewtopic.php?t=576

Mac: https://eden-daoc.net/viewtopic.php?p=12923&hilit=Mac#p12923

BLACKTHORN:

Windows & Linux: https://blackthorn-daoc.com/download

LIVE:

Windows: https://www.darkageofcamelot.com/play-now/

Installation troubleshooting:

Live:

Eden:

• Issue: I am suddenly unable to connect to Eden after previously being able to
• Solution: Navigate to AppData/Local/Eden_DAoC and delete any folder with “StrongName” in its name

Blackthorn:

• Issue: Launcher throws up “Error invoking remote method ‘blackthorn:invoke’: Error could not refresh the CEF host access token
• Solution: Your anti-virus program (probably McAfee) is the cause. You might need to switch/uninstall it if you cannot add Blackthorn to safe files.

Part 4: Choosing a Realm

After finishing your installation and successfully logging into the game, you will immediately be prompted to select your realm. Dark Age of Camelot is a Realm vs. Realm game, with no cross-realm systems that allows for jumping between the realms on the same character. You are allowed to have different characters on several realms at once, however you can be temporarily locked into a single realm for 2 hours at time if you participate in RvR/PvP.

As a new player starting out however, you don’t need to worry too much about that right now. For now, just focus on which realm you think you will enjoy playing on the most. If you have friends who already play on a certain realm, that will probably be your first choice. All classes on each realm are viable, so your choice mostly comes down to aesthetics unless you are looking for a specific play-style.

Albion: The realm of the recently deceased King Arthur. A land of chivalrous knights in shining plate armour, pious clerics and scholarly wizards. Albion is inhabited by Britons, Highlanders, Saracen, Avalonians, Inconnu, Half-Ogres and Inconnu. It is land of varied landscapes, from vast plains and rolling hills to rugged mountains and even the sunken mythical land of Lyonnesse. Albion is not only varied in its landscapes but also its classes.

Hibernia: Hibernia is a land dominated by lush green plains and ancient forests. A mystical land teeming with magical energy, where the veil between the material realm and the mythical otherworld is thinnest. Hibernia is inhabited by Celts, Firbolgs, Lurikeens, Elves, Sylvan and Shar. Hibernia is where the most powerful magicians in all of the three realms make their home and where even warriors are capable of calling upon magic in their time of need.

Midgard: A cold and rugged land where the mists are thick and forests crawling with danger, and only the strongest survive to feast at winter’s end. Midgard is inhabited by the Norsemen, Dwarves, Trolls, Kobolds, Valkyn and Frostalfar. Midgard is home to the strongest fighters in all the realms, where even the healers are armed with great-axes and war hammers.

Each realm and their inhabitants have individual pages for you to click on, should you desire more information. If you are still unsure which realm to pick, the next section will help you decide on a class to play.

[REALM PROFILES]

[RACE PROFILES]

Part 5: Choosing a Class

Before getting into detailed parts of each class, I will point out some things which make each realm unique compared to the others.

Albion: The realm with access to the highest level of armour: Plate. This makes Albion the most realm with the highest defensive capabilities.

Hibernia: Due to their enhanced magical nature, Hibernia’s 3 original magic users (Eldritch, Enchanter and Mentalist) all have access to a 9 second stun as part of their base spell lines, meaning they do not need to train any specific skills to have access to one of the strongest crowd control spells in the game.

Midgard: Where Hibernia is the premier magical realm, Midgard is the premier martial realm where every class capable of wielding a melee weapon can automatically wield both one-handed and two-handed versions of that weapon. On both Albion and Hibernia, using two-handed weapons would require investing additional skill points into both using both using two-handed weapons (Two-Handed on Albion and Large Weapons on Hibernia) and that weapon’s damage type, for instance Slash when using a two-handed sword on Albion, etc.

In the following section, you can click on each class’ name to be transported to that class’ profile page for even greater detail. Note that Maulers are currently only available on Live.

Here is a general breakdown of which role each class fills, note that each class has several skill lines to specialize into, changing their capabilities and play-style. Therefore you should not consider these as each class’ definitive classification:

Primary tanks: Armsman, Hero, Warrior

When trained in one-handed weapons and shield, these classes make up the staunchest front-line of every RvR combat encounter. They are all capable of also specializing into a damage dealing role, with Midgard’s Warrior having the easiest time swapping between these two roles, since simply specializing in any weapon also grants Midgard’s Warriors the ability to use two-handed weapons of the same type. Armsmen will sport the heaviest armour in the game with Plate Armour and Heroes will be able to temporarily increase their survivability by morphing into a human-elk hybrid which grants additional health.

Hybrid tanks: Paladin, Champion, Thane, Valkyrie

These classes have access to a variety of magical abilities while still being able to remain staunch front-liners. Paladins and Valkyries both have the ability to resurrect dead allies. Paladins can also provide group wide pulsing buffs. Champions have access to several de-buffing spells, as well as a single-target damage dealing spell. Thanes are hybrid primary spellcasters and melee fighters, capable of continuously casting single-target and area-of-effect damage spells. Thanes and Champions are also capable of limited self-buffing. Valkyrie are a combination of melee fighter and secondary healer, with some de-buffing capability, able to continuously cast healing spells in between combat encounters or during sieges.

Melee DPS/Light tanks: Mercenary, Reaver, Blademaster, Vampiir, Berserker, Savage, Valewalker, Skald, Minstrel

The most varied and hardest to classify group of classes. These classes vary from traditional martial DPS (Mercenary, Blademaster, Berserker) to hybrid martial/magical (Reaver, Vampiir, Valewalker) to support (Skald and Minstrel)

Mercenary, Blademaster and Berserker have very limited access to magical abilities in the form of a single class defining ability. Mercenaries have access to Pocket Sand Dirty Tricks, which throws sand in a combatant’s eyes, reducing their chance to hit with melee attacks. Blademasters can summon a third magical blade which supports your attacks. Berserkers can, as the name implies, go berserker, transforming into a human-bear hybrid which causes every melee attack to automatically become a critical hit.

Reaver, Vampiir and Valewalker have access to a variety of magical spells, both offensive and defensive. Reavers primarily deal with a variety of life draining and anti-caster de-buffs and crowd controls. Valewalkers are more all-around capable in terms of buffing and de-buffs, bringing an attack speed buff, armour absorption buff, damage-over-time and disease de-buffs. Vampiir have access to the largest spectrum of de-buffs, depending on which skill line you choose to specialize in. This includes movement speed, attack speed, heal-over-time, stealth detection, parry chance buff, evade chance buff, resistance de-buff, direct damage spells and much more. Vampiir are unique as well in the fact that they are casters but start combat encounters with zero mana, only gaining mana through confirming melee attacks.

Minstrels are a support class with access to stealth. They perform group-wide songs that provide the highest level of movement speed buff, increase power and health regeneration, provide water breathing, crowd control and more. They are also capable of charming enemy NPCs to serve as temporary pets.

Skalds, like Minstrels, also provide group-wide songs however unlike Minstrels (and Bards which will be covered later) Skalds do not require wielding a musical instrument to play songs, using instead their voice to recount the sagas. Skalds do not have the same crowd control capabilities as Minstrels or Bards, having only a single-target slow and mesmerize spell. Skalds, Minstrels and Bards all have access to instant direct damage magical attacks in addition to their combat styles.

Primary healers: Cleric, Druid, Healer

These classes are the most powerful healers on each realm, with Cleric and Druid also able to provide strong buffs and Healers able to provide the highest level of Crowd Control in the game. Clerics can specialize in Smiting to receive strong damage dealing spells. Druids can specialize in Nature for some de-buffing capabilities and a pet. Healers have the ability to provide themselves with strong self-buffs however their primary roles will be healing and crowd controlling.

Secondary healers: Friar, Bard, Warden, Shaman

These classes are capable healers but are not considered strong enough to heal by themselves and have other features to compensate for their healing capabilities. Friars are capable melee combatants able to deal decent damage and have high survivability due to their strong self-buffs and high evade chance. They are also one of the best PvE farming classes in the game. Bards can, in addition to their basic buffs, provide the same group-wide buffs that Minstrels and Skalds can. Bards are crowd control powerhouses. Wardens are capable off-tanks when required, thanks to their ability to specialize in the Shield skill line which gives them easy access to stuns and slows, allowing them to help peel enemies off their casters and healers. Shamans compensate their lowered healing capabilities by being able to give additional buffs, including concentrated (meaning it doesn’t run out after a set amount of minutes) endurance regeneration. Shamans can also specialize in the Cave skill line, giving them access to damage dealing spells and area-of-effect diseases.

Assassins: Infiltrator, Nightshade, Shadowblade

If you enjoy playing solo, creeping around the frontiers while invisible and picking off unsuspecting victims, then assassins (and Archers) are the classes for you. All 3 get access to specialized Critical Strikes which deal the highest damage in the game (combine this with Midgard’s Shadowblades’ ability to wield two-handed weapons and enemy casters will be dead before you even leave stealth). They also gain access to debilitating poisons, that can damage, de-buff or otherwise impair enemies.

Infiltrators gain the highest amount of skill points to spend in the game and, along with Nightshades, require the most to perform well. What Nightshade lacks in extra skill points however, they make up for in being able to use a bit of magic in the form of cast and instant direct damage, damage-over-time and a damage reflecting shield. Shadowblades, as previously mentioned, get to backstab people with two-handed swords and axes, should they so desire.

The major downside of these classes is that you don’t bring much to the table with regards to group-play, so unless you running with the zerg, don’t expect too many group invites. There are of course dedicated stealth groups, so you’ll be grouping with your fellows most of the time.

Archer: Scout, Ranger, Hunter

Where the assassins prefer getting up close and personal, these classes prefer to stay at range. Not that they are entirely incapable of handling with any threats that should happen to survive their barrage of arrows. Scouts get the ability to specialize into Shields, which greatly increases their survivability when engaging in melee combat since they don’t have to rely entirely on evading enemy attacks. Rangers get the ability to dual wield weapons, which increases their chances of hitting enemies wielding shields compared to their one- and two-handed weapon wielding counterparts. Hunters have the ability to either summon a wolf pet or charm a variety of animal types found around the world.

Pet casters: Cabalist, Theurgist, Enchanter, Animist, Spiritmaster, Necromancer

While pet(s) are what mostly define these classes, that does not mean they are not capable damage dealers in their own right.

Speaking firstly of the pets, Cabalists summon Simulacrums which offer a variety of benefits depending on the type. Amber Simulacrums can stun enemies on hit, Ruby Simulacrums are casters which deal fire damage, Sapphire Simulacrums can drain life from the enemy to heal themselves, Emerald Simulacrums can inflict disease upon the enemy and Jade Simulacrums can buff themselves with damage absorbing buffs.

Similar to the Cabalist is the Enchanter, who instead of Simulacrums, summons a variety of Underhill pets. The Underhill Friend can cause damage-over-time effects to enemies, the Underhill Companion is a caster which slows enemy movement speed with each damaging spell it casts, the Underhill Ally is a healer, the Underhill Compatriot can buff itself with extra armour and the Underhill Zealot is another caster, this time with higher damage and de-buffing the enemy’s resistance to Heat damage on hit.

Spiritmasters, while able to technically summon 5 different pets like Cabalists and Enchanters, should always summon their highest level pet. This is because, unlike the others, the Spiritmaster pet is not different at each level but merely improves with every increase of the pet summoning spell. At level 1, you have a regular pet. At level 7, you pet can stun enemies. At level 12 your pet can stun enemies and cause extra damage when attacking. At level 20, your pet gains the ability to also drain life from enemies when attacking. Finally, at level 32, your pet gains the ability to cast a Bladeturn effect on itself, causing the next attack against it to miss. This is in addition to the Spiritmaster pet being the only pet able to occasionally intercept an attack meant for its master, as well as block incoming attacks intended for its master, should it be within melee range and wielding a shield.

Animists are unique pet casters in that they can summon both a primary pet, as well as up to 6 temporary fire-and-forget-style turret pets. These turrets will automatically attack or buff any enemy or friendly player that comes within range of its spells. These turrets can either damage, heal or cast damage absorbing effects. Animists are also unique in that their strongest spells, instead of directly causing damage like most other casters, summon wisps which need to physically travel to their target before causing damage. Animists also gain several spells which originate from their primary pet, instead of from them, like a point-blank area-of-effect damaging spell.

Theurgists do not gain a permanent pet, instead summoning a multitude of temporary pets which only attack the target which they were summon upon. These pets can either be casters or two different kinds of melee fighter, one of which trades some damage for the chance to stun the enemy when attacking.

Finally, Necromancers are the most pet centric class in the game, literally living or dying by how well their pet performs. When summoning their undead minions, the necromancer takes on the form of an invulnerable shade. In this form, they can only cast a limited amount of spells directly, with most of their spells being routed through their minion. The limited amount of spells that the necromancer casts as a shade will be “stored” on the enemy target until their minion next hits the same target, causing the spell’s effect trigger.

Primary casters/Nukers: Wizard, Eldritch, Runemaster, Bainshee

These classes are all about raw magical power, mainly in the form of powerful magical bolts. They can be specced for more supporting roles but if you want to get the most out of these classes, you should generally go for the skill line which gives you access to advanced bolts. This is Fire for Wizards, Void for Eldritches, Runecarving for Runemasters and, Spectral Guard or Ethereal Shriek for Bainshees.

Wizards, Eldritches and Bainshees are also capable of being bombers (casters who run into the thick of battle and cast powerful point-blank area-of-effect damage spells).

Other casters who can fill the role of bomber are Enchanters, Spiritmasters and Occultists.

Versatile casters: Heretic, Sorcerer, Mentalist, Warlock, Occultist

These classes are all capable of casting damaging magic with some also being required to fill other roles, while some are able to specialize into other roles, should they so desire.

Occultist is very versatile in that it has 3 incredibly distinct skill lines. Occultists can choose to either be a traditional primary caster, a pet focused caster or a cloth-wearing melee fighter.

Warlocks are also capable of being regular casters with strong bolts, however should they choose to do so, they can also become incredibly strong multi-target healers, with near unlimited power and a “smart” healing spell which automatically spreads its healing energy to the most wounded group members. The limiting factor Warlocks is that most of their spells are so-called “secondary” spells, which are stored in “chambers” and only take effect when casting certain “primary” spells.

Sorcerers are casters who also fill the crowd controller role for Albion. They are also capable of de-buffing enemies, supporting their realm mates and charming enemy NPCs to serve as pets.

Heretics are capable of throwing out emergency healing and resurrection spells, however they are generally expected to perform in a damage dealing capacity. Their damaging spells are exclusively channeled spells, which ramp up in intensity the longer they are channeled. This requires the Heretic to maintain constant line-of-sight to the enemy target.

Mentalists primarily cast damage-over-time spells but have a variety of support spells, including direct heals, healing-over-time, de-buffs and and power regeneration buffs.

By default, the game will use the more modern character models which were introduced in the Catacombs expansion. If you want to use the game’s original character models, you can switch to them in the Options menu of the character select screen. Click the white [Configure Figure Versions…] at the bottom of the Graphics Options menu in the top left and then click the Classic button on the bottom left to change all models to their Classic look. You can mix and match if you so desire with the small round buttons. You can change back to the default modern models by pressing the Catacombs button in the bottom left, next to the Classic button.

When you have chosen a realm and race/class combination you wish to try, click play and enter the game!

Part 6: Setting up your Interface

When you first enter the game, your screen will probably look something like this:

As you can see, it will require a bit of tinkering. The interface used in this free screenshot is “BysanUI,” ADD LINK TO DISCORD the custom interface used as default by Eden. Should you desire to change it, simply log out with /quit (or /q for short), click the Options button in the bottom middle of your character selection screen, then in the new window that opens up, go to Interface on the right and click either button to switch from Custom Skin to Atlantis Skin. I will be using the Atlantis Skin in the rest of this guide for maximum compatibility with people might want to use other custom interface skins. The guide should still be comprehensive enough that you can easily follow along in BysanUI.

If you would like to learn how to install other custom interface, check out this guide: [INTERFACE GUIDE (COMING SOON)]

If you change to the Atlantis skin, your interface will now look like this:

Everything remains largely the same, some windows will have changed and all the textures will be less sleek and modern.

The first thing you can do is close “Tip 1” box in the center of your screen. It is up to you if you wish to un-check the “Show help on startup?” box but I would recommend you keep it checked for now.

You can also (read and then) close the News window by clicking the little X in the top right corner of the window.

Next, you can press Escape to bring up the game’s Main Menu and then press both the Interface Elements and In-Game Options button

First, you should configure the Game Options however you want. I recommend the following settings, from top to bottom:

• Names: Colored
• Sound Settings: Your choice
• Spell Effects: All
• Terrain Clip Plane: Far
• Figure Clip Plane: Far
• Shadows: All
• Snapback: Quick
• Show Facial Morphs: All
• Display names: Uncheck Gravestones, Players and Your Name.
  • This is up to you. Newer players might enjoy having “Players” toggled on to more easily see other human players to make the world feel more active.
• Tooltip Transparency: Off
• Tooltip Delay: None
• Quickbars: One, Two, Three checked
• Width 10
• Height 5
• Oldest First: Checked

Changes do not take effect until you press the OK button. Experiment with these settings until you’re happy with the result. Next we’ll look at the Interface Elements.

In this image I have opened the most relevant windows and put the corresponding text box next to them. Before you do the same, make a notice of the top left corner. If you click and drag in this corner, your entire interface can be resize if you desire it to be larger or smaller to better fit your monitor. Before you start re-sizing the interface, make sure to move every individual element closer to the top left corner, since they can be pushed off-screen when re-sizing, which can cause confusion later due to elements being toggled on/off outside of the screen.

In this screenshot I have increased the UI scale to 1.3 and selected the windows I want to keep, closed the rest and quickly arranged them where I want them (this is just a quick example, I’m not a monster who would actually have wobbly action bars).

You can change the orientation of the action bars by pressing the little plus icon in the top right of the numbered bar selector.

In the bottom right is a compass and performance meter, which you can increase in size by pressing Alt+C and Alt+P respectively.

In the bottom left, I have right-clicked onto the labelled tab of the combat information box to bring up further configuration menus. Here is a list of all the different channels you can activate and deactivate as needed, as well as the different colours you can assign each channel.

Finally, in the top right there is a small bar with six different circular icons. From left to right, these are:

Your character’s statistics.

Not the buttons on the bottom. Buttons will appear on several of these tabs.

• Social brings up the Social Window showing Guild and Alliance information
• Mount will show you a window to equip your future mounts
• Pray is used to pray at your gravestone after you die in order to regain a small amount of the experience you lost upon death
• Command brings up the same Command window from the 4th picture in this section of the guide
• Options brings up the Game Options window from the 4th picture in this section of the guide
• Bind is used in towns near the large Bind Stones in order to set your re-spawn location when you’ve died and click the release button (or type /release)

Your character’s inventory.

Your character’s skill lines, extra abilities such as Sprint (and Quick Cast if you’re a spell-caster), and finally your character’s trade skill levels.

Your character’s melee combat styles.

• The Quiver button brings up your quiver wherein you can store arrows
  • Note on Eden classes no longer need arrows

Your character’s magical abilities.

It is empty here because the character I made was a Warrior but spell-casters, healers and hybrids will find their spells here similar to how combat styles are display in the picture above.

• Conc is short for Concentration, which refers to the resource healers use to maintain buffs. You only have a limited amount of Concentration, limiting the amount of buffs you can put on each player.
• Pet is simply your pet window. This will appear and disappear automatically most of the time but there is a button should you close the window manually or if something messes up.

The social window. The large empty space will show group members.

• Invite invites your target to a group
• Mini is a miniature window showing group members
• Find helps you find players who have used Set LFG
• Set LFG is used to list yourself for certain types of content, mainly high level
• Benefits shows an overview of all concentration-requiring buffs you have applied to other players
• Assist makes you target your target’s target
• Warmap opens your RvR map
• Map opens your regular map
• Follow makes you follow your target
• Stick makes you stick to your target (same as follow but less distance between you)
• Face makes you lock on to your target, automatically turning your character to maintain line of sight with your target
• CGF stands for Casual Group Finder, another LFG tool that is more used for finding levelling groups

Go ahead and arrange your UI elements how you best like.

Part 7: Setting up your Controls

Next us is setting up your controls. Press escape once again to bring up the game’s Main Menu and then press the Configure Keyboard button to bring up the Keyboard Configuration window.

There are three default sets available, which you can choose first. The game starts with WASD as the default movement keys, with ESDF available for people who prefer more free keys free on the left of their keyboards for binding to other buttons and finally MMO for people who prefer classic Left+Right Mouse Click to move forward and such. Everything can of course be customized entirely to your preference irregardless of which (if any) default settings you choose.

I recommend keeping the “CTRL Key as Modifier” and “ALT Key as Modifier” boxes checked. You can uncheck the “Forward breaks run-lock” button if you only want run-lock to be broken with the “Move Backward,” “Strafe Left” and “Strafe Right” keys.

Set up your keys however you prefer. A few I would pay attention to are:

• “Stick” is very handy for playing in a group where you have a designated driver or if you are a melee class and want to stay within melee distance of an enemy
• “Face” is very handy for ranged classes to make sure they never lose sight of their target
• “Attack Mode” to toggle auto attacking on and off
  • Note the “Right Hand Weapon,” “Two Handed Weapon” and “Ranged Weapon” can also be useful for many melee classes for quickly switching between weapon sets. You can also put your weapon on your quickbar after you have equipped it, if you prefer to switch weapons that way.
• “Ground Target” is used for ground target area-of-effect spells
• “Nearest Loot” selects the nearest piece of loot the ground, which can be handy when combined with…
• “Get Item” allows you to pick up the item you have targeted
• “Sell” allows you to quickly sell items to a vendor
  • You have to target the vendor and then pick up the item from your inventory when using this command
• “Select/Open” can make it easier to quickly access postern doors on keeps in RvR
  • Note that there is also a command available for these doors and a lot of people will make a macro to “/say Enter Exit” for these doors
• “Torch” allows you to illuminate the area around your character
  • Note that enemies can see your character better if you use your torch in RvR (this does not apply on Eden)
• “Information/Delve” allows you to see an item or ability’s stats
• “Sprint” is a function you will be using often, so make sure it has an appropriate keybind

[MY UI PROFILE (COMING SOON)]

Part 8: Time to Play

When you have set up everything how you like, it’s time to actually play the game. Make sure that you have all your relevant combat styles and/or spells on your quickbars. In the next section, the guide will cover your options for how to proceed with your journey to reach max level, be it through PvE, RvR or a mix of both. In the last section, I will cover how combat works and provide a few tips and tricks, so that you are ready to set off on your adventure!

Part 9: Questing & Levelling

There are two primary ways of gaining experience in Dark Age of Camelot: PvE exclusively against computer-controlled enemies, or RvR where you will be journeying out into the various battlegrounds where you will be fighting the enemy realms and doing a bit of fighting against NPCs as well.

First let’s go over how the questing system works, should you be familiar. If you’ve played any modern MMO, you will be well familiar with the system and can freely skip to the section below the final picture.

In this first picture, you’ll see a small yellow dot on the map next to the purple arrow. The purple arrow indicates the player and their currently facing direction while the yellow dot indicates an available quest.

Moving towards the yellow dot, you will see a large spinning yellow Dark Age of Camelot knot symbol above an NPC’s head indicating that they have one or more quests available for you. Right-clicking this NPC will bring up a quest window where you can read about the objective(s) and see how much experience you will get for completing it, as well as what items you might earn.

Accepting the quest will cause a red dot to appear on your map to indicate the approximate location of where you must travel in order to complete your quest.

Opening your quest journal (default shortcut: J) will show you your exact objective.

Once you have reached your destination and completed your quest objectives, your journal will update to tell you what to do next. Usually this is simply to return to the same NPC where you got the quest.

If you were to open your map again, you will see that there is now a blue dot on your map, indicating where you can turn in a quest where you have completed the objectives.

When you arrive at the blue dot, you will easily be able to tell which NPC you have to talk to by looking for the large blue spinning Dark Age of Camelot knot symbol.

Right-click the NPC to advance or turn in your quest and receive your reward.

Some things to note related to questing are:

• The map does not always update correctly. Sometimes the yellow dot might remain on your map even after accepting the quest which can lead to minor confusion. This typically fixes itself when you move sufficiently far enough away from the quest NPC.
• The red dot does not always indicate the most opportune spot to complete the associated quest. If the quest objective requires you to kill X amount of enemies, the red dot will typically just appear where the NEAREST enemy is, not where the largest concentration of them are. Some exploration might be required to finish your quest faster or, in the case of Eden, you can look up enemy locations in the Bestiary: [EDEN BESTIARY]
• The quest text can sometimes bug out on the final step, adding a bunch of random characters after the final full stop in the objective description. Simply disregard these.

Now that you know how quests work, I will cover your options for levelling up. As previously mentioned, there are two primary ways of levelling up: PvE and RvR.

No matter which route you choose, when you die and either click the Release button or type the “/release” command, you will come back to life with a de-buff called Resurrection Illness, as well as suffering a loss of experience.

The de-buff causes your character to have severely reduced performance until it is cured. Curing Resurrection Illness is done at NPCs with the “Healer” tag below their names.

When being killed by enemy players, you only suffer Resurrection Illness but if you are killed by enemy NPCs, you will also suffer a loss of Constitution. This can also be cured at NPCs with the “Healer” tag below their names but it will cost a small fee to have your Constitution score restored, the price of which depends on your level and the amount of Constitution lost.

When you choose to re-spawn, a gravestone with your character’s name will also appear in the spot where you died. You can return to this gravestone, target it and use the “/pray” command in order to recuperate some of the experience you lost upon releasing.

Finally, a small note regarding the Personal Bind Stone in your inventory. If you right-click it, a tooltip will appear with two icons in the bottom, the first of which is a spell which will return you to the location which you last used the “/bind” command at, and the second icon is a spell which will open a portal to that same location that your entire party can use. A portal will appear both at your character and at the location of your last “/bind” which people can use to travel to you. Simply click these icons to pick them up and put them on your quickbar for easy access.

The PvE Route: If you do not feel enough confident in your abilities, or simply don’t wish to deal with enemy players, then you will want to do it outside of the Battlegrounds and Frontiers. To this end, you will be questing through various zones. For a full list of zone quest level ranges, you can check out this overview:

[ALBION]

[HIBERNIA]

[MIDGARD]

Until you reach higher levels, all of these quests will be simple “kill-and-come-back” quests, typically given to you in batches of around six or so per zone.

Note that sometimes when completing a quest, you will be stuck at 99% experience and not be given a level increase, this can be fixed by simply finding the nearest enemy who is worth experience (not grey) and killing it to complete your level up.

If you want a more traditional old school MMORPG experience, it is of course also possible to forego questing and instead attempt to gather a group to grind your way to max level.

Approximately every 10 levels a new dungeon becomes available to you.

The quest in each of these dungeons award a full level of experience, as well as a special mythirian item which provides strong bonuses for your class, e.g. passive power regeneration for spell-casters & healers or endurance regeneration for melee classes. Even if you are levelling through the Battlegrounds, it would still be a good idea for you to occasionally pop out and do a quick dungeon run for your mythirian. Especially if you are planning on perhaps spending extra time in the battlegrounds by making use of the “/xpoff” command, which disables all experience gains save that of killing enemy monsters and players.

When you reach level 40, several opportunities open up for you that you should consider taking advantage of. These will be described below in the “Nearly There” section of the guide.

The PvP Route: If you yearn to slay your enemies and earn glory for the realm, then the battlegrounds are where you want to be. Like zones, they are also divided by levels as well as realm rank levels. Realm ranks are a secondary form of progression (which becomes your primary source of further growth when you hit max level). An overview of the different level and realm rank caps can be found here found within the zone quest level ranges posted above.

Within battlegrounds, there will always be three different “portal keeps (“PK”),” one for each realm, as well as a Central Keep (“CK”) which is contested by the two factions not currently holding lordship over it. Taking this keep from an enemy realm rewards one full level as well as a title unique to each battleground.

Taking the central keep only requires you to reach the keep’s Lord and kill him or her. Now, given that the Lord is inside a keep, this will typically require a bit of effort on your part. Somewhere within the Battleground, relatively close to your realm’s Portal Keep, will be a tent with a Siegemaster NPC inside. Whenever you kill an enemy, NPC or human, in the Battlegrounds, you will be given a token. You can give these tokens to the Siegemaster or Keep Lord (if your realm controls the keep) in return for experience and, if given to the Siegemaster, the ability to eventually summon a Siege Monster when enough tokens have been turned in. This Siege Monsters will then immediately rush the central keep and begin beating down the doors of the keep, both outer and inner, should it survive that long. You can heal and buff the siege monster to improve its chances of making it that far.

Within your realm’s portal keep, you will be able to pick up several quests, including a repeatable one. This repeatable quest involves killing 10 deserters and will be the quest you will be running the most if there is not much RvR action going on.

In the Battlegrounds up to and including Molvik, you will be able to buy a full set of armour, accessories and weapons with Bounty Points (“BPs”) inside the Battleground. Bounty Points are earned by killing players, taking keeps and completing the repeatable quest.

As noted in the PvE section, around every 10 levels you will be able to pick up quests in one of your realm’s five dungeons (see chart above). These quests give one full level and reward a mythirian, a special piece of equipment that usually carries strong enhancements, such as passive power regeneration for spell-casters and healers or endurance regeneration for melee fighters. If there is a lull in activity in the Battlegrounds, consider doing the dungeon you are within the level range of.

When you reach level 40, several opportunities open up for you that you should consider taking advantage of. These will be described below in the “Nearly There” section of the guide.

Regardless of which route you choose, once you reach level 35 you will be able to start your class’ epic quest-line. These quests can be picked up from your realm’s king within their respective throne rooms. The second part will be available at level 40 and the final part at level 45. Completing this quest-line rewards you with a full set of armour, with a special design depending on your class.

Nearly There:

Once you reach level 40, you will be able to begin participating in raids. There are seven raids where you can pick up quests which reward a full level as soon as you hit level 40. These are:

These quests, barring the Celestius one, are all available inside their dungeons. Celestius is available from Aerus Haven in Oceanus Notos in Atlantis, which you can reach by travelling to Atlantis and taking the green boat line from Hesperos Haven.

If you’re feeling adventurous, you can accept several Bounty quests, called the Bounties of Albion/Hibernia/Midgard in-game but commonly referred to as “writ” quests, which will reward you with access to raid merchants without having to complete the raids. Writ quests can be picked up from the following NPCs:

The writ quests will take you all over the frontiers in search of unique enemies.

Once you reach level 45, you can begin part one of three of your realm’s dragon-slayer quest-line called “Slaying the Dragons: Weakning the Guard.” It is also colloquially referred to as “Pre” or “PreQ” and starts from the following NPCs in these zones:

These quests will take you on a trip around your realm’s dragon zone to kill a variety of high level enemies in order to prove your loyalty to the dragon-slayer factions.

To easily get to these quests, teleport to one of the following destinations:

Be careful as you make your way to the quest NPCs, the zones will be filled with hostile enemies. Be especially careful when you near the towns since you do not have the required reputation to safely enter, only talk to the quest NPCs outside. This quest requires a group. Completing this quest rewards the player with reputation with the dragon-slayer factions, allowing you to enter their towns.

Additionally, at level 45 you can also begin a quest called The Great Hunt in game but commonly referred to as “Medal of Honor” or “MoH.”

This quest takes you on a trip around one of your realm’s high level zones to kill a variety of high level creatures, as well as a quick trip out into your own realm’s frontiers. This quest requires a group. Completing this quest rewards the player with a necklace.

You can also attempt to fight and kill the Megalodon world raid boss which can be found circling the Irish Sea. The quest can be picked up from the same NPC which starts you on the writ quests mentioned above.

Megalodon has a special feature where if any bleeding effects are applied to him, he will summon a large amount of smaller sharks. This fight requires a warband of around 2 full groups or more. Completing this quest will reward the player with a cloak with a unique appearance.

Another quest available at level 45 is the “Rites of Spring” quest, commonly referred to as the “bunny” quest due to the nature of the enemy you have to fight in it: The dreaded rabbit of Caerbannog.

Adds are periodically summoned throughout the fight, some of which are capable of crowd controlling the player characters. This fight requires at least a full group but forming a warband for more players will make it easier. Completing this quest will reward the player with a bracer.

The final notable quest available to you at level 45 is Of Diamonds and Demons, commonly called “DnD.” The quest can be gained from the following NPCs:

This quest will see you travelling through the depths of Darkness Falls in order to slay a variety of high level demons. This quest requires a group. Completing this quest rewards you with a jewel, a ring and a hat, of which the hat is bar far the best reward.

Once you reach level 48, you will be able to continue the dragon-slayer quest-line with step two being Slaying the Dragons: The Adolescents, commonly referred to “minis.” This quest is started from inside the dragon-slayer town from the following NPCs:

This quest will take you for a round trip across your realm’s dragon zone, followed by a journey out into the frontiers of each realm. This quest requires at least a full group and forming a warband can make it a lot easier, especially in the second half. This quest rewards you with a full set of dragon-slayer armour.

The third and final step of the dragon-slayer quest-line will become available to you at level 50.

Part 10: Combat

Finally it is time to get out there and experience the world of Dark Age of Camelot! The game plays very differently between melee and ranged combat. Let’s start with melee:

In Dark Age of Camelot, melee is centred around auto attacks. When you press a combat style on your quickbar, that combat style gets queued as an attack that will replace your regular auto attack when you would next perform an auto attack.

The game features a style-queuing system where you can queue up two styles at the same time, which is handy for using reactive styles. For example, if you have a style that can only be used after parrying an enemy’s attack, you can press that combat style first followed by a combat style that can be performed at any time. This will cause the any time style be performed as a back-up for the combat style requiring you to parry an attack, should you not parry before your next auto attack would occur.

The style-queue can be toggled on and off with the “/cancelstyle” command.

The frequency of your auto attacks are determined by your weapon’s attack speed, your character’s Quickness statistic and any potential buffs which increase attack speed.

Spell-casting works differently. In Dark Age of Camelot, any melee attack which hits you, has a chance to interrupt your spell-casting. Generally, you should assume that the chance to be interrupted from an enemy melee attack is 100% since it is based on the level difference between you and your attacker, and you will rarely be fighting enemies lower than your level. The majority of spell-casters have an innate “Quick Cast” ability which allows for one spell to be cast as uninterruptible. In most situations, this would be a crowd control spell which would then allow for the spell-caster to create some distance between them and their target before resuming spell-casting.

[FUTURE GUIDE DETAILING SPELL INTERRUPTION GOES HERE]

Spells can be queued up in the same way that melee combat styles can. However since there are no spells with special requirements, they will simply be queued up one after the other.

When clicking on enemies, you will notice two things: a bit of text pop up in your chat window and a coloured name in the bottom of your character summary window and/or in your target window.

The text will tell you who or what you’ve selected, as well as their disposition towards you. NPCs you can interact with will typically be Friendly, with some being Neutral. Aggressive enemies will attack you on sight, unless your level is vastly higher than theirs. Hostile enemies should be treated similarly to aggressive ones, just with a reduced range at which they will begin to attack you.

Sometimes you will also see that an enemy is labelled as a Scout in your chat window when you click on them. This means that this enemy will attempt to run away and get help from nearby enemies of the same type.

The coloured names indicate the level of your target relative to you.

The spectrum from weakest to strongest is: Grey-Green-Blue-Yellow-Orange-Red-Purple.

• Grey enemies are inconsequential and will not even attack you, even if they are aggressive towards you.
• Green enemies are trivial and easily killed rapidly by all players.
• Blue enemies are moderate in their difficulty, able to easily be killed and not a threat unless possessing superior numbers.
• Yellow enemies are even to you and will put up a decent fight.
• Orange enemies are dangerous, possessing several levels more than you worth of health and power.
• Red enemies are severe threats and will almost assuredly spell your doom.
• Purple enemies are overwhelming threats and will spell your doom.

Part 11: Gearing

During your levelling process, you will of course have to sporadically acquire better arms, armour and accessories. As previously mentioned, if you are levelling through Battlegrounds, you will be able to purchase full sets of these starting in Killaloe (Level 15-19) and ending in Molvik (Level 35-39. The items you buy in Molvik can carry you to level 50 without much trouble, however if you wish to spend extra time in the final battlegrounds, it may be worth investing in better gear, either by farming it or purchasing it from the player housing market (see below).

If you are going the PvE route, you will in every zone you choose to quest in, be given a quest called “[ZONE NAME] Explorer: Bounty Hunter” in which you are tasked with killing several unique enemies across the zone. All named enemies who rank at least green to you will drop one or more pieces of gear, which will have stats either broadly or specifically useful towards your class. Doing the dungeons and their associated quests will also help you get some much needed upgrades since the loot drops in there tend to be more powerful due to being tailor-made rather than the items with randomly generated stats that most named enemies drop.

Remember to use your Information/Delve (Default: Shift + I) keyboard shortcut to examine items and see their statistics.

Finally, should you end up going a long time without an upgrade, you can make use of the Market Explorers within the housing zones. Here you can tailor your search to show you items with the stats you desire.

Part 12: Tips & Tricks

For the final part of this guide, I will provide you with some quick tips and tricks which don’t need long explanations:

• When you level up, use the “/train” command to allocate your skill specialization points from anywhere.
• If you wish to re-specialize your character, you have 24 hours of in-game playtime each level to use the “/respec” command while targeting your class’ trainer.
• Potions can be purchased from other players on the market in your realm’s housing zone. These can be instant restoration or grant 20 minute regeneration buffs.
• You can buy or earn special stones which unlock the ability to re-customize your character’s appearance, starting statistics, skill point specialization, unlock the ability to toggle between two skill specializations and more.
• Sitting down, either by keyboard shortcut or “/sit” will increase regeneration of health, endurance and power.
• Most towns will have three special NPCs: NPCs which will give you a movement speed buff for 10 minutes or until you engage in combat (Minstrels, Bards and Skalds depending on your realm). Realm Enhancement NPCs which give you a full suite of buffs (Cleric, Druid or Shaman depending on your realm). Channelers which allow you to teleport all over the realm.
• Auto-looting is enabled by default and can be toggled with “/autoloot on / off”
• Helmet visibility can be toggled with “/helm”
• Cloak visibility can be toggled with “/cloak”
• Spell effect visibility can be customized with “/spelleffects” which can help with your frame-rate.
• If you are having trouble maintaining a decent frame-rate during large scale battles, you can change character models to their Classic look for a performance improvement.
• The “/recorder” command can be used to create custom macros which can perform several in-game actions with one click. [RECORDER]

That about covers it. You should now be well equipped to begin your journey to level 50 in Dark Age of Camelot!