It's a Busy Life in Camelot
With each retail expansion, Dark Age of Camelot has undergone a subtle yet significant facelift, and Catacombs has quite the makeover in store. First off, the game's minimum system requirements will be increased, since the new graphical enhancements make use of DirectX 9 technology. The game world will look considerably more vibrant, as aging building tiles were replaced by new, ultra-detailed textures, and the greatly enhanced, dynamic lighting used throughout. Older stomping grounds have received the remake treatment as well. Stonehenge, for example, was completely redone, although kept to the same size and scale. The mossy textures on the standing stones are much more realistic, based on photos of the actual druid ritual grounds/alien spacecraft-landing site. Improvements have also been made to such graphical features as running water and the use of colored light sources.
Time-honored haunts have been redone to keep the game's visuals consistent, and anyone revisiting the Coruscating Mines in Hibernia will notice the differences -- from the greatly enhanced use of multiple light sources, to the revamped monster models. Previously underwhelming spiders look genuinely menacing now; these arachnids look much scarier thanks to higher polygon counts and detailed, death shroud-like textures. Adding to the atmosphere are hanging spiderwebs and other visual details, like small, inconsequential creatures that serve as both background color, and occasionally, as comic relief.
Oh, Shut Up and Go Change Your Amour
Stealing the veritable thunder from Dark Age of Camelot's enhanced environments are the new player-character models, sure to excite the Dark Age of Camelot players who have been drooling over the character models in other competing games. The models have been revamped from the ground up, with a more solid working skeletal structure, breathing and blinking animations, and facial details that stand up to a close inspection. Newly created and older, pre-existing characters will be visually conceived through the use of a series of sliders that control such features as nose, mouth, and pointy elf ear size. There is also a wide selection of race and specific skin tones for each character to choose from. Armor and clothing has also been reworked considerably, so there should be an unheard of amount of aesthetic diversity once Catacombs is released.
While the older areas have been improved, most players will likely rush to be the first to fully explore the new locales. As the name implies, the Catacombs expansion focuses on new subterranean areas for players to explore. Each of the three realms has its own new friendly city for adventurers to use as a base of operations; Midgard has the Kobold Undercity, Albion has the Inconnu city, and Hibernians have the Shar city. These new areas can be reached safely by low-level characters, say level five or so, and provide a convenient entry point to prime hunting grounds that should serve even the highest level parties.
